The Two-Family House(75)

Johnny tried not to laugh when he saw her in it. She begged him for a T-shirt and a pair of old gym shorts instead. Arlene didn’t mind, so Natalie changed into Johnny’s oversized hand-me-downs.

Even though Johnny had stayed at her house a million times, Natalie had never stayed overnight at his. As a result, Natalie realized, he knew her parents a lot better than she knew Uncle Sol and Aunt Arlene.

The first thing Natalie noticed about Arlene was how much shorter she was when she took off her heels. The second was how much younger she looked when she took off all that makeup. There were plenty of mirrors in Johnny’s house, so she couldn’t understand how Arlene hadn’t figured that out yet.

Arlene had an elaborate and fascinating nighttime routine. There were at least ten different tubes of cream on the vanity in her bedroom, as well as an enormous box of chocolates. According to Johnny, she used every cream before she went to bed each night. “Do you have chocolate every night too?” Natalie asked, but Arlene just smiled and winked at her. “Sorry, hon, but I never share my beauty secrets with other women.”

The best thing about Arlene, aside from all the candy she kept in the house, was that she seemed to have no sense of time. It was close to eleven when they got home from the wedding, and well past midnight when Natalie’s mother called, but Arlene didn’t even notice. She gave them potato chips and Cokes and left them in front of the television with no mention of bedtime. “Have fun, kids,” she told them. “Don’t stay up too late.” Natalie’s mother would have said it was already past too late and that the kitchen was closed until morning.

“Ever watch The Twilight Zone?” Johnny asked. She shook her head. “I don’t usually stay up this late,” she said. “Do you?”

“Just on the weekends,” he admitted.

She didn’t like the show. It frightened her, but she didn’t want Johnny to think she was a baby, so she didn’t say anything. He got the idea after she hid her face behind a throw pillow from the couch. He moved closer and put his hand on her shoulder. Her heart was pounding. “Nat? Are you scared?” All she could manage was a quick nod from behind the pillow. When he pulled it away, he saw that she was crying. “Aw, Nat, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have made you watch this junk.” He brushed away a few tears with his fingertips. They were softer than she expected. For a few moments he just stared at her, and Natalie didn’t know what to do. She felt like she shouldn’t move, and then Johnny leaned his face closer to hers. When he kissed her, it felt as natural as writing her name. “Don’t be scared,” he whispered. “I promise everything’s going to be okay.”

She didn’t know if it was Johnny’s first kiss, but it was hers. Maybe she should have felt awkward or embarrassed, but she didn’t. She knew he was kissing her more out of sympathy than desire, and she knew it wasn’t going to go any further. “I’m not scared anymore,” she told him. She knew he would understand what she meant. She had known him all her life.

Johnny put his arm around her and she rested her head on his shoulder. They sat like that, watching repeats of old cartoons, until three in the morning, and when they were done he showed her where the extra blankets were in the guestroom. When she got into bed, it was with mixed feelings about her day. Some of it had been awful and some of it terrifying, but the last few hours with Johnny had managed to soften those parts so she was able to push them out of her mind. She had forgotten to ask for a toothbrush, so she fell asleep with the taste of potato chips and Coca-Cola on her tongue.





Chapter 57





HELEN


The first thing Helen thought of once Dr. Beineke told her that Abe would be all right was that she had been lying to him for thirteen years. In all that time, she had never thought of herself as a liar. But when she saw Abe in the doorway of the coatroom, when she realized just how much she wanted him not to understand the argument she and Rose were having, she understood for the first time her complicity in a terrible deception.

A few years earlier Helen had read an article in the newspaper about a man whose wife discovered he had a second family—another wife and two kids living only an hour away from their home. He had been keeping it secret for fifteen years, telling each of the wives that he had to travel half the week for work. A simple receipt from the dry cleaner had given him away.

Like everyone else she knew, Helen had been horrified by the story. She hadn’t been able to fathom how anyone could keep such an important secret from the people he claimed to love. In her mind she bore no resemblance whatsoever to the man with two families. But now, sitting in Abe’s hospital room, saturated with guilt, Helen struggled to distinguish her actions from those she had read about. She hadn’t planned what had happened. She hadn’t been motivated by lust or greed. She was different. Wasn’t she?

By the end of Abe’s second day in the hospital, Sol finally convinced her to leave for a few hours. The boys had gone home, and Natalie was staying over at Sol and Arlene’s.

“Take a shower, change your clothes. Lemme drive you. You need a break from this place for a while,” Sol told her.

“But he’s barely opened his eyes.”

“He’s gonna be fine,” Sol tried to reassure her. “You heard what the doctors said. They gave him enough medicine to knock out an elephant. His body needs to rest. But he’ll be fine.”