Astrid Amara (12 page)

time. A woman with massive breasts waved an American flag and wore a red, white, and

blue G-string, nothing else.

“That’s brave,” I said. “Bringing porn on your family visit.” I took the magazine and

flipped through the pages, Ethan at my back, looking over my shoulder.

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We both started laughing. There is a fine line between erotic and ridiculous, and this

magazine excelled in repeatedly crossing it. It didn’t help that the subject matter wasn’t to

either Ethan’s or my tastes.

Ethan cracked up at one spread and grabbed the magazine from me, turning it several

ways before settling on a specific angle. “There,” he said. “Now is the cola really necessary in

this shot?”

“That’s not cola.” I laughed. “What’s wrong with you? Can’t you tell a beer bottle when

you see one?”

Ethan squinted, and then turned the page.

Now we were in a section of the magazine that included men with the women, and my

mood altered as we stared at the photos.

Ethan drew closer to me. His hand rested lightly on my shoulder, but it felt heavy and

hot, like a weight, sinking through my body. A slow, warm arousal spread through me and

the magazine lost its hilarity as my desire grew.

“I didn’t think you could have hard dicks in soft porn,” Ethan said, his voice husky.

“This does not qualify as soft,” I told him. His hand stroked down my back invitingly.

“I can tell that your list of vices to be ignored includes not only smoking but pornography as

well.”

Ethan tilted my face toward him and kissed me.

I kissed him back, enjoying the slow, lazy pace he set. The magazine tumbled from my

hands.

Rachel popped her head in.

“Have you seen --” She froze.

Ethan and I bolted apart.

“Sorry!” she said, turning bright red. She fled the room.

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I wiped a shaky hand over my mouth. Ethan stared at me, wide-eyed. “I’m sorry too,”

he said.

“It’s okay,” I said, but I didn’t feel it. My stomach knotted. I had no idea how Rachel

would react. “I better go talk to her.”

“I don’t think we’re going to find the pushke in here, in any case,” Ethan said. He was

slightly pale, and I felt bad. All this sneaking around was obnoxious, especially for someone

openly out.

Ethan put back Uncle Al’s belongings exactly the way we found them, and I went in

search of Rachel. I found her downstairs by the fire, sitting with my mother. When I came in

she blushed again and looked away.

I sat and chatted with them both until my mother declared it time to think about

dinner and left for the kitchen. Rachel got up to help but I reached for her arm and held her

back.

“Can I talk to you for a second?” I asked.

“Sure.” She sat down beside me, in front of the fire. It smelled like cypress -- my father

must have moved on to burning his exotic woods collection.

“Sorry about that,” I told her.

Rachel shrugged. “That’s okay.”

“I hope you aren’t shocked.”

“Nah. I think it’s cool.” She smiled shyly. “You guys look really happy together.”

“Thanks,” I said, feeling a swelling of emotion I hadn’t expected to feel from such a

simple complement.

“There are a few gay men in our neighborhood,” Rachel went on to explain. “Our

neighbors are a nice couple from Louisiana. They have a really great dog too. I’m going to

miss him when I leave.”

“Leave?” I asked. “Where are you going?”

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“To college,” she said, rolling her eyes. I felt shocked by this. Of course I knew she was

eighteen but somehow the fact that my little cousin was already college bound seemed

surreal.

“What school?”

“I got accepted at the University of New Hampshire, but I’ve applied for scholarships

and am hoping to go to Reed in Oregon.”

“Reed’s a good school,” I said.

She nodded. “I just want to get away.”

“I know exactly how you feel.”

Rachel shrugged. “It doesn’t matter anyway -- it’s not like I’m going to be missed here.”

“That can’t be true,” I said, although the self-pitying spiel sounded a lot like something

I would say -- something I had said.

“My dad’s ignored me ever since my mother died. He doesn’t even discipline me

anymore. Last month I was out all night and never told him where I went, and he didn’t

even care. It’s like I don’t exist. Even my feelings about the things we share -- my mom’s

stuff, the pictures -- it doesn’t matter.”

I nodded, and she continued, but I only half listened. I realized that my quiet,

withdrawn cousin had a secret motive for taking the pushke as well. She had been shocked

when she learned he was giving it away. Maybe she took it, just to spite her father? To get

the attention she clearly craved? Or to claim the right to something she thought of as her

inheritance?

When my father and Uncle Al returned from their voyage across the frozen landscape,

their moods had soured. They must have fought the entire time, and the Dektors, their own

situation equally precarious, only provided a few candles, one roll of toilet paper, and a bottle

of Maneschewitz.

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“You should see the main arterial!” my father complained. “There are cars stuck in the

ditches with ice over their windows. George’s son works at the police department and said

they are urging everyone to stay at home until the roads are plowed.”

“That’s not what he said,” my uncle complained. “You are misquoting people again.

You always do that!”

“I do not,” my father replied. “You just can’t hear, that’s your problem.”

“I hear fine! You warp the truth! Always it is like this with you!”

I left the two of them arguing to have a smoke and wondered how much longer we

would be able to endure each other’s company without relations deteriorating completely.

At least I had Ethan. I took a drag and smiled to myself. Something good had come out

of this, at the very least.

Given that my father and my uncle were now at war, and everyone else seemed to be

huddling away from the tension near the fireplace, I found it easy to escape to my room

without guilt or detection. I wondered how quietly Ethan and I could fuck. I wanted to see if

he would be up to it. I grinned as I walked into my bedroom, and saw Ethan lying on the

bed, finally getting a connection on his cell phone.

“I love you too.” Ethan’s voice was low and husky. He looked away from me, but

smiled sappily.

“Yeah,” Ethan continued. “Jonah? He’s fine.” Ethan shrugged. “I don’t know…I don’t

know. I guess. It doesn’t matter to me.”

Numbness, leftover from the cold outside, leftover from high school, leftover from my

birth. A numb nothingness. Goddamn it, I had let that bastard hope inside, hadn’t I?

Ethan glanced at me. He sat up immediately. “Gotta go. Yeah. Okay. Love you too.

’Bye.” He shut the phone and stared at me.

I stared back. I wanted to punch him, but instead I just crossed my arms.

Ethan held his phone up. “Phone’s working again.” He smiled.

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“So. This is just a holiday fuck then, is that right?”

Ethan’s eyebrows came together. “What?”

“Who the hell was that?”

Ethan looked at me like I was insane. “My dad!”

“Your…” I frowned in confusion. “Your dad?”

“Yeah. Who did you think it was?” Ethan looked at me with curiosity.

“No one.” I scowled. “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.” My response sounded a lot like

what Ethan had just said. Jonah? He’s fine…it doesn’t matter to me. What had he meant by

that?

I wanted to ask him, but then I realized it would make me sound like an insecure

stalking loser who hung on every word of his partner. I wasn’t like that. Was I?

Ethan grinned crookedly and stood, throwing his arm around my shoulder. “Don’t be

so paranoid. I don’t have another lover, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I’m not worried,” I lied. I wasn’t worried that he cared about someone else. I worried

that he didn’t care about me.

Despite Ethan’s easy smiles and flirtatious expression, I still felt anxious as we made our

way downstairs for dinner. My anxiety increased when I realized the truce between my

father and his brother had officially ended.

Daniel’s attempts to try and smooth relations over dinner failed. My mother snapped at

my uncle, and in return, he turned and snapped at me.

The meal was not satisfying, the anger radiated off my parents (although at least it was

not directed at me), and the magical quality that had lifted my spirits and filled me with a

sense of timeless presence the night before disappeared, leaving only cabin fever and hunger

to remain. I missed vegetables. I missed chocolate. I missed hot water, being outdoors. Hell, I

missed television.

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My mother tried to spruce up the meal by serving the Dektors’ donated Maneschewitz

in martini glasses and garnishing the drinks with olives.

No one was fooled.

We’d moved to burning my father’s damp wood, which filled the room with smoke

and made us all gag. I had a suspicion that my mother had used the butane stove indoors

without opening the window, as she had complained about the cold.

And it seemed the fact that a family heirloom had officially been missing for five days

was proving too much for my uncle, who once again mumbled about thieves in his own

family and glared at us all in order, with an extra special look of suspicion reserved for me.

“Whoever took it will just put it back on the mantel when they leave,” my mother said

loudly, hoping to diffuse my uncle’s wrath.

“What are you talking about, Helene? Someone here has taken it, and hasn’t fessed up

to it for five days! You think they’re just going to hand it over now?”

“Who wants to play cards?” Daniel said, looking between his father and his aunt with

mounting apprehension.

“No cards!” my uncle bellowed. “No more games!” He turned to me. “It’s time to come

clean, Jonah. Give back the pushke!”

I had been nursing my Maneschewitz cocktail unenthusiastically. Now I swallowed it

down with an angry gulp. I threw my hands up. “Why would it be me, for God’s sake?” I

finally asked him. “Why the hell would I steal it?”

“You’re unsuccessful!” my uncle reasoned, pointing at me. His face, illuminated by the

menorah, looked almost sinister. “You have no money! No career! No pride!”

“Now wait a second --” I started.

“Everyone calm down!” My father’s voice rose. “Al, you have no right to accuse my

son!”

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“Of course it’s him! Who else would it be?” my uncle reasoned. “Besides, he’s the only

one in the room who’s a convicted criminal!”

This was, I suppose, technically true. The fact that my crime was indecent exposure,

and not theft, didn’t seem to matter to my kin. And I wasn’t about to tell them the real

reason I ran buck naked down a Bridgeport street in the middle of the night either. I wasn’t a

pervert; it’s just that my boyfriend at the time’s mother came home two hours early and

surprised us both. I had to sneak out the bedroom window, sans garments.

“I didn’t take it,” I told him.

“He didn’t take it!” My mother defended me.

“Well neither did I!” Uncle Al yelled.

“This is ridiculous!” my mother yelled back.

“Does Moe have it?” Aunt Goldie asked.

“Oh, shut up!” Al yelled.

“Don’t talk to her like that,” I snapped back.

Matthew watched it all in a daze, along with Rachel and Daniel.

“Someone here is guilty, goddamn it, and I’m going to call the cops if they don’t confess

now!” Uncle Al made a leap toward the phone.

“Great, Al, good use of the police in a time of national crisis!” my father shouted.

My uncle turned. “Well if you aren’t going to call out your son for being a thief, I will!”

“What about Daniel?” Ethan asked.

Everyone went silent. Even I stared in shock.

Ethan glared at my uncle. “Have you even questioned your own son? He’s got a paper

bag full of coins from the pushke in his room.”

All eyes swiveled to Daniel, who turned bright red. “I didn’t take it. Honestly!”

Rachel shook her head. “Danny, I told you that coin was from the pushke.”

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“Maybe, but I didn’t steal it from the pushke!” Daniel sighed. “I found it in the trash.”

Ethan’s eyebrows crumpled. “What?”

“When I took the trash out that first night, there was a whole bunch of change on the

top. I just scooped it out and took it to my room.” Daniel swallowed.

Uncle Al shook his head. “Why steal the pushke and dump the money?” He looked at

me. “Why would you do such a thing?”

“Yeah, why would you?” Daniel asked.

Everyone turned to me.

“I’m going to take the trash out,” I announced suddenly.

My mother frowned. “But it’s not full, and --”

“If I stay in here one more minute, I’m going to kill my uncle, and that seems like a bad

idea.”

Without another word, I buttoned up my coat and stepped out on the back porch.