‘That’s good,’ he said when she dropped down again. He placed his hand on her waist under the flap of the jacket.
‘Don’t get any ideas. I only did that not to pop the button.’
‘Oh, that all?’ His fingertips inched along the seam of her jersey.
‘Oh, Reb, don’t start anything now.’
Rosalind caught his hand under her tightened arm, pinning it there. When he pulled loose his fingers brushed the front of the black jersey.
‘Don’t you dare touch me,’ she snapped and bolted to a sitting position.
‘Don’t, don’t, don’t.’ Gripping her wrist hard Reb burst into his shrill cackle.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘Us all alone on this blanket. Middle of the night. What are we doing out here if I can’t give you a little feel?’
‘Listen. A kiss or two all right. But I don’t know very much about you so don’t think you’re going all the way with me.’ She tugged free. ‘I don’t want you to think I’m like that.’
‘What do you mean like that?’ Then he made his voice buttery and said, ‘Like what, Rosalind?’
‘I’m not easy because you picked me up in a bar, you know.’
‘A bar? What’s that prove? You found me in a bar too. Does that mean I’m no good or something?’
‘It’s different for a girl.’
‘I know that, Rosalind,’ he said in a tone of apology, his voice flowing over with understanding. ‘I know that from my sister.’
She said nothing. He hated her line because there was no way you could argue with it and win. What he really thought was that there was no more difference for a girl than for a man or a horse or a dog. He wished he could tell Rosalind that but he did not dare. Instead, exercising patience, he raised himself a few inches, took the hand from her lap, and, pressing it to his face, rehearsed what to say next.
‘Look, Rosalind. I. I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do. You know that. I just. I just want what you want.’ Deliberately stumbling only made it more convincing. Feeling her face close to his he pulled her down beside him. ‘All right?’
‘Yes.’
He kissed her, this time finding her mouth slightly open. Rosalind rolled on her back. Her closed eyes seemed an invitation. They kissed again and both their mouths opened together. Reb slid his body over hers.
‘Only what you want,’ he whispered.
‘Reb.’
Lifting himself slowly he shifted his weight so that he rested up on her thigh. He pressed against her now, hard, then brought both his legs together tight, scissoring her leg. At the same time he was careful not to fool with her clothes, not to fool with her breasts.
‘Only what you want,’ he repeated.
‘Oh, Reb.’
‘Comfortable?’
‘Mmm. You?’
‘Mmm,’ he lied. Another long kiss, during which he worked his arms under her shoulders and then found her arms locked around him too. ‘Oh, Rosalind. Rosalind, you want me don’t you?’
She made a faint sound but did not say yes or no. Reb brushed his lips across her cheek and brought them close to her ear. He was pressing her so hard he could feel her breath being squeezed out. ‘Yes?’he murmured in her ear. ‘Yes? Rosalind?’ He knew she would purr out the answer he wanted. A low, shy, barely breathed yes. Reb waited for it, the excitement building, and then it came.
‘Okay, okay but take it easy, will you,’ Rosalind wailed. ‘You’re kind of squashing me.’
He moved. She sat up. Hands behind her, she undid a zipper, then stopped. ‘Why don’t you go get me my raincoat now. And. And while you’re there. You know. Do whatever you have to do.’
‘You mean.’
‘Yes.’
The rubber. Women always found the subject awkward. But be prepared was his motto as well as the Boy Scouts’. By the rear wheel of the car, with the black raincoat slung over his shoulder, Reb urinated into the sand. He would give her five minutes. On the face of his watch the second hand barely moved. His foot wiped out the stain. In four minutes he started back to the blanket.
Rosalind was huddled up, arm out to receive her coat. He loosened his belt. She flapped out the raincoat and slipped under it like bedclothes. Reb slipped under with her only to find that she still wore her jersey and bra. Not bothering to strip off his shirt he moved against her.
‘Are you cold or warm, Rosalind?’ he said, intending two meanings.
‘You’ve made me warm.’
He uttered an appreciative sound and after that they spoke just once in the next ten minutes. He said, ‘I wish we had all our clothes off.’
She answered, going rigid under him, ‘Oh God, no.’
He started over again. He warmed her and slowly warmed. It seemed, if it could have been described, that they were ascending outside of time. At the top of the spiral, as her voice sounded a tiny mew, Rosalind became wildly restless. They dug their hands into each other sharing a long tossing breathless moment. Then they sucked in air like animals. Afterward they relaxed, wrapped together.
Disentangling themselves at last, Rosalind whispered to him not to get up yet.
‘You did a funny thing at the Windmill last night,’ she said.
‘What was that?’
‘Remember when you said to meet you tonight? Well, you didn’t wait for an answer. You didn’t even give me a chance to say yes or no. It was like an order.’
‘Course it was. Asking’s no good. What if you said no?’
‘But if you asked me maybe I’d have said yes.’
‘Sure. And you could of said no too. That’s a risk I don’t like taking. You trying to tell me I was lucky you showed up?’
‘Oh, no. I only meant I was never asked out on a date like that before. I honestly didn’t know what to think.’
‘Hey, Rosalind. Don’t say date. Don’t use that word. That’s for kids for chrissake.’
‘What word should I use then?’
‘I don’t care. Anything. Just not that one. Just say when I asked you out period.’
‘But you didn’t. You ordered me.’
‘Ha.’
‘You know what Dee said. When we got home? I asked her what I should do. She said if I didn’t go to meet you she would.’
‘Yeah? Dee? She said that?’
‘And I knew she wasn’t kidding either. So I didn’t give her the opportunity.’
‘What makes you think I’d have gone for her? I wanted you.’
‘The way you stared at me I knew that. Only it wasn’t staring. I kept hoping my friends wouldn’t notice. When you looked me up and down I thought I’d die. It was awful.’
‘Awful?’
‘I mean nice. God, before last night no boy ever looked at me that way.’
‘Boy. That’s another bad word.’
‘God, Reb, there won’t be any words left.’
The note of excitement in her voice excited him. He pulled on his clothes and, leaving her alone to get dressed, Reb trudged over the loose sand to the pine scrub. The ground was firmer under his shoes as he stepped among the first spindly trees. He felt the rubber before removing it. It was wet and he hoped it had not broken. That was always a worry. Flicking the device away he reached up to catch the brushy tip of a branch. He tore off a handful of needles, crushed and smelled them. More like lemon than pitch. Poking the ends of his shirt deep into his trousers, he started back. His fingers were still wet. What if it broke? The thought made him shudder.
‘We don’t have to go right away, do we?’ Rosalind said.
‘No, let’s talk a little.’ He dropped down. There was something he wanted to find out, something he needed to ask her.
‘You sound strange,’ she said.
‘No, I’m fine. Really fine. Did you. I mean at the end there.’
Taking his hand Rosalind drew him closer. ‘Oh, Reb, it was so nice.’
‘It was?’ That said it. She must have. He waited for some great gloom to desc
end but instead felt only a new fire of wanting her. ‘Rosalind?’ He lifted her hand and studied it, not knowing what to say. Why say anything? Act. He felt her. He got her under him again. ‘Rosalind,’he whispered. ‘Right now. I want to fuck you some more.’
Whack. His face smarted and in the same instant he felt a thrust that sent him flying.
‘Ow, what are you doing?’
‘You pig. So that’s all you wanted from me.’
‘Wait. What did I do? I was only giving you a little feel.’ The sting of her slap was still warm on his jaw.
‘Take me home.’
‘I only wanted what I got before,’ he said, bewildered. ‘What are you so mad about all of a sudden?’
‘Are you going to drive me home?’ She stood there off the edge of the blanket, insistent, demanding. It was as though she had become someone else.
This someone else angered him. ‘You don’t think I’m gonna point the way and make you walk fifteen miles do you?’ As he got to his feet Rosalind leaped back. ‘Are you afraid?’
‘No.’
‘You are. It’s because of what I said, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Christ, it was only a word. It didn’t mean nothing.’
‘You think so? Well, it showed me what your kind is really after.’
‘Yeah? Then how come two minutes ago you were telling me it was so nice?’
‘Ooh. You certainly know how to make a thing dirty, don’t you?’
‘Come here,’ he ordered, gathering the blanket. He was close to boiling.
‘No.’
‘I’m not going to do anything to you.’
‘No, I said.’
‘I’m going to take you home. Now come here.’
‘What?’
Reb held out his hand. He wanted to laugh but couldn’t. She should have laughed but couldn’t. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Put on your shoes.’
On the way back Rosalind maintained an unbroken silence. For one word, Reb thought to himself, for one word a whole world stops. A wave of tiredness washed over him.
They sped past the bar where they had met. On its roof the lights of the big windmill were dead.
‘Which way from here?’ he said.
At several turns she spoke the direction but not a word more. Then she told him to go slow and indicated the cottage.
Its windows were dark. Reb pulled up alongside a white picket fence and dimmed his lights. By the time he got around to the other door Rosalind already had it open. He saw she had not put on her stockings. The toe of one of them hung out of her handbag. He also saw the sand in her snarled hair, the weariness in her face. But she was still pretty and he was moved by her.
‘When. When will I see you again?’ he said, holding the door. Rosalind shook her head from side to side. Then, eyes narrowed, her voice reeking of contempt, she said, ‘You’re nothing but a filthy minded guinea.’
He reached in. Rosalind scurried for the steering wheel. ‘Get out before I drag you out,’ he said. ‘I don’t care what you think of me.’
‘I. I didn’t mean that. Honest I didn’t. I’m sorry.’
‘Oh no you’re not. You’re just scared I might belt you. Come on. I won’t.’
He let her out and quickly slid across the seat. From the other side of the picket gate, before disappearing, she said, ‘At least you might have had the decency of telling me you were sorry.’
Reb flicked the headlights up, whipped the wheel around, and turned in the road. He still saw the pretty face, the sandy hair. He still smarted. Under his breath he said, ‘Well, I got what the hell I wanted off of you.’
14
When Reb got home he found out that Sal had gone haywire. He had rushed out of the house, Reb was told, taken Chub’s car, and raced away in it, alone and blind drunk.
‘Dom and Vinnie are out there now looking for him,’ Wiggy said.
‘They been gone two hours,’ Lee added.
Hostility bristled in their voices. Chub sat at the kitchen table, dejected.
‘Looking where?’ Reb said uncertainly.
‘You didn’t see anything along the road, did you?’ Lee said.
‘Like what? A car wrapped around some.’
‘Yeah.’ Chub cut off the words all of them were thinking but no one wanted to say.
Inwardly Reb seethed but he was not about to fling any accusations that might backfire and get him blamed for what had happened. So he sat there laden with guilt about Sal, trying to make himself inconspicuous.
The others agonized too, for the most part in silence, and waited. Alex had long since fallen asleep on the couch in the other room.
Half an hour passed. At ten minute intervals Chub sighed great anguished sighs. After the third of these, when he went on to drone about his poor car, Reb wanted to say that a man’s life was more than a piece of tin. He checked himself. Then, with the next sigh, he blurted,‘Look, Chub, if anything happens to that shitbox of yours, you can have my Buick. Okay?’
‘Oh sure,’ Lee scoffed.
‘Yeah, Reb,’ Chub said. ‘At a time like this stop playing the comedian.’
‘Who’s playing?’ Reb said. ‘Where I’m going I won’t be needing a car anymore.’ And on the tail of his words he whipped the army’s induction order out of a pocket and flung it on the table under their assembled noses.
For the next minute or two everyone forgot all about Sal’s fate and Chub’s car and Dom and Vinnie’s errand.
‘See? There it is in black and white,’ Reb said, swaggering.
Then followed the others’ silence, a gap of puzzlement and disbelief. At last Chub spoke and said, ‘Boy, a lot of good it did you tearing up your draft card.’
‘What’s your family gonna say about this?’ Wiggy said.
‘Never mind his family,’ Lee said. ‘What’s Emilio gonna say?’
‘Emilio already had his say,’ Reb said.
‘And?’
Reb did not know what to answer. He was hesitant. ‘He took it kind of hard.’ Only then did it occur to him that the ordeal with his father was far from over, that in a matter of mere hours he had his whole family to face. He was sinking, sinking. Why had he brought up the draft and let himself be reminded of this? And what kind of friends were these anyway. Bastards. More worried about Emilio than about him.
Escape was his only way out. Also there was this other thing he wanted to clear up with Alex. Reb slipped into the living room, moved noiselessly over the straw rug to the floor lamp, and switched it on over Alex’s face. Alex stirred with a groan.
‘Hey. Hey, Alex, wake up.’ Alex’s eyes fluttered open.
‘Alex, listen. Can a broad?’ Reb fell to mumbling. ‘I mean,’ he went on, ‘is it possible for them to get knocked up regardless if they come or not?’
‘What?’
Reb repeated the question.
‘Aha. So that’s where you were,’ Alex said. ‘I knew it. I knew it all along.’
‘Shh,’ Reb whispered, throwing a glance at the kitchen. ‘Keep your voice down and just answer my question, will you?’
Alex spoke in a hoarse whisper. ‘Where the hell did you pick up that idea?’
‘I don’t know. That’s what I always heard. That a broad’s gotta come before she can get pregnant.’
‘Oh, brother. You mean to tell me.’
‘Shh.’
‘You mean to tell me you went in there bareback?’
‘You think I’m that crazy?’
‘Then you have nothing to worry about.’
‘But I’m pretty sure she came. I know by the way she sounded and everything that she must of. Don’t that mean anything?’
‘Of course, you dunce. It means you gave her a good time.’
‘Yeah? You really think so?’ Reb’s spirits were lifted only to tumble the next moment. The words died in his throat. Desperately his eyes searched Alex’s for some sign of assurance.
But none came. At that moment a car pulled into the y
ard. Alex was off the couch in a bounce, the others sprang up from the kitchen table, all of them flocking to the door, a reception committee, one. Less quick off the mark Reb brought up the rear.
In out of the yellow light came Vinnie as exultant and exhausted as a marathon runner.
Everything was all right. Sal had made it back to Putnam. The car was there in front of his garage, not a scratch on it. As for Dom, unable to face the drive back at that hour he had begged Vinnie to drop him off at home too. So it was over, everything was okay, nobody was hurt.
A happy ending called for a celebration. Like magic, Vinnie’s news was greeted by an instantaneous flow of drink. Chub, Alex, Wiggy, Lee, Vinnie all guzzled. Before long they burst into song too. After that came the inevitable consumption of crusty bread and assorted cold cuts.
Only Reb, sunk into melancholy, refused to partake, refused to touch a drop. For the first time that weekend he withdrew into himself almost as if their excited voices, their high spirits, their camaraderie excluded him or mocked him in his loneliness.
At some point Vinnie motioned Reb into the living room, where he promptly stretched out on the couch, one arm curled under his head, a can of Bud at his lips. ‘That Dom, huh, Reb. What a shit. And tomorrow I’m supposed to drive his car home for him too.’
Coldly, Reb heard him out. When he was sure that Vinnie had emptied himself Reb said, ‘What did you guys do to Sal?’
‘Nothing. One minute the guy was all right and the next he went nutty. Just like that.’
‘Bullshit. You guys must of provoked him again to make him fly off like that.’
‘Provoke shit,’ Vinnie said. ‘We didn’t do nothing.’
‘Come on. Didn’t I hear with my own ears how you got him going.’
‘Yeah, but we didn’t do nothing after that.’
‘Sure,’ Reb said.
‘You don’t believe me,’ Vinnie said, piqued. ‘All right,’ Reb said. ‘It’s over now.’ He felt he had made his point. Then, to appear less abrupt, he said for himself more than to Vinnie, ‘There’s still one thing we don’t know. Did Sal go back there and beat the shit out of his wife or what?’
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