Chapter 5
5
NOW
DINNER WAS BURGERS, FRIES, AND salad, served buffet style as usual. After filling my plate with food, I tried to sit next to Caleb.
Mom stopped me. “Oh, Eliot, honey, don’t be so diplomatic.” She grabbed my shoulders and steered them over to the other corner of the table. “It’s fine to sit next to your best friend. I’m sure you two have a lot to catch up on.” She pushed me into the chair next to Manuel.
I glanced over at him. He immediately looked down at the table and began to studiously unfold his paper napkin.
Right. Oodles to catch up on.
After everyone sat down, Mom told us to join hands for the prayer. None of the Beck children were particularly religious, but Mom liked to pretend we loved Jesus just as much as she did. Manuel accepted mine the way you might accept a limp sponge. Our palms rested together on the table in an awkward pile. As soon as the prayer was over, they fled.
A transcript of the conversation that followed:
MANUEL: So…how’s New York?
ELIOT: Big.
M: What do you do there, again?
E: I’m a copywriter.
M: Oh. That’s cool. Do you live close to the office?
E: Not really.
M: So…you take the train?
KARMA [already on her third whiskey highball]: What is this, Twenty Questions?
E: Sorry?
K: What’s wrong with you two? You’re acting like you barely know each other.
M + E [in unison]: No, we aren’t.
Logically, it was then my turn to ask Manuel about his life. And there was so much I wanted to ask. So many questions that had built up inside me over the years. How are your parents? How is Valentina? What are you studying? Do you still refuse to go to the movie theater unless you can sit in the very last row? Do you still think Tater Tots are just overweight versions of French fries? But I couldn’t ask a single one. Not without clueing every other person in the room in to the fact that I hadn’t spoken to him in three full years.
Of course I wanted to ask Manuel about his life. Of course I wanted to tell him more about mine. He’s my best friend. Was my best friend. He was my best friend, and I used to tell him every idiotic, mundane thing that popped into my head. So of course I wanted to tell him everything, starting with the moment my foot landed on the pavement of New York City. I wanted to tell him about being homeless for the first time in my life because I’m a stubborn Trust Fund Baby who wouldn’t ask her parents for money. I wanted to tell him about living for a month with our family friend, a Scientologist named Carl. I wanted to tell him that Carl was a filmmaker, that he was completely normal, that I couldn’t believe my good fortune. That his apartment had tall, gorgeous windows that overlooked the terra-cotta building across the street, painted the same cherry-lip pink as a home in the Italian countryside. That in the mornings, I bought cheap coffee and stood on the apartment’s windowsill, back pressed to the wall, craning my neck to try and catch that small sliver of the Empire State Building poking up in the distance.
Manuel would understand. He would understand why the first thing I did after Carl left was to search the apartment top to bottom for evidence of Scientology—to open the cabinets, scour the closets, shake the cereal boxes, flip open every book in the library to see if the pages within had been hollowed out. Manuel would know why I had to do it. He would get that it wasn’t snooping; it was my right—no, my responsibility —as an outsider invited into the home of a member of the most secretive religion in the country. I had to discover what I could. And, of course, he would laugh when I told him that all I found were expired peanuts, ten identical pairs of eyeglasses, and a fridge filled with stacks of unopened camera film.
I didn’t tell Manuel any of that. I couldn’t. To speak candidly with my best friend would open a door into that darker passage of my mind, the one walked by only those most terrifying of thoughts and desires. The ones Dr.Droopy once labeled “intrusive.” I fought like hell to lock them out, and I could feel how easy it would be to let them back in. The door floated before me, clouding my vision, begging me to grab its handle and pull.
—
“YOU EXPECTING AN IMPORTANT EMAIL or something?”
I looked up, shaken from my reverie. Almost without realizing it, I had pulled out my phone and checked it for messages, having forgotten that I was in a different country and that every gigabyte of data cost more than I could afford.
“Nope,” I said, pocketing my phone and spearing a mouthful of salad.
“So, Manny.” Karma leaned over my dinner plate. “What’s happening with that girl you met at the Spee?”
I nearly choked on the piece of lettuce in my mouth. My eyes snapped up to see Manuel’s response.
He cleared his throat.
Karma went on. “Your last text said she was getting pretty clingy.”
As Karma spoke, a fleck of spit flew from her mouth, landing on the left side of my burger. The spit droplet bubbled over and dripped down the side of the patty. I tore my eyes from my plate, reminding myself that it didn’t matter, that I no longer concerned myself with those obsessions. But even in my peripheral vision, I remained aware of its presence.
“Yeah.” Manuel shifted his pile of French fries around with his fork. “To be honest, she ended up being pretty fake. I think she just wanted to say she was dating a Mexican.”
Karma snorted. “Of course she did. How many times did you have to explain that you’re Colombian, not Mexican? That not all Hispanic people come from the same coun—”
“You guys text?” I blurted out, interrupting.
An awkward pause. Then Manuel asked, “Me and the girl?”
“Of course not,” I snapped. Then I drew back. Rein it in, Eliot. With two fingers, I plucked off a chunk of meat from the clean end of the burger and popped it into my mouth. “I meant you and Karma.”
They glanced at each other. My sister pulled her lips into a tight bundle, raising her eyebrows at Manuel. I was struck, as she did, by the pronounced concavity of her cheekbones, her smooth jaw, the lone freckle just above her lips. Her dark curly hair permanently styled into a chic pixie cut. I had forgotten how beautiful my sister was. How naturally thin, even when the primary ingredient in her diet was chocolate chip cookies.
As I admired my sister’s face, I felt—to my utter horror—a sudden pulse. Down there.
Oh God , I thought. No. No.
Beneath the table, I clenched my fists and squeezed my toes, an action that would sometimes make the sensation, the arousal —my chest constricted at even the thought of the word—go away. As if the tightening of other muscles could distract from the one that terrified me most.
And then I heard it. That little voice. The one that was me but not me, the one I’d spent years learning to shut out.
You’re attracted to her , it whispered. You’re attracted to your older sister.
No , I thought as firmly as possible, as if I were a small child in need of scolding. No, you’re not. Those are the Worries talking. Don’t listen to them. You know who you are.
If Dr.Ahmed were here, I know exactly what she’d say. “Your body’s response has nothing to do with sexual arousal,” she’d recite, crossing her legs in her fancy heather-grey armchair. My eyes would flick up to the gigantic Jackson Pollock painting behind her that might very well be an original. “It’s Pavlovian. You check your groin to see if you’ll find a response, and you always do.”
Checking. A classic internal compulsion. One that I’d been performing since I was ten without ever knowing that that’s what I was doing.
Breathe , I thought. Don’t let it drag you back under.
I closed my eyes, exhaling and forcing myself back into reality. When I opened them again, I glanced over at Manuel and Karma. The two of them seemed to be holding a conversation with their eyes. The sight made me nervous. Since when had they become so chummy? I mean, they had always been friendly, considering that Manuel was practically part of our family…but this? Texting? What did they even talk about?
When I think about what Manuel might have told her…
“ So .” Clarence’s head popped down between us, making me jump. His voice was low. “What do we think of the new girl?”
I knew exactly who he meant. Grateful for the distraction, I turned to look at Helene. She sat at the opposite end of the table, chatting easily with Mom. Beneath the table, her hand was laced with Taz’s.
Helene had this structured glamour. A beauty in parts, each so distinct that it should have belonged to a different person: long lush hair curled into knots that swung along her spine with a kind of gentle violence; a thin jaw, pointed and delicate, like the elbow of a doll. She spoke in abrupt, tightly measured sentences that etched themselves from her mouth in halting swoops, like lines from a printing press. Her default reaction—to anything, shocking or otherwise—was to gasp. To widen her eyes just a little. Just enough to show you she was listening.
For his part, Taz seemed utterly transfixed with his bride-to-be. He doted upon her shamelessly. Opened doors. Rearranged furniture to suit her movements. Built his dinner plate to be an exact match of hers. Then added two or three scoops more to ensure he always had a heavier meal. And he did it all so subtly. Only those of us who knew him before could have spotted his behavior. He was loving her quietly. Logically.
Under her breath, Karma whispered to Shelly, “If I ever start copying your dinner plate, please divorce me.”
I laughed at the same time Manuel did. Our eyes darted to each other, then looked quickly away.
I scanned the table for something—anything—to distract me. My eyes landed on Speedy and Caleb, who were engaged in quiet, conspiratorial conversation. Dad had one arm slung over the back of Mom’s chair and was absentmindedly rubbing small circles on her back. He leaned in close to Caleb, nodding as he listened to his eldest son. It was a familiar sight; Dad had Caleb at only twenty years old, which makes him closer in age to our father than he is to me. They’re as much friends as they are father and son.
I watched Caleb’s mouth, trying to decipher what he was saying. I thought I saw him whisper Clarence , and maybe believe that story , but I couldn’t be sure. What were they speaking about? Had Dad gone to Caleb for advice about Clarence?
I eyed them enviously. Dad would never come to me in that way. Never. To him, I was still just a child.
I tried to focus on their conversation, straining my ears for whatever I could pick up. I would take just a sentence. Just a word . Anything to distract me from the heat of the chestnut-brown gaze I still felt beating into me, even with my eyes turned firmly away.
—
THE WEEK BEFORE THE WEDDING, Taz texted our family group chat and said, What’s everyone’s favorite food?
In New York, whenever I see a text arrive in our family chat, I click it right away and leave the chat open, phone propped up against my laptop or the mug that always rests just to the right. I like to watch the messages roll in, to see the conversation unfold in real time.
CALEB: Fettuccini alfredo.
CLARENCE: Deep dish with sausage & roni. Duh.
KARMA: Pulled pork with Sweet Baby Ray’s. Sue me.
CLARENCE: Sbr’s is an abomination.
KARMA: You’re an abomination.
I hear each of my siblings in their texts, so clear it almost feels like they’re right there, right next to me. As if we’re all sitting around a table together.
MOM: Does mint chocolate chip ice cream count as a food?
CLARENCE: If it does, then I’m changing my food to dry martinis.
DAD: New phone. Lost contacts. Who is this?
I watch them riff, but I never respond. I’ve tried. It doesn’t work. I write and rewrite, read and reread, pick my words apart until they sound robotic, all capital letters and perfectly placed commas. Little Boose Beck , I imagine my siblings texting each other off to the side. The Family Robot .
But not then. As the wedding approached, I became more and more aware of just how cut off from my life in New York I would be. I was taking vacation for the first time since I started working. My schedule would be completely disrupted, tossed into Lake Huron and left to drown. I needed to know that I would at least still have access to email, for God’s sake.
ELIOT: will there be wifi on the island?
I didn’t think about the repercussions of sending that text until it was already too late.
CLARENCE: oh shit, gup is alive??
KARMA: wow.
KARMA: to what do we owe this honor?
Bubbles popped up one after another, building a grey tower up my screen.
TAZ: hey, Eliot!
CLARENCE: THE BOOSE IS BACK!!!!
MOM: Eliot. Y didn’t u answer my call yesterday?
DAD: Boose? Who is this? Eliot?
MOM: Yes
DAD: Is this about food at the wedding?
MOM: Yes
DAD: Oh.
DAD: In that case, I like sweets.
KARMA: yes, dad. we know.
My family didn’t understand why I did what I did. Why I disappeared to New York at just eighteen, never coming home for holidays and rarely answering their calls. And, what’s more, I never planned to explain it to them.
Not in this lifetime, anyway.