Maud Casey - Drastic - Stories

At exactly six o’clock George and Irene sat in their regular booth in the motel restaurant for dinner, as they had for the past two nights. The walls of the restaurant were painted ocean blue, and tiny fish swam through reeds and pink coral. Across the street was a karaoke bar whose marquee read DANCE AND SING ALONE! “That’s so sad,” Irene said the first night, and then George explained to her that alone was meant to be along, that someone had made a mistake. Still, the sign made Irene tired, and she made it a point to sit with her back to the window. Why didn’t the owners change the sign? That one letter couldn’t be so hard, Irene thought but never said.

Harry, the waiter who looked a thousand years old, threw his arms wide open when he saw Irene. “The little lady’s arrived!” he shouted for no one, since the restaurant was always empty at this hour except for George, Irene, and Harry. Irene smiled as hard as she could so he wouldn’t ask her to turn her frown upside down the way he did last night.

“Irene, what a beautiful name,” he said, putting his crinkly hand on her back.

“It’s a beautiful name — she just doesn’t know it yet,” George said. Irene rolled her eyes and stuck out her tongue. She knew a lot that George didn’t even know she knew. Why did he have to embarrass her, talk about her as if she weren’t there, remind people she was a child?

“The usual, coming right up,” Harry announced. Irene wondered where he got all his energy.

With one finger George traced an eel on the wall. “Years ago,” he said, “I would never have thought that this would be my life, that today I would be here.”

“Did you think you’d have me?”

“Of course,” he said. “Of course, sweetie,” he said as if waking from a dream. “Look, what a surprise!”

Clara walked into the restaurant followed by Dolly and Emmy Lou. The dogs lay down on the floor beside the booth, their heads resting over crossed front paws. Clara slid into the booth on Irene’s side, her hair down, the salty sun-air washed out. Irene inhaled the fresh shampoo smell deeply. She could swear that Clara’s hair had sliver-thin strands of seaweed mixed in. She reached out and touched it without thinking, and Clara laughed, tickling Irene’s nose with the soft ends of her hair.

“You know what my first memory was?” Clara said, looking at Irene. “My first memory, where my life really begins, is pulling into a Memphis hotel that was on fire. My parents were tired of driving, so we waited for the firemen to put it out and then stayed in a room that just missed getting burned.” Her voice lapped at Irene’s ears like gentle waves.

“You don’t really remember all that, do you?” George said. Irene wished that she were the fish that could blow a canopy bed around itself, but she felt more like somebody’s forgotten shoes on a beach.

“All right,” Clara said. “My parents told me most of that story. But I do remember being held in my mother’s arms so that all I could see was the black, charred wood of the burned hotel roof against the blue sky. Now that part is true.”

It made sense to Irene that Clara began her life in fire. That’s what led her to water. It was another one of Irene’s thoughts that never made it into actual words. She felt shy with Clara, the way she did in front of someone who knew true things.

Harry returned to the table and laid out the burgers and a cocktail to replace George’s empty glass. “Anything for you, Clara?”

“Just visiting with Irene, Harry,” Clara said.

“Gotcha,” Harry said. Irene saw him wink.

“Do you sometimes say that you remember everything when actually you remember only the charred wood of the roof against the sky?” George put on the radio Bible lady’s southern accent. “Well, my friends, that is a lie. And God appreciates the truth.”

Everyone laughed, and George continued, spurred on by the attention. “When Irene’s daddy asks her to fill the gas tank while he rests his weary self,” he began, “does Irene sometimes say that she has heatstroke when actually she plain well doesn’t feel like tending to the damn gas tank? Well, that is a lie, and you know God appreciates the truth.”

Irene didn’t think it was funny anymore, especially the way George used her as an example in his joke, as if she were something silly and easily knowable.

George’s face was red with the effort of imitation. Irene wished he’d stop. “Do you sometimes,” and he had to stop to catch his breath, “find yourself in a place and wonder how you got there?”

Harry and Clara were still laughing and waiting for the end of this lie too, faces expectant like arms outstretched to catch a child, but George shook his head as if he were shaking off the words, the way Irene had shaken off her thoughts earlier. She realized this was a gesture she’d learned from him, and when she looked at his stained-red hands she wanted to tell him to wash them.

“There’s a fish called a dorado,” Clara said, stepping in, rescuing them all. “Underwater it looks black, but once you reel it in and bring it up on board, the fish turns a greenish-blue.”

Irene wondered if it hurt the fish to change color like that and whether it knew it was changing colors. She wondered if the fish knew it would never be the same again.

Harry had disappeared from the table, and suddenly the lights in the restaurant went off, but George and Clara didn’t look at all surprised. In fact, George acted as if nothing had happened, smiling a huge smile. Dolly and Emmy Lou clicked their teeth and rose from where they lay, circling each other nervously. Clara put her hand over Irene’s. Maybe Irene had blown a canopy around herself and Clara, Irene thought; maybe the lights hadn’t gone out at all. They were in the protective bubble, warm and safe, living their separate fish lives.

“Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday, dear Ire-eeene! Happy Birthday to you!” Their voices were like pins poking at the mucus bubble, popping it open. Harry put the cake, candles blazing, down on the table in the midst of the burger wreckage.

Irene looked at George’s face rosy with pride for this party he’d created. “My birthday is tomorrow,” she said. She was through looking out for him.

He stared at her the way she’d seen him stare at Myra, as if he wanted her to disappear. “Well, it’s almost tomorrow, honey,” he finally said. “A few more hours and it’s tomorrow. A few more hours after that, it’s the next day and so on and so on.” Irene saw him look at Harry and Clara to relate to this grown-up phenomenon.

“I know how that works,” Irene said, angry at all the things he thought she didn’t understand. “I know a lot of things. And one thing I know for sure is today is not my birthday. Today is the wrong day.” She looked at Clara, hoping she would understand that they needed to leave together immediately for the coast of North Carolina where Clara could show her the ropes of the scuba diving business and they would spend half their lives underwater, away from the rest of the stupid world on land, but Clara didn’t even move to let Irene out of the booth.

“That’s a beautiful cake, honey,” she said. “Let’s eat this one, and we’ll have another one tomorrow.”

“I need to get out of this booth right now,” Irene said. She was tired of being her father’s daughter, and that Clara, the beautiful fish giant, would call her honey just like George had was the last straw. Dolly and Emmy Lou stood alert, opening and closing their mouths, as Irene walked out of the restaurant, leaving all of them to each other.

“Just let her go,” she heard her father say to Clara, who had started after her. Irene thought about pushing the restaurant door open as hard as she could, giving it a good thwack, but she already knew the power of not slamming doors.