One Fat Summer Read online

  At three o’clock I went up to the porch. Dr. Kahn was sitting in a rocking chair, his little leather purse on his lap. He began counting out money. “I like a boy who improves,” he said. “You’ve still got a long way to go, however.” He counted out twelve dollars and seventy-five cents into my hand. “Monday, morning. Nine o’clock sharp.”

  “Have a nice weekend, Dr. Kahn.” I really meant it, I felt so good about my talk with Jim Smith and the compliment from the evil Dr. K. So good that I was halfway around the lake before I figured out that the doctor of mathematics had cheated me out of a dollar. Thirty hours at fifty cents an hour was fifteen dollars, minus five half-hour lunch breaks at twenty-five cents each was $13.75, not $12.75.

  Okay this time. But nobody pulls a fast one on Big Bob twice.

  14

  Dad was quiet at dinner Friday night. When he did talk, he was very polite, like a guest in the house. He complimented Mom on her roast beef, even though it wasn’t as well done as he liked it, and on the vegetables, which were soggy from cooking too long. Mom smiled a lot and patted his shoulder. When Michelle left for her date, Dad wished her a nice time. He didn’t seem to notice how tight her dress was. He asked me how things were going, but before I had a chance to answer he started talking about the weather, how hot and dry it was after last week’s storm. I felt like a fish who got off the hook. I didn’t want to tell him about Dr. Kahn yet, and I didn’t want to get into a pack of lies about working around Marino’s Beach. I couldn’t tell if Dad just didn’t care anymore, or if he had a lot of his own problems on his mind, or if he just didn’t want to get involved right now. Pick one, two or three. Or all of the above.

  I started to clear the table, my night again, but he waved me off.

  “We’ll take care of it.” He pulled out his wallet. “Would you like to take the bus into town? See a movie? I’ll pick you up afterward.”

  Very strange behavior. He was usually such a cheapskate. He was trying to get rid of me.

  “No, thanks. I feel like reading in bed.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Mom nodded me out of the room. I couldn’t leave fast enough for them.

  I slammed my door, then quietly opened it a crack. An old spy trick. I missed a lot of their conversation because they were running water in the kitchen sink, but I heard enough.

  “I just don’t think it’s fair to the kids,” he said.

  “Michelle won’t be around and Bobby’ll be very busy in the tenth grade.”

  “But they need to know someone’s there for them.”

  “Even after I start teaching regularly, I’ll be home soon after Bobby…”

  “These things just don’t work out, Lenore.”

  “They do if people want…” The rest of what she said got lost in the clatter of dishes, and so did his answer.

  “…and you could go in with Fred. He’s been after you for years,” she said.

  “Miller isn’t giving anything away,” said Dad. “I’d have to take a twenty percent cut in pay, and no security.”

  “But that’s the point. It wouldn’t matter. I’d be taking up the slack, and you’d be free to do what you’ve always wanted to do. Quit Allied and take a gamble. At least that’s what you’ve always said you really wanted.”

  “When I’m ready. After the kids are out of college.”

  “That’s at least another seven years,” she said.

  “By then you’ll be Superintendent of Schools. I’ll be able to retire.” He laughed, but it was a nasty laugh that sounded as if it came out of his nose instead of his mourn.

  “Marty, if my working is going to come between us I’ll stop studying right now. I’d much rather spend the summer in the garden and down at me beach. I’ll just forget the whole thing.”

  “Sure. And I’ll have to spend the rest of my life hearing how I kept you from working.”

  “I’ll never say another word.”

  “That’ll be the day.” He stomped out of the kitchen. From the sound of his footsteps I figured he was going out on the porch.

  Mom finished the dishes, took out the garbage and slammed the kitchen cabinets shut. The kitchen lights clicked off. When I heard her footsteps coming toward my bedroom, I jumped into bed with my clothes on, and pulled the top sheet up to my chin. She must have stood in the doorway a long time, because it seemed like ten minutes between the sounds of my door opening and closing.

  I got out of bed and undressed. So that’s the big problem. Dad doesn’t want Mom working. Michelle was right. But Dad never seemed to mind when Mom took courses or did volunteer charity work with poor kids. Sometimes, when I was younger, I got a little jealous when she talked about kids she was helping out, teaching them to read or taking them on trips, but after a while I started feeling very proud of her. I thought Dad did, too. At least he said he did.

  When Mom was a volunteer teacher in Harlem she would tell us stories at dinner about really tough kids who carried knives to school and got into serious trouble with the police, stealing cars and mugging old ladies. Good stories. I filed them away for when I’d be a writer.

  Once, we brought one of the kids up for a weekend. His name was Bill Witherspoon. He was couple of years older than me, and very nice. He wanted to be a boxer. He showed me how to throw a left jab, and how to protect your kidneys in a clinch.

  We all went down to the lake one afternoon and everyone stared at Bill, and shook their heads and grumbled when he went into the water. While he was having a diving contest with Michelle, Mr. Marino came over to my parents.

  “Hey, Marty, you know better than this,” he said.

  “Better than what, Vincent?”

  “I don’t care for myself, I got friends in all walks of life. But this is a family beach.”

  “So go enjoy it.” My father’s voice got hard.

  “Marty, we own property here. You want to have something you can leave Bobby, right?”

  “Like how to be a bigot?”

  Mr. Marino pointed a finger at my father. “I don’t like your tone of voice.”

  My father stood up. “Maybe you want to try and change it.”

  My mother got right in between them. “That boy is a weekend guest, Vincent. And this isn’t like you at all.”

  Mr. Marino spread his hands. “Believe me, Lenore, I’m not prejudiced. I’m thinking about my kids.” He nodded toward Bill Witherspoon. “It’s not all their fault, but colored people bring more colored people, and that’s the end of a place.”

  “You finished, Vincent?” asked my father.

  “Enough said, Lenore.” Mr. Marino took one of my mother’s hands in both of his, and patted it. “No hard feelings. You understand.”

  “See you tomorrow, Vincent,” said my father. “On the beach.”

  It rained the next day, so we all ate out and went to the movies in Grantsville, which is about twenty miles from Rumson Lake, and has some Negroes living in the town. We never talked about it again, but Mom didn’t bring up any more charity kids after that.

  I hung around Saturday. Mom played records, just to break up the silence, I think. She fooled around in the garden, but I could tell she didn’t care if the flowers grew or not. Dad was in and out. He went to a golf driving range with one of the neighbors and then he went swimming. Michelle was down at the beach.

  It was like a morgue at dinner. The chicken was burnt, but my father didn’t say a word. He didn’t even shoot me a dirty look when I sucked on my drumstick. That’s one of his pet peeves, noisy eating. I could’ve slurped soup that night or crunched an ice cube and I don’t think he would have opened his mouth. Michelle peeled sunburned skin off” her arm, right at the table. Normally, that would have driven him wild. Nothing. The only sound was Mom putting plates down. She managed to rattle the table every time. I think she did it purposely.

  Michelle asked me to do the dishes for her; she had a date. She said she’d pay me back during the week. I said okay.

  “We’re going to
the Millers’, Michelle,” said Mom. “They’re expecting you, too. You knew that.”

  “I have something better to do.”

  “I don’t think that’s right. Joanie will be very disappointed.”

  “I do not want to go. Period.”

  “Marty?” My mother was appealing for a decision.

  Dad just shrugged and left the table.

  “Do what you want, Michelle,” said my mother.

  We got to the Millers’ about eight-thirty. Mr. and Mrs. Miller were waiting at the door, grinning like monkeys. They couldn’t stand still they were so excited. Joanie was standing in the middle of the living room, her back to us.

  “Da dum,” said Mr. Miller, waving his arm with a flourish.

  Joanie turned around.

  At first, I saw only her eyes. They were both black, like she had been in a fight. Two black eyes.

  “Gorgeous,” shrieked my mother, rushing over to hug Joanie.

  “Congratulations,” said my father. He shook Mr. Miller’s hand. “A very nice job.”

  “We got the best plastic surgeon in the city,” said Mrs. Miller.

  My mother let Joanie loose and stepped back to look at her. “Darling, you are beautiful.”

  And then I saw it.

  Her nose was gone.

  “Well?” Joanie was smiling at me. She looked horrible. Her face was puffy and bruised. Her new little nose was red and scaly.

  “It looks great,” I said.

  Mr. Miller was pouring drinks for my parents. Over his shoulder, he said, “There’s Coke and ice cream in the fridge, why don’t you kids help yourself.”

  We went into the kitchen. Joanie scooped out a huge chunk of ice cream for me, and a much smaller one for herself. We sat down at the kitchen table. I felt like I was with a stranger.

  “Did it hurt?”

  “I didn’t feel anything during the operation. It hurt a little afterwards, but not much. Now it feels funny sometimes, like my skin is very tight there, but that’ll go away.”

  “It’s a nice nose.” I really sounded dumb.

  “We picked it out from photographs.”

  “The doctor just…chopped it off?”

  “With a chisel. Like a sculptor.”

  “It’s really very nice.” I hated looking at it, but I couldn’t take my eyes off it.

  “We really should have waited until the swelling goes down, but that won’t be for another couple of weeks. I couldn’t wait for you to see it. Was it a complete surprise? Did you suspect anything?”

  “No, I didn’t…”

  “I can’t believe it myself. When I see myself in a mirror, I can’t believe it’s really me.”

  “Did you plan it for a long time?”

  “It was really my mother’s idea.”

  For some reason, that made me feel a little better. I ate my first spoonful of ice cream.

  “You can’t have it done until your nose stops growing, but we’ve been talking about it for a couple of years.”

  “You never told me.”

  “What was there to talk about?”

  “I mean, such a big thing, and we talked about everything else.”

  “I wanted it to be a surprise.”

  “Joanie? Why’d you do it?”

  “Surprise you?”

  “No, get a nose job.”

  She looked at me as if I was crazy. “Because it was so ugly. I hated it. Couldn’t you tell? I hated to go to school, I hated to go out on the street, I hated the way people stared at me.”

  “I never stared at you.”

  “I know. That’s why I wanted to surprise you.”

  “It really looks nice.”

  “What’ve you been doing?” she asked.

  “Not too much.” I didn’t feel like telling her all the things that had happened. I felt she was different, and that she wouldn’t understand.

  “We’re going back into the city for the week, but then I’ll be back for good. We can start our project if you still want to.”

  “Okay.”

  Her father called, “Joanie, come in here for a minute.”

  While she was gone, I gobbled down the ice cream, just shoveled in the spoonfuls as fast as I could. I knew exactly what was going to happen and I didn’t care. Blam, that shot between the eyes, and a dull ache boring through the skull, my old ice cream headache pal.

  15

  I always used to think of summers in slow motion. I hated them and thought they would never end. I’d be chugging along through the fall and the winter, enjoying school during the week, enjoying weekends and holidays at Rumson Lake, walking alone in the snow or reading in front of the fireplace or kidding around with Joanie, and then spring would come. Everybody else got excited when the first green shoots came up through the cold ground and the air lost its bite, but I’d start worrying about the summer. That bottomless hole in my year. No way to avoid it; I would stumble and begin falling, slowly, end over end, for two months that went on forever, waiting to crash back into the autumn again, like a bad dream that wakes you up in the middle of the night covered by sweat, with a cold lump in your stomach.

  But this summer was spinning along. I lost track of days. I’d wake up before the alarm clock and stretch the stiffness out of my arms and legs and back. Every morning I woke up sore, but it was getting easier and easier to get out of bed. I started touching my toes a few times to work out the kinks in my back. I could actually touch my toes. By the time I was on the county road I felt loose, like all my joints were oiled and greased. I couldn’t wait to get at that lawn. My blisters were gone. I had tough yellow calluses in their place. I rarely thought about Willie Rumson.

  Dad came up the next weekend, but it was as if he wasn’t there. He played softball, tennis, he went swimming; he kept himself busy the whole weekend. I saw him only at meals. We hardly talked. I had decided to tell him about my job, but it just never came up. The closest was Saturday night at dinner when he suddenly said, “I hear you’re keeping yourself pretty busy.”

  “Yeah.” I started getting the story together in my mind, so I wouldn’t have to tell him I had lied in the beginning, but he didn’t give me a chance to talk.

  “Your mother says you get home really tired. That’s good. Pete Marino keeps you hopping.”

  Michelle started talking with her mouth full. “So much to do at that place.” She flashed me a shut up look. “But I’d trade jobs in a minute. Yesterday a six-year-old boy went into the woods with a marshmallow and a book of matches and tried to start a campfire. He almost burned the whole place down.”

  That changed the subject, and they talked for a few minutes about Michelle’s camp job. On her way out that night she gave me a wink.

  I didn’t talk to Mom much either. She was studying again, harder man ever, reading books, taking notes, making charts and lists. By the time I got up for breakfast, she had already finished hers and was at her desk. At dinner we talked about the weather or food or chores. We were all going our own ways. It wasn’t so bad, just different.

  The only thing I really missed was the chance to be honest with somebody. I was glad when Joanie came back and called. I went over to see her one afternoon after work. She was sitting outside her house on a lawn chair wearing a big straw hat and reading a magazine. Her face was shadowed by the wide brim of the hat. I couldn’t see her nose or her eyes.

  “Hi. Whatcha reading?”

  She held up the magazine. I couldn’t believe it.

  “Beauty hints?”

  “It’s not so bad. Where you coming from?”

  “Work.”

  “At Marino’s Beach?”

  “No. The lawn job. Remember? You were there when I called up.”

  Very dramatically, she said, “That seems like a lifetime ago.”

  “It sure does.”

  “Actually, I never thought you’d keep that job,” she said.

  “How come?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. You’re not the type.” />
  I suddenly lost interest in telling her about the job, so I asked, “How come you’re wearing that big hat?”

  “I’m supposed to avoid sunburn for a while.” She took that hat off as if she was opening the curtain on a play.

  She was pretty, but she wasn’t Joanie. The swelling had gone down, and the bruises had disappeared. Except for the skin over the bridge of her nose, still tight and shiny, I wouldn’t have been able to tell she had had a nose job. It was a good nose, I guess, but it didn’t look right on that face. At least to me it didn’t. Even her hair was different. She used to wear it loose, she liked it when the wind blew her hair against her face. Now it was pulled back tight in a high ponytail. So everybody could see her face.

  I tried to crack a joke. “You’re one of the new faces of 1952.” It was the name of a Broadway show.

  “You don’t like it, do you?”

  “When you get used to somebody…”

  “The doctor said some of my friends would be very upset. They’d think…”

  “I’m not very upset.”

  “…I was a different person. They’d have trouble talking to me…”

  “I’m talking to you.”

  “…because they had an idea of who I was, and now it would be like starting all over again. I think that’s your problem.”

  “You must be a mind reader.”

  “Don’t be sarcastic.” She put her hat back on, which made talking to her a little easier.

  “I’m not being sarcastic.” I tried to be funny again. Joanie always had a great sense of humor. “I’m sure you’re very attached to your new nose. Get it, attached?”

  “Very funny. You ought to be on I Love Lucy.”

  “You ought to be on the Gabriel Heatter Show. Ah, there’s good nose tonight.” When she didn’t make a sound, I said, “That’s a joke, son.

  “It’s no joke, Bob. You’re resentful. But I understand.”

  “Resentful of what?”

  “Of my changing myself. The doctors said that some…”

  “What’d you go to, a psychiatrist?”

  “A plastic surgeon has to be part artist, part psychiatrist. He’s a wonderful man, very kind and gentle, and he really understands people.”