My mother’s companion, a guy called Tom O’Brian, is the one who owns this hotel. Tom is only fifty-eight, and he loves taking these long private strolls up on the roof. Every so often he walks by the bar and goes: “What do you say, Wim? Time for our vodka and apple juice?” This has been our running gag for a while, ever since the time, seven years ago, that I threw up in the lobby. I didn’t mean it as a bad review of Tom O’Brian or anything: I just got dizzy riding the double-decker bus and misjudged the number of steps to the john. Now I reach under the counter, into the cooler, and hand Tom a beer. He has these really narrow shoulders; his jacket is corduroy, his jeans are light-colored, his boots are suede. We high-five before he goes, the way me and my high school buddies used to, showing off and a little tense. He built this whole tower eleven years ago, four years before he and my mother got together. She creates marketing campaigns for different age groups now; some of my friends even stay here in the spring. Not that I mind: I love Tom O’Brian, and this hotel. And my mother. She looks so elegant—and a little chilly, maybe—in her trim pantsuit and short hair.
Later, I ask how many of these people she has actually met. “Feels like thirty-eight percent,” she says, glancing around. It has been forty years since she came to Coby County and she has always been honest with herself, I think. I pour her a full glass of Pepsi, as she likes, then watch as her guests order the same few light mixed drinks. For some reason here lately, even Coby County’s veteran boozehounds have started drinking like newbies again. It is like young and old are being joined together in a circle of cocktail-based bonhomie. I don’t feel quite right, though, calling these people at the party “old.” “Fun-loving women and men in their late sixties” seems fairer. Lots of them must’ve come to Coby County in their twenties, like my parents did, to start production and publishing firms before they switched to concept restaurants. Gosh, I think, these same people, standing around looking dapper with their glassy eyes, might’ve been young avant-gardists once! And then, as if on cue, the drizzle turns into a downpour and a bunch of them stretch their arms up to the sky and start dancing. The way they move, it is like they are replaying old camcorder footage of their past rain dances. Drops run through my mother’s hair and into her face; she laughs and calls everybody into the bar, where I am still on duty. The space is covered by a tarp, and I listen to the rain hammering down while I restock the cooler with white wine. Soon the sound becomes more like hail; the tarp flaps in the storm. When I carry out the cooler a few minutes later, I see five seniors still out there dancing, soaked through. I nod. Strong storms like this are nothing new for early February, of course, and my mother is well prepared.
In room after room on the ninth floor, wet clothes are peeled off and hot baths are arranged. A few guests decide to make things extra fun and toss bubbles around. I stand barefoot in suite 914, feeling the heated tiles. Everything is ready: the tub full of steaming water, a champagne bucket nearby. Then the door swings open, and it is Joline Caulfield, the retired economics professor, with one of my mother’s drunk cousins. They give me a warm “hullo” before shedding their robes; I cinch up my trunks and suck in my little bit of belly. The cousin, whose name I forget, is buff with white hair on his chest; you can tell he is used to showing it off. He steps first into the oval tub, which is big enough to fit three people. “Is it too awkward with us?” Ms. Caulfield wants to know. I never took her classes but always heard good things, so I say: “Oh, come on!” Before long, with bubbles up to our shoulders and our legs threatening to touch, the champagne bottle starts making the rounds. I sit by the spigot, Caulfield to my left and the cousin on my right; if someone had brought three glasses, I wouldn’t have minded. My mother's voice hails us from the overhead speakers: she hopes everyone is feeling warm and cozy tonight and invites us to the lobby for a buffet. “What are your spring plans?” says Joline Caulfield, glugging more champagne. I stare at her black bikini straps. Coby County's older residents seem to think we young people melt down and reconstitute each year between March and May, as if that is when all life’s big changes happen. But then maybe Ms. Caulfield has just read too many magazine spreads about spring here, the kind that start: “It was already ten in the morning, but the young couple from Bristol couldn't get enough of dancing on the sand.” Followed by statistics that even the locals don’t totally buy, or descriptions that bleed into your own memories in weird ways.
I don’t like being a blank screen for an ex-teacher and some distant, ripped relative to project on, and so I say that I want to travel, “to see what spring is like someplace else.” I go quiet after that, watching the two of them sit there in the bubbles, thinking. They must suspect I am not a normal older-young person, or that their ideas about the young are out of date. The truth is, I am not going anywhere—I cannot wait for spring in Coby County, like everyone else. Joline Caulfield holds the champagne bottle over the steaming water; its surface is covered in condensation. I reach for it and drink, surprised the stuff is still fizzy. The cousin is the one who breaks the silence: “Don’t you think we should maybe get downstairs to that buffet soon?” His chest hair hangs in grayish strands as he pushes up from the tub; I watch him towel off and clap his hands once. When Ms. Caulfield and I get out, the water is still hot, and we rise almost exactly together.
*
Every year on Valentine’s Day, the movie theater on the boardwalk shows premieres. This year’s is a redux of The Haze over Coby County, with new footage and light color correction. Not a true premiere, then, but the scramble for tickets was still pretty intense. My agency got seven, and I took the two my boss left. I didn’t even ask my girlfriend Carla if she wanted to go—one, because she still has a bad cold, and two, she knows the Valentine’s premieres are me and my friend Wesley’s thing. The two of us have gone every year since the end of high school, first with the free tickets people sent our dads, then with our university passes. The Haze over Coby County is a critical documentary about the easy life all of us are living here; this young French director won the Special Jury Prize at Cannes with it two years back. Some people say she didn’t deserve it, but ever since the film made the rounds in European art houses, the average tourist showing up in the spring has gotten even hotter.
Wesley’s day job is giving tours at the Coby County Arthouse, the town’s priciest, most conservative museum. He and his co-workers have to wear these outfits that make them look like seamen, the kind from old picture books. Light-colored pullovers and navy-blue pants; on holidays, there is even a matching hat. Wesley refuses to wear the hat, saying uniforms are against his values. Whenever the subject comes up, it is like he is seventeen again, though in reality, he will be twenty-seven this May. I used to like the idea of staying a man-child at work, but Wesley’s act has been getting on my nerves lately, especially seeing how easy he has it. His hair is dark-blond and shoulder-length, and on hot days, when he’s reclining in a beach chair looking all bronzed in his suit, you could easily mistake him for a twenty-one-year-old male model. And I mean really, how much does a person like that have to complain about?
The seats in the movie theater have been redone in shiny crushed velvet. They are also gigantic and feel bad for your back. Wesley sinks way down into his; he has had a few beers by now. I put some ice cream candies on the armrest, and all around us I hear these rustling and crunching. Coby County’s young people are huge all-day micro-snackers, yet somehow, hardly anyone is overweight. Probably it is because we’re so into sports, I tell myself, as a cold square of candy dissolves on my tongue.
When the film starts, the audience bursts into drunken applause. The opening shot is of our beach: the sky is ice blue and looks like April; on the soundtrack all you hear is the sea. Then there is a quick cut to this crazy carnival in the industrial quarter, with girls and boys in their early twenties holding each other tight, dancing and hooting. Wesley whispers: “Right there! That was me! Did you see?” I don’t see him this time either, but I nod anyway. People in the audience recite the most well-known bits of the voiceover, like the line that goes: “Our dream is to one day sell ice cream on the Colemen Hills.” Each time this happens, we all laugh. Watching the credits roll after eighty-two minutes, a lot of the extras’ names look familiar. The room also feels warmer now, like everyone has bonded.
We all leave for the foyer, and my phone shows no new texts from Carla, who can still surprise me sometimes. Wesley is going on about the movie, and I quote: “Although the film only shows images of Coby County, it hints subtly at the wider world. That must explain why it’s such an international hit.” He sucks on a long drink the whole time, straw dangling from his mouth. I see no point in contradicting him.
Outside, it is really storming. Most of the premiere-goers flag down taxis, their coats and jackets flapping. “We should take the monorail like last time,” I tell Wesley. A good eighty percent of the city is visible from up there, and at night, the symmetry of the streetlamps is beautiful. Even when I was nine or eleven, the sight of them always calmed me down. But Wesley goes, “Um, no, I don’t really feel like riding that today. It’s way too windy.” Which makes zero sense, but since I don’t want to argue, I say, “Maybe you’re right.” Wesley’s always had a thing about the monorail, like it spooks him somehow. The official statistics show a total of three delays in seventeen years, and not once because of storms. Service lasts from eight until three in the morning, with added hours for spring, and the track above the city is high but super stable. Granted, tonight’s weather isn’t exactly normal for around here. I see people passing by with their hair completely wrecked; empty soda cans blow out of the trash. Wesley and I came to the movie on our old lady bikes, but there is no way we can ride them home now. We start walking into the wind instead, figuring the high buildings will help. In the industrial area, the snack bars and bistros we push past are still lit up, and couples sit facing each other at tables for two, ordering wine by the carafe and making sure to keep gazing into one another’s eyes. Coby County may be a year-round holiday spot, but not for Valentine’s Day. Sand swirls around our feet; the taste of it in our mouths just about makes us quit talking. That last long drink put Wesley in a quiet mood, anyway: on other nights like this, he’d be starting all sorts of overwrought conversations, like about how one-hundred percent honest sex is impossible or his fears of becoming a dad. But I suppose he has learned to control himself better now, and when he and I come to our usual intersection, we nod goodbye.
I reach my building and for just a second, I picture the sculpture that stands out front, on the median, being ripped from its base and killing me. The thing is shaped like a giant shampoo bottle; Colemen & Aura put it up. You can tell it doesn’t weigh much and is well fastened to the ground; the wind isn’t moving it at all. There is no real danger, anyway, since like every Colemen & Aura installation, this one has a foam core and is totally safe. I wheel my bike into the yard and chain it up.
After a few hours of sleep, I am on my balcony in just boxers. The wind has died out, and there are groups of guys and girls with light-colored uniforms and blue-wheeled bins combing the streets. They use these long grabbers to pick up what the storm left; the flat asphalt glistens in the early light. It is only then, standing there motionless on the third floor holding the rail, that I notice the hole in my usual view of the street: the giant shampoo bottle is gone. I decide that the workers must’ve taken it down to install the next sculpture in a few hours; probably it is all on some schedule somewhere. The empty spot still depresses me, though; I guess I’ll never learn. When I was little, riding around in my parents’ car, it always made me sad to see old billboard ads coming down and being replaced by new ones. My mother and father swore this was typical for a kid my age, that I was “perceiving my environment in a way that expressed a need for more structure.” Between you and me, though, I think I was a wet blanket even then. What those billboards showed me was time passing, how the days were going by, never to return. It was a simple kind of sadness: I could wrap myself in it like a warm comforter, right there in the back seat. The sort of feeling that doesn’t ask you for anything: harmless enough, I guess, but also pointless and paralyzing in the end. And now, for some reason, it was back. Down in the street, one of the workers looks up at me. Our eyes meet, then I disappear back into the living room.
*
On the seventeenth of February, just two weeks before spring, Wesley asks to meet at the fountain inside Colemen & Aura mall. He sounds weirdly subdued on WhatsApp, not like himself. It must be at least four years since I was at the mall—I used to go there all the time with my mother, to browse the best shoe stores. Inside, the place still feels nice and bright: the roof is all glass, hundreds and hundreds of these frosted tiles that let in the sunlight just so. In the winter months, when it gets dark before closing, spotlights are strategically positioned around, too, so that everyone’s bone structure still looks great in the shop windows. My mother really valued my opinions about footwear—they were always so well-argued, even when I was small. “No, buy the black ones,” I would say, “they are more elegant.” She would share her thoughts too, but I don’t ever remember her getting carried away over a pair of shoes. She would weigh each one’s quality, cost, and versatility, then make her final selections. At which point, I would be treated to a fish sandwich from one of the stalls in the food court. My favorite to this day is the hard roll with extra fish balls, the ones that taste just a little bit mealy.
The roof tiles over the fountain are clear instead of milky, and at this one certain time each day, the sun pours through them like a floodlight. I spot Wesley from a ways off, sitting on the fountain’s edge biting into a fish roll. I am jealous immediately but make sure not to show it. He offers me a bite, and first I say no, but then I reach for it anyway. The flavor is perfect—the thick layer of ketchup soaking through each of the balls—but I hand the sandwich back to him. “How’s it going?” I say, sitting down. Wesley's mousy blond hair is tucked behind his ears today. It looks like he’s been swimming in salt water but didn’t bother to wash or blow dry after.
“My mother called,” he says. “She’s not doing too good. Pretty bad, actually.”
“Does that mean she's coming back?”
Wesley shakes his head. “Nope. Not a chance. Actually, she says it’s us she is worried about. She does those trainings still, you know—and yeah, I know what you think, you don’t have to say it. Anyway, the other day she was working with some old home videos, the ones with us in them. She watched this one where we are like sixteen, I guess, and she swears she’s had a weird scene stuck in her head ever since.” Wesley is so deep into what he is saying that he puts down the fish roll. “It plays out the same way every time,” he goes on. “At first, she just sees me and you running along the beach. It is maybe dinnertime and we’re both wearing these baggy bomber jackets. We look almost like regular sixteen-year-old us, waving our arms all around and laughing, you know . . . and then all of a sudden, we just fall through the ground. She says it’s like the whole beach collapses under our feet, like the sand was piled on top of some rotten old dome. This plays in her head all the time now, every time she does a training. She told me she thinks something has gotten lost here in Coby County, that there is some kind of danger inside most of the people. It’s been growing for a while now, she says, but this spring it is gonna start revealing itself. Unless we get out now.”
I reach for the fish roll, still lying there between us, and say: “I guess you’ve considered your mom’s, uh, religious leanings, right? The whole neo-spiritualist thing?”
Wesley says: “Look, Wim, my mother lived here most of her life, just like you and me. She knows us and she knows this place, and she has never lied to me.”
The light outside the mall is way too bright now; I squint at it. A cream-colored taxi pulls up and Wesley hops in, waving. He rolls down the tinted window and calls out something, but I miss it and am not sure he notices. I watch the car take him away, then look down at my phone. Nothing from Carla. There is zero breeze today, not even a little one, but the far-off roar of the sea is loud and the sun sure is strong enough.
