The Paper Palace(23)

The Dixons live in a rambling apartment on East Ninety-fourth right off the park. Dixon’s daughter Becky is my best friend. Anna and Becky’s older sister Julia are the same age, but they’ve never really clicked. Julia is a gymnast. Two years ago, their mother left them to join a commune. Becky and I spend most of our time unsupervised, playing cat’s cradle, going into Central Park on roller skates, coming up with disgusting recipes we force each other to eat. This morning we made shakes in the blender out of brewers’ yeast and instant strawberry pudding mix. Dixon says he doesn’t give a shit, as long as we eat. The last time Mum left us at Dixon’s he took us to see Deliverance at the Trans Lux. We ran around the rest of the weekend screaming, “Squeal like a pig.” Mum had a fit, but Dixon told her to stop being so narrow-minded and puritanical. He’s the only person who gets to talk to her like that.

A strange quiet has come over the city. Out the window there is nothing but a blinding flurry of white. I listen to the clanging of hot steam in the pipes as they expand and contract. The apartment is claustrophobic with dry heat, and the metal radiator cover burns the fronts of my legs as I lean forward, using all my weight to inch open the heavy window, but it refuses to budge.

“Can someone please help me? I need air.” But no one moves. We are playing Monopoly, and Anna has just landed on Marvin Gardens. She needs to think.

Dixon and his new wife Andrea have been in their room all morning with the door shut. “They have a water bed,” Becky says, as if this explains everything. Andrea and Dixon met at a sweat lodge in New Mexico. Andrea is six months pregnant. They’re pretty sure it’s his.

“I don’t mind her,” Becky says when Mum asks what she thinks of her new stepmother.

“I think she’s nice,” I say.

“Nice?” My mother looks as though she’s just swallowed an olive pit.

“Why is that bad?” I ask.

“Nice is the enemy of interesting.”

“She talks to us like we’re grown-ups, which is pretty cool,” Becky says.

“Well, you’re not. You’re eleven,” Mum says to Becky.

“The other night at dinner she asked me whether I was excited to begin menstruating,” Becky says.

It’s the first time I’ve ever seen my mother at a loss for words.

“Elle,” Anna calls out now, “it’s your turn.” I sit down next to her on the living room floor and roll the dice. The wood floors smell good to me. The same butcher’s wax my mother uses.

I’m looking down the long hallway that leads to the bedrooms, trying to decide whether I should use my Get Out of Jail Free card, when a door opens. Dixon steps into the hall, naked. He scratches his balls absent-mindedly. Behind him, Andrea emerges. She arches her back like a cat, stretches her arms up in the air. “We just had such a good fuck,” she says. The light is dim, but we can see everything—her massive red bush, her frizzy Janis Joplin hair, her satisfied smile.

Dixon walks past us across the living room, squats down next to the turntable, and places the needle on an album. I can see dark hair in the crack of his behind.

“Listen to the backing vocals on this track,” he says. “Clapton is a genius.”

I stare at the miniature silver wheelbarrow in my hand, wishing I could disappear into the floor.

Becky shoves me, just a bit too hard. “Are you going or not?”





8


12:45 P.M.

“Coming in?” Peter asks.

“Five minutes. I need to recover after crossing the fucking Sahara.” I grab the cooler from him and drink from the spout.

“That’s attractive,” Peter says. “My wife was raised by wolves.”

Jonas laughs. “I know. I was one of them.”

Peter hands me the SPF 50 sun block. “Can you do my back?”

I kneel behind him and squeeze sun block into my hand. Somehow he has already managed to get sand on the tube, and I’m irritated by the feeling of grit as I rub the cream onto his shoulders. Jonas watches as I stroke Peter’s skin.

“There.” I give Peter’s back a pat for good measure. “You are officially blocked.” I wipe my hands off on a towel and crawl into the shade of the tent. “Better,” I say.

Peter gets to his feet and grabs a boogie board. “Don’t be long. I don’t want to go pruney waiting for you.”

The moment Peter leaves, I wish I’d gone with him, because now Jonas and I are alone, and I have never felt more uncomfortable in my life. We’ve been together on this beach a thousand times since we were kids, walked the tide line looking for sea urchins and toenail shells, spied on creepy naked Germans from up in the dunes, wondered what it would be like to drown at sea. But right now, right here, huddled in the shade of his tent, I feel like I’m with a complete stranger.

There’s a small mesh window in the side panel of the tent. I watch Jonas through it, sitting inches away from me but completely separate. He’s concentrating—drawing something in the sand with the edge of a shell. I can’t make out what it is from this angle.

“Where’s young Jack?” he asks without looking up.

“Protesting.”

“Protesting what?”

“I wouldn’t give him my car.”