by Deb Caletti
It’s a group ass-kissing orgy, but I don’t have much time to think about that, because my tray is empty, and off I go to refill it, and it’s almost hard to see with all the people and the lightbulbs going constantly off. I head back to the kitchen, put Baked Egg and Red Pepper in Mediterranean Pastry (little previously frozen quiches) onto my tray. I pass Trevor, who says, “The Chief is a man who likes to bonk girls half his age,” in a God-like whisper. He nods his chin toward Mr. Moore, who is chatting with a young woman with a spilling cleavage, a grin splashed across his face, rolling forehead wrinkles in an upward arc.
The champagne glasses are refilled, and there is food also on long tables across the living room. The paintings in here are bigger than the walls of my house. I offer my tray to three women standing in a group. I hear they really give little to charity, one says. She’s too tan and has short, curly black hair and a beaky nose. I hear they had a poor relation who had leukemia who asked them for money. They turned her down, says another, in a sexy, glittery gold top whose skirt is way too short for her age. The girl died, she says, and plucks a second quiche to set onto her napkin.
I smile my polite servant-girl smile, but it doesn’t matter, because no one sees me. I have no money, so I am a shadow. I am so far beneath, that I am not on the plane of existence. I move to another group, a woman in long silver crepe and wearing a diamond that’s so big, it looks like the kind I had in the dress-up box when I was a kid. She’s talking to another woman with the same short curly brown hair, who’s looking resplendent (I always wanted to use the word “resplendent” and never had a chance before) in some swaying, beaded skirt. It’s obvious that he’s on the B list if he got the invitation so late. I don’t know if I even want to go with him.
Trevor cruises past again. “The Chief is a man who’s gonna get sloshed if he drinks any more champagne,” Trevor-God says. I sneak a pinch to his butt, which is the most fun I’ve had all night.
More food, more circles round the room. There’s an open bar, and the bartender has a vest on too. “Groovy vest,” I say to him.
“Hey, you too,” he says, and grins. “I saw it in GQ.”
A group of two men and their wives. How’s it going, Bob, since I saw you last? Sweetheart, can you move? They want to take our picture. I step aside, refrain from doing a Bex chop to the guy’s family jewels for calling me sweetheart. The couples stand in a group. Smiles all around, dropped after the flash goes off. One woman shakes her head at the tray; the other plucks a Fresh-Garlic-and-Lemon-Squeezed Hummus on Traditional Naan (bean dip on bread). Since you saw me last? The other man says. You mean last weekend?
I’ve lost track of Severin, but I see his girlfriend everywhere. She’s there, the real her, talking with three frat boys in suits and half-spiky haircuts. But there’s lots of fake hers, too (these people love photographs). She’s in various poses in several electronic frames of rotating photos. She’s skiing. Fade out to her in a bikini. Fade out to her and her brother on horses. Fade out to her and The Chief and Mrs. Chief on a green lawn. Appearing and disappearing images of the perfect life.
My calves are starting to burn, and the bottoms of my feet, too. I haven’t sat down in hours. My biggest wish at the moment is to take off these horrible nylons and fling them, slingshot-style, into one of the two swimming pools. There’s something about being here that’s making me feel like there’s a slow gas leak somewhere. My head hurts. Nothing feels quite real. There’s an absence of honesty, and it’s actually squeezing the blood vessels in my brain. Even the hors d’oeuvres lie.
But we’re not done yet, because plates need to be gathered, and someone claps their hands to make a speech. It’s Mrs. Moore, with her stiff face and stiff skirt; she’s giving a jingly but firm laugh that means she wants everyone’s attention. People start that tink-tinking of knives on drink glasses.
She thanks everyone for coming, then reads some poem she wrote, choking up midway at the power and beauty of her own words, which rhyme “happiest years” with “shedding of tears.” Mr. Moore takes the microphone, says a few words, thank you blah, blah, blah. It’s driving me nuts, trying to think who he sounds like. Someone on The Simpsons maybe? On this special day blah, blah, blah, he says, and then it hits me—Grover. Mr. Moore, CEO of MuchMoore Industries, is a dead-on ringer for your furry pal. Then Mrs. Moore takes the microphone back, tells everyone that there’s something very special about to happen, which turns out to be a hip-hop group singing and dancing some Chief rap, just in case you thought the Moores were out of touch with contemporary black culture. Mr. Moore watches and snaps his fingers, and Mrs. Moore sort of sways from side to side until she notices some crumbs on her skirt, which she brushes off and looks concerned with, but apparently not concerned enough to interrupt her show of finger-on-the-pulse fun (and support of inner-city blacks, to boot).
Finally, the cake is sliced up into smeary images of the now cut-up Moores. People dig in to Moore noses and elbows and shoes with the edges of their forks, eating bits of their host in a twisted version of a religious ritual. We weave around serving coffee, and then guests start to amble out, and are handed cups of hot cocoa on their way through the door. We are free to turn in our vests and go; the cleaning staff takes over from here. I’ve lost Severin, who I want to nag about going home. Trevor and I aim out into the big room, where some guests still linger, unwilling to part from the magic and memories. I’m afraid I’m going to have George Orwell dreams about the Chief.
I spot Severin, who is aiming straight toward Jim Riley, who’s on this television show called Seattle Tonight. Now, I would never go right up to the guy and introduce myself, but Severin would and is. In my opinion, there are two kinds of people in the world—the ones who actually ask salespeople for help, and the ones whose most often-used shopping phrase is Oh God, here she comes again. Severin is in the camp of the former.
Jim Riley looks just like he does on TV. Blond, with a perfect smile, and a clean, putty-smooth face. Severin holds out his hand.
“Hello, Mr. Riley,” he says. “My name’s Severin Skye and I work for Mr. Moore. I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoy your show, and that it’s an honor to meet you.”
I can hear Severin’s words just as I am walking up to him, catch the tilt of Jim Riley’s blond head, the rising of one corner of his mouth. He looks at Severin. “They sure packed you into that shirt,” he says.
Severin gives a little laugh, that uncertain kind you give when you’re faced with cloudy intentions. I look at his shirt, and I guess it’s true. Severin has grown since last year’s homecoming—the cloth pulls across his shoulders and there’s a gape at the buttons; the cuffs hit the bones of his wrists. My insides gnarl, a winding sense of shame. “Come on, Severin, let’s get out of here,” I say.
Jim Riley has already turned away. The people who should be most ashamed of themselves generally aren’t. Kayleigh Moore appears at Severin’s side to say good-bye, squeezes his hand. “Wasn’t it a great party?” She doesn’t speak as much as exude. “All the most important people in the city were here for the Chief.”
The arrow on my internal Had Enough scale suddenly shoots to the outer reaches. Hey, you know, I deal with the most important people too. I deal with James Bond, and Martha Stewart, and Daniel Boone. And they happen to be very nice people.
Trevor has retrieved the car—alas, still the Mustang. He’s got a bunch of Polaroids on the front seat—him in his penguin tie standing next to the Einstein Chief and the Bodybuilding Chief and the God Chief. I dance a Polaroid around. “Hey look, everyone, I think I’m God,” I say in a Grover voice, only I can’t do Grover, and Trevor looks at me like I’ve truly lost it this time.
“Did you inhale helium?” he asks.
Kayleigh Moore stands outside the door of the house with her frat boyfriends. Trevor’s got the car running, and I’m not sure how it’s possible, but the sound has gotten worse. Kayleigh claps her hands over her ears.
“Can we please get out of he
re,” I say.
“Later, Chief,” Trevor says. He hits the gas and the car rolls maybe two feet before there’s this horrible clanging metal crash, and then the catastrophic sound of iron scraping against cement. “Uh-oh,” Trevor says. He stops the car.
“Shit! What happened?” I say. “Did you run over someone’s wheelchair?”
“Oh my God,” Severin says. “They’re all watching.”
“Please excuse me for a moment,” Trevor says. He opens his car door and steps out.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“Oh my God,” Severin says again. “The muffler fell out. It’s lying on the drive. Behind the car.”
He’s right, I see. There’s a huge metal object sitting behind Bob Weaver. Kayleigh and her friends are laughing, but Trevor just lifts up that muffler and carries it to the car. He places it in the backseat. Trevor does this as if mufflers falling from cars are a mere nuisance, a trifle, something that happens all the time in front of the houses of gajillionaires, no big deal. He does this with a great deal of dignity. It is one more reason to love Trevor Williams. And then he starts the car, and we rumble off, leaving the sound of a thousand fighter jets in our wake.
The night gives me the sense that I want to shake something off of me, some film of unkindness. I am sure I wear its secret odor, detectable by people with good hearts, same as the way dogs can smell when you’ve been with other, unknown dogs.
The amount of money spent tonight on flowers alone could have fed a small African village, I’m guessing; it was no doubt more than what Mom makes in several months. Something about this knowledge makes me feel slightly sick. This is not about jealousy. This is severe sadness about things unjust. A queasy shame that the rightful owners of it don’t feel. A sense that something is seriously wrong with us. I wash my hands, strip off those hideous stockings, and get into my flannel pajamas. Even though the night is warm, flannel is your most understanding clothing.
I sit at the edge of my bed, aware that the time has come to open the Vespa guy’s envelope. I lift my pillow and remove it. The house is quiet; the night is quiet, except for the faraway sound of some neighborhood dogs barking. I hold the envelope on my lap and run my fingertip across the ink. I carefully lift the flap, edge my finger along the opening. It is a letter, with a few other papers attached. Dear Indigo Skye, it reads. Consider this thanks for your kindness. I decided to do as you suggested and make my life my own…
I stop reading. A paperclip attaches all the pages, and I slip it off. At that moment, a piece of rectangular paper flutters to the floor, lands upside down. It is a check, I can see that. I crouch to my knees, turn the paper over. His name is there, Richard Howards, a signature at the bottom. I am on my knees, almost in a position of prayer, when I see the numbers.
Two and a half million dollars, it reads. Two and a half million dollars.
When I see those numbers, they are not real. It could just as well read two and a half million antelope, or two and a half million red apples or two and a half million sailing ships. It is not a number I understand. And for a long time, I cannot even rise from where I kneel.
6
“No one just gives away two and a half million dollars,” Mom says. It’s one a.m. but her eyes are bright. I am sitting on her bed and so are Severin and Bex; everyone awakened when I screamed. Even Trevor is there, sort of—the phone is lying on the bed too, and the speakerphone is on.
“You still smell like Axe,” I say to Mom.
“That might be me,” Severin says.
“It’s definitely not me,” Bex says, but she smells her underarms anyway. “I don’t even wear deodorant.” She picks at the fuzz of her moon and stars pajamas.
“You people can’t smell me.” Trevor states the obvious, his voice coming from down by the bedspread.
“Maybe it’s not real,” Mom says. She looks at the check for the millionth time. The two and a half millionth time.
“It’s the biggest tip I’ve ever heard of,” Severin says.
“It’s a fucking big tip,” Trevor says, as if it was his own idea.
“We should all go back to bed. We’ll have to figure out what to do in the morning,” Mom says.
“Figure out what to do? Figure out how we’re going to spend it,” Severin says.
“A nice fat donation to tsunami relief, for starters,” Bex suggests. “An Xbox.”
“We can get a new muffler,” Trevor says.
“We? Hey, people. This is my check here,” I say.
“Who can sleep anyway,” Bex says.
“I’m starved,” Severin says.
“It’s because you drink that protein shake shit instead of really eating,” I say.
“I have the sudden urge to make pancakes,” Mom says. “No, French toast.” She leaps up from the bed.
“Man, I can’t believe I’m not there,” comes the little voice from the bedspread.
“Powdered sugar on it,” Bex says. She bounces on her knees around the mattress and Freud bolts out the door like there’s a fire.
Mom hunts under the bed for her slippers. She can find only one, gives up and puts on a pair of socks. I say good night to Trevor, and in a few moments, there’s the smell of melting butter and the ziss of egg-and-butter-soaked bread in a hot pan.
“It’s like some movie,” Mom says, waving around the spatula. “Like one of those movies where a waitress wins the lottery, or something.”
“Holl-ee-wood,” Bex says.
Mom just stands there shaking her head and holding the spatula, and you know that the bread needs turning over.
“Mom,” Severin reminds.
“Mom,” Chico says, under the cover of his cage. He’s supposed to be sleeping. “Mom! Mo-om!”
“Oh! Right,” she says, and saves the bread just before it burns. In a short while we’re sitting around the table, now flecked with snowy white that’s drifted from our plates.
“I don’t know if any of this is really happening,” I say.
Bex pinches me on the arm, then Mom does, then Severin leans over the table to do it too. “Ouch,” I say.
“It’s happening,” Bex says.
When I wake up the next morning, reality takes a slow train back to my brain. In my bed, I’ve convinced myself it’s some weird dream, brought on by a bizarre night of wealth and emotional poverty. But, no, there’s the envelope on my floor. Richard Howards.
“I called your father,” Mom says. She’s standing outside the bathroom door. She pounds on it with her fist. “Did you fall asleep in there, Severin? Come on, you’ll use all the hot water.”
“You what?” I ask. We all seriously need some coffee.
“Your father? Well, first I called Bomba, and after I got tired of hearing her screaming ‘Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,’ I called him.”
Mom calling Dad has happened only twice in the last few years since my father remarried—as far as I know, anyway. The first time, Mom phoned Dad when Bex was taken to the emergency room with a high fever and possible meningitis. The second time, Severin was three hours late coming home because the car battery died, and Mom was sure he’d been kidnapped or murdered. So this was right up there with illness and death and homicide.
“What’d he say?”
“Well, he agreed with me. We have to find some way of giving it back.”
I feel nettle prickles of irritation. “Wait a sec,” I say. “I’m eighteen, here. This isn’t something everyone else decides.” I might have agreed with them. In fact, I did agree with them. It was annoying, though, when parents got so, well, parental. For God’s sake, give me my bottle and a graham cracker, you know? And the money—I was excited about the money, sure, but not in any real way. It reminded me of when Severin and I were seven and my parents were still married and my dad told us he was taking us to Disneyland. Severin and I shrieked and ran around the house and hit each other and my Mom smiled and told us to calm down and they kissed. Dad even had slick pamphlets that Severin and I s
pread out on the kitchen table and read aloud. We fought over which ride we would go on first. But even then I knew in my deep inner pieces that we were never going. Dad, my father of restlessness and poetry and soul-searching, who kept Thoreau and Emerson on his bedside table like people keep Bibles—he couldn’t be on the teacup ride, and I understood that, even at seven, even as I hit my brother in giddy thrill and snatched the pamphlets from his hands. He couldn’t be on the teacup ride, and I couldn’t be the sudden owner of a shiny new two and a half million dollars.
“For God’s sake, Severin.” Mom pounds. “Now! I’m going to be late for work!”
“Jeez, chill, Mom,” he says.
“Estrogen surge,” I say.
The doorknob turns and we back away and Severin escapes with a towel around his waist and his hair wet. A whoosh of steam dashes from the bathroom, a ghost running out. The mirror is a moist haze that Mom will have to wipe away with a towel or her robe sleeve.
“Do you smell what I smell?” I say.
“Yeah, Severin. Lay off my Axe,” Mom says.
“You used half a can, apparently,” I say to him, but Severin’s in his room already, slams the door on us.
“God, I love that smell,” Mom says.
“No one just gives away two and a half million dollars,” Melanie says. We are in her room. She has a new poster on her wall, in a frame. The posters in my room—a close-up of hands on guitar strings and the back of Hunter Eden onstage (yeah, we all know his ass could keep Levi’s in business for all eternity)—those posters were hung up using bits of masking tape looped into circles of stickiness. But this has glass and a mat, the whole works. It has six rows of fish, with their scientific names in italics underneath. I’m surprised it doesn’t have one of those little let’s-pretend-we’re-in-a-museum lights over it.
“Nice poster, Mel,” I say.
