August and Everything After

by Jennifer Salvato Doktorski

  For once, I wanted to feel that way too. I’m such a dumbass.

  My eyes dart back and forth, searching for an empty bench where I can sit and watch the ocean and mentally beat myself up some more. That’s when I see him. Malcolm.

  He’s shirtless and shoeless and staggering toward me. And yeah, I’m pissed and should be focused on ripping him a new one, but as we move toward each other, I find myself checking out his body. He’s got a nice chest and broad shoulders. Strong arms too, and his thighs… What am I doing? This must be what it’s like to have a penis.

  He spots me and I freeze midstep. He draws closer still, squinting, until he’s all up in my face, our noses practically touching. My cold drink sweats in my hand.

  I take a step back. He smells like coconut suntan oil and rum.

  “Sorry I’m late, Cat’s Eye,” he slurs.

  “Quinn,” I correct.

  “Right.” He takes a step back, puts his hands in his front pockets, and tries to steady himself. “I lost my friends.”

  Whoa. Is he talking about the accident, or…

  “Do you mean, like, just now?”

  He nods his head all innocent, and I glimpse that little boy again.

  I give him an exaggerated once-over.

  “Looks like you lost your clothes too.”

  “Ha. Ha.” He nods his head toward the beach. “My stuff’s on the blanket.”

  “Maybe your friends are there too. They probably went to the bathroom or to get some food or something.”

  “Mmm. Food sounds good. We’ve been drinking all day. That’s why I’m so late.”

  “No?”

  His eyes grow wide and he nods slowly.

  “Yes.” The alcohol has dulled his sarcasm detector.

  Hands full, I motion toward an empty bench.

  “Sit. I’ll share my slice with you.”

  He puts one hand on his heart.

  “You would do that?”

  “Relax. It’s pizza, not a kidney.”

  We sit down and I set the iced tea between us on the bench. With my plate on my lap, I try to rip the slice evenly without the cheese oozing off. I give him his half on the plate and keep mine on a napkin.

  He folds his slice and takes a big bite. Two more like that and he’ll be done.

  “This is the best pizza ever,” he says.

  Ugh. This is not how I pictured tonight. I thought we’d walk around for a while, share funnel cake, talk about his songs. Maybe ride the chairlift that takes you from the ride pier to the north end of the boardwalk. But clearly, I’m not meant to act like a tourist today. He’s stupid drunk and I’m suddenly worried.

  “How’d you get here?”

  “Drove,” he says through a big mouthful.

  “Your own car?”

  “Whose car would I take?”

  “No, I meant—” I hand him my uneaten pizza. “Take this. You need to put something else in your stomach.”

  He shakes his head, but I insist.

  “Take it. I’ll get myself another slice. Be right back.”

  I leave him on the bench and weave through the crowd, an odd mixture of families and freaks. I’m not much of a swimmer or sun worshipper, but I’ve always loved the boardwalk with its neon glow and carnival vibe. If heaven exists, I’m certain it smells like cotton candy and fried dough.

  I return with a slice for me and water for Malcolm, expecting to find him where I left him, but only an oil-stained paper plate remains. He’s gone. And he took my iced tea with him. Bastard.

  I slump down on the bench, take a bite of my slice, and wonder what I’m going to do with the rest of my night. Like Malcolm, I’m short on friends. I love living with my aunt—and my life here in general—but I don’t have anyone to spend time with, besides Auntsie, that is. Kiki keeps saying I should hang out with her and Lucy, but I dunno.

  At home I’ve got my sister and her friends, and Marissa and Priya, who took me on as their third wheel after Lynn died. But Marissa, Priya, and I have never been all that close and come next month, they’ll both be leaving for college anyway. Marissa to Syracuse, and Priya to Delaware. And me? I’ll be walking shelter dogs and waiting on the Spoon Man and Arnie. But I’m okay with that because Lynn should have been on her way to Princeton or Harvard, or some other fancy school. She was the super smart one and I was the one with dumb and dangerous ideas. I twist my cuff bracelet and stare at the ocean.

  “Is anybody sitting here?” a mom with two ice-cream-cone-toting kids asks.

  I shake my head. “Nobody’s sitting there.”

  The kids plop down and the mom stays standing. I scooch closer to the end to give them more room, then root through my bag for my quilted froggy-face change purse filled with quarters. Might as well play Skee-ball. Where the heck is it? I peer inside. Why don’t purses come with refrigerator-like lights that flick on as soon as they’re open? Panic rises. I don’t care about the quarters, but the purse belonged to Lynn.

  After she died, her mom asked me to come over and look through her things. She wanted me to take some of her clothes and anything else I wanted, which I found weird and sad and confusing but I knew from the look on Lynn’s mother’s face that I had to take something. In the end, I chose the change purse, because it had cute googly eyes and I knew Lynn loved it. Even though it was kiddish, she brought it to school every day filled with change for the vending machine.

  I rummage more frantically until finally, my hand finds it and I exhale.

  “I’m back.”

  I look up to find Malcolm standing in front of me. Drinking my iced tea.

  “Bet you thought you lost me too,” he says.

  I tighten my grip on Froggy and ignore the prickly sensation moving down my spine.

  “I didn’t think I lost you.”

  He’s wearing a hoodie and Vans, and has a large beach towel slung over one shoulder. He plops down next to me, squeezing himself between me and the kids. We’re so close our shoulders touch. Malcolm yawns. It’s loud and embarrassing and I sense the mom’s disapproval as keenly as if she were my own mother.

  “I’m soooo tired. I could sleep right here,” he says.

  “Let me drive you home.”

  He shakes his head.

  “I don’t want to leave my car.”

  He slumps sideways, his body getting heavier on mine until one of my butt cheeks slips off the bench. Next thing I know, he rests his cheek against the top of my head. Whoa, space invader! That’s enough. I shift out from under him and stand up. He almost falls over and the mom shoots him a look.

  “How ’bout you come hang at my aunt’s house for a while? It’s not far. I’ll drive you back to your car later.”

  “You sure?” he asks.

  I nod, offer my hand, and pull him off the bench. He steadies himself, then puts his arm around my shoulder. His sweatshirt smells like the ocean. I wrap my arm around his waist to counterbalance his drunken heft, and we walk along like that until we reach the metered lot at the boardwalk’s end where I parked. I have to pry his arm off me to make him let go. Another unromantic evening, like the one with my emotionally stunted student teacher who used me as a coda to his band geek youth.

  “What am I doing?” I whisper to myself. Malcolm’s not another nobody. He needs help, I think. I’ll sober him up, tell him what I thought of his songs, and send him on his way.

  “Buckle up,” I say out loud, more to myself than to Malcolm, before I put the car in reverse and pull out of my spot. This could be an interesting ride.

  SIX

  Back at Auntsie’s, Malcolm sobers up quick when he lays eyes on her turntable and vinyl collection.

  “Are these yours?”

  He’s so impressed I almost lie.

  “My aunt’s.”

  “I worked in a record store
in high school. I have a decent vinyl collection myself.”

  What does he do now? I wonder.

  He brushes his fingertips down the album spines, arranged alphabetically by genre, and stops when he gets to the Ramones. With bloodshot eyes, he asks, “Can I?”

  “As long as you don’t take the record out of the sleeve and you put it back exactly where you found it. Auntsie’s very particular.”

  He nods, slides out Road to Ruin, and holds it like a thin sheet of glass. Auntsie would be proud. He studies the cartoon drawing on the front, then flips the album over and squints as he reads. The sun is setting, and we’re both wrapped in shadows. I flick on the table lamp and he looks up at me.

  “Do you think she’ll play it for me sometime?”

  I’m struck by his assumption that he’ll be back. That after the alcohol evaporates from his pores and I drop him at his car, he won’t drive away and never want to see me again.

  “I’m sure she will. As long as you don’t mind hearing about how she scored an interview with Joey Ramone for her zine.”

  “You know that’s cool, right?”

  “Oh, I know it’s cool. She reminds me every time she tells the story. That and the one about how she interviewed Moe Tucker from the Velvet Underground.”

  “Have you always lived with your aunt?”

  I shake my head.

  “Just since June. I live with my mom and sister in North Jersey.”

  “Your dad?”

  I point to my one blue eye.

  “DNA suggests I have one, but I don’t remember him. He left when I was two and my sister was a newborn.”

  “There are worse things. My parents live to make each other miserable. If they weren’t in business together, I have a feeling they both would have walked away a long time ago. Some people are only meant to be together for a short time and a specific purpose.”

  “Agreed. I’ve got no complaints. You can’t miss something you’ve never had, and my mom’s amazing. I’m the one who’s impossible to live with.”

  “That why you’re here?”

  I nod.

  “We haven’t talked since Fourth of July weekend. We text. We don’t talk. It’s my fault though. I screwed up.”

  He tilts his head. “Is this about your best friend?”

  Why did I ever tell him that? Why do I tell him anything? I barely know this guy.

  I step toward him, take the album from his hand, and slide it onto the shelf where it belongs. I pretend to straighten the stack so I don’t have to see his face. I sense his eyes on me though.

  “That was the screwup that started it all. This latest was in June and it wasn’t that bad.”

  His hand touches my back, between my shoulder blades, and I flinch.

  “Wanna talk about it?”

  I glance at him over my shoulder. “Which one?”

  “Either? Group therapy made me a good listener.” He laughs, but there’s a heaviness to it.

  I turn and face him.

  “Did it also make you a good sharer?”

  “Not so much. I’d rather stick pins in my eyes or take a cold shower.”

  “We’re all out of pins, but you can take a cold shower if you want. Or lukewarm, whatever. You know, so you don’t smell like a Piña Colada if a cop stops you.”

  He grins. “I smell like a Piña Colada?”

  “There are worse things.”

  I take him upstairs, hand him two towels for extra coverage, and point him toward the bathroom.

  I wait until I hear water running, then step into my room and pick up my drumsticks. I don’t have real drums here, only an electronic tabletop set that I’m using to teach myself to play a kit. Clarinet was my first instrument in fifth grade band, but I played it like a honking goose and switched to drums in sixth grade. Three years later, after Lynn died, I was thankful I’d opted for the snare drum. I wanted to smash things all the time. Her death changed the way I played. Drums calmed my brain and became a conduit for my rage.

  I sit down at my desk, pick up my sticks, and start with some practice exercises. Rudiments. I play singles, move to doubles, then switch to paradiddles, which are a combination of both. My muscle memory takes over and my hands move faster and faster. Right, left, right, right. Left, right, left, left. After a warm-up, I put on my headphones and cue up Malcolm’s songs. A drum part for the third track came to me, and I want to try to work it out. After a while, I lose myself to the rhythm, forgetting where I am and that Malcolm Trent is in my shower until he’s standing in front of me in a towel. I jump.

  “How long have you been there?”

  “Sorry. When I got out of the shower, the bathroom was steamy. I opened the door for some air and I heard… You play drums?” he asks.

  “Snare. In the marching band. Not very rock and roll.”

  “A girl that plays drums? That’s the definition of rock and roll. What were you listening to?”

  “Uh. Your songs? I had an idea for that third track…”

  I’m trying to keep my eyes on his face, but his chest is in my line of sight and there are these tiny rivulets of water gliding along his skin… I drop my sticks and stand.

  “Why don’t you change in here? There’s no ventilation in that bathroom. I’ll wait downstairs.”

  “Sure?”

  “Yeah, yeah of course. I should have offered before.”

  “I won’t be long.”

  “Take your time.”

  Downstairs, I remember to text my aunt to let her know I’m home, omitting the part about not being alone. As soon as Malcolm’s dressed, I’ll take him back to his car and then I really will be alone.

  I plop down on the overstuffed couch, flip through channels, and try not to think about Malcolm Trent, naked in my room. I told him to take his time, but he’s been up there for freaking ever. What’s he doing? He wouldn’t go through my stuff, would he? Not that there’s much to see aside from the books, drums, and bed.

  I move to the bottom of the steps and listen for a door opening, padding feet. I hear nothing. When I can’t take it anymore, I creep upstairs and rap on my closed door.

  “Malcolm?”

  I wait a few seconds and when I get no answer, I open the door a crack and look in.

  Malcolm Trent, still wearing only a towel, is asleep on my bed.

  SEVEN

  I shut the door. This is a new one, even for me. Irrespective of what half my town thought of me after the band teacher/Jaws of Life debacle, I’ve never had a boy in my bedroom or been alone with a boy in his. I grab a quilt from the bedroom across the hall, then quietly open the door to my room again. Malcolm’s back is to me, and I’m hoping to God that towel is closed as I tiptoe around the double bed. Through squinty eyes, I drape the quilt over him.

  What should I do now? I watch Malcolm for a few seconds, not creepy-long but maybe longer than I should, and think about his songs. The hurt inside him seems to understand the hurt inside me. I’m about to leave when his hand reaches out and brushes my fingertips. I freeze.

  “Stay,” he says.

  Then, without opening his eyes, he lifts the covers and makes room beside him.

  All the reasons I shouldn’t climb in next to him loop in my brain. He’s drunk, I’m vulnerable. He’s a loincloth away from full-frontal nudity. My aunt will kill me. I hardly know him. I’ll get hurt. He’s drunk. Oh yeah, I said that. I don’t know if it’s my heart or body guiding me, but it doesn’t matter because neither listens to my head as I step out of my flip-flops, ease myself onto the bed, and lay down beside him spoon-style. Malcolm wraps the quilt and his arm around me in one motion. My body tenses and he responds by pressing his lips to the back of my head and whispering into my hair.

  “We’ll just sleep. I promise. Just sleep.” His beard brushes my cheek as he leans up to kiss my tem
ple. “Okay?”

  I give a slight nod and ease my body against his. His hand travels down my arm, until his fingertips rest in my palm. With his thumb, he traces the edge of my bracelet.

  “Souvenir,” I say. I’m not sure if he hears.

  “Of?”

  “A terrible year.”

  He gives a sleepy laugh. “The Sundays.”

  He knows his ’90s alt rock. I’m about to say so, but his deep, even breaths tell me he’s already fallen back to sleep. I lie there for a few minutes as my angels and demons duke it out. The press of his body against me, the rhythm of his rising and falling chest, lull me into a false sense of security. I like this unfamiliar feeling of someone holding on to me. This isn’t real. He isn’t mine, I tell myself as I stare out the open window at the moon. And yet, I can’t pry myself away. Whatever this is right now, this minute, I want it. A warmth is seeping into the cold hollow inside me and I don’t want it to end.

  I awake to a yellow glow in my window and a seagull laughing. Rooster of the sea, I think and smile before I’m hit with the smell of coffee and a scary realization. I fell asleep! Malcolm’s hand is on my hip, his legs are tangled up with mine, and his towel has slipped off. Shit! Do I hear footsteps? I untie myself from Malcolm, and slink out of bed without waking him. Auntsie’s putting a foot on the bottom step when I walk into the hallway and close the door behind me.

  “Quinn, baby! Good, you’re already dressed. I was coming up to get you.” Her voice booms. Oh geez. “Ready to do God’s work?”

  She means it ironically. A lapsed Catholic, Auntsie likes to call our Sundays at the shelter “church.”

  I scoot down the steps to meet her, and pray Malcolm’s still sleeping. She keeps talking. “I fixed your coffee the way you like it. We have time for a quick cup before we go. We’ll get breakfast after. How about Denny’s? I could go for Moons Over My Hammy.”

  She loves to use the actual menu names when she orders.

  “Whataya think? We haven’t been there yet.”