Ivyland (10 page)

AIDAN /// IVYLAND, NEW JERSEY

Opening the fridge door, I see Henri's economy-size box of popsicles has found its way onto my side, crowded over by soggy Fong Friday's containers. Sorry, but isn't it common knowledge that frozen things go in the freezer? The purple puddle collecting at the bottom of the crisper says no.

A note on the counter reads:

 

Think I clogged the sink.

It doesn't have a garbage disposal, does it?

Sorry again about last night, must not be sleeping enough.

xoxoxoxo,

H

 

Has to be more than nocturnal habits: what coincided with our accident was an unmistakable fit. But I don't wander to the topic of his health these days, no matter how plainly it fails him.

As for the garbage-disposal query: a thousand times no. I reach into the drain, grasping a handful of ominous mush. There's nothing to account for Henri's ignorance here—he practically grew up in this house. Inherited, along with money, from his grandfather, who subjected it to a barrage of amateur carpentries that give each room its funhouse angles. Yet Henri somehow lacks a muscle memory of that wonky raised step as you exit the sunken living room, or the dimmest idea of where one might find the fuse box (don't think I haven't shown him). I'm grateful for a bed and roof, but if I weren't around, it's doubtful this stack of rotted shingles would still be standing.

A postscript to his note, scrawled hastily:

 

P.S. Do you have that dictionary of trucker lingo or know where it is??

 

Just what I need: the CB radio version of Henri, except instead of chatting up actual truckers, he's pestering me, and after every bit of jargon he asks, flush with undue enthusiasm, “Know what that one means?” I eat a stale bagel over the sink, making a mental note to hide that dictionary as soon as I get home. Beneath Henri's memo, I scratch:

 

No, no and no-er. Call tree guy. Get life.

 

I run up to his room and knock on the door. No response. Inside, the place is stuffed with boxes from an online pet store. Tremble to think what that's about. Then I recall that Henri started sleeping in the third floor bedroom a couple days back.

“Henri,” I'd said, “why could you possibly be moving to a smaller, hotter room up another flight stairs?”

“Because,” he began. Then he tripped coming out of the living room. “I always forget that's there,” he explained.

I take the rest of the stairs up, stepping carefully on the groaning wood. This has got to be the only house I can think of with such an impractical staircase: narrow, spiral, smack in the middle of everything. I knock on his door, and Henri grunts on the other side.

“What's up,” I say. “You doing okay?”

“Thinking about … religion.”

“Don't waste your time. Maybe you could stop by the Second Chance office and look for non-philosophical employment instead.”

“I think you have to have
had
a job and lost it to qualify?”

“Call about the tree, then. You'll have roughly all day to get it done. Left you a note in case you forget. Bye, champ.”

I head back down, stopping off to grab my crumpled tux. Reception last night was abysmal. Father of the bride paid for two extra hours of party, and Phoebe kept dropping shrimp into my pockets.

I gulp water in the kitchen and open the dishwasher. Someone's put dirty dishes in with the clean. I throw the cup in the sink instead. Turning to leave, I whack my head on the open cupboard door and ask why. Two peeled ceilings overhead, Henri shouts curtly. Probably wants me to pick up junk food on the way home. I think he'll live.

*

I expected the few usual nuts and Anastasio, but their enthusiasm must be spreading after all: some thirty people are milling about, a few out in the street, admiring the Virgin. An alarming pair of camping tents is set up on the lawn. An approaching car does a sustained honk, the unshaven driver coasting easily into rage.

“Fucking Christ-lickers!” he screams through an open window before swerving around the crowd and squealing off, his license plate dangling by a screw.

I pick out Anastasio immediately, talking with a few other guys it seems he might be related to. Or I'm just racist like that. He sees me too, and we converge at a spot in the middle of the crowd.

“Good morning,” he beams, much bubblier today.

“What is this?”

“What is what?”

“This … this!” I gesture at the tents, like:
what else?
Anastasio opens his mouth with honest surprise.

“I've contacted a few friends in the state about making pilgrimages to our miracle here.”

“Are you kidding? This is nothing, a fluke, a dumb …” I'd been expecting something more convincing, or at least coherent, to come out. Anastasio folds his arms. He's about five foot six but can look shockingly regal when he wants to.

“But this can't be legal, can it?” I ask. “Our property … can't have you camping out on the front lawn.”

“I spoke with your friend Henri,” Anastasio says with a hint of indifference that confirms he has this angle covered. Nothing good could come from an interaction between these two, and I grimace accordingly, law enforcement X'd out on my list of possible allies. “He was most gracious to have us and said we must remain.”

Most of the growing clan is gathered around the tree's burnt shell. Two young girls kneel on its bulging roots, which must actually
hurt
, jet-black hair grazing their hips, lips moving silently. What harm am I thinking will come of this? I can't quite let myself relent.

“Henri said that? When?”

Anastasio shrugs, glances at a bulky digital watch. “An hour ago. He is the house's owner, yes?”

“He. He is, but I sort of … yes.” Sounding dumber by the minute.

“Marvelous,” Anastasio grins. “We would be honored if you wished to attend the service tonight. I have invited a priest from our parish.”

“I have work.” My hands fumble, searching for an unneeded gesture. Finally they fall to the side in defeat. “Yes. So. I have to get going now. Work.”

“O. Have a nice day,” Anastasio bids.

“You too,” I try to say, but vocal cords aren't vibrating, and Anastasio is gone already, to supervise the raising of a third tent, which forms a diamond with the other two tents and the tree.

*

“Phil looks like he could use another drink,” Phoebe pities from afar as she sets a table. Phil, a Chinese waiter who is by unspoken agreement always slotted to work the sushi station, is getting an earful from the bride about the wedding band setup. The rest of the family shuffles into the ballroom cautiously, avoiding her line of sight.

Mike, the curly-haired amateur magician working bar tonight, is wadding a napkin into his clenched fist, oblivious until I rap the counter with my knuckles.

“Watch this,” he demands, then opens his hand, dropping a crumpled napkin. He scowls at it.

“Yayyy,” I drone, clapping mindlessly. “Give me a cranberry juice. For the bride, so feel free to dress it up.” Across the room, she squints at a towering floral centerpiece, then begins to either rearrange or wrestle it.

“Guy doesn't know what he's in for,” Mike laments, mixing the drink.

“You married?” I ask, not actually interested.

“What do I look like,” he says, head rearing back, “a fucking gay?” He slides the fake cosmo over to me, winking. I respond with a weak thumbs-up and snatch the glass away.

*

Cocktail hour goes smoothly, discounting the elderly woman at table eleven who makes a habit of pinching my arm when I ignore her, much to Phoebe's amusement.

“Now you know how it feels,” she taunts, smiling perfectly.

“Who said I didn't like it?” I counter. I pretend to adjust her crooked bowtie, but really I'm studying her flawless face, the hazel-yellow eyes that flit nervously down when I touch her clothes.

*

In the kitchen, Roy heaps a vegetable medley on plate after plate, as he's done forever. Dewlaney, this kid whose first name no one seems to know, watches as he works, shoveling steadily.

“You notice that's always his job,” Dewlaney says in a low voice, smirking. “Check out that pimp chain.” A plain gold necklace swings from Roy's neck, the cross cutting with glare through wisps of steam.

“Heh,” I shrug, “what a player.”

“Yo, Phoebe,” Dewlaney shouts into the humidity. When Phoebe, on her way back out, turns around, he taps his lips with a middle and index finger.

“Not now,” Phoebe yells back, pushing through the door.

“Fuck her, anyway,” Dewlaney says. “Coming to Heat-22 tonight, Kilham? Those strippers take all my money, but it's worth it. Whole frat's going.”

“Shit. Can't tonight.”

“Yeah, you've got somewhere better to be,” Dewlaney prods, placing metal covers over his dinners. On the other side of the counter, Donald narrows his eyes at us, peeved about whatever makes him so constantly peeved. “Your loss,” Dewlaney relents. We take up our trays again and leave the kitchen together.

“Thanks,” Phoebe sighs when I reach our station, “Pinchy Grandma was about to
bite
me.”

*

A break finally comes following an argument over the phrase “medium rare.” The bride, for her part, torpedoed that whole debate by amending her husband's steak order of “rare” to “well done.” I listened to the toast: this guy was in the
Marines
. He has an unconvincing glass eye and is very friendly with the maid of honor.

“Cigarette?”

“But I thought … Dewlaney, he said about the, uh.”

“You don't really think I'd waste my break on him,” Phoebe says, and wrinkles all her features together irresistibly. The sentence carries implications I may have invented.

Over the past year, though it doesn't immobilize like it used to, I'd been caught off guard now and then by her loveliness, and paranoid that she used it against me. Can't stop the infatuation creeping back sometimes. I barely even fight it now.

In the cool dusk of the parking lot, she holds out a pack of cigarettes, making me choose. I snatch one quickly, obscuring its origins. She pushes her already-lit tobacco to mine. The metal door punches open, and Phil drags himself from the outer fringe of misery into the night, retrieving his flask from a jacket pocket.

“Time for a drink,” Phoebe says, making him start. He steadies himself and politely agrees.

“Oh, a drink, but yes, good night for a drink, drinking, drink …” he singsongs, moseying away from the spot Phoebe and the other smokers seem to prefer, his cadences following him into the buggy night.

“Where does he even buy his booze?” Phoebe wonders.

“Hope he makes it back,” I say. A rogue wave of nauseous guilt crashes over me, formless, disconnected from Phil or Phoebe or work. “That marriage is destined for greatness,” I add, waving limply in the direction of the party.

“Honestly,” she says, blowing rings, “did you see how he wouldn't let her do the garter thing?”

After a while she releases her cig's butt and toes it till it goes dark. My body goes prickly and torpid at the display, excited and unresponsive.
Scratch your chin
, a frantic quadrant of brain keeps shouting, hysteria doubling each time my hand fails to execute, but finally something loosens and I scratch casually. Phoebe's leg pivots back and forth on her toe, heel swinging.
Perfect moment
, that panic-stricken corner of my brain is yelling.

“I think … “ I hear myself putting on an affected voice, setting up for a bare and moving line that does not, will not, could not exist. Our eyes meet and for once I am not ashamed to be caught looking. This contact is without the tension it always coaxes forth, and I'm finally sure that such anxieties do not arise because the eye is too expressive but because two pairs of eyes aligned will make a tensile bridge that buckles as the stare persists. Soon the bridge demands every bit of attention, threatening to give way in a nervous movement. Gazing down the fragile connecting nerve, focused on maintaining it, you bore clear through the other end.

“Yeah?” she says, and I swear I can hear imprisoned music rage inside me. Everything clenchable clenches. A halting countdown takes place but starts over every time I finish.

Phoebe senses it right away, but of course she leaves me in the lurch. I locate a rock on the ground and wing it down the sloping hill of the lot, remembering too late that Phil is still wandering that area. I hear no expletives from that direction and decide I didn't hit him.

“How's Henri? Haven't seen him in a while.”

“Fine,” I say, “Mostly sedentary but manages to be a pain in the ass.” An anger anyone else would call volcanic but Henri would term
Vesuvian
is flooding my lungs, and I detect the alien desire to pummel someone. “Guy's like a parasite, won't even pitch in with day-to-day stuff. He's a waste.”

“This is your best friend you're talking about, right?”

“Might be the free rent that's keeping me chained to him.”

“Don't say that. That's terrible.”

“He's terrible.” Already dug myself a hole, better make it plenty deep. Phil staggers into view, making erratic figure-eights a dozen parking spaces away, then sits, exhausted by the journey back from his drinking spot. His sushi-chef hat is torn and muddied.

“What happened with you two? You used to look after him.” This choice of terms isn't helping. Phil's head makes the quiet 90-degree arc to meet slick asphalt and rests there. “Wasn't that the whole reason things went weird with you and Cal? When's the last time you spoke to
him
?”