Shriver (11 page)

Oh my God, Shriver thought. The brunette. What had she told them?

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Please open up, sir.”

He unlocked the door, and T. Wätzczesnam came crashing into the room, accompanied by several others, including Edsel Nixon and Gonquin Smithee.

“Fooled ya!” The cowboy tipped up the front lip of his ten-gallon hat. “Brought some replenishment, Shriver, ol' buddy.” He set a substantial bottle of whiskey on the writing table, along with a full ice bucket and some hotel cups wrapped in plastic.

Shriver turned to Nixon, who shrugged. Gonquin Smithee unscrewed the bottle cap and poured herself a generous drink. Her eyes appeared shellacked over.

“Didja get my note?” she asked.

“I thought I'd freshen up first.”

“Izzat so?”

“Where's Ms. Labio?” he asked.

“Aw, she's back in our room, sulking, as per usual.”

Delta Malarkey-Jones reeled through the door, her doughy arm around the folksinger from the café.

“This here is Christo,” she announced.

The singer, not quite as inebriated as his companion, grabbed Shriver's hand and shook vigorously. “I am a major fan.”

The other stranger in the room was a tall African-American woman with closely cropped hair and long, pendulous earrings that looked painfully heavy.

“Oh,” the cowboy said, “let me introduce you to the last, but not least, of our featured authors. This is
Zebra Amphetamine. She flew in tonight.”

The woman nodded to Shriver with heavy lids.

“ ‘A Nubian girl,' ” Wätzczesnam recited, “ ‘more sweet than Khoorja musk, / Came to the water-tank to fill her urn . . .' ”

Zebra Amphetamine laughed like a hyena at this, as did the cowboy, who wrapped his arm around the much taller woman's waist and pulled her close.

“Was that Aldrich, sir?” Edsel Nixon asked.

“Nixon, you are most impressive.”

Someone handed Shriver a plastic cup filled nearly to the brim. He peered down and saw his face, tired and defeated by gravity, reflected in the brown liquid. Then he took a sip.

“Listen to that train!” Zebra Amphetamine shouted as she ran to the window. “It's the sound of America! We could be Lakotas in our skin teepees listening to the clackety-clack of White Death rolling toward us!”

“Never mind that,” the cowboy hollered. “Look down there!” He cranked open the window and shouted, “Ahoy, girls!”

On the back lawn of the hotel, lit by the moon and fluttering underwater swimming pool lights, several girls in bathing suits lounged on deck chairs while bubblegum music percolated from a nearby radio.

“Watch out for those mosquitoes, girls!” the cowboy warned, but the cheerleaders appeared impervious to the attack of insects.

“Come on down!” they shouted. “Let's party!”

Among them, Shriver saw, was the willowy brunette, dancing provocatively with one of her fellow cheerleaders.

“We would be fools, gentlemen,” the cowboy said, “to pass up such an invitation.”

“I don't think it's a good idea, Professor,” Edsel Nixon said.

“Poppycock! These nubile young things are more experienced than all of us put together. Who's with me?”

“I'll go!” Zebra Amphetamine said.

“Capital. And you, Shriver?”

“I think I'll stay put, T. I'm tired.”

The cowboy held his face just inches away, his breath flammable. “I'm very disappointed in you.”

He grabbed the bottle and left with his new friend. Meanwhile, the shaven-headed singer strummed his guitar in the corner, with Delta at his feet.

“Well,” Shriver said after the singer's second tune, “I'm a bit tired, so—”

He was interrupted by a deep-throated braying that could be heard from outside. On the lawn the cowboy danced lewdly with the brunette, his hat held high in one hand as he waggled his bowed legs to the sugary music. Zebra Amphetamine stood nearby, doubled over with laughter.

“They're on their own,” Edsel Nixon muttered, shaking his head.

“Oh my gosh!”

Delta Malarkey-Jones jumped up and pointed toward water flooding underneath the closed bathroom door. Shriver pushed inside and splashed his way through the dark to the tub, which was full of overflowing bubbles. As he attempted to turn off the water he slipped on the soapy floor and crashed onto the froth-puddled tiles.

Delta cackled at the sight of Shriver struggling in vain to climb to his feet, his face now bearded with foam. Edsel Nixon attempted to help him up but also succumbed to the slippery floor and dropped with a great upheaval of bubbles. Delta, still hooting, entered the room despite pleas for her to remain outside, and immediately lost her footing. She proceeded to teeter like an oak on the edge of collapse, first in one direction, then the other, all in tortuous slow motion, until finally the momentum was too much and, as Shriver and Nixon covered
their heads, she plunged backward into the tub. A tsunami flooded the bathroom and sent a small wave out into the hotel room proper, where Christo the Folksinger stood strumming in accompaniment.

Somehow, Shriver was able to reach up and twist the faucet handle into the off position. He then pulled the lever that opened the drain. Nixon got quickly to his feet and tossed dry towels onto the floor. Meanwhile, Delta Malarkey-Jones lay in the tub, held tight by the suction from the draining water.

“I'm stuck,” she chortled, holding out her hands for anyone brave enough to come to her aid.

The task required all three men and nearly sent them to the floor as their feet slipped on the soapy tiles. But after a few moments of tugging and grunting, they finally pulled Delta free, and she gave them each a sudsy, smothering hug for their efforts.

The ever-efficient Nixon ran to the front desk to get some more dry towels, as well as a new bulb, and in fifteen minutes the floor was relatively dry and the light fixed.

“Thank you, everybody,” Shriver said, sitting down on the commode in exhaustion.

“Well, I've had about enough for one evening,” his handler announced. “I'm headed home. If Professor Wätzczesnam shows up again, tell him I'll see him tomorrow.”

The dripping graduate student departed, leaving behind Delta and her folksinger friend.

“Listen,” Delta said, “Christo and I have been talking it over, and we'd really like it if you came back to my room for a bit.”

“What for?”

“Okay, we could stay here, if you prefer. But my room has a king-size bed. There's room for all of us.”

The musician smiled throughout this exchange, his hands gripping the guitar.

“Thank you,” Shriver said, “but I think I'll pass.”

“You sure?”

“Very.”

“Okey-doke. Don't say we didn't try. C'mon, Christo.” She grabbed the musician by the wrist and pulled him out the door.

Shriver stood by the window and removed his wet shoes. Out on the lawn the cheerleaders were in the process of forming a human pyramid, with the cowboy and Zebra Amphetamine on their hands and knees among those at the base. The group had reached the third level, comprised of three girls atop the backs of the four girls below them. Two more girls clambered up like monkeys to form a fourth level. Then the willowy brunette ascended the pyramid to her solo spot at the apex, where, tall and lithe in her aqua-blue bathing suit, she stood perfectly poised atop the backs of the two girls beneath her, her angelic face level with Shriver's. The confident cheerleader smiled at him with dazzling teeth and asked, “Are you a writer too?”

While Shriver pondered this question, the girl shouted down to her teammates, “One . . . two . . .” On three, the entire pyramid collapsed, like an imploded office building, and the brunette landed in the arms of two of her huskier teammates while the other squealing girls rolled off one another onto the grass. The cowboy and Zebra Amphetamine were the last to emerge from the pile, their skin wet with perspiration, the grins on their faces speaking of some secret ecstasy.

Shriver cranked the window shut and removed his sopping clothes. From his jacket pocket he retrieved the manila envelope and set it down on the desk with a metallic clank.
After toweling himself off, he climbed into bed. There, he took up the pages from the bedside table and continued to read his story.

“All night I lay there, wide awake, wondering what the water mark would look like when daylight started creeping in the next morning. As dawn broke, I saw that the spot had grown even more, now to the general size and shape of an adult person, complete with arms and legs, and at the top, a head. Furthermore . . .”

Here his eyes failed him again, scrambling the words into meaninglessness. He turned to page two, then three, but found only a jumble of inky symbols. Perhaps it was just fatigue this time. He set the pages down, turned off the light, and lay listening to the sound of a seemingly endless train, broken by the occasional bark of laughter and high-pitched squeals from outside, or maybe next door, he couldn't tell. Either possibility was unpleasant to contemplate.

After a while, when the train had finally passed and the cheerleaders had gone inside, he slipped toward the ether of slumber. Reaching out to stroke Mr. Bojangles, Shriver heard only the sound of rhythmic breathing, which gently lulled him to sleep.

When the telephone rang, waking Shriver from a deep sleep, he did not recognize his surroundings. Where was his mahogany bureau? Where was his signed portrait of Tina LeGros of the Channel 17 Action News Team? Where was the water mark over his bed? Most alarming of all, where was Mr. Bojangles? Normally his friend's whiskered face, always so charmingly neutral in its expression, hovered inches away from his own as the famished cat awaited his morning bowl of cottage cheese.

The room was dark but for a bright strip of sunlight between the heavy window curtains. The bed felt strange, the sheets crisp with starch, the pillows thin and hard. Not his usual soft cotton sheets and thick, fluffy pillow.

And that irritating sound? It had been so long since he'd heard the close-up jangle of a telephone, he assumed it must be emanating from somewhere else.
Answer the damn thing!
he wanted to shout to his annoying neighbor, the one who played his television so loud every night until two in the morning. But no, he now realized. The offending telephone was right here, beside the bed.

“All right, all right,” he said as he reached for the phone. “Hello?”

“Mr. Shriver?” came a chirpy, singsong voice.

“Yes?” he croaked through dry lips.

“Hi. This is Teresa Apple.”

“Yes?”

“You're speaking to my class this morning?”

“Yes?”

“I'm here to pick you up.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I'm down in the lobby.”

As his eyes grew accustomed to the dark, he could make out the old television set and the painting of a windmill on the wall.

“Oh! Of course! I'll be right down!”

He jumped to his feet, hobbled to the bathroom, and turned on the light. The sudden brightness scalded his eyeballs. He grabbed his skull and, forgetting about his bruised backside, sat down hard on the commode.

“Ow!” he cried, his headache momentarily gone.

The whiskey-tinged taste of bile floated up into his throat and it all came back to him. As if watching a Channel 17 Action News summary, he saw a briskly edited montage of yesterday's events, from his ride to the airport—it seemed so long ago—to last night's debauchery on the hotel lawn.

Then he recalled a vivid dream in which he'd been awakened by the sound of snoring only to find Gonquin Smithee passed out in the bed beside him. He remembered touching her shoulder, but she did not wake up. He shook her, to no avail. Her face, so hard and defended when awake, seemed to him soft and open, and so he'd decided to let her be. The dream was so real it seemed more like a memory to him.

Gasping, he ran out and checked the bed, but Gonquin Smithee was not there. Thank goodness—it
was
a dream.

A dull throbbing returned to the space behind his eyes. More than anything in the world he wanted to take a long bath, but he had no time. He splashed some water on his stubbly
face and under his arms. He brushed his teeth. He took a moment to lather up his left hand with soap and attempted to pull off his wedding ring. He felt some give, but he was unable to force the gold band past his knuckle. For the first time in years, he wondered what his ex-wife had done with
her
ring. Had she pawned it? Thrown it away? Was it sitting in a dark drawer somewhere?

He unzipped his bag and dug around for some fresh socks and underwear. He threw on a clean shirt and trousers and checked his jacket, which was draped over the curtain rod, still damp from last night's Keystone Kops routine. He would have to go without.

He went out into the hall, and only after the door had slammed shut behind him did he remember that the key was still in his jacket. He tried the knob. Locked. Now he would have to go through some big rigmarole with one of those beehived clerk twins. He hoped this was not an omen.

A horde of uniformed cheerleaders had gathered at the elevator. They seemed so small and young now, fresh as the proverbial daisies, all corn-fed innocence. He thought of the half-nude vixens of the night before and wondered if these could possibly be the same creatures. And here was the willowy brunette, looking like a Sunday school student but for the gum she chewed extravagantly as they entered the elevator. Shriver squeezed in beside her and as the elevator descended the girl smiled and blew a bubble that covered half her face. The doors opened, and the cheerleaders poured out into the lobby, erupting into their usual squeals and giggles as they scurried toward the saloon for their eggs and cornflakes.

Coming around the corner into the lobby, Shriver noticed Ms. Labio at the front desk. She looked even more agitated than usual as she spoke shrilly to one of the twins behind the
counter. Staying out of her line of sight, he tiptoed past the desk toward the door.