by Meg Wolitzer
“I’m not going,” Erica announced. She was sitting on Dottie’s bed with a large book open in her lap.
“What do you mean, honey?” Dottie asked.
“I mean, I’m not going,” said Erica. “Plain English. I have to study for the S.A.T.s.”
“You can do that anytime,” said Dottie. “I want you to get out a little, have some fun. You’re only a sophomore; the S.A.T.s aren’t for a long time. And since when are you such a conscientious student?”
And so they left for Las Vegas, Erica’s suitcase loaded down with S.A.T. study guides. Opal packed lightly, choosing clothes she hadn’t seen all year and which she had forgotten about. She loved delving into the summer closet, where her culottes and bathing suits were stored for the winter. Everything was densely smothered in camphor, but the smell was somehow pleasing. She held her one-piece bathing suit, with its starfish pattern and layer of ruffles, up to her face and inhaled deeply. It was as though certain articles of clothing had actual lives; in hibernation, a bathing suit smelled woody and medicinal, but in the sunlight it would once again smell jubilantly of coconut oil and chlorine: rich, affirmative summer smells.
On the airplane to Las Vegas, Opal and Erica sat together, while their mother took up two seats across the aisle; she had had written into all her contracts that the seat next to her on airplanes would always be free. “I’m a large woman,” she had explained to Ross Needler. “I need to spread out.”
A few of the stewardesses cooed discreetly over her before the airplane took off, and she was as gracious as ever. “May I ask what you’re working on now, Miss Engels?” one stewardess asked. In her hand she held a demonstration oxygen mask.
“Well, I’m on my way to play at the Royale,” said Dottie. “I’ll be there for five nights, and then I’m coming to New York for a little break, and then it’s back out to the West Coast again, for a CBS comedy special.”
“We all just love you,” said the stewardess. “I watch you whenever I’m on the ground. I think you’re the funniest lady in comedy today, and I’m not just saying that.” She paused. “I’ve got to begin,” she said, gesturing in annoyance, before bringing the oxygen mask up to her face.
The airplane lifted over New York, and Opal pressed her forehead against the tiny window. They hadn’t gone anywhere as a family in a long time; vacations were more common in families that were still intact. Usually there had to be a mother and father who could split the driving, a mother and father who could close their motel door for a little privacy while the kids jackknifed into the pool only a few feet from the window. That was what it had been like when they were all together, or at least that was the way Opal remembered it. Her memories all centered around miles of early-morning road, and waking up crabby in an unnatural sleep position in the back of the station wagon, a strange, raised ridge-pattern worked into the left side of her face from where she had been pressing it against the seat. In her memory, they were always going off somewhere, for that was what unhappy families did; they roped suitcases to the roofs of their cars and hit the road.
Opal never remembered the actual vacations themselves; she only remembered the ends of days, when she and Erica lay in their motel beds, the air conditioner mumbling across the room. Maybe that would be all she would remember of this trip to Las Vegas: the end of each day, when they were confined to their expensive suite at the Royale, while Dottie performed in the gigantic nightclub downstairs.
She did two shows a night, and between them she would pop upstairs to say hello, dressed in her blazing black and gold floor-length gown. “I can only stay a minute, you two,” she would say, but even for that minute she would kick off her pumps and climb onto one of the twin beds. “Tell me what you’re up to,” she would say. “What have you girls been doing tonight?”
The answer was evident, for here they were, trapped in the suite, the television booming in the corner. Spread across one of the beds was an array of picked-at room-service food: jumbo shrimp in iced silver bowls, tall glasses of chocolate milk, wicker baskets of fried chicken.
“How did it go?” Opal asked.
“Not bad,” said Dottie, “if I do say so myself. They really seemed to go for that new material. I was a little unsure of it, but they ate it up.”
Opal had gone with her mother, the day they arrived, to inspect the sound system at the hotel. Opal sat in the last row of the huge, empty nightclub while Dottie stood on the dark stage, saying, “Testing, shmesting,” into a microphone. “I’ll just do a little of my routine,” Dottie had said. “Is that okay?”
Opal settled herself in at the table. A barmaid appeared out of the darkness and silently handed her a drink. It was a Shirley Temple, Opal saw, and she brought the straw up to her lips in what seemed a polite and restrained fashion. The barmaid stood against the curving wall, and Opal realized, as her eyes adjusted to the dim light, that there were several other people in the nightclub: four waiters, and three cleaning women, and a busboy. They had stopped what they were doing and were now lingering quietly, excited at the idea of getting a private performance. They leaned against walls, perched awkwardly at the crooked little tables, waiting. As Opal’s eyes continued to become accustomed to the dark, she could make out all the separate figures standing and sitting, like spirits gathering after a long absence.
Dottie seemed aware of their presence. She was speaking now not just to Opal, but was looking around the room, making eye contact in all directions. “You know,” she began, “I’m not ashamed to tell you that I married for money. My father said, ‘Here’s fifty bucks, Dottie, now get out of my sight.’”
From the darkness came a long, fluted column of laughter.
“You hear so much about girls giving themselves away on their honeymoon night,” Dottie went on. “But I had to pay him before he’d even let me take off my dress.” She paused, waiting for the response. “Finally,” she said, “I get all undressed and lie down, and he’s still standing by the door. I said, ‘Norm, Norm, why don’t you come over here and climb on top of me so we can make a little whoopee.’ He said, ‘Climb on top of you? Dottie, you know I’m afraid of heights!’” At this the barmaid and the waiters and the three elderly cleaning women really started laughing. The busboy in the left corner of the darkness began to applaud.
“The marriage was off to a bad start right away,” Dottie said. “We went to Mexico on our honeymoon, had a lousy time. You know, Trotsky was liquidated in Mexico; I guess that’s why you can’t drink the water.” There was puzzled, polite laughter.
“One night my husband told me he was into S and M. I thought he meant Stiller and Meara.” Someone began to clap again. Dottie shaded her eyes and peered out into the room. “You’re a great audience,” she said. “I’m feeling kind of loose, kind of relaxed. I had three shrimp cocktails before the show; maybe I shouldn’t drive home. Maybe I should swim home. But I’ll tell you one thing,” she went on. “On nights like this, I’m glad I’m not married anymore. My husband always hated it when I ate a huge meal before coming to bed. He said he had trouble falling asleep on a full stomach.”
The audience laughed again, and Dottie smiled, waiting for them to grow quiet. “I remember when I was a young bride,” she said. “I used to beg my husband for a floor-length fur coat. Finally he said to me, ‘Dottie, you know we can’t afford that. But I’ve got a solution—just don’t shave your legs for a week!’”
At this the scattered audience joined together in applause. Opal chewed hard on her straw for a minute, and then she clapped her hands along with everyone else. But she felt disoriented; the jokes didn’t make sense, and the ones about her father were so peculiar. They made her feel uneasy, as though she were eavesdropping on something extremely private.
She watched her mother from across the nightclub, and was startled by how small Dottie looked at this distance, how wrong, somehow. It seemed so much more natural to se
e Dottie Engels from up close, where she could fill an entire screen, rather than from far away, where she took on ordinary dimensions. On the stage of the nightclub at the Royale, she could have been any fat woman impersonating Dottie Engels, and no one would have known the difference. From her cocktail table at the back of the dank room, Opal felt a small stirring inside her, and the desire to leap up and run down the aisle to verify that this was indeed her mother onstage, and not an impersonator.
Now, between shows, her mother lay flat on her back in the hotel room, as if captured and landed. “Erica,” she called out, her eyes closed, “what are you doing, honey?”
Erica was in the bathroom, sitting under the infrared lamp, studying for the S.A.T.s.
“I am trying to work,” Erica called. “Is that permitted?”
“Of course,” Dottie said. “Who am I to stop you? Although I’ve heard that there are child labor laws in this country.”
“Did you talk to Tony Bennett?” Opal asked, propping herself up on her elbows on the other bed.
“Yes, he’s a very nice man,” said her mother. “Extremely gracious. The women are knocking down the stage door trying to get his autograph. It’s different when men perform.” She shook her head. “Well, enough of this,” she said. “I’ve got to get downstairs again. For the late show, I’m going to spend ten minutes on that parody of Oklahoma, and it strains my throat to sing that much, so I’d better not tire it out.” She walked over to where Opal lay, and bent down to kiss her. Opal inhaled what she thought of as her mother’s nightclub smell: a mix of smoke and flowers, as though someone had set fire to a garden. The odor seemed dangerous, completely beyond Opal’s frame of reference. After children went to sleep at night, the whole world changed.
“Don’t go,” Opal suddenly said, clutching onto the knot of pearls around her mother’s neck.
“Why not?” asked Dottie. “What’s the matter? Don’t you feel well?”
“Yes,” she said, but she was unable to explain the sudden urgency. She turned her head away, embarrassed. Dottie sat on the edge of the bed for a few minutes, stroking Opal’s hair. And soon it was all right again, and Dottie slowly got up, straightening her gown, and started to leave. She stopped in the bathroom on the way out and said a few words to Erica. Opal perked up, listening to the conversation.
“Well yes, I know, Erica, but you could spend just a little time with her,” Dottie was saying in a low voice. When she was gone, Opal went and stood in the bathroom doorway. Erica was sitting on the bathmat, reading, the orange light beating down from above. It was the kind of light that was always shining on rotisserie chickens as they turned slowly in delicatessen windows.
“She wants me to play with you,” said Erica, looking up briefly, “but I don’t think you need to be entertained, do you, Opal? You can entertain yourself, can’t you?”
“Yes,” Opal muttered. “But it’s boring here.”
“We’re on vacation,” Erica said. “Remember? You were the one who wanted to come here.” She turned back to her book.
“I like it during the day,” said Opal, “when you can swim. It’s just different at night. At night we have to stay in. And all we do is eat.”
“‘Flower’ is to ‘artificial,’” Erica read aloud, “as ‘death’ is to blank.”
“What?” said Opal. “What are you talking about?”
“‘Rain’ is to ‘torrential,’” Erica went on, “as ‘hunger’ is to blank.”
“You’re weird,” said Opal. “I have a weird sister. I have a big, fat, weird sister.”
Erica looked up. “Why don’t you find something to do?” she said. “Why don’t you go downstairs and maybe Mom will put you in her act. She could use you as a footstool or something.”
“Oh, that’s so funny I forgot to laugh,” said Opal. This line was enjoying a current vogue among Opal’s classmates, but it was usually reserved for desperate moments when you were looking to stall for time, and no other words would come.
This was another one of their standstill fights, a little circular argument that kept spinning and spinning like a hamster wheel. It could be called off at any time, simply by one person suddenly speaking civilly to the other. Whichever of them bored of it more quickly would just change her tone, and that would be that. Opal was unsure of how to proceed now. She paused in the doorway, looking down at the top of her sister’s head, at the even part that divided a field of flyaway hair.
“I’m going out,” Opal announced.
Erica paused. “Do you have your room key with you?” she asked.
“Yes,” Opal said, reaching into the pocket of her Bermuda shorts and closing her fingers around the oval of plastic. She didn’t want to go out, not at all; it was almost midnight and she had no idea of what she would find. But she had to, now that she had said it. There was suddenly no choice.
“Goodbye then,” said Erica.
“Goodbye,” Opal said, stepping into her thongs. “See you later.” The door made a resonant suck and click as it closed behind her.
Outside, the hallway was hushed and glowed dimly, the only real light radiating from the distant beacon of the exit sign. Opal looked down at the carpeting, which she had never really noticed before. It was decorated with a very mod pattern: amoeboid shapes in green and blue, like the things that rolled and floated in Erica’s lava lamp at home. She followed the pattern down the hall to the elevators, and rode downstairs with no destination in mind, no thought to her actions, only the need for constant motion.
Opal understood her own invisibility then, the fact that she could probably go anywhere in the world and no one would stop her. She was so small that she slipped between the cracks. She shuffled along in her flat rubber thongs at midnight, and found herself waking up, coming to life at a time of day when usually she would be drifting off. She could go anywhere; she pictured herself walking, in this same trance, out into the middle of a field in an electrical storm. She would be perfectly fine; the rubber thongs would ground her, keep her safe from lightning.
The hotel lobby at midnight felt like an indoor city, all lit up and fluid. It gave the illusion of movement, like one of those neon signs in which the pattern of light leads the eye forward, only to drag it back again in its tide. Opal walked through several low-ceilinged, sedate passageways, which reminded her of the ramps you walked down to board an airplane. The last hallway emptied into an enormous room. The lighting here was as uncompromising as it is at a supermarket, and people clustered around tables, everyone loud and willing. There was hooting and laughter and the constant rake of chips across felt, and over all that noise was another layer, a transparency of sound that could be lifted off from the din: It was music, the calm, gentle vocals of the Carpenters singing “Close to You.”
Opal felt a sudden swell of vertigo. She was so obviously underage, so obviously not supposed to be here, and yet no one minded. This fact no longer excited her. Instead, it only depressed her, and she stood shivering, bare-armed, in the casino. As easily as she had entered, Opal shuffled out, her thongs slapping against the floor.
The casino was not the only room in the hotel that was alive at night. Opal followed a trail of music and walked unnoticed into the entrance of a disco that abutted the dining room. A sign on an easel outside the door read, “Teen Nite: Parents Keep Out!”
Over the stereo speakers, Ike and Tina Turner were beginning to sing “Proud Mary,” and a dozen teenaged couples were dancing on the small, strobe-lit floor. Every girl had a blond flip and wore a short dress and tights; every boy wore a double-breasted blazer, and all the couples moved mechanically. Opal stood at the side of the room and watched. “First we’re gonna take it nice . . . and easy,” Tina Turner was saying, feral and persuasive. “And then we’re gonna take it nice . . . and rough.”
The music began to speed up, and everyone struggled to keep the rhyth
m. This was the world Opal could enter in a few years, if she chose. Erica never could; Erica was denied entry.
Opal moved farther into the room, staying close against the wall like a crab. “Left a good job in the city . . .” Tina was singing. “Working for the man every night and day . . .” Without realizing it, Opal was singing along in her raspy little voice.
“Sing it out,” someone said, close to her ear.
Opal looked up, startled. She had been standing, she realized, inches from the deejay’s booth. A teenaged boy was leaning over the ledge on his crossed arms, smiling at her. “You want to come up here?” he asked.
In the speckled light, Opal took a serious look at this boy. He seemed to be about seventeen, and he had vacant, pleasant eyes. He looked like somebody’s older brother, or a lifeguard at a pool.
Opal climbed the two steps that led into the booth. She barely thought about it; she just accepted the invitation. Something about small spaces had always excited her. Anywhere you could slip your body in, find a surprising fit, make it work—that was the kind of place she wanted to be. She remembered how it had felt to be wedged into the space behind the refrigerator at home.
From the deejay’s booth, Opal could see out across the dance floor. The room seemed bigger from this vantage point. And Opal herself felt bigger, nervier. “Can I pick a record?” she asked the boy.
“Well, okay,” he said. “Within reason. Not the ‘Hokey Pokey’ or the ‘Alley Cat,’ please.”
She knelt down on the patch of orange shag carpeting and began to flip through the miles of 45s. From beneath her knees the floor was quaking, as though straining under the great burden of soul music.
“What’s your name?” the deejay asked.
“Veronica Lodge,” she said, the lie coming to her with surprising simplicity. Erica would have been impressed.
Then he surprised her in return. “Yeah, and I’m Jughead Jones,” he said.
Opal flinched. No one had caught on before; no one out here seemed to have heard of Archie comics. All anyone did out here was drink and gamble and order room service. The boy was laughing, and she saw in his eyes that he liked her. Not that way, certainly, for she was too young for that, but in some other way that was still not ordinary. It was almost as if he understood what she might turn into at some point, and was able to carry his imagination far enough ahead to picture her at sixteen, and be interested.
