the engine.
Kandy’s lip curls with pleasure. “Thanks, old man. You coming up?”
I am horrified. James? Coming up where? The arcade? The boardwalk? What is she talking about? I slam the passenger-side door and pound twice on the car. “Oh, no, he has knee replacement surgery this afternoon, he can’t come.” They both stare at me, failing to pick up on my fine humor. “He has to have his dentures filed down. After his coffin fitting.”
James laughs, tucking his chin down turtlishly, back to the James I know. I look between them, waiting for Kandy to start walking or James to turn the car back on. Nothing happens, so I head up to the boardwalk alone, and when Kandy comes up twenty minutes later with a soda I bet she didn’t buy, I ask, “What the fuck was that?”
“He’s nice.”
“He’s, like, fifty.”
“ Ew. I just said he’s nice. What are you, ageist?”
I shudder. I guess I am ageist.
Kandy leans against the boardwalk fence and throws her head back, takes a drag of her cigarette. “Jim thinks I could model,” she says.
“James.”
“Whatever.”
THIS IS WHAT we do at Emerald parties: We drink, we talk about ourselves, we make jokes, we catch each other’s eye and think, What if? We do a power hour—a shot of beer every minute, the minutes marked by song changes, a boy wearing eyeliner and army boots manning the boom box. Kandy invites new boys, always: shy JV athletes, stoners, philosophizing honors boys with facial moles and legs hairless as girls’, and they flutter around her while she postures for Jake. Inevitably, one of these boys passes out, and we put makeup and a bra on him, and I take pictures.
Tonight somebody brought an old childhood copy of Magic Telephone, a game where you figure out, from clues spoken by a giant pink plastic telephone, which one of twenty-five fictional boys has a crush on you. On laminated cards, they clutch surfboards and electric guitars; their skin gleams acne-free. We are playing ironically. We take shots of Jägermeister whenever we guess wrong. I am pulling for Will, the hot poet-athlete, because the other girls seem to like him most. I haven’t seen my sisters since the Peter Pan encounter, and I am feeling successfully normal.
“Look at that,” says Pam, and points through the doorway to the bedroom, where Kandy and Jake are slow-dancing, Kandy with her head on Jake’s shoulder and her eyes closed, looking like a doll; Jake smoking a cigarette. I snap a photo. Jake notices the flash and waves his pinkie at us. He makes a drinking sign with his cigarette hand, rolls his eyes, and points at Kandy’s head. I laugh. Pam stares at me and gets up.
The music is good, and the air is salty and cool, and everywhere people are laughing; it is one of the good nights. After our game has broken up, Jake comes over to where I’m dancing with a knot of kids. He lifts my hand, spreads it open, and drops a round pink pill into my palm. His eyes so blue they seem clear to me, like lenses through which I am seeing an interior sky. “But Doctor,” I ask, “what will it do?”
“It will give you joy,” he tells me, and that is good enough.
WE DON’T HEAR them come in. All of a sudden there are five giant cops flanking the door to the suite, yelling that we kids are in big trouble and this building is condemned and did we do this to the walls? I see it happen in slow motion, these men bellowing, pointing, striding into the heart of my new world, fluttering their fingers over the butts of black guns tucked into belt holsters. One of them pries a Barbie doll out of the gunked paint on the wall and shows it to another one. My eyes focus on a pink color behind the cops, such a familiar pink, moving, following them into the suite: That’s a dress my mother has. No.
That’s my mother.
There she stands, trembling, glassy-eyed. She followed me. It is one of the good nights, maybe the best night, and she is out to ruin everything. Her cheeks are flushed,
Kandy’s lip curls with pleasure. “Thanks, old man. You coming up?”
I am horrified. James? Coming up where? The arcade? The boardwalk? What is she talking about? I slam the passenger-side door and pound twice on the car. “Oh, no, he has knee replacement surgery this afternoon, he can’t come.” They both stare at me, failing to pick up on my fine humor. “He has to have his dentures filed down. After his coffin fitting.”
James laughs, tucking his chin down turtlishly, back to the James I know. I look between them, waiting for Kandy to start walking or James to turn the car back on. Nothing happens, so I head up to the boardwalk alone, and when Kandy comes up twenty minutes later with a soda I bet she didn’t buy, I ask, “What the fuck was that?”
“He’s nice.”
“He’s, like, fifty.”
“ Ew. I just said he’s nice. What are you, ageist?”
I shudder. I guess I am ageist.
Kandy leans against the boardwalk fence and throws her head back, takes a drag of her cigarette. “Jim thinks I could model,” she says.
“James.”
“Whatever.”
THIS IS WHAT we do at Emerald parties: We drink, we talk about ourselves, we make jokes, we catch each other’s eye and think, What if? We do a power hour—a shot of beer every minute, the minutes marked by song changes, a boy wearing eyeliner and army boots manning the boom box. Kandy invites new boys, always: shy JV athletes, stoners, philosophizing honors boys with facial moles and legs hairless as girls’, and they flutter around her while she postures for Jake. Inevitably, one of these boys passes out, and we put makeup and a bra on him, and I take pictures.
Tonight somebody brought an old childhood copy of Magic Telephone, a game where you figure out, from clues spoken by a giant pink plastic telephone, which one of twenty-five fictional boys has a crush on you. On laminated cards, they clutch surfboards and electric guitars; their skin gleams acne-free. We are playing ironically. We take shots of Jägermeister whenever we guess wrong. I am pulling for Will, the hot poet-athlete, because the other girls seem to like him most. I haven’t seen my sisters since the Peter Pan encounter, and I am feeling successfully normal.
“Look at that,” says Pam, and points through the doorway to the bedroom, where Kandy and Jake are slow-dancing, Kandy with her head on Jake’s shoulder and her eyes closed, looking like a doll; Jake smoking a cigarette. I snap a photo. Jake notices the flash and waves his pinkie at us. He makes a drinking sign with his cigarette hand, rolls his eyes, and points at Kandy’s head. I laugh. Pam stares at me and gets up.
The music is good, and the air is salty and cool, and everywhere people are laughing; it is one of the good nights. After our game has broken up, Jake comes over to where I’m dancing with a knot of kids. He lifts my hand, spreads it open, and drops a round pink pill into my palm. His eyes so blue they seem clear to me, like lenses through which I am seeing an interior sky. “But Doctor,” I ask, “what will it do?”
“It will give you joy,” he tells me, and that is good enough.
WE DON’T HEAR them come in. All of a sudden there are five giant cops flanking the door to the suite, yelling that we kids are in big trouble and this building is condemned and did we do this to the walls? I see it happen in slow motion, these men bellowing, pointing, striding into the heart of my new world, fluttering their fingers over the butts of black guns tucked into belt holsters. One of them pries a Barbie doll out of the gunked paint on the wall and shows it to another one. My eyes focus on a pink color behind the cops, such a familiar pink, moving, following them into the suite: That’s a dress my mother has. No.
That’s my mother.
There she stands, trembling, glassy-eyed. She followed me. It is one of the good nights, maybe the best night, and she is out to ruin everything. Her cheeks are flushed,
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