Those Who Favor Fire (11 page)

Once in the bathroom, Rachel locked the door and began to clean herself carefully and thoroughly. She ran Harry’s toothbrush under very hot water, both before and after scrubbing every part of her mouth, including, especially, her lips.

It didn’t surprise her when the cloth she used to wash herself came away red, for she ached and throbbed as if a piece of glass were trying to work its way out of an old abscess. She looked around the bathroom, found a small mirror in the medicine cabinet, and by perching gently on the edge of the tub was able to look down at the reflection of her genitals.

Where her flesh had before been smooth and pink, it was now jagged and empurpled and the point of each tear bore a hard, black knob. Everything seemed to have congealed or clotted in a businesslike way, however, so Rachel simply dressed herself again, brushed out her hair, and smoothed her cheeks with white, shaking hands.

She had no idea what she would say to Harry when she encountered him. Part of her was appalled and suspicious, so sure she’d made a mistake that humiliation had already begun to set in. Another part of her set aside the indistinct memory of Harry, grunting and grinning as he detected and quickly dismantled her virginity and then later, when they had rocked to an abrupt halt, turning his back. It was so tempting to think of Harry instead as he had been before last night and as he might be from here on in—a promising boy for whom she longed.

As she left the bathroom, Rachel smelled coffee and heard the sound of the television turned low. She was so nervous that she found it difficult to smile. But only Paul was there to see her enter the room, pale and hesitant. He sat up, shoved a ratty blanket off the couch so she could sit down.

“Don’t talk,” he said. “Save your strength.” He poured her a cup of coffee, built a nest of cushions around her, and opened a window so that the cold October air flowed through the stale indoors like surf.

He told Rachel that Harry had gone out and wouldn’t be back until much later in the day. She felt herself slip, then, into a posture of resignation and recognized the beginnings of remorse. But a part of her was unconvinced, well stocked with explanations and pardons. A part of her wanted very badly to believe that her infatuation with Harry would not leave her scarred.

She changed into her sweater and then sat with Paul for a while, sipping coffee and nibbling plain toast, until they felt equal to the long walk back to campus. They went slowly, stopping often, for they were both in several types of pain and had no reason to hurry. It made them feel better to walk and to be together. They talked, laughed from time to time, and singly wondered why it was taking them so long to get down to the business of sharing their secrets. As they crossed the campus green, Rachel finally led Paul to an empty bench in the sun and told him what had happened.

“No kidding, Rachel? Really? Golly. And I thought you two were playing cribbage all night. Well, I’ll be damned. Just when you think you know somebody, something like this—”

“Shut up, you ass, and let me finish.” Rachel picked up a red maple leaf from the grass and slowly dissected it. “You think you know me so well, but you didn’t know I was a virgin, did you?” She had expected surprise, even shock, but she was instantly dismayed to see the effect that this had on Paul. He sat back as if he’d been sucker-punched, put a hand to his mouth like a woman. But he didn’t say anything. He simply looked at her.

“I know you told me not to come crying to you if things went wrong with Harry,” she sighed. “And I won’t. But I want you to tell me honestly whether I would be foolish to expect him to … I don’t know … phone me later. Or come looking for me.”

Paul took his hand away from his mouth. “I told you that I’d introduce you to Harry but nothing more. No matchmaking and no handholding. If I tell you that you were a one-night stand, you’ll deny it. You’ll even be angry with me for saying so. And if I tell you that Harry will call, I’ll hate myself for postponing the inevitable. Because Harry won’t call, Rachel.” He got angrily to his feet. “He’ll walk right past you in class tomorrow. If you corner him, he’ll be civil and smug and call you by the wrong name. But don’t take my word for it. See for yourself.”

As Rachel watched Paul walk away, she wondered why he was so angry. Perhaps he was feeling some vicarious strains of her own doubt, fear, hope, and confusion. It wasn’t until two weeks later that Rachel finally understood the extent of Paul’s involvement in her encounter with Harry Gallagher.

Harry had not called, of course. And so she, after a week of wondering and agonizing, had finally convinced herself that it would be all right to call him.

“Hello, Harry?” she said, when a man answered. She could barely hold the phone. Her hand felt as if it were broken. She wished she’d never done this, after all.

“No,” he said. “Harry’s gone out. You want me to give him a message?” He had a slight British accent, which Rachel thought quite lovely. She had not known of a roommate.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I guess you could tell him that I called. It’s Rachel. I’m a … friend of his.”

“Oh, Rachel,” he said, with a great deal of emphasis on the first part of her name, as if he were saying, Oh,
that
friend. “Yeah, Harry mentioned a Rachel.” She listened carefully for clues but was not sure
what Harry might have said about her. “This is Skip,” he said. “Harry’s apartment mate.”

“Hello,” Rachel said, feeling foolish.

“Listen,” Skip said. “Harry will be back soon. You can try him again in a bit. Better yet, come over and wait for him. I know he’ll be glad to see you.”

Rachel began to smile. She swung her foot.

“I guess I will,” she said. “If you’re sure it’s okay.”

“I’m sure,” Skip said.

Rachel changed clothes, and then again, then stripped and quickly showered, dressed, and was on her way to Harry’s before she realized that her AmCiv discussion group was about to begin without her. She had spent three hours the night before preparing for group. She felt unlike herself, suddenly, and was both elated and alarmed by the sensation. But, as she had on the night that had ended in Harry’s bed, Rachel gave herself up to fate and possibility and the hope that there would always be an exception to every rule.

“You don’t mind if I eat something, do you?” Skip said. “I’m starved.” He offered her white bread, pink bologna, emphatically yellow mustard, and a knife.
Still Life
, she thought.
I haven’t eaten bologna in years
.

“Thanks,” she said, “but I’m really not hungry.”

“Beer?” It was one-fifteen in the afternoon.

“No. Thanks.”

Skip took a bottle for himself, pulled out two chairs at the wobbly kitchen table, one for him, one around the corner for her. He ate his sandwich in immense bites. It was gone quickly. His lips were vaguely yellow, and the beer made him belch.

“Sorry,” he said. “We’ve sort of let our manners lapse around here.”

Rachel glanced at the clock above his head. She listened for the door. And then, because she couldn’t help herself, “You said Harry mentioned me?” she said, and could have ripped out her tongue. She looked down at the tabletop and saw her finger scratching a furrow in the sticky brown skin it wore. She put her hands into her lap.

“Indeed he did,” Skip said, smiling. “He had to, really. I do the laundry around here.” He grinned, leaning back in his chair.

For a moment, Rachel could make no sense of this. And then,
remembering the bedsheets, she understood. She let her breath out slowly and looked right at him.

“What did Harry say?”

“Well,” Skip said. “I have to whisper this.” He moved his chair next to hers.

Rachel began to know that this was not what she had been hoping for, but she wasn’t sure. She had only just met Skip. Perhaps he was simply eccentric. She had met so many eccentric people here at school. They had, in the beginning, astounded her, but after a time she had found them to be far more trustworthy and predictable than many of the more ordinary people she had encountered since leaving home. And so she gave Skip the benefit of the doubt and reluctantly, her shoulders hunched, offered her ear.

“Harry said,” Skip whispered, at the same time sliding his hand around her arm, “that the two of you were a perfect fit.” He drew back for a moment, then again into her ear said, “Nice and tight.”

By the time she realized what he was saying, he had put his tongue into her ear and was reaching for her with his other hand.

Rachel knocked her chair over backward as she gained her feet and ran to the door. She ran for blocks before she lost her breath. She had left her jacket behind, but there was no way she was going back for it. She had her wallet and her keys. And she now knew everything she needed to know.

Two days later, when Rachel finally found herself face-to-face with Harry, jostled together on their way into class, he had not spoken to her, had shown not the slightest recognition. She had not been surprised but, nonetheless, felt unspeakably sad and embarrassed, especially when she noticed the other boys from his fraternity looking at her in a way that made her want to gouge out their eyes with a spoon.

Even so, even after everything had gone wrong, she had not gone crying to Paul. He had come crying to her.

“I have something to tell you,” he said without preamble when she found him waiting outside her room on Friday evening. He was sitting on the floor, drinking a bottle of beer and working a crossword puzzle. Seeing him like this, Rachel was not at all prepared for the confession he had come to deliver. “Come on in,” she said, unlocking the door and turning on the lights.

Once inside, he immediately said, “I know you’re feeling awful about Harry,” but she interrupted with a wave of her hand.

“Oh, please, Paul. It’s over and done with, and I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Well, I do. I like being your friend. It’s one of the things I like best in my life. Certainly better than that goddamned fraternity. But I can’t even look at you now without feeling terrible. I don’t want to be around you. I don’t want to think about you. I don’t want to talk to you. When you look at me I feel sick. So I have to put things right with you, Rachel.” He ran both hands through his hair. “Although putting things right will probably get me kicked out the door, but I’ll take my chances.”

By this time Rachel was more impatient than alarmed. “For heaven’s sake, Paul, tell me what’s wrong.”

So he sat down on Rachel’s bed next to her and, after a moment, began to tell her why he had been so sure about Harry Gallagher.

“Do you remember when Harry sent you out to the kitchen to get the ice cream?” Rachel nodded. “Well, as soon as you left the room he tried to convince me to leave so he could get you to bed, only I wouldn’t go. So then he said I could stay as long as I kept out of his way. He said he’d give a signal when it was time for me to get lost.”

Paul looked away. Cleared his throat. “There’s a code we use,” he said. “All of us. It’s something we’re taught during Hell Week. Part of our initiation. I’ll bet you could walk into any boardroom in this country and ask for the signal for ‘okay, boys, this one’s ready,’ and a bunch of hands would go up.” He tried to chuckle but couldn’t quite manage it. Took a deep breath and blew it out loudly. “I live with a bunch of people who can be pretty vulgar, Rachel, and I guess when I’m with them I can too. I’ve seen a lot of disgusting stuff, and I’ve heard some things that I hope to God are lies. But I’ve never seen anyone act quite like he did that night. He was practically drooling. I don’t know, maybe he just seemed worse to me because you’re my friend.” He looked at her for a moment. “I know I should have intervened, but I was angry with you. For involving me. For making me an accomplice to something I had warned you to avoid. Besides, at that point you weren’t very drunk and I figured you could take care of yourself, make up your own mind. I didn’t know how … inexperienced you were. If I’d had more time, maybe I would have decided to get you away from him, but then you came back in with the ice cream, and Harry spent the next hour plying you with banana liqueur and
I Love Lucy
, for God’s sake. And I sat there and watched him
putting his hands on you and watched you let him and didn’t know whether I should stay or leave or haul you out of there. And then suddenly Harry gave me the signal from behind your head while he was reaching up your sweater with his other hand and he wasn’t even looking at me. He was looking at where your pants had come un-snapped, and I went into the hallway and watched you until I felt like I was watching a movie. I almost left, but I couldn’t just leave you altogether. And then he took you off, out of my sight, and it was out of my hands.” Paul rubbed a knuckle against his lower lip and looked away from Rachel, who was squinting with distaste and eager for him to be gone.

After a while, she went out the door and down the hall to the bathroom. She was gone for a long time. When she returned, she took a small suitcase out of her closet. “Give me your car keys, Paul,” she said as she folded up her nightgown.

“My car keys? Why?”

“Because I want to go somewhere for a couple of days and I don’t have a car. Is there a problem?”

“No. No problem. Where are you going?” He pictured Rachel driving his old, beloved, bottom-heavy Impala and felt sick to his stomach.

“I really haven’t decided,” she said impatiently. “Somewhere that isn’t here.”

Once in the car, however, she knew exactly where she wanted to go. Cape Cod was only a couple of hours away. She could be there by ten. It had been three years since her parents had taken her to New England to look at colleges and to see the Atlantic for the first time, but she felt sure that she’d be able to find the little inn on the Cape where they had stayed for a day. The rooms had been plain and clean with wooden floors and white curtains. Sheets that smelled like wind, and a view of sea and sky.

Crossing the canal was like crossing a border somehow. The air changed, grew sugary with fog, then clear and chill, then foggy again. The trees became stunted and bent. The road was dark, and the headlights of the Impala made the eyes of every meandering raccoon into minute beacons. She encountered few other cars, heard little but the wind, felt her hair thicken with salt, and was glad she had come.