Authors: Elyse Douglas
“Hello, Alan James.”
My mouth was parched. “Hello, Rita. You look great.”
I heard the stir of the elm tree near the wrought iron gate, heard the gentle rocking of the porch swing and the howl of a train. I felt Mrs. Fitzgerald’s eyes on me. When I glanced at her, her dark eyes glazed over with a new bitterness and she fell back to homeliness.Rita viewed us both, curiously. “Why didn’t you wait for me inside?” she asked.I shrugged.
“Alan didn’t want to come in, Rita,” she said sweetly. “He said he wanted to be out in the night air. He said the autumn air is so relaxing.” Rita gave her mother a doubtful, dismissive glance. “Don’t wait up for us, mother.”
Her mother’s voice took on an edge. “Don’t come back here late, Rita Fitzgerald! Don’t you do it!”
Rita ignored her, took my hand and led me out to the curb and the awaiting 1994 blue Dodge Intrepid. We drove away in victory and splendor; at least, that’s how I remember it.
Over the previous four weeks, Rita and I had met five times at Jack’s, reading and discussing our stories; arguing, laughing and sharing french fries. We became comfortable and trusting. We became friends. We became loose and flirtatious. We met with Ms. Lyendecker after school and discussed passages from short stores by Sherwood Anderson, O’Henry and Eudora Welty. Ms. Lyendecker read us poems and critiqued our stories. She was more critical and uncompromising with Rita’s work than with mine. Rita’s trust in her teacher bordered on devout worship, and she never wilted or blanched under Ms. Lyendecker’s judgment.
I grew in confidence, became more cordial to my classmates and was told, by my mother, that I had developed a kind of “punkish” swagger. I was elated!
During our fifth meeting at Jack’s, while french fries, sodas and story plots merged, I screwed up the courage to ask Rita out on a “real date.”
“Your stories aren’t so angry now, Alan James,” Rita said. “Especially the last story. I like the part about the wheelchair-bound boy whose arm was so strong he could throw a baseball all the way across the state of Pennsylvania. I liked it that he wanted to become a doctor someday so he could heal people.”
“Yeah, it’s not bad,” I said, pleased. “I loved your story about the girl who fell in the lake and couldn’t swim. I loved the way you described how she sank to the bottom ‘like something heavy with fatuous love.’”
“Did you get the symbolism?”
“You mean that she could breathe under water because she breathed with her whole heart and not just with her lungs?”
“Yes! I don’t believe it, Alan James! You really got it!”
“Because you said so in the story, Rita.”
Rita frowned. “I did?”
“Yeah…at the end, on page seven.”
“Dammit! I thought I took that out. Ms. Lyendecker suggested it. She said I was telling too much, not showing.”
“But I liked it, Rita. I mean, it’s so unlike anything I could ever write. I just don’t think like that.”
Rita glowed. “So the rehabilitation is working, Alan James.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re not so moody and brooding,” Rita said. “Your stories are happier. More positive.”
I stared at her boldly. “Really? So…do you think you’re good for me?”
We dropped into a silent, exciting intimacy. She touched my hand. The sun poured in from the window and drenched her in gold. I seized the moment. “Go out with me this Saturday night, Rita.”
She tilted her head toward the window, watching Dusty Palmer emerge from his 1992 red Mustang. “I’m dating other people,” she said.
I shrugged. “I know. So…date me too.”
She waited, considering my offer, and I was sure she was going to say no. “Where will you take me?”
“I don’t know. A movie? Pizza?”
She frowned. “How about I take you somewhere special,” she said. “You’re going to hate it.”
I laughed, nervously. “Why will I hate it?”
“Because I’m going to make you do something with me.”
I felt a flush of desire. “Then I won’t hate it.”
Happy to be free of Rita’s mother, Rita and I drove recklessly down Highway 59 on our official second date. I felt like a wild puppy. I drove fast, squeezing around tight curves, edging past the baseball field, out and beyond the cemeteries and thick dark forests. I was following Rita’s instructions and she sat relaxed, angled toward me, discussing an idea for her next short story.
Twenty minutes later, she shouted, pointing right. “There! Turn right!”
I hit the brakes and swerved toward a narrow road, mostly hidden by trees. We left the highway, tires screeching, and entered the forest, skidding onto a dirt road, fishtailing, hearing the tires pop across loose stones. I felt the rush of a towering sexual energy: helplessly roguish and delightful. I gunned the engine and we shot off past black trees, the headlights frantically sweeping thick trunks and jutting rocks. We plunged deeper into the forest, ramping and bouncing, the car straining for balance, like a boat in a wild storm. Rita gripped the edge of the bucket seat, at first surprised, then tense.
“What are you doing?”
I ignored her. She locked her eyes ahead, ignoring my frequent glances to see if she was impressed and frightened. I wanted to frighten her. I wanted her subservient and meek. I wanted to show her my courage and power. I wanted her to see that I was as manly as all the others she dated: the high school jocks, the 20’s something tall, dignified attorney from Boston; the local D. J., Jeremy Peels, who dressed in black leather, smoked cigars and talked about Rita on his radio program.
Rita grew noticeably peevish. “I’m not impressed, Alan James,” she said, struggling to steady her voice.
“By what?” I said, innocently.
“You know.”
“I don’t.”
“You do.”
“Don’t think so.”
“Tennis conversation, Alan James. Back and forth. Who will win?”
“I will,” I said.
The radio blasted out John Fogerty’s
Rock and Roll Girls
.
“Will not.”
“Yep.”
“Nope.”
“Bet?”
“No.”
“I’m gonna win!” I said, forcefully, almost desperate.
“Gonna lose,” Rita said, hands on the dashboard, bracing herself.
“No way.”
“Yes way. Slow down, dammit!”
I punched the accelerator. Our heads whipped backwards. I fought the steering wheel, almost loosing control. The car careened toward a bank of trees.
“Stop! Alan James! Stop!”
I muscled the car into a hard left turn. We grazed low branches. They slapped and scraped the side of the car as we charged ahead.
“Alan!”
“I win!” I said, fighting the twisting road, terrified, but determined.
“Okay! You win. Stop!”
“You mean it?!”
“YES! Stop!”
I punched the brakes. We came to an abrupt stop that pitched us forward, then snapped us back, hard, against the seat. Our hearts raced in the dizzying silence. I slowly exhaled, relaxing my grip on the steering wheel, rolling my tight shoulders, feeling a nervous twitch in my right foot. I felt drunk and wonderfully sexual.
Rita sat rigid, her hands still on the dash, the steady rise and fall of her breasts suddenly prominent in the vague moonlight. She angrily switched off the radio and faced me with scolding eyes. “To be so smart, that was dumb, Alan James! Really fucking dumb!”
I sat with a cold dignity. “I’ll take that as a compliment. I’ve never been called dumb in my entire life.”
Her lips formed a beautiful petulant pout. I nearly reached a finger to touch them. I grinned instead. “You are SOooo serious looking, Rita Fitzgerald.”
“Shut up!” she snapped, composing herself. “You’re a little scary, you know that? I never thought of you as being reckless and scary.”
“So are you.”
“I am not!”
“Here we go again. Tennis conversation.”
She twisted away from me. “What’s with you, Alan James?”
The question pleased me. It made me seem mysterious and special. She wouldn’t forget me. She would never forget the wild, reckless ride with Alan James. “I don’t know.”
She faced me again, blinked slowly, sizing me up in a new way, and then, surprisingly, she smiled as she adjusted herself in the seat. “Well… it wasn’t so bad, Alan James. Not so bad.”
She gave a happy little laugh and touched my cheek with a single soft finger. I felt electric and conquered. She’d won, with a simple touch.
“How much further?” I asked.
“Just ahead.”
We started again. I squinted into the shafts of headlights. “I don’t see anything.”
“There’s a clearing ahead. You’ll see the lake. Moon Lake. At least that’s what the fishermen call it. Everybody goes to Crystal Lake because they don’t know about this place.”
I drove slowly. The moon was nearly full, sliding in and out of purple clouds, swimming through the black lace of trees. I slanted a look as the forest gradually fell away, and then as through an invisible door, we entered a clearing and viewed the gorgeous domed sky swarming with stars. I drove across a carpet of leaves to the edge of a high bluff, staring in wonder at the panoramic vista of the world, a moon-sprinkled lake and the distant silhouette of rolling hills.
“This is incredible,” I said. “I didn’t know this was here.”
Rita’s head lolled back, relaxed. “Not many people do. I used to come here on my bike when I was 15. I came here to escape the house, school…everything. I’m glad you like it.”
“You thought I wouldn’t like this?”
“No…there’s more. But that can wait. Let’s just sit here for awhile.”
I silenced the engine and we sat in an intimate stillness. Finally, I turned to her. “Where did you learn to write so well, Rita?”
“It’s sweet that you think so, Alan James. Really sweet.”
“You do, Rita, you know you write well.”
“My father.”
“He wrote?”
“He read. He was always bringing me books and making me read them, especially when I was sick and couldn’t go out.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. He loved books.”
“What books?”
“Jane Austen, Steinbeck, C. S. Lewis, D. H. Lawrence. Most nights, when he was around, which wasn’t often, he’d put me to bed and then read to me awhile. Then he’d ask me to tell him a story. I was too embarrassed at first. Nothing came, just bits and pieces of things I’d read, but he made me keep trying. Sometimes he’d help get me started. He’d start it off:
“‘In a silky black sky, where the round yellow moon drifted through moving dark clouds, a young golden-haired girl emerged from her sleep, crept to the window and peered out, hopeful and wanting. Someone below called to her.’”
“Wow, you remember all that, word for word?” I asked.
“Yes, because he started every story that way, for like, weeks, and then he’d ask me to continue on and finish it. So I started mixing things up, and stringing together lies and half truths of my own life; my dreams and things I’d read. I started looking forward to it, those nights. Scratching out those little “lies” in my diary, and reading them to Daddy when he got home after a week or a month.”
She turned reflective and averted my gaze. Her voice was low and soft. “They were for him. The stories. I wrote everything for him, then. He’d say, write me something, Rita girl. Write. When I’m home, you can read them to me. So I did.”
I waited a moment. “Where is your father, Rita?”
Without answering, she pushed the door open. “It’s time, Alan James. Turn on the radio and join me.”
The radio came alive when I turned on the engine. It was playing Billy Joel’s
Honesty
. I left the car, stretching in the cool autumn wind, and went to Rita. She was at the edge of the bluff, peering down at the 30 foot drop-off to the lake below, ticking off little rocks with her shoes.
“Be careful,” I said.
“I always am, Alan James.”
As I approached, she turned with an arresting gaze that plunged me into silence. The moon hung just over her left shoulder, riding through puffs of wispy clouds, spilling its light upon the lake and on her fine artistic hairdo. She reached up and released the scarf, allowing it to fall to the ground. The lush waves and curls bounced to her shoulders and she gave a little shake of her head to loosen them. She unbuttoned the top button of her tight-fitted blouse, already strained and pinched. The tops of her breasts were visible and fetching.
“Have to set the mood,” she said, breathily.
I heard the gentle lap of waves below. I swallowed. “Okay.”
“We’re going to dance, Alan James.”
I shifted, uneasily. “I don’t dance, Rita.”
“I know. I read your story about the boy who hated music and thought dancing a bore.”
“Yeah…I don’t really like music all that much. I mean some rock stuff, you know…but I don’t dance…or anything.”
“Music is one of the most uplifting things in this world, Alan James. You need to start listening to good music. Now, relax, Alan James. Just relax and let dancing happen. Give me your hand.”