Marine Park(21)

            Courtney thought about the nonprofit where she worked. It helped set up typing classes for women and the handicapped in Kibera, and got them work digitizing documents. She had wanted a women’s issue job, but she wasn’t in love with the outsourcing. Sometimes she left that part out. Timothy was an air conditioner repairman at an apartment complex in midtown, and he made more money than she did. Yes, she told the valet. My husband too.

            Husband? the valet said.

            You know what I mean.

            I guess so. Sometimes you have to try it out. Would I have seen any of your movies?

            I doubt it, she told him. She suddenly felt very tired. She realized, without having anything she could do about it, that she didn’t have any dollar bills in her purse. The drink was draining from her body, and she would have been ready for Timothy to walk over to her, for her to say she was sorry, for him to apologize first. I know you do things your own way, he would say, fumbling. They could make arguments out of nothing. It was exhausting just thinking about it.

            The valet looked carefully down the wide sweep of the road, buzzing with night bugs.

            Hell, he said, there’s no one coming. It’s the off-season, he said. He sat in the wicker chair next to her.

            They listened to the creaking of the old windows, above their heads.

            Have you ever been to Disney World? the valet asked. When she didn’t answer immediately, he said, Lots of guests go there from here.

            No, she said. Timothy had gone all the time when he was younger, with his family, she thought she remembered.

            The valet didn’t look surprised. For a while, he said, I used to work at one of the hotels right on the Disney campus. All-Star Sports Resort—although I liked Movies better. Sometimes they let us transfer. It wasn’t so up-class as it is here, but I liked it.

            Courtney continued looking out over the porch.

            I had a friend there, the valet said, whose job was to be one of the walk-around characters. One night it was such a long day, around the Christmas holidays, that after the parade, when he finally got off work, he wore his costume directly to the restaurant we were meeting at in Downtown Disney—he was one of those monsters from Monsters, Inc. At the place, he kept the mask from the costume between his legs next to a bar stool, but he stayed in the costume all night. And when parents came out of the restaurant with their kids—who I’d think should have been in bed by that time of night, but the guests always try to get as much in as they can—they’d cover their kids’ eyes when they walked past me and my friend. Like, seven or eight times. It wasn’t a coincidence.

            Courtney had started paying attention in the middle of the story. The scene appeared in front of her above the porch railing. She realized that she was almost crying. She felt the tears coming up, like an epiphany or a revelation, which would clear her head and make everything sensible then; help her order her more or less acceptable life, she thought levelheadedly, an all right life even though it seemed problematic then. Was he all right, your friend? Courtney said, but the valet took it the wrong way.

            I can put you in touch with him, if you’re looking for some acting work, he said gently.

            Courtney gave him a tight smile, and nothing else.

             • • •

On the wharf Timothy turned back around again, looked away from the hotel, looked out on the lighthouse blinking red, and off, and red, and off. He was too old to be jealous of someone talking to Courtney. He concentrated on a docked fishing boat whose cabin was covered with Christmas lights, not plugged in. It wasn’t like that when they met. It was at the Mariners, on Fillmore, where Timothy was watching a Rangers game with his lovesick cousin Eamon. Eamon lived in Carroll Gardens then, off the F train, but he came back to the Mariners sometimes since his girlfriend left. The whole bar noticed Courtney when she walked in. For some reason she came right up to Timothy. Hi, she’d said. Let’s talk for a little while. He wanted to tell her that he didn’t usually go to the Mariners; there was just the Rangers game. For the rest of the time there he tried to explain that. It had been a hot night, like this one, when they walked outside of the bar, leaving Eamon behind. It was muggy. Fillmore was the same distance from the water as here, practically, if Timothy thought about it geographically.