Zigzag (3 page)

I was so surprised I spilled coffee on my bathrobe. “What?”

“I wish you didn't think I was perfect. Nobody is.”

I smiled. “Well, let's just say you come closer to it than most people.”

“I don't think I do, though. It scares me sometimes that I might not be able to live up to your expectations. Yours or my mother's.”

I didn't like the sound of that—what did I expect that he couldn't live up to? “You just have to be you, Chris. That's all I want.” I broke off a section of the orange I'd been peeling and held it up to his lips until he took it from my fingers, kissing them lightly.

When we were lying together between the sky blue sheets,
barely space for dust between our two bodies, I'd promised myself I was going to stop messing up all our good times by worrying about what was coming next. I always felt better about us after sex because being together like that made it seem that Chris was really mine. That no one could ever know me the way Chris did, and no one could ever know him the way I did.

After Chris left I lay down on the couch and fell asleep. There was a nice breeze coming in the living room windows and, for the moment, I felt content. School was out, my stomach was full, and Chris loved me. What else mattered?

Instead of a banging door waking
me, I woke up gradually to the sound of my mother's voice speaking to someone outside. I couldn't make out any of the words—she was talking softly—but her laugh surprised me. I could sometimes make Mom laugh, but there weren't many other people who could. She was usually too serious to get giggly.

“Who were you talking to?” I asked her once the door closed.

“Oh!” She jumped and turned toward me. “Goodness, Robin, you scared me to death! I thought you'd be up in bed by now.”

“Sorry. I fell asleep on the couch.”

“Well, why don't you go upstairs. You'll probably fall right back to sleep.” She headed for the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea before bed, her nightly ritual.

I followed her. “Who were you talking to just now?”

“Oh, that.” She was making an unusual amount of racket putting the teapot on the stove and finding herself a cup and didn't seem to want to look at me. “Well, you won't believe this. I had to get a ride home. I couldn't get Rupert to start again—something in the starter mechanism, I think. I hope I can get
somebody down at the Texaco station to take a look at it tomorrow, although I don't know who'll be there on a Sunday—”

“So who drove you home?”

She was ransacking the tea boxes in the cupboard now, as if there might suddenly be some new kind in there. “Well, I could've gone back in and looked for Esther. She was getting ready to leave, too, and even though it's out of her way, she would have driven me. Or I could even have called a cab, although Arnie's charges an arm and a leg to come way out here. So I was just sitting there grinding on the starter . . .”

Something was up. My mother
never
talks this much. “So,
who
brought you home?”

She poured the barely hot water over a chamomile tea bag, splashing water all over the countertop, then finally looked me in the eye. “A man by the name of Michael Evans.”

I waited for the rest of the explanation, but now she was evidently done talking.

“Do I know who Michael Evans is?” I finally asked.

“I doubt it. I just met him this week myself.” She squeezed her tea bag between her fingers and tossed it in the trash.

“You met him at the hospital?”

“Yes.”

“Does he work at the hospital?”

“No.”

“Is this twenty questions? Why are you being so weird?”

She sighed deeply. “Because I thought I'd have tonight to think this over before I had to talk to you about it.”

“About
what
?”

She swallowed and stuck her chin out. “Michael Evans has been at the hospital this week with his sister who was in a car accident and has numerous broken bones. I've been taking care of her and we've . . . gotten acquainted.”

“And he gave you a ride home,” I prodded.

“Yes, he did. He happened to be coming out just when I was sitting there . . .”

“Grinding Rupert's starter. I know.”

“Yes.” She smiled a strange little smile. “And . . .”

“And?”

“And . . . he asked me to go out with him. Tomorrow night.”

I have to admit, that was the last possible way I would have bet on that sentence ending. My jaw must have hit the linoleum.

“
You're
going on a
date
?”

“Well, thank you, Robin. That boosts my self-confidence.” She took a drink of tea and her glasses fogged up.

“No, I didn't mean that. Not that he shouldn't have asked you or anything. Just that . . . I didn't even think you
liked
men.”

She gave a little puff of annoyance. “What?”

“Not that I thought you liked women much either.”

“Just what are you saying? I'm antisocial?”

“I'm sorry, Mom, it's just that you don't do things with people very much. You go to work and maybe you go to a tag sale with Esther once in a while, but that's about it. I mean, you're kind of a loner.”

She leaned against the sink, sipping from her cup. “Well, maybe I'm getting tired of being a loner. You're not going to be around forever, you know. I might like to have some company after you leave.”

I was shocked. As far as I knew, my mother had had only one boyfriend, Jerry Daley, in college. They'd gone together for a few months, she got pregnant with me, and they got married, briefly. He moved out before I was a year old. All Mom would ever say about their marriage was, “We were too young.” Hence, the birth-control lessons she'd been giving me since I was ten. Of course, she was always careful to make sure I understood that she didn't regret
having me. She repeatedly told me she couldn't imagine life without me, but I had a feeling she
might
have imagined it from time to time. Jerry Daley didn't have to imagine it—he saw less of me over the years than my dentist.

“Well, I think it's nice that he asked you out. I mean, do you like him?”

She banged her teacup down on the counter and put one hand up to hold on to her head. “How should I know? It's been a hundred years since I've been asked out on a date. To tell you the truth I feel sort of sick to my stomach.” She looked up at me then and we both started sputtering with laughter.

“That's a good sign!” I said.

“Oh, Robin, I don't think I can go! When he comes, will you tell him I'm sick?”

“I'll tell him you had a desperate need to wash your hair.” We were leaning against each other in silly hilarity.

“Oh, goodness,” she said, wiping tears out of the corners of her eyes. “I don't need to find a new companion, do I? You're not really leaving me, are you?”

“Leave Thunder Lake? Unimaginable. I'm a mere child of seventeen.”

“Going on thirty.” She put an arm around my waist and we headed for the stairs. “Wait till you see this guy. He looks like . . .” She began to giggle again. “Ernest Hemingway!”

I stared at her. “What . . . you mean like
Great White Hunter
?”

She nodded. “He's quite large and he has a very big beard. He's even got tiger-striped seat covers in his Jeep!”

We were lucky we made it up the stairs.

W
hen Chris came by to pick me up about noon, I knew right away something was wrong. He was smiling, but he wouldn't look at me. Mom had come outside, too, to give him her graduation present. It was no big deal, just a gift certificate to the bookstore in town, but Chris went on about it like it was a gold watch. Or like he was in no hurry for my mother to go back inside and leave us alone.

Mom kept on jabbering, too, I guess because she was nervous about her big date. Finally she said, “You'll be back before seven, won't you?”

“Why? So I can meet Ernest?” I asked.

“Don't call him that! You'll forget and slip up when he's here! His name is Michael.”

“Okay, Michael. We'll be back in time,” I promised.

Once we drove off I had to explain to Chris about Mom having her first date in about two decades.

“Wow, that's cool. I hope it works out.”

“What do you mean, works out?”

“You know, that they get along and like each other and . . . whatever happens next.”

“Don't get ahead of yourself. Mom will be lucky to survive one date. This won't be a long-term thing.”

“You never know,” he said, his grin turning down oddly at one corner.

“What's wrong with you today?” I asked him.

He gave me a quick glance. “Wrong?”

“Something is funny.” I sat back and stared at him, trying to figure it out. He kept his eyes on the road, but his Adam's apple was bobbing up and down like a great deal of swallowing was being required. What could have happened between last night and this morning? The only thing . . .

Then I remembered something. “What was their gift? Your parents. What did they give you?”

Chris sighed. “I can't tell you while I'm driving. Wait'll we get to the lake—”

“Tell me now. You're acting funny. I want to know!”

When you're out on a rural route in Iowa you don't have to be all that careful about the other traffic. Chris pulled his car over to the side of the road next to miles and miles of cornfields. I sat up sideways, on my knees, ready to leap down his throat, but he kept staring out the windshield, his eyes glazed over as if he was looking inside himself instead of out at the world.

“I don't know how to tell you this, Robin. You won't like it.”

“Yeah, I was already pretty sure of that. Tell me.”

“My parents gave me . . . a trip to Rome.”

The breath I'd been holding exited slowly as I thought that over. “Rome? Like a vacation? Are they going, too?”

“No, just me.”

“So, that's another couple of weeks out of our summer,” I said grumpily, but actually I was kind of relieved. I'd been expecting worse news than that by the look on his face.

But Chris shook his head. “It's a summer program. I'll be
taking courses in history and government at a university in Rome for six weeks—then all the kids on the program travel around Italy for another four weeks.”

I did the math. “Ten weeks? That's the whole summer!”

Finally he turned and looked at me, his green eyes sparkling. “Robin, please don't be upset. This program is so amazing. I'll get college credit for the courses I take and I'll get to travel all over Italy! I've never been anyplace like that before!”

“Yes, you have! You went to Mexico with your parents last year. And you've been to Barbados, too. You've been a million more places than I have.” As if that would stop him from going.

“But I've never been to Europe,” he said, his face all lit up and excited. “And this is such a great opportunity. Can you imagine studying ancient history in Rome?”

When I didn't answer him, he took my hand in his. “I know what you're thinking . . .”

“What am I thinking?”

“That my parents did this just to separate us.”

“And you
don't
think that?”

“No, I don't. They heard about this program through somebody Dad works with and it sounded perfect for me—which it is—so they just went ahead and signed me up for one of the last spaces and decided to surprise me with it as a graduation present.”

“That's what you think happened?”

“It
is
what happened. Why do you hate my parents so much?”

“Why do they hate
me,
Chris? They can't wait to get you away from me.” Tears again, only this time they were angry tears—scalding and miserable. “Do you
have
to go? Are they
making
you go?”

He sighed heavily. “It would really hurt their feelings if I didn't go. And besides, this is too good to pass up. It's not like I won't miss you. I'll think about you all the time, and I'll write to you . . .”

“You want to go away for the whole summer? Our whole
last
summer together?”

He looked at me guiltily, the answer quite obvious. All of a sudden I felt like I'd just made the whole thing up, that the past two years had never even happened. Chris had never loved me. I had to get out of that car and away from his eyes.

“Don't follow me,” I commanded as I flung myself out the door and stumbled down the culvert by the roadside. “I need to be alone a few minutes.” When I reached the field I started thrashing through the cornstalks, which were sharper than I thought they'd be. I'd gotten about twenty feet in when I noticed the slices on my arms were starting to bleed, so I just sat down right there in the field, little corn ears swaying above me, and licked at one of the wounds on my arms. I used to do that a lot as a kid—I liked the salty taste of the blood. But then one day at school somebody saw me doing it and called me a vampire, so I stopped. I guess when you're losing the best boyfriend in the world you turn into a little kid again, needing to know what's inside you.