by Zach Wyner
At 6:30 the Chevy Chevette that Amare had bought the week before for $900 pulled up to the curb outside the front door. White with glued-on wood panels, the thing required a quart of motor oil every time he stopped for gas. You gave it three months, provided Amare kept it within the city limits and didn’t drive on the freeway. Which you guessed suited him just fine. Amare’s Los Angeles sojourn reeked of impermanence.
You left the bewildered middle-school boys to their own devices and went outside. The air was thick, the day’s heat having trapped the smog in the Valley the way an argument with June used to trap a scream in your throat. Bill opened the passenger door, stepped onto the sidewalk, and stretched. He’d showered, shaved, gotten what remained of his hair cut, and dressed in a navy blue button-down shirt of yours that was comically large on him—shoulder stitching hanging halfway to his elbows, sleeves bunched up at the wrists.
“My, my,” you said. “Don’t you clean up nice.”
“Right,” he said, smiling sheepishly. “Celebrity Makeover has been banging down the door all morning.” He pulled the shirt away from his chest a few times to air himself out. “Christ, it’s hot. I haven’t even had to defend my employment status yet and already I’m sweating.”
“Who gives a shit?” you said. “It’s ninety-six degrees. We’re men, aren’t we?”
“I told him not to go fishing around in your closet,” said Amare, walking around the front of the car to join you on the sidewalk. His paunch didn’t allow his red checkered shirt to fall more than an inch past his belt. He’d neglected to shave but it didn’t matter. His brown skin ameliorated the scragglyness of his beard, making the barren patches on his face look intentional.
Bill hung his head. “My only button-down shirt has tartar sauce on it. It looks like a cum stain.”
“You look great,” you said. “Both of you.”
“We were down the street, getting the back of Bill’s neck shaved,” said Amare. “Thought we should swing by to see if you had any more information for us.”
“I haven’t heard from Julia,” you said. “You guys should head home for a couple hours and relax.”
“There’s beer there,” said Amare.
“Good,” you said. “Have a couple cold ones.”
Amare chewed his lip. “You sure you don’t need any help in there? You have any students that would benefit from a crash course in the illegitimacy of the US occupation of Iraq?”
You chuckled.
“Seriously.”
“You terrify children,” said Bill.
“We’ve got to get to them while they’re young,” said Amare. “Before they become utterly dependent on cheap gas, online shopping, and PlayStation.”
“Eric, my boss…he supports the war,” you said.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
You stuffed your hands in your pockets. “It really caught me off guard. I mean, he can be a dick sometimes, but he’s got a brain.”
“You see? How are we supposed to have any kind of hope for the future of this country when our educators, you know, learned people, endorse an illegal war?”
Bill looked over your shoulder and his jaw dropped. “Ugh,” he said, as though he’d been slugged in the gut. “There’s hope for this country yet.”
You pivoted. Sophie glided toward you. Books tucked under her arm, backpack slung over her shoulder, her blond hair swished back and forth, shimmering like light caught by the ocean.
“I would marry her right now,” Bill said softly, safely beneath the drone of traffic. “No questions asked. She could be a raging cunt who forbade whiskey drinking and the viewing of Red Sox games. I wouldn’t care.”
Sophie raised her blue eyes from the sidewalk and met yours. She frowned. Then, as if struck by an epiphany, she stopped, scrutinized Bill and Amare, and spread her lips into the kind of beatific smile that graces toothpaste ads.
“Are these your friends, Josh?”
“How was school, kiddo?”
She made a noise, a quick, forced, contemptuous exhalation. “Can you believe the rudeness?” she said to Bill. “He doesn’t even introduce me.”
You sighed. “Sophie.”
“I’m Bill.” Bill took a step forward, wiped his palm on your blue button-down shirt and extended his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Sophie.”
Her plump lips closed over her teeth and she grinned coquettishly. “Very nice to meet you too, Bill,” she said, shaking his hand. “It’s nice to see that at least Josh’s friends have manners.” She turned to Amare.
He nodded. “Hey,” he mumbled with a barely perceptible lift of his chin.
Sophie smiled weakly and returned her gaze to Bill. “How about this heat, huh?”
“I know,” said Bill. “Two minutes outside and I’m like a steamed lobster.”
She rolled her head back on her shoulders and laughed.
“Seriously,” said Bill. “Drop me in a bisque and charge market price.”
She covered her mouth with her hand. “You’re funny,” she gasped.
Bill looked at his feet.
“Sophie,” you said. “Why don’t you go inside? I’ll just be a minute.”
“Josh hates me,” she said to Bill.
“Josh doesn’t hate anyone,” said Bill.
“It’s true,” she said.
“She’s right,” you said.
Her jaw dropped. Amare chuckled. Having disarmed her of her smile, you continued. “Sophie and I disagreed about something, so now I hate her. Where just yesterday, I believed her to be a kind, beautiful, talented person, now, because of a single disagreement, our friendship is over.”
She regained her composure, that smile spreading again across her face, and her spine straightening until she stood before you like a flagpole. “So you think I’m beautiful?”
Your mouth went dry. You rubbed your neck where your carotid artery had begun pumping blood at such a furious clip that you feared it might be visible to the naked eye. You laughed as though she had said something amusing, said, “Ain’t she a character, fellas?” and cleared your throat in a vain attempt to muster saliva. The looks leveled at you by Bill and Amare reminded you of the face of a childhood friend the day that the two of you were caught stealing cigarettes from a drug store. “Go inside, Soph. We’ll tackle that English essay first thing.”
Chin raised, beatific smile restored, she said, “Okay, Josh. You’re the boss. Nice to meet you, Josh’s friends.”
They mumbled goodbyes and The Homework Club door closed behind her like a coffin lid.
“Christ,” said Amare.
“I don’t know how you do it,” said Bill. “I’d be gunned down by her father inside a week.”
“I can’t believe I said that.”
“You’re fine,” said Amare. “You can defuse this.”
“I called her beautiful.”
“Well she is!” said Amare. “And she knows it! All you did was confirm what she already knew. Acknowledging a fact and acting on it are two very separate things.”
You were unconvinced. Acknowledging something with words felt tantamount to action. You sent the boys packing, assured them that you would call as soon as you had word of the impending date and returned to work.
You avoided Sophie most of the evening, letting her gossip with the gaggle of girls that showed up for the second study-room session and mess around with her cell phone. You worried about Adrienne. It wasn’t like her to be absent for consecutive days without calling. While she’d never really gotten into trouble, she did have some of the characteristics of a powder keg. You’d shrugged off your fears in the past, figuring that she would wait until college to let loose. But what if some influence, say a tutor who treated her too much like an equal, who identified with her and spoke a little too openly with her, burdening her with ideas that he hims
elf was too afraid to incorporate into his life, urged her one too may times to unfetter herself of the constraints of the uberachiever? Is that what you were supposed to teach? That her parents didn’t know what was best for her? You were a tutor, not a guidance counselor.
Shortly before locking up, you received the text from Julia. You texted Amare directions to the bar where the six of you were to meet, then adjourned to the bathroom to splash some water on your face, check your teeth for food particles, and tell your skeptical reflection that you knew who the fuck you were.
*
4100 Bar was as you remembered it: dark, crowded, velvety, loud. In the gloom and from a distance, you could easily have mistaken Julia for her short brunette friend if Julia hadn’t been Chinese. On closer inspection, the brunette had the slight potbelly and waxen complexion of an aspiring lush. Friend number two was a six-foot blond Amazon who didn’t quite have Sophie’s stunning eyes, but was otherwise a fair approximation of what Sophie might grow into in five years time.
You and Julia hugged. Lavender filled your nostrils as your hands discovered the sinewy muscles of her back and arms. Thundering hip-hop made formal introductions impossible, so you crossed your fingers and smiled politely as Bill and Amare shook hands with Julia’s friends.
“You look nice,” you said.
She leaned in close and turned her ear towards you.
“What?”
“You! Look! Nice!”
She smiled. You gestured towards a crescent booth in the corner that appeared large enough to accommodate six. Julia led the way and you followed, Bill walking beside the aspiring lush, and Amare paired, by virtue of height, with the Amazon. Along the way, you stopped at the bar. You and the Amazon opened separate tabs.
Why Julia had chosen this place was beyond you. It was too dark and too loud for her friends to form an impression of you. You hoped that she simply had no better ideas. After all, it wasn’t as if you were looking for an LA bar scene aficionado. The chief qualities you sought were curiosity and tolerance, someone who might be initially charmed by your savvy, experience, and history of moderately self-destructive behavior, but someone who would ultimately inspire transformation, cure you of your penchant for dive bars. You knew that you’d miss it terribly—the singular excitement of embarking on a night out as a single person, drinking and driving through a make-believe realm of endless possibility. But you wanted love. And in none of your fantasies was the recipient of your love a party animal. She wasn’t supposed to know the bartenders by name or get copped rounds on the house. You wanted a novice, someone comfortable amongst the corrupted, but willful and ambitious enough to resist their traps.
Bill and the lush scooted into the booth. Julia sat next to her friend and you took the edge seat beside her. Amare and the Amazon sat across from you. A popular indie rock song, prominently featured on the insufferable loop at your gym, blasted from the speakers. The lush raised her arms above her head, danced in her seat and sang along. Bill tried to smile, but the look on his face was one of acute discomfort, like a teenager being forced to pose for the family photograph. He mumbled something under his breath.
“What was that?” she said. She turned to you as if you were Bill’s translator. “I can’t hear him. What did he say?”
You pointed to your ears, feigned deafness.
“It’s not important,” yelled Bill. “Never mind.”
“Are you a mumbler?” she yelled.
“No,” he mumbled.
Her lip curled up into a snarl. She looked him up and down. “You are!” she yelled. “You’re a total mumbler.”
“I’m a grumbler!” yelled Bill. “It’s different.”
“How so?”
“Mumblers lack confidence. I lack volume and positivity.”
“Are you joking?” She turned to you again. “Is he joking, or what?”
Your mouth opened but you had no words.
“Of course I’m joking,” yelled Bill. You smiled, dabbed at the beads of sweat that had gathered on your forehead with a cocktail napkin. “I lack confidence too.”
Amare was too engaged with the Amazon to note the tension. Julia’s puzzled gaze lingered indiscreetly, first on Bill and then Amare, as she sipped her drink. She looked at you, took a breath and then went back to the boys. You thought that maybe her confusion, if that’s what it was, wasn’t totally unwarranted. Maybe you weren’t exactly the man that your grooming and manners and vocabulary conveyed. Maybe the guys you’d brought along to pair up with her two friends, with their sarcasm and their frumpiness and their joblessness and their indigence, were a little closer on the outside to what she was beginning to suspect was on the inside of you.
She broke the lull with a question. “I was wondering,” she said, “what made you want to become a teacher?”
It was precisely the kind of question you’d hoped she’d start with. It gave you a reference point, indicated how deep you’d gone the other night at The Burrow, how much personal history had been divulged.
“I’m really not a teacher,” you said.
“Tutoring is teaching,” she said.
“I guess.”
“Come on,” she said, giving your side a little jab with her elbow. “Stop being modest.”
You smiled. “It happened by accident. I never intended to be a tutor…teacher…whatever.”
She snorted. “You think that makes you any different from the rest of us?”
“No. I…what?”
“How many of us out there are what we expected to be?”
“Right. I realize that most people…”
“What did you intend to be?” she said.
You winced. You drained what was left of your beer. “I think I’d rather not say.”
She rolled her eyes.
“An actor,” you said. “I thought I’d be an actor.”
“Well there’s nothing unusual there.”
“I realize that.”
“Oh. That’s the problem, right? You want to be different.”
“Don’t you?”
“I want to be happy,” she said.
“Yeah. I want that. I mean, happiness is more important than originality for sure.”
She pinched the slender cocktail straws between her thumb and forefinger and took another sip of vodka cranberry. “I’ll bet your parents are proud.”
“I guess,” you said.
“Huh?” She leaned in and cupped a hand around her ear. “What’d you say?”
“I said, ‘I guess they’re proud’. My parents. But proud is kind of their baseline.”
She shrugged. The jukebox had begun blasting The Commodores’ “Brick House” and you weren’t certain she’d heard you over the funk.
You swigged the last of your beer, sucked on your empty beer bottle, placed it back on the table and folded the cardboard coaster in halves, fourths, eighths. It broke apart in your fingers. You blushed, tucked your recalcitrant hands under your thighs. Everyone knows that peeling beer labels and massacring coasters are the physical manifestations of sexual frustration and, coupled with the acting confession, you’d already given away plenty. Why not just go ahead and reveal all your secrets, you thought. Tell her about the anxiety, about the amount of medication it took to get you to a place where you could hold down a job. Tell her about your hair, the amount of money you invested in pills to keep it from falling out. Tell her about June, the ex-girlfriend you still jerked off to, or how about Sophie, the seventeen-year-old student you’d had an erotic dream about a few weeks ago. Let’s hear her talk about proud parents after that little revelation.
“What about you?” you said.
“What about me?”
“Your folks, I mean. They must be proud of…of who you are.”
She shrugged. “I suppose.” She sipped her drink.
Yo
ur hands returned to the mangled bits of coaster. “I mean, you give the impression of being pretty grounded. Like, I don’t know…I’m sure they’re happy to see what a…” you cleared your throat, “what a grounded person you are.”
“I’m twenty-six years old, Josh.”
“Oh?”
To your left, Amare gesticulated wildly at the Amazon, drawing away Julia’s attention. The way the ridge of his right hand cut the air and landed in the center of his left palm like a gavel, suggested they’d encountered a topic of contention. You’d warned Amare that these girls went to USC; you’d pleaded with him to try, if at all possible, to avoid talking politics. “Don’t blow a chance to get blown just because someone’s daddy raised her on Ronald Reagan and the free market,” were your approximate words. The Amazon leaned back in her seat, as though Amare was talking through a megaphone, and clutched her drink for dear life.
Julia stared at her vodka-cranberry-stained ice cubes.
“Can I get you another?” you said.
“Oh,” she said. “I don’t think I should. I don’t ordinarily drink this fast.”