The Paper Palace(47)

—

I wait until Jonas has left before confronting Conrad. “Why do you do that?”

“Do what?” Conrad flips the pages of his comic, eats a last spoonful of soggy cereal. Milk dribbles from the corner of his mouth. I watch it run down his chin onto his neck like a bead of white sweat.

“Act like a pig.”

“You shouldn’t be hanging around with a twelve-year-old.”

“It’s none of your business.”

“It makes me sick.”

“Why do you care?”

“I don’t,” Conrad says. “But you’re embarrassing the family.” He stands up and gets in my face. “Did you let him get to first base?”

My mother and Anna walk past the house, heading to the car. “Put pears on the list,” I hear Mum say. “And minute steaks. Oh—we’re almost out of bourbon.”

“Did you let him finger you?” Conrad says.

I turn on him now. “I’m embarrassed to be seen with you,” I say. “You’re the embarrassment in this family. Not me.”

“Yeah, right.”

“It’s true. No one wants you here, creeping around in the bushes like some pervert with your disgusting blackheads. Why don’t you move back with your mom? Oh, right,” I say. “She doesn’t want you either.”

Conrad’s face turns a dark shade of red. “That’s a lie.”

“Really? What’s her number? Let’s call her and ask.” I walk over to the black rotary phone and lift the receiver. There’s a list of important numbers on a scrap of paper, thumbtacked to the wall. I scroll down it and find the number. Dial. “It’s ringing.”

“Screw you,” Conrad says, and runs outside. He is crying.

“Baby!” I shout after him.

In my hand I hear a tinny, faraway voice: “Hello? Hello?” someone is saying. I put the receiver back in its cradle.



* * *



—

Retribution for my cruelty to Conrad comes quickly. It begins with an itchy feeling under my eyelids. My throat swells. By late afternoon my face is oozing with blisters. I can’t open my eyes at all. The doctor tells us there is only one way to contract this kind of poison ivy: someone at the picnic must have thrown a vine-covered log into the fire when I was sitting in the path of the smoke, which carried the poisoned oil directly into my ears, my mouth, my nostrils. My mother has set up a camp bed for me in the darkened pantry. She covers my face and neck in wet cheesecloths soaked in calamine lotion. I look like the leper from Ben-Hur. She brings me cold chamomile tea and a straw. Puts a bowl of ice next to the bed. Swallowing is torture.

Everyone is in the living room playing poker. I hear wooden chips being tossed into the pot. Anna and Leo arguing about who had the better bluff. My mother laughs. Conrad laughs. My bandages are drying out, sticking to the painful sores. I try to call out, but my voice won’t work. More laughter. I bang on the floor with my foot, and at last hear footsteps approaching.

“Mum?”

“She sent me to see what you need.” It is Conrad.

“I need Mom!” I whisper. “My bandages are stuck.”

“Okay,” he says, but instead of leaving, he sits down on the edge of the bed. A bubble of panic rises in my throat. I lie there, helpless, and brace myself for whatever is coming.

“Get Mom!” I croak. I can feel him staring at me.

“Here,” he says. He peels the cheesecloth off my face gently and replaces it with a damp washcloth. “I’ll go get her.”

Anna calls out from the other room. “Conrad, it’s your turn!”

“Coming!” But he doesn’t leave. “I could read to you or something,” he says.

“I just need Mom.”

He stands up. His foot shifts back and forth across the gritty wood floor. I wait for him to go.

“I’m sorry about the rubber,” he says finally. “I don’t know why I did that.”

“Because you want everyone to hate you.”

“That’s not true.”

“Then why do you act like such a jerk all the time?”

“I don’t want you to hate me,” he says quietly.

“Kind of late for that, isn’t it?” Anna says from the door. “Stop bothering my sister, Conrad.”

“It’s okay,” I say.

“That’s because you can’t open your eyes, so you don’t realize he’s standing there ogling you like some creepy freak.”

I can feel Conrad go rigid.

“C’mon, lovebird, everyone’s waiting.”

“Stop it, Anna,” I say. “He wasn’t bothering me.”

“Fine,” she says. “Your funeral. And if you don’t come right now, Conrad, we’re dealing you out.”

“I’ll be there in a sec,” he says.

“Sorry about that.” I pause. “And I’m really sorry I said that about your mom.”

Conrad sits down on the side of my bed.





14


   1982. January, New York.


I climb into bed and wait. Soon I hear my mother’s stockinged footsteps pause outside my door in the long book-lined hallway of our apartment. She should be wearing shoes. The old floorboards splinter and attack anyone reckless enough to wear socks in the house. A quick run down the hall, a skid, and a thin shiv of dark wood pierces your foot, too deep for tweezers. The soles of my feet are covered in tiny scars. By now I can perform the ritual myself: light the match, sterilize the needle until its point glows red, tear open a line of flesh above the splinter’s shadow. Dig.