Nine Inches (14 page)

He wasn’t too surprised to
fi
nd Charlotte waiting in the hallway when he stepped out of the bathroom — it was almost like he’d been expecting her. A peculiar expression was on her face, a mixture of boldness and embarrassment.

“I missed you,” she said.

Kissing her just then felt perfectly normal and completely self-explanatory, the only possible course of action.
Th
ere was no hesitation, no self-consciousness, just one mouth
fi
nding another. He ran his
fi
ngers through her hair, slid his palm down the length of her back, then lower, tracing the gentle curve of her ass. She liked it, he could tell. He spread his
fi
ngers wide, cupping and squeezing the so
ft
fl
esh.

Voices made them pull apart, two young women on the way to the ladies’ room.

“Excuse me,” one of them said, turning sideways to slip by.

“Don’t mind us,” chuckled the other.

It was no big deal, just a brief, good-natured interruption, but for some reason they never recovered from it. When they started kissing again, it felt forced and awkward, like they were trying too hard. Charlotte pulled away a
ft
er only a few seconds.

“Oh, God, Ethan.” Her glasses were askew, her face pink with shame. “What are we doing?”

“It’s okay,” he told her. “We’re just having a good time.”

She didn’t seem to hear him. Her voice was barely audible. “I better go.”

“Come on. You don’t have to do that.”

“I do.”

She turned swi
ft
ly, heading for the exit. He followed her out to the parking lot, pleading with her to stay for one more drink, but nothing he said made any di
ff
erence. She just kept muttering about his pregnant wife and child, and how sorry she was, all the while fumbling in her purse for her car keys.

“You have to forgive me,” she said in a pleading voice. “I’m just going through a hard time. I’m really not the kind of person who — ”

He grabbed her by the shoulders, forcing her to look at his face.

“I love you.”
Th
e words just popped out of his mouth, but in that moment they felt true, undeniable. “Don’t you understand that?”

She shook her head.
Th
e only thing in her eyes was pity.

“You need to go home, Ethan. Just forget this ever happened. Please?”

Th
en she got in her car and drove o
ff
, her face ashen, her eyes
fi
xed straight ahead. He thought about chasing a
ft
er her, but he knew it would be useless.
Th
ere was nothing to do but go home, just like she told him.

Now that he was here, though, he couldn’t seem to get out of the car. Maybe in a minute or two he’d unbuckle his seatbelt and head inside, into the house where his wife and child were sleeping. In the meantime he was happy enough to stay right here and think about kissing Charlotte outside the men’s room and the dreamy look on Amanda’s face when he showed her the measuring tape and explained that she and Ben were dancing too close, the way she just smiled and closed her eyes and let her head fall back onto her partner’s chest, as if the two of them were the only people who mattered in the world, as if they had no one to answer to but themselves.

SENIOR SEASON

IT’S PRETTY QUIET WHEN I
leave for school, not a neighbor in sight except for Mrs. Scotto, who likes to get an early start on her yardwork. She’s out there every morning in her bathrobe and slippers, cleaning up the leaves that fell overnight. She doesn’t bother with a rake; she just bends over, plucks them o
ff
the ground one by one until she has a handful, then straightens up as best she can and drops them into a bag that says
YARD
WASTE
.
She does this all day long, from Labor Day to
Th
anksgiving, into December if necessary. People around here call her the Leaf Lady.

I have no idea how old she is. All I know is that she seemed ancient when we moved here twelve years ago, and she hasn’t gotten any younger. She’s a permanent part of the autumn scenery on Grapevine Road, a stooped, birdlike woman endlessly patrolling her front yard, her entire existence devoted to that little patch of grass. And she gets the job done, you have to give her that. It’s late September now, but even in mid-November, when the whole town’s blanketed with dead foliage, you can count on Mrs. Scotto’s lawn to be spotless.

People around here admire her work ethic, or at least they pretend to.
Th
ey all say the same thing when they walk by:
Come to my house when you’re done.
Mrs. Scotto always laughs and says she charges twenty bucks an hour.
Th
en she makes some friendly comment about the weather or asks about the person’s family. She’s a sweet old lady, not nearly as creepy as you might expect.

She’s just lonely,
my mother likes to remind me.
She lost her husband and her kids moved away.
And then my mother gives me one of her looks, like she hopes I’m
fi
ling that away for future reference.

I never paid much attention to Mrs. Scotto in the past. I was always busy and happy, and she was always just
there,
living her strange elderly life on the sidelines of my own.
Th
is fall, though, she’s been getting on my nerves. I can’t even look at her without feeling a little sick to my stomach, wondering how she can stand it. But she always smiles and waves in old-lady slow motion when I drive by, and I always wave right back. I’m sure it’s one of the highlights of her day.

WHEN I
get to school, Megan’s standing in front of my locker, looking kinda nervous, and I know in my gut she’s gonna break up with me. It’s been coming for a while now. She was gone most of the summer, working at a camp in New Hampshire, and things have been weird between us ever since she came home, like she secretly resents me for ruining her senior year, like I’m some sad sack of shit she has to drag around while she’s supposed to be having the time of her life.

I can’t say I blame her for that.

What I do blame her for are those denim cuto
ff
s, cu
ff
ed way up above what the dress code allows, and those teetery wedge sandals that make her muscly legs look longer and thinner than they really are. It just doesn’t seem necessary, getting all dressed up like that to break my heart, a nice big
Fuck you
with a cherry on top.

“Okay,” I tell her, tensing my stomach like I’m about to get hit. “Just get it over with.”

“What are you talking about?” She smiles like I’m the old Clay, the boyfriend she deserves. “I just want to know if you’re busy a
ft
er school.”

“Busy?” I laugh, but even that sounds pissed o
ff
. “Busy doing what?”

“
Th
at’s what I thought.” She runs her
fi
ngertip down the center of my chest, stopping just above my belt. “
Th
en you won’t mind a little company?”

I can feel my brain working away, trying to catch up. I didn’t used to be this stupid.

“What about your practice?”

Megan’s co-captain of the cheerleading squad, which is a major deal in our school.
Th
ey go to regional tournaments and usually do pretty well. Most of the girls are trained gymnasts; they don’t mind getting tossed in the air.
Th
ey like to brag about how, statistically speaking, cheerleading is even more dangerous than football. Girls supposedly break their necks all the time.

“I can blow it o
ff
.” She’s still smiling, but I can see how closely she’s studying me, like this is some kind of test. “I miss you.”

Her legs are really smooth, except for a coin-shaped scar on her le
ft
knee, a circle of shiny pink. She fell on blacktop when she was a kid, an older boy cousin pushing her from behind when she was about to beat him in a race.

“You look hot in those shorts,” I tell her.

MEGAN’S PRETTY
cheerful in the car a
ft
er school. She told Ms. Lambert — the cheerleading advisor — that she had a dentist appointment, and Ms. Lambert just nodded and said,
Okay, see you tomorrow.
It was that easy.

“
Th
at would never happen on the football team,” I tell her. “Coach Z. used to say that dead guys were excused from practice, but only if they brought a note from the undertaker.”

“
Th
at sounds like him.”

“It was a joke, but it was kinda serious, too. Nobody ever missed practice, not unless they were on crutches.”

Megan switches the radio from my hip-hop to KISS 108, the only station a self-respecting cheerleader will listen to. It’s their tribal music, the soundtrack of high school popularity. Within seconds she’s bobbing her head and singing along, doing that seated dance that girls do in cars, all hands and hair and puckered lips.

“I
love
this song,” she tells me.

“You love every song.”

“Nuh-uh. Just this one.”

I smile back, happy to see her so happy, to know that she can still feel that way with me. And it’s a beautiful day on top of it, the sky blue and the windows open, the trees turning color and those cu
ff
ed-up shorts.

“Ooh, look,” Megan says, like she’s pointing out a tourist attraction. “
Th
ere’s the Leaf Lady.”

Mrs. Scotto’s standing in the middle of her lawn, beneath the big oak tree that’s the bane of her existence, gazing up at the branches with a worried expression. She’s wearing regular clothes now — baggy jeans and a man’s shirt and a
fl
oppy tan sun hat — which means she at least went inside long enough to get changed.
Th
ere are days, I swear, when she’s still out there in her robe and slippers when I come home in the a
ft
ernoon.

“Crazy old bitch,” I mutter, not quite under my breath.

Megan looks surprised. “I thought you liked her.”

“It’s just kinda depressing, you know? Like picking up those leaves is her only reason to live.”

“She’s keeping busy. It’s way better than sitting in the house all day, watching the shopping channel.
Th
at’s what my grandma does.”

“I guess.” I pull into my driveway a little faster than I should and scrape the bottom of the bumper. “Just be nice if there were some other options.”

“
Th
ere are,” Megan reminds me. “She could be dead or in a wheelchair or not even remember her own name. When you’re that age, you’re lucky to be picking up leaves.”

“I guess,” I say again, and shut o
ff
the engine.

•••

THE GIRLS
on our cheerleading squad have a reputation for being kind of slutty, and from what I hear, some of them actually live up to it. Megan’s an exception.
Th
e
fi
rst time we hooked up, way back in sophomore year, she explained that she was a virgin and planned on staying that way until her wedding night.

Don’t worry,
she told me, right before she stuck her tongue in my ear.
Th
ere’s lots of other things we can do.

Th
at was a bit misleading, because it turns out that she doesn’t go for oral, either, so
lots of other things
really just means a steady diet of kissing and underwear humping and using our hands. Most of the time I’m okay with it. But it’s been a while since we were alone like this, and I can’t help hoping when we get to the bedroom that maybe today will be di
ff
erent, that maybe something happened over the summer at Camp Hiawatha that changed her mind about what she will and won’t do. Something that had possibly caused the distance between us, but might also bring us back together.

It’s just wishful thinking. Everything’s like always, all the old boundaries still in place.
Th
e shorts come o
ff
, but the panties stay on.
Th
e Trojan remains in the drawer, hidden inside a pair of socks.

“You’re a great guy,” she whispers, slipping her lotiony hand into my boxers. “I’m really proud to be your girlfriend.”

Megan’s not too big on the dirty talk. Mostly she just says lots of sweet things while she jerks me o
ff
, complimenting me on the way I smell, and the stubble on my chin, and my broad shoulders. But she says this stu
ff
in a low, breathy voice, her eyes locked on mine. Usually it gets me pretty turned on.

Today, though, I’m a little distracted. She keeps working away, murmuring about my triceps and my teeth, but for some reason, all I can think about is Mrs. Scotto, and what it must feel like to be eighty-something years old, nothing le
ft
to do but pick up dead leaves and put them in a bag. Megan must sense it because her hand stops moving and her eyes get all worried.