The Blacker House

by Nicole Mulloy

  “I’m yours too.” He smiled, then turned away suddenly and looked out the window.

  She noticed his strange reaction. “What?” she asked.

  “What?” he looked back at her.

  “Something wrong?”

  “Oh, nothing. I just thought I heard something.” He smiled nervously, then leaned in and planted another big, wet kiss on her lips. Kate kissed him back, but couldn’t help wondering what that strange look meant.

  A train whistle sounded in the distance. Kate tried to put his odd reaction out of her mind. After all, Jacob was finally here. She didn’t want to spend her time fretting. She giggled, pulled her legs up under her and shimmied across the seats until she was sitting on Jacob’s lap.

  He kissed her again. It had been so long since she had been kissed. She’d forgotten just how delicious it could be. He ran his hands over her neck, her shoulders, and her lower back, and with every touch, electricity sparked all over her body. Somewhere behind them, she could hear a train rattling on the tracks, getting closer. Its repetitive, drum-like knocking grew louder.

  Jacob suddenly stopped and arched his back to reach something out of his back pocket. “I brought this, just in case you wanted to, you know...” and trailed off. He pushed it into her hand.

  Kate looked down and stared at the condom. The brand name was almost indecipherable, worn away from being carried in a wallet too long. It was curled and tattered and emitted a strange smell of rubber and chemicals. Kate felt her stomach turn. Without a word, Kate cracked the window and threw it out of the car. She pushed away from him and back into the driver’s seat.

  “No, Kate. Don’t do this. Don’t be mad at me. I just brought it, you know, just in case.”

  Kate stared quietly out the windshield, hot tears burning in her eyes. The train’s headlight was now shining at the car, illuminating the elm tree and the piles of flattened beer cans under it.

  Jacob grabbed her hand and leaned over to her. “I just love you so much and you’re so sexy. I just can’t help myself.”

  Her mind raced. She loved Jacob. She really did. Did she have to have sex with him to prove it? She told her mother she wasn’t going to have sex yet, that she wasn’t ready, and that was just the other day. She had felt so sure then. Kate reached for that feeling, that sure feeling, and remembered the new closeness with Mom. It gave her a moment of strength.

  “Kate, I’m so sorry,” Jacob went on, still holding her hand tightly. “I didn’t want to scare you. We’ve been dating a long time. I just thought this would be the perfect time to, you know, move up to the next level.”

  “You didn’t scare me. You disappointed me,” Kate said, feeling stronger now. “We’ve talked about this a hundred times. I told you. I’m not ready for sex. I’m only sixteen. Why are you pressuring me?” She turned on him, angry now.

  “I know. I mean, I don’t know. I’m sorry. I just thought....”

  “Forget it,” she said. The train whistled loudly and moments later, the engine roared by the car. The cargo cars, piled high with coal, lumbered by afterward, clinking and rumbling at a deafening level.

  “Why did you even drag me out here then?” he yelled to her over the ruckus.

  She looked at him with horror. “What do you mean?” she yelled back, her throat feeling pinched and closed.

  “Nothing. Forget it.” His handsome face twisted sourly. He looked away from her, watching the train.

  “I wanted to spend some time alone with you. I wanted to just be with you and feel close to you. Does that mean I have to have sex with you?” She was crying now, angry and hurt. She hated it how she always cried when she got mad. It made her feel like such an idiot. She wiped the tears away from her face with her sleeve. “Don’t you love me?” she whispered.

  “What?” he yelled over the noise of the train.

  “I said, don’t you love me?” she repeated loudly, feeling even more like an idiot now.

  He looked at her and his face softened. He hated to see her cry. Sometimes her ridiculous blubbering had its advantages. “Of course I love you, Kate,” he said. The last car of the train finally passed by and the rattling grew softer as it rumbled away.

  “Well, why do you keep pushing me?”

  “I’m sorry, Kate,” he said, slumping into his seat. “I’m so stupid. Why am I so stupid?” he said, thumping his head against the window.

  Kate didn’t know how to respond. She didn’t know if she should feel mad or guilty, sad or sympathetic. She certainly didn’t feel like making out anymore, so she started the car and thumped across the tracks. The ride home was silent. Kate pulled into the driveway behind the house, parked and walked briskly toward the back door of the house. Jacob followed. Kate walked him to the spare bedroom and turned to leave.

  “Kate, I’m sorry,” he said, shaking his head, eyes cast downward. “I’m so stupid. It’s just, you’re so sexy and I’ve missed you so much. I just want us to be close and instead, I pushed you away.”

  “Yes, you did,” she said, leaving the room and closing the door behind her.

  She ran up the stairs to her room, feeling horrible confusion. She should be more understanding, maybe. He’s a guy, she thought, and guys need sex more than girls. It wasn’t his fault. She had read once that guys thought about sex a hundred times a day. It seemed ridiculous, but maybe not.

  They had had this conversation many times before. She kept telling him she wasn’t ready for sex. He kept pushing. “If he really loved me, wouldn’t he just wait for me to decide when I’m ready?” she said aloud to the bathroom mirror.

  Suddenly, she remembered his unsettling reaction in the car, when she told him she had been faithful. He had replied, but what did he say? Did he actually say he had been faithful too? She couldn’t recall the words, but she remembered the twinge of anxiety in his expression, his sudden look away. No, it was probably nothing. He heard the train coming, that’s all. He was going to answer me, but he heard the train whistle and it startled him, she decided. Somewhat satisfied, she pushed the uncomfortable thoughts away and brushed her teeth.

  Back in her room, she felt a small amount of guilt. Poor Jacob was all alone and upset on his first night in West Virginia. The condom thing wasn’t such a big deal, she thought. It didn’t have to ruin their time together. She decided to forgive him.

  Tiptoeing back down the stairs to the second floor, she heard snoring coming from her parents’ bedroom. Quietly, she opened the door to Jacob’s room. He was sitting on the bed in just his pants, holding his head in his hands. Kate stepped into the room and he looked up. She sat on the bed beside him.

  “I still love you,” she whispered into his ear.

  He leaned over and wrapped his arms around her. “I’m so sorry, Kate. I’ll never do it again.”

  “Yes, you will,” she said. “I can’t blame you. If I were you, I’d want to have sex with me too.” She giggled.

  “I’ll wait forever if you want me to,” he said, hugging her. He looked relieved. And with his shirt off, he looked gorgeous.

  “You won’t have to wait that long. Just give me more time.”

  “I will.”

  Kate felt light and calm in Jacob’s arms. She had been longing for this for so long. He was finally here and she felt great. A minor crisis, but they had survived it. They held each other for a long time. Then Kate jumped up.

  “I’ve got to get back to my bed. Can you imagine if my parents found me in here?” she said.

  “I’d die a happy man,” Jacob said, laughing quietly.

  *

  The peace lasted until about two o’clock when Jacob appeared at her bedroom door in a pair of shorts, his hair rumpled into a mess.

  “Kate! You...Did you...” He stammered, looking confused. “Did you...”

  “Jacob?” she asked, trying to wake up.

  “Come with me.” He grabbed her hand and yanked her out of bed and downstairs to the guest bedroom. The light was on and the bed sheets rumpled. �
��Where did it go? I’ll prove it to you.” He suddenly dropped to his knees and started crawling underneath the bed.

  Kate rubbed her eyes and sat down. She could feel Jacob moving around under the bed. “What are you doing down there?” she whispered. Jacob then stood and pushed the bed away from the wall, with Kate still on it. It made a slight groaning noise as it rolled across the floor. “What are you looking for?” she whispered. “Jacob, my parents are sleeping down the hall.”

  “Ah-hah!” he said, standing. He raised a small shoe above his head like a torch. “I knew it happened and this is the proof! I didn’t dream it.” Jacob shook the shoe, his voice unsteady and growing louder by the second. “Oh, my God. It really happened.”

  Kate put a finger to her lips to indicate Jacob needed to quiet down. She reached up, grabbed his arm and pulled him down onto the bed next to her.

  “What happened?” she said with as much authority as she could muster.

  “I opened my eyes. I don’t even know why. I just woke up and there was a man standing at the foot of the bed.” He pointed. “I thought I must be dreaming, so I closed my eyes and I rubbed them. When I opened them, he was still there. And while I was staring at him, he started to talk to me.”

  Kate, now wide awake, gave him her full attention. “What did he say?”

  Jacob looked around the room, his eyes darting. “I don’t know. He was talking, but no words came out. Just this crazy shriek. Just this crazy, high scream.” He whirled to face her. “Didn’t you hear it?”

  Kate shook her head. “What did he look like?”

  “It was hard to see him, because it was so dark, but he looked old-fashioned. He was really dirty too. I think I could actually smell him.” He sniffed. “You know, I think I still can. Do you smell that?”

  Kate sniffed. She smelled her own perfume applied earlier that night, but nothing more. She shook her head again.

  Shuddering as he spoke, Jacob continued. “I just rubbed my eyes. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, so I just stared at him. I didn’t know who he was, but I knew he wasn’t real, you know? He wasn’t…human.”

  “Then what happened?” Kate asked.

  “Then, he pulled this shoe out and he threw it at me. He barely missed me.” Jacob jumped up and starting searching the wall to find the place where the shoe struck the wall. “It must have hit right here. Do you see that little black mark?”

  Kate took the shoe from Jacob’s hand. It was old-fashioned, but remarkably clean. A dark blue satin pump with a small heel, it sported a lavender crepe bow tied across the toe of the shoe. She turned it over and looked at the sole. It appeared barely worn. She immediately thought of Grace Blacker Hatfield and the party shoe that disappeared so long ago.

  “I hope he doesn’t throw a Christmas ham at you tomorrow night,” Kate muttered.

  “What?” Jacob asked.

  “Nothing. Now do you believe me? This house is spooked. I told you it was.” Kate shook her head. “I thought it had stopped. I really did. It’s been so quiet lately.”

  As if to respond to her comment, the furnace kicked on, belching up through the heating vent. Jacob jumped and issued a tiny yelp. Kate almost laughed, but instead offered a suggestion.

  “Do you want to go watch some TV for a while?”

  Jacob nodded yes. They quietly moved down to the family room. They watched some old reruns for a while. After a while, Kate could hear Jacob snoring on the couch. She covered him up with a blanket and went back to bed.

  18.

  The next day was so sunny and beautiful, the events of the night before were far away and nearly forgotten. Thanks to a previous agreement with her parents, in which Kate swore to be nicer to her family, Kate was allowed to be “sick” on Friday.

  Mom called the school and informed them that, regrettably, Kate was ill and wouldn’t be joining them today. As Mom spoke with the school secretary on the telephone, Kate stood beside her, trying not to laugh as her mother blatantly lied to the Catholic school. When she hung up the telephone, Kate burst out laughing.

  “Now you have something to confess to the priest, you know, the next time you go to Confession,” Kate said with a smile.

  Mom smacked her on the behind and said, “Have a fun time today.”

  “Thanks, Mom, we will.”

  Since her mother normally walked to work, Kate and Jacob had her car for the day. “Do you realize what a perfect day this is?” Kate asked him. “We’ve got a car, a wallet full of your money, and a whole day to spend together.” She leaned over and kissed him. “So, where do you want to go?”

  “Let’s go make out again!” Jacob said, jokingly, or maybe not.

  She frowned. “Seriously, where should we go?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I know, let’s go get some breakfast,” she said.

  “I already had some toast,” Jacob said.

  “That’s not breakfast. Come on.”

  There’s only one place to go for breakfast in Huntington and that’s the Billy Button Breakfast Bar. It boasted a buffet as long as a stretch limousine, covered with waffles, scrambled eggs, pancakes, fruit, muffins, sausages, French toast, biscuits and bacon.

  West Virginia had its problems. The people talked funny, the river was dirty, and the culture, questionable at best, but Kate had found the one thing that West Virginia did better than anybody: breakfast.

  She explained to Jacob as they queued up in the buffet line. “Look at this biscuit,” Kate said, picking up a fat one with plastic tongs. “I remember a biscuit being a small, round, dry little piece of bread. You could shingle your house with biscuits back in Nebraska.” Kate said, laughing. “In West Virginia, look at this!” She admired the large moist cake, oozing with butter. She put it on her plate and covered it with peppery white gravy. “And this, I don’t even know what it is, but it’s so good.” Jacob was so impressed he ate three helpings.

  After stuffing themselves at the breakfast buffet, they went to the mall where Jacob bought Kate a single red rose. They walked around for a while, then drove to the river front park, which wasn’t much more than a parking lot by the river. Kate noticed the twenty-foot-tall, ugly gray flood wall as they passed through its gate. She realized that the gate could be closed by a large gear and crank mechanism, in case the water started to rise. She wondered how often they closed it.

  They took a long walk, then played on the children’s playground equipment, swinging and sliding among several toddlers who gazed at them with round, watery eyes. When they started to get hungry, they returned to the big, empty house and feasted on microwaved egg rolls.

  Mom always kept a large bottle of wine in the fridge and when Jacob found it, he poured them each a large glass. They turned on music and danced together in the huge living room. He held her close, swaying and singing softly in her ear. He wasn’t a very good singer, but it didn’t bother Kate. She loved it. Then, Lucy and Marie came home from school and ruined it.

  “I’m going to tell Mom you drank her wine,” Marie said. Still dressed in her blue plaid skirt and knee socks, she stood defiant, her tiny fists on her tiny hips.

  “Go ahead. See if I care!” Kate said with a laugh.

  “Kate, maybe we should get out of here for a while,” Jacob said, pulling her to her feet.

  “Okay, but where to?” Kate asked.

  “Um, let’s take a walk.”

  *

  Marshall University was just down the street. They walked toward campus, Kate hoping that if Jacob saw the beautiful campus, maybe he’d want to put that transfer application in a little sooner.

  They walked the entire length of campus, all the way to the football stadium. After their walk, they hiked to a nearby café and ordered chicken sandwiches. As they waited for their food to arrive, Kate noticed that for the first time since Jacob arrived yesterday, both of them were quiet.

  “What did you think?” she asked him.

  “Of what?” he asked, gazing around the res
taurant at the funky college decor. Jason Mraz’s voice wafted down from hidden speakers.

  “Of Marshall. You know, the university.”

  “Oh, it was fine.”

  “Well?”

  He glanced at her quizzically. “Well, what?”

  “Are you going to transfer here?” She felt like she was smiling a little too hard.

  “Oh.” He took a long sip of his soda. “Uh, maybe. I haven’t really thought about it.”

  “What do you mean, you haven’t thought about it? We talked about it. You said you were going to send in the application.” She looked at him suspiciously.