Someone Like You (19 page)

“Macon,” I said, coming up for air after a few minutes, “my father could be home any second.”

He kept kissing me, his hand still exploring. Obviously this wasn't as much of a threat to him as it was to me.

“Macon.” I pushed him back a little. “I'm serious.”

“Okay, okay.” He sat up, bumping back against another stack of pillows. My mother was into pillows. “Where's your sense of adventure?”

“You don't know my father,” I said, like he was some big ogre, chasing boys across the yard with a shotgun. I was running enough risk just having him there; my father finding us alone in the dark would be another story altogether.

I got up and went into the kitchen, flicking on lights as I went. All the familiar things looked different with him trailing along behind me. I wondered what he was thinking.

“Do you want something to drink?” I said, opening the fridge.

“Nah,” he said, pulling out a chair from the kitchen table and sitting down.

I was bending into the fridge, searching out a Coke, when I suddenly heard my father's voice, as if he'd stepped up right behind me. I swear I almost stopped breathing.

“Well, we're over here at the new Simpson Dry Cleaners, at
the
Lakeview Mall, and I'm Brian and I gotta tell you, I've seen a lot of dry cleaners before but this place is different. Herb and Mary Simpson, well, they know a little bit about this business, and... ”

I felt my face get hot, blood rushing up in sheer panic, even after I realized it was just the radio and turned around to see Macon smiling behind me, his hand still on the knob.

“Not funny,” I said, pulling over a chair to sit down next to him. He turned the volume down and I could only hear my father murmuring, something about same-day service and starch.

He said he wanted to see my room, and I knew why, but I took him up there anyway, climbing up the steps in the dark with him holding my hand. He walked around my bed, leaning into my mirror to examine the blue ribbons I'd gotten in gymnastics years ago, the pictures of Scarlett and me from the photo booth at the mall, mugging and smiling for the camera. He lay across my bed like he owned it. And as he leaned to kiss me, I had my eyes open, looking straight over his head to the top of my bookcase, at the Madame Alexander doll Grandma Halley had given me for my tenth birthday. It was Scarlett O'Hara, in a green-and-white dress and hat, and just seeing it for that second before I closed my eyes gave me that same pang of guilt, my mother's face flashing across, telling me how wrong this was.

Outside, the planes kept going over, shaking my windows. Macon kept sliding his hand under my waistband, pushing farther than he had before, and I kept pushing him back. We'd turned on my clock radio, low, to keep track of my father's whereabouts, but after a while it cut off and it was just us and silence, Macon's lips against my ear coaxing. His voice was low and rumbly and right in my ear, his fingers stroking the back of my neck. It all felt so good, and I would feel myself forgetting, slipping and losing myself in it, until all of a sudden—

“No,” I said, grabbing his hand as he tried to unsnap my jeans, “this is not a good idea.”

“Why not?” His voice was muffled.

“You know why not,” I said.

“No, I don't.”

“Macon.”

“What's the big deal?” he asked me, rolling over onto his back, his head on my pillow. His shirt was unbuttoned; one hand was still on my stomach, fingers stretched across my skin.

“The big deal is that this is my house and my bed, and my father is due home at any time. I could get so busted.”

He rolled over and turned up the radio again, my father's voice filling the room.
“So come on down here to Simpson's Dry Cleaners, we've got some prizes and great deals, and cake -there's cake, too?
—
how can you say no to cake? I'm Brian, I'm here till nine.”
He just lay there, watching me, proving me wrong.

“It's just not a good idea,” I said, reaching over and turning on the light. All around me my room jumped into place, the familiar parameters of my life: my bed, my carpet, my stuffed animals lined up across the third shelf of my bookshelf. There was a little green pig in the middle that Noah Vaughn had bought me for Valentine's day two years before. Noah had never slid his hand further than my neck, had never found ingenious ways to get places I was trying zealously to guard. Noah Vaughn had been happy just to hold my hand.

“Halley,” Macon said, his voice low. “I'm into being patient and waiting and all, but it's been almost three months now.”

“That's not that long,” I said, picking at the worn spot in my comforter.

“It is to me.” He rolled a little closer, putting his head in my lap. I had a sudden flash, out of nowhere, that he had done this before. “Just think about it, okay? We'll be careful, I promise.”

“I think about it,” I said, running my fingers through his hair. He closed his eyes. And I
did
think about it, all the time. But each time I was tempted, each time I wanted to give up my defense and pull back my troops, I thought of Scarlett. Of course I thought of Scarlett. She'd thought she was being careful, too.

He left not long after that. He didn't want to stay and watch TV or just hang out and talk. Something was changing, something I could sense even though I'd never been here before, like the way baby turtles know to go to the water at birth, instinctively. They just
know.
And I already knew I'd lose Macon, probably soon, if I didn't sleep with him. He kissed me good-bye and left, and I stood in my open door and watched him go, beeping like he always did as he rounded the corner.

As I lost sight of him, I thought of that sketched black outline, the colors inside just beginning to get filled in. The girl I'd been, the girl I was. I told myself the changes had come fast and furious these last few months, and one more wasn't that big of a deal. But each time I did I thought of Scarlett, always Scarlett, and that new color, that particular shade, which I wasn't ready to take on just yet.

 

When I went over to Scarlett's to say good-bye, there was food out on the kitchen table and counters, and she was squatted on the floor with a bucket and sponge, scrubbing the inside of the fridge.

“Can you smell it?” she said before I'd even opened my mouth. She hadn't even turned around. Pregnancy was making every one of her senses stronger, more intense, and I swear sometimes she seemed almost clairvoyant.

“Smell what?”

“You can't smell it?” Now she turned around, pointing her sponge at me. She took a deep breath, closing her eyes. “That. That rotting, stink kind of smell.”

I breathed in, but all I was getting was Clorox from the bucket. “No.”

“God.” She stood up, grabbing onto the fridge door for support. It was harder for her to get to her feet now, her stomach throwing her off balance. “Cameron couldn't smell it either—he said I was being crazy. But I swear, it's so strong it's making me gag. I've had to hold my breath the whole time I've been doing this.”

I looked over at the pregnancy Bible, which was lying on the table, open to the chapter on Month Five, which was fast approaching. I flipped through the pages as she bent down over the vegetable crisper, nose wrinkled, scrubbing like mad.

“Page seventy-four, bottom paragraph,” I said out loud, following the words with my finger. “And I quote: ‘Your sense of smell may become stronger during your pregnancy, causing an aversion to some foods.”

“I cannot believe you don't smell that,” she muttered, ignoring me.

“What are you going to do, scrub the whole house?” I said as she yanked out the butter dish, examined it, and dunked it in the bucket.

“If I have to.”

“You're crazy.”

“No,” she said, “I'm pregnant and I'm allowed my eccentricities; the doctor said so. So shut up.”

I pulled out a chair and sat down, resting my arm on the table. Every time I was in Scarlett's kitchen I thought back to the years we'd spent there, at the table, with the radio on. On long summer days we'd make chocolate-chip cookies and dance around the linoleum floor with our shoes off, the music turned up loud.

I sat down at the table, flipping through Month Five. “Look at this,” I said. “For December we have continued constipation, leg cramps, and ankle swelling to look forward to.”

“Great.” She sat back on her heels, dropping the sponge in the bucket. “What else?”

“Ummm ... varicose veins, maybe, and an easier or more difficult orgasm.”

She turned around, pushing her hair out of her face. “Halley. Please.”

“I'm just reading the book.”

“Well, you of all people should know orgasms are not my big concern right now. I'm more interested in finding whatever is rotting in this kitchen.”

I still couldn't smell anything, but I knew better than to argue. Scarlett was handling things now, and I was proud of her; she was eating better, walking around the block for a half hour every day because she'd heard it was good for the baby, and reading everything she could get her hands on about child rearing. Everything, that is, except the adoption articles and pamphlets that Marion kept leaving on the lazy Susan or on her bed, always with a card from someone interested in Discussing the Options. Scarlett was playing along because she had to, but she was keeping the baby. Like everything else, she'd made her choice and she'd stick to it, everyone else be damned.

“Scarlett?” I said.

“Yeah?” her voice was muffled; she had her head stuck under the meat and cheese drawer, inspecting.

“What made you decide to sleep with him?”

She drew herself out, slowly, and turned to face me. “Why?”

“I don't know,” I shrugged. “Just wondered.”

“Did you sleep with Macon?”

“No,” I said. “Of course not.”

“But he wants you to.”

“No, not exactly.” I spun the lazy Susan. “He brought it up, that's all.”

She walked over and sat down beside me, pulling her hair back with her hands. She smelled like Clorox. “What did you say?”

“I told him I'd think about it.”

She sat back, absorbing this. “Do you want to?”

“I don't know. But he does, and it's not that big a deal to him, you know? He doesn't understand why it is to me.”

“That's bullshit,” she said simply. “He knows why.”

“It's not like that,” I said. “I mean, I really like him. And I think for guys like him—like that—it isn't that big of a deal. It's just what, you know, you do.”

“Halley.” She shook her head. “This isn't about
him.
It's about
you.
You shouldn't do anything you're not ready for.”

“I'm ready,” I said.

“Are you sure?”

“Were
you
ready?” I said.

That stopped her. She smoothed her hands over her stomach; it looked like she'd swallowed a small melon, or a pumpkin. “I don't know. Probably not. I loved him, and one night things just went farther than they had before. Afterwards I realized it was a mistake, in more ways than one.”

“Because it came off,” I said.

“Yeah. And for other reasons, too. But I can't preach to you, because I was sure I was doing the right thing. I didn't know he'd be gone the next day. Like, literally
gone.
But you have to consider that.”

“That he might die?”

“Not die,” she said softly, and there was that ripple again, the one that still came over her face whenever she spoke of him, and I suddenly realized how long it had really been. “I mean, I loved Michael so much, but—I didn't know him that well. Just for a summer, you know. A lot could have happened this fall. I'll never know.”

“I can tell he wants to. Like soon. He's getting more pushy about it.”

“If you sleep with him, it will change things,” she said. “It has to. And if he goes, you'll have lost more than just him. So be sure, Halley. Be real sure.”

Grandma Halley was staying in a place called Evergreen Rest Care Facility. Some of the people were bedridden, but others could get around; women in motorized wheelchairs zoomed past us down the corridors, their purses clamped against their laps. Everything smelled fruity and sharp, like too much cheap air freshener. It seemed like every open piece of wall had a Thanksgiving decoration taped to it, turkeys and Pilgrims and corn husks, and you got the sense that holidays there were imperative, important, because there wasn't much else to look forward to.

I'd slept for most of the trip up, since my father wanted to leave at four A.M. to get the jump on all the other travelers. My father was always concerned with “getting the jump” when we traveled, obsessed with outsmarting other motorists; once in the car, he flipped the radio dial constantly, checking out his competition, something that drove me crazy since I never got to hear any music.

Before we left I lay awake most of the night, listening for cars outside. I was sure Macon would come by, even just to beep, to say good-bye again. He knew I was upset about my grandmother, but it made him uncomfortable; family stuff was not really his department. I didn't want to leave things the way we had, unresolved, and I pictured him in the few places I knew he went, with the few friends of his I'd met, and tried to tell myself he cared about me enough not to look elsewhere for what I wasn't giving him.

The first thing I thought when I walked into Grandma Halley's room was how small she looked. She was in bed, her eyes closed, and a square of sunlight was falling across her face from the window. She looked like a doll, her face porcelain and unreal, like the Madame Alexander Scarlett O'Hara she'd given me.