"I made you some lunch," my mother said, poking her head in after a quick knock. She set the food on my dresser then came over and sat on my bed. I just stared at the ceiling. "I know you miss her, sweetheart." She ran her fingers through my hair. "But you can't let that wanting in your heart be the end of you."
"You don't understand, Mother." I rolled over, turning away from her.
"I understand more than you know," she said with a quiver in her voice.
I turned back around to look at her.
"I was in love once."
I was about to ask her if it was with my father, but somehow I knew that would be a stupid question. I could look at them together and know there had never been any love between them. I leaned up on my elbow and waited for her to continue.
"When he was taken from me... I thought I would die."
Silence enveloped the room as I tried to decipher what she was trying to say. When was this great tragic love of hers? How did she end up in the arms of my father?
"In any case," she said, shaking off her sadness, "Ruthie will be back."
"But, I thought you wanted me to stay away from her?”
My mother got a faraway look in her eyes. "I remember love," she said, before leaving my room.
At least I knew I wasn't alone in this. It gave me a little strength to know that my mother understood what I was going through. And she was right. I could get through this. Ruthie would be back in just six weeks.
I swung my feet over the edge of the bed and
scarfed
down the lunch Mother had made. Then I decided to go for a walk.
I ended up on the other side of town in what was known as the black area. I don't know how I got there. I must have been daydreaming as I walked. Most white boys my age would have been afraid to be caught in this part of town.
I could feel the stares as I walked down McDowell Street and past the housing projects. Truth be told, I was little lost, but I just kept walking anyway until I could find something I recognized. I finally came across the city park. It wasn't the same park that Matthew used to take Ruthie and me to, but we had driven past it a couple of times. I wasn't lost anymore, but I decided to take a break before I started home.
There was a group of guys playing basketball, so I ended up watching them for a while. I had never played basketball before
; I
don't know why. I guess it was because I really didn't have any guy friends and a game of hoops had never quite made it on Ruthie's adventure list. I stood at the fence and watched those guys play for nearly an hour. It looked like fun. It couldn't be too hard to do.
The next morning I went and bought a basketball. I couldn't believe I didn't already own one. I was probably the only teenage boy who had never owned a basketball. I got to the court before anyone else and started shooting around, until I heard someone laughing. I turned to see a tall, skinny, black kid in shorts and a T-shirt.
"You shoot like my brother," he said. From his tone of voice I could tell it wasn't a compliment. "My brother's a nerd. He shoots like a girl." He stepped onto the court and shot from about three feet behind where I was standing. It went in with
a swoosh
.
Nothing but net.
"I'm Julius," he said when he approached me. "And if you keep shooting like that you're
gonna
get killed out here." I had no idea that I was doing anything wrong.
"Can you show me?"
"I guess I have to. I don't
wanna
to be responsible for any dead white boys." He took the ball away from me. "First of all, you don't shoot with two hands. One hand is always higher than the other. One hand supports the ball while the other hand guides it into the goal." He demonstrated it,
then
handed the ball over for me to try. I got my hands into the right position and took a shot. It hit the backboard with a thud and returned almost right to me.
"I guess I didn't do it right."
"No, your form was good. Let me tell you a little secret. It doesn't matter as much if your shot goes in or not, as long as you look fly while
ya
shootin
' it. Let's work on
gettin
' the look down, now, so you don't look like a silly white boy while you're out here. We'll work on
gettin
' it to go in another day." Julius spent the next couple of hours showing me how to look "fly" while I played basketball. Not many of my shots actually went in. A little after one o'clock, other people started to arrive. They already had an even number, so I didn't get to play, but I still stayed and watched. Julius was right. Everyone out there looked "fly". They each had
a certain
finesse with the ball and a confidence that seemed to will every shot to go in, whether it did or not. There was a lot I had to learn if I wanted to play with these guys. I needed to practice. Thankfully, Julius was willing to help. We spent nearly three hours every morning working on my shots. I bought a basketball goal and put it up at my house so I could practice at home after dark. I became obsessed with the game. It was the only thing that took my mind off of Ruthie.
A few days later, some guys were one short so they let me play. They must have thought it was some sort of
initiation,
the way slammed into me every chance they got. They were surprised when I kept getting back up. I even blocked two shots and made six points. It was a pretty impressive showing for my first time. As I was leaving, one of the older boys shouted, "See
ya
tomorrow, kid!" It was the biggest compliment they could have paid me. I was being included.
I was so busy playing it cool and pretending that the invitation hadn't made my day that I didn't notice Julius running up behind me.
"Hey, you
wanna
come to my house for dinner? My mom's a great cook."
Julius lived in a two-bedroom apartment with his younger brother and sister. I had no idea how they managed to fit five people in such a cramped space. My house had six bedrooms, a formal dining room, living room, den, sun room, and porch and I still felt trapped sometimes. But that could have been for different reasons.
"This is my little brother, Timothy.
The one who shoots like a girl."
Timothy gave his brother a hurt look, but Julius just laughed. Timothy looked very familiar, but I couldn't quite figure out where I’d seen him.
"You're Ruthie's friend aren't you?"
I nodded, although I really wanted to say that we were more than friends. Suddenly, I felt very possessive of Ruthie.
"Where is she? I haven't seen her around lately," Timothy asked. He was a little too interested in my Ruthie, but he looked harmless. Julius was right. He was a nerd.
"Yeah, he's had no one to fantasize about since she's been gone," Julius said with his trademark grin. Timothy didn't find it funny. Neither did
I
. Then it hit me.
"You're in my physics class!" I said suddenly and then promptly went into a sneezing fit. They must have had pets. I was allergic to pets. Most pets, that is.
"Oh, no, not you, too?"
Julius said, tossing me a roll of toilet paper so I could wipe my nose. "Are you as big a nerd as he is?” He shrugged. “Oh well, at least you can ball."
Dinner at Julius's house was fun. It was the first time I could remember laughing at the dinner table. I loved the way Julius interacted with his younger brother and sister. He teased them a lot, but it was always good-natured. They could tell that underneath his sarcastic façade he really loved them. It kind of made me wish I had a brother or sister.
I sat by the phone every night, willing it to ring, hoping that Ruthie would call, but she never did. I thought about her constantly, wondering if she had found someone else to love.
If my father thought sending her away for the summer would make me forget about her, he was sadly mistaken. I felt like a part of me had been savagely ripped away from my body. At first basketball helped to ease the pain, but I quickly learned that it only masked it. Especially when I constantly heard boys on the basketball court talk about how beautiful Ruthie was and how nearly every guy in town had asked her out over the past couple of years, but she always said no.
My aching for Ruthie grew every moment. By the time the day came for her to return I thought I would explode. I sat on my front porch, trying to look casual as I waited for the taxicab that would bring her back to me. I flipped through a book, the title of which I can't even remember, and looked down the road every ten seconds.
At 3:17 in the afternoon, it finally came. In my dreams, I imagined that the taxi would pull up in front of my house; Ruthie would leap out, jump into my arms, and kiss me with six weeks’ worth of bottled-up passion. But that didn't happen. I watched Ruthie stare straight ahead as the taxi drove right past my house and toward her cottage.
I stormed into the house and threw my book across the room. I guess it happened. I guess Ruthie had found someone else and didn't care about me anymore. How could she not want to see me as soon as she returned? If she missed me half as much as I missed her, she would have jumped out of that car before it even stopped moving.
"Reverend?" my mother asked, stepping out of the kitchen. She must have heard the book crash and thought my father had come home angry.
"No, it's just me, Mother."
My mother clutched her chest in relief. "Oh, okay. I'm going to go lay down for a few moments before he gets here."
She headed upstairs as I plopped on the sofa, prepared to wallow in my own misery. A few minutes later, I heard a knock on the back door. It was Ruthie. It had to be. I jumped up and ran to answer it. Sure enough, it was her.
"Hi, Stephen," she said when I swung open the screen door.
"Hi," I said, still hoping she would leap into my arms at any second.
We stared at each other in silence, as if we were strangers.
Finally, Ruthie said, "I bought a gift for your parents...from New York." She held up a package, but didn't try to enter the house.
"Oh, uh, my mother is asleep and my father isn't home."
"He isn't?" she asked with eyebrows raised.
"No, he –"
Before I could finish my thought, Ruthie wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me hungrily. I picked her up and clutched her thighs in my hands as we stumbled into the kitchen.
"I've missed you so much," she said, taking a second to pull away. She wrapped her legs around me and pressed her body into mine. "I'm so sorry I didn't call you. He told me not to." She pressed her lips to mine again.
I knew she was referring to my father. I don't know what he said to her to convince her to stay away from me, but it obviously didn't have any permanent effects.
"Never leave me again," I pleaded as I laid her on the kitchen table.
"I won't. I can't," she said with tears in her eyes. "I can't live without you anymore, Stephen."
I crawled on top of her while slipping my hands under her shirt. I kissed her neck, her cheeks, her eyes, her lips. When my hands undid her bra and massaged her breasts, she moaned my name. I didn't know if I would be able to stop. I thought I was going to take her right there on the kitchen table. That was until we both heard a car door slam.
"Your father!" she said, bolting up right nearly knocking me over. She jumped off the table and headed for the door.
I grabbed her arm and pulled her back to me. I wanted to ask her to stay, but not with my father coming. There's no telling what he would do if he caught us like this. I didn't care about myself, but I couldn't put Ruthie in danger.
I kissed her again - slowly, passionately - and then said, "I'm coming over tonight. Leave your window open."
I don't know what I expected her to say. Well, I expected her to say no. Ruthie was completely against sex before marriage. I remembered the countless moments of frustration I felt when she'd push me away if we started going too far. So I certainly didn't expect her to say, "Okay," before dashing out the door.