Imaginary Men (9 page)

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Authors: Enid Shomer

Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Anthologies (Multiple Authors), #Literary Collections, #Literary Criticism, #test

BOOK: Imaginary Men
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characters strolled along each piece, their books slung casually across their hips. The diary had lasted a little more than a year. Then Riva spilled over into a serious-looking lined notebook with a black-and-white marbleized cardboard cover. She kept the diary and the notebook hidden in her closet at the bottom of a tall Kotex box, along with the novel she had written in eighth grade. "Once Only" was the story of a fifteen-year-old girl who fell in love with an alien from another galaxy. It was based loosely on her crush for Eliot Finkelstein.
Riva had devised a code for her diaries. She stashed the code-key in the pages of an old Honey Bunch mystery.
The blood the first two days this month was the color of crushed rubies. . . . . I like the sickening feeling I get before my period comeslike when you eat too much chocolate and the stomachache reminds you of all that pleasure. Only this reminds me that I can bring a new human being into the world any time I want!
She would have died if anybody else read these passages. Especially Barry. Even though he was grown-up, she still remembered the days when he unscrewed the heads of her dolls, put raw oysters in her bed, and shot food at her across restaurant tables. Barry had grown into his lanky body and turned out to be handsome, much to Riva's surprise. Now he was engaged to Olivia Wykowski, a beautiful redhead two years older than he. Riva's family believed in early marriage. Her sister, Fran, had married at eighteen and so had her cousin Melissa. Whenever Riva saw distant relatives, they talked about living to dance at her wedding.
Olivia had the look of an airline stewardessa permanent smile and perfect makeup, her hair sprayed into a stiff beehive. Riva couldn't stand her. Her diary was full of invective for PV (Olivia's code name, short for Professional Virgin) who, five years Riva's senior, treated her like a little mouse. Now that they were officially engaged, Barry and Olivia were planning to go to Atlantic City the last weekend in April. They talked about it all the time in front of her parents as if to forestall suspicion that they would Do Anything. Riva was sure Olivia hadn't done it. You could tell by looking in her eyes, Riva believed. She got up from her desk and studied her reflection. Anybody could see she was still untouched, even though Paul had been pressing his case hard since January. Riva hadn't worked out a philosophy to justify why she hadn't done it yet. It was just safer to say "no." She felt the same urges Paul did. Sometimes she nearly
 
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went crazy when they were fingerfucking. She had to remind herself that it wasn't just a technicality, the difference between a finger and the real thing.
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Riva had a four o'clock appointment with Pop Goldring on Tuesday. As soon as school let out at three, she took the streetcar and bus to Du Pont Circle, stopping for a cherry Coke at the drugstore on the ground floor of his building so that she wouldn't be early.
Pop Goldring was prosperous. He had a construction company with his son, Mel, and had built many office and apartment buildings around the city. Mrs. Stern kept a scrapbook of clippings about her father and brother, who were periodically honored for their philanthropy. Pop Goldring had planted a lot of trees in Israel. He probably had a whole forest by now. But he wasn't generous just for the publicity or the tax deductions. Once, many years before, he had supported an American artist in Italy. Alongside the plaques and certificates in his office hung a huge painting by the man, the portrait of a family of jesters. They wore velvety red clothing and stocking caps with bells. They were traveling to their next court performance, the artist had explained. The father jester walked along, playing the flute. The mother and one child perched astride an ox. A mysterious winged infant balanced on the ox's rump, his back to the viewer. Behind them, fields, sky, and mountains flattened into shapeless daubs of bright blue, yellow, and orange. No one in the family knew what had happened to the artistwhether he kept on painting or was butchering meat somewhere for a living. Pop called the painting "my Michelangelo," and he thought it just as artistic as the bust of Moses by the other Michelangelo that sat on his desk.
The receptionist buzzed his office, and he promptly appeared in the reception area. He was a squat, heavyset man with light blue eyes and wisps of white hair around a large bald spot. His face was wide and Slavic-looking, with high cheekbones and a broad forehead. "Sweetheart," he said, giving her a big hug. He had a heavy Russian-Yiddish accent. Years later, Riva would melt whenever she heard that accent, even from the mouths of second-rate stand-up comics.
His office was uncluttered, outfitted with modern furniture that was sleek and low-slung like cats relaxing all around the room. Even the
 
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desk top was clear except for a few letters and an ashtray with a half-smoked cigar in it. His home was the oppositeit glittered with gilt tables, Victorian whatnots, and crystal decanters. Grandma Bella was constantly rearranging it like a gigantic still life. Only the den was livable. As a child, it was the only room Riva had been allowed in.
"How's my Einstein?" he asked.
"Everything's great. I came to ask you a favor."
His gaze intensified. Riva had never asked him for anything before.
"I have a good friend who needs money, and I want you to give it to him. I want you to buy him an airline ticket to San Antonio, Texas."
"You're asking for a complete stranger?"
"Actually, you met him during Christmas when he picked me up at your apartment. His name is Paul Auerbach."
Pop Goldring narrowed his eyes, trying to recall the boy. He shook his head. "I don't remember any Paul. What does his father do? He's a Jewish boy?"
"Yes. His father drives a cab."
"A taxi driver?"
"They're very poor. His mother can't work. She's an invalid. She got polio right after Paul was born. She has an awful limp and a bad lung."
"A shame," Pop said. "He's smart?"
Riva told him about the debate contest and how hard Paul had worked all his life. He listened attentively. "You love him? You're going to marry him?"
"I'm too young to marry anybody," Riva said. It was the one area where she and her grandfather would never see eye to eye. While he celebrated her triumphs at school, he would never really be relaxed about her future until she married.
"All right. I'll do it. Call Nancy with the details."
Riva jumped up and kissed him. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."
"He'll take charity, your Paul?"
"He doesn't know about it yet. I hope I can make him accept it.
He'll probably want to repay you someday. He has a lot of pride."
"I hope so, if only for your sake."
"Pop? Can we keep this a secret? I don't want anybody else in the family to know. It might be embarrassing later."
 
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Riva's family had memories like elephants, especially for foibles and mistakes. The only way you could live something down with them was to be reincarnated. If she did end up marrying Paul, it would be bad enough when her family learned how disreputable the Auerbachs were. That would be soon enough for them to begin doubting Paul. Riva was certain that Paul's noble character had survived and maybe even been honed by his terrible family, but she knew how adults saw these things. They wouldn't praise him for overcoming so many handicaps; they would wait for the day when the offspring reverted to type, when the ugly head of the parent reared up in the child.
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Paul lived in a small apartment building in a neighborhood tucked between a Trailways bus terminal and a complex of warehouses. Tonight, when she arrived, Riva was relieved that Mr. Auerbach's cab wasn't anywhere in sight. The parking lot was brightly lit, but the stairs to the entrance were dark, and the hallway smelled rank. The Auerbachs lived on the ground floor. Their living room was full of black vinyl furniture and cheap pole lamps. Everything in it was ugly except for the afghans that Mrs. Auerbach crocheted and draped over the furniture.
If she had called first tonight, Paul would have wanted to meet her someplace. She wanted him to know she didn't care where he lived or who his father was. She wanted to tell him about Pop Goldring. She would tell his mother, too, if she felt like it. There would be nothing any of them could do to ruin it. The airline ticket was in Paul's name. Nancy, Pop's secretary, had reserved a room at the Gunter Hotel, and when Paul tried to settle the bill, he would find that it was already paid.
Paul was embarrassed at first to hear her news. Then he was very grateful. Afterward, he followed her home in his car. They told Mrs. Stern they were going to the Hot Shoppe for a snack. She and Paul went to the park.
"How can I ever pay you back? It worries me, Riva. Money between friends can lead to problems." He was carefully unbuttoning her blouse.
"What kind of problems?"
 
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"I don't know exactly. I know my father hasn't got a friend left in the world, and they've all helped him."
"You're not your father."
He buried his head between her breasts, then rolled from one to the other, kissing. He had the softest lips of any human being alive and a tongue like a sweet little animal. "Oh God," he moaned, "I love you so much. You'll never know how much it means to have your love."
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Before he went to San Antonio, Paul spent every spare minute beefing up his debate skills on the assigned topic: Should the U.S. Recognize Castro's Cuba? Three-by-five index cards accumulated in drifts on his desk in study hall. Paul would be called upon to argue both sides. That was the thing about being a good debateryou had to be able to fake the passion of your argument, and you had to know what the opposition was going to say. Paul would make a fine lawyer. His poverty gave him an appetite for justice in the world.
Things at home improved. His father had returned after a spree in Florida and was driving his cab every day. A couple of mornings he had slipped Paul a five spot at breakfast.
Paul left for Texas on a Thursday evening at the end of April. He called Riva twice. On Saturday, he sounded ecstatic. He praised Tex-Mex foods she had never heard ofsauces concocted of chocolate and hot peppers, cactus fruit and
cabrito
and tequila. He had gone to a nightclub where a Mexican mariachi band with huge guitars played until dawn. He cursed the afternoon tour-bus driver and called one of his debate opponents a "pubic hair" in Spanish. He had made dozens of friends, he said, despite the pressures of the competition. Everyone was so friendly. He loved the Lone Star State. It was southern and western at the same timethe best of both worlds. The weather was perfect. He'd even been swimming at the hotel pool. He didn't worry about the chlorine ruining his new madras shorts. He was having too good a time to worry about anything. His joy confirmed what Riva had long believed about Paulthat given half a chance in life he would be a raving success. He would know how to work hard and play hard. He would achieve what Pop Goldring hadthe happiness of the self-made man.
 
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"What about your debates?"
"I'm doing great. I'm here, I'm having fun. For the first time in my life, I'm really having fun. You know," he grew wistful, "now I see what I've missed all my life."
"You mean a vacation?"
"Some people's lives are vacations," Paul said. "I've got to go. I'm on early tomorrow morning again."
A huge storm front lashed the mid-Atlantic states that weekend. It rained in Washington and Virginia and Maryland and Delaware and even in Atlantic City, New Jersey, where Barry and Olivia huddled, no doubt, against the dampness in their hotel suite. Riva missed Paul. She watched her parents moving past each other all weekend and thought what a waste it was that they were in the same house yet kept their bodies completely separate. She walked from room to room, staring out at the rain. She imagined herself inside a paperweight, a raining paperweight. Beyond her windows, it wasn't raining. The sun was beating down everywhere else on shining streets, giving off that summery odor of heat and growth, especially in San Antonio, Texas.
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Olivia and Barry brought back saltwater taffy twisted in waxed paper like party favors for everyone in the family. Paul brought Riva a silver pin from Mexicothe figure of a peasant in a serape drowsing under a huge sombrero, kind of like the Frito Bandito, he said, describing it over the phone to her late Sunday night when he returned from the airport. Paul finished seventh out of two hundred in the competitionnot in the money but close enough for a special certificate of Honorable Mention. "'Know Ye by These Presents,'" he read to her. "Well, you can imagine the rest."
"I'm dying to see you. I really missed you. I love you so much."
"I know. I want to see you, too. Tomorrow," be promised.
Would she ever say these words to any other boy or man? She had nothing to go on but movies and the books she'd read. If her parents traded endearments, they did it when they were alone, never in front of the children.
She and Paul kissed outside of school the next morning, before the first bell rang, but he was busy after that. He was a celebrity, with

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