Dirty Love (32 page)

Charlie said he’d be waiting for him in the bar. “But don’t be late, Uncle. I tee off at one.” Francis glances at his watch but cannot read it with his sunglasses on. He takes them off and squints in the sunlight and pulls open the oak door to the club. There’s the pleasantly new feeling that he’s being useful, but then comes a creeping shame for he wonders if that is his primary reason for meeting his nephew for lunch, not to help bridge the barren canyon between him and his daughter, but to give Francis Brandt something more important to do than water yet again his dead wife’s flowers or to prepare a lesson for his grand-niece that goes nowhere.

Charlie’s sitting at the bar with his back to the room. Fewer than a third of the tables are taken, all by gray-haired retirees eating lunch, and there’s no background music playing, the air-conditioning too high. Even in his sports jacket, Francis feels cold.

Charlie hasn’t seen him yet. He’s hunched over his drink, a martini of some kind. He’s wearing rimless glasses, golf cleats, bright salmon shorts, and a navy jacket. It appears he’s dyed his hair a darker color, and his eyes are on the rear of the young bartender as she bends forward to place a glass of wine on the waitress’s serving tray. She straightens up and sees Francis before Charlie does. “What can I get you, hon?”

“Soda water with lime. Thank you.”

“Well if it isn’t my dear old Uncle Francis.” Charlie seems to stress the word “old” for the pretty bartender’s benefit, but he’s also smiling as if he’s genuinely pleased to see him and he squeezes Francis’s hand a bit too hard, slapping his shoulder twice.

“I’m glad we could meet, nephew.”

“You sound so serious, Uncle.”

There’s a forced playfulness in Charlie’s voice. He taps the screen of the device beside his martini, his eyes back on the young bartender as she places Francis’s soda water on a napkin before him. Francis thanks her, pulls the straw free, and squeezes the lime wedge into his drink. He’s aware of being cold while his face feels warm by what his nephew just said.

“Having a daughter
is
serious, Charlie.”

“How would you know?”

“Is this how we’re going to start?” Francis’s voice sounds high to himself. He can feel his own heartbeat in his neck, and he does not like how Charlie is resting both forearms on the bar as if his elderly uncle is a momentary interruption from more important matters, as if the real conversation he’s having is on the small screen in front of him or with the young woman working a few feet away. Francis pulls out a stool but doesn’t sit. He wishes there was a brass footrail to take the strain off his back, and he leans one elbow on the bar the way he did for years and years.

“
You
wanted to meet, Uncle, I didn’t.”

“Why not?”

Charlie glances at him and shakes his head. He lifts his martini and drinks. This close, Francis can see the chemical darkness of his thinning hair, a fresh shaving nick on his jaw, the slight tremor in his hand as he sets the glass back down on its napkin.

“Hair of the dog?”

“Maybe.”

“I’m not here to judge you, Charlie.”

“Bullshit, you’re not.” Charlie raises one finger to the bartender. He points to his half-empty drink. “You’ve been judging me my whole fucking life.”

“Why do you say that?” Francis feels caught in a lie. He sips his own drink. He watches the bartender pour vodka into a large mixing glass filled with ice, and he wants what’s in there. He does.

“C’mon, Uncle, let’s change the subject.”

“Fine by me.”

“Does she hate me?”

“Devon?”

Charlie nods. He’s staring at his cocktail napkin, rubbing one corner between his thumb and forefinger.

“No, she doesn’t hate you.”

“She tell you that?”

“No, but she hasn’t
not
told me that.”

“Then she fuckin’ hates me.” Charlie shrugs and drains his martini just as the young bartender places a new one in front of him.

“I’m working with her on her GED preparation.”

“Marie told me.”

“I asked her to write an essay, and she wrote about you.”

Charlie nods as if he’s about to hear a story he’s heard many times before. “Yeah?”

“She didn’t get very far, though.”

“Because she’s lazy, Uncle. Always has been.”

“I don’t see that.”

“Oh? What do
you
see?”

“I see a girl who keeps her room spotless. Who does her own laundry and folds her clothes. I see a girl who works hard bussing tables and cleaning hotel rooms. That’s what I see.”

“You go to work with her?”

“No, but I hear good things from the manager.”

Only last Saturday night, Francis waiting in his car in the parking lot, Danny Sullivan stood under one of the Whaler’s exterior lamps smoking a cigar and talking to a man in a suit. When Devon came out, walking quickly, her head down, her red headphones already on her ears, Danny had glanced at her, then motioned to Francis to roll down his window.
She’s doing good, Mr. B. Real good.

That’s nice to hear, Danny. Thank you.

Devon pulled off her headphones the way she always did as she climbed in and sat beside Francis.

You hear that, Devy?

What?

Your boss says you’re doing well.

That’s nice. Too bad he’s such an asshole.

“Is that what she’s gonna do her whole life? Be somebody’s fucking chambermaid?”

“A strong work ethic transfers to anything, Charlie, you know that.”

But did he? His brother, Charlie’s father, had built Charlie’s business to what it is. And not long before George hired his son and changed his company’s name from Brandt Insurance to Brandt & Brandt, George took on a new manager and chief financial officer who over the years since his death have kept Brandt & Brandt a smoothly running and viable business. Charlie sits at a big desk and sells policies and enters claims, but he also has a large staff to do that kind of thing and there’s golf to think about, skiing in the winter, afternoon drinks with pretty women who aren’t his wife.

“It bothers her that you have a girlfriend, Charlie.”

“Excuse me?” His nephew turns fully toward him. He appears both indignant and guilty. “That’s nobody’s fucking business.”

“Does Marie know?”

“That’s none of
your
business, Uncle.”

“I agree with you, it’s not.”

“Good.” Charlie lifts his martini, pauses, then rests it back on its napkin. “Do you even
know
what Devon did last spring?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Marie didn’t tell you?”

“She only said Devon had shame about it.”

“Not enough. Not efuckingnough, I’ll tell you that.” Charlie checks his screen and stands. He pulls out three tens and drops them on the bar, then drinks as if he’s alone. Francis pokes his straw into his soda. He stirs and he waits. It feels wrong that he wants to know. “She could use a call or an email from you, Charlie. That’s all I’m here to tell you. That’s it.”

“Yeah? And what should I say to her, Francis? Making any more
pornos
lately, honey? Still blowin’ every boy in fucking town? Look her up on the Internet, Uncle. Go ’head. See for yourself.”

Charlie slips his device into his jacket pocket and walks quickly back through the dining room. His calves are tanned and surprisingly fit-looking, his shoulders held back as if he will no longer stand for insults, no sir, he will not. Not one second more.

“You all set, hon?”

The bartender’s pulling away Charlie’s damp napkin and dry cash. Francis nods, though what he’d like is for her to make him one just the way she did his nephew. Make him one. Then two. And maybe one more.

Pornos
.

Little Devy jumping onto his lap, her long brown hair and happy, hungry eyes, how she would settle against his chest and open a new book, how she would wait for him to adjust his glasses, clear his throat, and begin to read. Then they would both be in a story far away from all the busy family noise around them, just the two of them, Francis and his older brother’s only granddaughter, this miracle gift Francis had been given, one he fears now he has inexcusably taken for granted and is in danger of losing, if he has not lost her already.

I
T’S HOT.
Devon can smell her mother sweating on the bench beside her. The sun shines too brightly on the worn shingles of the restaurant and on the tar roofs of the cottages down the hill to the blinding ocean, but there are other people in the courtyard, families as hungry for brunch as Devon’s mother is.

After closing her laptop last night, Devon couldn’t sleep. She turned out the light and lay back and stared into the darkness until her ceiling became dim and flat above her and she kept seeing Hollis there. It was his resigned laugh, and it was the way he stared at her once he knew she really wanted to know more about him. Then her eyes finally closed and she saw him and Sick sitting beside each other on a couch playing
Call of Duty
, then Sick was on top of her, inside her, and Devon had felt guilty and she kept reaching her hand out for someone to take hold of, and it was Bobby Connors putting his hard-on in her palm and she was running down her street and years later her mother was knocking on her window waking her up, her tanned moon-face peering inside, Uncle Francis gone who knows where.

Her mother is reading the menu to her. It’s laminated and colorful, and Devon wishes she would just read it to herself.

“Eggs Benedict, Dev. You
love
that.”

Devon wants a cigarette. She holds her iEverything in both hands like a prayer. It’s close to one in the afternoon, and nothing has come in, even from Sick.
I’m not here anymore. Where r u?
Though now that feels like a lie. Meeting Hollis—and what’s his last name? She needs to know his full name, to try it out on her tongue—she’s somehow more here than she has been in so long. But why hasn’t he texted her? Or called? He could still be asleep, but what if he isn’t for real? What if he spins to a new girl every night, makes her feel special, then never calls? Like catching a fish just for the thrill of reeling it in before you unhook it and let it go. But no, he really did sound scared that the wheel would start spinning and he wouldn’t see her again. She’d been tired from work, though, from staying up so late, her eyes burning: did she give him the wrong fucking number?

“
Honey
, are you listening to me?”

“Sorry.”

“You look tired. Are you working too hard?” Her mother has her hair up. She’s wearing those pretty earrings Devon gave her last Christmas, silver pendants she bought at the Mall with Sick. But her mother has gained so much more weight, and the pendants are pointing down at her tanned flesh like exclamation points. “Don’t they look nice?”

“Yeah, they do.”

“You getting enough rest?” Her mother’s hand is damp on her forearm. Devon wants to pull it away. She likes her mother’s dress, though. Big blue flowers on summer cotton across her breasts and belly.

“I sleep.”

“What time does Uncle Francis get up?” Her tone is concerned and nosy.

“I don’t know, but I think he’s doing okay.”

“Why do you say that?”

Devon shrugs. “He’s always seemed so alone to me anyway.”

A few feet over a young father is sitting on a bench, his small son standing between his bare legs, the boy’s hands on each knee. The dad keeps squeezing him with his legs and making him laugh.

“How about you, Dev?” Her mother pats her forearm. “Have you made any friends at the restaurant or hotel?”

Paula loading her cleaning cart and bitching about her son. Rayna the bus girl who looks like she does nothing but play Goth games on her computer all day. Danny Sullivan and his wet cigars, his eyes on her.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Brandt?” A man in shorts and sandals peers over his reading glasses and looks around the courtyard, then Devon’s following her mother inside over a wooden floor in a sunlit room of families eating and sipping coffee she can smell and wants badly. The man leads them to a table in the corner, a flower garden out the open window.

“Oh, isn’t that lovely.”

It’s a part of her mother Devon hates and loves, her appreciation for everyone and everything that’s good. Devon’s just sitting down when her iEverything vibrates in her hand. It’s as if someone has just grabbed her and hugged her from behind and she flicks at the screen and sees it’s Sick, a long text from him, and she feels like crying and hates herself for it.

“Please, honey, you know how I feel about those things.”

“All
right
, Mom,
fuck
.”

“Devon.” Her mother scans the tables around them, and Devon presses the off button. She wishes she had her Dr. Dre’s on right now.

“Coffee, ladies?” The waitress is one of those women with a deeply lined face from too much sun and fast winds from the back of a motorcycle or some drunk’s speedboat.

“Yes, please,” Devon says.

“I’ll just have water, thank you.”

The waitress leaves. Devon feels bad about snapping at her mother. She picks up her menu. “Get a Bloody Mary or something, Mom. Live a little.”

“Your father lives enough for both of us, thank you.”

“Then boot his ass out.”

“I really don’t want to talk about it, Devon. Not today, okay?”

“Fine, just don’t expect me to come back with him there.”

“I don’t want you to.” Her mother’s eyes are on the flower garden outside, and it’s as if she’s just reached over and dug her nails into Devon’s face. She has no intention of moving back, but she’s never considered the option closed and she’s surprised by how she has to look away and focus on her menu, though she can’t quite make out the words.

“I don’t like how he treats you, honey. That’s the only reason. You know that, right?”

“Decided yet, ladies?” The waitress sets the water and coffee down. She’s just a voice Devon speaks to—eggs, please. No toast. No bacon. No potatoes. Her mother orders fried eggs and sausages, whole wheat toast and chocolate chip pancakes with whipped cream. Devon admires this, her mother not hiding anything about herself, her own fuck you to the world. Devon pours an Equal into her coffee, stirs it, and sips.