Gazelle

by Bello, Gloria

  Julian pushes through the crowd, annoyed and exhausted. It has been an hour since he has lost sight of Sharleen. People swarm about him; friends and acquaintances, total strangers who think they are either. He has long since lost his polite smile and desire to speak.

  “Dylan!” he yells. Dylan looks up and beckons him over. “Dylan, have you seen Sharleen?”

  “Did you try this?” he asks, holding a smoldering shot glass up to Julian. “Dude, you have to try this! It’s fucking crazy! It’s like if an Almond Joy and Coke fucked, and then spludged into a shot of Jager!”

  “It sounds disgusting,” Julian says, pushing it away.

  Dylan laughs and slams it, scooping another. “Try it, man! Don’t be that way.”

  “No way. I’m not going to drink that. You haven’t seen Sharleen?”

  “She went out back when you started talking to that DJ.”

  “Out back where? Which way?”

  “Past the-that way,” he nods and points towards the pool.

  Julian moves through the crowded patio. There are white lights in long loops around the palm trees lining the long swimming pool where people mingle in tighter, more intimate groups. He spots Sharleen, her sequined tight, green tube dress clinging to her thin, agile frame, reflecting the lights from the pool like a glittering mermaid. She tilts her head, her hair in her eyes, and wears a drunken smile, talking to a striking man and another equally gorgeous woman. He saunters to them, his hands in his jeans.

  “Hi, honey!” she cries, wrapping her arms around him and letting him scoop her until she is steady. “I wondered where you went! This is my friend Brianna and Kyle. Remember Kyle?”

  He takes Kyle’s hand and studies him. His blue eyes and black hair, dark eyebrows and square jaw; Kyle is familiar, but he cannot place him. “Uh…no, sorry. Have we met?”

  “No,” Kyle smiles brilliantly,“not in the slightest.”

  “Honey! He was in‘Darkest Days’ with me! He’s my co-star! Kyle! Kyle Thompson?”

  “Oh, yeah! I’m sorry, man. I totally blanked. Of course…you were great in that,” Julian says.

  “He’s lying. He hates my movies,” Sharleensays, shaking her head. “Don’t you, honey?”

  “No, that’s not true,” Julian lies.

  “No, it is true. He didn’t like it. He doesn’t like to watch movies. He watches‘films.’”

  “I don’t just watch-I love movies, I loved yourmovie, are you kidding?”

  She frowns and wraps her arms around his neck, staring up at him dreamily. “Really?”

  “Yes, really. Of course.”

  “Okay…tell Kyle what my character’s name was in‘Darkest Days.’”

  He smiles a long time, staring down at his drunken girlfriend. He looks up at Brianna and Kyle, Kyle arching his brows in sympathy, then back down at Sharleenwho has lost all traces of humor and is staring very seriously at him. “Kelly.”

  “Ha-HA!” She laughs, kissing his cheek. “Lucky guess! Tell Kyle about your Nathan Time movie. Tell them all,” she says, gesturing to the party,“tell them all about it.”

  “I heard you were doing the latest Time film. Congrats, man, that guy’s a real genius,” Kyle says.

  “Yeah…it’s pretty exciting. We start production week after next.”

  “Right before Christmas?” Brianna asks. “That’s weird.”

  “I know…he wanted to capture something. We’re all missing the holidays, all of us. It’s part of the theory behind of presence of an absence. He’s trying to actualize it in our characters with missing monumental family events like Christmas and New Year’s.”

  “Here we go again,” Sharleen sighs.

  “She’s sick of hearing it,” Julian says, kissing her forehead. “I don’t blame her.”

  “What’s a presence of an absence?” Kyle asks, ignoring Sharleen’s obvious disapproval.

  “Oh…it’s-a little complicated. It’s-the idea that we move through certain situations fully aware that there’s something or someone missing from it, but never acknowledging it. And our lives just form around that absence, substituting for it, never really addressing it or understanding, until all we can do is perform, or act out how we think we should be, because we can’t be ourselves without knowing what that absence is.”

  “Why?” Brianna asks.

  “Well…because the absence is a part of us, too. So…”

  “So if we don’t know what is absent, we can’t know ourselves, blah, blah, blah,” Sharleensays. “Next subject.”

  Julian laughs and squeezes her into his arms.“I’m sorry, honey. Are you ready to go? I’m beat.”

  “Noooo! Nonono!! Kyle says-tell him, Kyle,” Sharleen protests, pushing herself out of his arms. He reaches forward and casually draws her back into him.

  “There’s another party in Los Feliz. More low-key, quieter. Some producer’s house. You should come,” Kyle says.

  “Oh, no, man, I’m too tired. I have an important meeting tomorrow morning anyways. Maybe another time.”

  “I want to go!” Sharleenpouts. “Do you care if I go?”

  “Really?” Julian asks, suddenly feeling relieved. “Sure, go if you want.”

  She turns her head up and back,her eyes squint up at him and her lips purse as she scrutinizes him. “Maybe I won’tgo.”

  He grins and looks at Kyle and Brianna who laugh nervously. “Don’t go, then. Come home with me.”

  “No! I want to go. Julian lives in Los Feliz, you guys can drop me off after, right?” she says, suddenly forgetting her doubt.

  “Sure, no problem. Are you sure you don’t want to go, Julian?” Brianna asks, her eyes flashing over him.

  He smiles bashfully, holding Sharleenagainst him and kissing the top of her head as she giggles and wraps her arms upwards around his neck. “No…have fun, though. Take care of her.”

  “Thanks for the ride home,” Alice yawns.

  Anthony nods quietly, his deep brow dipped over his eyes. He speeds along the freeway, weaving in and out of traffic. Alice unpins her hair and shakes it loose all around her in a rich pile of curls. She sighs a slow, lazy sigh and closes her eyes.

  “You looked beautiful, tonight,” he smiles sidelong at her.

  “Thank you. You look nice, too.”

  “It was good, wasn’t it? It felt like old times. Dancing and laughing, I remembered why I love you so much.”

  She says nothing at first, studying the hills and billboards whizzing by, longing to be home and in her bath, decompressing. “So you had fun tonight?” she asks.

  He swallows, her blatant disregard for his words hurtful, and returns his glare to the traffic. “Yeah. Did you?”

  “Too much, I think. I’m gonnapay for it tomorrow.”

  “Do you have to work?”

  “Yeah. We’re getting that party ready. I’m meeting CeCein the morning to go over my to-do list.”

  “Why are you doing it? Can’t he hire someone to throw him a party?” he asks contemptuously.

  She glances at him and closes her eyes again. “He did. Me.”

  “You do too much for him.”

  “How so?”

  “You cook, you clean, youmake parties. A rich dude like that, he should have a maid to do all that shit.”

  “I don’t just do those things. I do other things, too. And I like doing those things for him. I want to throw him a party, he deserves it. He’s not just my boss, he’s my friend, too.”

  “Yeah, I got that.”

  She rolls her head to study him. His face is a scowl as he switches lanes again and she sees very clearly there is not a trace of humor in his statement. “You’re jealous!”

  He frowns at her and shakes his head. “Nothing to be jealous of.”

  “You are. It’s obvious. And sweet.”

  His hand picks up hers and kisses it. “If it makes you think I’m sweet, then, yes, jealous as all hell.”

  She snorts and pulls her hand away. “Please! It’d take a lot more tha
n you being jealous to make me think you were sweet.”

  He looks at her hard, studying her arrogance, no trace of her earlier flirtatious manner remaining, no seductress dancing against him in front of everyone, and he laughs as he realizes it was not him she was trying to make jealous the entire night. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

  “What?”

  “You’re something else, you know that? I can’t believe I fell for that shit. At my own mother’s party, even. You got a lot of nerve, you know that?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You used me!”

  “What? How?”

  “You used me to make that guerrojealous!”

  “That is ridiculous! Are you joking?”

  “No, man, I’m not fucking joking! As soon as he showed up, you had your hands on me, dancing with me, flirting with me the whole fucking time, right up until he left. And me, stupid, fucking idiot, believed it! You know, I don’t know what the hell made you think that I’m the kind of guy you play like that, little girl, but I ain’t, you get that straight right fuckin’ now!”

  “Don’t talk to me that way! I’m not a little girl and I wasn’t playing you! It’s not my fault you’re too dense to get it! How many times do I have to spell it out for you, huh? Do you need me actually, physically, write it in block letters for you to get it? We are over! Done! Friends and that’s it!”

  “Did you just call me dense?...Dense?! As in stupid?”

  She pauses, her drunken brain trying to stop her drunken mouth but failing miserably. She laughs, a spiteful laugh that instantly makes him swell until the car is suffocating with his rage. “Oh my god… not only do you need me to clarify our relationship status, again, for like, the millionth time, but you need me to clarifythat you are, in fact, completely stupid! I mean, it’s clear to the rest of the world, why would I assume it’s clear to you, right?”

  “You stupid, fucking bitch, go fuck yourself!”

  Her face pales, her lips tremble, her head detaches from her spine. Very calmly, she says,“Pull over.”

  “Fuck you! You understand me? Fuck you and your bullshit mind games and your dumb, mood swings, and FUCK your lame, rich white boy movie star owner who wouldn’t have shit to do with you unless you weren’t his glorified Mexican house slave. It’s pathetic,you cook for him, please! You’re pathetic, you hear me? Dancing around, shaking that fat ass of yours like he could ever want to see it any other way than bent over, cleaning his fucking floors!”

  “PULL OVER! PULL THE FUCK OVER! PULL OVER RIGHT NOW! DO IT!” she screams, slamming her fists over and over against the dash and his arms.

  He skids the car off the side of the freeway and fishtails to a stop, reaching across her and opening her door. “Crazy bitch. Get the fuck out.”

  He speeds towards his home, yawning and massaging his neck. Almost midnight. It’s not even that late, he thinks, and I feel like a zombie. He glances at the phone he forgot in the car, noting a missed call. He picks it up and sees Alice’s giant eyeballs glaring at him. No voice message. 11:30PM.

  He frowns and taps the phone’s‘redial.’ The phone rings 5 times. ‘This is Alice. I’m not dead. But just in case, leave a message anyways.’ He hangs up and redials. It rings once and then it picks up.

  “Hello?” he asks.

  There is no answer, just the hum of traffic.

  “Alice! Hello?”

  “Hello? Who’s this?” she asks, sounding very far away. “Julian?”

  “Yeah, it’s me. What’s going on? Why’d you call?”

  “Uh…don’t worry about it. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” she says, the sound of traffic almost drowning her out.

  “Where are you? What’s that noise?”

  “Julian, I have to go, okay? I can’t-I’m waiting for the cab and I can’t hear you very well.”

  He pulls his car off to the side of the road and hits the‘volume’ button on his phone, suddenly very worried. “Alice. Where are you?”

  He hears her sniffling, no, sobbing. His heart starts beating hard,his hand grips the steering wheel tight, trying to keep himself calm.“Alice!”

  “I tried calling Trina and Will but they didn’t pick up. I had no one else…I’m...I’m on the freeway. Off the side of the fucking freeway.”

  “What? What the fuck are you doing on the freeway?!Which freeway?”

  “I’m fine, listen, I gottago, okay? I’ll-I’m gonnawalk. I’ll call you-I’ll see you tomorrow. I gottago.”

  “No! Don’t you fucking hang up, Alice. Where are you, tell me right now.”

  “This is ridiculous!…I’m …uh-on the side of the freeway…110 north near Hill.”

  “Okay, don’t move, stay there!” he yells, peeling out and turning around.

  He sees her bright, red sweater and legs first. She’s standing close to the hedges, almost completely invisible otherwise, a tiny figure in a herd of fast moving monsters barreling past her without ever seeing her. He hits his hazards and pulls off into the ditch a few feet ahead, watching in his rearview. Her hair is down now, whipping violently around her face. Her swing dress rises and falls rapidly against her legs, exposing the black tulle beneath it. Her make up is gone, her eyes downcast. She holds herself and moves quickly to the car. When she gets in, she says nothing. He looks at the oncoming traffic and then risks a sidelong glance at her. She immediately pulls down the vanity mirror and wipes vigorously at her face, scrubbing away the streaks of mascara and eyeliner, the smeared lipstick, the traces of any upset.

  “Go,” she says.

  He hits his blinker and drives.

  “Will you do me a favor?” she asks as they head towards the Hill exit.

  “Yeah.”

  “Will you take me to get something to eat? My stomach hurts really bad…I just need to eat something. I haven’t eaten all day,” she says.

  “Sure. Where?”

  “I don’t care. Just drive thru, anywhere. Jack in the Box. I don’t care.”

  He nods and bites his lip, trying desperately to remember where the nearest Jack in the Box would be. She glances at him and rolls her eyes. “Take the next exit and go left at the light.”

  “Okay,” he says, and then, after a long, long pause,“Are you going to tell me what happened?”

  She sniffsand pulls her hair back in a tight bun. “What do you think happened?”

  “…Your car broke down?”

  “Did you see my car back there?”

  “What happened then?”

  “Anthony left me on the side of the freeway.”

  Julian looks at her, stunned, unsure if she is joking. He understands by her face, eyes locked ahead, brows drawn down in a sharp expression he has never seen on her that she has never been more serious.

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s a dick. He offered to give me a ride home…I was really drunk. I said, sure, what’s the harm? He started telling me this and that, he got all crazy, said I was sending him mixed signals. I told him they weren’t mixed,he’s just too stupid to understand. He got pissed that I called him stupid…he called me something, said some nasty shit, and I told him to pull over.” She looks down at her hands, folding in a tiny fist in her lap. “Go right.”

  “What did he call you?”

  She sniffs again and frowns, tears welling in her eyes. “It doesn’t matter. He called me something he promised he never would. That’s all. Fuck him.”

  He pulls up to the drive-thru, a line of cars stretching into the street. He leans his chin on his fist, elbow braced against the window and waits nervously for her. She pushes her hair back from her forehead and sighs a long, heavy sigh, laughing. “I can’t believe he left me on the freeway.”

  “Yeah…that’s pretty fucked up.”

  “I know. I mean, I told him to, but I didn’t think he would,” she laughs. “Who does that?? He actually pulled over! Fucking prick! What a fucking day. First, I fight with you, thenI fight with him. What is thi
s,‘Beat on the Alice’ Day?”

  “…Are you okay?”

  “…Yeah. I’m just-sotired. I don’t know why I keep doing this. I don’t love him,I don’t even like him most of the time. But I can’t date anyone else, though, like, I can’t move on, but from what?! There’s nothing there, nothing! I’m not even attracted to him. I work, I go home and paint, hang out at the pool hall, I watch TV and read and, just, wait around for what? Running in little circles again and again and again and again…and then, when he tells me shit like he wants to marry me, I’m the one, and all I can think is,‘Well…what else you got? Can you really be picky?’ I’m not getting any younger.”

  She leans her head against the window and closes her eyes.

  “But you don’t love him,” Julian says.

  “No. It would be so much easier if I did. But I just don’t.”

  They sit in silence, watching the caterpillar of red lights in front of them inch forward with each order. A slow smile spreads across her lips.

  “You rescued me,” she says without opening her eyes.

  He smiles shyly into his fist. “Of course.”

  “My guerroknight in shining Rover,” she laughs.

  “What if I didn’t call you back? What the hell were you gonnado?”

  “I know!” she says animatedly, sitting up with a sudden brightness. “I called the fucking cab and told them I was on the freeway and they just laughed! I started walking home! If you hadn’t called me back, I’d barely be to the off ramp.”

  “That’s so dangerous. You’re crazy, you know that?”

  “What choice did I have? I’m not gonnalet anyone treat me like that, ever,” she says.

  “You guys looked pretty cozy at the bar-b-que.I thought maybe you were back together,” he says softly.

  She glares at him and shakes her head. “I was drunk. And…it’s just been a long time. I guess I liked the attention is all. But I told you before, never again. You get the one shot and if you blow it, that’s it, done.”

  He leans his head into his seat, his eyes reading the menu at his side without seeing the food. “Even if you love him?”