Better Than Running at Night (6 page)

My lack of response encouraged him to continue. As if maybe I didn't get it yet.

"Wouldn't that be great? You could be a tree! I mean, you're close now, but you could be a
realistic
tree!"

"Yeah, a tree would be perfect," I said flatly, still staring at my easel.

He must have been insulted because he stopped talking. He was harder to tolerate without Sam there. Whenever Ralph got annoying I could always count on an eye roll from Sam.

Ralph gave up, and we both got sucked in by the display of cubes, spheres, and cones and our mission to convincingly remove pieces from them. For a long time my thoughts revolved around words like
space, line,
and
perspective.
Every once in a while Nate entered my mind and at those moments I wanted to be lying in bed
with him, to feel his breath on my neck. But I forced myself to concentrate on the assignment.

Then Ralph piped up again.

"Check it out, Ellie!" he cried. "This piece I just cut out looks
exactly
like Mickey Mouse, and I didn't even do it on purpose!"

"Oh, wonderful," I sighed.

I wanted to feel Nate's hair in my hands. And his lips on my ear. So much that my lines weren't coming out straight anymore. There were ghosts of about sixteen erased marks in one spot where my accuracy had failed. Standing there, looking at my drawing but not really seeing it, I knew it was time to escape the world of Ralph LaLande.

It seemed silly to go home and call before heading over, when I'd be passing his house on my way. And anyway, he'd asked for a surprise.

I ran straight to his apartment.

Nate was on the phone when I arrived. I waded through the fire hydrants and took a seat on his futon. He paced from the doorway to the stove to the night table and back to the doorway again. Each time he retraced his path he placed his feet in almost exactly the same spots as the time before, always avoiding the sculptures.

The radiator was banging.

"This isn't a good time," he said to the person on the other line.

Pause.

"No, no. Yes I want to, but not now."

Pause. The dim light flickered.

"No, look, I have a guest." He winked at me.

I leaned back and glued my eyes to the ceiling, to make it seem like I wasn't listening. The molding was tinged brown and the paint was peeling.

"Oh, come on."

Pause.

"Yeah, okay. Tomorrow. Bye. You too."

His hang-up bordered on a slam.

"Is something wrong?" I asked.

"No," he said. "It's just this old high school friend. We fight a lot."

The scar moved in unison with his mouth as he spoke.

The little men were hammering hard inside his radiator.

I wanted to shut it off.

Nate held out his hand, and I grabbed on with both of mine as he hoisted me up. His tight rocking squeeze molded me against his body. He put his lips on the hair that covered my ear and said, "I missed you. I know I just met you, but I missed you."

His fingers crept inside the back of my shirt, and I did the same to him. He kissed me long and slow, and before his lips left mine he reached behind my head and flipped the light switch off. In the dark, he began a new kiss and put his hands on my waist and gradually lifted my shirt. His hands were like parentheses around my
body, pushing my shirt up and continuing over my raised arms until they got to my fingertips. He tried to unhook my bra. After letting him fumble a little while, I did it for him.

I took his shirt off the same way he had removed mine.

We were still standing near the futon. He tackled me to the mattress.

His touches were like hot air blowing over my skin. But his kisses were rushed, like he was racing to some abstract finish line.

I reached around him and ran my fingers up and down his spine, slowing down for each bump along the way. Then I moved out to the sides. Over ribs, scapulas. I had always thought of backs as being flat, but there in the dark I couldn't find a single flat spot on it. My favorite part on him was the curve between his scapulas. They stuck out like handles, like they were meant for grabbing on to.

He planted kisses all over my face and landed on my nose. He bit it softly.

"Be crazy," he said, "make love to me."

"I don't love you and you don't love me," I answered. His face was barely visible, but I could see his eyebrows arching in upside-down smiles.

"That," he said, "is what makes it crazy."

"I don't know." I kissed his eyelids so he couldn't see I was nervous.

"Come on, Ellie. It'll be fun. I have condoms, if that's what you're worried about."

That was the only thing I was worried about, right? Protection and sobriety, that was it. Sobriety, just to make sure I really wanted
to do what I was doing. Maybe Nate didn't love me, but he seemed to
like
me a whole lot. I always told myself I had to do it with the right guy. Someone who would take it seriously, who wouldn't forget about me afterward. He seems like he could be the right guy, I thought.

I had to think fast because he was unzipping my jeans.

Almost all the girls I knew in high school had already lost their virginity. I guess it shouldn't have felt like such a big deal. This was the moment I'd wondered about and looked forward to for so long, but I'd imagined it unfolding differently. Slower.

Plus, how could I say no at this point? He'd think I didn't like him. Or maybe he wouldn't like me anymore.

I wriggled my legs to help him get my pants down and over my feet. He took care of removing the rest of my clothes and his.

He pulled the blankets over us and held me, both of us completely naked.

Once you're naked, there's no turning back, I thought.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"You sure?"

"Mmhmm."

He began and I followed his lead. At first he had trouble getting in. Then he ran his tongue over my neck and chest like he was drawing a maze, and it got easier. The beginning part felt all right. But the farther we went, the more it seemed like we were two incompatible machines that someone had experimentally hooked together and then pushed go. And his machine was definitely winning.

The pain was a weird kind of good pain. I wasn't sure if I wanted him to keep going or not, but at this point I felt like it was too late to tell him to stop.

It was over before I knew it. He rolled off me and onto his back and pulled me close so my head could rest on his chest. His heart was pounding against my face and he was sweating.

Then he sat up and ripped the blankets off the bed.

"What are you doing!" I said louder than I meant to.

"Stand up." He held his comforter out like a cape.

"Why?" I asked, curled up in a shivering ball.

"Just do it," he said, "and you'll be warm."

When I rose, he wrapped the blanket around me. Then he peeled a corner back and joined me in the cocoon. He took my hand and started for the door.

"Outside?" I asked, holding back.

But my feet kept moving because Nate and the blanket were pulling me.

"It's too hot in here," he said. "We need fresh air."

It wasn't as cold outside as I'd expected. But the ground was frosty and I walked on my toes. The sky was so light, the street lamps were irrelevant.

We sat on his front steps watching our smoke breath disappear into the night.

My feet snuck inside the blanket, leaving only my head exposed.

Then out of nowhere it began to snow. Hard.

"Is that
snow?
" Nate asked.

"Of course it's snow," I said. "What did you think it was?"

"I've never seen snow." He tilted his head back to let the quarter-size flakes fall in his mouth.

"SNOOOOOOWWW!" he yelled, leaping off the steps and dashing down the path, leaving me feeling very clothed in my blanket. It was coming down so heavily his hair was completely white, like a mammoth attack of dandruff. He ran back toward me, limbs flailing in all directions.

His arms and legs weren't the only parts of him that were flopping around.

"Let me in! Let me in!" he called in a crackly pubescent voice.

All of his muscles were well defined, like the diagrams in
Human Anatomy for Artists.

I stood and opened up a side for him. He shook out his snow-covered hair, spraying me in the face. I was about to play-slap him, but he had wrapped himself around me, and I was paralyzed by his freezing wetness.

He pulled me, arm around my waist, to the path, which was quickly fading to white. My feet stung so much I could hardly feel them, had no control over which direction they were going. Nate ran us into the wooded area, weaving between trees. Well, we were half running, half hopping because of all the rocks and fallen branches. He was whooping and I was laughing. Twigs snapped beneath my feet. He brought us back around to the house, but instead of going up the steps, he pushed me against the brick building. He pinned me with his pelvis and leaned his head back to catch a mouthful of snow.

Then he snow-kissed me. His mouth was gentle and cold, and he rolled his tongue around mine while the snow melted in my mouth.

It was so silent, we seemed to be surrounded by the absence of sound, as if the freshly falling flakes absorbed everything audible.

The snow was dying down and I really thought I might not have feet anymore. Nate marched us back inside to warmth and dry blankets.

It was so dark when the alarm started screeching, I couldn't believe it was morning. Rain had pounded the snow out of sight. I didn't want to move, become separate from the bed. But if I didn't get up soon, I'd be late for class. No, I was already late. There wasn't time to go home and change. I'd have to make my second appearance as a tree. I'd tell Ralph my clothes didn't dry in the dryer last night.

I told Nate we had to get up, but he rolled onto his stomach and pulled the covers over his head like a snail being poked. He could stay there, but a teacher notices when one of three is missing.

There was so much rain flowing on the pavement, the sewers couldn't suck it up fast enough. People rushed through the waterfall streets, their drawing boards in huge plastic bags. Luckily, my class was allowed to leave our stuff on racks in the room.

At first my coat saved only my upper half, and served as a slide for the rain to land on my thighs. Passing vehicles seemed to take pleasure in splashing cold slushy puddles against my side. The water had soaked through my jacket by the time I got to the Garage.

Ralph and Sam had already pinned their drawings on the wall.

"Welcome, Ellie!" Ed shouted. "You are just in time for our first crit! I was telling Sam, here, that I was hoping you weren't sick."

He wasn't even being sarcastic.

I hung my drawing with the others.

"Look at the shapes, the negative space! Your progress is astounding!" Ed raced back and forth in front of our pieces.

He went on, analyzing each one individually. But my heavy head was bobbing as if my neck was made of rubber and couldn't support the weight of my brain. What I caught of Ed's crit sounded something like, "Rendered blah blah can you see how the planes and the angle with the blah blah blah captured perspective oh look at blah blah to the vanishing point! And blah blah BLAH, what do you think, Ellie?"

That was my name.

He still looked just as excited as ever.

I recrossed my legs in the other direction and looked from drawing to drawing, first taking in the picture as a whole, then focusing on the details. I scrunched my face up, hoping to appear as if I was considering everything he'd been discussing, rather than figuring out what he was asking. "Hey, guys, guess where my virginity is! I left it back at Nate Finerman's house!" was all that came to my head.

"I think ... he cut the shapes out very convincingly," I said.

"Yes. Yes! Didn't he? You wouldn't know they were whole to begin with! Good job, Ralph!"

And so the morning went. Luckily he didn't ask me any more questions. At least not in front of Ralph and Sam.

On a break, Ed asked me if I was feeling okay. "There's something a little un-Ellie about you today," he said.

"I'm fine," I told him. "I just didn't sleep much last night."

"That'll do it," Ed said, a little quieter than usual. "When I have trouble sleeping, I drink a mug of hot milk. I can't work without enough sleep. Try milk next time." Then he turned to the rest of the class. "Everybody!" he announced. "Let's take lunch!"

I wondered if Nate had gone to class. Maybe I should go to the painting building and get him to have lunch with me, I thought. No, the next time I see him we should have some privacy. Plus, we'd need time to talk.

Instead of finding Nate, I went to the dining hall with Ralph and Sam.

When we returned, Ed had set up a still life with fruit and bottles that he had painted in varied tones of gray for our practice. Even the apple was gray. At least we were on our way to drawing real things. It seemed ridiculous to me that I couldn't be painting like Nate, or at least drawing people.