Rage: A Love Story (13 page)

I
stop at Taco Bell on my way home from the hospice, then remember I have quesadilla ingredients for an army. When the cashier at Taco Bell stares at me, I just smile. Let her think what she wants. My black eye, it’s like … a badge of honor, or proof I’m alive.

Reeve left two messages on my voice mail. “Hi. It’s me. I hate leaving messages.”

Two: “Don’t call me here. I don’t want that bastard trash talking to you. I think I can get out later, like eleven? Will you light a candle for me?”

“A cathedral full of candles, Reeve.”

I wrench on the shower and step in. My face pulses as hot water expands every pore. I close my eyes and Fallon Falls appears. I’m standing under the plunging cascade of water, my face and body pounded by the force of unharnessed
energy. Reeve comes into view. Reeve disappears. Physically and emotionally drained, I’m too tired to even get to Joyland.

A dusty box of tea lights is left over from Tessa’s days in the apartment. I light one for each window, then all the others for the planks of every step. When I switch off the inside lights, it looks totally romantic. I sit hugging my knees on the landing, waiting for Reeve.

I hear her first. She says, “Don’t disappear. Let me know when it’s time to leave.”

“It’s time to leave.”

Robbie came?

At the bottom of the stairs, they stop. “Hi,” I say, standing. “You made it.”

Reeve doesn’t say anything. Robbie goes, “Are we having a séance?”

Reeve backhands him in the chest.

“Come on up,” I say.

Robbie asks, “Do you have rat traps? Are there spiders?”

“He’s afraid of creepy crawlies,” Reeve says. “He’s a wuss.”

“No rats,” I tell him. “No roaches or spiders.”

Reeve has to shove him up the stairs. He peers cautiously into the apartment, sniffs the air, and puckers his nose.

“Scrubbing Bubbles,” I tell him. I smile at Reeve.

She pushes him in and Robbie goes, “Graup,” or something. “You live here?”

Reeve says, “Look out for the bat.”

He covers his head.

Reeve cricks a grin at me. She snakes a hand behind my head and pulls me in to kiss her.

A light-year later Reeve yells, “Don’t go in there!”

I jerk around to see Robbie in the hall.

“That’s Johanna’s private space. You have no right.” Reeve takes off after him.

“Don’t worry about it.” Shutting the apartment door behind me, I call, “Go ahead and look around. You guys want something to drink?”

Robbie stumbles back into the living room, his jaw slack. “You live here?” he says again.

Reeve shoves him a little. “Shut up. You sound like a tard.”

“Could I move in?” he asks.

I look from Robbie to Reeve. “Anytime.”

Reeve says, “Don’t give him ideas.” She retrieves an object from her bag. “I didn’t have anything to wrap it with,” she says, handing it to me.

It’s heavy. “You didn’t have to get me anything.”

She looks into my eyes. “Yeah,” she says. “I did.”

Oh, Reeve.

“Open it.”

The box is long and black, with a silver emblem. Pretty. I set it on the coffee table and lift off the top.

“Oh my God,” I gasp.

“They’re sterling silver,” Reeve says.

Two candlesticks, a matched set.

“Oh my God,” I say again. “Where did you …?”

I don’t finish. These had to cost, like, a hundred dollars. Where would Reeve get… She takes my face in her hands and kisses me.

“I’m dying of starvation,” Robbie says. He finds the bowl of chips I planned to set out, along with the jar of salsa.
Don’t think about where she got the money
.

Robbie sinks to the low divan, his knees hitting his chin.

As I’m replacing the candlesticks in the box, Robbie says, “Can we watch these movies?”

“What …?” Shit. The DVDs.

Reeve says, “Go ahead. Put them out.”

“What?” Oh, the candlesticks. “I don’t have any long candles.” I hurry over and snatch the DVD Robbie plucked up off the floor. His eyes glint.

Reeve says, “Damn. I should’ve bought candles. I knew I should have bought candles.” She fists her leg, hard.

“It’s okay.” I scramble to gather all the DVDs and toss them into the coat closet. “Next time.”

Reeve says, “Johanna?”

I turn. She’s come up behind me with a glass of wine.

Robbie says, “Where’s mine?”

“You don’t drink,” she informs him.

“Yes, I do.”

“No, you don’t.” She sips, then spits it back into her glass. “I forgot.” She raises her glass and chinks mine. “To firsts,” she says.

“Firsts,” I repeat. We drink together.

Robbie sprawls the length of the divan, looking pissed.

“He’s on meds,” Reeve says.

“No, I’m not. But you should be,” Robbie growls.

Reeve lowers her glass and glares at him. Then her face softens. She walks over and hands him her glass of wine. “Okay. But don’t get wasted. I may need you to drive home.”

He drives?

Reeve returns to the kitchen for another glass, while Robbie gulps his wine, dribbling it down his shirt. He doesn’t even notice.

“Shove over.” Reeve throws his ankles off the end of the divan and Robbie flails to sit up. She flops down next to him. “Cheers.” She raises her glass.

I sit on the coffee table across from her. “Cheers.” We all clink.

The wine smells spicy and tastes like … cranberries? I’m not really a connoisseur.

Reeve eyes me over her glass. God, why did she bring him? I want to attack her.

I stand and say, “I’ll start dinner.”

“Let me help.” Reeve bounces to her feet.

She shadows me to the kitchen, tickling the back of my neck, saying, “He’ll pass out after one glass. Plus, his brain shuts down at ten.”

“How can you tell?” I ask.

She thumps my back, playfully. I open the refrigerator to retrieve all the ingredients, but Reeve nudges me out of the way. “I’ll get everything.” She kisses me first and I melt.

The TV comes on at some point and there’s heavy breathing and moaning. I glance over and go, “Crap.” I missed a DVD, or he found them. I hustle across the room and wrench the remote out of Robbie’s hand. “We’re not watching TV.”

He pouts.

“How’s your sister?” Reeve asks from the kitchen, where she’s sawing a tomato with a dull knife.

“I don’t know,” I say. “I haven’t seen her.” I haven’t talked
to her, haven’t run into her. She hasn’t come up to have a conversation with me.

“Tell her I’m sorry about the baby,” Reeve says.

“I will. If I talk to her.” Where’d I leave my wine?

Reeve opens the refrigerator and pulls open the vegetable crisper. She says, “I can’t stop thinking about how it would be to lose a baby. I mean, if you really wanted it. Not like an abortion, where you choose. Mom tried to abort us.”

“What?”

“Where’s the cheese? You have cheese, don’t you?”

“Um, yeah. In the door.” I’m stunned. “How do you know?”

“About the abortion? She told us.”

God.

“It was too late by the time she went in to have us aborted. She’s so stupid. Do you want kids?” Reeve asks.

I take a gulp of wine. No. Yes. I don’t know. I say, “I’m an avowed lesbian.”

Reeve laughs. “Yeah. I used to think I was bi, for about an hour.” She yanks open a silverware drawer and withdraws the meat cleaver. “Do you want this chopped or shredded?” She poises the knife over the head of lettuce.

“Whatever,” I say.

Reeve adds, “I told you me and Robbie are twins, didn’t I?”

My double take is classic. “How?”

She screws up her face. “The sperm meets the egg. …”

“I mean, you have different last names.” I mean, he’s autistic.

“Not to mention how much we look alike.” She chops lettuce, while my brain scrambles to catch up. She says, “My mom’s a whore. She turns tricks for money.”

I don’t get the connection. I sit in a chair at the table, wine in hand, watching Reeve butchering that head of lettuce.

“She was sleeping with so many dicks, there’s no telling who our father is.”

Unbelievable. Twins.

“I sort of look like my dad, or at least the guy Mom says is my dad. She was sleeping with Anthony too, so she gave him credit for Robbie.” She exaggerates a smile.

Is that even legal? I want to ask her about the autism, but instead I say, “Do you want kids?”

“Oh yeah. Ten at least.”

I can’t tell if she’s serious.

“I did it once with a guy,” she says, looking up and meeting my eyes. “Does that disgust you? You being so avowed and all.”

I stick out my tongue at her and her eyes gleam.

“Did it count?” I ask.

Her eyes go blank. Ripping the tortilla package open with her teeth, she spits out the corner and says, “What’s Robbie doing?”

I swivel my head. His glass of wine is empty, clutched in one hand on his chest while the other arm hangs limply to the floor. “Zoning. Sleeping.”

“I had to bring him,” she says in a lowered voice. “I’m sorry.” She searches a couple of cupboards for something.

“What do you need?” I ask.

“Cookie sheets. An aluminum tray. Whatever we’re going to broil these on.”

“Under the stove.” I get up to show her.

She bends to the oven drawer and clangs pans around, then withdraws a blackened cookie sheet I’ve never used. I
watch her assemble the quesadillas like she’s done it every day of her life.

“Do I just put it on broil?” Reeve asks, studying the oven dial.

“The oven doesn’t work.”

She spins around.

“We’ll have to nuke them.”

Reeve just looks at me. “You might’ve told me that before I put them on a cookie sheet.”

My face flares. “Sorry. You can use plates.”

Reeve goes, “Then I’ll have to do them one at a time.”

“Yeah.”

“And they won’t be crispy.”

“No.”

She lets out a short breath.

She had a plan and I screwed it up. I suck as a girlfriend.

The quesadillas cook fast, anyway. Reeve hands the plates to me and I transport them to the table. The lettuce and tomatoes add a gourmet touch. “They look awesome,” I tell her.

“They would’ve been better broiled.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

Reeve goes over and shoves Robbie awake. As he stumbles to the table, I pull over a step stool so he can use my chair.

“No.” Reeve pushes me off roughly. “He can sit on the stool.” Is she still mad about the oven?

Robbie and I switch. He’s groggy and I feel the same way, though my stupor is probably from the wine. Reeve refills my glass and hers. She pours Robbie a little. “To our first meal together.” She raises her glass and clinks mine. She clinks Robbie’s.

Robbie says, “To DVD porn.”

Reeve ignores him. “To Johanna,” she says. “My first avowed lesbian.”

I crack up. Really? We drink.

“To Reeve,” I toast. “My first… everything.”

Robbie swipes his nose with the back of his hand, coughs, and a loogie flies out of his mouth and onto my quesadilla.

Reeve looks at my plate, then up at me. She bursts into laughter.

Her laughter makes me laugh.

She says, “He’s an asstard, but what can I do?”

Reeve strikes the last chord and holds it while the crushing roar of the crowd detonates eardrums. She throws her head forward, bending at the waist, flinging her arms out to the side and letting her guitar swing free on the strap. As she unfolds, the people scream their adoration. She nods to Robbie beside her
.

He blows a discordant riff on his saxophone and the notes trickle into space
.

I push the button to engage the hydraulic lift
.

A square of stage shifts where Reeve is standing. Smoothly, it descends. Roaring cheers echo down into the chamber where I wait
.

When Reeve hits the bottom, I’m there to meet her. She removes the guitar over her head and I say, “You were awe—”

She pulls me to her and kisses me hard, rough. Her tongue jams into my mouth. I catch my breath and inhale her. She’s hot. She’s thirsty. She digs her mouth and teeth into me and my flesh smears
her sweat. Our knees buckle as we kneel together, kissing, tonguing, groping every inch of bare, slick skin
.

Strobe lights flash above us. Raw, shooting streaks of blue and green and red. They ripple over our bodies. The noise is a drug
.

I feel the jolt, the surge. Motors whir and we’re rising. We’re high, higher, Reeve’s mouth is on mine, her body stretched out, legs extended. We’re naked, horizontal, and exposed. I’m vaguely aware of the motion up up up, then off. We’re on the stage
.

The audience is manic. We’re making love in front of a hundred thousand cheering people. We do it. We give them a show
.

The sky glitters with stars and moons. Robbie blips a sparkling riff, then disappears. It’s only me and Reeve, one star. We are the night
.

• • •

L
ight streams through my miniblinds and I bolt upright. I check the time: 9:36. I forgot to set the alarm.

Wait.

There’s no school today. I fall back down. School is over. I blow out relief and bliss.

I survived high school. Is there a club for high school survivors? A special-color ribbon? I really don’t think I’ll be looking back with fondness ten or fifty years from now. No medals or trophies or awards of distinction. My best moment has come at the end, when I finally connected with her.

I saved the best for last.

Novak calls as I’m reheating Reeve’s leftover quesadilla for breakfast. Last night, Reeve and I had only started kissing and
getting into each other when Robbie announced, “It’s time to go.” Reeve pushed me away so fast, it was like a car bomb exploded in her brain.

“We’re going to pick up our caps and gowns today, right?” Novak says.

“No,” I answer automatically. “I’m going with Reeve and Robbie.”

Where did that come from? We didn’t discuss graduation.

Novak doesn’t speak for a minute. “So, do you hate me now?”

I suppress a weary sigh. “No.”

“I didn’t know what I was doing, okay? I was temporarily blinded by lust or insanity. Make that overwhelming guilt.”

“About what?” I ask.

“All those times I had someone and you didn’t.”

A claw rips my gut. “So it was a pity kiss? Wow, thanks.”

Novak huffs a breath.

“I have to go,” I say.

“Johanna, wait. God!” she cries. “Mom hired this party planner and a decorator and a live band for my grad bash.”

A live band? Just like in my sex dream. Hey, am I prophetic?

“Won’t she be surprised when, like, two people show up?” Novak laughs.

I chew off a hunk of quesadilla and zone. If Reeve deposited DNA on her tortilla, we are officially exchanging body fluids.

“I sent Reeve and Robbie an invitation. Do you think they’ll RSVP?”

I swallow my bite. “How’d you find her address?”

“I have my ways. Mooahaha.”

“What ways?” I don’t want Novak talking to Reeve—ever.

“Student directory? Duh.” Novak rambles on and I’m gone. We both still had most of our clothes on, on the bed. Reeve kept her eyes closed when we kissed. I tried, but my natural instinct is to open my eyes, to see her.

“How’s Tessa?”

That brings me back. “I don’t know. Fine, I guess.” Martin hasn’t been up to report on her status. She certainly hasn’t reached out.

Novak blurts, “Couldn’t I come live with you? Just for the summer?”

Before I can reply, she adds, “I’m sorry. It’s just… I hate it here. I’m lonely. Dante’s never home.”

Imagine Reeve living here with me. We’d spend every moment together, in Joyland, where we’d ride along the beach and dash under waterfalls.

“Okay, thanks for listening,” Novak says. “I’ll let you go. I didn’t mean to make this your problem.”

“Novak—”

“I love you, Banana,” she says, and the line goes dead.

Please, Novak. Please get out of my head. And elsewhere
.

What am I going to do today? I call Reeve.

Her mother answers. “Who is this?” She sounds drunk.

“Johanna. A friend of Reeve’s,” I say.

“What kina friend?”

I think I hear Reeve’s voice in the background. “A friend from school.” Her mother goes, “It’s a frien’ a yours. Since when do you have frien’s?”

A guy laughs.

Reeve’s voice: “Give me that, bitch.” There’s muffled scuffling and Reeve comes on. “Yeah?”

“Hi. It’s me.”

She says, “What are you doing?” Kind of mad.

“Calling you?”

“That was a good idea, wasn’t it?”

My stomach plunges. Reeve doesn’t say anything else.

“Are you busy today?” I ask. “Do you want to come over?”

She covers the phone or something, but it doesn’t mute her voice. “Do you mind? This is private.”

“One of your cunt lickers?” he says.

There’s a crack and a squeal. Reeve yells, “Robbie, no!” She comes back on. “Don’t call me here.” The phone cuts out.

The horror of her life grows in my chest like cancer.

I head to my room, seething. I need to get her out of there. Take a drive. Pick her up and maybe drive to Fallon Falls. As I’m clomping down the stairs to leave, Tessa slides open the patio door and steps out. She has on shorts and a grungy tee of Martin’s that reads:
DINOSAURS DIED FOR OUR SINS
.

“Are you leaving for school?” she says. “It’s late.” She checks her watch.

“School’s over,” I tell her.

“It is?” She blinks like she’s been asleep, or out of it. “I guess it is that time already. Do you have a watch?”

“Yeah. Why?” Pretty cold. I want to ask how she is, but I can’t get the words out.

We stand there. A cloud passes in front of the sun and the temperature drops ten degrees. Tessa clutches her coffee mug with both hands and drinks from it. She glances up and starts
to cough. I want to pound her back, comfort her, tell her how much I love and miss her.

She chokes out, “What happened to you?”

The wound is scabbed over and the bruise is receding. Still yellow-gray around the edges.

“I fell down the …”

Tessa says, “Why didn’t you—” at the same time I say, “It was the same night you—”

We both stop. “I’m so sorry about the baby,” I say.

She says flatly, “Thank you. Isn’t that what I’m supposed to say?”

I don’t know. Is she asking me, or telling me. …

“Johanna, I—”

My key ring falls off my thumb and chinks on the flagstone. I bend to scoop up the keys. When I straighten, Tessa’s looking at me, into me. “I can’t believe you’re not going to your own graduation. It’s an accomplishment,” she says. “It means something.”

I shrug. “Not to me.”

“Not to you,” Tessa repeats. “What is significant and meaningful to you?”

“Besides being gay? Besides coming out to you and you not even caring enough to call me and talk about it?” My voice sounds shrill.

Tessa swallows hard. Her cheeks flush red, like mine always do when I’m embarrassed or mad.

My throat closes completely. I have to get out of here.

• • •

I veer into a 7-Eleven to use the pay phone.
This
is significant and meaningful in my life, Tessa. I dial Reeve’s number. The mother answers and I hang up. Your love and acceptance.
That
would have been significant.

All you had to do was call. Say, Johanna, I got your letter.

I get in the car and drive. When someone writes, “I have something really important to tell you,” you respond. When they write, “Last time you were home I wanted to talk to you about it, but I was too scared. I don’t know why. I know you love me. You’ll love me no matter what. Right?” You confirm, Tessa. I poured out my
heart
to you.

What was your reaction when you read, “Okay, here goes. I’m gay”? What did you think? For weeks, months, I sweated it. I still do, every day. Are you deliberately making me go through this hell? You’ve never once brought up the subject the whole time you’ve been home. Significant and meaningful? What’s
your
definition, Tessa?

I look up and I’m sitting at the curb in front of Reeve’s house. Consciously, I channel my anger into courage to get out and go up to Reeve’s door. As I’m locking the car, Reeve storms out of the house, her mother on her heels. “I told you I need a fix
today,”
she screeches.

“I heard you!” Reeve heads for the van. I wave to flag her down, but she shouts, “I’ll follow you!” and jumps in the van.

I get back in the car and shift into gear. Reeve backs out the driveway and squeals a wide arc in the street, then waits for me to pass her. About half a mile down the road, right before the highway ramp, I pull into a Ramada Inn and Reeve drives up behind me. We both get out.

“What do you want?” she yells, stalking up to me and whacking my shoulder.

I take her hand. “You.” I pull her to me, pressing her face to my shoulder. “It’s okay,” I say into her hair. “I’m here.”

She doesn’t struggle. “Why?” she asks.

“Why what?”

She smacks me again. “Stop saying that. Why?” she repeats. “That’s what I want to know. Why do you care?”

I trace the side of her face with my knuckles. “Because I love you. And you need me.”

“You’re wrong. And you’re stupid.” But she snakes her arms around my neck.

“And you’re warm,” I say.

And you’re mine.