Reckless Point (9 page)

My father was always unintentionally loud throughout his morning routine.  It used to drive me bananas as a kid
.  I would be trying vainly to sleep in on a Saturday morning as he banged the kitchen cabinets open and closed as if on some sort of passive aggressive mission until my mother’s soft voice would scold him.

“Alan, let the kids sleep.” 

And my father would mutter something about how he was never allowed to nap idly until midmorning.  No, he had to work in the store every summer since the age of ten. 

I glanced at the clock and noticed it was after seven.  He would be leaving for the store soon to
sweep the building front, carefully wash the windows, and open the doors by nine.  I made a mental note to try and stop by sometime during the day, though it saddened me to observe the shabby slowness of the family business.  It had been different when I was very young, before the fortunes of Cross Point Village began to crumble and chip away at the lives within. 

As my parents murmured their goodbyes
as they had uncounted times before, I closed my eyes.  I wasn’t tired.  I was thinking of Marco. 

A delicious chill ran through me.  It was something Brian had
never been capable of producing.  Honestly, it was a feeling that no one had touched in me, a thrilling anticipation that was as heady as the first spring day warm enough to run barefoot in the backyard. 

“I’m no good at this shit, Angela.” 

I opened my eyes, the thrill disappearing.  I’d dismissed those words the night before but they began to sink in.  In two days I would be returning to Boston and Marco would be…doing whatever Marco does.  Was he trying to fend off any expectations?  Did I have any expectations?

Then I remembered the way he held me and touched me, the way his brow had creased with worry at the dinner table as he feared making a wrong move. 

Yes, I realized, considering my own internal question.  I did. 

And that was dangerous. 

I listened to the rustling noises of my mother going about her morning tasks.  After cleaning the kitchen and starting a load of laundry I heard her enter Tony’s bedroom down the hall and go through a ritual of straightening and dusting for a son who may not have any intention of ever seeing the room again.  I imagined Grace Durant entering my bedroom in my absence and felt sad.  I’d always given little consideration for the fact that I could return any day of any year and find my surroundings exactly as they always had been.  I loved my apartment, my free and proudly independent life in the city.  But this was home. 

After a lone tear coursed down my cheek, I laughed at my own maudlin mind and threw off the covers. 

The day was as brilliant as any fresh summer morning and I paused by the window for a long time, pushing my hair behind my ears as I opened the screen, inhaling the clean scent of grass and the vague tinge of lilac blossoms from the overgrown bush in the front yard. 

After breakfast and a pleasant, lighthearted chat with my mother, I excused myself. 

Grace looked at me curiously as I rinsed the breakfast dishes off. 

“So, what are your plans today?”

I stared at the running water, trying to keep my voice airy.  “Oh, I don’t know.  I might go spend the afternoon with Marco.” 

“I see.” I knew if I turned around she would be smiling into her tea mug. 

I felt some guilt at getting her hopes up.  I couldn’t even articulate my own intentions, let alone Marco’s.  I could almost hear the story running through her mind as if she were already telling it to Mrs. Kilbourne or Mrs. Johnson or whoever the hell was willing to listen. 

“Of course he was a difficult boy but he’
s become a good man and isn’t it all too perfect?  The kids growing up nose to nose and never looking twice and then all these years later finding one another the way they did?  It was meant to be.”

Only I didn’t believe that any love story of mine could possibly be so tidy.  The problem with my mother
is that everything had always been so neatly arranged in her life that she believed it should and would all be so orderly for everyone. 

She was wrong. 

By the time I indulged in a long, lazy shower and dressed in a pair of stonewash jeans with a rather risqué tank top, it was a quarter to eleven.

“What’s all this?” I asked, peering into a soft
vinyl cooler on the kitchen table. 

“Sandwiches,” said my mother. 

I looked at her, a little nonplussed. 

She shrugged.  “I figured you kids might want to have a picnic.” 

“Juice boxes, ma?  We’re not eight.” 

“No, but you’re never too old for juice boxes.” 

I closed the bag, shouldered the strap and kissed my mother on her hollow cheek.  “Thanks, Mom.” 

“Angela,” she said, looking rather tired. 

“Yeah?”

She smiled warmly.  “
Give Marco my regards.” 

I’ll give him something. 

As I left my house and walked across the street I felt jaunty, youthful.  Marco’s house was completely silent.  I climbed the pair of porch steps and knocked on the front door, listening to the unanswered echo.  I checked my watch, frowning.  He had said eleven.  Then again, Marco nearly missed our high school graduation, famously arriving just as his name was about to be called.  Almost as if he’d planned it that way. 

I knocked more insistently but there was still no sign of life.  In a flash of frustration, I reached for the doorknob, surprised to find it open.  I entered the
Bendetti home hesitantly.

“Marco?” 

All I heard was the tick of the brass clock on top of the console television. 

When the door slammed behind me I jumped three feet in the air and dropped the carefully packed cooler. 

He grabbed me around the waist, pushing me against the wall.  He smelled of Ivory soap and his hair was still wet from a shower. 

“You’re naked,” I said. 

“You’re not,” he accused and kissed me as hungrily as ever. 

He broke the kiss and ran his palms over my tightly contained breasts.  “What are you trying to do, turn on the whole neighborhood?”

“No,” I answered, arching into his touch.  “Just you.” 

He pushed his hardness
against my thigh.  “For that you never even had to try, Angie.” 

We stared at one anothe
r, breathing heavily.  Marco pressed a single finger between my legs as I squirmed.  Then he laughed and slapped me lightly on the rear end. 

“I’ll be ready in a minute,” he said and winked before heading to his bedroom.

I picked up the cooler, my heart pounding.  I’d never had it like this before, where every touch made me want him more.  Where no matter how many times we screwed and came and screwed once more I was always ready for it again.

“Let’s go,” he said brusquely, having dressed swiftly in a pair of jeans
and an
Aerosmith
shirt. 

“Well, where are we going anyway?”

Marco smiled lazily and my knees wanted to buckle.  “You wanted to go for a ride, Angela.  So I’m taking you for a ride.”   He jerked his head, his hand on the door to the garage.  “Come on.” 

Marco pulled the garage open as I ran my hands over the bike.  As I touched the seat I blushed a little, remembering when that leather had last been between my thighs. 

“Here.”  Marco tossed me a red helmet.  He rifled around by the work bench, finally withdrawing a black leather jacket which he draped around my shoulders. 

“But it’s warm out,” I objected. 

“Cooler on the highway.  And you’ll be safer.  We take a spill and you’ll be glad to have that leather scraping along the asphalt instead of your skin.” 

Reluctantly I slid my arms into the jacket as Marco opened the small compartment behind the seat and stowed the cooler and a few beers.
  He wheeled the bike carefully into the driveway.  When he straightened he glanced my way and whistled. 

“Look at Angie Durant, all trussed up like a biker’s badass old lady.” 

“Fuck you.”

“Now?”

I slipped the helmet over my curls.  “Shut up and get on the bike.”

Marco pulled the garage closed, letting it drop the last two feet with a thud.  He slid on a pair of sunglasses, swung his right leg over the side and revved the motorcycle to life. 

I stared at him for a few seconds, jolted by the memory of my own fantasy.  This was it.  He was it. 

After carefully settling on the bike behind him, Marco waited while my arms tentatively circled his waist.

“Tighter!” he yelled. 

As I clutched him he rode hard down the driveway, down Polaris Lane and t
oward the center of town.  I rather wondered how many necks swiveled with surprise as we peeled past.  Once the sight of Marco Bendetti riding around with a girl stuck to him was common, but that was a long time ago. 

And
anyway, I’d never been one of those girls. 

As we reached the clear highway I rested my head on Marco’s strong shoulder, enjoying his warmth, his scent.  He stared straight ahead, at times driving so fast and reckless it tightened a knot of fear in my gut.  But it was exhilarating nonetheless.  I’d always coveted the open road when the unease in my soul longed for something I could never name.  I would get in my car and drive blindly, ending up wherever I ended up.
But this, tightly holding onto Marco Bendetti as we hurtled through western Massachusetts, was a unique sense of abandon. 

As we headed north the scenery became more remote.  I had no idea how long Marco was planning on riding.  For all I knew we wer
e headed across several state lines and bound for Canada.  Just as I began to consider trying to get his attention in some way, Marco pulled over on the next exit. 

We were far into the dense greenery of the country.  After a few miles Marco pulled onto a rugged side road.  I didn’t see another soul as we drove further into the woods.  Finally, as i
f it were a dream, a lazy creek appeared out of nowhere.  Marco slowed the bike and rolled to a stop, climbing off. 

I pulled the helmet off, looking around.  “You’ve been here before?”

Marco nodded.  “Yeah.” 

A dense carpet of grass stretched on the banks of the creek.  The song of sparrows rang from the trees around us.
I looked back.  Marco was fiddling with the storage compartment.  He pulled out a beer and cracked the tab but didn’t drink.  He leaned against the bike and stared at the ground, his face serious. 

I shrugged out of his jacket and draped it across the seat.  “Something wrong?”

His face twisted into a wry grin.  “Memories.” 

“Oh,” I said, rolling my eyes and thinking of our visit to the cannon.  How many other females had ridden behind him and ended up here?

Marco’s look was troubled.  “Not what you’re thinking, Angela.  My mom used to take us camping out here.”

“Here?” I looked around, wondering how in the hell Mary
Bendetti had ever even found this place.

Marco pointed to the grass.  “We’d pitch a tent right over there.  Damien always hated it, bitched the whole time about asthma and mosquitoes, but I loved it.  Mom loved it.  We would come out once a year.  It was the only break she ever took from that
goddamn bar.”

Marco stopped talking and swirled the can of beer. I stepped over to him and took it from his hands, placing it on the ground and then reaching up to touch his face. 

“I’m sorry,” I said simply.

Marco didn’t respond for
a moment.  He stayed at a distance and I was reluctant to break his spell.  Then suddenly he grabbed me, holding me against him with crushing intensity.  It wasn’t the fire of want which drove him, at least not at first.  It was something even more basic.  Just a wish to be close. 

Then he pulled back, staring at me, his breath growing more rapid
as he forced my arms up high.  He rolled my shirt up past my breasts and over my head, undressing me.  I let him. 

Then I helped him pull his shirt off.  I ran my hands lightly over the solid expanse of his chest, down the muscled arms lit with strange winding tattoos.  On the left side of his chest, a few inches from his heart, was the scar of a small healed wound.  I kissed it.

Silently Marco led me closer to the creek.  He spread his jacket on the grass and eased me down.  I kneeled, rolling my bra from my shoulders one side at a time.  I knew it was what he wanted to see.  And as I unzipped my pants and pulled them down, I cupped my own moist center. 

Marco wouldn’t be held at bay any longer.
  He tackled me into the grass and before I could register the fact that he had abandoned his jeans he was deep inside of me. 

With a sudden burst of strength I pushed him to his back, straddling him. 

“Damn,” he said, smiling, still inside me.  He pulled down on my hips firmly, trying to sink in more deeply.  I loved being in control, squeezing and bucking his rigid lust.