Fluke (37 page)

****

The idea of drinking beer by the pool in the middle of the morning seemed a bit excessive, so I opted for a Coke from the machine instead.
 
If Sara came back from her visit with her mother and agreed to head back to Florida, I figured it would be a little better if I were sober.

The pool was relatively clean and quiet; only a large, balding man with an excessive amount of shoulder hair and his two young children were in the water.
 
I sat down in a plastic lounge chair after I removed my shirt and slid off my sandals.
 
After the initial few seconds of self-consciousness, I sat back in the chair and allowed the sun to beat at my fair skin.

I put my sunglasses on and closed my eyes.
 
The only sounds were the occasional splashing of water or excited squeal of one of the children, and I immediately began relaxing.
 
I had slept so well, and then became so tense after the last conversation with Sara.

“Fluke, you’re the only guy I know who’s ready to go bed after sleeping twelve hours,” Sean said to me a lot.

I did enjoy my sleep; it was just one of many vices that I had succumbed to in my life.

I laid there and thought about everything, working it through my head, trying to put it all together.
 
I was the son of a man who had molested the woman I loved who came to Texas with me to find the man who was my father who molested the woman I loved who came to…the thought process was a big, frustrating circle.

I made a feeble attempt to change my thought process, to try and think of something else.
 
I started playing a game in my head that I normally reserved for waiting rooms and algebra class and other dull places.
 
I started naming off (to myself, of course, as I didn’t want to frighten the shoulder-haired man and his children by talking to myself) every song I could think of by a random band, just to see if I could remember.
 
Today’s band was going to be Metallica, I decided.

I made it through their first two albums and to “Blackened” before I fell asleep in the chair.

****

“
Ow
, Christ,” I whined.

“Sit still, dummy,” Sara said, giggling quietly.

“Not so hard,” I whined again.

“You know, a guy with your skin really shouldn’t sleep in direct sun,” Sara lectured, as though I didn’t already know this.
 
“Especially with no sunscreen.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said, enjoying the cool, moist feeling of the green aloe
vera
gel she was rubbing on my thighs.

It was true; I had dropped off into dream land and remained there for a solid two hours, before Sara came out and found me, roasting by the pool.
 
She woke me up and guided me into our room.
 
After telling me, “Sit on the bed,” she drew a cool bath and had me get in while she drove to the nearest drugstore and bought what looked like an industrial-sized bottle of aloe
vera
gel.

When she returned with the bottle, she got me out of the tub, patted me dry with the softest towel she could find in the room and started applying the thick green goop onto my scarlet red skin.

I was a mess…the tops of my legs and feet were fried red, as well as my torso.
 
My left arm was burned on the top, and at some point during my little nap, I had thrown my right arm up above my head, so it was burned on the underside.
 
My face was bright red; but, having fallen asleep with my sunglasses on, the area around my eyes and two thin lines over my temples were still nice and white.
 
My newly multi-colored visage stared back at me from the mirror over the dresser.
 
I had a vague raccoon-like appearance that looked incredibly foolish.

I certainly
felt
incredibly foolish.

Way to go, dipshit
, I berated myself.
 
Again.

“See what a tool you’re in love with, Sara? I look like a raccoon,” I lamented.

She looked up from my legs, stared at my face for a minute, and said, “No, not a raccoon, honey.
 
More like a masked comic book superhero, I’d say.
 
Like Robin.”

“Just great,” I said.
 
“Man, I’m a dope!”

“How about we call you ‘The Flame?’ Or, how about ‘Sunman?’” she was loving this.

“’The Flame’ has already been taken, smart ass.”

She slathered the lotion onto my belly, shocking me momentarily with its coldness.
 
Her hands rubbed it in large circles, and my belly took on a slick, almost wet appearance.

“I can do that, Sara,” I said.
 
I felt bad that she was taking care of me, again.

Sara
DuBeau
: assistant curator for Hazel Beach City Museum of History, primary curator for Adam Fluke.

“Don’t worry about it, Mister Fluke,” she said, squirting another gooey blob of the gel into her upturned palm.
 
Her hands looked greasy.

“You always take care of me,” I said, watching her.
 
For a moment, I felt like crying, thinking about it.

She looked up from my belly and stared at me for a moment.

“Someone’s got to, Adam.
 
You’d never last otherwise,” she laughed.
 
“You can’t even come in from the sun by yourself.”

My touching moment ended with her subtle ribbing, and I again felt like my foolish self.

“I’d probably still be sleeping out there if you hadn’t come for me, you know.”

“Yeah.
 
Actually, the pain probably would have woken you up by now.
 
You’re probably going to be nice and blistered tomorrow.”

She was right.
 
Despite the amount of aloe she had applied to my legs, they already looked—and felt—dry again.
 
This would end up ranking in the top two Adam Fluke sunburns of all time.
 
(The worst was the time when I was nineteen and experimented with a lotion that effectively magnified the effects of the sun exponentially, on the recommendation of Sean, who had never actually been sunburned before in his life.
 
This resulted in a horrifying, violet-colored, blister-ridden sunburn that laid me up, naked and feverish, for five days.)

“I suppose I’ll drive,” she offered, rubbing my chest.
 
“Lay back.”

I lay back on the bed, feeling the cool fabric of the comforter on my back.
 
The room was nearly silent, aside from the hum of the air conditioner.

“Drive?”

“Yes, silly.
 
You’re not going to be able to drive us to Florida with your lobster-like skin.”

I propped myself up on my elbows and looked at her cautiously.

“You want to go back to Florida?” I asked.

“I’m ready to go home now, Adam,” she stopped rubbing and sighed.
 
“This trip has been more than I had bargained for, and I want to just get back to my life.”

It stuck in my head that she had said “my” life, and not “our” life.
 
I didn’t know whether it was intentional or not, or even if it meant anything, but it made me uncomfortable.

“Now, lay down, Sunman,” she said, giving me a very gentle shove in the chest.

“Yeah, you’d better drive,” I said, staring at the ceiling.
 
“I’m already feeling achy from this.”

****

The car was packed up, again.
 
Flukey
was in the back seat, seatbelt fastened, staring at us with his shiny black eyes. Sara’s shoes littered the floor.
 
The large aloe
vera
bottle sat in the passenger seat.
 
Sara had gone in to the front desk to check us out of the room; I had reservations about going to face the old guy with my appearance.

The sun was beginning to set over Texas, and I was happy that Sara had decided to go home.
 
She had suggested that it might be a little easier on my poor skin if we traveled into the evening, rather than with the hot sun beating on my legs and face the whole way.
 
I was again touched by her gesture, but Sara joked, “I don’t think I could handle you whining the whole way home.”

She told me about her visit with her mother, which I had stupidly forgotten to ask her about in the room earlier, more concerned with my own whining.

“It went well,” Sara said, stuffing her makeup into the flowery bag that she carried her various female things in.
 
“She asked me about the pretty young man who was in the room yesterday.”

“At least someone thinks I’m pretty,” I joked.
 
I wadded up a pair of socks and stuffed them into the duffel bag.

“I was a little surprised that she remembered anyone being in the room.
 
She normally forgets everything as it happens.”

“I’m pretty unforgettable, Sara.”

“Whatever you say, Sunman,” she giggled.

Now she came out of the office, looking cute in a pair of blue denim hip hugger shorts and a tight brown t-shirt.
 
Her hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail that swung around as she half walked, half skipped to the car.

“Ready, Freddy?” She asked me.

“
Yeppers
,” I said, climbing in the passenger side, gingerly, so as to avoid contact with anything.
 
If I had to be sunburned, it was better that it was my front side.
 
I don’t know that I would have made the trip if my backside had been as bad.

“How’s the skin?” she asked, glancing at the angry red skin of my legs.

“Not too bad.
 
It's a little dry,” I said, adding, “and a smidgen warm.”

In reality, it was awful; my skin felt like the cracked ground of the desert--dry and sizzling.
 
It had already begun to itch, and I knew I was going to be miserable in the car, but I tried to avoid whining to Sara any more than absolutely necessary.

“Well, keep the lotion on it,” she said.

“I love you, Sara,” I blurted out.

“I know you do, Adam,” she turned to me and gave me a small kiss on the cheek.
 
She looked down at her hands buckling the seatbelt and said, “I love you, too.”

She started the engine, and then rooted through the CD wallet she kept in the console.
 
I watched her fingers, nails painted a creamy silver color, as she flipped the plastic pages back and forth.
 
The Sara fingers.

“What do I want to listen to?” she wondered aloud.

“Death metal?” I offered; I was Mister Hilarity at the drop of a hat.

“
Noo
…”

“Gangsta rap?”

“
Noo
…”

“Polka?”

“Ah, here we go,” she said triumphantly.
 
“This will do just fine.”

She slid a CD into the player before I could tell what it was, pressed the button to skip a few tracks, and dropped the car into gear.
 
We rolled out of the parking lot of the Ramada Inn, in the direction of I-45, when I heard the beginning of “Circle,” by Sarah McLachlan.

As she hit her turn signal and made her way onto the  entrance ramp, Sara
DuBeau
sang along with Sarah McLachlan:

“
What kind of love is this that keeps me hanging on…despite everything it’s doing to me? What kind of love is this that keeps me hanging on…when it’ll all end in misery?
”

The words stuck in my head, and then we were pointed east, Florida bound.
 
Our adventure to Texas had ended.

What’s next
, I wondered to myself.

What’s next?

16.

I awoke soaking wet, covered in a sheen of sweat that my overly productive glands had left me with.
 
Sometime in the night I had kicked the sheets off of the better part of my body.
 
I groaned and leaned over, straining to see the clock on Sara’s side of the bed.
 
It was almost noon.
 
The biggest surprise, after the initial shock of having slept for 14 hours, was how I felt.
 
You could say I felt like fourteen million bucks, only I would never really know what it was like to feel like even one million dollars.
 
I did feel good, however.