Turning Angel (22 page)

8/21

This is a journey into the unbelievable. Never have I seen people so poor, so sick, so helpless. Yet never have I seen smiles so broad, eyes so bright, or heard laughter so pure. I’ve shot a hundred pics already. My admiration for Drew grows every day that I watch him work. There are five other doctors with us—some of them specialists—but somehow Drew is the de facto leader of the team. I’ve watched the other doctors gape in awe as he works. Yesterday he removed four cancerous masses from a miner’s neck. Two of the other doctors warned him not to do it. They said the patient needed a hospital and general anesthesia. Drew said the guy would never get either, and that the cancer would probably cut off his air supply within a month. The operation took place under a tarp stretched over a picnic table. Drew injected the man with lidocaine, told him to be still, then cut on him for about an hour. He had to inject more lidocaine throughout the procedure, but the miner just smiled and murmured encouragement all through the operation. He somehow knew Drew was his last, best hope. I know one thing now: that’s the kind of man I want. Not a doctor, necessarily, but a man who’ll take risks to do what he knows is right. Who won’t be paralyzed by anxiety or rules or anything else. I want someone who
acts.
When Drew walked out of that tent, I waited until no one was around and then hugged him as tight as I could and told him I thought he was wonderful. Corny, maybe, but I don’t care. Anybody with eyes to see would have said the same.

8/22

Today I asked Drew if he believed in God. I mean, this is a mission trip, right? But it doesn’t seem to me that he’s into all the praying and Bible stuff the others talk about every night. He told me he doesn’t believe in the conventional concept of God. He said the idea of a God that watches the sparrow fall, that intervenes in human affairs, that rewards the faithful and punishes the wicked is a wishful fantasy. I asked him about life after death, and he just shook his head. “Come on,” I said. “What happens after you die?” He looked at me like he was a thousand years old and said, “Kate, when you die, you’re dead.” I think he’s watched a lot of people die in pain. “So this is all there is?” I asked. He nodded and said, “All we’ll ever know as individuals, anyway.” “Then I guess we’d better do all we can to be happy,” I said (which I believe). He looked so sad then, but he said, “I think you’re right.” And then I made this colossal blunder and said, “Are you happy with your wife?” I NEVER meant to say that. I meant to say, “Are you happy with your LIFE,” but it just came out, and I let it stand. He looked at me for a really long time without saying anything, and then he turned away. And then I knew. I guess I’d always known. He wasn’t happy, and he hadn’t been for a long time. And I wanted to make him happy, wanted it in a way I never wanted anything before. I wondered what would make him happy, and whether maybe I could. I knew then that I’d do whatever it took to take away the pain and loneliness in that face.

The mission team soon returned to Natchez, but too much had happened to go back to the way things were before.

8/27

It finally happened! We were talking in his workshop (fourth time I sneaked out) and it was really hot. His air conditioner was broken. I said we ought to go over to the Johnsons’ pool, since they’re out of town. Drew was worried at first, but then he said yes. We slipped through the trees and then across the open grass to the edge of their pool. He looked at me like he was unsure what to do, so I went first. I took off my top and my shorts, and then I walked into the water. I turned back and watched him strip to his underwear—boxer briefs. I couldn’t stop shivering. I’d seen him in just tennis shorts before, but this was different, because we were alone. We swam for a while, keeping our distance, talking from a few yards apart. But then finally we came together, and he held me while we talked. He moved out to where the water was about five feet deep, and I wrapped my legs around him and laid my head on his shoulder. We talked for a long time, and then we stopped talking. I asked if he wanted to kiss me. He didn’t say yes. He just raised my head, looked into my eyes, and did it. My whole body was quivering. I’d waited SO LONG for that moment. His kiss was so tender and knowing, not like Steve’s at all, not like anyone’s (except maybe Sarah Evans’s—which is weird because Drew is so masculine). And then he said, “I want to see you.” I knew what he meant, so I slipped my bra straps down and then my whole bra. He looked at my breasts as though appraising them, and then he covered my nipple with his mouth and I started to lose track of everything. I literally melted into the water. I felt him against me down there. After a while he made this shocked sound, and then he told me to put my hand down between us. That kind of scared me, but I let him pull my hand down. The pool water was cold, but between us the water was very warm, like someone was peeing in it. I thought for a minute that maybe he
was
peeing, and that he was weird about that or something, but then he said, “It’s you, Kate. That’s
you.
” And I blushed so deeply, because I realized it was. Drew held me tight and pulled me against him—still with his shorts on—and started moving against me. Then he whispered in my ear, “Is it all right if I climax?” I literally could not speak. I just nodded into his shoulder. And then he did. There was this explosion of air from his lungs, not grunting or anything like Steve. And then he just shivered the length of his body. I was crying, but not from sadness. I was overwhelmed. I wanted to look in the water, but I didn’t. He walked to the shallows then, still holding me up, then he walked up out of the pool like I was a little girl. He carried me over to this big padded chair the Johnsons have on their patio and laid me down in it, and then we did it for real. God. When I think about it now, sitting here in the cold air-conditioning, all I can really remember is clinging to him and feeling things I’d never felt before. I kept thinking, “He’s married, stupid!” but I didn’t stop or tell him to. After he finally stopped moving, I tried to sound calm when he talked to me, but I wasn’t. I was freaking out. My heart was just pounding, but I didn’t want him to know. I’m
still
shaking. It’s 6:30 a.m and
I don’t want to go to work!
How can I look at Ellen now? If I go late, I won’t have to see her. She’ll be playing tennis or getting her hair done or something. And Timmy, God, this is going to be
so
hard. And so
weird.
I feel guilty, but that’s only part of me. The other part can’t think of anything but him. Last night…wanting it again, that ineffable closeness. I can’t believe that was our first time. Where do we go from here? I hope he’s okay with it, not freaking out because I’m so young. He looked SO HAPPY. I think he was crying at one point, but I didn’t want to say anything. He needed me so badly. Have to sleep some now.

9/7

Two lives. That’s what I’m leading. It’s the strangest experience ever. I have a day self and a night self, and the two never flow together. During the day, Drew is a vague feeling, always there yet indistinct, a heaviness in my stomach, a tingle in my forearms. Life goes on around me and with me, yet the Real Me is hibernating. I can’t eat—a new experience! I’ve always eaten ravenously, but now I can’t eat anything. The excitement and anticipation fill me in some way I’ve never been filled before, turning my heart into a huge balloon that presses down my stomach and rises into my throat. Is this what love is? When I first see him, that balloon rises so high into my throat that I can’t speak. But the sleep deprivation is starting to get to me. I feel like I’m hallucinating sometimes. If I don’t get some rest, Mia’s going to take valedictorian, and I can’t afford to lose that until I hear something from Harvard. Maybe I should quit the cheerleading squad. That wouldn’t affect my transcript, and I could take naps in the afternoon. Maybe…

As I read on, Kate’s amazing self-awareness shows me how Drew could become so captivated by her.

9/18

I know some people will say I’m looking for a father figure, and my first instinct would be to say, “Bullshit. I already have a father. He just happens to be a prick.” But really, what if I am? What if one of the needs Drew fills for me is a protective presence who takes care of certain things? What’s wrong with that? Everyone needs some of that, and I was certainly shortchanged in that department growing up. If Drew is happy being that for me, and if he makes
me
happy by being that, where’s the fault in it? A lot of people would be happy to tell me, of course, but screw them. What do they know? Half of conventional married couples end up divorcing, so
there.
Is this relationship going to stunt my emotional growth or something? No. Most people who’ll criticize us probably stopped growing themselves years ago—emotionally and intellectually—especially in THIS TINY TOWN.

After two months of nightly rendezvous, Kate has developed into an accomplished lover, and her hunger seems to have no bounds. Yet just as in the past, she continues to measure herself against others.

11/5

Tonight I had eight orgasms in two hours. Two clitoral, six vaginal. Drew is amazing. Or maybe
I
am. Do other women respond like this? I hope so, for their sakes. But I know Ellen never did. And I know my girlfriends don’t. Except maybe Karen Carr.

11/17

Drew wants to test my testosterone level. He thinks a libido like mine has to be driven by something other than the normal hormonal flow. I think he must be right, with the crazy things I want. There’s still so much I haven’t shown him! Sometimes we get to a place where it hurts me, but instead of wanting it to stop, I want it to intensify. Once when I was on top, his hand was on my breastbone and it slipped up around my neck. I pressed it there with both hands to show him what I wanted. He squeezed for a little bit, but he didn’t really cut off my air. I wanted to tell him that Steve used to do that for me (at my request, of course) but I felt too weird to say it. Drew would probably understand, but I’m not sure. If I tell him how that gets me off, he might think I’m messed up somehow. Of all the things we’ve done, he’s never suggested anything that involved pain. I could tell him I read somewhere that some people like oxygen deprivation when they climax (he probably knows that already), and try to get to it that way. I could say Karen told me about it. I don’t know. Maybe I
am
sick or something. But if I want it, it must be natural, so what’s wrong with it?

All I can think about after reading that entry is the autopsy report.
Cause of Death: Strangulation.
Could it be that Kate wasn’t murdered at all? That she died during what was, for her, normal sexual activity? I’m still wondering this when the name I’ve been searching for leaps off the page as though written in letters of fire.

11/18

Tonight I met Cyrus face-to-face. Can’t talk about why, even here. He wasn’t at all what I expected. He looks young and old at the same time. His face is young but his eyes are old. He reminds me of Drew that way. Cruelty and kindness living in the same soul. I found myself wondering who would win if he and Drew had to fight to the death. Like that stupid Mel Gibson movie: “Two go in, one comes out!” And what would they fight over? Me, of course. A scary image. But it turns me on, too, in a weird way.
Seriously
turns me on.

12/15

Fuck, fuck, fuck!
No letter from Harvard!
Clearly I didn’t make the cut for early decision. After school, Mrs. Parrinder pulled me aside and told me Mia got into Brown. That’s probably true. I remember Brown had the same ED notification date as Harvard. That’s weird, too, because Mia’s so straight compared to me. You’d think
I’d
be going to Brown and she to Harvard. Of course she claims she didn’t even apply to Harvard, but I know that’s bullshit. She had the SATs, and who wouldn’t apply who had a chance of getting in?

12/18

Tonight Drew and I talked about maybe bringing someone else into our lovemaking. He says he’s never done that before, and I like the idea of making him experience something he never has.
I’ve
sure never done it. The only girls I know who have are sluts who pulled a train when they were drunk or something. Or Susie Drane, who let Chris and Chip both do her on the football field one night. Ugh! The obvious question: should the “third” be a guy or a girl? When Drew asked what I thought, I said “girl” to make it seem less threatening, but the truth is, I’d rather it be a guy. I’d
love
to see Drew do things to a guy, and vice versa. But I also want to know what it feels like to be completely full. When I finally admitted that, Drew didn’t seem threatened by it. But clearly there are problems with this kind of thing. Do you pick a friend you both know really well? Or a total stranger you know you’ll never see again? A stranger reduces the emotional risks but increases the medical ones. The easiest way to start would be Sarah Evans, of course, since I’ve already been with her. But when Drew asked if we could trust her to keep quiet, I realized I wasn’t sure. Sarah’s been kind of stalking me lately, and this would make that worse. Drew said maybe the best thing would be to try a couple, a guy and girl at the same time. That way we’d all have the same things at risk, and nobody would feel left out of the sexual stuff. I asked Drew if there was a woman he fantasized about having, or if he had a friend he could trust to try something like this. I was afraid he was going to say, “Mia Burke.” But he really surprised me. He said maybe Penn Cage, the writer. Drew trusts him, and Penn’s girlfriend (fiancée?) is like 33 and hot. Caitlin Masters is her name. I played tennis with her once at Duncan Park. She’s from Boston, and she dresses sort of risque sometimes, so maybe she’d be into something like this. It seems weird even to be writing about this, but if it’s something you desire, what are you supposed to do? Pretend it never popped into your head? Drew said we shouldn’t rush it, though, and I think he’s right. There’s time for all this.