Megan Roberts

Enough

Mikey talked our way into a 2004 Palm Aire RV for only ten grand. We agreed it was better to live cheap and free for a long time than to buy big and have to work again. However, the Palm Aire is fully loaded with a queen bed, oak cabinets, a linoleum kitchenette, and a kitchen table that turns into a twin bed. I’ve realized I don’t mind living in close quarters either. When you live this close to somebody there can’t be secrets. That’s why Mikey and me, we get along so well. Lord, I know every time he takes a shit, calls his mama, or drinks the last beer.

We just finished attaching a deck to the Palm Aire. Howard and Debbie, our neighbors, get mad because we sit out there all hours drinking mango margaritas and Coors Light. Only they never say nothing, just bang around more than usual or come out and pretend to be doing yard work when they just want to give us the evil eye. How much yard work can you do on a little Rockwood folding camper?

We got the money for the Palm Aire -- that’s what Mikey insists we call it, instead of just RV or travel trailer. I admit it does sound nice, like a beach town in Florida. So, we got the money for the Palm Aire from Mikey’s uncle who passed away of heart failure earlier this year. Mikey says he died from too many fast women and thick rib eye steaks. Mikey says when he was growing up Uncle Ralph always had a wad of cash. Uncle Ralph would let him close his eyes and pick a bill; most times it was a one, but one time it was a crisp hundred. Uncle Ralph owned all this land up in Duck, North Carolina before there were even roads to get to it. He just bought a bunch of sand. By the time he died, he owned and rented four houses on the beach, but he never had any kids of his own, never married. I don’t feel sorry for him though -- he always had a woman. Money will do that for a man. Mikey got a call about four months back saying Uncle Ralph had died and left him one of the houses. Mikey hadn’t seen his uncle in five years, not since he met me bartending.

Back then, Mikey had just been honorably discharged. He was stationed in Iraq, where he got shot in the hand. He can’t fully close it, can’t touch his fingers to his palm. If a soldier can’t shoot, the marines don’t have much use for him. He was just passing through Emerald Isle -- that’s what most of them do -- looking for tan girls on vacation. He was muscular and timid, not sure what to order. I put a Coors Light in front of him. You can tell the soldiers are sick of making decisions. I think most relationships are all timing -- he needed some kind of normalcy, and I was coming off a bad breakup with a hard man. We’ve been like Coronas and limes ever since. Mikey bounced and I bartended. We got along just fine, but money was tight after the tourists left every year.

Duck is the kind of town with women who wear tennis skirts and children with matching Vera Bradley purses and book bags. Everyone has a $500 cruiser bike and everyone’s daddy has the word doctor in front of his name. Mikey and I knew we couldn’t live in a place like that before we even laid eyes on the house. However, the house was something to see -- a yellow three-story beachfront mansion with an elevator, movie theater, pool, two kitchens, pool table, and six bedrooms with ocean views. A week later we’d sold the thing and I still get nervous talking about how much money we got. It’s like when I say it out loud somebody might be able to take it away.

Today I passed out on the beach. Mikey and I freeze mango nectar from a can, and then we blend it with tequila in our mixer. It makes the best margaritas you’ve ever tasted. I passed out in the sun and woke with the worst case of sunburn I’ve ever had. Just walking up the steps and to the trailer was a chore. Mikey winced when he saw me. I peeled off my bathing suit real careful like Mikey will peel my sunburnt skin in a few days. He lathered aloe all over me, then turned the fan to oscillating. Now I’m lying on the queen bed naked, covered in green slime, letting the cool air tease me. Mikey stands over me and says I’m getting the bedspread all aloed-up, but I can tell he doesn’t care by the way his forehead looks. He walks out and comes back with two Coors Lights, one under his armpit -- the other he pops open with his good hand.

He sits beside me on the bed, puts the beer to my lips and tilts it just enough to fill my mouth. The coolness of the aluminum can is as good as any blessing. He lies down, but doesn’t touch my fragile fiery skin. We talk about dinner plans and whether to eat broccoli and macaroni or fish sticks and green beans for dinner. We decide on both. I lie in the back room for a nap and fall asleep to the noises of Mikey pulling out pans, his bare feet against the linoleum, and the beep of the new microwave, like a steady reminder of having enough.

Megan Roberts is in the last year of her Masters program in English at East Carolina University. She spends her time writing and working with freshmen students in The First Year Writing Studio. During summer, she lived in Emerald Isle, NC, which inspired this story.