Lost Echoes

38

“It’s a very nice party,” Talia said. “You want to look nice.”

“I have a good suit.”

“The one in your closet? Or is that your room it’s hanging in?”

“What do you mean?”

“The place is small.”

“Yes. Yes, it is. Sometimes I pretend it’s large, but when I open my eyes, it isn’t.”

“Oh, don’t be mean.”

“I’m just saying. Yes, it’s small. And my suit is just fine. And, hey, when I met your dad, you didn’t even give me time to shower and shave. So now I’m supposed to look sharp?”

“I wasn’t thinking. I just wanted you to meet him while I had him cornered.”

“That was it?”

“Of course. What else? But for this, you should look nice. There will be a lot of people there. They will all be very well dressed, and Harry, I’ve seen your suit, and it’s what, from JC Penney?”

“Yeah. Well, maybe Bealls. I don’t remember.”

“I rest my case.”

“What case?”

“The one in your closet isn’t the suit you want to wear to the gala. Trust me on that. Everyone will be there, and—”

“It’s the suit I got.”

“I can fix that.”

“Oh, no. I don’t want you to buy me anything, and I can’t afford to buy anything. Maybe I can rent a tux.”

“Those never fit right. Listen, Harry, I want to do it. It’s not a problem for me.”

“You mean it’s not a problem for your daddy.”

“Same thing.”

“Either way, I don’t like it.”

“Harry, you have to look nice if you’re going to come, and you do want to come, don’t you? You and me, at my father’s house, and all those people? A lot of them very prominent.”

“You mean rich.”

“Okay. Rich. So what? Is it okay if we’re rich? Is that a crime? You’re starting to hurt my feelings, Harry.”

“I don’t mean to.”

“We want to look our best. Want to dress up and look fine, and I can show you off, introduce you to my mother, and later, well, we’ll go our own way, and we have our place, don’t we?”

“We do. Though we shared it with four other cars last time.”

“True, but they weren’t in our car, were they?”

“No…I don’t know about this suit business, Talia. It doesn’t seem right, you buying me a suit.”

“I want to do it. Everyone at these parties knows a good suit from a bad one, and they’ll spot a cheap one right off. And you’ll need shoes, some good socks, and I’ll pick a tie.”

“I feel like a mannequin.”

“Don’t be silly.”

At seven in the evening the phone rang, and Harry, dressed in his new suit, socks, tie, and shoes, waiting patiently on his couch, hands in his lap, rose and picked up the receiver.

“Hey, baby,” Talia said.

“Hey.”

“We’re coming around the corner. Come down to the curb.”

“Okay. We?”

But she had hung up.

Harry went downstairs and out to the curb. He was no sooner situated then a limousine, black as a crow’s wing, came around the corner and glided to a stop.

The driver got out, went around, opened the back door to let Harry in.

“I could have done that,” Harry said to the driver.

“Yes, sir,” said the driver, “but, unlike me, you wouldn’t have gotten paid for it.”

Harry climbed in. Talia, in a short black dress, her hair pulled back and up, her dark-stockinged legs crossed, her cell phone beside her on the seat, looked at him and smiled.

Harry’s discomfort began to melt away.

“You look fantastic in that suit,” she said.

“For what it costs, I should not only look fantastic, I should be fantastic, maybe have some superpowers. Good God, Talia, you are dynamite. You are so lovely.”

“Thank you, sweetie.”

The car drifted away.

Talia’s parents’ house was off a little road that wound in amongst old oaks and new pines. They pulled up at a gate with a metal box on a pole beside it. The driver pushed a series of buttons on the pole, and the gate opened. They cruised up a hill between oaks, willows, and walnut trees, a sweet gum here and there. As they climbed, Harry could see lights shining brightly through patches of greenery, warm explosions of yellow and orange.

The car window on the driver’s side was still down from the driver having worked the buttons on the pole, and Harry could smell perfume on the air, and hear music, a big-band sound, and it all came down the hill in a waft of smell and sound that filled the car thick as taffy. Harry had gotten to where noise, even noise in which the past did not lurk, annoyed him, but this wasn’t so bad. It was the sound of another time, and there wasn’t any anger or violence in it, not like most of the stuff today.

The greenery divided as the car wound along the concrete path, and now he could see the house up there on a hill, lit up like the pearly gates, so brightly lit that at first glance it appeared to be on fire. The house stood strong and heavy of stone against the night, and outside of it, along the pool, on a large, flat area of tile, well lit up from decorative lights on poles, people danced, and the music was suddenly divided by a voice, the sound of a male singer crooning into an old-style microphone. His voice was rich and strong, and the dark and the lights and all the people were as one, the way Tad had told him the world could be if you looked at it right.

There were cars parked all over, pointing this way and that, like discarded cartridges from big guns, but the limousine slid past them, around to the back of the house, where there was a carport supported by stone pillars. They parked, and with the driver holding the door for them, Harry climbed out first, extended his hand to Talia.

“I thought it would be larger,” Harry said.

Talia grinned at him.

They went in the back way, and as they entered the house there was a burst of light and the bright white paint of the walls jumped out at him. The house on one side was free to the outside by open windows and open glass doors, and the music came inside, loud and friendly, filling the giant cathedral room. People laughed and danced. There was a long table full of food of all persuasions: sushi and barbecue and darkly cooked birds, bowls of this and bowls of that, and all manner of wine and beer and soda and bottled water, and there were Latino men and black women in little white outfits, walking this way and that with silver trays, smiling, as if nothing in the world pleased them more than to cater to the happy, indulgent, honky rich.

“Daddy,” Talia said, and sure enough it was Daddy coming their way. And tonight he seemed happier, and the drink in his hand was probably the source of it, thought Harry. The suit he wore was just like the one Harry wore, so were the shoes. The only difference was the tie. And maybe the socks. Harry decided not to ask him to extend his leg so he could check.

Mr. McGuire said, “Ah, this must be your date. Barry—”

“Harry,” Talia said.

“How are you, Harry? Name’s John.” And he extended his hand.

Harry shook it. He realized that Mr. McGuire didn’t remember that they had met before.

“I’m fine, sir. Thanks for having me here.”

“Quite all right. Bird’s good. So is everything, but the turkey, it’s to die for. Black people are such good cooks, and I’ve got three or four of them to do the kitchen business. Got to circulate. Host and all. You know how it is. Nice to meet you. Nice suit.”

“Thanks.”

John went away, and so did Talia. Harry found himself standing in the middle of the room, not knowing where to put his hands. Men and women danced around him in their fine clothes, like drunken moths a-spin beneath a bright night-light.

Harry went over to the food counter, which was as long as the room, looked to see what was there.

A black woman in a maid outfit appeared at his elbow. “May I help you, sir?”

“Just looking.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What do you suggest?”

“It’s all good.”

“You know the cook?”

“I am the cook. Me and three others.”

“That’s quite a staff.”

“We cook and wait, us three. You add the whole staff together, all the people work here, there’s about twenty. That way, the folks live here don’t have to do a lick of work…. I didn’t mean that—”

“Oh, that’s all right. Don’t worry about it. I’ll have some chicken, a diet cola.”

The maid fixed Harry a plate, gave him napkins and silverware. Harry glanced around for Talia, didn’t see her. He went outside and watched people dance out there. He found a metal table and a metal chair, sat down, and ate his chicken. When he was finished he wiped his fingers on the napkin and went back inside.

No sooner was he in the door than a woman in a bloodred dress grabbed his elbow. “You all alone?” she said.

She was a very nice-looking woman, maybe forty, with too-red hair and a fine build and a good face full of Botox.

“No. I’m with Talia. She lives here.”

The woman laughed. “She certainly does. Some of the time. I’m her mother.”

“Oh, glad to meet you,” Harry said, and held out his hand.

“I’m Julia,” she said, and took his hand and held it softly. Her eyes looked just like Talia’s eyes. “I’m a little drunk.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Oh, don’t ‘ma’am’ me. Makes me feel so old. Let’s dance.”

“I’m no good. Don’t know how.”

“I can teach you.”

Harry shook his head. “I think that would be a waste of your time.”

“Oh, there you are.” It was Talia.

“Hello, dear,” Julia said. “I was trying to steal your date.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Talia said. Mother and daughter sparred with their eyes.

“I’ll just get a drink now,” Julia said. “You two enjoy. And show the boy how to dance. He says he doesn’t know how.”

Julia, like a bloodied bird, glided away on the light and the music, dancing as if with a partner.

“She’s quite charming,” Harry said.

“She’s a bitch,” Talia said. “She’d fuck you, you know? That’s how she is.”

Harry didn’t know what to say to that. He was beginning to feel as if the world was not in fact round, but awkward-shaped and rare of gravity and hard to stand on.

“But don’t feel too proud,” Talia said. “She’s fucked the waitstaff before. Both the men and the women. Whoever was willing and didn’t mind a little extra money.”

Harry looked in the direction of the waitstaff, standing by the counterful of food.

“All of them?”

“No. She fucks them, pays them, and fires them. This is a new lot. Some of them won’t appeal to her. Though she has a taste for almost anybody.”

Harry didn’t know what to say to that either, but it didn’t exactly swell his pride.

“Let’s get a drink,” Talia said.

“I don’t drink.”

“Just tonight.”

“I made a promise to someone.”

“For me.”

“Nope. Not even you. I’ll have a soda, some iced tea maybe.”

“You’re starting to be a bit of a stick-in-the-mud.”

They got drinks, Talia a beer, him a soda, and pretty soon they were dancing. Harry wasn’t good at it, but Talia helped by dancing very close and giving him pointers. Before long she was back at the bar, getting another drink. As the night wore on and she drank more, her dancing got wilder. By midnight she was riding his leg like a horny dog.

Once, over by the food counter, Harry saw one of the boys he had seen that day on campus with Talia. Kyle. That was his name, When Harry turned back to Talia, he saw she was watching the boy as well, and he felt a little twist inside. Nothing big, just a little one, like a washerwoman had twisted a wet rag sharply to wring out the water.

“Let’s get some air,” he said. “Out back, away from the band.”

“All right. Oh, I’m tipsy.”

“Honey. You’re drunk.”

“Just a little.”

They went out the back way, through the big carport, and looked about. The stars lay down on the tips of the pine trees and the glow from the front field lights fled over the top of the house and dissolved into a silver film before reaching the trees.

“There’s a place I want to show you,” Talia said. “It’s kind of cool.”

“We’re leaving?”

“No. It’s out back, down the wooded trail. I used to play there. It’s a kind of a root cellar, or storm cellar. Not that we need one or use it for that. But Mom and Dad liked the idea, and it was a playhouse for me. When I got older, Daddy took it over.”

She took his hand began leading him across the yard, toward the woods. “He goes there to get away from my mother. He and some of his friends go there to play cards. Or used to. He hasn’t been there in ages now.”

“Won’t it be kind of worn down? Dangerous?”

“It was well made. Sealed tight so water doesn’t get in. Oh, shit.”

Talia tripped. Harry caught her.

“Maybe I did drink too much,” she said.

“Just a little. You’re not full-fledged drunk. You want to go back?”

“No. Not at all. Come on.”

The shelter was out in the woods. It was standing partially out of the ground, made of thick concrete. The entrance looked like a tomb.

Talia took hold of the door handle and tugged.

Nothing happened.

“It’s a little heavy and I’m a little drunk.”

Harry pulled. It slid back smooth and easy. “It’s been recently oiled. I can smell it.”

“Like I said, Daddy keeps it up.”

“Don’t we need a flashlight?”

“It has electricity.”

Talia reached inside and hit a switch and the place lit up. It wasn’t a bright light, but it was light. It hung down on a long black cord, and there was a bulb contained within wire mesh, and the light through the mesh made the room appear as if it were contained within a spiderweb. The light showed a drop of stairs, and Harry could see a bed against one wall, and he couldn’t see much else.

They left the door open, and as they went down he was surprised to discover it was quite roomy. There was even a bookshelf and some books. There was a doorway that led somewhere. There were spiderwebs, and one wall was crumbly. A roach ran under their feet, and Talia made a noise and jumped.

“I can stand snakes, spiders,” she said, “but I can’t stand a roach. Oh, I’m dizzy.”

Talia sat on the narrow bed.

“What’s through the door?”

“The generator. Runs on kerosene. There’s a toilet too. It’s got a big septic tank. You wouldn’t believe. Daddy wanted to make sure everyone got to shit. A lot.”

“Kerosene?”

“It’s old-style.”

Talia patted a place beside her. Only a little dust came up.

“Your dress is going to get dusty, and this suit you bought me.”

“We’ll dust each other off. If you know what I mean.”

Harry sat.

Talia leaned to him, and they kissed. Her lips tasted like what she had been drinking, but it wasn’t bad. Her perfume reminded him of orange blossoms. She ran her hand under his coat and pushed at the inside of it. He removed it, laid it at the foot of the bed. He slipped the straps of her dress down. She wasn’t wearing a bra. She didn’t need one. In a few years, probably, way she was built, the size of her breasts, she would, but right now—perfect. As he kissed her again, he took hold of her left breast and gently squeezed it, let his thumb and finger play over her nipple, felt it go stiff.

A breeze came. The door was caught by it. It slammed and the light cord shook—

—and the world went to pieces and so did the kiss. Colors leaped into Harry’s head, and the colors screamed.