Damage

by A. M. Jenkins

She’s walking over to the closet. “That’s why everybody likes you—you never see anything wrong with anybody.” She starts rifling through the clothes, looking something to wear. “Hey. Recognize this?” She reaches into the closet, pulls out a plaid skirt on a hanger. Short, of course. “Don’t you remember?”

  You shake your head.

  “I wore it That Night.”

  “What night?”

  “You know.” She waits, then when you still have no clue: “The night of Our First Time.”

  Oh. “It was dark,” you explain. “I couldn’t see much.”

  Heather looks annoyed. She hangs the skirt back the closet, slides a bunch of hangers over to bury it.

  The hangers make a screeching noise as she moves them across one by one; solids, prints, pastels, plaid, lace.

  Then she stops and pushes the other clothes aside to look at a dress. She slides her hand down the silky fabric You don’t recognize that one, either.

  Heather sighs. Obviously, this dress has a nice memory attached to it. “Am I supposed to remember that one, too?” you ask.

  “No,” she says, and sweeps the dress aside. “You know what I like about you? The way you smell. Some guys slap on cologne like it’s mosquito repellent. But you just smell like a person. Like sun and wind. Maybe just a little sweat. And I like the way in the evenings sometimes you get a little five o’clock shadow, like you need a shave. It gives you this bad-boy look. Very sexy.”

  She pulls out a blouse, removes it from the hanger, starts to put it on—then glances at you, and with faintest of smiles, drapes the blouse over the doorknob before she walks back over to the mirror, and brushing her hair. The show’s not over yet.

  She scoops her hair up with both hands, holding it top of her head in a mass of curls. Her neck is long arched. “If you look in that bottom right-hand drawer, there’s a basket with ribbons and stuff. Can you through and find a clip that looks like a butterfly? It’s gold, with big wings.”

  You roll over, reach down, and pull the drawer open. There’s a bunch of papers in it, and a box made of dark wood, with a duck inlaid on the lid; it looks like something that a man would own. But it’s the only thing that’s even remotely like a basket, so you take the lid off.

  The box is empty except for a piece of paper that’s been torn to bits and taped back together. It’s old; the Scotch tape that holds it together is yellowing.

  it’s better this way i know Heather will forget i hope you will forgive

  “Not that drawer.” Heather’s beside you suddenly, slamming the drawer shut so quickly that it almost catches your fingers. “I said the right side.”

  “Sorry,” you say.

  “Forget it.” Scowling, she goes back to stand in front of the mirror and starts playing with her hair again, but her hands can’t seem to remember where they left off; locks slide from beneath her fingers and fall down her neck while she frowns at her own reflection.

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “I said forget it. Are you deaf?”

  “No,” you say, getting angry, too. You roll onto your back again. “I’m not.”

  “Apparently”—Heather whirls away from the mirror—“you are.” She walks over to the blouse hanging on the doorknob, pulls it free, jerks it over her head. Snatches her jeans up off the floor where she left them.

  She won’t come sit on the bed to put her jeans on but turns her back to you, teetering to balance on one foot while she thrusts the other one into the pants leg.

  She’s pretty angry. You think about the note, all torn up, then taped back together. About how it looks kind, and how she doesn’t want anybody to see it. And how it seems to be a good-bye.

  And suddenly you think you understand why she’s upset. “Heather…” You pull a pillow onto your chest. Push it off again; you’re still thinking. Roll onto your side, prop up one elbow. “It’s okay to—if you ever wanted to talk about your dad, you could talk to me.”

  She still refuses to face you; you hear her zip the jeans. “You don’t talk about your dad.” Her voice is cold.

  “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  “There’s nothing for me to talk about, either.”

  “But I don’t remember anything,” you begin—stop. Because there is the one thing you remember.

  Heather stalks over, pulls open the bottom right-hand drawer, which, sure enough, is brimming with ribbons and barrettes. She picks out the butterfly clip. Steps over to the mirror and starts brushing her hair again. Briskly, this time, pulling the brush through so fast it crackles.

  “You do remember something,” she says, twisting hair up behind her head. “I can tell. So go ahead. Spill it.”

  She holds the twist with one hand, slides the butterfly clip in. Snap! It’s done. Perfectly.

  You don’t particularly want to spill it. But you feel like reaching out a little, and you do want her to trust you—although you don’t really expect it to be quick and easy. She’s so touchy about things.

  So you’ll put your own self on the line first. “Well, there is this one thing,” you tell her. You feel your face get a little warm and pull the pillow close to your chest again. “But it’s more like a feeling or a dream. Only it was real.”

  “Go ahead.”

  You finger the corner of the pillowcase, trying think what to say. You don’t really want to say anything, but somebody has to go first. “I must have been very little—I remember sitting up on the bathroom counter next to him, and we’d shave together. Except I was playing, you know—I had this toy razor. Not a real one.”

  She doesn’t say anything. Just turns her head this way and that, checking her twist for flaws.

  “That’s all,” you tell her, and roll back on the bed.

  “Rats,” says Heather. Apparently she’s found a flaw—she pulls the clip out. “Your dad died from cancer, right?” she asks, picking up the brush to start all over again.

  “Yeah.”

  “So everybody knew ahead of time that he was going to, you know. Die.” She brushes her hair out with businesslike strokes. “I’ll bet you got to go say good-bye him and everything. Didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’m sure you did. It’s very important. It’s like something’s unfinished, if you don’t get to do it.” She pulls the hair up into that same smooth, shining twist, clips it with a snap! “I used to have dreams where I said good-bye. I don’t need anybody’s pity,” she adds, giving you a defiant glance in the mirror.

  “I don’t think anybody pities you.”

  “That’s right. They don’t.” She checks her hair—identical to the way she did it a second ago, as far as you can tell. “This looks okay, doesn’t it?”

  “It looks great. Was that note from your dad?” you ask.

  Heather freezes, blinks at her reflection for moment. Then, without a word, she walks away. “You know what’s good about jeans?” she asks, keeping her back to you as she scoops up the makeup-stained blouse. “Blue is actually a neutral color. Anything goes with them. I’ll bet you didn’t know that.” She pauses there, blouse in hand, as if she’s suddenly lost track of what she’s doing. You see her take a deep breath. “Did you ever have this feeling like you’re not sad or anything, but like something’s squeezing the back of your eyes? Like you want to cry, but can’t?”

  She’s just standing there in the middle of the room, and you notice for the first time how thin her shoulders are. She’s always seemed so much bigger than life—but this moment, when she’s not posing or smiling or bossing people around, she actually looks quite small.

  “Yeah,” you tell her. “I know what you mean.” You want to add something else—only you don’t know what. Comfort her in some way, maybe—only you don’t know how. Get up? Walk all the way over there and hug her?

  “You’ve been here a long time,” she says, and when she turns to look at you her eyes are clear and blank, like a doll’s eyes. “You’d better be going home.”

&
nbsp; She means it.

  She busies herself as you get dressed; she tidies up dresser, straightens the chair, without a word she hands you one of your shoes that somehow ended up behind closet door.

  On the front porch, she seems almost fragile—maybe because her makeup’s mostly worn off, which makes look a lot younger. You give her a good-bye kiss. She pup with it at first, then pulls away the way a little kid away from putting medicine on a stinging scrape. You’d like to tell her that anytime she wants to talk, you’ll there—but she’s already going inside.

  She’s shut the door before you even step off the porch.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  You keep thinking about her all the way home, through the evening. There is definitely a tender little edge of hurt peeking out from underneath Heather’s shining exterior. You’ve always known it’s there, somewhere way underneath. You recognize it because you’ve got one, yourself.

  Heather doesn’t wait for you after practice the next day. And when you call her in the evening, her phone rings and rings until you realize she’s either not home she turned it off.

  Around nine-thirty she finally answers. Mom’s heading off to bed; she gives you the evil eye to remind you keep it down and not stay up too late.

  You take the cordless and hole up in your room. “it’s me,” you begin, real low—but Heather slaps you right away with brightness and chatter, acting like nothing unusual happened yesterday.

  She hardly even pauses for breath: She just got home from shopping with Melissa—a new Contempo opened up in Fort Worth, which she doesn’t expect you to excited about, but you should be, and they had the soft opening this week before the grand opening on Saturday, and she and Melissa were finally able to get some real clothes.

  She describes what real clothes are. You wait for chance to talk about something more important—exactly what, you have no idea. You figure it’ll come to you when Heather lets up. She’ll have to let up in a minute; nobody could keep this up for long.

  Heather can. Just when she seems to be running out of steam, she says she hasn’t finished her homework; she’s got to go; sorry to keep you up late, see you tomorrow!

  And then the dial tone is buzzing in your ear.

  That night you toss and turn. Not like those nights when you used to wake and lie there with your mind crusted over by a dull wish that everything would just go blank—no, this is sleeplessness with a purpose. Something about you and Heather is lacking, it’s missing a connection. It’s missing something, only you don’t know what to do about it.

  You keep thinking about her description of her first time. One more item in the long list of things you fail at that, quite often, you “just keep going” with Heather. She’s never seemed to mind—in fact, she’s always encouraged it—but now you see that she’s done everything your benefit, sexually; Heather gives, gives, gives—you’ve been eager to receive, receive, receive.

  Next opportunity, you decide, you’re going to more for her. You’re going to take your own sweet time with Heather Mackenzie. You won’t hurry or rush the count. You’ll tease her the way she always teases you—Heather’s the one who forgets everything but being touched.

  Here’s the play: You’ll start out with kissing that will gradually move lower and blur into touching, and you’ll listen to her breathing—or the way she holds her breath—that, and the tension of her body will tell you what she likes best.

  You decide to run the play on Friday after school because that allows plenty of time—no practice today, and game tonight because this week is one of two in the season with a Saturday game.

  So you take her for a Coke at the Dairy Queen, then home, where you start all the action outside on the front porch, not even trying to get inside her clothes—not yet. Keep both hands firm on her back. Do not stick your tongue in her ear. Not yet. She’s teasing you a little, nibbling on your lips before going for the deep kiss.

  When your hands slide down to her rear, she rubs you through your jeans, and at the catch in your breath she gives that low laugh and presses closer. But when your own hands move out of her neutral zone, she puts both her hands on your shoulders to push you away.

  You can almost feel her thinking. She enjoys taking you to the edge—and occasionally over—in places where you can’t—or shouldn’t—react. Right now she’s got you upright, standing on concrete, outdoors, in plain view the street. There’s no reason to push you away.

  So she doesn’t.

  You take your time, and after awhile longer your hands are spending time in places they’ve more or less passed over before, zeroing in here and there, and after awhile she’s trying to press herself up against your fingers, trying to get you to stop somewhere and focus. She’s forgetting to kiss you back and her hands have forgotten what they’re doing, and then she’s forgetting to breathe—she’s clinging to you, and when air comes bursting out of her in a shaky sigh, you hear yourself give a low laugh that sounds familiar.

  She hears it. Her whole body grows stiff. She puts her palms against your shoulders and shoves, so hard you have to step back to keep your balance.

  She’s upset. And now you have to fight against vacuum that wants to suck your body onto hers; your whole body is leaning forward, wanting to tackle her, drive her down onto the concrete porch and peel jeans off and do what needs to be done.

  Something’s wrong. But you have no idea what it is. It’s not like you’ve never touched her before. And you not imagine the way she was clinging to you. You did imagine that little explosion of her breath against your neck.

  You will burst, if this is it.

  She fumbles in her purse for her keys with one hand and with the other makes a swiping gesture at her mouth.

  As if she’s trying to wipe off your touch.

  “Is something wrong?” It can’t be—she’s got to about to burst, too. You know she has.

  “You think I’m going to fall at your feet,” she the words over her shoulder as her keys blunder, jangling around the lock. “You paw me a few times, and I’m supposed to beg you to do it to me. Like you’re so irresistible,” she adds, and gives you a disgusted glance. “You’re just some clumsy little high school boy. Except you drive pickup. Which makes you a clumsy little hick.”

  She’s like a nail gun, driving words in; it hurts breathe all of a sudden. You take a step back.

  “That’s right, get out of here.” She gives the uncooperative key ring a vicious shake. “Damn it! I can’t find the right key!”

  You’re already turning away, moving down the sidewalk in slow motion—it’s like wallowing through thick mud, and you can’t walk away fast enough.

  “Just remember, you were the one panting for it. me.” She hurls the words at your back as you step off the curb.. “Not me,” Heather says again, and it sounds somebody is strangling her.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The air has caved in on top of you.

  Her perfume is wrapped tight around you like a cocoon, it’s woven into your shirt, laced over your and your foot presses harder and harder on the gas by the end of the block you’re going too fast to brake the stop sign.

  No one hears the squeal of rubber on asphalt as you take the corner. No one sees. No one follows.

  You are all the things you’ve ever failed at, sitting top of a couple tons of steel zigzagging in and out of traffic. If there is any justice, this pickup will get crushed like an empty Coke can.

  But it doesn’t, and you end up at home, pulling up the gravel driveway to the back of the house. Mom’s car isn’t here; she must still be at work.

  You turn off the engine. Get out of the truck. Shut the driver’s side door and lean back against it. Take on deep breath. And another.

  And another.

  Your arms are folded; you unfold them and they fall immediately to your sides. The keys drop with a jangle into the gravel. Wind plays in the treetops along the fence. You just stand there letting the truck hold you up.

  Far across the yard a
t the Hightowers’ house, a screen door screeches, then slams. Like some sick animal crawling out of sight, you start moving blindly toward your home.

  You’ve dropped your keys somewhere, don’t where. Becky’s rubber boots aren’t in their place on t porch; she must be out in the barn feeding her calve That means the back door is unlocked, so you walk head through the kitchen. Go down the hall, past the doorway of your room, which is still and silent, and dark like a cave. Your arms are dangling at your sides, your heart is beating in uneven little scratches at the inside your chest.

  You thought everything was okay. You thought you were okay.

  Wrong—it took only one slight shift to break you into pieces.

  Your feet carry you into the bathroom. When they stop, you are stranded in front of the sink. You don’t bother to look at the reflection. You know what he looks like, eyes flat and muddy. Everything twisted.

  “Oh, God,” you hear the guy in the mirror whisper. He sounds like he’s being squeezed.

  You wait for the squeezed feeling to pass. It holds firm, coiled around you like a python. You’d like to slide down to the floor, lay your head down on the white tile and just quit feeling, totally. You don’t ever want to feel anything again.

  So you lock the bathroom door. Watch your own hand open the medicine cabinet. And take out the box holding your dad’s razor.

  The house is quiet. In the refrigerator, the ice maker kicks on with a lurch. You can even hear the faint trickle of water along the copper tubing—it scrapes you as you’re one long raw nerve.

  You open the wooden box. The golden razor lies in state on red velvet. It is telling you to wind down, come an end.

  If you pick up the razor, all you have to do is twist the end to open up the head. And then you can extract the blade.

  Somewhere far off, a phone rings. It rasps away into the silence while you notice how translucent the skin over your wrist is, and how, close up, it’s infinitesimally wrinkled, like you’re a ninety-year-old man. The veins are buried blue but not so deep.