Burning the Map

by Laura Caldwell

  “She was old, honey. She died in her sleep.”

  “And…and…what did you say about Dad?” I set my screwdriver on top of a garbage can and cover my eyes. All at once the sun seems blinding.

  “He left. He’s gone. We’re getting a divorce.” She sounds perky, yet emotionless, as if she’s reading items off a grocery list.

  I shake my head, trying to process her words. My mind feels a block behind the parade. They’ve been having problems, but according to my mother, they’d recently agreed to therapy. People who see a therapist stay together, right?

  “Why, Mom?” It’s the only question I can squeeze out of my throat, hoping she won’t launch into her negligees-versus-sweatpants explanation again.

  “Oh, honey, you’ve seen us.” I hear the zing of the sliding door over the phone line, which means she’s going out on the deck. The deck is where my mother always paces when she’s on the phone, convinced that if she did it inside, she’d wear out the carpeting. In the summer, her bare feet pad across the wood planks. In the winter, her boots crunch over the snow, her blond hair bouncing around her face with each step.

  “We’ve been miserable,” she says, “and your father’s decided he doesn’t want to try anymore. He wants to throw in the towel.” She spits out the last words.

  “Where is he, Mom? Does he know about Bailey?” My dad adored our lazy golden retriever. Maybe that was what pushed him over the edge.

  “He’s at the condo,” she says, referring to the one-bedroom condominium my parents kept in the city so they could stay downtown after dinner and a show. Danny and I used to call it “The Condom” and joke that it must be the only place they had sex, since there was certainly no evidence of coital relations on Orchard Lane.

  “I left him a message about Bailey,” my mother tells me.

  “Is he okay?”

  “I really wouldn’t know,” she says, a bitter scrape to her voice.

  “I’m sorry, Mom. How are you doing?”

  “I’m fine!” she chirps, clearly disingenuous.

  “Seriously, how are you?”

  “No, really. I’m fine!” My mother has always been able to do this. She can deftly switch from an outpouring of emotions straight into her Queen of Denial mode.

  Before I can say anything else, she continues in her fake cheery voice, “Well, I’ve got to go, sweetie. I’ve got errands to do.” As if her husband hadn’t just left her. As if the fucking dog hadn’t died from the trauma of it all.

  “Mom!” I shout to stop her from hanging up without saying goodbye, an annoying habit of hers. “I’ll come home. I’ll get the first plane out of Athens.”

  “No! I do not want you to cut your trip short,” she says, enunciating each word in the don’t-fuck-with-me-voice I’ve heard only a few times before, like when she busted me at age sixteen filling up the gin bottle with water to cover up the loan I’d taken.

  “I’m fine,” she says, her voice mellowing a bit. “I don’t need you here.”

  “Are you sure?” I ask, secretly relieved when she answers yes, because I’m not sure if I can deal with this right now. I am truly my mother’s daughter, the Princess of Denial.

  I consider calling my dad at the Condom, or maybe Danny, who’s back at school, but there’s a growing line for the phone. I also want to believe that if I don’t talk to any more family members I won’t have to face the reality of the situation. I’m like a child who covers her eyes and thinks you can’t see her, just because she can’t see you.

  As I walk back to the picnic table to join everyone, I hold my screwdriver in one hand and pull my sunglasses from my purse, putting them on to hide my eyes. I’m not one of those women who look wistfully beautiful when they’re about to cry. On the contrary, my eyes bulge, my skin splotches and my nose runs. Not pretty.

  The ability to hide behind my glasses makes me want to cry even more. I know divorce happens every day, but my parents have been married for twenty-eight years. You don’t just call it quits after nearly three decades.

  “How are things at home?” Billy asks as I approach the table.

  When I don’t answer immediately, Kat and Lindsey glance up at me. I stand there in the sun, in the protection of my shades, wanting desperately to break down and spill the whole ugly mess. But I feel so distant from them, as if my real family and my family of friends are all falling apart.

  “Everything’s okay,” I say, polishing off my screwdriver in a few short swigs. “Everything’s okay,” I repeat to reassure myself.

  14

  That night at Sweet Irish Dreams, I inhale the drinks with a vengeance. Anything to stop the constant image of my mother sitting alone at the kitchen table, her head in her hands. After a heavy onslaught of beers, I stop being a gawker, and for the first time, I join the crowd dancing on the tables and chairs.

  “Hey, look who’s here,” Kat says, as I climb up on the stone table next to her. “Welcome.”

  “Thanks.”

  It’s a tight squeeze because of the slight Danish kid with doe eyes who’s running his hands up and down her hips.

  “Will you get me a beer?” she asks him sweetly. She has to repeat the question a few more times until they break the language barrier and he understands.

  “Tuborg!” he suggests, his eyes lighting up at the thought of being able to provide a fine Danish beer to an American lass.

  “Sure, sure, Tuborg is fine,” she says, giving the kid a shove in his chest so that he almost topples from the table.

  “What do we have here?” Kat asks, turning back to me, squeezing my arm a little.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve been rather tame every night, hanging out with Noel and Johnny by the bar. What brings you up here?”

  “Nothing,” I say, surprised she noticed. I glance around the place, taking it in from this vantage point. It’s jam-packed with people, the air thick with smoke. The music switches from a house mix with a thudding bass to a funked up reggae number, apparently a popular song around these parts, because everyone starts dancing faster, raising their arms until the space is a sea of waving hands.

  The music gives me a little boost. I turn back to Kat and say, “I’m ready to turn it up a bit.”

  I feel powerful saying something like this, even though I don’t know what the hell it means.

  “Oh, you want to turn it up a bit, do you?” asks Kat, raising an eyebrow.

  “Yep,” I say with false bravado. To prove my point, I try to sway my hips and snap my fingers to the pulsing beat of the music. It’s been so long since I’ve been dancing, though, that the movements feel disjointed, and I nearly sway my ass right off the table.

  “Whoa!” Kat says, steadying me. “Try not to move your feet.”

  She illustrates by undulating her body and throwing her head back in a way that’s fluid and sexy. I see male heads turning in our direction. I try to mimic Kat, tossing my hair around a little, but I’m as successful as a kid playing air guitar at an Aerosmith concert.

  “You know, if you really want to cut loose, we’re going to need some shots,” Kat says, jumping with feline ease to the floor and pushing through the oncoming horde of would-be suitors.

  I’m thrilled that Kat is making such an effort. I lumber down after her, smiling politely at the men who’ve collected around the table. One of them is the Danish kid Kat had been dancing with. He strains his neck to look around me, proudly holding out two bottles of Tuborg beer.

  “Where Kat?” he asks in broken English, his eyes widening with the growing realization that she’s gone.

  I could take him with me to meet Kat at the bar, but I want her to myself right now. Just two gals out on the town, tearin’ it up.

  I shrug. “I don’t know,” I say slowly, so he understands. I take off before he can protest.

  But when I reach the bar, Kat is already on top of it, dancing with two eager-looking black guys with hulking muscles, both dressed in tight vests. She shrugs, giving m
e a look that says, “Who knew this would happen?” I did, but I smile and try not to look disappointed. For all my talk about “turning it up,” I’d actually hoped that Kat and I would end up in the corner, talking like we used to.

  I’m thinking about where to go and turn it up next when Kat crouches down and places a shot glass of cedar-brown liquid in my hand.

  “What is it?” I call up at her.

  “Whiskey,” she says. “Here’s to being single, sleeping double and seeing triple!”

  With that toast, one of Kat’s life mottos, she tosses back her shot. I follow suit, making a big show of plunking my glass on the bar as if to say, “Damn, that was refreshing.” Inside, I fight valiantly not to grimace.

  I look back at Kat, who’s already engrossed, dancing with the black guys again. There isn’t a spare inch between the sandwich they’ve made of her. They look like a giant human Oreo.

  “I’m going to the bathroom,” I say, cupping my hands around my mouth to be heard over the music.

  “I’ll be here,” she mouths, and keeps grinding.

  As I pick my way through the throng, I spot Lindsey engaged in what appears to be an animated conversation with Gunther. Her bobbed hair has grown a little long, and she’s slicked it back with gel. Combined with her tiny frame and big brown eyes, it gives her a seductive look, a trait I wouldn’t normally apply to Sin.

  As I approach her, I can see that while acting like she’s listening to Gunther, she keeps looking over his head, sweeping the room distractedly with her eyes. It reminds me of the way my father talks to my mom lately, pretending he’s interested in her ramblings. No wonder she shifted them to me.

  “What’s up, you two?” I say when I reach them.

  “Hey, Casey—wicked!” Gunther says, squeezing me around the waist with a fierce embrace. He’s one of those huggy, affectionate teddy bear type guys who never seems like he’s leering or hitting on you. I squeeze him back, feeling his soft beard on my cheek.

  “How are you doing, Case?” Sin says, her eyes still searching the room. She doesn’t seem to notice when I fail to respond.

  Gunther fills the void by declaring, “I am going to find a drink!” He raises his right arm as if it holds a sword and he’s declaring war. With another squeeze, he’s off to fight the battle of the crowd.

  “Who’re you looking for?” I ask her, knowing damn well.

  “Hmm?” She glances around once more before looking me square in the face for the first time.

  “Who’re you looking for?” I repeat.

  “Oh, it’s Billy. I haven’t seen him in at least an hour.”

  “I thought you guys were hitting it off.” Actually, I have no clue what, if anything, has gone on between those two.

  She shrugs. “You never know.”

  “He’s definitely hot,” I say, hoping she’ll open up to me, maybe tell me why she likes him. Maybe this will lead to a whole conversation, which is a novelty with us right now. Secretly, I’m glad that Billy is giving her a run for her money.

  “Oh well.” Lindsey gives a nonchalant shrug that isn’t entirely convincing. “There are more fish in this ocean, right?”

  “Sure,” I say, refraining from asking whether she even remembers how to fish. Since she dumped Pete years ago, she’s rarely dated.

  Just then two guys walk up to us. They’re both attractive, but dressed rather formally for this place in pressed khaki shorts and starched linen shirts.

  “Good evening, ladies,” one says in an upper crust British accent that makes me feel like I was raised on a pig farm. “It’s our first night in town. Care to show us the ropes, so to speak?”

  “Sure,” Sin says, linking her tanned, smooth arm through mine. It feels good to have some connection with her again, even if it’s this small, physical one. I smile at the guys, not interested in either, but excited that Sin is including me.

  The two guys, it turns out, are a couple of preppy high-breds from London.

  “Our fathers are members of Parliament,” the light-haired one informs us, as if expecting us to genuflect. He reminds me of the Abbey Road version of the snooty frat boys on Animal House.

  “Mmm,” I say, not bothering to smile or feign interest.

  But Lindsey had been a poli sci major before selling out and going into advertising. She quickly engages Biff, as I’d begun to call the blonde, in a rousing discussion about the Labour party and the Euro dollar. Meanwhile, Biff’s friend, the other prepster, could not be less interested in Lindsey or me. Since the brief introduction, he’s been gazing upward at a leggy redhead in a ridiculously short white dress.

  I excuse myself, although neither Sin nor Biff seems to notice, and make my way toward the bar on the other side of the club, the one not occupied by Kat and the Oreo Brothers.

  I order a vodka tonic with lemon, and I stay there with my elbow on the bar, ignoring the shoving of the crowd and the people behind me shouting for the bartender. As much as I’ve tried to forget about it tonight, I’m haunted by the thoughts of my mother, alone and lonely in our big stucco house.

  I gulp the rest of the cocktail, then try to signal the French girl behind the bar for another. The male barkeep who helped me before has disappeared. I raise my eyebrows and hold out a hand, palm outstretched, but the bitch won’t give me the time of day. She’s leaning over, and just about out of her fitted denim shirt, as she pours an upside down margarita into the mouth of some joker who’s lying over the bar.

  “Scusi!” I call, thinking that maybe she’s actually Italian and not French. “Excuse me! Hello! Bonjour!” At this point, I’m waving drachmas and struggling to keep the strident tone out of my voice. In my head, I see my father packing his favorite jeans and flannel shirts in a moving box. What do you have to do to get a goddamn drink around here?

  The female bartender is down at my end of the bar now, grabbing a bottle of some green liquid and pouring it into a glass with that up-down, up-down arm motion bartenders do when they want you to think they’re giving you a lot for your drachma. Yet still she ignores my calls for help.

  Just as I’m about to launch myself over the bar and throttle her, an arm around my waist pulls me back.

  “Need some assistance?” Billy asks in his quiet Irish brogue, an amused glint in his eye.

  “Oh, hi. I want a drink. I’m just trying to get a vodka tonic, but I’m having a little trouble.”

  “Vodka tonic!” Billy calls to the saucy French wench, who immediately snaps to attention and into action.

  “Here you go,” Billy says, placing the cold, wet drink in my hand. He clicks the rim of his glass with mine. “And here’s to you getting what you want.”

  “You know,” I say to Billy after I’ve thanked him profusely for the alcohol, “Lindsey is looking for you.”

  He seems uneasy. “Yes…well,” he says. “I’m not quite sure what to do about that.”

  “About what?”

  “Well,” Billy says, looking up at a woman who’s dancing on the bar, as if she can give him the answer. “I think that Lindsey might, uh…might fancy me.” He’s practically shuffling his feet now and tugging at the neck of his T-shirt. “And I think Lindsey is a lovely girl, very sweet. It’s just that I don’t exactly fancy her.”

  “I see.” I wish I could muster up some malicious glee that Sin won’t be getting what she wants this time, but the old best friend in me feels a twinge of disappointment for her.

  “I mean, we’ve been talking,” Billy says. “It’s just that I fancy someone else.” He looks at me and cringes, as if I might strike him, beat him into liking my girlfriend.

  “Lindsey’s tough. I’m sure she’ll get over you.”

  “Right, right.” He seems relieved. “Now back to my toast. To you getting what you want. Tell me what that is.”

  “That’s quite a question. Do you mean what I want tonight or what I want out of life?” I attempt a nonchalant laugh, but it sounds like a donkey braying.

  “Well, let’s
start out small. How about tonight?”

  “Tonight I want to get drunk. I want to have a ridiculously good time and get stupid drunk.” I try to make my words light, but they sound bitter, and I see the moving truck pulling down our driveway on Orchard Lane.

  “I don’t know about the getting pissed part,” Billy says, eyeing my vodka tonic, which is nearly gone, while he’s barely sipped his. “But I can help you with the good time. How about getting up there and giving it a whirl?” He gestures at the bar.

  I pause, trying to come up with a feasible excuse, but then I think, why not? What the hell? Billy helps me onto the bar and stands behind me so that we both fit. I try once again to imitate Kat’s gyrating, hair-flipping dance style, but I can tell from the quizzical looks I’m getting from the French bartender that it isn’t working. I slow to a gentle swaying that I’m more comfortable with. I feel Billy’s thighs graze the back of mine. He matches my movements, and I can’t help but compare his confident, graceful ways to John’s more standard step-clap, step-clap dance routine.

  As the music turns to a slow but funky version of “Sexual Healing,” a number of people around us start to cling to each other like a scene out of Dirty Dancing. I glance over my shoulder at Billy, surprised to find his face looming right behind me. I wonder if I’m having a drunken, side-mirror moment where everything looks closer than it appears, but then I notice his hand on my hip. It’s that hand, holding too firm to my body, that makes me realize he meant me when he said he was interested in someone else. He squeezes my hip, and I get a ping, as Kat and Sin and I call them, those once-in-a-while feelings that travel straight from your stomach to your crotch, when you suddenly, inexplicably, find yourself turned on. I haven’t pinged in an eternity, and while I’m happy and surprised to find that I still have them in me, this is the wrong time, the wrong place and the wrong guy.

  “I have to use the bathroom,” I say, and without waiting for Billy to answer, I bend down, place my hand on the bar and jump off.

  I really don’t need this, I think, as I push through the packs of groping couples. I’m flattered, of course. Unreasonably, fabulously, over-the-top flattered, but I haven’t even sorted out Francesco and John. I don’t need another one to worry about. Not to mention the fact that Lindsey has been after Billy, and our unspoken code of girlfriend ethics dictates that I stay away from any man that she or Kat are dating, were dating, are pursuing or are even thinking about pursuing. I don’t need to give her another reason to hate me. I decide to lose Billy when I leave the bathroom.