Tenderness (17 page)

He saw a big white hat on the head of a faceless mannequin, reminiscent of the hat that girl had worn in the canoe. He took it off the mannequin and brought it to the girl in both hands, like an offering.

“Oh, Eric,” she cried happily.

While the clerk stood by, looking at the floor or ceiling but never at them.

As Eric peeled off twenty-dollar bills to pay for the purchases, the clerk drew away in surprise. “Cash?” As if pronouncing a foreign word.

“Keep the change,” Eric said, knowing how stupid that sounded despite the contempt in his voice.

The clerk, finally, raised her eyes to his.

Eric smiled at her, a smile of promise and menace, and saw her flinch. Let her take that to bed with her tonight, he thought, as he left the store with the girl.

Outside, she said, “I should have freshened up before going in there. I feel all icky.…”

“You’re fine,” he said.

They bought a dryer in a drugstore in response to her remark that her hair would be a mess after a shower without a dryer.

“Why not some perfume?” he suggested as they
walked by a counter displaying pyramids of fancy boxes, some blue, some green, the scent of flowers in the air.

“I like the smell of soap,” the girl said. “And anyway you should save your money.”

She touched his arm, somehow an intimate gesture, as if they were a couple going steady, putting aside money for an engagement ring. Like so many stupid movies he’d seen.

At the motel she dumped the boxes and plastic bags on the twin bed she’d chosen and sighed, blowing air out of the corner of her mouth.

“Shower time,” she announced. “Then I’ll put on a style show for you.…”

He stared at the blank television screen, waiting for her, listening to the sound of water jetting from the shower head, hearing her voice above it all—was she singing? He remembered sitting like this in the facility for hours at a time, trying to keep his mind as blank as the featureless tube before him. Then he filled the blank with Maria Valdez, dusky and dark, imagining what she would look like taking a shower, water streaming down her sleek body, her black hair clustered on her flesh.

“Don’t look,” the girl commanded, invading the room, filling the air with the clean, brisk smell of pine.

Listening to the rustle of clothing as she
dressed, he was amazed at the series of events that had brought him here to this room, so different from what he imagined his first day of real freedom would be like.

“Okay,” she said. “You can turn around now.…”

She was wearing a dress she had not shown him at the store, white, shimmering with sequins, a sparkling senior prom kind of dress that reached her ankles. Her blond hair sparkled, too, loose and full, cascading to her shoulders. She was barefoot, which made her seem too young for the dress, like a little girl trying on her mother’s clothes. Except for the fullness of her breasts.

She twirled in front of him, imitating actresses she’d probably seen in movies, hair whirling, too, and her eyes as radiant as the sequins in the dress.

Stopping suddenly, she declared, “I love you, Eric. Not because you bought me all this stuff but because …”

He raised his finger to his lips.

“Shhh,” he said.

Later, at a restaurant across from the motel, she confessed, “I knew that you didn’t like that flowered dress. That’s why I chose the white one.”

He marveled at how she had read his thoughts, had seen behind the expression on his face, unconvinced by the Eric Poole charm. Another reason to eliminate her.

For dessert she ordered chocolate cake topped with whipped cream but pushed it away half eaten. Sagging with weariness, she said, “I’m pooped. It’s been a long day.…”

He agreed, signaling the waitress for the check.

“But it turned out to be a good day, didn’t it, Eric?” Looking to him for confirmation.

“Yes,” he said.

That was not the moment to speak the truth.

He lay in bed, waiting for her to go to sleep. He didn’t have to wait long. Like a child, she’d curled up in the sheet, yawning, murmuring, “Night, Eric,” then, hand tucked under her chin, she drifted off, small snoring sounds coming from her after a while.

He snapped off the lamp beside his bed and let his eyes become accustomed to the darkness. The events of the day caught up to him, images flashing in his mind. The van, the highway, the park, and, most of all, the girl entering his life, changing his plans, forcing him to do the unexpected. Yet he was grateful to her, in a way. She had introduced him to the world of people, preparing him for social situations, conversations, sauntering in a park. He was glad that he had bought the new clothes, insisted on the chocolate cake for dessert. Little enough to pay her back.

The girl stirred and he squinted at her through the half darkness. Bands of light sifting through the venetian blinds laddered her body. Her snores were deep, vibrating. The snoring stopped and she
murmured in her sleep, words he could not understand. The digital clock read 1:07. Which surprised him. He must have dozed off without being aware of it.

He reviewed his plan, assessing the risks. There were always risks, of course, and he had learned to accept them as his way of life. The biggest risk would be carrying her body to the van, although he had tried to minimize it. He had insisted on a room at the far end of the motel. Had backed the van up to the door of the room. He’d left the van unlocked for easy entry. It would take less than a minute to carry her body the few feet to the van and place her inside. Earlier tonight, he had loosened the outside bulb in the lighting fixture next to the door. He would dispose of the body later in the usual way.

Finally, he sat up in bed and groped for the pillow. His bare feet touched the floor, the carpet soft, his movements noiseless. He then stood still, counting slowly to fifty, listening to the rhythm of her breathing. She had thrown off her sheet. Her T-shirt had bunched up above her stomach, revealing flesh as pale as the moon, the indentation of her navel. He moved, his shadow falling across her body, obliterating her momentarily.

He held the pillow in front of him like a shield. He had done his mother this way. Seemed like the kindest way to do it—you did not see the face
during the struggle. And the struggle was feeble and brief.

Next to the bed now, hovering over her, he gathered himself, his legs spread apart to provide leverage, her body bathed in pale light.

As he raised the pillow, her eyes flew open and she looked directly up at him.

Then: her eyes wide with fear, her mouth open as if she was silently screaming.

They stared at each other—he didn’t know how long.

Her face suddenly softened.

“Don’t you know I love you?” she said, as if that would stop him, could solve everything.

Closing her eyes, she sighed. “Go ahead, then. Do it.”

He lowered the pillow, stood uncertainly beside her bed. Outside, a car ghosted past the motel, its sound dying in the distance.

He let the pillow drop to the floor.

Half sitting up, leaning on one elbow, she looked up at him.

“Were you really going to do it?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said.

But in my heart, where it counts the most, I know he wouldn’t have done it. For a moment, yes, I was terrified, without even seeing the pillow, only
saw his face, pale and cold, like the face on a coin. But the pillow brought the terror, and I wonder now if I screamed. I don’t think so, because he just stood there and dropped the pillow, and now I know that I’m safe. If he didn’t do it here in a quiet motel away from everybody, when would he do it? Never, I tell myself while he’s still standing there, looking down at me.

I want to hear his voice, want to hear him talk.

“You didn’t do it,” I say. “Because you couldn’t.”

He still doesn’t say anything.

“Could you?”

The calmness of my voice surprises me because I am shaking inside, my stomach churning and my heart clumping against my ribs.

A frown scrawls itself across his forehead, like scribbles on white paper.

“No,” he says, finally. “I couldn’t.”

“That’s because I love you, and you know it. I’m not like the other girls.…” Thinking of that girl near the railroad tracks and the girls that reporter had mentioned.

His frown deepens and I wonder if I’ve gone too far, but I figure I have nothing to lose. And I can’t seem to stop talking, as if my fear has given me a shot of energy. The fear is gone but my blood is sizzling in my veins, like needle points stinging me from the inside.

“I will love you forever, Eric. And I’ll never betray you.…”

“Don’t,” he says, waving my words away, his hand like a pale bird in the half darkness. Then he makes his way back to bed, sliding in, pulling the sheet over his shoulders, facing away from me.

I lie awake, listening to my heartbeats, slower now, and I replay in my mind the words I had spoken, wondering how much was true—did I really love him?—or had I been talking crazy because I was so mixed up, scared and exhilarated at the same time.

What you should do is get out of here, wait for him to fall asleep, then slip away, as far as you can go.

But I think of that shopping spree, and the dress he bought me, and how he even wanted to buy me perfume. Plus chocolate cake for dessert.

My mind and body begin to drift on the soft cloud the mattress has become and I am so tired, such a sweet tiredness that softens all my bones, and I give myself up to the oblivion of sleep and whatever will happen in that oblivion.

They sat in the motel restaurant waiting for breakfast to be served. Not really a restaurant but a coffee shop, breakfast consisting merely of coffee and either donuts, bagels, or Danish pastry.

The legs of the small table at which he and the girl sat were uneven, and the table rocked unsteadily as he leaned his elbows on it. He felt the girl’s eyes on him and looked away but there was nothing much to see. A couple of truck drivers hunched over their coffee, a waitress scurrying from table to table, middle-aged, harassed, soiled apron limp against her thighs.

The girl’s eyes disturbed him, looking at him imploringly, full of the thing he did not want to see in them. He had expected her to regard him fearfully this morning. Instead, this tender gaze. He looked away again, at the street, where heat haze had gathered already, like steam from a boiling kettle.

He was waiting for the girl to say something, but did not want to hear it. She had barely spoken this morning, only a murmured
hello
as she
dressed, careless with her body as usual, displaying a flash of thigh, the swing of her breasts.

He had dressed hurriedly, then went into the bathroom, seeing, in his peripheral vision, her eyes upon him. He killed time shaving, deliberately passing the razor over his face until his skin became sensitive to the touch. When he emerged from the bathroom, she was standing at the doorway, one hand on the knob.

Now in the coffee shop, waiting for their orders, she said, “Would you look at me, please? You make me feel like I’m not here.”

He rested his eyes upon her.

“That’s better,” she said as their food arrived: orange juice and a jelly donut for her, coffee with cream and sugar for him, still trying to adjust to ex-facility coffee.

“I love you,” she said matter-of-factly, as if commenting on the heat of the morning, taking a huge bite of the donut, the jelly oozing over her fingers.

“Please don’t say that,” he said.

He really wanted to say:
I
almost killed you last night, don’t you realize that? I still might do it
.

“Why didn’t you run away after I fell asleep?” he asked. “You could have gotten away. Could have taken money out of my wallet …”

“I thought of that,” she admitted. “But I wanted to stay with you. You’re the only person
who’s ever treated me with respect. And I trust you.…”

He sipped his coffee, marveling at her innocence, her willingness to trust him, after all that had happened. But what had happened? Nothing really. As he watched her tongue licking jelly from her cheek, he wondered what it would be like to kiss the jelly off that cheek, to feel her body close to him, not like with the others, but stopping before the act was completed. Maybe there would be tenderness in all that. His thoughts startled him:
What’s happening here? Why am I thinking this way?