MAUREEN
The sheet slides off my face and Phillip’s above me, grinning.
“Morning, sleepyhead.” He kisses my forehead. I twirl around, wrap the bedsheet around me and sit up.
“What time is it?”
“Just after nine.” He’s already dressed in khaki shorts and a polo shirt. “You need to get going. I need to get going.” He slips his wedding ring on, and I pretend I don’t notice. His hair is still a bit damp from the shower and in the bright morning sun he looks very real. He clasps on an expensive wristwatch that probably costs what I’d make the entire year at the carnival.
“You should come back to bed,” I say, wiping the dry crusts out of the corners of my eyes. As my vision adjusts, I see the arm of a pink silk blouse poking out of the half-closed closet door across the room, and I think of the awful black negligee that Benny sent me, the way Tammy looked at me last night. What am I doing here? I think again, the same thought I have each time I stay here with Phillip. I don’t like the sweet smell of Mrs. Bishop’s perfume, the half-filled water glass on the far nightstand. I don’t like thinking of Clay’s room just down the hall, and the last time I saw him there. I shudder and curl into a ball. In the dark of the night it’s easy to forget everything, to give into the comfort of Phillip, but here in the no-hide light of day, there is evidence everywhere I turn that I am an intruder and a liability.
He comes over, pulls down the sheet and cups one of my breasts, kissing me deeply. I feel a mix of emotions, slightly cheap and used but also aroused and happy. “You’re special, my lobster baby,” he says. “Don’t forget that.”
I push myself out of bed and find my clothes on the floor, slip them on. He’s already skipping down the stairs, whistling to himself, and I take the moment to stare at myself in Mrs. Bishop’s vanity mirror. Dark circles under my eyes, dry lips. My long hair trails down my shoulders, dirty-blonde, my mom calls it, which I’ve always hated. Nothing about my hair is dirty. I look away quickly, like the mirror is a camera that Mrs. Bishop will be able to rewind and review. There is the bench on which she sits each morning to get ready, to roll on lipstick and comb her hair. There is an array of nail polish, a dozen shades of pink and red, all nearly indistinguishable from the other. I pocket one of them, a dark pink named First Love. I feel it rest against my hip as I follow Phillip’s trail down to the kitchen where he is pouring coffee into heavy black mugs, still whistling, always whistling, and I remember that someone had once told me that to whistle was to call the devil.
“I need to drive to Shetland this morning and meet the HVAC guy. There’s a problem with the heating unit and they won’t be able to open for dinner tonight if we don’t fix it. But I was thinking,” he says with raised eyebrows as he bites into a piece of toast, “that perhaps I can take you out to dinner tonight?”
Phillip pours me some orange juice. It seems like we are always pouring each other drinks of some kind or another.
“Sure,” I say, mustering a smile. “That would be great.”
I’m feeling something I can’t quite put my finger on. A sense of dread. But that’s dumb. It’s something about the house, I think. Everything screams domestic. The smell of soap on Phillip’s hair. The pulp on the side of my juice glass. The sound of water dripping in the kitchen sink. Each tiny detail amplified, overbearing. I twitch in my seat and think of the goon in the hat kicking the negligee in the hall. I’ll leave it here. In case you change your mind.
“Phillip?”
“Yes, my love?”
“I need to ask a favor. I need—I need some money.”
He looks up from his toast, concern in his eyes. “Money?”
“Remember the poker?”
“Not you, too, Maureen.” He rolls his eyes. “Didn’t I tell you not to get involved?”
“You did, and I am stopping. I really am. But I need—I’m in trouble. I need to pay them back. Quickly. And then I’ll pay you back, too. I promise.”
“Do you know how many times I hear that from my brother?” He takes a knife and slits his egg down the middle and the yellow yolk bubbles over and leaks like pus. I look away.
“It’s just this one time. I swear.”
“I can’t, my love. I’m sorry.” I feel the panic bubbling up inside me as Phillip gets up, leans down and kisses my neck. “I can’t do that, my love. If anyone found out... It’s a family business. Money like that—it would be noticed.” He nibbles on my ear and I break away.
“But—”
The doorbell rings. Phillip’s face shifts. His voice is tight. “Go downstairs,” he says. It’s a hiss. An order.
“Downstairs?”
But he’s already moving, opening the basement door. “Go,” he whispers. “I don’t know who it is. I’ll get rid of them.”
I obey, and he shuts the door behind me. I hear him slide the lock. I sit on the top step, hugging my legs to my chest, my ear pressed up against the door. But it’s too heavy, and I can’t hear anything through it. Instead I listen to my own breathing. I pick at flakes of wood breaking off the bottom of the door. I contemplate heading down into Zeke’s place and leaving out the back door, slipping away. But I can’t leave. I have to stay, if not for me then for Tammy. For her safety.
I hear footsteps and I stand up, like a prisoner waiting to be freed. Phillip opens the door and seems all businesslike, formal all of a sudden. “I’m so sorry,” he says. “One of my wife’s friends.”
“I should’ve left,” I say. “I almost did.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.” He kisses my head. “I’ll make it up to you tonight. Promise.”
I go to work and hand out flyers, but I barely make eye contact with people and hardly anyone takes one. I don’t have it in me. Marta takes pity and hands me the full payment anyway, even though I have half my stack left. In the restaurant’s bathroom, I change into the random bits of clothing I’d swiped from the floor of Tammy’s room in my distress and try to freshen up.
Phillip picks me up in a side alley like Dick Tracy, his tinted windows rolled up tight. He seems tense, gripping the steering wheel and constantly checking his rearview mirror as though he expects we’re being followed. We drive for a long time. I’m not even sure where we’re going. Phillip holds my hand as he drives. I want to ask him again about the money, but I need him to be in the right mood.
We get farther away from the ocean. The towns larger, the houses closer together and taller. Finally we stop at a strip mall in the middle of nowhere. There is a restaurant, a tiny Italian place. It’s dark and there are only families inside, moms and dads with their kids in booster seats and high chairs. It feels like everyone is watching us. Phillip requests a booth in the back.
“Do you want me to wear sunglasses?” I joke.
“No, it’s fine. I’m sorry. I just have to be cautious. Surely you understand that?”
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” I say. “It’s wrong and I’m sorry. We should probably just stop.”
Phillip takes my hand and forces me to look at him. He’s all teddy bear again. “Do you really think I could stop seeing you?”
“I don’t know,” I say quietly.
“Well, then, you don’t know me.”
“Well, and then what? What happens in a couple of days when your wife comes back? When Clay comes back?” I fiddle with my fork, frustrated. “I’m not an idiot, Phillip. I know how these things go.”
“You’re too good for me. You should just leave, go live your life.”
I glare at him. “I thought you just said you couldn’t stop seeing me now?”
He rubs his hand through his hair. “What we have here, this is real, Maureen. I’ve never felt like this about anyone.”
I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. If he’s bullshitting me, it’s because he’s bullshitting himself. Still I can’t help it. Underneath it all I feel special. There’s something about Phillip that gets to me—the way he can make you feel like the rest of the world has dropped away and it’s just you and him. I’m a sucker and I know it and still I find myself beaming inside and nodding. Beaming inside and flicking my mermaid tail under the table as he orders us a bottle of wine. The waitress brings over appetizers and pasta and another bottle of wine, nestled in its own bucket of ice, and Phillip and I talk, like real people, about books and art. He tells me about the times the carnival came when he was a kid and all the things he used to do at the beach.
“What do you want to do with your life, Maureen?”
I am full of wine and pasta and I smile sleepily. “I don’t know,” I say. “But I want to be free. I don’t want to owe anyone anything.”
“You’ll always owe someone something. It’s just the way of existence.” He reaches across and squeezes my hand. “Every time you interact with someone, you form a connection. Every choice you make affects someone, somehow. You take a job? Someone else doesn’t get it. You fall in love with someone, there’s someone else you’re hurting.”
“I don’t want to hurt anyone. I’ve hurt too many people. I’m trying to make things right.” I frown. Phillip and I seem to be talking past each other. He’s rolling and unrolling the paper straw wrapper in his fingers, twisting it up into a tight snake and then letting it loose, slack. I feel like I can’t get my mind straight, like each time he unrolls the paper, my thought unravels with it, and I lose it.
“You worry too much, don’t you? Remember what I said. Things have a way of working out. You just have to be patient.”
I shake my head. “No, that’s just it. I don’t have time to be patient. I can’t wait around.” I take a deep breath, wish I hadn’t had so much wine. “There’s no magic. I’ve figured that out. No mermaid family’s coming to get me. There’s not even destiny, Phillip. It’s just me. And I have to fix it. Me.” I take a deep breath. “But you can help me. Fix it. I need your help. Just this once.”
His face darkens, and I know I’ve ruined my chance again. “I thought we already discussed this, Maureen.”
“I’m sorry, I just—” I pause, reach my hand out to him. “You mean a lot to me—”
“As a bank?” he asks, taking a sip of his wine.
“No,” I say, wounded.
He relents, shakes his head. “Oh, Lobster Baby, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to hurt you. It’s just...complicated. I’ll think about it, okay?”
“Okay,” I say, but I’m dissolving.
He reaches over the table and refills my wine glass. “But I do think you’re on the right track. Taking the reins. Making your own fate. That’s how my family’s been so successful. Did you know my father grew up dirt poor? Fought for everything. He earned it. Anyone can, if they have initiative.” He leans back with a lofty air, and I can see for the first time how he must be as a manager, a touch of egotism with the doling out of unrequested platitudes, advice. I can see for the first time why Clay rolls his eyes when he talks about him. “You can do this.”
“You make it sound so easy,” I say. “I believe that where we end up is who we become. I need to end up somewhere better than I’ve been, Phillip. Surely you can understand that? I’ve been—well, I’ve seen people I care about mess up. Badly. And I can’t make that same mistake.”
“You’re so softhearted. Who would’ve thought,” he says, and I feel his foot graze against mine under the table. “My sweet lobster baby.”