Take Me There (14 page)

We lay there in the silence, but it didn’t feel like silence, because words were starting to invade my brain again. Let me love you, girl who came from the sea. Let us swim to the bottom of the ocean where we can be anything and where no one can find us. We will grow gills and breathe salt water. We will sprout fins and scales and make our home in underground caves. Or else we will drown there. But either way, I will be happy.

I SLEPT LATE BECAUSE IT WAS THE
F
OURTH AND I DIDN’T
have to go to work. I reached out for Jess and found myself hugging Baby Face, who responded by licking my face.

Not exactly the greeting I was hoping for.

At least not from my dog.

I sat up, looked around. Saw Jess sitting at the bar, writing something.

“You’re awake,” she said, bouncing off the bar stool and walking toward me, paper in hand. She was fully caffeinated and already dressed, wearing a pair of cotton shorts over a one-piece bathing suit that fit her like a glove. I wondered if she had any idea the effect she had on guys like me.

“I have something I want you to read,” she said, holding out the paper.

I made no move to take it from her hand. “I don’t have my glasses.”

“Don’t be silly. Since when do you wear glasses?”

I wanted to crawl under the futon and die, or at least
make a quick escape out the window.

“I know what you need,” she said, smiling. “I’ll get you some coffee.” She left the paper on the table and returned a few minutes later with a steaming mug.

I drank it very slowly, with Jess looking up at me the whole time. When I finally set down my mug, she put the paper in my hand.

The words she’d written immediately began dancing. “What is it?” I asked. It could have been a grocery list or a suicide note for all I knew.

“A poem. Maybe the beginning of a song. I’m not sure. I used to write a lot of songs.”

“You did?” I said, stalling for time as my stomach did flip-flops.

“Go on, read it.”

I tried to read it. I really did. I made out the first few words, but I was so shaken with her sitting there that I forgot what I was reading the minute I came to the end of the line. Something about people and what they say about you. After that I was completely lost. I didn’t know what else to do so I just kept staring at the paper.

“You hate it,” she said, looking suddenly like she might cry.

“No. Not at all. It’s … it’s beautiful.”

“You really think so?” She scooted closer.

“Absolutely.”

“Do you feel the same way?” she asked, and it felt like her future happiness rested on my answer.

“Most definitely,” I told her, praying that was the right reply.

“I’m
sooo
glad,” she said, taking my palm and pressing it against her lips. I stroked her cheek with my thumb. Felt her
breath between my fingers. Moved my hand down her neck. Traced her collarbone with my fingertips.

I was wearing running shorts and had nowhere to hide my reaction. “Excuse me,” I said, jumping off the futon before she saw and hurrying to the bathroom. Not coming out for a good long while.

A change had come over Jess. I wasn’t sure exactly how or why, but I wasn’t complaining.

She couldn’t get close enough to me. Couldn’t help touching me. Every now and then she would even stop in the middle of the sidewalk to pull me close and kiss me.

All day long I kept touching my back pocket, where I’d carefully tucked the poem she wrote. I felt like I held a treasure map I couldn’t decipher, but it didn’t really matter because I already had the treasure. Nothing mattered anymore except being with Jess.

That night as we slow danced on the beach with the band playing love songs and the fireworks exploding over the ocean, she pressed her body into mine and kissed me as if we were the only two souls in the world, even though the beach was crowded with people. Every time the sky lit up, a little explosion went off inside of me. She had to feel the reaction she was having on my body. No hiding it now.

When the band stopped playing to take a break, Jess grabbed my hand and led me out past where people were sitting on blankets, watching the light show. She led me up under the pier and found an empty place on the sand. Then she lay down, right in the middle of God and Southern California, and pulled me down on top of her.

I was trying to prop myself up on my elbows, afraid I might
crush her, but Jess wasn’t afraid. She pulled me closer, took the full weight of me on her.

We were both fully dressed. Nothing was going to happen out here on the beach. Then again, her futon was just a few blocks away. I was losing myself in her, completely and absolutely, and I kept thinking that if I stayed here long, I might not be able to leave.

Later, as she was tugging me along the boardwalk back to her house, we stopped to kiss every few feet.

I’d had girls come on to me before, but I’d always known that if I wasn’t around they would have found someone else. This was different. Jess was hungry for me and only me.

Those girls had also been stoned or drunk, which I figured made me look a lot hotter to them than I really was. Thinking back, I realized I’d always been stoned too. All of a sudden I wondered if I would know what to do straight.

My head was spinning. I felt like I’d been drifting, lost at sea all my life, and now that I’d found dry land, I couldn’t quite get my bearings.

Why hadn’t I brought any condoms?

Would she have any?

I doubted it.

What if I got her pregnant and ruined her life?

What if I gave her some disease?

What would she look like naked?

Would she regret this tomorrow?

What had she written on the paper in my pocket?

A million statistics from health class rushed through my head. Then she kissed me and I forgot them all.

She tasted like an ocean breeze.

What if I was misreading her?

Wasn’t it just last night she had me reciting a poem about a virgin?

What did that look in her eyes really mean?

What if her father came home, found us together, and killed me?

Why hadn’t I brought any condoms?

Was it possible I was dreaming?

What had she written on the paper in my pocket?

When we got inside Jess’s house, she quickly locked the door behind us and then pulled me straight up the steps to the second floor, where Baby Face ran out of her hiding place in the kitchen to greet us, probably frightened by the fireworks. She jumped up on the futon, wagging her tail.

Jess pulled me onto the floor so that we were both kneeling on the carpet, unbuttoned my shirt, and started kissing my chest. Her lips were like fire. “Oh God!” I groaned.

And then the phone rang.

“The machine will get it,” she said, as she untied the bathing suit strap around her neck. I reached up to help her.

“Jess, are you there?” came a voice over the answering machine. “Jess, pick up. I’ve got to see you. Baby, I’ve been such an idiot. I’m on my way over.”

“No!” Jess jumped up and ran to the phone, leaving me on the floor.

“Jason, what are you doing? … At this hour? … No … no. This really isn’t a good time… . No, I don’t want you to come over right now… . I don’t have to give you a reason… . Have
you been drinking? You haven’t? You sound funny… . What’s wrong? Jason, are you … crying?”

Jess looked down at me and her face filled with remorse, as if she’d suddenly realized she’d woken up under a cardboard box with some bum. She turned her back to me and lowered her voice, and I knew what was happening.

I was waking up from the dream.

“I know you didn’t mean what you said,” she murmured. “I know you’re sorry… .”

I buttoned my shirt and started throwing my belongings into my bag.

“What are you talking about?” she asked him. “A ring?”

I zipped up my bag and sat on the futon, waiting, breathing, just trying to keep breathing.

“Why did you do that?” she asked him. “I know that we
talked
about it but … Yes … I know you do… . Yes, I know… . I know… .”

My heart stopped beating as I listened.

“I love you, too,” she whispered.

I love you, too.
The words burned themselves onto my brain. Maybe she didn’t mean it, but she’d still said it.

“Okay,” she told him. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

She hung up the phone and turned back toward me, but didn’t look me in the eye as she retied her bathing suit straps.

I put the leash on Baby Face. “I should be going,” I said. “Will you be okay?” I could hardly speak, so strong was the desire to crawl in a deep hole and die.

“He’s not as bad as he seems.”

I wanted to tell her exactly what I thought of Jason. I’d seen his type a hundred times. He’d probably spent the entire
weekend with some other girl before he woke up and came to his senses about Jess. But I knew from experience that when you told somebody they shouldn’t want something, they wanted it all the more. “I’m sure he’s a great guy.”

“Really? What makes you think so?”

“You wouldn’t love him otherwise.”

She started to cry. “I don’t want you to go,” she said, but I left anyway, and she didn’t try to stop me.

I drove down to Huntington Beach. Crying. Cursing. Screaming out the window at the night.

Jason had cried on the phone with her, hadn’t he? Why hadn’t I cried in front of her? Why did I always have to play the tough guy?

When I got to Huntington Beach, I parked at the pier. Got out of the car. Took the piece of paper out of my back pocket. Knew that whatever was written there was lies. Like the lie she told me when she said she wouldn’t rip out my heart. Her claw marks were all over it. I tried to tear up the note. Tried to hate her.

Couldn’t seem to do either one.

Got back in the car. Realized what I really needed was to get very, very drunk. Unfortunately, my fake ID was back at home in Downey.

Put the car in gear and drove, playing “Dream On.” It all came flooding back to me. My uncle had set me up. My father was about to die. My mother, who had never bothered to tell me he was on death row, was having some kind of mental breakdown. My best friend was on the verge of handing his life over to a gang, and the only girl I’d ever really loved was with somebody else at that very minute. I’d gotten her all warmed up for Jason.

All I had wanted was to escape from my pathetic life, and for a few days I had, with Jess.

When I got home, it was two a.m. and no one was there. At first I was worried about my mother, but then I remembered she’d gone to Texas with Uncle Mitch. I went into the garage bedroom I shared with Wade and looked through the boxes where I kept my clothes. I’d thought the fake ID was in the bottom of a box of jeans, but it wasn’t. I turned over both of the mattresses, ripped through Wade’s girly magazines, tore the pockets off of clothing. Completely trashed our room before I realized it was three a.m. and the bars were closed.

Went looking through the kitchen for the bottle of Crown Royal I knew Mom kept hidden. Remembered I’d poured the last one out. Started throwing dishes and cursing her. Cursing me. I asked myself what kind of mother puts their kid out in the garage. Then I felt guilty because I knew I wasn’t exactly the ideal son, and I wondered if she was okay. She had looked so hopeless the last time I saw her. Was it possible she still loved my father, maybe a little bit?

Jess was better off without me. I should be happy for her, right?

I felt all the old rage bubbling up inside of me. I had changed my clothes, but I was still the same inside. No good. If she stuck with me, Jess might end up like my mother one day. That would be worse than this, I tried to tell myself.

I went to the box room. I don’t know why. Maybe I was pissed because the boxes were filling my old room. Maybe because it was my mother’s way of keeping things in order, and I was sick of pretending the world could be arranged.

I dumped the contents of all of the boxes into the middle
of the floor; the old tax returns, birth certificates, never-been-opened kitchen appliances. The fancy clothes Uncle Mitch bought her but she never wore. Then I tore all the boxes apart and tossed the pieces on top of the pile, sat down in the middle of it, and started to cry so hard my whole body was shaking.

“Bad day?”

I looked up to see Wade standing in the doorway, and I never felt so relieved. Good old faithful, predictable Wade. From the look in his eyes, I could tell he was trashed.

“You got any weed?” I asked him.

“Nah, smoked it all. Think I got a few Kools left.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Walked over. Offered me a smoke and a light.

I inhaled deeply, imagining it was something stronger. Felt my whole body relax. An overwhelming tiredness came over me. I thought about dropping the burning cigarette into the middle of the room and watching everything go up in smoke as I sat in the middle of the bonfire. Knew I wasn’t quite that crazy.

Wade sat beside me on the floor and lit a cigarette for himself. “What happened?”

“I tried to be somebody different from who I am and it didn’t work out.”

“The world ain’t set up that way. Folks say we oughta be better than we are, but deep down they just want us to stay in our places. With our own kind. Messes up the natural order, otherwise.”

“Guess I figured that out the hard way.”

“Did you love her?”

I wasn’t sure how Wade knew there was a
her
. He surprised me like that sometimes.

“Yeah.”

Wade nodded his head. Looked at his watch. “We’re supposed to be at work in five hours.”

“Don’t remind me,” I said as I grabbed one of Mom’s fake fur coats and made a pillow out of it.

“We could call in sick.”

“Nah. That wouldn’t be right. Gomez is the only person who ever tried to do right by us.”

“Whatever you say, but after work we’re gonna find ourselves a party. Pick up some girls. Get blown in every way possible.”

“Whatever,” I said, my eyelids heavy with sleep.

“It’ll be just like old times,” he told me. There was a hint of something desperate in his voice, but I wasn’t really listening, because by that time I was too far gone to hear any hint of danger.