The Case of Lena S.

by David Bergen

  Mason shrugged and said, “I was there a couple of times. Okay, maybe more. But at first it was by chance and then it was kinda regular and then, because you went to voice lessons every week at the same time, it was every time. I admit it. You knew, though, and you didn’t do anything about it. It wasn’t like I was stalking you.”

  “I know everything. You read to a man called Mr. Ferry. You have a brother. His name’s Danny. You hang out with a guy called Turbine and you like to write poetry. You used to play tennis with Seeta Chahal, but that’s old news. She’s left. You’re alone. How’s that?”

  “You have spies.”

  “I have sisters.” She took a quick breath. “I was waiting and waiting. I said, Lena, wait till August 15. Then September. So, today, suddenly, there you were and I was surprised. That was nice. To be surprised. You’re very slow, do you know that? That’s not bad, it’s just some guys when they like a girl they tell the girl but you’d rather sit in a coffee shop and spy. It’s kind of weird, but it’s interesting. Much more interesting than boys who just wanna get laid. Quickly.”

  Mason hadn’t eaten his pear. Lena had finished hers. She stood and went to the kitchen and when she came back she said that she drove out to the country twice a week for eggs and milk. “The Nook likes farm-fresh,” she said. She asked if he wanted to come along some time and he said he would like that.

  On Wednesday afternoon, the first time she picked him up, she was dressed in boots and jeans and a flannel shirt and the sun fell through the windshield and caught her left forearm, revealing a single blue vein winding down to her wrist. He looked at her and said that this ride was the best thing that had happened in a long time. At the farm he helped her load the flats of eggs while she paid Mr. Koop, writing out a cheque on the hood of the van.

  A week later Mason gave her a piece of paper on which he had written,

  At the Koops’

  Leaning into the light

  Like two eggs

  I saw your shoulders all white.

  “White rhymes with light,” he said. “And Koops’ ends like eggs.” He smiled. “I wanted to keep the word Koops’ because it’s a great name for a chicken farmer. Don’t you think?”

  “That’s so sweet,” she said.

  He imagined touching her head, running his palm along the top and down her crown, the hardness of her skull, smooth, marmoreal, her brain a jumble of ideas and possibilities.

  “Was I wearing my white vest that day?” she asked.

  “What day?”

  “The day the poem comes out of. That day. Was I wearing my white down vest?”

  “It’s not true, what I wrote. It didn’t really happen. I mean, you leaned into the light, but I didn’t see your shoulders. I imagined them. It’s just a poem.”

  “I’ve never had one written for me.” She took it and folded it into the front pocket of her shirt.

  And so it happened that every Wednesday and Friday when she went for eggs, Mason joined her. She picked him up at the edge of the school grounds. One afternoon she announced that her father had caught wind of Mason. “He wants to meet you. He has four daughters so he’s a bit protective.”

  She drove with her left hand and her right hand lay on her thigh. She wore jeans with a zipper up the back and an embroidery of flowers and dragons on one leg. There was a gap between her short top and her jeans; her belly button, a hipbone, the ridge of her vertebrae.

  “My father has tests. Three of them. Supper at our house, a quiz on some historical figure – the last time, it was Galileo – and you’ll have to memorize a Bible passage. My father asked if you were a Christian and I said yes, but I don’t think he believed me.” She glanced at him. “You are, aren’t you?”

  “I guess so. If I have to be.”

  She reached over and took his hand. Didn’t ask, just took it and held it, and Mason looked out at the road. He wanted to look down at their hands but he didn’t.

  “You have to be,” she said.

  At the library he did a search on famous people throughout history, and he found a commentary on original sin and the infallibility of Scripture and Christ’s sojourn in the wilderness, all topics Lena had invited him to prepare for. The last time coming back from the Koops’ she had pulled the van onto a narrow road and stopped and said, “Let’s go into the back.”

  They sat amongst the cartons of eggs and kissed. Lena unbuttoned her shirt. “This is my shirt,” she said. She removed her tank top. “This is my undershirt.” Then she unclasped her bra and said, “This is my bra. You can touch.”

  She had dark hair and her skin was alabaster.

  “Are you cold?” he asked.

  She said she wasn’t.

  They kissed some more and Lena touched Mason’s face and his neck and then her hands dropped to her sides as Mason put his mouth on a breast.

  “That’s nice,” she said. Then she asked, “What do you want me to do for you?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. He was aware of her looking down at him and the slight heat of her breath against his forehead. He closed his eyes and opened them again. She was still there.

  “You’re a spring chicken,” she said. She loosened his belt and tugged at his jeans. Then she removed her own and slipped out of her panties. She climbed back into the front for her purse and Mason saw her from behind. He turned away and then back to look again. His hands shook.

  When she came back she lay on the floor of the van. “We can have sex,” she said. “Just be careful of the eggs.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “Yes.” She took a condom from her purse, opened it, and slipped it onto Mason. “There,” she said.

  She helped him get inside her and then she wrapped her arms around his neck and head and breathed in his ear until he was finished. “Okay,” she said. “Stay like that.”

  He obeyed.

  They didn’t talk for a long time and Mason, his head pressed into Lena’s neck, wondered if she had fallen asleep. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  She said she was. She said that she was not aware of how other people experienced sex but that this wasn’t bad. It was kind of quick, she said, but that could be improved upon. She held Mason’s head and pressed her nose against his and said that the way they were lying right now was quite nice, “Our feet, our legs, our hips, our bellies, our mouths. That’s all good.”

  Mason moved and slipped out of her.

  She touched his face. Pressed her thumbs against his eyes and said, “I like you, Mason Crowe. You don’t scare me.”

  Driving home later the van was hot and Mason was sleepy. He closed his eyes and then opened them. He saw Lena’s hand on the wheel and her bare arm. Her flannel shirt lying loosely across her shoulders. Mason looked out the window and they drove on and later, coming into the edge of the city, he said, “What great arms you have.”

  One Saturday, Mason went with his mother to a Mexican restaurant for lunch. Mrs. Crowe ate half her meal and then smoked and drank Mexican beer while Mason cut up his food into neat bits and chewed slowly.

  “You’re happier,” his mother said. “I can see that. What’s up?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Rhonda saw you with someone the other day. She wondered if you had a girlfriend. I said I didn’t know. My boys don’t talk to me.”

  “I talk to you.”

  “So, what’s her name?”

  “Lena.”

  “Lena. That sounds old-fashioned. Nice. Is she?”

  “She’s nice. I don’t know if she’s old-fashioned.”

  “Is she from school?”

  “She was. She quit.”

  “I see. You like her.” This was a statement, as if this fact were to be feared.

  “I think so.”

  “You’re still young, Mason. At your age I hung around with a bunch of friends. There were eight of us. We never had the inclination to pair off or get too serious. Are you serious?”

  “I like her a lot. She�
��s interesting, she sees things in a different way.”

  “Are you having sex?”

  “Mom.” An image of Lena crawling into the front of the van to fetch the condom. The shape of her from behind. Her lack of shame.

  “Rhonda said that lots of kids are. But I said they weren’t. Not necessarily. It’s so dangerous these days.” She lit another cigarette. “You hate talking about this, don’t you? It’s just that I don’t want you hurt. Remember what happened with that other girl. Seeta. Okay?”

  Mason shrugged. There were two men in suits at the next table. They were watching his mother. Perhaps she noticed, because she became more animated.

  “Those guys are jerks,” he said to his mother.

  “What guys?”

  “The ones beside us.”

  His mother snuck a look and then turned back to Mason and said, “You know them personally, then, you know what they’re thinking, what they believe?”

  “I can tell,” Mason said. “They either sell real estate or cars and they live for making a big sale and they like looking at women. They’re so obvious. They don’t care if you’re smart or not, Mom.”

  She laughed. “That’s great, Mason. You just keep on being my little knight.” She called for another beer. Her arm went up and he saw the underside and the men at the other table were looking and they too must have seen her bare arm and the white smudge of deodorant on the underarm of her black top. She folded her hands and rested her chin on them. Her hair was dyed black with copper streaks. It made her look either cheap or attractive. Mason couldn’t tell.

  His mother said, “Your father’s coming home on the weekend. He comes back with the road all over him. Full of stories about hitchhikers and freaks. It used to be fun, when we were younger. Now it’s tiresome.” She paused and looked under the table and crossed her legs and said, “I shouldn’t be telling you this.”

  Mason didn’t say anything. He reached for his mother’s beer and poured some into his glass.

  “Careful,” she said. Her fingers circled his wrist and pulled the beer back.

  “Dad’s not stupid,” Mason said. “Sometimes he just seems sad. You know? He comes home and he doesn’t know what to do. He walks around the house and tries to talk to my friends as if he were still a teenager. It’s embarrassing. But I wouldn’t call him stupid.”

  “I didn’t mean to make it sound like that. I’m sorry.” She drank and her throat moved as she swallowed and Mason watched this. She put the glass down. “How old am I? Do you know?”

  “Sure. You’re forty-four.”

  “That must seem ancient.” She touched her face, her hair.

  “Not that ancient, Mom. Eric Lozowy thinks you’re hot. Mrs. Robinson. That’s what he calls you.” Mason rolled his eyes.

  “Ha. Really?” She was pleased. She looked over at the next table. Said, “Your father’s fifty.” She called for the bill then, as if this fact were a reason to move on. She said, “I want to meet Lena. I want you to bring her over.” Then she added, nodding at the distant waiter, “I like to meet these girls that my sons are friends with. You know?” And, not waiting for a response, she stood and paid and then took his arm as they left the restaurant.

  When his father came home he stayed two days and two nights. On the second evening Mason’s parents went out to a play. Danny had moved out of the house and was living in a small apartment downtown. Mason was alone. He wanted to call Lena but she’d told him she’d be out with the family for the evening, so he did his homework and he was still studying when his parents came home. He could hear his mother banging things around in the kitchen and asking why she should work and pay for everything. “Why is that, Silas?”

  Then she said, “What about Mason? Do you spend time with him? No. Why don’t you take him on a trip with you? God knows you don’t spend a lot of time in people’s kitchens selling things.”

  There were muttered noises and voices and then his father said, “You tell me. When’s the last time we had sex?”

  “You want to? Let’s do it right now then. How do you want me?”

  “I’m talking about closeness, Penny. About you touching me. About you wanting to be with me.”

  “I don’t mind being with you. I just don’t want to have sex right now.”

  “When, then? I figure if you love someone you should want to have sex with them.”

  “I love Rhonda. I don’t want to have sex with her.”

  “Well, that’s good. It’s certainly nice to know you don’t lean that way.”

  There was silence and then the kettle whistled and Mason figured his mother was making tea. She usually drank Earl Grey with a shot of something on the side. Two kinds of warmth, she said. The sound of the kettle disappeared and spoons tapped against mugs and his mother asked his father, “When you’re out there, Silas, and you run into a good-looking woman, do you ever think, Oh, my, she’s beautiful and easy and I’m all alone and what the hell. You know?”

  “Road pussy?”

  “Don’t, Silas. Mason might hear you.”

  “Never.”

  “Never?”

  “Never. I’ve got a Cadillac at home. It’s pretty simple.”

  “But a Cadillac that doesn’t always start.” And then his mother said, “Hey,” and their voices floated away and Mason listened but silence had fallen and when he passed through the kitchen later their mugs were on the table, half-full, and they weren’t in the living room or the den. In the morning his father came into his room and sat down on his bed and said he was leaving again. He said there was work to be done. Then he said, “Your mother’s in a better mood when I’m not here.”

  “That’s not true,” Mason said. “Maybe she misses you.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Or she thinks you’re happier out there,” Mason said.

  “Sometimes I am. Though I miss you, Mason. We don’t talk much, do we? I don’t know if you have a girlfriend, or if you’re playing basketball, or if you’re still working for the Costa brothers.”

  “I’m not working for them any more and I’ve never played basketball,” Mason said. He was watching his father’s mouth and thinking about road pussy. The words made his father new, as if a light had been focused on him to reveal some flaw. His father was sitting on the edge of the bed. He had his hand on Mason’s leg, which was under the blanket. He had small hands. A small head. He was wide across the chest and his mouth was soft. Mason felt sorry for him.

  His father said, “You could come with me some time. I’m selling encyclopedias on CD-ROM now. Our world is a strange place. Everything’s changing. Soon we’ll have headless chickens and pigs that produce no shit. My own grandchildren, should I ever have them, probably won’t need legs and arms.” He said, “I was sitting in a restaurant in Sprague eating pumpkin pie and I saw this young boy and girl in the back booth and the boy reminded me of you. He didn’t look like you, it was just the way he looked at the girl and said something. That’s when I thought of you and that girl you had here for dinner one night. Seeta. How’d that work out?”

  “It didn’t work out. She’s married,” Mason said.

  “Already? I knew that was in the plans but I didn’t know it was so soon.” He pondered this. Then he asked if there were any other fish in the sea and at this Mason shrugged. His father leaned forward to hug Mason, who hugged him back. Mason could smell his father’s clean hair. His face was smooth and his back was broad and strong.

  Later, when Mason went downstairs, his mother was eating breakfast and she nodded at an empty chair and said he should sit with her. She drank coffee and he ate toast and she talked about the play the night before. “Your dad loved it,” she said. “But then he’s fond of anything dark and hopeless. ‘What a dump.’ That’s the first line. ‘What a dump.’ And that summed up the play.” She said that she was too much of a mathematician and had a hard time moving past the acting. “The actors are acting,” she said, and her hand went to her bangs and she pushed at her hair
.

  She said that during the third act she felt claustrophobic and she left and sat in the lobby. She could hear the actors yelling at each other and that depressed her. “Then the play was over,” she said. “And all these people came out and they were strangers walking by, talking and smiling, and I couldn’t hear them, it was like I was on the other side of a glass wall, and then I saw your dad and he said, ‘Are you ill?’ I said I wasn’t and then he got angry. Did you hear us last night?” she asked.

  Mason shook his head. “Not really.”

  “That’s good,” his mother said. She looked at him, tilted her head. “The other day, after our lunch, I was thinking about boys and how they are with girls. Probably because I have two boys. I was thinking that what girls want is kindness and attention and I was hoping my boys offer that. That you give that to Lena. You know?”

  “You can count Danny out,” Mason said.

  His mother sighed. “You know I won’t take sides with you and Danny. I’m aware of how he is, but it’s not as simple as ‘He’s bad and you’re good.’ He bought me this the other day. Did you see?” She held up her wrist and showed Mason a thin silver bracelet. He thought of Seeta and the bang of her bracelets as she swung her tennis racquet. He said, “So, he’s got money to buy you things.”

  “Oh, Mason. That’s not what I meant. You’re terribly sweet and if I had a daughter I’d want her to be with a boy like you. That’s why when I talked about kindness and attention I was thinking more of you. When you look at Lena what do you see?”

  “Jesus, Mom.”

  “Do you see Lena or do you see Lena’s body?”

  “What do you think? I see Lena, okay?”

  “Well, it’s a fair question. Lots of guys see the body.”

  “I like Lena. She’s got a brain. She’s not just a body.”

  “That’s good.” His mother put her arm around his neck and squeezed and brushed her lips across his head.

  Only later did Mason think about Lena’s boldness, especially around sex. How matter-of-fact she was. “What’s the big deal,” she said once, and to this Mason had said nothing, for he was the amazed recipient. The fact was, Lena Schellendal – daughter of a bank manager, sister of three girls, bright precocious quoter of Old Testament prophets – broke Mason’s heart. Because in her brazenness she seemed innocent, lost. But she sensed his pity and she pushed it away as she leaned forward and kissed him and said, “Let’s fuck, Mason Crowe.”