Happy Family Part 10

"Bertrand didn't have to mortgage his house," Cheri says quietly. "We can pay him back."

"With Sol's money? Don't even go there."

"It's my money now."

"So you want to use his money-that you wouldn't take for yourself-as what? Absolution? For Sol or for you? Because I'm now a 'good cause'?"

"That's not fair," she says, "that is not fair and you know it."

Michael turns away. They've danced around the issue of her trust fund so many times it's exhausting and his voice shows it. "Okay," he says. "Let's not get into the money conversation. Bertrand knows what he's doing. We'll have no trouble rounding up investors. It's fine."

"Here." Cheri walks over to the fridge, reaches in, and hands him the almond milk. "Believe it or not, I'm trying to help. You don't make it easy."

"None of this is easy." Michael takes his tea and almond milk out to his office.

"For the record, it was duck rillettes," she calls after him, "and I loved them." The open fridge hums. She checks the dates on the milk-only one is expired. Should she offer to go with Michael on the road? She's never done that; she had her work and he had his. That's not an issue at the moment, but this Last Stand casts a long shadow. What would she be? Roadie, groupie, handmaiden, wife? As much as she wants to help, Michael would resist it coming from her. She dumps the spoiled milk down the sink and, in an act of defiance, throws the carton in the garbage instead of the recycle bin.

On the Road Again.

In the next days, Michael is a whirlwind of focused activity, energized by his palm-wearing loyalists. Cheri sits in her den/office and listens to the phone ringing and ringing, all on Michael's lines. She lights a cigarette, takes a deep drag, and doesn't bother to get up and blow the smoke out the window. Almost halfway into the quarter she won't be teaching, she's finally unpacked her boxes and made the den a working office. No photocopies have arrived from London, and she's yet to find a book thesis that's compelling enough to make her want to sit down and write. It's pathetic that all that's on her desk is a growing pile of papers that's exclusively on the Richardses' complaint.

She'd been so consumed with Michael's diagnosis that, for a brief moment, she's almost forgotten her righteous indignation over the review board's questions. They've spoken to her students about the in-cla.s.s discussion the day Richards claimed she tried to kick him out because he was a Catholic. They asked, with what she thought was moral superiority, if it was her practice to query students about their experiences with prost.i.tutes. Did they read her book? Contemporizing ancient subject matter was what she was known for and hers was among the most popular cla.s.ses in the department. And what did any of this have to do with Richards's claim of religious bias? They asked to see her notes from the past five years, presumably to verify she'd covered this subject before. She'd given them everything. Meanwhile they'd given her no information on how quickly they intended to wrap up their investigation or what their verdict was likely to be. She hadn't told anyone at the university about Michael's diagnosis, although she soon learned that "dealing with family matters" conveniently shut down any well-intentioned, or not-so-well-intentioned, questions from her colleagues about how she'd filled her summer or what was occupying her time now. It was vague enough to suit Cheri, yet it didn't invite further questions. Now that she stops to think about it, what if people think she and Michael are getting a divorce; wouldn't that be ironic?

Cheri tries to rationalize: She's not in exile, she's in research mode. She should get back to the Ugaritic texts instead of staring out the window at the comings and goings of the Palmist base camp. If productivity had a scent, it would be wafting out of there. It pierces her tar haze. d.a.m.n Jane, that organizational freak of nature has given Cheri no opening to do even the smallest task, like ordering lunch. (Twin Anchors, anyone? Best ribs in Chicago.) And now there's also a young intern with the mile-high legs and lush red ponytail ready to meet Michael's every need.

Twenty minutes later, Cheri gets out of her car, bobbling two trays of Starbucks. She opens the door to Michael's office with her foot. "Jeez, Cheri, think you got enough? Let me help," Michael says, taking a tray.

"I also got you some matcha tea from the health store, it's this cup." She points with her chin then realizes Michael is alone. "Where is everyone?"

"They'll be back in a bit."

The room has been transformed with a galaxy of signs, photographs, and old posters of turbaned swamis, fortune-tellers, mystics, a map of the United States with various routes red-pegged like a Battleship game, a bulletin board spattered with images of tarot, multicolored symbols, and runes. Michael is the center of his universe, standing in his low-slung jeans, his hands in his pockets. Scrub-bearded, he is a man in charge. This is the man she'd once found irresistible, the man who knew things she didn't, the cynical rascal who charmed her while she was walking out on his film and made her want to f.u.c.k him right then and there. "I have to kiss you," she says, taking his face in her hands. If he resists, it's only for a moment. He's aroused by her sudden hunger; she can feel him pressing into her with a small moan.

"What are you doing? They're on their way back." Michael's got a lopsided smile. They scrabble to find footing, release the appropriate fastenings so that they're both depantsed, his hand under her blouse. "Watch the map," he says. f.u.c.k the map. She's pulling him to the floor and maneuvers herself on top of him the way he likes, with his hands on her hips. She curls her chest toward his and he looks her in the eye. "Oh, baby."

A few thrusts and it's over.

"It's been a while," he says. He holds her and she can feel his body vibrating like a washing machine that's just been turned off. After a minute, he taps her to roll off him. They lie next to each other on the floor and she reaches for his hand, squeezes it. Michael breathes heavily. He's clammy.

"I can't let you go. It's too risky. It just is. Michael, please reconsider."

Michael pulls himself up and puts on his jeans, hands Cheri hers. "We've been over this. Please. Respect what I'm doing here."

Okay. Cheri nods. Okay. "I'd come with you," she says. "If you needed-or wanted-me to, I'd be there."

"Sorry, am I interrupting?" It's Bertrand, peering in the door. "I can come back."

"Come on in. Cheri got coffee, you might want to nuke it."

"Yours is cappuccino," Cheri says, discreetly b.u.t.toning her blouse.

"Thanks, Cheri," he says, holding up his cup to her. "Are you sure you weren't in the middle of something?"

"No, I'm ready, what have you got?" Michael sits at his desk and starts tapping his computer's keyboard. Bertrand gives Cheri a kindly look and starts unpacking his laptop and thick production notebook. Cheri feels like maybe she should leave. "Hey, you two didn't happen to talk about the car, did you?" Bertrand asks.

"Car, what car?" Cheri says.

"We need a car for the film, and Michael mentioned your mother has a vintage Caddy from the sixties?"

"I keep forgetting to ask you about it," Michael says. "Do you know what year it is?"

"You're talking about Cici's old car in Montclair? She's had it ever since I can remember, I don't know what year."

"I know it's early sixties and it's a cla.s.sic convertible, at least I remember it that way, with the fins and whitewall tires?" Michael is on his computer, Googling away.

"I bet it's an Eldorado." Bertrand bends over to look at Michael's screen. "Is this it?" He beckons Cheri to look.

"Yeah, I think that's it. I'm surprised you remember it, Michael."

"It's in those photographs she has up on that one wall at Eighty-first Street, you know, of you as a kid? I pay more attention than you think. Knowing your mother, it's barely been driven."

"It's been covered in the garage for decades. It probably won't even start. If you want a cool old convertible, why not go with a Tiger or a Vette?"

"Too predictable," Bertrand says, smoothing his beard thoughtfully.

"I like the feel of the Caddy, it's retro and American from when American cars meant something," Michael adds.

"Out of all the cars you could get, you want my mother's car?"

"It's the right creative choice for the film, Cheri," Michael says. "And we don't exactly have unlimited time or money right now." Cheri looks at Bertrand and remembers he's already taken out a second mortgage to accommodate Michael's dream. He's being diplomatic but she can tell he's in favor as well.

"This is Cici we're talking about; she'll ask a million questions. She doesn't know anything about your diagnosis. Are you sure you want to open that can of worms?"

"She won't even notice it's gone. When was the last time she was in Montclair?"

"That's not the point," Cheri says.

"You asked what I needed from you," Michael says.

Cheri was snared. "Of course," she says.

The moment Cheri sees the stately Colonial rising up at the end of the long gravel driveway on Upper Mountain Drive she feels like she's ten years old. She hasn't been back here since after Sol's funeral. It's an elegant house, gracious in its ripening age, with its wraparound porch and rows of Italian cypress trees standing sentinel. The earth smells rich with fall rot; the oak trees have mostly flamed but still burst with yellow in places. Only her mother's beloved lilac bushes have missed the party and are faded brown. Birds. Amazing how she can hear the trills and the whistles in suburbia; it all gets lost in the city. Without even stepping inside, Cheri can picture the layers of Cici's decor: the earth tones, the gilt, the overstuffed armchairs, the antiques from various eras that smell of beeswax and lemon. Even before all of the additions, the house felt too big for just three people, maybe more so because they were always teams of two. Okay, Cheri thinks, let's just get this done quickly. Michael's traveling road show waits on the street below; his camera truck and van are parked and ready to roll as soon as they've got the Caddy.

Cheri joins Michael in the garage, watching as a white-coated mechanic who specializes in vintage cars revs up the Caddy's engine. Naturally, Jane managed to find an expert within a thirty-mile radius of their target. Michael walks around, looking it over, and then nods at her and grins. She has to admit it looks cherry.

"For a car that hasn't been driven in a decade, it's in pristine condition," the mechanic says. "She's all tuned up and ready."

Michael and Cheri linger awkwardly next to the Cadillac. Michael puts his hands on her shoulders. Sometimes she forgets just how tall he is.

"I'm nervous about this," she says.

"We'll take good care of it. Cici will never know."

"I wasn't talking about the car."

"I know," he says, giving her shoulders a squeeze. "I'll be okay." She wants to hold on to this moment, say, Stop, go back. Don't move forward because looming there is an even greater good-bye.

"Okay," she says.

"This house must have been quite the place to grow up in," says the red-ponytailed intern trailing behind Bertrand into the garage. "It's too bad we don't have time to see inside..." Cheri and Michael shake their heads simultaneously.

"Thanks, Cheri," Bertrand says, squeezing her protectively. "I'll keep my eye on him," he whispers, then he turns back to Michael. "You ready, O Captain, my captain?"

"I feel great," Michael says, "and this is going to be one h.e.l.l of a trip." He turns to Cheri; his lips graze hers and they hug. She holds on to him for longer than both of them know is good. He pats her back, saying, "I gotta go now."

Cheri's hand is raised in a brief wave as the Cadillac wends its way down the long driveway then disappears into the oak trees and the skyline. She is filled with a deep longing, the profound sense of missing something she's never really had. It's young and primitive, this fantasy of family; the idea that someone is there for you no matter what. She looks down at the shape of the Cadillac superimposed on the dusty garage floor, like the chalk outline of a dead body. She should get going, but where to? Back to the airport and the specter of her empty house, a career endangered by the word prost.i.tution? Or should she go inside this empty house, where memories she'd sought to avoid thrive and whisper to her through dusty curtains, slipcovered furniture, and shuttered windows?

The slanted sunlight coming through the small window makes the dark inside the garage seem darker, and Cheri finds herself feeling along the wall for the light switch. Somewhere in here there's a box with her junior rifle trophies and medals. Gusmanov once asked if he could take a trophy to put on his mantel, and she'd said, "Of course." When she was heading to college he'd helped her pack it all up, along with her first pistol, a Colt 911, and together they placed the box with the other flotsam and jetsam of her childhood way back on a high shelf here in the garage. She peers up at the stacks of boxes; she can barely make out Cookie's misspelled labels: Baking staff, Cheri's colledge. The shadows up there are nothing, she realizes, compared to what lurks in her mind. She decides to get a ladder and a flashlight and find whatever it is she's supposed to find.

Cherry Bomb.

n.o.body asked Cheri Matzner to the Montclair High School prom and her only truly close friend was Taya Resnick, the socialite daughter of a Wall Street tyc.o.o.n. It didn't matter to Taya that Cheri didn't look or act like any of her other rich-kid friends. As different as the two girls were, they bonded over absentee fathers, the belief that Dostoyevsky was very f.u.c.king funny, chain-smoking, and their burning need to get the h.e.l.l out of Montclair. They were coconspirators who never got caught.

By twelfth grade, Cheri was a suburban subversive with a nose ring, multiple piercings, ripped clothing, and dyed blue hair she'd buzzed on one side with her father's electric razor. She wore her difference as armor against the cliques, the me-too forces that tugged on her adolescent impulse to find safety in numbers. She was in enough AP cla.s.ses to qualify as a nerd and had the basketball skills to be a jock. But while Cheri had a foot in every camp, she didn't fit into any one category. Better put, no category could accommodate all of her conflicting parts.

And she was no more comfortable in the community at large. She walked through Montclair with the Talking Heads as her sound track; this wasn't her beautiful life with its beautiful wives kookookachu-ing over their electronic pool covers. She preferred to hang out with the blue-collar crowd, apartment kids who cut school and had jobs pumping gas or at the 7-Eleven. She smoked weed with the kids who got bused in from Plainfield, kids who dropped in and dropped out, kids who shoplifted gum and necklaces from Korvettes. They knew people in jail, runaways, decent garage bands, and which dealers didn't cut their drugs with baby laxatives.

The apartment kids turned Cheri on to uppers. She loved the euphoric, knee-jiggling turbo charge and hyperawareness that, somehow, evened out her frantically active brain. The pills were black and coated (ode to her father) or white with twinkly blue sparkles. In the morning, she'd pop a few black beauties, wash them down with free coffee she got from an apartment kid who worked at McDonald's, and by the time she got to school, she'd be buzzing.

Cheri was like every other teenager who wanted to believe that her struggle was unique, her malaise more desperate, and her soul more misunderstood than anyone before her. No wonder she related to the alienation and rage of punk and new wave music and cranked them up on her Walkman. While Taya dangled her lineage to get into clubs like Studio 54, Cheri was pounding it out in the mosh pits at CBGB's. She loved the East Village's hustling trannies, winos, and glam boys, tatted gangsters, and hard-core punks. She slammed into strangers pogoing at CBGB's while Joey Ramone sang "I Wanna Be Sedated." Years later, when she was a cop, she'd realize just how much danger she'd put herself in during her teenage years, but then she'd felt invincible, pumped up on the wild blue beyond of breaking all the rules.

One day in May as Cheri and Taya lounged on Taya's platform bed, pa.s.sing a skull-shaped bong between them while listening to The Doors, the subject of the prom lifted its ugly head. "I don't give a s.h.i.t about that stupid dance," Taya said. "But to quote your man Jim Morrison, 'This is the end, my beautiful friend.' We can't go out with a whimper. We made it through high school relatively unscathed, and if that doesn't deserve a blowout, I don't know what does."

"What did you have in mind?" Cheri asked.

"How about Atlantic City?" Taya said with a wicked smile.

It turned out that Atlantic City was a little sad, a lot tarnished, and more crowded than they'd antic.i.p.ated. But they scored mescaline and quaaludes from some Disco-Suits they met at a casino, so they didn't need arcades or Ferris wheels to see neon-color trails, to see cherries dancing out of the machines and becoming the waitress who brought them Long Island Iced Teas. They crashed by the pool in their clothes and returned home Sunday night with farmer's tans and tattoos they got from a biker named Papa.

"Thanks for taking me to the prom," Cheri said as Taya dropped her off in front of her house. She was expecting to open the door and collapse on an overstuffed couch. Instead she walks into...Thanksgiving? It's three o'clock in the afternoon in late May, yet her parents are at the dining-room table eating a very large roasted turkey.

"Thank G.o.d!" Her mother jumped up. "We were so worried!"

"Don't get up," her father said, grabbing Cici's arm.

"You're supposed to be in Europe," Cheri said.

"And you're supposed to be at the Resnicks'. But they thought Taya was staying here. We called them to let you know our flight had been canceled and we'd be back home for the night. Imagine everyone's confusion," her father said.

Cheri's stomach clenched; she couldn't believe she was busted.

"Solomon, let her sit and eat. I make the plate."

"Do not get up and serve her," Sol said calmly.

"You no look so good, you skin is all red. What were you doing in the sun, it makes wrinkles. I get some crme." Cici stood up.

"Cici, I mean it. Cheri's old enough to lie and steal and be a delinquent, she can d.a.m.n well make her own plate."

"I didn't steal anything," Cheri said, shrugging her bag up on her shoulder.

"How about Mr. Resnick's car?"

"I no think they stole, only not ask to take it," Cici said, eyeing Cheri's arm. Cheri instinctively pulled her T-shirt down to cover her tattoo.

"Taking without permission is the definition of stealing. Let me handle this, sweetheart."

"So you called the Resnicks? That's great now that you're getting Taya in trouble. If you're going to ground me, can you just do it now? I want to go up and take a nap."

"And we wanted to be on the trip of a lifetime, but we didn't get to do that."

"Can we please be the civilized people and have a family meal?" Cici said to Solomon. "She is home. She could have driven off the road, bleeding from her eyes."

"How long?" Cheri said. "A day? A week?"

"Cheri, you are hurt!" Cici leaped up and grabs her daughter's arm, pushed up her T-shirt sleeve until she's exposed the patch of fresh ink and angry skin. "What did you do to yourself? Solomon, look!"

Before her father was able to clumsily maneuver himself up on his stiff legs, Cheri decided that her best defense was a strong offense. She defiantly rolled up her sleeve to show her cherry-bomb tattoo.

"Add this to my list of offenses."

Cici looked grief-stricken. "How could you? You already make so many holes in your body! This no comes off." Cheri knew this was serious but her reaction was to laugh, which pushes Sol past the breaking point, as she'd known it would.

"What is wrong with you?" he shouted. "Haven't you put your mother through enough? Defacing your body, showing no respect for yourself. You want to do that, you can do it when you're eighteen and supporting yourself. But while you're in our house, living on our money, you will show some respect for us, at least."

"A month? It's my final offer..."