Envious Moon (13 page)

I
t took me a while, but I was able to figure out how to get back to the campsite by doing a great circle through a number of towns, ending up in Litchfield, and then making my way back.

I parked the car and for a time I sat on the hood and smoked and thought about what to do. The rain was so light that it felt cool and good on my skin. It felt like some kind of cure for my hangover.

If they thought I was here, it meant that they figured out that I had Victor's car. I'm sure they didn't think I walked here. Maybe I could have taken a bus. But I had to assume that the car was made and that they were looking for it. That I got lucky on my last pass. I couldn't drive the car in the daytime anymore.

The school was maybe three miles away. I knew the general direction, and it would be an easy walk on the roads to get there, but the same rule applied. If they were out looking for me, a Portuguese kid walking a winding country Connecticut road would be easy to pick out. No, the only move was to go overland. To pick my way through the woods. And hope that I didn't get lost.

I set off sometime after noon. I just plunged right in behind
my campsite, forded the small brook by leaping from rock to rock, and then I was off among the trees. It was a young forest, a mix of birch and poplars growing close together, and the land rose up and down in small hills. It was beautifully green in here, though, and the cover was great enough that what rain there was did not reach me. It was hard work, this walk, as I had to make my way over brush and fallen logs, and now and again I took a break and sat down on a mossy stump and rested. Soon the woods grew more piney, and the trees were farther apart. The forest floor was covered with a soft blanket of pine needles and I moved more quickly.

Then coming down this long hill, I saw breaks in the trees in front of me and as I got closer I heard shouts, playful shouts, and I walked to the edge of the trees. In front of me I saw girls playing soccer. I was behind the school and these were the athletic fields. The field was maybe twenty yards away and I was in the dark trees and there was no way they could have seen me.

There were all kinds of girls. Blond girls and dark-haired girls. White girls and black girls. Girls with short hair and girls with ponytails that bounced on the back of their necks as they ran. I sat down against the base of a large tree and I watched them. I scanned their faces for Hannah but she was not among them. I would have seen her right away. My eyes would have gone to her. I couldn't picture her playing soccer anyway. There was something nice about the game, though. The misty rain had stopped and a splintered sun appeared from behind the clouds. The green grass shone with moisture. And there were all those girls in motion, their shouts and their cries, the thudding of their feet, the calling of each other's names, a blur of girls, moving as one.

T
hose woods became my friend. They wrapped that small campus like a blanket and for days I wandered through them like they were mine. I stood in their shadows and watched girls playing sports, walking to class, standing in small groups talking. I circled the whole place and there were only a few buildings out of the reach of my sight. I didn't see any cops. I also didn't see Hannah.

A few times I saw a girl at a distance that I thought was her, only to have the girl move close enough for me to realize I had been mistaken.

Emboldened by the darkness of night, I roamed the empty campus like I owned the place. There was one security guard, from what I could tell, and you could hear him coming from a mile away because he whistled when he did his rounds. I'd duck behind a building and wait until he had passed. I learned all the names of the buildings, especially the low brick ones near the soccer field that I took to be the dormitories. Spencer Hall. Fuller Hall. Salisbury Hall. Bradford Hall. They were two-floor square institutional buildings and I walked their lengths in the dark, hoping to see through one of the windows, to get a glimpse of my girl.

But these girls were scrupulous about keeping their shades drawn, and I never saw more than a passing glimpse of a figure between the edge of shade and the window. I was losing hope.

Coming back to the campsite after one of these missions, I emerged out of the dark woods to discover that Terrence had returned, and was on his lawn chair in front of his trailer. I didn't want anything to do with him, but he was drinking beer and I wanted one. If he thought it odd that I appeared seemingly out of nowhere, he didn't say anything. He motioned for me to sit down, and I did and he reached for his cooler and handed me a beer.

“How's your girl?” Terrence asked.

I shook my head. “Nothing.”

“Haven't found her?”

I looked toward where I had come from, the dark woods behind the campsite. “No,” I said.

“Why don't you just call?”

“I don't know that she'll talk to me.”

Terrence seemed to be considering this. “How 'bout this?” he said.

I looked over at him. “What?”

“Pretend you're delivering something.”

“Yeah, right.”

“I'm serious, boy. It'll work.”

I shook my head. “I don't have a uniform or anything.”

“It don't matter. You don't actually have to deliver anything. You just need to find out where she lives, right?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“So just go to the school there, pull up, find a couple of girls and ask them. Say ‘I have a package for Miss-whatever-
her-name-is and can you tell me where I can find her?' Bet they give it right up.”

“That's not bad,” I said, thinking it over.

“Hell no,” said Terrence. “It's good, what it is. That shit'll work.”

I was actually grateful and showed it. I raised my beer to him and we clinked bottles. “Thanks, Terrence,” I said.

“Then you can do whatever it is you going to do to her,” he said.

“I told you I'm not going to do anything to her.”

Terrence drew on his cigarette and he looked away. “What you say, boy.”

I braced at this. I felt an anger come over me and when I looked at him, he had turned back toward me and his old face framed by his gray hair had a smug look on it. I could have smashed it with the beer bottle in my fist, that's how I felt about it. I said, “I'm not going to tell you again about that.”

“Whoa, boy, relax,” said Terrence.

I lighted a cigarette, breathed in. “I'm okay.”

“Good,” Terrence said. “Have another beer.”

I swallowed the last of what I had and took the new beer from him. I drank it quickly. I was thankful for the idea and for the beer but I wanted to be away from him. I wanted to hit my bedroll and shut my eyes against the day.

T
he next morning I drove to Litchfield under steely skies and at the pharmacy I bought cigarettes, a big padded envelope, and a pen. Back at the campsite I saw that Terrence had once again left and I sat on the hood of my car and I wrote Hannah's name on the envelope and below it I wrote, Miss Watson's School. The day was cool and breezy but I didn't mind. I was filled with anticipation for what I was about to do.

I hiked back through the woods and when I reached the clearing that was the soccer fields, I stopped and I waited. My heart was somewhere between my chest and my throat, to tell you the truth. There were no girls around and I figured they were in class. I waited until I heard the shrill of a bell and then I left the woods and boldly walked across the soccer field. I reached a pathway that cut between buildings and stood there, thinking that any minute the state police were going to come bounding toward me, telling me to put my arms in the air, to stay where I was. Instead I heard voices, girls' voices, and from between the buildings came a knot of girls, four of them, and when they approached me, I did my best to look lost. I saw them taking me in, my jeans and my workboots, my flannel shirt,
and I pretended to study the empty package in my hands. When they reached me, I said, “Excuse me.”

They stopped. Stared at me. I looked down at the envelope again. I gave it my best voice. “Can you tell me where I can find,” and I paused and looked down once more. “Ms. Hannah Forbes. Where her room is?”

Behind them I saw more girls coming. No sign of any teachers, though. Or security. I did worry that any moment Hannah would come around one of the buildings and see me there. I had no idea how she would react.

The tall girl in front said, “Hannah's in Fuller.”

Next to her, a small blond girl said, “All packages go to the mail room.” She pointed to a low building to our left. “In there.”

I ignored her. “Do you know her room number?”

The tall girl said, “I think she's in 104.”

“No, it's 105,” a girl in the back said.

“Yeah, 105,” said a third girl.

“Great, thanks,” I said. A few more girls passed us and I turned and started to walk away. I stopped and studied the envelope until the girls I had talked to had moved on and I could see their backs. Then I took a right over the soccer field. I kept walking and when I was over a rise, I broke into a run and didn't stop until I reached the safety of the woods.

T
hat night was dark and without moon. The nights were darker here in the woods than they were at home, where the ocean, even on cloudy starless nights, seemed to hold some of the light of day. I ate a fast-food dinner and sat around the campsite wishing I had some beer. I was real jumpy and I chain-smoked and watched the night come on. The evening seemed to stretch on forever and when I took off through the woods, it was all I could do to keep myself from running.

I came onto the campus the way I always did now, across the soccer field and I ran in a half crouch crossing it, heading for the cluster of brick dormitories on the other side. I stopped behind a tree when I reached the pathways lined with streetlamps and I looked around. The place was deserted, as it always was at this time, the girls safely ensconced in their dorm rooms. No sign of the security guard. No sign of teachers. No cops. I ran across the small quadrangle and in between two of the dorms, stopping to rest with the brick of Fuller Hall, where Hannah was, behind my back.

Two floors of windows were next to me, most of them still lit. Behind one of them was Hannah. My challenge was to discover which one.

I could eliminate the second floor. Room 105. That had to be on the first floor. If odd numbers were on the right, and even on the left, it should be the third one in, I figured, a mere thirty feet or so from where I stood.

I went to this window and stood in front of it. The shade was drawn but on the left side there was a sliver of open space. I put my eyeball right to it and tried to look in. I saw a lamp on a desk and behind it I saw what looked like the metal headboard of a bed. But that was all I could see. I stepped away from the window. I thought about what I should do now. I couldn't just knock on it, since there was no way of knowing for certain that it was Hannah's room. I had only one bite of the apple, I figured. Behind me I heard a footfall, like someone stepping on a branch, and I froze where I was. I looked to my right and I saw the light of a flashlight. I went quickly to the side of the window and leaned my body as far as it would go into the brick. A beam of light danced across the space I occupied between the two dormitories. It flitted over my head and caught my boots in its light. Then it was gone and I heard whistling. The security guard doing his rounds.

I stayed put until I was comfortable he was long gone. Then I went back to the window and when I looked through this time, what I saw seized my heart. She was only inches from me, separated by glass. I could only see the tiniest piece of her where she leaned over the desk, her bangs hanging over her forehead, a swipe of her face. There was only one thing to do. I didn't care what happened.

I rapped softly on the glass with my knuckles. Once and then again. A hand appeared at the bottom and the shade went up. Instinctively, I stepped back.

Standing there in the glass, staring out into the dark at me,
stood Hannah. She wore a white tank top and pajama bottoms. Hannah slid the window up and when she did, I started to cry. I hadn't planned to but it just happened. Big, choking tears too. For a moment she just looked at me. She seemed too stunned to say anything and I was crying too hard to talk. It was like something opened inside me and I had no idea how to stuff it back in.

Hannah said, “I'm going to get the cops.”

Suddenly I managed to talk. I said, “Don't do that, Hannah. Don't. Please. Don't. I just need to talk to you. Please. And then if you want, I'll go away. You can call the cops. Never see me again.”

“You killed him,” she said. “They said you killed him.”

“No,” I said, “you have to listen to me. Can we just talk, please? Please,” I said. “Come with me. Ten minutes. Hear me and then you can go.”

I wiped tears away from my face with the back of my sleeve and for a moment she didn't do anything. She just looked at me. Behind her the door opened and another girl came in the room. She was tall and blond and wore pajamas too. She looked frightened when she saw me standing there. But of course she wouldn't understand.

“Hannah,” she said. “Is this him?”

“Come with me, Hannah,” I said, and I reached for her hands. She didn't resist me. I helped her out and through the window.

“Can I just get a sweater?” Hannah said, when she stood next to me.

“Sure,” I said.

“Emma, hand me a sweater and some jeans. My sneakers.”

“Are you crazy?” Emma said. “You're going to get expelled.”

“Just do it, Emma.”

The tall girl went to the closet and came back with a pair of jeans, a bulky wool sweater, and a pair of white sneakers. She handed them out the window. Hannah dropped her pajama bottoms and in the dark I saw her beautiful legs where they came out of her panties. She wriggled into the jeans and then slid the sneakers on. She pulled the sweater over her head.

“What should I do?” the other girl asked.

“Just wait,” Hannah whispered. “I'll be right back.”

“This way,” I said.

I led her in the dark through the campus I knew as well as she did, toward the soccer field.

We sat cross-legged on the dewy grass facing each other. Our knees touched. I tried to hold her hands but she would not let me yet. It was so dark I could barely see her face. I was grateful for the dark, because I wanted her to focus on my words, not my eyes or my mouth. I wanted Hannah to hear everything I had to say. I wanted the words to sit still in the air for her to gather in herself when she wanted to.

I spoke softly but insistently. I told her everything. I left nothing out. I told her all that had happened before she found me on the beach. I said how Victor had been at her grandmother's wake, and had gotten bad information that she had lived alone and that the house would be empty. How he saw the money under the carpet and that was why we had gone there. Because we were poor and it was a lot of money. We never would have gone into the house if we knew someone was there. I said that when she appeared on the stairs I could not stop looking at her. That I knew then that I loved her and I know that sounds crazy but that was the way it was. And how I never saw
her father until he was on me, until he drove me into the railing. I had only tried to get away from him. I didn't fight back or do anything. He fell, I said. It was an accident and if I could do anything to bring him back, I would. I said I wished that I was the one who had gone over the railing. Only if I had I never would have known her. We would not have had that time on the island. And I could only speak for myself, but before then I had been drifting through life without ever feeling anything, really feeling anything, like I was one of those people who couldn't experience pain, so that they could touch a hot stove and burn the shit out of themselves and not know it.

When I was done, I stopped talking and I listened to her breathe across from me. I was quiet. She cried. I wanted to reach out to her but I was on her schedule. I let her cry and I cried again myself. A brisk wind moved across the field and I felt it on my shirt. I wanted her to tell me I had said enough. I wanted her to tell me we were okay. I wanted to hold her. I wanted to lie down next to her. I wanted to trace her face with my fingers.

Finally, she spoke. Barely a whisper. She said, “I believe you.”

I whispered back, “Say my name.”

“Why?”

“Please, I need to hear you say it.”

“Anthony,” Hannah said.

I put my hands on her arms. I slid them up near her shoulders. Sitting cross-legged like we were, we formed a wheel. I leaned my head forward as far as I could.

“Come here,” I said. She moved her face toward mine in the dark. I turned my head sideways and sitting there in that field our cheeks touched and when I pushed them closer together it hurt but neither of us cared at all.