Topping From Below (2 page)

“No,” she had said, “I’m not a student,” and she blushed, as if she had been caught doing something wrong, even though she knew she hadn’t. She turned away. She tore off a piece of bread and threw it to a duck. There were five of them in front of her, all glossy green-headed mallards, and they scrambled for the bread. She threw the rest of it and reached in her bag for more. The man hadn’t moved and she felt him watching her, making her feel self-conscious.

“You don’t look like a student,” he finally said, and Franny wondered why she didn’t. She hadn’t been out of school herself that long.

“I’ve seen you out here, lying on the grass, feeding the ducks. You always come around this time, always by yourself.”

Franny gave him a quick, oblique glance, but didn’t say anything. It was a bit unnerving, discovering someone had been watching her the past few weeks. She glanced at him again. All his features were sharp and definite: a square jaw, a straight, precise nose, a lean but sturdy body. He wasn’t what you would call a handsome man, she thought, but he was impressive. Too impressive. She wished there was something amorphous about him, something to make him a little less intimidating, a thickening waistline, maybe, or sagging jowls.

“May I?” he said, and without waiting for an answer he lifted her arm by the wrist, took the slice of bread from her hand. Franny, taken aback by the intimacy of his gesture, said nothing. She watched as he fed the ducks with her bread.

He said, “I’ve begun looking out here around this time of day, expecting to find you here. When you’re not, I feel as though my day is somehow incomplete, that something is missing.” He turned his face slightly and looked at her, a sparkle of amusement in his eyes. “It seems I’ve come to rely on you, like my morning cup of coffee.”

Franny had smiled at this; she’d never been compared to caffeine before. Then he’d introduced himself, and for three weeks now she’d been meeting him here. He didn’t always come. Sometimes he’d miss several days, and she’d get an anxious knot in her stomach, wondering if she’d ever see him again. But then he’d appear and just start talking, without any explanation for his absence. He had a smooth, relaxed manner that made it easy to talk to him although, in truth, she let him do most of the talking. He didn’t seem to mind, though, as some people did, and he didn’t put her on the spot, trying to get her to open up. He seemed to know, intuitively, that she would come around when she was ready. She was grateful for this—most people gave up on her before she felt at ease around them—and it wasn’t long before she found herself riding to Putah Creek not for the exercise but for the express purpose of meeting him, always being disappointed when he didn’t show.

Michael was a professor in the music department; he was sophisticated and intelligent, not the type whom she thought would ever be interested in her. Not that she had a type. She’d dated a few men, but nothing ever seemed to work out. Just last month, Nora dragged her to an office party at the Bee, and she’d met a man there. He was a reporter, like Nora, and had blond hair and such a frank, wholesome look about him, such a boyish innocence, that she trusted him instinctively. He seemed sincere, but the next morning—after she’d slept with him—he sheepishly told her he’d had too much to drink the night before. Franny could blame no one but herself. She’d never acted so impulsively before, sleeping with a man she’d just met. She’d been too eager, too desperate, hoping the sex—which wasn’t very good—would lead to further intimacy. It didn’t. He took her out to breakfast at the Food for Thought Cafe on K Street, but his discomfort was evident all during the meal. He was too polite, too solicitous: he’d made a mistake and was trying graciously to extricate himself. She could see the misgivings in his eyes, the pity, the uneasiness. If she hadn’t felt so bad herself, she would’ve felt sorry for him. After that, she waited several days for him to call, and when he didn’t she phoned him. It was awkward and humiliating. Maybe they could be friends, he said kindly. She’d hung up, declining his well-intentioned but spurious offer.

Michael would never behave like that, she thought now. Michael. He was twice her age, forty-eight, she’d learned—only six years younger than her father would have been—but she felt comfortable around him as she never had with anyone else. Sometimes, at home, she’d fantasize about Michael, putting him in her life, making him her boyfriend. She had no idea what he thought of her, or if he even thought of her at all. Even though he was friendly and appeared to genuinely like her, he seemed out of reach.

She heard rustling footsteps in the grass behind her and she smiled, knowing it was Michael.

“Hello, Franny.”

She turned around at the sound of his voice. He always seemed to appear out of nowhere, catching her while she was daydreaming. She smiled at his appearance. There was a sensuality about him that she didn’t understand, something powerful, pulling her along like an undertow, yet something remote—in his dark, cool eyes, in the controlled tone of his voice—that made her want to reach out and draw him near, although she knew she never would.

He sat down on the grass beside her, then leaned back on his elbows, unaware of the chill in the air. He was dressed casually, brown slacks, a jacket with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, but there was always something formal about him no matter what he wore. He seemed so well put together, always comfortable with himself, while Franny, feeling frumpy and cold, was a shapeless bundle of bulky clothes: oversized coat, black jeans, cable-knit sweater, wool scarf and mittens.

Silently, he watched the young couple on the bridge. They turned and walked, hand in hand, off into the distance.

“Young love,” he said, with just a trace of sarcasm. Franny looked at him, waiting for something more. But he said nothing.

“I think it’s kind of sweet,” she said finally, softly.

Michael looked at her, considering. His gaze was penetrating, as if he could read her mind. Discomfited, she bowed her head. A sudden gust of wind tossed her hair. Then, ever so lightly, she felt him brush her cheek with the back of his hand—the first time he’d touched her.

“You’re right, Franny,” he said. “It can be sweet.” He added, “It’s never been like that for you, has it?”

Was she that transparent? she wondered, and she felt her cheeks redden, embarrassed that he knew, that at the age of twenty-four, she’d never before been in love, had never even come close to being in love. She started to say no, that love had never been sweet for her, but just then a woman, a petite lady with wavy black hair, smiled and called out to Michael as she walked by, flirting with him. Obviously, they were friends. She was very pretty, with arched plucked eyebrows and painted lips, and wore a snug, wine-colored linen suit that only a small woman could attractively wear.

Franny played with the grass. She pulled a weed out by its root. “She’s pretty,” she finally said. Then added, “I think she likes you.”

Michael gave her a half smile and she blushed, knowing he had guessed she was jealous.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’m not interested in her. Would you like to know the kind of woman who does interest me?”

“Oh,” Franny said. “Well …” And her voice trailed off. She didn’t know if she wanted to hear him talk about other women.

Michael laughed, deep and kind. He said, “Let’s go to my house. I think it’s time I made love to you.”

Franny blinked. In her fantasies, it didn’t happen like this. Never once did he say, “I think it’s time I made love to you.” She was expecting something different, something a little more romantic.

When she didn’t reply, he stood up. “Come on,” he said. “Take a chance.”

Franny felt she had never done anything really daring in her life, nothing adventuresome, never taken a chance is what it came down to. Nora, her older sister, was always taking chances. She went to Nicaragua during all the fighting down there. She went backpacking by herself. And for one vacation, she went white-water rafting down the Urubamba River in Peru. Franny could not imagine herself trekking around the world, putting her life at risk for sheer amusement. Perhaps, she thought, it was her time to take a chance, and so she looked up at him and said the only thing she could think of: “Okay.”

Michael put Franny’s bike in the trunk of his car and they drove out to his home in Willowbank in south Davis. All the homes were large and old, most of them well kept, with ivy-covered entrances and sweeping lawns and mature trees everywhere. Michael’s home was set far back from the road, a sprawling ranch-style house, the front shrouded in wisteria. Inside, the house looked newly remodeled: polished solid oak hardwood floors, skylights in the kitchen and foyer, ceramic-tiled counters, a floor-to-ceiling wall of windows in the living room. It looked precise yet comfortable, Franny thought, much as Michael looked.

Nervously, she walked around his house. Most of the colors were warm and rich, earthy brown tones. It should have put her at ease, but it didn’t. She felt strangely out of place, awkward, like a duck in a dress shop: she didn’t belong here.

Michael watched her as she surveyed his house. One by one, he took off her coat, then scarf, then mittens. Franny had the feeling he was peeling her away, layer by layer. He fixed her a drink without asking if she wanted one, and handed it to her, saying, “Drink this. I think you need to relax a little.”

Normally, she didn’t drink liquor—she didn’t like the taste—but, like a child, she did as she was told. He led her to the couch and they sat down. He talked to her as he had on campus, soothingly, quietly, caressing her with his words. She thought of her father’s words, also soothing, and finally she relaxed, not sure if it was Michael’s voice that calmed her, her father’s silent words, or the liquor she was drinking. And finally, when Michael did kiss her, it was tender, not boozy and sloppy like the kisses of the last man she’d been with, the reporter from the Bee. Gentle and warm and utterly erotic, it was all she had hoped for.

He took her into his bedroom and hung his jacket over a chair. The high, arched-ceiling room was spacious and had a light, airy feel to it, the walls papered in pale shades of blue and gray, the furniture blond and modern and comfortable, with a king-sized, four-poster bed. The drapes were open, and through the bay window she could see his backyard, in the middle of which was a huge black dog lumbering across the lawn.

Michael watched Franny, who was standing stiffly by the doorway. “Don’t look so grim,” he said. “You’re going to like this.”

“Sorry,” Franny said, and she essayed a brief smile. She turned off the light. It wasn’t yet dark outside, and everything in the room, even with the light off, was visible. She wondered how she could get in the bed, under the covers, without him seeing her. She wasn’t fat, exactly—she was what some people called pleasingly plump. Rubenesque. Whatever you called it, she didn’t want to expose it. Michael was broad-shouldered and of average build. No fat on him. She eyed the bed again, trying to figure out how she could negotiate it, biting her lower lip.

Michael came up and put his arms around her. “Franny, you look positively morbid. Tell me what’s the matter.”

“I haven’t had much experience at this sort of thing,” she said.

He smiled at her. “I realize that.”

He lifted her sweater over her head, and she felt she ought to apologize. “I guess I need to lose a few pounds,” she said.

Michael laughed softly. He kissed her on the neck, then whispered, “I’m going to give you what you want, Franny,” and she wondered what that was. What
did
she want, anyway? And then he was taking off the rest of her clothes, rubbing her ample body with his hands, kneading it like bread dough, soft and warm. This embarrassed her at first—he wouldn’t let her hide under the covers—but then she got lost in the feel of his capable hands. He seemed, truly, not to mind her plumpness at all. He turned her this way and that, rearranged her limbs as if she were a mannequin, sucking and pulling on her heavy breasts, inserting fingers in every orifice, probing, massaging, until she felt a deep stirring inside her, like the pull to nature she’d felt earlier at Putah Creek, only this was stronger, more urgent, and he forced her to open up to him, dipped his tongue into the very core of her, fed on her until she surrendered, for the very first time, to the primeval stirrings inside her, a wondrous release that was both awesome and grand. And at some point, on some inexpressible level, she came to understand what it was that she really wanted: a parent, a boyfriend; a father, a lover.

CHAPTER
TWO

Sue Deever, an adult-onset diabetic, was sitting in a mauve upholstered recliner next to a dialysis machine, waiting for Franny to hook her up. She was a pudgy woman, in her early fifties, and missing both legs. Franny had worked at the University Dialysis Clinic for almost two years now, and she had witnessed the slow decline of Mrs. Deever. She was the mother of one of Franny’s childhood friends, and, until Franny began working at the clinic, she hadn’t seen her for years. She had been shocked at her appearance. Her right leg had been amputated four years ago, and her left shortly after Franny joined the clinic. Her vision was blurry, her nerves damaged, her liver malfunctioning from many years of alcohol consumption. And she had kidney failure, requiring regular dialysis. She lived in a nursing home in Davis and came to the clinic three times a week for treatment. She was a sweet woman and it saddened Franny to see her in this condition.

The clinic was in Sacramento, in a medical complex on the corner of Alhambra and Stockton. The waiting room of the clinic looked much like any other waiting room in a doctor’s office, a row of low chairs, a fan of magazines on the end tables, but to get beyond the waiting room, patients had to be buzzed through a locked door. A narrow hall and another door led to the anteroom—several chairs, a sink, a standing scale flush with the floor to accommodate wheelchairs—which finally opened into the main treatment room, a large and pleasant room, painted in a soft, soothing pastel. Two nurses’ stations were in the center of the linoleum-floored room, and eighteen large recliners—similar to comfortable La-Z-Boys—lined the four walls, a dialysis unit next to each chair. It was early morning, just after seven, and the staff was busy. Each recliner was occupied, with people already connected to their artificial kidneys or waiting to be connected, most of the patients old and worn out, their bodies damaged beyond natural repair. Most of the patient work was done by the technicians, but today they were short a tech and Franny had to take three patients, one of whom was Mrs. Deever.