Something Fierce (11 page)

He took a deep breath and another and then called Gail. “Well?”

“The doctor thinks there could be an issue,” Gail said, her voice was heavy, tired, “but he’s not sure.”

“He thinks there
could be
but he’s
not sure
?” Seth said, feeling like a giant hand was squeezing his heart, lungs, and guts together. “Sounds like McLaughlin. Is that who she went to?”

“Of course.”

“Well, no wonder. He’s a quack. I’ve always said that and he’s got to be older than dirt by now.”

“Will you calm down, please?”

“I’m calm.”

“You don’t sound calm.”

“So we don’t know any more than we knew before?”

“There are no definitive tests for this. He asked her questions to check her memory and thinking skills. She did good in some areas and not so good in others.”

“Which means?”

“There may be a problem or there may not be a problem. We don’t know.”

“So what do we do?”

“There’s not much we can do other than keep an eye on her for the next year or so.”

“The next year or so?”

“It’s better than a definite, ‘Yes, she has it’ isn’t it? I mean, if she does then we got it very early and if she doesn’t….that would be wonderful.”

“Yeah,” he sighed, feeling adrift once again, having no idea what to do, no clue what direction to take, and finding his internal compass useless. “Listen, I’m sorry for snapping at you. I appreciate you being there. Helping out, keeping us all informed.”

“I know you do. We’ll get through this. No matter what. We will.”

“How’s she doing?”

“Fine. Just like always. So maybe it was stress.”

“Maybe,” he said without conviction. He told her he’d be home in a few weeks after he settled into classes, asked her to give Steffi a kiss from her uncle and said goodbye.

He leaned back in the chair and looked out the window. It was unseasonably warm. The sun was shining; the snow disappearing. The courtyard was alive with clusters of students, winter coats hanging open, as they smoked, talked, played hacky-sack, tossed a football. Watching them caused the loneliness to swell and break inside of him again. He’d never known that kind of camaraderie. He’d been an outsider in high school. After that, his vagabond lifestyle offered lots of opportunities to meet new people and make acquaintances but never to settle into a community of friends. He and Graham hadn’t lived in the same city since college. In Los Angeles, he’d lived with Megan much of the time and the city was so transient that they would no sooner connect with another couple than that couple would be packing up and heading back to wherever they’d come from. Through all of his travels, experiences, and lovers, through all the communication skills he’d learned since leaving Cherry Run, he realized that there had always been this separateness about him.

This loneliness.

Kerri and Kat walked out of the main building and joined a group of boys that were standing in the courtyard, smoking. Even from this distance, she had an effect on him. His heart started to pound and when she hugged one of the boys, he felt it in the pit of his stomach. “Fuck it,” he said, picking up his phone and pressing her number. A rush of excitement went through him when he saw her react to the ring and take the phone from her purse. He should have hung up, but he couldn’t. Though he was unable to see the expression on her face, he saw her discreetly slip the phone back into her purse and blend right back into the group as if it were an unimportant call, maybe a casual friend that she would call back later. Her voicemail kicked on—the same chipper greeting as before—but he hung up without leaving a message this time.

Did this really tell him anything? Yes, she got the call but it didn’t prove that she got the other messages. It also proved that she didn’t answer when she saw who was calling. Of course, answering in a group of students would not only have been very uncomfortable for her, it would have been very foolish, almost as foolish as he’d been in placing the call in the first place.

What it told him was yet to be revealed. Would she call back or was she playing some kind of bizarre game with him?

Less than a minute later, she made a big show of looking at her watch, said a few words to Kat and waved goodbye to the boys. The kid that had hugged her, copped another quick one before she headed toward the student parking lots. She was barely ten feet away from them when the phone was out of her purse and Seth’s phone began to ring.

He closed the door to the office and answered. “Hello?”

“Did you just call me?”

“If you have my number programmed into your phone, then you know I did. If you don’t, then that was a hell of a guess.”

She was quiet for a moment. He could hear the click of her of boots on the sidewalk over the phone as he watched her disappear around the corner of the music building. “I don’t know why I’m returning this call,” she said, her voice tight. “You call me a week and a half late and then don’t leave a message. How flattering.”

“What are you talking about? I called you the Sunday before last, exactly when I told you I would,” he said, relieved that it was a mix up of some sort and not a rejection. “I left a message and I texted you the following Tuesday night.”

“Sure you did,” she said.

“Excuse me?” he said, indignantly.

“Then why,” her voice cracked, “didn’t I get them?” Recovering a strong, even tone, she added, “I’ve never had that problem with this phone before.”

It was this quick recovery of her composure rather than the momentary loss of it that overrode his annoyance at her accusation and filled him with a desire to soothe her. She was so young; he should have known something was amiss and stepped up, confronted her earlier. “I don’t know why you didn’t get them,” he said in a gentler tone, “but I’m telling you the truth. I’ve been wondering why I never heard back.”

There was another moment of silence. He imagined her trying to decide if he was telling the truth as she walked into the sea of student cars. “So,” she was still hesitant, “you didn’t blow me off?”

“Of course not.” Knowing that he was telling the truth and that she was on her way to believing it, lightened his heart, made him feel a little playful. “You hurt my feelings, not calling me back.”

“Come on, now.”

“You did! I tried to reach you three times!”

“Two and a half. And I didn’t get the first two.”

“Well, I didn’t know that.”

“So you really called me?” she said and he could hear her smile.

“Well, yeah. After the night we had together, I’d be crazy not to.”

“I see,” she said, the smile reverberating stronger now, “so it’s just sex for you?”

“Absolutely not,” he said. “It’s
kinky
sex.”

“Oh, honey,” she said, “we have not yet begun.”

“Whoa!” he said. “Okay. Let’s try this second date thing again. So, do you have any plans this weekend?”

“You tell me,” she said, assuming a role.

Taking his cue, he said, “Friday night. Six o’clock. My place.”

“Should I bring an overnight bag?”

“Plan for the whole weekend…but you’ll be naked most of the time.”

She made a low, soft sound. “You just made me wet.”

“See you Friday.”

“Can’t wait.”

And just like that the loneliness was gone. He couldn’t stop smiling. “Hot damn.” He opened the office door, gathered his papers, shoved them into his backpack, and turned to leave when he saw her standing in the doorway.

“Do you have a minute, Mr. Hardy?”

His heart was going like a jackhammer. “I…ah… have class in fifteen minutes,” he said.

“I caught you just in time!” She crossed the threshold and the office was instantly too small and very dangerous. “May I shut the door?” she asked, more to anyone that might be passing by than to Seth. “The matter I need to discuss is private.”

“Of course,” he said, nonchalantly, also for the benefit of others, “come on in.”

There was the heavy thud and click of the door. Her presence filled the room, obliterating the imaginary lines that separated teacher from student. He whispered, “What the holy hell are you trying to prove!?”

“I didn’t think I’d ever get to kiss you again,” she said quietly, slipping off her book bag. “And I told you I couldn’t wait.”

“This isn’t funny, Kerri.”

“Just a taste to hold me until Friday. One taste.” And they were kissing.

This is madness
, he thought, backing her into the wall as the past eleven days of confusion and disappointment disappeared. “We can’t do this,” he murmured between kisses. “Not here.” His hand moved under her skirt.

“I know,” she nodded in agreement, undoing his belt.

Their mouths pressed together again, both breathing too loudly; her fingers gripping him, his yanking her underwear aside.
If someone were on the other side of the door…if someone knocked…
She opened her legs, he thrust inside of her and there were no more words or thoughts at all. The world disappeared then and it was just the two of them, pressing into each other, pouring into each other, all instinct now, hell-bent on release…

K
erri spent the following
weekend
at Seth’s place. And the next, and the next, and the next, and this Saturday afternoon found her easing out of a nap. They were on the floor in front of a crackling fire. Her head was on his chest, a blanket over them. She lightly kissed him and rose up on an elbow to watch him sleep. So this was happiness. This was love. This was what all the fuss was about. Made sense. Even when she wasn’t physically with him, the world was more than it was before. Songs had deeper meaning. Colors were brighter. Food tasted better. People were interesting.

But nothing compared to these weekends. They were beyond anything she’d ever imagined. When she and Seth were not exploring each other’s bodies, they were talking and laughing, sharing music, watching movies, cooking and eating. They even read books together, cuddled up on the couch, taking turns reading aloud. They never ran out of things to talk about. They discussed everything.

This terrified her sometimes because it made her aware of the fact that outside of these weekends she was covered in lies and secrets. This thought got her mind babbling and her feeling of contentment began to dissolve. Once Seth got to know her better, got to see her for who she
truly
was, he’d be gone.

But—she argued with herself—he already knew her better than anyone. Bits of her lewd, self-destructive past naturally floated to the surface during their conversations. Things she’d never told anyone. He even knew that she’d orchestrated their original hookup by researching him on the Internet throughout last semester, studying him in class, making sure that they liked many of the same books and movies. He’d figured this out and when he called her out on it, she’d told him the truth—something very new and scary for her—and then she ran! She smiled at the memory of him chasing her through the house, putting her over his knee and spanking her, both of them laughing as she screamed and tried to break free.

She really did like those books and movies now. His favorites became hers. And he’d since introduced her to a world of great books and films she’d never heard of and she’d done her best to repay him by introducing him to music and new bands that he didn’t know.

There was, however, one sizable part of her life she’d kept from him. She didn’t think of it as a secret exactly, but as something she wasn’t ready to tell him yet. Besides, it was ludicrous and unfounded. Even thinking about it pissed her off.

It had begun over five years ago. Her parents were still together but only truly united in their dedication to maintaining appearances. To keep their problem daughter from punching a hole in their “happy family” façade, they’d staged an all out campaign. Kerri had been fifteen and some part of her had wanted to be a good girl then, to be normal and make them proud of her. So without protest, she went to a long line of psychologists, psychiatrists, and therapists. The general consensus—though she couldn’t be officially diagnosed until she was eighteen—was that she suffered from a personality disorder.

A lot of disorders were thrown around in the blind hope that one might stick: bipolar, borderline, narcissistic. Borderline ended up being the most popular choice. Here was a brand of crackers some therapists refused to treat because borderlines were known to be extremely manipulative and volatile. And, oh yeah, there was no cure. At least, not last she’d heard. Borderlines never really “got better.” The best that could be hoped for is that they would have some measure of control over the emotional ups and downs, the identity issues, the compulsions, the rages, the tendency to dissociate, blah, blah, blah.

At the time, she’d gone along with the mind-numbing prescriptions and therapy sessions where she would sit in a little room and try to say the right thing, try to impress the therapist with her willingness to change, to grow, to be whole.

Then one day she was sitting across from a young doctor named Donald Ostrom and realized that it was all a load of horseshit. Not just the unofficial diagnosis, but the whole charade, including all the other signs and symptoms of mental illness on her rap sheet: “bulimic tendencies,” “various degrees of depression,” “unstable interpersonal relationships,” and “intense mood swings.” She was a little fucked up, sure, but who wasn’t? To be human was to be fucked up. People were crazy and most were a hell of a lot more so than she’d ever be. She knew how to maintain control, at least.

“All I needed was someone to understand me, someone I could love,” she whispered, caressing Seth’s check. “All I needed was you.”

Her touch woke him. He opened his eyes. He smiled at her. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“You look deep in thought.”

“I was just wishing that these escapes from reality would never end.”

“Escapes from reality?” he said. “Is that what these weekends are?”

“Of course. Our own little Garden of Eden. Like a dream I wish I never had to wake up from. What else would they be?”

“Hyper-reality.” He stretched and settled into a gratifying yawn. “Life lived fully. The essence of being alive.”