I pretend that Eamon O’Shea has only ever done nice things like saying hello to a little lizard. I lean back in my recliner and try to relax through the thumping music and crowd of people. I think I’ve seen more people these last couple days in Vegas than I have in my whole life. If you took every tourist who ever visited the Outer Banks and smooshed them together into one place, that’d be what Vegas is like. A fake palm tree mists water over me, and I let the heat settle into my bones.
Eamon doesn’t try to get in my pants again tonight. He watches CNN from his own bed in his yellow boxers and a Nirvana t-shirt. Still, I make a point to rustle around in the bathroom and pull off the maxi pads I’ve been wearing with great gusto. I decided they make more noise than tampons. I wrap them in lots of toilet paper and leave them crumpled in the wastebasket. It annoys me to have spent $7 on a box of pads, but I remind myself that I’m not wasting them, that they’re being sacrificed for the good of my sexual self-esteem.
Eamon decides we’re taking a tour to the Grand Canyon West. We leave early so he can get back in time for his business meeting. It’s nice of him, since I’ve never seen the Grand Canyon. He tells me once we’re on the bus that we’ve eaten a big breakfast and will therefore not need lunch. “Why would we not need lunch?” I ask him.
He looks at me like I’m stupid.
And the sick thing is, I start to feel stupid.
“Evie,” he says, and I’m tired of the way he says my name. “We just had a huge breakfast. And I have the apples I took from the spa.” He shows me two green apples and two red apples.
I start to think I’m just complaining too much and that I’m silly for wanting lunch and that maybe he’s right, that of course he’s right. “Okay,” I say.
“That’s my girl,” he says, and despite myself, I get a little thrill at the praise. I know it has a name, what I’m feeling—it’s that thing kidnapees feel for their snatchers. Munchausen by Proxy? Stellan Skarsgård Syndrome? I know how I feel isn’t right, and it isn’t me, and it isn’t okay, but I watch the desert go by outside the bus window because I’m trapped.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Eamon asks.
Personally, I think it’s flat and boring and ugly, and very, very beige. Beige isn’t my color. I think the desert would be okay if it had an ocean, but I don’t say this to Eamon. “Beautiful,” I echo.
Eamon’s seen the Grand Canyon three times, but when we get to the Hualapai Indian reservation, he takes the window seat on the small tour bus to the Skywalk bridge. We place our bags in a locker, listen to the spiel about not going on the bridge if you have a heart condition or extreme fear of heights, and put white booties over our shoes. I feel like a surgeon. I tell Eamon this, but he doesn’t smile. We walk through a little maze and step out onto the bridge.
Now, I’ve never been afraid of heights before. I’ve climbed the 208-foot Cape Hatteras lighthouse too many times to count, and I’ve never been scared. But when I step out onto that glass bridge and look down, down, down into the striped canyon below my feet, I want to throw up in my mouth.
Eamon extends his arm like he owns the canyon. “Isn’t it magnificent?” he says.
I scoot over to the edge of the bridge where the glass is frosted. I can’t look down, so I look at Eamon. “I think I’m going to throw up in my mouth,” I tell him.
Eamon’s eyebrows pull together. “Buck up,” he says. And he strides out into the middle of the bridge. The bridge is shaped like a big C out over the canyon, and Eamon struts it back and forth, finally settling on a spot as opposite from me as he can get. He stands there and looks out, leaning over the railing.
I inch my way to the center of the arc, staying on the frosted glass. I grab the railing; it’s hot beneath my sweaty hand. The sun beats down. The only thing between me and a four-thousand-foot drop is four inches of glass. I try to look at the canyon. There’s a giant eagle-shaped rock formation, red and tan and beige, and I feel like I’m right in the middle of a Jeep commercial. Someone asks if I want my picture taken, but I’m too focused on not barfing to answer.
“Jump up and down,” the same voice says. I look. It’s a tour guide, and he’s wearing a traditional Hualapai shirt with a nametag on it that says HANK. He has long, black hair and a long, black mustache. Mustaches usually violate my code of fashion, but I think this mustache might be ironic because it’s so long. Ironic mustaches are okay for short periods of time and strictly for the purposes of irony.
I cling a little harder to the railing. “No,” I say to Hank of the mustache. He’s carrying a walking stick and wearing a headband. I wonder how hot his head gets, absorbing the sunlight all day.
Hank thumps the stick on the glass. He comes closer to me and puts his hand under my elbow. “It’s solid,” he says. “Jump on it.” Hank jumps up and down, and Hank is a big man, let me tell you.
I manage a tiny, wussy jump. Somehow, Hank’s hand on my elbow connects me to the earth, and I feel more solid. I jump higher.
“Touch it,” Hank says.
I give him a look.
Hank grins. “I know, right,” he says. “That’s what she said.” He kneels down, pulling me with him, and runs his hand over the glass.
I sit. The glass is warm. It appears to continue to hold me up. I look down, but this is a mistake, so I look back at Hank. He sits beside me, and we stare out at the Jeep eagle.
“I don’t think your boyfriend likes me talking to you,” he says, glancing at Eamon. Eamon’s squinting out over the canyon, leaning as far as he can over the railing.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I say. “And as far as I can tell, his face always looks like that.” My legs are sweating onto the glass. I look down at them, then down, down, down into the canyon, down to the brown river at the bottom.
Eamon comes and kneels beside us. He clears his throat. “I was wondering what your people think of that eagle,” Eamon says to Hank, gesturing out over the canyon. “What do they see as the difference between that eagle,” again, he gestures, “and a real eagle?”
I look at Hank. Hank looks at me and gives me a nudge. “That one doesn’t move as much,” he says, more to me than to Eamon, jerking his head at the Jeep eagle.
Eamon sits down, cross-legged. He nods as if Hank has just said something profound. He and Hank and I are the only people on the bridge. I wonder if my legs will leave sweat marks on the glass. I turn to ask Hank who has to clean it, but Eamon says, “Do your people believe in the power of the eagle?”
Hank launches into a long story about his ancestors and their spirit animals. I’m pretty sure he’s making it up for Eamon’s benefit, both because Hank glances at me during the particularly outrageous bits and because the story sounds like something I once saw on Discovery Channel.
Eamon says, “Do your people—”
“Why do you keep saying your people?” I ask Eamon. “It’s not like he’s from Mars.”
“That would make him an alien, wouldn’t it, Evie?” Eamon says this in the tone I usually reserve for scolding small animals. “In which case I wouldn’t be saying people at all.”
“Don’t talk to me like I’m an idiot,” I say.
Eamon sits ups straight and presses his lips together. Then he slowly turns his head away from me to gaze at Hank. “As I was saying before we were interrupted,” he says, and he rolls his eyes at me, “do your people believe in the legend of the canyon?”
Hank puts his arm around my shoulder as he answers, and then Eamon says it’s time for us to go. Hank writes his name and e-mail address on my admission bracelet, and I follow Eamon off the bridge.
Eamon and I walk to the edge of the canyon where there are no railings. I wish he’d fall off the side, that a gust of wind would come along and blow his sweaty body and his stonewashed carpenter jeans down, down, down, so I could enjoy my last night in Vegas alone. I hate him and my hatred of him pounds in my chest, and for a second I’m afraid I’ll push him. Eamon doesn’t talk to me or offer to take my picture. W
e sit on a hot beige rock, and Eamon asks if I want an apple. I say yes, and he hands me a green one.
“Can I have a red one, please?” I ask.
“I was going to eat the red ones,” Eamon says.
I look at him. He pulls out the red apple and takes a big chompy bite. Eamon has two red apples in his bag. I know this.
All the diaphragm-breathing and fuzzy bunnies frolicking through rainbows aren’t going to help me now. “That’s the most selfish thing I’ve ever heard,” I say.
Eamon stops chewing his red apple. “What do you mean?” he asks.
I stand up and pace along the edge of the canyon. “What do you mean, what do I mean? You have two. You have two red apples, Eamon.”
Eamon looks mildly puzzled. “I like red apples better,” he says.
“And I’ve just clearly expressed that red apples are my preference as well.”
“Then maybe you should have brought some,” Eamon says.
Of course that would be Eamon’s answer. Of course it would.
“My seven-year-old son knows enough to share,” I say. I kick a beige stone, and it careens into the canyon. I’m pissed. I wonder if Hank can see me. I wonder if he’d turn me in if he saw me shove Eamon over the edge.
Eamon tosses the apple core into the canyon and wipes his hands on his jeans. “Why didn’t you go on vacation with your son, then?” He asks it through a mouthful of apple. Then he snaps his fingers and points at me, quick. “Right, because you can’t afford it.”
“Fuck you,” I say.
Eamon snickers. “That was rather the idea, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, well, I don’t fuck douche bags.” I cross my arms and stare Eamon down. The sun thumps on my head, and somewhere out near the Jeep eagle a real bird circles and caws.
“The bus is coming,” Eamon says. “I’ve a meeting to attend.” He gets up and walks to the parking lot.
As I watch his retreating back it hits me—Stockholm Syndrome. That’s what I’ve been suffering from. There’s no other way to explain how I gave Eamon this much of a chance for this long. Something else hits me, something Judy has said—getting angry won’t solve anything.
She’s right.
What solves things is revenge.
We’re back at the hotel and Eamon says he’s taking a shower first, that he’s all sweaty and he has to get ready for his seminar. This is fine with me. I change into a push-up bra, a low-cut black shirt, and a tiny skirt. Then I fluff up my hair and put on some lipstick, red. I lie down on my bed with one hand under my head so my cleavage falls together. Eamon comes out wearing a towel. The waft of AXE follows him.
“Is it my turn?” I ask him.
“Sure,” Eamon says. He looks at me appraisingly. “All yours.”
“Thanks,” I say. I rub my legs together. They’re sticky from sweating all over the Grand Canyon.
Eamon rattles an Oxford cloth shirt off a hanger. I roll onto my other side to face him. I squish my breasts together a little more. “That was some canyon,” I say. I lower my voice a little, trying to sound husky. “It was so deep.”
Eamon digs a new pair of boxers out of his suitcase. “I bet you learned all about it from your tour guide friend,” he says. He looks at me. “You two looked pretty cozy.”
I sit up and cross my legs, hoping that my underwear shows. “I’m not into men with mustaches,” I say. I play with the hem of my skirt.
Eamon walks over to me. He loops a tie around his neck and shimmies it into place. “Is this straight?” he asks. His eyes move from my cleavage to my legs and back up.
I stand up and tighten the tie’s knot, then massage his shoulders and run my hands up and down his arms. I walk over to the window, making sure my gait accentuates my hips. “The fountains are on,” I say. Eamon stands behind me, close enough that I can feel his erection. “It’s amazing how high they shoot up.” I lean back against him.
Eamon turns me to him. “I knew you’d come around.”
I press my breasts against his chest and let him grind his penis into my hipbone. He’s about to kiss me when I say, “You’re going to be late for your meeting.”
“Shit,” Eamon says. He looks at his watch and grabs a pair of khaki pants off a hanger. Eamon stumbles into them, shoving his penis down and zipping with a wince.
“I won’t forget where we left off,” I say. And I kiss him, deep, with tongue, and then guide him out the door.
I stand there for a second, breathing in the AXE and smoke smell of the room. It’s quiet. I think about the Irish pirate queens. Gráinne Ní Mháille, the Sea Queen of Connaught, didn’t take shit from anyone. She would’ve shoved Eamon off the Jeep eagle canyon and been done with it. I call room service and order the $1800 bottle of wine and a steak and lobster dinner, charged to Eamon’s account. I stuff all of my things into my amoeba bag and roll it right up next to the door, then sit down and send Eamon a text message that just says wet.
Eamon’s dirty yellow boxers lay crumpled on the floor near the closet. I pick them up and rip them in half, then tear them again and again. The fabric feathers down into a little canary heap, a sad nest for a flightless bird. A text comes in from Eamon, ur such a hot little bitch. I hate it when people use “ur.”
I remember all my toiletries are in the bathroom, so I go in to get them. Eamon’s left the toilet seat up. I put the lid down, hoping he’ll pee all over it. I zip up my cosmetic bag, and I’m almost to the door when I see his stupid bottle of AXE. It’s black with the word VICE scrawled across in red graffiti letters. I unscrew the top and dump it down the sink. It makes a satisfying glugging noise. I stuff my toiletries in my amoeba bag and text mmmm to Eamon.
By the time I’ve eaten dinner, showered, drank two glasses of wine, and ordered an X-rated movie to the TV, which I mute, night sparkles outside the window, lit up in carnival light and color. The Bellagio fountains shoot up in their lacy synchronized dance. I text Eamon again. You’re going to be so surprised when you get back to the hotel.
I unmute the TV and orgasmic moans fill the room. No orgasm has ever felt better than this, this power, this liberty, this sense of flight that fills my chest and rises, rises, rises, until I’m free. I walk over to the door, grab my bag, and stride into the neon Vegas night.
Ten
An Open Letter to Patricia Ballance
— 2008 —
Evie Austin
Dr. Garcia
ENG 101
An Open Letter to Patricia Ballance (and Her Stupid Fat-Headed Son Ronnie, Who I Know Will Read This Anyway Since He’s Such a Mama’s Boy) on this the Twenty-Ninth Day of September 2008, in Fulfillment of the Assignment to “Write a Letter to Someone Who Has Wronged You, Employing Ethos, Pathos, and Logos”
To: Patricia Ballance, mother of Ronnie Ballance, the boy who broke up with me eight days before our high school graduation because you (Patricia Ballance) didn’t want your son dating a girl with a reputation as bad as mine, even though you went to school with my parents and know my family is a good family, but still didn’t want Ronnie hanging around me because I’m that bad of a bad girl, or at least you think I’m that bad of a bad girl, even though I’m really not, as this letter will soon prove using astounding rhetorical means.
From: Evelyn Ann Austin, who’s not really all that bad, as you will see, and even though I don’t want to date your stupid fat-headed son anymore, you’ll be sorry you broke us up because you could’ve ended up with me as your daughter-in-law one day instead of potentially getting that insipid Molly Morgan who can’t even spell insipid, much less define it, and I know this by experience because we’re in English 101 together here at East Carolina University, and boy, is she ever dumb.
RE: Badness
Dear Mrs. Patricia Ballance,
It’s not like I was the stinky kid. It’s not like, when Ronnie and I sat together at the Blue Table in kindergarten, he would’ve come home and complained about me, and you would’ve had to call Ms. Fasunight and had Ronnie moved t
o the Yellow Table so he didn’t have to smell my stinky bad-girl self all day. And it’s not like I wasn’t over at your kitchen eating Fruit Roll-Ups after school at least twice a week like all the rest of Ronnie’s friends from our class, and it’s not like Ronnie didn’t know that my mom was one of the safe moms to get a ride home with if you happened to be working late one day at the Red and White or needed to run up to Nags Head for a new set of patio furniture or to have a cavity filled. It’s not like I was always the Bad Girl, but I can tell you how it all started, and it all started with Mike Tyson.
Or maybe it started before that.
Maybe it started one day in July on a sand dune at the National Seashore campground in Frisco, the summer Nate and I lived there with Aunt Fay because our parents were experiencing marital difficulties because my mother was screwing Bob the lighthouse mover from Buffalo. That one day in July, a day that was so hot the heat was all mirage wavy, like you could gather it up around you and make a chair out of it and sit down and lean back, that day I climbed up a sand dune and made friends with a girl from Ohio, a little tourist girl with a little tourist brother and the nicest little tourist family you ever did see. She was pretty. She had freckles and red-gold hair to match. No one ever told me specifically not to make friends with tourists, but I sort of got that implication, perhaps because they all go away at the end of the season and you’re left without them and all the hard work you did to make friends in the first place is wasted. So maybe I made friends with Charlotte because I felt like it was frowned upon, which isn’t doing much to convince you that I’m not a bad girl. The point is we made friends, and later that same summer, maybe because of the aforementioned marital difficulties that were then afflicting my parents, I was allowed to go home with Miss Charlotte McConnell of Windsor, Ohio, and stay there for two whole weeks.
Now, you should understand this, Mrs. P. Ballance, when I tell you that, for a little Banker girl like me, two weeks away from the ocean and home could have been quite the traumatic experience. I could have cried and cried every night because I felt so lonesome for the soft shushing sound of the waves. I could have tried to call my mother every two hours because I had a stomachache, not that my mother would have answered on account of her preoccupation with Bob the Man from Buffalo. I could have felt so claustrophobic up in all that grass and land that I died, just died so I could get back home. But I didn’t. I didn’t do any of those things because I had Mike Tyson.
The Baddest Girl on the Planet Page 14
