by Liska Jacobs
I nearly push them out the hotel doors when I say goodbye.
It’s quiet in my room, and my head is swimming with their voices. Robby saying It’s good to see you and Charly pushing her breasts against me in one last hug, I missed you in my ear. Jane waiting, sober and patient, by the door.
I call room service, and when Rex appears—looking smart in his hotel uniform, a bottle of sparkling water in hand, and his young face irresistibly eager—I smile and ask which bathing suit I should wear for a sailing trip.
“What’s your name?” he asks, a little short of breath. He’s the type that would need an inhaler.
I give him a fake name—Ingrid, a wine rep from Portland in town for a trade show.
“All the good wine is from Oregon,” I say. He nods yes, yes.
I make him wait while I try each bikini on. I like the look of oxygen stuck in his chest. He keeps glancing at the door as if someone might come in.
I rattle a prescription bottle like a tambourine and offer him some. I ask if he can get coke, he says he thinks so, the waiters do it in the hotel restaurant, he’ll be right back. But I make him stay and have his waiter friend bring it up. His name is Austin—the one with the coke. He shows up, wearing sunglasses on the back of his head, baggie in hand, crushing Altoids between his teeth. He eats several at once, holding my hair back—a tight ponytail in his fist—so I can lean into the coke easier. His menthol breath cold on my neck.
Austin wants to help pick out a bikini too, but I don’t like the way he clenches his jaw at me, how when he talks to Rex he nearly barks. I put on music, and laugh sharply when Austin suggests we rent porn.
“Not that type of party, sweetheart,” I say, and hold the door for him. “I’m going to bed and you should get back to work. Thanks for the coke.” He stalks out, knocking over an open bottle of zinfandel.
Rex won’t stop apologizing. I help him put down towels, which doesn’t help at all, and for some reason this makes us laugh. And then the boy is just looking at me, full in the face, eyes nearly black. I’m reminded of Robby’s face all those years ago—on that desert highway, all astonished wonder.
I tip him outrageously but he refuses to take it. I push the bills into his hands. “You have a nice smile,” I say, my voice shaking.
His cheeks are red when he leaves. I feel better and fall asleep in a gold-and-turquoise bandeau bikini.
* * *
And there is young Robby, schoolboy Robby, with thick dark hair and a sparkle. It’s after finals, a trip planned to Joshua Tree for the two of you because he knows how you like to fuck under the stars and the night sky in LA is flat gray and dull. He asks you again in the car, this time with a small gold band. You’re in the passenger seat and there’s traffic and he slips the ring on your finger and you betray yourself. You say yes, believing you love him because you want to love him. And so you head down the freeway, out of town, listening to Big Mama Thornton with Robby’s hot hand on your leg, his face bright because you’ve finally said yes.
At the hotel he’s giddy. His hands tremble when he takes off his Hanes, he’s breathing hard as if this were your first time together. It is, he insists. It is the first time you make love as an engaged couple, and it means something. He says make love as if what you did before was for animals. But you are an animal—you know this much about yourself, God help him.
You fake your orgasm. He doesn’t. He tells you he loves you.
When he falls asleep you go outside. There are so many stars. Too many. It’s overwhelming. It could be a blanket with pinholes stuck up into it, suffocating you.
In the morning he makes you both coffee, kisses you and wants to go back to bed. You insist on a hike and wait outside while he showers.
That’s when you realize it. You do not love him. Outside you watch two teenagers playing in the pool. One is dark, the other fair. They’re athletic with well-carved shoulders, tight from roughhousing, forearms forceful and unapologetic—all defined jaws and almost manly chins. You wonder what they taste like and you join Robby in the shower.
6
The hotel phone is ringing. It is an ungodly piercing noise, making my head rattle. I refuse to answer it. I’m convinced it’s Robby asking why I’ve come back. I could see it in his face last night, the way he looked from Jane to me, and then the more he drank, the less he looked back and forth. That question just getting bigger and bigger: Why are you here?
My hangover is wicked, everything fuzzy, somewhere between memory and dream. Robby and me under the nighttime sky, speeding down the freeway. That hot hand on my leg, blues roaring. Am I remembering it right? The phone stops ringing. I watch for the red light to blink, telling me I have a message from my ex-husband. Sure enough there it is, more maroon than red.
Beside me is a stack of untouched pillows, as if the maid snuck in and plumped them, arranging them perfectly, to emphasize how empty that side of the bed is. I reach over them to find a pill bottle.
I’m not sure exactly when, but sometime in third grade I suspected my father was coming home only to kiss us good night, leaving the house after we were asleep. It was his side of the bed that gave it away. In the morning it had the same untouched look, the pillows all neatly stacked.
I let the pills dissolve under my tongue and wait for the covers to creep up around me, the promise of hotel sheets—starchy, stiff like beaten egg whites. The air conditioner clicks on, a hum you could drown in.
* * *
When Mother leaves to pick the boys up from summer camp I sneak into her bathroom. I expect my father will come home now that the boys are coming home too. It’s been a long summer of just Mother and me—phone calls from my father to say good night, cereal with coffee creamer because the milk’s gone bad. The house smelling like lavender and bleach, because even if she wears pajamas all day and can’t get to the grocery store, Mother will still clean the house.
Her bathroom has stone gray shag carpet and a mirror over the sink that faces a full-length mirror, so if you stand in front of it there are many yous walking down many halls. She collects things, my mother. Jars of eye creams, tubes of face serums and oils, bottles of perfume that look like tiny glass sculptures. She keeps the empty ones beneath the sink, each haunted by its own scent—honeysuckle and geranium, amber and oak moss, rose and musk. I like to hold them up to the skylight and peer out through the brilliant crystal world. My favorite, though, is her collection of lipsticks. Not just reds and pinks, but Lovers Coral, Blushing Pearl, Plum Velour, Crimson Night. A different shade for every day. You’ve got to wear it like armor, I heard a woman at the salon say. Like you’re going into battle.
Mother gave me a case of colored Lip Smackers because I’m not supposed to use her lipsticks—they are expensive. But I want to look nice for my father, so I steal one called Party Pink, my favorite because it smells like My Little Ponies.
Then suddenly my brothers are home, rambunctious teenagers eager to put me in my place, to let me know I am still a child, just their eight-year-old little sister. The house is loud and filled with their boy scent. We have pizza for dinner and then my brothers make Mother and me laugh with stories of camp—I can smell the mountain air, feel the icy streams, and those stars! They charted the sky and show us their sky maps: Pegasus, Orion, Hydra with its deep-sky galaxies, so filled with mystery. They punch and nudge over new secrets. Their faces look older; could that be possible? Yes, change could be like that—sudden and infinite. I stare at them in wonder.
My father doesn’t show, the boys do not ask why. Or maybe they do but no one asks in front of me. They go to bed still rowdy, filled with their stories, the smell of campfires stuck against their skin, their faces bright. Mother goes out back for a cigarette and to finish the bottle of wine she opened at dinner.
I don’t like to go to bed until everyone else is safely tucked in, so I take a book to the pantry, which is large and has its own light. I keep the door cracked because small spaces scare me a little.
Hour
s pass. Or at least I think they do. I’m deeply engrossed in my book, a collection of fairy tales—enchanted spindles and apples and straw woven into gold.
The television clicks on in the living room, and I realize how late it must be. A game show tells me it’s Mother. I’m glad I stayed up; neither of us is alone now. I think, This must be what it’s like to share a room, how my brothers must feel, comforted by the soft sounds of someone beside them.
I hear a key in the lock. The television is muted. I listen closely, concentrating on the bit of white lace the pony on my sweater is wearing. I watch it rise and fall on my stomach and try to make it completely still. Outside big rigs roll down the main highway like waves. A bird calls softly, as if the sun has already risen.
The familiar drop of keys, the soft pulling off of his shoes, the way the floorboard creaks under his weight. I think, I’ll wait until Mother has hugged him and then when he walks in, reaching for the warm beer that’s just above where I’m lying, I’ll pretend to be asleep. A pretty picture for my father. So I spread my hair across the pantry floor; it smells like Dove shampoo and is long and light brown and very soft. I think of sleeping princesses, the kind I’ve been reading about in my book. I take out the Party Pink lipstick and apply it to my lips.
But neither parent comes into the kitchen. I can hear their hushed angry whispers. I hold my book in my hands, thinking I should throw it against the floor and shout, “I’m here!” And they’ll have to stop. But I do nothing. I stay silent and listen. Don’t you dare, comes my mother. She says this again and again—I said no—until his voice grows tall and desperate. The sounds heighten, the couch thuds, clothing tears, the sounds of physical violence—skin against skin, and then, for a moment, nothing. Then sounds worse than before. His grating moans, her breath deep and loud, a voice of its own.
I would search her face later, search for signs of what those sounds meant. But she never gave anything away. They got back together after that night, stayed that way for several years, long enough for the boys to go off to college. Then they separated for good.
* * *
I wake to laughter and shouting and bicycle bells. The air salty and warm.
I check the message when I’m fully awake. It’s Charly, not Robby. She wants to go to Jane’s restaurant for lunch. I call back and say I’ll be ready in twenty minutes. I don’t invite her up. There’s a small bag of coke on the counter next to a cluster of Mother’s prescription pill bottles. Austin’s left an empty Altoids tin, the mint dust spilled onto the sink. Crumpled over the wine stain is Mary’s scarf. There’s a dark violet patch across the raw silk from where the wine seeped in, and a piece of its knotted fringe has twisted right off. It’s still beautiful, though, perhaps more so. I wring it out in soapy water and hang it over the shower.
Down in the lobby Charly’s in jeans and sensible walking shoes. We hug again, and I pull away awkwardly to wave at Rex, who blushes a little and turns back to help an elderly couple with their bags. Charly watches me do this but she doesn’t say anything, just rushes me out of the hotel and into the bright blue. Santa Monica is jamming today, people on bikes, wearing bikinis and swim trunks, groups of women pushing heavy-duty strollers, their wheels kicking up dust and little rocks. I walk a little behind Charly as we step onto the crowded sidewalk and cut through the park. Her gait has changed or maybe mine has, either way we can’t seem to get in step. She marches past the panhandlers sitting in a small circle, their arms outstretched. She’s talking about her new teaching job, how she loves being around the children. At first I think she’s joking—she was always the first to throw a look at an annoying child—but she’s serious.
“The principal asked me to start assisting in the Studio Lab too,” she’s saying. I try to catch up. Her pace is breakneck, and the pill I took before leaving the hotel hasn’t helped my hangover. “Which is really great because it means more face time with my students. You’d think six hours a day would be enough, but no one understands that these kids need more guidance than that. Especially the boys.” She smiles to herself. “There’s one boy in my class who is such a sweetheart, Elsa. He told me I was his best friend. Isn’t that the sweetest? He calls me Mrs. B.” She sidesteps a group of picnicking moms, all of whom are breast-feeding, which puts us back in step with each other.
“Soooo, have you booked any gigs lately?” I ask.
She waves her hand dismissively, smiling at one of the mothers. “Oh that’s all in the past. The money was too inconsistent, I needed a real job. But I am thinking of talking to the parents at the school about starting a theater program.”
One of the feeding babies lets out a shrill whine. Charly slows down to look.
“How’s Jared’s job?” I ask, because she’s gotten a faraway look about her. She’s almost completely stopped walking. The mother with the crying baby successfully latches him on, and the park is quiet again.
“Oh, it’s fantastic,” she says, resuming her pace. “He was able to get Robby some work—he’s been struggling financially. We even lent him some money. I don’t think Jane knows about that. They’ve moved in together.” She’s paused to watch me, anxious, ready to comfort if necessary.
I laugh. “Really, Robby and I are old news.”
She sniffs and starts walking again. “I always thought you guys would get back together. Don’t get me wrong, I like Jane, but she’s always doing some marathon or on a new diet.” She hangs on to my arm. “They came over last month for a barbeque and she was suddenly vegetarian, when just the month before she was on a high-fat, high-protein kick, eating bacon and putting butter in her coffee. She spent the whole barbeque telling Robby they had to get to bed early because they were planning a pre-dawn summit of Mount Baldy. Can you imagine?” Charly shakes her head. “We just don’t have that much in common.”
I almost say We don’t have that much in common either, but the pill finally kicks in and everything’s softer—my headache, my stiff body, even my sudden sadness over walking beside a stranger.
We turn onto Montana Avenue and there’s the rich, heady smell of the magnolia trees, and the California sunlight is golden, syrupy; my limbs feel pleasantly heavy.
“I missed the weather,” I manage.
7
I wonder if Jane greets every customer with the same blank, brilliant smile. She looks amped up, supercharged, ready to go. It’s exhausting just looking at her. I imagine her in Charly and Jared’s backyard, pushing grilled corn and summer squash salad around her paper plate, waiting out the long summer twilight with that insistent electric smile plastered on her thin hard lips. She’s ultrafit, like Eric’s wife. Like some retired long-distance runners, all severe lines and angles. Barely a curve on them.
I met Mary at the close of my first exhibition as Eric’s assistant. We were celebrating at a dive bar, drinking with colleagues. Eric, his short silver hair brushed forward as if he were some Brooklyn hipster instead of an almost fifty uptown transplant from Chicago, is smiling at me over his beer. It’s the smile that gets me; it’s everywhere in his face, even those serious eyes. He’s looking at me as if I were the only person in the world who could make him smile like that. We are huddled in a corner and I’m on my second drink. This one is much stronger—a gin and tonic or maybe a vodka soda. There’s a shuffleboard table in another corner. The assistant curators are playing, all loosened ties and rolled-up shirtsleeves. I’m feeling light-headed and lovely, excited to be alone with Eric in a dark corner of a bar. I want to touch the back of his hand. Painter’s hands. Strong, with long fingers and round, knotted knuckles; I can track a vein up and over the forearm, disappearing beneath his shirt. Is this when it starts? Maybe.
His wife comes in then, not smiling but pleasant enough. Eric and I play a game of shuffleboard, his wife hovering at a barstool and flicking pretzel crumbs from the counter. I ask her about Santa Monica because Eric’s told me she’s from there. He also told me how she played softball, and was state champion her junior year, and how
she likes her eggs at Balthazar on Sunday mornings. But still I ask questions, nodding politely when she answers in short, clipped sentences while fingering a silk neckerchief and looking toward the door with increasing impatience. When our shuffleboard game ends her purse strap is already over her shoulder. Eric holds the door open for her when they leave. I remember him glancing back—that funny little wave.
Do you miss me? I want to know.
Sycamore Kitchen is a sparse modern restaurant with an exposed kitchen and blond wood floors. The bar is crowded with business suits and girls in wedge heels, the backs of their slim calves the color of milky coffee. Jane seats us outside on the patio.
I order a bottle of champagne. I ask for a bucket too. Jane, with authority, directs a busser to angle a large white umbrella over us.
“Join us,” I tell her, and when she objects I’m reminded again of Mary, the cool tilt of her head, the polite, immovable smile. “You have to, I’m making you,” I say. “I want to hear all about this restaurant. I want to hear all about you.”
She relents when Charly joins in, even laughing at herself when the cork pops and she jumps. The pills start to really do their work now. I can feel my shoulders drop, like a warm liquid is smoothing out all the ligaments. I get Jane talking about herself. I want her to let down her guard, wash away that Mary exterior. Why this restaurant? What do you really want to be doing? The pills have me now, and the wine helps. The blush-colored bubbles are sharp, exhilarating. I look through my glass and the sky is rose gold. And how long have you been working here? She starts telling us about the art on the walls, which is so pedestrian, so Los Angeles, I want to laugh.