Bliss (7 page)

When Sunny rose, Eva came out of her daze. Whoops and applause came from people still on their knees.

Time to work
. “Clearly you know the deal,” Eva said to Hakeem.

“Your boy Ron’s here,” Hakeem said. “Throwing money, sending Sunny all this macrobiotic food. And he sent her a limo that burns natural gas.”

“She doesn’t seem the type to be impressed by all that.”
Ron’s not my boy
.

“She’ll be impressed by
you
,” Hakeem said, animated.
“Young
sister! Getting it
done
in the business world! Little Miss Eva Executive. You and Sunny can take over the music business together. Make it a better place!”

“What is she?” Though it made her feel good, Eva had no time for Hakeem’s rigmarole.

“She’s black, stupid. They’re from Louisiana. Her people, I mean. Her brother’s brown-skinned.”

“She’s twenty-nine?” Eva had done some research.
A bit older than ideal, but doable
.

“On her birth certificate.” Hakeem leaned his butt against the pier railing. “These white boys is sweating her hard. They’re all here. In fucking Monterey. We need to do this.”

“I’m about to.”

Hakeem read her pronoun usage. He had no worries, though. He knew Eva would need him, or at least feel she did at some point, and would call him then. Hakeem knew Eva’s strength was her weakness and her weakness her strength: She always felt like she was falling off, so she worked like a demon. Eva acted the student when it was wise, but calculated people’s motivations like a physics professor. She fired her looks like warning shots, used sex like tuition and thermometer. But occasionally she surprised with wildly spontaneous moves. And Eva almost always succeeded. “Make this yours, Evey,” Hakeem taunted her. “Be ahead. Be on some new shit.”

“Why are you here, anyway?”
Had he heard Sunny sing? Heard her, for real?

Hakeem had gotten himself more organic wine. He had money and the time that came with it. “Waiting on you, sweetheart, as always. Trying to get on
your
train.”

Eva began walking toward whatever ragged backstage existed.

“I know her,” Hakeem called out, still leaning on the pier railing. “And her manager. Told ’em I had someone they should meet. The
right
person, person who’d make Sunny the kind of star she’s supposed to be.”

“You said that?”
You could’ve said those things to Sunny—except about Ron. You could’ve said all that you’ve been saying to me—to Ron
.

“Yes, Pretty Girl. Something like it,” he said with a bit of lust.

Eva kept walking. Hakeem was cute, but he talked too much.

Hakeem said, “What you smell like today, Evey?”

From twenty feet away, Hakeem leaned a bit in Eva’s direction. People who knew Eva, or who’d slept with her, or danced with her, often leaned in to catch her scent. She never wore enough to perfume the air around her, but as Eva straightened an arm, or turned her head, pungent tuberose was released, or lilac. As the nineties rushed toward their midpoint, and the perfumes at the glassy counters became more gastronomic, Hakeem would lean in to catch sweet basil, or ripe fig, or apricot. The scents reminded him of an almost forgotten song, or at least a long ago voice. Reminded him that Eva was not so preternaturally perfect, that she gilded the lily.

“You won’t know nothin’ about that, ever again,” she said with a big smile. Eva had turned to face him.

“Biding my time.”

Go home
, Eva wanted to say to Hakeem.
I can wrap this on my own
. But she waved at him to join her. At least for minute.
Just for the introductions
.

Hide not your talents
,

they for use were made
.

What’s a sun-dial in the shade?

—B
ENJAMIN
F
RANKLIN

I
n her suite at the Lost City after the after-parties, Eva sat her drink on the vanity next to the ultimate gift Ron had sent earlier. There was a recent urn of lilies, too—card signed with a ballpoint-sketched sun.

Then she went to the bathroom, slid out of her silk jersey dress, and put on a robe. Eva called out, “Didn’t you say you wanted to talk to me? Tonight at the showcase. Dart. You said, ‘Talk to you about it later”

“Not tryin’s to talk now.” Dart’s was in the bathroom with her, his hands under her bra pushing her nipples in, hard, in the exact way she hated her breasts to be touched. He was trying to distort them, and she let him do it because it seemed like he needed to.

It’s not like he’s brand-new to me, and he keeps condoms always
.

Dart was on his knees trying to eat her out. Eva’s feet were cold on the floor and the edge of the sink was pressing into her butt. She put her hands under his arms, and he was soaking wet there, but still Eva pulled at him to get up, and he did.

She tied the belt of her robe, walked into the room, sat down, and sipped the Scotch. She thought she might talk to Dart about what
the hell Sunny had pulled with Vic and Swan. Hoped that Dart, whose attention span was short, would then settle for sleep. Eva had two beds. She thought it would be nice to hear him breathing.

But Dart picked her up from the bed. Eva let him do it. He cradled her in his arms and carried her. As an adult, Eva hadn’t been lifted from her feet and carried. Even in the robe, she felt exposed and lightheaded. She didn’t squirm.

“Put me down,” she said.
He is bizarre
.

“I will. When we get”—he placed her, like a rolled rug, on a cushioned chaise on her balcony—“here.” Then Dart pulled his undershirt over his head. Eva liked the way the band of his shorts sat comfortably on his waist. His chest with its tight tufts. And night in the Bahamas, at Lost City, was balmy and sheer as day. Eva’s feeling of exposure increased, and she was excited.

D’Artagnan kissed her, and after a few seconds, Eva kissed him back with force because he wasn’t pressing her breasts in. She relaxed and got warm—the drink had helped, and Dart’s new shoulders were like some big, padded dam. His new body seemed produced to hold things back. Hold things in. Break shit to pieces.

He could have taken Ron, easily
.

She did her best to touch Dart’s face and neck in a loverlike way. She figured if it weren’t for his mottled back, she’d have sex with him more often. Dart’s neglected back freaked Eva out. She wanted him to take care of it, take care of himself, but she forgot about his scars as Dart lay on top of her and started pumping like he was trying to find a cliff inside her high enough from which to jump.

It feels good
. Hit single, Tony! Toni! Toné!, from their 1990 album
The Revival
. Midsong rap from Mo-cedes, supposedly Tupac Shakur’s cousin. T!T!T!—Oakland, California, boys—Tim, Dwayne, Rafael—all three.
One or two of them related to Larry Graham of Graham Central Station. Graham, who’d played bass guitar for Sly “I-wanna-take-you-higher” Stone
. Eva’s mind went
click-click-click
. Bass-drum-vocals. Date-album-artist.
If it really feels good to you, baby, let me hear you sing
. A snatch from “It Feels Good” tapped for the Notorious B.I.G.’s verse for the ′96 remix of 112’s “Only You.” Big had a 1997 song called “No-torious
Thugs.” That’s how Eva felt—the way the midwestern rappers on Biggie’s album rap-sang it: No-tor-ee-us. It felt good.

Eva got caught up enough that she squirmed, flipped herself on top of him, and did the canal-tightening tricks she’d perfected, and Dart finished without any command from her. He put his face in her neck, and Eva gently pushed him away. She got up and went back into the room, got in the shower, and came back to find Dart in his clothes, on a bed. She slid Shakur’s first album into the night-stand disc player. Forwarded past “Brenda’s Got a Baby” to “Part-Time Mutha.”

“Gonna go sleep in my room,” he said. “I’ll see you, I guess, in the morning.”

“Mmmhmm.” Eva finished her paled cocktail. She opened the small refrigerator, pulled out a tiny bottle, poured.

When you need it most—trapped on a plane, dissed in a hotel room—they give you toy bottles to drink
.

“You understand how much respect I have … for you, but you act like—”

“Dude,” she said shortly, as if on court to a teammate. “I’ll see you at the gospel brunch. Sunny needs to be there, and you need to shake some hands.”

Dart nodded his head slowly. Spoke with pauses between his words. “About to get my head together for that now.”

“Glad I could be of service.” Eva was chipper. Shakur raged.

“You’re a trip,” Dart told her.

“I’m a trip.” She waved him off, angry at feeling hurt. “I’m tired.”

“Not too tired to wash me off.” Dart stood and buttoned his shirt. Right at the door, with a swing of his forearm, he pushed an urn from a table. With barely a thump it landed on the water-resistant carpet.

Eva jumped under her skin. It was an accident, but Dart didn’t look back.

Lilies splayed in a puddle. Dart tried to slam the door on his way out, but the doors at Lost City drag as they reach the frame and shut with a haunting, assuring click-lock. Eva got up behind him, flipped the dead bolt, and then clicked on the television. She sipped at her
drink, then got up and made herself another. She was at four now, for the night. Two on the rocks, two straight-up.

There was a show on cable about “the return of chain gangs” in Alabama. On another channel, a cult was about to disintegrate. Eva flipped to the resort’s internal channel.
Come explore the mystery and grandeur of Lost City
. Eva looked at her legs, crossed at the ankles. They were shapely, waxed smooth. She thought they looked good. That anyone was lucky to get between them.

This ancient civilization has risen up from the sea
.

Inspiration and adventure
.

Six-story Mayan temple waterslide. Marine habitats. Casino
.

Imagination
.

Who can sway you from your course?

Swoosh!

The malicious machine spit softballs at forty miles per hour.

Fastball
.

The Monterey air smelled like crushed grass and harshly of kelp. Eva was thirteen, and had on her pocked batters’ helmet, sweatpants, last year’s cleats, and a ripped practice jersey she thought made her look casually winning. She and her father were enclosed in a batting cage. Eva was an athletic girl, of the generation for whom the benefits of Title IX were ordinary. Her father signed her up for track and softball—no ballet or chorus or, God forbid, drama. It wasn’t that Eva’s father wished Eva were a boy, it was that he was dead set on creating a girl who moved through the world with the self-assurance and independence he felt the best boys took for granted.

“You closed your eyes, Eva,” he said.

“I didn’t.”

“Here it comes a—”

Swoosh!

Fastball
.

Eva had a forceful swing. She could throw far, and she could run fast, but she had trouble hitting the ball, and trouble catching it.

“You did it again,” her father said. He felt Eva’s troubles could be fixed.

“It’s going too fast for me to see,” she shouted.

“You’re scared of the ball. I see it now. Your swing is fine. Here it—”

Swoosh!

Slider
.

Eva swung violently. Her hand sweat in her batting glove, and she tightened the Velcro strap.

“Look at the ball,” her father yelled. “Watch it come at you!”

“Watch it come at me?” To Eva this seemed beyond the rules of logic.

More prone to playing dominoes than a game of two-on-two, Eva’s father believed sport to be the key to winning at life. He was sure that his late realization of sport as philosophy is what kept him slouching back to Amway meetings.

“Do what I say. Here—”

Swoosh!

Fastball
.

“Dad, it almost hit me!”

“If you had your eye on it, you could get out the way instead of jerking around like a girl. Watch—”

Swoosh!

Curve
.

“Once, Eva. For
yourself.”
Her father’s eyes were brown and packed tight as the dirt he stood on. “Lock your eyes. You want a hit, don’t you?” He stood fast behind the pitching machine. He’d watched enough interviews with athletes to know that if there was a ball involved in the game, the first step toward mastering the game was to keep the ball large in your eye. Eva’s father had decided that there was a ball in any game that mattered.

Eva was contrite. She wiped her cheek with her shoulder. Scratched her left ankle with her right foot.

“You want to control the ball? Or you want the ball to control—”

Swoosh!

Slider
.

Eva swung so hard she hit her shoulder blade with the wooden bat. She bit into her tongue. She rolled her shoulders backward a few times. Raised her bat again to position and swallowed a little blood.

“Okay,” her father said, warmer now. “You didn’t close your eyes. But you’ve got to look at it, Eva. I ain’t raised no incompetent. Look—”

Swoosh!

Fastball
.

Crack!

“See. Now. Do it again. If you can hit it—”

Eva glared at the flapped hole from which the ball shot.

Swoosh!

Then she watched the ball.

Eva would not disappoint her father. Teachers were faceless and satisfied with cooperation. Eva and her father had lived in three states in six years, so her friends were blurry and had vague, common teenage goals—they wanted to be “a lawyer,” “a vet,” “married,” “a singer.” Eva was not to the point of articulating it, but she wanted to know the world. She wanted to be around music. And she believed in mastery. Being the best was important. The win. She also wanted the means to leave wherever she was for someplace else whenever she wanted to—with no advice or permission from anyone.

Assess the situation
, her father often said,
quietly get a plan, and lead the way
. In his brisk, cruel way, Mr. Glenn encouraged Eva’s ideas and aspirations. He was uneasily envious of the opportunities that lay before his daughter due to the year in which she was born, but felt it his duty to prepare Eva for championship and riches. Eva wanted to be “a DJ” on some days, “a scriptwriter” on others, or to be in “computer science.” Her father repeated often that to be a doctor or a teacher was fine, but to excel in a “cutting-edge” business—
now that was a life. That was the Future
. That was what
his
daughter would do, who she would be. So Eva caught fly balls like they were wafting wads of cotton. She bat fourth, brought runners in. She wasn’t scared of a hard, white sphere. Eva was a team player when it was required, but mostly she looked out, as her father coached her, for Number One.