Jaret’s father was always tired when he came home from work. He owned a small but lucrative insurance firm. His office was in Riverbay, a half hour’s drive away. Bert complained nightly that he was overworked and could never find efficient help. He hinted that life would be much better, easier, if only Kay would come to work for him. It was the last thing Kay Tyler was going to do. “Rather death,” she’d said once when he asked her directly.
Kay wasn’t against working, although she was very happy at home doing pottery and painting. She was against working for her husband. “The surest way to screw up a marriage is to spend twenty-four hours a day together,” she said.
But that was exactly what Bert wanted. Twenty-five hours a day would have been preferable, because he was madly in love with his wife. She was, he insisted, different, special, unique among women.
The main thing for Kay about Bert was his looks. He often accused her of regarding him as nothing more than a sex object and she had a hard time denying it. “Well, kid,” she often said, “I can’t help it if you’re a looker.”
“What about my mind?” he’d ask.
Kay would shrug and say, “Who needs it?”
Of course, she didn’t really mean it. She just said it to keep Bert aware of the way women were treated. And he knew that. What he didn’t know was that Kay was not overwhelmed by his mind. She would have preferred him to be a little more lively, quicker, with interests beyond his business and Time magazine. At twenty, when she had married him, she hadn’t known any better, hadn’t seen beyond his looks. He’d been five years older, with a kind of dashing air of sophistication which she didn’t find out until later was nothing more than good taste in clothes and an extraordinary sense of good food and wine. Not good enough! But, oh, those looks.
It drove Kay mad that she was so shallow, such a sucker for thick blue-black hair that grew in a perfect widow’s peak, huge, almost-black eyes, eyelashes thicker and longer than any woman’s she’d ever seen, a nose meant for a sculptor’s eye and a real mouth. Most men had stingy little mouths but not Bert. It was wide, beautifully shaped and lovely to kiss. And even though she’d been dead set against him growing it, the luxurious quality of his beard and mustache gave him an even more romantic look. He was short, only five feet seven, but Kay didn’t mind as she was only five feet.
The truth of the matter was that Kay found most men dull. It was the rare man who could engage her. Bert thought he was an exception and Kay saw no point in correcting that impression. And, in a way, he was an exception; she loved him dearly. Aside from being gorgeous he was kind, considerate, gentle and loving. And that was a lot.
“Hello, darling,” Bert said, handing Kay a small bouquet of sweetheart roses, something he did at least once a week. “How’d your day go?”
She sniffed the flowers, smiled, kissed his lovely mouth. “Thanks, honey. I made a really fantastic bowl. I’ll show you after dinner.”
“Great.” He put an arm around her as they walked to the kitchen.
“How was your day?”
“Well, Helen botched up three letters and couldn’t find Cohen in the file because she’d put it under K. I spent hours looking for the damn thing. My God, I’m tired.”
“Seems to me if Cohen wasn’t under C the most natural place in the world to look would be under K. Got to get on top of these things, kid!” She smiled at him, ruffled his hair.
“You see, that’s exactly why I need you, Kay. Who else would think of that?”
“Don’t,” she warned. “Want a drink?”
He nodded.
The Tylers always had a cocktail hour before dinner and Jaret and Chris were welcome to join in the conversation, a prerogative Jaret sometimes exercised but one Chris never did anymore. When he was home he was invariably in the room he had built for himself in the basement.
This was one of the evenings Jaret had decided to sit with her parents, drinking the light vodka and tonic she was allowed since she turned eighteen. In the middle of their conversation, Chris, in satin soccer shorts and T-shirt, walked through the room.
“Want to join us, Chris?” Bert asked, always hopeful.
“Does a chicken have lips?” he answered, not bothering to look at anyone, continuing to walk toward the kitchen.
“God, I’m sick of that expression,” Kay said. “Can’t you come up with something new?”
He didn’t answer. They heard him head downstairs to his room.
“I could strangle him,” Kay said.
“Oh, Mom, he’s just at that age.”
“The age of a moron.”
“Remember what I was like when I was sixteen?” Jaret asked as though it were twenty years ago rather than two.
“You bet. Articulate, bright, fun. Girls are always . . . Kay stopped herself, realizing she shouldn’t be a bigot about the male sex in front of Jaret. It wouldn’t help things. “Actually, you were a pain in the neck.”
“Right. We didn’t get along at all then. Remember?”
Jaret, from age fourteen to sixteen, had been at terrible odds with her mother and it had scared and hurt Kay until she remembered how she’d been with her own mother and how they’d later become friends. That she and Jaret were good friends already was a real plus; she hadn’t expected it for years.
“What a brat I was,” Jaret went on.
“You were never a brat,” Bert said. He was as entranced by his daughter as he was his wife. Jaret, aside from being exceptionally bright, had real beauty, and it pleased him to know that she would have her pick of men when the time came for her to marry.
“Of course I was, Daddy. You’re always rewriting history.”
He did it with everyone, everything. Bert liked to think of things as nice, pleasant, all the time. If something was upsetting and he was forced to see it, participate in it, as soon as it was over he blotted it out. If it was referred to later he had dipped it in the honey of his mind. He sighed. “I just don’t remember you being a brat.”
“Oh, Bert,” Kay said, “you’re such a typical male.” Damn! She’d done it again. She glanced at Jaret to see her reaction but her expression revealed nothing.
“I was a real drag,” Jaret said. “So self-involved and always thinking you and Mom were my enemies. Don’t you remember, Daddy? I called you the Head Nazi!”
“Can’t remember,” Bert said a bit guiltily, knowing they would both groan.
The expected sound came in unison.
A moment later the blast of music from the basement made them all start.
“Good God,” Kay said, “I think he’s put in another speaker.”
“What is it?” Bert asked.
“It’s a new group,” said Jaret. “The Awful Awfuls.”
“When I was a kid Awful Awfuls were something you drank.”
Kay said, “Well now it’s something you hear and it is awful.”
“I’ll tell him to lower it,” Bert said, rising.
When he left the room Kay tried to think of an opening to amend the anti-male things she’d said. Nothing clever or subtle came to her so she plunged right in. “Jare, what I said about your father being a typical male, well, I shouldn’t have said it.”
“Why not? Isn’t he?”
What could she say to that? She didn’t want to lie about what she really believed. She would just have to move around the question. “What I mean is, I sound like I’m putting men down all the time and I don’t want to give that impression. You understand, kid?”
Jaret smiled. “Look, Mom, don’t sweat it, because it doesn’t matter what you say or don’t say. I am the way I am.”
“You’re too damn smart, you know that?”
“I’ve been told that before.”
“A real wiseacre,” Kay said, laughing. But inside she felt down. A terrible guilt that she’d tried to ignore was growing daily and she didn’t know what she was going to do about it.
Chris lay on his bed, staring at the Star Wars poster he’d glued to the ceiling. The Awful Awfuls were singing “Dirt in My Heart” and the black light gave the room the kind of mean glow Chris liked. He loved this room because it was his in every sense of the word. There had been no room before he’d built it. The space he occupied had simply been part of the basement.
“But you have a perfectly good room already,” Kay said when he brought up the idea.
“I know, Mom, but it’s on the same floor with everyone else.”
“Well, pardon us for living, kid.”
“Oh, come on. It’s just that . . . a guy needs privacy.” Would his mother think he was referring to masturbation? He blushed, even though he hadn’t been.
“I’ve got news. Everyone needs privacy.”
“Yeah, I know. Well, what difference does it make? I mean, why do you care?”
“I don’t know. Somehow the thought of my son living in the cellar gives me the creeps. Like you’re some kind of freak or something.”
“Well, I am a freak,” he said, grinning.
“Tell me. What will you build it out of?”
“Madras spreads.” He’d bought six of them, two per side, used one existing wall and now had a twelve-by-twelve room. The spreads were tacked to the ceiling and floor and, at two corners, attached to two-by-fours he had installed. A doorway cut in one spread operated like the flap of a tent. In the attic he’d found some pieces of old rugs that he’d sewn together, giving him wall-to-wall carpeting. He’d moved his mattress, desk and bookcase downstairs and in a junkyard he’d found an old dentist’s chair which he’d painted purple. He’d built a platform for his mattress from pieces of wood he’d found in the basement. This was painted Chinese red. All in all, he and his friends agreed that the room was far out.
“Chris! Chris,” Bert shouted.
“Yeah, Dad,” he yelled over the music. “C’mon in.”
Bert pushed through the flap. “Turn it down, Chris.”
He jumped up, turned down the volume. “Was it loud?”
“Loud? You practically knocked us out of our chairs.”
“Sorry, Dad. It didn’t seem that loud to me.”
Bert looked around the place Chris called his room and shook his head. “How can you see in here?”
“See?” Here we go again! The last time it was “How can you breathe with no windows?”
“Yes, see. It’s pitch-black.”
“It is?” It didn’t seem black to Chris. To him it seemed cool.
“How can you study?” Bert tugged at his beard.
“Oh, I put that light on over by the desk when I’m studying.” The truth was the light was there for show, for his parents. He always studied with the black light on.
“Good thing. You’d ruin your eyes otherwise.”
Bert could have kicked himself. Couldn’t he ever have a conversation with his son that wasn’t nagging? Why couldn’t he just talk to him? About what?
“Yeah, I know.”
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence between them as the Awful Awfuls went on singing. Bert motioned toward the stereo. “Jaret said they’re called the Awful Awfuls. When I was your age that was something I drank.” He smiled, trying for contact.
Chris stared at his father, wondering what he was expected to say. “Oh, yeah?” was the best he could manage. He wished he could talk to him, maybe work out some of his problems. It would be neat if they could sit down and rap man to man like in books and movies but Chris just didn’t know how to start. Even if he could think of an opening he couldn’t imagine really rapping with his father. Whatever Chris said, he was sure his dad would put him down, criticize, lecture.
“Well,” Bert said, touching the madras wall, “keep it down, will you, Chris?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“See you at dinner.”
“Right.” Chris lay back down on the bed and turned toward the cellar wall, staring at his collection of photographs. He had taken them all. Some were sports photos; others were just pictures of people and nature. A few had been published in the local paper. Chris felt frightened in the pit of his stomach when he thought of the conversation he would have to have with his parents one day soon. He had no intention of going on to college. He hated school, saw no point to it. Not when what he wanted to be was a photographer. What difference would a college education make? All that junk about broadening yourself was for the birds. Nothing mattered to him except taking pictures. He already had a job promised the moment he could take it. Zach Summers had his own shop and portrait business and more work than he could handle. He was a neat guy and thought Chris’s pictures were good. Zach was making plenty of money and he hadn’t gone to college.
Still, the thought of telling his parents made Chris feel weak-kneed. Not that they were so awful. His mom, especially, was a pretty good listener. But they were both really hot on education and he couldn’t imagine that they’d understand his wishes. Well, at least he didn’t have to talk about it tonight.
He rolled over on his bed, now facing the madras wall with the posters from Charlie’s Angels, Welcome Back, Kotter and Happy Days. He didn’t really know why he’d put up posters from TV shows except he needed something and that’s what most of the guys had. He’d never in his life seen any girls who looked like Charlie’s Angels and he wasn’t sure he wanted to.
There was something about them that was kind of scary, unreal. The best-looking girls he’d ever seen were in his class: Sarah Kartalia and the Crawford sisters, Amy and Annie. And, though he’d never tell her, Jaret. Thinking of her made him remember the lie he’d told the guys.
Chris was not usually a liar. In fact, he hated lying, knowing it always got you in trouble. And he despised most the kind of lies the guys told about girls. Since they probably all knew they were all lying, he wondered why they kept doing it. Mid Summers was the worst. It amazed Chris that two brothers could be so different. Mid was as loud as Zach was quiet, as rough as Zach was gentle. Mid was always bragging about some girl or other that he’d made it with but Chris didn’t believe him. Not that he wasn’t good-looking; but something about his boasts just didn’t ring true. Chris really didn’t like Mid much but the other guys seemed to so he said nothing. It was Mid who had caused him to lie about Jaret.
They’d been sitting in the woods rapping, Mid, Roger, Stephen, Jake and him, when they heard the sound of people walking. They hit the dirt and peered through the bushes. It was Jaret and Peggy. They were holding hands and walking very close together. After they went by Mid said, “What are they, queers?”
All the guys laughed.
It made Chris feel sick. “Yeah, sure,” he said bravely. “They’re just mad for each other.”
Then there were some remarks about how good Peggy’s body was and some about Jaret, slightly less gross because of Chris’s presence. But Mid wouldn’t let it go.
“So how come Jaret never goes out with anyone?”
“What makes you think she doesn’t?” Chris asked, feeling defensive.
“I know what goes on in this town, buddy-boy. She hasn’t had a date in months. What happened to her and Pete Cross?”
“He’s a turkey.” Chris knew this was ridiculous. Pete Cross was captain of the football team and everyone knew he was not a turkey. “Cross was too young for Jaret. She’s making the scene with this dude from Yale.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s his name?”
“What’s the difference?” Chris was stalling for time and a name.
“Where’d she meet him?” Roger asked.
Chris felt panicky, unused to making up stories and unsure why he was doing it. “They met at Christmas, at a party of my cousin’s.”
“What’s his name?” Mid asked again.
“John Williams. What’s it to you?”
Mid shrugged. “Just wondered.”
“He writes her at least three times a week. He’s cool.”
That had been the end of it and Chris had tried not to think of it again, reluctant to examine his reasons for inventing John Williams. But now the time had come.
When Jaret broke up with Pete, Chris didn’t give it much thought; he never gave much thought to his sister’s life. But now he had to wonder. Why would she break up with the best guy in the senior class? Pete was good-looking and smart, and all the girls were after him. Of course, Chris didn’t really know him and maybe Cross was a turkey. Jaret was pretty smart and it would take a really smart guy to satisfy her. Or maybe no guy. Maybe it was Peggy.
The thought made Chris feel strange, uncomfortable. He didn’t understand what he was thinking. All he really knew was that Jaret had changed since she and Peggy Danziger became best friends. She seemed happier, for one thing. And something was different about the way Jaret treated Peggy. He couldn’t put his finger on it but it was not the same way she treated Bianca. When Mid had said maybe Jaret and Peggy were queer it had hit home somehow.
Chris began to sweat. The thought of Jaret and Peggy together . . . well, he just couldn’t understand it. What would they do? He could picture them kissing, although it seemed stupid, but that was as far as he could go. He hadn’t had that trouble when Jaret was going out with Pete Cross. He’d often had fantasies about his sister and Pete and been ashamed of them until Roger told him he’d imagined his sister with her boyfriend. Chris decided then that all brothers must do that and that it was perfectly all right. But did all brothers think about their sisters with other girls? Does a chicken have lips?
The whole thing was too confusing. If Jaret was a queer he didn’t want to know about it. As far as he was concerned, she was going with John Williams from Yale and that was that.