I finally spoke again. “So . . . did you just come out here to harass me or what?”
“No. In fact, I didn’t mean to bring him up at all,” he said. “Forget that. I need to tell you something. Something crazy and important, Beta . . .” Cowboy was reaching for me. His arms were open—a strange sight. “I want to hold you,” he said. “Please?”
“Hold me?” I stared back at him. “We don’t . . . do this,” I said. I waited, looking back into Cowboy’s eyes, and wondering if I was going to be sorry. But I did it. I stepped into the circle of his arms.
Slowly, he wrapped me, brought me close—close—against his long, straight body. His breath was warm on the top of my head. Something was different about Cowboy. “Ooo . . . you feel so good,” he said, and held me tighter.
I could smell the faint odors of the garage on his clothes, and for the first time I was close enough for long enough to really smell his skin too. I took it in deeply. I lost my breath, then caught it again in a tiny sound I did not mean to make. “Cowboy . . .” I whispered while I clung to him.
He leaned down, brushed his fingers along my temple and behind my ear. His lips followed the same path. He kissed me—sweetly, slowly—little kisses that asked for permission, kisses that could melt snow. He kissed my lips, my mouth, and I tasted faraway mints, a tiny a hint of tobacco, and Cowboy. Oh . . . he was easy to kiss. He brought me close over and over again. I stretched toward him for more. But is he going to stop? Will he say this was a mistake?
I pulled away—gulped on the night air. I looked right into his eyes.
“I love you,” he whispered.
A strange yip of disbelief came from my throat. I squeezed the arm of Cowboy’s jacket in my fingers. Thank God he spoke, because I could not.
“Long time now,” he said. “I didn’t mean to. I tried not to. But I do.” He touched me under the chin. “And I don’t know, but I think . . . you might love me, too.”
I took a step backward. “Y-you don’t let me,” I said, and Cowboy let out a small laugh. “You don’t.” I tried to be in control.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re so young. I didn’t ever see myself falling for—”
“A kid,” I said, but I was not offended. “Y-you still think of me as a kid.” Meanwhile, I gathered my bottom lip up in my fingertips and held it. I wanted another long, easy kiss.
“By laws and by birthdays. Yes.” He shook his head. “I tried to make the facts change how I felt about you. I even told myself it was wrong, you know? Like, creepy guy,” he said, and he tapped himself on the chest. “But none of that worked. Pushing you away . . . hmm . . . hardest thing ever, Beta.” He opened his hand over his heart.
“I cannot believe you’re saying all of this to me.” My lip quivered. “You wouldn’t joke. . . .” No. He was shaking his head no, and I knew better. He would never joke—not about this. My eyes filled.
“I’m letting go of old mind-sets tonight. I see us together. You could say it took somebody smacking me in the face—”
“Oh! That’s not funny,” I said. I wiped my eyes.
“It’s sort of funny,” he suggested. He caught my hand in his and held it next to his lips. “I’m in, Beta. I want you. We’re going to have to wait a while for . . . some things.” He glanced skyward for a split second and came back to earth with a sigh. “That’s not going to be easy.”
I thought how it would be—making love with Cowboy—his fingers, his breath whispering along all my bare skin. We’d both be so ready. He’d be tender. I’d be feverish. Oh, I wanted him now.
“Not easy,” I agreed with him. Then my mind leapt forward. “Oh . . . my parents . . .” I said, and I closed my teeth together. “How in hell . . .”
“We have to talk to them together.” He gave a definitive nod.
“Oh, Cowboy. I don’t know. . . .”
“I can’t see you going into that alone. I wouldn’t feel right about it. They’d think I was a dirtbag, and they’d be right.”
I put my hands to my head. “Uh, God. I don’t know, I don’t know! I still can’t believe we’re even talking about this.”
“Then, this is enough.”
“Enough?”
“I’ve already searched my soul—about this a hundred times over,” he said. “But now I’ve sprung it on you. I need to leave you alone.”
“Oh, no! Don’t leave.”
“Just to let you think,” he said. “You know your parents better than I do.”
“Yeah, and this might not go so well,” I told him. I tried to run the conversation—huh! It would be no conversation. A shouting match, maybe. I put my hands to my ears. Cowboy brought them down for me and held them, swinging me gently.
“Beta,” he whispered, “let’s try to trust this.” As the words left his lips and his fingers laced into mine, I had a moment of utter belief. Maybe the whole thing really was possible. Maybe Momma would help me. We could soften Bampas. Maybe . . .
“Don’t go,” I said again. I stood on my toes like a girl on a ladder and reached to kiss Cowboy while he held me in a beautiful embrace, his hands low on the small of my back. I drew the pads of my fingers along his collarbone. I slid my hand between his shirt buttons—just the littlest bit—and I found his warm, bare skin just below the hollow of his ribs. He made a low sound in his throat.
“Aw, Beta, if you knew what that did to me you wouldn’t do it.”
“Yes, I would,” I said, and we split a gentle laugh. I put my ear to his chest and closed my eyes. His heart beat solidly, peacefully. I thought, This heart loves me. Cowboy’s gentle hands traced the pearls of my spine. Then he twirled my braid gently in his fingers and brushed it across his lips.
He sighed. “I’m done feeling like this is wrong,” he said. “I’m done feeling bad.”
I looked up and smiled. I reached into the chest pocket of his jean jacket and took his cigarettes. “I remember what you said,” I told him. “If you’re done feeling bad, then you’re done with these.” I disappeared them into my own pocket. “They can kill you, and I won’t have that.”
“Thank you,” Cowboy said. I circled my arms around him again. I nestled close, and couldn’t help thinking that we fit well together.
“I could sleep here,” I said. “Just like this.”
“And I’d be a happy man,” Cowboy said.
“Someday I will. But we’ll dance together before we sleep.”
“We’ll dance,” he said.
A fire of warmth burned between us. But Cowboy’s jean jacket wasn’t warm enough for the night. I felt him shiver. It was late, and I knew we had to separate. I could not let this come out to Momma and Bampas like a river of napalm.
Cowboy told me, “No matter what you decide about your parents—how to do this—I’m with you. But I’d like to be there.” He traced my arms and shoulders with both his hands then let me go.
“I’m scared,” I said. “I’m scared this won’t be real in the light of day.”
He shook his head no. “Check your pocket. You have my cigarettes. Proof that I was here.” He grinned. “Don’t get caught with those, now. Get rid of them.” He was so light and easy, all I could do was smile back at him. “We’re going to be good for each other, Beta.”
“Yes, we will be.”
Good has come, I told myself. I turned to go, took a few steps, then whirled back again. I saw him stoop to pick up another lump of snow. He held it to his bruising cheek.
“Promise me something,” I called to him. I wanted to leave him laughing. “Promise you’ll come back in that smiling Chevy.” I cupped my hands together underneath my chin. “Take me for a ride on River Road.”
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Forty-one
NEEDLESS TO SAY, I GOT IN LATE. INSIDE THE KITCHEN, MY mother sat at the table with a wineglass and a crossword puzzle. She was dre
ssed in her robe. She looked at me coldly.
“You are past curfew.” She sounded almost bored. “And you are grounded.”
“Okay,” I said, glancing at the clock.
“I saw Brady’s car pull away some time ago. I am assuming you have been with someone else since then.”
“Yes.”
She responded with nothing but her straight-line mouth. She pushed a small pharmacy bag toward me. “Bettina, I hope you’ve been careful, but you don’t show good judgment so . . .” She fluttered her hand at the bag as if to push it closer to me. I lifted one side of the bag open and large, flat box of condoms inside.
“Momma,” I said, and I sank into one of the chairs and hoped she couldn’t hear the cellophane crackling on that pack of smokes inside my jacket. “Momma, I have something to . . .” Suddenly, I couldn’t look at her. I stared at the bag on the table and tapped it with my finger. “You are right,” I whispered. “But, Momma, not with this one, and I won’t. We . . .”
“Don’t try to conspire with me on this, Bettina. How old is he?”
“I think he’s about twenty-five,” I said softly.
She leaned forward. “You think? You’re not sure of his age, but you’re sure he’s worth all this deception?”
“He has a business and he’s—”
She cut me off again. “Oh, I’m sure that seems like so much to a high school girl. Don’t be so sure you want to grow up this fast, Bettina.”
I felt my eyes begin to pool. “It’s not fast. He has been my friend—for a while. But now it’s something more. I’m not rushing, Momma.”
“He will make you rush. Men do not wait.”
“He has waited!” I cried. “He will still wait. He talks to me, and he listens to me!”
“Keep your voice down!” Momma hissed. She glanced down the hall. Bampas must have been in bed already.
I wiped my eyes with the backs of my hands and whispered. “I know I always push, Momma. But it’s because I don’t get very far around here.” Surely, she understood me. “I know all the things you’re saying. But this is different. I have this calm feeling about him.”
“Calm! How calm is sneaking out late at night?”
“I’m just trying to tell you—”
“And I’m telling you! You’ll wake up and find emptiness one day.”
“Why? Because you did?” I spat. “I’ve done the math. I know how young you were—how much older Bampas is. What happened, Momma? You weren’t ready and he wouldn’t wait? And now you’re unhappy?”
Her fire turned to a vacant stare. I watched her eyes fill.
“Oh, God! I’m sorry!” I reached toward her, but then covered my mouth with my hands instead.
She blinked and took a heavy breath. “You don’t know what is in my heart.”
She pushed away from the table. She strode down the hall, her robe swishing behind her. I blotted my eyes on a paper napkin and blew my nose in it. Momma had left two inches of wine in her glass. I drank it. I stared at the crossword puzzle page and thought about my parents. I wished I could take back what I’d said to her. I’d had no right. I knew nothing—not for certain. A half-finished word on the puzzle grid caught my eye. I checked the clue: mutual interchange. I looked at my mother’s faintly penciled letters in some of the blocks and filled in the rest with my own clean printing.
Reciprocity.
I folded the bag of condoms shut, took them to my room, and hid them in the back of my sweater drawer. I wasn’t going to need condoms again for a long while.
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Forty-two
I WOKE THAT NEXT MORNING, HUGGING MYSELF IN DISBELIEF.
I’m going to be with Cowboy.
Oh, there were hundreds of thorns to pick out of my life. I went over them with myself: You took a cheap shot at Momma. You have to end things with Brady. You will have a Not-So-Cheerleading mess to clean up. Bampas’s head will explode.
But there would be Cowboy, now—and in a different way than ever before. I was certain at the center of my being that things were coming right with my world. He loved me. The rest would work out.
I had twenty-four hours in the house, twenty-four hours basically to myself—the most bittersweet grounding of my life.
My parents and my brothers were home, but no one came into my room, and Brady didn’t call. Neither did Cowboy—well, he’d never done that anyway. He didn’t even have my number. I’d have to fix that. But he was also giving me time, and I thought he needed some too; he was probably out apartment hunting. I looked out my window, my escape route, and remembered the feel of him from the night before—the gentle pressure of his lips, the taste of him, the warmth of his skin. We had laughed—like lovers, I realized. I kept my jacket on all day long and checked for the pack of cigarettes over and over again.
Late in the afternoon, I ventured down the hall to my mother’s room. I hesitated then brushed my knuckles against her door.
“Come in,” she said. She was at her mirror combing her hair. “Oh, Bettina.” She seemed surprised, and when I thought about it, I could not remember the last time I’d come to my parents’ room.
“Hi,” I said softly. I slipped in to sit on the edge of her bed. “I’m sorry about last night. I’m sorry for what I said to you.”
She pressed her hand toward me. “Let’s not,” she said. She collected her thick, dark hair in her hands. “So,” she said rather suddenly, “you want something.”
“Well.” I cleared my throat. “I wanted to tell you about my . . . friend.” My own choice of words surprised me at first, but then seemed right. I waited for Momma to interrupt me. She didn’t. “His name is . . . Silas,” I said, “but I call him Cowboy.”
She made a little bit of a face. I ignored her.
I told her how I’d been taking him coffees, and cutting bits of school and cheerleading practice to see him. I told her that he owned a small, classical car restoration company and that he rented a unit at the complex that Bampas owned. Momma rolled her eyes. “Oh, Bettina. Your father will forbid this. You know that.”
“But Cowboy really admires Bampas—”
“They know each other?” She raised her brow. “Dear God.”
“They’ve met. To sign the lease. Business stuff.”
My mother nodded. “So what else about him, Bettina?” she asked crisply. She wound her hair tightly at the back of her head and pinned it. “There was Brady Cullen, and I suspect, a few before him. What is it that makes you have to have this one—the older one?”
“Well, I’m not sure I can explain it, Momma.” I began to try anyway. “He listens, and he likes the way I think. He believes in me as an artist and that makes me feel like I am someone. Momma, there is this exchange. . . .” I shifted my hands back and forth. “I’ve never had this before. But really, it’s my heart. This is who my heart loves. I can’t help that. The fact that he’s older is . . . an obstacle. He and I both know that.”
“I see,” she said. “I’m surprised. I expected something more superficial.”
“Nice, Momma.”
“I don’t mean to be unkind. It’s just that—I know how it feels. You want to be swept away. You really do.”
“So maybe there’s no stopping that,” I said. “He and I only just admitted this to each other, Momma. I haven’t decided to marry him. I just want to be able to see him without lying. I want you to meet him. And someday I want him to come over and—oh, I don’t know—wash cars in our driveway and have Sunday supper with us.” I finished with a small, hopeful laugh. “Momma, will you meet him?”
“Possibly,” she said. “I just don’t know. I cannot imagine telling this to—”
My father strode into the room. “Loreena, I’m going to have a shower and—oh. Bettina.” It was funny—he said my name just the way my mother had. He stood, looking back and forth b
etween us, one hand poised on his top shirt button.
“I was just on my way out,” I said. I gave my mother a parting glance; she returned an unreadable one, but I realized, she had not said no.
On my way down the hall, I poked my head inside the boys’ bedroom.
“Hey, nerds, wanna come out and shovel turds?”
“You rhymed!” Avel laughed. “You going to do the rabbits? Yeah, I’ll come!” He jammed his feet into his sneakers.
“Wait, wait! Boots,” I told him. “Snow’s melting. It’ll be muddy out there.”
“I’m gonna come, too.” Favian swung himself down from the upper bunk. “I haven’t been out to see the rabbits in a while.”
“Been checking out some other bunnies?” I poked him in the ribs. “You know. On Bampas’s reader?” I raised my eyebrows.
“Avel, did you tell?” Favian reached to swat him and I caught his arm.
“He didn’t tell.” I said. “I just know everything.”
“Are you gonna bust us?” Favian whispered. He shot a glance down the hallway toward Momma and Bampas’s bedroom door.
“Not as long as you promise me that you’ll always be nice to girls,” I said. “And now, I am going to make you scoop major poop.”
“Catch me first!” Favian hollered, and he took off down the hall. I chased him to the kitchen and held him in a bear hug.
Avel came running. “Pig pile!” he hollered. He jumped on my back and knocked us all down on the kitchen floor. We lay there laughing until Avel—on top—said, “Uh-oh! I’m gonna pee my pants!” We were suddenly arms, legs, and torsos everywhere, as Favian and I scrambled to get out from under Avel.
I looked up and saw my mother in the hall. She wore a faint smile that broke open when she said, “What are you children doing?” I felt so much warmth from Momma at that moment. Once again, I believed that a good turn had come.
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