American Heart

by Laura Moriarty

  But then Chloe would just be waiting at the pancake house, let down twice, by two Americans in a row.

  I washed my hands, and looked in the mirror, smoothing down my hair. I kept my gaze steady on my own eyes, like I was trying to ask myself for advice and give it at the same time. I rubbed my lips together. I had to get that wallet. I’d figure out a way.

  When I came back to the living room, the doorway to the kitchen was clear.

  “Hey, we’re gonna drink in here,” Matt called out. He was in the kitchen, and I still couldn’t see him. “It’s a carpet and white couch thing. House rules. And you can come in now. Boogie’s done eating.”

  “Okay,” I said. I could smell the cut limes as I moved through the doorway. The kitchen had a low ceiling and ugly brass fixtures on the cabinets, but it was even cleaner than the living room. There were no magnets on the refrigerator and no crumbs on the floor. Aside from the red-and-white checkered dish towel folded over the oven handle, the silver dog bowl and water dish, and a plastic tub of dog treats on top of the fridge, there was no evidence of life—not until I turned and looked in the corner, where Matt P. sat at a table by the kitchen’s only window, which was covered by black Venetian blinds. He was already sipping his drink, and he gestured to the other chair, where my drink sat waiting for me, a slice of lime floating between the ice cubes. I looked back at his glass and felt my lungs go tight. He’d given me a glass that was tall and thin, and his was short and fat.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked. Boogie jingled over and sat on the linoleum by his feet.

  “We got different glasses.” It was all I could come up with.

  “So?”

  I waited, trying to think. “So that’s bad luck.”

  “What?” He shook his head. “No, it isn’t.”

  I shrugged, but I didn’t sit down. I rested my hand on the back of the empty chair. “You can think what you want,” I said. “But don’t you have matching glasses? You seem like the kind of person who would. I mean, most of your stuff is really nice.”

  He looked at me like he couldn’t believe I was serious, like he was waiting for me to start laughing. When I didn’t, he laughed some more.

  “I got matching glasses,” he said. “But what are you talking about mismatched glasses being bad luck? I’ve never heard that in my life.”

  “It’s for real,” I said, and all of a sudden it was like I believed it, not at all like I’d just made it up. I looked him right in the eye, no problem. “My friend Tess and her mom were drinking out of mismatched glasses one time when I came over, and I told them what they were risking. They laughed at me, just like you’re doing now. And let me tell you something.” I leaned away from the table, giving my glass a dirty look. “Ten minutes later, the phone rang. It was the police. Tess’s dad had been hit by a car. And he was dead.”

  I hoped Mr. Villalobos wouldn’t mind me killing him off in a story. Probably not. He was in good health, and generally pretty relaxed.

  Matt crossed his arms over the front of his sweatshirt, still chuckling. “That’s what you call a coincidence, sweetheart. He didn’t die cause they were drinking out of mismatched glasses.”

  I shook my head. “No. There are a lot of stories like that. My grandma could tell you three other stories just like that. And that’s just people she knew.”

  “I’m sure she could,” he said.

  I held my ground. “I don’t mean to be rude to your hospitality. But I’m not giving in on this. Sorry. I’ll sit and talk with you, though.” I sat, but I kept my hands in my lap.

  “You are one nutty girl.” He took another sip from his short glass. “But okay. I’ll get you a matching glass.”

  He got up, opened a cabinet, and got out a tall glass like mine. He poured his drink in, the ice clinking against the new glass, and I could see he’d already sipped enough that it wasn’t going to fill up as high as mine. When his back was still turned, I picked an ice cube out of my glass and slipped it into my coat pocket.

  He came back to the table. “There,” he said. “We got matching glasses now.” He tilted his head. “You want to take off your coat? It’s not exactly cold in here.”

  The apartment was warm, actually. But I needed easy access to the pepper spray. “I’m a little chilled, actually. Would you mind turning up the heat?”

  I thought that was pretty clever. I didn’t see the thermostat in the kitchen. I would only need a few seconds alone with the drinks.

  “I think it’s at seventy. But I’ll go check it.”

  Out he went, but his drink stayed in his hand. And Boogie remained in the kitchen, watching me like he wasn’t fooled by my nice-girl routine at all. It occurred to me that the ice cube in my pocket would be better off melting on the window sill, behind the Venetian blinds. I took it out of my pocket and put it there just before he came back.

  “I bumped it up to seventy-two,” he said. “You’ll probably warm up soon.” When he sat back down, he frowned at my glass. “You’re still not drinking? Even with the matching glasses?”

  I realized he hadn’t asked my name. I guess he didn’t need to know it.

  “You got any milk?” I asked.

  He made a face. “Milk? In a gin and tonic?”

  “No. To drink first. To settle my stomach. Sorry. I always do better if I drink milk first.”

  He just sat there looking at me, no response at all. I worried he guessed I was up to something. I was having to come up with lies so fast, I couldn’t tell how crazy they sounded. I stared back at him, waiting.

  “Girl, you get stranger and stranger.” He got up and headed to the fridge, his back to me again. But it did me no good. He never set down his drink. I stared down at the half-submerged lime in my own drink, my options moving fast through my head: I could leave. I could say I left my phone in the car, and then just not come back. Or I could get up and aim the pepper spray at him, and tell him to give me back Chloe’s money, taking my chances with the dog. Or I could go ahead and take a sip of my drink, and hope that it was fine.

  He set a glass of milk in front of me. A new option appeared in my mind.

  “Thank you,” I said. He turned to put away the milk carton, and before I could overthink it or get too nervous, I knocked the glass of milk off the table. The crash of it made Matt jump. Boogie stood up fast.

  “Oh crap!” I said. “I’m so sorry!”

  He put his hands to his head and looked down at the mess like it was the first sign of the apocalypse. Boogie started to whimper, looking up at his face, and for a second, it seemed I’d very much made the wrong decision.

  “Let me clean it up,” I said. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry.” I put my foot out like I was trying to figure out where to step. There was glass and milk all over the floor, and I was only wearing socks.

  “Just stay put,” he said, and not nicely. “Boogie.” He snapped his fingers. “Get in the corner.”

  The dog jingled over to the corner and cocked its head, waiting for further instruction. Matt looked back at me. “Don’t touch anything. I’ll be right back.” He set his drink on the table and took one careful step, and then another, until he was out of the room.

  I grabbed my glass and poured a third of my drink over the mess on the floor, letting it mix with the milk and using my free hand to hold back the ice and the lime. Boogie watched me do it. He was still watching when I switched the glasses.

  Matt came back in wearing slippers over his socks. He headed straight for the pantry, getting out a dustpan and a little broom.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said again. I tucked my feet up on my chair, taking a sip of the drink. I could taste the lime, and the pine of the gin. There was a good chance Tess had been paranoid, and that I was being ridiculous.

  After Matt had the glass cleaned up, and the milk wiped away with a wet dish towel, then the floor dried with a clean one, he asked if I wanted a new glass of milk.

  “Thanks, but I’m okay,” I said. “This is actually going d
own easy.” I shook the glass, and the ice rattled. “I have to say, you make a good gin and tonic.”

  As if I knew what I was talking about. As if I sat around drinking gin and tonics all the time. He sat down and took a swallow of his drink, pausing to crunch some ice between his molars.

  “How long have you had Boogie?” I asked. People always want to talk about their dogs. But Matt seemed particularly pleased by the question. He told me he’d gotten him at the pound, on what would have been Boogie’s last day.

  “No lie,” he said, setting down his glass. “It was July first, and the sign on his cage said, ‘This dog may be destroyed on July second.’”

  “Destroyed? It actually said ‘destroyed’?” I shook my head and pretended to take a longer sip than I actually did. Even if it was just a gin and tonic, no drugs. I needed to keep my head. “That’s terrible.”

  “I know it,” he said, looking down at Boogie, who was lying by his feet again. “A good dog like that, wasted. Not right.” He blew through his teeth again. “Not right at all. Makes me sick to think about it. I never had a better friend in my life.”

  He went on about Boogie for a while, telling me how quickly he’d learned to mind, and how the vet said he had such terrible breath because of gingivitis. He talked for a long time about Boogie’s trials at the dog park, where everybody had been afraid of him just because he was a pit bull, and how he’d slowly won everybody over because he was such a good dog. I was watching Matt closely as he talked, waiting for him to crash on the floor or go paralyzed or something, but the whole time he was talking, he was just fine, talking in the lazy way he always talked. He got up and made himself another drink, and after he drank half of that one, he still seemed fine.

  He nodded at my half-empty glass. “You’re not drinking much.”

  “I like to pace myself,” I said. He shrugged like that was okay with him, no big deal. By then, I was starting to feel pretty dumb—he definitely wasn’t a rapist, or at least he wasn’t being one tonight. He was just a guy, a little skeevy, who loved his dog. He was also a thief, I remembered.

  “So no other customers tonight?” I asked, taking another pretend sip. “Nobody else needing a license?”

  He looked at the clock on the stove. It was 12:09. “Guess not.”

  “Even before me? Nobody?”

  He laughed into his glass. “It’s not like there’s always a stampede every night. Some nights I get two people, even three. Sometimes nobody at all.”

  “But I was the first one tonight?”

  He smiled and fluttered his eyelashes. “Yes,” he said, his voice going up like a girl’s. “You’re my first. Honey, nobody’s been here but you.”

  I smiled back, the chill of the drink moving through me. I couldn’t figure out why he would lie and act like Chloe hadn’t just come by. It came to me then, the gin buzzing my brain a little, that maybe he wasn’t lying. Maybe Chloe was. I hadn’t actually seen her knock on his door. When she’d come back to the pancake house so upset, saying he’d taken her money, I’d just gone ahead and believed her. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. Based on the word of a foreign-born Muslim I barely knew, I’d gotten myself so worked up that I’d been ready to pepper-spray an innocent man and maybe his dog. I didn’t know why she would have lied. But that didn’t mean she didn’t have a reason.

  “I’m gonna have another,” Matt said, scooting back his chair. “You want more milk or something?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t even know if she was still at the pancake house. For all I knew, she was long gone. What had she been up to? Why had she lied to me? I put my hand to my mouth, watching Matt as he took a lime slice out of a little container from the refrigerator. All I knew was that I’d been foolish. I’d been played. Twice in one damn day, the first time by my own mother. It was like I just couldn’t learn. I’d be too embarrassed to tell anyone but Tess.

  Matt turned around and looked at me, still holding the lime slice. “You feeling all right? You look like you’re not feeling well.”

  “I’m okay,” I said. I really was, physically speaking, at least. He actually sounded a little drunk, like the wad of chew in his mouth was bigger than usual. For all I knew, he’d been drinking before I even arrived. Maybe that’s what he did every night—came home and drank with Boogie, his best friend. I was at least glad I hadn’t pepper-sprayed him, and made his life even worse.

  He nodded, making a face like something was stuck in his throat. “Cause you look kinda . . . kinda . . . kinda . . . kinda . . .”

  He was looking down at me like he meant to finish what he was saying, but couldn’t get the word out. He grabbed the edge of the counter. The lime slice fell to the floor.

  “You okay?” I asked. But by the time I got the words out, I knew. I jumped out of my chair and got behind it.

  Ho-ly hell, I thought. He was roofied.

  He lowered himself to the floor, still holding the counter with one hand, like he didn’t quite trust his legs. When his rear finally made contact with the linoleum, Boogie walked over, nails clicking. He sniffed Matt’s open mouth; his tail stub wagged a little. He was thinking this was a good thing, his master sitting on the floor, maybe wanting to cuddle. Matt turned his face away, but Boogie jingled over his legs to breathe in his face again. Matt stared hard into the dog’s eyes, like he was trying to communicate something without any words. I put my hand on the pepper spray. I didn’t know how Matt usually told the dog to attack, but the longer I waited, the more it seemed like it was a word he needed to say.

  And now he couldn’t say anything.

  I felt frozen myself. I mean, I knew I could move if I really had to. But I felt like I couldn’t stop staring down at him, at the way his head seemed to be slowly sliding down the cabinets toward the floor, or the way he kept trying to lift one of his arms. That would have been me, if Tess hadn’t warned me. That would have been me sitting on the floor, my arms and legs limp as a doll’s, and he would have been the one sitting up in his chair, feeling just fine, looking down at me. He would have raped me, whether my eyes were open or not. That had been his plan, from the time he said I had to have a drink with him. Even after we’d had that nice talk about the cleaning stuff from Japan. Even when he was laughing with me about the matching glasses, and when he was telling me about how he got Boogie from the pound. He’d just been waiting.

  But now he couldn’t even talk. His mouth started to open and close, over and over, like he was a fish dying on a dock. And something about seeing that made hot tears press against my eyes.

  I was tired of people who didn’t have any standards for themselves. I was tired of people moving through the world like they were playing a game on a screen, like everybody they hurt wasn’t real, and all that mattered was that they won.

  “Tables have turned, haven’t they?” I dried my eyes with the sleeve of my coat. His eyes went wide, but he still didn’t say anything.

  I made my way to the pantry, bringing my chair with me like I was a lion tamer in a circus. I kept my distance from Matt, and though Boogie kept his gaze on me, he didn’t seem alarmed.

  I found a jar of peanut butter in the pantry. There was probably something better in the refrigerator, but Matt’s legs were blocking its door. I unscrewed the lid, reached in for a big dollop, and flicked it, aiming for the floor by Boogie. But the dollop landed on Matt’s hand. Boogie’s tail-stub wagged. When Matt just stared back at him, openmouthed, the dog helped himself, licking the peanut butter off his hand. Matt lifted the hand and turned his head away, blinking. I rinsed off my fingers in the sink, singing a little. I wanted the dog to stay calm, to not think anything worrisome was happening. So I started to hum, and then sing.

  “. . . everything’s gonna be all right, everything’s gonna be all right.”

  I slid open drawers until I found a spoon.

  “You want more?” I asked, holding out a big spoonful of peanut butter. Boogie turned to check with Matt again, and hearing no disagreement, he
jingled over to me. I nearly fell back when he opened his mouth. Matt hadn’t been lying about his breath—it smelled like rotten eggs, even with the peanut butter. I turned my face away to inhale fast, like a swimmer, and I held the breath in as I started to walk backward toward the doorway. Boogie had a big tongue, and he licked up the entire spoonful by the time we got out of the kitchen. I got a little more stingy when we were back in the living room, and then even more stingy as I lured him down the hall. But when we got in the bathroom, I dug as much peanut butter out as I could. I was still singing, and I pretended like I was icing a cake, using the spoon to smear peanut butter across one of the white towels.

  “Bye, Boogie,” I said, shutting the door.

  When I got back to the kitchen, Matt was lying under the open silverware drawer, a metal cheese grater and a butter knife lying on his outstretched legs. I pieced it together. He’d made a last-ditch effort. Bold and brave. But it just hadn’t worked out.

  “Were you gonna try to stab me?” I asked, crouching down beside him. I picked up the butter knife. He stared at me with his pale blue eyes, helpless as a baby.

  “But your original plan was to rape me.” I twirled the knife like a small baton. It was just a butter knife, too dull to do any real damage. Unless it got shoved up somewhere he wouldn’t like. I wouldn’t be a complete animal. I’d keep the blade side in my hand, and the handle wasn’t that big. An eye for eye. Or an eye for the plan of taking an eye. Matt P. could learn how it felt, to have something shoved up where you didn’t want it. He could wake up on his kitchen floor with his own butter knife sticking out of his rectum, and maybe not remember how it got there. Or maybe he would remember. That would be fine, too.

  I set the knife down and reached around him into his back pocket, pulling out his wallet. And there they were. Three folded hundred-dollar bills that belonged to Chloe, plus the five twenties I’d given him. There was also a coupon for a free car wash, and a folded piece of yellow notepaper that read I LOVE DADDY in purple crayon.