by Dan Lopez
Something feels off about this conversation. Who is this person you are texting with and why is their number not in Eddie’s phone? You read over what’s been written as you drive. The thread feels hectic, forced—laying claim to a familiarity not borne out in the anonymous nature of the exchange.
Who is this? you ask.
Silence. Not even an indication that the other party is typing a response.
Enough.
You’ve risked too much for one night already. You toss the phone onto the passenger seat. Better to go radio silent and stick to the plan. The road is long between here and Cocoa Beach, and the slash pine flatwoods and cypress hammocks of the Tosohatchee preserve present plenty of opportunities to dispose of a body. Alligators will eat anything.
The phone, of course, will continue on to lunch at the Cocoa Beach municipal pier: an outgoing tide, beautiful bodies all around, a mahi-mahi sandwich with a thick lemon wedge and steak fries, served in a red plastic basket lined in checkered wax paper, #blessed #foodporn #sunsoutgunsout. How easy it would be to reach for a phone with greasy fingers, to lose your grip on the thin device and have it slip, and what bad luck to scramble to recover it only to accidentally knock it over the edge of the pier with the toe of your flip-flops. A shame, really, but hardly the first thing lost to the wild, wide freedom of the sea.
All that comes later. For now you drive. You drive on into the rising sun.
THE ROAD STRETCHES BEHIND HER LIKE A RIBBON STRIPPED from a spool.
Silence.
She doesn’t dare respond to Eddie’s text. Either Alex is with him or he isn’t, but she’s reached the end of her road. She turns the truck toward home. Traffic grinds on as expected and the drive gives her time to think. Neither Bill nor Rusty has attempted to contact her all morning. For a moment, she fantasizes that everything that has transpired since last night is a figment of her imagination. Perhaps she is having a nightmare and at any moment she will wake up alone in her bed, safe under the sheets. Why stop there? Maybe the last six months have been a nightmare.
She’s not that lucky.
Reality demands its due. The life she’s known and worked hard to build is over. She may still salvage something of her career, but it will take time and a fair bit of luck. In the interim she might make a good receptionist at a doctor’s office. She could enjoy gallery work, or perhaps something in real estate.
Her focus shifts to practical matters. How long will her savings last? Will she lose the house?
The possibilities keep her occupied until she pulls into her parking spot. Climbing out of the truck, her legs feel heavy in the thick atmosphere of a bright, humid morning. She’s exhausted and all she wants is to nap, but afterward she’ll take herself to the pool and allow the sun and the water to drive away everything enslaving her spirit. She failed Esther. Alex crossed over into adulthood. She didn’t do her job well. But there it is: sometimes you lose.
She opens the door and steps into the cool cavern that is her town house. A familiar scent greets her.
“Lails?”
“Alex?” The blinds are drawn, the lights are out, and her eyes have not adjusted, but yet she charges forward into the living room. “Papo, is that you?!”
A quiet voice answers: “Yeah.” (Has she ever known him to sound so glum?)
As soon as she enters his line of sight, he scrambles off the couch and rushes her. In the span of a breath, he’s wrapped his long arms around her and buried his face in her neck. He’s taller than her and has to hunch over to make it fit, but he does so. He smells like boy, like heat and sweat; a cloying cologne lingers along his hairline. It smells nothing like Eddie’s apartment. Hot tears wet her skin, dulling the scratch of his bristly cheek against her neck. He shudders and his knees buckle, but she props him up. She soothes his scalp with her hand and hums into his ear the way Félix did when she was little and the world seemed so large and scary.
“Shh. Hey, it’s okay, papo,” she says. “Everything’s going to be fine. I’m here.” And it’s all she can manage, even as he falteringly apologizes for everything. “I’m here,” she repeats. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PHOTO BY ERIC NEWMAN
Dan Lopez’s work has appeared in The Millions, Storychord, Time Out New York, and Lambda Literary, among others. The Show House is his first novel.
