Often Andrea and Marsha went into Boston to the bars, and they no longer bothered to wait for the weekend. On these occasions it was normal that one or both did not return that night to the dorm. Whenever Joanna was away for a weekend, the two women took over her Mount Vernon Street flat—and were so blasé about the whole thing that they often found time to get a little schoolwork done there.
In February of that third year at Wenham, at a sleek party in a sleek apartment in Back Bay, Andrea was introduced to a very handsome young man, twenty-six years old with wavy black hair and a thick black moustache, who was an advertising representative for TWA. She became infatuated with him, and he with her, but his frequent absences from the city—although they served to lengthen the term of the affair to the end of the spring—prevented the relationship from taking on the serious character it might otherwise have obtained.
In June she and Marsha returned to Europe, but this time on their own and again at their parents’ expense. They visited Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. From their previous year’s itinerary they dropped England, France, and Holland, where the men had been dull. They added Greece, of whose male population they had heard much that was interesting. They were not disappointed.
In Zurich the art dealer renewed his proposal, and Andrea again respectfully declined; but she stayed with him two and a half weeks to help him over his frustration. There was a second bedroom for Marsha. In August Marsha met and fell hopelessly in love with a young Greek who had gone to school at Oberlin and was now serving as a tour guide on the Acropolis. He, however, turned out to be more interested in another male guide than in either of the two young women, and Andrea nursed her friend back to mental health during a week on Crete. They did not return to the States until a few days before the opening of school.
Wenham seemed a little draggy as they began their fourth year there, and both were overwhelmed with the sense of I’ve been here before. They even kept their rooms from the previous year, and the contemplation of senior theses was a thrill they might easily have done without. Marsha had tentatively decided to go on to graduate school in mathematics, and Andrea had tentatively decided not to—but they were intent on remaining together after graduation and had already quizzed Joanna on the availability and price of apartments on Beacon Hill.
Andrea was a woman now. She had never been immature, and two summers in Europe—where men had treated her as a fully independent entity—had “finished” her nicely. The short-term, but intense affairs and repeated proposals of marriage had provided her with a certain self-confidence not shared by Wenham women who had spent their summers interning at publishing houses or lying on the beaches of Maine and South Carolina.
Then, on the evening before Andrea was to return to Weston for the Thanksgiving holidays, Marsha appeared at the door of Andrea’s room with an incredulous smile on her face.
“There’s a call for you—guess who’s downstairs?”
Andrea shook her head: “I’ve no idea. Gloria Vanderbilt? Betty Grable’s ghost?”
“That’s three guesses. Nope. It’s Jack Jerkoff.”
It was Andrea’s turn to look incredulous. Then both women laughed.
“God,” said Andrea, “that’s ballsy.”
“So,” said Marsha, “what’s it going to be after all this time? Something between castration and a pardon signed by the governor, I suppose.”
Andrea lit a cigarette and moved to the window. It was slightly open to counteract a too zealous radiator. “What in the world would possess him to come back here now? Maybe I owe him for some grass.”
“Probably he’s horny. He probably thinks you’re the same easy lay you were two years ago.”
Andrea laughed. “Strike easy, read naive. God, that was a long time ago, wasn’t it! Seems as if I must have had pigtails and freckles.”
It had been a year and a half since she had last seen Jack. In the months immediately succeeding their breakup she had thought of him with anger and shame. Now she only wondered that she had ever allowed herself to become involved with such a man. Yet it was odd that he was still important in her imagination—he had become part of her personal mythology—it was his face she often conjured at orgasm. The image of his sweaty, straining face and body taut with desire had never left her, although now it was quite divorced from what she remembered of Jack the man. In her subconscious, Andrea had preserved the physical husk of the man and simply discarded the rotten interior. Whenever she found herself making love with an uninspired and uninspiring partner, she turned her thoughts to Jack and got through it. As soon as he had served his purpose in this way, Jack evaporated, and did not reappear until he was needed again.
“Andrea!”
She turned from the window.
“Well you can’t just leave him down there. Are you going to talk to him or not?”
“Why not?” she shrugged. “What harm can it do? Besides, I want to know if he’s lost his looks yet or not.”
He hadn’t. He stood beneath the yellow light of the vestibule, smoking a cigarette. The lines in his face were more pronounced, but Andrea thought that these gave him a bit of character that he’d lacked before—or perhaps it was just that she was even more accustomed now to older men.
Jack smiled, his eyes bright and liquid. Seeing how the girl on reception hung forward over the desk, ogling him, Andrea said, “Let’s go outside.” She pushed open the door, and Jack stepped out behind her.
He leaned against the brick balustrade and flicked his cigarette across the dark lawn, leaving a little arc of orange sparks in the crisp night air. He jerked his head about and looked at Andrea. In the half-light his expression was soft, and she could read nothing in it.
“You’re flying,” she said finally, and with evident disapproval.
Jack shrugged. “A little, not much. Want to check my arm for tracks?”
Andrea said nothing. She was trying to determine what she felt, but in fact she felt nothing at all.
“It’s been a long time,” said Jack, a little uncomfortably.
“I guess it has.”
“More’n a year.”
“More than ‘more than a year.’ ”
“You been all right? You look great.”
“I’ve been fine. Jack, what do you want?”
“I have to see some friends in Dedham, and I thought that as long as I was in the neighborhood . . .”
“You’ve played this tape before.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“ ‘More’n a year,’ ” she said, but the mockery was spiritless. She leaned against the balustrade beside him and crossed her arms. “You remember my friend Marsha?”
“No.”
“It doesn’t matter, but Marsha says that a woman doesn’t fall in love with a man like you.”
“Yeah? Is that what Marsha says?”
“Yeah, that’s what she says.”
His eyes were playful again as he gazed at her. Andrea realized that the picture she had kept of Jack in her mind had become distorted—she had forgotten how darkly handsome he was.
“So what do you do with a man like me?”
“You ball him and have a good time.”
Jack laughed. “Marsha knows what she’s talking about.”
“I guess so.”
Jack slid his arm about her waist. “I think we could work that in—if you want to. No strings, just a good time.”
Andrea laughed. “You are arrogant.”
He nodded. “You can say no. Your decision. It’d be nice for old times’ sake.” He pulled her close, and Andrea pulled back; his hand was hot against her hip, and it slid over her buttocks. “I’ve thought about it lots of times.”
“It?”
“You.” He smiled easily. “Hey listen, why don’t you take a r
ide down to Dedham with me to my friends’ place? It’s a sort of pre-Thanksgiving celebration. I won’t be there long. Then you can decide if you want to see any more of me tonight. I’ll bring you right back here. You’ll be back here by ten o’clock, I promise.”
Andrea raised her brows skeptically. Jack touched his hand to his breast. “Promise,” he whispered.
“You’re out of your mind,” she whispered.
“Oh sure, I know it,” he replied. “But so are you.”
“Yeah, I guess I am. I think about it too, every now and again,” she added, with sarcasm. She looked across the lawn to the street, “isn’t a little cold for the cycle?”
26
Jack’s friends lived in a small two-story house in a wooded area between the Route 128 Dedham exit and the Dedham Country and Polo Club. Jack had wanted to drive down Route 128, but Andrea begged him not to: it was too large a highway, and at the speeds he would be travelling, she was certain she would arrive frozen. Jack acquiesced, and they travelled along secondary roads; but Andrea was still frozen.
Andrea hopped off the Harley at the end of the driveway, and Jack spun the cycle farther up and leaned it against a small shed. The Jamaica Plain jeep was parked beneath a great oak. Another vehicle, a rust-damaged Buick, was in the curve of the gravel drive near the front entrance of the house. The tires had been removed, and the car was supported by cinder blocks.
The house itself was little more than a cottage; probably it had been a summer home to some Beacon Hill family at the turn of the century. There was a kind of opulent rusticity in the design. Two sagging wooden steps led up to the front door. The flanking windows were lighted behind drawn manila shades. By this dim illumination, Andrea could see that the porch badly wanted painting and that the house itself was covered in the cheapest kind of aluminum siding. Three green plastic trash bags, their contents spilling out of split seams, were piled to one side. Andrea was certain that Jack had come here only on a drug run, and that at most they would spend an hour here; she hoped most of that hour would be ticked off in one of the upstairs bedrooms. She looked over at him. My holiday gift to myself, she thought. It was curiosity that had brought her—curiosity to know what sex would be like with him after so long a time. Emotionally, she felt nothing for the man, she was certain of that—but she wondered how her body would respond to him now.
She stood on the front porch and turned to face the road. No other habitation was visible, and the lone street lamp was masked by an intervening cedar. The forest of gnarled, bare trees with the cold wind singing through the brittle branches made her think that she would never be comfortable or warm again. The moonlight was pale and frigid. Behind her and the house, she could just make out the rumble of traffic on distant Route 128.
They had smoked a joint outside Wordsworth Hall before taking off, and Andrea felt its effects course through her body. She was glad to be bolstered against this evening and this place by some kind of drug.
“Come on,” said Jack. He had pushed the door open and was silhouetted by garish white light. Andrea stepped inside behind him.
The interior of the house was worse than she had expected. An exposed ceiling fixture with two hundred-watt bulbs showed a multitude of cracks and chips in the mint green walls of the long narrow entry way. At the far end, a cheap beaded curtain was hung before the enclosed a stairway leading to the second floor. Jack preceded her into the small living room just to the right.
Here Rita and Sid sat cross-legged on the bare linoleum floor before a large space heater, while Morgie and Dominic were sprawled at opposite ends of a daybed shoved into one corner. On a sagging sofa against the opposite wall lay a man and woman whom Andrea didn’t know. Their heads were propped against either end, and their feet shoved in one another’s faces. The radio played New Wave.
Jack threw himself onto the daybed between Morgie and Dominic. Now there was nowhere for Andrea to sit.
“Marty and Donna-Louise,” said Jack, pointing to the sofa.
They were four couples in that room, Andrea suddenly saw, and she was made uneasy by the thought that perhaps she had been selected as Jack’s date for an orgy.
“Good evening, all,” said Andrea. Marty picked up Donna-Louise’s feet and waved them; and this did for greeting for both.
Andrea seated herself next to Rita and tried to warm herself at the heater; but at once she was too hot on one side, and chilled to her spine at her back. She tried to make out the conversation behind her, but it was low and inarticulate. Sid ignored her altogether, but Rita stirred herself to make brief conversation, asking how Andrea had been and what she had been doing. Andrea made her replies as brief as possible. Dominic gave her the once-over, and Morgie grinned and winked.
Out of the corner of her eye she watched Jack rise, go over to the sofa, and drop on Donna-Louise’s crotch two handfuls of manila packets secured with thick rubber bands.
“This is more than last time,” said Marty.
“I know. You got rid of the last so quick, I thought you could do with more. Might save me a trip.”
“You’re always welcome here,” replied the kind host.
“How long will it take you to get rid of this?”
“You can come again a week from Friday.”
“That long?”
“Look,” said Donna-Louise, “it’s the holiday, everybody goes home to fucking Mommy.”
“They won’t be back till Monday,” said Marty.
“You mean it’s college students buying heroin?” asked Andrea with an incredulous laugh.
Rita touched Andrea’s thigh, and shook her head. “Shhh!” she said.
“Yeah, shut up, you stupid bitch!” growled Sid.
“Fuck you,” shrugged Andrea.
“Who the fuck is that creepola?” cried Donna-Louise, pointing savagely at Andrea.
“I hope at least she’s a good fuck,” said Marty.
“She is,” said Jack casually, and Andrea flushed with anger. “Did you get rid of everything I brought you last week?”
Marty nodded, and Donna-Louise reached down the front of her pants and drew out a thick stack of bills, folded in half and secured with a large paper clip.
She gave it to Jack, who shoved it into the front pocket of his jeans.
“That stuff you brought me Thursday—”
“Forty-eight grams,” said Jack.
“Yeah, I got rid of that in forty-eight hours, not bad, and they called me, I didn’t have to call them.”
Andrea stood. She was suddenly weak, and thought the radiating dry heat of the gas flame was making her ill. “Where’s the bathroom?” she asked, of no one in particular.
“Oh God, she’s gonna throw up!” cried Donna-Louise. “Point it away from me!” she screamed.
“You okay?” said Jack.
“It’s upstairs,” said Marty, “on your right.”
Andrea hurried through the beaded curtain and took the stairs two at a time to the second floor. She slapped at the walls with the palms of her hands as she climbed. At the top she found the bathroom door and fumbled for the switch on the outside; she couldn’t find it, and went on inside.
She eased the door shut, crossed to the window, unlatched it and pulled it creakily up. She stuck her head out and breathed deeply. From here she could see Route 128 in the distance, glowing slightly in the aggregate illumination of so many car headlights. The moon was dimmed by thin clouds. Below her was a slanting roof that shielded a small open porch that ran along the side of the cottage. Pieces of broken beer bottles littered it; she wondered what must have been the condition of the inhabitants of this house to have tossed beer bottles out the windows: then it occurred to her that in summer this would do very well for a sunroof in a yard that was completely shaded. She looked out over the yard, but could see only a sli
ce of the gravelled driveway and the right rear fender of the Buick. Then, hearing a noise, she leaned farther out the window. She glanced up the drive, and froze.
Two cars were parked at the end of the gravel drive. Across the side of one of them she could see “911 Police Dedham” painted in reflective silver. Andrea’s body seemed suddenly damp with perspiration. She drew back into the dark bathroom. The radio station downstairs had been changed, and loud rock music blared outside the closed door. The monotonous beat shook the bathroom floor, and Andrea felt so unsteady she was afraid she would collapse.
She went back to the window and peered out again. Two policemen with drawn guns trotted noiselessly in the grass along the side of the driveway. Andrea jerked her head back in, and they passed along toward the back of the house without looking up. She jumped up onto the low sill of the window and slipped out onto the roof, taking care not to step on the shards of colored glass. She crouched in the shadow of the eaves and stared uneasily at the sky: in a few moments the moon would come out from behind the clouds. She waited painfully, and watched three more policemen pass quickly from the parked cars to the front of the house; they stationed themselves well out of her sight.
She waited. The moon came out from behind the clouds, and she watched with horror as the sleeves of her white shirt captured the moonlight and flung it back; fortunately no policeman was near to catch its glimmer.
There was suddenly the sound of splintering wood from the back of the house, and the breaking of glass in the front. The women downstairs screamed, and the men shouted curses.
Andrea ran to the edge of the roof and leapt to the ground; she fell sprawling on her hands and knees. Without glancing back, and half expecting to be shot at, she raised herself and ran blindly into the forest, picking her way from one space of blackness to the next, always avoiding the moonlight.
Blood Rubies Page 19