Wherever There Is Light (42 page)

“I suppose. It'll take a couple hours. Leave him with me and come back.”

Julian walked across South Orange Avenue to Bun 'N' Burger and called Eddie from a pay phone. Eddie was semiretired—he only undertook the occasional collection job to stay in shape—and most of his money came from his real-estate partnerships with Julian. He lived on the other side of the village, in a white-brick colonial on Radel Terrace, a short walk from Our Lady of Sorrows, where Fiona went daily to beseech the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost to send her a husband who wasn't a goddamn lunatic.

“Wanna go to Alex Eng's at twelve thirty?” Julian asked. “You can meet my son.”

“Your who?”

Julian spent a buck fifty in nickels and dimes to tell him the story.

Eddie said, “It's hard to imagine Kendall being gone. She was so . . . Jesus. And you're not sure Bobby's yours?”

“The birth certificate says Otis.”

“Yeah? What're the odds on that?”

“Not good. But possible.”

“Does the time fit? With you and Kendall?”

“Nine months.”

“If you both had blood tests, you'd find out if you could be his dad.”

“He's a real nice kid.”

Eddie sighed. “You wouldn't expect nothing else. Not from the gal who raised him.”

Miss Kozlowski was behind her desk while Bobby spoke French with a wide-eyed young woman in an off-the-shoulder, bell-sleeved dress that appeared to have been designed to keep the boys paying attention in class. The vice principal introduced her as Miss Zellner.

“Bobby's beyond our best students here,” Miss Zellner said to Julian, “but I have a seventh-grade homeroom, and if Bobby's assigned to me and you bring him early, I'll practice with him and give him books to read.”

“That's kind of you,” Julian said and, after she was gone, asked the vice principal how Bobby had done on the tests.

“A hundred on the math and science, and on social studies a ninety-four.”

Julian said, “I guess we'll have to work on the social studies.”

Eddie hadn't arrived at Alex Eng's, so Bobby and Julian took a booth, drinking tea and eating crunchy noodles dipped in duck sauce.

“Why'd that lady think I'd flunk those tests?” Bobby asked. “Because I'm Negro? Mom told me about people like that. She said it can be an advantage, because anything you can do seems ten times better.”

“Sounds about right.”

“She told me you weren't that way.”

Julian loved hearing Kendall's voice again—if only through her son.

“What're we eatin', fellas?” Eddie asked, sliding in next to Bobby. Eddie's red hair had gone gray, but the remnants of boyishness, his freckles and wise-guy grin, had survived. He extended his hand to Bobby. “Put it there.”

“Yes, sir,” Bobby said, shaking Eddie's hand.

“Lose the ‘sir.' You don't call Julian ‘sir,' do ya?”

“I call him Mr. Rose. That's what my mom said his name was.”

“Okay, but I'm your uncle Eddie. Got it?”

“Yes, Uncle Eddie.”

“Thatta boy. Whatta ya want for Christmas?”

Julian had seen this routine before with his daughter: Holly once mentioned that she liked the TV show
My Friend Flicka
, and Eddie would've bought her a pony if Julian hadn't stopped him. Eddie and Fiona had no children, and Julian knew that Eddie paid the tuition for some students who went to school at Our Lady of Sorrows and helped out their folks at Christmas. Maybe it was because Eddie's father had died before he was born and he grew up with a flat-broke mother. Or penance for all the guys he'd put in the ground.

Bobby said, “My mom told me Mr. Rose is Jewish, and Jews don't celebrate Christmas.”

“I'm bettin' Mr. Rose's gonna make an exception for you.”

When they left the restaurant, snow was falling, and the lights strung across South Orange Avenue shone like rainbows.

Eddie said, “Bobby, there's a store across the street. Got model cars and train sets. Go see if you like anything.”

They watched Bobby cross. Eddie said, “He's built like you. Thinner, but he's gonna be tall. Otis was pocket-sized.”

“I wish I knew where Otis was. Bobby says Kendall told him his father died in Korea. That's not true. Maybe Otis is alive.”

Eddie said, “Not with the dope fiends he ran with. But I wish he was. He was always looking forward to something. And he could play the piano.”

“His old man died not long after Derrick. It was in the papers.”

“His ma could still be in Harlem. I could ask around.”

“That poor woman's been through enough.”

Eddie asked, “If Bobby's yours, why'd you think Kendall didn't give him your name?”

“She hated taking anything from me. And I told her that I wouldn't want a son burdened with my name. This was right after the Kefauver Hearings, and the Senate had Abe and half the Mob on TV. My name came up and reporters called me about it for years. With Holly I figured she'd get married, and her name would change. But my son—he'd be marked forever.”

Tire chains clinked against the avenue, kicking up arcs of snow. “Does it matter? If Bobby's not yours?”

“Not a bit. He's a kid who needs help and—and he's all I have left of Kendall.”

J
ulian and Bobby celebrated Christmas Eve at Fiona and Eddie's house. Fiona stuffed them with salmon, scalloped potatoes, and chocolate mint layer cake, and Eddie, who'd bought Bobby a Hot Wheels race-car set, raced Bobby for money and lost twenty bucks to him. Bobby was polite but acted as if he'd taken a vow of silence. At home, before bringing in the presents from the pool cabana, Julian checked to see if Bobby were sleeping. He wasn't. His desk lamp was on, and music played on the clock radio.

Julian sat on the bed, and Bobby said, “In Paris, on Christmas Eve, my mom used to take me caroling in the Latin Quarter with her friends. Then we'd have hot red wine and spice bread.”

Julian remembered the fragrance of the
pain d'épices
that Kendall would bake in Greenwich Village, and he felt as sad as Bobby looked. After Bobby flopped over on his stomach, Julian rubbed his back before turning off the radio and the lamp.

In the morning, when Bobby came downstairs and saw his presents, he said, “Are they all for me?”

“All for you.”

His haul included an Etch A Sketch, Slinky, Legos, a Nok-Hockey set, every one of the Hardy Boys books, the board games Risk, Life, Stratego, Clue, checkers, and chess; a stereo and stacks of records—alphabetically from the Beatles through the Temptations; a mountain of clothes; a three-speed Dunelt English Racer, and a Flexible Flyer sled.

“You wanna break in the sled?” Julian asked.

“Yeah. I learned how at the Parc des Buttes Chaumont.”

Flood's Hill was next to South Orange Junior High. Dozens of grown-ups and children in colorful parkas and hats were sledding. As Bobby started down the slope, Julian noticed a group of teenagers with Flying Saucers. The teenagers sat on the aluminum platters and spun in circles to the bottom of the hill. Bobby was halfway down when his Flexible Flyer was broadsided by two spinning saucers that sent him rolling through the snow. When Bobby got up, two teenagers in Columbia High School football jackets were towering over him, holding their Flying Saucers and laughing. The huskier one said, “You oughtta watch where you're going.”

“I was,” Bobby said.

“Be careful, Hal,” the other kid said. “He's a tough guy.”

Behind them, Julian said, “Pardon me, fellas,” and he pushed past them and snatched the Flying Saucer from Hal. “You oughtta ride this thing somewhere else.”

“It's a free country,” Hal replied.

“Don't believe it,” Julian said, and bent the aluminum platter in half.

Hal and his friend, gaping at Julian, backed up the hill, and after flinging the Flying Saucer at them, Julian picked up the Flexible Flyer and put his arm around Bobby. As they walked, Bobby reached for the hand on his shoulder and held it.

“I'm here,” Julian said.

“I know,” Bobby replied.

B
y spring, after four months at South Orange Junior High, Bobby learned that it was no fun being the only Negro student in the most advanced section of the seventh grade. The school was ninety-five percent white, and Bobby didn't give his placement a second thought until a colored student, a ninth grader who held the record for most consecutive days in detention, saw Bobby at his gym locker and said, “Boy, you think your shit don't stink 'cause you be with those white brainiacs?”

Bobby didn't answer, but he was surprised the kid had spoken to him. The only people who appeared to know Bobby existed were his teachers, who said, “Excellent job,” when they returned his homework and tests with As written across the paper.

In the cafeteria, nearly all the Negro students gathered at the same table, and no one of any color invited him to join their group. Bobby sat alone, trying—and failing—to soothe himself with memories of eating lunch with his mother at La Palette, where the waiters and the regulars knew them, and Bobby had a
croque-monsieur
—a grilled ham-and-cheese—and a cup of
chocolat chaud
, a perfect meal on those shining afternoons.

“You don't have to eat by yourself,” Stevie Lerner said, sitting across from Bobby.

Stevie was in his homeroom. He was a chubby, chipmunk-cheeked boy with curly reddish-blond hair and braces, and owing to his habit of forgetting his homework and flunking tests, he was frequently summoned to the guidance office for conferences. Yet Stevie possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of sports statistics, and he was consulted by other boys to settle disputes about things like earned-run averages that Bobby had never heard of.

Stevie said, “You live near me. I saw you yesterday driving with that man who drops you off in the morning.”

“Mr. Rose. He's my guardian.”

Stevie nodded as if it were normal for kids in South Orange to have a guardian instead of a mom and dad. Bobby bit into the soggy bun and greasy patty that the cafeteria lady had claimed was a hamburger.

Stevie said, “You want to come over after school today? We can play stickball.”

“I don't know how. I grew up in France.”

“I'll teach you. And it's Friday, so you can eat dinner over.”

“Okay,” Bobby said, and the hamburger didn't taste so bad anymore.