She runs her penguin sprint with a bag full of steaming fast food under her arm, the contents creating a swirling grease fractal on the white paper bag. The side door of the truck is locked. She pounds on the window but doesn’t see Lane inside.
“Come around,” he shouts from the little back door atop a stepladder. “There’s a table.”
By the time she gets the paper bag to the tabletop, it’s disintegrating from the rain and grease. They tear it open and pour out the goods. Two cheeseburgers. A Deluxe. Two shakes. Strawberry for her. Chocolate for Lane. And one thing of Dick’s fries, with the potato skins still on.
His pager buzzes again in his pocket, but he ignores it.
She clears her wet hair from her face, tries to get it back into her ponytail. “This is pretty, what’d you call it? Plabby?” she says, running her hand along the carpeted walls and the foldaway table covered with a fake wood veneer.
“Thought you’d like it,” he says as they toast with the milkshakes. “Merry Christmas . . . Eve.”
He’s right. She couldn’t be happier. And he has to admit, as the rain pounds on the roof of the camper, that he is as comfortable in his own skin as he’s felt in a while. A profligate serving of fat and salt, deep-fried carbohydrates, melted cheese and red meat in their own little bit of borrowed space. The heater runs hot and smells of burning dust. The benches are overstuffed couches bolted to the Winnebago’s floor. They flip between classic rock on KZOK and KISW. It proves Lane’s long-held theory that either Zeppelin or Heart is playing on at least one Seattle station at any given point in the day.
Toby was OK with the idea of Lane borrowing the camper. He was open to driving it past Brett with Lane hidden in the back. The trickier part was convincing Toby to let Lane continue on with the camper while he then walked home in the rain. But Lane didn’t have to work too hard once he leveraged the profound betrayal of his impending eviction.
As they finish eating, Inez turns off the radio. Classic rock is her mom’s music, she complains. With additional noise muffled by the carpeted walls, Lane feels like he’s in some sort of hillbilly sensory deprivation tank. They both become aware of the silence, look at each other and share a short, awkward laugh. He averts his eyes, then studies the musculature of her forearm, a few stray moles, the light black hair down to the smiley scars on her hands and realizes that their shoes are touching under the table. “Sorry.” He moves his foot away. In a different world, he thinks. Different life. Different universe. Different everything. He needs to get on with the business at hand before things go in a different direction, but he’s not sure how to open his pitch.
Inez makes it easier by coming around his side of the table, squeezing up alongside him. Her hand finds its way to his thigh. He breathes to steady his nerves and clears more strands of wet hair from her face with the back of his hand. They kiss, her tongue entering his mouth. Then she pulls back.
“I want to talk to you about something.” She half smiles. “But I feel like it’s kinda soon.”
“I think I know what you want.”
“You do? How?”
“People at work. They talk.”
“Well, I haven’t known you that long, but, shit—I’m embarrassed . . .”
“It’s OK: Christmas. Your son. You want me to . . . you know, help you out.”
“Seriously? You heard that at work?”
“Well, maybe just a good guess, I guess.”
“So, that’s a ‘yes’?”
Lane presses his lips up against her hair and inhales. She doesn’t smell of the bargain perfume he imagined. He ignores the traces of tobacco and focuses on the scent of rain and sharp winter air. It cuts through the fog of the food and musty carpeted interior, triggering a narcotic drip in his brain, a sort of creeping contentment followed by impulses that push him to go further, to consume more with no thought to the past or future. “Yes, of course. Of course.” He scrambles to recover, pinching the soft skin on the inside of his elbow. “But I have a better idea, an idea that can help you to—”
The pager buzzes again. They both curse it under their breath. He uses the distraction to rehearse one last time in his head. He’ll say he can come up with a little money for her, but the real money, the long-term solution lies with Tracey and Nina. She should talk to them. No, wait—and it’s key that he make this seem spontaneous here: He can do it. He will do it. Do it for her. Right away. To give her a better life. And Jordan too. All of her problems—in one fell swoop.
“Wait . . . before you say anything else . . . I have a special request.” Her fingertips make their way toward his belt. His hands run down her sides, skirting close to her breasts. “Can you . . . I feel silly, but can you dress like Santa?”
“For what?”
“For it. You know.” She kisses him harder.
He looks her up and down. “To, like, what? Hook up?”
“No, you fucking perv.” She scans his expression for signs of sarcasm or insanity. “For tomorrow. Dress like Santa tomorrow. For Christmas. With Jordan. And I need you to be there early, like ten. At the latest.”
“Help you out . . . at your place?” The moment bleeds back into his broader reality. His ears and neck prickle with heat. His scalp crawls. His vision sharpens to the point of an exaggerated high definition. Lane examines the creases around her eyes, the creases that shouldn’t have arrived for another decade. “You mean help with Jordan? In person?”
“He needs male role models. You’re not seriously gonna say ‘yes’ and then back out like two seconds later, are you?”
The pager buzzes again.
“Can you answer that thing or shut it off,” she says.
“OK, gimme a second.” He pulls the pager from his pocket and conceals it in his shaking hand so she can’t see the screen.
It reads, SHE GOT HIM 4 XMAS?!?! WTF???
“Lane?” Inez waves her palm back and forth in front of her face. “Lane, you gonna leave me hanging?”
EIGHTEEN
“LAST CALL,” CONNIE ANNOUNCES. LONNIE, wearing a Santa hat, orders a round of room-temperature well vodka shots for him and Lane. He thinks a moment and doubles the order. Adds in a beer each. There’s little more pathetic or more fun than last call on Christmas Eve at the Rimrock.
“This GED class is killing me,” Lonnie says to Lane, turning back from his empty pint of Rainier. “No direction without a regular teacher. And so much stuff to memorize outta books. It must be hella hard to keep all that shit in your head to get into a good-ass school.”
“Yeah, I mean, in college, a lot of things work more in the realm of abstract thought, you know,” Lane answers.
“What’s that all about?”
“It’s hard to explain.” Lane rotates the base of his glass on the bar while he searches for an example. “Like for my admissions interview, the guy asked me, ‘How many hands do you have?’”
“Two. That’s easy. Unless he had his arms behind his back or something.”
“Yeah, two. But then he asks, ‘Is that more than or less than the average number of hands?’” Lane smiles. “Dude even had me for a second. A split second.”
“What’d you say?”
“More than. Right? You gotta figure that not an insignificant number of people are born without a second hand or lose it in an accident. Almost nobody has three hands. So the average is less than two. Worldwide, you know.”
“Abstract thought . . . huh?”
Lane nods.
“I thought abstract meant that it didn’t have like a physical part. That sounds more analytical than—”
Lane cuts him off. “It’s OK, Lonnie. Don’t sweat it too much.”
“How about, did you ever realize that by the time you die, you will have made a dick—your dick but still a dick—orgasm like a thousand times more than any pussy? All guys are like that. And that’s if you’re lucky. Some of us’ll be like ten thousand or more. That’s some abstract shit to think about.” Lonnie adjusts his Santa hat
and returns to staring at his empty beer glass in time for the new round to arrive. “One thing I do know that’s simple street smarts, though: If now you ain’t sure about this Nina thing, you gotta step up and take the divorce with Mia.”
Lane watches the Rainier carbonation bubbles hang on to the side of his new pint glass for as long as they can, then peel off and rush to the surface where they dissolve into the great ocean of nothingness. “Nah. No. Fuck, no.”
“Mia is being forced to go through with it. You said so yourself.”
Lane shrugs and takes an inordinate amount of interest in the three-foot silver plastic tree at the end of the bar.
“Suck it up and take a settlement. Then get back to New York. And when the timing’s better, set things right with her. In person.”
Lonnie does have a point. With enough money, Lane figures he could be working toward his degree while he plots how to win back Mia. Even if that takes a while, he could continue to look for future funding options for his PhD.
“Who knows, you could end up meeting a different rich chick while you’re at it.” Lonnie toasts Lane with the warm vodka shot.
“I don’t want another girl.”
“Does Inez know that?” Lonnie’s mouth curls at one corner.
“I told you nothing happened. Nothing real anyway.”
“Nina’s gonna totally believe that when you break the news to her.”
“I haven’t decided anything yet.” Lane massages his face with both hands, trying to take some of the tension out of his jaw. Nina must have paged him a dozen times tonight. Lane pleaded with Lonnie to meet up and talk it through before he calls her back. After all, Lonnie got him into this shit in the first place. Since they’ve arrived at the Rimrock, Nina’s tried Lonnie a couple of times too.
“For conversation’s sake”—Lane puts back his shot, almost barfs, struggles to regain control and continues—“if I were to consider this idea, do you know a lawyer here in town who’d do it pro bono?”
“Do what?”
“The settlement. The—” He pauses to be sure he can get the word out. “The . . . divorce.”
Lonnie stretches, revealing Mickey’s hornet and Marvin the Martian tattoos on one forearm and a crude weed leaf that looks like it was done stick-and-poke style with a needle and Paper Mate ink. He busts out laughing. “Even if you had coin for a lawyer, you’d be taking a knife to a gunfight. No, you’d be taking a limp pecker to a nuclear war. And you already got a record. Dude’ll destroy you.”
“I’m so glad I asked for your counsel.”
Connie slides them a couple more vodka shots on the house. “Early Christmas present, boys.” She winks.
“Again, common sense. What’s more valuable to rich people than a few thousand dollars?” Lonnie asks.
“A few million dollars?”
“Think: what do they really value?”
“Tax shelters. Cuff links. I dunno . . . walk-in wine refrigerators?”
“Appearances, son, appearances. You’re a wart on this motherfucker’s nuts. He can have you frozen or zapped or whatever. No doubt. But the power you got is to be nice and go away first so he don’t have to spend the money or time and especially not have to make an ugly, painful scene to get rid of you.”
“Did her dad put you up to this?” Lane takes his second shot. “I’m starting to feel like Inez right now.”
Now both corners of Lonnie’s mouth rise. “Inez had . . . let’s say has a chance of winning.”
THE PAGER LIES IN THE middle of a small pool of drying vomit on the TV room floor. The buzzing wakes Lane up. He clears the regurgitated Dick’s Deluxe off the screen with his thumb, almost throwing up again.
The time on the pager says 9:52 A.M. Even if he sticks to his word and goes to Inez’s house, he’s going to be late. He did get Lonnie’s Santa hat, which is a start. The pager’s screen reads CALL ME OR ELSE.
His mom catches him on his way to the bathroom to grab a towel. “Merry Christmas, honey.”
“Merry Christmas, Ma.” He gives her the longest hug he’s allowed since he returned home. She feels warm in her pink bathrobe and slippers and is short enough to fit under his armpit.
“Mom?”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“Can we talk about this Nevada thing?”
“Isn’t it exciting?”
“Maybe. I guess. But I—”
“I’m so happy for you that you’ll be back with Mia again soon.”
He knows he can get her to change her mind. “It’s that . . . I wanted to say that I’m not sure . . . I don’t think that this—”
The phone rings. “Hold on,” she says, doing a quick about-face and heading to grab the phone in the kitchen.
He grabs a towel out of the bathroom and returns to the TV room. He covers his mess with the towel and steps on it, grinding his foot in small circles.
“Lane, phone,” his mom calls from across the house. “It’s for you, Lane.”
“Who is it?” he asks as he reaches the kitchen. “Why’d you say I’m here?”
His mom shrugs and hands him the phone.
When he puts the phone to his ear, all he can hear is light breathing. Mia, he hopes. No, too heavy. His hands tremble. “Hey. Uh, Merry Christmas?”
“The fuck’ve you been?” Nina screams. “You know what kinda stress this whole thing has caused over here? I’m hoping, I’m praying—and I’m an atheist—I’m praying on my knees that you’ve been busy tying this up with you-know-who.”
He swallows and then waves his mom and Toby out of the kitchen so he can have some space. He rolls back his shoulders and offers, “I don’t know how to say this . . . but I’m not sure this’s gonna happen. I don’t know if I can do it.”
“Oh, yes, you can. You will do it. We’ve been ambushed by a shameful, felonious, homophobic judge, and you want to what? Up and walk away?”
He lowers his voice. “I have a suspended sentence. And this whole thing, it isn’t what I thought it was. What you said it was.”
She raises her volume as far as he’s dropped his. “It’s exactly the same. She’s playing hard to get. She’s trying to negotiate from a stronger position, and you want to cut and run at the first complication. Typical loser mentality.”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s right. You don’t know. You don’t know shit. This morning—Merry Christmas by the way—I had to take my son to the state social services drop-off point so he can spend the holiday in a dilapidated trailer park. With a bunch of junkies. Do you have any idea what it’s like at my house right now? Do you know what the conversation is gonna be like over the roast beef at dinner? Not too fucking merry.”
“I’m not saying that it’s right. I’m saying that it’s not so black-and-white.”
“Did you fuck her?”
“No, of course not. I’m not taking her side. It’s that I can’t be on the wrong side of the law right now.”
“Wrong side of the law?” Nina scoffs. “How about the wrong side of right? What is it that you study again? Social justice?”
“Social policy. But I don’t want any side of this. I don’t want any of this at all. I just want to go back to my wife—” He presses the button to hang up and places a collect call to Mia without ever taking the phone away from his ear. He has to remind himself that he needs to start breathing again. When the operator records his name he pleads, “Answer me, Mia. Please.”
He’s greeted with a doo-dah-dee tri-tone and a canned voice explaining that the number has been disconnected or is no longer in service. It’s OK. No big deal. He’ll handle this with her father. He’ll go straight at the fucker. That was what he intended to do anyway. The call to Mia was to give her fair warning, he reassures himself. He’s done hiding. It’s time to negotiate a solution.
He marches past Toby and his mom in the living room. They’re drinking their Sanka and packing. “Merry Christmas, Lane. We got you a present.” Toby hoists up a bottle of pinot noir t
hat Lane recognizes from the Fred Meyer discount wine shelf. It has a shiny bow stuck on it.
Lane keeps going. He opens the front door of the house and spots the Saturn across the street. He walks right at it. Nina doesn’t know what she’s talking about. He’s got more potential than any of these people. More than Nina. And he’s smart enough to make the tough short-term decision for the long-term victory. He and Mia’s relationship is of incalculable valuable, and her father is going to have to make it worth Lane’s while if he’s to take even a temporary step back without making a huge, disgusting, low-class and very public scene. And no matter how well he compensates him, it would just be a pause. There’s no finality unless he decides there is finality.
Lane taps on the driver’s-side window of the parked car. Brett is sleeping inside: the hood zipped all the way up on his jacket, manila folders stacked on his lap, his mouth agape. He is not as startled as Lane hoped, but his eyes blink open and he rolls down the window.
“Merry Christmas, Brett,” Lane says.
“Huh? Um, oh wow. Lane? Lane Boosh?” He straightens in the seat and checks his watch twice.
“Bue-shay.” Lane nods. “Give it to me.”
“Hot damn. I bet my boss that today was the day.” Brett hands the legal envelope through the window. “He owes me a footlong.”
“Now get the fuck outta here.” Lane turns and starts walking back toward the house.
“Those are official legal documents. Read them thoroughly, as you must respond to the court,” Brett drones after him while starting up his car.
“Hope you’re proud of your stupid little life,” Lane says as he continues toward the house.
Lane’s mom and Toby watch him through the kitchen window. Lane tears open the envelope and nods to them as if he’s accomplished something worthwhile.
He reads her name. Mia. His name. He scans for the word divorce.
He flips to the additional pages: sees a list of medications. Latinate names she’s never mentioned. Prescriptions he’s never heard of. She left Dartmouth to do inpatient treatment in Minnesota. Never showed up. He reads the word bipolar. Reads it again. Sees it in a few different places on the page. He’s having trouble getting air to the bottom of his lungs. He takes another step toward the front of the house and stops.
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