Super America

by Anne Panning

  Inside were rings in various sizes and colors. Most of them were tiny and silver with Chinese characters etched into them; others were thin, pale, jade, or chunky cuts of garnet wedged in cheap gold, but there were three plain gold bands in what looked like small, medium, and large.

  Trish stepped forward and started browsing. “My God,” she said, trying some on, “where did you get all of these? They’re beautiful.” She turned to Collins, who stuck one of his big hands in the box, going after the gold bands.

  “Over the years,” Mrs. Ming said, “I’ve bought and sold. Maybe you can find your new husband a wedding ring.”

  Rob stood back, exchanged glances with Mr. Ming, and wondered what was going on. Meanwhile, the tsunami sirens began blaring again, and Rob noticed that the Mings did not wear wedding bands themselves. Nor did he and Jeremy for that matter, although he considered them partners for life. Rob had always dreamed of a big wedding with Jeremy, out on a catamaran, all their family and friends smiling under a bright sun, a tall orange cake with lemon glaze, a case of champagne, and he and Jeremy tossing a brick into the sea for luck and longevity.

  Trish watched to see if the largest gold band would fit Collins’ ring finger. Mrs. Ming even got a bottle of dish soap and squeezed a drop on his finger for lubrication. Collins winked at Trish, grimaced slightly as he bore down, and managed to jiggle the ring back and forth until it finally grazed over the knuckle.

  Everybody cheered. “All right!” Collins said, then picked Trish up in his arms and kissed her on the mouth. Mrs. Ming nodded her head and said, “It is meant to be.”

  Suddenly, Rob’s apartment door opened, and Jeremy emerged. Trish slipped slowly out of Collins’ arms, Collins examined his new ring from every angle, and the Mings retreated slightly back into their own doorway. “What’s going on out here?” Jeremy said. He spoke from behind the screen door and didn’t come out. Rob couldn’t tell if he’d been sleeping or was simply in a bad mood. He wore a faded blue T-shirt, tan shorts, and a black cotton vest; his dark hair was pulled back in a short ponytail, and Rob wished, for the thousandth time, that he’d let him cut it.

  Rob explained briefly the day’s twists and turns. Jeremy listened, leaning one arm on the inside doorway. “Can I talk to you for a minute, alone?” Jeremy said, and drove a long glance at the others. Rob could see his sharp blue eyes flickering.

  “Oh, sure,” Trish said, perked up now by the new ring, by the miracle of the fit. “We have to talk business with Mrs. Ming anyway.” She waved a hand at them. “You guys go ahead.”

  Rob left Collins and Trish with the Mings and stepped into his apartment, where the fan spun a semicircle of coolness around the room. Jeremy sat at the small kitchen table, a bag of chips and a bowl of salsa in front of him. He uncapped a bottle of Mexican beer. “You want one?” he asked Rob, and although Rob’s head was pounding, he said yes, gripping the cold bottle in his hands, then touching it to his cheeks, forehead, wrists.

  “So what’s going on?” Rob asked wearily. “Obviously something’s wrong.” He took a sip of beer and let the sting settle in his mouth before swallowing. It seemed to improve the headache instantly.

  Jeremy’s jaw muscles flexed, his slim nostrils fluted in, then flared out, quickly, like fish gills. “Don’t you know?” Jeremy asked. “Think of what’s going on right now, and I have to tell you?”

  Rob knew that soon he would have to deal with Collins and Trish, if only to finish what he’d started, and he knew there wasn’t time for an argument with Jeremy. “Please don’t make me guess,” he said. “Just tell me what’s wrong, and maybe I can explain.” His knees cracked under the table, and smoothing his hands over his bare arms, he saw he’d gotten a good tan.

  Jeremy scoffed, but acquiesced. “Ah, hello? There’s a tsunami warning and sirens blasting all day long, and I’m sitting here, knowing you’re at God only knows what beach, and you don’t think I might be a little worried? You couldn’t have called to say, ‘Hey, Jeremy, don’t worry. I’m on my way home’? Of course not, because you’re too busy hauling around some sleazeball tourists! I mean, what the hell are they doing here? For all I knew, you were swallowed up by a fifty-foot wave and on your way to Palmyra Island!”

  Rob paused a moment, making sure Jeremy was finished, and noticed the curve of his large biceps through his T-shirt. Rob also noticed that Jeremy did not have a tan but was quite pale from spending all his free hours in the gym. Rob sipped the beer, which was already losing its chill. “All right,” Rob said, and placed a hand over Jeremy’s, which sat, flat and lifeless, on the table. “You’re right. You are absolutely right. I should’ve called. I guess I just—I got so confused when this couple lost their wedding ring, and I was trying to help them find it, and then—well, the tsunami warning came from out of the blue, and I just—I had to help them out. They didn’t have a car or anything.” Rob weighed what he’d said and tried to guess if it sounded valid.

  “Let me ask you something,” Jeremy said, and pulled his hand away. He pushed one loose black lock of hair behind his ear and leaned over the table, face to face with Rob. “Why do you care?”

  Rob shifted. “What do you mean?”

  Jeremy bowed his head in exasperation and tried again. “Why do you care about all these total strangers you’re always helping out? Can’t someone else do it? And what about me?” He sat back, arms crossed. “Did you ever think, when you heard the tsunami warning, hey, I hope Jeremy isn’t out on the boat? I hope Jeremy’s okay? Let me call and see! Don’t things like that ever occur to you?”

  It was true; Jeremy was right and had every reason to be upset. Rob sat there, unthinking, staring at their beautifully decorated apartment, the white gauze curtains, the low gray couch, the wonderful, round glass coffee table held up by brass elephants. The kinds of thoughts that Jeremy had just mentioned did not occur to Rob regularly. When he was at the beach, he was a lone man, soaking up the warmth of the sun, kicking in the froth of the salty ocean, helping people out when they needed it like a contemporary saint. Jeremy was “other” to him, close, but not self. Was this what marriage was, then, Rob wondered, to be joined so that the separation was not so apparent? Suddenly, foolishly, he had an idea.

  “Jeremy,” Rob said, and slid their bottles of beer aside. He held Jeremy’s smooth hand, which smelled perpetually of lemons and limes, which he cut by the dozen for the cruise ship bar. “Will you marry me?” As he asked the question, Rob saw them as old men; they would hobble along the seashore together in cuffed pants and plaid shirts. Gray haired, they would salute the passage of years by drinking Scotch and kayaking the islands. They would travel to Switzerland, Bombay, Belize, and Turkey and always celebrate the Chinese New Year. “Well?” Rob said, eyes misting over with a peculiar twist of emotion. “We can just do it on our own, with all our friends. What do you say?”

  “I say—” and there was a knock on the door. “Dammit,” Jeremy said, rising for another beer. “I say, dammit.”

  Rob went for the door. It was, of course, Collins and Trish, all but forgotten already in Rob’s mind. Likely, they felt sheepish about disturbing them, and hopefully they had figured out some sort of arrangements for lodging elsewhere. Rob opened the door and forced a smile.

  Trish looked much more radiant than he’d remembered, and her hair sparkled golden, not yellow. Her nose was thin and elegant, and her teeth, perfectly white and straight. She still wore her bikini top, revealing the rise of modest breasts. Collins hung back behind her. “Umm, sorry to bother you and everything,” Trish said, and seemed breathless. “But we just wanted to ask a big favor of you. If you wouldn’t mind.” She wrung her hands nervously, and out of the corner of his eye, Rob watched Jeremy turn on the television.

  “Sure,” Rob said, hoping, whatever it was, would be brief.

  Trish leaned against the doorframe, neither in nor out, and presented her proposition. She listed things off on her fingers. “And so, Mr. Ming said with this ring—which we bought, by t
he way, for 150 bucks—can you believe it? an antique from China!—we should have some kind of ceremony.” She paused, glancing at Collins, who was transfixed by the TV. “He’s going to do the ceremony, you know, just unofficial, and so we were wondering if you could climb up Diamond Head a ways with us and be witness at our second—well, sort of our second wedding.”

  Rob’s first thought, oddly, after hearing an undeniable snicker from Jeremy, was how the Mings could possibly climb the Diamond Head crater—so old and wrinkled and small they were. He asked Trish this.

  “Oh, they do it every morning at 5:00 a.m. It’s easy for them, they said. Please come,” she said, and grabbed Collins’ hand in a fit of passion. “You’ve been so nice to us and everything.”

  Collins and Jeremy were both involved in an NCAA basketball game, and Rob knew he should’ve said no, knew it would put him at even greater odds with Jeremy, but the idea sounded so spontaneous and splendid, in the midst of the tsunami sirens and the hot, humid afternoon. “Yes,” he said, hoping, even, that Jeremy would hear. “Yes, I’d be honored.”

  Jeremy surprisingly agreed to accompany them, and Rob held tightly to his hand, even though that was a risk they didn’t always take: no public displays of affection in front of the Mings, in front of strangers, in front of relatives. But up the three couples climbed, first on the lip of the paved road leading into the crater, then up the gravel path that led to the peak. The Mings led the way and did not hold hands but strode diffidently ahead, short arms swinging; Mr. Ming carried a candle in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other. Trish and Collins were next, arm in arm. Rob and Jeremy walked behind them and pressed sweaty palm to sweaty palm, gripping tightly, as if, were they to let go, the connection might slip and dry and fade.

  The trail was practically deserted, due to the tsunami warnings, except for a few intrepid joggers. Diamond Head was up high enough to avoid any danger of a tidal wave, and Rob almost missed, for a moment, the threat of danger, of a huge splash that could wipe out cities. When they reached the top, after passing through the claustrophobic, dark tunnels and spiral staircases originally built for a military lookout, Mr. Ming stopped, turned around, and held out his hands, as if to prevent them all from falling down the cliff.

  The view was all of Waikiki and part of the eastern shore and immense. Patches of ocean twinkled blue, green, and white, and islands of coral poked out from the surf. “Now,” Mr. Ming said, without any warm-up or chitchat. Rob and Jeremy stood on either side of Trish and Collins, and Rob could still hear, despite their great altitude, the faint shrill of sirens.

  Trish and Collins held hands, and Collins removed the ring, only to put it back on again when he was coached to do so. “Love long, and always remember the ocean for bringing you together,” Mr. Ming said, and uncorked the wine. He splashed a little near Trish and Collins, who giggled and jumped, then he handed his wife the bottle, who drank from it, wiped her mouth, and threw it over the cliff.

  “Shit,” Jeremy whispered. “They can’t just do that!”

  “So now you are husband and wife, again,” Mr. Ming whispered in a solemn staccato, and Rob could tell he was making it up as he went. “And you’ll probably remember this old volcano in years to come.”

  Jeremy whispered in Rob’s ear. “Please. This is ridiculous.” But then Jeremy placed his hand on Rob’s shoulder and squeezed, and this felt hopeful to Rob. Mr. Ming lit the small candle and set it on a rock.

  “Now you can kiss each other,” Mr. Ming said, clapped for Trish and Collins, and then turned around to kiss his own wife of forty-five years. They kissed passionately, her head turned into his. “You, too,” he said to Jeremy and Rob, and waved them together with his hands. “You’re already married, right?”

  Jeremy and Rob looked at each other dumbfounded, confused by the question. They stammered and shrugged. “Well, not exactly ...” Rob said.

  “Let’s say you are,” Mr. Ming said, “and you are. Married. I thee wed.”

  Rob and Jeremy, too stunned to know what to do, held hands and leaned against each other. Jeremy, despite his earlier anger, seemed less upset. He rubbed his bare shoulder against Rob’s.

  “Look,” said Mr. Ming. “The tsunami’s coming in!” Mr. Ming pointed down to the shore, and all three couples gripped the railing, mouths agape. The water stood like high, tight walls of beautiful light blue, then snatched down upon the sand like a cat leaping at a mouse; the hotels, the buildings were splashed with surf that crushed and tore and broke. Then up again, another taut, quivering blue wall lifted, high as a house, and went charging down the streets.

  If you were one person standing underneath a tidal wave, Rob thought, you would seem small as a bug, and lonely. You could be wiped out.

  CHICLETS

  The Whites’ room was in a hotel in Taxco, Mexico, which, until 1620, had been a monastery. Toby, Alice’s husband, had mentioned this several times. Once inside their room, Alice collapsed on the bed. Above her, large black beams supported a red clay ceiling.

  “Do you think those tiles could fall on us?” she asked. “Do you think they’ve been up there since 1620?”

  Toby emptied his pockets of loose change, keys, receipts, pesos. “Do you want some water?” he asked.

  Alice sat up and marveled at the medieval cast-iron door latches. She imagined small Spanish monks pulling them open, their dark robes brushing the cool floor. “Is it purified?” she asked. “Because I can’t get sick right now. I can’t. Not now, not when we’re so close to—”

  Alice had brought along not only a basal body thermometer but a five-day ovulation test kit. She’d urinated onto a small white stick in the Mexico City bus station. At first she’d been confused, not realizing she was supposed to pay two pesos just to use the sanitarios. Then, when she realized there was no toilet paper, she’d had to step out of the stall and pay a small girl two more pesos for a small wad of tissue. She’d crouched over the seatless toilet, her sandals wet, the hem of her dress grazing the wet, dirty floor. The felt strip had shown two dark purple lines. She had felt her cheeks flush with nervousness and excitement.

  On the bus to Taxco, she’d tried deciding on the best position in which to become impregnated. Not with her on top, which was their customary position and pleasurable for both of them. Perhaps with Toby coming from behind would be the best. But the bus ride had been long and curvy, and she’d grown exhausted. She’d tried to ignore the booming movie on the tiny television screen above her, while the sharp scent of the toilet mint in back made her head ache. Toby had insisted on buying Primero Plus bus tickets, complete with air-conditioning, plush reclining seats, movies, and a bag of snacks, which included chili-dusted peanuts and a can of Squirt. He’d said he didn’t want bandidos to stop them, rob them, or harass them, as he’d read could happen. Alice did not fear such things, but she’d agreed simply because sometimes it was just easier to let Toby win.

  Alice got up to investigate the bathroom and ran her hands over the blue and yellow painted tiles. “Oh,” she said, “I love these! I’d like some in our bathroom at home. Aren’t they gorgeous?”

  “In our Queen Anne Victorian?” Toby said, and stepped out of his khakis. He was nothing if not a culturally sensitive and appropriately dressed traveler. He folded them and hung them carefully over the chair.

  “Well, I know,” Alice said. “I just meant ...” Toby took everything literally. Of course she wouldn’t really want Mexican tiles in their high-ceilinged, period-wallpapered bathroom back in Rochester, New York. The 1880 house now felt too large and ornate, too complicated in comparison to the simple white walls of Hotel Los Arcos. Who needed so much space? she thought. Five bedrooms, two living rooms, and two baths for just the two of them. When college was in session and they were both teaching, often Alice would find herself grading quietly in her study—the moss green north bedroom—and realize she could not hear a sound from Toby in the entire house.

  Alice had been the only one in her family to break away f
rom her hometown of River Falls, Wisconsin, and go to college, much less graduate school. Being a psychology professor who researched attachment relationships between parents and children, she knew there was some guilt associated with her transcendence, which she sometimes confused with abandonment. Her parents had still not visited in the five years she’d been married to Toby, and the most they could say about her job as associate professor of psychology was what an awful lot of days off she seemed to have. Alice felt it was better for her to disassociate, though she often dreamed at night of her parents’ small pink house as a symbol, she suspected, of her desire to return to the safety of the womb.

  In actuality, a simple three-bedroom house would have sufficed for her and Toby—always working, reading, writing, preparing for classes. But Toby, who taught architectural history, had bought the house the year before they’d married, and Alice had simply moved in with him after vacating her small but cozy two-bedroom apartment on East Avenue. There was definitely something of herself she’d left behind as she’d rolled up her tatami mats and taken down her vintage movie posters. Her life, which had previously been a collage and collision of influences, had changed into something serious and dignified, as represented by their beautiful, well-appointed Victorian home.

  “So, vamos mirar el zócalo,” Toby said. He’d changed into khaki shorts of modest length and had already brushed his teeth and splashed cool water on his face. His shirt still looked crisp.

  Alice’s Spanish was terrible; she admitted it but wasn’t proud of it. She spoke some Italian from a year’s study abroad back in college, which sometimes helped her Spanish, but most often confused her.

  “Inglés, por favor,” she said. On the airplane down to Mexico, she had joked with Toby that her ugly American gambit was going to be “Inglés, por favor!” Toby had laughed, too, and so she’d said it over and over, loving it when he found her funny. “They’ll ask me, ‘Cómo está usted?’ and I’ll say, ‘Inglés, por favor!’ They’ll say, ‘Buenos días,’ and I’ll say, ‘Inglés, por favor!’”