The Tenderness of Thieves (23 page)

Then my mind went to the memory of his fingers tracing those curves, of his hands on my bare skin and how I’d wanted them to travel farther, lower, to that place just below the flat of my stomach that ached even now as I imagined the possibility. How touching his skin and him touching mine in the most intimate of places would make me feel changed yet again, a third Jane or maybe even a fourth one, a chameleon of a girl who morphed and shifted with each new significant experience, one of them tragic, certainly, but others surprising, even thrilling. I liked this thought, that I didn’t have to be defined by tragedy, that though sadness and loss might be written onto my skin, there were other things that could be written over it, things dominated by joy and desire and pleasure. I wanted to be different again, to rewrite the Jane I was today so the tragic one would recede even further away.

I knew exactly how that would happen, too. How it could be done.

Tonight would be the night I’d sleep with Handel, I decided. I was in love with him after all, I reminded myself.

I took one last look at the Jane I saw in the mirror now, smiled at her, said good-bye, since tomorrow, I knew, there would be yet another Jane in her place.

I
WENT STRAIGHT TO
his house.

Handel was sitting on the front porch when I arrived, staring out at the water across the street, smoking a cigarette. It was like he’d been waiting for me.

“There’s no one home,” he said, like a warning.

“Is that a problem?” I asked with a laugh and some relief, too.

“No. I suppose not.”

I stood in front of him, willing him to admire the Jane I’d just seen in the mirror, wanting him to think the same thoughts I’d had only a few minutes ago. He stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray on the table, and when he looked up again, he smiled in that way that did me in.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said, and I believed him.

I sat down on the wicker couch. Let my fingers dance on the cushions right near his leg, but not so close that we touched. “Me too.”

“Is there anything you want to talk about?”

This question caught me off guard. Maybe Handel wanted to know about my dinner at the O’Connors’ house, but I didn’t feel like discussing it. “Not particularly,” I said. My fingers stopped their dance. “I just needed to see you.”

This made Handel smile again. “Needed?”

I nodded. Smiled back.

Then we talked for a long time as we sat there, the sky growing dark. We talked about all kinds of things. My relationship with my mother. His relationship with his father. My going to college. His going to college. What books we loved and which ones we didn’t. Music. Movies. Hopes and dreams. Mine. His. The conversation went on and on, vibrant and lighthearted at points and full of feeling and sincerity in others.

I thought to myself on more than one occasion:

There are so many ways to love someone, sometimes just with words.

The moon came out, the stars were bright, and both soon provided the only light in our comfortable darkness on the porch. Handel got up, and I followed him around to the back of the house, down the steps into a lush garden I never would have dreamed was there, a beautiful secret thriving behind it. Flowers growing everywhere, vines winding around trellises, penned in by a tall fence that could barely hold it all back. It was something out of a book. Too magical to be real.

“What is this place?” I asked.

“It’s my mother’s,” Handel said. “She calls it her haven.”

“It’s beautiful,” I said, and thought about how Handel may be related to those brothers of his, but he’s related to the woman who created this, too.

Handel looked at me, traced a finger down the side of my face and along the curve of my jaw. “I’ve never shown anyone before. I’ve never brought anyone here.”

“No?” I asked, everything about me like petals opening to the sun.

He shook his head.

“Thank you for sharing it with me,” I said.

“Jane, there are things I want to tell you,” Handel began. “Things you need to know before we can—”

But I couldn’t wait anymore, and I kissed him then, in the cloak of the garden, kissed him in this way that was . . . suggestive. Pressed myself against him all the way to my knees. I felt delirious with love after all our talk, intoxicated with the sweet scent of flowers hovering in the air around us, freed by the darkness. I stopped being Jane altogether in this surreal place, alone with this beautiful, mysterious boy named Handel, and instead became some wild, confident nymph. Put his hand to my chest and made sure he found out quickly that I hadn’t worn a bra. I wanted whatever came next.

I was ready.

“Jane,” he said, lifting his lips from my neck, his voice hoarse.

But I pressed into him, my head thrown back, hair falling over the arms that held me, exposing neck and collarbone, handing myself over willingly. I wanted his touch on my skin, and I wanted it everywhere. “I’m all yours,” I said, and I meant it.

I put my trust in him completely.

I wanted to try everything with Handel.

“Follow me,” he said, taking my hand and leading me through an opening between two short, thick pines into a tiny, private space canopied with ivy. There was a bench in the center, and Handel sat down and waited for me to join him. Instead I went and stood in front of him, put my hand along the side of his face and leaned forward, stopping just short of his lips.

“This is fun,” I said dreamily.

“You’re driving me crazy.” He sounded pained.

I smiled, eyes half closed. “Oh, am I?”

“Like you didn’t know.” His laugh was low.

But he hesitated to touch me. Something was stopping him.

“I won’t break,” I told him, and inched closer, and it’s true, too, that in this place and time with Handel, in this secret garden behind his house, I felt unbreakable.

He slid his index finger along my collarbone and down until it hooked over the top button of my shirt. This time he didn’t hesitate or ask. With one quick twist, he slid it open. His other hand went to my thigh, to the skin just below the hem of my skirt, and stopped. Rested there. We kissed a million times more, it seemed, exchanging whispered words and murmurs before his fingers traveled up along my leg until they grazed the edge of my underwear, and a million times more after that, it seemed, before they slipped underneath it, moving leisurely across my skin to what I thought must be the very center of my self.

“Oh.” I sighed, with the surprise of his fingers. My eyes were closed, and I could feel the drunken smile on my face.

“Do you want me to stop?” Handel asked, his voice a mix of concern and desire.

“No,” I said. “Definitely do not stop.”

He laughed at this, and I melted into him like I might have become the ocean itself in this one moment, letting myself be changed by so much pleasure, so much attention that was all for me. I was definitely a new Jane by the time I opened my eyes and looked into Handel’s, who watched me like he’d never seen me before.

And he hadn’t, I suppose, not this Jane at least.

He blinked once. Again. Then, “I love you,” he said to me amid this beautiful, moonlit garden, a world away from the town we lived in day to day.

“I know,” I told him. “I do, too. Love you, I mean.”

Then we lay down next to each other in the grass and didn’t speak again.

“B
?” I WHISPERED
THROUGH
the screen. “Are you up?”

There was no answer. Not even a rustle of the sheets.

“Hey, B,” I said, louder this time. “It’s me.”

I heard a sigh and some movement. “Jane?”

My hands pressed against the screen. “I’m outside your window.”

“What are you doing there? What time is it?”

“It’s early. I don’t know, maybe seven a.m.?”

“Why aren’t you at home in bed?”

“Um, I was, but now I’m here.” I peered inside, but it was too dark to see anything. “I need you to let me in. Can you do that?”

“Sure,” Bridget said, and there was more rustling.

“I have to talk to someone,” I told her, trying to explain.

“Good or bad?”

“Good, I think,” I said. “But I might have been a little bad.”

This seemed to wake Bridget. “Meet me around the back of the house.”

In the murky light of the very early morning, I slipped inside the porch door Bridget held open for me, and the two of us crept to her room. Her eyes were puffy from sleep, her long hair knotted and tangled. She fell into bed and twisted herself underneath the sheet. Lifting her head slightly from the pillow, she looked at me. “Well? Are you getting in or not?”

I nodded. Kicked off my flip-flops and curled into the quilt she’d tossed aside. “B, I did something.”

She pushed a pillow my way. “What did you do?”

“I did . . .
the
something. Last night with Handel,” I added.

There came a gasp. Bridget’s head popped up from the pillow, and she propped herself with an elbow, the sleep gone from her eyes. They blinked wide. “Oh. My. God. You did not!”

I smiled dreamily at the ceiling. “I totally did.”

“Am I the first person you’ve told?”

“You are. I couldn’t sleep. I had to tell someone.”

“I’m honored.”

I turned to look at her. “It had to be you. You’ve been so supportive. Michaela would probably scold me and Tammy would make some sort of sarcastic remark and I . . . I just didn’t want to ruin this moment.”

“Okay,” she said gently. “So . . . are you happy?”

“Very.”

“Did you . . . like it?”

“I more than liked it.”

“Did you . . . you know . . .
have one
?”

“I totally did.”

“Tell me! Tell me!”

I closed my eyes. “It was . . . exciting and slow and wonderful and . . . sexy.”

Bridget giggled. “Well, it was sex. Shouldn’t it be sexy?”

“I guess. But I couldn’t have imagined what that meant before Handel. He makes me . . .
do
things.”

Bridget’s mouth fell open. “What did he make you do?”

I opened my eyes again and turned to her. “I don’t mean it
that
way. I meant that he brings something out in me that I didn’t know was there.”

“So,
good
things.”

I let my attention wander back to the ceiling. A fan whirred softly above us, providing the room with a little breeze. “Definitely good. Great.”

“Oh. My. God,” she said again, admiringly.

“He told me he loves me. Just before we . . . you know.”

Bridget clapped her hands together silently. “That is so romantic.”

“It was.”

“Did you say it, too?”

“I did. It’s true. I do love him.”

She gasped. “Hot, sexy,
and
you love him. What more could you want?”

I smiled. “More sex.”

“Oh. My. God. You can’t even wait to do it again.”

“Not really.”

“Oh. My. God.”

“Stop saying that!”

Bridget smirked. “Why, does it bring back memories of last night?”

“B!”

“Sorry, sorry. I can’t help it.” There was a creak outside, the floorboards groaning in the living room. Maybe Bridget’s parents were awake. “I’m trying to process this,” she said, lowering her voice a little.

“Process?” I asked in a whisper. “You sound like a shrink.”

She tried to stifle a laugh. “A shrink that says ‘oh my God’ all the time?”

I laughed, too. “Okay, maybe that’s a stretch.”

Bridget hopped up from the bed and turned the fan on high so the noise would drown out our conversation. Then she got back in. “So now is the time in our discussion when I have to act like a good friend,” she warned.

I shifted so I could watch the blades blur as they turned. “I thought you were already acting like a good friend.”

“Well, of course,” she said. “But a good friend makes sure that her friend used protection.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m not dumb. I still plan on going to college after we graduate.”

“Okay, all right. I just wanted to make sure.”

“You have nothing to worry about,” I reassured her.

“Good,” she said with relief. “It sounds like it was perfect.”

I turned to face her, hugging a pillow to prop myself up. “It was. Nearly,” I added.

Bridget’s blue eyes clouded a little. “Why nearly?”

“There’s always this . . . hesitation about Handel,” I admitted. “Like he’s holding something back.”

“Well, part of what makes Handel hot is the mystery,” Bridget reminded me.

I moved aside the stray hairs that kept blowing into my eyes with the breeze from the fan. “This isn’t about mystery,” I said. “It’s like he has a secret. I feel like we’ve gone right to the edge of him telling me and then he doesn’t.” I thought about Handel’s brother. About Cutter. Then pushed these thoughts far into the next town, far away from Handel. That wasn’t it. It couldn’t be. I was being crazy.

Bridget shook her head. “I bet you’re imagining things. Sex is a big deal, and it’s normal to be nervous about it. But you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I know I didn’t. And you’re probably right. It’s just my imagination.”

“Of course I am,” she said with a grin. “So when are you going to do it again?”

“I don’t know.” I smiled then. I couldn’t help it. “Tonight?”

Bridget brought the sheet over her to cover her squeal. “Fireworks amid the fireworks on the Fourth!”

“Could you be any cheesier?”

“I know. I’m practically a Dorito. I can’t help it.”

I sighed mockingly. “It’s good that you admit it. But it’s also why I love you, B.”

“Love you, too, J.”

I smiled. “Just because you said you love me doesn’t mean I’ll have sex with you.”

Bridget groaned. “You’re ridiculous,” she said.

Then she hit me with a pillow.

• • •

“You left early this morning,” my mother said when I walked in the door. She was swirling sugar into her iced coffee with a spoon, sitting at the kitchen counter. Her hair was in a ponytail, and she still had on her pajamas.

“I went to see Bridget.” I gestured at her glass. “Is there any more?”

“In the fridge. I made a new batch at three a.m. I couldn’t sleep.”

“Oh,” I said, turning away to retrieve some, hoping the blush spreading across my cheeks would fade by the time I turned back.

“Which is how I know you were out late,” she went on.

I froze, my hand in the ice bin, took a deep breath, and regained my composure before managing to move again, retrieving a fistful of cubes that I plopped into the glass before pouring coffee over them. I topped it off with half-and-half and added a couple of spoons of sugar, this ritual giving me enough time to wipe the color from my face before joining my mother across the counter. I hoisted myself up onto the stool and took a sip. Swallowed it down. “I guess I was out late,” I said.

“I’m not judging, just observing. I trust you, Jane.”

“I know.” A stab of guilt followed this recognition. Which was why I said what I did next. “There’s something I should probably tell you.”

“Oh?” Now it was my mother’s turn to act casual. “You can tell me anything. I want you to be able to.”

“You’re sure about that?”

She nodded. “I am.”

I didn’t speak right away. I gathered my courage, stirring more sugar into my iced coffee. Probably too much and it would end up undrinkable, but I needed something to do.

“Is it something about our visit to the O’Connors’ house?” she asked.

I shook my head. “No. Definitely not.”

“Okay. You can talk about that, too. Whenever you’re ready.”

“I know.”

“Good.”

Another silence followed. I couldn’t quite manage to get out what needed saying.

Then my mother asked, “Does this have anything to do with our conversation about love yesterday?”

“Yes,” I admitted. Then I took a deep breath and just said it. “So I had sex with Handel.”

My mother blinked rapidly, her eyelashes fluttering. “Oh!” They stopped, and she regained her composure. “That was fast.”

“Please don’t be mad.”

She put a hand to the counter to steady herself. “I’m not mad.”

I couldn’t quite look at her, though. I could feel her eyes on me. My cheeks burned again. “You’re not?”

“No. But before we take this conversation any further, you need to reassure me that you were smart and used protection.”

“Mom,” I huffed, allowing myself a glance at her. “Of course I did! You sound like Bridget. She asked me the same thing when I went to see her.”

“Good for Bridget,” she said with a smile. “I’m glad my smart daughter has smart friends looking out for her.”

“I’ll pass that along.” I took a big gulp of my iced coffee and made a face. It was way too sweet.

My mother’s eyebrows were raised. “I just want to make sure that you’re taking care of yourself. After the year you’ve had, the last thing you need is . . . something else unfortunate to happen.”

This was becoming torture. “Mom!”

“I’ll stop. But only after I mention that we should go see a doctor so you can discuss all your options for birth control. You don’t even have to go with me if you don’t want to,” she added quickly. “You can go with Bridget or one of the other girls if it makes you more comfortable.”

“Okay, okay.” I pushed my iced coffee to the side. I couldn’t bring myself to take another sip.

“Good. Now, do you want to talk about how it went?”

I slid off the stool and began fixing myself a toasted peanut butter and jelly sandwich so I didn’t have to look at her when I answered. “Do you mean, like, the details?”

I could almost hear her shrugging behind me, trying to act nonchalant. “If you want to share details, you certainly can. I’ll listen.”

I opened and closed cabinet doors looking for the strawberry jam and the peanut butter until I finally found them behind a box of pancake mix. I thought about how to answer. “I don’t think I want to,” I said. “It feels kind of private.”

“Okay. Can you please tell me if you enjoyed it? I want you to enjoy it, Jane. Sex is something to be enjoyed.”

When the toast popped, I almost jumped. “I did, Mom,” I admitted, embarrassed. I put the bread on a plate and started spreading the peanut butter on one side and the jelly on the other. “Let’s not discuss this anymore, okay? It’s too weird.”

She sighed. “Okay.”

I turned around, plate in hand, and rejoined my mother at the counter, hoping she knew when to quit. “Promise it’s okay?”

“Yes, I promise.”

I munched on my sandwich and she drank her iced coffee in silence. When I finished, I was about to head into my room when she stopped me.

“Thank you for telling me.”

I placed the empty plate in the sink. “I tell you everything.”

“Do you? Really?”

Was my mother talking about my night with Handel? Or that night in February? Did she think I was holding something back? When I said what I did next, I looked at my mother straight on, with as much seriousness and honesty as I could conjure in my expression. “Really. I do,” I said, because it was so close to the truth that it practically was the truth.

“Good. Let’s keep it that way. I’ll always be here for you. We can deal with anything together.
Anything,
Jane. I mean it.”

“I know,” I said. Somewhere deep down I did know this. I think I knew, too, that I would be glad of it, when the day came when I had to lean on my mother to help me through whatever difficult thing life brought next.

My mother grinned suddenly. “Now, do you want some pointers about sex from someone with a lifetime of experience?”

I screwed up my face. “Oh my God, no. Eww. Gross. Please stop there.” I grabbed my iced coffee from the counter and dumped it out. “I have to get down to the beach soon, or we’ll lose our spot for the Fourth. It’s probably already crowded.”

“Okay,” my mother called after me with a laugh. “But I’m here whenever you have questions.”

“Again, no, thanks! But I love you
despite
that offer,” I added, shoving the various beach paraphernalia I needed into my bag and going through my drawers looking for the bathing suit I wanted, doing my best to block out the horrifically unsexy idea that my mother might have sex advice, a thought that made me shudder even as her effort to connect about it made me laugh.