We Run the Tides(37)
When the clapping and whistling, finally, begins to wane, Maria Fabiola’s mother and father walk down the stairs so that they’re standing on either side of her, but one step above. Has the entire evening been choreographed like an awards ceremony? How did her parents know to halt their descent one step above hers? I am impressed.
Arabella strikes the triangle again and Maria Fabiola begins to speak.
“I want to thank you for all your support while I was missing,” she says. Her voice is soft and her tone shaky. Her voice, I decide, is part of the performance. “Now I know a lot of you are wondering what happened . . .”
The guests laugh and then quickly quash their laughter, sensing that it’s not appropriate. “Well, I’m not at liberty to tell you all the details right now because I promised ABC News an exclusive.” She’s rotating toward the far left, the middle, and the far right as she speaks, and bowing subtly. She reminds me of Glinda, the Good Witch, speaking to the Munchkins. “But I can say that I was kidnapped by foreigners and that they took me on a boat. At first, I wasn’t treated well—I almost died in the dark!—but one of the shipmates took pity on me and then they started treating me better. The ship crashed near an island, and it was then, when I swam to the island, that I was able to escape.”
The guests start clapping.
My head feels light. I bite my own tongue with the left side of my mouth. I’m afraid I might say something. I might object, like a bad guest at a wedding interjecting something horrific during the ceremony.
Her father makes a brief, bland speech about how happy they are to have her back. Her mother thanks Arabella for throwing a party in her beautiful home. Arabella uses this acknowledgment as an opportunity to announce, “My ex-husband may live in Geneva, but our divorce was anything but Swiss. Everyone took a side. But at least I have this house.” More laughter.
Then she strikes the wand against the triangle once more—a sign, I suppose, that the performance is over. Maria Fabiola turns and ascends the staircase. Her dress has a scallop-edged train, and it swiftly recedes like an ocean wave.
“You think she got a boob job?” Axel’s tan friend asks.
“She was kidnapped,” Axel says.
“Well maybe they made her get a boob job,” the gelled friend says.
“It’s the dress,” I say. “It does that.”
They all nod, as though I’m the expert on dresses. I pick up the Diane von Furstenberg book from the coffee table to cement my new reputation.
“You want to go outside?” Axel asks me. “I know a secret balcony. Leon took me there once.”
“Sure,” I say. I follow him to the back of the study. I can feel my classmates’ eyes on him, on me, on us. I try to disguise my pleasure, but the corners of my mouth lift up against my will. He opens the door that looks like it would lead to a utility closet and I trip over the threshold.
“Watch your step,” he says belatedly and we both laugh. I’m on my knees on the balcony. He helps me up and clumsily, I stand. I’ve never been drunk before but I’m pretty sure this is what it feels like. A tumbling, hilarious, warm feeling. A cocoon against the world. A cocoon with only me and Axel inside.
The balcony is small and looks out on the marina. The view is socked in with fog. Against the white sky the black upright masts of the boats look like the measure bars on a sheet of music. The sun has set and the night air is damp and refreshing against my skin.
“Don’t fall over,” he says.
“I’ll try not to,” I say.
He reaches into the inside pocket of his suit once again and takes out the flask. Except that now I see it’s not the silver flask I was envisioning. It’s plastic. “Is that a shampoo bottle?” I ask. “The kind you get for traveling?”
He shrugs and pours some of the golden liquid into my red cup. I take a sip, and suddenly, now that I know the flask isn’t what I thought it was, that it’s sold at the drugstore next to the miniature deodorants, my drink tastes soapy.
Axel pours himself the rest. The shampoo bottle is empty, and he screws on the plastic top and returns it to his suit pocket.
“What’d you think?” I say, looking out at where the view of the bridge would ordinarily be on a clear night.
“Of what?”
“The talk on the stairs.”
“Oh,” he says, as though that was a side note to the occasion of the party. “It was a lot more official than I thought it would be.”
He shifts to his other foot. “What’d you think?” he asks, slurring.
I want to say that I think it was ridiculous, that Maria Fabiola is lying, that I think all of this is a scam, a big story to get attention and that she was really in a shed behind a ballet studio. But I look at Axel, who hiccups, and I know I can’t tell him any of this. For a brief moment I wish he were Keith. Keith would understand. Keith would be in agreement with me and, I’m pretty sure, wouldn’t share my suspicion with anyone else.
The wind blows, and I hold on to my hat. I smell his cologne and the warmth that is in my throat and in my stomach now is on my skin. I inhale deeply. We’re back in the cocoon together.
“Do you want some more?” he asks. I nod because I want whatever he is offering. I want him close, especially now that we’re outside and the Polo scent is diffused and, I imagine, surrounding me. I hope my dress will smell like Polo tonight, tomorrow, the coming week. I want to share the scent with Ewa. I imagine holding the dress up to her nose so she can inhale, and then waiting for her verdict, which I know will be appreciative. Ewa, I decide, is the best thing that’s happened to me in months. Until now. Until Axel, who is leaning in toward me, his lips coming for mine. Something happens when he kisses me though—I think my lip is bleeding, or maybe it’s his, but something tastes like batteries. And then my brain registers what his mouth is doing—it’s trans ferring the alcohol from his mouth into mine. I swallow it and step back and he smiles at me, and I force myself to smile back at him when the truth is that I feel disappointed. I wanted a real kiss, not the drink he’s forcing from his mouth into mine.