Tenderness (18 page)

“Give me a chance,” she said. “I’ll only speak when spoken to. I won’t bug you with questions.” A small smile appeared on her face, a touch of mischief in it: “Who knows? I may steal into your heart a little bit.” Then serious again: “I don’t expect you to love me back. But be tender.” Taking another bite of the donut. “I’m still a virgin, technically.…”

Despite himself, not wanting further conversation with her, not wanting to discuss her virginity, of all things, he asked, “What do you mean, technically?”

“I mean, I’ve never slept with anybody. Never had intercourse. But I’ve been touched. And kissed. Everywhere. Well, not everywhere …”

His cheeks growing warm, he marveled at her
ability to constantly surprise him, keeping him on edge, off balance. And now an unexpected excitement attached to the surprise. She’d said:
Be tender
.

“I don’t want to talk about that stuff,” he said lamely.

The waitress interrupted, pouring more coffee into his cup before he had asked. “A bottomless cup,” she said, spilling some on the table.

“I hope I’m not embarrassing you,” the girl said, chewing the last of the donut.

He had an impulse to say:
Don’t speak with your mouth full of food
, the way you’d talk to a child, the way his mother talked to him when he was just a little kid. An order softened by affection. Before she met Harvey. He had not thought about those tender moments for a long time, the moments he and his mother shared, curled up in bed together as she read him a bedtime story, and afterward her hair tumbling against his cheek, her perfume invading his pores, becoming a part of him.

“Everything okay?”

He didn’t answer, heard her voice from far away, thinking of his mother, her presence almost palpable, as if overnight, in a dream he couldn’t remember, a door had been opened and she’d stepped across a dim threshold. He remembered dark nights, her long black hair enveloping him,
her lips trailing across his flesh … 
my darling, Eric … my darling …

“Eric …”

The girl’s voice reached him from far distances.

“Yes.”

“Remember what I said last night?”

“What did you say?” he asked, bringing himself back to the present: the coffee shop, here, now.

His mother had disappeared from his thoughts, like a wisp of smoke in a gust of wind.

“You know …”

She mouthed the words silently:
I’ll never betray you
.

He realized she knew all about him but she didn’t care.

“Let’s go,” he said, leaving the second cup of coffee untouched.

In the van, windows open, a sudden shifting of the winds freshening the air, he drove aimlessly through back roads, avoiding the major highways and cities.

The girl seemed content riding beside him. She had showered after breakfast, putting on one of the new tops, bright green, matching her eyes. Her new denim shorts were longer than her earlier pair, reaching to midthigh.

He enjoyed the countryside, pastures and
meadowlands, slowed to watch cows grazing in a long field. Passing through small towns, he was pleased to see the white church steeples, town commons, to see the old Civil War monuments and cannons.

He and the girl did not say much, commented briefly on the passing scenery, yet he thought that they were communicating somehow.
I’ll never betray you
.

Passing a pay telephone on a street corner, he thought again of Maria Valdez, the longing to see her, everything her body promised.

“I have to make a call,” he said.

“Is it a girl?”

“Is what a girl?”

A look of annoyance, impatience on her face.

“Yes,” he said. “It’s a girl.…”

“Then call her. See her. Don’t let me stop you.” Her face brightened and her voice grew light and playful. “I don’t mind sharing you. I’ll try not to be jealous. All right—I’ll be jealous a little bit.…”

“Stop it,” he said, not in the mood for idle bantering. This was not a joking matter. If he saw Maria Valdez, his Señorita, the consequences would be nothing to joke about. And this girl would be a part of it all.

Glancing at her, he saw that her face had darkened, her eyes dropping away. “I’m sorry,” she
said. “It’s just that I want you to do whatever you want. I saw a bus terminal at that last town. Why don’t you just stop the car and let me off.”

“It’s a van, not a car,” he said.

“Whatever, just let me go. Forget about me and I’ll forget about you. I mean, I’ll make myself forget about you. And you don’t have to worry. Nothing happened, right? You haven’t done anything. You gave me a ride. You treated me very nice. You bought me some clothes. You didn’t even touch me, which is more than I can say for other people. So, let me out, let me go.…”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because …”

A lot of reasons.

He felt safer with her at his side. If he left her behind now, he wouldn’t know where she’d go or what she’d do. She was a loose cannon, with the power to explode at any moment. A link between him and Alicia Hunt. Glancing at her again, he saw that the new top was looser than yesterday’s blouse and did not thrust her breasts at him. Her legs were tucked under her body. Good. Enough distractions without her body playing tricks.

“Because why?”

When he didn’t answer, she said, “I saw a phone booth awhile ago. Go back. Call her.…”

Eric drove on, would find his own telephone in due time, allowing all the possibilities of Maria Valdez to fill his mind and body.

Maria Valdez answered immediately, her voice breathless in his ear, as if she’d been standing by the phone waiting for his call. “Hello.” Music blared in the background, a child crying, or yelling, he wasn’t sure which. Her child? The possibility stunned him. He could not picture his Señorita holding a child at her hip.

“Just a minute,” she said, the words softened by her accent, the
t
in
minute
barely enunciated. The smell of gasoline filled his nostrils: the pay phone was next to a service station.

Back on the line, she said, “I’m baby-sittin’. My sister’s baby while she’s getting her hair done …” Paused, then hesitantly: “This you?”

“It’s me,” he said, pulse quickening.

“Where are you? I been waitin’ for you to call.”

“I got delayed. But I’m only a few miles away now. A place called Piper’s Crossing.”

“That’s not far. Will I see you today? Tonight?”

Her eagerness inflamed him. He averted his face so that the girl in the nearby van could not see his expression.

“You still there?”

“Yes, I’m here.” Then taking the plunge, glancing
back at the van, seeing the girl’s face, smiling, nodding, as if urging him on. “Today, tonight, whenever you say.” He knew he was talking too fast, sounding too eager, but her voice excited him, racing through him. He pressed his thighs together, disguising what was happening to him.

“Later today. In the evening,” she said.

Perfect, because he preferred the evening, which could turn to nighttime, for whatever would happen.

“There’s a carnival in town, at a place called Prospect Park,” she said, in that low throwaway voice of hers. “It has a merry-go-round, makes me feel like a little girl again. I’ll bring a picnic. We can go on the merry-go-round and then a picnic after. In the woods, I know a private place for us to be together.…”

In her voice and the words she spoke, he heard the answer to all his desires and longings, the need for tenderness that he’d suppressed during all the long dry months at the facility, and the nighttime visions that never measured up to the reality.

The child cried distantly in the background, and Maria Valdez shushed it.

“Where do I pick you up?” he asked.

“Better I meet you there,” she said. “My family, they watch me close, don’t want me to get in trouble again so soon. My mother is like an old watchdog.”

She gave him directions to Prospect Park. Simple: within sight of Route 21, the major highway between Piper’s Crossing and Barton, Exit 25.

“My girlfriend, Anita, she’ll drop me off if you’ll bring me back.” And then, almost formal, as if she had rehearsed the words, planning for their meeting: “It will be so good to see you up close, Eric Poole.”

He closed his eyes, thinking of her long black hair, the soft throat, the slender body, dusky skin. And the tenderness.

When he slipped into the van, the girl greeted him with a wide smile: “I see you scored.…”

He did not answer, distracted, still in the thrall of Maria Valdez’s voice, the imminence of their meeting and all the possibilities.

“What time? When?” the girl asked.

At last he answered, “Later today.” Hearing the tremor in his voice.

I am always timid at carnivals. Went once with my mother and Dexter, who wanted to show off how big and brave he was, sitting in the front seat of the roller coaster without holding on, waving both hands above his head as the car plunged down the steepest slope, and I wished, feeling guilty, that he would tumble out and land flat on the ground at our feet. Later, he kept hitting his fist in the palm of his hand, angry because that particular carnival did not have one of those concessions where he could slam down a mallet, hoping to make the bell ring so that he could brag about how strong he was.

He kept urging me to go on rides with him but I resisted. The rides were too scary. He promised to buy me all the ice cream and soda pop I wanted or anything else, but I shook my head no. Then we came to the Ferris wheel and I finally agreed to go, but all alone. I did not want him sitting beside me,
near
me. I discovered that I loved that Ferris wheel, the way you rose up and reached the top,
higher than the trees and surrounding buildings: next stop, the sky. Rocking the chair at the top when the wheel stopped, the music dim and distant, and not scared at all, but feeling how an angel must feel looking down at the world.

That’s why I drift toward the Ferris wheel after watching Eric go off with Maria Valdez. He finally told me her name only a few minutes ago as we drove up to the carnival. We spent a nice day driving around, stopping once in a while to look at the scenery, ate Big Macs at McDonald’s, not saying much. We went by a lake in the afternoon, watched people swimming or sunning themselves on the beach, boats gliding on the water. I asked him about the prison, and he said it was not a prison but a facility for young people and also said he didn’t want to talk about it. He asked me about my life and I made up a life for him about school and what kind of music and books I liked but not about my fixations or Gary or other stuff that happened to me. I told him my mother was a hair stylist and my father a firefighter who died rescuing children in a fire, all lies but not really, dreams made real for a few minutes by speaking them aloud.

Just before we drove up to the carnival, he said, “Someday, Lori, I want you to tell me the truth.”

As he left the van to meet Maria Valdez, I saw
the excitement in his eyes, more than excitement, that strange heat and longing that made him a sudden stranger to me.

She wore a white top, satin, bright as vanilla ice cream, and her long black hair sparkled with sequins. Black hip-huggers clung to her long legs. A pretty face, too, dusky skin and a touch of lipstick like a smear of fire from a distance. I wish I could look like her, sleek and thin instead of this top of mine swishing around most of the time.

This top of mine is proving irresistible to the young guy operating the Ferris wheel. He is looking me up and down, but mostly up. He is only a kid but has a drooping mustache and a wispy beard.

“Hiya, babe,” he says as I hand him a five-dollar bill.
Babe
, of all things.

“Your money’s no good here, babe,” he says. “Not for something like you …”

“Take it,” I say with my best don’t-screw-around voice.

Funny thing. I always take for granted that males, young and old, look me up and down and if I smile they offer me all kinds of stuff for very little reason. Old Mr. Stuyvesant would drink his wine and proclaim:
I would give you half my kingdom
as he did things, and I believed that he would if he had a kingdom. I also feel as if I hold some kind of power over men and boys, like this guy
now at the Ferris wheel. So I surprise myself when I insist on paying, because I could save two dollars. You have to think of your future.

He reluctantly takes the five-dollar bill and slaps three dollars change in my palm.

With a scowl, he drops the chain and allows me to enter. I step into the chair and almost lose my balance as it sways with the sudden weight of my body. Sitting down, I buckle the safety strap around my waist.

“Have a great trip,” the young guy calls, his voice loaded with sarcasm.

A guy and a girl sit in the chair ahead of me, clinging to each other, the girl squealing like she’s supposed to, I guess, as the attendant slams back the control rod and off we go with a lurch, and a crazy kind of tinny Ferris wheel music begins to play. I take a deep breath and give myself over to the sensation of leaving the earth, a bit dizzy but a pleasant dizziness as the trees and buildings recede and the sky spreads out before me when I raise my eyes. I am rocking in the chair like a baby in a cradle. As I sweep to the top, I look down at the tilted landscape and see Eric and Maria Valdez walking side by side, holding hands, heading for the picnic grove. A picnic basket swings from her other hand. Jealousy streaks through me as I remember our own picnic grove, where the swans drifted in the water. Then tell myself,
What do you
mean, your own picnic grove? It was never yours or his—just a spot you stopped at to get off the road and a bite to eat
. But I remember that girl in the canoe with her big white hat and her arm trailing in the water. I swoop down and up again and the young couple still cling to each other, but they get off at the next stop, the girl dizzy, holding on to the guy for support, and he grins and looks pleased as he guides her into the crowd.