He’s an idiot. She should have known. The jersey was a dead giveaway.
She hears the sound of the leaves and twigs swallowed up into his spokes, the almost musical sound of his small metal components vibrating against each other as the bike thrashes and then goes over. He lets out a short, panicked bark as the bike goes down, and she hears it slide into the gravel along the side of the road. She looks back to see that he managed to click out of his pedals and take the fall on his side. She wishes him dead in the same instant that she hopes he’s not hurt.
His voice fills the morning air like a call to prayer. “Cunt!”
Perfect.
She laughs and flips him a reverse bird, bends over her bike, and throws herself into the final climb, the wind whistling in her ears like a catcall.
* * *
Rich, sitting on her doorstep, stands up as Denise pulls her bike into the driveway. She leans the bike against the garage door and turns to face him.
“I got your message,” he says.
“I figured.”
She left him a message late last night after another marathon argument with Casey, apologizing for not calling him back for the last few days and suggesting, in a matter-of-fact tone, that they postpone the wedding.
“What’s this about, Denise?”
He is dressed in what she considers his unofficial uniform; dark slacks and a button-down shirt with some element of blue in it. His hair is cut close, revealing a high forehead, tanned and slightly weathered from his days on the links. She can remember how his forehead had appealed to her on their first date, its sand-colored, textured surface like the side of a rocky mountain. There was something strong and solid about it, about him. It was funny how a little subliminal imagery could determine the course of love, she thought to herself, how small visual grace notes could trigger lasting emotional changes.
“You’re so laid back for a surgeon,” she’d exclaimed over dinner, sounding younger and so much less cynical than she’d become. And he’d laughed, and she’d watched that forehead crease and go smooth, and she knew right then that she would go home with him that night. And now here she was, three years later, sweating in her driveway, hating herself for not being able to summon up any kind of warmth for him.
“I just think we need to push the wedding off,” she tells him now, unable to look him in the eye. “Between Casey’s situation and my face . . .”
“It won’t look that bad in two weeks.”
“It will still look like someone beat the shit out of me.”
He cringes when she says this, as she knew he would. His buttons have always been right there on the surface, just waiting to be pushed. She loves him for this readability, for all the time not spent wondering what he’s thinking or feeling. And sometimes she hates him for it.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “You know it was an accident.”
“I don’t blame you,” she lies, once again picturing that single instant: Silver’s hand on her arm, his eyes ablaze with . . . something.
“Then why am I sleeping alone?”
“Listen to me,” she says. “My daughter is pregnant. Silver is dying.”
“Silver is being an idiot.”
“Silver has always been an idiot. The point is that I don’t want to get married while my life is in turmoil. You don’t want that either. You can’t. And I want to be a beautiful bride.” She chokes up at this, realizing that it’s true.
He steps over to her and runs his hand down her sticky wet face. “You are beautiful. A little bruise can’t even make a dent in that.”
She smiles. She knew he would say that, and she wonders to herself when it suddenly became a crime to always say the right thing.
“I just need a little time,” she says. “I need to focus on my family.”
“You mean our family, right?”
“Right,” she says, and can tell from his expression that he remains unconvinced.
CHAPTER 22
“Is everything OK?” the girl asks him.
She’s pretty, topless, panting slightly, and right to ask, because she is holding, in the palm of her hand, his increasingly flaccid member.
They are lying on a twin bed in Jack’s guest room. Beyond the closed door are the not-so-muffled sounds of throbbing dance mixes, laughter, and drunken conversation. It’s been three days since Silver left Denise’s house and turned off his phone. A few hours ago Jack invited the college girls back from the pool for what he called a spontaneous suicide party. He gave a brief speech about Silver’s impending death, and then began pouring drinks. At some point Silver found himself pulled off the couch to dance. Everyone watched him for a while, until it became apparent that he wasn’t going to go into convulsions anytime soon. He would have felt like an idiot even if he weren’t wearing baggy Bermuda shorts and flip-flops. The girl dancing with him had long dark hair and wore a tank top and a pair of white short shorts under which her tanned legs shone in the phosphorous glow of the blue lightbulbs Jack had screwed into the fixtures.
Dancing with a pretty young thing can turn you on and make you feel like a potato at the same time. Silver surrendered to the moment. Someone handed out little red pills that looked like M&M’s. The dancing girl swallowed hers gleefully and then offered one to him.
“What is it?” Silver said.
“Trust me.”
She put it on her tongue and then opened her mouth, inviting. He trusted her. The waxy taste of lipstick and spearmint gum, a hint of sweat, the thrilling warmth of her tongue in his mouth.
“What’s your name?” he said when he reluctantly came up for air. She told him, and he forgot it instantly.
* * *
And now, through a sequence of events he can no longer recall, they are here, in this bed, her impossibly buoyant breasts hovering inches above his face, his wilting dick in her hand.
He’s never had erection problems before, but now seems as good a time as any to start. This girl whose name he can’t remember is young and beautiful, but he is old enough to be her father, is in fact the father of someone young and beautiful just like her.
“Wait here,” the girl says with a grin, and with no further ceremony, she goes down on him. It feels excruciatingly good for a minute, and then it doesn’t feel like anything at all, like he’s lost all sensation. He can hear the wet sounds of her working down there, but in the dark he feels utterly disconnected. After a moment she gives his dick one last, sorry kiss, like it’s a mischievous but ultimately well-intentioned nephew, then comes back up to where he is.
“What’s wrong?” she says.
Where does he begin?
* * *
After she’s gone back to the party, he waits an appropriate mourning period and then takes matters into his own hands. And maybe it’s all the practice he’s had at the clinic, but within three strokes his dick is standing tall and proud. He wishes what’s-her-name was still here to see it. It occurs to him that there might be something fantastically warped about being able to arouse himself better than the half-naked coed who just went down on him. There is, at least, a subtle metaphor to be divined in this unusual turn of events, but before he can wrap his scattered mind around it, the door opens up and Jack steps in with his arm around another pretty young thing. Jack is carrying two drinks, any one of which he manages not to drop as he and the girl come face to face with Silver, perched on the edge of the bed, clutching his manhood. The other glass shatters on the parquet floor.
And that’s when things get weird. Because Silver can feel himself spinning and rolling, yanking up his shorts as he goes, offering muttered apologies as he flees the room. But on another plane, he’s aware of the fact that he hasn’t actually moved at all, that he’s still sitting there, his fist wrapped around his member, staring up at them.
“What the fuck?” Jack says. The girl giggle
s, but not in a mean way. And then they’re gone, with only the light of the bathroom reflecting off the broken glass on the floor to confirm that any of this just happened. Then Jack comes back into the room, alone this time, still holding the remaining glass in his hand.
“Jesus, Silver,” Jack says. “Will you put that away?”
And this time, his body seems to get the message from his brain, and he releases his confused dick and pulls up his shorts. Jack sits down on the edge of the bed and hands Silver the glass. Silver throws it back, and shudders.
“I probably don’t have to tell you this, but generally speaking, the objective is to have your erection and the girl in the room at the same time.”
“That’s one way to do it.”
Jack grins and then laughs, and then they’re both laughing, hard, not because anything is funny, but because they’re drunk and drugged and getting older faster than they’d like and really, what else is there to do?
“I’ll miss you when you’re gone, buddy,” Jack says somberly.
“Thanks, man.”
He looks at Silver until Silver looks back, and then quickly looks away. That’s about as much intimacy as either of them can stand.
“You want to tell me what this is all about?”
“Not really.”
Another look, another look away. Jack slaps his leg and gets to his feet. “Fair enough. You coming back out?”
“I’ll be there in a minute.”
“OK. Watch your feet, there’s fucking glass everywhere.”
“I thought you were using plastic cups.”
Jack grins. “The glasses are for the grown-ups.”
* * *
Outside, the party has reached a fever pitch. The girls are all buzzed and sweaty, gyrating wildly to the music. Two of them, stripped down to their bras, dance on Jack’s coffee table. What few men Jack has invited are either dancing ridiculously with the girls or perched on the furniture that’s been moved to the perimeter, downing hard alcohol and watching. Jack is in the center of the dance floor, sweating profusely as he dances pelvis-to-pelvis with a girl Silver recognizes from the pool. What he lacks in grace he makes up for with shameless enthusiasm, and even though he’s an ass, Silver feels a warm rush of affection for him.
“Dead man walking!” Jack shouts, waving to Silver. He’s been calling him that all night.
Sad Todd sits weeping into his whiskey on the arm of a couch. The girls on the coffee table get wrapped up in a passionate kiss, and the room applauds their open-mindedness with shouts of encouragement.
The girl who had come with him into Jack’s guest room leaves the dance floor to embrace him with an enthusiastic hug, like a long-lost love. She is either trying to make him feel better about before, or else the little red pills are still pirouetting through her blood, painting the room pink for her. Either way, he can’t remember the last time someone hugged him like that, and he feels his eyes grow warm and wet.
“You feeling better?” she says, her lips brushing his ear.
“Yeah.”
She smiles. “Dance with me.”
She pulls him into the tangled mass of undulating bodies, wraps her arms around his neck, and shimmies against him. He falls into the basic white man’s two-step and tries not to get in her way. No one over the age of twenty-five should ever dance like this. As a drummer, he has an inherent sense of rhythm, but rhythm and grace are not the same thing. The girl purses her lips and presses her rocking pelvis against his. “You are feeling better,” she says with a sexy grin. She runs her fingertips over his pants, up the length of his erection. Then she leans forward and gives him a warm, openmouthed kiss. He closes his eyes, feeling the room spinning around him, the deafening music, this beautiful girl’s warm, willing lips pressed softly against his own, and he thinks, If I’m going to die, now would be a perfect time to do it. Of course, if he did, he would haunt every kiss this girl ever shared afterward, but we take our immortality where we can get it.
“Come with me,” she says, leading him off the dance floor, back toward the hallway to the guest room. Before he can decide whether or not he’s up for another attempt, another girl squares off in front of them with an angry scowl on her face.
“Jesus, Silver. Are you kidding me?”
The girl holding his hand drops it and, after a moment of uncertainty, touches his shoulder in farewell and heads back to the dance floor to begin the healing process. He looks at Casey, who is drilling him with unforgiving eyes, and he thinks, for the second time in as many minutes, that now would be as good a time as any to check out.
Casey is wearing a short skirt, a backpack, and an expression that causes his internal organs to clench with regret. She opens her mouth to speak, and he knows that whatever she says will further pierce his already perforated soul, but he is spared from hearing it because right then, Jack’s flimsy coffee table finally gives way, and a collective squeal rises up from the room as the dancing coeds come crashing to the ground in a tangle of limbs and underwear.
“Shazam!” Jack yells. Casey rolls her eyes and looks at Silver like it’s all his fault, then storms out of the apartment.
CHAPTER 23
“Were you really going to have sex with that girl?”
“It was a strong possibility. She gave me this pill.”
“So you were being date raped? Is that your story?”
“I don’t need a story. We were two adults.”
“It doesn’t go by cumulative age, you know.”
“She was legal.”
“How do you know? Do you ask for ID before you have sex?”
“No, but that’s probably not a bad idea.”
“You’re not charming, Silver. You’re a creep. How would you feel if I fucked Jack?”
“Shit, Casey.”
“No wonder you never remarried. You’re too busy chasing skanks who only do you to get back at their fathers.”
“Is that what you were doing? Getting back at me?”
“No. I actually had sex with an age-appropriate partner.”
“So you figured a condom was unnecessary.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“OK. I’m moving in.”
“Where?”
“Here. This shithole. You got yourself a roommate.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m pregnant and you’re suicidal. We’ll have a blast.”
“I’m not suicidal.”
“Yeah, and I’m not pregnant.”
“Why are you here, Casey?”
“Isn’t this where you come when your life goes to shit?”
“Your life isn’t going to shit. I’ll take you back to Early Intervention tomorrow. We’ll get it taken care of.”
“Yeah, about that. I’ve changed my mind.”
“What? When?”
“Right around the time you decided not to have that operation. You inspired me.”
“Casey . . .”
“I’m going to ride it out, just like my old man.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“It runs in the family.”
* * *
He met a girl in a bar, or a club, or a movie theater, or a fraternity house. The point is, there was loud music playing in the background. As soon as he saw her face, he knew what it would look like when she ended it. But he went in anyway, because he was eighteen and horny and years away from knowing how much there was to truly fear. Maggie Seals. She was taller than him, a long, limber playground of a girl, and in the black light of her dorm room, the silken mileage of her skin went on forever. He followed her around like a puppy for his entire freshman year, and went broke calling her long-distance over summer break, but she still showed
up the next fall with a prepared speech and a new boyfriend. For a long time afterward, every girl he slept with felt just a little too small.
CHAPTER 24
He wakes up and thinks, I’m alive. This simple fact fills him with a sense of accomplishment. He didn’t die in his sleep.
Last night he was filled with the electric certainty that he would. That at some point, mid-snore, that last bit of threadbare tissue holding his aorta together would finally snap, and he’d bleed out in his sleep and wake up dead. The thought made sleep impossible. That, and the knowledge that Casey was in bed a few feet away, in the second bedroom that, in spite of everything, he still thought of as hers. He was thrilled to have her there, but also terrified that she would be the one to find his cold lifeless body. He lay awake, picturing the scene: She comes in, calls his name a few times (he still cannot picture her calling him Dad), and then tentatively approaches the bed. Silver? she says. Then she prods him, his shoulder most likely, and in doing so feels how stiff and cold he is. Her eyes grow wide as she realizes what’s happened. But then what? That’s where he ran into trouble. It would have been nice to imagine that she is overcome with grief, but the truth is, Silver couldn’t see it. And also, hadn’t he put her through enough already? So maybe just a wry smile, as if to say “Good one, Silver,” and then a quick phone call to Denise. But maybe not even that. Maybe an indifferent shrug—Oh well—and then back to normal for all concerned. She grabs her phone and posts a Twitter update: Found my dad dead in his bed. WTF? #howwasyourday?
But at some point, his racing mind must have run out of steam and allowed him to sleep, because here he is, waking up. And now he can hear voices coming from the living room, and he instantly recognizes his father’s deep baritone laugh. It can’t be Sunday already. He sits up in bed and falls back instantly as the room starts to spin. For a little while, he worries that he’s having another ministroke, but then remembers the little red pill on that girl’s tongue and realizes that he’s just drugged and hungover. He gets up again, slower this time, and performs a kind of shuffle/stagger into the living room.
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