Golden Boy

Abstract

Golden Boy Lily Meyer (bio) The tomato sat in a bowl of its own on the counter. "Look at him," my dad crowed. "Golden Boy." Golden Boy was fat and streaky, with rich orange veins running down his red sides. His stem gave off the faint, bitter smell of sun-cooked dirt. He had no wormholes, no soft spots, not one pucker or bruise. The chipmunks hadn't touched him. He was misshapen, but most heirlooms are. "Nice tomato," I said. "Nice?" Dad scooped Golden Boy from the bowl, cradling him to his chest. My dad's knuckles were swollen with arthritis. When I last saw him, eighteen months ago, his joints had recently started aching. Now his whole body seemed stooped. "Naomi thinks you're nice," he told the tomato. "Not perfect. Not blue-ribbon quality. Nice." "Blue ribbon?" I asked, dropping my backpack on the spotless, sandless kitchen floor. The marble countertop gleamed. Copper pots sparkled over the range. I smelled bleach and lemons, and I wondered who did the cleaning. Surely my father hadn't learned, at sixty-eight, to dust and scrub. [End Page 219] He lifted his chin. "What's wrong with a blue ribbon?" "Nothing." I kept my voice light. "Are you entering an ag show?" The answer, I knew, was no, though my father could clean up at the Truro Fair. He gardens with the zeal he once reserved for finance. In addition to heirloom tomatoes—Striped Caverns, Black Russians, Great Whites—he grows zucchini, pattypan squash, and both Japanese and Italian eggplants. He has blackberries and blueberries, which he protects from marauding birds with reflective tape and netting, and a brambly patch of raspberries that stay sour and greenish until the end of July. He has a peach tree and a stunted Braeburn apple that was here when he bought the house in 2001. He grows the Simon & Garfunkel herbs, plus basil, chives, cilantro, and some ailing lemongrass. All this, within fifty feet of the front door. The property extends further, but my father, these days, does not. He stroked Golden Boy, looking hurt. Out the window, a whale-watching boat cut a neat line across Cape Cod Bay, and I felt a brief and total longing to be on it. To be anywhere but my father's gigantic beach house, once my favorite place on Earth. In penance, I said, "It's a perfect tomato." "Thank you." "Do we get to eat it?" "Your brother brought a beautiful burrata from the city. I was thinking caprese for lunch." My brother was on the back deck, snoring gently. A water glass sweated next to his lounger. His legs were profoundly tan. Rather than wake him, I leaned on the railing and compared the view to the one I remembered. In five years, not much had changed. The bay rolled and glittered before me. Seabirds hunted overhead, and squirrels and chipmunks rustled in the scrub pines. The neighbors' wind chimes rang in the distance. The breeze carried all the right beach smells: hot driftwood, dried seaweed, dead fish. [End Page 220] I heard Caleb stirring. "Naomi?" As I turned, he clambered upright. "Nome! You came!" "You asked me to." He wrapped his arms around me, then picked me up—my giant baby brother—to whirl me in the air. "I did." He set me down, grinning, and I relaxed into his side. Already I felt less sorry to be here. Under even the worst circumstances, time with Caleb was a treat. I reached up to ruffle the remains of his Wall Street-short curls. Four years in banking had stripped him of scruffiness, though he retained the white goal-collision scar on his forehead and the spray of blackheads on the bridge of his nose. The sun beamed down on his white smile. At twenty-six, he was thoroughly handsome. Jewish-looking, even more than Dad or me. "How was the trip?" he asked. "Fine. Easy." I was lying, but not completely. The travel itself—a three-hour flight from Kansas City, then a two-hour drive down the arm of Cape Cod—had been smooth. Fast, even, for a summer Saturday. I...