by Angie Abdou
up to help. “Sit. Relax.” Vero obeys but really she wants out of the heat
of the window. The back of her sundress feels drenched, and she knows
she’ll leave an embarrassing puddle in the chair when she stands. “‘I’m
sure that’s none of my business, ma’am,’ I say. You know what she says
back? ‘Well, I just don’t feel comfortable with someone having sex in
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my house.’ So I say—” Bernie’s voice rises an octave, and again she
sounds like she’s quoting someone. “You’re welcome to institute house
rules, of course. Many employees forbid house guests.” Bernie pulls her
long-sleeved shirt over her head, her face glowing above the sink of hot
water. Underneath the sleeves, she wears a sky-blue tank top with Shred
Kelly stencilled across the chest. Likely some band Vero has never
heard of, a band for people who still have time for energy and fun. She
has biceps to match her calves. “So I think that’s the end of it, right?
Wrong. She says, ‘I’m not really comfortable with her having sex in
other places, either. We’re responsible for her behaviour in this country.’
Every time Vero hears the word ‘sex,’ she thinks of Shane’s plan to go to
an adult resort in Jamaica. Hedonism, it’s called. She suspects they will
go. Shane wants this so badly. She feels weak against the force of that
will. She can’t think of anything she wants that much. She’s suggested
alternatives, of course, late at night, under the covers, hands groping
each other’s bodies, Shane’s naked body as familiar as her own—more
familiar, even. That’s the only place they speak of this adult holiday.
“What the hell am I supposed to say to that? ‘We don’t want our
nanny having sex!’ Just be happy if she’s not having it with your hus-
band, honey. That’s what I’d like to say.” Bernie doesn’t seem to mind,
or even notice, that Vero no longer participates in the conversation.
She speaks straight into the sink of dishes. Maybe she hopes her sto-
ries will drown there.
Between the sheets, Vero has suggested tamer versions of Shane’s
holiday—a trip to the big city where they’re anonymous, a night at
a sex club, even a prostitute, if he really wants to try this girl-on-girl
thing, just once. If it’s that important. Vero attempts to imagine her-
self with a woman, tries to decide if the possibility excites her. But
even as she does so, she knows a possibility is different than a reality.
She wonders if Shane knows.
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Her sex-worker suggestion offended Shane, even though she’d
been careful to use the term “call girl.”
“Vero, we’re not the kind of people who pay for it,” he said, in a
tone that left no doubt the discussion had come to its end. Shane, she
wanted to say , with the price of your “adult resort,” even at the summer
rate, we will be paying for it. That’s one thing Vero had begun to
understand. There’s precious little you don’t pay for in this life, one
way or another.
She gets what she paid for in Bikram. She gets sinewy. Goodbye
lumps. Goodbye rolls. Each time she looks, she sees less and less of
herself in the mirror. But she also sees more: more ribs, more hips,
more muscles. If we’re all just dying animals, let me be a strong one, she
thinks. Vero was most aware of herself as an animal when she gave
birth to Jamal, leaning into the wall and kicking her back leg, a horse
making a rut in the dirt. That’s how she thought of it too: her back leg.
As if she had four. She might as well have been in a barn, pawing in
the dirt, gnawing on a wooden gate, kicking up clouds of dust. The
pain made her animal, wild and frothing, but in the end that birth
satisfied her in a way that the C-section with Eliot had not. Bikram
Yoga gives her the same satisfaction. It takes her out of her mind and
into her body. That’s what she means when she tells Shane, “It makes
me feel alive.”
She has that same feeling of being alive in her body when Bernie
hugs her goodbye at the agency door, a sure hand on her waist, her
newly defined transverse abdominal muscle. Perhaps, Vero thinks, she
will follow Shane’s lead and take this alive body for a single week of
adventure, a mere seven days of recaptured youth, one week that will
not be her real life.
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CHAPTER TWELVE
Nobody in the lobby of Hedonism looks like a hedonist. The
men remind Vero of junior high boys at their first school dance—a
little too keen, a little too desperate, but working hard not to look
it. The women don’t look like themselves either. Vero can tell that
much even without knowing them. They all wear expressions they’ve
practiced at home in their bathroom mirrors. Vero knows because she
wears her own carefully practiced expression. It says: I do this all the
time, no big deal, sex and fun, that’s me.
And then: Don’t get too close, I never usually do this, it’s not who I am.
It’s the waffling that betrays Vero and the other women.
Vero and Shane have decided to use their real first names to avoid
any embarrassing slips. They won’t offer up last names, though, and
if anyone asks they’ll use a fake combo: Schanton. Shane and Vero
Schanton. From Seattle, they’ll say. They’ll be dentists.
“We’re both dentists?” Vero asks.
“Sure. Lots of dentists marry each other. They meet at dentist
school doing dentist things, fall in love over their first root canals.
Plus, our story doesn’t have to be believable. Everyone will know we’re
lying. It’s expected.”
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“Do dentists even go to swinger resorts?” Vero still can’t figure out
what she’s supposed to call this place. Shane’s nostrils quiver slightly
as if he’s walked into the kitchen to find old fish under the sink.
Strike “swinger resort” off the list, then. Perhaps she’s meant to call
it nothing.
“Oh yeah. Sure, they swing. Dentists—they’re sickos. They’re into
everything.”
Are we sickos, then? she wants to ask, but she just sips her wel-
come-to-Hedonism piña colada, eyeing the lobby, the pale couples
arriving, the sun-kissed brown couples leaving. Those leaving wear
more relaxed expressions and fewer clothes. Their chests puff out,
shoulder blades pulling in toward each other like Roger has taught
Vero to do in mountain pose. Vero imitates the posture of the out-
going guests and tries to guess which of the incoming couples have
given their real names. There’s a Danielle and Henri from Quebec,
a Lizette and Georges from Switzerland. There seem to be a lot of
dentists. In the lobby filled with nude statues, she and Shane shake
hands with half a dozen couples, all of them assessing their options.
“Danielle
’s cute, no?” Shane whispers as they follow the concierge
to their room.
“Her husband looks creepy.” Vero has grabbed an extra piña colada
from the welcome tray and speaks with the straw cold against her
tongue.
“Who cares about the husband?”
“Don’t be naïve, Shane. They’re a package deal.” Her flip-flops slap
against the marble floors, echoing their way down the hallway. “Just
like we are.”
Vero smiles at the concierge as he unloads their luggage. No tip-
ping allowed. She makes her smile suffice.
“Danielle and Henri don’t seem to speak much English, though,”
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Vero closes the door softly on the concierge’s back. “That could be
good.”
“What do you mean?”
“The less talking in a place like this, the better.” She aims her empty
cup at the wastebasket in the far corner of the room. She misses.
Drops of piña colada sprinkle the bamboo dresser drawers.
Vero and Shane’s room is small and plain. “Three-star accommo-
dations for five-star prices,” Vero says, hearing the snarl in her own
voice. Travel tires her.
“You pay for the atmosphere here, Vero Baby!” Shane is buoyant.
Someone has sucked out all Vero’s air and pumped it into him. He
practically floats.
You mean you pay for the sex, Vero wants to say, but she stops herself.
Seattle’s Shane and Vero Schanton are not the kind of people who
pay for sex. Shane has said so.
Vero flops down on the bed. A deep crack runs the full length of
the ceiling. Large germ-bearing insects live there, she knows it. She
watches the ceiling fan spin around and around and around, thinking,
Watch your fingers, Eliot, keep an eye on your little brother. She closes her
eyes and works on her ocean breath, tries to match the rhythm of the
waves rolling in on the beach below. Holidays always start out rough,
she reminds herself. She has trouble with transitions, like Eliot. Again
he’s there with her. She pictures his red face screaming, “I don’t like
change!” Me neither, Eliot, me neither.
She’s been tense since the airport. In the cab, Shane practically
vibrated in the seat next to her, pointing out the “hilarious” road signs:
Driving Fast Kills.
Don’t be in a hurry to get to eternity.
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She faked a laugh, but all she could think was, If I die in this country,
I will kill you.
Shane knows to leave her alone when they get to the room. He’s
seen this Vero before. She needs some space. She spreads out on her
back like a snow angel, willing the aggravation to rise up and out of
her stretched limbs. Cheryl claims she can hear Vero’s moods. “It’s
in your voice,” she says. “I know when to steer clear.” Vero feels it in
her skin, a tightness, a sensitivity. It was there nearly always after the
births of Jamal and Eliot, before the arrival of LiLi, so Cheryl stayed
away. It’s back now.
Shane sends commentary in over his shoulder as he surveys the
resort from their balcony—a generous word for the thin space beyond
the sliding doors.
“They’re all naked down there. Not a stitch. This is going to be
wild, Vee. I promise you. A real adventure. Something just for us,
you’ll see.”
The concierge warned them about three o’clock storms, though he
phrased it as a promise rather than a threat. “The lovebirds usually
like to go in for a nap around then anyway,” he winked. Vero can feel
a thick warm wind picking up now, carrying the salty air into their
room.
She arches her neck to study the painting mounted on the wall
above their king-sized bed. It’s all breast and butt. A yellow body
fills the canvas, the grey shadow of spine dividing the piece in two. A
long thin arm runs from the shoulder in the top corner to the knee
at the bottom, but the arm is not the only thing out of proportion.
“This woman’s boob is bigger than her ass,” Vero yells out to Shane,
still assessing the picture with her head propped upside-down on the
mattress. “We’ll know it’s time to go home when this art starts look-
ing good.”
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Shane chuckles, clearly enjoying his view. “I might never go home.”
Vero slides to the end of the bed, kicks off her shoes, dangles her
feet on the cool tiles, and turns on the television. Three channels. “We
have porn, porn, or porn,” she says loud enough that Shane will hear
her above the music, which has just cranked up a notch from the pool
below.
He dives in the sliding doors, bouncing onto the bed, thick arms
around her waist. He’s all charged up, the way he used to be after a
college football match, high on adrenaline and testosterone, pushing
her onto the bed.
I’m not your tackling dummy, she wants to say, except that she likes
it, wants to tackle back, to roughhouse herself out of this mood. Push
me harder, I dare you.
“I pick porn,” he says, tugging at her T-shirt with his teeth, pulling
it up toward her breasts. He’s on top of her and the comforter is rough
against her sweaty skin.
“It’s so hot, Shane.”
“I like it hot,” he says with his mouth full of T-shirt.
“I’m sticky.”
“I like it sticky.” He licks the skin along the top of her ribcage.
Vero rolls toward the sliding doors. She can see the pool deck below,
full of skin. That’s what they came here for, what they paid for. They
should be down there. Shane rolls in right behind her. Spooning, they
called it in the sweet suite. Spooning was what they did after sex. Or
before sex. Or in between sex. Back then, even something as mundane
and domestic as cutlery could be sexy. Let’s spoon.
“Should we go exploring?” She tries to loosen his arms, struggles
against their embrace. “Check out the resort?” She can’t breathe. He’s
too tight around her.
“I am exploring,” he says, snaking his fingers down the front of
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her shorts. She rolls onto her back, watches the ceiling fan go round,
listens to the ocean breath rake up and down the back of her throat.
He has her shirt off, then her shorts, but she’s still not there. She
can’t blame LiLi now—that set of ears in the basement. LiLi isn’t
here.
Vero rolls toward Shane, trying to be a good sport, but pushes away,
unable to breathe. She remembers this advance and withdrawal too,
from their younger years, but then it was a tease, a strategy.
“I’m a little out of practice here,” she apologizes, a hand pressed
against his chest like she’s straight-arming a linebacker. “This isn’t
what I do mid-afternoon anymore. I feel like I’ve still got one ear out
for the boys. An
other for LiLi. Like I’m supposed to be somewhere,
doing something.”
“Muscle memory, Vee.” He strokes her straight arm, shakes it loose,
wraps it around the back of his neck. “The body never forgets. It’s
like riding a bike.” He squeezes hands on her hips, pressure running
through each of his fingertips. “Besides, I’ve got somewhere for you
to be, someone for you to do.” He pulls her on top of him, his teeth
brushing her collarbone.
She closes her eyes and moves into Shane’s fingers splayed across
her lower back, feels that. Lets herself go into the soft breath on
her neck, feels that. His hardness pressing into her, that. Finally,
something from her core responds, a loose heat rolling over her, an
unclenching that she associates with the end of a Bikram class—or
with her third glass of Malbec.
Shane is right. Vero’s body does remember. She lets go of her words
and follows its lead.
“I think I’m going to like this afternoon nap ritual,” she says after-
ward, yanking the covers over both of their heads. “But let’s try that
one more time. Just to be sure.”
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◊◊◊
“I’m not fat. I’m affluent.” The large man drags out the syllables of
aff- FLU- ent in his heavy Texan accent so that even the word sounds
fat. He’s not nude but may as well be. He wears the tiniest Speedo
with an American flag stretched thin across his genitals. “Everyone
here calls me Hedonism Hal. You don’t need to know any more than
that. I’m an institution at Hedonism.” He looks toward his wife for
approval. She lies flat in a lawn chair, her skin as brown as a potato
sack and just as coarse. “I’m the father of the resort, you could say.
I’ve walked more nude brides down the aisle than anyone. You need
giving away, I’m your man.” He sucks loudly on a soggy-tipped cigar.
Vero studies Hal’s ears while he talks, the lobes fat and heavy. The
sunburned tips peel in large white flakes that make Vero think of
snow. Vero has already learned to avoid eye contact in this place where
every glance can be interpreted as an invitation. Shane’s gone to fetch
her another dirty monkey—1 ounce each of rum, crème de bananas,
crème de cacao, and Kahlua, all blended with two scoops of vanilla ice
