Bad Games

by Jeff Menapace

  Carrie smiled, tested a bit more. “Can we get candy too?”

  “No candy,” Lorraine said, settling back into the sofa. “It’s bad for your teeth.”

  “That’s what Mom always says.”

  “Well Mom is right. Popcorn will be enough.”

  “Popcorn and soda,” Carrie said firmly. “My mouth will get dry.”

  Lorraine glanced at her husband. He winked at her.

  “We’ll see,” Norman said. “No promises.”

  Carrie seemed to find this response acceptable, wandering out of the Mitchell’s den and into their kitchen. Caleb headed over to the sofa and jumped onto Lorraine’s lap. She let out an unavoidable “OOF!” as soon as the four-year-old landed.

  Caleb appeared to find her slapstick response quite amusing and immediately began flight-preparations for a second launch. Lorraine quickly latched both hands onto his little shoulders, smiled and said, “No, no, sweetie—you’re going to make Mrs. Mitchell pee her pants if you do that again.”

  21

  The same pair of binoculars that had watched the silver Toyota Highlander back out of cabin number eight before exiting Crescent Lake was now watching a light blue Volvo station wagon back out of cabin number ten. Two adults and two children could be identified inside the Volvo.

  “The Volvo folks are the neighbors,” Jim said as he handed the binoculars to Arty. “I’m assuming the kids in back…?”

  Arty took the binoculars and peered through them. Dusk had arrived, but the binoculars were top of the line. “Yup—that’s them.” He motioned for them to move, but stopped suddenly. He turned to his brother, a devilish grin curling upwards onto his face. “Should we say something?” he said. “Should we say something cool, like the guys in those espionage movies do?”

  Jim grinned back. “You mean like, ‘the hatchlings have left the nest.’”

  Arty threw his head back and barked out a single laugh. He then straightened his posture, and, in a similarly deep and serious voice, “The bacon is in the pan.”

  Jim shoved Arty back a step while barking his own laugh. Arty rolled with the shove, invigorated by his brother’s physical exuberance. Arty’s demonstrative love for the game had always been kept on a more composed leash in contrast to Jim’s, who often slipped his leash entirely, Arty the one to catch him before Jim was lost for good—more so lately due to the state of their mother.

  But not tonight. Tonight, Jim’s contagion fueled Arty. Discretion was still paramount of course, always would be; it was what separated them from the rest of the sheep. But tonight Arty and Jim celebrated this stage of foreplay as one, not as individuals. They laughed and shoved one another with equal vigor on that wooded hill above Crescent Lake. Roughhoused and joked like drunken teens on prom night, their dates waiting in the cabins below, virginities ripe for the taking. All they had to do was go down and take it.

  “Come on, my brother…” Arty eventually said, placing one hand on Jim’s shoulder, the other fanning across the darkening landscape. “Let’s go have some fun.”

  22

  The restaurant known as The Walnut Creek Grille had been recommended highly by both Lorraine and Norman, who claimed it was easily the nicest and most romantic place in the area. Amy had embraced their friends’ recommendation without pause, but now grew skeptical as Patrick pulled the Highlander into the strip mall just off Walnut Creek Road.

  “This can’t be it,” she said, ducking down, looking hard through the windshield.

  Patrick drove slowly through the crowded lot. “This is where Norm said it was.”

  “We’re in a strip mall,” she said.

  “You knew that.”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t think it was part of the strip mall. I thought it was detached— like next to it or something.”

  Patrick continued cruising the length of shops. The strip was long and common: a pharmacy; a book store; a pizza place; a barber shop; a video store. So far no Walnut Creek Grille.

  “What does it matter?” he asked.

  “Well, I didn’t get this dressed up so we could eat at Dairy Queen.”

  “Come on, baby,” Patrick said, eyes still fixed on each passing shop as he spoke. “Norm and Lorraine wouldn’t have recommended it if it wasn’t any good.”

  Amy shrugged. “I guess.”

  The rows of shops began bending towards the right. They appeared close to the end.

  “Maybe this isn’t the right place,” Patrick admitted. “I didn’t see it anywhere, did you?”

  Amy said, “Huh, uh.”

  Patrick hung a right and rounded the strip mall’s corner. Both he and Amy shouted: “There!”

  The Walnut Creek Grille was the very last shop, a useful detail Patrick felt Norm could have mentioned earlier.

  “Jinx,” Patrick said after their simultaneous blurt. “You can’t talk until you buy me a martini.”

  “Gay.”

  “Hmmm…already breaking the rules and bigoted?”

  “I have a gay brother. I can say what I want with immunity.”

  “I’m gonna call Eric and ask.”

  “Go ahead. He’ll call you gay himself.”

  Patrick grumbled.

  An empty parking spot was right in front of the restaurant.

  “Ooh, look at this, baby,” Amy said, pointing. “Rock star.”

  “They obviously knew we were coming.”

  Patrick parked the Highlander and the couple got out. Their spot was practically on top of the entrance.

  “You sure this isn’t a handicap spot?” Patrick asked, checking the ground beneath the SUV, searching for even the tiniest hint of blue paint.

  Amy took hold of his arm with both hands and pulled him towards the entrance. “We’re fine, come on.”

  Patrick’s first words when they entered the restaurant were, “Whoa.” He looked at Amy. She looked back, a delighted smile on her face. “Deceptive isn’t it?” he said.

  The exterior of the restaurant was modest. The interior was extravagant, but hardly overt in its accomplishment. It was subtle with its décor and ambience, choosing to embrace the patrons with a sense of warmth and comfort as opposed to flaunting its stature by making them feel privileged to bathe in its presence.

  The restaurant was small and concise. To the right was a bar whose back mirror was lit with a dim, pleasant glow that illuminated rows of top-shelf liquor and cast a faint shine down onto a smooth marble top.

  To the left was the dining area. The surrounding walls held appreciable art and small lamps shaped as ornate candles, lighting the room with a soft touch as if they were the real thing. Waiters and waitresses dressed in posh garb weaved deftly between tables covered in fine cloth and silverware, pouring wine and delivering silver trays of cuisine.

  Directly ahead an attractive male and female host stood behind a wooden podium. Both smiled genuinely as Amy and Patrick approached.

  “Hi,” Patrick said. “Lambert? Party of two?”

  The female glanced down at the appointment book, smiled again and said, “Follow me.”

  * * *

  Their salads had come and gone—Patrick’s a Caesar, Amy’s a garden with fat-free Italian.

  “This place is so nice,” Amy said. She sipped her glass of Pinot and sighed a deep, contented sigh.

  Patrick smiled with his eyes. “Feeling better?” he asked.

  “Much,” she replied. “I had no idea it would be this nice.”

  Patrick sipped his martini. “No, I mean do you feel better about…everything.”

  Amy took another sip of wine. “I don’t think I’ll ever feel better about that.”

  “But you’re feeling a little better, right? A bit more at ease?”

  Amy set her glass down and stared at it for a few seconds before replying. “I don’t think I’m ever going to feel a hundred percent about all that’s happened. On a scale of one to ten, I’d say this sojourn has been a two thus far—this restaurant being the only thing keeping me from rating
it a one.”

  Patrick nodded slowly and now it was his turn to look at his drink. He played with the toothpick, spearing his olive multiple times, searching for levity. “Yeah. Still, it’ll make a pretty outlandish story to tell when we get home, won’t it?”

  “Maybe in time we can find the humor in it, but at the moment I’m afraid I just don’t see it,” she said.

  Patrick quickly shook his head. “No, I’m not saying it’s funny, baby, I’m just saying…it’s over now, so…”

  Amy raised an eyebrow. “So?”

  Patrick stopped torturing his olive, plucked it and ate it. “Forget it,” he said, chewing. “I don’t know what I’m trying to say.”

  And he didn’t. He wasn’t even sure he should have brought the whole thing up— the last thing he wanted to do was ruin their evening. It just seemed appropriate to mention for some reason, the way somebody asks for an update involving a terminally ill loved one. You know the news will be bad, but if it’s discussed more than ignored, perhaps it may ultimately lose a bit of its impact, become a therapeutic way of coping.

  “It doesn’t bother you at all does it?” she asked.

  Patrick first thought about Arty and the gas and Carrie’s doll. It was indeed bothersome, but confusing took more of a lead between the two. In fact, the more he thought about it now, the more he decided that bizarre had won the race. Bothersome and confusing had finished and earned their respected spot, but bizarre was indeed the clear winner.

  The man who had crudely propositioned Amy in the supermarket before leaving the rice on the car was different. That was truly upsetting, but it was something that could have just as easily happened back home. As for that same man looking into their window while they made love? Yes. Of course that had initially angered him. Angered the hell out of him. He still wasn’t sure if Amy’s eyes had betrayed her or not, but the mere possibility that she’d truly seen what she claimed boiled his blood.

  And finally there was the finger in the bait. That bothered him. It did. But the whole incident seemed so random, so unrelated to all the bizarre goings-on that had already transpired. Logic simply had no say on that one. So what choice was there but to ultimately laugh at the absurdity of it all?

  “You don’t think it bothers me?” he said.

  Amy shrugged. “It doesn’t seem to. At least not a whole lot.”

  “I think it’s too surreal,” he said. “Everything that’s happened…it’s just so absurd. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just not digesting it all yet. Call it a defense mechanism. Call me a stubborn dummy.”

  Amy took another sip of her wine. She smiled at Patrick, weak and small, but there. “I know you want everything to be okay, baby,” she said. “You’re like Chevy Chase from the Vacation movies in your quest to showing your family a good time—nothing’s more important to you.”

  Patrick smirked at her wit.

  “And I’m willing to write off the whole weird experience with that Arty guy. But the other guy I just can’t let go of,” she said. “Even if I didn’t see him in our window; even if my eyes were playing tricks on me, the whole incident at the supermarket and in the parking lot with the rice is enough to stay with me for a bit.”

  Will she mention the finger? Patrick wondered.

  “And let’s not forget about the finger,” she said.

  Patrick sipped his martini, kept his eyes down and chose silence. Amy reached across the table and took hold of his free hand. “Don’t get me wrong, baby—I’m enjoying myself tonight, I really am. But I wonder if we should even be here.”

  “Out to dinner?”

  “Crescent Lake.”

  Patrick asked something he already knew. “Do you want to leave?”

  She looked at her wine again. There was a small sip left that she swirled in her glass with two fingers on the base of the stem. “No,” she said. “I don’t. But don’t expect me to suddenly forget everything that’s happened. That finger could have been made of rubber, been a prank from a kid. And I could have been seeing things when I looked out the window and saw the supermarket guy last night. But it still doesn’t put my mind at ease, Patrick. You can’t expect otherwise.”

  “I don’t. You know I don’t. And if I was in your shoes I’d feel exactly the same way.” He picked up her hand and kissed it.

  She smiled, a stronger one this time, then gulped the remainder of her wine. “I think I need another.”

  “Then another you shall have.”

  Another good smile. “Why did we even start talking about all this crap again?”

  Patrick shrugged. “Beats me. Small talk until the main course arrives?”

  She pursed her lips. “Oh right—that conversation definitely qualified as small talk.”

  Patrick laughed and kissed her hand again. The waiter came by and cleared their salad plates and Patrick used the opportunity to drain the rest of his drink as well.

  “Would you folks care for another round?” the waiter asked.

  “Yes please,” Patrick said.

  When the waiter brought their next round, Amy said, “So is the plan to keep drinking until we forget about everything?”

  Patrick raised his glass. “Works for me.”

  23

  Arty and Jim squatted in the backyard of the cabin they’d selected, their bodies cloaked by the surrounding black the woods provided. The cabin was close to the Lambert’s, making it an ideal transitional spot for them to prepare.

  “Could be on a timer,” Jim whispered, motioning to the lit windows of the transition cabin.

  “Doubt it,” Arty said.

  They shuffled side by side, to the left of the cabin. There was a car in the driveway. Arty pointed to it. “Somebody’s home.”

  24

  On the ride home, Patrick said, “Such a great meal. Lorraine and Norm have discovered a little gem in that spot.”

  Amy leaned back against the headrest and sighed. “It was good wasn’t it?”

  “Very. Duck was amazing.”

  “Better than Nicola’s back home?”

  “Pretty damn close.”

  Amy curled to one side, closed her eyes but asked, “So what now?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean do you want to head back or do you want to go somewhere for a drink?”

  “I thought you might ask that.” Patrick released the sneaky smile he’d been fighting since leaving the restaurant. “Your wonderfully thoughtful husband happens to have a bottle of Cristal chilling comfortably at the cabin as we speak.”

  Amy opened her eyes. “What?”

  “Oh yes. Your man can be quite the devious fellow.”

  Amy leaned to her left and planted a big one on the side of Patrick’s mouth. “I love Cristal,” she said.

  “I know you do.”

  “What about our little moon-lit stroll around the lake?” she asked.

  “We can do that after.”

  “After what?”

  “After the champagne and…”

  Amy looked at her husband with an accusatory, albeit playful eye. “The champagne and…?”

  “Well, honey, if the champagne happens to puts you in a certain mood, then I can’t be held responsible for that, can I?”

  Amy laughed. “You are absolutely shameless.”

  Patrick shrugged. “Cozy cabin in the woods? Cristal waiting for us? Kids occupied with good friends? Call me the world’s biggest perv if you must, but I’m just lookin’ to engage in some hardcore lovin’ with my sexy wife as often as humanly possible.”

  “Big perv…” And then, leaning to her left once more, she pressed her lips to his ear, kissed and licked the lobe. Whispered, “But you’re forgiven.”

  Patrick stomped the accelerator.

  25

  Lois Blocker had just finished packing away the kitchen. Her husband Maury was making the rounds throughout the cabin’s interior to ensure nothing would be left behind when they left for the winter. Unlike many other residents who were o
ften gone after Labor Day, the couple enjoyed the bracing months of October and November at Crescent Lake. This year, however, the Blockers were leaving early. And for good reason: their children had surprised them with a trip to the Virgin Islands. Just the two of them. Late autumn at the lake was indeed an enjoyable tradition, but sipping margaritas on a sandy white beach in St. Croix sounded pretty darn good too.

  “You sure you want to leave tonight?” Lois asked when Maury joined her in the kitchen.

  Maury pushed his rimless glasses further up onto his nose and brushed a hand through his thinning gray hair. “Are you forgetting the sandy paradise that awaits us?”

  “I mean tonight—this late.”

  “I’ve already switched the heat and water off, sweetheart. Might as well just get going.”

  “But it’s dark now. I don’t like you driving at night.”

  He stood behind her at the sink and wrapped his arms around her waist. “Would you rather drive?” he smiled, reaching around and tapping her glasses, far thicker than his.

  She turned and faced him. “Wise guy. I’d rather neither of us drove.”

  He brushed a strand of salt and pepper hair out her face. “I want to get home; I’d like to get settled in and unpacked before we start having to re-pack for St. Croix.”

  She patted him on the butt. “You know darn well that we’ll both be in bed as soon as we get home. There’s nothing that can’t wait until morning.”

  “But if we leave in the morning we won’t be home until noon.”

  “Oh and I suppose that means our whole day will be shot?” She kissed him. “Come on, honey, you can leave the water off; just switch the heat back on and we can have a good night’s sleep, start bright and early tomorrow.”

  He groaned.

  She kissed him again. “Perhaps I’ll make tonight worth your while.”

  He pulled his head away and feigned shock. “Lois Blocker! Act your age.”

  She giggled. “This is the new millennium, dear husband. Sixty-five is the new forty, you know.”