White Knight

by CD Reiss

She’d been looking over my shoulder at Lola’s. Bernie had been talking about my quant fund and she was cooing about how she didn’t understand it. I’d tried to hide my phone screen because… why?

  Right. I’d been looking at my checking account. Why? To prove some shit to Bernie?

  Why would I call up my checking account on my phone? At dinner, no less. The most interesting transactions weren’t in the checking. That was a slush fund for bills and crap.

  Lucia had long nails. She’d run them along the back of my hand as I’d slid my fingers over the glass.

  “You have a dog?” she asked, pulling a hair off my sleeve.

  “Yeah.”

  “Little or big?”

  She was making conversation, which you were supposed to do at a big dinner. I was agitated the night I’d met Lucia. I knew why for a while, then I forgot. Something in the checking account had been bugging me.

  “Medium.”

  I’d been counting days.

  Why? I wasn’t late with anything. I had a team of people to pay the damn bills. What was it with the checking account eight years ago? And why had it mattered?

  Tossing the last of the soiled paper towels, I leaned down to face my dog. “Do you still want to go out? Walk?”

  Of course he did. We went around the corner. He gave what he had left to a few hydrants and I tried to pull apart that night with Lucia.

  My personal checking account. Why why why?

  When we got back, I poured Lance some water, but instead of drinking, he followed me to my office. It was hardwood and chrome, shine and windows. My weekend hideaway from the social dramas of the fashion world that Lucia brought home. Throwing open the closet doors, I rooted past the bank boxes and corporate binders on the top shelf, finding my old checkbooks.

  Counting backward, I found the checks I would have written when I met Lucia. No, no, no. Lance plopped down in front of me and whined, tilting his head toward my desk. I didn’t know if it was because of the pain in his spine or if he was trying to mention that looking at my bank account online would be easier.

  “I think I’ll remember better if I feel the paper, you know?” I told him.

  He put his chin between his paws and watched me with his big brown eyes, as if he knew what I was about to find out.

  “Something you want to tell me, boy?”

  He just blinked.

  “Fine.” I flipped through the book.

  Like most people, I used mostly online payments and bank transfers, so a carbon for a check dated six months before I met Lucia wasn’t too hard to find.

  Seven hundred forty-nine dollars, made out to Catherine Barrington.

  My phone number was in the memo.

  Yeah.

  That was why I’d been looking at my checking account.

  Check 3201 had never been cashed, and the night I’d met Lucia was exactly six months after it was dated. The last day it was valid.

  That was the night I gave up on Catherine.

  Chapter 10

  catherine - present

  Dear Chris,

  Your letter came as a surprise. It’s wonderful to hear from you after all these years. How they’ve flown by!

  I tapped my finger against the kitchen counter, reading the note. The black ballpoint handwriting was fine. Neat as a pin. The stationary was old Barrington family paper that I kept in the bottom of my underwear drawer because I had nowhere else to put it. Everything was fine with the note except the intent.

  The soup for church was popping and boiling in the pot. The dishes were clean, and I had nothing to do but write this note. I wished I had something else to do.

  * * *

  Your letter came as a surprise. It’s wonderful to hear from you after all these years. How they’ve flown by!

  I sounded like a stranger. Like someone who had never promised him a thing. Even the exclamation point at the end that was supposed to warm up the letter seemed like another line and dot of distance.

  Pushing the paper’s corners together, I started to crumple it and stopped. I could use it as scrap. I could write everything I wanted to say then edit it neatly onto a new sheet.

  * * *

  I am so sorry to hear about Lance. I think burying him at home is the right thing. I know Galahad is on Wild Horse Hill. You should get a space nearby.

  * * *

  Was that all I was going to talk about? Lance? Was I going to let the subtext rule the conversation or was I going to be a grown-up?

  * * *

  I don’t know when I stopped waiting for you.

  * * *

  There. That was closer. At least it was true. A long time ago, I’d stopped waiting without even thinking about it.

  * * *

  I used to cry over you, but not for a long time. Now I just cry out of habit. I cry for a release, even if I don’t feel sad. It’s a valve I can open and I function fine. So, thanks for the tears, I guess.

  * * *

  The bedsprings squeaked upstairs, and my stream of rage snapped. This thing Harper had. This man she’d met on the internet and brought home. It was strange and unprecedented and I wanted it.

  I didn’t even know what it was and I wanted it. I wanted it so badly I couldn’t think.

  To add shame to sin, the doorbell rang.

  I looked through the front sidelight. It was Reggie.

  “Shoot.”

  He worked in the distribution center off the interstate and painted small canvases of cities and spaceships in his spare time. He’d sold a few to people in Doverton, but mostly he covered them over with new ideas as they occurred.

  When I was upset, my father gave me the master suite as a consolation prize. At twenty, Reggie was Barrington’s resident artistic talent. Dad had hired him to paint flowers on the ceiling to cheer me up. I didn’t sleep in that room anymore because of a roof leak, but knowing the ceiling was there was comforting. It was beautiful and it was mine.

  My sister and every lady in town insisted Reggie held a candle for me ever since then. Even while I dated Frank Marshall and after that ended peacefully. The rumors alone put Reggie at the top of the list of people I didn’t want to come inside while Taylor and Harper were making a racket.

  Pressing the pedal to open the kitchen garbage pail, I gathered the top of the plastic bag. It was only about a third full, but I took it to the front door anyway. When I opened it, Reggie had his hat in his hand.

  “Hello,” I said.

  He stuffed his baseball cap in his back pocket and took the bag. “I have that.”

  “Thank you.” I pointed down the driveway.

  The garbage pails were on the side of the house so they were easily accessed from the side door. Hopefully he’d think I came to the front to answer the doorbell, as opposed to using the garbage as an excuse to keep him out of the house and away from the sound of the bed squeaking.

  He followed where I indicated without question, walking around the side with me.

  “What brings you here on Sunday morning?”

  “I just found out from Johnny that old Chris Carmichael’s coming back.”

  “Really?”

  “So they say.”

  We walked a few more steps.

  “He might,” I said. “But who knows?”

  “Did he tell you?”

  “Why would he?”

  “You guys had a thing.”

  “That was a long time ago.” I opened the garbage pail lid. “Why?”

  He put the bag inside. “I was wondering how you were about it? Happy?”

  “It’s complicated.” I let the lid slap shut. “A lot’s changed. I mean, look around here. When he left, the burger place was packed every night, the factory was open, my family? We… we were big shots.”

  “You’re still a big shot to me.” He was being completely earnest. He was a trash-talking guy’s guy when he thought I wasn’t looking, but around me, he was warm and sincere.

  “Thank you, Reg.”

  He c
leared his throat. “So what are you going to do with that thorn bush out back? Those roses were his pride and joy.”

  “Hardly.”

  “Aw, come on. He worked twelve hours at a time on them. Pruned and mulched. I remember.”

  I wanted them to be nice for him, but I also didn’t want to see him. I wished I could be of a single mind about anything. “I should probably make them into proper bushes again.”

  I walked Reggie to his car. It was the only subtle way I had of letting him know he couldn’t come inside.

  “If you need any help, I’m pretty handy with clippers.”

  “You’re good at too many things, Reggie.”

  “I said I was handy.” He flipped his hat back on. “I make no other promises.”

  “Will I see you at church?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I’m making the soup everyone likes.”

  “I’ll come hungry then.”

  He got into his car. We said our so longs and he drove off.

  Back inside, I was glad I hadn’t invited Reggie in. They were still at it. Maybe they were trying to be quiet the same way I tried to be quiet when I cried at night.

  The sounds were lower by the couch. The sewing kit was on the arm because I’d sold the end tables and coffee table. The kit’s lid had a hard inside surface. I opened it, put a blanket over my legs, and began my letter to Chris again.

  Chapter 11

  CATHERINE - SIXTEENTH SUMMER

  Behind the courts, between the locker room and the club, there was a shortcut for members and an artery for the grounds staff. Behind that was a quarter-acre patch of grass between the fence and Route 42 which stretched between Doverton and Barrington. The entire lot was visible to the road, but there was a tree in the middle of it. A mighty oak with horizontal branches thicker than most tree’s fully-grown trunks.

  When Chris had a minute and happened upon the right piece of wood, he’d nail chunks of two-by-four or one-by-four into the trunk. He told me about it behind the pool house and in the hidden corners of the parking lot.

  I didn’t know what he was talking about until he finished at mid-summer and led me through a hole in the fence. “Where are we going?”

  I was barely through before Lance bounced over to me, stopping right before he came to the end of a long chain. Still a puppy, he had big brown eyes and floppy ears with short fur the color of hazelnuts. I ran my hands over his body, and he rolled onto his back.

  “Is he safe here?” I asked, crouching to rub his belly.

  “Pretty safe. Irv says it’s okay as long as I clean up after him and he’s quiet.”

  Lance twisted around and nipped my fingers playfully, trying to wrestle my hand.

  “Where’s your ball?” Chris asked.

  Lance bounced back to the base of his captivity. The tree. I stood and slapped my hands clean. Chris laid his hand on the back of my neck. I shuddered.

  “I was watching you play,” he whispered in my ear. “Do you know you smile before forehands?”

  “You should tell me when you’re there.”

  “Next time.” He nipped my earlobe, his breath loud in my ear.

  Lance dropped a sticky ball at our feet. Chris knelt and patted his head, reaching into his pocket for a new yellow ball. Lance was thrilled. Chris tossed it toward the tree and the puppy ran for it. Chris took my hand and led me to the tree.

  “Put your foot on this.” He laid his hand on the lowest piece of wood, at knee height. “I’ve tried it already. It’s safe.”

  I dropped my bag at the trunk, and he helped me balance as I got my tennis shoe on the bottom foothold. My hands found the boards above, and I stepped up. At the second step, I pressed the back of my skirt against my bare thighs and looked down at him.

  “You’ll need two hands to climb,” he said.

  Behind him, on the ground, Lance looked up at us with his tongue hanging out.

  “I think you should go first,” I said.

  “You’re wearing shorts under your skirt. I can’t see a thing.”

  The shorts protected my bottom from view while I ran and spun on the tennis court. But they were still really short, and he was getting a longer look.

  “Do you promise?”

  “Swear.”

  I decided to believe him and climbed until I was fifteen feet off the ground, on a bough thicker than a telephone pole. I straddled the bough and slid back so Chris could fit. He straddled it facing me. Below us, Lance protected the new ball by yipping. I could hear cars on Route 42 and the pock pock of tennis balls hitting the court, but all I could see were leaves, branches, and mottled sunlight.

  “Do you like it?” he asked.

  “I love it.”

  He licked his finger and chalked one up for himself. “Did you decide about college next year?”

  I shrugged. I wanted to get out of Barrington. Spread my wings. Meet new people and learn new things. But Chris couldn’t afford to go to college.

  “Did you check out the financial aid booklet at the library?” I asked.

  “There’s no point.”

  “Well then, I’ll get an Associate’s from Jackson County. I won’t have to move and—”

  “You have to get out of here.” He grabbed my hands. “I can’t go, but you can.”

  Chris was an only child to a mother who had been too obese to leave her bed. In the past year, she’d made him proud by losing a hundred fifty pounds. Not enough to be comfortable, but enough to move around the trailer.

  “Then come,” I said. “I move, then you move and we meet far away somewhere.”

  He squeezed my hands. “Look at you. You can be anything you want. Go be it. That’s all I have to say.”

  He looked over my shoulder, then back at my face. I knew him enough from our summer together to know I needed to wait to hear whatever he said next.

  “I’ll be here when you get back,” he continued.

  I almost lost my mind in his eyes. Almost agreed with him. I could do anything, but I didn’t want to. I wasn’t Harper, with her big dreams and bigger brain. I didn’t have ambitions or a career in mind. I figured I’d inherit the factory and keep it going, or not. What I really wanted was a house full of people who depended on me.

  “I’ll think about it,” I said because I wanted to make Chris happy for a moment.

  “When do you have to be back?” he asked.

  “Mom thinks I’m volleying with Marsha.”

  He brushed my knee with his fingertips. My skin felt as though it was melting underneath him and I became very aware of the hard trunk between my legs.

  “Marsha’s in the pool house with what’s-his-face.”

  “Charles.”

  He leaned into me. “What do you think they’re doing in there?”

  They called Marsha a tramp, but I didn’t think she was. Or maybe I thought being a tramp suited her. Or I thought it wasn’t a big deal.

  “Stuff.”

  “This, maybe?” He ran two fingers inside my thigh.

  Sensation rushed behind them, to my knees, and ahead to the soft place between my legs. We’d kissed plenty in the back room of the pro shop and in the utility closet. He’d run his hands over my shirt, but he’d never touched me like that before.

  “Maybe,” I gasped.

  I shouldn’t let him run his hand up my other thigh. I should stop this right there. He was going way too fast. There were steps and he wasn’t honoring them. But that made his touch even more explosive. My body didn’t expect the speed of his advance, and it reacted by opening up all the way.

  “Oh, my God.” His eyes were wide and his lip was stretched behind his top teeth. When he let it go, it went from white to deep pink. “Look at you. I can’t believe how sexy you are.”

  My face tingled. Chris wasn’t any more experienced than I was, but he was so open and honest about what he was doing and what he wanted that his words made me blush.

  His index finger brushed the edge of my shorts. �
�Can I touch you?”

  I throbbed when he asked. The ache inside me was almost painful in its need.

  But was it too much? Would he think I was a slut? My legs were already open, by design. Wasn’t that already an invitation? I could have swung both legs to one side, but I hadn’t taken the modest posture.

  In the pause after his question, he kissed me, pressing his thumbs into my inner thighs. His tongue in my mouth was such a sweet violation. I wanted more. All the more.

  I picked up his hands and put them on my chest. Lips locked, he ran his thumbs over my hard nipples as I reached back, under my shirt, and unhooked my bra.

  He broke the kiss. I came forward to put our mouths together again, but he leaned back. “Show me.”

  I would have preferred to kiss while he felt my breasts so it would feel as though I was in thoughtless throes of passion. It would feel less mindful. If we were putting thought into it, pausing and stopping, appreciating every act, then I had no excuse.

  Chris gently pulled at the hem of my shirt. He didn’t want mindless. He wanted to see every second. I knew my nipples were hard under my bra and he was looking at them as if he was savoring the sight. His relish shamed me and made my skin tingle at the same time.

  In the choice between shame and the tingle, I made my choice.

  I pulled my shirt up over my breasts. The bra lifted. He ran his hands along the underside before he pulled the bra up.

  He sucked in a breath.

  “These are beautiful.” He bent my hard nipples before he gently squeezed them.

  The feeling shot right between my legs as if connected by an electric wire. My back arched, and my consciousness hid behind a wall of pleasure.

  The bough slipped from under me, and his hands tightened on my rib cage.

  “Whoa, there,” he said, keeping me from falling.

  “I’m sorry.”