The Fifth Stage Part 10

Rebecca puts her hand on his arm. "The lady said she's waiting on someone. Let's keep it clean, okay?"

"I ain't going to start no trouble." George looks at Rebecca, then at me. "But if you change your mind, you know where I am."

"I'll remember that." I pick up my beer and head for another open spot at the bar, finding a safe-looking s.p.a.ce between a middle-aged woman with no makeup and a skinny kid with a crew cut. I slide up on the stool and check my watch. It's 7:15.

I watch Rebecca take orders and pour drinks. Her hair is in her eyes and the front of her blue b.u.t.ton-down s.h.i.+rt is soaked with G.o.d knows what, but I can't take my eyes off her. She's working the crowd like a good politician, and every time one of those gleaming smiles falls my way, blood rushes to my headand elsewhere.

Every minute or two, she looks at the employee entrance and then at the clock on the neon Miller Lite sign. Time keeps ticking away, but there's no evidence of the back-up bartender.

At 7:40, she brings me a clean mug. "Sorry this is taking so long.

He should be here any minute. How about another beer?"

"We can make it some other time. Besides, you look exhausted."

Rebecca blows a strand of hair from her eyes. "I've been here since six this morning, and it's been this busy since lunch. There's an insurance convention at the civic center." She leans close and whispers, "These people are more interested in getting drunk than going to an insurance seminar."

"Do you blame them?" I breathe her in again before slipping off the stool and pus.h.i.+ng the empty mug toward her. "You've had a bad day. I should go on home."

Rebecca puts her hand on mine. "Please don't go yet."

Something in her eyes says there's more to this evening than I thought, and as she lets go of my hand, I feel a spark skip between us.

Could be my imagination, but I slip back up on the stool and tap the empty mug. "One more, but promise me if you're too tired, we'll call it off and shoot for another time."

"Promise." She crosses her heart before turning away.

By eight, the bar is packed, and there's still no sign of the bartender. The geek in the aviator gla.s.ses is trying to pick up the middle-aged woman. He starts by asking her if she'd like another drink. She says she just got one, but she'll take another round when she finishes.

He asks her if she comes here much, and she replies once or twice a month. The geek says he's glad he stopped in. Says it's his lucky day to meet a woman as pretty as her. She giggles and thanks him.

62.

If this guy can relate to a woman, surely I can, but the geek has one thing on mehe's not afraid to try. She could have shot him down, made him feel like a loser for even trying, but he didn't let that stop him.

He marched right up to her and struck up a conversation.

Wonder if I should tell Rebecca I'm interested in going out with her, as a date instead of as pals? I imagine her throwing her arms around me and saying that's what she's been hoping for. She kisses me and leads me to her bedroom, a romantic candlelit chamber with a canopy bed and a chilled bottle of champagne. She teases my lips with plump red strawberries while erotic strains of soft jazz drift over our naked bodies.

Then I imagine her getting a disgusted look on her face and calling me a deviant who needs to be locked up. She slaps me and says she'll rent billboard s.p.a.ce and plaster my name all over town as a lesbian masher.

I s.h.i.+ver and take a long gulp of beer. I don't expect either scenario would be exactly accurate, but the visions keep my brain seesawing till I feel sick.

It's 8:20 and Rebecca brings me another drink. "Sorry about this."

Between the beer and my indecent daydream, I'm starting to sweat.

I try to smile, but my lips stick to my teeth. "I'm fine."

She looks downhearted. "Maybe we should make it another time. I hate to keep you waiting like this."

"Sure, but I think I'll hang out for a while anyway. Entertaining crowd tonight." Taking a sip of beer, I glance around as if amused by the drunken insurance agents and college kids, but her grin seems to say she's knows why I'm staying.

"Good. Maybe Rich will show up before you leave." She turns away and takes a drink order from a balding man in a blue sport coat.

By 8:55 I'm feeling a little light-headed and decide to pack it in.

Looks like the elusive Rich won't show, and I'll be driving home early.

Another night shot to h.e.l.l.

However, at nine, as I push my mug away, a boy in baggy chinos and a Choppy's logo sweats.h.i.+rt rushes in, ducks behind the bar, and taps Rebecca's shoulder.

Rebecca hands him a towel before catching my eye.

Maybe I'll stick around a little longer.

CHAPTER 13.

Like an infant forced from the security of her mother's womb, I was blinded and confused by my birth. Everything was different. People I'd known all my life looked different, like zombies unaware of the pleasures I'd experienced. The air smelled fresher. Even food didn't taste the same.

But the things around me hadn't changed. I had, and something in my chest longed for the familiar safety of the place where I'd been for so long. Yet another, stronger part yearned to breathe free and bask in the new sensations flooding my senses.

I was obsessed with Lora. Every time I looked at her, I wanted to take her in my arms. The inexplicable need to touch her haunted my thoughts, robbing me of sleep and the desire to eat. The emptiness in my stomach wouldn't be satiated with mere food.

I needed Lora.

We hadn't even kissed that day in her bedroom, and that bothered me. Would she have kissed me if her mother hadn't barged in, or was kissing too personal? Was it something she saved for Jock and wouldn't share with me?

I considered the possibilities, bouncing them around over and over in my head. Maybe Lora had had a wet dream the night before, and I'd happened to be around to ease the frustration. She could've been testing me, trying to find out if I had a kinky bone in my demure body. Maybe Jock wasn't giving her what she needed, and she'd wanted to feel someone else's touch without technically cheating on him with another boy. All these notions played against the one thing I wished forthat Lora wanted me.

But Lora seemed to have selective amnesia. Four days after our clumsy attempt at lovemaking, she still hadn't mentioned the incident. It was like it had never happened. She treated me just as she had before that afternoon in her bedroomlike a best friendand it was killing me.

63.

64.

I sat in the back row of comp cla.s.s and watched the door, starving for a look at her. She breezed in, her trendy plaid skirt whipping about her knees and penny loafers slapping the tile floor. She dropped her books on the desk beside me.

"Hey, Claire, there's going to be an excellent party at Rachel's house Sat.u.r.day night. Think you and Matthew would like to go?"

"Yeah." I feigned exuberance. "I'll tell him not to make plans."

"Great. We can all go together." She glanced toward me, catching my eye for an instant. Her expression almost sparkled as it had when she had laid my hand on her chest a few days before. Almost. "I was thinking maybe you could sleep over at my house Sat.u.r.day night. My parents are going to visit my brother at college for the weekend, so we'll have the place to ourselves."

Something like a huge wad of cotton lodged in my throat, and I nodded. I struggled for something to say, but Mr. Burns had followed Lora in, and he brought the cla.s.s to order. As our teacher a.n.a.lyzed The Scarlet Letter, I watched Lora from the corner of my eye. She was drawing cartoon mice in the margin of her book.

Thinking about spending the night with Lora made my scalp crawl.

The feelings that had pa.s.sed between us were so intense, so real. She must have felt it, too. But what if I had read her wrong? What if the need in her eyes was a figment of my imagination and Lora had only wanted a one-time experiment to explore a dormant and now-dead side of her s.e.xuality?

From the desk in front of me, Gina's booming voice shook me out of my trance. "That preacher was a spineless coward. He knocked that girl up and then let her take all the heat."

Toward the front of the room, Joey Kennedy piped up. "Hester knew what she was doing. If you can't take the heat..."

"But it takes two to tango," someone voiced another cliche from the window aisle.

"His sin was secret, and that's worse," I said, more to myself than to the cla.s.s.

"What's that, Miss Blevins?" Mr. Burns peered at me over his black-rimmed bifocals and laid his worn copy of the book aside.

"Sin is worse when you can't tell anyone about it." I fiddled with the cap of my ballpoint pen.

"Elaborate, please," Mr. Burns said, that intimidating stare of his plastered on me.

65.

I drew a deep breath. "If you did something and couldn't tell anyone about it, wouldn't it drive you crazy, even if what you did wasn't a sin?"

"You don't believe they sinned?" Mr. Burns asked.

I felt that Lora wasn't looking at me but went on despite her indifference. "They thought it was a sin because that's what they'd been taught, not because it was true. All they did was love each other, but everyone else thought it was a sin so they kept it a secret. But Hester got pregnant and everyone found out. That's when everything started going wrong."

Mr. Burns pressed his lips together and drummed his fingers on his desk. "Go on."

"What if no one had ever known about it?" I was trying to make a point, but my thoughts kept derailing and jamming up. The problem with making a point is that you have to have a point, and I was just a kid with a head full of confusion.

"Sin and secrecy," Mr. Burns said. "These are our quandaries. Is forbidden love a sin only if it is discovered? Is sin based on societal perceptions? What is real sin? In the case of Hester and Dimmesdale, I would presume that in a Puritan society, they would see their actions as less than virtuous, even if their affair had remained hidden." He waggled his hand. "But then the contrast would be lost. It would be a very different story if Hester's actions hadn't been revealed by her pregnancy."

"He's still a creep," Gina muttered.

Mr. Burns lifted a cautioning finger. "Ah, perhaps, but we have much to read, much to discover. Reverend Dimmesdale might surprise you before we get to the final page."

I nodded, but wasn't sure why. I didn't want to talk about it anymore. When I looked toward Lora, she was doodling Jock's name on her notebook.

After cla.s.s, Lora and I walked together down the hall.

"You're awfully quiet lately," Lora said, waving at another student as we pa.s.sed.

I shrugged, s.h.i.+fting my load of books from my right arm to my left.

"Just a little worried about this a.s.signment, I guess."

"Don't lie to me, Claire. You've got that Hawthorne and morality c.r.a.p down cold."

66.

I shook my head. I wanted to tell her we should talk, needed to tell her how that afternoon in her room had affected me, had to tell her it was making me crazy. But the words wouldn't come, and I just looked away.

Lora stopped and I did, too. We blocked the hallway, but she ignored the swarm of kids pressing around us. "Claire, look at me," she said quietly.

I faced her. Tears puddled in my eyes. I tried to fight them, but I was frustrated beyond belief and more than a little fed up with her nonchalance. "What?" I mouthed the word, unable to speak around the lump in my throat.

Lora's expression changed. A mix of revelation and confusion flooded her eyes. At last, she was getting the picture. I wasn't just her study buddy or even her best friend. But I wasn't a potential boyfriend or prom date, either. I was something different altogether, a thing neither of us knew how to deal with.

She swallowed hard. "Come on, we'll stop at the soda machine."

She b.u.mped me with her shoulder to urge me forward, then walked on ahead.

I was past the point of containing my anguish. I went in the opposite direction and ducked into the girls' restroom. Unable to hold it in any longer, I found a vacant stall, sat down, and cried. All my questions and fears tumbled around one another and beat against my insides like fists. They gnawed on my brain, driving me crazy. What sin had I committed to deserve this? What deed was so horrible that I'd be forced to endure this pain? I was seventeen, for Pete's sake, how bad could I have been?