Heart's Desire

by Laura Pedersen

  A heavily made-up gaggle of girls whip out cigarettes the minute they’re on the other side of the metal doors and strut toward the hot-rod section at the back of the parking lot. The reason they’re able to light up so easily is because they’re not carrying any books or folders. I spot my sister Louise right smack in the center of the group, waving her smoke as if it’s a sparkler on the Fourth of July. Not that I have anything big against smoking. But it definitely contributes to her aura of a soon-to-be dropout.

  “Hey, Louise,” I yell out the car window.

  She swivels her head to seek out the owner of the voice, giving her long shiny hair a sexy toss in the process. But as soon as she sees me and my decidedly uncool cherry red Buick Park Avenue she quickly turns away, as if I’m a mother in hair curlers and a fuzzy pink bathrobe arriving with the bag lunch that she purposely left at home.

  At that moment Just Call Me Dick saunters past like a farmer checking his sheep pen for wolves, with his old-fashioned trousers hiked so high that his chest is in danger of being swallowed up. All that’s missing is a shotgun. I wonder if when other grown-ups call him Richard he still trounces on them with that high-pitched nasal voice that could sharpen pencils, “Just call me Dick!” thereby announcing “I’m an asshole!” barely a split second before people figure it out for themselves. If my life were an animated short feature, then last year Just Call Me Dick would have to be considered the arch-enemy, making it his full-time job to harass me about playing hooky.

  As JCMD comes closer to the car my heart skips a beat and I automatically duck down underneath the dashboard. It’s only then I realize that I’m not even doing anything wrong. Muscle memory is a powerful force. No wonder eighty-year-olds can still ride bikes. After he passes by I return to an upright position in the driver’s seat.

  According to my friend Jane, Just Call Me Dick had finally received his coveted promotion and is now assistant vice-principal. Instead of having to scrounge up kids cutting classes in the video arcade and bring them to justice, his new commission is to ensure that justice is indeed served. Or more accurately, in the words of The Mikado, to make sure the punishment fits the crime. Jane also reports that JCMD now metes out sentences in his own private bunker next to the janitor’s closet. And watching him survey the throng of kids scrambling to catch their buses, I must admit that he indeed possesses the aura of a man rising up within his world, his beaklike nose in the air the way a turkey vulture catches a whiff of an injured muskrat coming from out of the northwest.

  Finally I see the back of Gwen’s smooth golden hair and honk my horn as she’s about to climb onto her bus. She spots the familiar car and hurries over.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “HALLIE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” GWEN SOUNDS AS IF she’s worried that I’ve dropped out of college and reverted back to my wicked ways. No wonder my mother is concerned about Louise—a reputation is a hard thing to shake.

  “No more teachers, no more books,” I chant. “My exams finished a couple days ago. Can I give you a lift?”

  “Thank goodness, yes. Joel is staying after to lift weights.”

  Joel has been Gwen’s boyfriend since January, when Owen was replaced because he hung out with his friends too much at the holiday dance. She climbs into the car and carefully adjusts the pink blouse that barely contains her exuberant femininity, so that the puffy sleeve doesn’t get caught in the door. After checking her matching lip gloss in the passenger mirror she turns her porcelain face, which is mounted on a neck that fashion models can only dream about, to examine me. “When are you going to let me pluck your eyebrows, blow-dry your hair, and apply some mascara?”

  “Next Thursday,” I say. “My boyfriend, Ray, is coming to visit on Friday. And well . . .”

  “You’re finally going to sleep with him, aren’t you?” She leans over excitedly and squeezes my knee.

  Suddenly I’m embarrassed and feel my cheeks flush. “Yeah. I mean, probably.”

  “Oh, Hallie, that’s so cool. Promise that you’ll tell me all about it.”

  “Didn’t you sleep with Joel after the prom last weekend? I thought . . .”

  “No. I mean, of course he wanted to. But I’m going to college in San Diego and he was finally accepted at the University of Pennsylvania after being wait-listed.”

  “So?”

  “So, I don’t want my first time to be with someone I’m never going to see again. He’s doing an internship in Des Moines at his aunt’s advertising agency all summer. And besides, I’m Catholic.”

  “You’re a Catholic when it’s convenient, like for getting out of school early to supposedly attend religion classes,” I say with laughter. “What about Jane?”

  “What about Jane? She’s still married to her baseball mitt. Somehow about a week before every dance she manages to dig a hunk of male flesh out of the guys’ locker room for a date, basically a brisket in a uniform. And then after the party we never hear about him again, unless his name is read over the announcements for scoring the winning goal.” Gwen laughs at Jane’s well-known love ’em and leave ’em mode of operation.

  “Do you think she’s—you know . . .”

  “Oh gosh, no!” exclaims Gwen. “She has a huge crush on that famous South American soccer player, what’s-his-name? And she almost went all the way with Bruno a couple weeks ago when they hooked up at a post-game party.”

  “Really?” I say.

  “Yeah, she just doesn’t want to be bothered with all the day-today relationship stuff,” explains Gwen. “Jane organizes make-out sessions like doctors schedule appointments—get them in, get them out, and then leave her alone to watch ESPN. Because you can be sure no guy is ever going to get that remote control.”

  It’s true. Jane can watch three games at once and be right about which team is going to win every one.

  “I don’t know, maybe she’s onto something.” Gwen gives me that look that says, Sometimes guys can be such jerks! “Oh, she finally decided to go to Bucknell University. Coaches from three different schools were still fighting over her until last week.”

  “That’s great, because I know she really wants to play on their soccer team.” We’re both well aware that it’s Jane’s dream to eventually play soccer on a European travel team and maybe even try out for the Olympics, so this is definitely good news. Meantime, Gwen certainly has no cause to be jealous of our friend. She wants to become a fashion designer and her father can afford to send her wherever she’s accepted. Besides, Gwen’s never had any interest in playing sports. She doesn’t think uniforms are figure-flattering and is convinced that anything played outdoors causes chapped lips and permanent sun damage to your skin.

  “I probably shouldn’t tell you this . . . ,” says Gwen, her usual challenge for you to try and coax the latest gossip out of her.

  “Tell me what?” I try to sound as if I’m dying from curiosity. Gwen is a lot like Bernard in that she responds better to an enthusiastic audience. “You did so sleep with Joel! Or somebody!”

  “No,” she whispers, as if the willow tree hanging over the driveway might have a microphone hidden within its branches. “It’s about Jane. Her parents are getting divorced.”

  “Huh?” I’m speechless. Mr. and Mrs. Davenport always seemed like the perfect couple. And Jane’s mother is from some small zippity-do-dah town in the South, so she’s constantly smiling, baking things, sewing name tags into her kids’ clothes, and busy making a nice home. It’s not as if Jane’s mom has ignored her family for the sake of some big career. She put in the long hours teaching her kids right from wrong—and didn’t just leave notes on the fridge. In fact, we were all entertained by, and truly fond of, Mrs. Davenport. She is a Southern version of Miss Manners, peppering her speech with such chestnuts as “Speak only well of people and you never have to whisper,” and for the complainers, “Would you like cheese with your whine?” Whenever someone says they were lucky, Mrs. Davenport insists that, no, they were blessed, thereby implying they had better
not scrimp on their prayers that night.

  “But Jane doesn’t want anyone to find out,” Gwen says, and raises her eyebrows in a way that indicates “anyone” of course doesn’t apply to her but means “anyone else.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  “Who knows.” Gwen rolls her eyes. “Apparently her folks have been saying they’re not sure if they ever loved each other, they’re not sure what would make them happy, they’re not sure if the earth is round. I get the feeling she’s still hoping that they’ll be able to work things out.”

  “Thanks for the tip-off,” I say. “I won’t mention it unless Jane does first.” I guess Jane’s parents weren’t informed that they’re supposed to wait three more months, until she’s away at college, and then call her there with the news of the breakup. At least that way she’d have an instant support group of freshmen finding out about their newly broken homes.

  “So are you excited?” asks Gwen, quickly returning to the topic of my pending loss of virginity. “Have you decided what to wear?”

  “I don’t think you wear much of anything,” I say.

  “Beforehand, silly! I could loan you my green silk T-shirt. That would look good with jeans. And we all know how devoted you are to your jeans.”

  “So you think that sweatpants are too casual.” It’s a joke but Gwen takes her fashion so seriously, I know it will get her.

  “Hallie!” she practically shouts. “You can’t wear sweats for your first time! I mean, what kind of mood does that set? What a terrible memory it would make.” She covers her face with her hands as if to expunge the very thought.

  “I was kidding!” I laugh like crazy and she punches me in the arm.

  “Aren’t you nervous?”

  “Yeah, I guess. A little bit.” Leave it to Gwen to make this into a Cosmo quiz. “I—I guess I wish it was already over with. It feels as if there’s a big test hanging over my head.”

  “What do you mean?” Gwen appears stunned. “Aren’t you in love with him?”

  “I like him a lot, okay.” My frustration must show. “I don’t know for sure what being in love even feels like.”

  “I love Joel,” Gwen says definitively.

  “And what does that mean, exactly?” I ask.

  “I don’t have eyes for anyone else and whenever I’m away from him I wish that I was with him.”

  Her answer sounds like a Top 40 ballad. “But what about after he leaves for Des Moines in a week?”

  “I’ll have to stop loving him and fall in love with someone else,” she says matter-of-factly.

  “Right. How dumb of me.”

  “I’ve been considering Neil,” says Gwen with a gleam in her bedroom eyes. “I don’t think you know him. He’s a friend of my sister’s husband’s younger brother. I met him at the wedding and he lives near San Diego. We’ve been E-mailing. He works for a company that books cruises on those big ocean liners and goes on vacation all over the world practically for free. Imagine all the cool clothes I’d get to wear!”

  Leave it to Gwen to have a replacement boyfriend waiting in the wings. Not only that, but one who requires a brand-new wardrobe.

  We arrive at her farmette a few miles from town. They have a real barn in the back that is home to a couple of horses and a few dozen chickens. There’s an owl, too. I hear it all the time, trashtalkin’ the mice and baby chicks, but have never actually seen it.

  Out here in the country it is impossible not to be conscious of the fact that we are knee-deep in spring and there’s no turning back. Everything in nature seems to be stirring. Clouds of tiny pale blue butterflies dive and dart among the bushes while baby rabbits zigzag across the wide front lawn. The air is saturated with earthy smells, including the farmers off to the east fertilizing with fresh manure. Above us the trees are full of rustling noises and swelling buds. Now and then the dazzling wing of a cardinal flashes through the thick leaves.

  “You’d better come in and say hi to my mom,” Gwen tells me as she gets out of the car.

  “I’m running sort of late,” I say. “And you know how she is with all the questions.” The CIA has nothing on Gwen’s mom when it comes to performing an interrogation. “Can’t I talk to her on Thursday when I come for my makeover?”

  “All right. And mark your calendar that on Saturday afternoon I’m throwing a huge graduation party. We’re going to decorate the whole barn in school colors and my dad is even going to let us paint a bulldog on the roof. Be sure to bring Ray along so I can check him out.”

  “Let me see how it goes.” Playing volleyball in Gwen’s barn isn’t quite the afterglow I had in mind. On the other hand, by graduating early and leaving for the summer session at college, I’d missed out on all the end-of-the-year high school festivities except for the prom.

  “And I was wondering if you’d mind if I invite Craig,” says Gwen.

  “He won’t be home until the end of July or the beginning of August, if at all. He has to make up a lab,” I explain. “Apparently college biology is really hard. And he wouldn’t have taken it with calculus and Spanish if he’d known how bad it was going to be.”

  “Do you think that you two will ever get back together?” asks Gwen, the part-time matchmaker.

  “I doubt it. I mean, if we really cared about each other then I guess we would have stayed together, right? Besides, everyone I know who did a long-distance relationship ended up miserable and eventually broke it off anyway.”

  “Yeah, that’s what everyone says,” agrees Gwen. “Steer clear of LDRs.” She says this as if long-distance relationships are a virulent virus.

  “Besides, every time we talk on the phone it sounds as if he has a million girlfriends,” I say.

  Gwen giggles. “So! Every time we talk on the phone you have a different boyfriend.”

  “Only that’s not by choice,” I hate to admit.

  Chapter Nineteen

  BY THE TIME I ARRIVE BACK IN TOWN IT’S ALREADY HALF PAST four. I’ve accomplished nothing today other than stock up on gardening supplies. I guess that’s what happens when you don’t start work until noon. And having promised my mother to look into the wayward sibling situation, I should really stop and see Officer Rich. From what I saw in the school parking lot this afternoon, I can’t exactly accuse Mom of overreacting, for once.

  The police station is housed in a fancy government town hall that dates back to the 1920s. It’s easy to tell when a building went up in Cosgrove. Either it’s really pretty and from 1800 to 1930, or an ugly slab of concrete from the What Were They Thinking school of architecture in the 1960s and ’70s. However, this particular structure is from the earlier period, with tall columns out front and big white-robed statues at the top, like galaxy judges peering down to determine if you’ve been naughty or nice.

  At one end of the long marble hallway is the office where titles and zoning information about local real estate are kept on file. Motor Vehicle and the window where you can get birth and death certificates are in the middle. At the opposite end is the courtroom and where Officer Rich runs his small department. Mostly people go to him to file complaints or ask him to give a safety lecture to their school or church group.

  A brick building around the back contains the one-cell county jail. If someone is arrested here in Cosgrove, he’s usually from out of town, and so the next day the person is moved to Cleveland or wherever it is he or she is wanted. Mostly the jail serves as an apartment for Marty-the-Town-Drunk. It used to be that when he was particularly down and out and in need of a meal and a warm place to sleep it off, he would purposely get himself arrested for vagrancy by passing out in a public place. Finally Officer Rich got tired of being Marty’s taxi service and just gave him a key to the jail. There’s a hot plate, vending machines, and some cans of hash and beans. The only rule is that Marty has to clean up before leaving.

  I haven’t been inside the police station for years, not since I delivered to Officer Rich the proof that I didn’t take the missing money from the charity
golf tournament. However, just walking down the highly waxed cavernous corridor serves to make me slightly jittery, as if there may still be some outstanding violation they haven’t yet caught up with me about.

  Lining the walls are imposing portraits of pasty-faced town forefathers with beady black eyes frowning down as if they know you haven’t said your prayers in months. In addition to jangling my nervous system, they remind me to ask Olivia how she’s doing with raising money for the portrait of Unitarian social worker Angela Holst. She’s the woman who brought modern sanitation to the town back in the 1940s and single-handedly stopped local kids from contracting typhoid. And thus Olivia wants her honored as a town “foremother.” Bernard claims that the only thing scarier than a Unitarian task force with a political petition is the Unitarian Women’s Alliance with a health concern.

  There’s a bank of pay phones across from where Officer Rich works and I decide to call Ray to make sure that he is indeed coming to visit on Friday. He sounds happy to hear from me but explains he’s busy doing something with his father and can’t talk right now, other than to say he’s still planning to drive to Cosgrove, unless I’ve changed my mind. This of course doesn’t refer to having dinner together, but rather to me making good on my promise to sleep with him. After hanging up I justify the plan to myself by recalling what Olivia said about having to start someplace.

  The front desk where Carol the receptionist usually sits and works on her nail tips is empty. However, I can see Officer Rich in his small office, with his size fourteens perched on the pulled-out bottom drawer of an adjacent filing cabinet. He’s leaning back in his chair with his cap over his face, either doing some serious brain work or more likely having a snooze. His belt with the gun holster and parking-ticket book are draped across the desk next to a half-dozen framed pictures of his family.