Marine Park(19)

            Do what? Timothy asked.

            Order for me, she said. He had, when the waiter from Hungary had come to their table surprisingly quickly.

            He tried to put his arm around her, but she shrugged him off. Come on, he said.

            No, she said.

            She walked to the edge of the water, which was the bay. The beach was on the other side of the island. The hotel had been built here a hundred years ago, by J. P. Morgan and Joseph Pulitzer and Henry Goodyear and all the rest. They pretended to be duck hunting, but they were doing the things that millionaires did. They put the hotel on this side for ease of getting the building materials across the water, barged over from mainland Georgia. It had been in the guidebook that Courtney read on the drive down from Brooklyn. Courtney had woken up one morning and said, after they took their morning walk around the oval at Marine Park, I have to get out of here. The oval was sad concrete. The grass inside was tan and old. A block away they walked past the PTSD firemen outside the Mariners Inn. For a long time they’d been doing just the same thing. They found ways to get a week’s vacation. Timothy wouldn’t let her drive until they were well into Maryland. They didn’t talk on car rides anymore, like they had when they first started dating, five years before—even when they couldn’t find a radio station. For a while Courtney talked to her parents on her cell phone. Timothy felt that he knew them almost as well as he knew his own. He hadn’t stopped for a bathroom break until D.C.

            The two of them looked out at the bay, where there was one red light blinking: a lighthouse. Timothy, rebuffed in his advances, settled for leaning backward on the railing so he could look half at her and half at the old hotel.

            It’s creepy out here, he said.

            I don’t think it is, she said. She had picked the place after hearing her coworker talk about it in a hushed voice on her office phone. More than romantic, the coworker had whispered. Southern. Timothy was convinced when she promised him there would be opportunities to swim, his largest indicator of a vacation.

            Well, it is, he said, brushing a no-see-um off his chest. There’s no people around. It’s like there’s a curfew or something.

            It seemed to Timothy that this bothered Courtney.

            Why would there be a curfew? she said.

            I don’t know, maybe it was in the fine print somewhere, he said. Half off the hotel reservations and free dinners as long as you’re in by ten.

            But that doesn’t even make sense, she said.

            Maybe it’s because of those wolves we just saw.

            They were deer, Tim!

            Maybe these are bloodsucking deer.

            Courtney angled her body into Timothy. Bloodsucking deer! she fake squealed.

            You never know in these places, he said. You just can’t tell.

            They watched the lighthouse blink red and dark for a while. Timothy stroked Courtney’s shoulder. She didn’t pull away.

            Maybe the vampire deer are owned by the hotel, Courtney said, her breath in his ear. Maybe it’s all a setup.

            I bet the valets are in on the whole thing, Timothy whispered. That’s why they keep hopping into those go-carts—to let the deer out from their cages.

            Courtney giggled. Timothy pressed on. By day, he said in his movie-announcer voice, they feed them the carcasses of dead guests, and once it gets dark, they go loose.

            Courtney turned in toward Timothy and held each of his jacket lapels in her hands. She pushed her forehead into his chest. Save me, Tim, save me! she shouted.

            He felt something triumphant. There was a heaviness in his throat. Maybe this trip would make him better at this. He was running out of ideas. He said, That’s my job.