The Things You Kiss Goodbye

by Connor, Leslie

  I laughed, but then I pictured bright spills everywhere. “I could see that,” I said. The truck slowed and I raised my chin to look. I recognized the turn to the water property.

  “Uh . . . are you sure you want to bring me back here again?” I asked. That day seemed like long ago, and like yesterday all at the same time.

  “Yup. There is another overlook, a shorter side to that hill. We’ll take the truck to the top. Hike down instead of up. Different view. Amazing view.”

  “Okay, I want to be surprised. I’m closing my eyes and you tell me when to open. Don’t throw me out of the truck or anything.”

  “Okay, keep ’em closed,” he said. I felt the truck turn and then lurch as he pulled up the brake. He killed the engine. “Hang on now,” he said, and I heard him get out. He opened my door and helped me to the ground. “Keep ’em closed, keep ’em closed.” He guided me forward, hands cupped over my elbows. “Okay,” he said. I opened my eyes.

  “Wow.”

  We stood above the bowl-shaped depression and looked over the tops of the trees. Snow clung to the branches, six inches deep in some places, and the sun shone on the glaze in morning pinks and yellows.

  “Oh! The trees look like hills!” I said. “Like you could step out there and walk across it to the next county.”

  “Or drive it.” He let out a long, fading whistle and let one hand glide over the other toward the treetops. I made a scared face at him and he let out one of those quiet laughs that I loved.

  “Are we going down?” I asked.

  “Yup. It’s easier going than the trails we climbed in October. Not nearly as steep. I think those are closed under snow.”

  “Yeah, I’d close them under snow.”

  “Ready? I’ll race ya,” he said in a not-hurried voice. Then he jumped away and started down the crunchy white slope. I watched for a few seconds. He made big sideways hops as he went.

  I called down to him, “I have better boots than you!”

  All the way down, we played a sort of crazed game of hide-and-seek tag. The trees were weighted with snow—the saplings were bent into hoops, heads pinned to the ground. I’d slip behind a curtain of branches but then if he didn’t come find me, I’d burst out and start looking for him. I’d hear him through the silence, breaking across the snow. Then I’d see him disappearing in and out of the tree trunks running toward me and I’d retreat again. It was never clear who was “it,” and we both took amazing diggers through the crust of snow. We scrambled to get back on our feet—me, with the sting of the snow on my bare knees.

  A snowball sailed past my shoulder and broke against a shaggy tree trunk. Our game changed. I thrust my hands into my own footprints, scooped the snow, and packed it into balls. We pelted each other over and over again—and hard too—so that we grunted when we were hit. We fought until we were both breathless. Finally, my own hands ached so much with the cold that all I could do was tuck them inside my sleeves and run away. When I couldn’t run anymore, I stopped beneath a stand of pines and leaned helplessly against a tree. Cowboy raced up to me and instead of showering me in snow, he offered, “Truce?” He could barely speak himself. We’d had a good match.

  I fell onto my back in the crusty snow and he dropped down next to me. We lay looking up into the pines just catching our breath.

  I was sweaty beneath my wool sweater, but snow cooled the backs of my legs. I breathed into my own hands, trying to warm them. A pair of cardinals moved into the trees above, their bodies the only colors against the gray-and-brown woods. I was sure Cowboy was watching them too. I whispered, “The males get all the attention, but I think the females are prettier.” I watched the olive-colored bird with her pinkish beak switch branches above me. “Look at her,” I whispered.

  The female bird darted down from the trees and landed on the snow just twenty feet from were we lay. I propped myself on my elbows. The bird hopped nearer. “Isn’t she the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?” I looked at Cowboy. He looked back at me with just the faintest smile. Then, he shifted his gaze to the bird.

  Before long, I began to shiver. “Time to go,” Cowboy said. He pulled me up out of broken snow saying, “Your hands are frozen!” He cupped them but his were not much warmer than mine, and that made us laugh. I was sorry when he let go of me. I loved his touch and I wondered, When would there be a reason for him to reach for me like that again? We happened to catch eyes exactly as I had the thought and I felt caught, as if I might have said it out loud. I was forever covering all the things I really wanted to say to him with a little sigh or a smile. I did that yet again. Then I pulled the cuffs of my damp sweater over my fingers and we began our march back up to the truck.

  “Hey.” I made sure I had his attention. “Thanks for coming to get me,” I said. “I’ve never had a New Year’s morning like this one. I am so glad I didn’t miss this. How beautiful!” I looked over the snowscape, my arms open wide and thought where else, and with who else—

  “Beta,” Cowboy said, “you are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

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  Thirty-nine

  BAMPAS WAS IN A RAGE. “WE HAD NO IDEA WHERE YOU were! And you did not answer your phone. I find only footprints from your bedroom window! Who is it that comes to your window in the morning, Bettina? How long has this been going on?”

  My mother stood nearby, not speaking. But she was eyeing me in an unnerving way and listening to every word.

  “Bampas, it was just Brady,” I lied. “He just wanted to take a New Year’s Day walk. I thought it was too early to wake you. I should have left a note, and I forgot the phone. I’m sorry.”

  “You were at a party last night with him, were you not?”

  I had to think to remember the New Year’s Eve party—it had been dull. Brady had split to be with the guys most of the night while I’d sat on the outside of a cache of Not-So-Cheerleaders. “Yes,” I said, looking Bampas in the eye.

  “And he needs to see you again first thing this morning? Bettina, who told him he could park on River Road and walk my property this way?”

  “Nobody, Bampas. He—he just figured it out.”

  “I cannot believe it! The same boy takes such good care of you the night you cut your eye, but he comes to a bedroom window to take you from our home?”

  “Bampas, he didn’t want to ring the doorbell. It was my mistake.”

  “I will want to see him and speak with him. Do you understand me?”

  “I do,” I said. He was mad but he was also losing interest already. Yet, my mother was standing just behind him, glaring at me. Something was up.

  “He will use the front door from now on.” My father was calmer now.

  “Yes, that will be better,” I said.

  My father excused me and I went to get a hot shower. I was standing in my own bathroom, stark naked and water running when my mother walked right in.

  “Momma!” I yanked a towel from the bar and covered up. “You scared me!”

  “Did I?” She pulled the door closed behind her and handed me a folded-over piece of paper.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “There was a call for you on the house phone not fifteen minutes ago—someone who gave up trying to reach you on your phone,” she replied.

  I unfolded the paper. It was from Brady Cullen. I pulled my lips inside my teeth and bit down on my secret. She had me.

  “Were you gone all night?” she asked me in her lowest whisper. “Or did someone spend the night in your room?”

  “No! Neither,” I said, and I wanted her to believe me. I was amazed she thought I’d be so bold. The bathroom was filling with steam. “Momma, we were just playing in the snow. Honest.”

  “Honest. There is a word you have no business using. Take your shower, Bettina. You’re not seeing anyone else today. You’ll go with
us to the restaurant. There is plenty to clean up after all the celebrating last night. By the way,” she turned at the door, “happy new year.”

  I got lucky. Bampas never confronted Brady because he never saw him. So my lie, which could have broken the universe open, stayed between Momma and me. The New Year’s morning incident did win me another grounding. So went the final days of that school vacation.

  Oddly, there was comfort in the confinement. I was not chomping at the bit to go back to school, to Brady and basketball games and my swinging locker door. At home, I listened to music and filled the last pages of a sketchbook with drawings of the god Janus for January with his two faces looking forward and back. Favian and Avel came in and out of my room to ask what I was listening to and I’d turn up an ethereal, Celtic tune that sounded like a walk through snow. I fantasized, at least six or seven times over, that someone was waiting just outside my window. The best reason to go back to school was morning coffee . . . and a new art class.

  “I’m playing in clay again!” I couldn’t stop myself grabbing the upper arms of Cowboy’s coverall. I jumped up and down a few times while he stood there, straight-faced and cooperating the way a tree might. “I’m learning how to throw on the wheel! I’m really bad at it,” I added without dropping my note of enthusiasm.

  Cowboy did a rare thing then; he threw his head back and laughed out loud.

  I let him go, and in a hyper sort of way switched to the Chevy. “Hey, it’s really coming along! You’ve been putting in a lot of time.” I walked around the car. “It has a great face,” I said. “Check out that orthodontia smile—”

  “Orthodontia? Aw, Beta. You’re killing me.”

  “Oh, sorry!” All his hard work and now I had offended him. “Sometimes I blurt,” I said. “It’s just—it looks like it wants to go full grin. But with all that metal in its mouth, it can’t. It’s a good look,” I said. “You know it is. Is it ready for the road?”

  “Nope. But I’m getting there,” Cowboy said. “Little by little.”

  “Little by little. Maybe that’s how I’ll get through this clay class,” I said. I drummed my fingers on my lip.

  “You’re all about art. You’ll be fine.”

  “Working on the potter’s wheel is different. You have to get that ball of clay centered. I showed him with my hands. I think there’s a knack to it,” I said. “I’m not sure I have it.”

  “Well, you can develop a knack.” He laughed at himself. “Nobody’s born doing the thing they die doing.”

  As I watched Cowboy go back to work, I was filled with a bittersweet feeling. He had developed his knack, all right. He had waited a long time to be appreciated for his talents. I thought of his mother—her cruelty. How had he stood up under her lack of belief in him? Or had he used his passion for old cars to stay whole in spite of her? There were times I felt that way about art; I could always go to it. I just had never had it kick my ass the way the pottery wheel was these days.

  Later the same day, I stood in the art room with my braid tucked down the back of my shirt. I wedged the air out of a ball of clay for the fifth time. I climbed onto the tractor seat of one of our potter’s wheels. I threw the clay down as close to the center as I could. I hesitated. From where I sat I could see finished clay pots—however rudimentary—already turning leather-hard under loose plastic wrappings. My classmates were marching ahead. All my rotten realities rushed at me. It seemed like I wasn’t getting anything right; boyfriend stuff was all a lie, cheerleading was awful—

  “Hey, come on. Let’s go.” I blinked. Big Bonnie was in front of me. “You can do this.”

  “I can’t get it centered. . . .” I whispered through gritted teeth. “It’s like I don’t have the power. This is my fifth try today.”

  “Let me watch you,” Bonnie said. “Go on, kick it.”

  I started the wheel spinning and wet my hands. I seized the ball of clay, which immediately went to war with me—defying my grip. In a matter of seconds, I felt exhausted.

  “Okay, okay. Don’t be so frantic with it,” Bonnie coached. She paused to think a second. “It’s not about muscle. Hold your hands more loosely and lean into the clay—sort of with your core. But breathe, for heaven’s sake. You’re turning purple.” Her voice turned meditative. “This is one of those ‘be the clay’ moments. Don’t look at it. Feel it. Easy pressure . . .”

  I did what she said. I even closed my eyes. I leaned up over the clay. A few tries and suddenly, it felt right. I stopped and looked at Bonnie.

  “You are the clay!” she said. “That’s centered.” She pointed to the lump. “Now just play. Try bringing it up and see what you get.”

  The form I made that afternoon collapsed. But at least I knew where center was. Maybe that knack would follow.

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  Forty

  THE SKY WAS OVERCAST BUT MOON-BRIGHT, AND I KNEW something must be up when I saw the ’57 Chevy at the side of River Road that Saturday night.

  He did it! He’s got the Chevy up and running.

  Anyone else might have missed it—just some old car pulling off on the shoulder. But I’d spent a lot of time with that car. I knew that shape, that chrome smile beneath the headlights. I knew the place where our swath met River Road. I had to get to Cowboy.

  I was with Brady and he was about to drop me at home after one of those group pizza stops. We arrived at the front of my house. “Don’t bother pulling in. Just let me out on the road, okay?”

  “Whatever,” he said. He leaned over to kiss me but I was on the move and he missed. We both ignored it. “See ya Monday,” he said. He mumbled something else about me helping him with a Spanish essay. But his head was down and he was tapping something into his phone with his thumbs. I hustled to the front step and faked purse problems until Brady pulled away. As soon as he was out of sight, I went around the house to the backyard. I started running toward River Road.

  “Don’t-be-gone. Don’t-be-gone.” I breathed out a word for each step. We still had snow and it was softening in the February thaw. I picked my feet up higher. “Don’t-be-gone. Don’t-be-gone.”

  I realized that he could be heading down the swath toward me. I started to call for him. “Cowboy! Hey! Are you out there?” Finally, I reached the road and I saw the long, thin silhouette of him in his jean jacket. He was sitting against the front of the car. He held up one hand when he saw me.

  “It’s the Chevy!” I jogged to a stop and tried to catch my breath. “Wow. You did it!” I walked all the way around the car, admiring its completeness—even in the thin light of the night. “Oh, it’s perfect. How’s it running?”

  “It’s good,” he said. “Just one purr short of a kitten. Maybe two.”

  “Did you come to get me? Take me for a ride?” I wiggled a little.

  “Hmm . . . I think not quite yet,” he said. “But we could sit in it a minute.”

  “Oh, yes!”

  I’d been busy admiring the car and was only vaguely aware that Cowboy had been holding something in one hand. He wound his arm back and threw it—a snowball—toward the river. He pulled open the car door for me. I bounced onto the passenger’s side of the long front seat. I drew my palm along the dashboard, which was shining like a glass Christmas tree ornament, while Cowboy slid in behind the steering wheel.

  “You brought it back to life. It’s beautiful.” I looked at him and grinned. Then I saw the wide, swollen line across his right cheekbone. My heart struck my ribs. I looked closer. His face was damp, glistening with tiny, melting flecks of ice and snow. He kept looking down or out the front of the car, anywhere that wasn’t at me.

  “Cowboy? Were you in a fight—oh my God! Was it your mother? It happened again?” I pressed my hands on both sides of my face.

  “Hmm.” He nodded almost imperceptibly. “But it’s okay.”

  “It is
not!” I heard myself say. “It is not okay!”

  “It will be okay. It’s been a long time. I thought she was done,” he said in a confounded sort of way. “But this is the last time. I’m going to stay in the shop tonight, then start looking for a place tomorrow. By the way, don’t tell your father I’m sleeping at SWS. I could lose my lease.”

  “Cowboy, I’d never tell him.” I reached toward his face. “Did you get this looked at? You can break those bones, you know. That surgeon who stitched my eye told me, they’re like Ping-Pong balls and they dent until you reach a certain age and then—”

  “Shh, shh! Never mind, Beta.” He gently batted my hands away. “I’m glad this happened. I know that sounds screwed up. But it leaves no question.” He lifted his hands off the steering wheel and dropped them back down on it again. “I didn’t see this one coming. But you know what? There’s always another one coming.” He looked at me dead-on. “You have to get completely out of the way.”

  “Oh, man,” I said. “We’re not doing this again.” I got out of the car. Cowboy was in front of me in an instant. I faced him. “I’m glad you’re out of your mother’s house,” I said. “So glad. But I’m not the same as you—nobody swings boards at my face,” I said.

  “He hurts you, Beta.” Cowboy spoke flatly.

  I folded my arms, trying to hug away a sickish feeling that kept creeping in. We’d done so well not letting Brady Cullen seep into our time together. I hated this. I toed the dirty snow at the edge of the road.

  “You don’t have to look like ground meat for it to be wrong,” he said. “What he does to you, it’s wrong in a thousand ways.”

  “I know! All right? I have a cruddy boyfriend. It’s complicated—I don’t know exactly how to do it, but I am working my way away from him—”

  “You are?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh! Thank God, thank God!” Cowboy made a triumphant fist. “Yes!”

  He was cheering for me. In my chest I felt a knot undoing itself. Cowboy was firmly on my side—about all things. I guess I’d always felt that. Now it was so clear. I wanted to wrap my arms around him. Instead, I hugged myself, while I stared down and brushed at the ground with the sole of my boot.