A Commonplace Thing

by Karen Mitani

The RV trip was Gary’s idea, and Laura saw half the summer flash before her, Crazy 8s and junk food in cramped living quarters, the four of them bound fast by indistinguishable U.S. highways. It was a chance to see the country, Gary said, ignoring the fact that the country wasn’t their own. Laura suggested going west to see her sister in Victoria, or east; the kids had never been to the Maritimes. But Gary was set on the States, shrugging off the thirty-two-cent loss on the dollar, like it was a reasonable fee to pay to penetrate and dally through their enticing neighbor to the south. 

The RV was a rental, and while the kids were thrilled with the dollhouse-like novelty of a cramped apartment on wheels, Laura resented the gluey lollipop sticks she found wedged in the cracks of the dining seats, the brown cigarette burns on the bathroom basin. Gary was oblivious to it all, shrouded in his captain’s seat, concentrating out the windshield like a pilot flying through a lightning storm. Gary named the monstrosity Dorothy. Laura refused to drive it. The arrangement suited them fine. 

For the children, Laura made the most of it, cooking their favorite meals in the tiny kitchen; buttermilk pancakes with bananas for Bridget; bacon, mac and cheese melts for Jace. Before bed, the four of them squeezed around the small table and played Uno, Jace never using his pick-up-four cards on his little sister, Bridget squealing with delight when their father was on the receiving end of them.

At bedtime, Gary and Jace would read comics or play video games on the larger bed in the back, and Laura would snuggle with Bridget on the pullout up front. Noises floated and sometimes punched in from the RV park they’d pulled into for the night. Alcohol induced laughter. The pop of a firecracker.

“I miss my bed,” Bridget said. “This one is bumpy.”  

“It is a bit bumpy. But you have your pillow. And Merp.” Bridget hugged her stuffy, a pink and white Bigfoot.

“What do you miss, Mama?”

She missed the things she’d never say to her five-year-old, probably not even to her husband. The sound of a door closing to a quiet house after they left for work and school. The absence of occupancy. 

Galveston, Texas was their destination. Neither Laura nor Gary had ever been, but Gary had been lured to the island city by the RV resort at Jamaica Beach which boasted a lazy river and a five-minute walk to the ocean. They were registered for a week. 

Bridget, in her new swimsuit and sun hat, tugged Laura’s arm with dramatic impatience. 

“I’d like to get settled,” Laura said to Gary. “Why don’t the three of you go and have fun?”

A sigh escaped her as they scurried off.

Laura wiped their picnic table with a damp cloth and sat down. Gary had sprung for an end lot, so they only had neighbors on the other side of the RV, with an eating area and small green-space just outside their door.

A quick online search confirmed their virtual isolation, and no car meant limited decamping. In regular life, a reason to get away was easy to come by: groceries, a reading at the local bookstore, especially now that Jace was old enough to watch Bridget. Both kids were water babies and there were multiple distractions here. Laura guessed she would be expected to participate at least half the time, even though Gary was the fun one.

From the RV lot, the ocean in the distance was a grey smudged line where the world dropped off. It smelled sultry, of far from home. 

Gary returned hours later, childless, an edgy redness covering his neck and shoulders. She looked up from her book as he emerged from the RV having fetched the forgotten sunscreen.

“You’re coming, right?” he asked, applying the lotion to the beginnings of his burn.

“I don’t really feel like swimming just yet.”

“You can read on the deck.”  

The deck surrounding the lazy river was crowded and noisy and Laura couldn’t find a free chair. She waved at the kids as they floated by on colorful tubes and was instantly forgotten as the slow current carried them past. Gary swam to catch up, linking his arms through the kids’ tubes, joined like otters as they disappeared around a bend. 

Laura wandered over to the main building. A middle-aged woman in a neon pink visor greeted her with unprovoked American cheerfulness. Laura was ready to return a polite smile and move on, but the affable woman pitched her a gas barbecue rental, and Laura bit. The barbecue could be delivered to their lot before the end of the day, if that worked for her? Laura thanked the woman, and as usual when confronted with naturally friendly people, felt her attempt at matched geniality was met with disappointment.

Laura texted Gary, unsure if he had his phone with him. Rented a BBQ. Going back to meet the delivery. Hamburgers for dinner?

Laura saw Elijah’s shadow before she saw him, stealing under the brim of her sunhat, elongated on the hot concrete. More American cheerfulness, asking if she’d like him to go over the barbecue's features as he maneuvered it into place, sinewy arms tensing against the weight. Where the rental woman’s spirit likely came from years of practice, his seemed more ingrained, not linked to the responsibilities of his job or guest satisfaction, but quintessential, something that went with him.

Gary and the kids returned before the set up was completed, and Elijah finished his spiel to Laura, even as Gary came up and stood beside her to catch the tail end of it. If he had been older, the rental woman’s husband, say, Laura was certain the tutorial would have shifted to Gary, men discussing men things, but because of his youth, perhaps, Laura’s authority held his attention, his steady gaze. She wondered if this was a summer job for him, if he was a college student, maybe.  

The next morning, Gary suggested a day at the beach, but the kids hadn’t had their fill of the man-made offerings. Laura sided with the kids, the young ones promising their father they’d go to the ocean tomorrow. Laura participated in all the activities of the day: two rounds of mini golf, swimming in the pool, and whooping from the sidelines at the splash pad. The next morning when the promise of the beach day came to fruition and she claimed she’d had too much sun, she was met with much less resistance than she would have had she not been such a team player the day before.

“Why don’t we check out the tiki bar tonight?” Gary said. His sunburn was already peeling. “Let the kids watch a movie?”

            Laura patted his flaky shoulder as a consent. 

Her reading was interrupted mid-morning by her immediate neighbors on the blind side of the RV— an older couple from Arkansas who came creeping around the backside, knee socks and orthodontics. She politely suffered their questions about Toronto for twenty minutes, before grabbing her phone and claiming her family was expecting her at the beach. 

The RV park wasn’t a wealth of exploration, a bit of a low-end theme park. She avoided a padded, long-haired surfer mascot posing for photos. While empty deck chairs were available at the beach pool, the more adult-friendly of the attractions, Laura found herself back at the main building. The cheerful woman was elsewhere, the large room quiet and companionable. There was nowhere to sit. 

Through the window, Laura saw a motorcycle drive up, its driver helmetless. She watched Elijah dismount the bike and push it along the side of the building. She lost sight of him and before she could act, he walked in on her standing there, tethered to nothing. 

That intrinsic buoyancy reached his smile, and Laura found herself snagged into conversation, answering his follow-ups regarding the barbecue, and asking him questions she was surprised to hear herself ask. Motorcycles generally frightened her, yet she queried about his bike, how long he’d been riding. The sun blazed down on them as he showed it off, and even knowing next to nothing about motorcycles, she could see it was a basic model, not flashy or large. It was in good condition, well maintained.

He grew up in Galveston, graduated from university in Massachusetts this spring, worked summers here for his aunt and uncle; this would be the last, he hoped. He’d been to Canada – Montreal, British Columbia. She didn’t hear much of a Texas accent, figuring four years at a liberal arts school must have chased it from him. She asked him the questions a middle-aged mother would ask someone his age, she realized, not that thirty-nine was middle-aged. Well, maybe it was.

That evening, after several piña coladas at the tiki bar, the suggestion of Gary’s hand squeezing her waist instantly disappeared upon entering the RV and finding the kids passed out in separate beds. Laura went into the small bathroom and focused on herself in the mirror. She looked ruddy and sensual. Was this the face Elijah saw this morning, when he squinted against the sun’s brightness and kept eye contact as they spoke? A rotund shirtless man had stuck his head out the door and asked if they worked there, and Elijah hopped to his service. Laura had loitered, as Elijah shared propane filling options with the man. Her eyes roved the walls of surf-themed décor, until she caught her gaze lingering on the taut calves above Elijah’s sneakers. She slipped away when his back was turned, without a gesture of goodbye.

Despite a slight hangover, Laura read under an umbrella beside the lazy river the next day as Gary and the kids rejoined their fellow inexhaustible water lovers. A couple they’d met at the tiki bar, preposterously both named Kelly, waved at her from the water. In their early thirties and childless, Laura thought the RV park a strange choice for them, but being from Detroit, they were practically neighbors. The drinks had loosened Laura up. As the husbands loudly debated whether The Last of Us television show was as good as the game, Laura mentioned her barbecue rental to wife Kelly and how she wished the rentals extended to cars, even a scooter would do. The Kellys’ RV was a towing trailer that detached from their truck.

“You’re lucky. At least you can get away.”

“There’s nothing around here. This is the main attraction.”   

Laura looked up from her book when she thought she heard the rumble of a motorcycle just beneath the squeals and laughter from the lazy river, but she was too far from the road to see.

The next morning, Bridget insisted Laura come to the beach, and Laura agreed to meet them after lunch, saying she wanted to do some cleaning. 

She received a text from Gary twenty minutes later.

We talked about this.

Just after one o’clock, Laura pulled her cover up over her bathing suit, shoved her phone and a towel in a tote and walked through the rows of RVs toward the beach. A two-lane highway ran between the entrance of the park and the curved stone-paved path that led to the water. The clouds were fingers over the ocean, a blanket unraveling. She stood on the side of the road and stared at it as the intermittent car sped past.

The putter of the bike, then him. No shadows today. 

He looked across the road to the beach then back at her. 

“Want to go for a ride?”  

She noticed the different things, which were everything. The smell of the ocean in the thick air as they sped along the highway. The leanness of his torso. She was conscious of where to put her hands and ended up clasping them together in front of him. A tattoo peeked out from the neck of his t-shirt; a quote, it looked like, but she couldn’t read it as most of it was hidden.

Kelly had been right, there was nothing to see, the odd gas station and sparse housing. Water pooled in the ditches along the highway, and she wondered if it was on purpose or from flooding. She didn’t care enough to ask.  

Unexpectedly, they turned off the highway, the landscape closing in upon sprawling green lawns and multi-story pastel beach houses. Elijah steered them through a cove of sorts, houses lining a calm waterway, with boathouses nipping at the water’s edge. Laura realized most of the ground levels of the houses were little more than stilts propping up the main floors, a precaution for flooding.

They pulled into the driveway of a large three-story house at the end of a cul-de-sac and the bike rattled to a stop. They sat there a moment, her arms still encircling him, until she realized he was waiting for her to dismount first. He propped the bike on its kickstand and faced her with a smile, cocked his head in a gesture to come with him. They followed a row of Sabal palms around the back to a small, open boathouse on the edge of the water. Across the channel, similar structures sat adjacent to equally impressive houses, a wealthy and quiet community. 

Elijah stepped into the boathouse and toed off his sneakers, pulled his t-shirt over his head and tossed it, then dove into the water. Laura stood on the grass, watching him submerge and resurface several seconds later a good distance from the shore. 

“Coming in?” he called out.

She shook her head, not sure if he could see it. The boathouse had a roof but open sides, and she stepped into its shade, the water lapping in the boat slip. She sat on the edge and dangled her feet in the water. In past summers they’d stayed at Gary’s brother’s cottage on Lake Ontario, the water cold even in the heart of summer, the wood of the boat dock growing soft through the winters. Everything seemed sturdier here, grander.

And the salt. It covered her like a second skin.

Elijah swam back and pulled himself up, sitting beside her. 

“Whose house is this?”

“My parents’. They’re in L.A. visiting friends.”

It occurred to her for the first time that he might have expectations as to where this would go. He’d brought her to an empty house, was sitting beside her half naked, they had uninterrupted privacy, even here in the boathouse. She dropped her pretense of admiring the houses across the water and let her gaze wander to his legs, the smoothness of his shoulder. The tattoo she glimpsed on the bike ride was in full view, a large, detailed scroll in the center of his back just below his neck. Within the scroll a lengthy quote. She never understood the lure of tattoos; the scroll struck her as juvenile, something he may regret later in life. Elijah saw her looking and turned his back to her so she could see it better.

She was expecting something unfamiliar to her, borrowed from the sphere of the age he inhabited, and was surprised to find she recognized it, knew it well. From Kerouac’s On the Road. The quote about the mad ones. In university, there had been a professor she had been close to, had wanted to be closer to, but he was married. In his class they’d read Dostoevsky and Garcia Márquez, and she conflated her heady passions and her regard for him. At the end of the year, she gave him a copy of The Age of Innocence with the Kerouac quote painstakingly handwritten inside the cover, signed with her initials and a heart. It embarrassed her still to recall it.

The entire quote was there, taking residence under Elijah’s skin, concluding with the “Awww!”  She could say it by heart. 

“It’s from On the Road,” he began to explain.

She nodded. “I know it well.”  

A light in his eyes. Did he think she was one of the mad ones?

But then, maybe she was.

She leaned in and kissed him, his lips salty and responsive. He led her through the quiet house, upstairs to his room, dark and still adorned with the remnants of youth: a nicked street sign, a collector sword from a fantasy game. No, not youth. This was him.

She’d been his age when she married.

He made love like he’d had adequate practice, taking his time, with a marked interest in her pleasure, and she connected this bounty to his Americanness, her family the fee she would pay. 

When they exited the house, the sun was setting, the clouds a sharp blue in the yellowing sky. 

“I want to take a swim before we go back,” he said.

Laura stood on the slip while Elijah stripped down to his skin this time and dove in. She had messages, missed calls, but she dropped her phone back into her tote. 

In the shadows of the boathouse, she peeled off her bathing suit and jumped into the water. Lights began to flicker along the canal as she floated beneath the darkening sky. She lost track of Elijah as she let the current displace her from the shore, ready for the flood that would carry her away.