by Rob Cornell
Autumn leaned forward. I watched her look the pictures over, watched the crease between her eyebrows deepen.
“Who is she?”
“I don’t know. I tried following her, but lost her.”
“You lost her?”
“She spotted me somehow.”
Autumn slapped the table. A photo fluttered to the floor.
“That bastard. That …” She jumped up from the couch and paced the living room. “Why am I surprised? I wouldn’t have asked you to follow him if I didn’t think he was cheating.”
“The pictures don’t—”
She spun on me. “He lied to me about where he was going today. He lied. So he could be with this,” her lip curled and she chopped a hand at the photos, “woman.”
“I know it probably doesn’t help,” I said, “but it looks like a break-up. Maybe his conscience got the better of him.”
She cupped her elbows in her hands, hugging her arms across her stomach. “Who knows how many times he’s come home to me after fucking her?”
“Autumn.”
“Why did you have to show these to me?”
“I tried not to.”
“You smug son of a bitch. Is this your revenge? Does this make you feel better?”
The sprinkler out back clicked like a timer, ticking off seconds to some inevitable end.
“You came to me, remember?”
She turned away. “I wish I hadn’t.”
“Here.” I started scooping up the photos, shoving them back into the envelope. “I’ll take these away and you can delude yourself into thinking you never saw them.”
I bent to pick up the photo that had fallen on the floor, my pulse hot and loud in my ears, gritting my teeth. I couldn’t get the photo to fit into the envelope, kept bending it each time I stabbed at the envelope’s opening.
I stopped when Autumn’s rubber sandaled feet stepped into my view. She crouched down in front of me. Her eyes were wet, though no tear had yet marked either cheek. She reached out and touched my face.
I shook my head, finally jammed the last photo into the envelope, and almost pulled away from her touch. Almost. But I couldn’t.
Her thumb stroked my ear. She opened her mouth like she wanted to say something. She didn’t speak.
I remembered Tom’s words.
What happens if you find out hubby’s banging someone else? Autumn going to get even by banging you?
I thought of the satisfaction I had felt taking photos I knew would weaken Autumn’s marriage. I thought of all the signs I’d ignored telling me where this would end up, and how everyone—Tom, Sheila, Autumn’s father—had all warned me in some way that taking Autumn’s case was a bad idea. All this ran through my head, telling me to wake up from the dream that had started when Autumn arrived at the High Note. I didn’t care. I’d rather sleep. I’d rather dream.
I dropped the envelope on the table and pulled Autumn toward me. She didn’t resist, let me draw her to the couch, let me slide my hands up her legs, up her skirt, as she straddled me.
I caressed her thighs, staring at the slight swell of her belly. She cupped my face in her hands, tried to tilt up my chin.
I pulled one of her hands to my mouth, kissed her palm.
The sound of her breath touched me like a caress.
She said my name.
I balled the hem of her dress in a fist. My free hand massaged the gooseflesh on the inside of her thigh, coming inches from the heat between her legs.
“This is stupid,” I said, eyes locked on her belly, watching her diaphragm expand with each breath. I focused on the rhythm of her breathing and forgot my own until my head grew light and I had to gasp.
Autumn tried to tilt my head up again. “He deserves it.”
I twisted my head to one side.
Autumn’s left hand tried to turn my head back.
I opened my mouth and sucked on her middle two fingers. Her breath shuddered like a drum roll.
“Ridley, look at me.”
“Quiet.”
“Please.”
I gently bit down on her fingers.
She rocked against my lap.
My fist full of her dress tugged until I heard tearing fabric. I didn’t stop pulling. I wanted Autumn to tell me to stop, stop tearing her dress, stop pulling, stop, stop, stop.
She pulled her fingers from my mouth and I groaned at their absence. The taste of her remained on my tongue. I resisted the impulse to swallow, didn’t want to swallow away her taste.
Her hand slid over the hand I had under her dress. She tugged.
I felt every inch of her skin like a mile, going on and on, growing warmer and warmer.
“Ridley.” Autumn gripped my wrist, pulled harder.
I inhaled through my nose, the smell of sex rolling into me like a spirit. I sat two breaths away from possession when the sound of the front door opening and closing broke the trance.
Autumn flinched at the sound, slipping backward, the only thing keeping her from falling off my lap her grip on my wrist and my grip on her dress.
Her dress ripped some more. I couldn’t see where.
Footsteps grew louder.
I leaned forward, wrapped my arm around her waist, and twisted, pulling her off my lap and throwing her onto the couch next to me.
Autumn barely started smoothing her dress as Doug stepped into the kitchen and froze.
The ratchet and whirr of the sprinkler in the backyard was the loudest sound in the house.
His lips parted and trembled. His gaze flitted from me to Autumn and back.
I looked away.
“Where were you?” Autumn asked.
“Who is he?” Doug replied.
I stood. “I’ll go.”
A briefcase dangled from one of Doug’s hands. He set it on the kitchen floor. “There’s a thought.”
I looked down at the envelope on the coffee table. I looked at Autumn, twisted on the couch to face Doug, the back of her dress visible. The fabric had split down to the base of her spine, exposing flesh I ached to touch.
Doug’s eyes were red and watered. He licked his lips. “Who are you?”
“Ridley,” I said. “Brone.” Would he know the name? Had Autumn ever talked about me—her first love, the one she’d walked out on, the one she walked back in on?
Doug’s boyish cheeks flushed. “Ridley?”
Autumn’s hand absently went to the envelope on the coffee table. “He’s an old friend.” She picked up the envelope, turned to me. “Don’t forget this.”
I gaped at what she offered as if I’d never seen it before.
She pushed it against my slack hand. “Take it.”
I snatched the envelope, crumpled the edge.
Autumn turned to Doug. “He was just leaving.”
A pressure thrummed in my ears, as if I had sunk to the bottom of the ocean. My jaw ached. I stalked from the living room into the kitchen, paused with a foot between Doug’s chest and my own.
He stared me down.
I went to move past him, hesitated, glanced at his briefcase. I lifted my foot as if to take a step, then gently toed his briefcase and knocked it over. The case slapped against the tiles.
Doug’s nostrils twitched.
“Sorry,” I said and strolled into the hall.
On the porch, I heard screaming begin inside. The sprinkler rattled in the background. The sun forced me to squint, as if I’d stepped out of a dark cave. But I felt like I had stepped into one.
Chapter 5
Hal was on his third song in a row, sweating under the eye-burning disco ball, pumping his arms in the air during an instrumental break. In all this activity, the zipper to his jumpsuit had slipped down a couple of inches, exposing an upside-down triangle of hairy belly.
He got three songs in a row because, despite every table and nearly every inch of floor space crowded with patrons, no one had signed up to sing.
I sat in my usual booth, nursing a Bells pale ale. I watched
the swarms of bodies drink, laugh, and cringe whenever Hal tried a High Note—or any note really.
It’s a karaoke bar, people. Get up there and sing.
I hoped this crowd didn’t think I’d hired Hal as the entertainment.
Some movement to the left caught my attention. Mandy made a beeline through the crowd toward my table.
“I don’t know what the hee-haw is going on,” she said, clutching her tray so hard her knuckles turned white, “but what kind of bar doesn’t have Captain Morgan’s?”
I put my face in my hands. “Don’t tell me we’re out.”
“These people are going to start killing me, Ridley. I go to the bar for a drink, Sheila tells me there’s none left, I have to bear the bad news, and Mr. Drunk wants to shoot the messenger.”
Hal dropped to his knees, face red, veins popping out around his neck, and belted the final verse of his song, some country number I’d never heard before. Playing the part, Hal howled like a hound dog doing his version of a country singer.
“Would somebody shoot that guy,” Mandy said. “Why isn’t anyone else singing?”
“Maybe you could encourage them when you bring them their drinks.”
She snorted, giving me are-you-crazy eyes. “Maybe you should get up there.”
I glanced at the stage, short of breath. “I don’t sing.”
“Then why do you own a karaoke bar?”
I slapped the table. “Why don’t you go do your job?”
Mandy’s lower lip pushed out. Her eyes watered.
I took a deep breath, touched her elbow. “Mandy, I’m sorry. I’m stressed.”
“From what? Watching everyone else work their asses off?” She tossed her drink tray onto the table. “I quit.”
“Mandy, wait.”
She turned and marched out.
“Oh, damn.”
I slid out of the booth and headed over to let Sheila know we’d lost another employee.
“Ridley!”
I turned toward the call.
A guy trudged toward me. He wore his hair in a devil’s lock, everything shaved except for one long patch that hung down his face. A row of silver hoops ran all the way up one ear, a silver stud pierced his eyebrow, and another silver hoop dangled from his lip. A skull and crossbones silk-screened on his t-shirt peeked out from under his coat.
I took a step back, ready to make a defensive move, until I recognized something in his eyes. I knew this guy.
“Devon?”
He jerked his head back as if surprised I remembered his name. “Yeah, dude. Long time no see, eh?”
In high school I had two good friends—Tom Fortier, and Devon Whitegard. Like three outcasts, we often sat at a corner table in the cafeteria, glaring at the other kids with defiant smirks, as if we had a secret the rest only wished they knew. In reality, we had no clue how to socialize.
“Good to see you,” I said.
He sucked on the hoop in his lip. He hadn’t had any of the piercings or the devil’s lock in high school, but he still looked like the same old Devon—the bony limbs, the stooped posture as if trying to compensate for his height, the bulging eyes.
“Cool,” he said with a nod, coming to some decision. “Can we talk?”
I glanced toward the bar. Sheila poured a line of shots in front of a trio of hairy guys wearing trucker hats and designer shirts.
“Give me five minutes, Dev. I’ve got to put out some fires.”
“Sure, okay.”
“Go ahead and have a seat,” I hooked a thumb toward my booth.
I nudged my way to the bar and waved to get Sheila’s attention.
“What is it?” she asked, hitting me with cinnamon-scented breath.
“Mandy just quit.”
“What did you do?”
“What did I do?”
Sheila cut a hand through the air. “You need to step up to the plate.”
“I was afraid of that.” The opening bars of “Just a Gigolo” by Louis Prima played, and I knew Hal was up again even before he started signing. “Mandy said something about more missing booze.”
A guy at the end of the bar shouted, “Did that old bag finally kick, or can I still get a drink?”
Sheila glanced toward the voice. “I have to take care of this.”
“Yeah, but the booze …”
She shot down the bar without answering.
I bulldozed my way back toward Devon.
“Is this a bad time?”
“I’m sorry, Dev. I wish I could sit and chat, but my only waitress just bailed on me and I need to fill in.”
“Bummer.”
I grabbed a cocktail napkin from the stack on the table, pulled a pen from my pocket, and scribbled my cell number on the napkin.
“Give me a call,” I said, and handed him the napkin. “I swear, sometimes my phone is actually charged.”
Devon laughed automatically, not with any real humor.
“All right. I’ve got to take drink orders.”
He grabbed for my arm and missed, but I stopped.
“I really just wanted to ask you a favor,” he said. “No. Not a favor. It’s like, I need your help.”
My stomach dropped. Not another one. “Listen, Dev. Whatever you heard, I’m not a detective anymore.”
He scrunched his face. “Detective? Naw, man, I wanted you to help me with, with singing.”
“With singing?”
He waved his hands toward the seat across from him. “Sit a sec, dude. Let me lay it out.”
I sat slowly. I’m sure I had a funny look on my face.
“This’ll sound crazy,” he said, splaying his fingers with his hands flat on the table, “but I’ve always wanted to sing like you, okay? I know, it doesn’t seem like my kind of thing. I’m the computer guy, Mr. Techno nerd. But I’ve been watching that show on TV, you know? Where those people get up and sing, and the audience votes, and there’s judges that tell them they suck?”
I wiped my face and glanced toward the stage. Hal gave a few pelvic thrusts in my direction and mimed a toast. His gold chains sparkled. The disco ball sparkled. Everything was so nice and sparkly.
“Some of those people,” Devon continued. “They can’t even carry a tune. Even I can carry a tune. So I’m thinking, they’re going to have new tryouts this summer. I know I won’t win. But if I make the first round?” He clapped his hands, then pumped his fists. “Free trip to Hollywood, right?”
“Why would you need my help?”
“The longer I can stay in the game, the longer I get to stay in Hollywood. You could give me a few lessons—”
I waved him off. “I don’t sing anymore, Dev.”
“I’ll pay you.”
“It isn’t about money. I haven’t sung in a long time.”
“Not even in the shower?”
I hummed sometimes. I sang under my breath. And in the car, windows rolled up and the radio blaring, I’d give my lungs a workout. But it wasn’t the same. “Listen, Dev. It’s stupid, but I made a promise a long time ago that I wouldn’t sing anymore. I wouldn’t make a very good teacher.”
“Come on. It’ll be like Master Jedi and apprentice. You can show me the ways of the force.”
“I’m no master.”
Devon cupped his hands over his mouth and spoke in a deep voice while breathing heavy, impersonating Darth Vader. “Ridley, you are my vocal teacher.”
I laughed. He would never outgrow his Star Wars obsession. It was good to see some things hadn’t changed.
He dropped his hands from his face. “Will you do it?”
I let my laughter peter out. “I’m sorry, I can’t.”
“You’re serious?”
“Trust me,” I said, “there are dozens of listings in the Yellow Pages for voice teachers that will do a damn good job.”
“Whatever, man.” He stood and tossed the napkin with my number onto the table. “If I’d wanted some random person out of the phonebook, I wouldn’t have come to you.”
“Ridley,” Sheila shouted from the bar. “Could use a little help.”
I acknowledged her with a wave and turned back to ask Devon if we could meet up at a later time.
He had already left.
Lakeland Cemetery, a well-groomed rolling pasture of green that would make most golfers envious if it weren’t for all the tombstones, sits at the heart of Hawthorne. My parents were buried on the west side of the cemetery, and while their every living moment had revolved around flamboyance, in death they had settled down to simplicity—two inconspicuous grave stones, side-by-side and flush with the ground.
I stood by their graves, looking down at the marble rectangles imbedded in the grass. My wet eyes felt cold in the night breeze, and the skin around my eyes sticky. I barely felt the tingle in my arm from where I’d picked out the few pieces of glass.
Technically the cemetery was closed, but a hundred dollar bill could get you into almost anywhere if passed to the right hand. One of the advantages of being a millionaire was that you never seemed to run out of those hundred dollar bills.
Something I was still trying to get used to.
I crouched, plucked away some grass that had started encroaching on my mother’s stone. I brushed dirt off the surface. I traced her carved name with the tips of my fingers.
“This is the part where I start talking to you like you’re here,” I said. “Only you’re not here. You can’t hear me, and no matter how many times I say I’m sorry, it’s too damn late.”
A blacktopped road snaked through the cemetery. Light posts that cast a surprisingly sharp light, more on par with a parking lot than a cemetery, lined the road. My parents sat close enough to the road for the light to reach me, but while I stood on my mother’s side, my body cast a shadow on their graves.
I straightened and strolled over to my father’s side, circling the space where I imagined they lay, never crossing over.
I bent, plucked a weed that wasn’t really in the way, and touched his cold gravestone.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
I brushed my palm over the grass, the tips of each blade tickling my skin until a chill shook me. I made a fist to chase away the chill.
“Why did you leave it with me? You knew I hated that place.”
Of course, they didn’t answer.