Red Audrey and the Roping

by Jill Malone

  “Were you trying to hurt me?” she asked.

  “I meant the brawl.”

  “Were you trying to hurt me?”

  “No. I wasn’t trying to do anything. Seeing other people was your idea, remember?”

  “Yes. It was something I talked to you about, not something I did behind your back, not something that you had to hear about from other people after conceivably the worst night of your life.”

  “No one else knew until last night, I was going to tell you when you came to Catacombs.”

  “So it’s my fault.”

  “No. I should have told you sooner, but I’m saying I meant to tell you before your friends did.”

  “Oh, you meant to. Oh well that’s all right, then.”

  “Don’t. Don’t twist everything—”

  “I’m not twisting anything. You fucked this guy for months and never bothered to tell me about it. Never mentioned a thing and that’s so irresponsible, that’s so fucking sick and deceitful, that’s so miserably weak. When I heard it, I wanted to rip your fucking heart out.”

  “Because you would have felt better if you’d known I was fucking someone else? You just wanted to know, right? Then it would have been OK. This is really about keeping you out of the loop. This isn’t about how much it hurts to have someone you love fucking somebody else.”

  “I don’t love you.”

  “Then why are you so upset?”

  “I thought you were better than this.”

  “I am better than this. I’m better than you and us and this whole fucking scene.”

  She’d jumped up before I could get to the door and slammed me against the counter, my back arching awkwardly as her full weight heaved into my hips. I swung once and caught her in the jaw. Her head twisted back, a look of horror opened her eyes as she retreated from me and raised her hand to her face.

  “You fuck.”

  I reached my hand out in a gesture of peace and shock, not believing I’d just cracked my knuckles against her face. She flinched.

  “Don’t fucking touch me. Get out.”

  “Emily, I’m—”

  “Get the fuck out of here.”

  I returned to the studio, my hand aching, not certain if I should pack and leave, return to the house, or wait for Emily. I’d hit her in the face, lied to her about Nick, failed her violently, treacherously. I couldn’t be the same self. This wasn’t me.

  She didn’t come to the studio that night, or that week, or that month. I didn’t pack and move because it worried me to leave her; I thought that might be worse than staying. I mailed the rent check to her and slept at Nick’s more regularly.

  Grey and I still surfed, met for drinks, or watched movies at his place. When I told him what had happened in Emily’s kitchen, his face paled, but he tried to reassure me that she’d rushed me and it had probably been a self-protective impulse to sock her. I’d tried that argument before, but it didn’t play. If self-protection was my impulse, why hadn’t I just pushed her away?

  When Emily left for California to visit her brother, we hadn’t spoken to or seen one another for more than six weeks.

  At John Dominis, Nick ordered a bottle of Bordeaux and a starter of escargot. He’d cut his hair so that it fell above his shoulders, though the bangs were still long and a little wild. He kept smiling at me but refused to say why.

  “So your mom’s going to Egypt in August?”

  “Yeah. Last year it was Bali.”

  “She has money of her own?”

  “God, yes. Her family was extremely wealthy and she’s an only child. They left everything to her.”

  “That makes it less awkward.”

  “About my dad, you mean? Yeah.”

  “And your other brothers, they live here?”

  “California.”

  “Do you ever visit?”

  “Never. They’re from his first wife—an extremely nasty divorce. Those kids weren’t allowed anywhere near my father. It was a slick trick, though, leaving a controlling interest in the construction company to them: highly profitable, but extremely time-consuming, the perfect barbed gift.”

  “And the brother that died?”

  Nick had mentioned his brother’s death before, but had never gone into specifics. Meeting his mother—he’d tolerated her irritating affectations with remarkable forbearance—had given me the urge to inquire about every detail of his family; I had some experience with real madness and posturing eccentrics irked me.

  “He was from my dad’s second marriage—she was an alcoholic—my dad got custody, so Andy and I grew up together. Well, sort of, he was six years older than me. He helped me restore my first vintage car: a gorgeous 1948 Chevy Coupe.”

  “So you were close?”

  “He really looked out for me.”

  I didn’t press him, knowing he’d tell if he wanted to. I took a sip of wine and smothered a snail in butter before popping it into my mouth.

  “My dad was one of those extremely brusque men—testosterone heavy, foul mouthed, typical ex-military guy—who thought Humphrey Bogart had the right idea not letting his wife ride in his sports car: dames are bad luck. My dad used to try to get me and Andy to watch porn with him—not like he was going to hurt us or anything—he just thought stuff like that was funny, guys sitting around watching porn. It was kind of creepy.”

  I nodded. He sounded lovely.

  “So you can imagine what it was like for my brother to grow up with a father like this and—and he was gay.”

  “Your father?”

  “No, my brother. I didn’t know until he visited from college. He was going to school in Jacksonville and when he came back for Christmas break his sophomore year he brought a guy with him. This tall, fit, extremely good looking guy; and I just thought they were buddies, you know. I mean, who doesn’t want to come to Hawaii? But my dad was suspicious right away and nasty to both of them. So they left and spent the rest of their vacation at a friend’s place in the U.H. district.”

  Maybe I didn’t want to know this after all. I was suddenly very grateful that the father had died before I had the pleasure of meeting him.

  “That was the last time I saw Andy. He wrote me all the time. Last letter came postmarked from New York; he wrote how I should look him up. He died of AIDS my senior year in high school. I don’t know who was with him or how long he’d been sick or anything.”

  “God, that’s horrible. I’m so sorry.”

  “He was a good guy.”

  Our main plates had come and we ate in silence for a long time. During filming of the documentary, Emily had taken me to a gallery show of Nick’s work. His eye was unforgiving—in one photograph a beautiful young Polynesian woman hands a smiling child to another woman; the young woman’s face is a profound expression of resentment, despair, and a despicable slyness. It shocked me, that expression. Throughout the evening, I’d gone from one image to another horrified, entranced. By catching the complexities of character in the faces of his subjects, he seemed both to perceive and reveal their essential selves. Nick set his fork down and cleared his throat.

  “I want to ask you something.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’ve told Mom that I’ll fly to Cairo with her. They usually attend these conference things for about three weeks and she dragged me to Egypt when I was sixteen, so I don’t really care to hang out there the whole time, but I’ve never been to Venice. So I was wondering: do you want to meet me in Venice for two weeks in August? You’d be back before start of term. I’ll fly back to Cairo to collect Mom at the end, but you can just fly in and out of Rome and take the train to Venice.”

  I was dumbstruck. I’d had this alarming sensation at first that he was going to ask me to attend a cult meeting in Egypt—not bloody likely—and then it had flashed through my head that I’d be asked to watch Jake (the mother’s Cairn terrier) while they were gone, but meeting Nick in Venice had not occurred to me. How much would a trip like that even cost?

 
“You kind of have to say yes because I’ve already bought your tickets for the plane and the train, and booked the hotel in Venice.”

  He smiled and passed me the plane ticket.

  “Have you been to Italy?”

  I nodded, my body rushing toward the ceiling.

  “Rome. I’ve been to Rome and Florence.”

  “But not Venice? Well this’ll be perfect, then. I mean, if you’re interested.”

  I started to laugh and didn’t stop for so long that the other customers must have been nervous. Suddenly a mad mother didn’t seem quite so insurmountable.

  Sessions with Dr. Maya: Day 4

  While the pug is taking my vitals, I examine my breakfast tray: pancakes, bacon, and a couple of withered slices of cantaloupe. Why don’t they ever serve oysters in hospital? I’ve been craving oysters now for several days; maybe this means I’m recovered. I’m tempted to ask the pug.

  Dr. Bocek, my neurologist, visited before breakfast and advised me again to be patient with the raging temper, the panicky confusion and nervousness, the sarcasm. Patting my good arm, he’d added chummily, “Don’t be too hard on yourself, Jane. You took one hell of a blow to the head.”

  I am improbably comforted by Bocek, a jittery, quipping little man. If he’d give me some fucking morphine, I might love him. Since his visit, I’ve spent the morning laughing. Grey once told me, months previously, that all of his failings were moral ones. I’d wondered at the time if that meant my failings were immoral.

  Audrey and I had arrived at Grey’s house for an impromptu cookout that Sunday afternoon in July with a giant glass bowl, and the ingredients for sangria. Under the covered porch, Grey and Emily played table tennis amidst a constant exchange of vulgarisms, while some feet away the grill smoked untended.

  “Audrey,” Grey greeted her with a kiss. “Take my place.” Audrey took his paddle and hunkered down to return Emily’s serve. When Grey passed me to check the grill, he punched my shoulder.

  “What the fuck happened to your face?” I asked him as I mixed the sangria, pouring each of us a glass.

  “A goatee. The chicks love it!”

  “Don’t believe anything you read in men’s magazines.”

  He grinned at me, swigged from his glass, then gestured to the grill, “Oysters, ahi, and grilled vegetables for Audrey. She likes sweet potatoes, yeah?”

  I nodded. Sweet and red potatoes roasted beside kebobs of mushrooms, squash, tomatoes, yellow pepper, and broccoli. The rice cooker on the table steamed. I refilled our glasses.

  “Very nice,” I said. “So what inspired all this?”

  “Just wanted to kick back with some honeys.”

  “We’re the test market for that fucking goatee, admit it.”

  “I bought a foosball table, so I had to invite some people over. Challenge later, you and me versus.”

  “You are a man who loves his toys, Grey. The yard’s looking as lush as ever.”

  Grey had paid thousands of dollars for a landscaper to remove any trace of grass or flowers and terrace his backyard with rocks and rubber trees. The yard looked both stylized and decimated, as though it could serve as the backdrop for a kung fu fight.

  “Low maintenance, man. That’s all I’m after.”

  The ping-pong ball scraped against the cement at my feet and Emily shrieked fuck five times. Audrey grabbed a glass of sangria from the table, and said, “Game,” as calmly as any ass kicker.

  “Rematch,” Emily hollered, still clutching her paddle.

  A moment later, the ball knocked across the table, and Grey giggled as he turned the oysters, “Who’d have thought the chick could wail at table tennis?”

  “You should see her play pool.”

  He sat beside me on the cement and looked out at the yard, stretching his bare feet atop the rocks. Unruly, his hair shagged around his ears, and down toward his shoulders. Maybe the goatee lent him a haggard appearance, but the slumped posture and the wrinkled T & C shirt didn’t help. His surf trunks had a hole in the crotch.

  “You sleep in your clothes?” I asked.

  “Rough night, man.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You know, I had a dream about you after that first party at Emily’s. I dreamt we were in this insane theme park and it was derelict, swamped over: moss covered the Ferris wheel, vines wrapped around the roller coaster, and we’re wandering through the place at night. We climbed to the top of the water slide and slid down on our bellies, both of us shrieking like little kids. Just before we hit the water, we saw crocodiles swarming around in the pool, ready to ambush us. The water went over my head and I woke up, completely disappointed that our dream-selves were wrestling crocodiles instead of fucking.”

  I smiled, though his voice sounded more solemn than playful. The oysters popped on the grill and Grey sprang up to plate them. Behind us the paddles thwacked, and Emily had started grunt-squealing in an effort to swallow her curses. The overcast afternoon seemed like a prelude. I watched Grey work at the grill, flipping vegetables and ahi filets, worried suddenly that I’d missed the portent of whatever he’d been trying to tell me.

  Grey carried the plates to the table, and scooped rice onto his and mine. We prepared our oysters with chopped jalapenos, grated cheese, and shoyu. I refilled our glasses with sangria as the ping-pong ball sucked into the net and Emily squalled, “Motherfucker! Motherfucker! Motherfucker!”

  “Rematch later,” Grey said. “Come eat.”

  Emily brought her paddle to the table, her mouth a thin line of rebuke as she re-wrapped her hair into a bun. She threw a tank top over her bikini and prepared her oysters in stern silence, refusing to acknowledge Grey’s query about a foosball challenge after lunch. Audrey’s face was bright red—even her ears—and her expression of self-assurance catlike as she separated her vegetables from the skewer, murmuring delightedly when she bit into a sweet potato.

  “Where’s Jenelle today?” Audrey asked, ignoring the threatening glares from Emily and me at the mention of Jenelle’s name. We’d had enough visits lately from Miss Hardcore to last four lifetimes.

  “Working, I think,” Grey said.

  “That’s too bad,” Emily said. “We could have used some more testosterone at this picnic.”

  “You say the sweetest things,” Audrey told her.

  Emily smiled and asked for more sangria. A bee loped around the table’s edge until Grey batted it with his spatula and sent it careening into the rock yard.

  “Em,” I said, “they’re advertising for a four-man volleyball tournament at Magic Island this month. We should get Pete and Rookie and enter, yeah?”

  “Rookie may have moved back to Washington. I’ll talk to Pete about it Tuesday night. He only comes to the Spark a few times a week since he started dating that Filipino chick.”

  “The chick with the inflated arms?”

  “Apparently he finds bloating attractive.”

  “Nice. Grey, what’s up; are we going surfing anytime soon?”

  “Will you guys call me next time you go?” Emily asked. “Fucking assholes never invite me.”

  “We were going Sunday mornings and you’re always wasted after closing at the Spark.”

  “Go Monday, then,” Emily said. “Shit, now that school’s over, we can go every Monday until I leave for France, unless you’re teaching mornings during summer school.”

  “Monday morning works for me; I’m teaching a class in the afternoon.”

  I looked over at Audrey to elicit her silent consent, but her attention had focused on Grey, who seemed to be reading his own palm. Above us, the sun stagnated in the windless sky. I scooped more rice onto Emily’s plate and mine.

  “Why didn’t you bring anyone, Em?” I asked.

  “Haven’t you read the flyers, honey? I’m single again.”

  “You and me both,” Grey said without looking up from his palm. “It’s just like senior year all over again.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked him.

>   “She asked for a divorce. I’ve signed the papers. There’s a mandatory waiting period, and then it’s over.”

  Calmly, Grey returned to eating his ahi and rice as though a landmine hadn’t exploded at the table. The three of us sat staring at him until Grey added: “I’ve given notice at UPS, and I’m going to work for my dad at Mako Surf Company. It’s time to quit fucking around.”

  “She asked for a divorce?” Emily said, trying to keep the astonishing revelations straight.

  “I signed the papers last night. Feels like I’ve been single forever, now it’ll be official.”

  “And you’re going to work for Mako?”

  “Yup.”

  “When did you decide all this, Ryan?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it for ages. Dad wants to retire.”

  Emily looked at me questioningly, as if I might have known or anticipated any of this disclosure. I shook my head in response. Audrey continued to stare at Grey, her catlike expression had vanished, and now concern narrowed her eyes, creased her brow.

  “I didn’t mean to ruin the day,” Grey said.

  “When did she ask?”

  “What?”

  “When did she ask for the divorce?”

  “I got the papers Wednesday.”

  “Jesus,” Emily said. “I can’t fucking believe it. I never thought she’d ask for a divorce.”

  “Ryan,” Audrey said, “are you OK?”

  When Grey glanced up from his plate, his face wreathed in shaggy hair like a disciple of Christ, I started laughing. I couldn’t help it. He looked like John the Baptist. But swallowed beneath the torn shorts and Gene Wilder: the early years fro, I recognized the same Hippie Gap Model who had waited out his unfortunate marriage with a loyalty that I had never understood. He’d been faithful to a woman who had refused to give cause or gratitude for such fidelity and he’d maintained this devotion while drinking excessively and keeping time with sexually ambivalent women with a proud tradition of errant behavior.

  I laughed until I choked, incapable of apologizing even as the tears ran down my face. My stomach cramped as I kept laughing until, inexplicably, Emily joined in, her expression as sanguine and unrepentant as mine. Grey, dismayed, looked from one of us to the other and then to Audrey, who appeared appropriately scandalized. I laughed until I thought I would vomit and then bent over the table and shook, hoping for some rational method by which I might make amends when I recovered.