The Slow Moon (10 page)

Bobby didn’t want to leave Sophie with the girls. One of them, Stephanie, burned a look into him.

They played several songs, but Antony wasn’t around to sing. “Where’s their singer?” Sophie asked.

“He can’t always come,” said Nikki. “He’s black, and his mama’s strict. She’s a nurse.”

The other girl hung around Casey, standing near the drums.

Crow kept looking at Sophie as he strummed his guitar. She grew embarrassed by the intensity of his stare but didn’t turn away. His muscles looked stringy and hard, and he swayed with the music. She felt sure he would speak to her before the night was over, but as he finished playing, he did not look at her again. They packed away their instruments, Bobby coming over a few times to ask how she was.

At ten forty-five Sophie asked if anyone could take her home. Bobby offered to leave, but the other guys wanted to stay, so Nikki volunteered to drive her home.

“I have my car,” she said. “Come on, girls, and Sophie, you ride up front.”

“Where do you live?” Stephanie asked.

“Three houses from Bobby,” she said.

Stephanie rolled her eyes. “Watch out for Bobby, Sophie. He’s trouble.”

“He is trou-ble,” said the girl who hung around Casey. “Good-looking as hell, but trouble.”

“Bobby’s still taking you to the movies, right, Steph?” asked Nikki. She wanted to inform Sophie that Bobby and Stephanie were a couple.

“I guess,” said Stephanie. “He said he was.”

Sophie guessed the tension. “I only met Bobby tonight,” said Sophie. “We hardly know each other.”

“That’s all that’ll go out with him now—the ones who don’t know him. God, his hands go everywhere.” Stephanie’s voice was tight. “We’ve been going out since September, but we’re about to split. He just got so bad.” She looked teary as she said it.

Casey’s girl leaned toward the front seat. “
I’d
go with him.” She sighed.

“Yeah, but you’re a slut,” said Stephanie.

They laughed.

“Lester’s good though,” said Nikki. “Lester’s all right.” They were telling her which boy to go out with, informing her politely of her choices.

Stephanie squinted. “I bet Lester calls you, Sophie. I saw him checking you out tonight.”

“Listen,” said Nikki. “You really French?”

“Sort of. My dad was French Canadian. He used to speak it a lot.” No one asked where he was. “He’s dead now,” she offered. “He died in a forest fire two years ago.”

“What year are you, Sophie?”

“Ninth.”

The girls looked at each other. Everything they did made them seem older.

They dropped Sophie at her house, and Nikki told her to look for them at lunch on Monday. She said they would be on the steps by the east door. “You’ll see us,” she said.

Sophie thanked them for the ride. As they drove away she heard them laughing. “She’s all right,” Nikki’s voice rang loud. “C’mon, y’all. Don’t dis her just because she looks good.”

None of the girls had said a word about how Sophie looked. They had not promised to like her.

Sixteen

T
HE DAY AFTER
Bobby had introduced the French girl to his friends he went to her house. He felt excitement and a kind of ownership. He imagined that Sophie liked him, and his step grew light and fast.

Rita answered the door. “Oh, Bobby, I was expecting the plumber. Sophie’s out in the backyard. She can’t believe that it can be so warm in winter.”

“She sunbathing?” asked Bobby.

“Better let me tell her you’re here,” Rita said.

Sophie came into the house wearing one of her father’s shirts over a pair of shorts.

“Hey,” said Bobby. “I’m glad you heard us play last night. You like it?”

“Sure,” said Sophie. “And the girls were nice. Nikki said I could meet them for lunch on Monday.”

Bobby nodded. He wondered what the girls had told Sophie about him. “What’d you talk about, in the car?”

“Nothing. Just about school and stuff.” Bobby felt nervous around Sophie, and Sophie found that she didn’t like his nervousness. “Listen, I got to go.”

“Sure. I’ll come by tomorrow. We’ll go somewhere.”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“I’ll come by anyway. Maybe.”

“Okay.”

He came by every day for the next week, until one day Sophie told her mother to say she wasn’t home.

“You want me to lie?” Rita said, with Bobby waiting in the kitchen. “Why don’t you like him?”

“I do. I just don’t want him to come by the house every single day.”

“He’s smitten. That’s for sure.”

“Well, I’m not.”

“I don’t know why. He’s certainly handsome.”

“Well.”

“I’ll tell him you’re not here. But at least let him come by later.”

“Might as well see him now then.” Sophie went into the kitchen. She couldn’t tell if Bobby had heard what they said, but his face looked expectant.

“Wanna go for a ride? I can show you around?”

“Okay.”

Bobby took her to the Dairy Queen and they bought some hot dogs and cones of chocolate-dipped soft serve. “Wanna walk down to the river?”

“Sure.”

They ate their cones as they walked, and then Bobby turned to Sophie and said, “My heart is pounding so fast.” He lifted her hand and let her feel his heart. “Feel that?”

“Don’t,” she said.

“Why are you so uncomfortable with me?” he asked. His experience with girls had been easy until now.

“You just seem kinda stiff or something. You—”

“Well, you got that part right.” He laughed. “The part about being stiff.”

Sophie didn’t laugh.

“What’s the matter with you?” he said. He wanted to kiss her. He pulled her to him.

“Stop, Bobby. Stop it!”

“Okay. Okay.” He released her, throwing his hands high into the air. “I’m just trying to tell you something here.” His voice grew soft again. “I’m just trying to tell you.” He leaned to kiss her, not touching, just leaning to kiss her cheek. “I think about you all the time.” His breath was hot, and Sophie found herself both flattered and scared. “One kiss,” he said. “Let me kiss you one time, then we’ll go. It’s not so much to ask.” He was sweating, and the sweat on his face made him more handsome. He was the best-looking boy she had ever seen, but still she wanted to leave.

“One.” She could not imagine that one kiss would hurt anything. So he kissed her. She had not been kissed in this way. When he let her go, she felt dizzy.

“Okay,” he said, happy. “That’s all I wanted. Just a chance, you know?” He treated her with caution all the way home. The whole outing had been strange, and Sophie was glad when it ended. Bobby seemed happy, satisfied, and she was going back home. “Want to go hear us practice tonight?”

“No,” said Sophie. “I can’t go tonight.” She got out of the car and waved to him. He sat until she had gone into the house and closed the door.

Seventeen

O
NE EVENING IN
late January just before Charlie Post was closing the hardware store, a tall woman in a hooded coat came in the door and the bell, tripped by a small wire over the door, began to tinkle. The woman’s sudden appearance out of the near-dark night made Charlie think of a ghost, or possibly a monk. He felt startled until she threw back her head, releasing the hood from her face.

Charlie had already heard about the woman who moved in down the street from Judge Bailey, and he was vaguely curious. He stood behind the cash register and watched her brush off her coat. He couldn’t remember what people had said her name was.

Her hair fell in long, bright red ringlets around her face and neck, and her face was wet with rain. “I got here just in time,” she said. “Looks like you were about to close.” Her words lost themselves in the room and Charlie could still hear the bell’s high sound and the slam of the door, as if he had not caught up to the present moment yet but lagged a moment or two behind. He said nothing.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “You want me to come back tomorrow?” She moved toward the cash register. “I know what I’m looking for, and if I can get it now, I won’t have to make another trip.”

“Of course,” said Charlie. He turned and pretended to wipe off a shelf behind him. “I wasn’t ready to close anyhow.”

She called to him from behind one of the high shelves. “Are you Charlie Post? The owner?”

“Yep,” he said, feeling an opening. “And you moved in near Judge Bailey, right?”

Rita emerged from the back shelves carrying faucet fixtures, a few pipes, a small array of washers, and the best wrench in the store. Charlie laughed. “Better make sure you have the right pipe size. You have to—”

Rita interrupted. “They’re right,” she said. “I’ve done this before, lots of times. My dad was a handyman and taught me how to repair houses and cars, even plumbing. I’ve been doing this since I was ten.”

“Oh,” said Charlie. “Sorry. Does that house need a lot of repair?”

“More improvement than repair,” she said.

Charlie liked her, her wild mop of hair, her big eyes, her purchases. He told her to come back anytime and asked what her name was.

Rita did come back several times that week. She even asked him about the help-wanted sign in the window. He thought she was kidding, but when she asked again he said, “Are you serious?”

“Are
you
?” Rita asked.

“Well,” he said. “I only want part-time, two or three days a week.”

“That’s all
I
want.”

The bell above the door announced someone’s entrance, and Charlie looked up, startled by the intrusion.

“Lester,” he said, waving Lester to the back. “I’ve been expecting you.”

Lester had come to bring scholarship material to Charlie—envelopes and forms. He wanted a personal recommendation from his coach. He had plenty of people to recommend him academically. Charlie took the material from Lester. “Where is it you want to go? Yale?”

“Let’s just see who’s gonna take me.”

“Anybody would.”

Lester pulled Charlie into the back room.

“What’s the matter?” Charlie asked.

“I’m going to ask out the new girl. She’s French. I’m asking her today.”

Ever since Little League, Charlie had advised Lester about girls. It had started with MaryLou Adams in the seventh grade, moved on to Cindy Harbison, then Annie and Jill Wright, who were sisters. None of these had turned out well.

“She’ll probably say yes.”

“Right.” The muscles in Lester’s jaw tightened.

“I know what you mean,” said Charlie. “I’ve seen her mother.”

Lester laughed.

By the end of January, Rita was working three days a week at Post Hardware. Her presence brought in more customers, both men and women. The men came in to see Rita, let her sell them something, hear her talk about pipe fittings and wrenches. Women came in to look over what the men were flocking to see.

Most days Rita wore jeans and a T-shirt. Her figure was trim, her manner businesslike and friendly. Her face, though, glowed with excitement, with knowledge about hardware, and she moved through the store with a smooth grace.

Charlie sold more merchandise in the middle of the week than he did on weekends. And though at first the women who came in didn’t like Rita, she spoke to them as though they could install anything themselves, as though they didn’t need a man to help them. So they left the store liking her spirit, trusting her.

Tuesday through Thursday Charlie grew used to having her around the store. He grew used to her voice calling him from the storeroom, used to bending over the counter with her looking through catalogues as she pointed out new items he might want to order.

As she talked, his eyes roamed her shoulders and plump breasts beneath the cotton T-shirt or sweater she wore. At times, while she talked, her nipples grew hard and he could distinguish the particular lilt of her breasts. Even through her jeans he could see the musculature of her thighs and buttocks, and he let his mind move his tongue around those hard nipples, between the white inner softness of her thighs, her legs opening for him.

“Listen,” she said, as she closed a catalogue. Charlie jumped. “How would you like to come to my house for dinner on Friday night? An old friend of my husband’s sent some salmon he caught in Montana, and I want to share it with somebody.”

Charlie backed up, knocking over a stack of brochures. Probably the phrase “an old friend of my husband’s” caught him off balance.

“My husband died in a forest fire,” she said, helping Charlie restack the brochures. “Maybe you didn’t know that. He was a forest ranger and was killed in one of the fires. It’s why we left Montana, came here.” She took a few steps back. “Anyway,” she said.

“I knew about your husband,” Charlie explained. “I didn’t know what happened to him. But yes, I’ll be glad to help you eat salmon. I’ll bring wine, and I make a good apple pie.”

Rita smiled and touched Charlie’s arm. Charlie felt as if he should apologize for the intimate thoughts he’d been having a moment ago. He wondered if she could read his mind, if the longing he felt maybe had a strong odor to it, or something visible had told her the thoughts in his head. He smiled at her, and Rita prepared to leave for the day. She picked up the purse she kept behind the counter and rushed out the door as a man wearing soiled work clothes walked in.

“You leaving?” asked the farmer. He had come in to buy something from Rita.

“I’ll help you, Jake,” said Charlie.

“Okay.” Jake sighed. “Won’t be as good, but okay.”

Eighteen

L
ESTER
D
UNPHY DIDN’T
know love could happen so fast. He didn’t know it could come in like a wave and knock him down, the undertow being worse than the knockdown. The first time he saw Sophie she was in a car, passing at a slow pace, her mother driving. And though all of his friends had turned to see, and though he didn’t know her name, he knew she was looking straight at him. The next night he saw her at Casey’s house. Bobby brought her, but she didn’t seem interested in Bobby. She hung out with the girls all night. She watched the band rehearse. Lester noticed that she held a beer but didn’t drink it. He had wanted to take her home that night, but Nikki and the other girls left with her before he could offer.

Every day at school he watched for Sophie. He saw her in the cafeteria, learned her class schedule. Sometimes he walked with her to social studies. He waited for her everywhere.

After trailing her around the halls for almost a month, Lester finally worked up the nerve to ask her to the Spring Dance, always held the first weekend in March. Most of the other girls had a date, but since Sophie was new in town, he planned to take advantage of this lucky break. He might not get the chance again.

Her long hair was piled on top of her head, messy and sexy. She didn’t wear makeup, her skin shone smooth—a rosy glow. Lester walked with her down the hallway telling Sophie about Mr. Hollis.

“In history class he closes the door so he can smoke cigarettes.” Sophie laughed, and when she laughed, Lester blurted out his invitation.

“Wanna go to the Spring Dance with me next week?” He tried to make his words sound offhand, as if he had just thought of it.

“Sure,” she said, and slipped quickly into her classroom as the bell rang.

“Okay,” said Lester.
Had she said yes?
“I’ll call you,” he yelled. He didn’t know her number.
Shit!
He felt stupid.
She’d said yes, hadn’t she?
He’d never before gone out with a girl who looked like this and couldn’t imagine the event actually coming about. He hoped his father would let him use the car.

On the evening of the dance Lester picked up Sophie in his father’s Buick. He parked at the far end of the school parking lot, so that everyone would see him arrive with his date.

The sky turned deep gray as he walked with Sophie toward the school. Music from the band floated through the high windows out onto the air, and a streak of pink brushed across the sky in one low sweep. Edges of cloud rose up, like the feathers of an enormous bird. As they walked through the gymnasium doors, they hardly recognized the room as a place even connected to the school.

“It’s like this every year,” Lester said proudly. “In fact, I was the one who thought up the jungle theme for this year.”

A transformation of huge paper flowers sprouted in various shades of yellow, red, and blue in each corner of the room. Long lengths of crepe paper hung low to create a ceiling effect of soft splendor. Each strip twisted with sprinkled glitter so that the colors of the flowers reflected in tiny sparkles. Big knots of red ribbon hung on the basketball hoops, and girls in pale silk, voile, and crepe glided across the floor. The band played at the far end of the room and music echoed into the gym’s rafters. Each member of the band wore a purple sequined jacket.

“I love it.” Sophie sighed. She looked like a girl in a magazine. Her navy blue dress exposed her shoulders and legs. Her breasts pushed up slightly from her tight bodice.

In the middle of the gym a hanging mirrored ball was lit by colored spotlights shining from two sides of the room. The lights seemed to make the ball revolve on its string. Bits of light and sparkles circled the room. The girls wore short black dresses with meshy tights covering their legs, or long pink silk dresses, or blue crepe. The light split from the glass ball and landed on their hair, legs, faces, and shoulders. Sophie smiled, and Lester could see how pleased she was.

Large papier-mâché animals hid behind the flowers. Tigers, alligators, rabbits, and squirrels looked over the tops of bushes and trees. Colorful birds looked poised for flight. Elongated boys, sleek in their tuxedos, prowled the floor. Their hair glimmered under the diamond spell of the evening, and the room appeared to be floating.

Lester asked Sophie to dance. He saw Bobby follow them with his eyes. Crow motioned a thumbs-up with both hands to Lester. Bobby, even while dancing with someone else, glared at them.

Acne scars had left their mark on Lester’s face, making his skin leathery. Still, his features were chiseled and manly. Each spring he rode the crest of popularity as the catcher on the baseball team, and he was a great clutch hitter. His excellent grades brought only cruel teasing, but playing baseball balanced out his good grades.

Tonight was his, because the girl everyone wanted to be with was with him. Stephanie and Nikki hovered around Sophie, hoping to identify with her newfound popularity. They pretended to be happy for her.

“They should’ve let your band play tonight,” Sophie told Lester. “You were really good. At least what I heard was good.”

On this night Lester’s mind sizzled with the steam of hopefulness and change. Maybe his life would take a turn. He was the mailman’s son. He was forced to go to mass every Sunday. He was good at baseball and at playing the keyboard, but he stayed on the fringe of Crow’s tight group. Maybe now his friends would see him in a different light.

By intermission, as the band took a break, the night had begun to slacken. Bobby had danced with Sophie for almost half an hour, and if Lester tried to get her, bring her to a different side of the gym, Bobby followed. Crow urged Bobby to leave them alone, and once he tapped Bobby’s shoulder and said, “C’mon, man. Don’t be an asshole.”

Crow walked Sophie back to Lester, but just as he was about to leave, Sophie turned to him and said, “Crow, I think I’ll dance with you.”

The way Sophie Chabot looked at Crow made Lester know that his time was already over. He wondered if his time had ever even begun. Bobby danced with every other girl in the room. He couldn’t believe Sophie didn’t want him, but he was glad she didn’t want Lester either.

“She blew you off, man,” Bobby told Lester.

“She did not blow me off. I told her to dance with Crow.”

“She blew you off.”

“Have you ever heard of the term ‘open-minded’?” said Lester.

“Not really.” Bobby left, going out a side door. A girl who stood on the sideline called to him.

When Lester took Sophie home, the sparkle of the night had faded into gloom; still, he kept a certain dignity in spending the evening with her. And she had stayed with him, only him, for the last fifteen minutes. Crow had seen to that. Lester’s only triumph came during the last dance, when Sophie put her head on his shoulder. Whether the gesture came from weariness or affection, Lester didn’t know; but he saw the grudging respect in the eyes of those standing around him, and for those few moments he felt the full-throatedness of his expectations.

He walked her to her door and she thanked him. The awkwardness of their bodies made him feel impulsive. He trembled, a little current going through his body, and though he knew he might regret it later, he smiled and leaned to kiss her cheek. To his bafflement, she kissed him back and went into the house.

Lester stood facing the door, a stupid smile on his face. The night became appallingly quiet, and he walked back to the car, taking a quivery intake of breath before he opened the door. He started the motor. The radio was already on, and Lester swayed to the music. His heart would be broken, but it wasn’t broken yet.

Not yet,
he thought. And he imagined her in a vague bedroom, his hands exploring her neck and breasts, her hips twisting, floating toward him. He imagined crushing her tight, her skin warm against his, her head falling back. She would love his touch.

The next day everything went sour.

Crow came to Lester’s house. “Hello, Mrs. Dunphy,” he said. Mrs. Dunphy leaned to take care of the baby. Lester’s house was full of kids. Younger brothers and sisters, and a new baby.

“Come in here and let me see you, Crow Davenport.” Mrs. Dunphy liked Crow. She liked him more than she liked the other friends Lester brought to the house. Bobby and Tom, she said, had “narrow, squinty eyes.” She didn’t trust either one of them. “But that Crow Davenport. He’s a good boy.” The baby began to cry. “Lester!” she yelled. “He’ll be right here,” she told Crow and held the baby out to let him see. When Lester came, she left the room.

“Hey,” said Lester, moving reluctantly toward Crow.

Crow threw a ball to Lester. “Think fast,” he said. Crow liked to have a ball in his hand—a small orange ball that he threw to people. Usually his friends were prepared, but Lester was not prepared, and expressed impatience at the ball’s sudden appearance. It bounced onto the sofa.

“Shit, Crow.” He lifted the ball and held it, turning it slowly in his hands.

“Bobby was an asshole last night,” Crow said, trying to sound friendly.

“I know that.”

“I talked to him.”

“Won’t do any good.”

“He’s messed up, man. You hear what he did?” Crow took the ball from Lester and threw it into the air.

“No.”

“He tried to pick a fight with me.”

“No shit?”

“He came to the house and took a swing at me.”

“When?”

“Told me to leave Sophie alone.”

“Looked to me like Sophie was going after
you,
not the other way around.”

“He took a fucking swing at me,” Crow said. “I couldn’t believe it. He’s my best friend.”

“What’d you do?”

“I swung back. Hell, he’s messed up.”

“What’s the matter with him?”

“He said he brought her out there the first night. Said you shouldn’t have asked her out.”

“He’s crazy,” Lester said.

“Yeah, if anybody should be mad, it’s you. That’s what I told him.”

“Well, you know him better than anybody.” Lester put on his jacket and followed Crow out the door. “Where’re we going?”

“Who cares?” Crow said. “Get in.”

They got into the car and turned on the radio.

“Sophie doesn’t care about him,” said Crow. “She didn’t even want to dance with him last night. That’s what made him go off, you know? The one girl he finally couldn’t get.”

“I know.” Lester paused. He reached to take the ball from Crow. “Sophie went after you though.”

“The hell she did,” Crow said. “It wadn’t my shoulder she was sucking on during that last dance.”

Lester laughed. “No, but all the way home she asked questions about you. Saying how great you were.”

Lester felt suddenly too tired to think through what had happened the night before. He threw the ball up and caught it behind his back. Even sitting in the front seat he could do this trick. “Hey man,” he said, rolling the ball in his hands. “Shit happens. If you weren’t my friend, I’d hate you.”

“You can get her back,” Crow said.

“You don’t get it, do you? I never had her. Anyway, I don’t hear you saying you’re not interested.”

“C’mon, Les. What do you want me to say?” Crow held up his hand to catch the ball.

“It’s like this,” said Lester. “A man gets this present, and he opens it, see, and he thinks he knows what it’s going to be.”

“Yeah?”

“He thinks it’s something he’s been waiting for, but it’s not. You know what it is? It’s a set of fucking en
-cyclo-
pedias. If the guy wants a dog, he can look up the word
puppy,
see the
picture
of it, but it’s not the same. It sucks.”

Crow threw the ball into the backseat and turned toward town. “We gonna mope around all day, or what?”

“Hell no.”

“Okay then.”

So they were still friends, but the dream Lester carried all those days before the dance fell backward now. And when they saw Sophie come out of a store, she waved—her wave mostly for Crow, her mouth pouty—and for a moment the friendship between the boys wavered slightly. Lester forced himself to be calm. He knew the moment he let his dream of her go—the exact time was 2:33.

“Hey,” said Crow. “Wanna get some fries at the King?”