Part 8 (1/2)

”No, I'm going to do dishes. You listen and tell me if you like the song or not.”

I took a quarter from my tip bowl, went to the jukebox, and punched in the numbers for ”Would You Lay with Me (In a Field of Stone)” by Tanya Tucker. I didn't think twice about it. I did not know I was going to do it, yet something in me must have known, because I did the thing without thinking.

In the back room I did exactly one load of cups and gla.s.ses: I put the plastic tray in the dishwasher, let it cycle through, pulled cups and gla.s.ses out, put them lip down on the drying table. I felt bad then for some reason, panicky and sick that Kevin Keel was sitting out there listening to a song I played for him, but I thought, You started it, Vangie, you finish it.

Kevin was smoking a cigarette when I came up to his table. He had both arms up on the table, and I looked at the skin of his forearms and then through the smoke to his face.

”So that's what you played for me,” he said.

”That's what I played.”

”What's it mean?”

I said, ”What do you think it means?”

”Says you want to lay down with me.”

I looked at the little hollow place right at the base of his throat, the place where the skin curved in over the hollow. I thought how I would be able to touch Kevin where the skin pulled over his collarbone, and how I would put my mouth on the hard bone. I liked the words lay down and I liked hearing a man say them.

”Well then, that's what I mean.”

”I thought you had an old man.”

”I did. I do,” I said, because I didn't know which one was true of Del anymore. ”Does it bother you?”

”Don't bother me, but it ought to bother him.”

Kevin sat a while longer, taking me in, then he said, ”All right. How late are you working?”

I didn't think it would happen that night, but then I thought, why not? I didn't know what difference it made anymore, and I didn't want to be alone in that house again.

When I told him midnight, he said, ”All right. I'll be back.”

I told him I'd be ready. Because of course all the while there were currents flowing in other people, there was one flowing in me, too.

AFTER I finished s.h.i.+ft, I washed my face and neck and as much of my chest and arms as I could get to with the soap in the globe dispenser in the ladies. After, I used the rough brown paper towels to dry. The grease from the kitchen clung to my hair and made it heavy and s.h.i.+ny, but I couldn't do anything about it, or my smell-cigarette smoke, french fries, sweat. I thought I was going to be a pretty smelly date, and I thought of telling Kevin I'd changed my mind, but then I remembered that I did not want to be alone, and I remembered the way Kevin looked at me after I played the song. I decided he wouldn't care if I reeked of Dreisbach's.

He was waiting in the side entry hall when I came out of the bathroom, and he smiled at me. I thought how I could see June's face someplace in his, and I tried not to feel so scared about what I was doing.

”Are you ready to go out now?”

”I'm ready,” I said.

I wondered if anyone was there watching as we walked out the side door of Dreisbach's, but it seemed there was no one anywhere, just the stink of the trash cans and the whir of the kitchen fan.

”Been wanting to ask you out a long time, to tell you the truth,” Kevin said, taking my hand.

”Why didn't you?”

”It seemed like you were happy.”

I kept my hand loose in his. His hand felt funny to me, the skin and bones so different from Del's, but I was glad to be holding hands. I couldn't remember the last time Del and I had done that. f.u.c.k, yes, but hold hands? That I couldn't recall.

”I was happy,” I said. ”I'm not now.”

”I'm sorry to hear that,” Kevin Keel said.

We did not talk much in his truck. I watched him drive, and again I wondered what I was doing. But I thought again of the house, and how, if I weren't with Kevin, I'd be alone there, waiting to hear Del's car pull up or hear him open the door. I thought anything was better than that.

Kevin took me to Sweet Arrow and parked in a place I'd never been before, there on the south side, down a dirt road I didn't know. He put on a tape and played it just on his battery.

”You like that?”

”I like it,” I said.

”You like the lake?”

”Yeah, I like it.”

He laughed at me. I was nervous, and he knew it. He lit a joint and pa.s.sed it to me, and I took a heavy toke.

”Now you'll relax,” Kevin told me. ”You're thinking too hard.”

”I'm always like that.”

We sat in silence then, listening to the tape. I liked the music okay -Jackson Browne's ”Running on Empty.”

”You believe that? 'You gotta do what you can to keep your love alive”?”

”I don't know,” I said. ”I never thought about it.”

I was trying to think of some way to answer the question when he pa.s.sed his hand over my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. He did not turn to face me, he just stuck out the arm that was between us and pa.s.sed his hand over the front of my uniform. He found each of my nipples, and he pulled at them through the fabric.

”Don't think so hard,” he said. ”It's just a song.”

I knew then that I didn't want him to touch me, but I didn't stop him. I let him go on feeling me sideways, then I let him pull me up against him. He opened the zipper on my uniform and took my b.r.e.a.s.t.s in his hands, squeezing them through my bra.

”So, you need a good d.i.c.king down,” Kevin said.

I knew then that whatever kind of fantasy I had cooked up in my mind wasn't going to come true. I made the movement to kiss him, because I thought if we could kiss, if we could at least have good kisses between us, maybe it would be all right.

His kisses were dull and wet, and the taste of his mouth sickened me. But by then I did not know how to stop. He had taken off my bra, and my uniform was down around my waist. It seemed easiest to go through with it then, since I was the one who started it. I still did not know-it was not clear in my mind-that I should have done anything to get away from him: get down on my hands and knees, crawl naked through the woods.