Authors: Diane Munier
Darnay Road (26 page)
“I’m
glad to see you too. I came all this way…I wanted to.”
His
eyes, I can’t even say, they are so beautiful. He’s taken off his hat and it’s
on top of my books. His hair is shorn, but I saw that before. But he’s not all
torn up like that boy was so long ago, the darkness of that house behind him.
He looks healthy and strong. He looks….
“How…how
long you staying?” I ask.
“I’ve
got two weeks. I’ll just see.”
“See?”
“Well,
you want me to stay?”
He
smiles and I lean against the house a little.
I
do want him to stay. My very blood seems to be happy he’s staying. But…, “I’ve
got school. I mean…not tomorrow…Saturday. Well I’ve got a meeting in the
morning. Junior Achievement.” I close my eyes in embarrassment. We are making
Christmas wreaths out of used and worthless IBM cards. We fold the cards and
put them on a Styrofoam circle, adding enough rows so it looks full, then we
spray paint the thing red or green and add some holly. I think they are pretty
cool but I’m kind of sick of the whole project. And it just seems dumb. I’m
dumb to say this to someone like Easy, a real soldier. “But I’m not going. To
the meeting.”
I
just decided that. Granma won’t be happy but maybe she won’t know.
We’re
just staring at each other. “You stay away from the boys?”
I laugh. This is like
boyfriend’s talk. Oh God. “I go to a co-ed school in case you didn’t notice.”
He
smiles. “I mean…you got a boyfriend?”
“No,”
I answer like he’s crazy. “What if I did? What would you do?”
“Pay
him no mind at all,” he says without even blinking.
I
don’t have an answer to that.
“You
had one…a boyfriend?”
I
don’t say right off. It’s not exactly his business unless I allow it…is it?
“No.”
“You
want to…spend time with me?”
“Like
I’ll just ignore you now, living down the road with Disbro.”
“You
could,” he laughs, “but I’ll make it hard.”
“What
are you going to do, pop a wheelie in front of my house?” I think I’m doing
pretty well with my answers but I don’t know where they are coming from.
He
laughs at that. “Take you down to the trestle,” he says and there’s something
to it, and he’s got this look, and it’s sex. I know it because I’m in high
school, but with him it is nothing like what I’ve known around boys saying
stuff. This doesn’t make me mad at all, but I’m pretty sure I’m blushing. He
is. It’s like another door just swung wide open and it’s a jungle in there.
“I’m
gonna ask your Granma if I can come around then. That okay with you?”
I
nod and all my cool goes away. Come around like for dates? I’m trying to
imagine kissing his very beautiful mouth saying things I can’t get enough of.
I’m trying to imagine that this exists on this earth where so many cruel and
bad things are happening and he’s preparing to go into the thick of. I’m trying
to imagine having the freedom and courage to be naked with him, on the trestle,
as we run from an oncoming train and jump hand in hand into the river. Not that
there’s water under the trestle anymore, but this is my fantasy and it’s coming
fast.
I’ve
been told a hundred times no dating before I’m sixteen and then just double
dating, but those rules are out the window in my mind. This isn’t dating some
Joe. This is Easy. Granma knows him and he only has two weeks.
“You’re
still the prettiest girl I ever saw,” he says. He’s smiling even more and it is
melty. I’m melting like the wicked witch in
The Wizard of Oz
. I’m going
into a puddle of goo. Moondoggie—was I serious? Easy is the most wonderful man
I have ever seen. I don’t have a thing to say back that isn’t ridiculous. He’s
probably going to notice any minute how stupid I am. I realize I need to close
my mouth though. And maybe lick my lips. He laughs a little at that. He doesn’t
seem shy at all, and that’s exciting and so terrifying I end up turning and
fumbling for the door’s handle, and handing that off to him. Then I get in and
drop my bag and put my books on the table and I hear those old black shoes
coming from the kitchen. She gets in the hall and I can see she was going to
let me have it for being late, but she gets a load of Easy behind me and I step
aside and there’s that uniform and him in it grinning at her. She comes
straight for him and gives him a hug and he is so kind in the way he hugs back,
and I wonder where he learned it, to hug so well because I doubt his mother
ever did him that way.
I
am shaking my head and smiling big.
“Look
at the handsome man you’ve become,” she says. “And so respectable! A Soldier!”
He’s
blushing. It makes tears come to my eyes to see him so happy and blushing. I
don’t know what we’re going to do with him.
“He’s
staying with Disbro,” I volunteer.
She
looks at him and her smile goes away. “Oh for heaven sakes you are not.”
“Yeah,
me and my brother Cap. It’s fine.”
“Well
I don’t know about that,” she says. She looks from me to him.“How long you here
for?”
“I
got two weeks,” he says. “We’re fine there. We paid him for it. It’s good.”
“Easy,”
Granma says, “I am never quite comfortable with where you go once you leave
this house.”
I
know what she means. But she has always put me first. I know that—my safety.
The rest of the world can go to hell, but she watches over me.
But
people should help one another. And I am not allowed to ask in front of the
person if they can spend the night. Not even for Abigail May, not that I have
to ask for her to stay at all anymore.
“I
just wanted to see you and talk to Georgia while I’m here. I guess I need to
see if that’s okay. I wanted to spend time with Georgia. I know she’s got
school, but if she wants to…I’d like to spend time with her before I have to go
back.”
“Are
you going to war?”
“No
Ma’am. Not yet. But once I get back I won’t get to come home for at least a
year. If I ship out they’ll give me leave before I do. But I know
she’s…fourteen. But you know me…and…if Georgia wants…to,” he looks at me and
he’s smiling.
“Enough
of it,” Granma says. “Come in the kitchen and eat and we’ll figure out how to
save the world.”
I
take that as a yes but I know it’s still kind of a no, like that will stop me.
She
goes in the kitchen and I take two steps to Easy, and just like at the school
he wraps me in a hug that takes me to the tips of my shoes. Here’s what I know
in his very strong arms with my face against his very strong heart. I am the
luckiest girl in the entire United States of America.
Darnay
Road 47
We
barely sit down to eat but Abigail May and Ricky are at the door, not waiting
until I answer of course, but coming on in like they own the place.
Well
Ricky never comes over, not for ages anyway. That’s fine by me he lives for
football then basketball, anything with a ball attached so he can show everyone
how tough he is.
“Why’s
he here?” Ricky asks me, looking at me like Easy threw a rock at his car or
something. “Tim said Disbro had Cap in the truck.”
Abigail
May grabs my arm. “Cap too?” she says with her ‘holding in the squeals,’ face.
“I was in practice when I heard—the whole school knows! Everybody says he’s
your very own soldier and he’s handsome like a movie star. And he kissed you?
Did he?”
“No,”
I say. Kissed me? It’s enough we hugged…twice. I’m about scarlet thinking about
it and the whole school saying all that? Well he is the most handsome boy any
of us will ever see, I mean there is no one like Easy for looks, but I can’t
just spill that out, can I?
“Moondoggie,”
Ricky says like he’s going to throw up. “It’s on your face.”
“You
don’t make sense,” I say and I’m so mad at him.
Abigail
May is already in the kitchen and Easy is laughing at something she said.
“What
did he come here for?” Ricky says, his hand on my arm.
I
pull away. “What?”
“He’s
not going to be around,” Ricky whispers more loudly than most people talk.
“Don’t give it away.”
“Give
what….” Then I punch him on the arm but he’s so big it doesn’t even faze him.
He steps around me and goes in the kitchen. Who does he think he is?
Easy
is standing when I get in there. He shakes hands with Ricky. He initiates
because he’s just so fine. Ricky has to learn how to be a grown-up now and he
seems happy to see Easy because you can’t look at him and not be happy.
Abigail
May has gone around to his side of the table and pulled up a chair so close she
is beaming. It makes tears spring to my eyes because this is what he deserves.
So
we all eat, and there’s plenty if we don’t want seconds, but there’s chicken
from the night before and I get that out and the boys eat it cold and Easy
tells us about joining up and standing in a long line of boys and dropping his
drawers and bending over, and the cough. We laugh until there are tears and
Ricky says they’re not getting him and Easy says he’s got to decide for
himself. He’ll go wherever Americans need help, and I almost die. I have to
clutch my chest because I have never known such bravery until Easy. But he’s
always been in the line of fire and stood so tall, so tall, that’s what I know.
“How
is your mother?” Granma says and I should have asked that, right off, but I’ve
been so full of my own surprise.
“My
mom passed last year,” he says.
He
looks at me.
Abigail May, too. Well
everyone but my Granma. Her eyes are on Easy.
“Easy…,”
I say.
He’s
shaking his head, smiling, but his eyes fill with tears and he goes back on the
hind legs of his chair and looks to the side knuckling under his eyes. Abigail
May takes his hand cause she’s right there. “I’m so sorry Easy.”
He
sniffs and sets his chair back on all fours the way Granma likes but she won’t
fuss now. No sir. He pulls his hand from Abigail and clasps them over his
plate, leaning forward some. “Well…I went in after that. My grampa signed.”
First
one he looks up at is me. He winks like he does and he smiles, and his eyes are
so sad.
“Well
she’d sure be proud of how you’ve handled yourself,” Granma says and he thanks
her then and I look at Ricky and there’s no more anger in his face. Just
admiration. And I don’t think I’ve seen that before. It helps out his face a
lot.
But
I’m watching Easy and Granma says there is pie and I nearly forgot. I made a
cherry pie just yesterday because Granma had a taste for it, then she wouldn’t
eat it. So I get up, happy for something to do. The pie is in the bread box and
I slide the front up and get plates and I know he watches me the whole time.
I
cut his first, a big slice. I get the ice cream too. And Granma asks if he
wants coffee and he does. I wouldn’t have even known to ask him that. Only old
people drink coffee. But I’m listening and I’m learning and next time I’ll ask
him that and I’ll get that for him, but first I have to learn how to make it.
So
I bring him the first piece and Ricky says he wants some too, but I don’t even
look. Abigail May jumps up to get more. I sit that there and he says, “All
that?” and I just stand there smiling like a fool because I’d bring him the
whole pie in a minute.
“Thank
you Georgia,” he says and we are looking at one another and Granma brings the
coffee and sets it there and she asks if he takes milk and he says no, looking
from her to me. “I like it black,” he says and he fiddles with the chair
Abigail May vacated like I should sit there and I do.
I’d
left a chair between us before, but I sit there now and it’s warm from
Abigail’s skinny behind.
Abigail
May and Ricky have their pie. They lean against the counter with Abigail making
enough noise you’d think she never had pie before, singing, “Can she make a
cherry pie, Billy Boy, Billy Boy.”
Abigail
is smiling while she takes the tiny bites she’s known for. But she won’t look
at me or the middle finger I hold against my cheek. Ricky sees it, so I move my
eyebrows to let him know he can have it.
Granma,
God love her, brags on me for making such a good pie and Ricky is licking his
fork while he stares right at me and he’s so disgusting, just like Easy said
boys are, he was right. But I look at Easy and put my elbows on the table and
tuck my hands in my arms. It’s just so satisfying to see him eat something I
made myself and like it so much.
“You
made this?” he says between bites.
I
just nod. “Glad to see you don’t put ketchup on it.”