Part 12 (1/2)

”Perhaps we should consider expressing our love in the physical sense,” he said.

I almost said ”f.u.c.k my eyes out,” but this was true love, right? The rules were different. This was what Sam Callahan and I had practiced for all those years ago, so that now I had found it, my innocence wouldn't botch the deal.

We did it Park's way. We discussed the implications, the level of commitment, the possibility of pregnancy and options thereafter, the details of us both living in dorms where intermingling was against the rules. I suspect he was stalling for time while he figured out how to lay his hands on a rubber. I had one in my purse, but I couldn't just whip it out. You don't do that to a boy who writes you a poem.

Finally, the selected evening arrived. His roommate was off at a debate tournament, and I could sneak up the stairs while the dorm counselor was watching Hawaii Five-O. Park had arranged like two dozen candles and lit so much incense the neighbors must have thought we were smoking pot. Freshman lore held that girls don't do it unless you get them drunk, so Park paid someone to buy him a pint of peach brandy. I didn't want to drink, I wanted to get nailed for love.

He went into the bathroom for half an hour. I took off my clothes and hopped in the sack. He came out wearing a knee-length flannel robe with a rope belt and put The Sea by Rod. McKuen on his roommate's stereo. Park asked me for the third time if he was pressuring me into something I really didn't want to do.

”I couldn't live with myself if we did this and afterward I lost you,” he said.

I reached out and grabbed his d.i.c.k through the bathrobe.

Afterward, I felt great. I don't mean he was hot stuff or anything. He was nervous at first and couldn't get a stiffie, then I did some advanced manipulation. He came practically on contact, but that didn't matter. He was trainable. What mattered was how much better it had been with love involved. I got all emotional and tingly when he touched me, and just looking at the skin on his back excited me in a way Dothan couldn't have pulled off with an hour's worth of foreplay. Not that Dothan ever had time for foreplay.

But Park was skittish. Something hadn't lived up to his idealism.

He got out of bed, put on his robe and tied the rope, and stood with his back to me looking out the window. ”That wasn't your first time,” he said.

I should have smelled trouble. An alert woman would have caught the scary note in his voice, but I still felt way fine and close to him. ”No, was it yours?”

His sounded ready to cry again. ”Of course not. I screw every girl I pick up.”

By now I knew there was a problem. ”Park. Hon, you know I have a daughter. How do you think I got her?”

His shoulders slumped. ”I knew you weren't a virgin, but I didn't expect you to be experienced. You had her so young, I hoped you'd been abused or raped against your will or something.”

”Park, it's okay. I didn't love him and I do love you.” I patted the bed where we'd made love.

He came and sat down next to me but didn't touch my body. ”Was I your second?”

”No.”

”Third?”

”No.”

He stood up and went into the bathroom. After a long while I got dressed, blew out the candles, and sneaked back down the stairs.

I only saw Park once more, in the cafeteria. He acted as if nothing had happened. We had one of those ”Are you okay?” ”Of course I'm okay,” ”You sure you're okay?” ”Why wouldn't I be okay?” conversations.

Then he dropped out of school and went home to his mother in Maine. For several days, I wanted to die. I cried and ate, cried and ate, relived every moment we'd been together in my head, imagined his touch on my arm.

One morning as I went over that crucial night for the hundredth time, it hit me. Park had said, ”I hoped you'd been abused or raped.”

f.u.c.k him. f.u.c.k love.

I got out of bed, showered, stole some of my roommate's makeup, and went to a fraternity party where I got drunk out of my mind and sucked off a jerk named Randy.

The next day I made two rules: 1) Avoid poets and 2) Never f.u.c.k sober.

You look at Lloyd in his sandals and overalls with no s.h.i.+rt and his brown shoe-polish-colored hair and you think he's not the intelligent sort. But get to know him and he's smart in the ways he needs to be smart. East of Clayton we came upon a cl.u.s.ter of gas stations at the Texas state line.

”Better fill up here,” Lloyd said from the pa.s.senger seat.

”We can't be half-empty yet.”

”See these three stations in New Mexico and none up ahead in Texas. That means state gas taxes are lower here, gasoline will cost a good deal more once we cross the line.”

So I pulled over for gas and a c.o.ke and some cashews. Shane finagled me for a pack of peanut b.u.t.ter-filled crackers. Lloyd looked under the hood.

”Give me the map,” Shane said.

I'd already studied it and knew the way to I-40. ”We're not lost.”

”I enjoy knowing where I am at all times. It keeps me oriented.”

I pretended to ignore him. I was approaching hour fifteen without alcohol-hour six of being awake-and the familiar knot was forming below my sternum. The skin on my forehead was tightening, and my b.r.e.a.s.t.s were nervous. I didn't need a drink yet, maybe, although I wouldn't have turned one down, I guess, but the uncomfortableness and unfairness made me cranky.

”La.s.sie, would you please pa.s.s along the map?”

”Are you faking Irish roots or calling me a TV dog?”

A Popular Mechanics sailed into the winds.h.i.+eld. ”Why must every exchange be such a struggle with you, woman? Simply hand over the d.a.m.n map.”

He was right. No use being a jerk about it. I held the map toward him but out of his reach. ”The name is Maurey. It's not la.s.sie, not honey, not little missy, and certainly not woman. See if you can say Maurey.”

He glared at me. Lloyd opened the door and climbed in. ”Bearing on the impeller shaft is about gone, I hope they have a water pump in Amarillo, ” he said.

”Maurey, will you pretty-please mind pa.s.sing the map back here?” Shane asked.

I gave it to him. ”Isn't life more pleasant when you're polite?”

”Up your heinie with a stick.”

One reason I was cranky was the heat. We'd moved in and out of spring in Colorado-I slept through it-and now we'd entered summer. Jackson Hole doesn't prepare a person to deal with heat. Sweat trickles into my eyes and down my ribs. I get paranoid that my crotch stinks.

”Keep an eye on the temperature gauge,” Lloyd said. ”We might have to stop and drive at night.”

The thought of getting stuck in this oven-ugly barren country made me crave whiskey. ”I'm not stopping for n.o.body.”

Twenty miles or so from Dalhart we pa.s.sed a billboard that said Double Aught Ranch with a sideways figure eight thing under the words. The next fence post had a dead rabbit hung on it, then the next a dead bird-crow, I think-then the next a dead armadillo. Every fence post on the right side of the road was decorated by something dead and decaying.

”This is gross,” I said.