Placeholders, page 7
She tapped her nostril. ‘You’re bleeding,’ she said.
When the plates land on the counter, overflowing with food, Róisín laughs. ‘It’s like the movies,’ she says. ‘You really don’t know the meaning of the words “portion control”, do you?’
The Bloody Marys come next. Aaron stares at the glass of cloudy red liquid dotted with black pepper, the chunky ice cubes, the condensation dripping down its side like honey. His mouth is dry. His legs hurt. He’s got an awful fucking headache. Aaron pushes the straw out of the way with his finger, lifts the glass to his lips then sets it down half full. He feels visceral relief flood through his body, like a dried-out sponge thrown back into the ocean that’s rehydrating so quickly it’s audible.
‘I don’t know how you can drink that,’ Róisín says.
‘It helps,’ he says. ‘Trust me.’
She leans forward and takes a tepid sip from her straw. She shudders, shaking her head. ‘That is properly disgusting,’ she says.
They eat in contented silence. For the first time since they’ve met, Aaron feels no pretence, no hesitation. This could be any day at all. This could be every day from now on. He can’t stop smiling. After he finishes his Bloody Mary, he slides Róisín’s in front of him. She watches him take the straw out of the cup and place it next to his plate.
8
Róisín wipes the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. The sun is high, the sky cloudless. The air is still with flat heat. There is no ocean here, no harbour breeze. She’s never been so far outside of Boston. They’re in an area Aaron kept offhandedly referring to as ‘Western Mass’ during the long drive out as if it meant something. She spots a herd of Americans holding hot dogs ambling by and then, past them, a glimpse of Aaron’s hand as he waves her over to a bulletin board.
‘See, I think we got mixed up here,’ he’s saying. His face is covered in sweat and scrunched into a smile. A dark-coloured patch covers most of the back of his grey T-shirt. He’s pointing at a cartoon depiction of a parking lot on the east side of the fairgrounds, then to the centre of a group of buildings. ‘We’re here. I’m almost positive,’ he says.
Plastic megaphonic speakers churn out carousel music. The sounds of laughter and conversation from the crowd surrounding them fold into the background noise of amusement rides and barkers cajoling children to shoot tin cans with a BB gun for a dollar a go. Róisín can hardly believe all of this is real. She wipes her forehead again.
‘Do you think we could go somewhere a little cooler?’ she asks. ‘Just for a little while? I know we only just got here.’
‘It’s not usually this hot. Three weeks from now it’ll be dead fall, I swear. Leaves, pumpkins, the whole thing.’ Aaron turns back to the map and leans in, humming in concentration, studying the lines and shadows. His head jerks towards and away from the small, smudged legend in the bottom right-hand corner. ‘If that’s the McDonald’s Super Slide, then this must be the Coca-Cola Circus Tent,’ he says to himself.
The carousel music crinkles as it cuts out. ‘The butter-carving contest begins in five minutes,’ a voice announces. ‘Attention. If you are a butter carver, please report to the blue entrance on the western side of the Mallary Complex. We extend our gratitude to Costco for sponsoring this year’s tractor pull.’
There’s a ping like a quarter off a tin roof behind them. A stack of cans crashes down. The kid holding the BB gun cheers. The attendant takes out a hooked stick and pulls down a teddy bear.
Aaron taps a building on the left side of the map. ‘I think this might actually be the only place with air conditioning,’ he says.
‘I don’t mean to be a pain,’ Róisín says. ‘I can bear it for a bit, just forget that I said anything.’
Aaron cuts the distance between them. He rests his hands on her hips. Now she’s smiling too, how could she help it with him beaming down at her like this?
‘Don’t kiss me,’ she says. ‘You’re absolutely soaked.’
‘What did the pot say to the kettle?’ he says, which makes her laugh.
They pass a concession stand. Róisín watches the man in a paper hat behind the counter shovel popcorn into a gallon bucket and place it into the outstretched arms of a seven-year-old, the child’s hands grasping the air in anticipation. Aaron is telling her something about the fair – or exposition, whatever it’s called – but she can’t focus with all the excitement around her.
‘It’s like being in a movie,’ she says, interrupting.
Aaron grins. ‘I knew you’d like this.’
‘I do,’ she says. She puts a hand in his and he takes it.
It’s easy to be at ease around Aaron. There’s the transparency, for one. The nail-biting, the rubbing of his neck, the avoidant eye contact. Or else the smiling, the handholding, the kisses on the cheek. The way wrinkles appear at the corners of his eyes when he’s grinning as wide as he can.
They stop at a stand selling deep-fried things and Aaron orders fried butter, fried Kool-Aid and a fried Oreo. ‘And two beers,’ he says.
‘Could I get a water?’ Róisín asks.
‘And a water,’ Aaron calls out.
Instead of beer, she’d meant. There’s something in the back of her mind that niggles every time she sees Aaron drink. It isn’t that she has a problem with it. He drinks more than her, sure, but who doesn’t? She doesn’t have the right to have a problem. Still, she has to admit, she stepped into the car park today and hoped, amid the loudness of the sunshine and the humid layered air, for something pure about the day.
They take refuge on a shaded bench and eat. Róisín lets Aaron finish the fried butter in exchange for the Oreo. He eats the Kool-Aid in three neat bites.
‘Would you have come here as a kid?’ she asks.
Aaron shakes his head, chewing. He takes a swill of beer and swallows. ‘My mother would rather be deep-fried than spend an afternoon at a state fair.’
Róisín looks around and allows herself to picture her family here, even though it hurts. They would love this kind of thing. Her father would be hunched over the display text on each of the vintage tractors, unsatisfied until he’d read them all, then spend the rest of the trip regurgitating the information as if he’d known it all his life. Her mother would be pushing everyone to get a treat so that she could steal a bite. Her brother, of course, would be nowhere to be found, busy trying to experience every ride in the fairground. They would be happy.
Sometime last week, Róisín and Aaron were in Kelly’s when she told him that she’d be closing up the café alone while Sofia was out of town. It was part of a larger story, something about how Charlie had been really annoying about it, telling her at the last minute. It wasn’t even the point of what she was talking about. Aaron listened carefully, the way he always did, and, picking at his pancakes, asked her if it was okay to call her when she finished her shift.
‘Why?’ she asked.
She was afraid she’d suggested something about Charlie accidentally. She wasn’t sure how Aaron would react or how she wanted him to react. The word for the incident was assault, a word that felt to Róisín at once too strong and not strong enough to describe how she now felt in the café every time she saw him and he acted as if nothing were wrong. At least when Sofia was around she could distract herself. There was a buffer. When the café was slow or empty, Róisín spent her time behind the counter listening for the opening of the back office, sweating when she heard something that sounded like the creak of the door. When she did see Charlie, she was quick to look somewhere else, to do something with her hands.
‘It’d make me feel better knowing that you’re getting home safe,’ Aaron said.
So that was it. Gentle concern. Easy affection. She was still unaccustomed to this sacrificial charity which she so regularly received from him in which some amount of time and effort could be exchanged in order to solve her discomfort. It was that simple to him.
‘You really don’t have to do that,’ she said. ‘I’ll be fine.’
‘Okay,’ he said, and left it at that.
The next night, he called just as she was locking the door. He made it sound as natural as he could, telling her she was on his mind and that he wanted to say hello. He even acted surprised when she told him she was closing up and had a few minutes to talk on the walk to the T station. He called the next night and the night after that. It didn’t matter if she was ending up at her apartment or his, he always called. Their conversations had become so reliable he would start winding down whatever anecdote Róisín was into as she got to the station, saying something like, ‘No point standing outside, go on and catch your train,’ before hanging up. She’d start watching the clock around six, checking her phone whenever she felt a phantom buzz in her pocket. She felt her heart flutter when his name flashed up on the screen.
Last night, he called as usual.
‘Have you ever been to a state fair?’ he asked.
She didn’t even know what a state fair was.
‘You’re going to love it.’
He picked her up at seven this morning in Jake’s car and they spent the first two hours of the drive listening to all of the American boy bands Róisín grew up with. They stopped for gas and Róisín spent twenty dollars on candy and beef jerky, all the brands she’d seen but never tried. They turned the music up as high as it would go. They rolled the windows down and sang along together. It felt like living someone else’s life.
A cheer rises from a circle of people across the way. They’re standing next to a giant blow-up soldier holding a rifle the size of a bus. She can see someone in the centre now, a teenager, as he does chin-ups.
‘What’s that about?’ Róisín asks, pointing.
She watches carefully as Aaron drinks half of one of the plastic cups of beer in one go and smacks his lips, satisfied. Then he responds.
‘What?’ he asks. ‘The townies doing pull-ups?’
‘What’s a townie?’
‘Not so loud,’ Aaron says, laughing. ‘It’s not the nicest thing.’
There’s a particularly scrawny teenager hanging from the metal bar. He struggles to pull his chin up over the line. A broad man in a tan uniform beside him calls out a number, counting. ‘Come on, son,’ he says. ‘You can do it. Dig deep.’
The teenager pulls so hard he is shaking. He makes it halfway up before his grip gives out and he drops into a heap on the asphalt. His friend pushes him aside and jumps onto the bar.
‘They’re recruiting for the military,’ Aaron says. He finishes his beer and puts the second plastic cup into the empty first. He notices her watching him do it. ‘Sorry, did you want this?’ he asks.
‘No, no,’ she is quick to say. She holds up her bottle of water and, as if to reiterate the point, unscrews the cap and takes a small sip. The inside of her mouth is coated in butter. Her lips taste like salt. She watches carefully as Aaron drinks from the plastic cup of beer. It’s soon empty.
The crowd stops and turns, everyone looking up towards the sky, and then she hears the mechanical roar from miles above. Aaron scoots closer to her on the bench and puts his arm around her shoulders, pointing up.
‘See it?’ he asks.
‘Yes,’ she says, even though she doesn’t.
And then she can make out the plane against the canvas of blue. It’s no larger than a speck at this distance but the noise is enormous. As they watch, she leans into Aaron’s chest. This is surely some kind of American life, she thinks. The plane flies overhead. The kids in the group all cheer. Then it zooms past, gone as quickly as it arrived, and they watch it recede into the distance.
9
It’s a few weeks later that Aaron receives a text.
thinking of you. what are you up to tonight?
He stares at the blurry screen and wills the double-image text to realign over itself so he can read it. The music is loud and obnoxious. Percy is shouting about how government welfare leads to dependency on tax-funded handouts. Jake is shouting back that Percy should grab a hold of his neck and pull his head out of his ass. Aaron squints through the fog and lights; his eyes are stinging. He imagines Róisín in bed with one of her books and a cup of tea.
‘Did you hear what he said?’ Jake says, grabbing Aaron roughly by the arm. ‘Would you get off your phone a minute. Jesus Christ, you are so fucking pussy-whipped.’
‘So whipped,’ Percy repeats, laughing.
Jake lifts his plastic cup to his lips and tilts his head back until it’s empty. He looks expectantly at Percy, who follows suit, and then at Aaron, who doesn’t.
‘I don’t want to get completely shit-faced on a Thursday night,’ he says.
‘The thing is, though,’ Jake says, gently lifting Aaron’s cup to his mouth, ‘that you probably are going to get completely shit-faced on a Thursday night.’ Aaron downs the rest of his drink in one go. Jake slaps him on the back. ‘Attaboy.’
Percy pats the breast pocket of his blazer – he’s always wearing that fucking blazer – and nods towards the bathroom. Jake flashes a wild grin and throws his arm around Aaron and the three of them fight their way through shoulders and elbows to get there.
‘He’s always wearing that fucking blazer,’ Aaron shouts.
They step into a bathroom stall and lock it. A phone is procured. Lines are drawn and straightened. The screen is passed around. Aaron doesn’t say yes but he doesn’t say no either, and Jake is right in that there doesn’t wind up being a meaningful difference between those two things. He wipes his nose with the back of his hand and waits for something to happen.
‘This close,’ Percy is saying, ‘This fucking close to that bonus. Fifty-fucking-thousand bucks if I hit target by the end of the year. This fucking close, man.’
‘That’s just the bonus?’ Jake asks.
Aaron has his phone out again.
thinking of you. what are you up to tonight?
He is thinking about what to write back. Jake swipes the phone out of his hand and starts reading out their messaging conversation.
‘“I can’t stop smiling”,’ Jake reads out. ‘“Me neither, everyone on the bus must think I’m some kind of lunatic”.’
Percy’s laughing like a jackal.
‘You are so fucking whipped,’ Jake says and tosses the phone back at him.
‘Whipped,’ Percy repeats and hiccups.
Someone bangs on the stall door. Percy snorts a particularly thick line before shouting at them to ‘cop on and fuck off’. The banging doesn’t stop.
Jake whips open the door and there’s some guy with spiky hair and a gold chain who’s all eyebrows and teeth.
‘The door’s locked, right, which means it’s fucking occupied, doesn’t it?’ Jake yells at him. He slams it shut in the guy’s face and locks it and all three of them burst out laughing.
Aaron feels the bass in his chest. He’s covered in sweat. His mouth is dry. Percy is showing them pictures of a boat on his phone. He either wants to buy this boat or else he’s bought this boat already; the chronology of what he’s saying is unclear. Maybe time itself is unsticking and what Percy is saying is otherwise perfectly cogent. Aaron closes his eyes and lets his arms hang loose at his sides. It feels like hot air. He’s entered some liminal space where gravity is optional. This isn’t Earth he’s landed on. He pictures Róisín in bed but now he imagines that the book’s been put on the bedside table and the tea’s gone cold.
Jake shakes his shoulder. ‘Aaron,’ he’s shouting. ‘Aaron! Percy asked you something.’
‘He’s a bit fucking deaf, isn’t he?’ Percy says. ‘I asked if you went to Tufts. There’s a new guy on the team who graduated, like, four years ago. I wondered if you knew him.’
‘What?’
Percy cups his hands around his mouth and repeats himself at full volume.
‘I went there. Yeah. Well, kind of,’ Aaron says.
‘Kind of? What does “kind of” mean? Tufts is fine. You should be proud. It’s not Cornell, obviously, but, like, not everybody can get into Cornell.’
‘I started there, but I–’
‘He got thrown out,’ Jake says and laughs. ‘He punched the president’s son in the face at a party and the guy fell through a fucking window.’
‘He didn’t fall through a window, it was a glass coffee table,’ Aaron says.
‘A window,’ Percy repeats, his eyes wide.
‘The son almost died, actually,’ Jake says. He’s grinning.
‘He did not almost die,’ Aaron says. ‘He spent, like, a week or two in the hospital, max.’
‘That’s so cool,’ Percy says to himself. ‘That would never happen at Cornell.’
Someone bumps into Percy’s shoulder and his drink jumps from his hand onto the dance floor. ‘What the fuck?’ the guy yells.
Aaron finds it difficult to discern the shapes in front of him as they take form in the snapshot flashes of the strobe light above them. Someone with spiky hair and a gold chain has his hands on Percy’s blazer. Percy is pushing him back. Spiky hair has his hand cocked back. Jake is pulling Percy out of the way. Spiky hair is throwing a punch. The crowd around Aaron explodes into sudden, drunken violence. Percy gets thrown to the floor. Aaron takes a step back from the unfolding chaos, turns around and gets punched in the face.
They were sitting at the counter in Kelly’s Diner this morning. It had become a popular breakfast spot for the two of them on mornings after she stayed over. Their regular waitress, a woman named Darlene, came over with menus. Róisín ordered pancakes. Aaron ordered eggs.
‘You like those sunny side up, don’t you?’ Darlene said.
Aaron said yes and, when she left to fill their order, he grinned at Róisín. He held up his hand with his index finger just barely touching his thumb and said, ‘We are this close to becoming regulars.’
