Mary Ellen Courtney - Hannah Spring 01 - Wild Nights

by Mary Ellen Courtney

  I related this to the boys in the band. They stopped looking so perplexed and put the car up on the lift. I avoid conflict in my personal life like I avoid babies with colds, but one thing you learn in my business is how to work union boys to get your job done.

  We walked into the service office to see about rental cars.

  “That was some ass kicking,” said Stroud.

  “I’ve seen that episode.”

  His phone rang. He glanced at the screen and walked off as he answered. I heard him say that he was just running someone who had broken down at the G&S in for service. I couldn’t hear the rest of the conversation.

  The dealership had a loaner, but they didn’t want me to take it all the way back to Los Angeles and put on all those miles. They promised to have my car ready in the morning if I’d stay local. They’d even comp me a room within reason. I thanked Stroud and offered him money for gas. He said he’d rather I bought him dinner.

  “I don’t get down this way very often,” I said. “Give me your number, I’ll call you.”

  “I meant tonight. You have to stick around anyway.”

  “Do you have an idea of where you want to eat? I need to run to Vista. I could meet you somewhere.”

  He looked at me for a long moment. It didn’t look like he was thinking about restaurants.

  “Stroud?”

  “I’m thinking.”

  He didn’t want to run back and forth up the road so we decided to park the loaner on a side street and then he’d take me to Vista. We’d figure out food later.

  We made it to the funeral home in half an hour. I called my mother while we were driving and filled her in. Then did the same with Steve.

  “Your boyfriend?” asked Stroud.

  “Yes, though I wouldn’t call him a boy. Your girlfriend, the one who called?”

  “Old friend, still a girl,” he said.

  The funeral home fell into the big yawn category. The building and arches were frosted with chunky dirt-catcher stucco in washed-out yellow. They were going for an Old Mission vibe. Skeleton bushes with tiny green leaves hugged the foundation, pruned hard so their struggle for life didn’t make anyone uncomfortable. A stocky brown sign pounded low to the closely clipped lawn announced Vista View Mortuary and Crematorium in suggestively Goth lettering.

  Old age and death are surrounded by one of two esthetics: Dead or Las Vegas. The buildings are bland or ridiculously overdone. The furniture is either a visual embalming or like some decorator lost their mind in a faux French showroom. Pile on the unfailingly tasteless food and it’s no wonder people would rather do their fade to black in a ratty recliner, alone at home, eating off-brand hot dogs. My mother had called to let them know I was on the way.

  A man in a brown suit met us at the door and ushered us with a hush into Slumber Room 3 where Grandma’s casket sat empty. I bet he played a lot of tennis; there was a tan line from his cap. I could feel calluses on his right hand when we shook. The lady funeral director relieved me of Grandma’s belongings and asked if I’d brought the book of poetry.

  “Poetry?” I asked. “I don’t know anything about a book.”

  “Your mother wants your grandmother’s hands folded over a book open to her favorite Emily Dickinson poem.”

  “Hold on.” I thought I was the production designer in the family.

  I called my mother. Yes indeed. In her wine haze it had slipped her mind to ask me to pick up a book of Emily, what she referred to as her mother’s obsession with that “old Victorian babe.” Apparently my grandmother used to wave her arms and bellow, “Wild Nights, Wild Nights,” when the brute North Dakota wind roared out of the Badlands. The funeral director told us about a nearby bookstore; we figured we just had time. I said I’d swing by in the morning to drop off the book. We got back in the car.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said.

  “No problem.” He was looking at the directions to the bookstore.

  Kismet was the name of the bookstore. I thought kismet meant fate or destiny. The owners said it meant afterlife, which is what they were giving the books.

  They remembered my grandmother. It felt odd to think of her in there. I could imagine her sliding her dentures back and forth while her fat feet in white leather shoes walked the aisles in search of a good read. They were sad to hear she had passed away. Passed away, what a dumb expression.

  They didn’t have any of my grandmother’s old books, but they still kept their customer’s accounts with ink on three-by-five cards. Her bunch was bound with a rubber band that snapped into brittle pieces when they pulled it.

  They found me an old volume of Emily’s poetry. It would make a great prop, the spine was tired and laid open flat; it was only a little musty. Oddly enough, my grandmother still had enough credit on her account to pay for it. My mother said she had lived right up to her last dime and died. Not true. She’d left enough for two books of poetry. She bought one for me, too.

  I’d never read Emily so the owner found a student volume with some analysis. She also bundled up my grandmother’s three-by-five cards with a new rubber band and put that on top. Account closed. Stroud had been listening in as he browsed.

  “That’s kismet,” he said as we walked out.

  “I didn’t know it meant afterlife, did you?”

  “No. Where next?” he asked.

  “My treat, you pick.”

  He knew a Mexican restaurant in the old downtown area. I read some Emily while we drove. The first lines of each poem organized the contents page. I scanned the list for “Wild Nights” and several lines jumped out at me.

  “Listen to some of these first lines.” I read, “’The heart asks pleasure first’, ‘Hope is the thing with feathers’. That would work for her bird.”

  I turned to “Wild Nights.”

  “Okay, here’s Grandma’s poem.” I read aloud.

  Wild nights! Wild nights!

  Were I with thee,

  Wild nights should be

  Our luxury!

  Futile the winds

  To a heart in port,

  Done with the compass,

  Done with the chart.

  Rowing in Eden!

  Ah! the sea!

  Might I but moor

  Tonight in thee!

  I had expected the cautious voice of an old Victorian babe sniffing around in ruffled silk and velvet, with strings of pearls and a pince-nez draped around her neck. Archaic language or not, Emily didn’t pussyfoot around. The text described it as “a poem of unrestrained sexual passion and rapture.” Got it. Two epiphanies. My grandmother understood passion and rapture. And bellowing “Wild Nights,” during storms required a sense of humor.

  “Wow,” I said.

  “Sounds like Grandma understood passion,” he said.

  “Yeah, and was funny. All I knew was a little white-haired lady with fat ankles.”

  We found a place on the street right in front of the restaurant. The décor was subtle; they’d held back on the sombreros and striped rattles.

  He smiled as he dipped a chip. “This has been an interesting day.”

  “You think? I can’t imagine what my repair bill is going to be. It better be under warranty, I’m about out of a job.”

  He wanted to know about work. I was just finishing up a television show called Layla’s Loft; the edgy adventures of a hip political-social single woman artist.

  “We all think Layla’s a mouthful, but the writer met Eric Clapton once so it was non-negotiable.”

  I told him Layla went to a brooding Gorky’s café, like Cliff went to Cheers in the old TV show; she slept around with the other artists in her building. She was twenty-two and going through a nihilist phase. She had a misunderstood pit bull, which always caused complications. Somewhere along the line she sold enough paintings to get by, but we never saw an actual sale.

  “You don’t sound too excited about it,” he said.

  “Nobody was. We’ve been canceled.”

  He thought
the business sounded interesting. I told him it was, but that a lot of time was spent standing around bullshitting with blockheads. He said that sounded like his job.

  I told him the director had spent our hiatus in rehab. His coke habit blew up after the show was canceled. He had maniacally shot an hour of material for every half hour show. The editor was losing her hair, either from stress or her constant pulling. When the studio sent down the suits to rein him in, he screamed, “I will not be held captive by the laws of mathematics!” Off he went.

  “The suits?” he asked.

  “Ten year-old MBAs. They run things. In his case it was a good call.”

  “Should make it tough for him to get a new job.”

  “It’ll be the excuse for not hiring him, but the real reason will be having a flop. It’s a business of short term memory.”

  I told him I was deciding between a project in New Mexico and one in India. I didn’t happen to mention that the one in New Mexico was with Steve.

  Dinner came and we feasted. I had a margarita, then a Bohemia, my favorite Mexican beer. Probably ill-advised. We split an order of flan for dessert.

  “That was real Mexican food,” I said. “Good suggestion. Do you come here often?”

  “I haven’t been here since my divorce,” he said.

  “Do you have children?”

  “No.”

  “You want children?” I asked.

  “I figured I would. You?”

  “I guess, but I need to figure out how to have a relationship first,” I said. Uh oh, the Bohemia was blabbing, but that didn’t stop me.

  “My marriage was a bad idea that I’ve followed up with more bad ideas.” Sigh. Really, Hannah? You couldn’t just stop at I guess?

  “What about the guy now?” he asked.

  “He’s my first good idea.”

  “Ah.”

  I paid the bill and we started to leave. I wondered if he could hear the pinging slot machine over the live music that was blasting out the door of the restaurant’s side bar. The band obviously had a following; the place was packed and people were dancing.

  Stroud grabbed my hand, “Let’s go.”

  He spun me out onto the dance floor. He was good. I wasn’t bad. He taught me some version of what he called the Texas Two Step. The band, Nancarrow, played a country honky-tonk sound with a lot of rock riffs.

  We only stayed for a few dances, but we did great. I missed dancing. Steve danced the same way he drove, except that he had some rubbing up against me thing he did. He thought it was sexy; I thought it was embarrassing.

  I bought one of the Nancarrow CDs. I have a habit of buying CDs in the heat of the night. They’re never as good the next day. We headed back to Escondido.

  “You’re a good dancer,” I said.

  “That’s cowboy shuffling. You caught on fast. The band was good.”

  “They were great, I don’t usually like country. Do you know anything about places in Escondido? Nothing fancy.”

  “We can just head in, see what’s close to the dealership.”

  There was an Econo Lodge only a few blocks from where I’d parked the car. The vacancy sign was lit.

  He parked behind the loaner and killed the engine. We sat in the dark, the engine ticked; Rex dreamt a chase sequence in the back.

  I turned to him, “Thanks for doing all this.”

  He leaned over and brushed my lips with his, then ran his thumb across them with a gentle stroke.

  “I didn’t know I’d find you under the hood of my rig.”

  I felt a hot flush and then an up-suck between my legs that felt like a wild animal. Heat surged to my belly button, then fanned out around my heart. My breasts stood up and my breath caught. I know Emily would put it in more delicate terms, though she might keep the wild animal part, but that’s what it felt like.

  He kissed me again, not just a brush stroke. I knew I shouldn’t, but it was like an unstoppable force. I had never felt that with Steve. We were like teenagers trying to get at each other. Except that we knew what we were doing which made it better in form and worse for my carping conscience.

  He pushed the seat back and I climbed up straddling his lap. He unbuttoned my blouse and unhooked my bra. I could feel him pressing up under me as he held a nipple gently in his teeth. If we didn’t stop I was going to end up having sex, to put it mildly, in the front seat of a car on a side street in Escondido. If word somehow got back to my mother, she’d be relieved that at least it was a Volvo.

  It was not the moral rehabilitation I had been working toward. I had a vision of him doing it with a woman at every truck stop. I had a vision of Steve’s disappointed face.

  “Oh my god,” I said. “My god. I can’t, I can’t do this.”

  He rolled his tongue slowly around my nipple before letting it go and burying his face between my breasts. I held his head between my hands with my face in his hair.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t do this. I just can’t.”

  He didn’t say anything. Rex stuck his head over the seat and nuzzled my ear then went back to lie down.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “It’s okay,” he was looking up at me. “I don’t want you to do something you don’t want to do.”

  “I think you know that’s not it. I just can’t.”

  “We can work around things if that’s what you’re talking about,” he said.

  “It’s not that.”

  “We’re consenting adults, Hannah.”

  I couldn’t bear to break away from him, but I knew I couldn’t go forward.

  “I know we are. But the other adults around us wouldn’t consent.”

  “We’re not married.”

  “No, I know. I just can’t,” I said.

  I don’t know how long we stayed like that. I couldn’t get enough of his scent. The car started to get chilly but the contact between us was still burning. He slid his hands up and covered my breasts then re-hooked my bra. He started to button my blouse.

  “Is this what you meant by taking whatever comes your way?” I asked.

  He froze mid-button and looked at me. His expression was so dark the whites of his eyes flashed. I felt like I was rooted to him and at the same time I was trying to insult him away. He finished buttoning my blouse, ”Yeah, that’s what I meant, but I’m not you, I don’t feel bad about it.”

  It took a lot of awkward effort to climb off him and sit back on the cold seat.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “You shouldn’t apologize so much.”

  I put on the shoes I’d kicked off at some point and gathered my purse.

  “Thanks for everything,” I said.

  He just nodded while he looked out the front window. I got into the loaner. His headlights hadn’t come on by the time I turned the corner toward the motel.

  I called Steve to let him know I was in for the night, and then I took a long hot shower and washed the smoke out of my hair and citrus off my skin. His saliva was slick on my nipple under the warm water. It seemed like I tossed all night.

  TWO

  I must have finally dropped off to sleep because I awoke to the sound of my mother calling. The woman at the funeral home had stayed late and arranged Grandma’s scarf. She’d emailed photos to Mom. Mom said it looked like grandma was wearing a necktie or ascot, not a cloud of lavender.

  “I didn’t even know you could do that with a scarf,” she said.

  “I’ll take care of it, Mom.”

  “Thanks GG,” she hung up.

  The phone rang again. It was my best friend and current work partner, Karin.

  “Hey,” she said. “Where are you? We stopped by your house last night and went for a swim.”

  I’ve worked with Karin on two shows. Unlike me, she never second-guesses herself and she doesn’t space out and miss exits either. It makes us a great team. She approaches her life the same way. She’s from white money outside Chicago and has two kids with a stunt man named Osca
r. He’s a great guy and wonderful father; he’s also black. Her parents were not amused by her choice, but they’ve come around. Their kids are the kind you can actually enjoy. Karin keeps saying they’re going to get married and make the little milk chocolate bastards legal, her words not mine, but there doesn’t seem to be any hurry.

  I filled her in on events. She was disappointed that I had felt compelled to insult Stroud instead of enjoy him, but that now I understood Oscar heat. She thought I was deluding myself with the notion that Steve and I could develop chemistry. Especially since I still hadn’t gotten around to showing him what I liked. I kept hoping he’d figure it out. It reminded her of a card she’d seen, something about how it takes a thousand words to fake an orgasm, but only three to say “here’s my clit.” I doubted it actually said that; she’d seen it at the car wash in West Hollywood. There wasn’t a clit within a two-mile radius. She was right. All the faking was just making things worse. It wasn’t like it was a total bust. Every once in a while the chemistry kicked in. Karin said it was just Mother Nature trying to get me knocked up.

  Now I realized the main problem was that the wild animal wasn’t reaching out to grab Steve like it had Stroud. I was determined to give Steve some help, buy him citrus aftershave. I hoped the wild animal would at least come out to shake hands.

  I used the washcloth to clean my teeth, brushed my hair and turned my underpants inside out before putting them back on. I’m in the film business. I know better than to leave home without clean underwear. You never know what’s going to happen on location, and I don’t mean that in the Biblical sense.

  I pulled on my long skirt and buttoned my smoky citrusy blouse like a hair shirt. The odor made me feel uneasy, like I was supposed to be taking care of something important, but I’d forgotten where I put it. I knew that if I’d stayed in that Volvo I’d feel ill with guilt; but not staying felt ill with longing.