Julie Innis has always struggled to best determine right from wrong. Her stories have recently appeared in Slush Pile Magazine and The Moose and Pussy and are forthcoming in Pindeldyboz. In May 2009, she was selected by Glimmer Train magazine as a finalist in their Short Story Award Contest. She happily lives and works in Brooklyn, New York though sometimes she dreams of grifting her way around the world.
A Room with a Partial Ocean View (November 20, 2009. Issue 11.)
The four of us had been sitting on the beach for hours and I knew I was getting a nasty burn. "Poor baby," Linda says, giving me a quick peck on the cheek.
"Here," Michael says as he tosses me the tube of sunscreen. Linda motions for me to turn around so she can get my back. "That would be easier if you were topless," he says.
"Real nice," I say, swatting a palm-full of sand into his lap.
Steve shakes his head as if to say "you crazy kids" and hands me another drink. He's not that much older than Michael, maybe late-thirties, but he holds himself up like some kind of senior statesman. Steve and Linda approached us on the boat ride over to this island. Fellow New Yorkers, it turned out, not all that coincidental given the recent fare wars out of Newark.
"We should head back soon," Steve says to Linda, looking down at his watch, one of those fancy kinds divers wear with a face as big as my fist. "I have a poker game at 4:00."
Michael's head pops up at the mention of poker. Ever since our plane landed last night, he's been like a dog in heat, sniffing up every bellhop and concierge in our hotel asking if they can cut him in on some "big action." "Room for one more at your table?" he asks. Steve gives him the once-over, though I'm not sure what he's looking for, given that we're all in bathing suits so there's no bulging wallet or fat moneyclip to detect. But Michael looks like money. My roommate Holly calls him "the other New York"--yellow cabs, dry-cleaners with pick-up service, women who come to his office for manicures and trims, a dog-eared Zagat's. The New York I inhabit is much grittier. I date frequently to cut down on grocery bills, my refrigerator bearing foil-wrapped testimonials to Manhattan's finer restaurants. When Michael asked me to come with him to the Bahamas, I quickly agreed; the economics of sex and dating suggested the trip was a good value. But twenty-four hours in, I was beginning to feel robbed.
On the way back to the mainland, I start feeling a little green and by the time the boat's mooring at the dock, I'm bent over the side, a trail of vomit trickling from my mouth. Linda untangles herself from Steve and brings over a beach towel to daub at my face. "Did anyone see me?" I ask.
"No, honey," she says, rubbing the back of my neck with her cool hands. "Your secret's safe with me." She helps me to my feet and we make our way up the dock. To the left is the hotel where Michael and I are staying, a deal he found off the Internet. To the right is the casino resort where Steve and Linda are staying, the Mecca for sun-starved people up and down the Eastern seaboard. At the top of the landing, Michael's tugging at his ear in the way that lets me know he wants to get going. He hands me a stick of gum.
"Too much fun and sun," I say. He takes my face in his hands, angling my head up towards him. Squinting, he announces that I've got sunstroke.
Linda comes up behind him and nods. "Montezuma's revenge."
"Montezuma's revenge is an entirely different thing," Steve says. "What you need is aloe."
Linda offers to take me back to the hotel. All this talk of sunstroke and revenge is making me dizzy, so I don't protest when Michael agrees. I slip my sunglasses back on and give him a good look. It doesn't bode well for our relationship that we've only been dating a few weeks and yet I already know most of his tells--the faux-sympathy voice, the ear tug, the big-eyed "I care, I really do" look, the way his upper lip curls when he wants sex, and the way his left eye narrows when I've ordered something too expensive from the menu. Today he's combined the ear tug with the narrowed eyes. "Sure," I say to him, and then turn to Linda. Her face is much prettier to read--at lunch on the beach, she told us she modeled a little when she was my age, but her features are so familiar I knew immediately she was just being modest. She's so beautiful she makes my teeth hurt. Slipping her arm around my waist, she gives me a little bump with her hip.
"I'm yours," she says with a wink and a southern drawl that lets me in on the joke. Steve and Michael exchange looks again, barely refraining from giving each other high-fives. We agree to meet later but as they're turning towards the casino, Linda clears her throat. "Aren't you forgetting something?" she asks, extending her hand out towards Steve, her head down in mock bashfulness. Steve looks at her a moment as if he's calculating his odds then digs around for his money. He brings out a roll and peels back two fifties. Linda clears her throat again, softly, sticking her foot forward with a point of her painted toes. She's all honey and Steve steps right in. He hands over four bills, which Linda tucks neatly into her bikini top.
As soon as the boys are out of earshot, Linda says, "What assholes," and wraps her arms around my neck and kisses me, much softer this time. I don't know what to do with my hands so I put them at her waist like we're about to slow dance right there in the middle of the dock. No one else is around--most of the boats have docked from their afternoon trips and will stay in place until evening when dinner cruises and dance parties set out again for the half-dozen private beaches tucked around the island's perimeter. In the distance, jet-skis saw through the water towards the strip of beach in front of the hotels, the soft roll of voices spiked with an occasional gull's cry. The gulls sound like babies, but children are not admitted to these resorts, which is a good thing since Linda's not shy about public affections.
We make our way back to my hotel, stopping off for a few more pina coladas the island boys make at drink stands along the beach. "My, what big machetes you have," Linda says as the boys toss coconuts to each other to catch on the tips of their blades. Chop chop and they've cut open the coconuts to make cups for drinks they keep in beat-up styrofoam coolers at their feet.
Back at the hotel, it takes me a moment to adjust my eyes to the dark of the lobby after all that sun. I see the same bellhop from yesterday and give him a wave. "Do you need help to your room?" he asks.
"Monkey see, monkey do," I say, tapping the top of my head. He reaches his hand to his hat and turns away.
"You're drunk, right?" Linda whispers, pulling me by the arm to the elevators.
"I like you too," I say, leaning into her, turning my face against the curve of her neck.
While Linda's shuffling through the minibar, I excuse myself to the bathroom, turning the taps full-blast on cold. I've gotten too much sun and the skin across my cheekbones feels thin and tight. When I get out of the shower, Linda's on the bed, flipping though channels, sitting cross-legged in a ring of tiny liquor bottles. "Everything's in French," she says. I flop down next to her on my stomach and start pulling a comb through my hair. "Here," she says. "Let me." So I sit up and she sits behind me, pressing her hand to the top of my head to keep from snagging my hair as she combs, both of us watching the mouths move on the TV set.
*
I’m leaning out over the balcony railing, trying to see the ocean past the far corner of the building when Michael comes in and tells me not to jump. “Your life isn’t so bad,” he says, coming up from behind to give me a kiss on the cheek. The hotel bends in an L around a large square patio where little old ladies have been tipping back drinks over hands of blackjack for the past hour.
“How much more for a full view?” I ask, turning away from the window.
“You are so spoiled.” Michael’s stretched out on the bed, making snow angels with his arms. “I love satin,” he says.
We redeem Michael’s dinner voucher that night at the hotel restaurant overlooking the ocean. Flush from poker, he gives the hostess a twenty to seat us by the windows. The tide’s pulled back, revealing a crooked line of seaweed, soda cans, and broken arms of driftwood. “Better view for you?” Michael asks, waving the waiter over for a refill.
I twirl the umbrella from my daiquiri between my teeth and nod. The restaurant’s dotted with gray heads like white caps on waves. “A real seniors’ hotspot,” I say. I wonder if they’ve all used the same coupon as Michael. I stare over the top of my menu at him. The way the restaurant’s lit, I can see straight through to a patch of pink scalp where his hair’s starting to thin. “Did you bring a hat?” I ask. “You’re starting to burn.” Michael rubs the top of his head and frowns.
“You should be nicer to me,” he says.
When the bill comes, Michael calls the waiter over to complain that drinks aren’t covered with the voucher. “Who can read this small print?” he asks.
“Ants,” I say, collapsing backwards in my seat. The waiter brings over a white cardboard box of leftovers as we’re leaving.
“That’s going to stink up the room,” Michael says.
*
In the morning, Michael complains of a headache and highway robbery. The arrival of the thirty-dollar continental breakfast tray doesn't do much to improve his mood. The maid waits patiently for a tip--it seems word has gotten around that Michael's a high roller--but he shoos her away with only a dollar. The rest of his money is earmarked for another poker game this afternoon. At this rate, his magnanimity will only last until lunchtime tomorrow.
Later, we run into Linda and Steve on the beach. Linda splays her hand out in front of my face. "Lookie what Steve got me," she says. The sun in the ring catches me right in the eyes. We both look at Steve who's standing in the surf talking to a guy fighting a windsurfing sail. With his arms broad across his chest like that, he looks a little like a pirate, but to be fair, I've had pirates on the brain since reading about them last night on my placemat. The most notorious one, it claimed, was Bonne Anne, a woman from Boston. I joked to Michael that I've known girls from Boston and this news came as no surprise. "Isn't it perfect?" Linda asks.
"Sure is," I say, turning away to look for Michael. He's trotted off to the treeline to take a leak so Linda and I continue down the beach, looking for shells. She takes my hand in hers; for a second, I think she's feeling for rings, but I don't pull away. "I can read palms," she whispers in my ear, her breath tickling my earlobe. I stand still, burrowing in the sand with my toes. "I see shopping in your future," she says, tracing the lines on my palm. She runs her fingers along the straps of my bikini, tugging them tighter over my shoulders. "You have such a cute figure." To Michael who’s just jogged up to us, she says, "Lucky boy," brushing his chest with her fingers.
A group of Bahamian women call to us from the shade. "Braid your hair for five dollars," they say. Michael tells me to go ahead, he wants to swim before heading over to the casino. One woman, the youngest in the group, a girl really, motions for Linda to sit at her feet. The girl is wearing a full skirt and a long-sleeved white blouse—in this heat, I’d expect she’d be sweating, but her face is smooth and dry. I sit at the feet of an older woman who pushes a bag towards me. “Beads are two dollars extra,” she explains. I say okay and tell her to pick the best beads for me. “Blue like your eyes,” the woman says. I want to correct her that no, my eyes are brown, but figure it’s all the same in the end.
The girl turns Linda’s back towards her and tells her to sit cross-legged, tucking her bare feet in around Linda’s bottom and starts sectioning her hair, tugging lightly through the tangles with her fingers. “Pretty hair,” she says.
The woman braiding my hair doesn’t speak. I look out at the ocean. Two windsurfers slicing in and out of the waves cross so close I brace my heels in the sand, expecting a crash. The woman gives my hair a sharp tug. The other women behind us speak in voices too low for me to hear until they see a group of girls walking down the beach, then they all call out at once. “Braid your hair, five dollars.” No one else joins us in the shade.
Just as I’m starting to feel sleepy, the woman says she’s done, her hand outstretched for my money. The girl doing Linda’s hair has also finished. Linda looks at me and shakes her head, making the beads clatter around her ears. “Pretty,” the girl says, handing her money to the older woman who pushes the dollar bills deep into the bag holding the beads.
Later, after a few hours on the beach, Linda suggests we head back to my hotel room. “I could use a nap,” she says.
“I can’t,” I say, shielding my eyes to look down the beach. Michael’s already an hour late. “I told Michael I’d wait.”
“Suit yourself,” Linda says, turning over on her stomach. “Be a doll and get my back?”
Another hour passes and I tell Linda a nap might be a good idea. We gather our things. When we get back to the room this time, we leave the TV off.
*
It's seven when Michael finally shows up. "I don't want to talk about it," he yells from the shower while I stand at the mirror doing my make-up. The sun has bleached my eyebrows almost white, making my face look bald. I draw on more eyeliner to anchor my eyes. We are late meeting Steve and Linda for dinner at the casino restaurant.
"Michael's a little lighter in the wallet," Steve explains, "so dinner's on me." He flicks at one of my braids as I'm sitting down. "You've gone native," he says. Linda looks away, her hair now in smooth waves framing her face, as Michael laughs, signaling the waiter for another drink. There are dark circles of sweat under his arms.
"When in Rome," I say, holding my glass up for a toast. Michael rolls his eyes.
After dinner, Steve tells Michael to show me the slots--he and Linda would join us, but they have other plans for the evening. Michael lifts his hand in protest, but I'm eager to see the casino and take the folded bills Steve offers me. Linda kisses us both, "for good luck," she says.
Later when we're settled in at the machines, Michael tells me I'm acting like an idiot. "We're being used," he says.
"Oh please," I say, keeping my eyes on the turning wheels. "No one's using you."
He laughs, his face in a grimace, and slumps down on his stool, plunking quarter after quarter into his machine, pulling goose eggs. "Jackpot," he says.
*
The next morning, Michael and I collect towels from the beach house and spread out on the sand. After awhile, I get up to leave. I'm meeting Linda for snorkeling practice and ask Michael if he'd like to come, but he says he'd rather just hang out on the beach. "Co-eds," he says, jerking his head to his left at a bunch of girls. "Good times." He gives me a thumbs-up as I gather my things.
By the time I get to the cove, Linda already has her snorkeling gear on and is doing a dead man's float in the shallows. There's a plaque next to the stand renting snorkel gear that I read while the boy behind the counter rings up my order. The cove is named for the pirates who used to dock here. "You get a lot of mileage from your pirates," I say to the boy. He shrugs.
I look out through the plastic visor of my mask at Linda. She is standing, waving up at me. I wave back. “My ring,” she calls out, waving both of her hands now, staring down at the water. “My ring, my ring, my ring.” I jog down to the water and wade in with big steps. "You're stirring up the sand," Linda yells.
She adjusts her mask back over her face and dives under, only her feet remaining visible. I think of diving for pennies at the YMCA pool, how you have to make that awkward handstand, ramming your fingertips against the cement bottom. The sun tucks for a moment behind a cloud. Linda surfaces. "I can't see a fucking thing down there," she says, smacking the water with her palms. She dives back under, a circle of tiny bubbles collecting around her head.
Suddenly she pops up with a scream. "There’s something out here," she says, grabbing at my arm. "Something just touched my leg." She turns, her arms pumping as she pushes through the water, leaving me standing waist-high in the surf.
"Calm down," I say. "It's probably just a fish."
Linda bends forward, her hands cupping her knees, her hair in wet clumps around her face, black smudges of makeup around each eye. "Why are you just standing there?" she screams at me. "Why don't you do something?" She leaves to find Steve.
I wait until the sand settles and I can see straight through the water to my feet. It takes me a minute to get past the chemical taste of the mouthpiece. I'm surprised by how quiet everything becomes once my face is underwater up to my ears, the only sound the bubbling of my breath through the tube. The sun comes back out and shines in patches along the ocean floor. I kick with my feet, keeping my arms straight down, raking through the sand with my fingers. The thought of what Linda will do if I find her ring moves through me like a current. I squint through the cloud of sand I'm stirring up. I find a shell, a bivalve, still attached like butterfly wings. Then something black darts past my shoulder and I start back, letting the shell drop. There’s water in my tube, my mouth filling with brine and sand, then clearing with a sharp exhale, I realize it is just a small fish, not much bigger than my hand. As it ducks back beneath a rock, I see it--the ring. I slip it on my finger, careful to keep my hand closed tight. I wade back to shore and sit on the sand, the tide washing in over my feet, until I realize Linda's not coming back.
When I get back to the hotel to change, there's a do not disturb sign on the door. I consider letting myself in but then think better of it.
I have to knock at Steve and Linda's door several times before Linda opens it, the chain still in place. "Yes?" she says. I close my hand around the ring in my pocket and ask if I can come in. "We're kind of in the middle of something," she says. A maid pushes her cart past me and gives me a look.
"Can I see you later?" I ask, shifting my weight from foot to foot. Linda hasn't known me long enough to recognize my tell. The longer she keeps me standing in the hall, the more foolish I feel.
"We're leaving in the morning," she says. "But I'm sure I have your number somewhere." She turns back toward the room.
"What about your ring?" I ask.
"Ever hear of insurance?" she says, waving her fingers at me as she closes the door. Inside I can hear them laughing.
*
"Where've you been?" Michael asks when I get back to the room. He's ordered in a pizza and is sitting cross-legged on the bed with the box open in front of him. "Slice?" he says.
I settle in next to him. "You look like shit," he says.
I take a small bite of pizza. "Want to go to the casino later?" I ask.
“If I could afford the casino, would I be eating pizza in the hotel room?"
I consider this and shrug. I look around the room. I don't remember leaving my suitcase open like that.
“You’ve gotten a lot of sun,” he says, tapping my shoulder.
I roll off the bed and stand on the balcony. My head hurts. I'm not sure if my braids are too tight or if it’s really sunstroke this time. Never cry wolf, I think. If I were home, Holly would pour me a glass of milk and make me tell her all about it. Just past the corner of the building, I can see the pink line of horizon. The night air crackles with the buzz of motorboats and the low call of people in the rooms around ours. It's too quiet. If I could will myself into the center of the casino, I would, the bright lights and clanging bells are what I need right now, but as it is, the thought of actually going there makes my bones ache. Dark clouds have replaced the pink line. "Looks like it might rain," I say over my shoulder.
“All in all, a real wash-out," Michael says, tossing a wad of greasy napkins towards the trashbasket.
"Maybe so," I say, looking back over the balcony, my hand out in front of me, the ring sparkling like so many ships on the horizon.
Bukowski Contest Winner 3rd Place!
RID (October 20, 2009. Issue 10.) (first published in Issue #4 of The Moose and Pussy)
I'm standing in the bathroom, my face pushed at the mirror, picking at this white bump next to my ear when all of the sudden it sprouts legs and wriggles toward my hairline. I grab at it with my fingertips and hold it up to the light. A textbook louse, its white skeleton showing through clear skin, eight tiny legs pumping to get away. I smash it and run for the phone.
“You gave me crabs,” I shout, itching all over like mad. M. tells me he probably got the lice from the closet at school where he hangs his coat with the sixth graders.
"Burn it," I tell him.
"What, the closet?" he asks.
"Your coat, stupid."
That whole damn school is crawling with bugs. Just last week, I was breaking up a fight in the hallway and when I threw myself on Ricardo’s back to pin him to the floor, his down jacket whooshed with a poof and three big roaches ran out from cuts in the nylon where the stuffing peeked through. Kids came in around us, laughing, calling Ricardo dirty. His legs and arms splayed out, with me still heavy on his back, the best he could do was tuck his head toward his armpit in shame. The kids say Ricardo is half and half—and not the good kind. Half-black and half-Rican is bad. Black and white if your daddy’s white is good, your daddy a ghost dropping in for a night then gone, but checks in the mail like winning the damn lottery. White moms are the worst, no matter who your daddy is, strung-out crackwhore blondes, shriveled-up barbie dolls who stand on the street behind the school, calling out to cars driving by 
at midday. White teachers are only a step above white moms.
Of course, now with the lice, I've entered a whole new category of Low.
“What should we do?” M. asks.
“Check yourself and call me back.”
I sit on the edge of the tub with a mirror in one hand and pluck at my pubes, crushing each louse with my index finger against my thumbnail until the one's I can see are all gone. Then I shave until little dots of blood well up, my crotch pimply and yellow like plucked chicken skin. I rake my fingernails against my scalp, searching out the slow crawling licey feet at my nape and around my ears. It's like eighth grade biology all over again: parasites balled up in pork, tapeworms snaking around your guts, tiny sucking mouths digging into my skin.
M. calls back. “I’m covered. All over my chest and arms.” I tell him to start shaving and hang up.
I look up Ask-A-Nurse in the yellow pages. She says there are three kinds: body, pubic, and head. Sounds like you got body lice. Lots of teachers get it, she says and tells me to buy Rid from the drug store.
I call M. back. I want to go to a drugstore far far away where no one knows me, but neither of us has a car. “I’m calling Rob,” I say.
“That bastard,” he says and hangs up on me. I figure we have bigger problems right now than to deal with his jealous tendencies, so I call Rob anyway. Rob is, not surprisingly, not doing anything. His doctor switched him to a higher dose of Wellbutrin, which makes him catatonic. And impotent, which is why we are no longer together. Rob’s known me since I started teaching at Dunbar—he doesn’t share my zeal for social reform, but he likes the stories I tell. He’s also the only guy I know with a car. He agrees to pick me up in five minutes.
It’s late on a school night so, of course, my landlord has his face pressed flat against his front window to check up on me as I wait on the stoop for Rob to pull around. When the old fag rented the top floor to me, he thought he was getting a quiet little teacher. That lasted about a month. To deal with all the bad shit at school, I drink, I party, I screw around. The district calls my program “The New Teacher Initiative,” a group of recent college grads working toward certification. Pretty much everyone in my corps is now a drunk or a depressive. Rob’s a writer and was doing a story on the corps members' dropout rate. That’s how we met. I’m one of the 5% who’s made it through the first year of the two-year program. This lice thing is the third very bad thing that's happened to me since I started teaching.
When Rob pulls up, he reaches across the front seat to unlock my side. When I try to kiss him hello, he turns his face, which, given the circumstances, doesn’t offend me. He takes the belt parkway and hits a drugstore way out in the middle of nothing, a huge cement bunker of a store with a large well-lit parking lot. It’s now half-past midnight so Rob pulls right up front.
“I won’t be long,” I say, my hand on the door latch.
“I’m coming in with you,” he says, rolling his window all the way up.
I can’t find the Rid, so I make Rob ask the pharmacist. Then Rob suggests we get some carpet cleaner and a steam vac. He’s read the back of the Rid packet where it says lice spread rapidly on upholstered surfaces, burrowing their way deep into the fibers. “They’ve probably colonized your couch while we’ve been out,” he says.
“And your car,” I say, pulling down the corners of my mouth so he’ll know how bad I feel.
“That’s life,” he says, steering me by my elbow through the checkout. Depression has made him terribly pragmatic.
On the drive home, I tell him lice stories. I tell him about a girl I knew in elementary school, Lynette, who changed her name to Mary after the school nurse found lice in her hair during one of the monthly combings. Lice-ette we called her.
“Kids can be cruel,” Rob says, scratching at the space behind his right ear. “Damn,” he says, examining his fingernail.
I am filled with a sudden longing for him, to press our naked bodies together, swapping spit and sweat and lice, finishing it all off with a post-coital combing and pesticide dip.
“What did I ever see in you?” he says, shaking his head.
When we pull up in front of my building, Rob tells me to be good and lets me kiss him goodbye. I watch his car pull away before heading back inside.
It’s now two o’clock. I call to tell M. I've got the stuff and he can come over if he wants. He’s still sulking because I’ve spent time with Rob, but I tell him he can work the steam vac and that seems to cheer him up. While I wait for him, I read the warning label on the Rid. Caution: do not drink; do not apply to eyes or eyelashes or eyebrows or any other part of the face. There will be eggs, also known as nits. A.K.A. Nitz, my students would say. Repeat applications may be necessary. According to the packet, this whole business may take weeks to clear up. I set my alarm so I can call in sick.
A week later, Rob calls to ask if he can borrow the steam vac before we have to return it. He says it was fun for the first few days, watching lice beat a path down his chest and stomach. “But it gets old fast,” he says.