Melt (5 page)

Four

Dorothy

      “So how's everything going with Joey?” Mom asks as she stands with her spatula, waiting for bubbling pancakes on the griddle to thicken. She's using her light “shrink” voice but still there's this edge in the question, this strain in her tone. She flips too soon, and batter splatters.

      Dad faces me from across the blue-checkered tablecloth. Head resting in his hands, smile pasted on his face, he's shrinking me out too as he waits for my answer. His hazel eyes stare wide from behind his wire-framed glasses.

      I look away, away from them both, from my psychologist parents who are now practicing their craft on me. I survey Mom's teapot collection on the wall, glazed clay renditions of citruses and berries, plus a smattering of select vegetables and flowers. I examine a strawberry with handle and spout, note the attention to detail. There's even brown specks freckling the crimson surface, representing tiny hairs.

      I regard a piece of ceramic fruit and wonder how this happened, how it came to be that I'm not comfortable in a room with my mom and dad, that the air in our kitchen feels as tense as an exam room during SATs.

      I don't know what to say to these two clinicians who until about a month ago were the parents I could say anything to.

      Until Joey came over.

      It started with his hands. Mom got weird immediately, when she shook his hand. That's when her voice took on that soft, sing-song tone, like she uses on her patients. It was like she was trying to shrink Joey out, but even worse, because she wasn't doing it to help him. No, she was gathering history like he was in a study. You know, one of those hopeless cases therapists deconstruct, picking them apart so they can help others avoid the same fate.

      Then Dad came home, and he barely spoke to Joey. He just watched him.

It reminded me of the reptile room at the zoo. Like Joey was this creature, this lizard behind glass, and Dad was observing him from the other side.

      There we were in the living room, separated by the black Art Deco coffee table topped with this week's flower arrangement, lilacs. Their heady, too-sweet scent was everywhere. Mom sang questions and Dad observed from the stiff, mocha-colored leather couch while Joey sat sunken into the burgundy, overstuffed sofa across from them, hands tucked under the seat of his jeans, Nikes shuffling on the Persian rug. I sat next to Joey—cross-legged—getting more and more incensed by the change in my formerly liberal parents. Apparently an open mind closes real fast when your sixteen-year-old daughter's involved.

      In her soothing voice Mom asked how old he was (seventeen), did he plan to go to college (he did not), then what did he plan on doing with his life (he was studying auto mechanics at Boces). She asked what his father did (police officer), oh, my, how did he feel about his dad having such a dangerous job (he didn't feel anything about it, it was just a job), what did his mother do (homemaker), where did they live (on the other side of town), did he have brothers and sisters (two brothers, sixteen and nine). And, of course, she asked what had happened to his hands (he sucked in some air at this one, let it out, and then said he's had some trouble with people egging him into fights). He answered Mom's questions and took in Dad's scrutinizing stare without complaint while I seethed. What was next? Maybe Mom would request blood and urine samples. Finally I said Joey and I were going to hang out in my room, and you would've thought I'd said we were going to go screw or something the way they balked. For a second I thought they were going to say no—well, at least Mom, as Dad had apparently forgotten how to speak—and if that happened, that would've been it ….

      But that didn't happen, so I can't say what I would've done or said.

      Mom and Dad looked at each other, like they were having a wordless discussion, and then Mom sang-songed that it was fine. She said she'd call me for dinner. Then she asked if Joey would be staying, but her voice changed. The way she asked that, like the words were phlegm in her throat that she had to hack out, of course he declined the invitation.

      So much for the sing-song.

      Upstairs, Joey said to cut them some slack. He said he could only imagine what was going through their heads, me bringing someone like him home, and he was only grateful they let him stay.

      That made me angrier, that he felt beneath them like that. They had no right, to judge him.

      And speaking of judging, they needed to trust my judgment. To trust what I saw in Joey ….

      Ever since that day, it's like Dad's had this permanent case of laryngitis around me. Either that or he's morphing into an owl, the way he blinks, blinks, blinks with those questioning eyes. Like he's waiting for me to pour my heart out, explain what was going on inside that made his good little girl go so wrong.

      He doesn't say it, obviously, and neither does Mom—no, she's too wrapped up in her little fake la la land voice—but I know that's how they both feel. That I've gone astray or something. For god's sake, this isn't the Victorian age. Where's my corset? Where's my chastity belt?

      Mom, she's been shrinking me out ever since with that maddening tone. I have no idea how that tactic could possibly be successful with her patients but I sure wish I could cancel my appointments at the kitchen table.

      And the ironic thing is, I'd love to talk to them.

      I'd love to tell them how things have been, to get their advice on everything that's been happening, good and bad. It's all been so new, so much ….

      First, there was that day. Up in my room. There was everything he told me, everything that poured out of him like I'd opened up a valve.

      He stood in the doorway for a while, taking in my room—all my belongings, transplanted from Manhattan. Checking out my desk at the window, facing the water. It's topped with my computer, books, and inspirational quotes in frames, my favorite being Emily Dickinson's “Dwell in possibility ….” Turning toward my storage hutches lining the right wall, filled with baskets stuffed with stuff, everything from more books to DVDs to magazines to souvenirs from vacations with my parents. Looking up at my vintage iron chandelier with five individual lavender shades covering the bulbs, and strands of beads draped over the arms. Looking down at the chenille rainbow-striped rug. Across at the full-length antique iron mirror, next to my dresser. Finally his gaze landed on my vintage iron bed, white with a weathered finish. It's surrounded with deep purple silk curtains on a cable system, and covered with fringe tassel bedding and a red, pink and violet calypso floral quilt and sham. It looks like Bohemian meets preppy, which kind of describes me. Joey headed to the bed, picked up my obese stuffed orangutan and gave him a squeeze. “That's Ollie,” I told him.

      Joey plopped Ollie back among the pillows and chuckled. Then he traced his fingers around one of the two throw pillows monogrammed in green with “DJF,” for Dorothy Jane Fields.

      “You got your initials on your pillows?” he asked.

      “And my bathrobe,” I said.

      He laughed. “Is that is case you forget who you are?”

      That made me laugh. “I guess so. I never thought about why I had them before.”

      He walked back around my curtain, brushing against silk and stirring something inside me. He eyed the white trunk at the foot of the bed. “What's in here?”

      Amazing on how he zeroed in on my most private, embarrassing possession. “That's my hope chest,” I told him. I smiled at his raised eyebrows. “It's not like those chests girls put things in for when they get married. I put my hopes, my real hopes, in there. I put in pictures from magazines of things I aspire to and places I'd like to see. I put in poems expressing feelings I hope to feel, books I hope to memorize passages from and carry in my heart, articles from the newspaper about things I'd like to change in the world and ways I can make a difference; and I write down things I hope for—wishes and dreams.”

      “Wow,” he said. He bent down and batted the chest's brass handles, banging them on the wood. “Pretty big. Holds a lot of hope, huh.”

      “Yeah, I guess.” I was guessing a lot, all of a sudden.

      He smiled that little smile of his, with an added twist of wistful. “Maybe you could, like, share some with me sometime.” His eyes were big and bright with that plea again, like in Dunkin' Donuts. Like something inside was desperate to break through, break free. “I could use some hope.”

      “Sure,” I told him. “We can open up the chest anytime you want. Or even better, I'll help you find hope that's all your own.”

      He studied me for a second, his gaze steadier now. “Good luck,” he said.

      We sat on my bed, staying at the corner and keeping our feet on the rug just in case one of my parents popped in. First we talked about them for a bit—as I said, he totally defended them. Then he asked, was it okay to tell me now? Could he tell me about himself? And to tell you the truth, I would've loved to not know because he looked so sad about it all it had to be bad, but he was determined to get it all out and I knew it would stay between us until he did. And anyway, I'd promised him that he could.

      He took my hand and it was so exquisite feeling that sensation again. It was so exalting it was almost torture, because I knew I'd have to eventually let go. And he looked me in the eyes—he looked at me with all his pain, and I held his stare even though it made me want to cry—and he went through each thing he'd done, starting with schoolyard fights in which no one had been seriously hurt, escalating to when he'd beaten another boy so bad he'd been in a coma for three days. He said that was when he'd been sent to jail. He said he didn't know why he'd done that, the only explanation he could offer was that he walks around on the edge. That's how he put it, that he teeters on the edge constantly and sometimes people just push him over.

      God, he looked so sad. I should've been horrified, probably, but all I could think about was how sad he looked. He'd been so concerned about damaging me, yet he was the one who seemed broken.

      He was telling me these stories about how he'd hurt people and the more violence he confessed, the more bound I was to him. It was his honesty.

      He was exposing his soul to me.

      I couldn't possibly turn him away.

      He told me he drinks and smokes weed. He said he wasn't going to lie and say he'd quit, because he wouldn't. He said he wasn't proud of himself doing these things, and he'd try to cut down, but he couldn't give them up completely because they were sometimes the only things that got him through.

      Got him through what, I asked.

      He stared at me for a few beats, wordless. It was like he was running something through his head—or maybe, he was running away from it. Finally he answered, “You know, through life. In general.”

      But I sensed it was something way more specific.

      Back in the kitchen, Dad blinks, blinks.

      Mom flips at the griddle.

      I lean back in my chair, think back to what happened two weeks later.

      Joey and I were hanging out with a big group of kids at the spot they go to drink. It's this little bridge connecting two parts of Highland Park divided by water. They like it because if the cops come by, they can pitch their bottles right over the side. Mom and Dad would've died if they knew I was there, but I wasn't doing anything except talking. I just wanted to be where Joey was, get to know his crowd.

      I have to say, they seemed to have more depth than Amy. At least while they were coherent.

      I was talking to a couple of girls in denim jackets about song lyrics in heavy metal, and how intense they could be. I told them about the poems of Robert Frost and Robert Browning, and how profound I found them. But as the girls got more and more wasted on beer their attention and eye contact drifted, and finally they wandered away. Then I got hit with the sickening sweet scent of weed—god, I hoped I didn't stink of it when I got home. It smelled kind of like the lilac bouquet in the living room, though, and for a second I thought maybe Mom and Dad wouldn't know the difference.

      Yeah, right.

      I moved away, slid down the bridge railing a bit, craning for Joey. There were at least three dozen people there now, and he'd melted into the throng. Everyone was stoned and laughing, the mix of voices getting louder and louder as the six packs and liquor bottles emptied. I leaned against the metal, stared out into the dark waters, at the boats roped at their docks, bobbing faintly with the current. Up, down, up, down. They made me feel lonely, and I wished I could just go home.

      “You okay?” A male voice behind me asked.

      I turned around, faced him—a boy in a black T-shirt and jeans. He had a lanky build and sand-brown hair. “Where's Joey? You're … with him, aren't you?” he asked.

      I nodded. “He's in there somewhere,” I said, motioning to the burgeoning crowd.

      “I'm Brian,” he said. “You're Dorothy, right?”

      I nodded again. His breath was hard to take. Vodka, I'd guess. I knew what most alcohol smelled like on people, from my parents' parties.

      “So, you named after Dorothy in
The Wizard of Oz
?” Brian asked. His words wobbled.

      “No.” I'd answered the question about a dozen times that evening, and I was too tired to elaborate.