“Are you having fun?”
“A great time,” she said, not hiding the sarcasm. “You?”
Together, they walked to the edge of the terrace. “It’s just another winter ball,” Dean said. “If you’ve been to one, you’ve been to them all.”
“That’s the truth.”
Dean blew smoke into the dark outline of the mountain.
“How long are you going to be in town?” Harper asked.
“I’m staying through Christmas. My lease for that house in San Miguel starts Christmas Day, so I can go whenever.”
“A psychological sabbatical.” Harper sighed. “I could use one of those.”
“I bet,” Dean said, leaning against the railing. “You should come.”
“We will. After graduation.”
“Come sooner.”
“I wish. If only.”
There was a brief moment of silence as they watched the fountain in the distance bubble and splash.
“Do you and Gracie ever think about leaving this place?”
Dean asked, blowing smoke rings, even bigger and smokier than Grace’s.
“On a psychological sabbatical?”
Dean chuckled. “No, for good.”
“For good?” It was a curious question.
“Is all this”—he waved his hand at the building—“ever too much?”
Harper looked at Dean; his question surprised her, as did his mood.
0
Before she answered, Harper saw Cilla’s scowl, felt the sting of resentment for Sloan. She hated this town. In her mind, she saw fireflies and rolling hills of mustard.
Harper’s bottom lip quivered when the truth came out.
“We think about leaving all the time.”
And it was true. Harper and Grace had talked about it more than once, quite often during the prior semester when they’d had such trouble walking the tightrope. In years past, the practical side of Grace and Harper planned on buying a house in Tucson after graduation, something cozy in the hills until they both got into grad school, but, as things got more complicated, they often mused about running away in the night, escaping back to Italy. They still dreamt about unloading Grace’s trust fund on a Tuscan villa and sending for their things.
Dean took his time with the next sentence, cautiously choosing his words.
“I’ve known you for a long time, right?”
Harper waited. “Right.”
“And. You know I’m always here for you…”
She didn’t like his tone, nor the direction he was headed.
“…if you ever need anything,” Dean said, more serious than Harper had seen him.
Stepping back, Harper said, “I do. And I appreciate it. Now hurry up with that thing.” She looked at the stars. “We’re going to miss dinner.”
He crushed his cigar in the rocks and then slowly turned back to Harper, somehow getting underneath her skin.
It was then, even before another word was spoken, that she realized he knew.
Dean whispered. “You can tell me anything.”
Immediately, everything around him turned black.
Harper could hear dogs barking in the distance.
When Harper finally found words, they came out through a mouthful of gauze. “What are you talking about?” she asked.
Dean grabbed her hand. Gently. “You can trust me,” he said.Harper didn’t feel the emotion coming, but there was something about his touch that made her collapse.
0
Neither Harper nor Dean spoke another word. In the cold night, as the fountain gushed water high into the sky and she cried in his arms, they didn’t need to.
0
“My Boyfriend’s Back”
The Angels
“Meet me at the car in fifteen minutes,” Harper wrote on a wilted cocktail napkin, the letters bleeding. Through a waiter, she sent it to Grace when Cilla left the table after dinner.
They had to escape.
Grace was waiting in her black Mercedes when Harper got to the front drive. Before she got in the car, Harper decided not to mention her mother’s razing glare. Christmas was two days away and she didn’t want to spoil the holiday. Besides, by the time she ate her last bite of lobster and finished her wine, Harper convinced herself what happened with Cilla was nothing, a misunderstanding.
Her cryptic conversation with Dean was something else.
“Is Dean meeting us at Ernie’s?” Harper asked, turning down the music.
“I didn’t invite him. I just ducked out without saying goodbye to anyone.”
“Did he say anything to you earlier?” Harper asked, still nervous, staring out the window.
“About what?”
It wasn’t the right time, Harper decided, and she was sure she could trust him.
“About when he is leaving for Mexico.”
“No,” Grace said, turning into the parking lot. “I think he’s staying through New Year’s. Mummy’s having a party.”
That night at Ernie’s could’ve been any other and it was just what Harper needed—anonymity and more alcohol. The jukebox was waiting for them in the corner, the usual patrons were in their places and the same cloudy haze hung near the ceiling stained with cancer and asbestos. The perfect place to disappear.
Harper picked the corner table, their usual spot, and ordered two beers while she watched Grace, with her long stride, make a beeline for the music.
The light from the jukebox illuminated Grace’s face as she worked the controls, searching for the right songs. From their table, she could see Grace’s voluptuous frame. With her hand on her hip, Grace tapped the glass in satisfaction—she’d found a good one.
When Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical” came through the speakers, Harper could tell by the way Grace held her head that she was smiling. Over her shoulder, she looked back at Harper.
A sexy punch of adrenaline rushed through Harper’s body before she sighed and lifted her beer. It had been a rough night and Cilla’s scowl still troubled her. No matter how much she drank, she couldn’t escape it.
The air changed when Grace approached and “Private Dancer” started.
“Good one.” Harper flirted, remembering the boots Grace had worn two months prior when she’d given Harper an early birthday present—another striptease, this time to Tina Turner.
Diamond earrings and high-heeled boots were all she wore as Harper’s private dancer.
As Tina sang, Grace smiled and swung her hips. Harper could smell her perfume.
“I thought you’d remember.”
“How could I forget?”
Closely, Harper watched Grace push quarters in the pool table and squat to gather the balls. Hanging on a gold chain, her Gamma pendant fell perfectly in her cleavage, flanked by each breast.
When Harper handed Grace the pool triangle, she told her she didn’t want to stay until last call. There was no confusion when Grace grabbed it and stood. Captured.
“Me neither,” Grace said, walking slowly in her direction, Grace’s thick accent as familiar as the songs coming from the jukebox.
Harper pulled her in.
The taut line between them was cut when Harper looked over Grace’s shoulder and saw the devil come through the door.
“Jamie just walked in,” Harper said. She smirked and gave him and his buddies a slow, beauty pageant wave. “Why are they here? Of all places?”
“Mummy must’ve told him we still come here,” Grace said.
“She found a receipt in my pocket last time I was home. Said this was a dreadful place for us to hang out.”
As Grace turned to the boys, Harper stared at the swoop of her dress—Dean’s words and Cilla’s eyes still smoothing themselves out in her mind. She lit a smoke before saying hello.
Jamie kissed Grace and introduced his clan from college, frat boys he’d brought home from Stanford.
“This is Grace,” he said, yanking her in with one arm, spraying a circle around her.
Jamie was an Ivy Leaguer who had grown into a tall, tan, runner-type, who loved his pedicures and manicures as much as he enjoyed his immaculately tweezed eyebrows.
Harper rolled her eyes, reached for the pool stick and took a shot. Anything Jamie said made her curdle. She finished her cigarette from a few feet away while Grace told him about the ball. Over the music, Harper could hear the words wanker, pretentious and drunk fly out of her mouth.
While Harper smoked, she scanned the dingy room, envisioning the regulars dressed up for the debutante ball. The car salesman in the corner, Jimmy, sipping on mai tais with
umbrellas, would choose a tux with tails. His shirt would be wrinkled. Betty, the token grandmother who could drink anyone under the table, would wear shiny taffeta. She’d bring her Betty Boop purse even though the clasp was broken, its lips opened like a wide-mouthed bass on the bar.
Harper smashed her cigarette into the ashtray as she watched Jamie and Grace interact. She cursed him for showing up, for being so handsome, for who he was in Grace’s life.
Something had to be done to take him out.
When a large pack of girls marched in, Harper went to the jukebox with a five-dollar bill to monopolize the mood. She slid it in and began choosing some of their staples, looking for some new gems, ones neither of them had discovered. There weren’t many of those. She played “Leave Him Out Of This” by Steve Wariner.
Through the glass’ reflection, Harper watched Grace dig bobby pins from her hair. As she talked to Jamie, slowly, as if she knew Harper was peeking, Grace set them down one by one with a shitty grin.
Barbara Mandrell. “( If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don’t Want To Be Right.”
With her hands fixed on the edges of the jukebox, Harper tried to focus on the music, and what her next message would be. But it wasn’t easy. As Grace’s French twist came down, she looked less and less like the Grace she’d known years before when they used to ride bikes barefooted through the neighborhood as young girls.
The room heated as Grace’s wavy hair fell to her shoulders, turning her into the woman Harper now knew in the darkness, the woman whose hot breath she craved more than her own.
Harper closed her eyes and let Ernie’s fill with music. Along with the cigarette smoke, she could smell innocence lost burning up and curling into the sky as her songs, dedicated to Grace, played.
The next song, one for Jamie, was loud and obnoxious, just like him. “I Hate Everything About You” by Ugly Kid Joe. The song, starting out like a ballad, dove quickly into its venomous lyrics.
Grace smiled at this one, glancing at Jamie, who was chatting with his buddies a few feet away, clueless.
Harper fed the jukebox every dollar and quarter she had, and like every other night, it was hungry. She heard the silver slide down its throat, felt the warmth it exuded, the fire against her fingertips, the inferno burning in its belly. As she flipped through the songbooks, Harper searched for heartache, for healing, for aphrodisia.
She tried to concentrate on the jukebox and the muted lights that lit its curvy trim instead of the force of Grace, pulling at her from behind. She’d stood there many times before, searching for a song to tell Grace that she was her cherry pie or, with a little help from Madonna, that Harper was crazy for her.
But this time was different. This time it really mattered.
With the push of two buttons, Jamie would disappear and Harper would be all she saw.
“Pressure”
Billy Joel
Jamie worked on getting closer to Grace all night. After each drink, he got better with his hands, with his charming quips.
When she could, Harper moved between them like a chaperone, her teeth gritted.
After Harper scratched on the eight ball, she knew it was a good time to escape.
“Nice shot Harper.” Jamie raised his glass and looked at the corner TV.
“Go to hell, Simons,” Harper barked.
She smiled, but hated him. She’d beaten him plenty of times.
Her mouth watered as she hung her stick—she wanted to spit on the ground, and onto his fancy leather shoes.
The lights hummed in the bathroom; orange paint and fluorescent lights didn’t go well together, and grape Popsicles were never the same after management installed an automatic deodorizer above the sink, hoping to mask the grime living deep in the old tile.
Hurrying, Harper already had her gown partially pulled up as she closed the door. She had to get back before the next song started; her set was nearly over. As Harper squatted, she thought about the ball and how different the bathrooms were at
the Phoenician—the attendants, the marble, the linen towels.
She could sit on their seats.
Harper was just finishing when she heard the bathroom door swing open. Swish, floump. She listened, but didn’t hear any footsteps. No one walked into the other stall, so she bent over and saw Grace’s freshly-painted toenails, shiny and plum, in her strappy shoes by the sink.
Grace.
Harper unlocked the door and peeked out. There she was, leaning casually against the dryer with her hands behind her back.
“Hi.” Grace’s seductive draw ripped Harper at the seam.
“Hi.”
With one hand on Harper’s shoulder, Grace pushed her back in the stall and slammed the door with her foot. Her saliva sizzled when her lips met Harper’s like an alcoholic to scotch, frantic and dangerous. Dependent. Addicted. Grace’s warm hand moved to Harper’s neck, pulling her inside.
As Grace’s fingers slid under Harper’s dress, the bathroom door swung open again. Swish, floump.
Harper flinched, and then smacked the toilet paper dispenser dotted with cigarette burns. The girls muffled nervous laughter and froze as a flash of green walked past their stall. Both were silent, just stood facing each other, Harper’s breast in Grace’s hand. They waited for the click of the lock before running for it. Their steps were fast out of the bathroom and they split up at the dartboard—Grace veered to the jukebox and pulled out a handful of change. This time she moved through the music like she knew what she was looking for. Harper tried to act casual on her approach to the boys, walking slowly, counting the linoleum squares on the ground.
They’d never planned on taking it this far.
As she got closer, Jamie met Harper near the shuffleboard table. “My friends think you’re hot,” he said. “Especially Mitch.”
“Really?”
The drink couldn’t get into Harper’s hands fast enough. As she walked past Jamie, he laughed, cackled really, and fiddled
with his belt, which was holding up expensive Italian slacks. The pants, like his silk shirt, were perfectly tailored to his body.
Jamie stopped her again and put his arm along her shoulder.
“So,” he said, chewing on a straw, “talk to me about Grace.”
In the past, he rarely pumped Harper for information. She didn’t like answering him before, and this time it made her queasy enough that she had to lean into the chair for balance.
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.”
He was right and he had just enough alcohol in him to raise the subject.
“What do you want from her?” Harper asked.
Harper’s head hurt, a slow building headache as she played an endless slideshow from the night—Cilla’s eyes, the smell of Dean’s cigar, the crowd clapping for the debutantes standing shoulder to shoulder on the stage.
“I don’t know. For years, we’ve been doing the same thing, and I just don’t know what she wants,” he complained, watching ESPN highlights, adjusting his textured highlighted hair.
“She never talks about it,” Harper said, reaching for a jar of sand above the shuffleboard.
“Riiiight,” he chastised. “Like you don’t talk about it. She’s only been in love with me since…what, third grade?”
“Are you crazy?”
Jamie rolled his eyes and shot her an I-know-I’m-right look.
“Why are you always such a prick?” she spat, not believing the words made it to her lips.
“Excuse me?”
“You think every woman wants you,” she added. “Grace isn’t in love with you. Not by a long shot.”
“You’re just a resentful bitch who’s always had this weird possessive thing for Grace. You’re like her jealous girlfriend.”
Jamie put his fingers up to insinuate quotes around the word girlfriend.
“Fuck off.” Her palms sweaty, Harper began sanding for a new game.
Jamie, again, laughed obnoxiously. “Whoa,” he chastised, “I hit a nerve.”
“I’m just protecting her.”
“From what?” He laughed harder now. “What a load of bullshit.”
“You’re a total womanizer. Just like your dad”—it felt good to hit below the belt—“and everyone knows it.”
Jamie stopped, put his hands on his hips. “I’m glad you fell from the jungle gym. You’ve always been a cunt.”
Completely shocked, Harper’s rage paralyzed her as Grace approached carrying a tray of drinks. Her eyes narrowed. “What the hell’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Jamie lied. “We’re just playing around.”
Harper stared him down, her fists clenched.
As Harper continued covering the board with sand, her blood pressure off the charts, she saw the woman in the green dress return from the bathroom. Grace and Harper both watched her jump onto a barstool and whisper something to her friend.
When they looked over, Harper averted her eyes to the small Christmas tree in the corner, its body draped with lights too big for its branches. Like a cruel game, each limb was bent to its limit. Ready to snap.
Later that night, after three more rounds of drinks, the beer bottles lined up like a college frat party, quietly, Jamie approached Harper before she took her final shuffleboard shot.
“Okay,” he said, trying to diffuse the bomb wired between them, “let’s just forget about all this. Truce?” He stuck out his hand.
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