Peep Show by Joshua Braff Read Free Book Online

right at the corner.”
    â€œI really hate cemeteries,” Brandi says, and my father starts shaking his head.
    â€œI do too,” my sister says.
    â€œIt’s Saturday, Marty. And we’ve got the kids. Let’s go the beach, Jones Beach.”
    For a moment all I hear is the sound of the highway. I try to think of a question to ask, to dilute the tension.
    â€œMaybe Debra and I will go shopping instead,” says Brandi.
    â€œTerrific,” my father says. “Just leave her with me and you go right ahead.”
    I find Debra in the mirror, smiling. Brandi sits forwardon the seat and faces her. “Can I see what your hair looks like when it’s down?” she says.
    Debra shrugs and looks at my father.
    Brandi reaches to remove the ponytail holder. “Just for a second. It’s so beautiful.”
    The hair comes down over her shoulders. My father turns to see it and can’t help but grin. “My God,” he says, “You
are
your mother.”
    Brandi fluffs it like a hairdresser and reaches for her purse. “I know we’ve just met,” she says.
    It’s lipstick that comes out first. I wait for Debra to reject the idea, but she doesn’t. What I see in the rearview is a fifteen-year-old Hasidic girl with her lips puckered and ready. Eight seconds in the car with Brandi Lady and the Jew laws get tossed out the window.
    â€œDoes it come off easily?” Debra asks.
    â€œOh yes,” Brandi says, uncoiling the stick. “It’s the eyeliner we’ll have to scrub at. Okay . . . face me . . . lips like this . . . good . . . perfect. Don’t move. And here we go.”

It’s a Boy
    T HE CEMETERY IS CALLED LIEBERMAN and Wise. It’s set on a very green and mildly sloped hill that blocks the sight of a gun range on one side. A new addition to the neighborhood apparently. The popping of rifle bullets is sporadic and relatively banal but a strange sound to hear in a field of head-stones. My father leads us up a narrow path of small white rocks and leans over to touch a plaque on the grass. “Joseph Tuschsky was my dad’s partner,” he says. “The theater they bought was called the Drake, July 1929. I was ten.”
    Brandi steps toward my father, puts her hand on his shoulder. “Happy birthday, Mr. Arbus.”
    â€œThis is
Tusch
sky,” my father says. “I’m telling a story about Joe Tuschsky. Can’t you read?”
    â€œYes . . . I can read, Marty. Jesus, you’re right back at it, aren’t ya?”
    â€œArlene, please.”
    â€œWhere’s your father’s plot?”
    â€œHe’s over there, we’ll go in a second, I’m telling a story.”
    â€œThen go ahead.”
    They are a strange couple. The Borscht-belt Jew and his Marilyn Monroe. When I look at my sister she’s twenty-two years old with the lips and the eyes and her hair now brushed. I take my camera out, and point it at her.
Click
.
    â€œDon’t, David, don’t,” she says, holding her palm out the exact way my mother always does.
    â€œYou look good.”
    â€œLiar.”
    â€œYou look
normal
. Give me a pose.”
    â€œPlease don’t take my picture.”
    I move toward her with the camera high and she squeals and runs behind my father.
Click, click, click
, her face lit up with joy.
    â€œI’m telling a story.”
    â€œTell him to stop.”
    â€œCan you let her be, David?”
    â€œSorry.”
    â€œTuschsky was connected in Los Angeles. He had an uncle who produced movies, cowboy-type movies, and when he died the contact stayed fresh because of another man named Don Micklin.”
    â€œIs he here too?” Brandi asks.
    â€œNo! He lives in West Palm Beach.”
    My father raises and drops his arms, then walks aboutfifty yards up the path we’re on. “That’s him, right there, you can see the name. You don’t want to hear the whole story, I