Eastern Standard Tribe Read online

squeezes again and tugs his hands towards her hips,reeling his chest towards her breasts tilting her chin up and angling that longjawline that's so long as to be almost horsey, but it isn't, it's strong andclean. Art smells shampoo and sandalwood talc and his skin puckers in a crinklethat's so sudden and massive that it's almost audible.

  They've been together continuously for the past five days, almost withoutinterruption and he's already conditioned to her smell and her body language andthe subtle signals of her face's many mobile bits and pieces. She is afire, heis afire, their bodies are talking to each other in some secret language ofshifting centers of gravity and unconscious pheromones, and his face tilts downtowards her, slowly with all the time in the world. Lowers and lowers, week-oldwhiskers actually tickling the tip of her nose, his lips parting now, and herbreath moistens them, beads them with liquid condensed out of her vapor.

  His top lip touches her bottom lip. He could leave it at that and be happy, thetouch is so satisfying, and he is contented there for a long moment, then movesto engage his lower lip, moving, tilting.

  His comm rings.

  His comm, which he has switched off, rings.

  Shit.

  "Hello!" he says, he shouts.

  "Arthur?" says a voice that is old and hurt and melancholy. His Gran's voice.His Gran, who can override his ringer, switch on his comm at a distance becauseArt is a good grandson who was raised almost entirely by his saintly and frail(and depressive and melodramatic and obsessive) grandmother, and of course hiscomm is set to pass her calls. Not because he is a suck, but because he is loyaland sensitive and he loves his Gran.

  "Gran, hi! Sorry, I was just in the middle of something, sorry." He checks hiscomm, which tells him that it's only six in the morning in Toronto, noon inLondon, and that the date is April 8, and that today is the day that he shouldhave known his grandmother would call.

  "You forgot," she says, no accusation, just a weary and disappointed sadness. Hehas indeed forgotten.

  "No, Gran, I didn't forget."

  But he did. It is the eighth of April, 2022, which means that it is twenty-oneyears to the day since his mother died. And he has forgotten.

  "It's all right. You're busy, I understand. Tell me, Art, how are you? When willyou visit Toronto?"

  "I'm fine, Gran. I'm sorry I haven't called, I've been sick." Shit. Wrong lie.

  "You're sick? What's wrong?"

  "It's nothing. I -- I put my back out. Working too hard. Stress. It's nothing,Gran."

  He chances to look up at Linda, who is standing where he left her when he divedreflexively for his comm, staring disbelievingly at him. Her robe is open to hernavel, and he sees the three curls of pubic hair above the knot in its belt thatcurl towards her groin, sees the hourglass made by the edges of her breasts thatare visible in the vee of the robe, sees the edge of one areole, the left one.He is in a tee shirt and bare feet and boxers, crouching over his trousers,talking to his Gran, and he locks eyes with Linda and shakes his headapologetically, then settles down to sit cross-legged, hunched over an erectionhe didn't know he had, resolves to look at her while he talks.

  "Stress! Always stress. You should take some vacation time. Are you seeingsomeone? A chiropractor?"

  He's entangled in the lie. "Yes. I have an appointment tomorrow."

  "How will you get there? Don't take the subway. Take a taxi. And give me thedoctor's name, I'll look him up."

  "I'll take a cab, it'll be fine, he's the only one my travel insurance covers."

  "The only one? Art! What kind of insurance do you have? I'll call them, I'llfind you a chiropractor. Betty Melville, she has family in London, they'll knowsomeone."

  God. "It's fine, Gran. How are you?"

  A sigh. "How am I? On this day, how am I?"

  "How is your health? Are you keeping busy?"

  "My health is fine. I keep busy. Father Ferlenghetti came to dinner last nightat the house. I made a nice roast, and I'll have sandwiches today."

  "That's good."

  "I'm thinking of your mother, you know."

  "I know."

  "Do you think of her, Art? You were so young when she went, but you rememberher, don't you?"

  "I do, Gran." He remembers her, albeit dimly. He was barely nine when she died.

  "Of course -- of course you remember your mother. It's a terrible thing for amother to live longer than her daughter."

  His Gran says this every year. Art still hasn't figured out how to respond toit. Time for another stab at it. "I'm glad you're still here, Gran."

  Wrong thing. Gran is sobbing now. Art drops his eyes from Linda's and looks atthe crazy weft and woof of the faded old Oriental rug. "Oh, Gran," he says. "I'msorry."

  In truth, Art has mourned and buried his mother. He was raised just fine by hisGran, and when he remembers his mother, he is more sad about not being sad thansad about her.

  "I'm an old lady, you know that. You'll remember me when I go, won't you Art?"

  This, too, is a ritual question that Art can't answer well enough no matter howhe practices. "Of course, Gran. But you'll be around for a good while yet!"

  "When are you coming back to Toronto?" He'd ducked the question before, butGran's a master of circling back and upping the ante. *Now that we'veestablished my imminent demise...*

  "Soon as I can, Gran. Maybe when I finish this contract. September, maybe."

  "You'll stay here? I can take the sofa. When do you think you'll arrive? Myfriends all want to see you again. You remember Mrs. Tomkins? You used to playwith her daughter Alice. Alice is single, you know. She has a good job, too --working at an insurance company. Maybe she can get you a better health plan."

  "I don't know, Gran. I'll *try* to come back after I finish my contract, but Ican't tell what'll be happening then. I'll let you know, OK?"

  "Oh, Art. Please come back soon -- I miss you. I'm going to visit your mother'sgrave today and put some flowers on it. They keep it very nice at MountPleasant, and the trees are just blooming now."

  "I'll come back as soon as I can, Gran. I love you."

  "I love you too, Arthur."

  "Bye, Gran."

  "I'll call you once I speak to Betty about the chiropractor, all right?"

  "All right, Gran." He is going to have to go to the chiropractor now, eventhough his back feels as good as it has in years. His Gran will be checking upon it.

  "Bye, Arthur. I love you."

  "Bye, Gran."

  "Bye."

  He shakes his head and holsters the comm back in his pants, then rocks back andlies down on the rug, facing the ceiling, eyes closed. A moment later, the hemof Linda's robe brushes his arm and she lies down next to him, takes his hand.

  "Everything OK?"

  "It's just my Gran." And he tells her about this date's significance.

  "How did she die?"

  "It was stupid. She slipped in the tub and cracked her skull on the tap. I wasoff at a friend's place for the weekend and no one found her for two days. Shelived for a week on life support, and they pulled the plug. No brain activity.They wouldn't let me into the hospital room after the first day. My Granpractically moved in, though. She raised me after that. I think that if shehadn't had to take care of me, she would have just given up, you know? She'spretty lonely back home alone."

  "What about your dad?"

  "You know, there used to be a big mystery about that. Gran and Mom, they werealways tragic and secretive when I asked them about him. I had lots of storiesto explain his absence: ran off with another woman, thrown in jail for runningguns, murdered in a bar fight. I used to be a bit of a celeb at school -- lotsof kids didn't have dads around, but they all knew where their fathers were. Wecould always kill an afternoon making up his who and where and why. Even theteachers got into it, getting all apologetic when we had to do a genealogyproject. I found out the truth, finally, when I was nineteen. Just looked it uponline. It never occurred to me that my mom would be that secretive aboutsomething that was so easy to find out, so I never bot
hered."

  "So, what happened to him?"

  "Oh, you know. He and mom split when I was a kid. He moved back in with hisfolks in a little town in the Thousand Islands, near Ottawa. Four or five yearslater, he got a job planting trees for a summer up north, and he drownedswimming in a lake during a party. By the time I found out about him, his folkswere dead, too."

  "Did you tell your friends about him, once you found out?"

  "Oh, by then I'd lost touch with most of them. After elementary school, we movedacross town, to a condo my grandmother retired into on the lakeshore, out in thesuburbs. In high school, I didn't really chum around much, so there wasn'tanyone to talk to. I did tell my Gran though, asked her why it was such a bigsecret, and she said it wasn't, she said she'd told me years before, but shehadn't. I think that she and Mom just decided to wait until I was older beforetelling me, and then after my mom died, she just forgot that she hadn't told me.We got into a big fight over that."

  "That's a weird story, dude. So, do you think of yourself as an orphan?"

  Art rolls over on his side, face inches from hers, and snorts a laugh. "God,that's so -- *Dickensian*. No one ever asked me that before. I don't think so.You can't really be an adult and be an orphan -- you're just someone with deadparents. And I didn't find out about my dad until I was older, so I alwaysfigured that he was alive and well somewhere. What about your folks?"

  Linda rolls over on her side, too, her robe slipping off her lower breast. Artis aroused by it, but not crazily so -- somewhere in telling his story, he'sfigured out that sex is a foregone conclusion, and now they're just gettingthrough some nice foreplay. He smiles down at her nipple, which is brown as abar of Belgian chocolate, aureole the size of a round of individual cheese andnipple itself a surprisingly chunky square of crinkled flesh. She follows hiseyes and smiles at him, then puts his hand over her breast, covers it with hers.

  "I told you about my mom, right? Wanted to act -- who doesn't? But she was tooconscious of the cliche to mope about it. She got some little parts -- nothingfab, then went on to work at a Sony dealership. Ten years later, she bought afranchise. Dad and second-wife run a retreat in West Hollywood for sexuallydysfunctional couples. No sibs. Happy childhood. Happy adolescence. Largelyunsatisfying adulthood, to date."

  "Wow, you sound like you've practiced that."

  She tweaks his nose, then drapes her arm across his chest. "Got me. Alwayswriting my autobiography in my head -- gotta have a snappy opener when I'mcornered by the stalkerazzi."

  He laces his fingers in hers, moves close enough to smell her toothpaste-sweetbreath. "Tell me something unrehearsed about growing up."

  "That's a stupid request." Her tone is snappish, and her fingers stiffen in his.

  "Why?"

  "It just is! Don't try to get under my skin, OK? My childhood was fine."

  "Look, I don't want to piss you off. I'm just trying to get to know you.Because... you know... I like you. A lot. And I try to get to know the people Ilike."

  She smiles her lopsided dimple. "Sorry, I just don't like people who try to messwith my head. My problem, not yours. OK, something unrehearsed." She closes hereyes and treats him to the smooth pinkness of her eyelids, and keeps them closedas she speaks. "I once stole a Veddic Series 7 off my mom's lot, when I wasfifteen. It had all the girly safety features, including a tracker and a panicbutton, but I didn't think my mom would miss it. I just wanted to take it outfor a drive. It's LA, right? No wheels, no life. So I get as far as VeniceBeach, and I'm cruising the Boardwalk -- this was just after it went topless, soI was swinging in the breeze -- and suddenly the engine dies, right in themiddle of this clump of out-of-towners, frat kids from Kansas or something. Momhad called in a dealer override and Sony shut down the engine by radio."

  "Wow, what did you do?"

  "Well, I put my shirt back on. Then I popped the hood and poked randomly at theengine, pulling out the user-servicables and reseating them. The thing was newerthan new, right? How could it be broken already? The fratboys all gatheredaround and gave me advice, and I played up all bitchy, you know, 'I've beenfixing these things since I was ten, get lost,' whatever. They loved it. I wasall spunky. A couple of them were pretty cute even, and the attention was great.I felt safe -- lots of people hanging around, they weren't going to try anythingfunny. Only I was starting to freak out about the car -- it was really dead. I'dreseated everything, self-tested every component, double-checked the fuel.Nothing nothing nothing! I was going to have to call a tow and my mom was goingto kill me.

  "So I'm trying not to let it get to me, trying to keep it all cool, but I'm notdoing a great job. The frat guys are all standing too close and they smell likebeer, and I'm not trying to be perky anymore, just want them to stay! away! butthey won't back off. I'm trying not to cry.

  "And then the cops showed up. Not real cops, but Sony's Vehicle Recovery Squad.All dressed up in Vaio gear, stylish as a Pepsi ad, packing lots of semilethalsand silvery aeorosol shut-up-and-be-still juice, ready to nab the bad, bad perpwho boosted this lovely Veddic Series 7 from Mom's lot. Part of the franchisepackage, that kind of response. It took me a second to figure it out -- Momdidn't know it was *me* who had the car, so she'd called in a theft and bam, Iwas about to get arrested. The frat rats tried to run away, which is a bad idea,you just don't ever run from cops -- stupid, stupid, stupid. They ended uprolling around on the ground, screaming and trying to pull their faces off. Ittook, like a second. I threw my hands in the air. 'Don't shoot!' They gassed meanyway.

  "So then *I* was rolling around on the ground, feeling like my sinuses weretrying to explode out of my face. Feeling like my eyeballs were melting. Feelinglike my lungs were all shriveled up into raisins. I couldn't scream, I couldn'teven breathe. By the time I could even roll over and open my eyes, they had mecuffed: ankles and wrists in zapstraps that were so tight, they felt like pianowire. I was a cool fifteen year old, but not that cool. I started up thewaterworks, boohoohoo, couldn't shut it down, couldn't even get angry. I justwanted to die. The Sony cops had seen it all before, so they put a tarp down onthe Veddic's backseat upholstery, threw me in it, then rolled it into theirrecovery truck and drove me to the police station.

  "I puked on the tarp twice before they got me there, and almost did it a thirdtime on the way to booking. It got up my sinuses and down my throat, too. Icouldn't stop gagging, couldn't stop crying, but by now I was getting pissed.I'd been raised on the whole Sony message: 'A Car for the Rest of Us,' gone withMom to their Empowerment Seminars, wore the little tee shirts and the temporarytats and chatted up the tire-kickers about the Sony Family while Mom was busy.This wasn't the Sony Family I knew.

  "I was tied up on the floor beside the desk sergeant's counter, and a Sony copwas filling in my paperwork, and so I spat out the crud from my mouth, stoppedsniveling, hawked back my spit and put on my best voice. 'This isn't necessary,sir,' I said. 'I'm not a thief. My mother owns the dealership. It was wrong totake the car, but I'm sure she didn't intend for this to happen. Certainly, Idon't need to be tied up in here. Please, take off the restraints -- they'recutting off my circulation.' The Sony cop flipped up his goofy little facemaskand squinted at me, then shook his head and went back to his paperwork.

  "'Look,' I said. 'Look! I'm not a criminal. This is a misunderstanding. If youcheck my ID and call my mother, we can work this all out. Look!' I read his nameoff his epaulettes. 'Look! Officer Langtree! Just let me up and we'll sort thisout like adults. Come on, I don't blame you -- I'm glad! -- you were right totake me in. This is my mom's merchandise; it's good that you went after thethief and recovered the car. But now you know the truth, it's my mother's car,and if you just let me up, I'm sure we can work this out. Please, OfficerLangtree. My wallet's in my back pocket. Just get it out and check my ID beforeyou do this.'

  "But he just went on filling in the paperwork. 'Why? Why won't you just take asecond to check? Why not?'

  "He turned around again, looked at me for a long time, and I was sure he wasgoing to chec
k, that it was all going to be fine, but then he said, 'Look, I'vehad about as much of your bullshit as I'm going to take, little girl. Shut yourhole or I'll gag you. I just want to get out of here and back to my job, allright?'

  "'What?' I said, and it sounded like a shriek to me. 'What did you say to me?What the hell did you say to me? Didn't you hear what I said? That's my*mother's car* -- she owns the lot I took it off of. Do you honestly think shewants you to do this? This is the stupidest goddamned thing --'

  "'That's it,' he said, and took a little silver micropore hood off his belt, thekind that you cinch up under the chin so the person inside can't talk? I startedsquirming away then, pleading with him, and I finally caught the desk sergeant'seye. 'He can't do this! Please! Don't let him do this! I'm in a *police station*-- why are you letting him