The Cormorant (12 page)

But then all that doesn’t matter, because a couple of douchebros saunter up behind the two of them, hands reaching out and touching the smalls of their backs, gentle, but insistent; Miriam shifts and the bro presses harder, like he owns her. One’s got his Oakley sunglasses up over his chiseled head and his breath smells like sour tequila. The other is fatter, his head swollen like a cocktail olive and in this light looks about the same color, and he’s showing off crooked white teeth in a lopsided smile–

Douchebros One and Two are trying to buy them drinks, dropping half-slurred come-ons, hitting on the two of them with all the grace and aplomb of orangutans banging their cocks against a telephone pole. And the other woman, the green-eyed spiky-haired blonde, she says something polite, a “No, thanks, we’re good here,” and it’s far nicer than what Miriam would have said, but then the two bros have to go and ruin it for everybody.

The white one with the sunglasses, the one who probably knows all the brands of surfboards and snowboards and flip-flops but can’t remember his own mother’s birthday, says, “Don’t be a bitch. Why you gotta roll your eyes at me?” And then the other one, the fathead with the darker complexion, is saying something about how the two of them are “probably clam-lappers anyway,” and he says it under his breath but Oakley Boy repeats it and laughs like a snorting pig.

Miriam’s had enough. She blurts, “If you don’t go away, I’m going to retroactively abort the both of you.”

And then they’re laughing, mocking her. “I’ll retroactively abort you,” Oakley Boy says, spitting her words back at her in a fake bitchy tone, and Fathead adds, “I don’t even know that that means,”
huh-huh-huh heh-heh-heh
, and then Miriam spins around and –
Grrrrk ptoo! –
hawks a loogey right in Oakley Boy’s mouth.

He’s suddenly coughing and spitting and trying to backhand her and knock her off the stool, but she catches his wrist–

He’s old, skin like Bible pages, and he’s in a robe the color of a robin’s belly. He’s puttering around the downstairs and he’s calling someone’s name – “Rachel, Rachel,” – but his mind is a block of Swiss cheese, holes eaten into it by the curse of Alzheimer’s, and then he goes to the cellar steps and calls for Rachel one last time before his brittle ankle twists and he tumbles down the cement steps like a sack of footballs. His head hits the floor face-first. Teeth scatter. He lies there a while, wheezing and whimpering, pissing his pants, and then he remembers Rachel and him were never together and Rachel is dead, and then, just like that, so is he.

–and then Miriam’s other arm darts out, catches his head in the cradle of her hand, and jams Oakley’s skull against Fathead’s skull, and they don’t bonk like coconuts so much as they thud together like two slabs of beef. Fathead trips over his own feet and goes down, bleating like a sheep. Oakley comes at her but she knees her stool forward–

It catches him in the balls. He goes down. Howling.

Fast forward: she and the other woman are bolting down Duval Street past the drunks and pirates and cruise-ship tourists, and the blonde pulls Miriam into an alcove between an art gallery and a Cuban food joint and Miriam starts cursing about those thin-dicked shit-birds, those assholes who think they can saunter into a bar and jam their nickel-sized cocks into whatever coin slot they want just by using a few weak-fuck pick-up lines–

The other woman says, “You have a dirty mouth. I want to taste it.”

Then it’s her mouth on Miriam’s, teeth clicking, skin chafing, two tongues pushing forth and pulling back, a friendly game of
tongue-of-war.
A death vision slides in here, but it’s like a kite dipping and swaying in a hard wind and Miriam can’t seem to catch it. She chases it like fire chasing smoke but it evades, always out of reach. Then the woman’s hands are on her sides, up and down, fingers past the waistband of Miriam’s jeans. Someone nearby sees them, wolf-whistles, and both women thrust up a pair of middle fingers – synchronized vulgarity, a new Olympic sport.

Fast forward: the woman’s house, ten blocks away, no clothes – two animals clawing at each other, each trying to make a feast of the other, thighs wrapped around thighs, spin around, tits mashed against shoulder blades, fingers down, up, in, pistoning–

Taste and skin and sweat and lube and something that vibrates and – car outside, Cuban music coming in through open curtains, the whine of a mosquito in the well of the ear, the tiny moan of the woman underneath her, the squeak of the bed frame, the whisper of palms outside–

TWENTY

TOUCH AND GO

“Oh,” Miriam says. “
Oh
.”

The other woman’s hand slides over Miriam’s hip – the bones there so pronounced they might as well be the handlebars of a bicycle – and dips down toward her thighs, and Miriam starts to go with it but gasps sharply and plucks the hand from her thigh and sets it on the sheet.

“You want to come back to bed?” the woman asks.

“I want to know your name.”

“Didn’t I tell you already?” She laughs. “Maybe I didn’t. We were pretty drunk.”

“I’m still a little drunk.”

“Me too.” And the hand is back again, the snake up the tree, the vine up the fencepost, and once more Miriam pushes back the shivers and the desire and – less gently this time – plucks the invader’s hand off of her. “OK. Sorry.”

“It’s not – you don’t need to apologize. Obviously we had fun–”

Here the girl’s smile transforms into a sharp blade wicked enough to take a man’s head from his neck.

“–but I
still
don’t know your name.”

“Gabby.”

“That’s a horrible name.” That comment darts out of her mouth like a cat seeing an open door – just no catching it and putting it back inside.

The woman – Gabby – sits up. “
Hey
.”

“No, I don’t mean… I just mean–” And here it goes. “Names are very important; they’re how we see people, and no matter who a person is, a funky name will cling to you like an ugly wet dress and nobody will see who you really are, they’ll just see the ugly dress. Right? Like what if George Clooney was named Artie Finklenuts. Or if Marie Curie was, I dunno, Grimelda Shatblossom.”

“Gabby is not an ugly dress name.”

“It’s not, it’s not, but it sounds like you talk a lot. Gabby. Gab.” Her hand forms a little alligator puppet whose chompy mouth opens and closes in a mimicry of talking. “Gab gab gab. Is your full name Gabrielle? See, I like that. That’s pretty. You should go with that.”

“No,” the woman says, her voice suddenly steely, her words bled dry of any of the lust that had been present. “My parents named me Gabby. That is my name. Gabby. Not Gabrielle. Or Gabriella. Or anything else.
Gabby
.”

“They named you after a nickname? Cruel move.”

“Go to hell.”

“You’re pissed.”

“Yes! I’m pissed. We had a good night –
Jesus
, did we have a good night – and now you wake up and you’re just being mean.”

Miriam scooches to the edge of the bed. Looks for her panties. Spies them on the ground in a little black pile. “I should go.”

“I guess you should.”

Miriam grabs her panties with her toes like a primate, then begins pulling them up over her hips. “I’m not trying to piss on your parade and call it rain. Before I walked into that rum bar, I was having a strange night. You caught me when I was vulnerable. I’m not good people.”

Gabby makes a sound like she just ate a spoonful of salt when she thought she was getting sugar. “Really? You’re one of those?”

“One of those what?”

“Those types.”

“Those types of
what
?”

“Girls. Women. Who…who think they’re all damaged and broken and they’re anxious or depressed and so they just…
inflict
themselves on other people. Ugh! You let them in and everything seems cool but then comes the excuses, the
I’m not worth it
, the
I’m bad for you, Gabby. So sorry, thanks for the quick lay
–” She rolls her head back on her neck and groans. “Stupid! So stupid, Gabby. Jesus.”

“I
am
bad for other people. At this point I think it’s scientifically proven.” She mutters, “I’m sure it’s on the Internet somewhere.”

Gabby flops back on the bed. From behind her hands she moans, “Another one. I found another one. Why am I always attracted to your type?” She buries her face under the pillow.

Miriam sits back down on the edge of the bed. Gets her jeans halfway up her legs and then just sits there. Staring off at an unfixed point a thousand miles away. Guilt and shame make a bitter cocktail inside her. She finishes pulling on her jeans and she goes over to Gabby and pries the pillow off the other woman’s head.

“I’m sorry you think I’m mean.”

“Worst kind of apology ever. It puts the blame on me. It says I should really be the one apologizing to you for… misinterpreting what was
obviously
a loving gesture.”

“Fine. I’m sorry I
was
mean.”

“OK. Great. Awesome. You can go now.”

But Miriam hovers. “It’s been a while.”

“Been a while since what?”

“Since–” She gesticulates over the bed in all its sex-rumpled grandeur. “Since this.”

“Since you got some.”

“Almost got into it with this dude last year–”
But he turned out to be one of a whole nest of serial killers.
“But that did not work out.”

“A dude. Oh. So, I’m your first woman.”

“What? Hey. No. You’re not the first love-puddle in which I’ve snorkeled. Though, ah, it’s been a few years.”

“You’re not gay.”

“No. I like to think I’m loosey-goosey–”

“You’re a straight girl on a gay vacation.”

“Jiggling Jesus, don’t be so dramatic, it’s called being
flexible
–”

“You’re just renting out my pussy like it’s a vacation home.”

“Oh, come on, ‘renting out’–”

Wham.
It hits her. Vacation home. Rental. Duh.
Duh
. Whoever is messing with her rented that house on Torch Key. Which she already knew. All she has to do is contact the people who rented it out and find out to whom they rented it – easy-peasy titty-squeezy.

“I gotta go,” Miriam says.

“And now you run away.”

“No, this isn’t… It’s not… This isn’t
you
, this is something else, this is a problem I maybe just figured out. Someone’s messing with me, and I don’t like it.”

“I know the feeling. So go.”

“I’ll call you.”

“You don’t even have my number!”

But Miriam doesn’t hear her because she’s already out the door, darting toward the Fiero.

INTERLUDE

NOW

“
That’s
when you got pulled over,” Grosky says.

Miriam gives a half shrug. “Not exactly. The fucking car died on me ten minutes out of Key West. I paraded around and kick-punched the car a buncha times and then, next thing I know, blue-and-reds. They made me do the alphabet backwards – which, for the record, I cannot do sober – and they said I was too drunk to drive and blah blah blah.”

Vills leans in. “What was your plan? What did you think you could accomplish at that hour of the morning?”

“I was going to go back to the Torch Key house. Pound on the door. Wake Peter up if he was still there – if not, break in. People had to have contact information in there somewhere.”

“Then what?”

“Call them. Ask them.”

“Why would they give out that information to you?”

“I don’t know! I can be persuasive. Or violent. It wasn’t a super-awesome plan, OK? Did you or did you not hear the part where I was drunk?”

Grosky shrugs. “You know, if you hadn’t been caught that night, we wouldn’t be here right now.”

“Then hoorah for fate throwing us together,” she says with an eye roll.

“Seriously. You showed up on our radar just as we were looking for you. You take a pretty rough-looking mug-shot. It’s funny now, hearing the story, because I said to Vills – Vills, what did I say to you when I saw Miriam’s mug shot here?”

Vills says, “He said, ‘Looks like she has JBF hair.’”

“‘Just Been Fucked’ hair,” Grosky clarifies.

“Clever,” Miriam says.

“I like it. Whatever. Point is, you can think what you want about fate, but it brought us together today. Here in this little shack on the beach. Nobody else around. Very romantic.”