The Wait

by Frank Turner Hollon

  I said the words again, “What do you want?”

  She looked like a child. “I think I’d like to take some history classes. I always liked history.”

  I was surprised by her answer, and excited for her. She’d probably never told anybody before, and then a wave of unforseen anger came over me. She’d spread herself naked for men, maybe sucked the dick of Jeff Temple like he said, given herself away in so many ways, and none of those people cared a shit about what she wanted, and maybe I was too late. She was pregnant with another man’s baby. Who knew what they’d done to her, all of them, and now I was charting how to fix it. How to fix everything, right down to the details.

  I wrote, “History classes, enroll for next semester,” and closed my eyes halfway through, the words tailing off down and away.

  We stayed up for hours, talking and writing down pages of notes underneath capitalized titles. She had credit card debts. Her brother lived in New Mexico. She believed in God, but thought he’d given up on us and wasn’t really paying attention anymore to what was going on.

  We circled employment opportunities in the Classified section of the newspaper, weighing the advantages and disadvantages of each type of job. I balanced a hypothetical budget based on what the two of us could make, plus Eddie’s share of the rent, and took into consideration a monthly payment toward Kate’s credit card debt. The interest accrued at a rate higher than we could pay down, an endless cycle of wasted resources.

  She didn’t want to see her father again, and didn’t like to talk much about her mother in Oklahoma.

  “Do you know if you’re having a girl or a boy?”

  “I don’t know. It feels like a girl.”

  “Do you have any names picked out?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m just now gettin’ used to the idea there’s somethin’ living inside me. I haven’t gotten around to naming it yet.”

  On the pad of paper, I wrote down, Baby Names.

  We both stared at the page.

  Finally Kate said, “I like the name Gretchen.”

  I wrote it slowly on the paper. Gretchen. Kate said it out loud again. It was old-fashioned, original. I hadn’t heard the name in a long time.

  “I like it,” I said. No one spoke for awhile as we stared at the word on the page. Seeing the written name made it more real.

  “You can’t do any more drugs, Kate. And you can’t drink. Not just for yourself. For the baby.”

  “I know,” she said.

  “Do you need help, or can you do it yourself?”

  “I can do it myself. It’s just a diversion. I don’t need it.”

  We were sitting very close together, our heads nearly touching as we leaned over the pad, backs against a mound of pillows stacked at the headboard of my small bed.

  She smelled glorious, a clean soapy smell mixed with a soft, feminine scent. I glanced down and could see the top of her breasts, light brown and smooth, leading to the border of the white bra just north of the nipple line. I felt a stir in my shorts. Just a stir at first, but as my imagination slid slowly across Kate’s body the stir became a full erection, hidden behind the yellow pad of paper in my lap. I felt my breathing deepen and wondered if she knew.

  Her face rolled to my face and I felt Kate’s lips brush my cheek and stop. She kissed me. I’d been through it a thousand times in my head. In cars, hotel rooms, open fields. There was almost a familiarity, an expectation, but in reality it was new ground.

  I turned my face until our lips touched and closed my eyes. There was a moment, a tiny fleeting moment, when I wondered if it was real or just another vivid, detailed daydream. And I moved against her, and we kissed. And I moved again until I was above, and she was below, and I could feel her breasts pushed against my chest, and our hips together with the pressure in between.

  My left hand found its way and cupped Kate’s breast, firm, but not too firm, a light squeeze, and the desire to have it in my mouth. I pushed downward, my lips on her neck, and then slowly to the skin of the chest and then up against the place I wished to bury myself, the softness and the smell like nothing my imagination had been able to capture.

  I slid back up and kissed her again on the mouth, harder, and felt Kate’s legs wrap around my waist. It was actually happening, and I tried not to think about it. I tried just to do the next thing, think the next thought, apart from the whole. And with our clothes still on, Kate started a slow rhythm, our bodies moving together into each other, and God help me it was more than I could control, and the instant came upon me like a wave of water and I raised up with involuntary sounds from my mouth, and Kate must have known because she pulled me to her and held me hard, wrapped up in arms and legs until the shuddering stopped and the embarrassment came quietly down upon me like a dark blanket. It was the sign of things to come.

  “I’m sorry.” I whispered. “It’s never happened before.”

  When I said it, I was actually thinking it had never happened before in all those vivid daydreams. Those dreams of red panties and short skirts always ended well, the timing perfect.

  I rolled off her and we lay side by side, looking up at the dotted ceiling. I felt the yellow pad under me and didn’t bother to move. I was afraid to look at Kate, but when her breathing began to come and go in a rhythmic flow I finally looked over to see her eyes closed. I worried about what had happened and felt the wetness in my underwear, but our arms were locked together so I didn’t try to get up, and lying next to Kate Shepherd, her breathing slowly put me to sleep.

  I woke up alone to the sound of the front door gently closing. The clock showed 1:13 a.m. Kate was gone. I bolted up from the bed and changed clothes quickly. I ran outside and headed in the direction of campus, watching for figures of people moving in the dark shadows or under the lamp lights.

  I traveled in the direction of the yellow house, hoping I would be wrong. Hoping there would be a simple explanation, until I found myself on the street of restaurants and bars, looking left and looking right, and there she was, with her back to me, walking in the direction of the yellow house, and the man on the floor, and the burnt doll in the corner of the room.

  I followed at a safe distance. Maybe she forgot something? Maybe I’d left behind a dress or a shoe when I zipped up her bag? She turned up the walkway to the yellow house, its windows dark. I stepped into a bar off the street and found a place to stand where I could see Kate and the house. She went inside without knocking. Just walked into the dark house.

  Somebody behind me said, “You want anything, buddy?”

  It was the bartender. A big guy with curly blonde hair and a t-shirt with no sleeves.

  “Yeah,” I said, “a cigarette.”

  He didn’t hesitate. The big man pulled a pack of cigarettes from his top pocket and with one hand shook out a single cigarette. He held the pack out to me and I took it.

  I never really understood the idea of addiction to cigarettes. I’d smoked off and on but never felt the physical demand. It was just a cigarette, and with a pack of matches from the top of the bar I lit the end and stood next to the open swinging doors, my eyes fixed on the yellow house halfway down the short block.

  Ten minutes passed. I glanced back and forth at the big clock behind the bar. How long would I wait? Was Kate in some type of trouble? I picked a number, twenty minutes, and decided I’d go get her if she didn’t come out by that point.

  I thought about what happened earlier. How awkward it became so quickly, and how she’d fallen asleep without so much as a word about it. Maybe she didn’t consider it a problem? Maybe she considered it a compliment? I would, if I could cause a girl to shudder in pleasure with a simple kiss and the mere touch of a breast.

  Fifteen minutes passed. I noticed the bartender watching me, suspicious, or maybe just curious about my presence and the importance of something down the street and the passing minutes on the clock.

  I decided at seventeen minutes I’d start walking down
the block. I estimated, at the twenty minute mark, I’d be standing at the door of the yellow house ready to do whatever I needed to do.

  I stepped out of the bar onto the sidewalk as the second hand crossed the twelve. At that exact moment, Kate came out the front door of the yellow house. I took a backwards step through the open door into the bar, feeling the bartender’s eyes on me. Kate held nothing in her hands and walked back the way she’d come, eventually passing me in the bar as I moved in a step behind a large plant between us. I couldn’t read anything on her face. Her hands were in her jean pockets. I ran out of the bar in the opposite direction, jumped a chain-link fence, and ran in the dark over the railroad tracks around the Arts & Sciences Building back to my apartment. I got inside, took off my shoes, and struggled to catch my breath.

  Should I lie down and pretend I was still asleep, or should I confront Kate with what I’d seen? Was it a one-time thing, or would I always wake in the night alone, wondering?

  I sat down in the chair in the bedroom. The front door opened, and closed, gently. Kate came around the corner through my bedroom door. She looked at me, and I couldn’t tell anything from the look.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey,” I said back. I waited, but only a few seconds, and then said, “Where’d you go?”

  “For a walk. I couldn’t sleep.”

  Maybe it was true. Maybe she couldn’t sleep. Maybe she just had one last loose end to tie up before she changed her life. I wanted very much to believe.

  Kate came slowly across the room, bent at her waist, and kissed me on the lips, casual, comfortable, like she’d done it a thousand times before and planned to do it a thousand times more. It was all I needed.

  eleven

  Eddie never asked me anything about the girl living in our apartment, which was odd, but I suppose not so odd as my going out into the night and bringing the lost girl home in the first place.

  In a short time I crossed over some sexual barrier into a place I never knew existed. A place of experimentation, comfort, physical pleasure, and it left me dumb and hypnotized, like an opium addict. We wouldn’t leave the room for days, choosing the flesh over reason, another position over food. I had no idea it could be like that, and Kate seemed happy to be locked away and safe. I spent hours exploring every portion of her skin, every fold, especially the parts I didn’t have myself.

  “I feel like I’m at the doctor’s office,” she said once, and I felt stupid, so I turned off the flashlight.

  Sometimes, when Kate slept, I’d go through the written plan, adding things and marking things off. Kate got a job as a hostess at a restaurant. She enrolled in only two history classes, deciding to take it slow in the beginning until the baby was born.

  Eddie failed out, as I knew he would. He packed his things and left on a Wednesday evening without much fanfare. We had more space, but it certainly didn’t help in the rent department. I put Kate in charge of the utility bills so she could handle her own money and gain a little confidence. Sometimes, right after we accomplished a particular goal, I’d make a big deal out of pulling the yellow pad from under the bed, turning to a certain page, and marking a dark line though the word on the list. I didn’t notice until much later how little Kate really cared about my list, and marking things off, and any of the rest of it.

  For a month and a half we were like a happy little married couple, wrapped up in each other in my small bed, taking turns cooking inexpensive meals, even studying together. I felt like it could be that way forever if I could only lock the door, nail boards over the windows, keep out the world and everybody in it. We could be like two humans kidnapped from Earth, taken by aliens to another planet to be observed naked in a homelike setting, except for no telephones or televisions, and nobody else to talk to, self-contained and happy, fornicating and eating ice cream all day. But we couldn’t live that way for long, and eventually the world outside would seep under the door and we’d have to pay bills or file taxes or clean out the wad of hair from the sink drain.

  Kate’s little belly swelled. I could rest my head on top and listen deep inside. It was hard to imagine a baby in there, floating quietly in a sack of warm liquid. And if my head happened to be resting in a particular direction, guilt would mix with lust to form a separate uncomfortable feeling, until the lust would eventually win out.

  “I know it’s not my baby inside you, but it feels like my baby.”

  Kate didn’t say anything.

  “If we get married, she’ll have my last name. They’ll put me on the birth certificate.”

  I thought I felt something move next to my cheek underneath Kate’s skin. I stayed still and waited to feel it again. Waited for the confirmation.

  “Should we tell her?” I asked.

  Kate didn’t say anything. She had her hand on the top of my head, rubbing lightly through the hair. Maybe she wasn’t listening at all.

  Sometimes I imagine waking up in the morning to see a giant eye on the horizon. The Earth held up between a huge index finger and a thumb, being examined, the way we might examine a child’s marble. And seeing the giant eye, and knowing the Earth is just a single grain of sand on the beach of some planet far away, I am relieved of worry and responsibility for everything and anything.

  What a wonderful burden Jesus carried, all of mankind on his shoulders, when I’m allowed to save only two, Kate and the baby. But at the same time, what a relief it must have been to be tortured to death on the cross by those Romans, set free of worry and responsibility, at least for a little while. Some things were only meant to be carried for short distances.

  “Let’s go up to the courthouse and get married,” I said.

  Kate’s hand stopped rubbing my head, and then started again.

  “When?” she asked.

  “Now,” I said.

  I couldn’t see her face and didn’t want to. Hesitation was unwelcome. Inane questions were unwelcome. There was just me, and her, and whoever was inside of her, and the giant eye on the horizon. There was just Jesus, and the Romans, and the wonderful burden.

  “Okay,” she said, matter-of-factly. Not overjoyed, not sad, but without much hesitation, and naked, with my head resting on her warm belly, pointed in the wrong direction on purpose.

  I rose and started to get dressed, very conscious of each muscle, each movement, listening behind me for sounds of Kate rising from the bed, getting dressed for our marriage.

  I hadn’t told my mother. I hadn’t even told her Kate was living in my apartment, or Eddie had failed out, or I was on the verge of changing every single thing about my old life. But as I got dressed I imagined sitting at the kitchen table telling my mother all about it, and having Christine, braless and distant, listen to everything I had to say. And then the phone would ring, and she’d hurry out of the house, leaving me at the kitchen table, mid-sentence, with both of us knowing it was her way of showing me how much she really cared.

  Kate brushed her hair. She wore a blue sundress, light blue, loose around her waist so no one could see the bulge. I wanted to ask her if she’d always dreamed of a big wedding, with a white dress and bridesmaids, maybe a band at the reception and shrimp cocktail. But I didn’t ask her, because I didn’t want to know. I hated the possibility she was disappointed, it wasn’t the way she’d dreamed it would be. So we kept getting dressed, brushing our teeth in silence except for a few short sentences.

  “Have you seen my other shoe?”

  “No.”

  And then a few minutes later, “Is this your other shoe?”

  “Yes.”

  I’d saved every extra penny for the past weeks. In the car, on the way to the courthouse I said, “Afterwards, we could go out to eat.”

  “That would be good,” she said, but I couldn’t tell much from the way she said it. My usual sharp instincts of perception had become dull and self-centered like the

  opium addict.

  I let my left hand sneak down from the steering wheel to my left pocket. The b
ump in the pocket was my grandmother’s ring. She gave it to me when my father died. We were alone in her kitchen after the funeral. She didn’t make a big production of it.

  “One day,” she said, “you’ll meet a special girl.” And she placed the ring in the palm of my hand and bent my fingers inward into a fist around the ring. Now it was in my pocket, all clean and old-fashioned.

  The lady at the marriage license desk asked us questions. She liked to guess to herself which couples were pregnant. I could tell by the way she glanced at Kate’s belly from time to time, unsure. I wondered if some of the questions she asked were really necessary or if maybe she just enjoyed knowing things about other people. People getting married. Pregnant people.

  We walked upstairs and sat in a judge’s office. The secretary was too busy to ask us anything and simply said the judge would be with us shortly.

  My stomach felt like I’d swallowed a pinecone. One of those hard green pinecones, and after it sat awhile in the juices of my stomach, the pine cone must have expanded. Kate looked down at her hands. We both thought about the baby inside her. We both had all those natural and unnatural doubts. I thought maybe if the judge didn’t come out soon one of us might get up and leave, not in a hurry, but just get up and go outside and heave up a green pinecone.

  “The judge will see you now.”

  We went in the office where he stood in a black robe. The secretary sat down against the wall. She was the witness. There’s always a witness.

  We shook hands with the judge and made small talk. He looked over the marriage license and then opened a small notebook.

  My knees were weak, and I tried to think about the yellow pad under the bed, and the lists, and how good it was to rest my head on her soft belly and listen inside, and my grandmother, and my father’s hand holding mine. Mostly his voice when he told me things I needed to know.

  “Marriage is an institution of divine appointment and commended as honorable among all people. It is the most important step in life, and therefore should not be entered into unadvisedly or lightly, but discreetly and soberly,” the judge said.