Where the Kissing Never Stops (16 page)

“I don’t know,” said Peggy, talking so slow and thick it was like she was half asleep or hypnotized, “maybe Walker’s right, you guys.”

“Walker’s always right,” said Rachel, just as slowly.

“What am I right about this time?” I asked, imagining that instead of tumbling out all edges and points, the nouns and verbs floated up slowly into the gorgeous blue sky, followed by the articles and prepositions just tagging along.

“This place,” Peggy said. “It’s fabulous out here. I’d kind of hate to see it swallowed up by Toys R Us and the Hair Affair.”

“You guys should see a great mall,” Rachel said dreamily.

“You wouldn’t miss this place?” Sully asked, trying to balance a Ruffle on his nose.

Rachel took a long, luxurious breath and let it out. “Don’t get me wrong. Part of me doesn’t want to see this disappear, either. I just mean it’d be nice for you guys to see a great mall, that’s all.” She reached for a carrot stick, then held it between her index and middle fingers. “It’s too bad you can’t smoke vegetables,” she mused.

“Where is this great mall?” I murmured. “We’ll go.” I turned my face toward Rachel’s, nuzzling into her dark hair until I could feel her skin. She smelled, of all things, like papaya.

“Manoa Marketplace,” she said. “But that’s in Hawaii.”

“Aloha,” said Sully. “Which means hello, goodbye, and charge it.”

“The Houston Galleria, Faneuil Hall, Ghirardelli Square,” Rachel recited. She had her hands folded primly on her tummy and she looked like a little girl who had fainted during a recitation but bravely continued.

“Can we drive to any of those? I have to be home for dinner.”

“The Emerald City’s not bad.”

“Said Dorothy to her new friends.”

“Where’s that?”

“It’s in Love’s Park, about an hour from here.”

“Then we should go,” Peggy said languidly.

“We should,” Sully added. He was smoking a carrot stick, elaborately tapping the make-believe ashes in my face. “These aren’t bad,” he mused, “but they’re not a man’s smoke. ‘I’d walk a kilometer for a carrot’ doesn’t cut it.”

“I need a kiss,” said Rachel. “Just a tiny one.”

“Kiss Rachel,” I said to Sully. “You’re closer.”

“No, no, no.” She shook her head lazily. “Sully has vegetable breath. It would be like kissing a relish tray. You kiss me.”

“I smell like cake.”

“Good.”

“I could go to a mall,” Peggy said. “I need some shoes.” Her sentence floated skyward, lazy as incense.

“They only sell red shoes in the Emerald City Mall.”

“When should we go?”

“Saturday?”

“Are we serious about this?”

All our heads nodded simultaneously.

“You know,” said Peggy, “this is like a movie.”

“
Four Kids Lying on the Ground.
I saw it.”

“No, a really old movie where the camera is like on the ceiling and you look down on these girls and they’re all doing the same synchronized movements?”

“Busby Berkeley,” said Sully.

“Yes. Let’s do it. Everybody hold hands and put your arms back and your legs apart and we’ll make a star.”

We followed Peggy’s directions, goofing around and laughing. I don’t know if we looked like a star. What I do know is that when Peggy wanted us to make a snowflake she had us all lift one leg and point our toes, and her skirt and Rachel’s slid down. All of a sudden there were their long legs and I got this really embarrassing erection and probably destroyed the pattern completely. I mean, whoever heard of a snowflake with a boner?

Luckily Sully got tired of it or embarrassed or maybe he had a little problem of his own; anyway, he started to tickle Peggy and she rolled into him, pinning his arms to his side.

Just then Mr. Kramer’s car turned off the main road and rattled our way. We watched without saying anything as he cruised right up next to us. We all waved, brushed off our clothes, and stood up.

When Mr. Kramer got out, he touched the brim of his hat, called Rachel ma’am, and asked me how I’d been. I said all right.

“Well, I just came by to see how things looked. I’m on my way over to take some things to my oldest boy. Keepsakes,” he said softly, “and things like that.”

Rachel glanced at the car. “Can I see?” she asked. “Would you mind? I like old things.”

“Help yourself.”

As she leaned into the little gray Chevy, he and I walked toward the field where the very first oats had taken hold but not prospered. They weren’t even green like the others, but yellow like a porch light.

“I talked to your mother,” he said, looking straight ahead like a sea captain. “Did she tell you?”

“Not really. She’s got this weird schedule and we don’t always see each other.”

“What it comes down to, I guess, is Rachel’s daddy got a little high and mighty with her.”

“With Mom? About what?”

“This here.” He pointed. “Gardner’s under the gun a little, the way I hear it. Now the city council’s dragging their heels on all the zoning he needs, not just this piece here. I think if he could get one of us to do something definite, he hopes the rest would just line up.”

“Are you going to sell?”

“Don’t know. Funny thing is, we could almost have our cake and eat it. If we sold tomorrow, we’d see this fall and another spring before the machines moved in. Hell, we could lease your place and that section of mine for grazing and turn a nice profit.”

“Enough to pay for college?”

“Enough to get you in the front door.”

“Do you trust him?” I glanced toward Rachel, who was absorbed in a large cardboard box.

“Far enough to take his money. Mostly I feel sorry for him. Used to be men come to town before the circus. They’d put up posters and sell tickets and then be gone before the elephants ever set foot on Main Street. Always wondered if they ever saw the show.” He shook his head. “Hell of a way to live.”

Rachel walked over to us holding a long album with a thick imitation-leather cover.

“Are these you when you were young?” she asked.

Mr. Kramer turned the long, dark pages, soft as a spaniel’s ears. Four tiny chevrons held each picture in place, and the first few were all of women standing beside huge automobiles — Hudsons, a Nash Ambassador, Packards. There was always a mountain in the background or the first fifteen feet of a famous tree.

“Now,” said Mr. Kramer, pointing to a big horse, “that’s Prince and that there’s Speedy Boy.” His fingers moved lightly in all directions, like he was winning at draughts. “This is old Dutch and over here is Pal, Waymond’s little dog, and that heifer with the blaze face is June. Mattie cried when the truck came, but she brought near forty dollars a hundred, and we almost had to have the money.”

There was a baby picture of Wilson, their oldest, seated by a chicken bigger than he was; one of a startled Pal next to Waymond fixed up to look like a cat, with whiskers radiating like spokes from his mouth, a union suit dyed black, and a long piece of rope for a tail; and finally a color photo of someone standing solemnly beside his first rifle.

Then there were large photographs of country schools with names like Denton and Grass Valley; comic postcards that all featured outhouses and dazed, bosomy Ozark gals in tattered shorts; and family reunion pictures — Mr. Kramer pointed and named everyone.

“Iris just wasted away and that’s a fact; Edith had the dropsy, Hilda and Evelyn both took to drink, and Lula lives in Washington, D.C., with a black man; Eda just dropped dead one day opening a can of Maxwell House coffee; Loy there went to Vietnam and when he came back, he just wasn’t right, though he’s awful good with his hands and he can fix anything.”

“You’ve lived here a long time, haven’t you?” Rachel asked quietly.

“All my life.”

“God, that sounds great: I’ve stayed in a lot of big cities, but this is the first place I’ve ever really lived.”

Later on, Sully and Peggy followed Mr. Kramer out toward the main road. He drove like a lot of old guys, leaning right up against the wheel, using both hands like he was steering a four-master. Behind him Sully lounged in the big convertible, Peggy’s head on his shoulder, his arm around her, steering with one finger.

I helped Rachel fold up the plaid blanket, and without saying anything, we headed for the oak like we’d done a dozen times before, always carefully picking our way among the tender shoots.

“What’ll your dad do if all the people he needs to sell don’t sell and if all the places he needs rezoned don’t get rezoned?”

“He’ll build something else,” she said. “He’s tried to get the Garden of Gardner up before, you know.”

“What does he build instead?”

“It depends on the financing. Pretty much whatever he can. Dad’s realistic. If he can’t get what he wants, he takes what he can get and moves on.”

He sounded like Attila the Hun, but I didn’t say that.

“I thought you weren’t going to move anymore.”

Rachel leaned to smooth the blanket she’d laid out.

“He moves on in his mind. He’s not a kid, in other words. He doesn’t pout. If people say, ‘We don’t want your Garden,’ he says, ‘Okay, what do you want?’”

I sat down beside her, then got right back up again and took off my shirt. I have to admit I was getting vain about my suntan, and I was a lot less shy about my stomach. Okay, it wasn’t a plane of rippling flesh, but it wasn’t like I couldn’t see the ground.

“I like you with your shirt off,” Rachel said.

“I like you with your shirt off, too.”

“Want me to?” she said impishly.

“Right here?”

She nodded, grinning. “Should I?”

“Rachel, I’m sixteen. I’m at my sexual peak. If I don’t say yes now, I have to go to a monastery.”

She undid one button, then pulled the blouse over her head. “Hi, motorists,” she said, waving to the distant highway. “Hi, Reverend Falwell; hi, Father Murphy.” Then she turned her back to me. “Help me with this, okay?”

I had a little attack of performance anxiety, but I took a deep breath and started in. Rachel squirmed a little.

“Does this have a combination or something?”

“I’ll do it.”

I sat down with a thump. “God, Sully and I saw these movies once and every guy in them could take a girl’s bra off with one hand.”

“I saw one of those. We sneaked into this sleazo theater in Miami. All the girls had these enormous breasts.” She stared down at herself. “Do boys really like humongous ones?”

“I don’t know. Everybody’s worried about something. Guys are worried about having a little wiener.”

“I know. Tommy Thompson’s is supposed to be little.”

I sat up. “No kidding! God, wait till I tell Sully. That’s the best news I’ve heard in a long time.”

“Well, I like my breasts,” she said, “just the way they are.” She stroked one tenderly, like it was a puppy. Then frowned. “Look, a pimple.”

I leaned toward the tiny spot.

“Don’t,” she said. “It’s icky.”

I shook my head.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Yes.” I could feel the warmth of her perfect flesh, then one hand on the back of my head as she pulled me to her.

The funny thing is that we didn’t make love, not that day, anyway. And that was the answer to Sully’s question, Do you guys do it a lot? I mean, the answer is yes and no. Sometimes it was just as nice to only touch each other and kiss. That’s what we did that afternoon, getting lully and woozy with those long, oasis-type kisses, then just drifting off to sleep.

“God,” Rachel said, sitting up, “I drooled.”

I untangled myself. It sounds romantic to sleep in one another’s arms, but not when something goes numb. Like my right hand. I shook it violently as she dressed. Her bra wouldn’t go on right and something of my own was tangled, too. With my live hand I reached into my jeans.

“Walker, what’s it like to have a penis?”

“It’s handy. This way I don’t look different in gym class.”

“I’ve always wondered. I think I secretly want one.”

“Christmas is a long way off. Are you hinting for your birthday?”

“It must be so weird to have this thing hanging off you.”

“I feel that way about your breasts. I always thought that if I had a pair I’d always be touching them.”

“Do you touch your thing much?”

“Just to go to the bathroom and at night when I put a sock on it.”

“You’re kidding. A sock?” She looked like I’d just told her that I breathed through my feet.

“So it won’t catch cold when I’m asleep. When it catches cold it sneezes, and if I’m in class and my pants jump I get embarrassed.”

Rachel began to beat on me with both fists, but lightly.

“I like you so much, Walker,” she said, getting serious all of a sudden. “I told Peggy I did, and she said to tell you.”

“Thanks, Peggy.”

“She’s funny, isn’t she?”

“How do you mean?” I stooped to help Rachel with our things.

“She has this terrible reputation but she’s really nice.”

“Maybe a lot of that is just talk.”

She shook her head. “Nope. Peggy told me. I just used to think that somebody who got around like that would have to be a prostitute or a stripper or something. Now I know better.”

“Strippers aren’t the same as prostitutes,” I said supercasually.

“I guess not. Anyway, Peggy’s nice, and I’m glad we’re friends.”

Rachel was tucked in under my right arm. I could feel her as we walked together. Her hair tickled a little under my chin and I could still hear her saying that she liked me so much.

What would happen if I told her I knew a stripper? Really knew one. Would she get cold immediately just like the freeze that supposedly finished off the dinosaurs? Would she slip out from under my arm for good? Would the terrific kissing stop?

“Are you okay?” she asked softly. “What are you thinking about?”

“I’ve got a little chill, I guess. Maybe I’m catching cold.”

I stayed home from school for a day, sneezed, slept, and looked out the window. It had begun to rain, so light sometimes it seemed to barely flicker, so heavy at others that I wondered if the oats could stand up under it.

Rachel got assignments from my teachers and phoned them in, while Sully gave me the standard lecture on psychosomatic illness: I wasn’t really ill, he said, just guilty and scared. So I blew my nose into the phone.