Imaginary Men (8 page)

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Authors: Enid Shomer

Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Anthologies (Multiple Authors), #Literary Collections, #Literary Criticism, #test

BOOK: Imaginary Men
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Page 44
Harry drove to Florida in a dove gray Cadillac. The car had a sail, like a boat, and sped down U.S. 1 and then I-95 on gusts of wind. The trees changed from hardwoods to pine and then cabbage palms and magnolias. Farther south, swaying royal palms bowed down before him. He could smell the cold steam of the ocean. When he reached Coconut Grove, he parked his car on the beach, aimed at Africa, where the surf would be crashing over it by morning. He got out and walked toward a dense thicket of mangroves. Weeks passed, months. "I've gone into the tropics. Into the wilderness," he told Toland dreamily. He was going to live off his own fat, ha ha, instead of the fat of the land. Much much later, he surfaced on Collins Avenue in Miami Beach, a thin figure in a white suit that caught the neon glow of the hotel signs. "No one recognizes me," Harry said. He opened his eyes and grinned.
"Give them a little time," Toland said.
 
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Her Michelangelo
Riva Stern was going to save Paul Auerbach. She was going to save him for college and law school and a house in the suburbs and three or four children. She would save him for the world, like bolstering Albert Schweitzer at a crucial point early in his career.
Paul was the poorest person Riva knew. He was poorer than the maid who had taken care of the Sterns for more than fifteen years. He was poorer, even, than Tante and Uncle, her old Russian relatives who still had a party line and lived in a black neighborhood. They spoke hatchet English, and their dingy little apartment always smelled of candle wax and boiled beef with carrots. Riva had never seen Tante in anything but a housecoat. Because of their age and piety, no one
 
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in the family took note of their poverty in a critical way. No one pointed to it as a sign of failure. They did not drive a car. They couldn't afford to go anywhere but the synagogue, and they received the hand-me-downs and charity of at least twenty-five family members with utter dignity. And Paul Auerbach was poorer even than that, though his poverty had the same sort of grace, a kind of storybook quality.
Paul had been working for his uncle at the wholesale produce market in downtown Washington since he was nine years old. He hawked fruits and vegetables from 4 A.M. to noon on Saturdays and on Wednesday mornings until it was time to go to school. Once, right after she got her license, Riva had driven there and from her car had watched the customers surge along the narrow streets and alleys lined with pushcarts and trucks. Haggard men in knit caps and shabby coats weighed and bagged tomatoes, celery, endive, calling out their bargains to passersby. Torn vegetables slicked the pavements, and the gutters ran with the juices of the discards, the overripe, the accidentally dropped. Paul, wearing big leather gloves and a dirty white apron over several layers of old clothes, was carrying bushels of something heavy, his body moving with the fierce rhythms of concentration, his face red with effort and the cold. He hadn't seen her.
You couldn't tell Paul was poor. Until she began to date him, Riva thought he was shy or antisocial. He had a beat-up car, which, she found out later, he owned with his older brother who had already left home. Paul, in fact, spent most of his energy trying to look and act as middle class as anyone else, even though his home life was a nightmare. Riva didn't mind having to buck him up. He was worth it. Because poverty was abstract to Riva, she had a bottomless faith in his ability to overcome it, and her faith was contagious. Also, she was good at talking people into things.
Now she sat in her mother's Buick in a downpour in front of the public library waiting for Paul. She had told her parents she'd be out until ten, studying for a Latin exam. On the phone, Paul had said something was wrong. He needed to see her. Riva loved being needed. She thought she would make a wonderful wife for some brilliant, successful man, like a physicist or a writer.
Through the sheeting rain, she made out his finned, grass green Oldsmobile. She pulled up the hood of her raincoat and when Paul drove up alongside, darted from her car to his. Then she slid across
 
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the seat and kissed him on the cheek. ''I don't know why I came,'' he said. "Talking about it isn't going to change a thing."
"Let's go someplace."
He headed in the direction of Tacoma Park, to a back road that dead-ended under a train trestle. They often went there to neck. They had discovered it one Sunday in the fall when they took a hamper lunch to the park.
It had taken Riva months to get Paul to confide in her. He was deeply ashamed of his family. But now he trusted her completely in a way that he would probably never trust anyone again in his life. His need was that great.
The sky was a dull red above the glistening street lights as he maneuvered through traffic along Georgia Avenue. The rain made liquid jewels of the neon signs for Little Tavern hamburgers and Midas mufflers and Ramco Auto Upholstery. Riva had become more aware of her surroundings lately. She would be leaving for college in the fall, and she would probably never live here again, except for the summers. She and Paul planned to write to each other and spend vacations together. She liked thinking about that arrangementPaul tucked away in her life, like a lucky coin you could keep in your pocket and never spend. Riva was a "brain," and Paul was the only boy at Hoover High School she had ever dated. Unlike most boys, he wasn't afraid to date a girl who made better grades than he did. Or maybe he figured that his grades would have matched hers if he had more time to spend on schoolwork.
Paul parked under the trestle, and they cracked their windows. It was the end of March, and they could smell the change of seasons in the sharp, damp air. Outside the car, the first green shoots worked their way up through a thick brown carpet of dead grass.
"I won't be going to San Antonio," he said. He linked his hands together and cracked his knuckles. Paul had won the school debating contest. The prize was $300 and the honor of representing the school at the National Polemics Competition.
"Oh no," Riva said. The story would be terrible; it would make her cry for Paul. The story would be about his disreputable father and his pathetic mother. She put her arms around him and lay her head on his shoulder and waited.
"He heard about the money. He said he had to pay these bills. He showed me a bill for three months' rent for the apartment."
 
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"How did he find out?"
"What difference does it make?"
"Maybe he heard your mother telling somebody about the prize." As soon as Riva said it, she could see Mrs. Auerbach herself telling her husband about the moneybeing proud of Paul, not realizing what would happen next. "You have to go. You could win the $2,500 grand prize."
"I know."
"You've still got three weeks. Maybe your brother can help you out. Maybe you'll let me help you out"
"No!" His eyes flashed. He punched the dashboard with his fist.
"Don't do that to yourself." Riva stroked his hand.
He forced a smile and combed through his hair with his fingers. "Right. New topic. You've got your big test tomorrow. Come on, let's conjugate a couple of verbs." He whispered it into her ear. "You're so luscious."
"God, you're sweet." She kissed his hand. "You could take the money out of your college savings."
Paul had a savings account at the bank that only Rivanot even his mother or brotherknew about. In three years he had managed to save $1,500 toward tuition at George Washington University.
"I can't do that. I'm already short for the first semester unless I can get a loan. I'm counting on getting a loan."
She stroked his sand-colored, slightly greasy hair that felt like silk in her fingers, like silk embroidery floss. She comforted him, and together they tried to figure a way for him to accumulate the money before the end of April. Then they necked, just a little, just to cheer him up. She unzipped his pants and drew circles around his cock with her fingers until he was hard, and then they kissed a little more, and then he drove her back to the library.
<><><><><><><><><><><><>
The next morning was a Friday, and Riva lay in bed before the alarm clock rang pondering Paul's problems. Paul had a secret that no one at school except Riva knew: he supported himself. Sometimes he had to help support his mother and father. This had been going on since he was fourteen. In the past, in addition to working at the farmers' market, Paul had held various pan-time jobs, most of them in
 
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sales. He had sold Kirby vacuum cleaners and the Encyclopedia Judaica and men's monogrammed golfing shirts. He had demonstrated the Kirby for Riva and her mother one Sunday evening. Mrs. Stern had taken quite an interest in it until she realized that she didn't care what kind of vacuum she owned since the maid was the only one who used it. But she admired its engineering, she told Paul. In two months' time, he sold only one Kirby.
Riva had tried to lend him money, but he refused it. The most she could offer was a gift now and thena sweater for his birthday, a shirt at Hanukkah. Paul loved clothes. He took fastidious care of his few things, ironing the shirts himself, keeping them folded in Saran Wrap in his drawer. He was the only boy she knew who polished his shoes. He couldn't achieve the flashy look of the wealthier boys, but he bought quality. He watched the papers for sales. He chose conservative colors and styles that blended together. Almost nobody noticed him one way or the other. When Riva first talked about dating him, her friends had difficulty calling up the matching face: "Paul Auerbach? Who does he hang out with?" And Riva would patiently explain where he sat in Chemistry or World Lit and that he didn't have time for a real social life like other kids.
She could remember the exact moment she had noticed him. It was the third week of school, in Civics. She was in her assigned seat in the first row and he was standing right in front of her giving an oral report and the edge of her desk cut into his thighs. He was nervous and stuttered a little. His intense hazel eyes stared fixedly at the back of the room where Dr. Voski sat, grading him on completeness, accuracy, and presentation. For a moment, it looked like he was getting a hard-on from his nerves. That happened to some boys, Riva knew, but then he shifted his weight and the bulge disappeared. He dropped a note card on her desk toward the end, and when she handed it back to him, he had looked startled, as if he hadn't noticed her before. That night she had dreamed about him. It was one of those dreams that makes you fall in love, whether you want to or not. This had happened to Riva before. When she was twelve, she had dreamed about Tab Hunter after she saw him in a movie. She had a terrible crush on him after that. And in eighth grade she'd had a love dream about Eliot Finkelstein that rendered her mute for weeks in his presence. After her dream about Paul, she had talked to him in school the next day. What had been the pretext? She had sold him a ticket for the
 
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Latin Club's raffle, and then he had walked her to the cafeteria and asked her for a date.
"Riva! Riva diva!" Barry called out. "I'm leaving here in exactly five minutes." Barry was her twenty-one-year-old brother. He dropped her off at school every morning on the way to work.
Riva lunged from between the covers and reached for the day's clothes draped across a chair, a cerise wool skirt and matching sweater. "Be right down," she called back.
Paul was absent that day from school. During lunch she called his house. She had to be careful about phoning there. His father did not like Paul to receive calls from girls. His mother was more understanding. His mother, Riva thought with a start, would not know how to push a rat away that was gnawing on her face.
"Why aren't you here?" Riva asked.
"He's left again. She's very upset."
"He left even though you gave him the money?"
"Yeah. Look," Paul whispered, "I can't talk now."
"Call me tonight. I love you."
"Tonight."
<><><><><><><><><><><><>
That night, after she and Paul talked, Riva wrote in her diary. She made a list of ways she could help him raise the money for San Antonio. She wrote down everything she could think of, as fast as she could write:
1. Get the money somehow and make him let me lend it to him
.
2. Give the money to the school (after I get it) and have them give it to him, compliments of "anonymous."
3. Give the money to his mother to give him. Swear her to secrecy
.
4. TALK TO POP GOLDRING!!!
She had been keeping a diary for nearly three years. When she entered high school, her mother had bought her a "Chums" desk seta matching blotter, pencil holder, scrapbook, and five-year diary in pink leather. Carefree teenagers resembling the "Archie" cartoon

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