Falling Together (39 page)

When they left the airport, after a few preliminary minutes when stepping into the heat/smell was like hurling yourself full tilt into the wall of a thickly padded cell, Pen found her body responding to it differently from the way it responded to hot days at home. The heat wasn’t something she moved through; it didn’t smother or beat down. The Cebu heat was somehow more personal than other heat. It infiltrated, became part of her, or almost. She wore it, like a dress.

As she, Will, Augusta, and Jason stood glazed over, baffled, and reeling on the pavement outside of the airport’s glass doors, she turned to Will and said, “The heat, it’s like being enfolded in one of those giant, pleated Issey Miyake dresses they have at the Met, isn’t it?”

“Exactly what I was thinking,” said Will, his voice the only dry thing in a world of humidity. Pen wondered if she looked as wrung out as he did, his face’s topography even sharper than usual, his skin glowless in spite of his tan.

“Ixnay on the damn freak talk already,” grumbled Jason. “At least until we’re in the air-conditioning.”

Augusta tugged on Pen’s hand, raised her eyebrows, and pointed her finger at Jason. “Bad word,” she said solemnly.

“It was a long trip, honeypot,” explained Pen, leaning down to plant a kiss on top of her head. “I think we’re all a little cranky.”

“I’m not,” said Augusta. But Pen recognized the signs that her girl was on the edge: smudgy eyes and a stretched-thin whine in her voice.

“Sorry, sis,” Jason told Augusta, his eyes two pools of repentance.

“You’re welcome,” said Augusta absently. She looked very small, wispy, a spent, slumping point in the center of movement and crackling color, one finger twisting her hair.
Poor baby
. Just as Pen was about to pick her up and cuddle her, despite her own fatigue and the clinging heat, her face colored, came to life.

“Look, look, look, Mama, Mama, Mama!”

In an instant, she had yanked her hand out of Pen’s and was flying toward the street, which was clogged with all manner of vehicles, most of them stopped and waiting for passengers, a fact that didn’t prevent Pen’s heart from leaping into her throat in the same instant that she leaped over Augusta’s backpack and ran after her.

“Augusta!” she yelled. “Stop right there!”

Augusta stopped at the curb, possibly in response to Pen’s command, but possibly not, since she had skidded to a halt inches away from the object of her desire, an arresting contraption consisting of a motorcycle and a tall, roofed, brilliant orange sidecar decked out in rows of lemon-drop-and-ruby-colored headlights and fiercely, eclectically painted: an ad for San Miguel beer, detailed renderings of both a gold-crowned Virgin Mary and Tweety Bird on his birdcage swing, and, in swirling script, what Pen thought was (but what couldn’t possibly have been, could it?) a quote from a Journey song. A man in shorts, flip-flops, and a Baltimore Orioles cap stood next to the contraption (later, Pen would learn it was called a “tricycle”), eating pork rinds from a bag.

“Where would you like to go?” he asked Augusta, smiling.

“For a
ride,”
she said, saucer-eyed and breathless.

“Ten pesos.” He held up ten fingers. “Per person.”

Augusta held her hands up, mirroring him, and turned to Pen, her eyes bright.

“Oh, no, thank you,” said Pen to the man, smiling and taking Augusta’s hand, which immediately began to twist inside hers like a tiny wild animal (
a gerbil
was Pen’s weary, drifting thought). “There are four of us, plus luggage. We need something larger.”

“No problem,” said the man, hooking his thumb toward the tricycle. “Three on the motorcycle, one in the car with the luggage.”

Pen looked at the vehicle dubiously. She had nearly fallen over with guilt and worry when they had checked in at the Philadelphia airport and the airline attendant had told her that Augusta couldn’t use her booster seat on the plane because it wasn’t FAA approved. But they had survived the flight—
flights
—without mishap, without so much as a spell of airsickness or a spilled drink. No way was she pushing her luck now.

“No, thank you,” said Pen.

“Yes, thank you!” Augusta shrilled, her whine escalating incrementally in a way that might have been musical had it not been so piercing. “Yes, thank you!”

Uh-oh,
thought Pen. She tried to turn Augusta around and lead her away, but Augusta wrenched her hand loose.

“I want to ride the
thing
!” she yelped. “You
said
I could.’

“Hey, you know what?” said Pen calmly. “Let’s find a taxi. I bet they’re fancy around here, too!”

At this, Augusta dropped to her bottom on the sidewalk with a thunk, her hands balled into fists, threw back her head, and detonated. She burst into tears. Tears were the least of it. Wails. Shrieks. Chest-racking sobs. Violent back-and-forth headshaking. A small but potent amount of kicking.

Briefly, Pen observed Augusta with the detached horror and awe she felt when she watched a nature documentary: the shark heaving the gruesome gorgeousness of its body from the water, jagged tail lashing, sad, floppy seal snagged in its teeth, the roiling, roiling sea, the fathomless, stone-cold black eyes. She might have stood there until it was over, doing nothing, but there was Will, at her side, saying, “Can I help?” He had to raise his voice to be heard over Augusta’s howls. Pen snapped out of her stupor and saw that the people on the sidewalk had pulled themselves into slightly tighter clusters and were looking discreetly away, for which Pen felt a pulse of gratitude.

“It’s okay,” Pen told Will, crouching down and wrestling Augusta, who had pinned herself to the ground with the special, deadweight gravity of an aggrieved child, into her arms. “Maybe just find a cab?”

“Stop! You’re
hurting
me!” screamed Augusta, her voice louder than ever, bursting through the ambient sound like a wrecking ball.
Let the people not speak English,
Pen prayed, but she saw heads turning, maternal concern on every face, including those of the men, a girl who could not have been more than seven years old, and a miniature, soulful-eyed pug.

“Save me,” whispered Pen hopelessly and to no one.

Salvation came in the form of a tiny minivan (a mini-minivan?) of a variety Pen had never seen. It had gray vinyl seats and smelled nauseatingly of air freshener. Jason presented the driver with the booster seat, but when the man examined it as though it were an artifact from another planet, Pen decided to forget about it. She was too defeated to feel guilty, although she knew she might later. Augusta had turned from fighting her to clinging to her like lichen, and the thought of prying her loose and belting her into a car seat was too much. Besides, unless they were somehow hidden, the van didn’t appear to have seat belts. Once inside, tucked into one corner of the backseat on Pen’s lap, Augusta quieted almost magically, bushwhacked by exhaustion, her sobs turning to hiccups. In a minute or so, before the driver had even finished loading their bags, she was asleep, her lips parted, her face angelically peaceful.

“I’m sorry,” Pen told Will and Jason. “She doesn’t usually behave that way.”

“What, are you kidding? It was a relief. Totally got it out of my system,” said Will with a smile that Pen could have put in her pocket and kept forever. Just like that: she felt better.

From the front passenger seat, Jason turned around to look at Pen. “Hell, yeah,” he said, raising a solidarity fist. “Vicarious tantrums all the way.”

Pen raised her fist back.

“‘Vicarious,’” she said with a grin. “Impressive.”

Joking. Joking with
Jason
.
How did I get here?
she asked herself and then took the question back. She knew how. Pen found that she felt happy, exuberant even, full of well-being, loose and free, and, somehow (ten thousand miles from home, with her carseat-less child in her lap and the traffic nudging in on either side, so close she could study the faces of the passengers in the van next to them) safe.

“More where that came from,” said Jason. “I mean, not a lot more, but more.”

For a few seconds they were all three smiling at one another, a triangle of grins, before Will said, “Okay, that’s enough,” and it was.

T
HE WARM FEELING LASTED UNTIL THEY WERE STANDING AT THE
desk of the opulent hotel (“Marble,” Pen had whispered to Will as they walked in. “Persian rugs. Flat screens.” And he had whispered back, “Cat will be Cat will be Cat.”), when the first thing Jason did after they checked in was to whip out a photo of Cat—one Pen hadn’t seen before, a headshot—and ask the woman at the desk, in a voice straight out of a police procedural, if she were still a guest at the hotel.

The woman’s doe eyes had startled in her cameo face, and she had said, with exquisite courtesy, “I’m so sorry I cannot help you, sir.”

“Look,” said Jason, jutting out his jaw. “She’s my wife. I know she was a guest. All I want to know is if she’s still here. Simple question.”

“Jason,” said Will, “come on.”

“It is our policy not to give out information regarding our guests,” said the woman, her voice as delicate as the rest of her.

A man in a suit and tie materialized at her side. “May I help you?” he asked.

“All’s I want to know is,” drawled Jason—(
‘All’s’?
thought Pen.
Are you out of your mind?
)—“is my wife still a guest of this establishment. Period.”

“I’m very sorry, sir,” said the man behind the desk. “We must protect the privacy of our guests. We would do the same for you and your party, for anyone.”

As Pen closed her eyes, vehemently wishing herself part of anyone else’s party but Jason’s, she heard Will say, “And we really appreciate that. We’ll just go find our rooms now.”

“And
I,”
said Jason, “would really appreciate it if you would tell me if and when my wife checked out of this hotel.” His tone grew seedy, conspiratorial. “Me and my friend Ulysses would be most appreciative.”

My friend Ulysses and I,
thought Pen, and then,
Oh, for the love of God, No. No, no, no
. But she opened her eyes and there he was, waving a fifty-dollar bill under the man’s nose.

Simultaneously, the man and the woman took a step back, their faces shutting like boxes, their eyes impassive.

“Hey, man,” said Will warningly. “Let it go.” He was holding Augusta, her head on his shoulder, and as he said this, she stirred. Will rested his hand, lightly, on the side of her face and said, “Shhh.”

If Jason heard Will, he didn’t show it. He never took his eyes off the man and the woman behind the desk. From where she stood, Pen could see the back of his neck and his right ear turn scarlet. “Fine. You want to play hardball?” said Jason, banging the fist holding Ulysses on the counter. “She’s my
wife,
and she’s not well. So, fine, I’ll double it. I’ll
triple
it.”

“If you pull out Ben Franklin,” Pen said, her teeth gritted, “I swear to God I will deck you.”

Jason dragged his gaze off the couple behind the desk and stared at Pen, bewildered. “What?”

“Do you
hear
yourself?” snapped Pen. “
Hardball? You
are the one who’s not well.”

Jason’s bravado evaporated. He drooped and looked betrayed. “Fine,” he said sullenly. “Great.” He folded the money and stuffed it into his shorts’ pocket, turning to glare at Pen and Will. “Way to have my back, guys. I appreciate it.” And he stomped away.

Later, after Pen had unpacked, bathed Augusta, put her to bed, and then stood in the shower for a long time, the hot water pouring over her like hot water but also like divine, transfiguring bliss, there was a knock at the door. She opened it, and there was Will.

“Hey, I didn’t wake you up, did I?” he asked.

“No,” said Pen.

She saw that he was freshly shaven, his hair still wet. He wore a white polo shirt, open at the neck, and under the lights of the hotel hallway, his hazel eyes seemed to be ten different colors at once. As she looked at him, a drop of water ran from his ear to the V of his shirt, and Pen felt instantly shy, hyperaware of their mutual dampness.

Maybe Will felt the same way because when she asked him if he wanted to come in, he shook his head, glancing over her shoulder at Augusta asleep on one of the two twin beds.

“I’ll stay out here,” he said. “I’d hate to wake her up.”

“I don’t think a freight train could wake her up at this point. Jet lag, it’s like a drug, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” agreed Will, “a bad drug,” but he stayed in the hallway.

“It felt a little weird putting on pajamas at three o’clock in the afternoon,” said Pen, “but if I don’t get some sleep, I think I might die.”

It wasn’t until she said “pajamas” that Pen remembered what she was wearing: baggy drawstring shorts that used to belong to Jamie and a white tank top. She flushed.
Please don’t let him notice that I’m braless
.
Please don’t let him think the shorts are Patrick’s
. It took all of her self-control not to cross her arms over her chest and back away. Inside her head, she heard her mother’s advice regarding embarrassing situations:
If you act like you don’t notice, nobody else will notice
. She didn’t believe it any more now than she had as a kid, but she fervently hoped it was true.

“I’ll let you hit the hay,” said Will. “But I wanted to tell you that Jason and I are taking a little trip to the hospital.”