Hard Time

by McKenna, Cara

  “Enough about work,” I said. “What’s happening around here?”

  My mom filled me in on the usual town gossip and on what my relatives were up to.

  “I thought I noticed that on Facebook,” I said when she mentioned my cousin’s recent weight loss.

  She nodded, then sat up straighter. “Speaking of Facebook.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You never post anything.”

  “That’s not true.” Close, though.

  “Barely at all since you started your new job.”

  “I’m busy.”

  “I’m sure everyone would love to see pictures of your apartment and the library. And all that snow you must be getting. And you. Don’t you have any friends you go out with?” The concern in her voice was as touching as it was infuriating. Mothers.

  “I have some friends. Mostly coworkers, but a few. It’ll take time. The people from Darren are way different than back here . . . they’re kind of a slow thaw. But it’s not a symptom of some larger issue.” I shrugged. “Or maybe I’ve just outgrown Facebook.” Or maybe the most exciting aspect of my life of late had simply involved a clandestine epistolary affair that could’ve compromised my job and put my parents on anxiety medication.

  My mom sipped her wine, then rubbed at some invisible spot on the glass. “I wondered . . .”

  “You wondered what?”

  She met my eyes squarely. “I wondered if maybe you didn’t want him knowing. About your personal life.”

  I shivered and blushed at once, a queasy feeling. We’d gone so long, never having really discussed this. So many times I’d longed for her to grill me, for an excuse to vent . . . but we’d both always lacked the courage. I wondered why now, after all this time.

  I sighed. “It’s been five years, Mama. And he was a bad boyfriend, not a stalker.”

  Her turn to shrug. “You never talked to me about it. I don’t know what kind of a boy he was.”

  “Well, that’s not why. I’m sure he barely remembers me by now.” Which goddamn burned, in its truth. That Justin had probably moved on, while I’d put my entire sexuality on hold until this summer. “It’s not about Justin.”

  Her brows rose a fraction. “So it’s about something, though?”

  I sighed again and rolled my eyes. “Oh my God, give it up. Everything’s fine. Everything’s reasonably great, actually. I’m just sick of Facebook, okay?”

  “Is it a boy?”

  I froze up. Deflected. “I’m twenty-seven. I don’t date boys.” But my petulant six-year-old’s tone gave me away, of course.

  “You are, aren’t you? Did you meet a nice man?” There was a mix of emotions in her voice—a touch of skepticism, probably that such a thing as a nice man existed so far north; and hope, because of course she wanted that for me.

  I didn’t answer quick enough, and when I did, it only incriminated me further. “I um . . . Nothing official or anything.”

  Her expression changed, eyebrows drawing tight. “Nothing official? I’ll take off-the-record.”

  My face burned like we were back on this couch, her giving me the mortifying pre-homecoming-dance talk about making good decisions. God help me, I hadn’t listened back then, had I? I’d dated a cruel boy who’d hit me, now a good man who’d nearly killed a human being. And I was torn between the joyous urge to share and the sense that I’d been caught.

  “Who is he?” she asked. “Is it new? Are you afraid to jinx it?”

  “Maybe. I dunno.”

  Her head cocked. “Is it not . . . Is it not a man?”

  I snorted. “Justin didn’t turn me gay, Mama.”

  “Well I don’t know. They say women’s sexuality is fluid—”

  “No, Mama. It’s a man, okay?”

  My mother promptly stood and grabbed the open bottle, and I laughed at that, tension bleeding out as she topped us both off.

  “Go on, baby. No pressure, but I’ve been waiting a long time to hear that you’ve met somebody you’re excited about.”

  I smiled sadly at that. “Me, too.”

  “So?”

  “He’s . . . He’s great.” Except for the whole attempted-murder thing. “I like him a lot, but yeah, it’s still really soon to know.”

  “Where did you meet?”

  “At . . . work.” Ah, shit. Time to fudge.

  “At the library?”

  “Kind of. He works for the city, doing stuff like snow removal in the winter, and landscaping the rest of the year. I ran into him when he was working around the library.” How about that? All true. Perhaps Eric was on to something with this whole omission strategy.

  I watched my mom process the information, hiding her disappointment well. She wasn’t a snob or anything, but I knew she’d prefer her daughter date someone with a more white-collar vocation. Perhaps she was trying to rebrand this job in her head, for when she shared the development with her sisters. What would she do with landscaping? Horticultural engineer.

  “That must be nice,” she managed. “Work that keeps him outside.”

  I nodded. “Anyway, his name’s Eric and he’s thirty-two. And he’s really handsome and romantic and awesome. But like I said, it just started, so don’t start getting invitations printed or anything.”

  She laughed and waved a dismissive hand. “I’m interested, not desperate . . . So.”

  “Yes?”

  “This young man’s treating you well?”

  “Yeah, he’s really . . .” What did my mom want to hear? That he was nothing like the boy who’d sent me away in the first place, of course. “He’s gentle.” With me, anyhow. With almost everyone. “And patient. And the best kisser I’ve ever met. And he writes me love letters.”

  Any concerns she had about his profession melted away in the warmth of her smile. She touched my arm. “He sounds wonderful. Tell him he has my approval.”

  “We’ll see. I wouldn’t say he’s my boyfriend yet or anything.”

  “Do you wish he was?”

  I frowned. “I dunno. Maybe.” Except then it’d all be so real, and I’d have to break it to my parents what he’d done right around the time I’d been getting smacked around by Justin. I was still only half sure what I felt about all that, myself.

  “I hope he’s not one of these younger people who believes in dating multiple women at once,” my mom fretted. She’d surely seen some talk show or read some article admonishing the modern hookup culture.

  “No, I don’t think so.” If Eric was nothing else, he was loyal. Too loyal, nearly, considering how far he’d taken his defense of his sister. “We just haven’t had that talk yet. You know me,” I said, dropping my gaze. “I’m taking things slow now. But it’s nice, after all this time.”

  “And what does he look like?” Her eyes narrowed as she prepared to mentally smoosh Eric’s and my DNA together and composite her future grandchild.

  “He’s tall. With dark hair and eyes.”

  “Oh . . . ?” Lord, what did that noise mean? Though there wasn’t any fear in the sound, it was jam-packed with curiosity. She wanted to know if I’d taken up with someone my grandma would refer to as “exotic.”

  “He’s a mix of stuff. French Canadian and German and Puerto Rican. Not that it matters,” I reminded her, knowing she was probably making some mortifying connection between landscaping and Hispanic people, one that thankfully she’d have the self-awareness not to voice. But I knew the culture from which I came. My family had some catching up to do with the twenty-first century.

  She huffed, rolling her eyes. “I just want to picture him.”

  “He looks Italian, I guess.” And he’s jacked and he’s got tattoos and he spent the last half a decade wearing a tee shirt with his prisoner number stenciled on it. “He’s very . . . sexy.”

  “What sorts of dates do you go on?” />
  The kind that go down primary with our clothes off? “The usual stuff. Drinks.” Though Eric had barely sipped his beer that time at Lola’s. “And he made me dinner last night. Oh and he drove us out to a lake once. All frozen over, with the moon on the ice. Simple stuff. Not that there’s anything fancy to do in Darren. Mostly we just . . . talk.” And fuck.

  “And where is he from?”

  “Some Godforsaken part of rural Michigan. I’ve never been there, but he hates it. He’s close with his mother and sister who live back there, though.” I tried to picture our two families at a cookout together, to imagine what they’d find to talk about. Hunting perhaps? Bourbon? “Maybe someday I’ll go, if we stay together.”

  “Well, he’d be a fool to let a girl like you get away,” my mom said, all wise, probably a little buzzed.

  I drained my own glass and craned my neck to check the clock on the mantel. “I’m crashing, I think.”

  “Me, too. But it was good to catch up, huh?” She stood with a dramatic groan, like she didn’t swim an hour of laps every other morning. We hugged and said good night at the top of the stairs. Our house wasn’t nearly as swanky as some in the Charleston suburbs, but it felt outrageously cushy compared to my place in Darren. Or compared to any of the spaces I worked in at the library or Cousins or Larkhaven—the carpet so soft, the noises so muted.

  I shut the door to what used to be my old bedroom, now the guest room. My lavender walls had been painted taupe a couple of years ago. My bed was still in its place under the windows, but my purple checkerboard comforter had been replaced with a generic toile number. If the rest of the house felt small, my room felt tiny. My single bed especially, since I’d acquired a twin-size frame in grad school. I flopped across the covers and the too-many pillows and pulled out my phone.

  You still up? I texted Eric.

  Nothing for a minute or more, so I dug my toiletries bag out of my suitcase and headed to the bathroom to scrub my face and brush my teeth.

  The little light at the corner of my phone was blinking when I returned to my room, and my heart rose like a balloon bound for the clouds. I ran to the bed, landed with a bounce, and opened his message.

  Yup. Been waiting all night to hear from you.

  Parents are so selfish, I replied, stealing a woman away from her illicit texting.

  Miss you, he wrote. You miss me?

  Of course I do. Wish you were here now . . . though this bed is about as big as a yoga mat. No way you’d fit on it.

  Bet the floor’s nice and roomy.

  I smiled. True enough.

  I’m gonna think about us, before I go to sleep, he wrote. Tell me what to imagine.

  Feeling a twinge of performance anxiety, I wrote, Let me think.

  What would I want to be doing with him, were we together? I pictured his big body stretched across my bed, back north. Tried to focus on his abs, his chest, his arms . . . but found myself thinking mainly of his eyes. And his mouth.

  I wrote, Imagine us, on my bed. Kissing. Then you feel my hands at your waist . . . I pictured it myself, dressing him in what I guessed he’d be wearing on a cold Darren night—his flannel bottoms. I’m undoing the tie of your drawstring, pushing down your waistband. I hit Send and got busy with the next installment.

  Just imagine us kissing, and me stroking you between us. That’s what I want right now. To feel you, hard and excited. And to make you feel good. If you touch yourself before you fall asleep, imagine it’s my hand. That’s what I want.

  I waited a short eternity for his reply.

  Where do I come? In your hand?

  A heat wave washed over me, burning off any lingering nerves. My fingers were clumsy now. A little, in my hand. And on your belly. On that warm, taut skin. White on tan. My body clenched at the image. I hit Send.

  Would you clean me up? he asked, and the world reeled.

  Yeah, I would. I could practically feel his fingers in my hair now, trembling as I lapped at his skin. Whatever you wanted.

  Christ almighty, why was he so far away? Why was I anywhere on this planet aside from right up next to that body, that voice, that man? My man.

  That enough to get you to sleep? I tapped.

  Plenty. What about you?

  I’ll be imagining the exact same thing, the second we say good night.

  Good. Imagine me saying your name, right when you bring me home, he wrote. Right when you get there, yourself.

  I will. Call me tomorrow, maybe? Goodnight, Eric.

  Goodnight, darling. I miss you.

  You too. Merry Christmas Eve. Sleep well. Eventually :-)

  And twenty minutes later, I was sleeping like a baby, myself.

  * * *

  By the time I came down the next morning, my dad had already left on his patrol. He was so senior, he was automatically entitled to take the holiday off, but usually deferred. Working Christmas, he could bank a floating holiday and was off by two in the afternoon, all while letting some “young buck” sleep in with his family. He was always up around five, anyway, and my mom operated on the same schedule. I, on the other hand, came trundling down the stairs still in my pajamas at a quarter to eleven.

  “Merry Christmas!” my mom chimed as I entered the kitchen. She had the radio on, carols playing, and was wearing her special holiday robe, green with embroidered sleighs and reindeer.

  “Merry Christmas. Ooh, thanks,” I added, accepting a mug of coffee. “I can’t believe how late I slept.”

  “You must’ve needed it.”

  True, though not for the work-recuperation reasons she was probably implying. I’d been with Eric five nights in the last week, and I doubted we ever got to sleep before 1:00 a.m. If we weren’t messing around, we were up talking well past our bedtimes, about everything and nothing at all.

  “Want me to make you breakfast?” my mom asked.

  “No, thanks. I’ll nuke some oatmeal or something after I shower. You relax.” We had a couple dozen extended family members coming by for snacks and drinks in the midafternoon, a mix of my aunts and uncles and their kids and their kids’ kids, and my grandma, of course. Wine and crudités for the adults, milk and cookies for the little ones, and a whole lot of running around for my mom—though she loved that stuff.

  “Put me to work, right after this caffeine hits,” I said.

  “I will, don’t you worry. I need you to wrap some things for the white elephant.”

  “Aw, crap.” She’d emailed me about that over a week ago, and it had fallen right out of my head. I was supposed to have bought a ten-dollar gift for the swap.

  “Never fear,” she said. “I bought a couple spares.”

  “Thanks, Mama. I’ve been distracted.”

  She smiled knowingly. “So I gathered. Did you get your new friend a present?”

  I shook my head. “I didn’t, no. We didn’t even discuss it.”

  She looked a touch disappointed at that.

  “It’s all really new,” I said. “But maybe I’ll give him something for New Year’s.”

  “What sorts of things does he like? Does he have any hobbies?”

  Well, he’s really into his civil liberties, at the moment. “He’s interested in plants.”

  “Is he?” She perked right up then. And that there was a major bit of overlap I’d not put together, between my mother and Eric. They might actually hit it off, were they to meet at my family’s white elephant swap party some day.

  “What kinds of plants?” she asked.

  “Everything, I think. He’s fairly new to the whole landscaping thing, but he’s got all sorts of pots and terrariums in his living room. He’s even got an orchid. Though I’m not sure it’s doing especially well. He could probably use some tips from an expert such as yourself.”

  “Do you think he’d like some back issues of Horticulture?”r />
  Before I could tell her I had no idea, she was up and striding for the laundry room. Clearly I’d be going home with my suitcase ten pounds heavier than when I’d arrived. But I had to smile. Two people I cared about deeply were about to connect, even if that crossover was only as thick as a stack of magazines.

  When she returned with an armload of them hugged to her chest, I asked, “Did you tell Daddy?”

  “About your boyfriend? Sorry—your whatever-he-is.”

  I nodded.

  “I may have mentioned you have some exciting news to share.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Just please don’t make a big reveal of it when everybody’s over this afternoon, okay? I’m just getting used to dating again, myself. I don’t want to get grilled about it in front of half the family. I don’t want . . .” I sighed gruffly. “I don’t want anybody asking why it is I haven’t dated in so long to begin with.”

  She drew an imaginary zipper across her lips.

  “Good. Thank you. I’ll tell Daddy tonight, over dinner.”

  “Your grandma’s staying for dinner,” she reminded me.

  “That’s fine. Gram can hear.” She’d hear it from my mother, anyhow, if I chose to keep it to myself. They talked about everything . . . Years ago I’d overheard the two of them discussing my breakup, in the kitchen before Thanksgiving. And my gram had called Justin “that little shit.” Which for a woman who considered “crap” racy was as incendiary as the C-word. So she must’ve known he’d hit me. Her never having brought it up with me was a testament to her discretion with the secret, her respect for my privacy, or plain old Southern discomfort.

  I chugged my coffee and hit the shower, and spent the early afternoon taking party-prep orders from my mother.

  The get-together was as it always was—fun, a touch chaotic, loud, festively spiked. It wound down as the sun began its descent, right as the little kids were crashing from a surfeit of excitement and sugar, and my Uncle Ken was starting to nod off from too much eggnog. My mom and her two sisters tackled the cleanup with the efficiency of a SWAT team while I gossiped with my cousins, and by five everyone was hugging and piling into cars and waving from the end of the driveway, just me and my folks and my gram left on the front porch.