Astrid Amara (9 page)

64

Astrid Amara

the top of my prick. He gave me two more tugs and I exploded, semen shooting between our

chests. I shuddered with the feeling of release.

For a moment, I lay still, dead to the world, my body pulsing with pleasure.

We slid against each other, our chest hair slick with cum. He kissed me again, and I felt

him smiling even though I couldn’t see it.

“I’ve wanted to do that for a very long time,” Ethan admitted.

And even though I felt the same, I didn’t say it out loud. I kept my thoughts to myself,

but as I lay there, I could hear my heart whisper to my mind, this is better than you

imagined. Keep this. Just this.

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A bloodcurdling scream startled me awake the next morning. As I jerked upright, I

dislodged the heavy weight of Ethan’s thigh, draped across my hips, and he sat up as well.

“What the hell was that?” I asked, rubbing my face into wakefulness.

Ethan blinked sleepily, dazed.

Someone screamed again. Ethan and I looked at each other, and then simultaneously

bolted out of the bed.

We both fumbled into our clothes and ran down the hall. The scream came from the

guest room, Aunt Goldie’s room.

We burst through the door just as my parents rounded the corner. Goldie sat up in the

bed, pointing and screaming at the closet.

“Burglar! A burglar!” she cried.

Uncle Al appeared on the scene, a broom grasped in his hand. “What happened? What

happened?”

Goldie’s finger shook as she pointed to the closet. “There’s a man in my room! A thief!”

We all stared at the closet. Uncle Al raised the broom like a sword.

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And out came Matthew.

“I just wanted some wrapping paper.” He held aloft a roll of blue-and-white paper.

I laughed, but my mother threw a pillow at her sister.

“For this you wake up the entire household? Your son?”

“I didn’t know who he was!” Goldie cried. “I wasn’t wearing my glasses!”

Matthew looked annoyed. “I didn’t want to wake you. I accidentally ripped the

wrapping on your present.”

My mother looked beside herself. “As if there isn’t enough calamity in this household!”

Uncle Al appeared disappointed, and still held his broom ready to strike.

“You should announce yourself in your mother’s room,” Goldie told Matthew. “Don’t

be such a sneak.”

“So much for me trying to be nice,” Matthew mumbled. He reached back into the

closet and pulled out a box. “Do you want to explain to everyone what this is doing here,

then?”

I didn’t recognize it at first -- it hadn’t been mine for very long, and it was far from

being a treasured possession -- but my mother recognized it instantly.

“That’s Jonah’s fondue set!” she gasped.

“I found it in Mother’s bag,” Matthew admitted. He shook his head. “Honestly, Mom,

you really need to stop hiding things.”

“I thought it was mine,” Aunt Goldie said.

“It says ‘To Jonah’ on it!” my mother cried.

We stood around awkwardly until Uncle Al threw down the broom and lunged into

the closet to search the rest of Goldie’s belongings.

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We did indeed discover that my aunt was something of a klepto. Along with my new

fondue set, she had also acquired Rachel’s lip balm, one my mother’s knitting needles, a

cheese grater from the kitchen, and Ethan’s stethoscope.

But a thorough search revealed no pushke. At this point, my poor aunt was crying,

shaking her head. “I don’t know how these things get into my bag, honestly! I just looked at

them. The grater is such a pleasing shape!”

I felt bad for her. We all acknowledged that Goldie was senile, but the others seemed

reluctant to respect the less than amusing sides of her disability. When Uncle Al finished

searching every square inch of the room, he left, as did the rest of the crowd, to find

breakfast or light new candles, because the power was still out.

I stayed behind, sitting on the edge of my aunt’s bed, and tried to cheer her up.

“It’s okay, Aunt Goldie,” I told her, patting her wrinkled hand. “You can have the

fondue set.”

“I don’t even want it, that’s the problem,” she said tearfully. “I don’t mean to be the

way I am! I just forget that I have a hold of things. And then I forget they aren’t mine, and I

put them places. And then I forget I put them there.”

“Don’t worry about it. It happens to everyone. It happens to me occasionally, and I’m a

third your age.”

Goldie sniffed, and then patted my hand back. “You were always a kind boy, Jonah.

You’ve got goodness deep inside you.”

I smiled. Goldie looked around confusedly. “But I don’t know where I put my glasses.”

“You’re wearing them.” I adjusted them for her.

“Is Matthew all right?” she asked quietly.

“Even if Uncle Al got him with the broom, I doubt he did more than brush him clean.”

“And Moe?”

“Uncle Moe’s dead, Aunt Goldie.”

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“Oh. That’s right. I always forget.” She looked down at our clasped hands, appearing on

the verge of tears. “It’s hard to remember the things we don’t want to.”

I wished I could say the same. But it seemed like my head was filled with all the

poisonous memories that ate away at my confidence and my beliefs in those around me.

Even now, with Ethan’s release dried on my skin, the taste of his skin fresh in my mouth, I

could conjure half a dozen insults and bad memories in a moment. It wasn’t easy to forge a

new future on such a rocky, untrustworthy past.

“I don’t want everyone to be angry at me,” Goldie said quietly.

“They aren’t,” I assured her. “They were simply startled.” I could tell my aunt was still

agitated though. Recalling that she used to love playing dreidel with us kids when we were

younger, I fetched our old wooden dreidel and the candied gelt from last night’s dinner and

brought them upstairs.

The playing surface wasn’t ideal; Goldie sat in her nightgown and bathrobe, hidden

under a mountain of bedsheets. Our breaths were visible in the freezing morning air. But I

laid volume E of an ancient encyclopedia set between us on the bed and we used that as the

surface as we spun.

I had only fetched two bags of chocolate gelt. Aunt Goldie spun the gimel letter

repeatedly, which meant she got the whole pot. Within minutes I was disastrously losing,

and she sat beaming in her bedclothes, surrounded by chocolate.

“I think this dreidel is loaded,” I mumbled.

She laughed. “You just need to know how to spin. It’s all in the wrist!”

I spun again, and while it stayed aloft a lovely length of time, it fell once more on the

letter shin, so I had to put more into the pot.

“At this rate, I’ll be out of chocolate before the sun has fully risen,” I told her.

She chuckled and rolled another gimel.

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“I’ll put some chocolate in.” Matthew entered, and sat on the bed as well. He dropped a

bag of chocolate coins beside me. “We’ll split my massive profits.” He reached out and

touched his mother’s arm. “Sorry I gave you a scare.”

“Just don’t go sneaking around!” Goldie scolded him, but her eyes were keenly focused

on the dreidel. “Go on then! Spin!”

Rachel found us, and so did Daniel, and we all crowded on the queen-size bed, playing

dreidel with crazy Aunt Goldie, until she laughed and appeared oblivious of the morning’s

trauma. When we ran out of chocolate, Daniel suggested we play for real coins.

“Nothing big,” he said, reacting to Rachel’s instant glare. “Just coins. Pennies even.”

“No gambling, Dan,” Rachel scolded him.

“It’s just a friendly game,” he said. “Look. I’ve got lots of pennies myself. I’ll just share

what I have.” He reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out an impressive

fistful of change.

He distributed his money among us. But when he played his first quarter, Rachel’s eyes

went wide.

“You asshole!” she cried.

Daniel scowled. “What’s your problem now?”

“That’s my quarter!”

“How the hell do you know that?” Daniel scowled.

Matthew, Goldie, and I watched in silence.

“Look! It has white nail polish on the corner! That’s from my prom night, I remember!”

“Maybe you owed me money and gave it to me,” Daniel said, although he looked

unsure himself.

Ethan heard the yelling and stepped inside the doorway. He looked at me pointedly.

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I could feel his look, it sank through me, but I dismissed the feeling and tilted my head

toward Daniel so he would identify the focus of the rage.

“Honestly, Rach, I didn’t --”

“I put that money in the pushke!” Rachel cried, now standing.

“Oh come on!” Daniel shouted, now standing as well. “You can’t identify a single coin!

It could have come from anywhere.”

“I only wore white nail polish on prom!”

“And maybe the cashier at the gas station wears it all the time, and she gave it to me,

because it’s my quarter.”

“Everyone just calm down,” I said loudly, ushering them both out of the room. I saw

Aunt Goldie’s apprehension returning, and I wanted to keep her in a cheery mood. “It’s

twenty-five cents.”

“But if he took it from the pushke --” Rachel started.

“Go help my mother with breakfast,” I told Daniel. I turned to Rachel. “And don’t say a

word of this to your father. We don’t need him shouting accusations all over the place.”

Rachel frowned. “But I’m sure --”

“Can you light the fire downstairs or something? It’s freezing.”

Rachel took a deep breath and stared at me. “Daniel has a real problem, you know.” She

said it softly, and then turned and left in a huff.

Ethan and I stood in the hallway.

“Well well,” he said quietly. “The plot thickens.”

“It’s a quarter with a spot on it,” I said. “Hardly the equivalent of a DNA scan.”

“But it’s a clue,” Ethan said, holding up a finger. He grinned.

I shook my head. “You really are enjoying this, aren’t you?”

“I’ve always wanted to be a detective,” he admitted.

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“Great. Well, hone your secrecy skills by making some excuse up to my parents for my

disappearance. I’m going off to have a smoke.”

“Emphysema will lead to gasping, coughing, and give you cyanosis, a bluish tint to the

skin.”

“Something to look forward to, then.” I sneaked out the back of the house when my

mother wasn’t watching.

Outside the air was biting and frigid, and the roads looked worse than the day before. I

considered walking into town, but then realized it was over six miles, given the size of the

suburb, and there would be nothing plowed or salted along the way.

The first day trapped in the house had a collective, excited, knuckle-down energy to it

that inspired us all to be productive and solve problems. We solved eating. We solved heat. I

even somewhat solved my Ethan anxieties.

But the second day of being trapped without diversion proved to be far less interesting.

The novelty was wearing off, fast.

Every one of us ventured outside at some point that afternoon, as if we could go

somewhere, or do something. But my parents were miles from anything resembling a

distraction. Ethan, Rachel, and I attempted to construct a snowman but it ended up being

more of an ice man given the materials at our frozen disposal. By the time we finished rolling

the head, we were done. A bitter wind punctured layers of clothing like needles. My cheeks

burned. My eyes felt scratchy and dry from the cold.

Lunch was a paltry affair. The radio informed us that the storm had not yet abated and

would be returning that afternoon.

By five, the sky darkened and snow blew into the neighborhood in noisy expulsions of

wind. The flames in the fireplace wavered frantically as wind howled down the chimney and

shook the windowpanes.

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The oppressive weather inspired my mother to put in extra effort for that evening

meal, and I helped her. We concocted chickpea nahit using cans of garbanzo beans, and

served this with rice, canned corn, and the last of the butter and bread. After we finished the

meal all of us remained seated at the table. Safety sheltered there, near the shamash and the

three lit candles of the menorah, surrounded by evidence of a hot meal. But in the shadows,

cold and boredom loomed.

We opened gifts around the table. Aunt Goldie gave Matthew a lovely leather journal

that I have to say I felt momentarily jealous of.

“This will be really great for work,” Matthew announced.

“You’re doing what now, studying?” my father asked him.

“I finished my degree in art history and now work at the Boston Art Museum as

assistant to the curator,” Matthew said proudly.

“Art. That’s a wonderful hobby,” my mother said. “Remember, the great Rabbi Hillel

once said, ‘It is through art that we can realize our perfection.’”

Ethan nearly spat out his drink. “I think that was Oscar Wilde, actually.”