Me and Mom Fall for Spencer (16 page)

“Say it…whatever you’re thinking right
now
tell
me,” he says.

I’m looking at him.

“I’m Spencer,” he repeats, like he does
read my mind. “Everything that’s happened between us, every moment has been
real. Do you feel that way too or am I imagining more….”

We’ve been holding hands but now we’re
closer and we have our arms around each other.

“I don’t care what she says. I knew the
whole time she talked….”

“I swear I did not make a play for your
mother. God, that sounds so…wrong.”

“In future, let her fall on her ass,” I
say.

“Lawsuit,” he smirks and we laugh. “Sarah…why
is it like this with you two?”

“It’s just…one day…we were this.”

“You don’t have to tell me…I shouldn’t
have….”

“It’s okay. She…I had trouble in school.
I’m different.”

He seems to know. He’s listening so
intently.

“I’m smart…not boasting…just saying….”

He laughs and squeezes me a little.

“But in,” I take a big breath, “other
stuff…behind. I was. I…might still be…I don’t know.”

“Or care?” he laughs.

I smile and pinch his side. “Then my
dad. He….” I pull in a breath. No, I don’t want to bring him into this too. “Spencer,”
and I feel better calling him that because he’s told me Spencer is real and he
is, I’m holding him, “the thing is…I knew when she was talking…I knew…nothing
will get in the way of us. Not from me. I choose you. I want you.”

He stares. “Want me, want me?”

“Want you.”

“Like right now?”

“Like all the time.”

“You always want me?”

“Read my mind.”

I am quickly wearing a helmet made from
his hands. He closes his eyes.
“Oh…yeah.
You want me,
want me.”

I’m laughing and pretty soon he’s
holding me and we end up
laying
in the row, on the
hay there, in between the eggplant and the peppers with Ned snuffling over us
and Spencer pushing him away and trying to rebuke him but we’re kissing like
this, the sun going down and the bugs kicking up a song, stretching out our
limbs entangled, heartbeats banging out an enthusiastic rhythm. Are we in love?

“Spencer I’m sorry I didn’t make her
stop. I won’t do that again…let her go on.”

“You know she has to control herself,
right?”

“She has no boundaries.”

“Do you with her? Do you have some
limits? Where do you say that’s not okay?”

“A lot of what she does isn’t okay. I do
try to tell her.”

“I get the feeling, I’m just another way
she’s trying to hurt you. You didn’t come home…you got punished.”

Right on cue we hear the motorcycle pull
away. I picture her on it, her legs wrapped around Face. Why is she hurtful? Is
it really directed at me? She’s gone for Spencer twice now. Is he right about this?
Is she really after me?

“I’ve always just thought she was
protective,” I say.

“But what is she protecting?” he says.

Me and Mom Fall for
Spencer

Chapter Twenty-Four

“You need to be away from me,” Spencer
states once we finish picking the garden and stashing everything on my porch.

“Are you reading my mind?” I say. It’s
weird.

He laughs. “Like a book…a very thick
book written in Russian.”

“Russian?”

“Hard to understand…dark, dramatic themes
fringed in icicles.”

He stares at me for a minute. “You like
that.”

I do. This mind reading has got to stop
though.

Later, when I go past his house on
patrol he is on his porch. I flick my light at him and to my surprise he flicks
a light back. I do it again and so does he. I do it twice, he does it twice. I
laugh then. And what’s great--he hasn’t asked to walk with me and he doesn’t
follow.

The rental house is dark and creepy. But
Merle and Pearlie are upstairs and I signal three and Merle signals back and I
get choked thinking someday that light won’t be there.

At
Leeanne’s
I
get more aggressive. She doesn’t answer my knock, but I get the key and go in
and her little dogs yap.

I still have the smell of straw on my
clothes from lying in the garden with Spencer. I can smell this on me as I
stand near
Leeanne’s
bed looking down at her. She
hates for me to be this deep in. It’s her sanctuary, and I’m the invader, but I
never let that stop me, never have
cause
she’s a
rescue.

So I’m standing there, my flashlight
off, a cat curled near
Leeanne’s
head crabbing at me
to back off. “Maybe you could visit them sometimes,” I say.

“You know I won’t.” She’s curled there,
and her bare feet look so vulnerable.

I pinch her little toe. She claims it’s
the only little thing on her body. “Well…maybe we could go together.”

She looks at me. “You’re such a liar.”

“Maybe….”

“Cut it out or I’m going to throw my
clock at you.”

“You have to do the market. I have to
clean
Cyro’s
.”

“No. I’m not doing it.” She rolls on her
stomach and buries her face in the part of the pillow the cat isn’t on.

She’s hopeless when she’s like this, and
she’s this way more and more.

“What about the shelter?
The dogs?”

“It’s all in the kitchen.
Even wrapped.”

“Put it on the porch,” I say tiredly. I
never argue with a brick wall.
Unless it’s Mom.

Why does Spencer put up with me and my
crazy surround sounds? I am looking at him as he plays his guitar on this
Wednesday market morning. We are here, instead of
Leeanne
,
because
Leeanne
, the
homeschoolie
,
which is what we call each other instead of weirdo or moron, is still in bed.

So Spencer seemed happy to come to the
market. The Wednesday crowd is never as good as Saturday’s, but it’s usually a
fifty-sixty dollar day if
Leeanne
bakes. Well worth
our trouble.

With Spencer along we pull in another
thirty from his many ballads. And Ned being along doesn’t hurt. I am overjoyed
to hear a lady ask if Ned is adoptable and Spencer replies, “There are a lot of
good dogs at the shelter needing homes, but Ned is mine.”

“Ned’s yours?” I say to him as soon as
we’re in the truck.

He rubs Ned’s big head.
“Yeah.
He’s my people.”

I can’t help it. I’m crying sort of,
wiping wet eyes. “Spencer…?”

“Yes Sarah with the eyes like diamonds,”
he smiles, Beatles this time.

“I was wondering…well I think I’m ready
to bring Dusty home.”

“For real?” he says.
“Two
of these guys?”

I nod. I think so. “Ned misses them,” I
say.

“Them? Sarah, three would be insane,” he
says. But he’s smiling.

So we stop at the shelter and I give
Barb the money from the market and Spencer officially adopts Ned and I take
Dusty. Lucky is so sad and wild he sends up the worst wailing noise.

“Don’t worry,” Barb
tells
us. “I’ll put a couple of others in with him. He’ll adapt.

I look at Spencer but he’s saying, “Sarah
stop looking at him.” He means Lucky.

So Ned and Dusty are so excited to see
each other we have to let them run around in the outside pen for a while. Ned
is all worked up to be back here anyway. But Dusty filling his nose, well that
is almost too much for him it seems. We let them work some of it off while Barb
tells Spencer about the expansion plans.

The dogs are calmer on the ride home,
but all my ‘I
gotta’s
,” are piling and Spencer is
telling me he’s going to double coat
Cyro’s
living
room.

So once home he takes the dogs, puts
them in his yard. That frees me to make lunch. He knocks and comes inside and
helps me finish chopping. He stirs the rice and I put it together with the meat
and vegetables. We’re a pretty good team.

Generally, I don’t work in teams. I
guess I’ve believed that, but I realize now, that’s not true. I think then of
all the teammates I’ve had…Frieda,
Cyro
, Merle,
Leeanne
, Jason, yeah when it came to
Cyro
.
Maybe even Aaron.

Now Spencer.
I never realized…I’m not always alone.

But when I think of
Mom.
She and I are a team…right?

I don’t know if we ever were. Gosh,
truth has pierced my skull.

She came in late on the motorcycle, she
let Face come in, and he’d stayed until two. She didn’t usually do that. I know
she got too drunk. I should have gone down and made him leave. I’ve done that
before.

Spencer asked me if I had limits with
Mom. I said I tried to have them. Then I let this stranger stay in our house.
But I flip-flopped between being the rule setter and getting mad and giving up.

She let Face stay to hurt me. Spencer is
right. Mom hurts me. She does it on purpose. Why?

So I leave before she is up. And now, of
course, she is gone. Just last week I wanted her to watch TV with me.
Now?

I am letting go of her. I’ve been
hanging on, clinging to her. And I’m let go now.

But saving Mom is my job…right?

Saving her…saves me.
Right?
Is that what I’ve been doing—with Mom, and with all of them? Is that what I’m
doing with Spencer?

“Sullivan,” he says gently taking the
wooden spoon from me, “it’s stirred. It’s ready.” He turns off the heat.

He looks at me, smiles a little.

“What?” he says, pulling me close again.

“Nothing,” I say quietly. Everything, I
think.

“You like me,” he smirks.

“Stop…reading my mind,” I say.

Last night we did not get together, but
after I got home from patrol I asked if he’d do the market with me in the
morning and he said sure. So we parted then and he was by the truck when I went
down at four-thirty. He was smoking a cigarette and leaning there, Ned’s leash
in his hand.

But now, I have the lunch done and we
stand in the kitchen, and he holds me there and it is quiet except for Ned
barking at Dusty now and then, or the other way around. It is so quiet I hear
my cat clock ticking and I am counting the beats of Spencer’s heart. I like his
body so much, and the way he is available to me, for hugging, for touching, it
is the most incredible thing. He offers himself to me. I can breathe in his
shirt and his skin. I can look into his eyes…me.

“What’s the worst you’ve ever done because
you were angry?” I ask. Because I can’t imagine these hands that hold me, that
play music and take care of Ned and paint and pick vegetables, I can’t imagine
these dear hands hurting anyone.

He is quiet for just a minute then he
blurts a laugh. “Why are you…
that’s
a terrible
question.
Also a good one.”
Now he sounds like me.

He is thinking, and I am waiting and
listening to the thoughts roaming around in there.

“Any age?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“I once threw a rock…wait, I’m about
ten…I threw this rock and it hit my…this kid…he was standing in a wagon and
teasing me and I just threw the rock at him and it hit him and knocked him
clean out of the wagon. I ran up there and he was laying there with blood
pouring out of a gash on his head and he said, “Now you’ve done it, you killed
me.” And I ran off screaming, but I didn’t go for my Mom, I just went and hid
and told myself I didn’t do it.”

He laughs weakly but we don’t move
,
we keep holding one another.

“God,” he says, “I wonder if that’s
when…it started.”

“
You throwing
rocks at people’s heads?” I ask and I’m laughing a little, but then I’m not. I’m
quiet too. He’s not going to answer, I know he isn’t, but I already heard. He
wonders if that’s where it started—the running…the hiding…the pretending.

Or maybe not.
Maybe I’m wrong.

Me and Mom Fall for
Spencer

Chapter Twenty-five

That evening, after Spencer has spent
the afternoon putting the double coat on
Cyro’s
living room walls, Spencer and I clean the wood floor and move the furniture in
place. I estimate this room has not been this shiny since before
Cyro’s
wife Karen died in the nineties. We have not moved a
couple of things back in—an old chair and a rickety table. They are currently
on the curb with the trash. We’ve gotten rid of all the magazines and
newspapers. They are also on the curb. Does anyone need twenty-one-years’ worth
of
Ebony
? These had belonged to Karen, not
Cyro
.
I doubt he’d ever touched them since she died, and the ones that had come since
he is still piling.

I know we could have tried to sell them
on EBay but Spencer nixed it. “Do him a favor and get rid of them, Sullivan,”
he said. And I know Spencer parts easily with…things.

So some of these stacks
go with permission, some while
Cyro
isn’t looking,
while he is yelling at the television during the ballgame.
It looks so good in here we can’t stop staring and
Cyro
has not asked after a thing. Is he relieved? He might be.

I have already started cleaning the
kitchen. Spencer and I stand in there next trying to imagine a brave new world.
Spencer wonders if we should paint it yellow. “Your mom said that’s a good
color for kitchens,” he says. “And you did that cool ceiling.”

I blow a raspberry.
Cyro
likes it simple. Yellow might work.
Cyro
won’t care
until we do, then he’ll be full of advice and criticism until he sees the
change and his mouth gets stopped and he’s pointing out a drop of paint here or
there and saying, this don’t look too bad.

It’s been a long, good, productive day. Earlier
we separated Ned and Dusty. Ned is at home in Spencer’s yard. Dusty is in
Cyro’s
.

Since we are finished for now, I bring
Dusty into the house on his leash and introduce him to
Cyro
.

“Looks just like the other one,”
Cyro
says
cause
he’s seen Ned’s
antics from his window.

“They’re brothers,” I say.

“Oh…brothers,”
Cyro
pats
Dusty’s
head. “There is a man that
sticketh
closer than a brother,” he says idly quoting
scripture while he rubs
Dusty’s
head. I figure
Cyro
is talking about Fred. They’d been like that
once…brothers. It seemed that way. Dad bought the house across the street
because of
Cyro
. I called him Uncle
Cyro
then.

“
You taking
this guy on patrol?”
Cyro
asks.

King had walked with me. “I don’t know,”
I say. “You like him? He could stay with you while I walk.”

“What I
gonna
do with him? He housebroke?”

“Supposed to be,” I say.

Cyro
repeats that like what the hell.

“Just let him hang out while I go,” I
say.

“What about him?” he points at Spencer
then says to him, “You take him.”

“Hey man, the lady who cleaned your
toilet asks you to watch her dog it’s like a no-brainer, right?” Spencer says
this so nicely I hope he can get by with it.

“No brainer? I’m in this chair.”
Cyro
means his lift chair.

“No disrespect, but get out of it
sometimes,” Spencer says and I know it’s time to wrap it up.

“Here it comes. Paint my walls…tell me
what to do?”

“No,” Spencer says, “nothing like that. Just
saying
get
some exercise. Come with us to the market
on Saturday. See some people.”

“I don’t like people,”
Cyro
says.

“I don’t either,” I say like proof that
shouldn’t stop you.

Well we talked that into the ground
because it’s a little awkward and I say, “I guess I’ll take Dusty home then,
and…see you tomorrow.”

“Well he can stay while you walk,”
Cyro
says reaching for the leash.

I look at Spencer and he’s trying not to
smile. He goes to the door and I hand off the leash to
Cyro
and say, “Sure. Um…thanks.”

I don’t even wait around. We are out of
there and running across
Cyro’s
little patch of lawn
and all the way across the street. When we get near Spencer’s, we’re laughing
then, and he goes onto his porch and I follow him…why am I still following him?
Because I’m so, so happy, I don’t even know why because Dusty might give
Cyro
a hard time, I don’t even know, but I’m so happy, and Spencer
gets me on the porch and near the end it’s hard to see with the plants on the
trellis, and he pulls me right there, and then it’s hug time, and kiss time,
and I’m setting on the rail and he’s right there between my eyes, my lungs, my
legs, my feet. He’s right there along the midline, opening me up so he can move
right into my heart, and I am folded around him like a flower trapping a bee
and he’s humming in me.

He’s laughing and we’re kissing. It’s
exhilarating and I have never felt young like this, maybe never, I have never
felt young until now, strong, alive, like the good guys are winning in this
world, like Spencer and I might be the very first ones to live forever.

I am kissing him, and it’s the best way
to celebrate…life.

“Spencer,” I whisper. He is so close we
share breath. There’s nothing to say about this, just his name. I declare his
name there between us. I pledge my allegiance.
 

“Sarah,” he says, it’s like blessing,
like stardust.

I am Sarah. That’s me.

“I’m very happy,” I confess.

“Me too,” he says, his mouth lifted in a
smile, a tender beautiful smile.

“It’s you. You are making me happier and
happier.”

He laughs. “I am? Well ditto.”

I laugh. Everything is funny. Ditto is
perfect.
 
Wrong and perfect.

“After I walk,” I whisper, dropping my
gaze to his throat, to the
vee
of skin his T-shirt
shows, “I’ll….”

“I’ll wait for you,” he says.

“I’ll…go home first….”

He’s finished talking. He leads me to
the steps. “Sooner you go, sooner you return.”

I am still laughing as I hurry home for
my flashlight. He tried to offer his, but…no.

Mom is gone again. I get my light and
I’m out. I tell myself to slow down, to pay attention.

Everything is clear. The dark world is
friendly. Even the shadows have a soft welcoming beauty. The night is cooler. The
breeze rattles the leaves in the trees like God sifts his hands through his
coffers and we all feel rich. Love has not dulled me, quite the opposite. I am
in my skin but I’m a part of something bigger, let in on a secret...I am aware.

Love?
You know it when you feel it. Until then you only hope…you wait. You wonder if
you’ll recognize it. I had wondered that. But the force of it…you can’t ignore
love. He is…Romeo…Lancelot …Rochester…Spencer.

And I am just Sarah. But love, Spencer’s
love is kind. I remember Merle saying that to
Leeanne
and me, so many times. Love, young ladies, is kind. And Spencer is the kindest
person I know next to Merle and Pearlie.

So how could I not love him?

It’s happened
quick
,
I know that. It’s too fast, too uninformed, too unusual. And I have no
experience. I don’t know what to compare this to. Does Spencer remind me of
Merle? He does. Spencer has that fineness I’ve seen in Merle, that honorable
thing. He puts others first.

He loves dogs and people and…vegetables.
Does he love me? Is that what makes the green in his eyes so meltingly,
hauntingly beautiful?

I can’t be in this by myself.

A blue car passes, slow, its lights
flash bright in my face, the driver, a ponytail, forties? Sometimes it happens,
strange men, like they prowl in cars.
Cyro
is long
past the lectures, how to pay attention. I’ve set up a routine, and I’m alone,
and that’s the thing
Cyro
never liked. But it’s just
the neighborhood, one block. And years have gone by, and so we’ve settled,
que
-sera, sera
. Lone men in cars, I show no
fear. This one doubles back. He passes
again,
I don’t
know what he’s looking for. He slows. “Hey, I’m looking for a rental someone
told me about.”

I point to the rental house. “Walter Realty.
It’s in the
book ,
” I say, keeping my distance.

“You need a ride?”

I’m moving now. He’s pointed in my
direction. I don’t answer, I keep walking, put my cell to my ear, shine my
light in his face, a nice watch, a laptop open on the passenger’s seat. He
takes off slow.

When patrol is done I knock on Spencer’s
door, and Dusty is barking on my side of the slab and Ned is barking on the
other.

Spencer opens the door and he’s in his
sleep pants and the forever t-shirt, hair still damp from his shower,
paint-free at last. He hasn’t tried to rebuke Ned because the brother love is
strong and I keep Dusty on his leash as he and Ned reconnect in a dog hug and
teeth clacking bite-fest.

“
Cyro
do okay
with Dusty?” he says.

“He just sat there and he had his paw on
Cyro’s
leg.”

“Sweet,” Spencer says. “Oh and speaking
of…sweet….” He pulls me to him and I drop the leash and the two dogs are in a
wrestling match.

Spencer peels off the strap from my bag
and sets that on the floor, then the jacket I’ve worn over as he kisses me
hello. “It’s been too long since…I missed you,” he says.

I couldn’t get over here fast enough. “I
didn’t shave my legs. I’m sorry,” I say. Then I’m so completely mortified to
have said it. Why?

Spencer picks me up and hurriedly
carries me to the bedroom almost yelling, “Let me see, let me see,” and he
throws me on the bed and Ned is there and Dusty, still wrestling and now I’m in
the middle of it, arms over my face.

Spencer has made them both get down and
he’s shut the bedroom door, so they can’t rocket through the rest of the house.
They are both laying down looking at him while he lectures sternly. As soon as
he turns toward me Ned crawls on his belly to Dusty and they both have their
mouths open ready to start chewing on each other.

But Spencer isn’t interested anymore. He
whips his shirt over his head and throws it at the dresser,
then
he grabs my foot pulls off the shoe and pushes the loose leg of my pants up my
thigh. He positions my foot on his shoulder and runs his hands up and down my
extended leg while I lay on my back my hands splayed on the twisted bedding.

“Spencer,” I’m saying, but he won’t give
me my leg.

“Ouch,” he’s saying, pretending his
hands are getting torn up on the bristles. Then he slows his rubbing and says,
“Hmmm.”

Then he’s looking at my leg as his hands
glide firmly and smoothly, and I think he’s going to touch me there, in-between,
cause his eyes flash there a few times, but he takes the other foot, puts it on
his opposite shoulder and he rubs up and down on that leg, giving it equal
time. “No complaints from me, Sullivan. These legs will just…have to do.” He’s
looking at me now.

I’m in love with him. I love him. If he
can read my mind, he’ll know.

“She’s looking at me,” he says softly. “She’s
telling me something. What is she trying to convey?” he says.
“Her social security number?
Or did she forget to turn off
her curling iron?”

“I don’t use a curling iron,” I say
trying to keep my eyes from rolling.

“Oh…that’s good,” and the hands…,
“that’s real good, Sullivan.”

 
I
laugh then and pull my legs away from him and roll out of his reach. I sit up
Indian style and this gets the dogs’ attention, and Spencer warns them to stay
put, then crawls into bed with me.

We rearrange ourselves on the pillows. His
arm is around me. I love the skin there, his armpit too, the place right under.
I settle my head more on his chest then. I put the flat of my hand there, feel
his heart thump, feel the muscles shaping the skin. His nipples are small. He
could never nurse children. No, first I think, he could never nurse puppies. I
smile and he must feel the way my face moves, and he laughs a little and says,
“What’s funny?”

“Your nipples are just for advertising.”

“What?”

“They’re very small.”

“They’re man-nipples. Oh. Let’s see
yours. Are they hairy like your legs?”