Anthropology of an American Girl (46 page)

Last time I saw Rob that summer was a Tuesday, near the end—at least it seemed near the end. Possibly there had been a previous end, another day that I hadn’t noticed.

After Rourke left that morning, I rode my bike to the beach, stopping first at Whites Drug Store for gum. The air was still, and the tide was low, so I placed my towel near the waves, and I opened my book—Hemingway’s
The Sun Also Rises
. Two white-haired babies ran around a sand castle, and a boom box played Pink Floyd.

“You waltzed right past me.” It was Rob, bending for a kiss. “I’m playing volleyball.”

“What are you doing here? It’s Tuesday. Don’t you have work?”

“I came out this morning. I told everybody I had jury duty. Come on over.”

I shaded my eyes. There were a lot of people. “I’ll just wait here.”

“Come
over.”
He gestured with my book as we walked, slapping it twice in his palm. “Good book,” he said. “Brett Ashley, that’s you.” He spread my towel near his, by the net.

“Hey, Rob,” one of the guys called. “Sometime this century.”

“Keep your shorts on,” he barked back, then he put his cap on my head, adjusting it until it was low near the bridge of my sunglasses. “Red Sox,” he said. “Don’t lose it.”

My bike just about fit into the trunk of the Cougar, and Rob threaded his tank top through the metal coupling and tied a knot to hold it in. He had white surgical tape around his wrist. I could not see his tattoo from where I sat because it was on his left bicep and he was driving. It was a lightning bolt through the word
Zeus
. At the carnival that time, Rob told
Laura Lasser that Zeus came down to fertilize the earth. He peered into her blushing face. “You know what I’m talking about,
to fertilize
, right?”

We dropped the bike at the house and left a note for Rourke to meet us, then we grabbed some pizza and ate it on the hood of the car, watching the mellow defervescence of day. In the waning heat, the village seemed a place of endless possibilities. Everyone waved like they knew us.

“That’s because they do,” Rob said. “Everybody knows you.”

On the way down Old Montauk Highway to Surfside, I was thinking that life is like being born into a prison that is you, and there comes one opportunity to escape, one second when everything coalesces into something like perfect timing, and you dash, or you don’t. Maybe everyone gets a chance to run, but not everyone goes for it. That summer I had the feeling of being on the outside, of having crossed over. I was thinking about that, and about bravery and identities that are original, about my grandparents getting on boats alone when they were fourteen and coming to America from Europe. I was thinking of opportunities my father never had because of risks taken by his own parents, and whether my mother had wanted me. If my mother hadn’t wanted me, she must have felt bad about that, over time, through the years. And I was thinking of Rourke, how he could not be possessed, how I loved him for it, but at the same time I knew I couldn’t ever let go. I wanted to ask Rob. I had the feeling Rob would have something to say about releasing things you love.

“Today’s my birthday,” he said as I reached for the door handle.

“Oh,” I said, turning back in. “Happy birthday, Rob.” I reached to kiss him, leaning far because he was still at the wheel. It was nice that he wanted to spend it with me.

Surfside was in that peculiar state of restaurant nothingness before the full staff arrives, when the kitchen and bar are the only points of activity, and the main room is set but sleepy and unpeopled. When I was little, my mother used to waitress part-time at Bobby Van’s in Bridgehampton, and sometimes she’d take me to work with her. Between jobs such as polishing spots off silverware or folding napkins, I would eat pan-fried hamburgers
and do homework and draw on Guest Check pads. Before closing, I would get chocolate ice cream in the overbright kitchen, then fall asleep in a back booth until my mother was done. She would put her feet up and count cash.

“What are you thinkin’ about?” Rob asked. We were in the doorway, white ocean light behind us. Probably we looked cool like thieves or ranchers.

“Nothing,” I said. “My mother.”

The bathroom was frilly, like a man’s idea of a ladies’ room. I brushed the sand from my skin and washed my hair under the faucet. It had gotten longer and lighter over the summer; it went straight below my jaw, and I had bangs. I removed my bathing suit. Two white triangles marked my breasts, and one marked my bottom. I threw on khakis and a white top I’d taken up to the beach with me so I could go shopping before riding my bike home. My breasts had gotten bigger. I wondered how long had they been that way. Maybe from birth control pills.

Rob was at the bar. I walked over, and the bartender stopped cutting limes. He smiled, saying his name was Val. I returned the Red Sox hat to Rob, and I said my name was Eveline. Val was a curious name for a man, I thought, without obvious origin. Rob and I drank two mint juleps each, and when Val started to make us another, Rob said, “Just one. No more for her.”

“Why, what’s the problem?” Val wanted to know.

“With the Contessa over here? I gotta keep my eye on her,” Rob stated matter-of-factly. “She’s very loosely wrapped.”

Before the dinner shift started, Val went on break. Rob and I joined him out back behind the building, cutting through the kitchen. We headed through a screen door so covered in gunk that it didn’t even bang when it slammed shut. It made a sound like a donkey—
hee haw
. Then—nothing. Right away Val lit a joint. It had been months since I’d gotten high, the last time was the night I broke up with Jack. I didn’t really feel like it, but I didn’t want to say no since it was Rob’s birthday. It hit me quickly. I’d forgotten the way everything leapt to life: the smell of creosote from the retaining wall, the growl of the walk-in refrigerator, the insects sawing noisily, the uneven clamor from the kitchen, the waitresses
calling early orders, the newly sizzling things, the clinking racks of last night’s glasses exiting the dishwasher. I felt myself shiver. My skin felt sunburned, which is to say both cold and warm at the same time. Rob removed my sunglasses to clean them, and I thought about Val’s name, whether it was Valery or Valentin.

“Vallejo
—it’s my last name. My first name’s Rick,” he said. “My grandfather was
Juan Vallejo
, a matador from Pamplona who got pinned in the ring. The bull’s horns came on either side of his chest. He survived, but he had scars here and here.” Val opened his shirt and pointed to the pockets beneath his arms. His body was like his name, sleek and curiosity-inspiring.

“Funny coincidence,” Rob said. “Evie’s reading Hemingway—the bullfighting book.”

The cook came up to the kitchen door. He pulled a navy bandana from his pants pocket and tied it ceremoniously around his head. “You guys feel like eating?” he asked.

Rob said, “Absolutely!”

Within the half hour, three plates of grilled tuna hit the bar. The tuna steaks were shaped like triangles with charcoal stripes, and the vegetables were twigs stacked like teepees. There was a little ball of wild rice. I couldn’t imagine eating; it made me sick just to look.

“I’m gonna take a walk,” I proposed.

“What are you talking about?” Rob asked incredulously. “The food just got here.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing, which seemed to make him nervous. Instead of arguing, he gazed into his plate like it was a far-off horizon. “Where to?” he asked, taking a bite, chewing, not looking up.

“The bathroom.”

“The bathroom,” he repeated, processing. “You planning to use it, or are you just going sightseeing?”

I said, “Sightseeing.”

“At least she’s honest,” Val said.

“Let me tell you something,” Rob said, “I’d rather watch somebody’s dog than their girlfriend.” He tapped my plate with his knife. “C’mon, eat first, babe,” he advised. “It’s on the house.”

——

Montauk Daisies are sturdy low bushes that grow in sand, and out by the road where Rob parked there were several, a few beginning to bloom. It was early for flowers. Usually they don’t flower until mid-September.

One of the bushes was by the rear fender of Rob’s car, so I propped open the driver’s door and sat sideways in the seat, facing the plant, facing south over the ocean, kicking my feet through the renegade sand that had made its way to the roadside. The ground had begun to turn cold, the way it does on late summer evenings. I brushed my hair and put on lipstick and played around with Rob’s eight-tracks—the Four Seasons, the Stones, the Del Vikings, Stevie Wonder, Frank Sinatra. Though it was totally outdated, he kept an eight-track in his car so nobody would steal his tapes. The floor was littered with empty Chinese take-out containers and flaccid newspapers, and there was a box of Wash’n Dris on the dashboard. Rob was a fanatic about clean hands.

On the back of a cocktail napkin, I drew the daisy for Rob and I composed a birthday note, which contained the usual sort of wishes,
Happy Returns
and so on, except that at the end, right before my name, I wrote
I love you
. I set it under the steering wheel on the glass pane in front of the meters and indicators. For a long time I stared at the words, positive of meaning and sure of fact but uncertain as to why that love was suddenly so emphatic, and I began to cry. In the mirror I saw my tears. They were like little missives, tiny flags and trumpets, announcing messages from the inside of me to the world beyond, though I could not think of what the messages were because at that moment Rourke appeared. Through the passenger window I saw him jog onto the restaurant’s porch, and my tears disintegrated, everything vanishing upward. I heard myself say, “Oh.”

Rob stepped out of the front door before Rourke stepped in, and Rob gestured to me in the car: Rourke must have asked where I was. It was nice to think that he had come for me. If Rourke did not exist, then maybe I would have ended up with someone like Val, who would have been nice to kiss, though it would not have been love or anything like it. It would have been something lonely and fascinating, like occupying someone else’s house for a night or two, if it happened to be a particularly nice house.

Rourke propped his shoulder firmly against a porch post and began to talk. From where I sat it looked as if he were keeping the building from folding in upon itself. Rob turned and leaned on the rail. I could only see his back, but I could tell by the uncharacteristic way he slumped, with his arms hanging lifelessly, that he was upset. Rourke I could not read; his body was organized as usual by an economy of action and emotion. I assumed they were arguing. Soon Rob stood and walked back into the bar. Rourke remained in place, staring out, no doubt deciding what to do—wait for me or go in after Rob. He turned and went in.

I locked the car and took the path back to the restaurant, walking slow. I had the impression I’d forgotten something. I felt for Rob’s keys in my hand, making sure they were there. I looked to my shoes. They were there too. Behind me was nothing. Just Rob’s car and Old Montauk Highway and the ocean, far down.

The bar had become crowded, but it wasn’t hard to find them. A room changed wholly when Rourke was in it—energy tagged about him in a sort of helix. They observed my approach as I squeezed through the pack to reach them. Rourke put out his arms, jerked me to his chest, and lifted me onto a stool. He touched my halter top, saying, “This is a little revealing to wear in public, isn’t it?”

“Leave her alone, Harrison,” Rob said dismally. “I picked her up at the beach. She wasn’t there with a suitcase.”

For the remainder of the night the two of them hardly spoke, though Rob made sure to get one more free meal for Rourke. No matter how angry Rob was, it wouldn’t have been in him to cut Rourke out of a deal. While Rourke ate, Rob kept drinking whatever Val put in front of him. The more Rob drank, the more he kept reaching out to others, greeting old friends, making new ones, until eventually we’d become a sizable crowd. Rob commandeered the pool table and hustled six players before turning to Rourke and challenging him to “a serious game.” Rourke consented, standing without a word, as though he’d expected the invitation. It occurred to me that Rob had intended to play Rourke from the start; that all the other games had been leading to this one.

They each laid down two twenty-dollar bills. Though the bar was noisy, there was the impression of silence in our area. The men concentrated
on the table, moving around it like it was theirs and theirs alone. As one would shoot, the eyes of the other would lock on the ball pattern, memorizing the layout. The game had a different quality than the preceding ones; not only was it an even match, but Rob and Rourke had obviously played together thousands of times. In the end, Rob won, but it was unclear whether Rourke had simply let him.

“C’mon,” Rob said. “I’ll give you a chance to win your money back.”

Rourke handed Rob the twenties and said, “Happy birthday.”

I stood off my stool and gave it up to Rourke, who sat and pulled me onto his lap. I felt his thigh between my legs. Next up against Rob was Roger, the captain from the slow-pitch team, but by then I’d stopped paying attention. I was distracted by Rourke; he was distracted too. I could tell by the death-like tranquility of his hands. Through my stupor, I could only register the knock and split of the balls, the slugs of color whizzing across the verdant felt, the thuckish gulps of the pockets swallowing balls, the ups and downs of drunken conversation.

“He’s doing really good,” I said to Rourke. “Too bad there’s no girl to impress.”

“There is,” Rourke said. “You.”

We were outside—midnight, a little after, walking to the cars. Ahead was the sea, and behind, the chime of Rob’s keys kicking up irregularly, which gave us an indication of how he was walking.