The Lesson (18 page)

“Kevin, what is this place?” Gina said as she pulled her head back into the first room. Kevin had been standing there silently, watching her. She got the feeling he was anxious to see her response.

“I live here. That’s my dad’s bed,” he said, pointing toward the first one across from the door, where the pipe and tobacco can lay on the little shelf above it. “He’s away this weekend, visiting his girlfriend. And that’s my bed,” he said, pointing to the other.

“You LIVE here?” She was incredulous. “I thought you said you shared an apartment with your dad.”

“I did, but that was before, when I was in high school. That’s farther down Boston.” He pointed north, toward the backyard. “My dad wanted a cheaper place to live, so after I joined the Navy and shipped out, he moved in here.”

“But where do you cook? Where’s the bathroom?” She couldn’t imagine that anyone could call this dreary garage “home.”

“We don’t cook. The water in the kitchenette was turned off a long time ago. And besides, we prefer to eat out. We use the bathroom on the back porch of Hazel’s house,” he said, motioning toward the little house on the property. “It has a shower too. My dad rents from her. She’s a widow and the money helps her out. We like it and it’s comfortable. Cheap too. What do you think?”

What did she think? She thought it was awful! It was dark, dreary, and cramped. It had no insulation like a proper house, and Gina could already feel the crawling things and hear the skittering things that lurked, she imagined, under the beds and in every dark corner. Kevin and his dad had to cross the yard, winter or summer, day or night, to use the toilet or take a shower and there was no place to make coffee. But Kevin seemed proud of his garage-home. It was obvious to her that he had brought her here to impress her, so her instantaneous response was alarm: she didn’t want her horror and revulsion to show. She didn’t know how to answer. She was aghast at the awfulness of that place, but worse, she was embarrassed for Kevin. He had no idea how turned off she was by the place he called home. If he knew what she was thinking he would be mortified. She couldn’t let on how upset she was. She willed herself to calm down and not let her face reveal what she was really thinking.

“It’s small, but some people might call it cozy,” was the best she could manage. She continued to grip her purse in front of her like a shield, standing motionless so as not to disturb any critter that might be lurking, just as terrified and motionless as she was, in one of the shadowy corners.

She was still trying to process the fact that this sweet boy lived in this hovel when he stepped close to her, intimately close, and looked into her eyes. She could smell the manly scent of his cologne and the military smell of wool cloth. Funny, it had never occurred to her that he wore cologne. It seemed incongruent that a guy who wore such quirky street clothes would care about smelling sexy. Though he was close enough to kiss her, she didn’t step backwards; his home might have been a house of horrors but, other than his clothes, there was nothing scary about Kevin. Neither was there anything in his aura to make her feel conscious of his being a man and her being a woman and all the sexual awareness that usually entails. She felt nothing.

She was acutely conscious, however, that it was not like that for him.

She waited. She could tell he wanted to say something. He reached up with his hand to grasp hers, and as he did, she knew intuitively that this was a critical, even passionate scene for him. Obviously he had planned it. She held her breath so she could focus. She refused to take his hand; instead she grasped her purse-shield ever tighter. This was his moment. If she gave her hand to him, she would enter into that moment, and she couldn’t do that. So she kept both hands tightly on her purse, pretending that she didn’t realize he was trying to take her hand. Surely he must sense her refusal, but strangely he was not deterred. Finally, his eyes still fixed on hers, he spoke.

“Gina,” he said, “Do you know that you’re exactly the type of girl I’ve always hoped to marry?”

Now Gina was more than a little upset. She was overwhelmed with discomfort. Her tongue seemed thick in her mouth. She couldn’t speak. She was very sorry she had agreed to go out with him tonight. What had she gotten herself into? This charming but artless boy had bared his heart to her, but all she felt was embarrassment for him and revulsion at this dump that, for reasons she didn’t understand, he wanted to show off to her. She was too overcome to respond, and even if she could bring herself to speak, she knew there was no good reply to such a confession. As she looked into his clear and innocent, steel-gray eyes, she felt as though she were looking into his very soul. She was unable to return his tender feeling, and knowing that she was the focus of it gave her pain.

“You’re sweet, Kevin,” she choked out. “And I enjoy your company. But when you talk like that it really upsets me. I don’t feel that way about you. Please don’t talk like that.”

Kevin said nothing, just continued to look into her eyes. What did she see there? It was hard to tell. She remembered looking into Michael’s eyes, many times, and seeing distinctively male longings. Kevin, she had learned, was quite normal in that regard, but tonight was different. She saw affection without guile. She also saw great calm, though she wondered if it was a facade. He had rehearsed tonight, she sensed it, and she had let him down. The deflation in the room was palpable. No matter what was said next by either of them, it was bound to be awkward. She shouldn’t have come out with him tonight. She shouldn’t have come.

“It’s late, Kevin. I have to get home. Can we go now?”

Kevin nodded, but still he said nothing. He was so normally talkative and light; surely she had broken his heart and to save face he was holding his tongue. Her painful words hung in the air between them. She could feel them. They continued to echo in her head as he helped her out the door of the garage. He left the bare bulb burning to make it easier for them to exit. The ride back to Santa Clara was unusually quiet, but thankfully, it was also short.

She already had her apartment door key in her hand by the time they reached the curb in front of her place. She didn’t wait for him to open her car door as she usually did. She told him she didn’t need an escort to her door, said a proper but quick thank-you for the dinner and the show, flung open the passenger door, and hurried up the walkway. She could hear Kevin exiting the beetle behind her to escort her just the same. Hurriedly she fumbled with the door lock on her dark front stoop, and finally, unlocking the knob, she entered her apartment, shutting the door behind her, pretending she did not hear him coming up the walk. She didn’t even think to be jumpy about entering her apartment alone tonight.

Some things were more disturbing than the dark.

#

Gina changed into a nightie and settled into bed with a book. She needed a distraction from the events of the evening. Books always did that for her. Tonight’s true crime thriller recounted the story of a young co-ed who had gone missing after hiking alone in the Rockies. A pair of hikers had found her blackened, charred body smoldering at a remote camp site.

“Hiking alone. Tch, tch. Even a Brownie knows to take a buddy. Stupid girl.”

The phone in the living room rang, breaking the late night stillness of her tiny apartment. Reluctantly she pulled back the covers, exposing her bare legs to the chilly night air. The air in the living room was even chillier.

“Hello?” she said.

“Gina. I hope it’s not too late to call.”

Gina signed a big sigh. Kevin was so impossible. What could she say that would be appropriate to this moment after he’d practically proposed to her on their first real date? He was so
clueless.
Following her around and mooning over her like that. He was throwing himself at her and was too inexperienced to understand why it bothered her so much. She wouldn’t even try to explain.

“Where are you, Kevin?”

“In Concord. At a pay phone near the ship.”

“It’s Saturday. I thought you’d be at your dad’s.”

“I can’t. I have watch at zero dark thirty,” said Kevin.

“Which means?”

“Pacing back and forth on a freezing, dark deck like a duck in a shooting gallery from midnight to four, interrupted only by a plain box lunch delivered at two containing a cold bologna sandwich, an apple, and a cookie.”

“You drove all the way to San Jose from Concord to take me to Montgomery Theater, only
to drive all the way back to the ship to stand watch?” said Gina.

“I had to stay up anyway to stand watch.”

“It’s late, Kevin.” Her weary voice reflected the late hour.

“I know. But I heard some news from the ship when I got back tonight. I wanted to tell you.”

“Oh?”

“Some guy got back about an hour before I did. He was really wasted. He injured himself
coming aboard.”

“Oh no. What happened?” Gina had a disturbing vision of the young man falling over the side of the metal gangway, smacking his head on it as he went down, then landing unconscious with an ominous splash in the cold, dark water many feet below.

“He fell through a screen on an upper deck,” said Kevin.

Gina was stricken. She didn’t like to think that some poor young sailor had foolishly maimed or injured himself just because of a few drinks—well, maybe more than a few. She’d seen Navy ships up close at Norfolk Naval Air Station with her family as a child. Upper decks could be twenty to thirty feet above water; aircraft carrier upper decks could be twice that. It must be bad or Kevin wouldn’t bother to call with the news.

“Was he injured bad?” she asked.

“No, not bad. Just strained himself.”

Gina was about to make a sympathetic comment about Kevin’s poor, injured shipmate when it dawned on her that he was joking. Duh! He’d hoodwinked her again.
What a nut.
She laughed out loud.

“You called me at this hour to tell me a drunk sailor joke? I think
you’ve
been drinking.”

“No. Just wanted to hear your voice. What are you doing?”

“I was reading a book,” she said.

“I didn’t think you’d be asleep or I wouldn’t have called. What are you reading?”

“True crime.”

“Gina, Gina. You’re always reading that stuff, and it’s always the same, some guy killing off a young pretty girl or several young pretty girls. You shouldn’t read so much of that blood and gore. You’re just putting all kinds of awful ideas in your head, scaring yourself half to death.”

He had a point. Lately she could hardly settle down in front of the TV at night without first checking her bedroom and tiny bathroom to make sure they were devoid of intruders. But she didn’t want to admit this.

“But it’s interesting. I like to see how they follow the clues to the killer. Forensics and stuff.”

“History is interesting too,” said Kevin. “I have lots of titles I could lend you.”

“What? Like Patton’s biography? Or
Revisiting the Battle of the Bulge?
Thanks for the offer, but I think I’ll stick to true crime. Less mayhem than all that World War II stuff you read.”

“If you studied history more you’d have a better understanding of contemporary politics. These things are linked, you know,” said Kevin.

“You sound like my father.”

“Well, it’s true. You can’t separate World War II from current events. History is a continuum, not a bunch of independent events. Yesterday determines today, and today determines tomorrow.”

“I have a philosophy professor I’d like you to meet,” said Gina.

Kevin laughed. As he did, Gina pondered how different he seemed over the phone than in person. His essence, sweet and natural, was distilled on the phone. Wrapped in his masculine voice, Gina would even call his essence attractive. But in person his clothes obscured all that. But then, why would a
normal
guy care so little about how he appeared to others? Kevin was a mystery.

“Kevin, I’m cold just standing here in my living room. Isn’t it freezing on the dock? By the water?”

“It is. But hearing your voice on the phone warms me.”

There he goes, getting mushy again.
He was hopeless.

“Kevin, I’m tired. I’ve enjoyed talking to you, but I gotta go to bed.”

“And I have only a few minutes before I have to report. Good night, Gina.”

“Good night, Kevin.”

The Jacobs’ Home, Cornell Drive, Santa Clara

By Sunday morning Gina had determined that the best way, or at least the easiest way to handle things was to simply not answer the phone. But oddly her phone didn’t ring this morning. She expected Kevin to call her to invite her to ride with him to church again. But the phone in the living room was silent as she showered, got dressed for service, and ate breakfast. The entire time she was readying herself for church she pondered the phone that did not ring. Had it become unplugged? She checked the connections at the wall and behind the base. Everything was in order. She lifted the receiver to check the dial tone. She heard the familiar buzz―the line was good. Why didn’t he call? It bothered her that he didn’t call. But then again, it bothered her that his not calling bothered her. Why should she care?