Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It. Maile Meloy

back for the marina with their hands. They could see a few stars through the haze. When they got back to the slip, Steven was starting to sober up. Acey left them to go pee off the end of the dock, and Rita said, “I’m sorry I got mad when you asked if I see my dad.”

      “That’s okay,” Steven said.

      “I don’t see him at all,” she said. “I don’t know where he is.”

      “I’m sorry.”

      “Do you remember him?”

      “A little.”

      “What do you remember?”

      “Not that much, really,” he said. “I just remember him picking you up at school. He seemed like a nice man.”

      She looked at him skeptically, and he pretended he was telling the truth. Then Acey came back, buttoning his jeans. He bear-hugged Rita, kissed her hair, and took her home.

      AFTER THAT, Acey was in love, and he couldn’t shut up about it. He talked about Rita all the time, how amazing she was, how unlike other girls. He did it at the plant, where people weren’t used to such happiness, and he made himself unwelcome. The married men only smiled and made jaded little jokes—Wait until the blowjobs run out—but the lonely ones found it intolerable. A raffle was held for a car someone needed to unload, with two packs of playing cards cut in half on the bandsaw, and Acey made a big show of buying a lot of tickets, and asking specifically for the heart face cards, so he could give the car and the winning card to Rita. There was open glee in the plant when he didn’t win.

      Even though Steven knew Acey was driving everyone nuts, and guessed there would be some attempt to take the Romeo down a notch, it still took him a minute to realize what was happening when a high, spooky voice came over the PA system one afternoon, filling the whole plant, calling, “Riii-ta, lovely Riii-ta!” Then it made a kissing noise and hung up.

      The guys around them were already laughing, and Steven saw knowledge dawning on Acey’s face. He thought he should have taken Acey aside long before and told him to keep his mouth shut.

      The high voice came again, asking, “Rita, where are you?” Then the kissing noise.

      Acey stalked to the closest paging phone, holding a wrench like a weapon, the guys still laughing behind him. No one was at the phone, of course. When Acey turned back with the wrench, he nearly bumped into a white hat, a liaison for the client. Normally someone saw the white hats coming soon enough for all the sleepers to get down off the scaffolding, but this one had appeared out of nowhere.

      “Who’s doing that voice?” the inspector asked Acey.

      “I don’t know,” he said.

      “Who’s Rita?” the white hat asked.

      Acey didn’t say anything. The guys didn’t, either.

      “Tell me,” the white hat said.

      “It’ll stop,” Acey said.

      “It better,” the man said.

      It did stop, until the next inspection. As soon as the white hat got there, the voice came over the loudspeaker again. “Riii-ta, darling Riii-ta!” And then the kissing noise. But by then it wasn’t really about Acey or Rita. It had turned into a way of baiting the inspector, who went to their foreman, Frank Mantini, to complain. Someone who was standing outside the office heard Mantini tell the inspector it was a harmless prank, the guys letting off steam.

      The white hat put a hundred-dollar bill on the foreman’s desk, according to the eavesdropper, and said, “It’s yours if you find out who’s doing this.”

      “I don’t want the money,” Frank said.

      “Find out anyway,” the white hat said.