Fragile Beasts (27 page)

Luis comes walking out of the kitchen looking very serious and dressed in a white collarless shirt buttoned up to his throat and black trousers. He’s holding a corkscrew and practically rips the bottle of wine out of the maid’s hand without saying a word to anyone. He opens it and pours a small amount for Miss Jack. She lifts her glass, smells the wine, then tastes it. Luis watches her intently.

She purses her lips and nods slightly while looking away from Luis.

He doesn’t smile, but a look of triumph lights up his eyes.

He opens a second bottle and pours wine for everyone, including us kids. He has a muttered word with the two maids hired for tonight, who scurry back into the kitchen. He’s about to follow but stops short when Bert Shulman stands up with his wineglass held toward Miss Jack.

“I’d like to propose a toast if I may,” he says. “To our lovely hostess and the fabulous dinner she’s invited us to share with her. And to Kyle and Klint. Welcome to the elite inner circle of those people privileged to know Candace Jack.”

Tyler jumps out of his chair with his own glass extended.

“And me, too. I’m privileged now, too.”

“And Tyler, too,” Bert adds. “Welcome.”

Miss Jack smiles up at Bert.

Luis glares and leaves. The hard soles of his shoes make fast, angry, echoing clacks on the tile floor as he heads back to the kitchen.

He returns with the women a few minutes later, each carrying plates of what looks like black rice. They set them down in front of each of us.

“Chipirones con morcilla de arroz negro,” Luis announces formally once we’ve all been served.

“What the hell is that?” Mr. Jack asks.

“Cuttlefish with black rice sausage,” Miss Jack translates.

“What the hell kind of fish is a cuddle fish?”

“Cuttlefish, honey,” his wife explains. “It’s not really a fish at all. It’s related to squids and octopus.”

She empties her glass immediately and smiles prettily at Luis.

“May I have some more wine?” she asks him.

He refills her glass by emptying the second bottle.

I’m momentarily surprised by Mrs. Jack’s knowledge, but then I remember Shelby told me once that along with being a beauty pageant junkie her mom was into marine biology and had hopes of working at Sea World before she met Cam Jack and decided to become a rich guy’s wife instead.

“The rice is black from its ink,” she also informs us.

“Cool,” Tyler comments. “Squid ink. Does it have any special powers?” he asks no one in particular.

I look over at Klint to get his reaction to Tyler’s excitement over the food,
but he’s too busy staring, white-faced, at his own plate to notice his buddy’s latest betrayal. Even covered in bacon and melted cheddar or slathered in gravy, there’s no way Klint would ever try this.

“There’s no way I’m eating this,” Mr. Jack says.

Klint’s eyes flicker in his direction.

“Cam, don’t be rude,” his wife scolds him.

“What’d you say to me?”

“I’m sorry. It’s just …”

“You know what rude is? Rude is serving food to people you know is going to make them sick. Rude is talking in a language nobody understands just to make other people feel stupid.”

Luis watches Miss Jack. As soon as she tries the rice, he steps up to her and bends down to speak into her ear.

“May I ask what you think of the first course?”

“Bueno.”

This response seems to enrage him, and he grabs the already empty first wine bottle and stalks out of the room.

I’m a little scared at first to try the cuttlefish. I can’t get the image of tentacles and the concept of squishiness out of my mind, but I’ve loved everything else Luis has ever cooked for us so I close my eyes and pop a bite into my mouth.

The taste is smooth, slightly salty, and even though I’ve never been anywhere near an ocean, I realize I’m tasting the sea.

Klint doesn’t try it. He fills up on Luis’s ciabatta bread and butter, but I notice Mr. Jack cleans his plate.

While we’re waiting for the next course Shelby’s mom suddenly announces, “Aunt Candy, Shelby has some exciting news for you.”

“Mom, I thought I’d tell her after dinner,” Shelby protests. “I didn’t want to make a big deal about it.”

“But it
is
a big deal,” her mom says delightedly, and then before Shelby can tell us anything, her mom tells us everything.

“Shel’s best friend, Whitney, is moving to Paris with her family and they’ve invited Shel along to help ease the transition. She’s going to be there for at least a couple months, maybe more if she likes it. She might even want to go to school there. In the meantime, everything’s arranged with her school here so she can do her work online and not fall behind.”

She finishes and reaches across the table to give her daughter’s hand a squeeze.

“It’s so exciting,” she gushes.

“That’s wonderful, Shelby,” Miss Jack says with a pleased smile on her face. “I’ve always encouraged you to see other countries.”

Shelby’s sitting beside me. She looks at me guiltily.

“I wanted to tell you earlier but I couldn’t,” she says under her breath.

“Why not?”

“Because I knew you’d be upset.”

“It’s not like I would’ve thrown a fit or begged you not to go. It would be pointless to beg you not to go, right?”

“It’s only for a couple months.”

I look at the floor expecting to see a gigantic crack rip open beneath me and my chair teetering on the edge ready to topple into a bottomless pit of loneliness. I can’t lose someone else right now, but I can’t tell Shelby this. She wouldn’t understand. She thinks we’re just friends and we are for now, but how am I supposed to change that if she’s gone? Plus she’s not going just anywhere. A few months in Paris aren’t the same thing as a few months in a Pennsylvania coal town. She’s going to live life faster and more intensely. It’s like the difference between dog years and people years.

Starr watches us from across the table and seems to read my thoughts.

“Even just a couple months in Paris can change you forever. The food. The wine. The men. You can drink. Go to clubs. Make out on the banks of the Seine.”

Miss Jack casts an irritated look at Starr.

“Yeah, I’ve heard it’s really romantic over there,” Tyler volunteers. “They sell flowers in the streets and everyone speaks French.”

“There’s also the beauty and excitement of the city,” Miss Jack joins in. “And the fashion and culture. Theater and opera and museums and exhibitions.”

Her eyes shine as she makes her list. If she loves it so much, I don’t understand why she doesn’t go to Paris or to one of her beloved Spanish cities, but Shelby says she never travels.

The rich, beefy smell from the next course greets us before the maids even come back through the doorway with the next set of plates.

“Rabo de toro guisado con ruibarbo, mostaza, y miel,” Luis announces again to oohs and aahs from Bert and Mrs. Jack.

“Bull tail in a stew with rhubarb, mustard, and honey,” Miss Jack translates again.

“Bull tail?” Tyler exclaims. “No way. It’s really his tail?”

“Along with the cheek, the tail is the most tender, most flavorful part of the bull,” Miss Jack tells him.

She takes a bite. I do, too. It’s way past delicious.

“Riquísimo, Luis,” she says.

He remains expressionless and turns and leaves, but his footsteps going back to the kitchen are silent this time.

Everyone eats, even Klint.

There’s not a lot of conversation after Shelby’s announcement. Most of it is initiated by Mrs. Jack, and most of it is ended by Mr. Jack making fun of her or saying something mean to her.

It’s uncomfortable to witness. I want to stick up for her, but I realize it’s their family dynamic, and I should stay out of it. We had a similar routine, only with us, Mom was the mean one and Dad was the one who always tried to calm her down and appease her.

Shelby’s mom reminds me a lot of my dad as I watch her deal with Cam Jack. She tries to make a joke out of his abuse and she drinks to make herself feel better, but the same confused, wounded look comes into her eyes every now and then that I used to see in my dad’s eyes. They don’t understand where the hate comes from.

I don’t pay much attention to anything. I can’t stop envisioning Shelby sitting at some beautiful café in Paris drinking wine with a good-looking French guy who will take her to an art museum afterward and will know all the right things to say about every painting. He doesn’t even exist yet, but I’d give anything to be him.

Starr finishes each course quickly, then contents herself with sipping wine while staring at Klint.

I figure she must have the hots for him like most girls do. The idea makes me feel disappointed in her. Klint’s much too tame for someone like her.

“So I hear you’re a big baseball star,” she says to him.

“I’m not bad,” he tells her.

Tyler kicks me under the table. Klint’s false modesty always kills him.

“Good enough to play in the pros?”

“Maybe.”

“Pro baseball teams draft kids right out of high school, don’t they?”

“Klint wants to go to college,” I answer for him.

Starr smiles at me for the first time. It’s not much of a smile, nothing like a hundred-watt Shelby smile, but somehow it means more because I sense it’s much harder to get a smile out of her.

“Really?” she says and turns her attention back to Klint. “What schools are looking at you?”

Klint rattles off a few. All of them are hundreds, some even thousands, of miles away. The nearest one is West Virginia and it’s still a good six-hour drive from here.

“Western Penn had a good season,” I throw in.

“Western Penn?” Klint scoffs at me. “Who cares about Western Penn?”

“Hey, Ben Varner plays for them,” Tyler points out.

“Ben Varner? Hum Vee? Give me a break.”

“Yeah, Hum Vee,” Tyler cries out, defensively. “How quickly we forget. Fourth game of districts last year. An oh-and-two pitch in the bottom of the eighth, two men on, losing by two.” His breathless narrative brings him to his feet. “Pitch looked like a curveball that didn’t curve. Inside and low but it didn’t really break. We thought it was all over and wham!”

He brings his hands together and swings at an imaginary ball.

“A drive to left field. It’s hooking. Ah no. Ah yes. Could it be? It’s outta here, folks.”

He does a little victory dance, then takes his seat again and goes back to eating.

Klint shrugs.

“One great hit his entire high school career. Big deal.”

“He was a worker bee, man,” Tyler explains. “A steady, dependable guy doing his job without anyone noticing him, and that’s what he did. He didn’t need big hits. Not everyone can be a flashy diva like you, Sparkles.”

He turns to me.

“He’s doing great at Western Penn. His stats are way up. He loves the coach.”

“You know I used to play ball in high school,” Mr. Jack joins our conversation as our plates are being collected and taken away.

Klint, Tyler, and I all look at him. It’s the first time he’s said anything to one of us since Tyler shook his hand.

“It was football. Not baseball. I was damn good. My sophomore year I was already starting varsity. I wanted to go on and play in college. My dad never came to a single game. He didn’t like sports. He was a sportsman, mind you—he loved to hunt and fish and he could beat the crap out of you if he wanted to—but he never cared for team sports.

“Not long after my sixteenth birthday, at the end of my sophomore season he came to me and gave me the keys to a Thunderbird convertible, the slickest car I’ve ever seen to this day. Cost almost seven grand. That was a small fortune back then. He said to me, ‘You can stay a boy and distract yourself with games or you can be a man and concentrate on making money.’ I knew what he meant. I took the keys and I stopped playing ball. He didn’t make me. It was my own decision.”

“Perdiz roja en dos vinos,” Luis suddenly announces the next course.

“Red partridge in two services, one with red wine sauce, the other with white wine sauce,” Miss Jack supplies.

Mrs. Jack sways a little and puts an elbow on the table where she rests her chin on one hand. She and her breasts lean toward her husband.

“That’s sad, honey,” she says to him.

He frowns at her angrily.

“Why is it sad?”

“Because there are other ways to be a man besides making money.”

“Name one.”

She looks around her at the maids setting down plates of glistening, juicy birds.

“Making partridges.”

“You’re drunk,” he sneers at her in disgust.

“I’m not drunk.”

“You’re always drunk.”

“Why is that, Cameron?” Miss Jack asks him.

“Mr. Jack, I heard an interesting theory the other day.” I interrupt the same way I used to break in on my mom and dad’s fights to try and distract them. “Capitalism is based on the concept that in order for someone to succeed, someone else has to suffer.”

The room becomes completely silent. Everyone stares at me with different
degrees of surprise, pity, and hostility showing on their faces. Even the maids pause in their duties and glance at me out of the corners of their eyes like I might be crazy.

“So is marriage, honey,” Mrs. Jack says, reaching across the table to pat my hand.

I try my best not to look at her boobs, but I can’t help myself. They’re simply too noticeable and too fascinating. It’s like trying not to look at a river while you’re driving over the bridge.

When I raise my gaze to meet her eyes, she bursts into tears.

I guess my comment was bad timing, but I didn’t mean any harm. I’d waited all night to bounce Doc’s idea off Cam Jack. I thought it would be an interesting topic to discuss with a captain of industry.

“D
on’t sweat it. I had a great time,” Tyler tells me as he strips a leaf off one of Miss Jack’s rhododendrons and starts picking at his teeth with the pointed tip. “I love watching other people’s families fall apart. ’Sides, did you see that sister?”

“I think Shelby’s prettier.”

“Hey, who cares? I know what I’m dreaming about tonight.”