“Jazz. Blues. The old stuff,” he said. “Billie, Etta … Otis …”
“Oh, so you’re on a first name basis with these artists, is that it?”
“Oh yeah. Want me to sing you somethin’?”
“Please, no. I’ve heard you sing and for real, you should never be allowed to do that. Ever.”
Then he was leaning into me, crooning You’re My Thrill.
It was surprisingly soulful, because let’s face it, part of Billie Holiday’s appeal is how wonderfully discordant she is. Gradually, I stopped laughing, then I wasn’t even smiling, and Ian’s mouth was right at my ear and my eyes were shut and his voice lowered further. I don’t know how it happened but a moment that should have been corny wasn’t corny at all.
The song ended and Ian didn’t pull away. Instead he pulled me toward him, so I was reclining against his chest and his arm was draped around me and for the hundredth time that day I forgot to be discreet. I turned to face him, and our faces were so painfully close, our lips almost touching. Mine tingled a little, waiting for the contact.
Then the text came in. Just as I was wondering whether I should release him. Not just now, but for the evening. He’d spent almost all his time with me since Thursday afternoon. I was about to say that when he mentions the bonfire.
“We should change though,” he says looking at my bare legs. “The smoke helps a little but there’s still no-see-ums that can eat you alive out there.”
“There’s what?” I laugh.
“No-see-ums,” he says again.
“You mean …” I squint, then hazard a guess. “Sand flies?”
Ian shrugs. “Yeah. Whatever you call ‘em.”
“Oh my god, you’re so country.”
“And you love it.”
“I don’t hate it,” I correct him. Then I give him the side-eye. “No-see-ums,” I scoff.
At Wayne and Patrick’s, a debate is in progress when we arrive, about who is allowed to get drunk and who has to remain reasonably sober to drive the van, which they call “the Green Bean”. It was parked out front when Ian and I got there, a hunter-green camper-style Ford with rusty wheel wells and mud spatter that looks like it’s been caked on for at least six months.
“I’ll drive,” Ian says. “I’m not drinkin’ tonight.”
“Cool,” Wayne says, slapping extending his fist for some pound. “Then let’s bounce.”
We’re a party of eight by the time we get going. Besides me and Ian, Wayne, Patrick and Kwan, there is Emily who I almost don’t recognize when she’s sober, a friend of Emily’s and two other girls whose names I don’t bother committing to memory. I can’t tell which girl goes with which guy other than Emily and Wayne, and given what she’s told me about his wandering, maybe an extra girl is his as well.
“Terri’s sittin’ up front with me,” Ian announces once he has the keys in hand.
When we’re all outside, I see the back of the Green Bean and understand his reason for wanting to be designated driver. The van has no seats other than the two up front and the back is beyond filthy. It looks like someone occasionally sleeps or does … other things there. There are sleeping bags and cushions and no other coverings on the exposed metal floor. None of the others seem to mind though and they all pile in, carrying with them three large paper sacks that Patrick says contains some of the beer and all the snacks left over from their party.
The van’s air conditioning system doesn’t work, so we drive with the windows down. Ian steers with one hand, the other he reaches over and rests on my thigh.
Halfway into the short drive, I put my hand briefly on top of his, feeling his knuckles with my fingertips. He spreads his fingers, allowing mine to thread between them and then I pull away. It’s getting too comfortable doing that, touching him whenever I feel like it. He only removes the hand from my thigh when we get to our destination and he has to maneuver among some trees, over bramble and into a clearing where about two dozen other cars are parked.
There is nothing out here. It is literally the middle of nowhere. But once everyone spills out of the van, they seem to know precisely where they’re headed. Ian locks up and I wait for him while the others go on ahead of us, already loud and whooping and preparing to party.
“Do people do this a lot?” I ask Ian. “Like, is this a regular thing?”
“Around this time of year, yeah. And again later in the fall.”
It feels like there’s an alternate universe that I’m only now being introduced to. I wonder whether Kate usually comes to these things with him. I haven’t thought about Kate for hours till just now. Remembering her, having her name enter my consciousness is like a wet towel smacking me in the face, so I stiffen for a moment when Ian takes my hand.
“It’s okay,” he says misreading me. “There’s nothing out here except maybe some racoons, skunks and drunk townies.”
I don’t see the bonfire until we’ve walked through the trees along a rough path that is almost invisible in the dark. The moon is high in the sky and for a little while, it’s the only illumination we have. Then I hear voices, loud and jubilant, and see the glow of firelight. The field is immense, and about a hundred yards from the edge of the trees I see the blaze, about nine or ten feet high.
There’s music as well, the Black Eyed Peas assuring us that “tonight’s gonna be a good night, tonight’s gonna be a good good night”. Ian tugs me closer to him as we draw nearer to the fire and I feel the heat intensifying with every step we take. There’s something about fire in otherwise pitch blackness. It holds your attention, mesmerizes and hypnotizes you. I am walking toward it without thinking when Ian yanks me back.
“Whoa,” he says. “You don’t wanna get too close.”
He’s right. It’s still a very warm night and when we’re about six feet away, I see that embers are leaping from the fire, as the branches and bramble that feed it pop and crackle. Everyone who at first looked like they were right next to it, stays about twenty-five feet away, and surrounding the bonfire itself are mounds of sand.
A little further off, there are coolers and makeshift skewers. A small cluster of girls work on smores and another is making a game of dancing as close as they can to the flames and then shimmying away again. The mood is one of a carnival, everyone behaving younger than our years.
Ian stands behind me, he drapes his arms over my shoulders and crosses them on my chest. I reach up and hold his hands, grasping his fingers.
“Want a beer?” he asks against my neck.
I nod. I don’t try to speak because the knot in my throat is thick, and there is a heavy pulsing between my legs. We never did make it as far as campus after admitting we couldn’t stop thinking about sex. But it’s cool. Wanting him is sweeter now that I know I can and will have him. There’s no hurry.
He releases me and I stand looking at the fire and the people I assume are my classmates though I don’t recognize any of them. The crowd, like most of Ian’s crowds, is racially diverse. I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am because the university isn’t generally that integrated. This almost feels like we’re in a little secret utopian society in the wilderness.
Ian returns with a beer and a pretty girl with braids down to her waist, half of them dyed blue. She is swaying to the music, her movements sensuous and serpentine.
“Terri,” Ian says, handing me my beer. “This is my homegirl, Claudette.”
“Hey,” Claudette sings. “Nice to meet you, Terri.”
She doesn’t stop swaying as she speaks.
“Are you like a homegirl homegirl?” I ask. “From Alabama, I mean. Because I don’t hear the accent.”
“Oh hell no,” Claudette says. “I’m his hairstylist.”
“Hairstylist?” I say giving Ian a look. “That sounds mighty metro for a country boy.”
“When I met him, he had hair down to here,” Claudette indicates a spot in the middle of her back. “I hooked him up.”
“Freshman year,” Ian says nodding. “
I was scouring this whole town looking for a Black barbershop.”
“Rolled up in my joint looking like a mountain man,” Claudette shakes her head. She pauses to run her hands over his head. “And now look at him. Fine as I don’t know what. Not that he wasn’t fine before.”
“Shut up,” Ian says.
“You are though. Too bad I got a man.”
The music changes to Akon and Claudette hollers, grabbing my hand and the next thing I know she’s dancing around me and then I give in, dancing with her. I close my eyes and let the music take over, taking sips of my beer and surrendering to the haze it, the heat and all the spinning produces.
The heat intensifies and it doesn’t take too long before I’m sweating and Claudette spins away from me, finding another partner. For a moment, I feel silly having been abandoned but Ian moves in to fill the void and then, as if he ordered it up, the music becomes mellower, some smooth neo-soul that feels surreally incongruent with the mood of the bonfire.
His hands are on my waist and we’re doing little more than swaying back and forth. He isn’t even that close, but I feel him with every molecule in my body. Beads of sweat are running down the center of my back and I can see some forming on Ian’s forehead. They glint, golden in the firelight and when he turns a little to the left, I see in the high bridge of his nose, and the squareness of his jaw, the unmistakable markers of his Native heritage.
It feels like he belongs out here. It almost feels like I belong here with him.
I twist out of his grasp and without a word stumble a little as I head toward the coolers, hoping to get something other than beer. Water. Something that won’t send me farther off the rails than I obviously am right now, thinking these crazy thoughts.
My slick evasion doesn’t read as evasion because Ian easily releases me, and heads over to a group of guys where there’s dapping all around. I cool down with the water and have just about emptied the bottle when the music changes again. Our eyes seek each other out when Kendrick Lamar comes on and he grins at me. I smile back remembering his secret about not liking hip hop. His friends, seeing him cheesing for no apparent reason, follow his gaze to me and one of them says something in his ear.
Ian’s grin fades and he nods at whatever his friend said, eyes still on me.
I grab another water and crack the seal, almost guzzling the entire thing in one continuous swallow. Then I go back to dancing, this time by myself. I shut my eyes and just dance. The night is warm, the fire hot, the music loud and I’m dancing alone. But everything’s alright.
It’s much later when Ian comes to find me. I don’t know how late, just that I’ve been sitting in a patch of grass with Claudette and we’re having a very serious conversation about hair-braiding techniques. We’ve both been drinking, and my thoughts are as fuzzy and convoluted as her explanations of her work. Ian looks between us both and shakes his head.
“Good seein’ you, Claudette,” he says reaching a hand toward me and pulling me up when I take it.
“Bring her by my shop,” Claudette slurs. “I’ma do her hair for free.”
“Yup. Definitely,” Ian says noncommittally as he pulls me toward him. He pauses before we walk away. “You got a ride home, Claude? You ain’ drive did you?”
“Nah. I’m here with somebody. Don’t know where she is, but I’m good.”
“You sure?”
“Sure,” Claudette says. Then she gives us both a vague wave.
I don’t stagger exactly, but I’m not one-thousand percent steady on my feet as Ian leads me back toward the edge of the woods. Heading back to the van there are lights to guide our way because some of the cars are beginning to pull out of the makeshift parking area in the clearing. Still, when I almost stumble over something in our path, he turns and lifts me effortlessly off my feet carrying me the rest of the way. I’m too tipsy to protest, and I like the excuse it gives me to loop my arms around his neck and rest my head on his shoulder.
I smell him. He is smoke, perspiration and pure masculinity. I turn my face further into his neck, inhale deeply and feel a hitch in Ian’s step. He turns his head to look at me, and I’m just inebriated enough to brush my lips against his. He lingers there for a moment, then seems to remember that we’re making our way through the woods after midnight and focuses once again at the task at hand.
The others are already at the Green Bean waiting for us. No one comments on Ian carrying me and when he sets me down on my feet again, we wind up waiting around while Emily goes to pee in the bushes nearby. The sound of her relieving herself provokes the same impulse in me and I look at Ian apologetically.
“C’mon,” he says, exasperated.
He leads me to a tree out of view, and then I have trouble squatting because of my mild impairment.
“Hold my hand,” he says.
I take Ian’s hand and he helps me balance after I’ve shimmied my garments down my thighs to pee. The sound of my stream is strong, loud and obnoxious. It starts, stops and starts again. I should be embarrassed, but strangely I’m not. Not even a little.
When I’m finished, he waits patiently while I pull everything up once again and I think in the back of my boozy, beer-soaked brain that of all the things Ian’s done for me, this is possibly the sweetest.
Chapter Eleven
We don’t go straight home. Patrick hollers from the back that they’re hungry so we stop at Sheetz, this region’s equivalent to Wawa and 7-Eleven. There, we get greasy nachos, bratwurst, and quesadillas and eat them in the store, washing it all down with super-huge cups of soda. By the time we get back in the car, I’ve bonded with Emily in that loose, superficial way one bonds with people they get drunk and party with.
I don’t even notice when Ian pulls into school and in front of his dorm. Before I realize what’s happening, he puts the van in park and turns to let everyone know that he and I will be getting out here. Wayne climbs into the front as we’re getting out.
I exit the van a little unsteadily and Ian puts his hand at my elbow.
“I’m not drunk,” I say.
He laughs. “I didn’t say you were.”
“But you think I am.”
“Okay, mind-reader.”
We get upstairs to Ian’s room, with me rebuffing his help on the way. Inside, I feel an uncomfortable scratchy sensation, just under my skin. It’s the feeling you get when you’re itching to start a fight with someone, and you don’t even know why. Except I do know why.
He’s treating me like I am his fucking girlfriend. Like he doesn’t already have a fucking girlfriend.
And I resent that it’s been barely two days of us hanging out and I’m already feeling lightweight panicky at the thought of Kate returning on Monday. I don’t know how I’m going to pretend that none of this happened.
Only when inside his room do I realize that Ian has brought along a couple bottles of water, which I guess he bought at Sheetz while I was busy kee-kee-ing with Emily. He hands one to me without a word and I take it, resenting him even more, because he’s taking care of me, making sure I don’t get dehydrated because of all the beer and soda I’ve had.
I don’t drink the water. I set it aside right away, as if to reject the water is to reject him.
“I’m gonna shower,” he says. “Get this smoke out of my skin. You want to take one?”
“With you?” I ask as if it’s unthinkable.
Ian hesitates, then shrugs. “I didn’t mean that, but … if you want, sure.”
“I don’t want,” I say. I can tell from his eyes that he hears my petulance, but I guess he’s decided to ignore it. “Do you have an extra towel?”
Of course he does. Everything in Ian’s room is neat and in order. The towels are all neatly folded in one of his dresser drawers. He hands one to me along with an unopened bar of soap and a pair of Fila slides, so I don’t have to stand barefoot on the tiles in the shower. I look at the slides.
“Don’t you need …”
“I’ve got about five
of these,” he says. “You’re good.”
“Okay,” I say.
I’m starting to feel stupid for being such a brat. It’s not like he’s forcing me to be here. I could leave. But I don’t want to. Not one single fiber of me wants to leave. If I should be angry with anyone, it’s myself. For getting into a situation that makes me question everything about who I think I am.
When I’m done showering and back in Ian’s room, he’s already there, sitting on the edge of his bed. I practically ran down the hall in his too-large slides with the towel wrapped around me, hoping not to run into anyone I know. Or anyone who knows Kate. Hoping not to run into anyone in general. I was lucky. The hallway was deserted, and I get back to the room without having seen a soul.
Ian’s hair is wet, and he’s toweling it dry. He’s shirtless and wearing loose basketball shorts.
“Feel better?” he asks me as I enter.
“Yeah. I feel fine. I’ve been fine.”
“Yeah? ‘Cause you were bein’ real prickly before.”
“I wasn’t being …”
He gives me a look and I stop. I sit next to him on the bed and lean into him a little.
“You’re right. I was being … I don’t know why I was …”
“I know why.”
“Why?” I look at him. Not because I need him to tell me something I don’t know, but because I want him to validate my feelings.
“Because this is messed up,” he says matter-of-factly. “But we’re not messed up people.”
“We’re not?” I say.
“We’re not,” he confirms.
He puts a finger at my chin, turns my head a little and tips it back.
When he kisses me, we don’t miss a beat. We find the rhythm immediately and it’s like a dance we choreographed together. Ian tastes like toothpaste, and a little sweet. He pulls back and drags my lower lip gently between his teeth.
“We are so good at that together,” I murmur, and he grins at me.
“I’m a quick study,” he says, pushing me back onto the bed and parting the towel.
Not That Kind of Girl Page 8
