Here Is What You Do by Chris Dennis

Author:Chris Dennis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: Soho Press
Published: 2019-04-04T10:50:51+00:00

In the Martian Summer

Her dear friend, Pauline, insisted there was something wrong. “Deeply wrong,” was how she put it, in that administrative tone of hers. “Grave deep. Abyss deep!” Pauline carried herself with the passive authority of a politician’s wife or a middle-income sex worker.

“Or maybe it’s the moon,” Mary Ann said, with a secret eye-roll. “The moon can have all sorts of odd effects on a person’s psyche, Pauline! And that’s science.”

Pauline was no good at detecting sarcasm though. “I guess,” she said, heading off alone in the dark toward her car.

Pauline was referring to the exotic vacation Mary Ann was about to embark upon. A handsome older gentleman wanted to take Mary Ann to the western coast of Mexico. He was going to teach her how to drive his yacht. Not a euphemism, Pauline! Ha. He actually owned a yacht. And honestly, the moon did hang low, perched like a colossal disk on the horizon, a bizarre amusement park attraction you could walk right up to if you wanted. Except Mary Ann didn’t want to. She sat on the stoop in her knit shawl, watching silently as Pauline attempted for several minutes to unlock the wrong car.

How many times in her life had Mary Ann pretended to be interested in a ridiculous thing? And often for the attention of a ridiculous man. Of course it could all be traced back to her father, the original ridiculous man—more timeless wisdom from Pauline. Mary Ann’s father had worked as a cartoonist, and naturally tended toward the goofier things in life. He’d asked Mary Ann to dress as a penguin while serving cocktails at his retirement party. She’d been the only person in a costume. But she did it for Daddy. He always had such affection for flightless birds, both in his work and personal life. Many family friends (old men) had patted Mary Ann on the ass during the party, fumbling awkwardly against the plush foam of the shortly cropped penguin suit. She was sixteen at the time, and felt obligated to endure most inappropriate attention.

Later, sans shawl, after Pauline had finally found the right car and drove away, the moon appeared blood-soaked—fatty and gristly as a tumor hovering over the twinkling city.

Recently there’d been a list of ridiculous excursions. A multiweek stint hanging around the Pony Palace Adult Theaters off I-70. Mary Ann was trying to be more open! An exhibitionist in charge of her own sexuality. To what improbable film plot did her days belong? A racy rom-com starring Goldie Hawn, that deranged platypus? Mary Ann had given hand jobs to several strangers. Eight. Who was counting? Partly she’d done it on account of her new cowboy friend, who she’d met in line-dancing class. And the whole adult theater idea had been the cowboy’s. He was a total daydream to look at. Those hard arms. That worn-out hat. The shiny little snap buttons on his shirt. The Wranglers! He was a pure sweetheart. Until, of course, their last day together in the adult theater, during a showing of Nympho Housewives III.

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