Whisper to Me(95)

“Oh, Cass.”

I turned away from you. Through my tears, the world on the other side of the truck window was blurred; running to the ground, melting down to nothing. I shut my eyes and closed it out.





“Cass. Cass.”

I opened my eyes. We were parked on one of the streets behind the boardwalk. We were right outside a fifties motel. The Flamingo. There was a giant pink plastic flamingo outside, holding a cocktail with an umbrella in it. Three floors of rooms rose up on the other side of a thin strip of grass, pink with white balconies, like a wedding cake.

“What are we doing here?” I said.

“I want to show you something,” you said.

“Don’t you have to go to work?”

You shrugged. You tapped the radio on your shoulder. “I am at work. When there are no deliveries, I’m supposed to sort stock, tidy up the piles. That kind of ****. But they won’t know.”

“And if you get a call for deliveries?”

“Then I’ll have to take it.”

“My dad—”

“Won’t be home for hours and you know it.”

“He sometimes comes back for lunch.”

“When was the last time?”

“About … Hmm. About two years ago.”

“Wow,” you said. “You two make me and my dad look functional.”

“We live to serve,” I said flatly.

You made an impatient gesture. “Anyway. I do want to show you something. Come on,” you said, and you got out of the truck and walked up to the motel.

“Fine,” I said, to nobody. And I followed you inside.

The lobby was arranged around a pond, a fake palm tree in the middle of it. A huddle of pink lawn flamingos gathered next to the palm tree, metal legs disappearing into the murky water. A mural of a lagoon in Florida surrounded us, lurid sunset turning the walls orange and red.

A young, bored-looking guy wearing glasses sat at the reception desk. You walked over, nodding to him.

“You got it?” he said.

“Yep.” You handed him a Jiffy envelope and he slid it away, out of sight under the desk.

“Cool if we go to the roof?” you said.

“Whenever, man,” said the guy behind the desk.

You nodded toward a door at the back of the lobby and then opened it for me. “Jesus,” I said. “Are you a drug dealer?” I was remembering your saying that you’d made a delivery to Bayview; that this was why you knew about the cross streets.

“Not me. My boss.”

“But …”

“Turns out, that’s why they wanted someone with a driving license. I don’t have to shell shrimp, but I do have to deliver stuff.”

“But if you were caught …”

“I won’t be. And I need the cash. It pays better than the shrimp.”

“You can’t need the money that badly.”

You stopped and looked at me. “No? My scholarship only pays tuition and room and board.”

“Your dad—”

“Lost his job like three years ago.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“So,” I said. “That’s what you wanted to show me? That you were dealing?”

“Actually, no.”

We were climbing the stairs; we’d arrived at the top of the building. We walked down a gloomy corridor, past a flickering green fire-exit sign, and stopped at a door that said, POOL. OPEN 10–4 P.M., MAY TO OCT. NO NUDITY OR DIVING. NO UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN.

You pushed open the door, and we stepped out onto the roof. Pink lounge chairs were lined up next to a surprisingly clean swimming pool, the water clear and blue under the bright sunny sky. We were three stories up; you could see over the buildings on the other side of the street to the boardwalk, and the beach beyond, the sand almost golden next to the dark navy of the ocean. A container ship crawled across the horizon.

“Weirdly beautiful, isn’t it?” you said.

“Yeah.”

The pool was long and oblong. To the right of it was a bar area, a tiki-style thing with a straw roof. I figured they would be big on cocktails with umbrellas in them. Next to this was a small bandstand with mike stands, amps, and instruments sitting there, as if a band had been playing them and had suddenly abandoned them for some urgent reason.

At the edges of the roof were low walls. I could see why there were NO UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN. I could also see, by crouching, that when you were swimming you would barely see the walls—it would be as if you were swimming in the sea, nothing between you and the ocean.

You saw me crouching. “Cool, no?”

“Uh-huh.”

“When you’re in, it’s like an infinity of water.”

“Poetic.”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

I walked around the pool. “You come here often?”

“You picking me up?”

I raised my eyebrows. Didn’t answer.

“Sorry. Yeah, I do. To swim.”

“You swim here?”

You tapped your waist. “Always have swim shorts under my pants. I couldn’t be a lifeguard—not enough hours. But I have to swim.”

“Have to?”