Ask the Passengers (9 page)

Donna comes out of the bathroom and looks ready to dance. She grabs Chad and Justin from the corner by the small coatroom and pulls them with her. The DJ puts on something techno and upbeat, and we head out to the dance floor like a tiny mob.

This is around the time when I remember that I don’t really dance.

I LOOK AROUND THE DANCE FLOOR
and see other people who are good dancers, and then I see myself in the mirror, and I see I am a nervous dancer. A barely dancing dancer. A robot. I don’t move anything below my waist. I look like I’m about to do a defensive drill during basketball gym class.

Upon noticing this, I become so self-conscious that I can’t stay on the dance floor, so I gravitate toward the edge, where people are standing around drinking, talking and watching. I turn to watch the people on the dance floor. There is a lot of grinding and shaking and virtual humping. Kristina is there by herself while Donna goes to the bar for two beers, and she’s really moving. Justin and Chad are nowhere to be seen. Probably back in
the corner by the coatroom making out again. They get two nights a week to see each other, so they use them well. I get it.

“Why’d you stop?” someone says. I don’t think she’s talking to me until she tugs on my sleeve and says it again. “Why’d you stop?”

She’s about a foot shorter than me, about fifty—maybe older. Yeah. Older than Mom, for sure.

“Better to leave the dance floor to people who can actually dance, you know?” I say this in the most nervous seventeen-year-old voice I ever heard. I think I’m shaking.

“I thought you were great,” she says.

I say, “Really?” because I have no idea what else to say. There is no doubt this woman has hit on at least three million women in her life. And though she looks a bit leathery and is dressed like the biker from the Village People (leather vest, boot-cut jeans, leather biker cap and engineer boots), there’s something attractive about her because she’s
her
.

“Really. You looked great.”

I nod and send her love.
Biker Lady, I love you for talking to me right now. Time is moving so much faster because you’re talking, and I need that because I just discovered I am a robot.

“You here with someone?”

I look to make sure Kristina and Donna are still far enough away not to overhear. “My girlfriend had to work,” I say, nodding.

She smiles at me. It’s not a creepy smile or a flirtatious smile. I can’t describe it. It’s like a supportive smile. Friendly and happy for me. Happy that I have a girlfriend. Behind her, edging in like he’s about to order a drink, is Frank Socrates.
He’s smiling, too, because it’s my brain that put him here. I dressed him in a toga and made his hair extra frizzy because it’s humid outside. He puts me at ease, which is better than how I felt up until now as a robot.

The music morphs into another song, and Biker Lady turns to me and says, “Come on! Show me what you got!” and grabs my wrist and drags me out to the floor. I look over my shoulder, and Frank’s still there, smiling. I’m so glad I brought him. I need the moral support.

So I dance with Biker Lady. It’s an old song, “Boogie Wonderland,” and I start my robot not-dancing dancing again while she dances around me and blows a whistle periodically and claps. She’s got biceps twice the size of Dad’s.

Halfway through the song, I get a little glimpse of what it’s like not to care that people might be looking at me. Not to care what they might say about me. I smile, and the biker lady smiles back and blows her whistle and then starts a victory lap around the bar.

All the people at the bar put out their hands for high fives, and some pat her on the ass or hug her and some duck down and kiss her. It occurs to me, as I stand on the edge of the dance floor out of breath, that people here are nice to each other.

It occurs to me that Atlantis
could be
the exact opposite of Unity Valley, just like Kristina said it was.

“New friend of yours?” Kristina asks.

I nod.

“You sure this isn’t weird for you?” She points to two women kissing.

I shrug. “I’ve seen you and Donna do that before.” I want to
add that I don’t see one straight person here, but I don’t think it’s relevant. Plus, I guess we both know Kristina was lying to get me to do what she wanted me to do. Which is what she does sometimes.

“Who said my name?” Donna says as she dances into our conversation.

“I think we should make this a Saturday night tradition,” Kristina says.

I pull out my phone again and see it’s one o’clock. I realize that I have to leave for work in four short hours.

Kristina points. “Here comes your friend.”

Biker Lady comes up on my right side and puts her strong arm around me. “You coming back to see us next week?”

Kristina and I nod.

“You bringing your girlfriend next time?”

“I don’t know,” I say.

Kristina hears this and has that look on her face, so I wink at her to let her know that this was a lie I had to tell to cover my ass on my first night in a gay bar. It doesn’t stop her from looking at me in a new way, though. As if maybe I do have a girlfriend.

“I hope to see you then,” Biker Lady says. “And your lucky lady.” Then she walks to the back of the bar and blends in with the regulars who all stand by the DJ booth.

We hold our laughter in until she is completely out of sight. Then we crack up. Kristina says, “Lucky lady! Oh, my God!”

Donna brings us two beers, and we crack up again when I say, “Speaking of lucky ladies!”

You know what this is? It’s fun.

You know the last time I had fun? I can’t remember.

MY ALARM GOES OFF AT FIVE
. As in five
AM
. Oh-five-hundred hours. Like, about an hour after I fell asleep. I can still hear the music pumping in my ears. I can still feel the crispy hair at the base of my neck from dancing until I sweated. I manage to brush my teeth, put a bandanna on over my insane hair and get dressed in my catering standard: checked pants and a white men’s T-shirt. The idea of food—eating it or preparing it or touching it—is just so far from what I want to face right now. I feel like during the night, a family of raccoons built a nest in my head and then got diarrhea there. I think this is called a hangover, but I can’t be sure.

Dee is waiting for me in her Buick, and she smiles when
she sees me round the corner of the parking lot. I park in the space next to her and put my forehead on my steering wheel to indicate that I am still technically asleep. I hear her car door slam shut, and then there is an aggressive knock on my window.

“Hey, sleepyhead. Come on.”

I pretend to sleep more. I slouch. I slide to my right and lump myself on the passenger’s seat. She opens the door and climbs in on top of me.

She kisses my neck and my cheek and my head, and I instantly get giggly, and then she turns my head and kisses me and time stands still and I don’t care how late I am to punch my stupid time card.

When she moves to put her hand between my legs, I stop her.

“Whoa there. Just where do you think you are?”

“I know where I am,” she says, moving to my fly. “I know where I’m going.”

“Where are you?”

“I am in a big parking lot that only has two cars in it. Yours and mine. And no one can see or hear us.” She kisses my ear. “So why waste it?”

I escape by rolling onto the floor and crab-walking my way toward the open driver’s door. She pouts like this is a joke. It irks me that she thinks this is fine. It’s not fine. It’s pushy. Annoying. Not to mention borderline creepy that I had to escape my own car.

Seconds after I stand up outside the car and straighten my
shirt, Juan arrives at the deliveries door and says something to me. I have no idea what he says. I think he’s speaking Spanish.

If I spoke Spanish, I think a little part of me would want to say, “Thank you for saving me, Juan. I owe you one.”

Today we make five pounds of shrimp, some clams on the half shell, four vegetable trays with broccoli, cauliflower, celery and carrots, and three trays of mushroom vol-au-vents. I pretend to have fun with Dee singing our shrimp-deveining song and stuff like that, but I don’t go into the walkins. I don’t even help her do dishes. Before we go our separate ways after work, we sit in my car. And before I say anything, she says, “You’re going to tell me to back off again, aren’t you?” She pouts.

“See? You’re a maniac.”

“I’m a fiend for you. I can’t help it.”

“You can’t or you won’t?”

“I don’t know. I just—” She moves in closer. “I just want you so bad, Jones.”

I grab her approaching hand. “If all you want is sex, then why don’t you find a girl who just gives out? I want to get to know you better.”

“What’s there to know?” she asks.

“I don’t know.” I reach past her into the glove compartment for my Rolaids. “What’s your favorite meal?”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.” I reach over and hold her hand. We slink down in the car seats, and I put my feet on the dash.

She shrugs. “I like roast beef and mashed potatoes with homemade gravy and… hmm… carrots? No. Peas. No. Carrots.”

“You can have both, you know.”

“Yeah, both.”

She looks bored. It’s as if she’s never talked about her favorite foods and held hands before.

“What about your favorite thing to do?”

She looks at me with that pout again. “Not allowed to say,” she says.

“I mean, before you did that—what was your favorite thing to do?”

“Hockey.”

“Oh yeah. Of course.”

“And running. I love running.”

“And you love washing cauliflower, right?”

“As long as I’m with you, I love it.”

I look at her and cock my head. “I think that’s the sweetest thing you ever said to me.”

“All true,” she says. “So why were you so tired this morning? Up reading some crazy book? Writing poetry about how much you love my fine brawny ass?” she asks.

I chew my Rolaids and take an extra second to consider my options here. It’s Dee. She no doubt knows about Atlantis. She may have even been there before. I think about Kristina and Justin and their secrets that I’ve sworn to keep. I think
about how I have different secrets hidden from different people in different areas of my life. I think about how that might be the reason I’m chewing on Rolaids all the time.

She leans in to kiss me good-bye, and when she does, I wish I lived on the right planet where kissing Dee Roberts wasn’t a big freaking deal. Where it didn’t mean I have to affix a label to my forehead so people can take turns trying to figure out what
caused
it or what’s
wrong
with me. And I wish I didn’t have to lie so much. I don’t think Frank Socrates would approve of all this lying.

I think Frank would want me to cause a lot more trouble.

THE CLOSER I GET TO HOME
, the worse my hangover gets. My head aches, and my gut feels horrible. Especially when I walk into the house and have to face the smell of my mother’s paella. Oh, God. It’s her crazy ultimate paella with every shellfish known to man in it. Why can’t I have a normal mom who wants to make American food? Burgers and fries. Something from the freezer section? Grilled cheese sandwiches and canned tomato soup?

I change out of my work clothes and take a shower. Then I check through my backpack for any homework I can get a jump on so I can avoid going into the land of ultimate paella. I have to write a paper about one of the stories we read in lit class,
so I lie on my bed and wait for an idea to come to me, until I get dangerously close to sleep, and then I make myself get up.

“Will you give me a hand?” Mom says as I walk through the kitchen.

“Sure.”

“Can you fill glasses?”

I grab the pitcher full of water and start filling glasses.

“Shit!” she says. I look over and see her wrestling with the huge stockpot, trying to tip the contents into a large serving bowl. I put down the pitcher and help her. Not without catching a whiff of the mussels and pimentos.

“Thanks,” she says. I am amazed at how normal this whole exchange was. I’m impressed that she didn’t critique my serving-bowl-holding abilities or something.

Twenty minutes later, I’m pretending to eat paella but really eating more bread dipped in olive oil than paella. So far, no one notices.

“We play Holy Guardian on Tuesday, and then we’re at home on Friday against Frederickstown again. Over halfway through the season already,” Ellis says.

“I’ll make it to the Frederickstown game. Can’t do Tuesday, though,” Dad says.

Mom stays quiet.

“Awesome, Dad. You rock,” Ellis says.

Does anyone else in the room hear the
not awesome, Mom—you don’t rock
part? I do.

“Doesn’t look like you guys will make it to the postseason, though,” Dad says. “I know you really wanted to.”

“It’s cool. I have next year to try again, right?” Ellis smiles at him.