by Ben Neihart
"Not hardly."
"Slacker."
"Duh."
"I'm not laughing, son."
"Well, what've you been doing with yourself? Let's get off the subject of me."
"What else do I do? A lot of school. Loads. Too many labs, for one thing. Hard-ass lab partners for another. Micromanage everything so we each do the exact same amount of work. They don't take rest—"
"As if you'd take a rest," Donna said gently. She passed the fresh Abita from one hand to the other before taking a draw on it.
"And I'm applying for residencies, working out—which, by the way, is something we need to talk about. I haven't seen your ass at the gym ..."
Joe covered his face with his hand. "Tomorrow afternoon. I'm going tomorrow, man. You gonna be there tomorrow?''
"Yeah I'm gonna be there tomorrow. You ain't gonna have a body on you if you don't make it like regular clockwork priority. At least four days a week, Joe. Two hours a session. An hour of cardio work—"
"Okay, okay."
"You relent really easily," Donna said. "He hasn't succeeded in draggin' my butt down there. I don't want all of those endorphins pulsing through me. They'd freak out my natural languor. Ya hear me?"
"My girl here," Chris said, flicking a thumb at Donna, "she keeps me out at night. Old peoples like us, I think we need our sleep."
"Have you done any celebrating of your birthday?" Donna asked, rearranging her silverware into geometric shapes, pinging fork tines against spoon beds.
A waitress appeared at the side of the table. She placed a bottle of Rolling Rock in front of Joe. "Compliments of Leon," she said.
Joe looked up at her. "Cool. Thanks. Ask him to come talk to us if he gets a chance." A grin swelled up from his chest. There was nothing like being treated with some respect. He realized that his progress was glacial, but still he was making the first moves into being a citizen of the world. He leaned across the table. "I had a very mellow birthday, which is the usual kind of birthday I have. It always coincides with this guy at school's birthday, a very cool guy named Arling, and him and me got together with some guys and played putt-putt. It's some tradition we've had for a couple of years. It's totally a good time." He swigged on the beer and then he asked, "What're you guys going to eat?"
Donna pointed at the open menu before her. "You wanna split some stuff? I wanna load up."
"Yeah." Joe nodded. "Yeah." He thrummed his fingertips across the tablecloth in time to the gassy Dr. John that was shaking from the speakers.
"I'm just having a salad," Chris said. His neck flexed as if it were a single muscle.
"You don't look fat any more," Joe said. "How come you're still on a diet?"
Chris pulled his jacket farther open. "How do you think I look the way I look? I wasn't fat. I was bulking up."
"Oy," Donna said. "Some people are like caught up in paroxysms of self-regard."
"Yeah," Joe said.
"How much should we spend, sweetie?"
"Well, you were giving Kel shit this afternoon about her budgetizing."
"You were what?" Chris asked.
Donna pouted dismissively. "We're not having this category of conversation. I'm too hungry to discuss budgets and who should be on them. I'm not my mother yet, unfortunately or whatever."
"You're getting close, though," Chris said sweetly, his eyes overflowing with admiration.
Joe's face warmed up as he watched Chris take his girlfriend's hand and bring it to his lips. His brainwaves bounced against his skull in a kind of dazzling mix of generosity and lonesomeness. Kiss her, he said to himself. Kiss her. Kiss me. Somebody.
In just the nick of time, the waitress sidled up to the table with a laugh on her face and offered to explain the night's special dishes.
For Joe and Donna, dinner was tossed salad in a kicky, fatty, anchovy-and-jalapeno dressing, roasted garlic and plum tomato pizza, salmon strips with a ginger dipping sauce, sour creamy mashed potatoes. Joe drank two more Rolling Rocks. Donna had four more Abitas. Chris sipped iced tea. For dessert, there was a three-way split of banana cream pie à la moded with chocolate ice cream.
Joe washed away the sweet taste with a mouthful of Chris's iced tea and then sauntered to the bar and bought a pack of Camel Wides, the brand that all of his Country Day newbies smoked when they weren't in training for their sport. The bar was an L on the far side of the elevator bank. There were no stools in front of it, but it was crowded anyway. Joe had to turn sideways and squeeze between patrons to grab a pack of matches.
"I couldn't stay in my seat," a man said loudly in his ear. Joe turned and saw that it was one of the husky, coiffed guys who'd been waiting in the entryway when he first arrived at the restaurant. Now the husky guy's tie was loosened and his shirt billowed out of his pants waist. He was propped against the bar like a canoe. "I ate too much. I mean, I ate so much that I'm gonna have stretch marks. What'd you have for dessert, man?"
"Banana cream pie."
"Why goddamnit I'd like to have a piece of banana cream pie. Why didn't I think of that?"
Joe lit a match and dropped it in an ashtray the size of a hubcap.
"I had creme caramel," the man said. "My God, that mother was tasty. But I'm gonna be fat! It oozed past my lips without even hesitating at all, a frickin' bucket of the goo. Sheesh. Down my throat and into my belly."
"Whoa."
"Look at this belly." The man pointed at himself.
"Not so bad," Joe said.
"You're a good kid."
"Nah."
"Yeah, you are. I can see that plain as day."
Joe punched a cigarette out of the pack and held it between his thumb and forefinger. He fixed his eye on the man's jacket lapel. "Let me ask you something."
"Hurry up and ask me before I blow up right here in this bar. Damn, I feel fat."
"What are you guys all wearing? All of you guys smell really fresh?"
The man stuck his fist in his pants pocket and jingled his change and keys. "You wanna know what it is that makes us smell the way we do. Do I understand you correctly?''
"Yeah. That's the question I'm asking you."
"You're asking this glutton?"
"Yeah." Losing interest for a moment, Joe glanced at the silent TV that hung from the ceiling behind the bar. It showed footage of flames blowing high into the air as they engulfed a three-story building. The screen changed then to show a casually attired reporter who stood in front of smoking rubble; just below his stomach, the word LIVE flashed in red. Joe turned back to the glutton, who wore a patient face.
"Lime," the man said.
"Lime?"
"I smell like lime juice. Us guys use it on our hair to keep it looking like this, to keep it blond, to keep it moist, to keep it smelling so fine." He used the index finger and thumb of each hand to comb the precise part on the side of his full head of hair. "I'm gonna take my leave," he said. "Think I'm gonna order a piece of that banana cream pie."
"Take a bite for me, man."
"Fair enough," the man said gravely, drifting away from the bar.
Joe got his cigarette started and returned his attention to the TV, which now showed a reporter standing outside a brightly lighted satellite van. At the bottom of the screen, in small black print, were the words shaw verdict. The footage changed to show three small boys in identical suits being led across a crowded street, then changed back to the reporter. After the reporter talked for a while, the screen flashed and changed to show highlights of the trial that Joe had been seeing for weeks.
His loneliness was like a radioactive disk in his stomach, sending its trace elements all over his body. In the midst of fun and noise and lights, you could still feel like no one was waiting for you, no one had your name kind of reverberating in his head. He kept his gaze on the TV for another couple of minutes, and then he looked at his stupid, bony hands.
"You need another beer?"
"Um, no, but can I use the phone?" Joe asked the bartender.
&n
bsp; "There's a pay phone back at the bathrooms."
"Please, dude. I'm too comfortable to move."
The bartender sighed. "Come around the side; I'll pass it to you."
Joe stubbed out his cigarette and made his way to an empty yard of bar, where the bartender set him up with a portable phone. He fingered through his wallet until he found the business card that Seth had given him on the evening they'd fucked around at the New Orleans Athletic Center.
Keep an eye on the trial, Joe remembered him saying; call me when it's over. Maybe Seth meant it, maybe he didn't, but only a weak little pussy coward would be afraid to make the thirty-second phone call.
He dialed both of the numbers on the card and left short messages that included the number of his personal line at home; then he called his mom.
"Hey," he said when she answered, "I'm late."
"I've got the clock right in front of me."
"Are you pissed?"
"I am."
"Don't be mad at me, Mom."
"Just get home now. Where are you?"
"I'm eating. These people I know are gonna give me a ride home."
"What people?"
"The girl is a DJ and the guy's in med school at Tulane."
"Joe..."
"Mom, you can go to sleep. I promise I'm on my way really soon. I love you. Mom."
"Of course it's same here."
He hung up and slid the phone to the waiting bartender and thanked him. On his way back to Donna and Chris, he bumped into the waitress.
"What's up?" she said.
"Hey," he said. They walked arm in arm the rest of the way to his table. "Are we gonna stay for another beer?" he asked Donna as he sat down.
"We totally can, I guess," Donna said.
"We're totally staying for another beer," he told the waitress.
"I'm totally psyched," the waitress said. "One Rolling Rock and one Abita?"
"Truly," Donna said.
Chris narrowed his eyes and sank back in his chair. "Who was that guy at the bar?"
"A cool guy."
"You know him?"
"I do now."
"Did you hit on him or did he hit on you?"
"Neither."
"You know, you can't let grown-up guys make a move on you."
"Why not?"
"You're six-fucking-teen."
Donna reached across the table to grab Joe's pack of Wides. She bumped one from the pack and held it to her nose and broke into a coughing fit. "Joe," she said, "the only concern we have is that you don't do anything reckless. I know, even as I sit here and say it, that my like admonition is ludicrous, given my own fucked lifestyle. But me and Chris have consciences, you know. And we need to assuage them. You just be as careful as you absolutely can."
"Yeah," Chris said.
"You guys have good hearts," Joe said to the tablecloth. "I mean it. But I think it's dumb for you to lecture me." When he looked up, the two of them were sharing a hungry French kiss.
"Solly," Donna said after a moment, putting her thumb on Chris's lips to turn his head away.
"You wanna go dancing?" Joe asked, pressing his palms against his knees. The symphonic hustle gusting out of the sound system had put a wiggle in his spine.
"We're very foxy dancers," Donna said. "That's what we've been told."
"By my mother" Chris laughed. "I don't know that she's exactly like a dance critic."
"Who cares? She has an eye. I mean, she can tell we're good together."
"Yeah," Joe said, popping from his seat. "I wanna boogie with you. C'mon. Let's go dancing and shit. I'm already totally late for my curfew."
"We're gonna give you a ride home," Chris said. "We'll get you there safe."
"So let's dance. If you guys aren't too cool to swing by Oz with me. That guy Welk is gonna be there."
"Oh?" Donna said.
"Shut up."
"That guy Welk," Donna said, leaning into the aisle to catch the attention of the passing waitress, "isn't at Oz, baby."
"Really," Joe said, his stomach plummeting as if it had been knotted to a fifty-pound weight and tossed out a window.
"Really," Donna said. "That guy Welk is so much closer than you think. Look over your shoulder, sweetie. Across the room, luv. Right inside the door."
Joe obeyed. The hairs along his brow tingled. Grains of itchy sweat pushed through the pores on his nose and chin. His view of the entrance was obscured by all of the sea-foamy broad-shouldered guys, who were now pushing their way out of the restaurant, gathering their girls and arranging a variety of ball caps on their heads, but when Joe finally did see Welk—in jeans and a green Tulane T-shirt—standing casually just inside the door, his eyesight corrected itself to twenty-twenty and he swayed on his feet. He had a big grin on his face. He knew it. He didn't care that it was oafish. Fuck if he cared that it wasn't very sophisticated at all.
10:15 p.m.
The room was dusky, lighted only by the small halogen lamp that sat on Mrs. Shaw's mahogany desk. On the silent TV screen against the far wall, two young boys threw green glop at each other. The gunk hung from their shoulders; it coated their chests and heads. Whichever boy was greenest at the end of the allotted time lost. It was one of Rae Schipke's favorite shows, and now she watched it from her perch on the leather couch in the library of the Shaw Foundation headquarters. She was, at the same time, listening on the phone to Darcy Favrot, her personal lawyer.
He was telling her that the jury was on its way back to court, that contradictory rumors were circulating about the verdict. "We need you and Mrs. Shaw within the half hour," he said.
"One fucking half hour?"
"I'm not the judge," Favrot squeaked indignantly. "I'm simply telling you the situation."
"You are on my list," Rae warned. "And it wouldn't surprise me at all if there was a hung jury."
"I'm sorry," he said pointedly, "I couldn't understand what you just said."
"So cautious."
"Prudent."
"You know I keep the security on my phone."
"And I know you tape all of your calls. Rae, I know you."
"Enough of this. Forget it."
"Once you are exonerated, I will."
"That's sweet, but you're still on my list."
"I don't want to have this conversation. Rae, get a hold on yourself. And put on something sweet, please. Can't you wear a ribbon in your hair?"
With her laughter, she sprayed saliva on the phone mouthpiece and her hand. "A ribbon? And knickers, too?"
"Rae..."
"Darcy, you're such an asshole. I mean, a ribbon!"
"For the TV?"
"I know why, but me? Do you think I own one item of sweet clothing? I've got that Chloe petticoat, darling, but that's for my wedding day if it ever comes. Nah. Oh, shit, I'll just, you know, wear what I'm wearing. It's awfully late in the game for a rehabilitation of my image."
Favrot chuckled.
"Darcy?"
On TV, the competing boys burst balloonfuls of red liquid against a brick wall. The sight nearly took Rae's breath away.
"Darcy?" she said again.
"I'm sorry," he sputtered, "I got water up my nose."
"Are you in the pool?"
"I'm getting out. I'll surely beat you to court."
"I paid for that pool."
"So you seem to think."
"I paid for that pool."
"How is the Myrtha?"
"Her?"
"Yes. Is she lucid this eve?"
"What do you think? She tried to do a somersault on the gravel driveway. I had to carry her."
Darcy snickered. "Pale, elegant," he murmured. "The Myrtha knew how to dress for court back in the days. Hats and gloves. A parasol."
"Suck it up, baby. I'll see you in forty-five minutes."
"Twenty-five."
"You'll wait." Rae disconnected the call and tossed the phone against the exposed-brick wall with as much strength as she could muster in her sitting position. It
clattered to the hard tile floor, unbroken. "Plastic," she marveled to herself. "So perfect."
A long slate hallway led from the library, where Rae sat, to the master bedroom wing, where Mrs. Shaw waited. A moment after the phone hit the wall, Mrs. Shaw's voice rumbled from the bowels of the house, a mess of indecipherable sounds.
"You're on my list, too," Rae muttered, patting her belly, which was encased in a red leather dress. She was ready for the verdict. Her bare legs had just been waxed; they were suntanned and strong. The pain in her ankle had subsided with the help of steroid injections.
If Seth had succeeded, she'd have her freedom for a while longer—long enough to disappear while there were no judgments against her name or local investments. Her house was in order now, as it hadn't been when the charges were first filed. Tomorrow, she'd be on her way to Brazil. She looked forward to spending the rest of her life in that heat, with the pick of all those street urchins selling themselves for pennies.
Mercy me, she said to herself, and slapped her palms on her lap before groaning to her feet.
She went across the room to the intercom on the wall and patched through to Mrs. Shaw's room. "Get yourself dressed, Myrtha! I'm calling the car around. You've got"—she looked at her watch—"fourteen minutes." Before Mrs. Shaw could answer, Rae strutted into the chill of the dark hall. The slate was like ice beneath her bare feet. She broke into a run toward her office, past louvered doors that opened onto other hallways. Where all the halls met there was a black marble swimming pool that hadn't been cleaned in months.
Rae karate-kicked open her office door. "You're on my list, honey!" she shouted to the empty room, making a visual sweep of dark furniture draped with clothing. She passed around the corner of her desk and dropped into the chair. ' 'Can I get some help in here?'' she whispered to herself.
Sounding like a flock of seagulls, Mrs. Shaw's voice carried into the room.
Rae looked through her purse with single-mindedness. What have we here? Eight thousand dollars in twenties, rubber-banded; her electric Rolodex; Cinn-A-Burst gum; rubbers; a cap gun; a real handgun; loose bullets and paper clips; the business card of the plastic surgeon in Houston whom she planned to visit in the a.m. for a command performance.
She held the card close to her face. Dr. Shaun Martines.