The Last Romantics(18)

On this spring night, all of us together at the dinner table, Noni tilted her head and narrowed her eyes as she considered Caroline’s request for a later curfew.

“No,” she said. “We’ve been over this, Caroline. You have a curfew for a reason. I want you home.”

“But what about Joe?” Caroline asked.

It was true that Joe glided through the gauntlet of Noni’s discipline unmarked. Noni let him go to parties, date widely, deeply. And—this was the kicker for Caroline—stay out as late as he wanted. By the time Joe reached Bexley High School, he was a six-foot-four center fielder with the reach and charm of Willie Mays, the goofy grin and sleepy eyes of Joe DiMaggio. Girls swooned over him, boys followed him down the hallways and invited him to parties. Teachers indulged him whether they realized it or not. His dimples, the soft swell of his walk, the subtle crack in his voice, the tall golden promise of Joe Skinner. Parents congratulated Noni routinely, because they understood that just to have a son like Joe—simply to be the origin of whatever DNA soup produced a boy like that—was something to celebrate.

Noni said that Joe didn’t need a curfew. He was always up early for baseball practice anyhow. He hated alcohol. Hated the taste, hated the way it made him feel: out of control, bumbling, fuzzy. And think about the public service he performed as the reliable designated driver, the lone sober man among a battalion of high-school drunks. Why would Noni put others at risk just to make a point?

“But Joe is younger than me!” Caroline exclaimed.

Noni sighed. “Listen, if Joe needs one more hour to keep some other kid from driving home drunk and killing himself—Caroline, I’m going to let him do it.”

The rest of us remained silent. This scenario had played out before, always with the same result. Now, predictable as Christmas, Caroline would push away from the table, pound down the hall, and close her door with a wall-shaking slam.

But this time she didn’t.

“You play favorites,” Caroline accused. “You let Joe do whatever he wants, and you take it out on us.”

I inhaled sharply. Renee was looking down at the table. Joe’s eyes were closed, as though he could remove himself from this fight by refusing to acknowledge its escalation.

“That’s not true,” Noni said.

“Yes it is.” Caroline’s cheeks deepened to red. There was a recklessness in her voice. “And we have to go to every single baseball game. And you don’t care about his grades. And he gets to stay out late, and he’s sleeping with girls. Older girls. Did you know that? Jeanine Bobkin, Christi from Hamden High. That exchange student from Italy. And he’s only fifteen!”

“A lot more can happen to you, Caroline Skinner, when you stay out late.” Noni said this quietly, and it was the softness of her voice that made us all listen harder.

Caroline pushed her chair away from the table and stood up, her eyes blazing. Until this moment I had always seen Caroline as a mild person, someone who squealed rather than yelled, who labored over friendship bracelets pinned to her knee. But here she was, animated by her sense of injustice, training the full force of her fury onto Noni, whom we generally shielded from any conflict or emotional excess. Now, nearly six years after the Pause had ended, such precautions were perhaps unnecessary, but they had become routine.

“I . . . I . . .” Caroline stammered. Her resolve, so firmly stamped on her face, was not finding its way to her mouth. We watched our sister struggle for the right words. “I . . . I . . . I hate you,” Caroline said to Noni, and then she burst into tears and ran to her room.

A dangerous, damaged silence descended. I glanced sideways at Noni, trying to gauge her mood. But Noni merely sipped her wine, chewed her chop. Our mother was opaque to us, a combination of stubborn principles, disciplined instruction, and distance. It was Caroline who wore her heart on her sleeve. Our mother taught us how to protect ourselves from hurt but not how to determine what might be worth the risk.

Joe was the first to speak. He opened his eyes and said, “Should I apologize? This feels like my fault.”

“No, you should not apologize,” Noni replied in her no-nonsense way. “Just give her some time.” She sipped the last of her wine, then brought her plate to the kitchen and followed Caroline to her room. I could hear her knocking on the door and her patient voice. “Caroline, please let me in. Caro?”

Renee began to clear the table. I helped until the plates were stacked in the dishwasher, the wood wiped clean, Renee in her chair, pulling an acid yellow highlighter thick as a cigar across a page of her calculus book. The smell of meat and steam still lingered in the room. The front door was closed now, the house shut up tight, battened against the buggy spring night. Noni had gained entrance to Caroline’s room at last. I heard an occasional muffled sob, a brief angry shout.

Joe had finished his homework on the bus, he claimed, and stood in the hall, ear pressed to phone. I was on my way to the kitchen to find something more to eat. My chronic hunger was a residue from the Pause. It didn’t matter how much I ate during the day; always at night I’d feel an empty rumbling. As I passed Joe in the hall, he held his hand over the mouthpiece. “Battleship?” he asked me.

I heard a flash of feminine mumble, a giggling laugh.

Fragrant, flounce, hair, tease, pretty, smile, wink, sugar, sweet.

I shrugged. “Sure.”