Reckless Point (11 page)

Durant’s Drug Store only had one customer, a withered old woman who I vaguely remembered as an elementary school cafeteria attendant.  She was always stingy with the napkins.  Her face looked like it had been gnawed on by squirrels recently and she made no sign of seeing me as she brushed past. 

The place seemed a little barren.  The counter which used to serve sandwiches to seemingly endless surges of customers was dark and unused.  I winced at the sad neglect, having pleaded with my father to do something with that corner.  Even the soda fountain no longer operated.  Anthony Durant’s preserved handsome face stared at me from underneath his serviceman’s hat.  He didn’t have any idea he would die within a year.

“Angela.”  My father’s voice was pleased as he climbed out of the shadows.  He was smiling until he took stock of my revealing shirt, my disheveled appearance.  I blushed, realizing too late I should have taken a few moments to clean up. 

“Been out?” Alan Durant said tersely. 

“Yeah,” I said, trying to smooth my wild hair down and failing.  “I went for a ride with Marco.” 

“Ah, Marco.” 

“Dad, I thought you got over your problem with Marco.” 

My father gave me a severe look.  “Marco
Bendetti isn’t the problem.” 

“So what the hell is the problem?”

“You are, Angela.” 

I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. 
“What do you mean?”

My father leaned against the counter and crossed his arms.  “You’re better t
han this, running around looking like a biker’s cheap hussy.  Even your damn brother knew you were better than this.  The only time I was ever proud of Tony was when he kept all these hot blooded hoods away from you.” 

I shook my head.  This was a mistake.  My father didn’t talk like this.  Not to me.  Slowly I leveled my gaze at him.  The gray eyes that we shared looked
defiantly back.

Alan Durant made a noise of disgust.  “Look at you.  My daughter.   Never thought I’d see the day when you’d traipse around town like a whore.  You’re better.  So be better.”  

“Well, Dad,” I answered shakily.  “You might be wrong.  I might be no better than anyone.  I’ll be twenty five next month and I haven’t had a single meaningful relationship with a man.  So if fucking Marco Bendetti makes me happy, then I’m pretty goddamn grateful!!” 

My father’s face was deep red.
  He waved a furious finger. “Don’t you talk like filth, Angela!” 

“Then don’
t treat me like filth, Daddy.” 

He deflated.  But it was too late.  I ran blindly out the door as he
sadly called my name. 

***

Grace was in the kitchen carefully removing a meatloaf from the oven. She was startled when I tore through the side door. 

“Angie,” she exclaimed, noting
that my face was still red from angry tears cried on the mile long march from town.  She put the hot dish down and pulled the oven mitts from her hands, reaching for me. 

“I’m fine, Mom.”

Her face clouded.  “Is it that boy?”

“No!  And he’s not a boy anymore
.  Just like I’m not a girl anymore.  Jesus Christ, it’s like everyone and everything here is in a state of suspended animation.  Guess what? Time has marched right the hell on.  It’s time to acclimate.” 

My mother’s nose wrinkled.  “What?”

“Nothing, ma.  I’m sorry, I don’t mean to yell.  Ask your husband if you want to know.”

“Alan?  You and Daddy had a fight?  What on earth about?”

“Apparently I’m a cheap whore.”

Her eyes widened.  “He would never say that.” 

“He did say that.” 

“No,” she shook her head.  “No.”

“Well Alan Durant doesn’t lie.  Go ask him.  In the meantime, I don’t want to be here when he gets home.”

“Where are you going?” she called as I left through the side door. 

“Across the damn street!” 

Of course I didn’t know if Marco had a habit of keeping his front door unlocked
but I tried it anyway, remembering how I’d walked right in earlier.  And how he’d been waiting for me.  Naked. 

He wasn’t waiting for me now
, though I was relieved the door was indeed open.  Actually I felt a little foolish running over here.  Adults didn’t run away from their parents.  Adults confronted unpleasant situations and tried to sort through them, having realized through the trial of experience that problems didn’t just dissolve when ignored. 

I
f I really wanted to get away I could have just climbed into my waiting BMW and been back in Boston before prime time programming began.  But already the idea of leaving Marco was causing my stomach to tighten. 

I curled into a ball on Marco’s ugly couch.  What was wrong with me?  Was I trying to get back some of the adolescent angst I’d missed out on?  

The vague musty odor of the couch made me remember the old sofa in my parents’ living room.  I wondered where it was now, if someone else was burying their face in the oily fabric and fretting about the cruel, cruel world. 

The sun was on its descent and the light filtered thou
ght the window shades, playing on the furniture’s hideous pattern.  The brown and orange hues evoked the deep decay of autumn.  I could almost smell the smoke of the burning leaves, the swish of kicking aside the piles which carpeted the sidewalks.   It was a beautiful time of year, especially here.  Every year I’d been away I’d missed it a little more.  The cool anticipation of Halloween before the season settled more firmly and then started to give way to the approaching blanket of winter.  Most of the trees were bare by Thanksgiving. 

When images of Thanksgiving flitted across my wandering mind I was surprised to find Marco there.  But it was true.  My mother had invited him several times, after Damien had moved away and Mary was spending the holiday at the bar.  Because the bars would be the only
CPV establishments open on Thanksgiving.  People didn’t stop drinking to celebrate a holiday.  In fact, often it was the loneliness of a holiday which drove them to drink more. 

It was the last Thanksgiving my grandmother was alive.
Fay Durant was my only remaining grandparent.  She wasn’t a pleasant woman.  People blamed the loss of her son and the slow, painful demise of her husband.  But to me she just seemed like a patently unhappy person.  One who liked to make other people unhappy too. 

“Angela,” she frowned at me as I helped myself to a slice of pie. 

“What?” I dared her. 

Her thin lips smiled.  “Ladies ought to watch their figures.  After all, one day that baby fat will fall away and you’ll be a pretty girl.” 

My mother grimaced.  Tony laughed.  Marco looked at the floor.  He hadn’t said much since arriving just in time to sit down to dinner. 

I slammed my fork down on the dining room table.  So that I could not stab my grandmother to death with it. 

But my father tried to salvage things by way of deflection.  “Mother, did you know Angela won a scholarship for an essay she wrote?”

“A scholarship?” The old woman exclaimed in confusion. 

My father continued, proudly explaining that I was the first high school sophomore to ever win the coveted ‘My Massachusetts’ annual written competition.  But as I listened to him speak I felt odd and weary.   I just wanted to get away.

“Excuse me,” I said, wiping my mouth and running through the kitchen and out the side door. 

It was already cold as hell.  The first snow flurries were predicted to fall sometime during the night.  I plunked down miserably on the peeling redwood bench and stared up at the barren tree branches extending their cold fingers into my backyard.  I’d been here my whole short, stifling life.  And I hated it. 

“Angela!” Tony bellowed from the open side door.  “Get the fuck back in here and eat your pie before I give it to the dog.” 

“We don’t have a dog!” I shouted back. 

Marco poked his head out
the door.  “I think I’m the dog.”

I hopped off the bench and looked at the gray sky.
  “Getting the hell out,” I promised to no one in particular as I sulked back into the house.  I wasn’t much here and anyway I’d be damned if I was going to end up like one of the dingy young wives I always saw sifting sadly through the aisles of my father’s store.  They were poor.  They were bored.  They had a litter of clinging humans on their heels who they slapped at idly.  And before getting behind the wheel of beaten vehicle, praying it would start, they would pause by the door and smoke a cigarette with a tired hand resting over a pregnant belly.  I’d come to realize there were more women like that in the world than there were women like my mother.

“Getting the hell out,” I said again.  It made me feel powerful. 

My hands were already numb with cold as I reached for the door handle.  Marco Bendetti stood on the other side of the screen.  For a while I’d felt shy around him, ever since our late night run in.  And then gradually I realized he remembered nothing about it, that I was as consequential to him as a square of pavement. 

But just then he looked at me clearly and nodded. 

“Yeah,” he said.  “Me too.” 

“Angie.”  A firm hand was pressing in my shoulder and I shot upright with a gasp. 

“Marco.” I rubbed my eyes. The room was completely dark.  Marco stretched over to the end table and flicked the lamp on. 

“My watch fell off. What time is it?”

“A quarter to nine.” 

Marco sank down on the couch next to me. 

I squinted and pointed to something in his hands.  “What’s that?”

“Tupperware.” 

“Christ
, Marco, I can see that.  What are you doing with it?”

“I stopped by your house.  Your mom said you were over here.  I guess she thought you’d be hungry.” 

I smiled.  “Grace.”

“Yeah, Grace.” 

He peeled back a corner of the lid and sniffed.  “I think it’s meatloaf.” 

“I think meat should never be in the form of a loaf.” 

Marco set the container on the floor.  “What happened, Angela?”

I shrugged.  “Nothing.  Just an argument with my dad.”

“About me?”

“No.  About me.”

Marco pushed a strand of hair out of my face.  “I bet if we cover it in ketchup it’ll be okay.”  I blinked at him.  “The meatloaf,” he explained. 

In the kitchen Marco rooted around in the cupboards and removed a dinner plate with hideous orange and green fish painted on.  I raised my eyebrows.  He shrugged. 

“My mom had weird taste.” 

He dumped the thick slices of meatloaf on the plate and drowned them in ketchup. 

“Beer okay?”

“Beer would be the shit.”

Marco pushed a chair next to mine and we ate in companionable silence.  He was right.  A generous helping of ketchup made even my mother’s meatloaf palatable. 

As I downed my beer with rapid swallows Marco watched me.  “You want to talk about it?”

“No.”

Marco shrugged. “Want to do something else?”

I stared at him, for the first time vaguely annoyed by his one track mind. 

“Like watch television?” he finished with a laugh. 

“Yeah,” I said, smiling.  “I’ll watch television.” 

Marco
turned on the console tv and began flipping the dial around.  “This okay?” he asked.  It appeared to be a movie about a vapid, confused woman trying to decide between two equally hunky tanned men.

“Fine,” I said, sitting down.  “You know Marco, I believe this is in fact the world’s ugliest couch.” 

He laughed lightly.  “If only there was a prize.” 

I fit neatly into his arms and rested my head on his chest as a steady succession of commercials droned on.  Marco’s hand tangled gently in my hair and I heard my own happy sigh as I listened to the strong thud of his heart.  I thought about how it was for others, for real couples who didn’t need anything else but the steady promise of one another’s company.  As I closed my eyes a nagging thought kept penetrating. 

You have to go back to Boston.

And then, underneath that, a low but increasingly insistent voice. 

Why??

***

We didn’t talk much as the silly movie arrived at its predictable conclusion and the eleven o’clock news came on.  I yawned. 

“I should go.”

Marco touched the low neckline of my shirt.  “Do you want to go?”

It was the last thing I wanted.  I was still stinging from the argument with my father.  I knew he would be sorry.  But the emotion of it all made me feel exhausted, drained. 

Marco seemed to read my mind.  “You can sleep here, Angela.” 

I sighed, re
sting my head on his shoulder. “I would like that, Marco.”

He kissed my forehead and rose from the couch, stretching. 

“Hey,” I said, “I feel a little stale. You mind if I use your shower?”

“Not at all,” he said, flipping the television off.  “Two doors down from my bedroom.” 

As I started to undress in the small, oddly frog-colored bathroom there was a knock at the door.  I cracked it open.  Marco was on the other side with a folded bath towel and one of his dark t-shirts.  I half thought he would push his way through the door and demand a joint venture but he only offered the bundle with a gentlemanly air, seeming to guess that at least for the moment I needed some space. 

Slipping Marco’s shirt over my damp skin seemed far more intimate than many of the more carnal things we had done.  I briefly hugged my arms across my chest, then gathered up my pile of clothes. 

I found Marco kneeling on the musty rust-colored carpet in the living room, sorting through old record albums.  I sat down beside him, looking though a pile. 

“Styx, Billy Joel, Queen.  Damn,
you run the gamut over here.”

“Yeah, most of these are mine.  I can’t believe she kept them all.” 

“I guess she knew someday you’d come back.” 

He looked at me quickly.  “I guess she did.”

“Moms are like that.  I mean, you saw my room.  A day in the life of 1982.”

Marco laughed.  He picked up Queen’s
The Game
by the corners and carefully removed the record, staring at the thin black disk for a moment before gently placing it on the stereo.  He moved the needle deliberately and a moment later
‘Another One Bites the Dust’
came blaring out of the speakers.  

He stood abruptly.  “I’m
gonna go rinse off, if you didn’t use up all the hot water.” 

“I did.”

Marco paused and stared at me for a few seconds before heading off to the shower.  His dark eyes were guarded and I found myself again with no idea what was going on behind them. 

I spotted a few dusty photo albums on the
lower shelf of the coffee table and plucked them out.  “You mind if I look at these?”

“Be my guest,” he said, already halfway down the hall. 

I sat on the ugly couch with the largest photo album in my hand.  It was beige and the front was embroidered with vibrant flowers.  Evidently it hadn’t been touched for quite some time because in addition to the plume of smoke which rose from the cover, the thin metal hinges squeaked when I cracked it open. 

The album was an odd hodgepodge of disjointed events.  Here, Marco’s toothless baby picture. There, Damien scowling in cap and gown on the day of his high school graduation.  My mother kept reams of photo albums all carefully catalogued and in
perfectly sequential timeline.  I’d paged through them all so many times I knew everything which happened inside the pictures even though for many I wasn’t alive or didn’t quite remember all the occasions.  Looking through the Bendetti family photo album was like peering into a new world. 

Mary
Bendetti, young and already with a weary wrinkle between her brows, stood in front of the garage, heavily pregnant. 

Marco and Damien, finely dressed for Easter Sunday,
held hands and smiled dutifully before the front yard hedges. 

I was surprised to find my own face in the midst of a pile of children wearing pastel party hats.  I didn’t recall being present at any of Marco’s birthday parties, but there was the evidence. 
Beside me, glowering in a pair of brown corduroy pants with his crushed party hat in his fist, was Tony.

Freddie Mercury began belting out
‘Crazy Thing Called Love’
and I kept turning pages. Finally, towards the end, in the center of the page all by itself, was a picture of teenage Marco standing next to a gleaming motorcycle.  I well recalled the spring afternoon he’d first roared into the neighborhood on those two wheels. 

I’d been helping my father paint the garage with a fresh coat of stark white.  Tony wasn’t around.  In a few short weeks he would be gone for good.

My mother came out the side door.  She was wearing one of the old fashioned dresses that I loved, an apron wrapped around her slim waist. 

She squinted.  “Is that Marco?”

My father glowered.  “What the hell is Mary thinking, getting the boy something like that?” 

“Oh Alan, he’s been working kitchen and cleanup at the bar forever.  Mary told me he’s been saving up for years.  She made a deal with him that as long as he stayed out of real trouble she would help him with the cost.” 

“Doesn’t explain why she’s letting him bring that garbage into the neighborhood.  And as for trouble, it’s sure to find him now.” 

I stood, straightening the cramped muscles in my back.  Flecks of white paint dotted my arms and were probably in my hair.  Neighbors were beginning to drift ove
r to admire Marco’s new purchase. 

I heard Shannon
Cortez squeal and plead for a ride.  Rod Gilliam, who was thirty and still living with his mother, sauntered over with a beer in his hand and shook Marco’s hand. 

My father made a disgusted noise and returned to painting the garage while my mother
watched the activity for another moment and then retreated inside the house. 

I silently observed
Marco.  In the years since the Maple Street bars opened one by one the town had become something of a magnet for passing bikers.  They appeared to me as hulking, dangerous brutes as they rolled through Cross Point’s quiet streets with an air of unquestioned entitlement.  I kept my eyes averted if they drove past or if they wandered into the store as customers.  To see Marco climbing onto that bike with a girl at his back stirred a strange unease inside of me.  One I didn’t know what to do with. 

Then with a blink I was
returned the present and Marco was walking into his living room wearing only a pair of boxers. 

“You tired?” he asked
mildly.

Every time I saw his body I was a little more fascinated by it.
  No, I wasn’t tired.  After flipping the front door lock, Marco approached me, extending a hand. 

I closed the album and let him lead me into his bedroom.
There, I sat down on the edge of the neatly made bed.  It was a full sized mattress, but rather narrow for two adults.  I hadn’t noticed when I’d stayed here the other night.  Probably because sleep wasn’t high on the list of activities just then.

“You need a bigger bed.” 

Marco yawned.  “I wasn’t expecting company.” 

He flicked off the light switch and climbed into bed beside me. 

“What’s that?” I asked, pointing to something on the small square writing desk beside the bed. 

“An arrowhead.  I used to carry it around with me everywhere.  Found it hiking
in the desert once.  Plucked from underneath the fangs of a diamondback rattlesnake.”

“Bullshit.”

He propped himself up on an elbow.  “I don’t lie, Angela.”  His hand traveled idly underneath my shirt.  “You’re not wearing underwear.” 

I reached out and s
napped his waistband.  “You are,” I answered in an accusatory tone. 

He smiled, remembering
our morning greeting. 

I let my fingertips wander over his muscled arm. 
“You were in Arizona?”

“Yes.” He pulled up my shirt, drawing it over my head and then letting it fall to the floor. 

“What was it like?” I asked, easing down his boxers. 

“It was hot.” 
He settled his body on top of mine, his hard contours digging into my soft flesh. 

“How hot?”  I whispered, opening my legs. 

“Blistering,” he answered, sliding into me. 

It was slow and gentle, a lovers
’ sweet conclusion to the day. 

“Good night,
Angie,” he whispered, kissing me and then falling into a deep sleep within a few short moments. 

I touched his back, tracing the letters I knew were there even though I couldn’t see them in the dark.  For the first seventeen years of our lives Marco
and I had been in exactly the same place.  Our experiences had been different but the frame of reference was identical.  When I looked out my window I saw his house.  When he looked out his window he saw mine. 

When I’d run into him at the block party it seemed like no time had passed.  We had grown into our adult bodies but that was all
.  Everything else was still the same.  Except it wasn’t.  Our lives had forked in utterly separate directions.  We weren’t at all like the people we once were.  I wasn’t a chubby uncertain girl always trying to see down the road.  And Marco wasn’t the cocksure boy smirking in the family photo album.  In reality, an awful lot of time had passed. 

I listened to Marco’s
even breathing for a time, then closed my eyes.