“Jujyfruits? Sno-caps? I like Baby Ruth, don’t you? I like New York in June, how about you?”
“No.”
“Then what do you want from me?”
An honest question. I thought of Fiske saying that the Queen took from a distance, by blindsiding. I didn’t want to be that kind of woman. But I didn’t know what kind of woman I wanted to be. “Tobin, I only know one thing for sure.”
“What?”
“I only know what I don’t want from you.”
“Which is?”
“I don’t want you to play any games with me.” Like Paul did.
“I never played games with you, or any woman.”
Sure. “I’ve seen you at office parties. It’s a different date each time.”
He looked stung. “So what if I’ve dated a little?”
“A little? You’re pushing forty.”
“Or a lot? I haven’t met the woman I want to commit to yet. How about you? You bring the same man to the parties, but you’re not committed to him either. So what’s the difference?”
There was none.
“I can’t hear you.” He laughed, cupping a hand to his ear.
I hated to admit it. “Not much, in that regard anyway.”
“In that regard! You know who you remind me of, more than anybody?”
“Cindy Crawford?”
“Me.”
Please.
“We’re alike, you and me,” he continued. “We have a lot in common.”
“We both have ponytails, that’s it.”
“Are you kidding? We have similar backgrounds, we grew up here. We work too hard, we like to laugh. We’re loners. And we’ve never been married, which doesn’t mean we can’t commit.”
Maybe.
“What?” he asked.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“I know. You have a bad habit. You think a lot of things you don’t say. You’re too internal. It all goes on inside your head.”
It took me aback. “Thanks a lot.”
“But it’s true. I watch you. I notice things.” He leaned over, closing the space between us. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re thinking. Right now.”
Fine. “I was thinking, maybe it does mean we can’t commit.”
He winced, but it softened into a smile. “Maybe it does. Want to find out?”
Gulp. “I don’t know.”
He touched my cheek gently.
“I’m not sure.”
He nodded. “That’s honest.”
“I don’t want to play any games with you, either.”
“You don’t have to. In fact, you shouldn’t, because I don’t like that.”
Women taking indirectly.
“Rita, spit it out.”
I remembered Patricia’s high-risk game, then what Paul had said, about poker being such a safe game. Patricia and me; how much were we alike, how much were we different? And my mother, too. “Don’t you like women who play games, Tobin? Women who like action? Don’t you find them exciting? Adventurous? The thrill of risk, all that?”
“No,” he said flatly.
“Tell me why.”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?”
“Not to me.”
He reached for my hand and took it in his. It felt warm, different. Not as refined as Paul’s, but still strong. “The way I see it, risk-real risk-is not playing any games at all. Real risk is you, coming here. Real risk is you and me.”
It made me edgy.
“If you really want to take a risk, then you have to start telling me what you’re thinking. You have to stop playing games.” He paused, tracing a bumpy vein on my hand with his forefinger. He was so close I could smell the summer heat on his brow. “I hope you can do that, because I would really like to try. With you.”
I listened to his words, heard the timbre of his voice near my ear, the slight roughness there. It was all new, this, and everything about him was new. The rules were different now, there was no game at all. I wanted to avoid the mistakes I’d made with Paul. I wanted to be different, too. So I did the first thing that came into my mind.
I leaned over and kissed him.
It turned out to be exactly the right thing.
And later, when we made love in his soft bed, that was all different, too. His smells, his sounds. I let him touch me, and take me, and I closed my eyes and took pleasure in him without pretending I was anywhere else, or in another time. I didn’t have to hide any doubts about him. I didn’t have to avoid any feelings of distrust or anger. Or pain, and fear.
In the end I cried a little, and he held me close and made me laugh. Tumbled me around, handled me. Then hoisted me up and onto him with both arms, steadying me. Held me fast to him with his hands at my hips, moving me, encouraging me. I took him freely then. Justly. Directly. And every time I tried to turn out the light, he stopped me.
But I like it that way, I told him.
Learn a new way, he said. He wouldn’t be denied.
So I learned about that, too.
27
I didn’t ask Tobin to come with me to LeVonne’s funeral because I didn’t know how, or even if, he’d fit into my life. Nor did I tell him about the plan I had set in motion for Monday. It was my thing with Cam, Herman, and Uncle Sal. They sat next to me in an oak pew toward the back, their gray heads bent during the service.
It was an overcast afternoon, muting the rich colors of the stained-glass windows. The church was spacious and dignified, but spare and dim. The only light was afforded by hanging brass fixtures, mounted too high to do much good. Oak beams braced the vaulted ceiling and there was a decorative carved arch over the altar. In front of the altar, elevated from the floor, was a coffin. In it lay a small, dark figure.
LeVonne.
He rested in a cushion of soft, ivory muslin, and his fine hands had been placed one over the other. He was dressed in a gray suit and black tie, with a white shirt that was too big in the collar. His lips were pressed together, as they had been so often in life, but without his eyes open, the warmth of human expression was gone from his features. As the service began, the funeral director draped a white cloth over his face. I don’t know why. It didn’t help any.
