Blue Willow (15 page)

“Want to test it?”

“How?”

“By giving me a kiss?”

She’d never been one to resist an adventure, even if her adventures had been limited to the world inside her books and her solitary explorations in the woods. “Okay.” She leaned over to him and planted a small kiss on his mouth. Except for the embarrassment of knocking her teeth against his braces, it was an enthralling experience.

“Not like that,” he said. “Like
this.
” He pulled her to him and ground his mouth on hers. At first the shock excited her—all the heat and taste and sloppy wet contact—but then his braces began scrubbing painfully into her lower lip.

She kept kissing him, or trying to, wondering if the act was supposed to be this gooey and awkward. His tongue poked into her mouth like a wet fish.
Don’t be a nerd
, she told herself. Except for obese Myrna Simpson and a few other outcasts at school, she was probably the only girl old enough to tote tampons who’d never been kissed. Most of them had done considerably more than
that
.

So she persisted, holding the front of his sweater because she didn’t quite know what else to do with her hands, while he draped his arms around her neck like a vise. She began to get a cramp in her neck, and her mouth started to burn unpleasantly. Each time she tried to pull away and plant a kiss on some part of his face not covered by wire mesh, he intercepted her mouth and began mashing it again. Her lips were stinging now, and the excitement turned to disappointment.

If this was standard procedure, she’d just as soon stop. Her heart was pounding with dread, not enjoyment. “Relax. You’ll get the hang of it,” he said, when she drew back and pushed at his chest.

“I’ve got the hang of it,” she replied. “Stop.”

“You started it. Just cooperate, okay? But, listen, you can’t tell anybody about this. Nobody’d believe you anyway.”

He slid his hands down her coat and pushed it open, then jammed a hand inside and grabbed one of her breasts. Lily recoiled, grabbing his wrist, confused. She
had
started it, hadn’t she? Did that mistake give him the right to maul her? Andy looked as serious as doomsday. “What a set,” he said breathlessly.

He put a hand on her upper thigh, his fingers digging and massaging roughly through her jeans. Then he lurched at her again, out of his seat and half into hers, pinning her against the door. His mouth slammed into hers. Pain scalded her lips.

Her confusion evaporated in a burst of fury. She rammed a hand downward and grabbed him between the legs—low, beneath the hardness, right to the soft, round testicles. Lily snapped her fingers tight and wrenched them. He jerked back, gasping, clawing at her hand, then trying to slap her.

The slap grazed her bruised lips. She let go of his crotch, balled her hand into a fist, and punched him in the mouth. He fell back into his seat, groaning, one hand over his crotch, the other over his braces. Lily was dimly aware of the pain in her knuckles. She considered hitting him
again, but he was already shrinking against his side of the car and drawing his knees up to ward her off.

Lily grabbed her bag, shoved the door open, and got out. Shaking, she looked back at him and said evenly, “You’d better not tell anybody about this. Nobody’d believe you.”

She slammed the door and walked up the driveway. She wanted to run, but pride kept her at a fast walk. The darkness closed in. She heard his car engine, and her courage broke. She darted into the woods and plastered herself against a broad tree trunk, then looked back toward the main road. He backed out without turning on the headlights. Rubber squealed as he hit the paved road. Lily watched as the Camaro’s black shape fled back toward town.

The road to the farm was nearly a mile long, twisting up and down along the hollows and hills. She knew every step of it by heart and wasn’t afraid of the dark forest. Forcing herself to walk slowly and calm down, she touched her lower lip and shivered. It was already swollen. God, what would Mama and Daddy say? What would they do?

Once, years ago, Mama had looked up from a chair at the Laundromat to find herself staring at a half-naked man who was playing with himself in the doorway. The man had run off. When she’d come home and told Daddy about it, he’d gone to town with his revolver and a deadly look in his eyes. Mama had called the sheriff frantically, and the man was caught before Daddy could find him.

Lily hung her head and walked slower, thinking. If she told Mama and Daddy what had happened, Daddy would get his big revolver from the table by the front door and hunt Andy down at his parents’ house. If he didn’t shoot him, he’d at least threaten to, and maybe end up in jail.

All other thoughts fled but fear and embarrassment. She felt betrayed, violated, guilty, as if she’d lost a layer of skin and become a new person, one she didn’t understand. Since she’d taken Andy’s dare at first, she was partly to
blame, wasn’t she? Did this kind of thing happen to other girls? No, the ones she knew had never talked about it.

She mashed on her puffy lip, desperately wishing she could force it back into a normal shape. Mama and Daddy would
know;
they’d take one look at her and know she’d done something awful, and she’d have to admit the truth. She thought of having to tell them every detail—having her boob grabbed and everything—and she stopped in the middle of the road and threw up.
Never
.

By the time she reached the fenced pastures and the short driveway between them to the farm, her mind was blank with misery. She cut across the fields, dragging her feet, ignoring the red-and-white Herefords who shuffled toward her curiously, expecting to have their heads scratched. When she raised her troubled gaze to the house, she halted in astonishment.

A strange car was parked in the yard. The porch light shimmered on it; it was a late-model sedan. She climbed through the barbed-wire fence, crossed the driveway, ducked through the fence on the other side, and angled to the far side of the pasture, where the fence ran along the forest. Staying just inside the shadows, she made her way to the barn, dumped her purse on the firewood stacked beside it, then crept toward the car. It had a rental-car license plate. Bent double so no one could see her out the front windows, she tiptoed to the house and edged along one side. A yellow rectangle of light came from the living-room window. The window was open at the bottom—Mama liked fresh air even in the coldest weather.

Lily stopped beside it, listening.

“Lily should be home in a little while,” Mama said. “I don’t like her working, but it’s only a few hours a week. She loves the Friedmans’ greenhouses. And they say she’s got a good eye for arranging gardens. She makes a little spending money.”

Lily frowned.
A few hours a week? A little spending money
? Why did Mama care so much about this visitor’s opinion—care enough to bend the truth?

“I should have called to tell you I was coming,” someone said. His voice was deep, resonant, and unfamiliar, a handsome voice with no identifiable accent. “But when I realized my flight had been changed, I knew I’d only have a few hours. I couldn’t miss the opportunity to see you all. I wish I had more time.”

“You’ve got business in Atlanta?” Daddy asked.

“No, I’m going to Los Angeles. I had to change planes in Atlanta.”

“You’ll spend the night on a plane to Los Angeles?”

“Yes. I’m meeting with an artist there in the morning. Someone I’m hoping to hire to do some design work.”

Mama said, with obvious wonder in her voice, “This is wonderful. I’m so proud of you. I know you’ll do fine.”

The stranger laughed, a tired sound, but warm and compelling. Lily inched closer to the window, dying to peek inside. “Do you know what I wish? I wish I could fall asleep on your couch with one of your quilts over me.”

Lily frowned. Who was he? She felt like a fool, hiding outside the window. Touching her bruised lip, she cringed. It felt even larger.

“You’re mighty tall to stretch out on our couch now,” Daddy said. “But you’d be welcome. It’s good to see you again. I wish Lily would get here.”

“I don’t want to miss her,” the stranger said.

“Can’t miss her,” Mama answered, laughing. “She’s six feet high, and her hair’s still just as red.” Lily heard movement, sounds like a drawer being opened and shut. “Here,” Mama said. “Take this. It’s her yearbook picture.”

Not that
, Lily thought, knotting her hands. Her hair had exploded under the photographer’s lights, and she’d felt so awkward that she’d stared belligerently into the lens with her mouth clamped shut.

For what seemed like forever, the visitor said nothing. Then he said softly, “She’s everything I pictured her being.”

Was that good, or bad, and who was he? Lily pressed the heels of her hands to her forehead. She felt raw inside. Next she heard him say, “I shouldn’t have brought her another stuffed bear. She’s not a child anymore.”

Her hands dropped to her sides. Her heart threatened to explode.
Dazed
, she dimly heard Daddy say, “She still has the other ones. And I think she has every letter you ever wrote to her too, Artemas.”

Artemas
. Her knees buckled, and she sat down on the ground beneath the window. Her hands shook. She realized she was stroking the hem of his old academy jacket. He’d
come back to see her
. She had to go inside. She had to know what he looked like, and hug him, and—and she couldn’t.

Lily cupped a hand over her mouth and bent her head. She couldn’t walk in the house like
this
—disfigured, smelling of vomit, filled with shame, fear, and bewilderment. But she wanted to see him so badly that her chest seemed to be caving in with emotion.

She sat there in silent misery, tears sliding down her face, while he continued to talk with Mama and Daddy. She didn’t know how much time passed, or even what he said, exactly. She was caught up in the sound of his voice, the depth and richness of it, the tone of authority and the gentleness.

Chairs scraped on the hardwood floor. She heard the movement of feet. Her mind cleared a little, and she realized he was telling them good-bye, that he had to leave now or he’d miss his flight. Lily slipped into the darkness beyond the back of the house. She stood around the corner of the porch there, hidden, looking toward the front yard through the porch’s screens.

She heard the front door open and footsteps on the front porch’s creaking boards. She splayed her hands on the screen and strained her eyes.

He stepped into view with Mama and Daddy. The sight of him brought a low moan of recognition from Lily, and she bit her injured lip to stifle it. He was perfect. He hugged Daddy, then Mama, then stood with his head tilted back, taking in the sky, shifting his gaze slowly to the creek beyond the house, the willows, then to the house, and finally to her parents again. His expression was troubled; the night breeze lifted his dark hair from his forehead,
and he ran a hand over it wearily. A long black overcoat was pushed back from his chest, revealing a rumpled white shirt with the collar unbuttoned and black trousers. He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets, and his big shoulders hunched. He was saying something to her parents. Mama’s face took on a wistful, sympathetic expression, and she rose on tiptoe, putting both arms around him and hugging him again.

He walked to his car. Lily cried against the screen, her face mashed to it, her fingers forming claws on the mesh. As he drove away, she stepped away from the house and stood in motionless despair, watching, her hands limp by her sides.

Stumbling blindly to the creek, she knelt there and rinsed her mouth. The icy water numbed her face but only made her more aware of the ache of shame and loss inside her chest. He was gone, and it was her fault she hadn’t gotten to speak to him. She picked her way back to the barn, retrieved her purse, brushed her hair, then approached the house with halting steps. She would have to lie.

When she entered, Mama and Daddy turned from the hearth and stared at her. “You’ll never guess—what in the world happened to your mouth?” Mama asked.

Lily shook her head and feigned disgust. “I was feeding scrap wood into the mulching machine, and it flipped a chunk back at me.”

Mama moved gingerly, bracing her back with one hand, coming to Lily and laying the other hand along her chin. “You’ve been crying! Oh, sweetie, are you hurt that bad? Are you all right?”

“Yeah. I stopped on the way to wash my face in the creek up near the road.”

Daddy frowned in bewilderment. “You were walking? Why?”

“Andy was in a hurry to get home. Had a Bible-study meeting tonight. I told him to let me off at the paved road. I like the woods at night.”

Daddy’s face relaxed. “You and your rambling. I swear.”

Mama gazed at her worriedly. “I’ll get you some ice. But we’ve got something to tell you first. Sweetie, I’m sorry you weren’t here. I’m so sorry.
Artemas
came to see us.”

Lily listened, struggling to keep her face impassive, as Mama talked about Artemas’s visit. “He wanted to see you,” Mama finished, gazing at her sadly. “And I know you would have loved seeing him. Lily, he’s absolutely handsome. Way over six feet tall and solemn as a banker, but just as nice as he could be.”

“Aw, I look awful. He’d have run.”

“Oh, Lily,” Mama said. She put her arms around her and pulled her head to one shoulder. “He wouldn’t have minded. He took your picture with him. He thinks you’re beautiful.”

Lily’s control shattered. She pulled away, went to her bedroom, and stood with her back against the shut door, crying harshly into her balled hands. Through the glaze of tears she saw the posters of mountains and flowers on the walls, the books jumbled on the nightstand, and the neatly made bed. The new bear propped against her pillows brought a ragged sound from her. Beside it was a spray of red roses wrapped in gold paper. She sat down on the bed, held the roses and the childish bear to her face, and kissed them.

She felt as if she’d broken some vow to Artemas, lost some precious chance, and that she’d never see him again.