The next few weeks were spent on eggshells. Lilly went between feigning a romance with Gary at home and holding him at bay, trying to let him down while maintaining a working relationship. Whenever the phone rang, she looked up to see if Lonnie was around and tried to feign an air of girlish hope. She conjured a picture of putting out rat bait.
Lonnie came to the bars to hear them play. Lilly saw all the ingredients were there and let the pot simmer.
Issy and Lilly had developed a real camaraderie. Saturday mornings were often spent getting up, smoking a little pot, and going to garage sales. Going through other people’s discards provided many laughs. One morning, Lilly found a deal she couldn’t pass up: an old wooden tennis racket with a slightly cracked handle for fifty cents.
Walking home, Lilly told Issy she thought that was the night Lonnie was going to make her move and seduce Gary. Issy was shocked.
“No, Lilly. I don’t understand.”
“It’s really simple. Lonnie’s a vermin. She thinks I care about Gary. She’s dying to get her claws into him. This way I’ll finally get Gary off my back, but also expose Lonnie,” Lilly said slyly.
“Lilly, you’re wrong. Lonnie’s not like that. What happened with Joe wasn’t her fault. Joe’s such a smooth talker and …”
“He forced her?” Lilly asked cynically.
“No, but …”
“You’ll see. Tomorrow morning when they fall out of bed.”
“We’ll see.”
The night played into Lilly’s hands. Lonnie and Issy showed up at the bar. Lilly and Gary went for a little walk during the first break. Lilly told him she was not ready to get involved with anyone, she was sorry they had been intimate but that it would never happen again. She also told him Lonnie was very attracted to him.
Issy wanted to go to a party. Lilly convinced her to wait until Zenith finished playing, so Lilly could go with her.
Issy and Lilly went to the party, which was dead by the time they arrived. They stopped for donuts and coffee and went home. They sat in the living room making fun of the burnouts who had been at the party when they heard a noise and froze. The moaning and groaning of passionate lust was unmistakable.
Lilly held up her paper coffee cup and toasted, “To Lonnie and Gary. They deserve each other.”
Issy said, “No.”
“Issy, it’s not Carly, and Jane is too tasteful and discreet to make that much noise with Henry.”
Lilly and Issy looked at each other and giggled. Lilly tiptoed to the side window and pointed to Gary’s bike, half hidden in front of Lonnie’s car.
Lilly said, “Don’t say anything, OK? I’d like to broil Lonnie in my own way.”
“Lilly, don’t be unkind. Maybe she …”
“Issy, you’d see goodness in Jack the Ripper. I’ll have a little fun with her.”
“Forgive me for saying this, but I don’t think you’re that angry at Lonnie. I think you’re taking out other anger on her.”
Lilly waved the comment off, but the truth in Issy’s insight gnawed at her.
With the end of the weekend, the household made its transformation from weekend party palace to study-oriented student lodging.
Lilly waited until evening to say anything to Lonnie. Lilly and Carly were at the kitchen table reviewing the endocrine system when Lonnie walked out of the bathroom, struggling to fasten a complicated beaded belt.
Lilly looked up. “Putting in another notch, dear?”
Lonnie started to walk by them, and Lilly sneered, “Gary left early, didn’t he? I believe it’s proper etiquette to make breakfast for your pickup.” Lilly turned to Carly. “Which part of the pituitary is responsible for diabetes insipidus? I know she’s going to ask that one.”
Carly sat watching as the conversational ball bounced from one roommate to the other.
Lonnie said, “Don’t blame me if you can’t keep a man.”
“Who wanted him?” Lilly asked. “I told him you were easy and if he couldn’t do better last night, he could surely get it from you.”
“You rotten little bitch,” Lonnie said, and then walked away as words failed her.
***********
Lilly taped the tennis racket and went to the school to practice hitting balls. She turned to see a handsome, fair-haired man of about twenty-five smiling at her.
His good-natured looks stirred feelings she thought were long gone. Lilly turned to the wall. She hit a ball completely splitting the racket.
“Are you, by any chance, learning tennis?” he said, offering his racket.
“You trust me with this?”
“I’ll watch closely.”
The next forty-five minutes were spent in gentle instruction. He invited her to lunch at McDonald’s
She hesitated, “I don’t know … not today.”
“I’m not making a lewd proposition. Just a coke, burger, and fries.”
“I would, but I’m broke. I just bought a motorcycle.”
“I thought musicians were rich. Anyway, I’ll treat. I did invite you.”
“OK, I’ll meet you at McDonald’s.”
On her way, she realized he knew she was a musician. She sat on her bike and debated leaving. He walked over to her.
“How did you know I’m a musician?”
“I’ve seen your band a few times. You always seem withdrawn, so I never spoke to you.”
Lilly was satisfied and climbed off her bike. As they walked into the restaurant, she said, “In a bar, it’s called a pickup. On a tennis court, it’s a meeting. I’m not a pickup.”
They sat in a booth for an hour. He told her of slave ants that actually farmed the potatoes for French fries in Idaho.
“It’s a national tragedy, but no one knows it. Thousands of nameless, faceless slave ants providing us with French fries.”
Lilly recognized the young-man-trying-to-impress-the-girl-with-a-charming-fable approach, but enjoyed it anyway. When they had drawn lunch out as long as possible, Lilly rose to leave.
“I’m Adam Monte. I don’t know your name. When the band introduces itself, no one ever says your name. Why is that?”
“A girl’s got to be careful. I’m Lilly.”
“I’ll walk you to your motorcycle. You don’t look like a motorcycle mama. Not brawny enough.”
“Looks can be deceiving, Adam. What do you do?”
“As little as I can get away with. Actually, I raise grapes.”
“Grapes? You’re a farmer? You don’t look like a farmer … not brawny enough.”
“Looks can be deceiving. When can I see you again?”
“We’re playing the Tic Toc this Friday. I’ll try to be less withdrawn.”
Lilly tried to avoid thinking of Adam until Friday when she fixed up as though she were getting ready for a first date. When she arrived at the bar and saw Gary’s motorcycle outside, she realized that this could be a sticky situation.
Adam hadn’t shown up by the break. Lilly spent most of the second set searching the crowd for him. She tried to disguise her searching as a nonchalant perusal of the bar scene. When she finally saw him, she blushed. She was certain he had seen her blush. To recoup some pride, she walked toward the bar ignoring him after the second set.
Adam followed her. “Why are beautiful women cold?” he asked the air behind Lilly.
Lilly got a soda and turned around, unsure of how to receive this left-handed compliment. “Are uglies hot?”
“Most of the time. It’s called hunger.”
“I don’t like this conversation.” Lilly was disappointed with herself and with him.
“Sorry, Lilly. Sit with me and tell me about yourself,” he said. “I don’t know anything about you. Are you from Jamestown?”
“No. Yonkers.”
“That’s a suburb of New York? How did you end up here?”
“More a mixture, half suburb, half urban, shares a big border with the Bronx. A friend went to school here. How about you? Where do you live?”
&
nbsp; “Little Valley.”
“Most farmers don’t spend sunny days on the tennis courts. Are you a gentleman farmer?”
“Farmer?” He repeated. “I raise grapes for wine.”
“Isn’t that farming?”
“According to New York State it is, but it’s like the difference between whittling and wood carving. My family owns vineyards. We sell grapes to various wineries. I run the Little Valley vineyards.”
“What type of wine do you make at Little Valley?”
“My family has its own label. We make a nice chablis, and a rosé, and a zinfandel. They aren’t in stores yet. They’re only at restaurants here and in Hammondsport, Corning, Ithaca, and Watkins Glen.”
“Do you make the wine right at Little Valley?”
“No. The wine is made in Hammondsport. Most of our grapes here are sold to big-name wine makers, but by next year I want to start aging the wine in Little Valley, and then it will be bottled in Hammondsport.”
They spoke easily, forgetting the crude start of their conversation. Lilly was feeling carefree until she heard Gary banging on the drums calling the band back. She saw his piercing stare but ignored it.
Lilly and Adam played pool while Lilly waited for her pay after the last set. Gary came over and watched silently. Lilly was aware of how many shots he had put away during the set. She was a little frightened by the mean glaze on his semi-drunken face.
Adam asked her, “Do you always have to wait like this?”
“Bar owners always make you wait. You’d think they were collecting interest on it.”
Gary growled something unintelligible and then walked away.
Lilly’s house was in its Sunday study routine when Gary showed up. Lilly was sitting in the kitchen eating soup, when she heard him arguing with Lonnie at the front door. Lilly’s stomach turned as she recognized the drunken slur in Gary’s voice. Lilly stayed quietly in the kitchen, hoping Lonnie would diffuse the dynamite. She heard Lonnie’s car start and sighed in relief, but only momentarily.
Gary walked through the parlor calling, “Lilly cunt.”
Lilly cringed in the kitchen, and then, knowing he would find her, met him in the dining room.
“Gary, what’s your problem?” Lilly faked annoyance to cover her fear.
“Little Lilly! ‘I’m not ready to get involved Gary. I just got divorced.’ Poor Lilly who was that last night? You were certainly pouring it on him, bitch?” Gary walked around her and then faced her in a menacing stance.
“Gary, get out of here. You’re drunk, and I’ve got to study for finals.” Lilly’s voice shook.
“Not quite. You owe me something. You used me.” Gary held her left arm drawing her to him powerfully.
Lilly’s arm and shoulder began to ache, and then fear exploded in her. She began to scream, the weak gasping, scream of the panicked, and she lashed at him ineffectively. Gary tried to silence her panic by slapping her.
Lilly felt she was suffocating. The front hall took on a hazy brilliance in the surreal seconds before she fainted. Gary drew back, appalled by the drama of her response. He bent over her uncertain of what to expect.
Carly and Issy had met in the hallway upstairs where they had heard him call Lilly a cunt. They had waited listening until they heard Lilly’s body hit the floor with a thud, and then they came charging down the stairs. Carly grabbed a broom that was against the landing and started hitting Gary. Issy began pulling him toward the door.
“What the fuck …” Gary retorted. “This house is full of …” Gary started, but the Signore sisters didn’t seem ready to relent so he escaped instead of finishing his insult.
“Jesus, Carly, watch that thing. You hit me,” Issy called,
Carly whispered, “What should we do about her?”
Before they could do anything, Lilly woke screaming “Tony” and clawing the air. She sat up abruptly, saw her roommates, quieted, and hugged her knees in the sitting equivalent of a fetal position. Issy sat on the floor next to her.
“Lilly, did your ex-husband hurt you?”
“Tony? No, never. Tony isn’t like that. He never touched me … bad. It’s just … oh, nothing. I’ve got to study. … Thanks though.”
Lilly sat upright and then gathered her books from the kitchen and raced to her room upstairs. Carly and Issy watched her and their eyes met.
Lilly found another band immediately. The next few weeks were intense, between finals and the recurrence of the screaming nightmares. Lilly could not explain to her roommates the reason she was disrupting their nights. She became fearful of falling asleep. The nightmares that and been wreaking havoc with her home life abruptly stopped.
Lilly didn’t see Adam for a month. She was playing with her new band when she saw him in the audience. He was sitting at a table with another man and a girl of about twenty. Lilly couldn’t tell whom the girl was with, but Adam and the girl interacted with familiarity. Lilly was discouraged. She decided it was probably a coincidence that he was there since she had only played with this band for two weeks. By the time the break came, Lilly was prepared to greet Adam casually.
Adam stood as she approached, then offering her the seat, he introduced his sister, Sharon, and her friend. Lilly sat, smiling. Adam explained that he had been very busy and had heard she had changed bands. He didn’t offer any comment on her new band.
She explained, “It’s a new band. Our repertoire is mostly Heinz 57, but we’ll find a style. This is my fourth band in a little over a year.”
Sharon asked, “How long have you been a professional musician?”
“Geez, forever. My first band was together for over five years. We were really good.”
“What was it called? Maybe I saw it.”
“No, we played Westchester County mostly, sometimes Manhattan or one of the boroughs. Once in a while, Connecticut, or New Jersey. We played a summer in the Hamptons, but we mainly hit the New York Metro area. When we played the Brooklyn Academy of Music, we warmed up for major bands.”
Adam then asked, “How did you end up here?”
“Nursing school. I finished my first year, and I’m taking summer courses. What’s with the twenty questions?” Lilly was embarrassed. “How’s the grapes?”
Lilly was confident Adam had come to see her. After the last set, he offered to follow her home to make sure she got there all right. She accepted. At her house, they drank coffee and joked around, moving closer to starting a love affair.
Adam and Lilly teetered on the brink of intimacy for most of the summer. At times, Lilly would feel strong desire for him, and she had to consciously keep her eyes off the crotch of his pants. Other times, she’d feel terribly self-conscious about her scarred body and fearful at the prospect of being alone with a naked man. Adam was exasperated by her hot and cold signals. He found it a challenge to maintain a non-sexual relationship with a woman.
Toward the end of summer, Lilly’s band played a bar in Gowanda, a town forty miles from Jamestown but only twenty miles from Adam’s farm in Little Valley.
Adam said casually, “You could stay with me for the weekend and save all the nighttime traveling.”
Lilly heard this as “sleep with me or it’s over.” She shrugged and murmured in a noncommittal way. When Lilly left her house on Friday to drive to Gowanda, she brought her toothbrush and clothes for the weekend in her saddlebags, but her decision was not really set.
That evening Adam acted with uncharacteristic clumsiness, both in word and action. Lilly was taken aback by his nervousness and felt protective of this vulnerable man. She followed him home after playing, confident she could handle herself.
Lilly wanted to sit and chat to reestablish the intimacy that had been diminished by using separate vehicles. Adam was more anxious to get Lilly to his bedroom. He took her by the hand and led her upstairs.
In his bedroom, he started kissing her and fondling her over her clothes, guiding her down to the bed. Lilly felt nonplused, wondering if he was reading mental
cue cards.
Adam fumbled with her clothes for a few minutes, and then Lilly decided to take matters into her own hands. She stood, switching the lamp back on and surveyed the room. Adam half sat up and began to make pissed off noises.
Lilly leaned down and kissed him square on the mouth. “Shh.”
She stood and went to the radio on his dresser and tuned in the public radio station from Buffalo, which played all-night jazz. Then she stood before him and slowly, seductively undressed.
Adam sat up and took off his shirt and then under the sheet, he removed his pants without showing any flesh. Lilly put one knee on the bed and leaned to kiss him, but he pulled her in and shut off the light. Their foreplay was minimal, and they went straight to intercourse.
Lilly was annoyed by his contented sleep, which followed. She was unsure if the encounter had been so empty because they were just learning each other or because Adam was not as debonair as she had thought.
The next morning, Lilly woke first. She showered quickly and then ventured downstairs wearing one of his tee shirts. This was only the second time she had been in his house, and she wandered around, trying to get a better understanding of him. She found blueberries and juice in the kitchen. She poured blueberries in bowls with sugar and milk and brought them back to Adam’s room.
Adam was in the bathroom, so Lilly got back into bed and waited expectantly, but Adam came back to the bedroom fully dressed.
He smiled at her, said “Good morning,” and then dug for socks in a drawer.
“Adam?” Lilly asked and then laughed invitingly, lifting the sheet.
Adam resisted. “Lilly, I have to go to Hammondsport. We’re moving a barrel here today.”
Lilly sat up. “Moving a barrel? That certainly sounds important,” she pouted.
“Lilly.” Adam sat on the bed. “It’s not an ordinary barrel. It’s a white oak barrel, and it holds almost two thousand gallons. It’s for the Blanco noir grapes. This year we might get four hundred and ten dollars per ton … this means nothing to you, but it is important to me.”
“OK, OK,” Lilly conceded, not thoroughly convinced. A short while later, she watched from the bedroom window as Adam drove off. She dressed and decided to return to Jamestown. Issy and Jane were sitting on the porch when she arrived.
A Yonkers Kinda Girl Page 28
