In Stereo Where Available (12 page)

“Hi,” Betsy whispered. She was eating Goldfish crackers from a Cheerio-shaped plastic container with a small flip-up lid. Her chin was covered in dusty orange crumbs. Marco was asleep.

“We’re going to see some real fish, aren’t we?” I asked her.

She nodded solemnly. “Yes.”

“Don’t mind her,” said Jerry, getting back in on the driver’s side and putting his seat belt back on. “By the end of the day, she’ll be bouncing off the walls.”

“I’m sure your sister appreciates the break.”

“Yeah, well, I feel bad for her. She’s still really upset about what happened with her husband. Giving her a place to live and getting the kids out of her hair once in a while is the least I can do.”

“Can I ask what happened with her husband?”

He dropped his voice and turned the radio balance toward the back of the car. “He cheated on her with some woman he met on the Internet. It didn’t sound like it was the first time. Maybe she just got fed up, I don’t know. I never liked the guy in the first place.”

“Why not?”

“He was always profiling. You know, talking about how big and successful he was, what a big football star he was in college. Always talked louder than everyone else. He’s a putz.” He readjusted the radio balance. “Speaking of family, you said you’ve got a stepbrother, right? He’s the only one in your family you’ve never told me about.”

“Yeah, it’s complicated. He’s my stepmom’s son by her first marriage. His name is Pete.”

“Do you get along with him?”

“I get along great with him. I don’t see him very much, though. He lives on a cruise ship most of the time. He works a lot of holidays because he’s a minister. A lot of people want to get married over Christmas and Easter and things like that, at sea.”

“That sounds like an interesting job.”

“He’s an interesting guy. His partner works on the ship, too, as a chef. That’s where they met. His name is Dominic.”

Jerry peered down at his side-view mirror to merge onto the highway. “What does your family think of that?”

“They don’t care. I mean, we all like Dominic. He’s Filipino. He makes a great chocolate truffle cake.”

Jerry was right about Betsy. She perked up during the dolphin show, giggling as they caught rings on their noses and did their little swimming tricks. By the time we’d finished looking at all of the exhibits, she was chattering our ears off and starting to negotiate for what she would be allowed to get from the gift shop.

“One stuffed animal,” said Jerry.

“But I need an eraser for my eraser collection.”

“One eraser, then.”

“But I need a stuffed animal for my stuffed animal collection.”

“One or the other.”

We made our way toward the exit walkway. A giant, three-story aquarium surrounded the ramps on three sides. Somewhere around the middle, the sharks swam by, their slow slippery bodies scattering the smaller fish around them. At the bottom, where we were, green seaweed waved like mermaid hair; anemones in all shades of pink and fuchsia made little sucking motions, and little yellow fish nibbled at them before zooming suddenly upward, as though startled or stung.

“Whoa,” said Betsy.

“Like being underwater, isn’t it?” asked Jerry.

“Yeah. Like being a fish.”

In the stroller, Marco had fallen asleep. His little chipmunk cheeks were relaxed, fat little legs curled up beside him. Jerry pushed the stroller toward the ramp, weaving his way past all the people who had stopped still, staring up at the surrounding water.

“My sister used to want to be a mermaid,” I mentioned.

Jerry looked over at me. “She did?”

“Yeah. That’s how she got her nickname. From the movie
Splash
. When we were kids she’d put on her swimsuit top and a long skirt and safety-pin it really tight in the back, so it was like a tail, and pretend to do the backstroke on the carpet. I guess she was waiting for Tom Hanks to come along.”

“Still is.”

“Yeah, I guess she is, isn’t she? I hope she wins. I think she has a good shot at Rhett, don’t you think?”

He stopped on the landing. We were only halfway up to the second story. People flowed by from behind us; Betsy leaned against the metal railing, her shoulders and chin bunched up against it. “Look, there goes a shark,” she said.

I watched the shark go by, then turned back to Jerry. “You know, maybe if she—”

He put his hand under my chin and I caught my breath, heart racing, its rhythm pounding in my neck and in my ears, and when he kissed me he wrapped his arm around my waist to pull me closer, his other hand still resting on the stroller. I closed my eyes, drifting along into the touch of his lips, the pressure of his hand on my waist, the deep muted somnolent sound of the water. He kissed me slowly until Betsy tugged on the bottom of his T-shirt, his lips still parted as he moved away, his stone-blue eyes still locked on mine.

“Can I have my stuffed animal now?” she asked.

On Monday morning my mother left four hysterical voice-mail messages on my phone. I called her back on my break, hiding in the teachers’ lounge that was empty except for a nineteen-year-old student teacher with a fairy tattoo on the small of her back and a stack of worksheets to photocopy.

“Will you
please
explain this
thing
I just read in the
Star?”
she asked indignantly.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t read the Star.”

“Well, I don’t, either, you know. I was just having a piece of pecan pie at the linger-longer after church yesterday when Rosalie Welsh—do you remember Rosalie Welsh?”

“Yeah.”

“Rosalie Welsh comes up to me and
apologizes
for what she read about my daughter. So you
don’t
know what I’m talking about?”

“I don’t have the slightest idea.”

I heard the sound of paper wrinkling, being folded. “Former
Playboy
Playmate Looking for Love,” she read aloud.

“Mom, okay. First of all, she wasn’t a Playmate.”

The college student at the copy machine glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. My mother kept reading, her voice rising in a blend of accusation and dismay. “Grace Kassner, twenty-four-year-old Maryland schoolteacher and
Belle of Georgia
bad girl—”

“Mom,
stop
. She had a really short part in a
Playboy
video, like thirteen seconds, but she wasn’t even naked. She had everything, uh, covered.”

“It says right here that she was a Playmate.”

“In the
Star
. Yeah. It also says she’s a school teacher, right? None of these people seem to do a lot of fact-checking.”

“Honestly, Phoebe. This is not the way I raised you girls. Every
week
I brought you to church.
Every
week. Even during that horrible divorce when I didn’t even want to get out of bed. And this is what I have to show for it. My own daughter in the
Star
. In
Playboy
. I’m beside myself. I don’t even know what to say to you.”

“Well, nothing, I hope. I’m just her twin, remember? I didn’t pose for
Playboy
, Mom, I swear. Neither did Madison, actually, but—”

“A
video
. My daughter, the actress. Nobody ever told me she was doing pornography. Oh, just wait until you have children of your own. Then you’ll understand what it’s like to have Rosalie Welsh of all people, with her daughter pregnant at seventeen, apologizing to me about
my
daughter. I could
die.”

“Look, save it for Madison, okay? It wasn’t my idea. You chewing me out about what
she
did isn’t going to do any of us any—”

“When was this, if I may ask? This video of hers?”

“About six years ago, I think. Right after her, uh, surgery.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake. You know, I blame your father. There’s only so much I can do when he takes off with some oversexed secretary and sets such a lovely example for his pre-teen daughters. I’m sorry, Phoebe, I can’t take any more of this conversation. I’ll call you in a few days when my nerves aren’t so much on edge.”

I turned off my phone and let my head drop back to rest against the back of the sofa. The college student at the copy machine turned around and smiled at me shyly. “You’re her sister?” she asked.
“Really?”

Lauren was on a date the next time Thursday rolled around, and so Jerry and I decided to watch
Belle of Georgia
at my place again. It was the first time I’d seen him since our Aquarium trip, and just seeing him through the peephole made my pulse go up to about three hundred and forty beats a minute. I had it bad. Radio songs had taken on an eerie significance. I was suddenly aware of the shoddiness of my underwear collection. And the night before, while I was supposed to be typing up “Ms. Kassner’s All-Star Class Report” to send home in my students’ folders, I’d ended up typing nineteen variations on “Mrs. Phoebe Sullivan,” each in a different font, color, or style. My fifteen-year-old sister would have rolled her eyes and told me I was acting juvenile.

Jerry hadn’t brought any flowers this time, but he did bring a half gallon of cookie-dough ice cream and a bottle of whipped cream. I took both from him and headed for the kitchen.

“The whipped cream’s for the ice cream, right?” I grinned.

He blushed. “That was the idea.”

“Just checking.”

“My dad used to have that on an album cover,” he said, folding his arms against the breakfast bar and leaning his weight against them.

“Had what on an album cover?”

“A woman covered in whipped cream. She had brown hair. The album cover was, like, mint-green. The Tijuana Brass, that was the name of it.” He paused, his eyes up toward the ceiling like he was remembering. “And I mean, she was
really
covered. I guess they meant it to be sexy, but it looked more like she was about to drown in the stuff.”

“Not very erotic.”

“Not really. Do I still have any of that root beer around?”

I handed him one from the fridge. “I hope you appreciate it,” I said. “Lauren gave me a hard time about you leaving it over here.”

“Sorry. I can take it home if you want.”

“No, it’s fine with me. Lauren’s funny about her rules. She reads all these books about dating and relationships and really wants all the theories that she reads about to work. Guys leaving their own beverages at a girl’s house after—what, three weeks?—doesn’t work for her.”

“Four weeks,” Jerry said.

“Four weeks
now
. Three when you left them here.”

“Oh, yeah. I guess so.” His mouth pulled nervously at the corners. “You think we need to slow down?”

“No, no, no. I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s just Lauren. I’m not suggesting that I agree.”

He took the ice-cream bowl I handed him. “Well, what are some of her other theories?”

“Let’s see. That couples in the early stages of a relationship are better off spending at least half their time apart. And that they should have frequent meetings to discuss the status of their relationship—like, real meetings, where you might want to take notes.”

Jerry ate a spoonful of ice cream. “I could prepare a PowerPoint presentation.”

I laughed. “Right now she’s really into the idea of couples’ workshops. Going away to the Poconos or a ranch out in Nevada and having intensive communication sessions with ‘relationship guides.’ Now all she needs is a man to go with.”

Sitting down on the sofa, Jerry propped a pillow under his arm and carefully scooped up equal parts ice cream and whipped cream. “I would agree that communication is important,” he said, “but it seems like you should be able to talk to your significant other without flying to Europe to do it.”

“I’m inclined to agree with you.” I curled up on the other end of the sofa and reached for the remote. “Let’s see what my sister’s up to this week.”

Only a few minutes into the show, one of the Yankee girls was shown sitting on her bed with a bolster pillow on her lap, talking earnestly into the camera. “The individual immunity challenges start today,” she was saying, “and it totally
sucks
. The only girl who doesn’t need to worry about getting voted off is Grace. Everyone wants to be up against her in the Final Four because she’s so mean that she doesn’t have a
chance
of getting chosen by Rhett or Ashley. But the rest of us are totally on the chopping block.”