Perfect Fifths (27 page)

You yes you. She doesn't need the suit, she feels powerful without it. You yes you. Finally, in one impressively gymnastic maneuver—you! yes! you!—she leaps out of her panties without breaking stride. She bursts into a full sprint, running faster—youyesyouyouyesyouyouyesyou—than she has ever run in her life when—You!

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CRASH! You!—she runs right over Marcus Flutie in a red T-shirt, who, up to and including the moment of impact, has been standing perfectly and peacefully still.

I'm here, she pants, still sprawled on the grass. Naked. Without shame. In paradise.

He smiles and reaches for her hands.

n ne

Marcus pokes his head outside the bathroom door to check once more that Jessica is still asleep. All evidence says yes, but he asks out loud anyway. "Jessica? Are you still asleep?"

Jessica snorts, murmurs something unintelligible, and pulls the duvet over her head.

Aha! She can hear me, Marcus thinks.

Deciding there's no need for modesty, Marcus struts out of the bathroom, across the room, toward the duffel bag propped up against his bed. As he uncinches the top of the canvas sack, he dismally remembers an important detail: There are no clean clothes in this bag.

Not only are his clothes unclean, they are surely in violation of several basic health codes. They are caked in toxic demolition dust, outhouse mud, po'boy drippings, a spilled Hurricane Katrina cocktail, and other unidentifiable forms of fluid and filth. Marcus thinks it might be best to torch the whole bag and its contents and start all over again.

He debates the condition of the clothes he was wearing before the shower. The corduroys are in okay shape—they shouldn't spread any communicable diseases.

He tugs them on, then stands half dressed, considering the rest of his options. Now that Marcus himself is scented with rosemary and mint, the once endurable if

unpleasant stench of the T-shirt, the dress shirt, and yes, even the cashmere sweater strike him as noxious, perhaps even nefarious. He can't tolerate the thought of putting them on again, and he doubts that Jessica would come within arm's length if he did. That is, whenever she wakes up.

Should I try to wake her up? Marcus asks himself.

"Jessica?"

His voice is so needy and pathetic, it makes him recoil in shame. He's so grateful that no one else heard his whimpering. Natty's right, he thinks, / need a roundhouse kick to the brain.

At least hearing the sound of his own needy, pathetic voice has helped him realize that he doesn't really want to wake her up. If he really wanted to wake her up, he could easily do so by jumping up and down on her bed or shouting her name at full volume. He wants her to be awake, true, but he doesn't want to be the one

responsible for waking her up. He also doesn't want to wait around for her to wake up. That, too, seems needy and pathetic and the ideal justification for a roundhouse kick to the brain.

Besides, he's got a plan.

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On a hunch, Marcus strides over to the closet, opens the door, and—aha!—finds what he was looking for: a Here hotel-brand bathrobe. He presses his face into the plush, velvety cotton and inhales. It smells fresh, like fabric softener. He slips the bathrobe over his corduroys, ties the belt into a knot, and poses in front of the full-length double mirror on the back of the closet door. It's an unconventional outfit, yes, but less risque than going shirtless. If asked by perplexed guests or wary employees, he could always claim that he'd gotten lost coming back from the spa or pool, or imply that his strange attire had something to do with the airline losing his luggage, which would inspire most listeners to join in with their own lost-luggage horror stories and forget about him in the bathrobe. Most people believe whatever you tell them because they want to believe.

He takes a Here hotel pad and pen to leave a note for Jessica. He pauses for a few minutes, mouthing words as he tries to come up with the right message with the right number of syllables for her to read upon waking. Once satisfied, he slides his cell phone into one pocket of the bathrobe, his key card and wallet into the other, and heads out the door.

ten

essica is walking through the corridors of a hospital. Under her arm, she carries her teardrop carry-on bag. She is wearing a black sweater, black jeans, and black sneakers that contrast sharply with the bright fluorescent lights and bleached-white hallway. She is looking for Sunny's room but isn't in a rush to get there. Most of the doors are closed, but she notices there is an open door farther down the hall. She thinks it's the room she's looking for, but she's not sure, because there don't seem to be any numbers differentiating one room from the next. As she approaches this room, she hears music coming out of it. It's a familiar song, but she can't place it because no one is singing the words, and she needs the words. What are the words? She starts humming along with the music, but it doesn't help her with the words.

Why can't I find the words? She decides to ask the room's occupant for the words to the song, and when she pokes her head through the doorway, she is surprised to see that this is indeed Sunny's room, but the music isn't a recording, it's being played by a band of musicians who have set up all around Sunny's hospital bed for a live performance starring none other than Barry Manilow himself. Sunny is still comatose, purple, and bald, attached to a tangle of wires, including a machine that is monitoring her brain activity and projecting the multicolored images onto the wall like a lava lamp at a rave. Barry Manilow is wearing the electric-blue bedazzled jumpsuit but isn't singing—he's frozen, mouth open, microphone in hand, in the iconic pose from the decoupage toilet seat cover. Jessica wonders why Barry Manilow isn't singing and is just about to ask him to stop posing and start singing already when he suddenly breaks the pose and silences the band with a commanding wave of his

sparkly arms. Then Barry Manilow says ruefully to Sunny, / can't smile without you. I can't laugh. And I can't sing. Barry Manilow turns away from Sunny and faces

Jessica, and that's when she discovers that Barry Manilow isn't Barry Manilow but Marcus Flutie dressed as Barry Manilow.

You! Jessica shouts.

Yes? Marcus asks.

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You, Sunny says, sitting upright in her bed, curiously removed from all life-support accoutrements. Her hair has grown back into the style she had before the accident, crooked self-cut bangs and all.

Sunny! Jessica cries out, dashing to her bedside.

You, Sunny repeats, this time in a scoffing so-over-it tone.

Me, what? Jessica asks.

Sunny flicks her irises just so. It's a gesture indicative of the weariest strain of teen disdain, when she can't even muster sufficient ugh to execute a full-circle eye roll.

You suck.

e even

arcus struts over to the elevator bank, presses G, and waits. A second or two later, he is joined by a young girl in a pink tracksuit. She is pouting in petulance but also because her mouth is overcrowded with orthodontia.

He looks down at her and smiles. "Hey," he says.

She glares up at him skeptically. "Why are you wearing a bathrobe? You look ridiculuth."

Marcus bursts out laughing, too disarmed by her candor to be the least bit offended. After all, he does look ridiculous, but only a kid would come out and say it. He decides to tease her a bit. "Don't you know? It's the latest style," he says. "I can't believe you left the room without wearing your bathrobe."

"It ith not," the girl replies in total confidence. "You look like a pervert." She beams as she says this, pleased with the rejoinder and herself. Her mother comes Ugging toward them.

"Amber! What have I told you about talking to strangers?" Her eyes crawl all over Marcus, taking in every detail of his appearance: height, weight, build, hair color, tattoos, scars, and/or other distinguishing physical characteristics.

"To not to," Amber says sullenly.

"It's not her fault," Marcus says. "In her defense, you can't blame her for asking why I'm wearing a bathrobe, can you?"

"No," Amber's mother says curtly. "But I can blame you for wearing one in the first place. What are you? Some kind of pervert?"

"I told him he lookth like a pervert," Amber singsongs.

The pervert comment makes Mommy proud. She throws an arm around her daughter and brings her in for a hug that says, That's my girl! As the pair embraces, Marcus catches a look at himself in a nearby mirror and instantly sees the truth in their assessment. He
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does look like some kind of a pervert. What is a bathrobe but a cozier version of a flasher's trench coat?

"I'm wearing pants," Marcus explains, idiotically lifting up the hem of the bathrobe to reveal a corduroyed leg. Judging from the horrified expression on both mother's and daughter's faces, this fact only seems to further implicate Marcus in perversion.

Determined to clear his name, Marcus is relieved when Amber removes a pot of Mixed Berries and Clotted Cream Lip Plumping Balm from her pocket. Aha!

"Be You Tea Shoppe," he says as Amber pinkie-applies the translucent red gloss to her puckered lips. "I know the woman who founded it."

Now Marcus is a bathrobe-flashing perv with an unseemly knowledge of pretween beauty products.

When Amber and her mother step back to keep their distance, Marcus realizes too late that such a comment won't help undo pedophiliac aspersions. Thankfully, before he can say or do anything else to sully his image, the elevator arrives on the twentieth floor. The doors open, revealing a single passenger, a middle-aged woman dressed like lunch on the African savannah, who, thankfully, seems too preoccupied with her cell phone to take much notice of him. Marcus is relieved that he won't be left alone with the appalled mother-daughter pair. He makes a

sweeping ladies-first gesture with his arms.

"Oh, no," Amber's mother says in a tone that is as derisive as it is decisive. "You can go alone, dressed like that. We'll take the next one."

Marcus slinks inside the elevator. Seeing the anger in Amber's mother's face, he feels compelled to offer an explanation. "The airline lost my luggage!" he lies.

"Did they altho looth your mind?" Amber retorts.

The girl earns a high five from her mom just before the doors slide shut. Marcus straightens his spine, lifts his chin. He tries to assume a dignified air, like a man of leisure who thinks nothing of going about his business in a borrowed bathrobe.

"They lost my luggage, too," confides the elevator's only other passenger. "I'm on hold with Clear Sky Airlines right now. Wait—I think I've got someone—nope. Still on hold."

Marcus smiles genially, turns his back on her, and watches the numbers light up in descending order.

The women finger-jabs him in the shoulder, clearly looking for someone to commiserate with. "We just want to be where we're supposed to be," she says. "We just want to be with the people we want to be with. I don't think that's asking too much, ya know what I'm saying?"

The elevator arrives at the ground floor with a jolt.

"Yes," Marcus says. "I know just what you're saying."

t elve

ou suck, suckity, suck suck suck.

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That's the thanks I get after how much I've worried about you?

You should be happy that the trauma to my brain didn't permanently change my personality. You should be relieved that I'm not mistaking you for a hat And for the record, you missed your flight this morning because you overslept and didn't take your dad's ride or your mom's advice about the car service and got on the wrong security line.

You've made your point. Is that why I suck?

No. You suck because it's not even like you're making an effort in these dreams.

What dreams?

What dreams. See? This is what I'm talking about.

What you're talking about what?

The dreams like the one you're in right now.

What? This is a dream? Are you sure?

You just saw Barry Manilow turn into Marcus Flutie. How much more proof do you need?

Marcus is ... Wait! He's gone! Where did he go?

[Long sigh.] Do I really have to say what you want me to say?

What is it that I want you to say?

That wherever he is, he won't be gone for long. That he's never really gone because he always comes back to you. Isn't that the whole BLATANTLY OBVIOUS AND NOT AT

ALL SUBTLE takeaway message from all these—forgive my political incorrectness—retarded dreams?

And what's that supposed to mean?

It's like the caps-lock key is stuck. These dreams are SCREAMING WITH MEANING. Way too on-the-surface to be accurately called a product of the subconscious. If I were to turn in an essay with this kind of heavy-handed Psych 101 SYMBOLISM, you would tear it up and tell me to DO BETTER.

I don't know what you're talking about.

That's fine, Jessica. Deny, deny, deny. That's a surefire way to guarantee that you will totally fuck this up.

Fuck what up?

Sweet baby Jesus. You're even worse off than I thought I mean, here I am, Sunny Dae, your alter ego, the Korean reincarnation of your younger self, Pineville High's current model of the cynical girl who has it all and yet has nothing at all telling you straight-out to STOP

BULLSHITTING YOURSELF, and yet you STILL persist in doing

everything you can to FUCK THIS UP. I beg of you, Jessica, DO NOT FUCK THIS UP WITH

MARCUS.

Marcus? This is about Marcus? And watch your language. I am an authority figure, you know.

That's it. I'm going back under.

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