by Lydia Millet
“Papa Joe Stalin,” said Lexie promptly.
Perv Pete fancied himself a WWII buff. He liked to talk about the firebombing of Dresden over pepperoni pizza. He said, “Twenty-five thousand burned alive in one night. Women and children. Thanks to Uncle Sam.” He said, “Yeah, that’s right. 9/11 wasn’t shit.”
“Thank you, my dear. I knew I could count on you. Will you take a drink yourself?”
“I’m only seventeen,” said Lexie.
“We used to drink watered wine at dinner,” mused Aleska. “As children. I don’t think it stunted our growth. Hard to tell, though. We were all undersized.”
“My parents are lushes. My mom and stepdad. So I never got into it.”
“Have a splash of the white. If you don’t like it, you can just dump the rest. Sit down with us a while. Won’t you?”
“OK. Yes. Thank you.”
She poured a little wine, took a cautious sip. It tasted sour. Not good, but not that bad.
“Your father isn’t in the picture, I gather?” said Aleska. She had a way of asking prying questions that sounded totally polite. The way she said it, it almost sounded like: hey. It’d be rude of her not to ask.
“He took off when I was in kindergarten. Then, like, later—I think I was in maybe sixth grade?—he ended up in prison. For lame stuff, Spam scams or phishing. Fraud I guess. He was at Lompoc? Near the big fields of flowers?”
“I’m not familiar with that particular prison,” said Aleska.
“You can see the flowers right from the road. Anyway it’s low-security but someone beat him up in there. Some white-power dude. Head injuries. He got kinda brain-damaged after that.”
“I’m sorry,” said Aleska.
“No sweat,” said Lexie. She sipped the wine. “Like you said, right? He’s out of the picture. I barely remember what he looks like anymore.”
They were quiet for a minute. Had Jem fallen asleep, back in there on the couch? Jem liked to sleep.
“Sounds like you had it rough,” said Nina.
“Not like Aleska did,” said Lexie. Was that allowed? Was she supposed to say it? The wine was already making her say stuff. Jem liked to say in vino veritas. His whole dead-language deal.
“Ancient history, dear. As it happens, none of us in this room really grew up with fathers,” said Aleska. “Although—your stepdad? Was he any help?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” said Lexie. Pete standing, boozy and swaying, at the door to her room. One time, the side of his head crushing her face, she tasted greasy hair and earwax.
“To the fatherless children,” said Nina quietly, and lifted her wineglass. Lexie must have been staring at the floor, because when she looked at Nina with the glass raised she was still thinking of it. Like the spot seared into your eyeball if you looked at the sun, except it wasn’t bright. It was dim. A gray rug with a pattern of blue flowers.
Pete’s exit line: Don’t hurt your mother, now. Don’t ever hurt your mother, kid.
He took the low road, Pete.
“The lost children,” said Aleska, and drank.
Did they mean her?
Jun, her only real friend at school, had been adopted from China when she was a baby. It wasn’t fair, Lexie had thought when she listened to Jun’s parents tell her adoption story at their dinner table once, how those adopting parents had to pass a gazillion tests to get a kid to take care of, but people pumping out their own babies didn’t have to pass jack shit. You had to take a bunch of tests to help a kid that needed you, but not to make a brand-new kid you’d warp for twenty years. Or more.
Jem was rapping at the door.
He must have got bored.
“Come in, dear,” said Aleska. “Have a drink.”
“We’re drinking,” said Lexie. Like an idiot.
“A celebration,” said Aleska. “Of the new baby.”
Jem stepped in, nodded briefly at Nina, walked over and bent to kiss his grandma on the cheek.
“You got any Glenlivet?” he asked.
“Something like it,” said Aleska, and waved her hand at the bar. Jem started opening cabinets.
“So,” said Aleska. “Jem. Lexie. How did the two of you meet?”
“Oh. Just online,” said Lexie. Shit.
“You mean, one of those online dating services?” asked Aleska. “They’re popular, I hear.”
“Gram. We’re not dating. Jesus,” said Jem.
“We’re just friends,” said Lexie. “It was more of a chatroom deal.” Not completely a lie. They had chatted. And been in rooms.
“A chatroom. Like, for troubled teens,” said Jem. He held the whiskey bottle but didn’t pour. Kind of frozen.
“For troubled teens?” repeated Aleska. Skeptical. No wonder. Jem had never said “troubled teens” in his whole life.
“Everyone seems to meet on social networking sites these days,” said Nina to Aleska. “When I was coming up, there was no way to meet new people. I mean. Except school or the neighborhood. You had to take what was there. Or leave it. Now—there are downsides, but at least it expands their social possibilities.”
Nina to the rescue! Whoa. Thanks, Nina.
Jem shot the woman a startled look, but she didn’t meet his eyes, just took a dainty sip of her drink.
“So what are they naming the baby girl?” she asked.
“Aubree?” said Jem, turning back to the bar, and poured himself way too much whiskey. An inch from the rim, like it was orange juice. Had he even drunk his very own glass of whiskey before? Didn’t appear that way. She wanted to say, Jem, two fingers, man. Be cool. “Madison? Kinsley?”
“Oh dear. I do hope not,” said Aleska.
“Too nineties,” said Lexie.
“Or eighties,” said Nina.
“We had a lot of Tammis,” said Lexie. “In my class once there were three Tammis. And a Pammi.”
They were shooting the shit after that. The wine started to taste OK. She let Jem get her a second glass. Nudged by Aleska, of course. He wouldn’t have thought of it.
The buzz was lighter than pot, not as sleepy. But less fun than coke. She’d never tried Ely’s meth. One look at the skanks that did it was enough. Plus Toff, for some reason, didn’t want her to. It wasn’t a clean high, he said. That was the nicest he’d ever been, not wanting his stepsister to do his meth.
“I should get used to the Madisons. Mom wants me to go to some private school for senior year,” said Jem. Unexpected.
“What do you want?” asked Aleska.
Jem shrugged.
“Don’t care,” he said. “She’s really into it. I warned her I couldn’t get in anyway. My grades are kinda crap. Some, anyway. Plus I cut all the time. But she said her friend’s on some committee and owes her a major favor. They went to high school together back East. She showed me old pictures. It’s like, this New York all-girls school? That’s been there like, forever? Get this: their mascot is a beaver.”
Lexie laughed.
“Slang,” said Jem to Aleska. “Don’t worry about it.”
He seemed relaxed. Probably the booze, but as she looked at him she thought: what he needed was company. If she was his friend, like if they hung out and did shit together, there was a chance he wouldn’t bother messing with his dad. Wouldn’t want to. He might let it go, even. There might be calm seas.
She could stay on here. Maybe a whole year. Maybe two.
Sex was too obvious. Plus it could backfire. She’d been thinking too small. Selfish. Like, wanting control. It wasn’t cool.
“You should go,” she said. “Mix it up. It’s not like you like being where you are.”
“Yeah,” said Jem, and swirled the whiskey around in his glass. “Whatever. You know. Whatever makes her happy.”
He loved his mom. She should love hers. Shouldn’t she?
But Pete had blocked out her mother. And her mother had no clue. She knew Lexie wasn’t there, but she didn’t know why.
Pete rubbed off all over everything. She used to
tell her mother stuff. But since he started up, she never did. Couldn’t. Too much in the way. Because Pete was the truth and she couldn’t tell it. And she used to be all her mother had. “You’re the only good thing I ever did,” she always said. Not fair. It wasn’t fair to her mother. Her mother didn’t understand. Couldn’t.
The night before she left her mother’d wanted to talk but she hadn’t wanted to. Because she never did anymore. So they just sat there on the sofa, her channel-surfing and her mother clicking through kitten and puppy pictures on her phone. Her favorite pet celebrity: Grumpy Cat. Clicking, clicking. “Look. Isn’t he so funny?” But Lexie’d just rolled her eyes, changed the channel again, not even looked. She hadn’t even looked at Grumpy Cat.
All she felt for her mother was pity. Feeling it was terrible. She didn’t want to. She didn’t want to feel it.
She could try harder, now that she wasn’t living at home. Now that he wasn’t on her. She could be nicer from far away.
But could you just decide? To make love come back?
I CAN’T GO ON
She didn’t tell her mother where she was. She said she was fine, she said she was “awesome.” But not where.
Rita had been upset at first, sure, she got sad. She was sad for a couple weeks. Maybe a few. But she texted Lexie a lot and Lexie sent back perky little texts like Everythings cool, XoJ. Or Im serious, Im doing great. So Rita was OK. She had a teary moment or two, times when she said, My baby girl! Out there alone!
But basically, she was OK.
He wasn’t. Not at all. He missed her like a knife in the gut. It didn’t go away.
Most nights he burrowed into Rita. Dutiful husband. Worked best in the beat-up Naugahyde recliner, where he could look at the row of school pictures over Rita’s shoulder while she straddled him. Portraits, one from each year. They were in frames with hearts and roses on them. All pictures of the girl. His own boys never used to show up for crap like that—school picture day, all that bullshit. So there were no pictures of Ely and Toff’s surly faces to wilt his dick.
He’d look straight at the pictures when Rita was on him. Things were right with the universe, at those moments. Well no. OK. The universe was a 24/7 shitshow. But at least there was order in the sex. Chair, photos in a row. The angles worked.
Rita was solid. She held up her end and she liked to get laid. Couldn’t say that for all women. He’d met her in a fucking mall, been at Sears looking at appliances, and she was walking along holding Lexie’s little hand. Rita dropped some bags, spilled little-girl clothes out, and he was right there so he helped her pick them up. They went to the food court, where Lexie had a milkshake and Rita said he looked like an actor. Some guy who played a Mormon on TV. Lexie was eight then. He’d just thought she was cute. Cute kid, he said to Rita.
Rita meant well. But he always thought of Lexiegirl when it was time to come. Not Lexie: Lexie was her civilian name. Lexiegirl. What he used to call her out loud, a long, long time ago. Before he even slipped a finger in.
He didn’t think of her right off the bat when he and Rita did it. Out of respect. He waited till Rita was done. Or maybe till she dozed off. Happened sometimes. They liked to drink and they weren’t young. He had the timing down pat. Stroke, stroke, sweet fuzzy snatch. Stroke, stroke, little round tits. Then it was fast. Hard. It made him roar, sometimes. Ragged throat noise.
Rita took it as a compliment.
There was guilt, sure, a small tug when he remembered times Lexiegirl had tried to put him off. It lay there till he drank and shut down the memory flashes. Why he’d waited for her to turn sixteen. He kept a silent promise. Sixteen: whatever the law said, come on, it was just a fact, girls turned to women then. In Mexico, the girls turned fifteen and they called it good. The Mexicans were smart. Hard workers and smart about women. Those waiting years, they’d been shit tough. But he was strong. He held fast, he waited. Every birthday after twelve—she got her period that year—there he was, counting down the clock. In some countries, girls got married off at twelve. Shit, ten.
This was a fucked-up place, land of the Puritans. Land of repressed bullshit. One rule for the masters, another for the slaves. Three hundred million hypocrites. Bomb kids in brown countries. Tens of thousands. Drones manned by pimply button-pushers at Langley or Creech blew up shit-tons of Arab babies. Just blew those babies to fucking smithereens. Have these ones, heaven! Muslim babies, stone-dead! You like ’em, God? We chose ’em just for you!
Nice work, soldier. Hey, job well done. Back pat. Or shoulder, maybe. Pat-pat. Bond-bond. Brothers in arms.
Then preach about age of consent. Do as I say, not as I do. Respect life! Holier-than-thou motherfuckers. So fucking holy.
He had photos, but none naked. His best was her in a yellow bikini. Three summers back. She was fourteen. He’d jumped through hoops to get it printed out. Rita kept all her snaps of Lexie on her phone. Be weird to ask her to forward them with no reason. He had to make up a family album project. That Christmas. Said he’d order a photo calendar. And he did. Website. Easy. Then printed out a dozen just of Lexiegirl in her bikini. She was standing with friends, one fat, the other Chinese. Cropped the shit out of them. Gone, girls, he said as he did it. Fuck off, Fatty and Chink. Felt a bit bad thinking that, those girls were OK kids, he drove them to the pool himself that time, all giggling in the back about some picture of an obscene cupcake on Instagram, but shit, your head went where it went.
Kept the dozen printouts in his office safe. Did all his personal business in that office. After hours. Pulled down the blinds. Locked the door. And went for it. Just went for it.
Highlight of every day. Saved it up till it was like a sunburst. Plasma exploding. At the last moment he squeezed his eyes shut. His eyes behind the eyelids felt black-hot.
When one copy got worn out, he burned it in an ashtray and broke out the next.
Variety, though. You needed it. One other photo that he liked, she had clothes on but was leaning forward and you saw cleavage. Made six copies of that. It got him off but it was frustrating. Where were the peachy thighs? Where was the belly button? The Zero G ripe ass? No dimples. No sag. Mostly, where was the luscious cunt? Nothing as good as that. In the bikini picture, you could see everything frontal but the triangle. Even the nipples were there, wet pale fabric of the bra cups showing their shadows.
He missed her smell. Her smell was what he missed and had no way of getting near. He had some dirty panties but the scent faded to nothing over time. Used to bury his face in her. Best time was one weekend when Rita went off to a workshop overnight. Simi Valley. Like, self-help. Self-improvement. He thought, improve myself. That time he was in with her for hours. Not minutes. Still remembered the date. Weather, even. Dinner. Microwave chicken burrito with cheese. Brushed his teeth, Listerine Original, showered. The T-shirt she was wearing. It said pink. Shit yeah. He went down on her like there was nowhere else. And there wasn’t. Core of the world.
She came that time. He could swear it. She didn’t want to but she did. She came on his mouth and he wished never to wash it. Could go around with that all day.
He tried to find the smell in Rita. They had the same genes, didn’t they? A lot of the same, anyway. Half. The faintest reminder. Not similar at all.
He needed to decouple. Lexiegirl from Rita. Slot in the new one where she used to fit.
But he couldn’t stand to. He tried. He saw some on the streets. Some tweenie shows on cable. One actress on one stupid show he thought had decent potential. They trotted them out in barely any clothes. She had those pouty lips. Reminded him. He tried. But in the end, nope, no cigar. Computer no use, obviously. FBI. NSA. Anyway. Fruitless. For now. Brain was locked. Circuits wired. He wouldn’t give up hope. The world would beat her down. She’d come back. She was seventeen. Well, almost eighteen. Almost legal. And shit-poor.
That was good, picturing her return. Come back begging. You’ll beg for it, he told the picture, sitting at his office desk. Beating off. Take me back, Da
ddy Pete.
Two months in, Rita, messing with her phone one night over pizza, suddenly squealed and said: “Oh look! Wow! I didn’t know I still had this. Look! I’m still paying her phone bills. She’s on my account, and that app you put on both our phones that time? She still has it. The GPS shows her. It shows right where she is! Look, Lexie’s in L.A.!”
Almost lost it. Pulse racing. Numb face. Had the weird sensation his lips were a slab of meat. Meat with meat inside. Well shit, yeah. They were. Hands shook. Sat there steady, kept his shaking hands beneath the table edge. Then: “Hey, I could have told you that—I didn’t know we were still paying. It’s cool, though. Yeah, that’s fine. Nice part of town? Let’s see. Oh yeah, Brentwood. Real safe neighborhood.”
A dot. The actual street address. Blazed on his memory.
So then, four days later—had to wait so it didn’t seem related—he had a business trip, he told Rita. Pick up some wholesale from a warehouse. Riverside, he mentioned. Snagged a baggie of coke from Ely’s private stash. Ely sold meth but never touched the stuff: for personal use, cocaine and oxy were the choice poisons. He’d switched out his regular work truck with the one Rubio liked to use, left the keys on the hook with a note saying he needed the extra space. Didn’t want Lexie to see him coming. Cranked up his music in the cab. Old stuff he liked from way back when. As a young buck. Swinging testes. AC/DC, Motörhead. “The chase is better than the catch.” Barreling down the 5.
When he switched to the radio, some newer crap came on. “I can’t go on, I go on.” Lame ska punk or something. Switched back to the USB.
Driving into the city was an adrenaline rush. Off the freeway, coming into the neighborhood, he rolled slow on the dark, curving streets. Even so, had to pull over twice. First let himself calm down, then did a little blow. First thing was to observe. It was 1 a.m. He found the house, drove past and circled back. Not much street parking. Signs posted. Meant not much cover, no other vehicles at the curb. That bit. She didn’t know the truck, but it was out of place. Plus, high-class neighborhood. Garages. Big houses. Hers was behind a gate and a hedge. Not one but both. How’d she gotten this fucking gig? Young people didn’t live in houses like this. Sure as shit wasn’t a rental. Was she living off some other horny middle-aged fuck?
