The Flowers (12 page)

I was going to ask what that was and ask him about himself, like where he came from. It was supposed to be Spain, or Portugal, and though I never met anyone who was from Spain, or Portugal either, he sure didn't seem to be from there, so I was planning to ask one of those since-you're-talking questions when Cindy stepped out her apartment door.

“Hey you handsome boy, you! How come you don't want to visit with
me?
”

Even Mr. Josep's old chair creaked in surprise. First it was out of the surprise to hear any voice—made me realize how quiet it seemed before—and then at what she was wearing, which was a white bikini, which for a second or two didn't look like a bikini but panties and a bra. Either way, she had it to show. Even Mr. Josep not only shifted his body to see her but bobbed his head, almost shaking his eyes into focus.

“Why is that?” she said. She was standing fully outside the door, both bare feet on the deck, daring both of us to see whatever we felt like.

Mr. Josep turned his head downward very slowly, and then his hand waved above, in her direction, like he was brushing away a feather floating down toward his lap. “She want you to go there,” he told me. “You go there.”

“What is it about me you don't like?” Cindy asked me.

She was wearing a bikini that was supposed to make you think of Hawaii. I was liking Hawaii.

“Were you at the beach?” I asked her, “or are you going right now?”

“You want to? Yeah, let's go!”

She'd been smoking mota again, the smell strong in her place. She had her wine drink in a glass going just as strong. It was too hot in the apartment again, the heat up too high. Clothes were spilled and draped around the living room, and a few plates were off the walking path, and there were empty glasses and beer cans and cigarette butts in ashtrays on a big glass-covered coffee table. It seemed like more people had been here than just her and the Tino I'd never saw. I started looking for money.

It was going to be dark soon, way too late to drive to the beach. “It's a lot of fun to go to the beach. I practically never get to go.”

“I promise you I'll take you if you say you want to,” she said.

“Sure.”

“Say it.”

“Say what?”

“That you do. You have to say it.”

“Do what? Say what?”

“That you want to. That you want to go with me.”

“To the beach?”

I was confused, smelling her marijuana so much it almost felt like I was already smoking it with her. I also kind of hated being around drunk people—her now too—and also, maybe, because she was getting real close to me, fast. Close enough that I could smell her winey breath. Close enough that I could feel the cups of her little Hawaii bikini top brushing my chest and then her hands on my wrists.

“Tell me,” she said so close to me I couldn't remember what we were supposed to be talking about. “Tell me we will, Sonny.”

I was embarrassed about being excited down there just for her being against me some when then, like that, she pushed her lips against mine and opened her mouth and sucked my tongue into it. For a few seconds or minutes we were making out and then we dropped onto that hard couch and she reached back and undid her top and guided my face to a nipple. Her skin everywhere was soft, and curved, and moist. I didn't know what I touched that wouldn't make me want to explode. She was pushing at me, hot as a sweat when you're working, and then she undid me and was playing with me down there and breath sounds came out of her and probably me too. When my eyes closed, it was the desert, black space and sparkly stars, so up there it made me feel both old enough for this and way young—thought of and seen so much, it had all been too far away or hidden from what I knew about—a sky too high and faraway that I could have never seen it from this city if I were to look up, straight at it, as someone kept pointing it out like constellations I didn't see. I think she would let me touch her anywhere, but I didn't because I wasn't sure, even as she pulled down my pants and my chones and had her hand on me there. I couldn't take it and I was telling her she would have to stop, I couldn't hold back if she didn't stop, but she didn't want to and I couldn't stop myself. I started falling away, into a black so black I couldn't see nothing but the fireball streak of light swirling through it—I couldn't tell if it was going away from everything or was going to suddenly crash.

She got up, putting her little pieces of bikini back together as she went into the kitchen. I was still pretty much in shock. A good shock. It felt really good and I couldn't talk.

“I wanted to take you into bed with me so bad,” she said in the kitchen. She was drinking water. “You came too fast.”

As bad as I felt, meaning good, what she said made me feel the other bad. I wanted to yell at her for saying it, and I wanted to do it again now, but now that a minute or two more went by, well, I didn't say so. I wanted to steal something of hers and as my eyes went around I couldn't believe the front door was wide open. I was scared too about what we did. What if someone saw? What if that Tino dude walked in?

“You haven't been with many girls, have you?”

Maybe she was meaing it nice, but I didn't like it that she made me out to be a punk. Except, how could I defend myself? “I've been with a few.” Almost dressed, I was standing up, near the front door.

“A few?” Her tone made it clear she didn't believe me for a second.

“Yeah,” I said. “Shut up,” I said.

“Have you even been with one?” She wasn't laughing at me but she was like, what, an older sister catching you making up bullshit. “You can tell me.”

“I done it before.” Okay, mostly I was lying. Okay, I was lying flat out. Though in a way I wasn't. I had a girlfriend last year, and I did everything I could with her, she just wouldn't go all the way. And she'd never considered touching me down there, at least she never did except accidentally.

“It's all right,” she told me. “It's sweet.”

That got me really mad for a few seconds, until I decided maybe it was better to not say nothing else. I didn't want to lie to her and—well, she'd know and I'd really feel fucking dumb. “You didn't even know the door was open, did you?”

“Oh no,” she said. She really didn't. “That is bad!”

I closed it hard and locked a deadbolt.

It could have been that that got her going different, because she changed moods and started cleaning up the kitchen, piling pans and dishes into the sink. I saw her put her jug of wine in a
lower cabinet. She'd gotten nervous and excited. It was the same kind of energy she had when she saw me, but now it was more like not drunk or sexy.

“What time does he get home from work?” I asked.

“See those plates? Could you bring them to me?” She barely looked at me when she said it.

I stacked them and took them to her, even another two she didn't ask for, and a couple of glasses sitting around. She was running the water hard into the sink, loud, making dish soap bubbles mound high.

“I'm gonna go on and take off,” I said.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I think I'm feeling guilty.” She wasn't looking at me. “I should have cleaned up the apartment earlier.”

“Oh,” I said. “Yeah.”

Her wet, soapy hand grabbed mine as I turned to leave. “I like you, Sonny,” she said. She kissed me on the lips. It was a lot different kind of kiss. “I like you a lot.”

Cloyd swiveled toward me as I was trying to pass his office as fast as I could. There was a man with him in a slobby suit. Cloyd was already red-eyed, and he was wearing that hick smile I hated the most and swirling that ice cube. He had on his gray work uniform, still starched from a laundry, like he hadn't sweated in it today. His bottle of whiskey was on his office desk like it was the latest trophy, shiny below all those dead deer with blank marble eyeballs.

“Hey you,” he told me. “Come and shake hands.”

I was already past, the corner I'd be turning in front of me. I did not want to talk, I did not want to turn back, but I did.

“This is my son,” Cloyd told the man.

That pretty much took me by surprise. Mad. I probably frowned. I felt my whole body want to go all diarrhea sick.

“Milt Womack,” the man said, extending his big hand. He was so fat his belly was squirting out between the buttons on the white shirt he was wearing. Even if I wasn't very knowledgeable about ties, I could tell the one he was wearing was like from a hardware store and probably bought used. He stunk like gym socks.

“You shake his hand like a man,” Cloyd told me. “Give it a good grip!”

So I even had to do that again.

“There you go!” Cloyd said.

“It's good to meet you, young man,” said Mr. Womack. He was very impressed by the advice I was given.

I wasn't going to say anything, but I could tell Cloyd was about to give me more suggestions. “Nice to meet you too,” I mumbled.

I stood there. I couldn't figure out how to plain leave yet. I'd say it was something like standing at a urinal with old men on either side of you, or a coach who's telling you how much tougher everything was for him, or a vice principal who's not saying nothing because he's so much better than you. It was like I was getting old and wrinkled before their eyes.

“He's a handsome one, like that mother of his,” Mr. Womack said.

Cloyd approved of that comment. “Yeah, she is one pretty Mexican gal,” he said. “I am one lucky man, all right.”

I was one disgusted dude.

“You play sports?” Mr. Womack asked me.

“This one, strong as he is, says he don't like playing sports,” Cloyd answered.

“No?” Mr. Womack said. “You look like you'd be an athlete.”

“He don't like playing sports,” Cloyd said again.

I couldn't look at either of them. “I guess I'm gonna go.” I was squeezed up.

“You feel like coming out, having some dinner with us, you're welcome,” Mr. Womack said.

Cloyd drank, hick-smiling at me to tell me not to say yes.

“You do like steaks?” Mr. Womack said. “I'm buying us big steaks.”

“Well, there it is, he's buying!” Cloyd said, pouring himself some more whiskey first, then tipping some more into Mr. Womack's glass. “That's the best part!” The two of them hoo-ha'd.

“You gotta get good grub while you can,” said Mr. Womack, “because I know this cheap bastard Longpre ain't feeding you steaks, is he?”

“Listen now, you don't gotta go let him in on that! I don't think he'd even noticed yet!”

I knew hahahaha in English. I knew jajajaja in Spanish. I wanted to learn how it was in French.

“You know,” Mr. Womack said, turning to Cloyd, “I barely get to see my boy now. About the same age as you, Sonny.”

“My own got all grown,” Cloyd said. “Can't believe how fast they grow up.”

They both turned their gazes up at me and kept them there, like they were both suddenly all religious about life.

“Thanks,” I said, “but I think I'll go finish the painting outside.”

“That is one very fine attitude,” Cloyd said. “Even if really he don't want to go out with us old farts.”

If there was a way to bust the dude about him not wanting me to go with him, I would. I almost wished I could say I wanted to go, to see how he'd deal with it. “I'll be finished today,” I said. “I'm almost finished right now.”

“That's good news,” he said.

“My mom was saying you were worried about it,” I said.

“Worried about it?”

“That I'd finish the painting. That I wouldn't. I'm just about finished right now, though.”

“No, no, not worried,” said Cloyd, talking more for Mr. Womack. “I saw the work.” He swallowed all that was in his glass. “He's painting outside,” he told Mr. Womack. “Doing a fine job too.”

“That's good,” Mr. Womack said. “Learning how to work is good.”

“He's been doing lots around here for me,” said Cloyd. “I gotta be truthful.”

I went to get the ladder I left along the side of the building, in the tall weeds I never cut, but it wasn't there. That scared me, because if it got ripped off, I'd hear how I should have put it away. The paint and the coffee can with the brush soaked in turpentine weren't there either. I walked around to the back, where the shed was and saw that aquel Tino had gotten home, his car—front-ended, rear-ended, and side-smashed—was in its slot. My stomach got twisted sick. The ladder and paint and brush had been put back in the shed, but not by me. I balanced them all so I'd only have to make the one trip out to the front.

“Hey there, young man.”

Pink waved, leaning against a long, polished, heavy bumpered four-door Buick, obviously waiting for a customer. I liked seeing him and I probably would've gone over and talked to him, when Cloyd came around from the front door and over to me.

“Womack's taking a leak,” he told me, “and then we're on our way for some supper.” He was out of the gray uniform and in a clean shirt and a clean pair of pants, and his hair was comb-marked a little bit. “How you been, Pinkston?”

Pink waved to him too, but he was already on his way in the other direction toward a black man and woman, both Sunday dressed, who'd parked the car they drove to look over one of Pink's.

Cloyd stared at the three of them for too long. “Don't know when I'm getting back,” he said finally.

I thought he would be talking to me about the ladder. I was setting it up under the Los Flores sign, about to step up.

“Tell your mom,” he said. “You hear me? That I don't know when I'm getting back.”

I nodded. It was too weird for me. Everything.

“All right?” he asked.

“Like, tell her you'll be back late or what?”