Out of Orange (5 page)

He had recently become my best friend. We had a lot in common. We were both unfashionable scotch drinkers, meat eaters, and cigarette smokers. We had both followed our girlfriends to Northampton from Provincetown; his current girlfriend was an old schoolmate of mine from Boston and a former lesbian I’d had a crush on; Phillip and I worked at the same restaurant, the same shifts; we were both about to graduate from our twentysomethings with nothing to show for it; and we were surrounded by a population of students whose bright futures were practically guaranteed by their pedigree, provenance, or trust funds.

As soon as Phillip hung up the phone, the quiet of my hotel room tried to swallow me. My wild imagination started churning away again, and I was spooked anew. I took the manila envelope full of cash from my Tumi bag and secured it in the room’s safe, then prepared myself for a dash to the lobby. I peeped out the eyehole of my door before opening it, opened it, and found the hall was still deserted.

I couldn’t keep this secret from everyone, not after everything I had just been through. I had done something so completely out of the ordinary, survived something I thought was amazing, and it was behind me. I was all the way back in Northampton, back in the fold of my friends, and far, far away from my co-conspirators in my drug-smuggling adventure. I could never have told anyone about my trip with my co-conspirators around.

I had fantasized about my return to Northampton the whole way there. Honestly, I had been fantasizing about my return to Northampton since I had left in January. The story line I was returning with had changed quite a bit, but I was still returning victorious. It was just a different kind of victory than I had planned on when
I’d set out for Chicago with Phillip. My bullshit cover story would be fine for most everyone else. But I would tell Phillip the real story. He had been there in Chicago when I got the sudden invitation to meet my soon-to-be brother-in-law and he knew about the rather odd job offer too. He knew what I had run off to do and it wasn’t to work as an art critic.

The snow was falling when I left the hotel and it had become much colder. The gas lanterns that flank Main Street had come to life, and halos formed in their light, caught by the falling snow. An inch had already fallen and there was as much as a foot expected. At the moment, it was very close to being a whiteout. I could only see halfway up the hill when I got to the intersection of State and Main, and when I squinted, all I could really see were the lit entries of a few still-open businesses. The buildings themselves had vanished into the murky dark.

I walked out of the cold and damp wind into Spoleto. Once inside, I could see as little of the world outside the picture windows as I had been able to see of the restaurant’s interior from the street. But the sweat on the windows that had told of how warm the restaurant would be inside, now that I was inside, told of how very cold it was outside. The world looked bitter, watery, and white. I scanned the main room of Spoleto and the immense rectangular granite bar, which took up a large part of the space. There was no more of the waiting-to-be-seated crowd, and the seats at the bar I liked were open.

I walked to my old barstool, the one I used to take my shifters at when I was done with work, and sat down. Larry, a permanent resident of Northampton and my favorite waiter, was bartending. It took him a moment to realize who had just asked him for a short Dewar’s and soda, but as soon as he did, his eyes lit up and he poured my drink. He handed me the scotch and was about to say something.

“Hey.” I looked over my shoulder, knowing full well who had whispered it. Joan sat down next to me, looking for a sign that it was all right to remain in the seat. I smiled and she slid the rest of the
way onto the stool. “Can I buy you a drink?” she asked and grabbed my hand. I nodded and looked down at her lap, where her hand covered mine. “I’m so sorry.” I could swear she actually sighed this.

I felt disgust and deep sadness simultaneously. I remembered the “I’m sorry” from months ago. I had felt completely blindsided. I had been sure that we were in love with each other, very in love with each other, not some one-sided obsession that the ultimate development in our relationship had suggested. It had been the most irrationally timed breakup imaginable. We had gone to Paris together. (This, by the way, had been my first trip overseas, not hers.) Joan had said something. I can’t recall exactly what, but it had meant our affair was ending, right there in the City of Love and on the morning I was to fly home. She had planned to stay behind for a few weeks, so I didn’t even have time to change her mind. I had hoped when she came back from Paris we would work it out. It seemed crazy that we would not. But by the time she’d come back, she didn’t want to see me.

That was months before. I thought, mistakenly, that enough distance, absurdity, and time had passed that the only thing I felt for her would be spite and anger. I was wrong. It wasn’t spite or anger I felt as she spoke so alluringly about the trivial developments in her simple, perfect world. She was just so goddamned beautiful! Her watery blue eyes, perfect lips, and bubblegum tongue were cruel. My heart ached all over again.

Before I realized it, she was done with our conciliatory drink and she was on her way to join her waiting companion outside. I knew the guy she was with; he was an older man I recognized as a professional contact of hers. “Call me.” Two whispery words in my ear and I was all hers again—her toy to break and discard. I probably should have picked up my fork and started stabbing, but instead we made a date.

Joan left the restaurant, and Phillip walked into Spoleto about ten minutes later and found me at the bar, already slightly blurred with Dewar’s and soda. I was yacking away with Larry, the bartender, who had commented on my tan, my weight loss, and my outfit. A
few of my former coworkers had stopped by for hugs, kisses, or chatty banter. Phillip was patient for a minute. Then he sat down and ordered a Dewar’s on the rocks, shooing the bartender off. He wanted to know about my trip, why I hadn’t called, did I know how freaked out he had been? The little bit he did know guaranteed he would not settle for anything less than everything, not the bullshit lie he knew I had been telling the bartender.

I didn’t lose forty pounds from being a bundle of chickenshit nerves, starved and sick with
Giardia
for six solid weeks. No, that was intentional, a strict diet. The way I told Phillip the story, the lackluster training by example Henry had afforded me became ninja warrior preparation. I had been to Paris, to Brussels, to the Ivory Coast of Africa, and to Soule. I hadn’t been to Soule; I just threw it in for color. I told him about my cover story. How I was pretending to work for an art expert at a publishing company in Paris. The story was I assisted a woman who was assembling an art anthology made up of graffiti from around the world, which I would find and photograph for her for comparison to current movements in art.

I had adapted my tale from Henry’s artful cover story. I had known Henry for a long time. He had been my sister’s friend for years, and I had envied his existence for as long. Phillip knew who Henry was too. I guess from his Provincetown days. But almost everything we had thought we knew about him was made-up bullshit. I told Phillip that Henry had been my trainer and that he wasn’t actually a successful art dealer; that was his cover story. He was sort of an art dealer, though, but he only represented one artist. That little distinction was what made it so effortless when he lied to Customs about the purpose of his trips.

He would say he had been visiting wherever we’d come from on business. He could tell a Customs agent a whole story about his trip without lying once. His story would be backed up by trinkets and memorabilia from each of the shows or galleries he attended. The point of all of this effort was to get past the first potential obstacle to success. If, for some reason, I was selected by a Customs agent to
be hassled, coming back into the United States, a poorly researched or delivered cover story would be my undoing.

The restaurant had emptied out a little and I spoke more quietly with Phillip to match the lowering volume of our surroundings. We had opted to dine at the bar, so I had to be careful not to be overheard. In the mirrors that spanned the restaurant’s walls, I saw a waitress I knew was a big gossip come up behind us with our food. I made sure she heard a few positive tidbits as she approached.

She took our salads and served our dinner plates, then asked if we wanted Parmesan on our pasta. We leaned back so the gossipy waitress could reach our plates and grate the cheese. “Life is treating you well in Chicago?” The waitress beamed her famously fake smile as she delivered the compliment and cheese. I nodded a dismissive affirmation, easily made my joy to see her look equally fake, and leaned back into my conversation with Phillip when she was done grating a mountain of Parmesan.

When she left, I continued my story while Phillip gobbled up his dinner: shrimp scampi on a bed of linguini. I told him about having to actually go to art exhibits and galleries in Paris, talk to artists, and learn a bunch of shit. I sarcastically added how my high school French came in handy. Then I told him about Africa, how I went on these amazing expeditions in search of art and graffiti. I was copying Henry’s lead and experiencing a life to match my cover story. If I had to tell the lie to Customs, it wasn’t going to be a complete lie.

Larry dropped off two glasses of wine. Phillip had a cold glass of pinot grigio and I had a ruby-red glass of Chianti Classico. I took a sip and ate a couple of bites of the angel hair. Phillip touched the sleeve of my jacket, examining the fabric, and said, “Nice.” I told him about shopping in Paris, looking for the clothes I would wear on the plane. I described my dress rehearsals for my role, in Brussels and again in Paris. I would get all dressed up and go out to the art shows. I had pretended to be someone I was not, and practicing the role had made it real to me. I had also needed some practice getting used to walking in dress heels. My tomboy gait hadn’t fit the image Henry had been hoping for, and it had taken a little work and
a lot of blisters to correct. Phillip knew I was unaccustomed to the heel torture most women had overcome by my age. I don’t think he had ever seen me dressed up according to society’s standards before.

We finished our meal and Larry asked to take our plates away. When he came back to wipe away our crumbs, we ordered cappuccinos.

I told Phillip more about Africa, meeting the Nigerian whom my sister was in love with. I described the scary but impressive train of dinner guests at his huge table every night: an Italian general of some sort, the secretary of something-or-other for the Nigerian government, a council member from Cotonou. I told him about the armed compound I’d stayed at in Benin, the days spent at the round pool and the beach at the Sheraton, the voodoo markets, the marabout priests and Sufis who counseled our host. I tried to describe the flocks of happy kids in Ganvié, a village built atop Lake Nokoué. I recounted one drive up the coast and the fishing tribe we watched pull in the day’s catch someplace beyond Porto-Novo. I told of our crossing the border into Togo at a chaotic roadside station and my quandary about the hordes of haggard people trudging by with everything they owned in tow. I had too many vivid memories to recount adequately in one sitting and so many unanswered questions about the things I had seen. I told him about the flight back to Chicago and how scared I had been. I told him about getting up before dawn on the day I was to fly.

I had carried a man’s suit jacket stuffed with heroin in my garment bag. Phillip’s expression registered surprise when I told him about its contents. This was the first he had heard of heroin being smuggled. When I had been asked and had agreed “to work” in Chicago, we’d thought the whole smuggling business was about diamonds.

Phillip had wanted to go with me then but he hadn’t been invited. I’d had to act surprised when the offer was made to me; my sister was not supposed to have told me anything about her friends’ and my new roommates’ real vocation. Therefore, I couldn’t really advocate
for Phillip joining us or pass on his interest in doing so at the time. Phillip definitely wasn’t supposed to know anything about the smuggling operations going on under his nose. I think he had been disappointed but had accepted the situation for what it was. I had then vowed I would return to Chicago a week later, a few thousand dollars richer.

When we were done with dinner, I told him how Henry and Bradley had prepared and swallowed the big capsules and how the guys had harvested these capsules back in Chicago, counted and cleaned them. I told him about the way we’d had to stay in our Chicago hotel room for days babysitting all the heroin, waiting for it to get picked up and to be paid. Then I ran out of storytelling steam, and besides, Phillip wanted to get to the liquor store before it closed.

The money I had earned was back at the hotel, and I wanted to show him. I thought he needed to see this to believe it all—everything I had just told him sounded insane, made up. I knew it was a lot to take in as quickly as I had spouted it all off, and I had seen a look on his face that suggested he might not believe some of the details. I recalled not believing my sister when she had told me about Henry, who after all these many years admitted to her he smuggled diamonds for a living, and how she had been invited to do the same.

I paid our check, and by the time we left, there was perhaps four inches of snow on the ground and more where the wind had created drifts. It didn’t feel as cold as it had when I had gone into Spoleto, but that was probably the scotch or the wine numbing my senses. At the liquor store, I grabbed a bottle of Dewar’s and a pack of smokes. Phillip’s order was identical. I took him back to the hotel with me. I was happy to have the escort and I was not ready for the night to be over.

He followed me like an excited puppy to the Hotel Northampton, running to pick up speed and slide down the slippery parts of the sidewalk that had not yet been salted in several places. We walked into the hotel and past the empty hotel desk, past the bartender, who had patrons to serve and who looked up and said, “Hello.” We
passed two other hotel guests on their way out and it delighted me that the hotel no longer seemed abandoned or spooky.