IDE AND SEEK
'I don't know how it works, actually. But I think I'm the glue in all
this, somehow. And to answer your next question, yes, sometimes it is
a big pain in the ass. But not usually.'
I decided to throw her a curve ball, as long as she was in the mood to
put up with my curiosity. I made it very casual-sounding.
'So where does your brother fit in?'
'My brother?'
Whatever it was, it came up fast and mean. I felt I knew how the rat
feels when the trap snaps shut it was such a tiny piece of cheese in
the first place. There was suddenly something dangerous scuttling
around in the car with us.
'Who the hell mentioned my brother? Daddy?'
'I just saw his picture, that's all. In the living room. So I
wondered.'
She stared at me a moment, and I knew how cold those eyes could be. She
twisted the key in the ignition and the car sprang obediently to life.
She pulled away. The tires screeched at us.
'Let's just forget about my fucking brother,' she said.
I made a mental note to damn well try.
There was a local band at the Caribou that night. It was pretty bad.
Two guitarists, a fat lazy drummer, and a girl lead singer I vaguely
remembered from high school. She was small and blond and squeaky, with
no breasts at all and the stage presence of a plate of peach preserves.
Their repertoire was entirely cribbed from Loretta Lynn and Ernest Tubb
records. You dreamed wistfully of bad Top 40. We drank our beers and
when the boys in front stood up and applauded 'Waltz Across Texas' we
got the hell out of there.
She wanted to drive around some.
I talked and she listened. There was the urge to tell her everything,
to give her the complete thumbnail Clan Thomas. But I held back here
and there, wanting to keep it light. I avoided mention of my own
brother. I didn't want her to think I was leading back to hers. What
I wanted was just to amuse her, but there wasn't much I could think of
that was very amusing. And as I talked I realized just how depressing
Dead River was, compared to what she was used to in Boston. Compared
to anything. But it was all I had.
So I told her about Rafferty and the night he and the Borkstrom twins
got drunk and crapped in old man Lymon's water tower. I told her about
the drag races through Becker's Flats. I told her about the old black
dog we used to have who could whistle through his teeth. And I
wondered what in the world she was making of all this, and me.
She wanted to know why I'd been caught setting fire to somebody's back
lawn. I told her we were napalming plastic soldiers.
But it was uncomfortably close to the other thing.
So I drew her off of that.
It started to rain.
Just a light warm drizzle with a heavy fog rolling in.
We'd left the top down on the Chevy, so we pulled over across the
street from the Colony Theater, got out and hauled it out of the well
and snapped the snaps down. Across the street the movie was Children
Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, one of those low-budget horror
pictures. But I guess there wasn't much business. Candy Bailey sat in
the booth reading a paperback mystery. The streets were quiet.
Casey walked over to me. I had my hand on the door handle on the
driver's side, ready to let her back inside. She put her fingers down
lightly on my forearm
Necking in the streets.
It felt pretty awkward at first. It was my town after all and there
was Candy Bailey in the lighted booth a few yards away. The feeling
didn't last, though. Only a few seconds before her mouth convinced me
that it was a very good thing to do. After the first long kiss we
parted and I saw how the tiny droplets of rain glistened in her hair
under the theater lights from across the street. I saw the look on her
face. The unexpected hunger there.
We kissed again. Long and wanting and hard this time, an animal
shifting of the muscles along her back.
A man walked by behind us, walking a big mongrel dog, just ashadow in
front of the closed-up shell of a drugstore that had failed three years
ago. I was only just aware of him.
Her body fit with mine like none I'd ever held before, every curve and
hollow melting into a perfect whole. Her tongue tasted sweet.
It flayed the inside of my mouth until the only thing in the world I
wanted to do was climb back into that car and finish it before I
exploded at her. Drive to my place. Feel her naked on cool fresh
sheets, damp with sweat.
Her hand moved mine beneath the T-shirt to her naked breasts and belly.
They felt hot to the touch. There was a fragrant woman-smell rising
off her flesh. She moaned softly against my mouth and moved us back
against the Chevy.
'Lift me up.'
'You'll ruin the skirt.'
It was soft white linen.
'I don't care.'
I moved my hands to her thighs and hitched her up onto the low front
hood of the car. She wrapped her arms around me and kissed me again.
The kiss was furious, amazing, touched with something crazy running
between us like a thin white-hot wire. When it was over we pulled back
and gasped for breath, chests heaving, hearts pounding. Her eyes
glittered as she looked at me.
The rain had begun to come down a little harder.
My face was so flushed I felt we must have been steaming there, the two
of us, boiling mists off the street. I'd never thought it possible to
