Amends: A Love Story (11 page)

When I emerge into the lounge area wearing a
slightly less revealing version of my kitty cat costume, I scan the
room for my kind of customer. Basically, I'm looking for a shy,
quiet man who would rather gaze at a pretty, younger woman than try
to have a conversation. He might be an engineer or a software
developer or just a guy with bad social skills.

In the dim light of the bar, I spot a likely
target. A heavyset man with a rounded, muscular back looms over his
beer. His slouchy posture and thick, curly hair suggest a bear just
out of hibernation. I slip into the seat beside him and say a
breathless hello, mumbling something about being thirsty after my
performance. The bear takes the bait.

"What's your poison?" he asks in a voice
that's both tough and barely audible. Definitely the strong, silent
type, I think.

"Mountain Dew," I say, fake smiling.

Jody, the bartender, delivers my drink with a
wink and a genuine smile. She always looks out for the girls,
keeping us appraised of potential creeps and putting aside our take
of the drink bills.

As I expected, the bear sips his beer while
his eyes linger over my face, chest, and legs. It's a little
uncomfortable to be stared at with such intensity. I tell myself
it's no different than stripping for a crowd. I cross and uncross
my legs and deliver occasional eye contact the way the other girls
taught me.

The bear clears his throat,
and his eyes narrow as if he's sizing up a potential combatant.
This is not the usual reaction I get from customers, so I turn
around to see what he's reacting to and...
oh shit
. It's Ethan. His hair is
matted, and his eyes are wild. He's drunk, and he's probably been
drunk for at least a day. I quickly signal Jody.

Ethan puts a heavy, proprietary hand on my
neck and addresses the bear. "Did you know this kid's a virgin? A
stripper-virgin, can you believe that shit? The Kat Club's own holy
fucking Mary."

"Ethan," I say, searching his face for signs
of the witty man-boy I once found so compelling. "You have a
fiancée. Go home. Be with her."

"Yes, I have a fiancée. A wonderful fiancée.
But I also miss my friend. What the fuck happened to you?"

As Jody and the bouncer—a two hundred-fifty
pound slab of tattooed meat named Alfredo—close in on Ethan, I
murmur, "I grew up."

/////////////////////////

Are you sure you don't need
a ride home?
texts Gran.

No thanks.
I reply.
I'm taking a cab
to Maggie's place for a late night goodbye gathering.

Be safe!
she writes.

I tuck my phone into my bag. I'm already in
the back of a taxi. According to Maggie, Ethan is sleeping it off
at his fiancée's apartment. I have nothing to worry about
stalker-wise—at least for tonight.

At last, the cabbie drops me at Maggie's
crumbling rental on Lake Everclear. Summer is ending, and
everyone—at least, everyone with a future—is preparing to leave
Triple Marsh. Miss Maggie herself will be heading to New York City
in just a few days. She's majoring in film, and she's already
cobbled together funding to shoot a pilot based on something she
wrote for class.

I climb four flights of stairs and slap away
clouds of mosquitoes that seem to be breeding in the stairwell.
Maggie's door is ajar, and the sounds of a small, happy party reach
me at the end of the hallway. When I enter her apartment, I find
her holding court in the kitchen, wearing a green velvet cocktail
dress. She's the lovely, vibrant center of about ten gorgeous men
between the ages of twenty and forty. Her living room is full of
couples and pseudo-couples, reclining on cushions and kissing.

This is one of my last nights in Triple Marsh
for the foreseeable future. I tell myself I should have fun. I
glance at the happy couples and consider peeling off one of
Maggie's incredible specimens for a random make out session. No, I
think, my heart just isn't in it. It's three a.m., and all I can
think about is how, in just a few days, I'm going to be more than a
thousand miles from my parents' graves.

I brace myself to spend at least an hour
going through the social motions—happy get-to-know-you chatter,
catching up with Maggie, introductions to her growing circle of
friends—when it occurs to me that no one actually noticed me walk
in.

Slowly and carefully, I leave the party and
creep back down the stairs. I look up directions to Forever Acres
and see that's it's only a mile away. I decide to walk it. The cab
to Maggie's has already put me twenty bucks into the hole.

/////////////////////////

A mile on pavement is a shockingly long
distance in stripper heels. I can feel the vinyl rubbing against by
skin with every step. But I keep at it, and soon I'm rewarded with
a familiar sight—the arched entrance to Forever Acres.

I pass through the entryway undisturbed. The
guard who mans the kiosk—he must be at least seventy—is snoring
lightly. By the bright light of the waxing moon, I make my way to
my parents' graves. I haven't been here for at least a month, but I
still have that strange feeling of expectation, as if something
special—or something life changing—is going to happen to me
here.

I know this feeling is ridiculous. It's all
because of that guy I met here almost three years ago, right after
my parents died. I remember him telling me that he'd lost his mom
to ovarian cancer. I also remember how he sobbed on my shoulder,
and how I ached with sympathy and understanding.

But instead of talking with him at any length
or even getting his last name so I could find him on Facebook, I
ran away. I guess it was because I'd just started stripping, and I
felt strangely unworthy. Laird—I think that was his name—had seemed
so solid and wholesome. Anything I could have told him about myself
would have been a disappointment.

Still, every time I visit my parents, I also
think of him. I wonder how he's doing, and if I'll ever run into
him again. Sometimes I even imaging an alternate reality in which
he's the first boyfriend I take home to Mom and Dad. Totally
stupid, I know. I watch the stars for a while and then deposit
myself on a nearby bench. I say a silent farewell to my parents as
the dark night sky lightens slowly into day.

Chapter 12: Laird

I'm standing in a long line of about thirty
other men. We're all sweating in the late-summer heat, and we're
all eager to get inside, where it's cool and full of shadows. I
keep my eyes trained on the pavement, hoping not to see anyone I
know. I've avoided coming here all summer. I'm still not sure it
was a good idea.

As I wait, I imagine Amity the way she was
the last time I saw her, just a month after her parents had died.
She seemed young for her age, kind, and slightly awkward. And
classically beautiful, with a sweet, open face that concealed
nothing. I hope that all this time trying to survive on her own
hasn't changed her, but I know that's wishful thinking.

When Amity walked away from me at the
cemetery, I didn't run after her or try to get in touch. Any
friendship we developed would have been a poor, fragile thing built
on a foundation of lies. I don't think I could have brought myself
to tell her about my role in the accident that killed her mother.
Every minute I spent in her presence would have been a terrible
reminder that I was powerless to do anything for her, except hold
her hand.

Soon, though, that's all going to change.
When I turn twenty-one next week, I'll have access to part of my
trust fund. I'll use that money—anonymously, of course—to help
Amity's dreams come true. To do this right, I'm going to have to
learn everything I can about her—all her hopes and fears and
strengths and weaknesses. I want to be sure she'll spend my money
on herself and her education, and not on drugs or a greedy
boyfriend. My plan is simple and elegant. I'm going to become her
friend, change her life, and then get the fuck out of it.

Someone is tapping me on the shoulder. I turn
around and see a balding man in khakis and a light blue polo
glaring at me. "Hey, buddy, move it along, would ya?"

I realize I've reached the front of the line.
"Sorry, man."

I cross a small pathway to the entrance of
the Kat Club. The bouncer rolls his eyes at my fake ID, but lets me
in anyway. After all, I'm Josiah Conroy's only son—unless he's left
a few love children here and there that I don't know about.

Inside, I settle myself at the end of the bar
and wait uneasily. I'm not sure I'm ready for what I'm about to
see. But I want to get a better understanding of what Amity's life
is like, and I believe this strip club will give me at least a big
chunk of the whole, unvarnished truth.

/////////////////////////

I barely recognize Amity as she struts down
the runway. Her face is heavily made up like an anime doll, and her
body is all attitude and aggressive edges. The soft, gentle young
girl who mourned her parents is now locked inside a hard protective
shell.

Amity's dance routine is more gymnastic than
sensual. She works the pole as if it's a sporting event, showing
off her strength and flexibility. I admire her athleticism and the
discipline it must have taken to develop such long, lean muscles,
but I feel no heat, no desire. As far as my body is concerned, she
could be my sister. I am enormously relieved. My life is
complicated enough already.

My phone vibrates against my leg. I fish it
out and read the text.

In town, visiting parents. Want to meet up?
Em

Ember is my addiction and my kryptonite.
Every several months, I break down and see her. Or, if I wait too
long, she gets impatient, tracks me down, and shows up wherever I
happen to be. We come together and push each other away in an
endless cycle of need, greed, and self hatred. We're not officially
together, but I haven't really found anyone else, either. Ember
attacks sex with a mixture of passion and desperation that drives
me insane. None my college hook ups have ever compared.

I glance down at her text and remind myself
how she hung all over my father at Mom's funeral, how our fight on
the way to Deegan's house killed Amity's mother, and how she
flirted with my father even after I warned her about him. No, I
decide, I'm not going to see her tonight.

I look up to watch the rest of Amity's
routine, but it's too late. She's gone.

/////////////////////////

When Amity emerges into the lounge part of
the club, she seems smaller and more vulnerable than she did
onstage. Her big, painted eyes look huge and childlike. Her long,
limber legs appear gawky and fragile, like a fawn's. She doesn't
belong here, I think.

I hide behind my beer and watch her approach
groups of men, obviously encouraging them to buy her drinks. Her
smiles are pro forma and do not touch her haunted eyes. It takes
her several tries before she finds someplace to land. It shouldn't
take an objectively lovely twenty-year-old stripper that long to
find a mark. I don't think she's very good at this.

When she doesn't think anyone is looking, she
closes her eyes, perhaps to imagine she's somewhere else, someplace
safe. I wish I knew where that is.

My phone vibrates again. I hope and fear that
it's Ember, but it's not. It's Dad, and I'm late for dinner.

/////////////////////////

The restaurant where I'm meeting Dad and his
date is so hip that it doesn't have a name—just a pinewood sign
bearing a giant ampersand. I push my way through frosted double
doors and find the hostess, a tall, elegant woman dressed from head
to toe in white. She looks down at an ivory tablet and then back up
at me.

"Laird Conroy?" she asks.

"That's me."

"The rest of your party is already here.
Please come with me."

The hostess leads me through a maze of tables
topped with clear Lucite and adorned with calla lilies in white
ceramic vases. She walks like she's in a hurry, and I have to take
long strides to keep up. My father and his date are waiting for me
in a semi-private room behind a diaphanous white curtain.

Dad rises from a couch the color of Caribbean
sand and claps his hand on my shoulder. He grins broadly, as if he
is actually thrilled to see me. "Good to see you. It's been too
long."

He's obviously trying to impress someone, and
I know it isn't me. I take a quick peek at his date, who looks
considerably more wholesome than his usual girlfriends. Her ash
blonde hair is scraped back into a severe ponytail, and her face is
round and bare. Her features are small and harmonious.

Dad waves his hand in the direction of his
pretty new toy. "This is Darla. She's studying film at NYU."

"Nice to meet you." I say, settling into the
loveseat across from them. I'm dying to ask whether Darla is a grad
student or an undergrad, but I refrain. I learned long ago not to
torture Dad's dates.

Two waitresses—identical, pale-skinned
twins—appear to set up white TV trays in lieu of tables and take
our drink orders. Dad asks for a Mojito. Darla and I order Cokes. I
wonder if she's underage.

As the twins disappear behind the curtain, my
phone vibrates. I try to check it discreetly. It's Ember.
Again.

Wait until it gets dark. Then sneak into my
back yard. I'll be waiting in the hammock. Alone. Remember the good
and forget the bad.

Desire surges through me against my will.
Ember's always known how to get to me. I take a deep breath and
count to ten.

"So who is she?" asks Darla with a
mischievous smile.

I'm halfway tempted to tell the truth—that
she's Ember, the only one of my girlfriends who was hot enough for
Dad to hit on. But I don't.

"No one," I reply. "No one."