Chasing Windmills

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

  Delilah said, “See? What did I tell you? Across a crowded room. If two people have that chemistry, they just have it. Right from the minute they set eyes on each other.”

  But I only half-heard her, because I was watching them look at each other. And then they came together.

  And then Maria's brother pulled them apart.

  From that part on, I got really caught up in the plot of this movie, because I didn't know if it would have a happy ending or not. Because they were from two different ethnic groups, Puerto Rican and white, and there was practically a war on between them. And nobody wanted them to be together. Except them.

  But I figured they would be, because of that song. There's a place for us. There would be a place for them. They said so. They sang it. And I believed it. I believed there was a place for them. I wanted that to be true.

  But I didn't dare ask any questions, all the way through the part where Tony's going to go meet Maria, and they're going to run away together, and Tony is talking to this nice old guy he works for, and the guy says something like, “Are you scared?” And Tony says, “No. Should I be?”

  Then I got a funny feeling that I wasn't going to like how this came out.

  I asked Delilah, “Does this movie have a happy ending?”

  At first she didn't say anything at all, so I looked over at her face.

  “Oh, child,” she said. “I keep forgetting you don't know the whole Romeo and Juliet thing. It's a story about star-crossed lovers.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means it's a tragedy.”

  “Oh, great.”

  I just sat there, my heart getting heavier and heavier, and watched as the cop showed up, and then Maria couldn't go meet Tony.

  And the cop said something to her. Something about something that happened at the dance last night.

  I looked over at Delilah. “This all happened in one day?”

  “Yep. Just like Romeo and Juliet. Just all at once like that.”

  “Is that really love? When it happens so fast?”

  She sighed. Paused the movie. Sighed again. “Some would say it's only love after you've been together long enough to work out who takes out the trash. And there's something to that. That part of love where you have to work at it. Learn to live together. But when you set eyes on that person, it's something. Call it what you want. If it turns into love, then maybe it's just love in all its stages. It's still real.”

  “Really? Is it?”

  “Does it feel real?”

  “Yeah. Very real.”

  “Then if I was you, I'd start learning to trust what you feel.”

  She put the movie back on Play.

  Maria sent her brother's girlfriend, Anita, with a message for Tony, but the white gang got on her and abused her, so that went wrong and she got so mad she left a message that Maria was dead. And when Tony heard it, he ran out in the street and yelled for Chino, the guy he thought killed her, to come kill him too. Which Chino had been wanting to do anyway.

  All this time I could feel this hard dead lump of pizza and pretzel in my stomach, but I really don't blame the pizza and the pretzel. I think I was just too upset about this love story to do a good job digesting anything.

  Then all of a sudden he saw Maria, and he knew she wasn't dead, and they ran to each other. And I thought, Delilah was wrong. She remembered wrong. It does have a happy ending. Of course it does. It's a love story. It has to have a happy ending. What good is a love story without a happy ending? Right?

  And then Chino caught up with them and shot Tony.

  Maria held him in her arms and cried and sang that there was a place for them, but there wasn't. Because he was dying. Right there in her arms, he died.

  I just sat there numb while they carried Tony away, and then the credits rolled.

  Delilah got up to turn it off, and I felt like I couldn't even move.

  When I talked, the words sounded like I'd said them in my sleep. They felt startling. “Shouldn't a love story have a happy ending?”

  “Well, child, I don't know from should or shouldn't. Some do and some don't. I'd like to tell you every two people who love each other live happy ever after. But even you know better than that. It's the whole star-crossed-lovers thing. Two people that love each other but can't ever really be together because something keeps them apart. Right from the start. So don't get too wrapped up in that. Because that's not the story with you and this girl, right? You don't have something like two warring families keeping you apart.”

  “We have Carl,” I said. “And my father.”

  “Well,” she said. “That is a point.”

  WHEN I CAME BACK IN, my father was waiting for me. And I felt too numb and too raw and too sore to be attacked by him. But I had to go home sometime. And the longer I'd waited to come home, the worse it would have been.

  “Yesterday I purposely did not ask you where you'd been,” he said. “I hope you didn't think that would be the case every day. Today you'll tell me where you went.”

  “I was out walking,” I said. Which was true. To a point. I did go out walking, to get the video, and the pizza, and the pretzels. It wasn't the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But I had to try it. See if it would fly.

  “I don't believe you walked for a solid three and a half hours,” he said. “Tell me the truth. Now.”

  “Okay, fine. I saw a movie. You said I could take a little vacation. So I saw a movie.”

  “What movie did you see?”

  “West Side Story.”

  “West Side Story? That movie is about forty years old. Why did you want to see that?”

  “I don't know. I just wanted to see a movie.”

  He looked really confused. I guess in a way the truth worked on my behalf. By just throwing him completely off his stride.

  “Well, I suppose if you're going to defy me and see a movie, I should be thankful it was an old classic. Instead of some profane trash like they make these days.”

  “No kidding,” I said. “They didn't even swear in this film. They said things like ‘buggin'' and ‘everlovin',' so they didn't have to use the F word.” I wanted him to know I was telling the truth. That I really had seen the movie I said I'd seen.

  “Don't confuse the issue,” he said. “You still disobeyed me, and you will still need to be punished.”

  “So, what are you going to do? Ground me? I've been grounded since I was seven.”

  Maybe this was not the world's best example of playing my cards right. But sometimes he just made me so mad.

  He didn't really answer directly. Just told me to go to my room. Which I did. Which I was happy to do. But when I came out for dinner, there was no mention of any punishment. So I guess he couldn't think of anything, either.

  What do you take away from the guy who has nothing?

  MY FATHER PUT ON OPERA that night. And he wouldn't go to bed. And he wouldn't go to bed. And he wouldn't go to bed.

  I thought I was going to explode.

  I was smart enough to stay in my room with my door closed and my light off. Because I knew there was no way I could have covered up all that anxiety. Part of me even wondered if he could feel it anyway. Maybe it was pouring under the door. Or right through it.

  It was after midnight, and I could still hear the music. All my nervousness and impatience turned into hatred of the music. I thought if I had to listen to one more minute of it I was going to scream. Or hurt somebody.

  And tonight of all nights. After what she told me last time, if I didn't show up tonight, she'd think I never wanted to see her again. And then maybe I never would. Maybe she'd never ride the same subway line again. Never be where I could meet her.

  I thought of a possibility, but it was risky. But I had to try.

  I threw my door open and yelled at him. I yelled, “Will you please turn off that music and go to bed? Don't you know I've been having trouble sleeping lately? Do you think that racket helps? It's after midnight!”

&n
bsp; I couldn't see him from my spot in the bedroom doorway. So I just froze, and waited. A moment later I heard blessed silence. I breathed for the first time in a long time.

  “I'm sorry,” he said. “That was thoughtless. I didn't know it was so late.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and closed the door. And held my breath. If he sat down quietly with a book, I was dead. But the living room light clicked off, and I heard him running his glass of water in the bathroom.

  I didn't even wait for him to go to sleep. He'd vacated the living room, so I slipped out. Even if he found out I was gone, I didn't care. Just so long as he was too late to stop me, or see which way I'd gone.

  I couldn't bother to wait for the elevator. I ran down the steps two at a time and out into the pouring rain. It was raining in buckets. Sheets. I had no raincoat or hat, not even a jacket, but I didn't care. I was soaked to the skin in an instant, but I was free.

  I sprinted all the way to the subway station, ran down the stairs. Bruised my thigh badly on the turnstile. Paced until the train came.

  When we got to the Union Square station, I strained to see the bench under the stairs, before the train even stopped. She wasn't there. She had left already. Or had never showed up.

  I shot out when the doors opened, and ran up the exit stairs and out onto the rainy street. I looked both ways and thought I saw her gray hat turning the corner. But it was hard to tell, because she—or whoever it was—had a long raincoat on. I screamed her name, but she disappeared around the corner. Maybe she didn't hear me. Or maybe it wasn't even her.

  I ran all the way to the corner, screaming her name. I ran harder than I ever have in my life. I could feel myself splashing through deep puddles, but I just kept running. My chest felt like it was about to explode. When I got around the corner, I saw her. It was her! It was really her! And she was running back toward me, almost as hard and as fast as I was running. I thought she was going to run into my arms. For real this time. Instead she grabbed me by the arm and turned me around and told me to run with her and not ask any questions. She looked over her shoulder twice before we blasted around the corner. Then she pulled me down into a basement doorway, and we huddled in the shadows, breathing together. I wanted to ask what we were running from, but I didn't have enough breath to speak. I was panting too hard.

  “Oh, God,” she said. Out of breath, but not like me. “I'm afraid Carl heard you.”

  After a moment to catch my breath, I said, “You live that close?”

  She didn't answer. We just went quiet. Huddled there together. Nothing happened.

  I could feel her up against my chest, and I felt this pounding that I thought was my heart, but then I realized it was hers. It was such an amazing moment. It's like all my life I'd wanted to be close enough to someone to confuse her heartbeat with mine. I just didn't know it until now. I wondered how much of her heartbeat was the running, how much was her fear of Carl.

  When I thought about her heart beating in fear of him, I wanted to kill him. Follow her home and kill him. Or die trying. But it was a stupid thought. I could never kill anybody. Besides, you don't kill guys like Carl. You just leave them. That's more like real justice.

  “Want me to look out?” I whispered. She put a finger to my lips to shush me. I did something I wouldn't have imagined I could do. I kissed her. She didn't try to pull away. She went soft in my arms and kissed me back. “Run away with me,” I whispered.

  “Where?”

  “I don't know yet. But I have four months to figure it out. Will you go with me?”

  A long silence. “I still don't really know you very well.”

  I took her gently by both upper arms and looked right into her face. Close up in the dark. “I would never hurt you,” I said. “Physically, or any other way. I would never lay a hand on you. Doesn't that make me a better bet than him right there? No matter what else you might find out about me?”

  “It's just that I've been with him so long. Seven years.”

  Seven years. I did the math in my head. She was at least five years older than me. But I shook the thought away again. If she could live with the difference in our ages, so could I.

  “We could have a real life. A good life. Just the two of us. I love you, Maria. Come away with me.” A long silence. “Will you think about it?”

  “Yes.”

  “You'll think about it?”

  “I'll do it.”

  I almost couldn't believe what I'd just heard. I kissed her again. Then I poked my head out onto the street. No Carl. “I don't think he heard me,” I said. “I'm sorry. I didn't know you lived so close. I was afraid you'd think I changed my mind about coming.”

  “I did. I did think that.” An awkward moment. I didn't want her to go, but I could tell she was about to. She had to go home now. Make sure everything was okay. As if she heard me think that, she said, “I hope when I get home he doesn't ask who was calling my name.”

  That set up a knot in my stomach. How could I send her back there knowing she could be in trouble and it was all my fault? I could feel my brow scrunch up while I thought about it. “Could have been another Maria entirely.”

  “Right! It could have been!” The tension had drained suddenly from her voice. “Tomorrow night,” she said. Then she kissed me and ran.

  I WALKED RIGHT PAST THE SUBWAY. Set off for home on foot in the rain, smiling, when I could have gone underground. I could feel that I was smiling. I felt like an idiot. But I couldn't stop. Then I did something even sillier. It was still pouring hard. Raining in sheets. And the puddles were getting deeper. I started splashing in them on purpose. And the splashing got more rhythmic. And then it turned into a sort of dancing.

  Now, I'll be the first to admit that I don't dance. And yet I was dancing. Not well. But there was no other word for what I was doing. I held my arms out, did a little spin after each step or two. Tried out a few new moves, each more awkward than the one before.

  I sang out, “I'm singing … and dancing … in the rain.”

  Then I heard a voice. It came from over my head. “I give you a D-minus for dancing and an A-plus for enthusiasm.”

  I looked up to see an old woman leaning out her window. Looking down at me through the grating of the fire escape. She was smoking a cigarette, and a saw I big cloud of smoke flow out into the rain to be dampened down and erased.

  “Thank you!” I said. Called, really. No, I guess I sang it. Really sang it out. “I'll take it!” Then I blew her a big, expansive kiss and danced my way home.

  My father was asleep, and apparently had never missed me.

  Life was good.

  I sat drinking coffee at a little all-night coffee place until what would have been the end of my shift. Watched it rain buckets, and watched the few people who were still out walking at that hour try to deal with it. There were these really deep puddles at the corners, and they were hard to get around. The women mostly tried to chart a path around them, which involved going almost half a block out of their way. The men mostly tried to jump, but they all failed. They all landed smack in about six inches of water, soaking their pant legs and ruining their shoes.

  Speaking of soaked pant legs, my jeans were still soaking wet at the bottom, where my raincoat didn't cover. They felt cold against my legs. But it had been so hot lately. I hadn't been even a little bit cold for so long. It felt good. Like something I'd been missing without even knowing it.

  Right before it was time to walk home, the rain stopped on a dime. So, that was convenient. Or so I thought.

  But when I got home, Carl was wide awake and in a very bad mood.

  “Who was that calling your name?” he asked. Right off the bat. No hello or anything. He had been waiting a long time to ask. That much was obvious.

  “I don't know what you mean.” My guts were all frozen, and it took every ounce of everything I had to try to keep my face soft. Like I wasn't scared. Like I really didn't know what he was talking about. Not like I was just pretending I didn't.r />
  “Someone was on the street outside yelling your name.”

  “When?”

  “Couple hours ago.”

  “Well, I was at work a couple hours ago.”

  “Were you?”

  “What's that supposed to mean?”

  “Was it raining when you walked home?”

  “No. It stopped just before I left the store.”

  “Then how come your pants are still wet? You were on shift for hours. You would think they'd have started to dry out by now.”

  I had one of those moments. One of those weird things where I click out of something. Or into it, as the case may be. I can never figure out which is which. I looked at him and remembered the reason I fell in love with him in the first place. But I don't really mean that in a good way. It's like, I got a flash of that love he held out to me. He really did. At one time. But now what I saw was the lack of that same thing. All this time I guess I've been thinking it's still in there somewhere. But what I clicked into is this: It doesn't matter if it's in there somewhere. He still isn't giving it to me.

  I've had these little clicks before. They always click right back again.

  “Oh,” I said. “That. I tried to jump a puddle coming home. But I missed and landed right in it.”

  “Then your shoes will be wet on the inside. And your socks will be soaked.”

  This was getting worse. This was only getting worse. Stella would say this was my consequence. Sooner or later he was going to catch me in this lie. She would tell me to hold still and face my music. But this might be too much music. This might be more music than anybody could be expected to hold still and face.

  Even me.

  I decided I would talk my way around it. And then run away with Tony early. Just get through tonight and then run to Tony and say, “I need help. I can't go home anymore. You have to help me.”

  Now I look back and think that was something of a half-baked plan. But at the time it was the only plan I could find.

  “I just splashed. That's all. I didn't soak my shoes and socks. I don't know what you're getting all suspicious about.”

  “There was somebody on the street calling your name.”