The Illusionist (14 page)

“I don't want to be beautiful. I'm not beautiful.”

“Your skin's all transparent. Like glass, or a pearl.”

We were related, I thought, brother and sister born on some distant planet, not Earth. He would never hurt me. He was soft. It was myself somehow that I wanted in him.

And as the engine of the truck rumbled, he took my hand,
turned it over, smoothed out my fingers, kissed the flat palm. I could feel his warm breath on my skin. His face was moving closer to my face. As if he were going to kiss me. Then, suddenly, he turned away, sat back in the seat.

He said, “It's okay if we don't make love now. We can go for months and months, and I'll still love you. That isn't what counts for me.” He had said he loved me—he had uttered the words.

Then he said, “It's cold. We better go.”

*  *  *

We drove home, and he asked if he could come inside the house. Mommy was already in bed, and I let him.

“I want to see your yearbook,” he said.

We sat together in the darkness under the light of the brass standing lamp. He paged through the yearbook, his eyes eager for pictures of me. There were the group photos, me with the conflict mediation team. Then he came to the picture of me as Schoolgirl Queen. My crown had flattened my hair down. There were these two bright crazed glints in my eye from the camera's flash reflected in them.

He whispered at my image on the page. “Look at you.” As if the picture were the real thing, and I wasn't even there beside him, flesh and blood. I glanced at the photo. What I saw on the page was the face of another person. Even in two years my face had changed, whatever baby fat was there had dissolved, my bones were more defined now. “One of those people nobody can have. . . .” he murmured.

“That's not true,” I said.

“Everybody wanted you—right?” he said. “You were perfect?”

“I'm not perfect. Nobody's perfect. And not everybody wanted me.”

He raised his eyebrow, grinned, that bad-boy look on his face. “Could
I
have had you?” he asked.

I was gazing at his lips, the pouty lips, creased skin, mole above the mouth. Little gold hairs above the upper lip, and just below
his jawline, barely visible unless you were up close. “It's okay,” I said. “You can kiss me.”

He looked at me hard a moment, then reached forward and kissed me—too quick.

He glanced up at the stairs, looking to see if she was there.

“She's in bed,” I said.

“She can hear us. I know she can.”

“She can't. I know what she can hear.”

He took both my hands in his. “I'll still love you. Even if we don't do it. Let's wait. Till we're ready.” And then he turned back to the yearbook, his eyes fixed on my photo again.

I had heard someone say once that desire is one half curiosity. Now I was all curiosity.

*  *  *

Next evening, Mommy was lying on the couch, the TV droning, her eyelids drooping. She was always tired from her job, always fell asleep right after dinner.

It was snowing again. I could hear the grinding of the plow on the road. They said this was the most severe winter in years. It seemed like there was no oxygen in the house and I couldn't breathe, I wanted to get out, wanted the sensation of the cold air on my face.

The doorbell sounded and I got up to answer it. Dean was there standing on the threshold.

“I gotta talk to you!” he said. I felt my heart rise. I stepped aside and let him in and as he brushed past me, the cold from his leather jacket ruffled my skin.

Mommy, on the couch, opened her eyes, and he nodded toward her. “Mrs. Saluggio.”

She nodded back, her expression grave, her dark eyes watchful. “Hello, Dean. Close that door, Mellie. It's freezing.” She was accepting him in some way. She guessed—with that sixth sense of hers—that we weren't having sex.

Dean glanced toward the kitchen. “Can we talk in there?”

I led the way. We stood there, the humming of the big refrigerator filling the room. Most beautiful thing in the house, the refrigerator. Special-order, powder blue, ice maker and water spout, everything you needed, too big for the two of us really, but she liked the vertical freezer because it held more and you could buy food on sale and keep it.

He glanced toward my mother in the living room, and moved closer to me, lowering his voice. “Listen,” he said, “I need a place to stay.”

“What happened?”

“Terry knows about us. She's freaked. She threw me out.”

My heart raced. “I'll ask her. Wait.”

I ran from him to the living room, knelt down on my knees at the couch in front of her. “Can Dean stay here tonight?” I asked. I saw her look doubtful, her lips part to say no. “Please,” I begged. “Please—please—please! He's got nowhere to go. He got kicked out of where he was staying.” Drowning out any chance for her to say no. “He'll be homeless!” I cried.

She scrutinized me with those dark brown eyes, knowing everything, careful. Knew we weren't sleeping together. Maybe some part of her had chosen him for me because she thought he was safe. I had a fantasy—we would
both
be her kids, we would live here together, the two of us, under her protection.

At last she said, “Well, a few nights, I guess. Get the extra comforter out of the upstairs hall closet, and a pillow.”

She switched off the TV and climbed the stairs to bed, and I carried the pillow and comforter down to him. And as I held it out to him, I envied this cloth that would touch his skin. Anything that would touch him, I wanted to be.

We were alone now, the house dark except for the light from the single lamp. I wondered, would he change into his pajamas?

He bent down, unzipped his backpack, removed a black ditty bag from it, placed it on the coffee table. His movements were tentative, careful, as if he were worried he was taking up too much space.

Then he stood still in the middle of the room. I realized he wanted me to leave.

“Let me cover you,” I said. I wanted to do that, make him like my child. If you loved someone, he was many different things to you. Lover. Father. Child. All those things. I wanted to cradle his head, to surround him completely, cover him with my body.

But he slid under the covers fully dressed. I tucked the comforter around his body. He reached up as if to kiss my forehead, but at the same moment I moved suddenly toward him, and caught him on the lips with a kiss. He seemed surprised.

Upstairs, in my own bed, I lay for hours thinking of him down there on the couch, imagined him breathing. And his whole being seemed to hang in the air of the house.

I couldn't sleep. At 2
A.M.,
I tiptoed downstairs again. She had kept the light on the stairs burning. As if to sanitize the place, a warning to us to keep away from one another.

In the living room, I could see the mound of his body on the couch under the comforter. He lay still, as if he were sleeping. I stepped closer. He was on his stomach, his arm pushed up under the pillow. I could see his face in the light from the stairs, his eyelashes resting on his full, round cheek. He was still wearing his day clothes, his flannel shirts.

I could hear the hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen, clicking on and off. Had he heard me come down the stairs? Was he just pretending to be asleep? I touched him on the shoulder, he turned over suddenly on his back. I thought for a moment he was irritated at being touched because I had startled him out of some deep sleep of exhaustion.

In the semidarkness, he opened his eyes. He looked panicked, as if he didn't recognize me. “Melanie,” he said, and he closed his eyes again.

“I can't sleep,” I said. “I came down to get some juice.”

“Hi,” he murmured, eyes still closed, as if he hadn't understood me. As if he were not fully awake, and was pulled back into sleep.

The house was so cold. She always kept the heat down at night to save on fuel. I clutched my arms around my chest and shivered. Hoping he'd realize I was cold, that he'd sense I was naked under my nightgown, that he'd invite me in under the covers. I sat down on the edge of the couch, perching my hip there, but he didn't move his body aside to make room for me.

“I'm cold,” I said. “Can I get inside with you?”

Eyes closed, as if concentrating on sleep, he reached his hand up, touched my hair. “Can't,” he said. “She'll throw me out. Then I'm fucked.”

I could feel the warmth emanating from the opening between his body and the comforter, could feel myself drawn to the warmth there as if he were a magnet, as if I were an animal who belonged there in his heat. “Please,” I said.

He opened his eyes now, and I could see them wide and gleaming. “We can't,” he said. “She kicks me out, I got nowhere else to go.”

For the next few days, Dean and I rode around in his truck while my mom was at work at the travel agency. We were both supposed to be looking for jobs. Sometimes we'd stop in at a store and ask if they were looking for someone and they'd always say nothing right at this moment, or the manager was out and come back tomorrow, or try again in another week.

We drove around in the yellow winter light, up and down between the rows of cars in the parking lot of the mall. One afternoon we went to the half-price matinee to see
True Lies.
The theater was empty, only a couple of men there, probably off-shift. I couldn't concentrate on the movie because of Dean next to me, I would never remember it. Just noise up on the screen, and shapes moving, and him next to me, watching intently. I took Dean's hand in mine. Wished we were alone, wished he'd take me somewhere so we could be alone.

When the movie was over, we walked out across the parking lot to his truck. A cold, wet wind swept across the asphalt. The traffic on Route 7 was thick, headlights on though it was only 5
P.M.
This was what passed for rush hour in Sparta, the pulse of excitement in the air, the day's work done, everyone pointed homeward. Seemed as if only Dean and I had not worked today.

We came to his truck, were standing on either side, about to
open the doors, when I looked up and saw Brian's blue Camaro turn in to the mall, Brian and Jimmy in front.

I knew Brian had been cruising around, looking for me. I thought sometimes that Brian spent whole days at a time driving around, hoping to spot me somewhere in town. He'd probably gone to my house and discovered it empty. Somehow, Brian always knew my schedule. I hardly paid any attention to him anymore, except for this awareness I had that he always seemed to be nearby. Sometimes he'd show up at a place just seconds after I arrived, as if he had mysteriously learned in advance where I'd be, before I even knew about it myself.

Brian had spotted us, and he drove diagonally across the lane toward me. He stopped his car abruptly next to Dean's truck, rolled the driver's side window down.

I saw this look of raw pain shoot across his face. He looked from Dean to me, and back again, and his mouth opened, as if he were about to say something. For a moment, his expression was like the face on that gargoyle above the door of the old Opera House on Washington Street, the corners of the mouth turned down in tragedy. It was as if someone had struck him. And for a second, I felt guilty and I wanted to touch his shoulder and comfort him.

“Melanie,” he said. His voice seemed to choke up. He hadn't known for sure, but now he knew.

Then that cold smile came on his face again, like he cared about nothing.

Dean stared at Brian, a little smile on his face. “Hey Brian,” he said, taunting him.

“Dean,” Brian murmured.

We waited, very still. I was uncomfortable, I turned toward the truck. “Well,” I said, “see you, Brian.”

And then Dean and I climbed in and drove off, and Dean waved over his shoulder at Brian smiling, smiling in his little triumph, but Brian and Jimmy just sat there, looking after us and they didn't wave back.

A few nights later, when Dean and I came into the Wooden Nickel, Brian and Jimmy were there already sitting at a table in the big room. Chrissie Peck was at the bar reading her book and writing in a notebook. As we walked into the bar, I sensed that Brian was aware of us, though he didn't look up.

Dean and I sat in silence for a half hour or so, just listening to the music on the jukebox. Sometimes I was afraid to speak for fear I would sound like a fool. I loved Dean, and I was afraid of him.

Then suddenly Dean stood up. “I'll be right back.”

“Where you going?”

He didn't answer and left the bar.

After fifteen minutes, he returned and sat down again beside me, and we stayed sitting there, side by side, saying nothing.

At 2
A.M.,
Carl said he was closing up, and we went outside. Across the lot, Brian and Jimmy were getting into Brian's car, when suddenly there was a commotion inside. I saw Brian ducking up and down in the front seat, his arms up, shielding his face like he was being divebombed by something.

Next to me, Dean started laughing. Pretty soon, he was bent over and hysterical. “What is it?” I cried.

I could see Brian panicked in the front of the car. Jimmy opened the front of the Camaro and started swiping at something, trying to bat whatever it was away.

From where I stood I could just make out this little yellow thing whirring around inside Brian's car. “What happened?” I asked.

“It's a canary!” Dean said. “A baby canary! I got it at Petland. I got his car door open and I put it there.” And then he started laughing again, laughing so hard at the spectacle of Brian and Jimmy frantically trying to get the little bird out of their car that he had to hold on to the side of the truck for support.

“I don't see what's so funny,” I said.

“Scared of a little bird!” Dean spluttered. Indeed, you could see Brian was terrified of this tiny alien thing flitting about inside his car, beating its little body frantically against the windshield.