Cygnet

by Season Butler

  Oh God, I have to say something to him. Rose, where are you? “Hi. You’re Lyall. Sorry.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Right. Um, I’m, um. I’m Violet’s granddaughter.”

  “No!”

  “Yeah. You knew that. Sorry.”

  “As a matter of fact, I did. Now, my little scamp, before you say another word I just want to make one thing absolutely clear. Are you?”

  “Am I what?”

  “Are you or aren’t you?”

  Oh, for Christ’s sake, where the fuck is Rose?

  Lyall angles his body back and grips the bar with his fingertips. His mouth hangs open in bitchy mock-shock. “Oh. My. God. You are. Well, listen here, Gidget. I’m not buying any fucking Girl Scout cookies, not one box, if you’re out of Samoas. You’re not going to offload all your wretched, boring, fattening shortbread things on me. And if I may offer some advice, you’d get a hell of a lot more business peddling your factory-baked cellulite-inducers if you wore your uniform.”

  What the fuck’s a gidget?

  “Fine! One box of Thin Mints. Hear me? One. Payment on delivery. Never pay for anything in advance. A little piece of advice from me to you, free of charge.”

  “Wow. Thanks.”

  “Fill in your little order form or whatever. I have customers. ’Scuse me.”

  Lyall flicks his ponytail at me as he goes to the end of the bar. Great. Nick and Jack are here. When Nick spots me he’s so surprised that it takes him a sec to put on his casual hate face. Lyall brings them two beers and the three of them stand there talking. I keep finding myself looking over to see if Nick is trying to stare me out of the room. He does look up once in a while. I try to look away but he catches me every time.

  Maybe I should leave. But I just stand there, shifting my weight in a futile attempt to stay still, trying to read anything I can make out from the place where I’m stuck at the far end of the bar. I can just about read the place-names on a map of the Shoals on the opposite wall. I read all the labels on the booze bottles, a fake WANTED poster, some of the postcards behind the big brass and green cash register.

  My stomach’s churning, all hot with acid, when the door swings open. Rose has her hair teased up high. She’s wearing a floor-length, rust-colored halter dress—the kind of thing where if you found it in someone’s attic you’d be fucking stoked. She’s busy thumbing a text into her phone, but when she looks up she sees me right away and rushes over. She gives me a big look up and down. She’s just being nice, obviously, but it’s sweet of her.

  “Is that Violet’s dress?” She doesn’t wait for me to answer before she adds, “Looks like it’s yers now; suits you down to the ground,” and smacks a big mwah kiss on what feels like my entire cheek. Then she bounces her fist on the bar. “Lyall! Stop yer slackin’! We’re gonna give our girl her first champagne.”

  Lyall leaves Nick and Jack and saunters up to us real slow, pushing his hips out like a supermodel, making fun of Rose’s impatience. I catch the look that passes between them and realize they’re flirting. Then he shoots a stern face at me. “Identification?”

  “What, this one? She’s old as hell! Eighteen today!”

  “The authorities inform me that the drinking age is twenty-one in New Hampshire.”

  “And the age to live on Swan is sixty-five—in case no one mentioned that to you . . .” That’s Nick, being helpful.

  Lyall looks at Nick and then frowns a long frown at Rose. He turns his back to us, and when he turns back I’m too busy examining his sharp, made-up face to notice what he’s doing until I hear the thump thump thump of him setting three shot glasses down on the bar.

  “We’ve exhausted our supply of champagne, I’m afraid.” He pours three shots of tequila and pulls out a saltshaker and three fat wedges of lime.

  “Guess we’ll have to make do, eh, Small-fry?” Rose licks her hand and shakes on some salt. Lyall goes next, then me.

  “Happy Birthday, cutie.”

  My chest is warm and I feel myself smiling.

  “Beer back?” Lyall asks.

  “You know it!”

  Lyall brings us two Mexican beers with foil around the necks. Some’s dangling on the lips of mine and I pick it off so I don’t get that horrible foil-on-your-teeth thing before I take a pull. We lean against the bar; a drum kit and mics and shit are set up on the little stage at the end. “Blue Monday” by New Order is finishing and that Arctic Monkeys song starts up after it.

  Rose elbows me in the side. “You wanna dance, don’t cha, junior?”

  I didn’t realize it but I guess I’d been moving. “Are you offering?”

  “Not me, not tonight, no, ma’am. Hip’s acting up—rain on the way.”

  It’s cool how she can tell the weather by her body.

  “Lyall, this new door policy of yours—didn’t see fit to put it to a vote?”

  Lyall looks at me; he clearly knows what Nick means. Fucker. I should have left his screen just the way it was, make him go back to the Bad Place and buy a whole new computer. But Lyall raises his eyebrows and says to him, “Please don’t tell me you plan to start coming here in white sneakers. That I simply can’t abide. On you, that is. Proper shoes make you look so much more distinguished.”

  “It’s not the dress code that’s bothering me. It’s the company. Seems you’ll let anybody in nowadays. Better watch those standards. Slipping, slipping. Too many slips and the whole house falls down . . .” He’s looking right at me; he’s not even trying to hide it.

  “Ignore him,” Rose murmurs into my shoulder. And that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to ignore him. I put on a smile and laugh at nothing. I fight with the niggling urge to see if he’s still staring at me. But I don’t look. I do as Rose tells me and keep my attention on drinking my beer.

  Then it occurs to me that it’s impossible to ignore someone. It’s necessarily a contradiction because when you’re ignoring someone you’re paying them this special, unique kind of attention, like they’re actually the most important person in the world. You’re doing this odd performance just for them, paying more attention to someone you hate than you would to someone you love. Maybe to ignore someone really means failing to drop dead no matter how much they want you to. If that’s the game between me and Nick, I’m totally winning.

  The door opens and Earl has barely stepped into the tavern before Rose is squealing. “Git on in here, ya sonofabitch, and git a round in!”

  “What’s the occasion?”

  Lyall flings his arms out. “The natal day of our young guest. Joy to the world.”

  “Small-fry here’s eighteen today,” Rose adds.

  “Well, well. Lyall, I suppose we’ll have to get this young person her first champagne.”

  “Fresh out,” Rose and Lyall say together.

  “Okay, then that’ll be another round for the ladies. And for me . . . When did you last clean your lines, Lyall?”

  “Earl, darling, my pipes are clean.”

  “Proof of the pudding’s in the eating, I guess. Right, pint of IPA, easy on the head.”

  Lyall starts to come back to that but closes his mouth so his lips make an audible slap. “No, not in front of the kid, I think. You’re lucky you keep gentle company, darling.”

  It’s not until Lyall’s poured half of Earl’s beer that Earl’s face shows he’s got the joke. He laughs a little heh heh heh laugh and wags a finger at Lyall. Lyall smiles and blows him a kiss.

  As the three of us settle down at a table, I suddenly have to pee so bad my teeth itch.

  Rose’s eyes drop down to my knee, which is bouncing at the speed of machine gun fire. “Now, if y’all’ll excuse us, we’re gonna have a gossip and gussy-up.” She takes my hand and we walk to the bathroom like girlfriends.

  Peeing is the most wonderful thing in the world. It is total, full-body joy. Whoever was in here before me had asparagus. I don’t know why, but smelling someone else’s asparagus pee always turns me on a little. God, I am a
weird fucking pervert. And I hate having thoughts like these around other people, because once you think the thought consciously, really registering it, there’s always the danger that in two more drinks’ time you’ll be blathering your dorkiest secrets to everyone.

  Rose is waiting for me by the sink, poufing up her hair in the back. The skin around her cleavage is deeply wrinkled and soft-looking. I don’t stare. She takes a tube of lip gloss out of her bag, puts some on, and offers it to me as she presses her lips together and pouts and scrapes the excess away from the edges of her lips with her orangey-pink fingernails. I memorize the steps and mimic her. She checks her phone.

  “I sure hope Giddy didn’t take a spill or nothin’. Said she’d meet us an hour ago, and now she’s not returnin’ my SMS messages. You think we should call in?”

  “Maybe we should give it another hour.” I lean in, just in case someone comes in and overhears. And because it’s nice to be close to Rose. “She might be, um, busy. I caught her making out with Milty in the chapel earlier . . .”

  “No! When?”

  “On my way here.”

  “Ooo, and they’re still at it?”

  “They left while I was ringing the bell.”

  Rose takes out her phone and thumbs in a text as we head back to the table. She shows it to me before she hits send: Bad gurlz make the baby jesus cry.

  Hazel comes over with a tray of tequila shots and a bowl of limes. I wash down the scratchy, burning taste with a long swig of my second beer but make a point to pace myself after that.

  “So, another year closer to the good life, eh? Shame about all the shit in the middle . . .” Hazel says.

  Rose swipes the air at her. “Oh, you hush, now.”

  But Hazel swallows a leftover shot, gnashes through a lime wedge, and carries on: “Taxes, traffic, cheating spouses”—Hazel’s had three husbands—“kids that talk back, arthritis, menopause, cancer . . .”

  Hazel, Rose, and Earl pick up their glasses, tap them against the tabletop, raise them again, and take a long drink.

  “. . . caesarean scars, stretch marks . . .”

  “I have stretch marks,” I say.

  “Aw, go on,” Rose says, “you do not.”

  “I do. I’ve had them since I was thirteen and my ass happened.”

  This cracks everybody up. Across the table and over the roaring Wrinklies, Hazel shouts at me, “Kid, ever tried a Dark and Stormy?”

  Without waiting for me to answer, she passes me her pale yellow drink.

  “Easy now,” Rose sings. “Beer before liquor . . .”

  It’s sweet and cold, which is nice at this moment. It’s starting to get hot in here.

  Trumpets blare in a show-offish way from a swing-punk track—maybe Voodoo Glow Skulls or the Bosstones or something.

  “Come on, kiddo. Let’s cut a rug.” Earl holds out a hand to me and pulls me out to the center of the floor.

  And because it’s Earl he has to teach me the jitterbug before we can really start dancing. Back-step, right, left-right-left. Back-step, right, left-right-left. But the music is too fast for me to count along and also know which foot is which, so I’m basically jogging around as he pretty much just bounces on the spot, and I’m spinning and spinning and can barely hold myself up from twirling and laughing. The next song is a slower one, a lady crooner singing a poppy list of nice things in Portuguese. Now I actually do have to pay attention to my feet, which always seem to go the opposite way from the way I’m telling them to go, but then I realize it’s because I’m watching Earl’s feet, which I keep stepping on. And every time I do he makes a comedy yowl like he’s just been shot with an arrow by a cartoon “Indian.”

  And then Paul Simon comes on. “I’m going to sit this one out.”

  “You dance divinely, my dear,” Earl mews in a fake English accent and kisses me on the cheek.

  Back at the table, Rose leans in for a secret. “Giddy’s not gonna make it, but she says give you a kiss from her and Milty. I reckon that Jezebel done got into her grandson’s stash of the bitty blue boys, so they might not be surfacing for some time.”

  Ew.

  And then I remember something Lyall said before. “Hey, Rose, what’s a gidget?”

  She throws her head back and slaps the table. “Listen to this, y’all. Small-fry here saying to me, ‘Rose, what’s a Gidget?’!”

  And all the Wrinklies are laughing again, but more at me this time. Fine, no one’s going to tell me. I’ll Google it when I get home. So when I get a tap on the shoulder I’m happy to see someone not in a hilarity spasm, even though it’s Gretchen.

  “Why didn’t you tell me it’s your birthday?”

  I shrug. Sorry to be a bitch, but what a stupid question.

  “Anyway, I brought you this. Doctor’s orders: reading a book with an actual plot might do you good.”

  Moby Dick, title embossed into the leather cover. I flip through and every now and then there’s a ye olde sketch of whale anatomy or a harpoon or something. I half want to give her a hug, and I totally owe her one. So I get up and do it. “Sorry for being a brat today.”

  She squeezes my shoulders. “Let me know what you think.”

  Ted leans in to see what I got and tells me a little bit about it ’cause apparently it’s his favorite book. The old-timey cash register dings whenever anyone pays for a drink, which isn’t actually that often because most of the Wrinklies put stuff on their tab and settle up with Lyall later on, but it’s enough to keep a ringing in the air. My mother would love it. My father would probably echo the dings and would keep doing it long after it became annoying. And my mother would know how to ignore him and have a good time anyway. They’d like it here. They should have come.

  Drinks keep appearing in front of me. I tune in and out of conversations. The people in them keep changing. Chairs scrape the wooden floor as new Swans pull up seats to join our table or leave it to join others. Helen cuddles up on Nancy’s lap to free up a seat when Marie arrives in black and purple velvet and lace, clanking with jewelry. The blondes are staring into the middle of their table at one of their phones. The look on their tilted faces says they’re looking at pics of someone’s grandkids.

  “This world, I’ll tell you what . . .”

  “Ain’t what it used to be . . .”

  “Going straight to hell.”

  God, it’s hot in here.

  The place is mostly full when Suzie Q and Johnny Come Lately crash in like cops on a drug bust, Suzie with her bass and Johnny with his guitar strapped across his back, his amp in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other. Everything about the room turns up—everyone starts laughing a bit louder, the cash register dings more often, the Swans move between the tables more. Bottles sometimes drop and sometimes break. It’s Saturday.

  Suzie and Johnny march through the bar giving little bits of attention to everyone, and the Wrinklies eat it up like candy. Johnny makes for the bar and kisses Lyall on the mouth before moving up to the stage, giving everyone a different wave or kiss or secret handshake along the way. Suzie’s shtick is similar but she takes a different route, does more talking and dancing, takes more time working the room. Neither of them say anything to me. Which is really fucked up. I mean, you can never tell if people even give a tiny bit of a shit about you. I thought we were friends. Not super-tight like me and Rose or the Duchess, but still. Maybe they only tolerate me because of Jason.

  By the time Suzie reaches the stage, Johnny’s negotiated various wires and cables and is tapping the microphone and tuning his guitar. She takes her bass out of its case and starts doing the same while Frances takes a seat behind the drums.

  I reach for my beer bottle but it’s empty, so I take the one next to it, accidentally, ’cause I don’t think anyone’s looking anyway . . .

  And, like, where is Jason? This is nice; he should be here. I think about calling him, but maybe it would be better to send him a dirty text, or a picture with my top off. No, that’s hideous. I’m
not twelve.

  Frances taps the drums and the noise in the bar reduces to a grumbly hum with chairs scraping the floor as people move to see better.

  Suzie Q puts her mouth to the microphone. “Looks like unuther mighty fine Saturday on the magic Isle of Swan. I seen Wrinklies here reach their eighth and ninth decades between these creaky ol’ walls, but this’ll be a first for me, celebrating a squeaky-green eighteen! Kiddo, fer yer birthday, Johnny and me, well, we didn’t git you nothin’. But my ol’ man here says you might be fond of this.”

  And I can’t believe what comes next. They play Workingman’s Dead, my favorite Grateful Dead album, right through, doing all the Garcia and Hunter melodies. The tickle of the first notes of “Uncle John’s Band” makes me cry a little. Then Rose and I sway and sing along to “High Time.” Grover buys me a bourbon. “A proper American drink with proper American music,” he says. And somehow I find myself on stage sharing Suzie Q’s microphone, singing the chorus to “Dire Wolf.” Because it’s so good, and they’re all coaxing me, and how can you resist when the time comes, and you’ve had some beers, how can you not get up and belt your best?

  This is the best party I’ve ever been to. Nick must have fucked off home, and it feels sublime being here. I’ve never been popular before, and tonight it’s easy to pretend I really am.

  Peeing again. Peeing. Is. Excellent. It’s the only thing that involves water that actually feels good. It even sounds good, when the stream hits the side, and you can push it out really hard, and when you’ve been drinking it goes on forever, which is wonderful.

  Except Jason isn’t at the party. He should be here. Everybody loves Jason and Jason loves me. Maybe I’ll send him a text, except my phone isn’t in my pocket. I look around and I can’t find it, even though it’s suddenly really bright and I’m all alone.