In Wilderness (24 page)

Too soon Elkmont rushes to meet them. Smaller farms, closer houses, more cars on the road. Danny pulls her to him with his back-pocket hand and keeps her close. Now there are sidewalks, the courthouse clock tower above the trees.

The first person they meet is a grizzled old man walking toward them staring at the ground and muttering, “Purina feed, self-rising flour, salt.” Over and over, his private mantra.

Danny grins, gives her butt a squeeze. “Geezer out shopping for his wife. Must be Saturday.”

She should have known, feels remiss for not knowing. But why? Except here in Elkmont where the stores are open, what could Saturday possibly mean to her—to them—except one more irrelevance? One more piece of once-important information that no longer applies.

They wheel the cart into the market and she picks items off the shelves. Rice, beans, salt—staples. She’s stored their garden vegetables in holes he dug deep in the ground, they two working together as one being.

In the post office there’s a line. People fall in behind them and they take their hands out of each other’s pockets. The air-conditioned air is icy on her fingers and she feels unconnected, as if some stranger’s merest nudge might roll her far away from him like an unclaimed ball.

“Don’t lose me.” She mouths the words softer than a whisper.

He takes one of her freezing hands. “I won’t.”

She’s got no mail, wasn’t expecting any. Came only to check, because it’s what one does with one’s P.O. box.

After the hardware store, the bank, he steers their cart to a men’s clothing store and picks out for them both sweaters of thick, dark Irish wool and warm canvas jackets with quilted linings.

He shakes out her jacket, holds it up to her. “Rain won’t go through it, just the kind that pounds the shit out of you.”

Her mother was the last, the only, person who took care of her. Before him.

“You’ll need a pair of leather lace-up boots like mine. Can’t be running around in the cold in those dumb fuzzy-kitty things you wore last year. It’s dangerous.” He grins. A little boy, a little bad boy. “Some mean man like me might take to watching you. You couldn’t even run away.”

She shivers with what must be desire.

Boots and shoes are at the rear of the store. He sits beside her on the bench, their hips, thighs touching, shows her how to wrap the laces. Puts his arm around her, chafes his hand along her upper arm as if to warm her.

“Go on, walk around in them. See what you think.”

She gets up, takes a few reluctant steps.

“I like them.” Reaches into her front pocket for her billfold.

His hand clamps hard around her wrist. “No. That’s for me to do.”

She nods. “Thank you.” Should have insisted; surely she has more money than he does. Should have defied that tiny, undermining thrill of being cared for.

He puffs his chest out—oh, so proud—a little bantam rooster. Takes a roll of bills from his front pocket. “Stay here on the bench and put your summer shoes back on. I’ll go up front and pay, come back and get you.”

She nods, glad now she did not deprive him of this moment.

Danny saunters down a vacant aisle, disappears behind a rack of coats, and she is left alone. Already she misses his hand in her pocket, his warmth next to hers, stands up to go to him. Only, the aisle that took Danny away now holds a large man who is smiling, coming toward her with his hand extended.

“Kate! Kate Reid! I’d know you anywhere. Jeez, you look like a million bucks.”

She stares, unsmiling.

“Mark Wickham, Kate. Great running into you like this.”

His voice. So loud and strange. Voice of a tourist from some other country that she lived in for a while so long ago. He grabs her right hand, gives it three vigorous pumps.

Katherine continues to stare, does not remember him. He looks like all the men she knew back then. Tim, Tim’s friends, other men she worked with. Disciplined haircuts, eager eyes that glitter coldly when they need to. Men who always look as if they’re wearing suits, even when they’re not. Mark Wickham’s wearing jeans somebody pressed, a plaid shirt, a too-stylish leather jacket.

He is still talking. “ ‘South’s only lady agency head.’ ‘Stole Carolina Airlines out from under BBDO.’ Said so in
Ad Age
. Heard you lit out for California. Hope you’re back for good.”

She looks only at his mouth as if she might see the strangeness of what’s coming out of it, these words that seem about some other Katherine she knows only by hearsay. Steps back from him so he will go away.

He moves toward her, closing the gap. “You know, I always made a point to talk to you at parties. Thought of it as building equity, hoped somewhere down the line you’d hire me.”

It’s meant as a compliment. Smile. Look down at the floor, then back at him. Say something.

But she’s left her script behind and doesn’t know her lines. How to explain—her leaving, selling the agency, any of it? Help, please, somebody help. He’s blocked her path and she can’t get away. She jerks her head from side to side like a caught bird.

A hand presses the middle of her back. Slides down into her pocket.

“Mister, this lady here’s with me. She doesn’t want to talk to you. You got her mixed up with somebody else.”

Mark Wickham opens his mouth as if to argue.

“Leave her the fuck alone.”

Danny’s words, how they burst out of him like gunshots, disturb her, thrill her.

“I—I … sorry, my mistake. Forgive me if I bothered you.”

The advertising man, whom she now vaguely remembers, takes a few steps backward, pivots on his heel and hurries from the store.

Danny slides Katherine’s hand into his back pocket, throws his packages in the cart.

“Dumbass city shit. Let’s get the fuck out of here, go home.”

“My weaving. We go right past the gallery.”

When they get there they stop outside, look in the window. At the wall hangings, ceramic bowls, small sculptures made of wood and metal. He grasps her chin and turns her head to face him.

“I’ll kill any man that bothers you. You know that.”

His words disturb the air around her. She can’t take them in. Of course he wouldn’t, it’s hyperbole. That soft, pudgy man, Mark Wickham, meant no harm. He has likely never known nor seen a man like Danny.

“He didn’t mean anything. It’s just—we were both in the same business. Knew each other by sight, that’s all.”

There are people walking past. He slides his hand back in her pocket, squeezes, with them both standing there on the sidewalk, and she rocks her hip against him in a way no one can see.
Please. Please
.

He pulls her hard against his body, his arm around her waist to stop her rocking. “What’s that about? Your city boyfriend got you all turned on?” He isn’t smiling.

“He’s not my boyfriend. I want to go home.” Her words come out all muzzy, like she’s said them into cotton batting.

He brushes her hair off her damp forehead. “Hush, now. We’ll be home soon.”

She stares down the long highway. “No, we won’t.”

He studies her a long moment, then grabs her arm, jerks her into an alley by the gallery, slams the cart in after them.

“Climb up on that step there and undo your jeans.”

She doesn’t move.

“Go on, get up there and unbutton them.” His voice is angry.

“They’ll see us. People on the street.”

“Course they will. But I’m in front of you and so’s the cart. They’ll see two people talking. The rest they’ll never see because they can’t imagine it. Come on, we haven’t got all day.”

His voice is angry, but his hand is warm as it slides down her belly.

“Spread your legs.”

The step’s littered with cigarette butts, off to the side a condom. She does what he asks, can’t look at him.

“Goddamn, lady. How long you been wanting it?”

“I … Since we left the forest. It’s all I’ve thought about all day.”

“My poor lady. Poor Katherine. You should have said something. Should have said, ‘Danny, I need you to take care of me right now.’ I would have found a way. ’Cause I’m the one takes care of you. The only one.”

People pass by on the street but no one looks at them. She stares down at the cigarette butts, dead sprigs of wayward grass, gives herself over to the things his hand is doing.

“Don’t you shut your eyes like that. You got to look at me and talk like normal if it’s going to work.”

“I can’t. I don’t know what to say.”

“Say whatever comes into your head. Just do it.” That angry voice again. “Do it, or I’ll stop.”

She opens her eyes so wide her lids feel propped with toothpicks, takes a halting breath.

“Once. Before here. I owned an. Advertising agency.” Her words come out in shards. “Whole top floor. In a tall building. Don’t stop, please don’t. Why are you stopping?”

“Don’t give me that shit about your goddamn glorious past. All that matters, the only thing that matters, is us. Right here. Right now. You’re nothing but what you are here, now, with me.”

“I’m sorry. Please don’t stop. Please don’t take your hand away.”

“Okay, forget it.”

He’s right, they two live only in the present. The past, her past, is dead, something to be talked about only in a dead language. Which means not at all.

“Look out at the street and tell me everything you see. Do it. Right now, or I’ll stop.”

“Please, don’t stop. Car. Green car.” Her legs spread wide as a Paris whore’s. “Black truck. Circling the square. Don’t take your hand away. Please, more. Please.”

It’s as though she’s split in two, her eyes, her mind attuned to what’s outside of her on the street, while the whole rest of her, every part, cares for nothing save that gathering ecstasy between her legs. She wants it so badly, what he is offering her out here in front of everyone. Has never wanted anything so badly. Wants it beyond shame.

“Old man. Walking right past us. Looking straight at me. We could get arrested. I can’t do this.”

“Yes, you can. You’re my good girl. You don’t want me to stop now, do you?”

“No.” The word so small she hardly hears it. “Woman. Blue sweater. Going in the grocery.” Wants it even beyond fear.

Danny’s mouth is slack, his eyes half closed; his breath comes in a ragged rhythm with her own. She stares into his face and sees there every nuance of the pleasure that she dares not show, as if they two truly have become one being. Out here where everyone can see. Looking into his face excites her more than anything his hand is doing. More than anything she can remember.

“Teenage girl. Licking an ice cream cone. On a bench across the street. Dressed in red, everything red. Strawberry ice cream. Sticky on her hands and face. Don’t stop. Oh, please, don’t stop. Don’t leave me. Please, not now. Please, please never leave me. Please don’t ever go.”

She shudders in deep undulations, bites hard on her lower lip to keep her sounds shut in. Then it is finished. Danny jerks the cart back out onto the street.

“Think you can make it home now? Or will I have to stop somewhere and do you in the goddamn road?”

He says it as if the whole thing had been her idea, her fault, which in a way it was.

She buttons her jeans without looking at him. Out on the highway he slips his hand inside her pocket, keeps it there; she is forgiven. For what? For wanting him more than she could bear? It’s not until they turn off at the little grocery and she is sick behind the tree that she remembers she still has her weaving rolled up in the cart.

Back home they climb up to the loft without their supper, make love fiercely, as if they’d been apart for months.

W
EATHER
’
S TURNING COLD
. H
E
’
S PULLED THE QUILTS DOWNSTAIRS
by the hearth fire. They’ve been together since high summer. Ninety, a hundred days. Together in every way. They’re in it for the long haul, that’s for sure.

Nights, his hand between her legs, he loves how he can make her want him even in her sleep. Some nights it gets so bad, her wanting him that way, that he can’t help himself, no matter how he tries. These times, he enters her so gently, comes in her so quietly she never wakes. Mornings, her just rousing from her dreams, he does it all to her again so she won’t know what happened in the night.

“How come you never get your monthly?” he asks one afternoon, them lying by the fire.

She shakes her head. “It’s part of whatever was wrong with me. The doctors said I never would again.”

“Reckon we can’t have a baby.”

She frowns a little, shakes her head. Her face has gone all sad. Danny rocks her in his arms and a new peace falls on him. He’s seen babies born, once saw a woman die from it even with Memaw there. Watched her turn from live to corpse before his eyes, Memaw’s hands moving so fast trying to make things right. Whole house stank of blood.

“I don’t want a baby,” Danny whispers, his lips touching her ear. “I want only you.”

H
E NEVER SHOULD HAVE
brought it up. Days now, all she does is roll those yarns she weaves with into balls, sort her dried weeds into piles, sing songs that sound like lullabies, only they’re not. Nights sometimes she whimpers in her sleep. It scares him so bad that when she wakes he only does to her the things she asks him to.

Early mornings, she gets up before him and does her weavings, fingers working furiously in all those little strings. When she’s finished one and takes it down, it’s just a hairy mess to him. Still, that fancy gallery put some on their wall, so she must be on to something. Wanted to show him that day. He keeps close the memory of what they did instead there in the alley. Runs back through it, times when his soul needs quieting.

So who can tell him why what happens happens? This morning, when he gets up, she’s standing staring at the wall, working on another goddamn weaving thing looped on those fucking nails. Got her back to him where he can’t see the dawn light on her face, the big thing that gets him out of bed these days.

“Don’t do that,” he tells her.

“Do what?”

“Don’t turn your face away like that.”