The Palmer Pool

15 | In Another Life

Pete drove into Lexington and we stopped at a market to pick up some food.  Despite appearing ready to close the store down, the manager wrapped a few slices of ham and cheese in white paper while chatting with Pete about sports.  Pete sent me on a mission to find snacks, which was far more difficult than I anticipated.  The strange packaging made the food barely recognizable.  I settled on some Better Made potato chips that came in a tin rather than a bag and loudly crashed to the floor when I tried to remove it from the shelf.

When we returned to the cottage with our dinner, plus a six-pack of Coke in glass bottles, he opened the front door with a key that was hidden under the doormat.  The heavy curtains were drawn and the air was musty and still.  Pete gathered a few supplies and we walked down to the beach.  He started a fire quickly and we settled on the quilt.  Pete assembled our sandwiches in a cast iron press and placed it on the edge of the fire.  A few minutes later we had perfectly browned and melty sandwiches.

After our dinner, I leaned my head on Pete's shoulder and gazed past the dancing orange flames to the inky black water quietly lapping onto the sand.  The white light of the full moon glimmered from the shore to the dark horizon.

"So, why were you in such a hurry to get out of town earlier?"  he asked.

My interactions with Rose and Liz had been pushed to the back of my mind, but with his question the stinging humiliation and unease that I had experienced earlier returned in a flash.  I nervously pulled at the frayed cuffs of the grey sweatshirt Pete had given me to wear.

"Just people gossiping.  I needed to get away from it."

"What people?  What did they say about you?"

"Not about me...about you."

"What did you hear?" he asked with a resigned sigh, as if he'd been expecting this all along.

"Would you by any chance have an ex-girlfriend, or maybe current girlfriend," I added as the possibility suddenly crossed my mind, "that might want to persuade me to stay away from you?"

"I don't have a girlfriend," he said firmly.  "And my ex-girlfriend moved away."

"Okay, well I was told that I shouldn't see you anymore.  And that you're 'trouble'.  I didn't ask why."

The crackling fire illuminated his face against the darkening night.  Even with the frown lines drawing thin shadows across his forehead and at the corners of his lips, he was gorgeous.  I still couldn't believe I was sitting there with him.  Whatever had earned him his 'trouble' label, it couldn't have been that bad.  It must have been something that was 1950s bad, like he didn't go to church enough or got caught drag racing or something.

"I guess you should know," he took a deep breath and exhaled before he continued, "a few months ago I spent a night in jail."  I instinctively distanced myself from him, only by a centimeter or two, but he still flinched as if I had slapped him.

"What for?"

"Frank and I got into a fight.  Someone called the cops.  They locked me up at the station for the night to cool off."

"But not him?"

"He went to the hospital. He was in pretty bad shape.  I broke his nose, two back teeth..." he dropped his head in his hands.

"What about you?" I asked, as I pictured Frank's meaty hands and thick arms.

"What about me?"

"What kind of shape were you in?"

"Not great.  But not nearly as bad as he was. Frank's a big guy and all, but I guess I was out of my mind.  I don't even really remember it." 

"Why did you do it?  I mean, was there a specific reason or was it because he's generally a dick?"  The corner of his mouth ticked up in an amused half-smile and his eyes widened in surprise.  "Come on, it's pretty obvious.  I didn't want to say so before, but the guy seems like a real asshole.  Excuse my language."

"He is," Pete said.  "But most people don't see that side of him.  He's mister city council and he owns the butcher shop in town.  He flirts with all the ladies when they come to buy meat and tells stupid jokes and hands out hot dogs to their little kids and they all love him."  He poked at the glowing coals with a stick as he continued, "I saw him with someone...who was not my mother.  He wasn't home at the usual time and my mom couldn't get through on the telephone at the store, so she sent me to check on him, to make sure everything was all right. The shop was closed, but the back door was unlocked, so I went in.  I could see them through the window to his office," he sounded weary, emotionless.  "Nobody else knows.  The reason why, that is."

"Does your mom know?"

"No. I don't know.  I didn't tell her. I doubt Frank did."

"You don't think she deserves to know what he did?"

"Why?  It would only hurt her.  And she'd feel humiliated.  I don't think she deserves that, no."

"Why do you think you need to protect her?  She's an adult woman, not a child."

"What good would it do?" he asked sharply.

"Maybe if she knew, she'd kick him to the curb."

"Then what?  She has to find work again?  Move out of her house again?  What's the point of all that?"

His voice was rising like it had on the drive earlier.  I took his hand and squeezed.

"What do you mean, 'Again?'"

"When my dad died, she took a job taking care of the Jackson's son.  He came home from France paralyzed and his family hired her to be his nurse."  The Jackson family was an old, wealthy family in Palmer.  The road my dad lived on was named after one of them.  "So we moved into their house.  We lived there until my mom married Frank."

"If she doesn't know what he's up to, won't he just keep messing around though?"

"I told him if it happened again, I'd kill him."

"That would be going a bit overboard, don't you think?"  I shivered, unsure if I wanted to hear the answer, and drew the blanket tighter around my shoulders.

"Well, yeah.  I wanted to scare him." He sighed. "I don't know how he could do that to her.  Sure, she can be a pain.  She expects everyone to be perfect, especially herself.  But I don't know if that's really her or if that's how she thinks she should be.  Anyway, that's what I like about you.  You say what you're thinking and you don't seem like you're pretending to be something you're not."

But he was wrong.  Every moment I spent with him I was pretending to be someone I wasn't.  The guilt I already felt burning in a ball inside me began to spread.

"So, that's it then?  That's why people are warning me about you?  Wait, is that why the waitress was so mean to you?"

"Yeah, probably.  Everyone treats me like a J.D. now."

"What's a J.D.?"

"A juvenile delinquent," he cringed.

"Well, you kind of are a juvenile delinquent," I teased.

"I suppose you're right.  I'd better get you home."  He pushed himself up to his knees to stand, but I pulled on his arm to stop him.

"Hey! I'm sorry I said that.  I don't care."

"You should," he said sadly.

"I really don't.  You're not a bad person.  You're  actually, like, one of the best people."

He finally looked at me with relief and firelight flickering in his eyes. He pulled me into a tight hug and muttered, "Thank you," into my hair.

The exhilarating rush and comfort of being enveloped in newly familiar arms swept over me.  When he eventually relaxed his embrace and settled back onto the blanket, I dug my shoulder and hip into the sand and rested my head on his leg.  I was having a perfect moment, one I knew I'd remember forever, no matter what happened -or didn't happen- between us.  During those moments I tried to record the memory in my mind to have to look back on when I needed it.  I forgot everything else.  There was only the chill in the air at my back and the warmth and maple scented smoke of the crackling campfire, Pete's hand resting high on my waist and whatever it was that we had together.  Whatever it was that energized the space between us.

"When is your curfew?"  Pete asked from somewhere far away.  He gave my shoulder a light shake.  "Vanessa, wake up. I need to take you home.  Where do you live?" His voice was muffled, as if he was underwater.  I felt him brush the hair away from my face right before the fire went out.