Winter 2007 (15 page)

He’s scared by what he’s
beginning to feel for her, and he’s not yet prepared to turn loose of the pool
ladder and swim out into the deep end; but his grip is slipping and he knows
immersion is inevitable. At times, in certain lights, she seems no older than
twenty. She’s got the kind of looks that last and she’ll still be beautiful
when they cart him off to the rest home. That afflicts him. But then she’ll say
or do something, make a move in bed or offer a comment about his book or, like
the other night at the movies, the first move he’s attended in years, reach
over and touch his arm and smile, that causes him to recognize this is no girl,
no beach bunny, but a mature woman who’s committed her share of sins and errors
in judgment, and is ready for a serious relationship, even if he is not. That
liberates him from his constraints, encourages him to lose himself in
contemplation of her, to see her with a lover’s eye, to notice how, when she
straddles him, she’ll gather her hair behind her neck and gaze briefly at the
wall, as if focusing herself before she lets him enter; how her lips purse and
her eyebrows lift when she reads; how when she cooks, she’ll stand on one foot
for a minute at a time, arching her back to keep on balance; how when she combs
out her hair after a shower, bending her head to one side, her neck and
shoulder configure a line like the curve of a Spanish guitar. He wants to
understand these phrasings of her body, to know things about her that she
herself may not know.

The ninth morning after
Cliff quit working for Jerry (he hasn’t made it official yet, but in his mind
he’s done), he’s lying in bed when Marley, fresh from a shower, wearing a
bathrobe, tells him she’s going to visit her mother in Deland; she’ll be gone
two or three days.

“I meant to tell you
yesterday,” she says. “But I guess I’ve been in denial. My mom’s sort of
demented. Not really, though sometimes I wonder. She never makes these visits
easy.”

“You want me to come
along?”

“God, no! That would freak
her out. Totally. Not because you’re you. Any man would freak her out…any
woman, for that matter. She’d hallucinate I’m having a lesbian affair, and then
all I’d hear the whole time is stuff about the lie of the White Goddess and how
we’re in a time of social decline. It’s going to be hard enough as it is.” She
hoists a small suitcase out from the back of the closet. “I want this visit to
be as serene as possible, because the last day I’m there, I’m going to tell her
about Orlando.”

“It’s not that big a move,”
he says. “You’ll still be within an hour’s drive.”

“To her, it’ll be an
extinction event, believe me.” She rummages through her underwear drawer. “One
day you’ll have to meet her, but you want to put that day off as long as you
can. I love her, but she can be an all-pro pain in the butt.”

Gloomily, he watches her
pack for a minute and then says, “I’ll miss you.”

“I know! God, I’m going to
miss you so much!” She turns from her packing and, with a mischievous
expression, opens her robe and flashes him. “I’ve got time for a quickie.”

“Come ahead.”

She leaps onto the bed,
throws a leg across his stomach, bringing her breasts close to his face; he
tastes soap on her nipples. She rolls off him, onto her back, looking flushed.

“Better make that a
long-ie,” she says. “It’s got to last for two days.”

After she’s gone, Cliff
mopes about the apartment. He opens a box of Wheat Thins, eats a handful, has a
second cup of coffee, paces. At length, he sits on the bed, back propped up by
pillows, and, using Marley’s laptop, starts working on the book. When he looks
up again, he’s surprised to find that four hours have passed. He has a late
lunch at a Chinese restaurant on South Atlantic, then drives home and works
some more. Around eight-thirty, Marley calls.

“This has to be brief,” she
says, and asks him about his day.

“Nothing much. Worked on
the book. Ate lunch at Lim’s. How about you?”

“The usual. Interrogation.
Field exercises. Advanced interrogation.”

“It can’t be that bad.”

“No, it’s not…but I don’t
want to be here. That makes it worse.”

“Are you coming back
tomorrow?”

“I don’t know yet. It
depends on how much aftercare mom’s going to need.” A pause. “How’s the book
coming?”

“You can judge for
yourself, but it feels pretty good. Today I wrote about this movie I did with
Robert Mitchum and Kim…”

“Shit! I have to go. I’ll
call tomorrow if I can.”

“Wait…”

“Love you,” she says, and
hangs up.

He pictures her standing in
her mother’s front yard, or in the bathroom, a little fretful because she
didn’t intend to say the L word, because it’s the first time either of them
have used it, and she’s not sure he’s ready to hear it, she’s worried it might
put too much pressure on him. But hearing the word gives him a pleasant buzz, a
comforting sense of inclusion, and he wishes he could call her back.

He falls asleep watching a
Magic game with the sound off; when he wakes, a preacher is on the tube,
weeping and holding out his arms in supplication. He washes up but chooses not
to shower, checks himself in the mirror, sees a heavy two-day growth of gray
stubble, and chooses not to shave. He breakfasts on fresh pineapple, toast, and
coffee, puts on a t-shirt, bathing suit, and flip-flops, and walks down to the
beach. It’s an overcast morning, low tide, the water placid and dark blue out
beyond the bar. Sandpipers scurry along the tidal margin, digging for tiny
soft-shelled crabs that have burrowed into the muck. People not much older than
himself are power-walking, some hunting for shells. One sixty-something guy in
a Speedo, his skin deeply tanned, is searching for change with a metal
detector. During spring and summer, Cliff reflects, Daytona is a stage set,
with a different cast moved in every few weeks. After the spring breakers, the
bikers come for Bike Week. Then the NASCAR crowd flocks into town and
everywhere you go, you hear them display their thrilling wit and wisdom, saying
things like, “I warned Charlene not to let him touch it,” and, “Damn, that
Swiss steak looks right good. I believe I’ll have me some of that.” But the
elderly are always present, always going their customary rounds.

Being part of the senior
parade makes Cliff uncomfortable. In the midst of this liver-spotted plague, he
fears contagion and he goes up onto the boardwalk. Most of the attractions are
closed. The Ferris wheel shows its erector set complexity against a pewter sky;
many of the lesser rides are covered in canvas; but one of the arcades is open,
its corrugated doors rolled up, and Cliff wanders inside. Behind a counter, a
short order cook is busy greasing the grill. Three eighth- or ninth-graders,
two Afro-Americans and one white kid dressed hip-hop style, backward caps and
baggy clothes, are dicking around with a shooter game. As he passes, they
glance toward him, their faces set in a kind of hostile blankness. He can read
the thought balloon above their heads, a single balloon with three comma-like
stems depending from it: Old Fucking Bum. Cliff decides he likes playing an old
fucking bum. He develops a limp, a drunk’s weaving, unsteady walk. The kids
whisper together and laugh.

At the rear of the arcade,
past the row of Ski Ball machines, where they keep the older games, the arcade
is quiet and dark and clammy, a sea cave with a low ceiling, its entrance
appearing to be a long way off. Cliff scatters quarters atop one of the
machines, Jungle Queen, its facing adorned with black panthers and lush
vegetation and a voluptuous woman with black hair and red lips and silicon
implants, her breasts perfectly conical. When he was a kid, he’d lift the
machine and rest its front legs on his toes so the surface was level and the
ball wouldn’t drop, and he’d rack up the maximum number of free games and play
all day. It didn’t take much to entertain him, and he supposes it still
doesn’t.

He plays for nearly an
hour, his muscle memory returning, skillfully using body English, working the
flippers. He’s on his way to setting a personal best, the machine issuing a
series of loud pops, signifying games won, when someone comes up on his
shoulder and begins watching. Ashford. Cliff keeps playing—he’s having a
great last ball and doesn’t want to blow it. Finally the ball drops. He grins
at Ashford and presses the button to start a new game.

Ashford says, “Having fun?”

“I can’t lose,” says Cliff.

Ashford looks to be wearing
the same ensemble he wore during the interview, accented on this occasion by a
fetching striped tie. The bags under his eyes are faintly purple. Cliff’s
surprised too see him, but not deeply surprised.

“Have you guys been
watching my building?” he asks.

“You didn’t answer the
buzzer. I took a chance you’d be somewhere close by.” Ashford nods toward the
counter at the front of the arcade. “Let’s get some coffee.”

“I’ve got twelve free
games!”

“Don’t mess with me, Coria.
I’m tired.”

The two men take stools at
the counter and Ashford sits without speaking, swigging his coffee, staring
glumly at the menu on the wall, black plastic letters arranged on white
backing, some of them cockeyed, some of the items misspelled (“cheseburgers,”
“mountin dew”), others cryptically described (“Fresh Fried Shrimp”). The
counterman, a middle-aged doofus with a name badge that reads Kerman, pale and
fleshy, his black hair trimmed high above his ears, freshens Ashford’s coffee.
Even the coffee smells like grease. The arcade has begun to fill, people
filtering up from the beach.

“Are we just sharing a
moment?” asks Cliff. “Or do you have something else in mind?”

For a few seconds, Ashford
doesn’t seem to have heard him; then he says, “Stacey Gerone.”

“Yeah? What about her?”

“You seen her lately?”

“Not for a couple of weeks.
Jerry said she ran off to Miami with some rich guy.”

“I heard about that.”

A shorthaired peroxide
blond in a bikini, her black roots showing in such profusion, the look must be
by design, hops up onto a stool nearby and asks for a large Pepsi. She has some
age on her, late thirties, but does good things for the bikini. Ashford cuts
his eyes toward her breasts; his gaze lingers.

“Ain’t got no Pepsi,”
Kerman says in a sluggish, country drawl. “Just Coke.”

“This morning around
five-thirty, one of your neighbors found a suitcase full of Stacey Gerone’s
clothes in the dunes out front of your house.” Ashford emits a small belch, covering
his mouth.

“Any idea how it got
there?”

Alarmed, Cliff says, “I
didn’t put it there!”

“I didn’t say you put it
there. You’re not that stupid.”

“I haven’t been to the
house for three days. I just drove by to see if everything was all right.”

The blond, after pondering
the Pepsi problem, asks if she can have some fries.

“You want a large Coke with
that?” asks Kerman.

Again the blond ponders.
“Small diet Coke.”

Kerman, apparently the
genius of the arcade, switches on the piped-in music, and metal-ish rock
overwhelms the noises of man and nature. Ashford, with a pained expression,
tells him to turn it off.

“Got to have the music on
after nine o’clock,” says Kerman.

“Well, turn it fucking
down!”

“You got no call to be
using bad language.” Kerman sulks, but lowers the volume; following Ashford’s
direction, he lowers it until the music is all but inaudible.

Ashford rubs his stomach,
scowls, and then gets to his feet. “I have to hit the john. Don’t go away.”

As he walks off, the blond
leans the intervening stool and taps Cliff on the arm. “Do I know you? I
believe I do.”

Cliff mentions that he was
once an actor, movies and commercials, and the blond says, “No, that’s not it.
At least, I don’t think.” She taps her chin and then snaps her fingers. “The
Shark! You used to come in. You were seeing Janice for a while last year. I’m
Mary Beth.”

All the women at the Shark
Lounge, waitresses and dancers alike, are working girls and, after hearing
about how Janice has been doing, Cliff has an idea.

“Have you got time for a
date this morning?” he asks.

That puts a hitch in Mary
Beth’s grin, but she says coolly, “Anything for you, sweetie.”

“It’s not for me, it’s for
my friend. He needs to get laid. He’s a cop and the job’s beating him up.”

“You want me to ball a
cop?”

“He’ll welcome it, I swear.
Make out you’re a police groupie and you saw his gun or something. And don’t
let on I had anything to do with it.”

“Whatever. It’s two hundred
for a shave and a haircut. You know, the basics.”

“Shit! I don’t have two
hundred in cash.”

“What about a credit card?
I do Visa and Master.”

She hauls up a voluminous
purse from the floor beside her stool and digs out a manual imprinter.

“Hurry!” he says, looking
toward the bathroom door as she imprints his card.