Always Happy Hour: Stories(21)
. . .
I refuse to let him take my car so we clean out the truck he uses for work, which belongs to his boss. There’s a situation with a headlight that is an illegal blue color; the cops have already pulled him over twice and told him to get it fixed. We pour two beers into giant McDonald’s cups and he rolls a joint for the road, all of which is worrisome but I tell myself we’re embarking upon a great adventure.
I settle myself into the passenger seat, kick trash around the floorboard.
We pass a group of men near the entrance and he rolls down his window. They are born-again bikers, men with lots of tattoos and angry faces, but they don’t drink or do drugs or get into fights; they show up at trials to support children who have been abused, stand in the back of the courtroom with their arms crossed. They’re biker angels, he tells me, making fun of them, but I think it’s what they call themselves.
At my apartment, he waits in the truck while I walk the three flights upstairs. I get my camera and a pair of shorts and a bikini; the bottoms can double as panties. I wander the rooms wondering what else I might need, if I should just lock the door, put on my pajamas and get in bed. It looks so comfortable, the sheets newly changed, sage green—such a pleasant color. I grab a bottle of water and a couple of Luna bars and then we’re on the highway, headed south. I haven’t been to Biloxi since I broke up with Richard. I have so many old boyfriends now, spread out all over, and so many things remind me of them. I’ll pass a Wendy’s and remember the one who would only eat plain hamburgers. There we are, sitting under the yellow lights with our trays in front of us as I eat one french fry at a time. Nearly every movie, every song and TV show and item of food reminds me of someone and it is a horrible way to live.
I flip down the visor to look at myself. My hair’s in a ratty ponytail and I don’t have any makeup on and I’m too old to be going around barefaced, my mother says. I wish I’d showered before we left his trailer but it’s so small the water runs everywhere and I can’t turn around without the curtain touching my arms or legs, the same curtain that touched the arms and legs of a stranger.
“I brought my swimsuit in case there’s a pool at our hotel.” He puts a hand on my knee. “I need a new one—this one’s from three summers ago and it’s all worn on the butt.”
“I’ll get you a new one,” he says. “I’ll get you a white bikini so I can see your nipples.” The word bikini doesn’t sound right in his mouth. And he hardly ever buys me anything, though it’s always his pot we smoke and I’ve never once bought condoms. Condoms are expensive, he tells me, especially the way we go through them. He has never suggested we don’t use them, though, which is nice of him.
“Do you want me to drive?” I ask.
“I’m fine.”
“I haven’t had as much to drink.”
“I’m fine,” he says again.
“Did the guy say what he wanted the pictures for?”
“We know why he wants them.”
“I know but did he say it?”
“No.”
“ ’Cause that’s not how it works.”
“Right,” he says. He turns the radio up. We both like country music. We also like rap. No one knows where I am. When I’m with him, I don’t return my friends’ text messages or answer my mother’s phone calls. I fall down a rabbit hole.
It’s not a bad drive down 49. There are plenty of places to stop, which I appreciate, and lots of antique malls made out of connecting storage units. My mother used to make me go to them with her back when I was too young to refuse, but I don’t remember her ever buying anything. I wonder what she was looking for. There’s a catfish house shaped like an igloo and another one in a massive barn, only about five miles apart. I like the men on the side of the highway selling fruits and vegetables, nice-looking men in overalls, real country people. We live in Mississippi and almost everyone we know is from Mississippi but we don’t know any real country people.
“I have to pee,” I say, “just stop wherever, whenever it’s convenient.” He tells me I pee too much, and it’s true, I do pee a lot. I close my eyes and think about the woman, Susan Lacey. I imagine her in a shapeless housedress and heavy shoes with rubber soles like a nurse, spooning fro-yo from a gallon container. And then I imagine a younger Susan Lacey, her hair long and dark, eyes full of life. She’s on the street, carrying a recyclable bag full of organic fruits and vegetables, flowers sticking out of the top of it. The picture will capture her mid-stride, head turning to look for cars as she crosses the street. It’s a picture I’ve seen so many times on the crime shows I watch, the photograph snapping the color out of everything.
“Can I smoke?” I ask.
“I don’t care.”
“No, the joint.”
“Let’s wait till after,” he says.
I say okay but after feels like forever. I wish I’d grabbed a book from my apartment—all I have is the Cosmo with the address and number on it and I’ve already read it from cover to cover. I reread an interview with Cameron Diaz. Cosmo asks her what the secret is to being an effective flirt—“Is it ‘flipping your goddamn hair,’ like Lucy Liu advised you to do in Angels?” And Cameron Diaz says, “Yes, flip the goddamn hair [laughs]. I think the secret is trying to be charming. I always try to make a man laugh, and usually, it’s by making fun of myself.” I wonder if her answer would be different in 2013, if she would say something so embarrassing and unfeminist-like. I try to focus on the trees, the way the light filters through them, but there’s Susan Lacey again—she is definitely the younger, dark-haired one. Perhaps she’s even beautiful, but it isn’t going to save her.