The Parallel Apartments Read Free Page B

tough end of an asparagus spear with a dull knife. Franklin was laboring over their taxes, belching now and again, the residua from a Whole Foods breakfast of three shots of wheatgrass juice chased immediately with a triple dulce de leche macchiato. This had sent him to the men’s room first, and then to the drugstore for Kaopectate.
    Franklin hulked over Schedule E, dabbing an inappropriate shade of Wite-Out over his mistakes.
    Justine gave up on the asparagus and began to saw at a handsome red bell pepper.
    â€œWon’t cut,” said Franklin, looking up. “That’s because you didn’t grow up with the right tools in the house. You didn’t even have sharp knives. Know why? It’s because there weren’t any men around. Men like to have tools and sharp knives. I mean, I know you had razor blades, duh-right, but not paring, boning, slitting, cleaving, slicing, shaving knives. Stabbers. ”
    Justine scarcely ever thought about the old cuts on her arms and legs and stomach. But now all the knife-chatter in the room awakened them all at once. They seemed to hiss with the exotic pain that the original slices had produced.
    â€œAah,” said Justine.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œNothing.” Justine sawed; finally the bell pepper gave. Inside was another, much smaller, green, and rather deformed pepper, growing parasitically from a rib. Shiny, translucent, fetal. She wondered if maybe there was another pepper inside the little one, and then another, like matryoshkas.
    â€œThat’s what a pure matriarchy is good for. Dull tools.” Franklin chuckled and belched. “Wait. My mistake. Wasn’t your grandfather around for a while? Like just before you blew town to come to New York to whore and go to collage-college? Charlotte’s husband? What was his name?”
    Justine had not heard her mother’s name spoken aloud in years. In Franklin’s Brooklynese, “Charlotte” sounded like a sexual slur. And the mention of Justine’s grandfather…
    â€œLou. I don’t want to talk about them.”
    Justine tore out the tiny deformed pepper.
    â€œThat blade’ll barely cut water for chrissake, Justine. I’m not hungry anyway. Definitely not for what you’re making. Hah, just kidding, looks great.”
    Justine took a good whack at the little pepper. Instead of dividing, it shot out from under the blade, sailed out of the kitchen, and landed on the black leather couch.
    â€œPlease go get that; it might stain.”
    Justine went to find the pepper, but it had disappeared.
    â€œI can’t find it.”
    â€œJesus, Justine.”
    â€œJesus yourself, Franklin.”
    â€œThe wit! Wooo! Did you get that from Lou or Charlotte?”
    â€œWhy do you care about my stupid family all of a sudden?”
    â€œBecause I was thinking about family in general, know why? Because of these documents here before me. We’re not Married Filing Jointly and I can’t claim Head of Household and I can’t designate you a dependent and I can’t designate a child who would now be nearly two, because she is dead. And plenty of other IRS reminders of family.”
    â€œIt wasn’t my fault,” said Justine, though of course it had been.
    â€œYeah? It wasn’t me that spent all their free time down at Ground Zero sucking in carcinogens and babycides.”
    â€œI was—”
    â€œHelping. I know. Like letting a little kid help you make breakfast. They put up with you for a while, but you were in the way, Justine. Did you know I couldn’t claim Valeria as a dependent in 2002? She didn’t live long enough. It would’ve taken a couple grand at least off of my AGI.”
    â€œI knew you blamed me.”
    â€œMaybe that’s why a destitute twenty-year-old widow would adopt a one-year-old. For tax purposes. Isn’t that how old you were when your ‘mama’ adopted you?”
    â€œCharlotte was twelve