One of the ferry workers knocked on my window, and I pulled my head back in surprise and hit the seat.
“You all right, ma’am?”
My husband is leaving me, I wanted to say. He used to spend all his time trying to make me laugh, and I used to think he was funny. Now we can’t even smile at each other in the morning. I’m twenty-seven and I’ve already failed. I’m going to be alone. I’m going to have to date strangers. Someone is going to try to kiss me awkwardly after he buys me Chinese food and takes me to a Sandra Bullock romantic comedy. I’m going to have to start carrying gum in my purse. And lipstick. And I’m going to have to lose weight. Goddammit.
Instead I say: “Yes, why do you ask?”
“Well, you keep honking your horn.”
I looked down at my hands. I thought they were high up on the wheel at twelve o’clock, in anticipation of driving. Turns out they were dead center, in anticipation of disaster.
ON THE ISLAND, Melanie and I were drinking each other under the table and I didn’t care. I couldn’t believe how thirsty I was for the taste of beer. It was like we were back in college, when drinking was a sport. Then there were a million bars to go to, but out on the island, as Melanie told me, there are only three.
“The people who live in the trailers go to the pub on the other side of the island, and the place across the street”—she motioned with her eyes—“is for the family types.”
“So who’s left?” I said.
“I don’t know. The in-betweens, I guess.”
We played pool and pinball for a while, and then I saw the jukebox in the corner of the room. I emptied the contents of my change purse into my hand, and then I dug around the bottom of my purse for more quarters. I was going to play every single song I knew the words to tonight, and I was going to sing along at the top of my lungs. When I looked at the jukebox I was not disappointed. It was as if they had transported the radio in the truck my mother had when I was a child, and programmed it into this jukebox. She used to drive me to school and play all the songs on the rock station at full blast, and we would both sing along.
Man, Mick Jagger. I used to love Mick Jagger. Why’d he have to go and get old? Or was he always old? Oh, the Eagles. The Eagles. The Who, wow, are you kidding me? “Eminence Front,” that was one of the first videos I ever saw. Won’t you come and join the party, dress to kill. And I have to play some Beatles songs. The Beatles will never die. I should really go to bars more. Why did I stop going to bars? Or maybe I could get a jukebox for the apartment? Will likes music. Will would like a jukebox. Will, Will, Will.
I saw that Melanie was talking to two guys at the bar. As I walked across the room, I tried to add a little strut to my walk, a saunter, a little shake of the ass. Shake your ass. I liked that song, too. Where had I heard that song? That Hugh Grant movie. The one with the weird kid and the mom who tried to kill herself.
I was never going to have children, was I? And we had talked about it. It had been discussed. There was a time when Will and I thought we needed to make something more out of the two of us besides excellent dinner companions, a great couple to have over for potluck. He works in software, she’s a media buyer. He understands that college football is much more interesting than pro, and she’s sincerely interested in your exercise regimen, even though she wouldn’t step foot in a gym. He still has a good weed connection, and she likes to drink chardonnay as much as you do, honey.
One of the guys talking to Melanie was cute, lean and tan, though he needed a haircut. He smiled at me as I sat on my stool. He had the whitest teeth, like he’d eaten an apple every day of his life. It was too much for me to handle, the gleam of his smile.
His friend was short, and puffy with alcohol, you could tell, with his red nose, ruddy cheeks almost like he’d been running and needed to catch his breath. He was smiling like a clown, lips clamped together, cheeks raised high.
“This is Brock and Ryan. They run the nursery on the island,” said Melanie. Ryan, the man with the perfect smile, shook my hand. Brock opened his mouth, but only garbled words came out. I thought he might be retarded, but I couldn’t be sure.
Suddenly Brock spun around in a circle, and then started a little dance to the tale of the brown-eyed girl; hands clenched in fists, shoulders and arms grooving, the slightest wag of his behind, and sway of his legs. He bobbed his head in my direction, then pointed toward an open space at the back of the bar.
Ryan leaned in to me and said, “He wants to dance with you.”
“Go on, dance with him,” said Melanie. “He’s fine. I know him. He’s just really drunk.”
I looked back and mouthed, “I’m going to kill you,” to Melanie. She laughed, and so did Ryan. Wait—was that his hand on her hip? Not that I cared, only I wanted her to tell me if something was going on between them. I was her best friend. She could tell me the truth. In fact, she should tell me the truth. Here I was, here on this island, waiting for it.
Brock took my hand, raised his arm, and spun me awkwardly underneath it. I let out a laugh, and he started to pull me toward the dance floor. I really was going to kill her.
But then as soon as we started dancing, I was glad I hadn’t fought him. Every limb was electrified. I was dancing backup on Solid Gold, I was breaking all the records on Dance Fever, I was shaking my caboose on Soul Train. I moved my hips and my chest and arms and then neck and head. I jumped, I glided. Sweat formed at my temples, and brushed my breasts and shoulders. I can’t get no. Satisfaction. Hey hey hey. I shook it like the world was on fire and only the force of my body could put out the flames.
What my partner was doing, I’ll never know. That dance was about me. The dance is always about me.
At the end of the song he said slowly, words struggling out of his mouth, “You dance good.”
I hugged him, and in the sweaty embrace, I could feel the hard throb of his groin against me. I pushed him back with one hand, not that hard, even, and he stumbled, then fell to the ground. It’s always the same, I thought. The same tricks. Brock stayed on the floor.
I could kick him right now, I thought, letting the image hang in my head for moment, a small present to myself. Kicking and kicking in the gut and groin, kicking all the life out of him so I could have it for my own. He opened his mouth, and he made a noise. It reminded me of an animal braying. No one would say a thing if I kicked him. No one would blame me.
Instead I turned and walked back to Melanie and Ryan.
“Your friend is way too drunk to be out right now,” I said. I looked right into Ryan’s eyes, telegraphed that he needed to take care of his business. He flashed his brilliant teeth, and the bar glowed from it. Melanie stifled a laugh, and I turned and looked back at Brock, who had now lain down on the floor, arms at his side like a corpse.
“Shit,” said Ryan, and he was gone to the dance floor. He bent down on his hands and knees, whispering sweet nothings in Brock’s ear, hoping to make his friend rise from his deep, drunken sleep.
“There’s no helping that guy,” I said.
“Ryan’ll take care of him,” said Melanie, bored. “And he’ll be fine tomorrow. He does this all the time. He’s always fine in the morning.”
Ryan pulled him up by his arms, chest, and then his legs, and leaned his friend against him. They stumbled through the bar, toward the front door.
I looked at my beautiful friend and I thought of the hopeful jade plant.
“How long are you going to stay out here?” I said. “On this island. Seriously.”
“As long as it takes,” she said.
AFTER A WHILE, Sarah Lee didn’t come around anymore, and then after that she drifted off to art school somewhere in Oregon.
“Good riddance,” I said.
“Why?” said Melanie. “I liked her.”
“Yeah, and I think she really liked you,” I said.
“What does that mean?” said Melanie. “What does that mean?” She pushed my arm playfully.
“You know what that
means,” I said, and I raised my eyebrows. “I don’t like the way she looked at you.”
And we laughed and laughed. At Sarah Lee’s expense. Because while I told Melanie I didn’t like the way Sarah Lee looked at her, what I really didn’t like was the way Melanie looked at Sarah Lee.
AT LAST CALL Melanie and I had eyes like stewed tomatoes. We decided to walk home.
“It’s only a half mile up the road,” she said. “And we’re on an island. We’re safe as kittens.”
“No way,” I said. I was a grown-up city girl now. I didn’t walk home drunk anymore.
“Yes, yes, yes. We’ll drive my car back in the morning and get your bag.” She put her arm around my shoulder and squeezed me off the bar stool. “Come on. It’s going to be OK.”
We stumbled off into the night, walking in the center of the moonlit road. Away from the city lights, I could see a million stars spotting the sky, little bits of light holding back the dark. I could see the outlines of the trees in silhouette, and I could smell the dampness of the greenery. Melanie made me inhale deeply.
“Isn’t it fantastic out here? Isn’t this what it’s all about?”
We dragged our feet at times, and ran, laughing, in short spurts. I almost fell in a ditch. I noticed Melanie had lost some weight, and I silently cursed her. My nose was running and I rubbed it. Melanie did a cartwheel in the center of the road.
“We’re almost there!” she yelled. “Let’s cut across—” She motioned to the lawn, then hopped the white picket fence bordering the land and began to march diagonally, away from the road. “Oh, no, wait, wait. First you have to see this.” She ran back to the road and dragged me by my hand, until we were standing in front of two houses. “You have to stand back for the full effect.” We walked backward until we were standing on the far side of the road, away from the houses, underneath a small streetlight.
“Do you see?” She gestured toward the houses.
“What am I looking at?”
“The fences. Do you see the difference?”
I looked at Bitsy’s impeccable white picket fence, and then I looked at Madame Vanessa’s simple chain-link fence. A black Lab sniffed near the front gate, and gave one short bark. I leaned against the streetlight, and then lowered myself to the ground. I needed a minute to pass judgment.
“It kills her. It just kills her,” said Melanie.
“It’s not that bad,” I said, and it wasn’t. All across America people had different fences from their neighbors’. Why did Bitsy get to be different?
“I mean I sort of get why she feels this way,” Melanie said. She sat down next to me, pulled her legs into a cross-legged position. “This is her sanctuary, this home. It’s her way of getting away from the world. I think she feels like the other fence is invading her space.”
“But it’s not her decision to make,” I said. “It’s this woman’s property. She can do whatever she likes with it as long as it’s not hurting anyone. And I’m sorry, aesthetics do not count.”
“I’m not saying she’s right, Jemma,” said Melanie sharply. “I’m just saying I see her point.”
I pulled my legs up, till my knees almost hit my chin. I looked up at the bugs milling about the streetlight.
She pointed. “See how that other fence is so much taller. It sticks out like a sore thumb.”
“Yeah, I see it. I just don’t get why it’s such a big deal.”
We were quiet for a minute. The dog barked again. I heard a car engine running, and the sound of tires on gravel, and a minute later, a car was in front of us, passing us, and heading up the hill. They honked.
“Bitsy says…”
“Bitsy says what?” I snapped.
“She says she loves me,” said Melanie quietly. “She wants to take care of me.”
“Loves you loves you? Or just loves you?”
“Both. Well, the first one. I don’t know.”
“Do you love her?”
“She says she loved me right away, the minute she saw me she had to have me, that’s what she says. That I energize her. Bring her to life.”
I traced the shape of a heart with my finger in the dirt.
“I don’t know what else to do right now but to let someone love me. It’s better than not being loved at all, don’t you think?”
I didn’t know what to say to my friend. I knew that I was supposed to open my mouth and wisdom, preferably of the sage variety, should effortlessly tumble out. That’s not my strong suit, though. I know that there are a handful of things to be admired about me. I am pleasant to look at, even with twenty extra pounds on me. I can be funny and I can be direct in an inoffensive way and people seem to trust me right away, think I look like a nice girl. I have an even tone to my voice. I am a natural blond.
But I am the first to admit I have many more limitations. I am selfish, I am that spoiled child that my husband likes to call me. I am smart but not smart enough to have foresight. When I took the truck and left the sedan, it was a major act of triumph for me, and one that was inspired mainly by a television commercial for 4X4s. I had to really think about it. I don’t like to think that hard too often. You would think I could help a friend, that my back would be strong because I am young and healthy. But my back is actually weak, because I have never had to use it before, not once. I have never lifted a heavy object, and I certainly have never had to carry someone who needed my help.
I could have fought for her. I could have told her that she was loved, not just by me, but by many other people. That she shouldn’t fear being alone. That I was her friend, and I would take care of her. But in reality she didn’t have too many friends in the first place, and she’d have even fewer left as soon as they found out she was shacked up with some middle-aged lady on this hippie island. And I wasn’t doing much better at taking care of myself; how much could I offer to her?
Instead I said, “Did you lose weight? You really do look great.”
AFTER A FEW DAYS of clean air—I returned home the morning of Bitsy’s return because Melanie thought it would be easier that way, and I suppose she was right; I wouldn’t have to report back a thing because if I didn’t see her, she didn’t exist—I headed back to the city, to my apartment, to my life. While Melanie had clean air all around her, the air in my home was now polluted. When I left, the house had been quiet and (I thought) clean. When I returned, I discovered the remains of my marriage had turned. Our marriage was now sour milk, moldy bread, and unpaid bills, stacked high in a corner. And I was the only one left to clean it up, because Will was gone, for good as it turned out.
With him he took: the contents of the bottom three drawers of our bedroom chest, and the rest of his side of the closet; all of his shoes from the front closet, his favorite umbrella, and his rain gear; the fancy espresso machine and the French press that we got as a wedding present from his boss, plus some silverware we got from his rich aunt from San Francisco; books, tons of them, all of them, really, because I’m not much for reading; the gray suede couch he used for his Sunday naps, and the television set, the combination DVD/VCR player, the CD player, the speakers, and the entertainment center that had housed all of them. We had bought all of those last items new in the last year. I was bummed they were gone.
What he left behind was: my clothes; the rest of the kitchen appliances and flatware, including the coffee machine, for which I was grateful because I always favored drip coffee; as well as the kitchen table and chairs, the bedroom chest, the beautiful wooden bed frame and all the bedding (except, strangely, for one pillow); the big red leather chair I bought with my Christmas bonus two years ago; all of our photo albums, which sat on the otherwise empty bookshelves; and the table near the front door, the oversized glass ashtray that sits upon it, and all of the change contained within it.
I looked for a note in the ashtray and also on the refrigerator, which he used for note-leaving sometimes. There was none. I sat on the couch and stared at the space where the entertainment center used to be. I real
ized I would be driving the truck from now on because of the decision I had made a few days previous, and now I had to live with it. The wrong car, I thought to myself. I picked the wrong car. I’m stuck now. I’m stuck. I made the wrong decision. I am completely stuck.
HE KNOWS A LOT of old jokes, she’s heard them all before. She wants to hear new jokes. He wants her to cook more, look at all of these appliances; she wants him to try just a little harder to make her laugh. If you could just try a little harder. Just try to be interesting. Do something.
I cut a man once, she tells her husband. She says this after they’ve been married for two years, and he’s certain he already knows everything about her. This is just her way of letting him know: Boy, were you wrong.
I cut him right here. She slid her finger sharply across his upper thigh, near the groin. I slashed him. She is sitting straight up, neck and head held high, no pretense, no guise, just her.
Maggie, come on. You did no such thing. His wife is the nicest woman he knows.
I did, too, Robert.
And when did this alleged felony occur?
Robert has been watching too much Law & Order, she thinks.
The summer before my junior year of college, she says. I went a little crazy.
THAT SUMMER, her father made her live with him in Evanston, in a huge, dusty rented house with wood floors and walls so dark and cool, she felt like she was living in an icebox. He was running a writing program as he did every summer, at a school there. He was a famous writer who led a fancy, famous life that she and her older sister, Holly, were usually absent from because he had abandoned them when they were young and moved to California.
Instant Love: Fiction Page 9
