Connie broke out in a little laugh of relief. “Thank you, Lina. God bless you.”
The sky was growing paler and the wisps were turning blue as if cloud and sky were trading colors. Connie and Lina stood together under this show for a minute more before returning to their homes.
. . . .
JAY WAS RELIEVED to see, as he pulled up to the Padgetts’ house, that Winston’s car was not in the driveway. He must have gone to pick up Kelly Mills, one of his sluttish on-and-off girlfriends, the one he had decided to take to the prom. Last Monday, Winston had arrived in first-period speech class holding an empty pop can. On days when he and the other boxers weighed in, not only would they fast, but they’d carry containers around and spit into them all day long, dehydrating themselves in hopes of being placed in a lower weight division. Winston sat down heavily at the desk next to Jay’s and said, “Look, man, Liz doesn’t need you to do her any favors.”
“What do you mean?”
“She said you’re taking her to the prom.”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“It’s no big deal, man. We’re just going.”
“You think she needs you or something, like no one else will take her?”
“No.”
“Then why the fuck did you ask her?”
“I just did. What’s the big deal?”
Winston puckered and dropped a dollop of foam into the can. The teacher started to call roll. “It’s fucking weird, Jay, and I don’t like it, understand?”
Jay had crossed Winston’s line; they hadn’t spoken a word to each other since.
Jay parked and ascended the winding walkway bordered so crisply by vivid green grass it might have been fabric that had been cut and hemmed. He tugged at his pants, trying to get them to completely cover his white gym socks.
Inside, Liz was putting the last touches on her look for the evening. She wore the royal blue dress she had bought to wear to a banquet last year. It was plain and tasteful, with only one flourish—a ruffled strap over one shoulder. She hadn’t bought a new dress because she hated pastels and wanted her attendance at the prom to appear as an afterthought, which it was. Last week she had opened her locker to find a folded note atop her gym clothes. She laughed, picked it up, unfolded it, and saw the unevenly typed letters that already inspired a flutter of nostalgia for the days of the treasure hunt.
May I take you to the prom?
It was so sweet. She laughed in the immediate knowledge that she should go to the prom with Jay, for old times’ sake, in honor of the history that it suddenly seemed they had. At odds all their childhood, they had overcome Jay’s crush to emerge as friends. And, more than that, they were alike. Liz had begun to credit Jay with being a quiet rebel like herself; the fact that he found her beautiful was the only proof she had, or needed. So he must consider the prom an inconsequential amusement, high school’s ludicrous last act, which—like the end of the rodeo, when the clowns came out and played with the bulls—would acknowledge that the whole contest had been laughable. Jay was, after all, asking her less than two weeks in advance.
Last year, Liz had proved she was above it all by not attending her junior prom. Now it would be fun to make people talk about the mismatch of her and Jay. She could walk into the dance, laughing with Jay and punching his arm like one of the guys, then go off and talk to her friends and dance with whomever she chose. She could even imagine Jay bringing a flask, and she would chide him, then take a slug or two herself.
Liz had done one special thing today to mark the event and to maximize the impression she would make upon entering the gymnasium—she had given in and let her neighbor, Mrs. Warner, do what she had always begged to do: curl her hair. Mrs. Warner had swept it up one side, sprayed and pinned it, then allowed a lacquered tower of curls to cascade into ringlets like overflowing champagne onto Liz’s shoulder, the bare one. A little wild, but it was only for one night. The girls would hop up and down in their formal shoes and tell her she looked like a movie star.
For once, Liz was glad Abby—who would have been absolutely merciless—was away.
The doorbell rang. She gave her hair, which had already settled a little, a careful nudge as if it were a sleeping animal she wanted to awaken without angering. She smoothed her dress, stepped into her shoes, and went downstairs. She took a deep breath, opened the door, and there was Jay, handsome, if a little silly, in light blue. Jay’s eyes darted up to her hair.
Jay hated it.
Liz could see that he hated it.
Jay saw that Liz saw.
“Hey, Jay.”
“Wow. You look great.”
“Can you believe my hair?” She prodded it again and rolled her eyes.
“It looks awesome.”
Jay couldn’t help feeling pleased that she cared what he thought, that her smile had gone stale when she saw his disappointment. He cast his gaze down. “You look beautiful,” he said humbly.
With her pointed black shoe she kicked his shin lightly. “Let’s not do the whole prom thing,” she said. “Let’s just have fun.”
“Okay,” he said, offering the corsage. He had wanted to do the whole prom thing.
COOP WORKED A toothpick into his gums and sucked on his false incisor. “Durn good,” he said.
“I’m gettin’ cold,” Wanda said. “You about ready?”
He slurped the last of his coffee and, with a few heaves, scooted out of the booth. He was lighter now. Although surf and turf at Denny’s was an important exception, he had been following the diabetic’s diet Uncle Frank refused. And Wanda was heavier. She liked this new weight. Everyone said it looked good on her.
“Y’all takin’ off?” asked Gina, slipping Wanda the check, as was their custom.
“Yeah, it’s been a long day,” said Wanda.
“On the bus?” asked Gina.
“Nope,” Coop said, putting his arm around his little sister. “On an airplane.”
Wanda jabbed him with her elbow.
“Fancy that,” Gina said, loading a few rattling dishes into one hand. “I’ll see you Monday, Coop.”
They walked out the door into the big, sweet-smelling evening. The air felt good against Wanda’s skin, which had tightened and goose-pimpled in the air-conditioning. It seemed Denny’s was kept frigid in the summer and stiflingly hot in the winter, as if the customers’ first grateful expressions upon entering, before they noticed the temperature extreme, were all that mattered.
As they drove across town toward Wanda’s, Coop said, “I might go out to Maria’s tomorrow.”
“Want me to look in on Uncle Frank?”
“You’re sure it’s not too far to walk? Don’t want the little one to jiggle loose.” Coop wore the same old smile, but his eyes squinted shyly, as they always did when he mentioned the baby.
Wanda laughed. “I’m supposed to exercise,” she said. The doctor had told her that just this morning at her eight-week appointment. Then she and Melissa had picked up Randy and they had gone out for a celebration lunch at a restaurant where they had cloth napkins and the waiters wore bow ties. Melissa had ordered a bottle of wine, and insisted that Wanda have one sip. “Your last, until afterward,” she had said.
Coop pulled up to Wanda’s apartment and the two bid each other goodnight. Wanda walked into the apartment and was surprised to see the TV on, and more surprised to see a strange girl nestled in the couch with her feet folded under her. “Oh!” the girl said, sitting up. “Oh!”
Wanda looked around the walls, to make sure she hadn’t walked into the wrong apartment.
“She’s here!” the girl cried. “Hank? You better come out here.” The girl sheltered the little bowling ball of her belly in her hands. Wanda could hardly name the wide-eyed expression on the girl’s face, so unaccustomed was she to provoking it: fear.
Then the bedroom door opened, and out came Hank wearing brown cords and no shirt. His chest collapsed a little at his sternum—there was a small depression under
his ribs and over his belly. His hair was neat at the part, then fell in oily strawberry-blond waves over his ears and down his back. He gave Wanda the skeptical look he gave men with whom he was picking a fight, which Wanda suspected he had borrowed from the kung fu movies he liked to watch Saturday mornings: he jutted his chin forward and narrowed his eyes. His shoulders rode back, and he bounced his weight between his feet. “Where you been?” he asked.
“What do you care?” Wanda demanded, leaning to the side to set down her suitcase. “You better get outta here.”
“Why should I?”
“Because it’s my house, that’s why.”
Hank put out his hands and spread his fingers like a woman showing off her rings. Then he smiled, sat down on the sofa’s lip, and splayed his hands on his knees.
The absurdity of the situation finally sank in. Wanda turned to the girl. “Who are you?” she asked.
“Hank?” whimpered the girl, hitching herself toward him a bit and running her hands nervously over her belly as if it were a crystal ball. Wanda could see that she was a good way into her second trimester.
“Answer her,” Hank said. “You don’t gotta be afraid.”
“I’m Misty.”
“What the hell are you doing in my house?” Wanda said.
“Could ask you the same damn thing,” Hank said, still smiling.
“What do you mean? This is my house.”
“Your name on the lease?”
Wanda allowed her knees to buckle and she sat in the chair. It was his lease. Where would she go, to Randy and Melissa’s? No. She had sworn to them, no more surprises.
“What do you want, Hank?” she asked. “Money? I don’t have any.”
“I don’t want yer money,” he said.
“Then what?”
“Wanda, I don’t want nothin’ from you. I don’t want you or nothin’ from ya.”
“Hank!” Misty said. Hank continued to smile menacingly at Wanda, so Misty turned to Wanda. “He wants his place back. He needs it. We’re gonna have a baby.” The girl’s head was shaped like a pear, with a black ponytail springing up where the stem would be. Her bottom lip, painted a shade Wanda had seen labeled “coral” at the drugstore, hung open insolently, in invitation to the fight, although her puffy, dimpled hands still shielded her belly. The gash of her mouth seemed to have been cut into her flesh in a permanent frown.
“I’ve lived here three years. This is all my stuff. You can’t have it.” The obvious nature of everything Wanda said allowed her to say it softly.
“We don’t want your stuff,” Misty said with a disgusted shake of her head that caused that bottom lip to jiggle. “We want Hank’s place back. He’s been lettin’ you live here—”
“Lettin’ me live here? Look, Misty, you obviously don’t know jack shit about this situation, so you better just stay out of it.”
“I’ll beat your ass if you keep talkin’ to me that way.”
“Hank never even moved in here. He went to Chandler, and I moved in. I paid the rent. I got the furniture. This is all just plain crazy.”
Hank snuffed a disdainful kind of laughter. “I don’t know what you girls’re arguin’ for. There’s nothin’ to argue ’bout. I live here. Have for most of the past week. Case closed.”
“Where’s all your stuff, then, Hank?” demanded Wanda.
“Here and there.”
“I thought you had a place in Chandler.”
“Didn’t work out.”
“Well, you can’t live here.”
“You just don’t get it, do you, Wanda? I do live here. It’s you that can’t live here.” He yanked Misty’s hand out of her lap to hold it and leaned back into the couch in a tense display of ease.
“So, I guess I better call the police,” Wanda said.
“Exactly,” said Hank. “I was hopin’ you’d say that. Can’t wait to show ’em my copy of the lease.”
Wanda felt tears rising. “And what’ll you do when I come take away all the furniture?”
“Jump for joy,” Hank said, scowling. “It stinks. Like you.”
MONA LISA FONDUE was Eula’s one and only “nice” restaurant. It occupied a converted nineteenth-century blacksmith’s shop, which had, for the last twenty years, housed one after another nice restaurant that failed. The last one had been an Old West–themed restaurant, for which they had done an extensive build-out with fake storefronts on the walls (“Last Ditch Saloon,” “General Store”) and balconies hanging over “Main Street,” the large dining room. Stars and a large crescent moon glowed on the ceiling. These decorations proved so expensive that the restaurant for which they were made had quickly gone broke, and Mona Lisa Fondue, which served fondue and other French specialties, inherited the incongruous interior.
From the balcony, which Jay had reserved specifically when he called over a month ago, long before he worked up the nerve to ask Liz, the two could see dozens of pastel-clad couples. “Oh, look,” Liz said. “Joel’s wearing a top hat. Oh my gosh! And he has a cane!”
“What a dork,” Jay snorted. “Why isn’t he with Christine?”
“She’s Nazarene,” Liz answered.
“Right.” Dancing was forbidden in the Nazarene church, so its kids attended “prom alternative,” a banquet.
They fell to silence.
“Knock, knock!” Troy Whitehead stood at the balcony’s entrance, holding closed the lapel of his butter-yellow tuxedo. One of the members of Winston’s and Jay’s gang who had joined the boxing league, Troy had a tiny Band-Aid over a scrape on the bridge of his nose. “Am I interrupting anything?”
“No, come in!” Liz said, obviously relieved.
“My date’s boring me, so I thought I’d come up and offer you a little . . .” he looked from side to side, though there was clearly no one else on the balcony, and opened his jacket, “. . . fire water.” A deep inner pocket held a bottle of whiskey.
“Oh, I think we’re doing all right,” Jay said.
“Well, if you need me, I’m ’round the corner by the hitchin’ post.”
After going over Liz’s plan for the summer (an internship at the San Francisco Chronicle) and Jay’s (“Oh, I think I’ll go somewhere new for a while, maybe Seattle, see what happens”), and briefly discussing Abby’s situation (“Her mom’s not doing well”), the two found they had little to talk about. Liz cleared her throat, and Jay adjusted the napkin in his lap.
Then Liz let out a nervous, breathy laugh.
“What?” Jay asked.
“You know what I’ve never been able to figure out? The roller rink. Why the roller rink?”
“Oh,” Jay said, sitting up. “It was a clue, to help you figure out it was me.”
“But why?”
“Don’t you remember?”
“Did we go there when we were little?”
Jay’s eyes darkened as clearly as if a blind had been drawn behind them, and Liz knew she had said the wrong thing. She had forgotten something that Jay remembered.
For a moment, and only a moment, Jay considered telling her. But if she didn’t remember, she didn’t remember. “There was a Baggie full of water,” Liz ventured.
“It was ice when I put it in there. I thought you were going to come that day to get it. You didn’t, and it melted.”
“Ice?” Liz said. “Is it a riddle?”
“Where’s our food?” Jay grumbled. “I’m gonna go find the waiter.”
“Wait, it’s only been—”
Jay skidded down the narrow staircase to Main Street. He went to Troy’s table, slipped the bottle into his own jacket, and took it to the men’s room.
IT WAS DARK when Enrique got home. Lina was watching TV. “Where you been all day, mijo?”
“Riding my bike.”
“Should I fix something, or should we go to McDonald’s?”
“I don’t know. McDonald’s?” He rubbed his palms together and gazed absently at the TV. His eyes were bloodshot and his face drained, except for his cr
imson cheeks. This was how he always looked after hours of riding.
Earlier this afternoon, Enrique had heaved open the heavy metal door and entered the cool, foul-smelling bathroom of the Greyhound station. The first time he had done this, a few weeks ago, he had actually needed to pee. As his eyes became accustomed to the light, he had been disappointed to see that he was alone. The bathroom was shaped like an L, with a trough urinal and a line of sinks in front and a row of doorless stalls around the corner. He peed in the urinal, then rinsed his hands in the sink. So many letters had been scratched onto the thick plastic panels that protected the mirrors that he could barely make out the words, let alone his reflection behind them. The subsequent times Enrique ventured in, it was because he had seen men go in before him. They quickly zipped up and charged out as soon as they saw a kid among them. Enrique himself, with his heart pounding in his ears, returned to his bike and rushed away, standing up to pump the pedals more powerfully, swearing to himself and to God he wouldn’t go there again.
Today the men had scattered, all but one. He was a slim man with gray in his hair. He wore a windbreaker and jeans. He remained at the urinal as Enrique took his place at its farthest end and turned to shelter himself from view. Enrique opened his pants but didn’t take himself out—he hadn’t really needed to pee. Wave after powerful wave of adrenaline surged through his body, shaking him. With effort, he steadied his breath. This was worse than the day he had found Working Out at the bookstore. The man stood patiently with his hands at his sides. There was no tinkle of urine. Finally Enrique built up enough courage to cast a furtive glance over his shoulder, and there it was, shocking, even though he had expected it: the man’s fully erect penis standing straight out, almost comically, like a cartoon tree limb that would snap off, sending the cat crashing down while the bird flew merrily away. Enrique quickly looked back to himself, down to his own, much smaller penis, which was arcing painfully against the fabric of his underwear. He couldn’t help it; he had to look again, and when he did, the man pushed the thing down, causing it to bounce back up, then bob up and down—again, cartoonishly: a dopey nod, Hello.
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