Reckless Point (12 page)

Marco was not beside me when I awoke.  I looked around for a clock and found none.  However, the soft play of the sunlight told me it was fairly early. 

He was
sitting on the couch, looking through the photo album I’d left on top of the coffee table. 

“Haven’t seen these in years,” he said, closing it and peering at me expectantly. 

I glanced at the closed door in the hallway.  “Was that your mom’s room?”

“Yes.”  He tossed the photo album onto the table.  “The room she slept in.  The room she died in.” 

“Oh.”  I crossed my arms, watching him as he leaned forward and rested his head in his hands for a moment before shaking off the gloom and managing a smile. 

“
Hungry?”

“Depends.  You got anything besides leftover meatloaf?”

His doubtful look answered the question. 

“Never mind.  I ought to head home anyway.”

I dressed quickly in my own clothes and found Marco in the kitchen, drinking coffee out of a mug which was a companion to the swimming fish set of dishware.  He had already poured one for me.  I sipped it gratefully. 

Marco jerked his head toward the window, motioning to wh
ere my house peacefully waited across the street.  “You gonna be okay?”

“Of course.”

“Well, all right then. I’ve got some shit to do down at the bar.  I want to make damn sure we’re ready to open in two days.  Damien will flip if we lose another weekend of revenue.” 

“Can I come by later?”

Something flickered in his eyes.  “You better,” he said softly. 

I hugged him, inhaling the warmth of his skin.  For a second he squeezed me around the waist so hard my ribs shrieked.  Then he abruptly let go. 

The hot coffee felt good going down my throat.  “Hey, Marco.”

“Hey, Angela.”

“What happened to your old bike?”

His face darkened and his eyes
lowered.  “It’s gone,” he said a little too lightly.  “Like so many other things.”

“What other things?”  I touched his face, feeling onc
e again like there was more than what he was willing to say. 

Marco took a slow sip from his chipped mug.  He shrugged.  “People.  Years. Take your pick.”  He s
ighed and pulled out a worn wooden chair, sitting down. 

I leaned over, kissing his cheek as he glanced up in surprise.  He hadn’t shaved the day before and the skin was rough against my lips.  He stared at me for a few seconds and then pulled me into his lap so suddenly I dropped the
fish mug.  It shattered on the linoleum, spilling coffee everywhere.  Marco’s kiss took my breath away.  Our mouths stayed glued together for several minutes until he broke the embrace and set me to my feet. 

“I’ll clean that up,” he said, squeezing my left hip lightly.  “See you later, Angie.”

I didn’t say anything, opening the side door and casting one last glance backwards.  Marco still sat at the table, facing away.  Shirtless, his head bent, I almost didn’t recognize him, except for the long word permanently inked into his back.  Seventeen.  A perilous age. When anything seemed dangerously possible. 

The shutters of 16 Polaris Lane were open and I had a clear view into the kitchen.  They sat across from one another at the old table. 
My father stared sternly at the open newspaper as if he disliked everything he saw.  My mother carefully buttered a piece of toast.  They weren’t speaking or actively engaging in any way but anyone happening on the scene would see that this was just one private moment in a day between two people who were a natural pair.  They knew everything about one another.  They always had.  There were no surprises.  And no uncertainty. 

As I slowly crossed the yard they looked up at the same time. 

My mother had the door open in welcome before I reached it.   She beamed at me brightly as if there was nothing whatever amiss.  “I made some extra eggs, Angela.  Come and eat.” 

My father stared at me wordlessly as I sat down at the table and began hesitantly forking mouthfuls of scrambled eggs from the plate my mother set before me. 

I waited for something.  An insult.  A recrimination.   An apology.  But he only folded the paper and set it on the table. 

“I’ll be out back,” he said, more to my mother than to me. 

My mother glanced at his retreating back as she paused from pouring another cup of tea. 

Silence reigned as the door whispered to a close.  Grace Durant sighed and sat down next to me. 

“Planning on seeing the fireworks later?”

I shrugged.  “Maybe.”

She watched me as I rubbed my eyes. My contacts had remained in overnight and my eyes were now uncomfortably dry. 

“How do you feel, Angela?” she asked with delicacy. 

I paused over the question.  Was she inquiring about my health?  My mental state?  Was she trying to gauge whether I had actually discarded my virginity within the past few days?

“Fine,” I finally answered.

“How do you feel about him?”

“Marco?”

“Of course, Marco.”

“I don’t know how he feels about me.”

She smiled.  “That’s not what I asked you.”

“But that’s what matters.” 

“I’m crazy about you.” 

I thought about those words, about how they now hung in the air unacknowledged. 

It was time to change to subject.  “Daddy still angry with me?”

“No,” she shook her head. 

“He has no right to be.” 

“You should talk to him, Angela.” 

“I will, Mom.  Just give me a few minutes to get my bearings and I’ll go hunt him down in the rose garden.” 

She nodded.  “Yes, him too.”

And I realized she hadn’t been talking about my father.  She meant Marco. 

“I will,” I said quietly
and slowly ate the rest of my eggs. 

Once I had changed my clothes and removed my contacts I felt comfortable enough to approach my father. 

He was kneeling in the middle of the square garden.  The old brick edging was cracked in a few places.  He didn’t look up as he pinched a small weed between his gloved fingers and tossed it onto a pile of similar offenders. 

Though
the day had dawned bright, gray clouds were beginning to crowd the sun, passing a cool shadow over the backyard.  With a sigh I knelt beside my father and pushed my fingers into the spongy black dirt. 

“Roses are difficult to grow,”
he’d always said.  “If you can coax life out of them, then you’ll see your reward.”

I looked at his work. 
He was right.  The flowers were brilliant hues of deep pink, rich red, and sunny yellow. 

“You know,” I said
as he continued to labor silently. “I bet it would be pretty simple to get the old soda fountain working again.  Add the deli counter back into the mix, maybe a soft serve ice cream machine, and you’ll have some solid additions to your bottom line. Maybe-“

“Stop it,” he said, twisting his gloves off and throwing them into the dirt.  He looked at me coldly.  “This place is on its way out, Angela.  I expect within two years they’ll even close the high school and bus what’s left of the kids to Barrington.  You knew years ago that there wasn’t a future here.  Only people clinging to what was and people with nowhere else to go.”
 

His words wounded me.  I’d said them myself, thought them a thousand times.  But it hurt to hear them. 

“Dad,” I said softly. “You love Cross Point.”

“I love my daughter more.”  He stared gloomily at the beautiful wisteria which snaked across the chain link fence.  “I had no right to say
what I said to you yesterday.”  His gaze fixed on me intently.  “And I’m sorry.  But that doesn’t make it untrue.” 

I stood shakily, brushing the dirt from my legs.  “Well,” I said in a wavering voice.  “At least now I k
now what you think of me.”  I started to walk away. 

He called after me.  “You can’t go back, Angela.  Life doesn’t let you.”

Then I saw my mother standing at the threshold of the backyard. Her arms were folded.  She was angry.  But not at me. 

“Alan,” she hissed.  “You know better.”

I paused, considering the puzzling fury between my parents.  My mother’s eyes narrowed as she glared at her husband and I knew whatever she was referring to had nothing to do with me. 

My father rose and stared her down, saying nothing.  I
swallowed and retreated, leaving them alone with their private battle. 

Once I’d cleaned up there seemed to be nothing to do.  I sat on the edge of my bed, feeling as if I couldn’t breathe.  Whatever had transpired between my parents left them regarding one another in
awful, cold silence.

I’d grown up in a home where the biggest truism was that my parents were a resolute partnership.  Rare arguments were petty and inconsequential.  The only real conflict in the Durant household came from the untamed son who was born determined to snub all the rules.

It seemed like such a small thing.  A few puzzling words and a long look of reproach.  But I was already rattled and as I sat there in my bedroom I felt like the walls of the house wer
e closing in.  As if all the oxygen were being slowly removed. 

I grabbed my purse and paused at the mirror.  With my glasses on and my face nearly clear of makeup I looked like the Angela who had lived here once. 

“You going out?” my mother asked with surprise.  She sat in the living room with her feet tucked under her, reading the same
Good Housekeeping
magazine which had been in her lap the night she waited up for me.  So I knew she wasn’t actually reading at all.  She was waiting. 

“Think I’ll take a drive,” I said, my keys already in my hand. 

She nodded.  “The Kilbournes and the Johnsons are stopping by this afternoon.  Your father is going to throw some burgers on the grill.” 

“Where is he?”

“In the garage, I think.” 

“Mom?  What was that out there?”

She didn’t have to ask what I meant.  “That would be a long story, Angela.”  She stuck her nose back in her magazine.  “Have a nice time.  I’ll save a hamburger for you.” 

As I left the house I heard my father making a commotion in the garage.  I didn’t look back as I headed for my car.  He didn’t call to me. 

Driving slowly through the familiar streets made my heart heavy, especially in light of my father’s tough words. 

“This place is on its way out, Angela.”

Within a few moments I was in downtown Cross Point Village.  I parked the car in front of the deserted town hall and got out.  They sky was becoming more gray, though not dark with the immediate threat of rain.  The clouds spread like a worn, tired blanket as if maybe they would consider dropping a few sprinkles at some point.  Distantly I heard the pops and whoops of early fireworks being set off. A few lethargic flags had been inserted into the scraggly lawn in front of the town hall, which was really just a tired brick building relegated to hosting weekly town meetings and a few lackluster monthly events like the Ladies’ Cooking Club.  My father had been a selectman since long before I was born and once he had been one of the more animated figures of local government.   But after the Bicentennial debacle he grew gradually humbled and dejected.

I walked slowly around the perimeter of the cannon, thinking about July 4, 1976.  Thirteen years ago.  The town had been laboring for months, beginning the hopeful renovations right after Christmas. 
Months of fundraisers and endless solicitation calls.  My mother was in charge of the Cross Point Village Bicentennial Cookbook, a compilation of family recipes grudgingly relinquished by local housewives.  I didn’t know what jello molds had to do with the nation’s two hundredth birthday, but the book was a fair success in small bookstores as far away as Albany. 

All that effort paid for the
cannon and the paint, the historical plaques and the endless banners.  On the day of the Bicentennial the Cross Point Village town square looked as if a thousand American flags had vomited.  The day was a big deal across the country.  There were special shirts and special coins.  There were giant ugly brass eagles on living room walls and badly replicated colonial era furniture.  Every couch sported a crocheted red, white and blue throw blanket and every kitchen a Betsy Ross set of hand embroidered dishtowels, one for each day of the week.

I marched in the parade with my 4-H club while the entire population of the town lined the sidewalks and waved flags.
We even saw a few out of town faces as curious tourists were welcomed into ‘Cross Point Village:  The Most American Town in Massachusetts’. 

Alan Durant had to know it was all bullshit.  My father was no fool.  But he might have thought everyone else was.  Anyway, he believed that
the bizarre appeal of over-the-top patriotism would last.  He was wrong. 

Now, the
side of the black cannon had been sprayed again. This time with tri-toned festive demand.  ‘Fuck CPV’ stared back at me in red, white and blue.  A nice bit patriotic damning to kick off the holiday. 

I hadn’t been able to find my watch, figuring it must have fa
llen off near the creek yesterday as I rolled around with Marco.  I guess the time to be very early afternoon, though it was difficult to tell with the sun obscured by clouds. 

As I walked
slowly towards the end of Main Street a few kids careened wildly past on bicycles.  Two boys and a girl, perhaps ten or eleven years old.  The first boy, a tough-looking kid leading the other two raised a fist in the air, releasing an incoherent yell.  It was a sound of freedom, of jubilation.  It reminded me that my father might yet be wrong. 

 
I passed Kaminski’s Hardware without thinking. 

“Angie!” called a pleased voice
and I turned around to face Ben Kaminski.  He was Krista’s younger brother, my cousin.  He’d been a small child and was a small man, the top of his head reaching only to my nose.

“Ben.” I hugged him tightly for a moment, remembering how I’d always wished he were my brother.  There were two other boys in the family, John and Gary. Krista was the only girl. John and Gary were twins, four years older than Krista, six years older than Ben.  They’d headed off to UMass on baseball scholarships right out of high school, which was a pretty big deal.  John was a pitcher who blew his rotator cuff straight to hell in his senior year and quietly returned to CPV to work in the store.  Gary, a catcher, spent some time in the minor leagues before giving in and marrying a Springfield girl.  He sold tires now. 

Ben had always been rather an odd duck.  The baby of the family, the ‘runt’ as his siblings called him, he
was a loner and unbothered by it.  My mother had told me how he’d gotten mixed up with a married woman from Albany and when that had ended badly he’d come back to CPV.  He was living in an upstairs garage apartment at John’s house and working in the store. 

“How are things, Ben?”

He shrugged his thin shoulders.  “Can’t complain, cousin.  And you?  Boston life going well?”

“Sure.  I have everything I always wanted.”

He laughed.  “You don’t even sound convincing.” 

“Don’t I?”

His smile disappeared and he looked at me curiously.  “No.”

“I should try harder.” 

“How long you in town for?”

“Today.”

“Back to Boston tomorrow?”

“I don’t know ab
out tomorrow.  So how are things with you? How’s business?”

Ben grimaced and peered up at the fading store sign
.  Kaminski’s Hardware hadn’t been around as long as Durant’s but it was still a town fixture.  “You talk to your dad,” he said softly.  “So you know.”

The Cross Point Grocery had closed three years ago.   The antique stores and clothing boutiques were long gone.  In 1989 the only thriving business in CPV belonged to the Maple Street bars.

My cousin cocked his head and stared at me.  “Everything all right, Angie?  Your mom said you have a boyfriend in the city.”

“No,” I shook my head, suddenly cackling in a w
ay which caused poor Ben to stare at me with increasing alarm.  “I don’t have a boyfriend in the city.”  

“Oh,” he said, shifting with discomfort. 

“It’s all right, Ben.  It was good seeing you.”  I hugged him again and walked away.  I knew he stared after me in a puzzled way as I meandered down Main Street, skirting past Durant’s Drug Store, and then turning onto Maple. 

Marco’s bike was parked outside of The Cave.  The door to the bar was propped open and I approached slowly, staring at the motorcycle, trying to quiet the way
my heart was lurching around in my chest.  I ran my fingers along the handlebars and an involuntary shudder of passion sucked all the air out of me.  In a compressed flash I felt every moment we’d shared over the past few days.  And the one which made me close my eyes as my soul twisted was the memory of his head pillowed on my breasts as we lay next to the secluded creek. Marco. I wanted to know him.  Everything about him. 

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim interior of the bar so they saw me before I saw them.  Marco and a strange man were on opposite sides of the far end of the bar, staring at me.  A pair of shot glasses and a half
empty bottle of Wild Turkey were between them and I had the feeling I’d just interrupted a long, intimate chat. 

“Angie,” Marco said.  “This is Captain.”

The man called Captain fixed me with a penetrating look as if he saw things I wouldn’t have recognized in myself.  Though his beard was shot through with gray his age was impossible to determine.  He might have been forty.  He might have been sixty five.  The leather jacket he wore was more than clothing on his back.  Shabby and used and decorated with an eagle patch over the word ‘Warriors’, it was his very skin. 

“
Nice to meet you, Captain,” I said, meeting his stare. 

“
Hello, Angie,” he said easily as if he already knew me and we were merely running into one another again. 

Captain poured one final shot down his throat and rose from the bar stool, giving Marco a brief salute.  “Thanks for the drink, buddy.” 

Marco ran a cotton cloth down the length of the bar.  “You take care, Captain.”

“I always do.” 

Captain paused in front of me, his startling blue eyes searching my face.  “See you around, Angie.” 

I stared at him, wondering who the hell he w
as.  It was obvious enough that he was one of the passing bikers who frequented Maple Street.  But there was a level of comfort between him and Marco which spoke of some sort of bond.  Did Captain have anything to do with the rough past Marco was so reluctant to talk about?  After all he’d been part of a world I’d only heard rumors of.  Crime.  Prison. 

“
I’d kicked a guy’s face in, Angie.  So bad he would never look like a normal man again.”

Despite the summer warmth a chill crept up my spine.  I looked up, realizing Marco was watching me with some degree of wariness.

“You got something you want to say, Angela?”

I slid onto a bar stool, toying with a shot glass.  “Who was that man?”

Marco shrugged.  “A friend.” 

“A good friend?”

Marco seemed annoyed by the question.  “He sold me my bike.  Comes in here sometimes to shoot the shit.  What of it?”

“Nothing, Marco.  Seems like a rough character, that’s all.”

Marco found that funny.  “So am I, baby.” 

The c
onversation was becoming uncomfortable.  The way he’d said ‘baby’ had a dismissive, contemptuous tone to it. 

I stood, feeling defensive.  “Are you busy?  You want me to go?”

He looked at me flatly.  “That’s a stupid question.” 

“It was two questions.” 

“No, and no.  Feel better now?”  He grabbed both glasses and turned to the sink. 

I lowered my head.  “I can’t figure you out,” I mumbled. 

“No,” he said without turning around.  “You can’t.”

I jumped off the bar stool in a huff and headed for the
exit, silently cursing Marco and his erratic moods.  One minute he was laying on my chest pouring out his heart, the next he was treating me like a casual dalliance. 

He got to me before I reached the door, which he kicked closed. 
He seized me from behind, crossing his arms across my chest so I couldn’t move. 

“Angela,” he said as I struggled.  There was no rage in his voice, only an exasperated pleading. 

“Stay,” he whispered. I didn’t really want to be anywhere else.  I relaxed my arms, leaning back, pressing against him, letting him move me over to the shrouded pool table where he bent me forward, hastily undressing me and running his hard arousal across my wet center.

“Yes?” he asked, his voice gruff, though it wasn’t really a question. 

“Yes,” I answered anyway and welcomed the rigid intrusion. 

Later I tried to smooth my hair down, looking into a cloudy mirror next to the bar. 

Marco eyed me. 

“We don’t have to go.” 

“I thought you said you told Tom Hennessy you’d be there.”

Marco snorted.  “He’ll get so raging doused later he won’t remember who was there and who wasn’t.”

I blinked at my reflection, disliking my owlish glasses.  I really needed to remember to shop for something more fashionable.  “Don’t you want to see your friends?”

“I see them all the time, Angela.  It’s impossible to avoid people around here.  You know that.”

Yes, I did know that.  “Well, it might be fun.  Sort of a throwback to who’s who of Cross Point Village.”

Marco looked at me, his face blandly inscrutable.  Of course after
yesterday’s encounter the Boyle brothers would have told the whole crowd about this thing between me and Marco.  Perhaps that’s what was he was trying to avoid.  Questions.  Comments.  Assumptions.