Kiss Kill Vanish (28 page)

“My authentic self is appalled by the misogynistic crap that's coming out of your mouth.”

“Oh no,” he groans. “You listened to it?”

I follow him up the walkway. “My IQ dropped at least ten points from beginning to end.”

He holds the door open for me. “I warned you.”

Inside is packed.

“Game weekend,” our server tells us with an eye roll, as if we're locals ourselves and just as annoyed with the pesky alumni clogging up the tables. “It'll be a tomb again by Monday.”

“I hope this is good,” Marcel whispers to me as she wipes down our table.

“This many West Virginians can't be wrong,” I whisper back.

“Good or bad, we'll be sweating garlic for a week. I'm sure Emilio will be thrilled to have you back in his arms.”

I have no comeback.

Cutlery clanking relentlessly against plates and dozens of conversations should cover the echo of what he just said. But the words are still there, still loud, still bouncing back and forth between us. Marcel's face is impassive as he ducks into the booth. I don't sit. I rest my fingertips on the wet table, which, even after the wipe down, feels like it's coated in the grease of a thousand spilled meals.

He looks up. “You staying?”

“I need to use the bathroom,” I mumble, and leave him to peruse the sticky menu.

I use the toilet, then stare at my haggard reflection. My authentic self looks like hell. I pull out the small bit of makeup I have in my purse and try to fix things, but the effort looks too obvious. I certainly don't want Marcel thinking I'm trying to look good for him. I wipe it off and go back to the table.

The menu is long, and the descriptions of most of the entrées are similar. I look around at the food on the other tables. It all looks the same too.

Eventually, the waitress comes back and takes our order: moussaka for Marcel, artichoke pie for me. “It'll be awhile,” she explains as she scribbles on her pad of paper. “The kitchen is backed up, and Debbie's son has the pukes, so we're short staffed out here.”

“No problem,” Marcel says, handing her our menus. Once she's gone, he adds, “I hope Debbie's son didn't get the pukes from eating here.”

“So how far are we from Miami?”

“About halfway, so thirteen hours.”

“Uuggggh.” I put my forehead on the table and immediately regret it. Sticky. I actually hear my skin peeling off the surface when I lift it again. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. I think we should take a break and spend the night here.”

“I don't think they'll let us sleep in this booth.”

“I meant in a hotel with showers and real beds. How much of a hurry are you in to get there? It's not like he's expecting you.”

He's right. There's no deadline, no set event I'm trying to make, so why do I feel this unsettling urgency? “I guess we could stay here tonight. If we leave early tomorrow, we could be there by evening, right?”

Marcel shrugs. “Sure. We could leave at seven and be there at nine or ten p.m. with a few stops.”

When we're done with our meal, we find a Holiday Inn close to the highway, and Marcel checks us in while I tidy the car. I watch him saunter back, a little-boy grin on his face, and I'm struck again by the transformation. A few weeks ago he was sobbing in a movie theater, and a few weeks before that he was shooting up and checking out.

“I've got good news and bad news,” he says.

“Good news first.”

“They have a pool.”

“Great, I don't have a swimsuit.”

“What?” he exclaims, getting back in the car. “Who goes to Florida without a swimsuit? And what did you do with the swimsuit you've been wearing at my pool?”

“It was my roommate's, and I have plenty of swimsuits waiting for me in Miami. Why are you getting in the car?”

“So we can park on the other side. It's closer to our room.”

“
Our
room?”

“That's the bad news. They've only got one left.”

I roll my eyes. “Are you kidding me? This is like a bad sitcom. I get the bed.”

“Let's wrestle for it.”

“I don't think so.”

“But it's a king,” he argues, pulling into a parking spot on the other side. “Are you seriously going to make me sleep on the floor after an entire night of driving?”

“Whatever,” I grumble. “Just stay on your side.”

He pulls two key cards out of his pocket. “Kidding. Your room.” He holds one out to me. “And my room,” he waves the other one.

I grab the card.

“I can't believe you were willing to share a bed with me. There are a bunch of other hotels in town you could have insisted we check out.”

“All right, shut up.” I get out of the car, grab my mandolin and bag of clothes, and head toward the nearest entrance.

“We can still snuggle if you really want,” he calls after me. “I'm just next door.”

The room is small but appears clean, and the bed feels gloriously soft after the car seat and my cot back in Montreal. I toss the mandolin and my bag on the chair, strip off my grimy clothes, and step into the shower. It's freezing at first. Then scalding. I can't seem to find an in-between, so I stick with scalding and let it burn the dirt and sweat and garlic stench off me.

By this time tomorrow I'll be with Emilio.

I step out of the shower scrubbed new, and wrap myself in the terry-cloth robe. It's a little stiff, but I can almost imagine I'm at a spa and not a Holiday Inn. I wander out into the tiny room and stretch out on the full-size bed, then marvel at how beautiful it feels to be able to lie like this, none of my limbs touching each other. My cot was barely big enough to roll over in.

The remote beckons from the bedside table, so I pick it up and turn on the TV. Finger-combing the tangles out of my hair with one hand, I flip through channels, trying to find something interesting. Anything interesting. I flip past shows I haven't seen in months, shows I used to care about, stopping for a minute or two at the most. They seem so inconsequential. Stupid, even.

I take the mandolin out of the case and pluck at the strings, while watching a paunchy celebrity chef make Italian meatballs. Italy. That's a thought. Those islands—Sardinia, Sicily, and the other one I can never remember—are supposed to be beautiful, but I wonder if they're remote enough. I wonder if Emilio has ever been there.

The knock at the door startles me, even though it could only be one person. “Yeah?” I yell without getting up.

“Come swimming with me,” Marcel calls.

I grumble, turn the TV off, and drag myself off the bed and to the door. Marcel is on the other side, already in his swimming trunks.

“I already told you I don't have a suit,” I say.

“There's a Walmart right around the corner. Should we go get you one?”

“I just showered. And I don't feel like swimming.”

“Of course you feel like swimming. Can I come in?”

“Fine.” I take a step back. He's right. A swim would be perfect right now, but I need to be alone for a few hours. I need to be able to worry about Emilio without Marcel reading my face.

“Nice outfit,” he says, flopping down on the bed.

“There's one in your room too, I'm sure.”

“Yeah, well, I'd go change into it, but I don't think lover boy Emilio would want me lounging around your room in a bathrobe.”

I ignore him.

“Although, you're both keeping plenty of secrets from each other already—what's one more to add to the pile? Let me guess, he's the jealous type.”

I close my eyes and rub my temples.

“That means yes. Ironic considering he's the one who—”

“Marcel.”

“What?”

“Enough.”

“Fine. So you think he'd be all right with us hanging out in our matching bathrobes? You

know, I may not be the greatest boyfriend, but I'm very good at taking care of other people's girlfriends. Gifted, really.”

“Marcel,” I repeat louder.

“Valentina.”

“Back. Off.”

Silence settles around us, heavy and uneasy, full with a new understanding. Friendly teasing is over. Friendly everything is over.

I close my eyes, because I can't look at him while I say what needs to be said. “I'm in love with Emilio, and you need to . . .”
Stop flirting with me. Stop looking at me like that.
“After tomorrow I'm not going to, you know . . . we're not going to see each other.”

He laughs. But it doesn't sound like the Marcel I've become used to. “Oh, don't worry about me, princess.”

I open my eyes.

He's not lying on my bed anymore. He's sitting up, arms crossed, face set and unreadable. “I'll be fine. And you're welcome for the lift.”

“No, it's—” I stammer. “It's not that I don't appreciate everything you're doing for me. I do. But I feel like you're doing it for the wrong reason, and that—”

He cuts me off with another laugh, even louder, even harsher. “And that I'll be left heartbroken? No offense, but Emilio's sloppy seconds aren't exactly my thing.” He stands. “I'm going swimming.”

He's gone before I can think of anything to say. The door slams with a finality that vibrates in my bones. The end.

I don't move. I stare at the faded brown curtains and convince myself that this sloshy sick feeling in my stomach will go away. It's there because hurting a friend sucks, and Marcel has been my friend.

I move to the bed, curling into a miserable ball of damp terry cloth and overstuffed pillows and regret. I turn the TV back on in hopes that something banal will swallow me up, but it's all flat images telling flat stories that I don't care about. I turn it off and watch the phantom images fade from the screen where the picture used to be.

This has to be fixed. I can fix this.

I get up, rifle through my bag to find the shorts and tank top I brought to sleep in. Not exactly swim attire, but it's unlikely the Holiday Inn police are going to yank me for it, so I throw them on and grab my room key on the way out.

According to the sign inside the elevator, the pool is on the second floor. The elevator spits me out in front of the change rooms, which I bypass, following the arrow and the humidity and the smell of chlorine to a glass door entrance at the end of the hall.

Luckily, I hear it first. Giggling. Female giggling.

I stop just shy of the doors and take a single step backward. I'm out of view behind the safety of a dusty plastic fern, but I crouch anyway to peer through the edges of the fogged-up glass. He's there. In the hot tub. And his arm is draped around the bony shoulders of a blonde in a gunmetal bikini. She's got huge, laughing, fuchsia lips spread wide enough to fit my fist through.

Grinning, he leans in and whispers something into her ear. She giggles again, louder even, tipping her head back. Mascara smudges are melting down her cheeks, and she's glistening like roasting meat.

Well then.

I take a few more steps backward before I turn and walk quickly back to the elevator. I punch the button again and again and again, willing the elevator to come quicker. Not that there's any chance he saw me, or that he's anywhere close to getting out, judging from the way he was looking at her when he leaned in to whisper.

I don't know why I'm surprised.

The elevator opens and I get in, but it isn't until the doors thud soundly shut in front of me that I realize my heart is racing. I'm more than surprised. I'm angry. No, not angry. Disappointed. But why would cleaning up his act include abandoning his man-slut tendencies? Emilio warned me about him.

I jab the four over and over, like that'll make the elevator move faster. How long has he even been down there—thirty minutes? And he's already just one giggle away from second base with a complete stranger in a hotel pool? Nice work, Marcel.

It wasn't the girl, though. It was the look on his face more than the giggling or anything else. That look. Eyes half-closed. Old Marcel.

And I was worried he was falling for me—I would laugh at myself, but I'm too drained. If old Marcel is back, a little dirty-blond hot tub action is probably the least depressing part of it, and I don't even want to think about what that means. Marcel isn't my responsibility anymore. Actually, he never was.

Once I'm back in my room, I brush my teeth and my hair without looking at myself, turn off the lights, and slide beneath the taut, scratchy sheets. It's only nine thirty, but I don't want to think. I want to be asleep already. But with my eyes closed, lying perfectly still, I see her in that gunmetal bikini, just skimpy triangles tethered with string. And her lips. The giggling. And his lips barely an inch from her collarbone.

These sheets are straitjacket tight. I yank them free on one side but still feel strapped to the bed. I pull out the other side too and throw my head back down into the pillow. It sinks too far. I'm suffocating, and all I can think about is that blond hair falling over Marcel's wet bicep. Her head tipped back, her throat pushed out. So much sweat. His chest too, slick with it.

Stop it, Valentina!

By tomorrow night I'll be wrapped in Emilio's loose, soft sheets and warm brown arms, and none of this will matter. It doesn't matter. It never mattered.

I repeat that over and over. And eventually, I fall asleep in a tangle of itchy sheets.

The giggling finds me in my dreams, melodic and seductive. It's me. I'm laughing. My lips are fuchsia and open, but then I close my mouth and the sound keeps coming. That's when I remember I'm sleeping, but the giggling isn't coming from inside my dream. It's coming from the other side of the wall.

I open my eyes. The clock says 2:37. And there it is again, muffled but unmistakably her.

Unbelievable.