They kiss again.… Again.… The wine tastes sweet on their sticky lips.… Sweet … how sweet to hold each other this way, to lean dizzily toward each other. Doubly sweet in the aftermath of a fight.
“Oh, Mitch …”
“Oh, Nina …”
Names whispered like icons … tokens … blessings. This is love, Nina thinks. This is love.
Chapter Nineteen
Swinging the racket Professor Lehman had lent her, Nina charged after the little blue ball. She wiped her forehead. She was sweating furiously, but Nicholas Lehman looked as cool and fresh as when they entered the court. He was wearing a red shirt and a red bandanna around his forehead. Very dashing. “Eye on the ball, Nina,” he called, “not the racket.”
“I know, I know,” she muttered between her teeth. It annoyed her that she wasn’t picking up this game faster. He stopped her as she started to swing overhand. “Wait. Not that way.” Standing behind her, he held her hand and simulated the stroke. “Lots of wrist and hit low, otherwise you lose power.”
They began again. He tapped the ball to the front wall. She returned it. He hit it back to her, and so on. He kept calling out encouraging remarks. “You’re doing it, Nina.… Good! … That’s the way.…” In her eagerness to make a shot, she ran full tilt into him. “Sorry. Sorry!” The contact excited and embarrassed her.
“No problem.” He steadied her. “Ready?” He hit the ball to the front wall. “Remember, hit it low, Nina.”
She swung and, for the first time, racket and ball made solid contact. Thwack! “Wow,” she said. “I think I did it right that time.”
“You sure did. That’s a great feeling, isn’t it?”
There was a loud knock on the court door. The next players claiming their time. “How do you feel?” Nicholas Lehman asked Nina as they walked off.
“My legs are a little wobbly. They feel like spaghetti or something.”
“Well, you’ll build up stamina.”
“I really appreciate your teaching me, Professor Leh—”
“Make it Nicholas,” he said. “We’re not in the classroom now.” He tugged one of her braids. “You did okay. You did fine.”
She took a long, hot shower and dressed slowly. As she left the gym a pale winter sun was going down behind the music building with its long churchy windows, and the bare black branches of maple trees were silhouetted against a silvery sky. She stopped for a moment to look at the sky. Her hair was damp, her cheeks still hot from the game. Then, hurrying, thinking about Mitch, she raised an imaginary racket and cocked her wrist. She would certainly brag a little to Mitch.
“Mitch?” She opened the door, toed Emmett in. “Back, baby. Hi, Mitch,” she yodeled, “I’m ho-oome.”
He came out of the kitchen. “Hi, where’ve you been?”
“Wait till you hear.” She dropped her knapsack.
“It’s late. I couldn’t figure out where you were. It’s your turn to make supper.”
“Oops.” In the kitchen Nina opened a can of tuna fish, tore apart a head of lettuce, and sliced a tomato. Bread, mayo, and cold baked beans from the night before. “Did you eat anything? Chow’s ready.” She set dishes on the table, shoving aside books and newspapers.
Emmett got up on his hind legs, pawing the edge of the table. He smelled the tuna fish.
“Nina, I’m going to lock him in the bathroom if you can’t control him.”
She pushed Emmett’s paws off the table. “Guess where I was.”
“Just tell me, will you? I’m not in the mood for games.”
“What’s the matter, Mitch?” She looked at him closely. “Are you okay?”
“Nina, you’re always here when I get home from work. I was worried.”
“Oh. I’m sorry! But you didn’t have to worry.”
“I can’t help it. You can’t just go dancing around these streets any old time of the night. It’s dark out and—”
She laughed at him and waved her fingers at her temples. “Boo!”
He didn’t laugh back. “I still don’t know where you were. Working?”
“Better than that! Playing racquetball. You should have seen me, Mitch. Professor Lehman said if I kept at it, I had the makings of a strong player.”
“You were playing with him?”
“Right! Remember he promised to teach me the game? I thought he forgot all about it, but he didn’t. Today, he said, did I still want to learn, and I said, Sure! Mitch, at first I was so klutzy! Then, just at the end, I really got it. I hit the ball right. Know what I mean? Smacko! I was so proud of myself. Mmm, I was wonderful!” She ran kisses up her arm.
“Christ, Nina, is everything funny to you? I was worried about you.”
“I’m sorry, Mitch; I really am. I didn’t think you’d worry.”
“Right. You didn’t think.”
“I said I was sorry.”
“You’re never late.”
“All right. For the last time, I’m sorry. Let’s not make a federal case out of this.”
“Oh, the hell with it.” He left the table.
She chewed a mouthful of baked beans. Ugh. Cold and hard and sicky sweet. She spit them out onto her plate. She’d come home in such a good mood, and now it was spoiled. Mitch had spoiled it. And why? What had she done? What crime had she committed? There he sat, in the big chair, turning the pages of a magazine as calmly as if he hadn’t whipped up this whole storm over nothing. She gave him an evil look. He turned another page, cleared his throat. Acted as if she weren’t even there. Nasty! She couldn’t stand the silence. “Let’s have it out,” she said, jumping up. “You’re jealous, aren’t you, Mitch? That’s what’s bugging you! Come on, Mitch, admit it! You weren’t worried about me! Just stupid jealous.”
“You’re screaming,” he said without looking up.
“Hell!” She knew that bit. She’d heard all about how in his family they never screamed. Well, they didn’t scream in her family, either, but they could make a little noise when the occasion demanded. She slapped one of their folding chairs together.
Mitch threw down the magazine. “Okay, Nina, okay.” He went to the closet and pulled on his jacket.
“What are you doing?”
“Going out. Obviously it’s not going to be very pleasant here.”
“Running away,” she accused. “Right? Running away! If we’re going to fight, let’s fight and get it over with.”
He went to the door. She ran after him, planted herself in front of him, blocking the door. “I don’t want you to go, Mitch. I want to have this out here and now. You’re jealous, and you don’t have any reason to be. It’s just plain unfair and stupid.”
“Will you cut out that jealous crap!” His mouth was tight, his brown eyes almost muddy with anger.
“Oh, but it’s true. You can’t stand that Nicholas—”
“Nicholas?”
Her face heated. “He said, since we weren’t in class, I should call him—”
“Nicholas!” Shoving her aside, he yanked open the door. Did he mean just to push her? To move her out of the way only enough to get to the door? He pushed hard—hard enough to be called a shove, and she fell back, smacking her head against the wall. Tears sprang to her eyes. Mitch went out, and Emmett, skulking around the door as usual, followed him. For an instant, stunned, Nina didn’t move.
Then, “Emmett!” she cried. “Come back here, Emmett.” Hearing her voice, he flattened himself to the floor. Nina ran into the hall and scraped him up; he hung in her arms, resigned dead weight.
In the apartment, she went to the window and looked down into the street. A car spun its tires in the snow. The pink neon light from the record shop blinked hypnotically. Mitch was nowhere in sight. She turned away from the window. God, how depressing the room was with the bed unmade, clothes piled everywhere, and the table covered with books and half-eaten food. The back of her head began to ache.
She sat down with her books to study, but she couldn’t concentrate. One summer, yea
rs ago, after a picnic at Cranberry Lake, her father had bought everyone presents. A green, sweet-smelling pillow for her mother with “I Pine for You and Balsam, Too,” stitched on it in white; toy hatchets for the little boys, Ranger Rick hats for the big ones; and a birch bark canoe for her and Nancy. At home they had tied ribbons around two twigs, named them Fancy and Fina, and sent the brave girl explorers off in the canoe to paddle through tidal waves, whirlpools, and tropical storms they whipped up in the bathtub. Fancy and Fina to the rescue of shipwrecked sailors and ladies endangered by ferocious crocodiles.
One day as they knelt in front of the tub, the canoe sprang a leak and sank. Nina, amazed and furious, had cried, “It was supposed to float forever!”
Now Nina imagined herself and Mitch in that canoe. Was water already seeping in? Were they in danger of sinking? Or were they already sunk? Was that what tonight’s fight meant? But they’d fought before, plenty of times. And made up every time. What was different about tonight? Two things. One—Mitch’s shoving her. Again she touched the back of her head. It wasn’t that he’d hurt her so much. What hurt more than her head was the way he’d walked out. And that was the second different thing—that he’d run away from their fight instead of entering into it.
“Damn it, Mitch, come back!” she said suddenly in such a loud voice that Emmett scooted under a chair.
When he did return about an hour later, Nina was in bed, studying.
“Hello,” he said, taking off his jacket.
“Hello.”
They eyed each other. He glanced at the remains of food on the table. “It was your turn to clean up,” Nina said.
“Oops.” He grinned hopefully at her.
Hard to resist that, but she worked at it.
He sat down at the foot of the bed, pushing his hands through his hair, which had mostly grown in again. “I found out today that I might get laid off the job. They’re short of work right now, and I’m one of the newest workers. Low man on the totem pole.” He fiddled with the edge of the blanket. “I guess that’s why I was so jumpy tonight. I was going to tell you about it, and then you didn’t come home and—”
“I’m very sorry to hear you might be laid off.”
“Sarcasm?”
“Can’t I say anything without—”
“Well, you sounded sort of sarcastic. You didn’t sound sorry.”
Nina looked at him neutrally. “You’re not actually laid off?”
“No, it was just … All the guys were talking about it, and—”
“You get jumpy real easily.”
“Now, that was sarcasm.”
She shrugged. They looked at each other.
“How about kissing and making up?” he said, leaning toward her.
She drew back slightly. “You know, you shoved me. I hit my head on the wall. You shoved me pretty hard.”
He looked down. “Does it hurt?”
“Yes…”
“Much? Where? Here—?” He touched the back of her head.
“Ouch!”
“It hurts that much?”
“You think I’m making it up? And something else—Emmett almost got out!”
“You got him back, all right, though.”
“No thanks to you.… Mitch, I don’t like your jealousy. That was it, wasn’t it? Not the job, really. Just jealousy.”
He was looking more and more miserable. “I’m sorry, Nina,” he said in a low voice.
She grabbed the blanket in both hands. No satisfaction in this! “Listen, let’s just forget it, okay? You’re sorry. I’m sorry. So we’re even!” Her throat tightened. It was a lot easier to be angry when it was clear he was at fault, but with him standing there looking abject … And she heard how she sounded—bitchy, mean, ungenerously not letting him make up with her. “Maybe we’ll both feel better in the morning,” she said, sliding down under the covers. Damn. She didn’t want to cry.
“Are you coming to bed?” she said in a stiff, hoarse voice.
He dropped his clothes, shut the lights, and crawled in next to her. After a long time of lying very still and being careful not to let her arm or leg touch his, she sighed deeply. At once he said, “Are you sleeping?”
“No.”
“Sleepy?”
“I don’t know. No.…”
“Thinking?”
“A little…”
“What are you thinking about?”
She sighed again and said in a muffled voice, “Not much. Just feeling sad mostly.”
“About us?”
“Mmm.…”
Another silence. Then he said, “Want me to tell you a story?”
“A story?”
“Funny story. It’ll make you laugh.”
“I wish something would.”
He leaned on his elbow, his face above hers. “Okay, there were three male ants and one female ant stuck in a jar. The first male ant says to the female ant, ‘Wanna get out of this jar?’ So she says, ‘I sure do, but I don’t know how.’ ‘Well,’ he says, ‘sleep with me tonight, and I’ll tell you how in the morning.’ But in the morning he’s gone, and she’s still stuck in the jar. So the second male ant says, ‘Want to get out of this joint?’ And she says, ‘Yes! But I don’t know how.’ And he says, ‘Well, look, sleep with me tonight, and I’ll tell you how in the morning.’ So she does. But comes the morning, and he’s gone, too, and she’s still in the jar. Well, along comes the third male ant, and the same thing happens all over again. It’s morning and all three male ants are gone, and there she is, still in the jar.”
“That’s very interesting,” Nina said. “Sort of true to life. But funny?”
“I’m not through yet.” His face in the light from the street was brighter, the drawn look gone. “Patience, please. Anyway, as I said, all three male ants are gone, and she’s stuck in the jar. But … the next morning, she’s gone, too! Want to know how she got out?”
“Okay, I bite. How’d she get out?”
He paused for a moment, then said, “Sleep with me tonight, and I’ll tell you in the morning.” Nina bit back a smile. “Aha, that’s funny, isn’t it?” Mitch said.
“Cute,” she admitted.
“Funny.”
“Well …”
“Come on, Ms. Bloom Bloom, where’s your sense of humor?”
“Okay, funny.”
“Mean it?”
“Yes, you dog!”
Mitch winced. “Do you hate me? Do you hate me for what I did, Nina?”
“No, I don’t hate you.”
“Do you like me?”
“Mmm … usually.”
“How about right now?”
“Well … I like you more than I did five minutes ago.”
“Nina …” Tentatively, he kissed her. Then kissed her again. In a moment he said, “Are we okay now?”
She held him tightly. She was crying. How crazy to cry now when they were making up. She couldn’t stop. Held him and cried … cried and cried and cried.
Chapter Twenty
“You had change yesterday,” Mitch said.
“I must have spent it all.” Nina checked her pockets again. Usually the Laundromat was full on Saturday morning, but they had come in early, and it was empty except for them. “I’ll go across the street and get change in the Record Shack.”
“All those stores are closed until ten,” Mitch said. Did he have to look so morose? Not having change wasn’t exactly the end of the world. “I told Kenny we’d meet at the gym at nine thirty.”
“You can meet Kenny. I’ll do the laundry.”
“We should have had change with us.”
He didn’t say it was her fault, but that was what she heard in his voice. Why was it her responsibility? He could have saved his quarters. With an effort she held her tongue. All week he’d been teetering on the edge of a mood. Waking up in the morning and staring at the ceiling, rubbing his cheek, rubbing and rubbing as if he were intent on rubbing off a layer of skin. “You realize it’s March?�
� she’d said this morning. “Winter’s almost over. Yay! Yay!”
He’d smiled, but it was a forced little smile. “Mitch”—she had leaned up on her elbow—“is something bothering you?”
He shook his head.
“You’re so quiet lately,” she persisted.
“No … not really. Just thinking about things.” And he got out of bed and went into the bathroom. Shut the door to the bathroom. Shut the door on her, as well. Thinking about things? Well, maybe … but, if so, it was at least partially to find stuff to pick on about her. The other day it had been her old gray cords that she’d had forever. “How come you wear such baggy pants?” he asked. They were her most comfortable pants, but she changed to another pair. Maybe she was making a mistake being so obliging. The next day it was something else—the sugar she used in her coffee.
“You just dump it in, Nina. You’re giving yourself a sugar high. Which means you’ve got to come down, maybe crash. That low feeling in the middle of the day.… Why don’t you try drinking your coffee black?”
As if he didn’t eat a glazed doughnut almost every single morning. “I’ll try to take less,” she said shortly. She liked her coffee sweet.
Then there’d been the business with the tights. Well, in that case he hadn’t exactly dumped on her. Or should she say dripped? What happened was that, as usual, in the evening she’d washed out her tights, a new deep-purple pair, and hung them over the shower bar to dry. Two minutes later Mitch was in the bathroom, muttering about fixing the leaky cold water faucet in the tub. It had been leaking for weeks, and nobody, including the super, including Mitch, had seemed to care. But suddenly he had to stop that faucet from dripping. Now. This minute. “I’m sick of hearing the blasted thing drip drip drip.”
He sat down on the rim of the tub right underneath her dripping wet tights. Naturally they dripped on him. What a cry he let out! As if he’d been wounded instead of merely wetted. “Oh, Mitch.” Nina’s sympathy lasted only a second. Streaks of purple dye streamed down his cheeks. She started to laugh. The wrong thing to do!
“Damn it, Nina … your stupid tights … could have told me.… Blah blah blah.…” His cheeks swelled, his eyes were moist, his lips puffed out. He reminded Nina of a huge baby in jeans and work boots having a little tantrum. An unfortunate image—it made her laugh harder.
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