Love in Many Languages

by Jamie Bennett

  I ran to the door and opened it. “Tanner!” I called. “Stop.”

  The rider slowed more then turned into my driveway. Tanner pulled off his helmet. “Hi, Ione. I was just—I happened to be here, in Hamtramck, and I—”

  “Next time you come by here, you don’t have to ride past. You can stop and come in,” I told him. “I would like it if we were friends, because I think you’re fun and I like you so far, and it would be nice to get to know you better. But that would be all, ever. Because we’re too far apart in age and experience. Do you see what I mean?”

  He looked at me.

  “I really hope you’ll come by and hang out some time.” I smiled at him. “I think you’re pretty cool, with your whole motorcycle thing going.”

  Tanner ducked his head, and when he picked it back up, he had a little grin. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. Look around for someone who would like a ride on the back of your bike. I bet there are a lot of girls at your school who would love to.”

  “I’ll think about that,” he told me. We both looked at his cool wheels. “I have to go. My brother is probably having a conniption right now. He thinks I’m out with some rotten apples and scamps.”

  I laughed. “Is that what he says, really? Scamps?”

  “I’m sure that’s what he thinks. As soon as the sun goes down, he locks all the windows and doors. He’s so straight it’s frightening,” Tanner told me.

  “I like that,” I admitted. “I like him, so much.”

  Tanner stared at me. “Wow, you really do. Does he know that?”

  “I don’t try to hide things. He knows.”

  “My brother—”

  “What’s going on out here?” Sania called from her porch. “Why are you yelling in the driveway?”

  We had not, in any way, been yelling. “Do you want to come inside?” I asked Tanner.

  “Nah, I wasn’t kidding about my brother. I better head home before Cooper calls the cops.”

  “Are you the man who has been riding up and down this street on that contraption?” Sania was coming down the steps, looking angry, as usual.

  “Gotta go.” Tanner hopped on the bike, revved the engine, and took off.

  “Ione, is that a gang member? Are you having gangs at your house now?” Sania demanded.

  “Of course not. He’s a friend of mine.”

  “You have many friends,” she sniffed, and gave me a once-over.

  Kind thoughts flew out the window because I could read her meaning perfectly. “That’s a nasty thing to say. Tanner is in high school and he is a friend, nothing more. He rides his motorcycle here sometimes and it’s not against the law, as far as I know, to use a public street! Unless you’re going to try to turn this into a footpath, you can’t stop him.”

  “Noise pollution!” she was yelling as I went back into my house but I didn’t bother to answer her. Instead, I went upstairs and organized Corrie’s belongings again, looking for clues about her. Something about her last name, or her family, friends, anything. It made me sad to look at what she had grabbed as she left the house off Seven Mile: one black tennis shoe, one pink one, grungy t-shirts, old jeans. The only clue I found was that one shirt had “CM” written with marker inside the neck, like someone had cared enough about it at one point to want to claim it. And now she had left it all here with me, so she had nothing. I looked at the window, lit up with Sania’s monster lightbulbs, wondering where Corrie was sleeping.

  I walked over and leaned against the screen a little, hoping for a breath of air. It was just so damn hot. Sania and Devesh came out on their deck and tonight they were loud enough for me to catch more than a few words, but I still couldn’t understand the language. I looked past them as they angrily gestured to each other, staring longingly at their pool, wishing I could go submerge in it and float for a while. I went back to the couch and had dreams about my grandmother, chopping cabbage in the kitchen, giving me popsicles when I came in from swimming in the Kaminskis’ pool next door.

  I was at Reception the next day, with Dov and Marat and Leo hanging out while they ate lunch, when Cooper got there. “Here,” Marat said, and handed back my phone. “Now you have unlimited minutes.”

  “Hey, thanks!” I smiled as I took it. I didn’t use my phone that much, but if I ever started to, that would come in handy. “That was really nice of you to get that for me. Hi, Cooper.”

  “Hi.” He looked around at the three guys sitting at my desk. “Ready?”

  “Sure. I just need to find my right shoe.” I checked the kitchen, and glanced in the ladies’ room. Oddly enough, it turned out that I had left it in Karis’ office.

  “I was wondering when you were going to come back and get this,” she said, pushing my espadrille toward me with her neat little black pump. “Is that Cooper here?” She put her face to the crack in her office door to stare into Reception.

  “You can come out to talk him,” I encouraged her. “In fact, I wish you would. I’m interested in what you think.”

  Both Karis and Reid followed me out, which meant that there were five people from our office standing around Cooper.

  He and Reid shook hands. “Ione tells us that you have a robotics firm?” Reid asked. “She mentioned that you’ve been working hard to keep it going.”

  Cooper looked over at me and I smiled encouragingly. “Yes, that’s right,” he said to Reid, and gave some more background.

  “I thought your company was in receivership,” Dove mentioned. “I did a little research,” he explained to the rest of us. “I think there was an issue with a line of credit to purchase equipment, taken out about five years ago?”

  “No, we’re not in receivership,” Cooper informed him, staring. “We’re back on track.”

  “Can you tell me…” Karis started, and then asked him at least 10 technical questions about his product, their manufacture, and his business practices. Cooper answered each one, and then Marat had some things to say, as did Leo. Cooper’s voice started to get a little hoarse so I got him one of our specialty juice mixes. Everyone who came to the office loved them.

  “Thank you,” he told me, and drained it. He ran his finger under his collar.

  “We should get back to work,” Reid told Karis and his employees. Looking over their shoulders, they all filtered away from my desk, and I put on both shoes to head out with Cooper.

  “Tough crowd,” he commented.

  “Did you think so? They’re smart, that’s for sure. I think I must work with the smartest people in Detroit, besides you. Especially Karis. But there are different kinds of smart, right? I mean, Karis has a terrible time with some things, like acceptance of the human body in its natural state. I’m totally fine with nudity.”

  Cooper was shaking his head. “You’re nudity smart.”

  “And in other ways,” I said softly, a little hurt.

  “I know that.” He looked at me seriously. “You don’t have to prove that to me.”

  I shrugged.

  “You have some good friends at work,” he said, and opened the door of his car for me. “Do you usually all eat together like that?”

  “Well, there are usually a few people hanging out up at the front. Their jobs are very stressful and it’s nice to get away into a more relaxed atmosphere like the reception desk.”

  “The place a few yards away from where they work.”

  “A few yards can make a real difference. Think of the Maginot Line.” I made a slicing motion with my hand. “I remember reading about it once. Just one little line was supposed to keep out an army.”

  “Uh, yeah. I’m not sure that was an actual line as much as it was a series of fortifications. But there’s the Great Wall of China. Hadrian’s Wall. They’re only yards wide, and they made a major difference.”

  “Exactly,” I told him, thinking that I would look up Hadrian’s Wall as soon as I could find my phone. It was probably still at my desk, where Marat had been messing with it.

  “What had you t
old them about me?” he asked.

  “Karis knows all about you, but I think I mentioned to Dov where you work, and to Leo what your last name was.”

  “Why were you talking about me?”

  I turned to him, puzzled. “Why would I not talk about you? I told you, you interest me. I talk about things that I think are interesting. I talk about what we study in Japanese, and lately, I’ve been talking a lot about rebuilding carburetors and Bangladesh, where my neighbors are from. Not just you.”

  “Your interests are varied,” he noted.

  “They are.”

  Cooper drove over near the Mack Avenue plant and we went along slowly, looking at the different houses. “What’s the address where you think your friend is hanging out?” he asked.

  “I don’t have an exact address. She goes to an abandoned house, and I know it’s close, right around here.”

  His foot came off the gas. “You don’t know where we’re going?”

  “No, I do. We’re looking for the place where her boyfriend hangs out. I’m sure she went back with him, because he’s what she knows. Turn right at the corner. Corrie said something once about one of the churches on the next street over, how they try to help people. I’m assuming they tried to help her so she must have been spending time in this part of town. She talked about a bar, too, where she went a lot with her boyfriend until he got into a fight there. She didn’t say the name, but I recognized which one she meant when she talked about pennies in the cement floor of the bathroom. That place is just around the corner—I used to go there when I was in high school. And the house where she hangs out has blue shutters that reminded her of my house but it doesn’t have a door.” I swiveled my head, back and forth, looking. “There were other things.”

  “But you have an address for the other place, correct? We could drive there directly.” He sounded very doubtful.

  “Turn left. No, there are dogs at the other house and she was afraid of them. I have a strong feeling about this.” The more I had thought about it, the more sure I had become. Then I saw a yellow traffic sign with a big arrow on it. It was telling us to keep going, I knew it.

  Cooper turned left, glancing over at me. “We’re following a feeling? What—”

  “Stop.” We were in front of a house with sheets of plywood partially covering the windows, windows with faded blue shutters, and with the door missing. It looked like the house was yawning, half-closed eyes and an open mouth. “This is it. See how there’s a path through the tall grass to the door? People are using this place.”

  Cooper leaned over me a little, looking at the abandoned house. I took a deep breath of him. “It could be anybody. It doesn’t mean that your friend is here.”

  I opened the car door. “Corrie?” I called, and started up the path.

  Cooper slammed the door behind himself and jogged ahead of me. “Let me go first,” he was saying, but then a familiar, partially pink head peaked through the gaping mouth where the door had been.

  “Ione?” Corrie asked. She sounded shocked.

  “Oh, I’m so glad I found you!” I pushed past Cooper and ran up the steps, and threw my arms around her.

  “How did you know I was here?” she wondered. At first she didn’t hug me back, but then she rested her head on my shoulder, for just a moment.

  “I’m a good guesser,” I explained.

  “Ione pays attention to things,” Cooper said behind me, and Corrie’s head jerked up. “You gave her some clues.”

  “That’s just Cooper,” I reassured her. “He’ll drive us back to my house.”

  She pulled away. “No, I’m good here. I’m not going back to your house.”

  I held her shoulders and looked into her face. She had big rings around her eyes and smudges of dirt or something on her cheeks. “You wouldn’t have to stay with me,” I said. “I’m not going to try to make you, or anything. It’s just that I have all your stuff. I’m sure you want it.”

  “Yeah.” She looked back over her shoulder into the house.

  “I was thinking that I’d make a really big dinner tonight. We can do your laundry and you can take a long, hot shower. We could go get some dye and redo your hair, if you want.” I gently tugged on a faded pink curl. “I was thinking you might want to try a new color. Blue?”

  She moved her hand to her head. “Maybe.”

  “I really hope you’ll come. I’ve been worried about you, a lot.”

  “You were pissed at me the other night,” she mumbled.

  “No, I was pissed at Fox. But we made up, and he’s not going to bother you, I promise. Will you come, please?” I waited.

  She waited too, and glanced back behind herself again. Then she almost whispered, “Yeah. That would be good.”

  I opened up my purse and gave her some money. “Take a car or the bus, ok?”

  “Ok.” Corrie looked at me for a moment. “Thanks for coming, Ione,” she whispered.

  I heard voices inside the house. “Is your…ok. I’ll see you really soon.” The voices got louder, angrier, and Corrie’s eyes got bigger.

  Cooper put his hand on my shoulder. “Ione, we need to go.” He pulled me gently. “Let’s go.”

  “I’ll see you soon,” I repeated to Corrie. Cooper was tugging on my arm. “I’ll see you really soon.” I looked back over my shoulder as we got into the car, but she had disappeared into the gaping mouth of the house.

  “Who’s the guy with her there?” Cooper asked as he drove away. “Do you think it’s the boyfriend who’s no good?”

  I nodded and turned to look out the back window at the house. “I’m sure it is. I know he hit her. I want to get her away from him.” The words came out fiercely. “No one should be treated that way, and she understands it, in a way. It’s just scary to leave. I know how it is.”

  “Do you?” His voice sounded different, so I turned from the window to look at him.

  “I told you I had some bad friends in high school. My boyfriend wasn’t any good, either. He used to push me around a lot.”

  “Your grandma didn’t notice?”

  “She was sick already. I was really lonely and scared…he was someone.” I shrugged. “I figured it out, eventually. He moved out west, to Missouri, and the last I heard he was in prison. I kind of thought he’d end up that way. It didn’t take a lot of reading him to see that he was pretty bad news. I don’t want that for Corrie. She’s so young, and she’s making such a bad mistake.”

  “How well do you know her, though?”

  “We spent a whole weekend together, but I knew right away that I needed to help her, even before that. Sometimes you just know.” I nodded.

  “Uh huh.” He looked intently at the road. “Do you need to get back to the office right away, or can we actually have lunch during our lunch hour?”

  “I have time to eat. Karis told me to take as long with you as I wanted.” I tilted my head and looked at him. “You can drop me off at the office.”

  “I’d rather go with you to lunch, if that’s ok.” He glanced over at me.

  I nodded. “Thank you for coming with me.”

  “You didn’t need me.”

  Still. “Thanks, anyway. I was glad you were there.”

  Cooper looked over again. “Me, too.”

  Chapter 8

  The phone rang and then stopped. Then it started again.

  “Are you going to get that?” Cooper asked me.

  “Huh?” Oh, it was me who was ringing! I searched behind me in the crack of the car seat and dug out my phone. That was where it had been.

  “Fox?” I answered, confused. “Why are you calling me?” I didn’t even know that he had my number.

  “Why wouldn’t I call you?” the voice on the other end asked. “This is what boyfriends do, call their girlfriends.”

  It made me wince. “Yeah, ok. Sure. What do you need?”

  “I just wanted to talk.” He started to tell a long story about his laptop going haywire and how he had gone to some com
puter place to get it fixed, and how the woman helping him there had hit on him, and how cute she was.

  “That’s nice,” I commented.

  “Ione, I’m telling you about another woman trying to pick me up,” he said. “Don’t you care?”

  “Well, if your heart is telling you to go with another woman, then you should,” I counseled him.

  “You’re telling me to cheat on you? Wait a minute, are you thinking that we have an open relationship?”

  “We haven’t really established that. We totally could, I’m down with that,” I tried to soothe him.

  “We’ll talk about this later.” He hung up immediately, or maybe he stayed really quiet while I kept saying hello for a while, until I realized that the call had ended.

  “Was that Fox?” Cooper asked me. “Are you telling him to see other people?”

  “I’m told him that he should follow his heart.” I sighed. “I guess he is.”

  “To you,” Cooper clarified. “His heart leads to you.”

  I sighed again and slumped over. “Yes, it seems to.”

  “What about you? Your heart?”

  “I’ve been trying to figure it out. Usually things are much more clear to me! He really, really wants to sleep with me, and I don’t want to hurt his feelings, but the thought of having sex with him makes my skin crawl.”

  “Jesus, Ione. If that’s your reaction, then I would think you shouldn’t have sex with him.” Cooper was blushing a little, a clear, warm color on his high cheekbones.

  “I told him that I’m not ready. I don’t have sex with people if my skin is crawling. I just, it’s Fox…” I trailed off. The thought of even being naked with him was disconcerting, and I didn’t usually have any issues with being naked. “I can’t sleep with him if I feel this way. I don’t even do casual. I mean, my number for sex is only two and I never enjoyed it that much. One was with the boyfriend who was such a jerk to me in high school, and he was kind of rough. It wasn’t great. The other was the boyfriend after that, but he cried every time we did it because he was really religious and it made him feel guilty. He called me Rahab who I looked up, and she was a beautiful prostitute in the Bible. So it wasn’t very fun.”