The Nakeds Read online

  “What are you staring at, Hannah?” Christy said, chewing and talking at once.

  “Nothing.”

  “Just what’s so interesting?”

  Hannah was quiet. “I’m sorry,” she finally said.

  “If you’re not staring at anything, there’s no need to apologize,” Christy said.

  Asher leaned across the table and rested his hand on Christy’s hand. “Don’t be upset. Let’s try to have a nice dinner.”

  “I’m not upset,” she said, snatching her hand away.

  “Let’s just eat and enjoy Hannah’s visit.”

  “Oh, you’re right,” Christy said, her voice cracking. “I am upset. And I don’t know why. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m just hungry—is that so wrong?” she said, tears streaking her face.

  Hannah lifted her napkin from her lap and wiped her mouth. “I’m sorry, Christy,” she said again.

  “I need to keep up my strength—that’s why I’m eating. I’m so hungry. You can’t imagine how hungry I am,” Christy said. “Breast-feeding is draining. I don’t even have the energy to get dressed in the morning. I’ve got five of these fucking robes in different colors.”

  Christy wiped her eyes. She blew her nose into a napkin.

  “Your mother didn’t breast-feed you, Hannah. Did you know that?” Asher said, obviously trying to change the subject.

  “I didn’t know,” Hannah said.

  “I told Nina she should try to make it work, but one dot of blood on her nipple and she sent me out for formula. A mother should try,” he said. “They say when a baby’s breast-fed, he’s smarter and has a better immune system. You’re smart enough, certainly—but you might have been Einstein.”

  “I’m glad I’m not Einstein,” Hannah said, feeling annoyed.

  “You still into bugs? Still reading about insects?” Christy said, sniffling.

  “She’ll probably be a doctor or scientist,” Asher said. “You want to be a scientist?”

  “I don’t think so,” Hannah said.

  “God knows you can be whatever you want to be.”

  “God knows, yes, God knows,” Christy said, mocking. “We know how smart you are. God knows I hear about how smart you are daily.”

  “She is smart,” Asher said. “So I like to talk about how smart she is? When Duke’s bigger, I’m sure he’ll be smart too.”

  “He’ll never be as smart as this one here,” Christy said, pointing at Hannah with her fork, looking like she was going to cry again. “He won’t be reading science texts at ten, I’ll tell you that.”

  “Who knows what he’ll be reading?” Asher put both palms flat on the table and spoke softly. “He’s going to be fine, brilliant maybe, a scholar—who knows? And you’re going to feel better too, honey,” he said.

  “I don’t think so,” she said weakly.

  He glanced at her robe then, where a splatter of steak sauce rested just beneath her breast. Hannah could tell he didn’t know whether to mention it or not. He paused. Took a sip of water. He couldn’t take it, Hannah knew; looking at the splotch was hurting him. “You’ve got a stain, honey,” he finally said, pointing at her chest.

  Christy looked down. She snatched the napkin from her lap and dipped a corner into her water glass. She was rubbing at the stain and rubbing at the stain, only making it worse. “Damn it,” she said.

  “Why don’t you go upstairs and put on one of the others? You’ve got four pretty robes up there that aren’t stained.” Asher’s voice was sticky-sweet, like he wasn’t talking to an adult at all, but to a child.

  “OK. Yes,” she said.

  “Good girl,” he said.

  “I’m sorry, Hannah,” Christy said. “I’ll go upstairs and change. Maybe I’ll even take a shower.”

  “Good, good,” Asher said.

  “Your dad is right. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I feel so fucking weird.”

  “Honey, please don’t say the f-word. You never used to say that. It’s Nina who likes that word,” Asher said.

  “Stop bringing up my mother,” Hannah said.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  Christy looked at him. “You know, Asher, it’s just a word. It took me years to realize it, but it’s just a fucking word. It’s the least harmful thing I do these days, saying fuck.” Her voice was strangely calm.

  “I don’t know why the three of us can’t just talk to each other and enjoy each other’s company.”

  “You’re right. You’re absolutely right.” Christy said. “I’m going upstairs. I’ll take a nice fucking shower and put on a different fucking robe.”

  “Oy,” Asher said.

  Once they were alone at the table, her dad finished off what were now certainly cold mashed potatoes. Hannah’s appetite had disappeared. She moved her peas around with her fork and wished she was with her mom and Azeem.

  Asher put his spoon down and looked at her. “It’s shpilkes, is what it is. It’s nervous energy. Christy’s condition won’t last forever, thank God. Her hormones need to level off, that’s all. The doctor says it’s temporary.”

  “I’m sure it is,” Hannah said.

  “A few more difficult weeks—that’s all.”

  “You’ll survive,” she said.

  “I’d like my cheerful wife back, that’s for sure. I don’t know who that woman is.”

  • • •

  In the morning, while Christy and Duke slept, Asher talked to Hannah about Jesus. Her salvation had been on his mind a lot lately, he said. He wanted to discuss waiting until you’re married and saving the unborn and the lifelong union, despite any problems, he had with Christy.

  “Last night, you didn’t know who she was,” Hannah said.

  “Didn’t mean it,” he said.

  She looked at him.

  “Even when a conflict seems insurmountable, it’s not,” he continued. “Not if there’s love there. It’s a mountain you climb. It’s a wave you ride.”

  It was my mother you cheated on, Hannah thought while he spoke.

  He wanted to talk about bright, sweet Heaven and Noah, those animals, and all that water spilling across the world. He quoted Minister Craig, repeated what the man said just last Sunday from behind the podium about sin and culpability.

  “Isn’t that the guy who predicted Duke would be a girl?” Hannah said.

  “So he’s not a fortune teller,” he said.

  Still, Asher wanted Hannah to see the beautiful stained-glass windows his church recently had cleaned and their shiny new pews and, mostly, he wanted her to see what he called the light.

  “I’m a Jew,” Hannah said.

  “Well …” he said.

  And then she thought about it. “Actually, I like science.”

  “The daughter of a dentist,” he said. “Of course you do.”

  “A lot,” she added.

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “I believe in science, Daddy.”

  He looked at her. He shook his head.

  “I believe Darwin, is what I mean.”

  “You know, Hannah, you can ask Jesus into your heart and like science at the same time. You can believe Darwin too.”

  “Jesus isn’t for me.”

  “Mishegas! He’s for everyone.”

  “He’s not,” she said.

  “You’re young—you don’t yet know what’s for you.”

  “I know what’s not for me,” she insisted.

  He shook his head.

  “I’m an atheist,” she admitted finally.

  Her father got up from the couch and stood, staring down at her, his hand on his heart. “Be Jewish,” he said. “At least be Jewish,” he begged.

  12

  AFTER HANNAH’S visit, Christy’s depression escalated. Asher found his wife hunched over the crib with her face just inches from the baby’s face, screaming for him to shut the fuck up. Christy fell to her knees, sobbing and rattling the bars of the crib. Asher rushed over, horrified, and p
ulled his wife to her feet.

  “Don’t yank me,” she said. “You get your hands off me!” she hollered. And then, just like that, she punched him in the face.

  His eye was still black, he told Hannah on the phone. “Better me than my baby,” he said.

  He was talking to Hannah in a way he hadn’t talked to her before, like she was his friend and confidant, and it made her feel mature and necessary. He was candid, using surprising detail, using words like postpartum depression, hormones, and scientific studies. He told her that Christy was in the hospital for what he hoped would be a brief stay. Christy was resting, he said. Hannah knew exactly what hospital he was talking about—the massive white building with the tall pillars and marble lions—the loony bin on the hill in Newport Beach. Everyone knew about that hospital. It was where the rich loonies went to rest.

  So Christy was resting and Asher had to sit by her bedside and watch her rest and Christy’s own mother and father were staying in the beige house and helping Asher take care of Duke and hopefully not telling him to shut the fuck up when he cried and they were staying until Christy was rested, well-rested enough to return home and not shout at the baby or shake his crib.

  At first, Asher admitted, he didn’t want Christy to go to the hospital, he wanted her to spend more time with Minister Craig, but when he suggested this, Christy called Minister Craig a fucking idiot, saying that she had already talked to Minister Craig and he was useless. She couldn’t stop eating or screaming or wanting the baby to disappear, and whatever was wrong with her had nothing to do with Jesus.

  Take me to that fucking place on the hill, she told Asher.

  Get me the fuck out of here.

  13

  FOR THE first few years Martin was away, he sent postcards to Penny because the girls on the bar stools only made him miss her more. He sent cards with the Strip and the hotels and the slot machines and the farmers’ market that went up on Saturday mornings, and then he found a mall with a specialty shop where they had handmade greeting cards from all around the world. He bought cards from Bangladesh and India and Japan, and he sent her those and wrote lies on them: Within the month, I’ll be here. I’m going here next.

  But he never left the Strip, and Penny got married and quickly divorced, and then she got married to someone else. This time for good, she wrote back. She had three children in four years and told Martin their names: Randall, Rudy, and Renee. She wrote that they lived across the street from a Buddhist temple and that watching the hairless men in their robes walking the temple dog sometimes made her sad. She told him that she was head nurse now and it involved a lot of responsibility. She was busy. She was very busy these days. She told Martin that she loved her husband.

  Finally she wrote him a curt note on a thick piece of stationery, asking him to stop sending postcards, saying that her husband didn’t like opening the mailbox and seeing Martin’s signature and didn’t appreciate the way he signed his name with the word love.

  The girls Martin met were usually tourists, just passing through, a weekend, three nights, four nights at the most. He met them in bars and sometimes casinos. They liked to drink and often did things with him that they’d never have done at home, they said.

  I don’t know what’s gotten into me, one claimed.

  I’m never like this, another swore. It’s the lights, it’s the gambling, it’s the city.

  He looked at her skeptically.

  Fine, she said. I’m lying. It’s none of those things.

  What is it, then? he asked.

  It’s you, she admitted.

  But that one had only hours left. He promised to stay in touch, but after a few uninteresting letters back and forth, he abruptly stopped the correspondence.

  Most of the girls had big hair, teased and puffy at the crown, flipping up at the sides, like Mary Tyler Moore’s. More than one had a chipped front tooth.

  If a girl lived in town, she’d end up wanting to know him eventually. He was guarded and distant, a young man who didn’t want to be known, and when a girl asked him why he held back or whined that he didn’t talk enough, he’d pull away even more, not answering her phone calls or stiffening at her touch. She didn’t know shit about his life, she’d say, she didn’t know where he went to high school, where he was from, what his favorite color was, or what his favorite item was from the buffet cart at Circus Circus.

  “Do you like the crab cakes at the Flamingo or the salmon cakes at Harrah’s?” some girl would want to know.

  “Come on, open up,” she’d whine.

  Or, “You could be a killer,” she’d say, teasing.

  “Open up,” she’d say again.

  “You open up,” he’d say, kissing her neck or ear, encouraging whoever she was back into bed.

  The big-titted chubby one, Marla, was smart and pushy, though. He actually dated her for nearly a year. Her family was from Las Vegas and she grew up in a suburb on the outskirts of town. She was a senior at the University of Nevada, studying psychology and political science. And she wanted more school after that, good God, graduate school, which Martin thought was an oxymoron. She wanted to teach college one day, maybe even run for office.

  Marla wasn’t interested in how he felt about the Flamingo’s crab cakes or Harrah’s salmon, but she wanted to know if he was bullied as a kid or if he was the bully.

  “Neither,” he said.

  “Oh, come on,” she insisted.

  “Neither,” he said again.

  “Everybody was one or the other.”

  Marla wanted to know why he showed up in Nevada all alone and why he’d stayed so long. She wanted to know why he never talked about his family or feelings. Where did he see himself in five years? How did he feel about the war? Did he ever get so sad that he couldn’t get out of bed? She wanted to know why Martin’s only friend was that skinny guy, Elmer, and she wanted to know how he felt about President Carter and the Panama Canal.

  The girl didn’t let up.

  “Why won’t you let me in?” she’d ask.

  “Come on, tell me what you were like as a boy.”

  “What were you like as a teenager?”

  “What did your parents say when you told them you were leaving?”

  “Can’t we just do what we’re doing?” he’d say.

  One night after sex, they were spooning on the couch, naked, and he was so relaxed, nearly asleep, when she started up. “Tell me your secrets, Marty.”

  He tried to ignore her and she asked him again.

  “Damn it,” he said, sighing, taking his hand away from her breast and running it angrily through his hair.

  “I need to know where you come from—and not just the city, either. I know it’s the beach. I know you grew up surfing and smoking pot, but I need to know more,” she said.

  He picked up the remote and turned on the television set, where young men who’d been soldiers were now hippies with long hair and ratty beards, holding signs and chanting protests.

  “For instance, why weren’t you drafted? I don’t even know that.” She stared at the young men on television.

  “I’m fucking color-blind and my feet are flat. You happy now?”

  “No, I’m not happy.”

  “This isn’t working.”

  She took the remote from his hand and muted the TV. “A guy can’t escape where he comes from. He has a history, and even if he’s all clammed up, not telling anyone, he’s still who he is.”

  “You’ve taken too many psychology classes, that’s what’s wrong with you.” He snatched the remote back and turned up the volume. Sadie had hopped up onto the couch between the two of them, demanding to be touched. Martin rubbed her fur, her head and ears, and the cat purred loudly.

  “I need some time alone,” he said without looking at Marla.

  With a huff, she got up off the couch.

  He stood up too, and they were looking at each other.

  “You’re a dick,” she said.

  “Fuck you,” he sai
d.

  “Fuck you, dick,” she said.

  And then, surprising himself, Martin pushed a naked Marla against the living room wall, her big tits bouncing, her mouth stretching into a horrified, blubbering circle.

  “You crazy dick,” Marla said, using her hands on the wall to gain traction and stand up. She swept up her blouse from the coffee table and put it on. “I tried hard with you, dick. And you know what? You were the bully,” she said. “That’s right, I knew it. A bully and a dick. You were. How many kids did you torment? The short one, the fat one?” She was really crying now, stepping violently into her jeans, and buttoning up her blouse. She buttoned it up all wrong, the collar uneven, and she was trying to fix it on the way out the door.

  After he heard her slam the main door to his apartment complex, Martin sat down at the kitchen table and thought about things. Regardless of what she called him, he shouldn’t have pushed her against the wall. He almost loved her, her soft body, each perfect curve, and he loved her brain and her mouthy opinions. On a good day, he even loved her questions. Sure, he had no intention of answering them, but it was good to know that she gave a shit. She was right, he was a dick, but he wasn’t always such a terrible guy, and as a boy he certainly wasn’t the bully—she was wrong about that.

  He thought about Manhattan Beach. He thought about the hospital and Penny the nurse, who seemed to suspect his secret and seemed to forgive him. Leaving that little girl banged up by the curb would always be the worst thing he’d done, the thing he couldn’t shake. But that little girl was a teenager now, probably fine, all patched up and probably even walking and getting into her own kind of trouble.

  • • •

  When Martin got caught at the restaurant with his hand in that secret fridge, the boss fired him. He took a couple of weeks off, gambled and hung out with a depressed Elmer, who was also fired, and then filled out a few applications for jobs. Within the month, Martin started waiting tables at a more casual seafood shack downtown. He liked it better, no more starched uniform or shiny shoes. He liked the way the creamy clam chowder smelled as he carried it to the tables, and he liked that the little old lady boss asked everyone to call her by her first name, Ilene, and that she gave the employees an endless supply of chowder and hot bread when they worked at least a six-hour shift.