The Sisters (18 page)

Back in the kitchen, she checked Cindy’s work on the grill and, noticing a car pulling into the lot, said, “Looks like your mother’s here. You go on. I’ll finish up.”

Rainey wiped the edges of the grill, which Cindy had missed, checked the clock, washed her hands, and started back to the front to tell the boy in the booth that it was closing time. Just as she came out of the kitchen through the swinging door, he stepped in front of her. “Give you a ride home?” He was smiling.

Rainey’s nerves skipped under her skin. Who was this bold young man? Of course she would say no—but she wanted to say yes. And why not? What was the harm? It was less than a ten-minute drive, after all. Only—Sally was probably already on her way.

“Thanks,” Rainey said, taking a step back, “but my ride will be here in a minute.” She started toward the door, as if to show him out, then smiled at him. “I hope you’ll come again.”

“I’m Carl,” he said, stepping in her way once more, playfully, like a suitor in a Hollywood musical. “Maybe you can call whoever’s coming for you? Tell them not to come?”

“I guess I could,” Rainey said, lowering her eyes. There was a fleck of dried mustard on her uniform. She scratched it away with her fingernail. “But I’m sure she’s already left.”

Carl leaned in closer to her. “Try,” he crooned.

Rainey shook her head. “It won’t do any good,” she said, her words buoyed on a nervous laugh. “But okay. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Rainey dialed Sally’s number, and listening to it ring, she flushed under Carl’s steady stare and hoped he would feel how much she wanted him to come back, maybe ask her on a date.

“Hello?”

Rainey was so startled at the sound of her friend’s voice, she coughed, choked back a hiccup, but managed to stammer, “Sally? I’m glad I caught you.”

“Met a guy?” Sally asked.

“How did you know?”

“Had to happen some time.” She could imagine Sally smiling in her world-wise way. “Have a good time.”

A few minutes later, when Carl ignored Rainey’s directions to turn onto Maple Street, she kept quiet, grinning in the dark, glowing in wonder over how marvelous things seemed always to happen by chance. Carl drove to the baseball field, dark for hours now after the evening’s Little League game. He parked the car behind the bleachers and they sat and talked. He told her he was studying to be an engineer and that he was working through the summer for a building contractor.

“My father works at Crother’s Mill,” Rainey said. “Thirty years last winter. They gave him a nice watch. And a plaque.” She glanced at Carl’s hands, poised on the steering wheel and lit by the moon. They were far too smooth for a construction worker. Why should he tell such a funny lie? she wondered. Was he trying to impress her? She was about to ask him, when suddenly his hands were off the wheel, pressing against her back and pulling her to him. After that, all she could think about was the kissing—one, two, three, and then so many and so long she didn’t care about counting anymore.

At last he released her and said, “I guess I’d better take you home. You have some excuse to give your folks?”

When they got to her street, Rainey pointed out the house, but Carl didn’t pull in the drive. She was just about to invite him in when he reached across her and opened the door. “See you tomorrow,” he said, as if they’d already made plans.

It was a little frightening to so abruptly find herself standing alone in the middle of the street, watching Carl drive away, trying to understand what had happened, but when she closed her eyes and thought again of the heat from Carl’s skin against her own, the sweet oniony taste of his mouth, all her fears sizzled away inside delight. This was just like a romance in a story—sudden and intense—nothing parents would understand. Certainly not her parents. Not now. Carl was exactly right to drive off the way he did. All great passions began as thrilling secrets—and this was hers.

*   *   *

Rainey managed to keep Carl a secret by telling Daddy that Mr. Buchanan had decided she was experienced enough with closing the Burger Chef to total the day’s sales and balance the books, instead of leaving it for him to do before opening the next morning. “He says it’ll be great practice for my bookkeeping course—put me ahead of the other students,” she said, “but it means I’ll have to work an hour later, maybe a little more. Sally will still pick me up.” Once she was sure Daddy believed her, she told the same lie to her mother, and Rainey was free to think about Carl.

Now, back at the ball field, on their fourth night together, Carl led her from the car to the side of the bleachers and leaned her against one of the supporting posts. His first kisses were light, but soon they grew harder, deeper, and then he was pulling her under the bleachers. Kissing her again, he twisted her in his arms so her back was to him. While he sucked at her neck—how she loved his mouth on her neck!—he reached for her hands, placed them on the edge of one of the seat planks, and wrapped his arm around her like a sash. With his other hand, he worked her skirt up to her waist and pulled down her panties. There was just the briefest sear of pain when he pressed himself into her—like a smooth round stone, yet hot and damp—but, oh, she liked it, how much she liked it, when he tightened his other arm around her and rocked and swayed like a solo dancer, as if he were the back and she were the front of the same body.

*   *   *

“You only met him last week!” Sally was so flustered she knocked Skimble off her lap. The skinny black tom hissed and batted their ankles. The friends were sitting together on the porch swing, Rainey’s parents just inside, watching
Gunsmoke
. “Let’s go out to the stoop,” Sally whispered. When they were settled, Sally leaned in close. “Are you sure, Rainey? Are you sure that’s what happened? I mean, you’ve never.… have you?”

Her friend’s seriousness seemed so silly that Rainey laughed. How could she have done it before when she didn’t even know there was such a thing to do until it happened? But what difference did it make? Now she knew why the girls in high school used to giggle with excitement whenever they had a date. This was why they couldn’t concentrate in English class on Monday mornings, why they always asked for extra time on their homework.

“Did he force you? Did you fight him? You’re not thinking you’re in love with him?” Sally’s questions fired so quickly, Rainey couldn’t keep up with them.

Fight him? What a ridiculous thing to ask. Why should she? “It’s okay,” she said, reaching over to pat Sally’s arm.

How could Rainey explain she’d just done what seemed easy and natural, like how when she was eight she suddenly found the balance on her roller skates, one second clumsy and the next—flight. And no, she wasn’t in love with Carl—at least she didn’t think so. Not yet. It was the experience she adored, a feeling so wonderful she couldn’t even imagine it when it wasn’t happening. “Why are you so upset about this?” she asked Sally. “You date all the time.”

“I don’t do
that
all the time! I don’t do that
ever
.”

“But why not?” Rainey said. “I’ve seen you kiss Ben lots of times.”

Sally stared at her, mouth open. “Oh, come on, Rainey. You know that’s not the same.”

“Well, okay,” Rainey said, “it’s not the same as kissing, but it’s not that much different. It’s nice.”

Sally stood up and put her hands over her face. “Did he tell you that? Is he the one that said it wasn’t any big deal?”

As a matter of fact, all Carl had said was that he’d dated lots of other girls before her, so Rainey just assumed he knew what people did on dates, but she thought better of saying that to Sally.

“Look,” said Sally, “I know you don’t get along so well with your mother, but you should listen to her on this.” She leaned down to hug Rainey. “I’ve got to go home now. See the guy if you want to, but don’t do that anymore.”

That Sally. She’d always seemed so wise before, so how strange it was that she didn’t understand about this. And what did she mean about listening to what Mother had told her? Mother had never talked to her at all about boys, except to say Rainey didn’t need to have anything to do with them until it was time to marry. The few times she’d tried to ask about what it was like to be married, her mother had said, “Like everything else—some good, some bad. You’ll find out by doing. No point talking about it.”

Well, this settled it. She just wouldn’t say anything more about Carl to Sally, not for now—and definitely no good could come of mentioning him to her parents. Probably they’d make her quit her job, and she wasn’t about to take that chance. So she would keep quiet—just for the time being—until she could be sure where things were going.

October

What a summer it had been. First job. First boyfriend. First—everything, really, and so wonderful—because she could finally see, really see, what her life might be. Rainey set a bundle of napkins on a clean tray and carried it from table to table, tucking the thick stacks into the holders, looking up every now and then to see how the new hire, Dennis, was getting along with the inventory. How quickly things changed.

By the beginning of August, she had already outlasted the three girls who started the same week she did, as well as two of their replacements, which made her, Rainey Jorgensen, the senior employee—aside from Millie and Mr. Buchanan himself. Then Mr. Buchanan promoted her to night manager. And at the end of the month, when she enrolled for her classes at Anderson County Junior College, he told her that when she was finished with her program, he could recommend her for a job with the company headquarters in Indianapolis if she wanted it. Imagine that—
her.
In Indianapolis. A real chance to do just what she’d dreamed of. With her own job secure, she and Sally could take an apartment and get along fine until Sally could find something, too.

These days, between her classes and her work schedule, Rainey was busy every minute, but she loved it all—the feeling of responsibility that came with training the new employees, like Dennis; the challenge of her schoolwork, even though it was hard; the excitement of meeting other young people like herself, people with goals. People like Richard, a boy in her economics class, who was going into banking.

People very different from Carl. Finally, after they’d been together for a month or so, he told her he had never been to college, had never even thought about becoming an engineer. He wasn’t working construction, either, which she’d known all along. Instead, what little time he referred to as “working” was spent running errands for a friend of his who fixed cars out of a home garage. The lies hadn’t mattered to Rainey back then—then, from the time she got up in the morning, she had watched the clock, figuring up every few minutes how much longer before she would be with Carl, feeling his heart thumping against her back. All day long, and then with Carl at the ball field at night, her heart would sing,
This is love, this is love,
but now her days were filled by sitting in her classes at the junior college, smiling back at the boys who were smiling at her—Richard among them—and she forgot about Carl entirely for hours at a time. Like this morning—when Richard asked her if she wanted to go see Elizabeth Taylor in
Giant
at the Grand a week from this Saturday, she’d said yes without a single thought to Carl.

She wished now that he was coming to pick her up after work tonight like he usually did, just so she could go ahead and break up with him, but he’d told her he would busy every night this week, helping to overhaul an engine. Rainey didn’t really believe him—and if she had confessed all her feelings to Sally, her friend would have told her to pick up the phone and get it over with—but that didn’t seem fair. After all, Carl was her first love, and even though she knew the romance was over, she still had a warm feeling for him, and he deserved better than getting dumped over the telephone. She’d see him soon enough—probably the first of next week—and in the meantime she’d enjoy her Saturday date with Richard.

Rainey filled the last of the napkin holders and then collected the mustard and ketchup bottles for refilling. Fifteen minutes to closing. Daddy would be here soon. Sally had a night job of her own now and couldn’t pick her up, so it was a relief to Rainey, when she was forced to ask Daddy to give her a ride, that she could tell the truth—Sally was working. But soon Carl would be out of her life, and she could stop lying altogether. She planned to tell everyone—even Mother—about Richard, right from the start.

Rainey walked back to the kitchen to check Dennis’s inventory, pointing out that he’d forgotten to count the condiments and paper supplies in the storage closet. While he finished that, she shut down the fryer and scrubbed the grill, then locked the door and cashed out the register.

She had just stepped outside when Daddy pulled up. “Don’t wait in the dark alone, Rainey,” he scolded. “Wait inside until you see me.”

“Yes, Daddy.” She slid onto the seat and pulled the door shut, then turned a little to smile at his profile, outlined in dim flashes by the occasional passing car. She could hear the crackle from his shirt pocket as he fumbled for a cigarette, so she pushed in the knob on the dashboard lighter to get it ready for him.

He smoked without talking the rest of the way home. When he shut off the engine, he reached for Rainey’s hand and squeezed it twice, but instead of releasing it like he usually did, he held on.