The Pillow Friend (18 page)

The idea of going on a double date with their class' most admired and envied couple made her feel slightly stunned. It might have been somebody else's dream of the perfect date, the chance to be, or pretend to be, part of the “in crowd” for at least one evening. But what she wanted, time alone with Alex, was made impossible.

But she couldn't brood or mourn in the professionally friendly company of hearty George and sparkling Lindy. Dinner wasn't the romantic
tête à tête
she'd imagined, but it was fun, with everybody clowning and laughing a lot. Even the normally tense and serious Alex loosened up and visibly enjoyed himself. But he kept his distance: remove George from the picture, she thought, and an observer would not have been able to guess which girl was Alex's date.

At the dance, though, pairing off was required. At their school there was no tradition of cutting in or trading partners: you danced with the one who brought you. So she and Alex dutifully bopped around the floor together, performing the modified free-form versions of the twist, frug, shag and monkey which everybody attempted, with more energy than skill, but as soon as the band launched into a slow number, Alex headed back to their table to sit it out. The same thing happened with the second slow number, and she protested: “Oh, come on, you can't be that tired. . . . I love this song, let's dance.”

He flopped onto a chair and said flatly, “I can't dance. I'm sorry, I should have warned you when you asked me out. I've got two left feet.”

She didn't sit down but stood beside him, determined to get him back on the dance floor. “I don't mind.”

“You would when I stepped on you.”

“Oh, Alex, come on. I don't know how to dance either, not really. It doesn't matter. We'll just put our arms around each other and move to the music.” She leaned over him, smiling, imploring him to remember.

His body strained away from hers and he wouldn't meet her eyes. It was such an alarming sensation—as if her own arm or leg had tried to escape—that she immediately pulled away and sat down with the width of the table between them.

“I'm sorry,” he said weakly. “But I really can't. I think I must have been born without a sense of rhythm. It wouldn't be any fun, believe me.”

She did not believe him. She remembered how easily and surely his body and hers had moved together on her bed. Why wouldn't he touch her now? Was he afraid that if he put his arms around her they'd lose all control and end up making love in front of everyone? She tried again to grapple with Roxanne's paradox: that he was afraid of what he most wanted.

“Alex, we have to talk.”

“Yeah?”

“I mean, this is ridiculous, we never talk, and there are some things—”

“Hi, y'all, are these chairs taken?”

It was a relief to be interrupted. This wasn't the place or the time, especially with Alex being so unhelpful, keeping her at arm's length, looking at her as if last night had never happened—but the time would come. Tonight, she promised herself, they would talk about how they felt about each other before the kissing started. They would get some things clear and end this schizophrenic double life of strangers and lovers.

After the dance they all went for ice cream and coffee, and then George drove around River Oaks and Memorial, on the lookout for cars he recognized, evidence of an after-the-dance party they could crash. But they found nothing, and eventually, when the laughter was slower and interspersed with yawns, he drove back to her apartment building. Alex got out to walk her to her door.

“Take your time,” said George. “But if you're not back in one hour I'm calling Alex's mother.”

Finally they were alone in the courtyard where they had first embraced. It was darker now—the bright lights over the pool were timed to go off at eleven—but her mother had left their small entrance light burning.

The tension of being on show, in public, went out of her and another, more pleasurable, tension took hold. She began to breathe more quickly. Her skin tingled, anticipating his touch, and she moved a little closer to him. “Do you want to come inside?”

“I can't—they're waiting.”

She almost laughed. “I don't think they'll miss you for ten minutes. They have each other.”

“I'd better not.”

“Well, I guess it's not worth it for ten minutes. We can wait.” She swayed toward him, reached out and touched his arm. “Don't make me wait too long.”

He didn't move or respond to her touch. She might have been stroking a tree. “What do you mean?”

She felt a chill. “I mean, hurry back.”

He said nothing. She took her hand away from his unresponsive arm, feeling the deadness spread from it up her own arm, into her.

After a silence he said, “I'll see you on Monday, in class. It's been a really fun evening. Thank you for asking me.”

She didn't say anything. She wished she had not spoken. They both stood motionless, close enough to touch, in silence until he said, prompting her, “I'll wait to make sure you get in all right.”

As if her body was some large and unfamiliar machine she turned it around, fumbled the key out of her bag, opened the door and went in. When she turned in the doorway she saw that he was already walking away.

She was too deeply shocked for tears. Her movements mechanical, she locked the door, turned out the light, and went upstairs to her room. There she began to undress and put her clothes away until her half-naked reflection in the mirror on the back of the closet door arrested her. She looked at the pale flesh, the small, asymmetrical breasts, the mark on one of them like a horseshoe. It had been a horrible bruise once, and then it had faded, but it had never disappeared. What had happened to her, that strange magic, her wish, her near death, had marked her for life.

She got what she wanted. Her wishes came true. She was a witch, like Aunt Marjorie.

She began to tremble, such a violent muscular seizure that she couldn't move, could only clench her teeth and hunch over and wait for it to pass. When it did she felt wrung out. Moving cautiously, like an arthritic old woman, she pulled a robe off a hanger and wrapped it around herself. Then she went to the balcony door.

This time she didn't open it or go out. This time, for the first time, she was cautious, and only lifted an edge of the curtain to peek.

He was there, standing in the shadows, as he always was when she looked out, waiting upon her will.

She got the shakes again, dropped the curtain and fell to the floor, where she huddled and shuddered for a long time. She thought she would never feel warm or safe again.

But again the fit passed, and as she lay on the floor, weary and exhausted but miles from sleep, she knew that this night would pass, too.

It was the longest night of her life. She was awake through all of it. After a while she got up and got into bed and lay there tensely, wishing for sleep. She heard her mother come home, come upstairs and go to bed. She heard a catfight outside, and every distant train that passed through town. Sometimes her eyes were open and sometimes they were closed. She thought as little as possible, reciting poems and nursery rhymes and riddles to keep her mind away from Alex and sex and Aunt Marjorie's pillow friend. When the first light appeared around the edges of the curtains she sat up, took a few deep breaths and then went to the window. There was no one in the courtyard. The bamboo leaves hung limply in the still air and the pool water glittered dully. Shaking with exhaustion and relief she went back to bed and fell almost immediately into a deep and dreamless sleep.

At school she kept herself remote from Alex, still saying hello, but never initiating conversations, never letting her eyes meet his, pretending to be absorbed in something else whenever he was near. She was careful, at home, to keep her curtains drawn after sundown and her balcony door shut and locked. She would not even look out into the courtyard after dark, and didn't go out unless someone was with her.

Roxanne thought she was suffering from a broken heart, or disappointed hopes, and Agnes didn't tell her the much stranger, more complicated truth. She told Roxanne she didn't want to talk about Alex anymore, and her friend accepted the ban with wholehearted, silent sympathy, and dragged her off to parties and after-school meetings to keep her spirits up and enlarge her circle of acquaintances.

Agnes thought this numb, frightened form of existence would continue forever, but everything happened fast that year. By Thanksgiving she'd met Larry Lang, a freshman at the University of Houston, a friend of a friend of Roxanne's. Larry had long hair, wore tie-dyed T-shirts and ragged jeans, liked comic books and William Burroughs and Thomas Pynchon, listened to heavy metal, smoked dope, and couldn't keep his hands off her. Her mother couldn't stand him. Life became tense and wonderful. They went all the way on New Year's Eve in the back of his car, and he wept against her hair and told her that he loved her. She forgot there was any reason for avoiding her balcony, and never saw anyone waiting for her in the bamboo shadows.

The real Alex didn't disappear, not from her life and not even from her heart. Deep emotions leave their mark, and she would always feel there was a connection between them.

Along with about a third of their graduating class, Alex and Agnes went to the University of Texas in Austin. He was in Pre-Law, she was in Media Studies, so their paths did not often cross. Yet every so often she would think of him and then suddenly see him on campus or in one of the local student hangouts, eating a pizza at Conan's, waiting in line for a movie, or strolling toward her down the Drag.

In their final year, chance brought them together when they found themselves living in the same apartment complex on West 45th Street. He had changed a lot since high school—physical changes which made him more obviously and conventionally attractive. He had filled out and become more muscular, and now had a sexual confidence he had lacked before. His glasses had been replaced by contact lenses, and he had grown a thick mustache which somehow made his teeth seem larger and whiter—or maybe that was because he smiled more easily now. He always smiled at her when they met, and she couldn't help noticing that the smile always reached his eyes, but she was slow to realize what this meant.

When it came to Alex, in her own mind Agnes was the same awkward, unattractive girl she'd been in high school. She looked in the mirror and saw the same long, straight brown hair and big glasses. Her figure had changed, and she was glad of that; she'd put on a few pounds to good effect, and her breasts were much bigger. Yet although she'd had several boyfriends, and generally found her interest in a man was reciprocated, she still thought of Alex as an unattainable idol.

They kept meeting by chance not only on the stairs of the apartment complex, but also in the Laundromat, and the local shopping center. He had a car and she didn't. Seeing her waiting at the bus stop one morning he stopped and gave her a lift downtown, and this quickly evolved into a regular routine. Often when he was going out he would call her or stop by her apartment to ask if she wanted to go, too. He had a girlfriend and she had a boyfriend, so their relationship had to be platonic. They were just old friends from high school.

But one night during final exams week they shared a pizza and a bottle of Lambrusco alone in his apartment. They were giggling away at some silly joke, very close together on the floor cushions, when she saw his expression change. He looked at her with melting brown eyes and murmured, “God, how I want to make love to you.”

The muscles of her legs tightened with lust at the same time as her mouth went dry. She was frightened, but the wine made her bold. She leaned forward—only a few inches separated them—and kissed him on the lips.

She was kissing a stranger. The feel of his lips, his tongue, the taste of him—it was all new, experienced for the first time. Startled, she pulled away just as he moved to put his arms around her and pull her closer.

“No, don't.”

“Why not?” He looked astonished. “Am I such a terrible kisser?”

She laughed, weakly. “Of course not! Only, it's so strange, after . . .”

She saw by the change in his expression that he'd misunderstood; he thought she was feeling guilty, thinking of her boyfriend. He said swiftly, “It's just us, Agnes. It doesn't have to go further, it doesn't have to affect anything else. This is just for you and me, tonight.”

“I was thinking about you in high school.”

“Don't! Forget that dork!”

“I can't. I need to know—”

“I need to know what you taste like. I need to kiss you all over. May I? Please?”

She stopped talking and gave in happily; smiled and lay back on the cushions. What was the point of words when she could have his body?

But it was not the body she remembered, as she found later when they were naked together in his bed. And the differences could not be put down to just the passage of a few years. Whoever she'd taken into her bed as a teenager, it hadn't been Alex Hill.

She had, before that night, imagined the possibility of someday making love with Alex again. She had believed that if it happened it would be a life-changing experience, the ultimate, transforming sex she could lose herself in.

The reality was nothing like that. It wasn't wonderful or glorious or awful. It was, if sex could ever be described by such a word, curiously ordinary. It was good, but not extraordinarily so. Warm, sweaty, a little awkward, very pleasurable. And she knew, when it was over, that she was not in love with him.