SO FAR FROM HOME

25Oct10

The party was just starting.  It was eleven o’clock, and it was meant to begin as early as nine, but no one with any self respect came when they were supposed to.  It was the etiquette to leave at least an hour, maybe even two, and, if you just want to hit the best stuff, you come when it’s late and everyone has had a chance to get good and drunk.  The guests all worked together at a health food store.  They spent forty hours each week there, and then they made plans for the weekend and spent it at one of their houses or out downtown.  Not everyone got along, but it there was always some common ground that forced them all to meet up at the same place, the same time, drinking or not, but something always happened that they could talk about the next day or even a week later in small groups, and it all added to the soap opera.

Maria worked in seafood at the back.  She was in her early twenties, people could tell that, but she never said exactly how old she was, and Margaret in human resources was the one person who didn’t join in on the gossip.  She had a son named Enrique, and he came in time to time, but she was too young when she had him, and he went to live with her mother while she jumped around from apartment to apartment with her boyfriend.  Word was that her boyfriend went to jail then, some said for burglary and others that he killed a man, but you can’t really know, and she didn’t offer the information.  She was nice, but there was a faint veil of sadness over her at times, and she looked down at the ground before someone would tell her to give them a smile.  She obliged instinctively, but then she blushed like a child and she spoke so softly you had to lean forward to make out her words, as if she were ashamed of the sound of her voice.

The party was actually being held at Michael’s house, and Maria had come along at the behest of her friend Mollie who worked with her in Seafood, cutting the heads off of wild salmon and organic halibut that went for almost twenty-five dollars a pound.  Michael, their host, had just turned eighteen, but he acted like a college professor with his tenure in the bag, criticising and exacting every action that occurred before him.  More accurately, it was Michael’s mom’s house.  She was out of town and could care less if he had people over, but she didn’t know about the drugs because he never told her, and she never asked anyway.  He was a bagger in the front end but he didn’t put many groceries into bags.  He often offered his opinions to the other departments.  No one listened, and he annoyed some of the people in the store, but the house was huge and there was a pool, so they always came regardless.  It was a going away party for Carl and Steven in specialty.  They were moving together to New York, just like Rob in Bakery and Isam in Grocery had.  Others had left before them, but they all came back eventually, all except for Stailer.  He left almost two years ago.  He worked in the vitamin section and went off even though he was dating Maria at the time.  She was upset, but she could do nothing about it.  Stailer was strange in his ways.  There was no changing his mind, and she didn’t want to have to.  No one had thought of him for some time, and he sat lurking in the back of all of their minds, like a fond memory that hurt to recall.

Music came from the living room which opening onto the screened pool area by way of two huge wooden and glass doors.  There were people mixing drinks in the kitchen with shot glasses lying strewn about like cactus in a desert, green, brown and yellow liquors mixed arbitrarily into murky shotglasses.  The house was huge – it was just outside of town, but the area was not rural.  The lawns around the neighbourhood were manicured like a girl’s fingernails with huge metal fences around each of the yards and gates to let the owners into the long paved driveways and to keep others at bay.  It was one of those communities with a name like Cyprus Meadows or something close to it.  There were no Cyprus trees within a hundred miles of the house nor was there a square inch of land left undeveloped, but the name made the residents feel exclusive, not just living on a numbered street like the rest, part of something more sophisticated, much more high-class.  The houses were spaced far enough apart that no neighbours could hear a thing from the others though the music drifted into the hot night air like smoke from a campfire, and people yelled out loudly and laughed, swaying drunkenly with bottles dangling in their hands and smiles upon their faces, their eyes glassy from the pot and the booze, and the knowledge that no police would ever come

Stailer never came to work functions when he was around, and no one knew what he did with his spare time.  He rarely spoke, but, when he did, it was always something quite unique, something that only he would say, like the ramblings of a wise man or an insane person or a drunk.  It was refreshing to those who knew him, and people wanted to talk to him, to just be around him, but he showed little interest in the people at the store.  It wasn’t as if he was rude or mean in any way – he listened to what others had to say and commented or just nodded his head and smiled politely – it was that he just didn’t get involved in the same issues that circulated throughout the aisles.  His opinions on most things were unknown, but he had a charisma about him that drew others in his direction, a magnetism that could not be denied.  He went to New York because he was a writer and an agent had suggested that he go to the city to experience Manhattan and the Village.  She said it would do his writing good to be around other artists, with the parties and the connections and the night life in the city.  He went year ago and no one had heard from him since.  He had a short story published in the New Yorker quite near the time of the party, and everyone at the store bought the issue or took it off the shelves to read on their lunches.  It was all about a girl who lived in a little cave just outside of a town.  She would watch the people all the time from the woods outside of their homes, not like a stalker or a pervert, but more like a mother watching her children, protecting them.  She did this for years, and, one day, she came upon one of the townspeople unexpectedly in the woods taking a short cut.  She had seen him before – he was her favourite since she had begun watching – but she had nothing to say when their eyes met.  After that, she left and went further back into the woods and never came close to them again.  It was a good story, and everyone liked it.

As the night edged its way towards the next morning, more and more people visited the house and joined in the festivities.  It came to two o’ clock, and the house began to look like a battleground, bodies strewn here and there with the bass from the stereo booming in the background, cymbals crashing like gunfire.  People went in and out of the house, screaming nonsense and going back in again with crazy looks on their faces.  Others fell into the pool, some were pushed, and every once in a while a splash could be heard followed with either harsh words or laughter or sometimes both.  Maria sat beside the pool talking with Sonia from prepared foods.  They were good friends, and Maria told her things that she kept close to her, deep inside where no one else went.  Sonia was always there for Maria, she had a child very young as well, and the two offered support to one another.  Back when Stailer left Maria so suddenly, Sonia offered advice and helped her though, and, now, Maria barely thought of him at all.  Maria loved her like a sister, and Sonia was glad to have her.

As the two girls sat by the pool outside talking about the new guy in bakery and what they thought of the way he wore his bandana almost over his eyes, a noise rang out from the front of the house – someone arriving so late in the night.

“Who’s that?” Maria asked herself as she lay back upon the chair, watching the beer bottles float along in the water like tiny rafts on the sea. Everyone was there already, had either come or gone by then, and she just stayed sitting by Sonia although the conversation had grown quiet.  She thought that it might be Gean from the cleaning crew or even Mark.  He moved back home, to the west coast, but he came back all the time, meeting up with work people.  He even tried to get his old job back, but it had been taken and he was left with being a bagger as his only option.  It could be him, she thought.  It must be Mark.

“Do you need another drink?” asked Sonia as she lifted herself from the lounger carefully, slowly like an elderly person.              “No…I’m done already.  Oh, dios mio.  I don’t drink often enough for this,” said Maria.

“You need to practice.  People think this comes so easy, but it’s hard work I’ll tell you.”

“I think I do.  I’m sure you’ll help.”

“No problemo.”

“Gracias,” she answered.

They both laughed and Sonia disappeared back into the dim glow of the house like a magician after his act had finished.  Maria’s thoughts began to drift to her son, Enrique.  He was at his grandmother’s house for the night, but he would be back with her tomorrow.  She did not get to go out often, and it was a special treat to be rid of him until the next afternoon.  It was not as if she thought of him as a burden, far from it, but it was difficult being so young with so many responsibilities.  She closed her eyes and thought of how she had decided to give him up before he was born, before she saw his face.  At the last minute, she changed her mind, and she felt sorry for Mr. and Mrs. Heller, but he was her son, and she had the right.

She felt a hand upon her shoulder, and she thought it was Sonia back with her drink.  When she turned, she saw that it wasn’t her at all, and when her eyes adjusted to the faint light, she realised who it was who had come into the house.  For a moment, she could make no sound.  She sat up on the chair and looked away and back again, as if she thought he was a mirage or a ghost that had come in the night.  She was still feeling the effects of the alcohol, and she looked down at her feet – her shoes had been lost sometime during the night and she was barefoot – and she found that she could not look up again although she wanted to very much.  Stailer sat down next to her on the chair, cracked open the beer, and put the cold can into her tiny hands.

“What are you doing here?” she asked him.

“I’m visiting my family.  My grandfather is sick.  I’m only here for a few days, but I was going to call you.  I wanted to see you.”

“Well, here I am,” she replied kurtly.

Maria thought about how upset she had been when Stailer left for New York.  She thought that they had something, but sometimes that means different things to different people, and she knew that it did with her and Stailer.  He was the last person she had been with even though it was almost a year ago – there was no one else after him.  She was a pretty girl – Maria was asked out on dates often – but she would not settle for just anyone.  She had been so guarded since her relationship with Miguel, Enrique’s father.  It was good at first, but then the drugs and the other women began to show through, and all while she was with a child.  When she left him, she swore that she would never again give herself so freely, but that was before Stailer.  At first he was a friend, a good one, but things changed, and he was so kind, not at all like Miguel was when he was drunk and high.  Stailer loved Enrique too – he would take him to the park and play with him, but she always knew that he put his writing first, and, even though he treated her so well and she knew that he liked her very much, she always thought that he would leave someday.  Now he was back, just a few inches from her.  She wanted him to take her in his arms, but she knew that it would do no good.  Not anymore.  They both stared at the water as the light danced upon the surface in tiny waves.

“New York is great.  I’m really busy, and there are so many other writers to talk with.  One of my stories was accepted by a big magazine recently.  Did you see it?”

“I have it.”

“I’m working on a new one right now.  It’s about a girl who loves to dance, but she won’t show anyone at all, not even her parents.  She practices by herself all the time.  Then, one day, a boy from her neighbourhood sees her.  She’s embarrassed.  He tries to convince her to go to the dance at their school, but she won’t do it.  She makes excuses.  He’s heartbroken.”

“Maybe she just doesn’t want to dance with him.  Maybe she’s waiting for someone else.”

“Maybe,” he said, “Maybe she is.”

They both went quiet then, and the music turned to a soft song that they remembered from when they were together.  They just listened to the music as the party continued around them, slowing like a top that has begun its wobble.  The song reminded them of times that had passed, and they both closed their eyes and pretended like it was not so long ago.  Stailer passed his arm over Maria’s head and pulled her closer to him.

“When do you go back?” she asked.

“Tomorrow morning,” he answered her.

“That’s not so far away.”

“No, no it’s not.  It’s not so far away.  Is it?”

 

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