I didn’t understand why she was here and evaluating me and why Elijah was silent about it.
‘So what do you got to say for yourself, my Myra? You ready for a ride or what?’
Gayl patted the bed beside her. I sat down. I had a rock in my throat.
Elijah was at the rusty kitchen table with a big brown liquor-store bag.
‘I’m, um, busy at school,’ I said to Gayl, feeling brave. ‘Uh, just doing homework and stuff.’
‘Yeah? You studying the classics?’
‘No.’
‘Good. The Brontës are bullshit.’
I laughed.
‘I read Flannery O’Connor back in the day.’
I didn’t know who that was. I’d have to ask Aaron.
Elijah handed me red wine in a chipped coffee mug. It was like everything was regular for a second between us, like we were all around the same age and I was just visiting two friends. It felt kind of amazing to swing so fast from fear of her to ease.
I sipped the wine. Elijah began to unpack. Gayl sat up, almost robotically, and she moved off the bed and followed Elijah. She took out piles of clothes from one of the burlap sacks on the floor and shoved them into drawers inside a bureau in the closet. Neither of them touched one of the bags. It looked bulky with a stereo or something.
I considered leaving even though I was calm, even though everything seemed all right. Both of them were ignoring me. I could’ve just called Lee and told her to come meet me downtown.
Then, as abruptly as they’d started unpacking, they stopped. Gayl resumed her position on the bed I was on. Elijah poured me a second mug of wine. He filled it right to the top. I soaked my lips. Gayl watched me, smiling.
‘Look at her. She’s a bloodsucker,’ Gayl said to Elijah. ‘And she was such a tight jailbait shit in the Key.’
My cheek started itching. Elijah winked. I remembered seeing them together, his head slipping around on her body, his tongue pushing up in her pussy. I’d seen that a million times now in porn. Don’t do that to anyone else, Gayl had said. I wanted to feel that, feel him eat me too.
Elijah motioned me towards him. He had something in his hand. Gayl was watching us but she didn’t seem upset. I don’t even know why I assumed she’d be jealous. I should have been jealous. I don’t think I was jealous.
‘Come closer,’ Elijah said. He showed me what he had: a flute that was made of burnt yellow wood with zigzags etched in it with a knife. He turned it around while he held the mouth end.
‘We might settle here,’ he said. ‘Gayl’s been sick.’
I turned back to look at Gayl. She’d gone under the covers. I was trying to figure out her body under there. Elijah scratched the hairs of his beard. I heard something whirring, a little like a fan. I stared at the lump of her, unmoving.
‘Come,’ Elijah whispered. ‘Let’s leave her alone.’
Elijah had this expression of caring for me. But it was just for a moment before his eyes shifted to Gayl in the bed.
He poured me a third mug of wine. ‘Drink up,’ he said. He wagged the flute.
I knew this was it. I knew we were finally going to have sex. This is what I had come here for, that disturbance.
‘You good?’ Elijah’s hand was on my shoulder, pushing me towards the bathroom. I thought I was going to drop my wine. ‘You gonna make me crazy again?’
I made my eyes go like the porn girls’ eyes. I made my eyes glassy and rabid and hot.
‘Yeah, you’re gonna make me lose it, bitch.’
I smiled. Elijah had such a good body, his arms were huge. His eyes were just as needy as mine.
If my father knew I was here he would’ve called the police. Being a bitch in a dirty motel, feeling my ass move side to side in my skirt with a man who was twenty years older than me.