The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady (38 page)

Vic promised them he’d be careful and be right back and stepped
out onto the patio, stung by wind-whipped sand and rain. His T-shirt and shorts instantly soaked through. He turned to his right, backing underneath the eaves, so that the wind and sand weren’t coming right into his face, and gulped down the cold beer. This house stood level to the beach, a row of protective dunes in front of it, sea oats on the dunes blown flat. In between the dunes he could see the water, waves coming fast, right up to the dunes. Slap, slap, slap. Shingles on the roof above him flapped, and the mast of a nearby Hobie Cat, which nobody had seen fit to secure, clanged and whanged. Here he was, in a hurricane. Not as thrilling as he’d hoped it would be.

The patio door groaned open. “Mr. May-ture!” It was Gigi, stepping out onto the patio behind him. “I been looking for you!” She was carrying a bottle of Miller Lite. Her soaking-wet hair whipped wildly around her face. Eyes squinted against the wind, she tipped toward him, arms outstretched, beer breath and soft lips coming closer, but he quickly turned his head so she’d kiss his cheek. People were watching. Ava and Travis were watching.

Vic drained his beer and set the bottle down on the flagstones. It clunked over and rattled away.

She was leaning against him, staring out into the Gulf. “No birds out today! I love pelicans!” she said, yelling over the racket. “Aren’t they cute?”

“You should’ve told me that your brother’s a pervert.”

Gigi just stood there, staring out at the Gulf, one hand shielding her eyes. “I swear to God there’s a boat out there.”

Vic peered out at the horizon but didn’t see any boats.

Gigi took another slug from her bottle. “I hope they send the fucker up the river for good. Then Mama will realize she has a daughter and not just a fucked-up crazy-ass son.”

“Go back inside,” he said. “You’re ruining my storm experience.” He meant this as a joke, sort of.

“You’re a dick,” Gigi said. “You always tried to act so together, but I knew. I knew about you and old what’s-her-name. After Larry’s party.”

“How’d you know?” He never wanted to remember old what’s-her-name.

“Everybody knows, Duckie. We called her Radio Station, ’cause anybody could pick her up, ’specially at night.” She reached over and pinched Vic’s lips together. “Your mouth looks like a duck’s. I always wanted to say that. Hey! Duckie! Let’s go ride us some dolphins!” She spun around and began maneuvering her way, barefoot, across the slick patio and then up the wooden boardwalk toward the water, wind and rain blowing her sideways, her hair like an inside-out umbrella. She disappeared between the dunes.

What could he do but follow? On the boardwalk the wind was much worse, sand burning his bare legs and arms. He cupped his face to keep the sand out of his eyes. It was worse than being out in a blizzard. It was hard to walk straight. He felt like one of those show-off reporters on Weather Channel, who stood outside in hurricanes, dancing around like Rumpelstiltskin.

At the end of the boardwalk, where there was usually sixty or so yards of white beach, there was now only water and howling wind. And Gigi. Gigi stood facing away from him, in the water up to her knees. He yelled at her, but she didn’t turn around.

A cooler lid cartwheeled past him into the water, an aluminum chair just behind it. The wind kept nudge, nudge, nudging and Vic allowed himself to be scooped up and deposited into the Gulf with Gigi, staggering and hopping along instead of dragging his feet like they told you to do to scare the stingrays away. He’d never liked the cloudy water at Alligator Point, didn’t like not being able to see the stingrays and the sharks that might be lurking, but that uneasiness had never stopped him from going into the water. He’d always just figured that if
it was his time to be stung or bitten, so be it. Beer helped. Would there even be any rays or sharks out in this weather? The warm water now was murkier than ever, and he couldn’t even see his own sandaled feet.

When he reached Gigi, he grabbed her arm and they both lurched around in a silly dance. Then she plopped down and crouched there in water up to her chin. She took another swig from her bottle, like it was an ordinary beach day.

“We need to go in,” he yelled at her.

“I love you, Vic,” she yelled back. “So there. I love you.” He couldn’t see her eyes, hidden by strands of her dripping hair, but he knew that, even in her drunken state, she was watching his face carefully.

“Shit.” He glanced behind him. He and Gigi were further from shore now, and at a different angle than they had been earlier.

“Shit! What the hell kind of response is that? I’m sorry I fucked up at FTA okay? You still mad at me for that? Is that your problem?”

“There’s plenty of problems.” They were both yelling the sorts of things that last week they couldn’t have even imagined speaking aloud. “I’m married. You’re a drunk. Your brother molested my daughter. Take your pick.” He was angry at her, angry at himself, but in a way the anger felt just as trumped-up as their earlier lovey-dovey stuff. Loving her, hating her … had he trumped up all of it?

The water lapped at his hips. The wind was now behind them, shoving them, trying to bully them out into that vast expanse of brownish gray water studded with whitecaps. He and Gigi were moving, dancing around together. He couldn’t blink the salty water out of his eyes. Again he begged her to come back with him.

She started giggling and pointed. “Your hair.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

A bigger wave broke over them, knocking Gigi backward. She came up laughing, spitting water, holding her beer bottle safely aloft, but now she was treading water, and he was immersed up to his shoulders.

Vic held out his hand to Gigi. “Come on. We’re getting washed out to sea.”

Gigi ignored his hand, pouting. “Don’t care.”

Washed out to sea. Did he really say that? Sounded like an old pirate movie. Sounded too fucking metaphorical. There was something unreal about the whole scene. Now
he
was treading water. He turned. Travis and Ava were at the end of the boardwalk, two figures waving at them. A curtain of lightning dropped down over Little Alligator Bay.

“Lightning,” Vic yelled, making a grab for Gigi.

Gigi swooshed sideways, away from him. “You’re happy to play around till I tell you I love you. And you drink just as much as me.”

“I never drink as much as you.”

“Fucking liar!”

Why were they having this insane fight? Being drunk was like experiencing the world as drawn by crayons—all bright and dark outlines. Nuance and detail and complexity all gone!—I love you! Let’s have fun! Pelicans are cute! You’re a dick! I hate you! Liar!—Everything was clear and everything was stupid. No wonder drunkenness was such an appealing way for people to get through life.

Ava and Travis, at the end of the boardwalk, were jumping around and waving frantically. And there were now other people standing at the end of the boardwalk with Ava, waving. Maude, in her raspberry-colored dress. The pregnant man with the skeeter car. They were all soaked, staggering forward and backward in the wind, like people in a cartoon. It would’ve been, under other circumstances, comical. It wasn’t funny. Not at all. None of this was funny.

Gigi dunked underwater and came back up, spluttering and wiping her eyes. Was she crying? There was no sense blaming her, he realized. He’d led her on. He was proud of himself for having wise thoughts at a time like this, even though he was still treading water. He spoke to Gigi
in what he hoped was a calm and calming, gentle voice. “Please come in with me.”

She grimaced. “I’m not going anywhere. Especially with you, asshole.” She raised the beer bottle, drained the water out, then cocked her arm back and tossed it at him, and before he could throw his hands up, it struck the side of his head and bounced off. She covered her mouth, laughing. “Oops,” she said.

Vic clutched his stinging head. “You bitch.” He was speaking B movie dialogue. This whole scene was out of a B movie. Pirate May-ture (aka Duckie) and the Drunk Vixen Get Swept Out to Sea. Never in his life had he imagined himself in such a melodramatic scene. But why not him? Why should he be immune? Life wants to be a B movie. Everyone’s life. Even his. Get drunk, act on your impulses, shout out stupid shit you’ll be ashamed of later—B movie!

Another curtain of lightning, behind the houses, this time a wraparound curtain instead of a café curtain, and then the deep chuckle of thunder.

“I’m just your midlife crisis,” she said. “I’m your shiny red sports car, motherfucker.”

He rubbed his temple. Why couldn’t he just swim away and let her drown? A band of stronger rain washed over them, then another. A line of heavier thunderstorms coming in. “You’re just like your brother,” he bellowed. “A cheating, self-pitying sociopath.” That had a real ring to it.

Gigi barked with laughter. “Who’s the one cheating?” she yodeled. “What do you call what we were doing, Duckie? You’re just pissed ’cause you’re stuck in a crappy job and you’re not even a member of your own famdammly.”

It was the remark about his family that made him want to quit fighting. “My daughter’s trying to save us,” he said. “So’s your son.”

Ava and Travis were wading into the water, lumbering toward them, terrified expressions on their faces.

Gigi turned to look. “Hey! It’s Avis and Trava!”

Vic dove under the water, scooped her up and, clutching her under his arm, hauled her ass and his out of the water.

* * *

On the way home with Ava from Alligator Point, Vic could drive only twenty miles an hour. Lightning flashed all around them and Ava screeched every time. Ditches were full up, more than full, and the overflow crept out across the road, forming rivers. In Carrabelle they drove through a lake of unknown depth where the road used to be. They were in it before he could stop, so he had to keep going. Tree branches flew in front of them. They swerved to avoid a plastic kiddie pool. Stoplights swayed manically over their heads.

He’d swallowed three quick cups of coffee in Maude’s kitchen, so now he was a wide-awake drunk with a throbbing knot on his forehead who had to take a leak, driving with his precious, terrified towel-wrapped daughter shivering beside him in the car, but he still thought it was a better option than staying at the party. If he’d stayed, he would’ve done something even more asinine than he was doing now. God, just get them back safely. He felt he’d barely escaped some alternate life in which he and Gigi acted out scene after scene of their B movie. He knew he’d have to straighten things out with Gigi once and for all the next time he saw her. He’d have to come clean at FTA. But for now he felt lucky to have escaped.

What almost caused him to have a wreck, right before he tackled the Ochlockonee Bridge, was his cell phone ringing. The unexpectedness of it startled him. He veered into the other lane, overcorrected, and spun sideways, his tires spewing up water. Fortunately they were the only car on the highway. Their Volvo had stopped in the wrong lane and he eased it back into the right one. He flipped open his phone without bothering to read the caller ID. “What?” he said into the phone,
his heart thudding. No response. “You scared me to death,” he said to whoever had called him.

Ava was staring out the window at a little clearing in the woods. “That’s where Mr. Ugly used to sell his peanuts, isn’t it, Daddy?”

There was nobody on the line. He didn’t recognize the number when he glanced at it. He snapped the phone shut and kept driving. After a minute he told Ava, “Mr. Ugly hasn’t been there in a long time.”

Caroline rang the doorbell of the house on Evergreen Street. It was only seven in the evening, but the sky had already darkened. She and Otis and Suzi stood on the deep front porch, waiting. It was an old Craftsman-style house, beige stucco and green trim, with steps and a railing leading up from the sidewalk and a little apron of a yard in front, all in surprisingly good shape. There were lights on upstairs. Caroline rang the bell again. Distant thunder rumbled, and a great gray cloud shaped like a steep cliff was creeping across the sky toward them from the Mississippi River. Did Grayson stretch all the way up here? Surely not. But there was a storm brewing. Wind blew damp air and exhaust fumes over from Madison Avenue, which mingled with the smell of the gardenia bushes around the porch.

“Somebody’s got to be in there,” Caroline said, and leaned on the bell again, longer this time. Otis walked over and peered in a window, and Suzi sat down on a glider. They didn’t have any luggage with them, because they’d left home in such a hurry.

On the sidewalk in front of the house, an anorexic-looking lady in baggy clothes walked up with three black Scottie dogs on three separate leashes. “Hurry up. Poop!” she ordered her dogs, who kept sniffing the grass but not pooping. The wind was picking up, blowing the woman’s hair into her eyes, whipping around the empty plastic poop bag she carried.

“We’re camping out right here till they answer the door,” Caroline told her children.

“They can’t hide forever,” Otis said, peering in another window.

“We ride to victory!” Suzi yelled.