How to Get Into the Twin Palms (15 page)

He said something to me to make me smile and I did, mouth closed, tightly, trying to keep my lips pressed over my teeth, over the seeds. He turned back to driving and I went back to staring straight ahead.

“How is your wife?” I decided to ask.

Lev drove, turned on the radio, a Russian station. Russian pop songs, it sounded like. He turned it up loud, so he couldn’t hear me anymore. I listened to the girl singing wildly and wondered what she was singing about, if I would care if I could understand her.

WHEN WE GOT BACK TO MY APARTMENT I FELT
ashamed for where we went. It was low class. He wouldn’t quite look at me and I thought it was because of what he saw, and saw in me. This place had made it seem like we were beneath them. It was what I was thinking and I knew he was thinking it too. I went to the bathroom and waited for several minutes and watched how I moved in the mirror. Sucking in my stomach and blowing it out. Fixing my brows, my hair, covering the thin line of light roots growing in. I heard him shuffling around out there and didn’t want to go out but I couldn’t stay in here. I turned the water off and on, flushed, pulled my panties down and checked to make sure I was clean and good smelling. I sprayed perfume down there and pumped some moisturizer in my hand, perfumed like the spray I had just sprayed, with a hint of glitter, and rubbed it down there too. Just in case.

LEV OPENED MY LEGS UP AS I SAT ON THE
sofa, they shook in his hands. I couldn’t help it.

My skirt was working.

My legs looked dewy and fresh from the glitter cream.

I still felt ashamed but I wanted him to want me again, to erase what he had seen and start over. As he got down on his knees and moved the coffee table, he pulled my legs toward him, moving my ass to the edge of the seat and closer to his mouth.

He pushed the folds of my skirt up and his mouth down. I leaned back and tried not to think about anything else. I tried not to think about comb-overs or Polish regal eagles or dust-covered shelves. Lev looked up at me from where he kneeled and I made a face like I liked what he was doing and I wanted it.

Did Lev get on his knees for his wife?

I WATCHED HIM SLEEP ON THE SOFA, MOUTH
gaping and hot, sour air coming out. I went and washed my mouth, my hands, and my face. I brushed my tongue thoroughly. And waited. Lev didn’t wake up right away. He moved several times, I thought this time he would open his eyes, but he didn’t. I went and cleaned my room. Took my sheets off my bed, newly purchased and already soiled. I turned the mattress over, feeling nostalgic.

 

The stain was brown by now, years old, like a body had bled out on it. I remembered waking up in it, staring at the red on my legs, still fresh. Redder than anything I had ever seen before. A new kind of blood, from somewhere deep inside of me, that I was unfamiliar with. It was a quick decision but I liked to keep the reminder. The finality was comforting. I had put my head back down on the pillow, closed my eyes and hoped that my panties would stop feeling that wet stick to them.

I got up and stared down at the drying blood on my legs. Walked into the bathroom and was careful not to drip on the white nubby bathmat.

The cleanup was slow. I tried soaking my underwear in cold water and soap, like my mother had taught me when I was younger, careful not to waste any underwear, letting them go until the elastic stretch creaked and fell limp. The cold water
and soap didn’t work, the blood and water went down the drain and when it was all gone, only streaks of rusty red-brown were left on the cheap porcelain. The underwear would have to go. I threw it in the garbage, a garbage without a top, in a tight-fisted ball and covered it with toilet paper, hoping anyone who came in before I threw away the bathroom garbage would not know to look for it. I washed the sink, kept my bloody legs still and finally took off my shirt and ran the water of the shower, watched it all go down the drain as I stepped inside and scrubbed.

The bed was more difficult. The mattress was sodden red, now a deep brown. I had a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and poured it over, watching the blood sizzle and bubble, the disinfecting seeming to work. I rubbed at it, the red was turning a thin, faded brown and the hydrogen peroxide spread it into a wider swatch of stain. I kept the mattress and stain and it was what I liked to hold on to.

Here it was, still a faded brown, beige at the edges, water-stained and dirty looking. I pulled the mattress up and over again, hiding it. Put the dirty sheets back on. I left the bedroom and sat down next to Lev, hoping I’d wake him with my breathing, with small noises I was making, but nothing made him stir.

WHEN I WATCHED HIM SLEEP, LEV LOOKED
harmless, like a boy. He looked like every other man I had ever watched sleeping. Childish and small. He opened his eye at me.

I got up to move and his hand pulled me back down. “You watch me sleep.”

“Sometimes.”

“I don’t like it.”

“You’re so paranoid.”

“Watch your mouth, Anya.”

It was the first time he’d ever spoken to me like that. I looked at him to see if he was joking. He was not.

 

I said all right and tried to move away. I wanted to get away from him but he wouldn’t let me.

He pulled me close to him and kissed me with his sour mouth. I tasted myself on his lips and thought about him kissing his wife with my taste on his lips. If he would wash his mouth out first, if he would wash his face, and then kiss her or if she was used to tasting other women on his lips. If they kissed at all.

“I have clothes in my car; can I bring them in?” he asked.

“To stay here?”

“I could go somewhere else, I think.”

I thought about the possibility of Lev. Here, at length. His mouth on me often.

“It’s okay. You can stay,” I said. He got up and walked out the door. Leaving the door open, letting the streetlight glow and the night sounds come in.

He brought suits in, sharkskin looking things; there was a sheen to them but they still looked cheap. A suit with pin stripes. I thought there might be something going on at the Twin Palms but I was afraid to ask.

“I’m going out but I’ll be back in a while,” he said.

“Where?”

“Nowhere. Just stay here and wait for me.”

And now I would be the one waiting for him, wondering where he was. He didn’t change. He left with his rumpled shirt, collar open, pants creased and parts of me drying into the weave.

 

I would run while I waited for him. I could see my street from where I was running, be able to track his car coming down Fairfax, and watch him walk up the stairs to my house. I let him go and I tied on my sneakers. It was dark already but I knew the lights would be on around the circle, the theater nearby just letting out and there would be people on the sidewalk. I could watch them all, look out for Lev and be able to see the green gaping mouth of the Twin Palms.

Small children were playing soccer on the side of the track. They bounced against each other, kicked up dirt and chased after the ball. I didn’t see parents anywhere. I just saw shopping carts overflowing with people’s things, covered in blue tarp and next to men and women, a few at most, lying in the grass, watching too. I hadn’t seen them before, when I ran, the track was clean and bright during the day. I ran in circles watching the children, my street, everything I was supposed to look out for and averted my eyes from the things I did not want to see. Drunk girls walking up the street. They didn’t look ethnic, they did not look like they belonged in the Twin Palms. The sweat was creasing my makeup, I could feel it, and my mascara stung my eyes. It was
an unfortunate mistake. I ran harder, contemplated rubbing my eyes, deepening the sting and making them burn red and bright. The lights of the track made the ash look neon white falling down. I breathed in the smoke while I ran, liking the sting and the burn, how I couldn’t catch my breath. I felt throw up coming up my throat but I swallowed and kept it down. I let it fill up in my mouth first, cover my tongue, taste the hot sour of Lev and then I swallowed it back down. I did not want to get rid of him, to leave him on the side of the track in the yellowing grass and dirt and pebbles.

AFTER LEV LEFT I FOUND THREE GRAY HAIRS
along the part in my hair. They stuck straight up, more rigid than the rest. I took tweezers and plucked them out. The bulb of the hair follicle still attached. How were they gray? Already? I had heard that men and women grayed down there and I pulled down my pants to check. I took a mirror and placed it down on the bathmat, stood over it and looked for gray hairs. There were moles I had never seen before, skin hung down lower than I had noticed before. I did not like looking at myself. It looked strange, not mine. Discolored. Is this what Lev looked at when he kneeled in between my legs? How could he want to stay?

I did not find any gray hairs.

I put the mirror away and my clothes back on. I rubbed blush on my cheeks and looked at myself in the mirror. How many
in between legs
had Lev seen? Was mine better than the others? How would I know?

The American men I had frequented always said it was the best they’d ever had, the most beautiful, but they still left. If I was aware of the rules ahead of time, this time, things would be different, no? I knew the variables now as I had never known them before. It would be okay, I thought.

THE SHADES WERE DRAWN IN THE GLASS CUBE
of the office and I wondered who authorized the change – to be invisible to the traffic flowing down each side of the boulevard.

I walked in and there was a man standing at the desk. Prim and slim and Pakistani, I think. Middle-aged. It stopped me for a moment but I regained my composure. He smiled at me like he was supposed to.

I walked to the bank of brochures next to the entrance and fingered them, flicking the tops, pulling out ones for Havasu and Laughlin.

“May I help you?” he asked.

I breathed deep.
Where is the desk clerk
,
Jason
, I wanted to ask,
Who are you
, I wanted to ask.

“How much is a room for the night?” I asked, instead.

The man checked his motel register. He had a thin black mustache and his hair was parted at the side, letting the small tufts near his ear fluff up and out.

“It’s 129 for the night,” he said.

“That’s ridiculous,” I said.

He seemed taken aback. “That’s the weekend rate, best on the boulevard.” He had a lilt to his voice. I could tell he was trying to make a hard sell.

“What about room 214?”

He looked at the key fobs behind him.

“Available.” He looked me up and down. “Best room.”

“Can I see it?”

“Trust me.”

“I want to take a quick look,” I said.

He contemplated it and then got sidetracked with a phone call. He was giving someone else the same speech.

I went back to looking at the brochures and considered what to say next. I didn’t want to be rushed.

“I was here a few nights ago and I forgot something in one of the rooms. Where’s that other guy?”

“Other guy?”

“The one who works here, usually.”

“I’ve been working here for days. I don’t remember seeing you.”

“Maybe it was last week,” I said.

“What did you forget, ma’am?”

“It’s private,” I said. I was getting impatient. “The other guy said on the phone I could come back and he’d let me in the room.”

“Ma’am, I’m the only one here.”

“I’m not a
ma’am
.” I was clutching onto shiny, slick brochures, printed cheaply and folded precisely. I was bending the edging to them. Stuffing them in my purse.

“What?” He eyed me strangely.

“I’m a
miss
, not a ma’am. Jason. He told me to come back.”

“I don’t know anyone named Jason.”

“Don’t you clean the pool?” I said.

“No one’s been swimming since the fires.”

I knew that wasn’t true.

“I left it in room 214.”

I made the saddest face I could and he pulled at the fob, annoyed.

I put more brochures in my purse and walked out, behind him.

We walked past the pool, up the stairs and I waited, tapping my fingers on the stucco as he tried to jangle the door open.

He finally opened it. I walked past him and saw the room was empty. Same flower comforter with the plastic sheen. A faint acrid smell, maybe smoke. Nothing else. I pulled the drawer open. The pen, everything was gone. He had the list.

I told the man it was gone and rushed out. He called out and asked if I still wanted the room. I said I didn’t have any money and he swore at me in another language. I didn’t mind because I didn’t know what he said.

 

I walked up the boulevard, past the Ralph’s. The only place to go was home. Back to wait for Lev.

LEV DIDN’T COME BACK UNTIL I WAS ALREADY
sleeping, glass of whiskey and lemon juice and soda next to my bed, near my nose, close enough for me to smell it and turn my stomach while I tried to sleep. Bits of lemon floated up to the surface, hazy brown like swamp water with lemon seeds clustered at the bottom. The knocks were booming and insistent, like I remembered them to be.

I got up and walked to the door, slowly, making him wait, waiting to hear more insistent knocking, to know how badly he wanted to get inside.

They didn’t come.

I hesitated opening the door, worrying he had left to try a door somewhere else. When I finally did I saw him sitting in his car, about to turn it on. He saw me and stopped. He got out, pulled the keys out while standing. He walked over to me, pulled his pants up over his stomach and looked left and right, making sure no one was watching, watching him try again and take me up on coming inside.