Jumper

by Steven Gould

  Millie introduced me to the host, a graduate student in anthropology named Paul something. I shook hands.

  “So,” he asked. “What’s your major?” He looked at my clothes and face. “Let me guess. Art history, freshman.”

  I shook my head. “Sorry. I’m from out of town. No major. No grade level.”

  “Oh.” He sounded disappointed. “Where from?”

  “New York City.”

  “Oh. You related to Millie?”

  Millie, who’d been talking to someone else during this conversation, overheard the last bit. “No. He’s my date.” She said it firmly.

  Paul something blinked. “Yes, ma’am. I just thought he seemed like a younger cousin or something.”

  Millie shook her finger under his nose. “You sexist pig! If he were three years older than me you wouldn’t say anything. What a load of hypocritical bullshit!”

  Paul took a step back. “Okay! Okay.” He was grinning. “He’s your date. It’s not without cultural precedent.”

  Millie looked at me. “Shut your mouth. Something will fly in it.”

  She pulled me off to the kitchen, where the bar was set up.

  I decided not to comment.

  She introduced me to a series of persons. I smiled and shook hands, but said very little. Millie had a glass of wine. I followed her with my ginger ale.

  Sometime later, I found myself on the patio with Millie and two of her acquaintances. We were talking about New York, its crime, and its poverty. The one person who hadn’t been there had the strongest opinions.

  “I don’t buy the homeless thing,” this woman was saying. “I think they’re on drugs or lazy. They don’t want to work so they beg.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “That’s pretty black and white.”

  “What are you saying, that it’s a racist thing?”

  Millie hid her mouth behind her hand.

  “No. I’m saying your viewpoint is too simplistic. Sure there are people like you describe. But I’ve also seen women with kids who can’t get work because the only address they have is a street corner and...”

  Millie put her hand on my arm. “That’s Mark,” she said quietly.

  I looked over at the door. The guy standing there was a little taller than me with wide shoulders. He had blond hair and a beard. There was a girl under one of his arms with her arms around his waist. He was looking our way, at Millie.

  I looked back at the woman with the opinions. “You would be surprised at the number of people on the street who don’t fit your profile.” I let it drop.

  Millie pulled in on herself, crossing her arms.

  Mark continued to stare.

  The band started a slow number, Otis Redding’s “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay.” “Come on, Millie. Let’s dance.”

  She turned her head sharply, as if she’d forgotten I was there, and gave me a small smile. “Okay.”

  “Please excuse us,” I said, and led her across the patio, to the door that led to the dance floor. Mark seemed to watch us the whole way.

  “Jesus Christ,” Millie said in my ear after we were on the floor. “Did you see the way he was staring?”

  “Yeah. Don’t let him bother you.”

  “Easier said than done.”

  I stroked her back and she relaxed a little, swaying mechanically to the music.

  “How long does it take?”

  “Huh?” I pressed her a little closer. She didn’t seem to mind.

  “To get over somebody? Especially when they won’t leave you alone.”

  “Who broke up with who?”

  She stiffened slightly. “I broke up with him. He was sleeping with Sissy.”

  “Sissy.”

  “Yeah. The limpet mine under his arm.”

  “Ah. But you still cared about him. And he betrayed you.”

  Her body stiffened and she buried her face in my neck.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Mark.

  I shrugged his hand off and continued dancing.

  He grabbed at my arm. Millie saw him and stepped away. I turned to face him.

  “Just want to cut in, man,” he said, arms spread. There was a smile on his face, but it was mean.

  I took Millie’s arm and walked off the dance floor. He followed, tried to turn Millie around by the shoulder. I felt sick to my stomach, remote, the way I did when I knew Dad had been drinking and was going to punish me. I stepped between him and Millie. He shoved me back into Millie. She was wearing heels and one of them caught in the door sill. She flailed her arms to keep from falling.

  I steadied her, then looked around.

  We were standing by the door to the room. There was a row of light switches behind me. Mark was standing with his legs spread wide apart, his hands raised. The closest dancers had stopped and were watching us.

  I felt like throwing up. I felt like running. I felt like killing Mark for making me feel this way, for treating Millie the way he had.

  I turned abruptly and used both hands to switch off the lights. The room went dark, the only light coming from the patio door. I jumped behind Mark, a position I’d marked before hitting the switches, grabbed him around the waist, and lifted him from the floor. He flailed his arms and one of his elbows smacked me in the eye, but I didn’t let go. I jumped to the observation deck of Will Rogers Airport, sixty miles to the southwest of Stillwater, and dropped him. He staggered away from me, falling to his knees in the suddenly different, brightly lit place, putting his hands out before him to catch himself. Before he could regain his feet and turn around, I jumped away, back to the dark spot on the dance floor. Somebody turned the lights back on.

  Millie was looking at me with wide eyes. I felt my face and winced. She came forward and tilted my head back, so she could look at my eye.

  “Ouch. We better put some ice on that. Where’s Mark?”

  I looked around. People started dancing again. I stuck to the truth. “I think he left while the lights were out.”

  “Did he hit you?”

  “His elbow, I think.”

  She pulled me to the kitchen, her arm intertwined in mine. As we walked she kept looking around her, looking for Mark.

  We passed Sissy in the hall, talking on the phone, one ear plugged with a finger against the noise of the band. She was speaking loudly into the receiver.

  “You’re where? Don’t give me that! You were just here a minute ago! No, I won’t come get you! You want me to drive to someplace you couldn’t possibly be? If you don’t want to tell me the truth, don’t tell me anything. Fuck you!” She slammed the receiver down and stomped off toward the dance floor.

  Millie raised her eyebrows and smiled. “Well, I guess he’s started lying to her, too. What did you do to him?”

  I blinked and kept my mouth shut.

  In the kitchen she filled a dish towel with ice cubes and eased it against my face. It hurt, but I was enjoying the attention too much to complain.

  “Does that feel better?”

  “Well, no, but it’s probably keeping the swelling down.”

  She laughed.

  We went back to the patio then, with fresh drinks and the towel-wrapped ice. After a bit, I did another slow dance with Millie. Then she danced a couple of fast dances with Paul and another friend. Then we left.

  “I’m glad I went,” she said in the car, “but I’m really sorry about your eye.”

  “It’s okay. I had a good time. It was worth the trip.”

  She looked at me over her glasses. Then she sighed and returned her attention to the road. We drove down by the university; then she pulled into a block of apartments.

  “Whoa. What about my hotel?”

  She smiled a little smile. “Waste of money.”

  “I have the money.”

  She turned off the ignition and stared straight ahead for a moment. Then she turned to me and said, “I want you to stay at my place.” She averted her eyes as she said it.

  “Are you sure?”
r />   She nodded.

  “Okay.”

  She had a two-bedroom apartment, which she shared with a roommate. When I asked, she said, “Sherry went home for the weekend, to her folks in Tulsa.”

  I dropped my bag by the couch and sat down. The room was filled with plants, hanging, on stands, and on the floor. The couch, a small coffee table, and a large wicker chair sat among the greenery like clearings in a jungle. Leaning back, I studied a large, frondy thing in a clay pot over my head.

  My heart was pounding very hard.

  “What do you call this potted plant of Damocles?”

  She finished hanging up our coats.

  “It’s a Boston fern and it’s hardly hanging by a thread.”

  “My mother used to keep them. I never knew the name.”

  I had a dark memory, a vivid flash of Dad heaving pot after pot out the back door to smash on the patio tiles, all the time raging while a small boy cringed in the corner, crying because his mother was gone.

  “Would you like something to drink?”

  My mouth was very dry suddenly, or maybe it was all along and I just realized it. “Water, please. Lots of water.”

  She brought it in a sixteen-ounce tumbler with ice. I drank half of it at once, chilling the back of my throat so it ached.

  “You were thirsty.”

  “Yeah.”

  She sat down beside me, but didn’t lean back. She reminded me of a bird, perched for instant flight.

  I sighed. “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea, Millicent.”

  She looked at the floor. “Am I being too pushy? You were the one who talked about sexist assumptions.”

  I remembered her speech, back at the party, to Paul. I smiled. “No. That’s not the problem. I like that. I like you. But I’m really nervous and, well, there’s something you should know.”

  She edged away from me on the couch. “Don’t tell me you have herpes!”

  My eyes opened wider and I blushed. “No.” I lowered my voice, put my elbows on my knees, and stared at the floor. “I’m a virgin,” I mumbled.

  She leaned forward. “A what? I couldn’t hear that.”

  “I’m a virgin! All right?”

  She flinched and I realized I’d shouted. “Sorry.” I looked back down at the floor. I could feel my ears getting hotter and hotter.

  She moved on the couch. I glanced sideways and saw that she’d leaned back. Her mouth was open and she was staring at me. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  I looked back down at the floor and shook my head. I felt miserable, ashamed.

  “How old are you?”

  “You know. Eighteen years and two months. You helped me celebrate, remember?”

  Her tension, that impression of impending flight, was completely gone. She sat back, her hands in her lap open and relaxed. She shook her head slowly. “Wow. A virgin.”

  “Yes! Is it such a crime?”

  I felt her move on the couch again, felt her arm move around my shoulders and pull me back to lean against the couch. She was smiling at me, gently and tenderly.

  I started crying.

  I clenched my eyelids shut and held my breath. Water leaked down my face. Stop it! I felt so small, so ashamed.

  Her arm pulled away from me, from my back, for just a moment and I felt her rejection like a stabbing knife. That’s torn it, I couldn’t help thinking. Now she knows what a screwup I am. Then her arm came back and her other arm surrounded me, gathered me in, pulled me to her.

  “Oh, Davy. It’s all right.” She rocked me and the sobs broke free, ragged and hard. She pressed her lips against my hair. “It’s all right, let it out. Go ahead and cry.”

  I couldn’t stop then. Between the sobs I kept saying, over and over again, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

  “Shhhh. It’s okay to cry. It’s okay.” And she rocked me and rocked me.

  But while she was saying it was okay, I could hear my Dad’s voice, Crybaby, crybaby. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. I’ll give you something to cry about. And I couldn’t help saying, “I’m sorry.” Still, the tears and sobs went on and on.

  Oh, God, it hurt.

  Finally the sobs lessened and the tears slowed. Millie kept rocking me gently until I straightened up. “I need to blow my nose.”

  She handed me a box of tissue from the coffee table, keeping one hand on my shoulder. I didn’t feel ashamed anymore, but I was embarrassed. It took three tissues to clear my sinuses. Millie leaned back and pulled her legs up underneath her.

  I held the used tissues in my hand, clenched into a sodden little ball. “Sorry about that,” I said.

  “You don’t need to apologize. You obviously needed it. I’m glad you could do it with me.”

  I looked at her. The expression on her face, concerned, tender, threatened to bring the tears back. I sighed. “I’m not used to doing that. It seems wrong to inflict it on you.”

  She looked exasperated. “Men! Why the hell is our culture so screwed up? It’s all right to cry. It’s a blessing, a benefit. You’ve got just as much right to cry as anybody.”

  I leaned back, exhausted. Mom used to hold me when I cried.

  It was hard to look at her, but I didn’t want to leave. This surprised me. It would have been so easy to jump back to New York. To run away. There was a great deal to be said for escape.

  “I’m going to make some tea,” she said. She stood and ruffled my hair briskly, messing it.

  I looked up at her and she changed the motion to a caress, a gentle motion that trailed off as she walked to the kitchen. It left a ghost feeling of her hand, warm and light, in my hair.

  I got up and shuffled to the bathroom. My eyes were red and puffy and my nose still ran. I washed my face in warm water and toweled it dry. I ran wet fingers through my hair where Millie had mussed it.

  “Why is it, Davy, that you know everything about my family and I know nothing about yours?” She brought the tea into the living room on a lacquered tray. The pot and cups were Japanese with unglazed rims. She poured.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Well?”

  “Huh?”

  “Your family,” she reminded.

  I sipped the tea. “This is really good. Really delicious.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “That’s what I thought. You’re a good listener, Davy, and you can change the subject on a dime. You’ve hardly talked about yourself at all.”

  “I talk... too much.”

  “You talk about books, you talk about plays, you talk about movies, you talk about places, you talk about food, you talk about current events. You don’t talk about yourself.”

  I opened my mouth, then shut it again. I hadn’t really thought about it. Sure, I didn’t talk about the jumping, but the rest? “Well, there’s not much to say. Not like those stories of growing up with four brothers.”

  She smiled. “It’s not going to work. If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine. But I’m not going to be distracted again, nor fooled into talking about those idiots again.”

  She poured more tea into my cup.

  I frowned. “Do I really do that?”

  “What? Not talk about yourself? Yes.”

  “No, try and distract you.”

  She stared at me. “You are fucking amazing. I’ve never seen someone so good at changing the subject.”

  “I don’t do it on purpose.”

  She laughed. “Sure. Maybe you don’t do it consciously, but you sure as hell do it on purpose.”

  I sipped my tea and stared at the wall. She set the tea pot down and scooted closer to me. “Look at me, Davy.”

  I turned. She wasn’t smiling and her gaze was calm, serious.

  She spoke, “I won’t force you to talk about things you don’t want to talk about. You have a right to privacy. If you don’t want to talk about things, fine. From the way you’ve changed the subject, I don’t think you’ve ever lied to me. Would you say that’s true?”

  I thought about it, r
emembering our time in New York and the phone calls. “I think that’s true. I certainly don’t intend to lie to you. I don’t remember ever lying to you.”

  She nodded. “That wasn’t the case with Mark. I couldn’t trust him not to lie. If I ever find out that you have, whatever we have together is over. Got that?”

  I stared at her. “Yes, ma’am, I’ve got it.” I looked at her out of the corner of my eye, sideways. “Uh. Does this mean we actually have something? Like a relationship?”

  She looked at the carpet. “Well, perhaps.” She turned and looked straight at me again, levelly. “Yes. We have a relationship. We’re about to see if it’s going to become an intimate one.”

  I shifted on the couch. My ears were hot and I couldn’t help smiling.

  She sighed and looked at the ceiling, but the corners of her mouth twitched. I slumped down on the couch and curled into her, my head on her shoulder. She put her arm around me and squeezed. She didn’t say anything, just sat there, holding me gently.

  After a while I started talking. I told her about Dad, Mom, and running away from home. I told about getting mugged in New York City. I told her about the hotel in Brooklyn and the incident in the bathroom. I told her about the trucker who wanted to rape me. She listened quietly, a hand on my shoulder. My voice seemed remote as I talked, not really mine.

  I didn’t talk about jumping and I didn’t talk about the bank robbery. A part of me still felt bad about stealing the money. I still had dreams about getting caught. Telling her about the jumping would just confuse things.

  I stopped talking finally, my voice sort of trailing off. I felt ashamed, like I’d just confessed doing terrible things. I couldn’t look at her, even though she was there, right next to me, hand rubbing my shoulder, the warmth of a breast against my right arm, the feel of her shoulder against my cheek.

  I also felt ashamed for the things I hadn’t said, and less than worthy of her concern and attention. I felt like crying again, but didn’t want to. I still felt bad about that.