Dust Devil (12 page)

Condoms.
He was talking about condoms, Sarah realized. More than once, she had
overheard the boys at Lincoln High School cracking jokes about them.
Trojan was a popular brand, and as a result, several of the boys
called themselves the “Trojan warriors.” While she
appreciated the fact that Renzo hadn’t intended to use her
heedlessly, without any thought or care about whether she would
suffer any consequences from the act, that he had come prepared to
safeguard her reminded her that, unlike her, he had undoubtedly done
this before. The knowledge stung, wounded her in a way she would not
have thought possible until now.

“
I
guess you’ve protected a lot of other girls, too, haven’t
you?” she said, her soft voice filled with hurt and accusation.

At
that, with a snarl, Renzo rolled off her, sitting up and removing the
pack of Marlboros twisted up in one sleeve of his T-shirt. Angrily,
he shook out a cigarette and lit it, dragging on it deeply, while
Sarah, fighting to hold at bay the sudden tears that brimmed in her
eyes, fumbled to draw up the straps of her sundress to cover her bare
breasts, now embarrassed and ashamed that she had let Renzo see them
and fondle them so freely. No wonder he had thought he could have
her, that she would be an easy lay. She had done nothing to make him
think otherwise. Instead, she had practically thrown herself at his
feet, had encouraged him from the start by asking him to kiss her.
Both her sundress and Renzo’s jeans were smeared with chocolate
icing, she noted dully, as though the two of them had been wallowing
in mud. The piece of cake on her napkin was squashed and crumbled, a
victim, no doubt, of his pressing her down upon the floor of the tree
house.

“
Damn
it, Sarah!” Renzo spoke at last, breaking the tense, uneasy,
awkward silence that had fallen between them. “I don’t
have to answer to you for anything I’ve done in my past.”

“
I
didn’t say you did.”

“
No—but
you might as well have. So, yes, I’ve had other girls. Is that
what you wanted to know? Well, now you
do
know.
But, Christ, what in the hell else did you expect? That I’d
hang around forever, waiting for you to grow up? I’m a man, not
a monk, damn it! Still, that doesn’t mean those other girls
meant anything to me, because they didn’t. You’re the
only one who’s ever mattered to me, Sarah—and you’re
a fool if you don’t know that!”

Despite
everything, she was in her heart secretly gladdened and thrilled by
his words. “Do I? Matter to you, Renzo, I mean? Really and
truly matter?”

“
Oh,
Sarah, of course you do.” His hard face and tone softened. His
dark eyes turned tender as he glanced at her. “I love you. I’ve
always loved you. Don’t you know that? That’s why I want
you so badly. I want to know you’re mine, only mine, that you
belong to me and nobody else.” “You don’t have to
worry about that, Renzo,” she assured him quietly. “There’s
no one else. Mama and Daddy are quite strict, you know. I couldn’t
even date, really, until now... just outings with groups of boys and
girls, not even double dates. And the only guy who’s asked me
out anyway is Junior Barlow—and I’m not interested in
him. I’m not interested in anybody but you, Renzo. It’s
you I love, only you. I’ve loved you ever since I was a child,
I think. You must know that. Somehow I feel as though we’ve
always been intended for each other.”

“
That’s
because it’s true. It’s always been you and me against
the world. Here.” He slowly withdrew the gold, high-school
class ring from his finger, sliding it firmly onto her own. “I
want you to have this, for us to go steady. I don’t want you
seeing other guys—and now that you’ve cut your hair,
you’re so grown-up and beautiful that they’ll be lined up
around the block to take you out.”

Sarah
smiled shyly, blushing with pleasure at his compliment and
possessiveness as she gazed down at his class ring, her heart
hammering at all it symbolized. It was the first step in a coveted
trio:
class
ring, engagement ring, wedding ring.
It
was heavy and too big for her finger, and Daddy would hit the roof if
he even suspected she was going steady, especially with a college boy
like Renzo Cassavettes. But she had a gold chain at home, in her
jewelry box. She’d put the ring on that and wear it around her
neck, so it lay concealed beneath her clothes, between her breasts
and against her heart, thrilling and treasured, tangible proof of
Renzo’s love for her.

“
You
didn’t need to give me this to make sure of me, Renzo.”
She touched hi;s class ring reverently, as though scarcely daring to
believe it was real, that he had placed it on her finger. “Evie
Holbrooke’s the one with boyfriends from one end of town to the
other. But I don’t mind, so long as I have you. Does this mean
you’ll take me to the junior-senior prom?”

“
Well...
I’d
like
to,
Sarah. Really, I would. And I’ll be there, so you won’t
be alone. But I probably won’t have much time to spend with
you,” Renzo confessed. “And I’m sorry for that. But
you see, the high school’s hired Hard Road to play that night.”

Hard
Road was the band Renzo and some of his college chums had put
together to earn extra money on Friday and Saturday nights. Nearly a
decade after he had taken it up, he knew now how to make his
saxophone wail like that of a young jazz great. He was at once the
creative Coleman Hawkins, the fluid Benny Carter, the toneful Johnny
Hodges, the tragic Lester Young, the lyrical Ben Webster, the
hypnotic Paul Desmond—and none of them. For Renzo had a style
and grace all his own, one garnered from listening for hours on end
to jazz, blues and rock and roll as performed by the masters. Because
she had heard him play it, Sarah knew he did a version of “Take
Five” that was to die for, so sensuous and sultry that it
seemed to crawl inside her very skin, making her think of hot summer
nights and cool white sheets and lying all tangled and sweaty with a
lover, with Renzo.

She
swallowed her disappointment. It was better, really, that he couldn’t
officially escort her to the prom, she told herself. Daddy would most
certainly have had a conniption fit and forbidden her to attend with
Renzo, anyway.

“
It’s
all right,” she said softly. “I understand. I know you
need the money, Renzo. But you’ll at least dance with me once,
won’t you?”

“
Count
on it.”

They
ate the chocolate cake then, washing up in the creek afterward, Sarah
using an old rag from the tree house to scrub the icing stains from
her sundress, so her parents wouldn’t suspect she had been
fooling around with some boy. It wasn’t that she didn’t
want to tell them about Renzo. It was just that, somehow, she never
had. Daddy was so obstinate about what was proper for a young lady
standing on the threshold of womanhood, and Mama was so apprehensive
about what could happen to an innocent, unsuspecting girl these days,
that Sarah had always told herself there was no point in angering and
worrying her parents over nothing. After all, she had known Renzo all
her life. He would never do anything to hurt her. Hadn’t he
proved that to her this very afternoon?

She
sang gaily to herself all the way home, a ballad about falling in
love, Renzo’s ring tucked carefully in her pocket, the secret
love they shared tucked just as securely in her heart. She would
never forget this day, she thought as she danced and whirled along,
hugging herself tightly, exhilarated. She was in love—and the
boy she loved loved her. It was a wonderful, glorious day, the first
day of the rest of her life.

The
first day of forever and ever.

Beautiful
dreamer, wake unto me,

Starlight
and dewdrop are waiting for thee.

Beautiful
Dreamer

—
Stephen
Collins Foster

The
theme that night of the Lincoln High School junior-senior prom was
“Stardust,” and the gymnasium, which normally hosted
basketball and volleyball games, had been transformed accordingly.
When Sarah spied it through the open doors from the linoleum-tiled
hallway beyond, her breath caught in her throat at the sight. It was
beautiful. Magical. The students in the art classes had worked for
weeks on the decorations, and it showed.

Myriad
silver stars, big and small, suspended on thin silver wires, dangled
from the ceiling, from the center of which also hung a shining mirror
ball. Gossamer lengths of white fabric twined with silver streamers
and sprinkled with tinier silver stars draped three cinder-block
walls.

Circular
tables erected around the gymnasium were covered with stark white
cloths strewn with silver glitter. At the heart of each sat a crystal
vase filled with flowers and balloons and surrounded by crystal
votives in which candles glowed. Between the tables stood tall,
silver-painted replicas of old-fashioned streetlights, candles
burning in their lamps, their posts bearing street signs with frames
like Blue Moon Boulevard, Milky Way, and Starlight Lane. Above the
bandstand constructed at one end of the gymnasium, where Hard Road
was now testing and tuning their musical equipment, hung a huge,
silver crescent moon on which a stuffed version of the Lincoln High
School mascot, Dandy, the Lincoln Lion, perched whimsically,
appearing to swing against a night sky formed by the black curtain
that ran the length of the wall. At the opposite end of the
gymnasium, long tables set end-to-end boasted a starry ice-sculpture
centerpiece flanked by a sumptuous buffet and two crystal punch bowls
filled to the brim with pink-lemonade punch. The wooden floor of the
gymnasium gleamed brightly from having been waxed and buffed earlier
that day. Sarah hoped she wouldn’t slip and fall in her new
pumps, whose heels were much higher than she was accustomed to.

As
though mesmerized, she walked slowly into the gymnasium, and it was
then that, glancing up from the thick black cord, called a “snake,”
which he was taping to the stage floor, Renzo spied her. He inhaled
sharply, hardly recognizing her, she looked so different, so
grown-up, more beautiful than he had ever before seen her look. She
had her hair swept up in a mass of curls threaded with white ribbons
and tiny white flowers. And although the long dress she wore was only
a simple, flowing white organza gown he knew her mother had sewn for
her, it looked stunning on, molding her curves so sensuously that he
marveled that her father had let her out of the house in it. Or
perhaps, more likely, Sarah had pulled the short, puffed sleeves down
to reveal her bare shoulders and an enticing glimpse of
décolletage
after
she
had left home. Around her neck was a gold chain that disappeared into
her bodice and upon which hung his class ring, Renzo knew. Against
her breast was pinned the corsage he had saved up for and sent her, a
single, lovely, delicate white orchid—not one of the cheap,
tough, tuberous kind to be found in the grocery stores around prom
time, but a real orchid from a real florist. In the box, Renzo had
enclosed a card upon which he had scrawled
From
a Secret Admirer,
in
case her father should demand to know who had sent the corsage.

Sarah
would know.

She
had spotted him now, Renzo observed, and the smile she gave him as
she lightly caressed the orchid at her breast made his heart pound,
his groin tighten with desire. Anger and jealousy filled him, too, at
the way the high-school boys present glanced at Sarah, each doing a
double take. Speculation and lust shone in their eyes, already
aglitter from the booze they had sneaked in concealed flasks into the
gymnasium. Renzo’s mouth tightened. He decided that if any of
those guys got fresh with her, he would flatten them.