Sacred Time (5 page)

“Don't touch him.” Bianca was right behind us. “He's my pet.”

But I was already stroking the white pelt between his ears, whispering, “Hey there, rabbit, hey—”

“He'll eat your finger.”

“Does not,” Belinda said as I snatched my arm away.

Bianca clicked her shoe against the side of the tub.

“Stop that. It annoys Ralph.”

“His name is Malcolm.”

“You cannot give Papa's name to a rabbit. You have to call him Ralph.”

“Malcolm.”

“Ralph.” Belinda clutched the fur behind the rabbit's neck and heaved him into her arms. “Ralph likes to read comic books with me. You want to read comic books, Ralph?”

Prior to the rabbit, two painted turtles had lived in the twins' bathtub. My mother said they couldn't grow like regular turtles because their shells were painted with enamel. Bianca's turtle was pink and named Vanessa-Marlene; while Belinda's was green and named Bob. Their house was a turtle dish made of plastic, the size of a dinner plate, with curved sides. Inside, you poured gravel and snapped in a palm tree with six leaves. A ramp for the turtles led to that tree. The twins would have turtle races on the sidewalk and prod Bob and Vanessa-Marlene with twigs. If the turtles didn't budge, they'd lift them by their shells—the size of walnut shells, only flatter—and jiggle them hard to get their legs moving; but the turtles would pull in their claws and heads, hiding inside their glossy shells.

Before Uncle Malcolm bought the turtles, six baby chicks used to live in the tub. That's how you had to buy them at the pet shop, my uncle had said—“six chicks in a box”—and he asked my mother if we wanted to split the cost. But she didn't want to share our bathtub with filthy chickens. “I don't know how your sister can live like that,” she'd told my father. I loved those chicks and tried to hold them whenever we visited. Though I was careful with them, they'd squirm in my palms, peck at my fingers. Aunt Floria fed them baby food, and the chicks would walk through the pablum and drag it all over the tub. Before anyone could take a bath, Aunt Floria would catch the chicks, set them into a carton, and scrub their pablum footprints from the cracked porcelain. Because they were so messy, they didn't stay long enough to get names. Uncle Malcolm gave them to the milkman, who had a farm in New Jersey. “They'll be so much happier in the country,” he'd said. New Jersey was “the country,” green and mysterious, with lots of trees and chickens and cows.

Of all the pets who'd lived in the twins' tub so far, my favorite was Ralph, and as I touched the velvet-soft pads beneath his paws, I swore to myself I'd never let Uncle Malcolm take Ralph to New Jersey. “I want to hold Ralph,” I said.

“No,” Belinda said.

“Why not?”

“Because you got skinny legs.”

“And you are BaBelinda,” I yelled. “BaBelinda with ugly boogers inside her head.”

She reached into the tub, threw a fistful of brown pellets at me, and chased me from the bathroom, the rabbit bouncing in her arms; we ran up and down the dim hallway, dodging four suitcases, their bulging sides secured with rope.

“BaBelinda…BaBelinda…”

“Suuu-per-mannnn…”

As Bianca galloped past me, trailed by the cape Aunt Floria had patched together from various colors of bridesmaids' gowns, I was glad Riptide wasn't allowed to take my cousins to the pool. Aunt Floria was afraid they'd catch polio, even though we'd been vaccinated. At my school, the doctor with the syringe stood at one end of the cafeteria, and the lollipop nurse at the other. The only thing worse than polio vaccination was the screaming of sirens during air-raid drills, when we had to hide under our desks or got marched into a hallway without windows. “Just a drill,” Sister would say.

“Skinny legs…”

“Ugly-booger BaBelinda…”

“Eggplant time,” Aunt Floria called. “Time to eat.”

“Suuu-per-mannnn…Suuu—”

“Girls. Anthony—” Aunt Floria stepped into our path. “Please? Do you have to be that noisy? You put that rabbit back in the tub. Now.”

In the kitchen, the warmth of the oven was releasing the smells of my father's food: garlic and Parmesan cheese and tomato sauce. He was stacking wrapped plates in a carton I recognized from previous moves.

“I want to eat honeymoon salad,” Belinda said.

“A house full of children for Christmas, Anthony…” My father gave me a warning glance. “Won't that be nice?”

My tongue felt sour. “But where do they sleep?”

My mother's cheeks looked pinched as she nested small pots inside big pots.

Carefully, my aunt asked, “Are you getting hungry, Leonora?”

“Not particularly.”

“I just have to fix the dressing.”

“I want to eat honeymoon salad,” Belinda said again.

“What's that?” my father asked.

“Lettuce alone with nothing on. Get it?”

He shook his head.

“Let. Us. Alone. With. Nothing. On. Get it? Honeymoon?”

“I get it.”

“That girl—” Aunt Floria turned to my father, who was winding string around her metal breadbox. “She makes me laugh.”

“She's funny, all right. She got that from you.”

“I don't always remember that part of myself.” Aunt Floria set a few lettuce leaves aside for Belinda before she sprinkled oil and vinegar and Parmesan over the rest.

“You used to sew up the ends of my pajama pants,” my father said. “Loosen the doorknob so it came off in my hand. Top my strawberry pudding with Dad's shaving cream.”

“I did all that.” Aunt Floria sounded pleased.

“Funny and mischievous…That's what you liked about Malcolm when you met him. The prankster in him.”

“Childish and spoiled…The son of rich parents who's still waiting for them to come after him and force their money on him. My guess is his parents coaxed him into running away so that they'd be free of him. Their gain, my loss. He doesn't even care that I have to get Belinda to the doctor and talk about her surgery.”

“I don't want my sinuses cut,” Belinda cried.

“We're just getting your sinuses X-rayed.”

“I can help with that,” my father said.

“You've already done more than anyone else, Victor.”

“Listen to your sister, Victor,” my mother said. “She should know.”

“I know.” Aunt Floria's mouth twitched, and then the rest of her words tumbled out as if they were one: “And-I-hope-for-your-sake-that-you'll-never-have-to-depend-on-family-to—”

“I'm so sorry,” my mother said.

“And you don't let me reciprocate…not even hem one lousy pair of pants.”

“I really am sorry.” My mother set down the malted-milk machine she was wrapping into newspaper and cupped Aunt Floria's face between her hands. “We'll get you through this.” Gently, she stroked my aunt's face. Up to her temples. Down to her jaw.

Aunt Floria closed her eyes.

“And then we'll do the life…” My mother waited for my aunt to finish the sentence.

And my aunt did: “…we would like to become accustomed to.”

I knew what that meant: a test drive in an expensive car. My mother and aunt loved to get dressed up and pretend they wanted to buy a car. Bianca and I enjoyed it when they took us along, but Belinda got stomachaches, because the cars smelled new—the same new smell that made her sick in fabric stores.

“Here.” My mother lit cigarettes for herself and Aunt Floria.

Aunt Floria sucked deeply and tried to smile, but her voice sounded clogged. “I guess we'll bring the car back here, borrow it for a day or so, in case Malcolm messes up at his next job.”

I'd heard her joke about that before, wanting to run Uncle Malcolm over and back up over him twice. “Till he's flat like a gingerbread man and has to be peeled off the pavement. Then I'll fold him up, put a stamp on his fanny, and mail him back to England.” Only she hadn't done it yet. What would his parents do if they found him all folded up in their mailbox? They probably had a big mailbox because they had a big house. I wondered why she hadn't used Uncle Malcolm's car to run him over. Maybe because he never had a car long enough. One day he'd be dressed like the mayor of England, and the next day he'd be borrowing cigarette money.

When we began to eat, my father said, “I'll pay for Belinda's X rays.”

“X rays at the shoe store are for free,” I reminded him.

“Those kinds of X rays are different,” Aunt Floria said.

Still, I imagined Belinda's face beneath the Easter-green light that exposed the skeletons of my feet at the shoe store whenever my mother bought me shoes that felt stiff at first, as if carved from the bones of children who'd fallen into the X-ray machine.

“Anthony—” My father set down his fork. “It's much harder for your cousins to leave their home behind than it is for you to share your room.”

Aunt Floria served him another piece of veal. “I could stay with Mama.”

“You stayed with Mama the last time Malcolm was—”

“Old Mrs. Hudak got lots of space,” I offered quickly. “She likes company. You can make sure no one steals her.”

When Aunt Floria frowned, her eyebrows, just like my father's, met in one black line. “What's that all about?”

“One of those neighborhood sagas.” My father shrugged. “Supposedly, our super was kidnapped when her grandson, the one who stays with her whenever his parents have problems and—”

“The one who's love-struck by Leonora?”

My mother laughed. “He's just a boy.”

“Nineteen,” my father said. “James is nineteen and old enough to be love-struck. And he's always ogling you in the lobby.”

“He's a boy, Floria. Don't believe anything Victor says.”

But my aunt leaned toward my father as if not to miss one word of his story.

“Supposedly, James helped his grandmother set up her lawn chair on our sidewalk before he went to the soda fountain, and when he came back, she was gone. Chair and all. What she claims is that two nuns drove up in a truck and—”

“Nuns? In a truck? Is that all you're going to eat, Leonora?”

“I'm done.”

“Have some more eggplant or—”

“I know when
I'm
done, Floria.”

My father raised his hands to distract them both. “Supposedly, those nuns grabbed the armrest of Mrs. Hudak's lawn chair, hoisted her into the back of that truck, and drove her to Van Cortlandt Park. Nobody believes her.”

“I do,” I said. “It was a blue truck.”

“You saw it?”

“Mrs. Hudak told me.”

“Sometimes Mrs. Hudak forgets things,” my mother said. “Setting out the trash. Plus mopping the lobby and stairs. We need someone younger for the building.”

“She's not that old,” I said, alarmed, and resolved I'd help her more from now on, so she could stay in our building.

“You should see her clothes, Floria. John's Bargain Store, I bet. Because they fall apart after she wears them once. She's also been lying about the dumbwaiter, says it doesn't work just so she doesn't have to empty it. When her husband still was the super, the building was taken care of.”

But I liked Mrs. Hudak much better than Mr. Hudak, who had died from hiccups last year.

“How did she get back home?” Aunt Floria asked.

“That's where this whole thing sounds made up.” My father reached for the ashtray and nudged a few butts aside with the tip of a fresh Pall Mall. “Why would anyone want to kidnap an old lady in an old lawn chair?”

I could think of many reasons: Mrs. Hudak found kangaroos and eagles in the shapes of clouds; let me make lemonade in her kitchen; taught me to form shadow animals with my fingers against a lit wall; let me dust the banister in the stairway; kept big-boy bullies away from our sidewalk by yelling, “You goddamn bastard kids go back to where you belong.”

Sitting by her open window, or outside on her lawn chair with the frayed webbing, Mrs. Hudak monitored what happened on our street. She told on kids who crossed without checking in both directions. From what she said, I was the only kid in the neighborhood she liked, and she yelled when Kevin and I played in our courtyard outside her window. I'd feel conflicted, singled out; but I also knew that she couldn't handle more than one kid. That's why she didn't want me around when James visited.

“Mrs. Hudak got two empty rooms,” I told my aunt, “and she likes company.”