The Hungry Season

by Greenwood, T.

  Finn jumped down off the log pile. “Whatever, Misty.You do what you’ve got to do.” He couldn’t stop himself. “Or who.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “I don’t know, why don’t you tell me?” Finn had no idea if she’d cheated on him, but he didn’t want her to get away with this so easily. He wanted her to feel even a sliver of what he was feeling, which was a whole lot of crap.

  And then she was crying. This, he didn’t expect. And it made him feel good and bad in equal measures.

  “Mist?” he said.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just that I missed you so much, and I’ve been so confused. And everything with you is always so, I don’t know, fucking heavy.You’ve got this cloud over you, Finn, and it’s dark. Pete’s just so easy. And he’s going to Brown too. I’m sorry, Finny. I didn’t mean to hurt you. At all.”

  Pete. His supposed friend, Pete. Here he’d been worried this whole time about that asshole Justin. “Did you sleep with him?” Finn asked. “Because if you did, you’re a fucking slut. And good riddance. Have fun at Brown, Misty. Have a great fucking life.”

  He hung up the phone before she could answer. He didn’t want to know the answer. Not really. He and Misty had fooled around, a lot, but they were always so messed up on X or stoned that it never went any further than kissing. The idea of her sleeping with someone made his whole body ache. The idea of her sleeping with Pete made his eyes burn.

  He’d hung up the phone and dialed Alice’s number. She could help take his mind off shit.

  “Hey,” he said, his hands shaking.

  “Hi, Finn! What’s up?

  “It smells so good in your house,” she says.

  His mom has gone to rehearsals already, and he figures his dad won’t even notice that he has company. He’s been up in the loft since after dinner, shuffling through papers, clacking away at his laptop. Before his mom left, she made baklava.The whole house smells like it. But his room smells like incense, that Nag Champa shit he burns to keep his room from smelling like pot.

  “This room smells like feet.” She grimaces.

  “Thanks,” he says. “I’ve been working on my dirty hippie smell.”

  “Your room is so cool,” she says, scanning the walls, which are bare except for a few posters he’s put up. The Clash. The Ramones. A Victoria’s Secret ad. He feels his ears getting hot.

  “She’s all right,” she says, nodding. “Kinda trampy though, don’t you think?”

  He nods. Feels his skin growing hot. He thinks about Misty, about the way her thong would show whenever she bent over, peeking out over the waistband of her hundred-dollar Lucky jeans. Expensive clothes on such a cheap fucking whore.

  “And this is where the magic happens, must be,” Alice says, plopping down on the bed.

  “The magic?”

  “Geez, Louise, you never seen Cribs? I thought I was the hick.”

  “Oh,” he says. He’s suddenly wondering if he should have brought her here at all.

  “That your surfboard?” she asks, gesturing to his long board, which is tilted awkwardly in the corner. He insisted on bringing it with him despite his mother’s obvious irritation, because of his mother’s obvious irritation. They had strapped it to the roof of the station wagon with bungee cords.

  “One of them. I’ve got a short board at home too. This is my old one.The one I learned on.As soon as I get back to California, I’m going to buy a new one. I know a guy in PB who makes custom sticks.”

  “That’s cool,” she says. She’s lying on his bed now, looking at the ceiling.

  “I’ve got stars on my ceiling too,” she says. “My dad put them there when I was really little. But he screwed them up. They aren’t even in constellations. They’re just a big mess.”

  “My sister did these,” he says. Finn remembers putting the stars on the ceiling with Franny. He had wanted to just put them up, but Franny had insisted on using the map included in the package. He remembers her directing him: Ursula Major, Big Dipper, Cassiopeia. Now when he falls asleep at night he lies on his stomach, face down. He can’t stand to look up into that ordered sky.

  “I wish I had a sister,” Alice says.

  He nods.

  Finn feels like a dumb ass just standing there, so he lies down next to her on the narrow bed. He looks up at the ceiling, at the stars, the yellow plastic barely discernible from the white ceiling. He feels the edge of her hand touching his, and he opens up his palm, slowly turning it to meet hers. Their fingers lace together tightly, and he squeezes his eyes shut.

  “Truth or dare,” she says.

  “What?”

  “Truth or dare, you know, the game? Here, I’ll do it first. Ask me.”

  “Truth,” he says. “Tell me a secret.”

  Alice closes her eyes. He turns his head and looks at her. Her hair is spilled all over his sheets. She’s pretty, he thinks. For a kid.

  “My daddy’s in jail for beating the shit out of my mom. I’m pretty sure that when he gets out he’s going to come after us.”

  “Jesus,” Finn says.

  Alice opens her eyes and turns to face him too. “Now your turn. Truth or dare?” He thinks about it. He looks at her; her eyes are wide and expectant. He wishes he could say Truth. He wishes he could tell it. He wishes he even knew what it was. And so he says, instead, not ready, not able, or both, “Dare.”

  Mena has made a giant pan of baklava, which she sets down at the table next to the coffee inside the Town Hall. The ingredients she’d asked Sam to order online had finally arrived (the eggplant paste, the quince preserves, the boxes of bucatini). She’d had to wait until she had orange blossom honey before she could make baklava. She wouldn’t make it without the special honey. Mena peels the plastic wrap off the pan, which is still warm.

  “Hi,” Jake says.

  She looks up and smiles. “Hi.”

  “Did you make this?” he asks.

  “I did,” she says. “It’s still warm. Do you want a piece?”

  “Absolutely. I’m totally starving. I got caught up in the shop tonight and forgot to eat dinner.”

  “Well, this isn’t much of a dinner,” she says, slipping a flaky triangle onto a napkin and handing it to him.

  He eats half of the piece in one bite, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Mmmm. This is delicious.”

  She feels heat rise up somewhere through the center of her body. She knows she shouldn’t feel this way, she isn’t supposed to feel this way, but still she allows that heat to spread, enjoys the way it extends, like a hot river down her arms and legs, up into her face.

  “You missed a little,” she says, gesturing to a small crumble of walnut in the corner of his mouth.

  He wipes at it with the napkin, misses.

  “Here,” she says, and dabs at the crumb with her own napkin.

  “Thanks,” he says, and smiles at her. But his smile lasts too long, and suddenly all that hot liquid freezes. She thinks of Sam. What is she doing? God, is she flirting with this guy?

  “I made baklava!” she says in her mother’s voice, which booms through the small room.

  “Oh yum!” Anne says, and suddenly everyone is swarming around the table.

  Lisa has them rehearsing the first scene of the play. Mena loves how the play opens with an argument, with violence. Shepard wastes no time. And May is there, in the thick of it, as soon as the curtain rises. Well, if there were a curtain. For now, there’s just some strike tape marking off where the stage will be.

  “ ‘You smell,’ ” she says to Jake. Jake has the cowboy hat that Anne brought in cocked forward on his head. He looks up at her from underneath its wasted rim.

  “ ‘I been drivin’ for days,’ ” he says. And she imagines him, Jake, Eddie, driving across the desert to find her, the heat vapors playing tricks on his eyes. He’s right. He’s come so far. But still, he smells. She smelled it when he came through the motel door. When she pulled his hand to her fa
ce to check. His fingers.

  “ ‘Horses,’ ” Eddie says, his lip rising up on one side. Is he mocking her?

  “ ‘Pussy,’ ” she spits.

  Still, he won’t admit it. He can’t ever admit it. She imagines the Countess, the rich bitch he’s been screwing.

  “ ‘I’m goin’,’ ” he says, adjusts his hat and makes his way to the makeshift door.

  “ ‘Don’t go!!!’ ” she screams, surprised by her own voice, by the absolute desperation of it. By the keening. She moves to the bed, just a cot for now, and throws herself onto it, writhing, moaning, clutching the lumpy feather pillow.

  And then he’s back. He always comes back. She feels the relief well up inside her almost as big as the anger was.

  “ ‘What am I gonna do?’ ” Eddie asks, and as he does so, he bends down to her where she is crouched on the dusty floor like an animal. She is an animal, a wounded beast.

  He forces her chin up with his hand, making her look into his eyes, and she watches the flecks of gold swim among all that green. Goddamned Eddie.

  “ ‘You’re gonna erase me.’ ”

  And as the words come out, she pictures herself, the Cheshire cat, slowly fading into a background of desert sand, of desert sky. But there is no smile to leave behind, and so she simply disappears.

  “You guys are so, so, so good,” Anne says when they break. “It’s like you were meant for these roles. Lisa doesn’t even have to direct you. This play is going to be awesome. They did it at my school last fall and it wasn’t anywhere near as good as this.”

  They are standing out on the porch of the Town Hall, which faces a cemetery on the opposite side of the street.

  Mena is feeling exhilarated. Antsy. Every inch of her is tingling. She keeps rubbing her arms, as if the sensation she’s feeling in all of her nerve endings is as simple as being cold.

  “You chilly?” Jake asks. “I’ve got a sweater in my car.”

  “No, I’m fine. Thanks though.”

  “Five more minutes,” Anne says, tapping her watch. And then she disappears back into the building.

  Jake pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his jeans pocket and smacks it against the palm of his hand. He taps the pack so that a cigarette shoots part of the way out and gestures to her. “Want one?”

  She shakes her head.

  “Nasty habit. Can you believe it? I didn’t start smoking until my wife and I separated. I made it through my entire adolescence, through college without even taking a drag. Now, I probably couldn’t quit if I tried.”

  She nods and looks up at a street lamp, watches some slow-moving moths circle the light.

  “Are you having fun?” he asks.

  At first she doesn’t understand.

  “With the play. It’s fun, no?”

  “Yeah,” she says, and rubs her arms three times quickly. “I’m having a good time.”

  They return to the first scene after the break, trying different things. At one point, Eddie threatens to leave again and she holds on to his legs, clinging, pressing her face into the back of his knees as he drags her across the floor to the door.

  Later, as she drives back to the cabin, she turns on the heat in the car, but she still can’t stop trembling. And after she gets home, when she starts to get ready for bed, she will feel the places where her skin burned against the wood floor. Touch the raw flesh that by morning will have already started to scab over, to heal.

  “Teach me how to surf,” Alice says, sitting up suddenly. “What?”

  “You picked Dare, and I dare you to teach me how to surf.” She jumps off his bed and slips her flip-flops on.

  “You can’t surf here.” He laughs.

  “Then why did you bring your surfboard?”

  Finn looks at her to see if she’s kidding around, but she’s dead serious. “You have to have waves to surf. The ocean.”

  “Why?” she asks.

  “Because that’s what surfing is. It’s riding the waves. The surf?” He laughs and lies back down on his bed. It’s getting dark out, and the artificial stars are starting to glow.

  “Let’s try it anyway,” she says, and reaches for his hand. She pulls him up off the bed. “Come on! It’ll be fun.”

  Once he’s standing up, he realizes she’s not going to let this one go.

  “All right,” he says, and shrugs. “It’s your dare.”

  A huge shit-eating grin spreads across her face. When she does that her eyes get really small. It makes him smile. It’s the first time he’s smiled all day. All week maybe.

  They make their way out of the house as quietly as they can. The light is on in the loft, but it’s quiet. He wonders if his dad has fallen asleep up there.

  It’s a warm night, and for one disorienting minute as they walk down the winding path to the water, him carrying the surfboard under his arm, he could be at home. He feels a wave of homesickness. Alice walks behind him, holding onto the back of his T-shirt, following his lead. There are only a small row of faintly glowing solar lights illuminating the path.

  “Okay,” Alice says. “What do I do?”

  “I don’t know,” he says. Smiles. “I’ve never surfed a lake before.”

  He’s got his board shorts on, and Alice is still wearing her suit from earlier in the day. She pulls off her T-shirt and shorts and chucks her flip-flops onto the grass. “Well, let’s try.”

  He puts the board into the still water, and they both wade in.

  “Here,” he says. “Lie down on your stomach.”

  He helps her onto the board. She’s so tiny; the board is way too big for her.

  “Like this?”

  He nods. “I’ll swim out next to you.”

  He shows her how to paddle out. He can barely make her out in the dark, and he’s wondering if he should have put the leash on. If they lose the board out here tonight, they might never find it again.

  He’s grateful for the moon. Once they get out about a hundred yards, he can see her more clearly.

  “What next?” she asks. “When do I stand up?”

  He laughs, and his laughter echoes on the still lake.

  “You can’t stand up. You’ll sink,” he says. “I told you, you need waves. Otherwise, it’s just ... I don’t know, floating.”

  She throws her head back and laughs too. This makes him laugh harder. Soon they are both laughing so hard he almost gets a cramp. Their voices turn into one giant laugh that echoes back to itself. A loon cackles back, which makes them laugh even harder.

  “Can I get on there with you?” he asks. “I’m gonna fucking drown.”

  “Sure,” she says. “What do I do?”

  He helps her sit up and then he slowly climbs onto the board in front of her.

  “It’s kind of like riding a horse,” she says.

  “Is it?”

  “Sure, my grandmother has horses. I’ve been riding since I was a little kid. I actually think my dad was the one who taught me how to ride. I don’t really remember that well. But I do remember holding on to him; I remember the way he smelled. Sometimes I’ll catch that smell somewhere, probably just whatever detergent my mom used, and I’ll remember that. You know, the good stuff about him.”

  Finn nods. He can remember but cannot name the exact smell of Franny.

  “Look!” she says suddenly, and points to the sky.

  “What?”

  “That’s the Big Dipper,” she says. “Or maybe it’s the Little Dipper. Do you know?”

  He peers at the stars glowing faintly in the dark sky and shrugs.

  “It’s kind of cold,” she says, and puts her arms around his waist. She leans her head against his back. He smells the wet smell of her hair, her shampoo.

  “We should get back,” he says, his voice breaking in a way he hopes she didn’t hear. He can see a light on in the downstairs of the cabin. His mom is back from rehearsals, and he’s going to be in deep shit.

  “Not yet,” she says. “Let’s just stay a little bit longer.” />
  The tow truck driver had given Dale the name and address of the shop scrawled on the back of a greasy business card. And Troy offered to give her, and her crap, a ride to the motel. “It’s near where I work. It’s no Hilton, but they got an outdoor pool and AC. HBO too, I think. And it’s dirt cheap. I lived there for a whole month when I first moved to town.”

  “What do you do?” she had asked as he helped her load her stuff into his truck.

  “I’m a tattoo artist,” he said. “You got any ink?”

  Dale shook her head, thought of Thoreau and wondered what he’d say right now if he knew what had happened to the Bug. Puff the Magic Dragon. Damn.

  They got into the truck and he turned on the AC. It felt so good. So cold and good. She trembled.

  “You oughta let me do a piece on you. Wouldn’t have to be anything big or fancy. Maybe a butterfly? A little rose? A flame?”

  Dale shook her head, blushed.

  “You got pretty skin,” he said. “A nice canvas.” He nodded and smiled.

  She could suddenly feel every inch of her skin. “Thank you.”

  The motel was definitely cheap, but it was clean, and the guy at the repair shop promised he’d have the car fixed by the weekend. Troy came by to check on her after she got settled in that night, brought a bucket of chicken. After they were done eating, he started to rub her back, and she knew what was going to happen next. He undressed and she undressed and then they were on the bed kissing and she felt happier than she had felt in a long, long time. He was covered with tattoos, and she imagined the pictures telling a story to her as they made love. And he, unlike Fitz, stayed. He only left when it was time for him to go to the tattoo shop. She spent the entire next day pacing back and forth on the sidewalk in front of the motel, waiting for him to come back.

  And he did come back, that night and every night after the tattoo shop closed.They ate dinner together in the motel room: Chinese food, Pizza Hut. They watched HBO and played gin rummy naked. By Wednesday, he’d talked her into it.