World Gone Water (14 page)

“Hi,” I greet her at the back door.

“Tell him you found me outside,” she says, leading me back to the front room.

We snuggle together on the couch, her excited body vibrating next to me. I put my arm around her and she wilts against me. The perfume of her hair is intoxicating and I'm facedown drunk when the shower stops.

The bathroom door cracks and we break apart.

“There you are, honey,” Dale calls out.

“Found her in the backyard,” I say.

“Let me get dressed,” he says. A door slams.

“Let him get dressed,” Talie repeats, smiling at me.

“‘Cheese' on three,” Jenny's mother says. “One, two, three.” The camera snaps and Jenny giggles as we blink away the flash.

“Should we go?” I ask, admiring Jenny's turquoise prom dress.

“Haven't you forgotten something?” Jenny asks.

I'm thinking: hotel room, limo, liquor, two cigarettes, box of condoms, the list completed by the mad scramble to find someone in the parking lot of the 7-Eleven to buy the liter of Franzia. I shrug and Jenny smiles, clears her throat, and touches a strap on her dress.

“Oh,” I say. “Yeah, hold on.”

Jenny and her mother laugh as I jump down the hall to the kitchen to retrieve Jenny's corsage.

“‘Cheese' on three,” Jenny's mother says after five minutes of my fumbling with the corsage, before Jenny recognizes that I accidentally bought a wrist corsage.

The flash pops, waving Jenny and me into the final lap of our master plan, a night we've been planning since her mother agreed that Jenny could attend the prom at Randolph. So many late nights on the sectional in front of an unwatched movie ending in “Let's wait,” so many aborted gropes in the steamed-up front seat of my car.

The last of the day's sun colors a stripe of orange across Jenny's forehead as I shut the door for her, then skip around to the driver's side. I speed down the freeway toward the parking lot of the Marriott, where our limo awaits—Jenny knew her mother would add two and two if I picked her up in a limo, but I fought for the extravagance and persuaded Jenny to lie to her mother, something she'd never done.

“I still feel guilty,” Jenny says.

“It's not too late to call off the limo,” I say, a little game we've been playing that up until now has given us some measure of power in the matter. We both know that power is gone now.

“I love you,” Jenny says, not as a way to end the conversation, or make it veer, but because it's just something we say, and lately it's the only thing that comes out of my mouth that makes any sense to me: “I love you, too,” I say.

“Slow down,” Jenny says. “We've got all of our lives. Unless you kill us with your driving.” She looks over at me and smiles, remembers my joke about how we're like old people, a sentiment echoed by our friends, and I almost don't look at the road again, caught by the way Jenny looks at me, which makes me feel loved, a look that makes me feel like I'm more than I know I really am.

We exchange my car for the silver stretch in the Marriott parking lot. The chauffeur opens the door for us and we feel like royalty. I point out our hotel room through the moonroof as the limo glides out of the parking lot. A shiver runs through Jenny and she says, “I can't wait.” She slides her hand inside my purple paisley cummerbund, teasing.

“We could just skip the dance,” I suggest casually.

Jenny pulls back in mock horror. “No we can't!”

“We'll see after a few drinks at Octavio's,” I say slyly, kidding.

“I left the fake ID in my other purse,” Jenny says, startled. “Oh no, I've ruined it.”

I shrug dramatically. She could've told me the limo had sunk to the bottom of the ocean, the driver killed instantly, the windows sealed, and I would've assured her it was no problem, a minor inconvenience, a trifling.

“Actually, Mario got fired,” I tell her, almost forgetting. “But he's going to have someone from the kitchen stash the bottle in the limo while we're eating.”

“Genius,” Jenny says admiringly. “It might've been a little obvious, what with you in a tux, and this.” She rotates the corsage on her wrist.

“Yeah,” I agree, “and I doubt there'll be any other prommies at Octavio's. So it'll be like eating in a fish bowl.”

Jenny smiles deviously. “Got an idea.”

I smile back. “Yeah?”

“Let's order in.”

That's my Jenny. Bold and daring.

“Can we?”

“Don't know why not,” I say.

Plates clank around our feet as the chauffer opens the door. Jenny passes me the bottle of yellow-label brut and I finish it, the bubbles swarming in my head. Our chauffer says he'll return the plates and silverware to Octavio's, and I reach into my wallet and pull out a twenty. “Here,” I say. “Give this to the guy in the kitchen, would ya?” The chauffer looks at the bill with disdain and then snaps it up. Jenny laughs and we both know the guy in the kitchen will never see the Jackson.

Stepping through the Randolph gymnasium doors, our names ringing in our ears, is like stepping through a portal in time: The walls are papered black, and silver foil streamers float magically through the air, colliding now and again with the silver, white,
and black helium balloons hammering away at the ceiling of the illuminated tent anchored in the middle of the floor, the basketball hoops at either end of the floor hoisted up toward the ceiling to make way.

A slow song starts and I grab Jenny up, pressing her dangerously close, a violation surely to bring one of the chaperones. Jenny wriggles some space between us and I spot Jason and his girlfriend, Sally, twirling under a silver banner.

“My head feels like one of those balloons,” Jenny says. We sway in time to the song we've made out to many times before, the saccharine words carrying a tinge of weight on this particular night. “Did I thank you for dinner?” Jenny asks.

“Yes, you did,” I say.

“Well, thank you again.”

“You're welcome again,” I say, spinning her. Our forward progress stops and we twirl slowly in a circle, my rented shoes scuffing arcs in the polished floor.

“Are you ready to leave?” Jenny asks.

“I don't know. Are you?”

“I think I am.”

A nervous excitement grips me. Earlier, in front of the mirror, there was still the limo to pick up, the hotel key to get, dinner, the dance itself. A song Jenny and I agree we don't like starts up and I say, “I'm ready if you are.”

“Think the limo is back?” Jenny asks.

I look at Jenny to see if she's stalling, and see that she's looking back at me in the same way, to see if I'll use the excuse of waiting for the limo to put it off a little longer, which I almost do, reminiscing about the last dance, knowing that once we leave the gymnasium, the prom will be just a memory, but I don't want to send the wrong signal, so I say, “I'll have a friend drop us off.”

It isn't until Jenny and I stumble out of Jason's car—the object of Jason and Sally's jokes all the way to the hotel—that we realize we weren't ready to leave. We realize it after we've opened the box of Franzia and kissed drunken kisses, doing everything we've done before, just up and until, our prom outfits laid out neatly, a stall we didn't recognize. Jenny comes back from the bathroom and we laugh at our naked selves, telling each other it's okay, that we've got all our lives.

The grass JSB has rolled across the desert landscaping gives the grounds a lush, fertile feel. Everything seems to be growing and alive. Wedding guests mill around the pool, up near the house, next to the bar set up on the patio of the guesthouse. Talie is standing near JSB's rose garden, talking to Peters from legal. I wave and they wave back.

The caterers are clanging around in the kitchen, stacking trays of food in tall metal containers to keep it warm until the ceremony ends. I run my finger into a cream-filled pastry and no one sees me.

The door to JSB's room is closed, so I knock before letting myself in.

“Charlie,” he says when he sees me. His shirt is unbuttoned and he's collapsed on the couch at the foot of his bed. “Come in.”

He offers me a drink and I say no thanks.

Erin comes out of the bathroom in her wedding gown, and she's so beautiful I forget who I am. “You look fantastic,” I say, kissing her on the cheek.

“Thanks,” she says. She models the dress.

“That was Talie's mother's wedding dress,” JSB says from the couch.

The image of JSB in the bedroom at the suite at the Pointe South Mountain Resort flickers suddenly and I say, “What?”

“Her mother wore that dress on her wedding day,” he says. He gestures toward Erin like a tour guide and my eyes follow, tracing the white silk down the curves of Erin's body—Erin, who wasn't even born when Talie's mother married JSB. I want to burn the dress while Erin's wearing it. I want to splash a bucket of acid on her and watch the dress and her skin melt away.

I can't spit out any words.

“Charlie, I know we don't really know each other,” Erin starts. I think she's actually going to reach out and put her arm around me, so I take a step backward. “But we're like a family now, and—”

“We
are
a family,” JSB says, standing. He poses the three of us together in the full-length mirror, him in the middle, his right hand—the one he probably used either to hold down or to guide himself into Kiki—hangs over my shoulder. “One big, happy family,” he says.

Erin giggles.

“I should find Talie,” I say, loosening myself from the weight of JSB's arm. “It's your happy day,” I say as I walk out. “It's your hap-hap-happy day.”

A woman with chocolaty brown hair is admiring the hand-carved antique grandfather clock in the hall when I slam the door to JSB's bedroom.

“God, you scared me,” she says, putting her hand across her chest.

I'm not even going to say sorry
, I think, but the sight of her seems to calm me and I introduce myself.

“Caitlin,” she says. “I work for JSB.”

“Oh,” I say.

Caitlin, it turns out, is twenty-eight and is the new salesperson hired specifically to champion the new line of cosmetics.

“That's a big deal,” I say. Caitlin leans toward me aggressively, and I lean forward, meeting her gaze. She talks about her upcoming trip—New York, Boston, and Montreal—and about how the new
products are going to make Buckley a leader in the industry. She uses phrases like “leader in the industry.”

I tell her I'm in charge of the promotional contest. I tell her I've named the contest World Gone Water.

“Oh,” she says, nodding in a way that suggests she's heard of me, or knows who I am, and I begin to panic. The walls of JSB's estate feel like prison, and the feeling of being stared at and recognized comes over me. I take Caitlin out a sliding glass door on the side of the house and we pass Talie on the walkway. I introduce them. I notice a faint bruise on Talie's neck.

“Where's Dale?” I ask.

“He's here,” she says. “Somewhere.”

Talie winks and waltzes off.

Caitlin and I walk to the front lawn, where most of the wedding party has assembled. JSB motions for me to come stand next to him.

“Save me a dance,” Caitlin says, smiling.

I take my place next to JSB, across from Talie, who is in Erin's line (at JSB's insistence), and Talie rolls her eyes at me.

The organist under the white canopy begins and everyone rises, and Caitlin stands last, making sure I am watching. As Erin passes down the aisle, my gaze lifts from the veiled stranger to Caitlin, whose smile reaches all the way to the back of me.

“It was lovely,” everyone says at one point or another during the reception.

Caitlin dances with other men to make me jealous, so I take Gayle Witherspoon, a secretary from legal, and waltz her around the dance floor. A noxious force field of perfume prevents me from really holding Gayle tight, but Caitlin gets the message and rubs up against me after the song ends. I release Gayle and she stumbles awkwardly off the dance floor.

“Does the best man have to stay all night?” Caitlin asks.

Caitlin brings me back to her room at the Arizona Biltmore Hotel, a cabana near the main pool. The light coming from the pool is webbed on the walls of the cabanas, and the waves from a couple splashing each other in the shallow end send the light into motion, creating the effect of weak lightning. I have trouble keeping my balance when I stare straight down into the pool.

“Come on,” Caitlin says from behind me. She's hiding behind the windowed double doors and I can see her nude body through the white curtains. As I reach the door, the pool light goes out and the splashing in the pool quiets. In the absence of the pool light, the moon switches on and Caitlin's skin glows under my fingers.

Unbelievably, there isn't a test to pass before I'm allowed to touch Caitlin.

“We have what no one else does,” I'd have to say to Jane.

Caitlin makes me forget about Jane.

And everyone that's ever come before her.

Curiosity overtakes me when we're lying in bed. I can't stop looking at her. I have to kiss her every five minutes. I touch her body with my lips to make sure she is real.

“You're doing something strange to me,” Caitlin says, putting her hand over her heart.

“Do you feel it too?” I ask, placing my hand on hers.

“I'll have to be careful you don't capture my heart,” she says, giggling. She rolls on top of me and the warm press of her skin undoes me.

Under her spell, I play a game of nude chess with her on the giant lawn chess board on the hotel grounds. Caitlin knocks one of the rooks down and lies on the grassy square. “Come capture it,” she says, sprawling out.