David Gates - The Wonders of the Invisible World

“Thank you,” she says. “This is going to be so wonderful to have.” She rubs her index finger back and forth on the slip of paper that says OUR 40TH, SIESTA KEY, 1/8/95,and the smears ball up into springy grains of rubber. She’s managed to imply that (a) his gift is not yet wonderful, and (b) it will be wonderful only when he, too, is dead. But Van puts an arm around her back, clamps her far shoulder and gives it a squeeze, apparently to express some feeling too powerful for words. He excuses himself and goes into the downstairs bathroom, and Holly turns back to that first page. A young man and woman in bathing suits, arms around each other’s waists, water and mountains behind them: LILY AND VG, SARANAC, SUMMER 1957.In 1957, Seth’s mother had looked like Winona Ryder, except that her thighs had that tubby look nobody minded back then. Van had looked like a younger, even handsomer Seth.

Holly bought lamb chops for dinner, but now that it’s stopped sleeting, Van insists on taking them out for what he calls “our first night.” Lately, he says, he’s had a jones for Mexican food. A jones, yet. So Seth calls The El Coyote — which is what it’s actually called, The El —while Holly goes upstairs to put on earrings and lipstick.

She’s looking through her jewelry box when Seth comes in and closes the door behind him. He opens his top drawer, gets out his pipe and goes kitchy-koo.

“I don’t think I should,” she says.

“Oh, come on. I need my coconspirator. I can’t do this straight.”

“I thought you were enjoying it.”

“Good,” he says. “That means he probably thinks so, too.”

After turning him down in bed last night, Holly can’t totally punk out on this. But she only takes two hits to his four or five. That little bit she should be able to handle, or there really is something wrong with her.

• • •

The El Coyote is all welcome and abundance. Somebody’s put wooden bowls of salsa and blue corn chips on their table before they even sit down; the menu calls this “Bottomless Chips and Salsa — Complimentary!” The tabletops are wooden factory spools polyurethaned to a gloss like honey.

Holly can’t imagine how Seth got them here: he must be twice as wrecked as she is, if that’s quantifiable. At one point they had to squeeze through a construction zone where the plastic mesh fencing whipped by just inches from her window and giant bulldozers, cranes and earthmovers loomed in pink light. And then all that confusion at the door when they had to stop and be looked up in a book — what seemed to Holly the kind of episode that could lead to getting arrested. She tries to recall how the Bible line goes: Thou hast preparedest for me an table set before me in the presence of mine enemies. But it would be good to stay away from thinking about enemies.

She hears the crunch of a corn chip all the way across the table. “Good salsa,” Van says. “Salsa without cilantro is like a day without sunshine.”

“Matthew Arnold?” Seth says.

“He will never cease to twit me about this,” Van says to Holly. “One line — a very apposite line — in your wedding toast. From ‘Dover Beach.’ Apparently this was the ne plus ultra of fuddy-duddyism. See, years ago — this character was still in grade school — I used to teach nineteenth-century. Until I realized that my true gift was for glad-handing.”

“You used to say it was for kissing ass.”

“Ah, but there’s a lady present.”

“It’s okay, she knows about these exotic practices.” Seth crunches a corn chip. “Are you having a margarita?”

Silence. Holly looks up. He’s looking at her.

“Oh.” She tries to determine whether he’d implied that she should or she shouldn’t, but the sound of his voice is back too far and getting farther. Would a margarita help bring her down or make it worse? She’s pretty sure tequila comes from the same cactus as mescaline.

“Be working on your answer,” Seth says.

“ My arm is twistable,” says Van.

“Maybe if I had a half?” Holly says. God, her mouth is dry.

“A small one?” What Seth means is I’ll help you through this, but you’re being a drag.

The waitress moves toward them, her healthy face appearing to glow from inside like a Halloween pumpkin, but there’s a candle on the table to provide a reassuring explanation. All these little things will click back into place if Holly can just hang on. The waitress says her name is Andrea, and she recites the specials while looking them in the eyes. She has rings on every finger of both hands, even spoon rings on the thumbs; she’s pretty and young and fetishy, and Holly feels the threat, which is insane given what she’s been up to. In fact, Holly tried out fetishy things on Mitchell: an ankle bracelet, then a tiny silver stud piercing the web of skin between her big and second toes. Seth liked it, too.

When the waitress goes away, Seth’s father turns to Holly. “So, are you nagging this character sufficiently about his health? He asks, having brought them to a restaurant specializing in fatty food.”

This question has so much ironic spin that she gives up and says, “I don’t know.”

“Well, by my calculations, he’s about to turn forty, and depending on whose genes he got the most of … You see what I’m saying. These last few years have put the fear of God into me. I go in every six months, religiously, get ’em to check my cholesterol, EKG, the works. Prostate exam — very important.”

“Fingered for death,” Seth says. “I have to say, one of my least favorite things.”

Holly understands he has to say this in front of his father. In fact, isn’t that why he said I have to say ? Clever Seth! But she knows what she knows.

“Yes, well,” says Van. “If you want to talk about least favorite things …”

“Yeah, you’re right,” says Seth. “I should be doing it.”

“I’ve also got my living will witnessed and notarized. But if I’m in any shape to prevent that situation, believe you me …”

“Well.” Seth looks over his shoulder, as if to see what’s keeping their waitress. “Let’s see how you feel if it ever gets to a point like that. I mean, how did Mom feel?”

Van shakes his head. “I wondered all the time. All the time. I used to look for any sign that — you know. Well, we don’t need to pursue this. Holly, you look like you’ve been shot.”

“I do?” She has no idea what else to say, though he clearly wants her to build on this and then they can all three be talking. She feels a leg against her knee and moves her knee away.

The waitress comes back and sets their drinks in front of them, baby drink for Baby Holly. She could swear the waitress smirked.

Van raises his glass. “As another fuddy-duddy writer once said: Only Connecticut.”

“Hear, hear.” Seth holds up his glass by the stem, prissy-pinkie. He means it ironically. He’s doing all this stoned?

“To Connecticut,” she says, trying to get in the same key. Seth and his father laugh, and she takes in an icy mouthful of salt, sour lime and poison alcohol. It scares her that this taste — which should be so familiar: a frozen margarita, no more, no less — is coming at her in components she can’t recombine. She hasn’t come down at all; in fact, she feels herself going to an even higher place. If she survives this, she will never smoke weed again.

The waitress comes back to take their dinner orders, and she and Van have quite the little flirtation. He says she looks exactly like someone he knew back when he was a graduate student. Somehow he makes it clear that he and this person slept together. “Of course this was many, many years ago.”