by Delia Ephron
On May thirty-first, a date she does not forget, she was driving J.C.’s car along Route 9 on the way to pick him up from audio school. They were going to an Orioles game. She stopped at an antique mall to use the restroom, and afterward took a few minutes to browse. At a stall that sold vintage clothing she tried on a crocheted hat that hugged her head and flared around her ears. The saleslady called it a cloche, a word Tracee had never heard before. Then she spied a jewelry booth, and, with rare confidence and entitlement—after all, she was about to get engaged—she strode over to peruse the rings. She was surprised to discover that Karen Hofstadder’s mother was there. It was her booth. It had a sign on it, HOFSTADDER’S, so she knew that Mrs. Hofstadder didn’t only work there, she owned it. Tracee had gone to high school with Karen.
The booth was fancy, perhaps the fanciest at the mall. Glass vases inlaid with swirls of gold were locked in glass cabinets. There were several cases of jewelry—the rings, necklaces, pins, and earrings displayed on sheets of black velvet.
“Hi, Mrs. Hofstadder,” said Tracee.
“Hi, Tracee,” said Mrs. Hofstadder, friendly but not paying attention. She was busy helping a mother and her teenage daughter. The mother favored pendants on long chains. “I like things that land on my cleavage,” she said, which made her daughter squeal, “Mom!” Tracee loved that. “Mom!” she said to herself, as if her own mother were there embarrassing her. Tracee leaned over to check out the rings. What will J.C. give me? she wondered. She admired a thin gold band with a bow of tiny diamonds and another narrow band studded all around, diamonds alternating with red stones that she assumed were rubies. Probably J.C. can only afford semiprecious, she thought. As long as it’s from you, she imagined herself saying, that’s all that matters.
“Ooh, don’t you love this?” Tracee thought they were talking to her, but the mother and daughter were exclaiming to each other about a necklace that the daughter was wearing. “Diamonds and gold, eighteen-carat,” said Mrs. Hofstadder.
The daughter posed this way and that in front of an oval mirror set on the counter. Each time she adjusted even slightly, the diamonds seemed to shoot off sparks.
“What kind of cut is this?” said the mother.
“It’s called a half-moon,” said Mrs. Hofstadder. “The necklace is from the 1920s.”
Tracee had a way of fading into the landscape. She was so unimpressive, people often forgot she was there. No one noticed her staring, coveting that necklace.
“How much is it?” said the mother.
“Three thousand dollars, although I could do a little better,” said Mrs. Hofstadder.
“Good grief, take it off, sweetie.” The mother laughed, and, at that moment, two other women pressed in to see the rings. Tracee got bumped sideways, closer to Mrs. Hofstadder, who undid the diamond necklace, set it down, and selected something that was cheaper from the same tray.
“How’s Karen?” asked Tracee.
“She married Greg, didn’t you hear? Hold your hair up, that’s good.” She fastened silver and turquoise around the young girl’s neck.
It was a perfect storm—a bit of a crowd, the saleswoman preoccupied, the object within reach. Tracee’s hand, like a magician’s, skimmed the velvet, and the diamond necklace was in her pocket.
“Bye, Mrs. Hofstadder,” said Tracee.
Mrs. Hofstadder didn’t bother to answer.
Unlike other things she’d stolen, which went directly from her pocket into the bowels of her bag, Tracee fussed over the necklace at the first rest stop she came to. She held it up to the light, touched every single stone, examined the tiny claw settings. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. This necklace solved two problems in one. Old and borrowed. Tracee, we want you to have this. Tracee saw it so clearly: her mom and dad hovering, and she the center of their attention. All snug on a couch that looked remarkably like the one in the Huxtables’ living room—big and comfy, pale gray. Her dad beams while her mom weeps with happiness. Tracee, we want you to have this. Your mother wore it at our wedding. You’ll wear it at yours.
Then a car pulled in and parked next to her, stopping Tracee from what she was about to do: try the necklace on. She tucked it away in her purse. I will wear it at my wedding, she thought. Borrowed, I’ll tell everyone. It will go perfectly with my dress.
She had her eye on one already. Satin and lace shimmering with beads as tiny as dewdrops. She hadn’t tried it on but had fallen head over heels. It cost a fortune. Tracee was sure the store would let her buy it on time.
She started up the car and pulled back onto Route 9. She didn’t want to be late. J.C., an Orioles fanatic, hated to miss even “The Star-Spangled Banner.” He never left a game before the final out.
20
One night at The Lion when it’s the usual slow, Lana flops into a chair at the kitchen table, where Rita is cutting limes. The paring knife is dull; she has to saw them.
“It looks pretty out there, how you arranged the bottles and glasses,” says Rita.
“I should do the wall stuff next. All the neon. Maybe groupings.” Lana jumps up, turns on the faucet, sticks a hand under it, shakes off the wet, and bounces down again. She sits there, her leg jiggling.
“Are you all right?”
“Some beer splashed on my hand. I thought I might lick it by accident and start down a slippery slope.” She laughs.
“Were you tempted?”
“I don’t know. Not really.” She takes a piece of lime and sucks it. “I used to drink things with limes. Screwdrivers, cosmos, lemon drops—well, that’s with lemons, but same difference. I only drank fancy drinks when someone else was buying. It was never hard to get someone else to buy.” She grins. “Beer with lime. That’s delicious. Sometimes I drank boilermakers. When I was showing off.” Lana enjoys the word, “boi-ler-maker.” For a second, looking back, it all seems romantic. A happier time. “I drank tequila too. I love tequila.” She sucks the lime ferociously until there is no pulp or pith. The activity is intense. Rita stares, she can’t help it. Lana starts gnawing the skin.
“I wish I could be addicted. I’m too scared of life to be addicted. I suppose that’s why Harry…”
Lana stops gnawing and hangs on for more.
“What’s it got to do with God?” says Rita.
“What?”
“It’s Harry’s favorite saying. If you said something, that’s what he’d say back.”
“Buzz kill.”
“Huh?”
“That means, like, it’s a joy buster.”
“Yes. I would say so.” Rita piles the slices in a tumbler. “We don’t have bowls. I’ve looked in all the cabinets.”
“AA’s all about God. Giving it up to a higher power.”
“Giving what up?”
“Who knows. I’m not giving anything up to God, even though they say it’s not God, not necessarily, but if it’s not God, what is it? I don’t get it. These are sour. My tongue’s shredding.” Lana drops the rind on the table and starts on another. “I screwed up college. My dad doesn’t speak to me.”
“Because of college?”
“No. Something else. Worse.” Lana slaps her own cheek. Hard.
Rita grabs her hand and holds it. “Why did you do that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Please don’t do that again. Please.” Rita lets go, but her hand hovers in case she needs to stop Lana again.
But Lana only takes another slice of lime. “You don’t want to be an addict.”
“I know. I only meant, I wish I were reckless.” Rita pushes her chair back and walks to the door. From here she can see Marcel, and as soon as she appears, he rises off his haunches and moves slowly to the corner of his cage closest to her. His long tail drags along the ground. It always drags. That bothers her. It doesn’t seem right.
Clayton shouts, “Hey, Lana, get out here.”
“Creep,” says Lana.
She dumps her lime bits in the trash and heads t
o the bar. “Tracee’s got it covered. What do you need me for?”
“Eye candy.”
Lana, irritated, leans back, resting her elbows on the bar, and plays a game she invented where she assesses the customers: How many bars have you been to? When six young guys knock the door back and stroll in, she guesses: This is their second. They’re cocky. There’s a jacked-up confidence in how they walk, and they keep talking, not too loudly (which would signal their third), but they don’t stop joking around as they pass from outside to in. A lack of curiosity, that’s a tip-off. Definitely The Lion is their second bar.
Lana’s always been a sucker for stocky men. One of them is built solid and muscled. His hair is the same coppery color as hers—more reddish in some light, more brownish in other. They have similar coloring, tan without being tan. Lana calls it a twinny thing, likes it when she and the man look like they go together before they get together. He’s not taller than her, five-foot-six to her five-foot-seven, but that’s okay, because he’s hot and she’s bored.
“Hey, Clayton,” he says.
“Hey there, Tucker, how’s it going?”
Clayton sets Tucker and his friends up with Coors, and Tucker notices Lana. Lana pretends not to notice him. He lifts his bottle in a greeting, and Tracee pokes Lana with her elbow to say, Check him out, but of course Lana already has.
Rita comes out of the kitchen and puts some quarters in the jukebox. She’s never used a jukebox before but has decided that Marcel might like some music.
The jukebox, a big shiny old thing, is a mass of dazzling colors—turquoise, pink, lemon, and lime. To make a selection Rita pushes a button and the choices spin on a silver roller—Dolly Parton, Patsy Cline, Tammy Wynette, George Jones. All traditional country. Then she finds someone she loves, Julio Iglesias. She has listened to him on the radio. She presses another button to stop the roller and a third to start the song “Bamboleo,” one she’s never heard before.
Julio on the jukebox stops everyone cold. At the few occupied tables glasses are set down, looks exchanged as if everyone has suddenly found themselves in a foreign country without intending to go there. “Bamboleo” is a salsa, a bouncy, happy beat, and Julio’s voice is smooth and seductive, as if he himself is swiveling his hips around a dance floor. No one understands a word of it.
Rita, oblivious to the effect of her musical taste, looks over to see if Marcel appreciates it. His tail slightly elevates. It swings once back and forth. What a charming, even comical tail it is, with that burst of fur at the end like a feather duster.
She hopes the music will help make the time pass for him as well as for her, and she returns to the kitchen to dry some glasses.
Clayton storms in. “What the hell noise is that? Are you trying to clear the joint?”
“What do you mean?”
“I wouldn’t gargle to this shit.”
Rita doesn’t say anything.
“You’re only here as a favor. Out of the kindness of my heart.”
He leaves.
“But it was on your jukebox,” she says softly.
He storms back. “I didn’t pick the songs personally. That jukebox came secondhand. He’s not singing English.”
“It’s Julio.”
“Julio?”
“The singer. Julio Iglesias. He’s from Madrid.” Rita says the word “Madrid” as if it’s “wonderland.”
“Have you ever been to Madrid?”
She shakes her head no. She hasn’t really been anywhere.
“Madrid is a dot on a map. That’s all we are. A bunch of dots.” He takes out a handkerchief and blows his nose, which really does put a period on the conversation. He goes back to the bar.
Rita picks up a tray to bus some tables and goes out of her way to pass Marcel. She leans in very close to the bars and softly sings along with Julio. “Bamboleo, Bamboleo.” She wiggles her shoulders in the tiniest suggestion of a salsa move. Marcel’s tail bounces up and flicks.
At the end of the evening, Tucker, the one remaining patron, ropes Lana into sitting with him. She tangles her leg in his, flirting shamelessly. Lana, who has a smoky voice, works it when she flirts. She sounds as if she is simmering on a low flame. They discuss scary movies. Her favorite is Scream; his is Saw. She deflects all personal questions with teasers like, “Wouldn’t you like to know?” Intrigued by her evasiveness, he doesn’t notice that she asks him nothing personal either. Lana feels powerful, a puppeteer pulling strings.
Tim is doing a serious cleanup of Marcel’s cage. First he uses the pole from the P ’n S, clamping it to a dustpan. He skillfully manipulates it through the bars to scoop up the poop. Then he folds open all the back doors, exposing a huge span of outdoor space, and hoses down the cage (as well as replenishing the water trough). A moonless night glittering with stars provides a storybook backdrop for Marcel, who now appears to be in a cage in the middle of the wilderness. Rita finds the sight simultaneously depressing and enchanting.
Tim’s final task is to mop up around the bar. He can barely concentrate because he is too busy admiring Tracee. He’s been obsessed with her all night. How gracious she is to customers. She thanks them for coming and waves good-bye. He loves her long curly hair, which bounces, and thinks he could drown in her eyes, which look to him gray sometimes and at other times green. Her pale skin is inclined to freckle. A few new ones have turned up on her nose, and he wants to tell her, “Hey, cute freckles,” but he doesn’t have the nerve. Her spontaneity is amazing. Once she got out of his car during a sun shower and stood in the road getting soaked and grinning. His favorite thing ever—he keeps a mental record—was when she spied a hummingbird zinging this way and that, and made Lana, Rita, and him come out to the field.
“How crazy is that bird?” she said.
Watching her tonight, he marvels at how quick she is to smile. She’s generous with her smiles. They’re like gifts she’s handing out.
Tim’s not without experience. There was his community college girlfriend, a short affair with one of his teachers, as well as some quickies in the storeroom with a Pick ’n Save cashier (no longer employed), but Tracee’s something else. She casts a spell. When she’s around he simply can’t stop staring.
Lana untangles from Tucker. “Tracee, come on. Come with us. We’ll drop you.”
“We’ll drop her?” says Tucker.
“Yes, we’ll drop her. You too, Rita. And then we’ll go to your place. Do you have a place?”
He drapes an arm around her and they leave.
“Thank you for lending me your clothes,” says Tracee to Tim. “I got beer on this shirt.”
“I’ll wash it. Don’t worry.”
“Thanks.” She runs out to join Lana and Tucker.
Seeing Tim yearn for Tracee is giving Rita pangs of sadness. She comes up to him and offers this: “‘Then look for me by moonlight, / Watch for me by moonlight, / I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way.’”
She leaves, and after a second Tim rushes after, catching up in the parking lot. “What’s that you said?”
“A poem.”
“Did you write it?”
“No. I just memorized it.” She quotes again. “‘I’ll come to thee by moonlight.’”
“‘Though hell should bar the way,’” says Tim. “It’s my feelings.”
“Then you’re the highwayman.”
“I’m the highwayman.”
A honk. Rita hurries to Tucker’s pickup and crams herself into the cab, sitting on Tracee’s lap.
The truck rumbles out of the lot.
Tim, alone with the mop, watches it go.
21
Lana wakes up. She turns her head left. There’s a clock, a cheap black digital on a wooden box, Tucker’s bed table. It’s 5:02 a.m. She sits up and looks at Tucker. He’s naked (as is she), sleeping on his stomach, his face smashed into the pillow. He smells awful. Beer awful. There are several empty cans on the floor as well as Lana’s Pepsi, and Lana is careful no
t to step on them as she pads into the kitchen and opens the refrigerator. Nothing but six-packs. Budweiser is the beer of choice, although there are also a few Pabsts and a Coors. She drinks some water straight from the tap, and then uses the bathroom, which doesn’t appear to have been cleaned lately.
She goes back to the bedroom and tugs on Tucker’s feet. No response. He’s passed out cold.
Their clothes are strewn about where they dropped them after ripping them off in a heat. Lana picks up stuff, sorting his from hers, getting dressed as she does, and when she lifts up his pants, his wallet falls out. She picks it up and sees, pinned inside, his badge. Tucker is a cop.
A cop.
She had no idea.
Lana tears into the living room to find the phone. Where might it be? She has to call Tim to pick her up, even though it’s the crack of dawn. She has to get out of here fast. What will she tell Tracee? Well, she won’t. Maybe it will never come up. She’s flipping up Tucker’s couch cushions, imagining a handset might be buried between them, when she spots car keys on the TV. A round metal tag hanging off the chain identifies them as Fairville PD.
Out the front window she sees the car, one house down.
Lana forgets her mission—the phone hunt, the need for rescue. It flies right out of her head. She forgets even her panic in the face of an opportunity, enticing and naughty.
She takes the keys, leaves the house, crosses the street to Tucker’s patrol car, and drives off in it.
When Lana takes off in Tucker’s car, Rita is pulling into the parking lot at The Lion for her morning visit with Marcel.
Once inside, she goes straight to the jukebox, drops in some coins, and punches “Bamboleo.”