Happy Family (15 page)

It all looks beautiful. She realizes how long it's been since either of them made this kind of effort. She lingers for a moment, feeling wistful, then turns around to go back upstairs.

Cheri sits on the bed with her plate of doughnuts and Cici's final box. Cheri knows this small box is part of a ritual. The handing down of a family idol that she doesn't worship, at least not as her mother might want her to. This year's offering is in gold paper with a white ribbon; Cheri tears it open unceremoniously to reveal a heart-shaped velvet box containing a heavy ruby ring. A virtuous woman is worth more than rubies. The proverb pops into Cheri's head, but she's never seen her mother wear this ring. The note, written in Cici's elegant cursive, says:
From my forty to your forty.
Cheri tries to remember her mother at forty. She seemed a lot older then than Cheri is now, but in some ways much younger. Her mother lived such a protected, simple life. Cheri tries the ruby ring on her middle finger; it's far too big and fancy for her, but it is beautiful. It's a shame, she thinks as she returns it to its case and puts it in her drawer, to keep something so precious in the dark.

Not to be forgotten, Sol has also left her a birthday gift. His will provided that Cheri would get all the keys to his patent castle when she turned forty. The fruit of Sol's labor resides in Citibank Land, guarded by dark-suited denizens, quietly growing. She's never touched her trust fund—she's doesn't even know exactly how much she's got—and has no plans to do so now. Did Sol think that Cheri would become more like Cici, blithely using his money to wallpaper over the holes he'd made in her life? And to think it all comes from sugarcoating. She knows of a far better way to swallow the pill of forty.

She blasts the Ramones as she forages for a decent bra. Most of her undergarments are stretched out and crappy except for the Wonderbra she bought when she was all sexed up to make a baby. She puts earrings in her piercings and a stud in her nose. Eddie Norris said she looked like a bull in the ring. Eddie's probably on a lake right now with his cop wife and four cop kids, on their summer vacation. Not like the time she and Eddie went camping and she convinced him to eat magic mushrooms and they laughed and had sex and marveled for hours over dead leaves that morphed into starfish. The image of Eddie Norris pinning her arms over her head while he slowly traced the indentation of her collarbone with his tongue flickers on and off in her mind like a lamp with a loose wire.

“Cheri! Cheri!” Michael's standing in the doorway. “Can you turn that down? They're here.” She lowers the volume on the CD player. “Sexy.” He nods approvingly at the Wonderbra and suddenly she realizes she's got doughnut crumbs in her cleavage. “You might want to put something more on, though. Happy birthday,” he adds, already heading back down the stairs.

“Welcome,” Cheri says a few minutes later, extending her hand to the shaman. She's red-lipped, studded, wearing a black dress. “Michael and I are honored to have you in our home.” The shaman is a short, slight man with skin the color and texture of beef jerky. His face is like a fine engraving, and his eyes are clear and bright; he could be a hundred years old or fifty. His hand is surprisingly large and rough and he talks in an indigenous language she's never heard. She focuses on the sounds of his words, looks to see how they're formed in his mouth—front to back? What about the tongue, teeth, jaw, and lips? These are the clues and classifiers she uses as a linguist, but even applying the little she knows of American Indian languages, she's at a loss. The shaman keeps talking and the second-string translator, a young man with a thick black mustache and watery eyes, sums it all up as “‘Hello, my name is Ramon.'”

They sit in the garden at a table under an umbrella Cheri didn't know existed. Michael's beverage tastes like malted dirt, but they sip it while he talks about his film and his plans for interviewing Ramon again. The translator is lagging behind Michael significantly. Ramon's attention seems to be focused on Cheri, to the point where it makes her uncomfortable. She smiles and renews her focus on Michael. When the translator finally stops, Ramon speaks and holds his abdomen. The translator looks at Cheri, then turns back to Michael.

“He says a grain grows inside of you; you must pay attention. No. Please, excuse…no, my mistake.” He addresses Cheri: “He says
you
are the one with emptiness inside. It is…inhospitable. This gives you hyperactivity, restlessness, and despair.” Cheri feels like she's gone through a metal detector and been caught packing. She doesn't know who or what to look at. There's an awkward silence.

“Or,” the translator adds with a nervous laugh, “he is saying he is hungry and looks forward to your meal. The Chicago summer is hot, is it not?”

Taya arrives fifty minutes later, hair blown out, high-heeled, juggling her overflowing purse, bottles of champagne, presents, and, as promised, an old guy in cowboy boots whom she quickly introduces to everyone as Van. “Happy birthday! You look great,” she shouts at Cheri as Michael relieves Taya of her packages.

“I'm so sorry we're late. It's all my fault, of course. We had to go to the Museum of Contemporary Art for this Frank Gehry opening. Aren't we all getting sick of Frank Gehry? He's everywhere, with all his weird shapes and crazy angles.” Van gives her a cynical look. “He's become a deconstructionist showman, you know I'm right. Van knew him early on; he was part of the Venice artist group in the sixties.”

“Everything was better in the sixties,” he mutters, “including me.”

“I'm with you there,” Michael says.

“Don't listen to him,” Taya says to Cheri. “His work keeps getting better.” She gives Van's hand a little squeeze. “You have to see his show, it's absolutely brilliant.” This moment of tenderness is not lost on Cheri.

“What's your poison, Van? I've got a whole bar set up.” As the men go outside, Taya lags behind with Cheri.

“Speaking of showmen, where is the shaman?”

“He's in Michael's office. He'll be down in a moment. But, please, try to speak slowly. I'm not sure how much of anything he's getting because his translator isn't that quick off the draw.”

“I think you're the one who needs a drink. Or three.” Taya puts her arm around Cheri's waist. “Come on! Let's get this birthday started!”

Outside the lanterns glow and world music plays. Michael and Van share a joint; Cheri watches the ember going back and forth like the point of a laser. She knows by his hand gestures that Michael is telling his story about the Museum of Sex, the dwarf, and Andy Warhol. He'd interviewed Warhol for
Disco, Doughnuts, and Dogma.
Van strokes his beard and seems amused. The champagne is dry, Ramon and the translator have emerged from HMS Bay, and Taya's not yet said anything inappropriate.
This is not such a bad little party,
Cheri thinks.
It's actually turning out fine.

Everyone loves the food. “It goes well with lightning,” Michael says as a fork of electricity flashes across the sky, followed seconds later by a thunderclap. He's served vegetables grilled, curried, and stewed with goat milk, along with a mixture of grains and dried fruit and lots of crusty bread and salad.

“I'd try ayahuasca,” Van says. “I've done plenty of peyote and shrooms, got some interesting paintings out of it. Does he work with frog venom? That shit's supposed to be a hundred times stronger than morphine. Makes you puke your guts out for days.”

“You're thinking of the Mayorunas. Different tribe, another part of the Amazon,” Michael says. “Medicine men like Ramon—they're called
uwishin
in the Shuar tribe—they've performed thousands of ceremonies with the plant, or Mama. She takes you very deep into the psyche, even to the point of simulating death.”

“Like DMT,” Taya says. “Not for me, but in LA there's always a market for anything mind-expanding. If the shaman wanted to leave the rain forest I'd be happy to connect him with people.” The translator, whose name is either Samit or Samil, smiles at Taya and then goes back to eating.

“Aren't you going to translate what we're saying?” Taya asks Samit. “I don't want him to think we're rude.”

“Ah, well. I am not really a translator, you see.”

“What do you mean? You know the
uwishin
dialect,” Michael says with some concern.

“This is true, but my knowledge of the language comes via taking care of their teeth. I am a dentist. I must travel often to their village. One must learn to communicate or there could be a big mistake.”

“You're a dentist,” Michael says.

“Yes. I am considered to be very gentle.” Michael's getting his aneurysm look. Taya leans in and whispers to Cheri:

“Let's hope he's a better dentist than a translator.”

“How much of this aren't you getting? We've got a shoot tomorrow and it's important that Ramon understand my questions.”

“I do my best,” Samit says, his round eyes getting rounder. Michael takes him aside for a moment. Ramon looks surprisingly unfazed, drinks his malted dirt.

Can't this all wait until the morning,
Cheri wants to shout. Michael's hijacking the evening and it pisses Cheri off. She needs to either drink a lot more or stop now. “Toast!” Taya says, tapping her glass with a spoon. She prepares to take the stage but Cheri says, “No, I'm going to toast all of you for being here.” She twists the cork of the nearest champagne bottle, resting in a bucket of ice by her chair, and it flies off, missing Ramon's left ear by a fraction of an inch. Van catches the errant stopper, holds it up like a baseball caught off a pop fly. As Cheri refills everyone's glass, she notices that Michael's is barely touched. She puts her hand over his. “I'd like to thank Michael. For this amazing dinner and the care he's taken to make the night…just right.” Her husband tips a nonexistent hat to her and mouths, Thank you. Taya claps, is again about to leap to her feet, but the shaman rises and extends his arms to Cheri. He motions for her to come to him and takes her hands in his. His gaze is penetrating but kind. He smiles at her as if they've shared a secret.

“In honor of you, Ramon wishes me to tell the story of how the Shuar came to respect women. I do my best to make it as Ramon wishes.” The translator smooths his mustache. “Long ago, it was the Shuar men who had breasts and nursed babies. Women gave birth and then were killed. One day a pregnant woman was tending her garden of nuts. She was crying because she knew that once the nuts were ripe, she would give birth and die. A rat approached her and said, ‘Do not cry, I will help you. Female rats have many babies and we do not die afterward. Do as I say, and you will be strong and live.' The rat gathered the nuts and fed them to the woman, who ate them and became stronger. Then the rat said, ‘Go home to your husband. Tell him the nuts are ready to harvest and come back to me.' The woman was afraid but did as the rat told her. The next day, the rat was waiting for her in the field. ‘Do not be afraid,' she said and twisted the woman's belly until the baby came out. The rat wrapped the baby in leaves and told the woman, ‘Take the baby back to your husband, and do not fear for now you are as strong as a rat.' The woman returned home, where her husband had built a big fire and was sharpening his machete. When he saw her with the baby he was furious. In a rage he cut off his breasts with the machete and flung them at the woman. This was the moment that everything changed forever for the Shuar people. The man instantly knew that women were to be honored and respected, and ever since that day it has been the duty of the Shuar men to revere their women. The end.”

A few droplets of rain spatter the table. Michael has been moving around them with his camera and is now behind the shaman. “Well,” Van drawls, “that's quite a story.” The rain starts really coming down, giving everyone something to do besides dwell on the meaning of nuts and lopped-off breasts.

Later, when the Ecuadorans have retired and it's just the four of them in the living room, Michael sequesters Van in front of the TV, showing him the footage of the Shuar using shrunken heads in a religious ceremony. “Taya, come check this out! I'm sure Cheri has seen it already, but it's fascinating stuff,” Van says.

“Cheri hasn't seen it,” Michael says tightly. Cheri knows it's the footage Michael had asked her to look at. She would feel guilty if he weren't putting her on the spot.

“Not this version,” she says.

“It's new,” Michael says pointedly.

“Guys, let's get back to the rotting flesh later,” Taya says, jumping up and doing her best Donna Summer impersonation:
“Someone left a cake out in the rain.”
She runs outside and comes back bearing a slightly soggy birthday confection with two candles, one in the shape of a four and one shaped like a zero.

“I'm turning in. It's all on you to make a dent in that,” Michael says.

“You can't leave now!” Taya says, lighting the candles, but Michael's already doing the man-hug with Van, and by the time Taya places the cake with the now-lit candles in front of Cheri, Michael is heading up the stairs.

Wishes are heavy, horrible things. Cheri is more than ready for the night to end but dreads being left alone with Michael.
To seeing the tablets before my next birthday,
she thinks as she blows out the candles. Van makes a big to-do about signing a copy of his catalog and presenting it to Cheri. “It was swell meeting you,” he says, kissing her forehead. “C'mon, cowgirl,” he says to Taya, “we've got another road stand to hit before it's all over.”

“I'm so sorry, CM. Whatever's going on between you and Michael, he shouldn't treat you like that. Call me later.” Cheri watches as Taya runs out into the rain and Van gallantly meets her with an umbrella and holds it over her head. “Thank you,” Cheri shouts and then turns into the stillness of what's left over.