Rich Friends (34 page)

“Roger,” Sheridan said, “why not take Alix into the living room?”

Alix flipped through a
Reader's Digest
. Roger stared at the sports section. He read the same paragraph ten times and couldn't remember a word. The back door opened and closed and he saw his father sit in the redwood chair that faced the garden. After a few minutes Em came into the entry. Her lipstick was too bright. Both Roger and Alix stood.

“Roger,” Em said, looking only at him. “Vliet brought down Alix's suitcase.” Her voice was icy. “It's in the front closet. You better put it in her car for her.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Reed,” Alix said.

“Where's Vliet?” Roger asked.

“Aunt Caroline's,” Em replied with more frost.

“Alix was in Hawaii,” he said. The truth being in part a lie, stumbled out.

Em's fingers plucked at her skirt seam. “Roger, your father wants to talk to you.”

“Now?”

“I'm sure Alix will excuse you for a moment,” Em said and hurried back to the kitchen.

Roger went out to the patio. Midafternoon sun hit full, a hazy, reddish light. He sat on the edge of the barbecue bench, looking at his distorted reflections in his father's dark glasses.

“Your mother.” Sheridan said without preamble, “doesn't want Alix here.”

“Sir?”

“I think you heard me.”

“It's more a matter of understanding.”

Sheridan's jaw tightened. The resemblance between father and son increased. “You know your mother, Roger. Her line of reasoning should be apparent.”

“Mother likes Alix. Vliet's had her over several times.”

“She's what we used to call a real tomato.”

Roger stood.

“All right,” Sheridan said. “You're too old for me to tell you what to do.”

“But why doesn't Mother want Alix here?”

“Roger, you've never been stupid. Don't start now.”

“Dad?”

“You want it spelled out? On the simplest level, then. Your mother believes that for the past six days and nights you've been with Vliet's girl.” His tone questioned.

The muscles below Roger's eyes grew taut.

“Well, if you boys want to share, that's your business. But your mother is old-fashioned.” Sheridan paused. “Around the house I'm old-fashioned, too. Take her anyplace you want. Just not here. Not with us.”

Hypocrite, Roger thought.

“Your mother's upset. I've never seen her so upset. And I don't need to remind you how you go to college.”

The trusts. “No, you don't,” Roger said, adding, “sir.”

“Roger.” Sheridan took off his dark glasses. “This hasn't been much fun for me, telling you. I—well, I feel close to you, son. I'm proud of you. You understand?”

“I understand,” Roger said. His mouth tasted like salt.

As he opened the mothball-hung front closet, he found himself remembering a dim time when he'd had an attack of enuresis and his mother had rubbed his nose in the sheet: for the same crime she hadn't punished Vliet. Another time his father had taken off his belt to punish him for borrowing Vliet's bike without permission. A rush of other memories, all on a single theme. They always loved him, never me. I'm jealous, Roger thought. Stupidly, childishly jealous. At the same time, he felt unlovable, unworthy. He lifted Alix's suitcase.

They drove a few blocks in silence.

“Roger.” Alix tilted her head at him. “What's the medical term for being hooked? I mean, I don't think I can go another minute without a McDonald's burger. That wondrous machine-shred lettuce, the limp pickle, the sesame-seed bun.”

Without replying, he headed for the nearest McDonald's.

She doodled with her malt straw on the cement table, not eating, talking lightly of the demographic impossibility of the billions of hamburgers that a sign proclaimed the franchise had sold. Roger hadn't bought himself anything. He felt as if he were choking. He kept seeing his mother's face. Under the powder it had been slack-muscled, as if a malignant melanoma were eating her. He, Roger, had caused the melanoma by taking Vliet's girl. At the hospital he'd seen people dying of cancer. Oh hell, he thought, crushing a napkin to wipe Alix's doodling, probably she just missed her prelunch pick-me-up.

“She drinks,” he said.

“Who?”

“Mother.”

“We each have our little crutch. Mine happens to be these hamburgers. Roger, get me another?”

“You barely started that one.”

“It's cold,” she said, pushing it away.

“They were so damn negative.”

“They wanted to finish lunch, that's all.”

“How was Mother with you before?”

“I never interrupted her lunch,” Alix said lightly. “And I'm dying for a hot burger.”

“I want to know.”

“She's always a nice lady. Stop making something, Roger. I really would love another. Humor me?”

Silent, he went to the order window. He handed her the hamburger.

“We need to talk,” he said, sitting opposite her.

“I have been. Incessantly.” She unwrapped the greaseproof paper and smiled. “Nice and warm. Thank you.”

He knew she had far more problems dealing with rejection than he did. But for once couldn't she at least help him try to cope with these infantile regressions? Deal with his jealousies of, and fears that he was forever separated from, his brother? Did she have to smile a smile that was impenetrable as bulletproof glass? He needed to get through to her, he needed to in the worst way. She smiled again, nibbling. “Delicious,” she said, and began to talk about the franchising of hamburgers. Roger considered what pain he would need to inflict to force her to emerge from this smiling banter. What cruelty? What would wound her most? He despised what was going on in his brain, yet he clutched the idea with bulldog tenacity. He knew—Hadn't she herself exposed her weakest point to him? He watched his mind fight the ultimate misogyny.

She deposited the hamburger, gnawed slightly, in the waste-basket. “Doctor, you just saved a life. Thank you.”

“Anything's better than this,” he mumbled.

He sped along Los Feliz Boulevard until he spotted a motel: $5.50
WITH TV AND COFFEE
. He swerved, tires skidding. She waited in the car while he paid.

“Jar their teeth, why don't you?” she said. “Bring up the suitcase.”

“Humor me. Shut up, why don't you?” He spoke viciously, but his mind was numb.

Without a word she climbed cement steps.

No attorney could ask for a more clear-cut case of rape.

Streetlights came on as they pulled into the circular drive. She was staring ahead with that slightly glazed smile. Her expression hadn't changed since they left the motel. He was getting more and more terrified, Each time he'd started an apology he'd been halted by that smile. “Alix,” he said, this time intent on carrying through. But Sam burst out of the house. He wore faded blue sleepers that were twisted, fastened on the wrong snaps.

“Alix!” he yelled.

“Fat Sam!” she yelled back, jumping out of the car to lift her little brother. Beverly appeared. And Alix, still holding Sam, retold the Hawaii fiction, and Beverly murmured how kind it was of Roger to meet Alix, very kind. He wondered how emotional he'd come across in last week's phone call.

“Stay for dinner,” Beverly invited.

Roger looked at Alix. She was busy refastening snaps on a wiggling small boy.

“There's plenty,” Beverly said. “We'll have a welcome-home party.”

“For me? How lovely.” Alix kissed her mother.

“Thank you, Mrs. Grossblatt,” Roger said, and lugged in suitcases, one from Arrowhead, the blue one with the Pan Am sticker. “Where do these go?”

“The service porch.” Alix nodded to the left, not looking at him. She hadn't looked at him since they'd left the motel. “Fat Sam,” she said, “gotcha a nothing.” In Laguna she'd browsed for hours for the right book, a Dr. Seuss. She and Sam disappeared.

Beverly and Roger were alone, drinking Scotch, when Dan's key unlocked the front door. Beverly explained that Roger had met Alix at the airport, and Dan gave Roger a glance, inquiring, “A few days early, isn't she?” and went into another part of the house. Roger heard Alix's faraway laughter before a door shut. Beverly said did Roger mind, but she had to finish up in the kitchen. Roger was left alone with his acute anxieties. Dan returned, switching on Walter Cronkite. The “Seven O'Clock News” seemed to last forever.

Alix emerged. “Dinner,” she announced.

“Roger,” Dan asked as he sat at the head of the table, “why were you the one to meet Alix? Why did you drive her down from Arrowhead?”

“He was available,” Alix replied.

Dan examined her. A stocky, graying man, his face heavily lined with concern.

A Mexican maid brought food to the table. Alix, Roger could tell, had made the salad. Cold and crisp, raw mushrooms, red pepper, and thin-sliced apple with romaine, light oil-and-vinegar dressing. The rest of the meal was imperfect, and he attributed it, correctly, to Beverly.

“Dan,” Alix said, “aren't you going to ask me how was Hawaii?”

Dan forked a slab of overdone rib roast. “How was it?”

“Fabulous.”

“Weather good?” Dan asked.

“Rained.”

“All the time?”

“That I was there. Mother, why don't you put it in later?”

“I never can figure how long when it's frozen.”

“All the time it rained?” Dan.

“For my entire visit.”

Dan set down his knife and fork. “So what did you do?”

Alix smiled.
When I'm shook I hassle him
, she had told Roger.
I can't help it, I don't want to, but egging him on's a conditioned reflex
. From the way Dan's neck turned red, he didn't need much egging. High blood pressure, Roger diagnosed.

“What's that supposed to mean?” Dan.

“Oh, you can have fun when it rains.”

Dan propped his chin on his hand, gazing at her. His rolled shirt cuff fell back to expose heavy-veined forearms. “I'm not sure I've got this. If you had such fun, why did you leave early? How long were you there?”

“Two hours.”

“Perfect short vacation.” A roughness, a faint New York hectoring, had moved into Dan's concern. “And the rest of the time?”

“Laguna.”

“Alone?”

“Should I've been?”

“If we're talking about the same thing, yes.”

“Well, well, well.”

Dan turned on Roger. “Where've you been the last six days?”

“Laguna,” Alix said.

“I thought it was your brother,” Dan said, softly, dangerously.

“It was,” Alix said. “Past tense.”

“Roger seems like a bright boy. Why not let him do his own talking.” To Roger. “Laguna, how was it?”

“Dan! Please,” Beverly said.

Dan turned to his wife. “I should think you'd be interested when your daughter and her friends tell you what they're doing.”

Beverly cut her meat. Her hand shook.

“Leave Mother out of it,” Alix said, sharp.

“It was the best six days of my life,” Roger said quietly.

“
Mazeltov,
” Dan said.

Alix said, “
Mazeltov
means—”

“I know what it means,” Roger said. “Alix, I'm the one you've got it in for, not Dan. So knock it off.”

Startled, she looked at him. Her eyes seemed to grow larger, more luminous, and he felt his lips move. Then she blinked. Took a sharp breath. And he knew that by revealing her complicated neural patterns, he had pushed her too far. He had pressed the final jolt in her day of electroshock.

“But Dan's so interested. And so quaint. In his day, nice Jewish girls didn't do that sort of thing, not until after they were married.”

“Alix,” Roger said, trying to stop her.

“See, Roger, that's what made everything okay. The marriage ceremony. After that you could do it. With whoever.”

Beverly turned crimson. Dan's face seemed to swell.

Alix was on her feet. “Mother, I'm so very sorry. Please, I didn't mean that.” Briefly she rested her cheek on her mother's head. A moment of glossy black hair spilling onto light brown. “It's a fine roast beef, a fine welcome-home party. Mother, listen, I'm not going back to Pomona. I'm going to Baltimore. And I have to go to the toilet. Mother, excuse me. Dan, I'm sorry.”

As she left the room, Roger's shoulders quivered with an involuntary spasm. Relief. It's on, he thought, I don't know how, but it's still on. He relaxed against the leather of his chair.

“Baltimore?” Dan turned. “You go to Johns Hopkins the same as your brother?”

“Yes, sir.”

Above broad cheekbones, Dan's eyes glittered like blanched almonds. “Again,
mazeltov.
”

Roger, weak with his reprieve, couldn't be angry. “Would you like some answers, sir?”

“What the hell do you think I want?”

“All right.” Roger's forehead creased soberly. “I've liked her always. And she me. But she's a little too spectacular. And I'm very stupid. And by then she was Vliet's girl, so I sort of avoided it. Last week she somehow forgot her brother's birthday.”

“It was very dear of her, coming down,” Beverly said. “Roger, you don't have to tell us this.”

“I want to, Mrs. Grossblatt. I hate all the sneaking around. But we thought it was best, covering up. It's not possible, though. Anyway, she misses him, Jamie. I don't think you understand how much. And forgetting the day restimulated all the hurt. She started to cry.”

“Alix?” Beverly asked.

Roger felt his eyelid twitch. “It made how we felt unavoidable. I mean, her being so shook. But before, uhh, we got anything going, she wanted to tell Vliet. It was rough on her. She panicked. She did go to Hawaii. As soon as she got there, she called me. I met her at the airport and asked her to come to Laguna with me. It was—I told you. The best six days of my life. Then today.” Roger sighed. “I'm the one who should be transferring. It would've been easiest. But Alix is a very giving person. Even if it does embarrass her, she is. She decided to come East. And today, today.” He sighed again. “Her father said he wouldn't pay for any college near Baltimore. My parents weren't exactly cordial to her. And then I—Oh Jesus.” Briefly he closed his eyes. “Mrs. Grossblatt, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have told you this, should I?”