This Vacant Paradise

by Victoria Patterson

  A light off the pier cast a clear spotlight over the bay; under its reflection, the water was green and oily. At the other side of the pier was Chocolate Pleasure, a sleek red motorboat. Earlier, they’d watched it sidle to the dock, thumping with the bass of music, four young women dancing at the bow, and Fred Smith, the retired black basketball player, with his fingertips at the wheel. Charlie had felt a pang of excitement, and then he’d been embarrassed by his reaction. Fred had tied the boat along the dock, and the assemblage had made their way up the pier. The group had since established themselves along the bar, Fred at the center.

  Charlie wanted to believe that he had an affinity with Fred. Although he wanted to blame it on social circumstances, lack of opportunity, he’d never had a real friendship with a person of dark skin color, only two superficial acquaintances.

  “The man is a sociopath. He put a smiley face in the O of his signature on his so-called suicide letter. I can’t believe he went to USC. He’s giving football a bad name. Do you know what I mean?”

  A nerve pulsed below Charlie’s temple. His liaisons had normally contained a blameless quality. Never before had he blatantly used someone to clear his mind of another. A canopied Duffy motorboat moved slowly across the surface of the bay, leaving a calm wake.

  In between the silences of her three trips to the ladies’ room, this was what he’d learned about Jennifer: She’d sat in the first row of his Introduction to Sociology class, even though the subject matter mostly bored her (“Sorry! I was only trying to get done with my prerequisites, but I always thought you were cute and kinda sad, like a puppy dog.”); she was twenty-two, an Aquarius, although she didn’t entirely believe in astrology, and she hated her name. (“Everyone around here is named Jennifer—I want to be different—and what kind of last name is Platt? I want to get married, so I can change it!) Jennifer Flat had been her nickname in high school, due to her lack of cleavage (although she’d obviously remedied that with solid C-cup implants); she had trouble with her demanding stepfather; he was “in real estate” and a member of the city council; he’d been more like a father than a stepfather, supportive, even paying for her apartment, but he was a “total perfectionist”; she’d been engaged briefly to a successful stockbroker and businessman, but had broken it off when she’d found him cheating with her best friend and roommate (leaving her apartment roommate-free); she wasn’t bitter, because the breakup had forced her to decide what she really, really wanted to do with her life; now that she was going to eventually go back to school for sports medicine, she felt more fulfilled than ever; she’d always been interested in her body and what she ate and health and sports, and how great was it that she could combine all her interests and share her knowledge with the larger world, giving her life purpose; and if that didn’t work out, if the math and science proved to be too much, she’d been thinking about massage therapy or communications.

  “He’s a sick man. Do you know what I mean? Sick, sick. ‘Absolutely one hundred percent not guilty, your honor.’ I mean, who does he think he’s kidding? The whole thing is wrong. If you just look at his eyes, you can tell. His eyes are guilty.” She paused to sip at her Corona, a lime peel submerged at the bottom of her glass.

  The way she studded her monologues with “You know what I mean?” saddened Charlie, made him more a professor than a man enjoying a beautiful woman. She was insecure and needed constant reinforcement.

  “I hope he goes to the electric chair,” she said, and she took one last sip, finishing her beer, as if to finalize her statement.

  He was accustomed to communal expressions of indignation over O. J. Simpson. It was a way for people to bond. But he wanted O. J. Simpson to fade away; he was weary of hearing people barking about it. Bark, bark, bark! Guilty, guilty, guilty! It would be useless for him to express the larger racial and sociological implications. She hadn’t received the usual corroborating head nod, and this made her uncomfortable.

  He let his eyes meet hers. “I don’t believe in the death penalty.”

  She was startled, fingering her cocktail napkin, creating little tears at the ridge. Her eyes dropped to the table. “Not right.” She shook her head so that wisps of her blond hair brushed against her shoulders. “The Bible says, ‘an eye for an eye.’” She was duplicating someone else’s words, probably her stepfather’s. A flushed patch of skin at her throat, extending across her collarbone and down into her low-cut top, caught his attention. He wanted to put his lips there, reassure her.

  There was an awkward pause, and he felt the certainty that he’d spoiled her evening. After receiving a negative response concerning the possibility of dessert, their waitress set the check on the table in its faux-leather holder, ingrained with THANK YOU in gold letters.

  Jennifer gave a small sigh and looked dismissively over his shoulder, taking in the restaurant. He pretended not to care, becoming engaged with calculating the accuracy of the check. He set the case on the table with his American Express card tucked inside the clear plastic pocket.

  “Do you believe in the male-female thing?” Jennifer asked out of nowhere.

  “What?”

  “My fiancé and I were seeing this therapist. Everyone goes. It was a premarital package. She believes in the male-female thing, and maybe I don’t do it well enough.” The flush at her neck had extended to her face.

  “I don’t know what the male-female thing is.”

  Her eyes were wide and young. “I’m supposed to be submissive and he’s the head of the unit. He’s the spiritual leader and my job is to guide from the background. The man needs to be in charge and that’s the way God intended. The woman needs to honor her man and the man needs to cherish his woman. You know? Women are the gatherers. Except now, instead of gathering berries and tomatoes and things, we gather shoes and clothes and knickknacks for our homes. And men are the hunters, right? But now, instead of hunting deer and buffalo and stuff, you’re out hunting big bass on your boats or something. Well, I think maybe I was too forceful. Maybe I talked too much, had too many opinions. You know what I mean? Maybe I didn’t let my fiancé be the man. And Denise, you know, my roommate, well, she’s so quiet and pretty. And she just knows how to be submissive naturally, where I really need to practice.”

  There was a long pause as she waited for him to answer, and her eyes were wet and pleading.

  “I believe in the human-human thing,” he said at last.

  “I don’t know what that means,” she said, but he could tell that she was pleased; that without meaning to, he’d said the exact right thing.

  He saw an opportunity and began to talk. He started with an anecdote, and from there he ventured into a philosophical discourse concerning Schindler’s List. He veered slightly into the Whitewater investigation, Kenneth Starr, and the various conspiracy theories linking Hillary Clinton to Vince Foster’s suicide, but he quickly saw by her grim-mouthed reaction that he should refrain from all political topics; she was especially offended by the mention of Hillary Clinton, having drunk the “Hillary is a big fat lesbian/feminist/Communist” Kool-Aid, and he steered himself to safer terrain: sporting events, the weather, movies. And a story about losing his favorite “blankie” as a child, cooling it off in the wind outside the moving car window (they were on the freeway), only to have it slip from his fingers and flutter away. His mother had tried substitutes (an exact replica, a bathroom towel, a strip of her sweater), to no avail.

  Jennifer looked at him as if he were still just an adorable boy, flapping his blankie out the car window. She was beckoning him with her expressions, allowing him to be in charge. It was similar to when he lectured, a feeling of his audience’s admiration, and he reminded himself to not cover any territory that she might’ve already heard as his pupil.

  He spoke self-deferentially about his profession. Her eyes glimmered in appreciation and she remained attentive. As he spoke, his thoughts wandered. The key, he decided, was to benefit from a relationship, to remain comfortable. He took his freedom se
riously. His parents had provided him with the means to freedom, as long as he kept in line.

  His parents’ beachfront home had two USC flags (one above the front door and the other, slightly smaller, at a second-story window), and the only time they appeared distressed was when USC and UCLA battled each other on the football field. His parents had an easygoing acceptance, demanding only that he not burden them with his ideas and politics.

  Instead of looking into the vast, fathomless abyss called Life, his father had tried to instill in him the consolation of making a great deal of money. Although Charlie had not complied, instead choosing a life in academia, his father had not punished him financially. By receiving monthly dividend checks signed by his father, he was able to travel and to maintain his membership at a gym, his sailboat, and his weekend golfing expenditures, not possible on his professorial salary.

  He was grateful and sought to please his parents (married forty-seven years), yet by not adding to the gene pool with grandkids and by refusing to participate in his father’s business (while at the same time accepting monthly profits from it), he couldn’t shake the knowledge that he was failing.

  His mother, in particular, was urging him to “pick a good woman, marry her, and settle down.”

  If only he were able to pick and choose the women he fell for. His last “relationship” had been an affair with a married woman. Brenda had smelled like gardenias and limes and maybe a hint of ginger. She was impulsive and sexually adventurous. He’d rationalized his affair as a favor to her husband: She was too much woman for one man. He’d tried to keep the relationship secret, but being with Brenda was like plugging into an electric current: He would feel more alive for days, as if the cells of his skin were open, the molecules hungry. They were like animals—there weren’t exactly human emotions involved. Their bodies seemed to want to erupt in violence. He had ended the relationship at its passionate zenith (three-hour sexual “sessions,” heightened by screaming fights; she’d even hit him with the back of her hand and then shoved him against a wall) intuitively protective, like hunkering under a table during an earthquake.

  He thought of Nora—noble, intelligent, funny, thoughtful, sensitive, forthright—her hair some indistinct shade of brown, her pale skin that splotched so easily with emotion. Her face had too much of everything—too much forehead, nose, and lips—so that her every expression was loaded. Sure, she was no beauty, but Nora exuded virtue. She leaned forward when she listened to him, squinted a little, as if making sure she didn’t miss a thing. She was interested in the world, she was interesting—she’d been in the Peace Corps; she’d started Clothing for Change, for underprivileged women; she could hold a conversation on any subject: philosophy, politics, you name it. Sometimes he even learned from her!

  Yet he wasn’t attracted to women who made little effort to be attractive. Nora wore these awful gray sweatpants, and her clothes never seemed to fit quite right: a little too lumpy here, a little too tight there. She didn’t shave her armpits. She’d yawn, lifting her arms, and he’d see the silky mouse-brown hairs twisted around each other—dewy—peeking through her sleeve holes. He had supposed that this European convention would be erotic in a base, woman-is-from-the-earth kind of manner, but he found it almost pornographic in the wrong way, like accidentally seeing an old woman’s vagina, or his sister’s vagina, or his mother’s vagina—not that that had ever happened, thank God.

  And Nora gave off the faint (very very faint) smell of spoiled milk, even after she had showered. He wondered, at times, if he were imagining the smell, but when he got close to her, there it was, albeit just barely, as if it came from her very essence. Pheromones were a scientific fact, not some made-up bogus selling point for colognes and perfumes. All he had to do was take a long, strong whiff of Nora as proof.

  Besides, women like Nora weren’t interested in societal conventions such as marriage. She was smarter than that. She was like him—a female version of Charlie (although Nora was a better Charlie than he was; she was more ideologically pure). And God knew he wasn’t interested in the restrictions of marriage. Despite everything, he experienced a gut-thrust of guilt (Nora was his best friend), as if he should be attracted to her, but the forces of desire were beyond his control.

  And then his thoughts instinctively sought refuge in Esther, specifically in the bold pink half-dollar–size areola of the nipple on Esther’s right breast, when he had stroked it (with her permission) with the back of his hand.

  Esther had surprised him in his car, at the end of their date, when he had made his request in jest (“Let me say goodbye to you here,” and he’d touched her chest), by unbuttoning her shirt, turning on the car’s interior light, unsnapping the back of her bra, and dislodging the glorious appendage from its shelter: The rim of the areola was surrounded by little ridges, barely visible, and the nipple was a beauty. “Oooh,” she said, “that feels so good,” and as she closed her eyes to heighten her pleasure, he was already dreading the loss of that nipple, and what that loss meant in terms of future losses, knowing that he didn’t meet her fiscal requirements and that she was humoring him, taking her gratification one last time.

  As he continued talking to Jennifer, he thought about how Esther trailed complications; she was guarded, enigmatic, unpredictable, and when she spoke, there seemed to be an undercurrent of the unspoken, a scrambled intricacy of meaning.

  He felt a tingling of desire, his heart hammering, and he made an attempt to relocate his yearning in the general direction of Jennifer’s impressive physical attributes, but his lusty wishes seemed to linger around him, amorphous and without a course. His concentration began to fail.

  Jennifer seemed to notice and take pity, her hand crossing the table and touching his knuckle. He sensed that she appreciated him but that she had decided—probably around the same time he’d stated his opposition to the death penalty—that she would never bring him home to meet her step-father.

  Briefly he saw her as an adolescent with her tyrannical step father, a man she’d never been able to please. A man who’d forced her to run track or play volleyball or swim laps every day. She’d been able to hold his attention through her developing body. She probably had an eating disorder, anorexia or bulimia or a combination. Or maybe she forced herself to use a Stair-Master for two hours after any food indulgence.

  “Oh, God,” she said, directing his attention to her breast, “look—I’m peeling.” Her fingernails brushed at a pinkish patch of skin above her left breast. Her gaze lifted.

  He sidled across the booth, touching knee, hip, and elbow. He turned her hand palm up and traced his finger along her wrist.

  He let his breath come close to her ear. “You smell so good,” he said.

  She let out a sigh. “Okay,” she said. “Hmm.”

  “You’re very beautiful.”

  She moved an inch or two away, as if to regain composure—but she was smiling. He poured the rest of his Heineken into her glass and she took the glass, lifted it to her lips, and finished his beer, her eyes on him. Then her eyes stared somewhere over his shoulder.

  “Oh, God,” she said, setting her glass on the table. “Fred Smith is coming. What do you think he wants?”

  Charlie turned and saw that Fred was walking to their booth, hands deep in his pockets, with an amused smile. When he reached their table, his right hand left his pocket and he set his fingers on their table, his fingernails a soft pink against his skin.

  “How was dinner?” he asked.

  Jennifer’s expression cleared into a hospitable smile.

  “It was great,” Charlie said, his smile mimicking hers.

  Fred leaned forward. His hand slid over the faux-leather check case. “Music to my ears,” he said. His skin was dark brown with a golden undertone. His hair looked shiny, flat, and curled close to his head.

  Fred walked away slowly, casually passing the credit card to a woman near the cash register without looking at her.

  When he reached his space at th
e bar, cleared open by the women, his fingers bordered the rim of a short glass at the bar top. But he didn’t take a drink. His gaze was on a basketball game on the television screen.

  “Do you think he owns this place?” Jennifer’s voice was a grating attempt at indifference. Charlie didn’t answer, his eyes lingering at the bar, fascinated by Fred Smith, and he could sense Jennifer’s mounting frustration.

  BUT ALL WAS not lost. When Jennifer invited Charlie back to her apartment, he said sure, why not? He opened the restaurant door for her, and her shoulder grazed his as she passed. “Have a good night,” said the hostess, an alluring brunette, and he smiled, reaching for a toothpick in a small brass jug at her podium, his other hand still at the door.

  He caught one last glimpse of Fred, fingers at his short glass. Fred was a man who would not forfeit an opportunity like Jennifer Platt, and Charlie was a man who would not forfeit an opportunity like Jennifer Platt.

  The Palms was located along Mariner’s Mile, a length of Pacific Coast Highway studded with yacht brokers and restaurants, and as they waited for the valets to retrieve their cars, he took in the lights and saltwater smell and money of it all.

  The night was cold and sobering, and he had only enough cash to tip the valet for his car, but Jennifer didn’t mind, her hand dipping into her purse.

  He drove his Honda behind her red Volkswagen Rabbit convertible (personalized license plate: HAPY4ME) to 31st Street, her apartment above the boardwalk, waves crashing somewhere in the night, but all he could see was dark sand, the outline of a lifeguard stand. And the next thing he knew, he was following her swaying hips in her tight little skirt up the stairway, admiring her calves, the backs of her thighs. She fiddled with the key at the door, giggling because she was shaky and having trouble.