Where the God of Love Hangs Out - Amy Bloom [68]
“Fuck you,” Lionel says.
“I know.”
Robert has been standing in the doorway for about half a minute, listening to his friend’s children. He wants to write it all down and tell Julia after. You wouldn’t believe it, he’d say. They are all just like you said. Lionel is completely the master of the universe—you must have loved him a lot, darling, to give him that self-confidence—and Buster is Ted E. Bear on the outside but very strong on the inside; you’d sleep with Lionel but you’d marry Buster, is what I’m saying. Well, not you, of course, but me—back in the day. And poor Jewelle, doomed to be runner-up, isn’t she, even with those absolutely fantastic tits and still workin’ it, but my God, Patsine, what a piece of work. Don’t ask her if that dress makes you look fat because she will tell you. But I can see why you were thrilled she married Lionel. She has bent that man to her will and he is so glad, I can tell you that. Jordan’s a love; he’s like Buster, although maybe without the brains. Julia would pretend to smack him and he would apologize and she would say, Go on, go on eviscerating my loved ones, you terrible man. And he’d say, Corinne, my God, that child is why convents were invented. And Ari is very sexy in that broody, miserable way but it’s hard to see what exactly one would do with him. And Julia would look at him and he would say, I’m just sharing my observations, and she would say, You should be locked up, and he would say, And then you’d miss me, and she would say, Yes, I would, and I’d visit you in jail once a month and bring you porn.
Corinne sees Robert first and she pokes her uncle Lionel. They all look over at Robert and they all say hello, more or less.
“Would you like a cup of coffee?” Jewelle says.
“No, thank you. I’m sorry to disturb you. I just thought I would … come by.”
“We’re planning a service, just a lunch,” Lionel says, and Robert can see how hard the man is trying to be civil. “Maybe you want to say a few words.”
“Yes,” Robert says to the roomful of people who don’t want him there. He is an impediment; he is an awful, faggy roadblock to their mother’s memory, and the sooner he picks up his odds and ends and goes back to Old Fagland, the better. Robert is not a brave man; he has stood up for himself a couple of times, in a polite way, over the course of seventy years, but he isn’t the kind of person who stays where he isn’t wanted. Julia was. Julia was just that kind of person, going where she wasn’t wanted, telling people to go fuck themselves, and Julia had loved him. He had braided her long gray hair and they had discussed whether or not she should cut it after all this time, and he had rubbed moisturizer into the dry skin between her shoulder blades and trailed his fingers down her spine and toward the small folds of skin above her waist. Julia said, No playing with my love handles. Robert had leaned forward to kiss them and said, Lovely, lovely handles. Robert pulls up a chair and he pats Jewelle on the knee.
“If I may change my mind, coffee would be lovely.”
Lionel says, “Maybe some Marion Williams in the background?”
Robert says, “Absolutely. Julia was playing ‘Remember Me’ just the other day.”
The day after the luncheon, they are still cleaning up. Buster washes and Lionel dries and Jewelle, who knows where everything goes, directs the putting away. Patsine sits at the kitchen table, with her feet up on a chair. Buster sings, “Some of these days, you’re gonna miss me, honey,” and Lionel growls, “Some of these days, you’re gonna miss me, babe,” and Patsine and Jewelle look at each other, eyes welling up, for their grieving husbands.
“Be useful,” Jewelle says to the boys, and she gives them both platters to put into the sideboard. There’s no point in giving them the wineglasses. Corinne pokes her head into the kitchen and disappears.
“Corinne,” her mother says. “I could use a hand here.”
Corinne walks into the middle of the kitchen in her grandmother’s black T-shirt, her own yoga pants, her mother’s black patent-leather pumps, and a green-and-black