Other Words for Love (13 page)

He sat with us until his mother appeared at the side of the rink, looking worried and carrying shopping bags. She thanked me before she and her son left, and Blake smiled after they were gone.

“You’re good with kids,” he said.

He was next to me on the bench again. His eyes were on my face and that made me edgy. I worried that my mascara had pooled into my tear ducts or that there was an unbecoming smear of lipstick across my overlapping teeth.

I shrugged. “My sister has two. I’m just used to them.”

He raised his eyebrows. He seemed interested. I assumed he was just making conversation and that he’d go back to skating with Leigh, but he didn’t.

“Don’t you guys want to skate with me?” she asked, standing on the ice, her eyes darting between me and Blake. “Isn’t your headache better yet, Ari?”

No, Leigh, I thought. My fake headache isn’t better. And I really like you, but I like your cousin more. “Not yet,” I said.

She chewed on her nail, looking disappointed. “Are you sure? Do you want to find a drugstore and get some aspirin? I can take off my skates and we can run across the street to—”

I cut her off. “No, I’ll be fine.”

She nodded and skated away with a sulky look on her face. Then I was alone with Blake, listening to the tinkle of piano keys and the flapping of flags in the wind.

“Is Leigh okay?” I asked.

He shrugged, watching her drag her feet at the other side of the rink. “She’s been through a lot lately … and she’s by herself too much. It’s good she has you to hang out with. She needs a friend, especially someone who’s got so much in common with her … I mean the art and everything,” he said, and I suddenly felt bad that Leigh was skating alone. Then Blake changed the subject. “You mentioned your sister … how old is she?”

“Twenty-three. She has a five-year-old and a baby,” I said without thinking. Twenty-three minus five—now he’d know that she was a teen mother. But Rachel was too, and he didn’t seem to be subtracting. He was smiling and looking at the cloudy sky.

“Nice,” he said wistfully. “It’s good to have your kids when you’re young.”

Not
that
young, I thought. Then he said Leigh had mentioned that I had a brother-in-law who worked for the FDNY. Blake said that he’d always wanted to be a fireman, which was very ironic, in my opinion. People who lived on the Upper East Side didn’t usually become firefighters.

“Firemen don’t go to NYU,” I told him.

“No,” he said. “Lawyers do.”

“So you want to be a lawyer like your father?”

He smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile. It was a wry smile that lifted just one corner of his mouth. “Not exactly. My father wants me to be a lawyer like my father.”

I got it. And I was right about the two of us having something in common. I realized, as we sat on the bench and talked while Leigh did laps and figure eights around the rink, that Blake had to compensate for Del the way I had to compensate for Evelyn. Mr. Ellis and Mom were cut from the same cloth. They wanted what was best for us, but they never asked what we wanted.

“My mother expects me to become an artist,” I said after Blake told me that he was supposed to take over Ellis & Hummel someday. “As if
that’s
a practical goal.”

He smiled. This time he used both corners of his mouth. “Well, maybe it is. You should show me your work sometime.”

I nodded at the same time the sun peeked out from behind a cloud. A ray struck Blake’s right eye, and I decided that my lost marble finally had a match.

thirteen

We
were in the last days of March. The temperature was rising, and pea soup–colored grass burst through the melting snow, reminding me of prickly stubble on a bald man’s head. The winter had eroded most of Saint Anne’s nose. It was all so depressing that I never looked at our lawn anymore.

“What do you think?” Summer asked.

Dad was downstairs watching the Sunday-afternoon Knicks game. Mom was at Evelyn’s house, helping to take care of Shane because he had the chicken pox. Or at least, that was what I thought she was doing. The flow of information had fizzled to a trickle since I’d been barred from Queens.

Now I looked at Summer, who had opened my curtain. I’d been keeping it closed lately to block out the gloom on the lawn. But she had the gall to open it so she could show off the red rose that had been tattooed on her ankle while she was in Key West with Casey for spring break.

“Pretty,” I said, because it was. But I felt so blah and my voice came out that way.

“Our initials are on the petals,” she said, pointing to an
S
and a
C
written in calligraphy. “Isn’t it romantic?”

Casey was still in Florida. He was staying there for a few extra days, and I knew Summer was here because she was bored without him. The only contact we had lately was in Jeff’s Mercedes every weekday morning, and romance wasn’t a good topic for me right now. Weeks had passed since Rockefeller Center, and Blake had never asked to see my drawings or anything else.

“Sure,” I made myself say.

“And the
C
will be easy to change when we break up.”

I blinked. “Why would you get the tattoo if you’re planning to break up?”

“Ari,” she said in a sensible, psychiatrist-type voice. “The chances that Casey and I are going to live happily ever after are slim, don’t you think? Besides, I’m not about to settle for the first guy who comes along. I need experience. And getting the rose was an experience too.”

I studied the tattoo, imagining a sharp needle injecting the red ink and the black ink and the green ink beneath her skin. “It must’ve hurt,” I said.

“So does sex the first time you do it, but I didn’t let that stop me.”

I sighed. This was such old news. “I know. You’ve told me fifty times already.”

She sat on my bedspread. “Well, I’m just warning you in case you ever get a boyfriend.”

I pulled the chair out from my desk and sat down, feeling limp and despondent and in the mood to denigrate myself. “Yeah … hopefully I’ll get one before I turn all wrinkled and hunchbacked.”

She gasped and covered her mouth. “I didn’t mean it that way, Ari. That came out wrong. I always say things wrong. You know I meant
when. When
you get a boyfriend.”

Whatever. I watched her zip her boots while my mind shifted back to her tattoo. It made me think of dirty needles and AIDS and people in hospital isolation units, wasting away with sores that blistered every inch of their bodies. I was about to ask if the tattoo parlor had taken the necessary precautions when she changed the subject.

“That Rachel Ellis is an even bigger bitch than her daughter. ‘Stage left, stage right …,’ ” she said, imitating Rachel by pointing her finger. “But my mother is all gushy about her because she got us a new account. A law firm or something.”

“You mean Ellis and Hummel?”

She nodded. “We’ll be handling their business meetings and stuff starting later this spring. I think it’s in the Empire State Building.”

Ninety-eighth floor, I thought. Then I got nervous because Summer might meet Blake, who probably wanted another bleached blonde to replace the one in Georgia, and I didn’t stand a chance against Summer Simon. I wished she had never given me that
Tell Your Friends
card, because it had led to nothing but disaster.

I was glad when Summer went home, passing Mom on the front steps. Mom was carrying a grocery bag filled with marshmallow ducks, jelly beans, and eggs, which we dyed in the kitchen later on.

I dropped a yellow PAAS tablet into a cup filled with a combination of water and vinegar and watched it fizz. I’d already colored a dozen eggs and I was planning to do a dozen more. Mom and I always gave Kieran a huge Easter basket, and now we had to give one to Shane, too, even though he was less than a year old and mostly toothless.

“Is Shane better?” I asked, drawing a rabbit face on a fuchsia egg.

“Oh,” Mom said. “He’s fine.”

I was drawing whiskers. I stopped because her voice sounded funny. It sounded like she was trying to keep something from me. “Well,” I said, certain that my exile would be suspended on holidays. “I guess I’ll find out next week.”

“Ariadne,” she said. “Here’s the thing.”

That was when I found out I wasn’t going to Easter dinner in Queens. Mom acted like this was no big deal, it was a one-time occurrence. Evelyn had lost eleven pounds since my birthday, her psychiatrist was fantastic, and we wanted what was best for her, didn’t we?

Mom was being a ringmaster again. I nodded and went back to drawing because I didn’t want to talk about Evelyn anymore. What was the point, anyway? I’d just come off as spoiled and weak and a wimpy delicate flower if I complained that nobody ever put me first, not even Mom. I wasn’t in the mood now for jelly beans or colored eggs, but I forced myself to organize them in Kieran’s and Shane’s Easter baskets. It wasn’t their fault they had a very selfish mother.

On Monday I complained to Leigh about Easter. There was no other choice. I couldn’t talk to Mom and I never talked to Dad, and Summer was too involved with herself to care. She rarely ate lunch at Hollister nowadays, Casey always picked her up from school, and she was constantly meeting with guidance counselors. She wanted to convince them to let her take extra classes next fall so she could graduate in January instead of in June, which just figured. Leigh would be gone soon and Summer probably would too, although it seemed as if she was far away already.
What do you care if I don’t eat lunch in the cafeteria
? Summer had said last week.
You’ve got Leigh
.

“Well,” Leigh said as we sat together in homeroom. I was surprised that she’d actually shown up, and I hadn’t seen a SUNY Oswego shirt for weeks. Now she wore a dab of lipstick, a white eyelet blouse, and her chain with the arrowhead charm. It was a sunny morning, and she looked a lot more cheerful than I felt. “You’ll just have to come to my place for Easter.”

“I don’t want to impose,” I said.

She picked up her charm and pulled it back and forth across the chain. “Now you’re being ridiculous. It’s no imposition at all. We’ll have plenty of food … my whole family will be there. I really want you to come—I’ll even send a car to pick you up. Please come.”

Her voice was tinged with desperation. Her face was close to mine, and there was a mix of hope and sadness in her eyes that made me nod, just so she wouldn’t say please again. I also did it because I knew what it was like to be unpopular, because I knew how important it was to have at least one friend, and because I remembered that Leigh’s
whole family
included Blake.

“Don’t let this bother you, Ariadne,” Mom said the next Sunday afternoon. We were standing on our front steps while Dad loaded the Easter baskets into his car.

“It doesn’t bother me,” I said, because I had to. My parents didn’t think that missing one lousy Easter dinner was a big deal—they went through much worse when they were my age.
Kids are so spoiled these days
. Mom once said that her father had usually passed out drunk before the ham was served, and it was no secret that Dad’s mother had spent every holiday emptying bedpans. So I pretended I didn’t care.

Then a sedan arrived. It took me to the apartment on East Seventy-eighth, where I settled down at a cramped dining room table. Mr. Ellis sat at the head; Rachel was at the opposite end. Leigh sat next to me, and Blake and Del were across from us. I was surprised that I felt so comfortable eating Easter dinner with a family that wasn’t mine.

“Pass that over here, sugar pie,” Rachel said, gesturing to a disposable aluminum tray beside Blake’s elbow. Her accent was very Southern today, and so was the food. There were no maids or leeks or desserts set on fire. We had potato salad and pork chops and collard greens, and I ate the collard greens even though I’d never heard of them before. Rachel had cooked everything herself, and it wasn’t exactly a penthouse party. It was the same kind of simple family gathering that was going on in Queens. There was another similarity too—I had to hide my Blake stares just like I hid my Patrick stares.

Blake ate more than he had at the penthouse. He dug into the potato salad and left four bare pork-chop bones on his plate. As we ate, he talked to me across the table. We talked about school and about grades, and at one point Mr. Ellis chimed in.

“A-plus on the Intro to Business Law midterm,” he said proudly, patting Blake’s shoulder in a way that was supposed to be affectionate, but he did it so forcefully that it probably hurt.

Rachel clapped her hands. “Congratulations, nephew. Now you get an extra piece of hummingbird cake.” She turned to me. “You’re not allergic to hummingbirds, are you, honey?”

Hummingbirds. Those were the little things with the thin beaks and the speedy wings.
Hummingbirds are of the
Trochilidae
family
, I remembered one of my science teachers saying.
They’re the only birds that can fly backward
. I didn’t remember her mentioning that hummingbirds were edible, but maybe it was a Southern thing. A delicacy or whatever.

“Aunt Rachel,” Blake said. “Don’t do that to her.”

It was only a joke, thank God. Rachel went to the kitchen and came back carrying a four-layer cake covered with cream-cheese frosting and chopped pecans. It tasted heavenly. Blake was cutting his second piece when Mr. Ellis rose from his chair.

“I have to get going,” he said. “There’s a trial next week and work on my desk.”

Rachel twisted her mouth. “You push yourself too hard, Stan. You should get some of your associates to help you.”

He smacked Blake’s shoulder again. “This boy right here will be working for me over the summer. That’ll be all the help I need.”

Rachel offered to walk him to his car, adding that it was a beautiful day and we should all take a spin around the block to burn off dinner. Blake and Del shook their heads but Leigh sprang out of her chair and grabbed my hand.

“Come with us, Ari,” she said.

I didn’t want to. I wanted to stay here with her cousins, so I unlatched my hand from hers. “You go ahead, Leigh. Have a nice walk.”

She stood there looking disappointed, like she had at Rockefeller Center. Her clinginess annoyed me a little, but I didn’t want her to know, so I got up and went into the bathroom. When I came out, she and Rachel and Mr. Ellis were gone.

I went back to the dining room, where I sat at the table with Del and Blake. They made the room smell musky and masculine, from the things they drank or smoked or slapped on their skin, and I liked it, whatever it was.

“That was rude,” Del said. He struck a match and lit a cigarette. “Daddy leaving early, I mean. Who works on Easter?”

Blake ran a hand through his hair and it stood up straight. “You know he’s busy.”

“Yeah. Too busy to see my club. It’s been open for three months and he hasn’t shown up once. And neither have you.” A long stream of smoke came out of Del’s mouth. He pushed his chair back and it scraped the wall and that annoyed him. “This apartment is so fucking small. Why doesn’t he get them a better one?”

“Del,” Blake said. “There’s a lady in the room. Watch your language.”

That’s okay, I thought. Nobody in my family watches their language, but thanks anyway, Blake. I’m flattered that you care. Del muttered an apology and Blake told him that Mr. Ellis paid Rachel and Leigh’s rent and their bills, and wasn’t that enough?

Del didn’t seem to think it was, because he screwed up his face and started clearing the table. I watched him and tried to find the green in his eyes, but I only saw gray.

“You’d defend Daddy if he slit their throats,” he said before disappearing into the kitchen. I heard water running and trays being crunched into the trash. Blake let out a heavy sigh.

“Sorry,” he said. “Another family drama.”

That’s okay, I thought again. I’m familiar with family drama. Then I remembered the way Del had talked about Cielo and I felt sorry for him. “Your brother’s club is nice … I was there for the opening-night party.”

“I skipped that,” he said, sliding his hand beneath the neck of his shirt to rub his shoulder. I wondered if it was sore from when Mr. Ellis had pounded on it. I caught a glimpse of bare skin, and I also saw a silver chain. Then Blake turned slightly in his seat and I noticed something dark on the top of his back, near his shoulder. “So how old are you, Ari? Leigh’s age, right?” He stopped rubbing and his shirt fell back into place before I could figure out what the mark was.

“Right,” I said.

He smiled. “Then you’re old enough to get into R-rated movies.”

“Yeah,” I said, wondering where he was going with this. “I’m old enough.”

“You want to see one with me?” he asked. I couldn’t believe it—Blake had just asked me on a date. Suddenly this was a very good Easter.

He called on Wednesday night. The phone rang when I was curled up on the couch with my calculus homework, and Mom answered it in the kitchen. Then she came into the living room with a puzzled expression on her face.

“It’s for you,” she said. “It’s some boy.”

She looked so surprised that a boy would deliberately dial my number, and that really irked me. Then she lingered in the kitchen while I talked to Blake. She opened and closed cabinets, pretending to search for cinnamon. She also rummaged through the refrigerator, checking the expiration dates on the milk and the sour cream and the butter, even though she knew good and well that they were all perfectly fresh.

She was even worse on Saturday night. I heard a car’s engine at the curb and I flew down the stairs from my bedroom, calling “I won’t be home too late,” and I thought Mom would have the sense to stay inside, where a mother belongs, but she didn’t. I was at the curb when I heard her husky voice behind me.