Extreme Elvin (20 page)

Fortunately, I didn’t have to fake it. “This is the best root beer I have ever tried,” I said.

“This is outrageous,” Barbara gushed.

Darth nodded, ho-hum, but did let a small smile lash his handsome mean strong bony face. “My father has it imported from Indonesia. Same place I got your ointment,” he said.

“Ointment?” Barbara asked.

“Skin condition,” I said as Darth walked away.

“Ah,” she said, shaking her head in admiration as he left the party again. “He does it all, doesn’t he? Now don’t take this wrong, Elvin, but I gotta say, he’s an amazing guy.” She raised her glass to mine before we both sipped. “This is some unbelievable service here.”

Sure is, I thought, with a chill. “But he wasn’t even in the room. How did he know we didn’t like—”

Our heads were turned by a big sucking sound, caused by Frankie removing himself from Sally’s face. “It’s true, you know. He’s like, rich,
and
big and strong and athletic and scary, and he has good manners and stuff. The guy’s got everything,” Frank piped.

We all had to agree.

“Well, not
everything,”
Frank said and reached up to the stereo and pulled down a CD. He tucked it under his arm, looking all around desperately, like a mime shoplifter. “He doesn’t have
this.”

We were all laughing. He’d never stolen a thing in his life, and he sure wasn’t going to start by ripping off a murderer/role model. But the door to the room swung open, the brighter light of the hallway spilling in and framing Darth in a sort of posthuman glow as he walked grimly our way once more. We all tried to keep our childish little joke to ourselves as Darth stood over us, waiting.

“We’re all set, thanks Darth. We haven’t finished these drinks yet,” Barbara said.

“Put it back,” Darth said to Frank.

The smiles were a little easier to keep down now.

“What?” Franko said, looking nervous from his very vulnerable, almost lying-down position on the love seat.

“Sinatra at The Sands.
It’s in your armpit. Please put it back in the CD holder.”

Frank was too paralyzed to tell Darth it was just a joke. Or to ask how Darth even knew, for that matter.

Just like that, though, the Man went away, checking around the room for drink orders he might have missed, which of course he had not. Then he was gone again.

“I feel like I’m in an episode of
Scooby Doo,”
Barbara said, talking without moving her lips. “He knows every move we make.”

“Security cameras,” Frank said seriously. “Now that’s class.”

“Spying on your own guests,” I countered. “Now that’s
ass.”

We all four tumbled over onto our sides, laughing, lying there, looking across at each other, hoping that this hid us from surveillance, but probably not. But I looked across and noticed that, with the group flop maneuver we’d done, Sally was leaned over almost completely on Frankie’s side, her head resting on his shoulder, her arms wrapped around him. I stared—I guess I do a fair amount of staring—at them, and was warmed by the sight. Somehow I imagined it to be me there, to be us, me and Barbara, and though it wasn’t all that much, it was a new high in my fantasy life.

Until I caught Frankie giving me the classic wink-and-nod gesture, calling my attention to Barbara.

Barbara was under me. In the same position, more or less, as the other two. I was so thrilled at that instant, I came one strong heartbeat from losing consciousness completely when she smiled up at me.

Instead, I threw myself off of her, like a proper gentleman, and onto the floor. This made her come right out and laugh. “Can you imagine what this looks like to him, wherever he is? He must think, you know, we’re really getting into something here.”

“Yar,” I said, my brain and tongue both swollen with the idea that she was even speaking the words. “Huh. Yar. Yuf.”

But then, we didn’t have to ponder long about what exactly old Darth was making of all this. He came back through the door at a trot, and was standing over Barbara—straddling me—before the door closed behind him.

“Hey there, Darth,” I said from the space on the floor in between his feet.

“Would you like to take the house tour?” he said, to the ladies. He had a mad determined look on his face, like baboons on the nature program when they are mating while photographers are clicking away and helicopters are buzzing above, red ants are chewing them to pieces and the other male baboons are pelting them with rocks and gourds. Carnal concentration.

“Say Darth, is this linoleum down here, or terracotta?” I asked, as long as he wasn’t listening.

“Terra-cotta,” he said. “My dad had it shipped from Italy along with the marble in the foyer.”

Guess it just depended on what topic you brought up.

“Gee, thanks anyway Darth,” Barbara started saying, but apparently stumbled when it came to giving him a reason why not.

“I’d like to take the house tour,” Frankie said.

“Why not?” Darth asked Barbara. Frankie and I did not register at all now.

“I’ll go,” Sally said. “I love beautiful old houses.”

“I’ll go if Sally goes,” Barbara said, and I sat straight up, worming out from under Darth.

You could say Darth was on a roll.

“Let’s, then,” Darth said, and held out both arms like an usher at a wedding.

Sally laughed, and held one of the arms with two fingers, like it was electrified, thrilling and life-threatening at the same time. Barbara looked at me.

“Don’t mope, for goodness’ sake,” she said, bopping me on top of the head. “I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

“Five,” I snapped, like I was in charge of
anything,
right?

“Twenty,” she snapped back, mocking me.

“Okay, ten.”

“Nope. Ten’s off the table. Fifteen is the best I can do now.”

I must have started doing something awful and embarrassing with my face then, because both Frankie and Barbara reacted.

“Jeez, Elvin, loosen up. She’s not going to evaporate on ya,” Frank said.

Darth made a big show of checking his watch and breathing loudly.

Barbara reached into the pocket of her pants, pulled out a twenty-dollar bill, and snapped it tight for my inspection. “Elvin, my father gave me this, to take a cab home at any time if you start being weird. Don’t make me use it.”

She was only half kidding. Less than half, even, she was, like, forty percent kidding.

“Ah, go on,” I said, “get out of here.” Nice smooth recovery on my part, I thought. But it was a mighty effort. As soon as the three of them had left the room I exhaled, as if I’d been holding my breath for a month.

And the rest of the party guests did the same thing. It was a phenomenon. People started moving, which they really had not done up till then. Guys started nuzzling their girls, standing up, moving to the music to whatever extent possible. Obie—scary mean Obie—came ambling our way with his date. I cringed, but it was okay because he would just be talking to Frankie anyway.

“Way to go, Sphinc,” Obie said.

“Huh?”

“Nice work. This’ll be good for you.”

I looked to Frankie, who shrugged. For once he was not ahead of me.

“The girls. You guys brought the right girls,” Obie said, with a heavy dose of
duh
in his voice.

I felt my whole body go rigid, and cold. “What are you saying?”

“What, I’m speakin’ Swa-freakin-hili? Darth likes your girls. He’s, y’know, like a collector. Loves chicks, like nuts. And he’s been waiting for this Sally girl since you gave him the word on her.”

My stomach did such a jump there, like something large and live and angry was trying to escape from the inside of me. A feeling I probably should have been having since I told the lie in the first place. I had done this. My god, I was responsible.

“He likes yours well enough too,” Obie grunted on. “It’s okay she’s a little fat, ’cause she got a really pretty face.”

I have never hit anybody in my life. Never even tried. Probably wouldn’t do a very good job of it. So there was no reason to expect me to try it.

Must have been my face. Frankie jumped in front of Obie, and squeezed both of my arms with his hands. “She is
not
fat,” I barked. Frank shushed me.

“I guess I need to put on a few pounds before the next party,” Obie’s girlfriend said, “so I can move up to a better class of loser.”

“Can I get you some
punch?”
Obie asked her, making a fist and grinning like a dog snarl. She pretended a big yawn and walked away.

It would be hard to decide
who
to hit in this room once you got started.

“Frank,” I said, getting panicky and turning to my only logical source. His face was only inches from mine. I had gotten Sally into a situation. Then Barbara got sucked into the same whirlpool. They were blending together now in my head, both in trouble, both my date, both my
fault.
“Frank, we gotta... we gotta, fix it. We have to...”

Frankie was frozen. Frankie had been through stuff with these guys before. He probably knew a lot more about them than I did. He clearly had no plan beyond standing there, gripping me. He had been broken.

Maybe it was lucky I didn’t know what he knew.

I tore on out of the room and started running up the stairs. Out of the basement I flew right on past the first floor because the kind of stuff I was chasing never happened on the first floor. Second floor, I ran down the hallway, opening every door, without even knocking. Bedrooms, bedrooms—how many people lived here, for crying out loud? Bathrooms. There were three bathrooms on that floor alone. Each room was decorated and draped with thick flowing fabrics hanging everywhere, and one color dominant. A gold room, a forest-green room. It looked like the China Trade Museum Ma dragged me to once. But no Barbara. No Sally. As I thought it, her name squeaked out of me on a breath. “Barbara.”

This was silly. This was stupid. This was childish.

It sneaked out of me again as I ran up the third flight. “Barbara.”

Third floor, more bedrooms, more bathrooms. A woody study with a desk as big as a coffin, and bookshelves covering each wall. One side crammed with highly polished sports trophies. “Probably bought ’em all,” I said, slamming the door.

But no Sally, no Barbara. I ran the length of the thick Indian-looking carpet that covered the hall floor, looking again in all the rooms. Then I stopped, winded, frustrated. Opening and closing my fists and just spending all my energy standing in one spot and fretting.

“The widow’s walk.” It was Frankie. Couldn’t let me go it alone after all. “If it was me, I’d be up on the widow’s walk.”

“He
is
you,” I said. “So he
is
on the widow’s walk.”

We scrambled again up and down the hallway looking for the stairway until Frankie found it, a mini door, like for little tiny folks, set into the paneling behind the desk chair in the study.

“Boy, could I use a setup like
this,”
Frank said, marveling once again at the surroundings.

I blew past him and shot through the little door.

“Take it easy, Elvin,” he said. “I mean it, don’t go off—”

I was out onto the flat roof before Frankie could finish. And of course I found them there, the three of them.

Barbara and Sally were crouched, on the bay side of the house, looking through two mounted telescopes. Darth was poised behind them, about four feet back. Viewing...
them.
He had his arms folded across his big chest, and a large grin splayed across his face. At the sound of my arrival, he turned his look on me, grinning even harder.

“That’s
enough,”
I said, simply because that was what I had prepared to say.

“What’s enough?” Barbara asked, and she sounded agitated.

An excellent question, now that I thought about it.

“What are you two doing here?” Darth said, quietly, but menacingly. “Are you, prowling around my house, uninvited, as if it’s a public facility?”

“Come on, El,” Frank said quietly, tugging my shirt from behind.

I shook him off. “No,” I said, and took a step toward the three. I didn’t even know what to say next, what to accuse them of, what to say to explain myself. As a matter of fact, for the instant I saw them up there before I’d broken it up, their thing looked like a not-so-bad alternative to the party itself. Something I would have liked to be invited to instead.

Which, maybe, was the whole problem.

“Yes?” Darth asked. I couldn’t tell anymore whether it was that evil politeness thing of his, or if he was simply smart enough to let me hang myself, but he wasn’t confronting me.

“I came... to help,” I said, making sense I suppose to nobody who was not named Elvin. “Thought you’d need... help.”

Sally let out a little laugh. “I’m a big girl,” she said, waving me away. “In fact, we’re both big girls.”

“Big girls,” Darth echoed.

“You know, guys,” Sally said, gesturing toward the telescopes, “no offense, but I can look at you anytime, but ordinarily it’s a twenty-five-minute drive
with
my family to catch the ocean. You understand.” And with that, Sally went back to seeing the sights.

Darth did likewise, taking two steps closer to the backside of Sally. “Please take the most direct route back to the basement—or out the front door,” he said without looking at us.

“Well,” Frankie said, clapping his hands and rubbing them together, “that was clear enough.” He started down.

I risked the walk toward Barbara.

As I approached her, she took the twenty out of her pocket and held it like a flag, flapping hard in the stiff rooftop wind.

Thirty percent joking. And falling.

When I got close, I did the best I could do for an explanation.

“I really like you a lot,” I whispered.

She nodded, put the bill back in her pocket. “Try to like me a little less,” she said. “I’ll see you downstairs.”

It was breezier, it was chillier up on that roof than I had realized. My face felt wind-whipped and numb as I descended. My hands felt the same way.

I tried, walking alone, to take Barbara’s advice. Tried to like her less. Not because I wanted to, and not because any part of me believed I was capable, but because I suspected it was going to be very important that I do.