Rockaway (10 page)

“Exactly.
Go
home. That's what it sounded like then, when you told me. Not
move
home. Not
stay
home. Then he got through it just completely fine and next thing you're telling me you got an apartment there, about the art store job, you're all settled in. And I'm thinking, ‘Wait, what about Chicago?'”

“Because then my mom rear-ended that guy, and my dad still couldn't drive for months afterward. They needed help.”

“They could have hired someone.”

“They couldn't afford that. Not everybody can afford that, Em.” She hears her edge again, tries to soften her tone. “They aren't hire-help people.”

“You could've gone the next year. You could have. The Institute was going to hold your scholarship.”

She climbed off the bed. She paced.

“Sarah?”

She approached her easel, studied her shell painting.

“They really wanted you,” Emily continued. “You chose not to go.”

A tiny sable hair was stuck in a stroke of black paint, like a wandering eyelash.

“I just worry about you. You've been doing this forever. Being so responsible for them. Trying to make up for Aaron. I get worried, I worry you've allowed them to—”

“You know, Emily,” and she was aware of the brusque tone again, the hard-hitting
Em
, but didn't care, “I've been sort of busy, too, you know? I have a lot of stuff to deal with.”

“I know. I didn't—”

“Maybe it's not like having a bunch of kids and sheep running around and a big Martha Stewart estate to look after and which organic herbs to grow. But they're my
parents
, you know? I'm their daughter. And you're right, I'm all they have left. So, what do you want me to do, abandon them in some old age home? Warehouse them, so I can go play?”

“That's not what I'm saying. I'm not talking about logistics.”

“This is real life stuff. Real life problems. It's probably hard for you to understand, when you get total freedom to make all these great
choices
.”

There was silence, then a faint, milky baby gasp, then silence again.

“I'm sorry, Em. Really. That was obnoxious. That was my envious evil twin inner-demon talking.”

“It's okay.”

“I get your point, really. They make me crazy. And I let them. I'm three thousand miles away, and I still totally buy into it.”

“I know. I'm sorry.”

“It's like . . .” She started pacing again. “It's like, I called them the other day, and they really have been supportive, you know, they actually haven't called even
once
I've been here, and so each day they don't call I feel even more incredibly guilty. So I call to see how they are, and they ask how much work I'm getting done. Which sounds nice, but what they really mean is, I'm
supposed
to be getting all this
interesting recent
work done, because that's why I'm here and not there, right? This big exhibit, this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. This very
legitimate
reason for abandoning them. And I don't even answer, because then they're telling me my dad can't program the VCR or the sprinkler system and he
can't find his pills and where do I get those low-fat muffins he can eat, and my mom can't drive at all after the last DUI, and the doctor's threatening to take her off the transplant list if she doesn't quit drinking, and then they bicker and my mom gets weepy and my dad gets pissed off and they say how much they miss me and love me, how proud they are, and how I am the most wonderful daughter in the world. And when am I coming home? And then we all hang up and I feel crazy. Just totally crazy.” She took a breath, forced another little chuckle.

There was another silence, then:

“You know, Sarah,” and she could hear Emily choosing, saying her words very carefully, “taking care of your parents, and doing every little thing for them exactly the way they would like it done, are two different things.”

“I know that.”

“You
do
take good care of them. You always will. You will always be sure they are warm and safe and comfortable, right?”

“Of course. But that's not—”

“You haven't abandoned them. You
are
a good daughter.”

“Thanks. I guess, sure. But—”

“But they're not happy people, Sarah. You can't make them into happy people. There isn't enough of you in the world to do that.”

There was a faint, fun-filled shriek, a sudden amped-up
up blare of pop music. She looked out the open picture window, peered down at the beach. Kids were chasing each other across the sand, screeching and swinging strips of seaweed. A vendor was hawking ice-cold soft drinks from a wheeled cooler. Teenage girls rubbing suntan lotion on each other, mock-squealing, teenage boys zigzagging with surfboards, or kicking around a soccer ball,
thwack thwack thwack
. No wonder she was feeling a headache, that dull burn looming at her temples, behind her eyes. She swung shut the window, twisted the latch tight.

“You're not crazy,” Emily was saying. “But forget ‘supposed to.' Don't even paint, if you don't want to. You deserve to just have some complete fun and be totally silly and footloose and irresponsible for now. You really do.”

“Maybe.”

“You know the real truth? I wish I could be doing all that. What you're doing right now.” Through the phone Sarah heard a girl child wail, scream
Mommy! Mommy!
She heard a man's voice,
Emily? Honey, can you come here . . . ?
and another Emily sigh in her ear. “There you go. Truth is, I am consumed with envy. I hate you.”

“Thank you. That's better.”

“I can't wait to see you.”

“Me too. Thanks. I'm sorry about before.”

“Oh, please. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“Hey, did I tell you we have ducklings now? And we're going to start keeping bees.”

“You are out of your mind. You are the crazy one.”

“I know. So please, go have some sexy beach-bum fun, for me. Go splash around in the ocean. Go have a meaningless hot fling with that musician. Go play. Report back. I'll be here.”

THE SATELLITES, THE guys they pick up for the ride to the gig, all in turn exit brick and stone and ivy-covered houses in placid, graceful Brooklyn neighborhoods. They are guys she hasn't met: Tony, Frankie, Sammy, cramming in the back of Marty's silver BMW, wearing their black suits and fedoras and Ray Bans. This is Sarah, Marty says to each, she's coming with. They nod and wink at her as they wedge their way in, then burst into loud buddy-jostling. Hey, Rabbi, Tony yells to Marty, what was the name of that asshole in Atlantic City, that time we opened for Leno? Tell it to the Rabbi, Frankie says to Tony, he's gonna love this, Hey Rabbi, get off at the BQE, Rabbi lemme sing the lead on that one, huh?

They are all Italian, and sound to her like supporting characters from a Scorsese movie. Like most of Marty's friends—besides Julius, who is a stockbroker—none of them
seem to work, to have jobs. Frankie complains about a flood in his basement garage threatening his Alfa Romeo. Tony spends weeks out on his houseboat. Sammy plays a lot of bridge. They all have state of the art gadgets, expensive shoes, nails manicured to a dull, opalescent shine. She is convinced they are all, peripherally, Mafia.
Goodfellas
, exactly. Each of them apparently has had one or two brushes with the music industry: Frankie wrote a hit song in the sixties; Sammy played keyboard on a double album that went platinum; Tony produced one blockbuster tour in the early seventies. She is leery of this day, of this event, nervous of these guys dressed up for their gig in their pitched fedoras and slick, raven-black suits. Their energy is slightly ridiculous, like teenage boys hyped and anxious about their garage band, but the trinkets—the fancy cars and gold watches and quietly costly homes—are reassuring to her: they have something else. Something real. She is disappointed in herself to feel this way, just as she was ashamed at her relief when she finally saw Marty's house for the first time, not the small brick one she'd thought was his, a better one, beachfront, expansive, probably worth several million, and thought Good, he's not just some weirdly religious, aging musician bum. She has found herself liking how he smells, but was abashed when she realized it was partly the BMW scent, a fresh leather-and-citrus, air-conditioned tang, a whiff of rich oil. The whole idea of the gig today is ridiculous to her, an Oldies celebration, oh God. She is worried he will look ridiculous, like Bowser from that
old Sha Na Na group, or the aging actors in
Grease
, pathetic and earnestly anachronistic, that there will be slicked-back, thinning hair and silly dance moves. It all seems childish. Better he be a thoroughly grown-up man, established and defined by something else, something maybe artistic but still secure and status'd, like scoring films.

Before they leave Sammy's house, the last stop, Marty asks her if she wants to go to the bathroom. It's a long drive. He smiles encouragingly, and she almost expects him to pat her on the head. When she gets back in the car they're all humming together, testing sound. Tony clears his throat with a loud hack, and Sammy blows his nose. For the first half hour on the road, as they leave the urban and suburban sprawl and head north on the 95 through sweet bedroom communities and increasingly lush countryside along Long Island Sound, Frankie tries teaching her about music. He talks about chords and modulation and the principles of harmonics, No, Rabbi, lemme explain it to her, see, an octave, that's really thirteen tones but the diatonic scale, Western harmony's all based on that, it only uses eight of those, that's our do re mi, look at piano keys, eight white, five black, now those are semitones, half-steps . . . But it snarls up in her head like math, like junior-high equations on the chalkboard. She tries to nod politely at what he is saying, but the truth is, she doesn't really listen, she doesn't really care.

“WELCOME TO RYE, PLAYLAND! HOST OF WCBS 101.1 FM, NEW YORK'S SALUTE TO THE OLDIES!” comes in amplified static over the loudspeaker, barely audible over parkgoers screaming, laughing, calling, the hawking at carnival-style win-the-teddy bear games, and the tinny circus music piped from Playland attractions: Skyflier, The Derby Racer, Aladino's Flying Carpet! Marty and the guys are unloading equipment, looking around for the other two Satellites meeting them here. Technicians in sweat-damp “Playland Hosts 101.1 FM's Salute to the Oldies” T-shirts bolt around wearing headsets and carrying fistfuls of cable wire, dragging bleachers together. Sarah stretches, and wonders if there's food. She hopes there's something to drink. Everyone is sweating in the sun.

“WE HAVE BEN E. KING, THE DRIFTERS, THE HARPTONES, MARTY ZALE & THE SATELLITES! LIVE PERFORMANCE AND BROADCAST, BEGINS 7:30 ON THE MAIN STAGE!”

The Cyclone, the Dragon Coaster, the Gondola Wheel! The air smells of corn kernels bursting in hot salted oil, and sugar melted brown and thick to caramel. Food stands sell Carvel's Ice Cream and Hebrew National foot-long hot dogs. A fried dough concession offers three toppings: powdered sugar & cinnamon, tomato sauce with cheese, and strawberry jelly. There is a photography booth with garish Gay Nineties costumes, a Haunted Mansion Thrills
‘n Chills edifice blasting witchy, shrieking laughter, and, Sarah notes thankfully, kiosks selling sixteen-ounce paper cups of beer—Miller Lite and Bud, on tap. Kids, everywhere. It's as bad as the beach in Rockaway, children swarming, grubby and hyperkinetic. They bump their faces against sticky, shiny pillows of cotton candy, dart away from the beery or sugared-up adults clutching empty sixteen-ounce cups in one hand and grabbing at the backs of their kids' T-shirts with the other. Like all those kiddie parties in loud, family-frenzy places like this, the whimsical silly childhood birthdays at amusement parks, Miss Genie's Wonderland, Swenson's, Farrell's Olde Fashioned Ice Cream Parlour. Bright whole family days, her parents, her baby brother, days rooted in gladness and giddy surprise, hugs and presents and laughing, sticky tabletops, gleeful screaming friends wearing balloon-twist hats,
Happy Birthday, dear Sarah, Happy Birthday To You!!