Читать книгу Domestic Arrangements - Norma Klein - Страница 11

Chapter Two

Deel got home around six. “Shit,” she said.

“What?”

“I hate math! I hate it. I hate it so much I wish I knew the person who invented it and I’d go out and kill him.” Deel’s glasses were fogged over. She has dark frizzy hair and a big nose, like Daddy, and when she’s mad, she gets this really fierce expression that used to scare me when I was little.

“Gee.” It’s funny. I really kind of like math. I mean, I wouldn’t want to be a mathematician or anything like that, but I like math. “Isn’t he helping any?”

“Dodson? Not really . . . we never do any math. He just tells me stories.”

“But what’ll you do? What if you fail again?”

Deel shrugged. “Where’s Mom?”

“Out having a drink with Simon.”

“So, did Daddy shoot anyone yet?”

I sighed. “Mom said he was going to call Joshua’s father from the office.” I started biting my nails, something I made myself stop doing six months ago.

“God, Rust, you are dumb! How come you let him stay so late?”

“We fell asleep.”

“So, what happened? What were you doing in the bathroom?”

“Just kind of fooling around.”

Deel looked at me suspiciously. “At three in the morning?”

“I remembered I hadn’t washed my hair so . . .”

Deel sniffed; she has a cold. “What happened with Daddy, though?”

“He began hammering on the door.”

“While you were washing your hair?”

I felt sheepish. “No, we’d finished with my hair.”

“What do you mean we?”

“Well, Joshua said he’d help me.”

Deel’s eyes widened. “Oh, wow! You mean you were—”

“Yeah.”

She whistled. “And Daddy—You were, like, doing it, when—”

“Yeah.”

“Oh boy, you have got problems.”

“It was dumb,” I agreed.

I feel kind of funny talking about sex with Deel, just for this reason: she’s never fucked with anyone, even though she’s a year and a half older than me. It isn’t on moral grounds or anything. It’s just no one has asked her. She says if no one does by February, when she’s sixteen, she’s just going to go out and find someone, in cold blood, sort of, and do it to get it over with. I guess she feels a little humiliated that I did it first. Deel has this theory, though, that younger sisters usually do things first in terms of marriage and sex. She says older sisters tend to do better academically and become doctors and lawyers. The trouble is, I do pretty well in school and it’s Deel who’s failing Math. It seems like all our lives people have said to Deel, “Well, are you still reading a mile a minute?” and to me, “Look at that hair! Look at those eyes! Aren’t you as cute as a button?”

By the way, the reason we have such weird names is Daddy. He used to teach at the Yale Drama School—that’s were he met Mom, who was in his class—and he wanted to name us after literary heroines. Deel’s real name is Cordelia after someone in a play by Shakespeare called King Lear. It’s worse for her because she hates “Cordy” and doesn’t much like “Deel,” but she doesn’t want people to go around calling her “Cordelia” either. She says at school her teachers always call her “Deelyer” which she hates most of all. I’m named after this person in a Russian opera, Eugene Onegin. It’s about this girl who falls in love with somebody who doesn’t love her back, but then she gets married to somebody else and he changes his mind, only then it’s too late. My friends call me Rusty because of my hair so that’s not such a problem. Mom calls me Tat or Tati, but Daddy likes to call me Tatiana if he’s feeling affectionate. He likes graceful, romantic names for women.

“Listen, Deel?” I followed her into her room.

“What?” Deel was sneezing and changing into another sweatshirt.

“Mom was saying—well, you know Daddy’ll be fifty next month? And she’s giving him a surprise party and she thought we might, like, do something special for it, like bake something?”

“Sure,” Deel said.

“Do you want to do the Dobos Torte?”

“Yeah, that’s yummy.”

Deel and I make regular things like brownies and pound cake, but our specialty is Dobos Torte. It’s this wonderful chocolate cake with around eight layers. It takes a long, long time to make, but it always tastes wonderful.

“Mom says Daddy’s feeling sad and we should try to cheer him up.”

“It’s like in Passages,” Deel said. She’s reading that just for pleasure. Deel does a lot of reading, not for school, just because she feels like it. Passages is this book that tells about all the problems adults have. It sounds like a kind of depressing book. “He’s a classic case.”

“Yeah?”

“I’ll read it to you later. I think—” Just then the door opened. We looked at each other.

“Daddy?” Deel called out.

“Hi,” Daddy called from the hall. He came down with his coat still on. “Where’s Amanda?”

“She’s having a drink with Simon,” I said. “She said she’d be back at six thirty.”

“It is six thirty,” Daddy said. He likes things to happen when they’re supposed to.

“Maybe I’ll set the table,” I said, scurrying in there.

Daddy followed me. “Well, I called Mr. Lasker,” he said. “We’re having a drink with him and his wife at nine.”

“Tonight?”

“Yes.”

I put the silverware out. Daddy stood there, watching me. “He said he appreciated my concern,” he said dryly.

I folded the napkins. I didn’t know what to say.

“Tat, there are two issues here.”

“Uh huh?”

“One is the simple matter of rules. Now, you know, we are very, very, I would even say inordinately, flexible about rules. So the few we have are just set up for your benefit. Having a curfew of eleven on a night before school is hardly Draconian by any standards, even the most liberal.”

“We fell asleep,” I said, looking at him pleadingly.

“Yes,” he said. He kept staring at me. “There is another issue, however, which is . . . Well!” He cleared his throat. “You see, darling, sex is a very complicated thing. It’s . . . it’s a very intimate, important, thrilling thing that can happen between two people.”

“Uh huh?”

“It’s . . . well, it’s an expression of feeling, it changes a relationship . . . It’s not something you rush into.”

“But we didn’t,” I said.

He stopped and sighed. “The point I’m getting at is this . . . you’re just fourteen, darling. You have all of life ahead of you. If you experience everything now, before you’re ready, what will be left?”

“I’m not exactly sure what you mean,” I said. I looked at him, frowning.

“I mean that I doubt you and Joshua are ready for this kind of intimacy. Did he pressure you in some way and make you feel—”

I shook my head. “No. Really, Daddy. Not at all.”

“He didn’t make you feel that unless you did it, he’d be angry or wouldn’t see you again?”

“No . . . really, we’re just doing it because we want to.”

“Doing it?” Daddy looked startled.

Suddenly I wondered if we were talking about the same thing. “What we were doing last night when—”

“You’ve done it before?” He looked horrified.

“Well . . . yeah.”

“How many times?”

I giggled, mainly from nervousness. “I don’t know. I haven’t been keeping track.”

Daddy still had that horrified expression. “But, I mean, for how long? When did this start?”

“In June.”

“June? That’s four months ago!”

I nodded.

“You’ve been doing it for four months?”

“Yeah.”

He seemed at a loss for words. “Who knew about this? Did Delia know? Did Amanda know?”

“I guess I thought everyone knew,” I said sheepishly. Actually, I hadn’t been sure, but I’d sort of assumed it.

“How old is Joshua?” Daddy said sternly.

“Well, he’ll be sixteen at the end of October . . . His birthday is the same week as yours, Daddy. He’s a Scorpio too.”

“And, I mean, has he had many . . .” he waved his hands “. . . amorous involvements?”

“You mean with girls?”

“He’s done it with boys, too?”

“No, I just wasn’t sure what you meant.”

“Does he go around fucking every pretty girl he can lay his hands on or what?”

“No!” What an awful thing to say! “Joshua’s not like that, Daddy. Really. We’re in love with each other.”

“Love?” Daddy looked dismayed.

I looked at him, puzzled. “Well, didn’t you think we were? That’s why we do it, because we love each other.”

“Darling.” He heaved a huge sigh.

“What, Daddy?”

“You’re fourteen years old.”

“I know that, Daddy.”

“Love and sex—You should be out flying kites, going to parties, having fun.”

“I am having fun.”

“This is your childhood. You’ll never have it again. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.”

“Daddy, fourteen isn’t childhood.”

“Well, it’s too young for screwing around!” He looked angry.

I felt like I was going to cry. “It’s not screwing around.”

“That boy’s parents should be taken to jail. ‘Our son knows what he’s doing.’ Bullshit!” His face was getting red.

Just then the door opened and Mom came in. Her cheeks were all pink—she has very light skin. She looked pretty. “Oh, hi, darling. Sorry, I’m a little late. Thanks, Tat, for setting the table.” She threw her coat on the front-hall table. “Oh God, wait till I tell you what Simon said about the show.”

“Simon said,” Daddy said grimly.

“The chicken’ll only take a sec,” Mom said placatingly. “It just has to be warmed up. Go call Deel, will you, hon?”

As we sat down, Mom said, “Listen, you’re not going to believe this but—”

“I gather no one here is interested in what happened with the Laskers,” Daddy said, interrupting her.

“The who’s?” Mom said, ripping off a chunk of bread. Mom is like me. She can eat everything in sight and never get fat.

“The Laskers?” Daddy said patiently. “Joshua’s parents?”

“Oh, right,” Mom said. “Yeah, what happened?”

“We’re meeting them for a drink at nine.”

“Oh great,” Mom said cheerfully. “I’ve always wanted to meet them. Isn’t he a lawyer or some such thing?”

“Correct,” Daddy said. “He—”

“What does she do, Tat?” Mom said. Mom is always more interested in what mothers do.

“Something with charities,” I said, cutting my chicken. Mom had put wine in it and mushrooms, which I don’t like. I began heaping them neatly to one side of my plate.

“Ugh,” Mom said.

“Ugh?” said Daddy.

“I just hate people who do things with charities.”

“Well, that’s a nice charitable attitude to have,” Daddy said dryly.

“Oh, you know what I mean, sweetie. All those ghastly people who lord it over you, doing good.”

“Would you like them if they were doing bad?” Daddy said, pouring himself a second glass of wine.

“I think so,” Mom said. “I mean, doing good is so dreary. At least doing bad is inventive.”

“She’s his second wife,” I said.

“Who?” said Mom.

“Joshua’s mother.”

“Okay,” Mom said. “I can’t very well inveigh against second wives, being one myself.”

“He divorced her,” I said. “I mean, he got her a divorce, and then he got himself one and then they got married.”

“And from which union did Joshua spring?” Daddy asked.

“She didn’t have any kids from the first one. I think he had, like, a few, one or two or something.”

“One tends to lose count,” Daddy said.

“They’re grown up,” I said. “In college or even out of college. They have regular jobs and stuff like that.”

“Now can I tell about the show?” Mom said.

“Yeah, what’s happening?” Deel said.

“So, we’re just going to drop the Laskers and the whole topic?” Daddy said. “Is that the idea? Everything’s said that can be?”

Mom looked at him, her head to one side. “Sweetie.”

“Sweetie what?” Daddy said.

“Well, I mean, do we have to brood about this all evening? We’re going to meet them, we’ll hash it all out. Why rant on endlessly?”

“Was that what I was doing?” Daddy said. “Ranting on? Pardon me.”

“Do you have anything more to say?” Mom said. “Say it, then.”

“Well, I don’t want to interrupt some fascinating tidbit about your show,” Daddy said.

Mom looked furious. She hates it when Daddy says condescending things about her show. She says just because he taught Chekhov and Shakespeare doesn’t mean he has the right to look down his nose at her for taking work where she can get it. “Oh, fuck off, Lionel. Really!”

“I just want to know one thing,” Daddy said. “I gather that Tatiana’s involvement with this charming, well-connected young man has been common knowledge to everyone present . . . with the possible irrelevant exception of myself.”

“Common knowledge?” Mom said.

“They’ve been fucking around for four months and no one has said a word about it!”

“We haven’t been fucking around, Daddy,” I said, hurt.

“These two young people have had carnal knowledge of each other since last spring,” Daddy said. “Is that correct, Tatiana?”

“Lionel, Jesus!” Mom said.

“No, I’m just mildly puzzled that this state of affairs has been considered so trifling that no one thought to bring it to my attention.”

“Some of us like to mind our own business,” Mom said, pushing her plate aside.

“Oh?” Daddy said. “Well, no doubt there are other events of a similar nature about which I am likewise in the dark. What have you been up to, Delia? How many lovers do you have on the side? Your mathematics tutor? The doorman?”

Delia grinned. “Right, Daddy . . . I like older men.”

“Lionel, don’t you remember what it was like to be in love?” Mom said.

“Love?”

“Yes, love . . . remember? That’s what this is all about.”

“It is, is it?” Daddy said.

“Yes, it is, is it,” Mom said. “And will you stop that dreadful ironic tone about everything. You’re throwing a pall on our whole evening.”

Daddy threw his hands up. “Which, of course, is the ultimate sin.”

“What’s happening with your show, Mom?” Delia said in a friendly way. She hates it when Mom and Daddy fight.

“Can I tell about it?” Mom said, casting a wry glance at Daddy. “Am I given permission?”

“Yeah, what’s happening?” I said. I didn’t want to keep talking about Joshua.

“Well, you’ll never believe this . . . but I may go back to it.”

“How? You died,” Delia said.

“Here’s what they’re thinking of. It’s still in the planning stage, so far. Poor Dwight has to go back to the hospital.”

Dwight is Dr. Morrison, the man Myra (Mom) loves.

“His kidneys again?” Daddy said. I could tell he was trying to act nice to get back on Mom’s good side.

“Yeah, they’re acting up, something . . . Anyway, while he’s there, he thinks he sees me.”

“Only they think he’s hallucinating,” Daddy said. He began to mix the salad.

“Right . . . only he’s not. Because there’s a new nurse—that’ll be me—who looks exactly like me, only has different hair, I’d wear a wig or something.”

“Is she you?” Delia asked.

Mom shook her head. “My twin sister.”

“I didn’t know you had one,” I said.

“Neither did I,” Mom said. “Neither did anyone! The reason is, we were separated at birth and each adopted by another family, and neither of us knew we were twins. But Dwight sees the resemblance, and one day he notices a birthmark I evidently had on my thigh.”

“How does he get a look at your thigh?” Daddy said. “I thought you were in the hospital.”

“I’m wearing a short skirt,” Mom said breezily. “Who knows?”

“And Myra had the same birthmark?” Daddy said.

“Right,” Mom said.

“Well, that’s exciting, darling,” Daddy said. “When do you hear definitely?”

Mom gave him a fishy glance. “Do you really think it’s exciting?”

“Of course I do.” Mom always says Daddy is supportive of her career; one, because she makes money and they do things like take trips and, two, because it makes her happy to work and if she’s not happy she gets in a rotten mood.

Daddy got up and went over and gave Mom a hug. I think they do love each other, even though they yell at each other a lot. Deel says love and hate are closely connected. I guess that’s so, but I don’t think I hate Joshua. Not yet. Right now I just love him.