Cherry Money Baby (22 page)

“He’s . . . fine,” she said, trying to recover. She glanced at Maxwell. Vi was chatting in his ear. Cherry couldn’t hear her words over the music, and Maxwell didn’t seem to be listening, either. He was watching Cherry, his gaze at once guilty and brazen. His eyes rested on her a moment, then he turned to Vi . . .

“You want some?” Kendra was asking. “They’re Maxwell’s.” She held out her cupped palm. Three lavender smiley faces beamed up at Cherry. It took a moment to register what she was looking at. Her mind felt sluggish, lagging behind the others’, the last to get the joke. Maybe it was the booze plus push-ups. The muscles in her arms twitched and jumped.

Kendra popped one of the pills in her mouth.

“Oh, Cherry won’t,” Vi said. “She’s a prude.”

“No, I’m not. Why does everyone keep saying that?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Maxwell. “She seems pretty bold to me.”

She groped for a way to defuse the situation without saying something dorky. Like,
I don’t do drugs.
An old Bugs Bunny anti-drug campaign popped into her head.
Just Say No, Doc!
Cherry felt childish. A little kid in a car full of adults. She took a pill from Kendra and swallowed it, grimacing as it went down dry.

“Who’s a prude now?”

Vi raised her eyebrows. “Wow.”

She expected to feel different. She didn’t feel anything. At least, not physically. But something clapped shut inside her. First times, large or small, were one-way doors. Once you moved through them, there was no going back. They split your life into
before
and
after.
She didn’t like this feeling of finality, of irreparability. She wanted to reach into her throat and pluck the pill out, undo the decision. She wasn’t sure whether she regretted it; just
making the choice
felt wrong. Oddly, this made her think of sex, and why she was glad she and Lucas were waiting until marriage. She was proud of that. Of waiting. That felt good. It felt really good.

She was
thrilled
about how good that felt.

Now that she thought about it,
everything
felt good.

“Whoa,” said Cherry.

Kendra grinned. “Right?”

The limo sped along a dark stretch of highway, streetlamps blipping like a heart monitor. Cherry was a hovercraft. She floated above her seat on a cushion of glee. She glanced at the Kendra who’d taken the pill, to see how she was acting. Kendra was playing with Cherry’s hair.

Panic in a joy blanket. Her heart was a toxic seed encased in sweet, soft fruit.

“We should go,” she said, leaning forward to touch Vi’s knee. “Home. We should go home.”

She wanted only to go home. She imagined the glory of her bed. The sheets. How good would those sheets feel? So good.

Maxwell put his hand over Cherry’s, her fingertips dissolving with the warm contact on both sides.

“We’re almost there,” Maxwell said.

Cherry tried to focus. “You’re trouble. Blue eyes.”

Maxwell removed Cherry’s hand from Vi’s knee and gently pushed her back into her seat.

“Be nice,” Vi was saying, though Cherry wasn’t sure which of them she was addressing.

Kendra twirled her finger in Cherry’s hair.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“Chartreuse,”
said Cherry.

The limo dropped them someplace bright. Cherry recognized the doorman’s gold frogging. This was Maxwell’s hotel. They were in Boston. This was a disaster, but Cherry could not make herself feel bad about it. That one-way-door image occurred to her again, only this time all the doors were blown open, and she could go wherever she wanted and do whatever she wanted. She walked around to the back of the limo and puked in the street. The pill made her feel nauseated, but the nausea was weirdly disembodied. Someone else was sick. Someone else was scared.

She rejoined the group, dragging her finger along the black, beveled limo, liking the way it
squealed.

There were already people in Maxwell’s suite, and at first Cherry thought,
We’re already here.
They were men and women she didn’t recognize. They had also returned from a night of clubbing, their skinny ties low-slung, high heels kicked off. They raised their glasses and offered Maxwell and company drinks, and Cherry moved away from their warm little circle toward the piano. There were scuff marks on top from somebody’s shoes. Ardelia’s shoes. No, Cherry’s shoes, which Ardelia wore when she stood on the piano, a thousand years ago. She traced the streaks with her fingertips.

Maxwell was at her elbow.

“You turn up in funny places,” Cherry said dreamily. “Like my car keys.”

“Do you want to go home?”

Vi’s laughter rang across the room. She was perched on the bar, chatting with a man in a blazer.

“I can’t leave her.”

“You look after her, don’t you?”

“I worry a lot. About people.”

“Who worries about you?” he asked.

And then she began to cry. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried. One of her internal trapdoors had been holding it in, and now the feeling surged up from the basement and overwhelmed her. She wiped her eyes, not too far gone to be embarrassed, and couldn’t stop her shoulders from shaking. When she composed herself, he was there, shielding her from the room, so the others wouldn’t see.

“What do you want to do?” he said.

“Come on.”

She led him into the small room with the painting on the wall, the one of the woman in the movie theater. She washed her face in the private bathroom and drank some water from the faucet. When she came out again, Maxwell was standing by the window.

“Feel better?”

Cherry sat on the bed. “A bit, yes.”

He was watching her.

“What are you looking at?” she said.

“You.”

“Can you see my orange stripe?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said.

She held out her hand, and he came over. He sat beside her, his weight on the mattress pressing her toward him. His hand was on her back now. His fingers pressed on her skin. He kissed her. She kissed him back. It was happening. What was she doing? A little flame of panic licked her insides. But, no, it was okay. She could venture out. Just a little. Just a tiny exploration. She wanted to see the show. All the doors were open, and she could just see what it was like. What
she
was like. And then she could come safely back to herself, and it would be okay.

You don’t know what you like. You haven’t tried anything.

He was a good kisser. He was really very wonderful. Maxwell’s hand was under her shirt, his palm on her rib cage. That was okay, too. She wanted that. Another hand slid south. The pressure of his palm, his insistent fingers, the bite of his nails into the flesh of her stomach. She adjusted. She moved his hand away, but it kept pushing. Then both his hands were on her shoulders, and he shoved her back.

And all of a sudden, she wasn’t safe at all.

She was on her back, and he was climbing on top of her. This wasn’t what she wanted. He was pushing up her skirt and tugging at her underwear and simultaneously unclasping his belt. The thought of him flopping out of his pants.
No, no, no.
Suddenly this was all very serious and grown-up and wrong, and what had she done? What was she
doing
? This wasn’t what she’d meant; this wasn’t what she wanted.

“Stop.”

Maxwell stopped. She pushed him away. His face showed stupid, stupid surprise.

“What’s wrong?”

She wormed her way out from under him. “What are you
doing
?”

He studied her, not angry, just confused. He smacked his lips and blinked.

“I thought you wanted to fuck.”

The word was like a slap in the face. She used it a million times a day, but it didn’t mean anything. Not really. Certainly not
that.
It wasn’t really attached to anything real. But for him it was. They were staring at each other across a great gulf of experience. And Cherry was suddenly alone in a man’s bedroom. Not only did she not want to fuck — she wanted to undo all the things she’d already done, which were not okay, which were not safe. She wanted to undo it all.

She couldn’t undo any of it.

Lucas.

“I’m sorry.” The words fell like two pennies, plopping on the duvet, so soft.

Maxwell’s eyes searched her, semi-drunken, red.
“Jesus,”
he hissed, and dragged himself from the bed. He stood at the window a moment, deciding what to do. Then he went to the door.

“Lock this after me. Who knows what might stumble through it.”

Then he left her, sealing her in the dark with herself.

When she woke, the clock read 4:30. Outside the window, the streetlights were an angry orange. The streets were empty. No reasonable person was up at this hour. Somewhere a car alarm whooped and sighed. She gathered her things, pulled on her shoes.

She went into the living room. Someone was asleep on the foldout. She thought a tangle of blond hair might be Vi’s, but Vi was curled in an armchair, asleep.

Cherry picked up the room phone.

“Front desk.”

“I need . . .” What did she need? She squeezed her keys. “I need a car.”

“Certainly. Would you like a call when it’s ready?”

“No,” said Cherry. “No, I’ll come down now. I’ll wait in the lobby.”

She thought of leaving quietly. Without Vi. Vi might ask what happened, which meant thinking about what happened, and Cherry didn’t want that. She shook Vi’s shoulder.

“We have to go.”

Vi blinked, her gaze lingering on the couple on the foldout. She looked disappointed.

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

The lobby was bright and empty, except for a family just arriving at the front desk, a little girl asleep on her father’s shoulder. Cherry tried to remember the last time she’d fallen asleep like that. When the car was ready, she gave the driver Vi’s address. Cherry watched the passing streets, the anemic buildings. Vi was either asleep again or pretending. Cherry wondered if she might like this city better in the daylight.

She must have fallen asleep, too, because all at once they were in Vi’s driveway. The girls exchanged a half-articulated good-bye, and Cherry gave the driver the second address. It was after six when they reached the parking lot across from the bottling plant. The sky was beginning to turn pale. The film crew had gone, taking all their equipment. Food wrappers tumbled through the lot like an abandoned carnival site. The Spider waited under an elm tree, seedpods littering the soft top and piled in the wiper well. It was in bad need of a wash, grime fanned across the doors, the windshield spattered and streaky. It looked as if it had been waiting for her a hundred years.

Cherry took out her wallet.

“No need for that, miss,” the driver said. “All taken care of.”

“No, it isn’t.” She had a twenty in her wallet. She held it out.

“I really can’t, miss,” the driver said.

“Take it! Just take it!” She jabbed the bill at him. She would scream if he didn’t take it. She could see his eyes in the rearview mirror. He took it.

The Spider’s cabin was freezing. She cranked up the heater, turned on the radio, and pulled out onto the empty avenue. Despite the dry heated air, she was shivering. Tiny dots danced before her eyes, and she felt sick. There was a horrible soreness in her shoulders. She wanted a shower. She wanted her bed. She wanted to lock the door forever. And more than anything, she wanted to see Lucas. She imagined him curled up under his checkered blanket.

No, she couldn’t even think about him.

What came to mind instead was Ardelia. Ardelia singing and dancing on the piano. Ardelia inviting her to Maxwell’s party. Ardelia kissing the strange boy in the park. Ardelia tossing her the car keys. She was like an infection, spreading into every cell of Cherry’s life. And now Cherry felt diseased. Something stank. A dead smell, a polished smell. It was the smell of the car. Expensive leather. Chrome. She hated it. It climbed up her nostrils and clung to her brain. She rolled down the window, but the stink got worse. Chlorophyll. The smell of money.

Instinctively, like swatting an insect, Cherry jerked the wheel. The streetlights pitched. Rubber squealed as the car skidded, swerving at a right angle to the road. The wheel spun free of Cherry’s hands. Weightless silence. Then the passenger side smashed the concrete divider. Lightning flash, double flash. Cherry had a vision of yellow and green and colored confetti. There was a rattle of broken glass and the slice of the seat belt across her chest. And then quiet.