As a Thief in the Night (31 page)

"Oh, it's nothing."

"You cry for nothing?"

"Sometimes. What are you working on?" She pulled the piece of paper closer to her.

"It's Jean Grey. She's a character from
X-Men
."

"What's all the fire for?"

"Well she's Jean Grey, but she's also Pheonix. She doesn't really know that yet though."

She told Gord when he came home from work that night. He was proud and happy and then later, when he was alone, afraid that things would not work out again. He knew that she would not recover if another child was lost. Elsie waited six weeks then told Ezra and Layne and her sisters. She had a feeling it would be a girl.

For Thanksgiving weekend Olyvia came with Ariadne. Little Marty, who was ten years old now, had Mononucleosis, so Sarah stayed in Walpurgis to look after him. On Friday the two women came to watch Ezra's football game, and afterward Olyvia kissed and hugged him and told him he looked like a man. This was the first time he was formally introduced to Ariadne. She had been at the London game with Olyvia, but he had not met her or seen her up close. But now he had a hard time looking at anyone else, no matter who was talking to him. Her family was from Peru, but she was half Chinese. Her hair was long and straight and she had beautiful legs. Olyvia laughed when she saw the way Ezra was staring at her, and the two of them waited around for him to shower and change and then drove him home.

After dinner Olyvia asked him how the summer had been and what he had thought of his grandfather. Ezra told her that the old man had been cold and ignored him, but he talked to her too about the time they had spent boxing together and about how much he had liked Nectario and Ruiz and the other workers.

"There is something very beautiful about them, isn't there?" Olyvia said.

"I learned a little on the Spanish guitar from one of them."

"And did he tell you what they believe about the Spanish guitar?"

"He said that they believe a man plays the Spanish guitar in the same way that he touches women," Ezra said through a suppressed smile.

"Yes, yes," she said fondly, as if she had just remembered something from long ago. "That was why Picasso was always painting them. Have you seen many of Picasso's paintings?"

"I don't think so."

"The marvelous painting that I've always had above my bed, The Saltimbanques, is a Picasso."

"The one with the guy with the diamond shapes all over his outfit?"

"He's the harlequin." Olyvia took a sip of her tea. "Elsie told me that you've begun to write."

"A little."

"What are you writing?"

"Poems mostly...and a short story," he said.

"That's wonderful, Ezra. Will you let me read them?"

"If you want, but I don't know if they're any good. No one else has seen them yet."

"Then I'll be the first."

Everyone stayed up late talking; he could tell they were all very excited about Elsie being pregnant, even though no one spoke out loud about it, as if it were something so precious and fragile that words could have done it harm. It was odd for him to see Olyvia and Ariadne holding hands and touching each other affectionately. The way they were with each other reminded him as much of the relationship between a teacher and a student as between two women in love.  Several times throughout the evening, when such gestures were made, Layne looked at him with a look on his face like he was about to break into hysterics. Ezra scorned him and then took pride in his own openness and maturity. Before he went to bed he gave Olyvia his notebooks, one with the rough draft of his short story and the other with the poems, beginning with the ones he had done during his last days at his grandfather's vineyard. He passed them over nervously, but the way she took them and thanked him for letting her read them made him feel better.

That Saturday their chance finally came. He and Lila would finally have an empty house.  Her parents were going to Michigan to visit family for the weekend, and she would have the place to herself. That night there was a party. One of their friends had parents who were also absent, and that friend had decided to take advantage of his family's absence in a different way than the young couple had. Ezra was to meet Lila at her house at four o'clock, and they would go to the party later that night. He wondered if his friends would be able to tell that he was different when they looked at him. He wondered if he would be different...

Gord and Elsie were going to an event that Gord's company was holding, so Olyvia and Ariadne were staying home with Layne and watching movies. Elsie left early in the day to buy a new dress. All of her old ones were now tight around her growing belly. Ezra was glad he would not have to say goodbye to her before he left. Of all the people in the world, she knew him best, and he was afraid she would be able to sense what his intentions were for that evening. He showered and made sure he had condoms and then called Nick Carraway to pick him up. Although Nick was a year younger than Ezra, he had gotten his driver's license first. When there was anywhere to go, they always went in his parents little two-door Chevy.

Ezra was nervous as he stood outside her door, and he waited for Nick to drive away before he rang the doorbell.  Wet leaves blanketed the yard and it was a little cold outside. He stood there waiting but no one answered. Not sure if the bell was working, he pushed it again and put his ear to the door to see if he heard anything inside. Nothing. He knocked, put his hand over his eyes, and then looked inside through the entrance window to see if anyone was about. The stairs on the other side of the glass were dark and there was a pile of shoes by the door. He pulled away and knocked harder, but no one came. Thinking Nick's car might still be close, he walked back to the road in hope of being able to wave him back.

"Ezra!" he heard her yell. He looked back and saw her in one of the second floor windows.

"Hey, why didn't you answer the door?"

"Sorry, I fell asleep. One minute." She disappeared from the window then opened the front door. She kissed him in the entrance before he could even take off his shoes. When he held her she felt warm and sleepy.

She led him downstairs and turned on the television. For a while they sat together on the couch and she held his hand and leaned against him. They watched Saturday afternoon reruns of
Growing Pains
and
The Fresh Prince of Bel Air
. Ezra barely paid attention to the television. He sat there wondering if she could feel the tension under his skin, and thought about how it was all going to happen. After an hour or so he turned to kiss her and they slowly fell back onto the sofa together. Ezra put his hand on her breast and she pulled him closer. They pushed against each other as if they were having sex. In the background the dubbed in laughter from the sitcom droned. Lila ran the tip of her tongue along the front of his teeth and gums. He found it strange but exciting and reached under her shirt and bra. The couch cushions were in the way so she pulled them out from under her and threw them onto the floor. Ezra pushed her shirt up and she lifted up her arms so he could take it off. Her warm breath pressed against his ear. The dark skin of her exposed stomach and chest heaved and flushed.

"Do you want to come upstairs with me?" she whispered.

"Yes."

She stood in front of him, half naked, her breasts falling, and held her hand out to him.
  He took it and pulled her in close to kiss her smooth stomach. Pulling him gently behind her, she took him up the stairs. The lines and shape of her back looked beautiful to him and he stopped to caress it.

Lila turned the lights down to a glow in her bedroom, and he lay down upon the unmade bed. She searched through a pile of tapes on her dresser, found what she was looking for, and put it in her stereo.

"What are you putting in?" he asked from below her.

"Soundgarden."

But it wasn't Soundgarden. He recognized it as soon as he heard the first few notes of the introduction. It was
Ten
, the same album he had come to know so well that summer. 

"This isn't Soundgarden."

"It isn't?"

"No, it's Pearl Jam."

She smiled at him.

Cars went by outside the open window and he could hear people talking in one of the neighbor's yards. Ezra held her under her ribs and pushed her further up on top of him so that he could put his mouth on her breasts.

I admit it...what's to say

I'll relive it...without pain

Backseat lover on the side of the road

I got a bomb in my temple

and it's gonna explode

I got a sixteen gauge buried under my clothes...I play...

The music drowned out the voices coming from outside. He was not sure if he should take off his own shirt or if he should wait for her to do it. But it didn't go either way. She moved down his body and undid his pants and took him in her mouth. At first he thought he would come right away, but then he remembered Nick Carraway's advice: to think of mathematics problems, new clothes, and their family studies teacher Mrs. Kerr when the moment threatened to overwhelm him, and he held out. Lila finally pushed his shirt up and he pulled it over his head and threw it onto the floor. Soon she stopped and he turned her over and unbuttoned her pants. He kissed her desperately now and slid his hand down the front of her panties. Then his fingers were inside her. Holding her tightly, he pushed up between her legs and she cried out, the pitch of her voice sharp and needy. After a few minutes of this she stood up fast and took her pants all the way off.

"Do you have a condom?"

"In my pocket." He reached down for his pants and pulled it out. It was dark and his fingers were wet so he had a hard time opening the package. She lay underneath him, still and with her legs open.

"What's wrong?" she asked as he fumbled around.

"I can't see what I'm doing."

"Go put it on the bathroom. Hurry."

He walked quickly into the hallway. The bathroom was right across from her bedroom and he went inside without bothering to shut the door behind him. There was blood all over his hands. It had run down his wrists and forearms, dried in some places and was still wet in others.  In a panic, he put the condom down on the sink and, standing there naked in front of the mirror, tried to wash off the blood. "Of course," he thought, "things can't just go normally for me. Something has to go wrong." He didn't know what to do. Should he just go back into her room and do it like he had never noticed? He didn't want to embarrass her or make her feel awkward.  But surely she must already know? Or maybe it was something that normally happened but that no one ever talked about. Moving fast he took the wrapper off the condom and tried to roll it on to his softening penis.

"Lila," he called out to her quietly, stepping back into the bedroom.

"What's taking so long? What's wrong?" she asked.  She had the covers pulled up over her now.

"Nothing's wrong... Do you know you're bleeding?"

"I am?"

"Yeah. Is it time to start your period?"

"No..." She paused for a moment. "I just bleed like that sometimes."

He was confused. "You mean for no reason?"

"Yeah, just every once in a while."

"You don't know why?"

"No. Do you want to stop?"

"No, I mean...I don't want to. But I think we better." He felt awkward.

"Okay," she said from under the blankets.

Moving towards her, he said,. "Let me lie with you?"

"Sure," she answered softly.

Ezra got into bed and put his arms around her. They lay there, young and naked, against one another, both anxious over what had happened, but neither talked about it again.

I see the words

On a rocking horse of time

I see the verse in the rain

Ezra came home early from the party. Gord and Elsie were not home yet and Olyvia and Ariadne were sitting on the couch watching a movie. The room was dark, except for a couple of black candles that were lit on the coffee table. Ariadne had her head in Olyvia's lap and seemed to be nodding in and out of sleep as Olyvia stroked her hair. He asked where Layne was and Olyvia told him that he had already gone to bed. The sound of a new voice in the room stirred Ariadne out of her half-sleep. She stretched, cat-like and supple, over Olyvia's legs. Ezra wanted to go to his bedroom and be alone, or sleep, so when his aunt started asking him questions about where he had been and whether or not he had enjoyed himself, he was short and dismissive. He thought about asking her if she had read his poems and short story but then decided against it. At the moment he just didn't care.

Glad to be alone in his room, he undressed, threw his clothes onto the floor as if they had been a punishment he had been bound in on some long journey, and got into his bed. He had not had enough alcohol at the party to make him drunk, but lying flat on his back and staring at the ceiling, the room spun a little.