Things were not going well at all. There were just two things he'd wanted from this summer and now both had gone bad. He had not talked to his mother, and sometimes he thought that because he had not done so his mother had had a bottle thrown in her face. And as for getting laid, Eddie thought, looking around the room, just look where it had gotten him.
This summer had flipped him and pinned his shoulders. He was reminded that his mother had told him she'd gotten pregnant the first time she'd had sex. She told him this on his sixteenth birthday, to imply his specialness, but also to show him that his life might be ruled by circumstance and passion. His plans for this summer, he thought moodily, were all fucked up.
The door opened and Lila came out. She sat down next to him and whispered, “I had shy bladder at first, but then it was okay. I looked at the other samples when I sat mine on the testing table. It was the color of the rest. No darker or lighter. I even smelled a few.”
“Yuck,” Eddie said.
“I'd drink them all if it would do any good,” Lila said.
Eddie held her hand. “So we'll know for sure in a few minutes?”
“Yep,” she said. “I keep wondering if one of these suckers might have a bomb.” She deliberately eyed each face in the waiting room. “Do you think any look like born-again Christians?”
Eddie said, “We can leave if you want.”
“No, we can't,” Lila said. “Don't be stupid.”
“You can change your mind,” he said.
“Please,” Lila said.
A different nurse came out and called Lila's name. She got up and followed the nurse, who closed the door behind them.
His mother had described to him her light-headed dreams of an oval with a creature rolling and changing like a kaleidoscope inside. But, Eddie thought, there was also something desperate and horrible about a red mucousy thing attaching itself to your innards. Lila hadn't said this exactly, but she had mentioned the weirdness of a creature stealing your food and lounging on your organs as if they were throw pillows. But then he himself had been one of these big-headed little gargoyles. Eddie didn't know what to think. For a moment he thought of himself caught in Lila's body, struggling to grow an arm, then a palm, and finally each thin finger flicking out strong as switchblades.
Eddie tightened his calf muscles and squeezed his fingers around the arms of the chair as if he were on a roller coaster. It bothered him that he couldn't remember how may wins he had had by pin. He saw each match: the gym, the lights, and himself, inching an opponent's shoulders every second closer to the mat. He stood as he heard a hand rest on the door. Somehow he suddenly knew that it would not happen, that for once luck was on his side.
In the motel, Lila fed quarters into the little box on the night-stand. As the mattress shook, she lay back near the trembling bucket of chicken between them. Eddie ate a thigh and watched television. The bones hit his teeth.
In the room, all dark except for the jump and glow of the screen, Lila said, “So this is the fabulous MTV.”
“Admit you like it,” Eddie said. “It's impossible not to.”
“Tonight,” Lila said, picking white meat off the bone with her fingers, “I could tell you I liked anything.”
Eddie searched the bucket for another thigh. “Should I try to get beer again?”
“No,” Lila yelled above the hum of the mattress. She sat up, then stood on the bed and started jumping. Eddie, distracted from his guitar hero on the screen, watched her slap her palms on the ceiling.
He stood and jumped slowly, more carefully than Lila. The chicken spilled onto the bed and bounced. He flicked it off with his toes. “Watch this one,” he said, jumping and dancing to a new-wave song on the TV.
“I love this,” Lila said as they grabbed arms and pushed off together. Their hair brushed the ceiling. “No babies in here,” she said, and looked around as if it was surprising not to see hundreds of infants suspended in air.
“We're saved,” Eddie said like a TV preacher. “Praise the Lord.”
“We're young,” Lila said, wildly throwing her head from side to side with the music. She jumped high, kicking her bare legs. “And we're free.”
SEVENTEEN. THE SHARK
Emily watched Lila walk on the beach. She couldn't remember herself ever looking like that: every part so new and nested perfectly together. She did remember when her hips spread, a little with Eddie, but more later. Emily looked over the length of her body to Lila's feet marching in the shallow waves.
“Want to lay out with me?” Emily called.
Lila looked up and smiled shyly. She swayed her thin hips up the sand. “Spread your towel here,” Emily said. “It'll be fun to talk to you.”
“I like your bathing suit,” Lila said.
“This old thing?” Emily looked down at her paisley hip hugger. “I got this before Eddie was born.”
“Really?”
Emily nodded.
Lila flipped her towel up like a wing and then let it settle on the sand. She lay down on her stomach with a palm resting under each hip.
“Did Birdflower tell you we work together at the Trolley?”
“Yes,” Emily said. “He says he doesn't think you like it.”
Lila shrugged. “What's to like?”
Emily dug her feet into the cooler sand below the surface. “Did you get in trouble for missing a day?”
“I'm just decoration around that place,” Lila said.
“I used to take off like that,” Emily said. “No excuses, no plans. Just drive right onto the highway.”
“I'd love to be able to drive,” Lila said.
“No need for it here,” Emily said, her eyes still closed.
“Yeah,” Lila said. “Even if I could, there wouldn't really be anywhere to go.”
Emily leaned up on one elbow. “I would have loved to grow up here.”
Lila opened her eyes and looked into Emily's face. “Can I ask you a question? I've been dying to ask you this forever.”
“Okay,” Emily said, looking past Lila's profile and farther down the beach to where an older couple waded in the water.
“Why didn't you just reach up and catch the bottle?”
Emily watched the old woman slowly step back to shore and the man do a sidestroke into deeper water. “Have you ever had a bottle thrown at you?”
“No,” Lila said, sitting up. “But it seems like you could've caught it and slammed it back at his truck.”
“It wasn't a movie,” Emily said, watching the old man grow smaller as he floated on his back beyond the waves. “Imagine if you were riding your bike and your father drove up. You'd take a step forward, wouldn't you? And then what if he threw a Coke bottle hard as he could at your face?”
Lila was quiet. “It's horrible to imagine,” she said finally.
“Why do you care about this?” Emily asked.
“I can't help thinking about it, is all,” Lila said.
Emily lay back and let the sun ease her. She wanted to explain that more and more often now she thought of John Berry; she liked the way he loved her. You could tell he did by the way he breathed, and by the way his skin prickled when he held her. John Berry slept curled up, his face marked with the light sweat of sleep. He was more instinctual than most men. His moods swayed with warm weather, with heat, the seasons.
Emily saw the old man throw his arms up as if cheering. At first she thought he was motioning to his wife about some sort of sea life, maybe dolphin beyond the wake. But then his head dunked under, and when he came up, his hands waved frantically.
“I think that man's in trouble.”
Lila stood up, shielded the sun from her eyes.