The Nakeds (10 page)

She was taking pills she claimed were aspirin that didn’t look like aspirin at all.

She was anxious to move out, hated the house she’d shared with Hannah’s father.

She didn’t want to sell, wanted to stay in that house forever. It was where their memories lived, she said.

She wished it was fall so she could start teaching again, and she was relieved it was summer. Imagine if she had to recover from Asher’s adulterous behavior and Hannah’s accident while teaching classes.

Her mom was lonely, weeping one minute and then giddy on the phone with Dr. Seth the next. When she hung up, she was prettier and younger. She’d go wash her face, put on some blush.

Sometimes, unable to face the width of the king-sized bed, she’d sleep at the kitchen table with her head down, where Hannah would find her in the morning, shake her shoulder gently, and she’d wake up confused, asking,
How did I get here?

MARTIN COULDN’T
choose how he felt inside, but he could choose how to behave, so he did as his parents had asked and worked on his attitude. He pretended. He put on a show, moving between restaurants and consciously trying to act normal. He thought about who he’d been, remembered the conversations he’d had with customers, and instigated those same conversations again. He asked them innocuous questions and nodded politely, as they gave him innocuous answers. He stood at their tables and served them things. He smiled and smiled and smiled.

At the diner, he served burgers and ham sandwiches and golden grilled cheese. He served mashed potatoes or scalloped potatoes or French fries, big Cokes and frothy milk shakes. At the more upscale place, he dressed up in black slacks and starched white shirts, served Italian cuisine, and suggested wine pairings like the most polite sommelier.

He moved from restaurant to home and back again. Sometimes he went to the beach at dusk and sat on the sand, staring at the ocean. Sometimes he went to the hospital to see Penny, and some days to the mall to buy Hannah another gift.

He rode his bike or moved from bus stop to bus stop.

It was early fall and he was sitting at one of those bus stops now, thinking about finally visiting the college campus and checking things out, even though he had no intention of sticking around. Maybe he’d find a college in his new city, wherever that was, and maybe he’d get all A’s and meet a girl like Penny.

An old woman in a colorful shawl and a long, floral skirt was walking toward the bus stop, pushing a stroller. She sighed loudly when she sat on the bench next to him, and he noticed several white whiskers on her chin and above her lip.

“Good morning,” he said.

The old woman nodded and smiled. She pulled the stroller closer to the bench and Martin could see in, noticing it was empty. The woman looked at him and shrugged, then she scooted toward him, an inch or two closer than he would have liked, but still he wanted to be friendly.

“Where’s the baby?” he said, smiling.

“
My
babies,” the woman said in English, her palm flat on her chest. “Mine,” she repeated with a thick accent.

“Yeah, OK,” he said. “Where are they?”

“
Sí, sí,
” the woman said.

“Did you forget the baby?” he said, pointing at the empty stroller. He could tell from her expression that she didn’t understand English, but it was the only language he knew, so he spoke it louder and slower, which was, of course, futile. He felt embarrassed for both of them and looked away. Two kids were riding one bike across the street, a boy pedaling and a boy balancing on the handlebars. It was ten a.m. and they should have been in school, Martin thought. Maybe they were late and on their way. It seemed reckless, the way they were riding—how could the pedaling boy see?

“My babies,” the old woman said again.

Martin turned back to her.

The old woman smiled at him.

“I hurt a little girl,” he said.

“
No comprende,
” she said.

But Martin wasn’t deterred. He wanted to talk. So what if she didn’t understand a fucking word he said? Maybe it was better this way. “I hit her with my car and she almost died,” he continued. “She’s all busted up. A little kid, walking to school. And now she’ll never walk again.” He shook his head and felt his eyes welling up. Not again, he thought, not in public.
I’m a fucking pussy
, he told himself.

The old woman nodded, still smiling. “Louisa,” she said.

“What?” he said.

“Amelia, José, Juan.”

“OK,” he said, uncertain.

“Margret,” she continued. “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie,” she said, clicking her tongue and looking like she was about to cry.

Martin figured that the names belonged to children the old woman had lost or children she’d had to abandon in Mexico. He turned away again, wanting to see if the boys made it down the street, but they were gone. When he turned back to her, she looked angry, not sad anymore, but mad. She was speaking Spanish to him and he didn’t understand one word.

“Can’t help you,” he said. “Look, lady, I don’t understand a thing you’re saying.” He rubbed his palms on his jeans, shaking his head.

She turned from him then, looked straight ahead, and continued her rant, talking to no one.

Martin looked away again. There was a guy about his age holding a book bag that said
Manhattan Beach Junior College
on it, standing in front of the bus stop. He was just a couple feet to the right of Martin and the old woman. He had longish hair, wore jeans and a T-shirt that said in bold black letters:
Vietnam: Stop the Killing
. Martin had no idea how much of his conversation with the old woman the guy had heard, and he felt embarrassed. He could have eavesdropped on the whole thing. The guy turned around then. “You know what time this bus is going to get here?” he asked.

Martin looked at his watch. “About five minutes,” he said. The guy was obviously on his way to class, a normal guy with opinions about the world and a destination, a place to go, a guy who didn’t hit little girls on their way to school or spend time confessing to people who didn’t understand him.

Martin didn’t want to get on the bus and go all the way to campus with this guy. Maybe he’d do something else today and check out the school tomorrow. He’d get to his parents’ restaurant early and help out. He’d figure out where he was going once he got on the bus, which thankfully had just arrived, shooting its black air into the sky, the doors whooshing open. Martin stood up and thought about helping the woman and her empty stroller onto the bus, but he really didn’t want to. He was relieved when the bus driver got out and stepped down. He addressed the old woman by name. “Manuela,” he called to her, speaking in Spanish and helping her and her stroller up the stairs.

The bus was crowded and noisy with chatter. Martin stood in front, scanning the rows for a place to sit.

“
Sí, sí
,” the bus driver said, helping Manuela settle into her seat, patting her arm.

By the time Martin made his way down the aisle, there was only one open seat and that was next to College Guy, so Martin didn’t have a choice. He sat down and tried to get comfortable.

In front of them, Manuela was singing a Spanish lullaby.

“Lady’s crazy,” Martin said softly out of the corner of his mouth, but either College Guy didn’t hear him or didn’t like him because he leaned down, unzipped his bag and pulled out a textbook. He put the book in his lap and opened it. Martin used his peripheral vision to check it out. Apparently, he was studying astronomy. On his lap, stars and galaxies, the sun, the moon, and a blue-black sky.

“You into stars, huh?” Martin said to him.

The guy nodded, begrudgingly, but didn’t look up. He obviously didn’t want to talk or make friends, which convinced Martin that he’d heard everything.

The bus moved along, stopping once at the public library and another time in front of a supermarket. One middle-aged woman got off at the library and several old people moved slowly down the aisle at the supermarket stop.

When Martin saw the shopping mall in the distance, he knew instantly where he’d spend the day. He pulled on the cord and stood up.

“Bye-bye,
señor,
” Manuela said.

He turned around to wave at her, but she had her head turned and was looking out the window.

“Bye,” he said.

The bus driver looked at him impatiently, so Martin hurried down the steps. The doors smacked shut behind him and the bus pulled away from the curb.

THE HEAT
was the big story. Record highs, the newscaster said. The hottest it had been in thirty years. One hundred two degrees on the coast, 110 degrees inland. He suggested staying in the shade and stressed proper hydration. He sipped from a glass of water to demonstrate. A young reporter with a ponytail and shimmery lipstick talked to a bare-chested construction worker, a glistening bear who complained into the microphone, his shirt stuffed in his back pocket. When he turned around to point at the apartment complex he was working on, the shirt swung behind him like a tail.

Hannah sat on the armchair in the den with her sweaty, itchy leg outstretched, the cast resting on a pillow on the coffee table. A day earlier, she’d twisted a coat hanger and used it to scratch at her calf. When she finished, she stashed it underneath the sofa. She was hoisted up on one elbow, bent over, searching for it now.

All she could think about was the itch, steadily getting worse. The newscaster reported that a woman had dropped dead in line at the bank, fell to the floor clutching her checkbook. Heatstroke, he said. He warned people to take care of their needs, watch out for their children and pets. Hannah wanted that hanger. She was feeling around under the sofa and finding dust. She found a metal button the size of a quarter, a spool of red thread, and a safety pin. She set the objects on the sofa’s arm and continued searching, wondering if maybe her mom had discovered the hanger and thrown it away. Maybe she’d thought about the doctor’s stern warning about scratching inside the cast, his admonition against knitting needles, hangers, and butter knives. Maybe Hannah would be scolded or maybe her mom would understand.

Finally, she found the hanger pushed up against the wall in a far corner, and then she was holding it in her hand, aiming right inside the dark tunnel, when she heard her mother’s footsteps in the hall. She quickly hid the hanger behind her back, tucked it behind the throw pillow.

“What’s the story?” her mom said, sitting down in the chair opposite the sofa. “What’s going on in the world?” She wore navy shorts and a white cotton blouse tied at her waist. Her feet were bare. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a tube of lip gloss. She put it on without a mirror and smacked her lips together and Hannah could smell the bubblegum flavor from where she sat. “It’s so damn hot. I can’t take this heat,” her mom said, picking up the
TV Guide
from the coffee table and fanning herself with it.

“They’re talking about it on the news,” Hannah said. The itch was getting even stronger, more intense, and she wished her mother would take her horribly sweet lips out of the den and leave her alone. It was the right side of her ankle specifically and she wanted to get to it. She wished her fingers were long and thin enough to reach. She scratched at her knee because it was all she could get to.

“What’s wrong?”

“My leg itches.”

“Try not to think about it. Think about something else. Think about the house finally selling. That would be a great thing.” She paused. She exhaled loudly. “Your dad wants to see you this weekend. Think about that. Think about where you’d like him to take you. He wants you to meet Christy. I told him it was too soon. You don’t want to meet her yet, do you?”

Hannah shrugged. She didn’t know how she felt. Her knee was red now, but it was her ankle she wanted.

“What’s that?” Her mom leaned in, staring at the pillow behind Hannah’s back and the couple inches of wire sticking out from behind it.

Hannah adjusted herself, trying to cover up the pillow. “Nothing,” she said.

Her mom stood up and reached behind Hannah’s back, pulling out the hanger. “Oh, dear God,” she said. “This is dangerous—what have you done? Have you hurt yourself?”

“No,” she said.

“You could break the skin.”

“But I haven’t.”

“You know what the doctor said, Hannah. You could get an infection. Dr. Bell said not to scratch. It’s so dangerous, honey. You don’t want to get all scarred up. You’ve been hurt so much already.”

“I’m careful,” Hannah said.

“It’s not safe to scratch.”

“You don’t know what this is like. You think you’re hot? I’m hotter. It’s just a little scratching. I use the curved end. It isn’t even sharp.”

The two of them stared at the coat hanger for several minutes before her mom finally said, “How do you do it? Show me.”

And Hannah eased the hanger into the opening, aimed, and reached her ankle. “Ah,” she said. “Oh,” she said, finally, finally scratching that itch.

DR. SETH’S
house calls weren’t really house calls, but visits. He wasn’t worried about Hannah’s physical problems anymore; it was her mother’s body he came to see. He didn’t give Hannah’s liver a thought these days, saying hello quickly with a squeeze to the shoulder or an insincere pat on the back.

Twice a week, her mom and Dr. Seth sat together in the living room, sipping wine, eating crackers and soft cheese or little meatballs they picked up with toothpicks. Sometimes they had fat strawberries dusted with powdered sugar.

At dusk they moved to the bedroom, where, her mother told her, they listened to classical music.

Now it was early evening and Mozart sounded through the walls, down the hall, and into Hannah’s bedroom, where she sat at her desk putting together a puzzle—a gift from Dr. Seth. The puzzle was a re-creation of a famous painting. A woman sat on a hill looking at a house or the woman was crawling toward the house, Hannah wasn’t sure. She had the puzzle pieces spread out in front of her and was trying not to hear what was happening. The sitting or crawling woman’s back was only half there and Hannah was looking for her shoulder, and her mother was moaning in the next room, and the moan sounded painful, like the doctor might have been hurting her.