Fluke (31 page)

“Adam, here, is making a little dedication to his girlfriend, Sara.
 
Take it away, Adam.”

I passed the microphone from one sweaty palm to the other, and looked across the crowd.
 
A few seconds passed, and I wondered if I was going to say anything at all.
 
Then I saw Sara.

She was sitting practically on the edge of her seat.
 
I can’t say that I had ever seen her so excited.
 
Her eyes sparkled at me from across the room.
 
She winked and gave me a thumbs-up.

“Sara,” I said, my voice shaking a little bit.
 
I was only slightly caught off guard by how loud my voice was with the microphone, and I realized that I might be the cause for some bleeding ears very, very shortly.
 
“I can’t think of a better way to say it than my life has never been this good.
 
It’s because of you.”
 
The crowd applauded, and I saw, even over the distance between us, that Sara had tears in her eyes.
 
I nodded at Bill, and he started to play.

Then I sang “You’re the Inspiration,” by Chicago, to Sara.
 
After a slightly shaky start, resulting from a millisecond in which I forgot the lyrics, I warmed up.
 
By the end of the song the ham in me had flourished, and thrived, and taken over.
 
I clutched the microphone in a death-grip, my free hand balled into a fist in front of me, pulling back to my chest, accenting my badly-sung lyrics.
 
I walked back and forth on the stage, keeping my eyes focused on Sara, occasionally pointing at her when I sang the word “you.”
When I finished, and the last piano key had been struck, I held my arms up in victory.
 
I had done it.

And the crowd had loved it, but that didn’t matter.

Sara had loved it.

I left the stage to cheering, surprisingly, and Sara and I embraced.
 
The crowd cheered more and Sara whispered in my ear, “That was wonderful, Adam.”

Knowing that it couldn’t get any better in Pat’s, we grabbed up our hurricane glasses and made our way back out to Bourbon.

Back out on Bourbon Street, we walked aimlessly, my arm around her shoulders, hers around my waist.
 
I felt like the king of the world at that moment; my confidence was at an all-time high.
 
People walked and stumbled by us, totally unaware that I had just stepped in front of a huge crowd and san
g
a love song to this beautiful woman in my arm.
 
I wanted to tell them; I wanted them to know that I was the luckiest man in the world.

Instead, I asked Sara, “What shall we do next, Inspiration Lady?”

She stopped and said, “Well, we just passed a little place called Papa Joe’s Female Impersonators.
 
The slogan said ‘Where boys will be girls.’ Looks like a blast, don’t you think?”

She laughed and poked me in the ribs, and I laughed also.

“Funny you should mention that place,” I told her.
 
“Sean and I actually ended up in there somehow one night.”

She raised her eyebrows questioningly.
 
“You ‘somehow’ ended up in there?”

“Yeah, you know, just goofing around, we figured what the hell.”

I quickly recounted the story to her, telling her about Sean getting dragged on stage and danced upon in an obscene manner by a “chick with a dick,” which happened as a result of me slipping her (or him?) a ten dollar bill.
 
Sara looked at me with a giant smile, ready to burst into laughter.

“You did that to poor Sean?”

“That’s what friends are for,” I told her.
 
“It probably would have been me if he had thought of it first.
 
But, you know what?
 
The guys love Sean just as much as the ladies.”

There was a bar with a walk-up window on the side of the street (another wonderful, wonderful feature of the French Quarter), so we walked up and bought two Long Island Iced Teas, served in plastic cups, for eleven dollars.
 
We stood there, smoking cigarettes, sipping our drinks, debating where to go next.

“
Wanna
go dancing?” she asked me.

Yikes.

“Um, sure, if you want to,” I said, already making up excuses for why I wouldn’t dance once we got to a dance club.
 
I had my standard ones prepared: I have absolutely no rhythm, old football injury prevents me from
shakin
’ my booty, my leg is broken.

We found the Goldmine, which actually turned out to be a pretty good club.
 
The music was quite varied for a dance club…they played music by the Beastie Boys, Brian
Setzer
, and Nine Inch Nails, none of which I had ever heard in a dance club before.
 
I danced a little bit with Sara, but the self-consciousness became overwhelming, so we spent most of the time at a pool table, where Sara’s skills were right around the same level as mine.

The waitresses brought shooters upon shooters; I wasn’t even sure what kind they were, but Sara and I had several test-tubes filled with various colored liquids.
 
We ended up mingling with a crowd of about six college students from Birmingham, Alabama who
 
had road-tripped down that morning and were staying at the Holiday Inn on Canal that I had joked with Sara about.

One of the guys, wearing a burgundy sweatshirt with the letters “UAB” on it, pulled me aside and told me, “Dude, you are a lucky man.
 
She’s hot!” He pointed at Sara, who was chatting and laughing with one of the girls in the UAB crowd.

I couldn’t do anything but agree with him.

The night ended after several greasy, square-shaped cheeseburgers at a two-storied Krystal were ingested, which we both agreed would probably do our stomachs in the next morning.

“Or at least yours,” Sara said.
 
Yep.
 
Standard Fluke.

Back in the hotel room, we collapsed on the bed, drained of energy from the alcohol and the heat in the bars.
 
Rather than go at each other like wild animals, we just fell asleep in our underwear, holding each other closely, contentedly.

13.

I would be meeting Sara’s mother in a matter of minutes, and I was scared shitless.

My mind went to the last 48 hours.
 
They had been amazing, and only sealed my feelings for the woman beside me.
 
Biloxi and New Orleans were exactly what the doctor ordered, and I couldn’t think of a better way for us to release some tension before coming here.

We had taken Interstate 10 into Texas.
 
We were both still high from our quasi-vacation when we left.
 
Somewhere along the way our skies got a little grayer, and our moods changed as we approached, then entered, Texas.
 
Running quite a bit behind schedule after our drunken tear through New Orleans, we opted to stop, and quickly clean up at the first rest area within the borders of Texas.
 
That would allow us to make visiting hours at her mother’s home.
 
Neither of us liked the idea of washing in sinks alongside the varying degrees of humanity that we undoubtedly would see, but we didn’t have many options to get there in time to see her mother today.
 
We weren’t excited, and although it was left unspoken, we weren’t willing to put it off another day.
 
In preparation for meeting Sara’s mother I changed into some slacks, dress shirt, and a tie.
 
Sara smiled at me, a little sadly I thought, when she noticed my change of clothes, but she didn’t comment on it.
 
We just continued on our way.

A quick turn South from I-10, and we made our way to the outskirts of North Houston.
 
Sara quietly navigated me through the unfamiliar highways and streets.
 
I didn’t know what to expect, and I wasn’t sure Sara did, either.
 
I spent most of the drive wondering about her having been sexually assaulted as such a young girl.
 
I had thought about it quite a bit, but usually didn’t spend too much time speculating on the details of it all.
 
In the end, I just could not even
begin to understand what would drive a human being to do that to a child.
 
I had, of course, heard countless related stories in the news, but this hit home, and it hurt.
 
I pushed it away again, as we reached our destination.

We pulled through the gates of Glendale Specialized Retirement Community, and followed the long circular drive.
 
I couldn’t erase images carved into my mind from having read One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, even though this wasn’t a ward for insane people.
 
Still, unable to help myself, I pictured people in white jumpsuits pushing a refrigerator through one of the windows and jumping out after it, madly dashing for the vehicle, and escape.
 
It wasn’t a humorous image; it was one which horrified me.

I pulled into the visitor’s parking area in front of the main building.
 
I brought the car slowly to a stop before pulling up the parking brake, engine still running.

“Sara?”

“Yes, Adam.” She was quiet, looking out the passenger window into the distance, and didn’t turn toward me when I spoke.

“I’m not the strongest person, I know,” I began, “but I want you to know that I mean everything I say to you.
 
I love you more than anything, and nothing will change that.”

She turned to me, slowly, and looked at me.
 
She reached over and took my hand, squeezing it reassuringly.
 
“I know.”

We sat for a moment like that, and then we got out of the car.
 
I straightened my tie and walked around to where Sara stood on her side of the car.
 
We looked at each other again.
 
She placed her hand on my forearm, and we made our way inside.

The buildings were large, made of giant gray stones.
 
At the doorway, Sara placed her hands on one of the stones, steadying herself, and bowed her head slightly.
 
I waited, knowing she needed a second, before we continued in through the glass doors.
 
The lobby was all off-white linoleum, and had a certain hospital-sterilized look to it.
 
The only thing missing was the smell of rubbing alcohol and medicine.

The receptionist sat behind the counter in a rather crisply pressed uniform that swished as she stood up, and said, “Hello.”

“Hi,” I said, and Sara stood quietly beside me.
 
I glanced at her then back at the receptionist.
 
“We’re here to see Maggie
DuBeau
.”

The lady looked back and forth between us, then down to her desk.
 
She rifled among papers briefly, her hands emerging with a clipboard and a pen.
 
“Okay.
 
We take information on all of our visitors here, if you don’t mind.
 
Are you family?”

“Yes,” was all Sara said.
 
We moved closer to the counter, and Sara silently began to fill out the questionnaire.
 
I shoved my hands deep into the pockets of my slacks and looked around.
 
There were large paintings on the walls, and I noticed couches to the left of the entrance that had escaped my attention before.
 
Small end tables were here and there, with magazines on each.
 
I felt a trickle of sweat in my left underarm and was glad I had worn an undershirt.

Sara pushed the clipboard across the counter to the woman who told us to have a seat.
 
“Someone will be right out.” She said.

I wondered about this as we sank into one of the couches.
 
I picked up a magazine, and flipped through it without looking at the pages.