Road To Nowhere (3 page)

“How about your boyfriend?” the guy asked. The question was probing – the fact didn’t escape Teresa. But the guy asked it so easily that she didn’t know if he was interested in her. She didn't even know if she wanted him to be.

Lowering her head shyly, she muttered, “I don’t have a boyfriend.”

“Then I should buy you lunch.”

She raised her head quickly. “Pardon?”

“Can I buy you lunch?”

“Why? I mean, I don't even know your name.”

“I’m Bill Clark. Who are you?”

“Teresa.”

“May I buy you lunch, Teresa?”

She felt her cheeks redden. “Can I order anything I want?”

Bill smiled, showing his dimples. “Anything you desire.”

They both ordered chicken sandwiches when the time came – half an hour later. By then Teresa knew that Bill was a senior in high school like herself and that he was interested in astronomy and physics and that he wanted to journey to Mars before he was forty. By then she also knew she wanted to go out with him, and when he asked for her number after they’d eaten, she couldn’t find a pen quick enough.

He picked her up for their first date two days after Christmas, which was a Saturday. Her parents grilled him for thirty minutes before giving him full responsibility for their darling daughter’s very existence on the planet.

Bill took it all in his stride. When they were in the car he said his mother had died when he was a kid, and that he never saw his dad because the man worked all the time. Teresa felt a pang of sympathy for Bill, yet at the same time she couldn't imagine a more wonderful set-up.

They went to dinner, and Bill talked about the Big Bang Theory – the origin of the universe. He said that fifteen billion years earlier all matter in creation had been condensed into a single point of mass as tiny as the period at the end of a sentence. But that this point exploded, and generated trillions of degrees of heat and a great light that still glows faintly to this day. The background radiation of the universe, Bill called it, and it sounded so incredible because the light of the candles on their table was in his eyes and he had shaved and dressed up just for her. When he was through talking she asked him a question.

“Then what are we?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“If all matter in all the universe can be condensed into a period doesn't that mean that we’re like nothing? Just spirits floating around on a ghost planet?”

Bill nodded. “That’s true. All of matter is almost entirely space. Only an infinitesimal part of it is solid.”

“Then how come you can’t see right through me?” she asked.

He smiled. “Who says I can’t? Who says I can’t tell exactly what you’re thinking right now?”

“What am I thinking?” She didn’t even know herself, but it was something about him. Everything about him. He was wonderful, the way he talked about important things – big things. All she had ever thought about was the smallest of things – herself and what others thought of her.

Bill raised his water glass, indicating she was to do the same. They chimed the crystal together. “You’re thinking you want to go out with me again,” he said.

“I don’t know if I can.” She enjoyed watching his face fall. “I mean, there’s a lot of background radiation around you.”

He laughed. “There’s a lot of light around you, Teresa.”

Later, after a movie neither of them enjoyed, he took her to his place. His father was at work. The man must have made big bucks – the house was gorgeous. Teresa felt nervous. She had never been alone with a guy late at night. But she was excited, too, and she trusted Bill. She knew he wouldn’t try to take advantage of her. They sat in the living-room beside a huge aquarium of exotic fish. Bill remembered her comment at the mall about getting a new guitar. She hadn’t talked about her music over dinner. She’d been too busy forming galaxies and creating planets for alien beings to inhabit. His words had carried her to places she had never been before.

“So have you been using your new guitar?” he asked.

“Of course. I play all the time. I’ve played every day since I was nine.”

Bill was impressed. “You’re a real musician?”

She giggled. “I’m not real, remember? Neither are you. Just a bunch of empty space playing with empty space.”

“I have some empty space in the next room that looks like an old guitar my dad never learned to play. Would you play it for me?”

She was shocked. “Oh, I couldn’t do that. I’m not a performer.”

“Then who do you play for?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I just play. I only play for other people when I give lessons.”

Bill stood. “Then you can pretend that you're giving me a lesson. I want to hear you.”

“Why?”

“Because I know you’re going to be wonderful.”

He returned a minute later with a guitar that had seen better days. He sat on a chair across from her. The steel strings were rusty, and it took her several minutes to tune the instrument. Bill sat patiently while her heart pounded against her chest. She knew she was good, but she didn’t know his tastes. He had said some nice things to her at dinner, but she had no real idea if he liked her the way she liked him.

“What would you like to hear?” she asked finally.

“I can just name any song and you’ll know it?”

“I don't know every song, but I know a few.”

“Play one of your favourites,” he said.

“I want to play one of your favourites.”

“Teresa.”

“What?”

“Play something that you’ve composed. And don’t tell me you haven’t written any music. You have, I can tell.”

She was amazed. “How can you tell?”

“Because you’re a creator. If you were there at the start of the Big Bang I’m sure you would have done a great job of organizing the universe. Maybe better than whoever did do it.”

His remark was ridiculous, of course. But maybe that was why it touched her so. She knew then what she was going to play him. It was a song she had written that morning, while she sat daydreaming about him. She just intended to play him the music, but hardly had she begun to strum the chords than her mouth opened and the words poured out.

There was a song in my room I wanted you to hear.

It had colours and rhythms and a story most dear.

But I kept it to myself out of sorrow and fear

That you would hear it too soon and never again come near.

But you heard it anyway and it made you laugh.

You saw me too soon and your eyes cut me in half.

But I laugh, too, and I don't want it to end.

This time together with the boy who gave me this painful yen.

You think I am an interesting stranger.

I have secrets you don't know that could be a danger.

I have lies that would hurt me to share.

But truths that could comfort me if you care.

So why don’t I stop now?

Why don’t I take my bow?

I can’t say with words in a song

Things that can’t be found in time no matter how long.

We sit together and talk of everything that might go wrong.

But let's not talk, let’s not say

We can’t see where we are, we don’t know the way.

Let’s just say we have today.

We have today.

And if that is enough to keep fate from asking us to pay

Then I will stay beside you until the month of May.

I will stay beside you any kind of way.

Boy, this is all I want to say.

Until the month of May.

They sat in silence when she was finished, Bill staring at her. Her heart was no longer pounding. It had sunk into a warm glow of golden light at the beginning of a new creation. Bill smiled and shook his head.

“What’s it called?” he asked.

“‘The Month of May.’”

“It’s still December. It’s a long way to May.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I know.”

He got up and walked over to sit beside her. He leaned over and kissed her on the lips. It was enough for another hundred songs, a thousand lonely nights. It was the first time she had ever been kissed by a boy and she was glad it was this boy. He let go of her and shook his head once more.

“That was beautiful,” he said.

“Thank you.”

“When did you write it?”

She hesitated only a moment. “This morning.”

He understood. “You’re beautiful, Teresa.”

“You really think so?”

He nodded, moving to kiss her again. “I think May’s just round the corner. I’m not going anywhere if you’re not.”

He held on to her half the night. Where was there to go?

Nowhere. Every other road led nowhere.

“He just used me,” Teresa told Freedom Jack and Poppy Corn as she finished telling them about her first date. “He made me think he cared about me when he didn’t.”

“Did you guys do it the first night?” Free asked.

“Jack,” Poppy complained.

“I told you not to call me that,” Free snapped.

“Well, really,” Poppy said. “Show some class.”

“We didn't sleep together that first night,” Teresa said.

“But later, huh?” Free said.

Teresa hesitated. “Sure, yeah. I was happy, I was having a good time.” She gestured weakly. “I was a fool.”

“The bastard,” Free said. “What did he do to you?”

“It's a long story,” Teresa said.

“You have to tell us,” Free said. Then he became still for a moment – rare for him. “But I suppose it’s our turn to talk. What do you say, Poppy?”

“You never stop talking,” Poppy said.

“Shut up.”

“Gladly.”

“You have to tell a story,” Free complained. “It’s part of the deal we made with Teresa.”

Poppy lit another cigarette. “Why don’t you start and I can jump in when you get lost.”

“It’s a deal,” Free said. “Let’s tell her about John Gerhart and Candice Manville.”

“Who are they?” Teresa asked.

“Friends of ours,” Free said. “They led an interesting life. We both knew them. They had a kind of Romeo and Juliet romance.”

Teresa grimaced. “I hope they didn’t commit suicide at the end.”

“They were no Romeo and Juliet,” Poppy muttered.

“Let me tell you how it went,” Free said.

CHAPTER THREE

“John and Candice first met when they were juniors in high school,” Free said. “John had just come to the L.A. area, where a lot of their story takes place. He was originally from Detroit. His mom and his stepdad moved out to L.A. because his stepdad had been laid off at a GM plant. He was looking for work. The family didn’t have much money. John had to get a job right away, on top of going to school. He worked at a gas station doing everything his boss was too lazy to do. John was great with cars – he could fix anything that was broken. But he was kind of wild. Sometimes he broke things that didn’t need to be fixed. He was a cool guy, though, and wasn’t going to be a mechanic all his life. Not with his good grades. He took a lot of maths and hard sciences and knew he’d be an engineer someday.

“John ran into Candice not long after he started at his new school. She was a beauty, and John always had an eye for good women. He called her Candy, although she didn’t let anyone else call her that. They shared a maths class. Candy wasn't the academic type. She liked to read, but mainly she enjoyed sitting and spacing out. She was a dreamer, that Candy. She should have been born on the moon. Anyway, John began to help her with her maths before he even asked her out. He knew right from the start he wanted her. He was just biding his time, being cool, and she really needed his help. She had a C that was looking more and more like a D every day.

“Candy needed more than tutoring. John moved so he was sitting behind her, and during tests he would pass her the answers. John was a whiz at maths. Candy’s grade went from a C to a B in a month. The teacher was out to lunch so they never got caught. Candy would have got an A in the class if she hadn't started so far in the hole. John did get an A. He got As in practically everything.

“Finally John and Candy started dating. He didn’t even ask her out. She asked him out! She was hot for him by then. John was hot for her, but he liked a girl bouncing before he jumped – if you know what I mean. They went to the movies, ate, drank beer – the usual teen scene. They went to the beach a lot, too. Candy looked like sex and sun lying in the warm sand. By then they were heavily involved, physically I mean. They did it just about every day. They got along great. Their junior year ended and, of course, they had more free time, although John still had to work hard at the gas station. If he didn’t bring home the bacon, his stepdad carved it off his ass with a belt. John had a bastard of a stepdad. The guy had lost a few screws welding on so many bolts for so many years on the assembly lines in Detroit. They couldn’t stand the sight of each other.

“But all this time John didn't know that Candy was keeping a secret from him. He didn’t find it out until they were already back in school for their senior year. You see, Candy didn’t take any art classes. Her parents wanted her to be a doctor. I say her parents and not her because Candy didn’t really know what she wanted to do with her life. The one thing she knew was she loved to draw. She was a genius, really, when it came to sketching stuff. But she kept her abilities secret from John because she was afraid he'd make fun of her. That was one thing about John. He couldn’t stop teasing people. He would tease a guy pushing himself up a hill in a wheelchair – not because he wanted to hurt the guy’s feelings, but because he wanted to get a laugh out of him. John was always trying to get a laugh out of everybody.

“Well, one day he stopped by Candy's house when she didn’t expect him. She was up in her room working when he walked in. She had an easel set up by the window with a drawing of John and herself at the beach. She was sketching John then. She was using charcoal – Candy only drew in black. Later she told John it was because she was colour-blind, but he thought she was just kidding. A miniscule number of girls are colour-blind, John knew.

“Anyway, he walked in on her while she was in the middle of her sketch and she just about died of embarrassment And Candy didn't embarrass easily. How could she when her brain was always sitting on the goddamn moon? But she was sensitive when it came to her art. She knew John would razz her no end, which was exactly what he did. But I knew John. I knew how he really felt about Candy’s work. Her talent blew him away, it really did. The second he saw her drawing of him his jaw dropped. He couldn’t believe how much power she had put in it. She caught a side of John not many people knew. The strong John. The one who could make things happen. He could have been great.