Anthropology of an American Girl

by Hilary Thayer Hamann

  “Hey, Rob,” one of the guys called. “Sometime this century.”

  “Keep your shorts on,” he barked back, then he put his cap on my head, adjusting it until it was low near the bridge of my sunglasses. “Red Sox,” he said. “Don’t lose it.”

  My bike just about fit into the trunk of the Cougar, and Rob threaded his tank top through the metal coupling and tied a knot to hold it in. He had white surgical tape around his wrist. I could not see his tattoo from where I sat because it was on his left bicep and he was driving. It was a lightning bolt through the word Zeus. At the carnival that time, Rob told Laura Lasser that Zeus came down to fertilize the earth. He peered into her blushing face. “You know what I’m talking about, to fertilize, right?”

  We dropped the bike at the house and left a note for Rourke to meet us, then we grabbed some pizza and ate it on the hood of the car, watching the mellow defervescence of day. In the waning heat, the village seemed a place of endless possibilities. Everyone waved like they knew us.

  “That’s because they do,” Rob said. “Everybody knows you.”

  On the way down Old Montauk Highway to Surfside, I was thinking that life is like being born into a prison that is you, and there comes one opportunity to escape, one second when everything coalesces into something like perfect timing, and you dash, or you don’t. Maybe everyone gets a chance to run, but not everyone goes for it. That summer I had the feeling of being on the outside, of having crossed over. I was thinking about that, and about bravery and identities that are original, about my grandparents getting on boats alone when they were fourteen and coming to America from Europe. I was thinking of opportunities my father never had because of risks taken by his own parents, and whether my mother had wanted me. If my mother hadn’t wanted me, she must have felt bad about that, over time, through the years. And I was thinking of Rourke, how he could not be possessed, how I loved him for it, but at the same time I knew I couldn’t ever let go. I wanted to ask Rob. I had the feeling Rob would have something to say about releasing things you love.

  “Today’s my birthday,” he said as I reached for the door handle.

  “Oh,” I said, turning back in. “Happy birthday, Rob.” I reached to kiss him, leaning far because he was still at the wheel. It was nice that he wanted to spend it with me.

  Surfside was in that peculiar state of restaurant nothingness before the full staff arrives, when the kitchen and bar are the only points of activity, and the main room is set but sleepy and unpeopled. When I was little, my mother used to waitress part-time at Bobby Van’s in Bridgehampton, and sometimes she’d take me to work with her. Between jobs such as polishing spots off silverware or folding napkins, I would eat pan-fried hamburgers and do homework and draw on Guest Check pads. Before closing, I would get chocolate ice cream in the overbright kitchen, then fall asleep in a back booth until my mother was done. She would put her feet up and count cash.

  “What are you thinkin’ about?” Rob asked. We were in the doorway, white ocean light behind us. Probably we looked cool like thieves or ranchers.

  “Nothing,” I said. “My mother.”

  The bathroom was frilly, like a man’s idea of a ladies’ room. I brushed the sand from my skin and washed my hair under the faucet. It had gotten longer and lighter over the summer; it went straight below my jaw, and I had bangs. I removed my bathing suit. Two white triangles marked my breasts, and one marked my bottom. I threw on khakis and a white top I’d taken up to the beach with me so I could go shopping before riding my bike home. My breasts had gotten bigger. I wondered how long had they been that way. Maybe from birth control pills.

  Rob was at the bar. I walked over, and the bartender stopped cutting limes. He smiled, saying his name was Val. I returned the Red Sox hat to Rob, and I said my name was Eveline. Val was a curious name for a man, I thought, without obvious origin. Rob and I drank two mint juleps each, and when Val started to make us another, Rob said, “Just one. No more for her.”

  “Why, what’s the problem?” Val wanted to know.

  “With the Contessa over here? I gotta keep my eye on her,” Rob stated matter-of-factly. “She’s very loosely wrapped.”

  Before the dinner shift started, Val went on break. Rob and I joined him out back behind the building, cutting through the kitchen. We headed through a screen door so covered in gunk that it didn’t even bang when it slammed shut. It made a sound like a donkey—hee haw. Then—nothing. Right away Val lit a joint. It had been months since I’d gotten high, the last time was the night I broke up with Jack. I didn’t really feel like it, but I didn’t want to say no since it was Rob’s birthday. It hit me quickly. I’d forgotten the way everything leapt to life: the smell of creosote from the retaining wall, the growl of the walk-in refrigerator, the insects sawing noisily, the uneven clamor from the kitchen, the waitresses calling early orders, the newly sizzling things, the clinking racks of last night’s glasses exiting the dishwasher. I felt myself shiver. My skin felt sunburned, which is to say both cold and warm at the same time. Rob removed my sunglasses to clean them, and I thought about Val’s name, whether it was Valery or Valentin.

  “Vallejo—it’s my last name. My first name’s Rick,” he said. “My grandfather was Juan Vallejo, a matador from Pamplona who got pinned in the ring. The bull’s horns came on either side of his chest. He survived, but he had scars here and here.” Val opened his shirt and pointed to the pockets beneath his arms. His body was like his name, sleek and curiosity-inspiring.

  “Funny coincidence,” Rob said. “Evie’s reading Hemingway—the bullfighting book.”

  The cook came up to the kitchen door. He pulled a navy bandana from his pants pocket and tied it ceremoniously around his head. “You guys feel like eating?” he asked.

  Rob said, “Absolutely!”

  Within the half hour, three plates of grilled tuna hit the bar. The tuna steaks were shaped like triangles with charcoal stripes, and the vegetables were twigs stacked like teepees. There was a little ball of wild rice. I couldn’t imagine eating; it made me sick just to look.

  “I’m gonna take a walk,” I proposed.

  “What are you talking about?” Rob asked incredulously. “The food just got here.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing, which seemed to make him nervous. Instead of arguing, he gazed into his plate like it was a far-off horizon. “Where to?” he asked, taking a bite, chewing, not looking up.

  “The bathroom.”

  “The bathroom,” he repeated, processing. “You planning to use it, or are you just going sightseeing?”

  I said, “Sightseeing.”

  “At least she’s honest,” Val said.

  “Let me tell you something,” Rob said, “I’d rather watch somebody’s dog than their girlfriend.” He tapped my plate with his knife. “C’mon, eat first, babe,” he advised. “It’s on the house.”

  ——

  Montauk Daisies are sturdy low bushes that grow in sand, and out by the road where Rob parked there were several, a few beginning to bloom. It was early for flowers. Usually they don’t flower until mid-September.

  One of the bushes was by the rear fender of Rob’s car, so I propped open the driver’s door and sat sideways in the seat, facing the plant, facing south over the ocean, kicking my feet through the renegade sand that had made its way to the roadside. The ground had begun to turn cold, the way it does on late summer evenings. I brushed my hair and put on lipstick and played around with Rob’s eight-tracks—the Four Seasons, the Stones, the Del Vikings, Stevie Wonder, Frank Sinatra. Though it was totally outdated, he kept an eight-track in his car so nobody would steal his tapes. The floor was littered with empty Chinese take-out containers and flaccid newspapers, and there was a box of Wash’n Dris on the dashboard. Rob was a fanatic about clean hands.

  On the back of a cocktail napkin, I drew the daisy for Rob and I composed a birthday note, which contained the usual sort of wishes, Happy Returns and so on, except that at the end, right b
efore my name, I wrote I love you. I set it under the steering wheel on the glass pane in front of the meters and indicators. For a long time I stared at the words, positive of meaning and sure of fact but uncertain as to why that love was suddenly so emphatic, and I began to cry. In the mirror I saw my tears. They were like little missives, tiny flags and trumpets, announcing messages from the inside of me to the world beyond, though I could not think of what the messages were because at that moment Rourke appeared. Through the passenger window I saw him jog onto the restaurant’s porch, and my tears disintegrated, everything vanishing upward. I heard myself say, “Oh.”

  Rob stepped out of the front door before Rourke stepped in, and Rob gestured to me in the car: Rourke must have asked where I was. It was nice to think that he had come for me. If Rourke did not exist, then maybe I would have ended up with someone like Val, who would have been nice to kiss, though it would not have been love or anything like it. It would have been something lonely and fascinating, like occupying someone else’s house for a night or two, if it happened to be a particularly nice house.

  Rourke propped his shoulder firmly against a porch post and began to talk. From where I sat it looked as if he were keeping the building from folding in upon itself. Rob turned and leaned on the rail. I could only see his back, but I could tell by the uncharacteristic way he slumped, with his arms hanging lifelessly, that he was upset. Rourke I could not read; his body was organized as usual by an economy of action and emotion. I assumed they were arguing. Soon Rob stood and walked back into the bar. Rourke remained in place, staring out, no doubt deciding what to do—wait for me or go in after Rob. He turned and went in.

  I locked the car and took the path back to the restaurant, walking slow. I had the impression I’d forgotten something. I felt for Rob’s keys in my hand, making sure they were there. I looked to my shoes. They were there too. Behind me was nothing. Just Rob’s car and Old Montauk Highway and the ocean, far down.

  The bar had become crowded, but it wasn’t hard to find them. A room changed wholly when Rourke was in it—energy tagged about him in a sort of helix. They observed my approach as I squeezed through the pack to reach them. Rourke put out his arms, jerked me to his chest, and lifted me onto a stool. He touched my halter top, saying, “This is a little revealing to wear in public, isn’t it?”

  “Leave her alone, Harrison,” Rob said dismally. “I picked her up at the beach. She wasn’t there with a suitcase.”

  For the remainder of the night the two of them hardly spoke, though Rob made sure to get one more free meal for Rourke. No matter how angry Rob was, it wouldn’t have been in him to cut Rourke out of a deal. While Rourke ate, Rob kept drinking whatever Val put in front of him. The more Rob drank, the more he kept reaching out to others, greeting old friends, making new ones, until eventually we’d become a sizable crowd. Rob commandeered the pool table and hustled six players before turning to Rourke and challenging him to “a serious game.” Rourke consented, standing without a word, as though he’d expected the invitation. It occurred to me that Rob had intended to play Rourke from the start; that all the other games had been leading to this one.

  They each laid down two twenty-dollar bills. Though the bar was noisy, there was the impression of silence in our area. The men concentrated on the table, moving around it like it was theirs and theirs alone. As one would shoot, the eyes of the other would lock on the ball pattern, memorizing the layout. The game had a different quality than the preceding ones; not only was it an even match, but Rob and Rourke had obviously played together thousands of times. In the end, Rob won, but it was unclear whether Rourke had simply let him.

  “C’mon,” Rob said. “I’ll give you a chance to win your money back.”

  Rourke handed Rob the twenties and said, “Happy birthday.”

  I stood off my stool and gave it up to Rourke, who sat and pulled me onto his lap. I felt his thigh between my legs. Next up against Rob was Roger, the captain from the slow-pitch team, but by then I’d stopped paying attention. I was distracted by Rourke; he was distracted too. I could tell by the death-like tranquility of his hands. Through my stupor, I could only register the knock and split of the balls, the slugs of color whizzing across the verdant felt, the thuckish gulps of the pockets swallowing balls, the ups and downs of drunken conversation.

  “He’s doing really good,” I said to Rourke. “Too bad there’s no girl to impress.”

  “There is,” Rourke said. “You.”

  We were outside—midnight, a little after, walking to the cars. Ahead was the sea, and behind, the chime of Rob’s keys kicking up irregularly, which gave us an indication of how he was walking.

  Roger and the guys were taking him to meet some girls.

  “You’re not driving,” Rourke turned and said. “Remember?”

  Rob took his time answering, as if relishing the messy power he had, as if he could not be completely perceived, as if his drunkenness concealed him.

  He made his way around the rear of Rourke’s car, moving with the confidence of a heavily armed man. “We’re going dancing,” Rob slurred as headlights appeared behind him—a car approaching from Montauk. “She loves to dance,” he said of me, his eyes gazing inches beyond my face, somewhere to the left. And then to me, Rob said, “Come dance with us.”

  Rourke grabbed Rob by the shoulders and lifted him forcefully onto the fender just as the car shot past. The rush of wind blew their jackets open.

  Rob tried to shake Rourke off. “I’m all right. I’m all right.”

  Rourke gripped him tighter, shoving him farther. Rob’s gaze trawled upward from Rourke’s chest, its focus continuously adjusting until arriving at Rourke’s face. Rob’s mouth split into a solemn smile of recognition, and when another car came, the headlights glinted off his teeth, and his eyes looked like dry tobacco rings. He threw his arm around Rourke, falling into him, and for a time they were speechless. Rourke slid the keys from Rob’s hand.

  Roger and his friends jogged down the restaurant steps to meet us. “C’mon, birthday boy, let’s go get laid.”

  Rob lurched away with the pack of guys and settled into the front seat of the first car, which was Roger’s Camaro. Roger was a student at Brooklyn Law who made three grand a summer waiting tables at Gosman’s. He flashed his lights and leaned on the horn as they pulled away, and all the passengers screamed out the windows—“Yahhhhhhhh!”

  Rourke seemed lost in thought on the ride home, so I didn’t speak. Back at the cottage I cleaned up a little, then showered while he washed dishes, and when the water turned hotter, I knew he was done. I was cold so I dressed in one of his sweaters, and I knelt alongside him in the living room. He was deconstructing a camera. I had never seen the camera before. I didn’t know where it had come from or what was broken about it. In the action of his hands I tried to follow the action of his mind. He was studying the blown-out mess like it was a chessboard midgame, like he had looked at the pool table with Rob. His hand hovered in studious benediction over the parts before settling on the pieces to replace. I was thinking a fire would be nice.

  Later we went to the bedroom and he undressed me before the mirror. His chest was a block of copper; my skin was copper too, both of us dark from sun. His head was inclined and his lips moved down my neck from ear to shoulder. In bed he drew me onto his chest, not letting go, just holding me, and it was there I remained through to morning. I slept very little, him not at all. Anytime I stirred, he would rock me back to sleep.

  The next day was normal. I showered like normal, and after Rourke picked up Rob at some house on West Lake Drive, and they got the Cougar from Surfside, he and Rourke acted normal, whatever normal was for them—broken bones and film trivia, plates of eggs and engine options and sisters in trouble. One thing was different—when Rob got into his car to leave for Jersey, he kissed me and said, “I love you too.”

  Later that afternoon, when Rourke was driving me to work, he swung the car off Montauk Highway and onto the overlook. He
downshifted to the edge of the lot, rolling dangerously close before pulling the brake. It occurred to me with a degree of fascination that maybe he intended to just, like, fly off. It made me happy to think of dying with him; in fact, of all possible ends for us, it was the one I would have preferred. I recalled the guy Jack had told me about when he’d come back from Outward Bound the previous summer, the one who had fallen off the ridge while hiking. I remembered how Jack and I imagined him floating in space, suspended, like a flag flapping to nowhere.

  Together Rourke and I confronted sundown, and I collapsed into the shadow of his lap, facing him, tracing my name into the parchment of his abdomen. And he sighed, laying his hand upon my bare back, fingering the straps of my shirt.

  31

  When I came out of my room and into the kitchen, my mother set down her book and slid it to the center of the table. She was sitting exactly where I’d left her when I moved out in June. I wondered if that was a good omen or a bad one. She leaned back in her chair. The milk in her coffee pooled to caramel streaks at the top.

  “How’s the packing going?”

  I said, “Almost done.”

  “Feel like going shopping tomorrow?”

  “For what?”

  She thought for a moment, pulling back her lips. “Shampoo. Do you have shampoo?”

  “I figured I’d just take some from upstairs.”

  “Do you still have things in Montauk?”

  “Not really. Anything left will fit into a bag.”

  I visited her once a week to do laundry, mow the lawn, call my father. It wasn’t necessary, but it kept my parents from having to ask questions, which they preferred not to do. As far as they were concerned, I was miles ahead of where they’d been at my age—I was working, going to college, and paying my own way. My father had left home at seventeen to join the army, and when my mother turned seventeen, she married my father. They had no means to help me financially, and no intention of finding the means—they were not about to take out loans or find second jobs. So whatever right they might have had to inquire into my affairs had been relinquished.