Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea (9781101559833) (20 page)

37

F
or my dinner date, I chose a purple peasant dress with paisley designs on it that Dottie had given to me because, as she'd said, “It's too jeezly small and I hate it.” I wore black tights under it. I pulled on my winter boots, shrugged myself into my coat, hugged the warm bread to me and left the house, with the television and the overhead kitchen light on so people would think I was home. I started through the woods, shining the flashlight I'd brought with me along the well-known path.

Andy met me on the snowy lawn. He kissed me on the lips. “To get that out of the way,” he said. Then we walked hand-in-hand around the porch, our feet thudding over the wide wooden boards. He let me in before him and shut the door against the night.

A small kerosene lantern sat on a table in the hall, its light flickering over the dark shiny wood on the walls. A set of stairs led up to a square landing, then turned and followed themselves up and out of sight to the second floor. A dusty crystal chandelier dangled overhead like a spider. The sharp smell of mothballs made me sneeze and I let out a cloud of white mist.

“Bless you,” Andy said.

“I know you said you were keeping warm,” I said, “but how again?”

“Oh, I'm Mr. Outdoor Guy,” Andy said. “I've been to Outward Bound four times. I'm getting by.” He put his hand on my back and guided me toward the soft glow of lights in what turned out to be the kitchen. Six more kerosene lamps were placed around the kitchen to throw off as much light as possible. Something in a large pan bubbled on top of a gigantic woodstove.

When I handed the loaf of bread to Andy, he put his nose to it and breathed in the yeast. “This is too much,” he said. “May I cut into it right now?”

“Go to town,” I said.

I lifted the lid on the pot. Chunks of beef and carrots and potatoes rose to the top, than sank in the simmer.

“I went to Long Reach and bought groceries,” Andy said. “Kind of a mix.”

“Smells good,” I said. While Andy sliced the bread, I looked around. The same dark wood in the hall covered the kitchen walls. With the lamps throwing soft shadows everywhere, it felt as if we were in a cave.

Andy put the bread on a small butcher's block between us. “I'm going to eat it raw,” he whispered. He ripped off a small piece, popped a chunk into his mouth, and laughed out the smell of yeast.

“Glad it's a hit,” I said. “It's just bread, though. It's simple.”

Andy said, “Sometimes just bread is pretty close to heaven. Take it into the living room and set it on the table in front of the fire,” he said. “I found some red wine in the cupboard this morning. Pour us a couple of glasses and I'll be right in.”

The size of the hearth in the living room and the number of logs lit up almost the whole room. Pillows were scattered over a deep red rug with blue designs set in front of the fireplace. I poured the wine into glass goblets and held it up to the fire. Ruby as dark as the glasses in Grand's cabinet shimmered in the flames. I toasted myself and took a mouthful of the pretty wine, and found it so sour that Grand could have pickled beets in it overnight. I spit it back into the glass and swished spit around in my mouth to try to smooth down the puckers.

When Andy carried in a tray with two blue crocks of steaming stew, I kept quiet about the wine because I wasn't so sure the taste was off. I decided to wait until Andy tried it, then take another stab if it seemed like it was supposed to be good.

I tucked my arms over my knees and admired him as he set the tray on the table. He'd gotten hot in the kitchen, I guessed, because he'd taken off his old sweaters. He'd tucked the red T-shirt underneath it inside his jeans, showing off a sweet butt and flat stomach. He sat down beside me on a faded yellow pillow, picked up his wineglass, and said, “Cheers. To getting reacquainted.” He took a big gulp, gave me a funny look, then held up his glass and spit the wine back into it.

“That's what I did,” I said.

“Jesus, I'm sorry,” he said.

“Don't tell Jesus,” I said. “Put it back in the cupboard.”

“Humor dry as dust,” Andy said so soft that I had to lean into him to hear it.

He had me on my back before I knew what to say. He slid his body over mine and kissed me until my lips swelled to the size of juiced-up slugs. I was good to go further, except that Andy sat up.

“Man,” he said. “Man.”

“What?”

He studied me with his dark and shiny eyes. “You. Wow.”

The sleek way he fit his body back over mine again made me spread my legs and hold his hips between my thighs. We took stock of each other's faces for a few seconds and just breathed, listening to our hearts, the silence around us, and the popping of the embers in the fireplace. He put his finger on my lips.

“I want you,” he said. “But first, let's do something that'll blow your mind.” He jumped up and headed for the kitchen.

While he was gone, the lumpy ghosts of the sheet-covered living room furniture claimed my attention. Here, a big overstuffed chair. There, what appeared to be a tall rocking chair. A low table sat between the two. I pictured Louisa coming back in the spring to clean, then moved on to imagine the room filled with people during a summer evening, drinks in hand, playing games or laughing. Could I ever be one of those people? Would I want to be? Would they want me to be?

Andy hummed an off-tune song in the kitchen. I sat up and smoothed my hair and moved my dress back down over my hips. I threw a couple of dry logs into the greedy fire. It gobbled the splinters before it started eating into the heart of the wood. Andy returned, holding a big, fat, home-rolled cigarette. He grinned. “Ever fucked stoned?”

I almost said, “Never fucked,” but didn't. I did say, “Never stoned.”

His mouth dropped open and he backed away as if I had some awful disease. “What the hell? Everyone's been stoned.”

I shook my head. “Not me. But I'm willing to give it a try. Hit me.”

He lit it up and a sickish-sweet smell hit my nostrils. “Whoa,” I said.

“You'll get used to it,” he said. “Suck it down into your lungs like you would a regular cigarette and hold your breath until you can't anymore, then let it out.”

I didn't dare tell him I'd never smoked.

“Okay, I'll give her a try,” I said. Andy took a hit and held his breath. His face was red and his eyes watered and a whimper slid from between his lips. He handed the joint to me and I sucked it down. And then I rolled in agony on the pillows, my lungs bucking and heaving as they tried to remember what they were supposed to do. I dropped the joint and clutched my scorched throat, coughing up smoke.

“Jesus, don't waste it,” Andy said, and dove for the joint.

“What the hell is that?” I rasped.

“It's gold. The best,” Andy said, holding the joint as if it was a precious jewel.

“The best what? Way to kill someone?” I sipped on the red wine vinegar to soothe my throat while Andy inspected the joint for damage. It was out, but ready to party.

“You all right?” Andy asked.

“Just dandy,” I said.

He said, slow and soft, “You don't have to suck in the whole thing at once.” He lit it up again. “Watch.” He took a little toot. “Little breath,” he said. “Then hold it.”

We made our way through half of it before it hit me that he had the shiniest, most beautiful hair that I had ever seen on any human being. “Oh my God, your hair,” I said, and I pawed at it like a kitten.

He pawed back and we started to laugh. And laughed. And laughed. It could have been for hours, or for five minutes. It didn't seem to matter and we couldn't stop. We rolled and tumbled on the dusty hardwood floor through paths between the ghost furniture. The giggles rolled from his body to mine and back again.

“I feel so connected to you,” he said. It sounded so corny I hooted some more.

Then time disappeared into a fog bank. I'm not sure which one of us began to undress the other. Button by button, snap by snap, gentle tugs and fumblings, until he was naked on top of me and I was kissing his chest, breathing in the scent of his skin.

“This isn't quite how I imagined it,” I said.

“Imagined what?” Andy said. Then he said, “You're a virgin?”

“I am,” I said. “You?”

“No,” Andy said. “Far out.”

We made short work of my virginity. In what seemed like seconds later, I cried out and Andy groaned as he moved inside of me. It hurt like hell, but I didn't want him to stop. I watched his face, the way his eyes were closed and his mouth open, forehead creased. I wanted to take that crease away, so I put my hand on his face. He opened his eyes and smiled. His eyes were filled with stars and I could see that he was traveling somewhere else.

“You're all right?” he whispered.

I nodded, and he kissed me and pulled himself up onto his hands from an elbow position, then he drew himself out of me. I throbbed for him to enter me again, but he sat back on his haunches, lit up the end of the joint, took a toke, and said, “I was deflowered by a—uh—woman of experience, in New York City. Taught me to touch her where it mattered most. Places like this.” His fingers parted me and moved to the little bump that made me crazy. He ran his thumb over it, soft, then hard, soft, soft, hard, changing the game so that I didn't know how much pressure was coming down on me.

And I came before he could make it back inside. I arched my back and screamed into the dark ceiling overhead. “Wait,” Andy cried. He entered me mid-arch and then he pulsed out a warm, thick wetness. Then he pulled himself out of me again and lay beside me on the pillows. I ran my fingers down his goose-bumped back.

“Well?” he said.

“Well, what?” I asked.

He smiled. He was beautiful, with his face flushed and his hair mussed. “I would like to know how you liked it.”

“Best ever,” I said. He laughed and tucked two thick sleeping bags over us. Not soon after that I fell asleep in his arms.

I woke up in the pitch black of the backside of the moon. It was cold and I wondered if Grand's furnace had broken down. I cupped my nose to breathe warm air on it. I couldn't see my hand in front of my face, save for a dim glow somewhere off to my right side, which wasn't where leftover light spilled into Grand's room.

I turned my head and saw the dying embers of a fire and it came back to me on an inhale that I was with Andy Barrington in the cottage we'd almost burned down, and on the exhale that I'd been deflowered, and that my crotch hurt and I had a splitting headache. My thighs ached and my face burned from his kisses.

I was thirsty and hungry, but the thought of drinking that wine and eating cold, greasy stew turned my stomach. I wanted a big glass of water and a nice bowl of oatmeal with honey. No matter that it was the darkest time of night. The urge to clean up, eat, and wake up in my own bed was stronger than the butt end of a romantic night.

When I stood up, warmth trickled down my thighs. I fumbled under the sleeping bag for my underpants and I pulled them on fast in the cold air. I found my dress, which was spread out by the top of my head. I found my tights nearby and hauled them up. I fed the fire the last two logs in the carrier and gave it twigs and dried moss to chew on. I estimated that it was about two thirty in the morning. If the fire burned until three thirty, Andy, who never broke with his steady sleep breathing, would begin to feel the cold at about four thirty or five, if he slept that long. He would be fine. He seemed to know what he was doing in more ways than one.

The renewed fire showed me my coat and boots on the other side of the room near the big front hall. I knelt down, kissed Andy's hair, and tiptoed away. I slipped into the heart of the night, showing the flashlight in front of me on the snowy path through the woods. I huddled into my coat and scurried over the footprints I'd made coming here as a virgin. The little trip to heaven I'd experienced only a few hours before was fading fast. Besides the pain in my crotch and my thighs, Andy had also bitten my neck and it smarted. My throat was coated with ashes and pitch. Words like water, aspirin, tub, hot food, and bed kept my brain busy, until I reached the path that led to my special clearing.

And suddenly Carlie's presence filled my being and left me rooted to the ground.

The sense of her was so strong that I whispered, “Carlie?” into the night. I moved the flashlight around, as if she would walk up to me. No sound but the wind answered me, but I decided to talk to her, anyway. “I miss you,” I whispered. “I'm not your little criminal anymore, but I don't miss you any less.” Then, like a sigh let loose after a held breath, the feeling eased enough so that I could move. I walked on, shaking all over, wanting only to sleep.

All the houses in The Point were dark when I reached home, but I knew that someone somewhere was watching and that it would be all over town the next day that Florine Gilham had come in some time between late night and early morning. I turned off the television, drank two full glasses of water, made up some oatmeal, spooned half the honey jar over it, and took four aspirin. I stood over the heating grate in the living room, blessing the warmth that whooshed up my dress.

The rest of the night whirled in a confusion of tastes and smells as I ran a bath. I faded in and out of a half sleep until I heard a car start and realized it was time for all good children to go to school. I staggered out of the bathroom and went to bed, leaving Andy, Carlie, Grand, and anyone and anything else cluttering up my mind hanging on the bedpost.

38

I
woke to so much blood on the sheets that I wondered if Andy had stuck me through, but then I figured I was having my period. It was always a surprise. It didn't come on a monthly basis, it came when it damn well pleased, and I was never ready for it. I hauled myself out of bed and pulled on some clothes to make the trek to Ray's for supplies.

It was bitter cold and I hoped that Andy hadn't died in the night. When I slipped into Ray's, I heard Stella cackle as she told Ida about a movie she and Daddy had gone to see the night before. I managed to get to Ray's register with my pads before she decided to walk over and include me in on her conversation.

“We stopped at Grand's to see if you wanted to come to the movies with us,” she said to me. “The TV was running, but you weren't home.”

“I stepped out,” I said, setting down my pads on the counter.

“Oh,” Stella said. “Where?”

“Two dollars seventy-nine cents,” Ray said. He stuffed the pads into a bag.

“Where did you go last night?” Stella asked.

“Crazy,” I said. “How about you?”

“Guess it's your business,” Stella said.

“Yep,” I said.

She went back to Ida at the deli counter and left me with Ray.

I handed Ray three dollars for the pads.

“You got home late,” Ray said. “ I saw you come down the road from the woods.”

“It was a pretty night. I felt like walking. You felt like looking out your window. I'd a waved if I'd known you were looking at me.”

“Don't get your panties in a twist,” Ray said. “Just saying what I know.”

“Not much to know,” I said.

“Tell you something else I know,” Ray said. “I know the Barrington boy is staying at the cottage.”

“Wonder how he's keeping warm?” I said.

“Bring me some bread tomorrow,” Ray said. “I can sell five loaves uptown.”

I groaned as I walked down the hill. The last thing my aching body needed was to stir, mix up, and punch down lumps of dough. But I needed the money.

At home, I trussed myself up and took myself back to bed until about four o'clock, when Dottie came into the bedroom and took a seat on the bedspread.

“Ray says you went over The Cheeks,” she said. “Is that right?”

I sat up. My arms ached. What had we done with my arms?

“Ray said what?”

“Says that Andy Barrington is staying in the cottage.”

“Oh for pity's sake,” I said. “Is it on the front page of the paper now?”

“No,” Dottie said. “But you being my best friend and all, I thought I'd ask.”

“Speaking of being best friends, how come you told Bud I liked him?”

“Just come up,” Dottie said. “Happens sometimes.”

“How am I supposed to trust you?”

Dottie shrugged. “I see your point. Won't happen again. I promise.”

“Okay. I got laid,” I said. “You want to take that back to the store and announce it?”

“Jesus to Jesus, that's some news!” she whooped. “You got laid?”

I nodded.

“Was it Andy Barrington? The firecrackers guy?”

“The same one.”

“Thought you was going to save yourself for Bud.”

“As you pointed out, there's no chance of that happening.”

“True. You going to tell me about it?”

I did, from the stew to the sex.

“How'd it feel?”

“Good,” I said. “I can't remember much.”

“Did you come?”

“A thousand times,” I said.

“I should try it. Gus told someone on my team he'd ask me out in a minute.”

“Go for it.”

She shrugged. “Not my type. Can't picture him going at it and me yelling, ‘Gus, Gus' underneath him.” She left a little while later.

I was changing my pad upstairs in the bathroom when someone else knocked on the front door. I wondered if it was a reporter come to get the juicy details.

“It's open,” I yelled. When I went downstairs, I found Bud in the hall.

“Seen you more in the last couple days than I have in a month,” I said.

“I got to say it,” he said. “He's no good for you.”

“Who's no good for me?”

“Andy.”

“Did Dottie tell you?”

“Heard up at Ray's.”

“What do you care?” I said. “What's it to you?”

“I heard some things.”

“Everyone is hearing things today,” I said. “Maybe the whole damn Point should get their ears checked.”

“I don't want to make you mad,” Bud said. “Just thought you should know about it.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Straightened me right out.”

“I shouldn't have said nothing,” he said.

“Seems to be what you're best at,” I snapped.

He went out the door, closing it with a quiet click behind him.

The way he closed that door, so polite, so calm, like he was leaving a crazy person, set me off. “You never say nothing!” I screamed at the door. “Could have been you.”

I clenched and unclenched my hands, wanting something to fill them with. Then I remembered I had to make bread for the store. I went into the kitchen and mixed the dough for the first two loaves, then pummeled the shit out of it, muttering at Bud, Stella, Ray, Dottie, even Andy. I had the period blues, for sure.

But mostly, I was mad at Bud. For someone who didn't talk much, he'd managed to open my eyes to the fact that I'd given myself to someone I hardly knew. I'd snuffed out any chance of ever being with him by screwing some summer boy in a freezing house where I wouldn't have been welcome as a guest during a cocktail hour.

“God damn you, Bud Warner,” I hollered, and I threw a wad of dough at the kitchen wall, then another one, until all the dough in the bowl was stuck or sliding slowly down the wall to the floor.

I was too down to be jumped when Daddy said from the kitchen doorway, “You okay, Florine?”

“No,” I said. I walked over to where he was standing by the doorway and put my arms around him. “I feel like crap,” I said.

He patted my back and said, “Shhhh,” for a few seconds, until I got myself back together. Then I walked over and started peeling dough off the wall.

“Stella told me you went somewhere last night,” Daddy said.

“I did,” I said. “Over The Cheeks. You must know that. Everyone else does.”

“Small place,” Daddy said.

I threw the dough out, wet a dishcloth, and went back to the wall. I scrubbed at the oily stains but they had set in, leaving me a nice reminder of my temper.

“Florine, I ain't real happy about you seeing this boy.”

“Well, I wasn't real happy about you seeing Stella. Didn't stop you, did it?”

“We're talking about you and this boy.”

“His name is Andy.”

“I'd appreciate it if you'd listen for a minute.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and waited for him to talk.

“Don't you think it's odd he's up here without no heat or nothing?”

“You asking me or telling me?”

“I'm asking you to think about this. How come he ain't in school?”

“He got out early for Christmas break for good grades and he decided to come up here. He's had all this outdoor experience and he thought it would be fun to camp out. What's wrong with that?”

“Nothing, on the surface. You get a chance, you bring him to meet us. Do that for me, please?”

“Got it,” I said.

“You want to come over and have supper with us?”

“No,” I said. “I'm tired.”

“Be careful,” Daddy said, and left.

I baked bread for Ray and between loaves I knit on a baby sweater that was part of a set. I spun what everyone had said around in my head until I had it all dried, folded, and sorted, but I wasn't able to put it away. Every time I thought of Andy as evil, I pictured his eyes, sparking and full of me. At about eleven o'clock, I turned off the lights and pulled myself up over the stairs to bed.

Tomorrow, I thought, The Point will move on to something else. I sank into the sheets, ready to let my dreams do the driving. But I didn't get too far down the road before I heard a soft knock at the door in the side yard. I knew it had to be Andy because no one ever knocked on the side door. I bounded out of bed and ran downstairs. I opened the door and he lunged over the door stoop and pinned me against the stair banister. Everything inside me took off like a twitchy flock of birds as we kissed and clenched with the door wide open. December whooshed in, scraping its boots on the doormat and bellowing out, “Where's the party?” If my feet hadn't gotten cold, we would have been there forever. I finally managed to shut the door.