Certain American States_Stories

by Catherine Lacey

  All of which is to say, I was the ideal person to rent a creepy little cabin someone had just tidied up after their batty grandfather finally died in his sleep.

  Isn’t there anywhere we could go tonight, Sarah asked, something we could do?

  Coincidentally, a party was happening that night, though I’d already planned to not attend. Not because I didn’t like parties—I did, sort of—and not because Sarah had arrived that day, but because I didn’t feel I had been invited. I had been invited (technically) just as everyone else who worked at the grocery store had been invited. It was the annual storewide bonfire; they’d even moved closing time up an hour and a half so everyone could make it.

  She and I took shots of bourbon before leaving the cabin, preparing to get drunk enough to feel or at least behave sisterly. Sarah, for many reasons, had always seemed like someone else’s sister, and when I had to refer to her as my sister Sarah, I felt fraudulent, even a little perverted. Bourbon was a temporary fix for this.

  By the time we arrived the bonfire was already going. The cashier with the horse face was playing the fiddle off to the side of the group, as if she’d been hired to do so. A few guys from the cheese department were huddled together sharing a joint and my supervisor, Betty, was holding someone’s leg as they did a keg stand.

  What’s your department again? one of the stoned cheese guys asked.

  Beans, I said. He frowned, tilted his face. I mean bulk. It’s just all beans to me.

  The cheese guy was still laughing at this and I was still silent when Sarah brought me a second beer, a local ale that tasted like it was from nowhere in particular.

  What’s so funny? she asked.

  Beans, I said.

  What?

  The cheese guy laughed even louder, but gathered himself to ask Sarah, What’s your department?

  I’m her sister. She nudged me.

  Ah, cool, cool. Family department, cool.

  No, I’m just visiting, Sarah said, defensive in at least three ways.

  Just then the cashier who looked for numerological significance in her customers’ totals came up and hugged me.

  Bridget, I am so glad you’re here. She hugged me again, harder this time and rocking us side to side. My arms dangled. Sarah stared.

  Your total from yesterday—eight dollars and eighty-eight cents—I looked it up and it’s a very lucky number in the Chinese tradition. It means wealthy wealthy wealthy—isn’t that great news?

  The items that had brought me to this total were some olives, a tiny wedge of expensive cheese, and a box of cereal. Groceries of the lonely. The cashier’s excitement over the meaning behind the total—My first triple all month!—only increased my feeling of total reasonlessness.

  She’s wealthy already, Sarah said, only half-drunk but already childish, already sisterly. She’s totally loaded.

  The cheese guy and cashier both turned to Sarah and Sarah looked to me, looked for one of those wordless reproaches that run in our family, but I had nothing, no expression at all.

  She’s right. I don’t even need a job. I have no reason to be here.

  Disbelieving, the cheese guy high-fived me, chuckled, and went off toward the keg.

  The cashier began reading Sarah’s aura. I can see you’re in a transitional phase.

  Aren’t we all? Sarah replied.

  You know, you are so right. It’s a very strange time in this country, isn’t it? Very transitional.

  I sensed they were about to talk politics, the election just over, everyone doing that same dejected head-shaking. A series of graffiti that had appeared on a nearby bridge spared no race, gender, or political affiliation. Fuck everything. Someone had even scrawled Fuck Abolition, though maybe it said Abortion, but wasn’t that all part of the problem, the words, the facts? The million details left out?

  I lowered my empty Solo cup to see Sarah lying on a tarp nearby, the cashier administering what looked like Reiki. A few others sat cross-legged, watching, smiling.

  At the keg I listened to that woman from HR as she twirled the gray end of her side braid.

  My daughter—she’s sixteen—and all her friends at school, well, they’re all upset, real upset about it and they decided to organize a peace ceremony. Isn’t that nice?

  The man refilling his beer nodded—Real nice, he said—and handed me the tap.

  The party went on. The keg got tapped and out came the whiskeys. One of the cheese guys asked Sarah for her number and didn’t seem to understand what she meant when she told him, several times, that she was just visiting.

  We need to go, she said, leaning into me. Are those cheese boys always so handsy?

  * * *

  On the walk home we locked arms, the alcohol bringing us together, as intended. Sarah’s phone buzzed and it was Linda—she’d found a cheap overnight flight and was on her way out too.

  Is this some sort of intervention?

  Noooo, nuh-uh. Sarah shook her head in a way that reminded me of when she was a baby, shaking her head at almost everything—applesauce, car seats, the television. Once a discontent, then a cheerleader.

  It’s a sisters weekend is what it is! Sarah shouted. It’s fun!

  But … why? We aren’t those sort of sisters.

  Actually, I do have something to tell you. We were just outside my creepy little cabin, the porch light flickering. I’m engaged!

  I was still waiting for her to tell me something until I realized that was it. Oh! Congratulations. To whom?

  She turned her phone screen to me, bleaching my night vision. It was a picture of Sarah and a gray-haired man, their faces pressed together at the cheek.

  Wait—is that Mr. Jacobsen? From … wasn’t he?

  His name’s Charlie and, yes, he’s Claire-Anne’s stepdad, well, her ex-stepdad.

  Isn’t he … is he Dad’s age?

  He’s only forty-eight.

  I started to say something but caught myself, began again, caught myself again. I went inside and she followed. I poured us large cups of bourbon.

  You know, my twenty-five isn’t the same as your twenty-five and you don’t have to be so moralizing about it, you know—I just, I wanted to tell you in person. I handed her the bourbon. Thank you. Doesn’t that mean anything to you? Me coming all the way out here just to tell you?

  Yes. That means something … and I am happy for you, if you’re happy for you. It’s just I’m not that happy of a person.

  As I said this I sat on the defective reclining chair, which jerked me backward; my bourbon splashed across my face. If we had been a different sort of sisters, maybe this would have been the comic relief to the night, the laughing end to our troubles, but Sarah just threw me a dishrag and poured half her drink into my empty cup. The rest of the night was a smear. Soon we were asleep.

  The next morning, quite early, Linda was there, and though I didn’t know what time it was, I knew it was too early for anyone to open anyone’s front door shouting, Helloooo! But nothing can stop Linda and nothing has ever stopped Linda from doing what she thinks she wants to do. Sarah was still facedown on her pallet, moaning, when I came downstairs to find Linda rolling her luggage in from a rental car parked out front.

  You must be tired, I told her, you can take my bed if—

  Bridget, I have five kids—

  Is that all?

  An overnight flight alone, even with two layovers, is a vacation in itself. Did Sarah tell you the good news?

  I told her, Sarah said, half-muffled by the pillow, eyes still shut.

  Isn’t it so great? And how are you? Linda shouted after me as I headed toward the galley kitchen. You sure have been going through a lot.

  Well, it’s not like I have five kids.

  And what’s that supposed to mean?

  I said nothing to this, just leaned over and drank straight from the faucet.

  Never mind, Linda said, I’m just being cranky, I barely slept.

  Sleep. Everyone, go back to sleep, Sarah said like a chil
d from the floor.

  What did you guys do last night?

  Sarah met a new suitor and learned some satanic rituals, I said.

  Is that so? Linda looked down at Sarah.

  Please go away, sleep now, bye-bye, Sarah said, so I took Linda to a twenty-four-hour diner I liked because the food and service were so terrible it took me hours to order or consume anything there. I’d always felt at home in that greasy air, but now that Linda was with me I felt unnatural. We didn’t know how to be around each other, casually like this, drinking coffee, passing the time.

  Don’t you sort of think that forty-eight is just too old?

  Oh, but Sarah is very mature, Linda said.

  But she still sleeps with that blanket. She even travels with it.

  That’s more like a tradition. It’s just a little rag at this point.

  She’s twenty-five.

  You know, her twenty-five isn’t the same as your twenty-five.

  Oh, believe me, I know.

  Anyway, she’s an adult. I really don’t see anything wrong with it.

  Here you go, gals, the waitress said, setting a cold disk of hash browns between us. Linda immediately blotted it with paper napkins and began to cut it into bite-size pieces.

  Oh my God, sorry, she said. You know, I did this a few weeks ago to my own steak while Jarod and I were supposed to be on a date. We had driven all the way to the coast for a nice dinner and I was still … you know, on automatic.

  Linda set the cutlery down, put her hands in her lap.

  To be honest—and I didn’t think it was all right to tell Sarah this right now, since everything is going so well for her—but I can tell you, at least, that Jarod and I, well, things are just—Jarod has, um … We’re trying to work through, we’ve been trying to work through some … issues but we maybe think, we might, things might be better if we … You know. If we …

  I thought I was good at crying discreetly in public, but that morning Linda made me realize that a public cry was truly an art that contained possibilities I hadn’t previously known. She didn’t heave, didn’t scrunch her face, was completely silent. Her cheeks just flushed pink and the tears funneled straight down her face and into her coffee cup as she sipped. I had never felt so related to her.

  Well, enough about that, she said. When was the last time you saw the kids?

  She already had her phone out, was scrolling through photos—here they were at the beach, at a Fourth of July parade, Easter Sunday, a school play. And here was Bebe—that’s what they’d started calling Bridget once I wasn’t dead anymore—before her Cotillion. Here was Oak’s first day at preschool. William in his T-ball uniform. Jarod Jr. and Jessica playing dolls together.

  We let him play with dolls, Linda said. He loves his dolls.

  I must have still been feeling sorry for her since I didn’t rib her for the self-congratulatory tolerance. I must have been growing up, however belatedly, learning to not say what I thought or felt, no matter how urgently I thought or felt that thought or feeling, but on the drive home I regressed.

  Perhaps, I began, unable to stop myself, our emotionally distant father has something to do with the fact that Sarah is so eager to marry someone twenty years older than her? Has anyone ever thought of that?

  Well, Sarah doesn’t seem to be as affected by Dad.

  I didn’t need to ask her where the comparative conjunction was pointing. We were quiet for a few moments in which she did seem to telepathically apologize. And I appreciated that. I’m not so cynical that I cannot appreciate such things. We were silent for some time.

  Why can’t you just be happy for her? Linda eventually asked.

  Why is being happy the only acceptable reaction to someone getting engaged? People marry the wrong people all the time and everyone has to act like—

  You know what your problem is? Linda was suddenly angry and put the car in park at a stop sign. And it may hurt to hear this, but you’re always saying you’d rather know the truth. Your problem is you think you’re a man. I think that’s really it—it would explain so much and—

  She stopped midsentence as three deer crossed in front of the car, two does and a buck. They paused, turned to look in the windshield as we looked out at them, and a sort of fog and pink light fell in the distance near some train tracks and a little broken shed. It was all too beautiful and too quiet to be real, not here, not in this world, the country part of this country.

  I don’t know what got into me or got out of me just then, but I opened my door, stepped out, moved toward the animals because I was thinking of that dead deer from so many years ago now, that life I ended, and I didn’t want to cry in front of Linda, didn’t want her to think I was crying about marriage, hers or mine or the platonic ideal of marriage, so I charged the deer, screamed at them, half hoping the buck would go wild and charge me, maim me with those antlers, with all those beautiful pounds of him, but they all darted away, leapt down the street, rounded a corner, and were gone.

  The Grand Claremont Hotel

  for Jesse Ball

  As the result of a clerical error, or what seemed to be a clerical error, I lived in room 807, an Economy Queen, on the eighth floor of the Grand Claremont Hotel, free of charge, for nineteen days.

  As I was returning to the hotel on the final evening of my original reservation, a five-night business trip I had undertaken on behalf of The Company, the desk attendant handed me a pale beige envelope made of exquisite heavy paper, paper of such a high quality, such weight, that one might feel—whether correctly or incorrectly—that even by holding such an object one’s life had just been irrevocably changed. The envelope had a matte navy lining and contained a heavy note card embossed with the Grand Claremont Hotel’s official logo—a small illustration of the Grand Claremont Hotel’s façade, encircled by an ornate typography reading The Grand Claremont Hotel.

  In dark blue ink and intricate calligraphy, the note card read:

  Due to Client Complaints

  The Company has no choice

  but to cease your employment.

  I stood in the lobby, briefcase at my feet, and read the note card several times, studying the tiny variations between each capital C—this loop a little wider, this one a little more narrow—counting and recounting the syllables—it failed to be a haiku—and I wondered whether the speaker of this message had indicated which words were to be capitalized or whether the calligrapher had made such a decision on their own.

  Stowing the note card and envelope in my overcoat’s interior pocket, I thanked the desk attendant, took the elevator to the eighth floor, walked slowly to room 807, hung a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the exterior door handle, ingested a quantity of liquid from the minibar, and tucked myself into bed.

  As I fell asleep—and I have always been an excellent sleeper, rarely if ever kept awake by fear or worry—I had a clear realization that, in all likelihood, I would never again enter Company Headquarters, a building I had spent much time entering, exiting, and being inside. Indeed, each day of my life for the past twelve years had been defined by the hour I was expected to enter Company Headquarters, how long I would need to remain within Company Headquarters, the tasks I would need to complete that day at Company Headquarters, and the hour at which I could reasonably permit myself to exit Company Headquarters. On the days I was not expected to enter Company Headquarters, I was often abroad, meeting with clients on behalf of The Company. Upon completing these meetings, I had always returned to Company Headquarters to give reports on my travels, but now I had been informed that this pattern would go on no longer. What daily activities, I wondered, if anything, could replace my entrances and exits of Company Headquarters, my service to The Company, the way in which The Company had directed and used the hours of my life?

  In my twelve years of employment at The Company, I had known other men who had been informed their labor was no longer needed by The Company.

  Few had met this news peacefully.

  One, some years ago, had
cried out expletives and something about a sick wife that could be heard all over Company Headquarters before he was escorted from the building and never heard from again. Another had jumped off the roof of Company Headquarters—though the building isn’t tall enough to cause significant damage, so he’d only ended up crushing both his legs. Another had simply gone home, gone to sleep, and never woken up again.

  And now, wrapped in high-thread-count sheets and blankets, the use of which had been paid for by The Company, I had become one of these men for whom The Company had no use. This fact seemed to become a physical mass or a kind of pressure in room 807; I became aware of the subtle but undeniable sensation that I was being watched, as if my dismissal had been transfigured into an actual human being who stared at me as I fell asleep. Yet I also knew I was not being watched, that I was completely alone in the sumptuous folds of the Grand Claremont Hotel’s luxury bedding. The mattress sucked me into itself in a way that was not at all reminiscent of my simple cot back at home, in the bare apartment I’d long kept for its affordable rate and proximity to Company Headquarters. I fell asleep with a perverse sense of comfort.

  The next morning I awoke quite late in the day. Light slipped in at an angle. The curtain fluttered above an air vent.

  I sat up in bed, propped a pillow between my back and the wall-mounted headboard. On the side table was a navy rotary phone, a lamp with a pleated navy shade, a Grand Claremont Hotel notepad, and a matching ballpoint pen with navy lettering along the shaft: The Grand Claremont Hotel. By the small window was a small chair. The walls were covered in thatched beige wallpaper.

  I lifted the phone, dialed room service, ordered the Grand Claremont Club Sandwich with a side of fruit salad. The sandwich arrived a half hour later accompanied by a dill pickle spear unmentioned by the menu. I consumed this meal in bed, in full, in silence.