The Curb Appeal

Five young friends leave a crowded party in search of weed; a meditation on relative maturity.

                I’m sitting on the diving board with my legs pulled up to my chest while Archie and Devon chatter on beside me, arguing passionately about things in which I have no stake.  I want to dive in and pretend to drown, but I’m on my period and don’t feel comfortable doing anything but sitting by the water while those two go on and on.

                “Guns n’ Roses, hands down.”

                “Over Metallica?”

                “No s**t.  They had Sweet Child O Mine.  They had Welcome to the Jungle.  What’s Metallica got?  F****n’ nothing, man.”

                “Metallica was awesome.  You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

                “I can’t even speak to you man.  What language are you talking?”

                I would rather be any place than there.  Any place in the world.  My step-father’s house.  Mexico City.  Being a character witness in a sexual assault trial.  War-torn Iraq.  That island with five snakes per square foot.  I would rather die of snake poison someplace where my body will never be found than sit in this backyard listening to these guys have the same stupid discussion they’ve been having for five years.  I hate them.  They are my friends.  We don’t belong at this party.

                I came because I knew Sean would be here.  I came despite the fact that I knew Sean would be here.  The longer I’ve been away from all these people I knew in high school, the more I hate coming back to them.  I’ve never said to Sean I no longer love him but I’d suspected for a while that was the case, and I think he assumed as much since he wasn’t even trying to be my boyfriend anymore.  How can you love someone with no ambition?  Someone who doesn’t want to do anything but find the easiest ways to score weed?

                Sonya comes up from behind and sits between me and Devon, wrapping her arm around her man.  “Don’t be lame,” she cautioned him.  Good advice.  “I like Zeppelin.”

                “Everybody likes Zeppelin.  Zeppelin is on a whole ‘nother level.  You can’t even argue with that.”

                “Everybody likes Zeppelin,” Archie agrees.  They drink a cheers to old bands; the boys with green glass bottles, Sonya with a red plastic cup, which Devon grabs and pours into the pool.

                “Don’t drink that s**t,” he shakes his head, “Don’t drink their warm, cheap booze.  Sweetie, I brought drinks for us.  I brought drinks that are good enough for us.”

                “You’re so sweet,” she says, struggling with the cap on a bottle of imported Belgian beer.

                “Allow me.”  His ring has a bottle opener on it.  How smooth.

                She turns to me and asks, “So how was school, Terese?”

                I shrug and say plainly that it was all right.  I don’t want to mention how I’d rather be hanging out with my University friends, but they were sadly not available, and so I had to come to a party populated by those people from high school I’ve made a conscious effort to avoid since then.

                “This party is boring,” Sonya observes.

                “There’s a pool table in the basement, I heard,” Devon says.

                Archie, “I heard it was ping pong.  Well, beer pong.”

                “Could be both.”

                “Must be some basement,” I flip a bottle cap into the pool.

                Sonya, “When is Sean getting here?”  I tell her I don’t know and she whines, “Why didn’t any of you guys think to bring weed?”

                Archie, “Because Sean brings the weed.  That’s just the way it is,”

                “Maybe you should change that.”

                “It’s just the way it is.”

                “He’s so undependable,” Sonya whines, swishing her legs in the water, “He probably won’t even show.  He’ll probably just sit at home and smoke by himself.”

                I say nothing.  Sonya finishes her drink.

                “Teresa, you went to the bathroom earlier, would you show me where it is?”

                “It’s upstairs.”

                “Yeah, but will you show me?”

                Sighing, I swing my legs off the diving board and slip my feet back into my sandals.  “Come on.”

                We drill through a bedrock of drunks and drinkers, people who are already done for the night and people who are just getting started.

                “Why do you think Sean’s so late?  He said he’d be here an hour ago.”

                I told her I didn’t know, that it was just his way.

                “Why do you still see him?”

                “I don’t see him as much as I used to,” I lead her up the stairs, “University does that.  I don’t even like being in this city anymore.”

                I bring her to the bathroom, but find a considerable line-up.  I consider whether it would be more depressing to go back to the Idiot Classic Rock Roundtable or continue girl talk.  Factoring in the amount of people I have to shoulder through to get back out to the pool, I stay.

                “I used to paint,” Sonya tells me.  “I should try that again.  I loved doing it so much but I never have time anymore.  And supplies are so expensive.”

                A girl in a black dress sidles up next to me.  “Teresa Sebastian?”  She correctly guesses my name and seems amused to see me.  When she tells me her name is Ashley I vaguely recall having a class with her in high school, but we were hardly study pals.  She starts feeding me her life story.

                “I’m so on the rebound, it’s a total cliché,” she adjusts her breasts.  “I found this hot lumberjack guy who looks like he’s never seen the city before.”

                “Good luck with that.”

                “I don’t want to brag but I’m having a really good cleavage night.”

                I look down at her chest, and have to admit she’s right.  Sonya reaches the washroom and I have to continue making small talk with Miss B***s August.

                “Are you away at school?” she asks.  I nod.  She tells me she’s at Helena University for business management.  I’ve had this conversation eight times since getting back to town; I’m not interested in having it again.  Sonya spends the next six hours in the washroom while I attempt to justify being a sociology major to a girl I barely know.

                Finally, Sonya opens the door, and I wish Ashley the best of luck banging the lumberjack as we shoulder our way back to the backyard.

                There, I see him.  Standing tall in a pair of cargo shorts and skateboard sneakers, hero of the burnouts.  Sean Maynard.

                “Hey Terese,” he says with that dangerous grin of his, “Feel like taking a trip?”

                Before I can answer, Sonya interjects with excitable disbelief, “Shut the f**k up, you did not get ‘shrooms!”

                Sean smiles modestly.  “No, that’s not what I mean.  I don’t actually have any bud on me, I have to pick it up from my guy.  So do you guys wanna come along?”

                There was some discussion, but I finally just downed my drink and told them, “What are we waiting for, let’s blow.”

                We head for the backyard gate.  As he leads the way, Sean wraps his arm around me.  I pull away.  He senses my meaning and lets me drift.   I’m thankful for his intuition, but almost wish this weren’t the case.  I would never say so, but I often find possessiveness attractive.  It shows a determination Sean lacks.  He keeps quiet, and I keep wondering why I might want to stay with him apart from his ability to acquire drugs on short notice, which is getting less and less important as I age.

                We get a few blocks from the party when Sonya observes, “The houses around here are so nice.”  The three-storey behemoths huddled around the cul-de-sac are awfully impressive.  When I started to think of it, I couldn’t understand which of us knew someone who lived out here, or why we’d have been at that party.  Questioned, nobody could think whose party it was.

                Absent-mindedly I blurt, “They’ve got real curb appeal.”

                Devon, “What’s that mean?”

                I explain, “It’s like, something my dad would say, when he was in real estate.  It means the house looks good from the curb.”

                “Oh.  Well, duh.”

                “I mean, when you’re selling a house you have to make sure it has curb appeal.”

                “But, like,” Sonya adds, “When you go inside, doesn’t it also have to look good?  Is there such a thing as inside appeal?”

                “Well… I guess so.”

                This provokes a lengthy silence while we follow Sean far from the rich neighbourhood.

                We come to a long bridge.  Archie asks, “So, where exactly is this guy, anyhow?”

                “He’s out there man,” Sean assures us, “Just a ways out there, but don’t worry.”  I try to take him at his word.

                We cross the bridge, high over the ravine that separates the houses from the apartment complexes.  I begin to feel an irrational fear that, should we cross the bridge, we would never be allowed back.  That it would disappear behind us and all that would remain is the ravine.

                Archie comments to nobody in particular, “Couldn’t you just see a horde of zombies coming the opposite direction?  If this was a movie, that’d totally happen.”

                I ask Sean, “So where were you?”

                “Hm?”

                “What took you so long, getting to the party?”

                “I don’t want to talk about it.”

                “You were a lot later than you said you’d be.”

                “I said I don’t want to talk about it.”

                To myself, I mutter, “You wouldn’t.”  I then pause and look around to see if anyone had heard.  They didn’t.

                I look back at Sonya and Devon holding hands.  She’s so thin, and he’s got a broad chest and a gut.  They look like the number 10 when side by side.  I imagine them having sex, and find the visual amusing.

                As I laugh quietly to myself, Sean interrupts my thoughts.  “So how is he?”

                “Hm?”

                “Your dad.  He doesn’t do real estate anymore?”

                “Oh.  No, the market got crappy and he’s been, um, finding his way, a little bit.”

                “That’s too bad,” Sean said, “Your dad’s a nice guy.”

                “Yeah, I guess he is.”

                We finish crossing the bridge from the quiet, streetlight-bathed suburban cove into the more ominous neon city, grungy, abundant with roaring engines and distant sirens.

                “Sucky job, though,” Sean continues, “Real estate.  I mean, must be boring, to start with, and then you end up losing your job because of the economy or whatever?”

                “I don’t know.  It just sounds like a normal job.”

                I don’t feel like he’s in any place to sermonize when he says, “It’s just the kinda thing I’d avoid.”

                I want to point out that he’d avoided doing a lot in his life; that he barely graduated high school and then his life didn’t change at all " exemplified by our midnight search for marijuana in the heart of sketch city.  But I say nothing and just avert my eyes from him.

                Then he says, “Well, I’ve been applying to some schools.”

                Me, skeptical, “Really.”

                “Yeah.  Not like, Universities, but I mean, trade schools.”

                “Uh huh.”

                “I’m gonna be a plumber.”

                Archie from the back, “That’s cool.”

                I ask, “Why?  Why would you spend your life doing that?”

                He shrugs, “It’s good work.  Honest work.  The pay’s awesome.  Someone’s gotta fix the toilets.  Are you kidding me?  Man.  They make so much money, I just hope I’m good at it.  You know?”

                I nod along, “I guess that makes sense.”

                “I feel like it’s something I can be good at.”

                I agree.

                We come to a grimy, shady street corner where three terrifying looking guys " two black, one white " lurk.  One of them sees us and shouts out, “Aw, hell no!”

                Sean says, “’Sup, guys?”

                One of the black guys comes over, “You cheap m**********r, what ‘chu doin’ here?”

                “I’m looking for Arturo.”

                “B***h you better hope you don’t find him.”

                “Come on, man, I just want to do a little business, okay?”

                “Well, I ain’t holdin’.”

                “I know that.  You’ve never got anything.  That’s why I need Arturo.”

                “You fucked yourself this time.  Whatever, man.  He’s at the Park.”

                Sean leads us away while I see the other two guys eyeing me and Sonya, who clings to Devon nervously.

                I ask, “Where’s this Park?”

                “It’s across from the hospital, which is really inconvenient since I was just there.”

                “What do you mean you were just there?”

                “I was seeing my mom.  Forget it.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“Forget it.  Nothing.”

“Is she okay?”

“She’ll be fine.  I was just checking in on her.  Never mind.”

On the way over to the park, we pass Deep Ink Studios, a tattoo parlor where Sean and I went on an anniversary date when we were 19.  I got a rose tattooed on my shoulder blade.  He got the Ghosbusters logo tattooed on his, because he, and I am quoting here, “Ain’t afraid of no ghost.”  A while later, on a trip up north, I had a bee drawn near my rose.  He said he didn’t get it, and I didn’t think there was anything to get.

Devon and Sonya sing quietly to themselves to pass the time until we finally see the hospital.  Sean tells them to shut up and turns toward a darkened dog park, with a barely-lit path and lots of darkness to hide in.  As he approaches, a giant Filipino emerges, slowly at first, then speeding up as he gets a clearer view of Sean.

“Arturo, man, listen--”

Arturo throws one punch and sends Sean to the asphalt.  I let out a scream while Devon shielded Sonya’s eyes.

“Cocksucker, if you don’t have my money…”

From the ground, Sean says, weakly, “I just need some bud, man…”

I try not to look as Arturo kicks Sean in the ribs and drags him to the curb.  “This isn’t a f*****g negotiation!  You don’t get s**t!”

He sets Sean, face down, on the edge of the curb, and held his foot steady on the back of the head.  “Tell me you’ve got it.”

Muffled, Sean replies, “Not all of it, I just need--”

“Wrong answer!”

“Wait!” I cry out.  Arturo shoots me a look.  I ask, “How much?”

He huffs, “Fifty bucks.”

I go into my purse and start counting out some bills. “Isn’t this a bit extreme for that amount?”

“The fifty’s for the product.  Your man owes me six grand and I don’t want to see his goddamn face until I get it back.  But I’m a business man, so if you’ve got fifty I’ll let him go for now.”

I hand him the money.  He digs into his pocket and tosses me a bag, which I shove into in my purse.  Arturo removes his foot from the back of Sean’s head, and lets him stumble to his feet.  He says nothing and returns to the darkness, where I can hear other voices, and see the flicker of a lighter.

Sean comes back over to us, rubbing his jaw.  “So,” he breathes heavily, “Ready to head back?”

I turn to the Hospital; there’s a pharmacy on the ground floor.  “We should get you an icepack or something.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“No, we’re not going back yet.  Come on.” 

I begin to walk toward the hospital.  Archie mutters, “She’s right” and eventually I hear them follow after me.

In the store, I start to browse the pain relief aisle, looking for something cold Sean can hold against his jaw, while Devon and Sonya buy condoms.

Awkwardly Sean approaches me.  “This is embarrassing.”

“Will you just let me take care of you?”

“Why do you care so much?  Why did you give Arturo that money?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you wanted to have your face smashed in tonight.”

“It wasn’t your job to help me.”

A nurse approaches from behind, “Sean?  What are you doing back here?  Visiting hours are over.”

“Nothing,” he mutters, “It’s unrelated.”

She puts her hand on Sean’s shoulder " she’s short and not young.  “Look at you.  What happened here?”

“Just a little fight, don’t worry about it.”

She picks out something for the swelling and hands it over to him.  “Listen.” She says, “I know you’re upset you weren’t a match, but we think we’ve found one for her.  It’s going to be okay.”

He sighs and says quietly, “I hope so.”  She gives him a hug and his eyes brighten.

She smiles and heads off, “I’m sure it will be.  Come and see us again tomorrow.”

I ask, “What weren’t you a match for?”

We walk to the cashier.  Sean won’t look at me but he says quietly, “Let’s head back.”

I say nothing on the walk back over the bridge while Archie recounts the last fight he got in.  “These two guys had me pinned down, so I punched one of them in the throat and put the other one in a headlock.”  Nobody really believes the story.  From across the ravine, I can hear “Don’t Stop Believin” by Journey.  I say to Sean, “You hear that?  They’re playing our song.”

He looks at me funny, “That’s not our song.”  I’m about to lay into him for forgetting that, when he adds, “Our song is ‘Iris’ by the Goo Goo Dolls.  It was playing on the radio on our first date, and you said it was a dumb song, and I said that’s why it was going to be our song.”

I don’t see how it’s possible that he remembers this but I don’t, but it sounds like me.  I don’t know how I got the idea it was Journey.  Sometimes you remember something wrong, and you get really attached to the idea of it.

Eventually, we follow the sound of noisy 20-somethings back to the party house and return to our position around the pool.  I removed the bag from my purse.

“You paid 50 bucks for this little thing?” Devon scoffs.  “You got ripped off.”

I don’t tell him it wasn’t just for the bag.  Sean rolls a joint and starts to pass it around.  Our fingers touch and I smile at him.

“Okay,” Archie says, taking a hit, “The Melvins or the Pixies?  Really think about this one…”

As they begin this discussion, I stand on the edge of the pool, and let myself fall in.  I stay under water as long as I can, and just when I think my lungs are about to burst I surface, feeling more alive than I have in a year.

Author's Note

In addition to everything else, does it enhance the story at all that it is told in the present tense? First person?

Reviews

[Hipster Detective]

This is a lot better than much of the stuff on this site, especially since most of it's poetry. You're really good at making realistic visualizations with the dialogue and descriptions and everything. The only thing I have a problem with is the ending. It doesn't feel complete and it just cuts off. Other than that, very good.

[J.P. Bristow]

this was great....left me like a fly on the wall wanting to hear it to play out more---smooth conversation and realistic in its flow....I could close my eyes and picture it---have you thought of adding evoca or something of the like and just reading it to allow the reader the chance for your interpretation of breaks -pace and breathing? A+

[CassieLynne]

it's interesting, but I feel the ending should be extended maybe?