by Diane Munier
He touches me down there, his head on my stomach, he makes me come, go to pieces, yell out and my hands in his hair, the long hot wave of pleasure, then his hot lips on mine, and sucking my tongue, my lips, sucking on my breasts and one quick touch of his fingers and I put my hands over his strong hand and lift my head and I come again, bliss and sounds and smells, and I grab onto him and I’m pumping him, and faster and the white, hot spurts, the wet and sticky, the sweaty us, the laughing us, the kissing wildly us, the whispered words, beauty, beautiful, my God, the glow, the joy of so much discovery.
“In the morning I’m going to fry you some patty pan squash,” I say after.
“That white kind?”
“Yeah. With soft eggs. It’s so good. You dip the squash in the yellow.”
“Sarah,” he whispers. Then he says, “We never had our steak!”
“After we cut pumpkins tomorrow,” I say. “I know a place.”
I get a kiss for that. He gets one too, for kissing me. We don’t sleep until much later.
Me and Mom Fall for Spencer
Chapter Twenty-Six
On Friday, after the promised breakfast of patty pan squash and soft eggs and fresh tomatoes, some footsies while we eat, some long lingering looks, some hugs, some smooches, Spencer, Leeanne, the dogs and I are on our way to the pumpkin patch on Leeanne’s uncles’ farm. We plan to cut the various sizes and colors and shapes of pumpkins and load them in the truck.
“This dog is drooling on my leg,” Leeanne says in her dead pan way. She has Dusty between her knees and Spencer has Ned between his. I’d wanted Spencer to sit in the middle so he could be by me, but he said it wasn’t manly to sit in the middle so Leeanne had to do it.
At first Leeanne is shy around Spencer, blushing and looking at me like, what’s this? Then she softens up a little and pretty soon she is smirking at everything he says.
She tells him how her uncles planted the pumpkins near the pond and they grow like crazy there, tangled in the sunflowers and cattails. Every fall they let us cut them for the market as they both have a series of shelter dogs and believe in the cause. They’ve never taken wives, just dogs and cats and various critters, a long line of them.
Leeanne has a box in the back of the truck with two pies and cookies for the old bachelors. They’ve both served in Vietnam and one of them lived like a homeless man for many years until the other one went to Detroit and brought him back to the farm. So the two of them live in the same ramshackle they’ve grown up in. They still use the same appliances and the regular antenna on their old TV.
“You’ve got to understand, my people are about the land,” she says.
“What happens if I fail to understand that?” Spencer teases.
“You’ll see them as a couple of losers too lazy to fix up their house,” she says.
Spencer loves that and says, “Dully noted. No judgment from me Miss Leeanne.”
Pulling onto the property Spencer whistles through his teeth. “I had this place I wouldn’t care what I lived in,” he says.
It is typical picturesque Michigan farmland. The old house and adjacent faded red barn are tucked in some trees and a swell of ground leads to a large pond. The ground is dry enough I am able to pull my truck right up to the water. I drive slowly so we aren’t jostled too awful much but Leeanne still complains.
Ned and Dusty seem to know we’ve arrived and are both getting all breathy and antsy. As soon as Spencer opens his door the dogs are out, and Spencer has both leashes. We’ve decided to keep them tethered until they meet the uncles’ dogs. We also don’t want them to run off and get lost.
So here come the dogs right off, a Collie sort, a yellow mixed lab, and a beagle. They have plenty to say about Ned and Dusty and those being the new guys and young to-boot, they stand at ease and let themselves be sniffed. The shelter has socialized them, and in a few minutes everyone’s tail is waving and Spencer unsnaps their leads.
The uncles come next. One, Tom, is on a four-wheeler. The other, Mr. Homeless from Detroit, is driving a tractor.
Leeanne introduces Spencer and he moves to each of their vehicles to shake hands. He’s asked about the pond and the fish, tells them they have a great place. I pull my gloves from behind the seat and find another pair for Spencer. He doesn’t know how prickly the stems can be. I get the two knives for cutting the fruit. I nod to the uncles and give Spencer the implements that will make him an official migrant worker. Leeanne is in the bed retrieving her box of baked goods. Spencer puts his knife in his back-pocket and rushes to help her, taking the box from her while she jumps to the ground.
She’ll walk the baked goods up to the house and end up cleaning the kitchen so she can complain all the way home about how disgusting her uncles are.
They follow after Leeanne on their vehicles and I am free to walk to the first green pumpkin looking stealth in the tall grass. I show Spencer where to cut and I’ve bent over to do that, and he moves close to me and I feel his hand on my waist. When I stand he pulls me in and kisses me softly on the lips. “Kissing with knives is the best,” he says and then he smiles and kisses me again.
It’s funny and sexy and I don’t want to stop. He smirks at me and picks up the green monster saying, “Come to daddy,” and I slap him lightly on the behind before he can straighten.
He stands up quickly. “I can’t believe you did that. I was honorable and only touched your waist.”
“Move it, Gundry. We don’t have all day,” I say like queen of the patch.
“Yes Ma’am,” he says with a southern drawl and a wink and he takes the bounty to the truck.
He is in love with the different gourd shapes. They are so cool and it’s fascinating to see what’s next. These are heirloom vegetables and they bring the most interest at market and the best prices.
“Hey, you want to see my gourd,” he whispers once, as he passes me carrying a nice fat orange veggie.
I am laughing. It’s pretty outrageous behavior for a southern gentleman.
By noon we’ve got a good load on the truck and the dogs are lying all worn out in the grass. They’ve gone swimming countless times and they’ve wrestled and run all over the place. We’re about starved and Spencer and I put the damp dogs in the bed and drive to the house and honk for Leeanne. She tells us to go on, she’s spending the night because the house is such a mess. That means Spencer and I are doing the market in the morning. I know where everything is and she’s baked, but the old reluctance to face that crowd is in me, even though Spencer will charm them and do most of the talking for us.
We move the dogs to the cab and I try to breathe toward my open window because they smell like dog-frogs. Spencer lets Ned sit in his usual place on the floor, and he’s worked to keep Dusty off the seat, but I finally tell him to let Dusty get up there. It’s not worth the fight.
So on the way home we look at one another around Dusty’s big mossy head and that doesn’t dim either one of our smiles at all.
At home Spencer says let’s meet up for that steak around supper time. He says, “How long do you need?”
I have so much work to do, and he says he’ll pick the garden and put everything in the crates so I can keep working and maybe I’d like to see a movie too?
I am so thrown by all this I can’t answer.
“Sullivan?”
“I don’t know,” I say. Can I really stay focused on my work knowing he’s in the garden doing my job? I really don’t know.
“And I’ll take the kids,” he says, like it’s settled, and I guess it is because he has both of them on their leashes. “How long Sullivan?”
“Um…six.”
“Okay,” he says. “See you then…pumpkin.”
I am cringing and he likes that. He’s laughing. “Is that a fruit or a vegetable?”
“Both,” I say. “It has characteristics of both.”
“Oh yeah…that’s you then.”
I don’t know what he means by that. But he’s cute, walking away
with those two dogs behaving for once.
I sigh really big and go in the house. Mom isn’t home yet, so I make a couple of sandwiches and take them over to Cyro. I knock on the door and put my forehead on the screen. “Hey,” I say.
He waves me in. I take the sandwiches to him. “Doe with you?” he asks.
“No. Why?”
“Just wondering if he’s going to start on the kitchen.”
“He will.”
“He don’t have a job?”
“Just you.”
“A real job? He would have liquidated any assets when he went in the program so that could keep him going for a while,” Cyro says.
“Let it go,” I say. “He doesn’t like you saying that.”
“Course not. He thinks I’m blowing his cover.”
“Well if you believe he’s in WITSEC, you are blowing his cover. Promise you won’t say it again.”
“What are you doing, Sarah? You got the gooey eyes for him.”
“Eat your sandwiches,” I say. “You make that store list?”
“Right here,” he hands it to me with his debit card. “Sarah? You serious about Doe?”
“Spencer, Cyro. You know that.”
“He’s hiding something. If somebody’s looking for him, it could put you in danger.”
“Spencer is the nicest person you’ll ever meet. If you can’t see that by now…some cop.”
“Lots of nice people in WITSEC. Some great guys in jail. Oh look, there went a unicorn past my window,” he says.
It’s time for me to go. I get home and turn on my laptop and make myself dig into one of the files awaiting my attention. By five I give up. I am finally accomplishing something, but it’s time to think about what I look like. I get undressed and stand before the mirror. I’m honestly not much. I am not ugly, I know that, but I’m no beauty either. Beige. Oh God, I’m beige. What does Spencer see in me? What if he’s secretly making fun of me and I can’t see it? I am crazy in love. He’s…here. I don’t know why. Am I just convenient…like the soda you drink because someone puts it in your hand and you’re too lazy to walk to the fridge and get another? Is it like that?
I am disillusioned while I dig in my closet to find…something. I think of Mom’s closet. But no, we’re not on those kinds of terms. We don’t even see one another, don’t want to. I don’t trust her clothes anyway. They’ve been around.
I settle on jeans and a pretty blouse. It’s a dark red and I’d gotten it from Merle and Pearlie for my birthday. That means Leeanne picked it out. Believe it or not she has decent taste for someone besides herself. It has these flat subtle studs on the shoulders. This has kept me from wearing it before now, this and not having an occasion.
I put my hair in a braid so the studs will show. And because Spencer can pull on it to his heart’s content. My heart is fluttering at the thought of his hands on me.
Mom is home when I go down, my flat shoes quiet on the stairs. She’s in the kitchen. “Sarah Marie get in here,” she says.
I go as far as the door. When I see her, I don’t feel the rush of care I expect to. I am numb towards her and immediately guilty for that…for the numbness.
She is sitting at the table smoking and drinking a glass of wine. She is also dressed to go out. I have no wish to smell like cigarettes so I keep my distance, and I want to get out quickly if she tries to start something.
She is looking up and down me nodding her head, her mouth open a little, her tongue tucked behind her bottom teeth. I keep still.
“Going out? What are you doing…moving in with this guy?”
I’m not, so I don’t answer.
“I know how powerful it is the first time. You think he’s the only one, that you can’t feel that way about anyone else. You’d die for him.” She flicks her ashes in the tray, “and you imagine he’d die for you.”
We don’t touch that scenario. Mom’s happiest when I pretend to fit her generic, all-knowing profiles.
“Yeah, it was like that with Fred. Believe it or not. Those first couple of years…it was just like that. But right next door…how convenient for him. And exciting for you. Neither one of you even have to leave home…leave the block. And we know you like that…not leaving the block. It’s like he got sent by UPS. Right to the door. Thanks to me. I invited him in. I get it. He was waiting to see which one of us came toward him first. You were so easily infatuated. And men can’t resist young stuff.”
“Mom,” I say. “Young stuff? I’m your daughter. I’m going out.” I start to leave.
“Sarah? You believe it was that way for me and Fred once?”
I have no idea. “It,” I clear my throat, “…doesn’t matter now.”
“You think it doesn’t? Obtuse, Sarah. Very obtuse. Let me tell you something about getting older. You think back. If someone loved you it matters.”
“Alright,” I say. Anything because I realize she’s had more than one glass of wine.
“I know you don’t think he loved me, but he did.”
Actually it was me I didn’t think Fred loved. “I don’t want to talk about him, Mom. I do my best to forget he ever existed.”
“Don’t look in the mirror then,” she says.
That’s it. I go out even though she calls after, comes all the way to the door and calls after. Face is pulling up then. He can deal with her.
We are at Steak an’ Grits. That is how they sell cow here, with a side of grits. There are only four tables in this side room of the bar. You come in, get a number if you want to eat, and drink and dance--if you can find a few feet on the crowded floor--and drink some more before they call you to your table.
And on Friday and Saturday nights you can double the wait. But if you’re with someone you love, someone who makes time melt away because he’s holding you up against himself and talking softly to you while everyone else mills around you and you don’t even have to run out of the room at all you are so centered on him, then it doesn’t matter how long you have to wait for that steak cooked in an iron skillet with a side of grits that are so well seasoned and flavored and go so well with the meat you can’t imagine a baked potato ever having the nerve to take their place.
When we get in we have to share the table, so we’re together on one short bench and we never do say much to the couple across from us, beyond hello. After that it’s just Spencer and me, his arm around me, mine around him. I’m telling him how Leeanne and me started selling at the market, and I’m telling him how shy we both were and how Leeanne gave things away so she wouldn’t have to talk to people and some of the vendors got mad and we both packed up and left and Merle had to go with us a couple of times to ‘get us back in the saddle.’ We are laughing then and I’m telling him about the bachelor uncles. Well he is full of questions and I don’t know why he wants to hear all of this anyway, but he listens so intently like I’m giving him a gift or something.
They bring our food then and we are digging in and Spencer is so excited, well he loves good food, I sure know that. He’s chewing and smiling at me, and it’s not long after I look up and see Mom and Face and Horny and my boss enter. My perfect bubble pops without a sound.
I have my head over my plate then and I’m shoveling like this place caught fire. I beat Spencer. “Man,” he says noting my empty dish, “hungry?”
I can hear Mom’s big laugh over the crowd in the next room. I know she’s already plastered. I am wiggling my foot. I’m starting to count the people, figure out how long it will take me to get out, making a mental picture of myself pushing people out of the way.
I just want to go but Spencer is asking me if I can eat dessert and I’m saying a sound, no.
He catches my energy it seems. He pays the waitress and we’re up and moving, his hand on my back as I pick through the crowd in the bar. Mom calls my name, “Sarah Sullivan,” and the din lowers a few notches as people look.
If you’ve been here long enough, you might remember. There have been plenty of crimes since ours ma
de headlines for a couple of weeks, but some are so sensational you remember. I feel eyes, I see the faces.
Spencer has stopped, and stopped me, his hand on my arm. He waves to Mom. “Marie,” he says and she is right there.
“Caught you red-handed,” she says to him. Face is coming up behind her and Christine and my boss.
Spencer is saying how great the food is, and Aaron is making his way around everyone to get to me.
“Sarah,” he says, “how’s it going with the Puritan file?”
“I’m almost finished,” I say. I know my performance has slowed, but I’m still in the timeframe, just not ahead like usual. He’s looking at me, one eye to the other like people do when they’re trying to figure you out.
“I was hoping you could come in this week. Like Tuesday? Tuesday at eight?”
“Yeah okay,” I say, knowing I’ll find a way out of it. I just want to get out of here.
“Did you get a number?” Spencer asks Aaron.
Aaron holds up a number. Christine is giving me this gooney look like I’ve bagged the big turkey at the shoot. I feel sweat roll down my back.
“I’ll…be outside,” I say rudely.
Spencer says oh, okay, says good-bye and we are out.
Shit I can finally breathe a little. “It was hot in there,” I say to Spencer.
He kisses my temple. “You did fine.”
I look at him. Does he know what I go through sometimes?
“She was better…your mom. You guys talk or something? I thought she’d kill me for asking you to stay over.”
“She talked. I barely listened.” I have to smile a little, and he laughs.
We’re in the parking lot and he’s holding my door open while I climb in the truck when I see him one aisle over. It’s dark, but I recognize the car, the plates. The ponytail.
Spencer is in, and he follows my line of sight, but the man in the car means nothing to him. I want to tell him, but then, I don’t. I’m eager to get out of here, eager to see if this guy follows cause that would be weird. Too weird.
