Pay It Forward (14 page)

“Kinda hurt my feelings.”

“You got no feelings.”

“Hey.”

“It’s true.”

“So, you do think I’m an asshole.”

“What the hell you even tell me about this Pay It Forward thing, anyway? Why you even still thinking about it? What a stupid idea. Think how long that’d last in L. A.”

“I guess.”

“You gonna leave money for the kids this time?”

“If I can do some business today.”

But the only business Sidney had on the books for that day was heading out of town again. He’d already stayed too long.

I
have no idea what happened between Reuben and Mom. Must’ve been really weird, though. Because now every time I see Reuben he says, “So. Trevor. How’s your mom?”

And then he says, “So. Does she ever ask about me?”

Ask what? I’m always thinking. But it’s usually better not to mix into these things.

Then I get home and Mom says, “Ever see Reuben?” And I say yeah, I see him all the time. And she says, “So. Does he ever talk about me?”

Sometimes I want to yell at them both. I want to say, “Just talk to each other! It’s not that hard! I mean, this is not brain surgery, guys.”

But grown-ups hate it when you talk to them like that.

So, I have this system. I never tell either one of them what they really want to know. Then, sooner or later, they’re going to have to break down and talk to each other.

Sometimes I worry that I’ll be this weird about a girl when I grow up. I hate to think that.

L
oretta stirred milk into her coffee cup with that little
clink-clink
sound that grated on Arlene’s nerves. Loretta’s Mr. Coffee machine was broken again, and since she had never been any too fond of instant, she had shown up at Arlene’s house for coffee this morning. Arlene’s Mr. Coffee machine never broke, so she was forced to conclude that Loretta used hers too hard.

Arlene decided that when she had two years sober like Loretta, she would not drink twenty-two cups of coffee a day. Then, realizing the uppity sound of that sentiment, she mentally changed the wording:
if
she ever had two years sober.

It wasn’t as easy as it looked in the directions.

Usually she liked having Loretta around, the more the better, but she’d been out of sorts the past week, so much so that she hadn’t phoned her sponsor once, a detail not lost on Bonnie.

Loretta’s voice broke the stillness. “You don’t talk much about him anymore.”

“Who?”

“What do you mean, who? That guy you was all fired up about.”

“Oh.” Somehow she thought Loretta meant Ricky, a fact she
couldn’t explain and chose not to mention. “I guess I been sort of avoiding him.”

“Didn’t go so good, huh?”

“What?”

“You know. Sleeping with him.”

“No. It went fine.”

“I’ll bet.”

“It was nice. Really.”

“Has he got a lot more scars when he gets his clothes off? I mean, are you, like, touching them, everywhere you touch?”

Arlene combed her hair back with her fingers and wished she still smoked. Or that there was a pack around here somewhere so she could fall off that wagon. There were more scars when he took off his clothes. Around his ribs on the left, and that arm looked real funny. But she hadn’t noticed until morning, and it wasn’t that big of a deal. “No, Loretta. It’s not that.”

“He doesn’t have scars, like…”

“What?”

“Down there?”

“No.” Arlene stood up and walked to the stove. This was going to get girl-talk personal, and soon she’d end up spilling the part she didn’t even want to know herself. Arriving at the stove, she saw her cup was full, and couldn’t find another good reason to be there. “No, down there he is just about what I’d expect him to be, only more so.”

“So, what’s the problem?”

“I wish I knew.” She sat back down. Head in hands. This could not be delayed any longer. “Last time we went out he didn’t stay over. He was acting kinda funny. You know how people act.”

“No. I thought lots of different people acted lots of different ways.”

“I mean how people act when they’re trying to say something. Didn’t you ever do that? Practice in the mirror, something you gotta say? And then, when you see them, it just sorta hangs there. Like everybody can hear it. I kept thinking the waiter could hear it.”

“So, what did he say?”

“He never did. But I know anyway. He was trying to break up with me. I could tell.”

“You don’t know that until you ask him.”

“I know now.”

“You should ask him.”

“Then he might tell me.” She could see Trevor out the window, playing on the garage roof with his friend Joe. She’d never exactly told him not to, but he must have known she wouldn’t like it all that well. When she stuck her head out the kitchen window, he climbed back onto the plum tree and waved.

“So, you gotta talk to him sometime.”

“I thought maybe I’d go over to his house with Trevor.” That had worked out unexpectedly well last time, but it seemed a tenuous thread, a little tricky to explain, so she didn’t try.

“So, now it’s a big deal that he not break up with you.”

“Why does that seem so strange?”

“Last I heard he was just for sex till Ricky come home.”

Arlene rocked back in her chair and fixed Loretta with that look she reserved for the immature, the rude, and the plain stupid. “Ricky ain’t comin’ back. Don’t you know that, Loretta?”

Loretta’s eyebrows arched. “Don’t
I
know that? Don’t
I
know? Honey, on last count the only living soul on the face of the planet to not know that was you.”

Arlene sighed and threw the last of her coffee down the sink drain. “Well, I demanded a recount,” she said.

W
HEN
T
REVOR BOUNCED
through the kitchen door, she told Loretta to get lost. She said it in a kind of sign language—the kind that works only when you’ve known somebody a long time.

“I was just gonna have one more cup, Arlene.”

Arlene picked up the Mr. Coffee machine, pulling the plug out
of the wall as she carried it away from the counter. Three more cups’ worth sloshed in the pot. “Be my guest,” she said and handed the whole mess to Loretta.

“Well. A brick wall don’t have to fall on me.” But damned if she didn’t take the machine with her.

“Hi, Mom. How come you gave Loretta the coffee machine?”

“Oh. No special reason, honey. Listen. You ever see Mr. St. Clair now that school’s out?”

“Sure, Mom. I see him all the time.”

“Where, exactly?”

“I go over to his house.”

“Oh. We should do that. Sometime. Together.”

“Okay. Now?”

“Well. Maybe not now.”

“Why not now?”

“I didn’t call or anything.”

“I never call. I just ride my bike over.”

“Well, that’s different, though, honey. With you.”

“Why is it different?”

“Um. Give me a minute to think.”

O
N THEIR WAY OVER IN THE CAR,
which had been making a troublesome noise lately, she asked yet again, “When you go over there, Trevor…and talk to him…does he ever…like…ask about me?”

“Yeah.”

“How many times?”

“Every time.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Really.”

“What does he ask?”

“Well, he always says, ‘How’s your mother, Trevor?’ and then I
say, ‘Oh, fine, she’s fine,’ and then he says, ‘So. Trevor. Does she ever ask about me?’” A long silence. “If he asked you to marry him, would you?”

“He ain’t gonna ask me that.”

“If he did.”

“He won’t. Can we talk about something else?” It was time to change the subject anyway. It wasn’t a very long drive.

W
HEN HE ANSWERED THE DOOR,
Trevor just bounced right in like he lived there. “Hi, Reuben,” he called on his way by.

“Hi, Trevor. Arlene. This is a surprise.”

He was in sweat clothes and unshaven, which looked kind of funny, the way the hairs grew only on one side. And he looked sad. Not that any of that mattered to Arlene, who was busy noticing how much she’d missed him. It was a big, heavy feeling, suddenly almost more than her insides could hold.

“Sorry I didn’t call first, but—”
But what, Arlene? How you gonna finish that sentence? But I didn’t want to give you a chance to say no. Don’t bother.
Or worse yet, to hear him say her name in that awful way, the way someone does when they start a sentence that’s going to hurt like all hell.

“It’s okay. Come in.”

She did, and stood feeling awkward, aware of Trevor watching, not sure what to say. It wouldn’t be like the last time, when they were unpacking, and Trevor was all lost in another world. She wouldn’t be able to really talk. But then again, she consoled herself, neither would he.

“Trevor, where do you get off calling Mr. St. Clair by his first name? I didn’t raise you up like that.”

“He said I could. Just for the summer. When I get back in his class in the fall I gotta switch back.”

“It’s true, I said he could.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Somewhere in the world, Arlene knew, there was something more to say. If she could only find it. She perched on his couch and he brought her a ginger ale. The silence felt bigger than anything the house could contain.

Trevor said, “Where’s Miss Liza?”

“I haven’t seen her for a while. I think she’s out in the backyard, stalking birds.”

“I’ll go see.” He thundered off, leaving Arlene with room to speak, which she now no longer wanted.

“Arlene, I—”

She jumped in fast, before he could say what she knew he would say if she wasn’t careful. “I really missed you.”

“You did?” He sounded surprised.

“Oh, yeah. Little things. I got used to having you around.”

“What kind of little things?”

“Oh, just, you know.” She knew he didn’t. “Like the funny messages you used to leave on my machine. I don’t remember any word for word, but they were funny. I miss things like that.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t call. I’ve had a lot on my mind.”

“Yeah. Me, too.”
Yeah. That’s what they all say.

She reached out and touched his right cheek. The stubbly one. She was making a fool of herself, she knew, but she didn’t care. She was almost ready to beg. Everybody regards that as so unthinkable, but somewhere in the back of her mind she figured people do it all the time. Just listen to popular music and you’ll hear it. I’d get down on my knees for you. Ain’t too proud to beg. Baby, please don’t go.

She was just getting ready to tell him it was the sex, more than anything, that she missed. Well, not even the sex itself, though that too, but the frightening closeness that came along. She was just getting ready to tell him that she couldn’t give it up again, not so soon. Even though later wouldn’t be any better.

Before she could, Trevor came back in with the cat draped over his shoulder.

They stayed for an hour or so, during which Arlene spent most of the time marveling at the ease with which Reuben and Trevor talked to each other. She watched closely, like it was something she could learn.

T
HE FOLLOWING NIGHT HE CALLED
and asked her to dinner at his house. He said he was all settled in and felt ready to cook.

“I was hoping to get your machine,” he said. “I was going to leave a funny message.”

“Want me to hang up so you can call back?”

“No, that’s okay. I’ll try to be funny when I see you.”

That’s when she first realized that he never had been funny before. Not face-to-face. Only as a voice on a tape.

“Reuben?”

“Yes?” She hated the way she said his name. That big, awful, weighty way that people do before bad news. She knew it came through that way, too. Heard it in his voice. Everybody hates to hear their name spoken that way.

“The last time we went out?”

“Yes.”

“I know what it was you were gonna say to me.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. I do. But don’t say it, okay? Please. Just don’t.”

“Okay. I won’t.” He sounded—she couldn’t put her finger on it. Hurt? Relieved?

“You won’t?”

“Not if you don’t want me to.”

Wow, she thought as she hung up the phone. Who’d have thought it would be that easy?

S
HE’D NEVER BEEN IN
R
EUBEN’S BED BEFORE,
which was huge and comfortable. The sheets felt new and crisp. She lay on his right side with one leg thrown over him, running her fingers through the hair on his chest. Then stroking over his ribs, feeling the scars under her fingers like a topographical map, just to remind herself where she was. They felt good to her touch because if they hadn’t been there, this wouldn’t have been Reuben.

She wasn’t sure if he was asleep. She allowed herself to drift into a feeling, a sense, that she somehow watched all this from above. Not so much physically, but more in a sense of perspective. She’d been so sure it was over, but if she could have gotten up a little higher, seen a little further, she might have been able to see this. She wondered if she would remember this feeling next time something seemed, in the short run, to be going wrong. She knew she probably would not. She knew people transcended that line of knowledge all the time, but damned if they didn’t tend to cross right back again.

She whispered quietly, hoping to plant words in his head without waking him, without really calling attention to herself. “I’m so glad you decided not to break up with me.”

His eye opened and he blinked and swallowed as though he’d been half asleep. “Break up with you?”

“Yeah. But let’s not even talk about that now.”

“I was never going to break up with you.”

“You weren’t?” She propped herself up on one elbow, as if staring more closely might help. “Well, what were you gonna say to me, then?”

“Is that what you thought I was trying to say last time?”

“Yeah. It wasn’t?”

“So that’s what you asked me to please not say?”

“Yeah. What was it, then?”

She watched his chest rise with an intake of breath. Having had guys ask her some pretty weird things, usually things that tested her moral flexibility, the waiting wasn’t to her liking.

“Never mind. You wouldn’t have liked it.”

“Maybe not, but you damn well know I gotta hear it now.”

“Don’t laugh, okay? I was going to ask you to marry me.”

Arlene’s throat felt tight. Even if she had known what to say, which she did not, she probably couldn’t have said it. He braved the silence for a remarkable length of time.

Then he said, “Not right away. I just thought we could be engaged. For as long as it takes to get to know each other well enough. To take that step. I thought it might be better for Trevor. If I was his mother’s fiancée. Instead of just a guy who sleeps over. And better for you. Not in that order, though. I thought of you first. I thought you’d feel better wearing an engagement ring. Even if we didn’t set a date right away. It was meant as a symbol of my intentions. Which are honorable. Are you ever going to say something?”

“You bought a ring?” That was something, probably as good a something as any other.

“I guess I did.”

“Where exactly is this ring right now?”

“In my dresser drawer.”

She rolled away and lay on her back with her head on her own pillow. Reuben had a textured ceiling. That was most of what she remembered from the pursuant silence. She wanted to ask which drawer, but she never did.

“Just think about it,” he said. “Don’t answer now. Just think about it.”

She said she would. She didn’t say she wouldn’t think about anything else, that she’d be up all night thinking about it, but that’s the way it turned out to be.