Stiltsville: A Novel (6 page)

Inside Dennis’s apartment, it was quiet and dark. He dropped his keys on the kitchen table and went to open the balcony doors. In blew a salty breeze that smelled of warm sand. He offered to make margaritas—this was a drink he knew I was fond of—and started rooting through the refrigerator. After a moment, he declared he was out of limes and would run to the market on the corner. He kissed me quickly and left. I went to the balcony and leaned against the metal railing. The sunset had started. Below, two Cuban men stood at the entrance to the café downstairs, talking animatedly in Spanish, and when they parted to let a third man by, I saw that the third man was Dennis, coming out of the building. He greeted the men and one of them raised a hand, and then Dennis walked a bit, tossing his keys into the air every few steps. He was happy. Any outsider could have seen it. He was happy because of me. After he went into the store on the corner—he called it the bodega—I watched the ocean, its rolling persistence, its calm fortitude. There were a few people still scattered along the beach. The sky was the color of bruised peaches, the sand bluish in the fading sunlight. Dennis emerged from the store with a brown bag under one arm. He came closer, then looked up and gestured toward the beach and the sunset. “Isn’t it beautiful?” he called up to me. “Isn’t it paradise?”

“Yes!” I called.

I cut the limes and he squeezed each half into a small glass pitcher. He dipped a finger in the juice and brought it to my lips. I tasted it and made a face, and he laughed. “We’ll improve on it, I promise,” he said. “There’s nothing like fresh margaritas.” As he spoke, I brought the knife down through a lime and felt it slice through my fingertip. I yelped and Dennis grabbed a dish towel from a drawer and pulled me into the bathroom, holding my bloody finger as we went. He sat me down on the toilet and rummaged through the medicine cabinet.

“It’s not that bad,” I said.

“It’s a geyser,” he said. He held my finger under the faucet while the cold water ran. Blood billowed and dissipated. “This is why I should never sharpen my knives,” he said. “Clumsy female visitors, bleeding all over my kitchen.” He smiled and I laughed. He toweled off my hand and spread a little ointment on my finger, then wrapped it in a small bandage. “Too tight?” I shook my head. He kissed my finger. “I don’t like seeing you bleed, lady,” he said. “I love you so much.”

This was only the second or third time the word had been said. I’d said it, too, of course, but he’d always said it first. I kissed him. After a few minutes, we went together into the bedroom, where the bed was unmade and discarded sneakers lay in front of the dresser. The sun was almost gone. Before we even lay down, I thought about afterward, when we would sip margaritas on the balcony. Dennis would be sweet. He would make the dinner he’d planned and rub my back and with every glance in my direction check subtly to see if I was happy. He didn’t know I’d already done my reckoning. As we made our way to the bed, I had no doubts.

He started slow but that didn’t last. Dennis made a joke about it having been a while, and I said it was like riding a bike, and he said not exactly, from what he recalled. Up to this point, we’d done some heavy petting on Bette’s couch and in Dennis’s car, but we had never been naked together. Still, his body was familiar to me, even the red hair between his legs and the warm, probing penis. What was most unfamiliar was my own body, the greediness of it, my eager response to his hands, his fingers. I was a me I’d never known before, a person who wanted baldly. Looking back, I realize that it was all relative, the sacrifices I believed I was making, the risks I believed I was taking. Many people do much more for love than travel to another state and ignore their mother’s advice. But you have to understand that to me, it was like falling with no net. It felt good, but it did not feel wise.

I
returned to Bette’s the next day, with Dennis, to change clothes. We found her sitting on the couch in the living room, smoking a joint with an ashtray balanced on her bare, bony knees. By this time, I’d seen Bette smoke several times and had even tried it with her twice—where Bette became calm and wide-eyed, I became silly and had difficulty finishing a sentence. For this reason, I’d decided marijuana was not, for me, a dignified option. The apartment smelled of bacon. “You’re alive,” she said. “Good to know.”

“I should have called,” I said. This was not something I’d even considered.

There was rustling in Bette’s bedroom, and Benjamin emerged into the small open kitchen, wearing only slacks. “Want some bacon?”

He held out a plate, and Dennis stepped forward to take a piece. Benjamin cracked eggs into a bowl and whipped them with a fork. I sat down next to Bette on the couch. “Did you go back to the wreck?” I said quietly, so only she heard.

She shook her head. “Jane backed out. Something about her husband.”

“That’s too bad.”

“I got excited over nothing. They’re bringing it up next week.”

“Won’t there be another one?”

“We’ll see,” she said.

It was clear that something had changed. Benjamin stepped into the living room from the kitchen, holding a spatula. “Did you tell her?” he said to Bette.

“Tell me what?”

“The first of April,” he said. “Springtime.”

“We set a date,” said Bette. “My mother’s on her way over.” As if realizing this fact for the first time, she put out her joint and sat up straight.

“Congratulations!” said Dennis. He shook Benjamin’s hand, then leaned down to kiss Bette’s cheek. She stretched to meet him, but her eyes were dull, her mouth still. Her cheeks were pink, probably from the marijuana.

“We don’t have much time,” said Benjamin. “Less time to get caught up in the details, said this one.” He gestured to Bette.

She squeezed my arm. “My mother is making me shop for dresses. You have to come.”

“Of course,” I said, thinking that I wanted nothing less than to spend a day shopping with Dennis’s mother. “Wash your face before she gets here,” I said, and Bette nodded and got up, but Benjamin swung her into a bear hug and carried her into the bedroom. Her laughter was high and reluctant and his was baritone and booming. Dennis stepped out onto the little patio to try to fix the squeak in Bette’s screen door, and I went to change my clothes and brush my hair in the apartment’s small bathroom. When I joined him outside, Dennis said, “Good for them.”

I wondered if this would change the timeline of our own engagement, then decided it didn’t matter. “I guess I’m going shopping.”

He took my hand. He was squatting and there was sweat along his brow and under his arms. We’d decided, during the ride from the beach, that I would stay at his apartment from that time forward. “I’ll pick you up here, after. We’ll go to Scotty’s for fish, and then you can help me study for my exam.”

“How do I do that?”

“Keep me from drinking too many margaritas.”

“What about your mother?”

“My mother isn’t invited.”

“Be serious. What do I tell her?”

“Tell her about what?”

“About where I’m staying.”

“Frances, my mother doesn’t care.”

“Of course she does.”

“Well, she won’t tell you if she does. And she won’t ask.” He stood up, and I heard his knees creak. We are not so young, I thought. Most people our age were married with children. He said, “Call me when you’re all done with the ladies.” Below us a car horn sounded, and we looked down over the porch railing to see Gloria in her shiny sedan, waving through the windshield. I called for Bette, and she came out looking freshly scrubbed, and we went downstairs together.

At a bridal shop on Miracle Mile—one in a row of them—Bette ended up in the dressing room with half a dozen gowns, sobbing while her mother snapped at the saleswoman to bring more options. Gloria tried in her own way to soothe Bette through the dressing room curtain. She told Bette it didn’t matter what she wore, of course, she would look lovely, and all she was saying was that it would have been nice to have enough time to plan a
real
ceremony that would have some gravitas instead of rushing to throw a backyard barbecue. The saleswoman didn’t seem surprised at this turn of events—apparently brides sobbing in dressing rooms were not uncommon—but she did align herself with Gloria. “April?” she said. “How do they expect you to find a caterer?” After half an hour of listening to Bette reject every dress handed to her, hearing her sobs turn to sniffles and back to sobs again, I opened the curtain and stepped into the room. Bette wore only a slip and a brassiere, and her face was a mess. The walls of the dressing room were cushioned with satiny white dresses on hangers. One of them was a simple silk gown, off the shoulder, with no lace or gems. I touched its hem. “I think this is rather pretty,” I said.

“Then you should buy it,” she said.

“Maybe I will,” I said, ignoring her tone. I checked the price tag. The dress was $450. It all seemed a bit much all of a sudden, a bit quick. I could see how a person could become overwhelmed. I said, “Bette, do you have an idea of what you want?”

She seemed stymied by this question. “I guess not.”

“Then you’re not going to find it today,” I said. “Get dressed.”

She looked at me for a moment, then nodded and reached for her blouse.

Over time, I’d gotten a good idea of the role Bette and Benjamin’s engagement had taken in the family—Grady teasingly called Benjamin “my son-in-law-to-be” or referred to their relationship as “timeless.” Gloria fussed over Benjamin when he was around, and chastised Bette whenever she was glib or cross—Gloria was afraid, I assumed, that Benjamin might set off in the dead of night and never be heard from again. I had seen enough to know that this was not going to happen. When I’d met Benjamin over cocktails at Dennis’s parents’ house, I hadn’t realized how long they’d been engaged and had asked him, stupidly, if he was looking forward to the wedding. He’d shrugged and looked sheepish. “I’m a regular guy,” he said. “She knows that here.” He touched his forehead. “As for here”—he touched his chest with a meaty hand—“I’m not sure.” He seemed to me like the sort of person who might stroll headlong into his own broken heart.

While Bette dressed, I found Gloria on a love seat by the front store window, looking at the street. “This isn’t going anywhere,” I said.

“That is apparent,” she said.

“She might be happier in something simpler. Something other than a gown.”

“That’s a good point, dear,” she said. She was placating me. I sat down beside her, exhausted. I felt I should make some admission: I’m sleeping with your son. Or, I love your son. Or, your daughter doesn’t seem to really want to marry Benjamin. She said, “You imagine certain ways of celebrating certain things. But your children have different ideas.”

“It was very nice of you to take her shopping. I’m not sure she’s ready yet.”

“She’d better get ready.”

“She will.”

She stood and smoothed out her pants suit and walked to a row of dresses in the corner. She pulled a sleeveless beige shift from the bunch and held it up. “Now this, Bette would like. It looks like a burlap bag. Not for the wedding, of course, but maybe a luncheon.” She took it back to the dressing room. After a few minutes Bette brought the dress to the counter and Gloria paid, and then we left the store for the bright afternoon.

I
moved from Bette’s apartment to Dennis’s later that week. Bette sent me off with a joint rolled in a paper bag and a bottle of wine, and the way she repeatedly thanked me for cleaning and cooking convinced me, finally, that I’d been as much a pleasant diversion as a burden to her. I unpacked my suitcases into two of Dennis’s dresser drawers, and we went shopping for groceries and bought a hanging plant for his balcony. In the mornings before he went to school, we ate breakfast and took walks on the beach. At least twice a week, I drove his car downtown to meet Marse for lunch or for drinks, or to pick up Bette from the sailing club and run errands or take her shopping. I’d never known anyone who’d lived with a boy before marriage. If Marse or Bette disapproved, or if Dennis’s parents knew—we took pains to hide our situation—they didn’t show it. Ultimately, I asked myself if I disapproved—and the answer was yes, but not so much that I was willing to change anything. Looking back, I’m proud of my otherwise traditional younger self.

The weeks passed in a sunny blur. On the weekends, we went to Stiltsville with Dennis’s parents and Bette and Benjamin. The boys slept on the porch, Bette and I slept in the bunk beds, and Grady and Gloria slept in the big bedroom. Sometimes Marse came out in her Boston Whaler, and sometimes Bette took off in her sailboat in the morning and didn’t return until evening. Gloria took naps in the hammock with an open book on her chest, and Grady took long walks on the wide sandbar that stretched between Dennis’s house and the Becks’ stilt house to the east—this area was called the flats. Sometimes I walked the flats with Grady and he pointed out starfish, sea worms, fire coral. One weekend, Marse insisted on teaching me to windsurf, so we took her boat to the Becks’ house to borrow a windsurfer from Marcus Beck—merely a year later, Marcus’s wife, Kathleen, would sponsor me and Marse for the Junior League—and within a couple of hours I managed to surf inelegantly across the flats on my own, my arms shaking and my knees bent. From the dock, Marse cheered me on.

Each week, new developments emerged in the planning of Bette’s wedding. Gloria found a caterer, and she and Bette and I went to sample cakes at a bakery. We spent an hour taking bites from each sample and eventually chose a lemon cake with vanilla frosting. The following week, Bette and Benjamin arranged for the pastor from Grady and Gloria’s church to perform the wedding. Then a week later Dennis was instructed to make sure his suit was ready and I was asked if I had a dress. Both Bette and Gloria asked me this, on separate occasions, and I had the feeling they’d discussed the question beforehand: Does Frances have anything to wear? What if Frances shows up at the wedding in the same sundress she’s worn every other day for two months? (I’d packed two large suitcases, but they were not nearly enough—I’d been in Miami three months at this point.) Marse and I went to Burdine’s and spent an hour trying on clothes in the same dressing room, until the sales matron told us that our behavior—we were laughing and talking loudly—was disturbing the other customers, and we were asked to quiet down or leave. I ended up with an avocado-green shift and matching sandals from a consignment store, and Marse bought a wide-brimmed straw hat to wear with a white Easter suit she already owned. Instead of going back to Dennis’s that night, we called him from a pay phone and had him meet us at Scotty’s, and the three of us ended up going from one bar to the next, until at dawn we found ourselves at a tavern in Coconut Grove, sitting at a sticky wooden table in front of a dozen empty beer bottles.