Falling Under (15 page)

In the car, outside my house, he says, “So really, was this a date?”

“Maybe.” I smile and duck my head. “I mean, sure. Okay.” “Wow, so certain,” he says. “Next thing you know I’m

going to be your boyfriend.”

“Ha!” I say. It comes out more like a bark than a laugh. Hugo raises his eyebrows.

“I mean, now that you’ve experienced my dad’s corn chips and seen that he’s the next Don Johnson I know I’m looking like a great catch but . . . you know, don’t be too hasty.”

He laughs and brushes his lips across mine. “You’re funny when you’re scared,” he says. “You think?”

He smiles, kisses me again, and I put the “boyfriend” issue out of my head.

6

Alone inside, I find Erik’s number on the call display. Again, no message. An ache pulses in my gut, followed by a cold thread of worry. I pick up the phone.

“Mara,” he says. “Erik. You all right?” A pause.

“Yeah. Why?”

“Oh, nothing,” I say. “You busy?” “Very.”

Which means he isn’t. “I’ll see you soon, then.”

“I’ll get rid of the strippers and the crack-heads.” “Funny.”

Of course, he is alone when I arrive. My throat feels tight and I wonder how I’ll manage to get out of here with my clothes still on, because that’s what I have to do. Regardless of my official “status” with Hugo, this isn’t fair to him. And after what happened last time with Erik, I know it’s not fair to him either.

Stalling for time, I walk to the window and look out at the fire escape.

It would be easier if he could just go back to being an ass- hole.

“You said something to me the other day,” I say after a long pause.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” I turn around and lean on the windowsill. “‘Not running fast enough, are you?’ ”

“I remember.” He is in the middle of the room, hands in his pockets, and I can’t help thinking how beautiful he is, thinking that I will always want him. How is that possible when I’m falling for someone else?

“So... are you?” I ask.

“Running fast enough?” I nod.

He looks down, rocks back on his heels. “Sometimes.” “How?” This isn’t what I meant to ask, isn’t what I came

to talk about, but I can’t seem to help myself.

“I smoke a lot of pot. I keep busy,” he says and then moves toward me.

“That’s it?” My voice comes out squeaky. He’s close and the smell of him hijacks my hormones.

“No,” he says, even closer. “There’s this too.” His mouth collides with mine and before I know it I’m kissing him back, my arms are around his neck and my brain is making a run for Mexico. I try to form the thought, the word: Hugo. I try, but my hands are dragging Erik closer and his are on my bare skin.

“Wait,” I finally manage to gasp. “Stop.” He pulls away, but his hands don’t stop.

“What?” he says, and his fingers brush my over my breasts. “I...I wanted to talk. I just wanted to talk.”

“Talk then,” he says.

He knows exactly how to touch me. Now he does it slowly, watches my face and waits.

“You called me,” I say. “So?”

“I was worried.”

“How sweet. I’m fine. Is that all?” He has my bra un- hooked and I’m about to lose my shirt.

“Yes.” Hugo.

“I mean, no. We have to... we can’t... this isn’t good.”

“Really?” His mouth on mine again, my fingers pressing into his back...

But it is good. It’s always good. Hugo.

Not my boyfriend yet... Shit.

“Wait, no. Erik. We have to stop this.” I slide away, stand and try to catch my breath. “You know that, don’t you?”

“You want to stop,” he says. “As in, stop? Totally stop?” I nod.

He shakes his head, not believing me.

“We have to,” I say. “It’s not good for either of us.” “Fine, we’ll stop. We’ll just... stop.” He shrugs and

looks away. “Doesn’t matter to me.” “Liar.”

His eyes whip back to mine. “Oh, I’m not the liar,” he says. “And I’m not the one who keeps coming back, either. But hey, you want it done, it’s done.”

“Please,” I say. “Don’t...I didn’t want it to be like this.

I want.. .”

“What?” he snaps. “You want to have a nice good-bye?

You want to be friends?” “No, but—”

“Fuck you. Just go.” “No.”

“What? Oh, now you’re going to stand there and cry?” I put my hand to my mouth, but I can’t stop.

“Jesus Christ, I’m not up for this,” he says. “Go. Go live your fucked up life and I’ll live mine. It’s not like I need my cock in your mouth to get through the day.”

“You’re such an asshole.” “Isn’t that the point?”

“No, it’s not the fucking point!” I surprise myself by shouting. “The point is that we can’t just keep doing this. There’s no future here, Erik.”

“I know! I fucking know that. You want to go try and be happy or some bullshit, go ahead. Good luck. I really don’t care.”

“Yes you do,” I say, and wipe tears off my face with the back of my hand. “And so do I.”

“Go.” He strides to the door and flings it open. “Erik, please.” I walk over to him.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” he says, as I get closer.

I reach a hand toward his face and he seizes it. I reach the other hand up and he does the same thing.

“I. Said. Don’t.”

Being the twisted slut I am, this turns me on. He grips my wrists and tries to stare me down but behind the anger I see ferocious pain and need—a match to my own.

“I’m going,” I say, but my breath is short and my body is leaning into his.

“I know you are,” he says. “But we’re not done.”

In my mind, he grabs me, kicks the door shut and we are clawing our clothes off, then naked and fucking on the floor. Tears stream down our faces but we ignore them and crash together until we feel we will both rip open. We shift, roll, slow down, move deeper, our lips so close we breathe the same breath. Our hands, our tongues, our eyes, do everything one last time and then one more time, just to be sure.

In my mind I dress slowly and leave us both peaceful and complete.

In reality we have not moved and I’d like to leave with some semblance of a clear conscience even though I’m on fire. Even if it means I leave this unfinished.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

I pull my arms from his and drag myself into the hallway and down the stairs.

Chapter Twenty

L
iving at Dad’s sucks in terms of getting to school. It takes two subways and a bus to get up to North York. Dad’s cool about it if you want to skip some days. He never liked school either.

And ever since the Faith/Bernadette scandal, you don’t trust anyone—they’re all snobs and bitches underneath, even though everyone has pretended to forget. You and Bernadette grit your teeth and wait for summer.

Since she kicked you out, Mom calls to fight about money with Dad, but doesn’t ever ask to speak to you.

Screw her. You can wait her out.

“Mar,” Bernadette says one day when you’re having a butt behind the bleachers, “you can’t keep cutting class. I know this place sucks, and not to sound like a nerd, but grades are important.”

You sigh, take a long drag.

“Besides, if you flunk out, your mom’ll win.” “You think?”

“You want to show her you don’t need her?”

You narrow your eyes. “Yeah, of course.”

Bernadette looks at you with her bright, wise eyes. “Then succeed. Figure out what you want to do and fucking rock at it.”

You feel a burn, a surge of energy. She’s right.

“And if it’s too hard commuting, you can always crash at my house. You know my mom loves you.”

You finish the year with a 90% average. Ha.

Summer arrives and so does Bernadette’s driver’s license and a blue Miata.

“Waaaaahoooo!” Bernadette hollers as you head down- town with The Cure blasting and the windows down.

Music on Queen Street, vintage jeans from Kensington Market, Chinese restaurants where they don’t ask for ID... Sandalwood incense, vegetarian food, Doc Martens... Art... Paintings, drawings, sculptures in galleries large and small! Suddenly you know. You ache from your toes to your solar plexus to make things—to paint, to capture
something
, to yank it from inside and put it onto paper, onto

canvas, anywhere!

This is it.

Bernadette picks you up at Dad’s one day, her eyes leaping with excitement and talking fast.

“Mar, you won’t believe it. I can’t believe I didn’t know.

Fucking suburbs, we’re so sheltered there.. .” “Huh?”

“There’s a neighborhood! Right around the corner from here, a
gay
neighborhood! They call it the village. How’d we miss it all this time?”

“Cuz we’re antisocial losers?”

“Exactly! But no more. We have to go, we have to go to- day! How do I look? There are bars and coffee shops and... and... others!”

“Other what?”

“Other gay people! We might be able to go dancing, maybe they won’t care that we’re sixteen. Can we go? I know we’re supposed to go to the gallery, but... please? We can walk from here! Oh, my God, I’m so nervous, I’m going to have a heart attack!”

And so begins your lifelong traipsing up and down Church Street by the side of Bernadette.

Bernadette learns to flirt. You don’t. Instead, you bargain for time: girl bars for her at night, galleries and art stores for you during the day.

At the Chamber Gallery one day, you stand in front of a painting for so long that Bernadette gets bored and begs to meet up with you later.

“Sure, go,” you say, barely turning your head. “I’ll see you later.”

It’s not her fault she doesn’t feel the longing, the tug, the absolute YES that ricochets through you when you see something so wild and beautiful.

You will never be this good, but now you have to spend your life trying.

And so you stand and stare... and stare... and try to take it in.

You nearly jump out of your skin when someone speaks right behind you.

“Sorry to scare you,” he says. “You’ve been standing there so long, I just wondered, what do you see?”

You search for the words. “Fire? Fire inside her and... something bad, something, I don’t know, rotten?”

“How do you see that? Where?”

You haven’t even turned around, but you can tell this guy isn’t one of those looking-for-art-to-match-the-couch people. “Her limbs... the angle, the way they fall. And her eyes— one of them is wider than the other. Some of her edges are

sharp and others are kind of dissolving.” You point. “See?” “Mmmhm.”

You turn to look at him. It’s the man from the desk who never talks to anyone that comes in. His face is compelling— eyes wide and dark, etched with mournful lines, chiseled cheekbones and a nose that’s been broken. He looks like a tree in November, leafless, naked, battered by the wind.

You look back at the painting, with his face now in your mind.

Ah ha.

“She’s dying,” you say. “Is that what you meant? When you did this?”

“Um.. .”

“You are Caleb White, aren’t you?”

He smiles for the first time. “How old are you?” he says. “Sixteen.”

“You see a lot for sixteen.” “Thank you.”

He nods.

“No one ever looks at anything for so long.”

“I do,” you say, and then take a deep breath. “Could you teach me?”

“What?”

“To paint like that.” “Oh. I don’t think so.” “Why not?”

“I don’t teach,” he says.

“Please?” you say. “Where do you work? Maybe I could just observe.”

“What, you think I’m fucking Picasso?”

“I’m sure I could learn a lot if you’d just let me watch.”

Something flickers in his eyes and then one side of his mouth twists up into a smile.

“You want to watch, huh?”

“That’s right,” you say, and return his look without blinking.

You know what he’s thinking, but if that’s what he wants, you don’t care.

Sex is nothing.

You would give more than your body to paint like Caleb White.

6

He’s surprised when you show up the next morning. He doesn’t know you yet.

He offers coffee and then, fumbling, a soda. Alone with you in his apartment, he’s suddenly awkward, bustling, ner- vous. Not such a big bad wolf.

“Oh please,” you say. “Coffee. I take it black.”

“It’s a bad habit,” he says. “I wouldn’t want to cor- rupt you.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. I’m corrupted already.”

He laughs, lets his eyes stray down your torso for a moment, then shakes himself and walks away down a long, creaky hallway.

“Studio’s back here,” he says.

Curtains made of sheets hang beside the windows and stacks of canvases lean against the walls. There is only one chair and he gestures toward it.

“Sit.”

“Don’t you.. .” “I stand.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Note: stands while painting. “Why do you stand?”

“Didn’t say I’d give a running commentary.” “Sorry.”

You try to make yourself comfortable in the spindly, paint-flecked wooden chair, and realize he’s placed you where you can’t see the canvas.

Damn.

You don’t want him to change his mind so you watch his hands, his eyes, the movement of his arm as he dips the brush and then strokes paint onto the canvas.You listen, too, hearing the rasp of the bristles, the even, deep sound of his breathing. He ignores you, and you stay still, hoping to be inconspicuous.

For three hours you sit and he paints. Neither of you speaks.

Does he think he’ll drive you off by boring you to death?

If so, it isn’t working.

You synchronize your breathing to his and try to guess what he’s painting until he turns the easel toward the wall and tells you it’s time to go.

“Okay,” you say, and let him see you to the door. For a week you go every morning.

Caleb says virtually nothing.

“Mara,” Bernadette says on Friday afternoon, as you browse the bead section at Courage My Love, “this is dangerous, don’t you think?”

“I gave you his address and everything,” you say. “But trust me, it’s fine. He has zero interest in me.”

(Which is actually getting annoying, to be honest.) “Still...I support you and everything, but I worry.”

“I worry about you fooling around in alleyways with strange women too.” You point to a huge glass bead. “What about this one?”