Lynn Strong - Hold Still

The waitress waves her hand at them, Jeffrey’s hand still on her other arm. “Don’t worry,” she says. “Take your time.”

She starts to walk away, then turns back toward them. She touches Jeffrey’s shoulder and stands very close. “Your family’s gorgeous,” she says.

Ellie feels a thrumming in her stomach. Jeffrey smiles. The girl brings her hand back to her side.

They’re inside a club Maya hadn’t known existed. It’s the sort of place she’s never been, or meant to go: dark lights, loud music, young, lush people. They walked past the line straight through the door. Laura nodded at the doorman. “I sleep with him sometimes,” she muttered. And then here they were.

Maya’s hips move as they wait at the bar and order drinks from the hardly more than adolescent bartender. She’s tattooed all down both arms and her belly is bare before them, flat and firm and covered in some liquid that makes it catch the light.

Laura gets them martinis. Maya’s feet wobble underneath her — there have been two bottles of wine in addition to the one they had before leaving her house. Her knees buckle beneath the weight of all she’s drunk.

She can’t remember ever being out this late.

Laura leads Maya to the dance floor. Booths line the edges of the club where people sit and drink. A few of them are hidden by curtains. A cage hangs in the center over the crowd, suspended in the air by hidden lines. Inside the cage, a girl dances. Maya wants to get her out and take her home with her. She’s writhing, a small roll of fat on her belly curves and twists as she throws her arms back, lowering herself deftly to the cage’s floor. She wears only a sparkling red bikini. The top is oddly old-fashioned, a sweetheart cut, thinks Maya, though she can’t think how she knows this term.

Laura puts her hands lightly on Maya’s hips from behind her. She turns Maya toward her and Maya gives the dancing girl one final look. And then Maya and Laura are dancing together. They’re dancing in a spirited imitation of the caged girl. Laura’s grip gets firm on either side of Maya, and Maya lets herself dip into her friend. Her hair’s out of its clip and down her back now, and strands of it catch in her mouth as she smiles at her friend. She tastes smoke and her shampoo, and she’s enjoying not having hold of anything. It feels as if she’s finally been let loose.

The music gets louder, faster. She likes the feel of Laura’s hands on her. She wants to fall into her and let her hold her as she moves.

Slowly, though, Maya feels herself begin to slip. She’s either too drunk or becoming not quite drunk enough. The result is nausea, nausea and wanting to get out. She puts her hands on top of Laura’s shoulders, which are slick with sweat right through her shirt.

“Bathroom,” she says and then screams it twice more before Laura nods that she’s heard. They walk determinedly toward a bright red EXIT sign. The bathroom’s nearly empty. A girl, so young Maya thinks a moment she should scold her, is leaning close to the mirror, lining her eyes in black as a girl in the one occupied stall yells to her about “that fucking assface Ross.”

Maya avoids the mirror. She closes herself quickly into an empty stall. She puts down the lid of the toilet and sits, slipping her feet out of her shoes. She stares at her long, unpolished toenails, the little hairs on each toe. Black lines are smudged around her feet from the boots’ leather and her sweat.

She breathes slowly, sits back against the tank. The porcelain clunks once against the wall and Maya keeps her eyes fixed downward. She listens to the girls. They’re talking about someone else now, another girl whom they seem to hate.

“Her dress, though.”

“I know.”

“Like it’s the fucking prom.”

They’re both laughing. One high and sharp. One hoarse.

“She’s really skinny, though. I could never wear a dress that tight.”

“Coke.” Maya hears the toilet flush beside her.

“Really?” The door of the stall opens with a creak.

“I know.” She imagines that they’re looking at one another in the mirror.

“Well, I guess it works.”

Heels clank against the concrete of the floor. Water runs.

“I love that lipstick.” Maya thinks of Ellie’s thick broad lips.

“Here.”

“Thanks.”

Maya looks at the freckles on her knees. She can still make out the lines of her quadriceps from all the mornings up over the bridge. She still has the knot of something certain pulsing thick and tight between her shoulder blades. She’s no longer drunk, but does not feel sober. Her mind pounds hard and crooked from the music and the alcohol. She thinks, briefly, of texting Stephen. But she can’t think what she would say. She thinks maybe instead she will just never leave this bathroom. She will stay here, eavesdropping on young girls, pretending that they’re hers.

“You okay, Ma?”

Her eyes are blurry and she can hardly make out the shape of him. He’s in boxers still and an old tournament T-shirt. Maya sits up and runs her fingers down under her eyes. “Fine,” she says.

She fell asleep still in her dress (Laura’s) in Ellie’s room, without ever checking in with Stephen, without brushing her teeth or washing her face. Now Ben has found her, under the covers with mascara smudged beneath her eyes.

“Where were you last night?”

“Laura,” she says, hoping this explains things.

“Right,” Ben says.

“What’d you do for dinner?” She should’ve been here cooking for him, talking to him, loving him.

“Dad made pasta,” Ben says.

“How was it?” she asks. They were supposed to make up. Stephen was supposed to tell Ben he was sorry, prepare him for Ellie.

“Fine, Mom.”

“Benny. .”

“I know. You don’t know what that means.”

“You feel better about things?”

“He’s still pissed.”

She’s quiet. She should have been here. She stares at her son’s face and then looks down.

“I know he just wants. . you know, he’s Dad. He wants us to achieve, right? To enact ourselves upon the world .” Ben raises his shoulders and lowers his voice when he says the last part. Maya smiles.

“Benny. .” She wants to say something to prove she loves him, to show him she’d still do anything on earth to keep him safe. “You want breakfast?”

“Nah,” he says. “I think I’ll run.”

She doesn’t want to get out of bed with Ben still watching. There’s a large black X on her hand from the doorman at the club. There are still lines of grime along her feet.

He lingers a little longer, toeing the carpet, running his fingers through his nearly nonexistent hair. “Okay,” he says.

“Tonight, maybe?” Maya asks him. “Dinner?”

“Sure,” he says. He looks up at her. Maya holds the comforter up close to her face and breathes in the smell of cigarettes.

She needs to talk to Stephen first, to clear things up, to remind him to be careful with her children.

“Dad and I aren’t coming,” Ben says.

Maya’s only holding on to bits of what he’s saying to her. She sees the pounding music, the caged girl.

“To Florida,” he says. “To get El.”

She will not react here in front of him. She will wait until she sees Stephen to respond properly to this. She must figure out, in the meantime, what responding properly might be.

“It’s fine, Benny,” she says. “If you don’t want to come, it’s fine.”

“I want to,” Ben says. “But Dad. .”

She looks out the window of Ellie’s room, down into Stephen’s garden. He could not ever quite make sense of who their daughter was. He understood and responded well to goals . He never fought with Ellie. Instead, he just slowly wandered further from her. She was, he seemed to believe, of Maya’s making, and therefore Maya’s task most of the time.