by Sarah S.
Scott gazed across the barroom. There was an empty dartboard directly opposite them, a chalkboard beside it, and a Miller Lite schedule of the University of Maryland football season. Another bartender,
a ropy-armed woman with stringy blonde hair that hung in her eyes,
yanked down the tap and shoved a smudged beer mug underneath.
“Actually,” Scott said in a faraway voice. “No one has asked me. You’re
the first.”
Catherine pressed her lips together. “Oh.”
Scott looked at Joanna. “Can you believe no one has asked me directly?”
Joanna sat back in her chair. “Well, I …” She swallowed. “Yes. I
guess I can.”
“So were they beating up one another or not?” Catherine goaded. Scott’s face clouded. He took a breath as if about to speak. Then
there was the sound of breaking glass from across the bar. Everyone
looked over.
A sausage-biceped man in a sleeveless shirt lunged toward another
man in a plaid button-down. “You didn’t just say that,” the first man
said. He had a burly beard that concealed most of his face. “Tell me
you didn’t say that, you piece of shit.”
“You’re the piece of shit,” the plaid-shirted man spat. “You and that
bitch you live with.”
“Oh dear,” Catherine said under her breath. “Not again.” Now the men were shoving each other. One bumped into a stool,
sending it flying. More glass broke. The karaoke ceased, and the girl
on the stage—as well as everyone else in the bar—turned to stare. The
men shouted more, and then the guy in the plaid shirt hit the bearded
guy in the jaw. It made a cracking sound, louder than Joanna would
have imagined. The bearded man in the sleeveless shirt clutched his
face for a moment, but quickly began swinging again. He groped for
a dart on the dartboard and raised it into the air, his eyes loony and enraged. Everyone on the opposite side of the bar moved out of the way. “Let’s just calm down now!” called an anonymous voice. The room began to smell pungently of spilled beer.
“We should get out of here,” Scott said. Robert materialized from out of nowhere, quickly whisking Catherine toward the door. As they made a beeline for the exit, Joanna stared at Scott’s back. What had he been about to say? A denial? A confession? She wondered, suddenly, how she’d feel about Scott if he actually did indirectly abet in this boy’s death. Would her attraction for him instantly vanish?
They could still hear the shouting from the gravel parking lot. Robert helped Catherine into the back seat and patted the hood in farewell. Joanna swung into the driver’s seat. Her ears rang from the loud music. The image of that man’s face as he held the dart swam before her eyes. “Are there a lot of fights at that bar?” she asked, feeling out of breath.
Catherine wrapped her leopard-print scarf tight around her neck. “Oh, some, I suppose.”
“What are you doing going to a bar like that, anyway?” Joanna cried.
“It could’ve gotten dangerous,” Scott added. “Someone might have had a gun.”
Catherine tittered. “A gun? Please. Those two boys that were fighting are best friends. They’ll be drinking together in a half hour!” She leaned forward and touched their shoulders. “You two are so sweet to care.”
Everything was the inverse of what it should be. Joanna rolled the windows down and started to back out of the lot. The night was sticky and unusually warm, and she could smell the salty, swampy Chesapeake a few blocks over. As Joanna peered out into the darkness, she saw the round, glowing eyes of a nocturnal animal staring back at her.
She held its gaze for a moment in silent communion. The animal’s eyes shone like silver. A few seconds passed, and then, given an invisible signal, the animal whipped around and disappeared into the darkness.
Even though it was only 9:30 p.m., Catherine went to bed as soon as they got home, saying she needed to rest up for her big appointment. Joanna sat on her mother’s tiny screened-in porch drinking a glass of V8, the only nonalcoholic beverage Catherine had in the house. In the distance Joanna heard the steady beeping sound of one of the low bridges rising to let a tall-masted boat through. She could smell the rancid, brackish creek just beyond the trees.
Joanna’s phone rang, startling her. It was Charles. She stared at it, her heart thrumming. After the third ring, she answered.
“How’s your mom?” he asked.
“She’s okay,” she answered automatically. She cursed herself for saying it so nicely. What would happen if she continued to feign ignorance about Bronwyn? Would he admit it on his own? Crack under the guilt and come clean?
She looked through the screen door to the house. Scott was standing over the kitchen counter, pouring himself a drink. Probably Dewar’s Scotch; it was Catherine’s favorite. She hoped he wouldn’t come out. She hoped he didn’t hear her talking.
“So did someone give you a hot ride to Maryland?” Charles asked.
She sat up, horrified. How could Charles know? “W-what?”
“Because your car is still in the garage. You took the train, right?”
The air left her lungs. Right. He was joking. “Yeah. The train. And I called a cab from the house. It was easier than finding parking.” She squeezed her eyes shut, hating that she was lying.
“I guess Scott had his meeting today,” Charles said.
Joanna watched as Scott turned and shut the cabinet. Don’t come out, she silently willed, but he swiveled and headed for the screen door. She balled her fist.
“I don’t know how it went, though,” Charles was saying. “I tried to call Mom, but she was on her way to some party.”
“Huh.” Scott slid open the door and looked at her. She put a finger to her lips, and he nodded. You’re on the phone. I got it. But he didn’t leave.
“I don’t know if she’s talked to him, either,” Charles was saying. “She probably would’ve called me if she did.”
“Uh-huh,” Joanna said. She stared out at the dark backyard. Hank and Carla, the neighbors, kept a parrot’s cage on their back porch; she could see its curved shadow. The parrot often babbled when they left it alone, screaming out Hank and Carla’s names.
“Are you all right?” Charles asked.
Joanna jumped. “I’m fine. Why?”
“I don’t know. You sound … not altogether there.”
“I’m fine. Just … you know. My mom.”
“Do you want me to come down there?” Charles asked.
“W-when?”
“Tonight. Tomorrow morning. I don’t know.”
Her pulse beat so strongly she could feel its steady pace in her fingertips. Did that mean he’d called Bronwyn and canceled tomorrow’s meeting? Or had they met today, and he now had some free time?
She wound a piece of hair around her finger so tightly that it pulled at her scalp. Scott was sitting on the glider, staring. Why didn’t he just leave? Why couldn’t he understand she wanted to be alone?
“I thought you had your work interview tomorrow,” she finally said.
Charles paused. She paused. Neither said anything. She wondered if he knew that she knew. Maybe Bronwyn had called him and said, We’ve got to call it off. I called your house and she answered.
“It’s okay,” Joanna said when it became clear he wasn’t going to say anything more. “I don’t need you here. I’m holding up all right.”
There was a sigh on his end. “Well, okay then,” Charles said.
“I should go,” she said quickly. She clapped the phone shut and sat still for a few long moments, a sob building in her chest. She thought the phone might ring again, but it remained silent.
The distant beeping started up again; the boat must be through, and the bridge was coming back down. Joanna stood up, padded into the kitchen, poured out the V8, and replaced it with
Dewar’s. Then she went back outside and slumped down on a plastic chair. Scott was smoking a cigarette, making the whole screened-in porch smell of it.
“Was that Charles?” he asked after a moment.
“Yes.”
The wind knocked the long chimes hanging from the porch roof together. A dog barked a few houses down. Catherine’s porch was so small that Joanna and Scott’s knees were almost touching.
“So are you going to tell me or not?” Scott said quietly.
She whipped her head up. “Tell you what?”
Scott’s face was hidden by the shadows; she could only make out the outline of his jaw, the tips of his hair, and the whites of his eyes. “Where Charles’s out-of-town trip has taken him, of course,” he said. “Where he was calling from. What he’s writing about.”
“That just came out. I had to tell her something before she asked.” Scott swirled his glass. She bet he was smirking.
“My mom needs an explanation. Every time she thinks she’s got something, I come down here. But she doesn’t get that not everyone can just drop everything and come. Charles always has something going on, but she doesn’t understand that he just has to work.”
Scott moved slightly, shifting his weight to his left side. She listened as he raised his glass to his lips, pulled the liquid to the back of his throat, and swallowed. “So Charles is working.”
She wanted to hit him. Why bother answering, if he already had it all figured out? “Of course,” she said stiffly.
But then her face started to tremble, first just a little, then a lot. But she wouldn’t let herself cry, not here. She swallowed. “Did you know I grew up not that far from you?”
“In Parkesburg?”
“Lionville.”
“Right.”
She’d never told him this before, so it was curious that he knew this about her. “When I was little, maybe in like third grade, there was a big announcement about the Kimberton Fair. Do you remember the Kimberton Fair?”
“I’ve heard of it. I’ve never been.”
“I got really excited about this fair. There was going to be an amusement park as part of it, and I thought, This is going to be great. An amusement park right down the street from my house! I’ll go every day. I’ll wake up and ride a roller coaster. There wouldn’t be any lines or crowds, it would just be me running free and alone through this enormous park with workers ready to attend to me.”
“I think every kid fantasized about that,” Scott answered.
Joanna uncrossed her legs and crossed them the other direction. “So the fair shows up. I’m so excited I can’t sleep the night before opening day. And I get up really early, before the sun is even up, and I run down there. And there’s already a line of kids waiting. They’d gotten up earlier than I did. I had no idea how—I mean, I guess they just didn’t sleep at all. And so finally someone comes along and lets us all in. There were only five rides, not even a roller coaster. Just a merry-go-round, a Ferris wheel, swings, some lame-ass fun house, and a tilt-a-whirl.”
Her voice caught on whirl, but she swallowed fast, trying to pass it off as nothing. “I only went that one morning,” she said. “I spent the rest of the summer at the pool.”
Scott nodded. He bent his knee in and out, making his joint crack.
“I don’t know what made me tell you that story,” Joanna blurted. “It has nothing to do with anything.”
Scott took another sip of his drink. “Maybe it has to do with a lot of things.”
Joanna picked at a loose thread on the knee of her jeans. She should thank him for accompanying her here, and then go inside to her old bedroom and go to sleep. This could still be explained to Charles. She’d come to the house looking for Sylvie, maybe, but Scott had been there instead. She’d been distraught, and he’d offered to come. She just needed some company, someone to take the edge off her mother. It was hard, coming down here alone every time.
She was still unmarred, unharmed. She could still look Charles straight in the eye.
Scott’s eyes burned into her. Taking a deep breath, she raised her head and stared back. Electricity passed through them. She could almost see it, a blue snap through the air. He knew what she wanted. He had to. He knew what was going on inside of her, but he was going to make her work for it. He was going to make her ask.
Hank and Carla’s parrot screeched. The same sob rose up inside of her. She felt so terrible.
The moment broke, and Scott looked away. Joanna lowered her shoulders and looked down, too, disappointed that he hadn’t acted on the moment, then ashamed by her disappointment. She made a tight fist with her hand. “Charles told me about that time you hit him, you know.”
Scott stopped rocking. “Oh yeah?”
“Uh-huh. He said you did it for no reason.”
The ice rattled in his glass. “Is that what he said?”
“Yes.”
“Then he didn’t tell you everything.”
“What’s … everything?”
“There was a reason I did that.”
“And that would be … what?”
He stubbed out his cigarette.
“Come on.”
But he stood, not answering, and opened the screen door and walked inside the house. Joanna felt confused. Did that mean something more had happened than what Charles had told her? Or was that just what Scott wanted her to think?
Scott opened the freezer; cold, blue light shone against his face. She heard the crack of the ice cube tray, and the clank of the cubes hitting the glass. This was probably just a game for Scott. A mind-fuck.
She stood up, too, and made her way slowly down the hall to the first-floor bedroom that was always set up for her. She would sleep on her old childhood twin bed, its creaky mattress as stiff and loud as the paper liner on an examining table at a doctor’s office. Scott, of course, would sleep on the couch.
………………………………………………………… fourteen
Geoff’s house was hidden behind a heavy wrought-iron gate. A video camera watched Sylvie as she idled in the driveway, and she imagined her image being fed by wireless signals to
a closed-circuit television. The gate swung open, and she pulled up behind the other cars, parking next to a black Audi. It was very possible she had parked next to this very same black Audi at the last party here, the last one she and James ever attended together.
“Sylvie,” Geoff’s young wife, Melinda, cried when she reached the door, throwing her arms open. Sylvie stepped in, wrapping her arms around Melinda and feeling the sharp edges of her shoulder blades. “Happy birthday,” Sylvie murmured.
“Thanks,” Melinda answered. They both stepped back. The only spot of color on Melinda’s pale face was her dark red lipstick. “You look lovely,” she added to Sylvie.
Sylvie ducked her head and shrugged out of her coat. Melinda swept right over her, her expression not faltering, not giving away that she might know something that Sylvie didn’t.
All afternoon, Sylvie had tried to get in touch with Scott, eager to hear about the meeting earlier today. He wasn’t in the house. He wasn’t in his apartment. His phone had been turned off. She hadn’t known where else to call. She even tried looking up the number to the sneaker shop his friend owned in the city, but she didn’t know the store’s name.
She thought someone at Swithin would call her with an update, but no one did. She had paced the house, trying to imagine what could have happened. Scott’s bed in his old bedroom was unmade, his clothes strewn about all over the floor. An iPod was on the pillow along with an overturned magazine about cars. He’d still been living here the last two nights, but he’d holed up in his bedroom, not speaking to her. How dare you put me in this position, she’d said to him. His face had crumpled with contempt. And now he was punishing her, not even telling her whether or not he’d gone.
“Drinks are back there,” Melinda instructed, pointing. “And … oh! There’s Kristen and Bill!” Her face brightened
at another couple that had come in after Sylvie, two younger people Sylvie didn’t recognize.
Sylvie picked up a cocktail and looked around the room. The party was already packed, everyone milling around with drinks in hand, the caterers weaving through the crowd with big trays of crab puffs and pot stickers. Geoff stood in the corner surrounded by a bunch of men in dark suits similar to his own. He caught Sylvie’s eye and waved but didn’t come over.
Sylvie had walked this very route of rooms the day before James had died. Oh how annoyed she’d been at him at that last party. He’d agreed to accompany her, but moments before they were supposed to leave, she found him in his office, fiddling on his computer, wearing a stained polo shirt.
“We’re going to be late,” she said. “You need to get dressed.” He didn’t move. “I’m not really in the mood tonight. I feel tired. Maybe you should go by yourself.”
Tired. Was that due to the impending aneurysm? Was it an early warning that it was going to happen the next day? But she hadn’t known. She’d thought he was being difficult. “You have to come,” she said. “You promised.” She didn’t like navigating parties by herself any more than she had when she was a student at Swithin or a freshman at Swarthmore.
Grumbling, James finally trudged down the stairs and got his coat. As they were getting into the car, he looked at her and said, “I never make you come to my business parties if you don’t want to. But I guess Swithin’s more important, huh?”
James knew it hurt, in the same way all of his little your-things, your-family, your-life-is-more-important-than-mine comments always hurt. Gone was the sweet, agreeable man who revered everything about her family, who said they could keep Roderick intact as long as she liked. And once that wound was open, others opened, too. That night she had started picking on James about how he hadn’t gone to dinner at Charles and Joanna’s apartment in the city a few nights before. They wanted to show off their Christmas tree, but James had blown them off entirely. “Charles wanted you to come,” Sylvie harped. “You could have at least sent him an e-mail saying you weren’t coming instead of letting me make the excuse for you.”
