The Reading Lessons (17 page)

She thought she was punishing him, of course, and Hadley didn’t even crack a smile. He looked at her like a punished man when, deep down, he was relieved to realize that she had yet to discover that Flora worked at the library. 

“Must I?” he complained.

“Yes, you must,” Lucinda said.

“Fine,” Hadley said, and he took himself off to the library to see Flora Gibbs.

###

Flora had a fondness for the old carousel on the north side of the park. Every Sunday afternoon, they waited eagerly for the band organ to switch from
Jolly Fellows
to
Blaze Away
, signifying Open Ride time. Open Ride meant anyone could ride. 

Flora believed in choosing a different horse for Open Ride every week. She was working her way through the outside ones first. Over the years, she’d been to seven different fun fairs, and she’d seen every spinning jinny to ever pass through town. She declared this one the prettiest of the bunch. 

“Not all carousels have horses with glass eyeballs or real horsehair tails,” Flora told him. “And anyway, I couldn’t ride those other fun-fair merry-go-rounds. We’re really lucky they started having Open Ride.” 

On top of the carousel was a blinking sign that read:
THE AMAZING FLYING WHIRLIGIG!
And under this, in tinier letters:
Recommended by Dr. Herman T. Stokes as an aid in circulating the blood.
Flora said it wasn’t every day that something that was fun turned out to be good for you.

On their first visit, Hadley had grabbed the brass ring and won a free ride. Flora had looked so proud, you’d think he’d just cured polio. He’d been getting straw dumped on his head when he grabbed for the ring every Sunday since, but Flora was proud of him for trying. 

Every Sunday they would ride the carousel then head down to the river to read
The Sea Wolf
on the blue and white Cake Stand quilt that Flora had made with her Granny Gus. Thanks to Flora, Hadley was having a fine time reading a nice book with a girl for a change.
The Sea Wolf
had Maud Brewster, of course, and a fair share of profanity, but the hero was a gentleman. Lucinda would have hated Hump’s gentlemanliness. “Jack London is so good, I don’t even miss the romantic stuff,” Hadley told Flora one day while they were spreading out the quilt. 

“What do you mean?
The Sea Wolf
is brimming with romance. There’s nothing more romantic than seeing new places.”

Hadley had never thought of it that way before. When Lucinda talked about romance, she was talking about people tearing off each other’s clothes. He liked the fired-up sparks he saw in Flora’s eyes when she spoke of visiting new places. 

“Nothing makes my heart beat faster than taking off for parts unknown,” she said.

Parts unknown
. 

Hadley mouthed the words silently a couple of times to himself and was surprised to discover how exciting they felt. Somehow, it never occurred to him that he might actually see any parts unknown. He could barely remember Charlottesville anymore, and Millport, where he was born, had been completely erased by the passage of time. But that afternoon, Flora’s quilt felt like a flying carpet. For the first time ever, Hadley didn’t read the words and picture himself as the hero, Hump. He pictured himself as Hadley Crump enjoying a trip to parts unknown. 

###

Flora Gibbs was kind, witty, and full of deep thoughts. Hadley was pretty sure he didn’t deserve her friendship. He knew he didn’t deserve to kiss her, seeing how he spent each and every weekday tensed up with longing in The Reading Room. 

The things he read with Lucinda were as good as ever. Lucinda might not want him getting stirred up, but that didn’t stop her from giving him scandalous books to read.

I felt myself more than mortal, holding this loveliest of creatures in my arms, flying with her as rapidly as the wind, till I lost sight of every other object; and oh, Wilhelm, I vowed at that moment, that a maiden whom I loved, or for whom I felt the slightest attachment, never, never should waltz with any one else but with me, if I went to perdition for it!

“Do you ever waltz?” Lucinda asked on one such afternoon when Hadley was reading to her about waltzing with a beloved maiden.

“Nope,” Hadley said. He held his thumb on
perdition
so as not to forget his place.

“That’s a shame,” Lucinda said. “I was hoping you could show me the
Twinkle Hesitation
.”

“What’s the Twinkle Hesitation?”

“A waltz, dummy.”

Last week, Lucinda had done some showing of her own, demonstrating for Hadley the pleasures of a
Silly Little Secret Kiss
. Had he only heard about it, Hadley would have imagined that a tongue wiggling around inside his ear would be thoroughly disgusting. Feeling it first hand was an eye-opening experience.

“All right, Hadley, as usual I’ll have to try it out on you. This is purely experimental, you understand? I want to show Dickie a dance that’ll really bug his eyes.”

Hadley shrugged. He didn’t like to think about Lucinda dancing with Dickie, but he wasn’t opposed to serving as a substitute if it meant touching Lucinda. 

“Dickie tangos like George Raft,” Lucinda explained, as if Hadley might actually give a fig. “Poppy LaRue over at
The Register
called his moves ‘positively licentious’ after she caught him in action at the
Banana Club
last weekend. I think I’ll start you with something slower though, seeing how you’re so green.” 

Lucinda put a record on the phonograph. It was Franz Lahar’s
Waltz Entrancing
, she said. Very romantic, she said. Hadley only cared that he got to hold Lucinda’s hand. The stylus rasped across the shellac, and a lusty soprano crackled to life. 

Other than the
Silly Little Secret Kiss
, Hadley had not been allowed anywhere near Lucinda since the day he busted the window seat. Holding her close after all this time made him feel like he was about to catch fire. 

Lately, he might just as well have been called the Library Book Reader as the gardener, reading had become such a big part of his job. To combat the effects that these library books often had on him, he tried to think of other things when reading about love and sex. He’d put together elaborate lists of possible subjects ahead of time so he would be prepared. Brown stomach worms should be a good thing to think about, he’d tell himself. Or the basic steps involved in unplugging a toilet. As a result, he’d dressed many a rabbit in his mind even as a woman undressed in black print. The naked woman, however, always chased off the dead rabbit without much trouble. The truth of the matter was, being a decent man meant all the world to Hadley when Lucinda wasn’t around and nothing at all when she was. On this day, he’d planned to think about bad meat.

Lucinda stepped closer. 

At seventeen, Hadley was still shorter than Lucinda, but his nose came up even with her lips. A tip of the head would bring them mouth to mouth. 

Lucinda spoke to his nose. “Watch my feet. I’m going to start you off with the
Venetian
.” 

The woman on the record sounded more like a peeled coyote than a song bird to Hadley. He preferred Marion Harris or Irene Day. They played
Alice Blue Gown
every night on KDKA, and Hadley always stopped what he was doing and listened and maybe even tapped his toe. He was not a fan of Lucinda’s operetta. When he bungled the steps, he blamed it on the awful music. 

“George Raft, you’re not,” Lucinda said, but she looked like she was enjoying herself. “One two three. One two three. That’s it, honey. Now you be the boy, and I’ll be the girl.” She put her hand on Hadley’s shoulder and tickled him under his collar. “Smile, sweetie. Dancing is supposed to be fun.”

Hadley would have taken brain surgery less seriously. Dancing didn’t seem at all natural to him, though he could see why folks invented it. What better excuse could a man find to hold a woman in public? Or in private.

“That’s fine. Just fine.” They moved back and forth across the floor, their fingers locked like two pieces of the same puzzle, and for a few paralyzing moments, Hadley pictured how different things might have been if Lucinda belonged to him. 

He could see their house and their garden, their children (all one color or the other), their big shaggy dog (big and shaggy and all one color or the other), and their reading room, which was simple and nice and a good deal less resembling of a breast. And in this other, much improved reading room, there were no hidden shelves or window seats because there was no need to hide the books. It was all for them, and they could read what they wanted when they wanted. Hadley was still a gardener in this imaginary life, but he gardened for someone else. Everything he grew for Lucinda, he grew for the fun of it. Of course, he could never afford to keep her in Kewpie Dolls and maids, but there were those rare occasions, like this one, when they became just a boy and a girl, locking fingers and dancing, and he couldn’t believe Lucinda would let Kewpie Dolls come between them. 

She would ruin the moment any time now, that was a given. Somehow, it would all be shattered, as though she sensed how good it could be if only nothing else mattered. When he stepped on her foot again, he was sure that would be the end of it. She would get mad and stomp on his toes and call him an idiot. But Lucinda didn’t do any of those things. She tipped her head back and laughed like a child. And when he ran her into a shelf and
The Breaking Point
bounced out on the floor, she just said, “Who put that bookcase there?” and kicked the book under the sofa. Still, he knew the moment was coming when she’d lose her cool or Dickie would come home or there would be an apocalypse. Just when he was getting ready to end the suspense and declare waltzing dumb, Lucinda did the
Twinkle Hesitation
.

“The
Twinkle Hesitation
offers the best opportunity to get a feel for your partner,” Lucinda said. She slid her hand south along his spine and cupped his rear end with her hand. “Not a whole lot to feel, is there?” she said, but she didn’t take her hand away. Rather, she mapped out the region real good. They froze in the center of the floor, locked in a dancing pose.

“Lucinda,” he whispered. “Do you ever get the feeling that what’s between us is sick?” He expected the words to unleash a world of pain, but Lucinda only held him as though they still danced. 

“We aren’t your ordinary dime novel lovers. We’re a thousand times more daring than that.”

“Daring?” Hadley said. It was all he could do to keep from laughing. “You mean because you rub my ass, and I kiss yours? We’ve never dared make love in all this time. How goddamned daring is that?”

“Some things are more exciting than making love, Hadley. Believe me, it’s one of the most boring things I’ve ever done.”

“I gotta think you’re doing it wrong.” 

“And what would you know about lovemaking?”

He dropped her hand. “I have ears, don’t I?”

“Lord, I hope so,” Lucinda cackled. “It’s the only thing about lovemaking that gets my heart racing.” 

“What’s that suppose to mean?” 

“Come on, Hadley. You know me. I’d have put you in a room out back and built myself a
Kewpie Doll Parlor
off the kitchen if I thought you’d just sleep through it.”

Hadley was used to being surprised by Lucinda, but this took the cake. He shook and shook his head. “You’re killing me, Lucinda.”

Lucinda laughed. “Am I? Next time you hear me with that big boar of mine, you’ll know what I’m thinking. What will you be thinking, Hadley?”

The record spun to an end, gasping as the needle searched for the groove that would make it sing again. Round and round it went, gasping at nothing. “I’ll be thinking what I always think: that it should be me up there.”

Lucinda took his hand once more and pressed it against her cheek. “Here’s something for you to dream about, darling: When I touch him tonight, I’ll think about touching you. Will you think about me when you touch your little girl from the park?”

“I don’t touch anyone, Lucinda.”

She lifted his face between her hands so she could look him in the eye. “Is that the honest truth?” 

“Only myself.”

She fanned her face with her magnolia pink fingernails. “All right, enough is enough. How does next Monday sound?”

“For what?”

She took the record off. “Dickie leaves for Baton Rouge in the morning. I was thinking of giving Tilly and Tapley the evening free.” She shut the cabinet with her hip. “We could be alone.”

“Alone?” They were alone now. They’d been alone a thousand times.

“The house will be all ours. For the whole night.”

He waited for the walls to come down. He looked at the floor, expecting it to swallow him whole. “I swear to God, Lucinda, I’ll jump off the roof if you’re making this up.”

“Well,” she said. “We can’t have you killing yourself now, can we? That would cause a scandal.” She fingered her hair like she always did, smoothed her dress, and checked her earrings. “I need to run along to my
Duty to Dependent Races
tea, but I want you to remember something: Should you hear any sighing from me up there tonight, you’ll know it’s because I know you’re nearby.”

That night, Hadley listened to the noises with new interest. Suddenly they didn’t seem so horrible. Suddenly those noises became the most thrilling thing he’d ever
not
been a part of. His heart leapt with every hop. His ears fought to understand every sound. And when Hadley heard Lucinda sigh, Hadley sighed, too. 

###

On Sunday, Mama informed Hadley that he was looking particularly imbecilic. He’d bought her a peppermint ice cream from the hokey-pokey man, but Mama flat out refused to be distracted. 

“It’s Mrs. Lucinda, isn’t it?” she said, letting her ice cream melt away in a trail of pink drips. “You can try to hide it if you want to, but your mouth wants to smile.” She reached out and wiped the traitorous orifice with her paper napkin. “There’s only one reason I can think of for you to hide a smile from me, and her name is Mrs. Worther-Holmes.”