Catalina

by Liska Jacobs

  But I’m here now, I sigh to myself—chest wet from where her tears have soaked through near my breast, the nipple hard from the chill. Why won’t these pills work faster? I want to put this sadness—Charly’s heaviness and my own—far, far away.

  “Okay, why not. Let’s make margaritas.”

  “Oh yay! I can have one—one is allowed,” she swears, holding up her hand. “I promise.”

  “All right, but let’s get you showered first. I’ll do your makeup like how we used to.”

  She is obedient and happy, stripping off her clothes, giddy from being naked in front of me.

  “Robby,” I call from the bedroom door. The shower clicks on, and I can hear Charly singing. Robby pops his head in from the deck.

  “Charly is feeling better, will you make us margaritas?”

  “Is that a good idea? Aren’t they trying to get pregnant?”

  “You know about that? Has Jared talked to you?”

  “I know enough. I think it’s driving them both insane.”

  The pills have kicked in finally, everything is warm, and I’m comforted that he’s here, that he knows what’s going on too. The feeling blooms in my belly when he smiles at me.

  “Well, she’s laughing and we should try to keep it that way. Make them weak.”

  “Weak margaritas coming up,” he says, and I feel like we are finally on the same team.

  We sit on the deck, Charly stretched out on a beach towel, her feet kicking back and forth. The sun is very bright and warm and the breeze carries music up from one of the neighboring villas. When she finishes her drink she makes loud sucking noises with her straw.

  “Let’s go swimming!” She has a dizzy, googly-eyed look to her.

  “I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Robby says, a little buzzed but looking at her with real concern.

  “Oh, I probably shouldn’t go.” Her laugh is high and nasal. “I want to watch you two swim.”

  “A swim does sound nice,” I say.

  We get our bathing suits and walk down to the pool, which is crowded and a little too warm.

  “Feels like piss,” Robby says, disappointed.

  “Then let’s go to the beach! I want to see you guys race. I used to love to watch you two race.”

  To please her we go down to the beach and wade out past the surf, Charly waving from the sand. A swell comes and Robby’s arm slips around my waist and we duck under together. His hands are wonderfully familiar. There are no rough spots. I’m proud of myself for remembering them exactly right.

  Try to keep a clear head, I tell myself. But then the sun is very warm, and that giddy sensation, that lightness, wants me to love everything.

  We tread water with our shoulders just touching. His arms are warm and freckled and I want him to hold me—Danger, my mind is saying. Watch yourself.

  “Ready?” Charly shouts from the shore, and she makes a sound like a gunshot.

  Within five strokes, Robby’s ahead and I’m choking on seawater. I think drowning might be the best way to go. I reach out and grab his leg, pulling him back so I come in first.

  “Jerk!” Robby says, laughing.

  I’m coughing and struggling with a swell that’s determined to push me under.

  “I told you I’d win.”

  “Come here, you’re drowning, you idiot.”

  I push him off and swim back to shore, my legs shaking. I drop onto the sand beside Charly, who is clapping.

  “You play dirty, Elsa.”

  A speedboat guns its engine in the harbor and somewhere a firecracker goes off. Children down the beach are screaming about sand crabs.

  “Too much noise, too much, too much,” I say, pushing my head into the beach towel.

  Back in the villa I shower and notice my beauty bag is sitting on the vanity. There are only three orange pill bottles now, all half empty. I combine them into one. A handful left of the good white ones, some of the tiny pink ones that loosen up the dark matter behind the eyes, and several peach ones with the letter K stamped through the middle. The blue ones are gone. The light pink ones too. Luckily there’s still plenty of Vicodin left—at least I think it’s Vicodin—though their numbers have dwindled. It occurs to me suddenly that at some point I will run out of them all.

  29

  We decide we want fish tacos but Charly passes out, so it’s just Robby and me. We leave her sleeping, sprawled on her villa bed, her pale yellow dress twisted, the curtain beside her blowing out like a sail, then deflating, showing the blueness of the bay against the pith-white sky. She murmurs a little in her sleep. Gerber or Berber. I can’t tell which, but she quiets down when I shut the window.

  In the hotel golf cart Robby holds on to me, his grip tightening when we hit a rough bit of road. The driver looks over at us. He smiles. “Good-looking couple.” He nods and looks at me. “Lucky guy.” Robby overtips and we walk along the shops without talking.

  The sun has moved behind the mountains, but it will be light for another few hours. Already people are excited for the final jazz show. The yachties are all drunk, wearing straw “Island Style” hats. Robby asks where he can buy one, and a thick, sunburned man with white whiskers gives him the one from his head. We pass a group of girls on their way to the Casino, swinging their hips for the fishermen who are packing up their tackle. The fishermen whistle long and low. Along the shoreline the lamps switch on, and beneath them couples lounge hand in hand.

  We look elsewhere.

  “Elsa, why’d you leave?” Robby asks.

  My headache has come back and there’s a knot in my stomach. We’ve stopped at the same Mexican restaurant where Rafael and the girls from the hotel had been the day before. But it’s later in the day, almost dusk. With the change in light it could be a different restaurant entirely. There’s paint peeling on the Spanish fresco, a chip in the fake adobe. We order tacos that come in bland tortillas, the salsa thin and watery.

  Robby sits with one hand on his head. He’s taken the straw hat off; it rests beside him on the table. His other hand picks at the label on his beer.

  “Robby, we were never going to work. Let’s not do this.”

  He laughs, really more of a bark. “That’s horseshit.”

  I put a chip in my mouth to hide that I’m taking another pill. “Come on. Jane is a firecracker,” I say. “She reminds me of someone I knew in New York—the wife of someone I knew, actually. I bet she can keep up with you on your morning swims.”

  He huffs a little, a painful sound. “She drags me out of bed, if you can believe it.”

  “Good, then you’ve met your match.”

  “We’re living together and everything,” he says with that same pained tone, the beer label in pieces now. “She’s one of the strongest women I know, a triathlete, for God’s sake.”

  A small boy in the booth across from us turns to cough into his arm. It’s a great big dramatic cough that children do for attention. Robby smiles at him. “Good manners. His parents taught him right,” he says.

  “I know you, though; you’ve got to be the hero. What’s her story?”

  He fidgets with his beer. “Her apartment burned down about a year ago.”

  “Ha.” I watch his face. “Oh, you’re serious. That’s terrible.”

  “She lost everything.”

  I pat his arm. “And you swooped in. Ever the knight.”

  “I couldn’t save you.” His eyes have a watery sheen to them now. He brushes the pieces of beer label into his hand and throws them.

  “I didn’t need saving. That was our problem.”

  His head is back in his hands. “Why, though? Was our life that horrible?”

  “Jesus, Robby, get a hold of yourself. We’re still friends. We just didn’t work.”

  The family with the coughing boy looks at us across their burritos. The mother has smile lines. She’s younger than me.

  “I would have moved to New York if you’d wanted me to.”

  “But I didn’t want you to.
”

  “Fuck, Elsa.” He thumps the table with his labelless beer. “We could have had a family by now.”

  “I didn’t realize how drunk you were.”

  “Don’t pretend like none of this matters. I know you, Elsa.” He reaches for my hand across the table.

  I’m suddenly furious. “Stop saying you know me—you don’t know me. I never wanted that, never.”

  “Jesus. What’s happened to you?” He says this with such force it feels like the whole restaurant turns in their seats to see who this you person is—to wonder what exactly happened to her.

  “I got fucking fired from my job, all right?” I nearly spit. “There were cutbacks and I got axed—is that what you wanted to hear? Good. You heard it.”

  His face flinches. “Elsa, I didn’t … I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t need your pity. Pity yourself. I am fine—fine.”

  The knot in my stomach jumps into my throat. I’m up and walking out, shaking Robby off me. I catch the mother looking away from us. She pulls her coughing boy into her lap and presses her mouth into his hair.

  Then I’m outside, looking for a quiet place to vomit. The harbor is completely gray now, the skyline one bright white spot, pink-rimmed. On the other side, a city starts to shimmer—Los Angeles. The Vicodin punches now. I vomit behind the Albertson’s Express.

  30

  Charly is awake. She’s up and cleaning the villa when Robby and I get back. Her googly eyes are glassy from taking a nap, but she’s in good spirits, humming as she washes dishes.

  “Let’s get ready together,” she says to me after drying the last plate.

  She requests smoky eyes. She tries on several dresses, rambling about the kids in her classroom and the hunky school vice principal. She examines herself in the mirror.

  “Maybe I should dye it? Ooh, that’s a good idea. What do you think?” She looks at her reflection. “Something darker—no, lighter. Maybe I’m a blonde and I just don’t know it yet. What do you think?”

  “I think we both should,” I tell her. “Try something new.”

  I’ve ignored Robby since we left the restaurant. He pouts out on the deck, watching those far-reaching city lights across the water, all oily, slick-looking—smoking cigarette after cigarette, smoke trailing into the condo. Charly is oblivious. She calls out to him, “We’re almost ready,” and her giggle bounces off the sides of the tiled shower and claw-foot tub, tumbling out toward him. “Hold still,” I scold her, and paint her lips with a tiny wand dipped in a color called Earth Red.

  We meet the others outside the Casino. Something has happened on the zip-line trip. Everything feels charged. Gone are Jane’s cargo shorts and fanny pack. Instead she’s in a white dress, her trim waist wrapped in a thin turquoise belt. Her hair and makeup are immaculate. She’s had a shower. So have Tom and Jared. Tom was tan before, but now his face is pinched pink. It’s been well moisturized too, his bald head shining under the lamps and his teeth fluorescent against his skin. He stands a little behind Jane, reaches out to brush something from her dress. Her hand goes to the back of her bare neck, lingering there for a moment. She looks at Robby, then Charly and me, drawing herself up.

  “Hiya, babe,” Robby says, pulling her away from Tom. He makes a show of kissing her.

  Charly fidgets with her navy shirtwaist dress. “It’s riding up, do I look okay?” she whispers to me.

  “You’re beautiful,” I tell her, and she is. Her eyes are dark, smudged in the corners with eye shadow and liner. The Xanax has relaxed her, smoothed her out. She looks breathless, flushed and glossy. She could be eighteen going to prom.

  Jared sees Charly and his eyes go wide.

  “Elsa.” He looks at me and then back at Charly. “Charlotte, you’ve taken my breath away.”

  She blushes, starts to pull at the dress. “You don’t think it’s too much?”

  “Not at all,” he says, shaking his head. He looks back at me. “You’ve outdone yourself. I owe you a drink on this one.”

  Charly’s face falls a little but then Jane takes her hand. “And I’ll buy this lovely lady one,” she says.

  “I’ll open a tab at the bar, would you like that?” Tom asks Jane with something like sincerity, but she ignores him.

  Robby takes Jane by the arm. “I think I can buy my girlfriend a damn drink.”

  Tom shrugs, plucks two of the jazz tickets from Robby’s hand. “Then I’ll buy Elsa’s.”

  My name is a snake in his mouth, the way it rolls off, nearly swiping across Robby’s face.

  Jane pulls her arm free. “Come on, Charly, let’s go in.”

  “Tom can buy my martini,” Charly says with a high-pitched giggle.

  I take one of the pills from my purse and follow them in. The mob is fierce, everyone pushing at one another, and the smell of sunscreen, shampoo, and too many flowery lotions is suffocating. Then I’m in the rotunda and there’s room to breathe. A blues band is playing and there’s a line at the bar. Jared asks Charly to dance and they disappear into the crowd. I don’t think I’ve seen her so happy.

  Robby turns to Jane, but she shakes her head.

  “No, I’m too tired from the zip line,” she says, looking past him. “I’d like to sit down. But you have a good time, babe.” She touches her bare neck again.

  “I’ll bring you a drink, then,” he says.

  She’s studying the floor now. “Tom has already gone to the bar.”

  Just then Tom brings martinis and Robby’s face goes tight.

  “Extra cold,” he says to Jane, handing her the drink. He gives Robby a knowing look and turns to me. “And extra dirty.”

  Robby makes a sound I haven’t heard before, like a growl crossed with a moan, and then he’s shoving Tom hard so that he falls against another couple, sending their drinks crashing. Jane’s knocked back too, but she gets up quick and is between them again. Her hands splayed out on Robby’s chest look surprisingly delicate.

  “Which one are you fighting for, huh?” Tom sneers from the floor.

  “Robby, please,” Jane is saying. “Please.” She looks at Tom. “Go, just go.”

  Tom looks momentarily hurt, his face strained. Then he pushes himself up and walks off.

  Robby hasn’t missed a thing; he’s waiting for Jane to look at him, and when she does she starts to cry.

  “I’ll take her to the bathroom,” I tell him.

  “I’m sorry, Robby…,” Jane starts, as I steer her away.

  We push through the crowd—it feels like everyone is pressed up dancing against one another. I think I catch Rafa talking to a made-up Marisol beneath a fan palm. She’s in a lace dress similar to the one I saw her in last night, this one bright pink and just as tight. Then the light changes, one of the canned lights goes from blue to red, and the couple changes too. They’re too short and squat to be Rafa and Marisol—or maybe I’m remembering them wrong and that really is them.

  The bathroom is big and beautiful, built in the first half of the twentieth century, so it has a powder room and full-length mirrors and two settees and urns and vases and black-and-white photographs of Joan Crawford and Myrna Loy.

  Jane’s stopped crying but is still upset.

  “How was the zip line?” I ask.

  “It was beautiful. Really beautiful,” she says, wiping at her eyes.

  I help pin back her short hair. “I have lipstick in my purse—are you more of a pink or purple girl?” She sits like a doll while I trace her lips. “I wanted to tell you, Jane, I think you’re really wonderful for Robby. He needs someone like you.”

  She hugs me suddenly. I think she might be crying again.

  “It was just very hot out on the zip line,” she says, straightening herself. “We rented a hotel room—they only had a double, so we got ready together. Have you ever done that? Rented a hotel room by the hour, I mean, I didn’t know that was a real thing. But we were short on time and had to get ready.” Her chest has red splotches across it. “We all got ready together
—it only took a couple hours.” She looks at me soberly in the mirror.

  “Well, you look lovely,” I say.

  “Jared went out to get a six-pack and a pizza.”

  “Oh,” I say. And her reflection stares hard at me.

  “I like that dress, Elsa. You’re very beautiful. But you know that, don’t you? Beautiful women are always told how lovely they are.” She looks at herself in the mirror, and her voice changes. “Such a pretty girl.”

  She touches her lips, which I’ve painted Posey Pink.

  “But that never makes a difference, does it? You never get what you want in the end.” Her face takes on a wry smile. “Sorry,” she says, shaking her head. “I need a drink is all. Let’s get good and drunk.” She’s pressing my hand, squeezing the bones together.

  Robby is waiting outside the bathroom for us. Jane falls into his arms.

  “Let’s dance,” she says.

  He kisses her on the forehead. “Sure thing, babe.”

  At the bar I order a scotch neat and take another pill, which burns all the way down with the scotch. Then I’m imagining Jane and Tom in that hotel—with its slanting floors and crooked windows. The door closing behind Jared, the air crackling, and then Tom is there, whispering, everything soft and blistering until his mouth is everywhere and you let it happen because he smells so goddamn expensive and has the kind of authority that makes you tingle. You come louder and harder than you ever have in your sad little Jane life.

  The scotch hits me hard. Tom is suddenly beside me. He looks older. His airs are sort of tired, as if his well-pressed Armani suit were wearing him.

  “Everything all right?” I ask.

  “Yeah, just a little sunstroke. There was a long wait at the zip line and no shade.”

  “You ought to buy it and plant some trees.”

  He laughs. He’s watching Jane and Robby across the dance floor.