? ? ?
Tom and Hot Pocket are in the side yard, smoking a joint in the glare of a Japanese foot lantern. He can hear the drunken squawk of Brindy and Beth discussing flaxseed oil and inner thigh exercises. He sees she has even accepted a tiny glass of Brindy’s watermelon daiquiri, her resentment having taken a reluctant backseat to her gratitude at being saved from a seven-year-old’s bluntness.
“You’re a lucky man, Tom,” Hot Pocket tells him, slapping him on the back.
“Yeah,” he mumbles. People keep telling him this. They look at Beth, Elizabeth, whatever the hell her name is now, at her long black hair and her smooth, fair skin and how what’s left of her flesh is packaged so daintily into a neat, hot little dress and tell him this. But what Tom sees is the stooped-over way she carries herself like her thinness was a punch in the gut, the air of heaviness around her that will never leave. How her heels are scuffed and her stockings full of rips because she spends all her money on dresses that she cannot afford and that are not fit for any occasion. He has fantasies about burning the little short-sleeved black cardigan she feels compelled to wear even in the dead of summer, over this dress, over every dress regardless of its color and cut because she buys them all too tight. He’s seen the deodorant stains in the armpits, smelled the stink of its sweat and trying and perfume. And he doesn’t feel like a lucky man. He doesn’t feel lucky at all.
For one thing, he got lucky a hell of a lot more when she was fat. Now she’s either too hungry or angry or distracted for sex. Or she says she still feels “like a stranger in my own body.” When she first told him this, he said it was ridiculous. But actually he understands what she means. He feels shy and awkward when he hugs the half of her that’s left, when his hands graze the now pronounced bones in her back and shoulders. And she is just as uncomfortable being naked, obsessed with what she calls “the evidence.” Embarrassed about her shrunken breasts, the slack skin around her middle. She still comes to bed more or less fully clothed and covering parts of herself with her hands, just like she did when she was fat.
The fat girl comes back to him like a remembered dream.
“Where the hell’s Dickie, anyway?”
“Don’t know.”
“Can you believe he actually offered that girl to us?”
Hot Pocket laughs and takes a toke. “That’s Dickie. He’s a sicko.”
He forgets if he’s the first to suggest it or if it’s Hot Pocket. How they ought to just drive over there. To Dickie’s house. Not to . . . you know . . . obviously, but just to get a look at her. This fat chick. This girl who’ll do anything. Just, you know, for curiosity’s sake. Hot Pocket checks his watch. It’s early still. He probably shouldn’t leave the party.
“You said we need more beers,” Tom says. “We could get more beers on the way.”
“I guess we could.” They do need more beers.
They tell the girls they’re going out to get more beers and the next thing he knows he’s driving across the tracks in Hot Pocket’s SUV, zigzagging past the rancid Mexican eateries and gang war gas stations in the no-man’s-land between Hot Pocket’s neighborhood and Dickie’s. He is expecting Dickie to live in a glass cube or a giant dildo or something, but it’s just a regular old bungalow. Sad and squat and flesh colored, just like all the other ones on the block.
The house looks dark. Though Tom’s already charging across the lawn, Hot Pocket hangs back. “Wait,” he calls. “It’s getting pretty late, isn’t it?”
“This is Dickie we’re talking about,” Tom replies. “His evening of hydro and samurai movies is probably just getting under way.”
Despite Hot Pocket’s protests, Tom staggers up the walk, rings the doorbell and gathers his hands together in front of him, rocks on his heels. His hands feel very moist and hot. No answer.
He pounds and pounds on the door until his knuckles are raw, ignoring Hot Pocket’s Let’s just gos, thinking he will never leave, not until he gets a look. At last Dickie appears bleary-eyed in the doorway. He’s wearing one of those shirts patterned with dancing hula girls, unbuttoned down to the navel. There is a sedate, rumpled look to him, a sheen to his face that suggests he’s just been masturbating.
“Hey, guys. What the fuck? Little late for a house call, isn’t it?”
Over Hot Pocket’s drunken apology Tom says, “Just were going for more beers and wanted to check up on you. Thought you and your date were coming to the party tonight.”
“Oh.” Dickie blinks. “That was tonight? Guess we got kind of caught up.”
“So . . . ?” Tom says, craning his neck to catch a glimpse of the dark hallway behind Dickie.
“So what?” Dickie says, narrowing the gap in the doorway so only he is visible. Tom notices a darting, ferret-like quality in his eyes.
“Can we come in?” Tom asks, ignoring Hot Pocket’s backward tug on his arm.