Wasted Beauty (6 page)

She rolls the window down a crack. “I said I’m waiting.”

He stands now so that Reba can see his face. He’s fidgety and calm at the same time, turning every now and then as if to make sure Billy is nowhere around. In profile, his high forehead, strong straight nose, his jawline are like something out of a magazine.

He places his hands on either side of the window and leans into her, speaks onto the glass. “For the Second Coming? Or for your boyfriend?”

“My
brother,
remember him? The big guy? If he catches you here he’ll kick your ass to kingdom come. Just for fun.”

“And maybe I’ll kick his ass…just for fun. This brother of yours, he ever been in prison?”

“No. Have you?”

“Not saying I have, not saying I haven’t.”

“Look, I don’t care if you’ve been to prison or what. All I know is, you can’t stay here. You can have another apple, then you have to go away because Billy has a temper and he will hurt you. He doesn’t care about prison or any of that, he’s just very strong and good at fighting.” Maybe this boy has a knife or a gun himself? Maybe he’s dangerous?

“I don’t want another apple.” He drops his cigarette and steps on it.

“You asked me if I had any more.” So beautiful.

“But I didn’t say I wanted one. You shouldn’t jump to conclusions. It can get you in trouble. I just feel good knowing there are more. Makes me feel secure. I’m the kind of person who wants to be sure that I can get what I want in an emergency. Because in this world, good things are hard to find.”

“Right.” She doesn’t want to sound angry, but everything comes out that way.

“So, he just locks you up here all night?”

“Not all night. Just for an hour or so. He hangs out with his buddies and has a beer. Not that it’s any business of yours.”

“I don’t give a shit what he does. I was asking about you. Kind of pathetic, you know, seeing you all imprisoned and shit.”

“I’m not imprisoned. I can get out any time I want. Besides, he’ll be back soon.”

“Want to go get a beer with me?”

Reba rolls the window all the way down. “I don’t even know you! I’m not going anywhere.”

“That’s about the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. How old are you?”

“Listen, A, I have to guard this truck and B, they’ll card me, C, Billy won’t know where I went to.”

“Look at me. Come on. You’re smart. Look at me. What do you see?” He stops smiling. Is he being serious?

Reba won’t meet his eyes, then does. “That’s stupid.” She feels high like the time she tried smoking one of her mom’s cigarettes.

“Do you think I would plan some kind of complicated thing where I would steal an apple in the afternoon and then come by to the same place at night so I can, what, kidnap you? Seriously.”

“I don’t know. Yeah. Maybe.”

“Dude, I saw your brother. I’m not going to fuck around. One beer. One.”

“Don’t call me dude. And listen, what’s your name…?”

“Dallas…”

“Dallas…look.” She forgets what she’s going to say.

“Reba, can I be honest with you? You’re probably the prettiest girl I’ve seen in five years. I know you’ve got like a million guys in your life, but gimme a chance. Please?”

“Don’t bullshit me, it’s offensive.”

“I know a place two minutes from here where we can get a beer. Come on. One beer. We’ll leave a note, let Big Bro’ know where we are. You’ll be back before he is.”

If they spend any more time talking, Billy is going to show up and hurt this guy. No reason to see his sweet face get all smashed up. “Ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes. At most, eleven.”

THE DOOR YAWNS AND BRUTAL GRAY WHITE BOUNCES
off the unfinished wallboard. From where he’s lying, Billy can see patches of spackle and tape where the workmen have left the job unfinished. Must have forgotten to get around to painting it. Wonder if they’re orientals, too? A shiny poster for some kind of chink hair product is taped to the wall. Chinese. Or might be Japanese, how would anyone know? The only other things in the room are a small dresser topped with a lamp and the towel-covered table upon which Billy now lies naked.

The delicate black-haired girl gently shuts the door and the room returns to its peaceful dimness. Perched on the floor, the fake Tiffany table lamp warms the walls, creating the illusion of luxury. Billy sits up. The flimsy dressing gown of red satin embroidered with symbols, probably Chinese, like the poster, like her, slides off the girl’s thin shoulders. In white panties, she leans over him and massages his shoulders and he catches the scent of jasmine. Her face is only inches from his, she smiles as she kneads him. Billy wonders if she has a brother.

“Lay back, I wash.” As usual she’s brought a small tray upon which lies a warm folded towel, like the kind you get in sushi bars. Which came first, the little towel in the sushi bar or the little towel in the whorehouse? She swabs his privates, her efficient determination reminding Billy of his mother cleaning the oven. Reba never cleans the oven. She wouldn’t know how.

Billy can feel himself expanding in her tiny hands. She raises her eyes to him, wary. “How you feel? Good?”

“Um-hmmm. Sure.”

“That’s nice. Relax.” Rub. Rub. “You work hard this week?”

“Yeah.” No point in saying more. Over the past two months, Billy’s figured out her English vocabulary is limited to about twenty-five words.

“I know. You need take it easy. OK. Good. You want massage?”

“Yeah. Massage.”

He lies on the table, passive, inert, the way dogs at the vet’s lie still, eyes open, just before they’re put to sleep. He debates asking her for something besides a massage. Must be all kinds of things she’d be willing to do. But a massage is all Billy knows how to request. He’s been told that it’s safe to do that, because a “massage” is legal. On both sides. No law against him asking for one. No law against her giving him one. Any accidents that might happen during a vigorous rubdown are simply the results of human reflexes. He watches her expression as she manipulates his flesh. She’s intently serious until she catches his eye. Then she smiles again, as if suddenly remembering to.

“You want Diet Coke? Mango juice?”

“No. No. I’m OK.” Billy feels fat and helpless. “You’re very pretty.”

“Thank you very much. You also pretty, I mean, handsome. You handsome man. Big. Strong. Very big.”

“Maybe too big? Fat. Big fatso.”

“No!! You not fat. You strong. Muscle man.” She giggles and brings her hand to her mouth. “You good man. I know.”

But he is too big and he can’t deny it. That’s OK. Probably most of the guys who come here have something wrong with them. Probably a lot of assholes. She says I’m a good man. Probably doesn’t tell every Tom, Dick and Harry that. What does being a good man mean to a hooker? Does that mean she likes me?

Billy wishes he could take her in his arms and kiss her on the mouth, but he’s pretty sure that would cost extra. It’s important to stay within the budget. And this isn’t so bad, keeping things simple. He can watch her, get excited, get himself worked up. Only problem is, she has it down to a timetable, spending a specific amount of energy on his arms and legs and chest and then on to the inevitable.

Billy allows himself the luxury of thinking of this slim, dark-haired goddess as his girlfriend. Truth is, he’s begun to think of her that way even when he’s back at the farm. He’s told the guys at the filling station that he has been “seeing” a girl in the city. And in a way, it’s true. And it could be more true. I could take her out to dinner one night. Maybe see a movie. That’s entirely within the realm of possibility. I could pay her to do that, too.

Once the apple business takes off, I can come by here with a lot more money. Whatever the expense, it wouldn’t matter. I’d just pay it. Just tell the mama-san I’m taking her out for the night. Why would she say no? And then when she knows me better, she might get to like me. Really like me. By being so noble and pure and taking her out to a restaurant that’s really nice, maybe someplace in Chinatown. Bet if she is Chinese or whatever, she’d probably be impressed. Could order lobster in black bean sauce, bet she’d like that. Then we could stroll around for an hour or so, come back here and do this, too. She might even let me kiss her.

Does she feel what I feel? She probably doesn’t call every guy who comes in here a “good man.”

Next time I come by, I’ll bring her a sack of apples. She’d like that. Everyone likes fresh apples. She probably has an old grandma somewhere in the slums of Chinatown she has to take care of. She could bring the apples to the old Chinese grandma. Do Chinese ladies make pie?

The girl is getting down to the special part, what the black dirt onion farmer who had brought Billy by in the first place calls “happy ending.” She’s been taking her time. But now she’s pulling and stroking Billy with the finesse of a milkmaid. I’m so predictable. She knows something about me I don’t even know about myself. Wish I could hold back. Wish I could feel this way forever. But here it comes, that moment when the whole thing skids like a pickup truck on black ice, no way to control it.

Billy wants to grab her and press her warm skin against his. Hold her close and not let go. Feel her tiny heart in her tiny chest beating against his. Have that thing that everybody else in the world has, even for half a minute. “Happy ending.” Well, I’m not the happiest guy in the world, but it’s better than nothing.

BEER MAKES YOU ALL LOOSE. BEER MAKES YOU FEEL
good and beer makes you pee. Beer is a good thing, probably the best invention mankind ever invented. Plus beer lets folks be themselves. Which is fun, especially with this Dallas guy. Because he kind of knows what he’s doing and that’s pretty damn cool. It’s like watching an arsonist light up an old dry building. Whenever I open my eyes, he opens his. And they just get bluer and bluer. He also seems to be thinking what I’m thinking. Is that possible? Is there such a thing? Wait a minute. Stop. I have something important to say, but I can’t remember what it is. “Your…your roommates.”

Dallas pauses. “My roommates…?”

“They’ll see us…”

“We’re only kissing.” Dallas strokes her hair. Reba lets her jaw go slack as she kisses him. Like a guppy in a fish tank, she thinks.

“Are we? Oh, right.” Reba is pretty sure they’re doing more than kissing but she can’t say exactly what that might be. Where has the cat gone? And where exactly am I? Still on the couch? Maybe I’m drunker than I think I am. Is that possible? Of course it is, silly. That’s the way car accidents happen. That’s how other things happen, too. Does it make any difference? No, it does not make any difference where the cat is or where I am or whether or not I’m drunk.

Dallas says, “Do you want to go into my room? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Isn’t this your room? I thought you lived here?”

“I mean where I sleep.”

“I don’t want to go to sleep. Wait a minute! Your room? As in bedroom? Where the bed is?” Everyone here is drunk. I’m drunk, he’s drunk and the cat’s drunk.

“Yeah, you wanna do that? Go there?” Reba can see a figure over Dallas’s shoulder. The figure runs his palm along the cat’s arched back, then snatches it up and the cat says something, but Reba can’t make it out. Dallas turns toward the stranger and says, “Dude.”

The stranger, holding and stroking the cat, says, “I have to talk to you, man.” Reba can’t see his face very well.

Dallas says to Reba, “This is one of my roommates, Chud. His real name is Chad, but we call him Chud. Chud, this is…shit, I don’t even know your name.”

“Reba.” Don’t tell him your last name.

“Rena.”

“Reba! With a ‘b’!”

“Nice to meet you, Rena. Listen, dude, I still need to talk to you. When you got a spare minute.”

Reba wants Chud to understand how to pronounce her name, but he’s left the room. Reba punches Dallas in the chest. “You got me drunk, didn’t you?”

“You haven’t even had two beers, you can’t be drunk.”

“I don’t know. It’s weird out here. Your roommate is weird. Let’s go to your bedroom.”

“I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do. In fact, maybe you should be getting back.”

“Don’t tell me what to do! I’m tired of everybody telling me what to do. If I want to go to your bedroom, I’ll go to your bedroom. If I want to jump into your bed and fuck your brains out, I’ll do that, too.”

Dallas manages a serious twist to his lips and says, “OK.”

Reba floats in an enormous black cloud. It roils and silent scratches of lightning flash every few seconds. In the cloud are voices of young men arguing. The blackness reformulates itself into walls and windows and the horizontal surface upon which she lies. Not the floor. But like a floor. Low. Flat. A foam mattress. She rolls onto her side, reaches out for Dallas and finds cool, vacant sheets. She considers sitting up and the world slips sideways.

Reba waits for Dallas to return and touch her again. So far he’s done almost everything she’s ever fantasized about. He’s stroked her face, kissed her eyes. He’s put his fingers in her, put his lips to her nipples. He’s even massaged her toes, lifted her legs up over her head and kissed her ankles. He’s told her over and over again that she’s beautiful. Too beautiful for words. He said that he adores her.

He’d hesitated for a moment when he figured out she was a virgin, but it was only for a moment, mere seconds, then without a word, he pushed into her. And it burned for a few strokes but it was OK. It was all OK. She’s glad she’d had the beer. She’s glad she’d come here. She’s gonna be in so much trouble with Billy but that’s OK, too. Billy will have just to live with the new Reba. Everything is gonna be OK.

When Reba wakes a second time, Dallas has not returned to bed and the apartment is very still. A bright light has been left on outside the door and specks of dust float in the silver air. Finding her legs functional, she hobbles over to her jeans and sweater, tugs her clothes on, runs her fingers through her hair, rubs her face and goes to find her lover.

Chud and another young man sit at the kitchen table passing a joint between them, sucking the smoke in turns and cursing softly. Neither looks up at her, so she crosses the room, finds what appears to be a clean glass and fills it with tap water. She crosses the room again, past the two young men.

“Looking for your new boyfriend?”

“Excuse me?” Don’t look at them.

“He split.” The kid who speaks has jaundiced eyes and a patchy beard that doesn’t quite connect to his sideburns. Reba can’t smell him, but she’s sure he smells bad. It’s possible this is the Chud-guy she met earlier but the boy sitting across from him also has the same matted hair, same tattered beard. Two stoned and ugly guys and the last thing she wants to do is have a conversation with either one of them, whoever they were.

The boy offers up the smoldering bit. “S’up?” He grins. His teeth are mossy.

The other mumbles under his breath. Reba can’t understand him, can’t understand the situation. She feels naked. Where’s Dallas? She walks out of the room.

The cat is asleep on the couch, curled around the spot where she and Dallas had been kissing. She collects the beer bottles, then not knowing where to take them, lines them up carefully beside the couch. She wanders to the communal bathroom. Dallas must be there.

The room is empty but the framed mirror hanging on the wall reveals a girl with rat’s nest hair and puffy eyes. An unacceptable look. She has no intention of letting Dallas see her like this. Clothes wrinkled, skin mottled with sleep and beer and sex. He’s left a hickey on her neck. And she doesn’t even know his last name. Reba smiles at herself. “Well, you got what you wanted.” She hammers her face with handfuls of cold water.

Chud or the other kid, she isn’t sure which one, appears in the doorway. With a smirk, he says, “You like coke?” She shoves the door into his ugly face. Through the door he says, “Dallas left, you know. He’s gone. And he’s not coming back.”

“Go away.”

“You’re awesome. Please talk to me.”

“No.”

“You can stay here if you want.”

“Fuck you!”

The toilet seat is cold and smudged with an unidentifiable substance. Was that there when I was in here before? She crouches over it, trying not to make contact. Suddenly she’s crying and peeing at the same time. There’s no toilet paper. She wipes her eyes with her shirt and her crotch with her panties. A smear of pink. She sticks the panties in her pocket. Sneaks out the door and Chud is gone. She passes the sleeping cat and leaves.

Reba puzzles her way back to the park. The van is gone. A false daylight from the vapor lamps saturates the mounds of cloth and cardboard heaped on the park benches. She gets lucky and finds an empty bench. Billy will be back sooner or later. Or maybe he’s already back home, abandoning me, trying to teach me a lesson? I should call him. But he might be asleep by now. Plus I don’t want to get yelled at. Better to stay put for a while.

A young woman who smells like mouthwash plops down next to Reba. “Got a smoke?”

“No. I don’t…uh, no.” Reba expects her to move on and find someone else, but she doesn’t.

“That’s what they all say. ‘I don’t smoke.’ Listen, you smoke. In your heart, you smoke. I see it in your eyes. So if you’re not smoking yet, you will. Never say never, baby. You know what I’m talking about?”

“OK. Yes.” Reba turns and searches the vacant streets for Billy and the van. She can feel the lump of underwear in her pocket.

“You OK?”

“Yes.” Reba faces the young woman again. She isn’t all raggedy like the bums Reba has seen wandering around in the early morning when she and Billy unload the van. The kind of people Billy ridicules. This one has nice eyes.

The woman is shaking her head. “You can’t win.” Reba nods. “You know what I’m saying? What are you, nineteen, twenty? It’s just starting, kid. Just starting. And you know what? Once it starts, it doesn’t stop. Like a wheel going round. You think you’re working the system, but the system’s working you. Look at me, I’m twenty-four.”

The woman looks older than twenty-four.

As if illustrating what she’s saying, she points across the street. “He just walks out of the bar, you know? Leaves me there, drink in my hand. One minute, he’s got his arms around me, lighting my cigarette, next, he’s gone. So what am I supposed to do? He’s got the keys, he’s got everything. So I wait. I wait until the bar closes. What do you do with somebody like that?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t go out with him anymore?”

The girl-woman laughs a raspy, cynical laugh much older than twenty-four years. She’s missing a molar.

“You got any money on you, kid? Couple a bucks?”

“Not really.”

“Oh, I’m not asking you for money, sweetheart. You think I’m asking you for money? Babe, I wouldn’t do that to you! We’re in this together. No. I’m just saying, if you had a buck or two, we could split a pint.”

“Pint?”

“Wine. And not that Mad Dog. None a that shit. Good wine. Half bottle. Nice.”

“I don’t think the liquor stores are open this late.”

“When there’s a will there’s a way. Look, we each throw in two bucks, we can have a little warmup. Whaddya say? Unless you’re in a rush.”

“I’m not in a rush.”

The woman smiles warmly at Reba and Reba thinks, Billy will find me sooner or later, what else can I do? She takes out two dollars from her jeans pocket and hands it over. “I didn’t get your name.”

“Jean.”

“I’m Reba.”

“Reba, if you have another buck I can get a much nicer vintage.”

“Well, let me see,” Reba counts her cash. Jean snatches a dollar and makes off into the gloom. She approaches a man at the far end of the park who reaches under some shrubs and passes a package. Jean begs a cigarette off the guy and he lights it for her. Returning, she unwraps the brown paper twisted around a pint of Wild Irish Rose. She sits and smiles again. “I even have little paper cups. How’s that for living?” She blows a stream of smoke up into the black underside of an overhanging branch.

“Great.” Reba thinks, I can do this. They drink the wine.

Reba’s head is heavy, she wants to lie down on the bench. But that would be so rude. Overhead the sky is turning brighter, even though here in the park, a mosaic of bright synthetic glow and pitch-black darkness covers everything. A chilly breeze flows through the shrubs and benches. The wine salesman at the other end of the park has left.

Jean’s eyes are closed, young under all the makeup. But not as pretty as Reba had first thought. Her lips are thin and her nose is too thick. She looks like she’s dressed to go to a party. Her perfume smells like something Maureen would wear to work. This woman is a complete stranger to me, but here I am sitting next to her, like we’re best friends.

Jean’s eyes flicker open and register displacement. She asks Reba, “What time is it?”

Reba checks her watch. “Five thirty.”

“Fuck. Better get back to work. He’ll kill me if he doesn’t see me out there. You OK? You need anything?”

“I’m fine. I think. My brother’s going to show up pretty soon.”

Jean makes her way to the avenue. As if she’s timed it, a car slows down and stops. Jean leans in to the driver, walks around the front of the car and gets in. The car drives off. Reba tucks her bag under her head and curls her legs up onto the bench.