by Lisa Teasley
“Well, if that’s really how you feel about it, you better let him know and quick,” she says, getting up to snap her fingers near Gita’s ear. “Don’t keep him hanging like this.”
“I can’t leave him now that he’s sick, Ari.”
“You’re beginning to piss me off, you just said—”
“I know. I mean, while he’s still convinced he’s sick.” “Whatever, Gite. It’s your life.”
Eustace pushes open the door, the puppy enters first, Eustace hiding his face with the bag.
“Mr. Peanut Butter Man! Wha’d ya bring us?” Arielle says, crinkling up her nose.
Eustace opens the armoire in the tiny kitchen, takes down three clean glasses. He raises them to the light, and although they sparkle, he rinses them. Arielle laughs, but Gita turns her gaze to the window. It is pitch black outside, and she cannot find the moon.
“Skoll,” the three say together, as they clink their glasses full of red wine. Arielle rolls a joint, passes it to Gita, Eustace refuses, and Gita’s relieved.
He takes out the extra blankets, pillows, pulls out the cot, makes a bed for the puppy on the floor, then one for himself. The girls chatter together, laugh. He lies on his side watching them, locks Gita’s eyes with his until Arielle pulls them away with a cartwheel. Eustace, on his second glass, waves his hand back and forth in front of his face, mocking her, but then she does an aerial.
Gita giggles, the third joint burning the tip of her thumb until Eustace takes it from her to put it out. She crawls to his side of the floor, knocking over his glass, and he turns from her mouth. She lies him down on his stomach, sits on his ass, and rubs the back of his neck.
“Gita told me,” he says, with a strained voice through the massage, “that when you slept over her house, back in junior high, that you never ate anything that didn’t come from a can, bag or prepackaged box.”
Arielle changes colors, her blue eyes fill so that the pupils are floating. Gita squeezes hard on the back of his neck.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Arielle hisses.
“Arielle was so into junk food then. All she ever did was eat potato chips. Eustace misunderstood me.” Gita nervously waves her hand.
“And so what, Gite? Did your mom put some kind of shit in your head? Like I was instructed by my dad not to eat the food your mom made?”
“No! But it’s not like he didn’t want you spending the night in the flats, Ari. Wasn’t until we moved up into the hills that he was comfortable with your car parked outside our house,” she returns, now angry.
“I can’t believe we’re revisiting this shit, Gita! Are we at Skyline again? Should I write another tome in your yearbook? And so what else did she tell you, Eustace?”
“Pardon me, girls. Nothing else,” he says rolling over, as Gita has long since moved off him. “Would have loved to know you two girls back then,” he mutters sarcastically to himself.
Eustace runs two fingers like legs across the floor, stops to do a can-can kick. The other hand joins, until Gita unfolds her arms, and slits her eyes at him, although no longer mad. Arielle takes an ice cube from her water glass, places it on his wrist, watches it melt down between the legs of his fingers. He flicks the drops at her face, sucks the rest, stops to examine the cleanliness of his fingernail. He turns to Gita, but she is heading for the bathroom.
Eustace smiles, reaches across the floor, juts Arielle in the chin. They look over at the puppy who’s asleep. They smile at each other.
“You could never really start trouble between us,” Arielle says to him.
“Oh yeah?” he teases.
“Yeah. We’re thick as thieves. Just you wait and see.”
“See what?”
“What’s coming,” she says with a smile, as she cups his cheek in her hand. “We need music,” Arielle calls toward the bathroom, “I want to sing!”
Gita opens the door, gestures toward the toilet to emphasize the sound of the flush.
“She’s so charming, isn’t she?” Arielle jumps up the three steps in a single bound, grabs Gita from behind, locks her arms.
“Shush, the puppy’s asleep,” Gita says.
“Look at Mine, nothing would disturb him. I am so hiiiiiiigh!” Arielle says, jumping down the steps with her eyes closed, then stretches her arms for the ceiling. Gita switches the box to a jazz station, sits down again on Eustace’s butt.
Gita grabs his hand which flutters by her face, kisses the middle finger. Eustace turns around so she falls off, lands on Arielle’s legs. Gita sits up between Arielle’s legs, rests her back against her, takes another drag. Eustace pulls her roughly by the belt loop of her jeans, back toward him. He runs his tongue across her stomach, but she is already wet. Her head is in the spot of spilled red wine. She feels the long, blonde curls near her face, and lick-kisses on her eyelids. Fingers quicken at her waist, the T-shirt tugs at her breasts, chin, nose, then covers her eyes. All she hears is their collective breathing. Desire smothers. Her arms are locked above her head, her nipples hard between teeth and tongue. Like a ballerina, her feet point toward opposite walls. She gasps, her mouth baby-bird-open, and the tastes, the smells, familiar.
***
Arielle is wrapped in a blanket, which Gita sticks one long leg out from under. Eustace doesn’t remember who covered them there. He is in the cot, and also does not remember putting himself there. The puppy is nibbling at his bowl, looking up at him between bites. Just as Eustace decides he wants out, Mine looks up at him as if reading his mind.
At first Eustace doesn’t bother to brush his teeth, or look in the mirror. He pulls on his clothes, gathers Mine in his arms, grabs the keys, and heads out the door. He lets Mine do his thing by the apple tree. But then Eustace slips in again, looks in the mirror, rubs toothpaste across his teeth and rubs it around with his tongue. He stands there waiting for the girls to stir, holding Mine under his arm. Since they don’t, he finally leaves the cabin. Once Eustace turns the ignition, he thinks he feels Gita watching him, but there is no one at the curtains, which appear unbothered.
He heads North.
Three hours later the light pours in, muted and grey. Gita and Arielle stir to the cold and mess of clothes surrounding. Eustace smiles from the open door. More light gushes in as he swings it fully open. Then he shuts it too loudly, and the room goes dark. He announces he has made an appointment for horseback riding in Fort Bragg. Looking neither of them in the eye, Arielle wraps her body in the blanket, then shuts the bathroom door behind her. Gita sits up, puts the cork on the last empty bottle of wine.
Eustace drops one hundred bucks on Arielle’s bag.
“What the hell is that, Eustace?”
“Arielle’s profit.”
“What do you mean?” she says, standing up naked. “That’s not funny.”
“I sold the puppy for a hundred-and-ten dollars,” he interrupts. “Arielle made seventy, I kept ten for my trouble.”
“I can’t fucking believe you did that, Eustace. You had no right.”
“No, you had no right.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you.” He stumbles to the left, dizzy with anger. “And besides,” he says trying to calm down, the taste in his mouth sickening, “Did anybody even ask me where Mine was? Did either of you, did either of you fucking bitches, ever, ever give a damn about that dog?”
It is drizzling. Arielle lies with her arms folded in the backseat of the car, Eustace drives. Gita’s elbow hangs out the window on the passenger side. No one speaks, but Gita imagines the periwinkle whisper from the edge of the road.
Eustace peers at Arielle from the rearview window. She looks up at him, clears her throat, but she is hoarse from yelling. Eustace keeps looking back at her as if he could ever succeed in intimidation. Arielle shrugs and sighs softly. Gita looks at Eustace, and he back at her, which is when he first notices that there is a lighter band of skin where the engagement ring should have been. He swallows and speeds up.
As he pulls into
the lot he has already made up his mind to forget her, and Gita knows this.
In explanation of his accent, the guide tells them he is from Kenya. He is small, like Arielle, and dark with eyes like stars. While looking for a helmet to fit Gita’s head, he says it will be difficult to remember their strange names. Gita tells him not to try, and to forget the helmet as well. Arielle wanders around the stable, stops to stroke the biggest stallion. The Swedish woman who is brushing down the first horse, spits in the hay before asking Arielle how many times she has rode. Then the woman disappears behind a stall, calls for the guide to bring her an axe. Arielle looks at Gita, Gita looks back. The guide returns with three raincoats, Gita takes the bright yellow, Arielle the dark green, and Eustace the same with a poncho and hood.
Gita’s horse, with the burnt orange hair, pulls her to the side of the fence for water. They wait for the guide to mount the white one. Eustace takes his with ease across the dirt; Gita’s gently sputters at the fence. Arielle, stretching her neck to look at Gita, focuses with trouble but Eustace interrupts her view with a slight and strange smile. Arielle subtly shakes her head with an unforgiving glance.
As they leave the ranch, the guide chatters with the effervescent lilt of his accent. Gita watches the road, the cars scaring her as they drive past. They leave splashes of tiny dots of mud on her pants legs. At the stoplight, she nods her head back to have a taste of the mist. Arielle waits again to catch Gita’s eye, and when she does, Gita smiles. Arielle’s brows lift.
They enter the woods, and Gita’s horse follows the tail of Eustace’s, tempting it to buck. When it does, showing a rumbling hiss of white teeth, Gita’s horse backs up, pleased. Gita rubs her orange mane, then pulls the coat tighter around her own throat, feels the rain slide down her scalp to her neck. Eustace turns back, but she avoids his stare.
They are coming upon the water, Arielle behind, her chin bobbing in a dance with the move of her horse. She is changing colors—mayonnaise to grey to silver, beige to green to white—Gita feels a tug of old love for her. Arielle won’t look.
A funny kind of calm moves across Gita’s chest as her horse moves, with an angry glee, dangerously close to the cliff. Eustace’s horse keeps turning around to make sure she is not in her kicking distance.
“Get ‘em,” Gita wants to say, but that would take too much effort. And it would spoil the peace as their horses ease down into the sand.
It is icy cold. The waves crash to a height Gita knows will soon obsess Eustace. He is faraway, and so another presence is made plainer to her as she looks toward her left. She doesn’t see anyone. The guide has stopped his white horse so they can all look at the water. The line of the horizon won’t show itself through the mist.
Gita moves forward, turns toward the rocks where she can barely make out the profile of a boy sitting with his head in his hands. Gita looks at everyone else, and they don’t appear to notice. The guide still chatters away about the history of the place, Eustace seems to sink his mind into the water. Arielle is a transparent, brilliant pink. Her blue eyes are glassy, her yellow hair protectively grasping at her face.
Gita strokes the horse’s back, whispers, kicks, and sends her galloping for the boy. The boy looks up right away as she approaches. His expression she can’t translate, but she stops the horse at his feet, gets off, holds the stirrups for him, tells him fiercely to get on. When he does he looks at her, wiping his nose once, then nods his head back with a milky, inappropriate laugh.
‘Go,” Gita hisses at him.
When he takes off, she starts to run in the opposite direction, thinking everything predictable is now well behind her.
Mexico
Magda in Rosarito, Beached
“Cheek-lay?” the little girl asks, pushing with a small, thin, dirty brown arm across the table, running her fingers on the greasy formica, looking up at Magda and Tony with saucer-huge black eyes, her long brown hair falling in messy strands, escaping the green sweat band that holds what’s left of a ponytail.
“You like chiclets, Mag?” Tony asks. Magda flips her hand like a fly buzzed her ear, blinks slowly, showing her hangover and a bit of her breasts in the torn Levi jacket she wears with nothing underneath.
“How much, kid?” he asks. The little girl bats her eyes at him, then looks at Magda to see if she has an effect.
“Get a couple, Tone. Maybe Deck wants some. We’re out of gum, anyhow.”
“Ready?” the waitress asks with a slight Mexican accent and jaded tone of voice. Magda picks up the menu, flips her bleached hair back, and puts a chiclet in her mouth.
“Not yet,” Tony says. “How much money you got, Mag?”
Magda glares at him, then sticks her tongue through the gum so he can see it.
“Shit, Tony, are you forever the parasite.” She motions for the waitress to return. “Get me a beer,” Magda says, looking at the menu, “and some eggs, and … that’s it.”
“Scrambled?” the waitress asks. Magda nods.
“That’s it}” Tony looks at Magda. “OK. Whatever … I’ll have this,” Tony says, pointing to it. The waitress nods and walks off. “But no beans!” he calls after her. “Can’t handle more beans, man. Shit has me fartin’ every night.”
“Yeah, yeah, Tony. Always the fuckin’ gentleman.”
“And ain’t you ever the fuckin’ lady, my mag-got. Heard you two all night, and then fuckin’ ice droppin” on the bar floor above our heads. That room is so fuckin’ cheap. And it smells like oil. Cold and slimy.”
Magda’s mouth drops open.
“I can’t believe you, Tony. Just fuck off. You’re such a prick. The nerve to talk about last night!” She glares at him long and hard. He blushes, and then as if with a newfound sense of pride and purpose, flushes the shame from his cheeks.
Magda dusts off her beer before the waitress returns with the one she ordered. Then she brushes off her thin, blue Indian skirt, jingling the bells of the drawstring waist.
“Hey, maybe Decker’s with those dudes from San Mo.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Magda looks around, rolls her eyes, really feeling the waste. “Fuck, Tone. I don’t feel so hot.”
“No fuckin’ wonder, Mag. You haven’t eaten shit all fuckin’ week.”
Magda flips her hand, then licks her lips.
“I know. I know.”
“Doin’ toot all night and drinkin’ Bs all day—fuck—you party too hard, Mag. There is such a thing.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
The waitress brings the eggs and puts the plate down so hard it bucks before settling. She comes back with Tony’s.
“Hot plate,” she says as she walks off.
Magda takes a cigarette from her breast pocket, lights it, then blows the smoke in Tony’s face. Tony smiles his straight-white-teeth-Pepsodent smile, then pushes back the two straight clumps of black hair from his pink forehead, and leans into the table to look at Magda. He stares into her eyes, then down her long pointed nose to the top of her white-frosted glossed lips, down her tan bronze neck, to the bit of breast peeking out. She opens the jacket up a bit more, the pink-beige skin peeling at her cleavage, and she laughs, blows more smoke in his face.
“I believe someone is hungry,” she says, still laughing until it sounds bitter and acid. A young boy enters the door with silver bracelets, shoving them in their faces.
“Ooooo,” Magda coos. She takes a couple to try on. “Wha’ da’ ya think, Tone?”
“Hmph,” Tony says. He looks away to put the fork in his food. The sun’s hiding out. Tony watches the view down the street, tourists walking around in clusters, toting bags of Kahlua, silver, sarapes, turtle oil, beer, and beads.
Magda puts a five dollar bill in the boy’s hand, then shakes her thin arm with its long blonde peach fuzz, so the bracelets clang in front of Tony’s face.
“Pretty?” she teases with a mock stuck-up voice.
“Here comes Deck,” Tony says. Magda’s smile drops, she doesn’t look up. She takes another sw
ig of Corona, plays with the bracelets, then stares at her food.
“What’s up?” Tony asks.
“Hey dude, you look cool. Really buffed,” Decker says, grabbing a seat next to Magda. She looks up at him from the side of her clear eyes, then she hisses. Decker kisses her on the cheek, and puts his dark brown arm around her bony peeling shoulders. Tony smiles.
“Hey, did you see those dudes from San Mo, this morning?” Decker asks.
“No, I was totally out this morning. Magda lost it in the bathroom too, dude. It reeks in there.”
“You okay, Babe?” Decker asks, squeezing her shoulders. She’s looking away, playing with the fork of eggs, her cigarette burning, blowing smoke in the faces of people passing by.
“That dude Richie is hot, man,” Decker says, taking a swig of Magda’s Corona. “He hit the lip with a totally hot slash. Everyone was going whoooah—go baby!”
Magda spits her hack and the gum over the side of the table.
“Hey! You okay, Babe?” Decker asks again. Magda flips her hand. He catches it, kisses her fingers, licks the middle one slowly. Magda bops him lightly on his head with her wet hand, which springs back with the bounce of his nappy orange hair, burned dry from the sun and salt water.
Magda smoothes her skirt down, and then opens her legs to put the fabric between them.
“Where’s the truck, Deck?” Magda asks, her eyes looking sleepy, her voice hoarse and cracked.
“Up the street. It’s cool,” Decker says. He looks at Tony who has his chin in his hand.
“Thinking of pullin’ out today?” Tony asks. He puts too much rice in his mouth, some falls out.
“Yeah.”
“Where are the keys, Deck?” Magda asks.
“Hey? What-up, Chick? Chill out. You’re uptight.”
“Dad would kill me if something happened to his fuckin’ truck.”
“Yeah? Well nothin’s gonna happen to his fuckin’ truck. The dude has enough fuckin’ cars to move an army, no-way.”