There’s a huge full moon coming up into a dark arc of sky, and the wind is blowing at the car, and Derek’s cussing the radio because his sister doesn’t have a sound system like he does, and he’s mad he’s got to be driving her car instead of his truck, but his truck has a flat. He stops the dial at some scraping-sounding rock music, just to piss me off, because he knows it’s hard on my ears.
“Come on,” I say, grabbing his chest from behind and kissing his ear. “Something softer, please.”
“Then shut up with your Randy. And get off me! I drive good drunk, but not with another drunk hanging off me.” He tries to pry my hands off but I hang on and I’m giggling like crazy till I see the car going off the road and bouncing down the slope, but even that seems funny, like, Whoa, here comes some grass! When the car bumps to a stop, I get thrown forward into the back of his seat, and my nose starts bleeding but it doesn’t hurt. The car stalls and Derek turns around and says, “You dumb shit.” But he’s smiling and I’m smiling back, which is hard to do, because I’m tipping my head up to get the blood to go backward, and I say, “Come on, Derek, tell me the truth. You weren’t at the movies with Shelley?” As I’m talking, he climbs into the back with me, so I say, “Aren’t you going to get us out of here? You got any toilet paper? You got to get me home. I’m so late. Late, late. Kay’s going to have a hissy fit.”
“I told you, I was at the movies with guys from work. Shelley was there too, but I wasn’t with her.”
“Promise?”
“Do you really care?”
While I’m pausing, thinking about that, he leans over to kiss me on the cheekbone. “Listen. This is why I asked you out tonight. We gotta talk. We’re at a spot where we gotta decide.” He looks at me closely but I shrug and bite my lip. He says, “I don’t want to raise a baby. Simon’s baby. Is that what you want? Because if you do, I think you need to ask me.”
“I’m not asking—”
“But you come with the baby.”
“So then, tell me goodbye.”
He looks at me hard and for a moment it looks like maybe tears are coming into his eyes even and he says, “I can’t.”
“Can’t it be like my job? Like, I work around your job and you work around my job. Only I’ve got two—a store and a baby—”
“No, it can’t be that way.”
“Why not?”
“Because a baby’s not a job. It’s a life.”
“Then tell me goodbye!”
“I can’t.”
It makes me want to fly apart, this thing. I just want to shuck it off—not Amber exactly, but the whole baby weight, it makes me feel like it’s smashing me down, and what about my life? And I want to shuck off this talk, because I just want to kiss Derek, and I don’t want to have to think so much, and I just want to feel, and what’s so wrong about just feeling?
Finally I say, “You know Hippie Ed? He was out checking his bees and he said to me, out of the blue, ‘People just let their lives happen to them, without a struggle, and that’s a crime. The crime of not paying attention to your life.’ I don’t know, Derek. I don’t know about her life or my life.”
“Well, have you thought about it? Giving her up?”
“I promised Tess.”
“She let you promise too much. She knew what she was doing.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know,” I whisper. “Can we just—can we just not talk about this?”
“Well, when are we going to talk about this?”
“I don’t know, but not now?”
He looks at me for a long time, and I lean toward him and kiss his ear, and he kisses back, and his kisses are so soft but they have a power like you wouldn’t believe, and he knows that when he kisses me near my ear that my back arches toward him, and when he traces his finger along my arching back, down low, that makes me arch even more. His hands slide up the sides of my body and I can’t get enough of his hands either, the way they feel out my body like I’m something special. I love this feeling—I love it I love it, I can’t help it—and my hands find his hips and slide beneath his jeans and then we’re past the place that cares about decisions and reasons.
The car’s too small and Derek slides backward so his knees are on the floor and pulls me toward him, but still we can’t quite match up in any good way. When we pull away and laugh, Derek opens the car door and I think it’s so that our feet can hang out, but no, he’s pulling me outside, into the grass.
He takes off his shirt and puts it down, and then guides me down on top of it. He takes my hair out of the ponytail and pushes his fingers up against my scalp and he says, “The world hasn’t wrecked this up yet. You told me that once. That no matter how bad the world seemed, the one thing that was still pure and real was this. I think of that sometimes. It was a true thing you said.”
A truck goes by on the road and we pause for a minute, but it speeds by, sending gravel flying against the other side of the car, and then he pushes my clothes off, down, up. I’m going crazy. I need him inside me. I’m using all my strength. I want to be the stronger one, I want to push his body inside me, but he’s stronger and holds back for a moment. For once I’m all connected, and my neck and my heart and my mouth all feel the same thing and all I can do is breathe, but just barely.
He pushes himself gently inside me, his eyes locked on mine the whole time, and when he’s in deep, he smiles and tilts his head to consider me. I mumble, There you are, and he says, Here I am, and we both close our eyes to feel what we are feeling. Which is good good good. He pauses for a minute and the moon lights up his face, and he presses his face against mine to rest, and then we move together so tight but it feels like space and space and space. And we rock back and forth until everything’s twisted and bursting, and it feels so good to have the force of him inside, pushing away the empty, and for a moment I think I’m going to lose it, I can’t keep the feeling, it’s going to flicker, but I hold on and suddenly I am there. The finest kind of explosion, everywhere, a candle flaring.
I want to thank him but I don’t know how, but I make a wish for him, a hope that he feels like I do, which I’m never really sure about but I want so badly for him to feel this joy. What comes out of me, what I hear my voice saying, is, “You’re holding me together. You’re keeping me warm.”
The stars are burning holes in the sky. When we’re resting, holding each other, we look at them and talk about them and then Derek whispers, “I know why you wanted to keep that baby.”
“Hmm?” Somehow I’m almost asleep and I’m trying to bring my brain awake and toward his words.
“You knew Tess was leaving. You wanted to keep her.” He whispers this into my hair. “You love her so much.”
“Well, I also—”
“It’s nice, Libby. That you love someone like that. I wish I had someone who loved me that much.”
It’s a flood of hurt, right up my throat, but I don’t know what to do with it and I’m too hazy to come up with anything, and I push it away, quick, because sometimes I think if we really felt what we felt it would kill us, and the only thing that saves us is being able to turn a little numb.
When we climb back in the car, Derek turns on the heater for me and finds a country music radio station. That’s a little gift for me, and I want to give him one too, so I squint at the floorboard of the car and all the junk that’s piled there till I find what I was hoping for, a pencil and some paper—an old envelope from a bill. I sit up and reach down for them and put on my glasses. I sketch a picture of two hazy figures, holding hands. I just draw the back of them, so it’s like they’re walking away. Then I put pine trees all around them.
Derek says, “There’s no pine trees out here.”
“Yeah, but they’re easy to draw.”
We’re talking real soft and mumbly, like we’re sad and worn out. I’ve got the pencil hovering over the envelope. I want to draw a third figure, a little toddler, walking right between them, but I don’t.
“That’s real
nice.” He takes the envelope I’m handing him and folds it and puts it in his jeans pocket. Then he leans over and whispers in my ear, “I don’t know if you believe this, but this was such a good thing.” I know he means us, not tonight, and I know he means was and not is, and so I nod and bite my lip. I know there’s going to be another goodbye, but this is the goodbye that he means, and it was about the most tender way he could tell me.
Hey, crazy baby Amber,
It’s in the middle of the night and you’re sleeping right next to me and the stars are so bright. Probably you should be in your bassinet but sometimes we cuddle in bed, I keep my arm around you all night, and I listen to your little puffs of breath.
Listen, I was just thinking. Once Baxter told me: A person’s only got so much time and energy—make sure you use yours right.
Before you, this is how I spent my time and energy:
1) Finding beer. Drinking it
2) Getting through school
3) Working at the store
4) Hanging out with Tess and Shawny
5) Flying kites, playing dolls, coloring—growing up, I guess.
I’m grown up, now, Amber. I got through school. I’m legal to buy beer. Tess left.
I should have asked Baxter what was worth it and what wasn’t. Oh my god, I have no idea about this world I’m living in and no idea about my life.
I think that maybe, my heart never stops talking, but it doesn’t know what it’s talking about. I talk back to it like it’s a stupid person. My heart’s always talking about dream-love and you got to teach me about the real kind. Together let’s figure this out: What is enough to make up a life?
As I close the book, something drops out. Folded money. Five one-hundred dollar bills, brand new. It’s so surprising I wonder how drunk I am and decide to wait till morning to see if what I really see is true.
Kay’s standing in front of the dryer looking for her jeans. She’s got a big bruise on her thigh, probably from getting kicked by a horse last week. She pulls on her Wranglers while she stares at me. She puts on her shirt, still staring at me, except for the second that green fabric crosses her green eyes. She gets her brush and starts brushing through wet hair, still staring at me.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“If I help you out more with Amber, you’re just going to get used to that help. You need to buckle down and decide you’re going to do this on your own.” She starts a French braid, and I haven’t seen her do that in years. I watch the three sections weave through one another. A few white strands fall around her brown cheekbone and I decide to try to draw her sometime soon because all of a sudden she looks more beautiful than I have ever seen her.
She puts her wallet in the pocket of her Wranglers and grabs her keys. “I’ll watch Amber while you work, and that’s all. And pretty soon I want you to quit the store and work at Baxter’s, where you can keep Amber with you a bit more. Do you understand me?”
“I don’t feel so good, Kay. I like working at the store. Will you please hold Amber? I have to pee.”
“There are lots of times you’ll have to pee with no one to hold your baby. Figure it out. Baxter’s offered you a job with flex hours that pays more, one where you can work with Amber.”
I don’t say anything. I look at Amber, who’s looking at Kay and flapping her arms in the air. I turn away from Kay and head toward the kitchen, and that’s when Kay says, “Simon’s parents came by last night.”
I turn around and raise my eyebrows.
“Just showed up, unannounced. I could just see them, looking around—”
“Oh, shit. Oh, really? Oh, man. The place is a mess. Did they see Amber?”
“Sure, they held her, asked about her.”
“I thought they said we were going to meet in town for lunch.”
“Well, they told me they were out this way and just decided to come over. I just wish I—”
“Did you tell them where I was?”
“I told them you were out. I called Tess from Baxter’s after they left. I was hoping to catch her at work. To tell her we need to take care of the adoption papers. Guess what? She’s not working there anymore. She quit. The manager didn’t know where she was. Has she called here?”
“She’s gone?”
“Have you talked to her?”
“No. She moved?”
“Apparently.”
I wonder if I should tell her about Clark stopping by, but I already made up my mind that I wouldn’t. Mainly because it’s a good idea to keep Kay separate from just about everybody; she’d probably call him up and badger him about driving Tess off, and that will just embarrass me. Plus, he doesn’t know anything anyway.
“We need to get a hold of her. For one thing, you need to have Amber legal. For taxes, benefits. You two should have worked it out before she left.”
“I didn’t know she was leaving! I didn’t know!”
“Don’t get snotty with me. Plus I’d just like to know she’s alive.” She reaches out to touch Amber on the nose, and she looks sad. “Baxter and I are going to work on the guzzler. You could come. He’ll pay you.”
“Where will I put Amber? There’s no shade there. It’s so hot.”
She nods like she doesn’t want to agree with me but has to. She turns from me then, and walks away fast—just like she’s saying: Yeah, farewell, and this is the start of you getting left behind.
NINE
“Bees know geometry,” Ed says through a white, goofy-looking hat with netting all around. He looks so ridiculous, and so much like he doesn’t know it, that I have to trap a smile behind my hand. “Enough to make row after row of perfect hexagons. Here’s something else about them: They don’t fly at night, they’re calmer in the evenings, which is why I’m moving them now. You going on a walk with the baby? Don’t come over here now, they’re a little riled up.”
I nod and put an arm around Amber. After a minute, Ed comes walking over, leaving behind him a stack of white boxes with a bunch of bees swarming outside. Farther behind him, the sun is getting low down by the mountains.
Ed lifts his hat off, pushes the glasses to his face and runs his hand through his curly hair. “The alfalfa’s just blooming,” he says, and he holds out his hand and unfolds his fingers. Resting on his palm is a bee that lifts off into the air the moment it’s free. “That was a drone. They don’t sting. They don’t even have stingers. They eat honey and have sex and then die, that’s their job. What a life! Hi, baby. Look at your pretty eyes. Hi, dog, yes, yes, you want some attention, huh? If you’re going on a walk, Libby, I’d like to go with you.”
I glance at him but he’s not on the prowl, he’s just standing there looking at me all genuine and open, waiting for me to respond. “Well, okay. I was going for a short one, before it gets dark.”
He comes alongside me and we walk together, next to the alfalfa, away from the bees and toward Baxter’s place in the distance.
“Nicer to walk with someone,” he says. “Gets lonely, I think, even for a loner. Once I walked up to a group of friends. Professors of mine, actually. Who were talking outside. People who I liked a lot. This is a story of how something so little can change a life. I walked up, and nobody noticed me. Or more like, they just ignored me. I felt so invisible. I’ve always been that way. I don’t know why; I have that blind spot about myself. Something’s wrong with me. I mean, people don’t notice me. So, anyway. I moved to El Salvador. A little village in El Salvador, in the rebel-controlled territories, the FMLN. All because I felt like I wanted to do something that mattered, so that I would matter. I snuck in solar powered generators for radios. Long story. Solidarity movement. Long story. Then I got my heart broken.”
“By a woman?”
“No, no, the world. Because I wanted to make a difference, a big difference, and it wasn’t working out. I’m sorry if this is a weird conversation for you, but I’m not all that good at having the regular kind. They’re boring.”
I try to mumble something ab
out it being a good conversation, but all my words are messed up too, although I get out enough of them, I guess, that he knows what I’m saying, and he nods a bunch of times and smiles.
“Not being able to help, that made me feel small. So I moved out here. So that I could feel like enough again. And all this because once I walked up to a group of people, and god knows that wasn’t their fault, they were in the middle of a conversation. The reason I am telling you this is because you’re not small. You figured out how to change what’s in front of you.”
I don’t know what to say, so I concentrate on Ringo, who’s darting ahead of us, then darting back, tongue out, tail swooping in huge circles.
“The reason I moved myself to El Salvador, I think, was because there I wouldn’t be invisible. Because I was different; I was the white guy, for one thing. Do you think that’s why Tess left?”
“What? Tess?”
“Yeah, Tess.”
“I don’t know, Ed. I don’t think you’re invisible. I don’t think Tess was invisible. Why would she be less invisible there? People do like you. You’re just different, is all. I don’t think Tess was invisible. People noticed her. She’s beautiful.”
“I never noticed her. I noticed you though.”
“Oh.”
“This is not a come-on, by the way.”
“Okay.”
“You’re female and I’m male, and god knows why but the world we live in made it nearly impossible for us to have a real conversation.”
Sky Bridge Page 12