me.
The habits of years reasserted themselves, and I set to work. I didn’t want to be late to class this night; I looked forward to seeing Marshall my lover, and I didn’t want Marshall my sensei to be shooting me the disapproving look he’d given me last time.
I’d gotten the dusting done and was getting the mop out of the closet when I heard a key in the lock.
“Hey, Lily,” called a casual male voice.
“Hi, Bobo,” I replied, making a mental note to tell Beanie she needed a new mop.
“Hey, what about that old guy getting killed over by your place?” Bobo said, his voice getting closer.
I glanced over my shoulder. The boy-the six-foot-two boy-was leaning against the kitchen sink, looking spectacular in cutoffs and an Umbro shirt. His grin betrayed his age, but his body had grown up ahead of him. I answer the phone while I’m working at the Winthrops‘, and most of the calls in the summer are inevitably for Bobo. He has his own phone, of course, but he gives only particular friends that number, much to his mother’s irritation.
“He died,” I said.
“That’s no answer, Lily! C’mon, you must know all about it.”
“I’m sure you know as much about it as I do.”
“Is it true someone called old Claude Friedrich while he was sacked out and told him where the body was?”
“Yes.”
“See, now that’s the kind of thing I want you to tell me.”
“You already knew that, Bobo.” My patience had almost evaporated.
“Well… give me the inside scoop. You gotta know something that wasn’t in the paper, Lily.”
“I doubt it.” Bobo loved to talk, and I knew he’d follow me around the house if I gave him the slightest encouragement.
“How old are you, Bobo?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m a senior. I’m seventeen,” he said. “That’s why I’m outta class early today. You gonna miss me next year when I go off to college, Lily?”
“You know it, Bobo.” I got the Mop
“Oh, by the way, Lily…”
When he didn’t finish his sentence, I glanced over, to see Bobo was blushing a bright red.
As I raised my eyebrows to show I was waiting for him to finish his sentence, I squirted some cleaner on the floor. The water was running hot; I squeezed out the excess water and began to mop.
“When you were cleaning my room the other day, did you happen to find… something… ah, personal?”
“Like the condom?”
“Um. Right. Yeah.” Bobo stared at something fascinating by his right foot.
“Um-hmm.”
“What’d you do with it?”
“What do you mean? I threw it away. You think I was going to sleep with it under my pillow?”
“I mean… did you tell my mom? Or my dad?”
“Not my business,” I said, noting that Howell Winthrop, Jr., came a decided second on the list of people Bobo feared.
“Thanks, Lily!” Bobo said enthusiastically. He met my eyes briefly, his shoulders relaxed: He was a man looking at blue skies.
“Just keep using them.”
“What? Oh. Oh, yeah.”
And Bobo, if possible, grew redder than before. He left with a great show of nonchalance, jingling his keys and whistling, obviously feeling he’d had an adult conversation about sex with an older woman. I was willing to bet he’d be more careful disposing of personal items in the future, as well he ought.
I found myself singing as I worked, something I hadn’t done in years. I sing hymns when I’m by myself; I know so many, from the countless Sundays I’d spent sitting with my parents and Varena in church-always in the same pew, fifth from the front on the left. I found myself remembering the mints my mother always had in her purse, my father’s pen and the notepad he produced for me to draw on when I got too restless.
But thinking of my childhood seldom brings me anything but pain. Back then, my parents hadn’t cast their eyes down when they spoke to me. They’d been able to hold conversations without tiptoeing verbally around anything they thought might distress their ravaged daughter. I’d been able to hug them without bracing myself for the contact.
From long practice, I was able to block out this unproductive and well-traveled train of thought. I concentrated on the pleasure of singing. It’s always an amazement to me that I have a pretty voice. I’d had lessons for a few years; I used to sing solo in church, and perform at weddings from time to time. Now I sang “Amazing Grace.” I reached up to brush the hair out of my face when I was finished, and it was a shock to find it was short.
Chapter Eight
I’d almost forgotten my sedentary neighbor’s participation in the Wednesday-night class. It sure hadn’t looked like he was having a good time, so I was surprised to see Carlton warming up when I bowed in the doorway. He was trying to touch his toes. I could tell from the way his mouth twisted that movement was painful.
“The full soreness has set in, huh?” I said as I sat on the floor to pull off my shoes.
“Even my hair hurts,” he said through clenched teeth as he strained downward. His fingers just managed to touch the tops of his feet.
“This is your worst day,” I told him.
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“I thought maybe it would help to know that tomorrow won’t be so bad.” I rolled my socks in a neat ball and stuck them in my right shoe. I stood, rotated my neck gently, then bent from my waist and put my hands flat on the floor. I gave a sigh of pleasure as my back stretched and the tension of the day flowed out.
“Show-off,” Carlton said bitterly.
I straightened and looked him over. Carlton was wearing shorts and a T-shirt. To the untrained eye, he would have looked pretty good, but I could see the lack of definition and development in his arms and thighs. Overweight, he wasn’t; in shape, he wasn’t.
Marshall came in and gave me a private smile before one of the other students approached him with a question. I followed him with my eyes for a moment and then considered Carlton, who was on the floor, his legs spraddled to either side, trying to touch his chest to the right leg, then the left. Carlton’s thick black hair, normally gelled and swept behind his ears, was getting wild as he straightened and bent, straightened and bent. I pulled the top of my gi out of my gym bag and slid into it, then tended to the tying of the belt.
“So, Carlton. Remember the subduing hold we practiced last time?” I asked. Carlton scrambled to his feet.
“Ah… no. I had so much to learn that one night.”
Marshall was laughing with a knot of the younger men in the class.
“Okay. Reach out to grab my gi with your right hand… That’s right. Now, grip hard.” Apparently scared he’d pull me off balance, Carlton barely took hold of the loose material. “No, Carlton. You really have to hold on, or you’ll think I was able to do this because you weren’t exerting full strength.”
Carlton, while increasing the force of his grip, looked distinctly anxious. “Oh, I wouldn’t think that!” he protested.
“Now, remember? I reach up with my right hand, like so… I sink my thumb into the pit between your thumb and forefinger, to hit the pressure point-I got it, I see-and then I twist your hand so that the outside of it, the side of your little finger, is pointed toward the ceiling… Of course that rotates your whole arm, right?”
I could tell Carlton was remembering.
