by Megan Hart
He held out a hand to her to help her up, but paused with his fingers linked in hers. “Just one thing, miss. You said ‘we.’ What happened to the other people?”
“Oh,” Kelsey said. “They fell overboard during the storm. They all drowned.”
“All of them?”
“Yes,” she said and could tell by his relieved expression that she’d told the right lie. It made the hours she’d spent cleaning up after herself worthwhile. “All of them.”
FIVE
27
It started with the dancing.
Earlier, the floor had been pretty clear — just a few older men in Hawaiian shirts who’d already had a few too many drinks, their teeth gleaming white and bright under the black lights. “Heyyyyyy!” They cried, holding up their hands for high fives, leering, the liquid in their plastic cups sloshing as they moved in on Kathleen and Molly, circling the women like sharks. Kathleen and Molly held up their hands to be slapped and let the men dance up on them for a minute or two before turning back to each other, heads tossed back in laughter, shuffling on the floor already sticky from all the spilled booze.
It was girls’ weekend away.
They hadn’t gone out together in a while, the duties of husbands, children, pets, floors that needed to be swept and laundry that needed folding taking precedence over something as simple and giddy and decadent as a girlfriends’ trip. Still, they’d been friends since junior high and even though the effort of making time for each other was becoming more difficult as the years passed, they’d managed to book a room in a beachfront apartment, pack their bags with nothing but stuff for themselves, and just…go.
And now they were here in this huge nightclub with the whole night stretching out in front of them, full of nothing to do but drink and dance and have a good time. Kathleen loved to dance, and she didn’t much care what she looked like doing it. That saying — “dance like nobody’s watching,” well, she totally got that all right, except she danced alone in her kitchen while she unloaded the dishwasher the same way she kicked it out here on the dance floor. Hips bumping, arms lifted. Bounce, bounce. Bust a move. She looked like an idiot, and it didn’t matter because everything inside her was the thump and throb of the bass beat. The music took her.
Kathleen danced.
And Molly was right there with her, shaking her groove thang, the two of them consumed with the sort of laughter that bubbles up all the way from your toes. Some stumbling-drunk college girls beside them started grinding, ridiculous, making Kathleen’s lip curl. If you were going to do that sort of thing at least keep your feet, she thought as the taller girl fell back, taking her friend with her and stepping on Molly’s toes while Kathleen put out her hands to keep them from completely toppling her over.
“My bad! My bad,” the girl slurred, and wrapped her arms around Molly’s shoulders. “Sorrrrrry! Sorry, I looooove you!”
Molly shrugged her off and rolled her eyes. The girls stumbled away, and their spot was taken up by a matched set of young men in polo shorts and madras shorts. The song had changed, some woman shouting “err’body lift your drinks in the air,” and like lemmings, the entire dance floor did. The guys who’d surrounded Kathleen and Molly had identical cans of Bud Light. Cold beer splashed as they fist-pumped. One apologized, but it was with the blurry, weaving smile of a guy who wasn’t really sorry, since helping to wipe up the spill was a good excuse to get his hands all over Molly’s front. And yet…it didn’t matter, somehow, that he was handsy and a little out of control, that one of his friends had moved up on Kathleen’s ass like she’d put a neon sign on it that said “hands go here.” Somehow, all Kathleen could do was laugh and laugh as she twirled just out of reach.
It didn’t take long for the dance floor to get so crowded any sort of real dance became impossible. They’d started out in the center of the floor but had been slowly pushed toward the bar along the side of the room. Two steps led up to the bar level with a narrow countertop around the edge so people could stand there and have a place to put their drinks as they watched the crowd. It probably kept them from falling off, Kathleen thought as she and Molly found a space on one of the wide metal risers next to the railing. The advantage of this spot was that even though she had to be careful not to fall off, herself, she couldn’t be shoved from behind because the railing was there, and her feet were safe from being stabbed by stilettos because she was standing on the stair. It also meant that with a slightly raised viewpoint, she could more easily see out over the room.
“It’s like watching the nature channel,” Molly shouted, pointing out at the seething, writhing mass. “Look at them.”
Kathleen looked. She laughed. A bachelorette party that was dancing right in front of them, the bride resplendent in a penis tiara and blinking penis necklace, her girls beside her in matching t-shirts, were being freaked by… “Oh. My. God. A cowboy!”
The cowboy ripped open his shirt.
“Holy Shit.” This came simultaneously from both of them, and they dissolved into laughter again. Just like in the eighth grade when they’d giggle over posters torn from Teen Beat and Bop magazine, fingers tracing the hairless bare chests of pouting, pretty musicians and TV stars. In eighth grade, Kathleen wouldn’t have known what to do with a chest and belly like the one the cowboy was now encouraging the bride to rub…and…lick?
“I should ask him if you have to be a bride to get some of that action,” Kathleen said. “Jesus Christ, look at the abs.”
Bounce, bounce. The crowd got bigger, the music impossibly louder, the beats fast and the bass down low. The man standing next to Kathleen on the stairs that led to the bar area, the handrail separating them, grinned at her when she looked his way and said something she couldn’t catch until she leaned in close — which was, she realized, probably what he’d been going for. Again, it didn’t matter. At home she mopped floors and cleaned toilets, packed lunches and chauffeured dozens of children to an unending array of sports and activities but here, now, in this place, she was not a wife, mother, daughter, sister. Right now, with her best friend and a couple hundred strangers squeezing up against her, she was simply Kathleen.
It had been a long, long time since she’d been only that.
“What?” She cried, leaning in.
He was saying something she couldn’t make out, something about how he smelled good, offering his neck to take a sniff, and she did because why not? He did smell good, and he was blatantly cute, and as always when something like this happened she wondered why on earth he’d take the time to flirt with her when there was a handful of scantily clad, intoxicated and twenty-something bridesmaids shaking their asses not two steps in front of him. Not that she cared really, because the next thing that happened was that he was offering to buy she and Molly both drinks. It was totally a seller’s market for the ladies, and Kathleen wasn’t going to complain about that, even if in her real life she was just as likely to hold a door for someone as to expect it to be held for her.
This wasn’t real life.
The bridesmaid in front of her fell down.
There were so many people around her that she didn’t make it to the ground before grasping hands pulled her back onto her feet. Kathleen’s lip curled again and she moved onto the higher step, watching the girl bend over. If there was going to be puke, Kathleen wanted to be well out of the way. In the next moment, the girl came upright, not puking, though her mouth was wide open. She dove at the cowboy, and it really was like the nature channel, only Kathleen wasn’t sure if she was watching a mating ritual or a carnivore attacking its prey. The bridesmaid was either kissing him or eating his face, it was too hard to tell.
“Drinks!”
It was sort of like magic. The guy returned, drinks in hand. Then he turned around and left. Molly caught Kathleen’s eye and shrugged, and they laughed again. They drank and danced, at least as best they could. The crowd in front of them shifted, groups merging and splitting. The cowboy and the bridesmaid had disappeared, thoug
h Kathleen caught a glimpse of the bride — no, it was a different bride, this one in a veil and sucking on a giant ring pop. The DJ kept the music going, one song blending into another, so there was no room between them. No time to stop, not that she wanted to.
The small space on the stairs that had seemed unencroachable just a few minutes before had gotten smaller and smaller, until at last she was reduced to simply shifting her feet. Bounce, bounce. It was ridiculous, silly, no room to move and she was still dancing, and everything was right in this world and this place, nothing to think about but the pulse of the music and crush of people all around her.
There was a guy in front of her, leaning on the counter. He was smiling. Probably because she looked like an idiot.
“You’re looking at my sweet dance moves, aren’t you?” Kathleen said, and demonstrated a few more stupid shimmies. Then a few more, just to see what he’d do. “Admit it, you’ve never seen anything like this.”
“Oh, I know you have some good moves,” he said. “I saw you doing the Running Man earlier.”
This gave her pause, just a second or two, because she had to remember when and where she’d been doing the Running Man — though there was no denying that she probably had been. On this dance floor? Or in one of the other places in the vast club? Either way, it meant he’d seen her before she saw him, and that was something interesting.
“Oh, I’m sure you did,” she said. “I’m sure I was totally doing the Running Man. And it was probably sort of awesome, am I right?”
He didn’t say anything to that, but he laughed, and she laughed, and then a space cleared out and she and Molly were dancing again. It would be great if the night never ended, though of course it always had to, but at least she didn’t have to wake up early in the morning and take care of anyone but herself. The thought of that alone…stretching out in a big bed by herself, waking when her body told her it was time instead of to an alarm, maybe not taking a shower for an hour after she got out of bed, those were the simple pleasures of a woman with a good life who sometimes felt like she still might like to run away from it all.
Molly’s attention had been taken up by two men who’d been standing where Kathleen had been a few minutes ago, but that was okay. All at once in front of her was that guy from above. He’d come down to stand in front of her with another of those smiles she couldn’t stop herself from returning. He spread his arms and gave her a look.
“Teach me some of those sweet moves,” he said. “I’m ready.”
Well, well, well. This was interesting, indeed, and despite the fact that lots of dudes had been circling her and Molly tonight, this was…different. Kathleen jerked her chin, just a little.
“Show me what you’ve got, so I see what I have to work with.”
He danced kind of like she did.
And it was awesome.
There was conversation, though later if you’d asked her she wouldn’t quite have been able to remember everything they talked about. Of course later when the world was ending, she wouldn’t have time to remember. Now, though, even as the night was edging on toward last call and the desperation level was rising as the time to hook-up was running out, all Kathleen cared about was dancing. Laughing. Holding onto something she didn’t get very often but never forgot she missed.
His name was Doug. He wore a black hooded sweatshirt with the word Princeton on the front of it, and though she kept meaning to ask him why, she never quite got around to it. They’d left the riser to force a spot closer to the back of the dance floor, Molly not abandoned or forgotten but dancing with Doug’s friend whose name Kathleen hadn’t caught.
Behind her, the bridesmaids were back. This time, the cowboy’d also brought some friends. Maybe they were the same as the ones from earlier, maybe different. By this point most everyone was so drunk and drenched with sweat, hair plastered across foreheads and cheeks, clothes askew from too much grinding, that it would’ve been hard for her to pick out someone she knew pretty well, much less a group of strangers.
Kathleen had long ago worked the minimal alcohol she’d consumed out of her with the exertion of constant movement; her dress clung to her and her neck begged for her to lift her hair off it, just for a second or two, to find some relief from the inferno-level temperatures in the club. Doug had finally abandoned the sweatshirt, a foolish choice in club-wear they’d both agreed during one of the times when the music had slowed and they stood, mouth to ear, ostensibly all the better to hear each other when the reality was that it was just a reason to stand so close. He had to take off his glasses for a minute to pull it off over his head. He had blue eyes, dark though, a kind of strange color. Maybe green. She had to look away so he wouldn’t catch her staring. He wore a t-shirt underneath, and when he turned around, Kathleen admired the back of his neck where the hair was short and slick with sweat.
Someone shoved her hard enough to force her to take a few unsteady steps forward. Doug caught her, his hands on her upper arms, but she went a little too far. Front to front, belly to belly, thigh to thigh. It was where she’d wanted to end up for the past ten songs but hadn’t managed to work up the nerve to go.
It wasn’t that she’d set out tonight to find this, but here it was. Heat and sweat and the constant, steady bass thumping, the press and crush of a crowd, the flash and swirl of colored lights and confetti that filtered from the ceiling like multi-colored snow every hour or so and made everyone look up and reach to grab the floating paper strips. She hadn’t been looking for it, but it was what she’d found.
The crowd surged again. The song eased into something slower, and it seemed natural enough for him to pull her even closer. Slide a thigh between hers. Do that slow, smooth grind that was nothing like the herky jerky ass-riding she’d been making fun of earlier. His hands on her hips, her fingers poised to curl at the back of his neck, so close she could already feel the brush and tickle of his hair on her knuckles — except she didn’t do it. She found a place on his back, fingers splayed on his shoulder blade, a spot that felt noncommittal and neutral and was anything but. She knew she was too stiff, muscles too tight. The woman who’d bounced and jumped and shuffled with abandon had become a wooden doll.
And then she melted.
Just for a second or two, not long at all, but it felt like an eternity. Heat centered inside her. She closed her eyes and breathed in deep, the scent of cotton and sweat and liquor, the smell of her own perfume. She closed her eyes and the world fell away for that minute, and if she could’ve been anyone else but herself for just that sixty seconds she thought she’d probably have sold her soul for the chance.
The music changed, someone bumped into them again. She opened her eyes and took a step back, laughing and self-conscious, hoping he didn’t notice. She knew it was artificial. Maybe he’d had a couple too many gin-and-tonics. Or he was in the habit of picking up women in clubs in the way she was not in the habit of picking up men. Maybe she was just what he’d settled for when the bridesmaids hadn’t returned his smile, who knew? The laugh caught in her throat when she saw him looking past her, over her shoulder, his face creased with concern.
“What’s the matter?” Kathleen turned as Doug, hand still on her hip, pulled her back, out of the way.
She didn’t stumble this time, but she ended up pressed close to him anyway. His hand went to the small of her back as his other tucked up tight around her arm, shifting her. He’d have shielded her, she thought, except she was in front of him, so he instead moved her to the side. Just in time, too, because the bridesmaid - it was the same one from earlier, Katy remembered the tramp stamp tattoo showing between the girl’s too-tight t-shirt and the waistband of her jean shorts— fell over right in front of her. Right onto the floor, flat on her face, where she twitched and jerked. One sandal fell off.
A few people in the crowd backed up, but not enough. There wasn’t any place for them to go, so even as someone shouted for everyone to make room, the others at the outskirts pushed in harder. People stumb
led against each other. Someone else fell, and at first Kathleen thought it was some drunk just off-balance, but she saw it was the cowboy. His hat was gone but his shirt was still open, and she recognized the abs. He pitched forward onto his hands and knees, shoulders heaving. She couldn’t hear him, but she recognized the motion from many nights spent holding a bucket in front of her kids’ faces as they puked from the flu or too many chocolates.
Kathleen made a low noise of disgust she felt in her throat but she couldn’t actually hear over the still pounding music. The rest of the night had been all dance hits, but now the DJ started spinning something harder-edged. A familiar guitar riff, drums pounding. Enter Sandman, she thought, distracted, as Doug pulled her back further, out of the crowd. A bigger space had opened up around the bridesmaid, who’d stopped twitching, and the cowboy, still on his hands and knees.
Kathleen searched for Molly, who’d been dancing with Doug’s friend not far from her, and couldn’t see her. Now the crowd had started to scatter. Someone else fell. A shout went up. The ripple effect was creating a space, but people were shoving and pushing to get away from whatever was going on in the center of the room.
“Let’s get out of here,” Doug said into her ear, and Kathleen nodded, letting him guide her through the dense pack of people as she looked over her shoulder until she lost sight of the mayhem.
Molly and Doug’s friend caught up with them at the club’s exit doors. Molly was flushed and grinning, the friend’s arm around her waist. Whatever was happening on the dance floor had been bad enough to call security. Three muscled men in yellow t-shirts shoved and wove through the people standing around smoking…or making out, Kathleen saw. Hands groping, mouths open and slobbering. She caught a glimpse of what should’ve been someone’s tongue but looked too long and thick, the wrong color, the flash of it disturbing in a way she couldn’t put her finger on though she craned her neck to look again as she followed Doug across the sand-covered floor toward the gates.