The Possibilities: A Novel (9 page)

We stare at his work, heads down, as if in prayer.

Billy, like so many kids, came here after graduation to live and ski for the season. He stayed for almost two seasons, working as a dishwasher at Steak and Rib. I met him the summer after my junior year in college at a dive bar called Fajitas, which has since been replaced. He was nothing like the preppy boys I had dated. He was quietly wild and in no rush. He wanted to design motorcycles, something I thought quaint. At the end of the summer I was ready to go back to school for my senior year. We broke up as we knew we would. It took me until January to figure out I was pregnant. Five months along. I remember being in my dorm, hand on the telephone, in disbelief that I would forever be linked to this summer fling. Time and distance had made him embarrassing.

I imagined going to live with him in some small town we could afford, saying things like, “Bring them groceries inside,” our kid begging to go to outlet malls and wearing his or her pants up to his or her navel. Billy would come home from the bike shop smelling like gasoline and I’d smell like mayonnaise-based salads. I’d later find I had him all wrong.

When I reached him he had moved back home to Durango. He said he was working with his father, who owned an automotive group that operated franchises for about fifteen auto and motorcycle companies. Car salesmen, I had thought.

I told him the news.

“That’s unfortunate” was his first reaction.

“I don’t expect anything from you,” I said. “I just wanted to let you know. I’m going to keep it.” I remember sitting on the bed in my apartment on campus, talking quietly so my roommate wouldn’t hear. She and some other girls were laughing outside the door, getting ready to go out.

“I can do it on my own,” I told Billy.

“I’ll help you,” he said.

In my head, I dismissed him. I told him I would be in touch. I just thought he should know.

The next day, he tracked down my father at his house, stood in the doorway, looked him in the eye, and told him he was the man who got his daughter pregnant.

“I’m Lyle,” my dad had said. “And I didn’t realize my daughter was pregnant.”

“Fuck,” Billy said. “That’s unfortunate.” My dad invited him in. They had a few beers and my dad made pulled pork sandwiches. They’ve been talking to each other ever since.

“You okay?” Billy asks me now.

“Of course not,” I say.

“Want to get a bite?” He tilts his chin toward the shops at Riverwalk.

“A small one,” I say.

•   •   •

AT THE CROWN,
I sit at a front table, next to a couple playing chess. Billy orders the coffees. He’s flirting with the barista, I think. He makes chopping motions with his hands trying to describe something. She looks nervous, like she’s expecting a punch line she won’t understand. I decide I don’t want a coffee. I’ve noticed that being depressed is like being pregnant. I have weird cravings and food aversions. I walk up to the counter and tell Billy that I’ve changed my mind.

“Could I get a cocoa instead, please?” I say to the girl. Her name tag says “Tammy, Michigan” and she’s chewing gum with such vigor it looks like she’s munching on cartilage.

“A cocoa?” she asks. “Like, a hot chocolate?” She has an earring in her eyebrow. I almost say,
Whoops. You’ve got an earring in your eyebrow
.

“Yes,” I say. “Like a hot chocolate.” Billy must have rolled his eyes or something because Tammy smiles, then turns to get my drink, making a show out of having to pour out the coffee.

“Wait!” I say. She stops pouring and looks back over her shoulder.

“I’ll take it if you’re just going to throw it out.”

“Like, to buy?” Now she chews with her front teeth like she’s nibbling an ear of corn.

“No, but if you’re going to throw it out anyway—what’s the difference?”

“I have to throw it out.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

She winces her understanding. I notice her thin, muscular legs and her ass—it’s so round, a perfect cap to those legs, like a cherry at the top of a sundae. Cully would have loved to have sex with this girl. I don’t know why this thought doesn’t make me uncomfortable, but I want it all of a sudden—for him to have lots of sex with Tammy from Michigan and with other girls like Tammy and I feel so bad that he can’t, that he can’t feel desire ever again or do these things other boys get to do.

Billy leaves a twenty on the counter. “I’m going to sit down,” he says.

Tammy begins to talk to another employee, a boy with orange hair. They’re laughing about something and I’m a bit pissed off that they’re alive.

“Is the machine broken?” I ask.

“No,” she says, and goes back to the machine. She holds the cup under the spout and presses the button. “Oh,” she says. “Maybe it is broken. Oh my God,” she says, making it sound like one word:
ahmagah
. “You’re not doing a Fresh Visit, are you?”

“No,” I say, surprised she knows who I am, considering she’s given me such attitude. I hate being recognized and bothered, yet am somewhat insulted when it doesn’t happen. It’s rare that someone like her would recognize me though, since our show is mainly watched by people in the hotels. Though I suppose kids like her watch the show to see the places they know, or more realistically, to make fun of it.

“I’m just here as a regular person, though I could make a recommendation,” I say.

“That would be so funny if we were on
Fresh Tracks
,” she says to the boy.

“So rad,” he replies.

Yes, the second reason, to make fun of it.

“Where’s your name tag?” I ask the boy, attempting to ease up.

“What?” he says, and presses his chin to his chest.

“Like Tammy’s.”

“Oh,” she says. “This is, like, vintage. It’s ironic.”

Tammy, or whatever her real name is, opens the lid of the machine and peers in, then reads the directions on the side of the device. She takes out a tub of powder. “I’m not sure how this works,” she says.

“Just give me a cup of hot water,” I say. She hesitates, then fills a cup with hot water. “Now put some of that powder into the water. Here. I’ll do it.” She gives me the cup; I put a scoop of powder into the water and feel absurdly satisfied.

I walk back to the small round table, take off my coat, and settle myself like a bird.

“Life is so difficult!” I say. I’m sweating.

Billy looks at my chest and I wait for him to look me in the eye.

“You look different,” he says.

“For God’s sake, I know what you’re referring to. I’m wearing a push-up bra.”

“You look amazing.”

I scratch my neck. I don’t know what to say to that. “I hate that word,” I say. “Amazing.”

“So how’s the show?” he asks.

“Okay,” I say. “Fine. My first week back.” For the first time I understand that this is truly an accomplishment. I sip my hot water with powder, knowing Billy’s trying to figure out why he’s here. Without Cully we really have no reason to see each other again. The thought of this makes me sad: another person lost.

“Yesterday was my first day on camera,” I say. “Earlier in the week, we just did some preinterviews.”

“Good for you,” he says. “For working.”

“There’s nothing good about it. It’s my show and I need to work, obviously.”

“Yeah, but you could take more time, right?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe. Sometimes I think I made a wrong choice. I hate being back already, everyone saying, ‘I’m so sorry about your son!’ like they’re talking about a robbery or a . . . I don’t know.”

He nods slowly, repetitively, with a slight smile, something he always does during conversations. “I know,” he says.

“I keep getting distracted.”

I remember Katie laughing at the name of my lipstick when I presented it to the camera. “Love it,” she sang. “I’m definitely going to get that one. You hear that? I’m giving it lip service! And guess what I . . . ”

I watched her mouth open and shut, a tiny ball of spit shooting to the side like a spark. I looked at her lip liner and the line of her actual lip, the pink space between the lines like a whole other lip. I stared at this extra lip, zoned out.

“Sarah, you need to respond,” Holly said.

I came back from wherever I had been. “I can’t.”

“What do you mean you can’t?” Holly said.

“I wasn’t listening, so I don’t know what to say.”

Mike looked amused.

“I’m not going to tell you how to respond,” Holly said. “This is what I was trying to talk about with you earlier. If you don’t want to be here, then go. I know this must seem trivial to you, but this is what you signed up for.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I really am.” I didn’t remember ever signing up for any of this.

“At least pretend you’re here,” she said.

I was a little thrilled and in awe of Holly’s frank anger. Katie lowered her voice. “You’re doing great. We’ll edit this into a masterpiece. Say one of your town facts. I’ll edit it all later. It will be perfect. Or not. Who cares?”

I listened to Katie and spoke: “Back when Breckenridge was evolving into a town,” I said, “a man named Father Dryer set up a parish to stop all the drinking and partying. Every morning he’d ring his church bells, waking up all the hungover residents. He wouldn’t stop even though everyone complained. One day some of the townspeople used dynamite mining caps to blow up his church steeple.”

When I looked around, everyone in the room—Mike, Katie, Lisa, the lipstick lady—actually seemed interested, waiting for more.

“No more bell,” I said.

Then Holly looked like she was going to go postal.

“Yeah,” I say to Billy. “I’m not doing too well at work.”

“What else is going on?” Billy asks.

I lower my eyes, shy to need him. We’re sitting too close to one another, and these tables are so small, I can see the pores on his nose, the hairs in the middle of his eyebrows that need to be, but will never be, plucked. He holds his hands together and taps his pointer finger against a knuckle. Maybe I just needed to see him, to see a version of my son. I needed to see someone who knew me when I wasn’t the person I am now.

I stall by taking a bite of his muffin and commenting on how good it is. “Yum,” I say, my purpose under my tongue like a wad of gum. “What is that? Blueberry? Very good. Hydrated. With a nice crunch at the top.”

“Hydrated?” he asks.

“I hate the word
moist
,” I say.

He looks at his watch. I look at his wrist, the broken pinky finger, the scar on the middle knuckle. He and Cully have had so many injuries. It’s funny how similar they are even though Cully never grew up with him.

When Cully was born, Billy would try to come to town as much as possible, but the five-hour drive and his work schedule made it difficult. What I had thought of as a car lot was actually a flourishing family company that Billy was helping run. Motorcycle design was a side passion, also something that ran in his family, and which in the end became lucrative for him. His grandfather was a designer and engineer for Ducati and in the fifties his father had worked with Fabio Taglioni in developing Ducati’s desmodromic valve system, a fact I committed to memory because it impressed guys. Dickie practically had a stroke when I told him. It took me a long time to adjust to this image of Billy as a businessman, a boss, running a thriving company. Was this the same guy who fashioned a bong out of a pint of Häagen-Dazs?

When Cully was older, he’d go and stay with his dad sometimes, but when Billy married Rachel, the visits dwindled. When Sophie came along, visits were practically nonexistent. But it worked. We all got along, we all kept in touch. When anger strikes, I tend to really run with it, but it never struck. Not for me, not for Cully. We knew Billy was always available. It just happened that we ended up not needing him to be. But maybe I was wrong.

“I have his cell phone,” I say, and watch Billy’s expression, but it doesn’t change. He looks relaxed, like he’s getting a foot massage. He looks at the couple near us. “I used to love playing chess,” he says.

“He called you a lot,” I say.

He nods and thinks about this. “Well, yeah. He’d call every now and then. Check in.”

“That’s nice,” I say. “I never knew that when he was alive.” I’ve known about the calls since I found his phone but have never really thought about them until yesterday, after finding the pot. Now for some reason I feel cheated on.

“Was he okay? I mean, did he need help or—”

“He was fine. We talked. Is that all right?” His smile twitches.

“Of course. It’s fine. It’s great.”

“Is that what this is about?” he asks.

“No.” I sigh. “It’s everything. I was just surprised, that’s all. I’m cleaning out his room, that’s why I wanted to talk to you. I thought if there was anything you wanted . . . you can look through it. I found marijuana in his drawer,” I blurt. I’ll test the waters.

“And you thought I’d want it?” He laughs.

“No, I’m just telling you I found some, with the seeds picked out. He put them on an ashtray. I would have been angry, but instead I was just impressed that he picked out the seeds. Because it affects your sperm count, right?”

“Yeah,” Billy says. “But he probably picked ’em out because they taste like ass, not because he cared about his virility.”

“Oh,” I say.

“He sold pot,” I say. “He did that too. He sold it.”

He looks up, then nods as he looks away.

“Did you know that?”

“Of course I didn’t know that,” he says.

“How do you feel about it?” I feel like a shrink.

He takes a sip of his coffee, and I can see the irritation in his eyes. “I guess I’m disappointed, but what? What can you do? I don’t think it’s something that would have lasted. I don’t know. What can I say?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “I didn’t mean to spring it on you like that. I just . . . wanted to tell you. Just to say it out loud.”

“I bet,” he says. “That’s crazy. That’s too bad.”

He leans back into his chair, though he doesn’t look relaxed. “How do you know?” he asks.

“A scale,” I say. “It was in his closet, plus baggies of pot and money. Lots of money.” Billy flashes a quick smile, reminding me of the feeling I’d have when Cully was little and he’d do something I had to scold him for even though I found it to be funny.