Boys & Girls Together (51 page)

Rudy thanked the host, thanked the hostess, ran.

“What do you mean, you’re not going back?” Sid said the next morning.

“Don’t ask me,” the boy said.

“Of course you’re going back,” Esther said. “We’re all going back.”

The boy watched his mother. “All?”

“Saturday night,” Esther said. “We’re all invited to a party. Mrs. Marks herself just called to make the invitation. She insisted on us all, Mrs. Marks did.”

“Please, Tootsie,” Sid said. “Dolly.”

“Oh my God,” Esther said as they drove up the driveway to the Markses’ house. “Such riches.”

Sid whistled.

The boy sat in the back, quietly watching as a uniformed attendant stepped into the driveway ahead of them.

“I look all right?” Esther whispered. She was wearing a blue silk dress, new, and so well was she girdled and coiffed that from time to time the girl of nineteen made brief appearances.

“Delicious,” Sid said. He stopped the car, looked at himself in the rearview mirror, gave a final quick tug to his bow.

The attendant opened the door for Esther. “Such riches,” Esther whispered to Sid before she got out. The attendant took her arm, led her to a path that wound around to the rear of the house. Then he got into the Cadillac and drove it away.

“Lead,” Sid said to Rudy. He took his wife’s hand.

The boy followed the path around until it widened and the expanse of lawn opened to them. The lawn was lit by great flaming torches burning in the night. The torches stood at the top of long stakes and they flickered and shifted before each tiny puff of wind, casting kaleidoscopic shadows. A large tent stood near one end of the formal garden and music emanated from it, and couples danced, and more couples danced around the swimming pool and a few danced beneath the torches on the green lawn. There were other tents, for food, for drink, each tent a different size, a different color. From the people, from the hundreds of people, there seemed no sound; they seemed content with the silent grace of their movements, and as the Millers watched, a puff of wind came, and with the wind came sudden noise, a burst of laughter, a snatch of song, and with the noise came different shadows, the suntanned faces changed, but when the wind died the noise died, the faces reverted, until the next puff, so that the entire party seemed a gigantic dance, choreographed by the mindless wind.

Sid tightened his grip on Esther’s hand and said “Lead!” to his son.

The boy took them to the host and hostess, made introductions, lingered for the next awkward dialogue until his father began the joke about the peanut-butter sandwiches that always got a laugh, and as his father said, “Lou, you listen; Dolly, you might enjoy this too,” he slipped away, moving between the torches to the edge of the bluff, then following it, away from the pool, the colored tents, the silent dancers. He was alone now, in starless night, and he lifted his hands to the cooling wind. He spun with quick grace, then, as the wind stopped, he stopped, and continued along the perimeter of the great lawn. At the far end he turned, watching the pretty dumb show. Then he continued, on, ambling until he found what once had been a path, following it in among trees until he reached its end. He saw a tiny house, dark; a teeter-totter, a swing. He walked around, trying to see into the windows of the house. Then he pushed the swing, hopped onto the teeter-totter, began walking from one end of it to the other, balancing gracefully, arms out, knees bent. “I always meant to pitch this stuff,” Dolly said from the path.

“You have a child?”

“Had. I always meant to pitch it. I will too, someday.” She sat in the swing and stared up at the boy through the darkness. “Careful you don’t fall.”

The boy continued pacing the teeter-totter, one end to the other. “This is a skill of mine. As a child I was brilliant.”

“Who are your friends? I might know some of them.”

“Well, I stay to myself a lot.”

“Why is that?”

“Oh, it won’t make any sense to you. It’ll sound funny, but people, sometimes they ask me for things. And it doesn’t usually work out so well. I can tell this to you because I know you wouldn’t ever do anything like that. You’ve got so much here.”

“What kind of things?”

“What kind? Oh, whatever they want, whatever they need, they ask me for.”

“And it ends badly?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Oh, because I try to give it to them.”

“Always?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Oh, because just once, one time, I’d like to succeed.”

“You weren’t gonna come back, right?”

“Right.”

“On account of Lou?” Yes.

“I hate that phony act of his. Can you hear the music?”

“No.”

“It’s a wild scene. Kid on a teeter-totter, old broad in a swing, faint music. All kind of erotic.” She was wearing a sheer red dress and her black hair was piled high and her perfect tanned skin seemed to glisten. She began to swing. For a moment she threw back her head and closed her eyes.

“It’s too bad I can’t hear the music,” the boy said.

“It makes me out the bitch, you understand that?” She opened her eyes. “That’s why I hate it. Old Lou falling all over on the ground and there’s that bitch wife of his watching and you know she’s driven him to it. I don’t like being made out that way. You got a cigarette?”

“No.”

“I don’t inhale anyway.” She stopped swinging. “You remember McCandless?”

“Yes.”

“Shut up when he gets here.”

“How do you know he’s coming?”

“Didn’t you know I was?”

Rudy adjusted his earpiece. “I’m sorry,” he said. “This instrument of mine.” He shook his head.

“I don’t drive Lou to it. You remember that. I’m not saying that to get out of being a bitch. I am. But I’m a bitch on my own terms and he does what he does without any help from me.”

“He seems very nice.”

Dolly watched him. “You’re very graceful.”

The boy shrugged. “I’m small.”

“You may not!” Dolly said before McCandless said anything.

He ran his hands through his blond hair. “May not what?”

“Talk to me.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re dismissed.”

“What does that mean?”

“Shoo.”

McCandless took a step toward her.

“Shoo!”

The blonde retreated, disappeared.

“I told you I was a bitch,” Dolly said then.

“I’m getting so sick of this instrument,” Rudy said.

“You didn’t hear any of that?”

“Any of what?”

“O.K.,” Dolly said. “O.K.” She pushed hard at the ground, then lifted her long legs, pointing her toes, swinging back and forth, back and forth. “Your father’s a very funny fella.”

“Oh yes.”

“And your mother must have been lovely—she is now, of course, but you know what I mean.”

“So my father says.”

“Think they’d like to join Greentree?”

“Did they mention it?”

“In passing. Your father did.”

“Who knows what people want?” Rudy said, and he jumped high into the air, landed silently on the soft ground, pointed toward the path, started that way.

Dolly got out of the swing. “I play around a lot,” she said.

“I know.”

“How?”

“Stories.”

“What do they say?”

“That you play around a lot.”

“Ah, what do they know?” Dolly said. They reached the beginning of the lawn. “Do you dance?”

“Yes.”

“Dance with me.”

“I can’t hear the music.”

“I’ve got this thing about getting old,” Dolly said.

“You’ll get over it,” Rudy said. “Or you won’t.” He started across the lawn toward the dancers.

“Rudy—”

“What a beautiful party this is; you must be so proud,” and he darted in among the torches and the suntanned people, with Dolly following, and when Lou hurried over to them Rudy said, “It’s the most beautiful party, Mr. Marks,” and then he said, “Look! Look!” and he pointed to Sid and Esther, crying, “They’re dancing,” and they were, holding each other close, turning around and around. Rudy broke into a sudden run, then stopped, contented just to watch as his parents held each other. Over and over Rudy said, “Oh, isn’t that pretty. Oh, oh, isn’t that just the prettiest thing.” And he smiled. And he clasped his hands. And he blinked his eyes ...

The boy lay in the dark room, his naked body covered by the white sheet. It was almost five in the morning and he had been home for less than an hour, his parents being among the last to leave the party. He lay very still, the hearing aid in his hand. The door to his bedroom opened and closed, and then someone was touching his leg. “Kid,” Sid said. “Put it on.

The boy mimed reaching for his instrument.

“I hadda wait till your mother was asleep. This concerns her.”

The boy nodded.

“Didja see her tonight, kid? Didja ever see her so happy in years? The truth now.” He sat beside his son’s body.

The boy shook his head.

“That’s the kinda people your mother needs. People like that. They bring out the best in her. There was no headache tonight, no nothin’. I tell you, it was like when we were young. We were awful happy then, kid, before the headaches came.”

“Mother’s told me.”

“Now I wanna get somethin’ straight, kid. I’m not telling you what to do. Nossir. You don’t get that kinda stuff from me. Your life’s your own, and that’s that.” Sid paused. “We’re having the Markses for dinner next week. How ’bout that?”

“Wonderful.”

“I invited them. ‘Dolly,’ I said, ‘how’s about it?’ and they’re coming. Esther said I shouldn’t ask, but you know how Esther is. Afraid to try anything. A week from tonight. Lou and Dolly Marks, coming here. That’s something, y’know? It could mean a lot to your mother.”

“Yes,” the boy said.

“I don’t give a shit about the country club, not for myself, y’understan’? I move around a lot anyway; I meet people. But your mother. Well, it would do her so much good I can’t tell you, being with people like that. She needs being with that kinda people, kid. Didja see her tonight? That’s what I mean. You could really help her. You could really make your mother happy.”

The boy lay very still.

“Don’t blow it,” Sid said then.

“Pardon, Father?”

“Kid, I see things. I hear, I see, I pick up what I can. Dolly Marks, she looks at you a lot.”

“Oh, I don’t think she does.”

“She plays; so, she’s rich, she can afford it. The latest was this
goyem
builder from Chicago, McCandless, something. He was there tonight. Left early. The word is, it’s all over.”

“Well, I wouldn’t know about that.”

“That’s why I’m telling you. Listen to your father. It’s your own life, but you still gotta think about other people sometimes, like your mother. So it’s my guess Dolly Marks don’t hate you, O.K.? There’s nothing wrong with that. Now, I’m not telling you to take advantage, understand. Follow your own heart—that’s the only way to move through this world. I mean, I’m
not
telling you to throw a bag over her head and do it for Old Glory. That’s the farthest thing from what I’m telling you. God forbid I should ever tell a thing like that to my son.”

The boy shook his hearing aid.

“You didn’t miss anything,” Sid said. “I was just rambling on. The main point is, kid,
don’t make waves
. Be nice, that’s all I’m telling you. They like you. Keep it that way. Play tennis, smile, see your dentist twice a year. You follow me, dontcha?”

“I follow.”

“That’s all I wanted to say, kid. Go on back to sleep.” He patted his son’s shoulder. “And remember: you’re helping your mother. You got a chance to really make her happy. ’Night, kid.”

“ ‘Night,” Rudy said. He stared, eyes wide, at the ceiling until his mother came in half an hour later.

She shook him. “Put on your thing.”

He made the appropriate gestures.

“Your father mustn’t hear.”

The boy nodded.

“They’re coming, Rudy. Here.”

“Who?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Marks.”

“Ah.”

“To our house.”

“How wonderful.”

Esther sat down heavily on the bed. “I’m very tired,” she said. “I should be. Frisking around like a fool that way. I had to do it, Rudy. I couldn’t let him down. He was so full of life tonight; Sid.”

“Yes.”

Esther sighed. “I’m so tired. Not just from the frisking. It’s been a hard life, Rudy, for your father and me. A long struggle. No one has ever had to struggle any worse, I promise you that.”

“I know.”

She sighed again and touched her eyes. “Sometimes, way back behind the eyes, I can feel one forming. A migraine. Like a thunderstorm they tell you is over Kansas on the weather report.”

“You should rest,” Rudy said.

“Some parents, they push their children. Sid and me, we ain’t like that. We would never be. It was very important to us. Almost a pact. We love you so, Rudy. You make us so proud. Everybody loves you. Do you know how lucky you are? Do you know what a cruel place this world is? I know. So does your father.”

“I’m very lucky,” Rudy said.

“He’s had to fight. For everything. It crushed him when they turned him down from that silly club. I, myself, would never go. You know that. How little I care about silly things like country clubs and canasta and sitting by the pool and having someone bring you lemonade. I’ve always gotten my own lemonade, Rudy. You know that. We’ve had a lousy marriage, Rudy, your father and me.”

The boy closed his eyes.

“Because he’s had to fight so hard. Rudy, he doesn’t know who he has to fight and who he doesn’t, so he fights me. His own wife sometimes. We love each other and we always have, but sometimes we fight too much. If only he could get into that club, though. Then there’d be no place else for him to get to. He’s got everything else, Rudy. And once he had that he’d stop fighting and be so happy.”

“You haven’t had a lousy marriage,” the boy said.

“Of course not; who said that? We love each other like anything. I didn’t mean we had a lousy marriage. My God, we’ve been so happy sometimes you could bust. But what I mean is, every so often your father—well, it would make him so happy, being at last a member. Do that for him, Rudy. Help him.”