Memorizing You (7 page)

“There’s nothing I won’t do for you, David. Do you know that?” It came like a purr. “I’ll do anything you want.”

I was in some other guy’s version of heaven. Guys who would be titillated by the affections of a pretty girl willing to do anything they desired. I, however, was numb.

She took my hands and coaxed them up her shirt to her breasts and left them there. They felt like soft mounds until her nipples hardened under my palms. I assumed that was a good thing. She moaned like it was. She nuzzled my chest with her nose. I used my thumbs to stroke her nipples. She made cooing sounds. The enjoyment of these moments was still apparently one-sided.

I tried to picture Greg’s face. It eluded me. I tried to remember that day we rode bikes; how he rubbed cold cream on my back. It was fruitless. Greg didn’t want to be here in this situation. No matter how hard I tried, he stayed away. I was on my own.

“God, I love being with you,” she said in half moan, half whisper as she kissed my ear. Her hands were wiggling down to the front of my pants and my zipper. “You make me want to do things.”

I began to panic. I was most assuredly not in the same mindset as Rosemary. Her hands had undone my fly and were working their way in past the elastic of my underwear. There would be no more mystery if she went any further.

“Wait, wait!” I said, pulling her hands free from my pants.

“That’s…um…not the way… I…uh…” I didn’t know what to say.

A sheepish grin. “Oh, I gotcha. Here, let me help.”

With that she took my hand and guided it to her shorts. She unzipped them, lay down on the bed and pulled them halfway down. She tugged my fingers up under her linen panties. Taking my first two fingers she pushed them inside her. It was very hot. Very sticky. She manipulated my hand deeper inside her and then began thrusting them back and forth as she writhed and sighed in rhythm.

“Oh my God, you’re amazing!” her voice gurgled.

This didn’t feel right to me. It made me uneasy. Nauseous. I pulled my

ha is killing me.”

“This isn’t right,” I said. “I can’t…I can’t do this!” I wiped my fingers on the comforter. I had made her intimate touch just look nasty.

Rosemary sat up abruptly, her back against the headboard. She looked to be in shock. Then in confusion. “What’s the matter? What did I do?” She reached toward me and I pulled back and away to the end of the bed.

“I can’t do this. I’m sorry.” I felt genuinely sick.

She was pulling her clothing back up, looking hurt and desperate. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to go that fast. I just thought…”

I could see her start to cry. The whole thing had gone so wrong. This wasn’t the way I wanted it to happen.

She reached for me. I jumped up and toward the door. “It’s not your fault. It’s just not right…” my voice trailed off. I felt like I was going to throw up.

My stomach turned. I ran to the bathroom, slammed the door, and bent over the toilet. I began to heave. Nothing came up. I continued to heave.

“David, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She was at the door, and she was sobbing. “What can I do? What…can…I… do?”

I had no answer to give. This was all my fault. Not hers.

I heard her place her hand on the door. “David, I’m going to call my dad and have him pick me up.”

I didn’t answer.

“I’m sorry.”

I heard her descend the stairs and make the call. I sat on the floor by the toilet and tried not to think. Half an hour later happily ever after. It would be a nice thing to know.”

A blackness crept over me. But I couldn’t cry. I was caught in a web of loathing; I knew I’d done something terribly wrong. Someone left in pain because of my actions. I eased myself into bed and welcomed the eraser of sleep.

CHAPTER SIX

My eyes flickered open with the alarm clock set for my early morning run. But the first thing that entered my thoughts was the evening before. And it colored my mood. I wanted to set things right with Rosemary. I didn’t have a clue how.

I jogged through the dark, street-lamp lit streets to Ryan’s house and found him waiting for me on the porch. He was happy to see me. We ran in silence. We passed the ballpark and the water fountain this time and went right over the bridge, past the tracks. He didn’t have any stitches in his side this round. We kept a good pace, but neither one of us attempted a conversation.

The morning started much hotter and we were perspiring freely. On the return, we stopped on the bridge where we had the day before to watch the sunrise again. He pulled off his shirt to wipe his face.

He was the first to break the silence. “I didn’t think you’d come,” he said, eyes taking in the sunrise that was pure gold in the sky.

“Why?”

“Just didn’t.”

“I told you I would.”

“I’m glad you did.”

I enthusiasdi. My mind watched birds flying over the railroad tracks; watched trains move below. Thought about Rosemary lying in her bed, crying, thinking she’d done something wrong. I was not happy with myself.

I could feel him looking at me. “You’ve got something on your mind?”

I sank down to the sidewalk and leaned against the brick rail of the bridge. “I think I hurt a friend last night.”

“Your girlfriend?” He was quick to correct himself. “I mean your Girl.

Friend?”

I rubbed my face, my eyes, still feeling like I wanted to cry, but couldn’t. “Yeah.”

He sat next to me on the walkway. “Give it time. Then talk to her. Best to let whatever happened not be so fresh. Heard some shrink on TV give that advice once.”

“Yeah.” I thought about it. “That would probably be best. I wouldn’t even know what to say.”

More cars were moving on the street. We could smell the exhaust. We rose and walked over the bridge to the ballpark for a sip from the fountain. He was bending over the fountain when I asked, “When did you know you were gay?”

His eyes queried mine for a number of moments. Then there was a small chuckle. “You won’t believe me when I tell you. Or you’ll laugh. Well, I know you’ll definitely laugh,” he said.

We walked to the bench and sat. The morning sun was rising fast. Both of us were still sweating freely. I wiped my face on my sleeve. He mopped his with the shirt in his hand.

“It was a couple of years ago,” he explained. “I was watching Leave It To Beaver, and suddenly I realized that Wally was the most gorgeous guy on earth.”

I realized I was looking directly at him and grinning. “What?”

“Yeah. I told you. But it’s true.”

“Tony Dow? Wally?” I was incredulous.

He ran his hand over the bristles of his crew cut. “Yep. Wally was ‘it’ for me,” he said. “That curly hair; that face, and, oh my God, when he wore those white slacks, that gorgeous ass. Wally was a sexpot.”

I covered the laughter I tried unsuccessfully to suppress.

“Told you that you’d laugh.” He was grinning himself.

For a few moments afterward we sat quietly. We watched the stoplights switch from flashing to back on for the morning traffic. A new day was creeping up on us.

“Why did you tell me?” I heard the question come out of my mouth. I’d been thinking it. Wasn’t sure if I asked it. But I did.

He wiped his face again, and then looked down at the sopping shirt in his hand. “I don’t know.” A deep sigh. “I felt like I could tell you. I wanted to tell someone. I needed to.”

“I’m glad you did. It’s what a friend would do.”

We sat a few more moments absorbing the morning until we heard the church bells ring. Time to get back home and get ready for school.

I had devised a hundred different apologies for Rosemary, but they proved to be unnecessary. She wasn’t in school. I turned in our essay to Miss Chase and learned that Rosemary’s mother had called her in sick. I knew better. It crushed me. somewhere elseImy

I know what had been my motivations with Rosemary. Every time I walked through the halls at school and I heard some guy call another a queer, a faggot, or a fairy, I had an explanation for my idiotic behavior. Fear. Every time I saw my parent’s behavior when they thought I finally had a girlfriend, I had an explanation. A world that wanted conformity from everyone. They wanted your cookie-cutter relationships, and cookie-cutter families in their cookie-cutter jobs, living in their cookie-cutter houses. They wanted everything to fit and somehow manufactured us to want to fit in as well.

My parents didn’t say anything to me that week; didn’t ask any questions. But when the phone calls from Rosemary had ceased altogether it was doubtless they knew something had gone awry. They tried not to show it, but there was a somber feeling in the home. I avoided the dinner hour by working. Rosemary opted for the easy way herself and stayed out of school the entire week. She didn’t even know we got an ‘A’ on our essay. I debated calling her, but couldn’t get past the barrier of dread in my mind.

There was only a little over a month of school remaining, and when Rosemary didn’t return to class the next week, I became concerned. Shamefully, I still couldn’t bring myself to call her. And I certainly wasn’t going to involve my parents or friends. I didn’t want them to know anything. Instead, I coaxed the nosy girl who sat behind me in English to ask Miss Chase if she knew anything. The news that returned made me unhappier still. She’d changed to a fourth period class with Mr. Pernod.

Sadly, I deserved it.

I returned home one day to find my dad in the kitchen reading through a newspaper. He had a pen in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. Mom was not home from her job at the art store yet. He looked at me and said, “Hey!”

“Whatcha doing home so early?” I inquired as I poured myself a glass of Hawaiian Punch.

“Work’s been kinda slow. Checking to see if there’s some body shops that have some part time stuff.”

I didn’t know it then, because my dad was not the communicating or sharing type, but his work had taken a sharp decline, and he’d been dipping into the savings to keep up with the bills. He never once showed that he was worried. starting quarterback. phfes

My business, on the other hand, was getting better thanks to Ryan and his family. I had two more houses in his neighborhood that added an income of sixty dollars each a month. My dilemma was that it was spreading me pretty thin. Even with the free time of summer coming up, I was still only one man doing two men’s work.

I missed a couple of days of running with Ryan. It appeared he wasn’t doing too well in a couple of classes and his dad hired a tutor for him so he could escape summer school. He wasn’t in a good mood and I’d run by myself. Didn’t seem the same. But I would see him on Saturday to help him mow his lawn. I was looking forward to driving a rider-mower.

He was waiting for me early Saturday morning with both mowers parked in front of the red barn. He was shirtless in a pair of cutoff jeans, boondocker boots, and baseball cap, fueling the mowers from a large red and yellow gasoline can. He looked like a hillbilly character from the
Lil Abner
comics. All that was missing was Daisy Mae, Pappy, and Mammy Yokum. I got my chuckles out before I joined him.

He took me through the manual operation of the vehicle. Then he walked behind me, pulled my shirt off from behind, and plopped a baseball cap on my head.

“Best tan time in the world,” he said as he tied my shirt to the steering wheel of the mower.

He started at one end and I started at the other. Each time as we passed in the center, he made a comical remark. “Hi! Nice to see ya. You new around here? Love the wheels.” It was endless for the entire forty minutes it took us to mow the lawn. It was a work of art when we were done, the lawn looking like a woven carpet with its crisscross patterns left by the mowers.

I knew one thing for certain afterward. I had to have one of those riding mowers. They were definitely more efficient. I could do more yards in less time. The only problem was when Ryan told me what they cost. A major investment.

His mom served us grape Kool-Aid and bologna and cheese sandwiches on the back porch. It was shady and cool, and seemed like it was on an old farmhouse out in the country. We could see nothing but garden, field and farm. It was as if the neighborhood of the suburb had vanished behind the wall of trees.

He eyed me from head to toe. “You look good with some color.”

I surveyed my arm. It had its usual tinge of red. I put it next to his for comparison. He looked like polished mahogany. “Only if tomato is a color natural on humans,” I joked.

“It’s better than that orange that comes out of a bottle of QT everyone is using for a fake tan. Have you seen that stuff?”

I had. There was a girl in my fourth period history class who used the fake tanning lotion. She always glowed an unnatural bright orange. Except for the palms of her hands that were brown. Not attractive at all.

“A tan’s just wasted on a string bean like me,” I said. “People would just look and say you could count my ribs easier.”

“Oh get off it. You’re gorgeous.” The words slipped out of his mouth so quickly that it surprised both of us.

I was still staring at him as the heat of embarrassment crawled up from my chest to my face. I was dumbstruck for words.

Ryan looked rattled. He dropped his head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…um… I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

It was clear he thought he’d crossed some line with me. He hadn’t.

“You didn’t,” I assured him. “It’s just that no one has ever said that to me. I mean…I’m so average…I don’t get a lot of compliments.”

His smile returned. “You’re not average by a long shot. Who told you that?”

“No one had to tell me. I’ve got a mirror. I don’t look like you guys with all the muscles and stuff. You’re the guys who get all the compliments.”

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” The row of perfect teeth shone again. He had no idea how much he had made my day.

Ryan had a real passion for his gardening. A walk through his two gardens was testimony to that. A flower garden and a vegetable garden. He raised most of the vegetables his family ate for food. He treated it like a science, creating his own compost mulch fertilizer.