Happy Family Read Free Page B

closet and grabs a broom. He punches the handle against the ceiling. “Turn that shite down, goddamn it! And you, don’t you go thinking I’m considering it because I’m not.” Moms hands Pops a sack lunch she made for Billy last night.
    “Viet Nam,” she says. “They’re sending Terry to a place called Viet Nam.”

Cici
    C arlotta Matzner gets goose bumps when her husband blows on the back of her neck. Tonight he’s doing it to cool her off; the late-summer nights are hot, even in the country, otherwise known as Montclair, New Jersey. “Scopa me,” she whispers. He loves it when she speaks Italian, especially when she talks dirty. She could be reciting the phone book right now and it would sound sexy. “Scopa me con tuo cazzo duro, Solomon.” Even though they have no family left to share their happiness with, this was worth it.
    She’s burning him up, and at this rate, Sol won’t be able to last. “Aiiieeeeeee!” she cries.
    “What? What did I do?” he says, pulling out.
    “Aiiiieeeeeeee!”
    “Are you okay, did I hurt you? Where? What, chérie , tell me?”
    “Solomon, the baby, he arrive. You stir him with you generals!” Her eyes are earnest; he wants to be concerned but her malapropisms slay him. “Oh, chérie, no,” he says, trying not to laugh. “You’re just having a cramp, remember, like the one the other night, and the day before? Nothing to worry about.”
    “This is no like the last time. We make him arrive, we should no be doing this. Porca Madonna, la minchia, it hurts.”
    “Breathe,” he says. She breathes and he breathes; they breathe.
    “For a second there, you scared me,” he says. “But trust me, the baby’s totally protected in there, from things much bigger than the mister here.”
    “ Pronto, Solomon,” she says, “call dottore, per favore. ”
    Panic happens often, though never while they are making love. Rationality doesn’t work when Cici is like this, so there is no point in saying you can’t bother a doctor in the middle of the night for nothing, especially when he just saw you the other day and everything was A-OK. No point in saying you’ve got another month to go and at this rate the obstetrician will be so fed up that by the time the real thing comes he’ll play an extra set of tennis before meandering into the hospital. No; Sol listens and comforts, he looks at his watch and says, “Just to be sure, we’ll see how long it takes between pains.” He manages to keep his eyes open for half an hour, and when all is quiet on the baby front and Cici’s thinking she’d like some runny cheese and a cigarette, he says, “I’m okay if we don’t make love. I want you to know I would never want you to do it just for me.” He’s out of bed, in his bathrobe, ready to get her snack. “I mean it; I abstained before and I can abstain again.” She looks up at him and whispers something impossibly sexy. “Look what you do to me,” he says, “you’re incorrigible.”
    As Sol is looking for the runny cheese Cici likes, he trips against a leather bag that’s parked next to the kitchen door. Goddamned handyman, leaving his stuff all over the place. Sol hired Gusmanov to check on the house and see if Cici needs anything because he (a) had pimples the size of boils on his neck and was no threat, and (b) spoke a little Italian he learned from his neighbors in Brooklyn. Sol worked such long hours, he didn’t like leaving Cici alone all day in a new house in a new neighborhood. Cici was still nervous about driving so he’d also recently hired a housekeeper to clean and run errands.
    When Sol goes back upstairs, Cici is sleeping. The moon shines through the still-curtainless windows, bathing Cici in a faint glow. He has made a hobby of looking at his wife. Her naked body is ravishing, but something about seeing her fully dressed, reaching a hand up to screw in an earring or fasten the clasp on her necklace, is magical. As she lifts her hair to pin it up or adjust