Gated

by J D Ventura

  “Wow, is his frontal lobe shriveling like a raisin, too?” Sam said, unpacking some drinking glasses.

  “I don’t find that funny, Sam,” she said, turning to leave the kitchen.

  He grabbed her hip and spun her back around in his direction. With his strong hands around her waist he pulled her to him. “Come here, you.” She tried to stay angry but couldn’t. His hands glided to the small of her back and then he let them fall, allowing his thumbs to hook the back pocket of her jeans.

  “What’s this?” he asked, pulling out the old photograph.

  “It’s a picture of Jenny. I found it today.”

  He handed it back to her, cupped the sides of her shoulders and moved his chin forward to gaze directly into her eyes. “Babe, are you getting sad again?”

  “No, Sam. I’m good. I think things are going to be good here.”

  She threw the photo of her sister into the nearest open box and kissed her husband with a passion she had not known in a great while.

  Their kiss must have lasted for quite a while because someone finally catcalled, high, like a whistle –woot whew!—and a different voice shouted through the smoke of the bonfire, “Get a room.” Their lips parted and Stevie threw back a half-hearted, “Assholes!” Laughter was the only reply. He turned his freckled, flushed face back to Claire. Their noses touched. “You’re a really good kisser,” he whispered.

  “You too,” she said quietly, looking down at her feet, then back at him, his curly red hair erupting from beneath his baseball cap, which was covered in grease from his job down at the Texaco. She had often seen him there, in a pair of oily coveralls. Once he had caught her staring and smiled.

  “Did your sister teach you how to kiss like that?” he asked.

  “What? Gross! Why would I kiss my sister?”

  “No, no, I didn’t mean that, um, okay that came out wrong. Sorry.”

  She was giving him a hard time. She understood his question, and didn’t fault him for asking it. Jenny had a well-known reputation among the school’s boys. Most were laughable urban legends: she’d slept with the whole football team; she was secretly dating Mr. Jeffries, the vice principal; she had already had three abortions.

  There was a time when Claire could easily ignore the rumors. They hadn’t involved her. But, heading into her junior year, her body had become suddenly curvier, her lips somehow fuller, her legs a bit longer, her breasts, bigger. The boys were not only taking note of the slender, leggy blonde sitting next to them in sophomore science or French class, they were also assuming she was a “nympho perv” like her older sister. They couldn’t be more wrong.

  “No, I didn’t have to have my sister explain to me how to kiss,” Claire said. “That was a dumb question, Stevie.”

  “It was. Sorry. I can be a dumbass when I’m nervous.”

  “Jenny isn’t everything they say she is. I mean, she is some of those things, but it’s because she is a, um, a free spirit, you know what I mean?”

  “Like she doesn’t give a shit what other people think?” he asked.

  “She actually does give a, a crap. It’s a long story. I promise I’ll tell you some time, just not now.”

  It was a tale she did not enjoy telling. When Claire and Jenny were just two and four, respectively, the family had been living in Maryland. One year their father went to Texas looking for contract trucking work and never came back. It was a struggle but the girls’ mother, Evie, managed to hold down a full-time clerical job and raise the kids with the help of friends and a sympathetic aunt. But one day after school, Jenny didn’t step off the bus with Claire. When Evie came home from work she became hysterical and called the police. They looked everywhere, but her oldest daughter had seemingly vanished. The police had no leads but sought to rule out the girl’s father as a suspect. But neither he, nor Jenny, could be found.

  Evie was a zombie. Heartbroken and emotionally bankrupted, she did the best she could to raise Claire, but not a day went by that she didn’t ache inside at the memory of her oldest daughter. She started drinking heavily. Then, eight years later, suitcase in hand, a now 12 year-old Jenny walked through the front door. “It was Dad,” she said. “Don’t hate him. He’s gone for good this time. I just want to come home.”

  When questioned by the police, Jenny had said she and her father had lived out of a RV, travelling from state to state, with him taking odd jobs as a handyman or painting houses. He eventually started using crystal meth and that’s when he decided to bring her back.

  “Why didn’t you try to contact your mother?” a detective had asked her. “You must have known how worried she would have been.”

  “He told me my mother and Claire had died in a car accident. I believed him. He was messed up, but he was my dad. After a while, I didn’t remember anything, you know, before.”

  “Yo, love birds!” Jenny said, appearing slowly through the campfire smoke, which shifted toward them with the wind, causing their eyes to burn and water. “We’re heading to the quarry for a swim. Let’s go! You can show each other what you’re working with!”

  Four older guys threw buckets of water into the fire, which, after several hours, was threatening to burn out anyway. The teenagers around the camp were all pretty high or drunk and, as was customary, figured skinny dipping in the quarry’s cold lake would sober them up for their rides home and the inevitable interrogation by curfew-enforcing parents.

  As Stevie and Claire followed Jenny up the hill to Lucas’ waiting car, her older sister stretched her arms out and looked up at the starry night sky as if to say, “Take me.”

  The doorbell rang at exactly 7 pm. “Prompt,” Sam said, meaning it to sound slightly annoyed.

  “Be nice. This will be fun.”

  “Or not,” he grumped, before joining her in the foyer.

  “Smile,” she said, before throwing the front door open. “Hey there! Hi guys!”

  The Halls had changed their clothes, but, as Sam took their coats, Claire noticed their fashion sense was still very much intact. Stephanie wore a neatly pressed pink cotton turtle neck, tucked into designer jeans. Her shoes were simple but cute white leather flats. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail that signaled a sort of casual, effortless beauty. Marc Hall was in a pale purple-gray Oxford, the top two buttons undone, revealing a curl of chest hair that reminded Claire, for a brief second, of a beckoning finger. His pale blue chinos bunched smartly just above the laces of brown wingtips. He held a bottle of champagne in one hand and she, a canvas bag, which she held up in offering.

  “Don’t worry, the bubbly is green apple alcohol-free wine. And, I made some canapes,” she said, almost apologetically. “There are salmon and cucumber twists and chorizo and prawn skewers.”

  “Stephanie, you didn’t have to –”

  “Hi, I’m Sam,” Sam said to Marc, as the women continued their greetings.

  “Sam, a sincere pleasure to meet you.”

  “…no, no, no,” Stephanie was saying. “You are doing me a favor. I had so many frozen prawns in my freezer, it was just ridiculous, anyway…”

  “Well come on in guys, for goodness sakes. Let’s get this party started,” Claire said, moving aside while holding open the front door with an outstretched arm.

  Sam went down to the wine cellar and grabbed some sparkling water and a six-pack of near-beer he’d put in the basement’s fridge. But before Claire had even brought out the spaghetti she had thrown together – apologizing for not having more on hand, and eliciting laughter at her recalling the couple’s attempt to use paper towels as a substitute for their still-packed colander – their effortless conversation and obvious group chemistry felt like a celebration between old friends.

  Claire could tell by Sam’s face he was enjoying them as much as she was. In fact, there were moments Claire thought Sam laughed a bit too loud at Stephanie’s jokes. Is he trying to flatter
her? Is he flirting with her? No, she concluded, both Marc and Stephanie Hall could be described as disarming. Like Sam, for whatever reason –perhaps it was a full moon, or because having fun was long overdue –she felt her inhibitions slipping away. She wanted to know these people. And, strangely, she desperately wanted them to know her. Their presence was oddly spellbinding.

  “To our new neighbors,” Marc said, raising his glass and bending at the waist slightly to reach across the table, where his met their glasses in toast. “And to the chef, and, and… to the fact that, although they do not have a heated pool, at least I think you don’t, we thankfully do, and we expect them to come over and swim in it whenever they wish.”

  “Cheers to that,” laughed Sam, before turning to Claire and playfully asking, “Wait, did they just say they have a pool? How come we don’t have a pool?”

  “We put ours in last year,” said Stephanie, filling everyone’s glasses with more faux champagne. “We live in that thing year round. So. Much. Fun.”

  “You know what else is fun?” Marc asked, shooting Claire a mischievous look, as if the question were directed at only her, before pulling a perfectly rolled joint from the front pocket of his shirt. “Ta da!”

  “Marc!” Stephanie chastised. “They don’t drink. So, I’m sure they don’t smoke weed! Sorry, guys, if you’re not into it. It seemed like a cool housewarming gift before we knew you didn’t drink.”

  “I can’t, because of my security clearance, but maybe Claire would like to partake,” Sam said. He stared at Claire and it was clear this was an exercise in trust and that he was giving her skeptical permission.

  “Oh, I don’t know. It’s been so long. I never had a problem with pot. Maybe a couple of tokes. I might get a little loopy.”

  “I for one would like to see that,” Marc said, dropping his voice to an invitational purr that made the blood rush to Claire’s face.

  “Oh, okay,” said Claire. “Why not? If you don’t feel too left out, babe.”

  “Party on, dudes,” Sam said, looking satisfied with his generosity. He then gave Marc a chummy clap on the shoulder. “Maybe I’ll have a beer, if you have one.”

  “Done,” said Marc, patting Sam’s opposing shoulder in response.

  Soon the night took on a merry fluidity Claire had only felt on rare occasion. She chalked it up to the weed, but she found herself in complete adoration of Stephanie and Marc. Stephanie was gorgeous, but not the least bit arrogant, in fact, self-deprecating and wildly funny. Marc clearly loved his wife, and artfully divided his attention between her and them, instantly endearing himself to Sam with long, rambling stories about science and aeronautics and sci-fi.

  They were all seated now on the floor, chatting and gossiping like college kids around the coffee table, their laughter echoing off the 12-foot high ceilings. As the men disagreed as to which Star Wars movie was a better metaphor for the Cold War, Stephanie passed the joint to Claire, who waved it away dismissively, as if her neighbor had tried to hand her a squirrel. “Are you kidding? I am so high right now. I don’t even know who you are.”

  This was very funny to them both and they laughed uncontrollably, holding their sides and wiping tears from their eyes. “Claire, I am Stephanie Hall. And as your new best friend…”

  This was also hysterical, Claire thought, in part because she knew somehow it was already true.

  “…and as your new best friend, I ask you…nay, I command you, to come swimming right now. Come on! I know we can convince these two shitheads.”

  “It’s fucking freezing out! But these shitheads are already convinced,” Sam interrupted, high-fiving Marc, who held Claire’s gaze as he slowly began unbuttoning his Oxford.

  The stone quarry’s dark walls reminded Claire of a tree’s annual rings, the smooth crater of solid rock interrupted by horizontal outcroppings representing the various excavation depths over the years. The clearing where they had parked their cars terminated at a rusted steel safety fence, which prevented anyone not paying attention from falling off a 50-foot cliff into a man-made lake full of cold water, broken beer bottles and a few fully-submerged vehicles. Hitting only the lake was the best-case scenario. If a diver didn’t push-off forcefully enough, there was a narrow ledge of jagged rock just above the waterline.

  Many of the kids from the bonfire were already winding their way down a foot path, which ended at one of the largest rock formations jutting-out just a few feet from the lake’s surface. “Pussy Beach,” is what everyone called it, because only cowards didn’t jump from “the Fence.”

  Jenny was already standing in her yellow bra and floral-printed pink panties on the fence’s bottom rail, leaning over the top rail and egging on Jordan Green, the captain of the swim team, to jump. Several teenagers on Pussy Beach below were also clapping and yelling, “Jump, Jordy, jump, jump, Jordy, jump!”

  Wearing nothing but his boxer shorts, the lanky teen stood on the bar below the one at the very top, resting his shins on the uppermost railing for support. Then, with the grace of a cat, he placed one foot on the top of the fence, and, using all the power in his muscular left leg, launched into the night sky before perfectly positioning his frame for gravity’s almost immediate arrival. There was a tiny splash followed by uproarious cheering and the sound of glass shattering against rock as people downed their beers and tossed their bottles against the quarry’s walls.

  Claire pulled away from Stevie, who was leaning against Lucas’ car, smoking a cigarette. She made her way over to Jenny. “What the hell are you doing, Jen?”

  Jenny spun around, wide-eyed and manic, as excited as a grade-schooler at an amusement park. Lucas stood nearby, talking to two older bearded guys Claire had never seen before. They all kept sneaking glances at her nearly-naked sister, barely maintaining eye contact with each other.

  “Oh, Claire, fuck off already, would you!” The fury in her response surprised Claire, and she took a few steps back, as if she had been physically slapped across the face. “Don’t worry, I promise I won’t have a good time.”

  “Whoa, where is that coming from? That’s harsh.”

  Now Jenny was in her face. Claire could smell the alcohol on Jenny’s breath and noticed for the first time a cigarette stain on one of her front teeth. “You know, sometimes I wish I was still with him. Because you and mom drive me crazy with all your bullshit rules and your good grades and everything is so planned out. Everyone wants me to be like you. I’m so sick of it.”

  “So you want to be back with Dad? A meth-head kidnapper? Super smart, Jen.”

  “He was a free spirit. He taught me to not worry about what other people think, to not be afraid all the time. To do what feels right.”

  “I’m not afraid. What am I afraid of?

  “Everything! For starters, you don’t stay out past her stupid curfew, you’re still a virgin-”

  Claire glanced back at Stevie before whisper-screaming, “Jenny!”

  “He can’t hear me! But you are! Why do you give a shit what she thinks?”

  Because I have lived with her through your absence, through her unbearable sadness over your failure to come home, you selfish bitch! Because, even though she still had me, she wanted to die, and said so every time she drank, and she drank all the time. Because while you were out being all hippy-dippy with our convicted-felon of a father, I was the one he left behind to take care of her, back in reality, where the grown-ups live! Claire said none of this and instead offered an indistinct, “I don’t.”

  “Oh, yeah, then prove it,” Jenny dared.

  “How?” Claire asked, but she already knew and her mouth was suddenly as dry as flour. She swallowed hard.

  “Jump with me.”

  They crossed through the Halls’ living room on the way to the terrace leading out to the pool. The tray ceiling above the sitting area featured a glass chandelier that descended in layers, like an upside-d
own crystal birthday cake. The color scheme for the room was gold, black and tan, and the carpet, which felt silken under Claire’s feet, was an intricate pattern of blue and gold sparrows, which matched the upholstered wall behind the sofa, the massive fabric panel sandwiched between two hand-carved, white pilasters.

  “Oh, wow, guys, this is gorgeous. I mean, just wow,” Claire said, stopping despite Stephanie and Marc continuing to make their way to the back door. With a cupped hand, Stephanie signaled Sam and Claire to catch up, the look on her face saying, “You haven’t seen anything yet.” And they hadn’t.

  “Our house is going to look like this when we are done unpacking, right?” asked Sam in a whisper, playfully ticking her ribs from behind.

  “Asshole!” she said, with a playful swat to his ass. “Stop!”

  As they walked out onto the gray stone patio, Claire gasped. The Halls’ backyard was as lush as a rainforest. The pool floor, which was a mosaic of thousands of quarter-sized blue glass tiles, was illuminated from below and gave off an almost electric hue, twinkling off the encircling flora and a gigantic rock feature, complete with a 20-foot high waterfall. The various plantings – rhododendrons, mountain laurel, haws, dogwoods — created a kaleidoscope of color and filled the backyard with a springtime sweetness so fragrant, even in the cold fall air, Claire closed her eyes and inhaled deeply.

  “First, how does this look like this in October?” asked Sam, patting Marc on the back. “Second: what are you, a rapper or something? I feel like I’m on MTV Cribs, Puff Daddy.”