Amy Bloom - Where the God of Love Hangs Out

Late last summer, when everyone had come to Julia’s for Labor Day, Julia took them all into town for Italian ices. The eight of them sat on the wrought-iron benches in front of Vincenzo’s, sucking on paper cups of lemon and tangerine. Julia stood up. She threw her paper cup to the ground and cupped her hands around her mouth. She yelled, “Robert. Robert Nash.” And at the far end of the street, two men turned around and came toward her. Julia began to hurry toward the taller man, and he put his arms around her and all they could see was his crisp white shirtsleeves and gold watch, and when Julia stepped back and put her hand to his face, they saw his pressed jeans, his bare feet in Italian loafers. “Très chic,” Jewelle whispered. Julia and the old man hugged again and finally Julia introduced everyone. (“Oh, Robert, my son Lionel, my grandson Ari, my granddaughter, Corinne, my grandson Jordan, my son Buster — I’m so sorry, honey, I should say my son Judge Gabriel Sampson and his wife, Jewelle. How’s that?”) And the old man looked Lionel up and down in an unmistakable way. (“I’d know you anywhere,” he said. “Your father’s son.”) He shook hands with everyone. He said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you all. This is my companion, Arthur.” The other man looked like a middle-aged hamster and he cradled a big bouquet from the florist, wrapped in lavender tissue and cellophane.

Jordan poked Ari and Ari rolled his eyes.

Robert said, “And what are you two young men doing for amusement?”

He didn’t sound like an elegant old fruit; he sounded like a distinguished and rather demanding English professor, and Julia hid her smile when the boys dropped their eyes. Robert used to reduce college boys of all kinds, potheads, lacrosse players, and clean-cut Christians, to tears with that tone.

Ari shrugged. Conversation with American strangers was Jordan’s department.

Jordan said, “We might do a little fishing.”

“Fly-fishing?”

“No. Just, you know, regular,” Jordan said.

Lionel nodded. “Just reel and rods and worms. Nothing fancy.”

Robert smiled again. “Well, if you can handle a little motor-boat, I have one just rusting in the driveway. You’re welcome to it.”

Everyone except Arthur smiled and Lionel could see the man calculating the cost of the lawsuit when one of the boys lost a hand in the propeller or came home crying after an afternoon skinny-dipping at Robert’s.

Lionel put a protective arm around each boy and began to shift them away.

Robert said, “Well, come look at the boat if you want. And there’s a basketball court across the street. My neighbor’s in Greece and it just sits there. It’s a waste.”

“We could ride over tomorrow,” Jordan said

“C’est de la balle.” Ari glanced toward the old man. “Cool.”

“Just as you say. Arthur, do show them where we are,” Robert said, and Arthur handed each of the boys a business card with Robert’s name and phone number and a little pen-and-ink map on the back, marking their house with a silver star.

Robert said to Julia, “And you must have these,” and he took the huge bunch of pink and yellow alstroemeria from Arthur, flowers they’d gotten for their front hall, and handed them to Julia. She kissed him again and ducked her head into the flowers, sniffing, although there was no real scent, and she exclaimed, like a girl, all the way home.

Lionel and Julia walked behind the others.

“You think the boys should go over there?”

Julia turned on him. “He’s an old friend of mine, Lionel. He was a friend of your father’s and he was extending himself, out of kindness, to my grandchildren .” And Lionel was glad he didn’t say what he was thinking.

Finally, someone does go to the grocery store and people sit, in knots of two or three, on the deck, or walk on the beach or walk in and out of Julia’s room. Lionel and Buster smoke on the front porch. Someone orders in bad pizza and they eat it off paper plates and even Jewelle does nothing more in the kitchen than dump the cold slices in a pile and refrigerate them. By ten o’clock, Buster and Jewelle are listening to Lionel and Patsine in the next room. Lionel is talking angrily and Patsine makes a soft, soothing sound. Then Lionel gets up and goes down the hall for a glass of water and they can hear everything, even the click of the bedroom door as Lionel closes it. Patsine asks a question and Lionel gets back into bed and then there is more whispering and a little uncertain laughter and then Buster is glad he can’t see Jewelle’s face while his brother gets a blow job.

When Buster was fifteen and Lionel was twenty-five, Julia sent Buster to spend the summer with his brother in Paris. Buster spent his days riding the Métro, listening to music from home, and trying to pick up girls. At night, Lionel made dinner for them both.

“How’s it goin’? With the ladies?”

Buster shrugged. Lionel poured them both a glass of wine.

“Listen to me,” Lionel said, “and not to those assholes back home. You do not want to get advice from sixteen-year-old boys. You don’t want to be the kind of guy who just grabs some tit or a handful of pussy and then goes and tells his friends so they can say, ‘You da man.’”

“No,” Buster said.

“That’s right, no, you don’t. You want to be the kind of man women beg for sex. You want women saying, ‘Oh, yes, baby, yes, baby, yes’” and on the last “yes,” he got up, took a peach from a bowl on the counter, and sliced it in half. He threw the pit into the wastebasket and he put the fruit, shiny side up, in Buster’s hand.

“Here you go. See that little pink point. You got to lick that little point, rub your tongue over and around it.” He smacked Buster on the back of the head. “Don’t slobber. You’re not a washcloth. You. Are. A. Lover.”

Buster breathed in peach smell and he flicked his tongue at the tiny point.

“That’s it, that’s what I’m talking about. Lick it. It won’t bite you, boy. Lick it again. Now, you get in there with your nose and your chin.”

“My nose,” Buster said, and Lionel pressed the tip of Buster’s nose into the peach.

“Your nose, your chin. Your forehead, if that’s what it takes.”

Buster gave himself to the peach until there was nothing but exhausted peach skin and bits of yellow fruit clinging to his face.

Lionel handed him a dish towel.

“How long do you do it for?” Buster asked.

“How long? Until her legs are so tight around your head you can’t actually hear the words but you know she’s saying, Don’t stop, don’t stop, oh, my God in heaven, don’t you stop.”

“And then what?” Buster picked up another peach, just in case.

“And you keep on. And then she comes. Unless. Unless, you’re slurping away down there for ten minutes and nothing’s happening, you know, and all of a sudden she arches her back like this”—and Lionel arched his back, until his head was almost to the floor—“and she yells, Oh, Jesus, I’m coming.” Lionel screamed. And then said, “If that happens, she’s faking.”

Buster almost choked on this, the thought that he would practice all summer, become as good a lover as his brother, and then the girl would only be pretending to like it?

“Oh, why would she do that?”

Lionel shrugged. “Because she doesn’t want to embarrass your sorry ass and she also doesn’t want to lie there all night, waiting for nothing.”

“That happens?”

Lionel poured them both another glass. “Oh, yes. Sometimes you do your best, and it’s not good enough. So you man up, limp dick, shattered spirit. You pick yourself up and you say to her, Tell me what you really want. You say to her, Put your little hand where you want mine to be.” Lionel drains his glass. “And you do like she shows you. Don’t worry — the ladies are going to love you, Buster.”