The View from Mount Joy

by Lorna Landvik

  “That was so pretty,” she said softly, and as she pressed her shoulder against mine, the baby-powder smell got stronger. “Play it again.”

  I did, singing all the verses. It’s a nice ballad, and I knew I had a nice enough voice—nothing flashy, but nice—and after my voice faded away, riding the last note, and after the vibrations of the piano strings slowed to a stop, Kristi Casey leaned even closer and kissed me.

  The surprise factor surprised me—well, stunned me—so much so that I was immobilized, and it wasn’t until she drew back her head and smiled that I realized she had stopped and that I wanted more.

  “Thanks for the concert,” she said, stopping too abruptly the slow delicious slide her hand made down my thigh by patting my knee. “But I gotta get going. My squirrely brother’s waiting for me out in the car.”

  I was discombobulated from that kiss, from that hand on my thigh, and didn’t quite understand what she was saying. “Kirk…Kirk’s out in the car?” I had worked with the bag boy for more than a month before figuring out his sister was Kristi.

  She was already shrugging into her pea coat. “Yeah, like I said, I was in the neighborhood. I had to pick him up at work.”

  “It’s cold out there.” It seemed I was vying for the lame conversationalist award.

  “Well, duh. That’s why I’m leaving. My mother would be p-i-s-s pissed if I brought him home frozen.” She wiggled her fingers at me. “Mañana, Jose.”

  I wasn’t a greedy bastard—the fact that Kristi’s mouth had been on mine for one moment in time was enough for me, and besides, I was practical. What were the odds of that happening again? Pretty damn good, and beyond, it turned out.

  One day after lunch, I was getting my books for my afternoon classes when I saw a folded square of paper on my locker floor.

  Meet me in the audiovisual office at 2:00, it read, and was signed, K.

  I stood staring at the pile of books on the shelf above my jacket, my mind playing badminton with two thoughts: K’s gotta be Kristi. K can’t be Kristi.

  “You trippin’, man?” asked Todd Randolph, nudging me as he opened his combination lock.

  “Huh?” K’s gotta be Kristi. K can’t be Kristi.

  “You look like a zombie standing there.”

  “Nah,” I said, grabbing my history and English books and shutting my locker. “Zombies look like this.” I opened my mouth, letting my tongue push out my lower lip, and rolled my eyes back.

  “No,” said the guy who considered himself the funniest kid in our class. “Zombies look like that.” He pointed at Terry Seagren, a kid whose navigation down the hallways was a little harder than most, considering the leg braces he wore.

  “Asshole,” I said, shaking my head.

  Todd Randolph gave me one of the many smirks he passed out all day. “Takes one to know one.”

  The bell rang at two o’clock, and seconds later, I knocked on the door of the audiovisual office. To say I was relieved when Kristi opened the door is to understate my emotions—I was thrilled, excited, and mystified. Apparently I looked the way I felt, and she laughed, pulling me into the small room as she closed the door and turned the skeleton key in the lock.

  “I’m glad you made it.”

  “So what—” I began, but Kristi shut me up good by pushing me onto the padded chair behind the desk and climbing on top of me and laying a kiss on me so sweet I thought that if I’d died and gone to heaven, I didn’t mind dying and heaven was even better than advertised.

  “Wow,” I said when she pulled her face away from mine, allowing me to finally inhale.

  She smiled, and when it was sincere, there was no smile prettier than Kristi Casey’s.

  “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” she said, and delivering on her promise, she lowered herself to her knees. As I screamed to myself, Is she doing what I think she’s doing? she unzipped my fly, answering yes.

  “Oh my, you’re all ready,” she said, freeing my boner from its cotton gate.

  “Kristi, I—” I didn’t know what I was going to say, but it didn’t matter; any words, any coherence was literally swallowed up when Kristi took me in her mouth.

  Every single sensor in my body was on high alert: Kristi Casey’s giving me a blow job!

  I leaned back in the chair, my eyes rolled back so far in my head I wouldn’t be surprised if I could read the advertisement for Bell and Howell projectors pinned to the wall behind me. Kristi Casey’s giving me a blow job! Could anything in the known world feel as good as those lips around my dick? It was as if all of me was submerged in velvet, in wet velvet, and my pelvis rose off the chair and back down again, wanting to plunge itself in that deep wet fabric.

  “Oh God!” I shouted as her tongue darted along the tip of my cock. “Oh, God!”

  “Shh!” said Kristi, and immediately I obeyed; her mouth was needed for far better things than scolding.

  My fingers were laced through her hair and when I came, my grip must have been pretty tight because the second thing she said to me was, “Ow! Next time don’t pull my hair, Joe.” The first thing she said, after sitting back on her haunches and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, was, “I sure hope that stuff’s not fattening.”

  I laughed; I could have just as easily cried, sang, whistled, or yodeled, but laughter seemed the safest response to the unbelievable, fantastic, and glorious thing that had happened to me: Kristi Casey just gave me a blow job!

  “I’ll write you out a pass, Joe,” she said, standing up and brushing the knees of her bell-bottom jeans.

  I laughed again; there was no language for what I was feeling, so laughter would have to do.

  When I stood up, my legs felt as wobbly as if I’d been out on the rink all day and had just taken off my skates.

  “What’ll you say?” I said, zipping up my pants. “‘Please excuse Joe from Calculus. Kristi Casey was giving him a blow job’?”

  “If that’s what you want,” she said, scribbling something on a pink pad. She tore the small square off and handed it to me. It read: Pls. xcuse J.A.—busy w/b.j.

  Laughing—I was on top of the world; how could I not laugh?—I folded the paper and stuffed it in my back pocket as she wrote out another pass.

  “Who do you have anyway?”

  “Uh…Mrs. Gleason.”

  “Well, if she asks—which she won’t—tell her you were helping Mrs. Moriarty for the book drive.”

  “Where’d you get these?” I asked as she finished writing and handed me the new pass, which was marked only with a time and signature.

  “They’re in every teacher’s desk,” she said, putting the remaining passes in her shoulder bag. She fluffed her hair with her hands. “How do I look?”

  “How do you look?” I reached for her, wanting to answer her with a kiss, but she sidestepped me and opened the door.

  “Hey, Joe—can you help me move a dresser tomorrow? Blake was going to help me, but he’s got to go straight to work after hockey practice.”

  Although I’d preferred her to ask me to pledge my undying love (which I would have), I said sure. After what she’d done for me, I’d have moved a dresser, a refrigerator, and a sectional couch, all in one trip.

  “Great! I’ll pick you up at seven, then.” She poked her head out and looked down the hallway.

  “Coast is clear,” she said, and although she didn’t wink, her smile made it seem as if she had. “See you later, Joe.”

  “Innt ma Krissi the preesing eur seen?”

  I shrugged helplessly.

  “Innt ma Krissi the pressing eur seen?”

  “Thank you, Grandma,” said Kristi to the old woman whose bed we stood around. To me she said, “She’s asking you if you don’t think I’m the prettiest thing you’ve ever seen.”

  I gave a big, enthusiastic Boy Scout nod. “I do, Mrs. Swenson. I sure do.”

  Kristi laughed.

  “Way to force a compliment out of him, Grandma.” She went to the dresser I had helped her move, and
rummaged through the top drawer.

  “I’m going to brush your hair, Grandma,” she said, finding a brush. “It looks kind of wild.”

  “Ese ays zas a ashon.”

  “She says that’s the fashion these days.” Kristi laughed again, a laugh I hadn’t heard from her before, sweet and light.

  Very gently, she swabbed the woman’s thin white hair with the brush she found in the drawer. “I can come right after school tomorrow, so I’ll wash it for you then.”

  A semblance of a smile lifted one side of the twisted grimace that was Mrs. Swenson’s mouth.

  “Ill eu iv e a ehicur too?”

  “A pedicure, a manicure, anything you want, Grandma.”

  The old woman looked at me, her blue eyes full of the life the rest of her body seemed to have given up on.

  I smiled at her, and instead of smiling back, she winked.

  Kristi pretended to swat her with the brush.

  “Stop flirting, Grandma. Joe’s too young for you.”

  “I ike eh yeh.”

  “Well, he’s too young. You’d be corrupting a minor.”

  The old woman’s laugh was more a cackle, and drool spilled out of the side of her mouth that couldn’t move.

  “But I’ll turn eighteen in February,” I said, because even though the drool was a little gross, I liked hearing that laughter.

  “E sti ey art,” said Mrs. Swenson, her good hand patting the left side of her chest.

  Kristi didn’t have to translate that for me.

  “Yes, be still,” I said, pretending to calm my own rapid heartbeat by patting my chest and a moment later, a nurse’s aide came into the room, asking what all the merriment was about.

  “She’s only sixty-nine,” said Kristi as we stood in a jerky elevator that smelled like one of those casseroles—maybe tuna noodle—that stinks a little like vomit. “I know she seems a lot older, but that’s because of the stroke.” The elevator groaned as if the cables were overstretched. “You should have seen what she was like before it.”

  “When…when did it happen?” I said, almost unsure of how to talk to Kristi when she was so un-Kristi-like.

  “Last year. She was having coffee at the bakery when her friend said all of a sudden—bang!—‘the donut flies out of her hand and she drops to the floor.’” She pressed her frosted lips together and shook her head. “I used to spend nearly every weekend with her when I was little. She was so much fun—we’d make popcorn balls and watch Lawrence Welk together. I know that doesn’t sound like much fun, but it was.”

  The elevator bounced to a stop and the doors opened with a quiet groan.

  “What about your grandpa?” I asked as we stepped into the over-heated lobby, which smelled even more strongly of that casserole with questionable ingredients.

  “Oh, he died when I was seven. And I never even knew my dad’s parents. Grandma Dorothy’s all I’ve got left.”

  Her voice was so sad, so lonely, that I had to put my arm around her. She rested her head on my shoulder for a moment, and even though I might have looked like a concerned and caring guy, the only thought jumping around like a monkey in my head was: Did I earn another blow job? Huh? Huh? Did I? Did I?

  Five

  * * *

  From the Ole Bulletin, December 1971:

  Christmas vacation, and the livin’ is easy. Our Roving Reporter merrily roamed the halls, asking a handful of Bulls how they planned to spend two sweet weeks of wintry freedom.

  Leonard Doerr, senior: “Well, the German club is having their big Weinachten party—I’m making apple strudel for it!—and then there’s our big church concerts (come on down, everyone—I’m in the handbell choir) and of course I’ll be writing a lot of my college applications. I’ve got my fingers crossed for Northwestern, but I wouldn’t say no to Oberlin, either!”

  Heywood Jablome, senior: “I’ll probably spend the holidays with my parole officer.”

  Babs Johnson, junior: “I’m going skiing with my family in Colorado.”

  Janet Vromann, junior: “I’m going skiing with Babs’ family in Colorado, ’cause my parents don’t ski. My dad said he tried it once, but he couldn’t stop and he ran into his instructor. Fortunately he was only going down the bunny hill, so he wasn’t going all that fast. Still, fast enough to break his wrist. And fast enough to break the instructor’s tailbone. I hope I don’t break anything of mine or the Johnsons’.”

  Mr. Frank Lutz, Ole Bull advisor: “I’m going get my fireplace going and sit in my favorite chair and read until I’m cross-eyed.”

  Laurie Stein, junior: “I’m collecting toys for kids who might not get anything for Christmas. It’s kind of funny, ’cause I’m Jewish and we don’t celebrate Christmas, but this is more about Santa Claus than Jesus—no offense to anyone. What I mean is, I do a lot of volunteer work and this is one of the annual projects, and I think it’s neat when a kid who’s not expecting anything under her Christmas tree—if she even has a Christmas tree—finds a doll or a sled or something. It’s just kind of a neat thing.”

  * * *

  Despite the fact that I’d be spending time with my own grandmother, whose company didn’t thrill me the way Mrs. Swenson’s company thrilled Kristi, it was a big relief to go back to Granite Creek for Christmas. I didn’t care that the skies held a big surprise clearance sale, dumping its overstock of snow on us for the entire ride and throwing in a bonus of winds that rendered visibility to about two inches; didn’t care that a four-hour drive took us seven; didn’t care that tow trucks and highway patrol cars trolled the highway like vultures, ready to feast upon another inevitable spin-out.

  “I think I aged ten years,” said my mother when we finally pulled into my grandma’s driveway.

  “Well, then I aged twenty,” said my aunt Beth, who had shared driving duties with me. “And she’ll add on another five.” She nodded toward the front door, which Grandma had opened and now stood in front of, arms crossed.

  My mother fixed her lipstick in the visor mirror. “We’re all going to get along this Christmas, remember, Beth?”

  My aunt sighed. “Sure, Carole. Whatever you say. Santy Claus is going to come and the turkey won’t be tough and we’ll all get along.”

  It didn’t take long to see that the magic of Christmas wasn’t about to cast its spell on this house. We had barely sat down in the small living room with our coffee and cookies before Grandma started complaining.

  “My goodness, you said you’d be here by four—I’ve been worried sick about you. Would it have been so hard to call?”

  “Mom, we only stopped once, at the Dutch Girl in Alexandria, but the line to the phone was too long and we figured we’d lose even more time if we waited.”

  “Big café like the Dutch Girl is bound to have more than one phone,” she said with a sniff. “And I was going to have a nice warm dinner waiting for you.”

  “Mom, I told you not to have dinner ready, that we were going to stop at the Dutch Girl.”

  “Well, it’s a good thing that I didn’t, because it would have been ruined.”

  “At least we get to enjoy these delicious cookies and coffee together,” said Aunt Beth, and if sarcasm was venom, hers would be lethal.

  “You expect me to brew a pot at ten o’clock in the evening?” said Grandma, not about to apologize for serving instant. “Just like you expected me to slave the day away making homemade cookies?”

  “Mama, we didn’t expect anything,” said my mom, putting her arm around the thin ridge of Grandma’s shoulders. “We’re just glad to be here.”

  “Some people have a funny way of showing it,” said Grandma, looking at my aunt as if she had tracked something in on her carpet, even though it was a house rule you had to take your shoes off the second you stepped inside.

  We all tried, but the small talk was just that: small. And I was glad when my mom yawned and said we were pretty tired from the long drive and it was time to hit the hay.

  “Well, I washed both the kitc
hen and the bathroom floors this morning,” said Grandma, as if we weren’t the only ones who had a reason to be tired. “And don’t forget I’ve got to get up early to put the turkey in.”

  “I’ll help you.” Aunt Beth’s offer came just a beat before mine and my mother’s, but Grandma wasn’t interested in any of them.

  “At five A.M.?” Her snort substituted for a laugh. “I get you up at five A.M. and the one thing I can count on is a bunch of crabapples for Christmas dinner. No thanks.” She stood up then, pulling her sweater around her, as if the wind had just blown in, and told everybody good night. Both my mother and aunt stood, and maybe it was because I didn’t like the way she acted—as if her cheek barely had room for their kisses—that made me envelop my grandma in a bear hug and lift her off her bootie-slippered feet.

  “Oh my!” she said in a strangled voice, as if I’d punched her instead of hugged her, but I held on, held on until I felt a twinge of pressure that let me know she was hugging me back.

  I was assigned, as usual, my uncle Roger’s twin bed, with its bedposts carved up with initials and spotted and scarred in the places where his chewing gum had been pried off. The last time I had seen him was a couple of months after my dad’s funeral, watching him pack his duffel back on the very same bed.

  “You come and spend the summer with me, mate,” he said, rolling his underwear into little cylinders. “I’ll be in either Tahiti or Bora Bora, and what they say about Polynesian women is true.”

  “What do they say about Polynesian woman?” I asked.

  Roger looked at me. It’s not often a person has eyes the colors of gem-stones, but his were a true turquoise, a color so pretty and jewel-like, you could imagine another kind of man getting in trouble for them, getting beat up for them. But anyone picking a fight with Roger over his eye color or anything else was going to pick a fight they were bound to lose; my uncle was wiry but strong, his arms banded tight with muscles made from crewing on boats that sailed the seven seas and scything through jungle forests and hoisting hundred-pound sacks of grain on his shoulder to be delivered to tribal chieftans. My uncle had been one of the first to sign up for the Peace Corps, and after his stint in Ethiopia, he’d decided adventure’s call was louder than the peeps coming from Granite Creek and had been traveling the world ever since. As a kid, I thought he was Jack London, Long John Silver, and John Glenn rolled into one, far and away the most romantic figure of my boyhood.