by Steven Gould
Some sophisticate.
I took the glass and wandered out onto the veranda, away from the music. There were tables and chairs, white, wrought-iron. Three of them were occupied. One was off by itself, in the shadow of the hedge. I sat down.
The band started playing oldies, songs from the early sixties. They’d been hits before I was born, but I’d heard them often enough. My mom would listen to nothing but old rock and roll, songs from her teens. I grew up listening to them, wondering what they were about. Didn’t particularly like them, didn’t particularly dislike them.
I knew all the words.
“There you are.”
Sue Kimmel pulled up one of the patio chairs and put down a glass of something with ice. “Tommy said you were back, but I walked past you three times before I realized you’d changed clothes.”
I licked my lips. “I didn’t mean to cause problems.”
She rolled her eyes. “Lester is the one who caused problems.”
“He must love you very much.”
She laughed. “Love? Lester doesn’t know the meaning of the word. Lester stakes territories. Lester would piss on fire hydrants if he thought other people had a keen enough sense of smell.”
I didn’t know what to say so I took another sip of the champagne. Ugh.
She swallowed some of her drink and smacked her lips. “I wanted to apologize to you, actually, for Lester’s behavior. He doesn’t realize it, but we’re in the process of breaking up.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’ve nothing to be sorry about. I’d been thinking about it all week. He’s pissed me off too many times.”
I took another sip. The taste was bad, but it didn’t seem quite as bad as before. I lifted my glass to her, but didn’t say anything.
She lifted hers and drained it. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s dance.”
I felt a rush of panic. Dance? I set the glass down. “I’m not very good.”
“Who cares. Come on.”
“I’d really rather not.”
She grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the chair. “Come on.” She didn’t let go of my arm, pulling me toward the music.
The band was playing something very fast, very loud. We threaded our way between gyrating bodies until a few square feet of floor space opened up. I felt closed in, threatened by all the close bodies and flying limbs. She started to dance. I stood there for a moment, then started moving. The music pounded on me like waves at the beach. I tried to find a rhythm that matched it, but the tempo was too fast.
Sue was oblivious, her eyes closed, her legs pumping in counterpoint to the music. I tried not to stare at the parts of her that bounced up and down. I felt miserable.
I waited until she was spinning around, facing away from her, and jumped back to the patio. Someone gasped to my right. I looked over and saw a girl staring at me from one of the other tables. “Jesus! I didn’t see you walk up, dressed in all that black.”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.” I picked up the champagne flute and took it back to the bar.
“Yo, Tommy.”
“Yo, David. No more champagne, man.”
“Fill it with ginger ale. And put a head on it.”
He grinned and filled it from the fountain gun. “Ze ginger ale, monsieur.”
“Thanks.”
I moved back onto the porch and reclaimed my seat. After a moment, Sue came out, looking puzzled, and a little angry.
“What’s the big idea? Don’t you know how many guys at this party want to dance with me?”
“I can see why. You’re very attractive and you dance like a dream.”
She blinked, her mouth half open to say something. She closed it and sat down. “That was good. Very good. Almost too good. Why don’t you want to dance with me?”
I shrugged. “I feel foolish. You know what you’re doing out there. I feel like a clumsy jerk. The contrast is painful. I’m shallow, I guess, but I don’t want everybody to know just how shallow.”
“Yeah. Real shallow. Compared to Lester, you’re a bottomless pit.”
“I’ll bet Lester can dance.”
“In a fakey, self-centered kind of way. More John Travolta than Baryshnikov.”
I shrugged again and felt stupid. Is shrugging the only expression I know?
“I’m going to get a drink. You need anything?”
I held up my ginger ale.
“Don’t disappear on me.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She came back with her glass filled with some amber fluid. Behind her came Robert and a pretty redhead I vaguely recognized from high school. She was Trish McMillan, the girl Robert “sort of had a thing” with.
“Hell, man. I’ve been looking all over for you,” Robert said. “You okay? I heard Lester climbed all over you.”
“I’m fine.”
“How’d you change so quick? You have a bag with you?”
I smiled and resorted to the ever popular, multipurpose shrug.
He looked like he wanted to ask more, but Trish spoke then. “Robert said he brought you to the party, but I didn’t realize that you were David Rice. How long ago did you run away?”
Sue looked from Trish to me. “What do you mean, run away?”
I picked up my glass and drank some more ginger ale. I didn’t think a shrug was going to work. “I left home one year and two months ago.”
Trish wouldn’t leave it alone. “Well, jeez. You look like you came out all right. Do you recommend it?”
“It would depend.”
“On what?”
“On how bad you had it at home. It’s got to be pretty awful before being a runaway is better.”
“Well, what about in your case?”
I put my glass down. “I’d rather not talk about my case.”
She blinked. “Well, I’m sure I didn’t mean to pry. Sorry.”
“No problem. Nice weather we’re having.”
Robert looked uncomfortable. “Yeah, some weather. David, I’m going to run Trish home. I can come get you after.”
I shook my head. “Thanks. I can get home from here.”
They got up to leave. Sue said, “Contraception, Trish. That vital conversation before.”
Trish and Robert blushed in unison.
“Yeah, right,” said Robert.
When they were gone Sue turned back to me.
“Nice kids. Where do you live?”
I saw no reason to lie. “New York City.”
“Oh. So you’re just visiting the old hometown.”
“I do that.”
She laughed. “What else do you do?”
“I read a lot.”
She swallowed some more of her drink.
“What is that you’re drinking.”
“Glenlivet.”
I shook my head, not understanding.
“Scotch.”
“Oh.”
“Want some?”
An image of a man in his underwear, black socks, hairy legs, unshaven, an empty bottle of scotch cradled in his arm like an infant, mouth open, eyes shut—Dad.
“No. Thank you for asking.”
She leaned forward, her neckline drooping. I looked away. She straightened, pulled up a shoulder strap. I sipped at my ginger ale.
“So, have you seen the house, David?”
I shook my head.
“Come on. We can find someplace quieter to have a conversation.”
She stood and, staggering slightly, led me back into the house and up the stairs. Her tour consisted of “this is the upstairs hall. This is my bedroom.”
Oh my God.
“Uh, Sue. What are we doing up here?”
She shut the door behind us.
“Conversation. That conversation that I was talking about earlier. You know, to Trish and Robert.” She walked up to me; I took a step back and fetched up against the closed door. She kept coming.
“You don’t know me from Charles Manson, Sue. I could have every
STD in the book.”
She put her hands on my shoulders. In her heels she was slightly taller than me. “Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Have any sexually transmitted diseases.”
“Uh, not to my knowledge.”
She pressed her mouth hard against mine. Her tongue flicked along my lips, darted between my teeth. I felt the skin crawl along the back of my head and down my back, an eerie, not unpleasurable sensation. Her mouth, though, tasted of scotch. I pushed her gently away.
“Uh, hold up.” Oh God, she’s beautiful. I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to sleep with her. I wanted to run. I wanted to just jump away.
What about Millie?
She molded her body to mine. “What? You don’t like me? Is this something else you don’t do?”
“Uh, uh... where’s your bathroom?”
She pointed to a door on the other side of the room and followed me over to it. I went inside and found a small bathroom with no other exit. Oh shit.
She turned on the light.
“Condoms,” she said. “Are in the bottom drawer.” She shut the door with a snap, not unlike the popping noise a mousetrap makes when it trips.
I opened the bottom drawer. One box of Trojan Gold condoms sat among hair ties, curlers, and a tube of K-Y jelly. Only one box? Does that make her conservative or easy? I pushed it shut and looked at the window. It was two feet square, to the right of the sink. It opened inward. I stuck my head out. There was a drop of twenty feet on a sheer brick wall.
It would have to do.
I took some of her lipstick and wrote on the mirror, “SORRY, I CAN’T.” Then I flushed the toilet, made sure the door was unlocked, and jumped home to Brooklyn.
“They found someone who matched your physical stats and duplicated his license with your picture. The name may be a little different, but close. Of course the address is his, but if they run your license, the dispatcher will find everything agrees in the computer.” He paused and looked at me. “Oh. They also have access to the real plastic, and stock, and embossers. Your license is real.”
“What about the signature?” I asked Leo.
“Well, you’ll have to practice that.”
I walked in silence thinking about it, glancing occasionally at the card.
We reached Lexington and started up it.
“It’s really a good deal, Mr. Rice. Honest.”
“Relax, Leo. It’s okay. I agree.” I paid him the fee, plus a bonus, and we parted.
Later that day, I put thirty thousand dollars in a share draft account at Liberty Savings & Loan for David Michael Reece. That was the name on my newly acquired driver’s license. I made up a Social Security number. The girl offered me a choice of a toaster oven or a food processor. I took the toaster.
With my new checks I bought a ticket, first-class, oneway, to Will Rogers World Airport, Oklahoma City.
“Are you sure you don’t want a round-trip ticket? If you buy a one-way ticket back, it’ll cost you over three hundred dollars more... first-class.”
“No thank you. I don’t need a return ticket.”
“Oh, you’re not coming back?”
I shook my head. “No. I’m coming back. Just by other means.”
“Oh. You must be driving.”
I shrugged. Let her think what she wanted.
Since I didn’t have a “major credit card” she said I’d have to pick up the ticket after the check cleared.
My ears started to burn and I felt like I’d done something wrong. “Why don’t I just pay in cash then?” I took out a roll of fifties.
She stared. “Uh, we prefer not to deal in cash. Are you in a hurry to get the ticket?”
“Yes.” I bit off the word. What’s wrong with me?
“Let me check with my boss.”
She walked back through a door. I felt, for some reason, like I was sitting outside the principal’s office, waiting to be lectured on proper behavior. I felt like walking out. I felt like smashing things. I felt like crying.
I’d just about decided to jump back to my apartment and blow off the whole experience when she came back through the door with an older woman.
“Hello, Mr. Reece, I’m Charlotte Black, the owner.”
“Hi.” My voice was colorless, listless.
“We normally don’t take cash, because our accountant frowns upon it. Also, I take the deposits to the bank and, frankly, it makes me a little nervous to carry cash in this neighborhood.”
“Ah. I can understand that,” I said. The back of my head twinged. “I don’t want to make a big issue of this, but I’m going to be traveling a great deal. I’d like to make all my arrangements in one place.” I paused. “But I don’t want these waiting-for-the-check-to-clear hassles.”
She frowned. “You could establish credit with us and we could open an account, billing you at the end of each month.”
“How would that work?”
“You’d fill out a credit application and we’d have our credit agency check you out.”
Oh, great. That’s all I need, inquiries into my past.
“How about this instead,” I said. “I’ll write you a check for ten thousand dollars. When I’ve used up that, you tell me and I’ll write another check. And,” I added, “I’ll wait until the check clears to pick up my ticket to Oklahoma City.”
She blinked and inhaled sharply. “That would be acceptable.”
I scribbled out the check, trying to make the signature look casual as well as resemble the one on my driver’s license. She picked it up and looked at it. “Oh. We bank at Liberty. I’ll take this over at lunch. Can we call you this afternoon?”
I shook my head. “My next stop is the phone company. I don’t have a phone right now. How about I drop back by around three.”
“Very good, Mr. Reece.”
Millie met me at the gate with a smile that didn’t touch her eyes. I felt something shrink inside.
“Hi,” I said. I made no move to touch her. She seemed relieved.
“Wow, you got out fast. You must have been sitting near the front.”
I shrugged. “They only had three rows in first class.”
“Oh.” She started walking and I fell into step beside her. “Do you have any luggage?”
“Just this,” I said, hefting the carry-on.
“We go this way to the car.”
We walked down the length of the concourse, took a turn to the right.
“Hold it a second, please.”
“Huh.” She stopped.
We’d come to a sign that said OBSERVATION DECK. There was a turnstile that took dimes and a stairway leading up. “Can we go up there for a second?”
She raised her eyebrows, surprised. “Well, it’s no Empire State Building, but if you want.”
“Thanks.” I had to get change for a quarter from the concourse bar before we could go in and ascend the three flights of stairs. The view was of runways and distant trees and brown grass. I looked around, memorizing details, so I could jump straight to the airport, next time.
Millie still seemed remote, unsure of herself. I hoped there would be a next time.
“What’s wrong,” I asked casually, while I looked out at the airport. I glanced sideways at her. She was biting her lip.
She saw me looking at her. She closed her mouth. I smiled at her. “Am I a problem, Millie? Are you sorry I came?”
She frowned then, opened her mouth, closed it again without saying anything. Then, “Damn it. I don’t know! I hate this! I feel like I’m being a jerk and being pressured and I don’t know what you want.”
She seemed ready to cry.
I held up my hand. “What do you want?”
She turned and stared out the window. “I’m not sure.”
“Well... why don’t we try to find out? Are you glad or sorry I’m here?”
“Yes.”
“Oh. Some of both. Better than completely sorry, I suppose.” I felt a little less like crying
myself. “Why do you feel pressured? And to do what?”
She shook her head, almost angrily. “It’s not right! If we were sleeping together, maybe I could justify you spending the money to fly out here. But we’re not. Since you did spend the money, it’s almost as if I have to sleep with you to balance things out.”
“And you don’t want to do that, do you?”
She shook her head.
I couldn’t help ask, “Not ever?”
She narrowed her eyes. “See? Even you think that’s how things are supposed to be.”
I blushed. “No. I’m sorry. I don’t expect that. I would be lying if I said I wouldn’t like to, but I don’t expect it. I flew out here to go to this party with you. I’m not trying to pressure you into anything.”
“Well, the pressure is there. It’s situational.”
“Hmmm. Seems like you’ve spent more time thinking about sleeping with me than I have. I find that very encouraging.”
She glared at me. “Give me a break.”
“Well, you give me one. Try to assume responsibility for only your own actions. All you’ve done is agree to go to a party with me. It seems like you’re taking responsibility for my actions, too. I’m an adult—at least, I’m able to vote. I know I’m younger than you, but that doesn’t make you obligated to ‘take care of me.’ “
She frowned again. “I can’t help how I feel.”
“Well,” I said, “Do you want me to go away? I’m sure I can find things to do for the weekend in Oklahoma City. Where are the cabs?”
“Is that what you want?”
I blew out my breath abruptly. “What I want is to be with someone who wants me to be there! I’ve spent enough time with people who didn’t want me with them. I don’t like it.”
This stopped her for a moment. After looking blindly out at the runway she said, “Okay. Let’s go.”
I hung back. “Where?”
She grabbed my arm, the one with the bag, and pulled me along. “To the party, damn it!” She linked her arm in mine on the stairway. “And yes, I do want you to be here. And stop smiling!”
Because of the timing, we got dinner on the road and went straight to the party. I felt a strange sense of déjà vu as we walked up the sidewalk to the house. Football players wearing letter sweaters or letter jackets stood outside the front door, drinking beer. Fewer of these smoked, but then, you’d expect that of collegiate-level athletes. Still, their presence and the throbbing of music from inside the house made me think of last Saturday’s party.
