Hoodie

by S. Walden

  Emma looked down at her new outfit: the oversized hoodie and baggy athletic shorts that hung past her knees. She felt oddly comfortable standing in his room, in his clothes, taking in his scent.

  “Okay, so how you think we should organize our paper?” Anton asked, grabbing a notebook off of his desk and sitting on his bed. “We got all these notes we gotta do somethin’ with.”

  “What?” she asked.

  “Our paper,” he said.

  “I . . . you just—”

  “Yes?”

  “Am I supposed to stay in these clothes?” Emma asked. She raised her hands up, the sleeves of the hoodie covering them completely and hanging limp.

  “Why not? You uncomfortable?” Anton asked.

  “No.”

  “Okay then. Are you ready to work?”

  “I guess,” Emma said.

  “Then stop standin’ there with that look on yo’ face and get over here,” he demanded. She walked to the bed and sat down.

  He looked her over and chuckled. She looked like she had drunk an entire bottle of shrinking potion, dwindling down to the size of a dwarf while her clothes never altered.

  “Why UNC?” she asked suddenly, staring at the logo.

  “Oh, that’d be the school I’d get a scholarship at to play basketball,” he replied. “You know, if I woulda done sports in high school.”

  “That good, huh? Why didn’t you play for the school?” she asked.

  “Girl, please,” he said and handed her several sheets of paper. She pulled up the sleeves of the hoodie to take them.

  “What is this?” she asked, finally taking her mind off of the fact that he disrobed her just moments before to concentrate on the pages of writing.

  “It’s my cultural summary thing,” he said.

  She flipped through the pages. There were ten total.

  “Oh my God,” she said.

  “What?”

  “You did all of this? When did you do this?” she asked.

  “Here and there. When a thought popped into my mind, I wrote it down.”

  “You’ve had a lot of thoughts lately,” Emma said.

  “Well, this project’s important, you know? I wanna do a good job. And I don’t wanna let you down neither,” he said.

  She smiled at him.

  “I thought you could look it over and tell me what you think. I’m sure I got all kinda grammar and spelling mistakes in it. I figured you could help me out with that.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Emma said distracted.

  She had already begun reading. He watched her face nervously. He couldn’t tell if she liked what she was reading or thought it was horrible. He couldn’t stand the silence as she absorbed his words, not knowing what went on in her mind.

  He jumped up and offered her a drink. She nodded preoccupied. He left her immersed in the pages he had written, walking to the kitchen to grab some sodas. He thought that she might hate it, and then it would have been a lot of wasted work. And he had worked hard; he couldn’t remember the last time he cared so much about a school assignment. It was her. It was everything about what was happening inside of him every time he looked at her, talked to her.

  He stood at the kitchen counter in contemplation. He couldn’t believe she let him disrobe her like that. He couldn’t believe his brazenness. He didn’t see anything, or at least not everything he wanted. And while it excited him—taking off her clothes—he knew it wasn’t the right time to make a move. The strong urge was there—it almost overtook him—but he fought it down remembering the goal. It wasn’t to kiss her, to touch her body intimately, to be romantic with her in any way. He needed to understand her, to transform her into something that fit nicely into his world.

  He wanted to remain casual about it when it was over. He knew she was confused afterwards as he moved on to the subject of their paper. She wanted to talk about it, too, but what would they say? It was one of those movie moments, he decided. Something that would never happen in real life. He wanted to keep the memory of it, not ruin the magic of it by talking.

  He left her alone for awhile, putting clean dishes away and washing the few dirty ones in the sink. When he entered his bedroom, she was sitting staring at the opposite wall. She still had the papers in hand, but she was finished reading.

  “I just really had no idea,” she said quietly.

  “What are you talkin’ about?” he asked.

  He sat down beside her on the bed and offered her a drink. She took it automatically, not looking at him, still staring at the wall.

  “I really never understood this life,” she said.

  He noticed a tear spill over. Oh God, he thought, he didn’t mean to make her cry!

  “Well, it ain’t all bad,” he said.

  “I’m so spoiled. I really am,” she replied, the tears flowing freely.

  “What?”

  He felt uncomfortable. He was not prepared for her reaction. He thought he’d come back into his room and she would be marking up his paper with a red pen. He now wished she were, and thought about looking for a red pen.

  “How you gonna feel bad for havin’ things?” Anton continued. “There ain’t nothin’ wrong with that. Everybody in the whole world want things. Nobody work hard to live in the ghetto.”

  Emma placed the unopened soda can on his bed and buried her face in her hands. She was sobbing.

  “Oh my God. Emma? It ain’t no big deal,” Anton said.

  “Your mother works hard,” she bawled.

  “Well yeah. And she ain’t gonna be here much longer,” Anton replied. He tentatively put a large hand on her back and rubbed it gently.

  “I’m a spoiled brat!” she wailed.

  Anton fought the urge within him to laugh. She was being unreasonable, crying uncontrollably into her hands. He thought long and hard before answering her. He wanted to make sure he said the right thing.

  “You ain’t a spoiled brat just ‘cause yo’ family is wealthy,” he said grinning. He was glad her face was still buried in her hands. “Yo’ parents work hard for that money. They wanna give you a good life. That’s what good parents do. It’s all about how you handle that money. And you fine about it. You ain’t snotty or stuck up. You a nice girl, Emma. And anyway, I like that you gotta car. It mean I gotta ride home most afternoons.”

  She laughed at that, wiping carelessly at her eyes. She looked at him finally, and he made an uncertain face.

  “What?” she asked.

  “You just be lookin’ like a raccoon, that’s all,” he observed.

  “Oh God,” she said embarrassed, and made a move for the bathroom. He caught her arm and kept her seated.

  “Relax. Like I ain’t never seen make-up run on a girl’s face.”

  The truth was that he didn’t think he’d ever seen make-up run on a girl’s face. It looked comical, and he wondered why they bothered to wear it at all. She didn’t need it, he thought. He searched his cluttered desk until he found a box of tissues. He took one and handed it to her.

  “Blow,” he ordered.

  “I don’t want to blow my nose in front of you,” she said.

  “Good grief, Emma. Who cares? You want snot runnin’ down yo’ face instead?”

  She hesitated then blew her nose. He took another tissue out and gently began wiping away the mascara from underneath her eyes.

  “You too sensitive, Emma. That’s yo’ problem,” he decided.

  “You think?” she asked, feeling not at all uneasy that he was wiping her face. She felt strangely like a little girl whose daddy was comforting her after a fall off of her bicycle. She felt warm and safe with him.

  “Yeah. But maybe I shouldn’t say that’s a problem,” he said thoughtfully. “Maybe the world need more sensitive people in it. Maybe then we wouldn’t have all this killin’ and rapin’ and shit.”

  “Maybe,” she agreed.

  “Then again, my pastor always be talkin’ about how people sinful by nature. We born into it, so maybe it don’t ma
tter. Maybe the world just a bad place, and we gotta do the best we can,” he said.

  “Well, I think people are basically good at heart,” Emma said, and Anton burst out laughing.

  “Girl, you so crazy,” he said, finishing his task and studying her face. “Okay, you don’t look like a raccoon no more.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  He took the tissues and disposed of them in the bathroom. When he returned, she was searching the floor for her clothes.

  “I don’t think I can handle anymore of this assignment today,” she said, locating her pants.

  “My mind too intense for you?” Anton asked lightly.

  “Something like that,” she replied, pulling off his shorts and replacing them with her pants.

  Anton turned his face away to give her privacy. It was absurd, he thought, when he had just disrobed her earlier. She switched out the hoodie for her blouse and walked over to hand him his clothes. He took them reluctantly. She was no longer his baby doll to dress up and keep in his room. He had to let her go, and wondered suddenly what he would do for the rest of the day. It didn’t occur to him until she was gone that he had friends.

  He stood in the doorway observing the empty parking spot where she had just been. His clothes were still in his hands, and he instinctively lifted them to his face breathing in. Her scent lingered on them, light and fruity, like a tropical island, he thought. He stood inhaling her, feeling as though he had been transported to somewhere warm and sandy and sunny. He had never been to a place like that, but he could see it vividly. There were palm trees like he’d seen on T.V. and hammocks swaying in the breeze. And she was there lying beside him like a golden goddess, her body cradled in the warm sand. It stuck to her naked skin. It was seductive. Her hair shimmered in the sunshine, and he ran his fingers through it. And then he kissed her, and she let him.

  The sudden appearance of his friend in the doorway shattered the enchanting vision, jolting him back to his reality, and tossing the clothes on the couch, he went out to smoke some weed.

  CHAPTER 10

  SUNDAY, APRIL 25

  Anton was at her house at three o’clock as promised. He had not changed out of his church clothes, and he thought that her parents might start believing that he always dressed up. But her parents weren’t there. Her father was golfing and her mother was visiting with friends. Did they know he was there? But she assured him that she had told them. He wanted to believe her, but he was skeptical. He thought that perhaps he should go, but she insisted that it was alright.

  She led him up a massive staircase to her bedroom. She wanted to show him her world, she said. His heart beat wildly. For so long he had imagined it. He never thought he’d actually get to see it. And even though she told him things, described aspects of her room for him, it wasn’t the same as actually seeing them. He felt like he was about to enter into a sanctuary, become privy to the secrets of her world, and it filled him with intense joy.

  Emma opened the door and invited him in.

  “This is it,” she said indifferently.

  Just as he had expected, her room was very large. She slept in a queen-sized bed, he thought incredibly. His was a twin, one of those extra long twin-sized beds because he was so tall. The quilt on her bed was speckled with tiny pink embroidered roses. There were creamy white nightstands on either side of the bed that matched the large bureau opposite them. A chest of drawers lined another wall. It, too, matched the nightstands and bureau. There was a small sitting room that housed a desk on which sat perfectly organized binders and books. Everything matched, he noticed. Everything was pristine. He was afraid to touch anything. He didn’t want to leave a fingerprint on her highly polished furniture.

  It was only after she excused herself to the bathroom that he noticed she had one in her room. A master suite, he thought amazingly, and followed her. The door stood ajar and she was washing her hands. He walked in and laughed when he noticed the garden tub. It was enormous. She couldn’t possibly soak in that thing, he thought. She’d drown.

  “What’s so funny?” she asked, drying her hands on a hand towel and then folding it back the way it originally hung on the towel rack.

  “That,” he said pointing to the towel.

  She looked confused.

  “Hold up. Lemme try somethin’,” he said, and snatching the towel from the rack, he threw it up in the air letting it fall wherever it may. It landed on the edge of the tub.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I’m gonna see how long you’ll let that towel sit there,” he said.

  She grinned. “I like to be organized.”

  “No girl, this ain’t no organization,” Anton replied. “This called bein’ majorly Obsessive Compulsive.”

  “No it’s not,” she said laughing.

  He saw her glance at the towel.

  “You wanna get it, don’t you? You wanna hang it up all pretty and perfect, don’t you? It’s killin’ you.”

  “Shut up,” she said lightly.

  “Well, I ain’t gonna let you. At least not while I’m here,” he replied and led her out of the bathroom with his large hand on the small of her back.

  He noticed her ballet shoes sitting near a nightstand. He walked over and picked one up to examine it.

  “You stand on yo’ toes in this?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she replied.

  He felt inside of it. “There ain’t no cushions or nothin’?!”

  “Some dancers go without pads or lambs’ wool. I don’t,” she answered. She grabbed the bag sitting next to the nightstand and pulled out a pair of toe pads to show him.

  “It still gotta hurt,” he said looking at the toe pads doubtfully. “What’s in this thing? Wood?” He rapped his knuckles on the shoe.

  “Layers and layers of fabric glued together,” she said smiling.

  “You crazy. Really?”

  “I’m not kidding,” she said, gently taking the shoe out of his hand.

  “What do you call them things?”

  “Pointe shoes,” she said.

  “Pointe shoes,” he repeated, as if trying on the words. He had never said them before. “So when’s yo’ show?”

  “My show?” she asked confused. “Oh, my dance recital?”

  “Mmhmm.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think so,” she said.

  “You don’t want me to see you dance?” he asked.

  “Absolutely not.”

  He smiled.

  Emma invited him to take a seat in a chair next to her bureau. He plopped himself on her bed instead. He was mindful of taking off his shoes before sprawling out on her quilt.

  “Now see, this what I need. A nice big bed like this,” he said, snuggling her pillows. “You like four feet tall. What you need a big ass bed like this for?”

  “I don’t know. It came with the set,” Emma replied shrugging. She moved over to the chair she had offered him.

  “You don’t gotta sit there,” Anton said. “I don’t bite.”

  She was uncertain about sitting on her bed with a boy, but she didn’t want to come across as prudish. He already thought she had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Why did she clean her bedroom so thoroughly before he came over?

  “You comin’?” he asked.

  She attempted humor. “Why? So you can get me into bed with you?”

  Anton laughed. “Yeah, I have plans on gettin’ freaky with you in yo’ parents’ house. Girl, I know you didn’t tell them I was comin’ over.”

  “I did too!” Emma said, walking over to the bed and sitting on the edge.

  “How they gonna be okay with me bein’ here alone with you?” Anton asked.

  “They think we’re outside,” Emma said sheepishly.

  “Oh I see.”

  “And they know you go to church,” Emma said.

  “You people crazy. You tellin’ me they fine with me comin’ over here when they not home because I go to church?” Anton asked.

  “They
figured it makes you a decent guy, I guess,” Emma responded.

  “Well, I am a decent guy,” Anton said.

  “I know.”

  “And I’m respectful,” he continued.

  “I know.”

  “And gentlemanly,” he added.

  “Uh huh.”

  “Now lemme see yo’ panties,” he said.

  He meant it to be silly and lighthearted, but it had the opposite effect. The tension it created was palpable. Emma didn’t know what to say. She leaned forward to fix the lamp on her nightstand that was slightly off center.

  “I can’t even believe I said that,” Anton said after a time. “I’m sorry. I was just tryin’ to be silly. You know, after I said I was a decent guy. It was supposed to be a joke.”

  He felt mortified, and hoped that she would ask him to leave. He had an overwhelming need to be very far away from her at that moment, and if he never saw her again, he would think of her fondly.

  Emma seemed to have decided something. She got up from the bed and walked to her bureau. She opened the top drawer and pulled something out. He couldn’t see. He was still painfully replaying the last few moments of his life wishing he weren’t such an idiot.

  Something floated into his lap, and it took him a moment to realize what it was. He held it up, looking at it, looking at her, looking at it again. He was in disbelief. Her panties. Black and silky, trimmed in pink ribbon and lace. He stared at them as if he held an object of great worth—a signed Babe Ruth baseball card or the Hope Diamond. They were everything he wasn’t—feminine and soft, sensual and delicate.

  He looked at Emma. She stood in the doorway transfixed. She had been watching him, watching the way he responded to her panties. Her lips curled into a grin as if to say, “Game on.” And then she disappeared from the room, beckoning him to follow.

  He wanted so much to put them in his pocket. Maybe she wanted him to, he thought. He knew he was wrong, though. Perhaps she only showed him her panties to make him feel better for saying something so inappropriate. But then wasn’t what she did totally inappropriate as well? He didn’t understand. Was she giving him a signal? He didn’t dare to hope. But how he wanted to—he wanted to hope.

  He placed the panties on the bed. And before he left the room, he made sure to go around rearranging her things, shifting stacked books and moving the objects on her bureau to other places like her nightstands and desk. He wanted everything to be slightly askew. He was about to leave before remembering her dance recital. He walked swiftly to her desk looking around for a planner or calendar. He found neither, but he did discover a mock-up of the dance program. He grinned devilishly noting the time, date, and place. He returned to the doorway and studied his work. Her room was in perfect disorder. She would freak out, and he chuckled. Game on you little cutie, he thought, and went in search of her.