Part 8 (1/2)
”She hasn't turned up yet?”
”No.”
”That seems bad.”
”I called Dorothy, but I just couldn't tell her. It's Jackson's birthday today.”
”Oh, boy.”
At once, Robin finds himself expressing an idea only just making itself known to him: ”What do you think about a road trip?”
”This doesn't have anything to do with Peter, does it?”
”No. Just you and me. Seaside Heights is just a few hours away, right?”
”Are you talking about tonight?”
”As soon as you get home.”
After the briefest hesitation, George says, ”You wanna drag me to the Jersey Sh.o.r.e, huh?”
”Believe me, I don't like the idea, either, but-”
George finishes for him. ”Gotta do what you gotta do.”
Robin hangs up the phone, and the air seems freshly voltaged. The time for waiting has pa.s.sed. He knows immediately what to do next: pack a bag with overnight clothes, pull a couple bottles of Diet c.o.ke from the fridge, fold his tips into his money clip. He makes a list of the relevant phone numbers, scavenges for dimes and nickels in case they need to use a phone booth. He finds a road map in a drawer.
He goes into George's room to grab some clean clothes to pack for him, too, in case they wind up staying overnight somewhere.
The bed is unmade, still. He can picture everything they did, unfolding all over again. Next to the bed is the K-Y Jelly. He replaces the cap, wipes it off, carries it back to his room, and finds his condoms. Before he can change his mind, he packs all of it with their stuff.
The last thing he does is find the letter from the university, in the pocket of his work pants. He smoothes it out. Rereads it. Congratulations...London...highly compet.i.tive...a true challenge. Congratulations...London...highly compet.i.tive...a true challenge. He understands that he hasn't given them his answer yet. He hasn't confirmed that he's actually going to do this. Why is he putting it off? He leaves the letter resting in a beam of sunlight, faceup on his desk. It seems to pulse with its own power. When he gets back from this trip, when he finds his sister-he will find her, he must, he absolutely must-he'll know what his answer is. He understands that he hasn't given them his answer yet. He hasn't confirmed that he's actually going to do this. Why is he putting it off? He leaves the letter resting in a beam of sunlight, faceup on his desk. It seems to pulse with its own power. When he gets back from this trip, when he finds his sister-he will find her, he must, he absolutely must-he'll know what his answer is.
He's clenching his jaw, he realizes, as if he's primed for a fight. A fight with whom? When he tries to envision his opponent, he sees only himself: two nights ago, at the restaurant, framed in the mirrored wall, sweating through his white s.h.i.+rt, doubled over a bottle of wine he is struggling to open, while everyone stares, waiting to see if this time he'll get it right.
PART TWO.
DOWN THE Sh.o.r.e.
Through dark gla.s.ses, Ruby watches a girl in a hot-pink bikini-crimped hair, bony body, viper face-rush through the living room, laughing and shrieking as she moves toward the front door. There's a guy in pursuit-burly but agile, dodging bodies, furniture, outstretched legs. ”You're dead, you're so f.u.c.kin' so f.u.c.kin' dead,” he shouts, through a big, sloppy grin. His yellow tank top is soaked, doused in beer. Ruby can smell it as he flies by. Then more flesh-another girl, another bit of skimpy summer clothing. She holds high a plastic cup, slos.h.i.+ng beer, ready to dump it on one of them. Voices from around the room cheer them on. One, two, three, they escape through the screened door, sucked into the afternoon sun. One of the girls shrieks from the front yard. The other laughs loudly. The all-weekend party is. .h.i.tting an early peak. dead,” he shouts, through a big, sloppy grin. His yellow tank top is soaked, doused in beer. Ruby can smell it as he flies by. Then more flesh-another girl, another bit of skimpy summer clothing. She holds high a plastic cup, slos.h.i.+ng beer, ready to dump it on one of them. Voices from around the room cheer them on. One, two, three, they escape through the screened door, sucked into the afternoon sun. One of the girls shrieks from the front yard. The other laughs loudly. The all-weekend party is. .h.i.tting an early peak.
G.o.d-tell me, please, how I wound up here.
But she knows how it happened. Calvin wanted to. She came along. Same as always.
Remind me, G.o.d, why I said yes.
She sits on a lumpy love seat, squished between the sofa's hard, upholstered arm and her fidgety boyfriend. Calvin is carrying on a loud conversation about what else?-movies-with the guy on the other side. Calvin's a film student at Columbia and knows more about every movie ever made than anyone in the whole wide world. Ruby's heard it all before. She's struck by how out of place his snooty urban att.i.tudes seem here, at this frivolous beach party. Maybe he senses this, too, maybe only half-consciously, which is why he's getting louder. It's like biting a hangnail. You keep biting until you're nipping at the skin but you can't stop. She wishes her nails looked better. The black paint is chipping off. She studies the arm of the couch. The upholstery is a ragged, pilly, green-and-white plaid. The white part is discolored to a popcorny shade, and the green part, where her elbow wants to rest, is marked by a hard, flattened splat of chewing gum. She becomes transfixed by that gray wad, wis.h.i.+ng she could have witnessed the moment when it was left here. Just to see the person who did it, the kind kind of person who does something as vulgar as that. Was it deliberate vandalism? Or something casual: of person who does something as vulgar as that. Was it deliberate vandalism? Or something casual: Oops, meant to drop it in an ashtray, now it's stuck, might as well leave it. Oops, meant to drop it in an ashtray, now it's stuck, might as well leave it.
This beach house is a weird melding of things that have been neglected and things that someone spent money on. The furniture, which probably came with the lease, is battered and mismatched, but sprinkled throughout are the current renters' state-of-the-art stereo system and lots of fancy knickknacks. She sees the kinds of things that rich kids-one of them being Alice, Calvin's younger sister-bring to even the most downscale beach house. A huge, vintage poster of Casablanca Casablanca on the wall, expensively framed by bright white matte board. A polished silver martini shaker, possibly an antique, coated in condensation. A big spray of long-stemmed pink roses in a vase on an end table. Where did anyone get roses? Near this she sees two preppie-looking guys in a beer-chugging contest, egged on by the group circling around them. Ruby expects one of their elbows will send that bouquet cras.h.i.+ng onto the dirty, low-pile carpet. She'd get a kick out of that-except, for all she knows, she's sleeping on that carpet tonight. on the wall, expensively framed by bright white matte board. A polished silver martini shaker, possibly an antique, coated in condensation. A big spray of long-stemmed pink roses in a vase on an end table. Where did anyone get roses? Near this she sees two preppie-looking guys in a beer-chugging contest, egged on by the group circling around them. Ruby expects one of their elbows will send that bouquet cras.h.i.+ng onto the dirty, low-pile carpet. She'd get a kick out of that-except, for all she knows, she's sleeping on that carpet tonight.
She sits in a wash of afternoon light, so bright that she's left her cat-eye sungla.s.ses on. Sungla.s.ses in the middle of the summer shouldn't necessarily draw stares, but she's already overheard one girl say to another, ”Maybe she's blind.” What a b.i.t.c.h. Maybe I'll just leave my shades on for the whole weekend. Maybe I'll just leave my shades on for the whole weekend.
In a house full of tanned and sunburned bodies clad in neon swim-wear, she knows that she stands out. The black dye in her hair framing her frosty skin, her inky black Smiths T-s.h.i.+rt and black miniskirt up against the bare white of her arms and legs, her rubber-soled boots. The girls at this party are of the type who've sneered at and gossiped about her all her life, once because she was a quiet goody-goody too eager to please, and later because she reinvented herself as a cool outsider who didn't seem to notice them at all. Now they look at her and then look away. Most of them are younger than her-most of them are probably still in high school, or just recently graduated. High school is only a year in her past, but it seems like something she endured a long time ago.
Until she determines a good reason to get up, she's staying put on the couch, no matter how disgusting it is. Her hand, resting in her lap, is clutching a plastic cup of beer, which she has no taste for. The cup is half head-she has no idea how to properly fill up from a keg. The first gulp had the airiness of cotton candy and the sourness of French bread. When she licked off the foam, she tasted her own dark lipstick. The keg is on the front porch. She should have found the kitchen and poured herself a Diet c.o.ke.
G.o.d, please get me out of here quickly.
This is not a prayer, but the leftover habit of prayer, still holding on two years after she decided she was an atheist. She waited until her seventeenth birthday to announce that she'd no longer be attending ma.s.s-she'd been going every Sunday since Jackson's accident. She didn't explain herself, didn't need to. Her mother, her brother, her father-not exactly churchgoing people. Nana was the only one upset, but she didn't live nearby, so Ruby could just tuck that guilt away. Now ”G.o.d” is just a placeholder. A way to contain a thought when the feelings are threatening to spill over-as they are now, with her annoyance at Calvin coming to a boil.
Calvin is raising his voice, so loud it's starting to sound like he's in an argument. Only thirty minutes at the party, already making enemies. The current topic seems to be that new movie, St. Elmo's Fire St. Elmo's Fire, which Calvin has called ”a perfect example of Hollywood trying to crush youthful rebellion,” and which the other guy is arguing ”speaks for our generation.”
Calvin says, ”Those characters would never be friends with each other in real life. They take one from every walk of life and then put them all through the same pseudo-romantic plot machinations.”
Ruby pipes up, ”It's not romantic. Half the guys in that movie are stalkers.”
”Exactly my point,” Calvin shouts, though that didn't sound like his point to Ruby. ”The quote-unquote bohemian character, the writer who keeps questioning the meaning of life, he's supposed to be in love with the boring girl in pearls. If you ask me, he should have been in love with her boyfriend.”
”Man, that's just weird,” the other guy says.
”It should be weird! It should be like life, which is messy and unpredictable!”
He's getting worked up, his body jerking and s.h.i.+fting and creating vibrations that Ruby feels in her ribs, her hips, her arm. She gulps her beer to avoid a spill. Already she feels the alcohol doing its work, warming her up. She feels a trickle of sweat slide toward her elbow.
”Look, man,” the guy is shouting to Calvin above a synth-pop song that Ruby recognizes as the theme to St. Elmo's Fire St. Elmo's Fire (”Wanna be a man in motion, all I need is a pair of wheels”)-the likely trigger for this entire pointless conversation-”I'm not saying I (”Wanna be a man in motion, all I need is a pair of wheels”)-the likely trigger for this entire pointless conversation-”I'm not saying I like like this reality, okay? But after college, man, life is gonna this reality, okay? But after college, man, life is gonna force force us to make tough choices.” us to make tough choices.”
”That-” Calvin cries, rising up off the couch a few inches, ”is exactly the brainwas.h.i.+ng bull bulls.h.i.+t I'm talking about! This movie makes you think your only real option is to f.u.c.king f.u.c.king settle down.” His arm goes wide for emphasis, and for a split second Ruby sees a twinkle of sunlight on the silver bracelet at his wrist. Then- settle down.” His arm goes wide for emphasis, and for a split second Ruby sees a twinkle of sunlight on the silver bracelet at his wrist. Then-wham-his elbow smashes into her beer cup just as she's taking a sip.
The cup crunches into a ring around her nose. Alcohol floods her sinuses, rushes down her throat. She gags and spits, shakes her head. It's like being jabbed inside her brain by two fat, wet fingers. Beer splatters her gla.s.ses, blurring her vision. The flattened cup lands in her lap. Her skirt is soaked.
”What happened?” Calvin asks, almost scolding her.
”Your arm happened,” she says, rising to her feet, coughing, flinging droplets from her hands.
”Hey! How about a towel?” he calls out to no one in particular, to the room at large. She recognizes the tone of his voice, rank with the confidence of someone whose needs have always been attended to, by parents, by his sister, by tutors and hired help.
She removes her sungla.s.ses. Everything sharpens, becomes more defined, as if up until now it had all been a grainy movie on a far-off screen. Faces turn in her direction. A guy staggering nearby gets a look at her and says, ”Nasty!” All of a sudden she is nine instead of nineteen. Small, confused, angry. These kids all around her, most of whom are younger than her, seem cool and worldly compared to the public mess she is.
She wipes wet snot from her nose and looks up at Calvin, nearly a foot taller than she is. Calvin, who has more or less ignored her since they got here, who hasn't yet introduced her to his sister, who made her fill her own cup from the keg, the very same cup he's just rammed in her face. He reaches his hand around her back and rubs her shoulder in little circles, asking, ”Are you okay?”
She finally hears genuine concern in his voice, but he still hasn't found her a towel. She doesn't even know where the bathroom is, because they haven't gotten past the couch since they arrived.
Another guy steps up, a solid, jocky man-boy with a b.u.t.ton nose, thick neck, and dark, wavy hair. ”I got ya,” he says. He yanks his football jersey up and over his head. ”Use this.”