Mendocino and Other Stories (21 page)

“Ta da,” says my mother, coming out of the bathroom and striking a pose. She is wearing a new dress, a very fitted sleeveless yellow dress that will demand from everyone who sees her in it a moment of uninterrupted attention: it is the shortest dress I've ever seen. It's an acid yellow, a shade maybe one woman in a hundred can wear, and she is that one. With her black hair and summer tan she looks glamorous, even dangerous.

“You've got to be kidding,” my father says.

“What?” She leans over and runs her hands up her leg, adjusting her stocking.

“OK,” he says. “You've had your fun. Change into whatever you're really going to wear and let's go.”

“This is it,” she says.

“Part of it, anyway,” he mutters.

She looks at me and smiles conspiratorially. I smile back; I think she looks great, although I wish she wouldn't play him like this.

“Helen,” he says.

“For God's sake, Harry, it's just a shift.”

“And you look pretty damned shifty” is all he can manage.

She laughs and turns to me. “If he were a woman you'd think he was jealous.”

He grimaces. “I think ‘envious’ is the word you're after.”

My mother shrugs. We hear the front door open and close, and a moment later Ingrid comes into the bedroom and announces that the Traegers' car is still there. She doesn't comment on, doesn't even seem to notice my mother's dress.

My mother goes to the telephone and begins to dial. My father, I notice, looks irritated.

“Dick?” my mother says into the receiver. “This is Helen—from next door?” An intimate smile curls her lips, and she turns to the wall. “I hear you have the name cards, for the party. Are there any blank ones left?” She laughs. “I knew I could count on you. N.D. Nicole Diver. See you soon.” She hangs up the phone and turns to face us. “Well,” she says, “you kids coming?”

“Nicole Diver?” my father says. “Nicole Diver? God, that's rich.”

“Who's she?” I ask.

My mother smiles but doesn't answer me. She picks up her purse and drops her lipstick into it.

“Who's Nicole Diver?” I turn to my father. “Dad?”

“Oh,” he says absently, “she's just one of Fitzgerald's beauties.” He pats his pants pocket, and I hear the jingling of his keys.

THE BOREDOM OF
being a child ignored by a group of adults. Ingrid and I skulk around the hors d'oeuvres table, spearing Swedish meatballs with toothpicks, using our bare fingers to pluck from their red sauce several pigs-in-a-blanket each. We sit on straight-backed chairs against the wall, and while Ingrid plays with her hair, braiding one lock and then another, I study the grown-ups in an effort to place my parents on a scale of normalcy.

It takes no time at all to see that it was my mother's goal to set herself apart from the other wives. They wear full-skirted dresses of ordinary colors and modest lengths; but the difference reaches
way beyond my mother's yellow dress. The other women talk to each other, but my mother talks only to men—to groups of them, four or five or six at a time. And she has a way of scanning the room while she talks—at first I think she's looking for us, but she keeps doing it long after I've had eye contact with her. I realize, in the way you can realize old, familiar knowledge, that she's looking around to see if people are looking at her: that she
wants
them to be. I start to feel tense for her—I'll feel tense for beautiful, hungry people all my life—and I force my attention to my father.

About him, I cannot be so clear. He's wearing a summer suit and a tie, like all of the men except for Dick Traeger, our neighbor, and one or two others, who wear dark, open-necked shirts under their jackets. I'm happy to see that he's having a good time; he's making the rounds, taking people drinks as if this place were his home. But something else about him: his cheerfulness seems to depend on a kind of wall he's built around my mother, to keep her from coming into his line of vision.

Ingrid hits my leg. “Let's go to the courtyard,” she says. “This is stupid.”

Reluctantly, I stand up and follow her out of the room. She hasn't unbraided her hair, and sticking up from her head are two tiny braids that aren't coming undone by themselves.

It's seven o'clock on a Sunday three weeks before the start of classes, and the campus is deserted. When we get to our courtyard we head for the empty niches and climb into them—Ingrid's favorite thing to do when we're here alone. We sit facing each other across the arcade.

“You should see your hair,” I say.

Ingrid touches the top of her head and encounters the braids; she makes quick work of disassembling them. “Look at that man,” she says.

I lean forward and look: sitting on the edge of the fountain is a
thin man with stringy shoulder-length brown hair. “So—he's not bothering you.”

“I think something's wrong with him.”

I look again. He's hunched over unhappily, his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands: his feet are bare. He looks up and sees us looking at him; instantly he stands and heads our way. “Great, Ingrid,” I say.

He stops when he's just a few yards away. He looks from me to Ingrid, then back at me. “What are you guys doing?” he says. There appears to be something wrong with his teeth.

“Just sitting,” Ingrid says.

“Our parents are just over there,” I add, waving in the direction we came from.

“You look like statues,” he says. “What're your names? Mine's Bug.”

“Your name is Bug?” Ingrid says.

“I'll bet yours isn't any better.”

“It's Ingrid.”

“You win.”

She smiles. “Bug must be your nickname.”

He turns to me. “So what're you, mute?”

I shake my head.

“Oh, yeah,” he says. “Your parents are just over there.”

I look at Ingrid and try to send a signal: stop
talking
to him. But she either doesn't get it or ignores it. “They're at a cocktail party,” she says.

“How chomming,” Bug says. “Is there perchance food at this affair?”

“Why?” Ingrid says. “Are you hungry? We could get you some.”

“No, we couldn't. We should be going, Ing.” I mean to jump out of the niche, but somehow I don't move.

“Are you?” Ingrid says.

Bug reaches into his pocket and pulls out a stone. He studies it carefully, looking at both sides—it's almost as if he were memorizing it—then he puts it back. “I can't remember what it feels like not to be.”

“Are you
starving
?” Ingrid asks him.

“Well, I guess the answer is compared to who?” He runs a hand through his greasy hair. “I'm not in danger of dying today.”

“When was the last time you ate?” she says.

He looks at me, and I see that his face is truly gaunt. I decide that he's probably telling the truth, but still, I want us gone.

“Friday,” he says. “I had some doughnuts.”

“Today's Sunday,” Ingrid says.

“What are you doing here?” I say. “Are you a student?” He laughs, and now I do jump down from my niche. “Ingrid,” I say.

She ignores me. “How old are you?” she asks him.

“Ingrid, Ingrid—so many questions.” He moves a little closer to her. “It's my turn. What's on your shirt?” He points at Ingrid's chest—at the breast pocket of her camp shirt, where I know it says “Pine Hill Camp” in navy embroidery.

“
Now
, Ingrid,” I say. “We'll get in trouble.”

“It's my camp shirt,” she says. “I'm going to get you some food—stay right here, OK?”

She jumps down and Bug goes over and boosts himself into her place. “It's still warm,” he says, and he gives us a queasy grey smile.

As soon as we're out of his sight we start running. “You're so stupid,” I say to Ingrid, but then I look at her and see that she's begun to cry. “What?” I say. “What?”

“He's
starving.
”

I try to pat her shoulder, but running seems more important.

SOMETHING HAS CHANGED
at the party. People are talking louder, and their gestures seem exaggerated. They're drunk, of course, but at eleven I think the difference is about something else: how grown-ups live in a world that's more real than ours, noisier and brighter.

I leave Ingrid in one of the chairs against the wall and look around for my parents. Right away I see my mother halfway across the room: the glint of her dress, and then her profile, smiling a smile born of tedium. I think it would be better to find my father, but something makes her turn, and when she sees me she says something to the people she's with and heads my way.

“Darling,” she says, “you saved me from death by boredom. Having fun?” She reaches over and does something to my collar, and I twist away.

“Where's Dad?”

“Oh, who knows. Off serenading some thirteen-year-old girl, no doubt.” She looks at me, then pulls my head close and ruffles my hair. “Buddy, honestly. He was R. M.—Romeo Montague. It's a joke, sweetheart. I haven't seen him in hours, or at least half hours.”

“I don't know,” I say. “We met this man outside and he says he's hungry. Ingrid wants to take him some food, but I don't know.”

“Wait a second, slow down. What happened?”

I explain as well as I can, but as I speak the whole thing seems to lose significance; I know she's not going to understand.

“Well,” she says when I'm done, “take him some meatballs if you want. God knows no one's bothering to eat.”

“He was sort of—weird.”

Ingrid arrives at my mother's side. She's more composed, but it's evident she's been crying.

“What is it, honey?” my mother says to her.

Ingrid shrugs, tears gathering again in her eyes.

“You kids had better just stay here.” My mother reaches out to someone behind me, and Dick Traeger joins our group. “Dick,” she says, her hand on his arm, “my kids met up with some character who wants our food. What do you think?”

Dick Traeger looks at us carefully. He has unbuttoned the second button of his shirt, and there's an unpleasant triangle of hair curling there. He turns to my mother. “Far be it from me to be an elitist. The more, the merrier.”

“He was hungry,” Ingrid says, and tears begin to spill down her face.

“According to Buddy,” my mother says to Dick Traeger, “he was also ‘weird.’”

“Weird,” Dick Traeger says. “Do you mean different? The world is a wide and wonderful place, Buddy. We have to embrace difference.”

“Don't tease him,” my mother says.

“Who's teasing? I'm serious.”

Ingrid sobs. “Will you come with us?”

My mother and Dick Traeger look at each other. “We'll all go,” Dick Traeger says. “Safety in numbers, eh?”

“I don't want to go.” I know I sound petulant, but I don't care. “Where's Dad?”

“What difference does it make?” my mother snaps. “Ingrid, go get one of those little plates and load it up. Let's go if we're going.”

I catch a glimpse of my father leaving the room, and I hurry after him. “Dad,” I call when I get to the exit; he's halfway down the hall to the men's room. “Dad.”

He turns around. “Hello,” he says, smiling genially at me. He comes back to where I've stopped. “Don't I know you?”

“Dad,” I say. I feel myself starting to cry, and I turn away from him.

“What's wrong, Robert?” He puts his hand on my shoulder.

I explain what happened—better, this time. I watch my father's expression change, and even as I feel relieved that I've made someone understand I regret a little bringing him into it: telling both of them was a mistake.

Ingrid appears in the doorway, plate of food in hand, my mother and Dick Traeger just behind her. She's stopped crying: this is fun now. “Dad,” she says. “Want to come?”

My mother and Dick Traeger exchange a glance.

“What are you doing, Helen?” my father says.

“There's some poor hungry wretch out there and my tenderhearted girl”—my mother reaches out and takes hold of Ingrid's shoulders, pulling her close—“wants to feed him.”

“That hungry wretch scared your children,” my father says. “You're not going anywhere.” He steps forward and takes the plate from Ingrid. He doesn't seem to know what to do with it: after a moment he puts a meatball in his mouth and begins chewing angrily. “Have one,” he says to me, his mouth still full.

“Don't be ridiculous, Harry,” my mother says. “Of course he scared them. Hunger's scary. You think someone who hasn't eaten since Friday should be polite?”

Dick Traeger clears his throat. “It does seem too bad just to let him get away with it. I mean, I figured if we went too the kids wouldn't have to feel bad about letting him go hungry, and we could, I don't know, let the creep know that he can't just go around frightening our children.”

“I'm stunned,” my father says to my mother.

She brings a hand to her throat. “What?”

“Stunned,” he says, “
stunned
that you would use your children like this.”

“I don't know what you're talking about—Harry.”

My father turns his back on us and walks a few paces away. He
brings his hands up to his face, and I know what he's doing: pressing his fingertips to the bridge of his nose. I'm afraid he's going to yell, although this is something I've rarely known him to do. I'm preparing to be mortified, but when he finally turns he hands me the plate of food and says, “Well, go then. All of you. Go.”

IT'S TOUGH, IT'S
tough to be a child and have to face a parent's infidelity. It's embarrassing: not just because you know it's about sex—appalling even when you think of them doing it with the person they're supposed to do it with—but also because it's wrong and weak and therefore childish. Your parent has come down to your level, and there isn't enough room there for both of you. Not to mention the vacuum left behind.

IT'S GETTING DARK
out when we leave the party, dark and a little cool. “Look, goosebumps,” my mother says, holding out her bare arm for me to see. “There's a ghost walking over my grave.”

We have arranged ourselves into an odd pairing: Ingrid and Dick Traeger, my mother and me. Ingrid and Dick Traeger are ahead of us, Dick Traeger now carrying the plate of food, his posture somehow grim. Ingrid doesn't seem to mind walking with him—as we followed them through the door I heard her ask him if he liked tennis. I can't imagine where she got this: not the question, but the poise.