Little Did I Know: A Novel (21 page)

“James, take your weed machine upstairs and out of the way. Sam, put the gun somewhere in the theater where no one will find it unless they are really looking.”

She walked over to Doobie and picked his head up by the hair again. “Doobie!” she shouted in his face. “Get to your car and go to sleep. Now!” She let go of his head, and it again slammed on the table. She put her face next to his and shouted, “Now!” He perked up a bit, gathered his wits, and headed slowly toward his open Jeep Wrangler.

“Sam, find some branches and cover the animals. The ones inside as well. Then you and the girls park the cars so they hide this mess as best as you can. Now get going and meet me right here in five minutes, or you’re on your own.”

Everyone obeyed. I watched her walk into the office and make a quick phone call. Whoever she called was either awake or she didn’t care one way or another. When she returned to the redwood table, all of us were finishing our appointed rounds, awaiting further instructions.

Man was she adorable.

We were a tattered and sorry lot. She looked at us with disdain tinged with affection. “We are going to go to the motel. We’ll go in my car and Sam’s Mustang. If you girls need something to sleep in, grab it real quick.”

We stood with our backs to the red house and listened like a platoon of good soldiers. Then we heard a chilling crash, and Veronica’s eyes became the size of saucers. She hesitated for a moment, tried to speak, but nothing made it past her lips. Finally, as she turned away from the house and began to sprint past us to the cars, she shouted a plaintive, “Run!”

It was like a horror movie. We obeyed, yet all of us took a look behind to see an army of fifteen or twenty rabid raccoons dashing toward us to kill us and then eat us. Sobriety returned in a flash, and we raced toward the cars. It was a long hundred yards to run in the dark. The fireflies flickered and the coons growled. No, actually they roared. I got to the Mustang, turning my key in the ignition. No one was laughing now.

As I drove off, I looked in the rearview mirror and saw the army of wild animals. They appeared to be shouting at us. “We’ll get you next time, you motherfuckers,” they seemed to be saying. Then I saw them lick their paws with anticipation and relish.

I
t was well past 4 a.m. Veronica had found a room for JB, Debbie, and Diana: a double with a folding cot. The girls were grateful for clean sheets and the respite from Raccoon Nation. James was ensconced in an oversized linen closet.

Veronica didn’t ask anyone for a penny. She had made my friends hers and, even amid this poor behavior and these unattractive circumstances, was showing her generosity and spirit. She put me up in the VIP room, but explained I shouldn’t get too excited since there were rarely any VIPs in Plymouth. Most of the time it was used for storage files or cleaning supplies. Nevertheless, it was warm and clean and boasted a huge king-sized bed with fresh sheets and free HBO. I was tired, but sleep was not about to happen.

Veronica paraded about the room in her clinging tank top and PJ bottoms. She was tall and lithe as always. In the week since we had first met, we had danced the flirt-trot often. Stood on the precipice of magic, kissed sweetly, and contained simmering passion. When I was away from her, she was often front and center in my thoughts. I understood her reluctance to complicate her summer with a boy who was just passing through, yet Barrows and his Machiavellian puppet diatribe needed explanation, if not so she and I might be together, then simply for sanity alone.

Suddenly, without a word she left the room, and I sat quietly wondering whether she’d be back. I lay with my head against the pillow and closed my eyes. I had no answers. I had been up since six in the morning and if I went to sleep, life would still be there when I woke.

Just then Veronica walked in carrying a bottle of milk and a box of Oreos. She poured the milk into the motel water glasses and handed me one. “Do you think milk might taste better if it were served in crystal glasses?” she asked.

“Don’t know,” I said. “Until this week, I never drank anything from crystal other than on Thanksgiving at my Aunt Rene’s. I like milk, though, even from the carton.”

“Drink,” she insisted. I did, and the milk was cold and delicious.

We were quiet for a moment.

“So?” she asked.

“So,” I replied.

“For a guy who never stops talking, you have very little to say.”

“You think I talk too much?”

“No.”

Nothing was audible outside other than the pulse of the ocean. I popped an Oreo in my mouth and followed with a long swig of milk.

“You have anything to say?” I asked.

“Too much for tonight. Even for a summer and beyond,” she replied sadly but mixed with a mischievous grin.

“What does Barrows have?” I started, trying to take this conversation forward.

“Money, bitterness, and a trunkful of trouble. He is a bad man, impervious to the consequences of his actions. I hate him.” Her face was flushed. She no longer looked sad. Now she looked angry, her eyes furtive and darting.

“He wants to break you like you break a wild stallion. He wants to own you like he owns so many others. But he can’t—and he knows it—and it is driving him insane.”

“That’s a kind characterization.”

“As I said the other night, it’s a small town and shit happens. As I cried my way through yesterday, I had another thought: maybe my last summer in Plymouth should include a boy who is just passing through and I should not be afraid or make his decisions for him. I decided I want to get on the roller coaster with you and scream and shout at the wind till we are breathless. And if we go off track . . . well, at least we had a ride.”

She paused. Slowly her furrowed brow disappeared and her face lit up with a big warm sloppy smile. “And I think riding with you would be a nice thing to do.”

Veronica Chapman had invited me to enter her orbit.

“Do I need to buy a ticket or do I just get on?” I asked.

“You
are
the ticket, big boy.”

“That’s very show biz.”

“I’m a quick study.”

She sat down on the bed and pulled me toward her and kissed me. It was a cocktail of kindness and lust and longing.

She got up and walked to the dresser to get more cookies. I wanted to throw her on the bed and ravage her until she moaned and screamed but it didn’t seem appropriate. Instead, I watched her put more treats on the plate and sit back down on the edge of the bed.

“Do you want to sleep with me, handsome?” she asked.

“Yes, I do. It is quite late.”

“
Sleeping
is a euphemism. How about some lust, sweat, and orgasms?”

“With you?”

She slapped me on the side of the head. A few moments later, she began to remove her tank top. I took her hand and stopped her, pulling her next to me. She didn’t say a word, just nestled as closely into me as she could.

Despite all the thoughts racing in my head, not one distracted me from the moment. “Veronica, I can’t have sex with you tonight.”

“Why not?” she asked, making it clear that she really wanted to know why.

I spent some time thinking about my answer. “Veronica, sweetheart, I’d have to be dead not to want to have sex with you. Even then I’m sure I’d make every effort to do so.”

“So? Do you think I’m loose, that I fuck anybody?”

“No. Well, actually, I did when we first went out. I mean, you always look so available. You make no effort to hide how great you look . . .”

Her faced flushed with anger. “I’m pretty. Is that a bad thing? Should I dress like a fucking nun? Would you prefer if I dressed like I just escaped the convent? You think you would have cared two shits about me if I didn’t look and dress the way I do?”

“No, I probably would not have paid you much attention.”

“So, you won’t fuck me because you think I’ll be with anybody. Is that it?”

“I didn’t say anything of the sort. In fact, I won’t fuck you because I have been with
anybody
and now I want to be with
somebody.”

Veronica got off the bed and walked over to the chair where she had thrown her sweatshirt. She put it on and began running the zipper up and down in an awkward sort of way. She went over to the dresser and picked up the bottle of milk. “You want a refill?”

“Sure.”

She sat back on the bed and poured the remaining milk into my glass. There was barely enough left to coat the bottom. She threw the carton casually across the room, then sat drawing circles with her finger on the sheet. She avoided my eyes.

“What else can I get you?” she asked at last.

“You
are the somebody, Veronica. I think you’re the somebody.”

She looked up at me with tears welling in her electric blue eyes. “Somebody. Somebody is good. Other than the burden of being pretty with a fantastic body that makes mere mortals turn to stone . . . somebody is good.”

Then she kissed me on the cheek for a very long time.

Veronica climbed under the covers and pulled the blanket as high up to our chins as possible. From under the covers, she removed her sweatshirt and discarded it with a flourish. Then came her tank top. Her panties followed. She rubbed up against me.

With her head resting on my chest, and smiling as if she had one big special secret, she said, “Get some sleep. You’re going to need it. Big day tomorrow and it starts early. That shit with those raccoons could get you in a whole lot of trouble. Oh, by the way, big boy, I am totally naked.” I felt her breasts press up against me and she wrapped her long legs around mine. “Sorry you can’t do anything about it. You see, I’m not just anybody. I am somebody.”

I stroked her soft hair and moved her so she rested in the crook of my arm.

Plymouth was now a kingdom of magic. It promised more. Yet as I lay in Veronica’s arms, I thought,
If this is it, then there is indeed a God, and he is kind and rich and offered a bit of giddyup.

Veronica sighed and pressed even closer. If you could make a musical out of all of this, it would run forever. I closed my eyes. If it took months for them to open, well, that would be all too soon.

V
eronica was true to her word. The morning began early. She had roused me from a deep sleep by 7 a.m. and given me fifteen minutes to meet her outside. When I did, she was standing next to her car holding two steaming cups of coffee. Her hair was in a long ponytail, and she wore a white form-fitting T-shirt and blue jeans that hugged her butt as if painted on by a grand master. How did anyone, especially me, ever rebuff her overtures?

She handed me my coffee and suggested I follow her. We sped down Rocky Hill Road. The morning was chilly, but the sun was already making things right. Veronica turned into the lot at PBT. The marquee remained lit, shouting out the news of our new season, and again the sight of it gave me a thrill.

In the driveway were two pickup trucks with business names on their doors. One was a tarnished navy-blue fifties Chevy whose sign read I
RON’S
P
EST
C
ONTROL
, the other a shiny red El Camino, sporting W
HITE
C
LIFFS OF
P
LYMOUTH
.

Seated at the picnic table in casual but crisp outfits of denim and khaki were two guys; one I knew a little and the other was a stranger. They were eating a box of doughnuts and drinking coffee. As I approached the group they stood up to greet me.

“Hi, Sidney,” I said as I shook his hand and offered a friendly grin.

The guy I didn’t know said, “Morning, Sam. Johnny Iron. Good to meet you.” He presented a firm handshake.

The dead raccoons from last evening lay a few feet from us; they now had visitors in the form of ants, flies, and other vermin.

“Sam, I brought Johnny by because yous got a serious problem with these animals here,” Sidney stated. “They’re dead, you know?”

I looked at the carcasses of the fallen raccoon family and remembered how close their relatives had gotten to extracting revenge. “Yes, Sidney, they’re dead.”

“You shoot them?”

“Nope.”

“Who did?” asked Johnny Iron.

“Is that important?” I asked. “If this is a problem, then let’s talk about fixing that, and then we can move on to the recriminations.”

Sidney looked peeved. “Veronica, honey, comes over here so I can understand what your college boy is saying.”

She sashayed over from the table, licking the powdered sugar off a doughnut.

“Sam, these animals are dead,” said Johnny Iron. “They pose a health issue. You know, disease and all. And they are going to fuck up the smell around here pretty darn quick.”

“You think these suckers are dead?” I deadpanned.

Johnny Iron took another look to make sure, looked back at me, and said, “Yeah, they are, Sam. They’re dead.”

“Quit fuckin ’round here, college boy,” Sidney said sharply. “This ain’t funny. You got animals here that were shot. Somebody goes to jail for that shit in Plymouth County. Even if yous got a license for the gun, there’s no license that allows you to shoot coons. You got to make this go away. Veronica called me, so I dragged my old ass out of bed to help yous. So now what’s it going to be?”