No Sweeter Fat

by Jess E. Jelsma

I first discover I am pregnant in the grimy employee bathroom at Archibald’s Steakhouse. The room is so small that, sitting on the seat with my knees spread, I can reach out and lay my palms against all four cinder block walls. The open toilet tank is soaked with condensation. The water spots the back of my blouse. And leaning forward there, counting down the seconds until some sign appears in the pregnancy test window, I wonder if it wouldn’t have been better to wait until I was home.

It seems wrong to find out here amongst the tall stacks of toilet paper and the small metal trash can that overflows with my coworkers’ discarded towels. There’s a much nicer restroom for patrons just down the hall. That bathroom is all matte Italian tile and beautifully carved wooden stalls. There are soft terry cloth hand towels, faucets made of brushed bronze, and perfumed air to cover up the lingering meat and potato smells. There is jazz music playing that is low and calm.

Still, if I’m honest with myself, there is something ironically fitting about the employee bathroom with its blackened grout and peeling plaster ceiling.

“Liza!” Buvi’s voice comes through the metal door followed by a sharp knocking. “Your order’s up for table four. Those fat suits aren’t going to be happy.”

I roll my eyes at the waitress’s sudden urgency and use the back of one hand to wipe the sweat from my cheeks. I am well aware that I have five tables out on the main floor, all middle-aged businessmen anxious for their sixty-dollar lobster and steak. I hold the plastic stick between my thighs and give the tester-end a slight wave as if the motion will help the answer appear more quickly. My armpits are damp and I count out ten long beats to accompany the persistent buzzing of the fluorescent light in the ceiling.

“Liza!” Buvi’s fist hits up against the door again. “Do you want that thirty-percent tip or not? Because I know several other girls who would kill for your shift. Jennifer. Imani. I could ask Dane to schedule them in.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” I resist the urge to point out that the older woman is on a completely hypocritical power trip. Buvi routinely leaves the floor to down another vodka cranberry or reapply her make up. “I heard you. Give me one more minute!”  

When the test window comes up with two strong blue lines, I don’t allow myself to contemplate the results. I pull up my underwear, zip my slacks, and fasten the metal button quickly. I bury the plastic wand deep beneath the other paper waste.

“All right.” I wrestle the heavy door open as I tuck my blouse back into the waist of my pants. “What did I tell you? I’m ready to report for porterhouse duty.”

“What were you doing in there for so long?” Dane asks me.

Buvi has disappeared back onto the main floor and the two of us are the only ones standing in the cluttered, dimly lit storeroom. My manager steps forward from the stack of shipping crates he has been leaning against and wraps his fingers tightly around my wrist. He brings my right hand up to his nose, waits for my eyes to meet his, and gives my fingertips an audible sniff.

“You weren’t doing anything dirty in there, were you?” Dane lowers my wrist but doesn’t relax his grip. “You know we have a code of conduct here at Archibald’s. I wouldn’t want to have to issue you another citation.”

He brings his face close to mine as he runs a fingertip through the sweat at the base of my neck.

“You’re already on strike two, Liza. Aren’t you?”

“As opposed to you?” I twist my wrist out of his grasp and smooth my damp palms down my slacks. “You must have at least twenty strikes by now. So many I’ve lost count.”

Dane is the owner’s son, a thirty-year-old college dropout who nevertheless makes three times more than any Archibald’s waitress. He spends the majority of his work hours smoking joints in the back office and siphoning off his father’s endless supply of bourbon. He is unnaturally tall, broad-shouldered, and narrow-hipped, the hem of his t-shirt already damp with a nauseating mixture of spilled vermouth, angostura bitters, and fragrant triple sec.

Upon closer inspection, Dane has the bone structure of an Icelandic Viking mixed with a Neolithic caveman. His hands are so big that he can comfortably wrap one all the way around my neck. I find him simultaneously loathsome and attractive, inexplicably charming despite his repellant personality and clear lack of intellect.   

I know Buvi would say my conflicted feelings are a product of Archibald’s diseased, patriarchal hierarchy.

“They want you to be reliant on them,” the older woman routinely reminds me. “For money. For approval. For validation that you’re actually worth something. They need people like us so they can establish a pecking order that places them on top. The only way you can win is by refusing to play their game. You have to keep a safe distance. Trust me on that.”

Buvi has informed me of what happens to the waitresses who get involved with upper management. The way they all eventually vanish from Archibald’s rotating whiteboard schedule, replaced by some new girl with an even younger, more petite frame.

But if this is what it feels like to disappear—Dane’s thumbs leaving bruises on my hips as his sour breath flits over my neck—I think it’s no worse than delivering rare T-bones or ramekins of melted butter to the patrons on the main floor.

“We could hang out after closing.” Dane’s jagged thumbnail catches in my curly hair. “Roleplay. Big Bad Wolf meets Little Red Riding Hood. Giant runs after Jack. Father Bear punishes Goldilocks. I’ll make it worth your while.”

I tell myself that Dane’s oddly aggressive sexual behavior is the result of a psychological complex sown in early childhood. That his need for our strange, fairytale games of pretend is the product of being raised by a New York-born, steakhouse-mogul, textbook narcissist. That he is simply trying to recapture all the years that were stolen from him, our foreplay always morphing into bizarre bouts of hide and seek in his apartment.

“Maybe,” I say, because I have just remembered the positive pregnancy test at the bottom of the bathroom trash can.

I make my body as small as I can, duck under Dane’s arms, and escape out into the hallway.

What he and Buvi forget is that it’s easier to slip away when you are tiny and insignificant.

*

I meet Richard over an order of filet mignon, the outside charred black and the inside seared to the point of near-cremation. The orthopedic surgeon has come to Archibald’s with an unruly stack of folders and a long-outdated Windows laptop. He requests an isolated booth near the back of the restaurant. From the bar, Buvi and I watch as the middle-aged man flips through his papers, sips noisily on his second gin gimlet, and cuts his fifty-dollar steak into several even, bite-sized pieces. Richard pauses every now and then to squint at his laptop’s smudged screen or scribble another indiscernible note in a cramped margin.

Dane makes a garbled sound of protest when the surgeon covers his eviscerated steak in a thick layer of ketchup.

“That’s Angus goddamn beef.” It is a little after ten PM, just late enough for Dane to have acquired his trademark nightly slur. “He already incinerated that filet when he asked for it well-done. Now he has the nerve to smother what’s left in a fucking condiment?”

“Maybe that’s just how he likes it.” Buvi examines her acrylic fingernails as she waits for a patron’s Kilbeggan Old Fashioned. “You know what they say. ‘The customer’s always right.’”

“Not that dude. I’m this close to asking him to leave. I mean, what kind of creep comes in here to eat alone?”

I clench my jaw but keep my tone light and even.

“A surgeon who just finished a shift at Abbott Northwestern?”

The rest of Archibald’s is filled with the usual patrons, homogenous groups of businessmen who only grow louder and more offensive as the evening progresses. If they stay late into the night, someone inevitably procures a box of cigars from the upscale pipe and tobacco shop across the street. According to the sign posted at the restaurant’s Marquette Avenue entrance, smoking on the main floor is strictly forbidden, but Dane always waves the rule when his father isn’t here.

Tonight, the manager nods his head as a table of foreign businessmen pass around a box of formerly-embargoed Cubans. The busboys have already drawn the curtains and the overhead lights cast a dim, red glow over the dining room. The three of us halt our conversation as the smoke advances like an uncoiling snake toward the ceiling vents. Dane stares, temporarily mesmerized by the undulating progression. Buvi and I stand with our arms crossed over our chests, holding our breaths as if we can avoid breathing the stink in.

Later, I know I’ll be able to taste the bitter sting of nicotine on my lips. I’ll dream of the smoke winding impossibly from my lungs down to my uterus.

“There’s nothing wrong with eating alone,” Buvi finally says.  

The waitress is uncharacteristically quiet as she waltzes off with her Old Fashioned, but her narrowed eyes and pursed lips say that she knows I am hiding a secret. It is only a matter of time before she puts one and two together and realizes I am pregnant.

Dane, on the other hand, would hardly notice if I were carrying a set of monstrous, half-demon, half-human twins.

“Who gave that guy ketchup anyway?” Dane asks, though he already knows it was me.

I elbow him in the chest when he tries to force his hand beneath the hem of my skirt.

“Is there anything else I can get you?” I ask Richard at the back of the restaurant.

The orthopedic surgeon startles at my unexpected proximity. He swings his right arm wide, scatters a tall stack of papers, and knocks over his low-ball glass. I watch as he fumbles to scoop the melting ice cubes off his laptop.

“Maybe bread pudding?” he throws out distractedly.

I glance down at the wet papers, mangled filet, and half-empty bottle of ketchup. I consider telling Richard that the dessert will be too big to finish. Overall, the orthopedic surgeon is a small, completely unimposing man. His shoulders don’t quite fill out his dress shirt, and when he stands to blot the last of the spilled gimlet off his pants, I notice where his black slacks have been taken in at the hip. The pleats are small and expertly tailored yet still incongruous. I can’t help thinking that his sweater vest and off-kilter glasses are more befitting of a retired professor than a high-powered surgeon.  

“What about another drink?” I ask.

“Yeah.” Richard’s gaze is already back on his laptop. “Sure. Why not?”  

When I return with his third gin gimlet, I splash a little on my wrist.

“You know, you have a certain glow about you,” Richard blurts out as I gather what is left of his ketchup-covered steak. “At the hospital, we like to refer to it as the post-coitus flush. It’s usually the result of increased circulation. You know, from exercise, pregnancy, or, uh, sex…”

The surgeon’s voice rises to a raspy, high pitch. His facial expression suggests that he has just gifted me with a fun, interesting fact—something to giggle over later with the girl friends he incorrectly assumes I have.  

“I meant that as a compliment,” he adds.  

I shoot Richard a fake smile as I cradle his dishes to my chest, the same vacant grin I once watched my mom use on boyfriend after boyfriend. In my mind, however, I am suddenly aware of the many new, subtle changes to my body. The way my limbs fatigue more quickly. The constant acidic burning in my chest. The painful tenderness in my breasts.

I wonder if the man is freakishly perceptive, or if it was just a lucky, gin-fueled guess.

Thirty minutes later, when I return to collect his check, I find a one-hundred-dollar tip wrapped around a business card with Richard’s work number and address.

“I can’t believe that loser thinks you’d actually be interested.” Dane is on his fifth or sixth glass of bourbon. He paces around the restaurant as the busboys clear the tables and Buvi and I fold clean cloth napkins for tomorrow’s opening. “Like he can buy you for the night or something. This is a steakhouse, not a whorehouse. You know what I mean? Besides, you’re worth more than a hundred dollars anyway.”

He pats my shoulder possessively. Buvi continues folding napkins but raises a thin, penciled eyebrow at me.

I make a show of throwing Richard’s business card into a dirty bus tub. Only Buvi sees me swing back ten minutes later to fish the phone number out of the trash can.

*

Richard lays me down on the bed like a piece of expensive, freshly pressed dry cleaning. He has stopped by my apartment before an afternoon spine surgery, and he is exceedingly careful as he smooths his hands up and over my body. He undresses the length of my torso before sliding my pajama pants slowly over my hips. I am wearing plain cotton underwear underneath and he takes his time examining the brand on the elastic waistband. He pauses as if he is trying to figure out the best way to extract the thin fabric from around my legs, and I want to remind him that he is an orthopedic surgeon.

Unlike bone grafting or joint replacement, sex doesn’t require a complicated set of instructions.

There is a brown watermark in the shape of a blooming crocus on the ceiling. There are several branching cracks in the plaster that my landlord assures me are the result of the Craftsman Bungalow “settling.” The breeze through the open dormer windows carries the scent of spring pollen and stagnant bus exhaust. Richard struggles out of his t-shirt at the foot of the bed, and I remember the first time I invited him back to my apartment to have sex, the way he smelled like cologne—musky but clean—until he leaned close to me. When he pressed his mouth to mine, I could taste the cinnamon gum he’d been chewing to mask the garlic in his shrimp scampi.

At the time, I closed my eyes and thought of the shots of Fireball whiskey Dane had forced me to take on our first few nights working together at Archibald’s. The liquor, the new manager had explained to me, was the perfect combination of spicy and sweet, ideal for the type of girl who was too young to appreciate a real drink.

Now, I slip into the realm of Dane’s twisted fairytales as Richard hovers over me. The surgeon brushes one hand against my cheek, and I picture the bungalow’s foundation splintering as a magic bean takes root in the concrete. I imagine a vibration that begins in the soles of my feet, that rises up through the basement and the first floor apartment as the resulting stalk winds tighter and tighter around my body.

After Richard has finished, I lie back in the sweaty sheets. The older man pulls on his boxer shorts and retreats to the kitchen to wash his hands, a response he assures me is entirely normal for a surgeon. I listen to the pipes clunk in the wall as he turns on the tap. I wonder if this is how my mom felt when she was pregnant with me, colonized by some unwanted foreign organism. Did she also weigh the cost of scheduling a procedure and being done with her prolonged suffering? Or did a part of her hope that I would be the one thing that would finally convince her to settle down and stop running?

When Richard returns from the kitchen, he hits his head on the dormered ceiling. The attic apartment has a naturally low roofline and the walls are populated by those small, dwarf-doored closets that seem more appropriate for children. Despite his short stature, Richard seems to constantly be in a state of bumping his head. His gait is stuttered and awkward as he crosses the bedroom and sits on the edge of the mattress. He traces a shaky finger up my thigh to the place where my hipbone juts out sharply from my skin.

“You have really beautiful bones,” he says. “Slight and almost perfectly symmetrical. In the profession, we usually call that a smaller than average frame. But, personally, I prefer the adage—”

“Bird skeleton,” I finish for him.

This is the third time Richard has mentioned my skeleton to me. Sometimes, I catch him staring at my collarbone or my rib cage as if he is mentally stripping away my flesh. I suspect he is searching for some simpler entity beneath my skin that he can more easily understand. Patella meets femur meets pelvis meets sacrum.    

Richard plucks his glasses off the bedside table, hooks them gingerly around his ears, and squints down at me as though he is examining one of his patients.

“You also have narrow hips. Which means it’s not going to be easy for you, giving birth naturally.”

“What?” I start, but I quickly understand the statement when Richard produces a grainy image from behind his back.

The ten-week ultrasound was taken a few days ago at a free clinic downtown, a final confirmation that, despite my ambivalence, my situation hasn’t spontaneously corrected itself. While my stomach remains flat and thin, Dane’s herculean cells continue to divide and conquer inside of me.

I’m not sure how I am supposed to react to Richard’s unexpected discovery.

“Were you…snooping around?”

I try not to sound accusatory.

“You left it right out on the counter, Liza,” Richard says matter-of-factly. “It looks like you’re eight, maybe nine weeks? Obstetrics isn’t exactly my specialty.”

I debate denying that the ultrasound belongs to me or that I am that far along in my pregnancy. I know firsthand how most men tend to feel about staying with a woman who is mother to another man’s baby.

“I assume the father’s no longer in the picture?”

I notice that the ultrasound has begun to wilt between Richard’s damp fingers. I suppose one advantage of dating a middle-aged surgeon is that, unlike Dane, he isn’t dense.

“The father isn’t in the picture, is he, Liza?” Richard repeats more uncertainly.   

I bite the insides of my cheeks as I remember Dane’s arms locked around my waist two nights ago after our shift. The two of us had walked separately to the manager’s industrial studio in the up-and-coming Warehouse District. Dane threw me down so hard on his bed that, for a moment, I was sure I’d never catch my breath again. In the subsequent haze, I silently questioned if this was how it would all end—in vaguely euphoric, unintentional asphyxiation. I took some small comfort in no longer having to question my life decisions.

No more Richard. No more Dane. No more free clinics, or Archibald’s, or Buvi glaring at me hawkishly from across the restaurant.

I prop myself up on one elbow and slide the ultrasound from Richard’s fingertips.

“No. The father’s not in the picture,” I say more to myself than him.

“Well then.” Richard straightens his shoulders and puffs out his chest. “I’d like to help in whatever way I can. As I’m sure you might have guessed, I have a pretty steady income. I can get you what you need. A changing table. A crib. Those sorts of things.”

Richard glances around the bedroom as though he is already assessing where everything will fit. He doesn’t ask me who the father is or how long I have been hiding the fact that I am pregnant, much less whether I actually want him involved in the entire process.

After a month of mediocre sex in my Dinkytown apartment, he is clearly aware that my options are limited.

“On second thought, you might need to get a different place. When is your lease up? Or are you already renting this apartment month to month?”

Richard crosses the room to inspect a rickety bookcase and an outlet that has long been missing its wall plate. I set the ultrasound on the nightstand and wonder for the first time if I wanted him to find it. Did I intentionally leave the image sitting on the kitchen counter knowing that Richard would stop by on his way to Abbott Northwestern?

In the language of fairy tales, such events are usually called fate.

In the reality of a barely-scraping-by waitress who is carrying a potential sociopath’s baby, such actions could feasibly be considered a necessary side-hustle.

*

Richard’s mom tells me that, at some point in every woman’s life, an instinct kicks in called “the baby drive.” We are sitting in the living room of the suburban lake house where she and Richard live together, an arrangement cemented over a decade ago when Denise’s late-husband died of a heart attack. The entire house looks like it has been taken straight out of the pages of a Pottery Barn catalogue. The living room is occupied by a striped tweed sectional, a pair of tufted wingback chairs, and assorted garden-inspired decor. The cafe curtains boast a muted floral print and a wide bay window overlooks a covered pontoon boat parked beside a well-manicured dock.     

In the backyard, Richard troubleshoots a malfunctioning, in-ground sprinkler head. Inside, Denise sits in the armchair next to me sipping on her English breakfast tea. Every time the old woman smiles, I can’t stop staring at her impossibly small, child-like teeth.

“Oh, Liza, take a look at this one!” Denise says my name like we have known one another for far longer than one afternoon. For the last two hours, she has insisted on showing me every photo album she has of Richard as a kid. “He was always such a precocious child. There’s no arguing that.”

She turns the album toward me to reveal a snapshot of Richard posing in a miniature pinstriped suit. He is around five or six, short and tow-headed as he lifts his lapel to show off a tiny boutonniere made of baby’s breath.

“This is from the weekend Jim and I renewed our wedding vows at a bed and breakfast up in Duluth. It was just the three of us. Really intimate.” Denise runs her fingers longingly over the photograph. “Of course, that was almost forty years ago. You and Richard will be making your own memories soon. Filling up new photo albums.”

Her eyes drift from the snapshot to gaze unabashedly at my stomach.

I pick up my own cup of tea despite my current aversion to anything with caffeine. At fifteen weeks, every liquid I drink seems to run straight through me, especially coffee and tea. Nonetheless, I bring the cup to my lips and make a show of blowing on the steaming surface.

While Denise is the pinnacle of motherly love and benevolence—the exact opposite of my own mother-daughter experience—I am painfully aware that I don’t belong here. The room is too cozy and brightly lit. Denise’s demeanor is much too proper, her posture far too straight for me to ever hope to emulate. She sits with her hands folded politely on her lap, her face marked with age spots and wrinkles from doubtless former trips to places like Seville and Monaco.   

There is also the issue of Denise thinking that the baby is Richard’s.

“The two of you have talked about it, haven’t you?” she asks me.

I hit the rim of my teacup against my two front teeth.

“Talked about what, exactly?”

“Marriage, dear.” The old woman laughs. “Of course, I’ve been dropping hints to Richard ever since he told me the two of you were expecting, but you know how he is. He doesn’t even mention he’s dating someone until the two of you get pregnant. Now, don’t get me wrong. Richard’s a genius when it comes to bones and anatomy. But when it comes to social intelligence. Well… Not so much.”

I follow her gaze through the French doors that lead out to the back porch. On the other side of the screen, Richard is kneeling in the yard in a pair of ill-fitting, grass-stained jeans. He slaps a mosquito on the back of his neck as he tries to unsuccessfully pry up the sprinkler head.

“I guess we’ve discussed it once or twice.”

Every time Richard has tried to broach the subject of engagement or marriage, I’ve found ways to bypass the conversation. We’ve only been seeing one another for a little over two months. And that’s not to mention the problem of Dane.

“Of course, you’re young. Girls these days don’t like to get married until their mid to late-twenties. Still, it’d be nice to do it sooner rather than later with the baby coming. And Richard isn’t a young chicken anymore. I’m sure you know he’ll be forty-four next December…”

Denise breaks off and we both take long sips from our tea. Neither one of us acknowledges the twenty year age difference between Richard and me. I get the distinct feeling the old woman knows it is better not to question my motives.

Outside, Richard finally unearths the faulty sprinkler head and is rewarded with a hard stream of water to the forehead.

Denise clears her throat and changes the subject.

“But what about your parents? They must be excited about the baby?”

I look down at the dregs of my tea as if I can conjure a suitable answer from the soggy leaves. There’s no easy way to tell a woman like Denise that my mom finally left for good when I was sixteen. That my dad is little more than a shadowy figure in my memory, someone who worked on cars or toilets or roadways on the other side of the state.

“I suppose they’re excited,” I offer half-heartedly.

I’m saved from further questioning when Richard pulls open the screen. His glasses are fogged from the muggy summer heat. He tracks clods of mud over the cream colored area rug and I am struck by how different he is from Dane, so unaware of the basic placement of his body.

I wait for some signal that I can leave, but Richard waves his hand in my direction and mutters something about “not wanting to ruin our fun.” He disappears upstairs to take a bath.

“That reminds me, Liza!” Denise stands up from the wingback chair and rushes to set down her tea. “I picked up a few things for you the last time I was out shopping.”

For the first time since I arrived, I am left alone. I press a palm against my stomach as I glance from the tidy kitchen to a plump, floral ottoman to the backyard lakefront with its pontoon boat and well-kept flowerbeds. I tell myself that Richard and I have a mutually beneficial relationship. That he is also using me—exchanging wealth and stability for sex and the chance at a real family.

I assure myself that, at her age, Denise is lucky to have a grandchild on the way. That I don’t owe her anything other than the occasional afternoon tea and this baby.

Denise pops back into the living room just as I am considering feigning fatigue so I can sneak away. She is carrying a series of maternity dresses, the tags all boasting high-end department store brands. The nearest one is cut from white silk. The fabric is so beautiful I can’t help but reach out and touch it. The garment is much lovelier than anything I could ever hope to hang in one of my small-doored closets, and I wonder if this is how envy begins—if such things are what inspired Goldilocks’ traipse from bedroom to bedroom or Jack’s daring jaunts up the beanstalk.

“It might take you a little while to adjust to your changing body,” Denise says, “but I guarantee you will. As soon as your hormones kick in, you won’t care about swollen feet or your growing belly. In the meantime, though, having some nice clothes will help you feel better about yourself.”

I rub the white silk between my palms. I run my fingers over Chantilly lace, beige linen, and expensive patterned chiffon. I know what wearing one of these dresses will signal to Dane. Not style or sophistication or even the fact that I am pregnant. Just unimpeded, easy access.

Hours later, back in my Dinkytown apartment, I will try on each dress over and over again until I no longer have a favorite.    

*

Dane boasts that his dad has been saving the bottle of 23-year, special edition Pappy Van Winkle for a “special occasion.”

“The owner had it shipped here straight from the Buffalo Trace Distillery in Kentucky. They only put out a few cases of the stuff a year, but J.P. is a close family friend.” Dane pours three glasses of the rare bourbon—one for him, Buvi, and me. “It’s kind of funny, isn’t it? The whole goddamn state is a shit show except for the whiskey and the derby.”

We are down in the basement of his dad’s historic home across the river in St. Paul. Dane is playing host to Archibald’s annual Fourth of July party. Though the invitations arrived addressed from the CEO, the restaurant owner has yet to show. Buvi tells me the businessman is far too busy with his other homes and rumored mistresses across the country, jet-setting from New York to Los Angeles with the occasional stop in the Midwest to check on Archibald’s. Rumor is that he is grooming his son to take over the restaurant, but I have a hard time imagining Dane responsible for much of anything.

One hour into the party, and he’s already shirked most of his host duties, leaving the bartender and wait staff upstairs to fend for themselves.

“Come on. We’ll shoot them all on the count of three. The two of you ready?”

“No.” Buvi brushes her black bangs back from her forehead. She is still wearing her uniform from the restaurant, a white blouse paired with dark polyester slacks. She has her sour face on tonight, a familiar expression that rotates seamlessly between bored, annoyed, and disapproving.

I can’t imagine what prompted her to come to the party in the first place.

“Come on, B.” Dane lays a heavy arm across the older woman’s shoulders. “Don’t be a killjoy. It’s not like any of us are on the clock.”

“Like that’s ever stopped you before.” Buvi flashes Dane a tight-lipped smile. “Besides, Liza and I have to drive home in a little while. And I’m sure you’re more than capable of taking all those shots yourself. You’re a big boy now, aren’t you?”  

Dane drops his arm from Buvi’s shoulders. If he registers the insult, however, it only seems to stiffen his resolve.   

“Neither of you have to drive home,” he points out. “There are six bedrooms in this house. If you want to get wasted, you can take your pick for the night. I’ll make sure no one bothers you. Boy Scouts’ honor.”  

Dane holds up three fingers and places his other hand on his heart as though he is about to recite the Boy Scout oath or the pledge of allegiance.

I doubt he remembers the words to either.

“So, what do you girls think? Ready on the count of three?”  

I pretend I don’t notice the way he winks at me when he thinks Buvi isn’t looking.

“Chime in here, Liza.” Dane pushes a shot at me from across the granite bar top. “Convince Buvi she needs this Pappy.”

Around us, the basement walls are lined with seemingly endless rows of built-in wooden shelving. The racks are stocked with wine and liquor bottles that Dane claims date as far back as the 1960s. The floor is paved with the same imported Italian tiles as the patrons’ bathroom at Archibald’s. A series of exposed wooden beams run across the low plaster ceiling, and a glass-front cabinet showcases whole wheels of cheese and wicker baskets of cured meat.  

Standing in the temperature-controlled cellar, a part of me feels like I have been transferred to a different world entirely—a feudal America of castle-like homes where wealthy men hoard their Cotechino sausage, Beaufort D’Ete cheese, and thousand dollar Moet and Chandon champagne as if the plague is coming.

“As much as I appreciate the tour,” Buvi says, “I should really be heading upstairs. The fireworks will be going off any minute now and I wouldn’t want to miss them.”

I know the other guests are already gathered in the backyard, waiting for the sky to darken enough for the show to begin down on the riverfront. I wonder if Denise and Richard are out on the pontoon boat yet, floating on the lake with a bottle of Riesling as they keep an eye out for the glow of fireworks in the distance.

They both think I am working at Archibald’s tonight.

“You coming, Liza?” Buvi shoots me a pointed look.  

“I’ll be up in a few minutes,” I answer before I can reconsider my decision. I refuse to meet her eyes as I talk. “I’ll find you out there. Ok?”

Buvi glances disgustedly at the Pappy Van Winkle, Dane, then down at my slightly rounded stomach, and shakes her head.

“Whatever, Liza. If you want to stay down here and drink, then drink. You already know how the story ends.”

“Want me to fire her?” Dane jokes after Buvi has gone upstairs. “To be honest, I’ve always thought she was a little uptight.”

But I am sifting back through all of my nights with Dane, the two of us drunkenly knocking over floor lamps and end tables as I let him chase me through his apartment. That first time, I crouched like a child behind a leather armchair while Dane stomped around the kitchen, shouting, “Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman.” When he finally caught me, he bit my shoulder so hard it bled. Dane whispered that he wanted to grind my bones to make his bread.

At the time, I chalked the whole thing up to too much bourbon.

Now, I think of the violent way Richard breaks down joints and discs before putting them back together again. The easy manner in which the orthopedic surgeon names each of the bones beneath my skin. The second skeleton that continues to grow and fuse inside my uterus, despite both men’s profound ignorance.

Money begets entitlement begets a cycle of rote blindness that starts all over again.         

“I want to go outside,” I tell Dane.

The manager takes all three shots of bourbon before leading me up the staircase. As we pass through the main floor, he explains how all the furniture in the home has been ordered custom. It has been special-portioned to Dane’s large frame—the dining room chairs rescaled and the coffee table stretched to accommodate the specific length of his legs. The couch is so big that it required the construction of a new set of French doors to move in.

“Of course, the whole thing was obscenely expensive. But when I shot up to 6’6” at fifteen, my dad insisted. He wanted me to be comfortable while I was living here.”

We walk out onto a stone terrace that overlooks the river and the backyard with the crowd of mingling guests. Nearly everyone who is not working at Archibald’s is in attendance: waiters, busboys, kitchen staff, and several of the restaurant’s wealthy financial backers. Despite their differences in lifestyle and class, everyone takes equal advantage of the free food and booze Dane’s father has provided. They traipse around the yard with their catered appetizers and disposable plastic glasses, on a level playing field if only for the next few hours.

I stand at the railing, searching for Buvi in the throng, but the sky has grown dark and the lawn is poorly lit.

“You know, we could do it up here.” Dane leans down to whisper into my neck. “No one would know. And to be honest, I wouldn’t really give a shit if they did.”

A cool breeze rises up off the river and I realize just how much I am sweating. This time, I take his hand and guide it up beneath my dress. I force Dane’s fingers over the now noticeable bump just below the waistband of my underwear.

“Woah, Liza.” Dane pushes me away. “What the fuck is that?”

A second later, the fireworks begin, and any response I am supposed to have is drowned out by the booming explosions from the riverfront. The smoke drifts east across the river, a toxic mass of black powder and burning iron, zinc, and aluminum dust.

I suspect that, so high up, everyone must occasionally dream of falling.

 

Jess E. Jelsma is a doctoral student in creative writing at the University of Cincinnati, where she works as an Assistant Editor for the Cincinnati Review. Her previous work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Arkansas International, Catapult, CRAFT Literary, Entropy, Flyway, Indiana Review, The Normal School, the Southern Review, and various other publications. She can be found online at jessejelsma.com or on Twitter @jessejelsma.