Things Change

by Patrick Jones

  "Sometimes, my mother . . ." He slammed his fist hard off the steering wheel, then sighed. "Everything is going to be okay."

  I didn't have a chance to answer before he pressed his lips against mine again. I could tell that the rage was leaving him; he poured all that bitter hard anger into a tender kiss.

  NINE

  When Paul and I got near the front door at Jackie's house, I saw Brad standing on the porch. "Glad you could make it!"

  "Who's at this mofo?" Paul asked as he slapped Brad on the back.

  "The usual suspects," Brad said with a smile. He turned his back toward us and shouted inside. "Hey, Kara, come out and play."

  "What do you want, baby?" Kara Stevenson emerged seconds later from the house and gave Brad a big hug.

  "Kara, this is Johanna," Brad said.

  I shot Kara a little wave. "Kara, sure, I've seen you at school."

  "Everybody sees Kara," Paul said, slapping Brad's shoulder again. "Some of us see more of Kara than others, isn't that right brother Bradley?"

  Kara Stevenson was the center of attention. I don't know how she got her clothes to fit as close to her body as she did, and I was taking honors physics. She seemed to be defying three or four of Newton's laws. She looked vacuum-packed in her black leather dress, amplified by long black boots and purple fishnets. She had a supershort haircut and purple highlights. I not only didn't look anything like her, compared to Kara I felt like I belonged to a different gender. When she wasn't hanging on Brad, she hung out with Lynne and Jackie. The three of them were airheaded model wannabes who worked at trendy clothing stores at the mall.

  "Let's find some brew," Paul said, tugging hard on my arm and moving us toward the door. I didn't say anything, stunned that he was trying to drag me like some deadweight. He must have noticed, because he let go when I "laid the brow" on him.

  "Sorry about that," Paul said, coughing and laughing at the same time. "Do you want to come inside?"

  "If you're asking, then I'm accepting," I said with a smile, yet failing to reach the level of sarcasm I was seeking.

  "I may get a cavity being around something so sweet," Brad said, and he turned to go inside with us.

  Kara narrowed her eyes; it seemed like she was all purple eye shadow. "Kind of nice to see two people be nice to each other," she said as she walked out toward the street.

  "Ouch!"¥mX said, smacking the back of his hand off of Brad's chest.

  "Kara, baby, come back!" Brad said following after her.

  "Did I—" I started.

  "No, just the same old bull," Paul said. "They fight, they breakup, they get back together, blah, yadda, blah."

  I shook my head, then sighed. "Doesn't sound too smart to me."

  "It works for them," Paul said with a shrug of his shoulders. He took a step toward the door, letting his right hand hang behind, dangling it in front of me like bait. I took it. I reached my left hand out and let him grab on to it, then we walked in the front door.

  Once inside, the music hit us. It was pretty dark, dotted by the ends of lit cigarettes. People were milling around; almost everywhere small groups had formed. We walked down the hall, through a couple of rooms, then downstairs. Paul found the keg in the laundry room. He quickly filled up a big red plastic cup with beer and offered it to me.

  "No, thanks," I said, accenting it with small head shakes. Paul shrugged his shoulders, downed the beer in two giant gulps, then tossed the cup onto the floor.

  "Now, young lady, I just said you should have a good time, didn't I?" Paul was doing my mother's voice.

  "Stop, okay? I got the point." I was laughing too hard for jeans as tight as the ones I was wearing.

  "Drinking is what made me a man." Paul rolled up the sleeve on his right arm. He grabbed both of my hands and put them on his bicep. He puffed out his chest and started banging on it like Tarzan. "That and the U.S. Marines! Don't you want to be a man, soldier?"

  I started to cry I was laughing so much. While I was out of commission Paul took the opportunity to grab another cup, down the contents, and then fill it for the third time.

  The music-filled room was almost totally dark. From what I could see, people were mostly just holding on to each other, shuffling their feet and locking lips.

  Paul set his beer on a table, then took a few steps away from me, out toward the part of the basement doubling as a dance floor. He stretched his hand out before him. "Climb in?"

  I hid my eyes and moved closer. He pulled me tighter, his arm snug around my waist. He had to put his mouth right next to my ear to be heard.

  "Sure," I barely managed to squeak out. Paul moved his right arm tighter and lower around me, while his left arm went around my back. We were moving in small circles. With each beat of the song, we drew the circle smaller, closer, tighter. I was glad the music was loud, so Paul couldn't hear me gasping for breath; although I realized as tight as he was holding me, he had to feel it.

  We danced for a long time, taking breaks for Paul to crack a joke or two with groups of seniors who would pass by; then we would go back to dancing. Finally I stole a glance at my watch and noticed that it was almost eleven. "Paul, I need to go now."

  "Sure, no problem," he said, leading me by the hand through the darkness and up the stairs. But rather than heading outside, Paul kept walking up another flight of stairs. He was almost pulling me, but I wasn't pulling back as he opened the door to a small bedroom.

  The room was small and dark. I could make out the outlines of posters on the wall and of a small bed. Paul locked the door behind us, then led me by the hand over toward the bed; but about a foot away I stopped him.

  "Yes or no?" Paul asked. I buried my head in his shoulder. I didn't want Paul to see my eyes. Everything seemed to be moving so fast, spinning out of control. I was used to controlling things, keeping everything organized; but I felt it all slipping away from me. I was thinking how the other night I was lying in my bed crying about Paul, thinking about all those nights, weeks, and months before, there all alone just thinking about him. Now here I was in some stranger's bedroom, those thoughts coming true like I had been looking into a crystal ball.

  "What's wrong?" Paul said as he pressed both my hands against his chest. "I thought—"

  I kissed him. Kissing I had done; kissing I knew how to do. That had always been the cutoff with Ty, but then he cut me off. Part of my brain was wondering what I was doing here; the other part remembered that I had spent more time deciding what to wear under my clothes than anything else.

  Paul moved around behind me, putting his arms around my waist. We were looking through the darkness straight down at the bed in front of us.

  "I'm sorry I was late. I promise it won't happen again," Paul said as he rubbed his thumb gently along the side of my face. "That is, if you want me to pick you up again."

  His voice was tentative. Was he as scared as I was? I couldn't imagine it. I knew he had gone out with a girl from South High named Carla; I managed to get that information from Brad. I assumed he had lots of girlfriends before her. He seemed so confident; that was part of the attraction. I seemed that way, too, when it came to knowing the answer to a math problem, but inside I was really a mess. And with boys I was hopeless. Could he just be acting, too?

  "Paul, I—"

  "Tonight is too short. If only it wasn't so late. It's because of that damn lousy job. That's why I had a few beers, you know. I'm not like that, but it helps me relax. That job gets my body so sore sometimes, especially my back."

  "Your back?"

  "I work as a dishwasher at Wallies. And if I can't get the dishes clean, I just break them and then throw them in the trash. Not all of them, just the real dirty ones I don't want to deal with. Then as long as I take the trash out, nobody seems to know, although it sure makes the trash bags heavy, which is hell on my back."

  "The old smash 'em and trash 'em," I said. I was trying to be funny because I didn't know what else to say. I never had a job outside of the house, which was
more my parent's choice than mine, but I knew that my father would have recommended me for a lifetime grounding if he caught me taking a shortcut like that. Maybe it is different for people who weren't raised in a house run by the captains of quality control.

  "My back hurts a lot." Paul walked past me and took those huge steps toward the bed. He lay facedown on the bed. He turned his head and looked up at me. Even in the near darkness I could still see his smile. "It hurts a lot, and all that dancing sure didn't help."

  I didn't say anything. The room was totally silent. There was still noise from the party going on outside, but I had shut the rest of the world out.

  "Would you like me to rub your back?" I asked in a voice so small I was hoping he wouldn't hear.

  "Would you?" Paul responded.

  I sat down on the bed next to him. I had seen people do this at school. Last year a big back-rubbing craze took over until the teachers put an end to it. It seemed like such an obvious thing to do, but I'd never taken part in it. I started moving my hands around his shoulders, hoping I wasn't hurting him. I was such a klutz; I couldn't believe I was doing this. He would probably walk out of this room in a body cast.

  "That's nice," Paul said, not even looking up. He let out a low moan. "Really nice."

  I just kept my hands moving, working my way down his back. I made small rubbing circles, like those small circles we had danced earlier tonight. My hands were remembering the pressure of his body up against me. Pressure: I had always thought of that word as a negative thing, but as my hands pushed down against the surface of Paul's back I realized that pressure could be a good thing.

  "Thanks, that was great," Paul said, rotating over to face me. "Your turn."

  "But my back doesn't hurt," I meekly protested.

  "Well, if your back doesn't hurt, then this won't hurt either." I moved next to him on the bed, but Paul tried to pull me on top of him.

  "Everything is going to be okay. Trust me," Paul said, taking his glasses off and setting them on a table next to the bed.

  I looked at him, and I believed. Believed everything was going to be all right. Believed in him as I let him pull me down and we started kissing. His hands were moving up my back, then along the side of my face. Paul's tongue and teeth were working around my ear. It felt so nice, but then I felt a slight pull on my lobe. My earring! I heard it hit the floor.

  "Paul, wait." I reached a hand down toward the floor.

  "Let it go," Paul said, then started kissing me again as his hands started moving over me. I was kissing him with passion, but I wasn't all there. I couldn't shut my blasted mind down and just let the pleasure I was feeling take over. Moving against Paul in the darkness, our bodies grinding away at each other, I was thinking how sex wasn't just a simple matter of answering no. It was about deciding why, when, where, how, and with whom. I was thinking I had answered that last question first.

  "Ah, crap, no." I heard Paul let out a huge sigh, then he quickly moved off of me and over to the door. "We'd better get going."

  I glanced at my watch. It was almost one A.M. My parents probably had the police looking for me. "My mother is going to kill me."

  "What about your father?"

  "He'll kill you!"

  "Great, just great," Paul said as he started to open the door.

  "Where's my earring?" I asked him as my eyes tried to adjust to the darkness and find a light switch. "I need to turn the light on."

  "No! Don't turn on the light," Paul said. He reached to the floor and picked up his sweatshirt, quickly wrapping it around his waist like an apron. I gathered up my coat and chased Paul as he took off in a mad dash for the Firebird. I was just about out the door when I bumped into Brad and Kara standing hand in hand on the porch.

  "Did Paul run by here?" I asked.

  "Your Paul is really something, isn't he?" Brad said, sidling over to me.

  "He sure is," I replied, fascinated with Brad's choice of words.

  He'd said "your." Your was the possessive pronoun. Brad was right; Paul was "really something." The main thing that he was now, however, was mine.

  We listened to Springsteen all the way home, with Paul introducing each song. I fell in love with the song "If I Should Fall Behind" immediately. When we finally pulled into my driveway, the lights in the house were still on. Paul gave me a quick good night kiss, and I ran toward the door.

  I didn't even get the key in the lock before my mother opened the door. "What do you have to say for yourself, young lady?"

  "I'm sorry." I could barely speak.

  "Your father went to bed. Do you know how lucky you are he's not here?" My mom's eyes were manic. "What should we say to him?"

  I didn't even look up. "That I'm sorry."

  "I don't think that is enough of an answer, do you?" my mother said, raising her voice. "Go to your room. We'll discuss this more in the morning. You should be ashamed of yourself."

  That was too much. I felt bad being late, but I was not ashamed. "I have nothing to be ashamed of."

  My mother looked surprised; she was not used to anything but silent obedience, yet something about all the emotion of the evening just stirred defiance within me. "You're wrong. Would you mind telling me when your curfew was? Are you suddenly not smart enough to tell time?"

  "It's not that simple, Mom." All I could feel was her anger and her disappointment, when all I wanted was her understanding.

  "Yes, it is that simple." She was staring at me now. I knew she could see my lipstick was smeared from kissing. I am sure she noticed that my clothes were rumpled. I am sure she locked on to the fact that one of my earrings was missing. I knew she could tell that despite all of this, despite this terrible scene, deep inside I was smiling.

  "Johanna Marie, you know right from wrong. Your father and I taught you right from wrong. This is wrong, isn't it?"

  I said nothing.

  Isnt it?

  I started walking up the stairs, away from all of this. My mother's declarations of right and wrong seemed meaningless. I wanted to ask her how she got this way. I wanted to ask her how she got to be this controlling. She was a smart woman; she had to know this wasn't the right way to speak to me. She knew right from wrong, too.

  "What do you think this type of behavior is going to get you?" she loudly asked.

  I just looked at her and started walking up the stairs. Over my shoulder I saw the smoke from her cigarette, and I thought about the fire I felt for Paul. What is this going to get me? Exactly what I want, I thought as I walked silently into my room and toward a peaceful sleep.

  TEN

  I sat down on the front steps of the Pontiac Main Library. My early morning arrival led my parents to ground me, including my normal visit to the bookstore with Pam on Saturday. I finally managed to get out of the house on Sunday by proclaiming the need, real if slightly exaggerated, to do research at the library. Playing the study card, I had learned, always worked with my parents. As I sat outside feeling a cool September breeze I thought how I should have taken that back rub from Paul the other night: lugging around this bag full of textbooks hurt. I put my book bag down, pulled out Jane Eyre again, and started to read.

  I got maybe thirty pages knocked off when I heard the Firebird roar up in front of the library. Paul slammed the brakes to bring the car to a squealing halt. He jumped from the car and scampered up the steps like a madman, grabbed my bag, then raced back down the stairs. He opened the passenger door in a broad sweeping gesture, then tossed my bag into the backseat. "Ms. Eyre, your carriage waits, so climb in!"

  I laughed, and he snatched my hand and walked us hurriedly toward the car. "We have less than an hour, and I know a great place we can go."

  I shot him the brow. "A great place for what?"

  "For this," Paul said, pulling me toward him. We kissed, just like the other night. Our lips seem to work well together. I stopped, moved away for a second, and smiled before kissing him back. I wanted him to see how happy I was.

  I sat down i
n the passenger seat, only to feel something underneath me. I inched up in the seat and pulled out a small package. "What's this?"

  Paul didn't say anything. He slammed the car into drive, and we took off for parts unknown.

  I tore open the gift wrap. I couldn't ever remember getting a gift from Ty, or from anyone other than a member of my family. Sometimes I thought I knew so much, but then times like this, I realized how much I hadn't experienced. I opened the box.

  "Paul!" I said as I pulled the star-shaped earrings from the box. "They're beautiful."

  "You're what's beautiful. If the earring fits," he said, adding a laugh as punctuation.

  I turned the car's rearview mirror toward me. I put the earrings on and couldn't believe how wonderful they looked, but mostly I couldn't believe how I looked. I actually looked pretty. I had to get glasses at a really young age, so I always kind of looked goofy as a kid. Boys at school would make fun of me, call me ugly. I don't think at eight or ten years old I had the capacity to realize it was just kids being stupid; instead, I believed them. Then when I got to junior high, I grew taller faster than a lot of the boys, so they made fun of me again. I had braces. I was such a squirrel. No wonder I spent all my time hiding in the library, reading. By the time I got to high school, I couldn't imagine thinking that I was pretty in a world full of Karas and Vickies. There was just nothing remarkable about me. My breasts, my butt, my height, my weight, everything—just normal. Looking into the mirror with Paul next to me and seeing myself in my new earrings, I felt special. It didn't matter if I was beautiful, just that Paul thought I was.

  I was so caught up in my thoughts, I barely noticed that Paul had slowed the car down. We were in an area downriver in the shadow of the interstate and a closed-down auto factory.

  "Where are we?"

  "That's the old assembly plant. My grandfather used to work there, but nobody works there anymore. It's nice and quiet and deserted." Paul was inching over closer to me. He moved closer to me, slipping his left hand underneath my jacket. He took his right hand and put it behind my neck. His left hand was working its way up the side of my body. My lips were pressing against his while my hand was gently pushing his away.