fit exactly.
We made love on his couch, our clothes mostly on, in a great shuddering hurry. Then, tenderly, he put his hands around my waist and said we should go upstairs. On the staircase, with my loosened clothes more or less falling around me, one of his hands caught me by the hip and pressed me into the wall. And this time he did not miss when his warm mouth found mine.
His log-paneled bedroom with its high-pitched ceiling had the inviting scent of aftershave and pinewood. Schulz handed me a thick, soft terry-cloth robe. He lit a kerosene lamp next to his hewn four-poster. The flame lit us and the bed, leaving the far reaches of the room deep in shadow. Beneath my bare feet the wood floor felt creamy-cold. i slipped between cool cotton sheets, keeping the robe on.
He bent toward me. “You all right?”
?I am very all right.?
Schulz’s body depressed the mattress next to me when he slid between the sheets and I involuntarily slid toward him. The sensation was odd after five years of sleeping alone. He pulled the down comforter around my shoulders and whispered, “I love you now and forever and ever.”
I couldn’t help it. Tears slid out of my eyes. My breath raked across the back of my throat. He hugged me tightly and I mumbled into his warm shoulder, “Thank you. Thank you,” as his fingers tenderly worked their way under the robe.
This time the caresses were slow and lingering, so that the great heaving release took us by surprise. Just as I was drifting off to sleep, I saw Schulz, somewhere in my mind’s eye, take my ripped carcass of a heart and gently, gently begin sewing.
I woke up with a start sometime in the middle of the night. I thought: I have to get home, God, this is incredible. Schulz and I had rolled apart. I turned to look at his face and the shape of his body in the moonlight streaming through the uncurtained window. His cheeks were slack, like a child’s; his mouth was slightly open. I kissed his eyelids. They were like the velvety skin of new peaches. His eyes opened. He propped himself up on an elbow. “You okay? Need to go? Need some help?”
“Yes, I need to go, but no thanks, I don’t need help.” And I was fine. For a change.
I dressed quickly, gave Schulz a long, wordless hug, and hightailed it toward home in the Rover. It was just past midnight. The snow had stopped and the clouds had parted. The moon shone high and bright in the sky, a pure white crescent. The clean, cold air gushing through the car windows was incomparably sweet. I felt wonderful, light-headed, lighthearted, giddy. I steered the Rover with one hand and laughed. An enormous weight had lifted from me; I was floating.
Unfortunately, my hope of sneaking quietly to bed was not to be realized. When I pulled up curbside, it was my house, and mine alone on the snow-covered street, that shone like a beacon. Lights blazed from every window.
“Where have you been?” Julian accused when I came through the security system.
The house reeked of cigarette smoke. Julian had beer on his breath. He looked horrid. His face was gray, his eyes bloodshot. His unwashed mohawk haircut stood up in tiny tepees.
“Don’t tell me you had more trouble with someone throwing ? ” I began, stunned out of my idyll. When he shook his head, I said, “Never mind where I’ve been. What is going on here? You don’t smoke. You’re a swimmer, for God’s sake! And what’s with the beer breath, Mr. Underage?”
“I have been so worried!” Julian hollered as he slammed into the kitchen ahead of me.
So much for my great mood. What in heaven’s name was going on? How had Julian gotten himself into such a state? I came home late all the time, although now I recalled belatedly that Julian and Arch usually checked the calendar to see where my catering assignment was on any given evening. Maybe Julian just wasn’t used to not knowing where I was. On the other hand, maybe he was worried about something else. Stay calm, I resolved.
.I followed him into the kitchen. “Where is Arch?” I said in a low voice.
“In bed,” Julian tossed over his shoulder, and opened my walk-in refrigerator. Next to the sink were three glass beer bottles, empty, ready to be recycled. Three beers! I could be put in jail for allowing him to drink in my home.
Chinese stars were scattered over the financial aid books stacked on the gingham tablecloth. Chinese stars are sharp-edged metal stars about the size of an adult’s palm, which is where you can hide them, I had once been told. I had learned about the weapons unexpectedly, when a boy at Arch’s elementary school had been caught with them. The principal had sent the students home with a mimeographed note about the weapons. Used in Tae Kwon Do, Chinese stars were banned at the school because when thrown, the letter explained, they could inflict great damage. The fellow who had brought them to Furman Elementary School had been summarily suspended. Looking straight at Julian, I scooped them all up and placed them in a pile on the counter.
“What is going on?”
Julian emerged from the refrigerator. He held a platter of cookies. In times of stress, eat sweets.
He said, “I’m going to kill the kid who threatened Arch.” So saying, he popped two cookies into his mouth and chewed voraciously.
“Really. If you have cookies on top of beer, you’ll throw up.”
He slammed the platter down. “Don’t you even care? Do you realize he’s not safe at that school?”
“Well, excuse me, Mr. Mom. Yes, I realize it. Mr. Perkins seems to think it’s a joke, however. A seventh-grade joke.” I took a cookie. “Arch called Schulz, though, and told him all about the snake.”
Julian slapped his compact body down on a chair; he ran a hand through the sparse crop of hair. “Do you think we could hire a bodyguard for Arch? How much would that cost?”
I swallowed. “Julian. You are very protective and sweet. However. You are overreacting. A bodyguard is not the answer to Arch’s problems.”
“You don’t know these people! They’re vicious! They steal and cheat! Look at what they did to Keith!”
“What people?”
He squeezed his eyes shut. “You just don’t get it. You’re just… indifferent. The Elk Park Prep people, that’s what people. Perkins is always talking about trust and responsibility. Two coats, a cassette, and forty dollars were stolen out of my locker last year. Trust? It’s a crock.”
“Okay. Look. Julian, please. I’m not indifferent; I agree with you that there’s a problem. I just don’t know what to do. But I can tell you a bodyguard is out of the question.”
His eyes opened; he scowled. “I went to the newspaper because I know there’s a snake lady in Aspen Meadow. You know, she comes into the schools and does demonstrations with live snakes. Maybe we can find out who got the rattler by contacting her, I know she sells them ? “
“Julian! For heaven’s sake!” “Don’t you understand what’s at stake here? He’s not safe! None of us is safe!”
With a third cookie halfway to my mouth, I gaped at him. “Couldn’t you please cool off? The way to react to this is not to smoke, drink, pullout your weapons, and put the screws on the snake lady, okay?” I put the cookie back on the platter and took a deep breath. “Won’t you please go up and get some sleep? You’re going to need your energy, with that midterm tomorrow and the college boards right around the corner. I need to go to bed too,” I added as an afterthought.
“Do you promise me you’ll follow through with Schulz?”
“I’m way ahead of you, Julian.” He thought about that for a minute, then shot an accusing look at me. “You never told me where you were.?
“Not that I need to answer to you, but I actually had dinner with Schulz. Okay?”
He glanced at the ceramic clock that hangs over my sink. One o’clock. “Kinda late for dinner, wouldn’t you say?”
“Julian, go to bed.”
8
My phone rang at seven o’clock. I groped for it. “Goldilocks’ Catering, Where Everything ? “
“Ah, Goldy the caterer?” said Father Olson.
“Oh, Lord!” I gargled into the mouthpiece. “Who told you?”
?Er ? ?
“I mean, how could you have found out? It was just last night!”
