by Liska Jacobs
Tom puts an arm around him. “Look, kid, there’s nothing original about love or weddings.”
“Wow, what wonderful guys we’ve brought along with us,” I say to Jane and Charly.
“Hey, what did I do?” Jared says. I expect him to hiccup.
Charly pats his arm. “Nothing, honey, you never do.”
He smiles over his straw, gives her a wet kiss. “We should order more of these. Do you think they can make them bigger?”
A group from the wedding party comes into the bar. One of the women has dark hair, pulled back in an elaborate updo. There are little plastic pearls tucked into the knots. She has the kind of face that would be pretty—that is pretty—except she has spent a large amount of time outdoors, and she doesn’t have the type of skin that tans well.
“You guys were great this afternoon,” she says to us.
Charly, always eager to make friends, lightly touches the woman’s arm. “It was so beautiful from the water.”
“They deserve the best,” the woman says. Smile lines gouge either side of her lips. “When they’re done with school they want to join the Peace Corps together.”
I want to ask if it’s too late to talk them out of that, but then a mustached young man—her cousin, she tells us—offers to buy us drinks.
“Nothing for me, I have to get up early to sail back,” she tells him.
“You sail?” Jane asks, interested.
“Does she sail?” the boy says with wide eyes. “Bridget’s a champion sailboat racer!”
“Oh, don’t start with that,” Bridget says, blushing modestly.
He turns to Jared. “Hey, is that the Buffalo Milk cocktail? Any good?”
“I’ve already had three.”
“Fuck yeah, I like your style. You guys wanna play pool?” He points to a good-looking boy his own age who has stripped off his suit jacket and is polishing a cue stick. “My buddy’s fuckin’ wasted and a terrible player—he’s wagered money. Like some serious fuckin’ cash.”
“You shouldn’t take his money,” Bridget says, and she looks at me apologetically.
“How much is a lot?” Tom asks, amused.
The boy leans in. “Like fifty fuckin’ bucks.”
I can see the look on Tom’s face. It says: How cute. I want to smack him.
“I’ll match that,” he says, reaching for his wallet.
“All right, man!” the boy says. “What’s your name? You guys were so fuckin’ cool this afternoon. Like seriously, thank you for doing that. It’s my sister’s wedding—and I’m just so happy for her, you know? So fuckin’ happy.” The boy grins but his mustache is slightly wet from his beer and it hangs over his top teeth, so it’s possible I only think he grins, because his mustache tips up on either end.
“Jared, you coming? Robby? You want in on this?”
Jared and Robby slide off their stools and follow.
“Not really,” Robby says under his breath.
Jared squeezes Charly’s shoulders. “Babe, order me another Buffalo Milk.”
“Like he needs another one,” she says to me after they’ve gone.
“Sorry about that,” Bridget says to us. “I don’t think he’s ever played pool in his life, but he gets that way around men.”
“How old is he?” I ask.
“Oh, I don’t mean he’s a child, he’s twenty-one, but his dad died a while back and he gets all puffed up around older guys. I think maybe he’s trying to impress them. You should see him around my boyfriend.”
“Which one’s your boyfriend?” Jane asks. She’s drinking a margarita and has licked all the salt off the rim.
“Oh, he couldn’t come, he’s on call. We both are. But I couldn’t miss the wedding. She’s the sweetest girl, studying child psychology at Chapman.”
The bride has changed out of her wedding gown and into a flouncy blush-colored dress that belts at the waist. I watch her pull something from her new husband’s hair, adjust his tie; she’s about to brush something from his sleeve but he catches her hand and pulls her onto the crowded dance floor.
“What do you do?” Charly asks.
Bridget looks embarrassed. “I’m a firefighter,” she says.
Jane’s eyes grow big. “Are you really? A firefighter?”
“And you race boats?” Charly adds.
She nods, grinning, and those lines on either side of her mouth deepen. “What do you ladies do?”
“Oh God, who cares?” Jane says, laughing. “You race boats and fight fires. That’s amazing. Tom is teaching me how to sail—he’s the one who so modestly pulled out a wad of cash in front of your cousin.”
“Where have you sailed?” Charly asks.
Bridget pulls out a stool beside us. “All over, really, I’ve sailed almost every sea.”
“What’s your favorite place?” I ask her. She looks at me for so long that I wonder if I asked the question out loud.
“Probably…” She stalls. “Probably just on the other side of the island.”
Jane looks disappointed. “I thought you’d say the Mediterranean, or Mexico—Tom says Mexico. What’s so special about it?”
Bridget continues to look at me, or just behind me, where the isthmus lets out to the Pacific. She dips her chin to her chest, relaxes her eyes as if she is daydreaming.
“Have you seen the ocean on that side?” she asks us.
“We walked over the isthmus earlier,” one of us says, but Bridget just shakes her head.
“Then you didn’t see the open Pacific. Have you ever seen it?”
Jane laughs. “Of course we have.”
“We’re from Santa Monica,” I tell her.
But Bridget shakes her head again. “Then you’ve seen the Santa Monica Bay.”
“I’ve driven up and down the coast hundreds of times,” I tell her.
Bridget sighs. “That isn’t the same as what’s out there.” She jerks her head toward me, out beyond me. “It’s wild open ocean. Nothing for miles. Nothing but you and the sea. The swells compete, the ocean really churns, and it feels—savage. The wind can change in an instant.” She snaps her fingers. “And the sea can suddenly seem calm. But those currents are waiting just beneath. If you aren’t experienced you can get overpowered. I’ve had friends lose boats.”
“Wow,” Charly says, a little alarmed.
“I think I’d prefer sailing the Gulf,” Jane says, and she asks Bridget how the bride and groom met. The conversation changes then, taking a more traditional path of wedding talk, and giggling, and looking around the room to see who’s watching. But I’m still lost in the open ocean—out there, calling. I steal away to the bathroom to take some medicine and fix my makeup. The mirror is dirty; someone has carved on it Lisa was here. I touch it lightly but still somehow manage to cut my finger. I wrap it in toilet paper. There’s a knock on the bathroom door.
“Just a minute,” I say. The doorknob jiggles. “Someone’s in here,” I shout. I wipe the blood from the sink and flush the toilet.
Outside is Bridget’s mustached cousin. He’s even drunker, his eyes heavy, lazy.
“Hey,” he says, leaning into me. “You’re so fuckin’ hot.”
“I’m taken.”
“That’s not what your friend Tom says,” he whispers, backing me up against the wall.
I take his face in my hands so roughly that he whines. “Not for you,” I say, pushing him away. He looks as if he might cry.
“You have a strong grip for a girl,” he says, rubbing his jaw.
I suddenly feel bad for him. I can see how he’ll look in ten, twenty years, after life teaches him a thing or two. Hunched over a desk like Robby—or maybe he’ll be king of his own world like Jared, or Eric. How envious I am of this, of being trapped only by the bounds of ambition. But that isn’t fair—poor boy has it rough. The weight of the world, of history too. I pull him closer. He smells yeasty, like warm beer, and something sharp and cheap, a drugstore body spray, probably. He flinches at first, and I feel a s
well of pity for him again. See, Elsa? He’s already learning, you’ve already taught him things.
I close my eyes and think of Eric and how when he kissed me the slightest pressure of his hand felt like he could hold me up forever, how with him, in New York, I felt sure of who I was and what I wanted. Eric, Eric. Could I conjure him? If I think of the vast Pacific just outside the bar, with its roaring, its dark tumultuous depths, would it be like having him here? Because yes, it was like that with him. The swelling of something—the almost violent crashing of pleasure—like drowning, like being weightless and heavy all at once. Yes, yes. Let it consume you. Let it swallow you up, up, up—
When I open my eyes the boy has his hands on my breasts, my hips, my ass. His mouth hot on my neck and I’m groaning—groaning—with pleasure.
Robby is there too—coming out of the other bathroom. I see his face and there is real hatred in it, disgust. This surprises me, the groan catches in my throat and I pull away. But then Robby isn’t there and I wonder if I’ve imagined it.
“Hey,” the boy pants. “Wait, where are you going? Fuck. Seriously?”
I find Charly and tell her I want to go back to the boat. I ask if she’ll go with me. She nods, sadly, watching Jared, who has his arm around a bridesmaid.
18
Charly is quiet on the boat ride back. She doesn’t even brighten when the coastguardsman flirts with her. He’s in his sixties, weather-beaten, with white whiskers—a real seaman who motors us over the water, the restaurant lights reaching out across it, the water cracking and sending the light even farther.
Back on Tom’s boat she presses her hands to her face, saying, “I cannot believe how tired I am.”
I make a joke about the coast guard liking her, but she only looks at me blankly.
“Go to sleep,” I say, directing her to her cabin. “Things will be better in the morning.” But she hesitates, gnawing on her lip.
She asks where I disappeared to at the bar. I tell her there was a line at the bathroom, and suggest we make hot chocolate.
“I don’t think I should,” she says, screwing up her face. “I’m just so tired, but I don’t think I can sleep. There’s this vibrating…”
I should tell her I have the same feeling—a ringing that starts as a flutter in my heart, pulsing like hummingbird wings until I’m light-headed, until the buzzing is in my blood, bouncing around in my head so that my hands shake. I should tell her that it’s a constant fight to keep it in check—that it’s been this way since we were eight years old, sitting in front of her vanity, trying on lipsticks, but something knocked it loose and now it fucking rings all goddamn day. She should know it’s a dangerous thing to be a woman. We want things, just like anyone else. Power, control, success—more than the world has to offer us. So we shove it down, hush it up, hope that it doesn’t tear us apart. I should tell her this but I’m worried she might not feel the same—that she is cracking up from not being able to toe the line, whereas I want to destroy it entirely.
I produce the Altoids tin. “Take it,” I tell her. “Take the whole thing.”
And she does, slipping it into her pocket shyly as if she’d been waiting for it the whole time.
“Sweet dreams,” I say, but she’s already shut her cabin door with a polite click.
My bedroom is a thin mattress with a curtain to separate it from the rest of the boat. With the curtain closed I have only a tiny porthole window for light. But the moonless night is so dark, and the water in the harbor is so still, I can’t get my bearings. It’s like bathwater out there, tepid and stagnant.
For a while I drift in and out of sleep, imagining the roar of that open ocean just on the other side of the island, my heart thumping against my ribs. I think back to earlier that afternoon, when we were at the isthmus, when Robby hiked up the ridge, his profile light against mountain and sky, how he waved at me to follow him up. But I didn’t want to go any farther; my feet hurt from hiking in sandals and it was growing dark—and it alarmed me how casually he called out to me, as if we were vacationing alone together, as if no time had passed at all. So I turned back to the bar. All the while the Pacific crashed just a half mile away, around a bend and up a small hill. It’s eating at me still—being so close. I can imagine the swells in tune with my own heartbeat, and how being out there would be like looking at my true self. The wind churning whitecaps into huge thrashing waves, large like nightmares, bulging and roiling over one another. But underneath, that vein of current, steady and strong, those black depths no one talks about, down below with the sharks and stingrays and eels.
Something knocks against the boat. The sound is gentle, like a stone plunking into a pool.
“Charly?” I pull back the curtain. The cherrywood cabinets are bluish in the moonlight. I can hear gentle snoring from her cabin.
The sound again and this time it’s recognizable: the dinghy against the side of the boat. There is male laughter, female shushing. I let the curtain fall back.
“Grab his feet.” Tom’s voice, sober and direct.
“I got them, just worry about his head.” Robby’s growl and then Jane: “Robby, he’s just trying to help.”
There is grunting, swearing, and Tom saying, “He’s heavy for a little guy,” which makes Jane giggle. I can feel Robby tense up through the curtain.
They say their good-nights, and I can hear Tom climb up to the deck, his sandals flopping against his heels. I wait; I want to be sure Robby and Jane are asleep.
I find Tom pissing off the back of the boat. Out across the bay, Los Angeles twinkles in soft, smoky light.
“Morning, kid,” Tom says when he’s finished. “No sleeping beauty, are you?”
“You don’t look so hot either.”
He makes a sound of dismissal. “Please, I only need five hours of sleep.” His attitude changes suddenly. He pulls down the collar of my sweater. “Come to get some?”
“No thanks,” I say, pulling away.
He shrugs. “Not ripe yet, no problem. I can wait. What can I do for you?” He rolls out a sleeping bag. “I always sleep on deck. Air’s better up here. Doesn’t matter if you have models or aristocrats below deck, it’ll smell like farts in the morning.”
“Lovely,” I say. “Listen, I was wondering which way we’re taking to Avalon in the morning.”
He stretches out in his sleeping bag, arms propping up his head. “What do you mean? The only way. Suddenly interested in sailing?” He smirks. “Jane’ll give you a run for your money.”
“Do we go around the island, I mean.”
“Ha! Hell, no. That would take an entire day, and that’s with a light wind.”
“Could we, though? I want to see it.”
His eyes soften and I think he might be falling asleep. But then he tilts his head in an inviting sort of way and pats the seat beside him.
“Come here.”
I sit down. His eyes are shut now, but he puts his hand in my hair.
“Your hair is soft,” he says. “I thought from all that dye it’d feel like hay—but it’s baby soft,” he says sleepily.
I try again. “We could sail around and make it to Avalon in time for the jazz festival. I’ll even help pilot or steer or whatever it is you do to make this thing move.”
He sighs, looking tired and amused. Seals somewhere in the murky dawn begin to call to one another.
“Poor Elsa, come closer.” He moves so he’s lying on his side. I hesitate. He smells of whiskey and something faintly sour.
“Will you take me? Us, I mean. Will you take us?”
He sits up then and moves so close I recognize that smell. Bile. I turn my head away and he clicks his tongue.
“I don’t think so. Better get some sleep, kid.” He lies down and looks over my shoulder. “My, what a boat of light sleepers we have.”
And there is Robby. He turns when I see him. His back’s slightly hunched, a windbreaker taut across his shoulders, hair standing almost straight up. He doesn’t say anything,
just disappears back below deck. I follow him down only to find his curtain pulled closed, shifting a bit as if there were an indoor breeze.
I can suddenly smell the stink of Tom’s breath, and still taste that drunk boy; it’s up in my gums, settled in, tall and rank. I grab my robe and toiletries and head for the shower. The sound of water gurgling in the pipes is almost therapeutic, the sudden rush of spray. It thunders, vibrating the shower door. I am nearly undressed, nightgown around my ankles, when there’s a soft brushing at the door.
“Elsa,” I hear Robby whisper. He slides in. I watch his face take me in.
“What are you doing?” I ask, taking my nightgown from the floor and using it to cover myself. “If Jane wakes up…”
“She drank her weight in tequila. She’ll sleep past ten—and that’s late for Jane.”
I reach around him to shut the water off.
His face strains. “No, keep it on, I don’t want her to hear us.”
“Then you probably shouldn’t have come in.” The water struggles to turn back on. “Can you hand me my robe, please?”
He could throw it to me. But he doesn’t. He takes it slowly from the rack, grasping it with both hands, staring intensely at my face.
“Elsa, what are you doing?”
“I’m about to take a shower. What the hell are you doing? I like Jane, I like you guys together, I’m glad—happy for you two—really, I am.”
The mirror is steaming up. I can see streaks from where someone tried to wipe it with a towel.
“I mean tonight. I don’t like Tom. He’s a rich prick—thinks he owns everyone. I don’t want you to get wrapped up in his shit.” He’s still holding the robe. “Have you…?”
“Oh Christ, Robby,” I say, taking the robe and wrapping it tightly. “Don’t do this.”
“Jesus, Elsa, if you saw yourself at the bar, or up there—with him.”
“I was there, thank you very much.” Our whispering is louder now.
He leans in, pulling me closer by my robe belt. “You’re out of control.”
Just then Jane calls for Robby. We stand completely still, the steam clinging to us.