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he have special SeaWorld handcuffs? Like, are they shaped like two curved
dolphins coming together?
“We were just on our way out, actually,” said Margo.
“Well, that’s certain,” the man said. “The question is whether you walkin’ out
or gettin’ driven out by the Orange County sheriff.”
“If it’s all the same to you,” Margo said, “we’d rather walk.” I shut my eyes.
This, I wanted to tell Margo, was no time for snappy comebacks. But the man
laughed.
“You know a man got kilt here a couple years ago jumping in the big tank,
and they told us we cain’t never let anybody go if they break in, no matter if
they’re pretty.” Margo pulled her shirt out so it wouldn’t look so clingy. And
only then did I realize he was talking to her breasts.
“Well, then I guess you have to arrest us.”
“But that’s the thing. I’m ’bout to get off and go home and have a beer and
get some sleep, and if I call the police they’ll take their sweet time in coming.
I’m just thinkin’ out loud here,” he said, and then Margo raised her eyes in
recognition. She wiggled a hand into a wet pocket and pulled out one moat-
water-soaked hundred-dollar bill.
The guard said, “Well, y’all best be getting on now. If I were you, I wouldn’t
walk out past the whale tank. It’s got all-night security cameras all ’round it, and
we wouldn’t want anyone to know y’all was here.”
“Yessir,” Margo said demurely, and with that the man walked off into the
darkness. “Man,” Margo mumbled as the guy walked away, “I really didn’t want
to pay that perv. But, oh well. Money’s for spendin’.” I could barely even hear
her; the only thing happening was the relief shivering out of my skin. This raw
pleasure was worth all the worry that preceded it.
“Thank God he’s not turning us in,” I said.
Margo didn’t respond. She was staring past me, her eyes squinting almost
closed. “I felt this exact same way when I got into Universal Studios,” she said
after a moment. “It’s kind of cool and everything, but there’s nothing much to
see. The rides aren’t working. Everything cool is locked up. Most of the animals
are put into different tanks at night.” She turned her head and appraised the
SeaWorld we could see. “I guess the pleasure isn’t being inside.”
“What’s the pleasure?” I asked.

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“Planning, I guess. I don’t know. Doing stuff never feels as good as you hope
it will feel.”
“This feels pretty good to me,” I confessed. “Even if there isn’t anything to
see.” I sat down on a park bench, and she joined me. We were both looking out
at the seal tank, but it contained no seals, just an unoccupied island with rocky
outcroppings made of plastic. I could smell her next to me, the sweat and the
algae from the moat, her shampoo like lilacs, and the smell of her skin like
crushed almonds.
I felt tired for the first time, and I thought of us lying down on some grassy
patch of SeaWorld together, me on my back and she on her side with her arm
draped against me, her head on my shoulder, facing me. Not doing anything—
just lying there together beneath the sky, the night here so well lit that it drowns
out the stars. And maybe I could feel her breathe against my neck, and maybe
we could just stay there until morning and then the people would walk past as
they came into the park, and they would see us and think that we were tourists,
too, and we could just disappear into them.
But no. There was one-eyebrowed Chuck to see, and Ben to tell the story to,
and classes and the band room and Duke and the future.
“Q,” Margo said.
I looked up at her, and for a moment I didn’t know why she’d said my name,
but then I snapped out of my half-sleep. And I heard it. The Muzak from the
speakers had been turned up, only it wasn’t Muzak anymore—it was real music.
This old, jazzy song my dad likes called “Stars Fell on Alabama.” Even through
the tinny speakers you could hear that whoever was singing it could sing a
thousand goddamned notes at once.
And I felt the unbroken line of me and of her stretching back from our cribs
to the dead guy to acquaintanceship to now. And I wanted to tell her that the
pleasure for me wasn’t planning or doing or leaving; the pleasure was in seeing
our strings cross and separate and then come back together—but that seemed too
cheesy to say, and anyway, she was standing up.
Margo’s blue blue eyes blinked and she looked impossibly beautiful right
then, her jeans wet against her legs, her face shining in the gray light.
I stood up and reached out my hand and said, “May I have this dance?”
Margo curtsied, gave me her hand, and said, “You may,” and then my hand was
on the curve between her waist and her hip, and her hand was on my shoulder.
And then step-step-sidestep, step-step-sidestep. We fox-trotted all the way
around the seal tank, and still the song kept going on about the stars falling.

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“Sixth-grade slow dance,” Margo announced, and we switched positions, her
hands on my shoulders and mine on her hips, elbows locked, two feet between
us. And then we fox-trotted some more, until the song ended. I stepped forward
and dipped Margo, just as they’d taught us to do at Crown School of Dance. She
raised one leg and gave me all her weight as I dipped her. She either trusted me
or wanted to fall.

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