The Rising: Antichrist Is Born (26 page)

Ray had initially shrugged at her barb. “I don’t mean to sound impressed with myself,” he said. “I guess it’s a golden rule kind of thing. I wouldn’t want to be a frat brother unless I could be the type I would want to have in the house.”

“Well,” she said, bringing him a drink, despite that she was still three years from the legal drinking age and he a year away,

“if you’re not impressed with yourself, I am.”

Ray couldn’t deny he enjoyed her attention, not to mention being seen with the cutest girl in the place. But something, he feared, was damaged inside him. He couldn’t trust anyone, especially someone trying to compliment him. If Kitty saw a picture of him from before his face had cleared up, before his jaw had become defined, before his musculature had caught up with his height, what would she think? She’d be on to someone else, he was sure.

“Does it bother you that I’m in a sorority?” Kitty said.

“Hardly. It’s admirable. I can only assume you’re committed to it.”

“But we traditionally date only frat guys.”

If only Ray had the courage to speak his mind. What did that have to do with him? They had just met! What was she saying, that he would have to join a fraternity to qualify to see her? What made her think he had an iota of interest?

“Well, there you go,” he said, wondering where he had dredged up that gem. What else was there to say except what he was thinking? There was no call for rudeness, despite her impudence. Must be nice to assume every guy is dying to take you out. Kitty looked like something special, but she sure came across shallow.

It took Ray almost a month to realize that he had stumbled upon an irresistible formula. He hadn’t meant to do it. The whole thing had been a product of his deep distrust, spawned by the way he had been treated in high school. As a good-looking senior leader he had been the same person inside that he had been when he was an acne-plagued underclassman. But how he was viewed and treated had been as different as chess and tiddly-winks.

Somehow his disdain for Kitty Wyley’s manipulative approach made him come across mysterious, aloof. Despite his appearance and carriage and presence, Ray was still just twenty years old. It took him a while to recognize that the very reason Kitty was pursuing him was because he didn’t seem to care. He wasn’t going to join a fraternity just to qualify for her attention. Inside he loathed the thin-sliced depth of her character, but somehow his disdain had merely made him appear unattainable to her.

Kitty made that plain when they ran into each other again a little over three weeks later. She broke away from a cadre of guys and girls who looked like her, and Ray felt their stares as she approached.

“Ray Steele!” she said. Kitty set her books down and reached for him with both hands. At first he didn’t know what to do. He set down his own bag, and she took his hands in hers. “Our house is having a cookout Friday night, and I’d love for you to come.”

He cocked his head. “Sure I can get in without a frat pin?”

“Don’t be silly. If I invite you, you’ll be welcome.”

“I’d have to come a little late. There’s a
ROTC
dance that night.”

“And you have to go?”

“I have a date.”

“Oh!” she whined. “You’d rather be with me, wouldn’t you, Ray?”

Actually, no. Irene, the
ROTC
freshman with the archaic name, might not turn heads like Kitty, but she didn’t put on airs either. She had been an army brat, living in bases all over the world before her dad was killed in combat. She wasn’t even in
ROTC
for a military career. Irene was just comfortable with the type of people who joined because she had been raised around them.

“I’ll try to come, if I can come late,” Ray said.

“Promise me,” Kitty said.

“I’ll be there.”

“And your date is not invited.”

That seemed to go without saying.

“And while everyone will know you’re not in a house,” Kitty added, “let’s not talk about
ROTC
, hm?”

In spite of himself, Ray nodded. He should have just told her off, ended the relationship—if anyone could even call it that—right there. He was anything but phony. She was inviting Rayford (but she wouldn’t call him that), a non-frat guy (which everyone would know so there was no reason to dwell on it) and a
ROTC
plebe (which neither he nor Kitty would mention), and he was to dump his previous date as soon as he could.

That all added up to why Rayford should run from this girl, but he stood there like a dolt, agreeing to every caveat. Was she that special? Hardly. Talk about skin-deep. Maybe he enjoyed the power, but he wasn’t being true to himself, at least not to

the man he wanted to be.

Over the next few days, not only did he try to talk himself out of going, but he also discussed it with—of all people—Irene. She was a smallish brunette, pleasant-enough looking, and fun. Her history allowed her to talk easily with all the other men and women in
ROTC
. Rayford was not attracted to her in even a preliminarily romantic way. They had simply been chatting about how there were so many more men than women in
ROTC
that girls from outside the corps would have to be invited to the dance.

“I don’t really know anyone I’d want to bring,” he had said.

“Me either.”

“We could go together,” he said. “Not worry about it.”

“Yeah, okay.”

And that was it. That was why Ray didn’t feel so committed and why he felt he could even talk to her about making it an early evening.

They sat in the
ROTC
lounge Thursday afternoon, slouching on the couch, feet on the coffee table. “Sorority cookout,” Irene said. “It doesn’t sound like you.”

“It’s not. But I’ve been ignoring this girl almost to the point of rudeness, and she did ask.”

“That’s big of you, but you don’t want to lead her on.”

Ray chuckled. “She’s not going to worry about my letting her down. There’s plenty of fish, in her sea. Listen, you’re not offended, are you? That I want to cut out early, I mean.”

She smiled. “Of course not. I don’t like to stay to the end of these things anyway. And it’s not like it’s a date. We’re just showing up together. 1 mean, I wasn’t going to dance with only you.”

Ray studied her. If she was only covering, she was good at it. He was convinced she meant every word. Impressive, wholesome woman. Nice.

  -----

Ray did not even pick up Irene for the dance. He didn’t know where she lived, didn’t ask, and she didn’t offer. They had merely agreed to meet at the event. She was waiting for him, and they greeted awkwardly. It wasn’t a date, but it had the trappings, and he attributed his discomfort to the fact that they didn’t know each other well enough to know how to act.

They hung around together for about ninety minutes, and though Irene had said she was not going to limit her dances to Ray, that’s exactly what she did. Maybe because he was so physically imposing and they appeared to be together, none of the other guys dared ask or try to cut in.

Ray was not much of a dancer, especially on the slow songs. There was no sense of connection with Irene when they embraced, and that seemed as much his fault as hers. This was an arrangement of convenience, so he was not looking for sparks. And she may have been on edge, worrying, or at least wondering, about his intentions. They touched each other the way Ray had allowed his ugly old aunt to hug him. And after each slow dance, their conversation was more awkward and stilted.

Ray delayed the begging off as long as he could, and to his relief, Irene brought it up. She looked at her watch and said, “You’d better get going, huh?”

“Yeah, I should. You want me to walk you home or are you going to stay or what?”

“I’m okay,” she said. “You go.”

“Well, thanks.”

“No, thank you.”

He hurried off, but when he got to the other side of the quad he had second thoughts and actually considered going back, standing up Kitty and her silly social cookout. Ray was intrigued that Irene was still at the dance, and despite how fractured the evening had seemed, he found it disconcerting that she might be dancing with others right now.

He turned to head back, only to see Irene leaving alone. Ray snorted with the realization that she had been there only with him and for him. He turned toward Kitty’s sorority bouse.

  The cookout was unlike any he had ever attended. To Ray a cookout was an amateur like his dad or uncle or he himself throwing a bunch of meat on a too-hot or too-cool fire and trying to guess when it was done. People drank too much and frolicked in the pool and didn’t care if the burgers and dogs were over- or underdone. It was about being together and having fun and gorging on carbs.

Not so this night.

Ray hated situations like this. Besides going against his better judgment, he had to enter a gathering where he knew only one person, and if he couldn’t find Kitty immediately, he would have to ask for her… ask a person who probably doubted he had really been invited. Everyone at this bash would know one another, except him.

He heard music coming from the backyard of the huge mansion, but to get there he had to go through the house. No one answered his ring or his knock, so he carefully ventured in. He passed rooms occupied by couples in various stages of physical activity, from making out to more. Any one of them could have heard him knocking, but apparently such houses were always open and people were expected to just walk in.

He passed through the kitchen and was greeted by a couple of girls rummaging through the refrigerator. Both said hello as if they were pleased and surprised to see him. They each thrust out a hand and introduced themselves.

“Ray,” he said.

They tried to guess what frat house he represented, and he kept shaking his head. “Just looking for Kitty,” he said.

The girls looked at each other and smiled. “Who isn’t?”

Ray was largely ignored in the backyard but hadn’t felt so conspicuous in years. It was obvious this was no standard cookout. For one thing, it was catered. White-clad chefs in tall hats huddled around top-of-the-line cookers, and there wasn’t a dog, a brat, or a burger in sight. No paper plates either.

Lights were strung about a large patio, illuminating linen-clothed tables laden with silver and china. Though no one was dressed up, those who were not dancing to the raucous music—with the requisite DJ—sat enjoying shish kebabs of beef, shrimp, pork, and fruit. There were also steaks and chops. And waiters everywhere.

Finally Kitty spied Ray and came squealing. She hugged him and kissed his cheek, thanking him for coming.

“Wouldn’t have missed it,” he said.

She introduced him to a dozen people, always mentioning that he was from Illinois, studying to be a pilot, and not a fraternity brother. That usually ended the conversations. Kitty had been right, he decided, to leave out the
ROTC
mention. He might have been bounced over that.

When the blaring music finally changed to a slow love song, Kitty pulled him to a makeshift dance floor and snuggled against him. Her embrace felt entirely different from Irene’s. He gathered her in gently, and they seemed to fit. She was warm and soft. She laid her head on his shoulder and hummed with the music as they moved together, and she was on key.

When he pulled her closer, she reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck. It was as if they had been made for this. And in spite of everything— every red flag, every warning bell—Ray breathed in her essence and fell in love.

Chapter 21

Everything about the woman clouded his judgment, but the puzzle of it was always with him. He loved the idea of being in love. He enjoyed being seen in the company of one of the most dramatic lookers on campus. And when he was away from

her, she made it clear he was her one and only lifetime choice.

That should have felt good, except that when they were together he couldn’t shake the idea that he didn’t even like her. How could that be? What did he see in her? His grades suffered. His other relationships, with guys in his dorm and the men and women in
ROTC
, faded to nothingness. The only other person he really talked with was Irene. “Dowdy Irene,” as Kitty referred to her. “A nice girl with no sense of fashion,” Kitty decided. “Bet she winds up with one of the ag students. She’ll

make a nice farmwife.”

That was a rotten thing to say, Ray thought. He knew several ag students, and some of them had gorgeous girlfriends.

Every day he spent with Kitty, Ray felt he was losing the core of himself. Was she that strong a personality? He hated her values, the things she said, the issues that seemed important to her. He asked himself over and over why he continued with

her, why he didn’t simply confront her and end this. He practiced speeches before the mirror, wrote long treatises with it’s-not-you-it’s-me themes.

Was the entire relationship physical? They had quickly fallen into that routine, and there was no denying she was fun to sleep with. Could he have become as shallow as she, putting up with values and attitudes that violated every sensibility he had been raised with, all because he enjoyed the sex?

He had taken her to Belvidere, introduced her to his parents. There Ray and Kitty slept in separate bedrooms and pretended to have a chaste relationship. Ray’s mother doted on Kitty, seeming to love everything about her. His father was formal and distant, perhaps because Kitty hadn’t hidden her boredom with the tour of the tool and die, and because he didn’t have the

right answers when she asked what clubs he belonged to and how he spent his leisure time.

“Not sure I know what leisure time is,” Mr. Steele had said. “Sounds like wasted time, if you ask me.”

Then, of course, came the visit to her parents in northern Indiana. Her father and mother were divorced and both remarried, remaining in much the same social circles as when they had been together. So there were two formal dinners, two visits to the country club, a round of golf each with the real dad and the stepdad… and for all Ray’s size and strength and athleticism, he