The Wisdom of Perversity (21 page)

Jeff's head popped up. “Dad didn't tell me. I knew anyway. You always get me the same cake.” Jeff's neck dissolved, head drooping.

“Not always!” Harriet explained to Hy, “Last year was the first time we ordered a cake from Zolly's. They're so expensive,” she added. “I can't believe you figured it out all by yourself.” She looked at Jeff's lifeless body. “Your father must have told you.” Back to Hy: “Your brother can't keep a secret. That's why he has so much trouble in business. I keep telling him. In business, you have to keep your cards close to your chest.”

“Vest,” Klein corrected. Hy twisted on his folding chair—he needed to shift ninety degrees to see Klein in the wing chair. Now that Hy was looking at Klein, to Brian's surprise (although with Klein, the surprises were so many they no longer shocked) Klein put an arm around Julie and tugged her closer so that one of her legs rode up partway on his thigh. “That's more comfortable, right?” he asked Julie, then continued speaking to her father: “The expression is
vest,
right Hy? Keep your cards close to your vest. Comes from the Wild West days—poker players in fancy duds.”

Brian saw Julie was squirming a little at the awkwardness of Klein squeezing her shoulder a second time, drawing her closer. She slid up higher on his thigh. Her short skirt flared on that side. Brian glimpsed her white panties, decorated with little yellow birds, before she reached over and smoothed her skirt down.

Hy was looking directly at his daughter and Klein, but he didn't complain about Klein's maneuvers. He was delighted to be asked a question by the NBC executive and eagerly agreed. “You're right. Close to the vest, that's the expression. Although I never played poker for real money. Just penny ante stuff. How about you, Dick?”

“In college,” Klein said. “I was in a high-stakes game. And some of the guys at the network, especially the guys in sales, they get a serious game going every once in a while. Especially when we entertain the affiliates. But I'm not a gambler. I take risks, calculated risks, but I don't like to gamble. Don't like to lose control.” He gave Julie's shoulder another affectionate squeeze, scrunching her. Her bare thigh slid all the way up on Klein's so that she was straddling his leg. Brian noticed a self-conscious look join the already pensive cast in her eyes. He watched as she brought her other leg onto Klein's thigh and pushed her knees together, which was a much more demure posture—perched on Klein's thigh instead of riding it. That also lowered her skirt, covering her thighs. A look of relief crossed her face at having hit upon this solution.

Meanwhile Hy chuckled and smiled at Klein. “Me too. Just the way I am. Can't stand to lose control.”

“Ugh. You men.” Harriet waved her hand in disgust. She reached for her teacup, groaning at the effort. “Being in charge all the time. All that garbage. Forgive me, Richard, it is such
mishigas.
But”—she paused to sip her tea—“since we women have no hope of ever being in control of anything—”

“Not for lack of trying!” Klein said gleefully, and again he squeezed Julie. This time—Brian noticed with mounting amazement—Klein dropped his arm to her waist and pulled her squarely on his broad lap, her head seemingly growing out of his chest, raven hair flowing from under his chin, a shiny beard. “That's better,” he brazenly announced to the room. Julie winced out a polite smile. Brian understood why uncertainty clouded her expression—it was the confusion he had felt, that something you couldn't name was going wrong. And for Brian, a new paralyzing mystery had been added:
What is he doing with her? In front of everybody?

“Nonsense!” Harriet declared. “We've given up trying. You men will never give us a chance.”

Hy wasn't interested in his sister-in-law's topic. “Tell me, Dick.” Hy leaned forward, looking past the worried eyes and halfhearted smile frozen on his daughter's face. “There must be tremendous stress in your job. I mean, with the constant battle for viewers . . .”

“And listeners,” Klein amended with a broad smile. “We're TV
and
radio.”

“Listeners. Of course. But it's the same battle for the audience, isn't it?”

Klein dropped a hard-and-fast curtain on his smile. Wearing a grave face, he spoke solemnly. “Absolutely. One point in the ratings is life and death. Worse. Much worse than life and death. It's millions of dollars.” Klein looked off sadly, a combat veteran reliving the tragedy of war.

“Incredible,” Hy said. “One point is worth millions of dollars?”

Klein shifted, moving his head beside Julie's, apparently to have room to nod. Brian knew she could smell his perfume, that his husky voice, right at her ear, would sound as if he were inside her skull. “Three points in the ratings could be the difference between General Sarnoff making a profit or loss for the year.”

“Tell me,” Hy's began, his voice dropping to a lower register, signaling he was about to broach a confidential matter. “I know this is getting a little personal, but out of scientific curiosity, to confirm a theory of mine, when you wake up in the morning, do you have jaw pain?”

Jeff stirred, stretching to peer at his uncle. “What?” he mumbled. Brian also thought the question was very odd, but he was distracted by keeping track of Klein's hands. The adult's arm had virtually encircled Julie's waist. Three fingers on his right hand were slipping through a space created by the bunching of fabric at the lip of Julie's skirt, snaking under it. Brian could almost feel those hot fingers on his own tummy, insinuating, an intrusion but one that wasn't quite rude enough to justify a complaint. He tensed, as if somehow that would stop Klein's action. He watched for Julie's reaction. Her curious shining eyes weren't taking in the world. They were focused inward, flitting back and forth as if hunting for an intruder. Her lips parted, about to speak. Brian was in dreadful and thrilling suspense. What if she jumped up and complained? He hoped so! What would happen?

“Jaw pain?” Jeff honked derisively. “What's that?”

Hy ignored his nephew. “Sorry, don't mean to pry.” He looked past his daughter's puzzled expression to peer at Klein's mouth while he explained, “I have a theory that people like yourself, who have important, demanding jobs, who are under great stress, tend to grind their teeth at night.” To illustrate, Hy moved his lower jaw around in an exaggerated way, opening his lips ghoulishly to reveal he was gnashing his molars.

Klein maintained a straight face while he watched this goofy display. Brian saw that the adult's eyes were twinkling mischievously, but that wasn't as significant to Brian as his noticing that Klein was tightening his arm around Julie's waist, pressing her flush to his lap.

Julie opened her mouth as if she were about to shriek, but Klein immediately relaxed his vise. Once she calmed, then he squeezed again, and again let go when she tensed. He repeated this cycle three times. With each encore, she reacted more passively, until it was clear to Brian that she had given up the impulse to object, no longer sure what she could protest.

Brian was astonished. He could see Klein's maneuvers easily from behind Julie's father. Hy's view was also unobstructed, but he wasn't noticing, he was too busy silently studying Klein's mouth.

The person who spoke up was Klein. He looked up earnestly at Julie's father and, after a pensive pause, while squeezing the girl tight to his lap, conceded, “I think you're right, Hy. I do have jaw pain in the morning.”

JULIE WATCHED HER
father's face loom large as he bent over them while Klein wiggled his finger closer and closer to There. (“Your vagina,” her father had told her to call it—to her mother's horror. She hated that word. She thought of it as There.) Julie was too startled by all the strange things going on to worry about the right word. For one thing, she didn't quite recognize her father. Being Hyram Mark's daughter, and not his dental assistant, she had never witnessed his manner with a new patient whom he wanted to impress, the solemn medical expert concentrating on his work. “May I?” the dentist asked, hands pausing inches away from examining Klein's jaw.

“Sure.” Klein crossed his forearms completely across Julie's tummy as if he needed to make room for her father's fingers. He pulled her even tighter to his waist. She slid her eyes up and to the side to watch her father gently cup each of Klein's cheeks, index fingers probing at the jaw's joints. Meanwhile a startling addition joined their threesome. Julie felt Klein's long hard weenie (that's what she and her best friend Nancy called penises) against a butt cheek.

She wanted to jump up and run. But how without a big fuss? His hands held her fast. She'd have to yell something about his weenie, which was unthinkable, or pry his hands apart, equally appalling behavior. And her father was right there. He wasn't objecting. She comforted herself that it would soon be over.

But it continued. Her father probed Klein's jaw with his fingers spread in a variety of weblike grips. He then asked Klein to open wide and peered at his teeth while Klein's finger wiggled farther below, past her belly button, making feints There. He tugged the tender skin up, which almost felt like he was touching There. Was he? A radiating tingling made her legs feel unstrung. She couldn't figure out what was going on exactly because Klein seemed to be absorbing her into his skin. His aftershave filled her nostrils and she was partially deafened by the heavy breaths he took in, then released with a tickling heat across her right ear. (Years later in college, a well-meaning boyfriend licked her earlobe, then blew on it. She screamed. Poor kid was deafened for half an hour.)

“Is that sensitive?” her father asked.

“Yes,” Klein's answer whooshed into her ear.

“Sore?”

“Uh-huh.” Klein shifted her a little. His hard weenie nestled between her cheeks. Was it really his weenie? It was too hard, too big.

At last her father stood up, stepped back. “Well, I'd have to do a complete examination and a set of x-rays to confirm it, but you're grinding, Dick. You're a night grinder.”

BRIAN'S VIEW, MOMENTARILY
blocked by Hy's weird survey of Klein's mouth, was cleared as the dentist returned to his folding chair. Julie remained captured in Klein's arms. She stared ahead, her eyes not seeing anything, looking inward at the sensations. Brian knew. Never again in his life would he feel that he so thoroughly inhabited another's mind—he was living in concert with her soul.

It was just at that moment of utter synchronicity that Julie's eyes found him. He could almost hear her cry out:
What do I do?

Brian had no answer for her. He looked at Klein, whose placid expression appeared to be absorbed by the ongoing consultation with Julie's father, and heard him declare, “You know, Hy, I don't really have a dentist I trust.”

JULIE LOOKED AWAY
from the solace of Brian's china blue eyes when Harriet sang out, “Dick, you have to see Hy! He's a great dentist. You should have told me you were looking for a dentist . . .”

Klein laughed. Julie felt its rumble all along her spine. “Well, no one's
looking
for a dentist. No offense, Hy. But I've never heard anybody say, ‘Can't wait to get to the dentist!' ”

Noah opened his mostly toothless mouth and cackled. Klein couldn't resist playing to that audience. “Right, Noah? ‘Ever hear anybody say, ‘Oh gee, I can't wait: cancel my theater tickets I want to go to the dentist!' ” he said, blowing across Julie's cheek a hot wind that this time gave off a whiff of the Zolly's spicy mustard. She tried to wriggle up and away, but his weenie, his hands, his grip, weren't easing as she had expected they would when her father was done. Meanwhile Noah adored the elaboration of Klein's joke, laughing so hard sound ceased to come out of his gaping mouth.

Hy suffered being teased with a resigned air. He mumbled, “We're not too popular,” glumly watching his son's toothless derision. “But people sure are glad to see us when they get a toothache. Then they cancel their theater tickets, Dick. Then they're begging to see us!”

The doorbell rang. “And here they are!” Klein adeptly commented. “They've all come for root canal.”

His audience was not amused. Noah didn't grasp the comic significance of root canal, Julie and Brian were preoccupied, and Hy never saw humor in his profession.

Jeff scrambled to his feet, announcing, “I'll get it.”

“Stay right where you are if you know what's good for you,” Harriet commanded. “Hy, would you go?”

“Sure,” he agreed, glad to go, flustered by his exchange with Klein. The NBC executive's sudden addition of mockery to friendliness was not an equation Hy could easily comprehend.

“You know, Richard, you really should see Hy,” Harriet said to Klein while Hy was moving toward the door. “And you should send him some of your show biz friends.”

“You bet,” Klein said. “I'm going to Hy first chance he can see me. And I've got plenty of friends who need a good dentist. Especially in TV.” Klein squeezed Julie, confiding in a spiced whisper, “Lots of my friends need your father's help to make their smiles perfect. Perfect like your smile.” He pecked her on the cheek. His lips parted as they landed, leaving a wet impression, and his hand snaked closer, right to the edge of There, tugging, almost tickling, almost not.

Hy, all suspicion of being ridiculed dispelled, paused at the doorway. “Anytime, Dick. Whatever time works for you. Just tell my secretary when you want to come in and we'll clear it for you.” The bell rang again. Hy hurried off.

“Would you like more tea, Aunt Harriet?” Julie asked, trying to sit up straight and escape politely. Klein's arms tightened across her waist, making that impossible. She fell back against him. And he was not forced to let her go because Harriet, reaching for a tissue said, “No thank you, dear,” and blew her nose.