The Invaders (12 page)

He stared at me, waiting for my disgust. “Twenty thousand dollars for a different shade of sand. Why aren't you outraged?”

“Obviously, because I didn't know. Who does that?” I asked.

“Exactly. Who does that? It's all just going to wash away one day.
Then what?” he said.

“It could, you're right. Storms have been worse and worse each year,” I said.

“Watch Florida be wiped off the map this summer. Then we'll be stuck with them year round.”

I stared up at the blue sky and said, “I have to make sure our flood insurance is up to date.”

“Just let things be. Don't need to control it all, you know what I mean? Just let the world spin and we'll all be okay,” Tuck said.

“Did you ever follow the Grateful Dead?” I asked.

“Only in high school, why?”

“You remind me of every Deadhead I ever knew,” I said.

“I could see you on the arm of a Deadhead.”

“I even followed them one summer,” I said.

“No shit?”

“Yeah, one glorious unshowered summer with my boyfriend. What a disaster.”

“Did you have dreadlocks?” he asked.

“No, but he did,” I said, laughing and embarrassed.

Tuck told me all the good ones had. I looked at his thinning hair and thought of Charlie and wondered where he was now. He probably looked like some middle-aged dad somewhere—collared shirts and loafers. Finding former boyfriends online always made me feel so old. I wondered if I looked their age or if I had willed myself to stay young. I had noticed frown lines forming in inopportune places. Continual sadness and lack of sleep did terrible things to a person's face. I had stopped my dawn walks, taking them later in the day for safety. Tired and sunburned, I'd restlessly pace and ache in the humid air.

Mary Ann rolled up in her golf cart and said, “We're having an emergency association meeting to discuss violence and trespassing. Are you two coming?”

“Why are you making it in the middle of the day when most people can't come?” Tuck asked.

“It's an emergency,” Mary Ann countered. “You can ride with me.” She pointed at me.

I hopped in her cart and Tuck trailed behind, wobbling his front wheel.

“Are we having a vote?” I asked.

“What's going on is a travesty,” she said.

She wheeled toward the association building slowly enough so that I could see the new, more insistent signs that were popping up around the neighborhood. Now our dogs weren't allowed on the beach, either, walks had to be conducted in designated areas, and people watched from their windows to make sure you picked up the piles of shit left behind. I hadn't even seen who put them up. As we pulled up to the building, I saw other carts lined up in a row. This was serious.

I heard the battle cries coming from inside the squat building and couldn't do it.

“Mary Ann, I really have to go home. I left the tea kettle on. I'll be right back.”

She eyed me suspiciously, like I wasn't committed to public safety.

“If you don't come back, you can't vote,” she said.

“Of course I will. This affects all of us,” I said, turning. I didn't see Tuck. He had purposely lost us. I could not face a room full of retirees arguing about immigration lockdowns. I left Mary Ann and walked by the Cronin house, close enough to be able to see through their windows. No one was home. I couldn't imagine him keeping quiet for this long. I knew the police had been by the house. What had they told them? And if they asked for a sketch, I couldn't imagine what he'd conjure up. I thought about confronting him, but I had no idea how that would turn out. He was unpredictable.

I HAD SPENT MY MORNING
filling out forms and going through the motions of an “interview” with Richard Shepard. He told me about Brainshark and Salesforce training. Everything sounded tactical. Like we were waging a war with our products, like the opposition couldn't win against our implementations. Now it was after lunch and I was given a cubicle of my own. The walls didn't reach higher than my chest so I could see what was going on in the adjacent cubes. Exactly nothing. The woman next to me had pinned all kinds of photos from vacations with her boyfriend or husband on the walls of her cubicle. Each photo was the same except for a different theme-park backdrop—legs outstretched, hands in lap, holding on to each other like there was no greater love anywhere. Beside the photos were certificates of excellence with her name loud and proud: STACEY CHURCH. STACEY CHURCH. STACEY CHURCH. The guy on the other side of me had crystal awards with his name inscribed on each one. His superior salesmanship on view. He was working it on the phone, closing
the sale. He had words of wisdom printed out in huge letters pinned to the walls of his cubicle: IS THIS THE BEST USE OF OUR TIME AND/OR MONEY? WILL WHAT I'M DOING HELP RESHAPE ARIBACORP'S FUTURE? I considered what my motivational printout would be. Of course: ASS GRASS OR CASH: NOBODY RIDES FOR FREE. Looking around, I knew that shit would not fly here. None of these bastards looked like they had a sense of humor. They were in it to win it.

My cube neighbor slammed the phone down and tapped his fingers on his desk. Logged his sale without looking up. He had just made money while I was standing there like a jerkoff mocking him. I saw him scribble “$10K” on his legal pad with four exclamation points after it and do a silent fist pump under his desk. He looked around to make sure no one was watching and saw me staring at his fucking winning self. How do you ask a guy like that how he does it? You can't.

“Nice job,” I said and sat down in my ergonomic office chair.
I should have gotten high for this
, I thought.

“Oh, your hair!”

People were streaming in from lunch and I didn't want to turn around but I did. A woman stood messing with her hair at the edge of one of the cubicles. Other women surrounded her and I figured they weren't much older than me.

“I gave it all to Locks of Love,” she said, waiting for the onslaught of praise. It came. Everyone around her looked at her like she had done something truly wonderful. She said, “My hair feels more age appropriate now. And that's a good thing, right?” She played with her bangs and then said, “Well, maybe that's not a good thing.”

They all told her that it was a great thing she'd done. I rolled my chair closer to my desk and hunched over my computer keyboard. I felt them looking at me, but no one said anything. Instead, they started talking to the guy next to me. They traveled in packs, each pack walking
over from cubicle to cubicle to chat. I didn't think I'd make it here. I knew I wouldn't. I stared at the woman with the haircut while someone else said “Heather” and waved her away like she was being ridiculous. They all lied to her in different ways to make her feel better.

I wondered what her hair looked like before. She motioned her hand at the middle of her back and said, “Remember when my hair was to here yesterday? Do you all remember?”

They nodded in unison and she repeated the words “Locks of Love” several times while she waited for everyone to tell her how good a person she was again. And they did. She told everyone she had baked a special cake for the occasion. Rum raisin. She laughed and said they would be drunk from her cake before the quarterly meeting. They all laughed with her and looked at me as if I didn't belong there. They offered one another pieces of it, every cubicle except mine. They all ate the cake and Heather asked them over and over again if it was good. If they were enjoying it. If it was delicious. She told them about each ingredient. She told them about the things she included that weren't in the recipe. The risks she took. She wanted to hear that they had paid off. I looked at her and thought,
What the fuck does she know about grateful cancer patients?

I left the office early and took whatever pills I could find in the car. I drove in circles and watched the boats and killed time before I was supposed to go home. I needed to act like I had worked a full and productive day. There was a crowd outside of Milligan's as I drove by, so I pulled in real quick. Inside, the restaurant's wooden benches were filled with families eating clam strips and tourists eating the overpriced lobster dinners.

At the bar, a few people recognized me from town and did the back pat. A few screamed out my nickname and pounded the bar. The bartender looked at me with a fucking annoyed expression on his face and I instantly regretted coming in.

I ordered a Guinness and sat at the end of the bar, scanning, looking for anyone good. It probably would have been a better bet to cruise over to Don Julio's, where there was a chance tourist girlfriends were drinking bowl-size margaritas while their tourist boyfriends watched cable TV in the adjacent motel rooms. I could bring one of them back into my car and I'd never have to see her again, she'd be halfway to Cape Cod by the next morning.

I hoped Pauline wouldn't show tonight, get grabby and put her ownership trip on me. I didn't want to risk it. I finished my beer, choking it down while I made my way through the restaurant and to the back patio. It was loud and some radio station was being piped in through the speakers—Creedence, Aerosmith. I knew it was a more townie crowd out here. The patio ended at the edge of the marshes and everyone was crammed together pretending it didn't smell like rotting fish or lobster remnants. Huge black garbage cans were strategically placed near the railing for beer cups and corncob husks. I walked toward the bar, a makeshift banner with a line of plastic yellow flags announcing
CORONA SUMMERS
waving above the bartenders.

I ordered a Bud and stood around awkwardly, wishing I'd taken a little bit of a hit before I got out of the car. It was warm and the air was humid, but it felt all right out here. A few families were picking through lobster carcasses but otherwise the tables were emptying because of the early-evening mosquitoes. What the hell was I going to do? What would I tell my father, that the “day in and day out” at that place would fucking kill me? That I didn't want to be a part of any rat race? I knew what he would say.
Suck it up.

“Teddy?”

It was an unfamiliar voice and I was afraid to turn around.

When I finally did, I didn't recognize the girl, but she was small, with a nice chest and runner's legs in supremely short shorts. She looked nervous and that made me nervous. Was she from some previous summer?

“Yeah,” I said.

“Tracy,” she said awkwardly.

Still no fucking clue.

I smiled and nodded like she was jogging my memory. I would have remembered those legs, probably. At least the tits. Anyway, she looked too young for me, for sure.

“We hung out on Block Island,” she wavered.

I knew what she meant by “hung out,” but I still couldn't place her.

I kept nodding like a fucking idiot and smiling wide. I heard myself telling her how good she looked and how it was great to see her.

And then she asked for her wallet back and I knew exactly who she was.

Block Island. Sand. The guys. The reeds. We were wasted. We did it anyway. She passed out and I took her wallet.

I felt fucking sick all of a sudden and leaned over into one of those big trash cans and threw up.

She just stared at me, her hand out. I don't even remember where I put the wallet. It had been our summer of collecting trophies. Maybe I lodged it into the couch of the summer house we were partying in. It didn't matter. It was gone now and she was staring at me and waiting. She didn't give a shit that I just threw up in front of her and the families still outside, trying to enjoy their meals. I was a fucking terrible person.

The song faded and the DJ screamed, “THESE ARE THE SOUNDS OF SUMMER YOU'VE BEEN WAITING FOR. LOW RIIIIIIDER.”

The music started up again and I felt helpless as waves of nausea hit me and I started to sweat. There was an acrid smell coming off me, like a sickness. I just smiled and nodded my head in agreement to nothing in particular and started moving toward the door, and away from the waving plastic yellow flags advertising endless summer fun.

WE SAW A COMMOTION
up ahead as we pulled our golf bags behind us through the club parking lot.

“What now?” Jeffrey sighed.

I could see neighbors pointing and yelling at someone and a dog standing by, confused. As we walked closer, I knew it was the old fisherman and his dog. I picked up my pace and saw Lori yelling at the old man.

“Hey, leave him alone,” I said to Lori and Mary Ann, who was flanking her. “What's he done?”

Lori looked at me, enraged. “We put up signs. He's not supposed to be here.”

The old man held his bucket full of fish and looked at me. Jeffrey stood next to me, silent.

“He's not hurting anyone,” I said.

“It's okay,” the old man said.

“Lori, let him be,” Jeffrey said as he tugged my arm, trying to pull me away.

“We can't bend the rules whenever we feel like it. There are ordinances, least of which is no dogs on the beach.”

“Cut the shit, I see yours there all the time,” Jeffrey shouted.

The man put his hands up and said, “It's okay.”

Lori and the others turned their attention back to the old man. Lori pointed at his run-down truck and said, “We're sorry. This is private property.”

They weren't sorry, but the man nodded and said, “It's been beautiful here for a long while. Thanks for the fish.”

He whistled to his dog to follow him and dropped his bucket in the bed of the truck, opening the door for the dog. He pulled out of the parking lot with a plume of exhaust as our neighbors watched, electric with their newfound power. I looked at Mary Ann, with her shoulders back and chest out in boast, and saw a flicker of shame on her face as she averted her eyes from me. Her shoulders curled down as she fixated on a pile of stray court clay.
You are spineless
, I wanted to shout as they turned and walked back to their houses.