Authors: Mark Nykanen
“I did some acting.”
“Did you pursue it at all?”
“Only in the broadest sense: I was an anchorman.”
“TV news? Really?”
“Don’t look so shocked.”
“You seem …”
“What?”
“Too …”
“Too?”
“Too smart.”
Now he laughed. “We’re not all dummies. I did it in Minneapolis, and then I worked in Miami for almost ten years.”
“Why did you leave?”
“In a word, I got sick of it.” He squeezed lemon on his grouper. “I just couldn’t do the work anymore, and when I told them, they said, ‘Don’t worry, come in when you want. As long as you’re here to do the news at six and eleven.’ But that was ridiculous. The vibes in the newsroom were ugly. Everyone else was working these long hours, and I was coming in at five-thirty, just in time for makeup. It wasn’t comfortable, and I’d been doing it forever. I’d made plenty of money, so I decided to get out and try something different.”
“A book about sculpture?” Her incredulity sounded a raw note.
“Everybody has a story, and some people have great ones. You just have to listen. And besides, I have a feeling about this one.”
“A feeling? What are you doing now, warming up for the Psychic Friends Network?”
He laughed again. She liked the way his merriment turned his face from handsome to mischievous.
“That sounds like something my mother would have said.”
“Your mother?” Lauren asked.
“It’s a compliment. Trust me.”
This was the moment. Walking to the door. Saying good night. It felt awkward in high school. It felt awkward in college. And it still felt awkward at thirty-nine.
They stepped up on the porch, and the light over the doorway suddenly appeared too bright. She heard that Beatles song again, and wondered if she did invite him in, where
would
he sit? There seemed no halfway ground, standing here or sitting on the bed, and then he gestured at an old church pew in the shadows at the far end of the porch.
Once they’d settled, she asked about his interview with Stassler. He wouldn’t be leaving for two weeks, but she’d set aside studio time for herself down in Pasadena, and might not see him again until after he got back from Moab.
“How long do you think it’ll take?” She hoped not more than a week or two.
“It’s more a question of how much time he’ll give me. I’m a glutton for time, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“I haven’t minded at all. I’ve enjoyed it.”
He sat closer, and leaned his body toward her. She felt a pulse of delicious anxiety. Scared in a good way.
Their knees were touching. She wasn’t clear on the precise moment when this had come to pass, only that she welcomed the contact. She looked down and saw that her skirt had fallen open, past the button that she’d decided to leave undone. The knee that was touching his, along with a few inches of thigh, appeared brazenly on view. When she resisted her reflexive urge to cover up, she experienced a deeper, even more delicious pulse.
His hand rose to her chin, and she let him guide her lips to his. She felt so young and nervous and giddy, and surprised that a kiss could still excite her so, make her mouth moist with longing; but it also made her feel more than a little naughty, for she was kissing and touching a man other than Chad for the first time in seven years.
F
AMILY
P
LANNING
. T
HAT’S THE TITLE
I used for my first piece, and then later I decided that the whole series ought to go under the same name.
Family Planning #2, #3
, and so on through
Family Planning #8
.
Jolly Roger, June Cleaver, Sonny-boy, and Diamond Girl will be
#9
. I have yet to configure them. Usually a family’s pecking order is pretty predictable, but this crew has confounded all my expectations. First of all, Diamond Girl—her name came to me as naturally as daybreak: she’s hard and beautiful and seems capable of cutting anything—runs the show, whether her parents accept this or not. They key off her moods, as I suspect they have for years. Even June reacts to Diamond Girl more than she
acts
on her own behalf.
Early on I exacerbated this dynamic by announcing that Diamond Girl was the decision maker, their master. That if they wanted anything, they had to go through her.
They all wanted something. June, for instance, spent the first two weeks demanding, and finally begging for clothes. Her pantyhose had more runs than the American Kennel Club, and her underpants had become embarrassingly discolored, so I told her, “You’d better ask Diamond Girl. See what she says.”
“Diamond Girl?” She looked around clearly perplexed—Who else could it have been?—before staring at her daughter. “Ask
her?
”
June’s hand rose to her mouth like an Indian about to make a war cry in one of those old John Wayne movies. But she appeared too stunned to attack. I think she’d been struck dumb by the news that the natural order of things wasn’t the natural order after all, though I was only making official what had long been their practice. Any fool could have seen that.
Her eyes changed color. I’m not kidding. They darkened from brown to black, and widened to the size of soup spoons. She reached for the cage to support herself, and gripped the skull of a cat. Her pinkie actually curled into the creature’s empty eye socket, a violation of the dead that she never appeared to notice.
“What’s going on?” she said to her daughter. “Why are you doing this to us? You think he’s going to be nice to you if you’re like this?” And then suddenly she stopped talking, and her features flattened, as if she’d been splashed with a cup of cold water. A word sputtered on her lips, which I couldn’t hear. It might have been “Wait.” Her eyes overflowed, and her cheeks and brow clenched into hard furrows. More than anything, they made me think of a freshly plowed field. The harvest came soon enough.
“I get it,” she said in a choked voice. “I do. You planned this whole thing, didn’t you? The two of you.”
As she spoke, she let go of the cat skull and edged closer to her daughter. Roger, roused from his lethargy, intercepted her.
“No, she didn’t. She wouldn’t do that. You’re upset. Calm down.”
But Diamond Girl smiled and never denied the role her mother had assigned her.
Some people are born to the manor.
• • •
A day later, after June had wept for hours and implored her daughter to talk to her, Diamond Girl announced, without ever looking at her, that she would be “permitted” (yes, she chose that very word, the precisely correct word under the circumstances) to wear a thong, but no bra, and absolutely no top.
Now why she would have assumed that I had a thong lying around, I don’t know, but the fact is that I had two of them, a satiny purple, and one with a floral pink and white design.
June went off like nitro. I’d been expecting this. All those tears, all that pleading and paranoia and motherly resentment, that’s a volatile mix.
She shot to her feet and ran over to Diamond Girl, kicking and screaming at her. Diamond Girl balled herself up and waited for Jolly Roger to perform his paternal duty, which he did, but not without injury to himself, so far gone was June by this point. The blow that drew blood was the one she landed on his nose, and that brought Roger back to life for the first time since he’d entered the cage. He pushed her away and threatened to kick the shit out of her if she didn’t quit. Truly, this family is evil.
I couldn’t resist inflaming them further. Right then I walked back upstairs to the guest quarters, grabbed the thongs, and returned posthaste to the cellar.
“Diamond Girl has spoken. Which will it be?” I held them up, each thong no bigger than the palm of my hand. June stared at them. “They stretch to fit,” I assured her. She turned away before I could demonstrate.
Roger said, “Gimme the pink one. How about both? Something she could change into?”
I shook my head no, and tossed him the floral print. June did not change right then, but the next time I looked in she’d put on the thong.
“Your bra?” I held out my hand in expectation. She knew the deal, but shook her head.
“Then Sonny-boy doesn’t get to eat.”
The bra came off. The maternal instinct is so strong. Sometimes. She glared at Diamond Girl, who crossed her arms, mimicking her mother, whose attempt to maintain even a small degree of modesty was doomed.
For most of the month, food has been an issue for them; indeed, a divisive one, though that wasn’t my intent. Jolly Roger and June are hungry almost all of the time because I’m trying to reduce their body fat to single digits. This may not be possible for June, because women cling to fat like sap to a tree. It’s evolutionary, I’m sure. But I’ll get her down to about twelve, thirteen percent, and given her overall tone, she’ll look great. Roger, even as he loses weight, doesn’t look good at all. It’s his lack of tone. He has the body of a man who has eaten too many quickie airport meals—too much fat and too much sodium—and hasn’t had nearly enough exercise. It’s not that he’s fat. It’s that despite his size, he’s beginning to look feeble. And now that I’ve seen him naked, it’s hard to imagine that June ever got excited at the prospect of having sex with him. She may be off her rocker, but she’s got a nice body and a kind face that completely belies the fury that comes out on an almost daily basis now. It’s reached the point where I expect her to scowl and screech whenever I address her.
“You’re looking good, June,” I say as I come down the cellar steps. She turns away, hiding her breasts but exposing her butt. The truth is there aren’t many moms in their late thirties who can wear a thong, but telling her this does not improve her mood. She swears at me, having given up all pretense of civility.
“Look, I try to flatter you and all you can do is snarl. That’s it, no petit fours for you today. I’m giving yours to Diamond Girl.”
June stops, just freezes in her footsteps. I can almost read her mind.
Petit fours. You mean those luscious little chocolate and cream cakes that come in apricot and cherry and raspberry and mocha?
Yes,
those
petit fours, June.
I wasn’t planning on giving them to her anyway. Petit fours, to someone who needs to lose body fat? That’s like giving Jack Daniel’s to someone who’s trying to dry out. No, this is a special treat for Diamond Girl and Sonny-boy, neither of whom needs to lose weight. In fact, I’m more concerned with keeping them just the way they are, which is damn near perfect.
“You do that,” June spits without looking back at me. “You just
do
that.”
“And prayer service will be held at five today.”
“What?” Now she whips around, her face as wrinkled as a rag. Even Jolly Roger looks up when he hears this announcement.
“Isn’t that what you said, Diamond Girl?”
“Yeah,” she snorts. “Prayers at five. Bring your Bibles and get ready to thump.”
This kid is great. She’s quick, and she plays right along. I’m going to miss her.
June, realizing she’s been had, swears again, which causes the greatly aggrieved Sonny-boy to burst into tears and complain,
“You never used to say those bad words, Mommy.”
June shakes her head, which makes her breasts jiggle in a most appealing manner, and walks over to her son. He throws his arms around her, pressing his face into her naked belly. She hugs him and whispers, “I’m sorry.”
It’s a touching moment, if you’re touched by such things.
This parceling of food has created a great deal of tension. It’s clear to me now that Jolly Roger and June resent the wholesome meals I prepare for Sonny-boy and Diamond Girl, and if past experience tells me anything, I’ll soon see the total breakdown of the family. June, I’ll bet, will attack Diamond Girl to get her food. Roger won’t intervene; he’ll be too busy trying to wrestle an extra portion away from his son. You think the family that suffers together stays together?
I had this happen with
Family Planning #5
, a fivesome from Kentucky. I am
never
trolling in that state again. It got so bad I had to set up a temporary shelter for the children. If I hadn’t, they might not have survived for the sculpture.
The parents’ problems were greatly aggravated by the most extraordinary nicotine addiction I’ve ever seen. After a day without tobacco they were screaming and shouting over the pettiest differences, and by the second day they were openly beating each other sans any excuse at all.
I had to cast them sooner than I wanted to, and
#5
is the weakest piece in the entire series. Even the critics agree. If they’d only known what I had to go through, they might have been a good deal more forgiving in their reviews.
Slimming down my subjects is such a hassle that I wouldn’t even bother except that the gaunt, hungry look increases the appearance of terror. Muscles stand out more, so do veins, and in those final seconds of resistance, at the very moment when they have a vision of their death, there’s a definition to their bodies that wasn’t there before.
But this takes more than diet and supplements. More than anything, it takes the planned introduction of terror. This is how you really stiffen them up over time, make them jumpy and nervous and wary so that their reflexes are in overdrive, their glands alive with adrenaline.
I roll the television and VCR up to the cage. The screen is large. I have speakers, big ones hanging on the walls facing them.
“Show time,” I announce.
Diamond Girl wanders up and glances at the screen. “What’s it going to be?” she says with more good nature than even I deserve. “
Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer
, or were you thinking of something a little less obvious, like
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
.”
“Don’t incite him,” Roger says sotto voce, but I hear him.
“What?” Diamond Girl snaps at her father, “you think if we’re good he’ll give us
Nick in the Afternoon
?”
“How about some Julie Andrews,” I say.
“Shut up!” June screams, and I’m forced to order them all to cease and desist.