How to Disappear

by Ann Redisch Stampler

  “Baby, please rethink,” is my new tagline. “Think” would be more technically correct, but I don’t relish the blowback—not after I called her a toddler and she’s responded to half the things I’ve said to her since by sticking her thumb in her mouth, posing, and refusing to acknowledge me.

  Nicolette says, “I know exactly what I’m doing.” She seems to be channeling Wonder Woman, but without the stunt person standing by to leap from building to building for her. Apparently, her role model is Xena, Warrior Princess. “Why can’t you just trust me and drive?” she says. “Just do what I say, and we’ll be totally safe.”

  When we pull into the motel against my better judgment, she says, “Wait, Jack.” She sounds like Cat, the girl who thought I was a great guy, and not like Nicolette, the disappointed, pissed-off one. “I know you don’t agree with this. I get you could have taken off and left me to deal, and you didn’t. Plus, there’s what I did to your head. Total idiot. I’m sorry, and I hate apologizing. But you kind of owe me. I was fake to you and you were fake to me, but it was also real. Which makes it worse. Not that getting grabbed by a stranger would have been a trip to Disney World.”

  “Nick, I’m losing the thread.”

  “The point is, stop trying to talk me out of it,” she says. “Please. It’s not going to work.”

  “Fine.”

  “Don’t make fun of me.”

  “You don’t own the word ‘fine.’ Other people say it.”

  Nicolette squints and makes a face at me. “Fine, Jack, all right? Fine.”

  Then she takes an hour-long shower and runs the hair dryer forever, long enough to dry her hair one strand at a time.

  All night, I sit there next to her watching her sleep like she’s a baby quadruped, burrowing into my side, grabbing on to me with her hands and feet, her hair curling around her face and brushing against my arm. The room gets lighter, until there are shadows in the hollows of her cheeks, and she’s climbed out from under the covers, lying on the bedspread, still asleep, still grabbing on.

  One eye opens. “Are you guarding me?”

  “No.”

  You can hear other travelers getting a move on, wheeling suitcases through the parking lot, slamming shut their trunks.

  Nicolette sits up and stretches her neck, shoulders, and legs, working her hamstrings on the side of the bed. “God, I wish I could run right now.”

  We’re in a middle-of-nowhere motel on flat, empty terrain.

  I say, “How come you were so careful before, no one could find you, and now you want to jog down the highway in broad daylight? If you want to get caught before we get to Cotter’s Mill, I’m all over it. Let’s call the FBI right now. We could end this right here.”

  I put the filter into the coffee maker. It’s going to be a long day.

  “Someone could find me before,” she says. “You could.”

  “I’m not playing bodyguard while you jog.”

  “Don’t be like that,” she says. “Am I saying I’m going to do it? And I don’t jog, I run. You should try it. I hear it’s invigorating.”

  “Nicolette, don’t. Come on. There are plenty of invigorating things we can do that don’t make you a target.”

  “Give it a rest! I’m not giving it up in a fleabag motel room. Forget it.”

  “You forget it! You’re the one who wanted to check into a motel in El Molino that night.”

  “Any inducement to keep you from driving us into a tree.”

  “Stop acting like I’m a pirate who’s going to steal your virginity and plant a skull and crossbones in your navel! I don’t know where you got that, but I actually like you—God knows why—and it’s insulting.”

  “I’m not a virgin!”

  “What?”

  She sits back down on the side of the bed, turning her head so her now-black hair covers her face. “You’re the only person who knows that, so shut up.”

  I have nothing, absolutely nothing, against girls who have sex. I’m for it. But I always thought that if they were already doing it, they didn’t fight you so hard over unhooking their bras: wrong again. I try to say something less addled than What the hell? or Huh? I say, “Sorry, but you can’t carry that off solo.”

  She’s stands up, blushing to the point that her chest is mottled red. “The only person except for the guy, obviously. Thank you so much for pointing that out. Fine, so it was really idiotic. I hate him. I wish he was dead. I wish it didn’t happen, and I take it back.”

  “Really? Because I heard it isn’t physiologically possible to take that back.”

  “Yes, really! Shut up!” She pulls me toward the bed, and I’m not actually unbalanced, but I let her push me all the way down. “So, do you want it or not? Because this might be a one-time offer. Right now. Going, going—”

  She’s sitting on my thighs, her palms flat on my chest.

  “Not that this isn’t a great offer, but didn’t you just say you weren’t giving it up—”

  “Damn, Jack. Damn! You’ve been trying for this the whole time, and now that I’m not Miss Pure and it’s not your idea, you won’t?”

  “Baby . . .”

  She’s naked in three seconds. I don’t have that much experience watching girls wriggle out of their underwear, but this is warp speed. There’s no part of her, not a single square inch anywhere on her—with the possible exception of the paint-by-number eyebrows—that isn’t beautiful.

  “Now you,” she says. “And if you think I’m too fat or whatever, you’d better lie.”

  “You’re not fat. You’re perfect.”

  “Tell that to the boys who used to toss me in the air and catch me. Why are you still dressed?”

  She starts to undo my belt.

  I say, “Could we slow this down for a minute?”

  “Are you turning me down? Because in Girl Land, where I come from, ‘Slow it down’ means no. And if you think I’m so perfect, no isn’t your best move.”

  I start to sit up; she doesn’t weigh that much. “Get off. You’re always going on about how impulsive you are. Are you sure you’re not—”

  “Do I look like I’m going to regret this? Don’t I look happy? Do you need me to sing ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’? I lost it to a complete—don’t get shocked—shit, and you’re my do-over. I want to! Take off your clothes.”

  I take off my clothes and grab a condom.

  71

  Nicolette

  The sheets are cold and slippery.

  Jack’s hands, fingers splayed out, sweep up my back and meet under my hair at the nape of my neck. He has fistfuls of it, pulling my head back, slowly, and I’m waiting for the kiss.

  Waiting for it, but I don’t get it.

  His fingers trace my collarbone, then down, spiraling around my breasts, and by the time they make it to my nipples, spiraling upward, I’m begging for it. Not literally begging.

  Back arched.

  Mouth waiting.

  Okay, begging.

  “Jack!”

  Big mistake. Maybe. He holds my hands over my head while he’s kissing my face. Eyes, ears, cheeks. Barely my lips. Then finally in for my whole mouth, lips, tongue, and teeth a little.

  This might be what A-plus in sex looks like.

  I try to raise my head to kiss him back, but he’s two inches too far above me. His hair brushes my cheek.

  He pulls farther away from me, looking down from above me, and swoops back in, leading with the lips again, but more intense.

  He says, “Do you like that?”

  “Get your mouth back there!”

  “Or here?”

  Yes, here. The side of my neck. The hollow at the base of my neck. Collarbone. Breasts.

  I strain to kiss him, but I still can’t get there with my hands pinned. I say, “If you let go of me, there might be something in it for you.”

  Jack cracks up and releases me. I take hold of him. His shoulders and down his back. Pull him toward me. Reach down toward his butt.

&n
bsp; Jack says, “Slow it down, Xena.”

  I feel kind of criticized, but I want it so bad, I halfway don’t care.

  He says, “Baby?”

  “Don’t tease me.”

  “Sorry. Soon you’ll be so happy, you’ll forgive me.”

  “You are so master-of-the-universe!”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be panting or something?”

  “Make me.”

  Which he kind of does.

  Shows me what I was slowing down for. His hands between my thighs, first gentle, then not, and then the unexpected kisses.

  “Jack! Oh God! Now!”

  “Who’s bossy now?”

  “Now!”

  He’s got me in his arms. I’m going, “Do. Not. Stop.”

  “Who’s stopping?”

  You know how people say they didn’t know which way was up, and you think, Sure you didn’t? Well, I didn’t.

  I completely didn’t.

  A hand cradling my head. An arm across my back, fingers with just enough pressure curled over my shoulder that I know he means it.

  It feels like forever.

  In a good way.

  As if I get a forever, and this is it.

  Jack going, “Do you like this?” Every breath of me going yes.

  But every cell of my brain is going, Open your eyes.

  Open up and see the problematic aspects of this.

  Go back to the part before you were so turned on you didn’t care. How you made sure you could reach the iron lamp. Just in case this was another spectacular failure of judgment and impulse control.

  Like last time.

  I try to just be there in the perfect moment.

  I try not to think, but I can’t help it.

  I force myself up, out of the cocoon of sheets and arms and toes.

  I get all flowery disentangling myself from him. Legs entwined like morning glory. Musky like morning in the woods near Green Lake, when the mist is burning off and you can hear your footsteps in the fallen leaves.

  Seriously?

  This is a motel room in Nebraska. It smells like insecticide.

  This is sex, not Romeo and Juliet. Who ended up dead.

  Get up.

  Up into the air-conditioned chill. Cover myself up on the next bed over. For perspective. The literal kind, where our legs aren’t entwined like anything, and his hand isn’t warm against my cheek.

  I just want him.

  Every cell of my head is going, You idiot. Don’t go sex-brained. It was kind of perfect, but he has an arsenal in his duffel bag.

  Every cell of the rest of me—heart, nerve endings, the pit of my stomach—is going, More, more, more. Forever. Jack, Jack, Jack.

  Brain: Get dressed.

  Heart: Look at that smile. That’s the way a girl is supposed to be smiled at. This is it. Accept it. Take it. Cave.

  Seriously, cave.

  But how can I?

  When all I know for sure is that I have to get home and fix this or there’s no forever.

  For me.

  Or for him.

  Or for us.

  72

  Jack

  This girl is not a virgin.

  “Oh my God, Nicolette.”

  She’s sitting on the other bed, draped in a sheet, looking at me. I’ve been with three girls, not counting her, but this was a different thing. I’m not a guy who gets sappy about sex. Sex is sex, but this was her giving me everything. And me giving her everything back. Nicolette being Nicolette, she wanted what she wanted, but she returned the favor in spades. This was me wanting her a hundred yards beyond happy the whole time. This was fuck-your-brains-out sex. The only words that come to mind are words that produce eye-rolls, words from the afternoon soaps I used to watch with my grandma when I stayed at my dad’s: secret passion, abandon, bliss, the four letter l word. There’s no cliché we didn’t hit, and hit hard.

  There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for this girl. There’s a cliché I’d stake my life on. I’d slay the Nemean lion and clean out the Augean stable like Hercules. (Xena, Warrior Princess hung out with Hercules, right?) I’d wave a gun at a guy who no one in his right mind would consider waving a gun at.

  I say, “That was beyond.”

  She opens her eyes wider. “You’d better not be slut-shaming me. Now that I know where you keep the knives.”

  “I’m thanking you. Oh God. Whoever that guy was, he should have held on to you.”

  She looks pissed off in her playful mode of pissed off, not her lethal one.

  “That is so sexist and wrong. I was underage. He was a creep. Worse than a creep. He totally had another girlfriend. His real girlfriend.”

  She shifts the sheets she’s cuddled up in, and there’s a quick flash of a breast. This is a marathon of being uncontrollably (thank you, Grandma’s soaps), capital O, On. Holding up my end of the conversation is an act of pure will. That’s how bad it is.

  I say, “Jesus, what happened?”

  “It kind of blew up. One minute he’s got me in the back of his car, this red Camaro, stoned out of his mind, and he’s all in love with me, sure he is, and then—”

  I’m so jealous of this creep, it’s ridiculous. I go over to the other bed, two feet away, and grab her. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to visualize it.” She makes her sour-lemon face. I ask her, “Was that wrong to say?”

  “So, so wrong.” I think she’s joking, but you can’t always tell with her. “But I forgive you because now I redid it with a guy I wanted to give it up to.”

  “Happy to oblige, but do you want to stop saying ‘give it up’?”

  “Make me. I don’t know what I want. Figure it out.”

  I spend the rest of the morning, until after checkout time with the maid pounding on the door, trying to figure it out.

  Nick starts rolling her things into her backpack at the speed of molasses.

  Then, not thinking, I slap her on the butt and tell her to hurry up.

  73

  Nicolette

  Jack is shocked out of his mind. And also grateful. It’s very sweet. Everything about it. Every second.

  Sweet and fierce.

  Then the maid starts banging on the door, and he freaks.

  I say, “What was that?”

  “What?” Jack looks dazed and confused, but I know he’s not. “That? That was a pat on the ass. Sorry.”

  “That was more like a swat.”

  Jack sits down on the unmade bed. Buttons his cuffs. Looks insanely cute. Looks flummoxed. Then looks angry. “I would never swat you. That was a pat. You pummel people for fun, so you might miss the distinction.”

  “Laugh at me all you want. But that felt slightly like getting hit.”

  Jack sits there, pressing his fists into the mattress, looking like a guy who just got punched in the stomach for real.

  I go, “Jack? What did I say? What just happened?”

  “Let’s see.” He’s buttoning his shirt up to his neck. “Two minutes after . . . we’re together . . . like that . . . you think I’d hit you?”

  “That’s not what I said! I said that was slightly too hard of a swat—that’s all I said!”

  He’s packing up like a crazed shirt-folding robot. “I’ve hit five people in my life. You’re not on the list.”

  “Who?”

  He stands up. Looks away. As if the effort of counting the five is beyond him.

  “My brother.” He won’t even look at me. “He was all over me when we were kids. My best friend, once. The drunk in the parking lot. That asshole I downed in my apartment.”

  “That’s four.”

  There’s a long pause. “And my father.”

  “No way!”

  He’s still examining the headboard, talking to the wall.

  I can only imagine what happened next. I mean, I saw what happened next, I’m pretty sure. On his back.

  I say, “If anybody hurt my kid, I’d kill him. If you take the guy out at the first swat, he never gets to ca
rve up anybody.”

  “Yet you look so much like a sane girl.” Jack can be so condescending sometimes. “Did anybody ever tell you about turning the other cheek?”

  “Why would I do that? I’m already going straight to hell. Why not take some scum down with me?”

  “You know that’s crazy, don’t you? Nicolette—don’t you?”

  “You thought it was fine to get rid of me when you thought I was scum.”

  Jack pulls me toward him by the upper arms. Hard, so not a romantic experience. He says, “I never thought it was fine.”

  “I’m sorry!” I’m standing right in front of him, wedged between the two beds. “I was nicer before. But if someone was going to hurt my kid, or me, or my family, I’m not in a place where I’d turn my cheek. I’m in the place where I’d take care of it. You should know.”

  “I know I should know!” Jack shouts. “Don’t you think I wanted him gone? But wanting someone gone is different from seeing him lying on the garage floor in a pool of blood because you fingered him.”

  “That’s not what I meant!”

  His head is in his hands. I try to hold him, but he leans away from me. I say, “Even if you’re the one who put him there, he deserved it.”

  I mean this. It’s completely all right with me if he flat-out killed him. That’s how much I hate the man who did this to him.

  I say, “Like you didn’t actually do it, right?”

  “Jesus Christ, who do you think I am?” He’s rolling his head around like it’s too heavy for his neck. “But I might as well have. The guy in the Hawaiian shirt says, ‘Where did Art run off to?’ and I say, ‘He’s in the garage, getting more charcoal.’ I pointed.”

  “That’s not the same as killing him. Jack, it’s not.”

  He looks straight at me. “I’ve already thought of every excuse there is. People in that line of work make enemies, it’s inevitable. But if I hadn’t pointed . . .”

  “You were a kid.”

  “I was fourteen. Old enough.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “Yes, it is! If I didn’t know how bad it was, I would have owned up to it before now.”