Age of Consent (13 page)

It was this last remark that stuck in her mind, and the way he'd said it so sweetly:
How could I forget?

Then one day she ran into him at the Department of Motor Vehicles. She'd been there to renew her license and had come into the building and seen him sitting in one of the terrible hard seats in the main area, looking bored, tapping his thigh rhythmically with his thumb as though playing the drums. His mood, she later came to understand, was set permanently on rock 'n' roll and he seemed oblivious to where he was or the people around him who made it clear they did not like his “dinging” sounds or how he hissed when, in his mind's eye, he'd hit the snare.

He'd been wearing a duck-down jacket and those same leather boots that put him up around six three, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses. She didn't quite understand why he was wearing the sunglasses indoors like that, but he was a minor celebrity, she supposed, and did not want to be recognized. She'd spotted him right away. Once she'd distracted him from the song inside his head, it hadn't taken long to get into conversation.

Do you remember me?
she'd asked him.

You've got a girl, don't you? A daughter. Nice kid.

So he had remembered her. It seemed impossible, but it was true. She tried to breathe easily, to think of him as a friend, just a friend like anyone else.

Does your family live out this way?
she asked him.

Foster family, but that was back in Maine, and they've kind of moved on
, he said.

Foster family
, she repeated, the words rolling in her mouth. She'd wondered whether that meant they'd just looked after his physical needs or whether that meant real family. The way he said
that was back in Maine
made her feel like she'd missed an important fact stated earlier about his life and childhood and where he'd found himself through the years. Also, she wondered what
moved on
meant. Moved on to another place, or perhaps another child now that he was grown?

Are you going back for Thanksgiving?
she asked.

Back where?

Again, she'd felt that she'd missed a vital aspect of the discussion, that she ought to understand more than she did.

You could come to us!
she'd offered.
It's only Bobbie and me. Informal. I mean, you don't have to decide right now—

She knew he would say no; of course he would say no. Why on earth would a celebrity spend Thanksgiving in the quiet of her home? He probably had parties to go to, any number of invitations. She'd waited for him to tell her he was spending Thanksgiving with his girlfriend, but he looked at her without replying, until she could no longer hold his eyes. Then he was called to the counter.

She pulled a pen from her bag and wrote her phone number hurriedly on the back of a receipt, then pushed it into his hand.
There you go!
she'd said, and watched as he closed his fist over the note and walked to the counter.

She'd felt ridiculous, inviting him the way she had. She would have raced to the ladies' room to hide, except her number was coming up and she didn't want to miss her turn. She was still in the same place when Craig finished at the counter. He marched across the waiting room without even looking at her while she pressed her knees together and forced herself to not speak or move or turn or wave. It was a great relief—a blessing—when at the door he turned and nodded his head goodbye.

She was sure that was the end of the matter, that she would never see him again. But then, the day before Thanksgiving, the phone rang and there he was, his voice in her ear.

Thanksgiving still on? You and your daughter?
he'd said with that same soft caressing tone to his words, a dark, low rumbling like the deep purr of a lion.
I'd like to come along if you're still asking.

Yes! Yes, of course!
She hadn't even bothered hiding her enthusiasm. For the next twenty-four hours, she planned her outfit, prepared recipes, tried different styles for her hair, arranged the table with various centerpieces, all the while attending to the dreadful persistent thought that either Craig would not come at all or that he'd not come alone. He'd bring a girlfriend, June imagined, a despairing thought that made it difficult for her to look forward to the dinner as much as she would have liked. She worried she would be forced to entertain the two of them right there in her own house, that her affection for Craig would be obvious and shame her. She could not ask if he planned to bring a girlfriend, either, because to do so would be to suggest that he ought to. She tried to put it from her mind but by the time Thanksgiving dinner was in the oven, she was so sure he'd arrive with a girlfriend that she'd almost put out an extra place setting.

A few hours later, she watched his car roll down her street, then the door opened and he got out. He wore a corduroy jacket and had combed his hair back. She waited for the other door to open and for a long-legged, glamorous woman to emerge from inside the Buick. But no woman came. He walked to the steps by himself, just him, all alone, and she nearly leaped at the sight.

He'd brought a couple of T-shirts from the station as gifts. Throughout dinner, he told them all about what it was like to work in radio. June watched the way Bobbie tensed in fascination, her face shining toward Craig, the beautiful child mixing now with the teenage girl she'd newly become. Bobbie had been entranced by Craig. He told her stories of where he'd worked, of the famous disc jockeys he'd known. He talked about band members he knew personally. He did an impression of Casey Kasem. June was grateful, if a little jealous, when Craig promised to let Bobbie come to the station and see it in real life.

That would be fun, wouldn't it?
he'd asked her, and Bobbie had nodded, unsure how to accept so great an offer. To be inside a real radio station was an unimaginable treat.

At the end of the evening, June said,
You'll have dinner again with us, won't you?
She couldn't bring herself to say
have dinner
with me
. It felt too unlikely, even preposterous. She knew she still needed to lose some weight; she needed to wear better clothes, to do
something
. All she had been able to offer—for the moment—was the appeal of a home-cooked family meal. Weak bait, but maybe Craig was a hungry fish?

Sure
, he had said. And for a little while he'd come have supper with her and Bobbie. He'd astound them both with his knowledge of records and hit charts. He'd reel off the Top 10, even sometimes the Top 20, for any year in a decade. He could tell you whether a years-old album was gold, silver, or platinum without pausing for thought. Bobbie adored him—that was obvious—and hugged him at the door as he was leaving.

She's fond of you
, June had said.

She's some girl.

It was nice of you to remember her birthday.

He'd brought her several record albums and a big box of chocolate for her fourteenth.

Least I could do.

But then, just as it had appeared he and June were establishing something, he'd disappeared. She resigned herself to the fact he was not attracted to her, not interested in
that way
. Even so, she listened to him on the radio and sometimes sent him a note.
You played my favorite song today!
she would write, though that might not be true. Once, he'd dedicated a song to “the little lady in the house surrounded by woods,” and she'd thought for sure, or at least perhaps, he'd meant her.

All these thoughts sifted through June's mind as she drove. After the awful heat wave and the hours of fierce traffic, and the tired remaining last hour of the journey, his voice was the tonic she needed. When he did not begin his show, she wondered what had happened. She thought perhaps her car's clock was fast, but when she checked her wristwatch, she saw that it was well past midnight and still no greeting to the listeners from Craig, nor any explanation. Songs played, one after the other, and the music felt to June like silence, each song like another three-minute block of empty time.

Something was wrong. Twenty past midnight and Craig still hadn't arrived on the air. It was a terrible thought that he could disappear from the airwaves and that such an important part of her life could conclude so abruptly. She wondered if something had
happened
to him. The station sounded unmanned, just a parade of songs, one following another, and it seemed ominous, a sure sign that Craig was either injured or dead. She now felt certain that something bad
had
happened; Craig was gone.

This notion that he was physically injured was so powerful that she finally pulled into a gas station. She teetered in her heels over the broken cement to a phone booth in order to call the station. Why not? she reasoned. She was a devoted fan. The station should be grateful for listeners who cared so much. But standing in the booth, enveloped in the smell of beer and urine, looking through the glass door mottled with dead gnats, and seeing stars peeking through a veil of purple sky, she considered that the people at the station would not be grateful. They would see straight through her, spy the inane, hopeless crush she had on Craig, and dismiss her completely. Nevertheless, she continued. Under the halo of a yellow lamp, in a cloud of stinging insects, she dropped her coins through the slot and waited. But the station didn't answer. He probably had dozens of women calling him nightly. Too many like her.

Back in the car she decided she was just man-starved. That was her trouble. Whenever she left home for a period of time, a more adventuresome spirit took hold and she did things like buy a new dress or get her hair restyled or call a man. At home, in the normal routine of her days, it was possible to live in a closed, sexless world. She sold makeup to women—who are you going to meet in a job like that? Women, that's who. She wanted a man, or at least his voice, and now she had nothing. She told herself there were any number of reasons Craig was off the air now. He could be recording commercials or creating voice-overs. There was little reason for her to worry. Even so, a little while later, when Craig still hadn't arrived on the air, she pulled into a rest station, already reaching for her purse.

The phone was next to the bathroom door and she hoped nobody flushed while she was talking. She dialed the number, then listened to the phone ring and ring. She was tired; the phone seemed heavy in her hand. She'd almost decided to hang up when she heard a click and someone's voice. “Hello?” she said, cautiously. “Is this—?” She heard music in the background. It was, indeed, the station. She did not ask if Craig was there. She said, “I am a friend of Craig Kirtz. Can you tell me why he is not on the air now?”

She was surprised by how she came across, not like a silly, lurking fan but businesslike, concerned. The person on the other end of the phone, the screener—a young man by the sound of his voice—treated her accordingly. Craig was now forty-five minutes late, he explained. She heard the sigh at the end of the line. “We don't know why.”

“Shouldn't you check the hospitals?” she said.

“Check hospitals?” The man sounded alarmed. “Lady, I've got to get his show filled.”

SHE DROVE TO
a hospital—in the early hours after midnight, at a time when reason sleeps, it seemed a sensible thing to do. She parked the car, then made her way across the lot toward the main building, with its blocky wards and tiny squares of lit windows that gave it an all-night feel. She entered the wide doors at the front of the emergency room, hearing the whoosh of them opening and feeling the sudden chill of air-conditioning within. It seemed to June she'd been ebbing toward this hospital all night, but with no clear reason why she had come. A young man had gone a little AWOL—it did not mean he was in the hospital and it certainly did not mean he was in
this
hospital. She'd taken her fantasy of Craig too far, not only half believing that it could be she to whom he was speaking words of affection when introducing love songs but now that it might be she who came to his aid at the time of his greatest need. She was pathetic, she decided. She wanted to leave the hospital, the state, the nation. She wanted to never be seen again. But she had come this far.

She went to the desk and asked after Craig, explaining he was a radio celebrity, expected right now at the station, and that everyone was concerned about him.

“We are asking hospitals all around the capital if he has been admitted,” June said seriously, as though this were a reasonable thing to do. If the receptionist—or whoever she was—mistakenly believed she was from the station, that was okay by June.

“Who would have brought him in?” the receptionist asked. She had corn-yellow hair with dark roots. Her eyeliner had filled the creases beneath her eyes, and she wore an expression as though she'd been hounded all night by crazy people and June was just another.

“I don't know,” said June.

“What I mean is do you know if it was an ambulance? Do you have a reason to think he's at this hospital?”

“No. Yes. I don't know.”

The receptionist took a sharp breath. June told her what he looked like, his age, height, a guess at his weight. The receptionist checked through a clipboard full of admission sheets, pausing finally and looking up at June.

“Wait here,” she said, then disappeared behind a curtain for a few minutes. When she returned, she went to the corner of the desk and made a phone call. Then she approached June with a curious expression as though she wasn't quite sure what to say. Yes, a person of that description had been brought in.

“Oh!” June said. She was horrified. She felt she had created this scenario somehow. That the power of her imagination had caused Craig to be in this hospital, in pain.

“His first name is Craig but his last name…well, he has his radio name but his actual last name is…uh…” She wondered how long she could stall. If she really knew the man, she'd know his real name.