The Grown Ups (2 page)

“Seriously?” Peter Chang was on his feet looking for matches before Bella could respond.

Bella nodded. “My mother gets it from a doctor. It helps her feel better.”

Frankie looked over at Bella with a newfound respect. “Your mother has a dealer?”

“It's not like that,” Bella said, starting to look upset. Ruthie patted her on the leg, and then Peter produced an orange Bic lighter from between the couch cushions.

The first time they took deep drags and coughed and then after that Bella told them what she had seen her mother do and they were quick studies, all of them holding in their smoke until it looked like their cheeks and eyeballs were about to burst. The buzz came quickly, a soft, floating feeling that was better than the beer. They started to play Spin the Bottle, but as soon as Peter began kissing Ruthie, Johnny went for Mindy and Stephen groped for Bella. Frankie was still pulling on the joint, his eyes half closed, and Sam wandered out of the Changs' basement without saying goodbye.

He rode his bike through the dark, winding neighborhood streets until he was in front of the Epsteins' For Sale sign. Across the street the lights in his own home were flickering from the living room, which meant his parents were up watching television. He rolled his bike into a thicket of bushes at the edge of the Epsteins' driveway. He didn't want his mother, who often ended her night with a cigarette on the front porch, looking across the street at his bike.

Around back by the pool area Sam stood on his toes and peered over the stockade fence. Suzie was in the pool with her clothes on, floating around on an orange raft. “Hey,” he whispered.

Suzie lifted herself up on her elbows and peered in his direction. She didn't look surprised. “Are you coming in?”

“Can I?”

Suzie rolled her eyes and Sam opened the gate, closing it carefully behind him. “My mom is out,” she said.

“Oh.”

“My brothers are watching a movie.” She put her fingers to her
lips and smiled. “You coming in?” She dipped her fingers in the water and flicked them at Sam.

Sam hesitated, still feeling very buzzed. “Why don't you come out?”

Suzie paddled to the stairs. When she got out the back of her T-shirt and shorts were wet and stuck to her body. She made a face and Sam said, “I guess it didn't make a difference.”

She shrugged. “It was so warm I didn't even realize it, you know?” There were shadows in her cheeks and under her eyes that Sam had never noticed before.

“Were you sick a long time?”

“I guess. More than a week. My brothers got it too.” She came up close to him and grabbed his hand. “How about you?”

Her hand felt like the skeleton of a bird in his. Sam held it lightly, carefully. “I just got over it.”

She nodded. “I don't think I started it then. 'Cause, well. You know.”

Sam's heart was thudding in his ears. “Yeah,” he offered, “it wasn't you.”

“Are you drunk?”

“I had a beer at Peter's.”

“Did you smoke it?”

“What?”

Suzie hit him on the shoulder. “Come on. Bella's my best friend.”

“Oh, yeah. Well, yeah.” He coughed. “Bella's nice.”

“Yeah, she's really nice. Why do you think she's my best friend?” Suzie smirked.

“So you liked it? Her mom gets some really strong stuff.”

“Oh, have you? Before, I mean?”

“What do you think?”

Sam shrugged and Suzie laughed without making a sound.
“Come on.” She tugged on his hand and before he knew it they were inside her house stumbling down the carpeted stairs to the basement.

He knew where they were going before they got there, and he knew she would get the box out. This time she set it down on the rumpled bedspread and plopped down beside it in her damp shorts and shirt. Sam had the thought that someone would know they had been down there if they saw the stains left behind by her wet clothes, but then Suzie grabbed his hand again and pulled him onto the bed, the box between them.

“Go ahead,” she urged. She leaned back against the wall, her eyes half closed, a dreamy look on her face. “Go ahead and open it.”

The photographs were in the same order as they had been the first time Sam saw them. He searched for something more in the mothers' faces, but he couldn't see anything. “What do you think these are from?”

Suzie exhaled. “I think my father was fucking them and my mother found out.”

At Suzie's use of the word
fuck
Sam felt a twinge in his belly. He swallowed hard but it felt like something was caught in his throat. “I don't know, Suze” he said, returning the photographs to the box. He had been in the Rosses' kitchen earlier that evening and Mrs. Ross had given him a Coke. He thought of Mr. Epstein, who worked on Wall Street and made a lot of money. More money, he had heard his father comment to his mother, than probably anyone in the neighborhood.

Sam heard the box drop to the floor and felt Suzie's hand on his shoulder. She pushed him back and straddled his left leg, her upper body pressed against his so hard he could feel her breasts, and then their mouths were together again. Sam wondered if she
thought his chest felt skinny. He brought his arms around her like he had done this every day of his life. Even though they had only been here once before, it already seemed easier.

Suzie's wet T-shirt stuck to Sam's hands. He searched for a dry place to put them but there was none. He hesitated, but there was no objection from Suzie as his hands found their way under her shirt to her bra strap. His breath caught in his throat as he fumbled with the clasp.

And then all of a sudden Suzie stopped kissing him and rolled off to the side.

“I'm sorry,” Sam said quickly. His voice sounded funny to his ears, rough, like he had been coughing.

Suzie said nothing, and it took Sam a moment to realize she was pulling her shirt above her head and tossing it on the floor. He rolled over on his side and hoisted himself up on his elbow and looked down at Suzie Epstein's white bra. Her stomach quivered as Sam lowered a hand slowly onto the fabric covering her breast. Sam was grateful for the little bit of distance between their bodies, because the zipper of his jeans was strained tightly and he didn't know what to do about it. Suzie sighed as he tentatively moved his fingers over the top of her bra and touched her breast, drawing out the small, hard nipple.

All of a sudden there came a thump from above followed by a scuffle, what sounded like possibly a piece of furniture being knocked over, and then Suzie's brothers loudly shouting her name. Sam stopped moving.

Suzie's eyelids fluttered open. “No,” she groaned. “Damnit.” She sat up and looked for her shirt. Sam rolled onto his back and swept the floor with his hand, hitting the box before finding the shirt. He handed it to her and watched as she jumped off the end
of the bed and pulled it over her head. “Don't move,” she commanded. “I'll be right back.”

“But . . .”

“Seriously, stay.” She turned and ran out of the room. Sam stayed on his back for a moment, remembering the feel of Suzie Epstein's hard nipple in his fingers, before he slowly rolled off the bed.

Whatever was happening upstairs wasn't getting any better. Sam heard several more thumps followed by screaming. He shook his head to clear the images of Suzie on the bed. Sam was standing there so long dreaming of Suzie that he didn't realize someone had turned into the Epsteins' driveway. He heard the car door close, keys hit the pavement, mumbling, cursing, and then the retrieval of keys as they jangled together.

His only choices were to leave through the Epsteins' driveway and reveal himself or go deeper into the woods to the fort. Without thinking, he put the box away and straightened the bedspread where wet marks crept across the folds of the cloth. He took the pillows and rearranged them so they covered the darker areas before he ran up the cellar stairs and out of the Epsteins' house.

Sam's bike was where he left it and his house was dark. He thought of going back to Peter Chang's to spend the night, as he had planned, but he didn't move. He imagined what Suzie would look like when she came back downstairs and saw that Sam was gone. But he didn't know what else to do.

When Sam arrived
home the next day his father was sitting at the kitchen table staring at the rooster clock on the wall. Sam knew his father hated the rooster clock. “It isn't even ironic,
Elizabeth,” he had said after Sam's mother insisted on hanging it above the table.

Sam was sore from sleeping on the floor of the fort and hungry. He stood at the open refrigerator forever, but when his father didn't even reprimand him he finally said, “What's up, Dad?”

“Your mother is out.”

“Okay,” Sam said, slowly grabbing a piece of cheese and shutting the door. “Is she shopping? 'Cause there isn't any food.”

“Huh?”

Sam rubbed his stomach. “No food.” He pointed at the refrigerator.

His dad blinked at him and then looked back at the rooster. Sam's older brother, Michael, was at a science camp at Johns Hopkins for brilliant kids who would one day save the world. Michael had been gone since the beginning of the summer and sometimes Sam felt like their father was just waiting for him to get home.

Sam went to his room and fell back against the bed. He couldn't stop thinking about how mad Suzie Epstein probably was about finding him gone. He curled up on his side, his mouth tasting like crud from the cheese. He thought about getting up and taking a shower and brushing his teeth and going to the pool. Then he heard a car door slam. His mother, he hoped, back from the store. Sam peered out his bedroom window, which faced the street.

His mother was sitting in the car, staring at the house. The engine was off and the driver's side door was open, yet her hands were still on the steering wheel. She checked something in the rearview mirror, and that was when Sam saw that Mrs. Epstein was out in her front yard, pulling weeds from around the mailbox and planting flowers. Suzie was standing in the driveway in shorts and a bikini top, leaning against her bike and talking to her mother. A towel was wrapped around her handlebars.

Slowly, Sam's mother got out of the car. She took several steps toward the end of the driveway and called out, “How are you, Sarah?”

Mrs. Epstein glanced up, a clump of dirt in her hand. Suzie looked at Sam's mother and then stared hard at her feet, long and thin in black flip-flops.

Sam's mother waited a few minutes, and when neither Mrs. Epstein nor Suzie responded, she turned away. She moved toward the door of her house, Sam's house, like a heavy person who has to stop to catch her breath between steps. It took Sam a few minutes to realize that wherever his mother had been that morning, there hadn't been groceries involved.

At the pool
Sam inhaled two hot dogs and an order of fries and listened to Peter Chang and Johnny Ross talk about the munchies. They claimed to have had the munchies so bad the night before that they had eaten three frozen pizzas after Bella, Ruthie, and Mindy had left. They elbowed each other in the ribs and talked about how they had been feeling the love from the girls, and Sam's fingers twitched thinking of his hand on Suzie's bra.

When the girls arrived at the pool Suzie was with them. Sam was in the deep end, hanging out underneath the diving board. She jumped in and swam the length of the pool underwater, grabbing his foot before she surfaced.

“Hey,” she said when she came up for air.

“Hey.” Sam paused. “So you know, I'm not some kind of jerk who just leaves.”

“You're forgiven.” Suzie smiled. “Seriously. It was probably good you left.”

“Oh, oh. Great.” Sam wondered if she meant she wanted him to leave or that he had done the right thing. His stomach clenched.
He had no idea all of this was so complicated. He waited, unsure of what to say next.

Suzie smiled again. “Great? So, you weren't having a good time?”

“Of course, yes. Yes I was. I don't want you to get in trouble.”

“I was thinking . . .”

“About?”

“Well, you. Us. And how we need to maybe make a plan?”

“A plan?” It dawned on Sam that maybe Suzie was talking about a date. “Like going out?”

Suzie sighed. “How about you meet me in the fort tonight? Around ten?”

“The fort,” Sam answered slowly. He didn't want to tell her he'd been in the fort the night before because he was scared to walk through her driveway. As he was about to answer, Suzie dove back underwater and swam quickly toward the girls.

Neither of his parents was home for dinner and both cars were gone. Usually when they went out his mother left a meal in the fridge or money for pizza, but those things hadn't happened tonight. So Sam went over to Peter Chang's, where Mrs. Chang was just taking a sheet of Tater Tots out of the oven. Mrs. Chang liked to feed all of them and always welcomed them at mealtimes. She was afraid that Peter was lonely, since he was an only child.