Perfect Fifths (10 page)

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"What are my odds of getting a seat that way?"

Sylvia gives her a thumbs-down and a full-face frown.

"So what you're saying is, I can only hope there's someone like me who is stupid enough to miss her flight."

"Yep," Sylvia says with a shrug. "Someone like you."

Someone like you. Jessica's wayward attention drifts yet again. She thinks about someone like herself, as she was during hospital visiting hours last night. She

remembers the shaved head (Jessica prays for the opportunity to joke about a whole new awkward hair-growing-out phase) halved by one-sided train-track stitches; the unresponsive face, unrecognizable and grotesque from bruising and swelling (another joke: about how she's lucky she looks good in purple); the thin, small body (more childlike than ever) attached to too many tubes—breathing, feeding, excreting—connected to too many machines keeping her alive for too many hours already: thirty-six.

Jessica glances at her new watch, a gift from her mother, who, in one of the more harmless intergenerational differences of opinion, still believes that it's unprofessional to check one's cell phone for the time. It's almost two P.M. It will be near dark here in Newark when the next plane to St. Thomas takes off. Two days ago, in another time zone, Jessica's watch would have been three hours behind, requiring three twists of the tiny dial to catch up. And if she were in yet another time zone, it would be evening right now. Or tomorrow. Time is fluid and flexible, a made-up construct. Isn't that the kind of logic that has alcoholics lining up their glasses at all hours of the day? Hey, it's five o'clock somewhere.

"So, Sylvia," Jessica says, leaning in to the counter. "Can you point the way to the closest bar?"

f fteen

Marcus inhales. Clasps his hands together, swings them over his head and pushes them palms-up toward the ceiling. He exhales.

A high school senior in her first-choice college hoodie, sweatpants, and Sherpa boots giggles all over herself as she snaps pictures of Marcus on her camera-phone.

Marcus drops his entwined hands behind his neck and squeezes the sides of his head with his jutting elbows. He inhales again.

The girl texts a friend: hott

His hands break free. He exhales again.

The friend replies: iwhi

He shakes his hands out in front of him chest-high, his fingers all blurry from the flapping. Inhales once more.

The girl texts back: omfg ita

If Natty were here, he would tell Marcus to stop swinging his dick around like a lasso.

I'm just stretching," Marcus would say.

'The jailbait would say otherwise," Natty would argue. "This is classic lasso-dicking."

"No, it's not."

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"Yes, it is." And then Natty would smile wickedly and say, "Didn't your anthropology professor teach you anything?"

In fact, she did. She lectured Marcus about all sorts of flamboyant courtship displays throughout the animal kingdom. The Argentine lake duck swings its long, thin penis to lasso females cowboy-style. Frigate birds inflate their throat sacks into bright red heart-shaped balloons. Hippos take huge, pungent dumps, then twirl their tails helicopter-style to spread the scent. Moose soak their beards in urine. Bower birds build elaborate maypole towers out of twigs and twine. Painted turtles grow out their toenail claws, then swim laps to show off the wake. Hedgehogs run in frenetic circles. Prairie dogs square-dance. Frogs sing. Elks bugle. Many primates—with whom humans share 98 percent of their DNA—flash engorged rainbow-colored genitals.

Marcus Flutie stretches.

"Lasso dick."

Whenever Natty said it, Marcus would punch him in the chest much harder than necessary if it were just a meaningless joke. The truth is, despite his denials, Marcus knows his poses attract more attention than standing still. Whether he assumes these yogic positions in public in spite of or because of this knowledge is something not even Marcus can answer. But he senses that he's being watched right now. The teenage girl has shuffled away, having been summoned by her parents. But perhaps

Jonelle is keeping her eye on him, readying herself to return under the pretense of admonishing him for his rudeness—how could you just ignore me like that?—when in

reality, her rehearsed hostility is just an excuse to talk to him again.

"Pardon me," says a commanding male voice.

Marcus turns to face two Port Authority policemen who had been watching him. With his salt-and-pepper mustache and sandbagged eyes, the first officer appears older than he really is. Marcus would be surprised to hear that he's still a few decades from retirement and is only a few years older than his brother, Hugo, who just turned thirty. The second officer is shorter and thick with overcompensatory muscles, especially around the neck. He's new to the beat, still passionate about his job, and will pounce if provoked. He reminds Marcus of a pit bull trained to kill.

"Is there a problem, Officers?" Marcus looks them both briefly in the eye before settling his gaze on the more coolheaded-looking officer.

"We were going to ask you the same question," the pit bull says with a menacing smile that warns, / will Tase you if I have to. He narrows his eyes, trying to size Marcus up.

Have I been acting suspiciously? Marcus wonders. Or did Jonelle report me to the police as revenge for rebuffing her advances?

"No," Marcus says. "There's no problem here." He has conditioned himself to keep responses brief in these types of situations.

The officers exchange looks. The pit bull's fingers twitch at his sides, just itching to pull his gun out of his
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holster. The first one asks in a measured tone, "Can we please see your identification and flight information?"

Marcus can't help but think that even the first officer, so polite with his "please" and "pardon me,"

wouldn't hesitate to handcuff and haul him off to a holding cell.

Fortunately (or not), he has had a lot of practice with negotiating his way out of situations like this. Just as Marcus is unfazed by attracting the attention of strange

females, he is equally accustomed to being subjected to impromptu interrogations by police officers, security guards, and other keepers of the peace.

"No problem," Marcus says, reaching into his back pocket for his wallet. He flips it open to his driver's license photo. The policemen examine the man in the photo

(thinner, somehow older at twenty-two than he is at twenty-six, with an unfortunate Al-Qaedan beard) and compare it to the man standing in front of them.

"And your flight information?" the first cop asks.

"Of course," Marcus says, patting his pockets until he finds evidence of his flight from New Orleans, the only proof he has right now that he still has reason to be here. He hands over the halved boarding pass with no further explanation. Marcus knows better than to put up any protest, especially when the officers are harassing him for no reason. No reason can turn into a night in jail very quickly.

The first officer takes a look at Marcus's document, then hands it to his partner for appraisal.

"This flight landed hours ago," the pit bull says, his voice rising. "You have no reason to be here. Only valid ticket holders are permitted to remain in the airport. We can issue you a citation for loitering."

Marcus has been threatened with the same charge more times than he can count. He is a habitual loiterer. Though today it's intentional, a consequence of watching Jessica from afar, his loitering is usually accidental , an unplanned ambulatory meditation during which he gets so caught up in his thoughts that he forgets what he's doing (walking somewhere), where he is (leaning against a lamppost on Nassau Street), or how long he's been there (a half hour). How many times has he been shaken back into consciousness by a man in uniform who assumes Marcus is under the influence of alcohol or another, more illicit mind-altering substance? How many times has he shown up late without an acceptable answer when asked where he's been and why it took him so long to arrive?

"I'm waiting for a friend whose flight is late."

Marcus immediately regrets this lie because he doesn't like to lie. He doesn't like to lie on principle: The truth should always suffice, and if it doesn't, well, that's his own fault for getting himself into such a morally questionable position to begin with. But he also doesn't lie for practical reasons: He can never keep his lies straight.

Now that he's already lied, he sees no choice but to commit to it. "I'm supposed to stand here by this telephone bank until she arrives, but—" Marcus cuts himself off midsentence, unwilling and unable to embellish any more than that.

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"What flight is your friend on?"

This is exactly why Marcus doesn't like to lie. One lie always requires another, and another, and it's all too much for him to handle. Marcus's heart speeds up. He can feel a bead of sweat dropping from his armpit, trickling, tickling its way down his torso, slipping past his waistband.

"Your friend must have provided her flight information, correct?"

Even the first cop is tensing up, his fleshy cheeks popping in and out with the clenching and unclenching of his jaw as he looks Marcus over. The cop doesn't know

what this guy is up to, but there's something not quite right about his story. He thinks the guy is under the influence of something, but he's not sure what. Marcus

wonders if it's too late to backtrack from his first lie, or whether he's skilled enough to compound that lie with another. He recalls Natty's warning: Ten more seconds, and you've crossed the line between bittersweet reunion and restraining order. The second cop is ready to lunge.

Marcus spots a movement out of the corner of his eye, a figure in all black exiting the Clear Sky customer service center. He points with his whole arm.

"That's her," he blurts, unleashing a chestful of pent-up air. "That's who I'm waiting for." Marcus is at their mercy.

It's the first cop who makes the decision. "Then let's go have a talk with your friend."

s xteen

What a day, Jessica thinks as she heads to Hwy. 9 Bar & Grille. This day has been so ... so ... ?

Jessica fumbles for the right word and, in failing to find it, wonders whether she should bother with the alcohol. She feels as if she's functioning in a sort of dream state already, one comparable to early stages of drunkenness when the five senses are on the way to not making much sense at all. Jessica doesn't drink much

anymore—last night was an exception. Abstaining is easy because Jessica has a rule against drinking alone that goes all the way back to a video about problem

drinking in seventh-grade health class. drinking alone was number two on the list of signs that you were a problem drinker (after drinking to get drunk).

Jessica went on to ignore other warnings on that list (drinking to get drunk, drinking to the point of vomiting, drinking to the point of passing out, etc.) but

rarely broke the rule about drinking alone. Her sloppiest inebriations were always in the company of others. She was a social drunk, personable, not pathetic, and certainly not problematic, even on those collegiate morning-afters when she woke up without panties, the stench of fresh puke in her hair. When she travels by herself, there's no company of others to drink with. So she doesn't. Except on the one occasion she did bring company back to her hotel room in the form of Len Levy. That night she did drink. A little too much.

"Miss!"

Jessica hears the shout and assumes it's directed at someone else because she's a "ma'am" now.

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When she drinks in the company of others, it's usually over a meal, in which case she orders the appropriate beverages to go with the food on the table: margaritas with burritos, sake with sushi, bold reds with pasta, sangria with tapas. Oh, how she wishes she were already on St. John, clinking cocktail glasses full of tropical fruity beverages with her best friends. She doesn't regret visiting Sunny in the hospital, though she does regret the unfortunate consequence of her actions: the possibility that she might miss Bridget and Percy's wedding altogether.

Jessica might feel less guilty about her delinquency if she knew for sure that Sunny had benefited from the visit. Her mom and dad (whom Jessica had never met in

person and who seemed more sympathetic than their daughter's essays made them out to be, though in this situation, even the most cretinous parents would be

transformed into good people worth rooting for) encouraged Jessica to talk to her as she always would.

They believed that their daughter could still hear, if not respond to, visitors' conversations, and that such interactions were crucial for stimulating her injured brain and could be the difference between a full recovery and a

semivegetative state.

"Hey, Sunny," Jessica had whispered, looking at the blips on the heart-rate monitor instead of her. "You know, I rearranged my travel plans to be here, so the least you can do is wake up."

No one else was in the room, but Jessica shrank with shame all the same. The joke felt crass, forced.

And worst of all, unfunny. Sunny definitely would have called her out on it. "With all due respect, Ms. Darling," she would have said, "that lame joke is why the baby Jesus weeps."

Jessica had known going into the visit that Sunny wouldn't be able to contribute to the conversation. Yet deep down, Jessica had hoped for a cinematic miracle that

was not going to come, at least not while she was sitting beside Sunny. That delayed realization made the rest of the brief visit almost too much for Jessica to take.

She stayed only until Sunny's beleaguered parents returned from a quick dinner in the hospital cafeteria, a ten-minute respite from a round-the-clock vigil.