Lullaby for the Rain Girl (7 page)

Too many things to not think about. The vision of the woman in the bookstore vied for attention with my leather-faced father, his remarks about my niece’s prettiness and her “tight one” and his determination to kill the old man he thought pursued him. My sister, totally uncharacteristically crying on my shoulder. Then I thought of all the grading I had sitting in my briefcase, waiting for me patiently, as malevolent things often do.

Sighing, I picked up the phone and called Tracy, asking her to come over.

“Are you free?” I said.

“For you, anything, baby doll.”

She arrived an hour later, after I’d wolfed down leftovers from the refrigerator for my dinner. Tracy is a good-looking woman: hazel eyes, shoulder-length auburn hair, curvaceous as all hell. She was wearing the incongruous combination of goose down coat and mini-skirt, with black hose and very high stiletto heels that looked painful, even if she was aggressively graceful in them.

“Jesus,” I said, welcoming her in and giving her a peck on the cheek. “A mini-skirt? In this cold?”

“It was okay,” she said, grinning and stripping off the coat. “I took a taxi. It was warm.”

“Well, thanks for coming on short notice.”

“Oh, no prob. Only I need to go by ten, okay?”

“Okay.”

She nodded toward the bedroom. “Want me to go in?”

“Yeah. Sure. You know where it is. Hey, do you want some wine?”

“I wouldn’t say no to a glass. Just a little one. I have to keep my wits about me.”

I laughed and she disappeared into the bedroom, slipping off the heels as she moved. I found the half-full bottle of Chardonnay in the fridge and poured two glasses. By the time I made my way to her she was already undressed and in the bed, sitting up and looking toward me.

“Hey, thanks,” she said, taking the wine and sipping at it while I took off my clothes and joined her. We drank wine for a few minutes, not speaking. My free hand moved up and down her body. Finally we put the glasses aside and she took the lead, kissing me deeply and touching me everywhere. Tracy knows what she’s doing, without a doubt.

But tonight it wasn’t working. I seemed to feel nothing but desolation as I lay there, watching her heroic efforts to make my body respond. This happened more and more these days; a new kind of sparking-out, another kind of onrushing failure, unimaginable only a few years ago.

“Let’s give it a few minutes, okay?” I said at last.

She smiled cheerfully, as she always does, and pulled herself up next to me, kissed my jaw. “Sure thing,” she said. “Whatever you want. You’re tired tonight, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“That’s okay. Just tell me what you want me to do.”

“Nothing, right now. Let’s just stay here for a while.”

“Fine with me.”

We lay there together, my arm around her in the darkness. I could hear the night wind pressing lightly against the bedroom window. It felt good to be there with her—warm, soft, quiet. I felt I could nod off to sleep with her, wake with her the next morning. How I wanted to—how I didn’t want to have to return to this bed alone, pulling the covers over myself, blocking out the world. But I knew I would. She’d already said she had to go. I knew she wouldn’t stay.

I studied her body absently, touching the freckles on her shoulders and stroking her little round bottom. Time drifted. I think I nodded off to sleep for a time, then woke again to discover her still there beside me.

Sorrow poured over me then in sudden black waves and I felt dirty, ashamed of myself; for a ghastly moment I thought I would start to cry, but I held it in. Finally I guided her hand to me and we tried again for a few minutes, but there was nothing.

“I’m sorry,” I said at last, sorrow and shame sheeting through me.

“Hey, don’t worry about it. Want to do something else?”

“I guess not. Unless you’ve got a cigarette.”

“Ha! That, I do have.” She reached over to the chair where she’d left her purse and pulled out a package of Virginia Slims, one of my least favorite cigarettes of all time—surely the bland, unsatisfying things were created by some non-smoker somewhere with the specific intent of killing a person’s desire to smoke. But right now it didn’t matter. We lit up and drank what was left in our wine glasses.

“You okay?” she said at last.

“Yeah, I’m okay. Wish you smoked a better kind of cigarette, though.”

“Hey, these are the healthy kind. Smoke away.”

I chuckled. I genuinely liked Tracy, who had a good sense of humor—or seemed to. It was hard to tell, really, since there wasn’t a single moment we ever spent together in which she wasn’t playacting, pretending to be my sweet and supportive quasi-girlfriend.

At last it neared ten o’clock and, with a final, quick kiss, she got up and dressed. I wanted to pull her back into the bed, but I just watched until she was finished, then got up and wrapped my bathrobe around myself. We made our way back out into the main room and as she pulled on her coat I found my wallet and brought out the three hundred dollars, handed the wad of bills to her.

“Thanks, baby doll,” she said. “Call me, okay?”

I smiled wanly. “I will.”

She opened the door, fanned her fingers at me with a smile, and closed the door behind her.

I stood there for a long time, hollow inside. If anything, I felt worse than I’d felt before. This always happened, actually. Yet time after time I couldn’t resist picking up the phone when the long night’s cavern yawned before me and I could see no path to the light, none at all.

I rested my forehead against the wall for several minutes. Then I moved to the kitchen, cupped my palms for a drink from the faucet, splashed some of the water on my face. My heart had begun beating hard for some reason, hard and fast, thundering inside my skull.

Jesus Christ, I thought. Jesus Christ.

At last I moved back into the bedroom and switched on the light, which seemed to shine garishly bright. With a sensation of disgust I stared at the empty glasses, the cigarette butts in the ashtray, and, most of all, the rumpled bed sheets.

Knocking the glasses and ashtray to the carpet, I tore the sheets from the bed and hurled them against the opposite wall. Then I collapsed onto the naked mattress and pulled the blankets up over me. I lay shivering in the hard light until dawn came.

4

Sunday was quieter. It had to be, after the grim eventfulness of the day before. No distraught sisters, no Alzheimer-ridden fathers, no pathetic attempted pickups in bookstores, no high-end prostitutes—my bank account was practically at zero, anyway.

In fact, I stayed in. The day was colorless and cold—ideal weather for remaining indoors and grading papers while drinking lots of hot coffee. I had the radio on, first to the classical station, WGMS, but what they were playing was too lightweight, too Bach-baroque. I switched to D.C.’s classic-rock station, 94.7, “the Arrow,” and listened with half an ear to Queen, Bad Company, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Grand Funk Railroad. Perfect. I cleaned up the bedroom. I did laundry. I considered taking the elevator down to the little mini-mart adjacent to the building and picking up a pack of cigarettes—I could still taste that foul Virginia Slim somewhere in the back of my throat, a taste bad enough to be unpleasant yet cigarette enough to make me crave the real thing. But I held back, chewed lots of gum, got through the day.

In the late afternoon I turned on my computer and found, among the offers for low-cost sex toys and the Nigerian potentates wishing to hand over their riches to me in exchange for my bank account number, an e-mail from an address which made me pause.

[email protected].

I’d not given her a thought since Friday night, and now I felt a little guilty about it. We’d parted on bad terms. I wondered for a moment how she knew my e-mail address, but then realized that the school website had it listed.

The subject heading read:
Im Sorry!!!!

I clicked on the message.

Hi Mr. Fall! Im sorry about Friday. Your right I can be a nosy B**CH sometimes. Im really sorry. Plz forgive me. How r u? What did u do yesterday? Will u be at school tomorow? I guess u will be. Ill be there. Have u written any more books? Well thats about it Mr. Fall. Again IM REALLY SORRY.

xxxoooxxooxxoxoxox

The Rain Girl. (Or is it Rain GRRRL?! Ha!)

I stared at the screen for several minutes. A teacher has to be careful about private communications with students—especially male teachers with female students. I could ignore it, I supposed; no doubt I would run into her at school sometime next week, after all. On the other hand I noticed that she had sent the message early Saturday morning—I wondered how many times she’d checked her e-mail to see if I’d answered. Maybe none, of course. But somehow I didn’t think so. It’s hard for a kid to write to a teacher, especially to apologize for something. I thought about all those x’s and o’s in her closing. She would want to see a reply very much.

I wandered around my main room for a few minutes, sipping coffee and listening to the Edgar Winter Group on 94.7. Finally I sat before the computer again.

Dear Rain Girl,

I hesitated. A teacher addressing a female student by a pet name?

I deleted it. Instead I typed:

Hi!

Thanks for your note. But the apologies are all mine. I was rude to you. I was tired and had a headache, but that’s not an excuse. Anyway, I sincerely apologize.

What did I do yesterday? Not much. A teacher’s life is pretty boring. Like today—all I’ve done is grade papers. (Be glad you’re not in my class. I’m fierce!) I hope your weekend has been better than mine. See you at school tomorrow!

Mr. Fall.

I looked at the last line; it seemed too formal. I struck it out.

Ben Fall.

The whole message looked a bit impersonal to me, so I typed:

P.S. Maybe you should take my class—your spelling and grammar need help! (Please, it’s “you,” not “u”!)

But she might take that as an insult.

I struck out the entire P.S. and hit “Send.”

To my surprise, the flag of the little mailbox at the top corner of my screen popped up only a minute or two later. I clicked on it.

[email protected].

I opened the message.

Hi Mr. Fall! Your message made me feel SOOOO MUCH BETTER. Im glad your not mad at me. But why are u apologizing, u didn’t do anything wrong? Hey I didn’t do anything this weekend either. My life is as borring as yours HA HA. Maybe we should get together and be borred together!

xxxoooxoxoxoxxxooo

The R.G.

I stared at the message, noticing again all those x’s and o’s—and, this time, an invitation, even if it was couched in humor, to “get together.” It was no doubt completely innocent, but I decided to tread carefully.

Hi!

Maybe we’ll talk next week about whose life is more boring! Meanwhile I have to shut off the computer now; it’s back to papers for me. See you Monday!

Ben Fall.

I hit “Send.” Then, just to be sure, I switched off the computer.

# # #

Monday was chaotic, as Mondays—especially rainy ones—tend to be. Students show up late in the morning, they don’t have their homework, they’re tired and cranky. I fumbled through my morning composition classes well enough, but found myself short of energy by lunchtime. Normally I just sit at my desk and eat whatever I’ve brought with me—the faculty room is a den of smoky temptation—but today I felt the need of a caffeine jolt, so I headed downstairs to the soda machine outside the main office. Frosty Coke can in my hand, I stepped into the school library on impulse, waved toward Mrs. Lewis behind the desk, and wandered over to the Mystery section, hunted around for
Leprechauns Can Be Murder.
I looked at the most recent checkout date; I was surprised to see that the book hadn’t been taken out in a year. Well, no,
that
didn’t surprise me; but I’d assumed my young friend had taken the book from here. Surely she hadn’t read the whole thing while sitting at one of the tables? Odd.

Afternoon classes were better than the morning ones. The advanced class got into a healthy argument about why Gatsby stopped hosting his parties, and whether he was actually in love with Daisy at all.

“He’s a stalker,” Annie declared, certain of herself as always. “He built his mansion just to be close to her but he didn’t even tell her he was there. He’s not in love with her. He’s obsessed with her. He’s
creepy.”

“She’s
creepy,” Dion said. “I mean, what’s the matter with her? She’s crazy.”

The discussion narrowed to the burning question of who was crazier, Gatsby or Daisy—not the deepest or most probing line of inquiry, perhaps, but they were staying on-task, which is half the battle. The kids in the back were unengaged, of course, but they were quiet enough. Overall, it was a good class period.

Unfortunately, once the bell rang I knew it was time for our staff meeting—always the deadliest part of any week. After gathering my things I shuffled lifelessly toward the school cafeteria, our usual meeting spot, and found a seat. It occurred to me that I’d not seen my young friend anywhere around today; I wondered if she might be outside waiting for me. But why would she wait for me?