Love in the Present Tense

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

  I didn’t have to work the next day. Only for Mrs. Morales. But sometime around six in the afternoon we had to walk down to the drugstore to get her prescription filled. I thought Leonard could just come along. We stepped out of the house together. It was a pretty afternoon. The rain had stopped and the air smelled nice. Then a car pulled up behind us. It was a big dark American car. I looked over my shoulder. I didn’t see who was driving the car but I saw the man in the shotgun seat. He had his window down, looking right at me. I knew him right away. I’d been waiting to see him. Every day I stepped out of the house, every house we’d lived in since that birthday when I was thirteen, I had looked up thinking he’d be there. And now he was.

  I took Leonard hard by the arm. Usually I don’t like to yank him around, but I was scared and upset. My stomach was all cold and strange, and I felt like maybe I had to pee and couldn’t stop that if it happened. But it didn’t come to that, thank God.

  “Come on, Leonard,” I said.

  And he said, “Ouch. My arm.”

  I took him to the door at Doc’s place and then inside, and as I did I looked back. The car pulled up and stopped in front of the house and I knew he was going to wait for me.

  Doc looked at me. “Pearl,” he said. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

  I had thought I was being so cool about things. I said, “I’m not really sure how long Leonard will have to stay this time. It’s an emergency. Okay?”

  Then I got down on my knees and grabbed hold of him and held him tight. Really really tight. “Ow,” he said. “When are you coming back?”

  I knew then that I was scaring him, so I let go and I walked away without looking back. I didn’t want him to see my face.

  The man with the lip was waiting for me. Watching for me to come back out the door. He could see me through the window the whole time, so he was just waiting. I thought maybe I should run, but my knees felt funny and I thought he would catch me anyway.

  “Gonna get in the car on your own?” he said.

  I thought about my dignity, and the promise I had made to myself, and I walked over to his car and got in.

  We been driving a long time now. First I thought, he is taking me to jail. Now I don’t think so. It’s getting dark and we are driving south I think. Maybe he is going to take me to jail in L.A. But I don’t really think so. I think then they would stay on the big road. The freeway. We are going way out in the middle of nowhere. It’s dark out and we’re going up high, like in the mountains, where I never been.

  Nobody has said nothing so far.

  Then the guy with the lip, he looks back at me. He has his arm over the seat and he turns around and gives me this look. His face is set hard like a mountain. I guess he needs it to be. He looks at me with so much hate.

  Something funny happens when he looks at me. I can’t probably explain it right, but it feels like I get outside me and I can still see all this, but not from inside where I always live. More like from a place over my shoulder.

  The guy who is driving has blond hair and he is nice to look at. At least on some other day he might be. I look at the rearview mirror and see his eyes there. He doesn’t hate me as much. He wants to, but he can’t quite hate me as much and that’s bothering him.

  The lip man says, “Sooner or later you were gonna get arrested. Didn’t I say that, Chet?” Chet I guess is the pretty blond man. “I went through every mug shot of every girl under twenty-one, everywhere in California, every week. It was only a matter of time.”

  I think, it takes an awful lot of hate to do that. That must’ve been a lot of trouble. But the part of me over my shoulder says, no. Don’t say that. Don’t say nothing. It won’t help. And also, dignity. It says, remember that.

  I am sitting in the dirt. In the dark. But there is some moon, and some stars. It has been raining nearly five days, so this night is real clear. The ground is wet and soaks through my clothes. My hands are in cuffs behind my back so I won’t run away.

  Right now the blond man is sitting on a rock and the man with the lip is standing near me holding his gun. I can’t see the lip in this light, but in another way that’s all I can see. I just close my eyes and I see it.

  “Christ, Benny,” the blond pretty man says. Nobody has said nothing until now. He says, “She’s just a kid. For Christ’s sake.”

  The lip man says, “He wasn’t your partner.”

  “Let’s just take her in.”

  “And put his family through that? Put his wife and kids through knowing what happened with her? I don’t think so. I think they deserve better. She’s gonna get her story straight right here and now. Or she won’t ever be going in.” All that hate is still right there. But it feels to me like he’s having to work harder now to make it stay.

  I think they are trying to start by getting me really scared so I will do whatever they say. But I don’t know what they will say. So I don’t know if I’ll do it.

  Right now I’m not really thinking anything, being more over my shoulder and calm. Not normal calm, though. Too calm. Kind of scary calm. But I’m not thinking much. After a while I guess I start to sing. I don’t even think about it while I’m doing it. I don’t know I’m singing until the lip guy, he says, “What is that?”

  Nobody has asked me any straight-out questions until now. I was thinking I would not have to talk. Now that he reminds me, it’s the song I used to sing with Leonard at night before he went to sleep.

  But Mr. Lip does not need to know this. This is between me and my boy.

  “It ain’t nothing,” I say.

  “Ain’t nothing,” he says, like an echo. He is making fun of me. “Don’t you know how to talk?”

  Yes I do but you made me forget again. I practiced hard but you scared me into a place where I forgot.

  “It isn’t anything,” he says.

  Yes, it is. It is everything.

  Blond man looks like he wants to get this over with, whatever it is. I can see his face in the light from the moon. Not all that good, but I can. He is scared and not sure. He doesn’t have nearly enough hate. He is reaching for more but it fails him. I can tell this. I can see.

  “Jesus Christ, Benny,” he says. “Let’s just take her in already.”

  “And put his family through that? No fucking way. I don’t think so. Not when all they have is their memory of him. Not when so many good cops worked so hard to make sure they never had to know he died with his pants off. No, she’s gonna get her story straight. And then we’ll see whether or not we’re going in.”

  I can tell by his voice that he’s making it sound as bad as he can to scare me.

  I’m looking up at a star. I can feel the cuffs behind me, and I try to rub my wrists where the cuffs are cutting in and hurting. But I really can’t.

  I’m not over my shoulder anymore. That’s too bad. I thought that would keep up. This is a bad place for that to leave me. I feel the end of his gun, right in that little hollow at the back of my neck. Either the gun is shaking or I am shaking. I didn’t know I was shaking but maybe I am.

  “What have you got to say for yourself?” he says. His voice sounds different. He is scared and upset. I can hear this and feel this all, right now, and I feel sorry for him. “You tell me the truth, right now. Then we’ll go over what you say in court.”

  “I’ll tell the truth in court,” I say.

  Maybe he will hurt me for saying that. Or even kill me. But he already wants to put me in jail for all my life and that’s worse. That puts me even farther from Leonard. Nobody keeps me from Leonard. And, also, nobody gets my dignity.

  “Oh,” he says. “Oh, you’re a cold-blooded little skank, aren’t you?”

  Right now, yes, my blood feels very cold.

  “Here’s what I see,” he says. “You came on to him, you lured him up to your place, laid him, shot him like a dog for his credit cards and the money in his wallet. Took advantage of a weakness in him. That’s what I see. A wife and three little kids at home. Three little
orphans.”

  I think, who are you telling all this to? There’s nobody here but us. I think, that’s wrong. You’re not an orphan until both parents are dead. Leonard was not an orphan when his father got shot. I hope he won’t be by the end of tonight. But I don’t say that. I don’t say anything.

  “What about the guy who went down for this?” he says. He is sounding scareder now, talking in more of a hurry. “That Julius Banks. Was he the guy in charge? Did he force you to do this? If he did, you better tell me fast.”

  “Little Julius didn’t have nothing to do with it,” I say.

  I wonder if he will go back now and let Little Julius out of jail. But he won’t. Still, he knows and I know that this is more or less okay, because Little Julius did lots of stuff he should go to jail for but just did not get caught. Now he got caught for something he shouldn’t go to jail for. It kind of works out in the long run.

  “Well, whether you like it or not, you’ll leave out what happened between you and Len when you go to court. His family is never to know. You lured him up there to rob him. That’s all there was to that.”

  “I’ll tell the truth in court,” I say.

  I’m not trying to make him mad. Not when he has the gun and all. But I will never have my sweet little boy thinking his mother would kill somebody for some credit cards and money. It will never end like that.

  “You can’t say that to me,” he says. He sounds like he is so mad he doesn’t even know what to do with himself. Like he can hardly talk. “I got the gun.” He pokes the gun harder into that little hollow of my neck. I guess to remind me who’s got it. It hurts but I don’t say ouch. “You’ll do what I say. You got no choice.” He sounds like he will turn inside out if he can’t make me see that. If I won’t agree. I think he forgot to make a plan for if I won’t agree.

  “I got a choice,” I say. I choose not to let Leonard think I killed some guy on purpose for credit cards. No matter how upset it makes anybody. No matter what.

  “You got to the count of three,” he says. His voice sounds like he is crying. I didn’t know big men cried. “I’m going to count to three.”

  “Benny?” The blond man is getting really scared. “Benny? You’re still just trying to scare her, right?”

  “I’m not letting her run this show. I’m not letting her hurt his family any more than they been hurt already. He wasn’t your partner. You in or out? You tell me right now. Whose side are you on?”

  “I got a kid nearly her age, Benny. Don’t let that temper of yours make you do something you can’t ever take back. Please, Benny.”

  Nobody says nothing for a long time. I’m sorry to hear the man with the gun has a temper.

  “Go wait in the car why don’t you?” Benny says.

  “Benny—”

  “Go wait in the car. I mean it. Stay out of this for a minute.”

  “Jesus,” he says again. But he goes and waits in the car. I was hoping he wouldn’t.

  I look up at one of the stars. A big one hanging over that big slope. That star looks strange. A ray of its light seems to come out in my direction. That’s how I know I am crying, too. The way the tears bend that light. Make it do something I don’t think it otherwise would.

  “One.”

  I think it’s sweet and sad and maybe kind of strange, too, that we are crying, both of us, together, like this is something we can share. Like as far apart as two people can get, there is still something they can share.

  I’m still pretty sure he isn’t going to do it. That he’s just so sure I’ll give up and say what he wants when he gets to three. But I won’t. And I think we might be getting close up to this line where he’s so mad that even he doesn’t know what he’ll do when I don’t. I can feel him come up to that line. I can hear it in his voice. And even in the silence. I can hear something important in the silence. As he comes up to that line. His temper is bigger than he is. It gets big and then he can’t tell it what to do.

  Then I think I should have told Doc all about Leonard’s health stuff. How will anyone know about his eyes? Twice every year he is supposed to have screenings for his eyes, on account of this condition he has because of being borned too soon. There could be problems later on, and someone needs to know to check. Who will know this? I wonder. While I’m in jail. Or whatever.

  “Two.”

  I think about that song we used to sing, me and Leonard, that little nonsense song, and I sing it again. But loud now, not under my breath. I really fill up my lungs now and sing it nearly loud enough for him to hear. Except I know it’s really not loud enough for him to hear. I am only pretending that. But I bet the blond man in the car can hear me. I wonder if it makes him cry.

  “Three.”

  The light from that star reaches out like it wants to touch me. And I know that in just a second I will be able to jump out and meet it halfway.

  I hear the hammer click back on the gun.

  The first thing I will do when I get out of here is head on back to my boy.

  MITCH, age 25: breathe

  “It’s raining again,” she said. “Why is Leonard still here?”

  She was standing in that narrow space between my bed and the window, trying to get her dress unzipped. I could smell the rain and her perfume, or so I thought. She seemed slightly disheveled, her hairstyle flattened by the moisture, which suited me just fine. The more disheveled the better. When fully dressed and made up, she seemed a little too…I can never find the word I’m searching for. Conservative? Feminine in that very traditional sense? Old?

  Goddamn me. Bite my tongue.

  The most exciting image I ever held and nursed was a moment I spent in the shower with her, the hot water rushing over our faces, running into our mouths when they came together or apart, her hair plastered onto her face, makeup down the drain. All that other crap I was just trying to find the words for, down the drain. I nursed that one for months, but it faded. In time they all do.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Some kind of emergency with Pearl.”

  She was taking off her panty hose standing up. She could do that without falling down or looking the least bit undignified. Good thing I was not born a woman. There are skills involved. I’m not sure I could handle them.

  “What if she comes back now?”

  “She won’t come back in the middle of the night,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “All the lights are off. She’ll come in the morning.”

  “I suppose.”

  She still hadn’t managed to get her dress unzipped.

  There’s a skylight over the bed. And a streetlight on a hill above, so that even on nights with no moon I had a little glow of light to help me see her. We made love every possible way except with the lights on. That was out of the question for her.

  The rain beaded up on the skylight and reflected onto her face and her dress as she took off her half-slip. “What if he wakes up?”

  “Why should he wake up?”

  “Kids wake up.”

  She had raised two to maturity, so who was I to argue? “Tell you what,” I said. “As a concession to young minds, we’ll do it under the covers.”

  She came over and sat on the edge of my bed—faced away—offering me her zipper, though it took me a moment to get the hint. “That would be different,” she said. “For us that would be almost kinky. You want to unzip me?” She held her hair aside.

  Right. Of course. “I live to unzip you,” I said.

  I got up on my knees behind her and then sank down onto my haunches, so I was sitting on my heels. One knee on either side of her, close up against her back. I had to lean back a little to undo the zipper. Then I slipped the dress forward over her shoulders. Unhooked her bra. She leaned back and made a small, comfortable noise. My hands traced a path up her rib cage, finding her small breasts from underneath.

  I was naked, for two reasons. Because I’d known to expect her. And because that’s how I do bed, even alone. Well, three reasons
. I’m not as adept as she is at peeling out of my clothes with grace.

  “Those banquets are so intolerably boring,” she said. “All I could think about was getting out of there and getting over here to you.”

  Then she attacked me. In a good way, I mean. She had a habit of sudden sexual aggression. She turned all the way around and threw me back down on the bed in one sudden motion. Which I would not have minded except that I ended up with one ankle pinned painfully underneath me, and the weight of my body being thrown back really twisted it hard. For a minute I was actually distracted by that pain.

  “Ow?” she said. “Ow what?” I didn’t know I had said that. But she was straddling me at this point, both of her small, graceful hands wrapped around a key body part. We were both willing to accept “ow” as a good thing.

  That touch. The one I’d been waiting for, falling back on in my mind every 6.7 seconds for the past nine days. Hard to imagine there could be a downside to it. But there was. She hadn’t taken off her ring, and I could feel it.

  I know she always thought I made too much of that. But a guy has a right to feel the way he feels. I took hold of her left hand. Held it up between us. Removed it for her.

  “Oh, that,” she said.

  “Yeah. That.” I put it on the bedside table.

  “Do not put it there,” she said. By then I should have known better. “I’ll forget it. Damn it, Mitchell, what if I get home and don’t have it with me? What the hell am I supposed to say?”

  I don’t know. The truth?

  I picked it up and dropped it into her purse, which was conveniently located on the floor, right where the night-stand met the bed.

  She leaned over, peered off the edge of the bed into her purse like she was looking down a bottomless pit. “Great,” she said. “Now it’s in the Bermuda Triangle. It may never be seen again. Well, never mind. At least it goes home with me.”

  And with that she did something strangely un-Barb-like. She stretched her body the full length of mine and lay on top of me, up on her elbows just enough to look down at my face. She touched my cheek.