Dogwood

by Chris Fabry

  Karin cocked an eyebrow and put a hand on her hip. She was about to speak when she spotted something on the ground and picked it up. A good-size rock. Looked like it could do some damage.

  She hurled it with a speed and accuracy that surprised me, and the flickering light smashed and sparked. A shower of glass fell onto the roof. Instead of snapping us into darkness, the light faded, the filament going from white to orange to nothing.

  “Won’t be able to see us now.” She grinned.

  “If they catch us out here . . .”

  Karin ran toward the car in the moonlight, darting like a cat through the parking lot. She returned a few moments later with the old quilt I kept in case I had a flat tire. It was several inches thick, and I imagined it laden with European diseases and used to wipe out tribes of Native Americans. I’d found it in my grandfather’s trunk along with several 78 rpm records of some singer named Caruso. I had thrown the albums into the woods just to see how far they would fly.

  She folded the quilt lengthwise and almost threw it over the fence, but it stuck on the barbed wire perfectly. “Don’t want you catching anything on those barbs up there.” She laughed. She pulled herself up on the eight-foot fence and got her foot stuck between the post and the building. “Little help.”

  “I’m not coming in there,” I said, reaching up and pushing her higher.

  She turned and grinned at me like we had just shared something forbidden. Her foot came out easily. “Yes you are.”

  “You can try to charm the cops if you want to, but they’ll throw my butt in jail.”

  Karin leaned again and tipped forward, taking my breath away. It looked like a cheerleader move and she dropped to the ground, landing squarely, but she let out a squeal as she touched down and melted to the ground. “My ankle,” she said, her back to me, bent forward at an awkward angle.

  “Stay right there.” I scaled the fence and used the quilt to help. I wasn’t as graceful, but I hit the ground beside her and knelt as she slipped off her sandals.

  “Told you I’d get you over here,” she said, laughing and pushing me over.

  I fell back, and when I regained my balance, I watched her trot across the edge of the freshly mowed grass. Tiny pieces stuck to the bottom of her feet as she dipped a toe into the edge of the pool.

  “It’s warm,” Karin said.

  “You can’t be serious. Let’s get out of here before . . .”

  She put the bottle on the concrete and both glasses beside it. If her forward flip on the fence had taken my breath away, what she did next stopped my heart. Turned away from me, she pulled her shirt over her head in one motion and unclasped her jeans and stepped out of them. Her dive into the water was perfect. She swam to the other end of the pool before I realized I hadn’t moved.

  “Come on!” she said, waving. “It feels great.”

  The moon rippled in the disturbed water, and she went under. The lights at the side of the pool were off, and soon the pool calmed. I edged forward in the grass, remembering the songs I had heard tonight. “That Girl Could Sing” became “That Girl Could Drown.”

  Karin was waiting at the edge, and she burst from the water and grabbed my leg like in some horror movie.

  I fell back, catching myself with my hands.

  “Come in!” she said. “Right now or I’ll scream. I’ll say that you got me drunk and attacked me. How would that look?” She floated into a backstroke and turned into Scarlett O’Hara. “A big old country boy taking advantage of a poor little girl like me.”

  I stared, thinking that she wasn’t little or poor or in the least bit unhealthy, and why wasn’t I in the pool?

  “I mean it, Will. If you don’t come in here, you won’t like what happens.”

  I gathered her clothes, snagged the quilt from the top of the fence, and stashed them in the darkened exit from the showers. I kicked off my shoes, then peeled off my shirt and socks and added them to the pile.

  “Whatcha doin’ in the dark over there?”

  “Keep your voice down,” I whispered.

  When I emerged from the shadows, she protested. “Uh-uh, no way are you swimming in your jeans.”

  “I never agreed—”

  “Plus, it’ll be a wet ride home. Take them off. I promise I won’t look.”

  I hesitated, then returned to the dark, throwing my jeans into the corner and running back in my briefs. She giggled and shook her head as I dived in, the warm water welcoming me like some maternal spring, pulling me down and surrounding me. I burst through the surface and shook the water from my hair and found her at the far corner.

  “You’re a chicken—you know that?”

  “I don’t like swimming with strange women,” I said, my voice carrying across the water and slapping the brick building.

  “Is that what I am? A strange woman?”

  “You’re strange and you’re beautiful.”

  “Is that a come-on?”

  “Nope. Just the truth.”

  Karin leaned back in the water, wetting her hair and pushing it from her face like an Olympic diver emerging from the pool. “Any other guy would be all over me right now. And he wouldn’t have jumped in with his briefs.”

  “Guess I’m not any other guy.”

  “Ask yourself what Jackson Browne would do.”

  “He’s shorter than me. I could beat him up.”

  She laughed.

  “You could probably beat him up. He’d have to reach up to hit you.”

  “Are you scared, Will Hatfield?”

  “I don’t know if you could characterize what I feel as fear,” I heard myself say. “It’s kind of like jumping into a pool of cold water. You like to get used to the idea before you do it.”

  Karin swam with her head slightly above the surface, like some elegant animal paddling for the shallow end. The clouds were gone and the moon shone on us. She looked up. “Pretty, isn’t it?”

  “Like the star over Bethlehem.”

  She kept swimming away from me. “That’s pretty close to blasphemy—don’t you think?” She made it to the pool stairs, next to the silver railing the little kids play on, splashing and jumping with their inflatable rings. “Why don’t you open the bottle and bring me a glass?”

  I swam to the edge and retrieved the bottle. The corkscrew was in the pocket of my jeans, so I had to get out and drip through the grass, enduring her taunts and whoops as I did. I jumped back in and worked on the cork. I’d never touched a drop of wine, not because I didn’t like it but because Carson had never supplied any. We’d had his beer at our campouts, but we’d never moved past that.

  “Where’d you get this stuff, anyway?” I said.

  “My dad has a cabinet downstairs. There’s another bottle under the seat in case we finish this one.”

  I laughed and shook my head, part of the cork stripping from the top.

  When the cork finally popped, Karin gave a mock cheer and watched me pour a glass. She came close and leaned toward me, gripping the wine bottle and pouring a full glass. “What’s the matter?” she said coyly, taking a long drink. “Aren’t you glad you came into the pool?”

  I coughed and that made her smile. I was in the water now, totally immersed, baptized in her beauty and leaning against the poolside.

  She set the glass down behind my head and floated for a moment in front of me, the moon reflecting on her back.

  It happened like a gentle breeze, a cloud floating by, a calf nuzzling its mother, or the lifting of a child’s hand to embrace its father’s. Her lips met mine, and I tasted the sweetness of the wine. With savage tenderness I pulled her to me, and for a moment there was no earth or sky, no air or water, just the two of us, suspended in that womblike pool, floating, mingling.

  Karin turned away and laughed. She took the wineglass and floated on her back, a white figure in the moonlight. “That wasn’t so bad, was it? You acted like coming in here was the last thing you wanted to do.”

  “I didn’t know that’s what
you wanted to do.”

  She took another long drink. “Happy birthday, Will Hatfield.”

  We embraced, and with our mouths searching, it felt like I was drinking an ocean. Like a man who had just crawled across a desert, I was parched and thirsty. I kissed the water from her face and her forehead. I kissed her eyes and pushed a dangling strand of hair back to join the others.

  Karin seemed just as interested, holding my face with her hand. When she kissed my ear and whispered, “Make love to me,” I caught my breath, never envisioning this scene or set of events.

  “At some point in your life,” my father had said when we were alone by the campfire one night, “a woman will offer herself to you. And if you haven’t made the decision before then what you’ll do, if you haven’t run through your mind what you’ll say and how you’ll act, I can guarantee you that your body will make that decision for you.”

  I was quickly understanding what my father meant and how right he was. I probably would have given in to her invitation had we not heard tires on gravel. Lights scampered down the hill as they wound toward us, and we pulled from our embrace.

  I snatched the bottle and the other glass and steered Karin to the deep end of the pool. “I told you somebody was going to find us,” I whispered.

  She laughed. “Does that mean you’re not going to make love to me?”

  “Stop. We’re in big trouble.”

  “Maybe it’s your mother.”

  We held each other, the bottle floating next to us, wine mingling with the chlorine, our heads just below the edge of the pool.

  “Or maybe it’s my father.”

  “Would you be quiet?” I hissed.

  The car drove toward the tennis courts, where my car was parked, and I heard the unmistakable squawk of a police radio.

  “We are seriously in trouble,” I whispered.

  “I was led here under false pretenses,” she purred. “You overpowered me and threw me in. You are a wicked young man.”

  “Stop moving. You’re making waves.”

  The car parked near the pool, and we stayed as still as we could, hoping the officer wouldn’t see us. He stopped, got out, and slowly walked toward the fence. A flashlight beam pierced the night, and the chain-link fence rattled. “I know you’re in there. Come on out.”

  “Don’t move,” I mouthed.

  “Don’t make me climb this fence and come in there.”

  The beam of light searched the grounds, but I had hidden the quilt and our clothes well. Karin’s eyes were wide with a mixture of anticipation and delight.

  The radio squawked again, and the officer returned to the car. He stepped back and yelled, “I’m goin’ on down the road a piece, and when I get back, you two better be out of there and gone or I’m gonna throw you in jail. You hear? We don’t allow that stuff around here.”

  Karin stifled a laugh, and I put a hand over her mouth.

  He drove away, swirling lights casting an eerie glow as he gunned the engine and sped up the hill.

  I jumped out of the pool and reached for Karin.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” she said.

  “You heard what he said. Let’s go.”

  She swam the length of the pool with perfect breaststrokes.

  I shook the quilt out and dried myself, pulling on my jeans. I met her at the other end of the pool, throwing the quilt around her and retrieving her clothes. I turned as she got dressed, then helped her over the fence.

  She left the bottle in the pool but opened the second one under her seat as I spun out of the parking lot and made my way back to the interstate. There was no sign of the officer. The car smelled of chlorine and wine, and though we’d both dried off, our clothes stuck to our bodies. I avoided her eyes, somehow overcome with what had happened, and turned on the radio, settling in for the long drive.

  Karin poured another full glass and drank deeply. “Well,” she said, not as a question but as a statement. She drew her feet up under her and turned, smiling at me, flicking off the radio. “Are we going to talk about what happened back there, farm boy?”

  “I really wish you’d stop calling me that.”

  “What would you prefer?”

  I checked the rearview mirror, then noticed dust on the dashboard and swiped at it.

  “Will, look at me.”

  I did.

  “You want to say anything? do anything?”

  I couldn’t tell if she was talking or if it was the wine. “I’m not shore I know what to say, missy. Other than that was about the purtiest swimmin’ hole I ever seen.”

  The farm boy routine worked and lightened the mood. She put a hand on my shoulder and twirled at the back of my hair, her eyes twinkling in the oncoming traffic. “We need to work on your wooing. I made the moves on you back there, and it looked like you were one of the frozen chosen.”

  “You don’t know how much I wanted to . . . and how much I’ve wanted to just kiss you. I don’t know if you can tell, but I really like you. More than just a friend. But I like to take things kinda slow. Plus, you wouldn’t have respected me in the morning if we’d have . . .”

  Karin snorted—one of the little laughs I’d become accustomed to.

  I wanted to tell her it was all I could do to hold back, that the ache in my body felt like I’d been shot with a cannonball through the chest.

  Maybe our story would be different if I had made love to her that night. Maybe the story of our town would be different. My life.

  She offered me a sip of wine and I refused until she pouted; then I drank some. The wine burned my throat and stomach and felt right, the perfect cap on the night.

  “Where do you want to be in ten years?” Karin said, repeating her question from dinner. She curled like a cat beside me, putting her head on my shoulder.

  I lifted my arm and she snuggled close, as if we were made to fit this way. The first pieces of a puzzle. “I’m still not sure about where, but I am pretty sure about who.”

  “Missed your chance. You could’ve had your way with me.”

  “Maybe you’ll appreciate that in a few years.”

  Karin yawned and took another long drink, then settled beside me. In a few moments she was asleep.

  I turned the radio on and rolled down my window so the rushing wind and music mixed. I wanted to taste and smell and feel this moment and know I was alive, truly alive and not dreaming.

  Bobby Ray

  I went to see Karin on Sunday after church. Lynda wasn’t feeling up to much of anything but a nap, so I drove over and found my sister in good spirits. She asked about my new job as she served tea. I told her it was different being in a small town police department, being the new guy, lowest on the ladder, and about the challenges.

  “I don’t suppose you’ve stopped any bank robberies yet.” She chuckled.

  “It’s been a lot like Mayberry,” I said. “Cats up trees and kids joyriding. We do have a missing person, but the chief thinks he might have come into some money and headed to Vegas or Atlantic City. Maybe he robbed those gentlemen’s clubs up toward Charleston.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Guy named Arron Spurlock. Worked over at—”

  “The Exxon station!” Karin said. “I saw him not long ago. He made a point of saying hello.”

  I took a sip of the bitter tea. I didn’t have the heart to tell her it needed sugar. “How did he seem?”

  “He was okay,” she said. “He helped us get rid of our trash.”

  “Us?”

  “Ruthie and I. We were . . . we had a little trip.”

  I sighed and nodded. “I suppose he’ll turn up one of these days.”

  “Sudden money can change people. You heard about the couple in church who won the lottery?”

  “Really?”

  “Mr. Lundy was waiting for the coffee to brew one morning at the Fast Mart, and he just picked some numbers like they were blueberries and put the ticket in his shirt pocket. The next day he sees the numbers in t
he paper and pulls out the card—he still had the same shirt on—and they matched. Perfectly. Can you believe it?”

  “What happened?”

  “The Fast Mart got a percentage of the winnings, and Mr. Lundy and his wife sold their place and moved to Florida. Sounds nice, doesn’t it? Moving someplace where it’s warm all the time and you don’t have to worry about shoveling snow or falling down.”

  “You can fall and break a hip in Florida just like you can here, sugarplum.”

  “I know. I’m just saying it would be nice. I suppose we’re planted here for a while with the kids growing so much. Have you seen how big Darin is getting?”

  I nodded and smiled.

  “And little Tarin has so much energy that I run myself ragged trying to keep up with her.”

  I sipped my tea and watched my sister flit about the room in her Mary/Martha mode, trying to keep my cup full. “You remember Ernie from my unit in the army, don’t you? Big muscular guy from Louisiana?”

  “Head like a bowling ball?”

  “You got him. Well, he’s coming through this summer. Said he wants to stop and see the family.”

  “Well, you should invite him to church. If he needs a place to stay while you fix up your place, we have extra room here.” Karin’s eyes lit up. “I’d love to see him. Is he married?”

  “At the moment.” I laughed. “We’ll see how long it lasts.”

  “Tell him I said hello. I remember how much you two liked each other.”

  “Wouldn’t have lasted long without him. Have you spoken with Mom and Dad?”

  “They came over to play with the kids last week. I’m hoping I can convince Dad to go with us to Camden Park. You and Lynda should come.”

  “I think her ankles would swell up bigger than the Cloud 9 if she tried walking around there.”

  Karin laughed, and it was good to hear that genuine belly laugh. She hugged and kissed me as I left and held on to my hand as I walked out. “We sure had some fun times as kids, didn’t we?”

  I looked into her eyes and saw something of the old Karin there. But not much. “Other than that hornet’s nest.”

  “Take care of yourself, Bobby Ray.”