The Fine Art of Truth or Dare (20 page)

“You can count on me to always
be
here,” said the metal head in the postcard. “Beyond that . . . I'm not going to offer you much.”

“Yeah,” I said sadly. “I know that, too.”

24

THE COMMUNICATION

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: November 17, 9:57 p.m.

Subject: Sorry

Can't do French tomorrow.

—Alex

 

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: November 18, 7:12 a.m.

Subject: Fine

Okay.

 

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: November 21, 4:41 p.m.

Subject: Re: Fine

Ella,

Not fine, actually. Well, doing better now, but I spent a seriously hairy two days . . . let's just say “ill.” My mother is convinced it was the tuna sandwich I had for dinner Thursday. Personally, I think it was just the bug that's been doing the rounds at school, but I'm not telling her that. Guilt for being an absentee parent had her on the phone with Svichkar's. Now I'm getting a different, three-course Ukrainian meal delivered every night. Chicken Kiev is not what the school kitchen thinks it is.

 

Anyway, I'm really sorry about Friday. I guess I'll see you after Thanksgiving. We're leaving tomorrow for the week. Going to Martha's Vineyard with another political family. Lots of talking turkey.

—Alex

 

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: November 21, 8:25 p.m.

Subject: Now I'm Sorry

Alex,

I feel badly.

 

You probably feel worse.

 

My grandmother thinks canned tuna is a disaster waiting to happen. She used to stand in the door of the fridge and make protective hand symbols over my mom's leftover tuna casserole. We don't keep Starkist in the house anymore.

 

Have a great TG.

—Ella

 

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: November 22, 12:05a.m.

Subject: Here's one for you

Knock knock.

 

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: November 22, 10:34 a.m.

Subject: Um . . .

Who's there?

 

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: November 22, 10:56 a.m.

Subject: Re: Um . . .

Tuna.

 

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: November 22, 10:34 a.m.

Subject: Re: Re: Um . . .

Tuna who?

 

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: November 22, 9:02 p.m.

Subject: Re: Re: Re: Um . . .

Tuna down ya radio. I'm'a tryin' to sleep here!

 

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: November 22, 11:32 p.m.

Subject: Sigh.

Okay. Since we're on the subject . . .

Q. What is the Tsar of Russia's favorite fish?

A. Tsardines, of course.

Q. What does the son of a Ukrainian newscaster and a U.S. congressman eat for Thanksgiving dinner on an island off the coast of Massachusetts?

A.?

—Ella

 

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: November 23, 9:59 a.m.

Subject: TG

A. Republicans.

Nah. I'm sure we'll have all the traditional stuff: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes. I'm hoping for apple pie. Our hosts have a cook who takes requests, but the island is kinda limited as far as shopping goes. The seven of us will probably spend the morning on a boat, then have a civilized chow-down. I predict Pictionary. I will win.

You?

—Alex

 

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: November 23, 1:11 p.m.

Subject: Re: TG

Alex,

I will be having my turkey (there will be one, but it will be somewhat lost among the pumpkin fettuccine, sausage-stuffed artichokes, garlic with green beans, and at least four lasagnas, not to mention the sweet potato cannoli and chocolate ricotta pie) with at least forty members of my close family, most of whom will spend the entire meal screaming at each other. Some will actually be fighting, probably over football.

 

I am hoping to be seated with the adults. It's not a sure thing.

 

What's Martha's Vineyard like? I hear it's gorgeous. I hear it's favored by presidential types, past and present.

—Ella

 

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: November 23, 5:28 p.m.

Subject: Can I Have TG with You?

Please??? There's a 6 a.m. flight off the island. I can be back in Philadelphia by noon. I've never had Thanksgiving with more than four or five other people. Only child of two only children. My grandmother usually hosts dinner at the Hunt Club. She doesn't like turkey. Last year we had Scottish salmon. I like salmon, but . . .

 

The Vineyard is pretty great. The house we're staying in is in Chilmark, which, if you weren't so woefully ignorant of defunct television, is the birthplace of Fox Mulder. I can see the Menemsha fishing fleet out my window. Ever heard of Menemsha Blues? I should bring you a T-shirt. Everyone has Black Dogs; I prefer a good fish on the chest.

(Q. What do you call a fish with no eyes? A. Fsh.)

 

We went out on a boat this afternoon and actually saw a humpback whale. See pics below. That fuzzy gray lump in the bumpy gray water is a fin. A photographer I am not. Apparently, they're usually gone by now, heading for the Caribbean. It's way too cold to swim, but amazing in the summer. I swear I got bumped by a sea turtle here last July 4, but no one believes me.

 

Any chance of saving me a cannoli?

—A

 

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: November 23, 8:43 p.m.

Subject: Some boat

Alex,

I know Fox Mulder. My mom watched
The X-Files
. She says it was because she liked the creepy story lines. I think she liked David Duchovny. She tried
Californication
, but I don't think her heart was in it. I think she was just sticking it to my grandmother, who has decided it's the work of the devil. She says that about most current music, too, but God help anyone who gets between her and
American Idol
.

 

The fuzzy whale was very nice, if a little hard to identify. The profile of the guy between you and the whale in the third pic was very familiar, if a little fuzzy. I won't ask. No, no. I have to ask.

 

I won't ask.

 

My mother loves his wife's suits.

 

I Googled. There are sharks off the coast of the Vineyard. Great big white ones. I believe you about the turtle. Did I mention that there are sharks there? I go to Surf City for a week every summer with my cousins. I eat too much ice cream. I play miniature golf—badly. I don't complain about sand in my hot dog buns or sheets. I even spend enough time on the beach to get sand in more uncomfortable places. I do not swim. I mean, I could if I wanted to, but I figure that if we were meant to share the water with sharks, we would have a few extra rows of teeth, too.

 

I'll save you some cannoli.

—Ella

 

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: November 24, 12:44 a.m.

Subject: Shh

.Fiorella,

Yes, Fiorella. I looked it up. It means Flower. Which, when paired with MArino, means Flower of the Sea. What shark would dare to touch you?

 

I won't touch the uncomfrotable sand mention, hard as it is to resist. I also will not think of you in a bikini (Note to self: Do not think of Ellla in a bikini under any circumstances. Note from self: Are you f-ing kidding me?).

 

Okay.

 

Two pieces of info for you. One: Our host has an excellent wine cellar and my mother is Europaen. Meaning she doesn't begrudge me the occasionsl glass. Or four.

 

Two: Our hostess says to thank yur mother very much. Most people say nasty things about her suits.

Three: We have a house kinda near Surf City. Maybe I'll be there when your there.

 

You'd better burn this after reading.

—Alexei

 

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: November 24, 8:09 p.m.

Subject: Happy Thanksgiving

Alexei,

Consider it burned. Don't worry. I'm not showing your e-mails to anybody. Matter of national security, of course.

Well, I got to sit at the adult table. In between my great-great-aunt Jo, who is ninety-three and deaf, and her daughter, JoJo, who had to repeat everyone's conversations across me. Loudly. The food was great, even my uncle Ricky's cranberry lasagna. In fact, it would have been a perfectly good TG if the Eagles hadn't been playing the Jets. My cousin Joey (other side of the family) lives in Hoboken. His sister married a Philly guy. It started out as a lively across-the-table debate: Jets v. Iggles. It ended up with Joey flinging himself across the table at his brother-in-law and my grandmother saying loud prayers to Saint Bridget. At least I think it was Saint Bridget. Hard to tell. She was speaking Italian.

She caught me trying to freeze a half-dozen cannoli. She yelled at me. Apparently, the shells get really soggy when they defrost. I guess you'll have to come have a fresh one when you get back.

—F/E

 

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: November 26

Subject: Hey.

Just thought I would check and make sure you weren't felled by a rogue turkey bacteria.

 

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: November 27

Subject:

A,

I really hope I didn't

 

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: November 27

Subject:

Alex,

25

THE MESSAGE

1.

“Ahem. I know you hate Mondays, madam, but you picked the absolutely wrong one to play hooky. Or be sick. Yes, I suppose it's vaguely possible that you are actually sick. Anyway, here we are at lunch, Sadie and I, witnessing total social disorder. Your friend Alexander Bainbridge is sitting at the usual table, but facing the room. Amanda Alstead is sitting at Table One. Or, should I say, sitting more or less on a Phillite senior boy, whose name is unimportant, at Table One. A very nice young lady at the next table over—you know, the one who writes about Mr. Darcy—has just informed us that Amanda dumped Alex over the break. On Thanksgiving Day, no less. By e-mail. No telling how much truth is there, but a lot more than a kernel, I would say. We have a large, seven-dollar bag o' movie popcorn here. Thought you'd like to know. Call me.”

 

2.

“Ella?” My dad appeared in my doorway, holding a tray with a napkin draped over the top of it. “How're you doing, hon?”

I covered my phone with a Kleenex. Not that it mattered. Against all the black designs on the quilt, it pretty much blended in. “Okay.”

“You still don't look too good.” He set the tray down on my desk. “Beautiful, but not too good. I brought you soup.”

It was minestrone, and it smelled really, really good. He and my mother hadn't suspected a thing when I'd told them I was sick. (“She barely stepped over the threshold all weekend,” Mom lamented. “It's no wonder she's looking like an empty shell.”) She left for work, trailing vague threats involving Macy's. Dad had tried to feed me. I was hungry, but figured he might catch on if I ate more than half a piece of toast. My stomach grumbled now. I was definitely feeling like an empty shell. Only part of it had to do with food.

“You wanna tell me about it, sweetheart?”

Dad was holding out a bowl and spoon, and looking at me like he used to when I ran into the restaurant kitchen, crying because I'd crashed my bike into the Grecos' front steps. Again.

“I don't think so,” I answered, taking the soup. “It's no big deal.”

“And I have a bridge to sell you.” He sighed. “How 'bout I ask questions and you can answer the ones you want?”

“Okay.” I couldn't say no, not when his face and the smell of warm tomatoes reminded me how I'd never cried for more than a minute once I got into the kitchen and to him.

“Okay.” He flipped the desk chair around to face the bed and sat, hands over his knees. There were two long, green stains on the front of his apron, one on each side where he'd rubbed basil residue off his hands. I could smell it, behind the minestrone. “School?”

“No.”

“Boy?”

“Yeah, partly.”

“Boyfriend?” His heavy eyebrows drew together at that one.

I quickly assured him, “No.”

“Ah. But you want him to be.”

“Kinda.”

“And he—blind, stupid, and probably nutty as a squirrel—doesn't feel the same way.”

I smiled a little at the paternal outrage. “No. Maybe. I don't know. That's the problem. I . . . can't trust what I think I know anymore.”

Dad didn't say anything for a few seconds, just rocked a little in his seat. Then, “You remember when you used to want me to take you to the museum every single Sunday?”

I smiled again. “You always wanted to look at the Dutch still-life paintings.”

“What can I say? I like a good plate of food.”

“I hated the ones with the dead rabbits.”

“Not my favorites, either, hon. But you really loved that room with all the kooky stuff. The bicycle wheel stuck in a stool, the urinal.”

“The Marcel Duchamp room. Wow. I haven't been in there in ages.” I took a sip of the minestrone. It was perfect.

“Yeah, and that really famous painting. You know, the one you used to stand in front of for the longest time.”

“Nude Descending a Staircase.”

“That's the one. I never saw it, the nude. Or the staircase, either. I saw a bunch of brown shapes in a row. But you . . . You looked and looked, every time we were there, and made me read the title out loud. Then, one day, you grabbed my hand. I dunno, you were maybe six. Like this—'” He placed his own palm flat in the air at waist level. “Tiny, but man, you had a grip on you. ‘I see it, Daddy! I see the nude depending on the stairs!” He grinned. “Took you another few months to learn that
nude
didn't mean every person in a painting. You shocked the girdles off some old gals in the portrait rooms. God, you were a fantastic little thing.”

I'd almost finished the soup. I still felt pretty hollow, but I was a lot warmer.

“Anyway, here's the point . . .” He reached up and tugged at one earlobe. His fingertips were purple. Pesto and beets on the menu, I guessed. “I had a point . . . Oh, right. You, my fantastic little shrimp, knew what was in front of you. Maybe it wasn't obvious, but you hung in there until it all got clear in your mind and in front of your eyes.”

He slapped both knees and stood up. “That was my point. But what do I know about it? I like pictures of peaches that look like peaches.” He took the bowl and spoon from me. “Okay?”

“Um . . .”

“I don't mean the soup, hon.”

“I know.”

“So.” He picked up the tray and headed for the door. “You digest.”

“You don't mean the soup.”

“See? You know what you think you know.”

He left chocolate biscotti for my dessert.

I heard the beep of the answering machine in the kitchen. Nonna always turns the volume down (“Like the voices of the dead, that awful box!”). Considering the fact that she is the only one who spends any real time in the house kitchen, messages can wait a long time to be answered.

“Ella,” Dad called up to me. “Some boy named Alex left a message. You want I should erase it . . . ?”

My phone thudded to the floor when I got tangled in the quilt trying to get of bed headfirst.

 

3.

“Ella, um, it's Alex. I hope this is the right number. I had to get it from a really old phone book. I would have gotten your cell number from Sadie Winslow, but . . . well, every time I got near her today, Frankie Hobbes showed his teeth. He's a little scary for such a skinny guy . . . Anyway. You weren't in English today. You weren't anywhere that I could see today. Um . . . call me. I was thinking I could come over . . .”