by James Hynes
There should have been a little rising inflection at the end of that, thought Kevin, at least the implication of a question mark. What made Beth think Stella should recognize the name? What made her think he’d ever uttered her name to his new lover? But he had, of course, and instantly Stella opened her eyes as wide as they would go.
“Oh, hi!” And still clutching Kevin with one hand, she squeezed Beth on the sleeve with her leather glove. Naomi twisted in her mother’s arm, swiveling her porthole toward Stella.
“Oh my God!” cried Stella, a whole octave higher. “Who’s this little cutie?” Her gloved hand floated in the air, and Beth swung the kid a little closer to Stella, who tugged on one of her blunt appendages.
“That’s Naomi,” Kevin said, before Beth could. My archenemy. My judge. My replacement.
“She’s so adorable.” For some reason Stella was clutching Kevin even tighter. “How old is she?”
“Eighteen months.” Beth let her eyes slide toward the counter, where the girl was holding her turkey loaf.
“Oh, let me!” Stella lunged for the container and slid it into Beth’s basket, all without letting go of Kevin.
“Thanks,” said Beth.
“Kev,” Stella said, tugging on Kevin, “don’t you think Naomi looks just like Kenny?”
Beth looked at him, and he could tell she was thinking, Kev?
But Stella just beamed at Beth. “I was just telling Kevin how much he looked like Kenny from South Park in his hood.” She tugged again at Naomi’s foot or whatever it was. “But you look just like him, don’t you, munchkin?”
Beth looked skeptically at Stella. “Isn’t Kenny the one who dies every episode?”
God help me, thought Kevin, but her crow’s feet are sexy.
Stella gasped and pressed her leather fingers to her mouth. She blushed. “Oh my God!” She gasped again and reached across Kevin and squeezed Beth’s arm. “I didn’t mean… oh, I’m so sorry!”
Even through her gloves and the stuffing of his parka, Kevin could feel Stella’s nails digging into his flesh.
“I didn’t mean that!” she was saying.
“I know,” Beth smiled. “It’s okay.”
Still, Kevin thought, she’s enjoying this. Point, Beth.
“I feel just awful!” Stella looked up at Kevin, as if to say, do something. She was squeezing his arm so hard he was losing the feeling in his fingers.
“Well,” he said, “Kenny always comes back in the next episode.”
“That’s right!” said Stella. In a minute she was going to drag him to his knees.
“The eternal return,” said Kevin, almost a philosophy major. “The phoenix rising from the ashes.”
Beth pursed her lips at him. Point, Kev.
“The ouroboros,” he said.
“The Euro-what?” said Stella.
“You asshole,” says Joy Luck.
She’s stopped short, and Kevin nearly blunders into her, swiveling away on the ball of his foot at the last moment. Without realizing it, he’s followed her out of the forest of shelves and into the archipelago of specialty islands, where shoppers carrying baskets are grazing at buffet tables and edging up to rounded counters with signs over them that say SPECIALTY ARTISAN CHEESES and CHARCUTERIE. Jesus Christ, thinks Kevin, insinuating himself between two young women at a buffet table, Charcuterie? Can’t they just say “deli meats” like a normal grocery store? Even the buffet he’s stepped up to can’t just be a buffet—GOURMET FLAVORS says the sign. He swipes his hand over his hair—damp with sweat—and blows out a sigh, as if he’s trying to decide between the heirloom tomato gazpacho or the ancho honey glazed pineapple. Under his elbow he glances back at Joy Luck, to make sure she’s not talking to him.
“You asshole,” she says again, even louder.
She’s radiating anger like a tuning fork, but her back, thank God, is to Kevin. Her fists are balled and her shoulders are hunched, like she’s ready to start swinging. The muscles in her long neck are pulled tight. She’s attracting the glances of other shoppers, who are oh-so-subtly veering around her. Her rage is being beamed—though Kevin can’t see her eyes—at a tall boy in a white, double-breasted smock and chef’s cap standing behind yet another curved counter, under a sign that says, in silver letters, TRATTORIA. It’s a little Italian café right in the middle of the store, with a blond wood counter and high, blond wood chairs. The tall guy is tending to some pots on a small stove behind the counter; he has a long nose and a narrow jaw and a frozen smile, and his eyes are dodging from side to side under Joy Luck’s murderous gaze. The muffin top of his cap is only a foot below the lower edge of the sign, which hangs over him at the moment like the blade of a guillotine. He’s holding a large wooden spoon stained with red, but even so he looks utterly defenseless against the focused rage of Joy Luck, who seems, even from behind, all sinew, claws, and teeth. Even the sexy little apple at the small of her back looks poisonous.
“Kelly!” says the boy, his eyes bouncing side to side like a doll’s. Kelly?
“Ian, what are you doing here?” says the girl, with a disbelieving shake of her head.
What kind of name is Kelly for an Asian girl? She’s the least Irish-looking young woman he’s ever seen in his life. But then, of course, there’s the late Kevin MacDonald, the world’s only freckled, ginger-headed Islamic terrorist.
“You’re back,” says Ian.
“You took a new job while I was gone?” She’s edging forward, but she’s not lowering her voice. Poor Ian glances to either side, but he can’t back up, and there’s only a dripping wooden spoon between him and the wrath of Kelly. Kevin ducks his head and moves slowly around the end of the buffet to the other side. He still can’t get over this Kelly business, though he supposes it could be worse. They could have named her Colleen. Or Bridget. Or Sinead.
“They called me on Tuesday,” says Ian, “and said they needed me to start right away.”
“Oh really,” says the girl formerly known as Joy Luck. “So… what? They picked your name out of the phone book?”
Ian sighs. Another trattorian has appeared behind the counter, a short, dark young woman in a stained smock, her black hair coiled tightly under a hairnet except for a sweaty strand pasted to her forehead. With obvious effort she’s holding a large, heavy, steaming stockpot by both handles, and she’s glancing anxiously from Ian to Kelly and back again.
“Kelly,” says Ian, gesturing with the wooden spoon.
“Ian,” gasps the short, dark girl. Her wrists are trembling as she holds the pot.
“Maria!” says Ian, startled, and he casts about for someplace to put the spoon, thrusts it under his arm, and takes the pot from her, hefting it onto a burner behind him.
“Golly,” says Kelly, “did I come at a bad time?”
The short girl glances at Kelly, then more meaningfully at Ian, and she scoots away. Ian lights the burner, raising an even rim of blue flame under the pot.
“We’re setting up for lunch, Kell.” Ian’s looking for his spoon, can’t find it anywhere. “Can we talk later?”
Aha! The spoon’s under his arm, and he plunges it into the pot.
“Ian!” She stamps her foot. “What the fuck?”
On the safe side of the buffet a couple of guys stand to either side of Kevin, another man in a business suit and a young guy in cargo shorts and T-shirt. The suit is loading up a takeout box with marinated teriyaki tofu with ponzu sauce, while Cargo Shorts is heaping his with smokey cavatappi pasta salad. All three men exchange glances with each other: Glad it’s not me!
Without looking at Kelly, Ian stirs his pot and gestures at her with his other hand. “It’s a great job, Kell. I couldn’t turn it down.”
“Then what the fuck was I doing in Ann Arbor, looking for an apartment?”
Ann Arbor! Kevin stands a little straighter. Huh!
“I was going to talk to you about it when you got back.” Ian’s stirring so hard that little spatters of red are appearing on his smock,
like blood.
“This is how you tell me?” She stamps her foot again, and Kevin can almost feel the floor shake, as if from the approaching stomp of an angry T. rex. Behind the buffet, all three men lower their noses a little closer to the sneeze guard.
“I signed a lease, you asshole. I put down a deposit.”
Kelly’s rage has cleared a space around her in the middle of Gaia. She’s like a neutron bomb—there’s no blast damage, but no people left alive on the other side of the buffet table. Only Kelly shooting gamma rays in every direction, and poor Ian at the epicenter with his wooden spoon. Any second now he’s going to burst into flames, his skeleton turning to dust like a particularly slow-witted vampire on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But he doesn’t, he only scowls at the sauce he’s stirring as if he expects to find a turd in it. The front of his smock is beginning to look like a butcher’s apron. Sweeney Todd, the Asshole Boyfriend of Sixth Street.
Kelly sighs. She droops. “We talked about this.” She’s near tears now, and Kevin feels like he personally let her down. “We decided.”
Ian sighs and stops stirring and drops his broad chin to his chest. Then he looks up and Kevin can see Kelly’s rage reflected back at her. Ian’s eyes are focused and hard. He gestures toward her with his free hand, all five fingertips splayed at her, like Harry Potter casting a spell. Or warding one off.
“You decided,” he says. “I’m not so sure I want to go to Ann Arbor.”
Kelly’s body tightens again. “Fine,” she says, all the hurt burned out of her voice. She and Ian glare across the trattoria counter at each other. The entire store seems to have gone utterly silent, like a forest holding its breath as two snarling jungle cats circle each other. The two men on either side of Kevin slink away with their gourmet flavors, leaving Kevin paralyzed like a rabbit.
Kelly turns abruptly away from the trattoria, and Kevin flinches. Furiously impassive, Ian watches her go, and he slowly starts stirring. Then Kelly stops and turns halfway back, and Kevin flinches again. Her body’s turned toward him, her legs slightly apart, but she’s looking along her handsome shoulder back at Ian. It’s like a dance position, or a martial arts stance, and she jerks her spectacularly firm right arm up at the elbow, and then lets it spring out to its full length, her middle finger cocked like a switchblade at Ian.
“Fuck you, asshole.” Every muscle in that magnificent arm is taut. You could hang a cinderblock off it. “Fuck. You.”
Then she’s gone. Kevin realizes he’s been holding his breath for so long he’s lightheaded, and he touches his fingertips to the edge of the buffet table to keep from toppling over. The murmur of voices flows into the silence, and the store’s music reasserts itself—another boomer anthem, “Stuck in the Middle with You.” Kevin turns as if in a daze, and sees Kelly parting the crowd, twisting her torso like a wide receiver. Folk feigning interest in the contents of their own baskets scurry out of her path, clowns to the left of her, jokers to the right. Kevin glances back once more at Ian, who is frowning at the splashes of red sauce on his jacket, then he draws a breath and starts after Kelly, giddily riding the eddies in her wake.
* * *
Outside the sliding glass doors, the air clings to his skin like cotton, but he just brushes it aside like cobwebs. He doesn’t even take off his jacket. His feet aren’t even touching the ground. All he’s thinking is, she’s moving to Ann Arbor!
Up ahead Kelly glides between the gleaming cars in the Gaia parking lot; the glitter makes Kevin fumble for his sunglasses. His inner Jiminy Cricket is hauling on the reins, pounding his little fists on the inside of Kevin’s skull, screaming in Kevin’s inner ear, “You’re leaving Ann Arbor! You’re moving here! You’ve got a girlfriend! What do you think is going to happen?”
“Shut up,” says Kevin out loud, threading between the cars. Heat radiates off the hot metal, off the pavement at his feet. Kelly waits impatiently at the busy corner of (say the signs) Fifth and Lamar, a phalanx of vehicles streaming down Fifth while a perpendicular phalanx on Lamar idles at the light. But before the light even changes, she sprints across on her toes. In the middle of Fifth her sandal comes off. Kevin’s heart stops as she staggers, turns, and hops on one foot back across the hot asphalt. Cars swerve, horns blare, and Kevin nearly dashes forward, gallant as Sir Walter Raleigh, to sweep her in his arms and carry her to safety. But then she jams her foot into the flip-flop, grips it with her toes, and marches to the curb, while angry vehicles pass only inches behind her. By time Kevin gets to the corner, cars are streaming before him, and Kelly is marching south, toward the river, down into an underpass beneath a railroad bridge. As Kevin jigs on the lee shore, frantic as a five-year-old with a full bladder, she disappears down the hill. Now he sees her only from the waist up, now only the top of her head. And now she’s dropped below the horizon, out of his life, forever.
“Wait!” Kevin says, and steps into the street. Kelly’s his last chance, his escape route from Stella, the last younger woman he’ll ever need! And she’s available! A turning car jams on its brakes, its driver leans on the horn, but it’s a Lexus, so fuck you, asshole, and your forty-thousand-dollar car. Kevin nearly gives him the finger, but by time he’s thought of it, he’s on the other side, jogging through the viscous heat into the underpass. He should stop and take off his jacket again, he should stop and think about what he’s doing—in Kevin’s control room a klaxon is rhythmically blaring and red lights are flashing and a central mainframe’s calm voice (a woman’s, like in Star Trek or Alien) is counting down t-minus 30, t-minus 29, and Jiminy Cricket’s clutching, what, a strut or something for dear life and kicking back desperately with his little spats at a control stick jammed all the way forward to full speed ahead. But Kevin’s not slowing down, he’s walking a narrow, gritty sidewalk in his fat-soled shoes, only inches from the hot cars backed up down the hill, waiting for the light behind him, because up ahead, striding toward the river, is his last chance—Kelly, Joy Luck, the Girl Formerly Known as the Girl Who Walks Like Lynda. He’s not kidding himself, he knows she’s not Lynda, and that’s okay, because she’s better than Lynda—Lynda was always too diffident, she fucked like a man, selfishly, taking what she wanted and not really giving a damn about him—which, don’t get him wrong, was lots and lots of fun for the three months they were lovers, because nine times out of ten, Kevin totally got what he wanted, too. Up ahead Kelly skirts the plastic fencing of another construction site, nothing but concrete piers and rebar so far, as she makes her way toward a gleam of water through the trees along the river. The last time he followed that same stride toward the water, it was the afternoon of Lynda à la plage, only a week or so after his first night with her, when he took her to the beach at Silver Lake in his deathtrap Pinto. Well, okay, the beach at Silver Lake isn’t really a beach, only a strip of gravelly sand a foot wide where the lawn crumbles away, so maybe he should think of her as Lynda du lac. Either way she’d worn a not-very-sexy Speedo one-piece, black, that went all the way up to her neck and flattened her breasts, but there was no way to unflatter her delicious backside, or her flat belly, or the fetching points of her pelvis. When it was wet, the suit glimmered in the bright July sunlight, and despite the mobs of splashing children and raucous teens and the speedboats foaming just beyond the floats marking off the swimming area, Kevin saw nothing but the glitter of the water and the sheen of the suit as Lynda waded into the lake, the waterline swallowing her thighs, her swaying ass, the small of her back, creeping toward the wings of her shoulder blades. Then she plunged in and Kevin’s heart stopped where he lay with his hands folded behind his head on a beach towel on the grass, wearing a raggedy pair of cutoffs and trying unsuccessfully not to have an erection. A moment later Lynda surfaced, her strawberry hair slicked back from her freckled forehead, and she stood in shoulder-deep water and squeezed the water out of her hair with both hands, and Kevin, losing the battle with his erection, launched himself from the blanket and down the bank and splashed into the cool water with crazy,
high steps, and then dived, gliding slick as a seal, his eyes open in the grainy, greenish water, his hard-on like a homing tracker, until he shot up right in front of her, gasping. She gave him a slow, heavy-lidded smile and draped her hands over his shoulders and kissed him, and he slid his hands up her Speedo’d back and lifted her and she wrapped her legs around his waist underwater. And then, right there, wordlessly, nose to nose with each other, in front of the families lunching at picnic tables on the shore and the dripping kids crowded around the snack bar, in full sight of the screened-in porches across the lake and the slow-paddling canoeists and the speedboats buzzing by only twenty yards away, Lynda rocked herself against Kevin under the surface of the lake. You could hardly call it dry humping under the circumstances, and even through the thick, sodden denim of his shorts, the slick glide of the crotch of her suit was exquisite. It wasn’t even that so much that made Kevin’s pulse pound, made him pinch his lips bloodless to keep from moaning out loud, but rather the warmth of her under the water, both firm and weightless all at once, her flattened breasts pressing rhythmically against his bare chest, her warm thighs clenched around his waist. Looking between them at her foreshortened, refracted body, he glimpsed her sheathed belly flexing with each thrust; looking up, she was so close she seemed to have a third eye in the middle of her face, and he focused instead on the shining droplets caught in the fine blond hairs before her ear. She said nothing, but only breathed a little harder and smiled without losing that look of being half-asleep. Apart from the rhythmic rings of ripples radiating from their shoulders, you’d never know what was going on, or at least that’s what Kevin told himself, and when he came his choked groan was smothered by a series of waves from a passing speedboat that slapped over his and Lynda’s faces, making them both gasp and sputter. He staggered back in slow motion through the water, and she pushed off and glided away on her back, while he let the speedboat’s wake and his pleasure lift him off his feet and float him toward shore.