Tied to the Tracks

by Rosina Lippi

  Something clicked in his face, some understanding and following quickly, surprise. He sat down, his body twisted toward her.

  He said, “I never had a chance to talk to Caroline when we drove to the lake, not once. I meant to tell her. Maybe she knew that, somehow. Maybe she guessed. But I couldn’t leave it, so I wrote a letter, and Rob drove me up there to deliver it last night. She must have it by now, but I haven’t heard from her yet.”

  “A letter,” Angie echoed. “You took a letter up to the retreat house?”

  He nodded, started to say something, stopped.

  They were silent for a long moment. Angie tried to imagine such a letter, the things he might have said; whether or not he had used her name. She hoped he had left her out of it, and knew that it was a cowardly thing to wish.

  “Go on,” she said. “Tell me the rest of it.”

  “I thought she’d call today, but I haven’t heard from her yet. I can’t even begin to guess why.”

  “I can,” Angie said. “But then I’ve had some experience.”

  There was a small, hard silence. John said, “I wondered if you’d ever bring up the subject of that letter.”

  “It was a good letter,” Angie said. “It was all generosity and kindness, and you have nothing to apologize for.”

  He touched her hand where it lay on the couch, lightly. “When I wrote it I thought you might answer it.”

  “I wasn’t ready,” Angie said. “I wasn’t ready for the things you were offering me but I didn’t want you to give up, either. I was afraid. I still am.”

  She met his gaze steadily, and saw that she hadn’t surprised him or made him mad, which gave her the courage to let the subject go for the moment.

  “So you’re waiting to hear from Caroline.”

  “That’s about it. It’s going to be rough over the next few days.”

  Angie might have said, It’s rough now, even knowing how terrible it would sound, how unfair.

  He was saying, “So I’m thinking it would be best for us to wait until things have settled down a bit.”

  “Yes,” she said slowly, “that makes sense.” And: “How long do you think that will be?” Angie rarely blushed, but she felt herself coloring now. She put her forehead on her upraised knees to hide her face.

  “Hey.”

  She made herself look up.

  “Another ten minutes is too long, as far as I’m concerned.”

  Angie swallowed. She closed her eyes and nodded and kept them closed, because her self-control was shaky at best, and he was so close.

  “The thing is, I have to go along as if nothing’s changed until she tells her family otherwise. That may be tomorrow, or the day after, or maybe even Thursday. I can’t think she’d leave it that long, but she might. Then you and I will have to have a serious conversation.”

  Angie felt a pulse throbbing in her temple, and made the tactical decision to overhear this last statement. She said, “We’ve got a lot of work over the next couple days, so it won’t be too hard to stay out of your way.” She managed a small smile, one that must look as insincere as it felt. “Probably wasn’t the best idea for you to come here just now. For all we know Professor Hillard next door is watching us. She has insomnia.”

  She meant to strike a playful tone, but instead her voice wavered.

  John turned his face away from her as if she had said something painful, his gaze fixed on a point in the dark yard. Then he made a small sound, a half sigh of surrender, and without warning he leaned past her to turn off the lamp with a sound like the snap of a wishbone.

  “There,” he said, his voice low and steady. “That takes care of Peggy Hillard. Now let’s take care of you.”

  He put his hands on her to draw her toward him. John felt her first startle and then soften in acquiescence, in welcome, in pleasure. She curled against him and he put his hands in her hair, tilted her head up.

  “I shouldn’t have come. Maybe if you weren’t wearing this particular T-shirt I could leave. But you are, and I can’t.”

  She met his kiss with a hint of nervousness that gave way immediately, her mouth soft and warm and familiar, the kiss spiraling down and down, drawing them together at breast and belly and hip. There was an instantaneous heavy stirring in his groin. He ran his hands up her back under the T-shirt, his thumb skidding along the indentation of her spine and drawing a shudder from her.

  John smiled against her mouth and she took his face between her hands and drew him down over her, smiling, too, both of them on the verge of laughter that they should find themselves like this after so long. Finally. She nipped his ear and he yelped and she ran her tongue down the bristling line of his jaw. And then she did laugh, a low laugh full of anticipation.

  “This is right,” she said, a little breathlessly. A statement of fact.

  “Oh, yeah.” He smoothed her hair away from her face. “I should never have let you go. I never did let you go, not really.”

  He kissed her breathless while he rocked into her on the broad old sofa, pressing himself against her, relearning her touch and feel, the curves and hollows and the taste of her. She flexed, and then gave in and up and let go, went fluid beneath him. Her T-shirt came off first, leaving her in nothing but the shorts that she wouldn’t let him draw down her legs, not yet, not yet. Not until she had pulled his shirt over his head and set to work on his pants, peeling them down over his hips and stopping to kiss his belly, her mouth open and wet. She looked up at him, her face an oval in the dark, her eyes gleaming, and reached into his pants pocket, pulled out his wallet and flipped it open, fished with two fingers and then held up the condom like a magic coin.

  “You are such a boy scout. Always prepared.”

  “Ever hopeful,” he said, and pulled her up along the length of him until her breasts were pressed against his chest. Then he flipped her neatly onto her back and paused, touching his forehead to hers.

  He said, “There are so many things we haven’t talked about yet.”

  She groaned, reaching for him, but he held her down with no trouble at all, both of her wrists in his one hand.

  “I’ve got things to say to you,” he whispered. “I don’t think you’ll mind hearing them.”

  John wanted to talk, and really, Angie tried to tell herself, wasn’t that what they needed to do? This was serious business, after all, he was walking away from another woman, another kind of life, and why? To what end? What did he want from her, really, and what could she expect from him?

  Important questions, crucial questions, for tomorrow or the day after, for anytime but now. As much as she loved John’s voice, right now she loved his mouth more. She arched up to kiss him, rich and deep and full, a kiss that flowered in the belly and sent little shocks back up her spine, flowing out and out. He made a humming sound. How had she forgotten that sound of his, that click in the back of his throat? Angie rubbed herself against him, spread herself open beneath him, beckoned. Now now now.

  But John would have none of it; he held himself over her with his knees between her thighs, his shoulders wide as a raft, his arms and legs like oars, his chest pressed against her breasts. He held her effortlessly away from him, only his cock reaching toward her, Angie thought, biting back a burp of laughter, as if it meant to handle this on its own, with or without the rest of him.

  He was whispering in her ear. Wait, and Christ, Angie, please.

  She cupped his face in her hands and pressed small nipping kisses on his mouth. “What?” As if she didn’t know. As if she couldn’t see it, the things he was wanting to say and hear. They had been here before, the two of them, on the verge of words.

  “Tell me.”

  She said, “Of course I love you. I always have, you idiot. You dope. From day one. Didn’t you know?”

  His closed his eyes, nodded. Sweat glistened on his face and throat and shoulders, his beautiful shoulders. “Good,” he said, and claimed her, finally, absolutely. “Good.”

  FOURTEEN

/>   You must understand how much things have changed in Ogilvie if you truly want to tell Miss Zula’s story. For example, when she was coming up in the forties and fifties, political, social, and racial distinctions were sacrosanct. At the First Baptist Church (and the First Baptist congregation was far more powerful and bigger than the Episcopalians) Pastor Tate was a great adherent of Leviticus (“Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids shall be of the heathen that are round about you. . . . And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever.”). For Pastor Tate and his parishioners, the idea of equal rights for blacks was truly nonsensical and offensive, and one more thing: he would be outraged if he knew about the way the Catholic congregation has grown and prospered in Ogilvie. I know this, because he was my grandfather and he turned his back on my father because he came back from WWII with an Italian Catholic wife.

  Your name: Dab Tate. I’m a partner in the same physicians’ group as Marilee Bragg.

  A program,” Tony said, running a thumb along his jaw. “There is a full-color, printed program for Ogilvie’s Fourth of July Jubilee.”

  He was holding it at arm’s distance, squinting to read down columns printed in blue and red on white. “Fifty people have been working on this for six months,” he informed Angie and Rivera, the unlit cigarette in the corner of his mouth jiggling. “Starts at eight with a five-K run/walk that snakes all over town and campus, ends up—oh, this is good—at the Kiwanis Pancake Breakfast. They’ve got a tent in the park. I could use some pancakes, should we start there?” Without waiting for an answer he flipped the page and kept reading. “Sack races, tug-of-war, water-balloon toss, logrolling on the river, a band concert, a gospel choir, an orator’s corner, a softball game, oh, a chili cook-off and”—he glanced at his watch—“there’s a pig roast. The barbecue pits have been going for two hours already.”

  “We get the idea,” Rivera said. She handed Angie a camera lens.

  “But wait, I haven’t got to the best part,” Tony said. “A parade before the auction. And you’re in it.”

  Angie looked up from the open camera bags. “Come again?”

  “Everybody with a basket for the supper auction walks in the parade. To show off the goods first, I guess, before the bidding starts.” He grinned at them. “I’m almost sorry I don’t have a basket myself.”

  “Work first,” Angie said. She meant to sound firm, but found that she had lost that knack. Which went along quite nicely with the fact that the bones in her legs, once very reliable, were now partially jelly; John’s doing. With a jerk of the head she went back to counting film canisters and battery packs.

  Both Rivera and Tony would be taping, Rivera staying close by Miss Zula and Miss Maddie, Tony roaming. They had started the day with the usual argument about who got which digital video camera. Angie herself was loaded down with two still cameras, one digital, one 35mm, a small voice recorder, multiple notebooks, a phone, a beeper, and a walkie-talkie that would put her in touch with Rivera or Tony if she needed them.

  The idea of a day running around in the July heat should have had her dragging with exhaustion, but in spite of the fact that she had had very little sleep—or maybe because of that—she flushed with adrenaline, fired up, ready to go. Work could do that for her when it was going well; good sex had the same effect. No wonder she was flying.

  Rivera poked her in the ribs. “Wake up, Mary Poppins, we’ve got company.”

  Markus Holmes was standing at the screen door, looking eager and embarrassed all at once.

  Tony said, “I told Markus we could pay him for helping out with the gear, and if that works out, we’ve got the assistant position still open, right?”

  “Sure,” Angie said. “Good idea.”

  Tony put his palm on the crown of her head and wobbled it. Then he leaned in and whispered, “It’s okay to be happy, you know.”

  Angie was suddenly very aware of how fortunate she was in her friends. If she asked for opinions she’d get them, unvarnished, but right now they were both studiously looking the other way, which was exactly what she needed. Sooner or later she’d want their thoughts on this situation she’d gotten herself into, but not now. Not today. Today they had to concentrate on work.

  Just a few days ago Memorial Park had seemed huge, but at nine o’clock in the morning it was obvious that just about every inch of it would be put to use for this Jubilee. Tents had sprung up like mushrooms, all of them with official-looking banners in bright colors.

  “Whole families just about move in for the duration,” Markus told them. “They won’t break camp until the fireworks are done, close to midnight.”

  In New Jersey, a day at the park or down the shore meant a blanket, sunscreen, some sandwiches, beer and soda, and money for ice cream. Angie found the scene in front of her hardly credible, a carnival sprung out of the mist, State Fair meets Brigadoon. She was actually relieved to see a half dozen small enclaves of teenagers who were making it their business to stand out. Markus talked to many of them in passing, including one group of Goths who must certainly die of heat prostration before the day was out.

  Angie caught sight of a kid at least six and a half feet tall with Day-Glo yellow hair; Alice Cooper eye makeup; studs in his nose, lip, ears, and eyebrows; and a black T-shirt with stark white lettering: I’m the Shit That Happens.

  Markus took his job seriously, pointing out details that were often funny, whether he meant them to be or not. “The Parkhams have had that spot for fifty years or more,” he said. “Same with the Ogilvies, over there, and the Roses and the Walkers. Over there by the band shell, that’s Deacon Beasley and his whole clan. The Assembly of God families all set up closer to the river and Four Square Gospel way over there. The Four Square ladies and the Assembly of God ladies don’t see eye to eye. There was a falling-out over tomato chutney back in the seventies, and they haven’t got along since.”

  A man in an Uncle Sam costume walked by on stilts, his cotton beard fluttering in the breeze. A line of children ran along behind him like the tail on a kite. There were strolling vendors selling balloons and lemonade and miniature flags.

  “Wait,” Tony said. “Is that a couch?”

  Markus grinned. “Folks are going to be here all day, they want it comfortable.” That seemed an understatement to Angie, looking over a sea of sun umbrellas. One family had set up what looked like the pavilion of an Arabian prince under a striped awning.

  “The Lawsons,” said Markus. “That’s Weezie Lawson there, I expect you’ve met her.”

  “Vice president of the Junior League,” Rivera said.

  “At the very least,” said Markus. “What the Ogilvies don’t own, the Lawsons do. You saw Weezie’s oldest boy, Chris, back there.” He jerked his chin back in the direction of the teenagers.

  Tony laughed. “ ‘I’m the Shit That Happens’ is a Lawson. I like it.”

  Markus led them toward an open area under a canopy of live oaks. Louie came shooting out from under a table, his whole rear end wagging frantically, to launch himself at Markus. The boy caught him neatly and tucked the dog under his arm like a rolled newspaper.

  “We set up for you right next to the Braggs. I hope that’s okay.”

  “Perfect,” Angie said, and put her bag on a picnic table topped with a huge sun umbrella and spread with a bright yellow-and-pink tablecloth. There was a pitcher of lemonade and one of sweet tea, a number of covered dishes, and a tub of ice. There were also four reclining lawn chairs with pillows, a paper fan sitting on each of them. “You didn’t have to do all this,” Angie said.

  “But we’re glad you did,” Rivera added, scooping ice into her hand and holding the cubes to her neck. “We need a home base. We’re not paying him enough, Angie.”

  “You’re not paying me anything at all,” Markus said.

  “See?” said Rivera.

  Markus looked uncomfortable at the mention of money. “It was all Miss Zula and Miss
Maddie who arranged all this,” he said. “You know Miss Maddie has been on the Jubilee committee for forty years? Folks will tell you it was the preachers from all the different churches who were behind the push to integrate the Jubilee—this was back in the sixties—but it was Miss Maddie pushing the preachers.”

  Tony looked up from his viewfinder. “Where are the Braggs, anyway?”

  “Over at the Kiwanis tent,” said Markus. “I’m supposed to take you over there.”

  “Right,” said Tony. “Lead on to the pancakes.”

  By ten o’clock Angie needed a break, so she headed back to their base under the oaks, where she found Miss Zula and Miss Maddie sitting comfortably in the shade, surrounded by some fifty of their closest relatives. Angie had never seen the three nephews in anything but suits, but today they were wearing Hawaiian shirts and Bermuda shorts and baseball caps. There was a sleeping toddler sprawled across Dr. Bragg’s lap—which one of the dozens of younger Braggs, Angie could not say—and a hound of some kind sitting at his feet, panting madly. She shot a half dozen frames before the doctor realized she was there, and then went to the table where Rivera was pouring her a tumbler of sweet tea.