by Harry Mazer
Sophie said, “You love me, don’t you?”
Willis said, “Who are you talking to, Zola or me?”
“I’m talking to Zola.”
“Oh.”
“But maybe you’re included.”
He got his arms around her and kissed her hard on the mouth.
She pushed him away. “No, don’t.”
“You don’t want me to kiss you?”
“Not like that. And not when we’re still fighting.”
“Are we still fighting?”
“Well, we haven’t made up, yet,” she said.
“That’s what I was trying to do when I kissed you.” He could hardly remember the fight. He wondered if he should ask her what they had fought about. It seemed so insignificant now. So Benny came around and Sophie got embarrassed and he got worried. So what? “I’m a jerk,” he said.
“No, you’re not,” she said quickly.
“Yes, I am. So Benny came around. I don’t know why he bothered me. He can be a jerk, too.”
“He sure acted that way.”
“You won’t believe this, Sophie. You should have seen the pictures he showed me of his girlfriend. In her underwear.”
“No! Was it really his girlfriend?”
“He’s not such a bad type, but he’s sort of crude sometimes.”
“Now we agree,” she said. She leaned forward and kissed him. It was sweet. He pressed his lips against hers, and his cap fell off.
Sophie gasped. “Your head. What did you do to yourself?”
He felt his bald head. There was a bristle of new growth. “I fell asleep in the barber chair. Don’t you like it?”
“The barber did it to you?”
He laced his fingers over the top of his head. “I told him to do it,” he admitted.
“You told him! Why?”
“I don’t know. Because you and I had a fight and I was feeling bad.”
“What are you going to do next time we have a fight? Chop off your arm?”
“I’ll think of something.”
She stroked his bare head. “It looks cold,” she said, “but it’s warm and velvety, poor, little head.” Then she kissed him on top of his head.
Twenty-six
Up in Sophie’s place, you get some definite ideas. You’ve had them before, in the pool and in the car, but never as strongly as now. The two of you are close friends now. You’ve eaten together … you’ve talked … you’ve kissed … you’ve done a lot of things together.
It’s hard to get to know someone. You know it better than anyone, because you’re not naturally friendly. What did that kid Rosenbloom say about you, years ago? That Willis Pierce was the meanest kid in Columbus Junior High? He wasn’t kidding; he was telling the truth. That’s you, you’re not naturally nice. Not naturally loving. Not naturally anything. Everything you do, you do hard. But you want someone—oh, how you want someone.
You didn’t love Sophie the second you saw her. You didn’t know you were going to feel this way in the beginning. You didn’t even like her. Then, after a while, you did, and you felt something. It’s hard not to feel something when you’re alone with a girl. It’s hard not to feel something just thinking about girls. But you’re thinking about Sophie now.
You know her now, and she knows you. And you’ve talked about your dreams and told her things you never told anyone. How you used to feel shorter than everyone, afraid you’d never grow, and how you were ashamed of your father and guilty. And she said, But you loved him, too.
And you agreed and you told her how you love to run and how good it makes you feel and how you dream about being famous, about doing something, just one thing, that people will know and remember about you forever.
And she’s told you things about herself, too. How ignorant she feels because she never finished high school. And how she still misses her mother and how she was the only one in the family that got along with her father. And how much she misses flying, how when she was up there in the sky she felt as if the whole world belonged to her.
It hasn’t always been perfect. You’ve gotten mad at each other plenty of times. Really, she’s gotten mad at you more than you have at her, and why not? You’ve acted like a jerk, you’ve got a lot more to learn and you’ve said plenty of unfriendly things. But if she knew the times you wanted to say unfriendly things and didn’t, she might not think you were so bad in that department.
The important thing was that you always came back. You made up with her. You kissed. You made her laugh. You held each other so tight it hurt.
Your place or mine, you think, even though you’re at her place. Your place or mine? It’s something you heard in a movie once. You liked it. It was so direct, so simple and straight.
Your place or mine, you think again, and you put your arm around her. She’s trying to pour milk into a dish for Zola, and the milk is spilling on the floor and Zola is licking it up.
You pull Sophie against you and you let your fingers spread around the roundness of her shoulder and down the back of her arm.
It isn’t like you’ve just met. It isn’t like you were grabbing from the first minute, with just one thing on your mind, even though it was there, in back of your mind, all the time. Now is the time, but you don’t know how to talk about it and you don’t need to talk about it. Your place or mine?
She puts her hand over yours circling low around her waist, presses it tight against her body. Then she releases herself and checks the refrigerator and cupboard. And she asks you if you’re hungry.
But you’re on the floor now, on your back, looking up at her hopefully. Your place or mine? You know that you’re not good with words. In intimate matters, words get in the way. Words can be misunderstood. You haven’t had that much practice, but in some things the body speaks a language of its own. A clearer language.
She lies down on the floor with you, and you lie there looking into each other’s eyes. Her hand rests on your chest, and you’ve got one hand under her cheek. And you’ve never been happier, so you kiss her. But because you’re eager and excited, your lips pop. You make her laugh, and she kisses you and pops her lips.
And you think now … now … now. And your heart is beating like a big drum. You’re happy, and you think this moment is perfect and unlike any other moment that ever was or will be, and you say it and she nods in agreement and you feel how much you are in perfect harmony.
And just then the neighbors, the couple on the other side of the wall who, Sophie says, start fighting every Friday and keep it up until they go to church on Sunday, those neighbors start yelling and cursing and throwing things at each other. And you both have to listen because the walls are so thin it’s like they’re in the room with you. And they’re saying things to each other that are not harmonious or loving. And there’s pain on Sophie’s face, and you’re saying, How long is this going to go on? And she’s saying, It could go on all night, and everything inside you shrivels and you say, My place.
And then at your place, you eat first because you’re starved for everything now, but also because food is easier. You make pepper, steak and onion sandwiches on soft Italian rolls, and you sit opposite her, looking and chewing and catching her knees between yours. And you drink soda from one bottle and then you clean up together.
And by now the waiting is part of the doing, and her eyes are shining and her cheeks are soft and flushed and you turn out the lights and the street lights come in, and you kneel down together, facing each other.
And you’re not thinking too good anymore; you’re overheated the way you are after you’ve run hard and you feel the blood throbbing in your fingers and your lips.
And you think she’s like you, because her lips are pressed hard against yours and she’s murmuring something that’s not words but like music, and you know that what you’ve been waiting for she’s been waiting for, what you want she wants, and the feeling is like trying to talk about good music and not being able to get it right.
There are no words, no wo
rds that you know, there’s only now, and that feeling that’s shaking you like the rolling of the ocean, and you pull off your shirt, and your hands start doing things with her clothes. Only your hands are as dumb as you are, and you’re too rough and too fast. Wait, she says, wanting to help, but you’ve pulled the arm of her blouse the wrong way and it tears. Her favorite blouse with the strawberries on it.
It doesn’t matter, she says. And she lies against you, and all she wants to do is cuddle and get close, but her bare skin is like nothing you’ve ever known, and there are tears in your eyes, because it’s more than you can contain, and you just hug her and hang on to her and say, Damn. And she says again it doesn’t matter, and she says she’s happy, and you can’t talk because everything in you is spent and it’s incredible, like the feeling you get some mornings when the sun is rising and the birds fly up as you run past.
Twenty-seven
Every weekend Sophie and Willis drove out to the air base. It was their regular Sunday afternoon routine. He ran and she paced him with the car. Afterward, he changed and they went out to eat.
“My birthday’s coming,” Willis said, when they were in the restaurant.
“When? You didn’t tell me.”
“I’m telling you now. It’s the twelfth.”
“You’re going to be twenty. No more teens. You’re catching up to me.”
“Not exactly.” He looked at her over the top of the menu.
“What, Willy?”
“What what?”
“Not exactly what?”
“Uhhh … let’s see what we’re going to eat.”
“You always order the same thing. You don’t have to look at that.” She pulled the menu down. “What did you start to say?”
“My birthday’s coming.”
“You told me that already. And?”
“I’m going to be nineteen.”
“No. You are nineteen.”
“Ah … no. I lied. I’m eighteen. Going on nineteen.”
“You lied to me?”
“Well … slight exaggeration. I wanted to impress you. I thought you wouldn’t look at me if I was too young.”
She reached over and pinched his cheek. “You’re nothing but a baby.”
Under the table, he bumped his knees against hers.
The waitress came over. “Double cheeseburger,” Willis ordered.
“Avocado salad,” Sophie said.
“Well,” Willis said when the waitress left, “how fast did this baby run today?”
“I couldn’t believe it. I had the car up to fifteen miles an hour and you were keeping up with me. Of course, you looked like you were dying.”
“I was giving it everything.”
“You should have stopped.”
He mopped his forehead with a napkin. Water was still coming off him. “Pain is a part of being a really good athlete. Every game, every sport hurts, but that’s not the point. You don’t let it stop you. And when you get through it, there’s no feeling like it. You feel great.”
“You must love it when you have a toothache.”
Their order came. He took a bite out of his sandwich, then inspected Sophie’s salad. “Want some?” she asked.
“No, thanks. I wonder if the speedometer in the car is accurate. I should buy a decent stopwatch. I keep getting different figures.”
“Does it matter?”
“Not really.” But a moment later, he said, “It would be nice to know how fast I’m really running.”
“Very fast.”
“That’s the good thing about competition,” he explained. “It makes you run harder and then you know how you stand.”
“So why don’t you go compete?”
“Why?” He looked at Sophie and slowly smiled. “Maybe I’m lazy.”
Sophie burst out laughing at that idea.
“I’ve never done it.”
“That’s no reason. I never flew in an airplane, either.”
“How’s the flying fund coming along?”
She made a little face. “Oh, it’s so hard to save money. I had to buy a toaster, and you know it was just Jessie’s birthday. And Brenda’s anniversary is coming up, and I want to get her something really nice. And now your birthday …”
“You don’t have to get me anything. Birthdays don’t mean anything to me.”
“I noticed. You don’t even know how old you are.”
The waitress came with the check, but they sat there a little longer. “I have a feeling if I did race,” he said, “I could take anyone. Any of those hotshot college boys.”
“I bet you could,” she said.
“If you want the truth, maybe even Aaron Hill.” He laughed. “How’s that for being crazy?”
“What’s crazy about it?”
“Sophie!” He reached over and held her hand. “Aaron Hill? We’re talking world class. We’re talking the best. We’re talking Steve Cram and Sebastian Coe. We’re talking about the greatest milers in the world.”
“Maybe you’re one of the greatest, and you don’t even know it.”
“Yeah, maybe I am.” And he laughed again.
Twenty-eight
Friday, on her way home, Sophie bought a snake plant, tall green-and-white blades. The plant reminded her of Willis. She liked the way it stuck up next to the other plants, head up and proud. Nothing cuddly there, nothing soft and easy. She put it near the rubber plant with its large, showy leaves. The rubber plant was Carl. “You two don’t get along.” She set the snake plant off by itself on a chair. “There, you’re all by yourself, Willis, the way you like it.”
Glancing out the window, she saw a familiar faded blue pickup truck in the parking lot. She recognized the truck first and then she saw her brother, looking around, hands in his back pockets, high-peaked John Deere cap set square on his head. She rapped hard on the window. “Floyd! Up here, Floyd.”
She met him on the stairs, got her arms around him, sniffed hay and milk and motor oil.
He was stiff, that was the only way to describe it, but she was too excited to care. She rubbed his back, smiling, pulled him upstairs. “You look great, Floyd. What have you been doing? How are things on the farm? How are Pat and the kids? Did she have the baby?”
He looked around her apartment. “Fancy place you’ve got here, Soph.”
“Fancy!” She laughed. “You should have seen it when I got here. It took me the better part of a day just to carry out the garbage.”
“Yeah? Where’d you get all the plants?”
“Bought them.”
“Looks like you’re going to open a store.” He peered out the kitchen window. “Can’t raise much corn in that parking lot.” He shook the table. “Rickety thing, isn’t it? Well,” he said, looking at her for the first time, “how are you doing for yourself?”
“Fine,” she said. “Good. I’m doing real good.” And she waited. What was her brother doing here? It wasn’t like Floyd to make this trip just to tell her she was eating off a wobbly table.
“You look like you lost some weight, Soph. Don’t you eat?”
“All the time.”
“And your hair? I never saw it that way.”
Her hand went to her hair. “Do you want something to eat?”
“Oh, I think I could handle something.”
She took out hamburger, cut some potatoes and onions, and put them on to fry.
“I don’t get it,” he said. “This place, the city—how can you stay down here? How do you even breathe the air?”
“I manage.” She was the one who didn’t get it. Floyd and Pat were the ones who’d wanted her out. Where’d they think she was going when she got on that bus? Down the road to the next farm?
“You wouldn’t catch me down here,” he said. “They’d have to nail both my feet to the ground to keep me in the city.”
She put the food on the table, then started water for coffee. Floyd had barely looked at her place before he started knocking it. Then he let her know she wasn�
��t one of the real people anymore because she lived here. Then he sat at the table and waited for his food to appear. She had always waited on him. She had just never thought about it before.
“You ever dry the dishes, Floyd?” She thought of Willis with a dishcloth in his hands.
He forked up potatoes. “Pat’s getting close to her time. She doesn’t come out to the barn at all anymore. I’ve just got John Towig helping me after school, and you know how much help he is. I’ve been coming in at midnight every night and I’m up at four to milk in the morning.”
The complaints were familiar ones. That was home, that was the farm, more work than any two people could ever do. She sat down opposite him. With all his complaints, it was comfortable being with her brother.
“Where’s the bread?” he said. “And the margarine?”
She jumped up again.
He folded a piece of bread around the hamburger, chewed, the muscles in his jaws dancing. “I don’t know why you left. I told you I was going to fix up the garage for you. But you were so dead set on going.”
“You needed the space.” She hadn’t forgotten the green ice she’d seen around Pat’s face and the fire that seemed to leap out from under Floyd’s collar when they’d all been together in the house.
“Well.” He looked at his watch.
“Are you going? That’s not much of a visit.”
“I’ve got an hour, that’s all. I’ve got to get back to do the milking.”
“It was nice of you to come see me, Floyd. Maybe next time you’ll bring the kids. Be sure to give Benjie and Alice big hugs from me.”
“Pack up, Sophie,” he said. “Come back with me and you can see them right now.”
“What?”
“We need you there. You should hear Pat. Ten times a day she’s calling you. ‘Where’s Sophie? I wish Sophie was here.’ You don’t have much junk, do you? How long till you’ll be ready?”
Sophie went to the window. “Is that why you came?” She should have known. When had Floyd ever gone out of his way for her? When had her life ever meant anything to him? It was true, but it hurt. The only reason he’d come was to bring her back so she could work for them.