Better Times Page 6

  Addie and I conferred quickly. Addie wanted to show her the folded paper fortune-teller but I didn’t want Marjorie to think we were competing with her. We agreed on light-as-a-feather, stiff-as-a-board.

  “Lie still and close your eyes!” Addie instructed.

  “I am!” Marjorie squealed.

  “Stop wiggling or it won’t work,” I said. We leaned over her outstretched form and waited for her face to slacken, her muscles to unravel, her mind to wander. We waited for her to give herself up. Then we wedged our fingers under her body and began lifting. But not actually lifting. Imparting lightness is maybe better. The point, of course, wasn’t to lift her but to make her feel as though she was weightless, like she’d just settled into the bottom of a filled tub and the water had made her body an unrecognizable, needless thing.

  “Light as a feather, stiff as a board,” we chanted in a hushed sing-song. “Light as a feather, stiff as a board.” I could feel the rhythm of her breath threading slowly through her ribcage. I could see the creases in her closed eyes, soft as the underside of a dog’s ear. I could believe that we were doing something good for her, something more than a game.

  “That was nice,” she said when we brought her back down.

  She let us keep the Ouija board. I hid it behind the crafts box under my bed where my mother no longer bothered to look.

  The first week of July marked the start of an extended heat wave. It made us sluggish and cross. We left the mittens to the dust mites and lolled on the sofa in our swimsuits. The leather suctioned to our skin. Outside the soldiers marched with more intensity, as if to beat back the sun itself. “This is nothing,” our father reminded us when we slipped into malaise. “Do you know what those boys will have to put up with soon?”

  “Dear, don’t make a fuss,” our mother said. After accepting her new job she had taken to wearing tortoiseshell glasses around the house. Our father looked at her as if he no longer quite recognized her. In hallways they moved to avoid touching one another. Some mornings the couch still held the warmth of his sleeping body. Yet it didn’t occur to me to be worried about these developments. I’d never had to before.

  Now she took a tiny kerchief from her purse, removed the glasses, and began methodically wiping the lenses. “I know you still see me,” he muttered. She spit into the cloth.

  On the Fourth of July our father gave a speech about bravery and perseverance against our enemy. But Addie and I couldn’t be bothered with that flattened pancake of a country, the one that had the same sound as hacking into a hankie. It was words on a paper, pixels on a television, fear in another child’s eyes. We knew we wouldn’t lose our father to it and so we forgot it. It wasn’t cruelty, it was convenience—luck we had no hand in and could enjoy innocently. We had other things on our minds.

  The choir was preparing for our end-of-summer concert. The armpit of the church gave way to the swampy fever of a greenhouse. Our bodies drooped; our voices went limp. Our “Camptown Races” heaved and tumbled on the way out of our mouths. It was in this deteriorating environment that Mr. Giletti announced that there would be a “solo.” When he said it, he drew out the last vowel until it became something wholly musical on its own, as if, like the Pied Piper, he hoped to entrance someone into the scheme with his song.

  “It’s only one line,” he pleaded from behind the piano. “Don’t make me ask to hear from all of you. I don’t think I could quite bear it.” But we turned cotton ears to his proposition.

  Marjorie came to pick us up at the church that day, hanging back as the mothers streamed forward to collect their sons and daughters. You could tell which ones had recently had husbands shipped off by how white their children’s skin got in their grip. The room was filled with the sound of high heels and wet kisses. Once safely paired, the women broke off into gossipy clumps, becoming overgrown versions of their offspring. I was aware of several eyes trailing us as we made our way outside. I went pink in the cheeks as if I’d been slapped with a sunburn. But Marjorie didn’t seem to notice.

  “I think you should do it, Lucinda,” she said, when I told her of the solo. “You have a lovely voice.”

  I didn’t want to seem too flattered in front of Addie, so I said, “When did you ever hear me sing?”

  She admitted she hadn’t and the next day she brought over her portable record player.

  “I know this thing probably seems pretty old,” she said. “But I’ll bet it’s new to you.”

  It was new to us and it looked like luggage. When she lifted the top, its plastic innards were revealed—the disc of the turntable, the long yellow arm of the spindle, the spinning Oreo cookie dial with its rippled edges.

  “What do you want to listen to?” she asked. “I have all sorts of stuff. Most of it’s Harry’s. He had, has a real nostalgia streak.”

  That day we heard songs about trying a little tenderness and wondering if her hair’s still red and feeling so broke up you wanna go home. When a record clicked to a halt, she restarted it until we were singing along with her. In the living room we spun in circles until we staggered to the floor, bull-dozed by dizziness. Marjorie danced in her bare feet, the space between her arches and the floor so large I could slip a finger through it. Her skirt flared out like a bell, and Addie scuttled around behind her, trying to capture the fabric and hide in its folds. I had never seen the underwear of a grown woman before and was surprised to discover that it looked a lot like mine, the flowers faded and boring. I was happy when she collapsed with us on the floor and looked like something else, this time a little porcelain figure that could be propped up on a cake.

  “Me and my Harry got married to this song,” she said, as she set the next record on. “You know Dusty Springfield? Real name Mary Isabel Catherine Bernadette O’Brien? Wouldn’t you like to have four names to choose from like that?”

  I agreed I probably would.

  “People used to call her bent.”

  “Bent how?” Addie asked.

  “What are you doing the rest of your life?” a voice of velvet purred.

  “I don’t know,” Marjorie answered.

  Her eyes seemed very far away from the rest of her. I had an urge to circle my arms around her neck and shake her back into herself. “Marjorie, tell us something about Harry,” I said.

  “Harry,” she murmured. “I was surprised when Harry enlisted. He never seemed to want to do anything grown up. I thought he’d be playing guitar in his band forever. Army boys are supposed to marry generals’ daughters. That’s what will happen to you two.” We wrinkled our noses at the thought.

  “I hated when they made him cut his hair,” she continued. “He had such beautiful blonde hair.” She put two fingers to her lips but there was no cigarette there and she sucked in nothing but air.

  “Who made him?” Addie asked.

  “The army, dummy.” I elbowed her. “They did it to Daddy, too.”

  “No they didn’t. Daddy’s hair’s always looked like that.”

  “It’ll grow back,” Marjorie said.

  We nodded. It seemed to be what was called for.

  That night, after the records had been packed away and silence had returned to the house, Addie asked our father if Mr. Flox would be coming home soon.

  He gazed at her, blank as a clock face, all the mechanics working unseen. “I expect so,” he said. Then he went back to flipping vigorously through his newspaper.

  My father had rarely induced strong feelings in me before. I had grown used to him not being a warm or affectionate man. He displayed his emotions in gestures as intricate and inflexible as sign language. His idea of a good birthday was a home cooked meal and an early bedtime. But that night, for the first time, I hated him. It was a childish hate and mostly gone by morning, but the taste of it lingered, like something sour you can’t scrape away no matter how far back your toothbrush goes.

  After consulting the Ouija board, I volunteered for the solo the next day.

  “We should do something to celeb
rate,” Marjorie said when I told her my news. “What if we went on a little trip?”

  It was a lazy day in late July, the sort that feels already over before the sun’s even come up. The three of us were in the kitchen, poking at the waffles Marjorie had defrosted for lunch. I was preoccupied with cutting mine into four perfect wedges, so it was Addie who answered, “We aren’t supposed to go on trips. Mom said.”

  “No?” Marjorie said. “Not even a little one?”

  She took a drag from her cigarette and pursed her lips into a ring, puffing the smoke out in little O’s. She stuck her finger through one and when she twirled it, the smoke broke apart and crept into the air. Addie giggled.

  “Where do you want to go, Marjorie?” I asked as I dribbled the syrup up to the rims of the waffle’s honeycombs.

  “Have you girls ever been to the Veterans’ Hall?”

  I had to pinch Addie under the table to keep her from shouting. No kid on the base had ever gone to the hall before, but all of them wanted to. If we went, we’d be more sought out than the ones who knew things about sex.

  Marjorie didn’t have a car, so we had to walk into town. Addie and I had taken the trip before but never on foot. It was a world we had only seen from backseats, the buildings and people shuttling by us like scenery in a movie instead of a recognizable part of our lives. As far as our parents were concerned, there was “home” and the “place to go,” and nothing important in between. Forming attachments to grocery stores and bakeries was dangerous; transfers to other bases loomed just out of sight.

  With Marjorie the journey was leisurely. Once the sounds of the soldiers faded and the streets straightened out of our cul-de-sac formation, it was easy to believe we were coming from somewhere else. In town we walked with the purposelessness that signaled authority. We stooped to pet dogs. We smiled at strangers. We jaywalked.

  “The hall is just at the next corner,” Marjorie said, taking our hands and steering us to a building that had the wan color and dimpled texture of oatmeal. There were no windows and only one entrance; it had all the invitational qualities of a Cold War–era bunker. In the excitement, my heart went ahead of me through the door.

  It was a single room, dark and clotted with smoke. Ceiling fans sliced the air above but couldn’t coerce it into movement. Along one wall ran a bar with a few patrons slumped over it, pulling from beers and talking quietly with one another. Our parents didn’t keep liquor in the house and I was entranced by the bottles lined up like perfume in a department store, promising something precious and sweet. Opposite was a pool table, the felt shedding in green tufts. Three men stood around it, leaning on their cues. In the back was a taciturn jukebox and, hovering just behind it, the outspread arms of an American flag. It was odd and familiar and it gave me a little thrill to see it.

  Two of the men at the bar had turned toward us, and one of them waved to Marjorie. He had a bald head and a full mustache as if he’d licked his lips while cutting his hair and it’d all gotten stuck there. He was plump in the face and his belly was wrestling to break out of his shirt.

  “He looks like a walrus,” Addie whined. “A big beached walrus.” Marjorie put a finger to her lips, then led us over to be introduced.

  “Lucinda, Addie. This is Eben. He’s an old friend of mine,” she said.

  The man wiped his hand over his flannel, then offered it to me. When I shook it, his fingers wrapped all the way to my wrist. But his grip was gentle and he let go as if he were setting a small animal free. Then he did the same to Addie, who hadn’t taken her eyes from his mustache since we’d come over. He wiggled it at her and winked.

  “Where’d you find these two, Margie?”

  It was the other man talking, the one with the hair cut so short it was the same pale pink as his scalp. Without quite knowing why, I was surprised when he turned around and didn’t have a scar on his face. Something in his voice suggested damage.

  “Out on the obstacle course. They made it halfway up the climbing wall before I caught them.”

  “That’s a tough wall to climb. Undone many a good man,” he replied, but there was no mirth in his voice.

  “Girls, this is Tex,” Marjorie said.

  “Like the state?” Addie asked.

  He nodded. “But I was born in California.”

  “Really?” Addie said. “What’s the capital?”

  “Couldn’t be bothered to learn it.”

  “Are you in the army?”

  “I’m shipping out next week.”

  “So you’re not a veteran yet.”

  I pinched Addie in the meat of her upper arm but Tex had already turned his head toward Marjorie and was speaking something low in her ear.

  “What about you?” Addie asked Eben, as she rubbed the little red nicks back into her skin. “Are you in the army?”

  “I was,” Eben said. His voice was soft and warm and seemed to issue from someplace deep inside him. “In Vietnam. A long time ago.”

  “Were you a general? Our daddy was a general.”

  “Nope. Just a grunt.”

  “That’s a funny thing to be,” Addie said.

  “I suppose it is,” Eben said. “Would you girls like anything to drink?”

  I looked over at Marjorie and saw she was drinking from Tex’s glass. It was holding liquid honey. “Can we have that?” I pointed.

  Eben didn’t even turn around. “What about lemonade? I know Hal always keeps some around.” He nodded to the man behind the bar. By the time he’d helped us both onto the stools beside him, there were two large glasses in front of us.

  “Careful,” the bartender said. “That’s stronger stuff than a lot of the liquor we’ve got.”

  “Thanks, Hal,” Eben said, looking toward us and nodding his head.

  “Thanks, Hal,” we murmured. The drink was cool and tart and each sip did a dance across my tongue.

  “You know what they say, right?” Eben continued. “When life gives you lemons . . .”

  “Squirt the juice in life’s eye,” Tex said. Then, as he went to rest his arm out on the bar, he brushed Marjorie’s hair with his fingertip. The strands shivered in his wake like a wind chime in a soft breeze.

  “Why aren’t you girls in school?” Eben asked.

  “It’s summer,” I said. It was torture to look away from Marjorie, to put my eyes on him.

  “Don’t you know that?” Addie asked. “Don’t you have kids?”

  “My kids are grown and gone,” Eben said.

  “Where to?” Addie asked.

  “Well, one went to New York and one went to Florida. They split ways, I guess. You will too.”

  “I’ll never leave,” Addie said.

  “No,” Eben replied. “It’s the duty of the young to leave things behind. Especially places like this.”

  “You didn’t leave,” Addie huffed.

  “You’re right. But I didn’t go anywhere else neither.”

  “I will,” I said. But it was a promise to me, not to him.

  Marjorie let out that high shriek of a laugh, the one somewhere between joy and desperation. The balls snapped at one another on the pool table. Hal swabbed soapy circles onto the bar with a dishcloth. Eben gave us each a dollar to put in the jukebox. We were tall enough to reach the buttons but not to see the records, so he dragged over a stool for us.

  It must have happened then, while we were flipping through the discs. As Addie fed her money into the black plastic tongue, I glanced over and saw Tex grab Marjorie by the wrist. He seemed to be saying something: “Cut it out.” The look in her eyes was the kind you’d give an animal that had backed you into a corner, warning and pleading and tempting all at once, and the sight of it made me turn quickly away. When I glanced over again they were gone.

  “Eben?” I cried, flailing my arms in the general direction of the empty bar. But he simply stood there, tongue pushing a toothpick to the other side of his mouth. I insisted on being lifted off the stool before my selection was made. Once back on t
he ground, I performed a quick reconnaissance of the hall. I checked both bathrooms but only found strange scribbling in the stalls, drawings of foreign anatomy, numbers scratched out and initials enshrined in hearts, the name “Jenny” in several compromising suggestions. I snuck a peek behind the bar but only Hal’s slacks and loafers were moving about back there. I even crouched beneath the pool table before returning to Eben and Addie in leaky tears.

  “Don’t fret,” Eben said. “They’ll be back soon.”

  “We’re. Not. Supposed. To separate,” I managed between gasps.

  “We’re not supposed to be here in the first place,” Addie said.

  “Let’s get you another lemonade.”

  Eben sat with us for a full half-hour. He spoke of some things that I barely remember. About the rubbery turkey they served in the army and how it had spoiled Thanksgiving for him forever, a quirk I had believed to belong to my father alone and resented Eben for ruining. About the only Vietnamese word he ever learned: dung lai, for stop. About his daughter and her fruitless pursuit of a singing career.

  “Lucinda likes to sing, too,” Addie piped up. “She has a solo in the choir soon.”

  “Can I hear it?” Eben asked, his voice timid as a child’s, as if he hoped we would speak as equals. But my misery would not allow a single note.

  Addie had just complained that she needed to pee when Marjorie returned, alone. Her mouth was drawn tight as a keyhole. The hair at the nape of her neck was knotted, as if a fist had weaved through it. She might have been crying. She walked by without acknowledging us and slipped into the ladies room. Addie sighed and went to follow her but Eben clamped a hand on Addie’s shoulder.

  “Better give her a minute,” he said.

  It was five minutes before Marjorie reappeared, her hand circling her stomach in that odd way she had, her hair curled fetal on her head. I wanted to run to her, fasten myself to her waist, bury my nose in the cotton bouquet of her dress. But when we went to her, she simply took our hands and led us outside. We were greeted by violent sunshine and the birds going on about something or other.