Chapter Three
“I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT exactly happened tonight,” said Charlie to John. He’d called him as soon as he’d gotten home with his slice.
“She’s probably still into you, but doesn’t want a boyfriend right before freshman year,” said John.
“I wish I could be normal for her.”
“Just try to speak less. Girls like to fill in the blanks for the silent types.”
“I always thought Monica Miller was eccentric, like me. She makes a point of wearing mismatched socks.”
“What was her yearbook quote?”
“It was from a song,” said Charlie. “The Grateful Dead.”
“Uh-oh.”
“She also had one by Kafka.”
“Horrible combo: Grateful Dead and Kafka. She’ll need some wild years, quite a few, probably, where she’ll use philosophy nonsense to rationalize sloppy behavior. It’s great to meet a girl who’s in that phase on some random summer weekend, but anything more would be bad. You can tell a lot from yearbook quotes, especially with girls. It’s their message in a bottle.”
“I thought mine was good.”
“Your French quotes and the depressing black-and-white photo of the Seine? Very Mom-and-Dad—and, to the outside eye, pretentious.”
“You quoted Billy Joel.”
“Yes, but as a joke. Ironically. I was making fun of yearbook quotes.”
“Do you like the song ‘These Dreams’?”
“By Heart? Girl song.”
“Monica Miller and I like it.”
“Then you’re both girls.”
“I miss her. I wish we were together in a cramped apartment with a small kitchen where she was making us a midnight snack.”
“A girl like that won’t hit the kitchen till she has kids. Kitchens are places she goes after sex, wearing the guy’s dress shirt in search of a coffee saucer to use as an ashtray.”
“I might pack my framed picture of her.”
“I bet there’s an industrial-grade container for those freshman-year girlfriend and boyfriend frames. Those pictures rarely make it past Thanksgiving.”
“Maybe mine will stay out forever. Mom and Dad—”
“They weren’t in college, they were in Europe, and it was a different time. You’re too nostalgic for your age. It’s going to be 1990 soon, and in the nineties, nostalgia will hold you back. Everyone I know on Wall Street’s weaning themselves off. Look, I have to take my presleep shower. Have an amazing first day of college. It’s going to be great.”
John was good at life. Especially on Sundays. He made the day simple and light. A beer or two at lunch, a beer or two at dinner. Always with friends, always with girls. Laughter and a backward baseball cap. No shave, no shower, no problem.
Charlie couldn’t relate. For him, every Sunday felt like lost love. Heavy, empty. At Camp Shining Star, he’d make an extra-big fire with the Very-Brown-Eyed Counselor and would be sure their conversation lasted until after midnight, until the sensibility of Monday. Nothing like killing a Sunday. His next Sunday would be at college. Girl-less. In the midst of an Indian summer. The bright sun on my face will mock my empty insides, thought Charlie. I was supposed to fall in love tonight.
Jee-Jee knocked and entered, carrying a snack tray. “We are happy you are safe at home for this last night, Charl.” He sat where he always sat, in a lounge chair that Charlie never used, wearing one of his oversized robes. “You care for some Nutella, Charl?”
“I have pizza.”
Charlie watched him spread Nutella over toast, the knife working back and forth until each piece held a placid chocolate lake. He wished that for once the chocolate would resemble a choppy sea. Or that his father wouldn’t eat chocolate every goddamn night. Charlie had seen pictures of Jee-Jee when he was young. Rail-thin and made of iron, now he was roly-poly. Jee-Jee and his Nutella.
“So, monsieur, what do you think about tomorrow?”
“Nothing, to be honest.”
“We pulled many strings to get you into this wonderful school.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“Practically gave away a Francis Bacon.”
They owned two galleries, one in New York and the other in Paris. All of the paintings were stolen over a month of dangerous nights during the war by Charlie’s maternal grandmother, who found them in a huge barn in northern France. The Nazis had taken them from the chateaus, from the ghettos, from museums. Charlie’s grandmother took them back. She packed them in tarp, covered them in horse manure, buried them in the sod-lined basement of a ransacked synagogue, for retrieval after the war. Charlie’s grandmother, five feet tall. They cast her shovel in gold and hung it above the Paris gallery’s entrance. The number of times Rose Green had to say, “I’m so sorry, but my mother’s shovel is not for sale.”
“That doesn’t really make me feel good about going to school,” said Charlie.
“You’re as smart as they come. If you did your homework, the world would be your oyster. Don’t feel bad. Everyone uses their special connections. You’ll figure this out soon enough.”
Charlie’s grandmother had written in her will that her two grandsons, upon turning nineteen, would receive a painting or paintings worth the present value of two million dollars.
When he turned nineteen, John received a single Monet. He borrowed against its value in order to invest in the stock market. The results were dazzling, and now he owned a loft downtown with a ten-disc CD changer and a pasta-making machine, both of which he used to get women onto his futon.
“John didn’t need any help getting in at Princeton,” said Charlie.
“How can you be so sure?”
“He did?”
It always took Charlie’s father extra effort to get out of the chair. “Who knows? Your mother makes these deals. I’m just the accountant.”
“I should call John back.”
“You and your brother, the two gossiping ladies.”
He’s taught me more than you ever have. “Maybe I should just take Amtrak tomorrow. We could have Nutella for breakfast here, and I could just go.”
“Don’t be silly, Charl. We can’t wait to take you. We’ll bring Nutella for the ride.”
*
Angelina got up at five, to make sure the clothing in Charlie’s duffel bag would be dryer-warm; her hope was that the warmth would make it to Philly, and that when he unpacked, he’d touch the clothing and remember her. She’d squeezed four cold oranges, one more than usual, and placed every cereal box, not just the unsweetened weekday brands, on the breakfast bar for Charlie to choose from. This would be Angelina’s last breakfast service for Charlie. She’d been ready to retire and move back to Puerto Rico for over a year, but she stayed on to see Charlie to this very morning, and because the Greens made her a deal: stay until September ’87 and own an apartment in the new condo development, with cable TV and maid service, rising above the ocean in new San Juan. She’d been asked not to break the news to Charlie until after he’d left for college. The Greens suggested a letter, but she couldn’t do that to him, so she steeled herself against tears by praying over her eighty-five-year-old mother, a horse and carriage operator in old San Juan whose whipcrack was still the loudest.
“Time for juice and some chitchat,” said Angelina to a bleary-eyed Charlie, still in bed. “I have good news. Next time we see each other will be on my island, just us two, like I promised since you were this high.”
“Over Thanksgiving?”
“No. I am retiring. You’re a big boy now, so I am going to be with my family there.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“No, my prince.”
Charlie sat up in bed. Angelina cupped his head with her palm.
“But you were the first person I ever loved,” he said. “Wait, is that true? I think it is.”
“Is okay, hijo. Now drink your juice.”
The doorbell rang a little after seven. Angelina hadn’t been expecting any visitors. On this very important morning, she’d scheduled all domestic deliveries for the afternoon and couldn’t hide her displeasure when she saw Monica Miller.
“I don’t have enough oranges for you,” said Angelina.
“That’s okay, Angelina,” she said. “I’ll have a sip of Charlie’s.”
“He needs all of his juice. It’s a big day for him. Why aren’t you going to college?”
“I am, but here in New York.”
“Charlie’s in the kitchen.” Angelina shook her head. The girl hadn’t showered this morning and had rushed her makeup. There was a fresh bruise on her knee and the top button of her jean shorts was missing. Angelina wanted to point a finger and say, Sexo.
*
“You look cute in a robe,” said Monica Miller to Charlie.
“What are you doing here?”
“I didn’t like how last night ended.”
She backed him up against the refrigerator and kissed him luxuriantly in and on his mouth. It was her best kiss ever, and he couldn’t help but wonder if the Haircut from last night had taught her how to make best use of her parsimonious upper lip. The kiss was long, tinged with watermelon Bubble Yum and Marlboro Lights. This is my first real kiss, thought Charlie. It was slower and warmer than the others, and didn’t end abruptly, like the rest. It didn’t really end at all. Even when her head was against his chest, the kiss still existed.
“Call me tonight,” said Monica Miller.
“Please don’t go.”
“I should let you be alone.”
“That’s the last thing I need. Angelina just told me she was retiring.”
“Wow. How long has she been with you guys?”
“Since I was just a baby.” I wish I were still a baby and had another eighteen years before this terrible morning.
She held Charlie by his bathrobe lapels and said, “Cheer up. Call me later. And have fun!”
“Wait. That was an amazing kiss.”
“Yeah, it was nice.”
“So are we, are we—”
“We are we. Call me tonight.”
Charlie followed her out the front door and watched her jog east in her shorts toward Lexington Avenue, her brown hair bouncing off her back. He imagined her getting in a taxi and going downtown to the Haircut’s apartment. He’d be getting ready for work about now, in the ritualistic and intense way that Haircuts did.
“Well, she has healthy hair,” said Angelina, joining Charlie outside the front door to give him his juice, “but she shouldn’t stop by so early.”
“I can’t believe you’re leaving,” said Charlie.
“Now there is work to do,” said Angelina. “You do your work, and I do mine, and then for siesta we meet.” It was what she had said, all these years, when siesta had meant juice and snack after school.
“But there won’t be another siesta for us,” said Charlie. “Not ever.”
“Is okay,” said Angelina, suppressing a sniffle, reminding herself that at this hour her mother was already perched in her carriage seat, awaiting the first wave of post-breakfast tourists. Unless Charlie came to Angelina’s condo in Puerto Rico, she might never see him after this morning.
When the hand is too big to hold, it’s time to go. She’d started babysitting children when she was thirteen, so after fifty-three years it was time to watch CNN on a color TV. There was a second room for her mother, but her mother would never leave her wooden house, broken by seven hurricanes, mended seven times—so many different patchworks of wood that in the proper morning light it seemed to hold all the colors of the rainbow.
Jee-Jee came out, toting Charlie’s two large duffel bags. He’d worked one year as a bellhop at a four-star hotel in Marseilles and knew to bend his back and let his arms go limp. The Jaguar was already in front of the house. Jee-Jee had woken up especially early to secure the spot. He’d also had the car washed the day before. Charlie thought the car and its broad, gleaming grille had never looked better. He tried to use its brilliance as an antidote for his loneliness, but it only made his eyes sore.
“It is nice the girl came to say goodbye,” said Jee-Jee, putting on his driving gloves, then closing the Jaguar’s trunk. “But your Angelina did not approve.”
“She wanted Charlie’s juice,” said Angelina.
“Charl, you can’t go to school in a robe,” said Jee-Jee. “Get showered so we can get on our way.”
“I’m not feeling that great,” said Charlie. “And my eyes feel weird from staring at the car.”
“You need to become a man now,” said Angelina. “You must shower even when you feel sad.” She grabbed his face so she could press her wrinkly lips against his cheek one last time. “I am going on my shopping errands, and you are going to shower. Adios.”
“Maybe I could visit you in a few weeks?” asked Charlie. But Angelina was already on her way toward Madison Avenue.
*
More sad than manly, Charlie couldn’t shower. Instead, he waited outside his mother’s bedroom, waited to see her, bejeweled and perfumed. He was going to beg for Angelina to stay, beg for a last mother-son lunch instead of the ride to college, beg for one last night with Monica Miller, but when the door opened, Rose was in her cutoff sweatshirt. Bare, bony legs.
“I’m sick,” she said, smelling of unoxidized wine.
“You’re not going?” asked Charlie. They’d spoken about this morning for half a year.
“I’m sorry,” said his mother.
“Is okay,” said Charlie. Angelina was good at saying Is okay, and he wanted to be, too.
“I had a bad night.”
“Is okay.”
“We can have a wonderful phone call as soon as you get there. I want to know everything.”
“I wish I was going to Paris instead of college,” said Charlie, breathing in his mother’s metallic breath.
“Philadelphia can be your Paris,” she said, her words blanched of life. It was the sugar leaving her body. She once told Charlie about that awful feeling, about how it was the opposite of Paris. There, her skin never crawled, nor had sweat the audacity to collect on her face. There, stemless glassware with more sugar inside arrived in her hand at exactly the right moment.
“Go lie down,” said Charlie. “I want to think of you having a great, fun New York day, after your nap.”
“I love you, Charlie Bear,” said Rose.
“I love you, too.” Her eyes looked old this morning, like stale black coffee. But she’ll surely make a comeback, thought Charlie. Make a big sale at the gallery, and then the exposed capillaries will retreat. Maybe she’ll sell the huge Picasso ceramic?
He knew his mother. She was driven by hungover guilt. She’d positively embody Paris today, like the women she spoke of on bicycles after the war, the war widows who honored their husbands by filling the bicycle baskets with baguettes after sunrise. The women who no longer blinked. But before all that, she’d need a bath, a stiff vodka on the bathtub caddy.
*
John said there were always a few kids, freshman year, who didn’t make it. That it started to get dark early in October, and then the ambulances came.
He had articles to prove it. Two of them were a month apart, during John’s freshman year at Princeton. A kid jumped out his fifth-floor dorm window, bedsheets around his neck. Then another kid drank a bottle of Drano.
“Do you think college is lonely?” he asked Jee-Jee. They were speeding past Newark Airport, in tandem with the takeoff of a Federal Express plane that made the air crackle.
“Lonely? No, Charl, by tonight you’ll have five, ten new friends. You’ll be laughing with these new people. Tired and happy. A fresh man.”
Charlie wished he could live up to Jee-Jee’s forecast, show him the warm light of the future in his big brown eyes. He wanted to turn to his father and say, Mais oui, Papa, but he was looking out the window at the Federal Express plane, wondering if there were any humans in back, wondering if he’d have enough money to stay at a hotel tonight, ideally one near the Delaware River, where he’d heard about merchant marine captains who chose able-looking kids for adventures on the open seas.
Near the hotel he’d find a bar where people ate shrimp cocktail over shaved ice and told one another remarkable stories about leaving school on their very first day and falling in love with people who never leave you, despite how hard they, or you, try.
Ah, well, male lives begin when all the women are out of the picture.
Monica Miller, Mom, Angelina, the Very-Brown-Eyed Counselor. It sucked. And it hurt.
But it was necessary.
“I don’t know if I’m going to make it,” said Charlie.
His father laughed and popped in his beloved Les Misérables cassette. Charlie’s response was to put on his Boodo Khan headphones. Jee-Jee looked over, disheartened. Charlie wished his father would grab the headphones and throw them out the window. That there would be an incident. A chance to pull the car over and cry hysterically about eighteen years of miscommunicated love, then go to a roadside diner and restart time.
“Come, Charl, remove the antlers.”
“The Walkman’s not even on.”
“Then why wear them?”
“Did you know that the Delaware runs through Philly and empties out into the Atlantic Ocean?”
“Maman is so sorry she couldn’t make it this morning. She had such a night, the baby leaving for college.”
“She stunk of wine.”
“Everyone has challenges.”
“I think mine is girls.”
“Let’s sing Les Miserables, Charl.”
“Dad—”
“You know, Charl, for me, these songs are about the Shoah.”
While Jee-Jee thought of being liberated from the Nazis, Charlie imagined being free of Mariella’s nights. Then panicked at the thought that Philly might not even have a Mariella’s.