by Liska Jacobs
“They make an attractive couple,” he says.
“I heard you rented a hotel room by the hour. Classy.”
He grits through his teeth. “You are such a bitch.”
I correct him: “A bitch with bite.”
31
In the rotunda an announcer is giving out raffle prizes and throwing beads into the crowd, who roar back with delight. The crush is maddening. I feel in my purse for another pill. I don’t see Rafa or his friends but there’s Jared talking to Rachel, her platinum hair curled and shining. Where is Charly? But then Robby finds me. He’s holding a martini. His mood has changed considerably; he’s practically beaming.
“I’m sorry about this afternoon. I was drunk—it’s a bad excuse, I know, but I’m sorry anyway.” He hands me the drink. “Things have been difficult with Jane since we moved in together. To tell you the truth I wasn’t sure we’d make it—and then you showed up.” He smiles a little. “Anyway, we’re gonna be okay, me and Jane. We’ve talked it over. Tom’s just an asshole, likes to push buttons. Forgive me?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Let’s talk more when we get the hell off this island, as friends, I mean. I want to help you get through this. Really, whatever I can do to help.”
“Yes, fantastic. Help. Sounds lovely.” My voice cracks a little. I think somewhere far off I must be crying.
“Friends?”
“Friends.” I think, You poor son of a bitch.
We clink our glasses together.
The band rejoins the stage, their faces still sweaty from their last set. They look haggard and bleached-out under the spotlights. But then the music starts, and the singer changes. Eyes closed, holding the microphone like a lover—he is sensual now, handsome. He reminds me of Rafa, not the Rafa from last night, but the first one, the one from the beach. Funny how a person can be many things. Was that only five days ago? It seems so firmly set in the past. Like Robby in the desert. Years, eons ago. Back when that ocean first started to rage—when it became deep and vast and filled with mystery. And this trip—I can feel it slipping away already, shifting, changing into whatever is next. God, I’m tired. How exhausting it is to be alive.
We watch for a moment, until Jared lumbers up like a drunken puppy.
“Have you guys seen Charly?”
“Maybe by the band,” Robby suggests.
Jared makes us do shots of whiskey. We toast To good times or something. I’m only half here now. The other half is quite worn-out—it’s slipped out to sea. Everything shiny, like those tinsel palms in Santa Monica. It’s warm too, the balmy kind of heat you find in the tropics. I could sleep right here in a hammock, yes, that sounds nice—a hammock in warm salty air.
When I open my eyes everything is spinning. Tom is there now, saying something to Robby that makes him tense.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” I say, but no one is listening. Jared asks again about Charly, but Robby and Tom are locked in a primal stare-down. Jane walks up then, and Tom moves so that they are shoulder to shoulder, like lieutenants, like a united front. I can barely make out Tom’s face in the blue light, smirking at Robby, self-satisfied and contemptuous.
And for a moment Robby surveys them both, his head dragging back and forth. Jane looks at me.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” I tell her, but she looks away.
She tries to apologize to Robby. I watch her hands turn up as if in surrender—they move toward him, coaxing. I see Robby’s wide swimmer shoulders contract and then expand, his arm pulling back. All he says is Jane and then he backhands her across the face. I feel bile, thin and acidic, at the back of my throat. I reach out. No, no, I think. Stop. Jane melts down to the floor. Tom grabs Robby by his jacket, Robby takes a swing. I’m knocked back by one of them. The room is really spinning now—the band, the lights—I’m having trouble keeping my eyes open. Women nearby have knelt beside Jane, staring daggers at Robby, whose face is twisted in a snarl. Spit flying from his mouth. Bitch, I hear, and flinch, the nausea amplified. Motherfucker. One of their shoes squeals against the tiled floor. Tom is red-faced and grunting, attempting to throw Robby to the floor. Jane is crying, but I can’t hear her—the music is too loud. She has one hand against her cheek, eyes wide, hysterical. Jared’s voice, whiny and frightened, Where’s Charly? Charly! Has anyone seen Charlotte? Security guards show up and get in on the action. The lights change from blue to red again and it’s like the floor beneath me drops. The vomit is nearly here. I push my way to the bathroom.
There’s no line, I’m able to stumble right in. It is beautifully calm and cool here with the tall ceilings and wide marble stalls. And so quiet. The nausea passes. I rest my forehead against one of the walls and take deep, steadying breaths. I must have a fever. Maybe I’ll end up in the hospital after all.
There’s a floor-length mirror and I can see my full reflection in it. Pretty girl, Jane’s voice is saying. I can hear Robby and Jane and Jared and Eric and Mother and the golf-cart driver and everyone, all at once: Such a pretty girl. I hear that and the sound of Robby’s hand against Jane’s face—smack—louder than the music.
I push open the handicap stall and there’s Charly, sitting on the toilet, face pressed against the little metal shelf meant for purses. Her dress floating about her, heels peeking out. The handicap stall is the place you go to hook up. It’s the place to rack a line of blow. There’s a good amount of elbow room; we could fit a third, maybe a fourth. It should be a blonde, I think—that would make a nice set of three. I should call Rachel in here. But then what to do with Marisol and lovely Jane?
“Hey, wake up,” I say. Something ugly settles in my stomach. I step closer. “Charlotte?” Blood, dark red and shining. It seeps out from beneath her navy dress—a study in color juxtaposition, like a painting Eric showed me. Rothko wants you saturated in color until there’s no difference between where you begin and his color red ends.
I squat down so Charly and I are face to face. I say her name again. I shout her full name. She’s not moving. The red has reached past her black heel, pooled in the seams of the chicken-wire floor. I can feel it now, some of her blood has smeared onto my bare leg, still warm.
Charly, Charly, Charlotte—is that my voice? High-pitched and grating, bouncing off the white tiled walls. I do not want to leave her alone. Someone is screaming—is it me? A pale woman, older, with pearls in her ears and around her throat—her mouth open wide—such a wide red mouth. Then she is gone too. I can hear the band. Someone should tell them to stop playing. Shouldn’t they stop playing? I can feel the bass through the walls, the ceiling, my skin, it’s in my blood too, back behind the skull, tight along the jaw—my teeth are grinding. And then Charly is pulled away, someone is working right on top of her. All that dark hair, matted and twisted, black eyeliner and eye shadow smeared and running down her pallid face.
Outside I push through a crowd to find Robby, who is standing close to a security guard, his head in his hands. I think about how in college he thought about becoming a doctor, then maybe a paramedic, then a firefighter. I was with him through all of it. He settled for lifeguard. I remember when he decided, and I thought, How can you be a lifeguard in New York City? But it was already over by then. Any one of those careers would be more useful right now than UX designer.
I’m already crying, and I shrug him off when he tries to calm me. Charly, I am trying to tell him. Charly. No one knows where Jared is.
The ambulance is quick. Or at least I think it is. Time seems to go very fast suddenly. Robby is holding himself now, arms across his chest, and then Jane starts to cry and I watch him slide closer to her, watch her accept his arm around her—her head falling softly, her hands covering her face so that she can cry harder. Tom watches them too, hands in his pockets. Jared is there now, following the stretcher into the back of the ambulance. For some reason the crowd continues to dance, the band playing on.
32
You remember a day but only in moments, and it’
s always in a dream so that when you wake all that’s left is the awareness of how hot the day was, how the air at the orchard was so humid and heavy you thought that if you just clenched your fists hard enough, shook them at the sky, maybe you’d produce water in your hands.
Do you want to see if Jack can take us out? You remember how Charly’s eyes narrowed when she said it, as if you had said something in your sleep about the oldest Drucker boy, and now she was going to make you pay for it.
The Drucker brothers are one of the best things about sleeping over at Charly’s. The boys out on the farm are something to giggle over, to talk about in whispers, to make you feel your friendship is a heavy, serious thing that you share, perfectly, with only each other.
It’s summer, and Charly’s sister is in Paris with their mother and cousins. Charly telling you, I didn’t do well enough in math this year. But it’s okay because her sister will bring back chocolates and they’ll plan a trip together when they are older. Somewhere more exotic than Paris, she’ll say with a shrug. For now she’s stuck at home with just her dad and the Drucker boys, so you spend the night often.
Sometimes you’ll remember exactly how the oldest Drucker boy’s face felt that day, pressed against yours. Rough because he had a beard, and the weight of him—how the dry earth chafed your butt, and how the dappled sunlight came through the branches of the old oak, which kept changing and shifting in a breeze that didn’t make it down to where you lay, skirt off, tank top pushed up, exposing a training bra and pitifully small breasts. This you’ll always remember with rushing shame at how ridiculous you must have seemed to him at thirteen.
Everything comes back in lush detail like that.
In this dream-memory Charly’s dad is a flirt. He lets you decide what’s for breakfast, ignoring Charly’s request for scrambled eggs. You choose pancakes and then change your mind to waffles, and then back again to pancakes. Charly’s dad laughing and saying, No man can refuse you, he’d be a fool. This idea pleases you because at home your brothers never let you do anything, and your father is just beginning to stay away.
After breakfast you and Charly will take the old airsoft gun, and shoot at cans and fence posts. There’s a strong smell of eucalyptus trees and Charly’s lotion, which is cucumber melon, and those smells will permeate your clothing so that days after, you’ll push your face into them and be right back there again and again—listening to the sound of cicadas, feeling that sense of lawlessness because the town and your school and your house—most importantly, your house—are very far off and cannot touch you.
The citrus orchard is a few miles away, but you want to pick the wildflowers that grow near the fruit trees. Charly’s dad radios the Drucker boys to pick you up—No man can refuse you.
Jack, the oldest at twenty, is driving, his shirt already soaked through from sweat, a cigarette tucked between his lips. His younger brothers, Ryan and Justin, are in the bed of the truck. They call out for you to ride with them. Dust, lots of dust clouds up at you, and Ryan, the youngest and the only Drucker boy still in school, ties a bandana around your face. Charly ties her own.
In the orchards, endless beneath a cloudless sky, the citrus trees with their gnarled trunks like old witch hands, you and Charly giggle when Jack yells to the workers to take their lunches. His Spanish is spot-on. When he turns you’ll catch him looking at you from beneath his baseball cap.
Justin, the middle brother, nineteen, has a laugh like a bird in the middle of the night. It makes you cold to remember it—and you will, often, because it seems there are just so many Justins in the world.
He teases you, always teases Charly too, but with you there is a sense of malice. On this day he looks from his brother to you and then back at his brother—you could rest an arm on that sneer. He produces a brown whiskey bottle from his pack, insists it’s a lunchtime tradition.
When you tire of picking flowers, there is whiskey and Coca-Cola and turkey sandwiches and potato salad. Charly has brought the airsoft gun and she shoots soda cans—the empty ones from lunch—and you both drink whiskey out of paper cups, giggling and smiling at each other. You feel so grown-up.
Charly’s a good shot and Justin challenges her to shoot a grapefruit from a tree. This becomes a game. With every grapefruit Charly hits, you run with Ryan to gather the evidence. You glance back at the group on the blanket, at Jack watching you from under his hat, but then Charly is shooting another and there is Justin beside her, glaring.
You and Ryan pause beneath the canopy. He’s out of breath, his face full and freckled. At school his nickname is Tub.
And there’s the smell of citrus, like sunshine, a tightening in your chest, it’s juicy—getting everywhere—and the buds on the branches are the color of seashells, and the bees sound like butterflies, and you are not scared, the whiskey making your chest warm; then Ryan tries to kiss you, smelling like fried food and the erasers at school.
When you come back to the blanket, arms full with grapefruit, you pretend you’ve hurt your ankle and don’t want to play anymore. Ryan is sweaty and pink, looking like he might cry.
Justin says something like, Well, God forbid Elsa gets hurt, I guess we all have to play something else.
Charly glares at you, you’ve ruined her day. But then Ryan suggests everyone play tag. When Jack refuses, Ryan rubs his knuckles against his head, making Jack jump up and give chase. You watch him: the narrow spot at his waist, his broad shoulders and chest, his muscles flexing beneath his T-shirt. Then Charly is up, kicking Justin in the foot—getting him to rally too. You watch from the blanket, your friend enjoying the attention, shrieking as the three brothers chase after her. It’s a pretty picture to remember: the gnats and dust like light rainfall.
You’re flipping through a men’s fitness magazine from one of the boys’ backpacks, and pretending not to blush at all that bare skin, when suddenly Justin is there. He’s looking down at you, his body blocking the sun, saying, That’s my magazine.
You try to sound nice, polite. You think of Charly’s dad and how he let you choose breakfast—how something about you makes grown men want to be kind. So you smile up at him, hoping this shows.
Justin has taken out his pocketknife. He kneels down so you are at eye level.
Do you trust me?
The knife has a bone handle; sun glints off the blade.
You try to smile or laugh but neither of those things happens.
Do you trust me? He makes slow, slashing motions, up and down.
You look for the others. They’re chasing one another around the stump of an old tree.
Say it. He inches closer. Say you trust me.
And you can’t help it, you instinctively throw up your hand because the knife is too close, and it cuts perfectly across the fold between your thumb and forefinger.
His eyes fall to your hand and then to his knife, and you’ll want to remember fear or pity or some emotion flit across his face before Jack is there, punching Justin hard, in the head. Then you are crying because seeing your own blood and hearing the sound of bone against bone and the thud of body to earth is too much.
Then Jack takes you off to get bandaged. Charly is left behind with Justin and Ryan to clean up the mess, to wait for you. You hang your head half out the truck window—the beating wind, the choking of it, this is the only way you will stop crying.
Jack takes you to a small shed near the orchard with supplies and pulls down a first-aid kit. The shed is dark and damp, lit by only one overhead bulb that he has to twist to turn on. He’s good with your hand, though, his face worried, tense. A bit of your blood stains his pants.
You’ll remember his forehead being very close to yours, just touching, and you rest that way, with him holding your bandaged hand, your foreheads bent as if in prayer. You are sitting on a folding table, knees together, but then they’re not. He’s standing between them now, still holding your hand, your heads bent and touching. You watch his breath slow, how the lace on the bottom of your tank top b
arely flutters now.
He tells you, You smell like grapefruit, and then kisses you lightly on the lips. You let this happen. Even close your eyes and open your mouth to him. When he pulls away, you’re too desperate to be embarrassed. You’re holding him with your legs.
Have you ever been with anyone?
Your face is flushed and hot, and you hesitate but he won’t contradict you when you lie. Yes, you say. Oh, yes, yes, yes.
He takes you outside then, leading you by your uninjured hand to an oak tree where the ground isn’t as hard or as dry as the orchard’s. You lie down, terrified he won’t have sex with you, almost shaking from it. But he does. He isn’t slow about it either. He licks his fingers and touches you. His body is heavy, and you think of Charly’s sister in Paris, could Paris be this heady? Perfumed with citrus blossoms and something foreign, your own sex—a wet, earthy smell that slightly embarrasses you.
There’s no pain, only wetness and his face scrunched up as if in deep concentration. When it’s over, he helps you with your underwear and you lie back down beside each other, his arm across you as if you are now his. And you watch the patches of grass, how they wave up toward the sky, taller than you, and you feel warmth in your underwear, the thumping of your heartbeat, hear the buzz of flies—the big ones you find outside of town—and you shiver at the coolness seeping out from the musty shed.
* * *
This is what you’ll be left with once the sun is up and the drugs have worn off. You’re left thinking back to that day, remembering how it ended. Charly’s curiosity, her suspicion. Where’d you go? Why were you gone for so long? You were reserved, nonchalant even. I was with Jack. You answered how you thought an adult would, because now you were one. No more sleepovers and lizard hunting for you. Charly resented it, was jealous, and began hanging out with other girls at school. Soon she would move with her mother to Simi Valley, in the same state but a world away, and you would lose touch completely. She won’t be there when Jack enlists and leaves town, or when, years later, Justin corners you at a high school graduation party and puts his hand down your pants. How you let him.