The Invaders (20 page)

Everything had begun to fog and I finally stepped into the shower. My skin wasn't taut anymore. My upper thighs were pocked with cellulite and it made me self-conscious to wear a bathing suit to the club pool, the dips in my skin showing through the fabric. But to wear one of those suits with a skirt was even more alarming. I would go and hope that no one would notice and I'd eye the other women and scrutinize their cellulite and stretch marks. Not out of malice, but to see where I fit in on the roster of female imperfections.

After the shower, I walked around my bedroom naked, even past the uncovered windows. If someone was outside, they could possibly see everything and for a moment that was thrilling. I felt myself strutting, picking up clothing, tucking it into drawers. Who was I showing off for? I imagined I could hear the crunch of gravel.

And then I saw that someone was staring at me from the yard. I ran and pulled a sheet around me.

The room was all windows and I had left the blinds up, on purpose. I walked to a window, sheet pulled tight, and saw that it was Steven, leaning against the fence like he owned it, watching me. He looked hungry, like he'd spend all day in the yard looking at our windows if he had to.

I opened the sheet.

He didn't react—he just stood there staring. I just stood there exposing myself to him, hoping he would react in some visible way. I wanted to say, “You want it.”

He smiled and I stared down at him, finally feeling a sense of power again. He needed me as much as I needed him. We stared at each other
and I wasn't afraid anymore. I looked down at the shock of my white breasts against the rest of my tanned skin and when I looked back into the yard he was gone.

•  •  •

Later, I put on a dress, something pleasant and cotton that I found in the back of my closet. A-line. Red. Steven was seeking me out and I had to acknowledge that. What I didn't like, though, was that Steven was probably the one killing my garden. Outside, I pulled the dead flowers, my peonies, what was left of everything, and I looked at the ocean. They had wrapped the fence along the seawall. The neighbors on the corner still threw their dog shit into the water. I saw them. The neighbors who barreled their fists into the air, the ones who told Lori that the fishermen were shitting in the water.

I stopped gardening and picked up all the dead plants, conscious of the dirt I was getting on me, and left the yard with them. Older men from the club that I hardly knew were driving golf carts up and down the streets. They looked papery, liver-spotted and veiny. I kept walking and passed the houses on Ocean Beach Avenue with all their bumblebees buzzing and white fences gleaming, past giant black-eyed Susans, azaleas, dahlias, and rose gardens in every shade all bright and blooming. What had I done to deserve a dead garden? Pebbles were finding their way into my sandals and jabbing at the soles of my feet. I pressed on.

Jeffrey had begun to look at my feet and laugh. He called them unfeminine, thick. He was an expert in all things feminine. It was strange at first; I wasn't used to someone knowing more than I did. I'd watched my mother dress, lay out her lingerie, and become beautiful for men, doing the things she knew they liked, and it'd been intoxicating to me. But Jeffrey had been surrounded by it. Boxes of it, old lingerie boxes from the 1950s and '60s stacked in his mother's dress shop. He told me how he'd steal away after school, hide with the boxes and stare at the
women and their corseted bodies and bullet bras. I thought about him as a child, hovering over pink-tinted boxes with bouffant-lidded ladies and laughed to myself, imagining him opening the boxes and running his fingers along the lace and stiff boning on the corsets. Even as he told me, his eyes wandered into the dream of it, making him nearly breathless. I wondered if those boxes were the first thing he'd ever masturbated to. Hard pink lingerie boxes with beguiling women modeling 32Cs.

Women were still mysterious to him, even at his age. The smell of them, their movements. He would always be the boy in the dress shop, weaving his fingers through the straps and lace. When we first met, he treated me like one of the women on the lingerie boxes, like an unearthly thing. I became something to marvel at, even under the high fluorescents in a fitting room folding clothes. I became thankful for having the chance to become otherworldly, even for a short time.

I finally reached the Cronins' house and threw the dead flowers on their lawn. Fran was walking out the door in a new visor, one I hadn't seen in the golf shop, and madras shorts. She looked at me strangely. I checked every window, looking for him, but they were all dark and empty.

“Cheryl, what on earth are you doing?” Fran said, walking over to me.

“I brought these for Steven,” I said.

She didn't understand any of it and I kept searching the empty windows.

“Did he say he was going to water them and then didn't?” she asked.

“No.”

“I just don't know what you expect me to do with these,” she said.

I asked her if Steven was home and she went on the defensive, long used to people coming to find Steven, to talk about what Steven had done, to scold her about Steven.

“He's out,” she said curtly.

I could see the silk shantung curtains fluttering then, as if he had heard me. I saw his face, I thought.

“Why would you bring my son flowers?” she said.

“He wanted my attention and he got it.”

She stared at the dead flowers in disgust, then leaned closer to me and hissed. “What's he done now?”

“Nothing,” I said. I only wanted to see how he was doing, I told her, how his face was healing. She tensed for a moment and then fell to pieces. She talked about visits to the plastic surgeon, how Steven used to be so handsome, how awful it all was, and that he was in his prime. Still just a boy.

She looked at her big house and then back at me, mascara smearing. “He's really just a sweet boy,” she said, looking down again.

They were all sweet boys.

•  •  •

I walked the long way home, through the hidden parts behind the damaged tennis courts, missing the sound of tennis balls hitting racquets, over to where the golf carts were washed and tuned up. I heard rustling and stopped, then peered around the corner, behind the tennis practice wall. I saw Tuck, leaning up against the wall and groaning quietly, a woman in a short tennis skirt on her knees, all of him in her mouth.

I moved out of view, afraid he might see me. I pressed my face against the painted concrete of the tennis wall and listened to them. Tuck was no better than everyone else, his love for his wife a lie. Who was kneeing the pavement, getting pebbles stuck in her shins? Some other mother from the block? I wanted to know. I flattened myself against the wall, moved my head inches to peer around again, to get a better look. I could see he was near climax, his breaths closer together, murmuring “Oh fuck.”

He turned to look in my direction and climaxed when he saw me, and my stomach dropped. I looked down at Tuck's wife as she pulled
her face up and smiled at him. I watched as he helped her up, gently stood her against the back of the tennis wall, and dropped to his knees, lifting up her skirt as she stared down at him, still smiling.

I pulled away from the wall and launched myself toward the golf cart garage, red-faced. I stood among the golf carts in the dark and looked back to the practice wall. Finally, Tuck and his wife walked across the parking lot, holding hands. Him kissing her, her arm sliding around his waist. Tuck spanked her playfully as they walked.

I sat in the front seat of a broken-down golf cart and watched them walk toward home. Every part of me rippled with electricity. I felt brittle and unused, but I didn't need to be. I didn't want to feel this alone anymore.

I COULD HEAR
an outboard motor in the distance. It was too good to be true, so I kept my eyes closed. The buzz got closer and I finally opened my eyes. There was a Whaler going past the island. I waved and it came closer. An older guy in a ratty T-shirt and shorts was driving it, beer in hand. He had his sunglasses on a string, like they were going to go somewhere.

“Hey. You okay?” he said.

“No, I'm trapped,” I said.

He cut his motor and floated toward me. When he got close enough, I realized it was Tuck from down the block. He grasped at his beer, nearly crushing it in. At this point, I would have taken a ride with anyone. I had been on the island for hours and it would be dark again soon.

“Get in,” he said, and I did.

“How'd you get out here?” he asked.

I told him I'd been at a party and he laughed. I was sure he'd been to a few himself. He stared at the island for a while, the gutted barn, trying to remember things.

“I wasn't sure if I'd have to stay there forever or what.”

“You would have been living the dream out here,” he said. He stared at the island like it was something special. “How are the parties now?”

“The same,” I said.

“I spent a lot of good summers getting drunk there,” he said. “A lot.”

“Yeah, we all did,” I said.

“Makes you think, right?”

“I guess so,” I said.

“Think about how many layers of glass are on that sand. How many generations of broken beer bottles,” he said, staring at the glass-lined beach.

“Sad,” I said.

“No, it's fucking awesome. They're like artifacts by now. And one day your generation's beer bottles will be artifacts, too. And on and on.”

I was waiting for him to start the motor back up, but I wasn't going to be pushy. He saved my ass, after all.

“Want a beer?” he asked.

He handed me a cold can from his cooler and finally started the engine.

“Something to think about,” he said. “Oh, keep that bad boy down. Don't want a reason for the Coast Guard to stop us.”

I suspected that that was what you were supposed to say—something to think about. I just wasn't sure how I was supposed to respond. Say “Lots of pussy on that island,” or something like that?

“So what, this is like the Grand Canyon of beach party spots? Here long after us and all that?” I said.

“Exactly, man. Now you're talking,” he said.

Tuck tilted the boat to the left as he tried to turn it and I clutched
the side with my good hand, the hand farthest away from the lip of the boat. I caught him staring and then he said, “Oh yeah,” and took another sip of beer.

“I've seen the rise and fall of this place. And watching the generations pass through just warms my heart. It really does. Sometimes I just like to cut out my motor and watch the festivities. Takes me back, you know?”

He was happy living in his past and I couldn't fault him for that.

We rode the water in silence for a while, past the big quarry barges, the trolley bridge, and the bird sanctuary. The outboard made the cranes fly out of the marshes and into the air. I watched them and understood why Cheryl liked walking here.

“How are your parents?” Tuck asked. “You know, Jeffrey and Cheryl.”

I knew who they were. I knew he wasn't talking about my mother.

“They're fine.”

“Haven't seen them on the golf course,” he said.

“My father's been away on business.”

“Cheryl must be lonely,” he said, taking a sip of beer. Like he was trying to choke back what he just said, like I didn't actually hear it. “What do you think she does all day?” he asked.

“I know what she does. Wanders the house,” I said.

“What else?” he asked.

“I don't know. Plays cards at the club. Sometimes she plays golf. Walks a lot. Collects shit.”

“Like what?” he asked.

I thought for a minute. “Those little bottles from hotels that my dad brings her,” I said.

Tuck stared out at the line of homes like they were specimens.

“She likes to garden,” I said.

Tuck nodded. “Yeah, I see her out there sometimes,” he said.

Everything on our lawn was dying, so I wasn't sure she was doing a
good job. My father would be pissed for sure, when he came home. He was all about curb appeal.

“Interesting lady,” he said.

I guess Cheryl did it for some people.

“Things bad with that thing?” He pointed at my arm as if it were some kind of foreign object.

“Well, it's not going anywhere,” I said.

He laughed and had another swig of his beer.

“Fucked up,” he said while staring out at the waves. I understood that he was trying to be deep, that we needed a moment of silence. I got that about Tuck, he was a deep person.

He was getting closer to the club and I saw the big yachts in their slips, the blue of the clubhouse, the pool. Our houses. The fence was a joke, but all of this had to be protected and we were the ones to do it. Instead of going to the docks, Tuck veered around the rocks and back into the ocean.

“Are you in a rush to get home?” he asked.

“Kind of,” I said, but he didn't care.

He weaved the Whaler into the open waters of the sound. I watched the big houses that leaned up against the seawall. The fence created a barrier between it and the lawns. He sputtered the boat to a stop in front of my house and we stared at it, sitting in high tide.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“What does that look like?” Tuck said.

“That's my house,” I said. “I don't know where you're going with this, buddy.”

We were both going to start using vaguely insulting names on each other, I could tell.

“This place belongs to us and she thinks she has a right to dictate what happens here. Like none of us matter.”

He lost me. Who was “she”?

“What I'm saying is . . . she needs to be stopped.”

He stared at the row of houses and shook his head. I was afraid to ask because he was talking like I should know. He looked at me and took another swig of beer. I felt like I had cotton in my mouth and the beer wasn't helping.