by Toby Devens
What Scott was wearing wasn’t the one he’d uncovered on my deck. That had been a more elegant design. This was your basic stripped-down, in-your-face version, everything exposed: the carbon-fiber socket, the shank—looking like a cadaverous metal bone—the screws attaching that pylon to his sneakered foot. His shirt wasn’t going to make any excuses either: no army motto or camo print so you’d link the leg to the service and nod respectfully. I knew, of course, that this was a test, one of the obstacles contrived by the psychologist to haul Scott and his leg out of the dark closet. I could imagine some cartoon commanding officer barking, “Show the damn thing; you earned it. Nothing to be ashamed of. A leg short is not a shortcoming. Get over it, soldier.”
I could also imagine the guts it took to do what he was doing, feeling the way he felt after getting clobbered in his marriage, and my instantly repaired heart swelled with pride for him, in him.
Pete, who’d been wetting down the sculpture for a final polish, brushed sand from his hand before offering it. “Hey, Scott. Looking good, man.” I loved Pete for that “looking good, man.” It covered everything.
Margo was on her feet, also dusting off sand in a palm-against-palm sweep. But she was playing Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker. Her focus never drifted below Scott’s waist.
“You remember the colonel,” Pete said.
“Sure. The veterans’ home board. Pleasure,” she said.
The four of us talked. Three did anyway. I just watched and listened, not wanting to give away who I became when Scott was around. Whatever that was, I knew Margo would make something of it.
As the talk trailed off, Scott backed up to survey the sculpture. “Your castle is first-rate. It should definitely cop a trophy.”
Pete said, “That was from someone who knows his battlements, Marg.”
She yawned out, “Sure, good,” but she was just about electrified with curiosity and plans to make my life a misery of questions when Scott said, “My next stop is the Coneheads dig. I promised Claire”—to the Manolises—“who works the soft serve on Tuesdays, I’d stop by.”
I could see Margo doing the math behind a frantic series of blinks: Tuesday plus Coneheads equals an after-class ice-cream date with Nora. Oh, yum.
He touched my elbow.
Blink, blink. Margo recalculated the total with that addition.
“Want to go see the Coneheads’ banana split, Nora?”
“Sure. I think I’ve done my job here. Right, Margo?” She nodded vigorously. “And I was heading over there in a few minutes anyway,” I said.
Scott took my hand. The last I saw of my girlfriend, she was swallowed in sun shimmer. The only bit left of her was a smile hung in the molten air, the Cheshire cat delightedly licking its lips.
Scott and I walked the packed sand of the shoreline toward the Coneheads dig and the next challenge. I knew we were heading for test two as well as I knew my son’s name. Claire must have said Jack was going to be out there this afternoon. Now the kid who thought Scott was damaged goods would see his left leg in all its uncovered glory.
I shuffled through my list of saints for intercession. Saint Giles, patron of the disabled. Rejected. Scott wouldn’t even apply for a handicap tag for his car. Saint Anthony of Padua recovered lost items. Parts of limbs? I wondered. How about Saint George, who protected warriors? Retired.
Forget the middlemen. Dear God, I prayed, please protect this man from stares, sneers, and signs of pity. I ask you this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Claire spotted us first and flew to meet us. “Hey, Colonel, no, Scott. You said call you Scott. Right. And Mrs. Farrell. Uh . . .”
“Nora,” I filled in.
“Nora. Glad you guys made it.” She was her usual hummingbird self in a colorful bikini that I, who tended to modesty, cheered for. Go after my son, I rooted her on. Hook him with cookies; reel him in with cleavage. Anything to get him off Tiffanie’s line.
Scott said, “I told you I was going to check your banana split for accuracy. I’m an expert.”
She ticked off, “Your three flavors. Black raspberry. Mint chocolate chip, and, of course, vanilla. Can’t forget that. Here we’re working all in one color, sand, but it’s still incredible. Come see what we’ve done.”
The sculpture was huge, much bigger than Margo’s, and swarming with packers, carvers, and smoothers. “Jack’s heading to the top to straighten out the cherry. It’s kind of lopsided. Jack,” she called up, “look who’s here.”
My son, with one foot on the sculpted dish, was attempting a toehold on the scoop of ice cream above it. He looked down and called, “Hey,” and I called, “Watch what you’re doing,” which probably mortified him. He hoisted himself to stand within reach of a sand cherry ball perched gingerly on a puff of sand whipped cream. He nudged the maraschino to one side, then another, repeating, “Straight yet?” until it was. “Perfect,” Claire shouted, and applause broke from the Coneheads gang and the surrounding crowd that had gathered to watch. Then Jack scrambled down and bounded over to us, all grin and cockiness.
“Definitely first place,” Scott said.
Jack nodded, almost breathless, managing, “Yeah, I think we’ve got a chance. Though we stopped by earlier and Aunt Margo’s Camelot is awesome. Hi, Mom.” He planted a kiss on my cheek. “I noticed one thing while I was up there that I need to fix. Gimme a sec.”
He raced to the dish, patted and smoothed part of its surface, and trotted back. And on the way, from mid-distance, he saw Scott’s leg, really registered it. I knew that because I read it on his face, from his catching the metallic flash of it, to the bam! and jeez! of recognition, to being transfixed. Then he snapped out of his trance and searched until he glommed onto Claire. Which was my confirmation that beneath the flutter of this girl was a woman as bright and guiding as a lighthouse.
“Can’t have a cracked dish,” Jack blurted as he returned to our group. Then with a jerk of his head that told me he’d heard himself, he corrected to: “Not that anything’s perfect.” Which was so sweet, so lame and sweet, I wanted to hug him.
“My sentiments exactly,” Scott said, with a twinkling glance at me.
Claire might have seen that glint or she just plucked something brilliant from the air midflight because she said, “I love your leg, Colonel. It looks like it got swiped from a sci-fi movie.”
Which gave Jack permission to take a longer, closer look. I watched his eyebrows draw up a doubtful curve. His mouth, a duplicate of my mother’s, soft with generous lips, congealed into a thin line. Don’t, I thought. Please don’t. You were doing so well.
Scott went on. “This is your basic titanium and carbon-fiber, but I’ve got a fancier one at home that looks more like the real thing.” The one I’d seen. “But it’s waiting for a . . . uh . . . new part,” Scott said, skipping over my arched eyebrow. My son’s Adam’s apple bobbled ominously.
Scott went on. “They make them super-high-tech now with microprocessors that adjust to the terrain and kinematic sensors that keep you stable. And I’m sure you’ve seen the ones with running blades. They’re so fast the Olympics banned them. They said they gave the blade runners an unfair advantage.”
“Well, I think yours is totally cool,” Claire enthused.
The colonel didn’t miss a beat. “Yeah, I kind of like it myself. Keeps me from falling on my face.”
Everyone laughed, Jack’s voice rumbling in with the rest, but I checked out his eyes. Their amber light was trained on me, signaling caution.
Then, suddenly, the wind picked up, a salty, gusty surprise lashing in from the ocean, begging me to throw caution to it.
Right there in front of my son, I took Scott’s hand and weaved our fingers together. I said to him, “Hey, we better get going. I’ve got stuff to do.” I called out to the Coneheads crew, “Good luck, you guys. You did a great job.” To my son, “The judging’s in less tha
n an hour. Text me the results, okay?”
“Sure,” he said, his voice a slouch.
“I’ll remind him,” Claire said. “His head’s crowded. He thinks a lot.” True. He had a lot to think about these days.
She gave us a teeny wave good-bye. Jack only stared at his toes digging into the sand and mumbled, “Bye.”
Two blocks down the beach and out of their sight, Scott said, “Well, that went over like a lead balloon.”
“Nah.” I gripped the lie, then couldn’t hold on, didn’t want to with Scott, and slid to the truth. “It went as well as could be expected.”
“I freaked him out, right? The leg?”
“It’s not you. Claire nailed it. His head is crowded right now.” It was time to tell Scott Jack’s story, beginning with the circumstances surrounding his conception and ending—no, not ending, beginning again—with Dirk DeHaven Donor Dude, who was coming in for his second visit Saturday, which made everything more intense.
“We need to talk.” I, who dreaded those words, actually pronounced them and watched Scott rear back an inch.
“Of course. My place, yours, or”—he flared his eyebrows salaciously—“under the boardwalk?” he asked, hitching his neck to an empty stretch of sand shadowed by the planks above.
“Under the boardwalk first.”
“I was kidding. You’re not, are you?”
I broke free and raced into the dim and cool, giggling with giddiness, while wondering how he’d react to this free-spirited version of me. He followed more slowly, wearing a puzzled smile. As he walked toward me, I gave him an answer: my arms outstretched to enfold him. He was astonished, but not so much that he couldn’t kiss me back.
“This is what you had to say?” he asked, laughing when we came up for air.
“This, yes. But there’s more.”
“Oh, there’s more, is there? Well, I suggest my place for more—” He paused, then added, “Talk.”
We did that with Sarge curling up on the sofa between us. We buried our hands in the dog’s fur, stroking him, our fingers sometimes brushing, as I recounted the story of Lon and me and Dirk and Jack and me, and where the lines intersected. When I was finished, Scott said, “You’ve lived a complicated life.”
“Doesn’t everybody, beneath the surface?”
“Some more than others.” He was running his thumb over the back of my hand. “Jack must miss his dad a lot.”
I nodded. “They were really close, and Lon’s ending”—a better word than “death,” especially for an author—“was sudden.” I skipped past that awful final chapter as fast as my memory cells could carry me. “Jack hasn’t had a male role model for eight years, pretty much all of his adolescence. And that’s one of those times you especially need your dad.”
“Yup.” I saw a lightning flash of pain cross Scott’s face. I remembered then, he’d said his father, the Vietnam vet, had taken off when he was eighteen. After a moment of silence, which he didn’t fill in, I said, “And now with Dirk in the picture . . . Well, my son may be in college, but at that age they’re not much more than kids. I think there’s still that empty spot he hopes the Donor Dude will move into. Maybe I’m wrong. Jack says that I am, that he gets it that Dirk’s not his dad and Dirk gets it too.” I scratched the shepherd behind his ears, eliciting a growl of pleasure. “I’ll have a better handle on what everyone’s up to after this weekend.” I didn’t mention Jack’s matchmaking fantasy. Scott thought I lived a complicated life. No need to let on it was more complicated than he could imagine—and more crowded. He might conclude there was no room for him. I did say, to head off any plans he might have had, “We’re all going out to dinner Saturday night. It’s amazing what you can learn about people over onion soup.”
“And mussels,” he said, eyes bright.
“Oh yeah. Definitely mussels.”
I thought for an idiotic moment that Sarge had been trained to respond to the word “mussels” because the dog snapped to sit up at the mention of it. His ears were perked, but his stare, on alert, never wavered from its fix on his master. Then I heard what animal sense, innate and trained, had picked up seconds earlier: footsteps on the front path. The doorbell sounded.
Scott checked his watch. “That’s for you, boy.” To me: “His walk is here.” He jerked a nod and the dog bounded from the sofa and, tail wagging furiously, raced for the door.
I strolled onto the patio. From there, surrounded by privet hedges and crepe myrtle trees freighted with clusters of pink flowers, I heard Scott say, “Keep him out for a couple of hours, okay, Dylan? He’s been cooped up all day. He could use a good run in the dog park. Maybe he’ll meet up with that girlfriend of his, the sheltie he’s crazy about.”
I heard the door close, then Scott humming on his way back. “Strangers in the Night.” Had that become our song? He came up behind me and wound his arms around my waist. The fragrance of roses perfused the air. My head was swimming with it and my skin prickled with excitement. “Alone at last,” he murmured. I leaned back against him. He was solid on his feet as he bent to kiss my neck. Then he executed a perfect tuck turn, one we’d practiced probably a hundred times in class, and folded me in his arms.
In the bedroom, first thing, he made sure the window shades were fully drawn up to let in every last molecule of brightness. To underline his point, which was touchingly obvious, he turned on every lamp in the room.
“Now,” he said, “we’re in full-disclosure mode. No secrets.”
“Not even from the neighbors?”
“Marty’s in New Jersey visiting his grandkids. Anyway, he has cataracts. We’re covered.”
But Scott had plans for uncovered. He traced a finger from the hollow of my neck to the first button of my shirt and stalled. He took a reverse step. His voice was smoky. “You do it. I want to watch you do it.”
It should have sounded romantic and sexy, and I tried to produce a smile to disguise my panic. The last time we’d undressed I’d been wearing one of my fancier bras, satin with lace insets, on orders from Margo. Now, though, as I thought about the layer that separated me from full frontal and backtal nudity, my mouth went dry. I wasn’t wearing the Victoria’s Secret black bikini panty my personal fashion consultant had insisted I buy for the après-party party. I wasn’t even wearing one of my standard T.J.Maxx three-for-seven-bucks pastels. That morning I’d snatched from the bottom dresser drawer a pair of basic-issue parochial school white cotton Fruit of the Looms and a bra stretched to its limit by too many washings. Because what I’d expected to get into my underwear that day was sand and grit and not, in my wildest dreams, Scott Goddard.
I didn’t give him the slow, provocative striptease he yearned for. I flicked hooks, snapped elastic, tugged, and tossed at warp speed. Then I stepped over the shabby pile and watched as he—standing in a shaft of sunlight—removed his shirt and, fingers trembling, worked to unbuckle his belt. The therapy sessions, the assignments and tests, had all led to this moment. I closed my eyes, silently cheering him on. When I opened them, I saw he’d made it through. It took only a single glance at what was outstandingly evident, and a magnetic force drew me toward him. “No.” He halted me, palms out. “Stand your ground. Please. Stop and look.” His voice was gentle but commanding. “Slowly. So you know what you’re getting. There’s still time to change your mind. Caveat emptor.”
With my heart drumming a nervous tattoo I skimmed his body, pausing at the techno leg, while he watched me, a sentry fine-tuned to pick up signs of trouble. But he had to have seen what I felt. Which was as far from pity or disdain as I could get without falling off the edge of this brand-new world.
Love? With Lon, it had been almost instantaneous. With Scott I’d felt attraction approaching for years and pushed back against it. But now it was okay, good, wonderful, and on its way to . . . who knew? But, oh, I wanted to find out.
He was waiting for m
y answer. I ended my sweeping appraisal with a deep breath and a husky, “Done. Now will you make love to me, please?”
And so we moved in an improvised dance to the bed. Where for the next timeless hour we discovered each other as new lovers do. We were very busy.
We did stop once, when, tangled in the sheets, I banged my knee against the shell of his prosthesis socket. “Hey,” he said. “You okay?”
“Fine. I just have to remember you’ve got extra hard parts.”
“Ah, you noticed.” He chuckled and I heard relief behind the laugher. “Seriously”—he smacked his left leg—“on or off.”
“Your call.”
“Off, then. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. Plus, it’s more weight to haul around. And”—in the glaring light, I saw a smile curl—“we don’t want one long, hard shaft getting in the way of another long, hard shaft.”
Cocky? No, confident.
He pivoted so I wouldn’t witness the mechanics of the final reveal. The peeling back of the sleeve, the roll of the sock liners, the release of the vacuum lock, the detaching. It would take him time to realize that none of this shocked me or turned me off. But that was for later. He didn’t look at me as he reached for his robe at the foot of the bed and draped it over what had been a vital part of him and now lay on the floor, covered like a lifeless thing.
Swiveling, he was back with me, the all of him that really mattered. We explored sweet spots and hot spots, new territory for both of us, getting lost in each other. When he entered me it didn’t feel like invasion; it felt like liberation. My emotions, kept in check for a very long time, exploded when he did. My release came with a shudder.
Afterward, we lay thigh to thigh, exhausted and exhilarated in a pool of purple dusk. We’d outlasted the sun.
chapter thirty-two
“You do know we’re being watched, right? Marsha Felcher hasn’t taken her eyes off us since the cha-cha,” Scott whispered in my ear Tuesday night. “She claims to be retired from some federal agency—I think she said the Department of Agriculture. But I detect the pungent odor of horse manure and a cover for the CIA.” He grinned, and as Marsha spun off in another direction, Scott pulled me closer than was appropriate for the American Smooth dance style I taught. “You, on the other hand, smell delicious.”