Me and Mom Fall for Spencer (13 page)

“You
baking?”
I
can smell it, but I ask anyway.

“You know I am.”

“Alright.”

It’s a relief to know the wheel has
turned and she’s coming out of the black hole.

I don’t know if Merle told her. If he
did, he told her first and that bothers me. If he didn’t…I want to…tell her. But
then it’s not mine to pass along. So I stand there.

“What?” she says and I know she wants me
to leave because she’s only in the mood for people sometimes.

“You ever feel stuck?” I ask.

“What?”

She’s watching her sci-fi.

“When do you want to start cutting
pumpkins?” I ask instead.

“I don’t know. Not for Wednesday.
Maybe Friday.”

I leave then.

 
As
I walk down
Cyro’s
side of the street, I make sure to
pay attention but my heart feels heavy, my feet too. When I get to
Cyro’s
I notice how much better the window looks with some
of the grime off and the white backs of the new drapes, but I haven’t quite
gotten them closed in the middle and a thin slice of
Cyro’s
life is right there. It’s dark but for the blue light of the television
flickering, and I picture him sitting there, eyes glazed over as he watches the
big box, mice sitting around and on his sandwich, whiskers twitching as they
chew. I have to go back in there tomorrow.

I have to. He’s drowning.

Across the street I already know Spencer
is still on his porch. Ned has tried to bark, but I hear Spencer fussing at
him.

I keep going.

I go to the end of the street, cross and
come back up. When I get home I can see Mom is gone. Spencer approaches. He has
Ned on the leash from the shelter. “Sarah.”

I stop at my gate and let him get
closer.

“You think he could hang with you
tonight? I was going to hitch a ride to the
Longbranch
.”

I’m not in the mood to hear this. I take
the leash.

“You want to come?” he says.

I clear my throat. Like…ahem. “I have
better things to do.” I hold his gaze for a minute. I want to ask him why he’s
going, but I don’t. It’s not my business. Now he’ll be hung over. He won’t be
there to help me with
Cyro’s
. I don’t care. Some
other lonely sucker will grind all over him while the juke box plays. Shit, I
hope it’s not Mom.

Really, since when do I need him or
anybody? Let them all leave, go their own ways.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

I take the leash, or try to. I’m holding
it under his hand. He won’t let go.

“Okay,” I say, releasing it. “I have
work
to do.” I push my gate.

“Wait a minute.” His hand is on my arm.
“I like Ned. I do want him back.”

I pull my arm away. “Then give me the
leash. I have to go, Spencer.”

“Sarah, I just want to have a beer. Is
that what’s bugging you?”

“No,” I protest too strongly. I grab the
leash and walk Ned to my house.

“I’ll get him in the morning then?”

I ignore Spencer and go in.

I unhitch the leash and enter the
kitchen to make Ned a bowl of water. King’s dishes are still in the panty and I
get his bowl and refuse to get sentimental about it. I can still feel Spencer standing
in front of the house. I’m sure he’s not there, but I imagine he is outside
just staring. Well what does he expect? I’m tired.

I gather all of the stuff I want to take
upstairs and Ned follows me up, and his quick sloppy steps are nothing like King’s
well-coordinated ones had been, until the end that is. So we go in my room and
I turn on the lights and close the door. I plop on the bed and Ned comes right
up with me. I never let King on my bed, but if Ned wants to flop there, it’s
perfect. I don’t know
it’s
coming. I’m numb actually,
but next thing I know I’ve fallen on Ned and I’m hanging on to him and crying
my eyes out. I go whole years and don’t cry, so this is ridiculous.
But Merle and Pearlie.
I won’t see them.
Their
house…the light in the window.
Merle and his quiet
patience.
I need him. I need Pearlie’s flaming red torch. I just…need.

And I’m crying so hard I only think I
imagine the first pecks…on the glass.

I scream out, holy shit and fall off my
bed onto my ass and I’m peeking over the bed to my window. All I can think is
someone is there, and that’s so wrong I can barely let it register…
it’s
Spencer.

What in the world?

Ned is already there nearly tearing down
my curtains. Spencer is trying to fuss at him to behave, and I’m on my feet and
this is too much and I charge there, and Ned stands down and I lift the glass. Spencer
is standing on the back porch roof. “Hey…it’s me.”

“You scared me!” I say. “I have so much
to do and you’re horsing around?”

Ned is glad to see him, and he’s telling
Ned not to bust out the screen. “Sarah, can I climb in?”

“Are you nuts?”

“Yeah.
Can I?”

There’s so much I could say, but I
unhook the screen and stand back while he fights off Ned and climbs in.

“Not too cool, huh?” he says, still
petting Ned.

I don’t feel any responsibility to disagree
with that.

“But you’ve been crying,” he says. He
takes a step toward me, a hand…I stare at the hand. “What’s the matter? Is it
me? Did you want me to go? I can stay….”

I sniff and hurry to my dresser for a
Kleenex and wipe everything dripping.

He’s behind me in the mirror. It’s just
shocking.

His hand is on my arm again. Whenever he
touches me I have to work not to stare at his hand on me.

“No,” I finally say. I’m not ready to
tell about Merle and Pearlie. I couldn’t.

“What is it?”

I look at him in the mirror. “I don’t
know.” But I do. But I don’t.

“Hey…is there any place to go swimming around
here?”

I am staring at him. What is this?

“At the park, where we…at the lake
there,” I say.

“Let’s do it. Let’s take a swim in the
dark. Wouldn’t it feel good?”

“The park closes at sundown.”

“Yeah?
So what? Ned wants to swim.”

I have so much work to do. I haven’t
opened that file. “I can’t….”

“Oh come on. You can. You really can.”
Ten years drop off of him. He has this beggar’s face.

“Just for an hour, then you go home and
take Ned.”

He’s making the sign of the cross over
his heart.

I send him downstairs so I can put on my
suit under my clothes. I put my shirt and shorts back on because I’m not
explaining the scar and I know he’s seen me in my underwear, but I have to keep
something between us because for a girl who is stuck the current is so strong
against my legs I could topple if I don’t get
ahold
of myself and be careful.

What am I doing? What am I doing?

I grab a couple of towels and in as many
minutes we’re in the truck on this fool’s errand while my work gets stood up
once again.

We don’t say much. Every now and then an
on-coming car breezes past, its lights cutting a slash over us like God has
lifted the blinds and taken a look so he can shake his head and drop us back
into the darkness…shit!

Even Ned is subdued as he rides with his
head out Spencer’s window.

I have my hair in a braid and Spencer
has reached over to dig this out of its resting place between my back and the
seat. He’s holding this and moving his fingers over the ends.

Every now and then he ganders at me for
too long, and I shoot him a quick look and he smiles and turns away like a
middle school girl.

Once we get there he peels off his shirt
and tosses it in the cab, and he’s not a middle-school girl, oh he’s not anything
but magnetic.

He has kicked off his shoes.

Ned runs free, and that makes me nervous
and Spencer says, “He’s alright. He knows his meal ticket now.”

He takes my hand as we head to the
water. We get there he says, “Take off your shirt at least, Sullivan. I did.”

But I’m not going to do that. I have the
towels and I
toe
off my shoes and lay the towels
there and Ned barrels between us and splashes into the water.

The lake has a sandy bottom here. It
feels good on my feet. I’m a disgusting mess, and it’s so pretty here and
there’s a breeze. Ned paddles around and we laugh but we don’t whoop it up. Spencer
goes out and disappears and resurfaces. “Come out further,” he says quiet,
cause
you can hear easily here.

I see his slick head, and I feel his
eyes. I go back on the shore and take off my shorts. But I leave the shirt on. He
watches me, but it’s alright. I’m not shy and I don’t know why.

I get in the water, but I’m not girlish
about it. I just go in, dip in deeper and swim toward him. Ned wants to go
further out to reach us, but he gets to us, circles around and swims back for
the shore. He staggers out and shakes off and the water in the moonlight sprays
off of him.

“Feel better?” Spencer asks, treading
water.

I do. I feel better. Not great, but this
is good.

“Float on your back,” he says. I do, and
his hands are under me, and we move toward the shore and he stands and moves me
in a big circle. I close my eyes, but not for long. I look at the murky sky,
the sheer clouds that move quickly over the stars. Time…
moving…
everything…alive.

I look at Spencer. He is so beautiful,
hair slicked back, arms strong, hands against me, holding me now, the way one
holds a child, the way
Cyro
held me when I was ten. He
cradles me and he moves me through the water and he’s looking at me, and he’s
near, I put my hand over his heart because maybe everyone is leaving and maybe
I want something…for me.

He gathers me closer still, he’s holding
me there. “Swear to God I tried to leave you,” he says. “I got as far as
Merle’s and I couldn’t take another step. It’s like you had me by the suspenders
and I just snapped back. I came to your window.”

I take in a breath and it’s loud and
shaky.

“You cold?” he says.

I’m not cold.

He starts to sing, barely moving his
lips, and he’s looking at me and we’re too close for it to be right and easy to
walk away from, like it never happened.

I don’t know why I want to cry again. It’s
sweet, what’s happening, but it spears me with something so sad.

He lets me cry a little. But I never get
going. I won’t let myself.

“What’s the matter?” he finally says,
but I don’t want to talk, so he sings a little more, and it’s low and he’s
watching me the whole time.

Once we get out, and maybe we never
would if Ned hadn’t started to bark at something. So once we’re out he’s
holding my hand, and on shore, he turns me and I’m looking at him, and he takes
the edges of my T-shirt, and I let him take it off. And his eyes go right
there, to the place I’m marked above the swell of my suit top.

“Sarah,” he whispers, his finger running
in the shallow, gentle, and his eyes, “Sarah.”

I know it might be ugly…to him…to
anyone. But it’s mine, and my definition of ugly is different from most peoples.

“Baby,” he says, and he’s waiting maybe,
I don’t know. He looks from it to me again and again, and he’s touching it the
whole time.

I take my shirt from him and put it back
on. I pull my braid free and pick up the towels and hand him one. He takes that
and I wrap mine around my hips, then reach for my shorts and my shoes and I nod
we should head for the truck, and I move because we can’t stand here all night.

Maybe he thinks about the towel in his
hand. He rubs it over his chest as he follows.

Me and Mom Fall for
Spencer

Chapter Twenty

In the truck on the ride home we are
quiet. Ned is drowsy, sitting on the floor between Spencer’s legs.

Spencer has a hand on Ned, a hand on my
shoulder.

I want to remind him…no pity. I want to
say that, but of course I don’t.

“I know it’s yours…but it’s not cancer?”
he says finally.

“No,” I say. Not breast cancer. He knows
this. He’s just circling. He’s waiting for more.

“Are you going to say?” he asks.

I look at him briefly, shake my head.

“It’s a wound. It’s a bullet,” he says,
“or a knife.”

People get mad at other people’s wounds when
they love them…or think they do. I want to remind him again…no pity. Pity is
the cheapest form of love. And I’d welcome his indifference over that.

So we drive quiet, his hand on my
shoulder…there’s nothing else but the way he touches me now. He holds on to me.
What I know, he understands. I think he does.

When we get home, wet and tired, he
comes around to my side. I am stepping into my shorts. He watches. “You’re
twenty-seven, right?”

I pull my shirt over my shorts, leaving
them undone.

“Come home with me. I want to hold you.
Like in the water.”

“Why?” But I know why…some of it. It’s
not right. And it’s not wrong. It’s me…it’s him. He’s telling the truth. I felt
it back there, his arms, his hands…I felt it. I slam the truck’s door.

“I haven’t held anyone for a long
time…kept someone afloat,” he says.

“You mean me?” He’s keeping me afloat?

“Come on.”

“To have sex?”

He laughs a little.

“I have to know,” I say because logic is
surfacing. But logic doesn’t work here. There is no logic for swimming at
night, letting him see…when I hardly know him…when he lives next door, when I
have so much to do. There is no logic I recognize here.

“To hold you,” he repeats. He goes back
to his side and lets Ned out. He slams the door. “Come on,” he says.

I can’t see it, but I know Ned’s leash
is wrapped around his hand.

I put on my shoes. I look at the house. She
isn’t home yet. It’s getting late…for a teacher’s…aid. Spencer stood them
up…Mom…the others…and she stayed and tied one on. She showed him…maybe me.
Mom.

“I’m twenty-seven,” I say.

He’s just waiting, maybe too wise to say
anything more.

I move toward him and Ned.

“Hold my hand?” he asks.

I reach for him and his fingers close
over mine.

His house is dark except for a light in
the living room.

“Bedroom’s in there,” he says.

I nod. “I know.”

“Or the couch…if you’d
rather.”

“Bed’s fine.”

“You can take a shower,” he says.

“If I went home I could get some
things,” I say.

“What do you need?” he asks.

I look at my legs, grungy from the lake.
I need everything.
Or nothing.
I don’t know what I
need.

He is nervous I think. I’m not. I know I
should be. I am worried about my work. “I need my laptop.”

“If you go over there and she comes….”

“I need it. I have to work some before I
sleep.”

“I’ll get it while you shower. I’ll get
everything.”

“Spencer…what is this? I’m going home.”

“Well yeah. Whatever….”

“I’ll be back, I promise.”

“Shit,” he rubs over his face, “I got no
game.” He laughs a little, but it’s lame.

I start to leave.

“Just come in,” he calls. “I’ll shower
then. Just come in…when you’re done…over there. Sarah.”

I don’t answer. When I’m outside,
walking away, I don’t want to be. I look over at
Cyro’s
.
Behind the new drapes…nothing has changed.

Once in my house, I run upstairs. First
thing, I shower and shampoo my hair. I throw on a tee-shirt, underwear and
sleep shorts. I brush my teeth and put lotion on my face. It’s my one effort at
beauty. In my room I brush out my hair, braid it tight and tie it off on the
end. I stick my feet in some soft shoes and pack up my laptop.

I’m going down the stairs when she gets
in, drunk. I knew I would run in to her.

“Where are you going?” she slurs.

“I’ll be down the street,” I say. I’ve
slept at
Leeanne’s
a couple of times when Merle was
recovering from open heart. I needed to be where Pearlie could get me quickly.

“Where?”

“
Leeanne’s
,” I
lie because she’s too drunk to argue with.

That’s all I say. I am out the door and
down the stairs and I hear her open the front door, but I’m already out of her line
of sight. I hurry to Spencer’s, and I’m in there quick, the door left open for
me just like he said.

Ned tries to jump on me, but Spencer is
in the doorway wearing a towel.
“Ned down.”

I stand there, clutching my bag.

“Come on back,” he says to me, walking
ahead.

I make sure the door is locked, then I
turn off the living room lamp and I follow Spencer back to Frieda’s old room.

He is wearing
these
knitted black underwear, and he is stepping in to some sleep pants that he
quickly snaps into place. They sit low on his hips. He switches on a sound
machine.
Crickets.

“Make
yourself
at home,” he says.

I have slept in here many times, but I
don’t say. I just hope I don’t suffocate in here…get weird and wake up not
being able to breathe. It happens sometimes and for about ten minutes there’s
just no joy in the world.

But he switches on a small fan sitting
on the dresser. “Sorry, I have to have the noise. Make yourself comfortable. I’m
gonna
lock up.”
 

“This is….”

“What?” he says.

“It’s….” I’m laughing a little. What am
I doing?

“We can do what we want,” he says. He’s
smiling because it is almost funny.

“We’re having a sleep-over.”

“Yeah.
Whatever you want to call it.
I think I’ve been going
to great lengths….”

“Why? I…I can’t own this. I live here.”

“So do
I
.”

“It’s not the same Spencer. I’ve lived
here all of my life.”

“It’s not the stone ages, Sarah. Your
life belongs to you.”

“Really?
I’ve…never thought of it that way. My life…is theirs. It belongs to all of
them.”

“What about me?”

“I’ve…you’re my friend. You said that.”

“Do you agree?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want more? You and I can have
something…different. We do have something different. I feel different about
you. Do you feel different about me?”

“Different than…?”

“…how you feel about Merle and Pearlie?”

He lifts his brows. He’s trying to be
comical, but he’s choosing his words very carefully.

“I like you…differently,” I practically
whisper.

“And I like you.
Very
much.”

I purse my lips so I don’t smile. “Thank
you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“What do you expect?” I say.

“This? You here right now? More than I
could have hoped for. Actually, are you real? Am I hallucinating?” He takes a
couple of steps toward me.

“Do you really feel that way?” I ask
sincerely. I can’t tell. What if he’s still joking? He is. He’s smiling.

“Yes,” he laughs. “I…I’ve written songs
about you.”

I nod and I have to look down. “I know.”

“You haven’t heard all of them.”

“I haven’t?”

“No. I haven’t either. There are new
ones….”

“The universe hasn’t yet written,” I
say.

He laughs, and flushes red.

I kick off my shoes and put my bag on
the floor by the bed and dig out my laptop, plug in my cord in case I need it
and I probably will. I am on top of the covers, back against the pillow propped
on the headboard, knees bent and my laptop resting on my stomach and thighs. I
spend hours in this position. He is still living out of a suitcase. It’s there,
open, rifled through.

“I’ll,” his hand flops, “lock up.”

I forget to move. I am still in the same
position when he comes back.

He closes the bedroom door, clicks the
lock on the knob. Ned trips along, coming over to lick my arm and see if he can
get in bed too.

“Ned, no,” Spencer says and Ned slinks
off and circles a pile of Spencer’s dirty clothes a couple of times and thuds
down.

Spencer gets in beside me, stretches on
his back, hands under his head. “Hey,” he says to me.

I smile at him, and I’m pulling up the
file now.

He turns on his side toward me, arm
under his pillow, the other hand lies very near me. I try to pay attention to
what Aaron has written. He’s thanking me for introducing him to Christine. Is he
crazy?

“You’re in my bed, Sullivan,” Spencer
says, his green eyes very clear in the soft light.

“I…can’t read if you talk to me.”

Then I go back to reading the same thing
three times and I still can’t figure out what Aaron’s talking about.

The hand that had been lying near me
moves and rests on my foot. Spencer takes hold of my ankle. “Tiny ankles,” he
sings softly instead of, “Tiny bubbles.”

When I ignore that he says “Your ankles
are skinny.
Delicate.”

I take a quick glance at him but his
attention is on my ankle or leg, I can’t tell. I stare at the screen and reread
my instructions.
At least the first sentence.
I reread
that again. God, he’s holding my leg.

“Are we going to look me over…my body
parts?” I say.

He laughs. “If you want me to…I’m
willing.”

The look on his face, it makes me laugh.
I pretend to get back to work.

“I have you…and Ned in here,” he says. “It’s
practically a crowd.”

He traces my calve muscle with his
pointer finger. Just to my knee and back down. My mouth is open.

“I like your legs,” he says.

“Spencer….”

He pulls his hand back. “Did you like it
in the water…when I held you?”

I can’t answer that. I can’t possibly.

“I did,” he goes on. He gets up on his
elbow, “Kiss me.
A goodnight kiss
.”

“Spencer…I’m not….”

“I know.
Just a kiss.”

“I don’t…kiss…people.”

“One little kiss goodnight and I’ll
leave you alone.”

“On the lips?”

“That’s one of my choices.”

I don’t even know what that means.
“Alright.
One kiss and….”

And there it
is,
a three inch gully above my breast, my heart.

“Sarah,” he whispers. He’s looking
there, and at me. Back and forth for a minute while he takes it in.

“It’s me. It’s…mine.”

He looks at my chest, the whole naked
thing.

He gets up, on his knees, and puts his
hand on the back of my head and he moves in slow, and licks his lips and I lick
mine, and he presses his warm mouth on mine, and I grip the sides of my laptop,
and I lift my face so he can get in there and get out, but once I feel his
tongue move over my lips, my hands spring up on their own and cup his face.

He moans, and I hear the lid of my laptop
shut when he moves up over me, and I can barely think, but he pulls me down some,
then gathers me in to him, his hand all the way to my ass and a hard squeeze there
and his face above me as he breathes in and kisses me with such all-out feeling
behind it, I let out a long low sound and my leg wraps around one of his, and
my hand moves over his back, against the smooth muscles that have made me want
him…want him.
 
I can’t get enough, get
close enough, move enough,
moan
enough.
 
I have both arms around him now, and my leg,
and with the other, raising myself, grinding into him, and he has his hand
shoved down my pants and I hear a rip even as he pushes at them and my
underwear, and he pulls at my shirt and I move anyway I can to help him free my
skin to his eyes and his touch and God his mouth, and he kisses my scar, runs
his tongue over the puckered gully, then over my nipples, and my stomach, and
he kisses me between my legs, right there, and I lift my ass and dig my hands
in his hair and dare to look at his head working over me there, his closed eyes
and his attention, he is lost as he licks me, as he devours me like he needs
me, like I am all there is, and
 
I pant
and respond to his soft relentless mouth, I come hard and I convulse, screaming
his name, I am wild, and he holds me to his face, and the wet shatter stretches
out long and powerful and he keeps going, gently endlessly moving his tongue
and I come again, on top of the first one, deeper in my body this time, and I
say his name on a whimper, a hot melt against his mouth, his tongue pressed
there and I make sounds, new sounds, broken in a new way, an old way,
God…God…oh God I am giving it to him…me.
 
I am giving him…me.