Ladies and Gentlemen Read Free Page A

only came up to her breasts. She turned Aaron toward him, resting her hands on his shoulders, and said, “Here he is!” After the three of them stood there uncomfortably for a moment, Applelow mentioned that he’d heard Aaron was quite the scholar. He was secretly hoping for a performance of some kind, for a monologue on systematic reasoning to come streaming from Aaron’s mouth—but the boy just frowned and mumbled hello. Deformed, Applelow thought, frozen boy-sized by so much mama-love.
    But it was Zach who kept Marnie up at night. Though she slaved away keeping both boys in private schools, Zach had been kicked out of one for cheating, another for shoplifting, and was then shipped off to an out-of-state institution for troubled youths. He was almost expelled for marijuana possession but finally managed to graduate and got into one of the SUNY schools, where he was currently a sophomore on probation for poor grades and considering dropping out. All this had caused Marnie endless worry. “He’s going to waste everything,” she’d told Applelow during their wine-drinking session.
    But all that was in the past, apparently. Zach was joining the air force, aiming high, getting it together. Not enough to be trusted with the key to his mother’s apartment, but there was no telling how far he might go.
    At home, Applelow checked his messages—there were none—and put his cash in a book on one of his shelves. From his window he watched Marnie walk up the street and turn the corner, then went across the hall and let himself into her apartment. She’d made meatloaf and a salad, but his sweet tooth was acting up so hetore off a huge piece of coffee cake, eating it in front of the open refrigerator and drinking milk out of the carton, taking such enormous bites he had to inhale loudly through his nose. Full, he went back to his apartment and lay down in front of the television. On the news, images from Abu Ghraib: a naked Iraqi with his back to a cell, his genitals pinched between his legs and his hands cupped behind his neck while dogs strained toward him on their leashes. Another prisoner stood on a box, electrodes attached to his fingers and penis, looking like a sort of Ku Klux Klansman in his eyeless, pointy hood. A faceless orgy of captives with a female MP lying atop them like a sister on her brothers’ pileup, the blue-gloved guard behind them giving a thumbs-up with a look of sick glee.
    Who makes such people? Applelow wondered.
    He woke to the sound of the buzzer.
    Zach was tall like his mother but better-proportioned, long and lean. He had dark cropped hair and thick black eyebrows. Handsome, Applelow thought. He wore a down jacket over a hooded sweatshirt, jeans, and high-tops, and had a small bag thrown over his shoulder. He apologized for disturbing him, and when Applelow looked in the mirror above his coat rack he saw his throw-pillow’s weave imprinted on his cheek.
    “No, no,” he told the boy. “I needed to wake up.” He looked on the counter for Marnie’s key, checked under his mail, and then found it in his pants pocket, holding it up as if it were solid gold. After they crossed the hall, Applelow unlocked the door and held it open. The boy waited.
    “The key,” Zach finally said.
    “I’m sorry?” Applelow asked, suddenly furious with Marnie for putting him in this position. She hadn’t told the boy that he was under house arrest.
    “Ohhhh,” Zach said, nodding. He tossed his bag on the floor. “Don’t sweat it.” He collapsed on the couch and folded his hands over his stomach. He grinned. “I’m surprised she didn’t ask you to lock me in from the outside.”
    Applelow laughed. “I’m guessing she locked the liquor cabinet too.”
    “Mom doesn’t have any booze. She’s a true Jew that way.” Cackling to himself, he seemed in good spirits. “I could go for a beer, though.”
    “I’m out,” Applelow said, though he’d immediately warmed to the boy.
    “I’ve got some