World Gone Water (13 page)

Our limo driver, Happy something or other, rushes me when I push open the door. “Too stiff,” he says, digging his tree-trunk fingers into the ice bucket, fishing for a chunk of ice. Behind Happy I see my new Jenny, her prom dress shucked in the corner in favor of her brother's army fatigue T-shirt and boxers, expertly holding a lit cigarette and a bottle of Budweiser in the same hand, waving from the balcony at someone as he passes underneath. The room's population seems to have doubled since my trip to the ice machine, other prom couples having found their way to the suite I rented for me and Jenny. I recognize the two foreign exchange students from Germany, Johann and Gustav, both with their hair dyed so blond they look albino; in the corner opposite the master race is Quentin,
a second-year senior, and his date, Yesenia, who Jenny knows is secretly seeing either Johann or Gustav, I can't remember which. Jenny's friend Zach puts his arm around her on the balcony and they scream down at someone, Jenny losing her beer over the edge. The sound of the bottle crashing sends Jenny into hysterics.

Happy finds a piece of ice that will fit into his glass of vodka and tells me he'll be out in the car. He asks if I still need him, essentially asking if it would be better just to send the limo away, to stop the hemorrhage of cash, and I punch him in the face, my knuckles glancing off his flat nose, skimming his left cheek and ear. Happy drops the glass of vodka and, too stunned to say anything, runs out of the room holding his face.

Jenny pretends not to have seen, not wanting to acknowledge what I'm pretending to be capable of. She locks herself in the bathroom with Zach and the laughing continues, drowned out by the arrival of more prom couples, ones I don't recognize, who ask loudly where Jenny is. Someone turns on the television, which is sitting on the floor, as the credenza has been moved out onto the balcony for use as a makeshift bench from which to gawk at the other prom couples streaming into the hotel.

I'm just a kid
. The echo in my ear since dinner, Jenny's justification for breaking up after prom, dulling the shine on the evening I'd spent weeks laying out. All gone with those four words. Where normally those words would've seemed a skip in a record to me, the turntable having been bumped many times before—sometimes my fault, sometimes not—I recognized right there under the white canopy of Octavio's that with the end of the evening, it would be over between us. My ego had conspired with Jenny to set me up for just such a fall: Jenny calling me her old man, whispering her thankfulness at being with someone who was “experienced,” praising the maturity of our relationship, expressing her gratefulness
at not having to stand around a keg in the desert, groped by novice hands, romanced by the indolent.

It was my idea, the whole thing, it always is, but I always fail to see—or rather, hope against hope that the entire house isn't built upon sand that can slip away with something like “I'm just a kid.” My last Jenny had it sneak up on her, waking up one morning with the feeling that she was ready for what's next, not really knowing what next was. The Jenny before that accused me of keeping her eighteen, an accusation easily defended against by the lack of supporting evidence, of the nonexistence of her case, but even after the verdict was rendered in my favor, she left.

Someone in a tuxedo sticks his head in the door and yells that Vic is going to jump off the hotel roof, and while it seems impossible that everyone knows Vic, or cares about his welfare, the room empties, Jenny and Zach bursting out of the bathroom, the smell of marijuana trailing them out the door and down the hall. The TV blares in the sudden silence, a commercial for a compilation of hit music suitable for parties. Couples dance across the nineteen-inch screen, grooving to songs from my past, reminding me of all my Jennies. One song in particular feels overly familiar, and I mumble the lyrics along with the television, marveling that I know the words to a song I haven't heard in maybe fifteen years or more. The words come down from my brain as if I wrote the song, and I continue singing it even after the commercial has ended, am still singing it when a scream pulls me out the sliding glass door just in time to see Vic catch himself atop the building across the courtyard, windmilling to keep his balance. I spot Jenny and Zach, arm in arm, moving through the crowd below like celebrities at a charity event. The door swings open and Happy starts screaming in my direction. The officer puts my hands on the credenza and reads me my rights. The manager starts bitching at me about the state of the
hotel room. Happy tries to get at me with a left hook, but the officer pushes him back. Vic teeters again on the hotel roof, the crowd below shouting up at him, Jenny shouting too, her pleas meant for Vic reaching my ears instead. I watch Vic trying to keep his balance. The officer wheels me around, and even though I couldn't pick Vic out of a lineup, I can feel him falling.

When Talie calls me from the cotillion, crying, I'm sure it's because of Dale.

So when I meet her at the Phoenix Country Club, I'm surprised when it isn't. Sure, Dale canceled out on Talie's cotillion at the last minute, but Talie is more upset that Frank wouldn't even consider it when she called him.

“What did you expect?” I say. I know this isn't helping, but it's a way for me to make my point by using someone else as an example.

“He acted like he didn't know me.” Talie sobbed. “Do you know what he said?”

“What?”

“I said, ‘Frank, it's me,' and do you know what he said?”

I couldn't guess.

“He said, ‘We're not interested,' and hung up.”

“That's rotten,” I say.

“You know what? I heard his wife in the background,” Talie says. “He
is
married.”

I couldn't say “Of course he is”—if it were anyone else, I would've, I might've thrown a dismissive wave of my hand for good measure. But Talie says it as if she were just learning of the possibility, and
when this innocence washes up on the shore of her cheeks, I just want to stand there and wade in it.

“Have you been inside yet?” I ask. Slow, lyricless music plays in the ballroom at the end of the carpeted hall.

“I can't go in without a date,” she says, and without asking me, I know what this means.

“It would be my pleasure,” I say, holding my arm out in an exaggerated way.

“Tuck in your shirt,” Talie says, pointing.

I shove the ends of the collarless shirt I threw on into my jeans.

“That's better,” Talie says, and takes up my arm. “Let's do this thing.”

If I live to be one million, I know I won't forget how it feels to stroll through the doors of the ballroom into the garden of sound where couples are waltzing elegantly on the shiny marble dance floor. Talie has those little ways of making you want her, like every woman does, the way she might look at you and make you feel like you are extraordinary when you need it, the way she revolves on the outside of group conversations, like she used to do in high school when we were kids, giving me that anxiety where I was afraid the rope would snap and she'd float into a new orbit and out of mine for good.

Talie scowls at anyone who dares to point out my informal dress. We waltz on the outside corner of the dance floor, and Talie stares straight into me as she waltzes us toward the center of the floor, where we turn and turn among the staring.

“Who do you know here?” I ask.

“There are some girls from my cotillion class,” Talie says. “I don't want to talk to them, though. I told them all about Dale—showed them a picture, if you can believe that—and they're probably wondering who you are.”

“It seems like there are a lot of couples here,” I say.

Talie continues to waltz me in time to the music.

“All these chicks have boyfriends,” Talie says bitterly. “They think this is the fucking prom or something.”

“Why didn't Dale come tonight?” I ask, suddenly curious.

“You know,” Talie says. “He had things to do.”

The waltz ends and the eager couples wait for the next song as Talie and I exit the dance floor.

Talie slumps down in a chair at a fully set table and I slip into the chair next to her.

“I just wanted to dance one dance,” Talie says.

“I'll stay as long as you want,” I tell her. “Do you want me to get you anything?”

“There was supposed to be dinner … but it looks like we missed it.”

“Where's the bar?” I ask, looking around.

Talie laughs. “You and I are probably the only ones of age here.”

“Really?”

“Most of the girls in my class are still in high school,” Talie says. She sighs. “I wish I would've learned at that age what they're learning now. It might've made a difference.”

I touch Talie on the knee but self-consciously withdraw my hand when a couple passes our table.

“Which fork is this?” I ask.

“Salad,” Talie answers automatically, like a game show contestant.

“I used to think the different sizes were for different-size hands,” I admit.

Either Frank tells fantastic tales or Talie translates them through a distorted lens, because the description Talie gave when I asked where Frank lived doesn't match the address we pull in front of. Where Talie said “huge Tudor manor” I would say “ranch house.”

“Is this it?” I ask.

“Yep,” Talie giggles. “Are we really going to do this?”

The question didn't come up in the grocery store where we bought the toilet paper and gallon of vinegar. The vinegar was my idea, and when I see the speedboat parked in Frank's driveway, I know it was the right choice. “Why not?” I say. Talie giggles again and her smile makes me happy.

“This is
so
juvenile,” she says before opening the car door.

Frank's front yard is treeless, so we sneak right up to the house.

“Go around back and I'll toss you one,” I tell Talie. She nods and her cotillion dress glows in the night. As she disappears behind the darkened house, I unscrew the vinegar and climb aboard the boat. I unzip the plastic seat covers and soak the seat cushions with vinegar. A sharp odor rises and I stand back, spilling vinegar on my shoes. I roll the plastic bottle along the bow, and it comes to rest against a guardrail, empty.

I hop down and unwrap the toilet paper, launching a roll over the house. A thin white stripe hangs over the front of the house. A few seconds pass and the roll comes back over, bouncing off the slanted roof. I can hear Talie laughing in the backyard, and when we're out of toilet paper, the front of the house looks like a giant face with white bangs in its eyes.

I find Talie in the backyard, staring at a tree swing.

“His daughter is adorable,” Talie whispers. She gives the swing a little push. “You should see how cute she is.”

“We should go,” I tell her. “We made a lot of noise.”

I tug on Talie's dress and we walk silently across the lawn. As we pull away, Talie looks back for something and I look up in the rearview mirror, but all I see is a house where Talie wishes she lived. A light comes on for a moment in one of the upper windows and then goes out again. The smell of vinegar from my shoes makes Talie roll down the window, and she leans her seat back, silent as I drive us home in the moonless night.

Here is the worst possible scenario in my life:

I fall in love, get married, live in bliss, have children, get a job with regular hours, watch my children grow up and drift away, lose interest in my wife, cheat on her with prostitutes who don't satisfy me, lose interest in life altogether, kill myself.

The more I am kept waiting by the police, the more comical Dale's phone call seems.

“
Please
hurry up,” he begged, as if he were going somewhere. “And don't tell
anyone
.” I knew he meant Talie, but the thought that I would hang up the phone and turn to anyone and say, “My best friend's boyfriend just got arrested for soliciting an undercover cop,” is like the punch line of a really bad joke.

Curious choice, calling me
, is what I'm thinking. Before I even find out the details, I know I will use this to blackmail Dale out of our lives forever.

I don't bother to let Dale tell his story in the car. “How are you going to keep this from Talie?” is all I ask.

“She doesn't know what goes on with me,” Dale says with mock bravura, then, gloomily, “They impounded my car. I'll have to tell her it's in the shop.”

I'm silent, letting him know I won't help him in any way whatsoever.

“Should I pull up or let you off down the street?” I ask. “Talie left Arrowhead Ranch around four, and I'm sure she's wondering why you're not home.”

“Go around the block,” Dale instructs, his voice full of alarm. “I've got to get it together.”

Dale's suit looks damp, giving the impression that he has just come in from the rain. His tie is gone, probably balled up in his pocket, and his jacket smells distinctly of being somewhere he shouldn't have been. I tell Dale this and he takes his jacket off, folds it over his arm.

“All I want to know is, have you done this before while dating Talie?” I say.

Dale doesn't look at me, doesn't even try to hold me with an honest stare when he says, “No, this is the only time.”

I sense true confession and pull over, letting Dale out.

“Okay, thanks,” he says, worriedly looking down the street in the direction of his house. “On second thought, could you come in? I'll tell her you gave me a ride from the shop.”

I consider my obligations here.

I think of things I'd rather be doing.

“Sure,” I agree.

Talie isn't in the lit house and there's no note, but Dale rockets into the bathroom and showers without really calling for her. I snap the TV on and sit on the couch, which is warm and recently abandoned. Something pulls me to the window and I see Talie walking away from a car that takes off in the opposite direction.