The Things We Do to Our Friends
Heather Darwent
France
Three girls dance in front of him.
One of them has set up an old stereo, and tinny music blares, blocking out the sound of the cicadas that sing relentlessly at this time in the evening.
The garden looked beautiful when he first arrived, extending back to meet an old farmhouse where delicate vines stroke the white walls. There is grass that feels comforting—a damp rug under his feet. But things are not right, and the smell is a little aggravating. It makes his nose itch and his eyes water. When he focuses, the place looks like it has been left to become wild, and the fruits loaded on the trees are overripe. The garden has the heavy, sweet smell of the monkey enclosure at a zoo.
He struggles to concentrate on his girls, because of the sun on his face, perhaps, but it’s enough to summon the tangled beginning of an urgent lust, deep in his gut. Two of them hold hands high above their heads to create an arc and the third shimmies and then dives under. There is a screech of excitement as she does so.
He remembers that kind of frenzied joy. When he was their age, summer seemed to go on forever. He would get up to all sorts of things, unsupervised. Now these months are oppressive, caked to his life like dry mud on a car. Summer means foreigners clogging the roads, children everywhere, and the slog of work. Supplier events, tastings, factory rounds: in this part of the country, none of it stops because of the heat. It all becomes more tiring the older you get, and each summer is more difficult to tolerate than the last. An itch on the sole of his left foot. A gurgle, and a cranky, more than irritable, bowel. Each shadow of physical discomfort is worse in the evening heat, but these girls know none of the pain that comes with age. The girls are life itself, and things seem easy for them. They are too young to feel a pinch near the hips or the pull in the lower back as their bodies contort to the music.
They certainly hadn’t a care in the world earlier in the day. He’d seen them outside the shop on the bench in the car park, waiting for a lift that hadn’t come. When he picked them up, he could barely tell them apart. In that delicious way, the girls were preferable in a collection, a flick of hair, a flash of a smile. Tumbling in confidently, like it was their right to be taken to wherever they pleased. Their grimy knees up, pushing against the back of the seats in front with no consideration for the upholstery, something he would never have let his daughters do, and the smell as they’d chewed on strawberry-flavored gum—a horrible habit—and chatted away to each other, ignoring him.
Now, hours later, he sees how different the girls are as they peel away from each other in the garden. That stack of limbs jumbled together in his car has parted to make way for three separate identities, and it seems fitting that he gives each of them a name.
There’s the one who’s tall and blond and the most classically beautiful, with straight white teeth and a face that is perfectly symmetrical. She’s bruised all over her tanned shins, but not in the way that you’d associate with abuse. A healthy, moneyed type of injury that he imagines might be from playing a grueling game of lacrosse or falling in a photogenic pile when skiing. Each limb looks taut, her calves clearly defined and ripples of muscles in her forearms. He can tell she’s the one in charge, as she issues directions to the others. He’ll call her Blondie.
There’s the one who has black hair braided into a complex arrangement and then pinned high on her head. He can see her shoulders, and he notices that they’re sullied with a thread of sunburn. Braid will do for her. Staring at Braid, he feels a pang in his loins for that dark hair, those dark eyes, and an idle thought that he might like to slit her throat, to slice across the neck where the sunburn marks it and cut her head away. He imagines hacking at her to separate her sweet face from the unsightly mess of those bodily scars inflicted by the cruel sun.
The final one in the trio looks like a child dressed up as a belly dancer. Her body still has that lovely, almost dripping layer of fat that jiggles as she moves, and she appears to be swaddled in a full-length velvet floral gown. She blows him a kiss, and her eyelid dips into a theatrical wink. He nods back, acknowledging her but declining to invite her further. There’ll be plenty of time for that later. He’ll call her Winky.
The sun is so low in the sky. A scarlet flare that bleeds more across the horizon every time he treats himself to a long blink. The brightness sears his eyeballs when his eyes are shut, forcing him to reopen them and refocus. He assesses the situation. He’s sitting at the center. The star of the show, a treasured guest. He tips his head back and breathes in, realizing how deeply, deeply thirsty he is. The thirst is crunchy in the back of his throat; dry air hurts his nostrils. Everywhere, his skin seems tight and parched, like every drop of moisture has been sucked out.
A grubby metal tube lies on the table next to him. He recognizes it. There are many tubes that are very similar at work. He shakes his head in wonder, and beads of sweat run off his face and down onto his suit. Yes, he’s still in his suit.
Could that be true? The tube is from the farms? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Suddenly, it’s important. What detail! What sensitive curation of the experience.
It explains things, in some part, but the whole picture won’t quite form properly.
He tries to nod for water.
Winky ignores the gesture, but she saunters over and pours a glass for herself from the pitcher on the table. She takes a deep glug and slams it back down. The other two have stopped dancing, and the mood has changed. The music is louder. Some kind of horrible rock music and he can’t escape it. Something is happening; the sense of relaxation has disappeared.