Alternate Side(54)

The remarkable thing was that Nora knew exactly who Rachel meant, a small girl with enormous gray-green eyes and a laugh that sounded like it belonged to a much larger, perhaps male person. Heh heh heh heh from the den as they all watched television.

“I didn’t know that he and Lizzie were actually seeing each other,” Nora said.

“Oh, my God, Mommy, seeing each other, really—what is that, even? So in the beginning it was kind of a random hookup, but then they both decided to just hook up but have it be exclusive, and now I guess they’re kind of a couple or something.”

“Wow. I guess I’m happy?”

“Definitely. Nice, smart, not clingy, not crazy.”

Nora laughed. “I guess that covers everything.”

“She has that really annoying laugh. But, yeah, she’s cool.”

“Oliver and Lizzie,” Nora said wistfully.

“You sure you’re okay? You don’t sound okay.”

“I am,” Nora said. “Don’t worry about me, Bug. Still crazy after all these years.”

“What?”

“Never mind,” Nora said. “Love you.”





Please contact me about the block BBQ.

          George





“I thought you had the barbecue this year,” Nora said when she saw Linda Lessman that evening walking her cocker spaniel.

“We do. Or we did. I talked to Sherry about it, and we both think we should either put it off, maybe until right before Labor Day, or cancel it entirely.”

“Oh, wow,” said Nora. “That’s kind of a big deal. I mean, we were going to miss it anyhow because it’s at the same time as some commencement things. But even then the twins wondered if we could somehow make it back for the last hour or so.”

“I know, but what can we do? Can you imagine the newspaper coverage? Sherry says their lawyer told them Ricky is back in the hospital for another surgery. I just pictured a photo of his wife at his bedside juxtaposed with all of us with hamburgers in our hands, standing and smiling at the spot where it happened.”

It was the clearest indication yet that the block itself had been wounded by what Jack Fisk had done. Along with the Fenstermacher holiday party, the barbecue had been a major communal event for them all. The first year the Nolans had lived on the block, they had gone to visit Charlie’s family, always a teeth-gritting affair. That Monday Nora had run into Sherry Fisk with their then-dog, Nero. “You all missed the barbecue!” she said.

“What barbecue?” Nora asked.

That was how it had always been on the block, a sense that by osmosis a person would know to apply for a spot in the lot, decorate the front door at Christmas (or “the holidays,” as they all called them, in deference to the Jewish residents), and set aside the last Saturday in May for the barbecue, rain date Sunday. As Sherry Fisk spoke, Nora had realized that the night before, lying in bed as someone on the street sang “America the Beautiful” without really knowing the words, she had noticed a faint tang in the air that she now knew was the scent of residual charcoal. Apparently, five big grills were set up at the end of the block: hot dogs, burgers, chicken, kebobs, and whatever veggie stuff passed for barbecue food. The neighborhood children jumped around in one of those bouncy tents that someone had rented, and the adults sat on the nearest stoops, eating and chatting as though they didn’t see one another every day. The Nolans had never missed the barbecue again.

Responsibility for the barbecue moved annually from family to family, which really only meant responsibility for calling the people hired to make it happen. Even George had not been able to kill the block barbecue, but he had come close, officiously putting up sawhorses at the head of the block to close it off and drawing the attention of the police, who asked to see his permits. Since almost no one drove down the block anyway, they decided after that to leave it open for the barbecue, and someone was always willing to guide a driver who drove in by mistake and needed help backing out. The twins had loved going to the firehouse to tell the firefighters that if they got a call about smoke on their block, it was just from the line of grills.

Even the renters were invited, and most of them came, to eat a hot dog or two. But they tended to be younger than the permanent residents, and they treated the barbecue a bit like a street fair.

One year a group of Swedish kids staying at a hostel a few blocks away swarmed the street and ate as though they hadn’t eaten since they arrived at Kennedy, and they were so good-humored, grateful, and, honestly, good-looking that no one had had the heart to tell them it was a private party. But afterward George had sent out one of his notices:

    Only homeowners are permitted to attend the barbecue.



Nora had felt at the time too new to the block to respond, but both Sherry and Linda had given George hell about the mean-spiritedness of this, and the next day another notice had followed:

    Please disregard previous notice.



The barbecue was how Nora had become block friends with Linda Lessman instead of just dog-walking acquaintances. Several years after the Nolans had moved in, the city passed a law that, while couched in the kind of legalese that made so many rules and regulations impenetrable, came down to this: large-scale outdoor barbecueing was now forbidden except by restaurants and licensed caterers. A small deputation complained to the two police officers who ate lunch in their patrol car at the end of the block most days, and a community service officer invited them to the precinct. “I wish I could let you go ahead with it—I know you do it right, clean up, keep the noise down,” the officer said, leaning across his desk. “It’s not for you people, it’s for the people who take advantage—you know what I mean? You should see what they do under the highway at A Hundred and Fifty-fifth Street. The music, the cars, old beaters with a keg in the trunk, blankets all over the grass, baby strollers all over the place.”