Where the God of Love Hangs Out - Amy Bloom [59]
No one wants to be teamed with Jewelle. She is smart about many things, talented in a dozen ways, and an excellent mother, and both men think she looks terrific with the low cups of her turquoise lace top ducking in and out of view, but she’s no good at charades. She goes blank after the first syllable and stamps her foot and blinks back tears until her time is up. She never gets the hard ones, and even with the easiest title she guesses blindly without listening to what she’s said. Jewelle is famous for “Exobus” and “Casabroomca.”
I can’t put husband and wife together, Julia thinks, feeling the tug of dinner-party rules she has ignored for twenty years. “Girls against boys, everybody?”
Jewelle claims the couch for the three girls, and Buster and Lionel look at each other. It is one of the things they like best about their mother; she would rather be kind than win. They slap hands. Unless Corinne is very, very good in a way that is not normal for a three-year-old, they will wipe the floor with the girl team.
Jewelle is delighted. Julia is an excellent guesser and a patient performer.
Lionel says, “Rules, everybody.” No one expects the children to do anything except act out their charades and yell out meaningless guesses. The recitation of rules is for Jewelle. “No talking while acting. Not even whispering. No foreign languages—”
“Not even French,” Jewelle says. Lionel is annoying in English; he is obnoxious in French.
“Not even French. No props. No mouthing. Kids, look.” He shows them the signs for book and television and movie and musical, for little words, for “sounds like.”
Jordan says, “Where’s Ari?”
They all look around the room. Jewelle sighs. “Jordy, go get him. He’s probably still in Uncle Lionel’s room. When did you see him last, Lionel?” she says.
Jordan runs up the stairs.
“I didn’t lose him, Jewelle. He’s probably just resting. It was a long trip.”
Ari comes down in crumpled khakis and a brown sweater. Terrible colors for him, Jewelle and Julia think.
In French, Lionel says, “Good boy. You look ready for dinner. Come sit by me and I’ll show you how to play this game.”
Ari sits on the floor in front of his stepfather. He doesn’t expect that the game will be explained to him; it will be in very fast English, it will make them all laugh with one another, and his stepfather, who is already winking at stupid baby Corinne, will go on laughing and joking, in English.
The children perform their charades, and the adults are almost embarrassed to be so pleased. As Julia stands up to do Love’s Labour’s Lost, Jewelle says, “Let me just run into the kitchen.”
Lionel says, “Go ahead, Ma. You’re no worse off with Corinne,” and Buster laughs and looks at the floor. He loves Jewelle, but there is something about this particular disability that seems so harmlessly funny; if she were fat, or a bad dancer, or not very bright, he would not laugh, ever.
As Julia is very slowly helping Corinne guess that it’s three words, Jewelle walks into the living room, struggling with the large turkey still sizzling on the wide silver platter.
“It’s that time,” she says.
Buster says, “I’ll carve,” and Jewelle, who heard him laugh, says, “No, Lionel’s neater—let him do it.”
They never finish the charades game. Corinne and Jordan and Ari collapse on the floor after dinner, socks and shoes scattered, one of Corinne’s bronze roses askew, the other in Ari’s sneaker. Ari and Jordan have dismantled the couch. Jewelle and Buster gather the three of them, wash their faces, drop them into pajamas, and put them to bed. They kiss their beautiful, damp children, who smell of soap and corn bread and lemon meringue, and they kiss Ari, who smells just like his cousins.
Buster says, “Do we have to go back down?”
“Are you okay?” Jewelle rubs his neck.
“Just stuffed. And I’m ready to be with just you.” Buster looks at his watch. “Lionel’s long knives ought to be coming out around now.”
“Do you think we ought to hang around for your mother?”
“To protect her? I know you must