Bleed (13 page)

I
don’t
want her to be angry at me, nor do I want to hurt her. I just want her to realize that she’s made a terrible mistake.

My head suddenly feels fuzzy. Maybe I’m thinking too hard. Maybe I just need to take a break, forgive myself for whatever mess I’ve made with Kelly, and clean it up as best I can.

I fold up the napkin and slide out from the booth seat. The waitress is hovering over the counter, talking to some guy in army fatigues.

“Miss?” I call.

She holds her hand out, as if to stop traffic, and says, “Just a sec,” not taking her eyes off the army guy. She cups around his ear and whispers something. And suddenly I want nothing else but to be him for a second—to be the one being whispered to and breathed on. I touch my neck, still feeling where Kelly had breathed only minutes before, when we first hugged hello.

The waitress draws away, and the two of them laugh at whatever she’s said. I’m so into the moment, I almost laugh, too, have to catch myself. The army guy stands up from his stool and waves her good-bye. Her eyes stay hooked on him until he’s out the door, until those annoying door bells jingle his exit.

“You want your check?” she asks, finally looking at me.

I shake my head. “I want to know what you said to that guy.”

“It wasn’t anything about you.” She turns her back on me to take up the guy’s dirty plate.

“I just want to hear it,” I say.

She stops, looks at me, and then lets the edge of the dirty plate smack down against the linoleum counter. “You didn’t seem so itchy to hear me just a few minutes ago.”

“I am now.” I suck my lips in, hopeful, but then feel myself start to shake.

“I don’t think so.” She feeds the dirty plate into the sink.

“Please …” Is my upper lip perspiring? I wipe it to be sure. A slight sudation.

Her face scrunches up as though I’m not making sense, like she doesn’t understand. “I’ll get your check and then maybe you should go. Your girlfriend’s probably missing you.” She glances back at the cook, some middle-aged guy with at least fifty pounds on me. He nods to her.

Now I’m really shaking. I think I’ve scared her and I’m not sure how or why. I just know that I need to leave. I flip a twenty dollar bill out of my wallet, slap it on the counter, and head out the door, without even mentioning my plan to leave the note for Kelly in case she comes back.

Instantly I feel better, more in control, like I did the right thing. The fresh California breeze wraps around my body like a warm towel. I breathe it in and push it out, able to calm the jangling nerves inside me.

I take a seat on one of the benches across the street. I don’t want to leave quite yet, just in case Kelly comes back.

“Robby?”

I turn around. But it isn’t Kelly. It’s her. The waitress.

“I think you left something.” She hands me the napkin with my note on it. “Kelly must be really special. I’m sorry if I got the wrong idea and thought you were some jerky. You’re obviously super sad. I know I’d be totally spazzing if my guy ditched me after waiting five and a half years to see him.” She comes and sits next to me on the bench, still in her pink-and-white waitress attire. “Were you in the army or something?”

“Aren’t you going to get in trouble with your boss?”

“He let me off early. It’s
so
dead in there.”

She plucks a package of some sort from the front pocket of her dress—some kind of candy. “Wanna lick?” she asks, removing the wrapper and sliding the ring-pop onto her finger. There’s a big candy jewel on the top. “It’s cherry.” I shake my head and she brings it to her mouth for a suck. “So, what’s your day like?” she asks.

“I don’t know,” I say, just realizing it myself. My only plan for the past two years has been spending my life with Kelly.

“Wanna hang out?” She kicks her feet, in these heavy black shoes, back and forth in the dirt. “I’m Joy, by the way.” She extends her hand to admire the candy jewel and then gives it another good suck.

“Robby.”

“Yeah, I know, remember?” She smiles and points to the napkin note cradled in my palm. “So, wanna?”

A part of me feels like I should stay and wait for Kelly. I
know
Kelly. She’ll realize what a mistake she’s made and come try to find me. She’ll feel her panties clutching her upper thighs, warming her skin, and know I’m a part of her. I just hope she remembers the name of the motel I’m staying at. “Maybe not,” I say finally.

“Come on.” She gets up and tugs my arm. “If you’re good, I’ll tell you what I whispered in Duggan’s ear.”

“Duggan?”

“The guy at the counter.”

I smile at the mere thought of it—of her, breathing on my neck, having it be slow and rhythmic and hot. “Just a walk,” I say.

“Cool!” she squeals.

We end up walking by my old school since it’s only about ten minutes away. It just seems natural to walk that way, like, even though my life’s been set to fast-forward and everything has changed, there’s a part of myself still resigned to old habits.

“This is where I go to school,” she says. “I can’t wait to get out. I already know what I want to be in life. I wish I could go to one of those high schools that are like college, you know, for kids who already got it figured out. Not a vocational school, but one of those alternative places where you live away and cook your own meals and stuff. But my parents want me to go the traditional route. You know, four years of high school, four years of college, two years working, then marriage, blah, blah, blah. Do you want to know what I want to do?”

I already regret letting her tag along with me. Why did I? Is having her whisper in my ear really worth it? I look at her mouth, smiling at me, white teeth against such lipstick-red lips. A tongue that peeps out between the bite. “Yes,” I say aloud.

“Okay, but don’t laugh,” she says. “I want to be a princess. I know what you’re thinking. I know it must sound totally lame, like a fairy tale, but I want to reinvent the word princess. I mean, what makes people
royal?
People make people royal,
right?
It’s humans who invented the whole concept,
right?
They may have been kings or queens or knights or whatever, but they were still
human.
So why can’t another human change it? Update it? You shouldn’t have to marry or be born into it. Isn’t the American dream based on the fact that we can do and be whatever we want? I’ll be an American princess. I’ll be a role model for young girls.”

“I know this path behind the school,” I say. “It leads to Capers Pond. Do you want to walk up there? It’ll be pretty this afternoon. Lots of shady trees. We can pick wild-flowers if you want.”

Her face falls as though disappointed I chose not to comment on her puerile idea of a vocation. I say, “I think you’ll make a very fine princess.”

“Really, Robby?” She crosses her arms and twirls around on one foot, like a ballerina, but then fumbles and nearly trips over her own feet. I wonder why she elects to wear her waitress uniform as everyday street attire. And suddenly I get a vision of her hustling to the bus stop as a prepubescent schoolgirl—schoolbooks loaded in her backpack, boys kicking dirt up at her from behind, a kick-me sign taped to her back.

“Do you really think it might be possible?” She smiles again, thirsty for my acceptance. “I mean, normally princesses have to be really, really pretty. And I know I’m reinventing the word and everything, but
still.”

I nod and manage to smile back.

“I’ll have to change my last name, though. You wanna know what it is?”

Before I can feign interest, she blurts it out—Ryder. Joy Ryder. Something about her father’s motorcycle.

“But I have it all planned out,” she says. “I’ll just put Van in front of Ryder so then it will be
Van
Rydev. Joy VanRyder. Doesn’t that sound princess-like?”

I smile when I notice she’s stopped talking.

We cut across the football field, and everything looks the same. Same goalie posts, same stadium seats, same green grass, tennis courts to the left, field house to the right. Maybe the school isn’t as massive as I remember it. Maybe the bricks aren’t quite as drab as I once thought. Or maybe it’s just me that’s changed.

“So what do
you
want to be?” she asks.

“A prince.” I force out a laugh, and this pleases her, relaxes her a bit. She starts skipping way ahead of me, giggling to herself, showing off just another of her many self-conceited talents—a cartwheel. Only, her waitress skirt doesn’t flip up the way cheerleaders’ skirts do, so eager to reveal their tight, yellow panties.
Her
skirt sticks against her ample thighs and broad backside, and reveals nothing more than a pair of heavy, camel-brown nylons stretched over two chunky knees.

My gaze grazes from those knees to the field around us. One thing that definitely has not changed since high school is the fence that surrounds the property. One has to jump it to get into the forest. A fruitless deterrent the administration has designed to try and barricade high school students seeking schnapps and sex and a little light-up before or after class.

Despite the girl’s cheerleading talents, she has a rough time making it over. Having straddled herself atop the metal fencing, she looks down at the distance she has to jump and hesitates. Once I’m over, I hold my hands out, as though to spot her, but instead she flips the other leg over and jumps down, pulling me forward until my hands are around her waist. And it feels so foreign to me—being this close and holding her this way. She’s soft and smallish at the waist, between my fingers, just under my chin.

“Thanks.” She giggles and takes a step back. And she really has no idea. Who I am. What I’m thinking. How much I want to hold her again.

We begin our way down the path. The same path I took with Melanie—just minutes before she declared she wanted to break up with me.

I feel a chill over my shoulders just thinking about it, just being back here. But now that I
am
here, I want to see the spot again. I need to.

“So how old are you?” she ventures.

“Eighteen,” I lie.

“I don’t really think age matters. Do you?”

Age has been everything to me. If I had been a year older, I may not have gotten out at twenty-one. Every month that passed, every birthday, every holiday, every mark of time, was a step farther through the bars. “No,” I say. “Age is artificial. It’s soulless. It doesn’t matter one bit.”

The forest seems much less enchanted than it had when I was fifteen years old. Much more guarded. Still, I know exactly where I am and exactly where I’m going. I lead the girl over rocks, between brush, and under tree limbs, lifting branches over our heads so they don’t thwack her in the face, managing a scratch on my neck from one of them. I lick a spot on my sleeve and use it to dab at the blood, determined to keep moving.

We walk a bit farther until I find the spot—a clearing now littered with green and amber broken beer bottles. There’s a cross jammed into the earth; fresh flower bouquets clustered around it; and old, weather-beaten copies of Emily Dickinson and Sylvia Plath, Melanie’s favorite poets.

I walk closer and see a picture of Melanie, laminated, and sticking up like a fresh daisy Her face, sweet and round and cheeky, like a cherub’s, looking up at me—a time when she was still loving me. The picture is of her at her fifteenth birthday party. A wide birthday-cake smile across those cheeks, probably thinking how, in only a few hours, she would sneak out her bedroom window and meet me,
me
, who, per order of her parents, was not allowed to be at that party. And then how we would make love right here, on a blanket, under these stars. I think about those panties she wore. Pale pink with accordionlike strings that attached the front and back. A half-cup bra with ruffly pink shirring along the top. A bra that clasped in the front.

I wonder what type of underwear this girl has on.

“Robby?” she calls, a degree of concern in her voice. I wonder how long she’s been trying to get my attention.

“Yes?”

“I think we should go someplace else. It’s kind of creepy here. I’ve heard about this girl. Her boyfriend killed her. He beat her head in with a rock. Kids at school say she haunts these woods. They say sometimes you can see her carrying a rock around, seeking revenge on her boyfriend.”

“What do you think about that?” I ask.

“Are you asking me if I believe in ghosts?”

“No. I’m asking what you think of some guy killing his girlfriend.” I turn around to look at her, to catch her expression, but now everywhere I look is Melanie. Melanie’s face. Melanie’s smile. Melanie’s eyes brimming with fear. Maybe this forest
is
haunted.

“I think maybe we should go,” she says.

I’m able to blink Melanie away after several seconds. “Maybe it was an accident that she died.” I approach the girl, put my hands around her waist like before and stare down into her eyes, do my best to fill them up with temporary confidence. “Maybe they just loved each other so much that their passion couldn’t survive them both.”

“Is that what
you
think?”

“Maybe. Maybe he still thinks about her all the time.”

“Do you think about Kelly all the time?”

“Not right now.” This eases the girl. I can see it in her eyes. It’s almost as though some thin, translucent layer of aversion, a layer not of her true self, breaks away, and what lies beneath is bright with innocence, like I could dive right in. I lead her away to a rock, and we sit down, facing one another.

“Do you think you guys’ll break up?” she persists.

“I’m not sure she ever thought of us as together,” I say, wondering if that in fact is the truth.

“I know what you mean. Remember that guy I told you about … my ex? Well, I guess maybe I thought there was more to the relationship than there really was. It’s weird how we do that, you know, just fill in the blanks with our own answer key.”

“I think we create our own reality, our own truths. If we believe it to be so, then it is so.”

“I know what you mean. I really thought Jay and I—Jay’s my ex—had something special, you know? Just the way you thought you and Kelly had something, too. And you know the worst part of it all? It was Jay and Joy. Even our names fit perfectly together. I mean, it’s almost worth it to stay together for that reason.”