The Sea of Light (27 page)

On the other hand, I think, so what?

I
don’t
fit into their world anyway. Maybe, swimming or not, I
never would have
fit in.

We get our menus and the background erupts again into this constant chatter of goading and teasing between Emma and Jeff, Jeff and Mike. Repartee time. It’s not particularly clever, but there is enough of it, constantly enough, so that I feel a little on edge, sort of intimidated.

Mike’s eyes light with mischief. “What are our lovely ladies eating tonight?”

“Me!” Jeff howls.

Emma wrinkles her nose. “Je-EFF. That is really
gross.”

“I don’t know, Ems. You never seem to mind.”

Mike slugs his shoulder. “Okay man, shut up. We happen to be in a decent place, you know. Plus, Babe isn’t used to scumbags like you.”

“Is that true, Babe?” Jeff pulls an innocent wide-eyed stare, swallows loudly. I look at him and can’t think of anything to say, so I don’t. This seems to make him uncomfortable. After a minute he shrugs, shoots me a look that is half apologetic, half resentful. “Well, I promise to change my ways, then. If just for tonight.” He leers at Emma. “But not for
all
of it.”

The waiter comes by, asks do we want anything to drink. Mike says a double Johnnie Walker on the rocks please. Jeff orders a beer. Emma says she will have a white wine spritzer. I ask for a Manhattan. I’ve never had one, and don’t even know what the hell is in it, but I heard my dad order one once and always wanted to myself—I just really like the sound of the name.

Mike winks at me. “Ah. A girl after my own heart.”

What? I say.

“Hard-drinking, good-loving.”

That’s a lot of horse manure. He has maybe seen me have a beer once. And as far as good-loving goes, who knows?
He
certainly doesn’t. I mean, I don’t even know if
I
do. We have gone places together a few times in the last couple of weeks, have never had more than a hug and a kiss on the cheek. And the last time I did anything, really anything, with anyone, feels like it was so long ago that it might as well have been in another lifetime. But Jeff laughs, and Mike has a moment of glory. Which, for whatever reason, I don’t want to destroy.

The drinks arrive. I watch my Manhattan swirl golden-brown around ice cubes and a cherry so red it glows. Emma immediately sips at her white wine spritzer, which is bubbly and colorless.

The waiter asks are we ready to order.

“Ladies first.” Jeff smiles at me, at Emma. He sounds almost bitter.

Emma tells me to go ahead if I’m ready, but I’m not. She says she isn’t really either, but if she waits any longer she’ll get into this bizarre state where she just can’t order at all, and it drives everybody crazy, so she guesses she’ll just have the linguine with white clam sauce.

The waiter looks at me expectantly. He’s a young guy, slender and clean-faced, smells of tomatoey spices, and grease, and aftershave. I can feel myself start to sweat. What do you say? But I save myself by waving one hand a little as if I just don’t care, and manage to blurt: “Um, I’m not quite ready, why don’t you guys go ahead and I’ll order last.”

Jeff orders chicken cacciatore, garlic bread, and a cold antipasto. Canelli says he’ll have minestrone and a hot antipasto to start out with, then some pasta carbonara, and a small plate of Italian sausage on the side.

“I mean—” he looks at me “—if it doesn’t bother you or anything.”

“Oh, it won’t.”

“What do you mean,
bother
her?” says Jeff.

Mike glances his way arrogantly. “Babe is a vegetarian.” He says it so seriously and so proudly that, for a moment, I like him. But, now, it is my turn. The terror swells up inside. He turns to me, a sweetly protective look on his face. “Have you figured out what you want, honey?”

Honey. That is a new one.

Thinking about it—the “honey,” I mean—I can feel my fear diminish a little so that I almost give a nervous laugh. But I keep cool, and don’t.

I ask the waiter if there is something he can suggest from the menu that is good but doesn’t have meat in it. He thinks a minute. Then says to try the spaghetti with garlic and butter sauce.

“Okay, fine.” I want to wipe my forehead. Instead I lean my elbow on the table for a moment and put my head against my hand, and manage to scrape a little sweat off that way.

“Is that all you’re having?” asks Jeff.

“I guess so.”

The waiter chimes in: “The portions are really pretty big. It’s plenty.” He’s saved me somehow, and I bless him.

“Wow,” says Emma, “how long have you been a vegetarian? I mean, do you sort of just-say-no to all meat, including fish? And chicken? Or do you eat it once in a while?”

Jeff sneers. “If she ate meat once in a while she wouldn’t be a real vegetarian, Ems.”

“Right. But, I mean, what made you become one?”

Well, I tell her, it’s a long story.

“No, I mean, did you have some kind of dream about a bunch of innocent cows being slaughtered, or little piglets squealing, with, like, lots of blood and guts—”

“Christ,” Jeff mutters, “shut
up.”

Emma blinks. For a moment, a frightened pain comes into her eyes, but then it’s gone. Still, I see it, and it surprises me. She rubs traces of lipstick from her mouth corners. I wonder how she knows it was there. Must be instinct, like anything, becomes natural with practice.

“I mean,” she says gently, with this fearful quaver in her voice, “I mean, like, I really don’t mean to be rude or anything. It’s like, I just think that when someone makes, you know, a decision like that, like to become a vegetarian, in this society—”

Jeff and Mike guffaw.
In this society,
Jeff sneers,
All right, professor.

It stops her for a moment, then she just ignores them and continues.

“—It’s like, maybe it means something happened once that sort of changed you. In order to make such a decision, I mean. So I guess I’m sort of asking, I mean, in all sincerity, really and truly—”

“In all
sincerity,”
Jeff mimics.

“—Did you see something once, like a bunch of animals, actually being slaughtered? And did it fill you with—”

“Fill
you with,” says Jeff.

Emma takes a deep breath, keeps staring at me with wide eyes, so that I feel for a second maybe she is fighting away tears. When she talks, the voice is a whisper.

“—pity?”

Something cold rushes through me. Something dull rolls down my face, across the makeup on my cheek. Sweat, or crying, I don’t know. There is this blockage in my throat that hurts. But my eyes seem dry. Still, I can’t feel much but the big solid cold rushing through—can’t tell if I am sweating a lot or crying emotionlessly, and for a second I feel as if everyone at the table and everyone in the restaurant has gone completely silent, and is staring at me, Babe Delgado, former champion, former animal, now a meatless freak. I force some words out.

Sure, I tell her, something like that. But it’s, like, too weird to explain.

“Sounds kinky,” says Jeff.

Mike gulps his drink. When he talks he is angry and disgusted. In the dim light his face is flushed, and he looks Jeff directly in the eyes. For a moment, I like him again—really like him.

“Man, what is wrong with you?”

“Nothing, last time I checked down there. When was the last time
you
checked, Canelli?”

“Suck my dick, asshole.”

Jeff slams his empty beer mug on the tablecloth. Emma waves a hand calmly between the two of them.

“Okay, you guys, that’s enough.”

Jeff glowers at Mike, then at her, ignoring me. When he talks it is to Emma, and he sounds a little grumpy and crestfallen, like a kid complaining to his mother. “Did you hear what he said?”

“Come on, Jeff,” she says gently, “just
chill.”

“Stupid faggot,” he mutters.

Mike glares. “Oh shut up, dickless. Get a life.”

Emma gulps some of her wine spritzer. “Look, can we just have a nice dinner and forget about all this? I swear, you two are such babies sometimes.”

I stare at the Manhattan. Ice melting. I reach with numbed fingers and grab the sweating glass, will all my taste buds into numbness too and swallow as much of it as my mouth will hold. It burns, makes me want to gasp and spit it out, hits deep inside near the tip of my stomach and almost makes me puke. I shudder. Sensation returns to my face and hands. Now I, too, am looking at Emma as if she alone has some kind of wisdom that will save me, save us all.

She waves again mildly, to everyone, fingers fluttering—a very feeble kind of gesture, but we are all fixed on her as if she had just jumped onto the table brandishing a sawed-off shotgun. She smiles at Jeff and Mike. Quietly. Assuredly.

“Now, why don’t you two patch things up?
We
are going to the little girls’ room.” She stands, beckons me. “Come on, Babe.”

I take the napkin from my lap and fold it neatly on the table, next to my empty plate and half-finished Manhattan. When I stand my head buzzes a little, weak and hot. But I follow her almost blindly as she picks her way among tables and booths, with a sort of senseless faith, like I’m following some trusted military leader into combat.

The door to the ladies’ room swings open and closes behind us. Too-bright lighting. Pink sinks. Empty beige stalls. This smell rushes over me, a very thick, heavy, musky smell: women’s flesh, perfume, blood. There is something terrible and revolting about it. Also, though, and at the same time, something wonderful—it is warm, and real, makes me feel my heart pound hard, makes me feel terribly edgy and nervous but also quite at home. So that I want to run away. And also to stay, to stay forever.

No, I say to myself, silently. Then: Help.

“Whew! Touch-up time.”

Emma sets her purse on the pink sink ledge, pulls out a makeup bag. She presses hands to her hair. Examines her face from different angles in the wall-length mirror. Grabs a tube of mascara and unscrews it and starts to reapply it. I do the same.

“God. Those guys are such a pain sometimes.”

“Mmmm,” I say.

“But Mike really likes you a
lot.”

I believe her. Somehow, though, it seems unfair; why should he suddenly decide to like
me
so much, without knowing me, really, without me even being sure that I like him at all?

I see that some liner has smudged around one of my eyelids, spend time fixing it. Maybe I was crying before after all and didn’t even know it.

Sharp, Delgado. Very sharp indeed.

Emma puts on fresh lipstick. I do the same. I glance at both faces in the mirror, under the ugly lights. She looks a lot younger than I, though I know she is not. Much smaller-framed, very slender, hair longer and permed and naturally blond. Her lipstick is a glossy cherry color. Mine is darker. She smudges her lips together, smiles.

“Wow, that’s a really nice red.”

“Thanks.”

“What do they call it? Wine red or burgundy or something?”

“Yeah. I think.”

She drops hers into the compact case, pulls out a hairbrush that looks like some kind of torture instrument—spikes all around the tip, black-handled, metal-capped.

“So. Do
you
like Mike?”

It takes me by surprise. Something shoots danger signals along the back of my neck. Reminding me that I am at a loss here, don’t know how to handle myself, what to say or do. I try to cover the alarm up by rummaging through my purse, pretending I am looking for something.

Finally I say, “He’s a nice guy.”

“He’s a
great
guy. I mean, I’ve known Mike for a really long time, he and Jeff have been friends for years, practically. But Jeff’s acting like a creep tonight.”

“Why do you go out with him?”

It blurts from me before I can stop it.

She just shrugs. “I don’t know. There’s nothing much better out there, really. You know what I mean?”

I don’t, but nod anyway.

“I mean”—she continues, carefully patting strands of wavy yellow hair behind an ear—“who wants to keep looking forever? He’s okay most of the time, he’s got a great body, he doesn’t forget to call when he says he will, he opens doors for me, and when we go out together, he always pays. Sure, he’s a jerk sometimes. But you can’t ask for everything.”

The words are hard, matter-of-fact. She seems completely different now from the meek and gentle person taking shit and making peace out at the restaurant table; still, that person seemed completely real, too—just like this one—and I wonder if, in her heart, Emma is either one of them, or neither, or both.

“Come on, Babe. Back to the war.”

I would rather be back in my little dorm room. Or bathing my knees in the locker room whirlpool. Or, for that matter, falling on my ass in a deep, dark cave.

Or hanging out with Ellie in that poor tired warm old yellow place she lives in.

But I can’t. Ellie’s really sick, no one will see her for a good long while, and I haven’t even called her.

The Manhattan spins through my stomach, lurching and burning. Really sick. And I haven’t called. It’s fear spinning through me again, not booze. Fear of the sickness, and vomit, and the water. Animal flesh. Blood. The way animals shriek when you kill them.

You are animals, my geniuses, animals, because only animals survive in the wilderness. This water here, see, this is the wilderness. And you, my geniuses, must be not geniuses but animals. Eat, eat.
Bon appétit!
Guts of our ancestors. Age-old ritual—works every time. Living meat beats dead meat, believe me.