The Girl of Tokens and Tears

by Susan Ward

  I break off unable to finish. My eyes do a fast float over him. I pause at the ink on his wrist. I don’t recognize it as part of each detail of Alan I carry in my memory.

  I trace it with a finger. I’m not sure what it is and I don’t remember it. “Is this new?”

  “New. I got it last year. After you.”

  I run the line with my finger again. I look up at him. “What is it?”

  He closes his eyes and laughs. “You don’t recognize it?”

  I frown. “It looks like barbwire, but it’s too fragile and the artist forgot the spikes.”

  “Infinity symbols. The artist made them the exact size of the clasp on your bracelet.”

  My eyes fly wide. Into my silence he just stares; beautiful, enigmatic and sad.

  He lifts a curl from my face. “Linda gave me the bracelet to return to you when we left The Farm. I kept it. It was the only thing you left behind in New York.”

  He pulls his shirt from my body and his fingers start moving along my arms, then tracing and touching everywhere. My lips. My neck. My breasts. Stomach. Lower. Even my scars. Everywhere. His mouth begins a slow trek. My nipples harden in urgent anticipation as I’m bathed in the exquisite slowness of Alan making love to me.

  My mouth presses against his flesh, kissing randomly and not caring where. I run my hands up his powerfully muscled arms. I kiss his wrist. “I like the new ink.”

  His face changes. “I hate it. It makes me think of you, and I don’t want to.”

  His mouth closes over mine, trapping my words within me before I can answer him. I feel his flesh searching at my sex, then buried deep within me. The feeling of him inside me is overpowering this time. I arch up, meeting him, pushing him deep inside of me.

  He lifts his face above me and his eyes are blazing. “It’s the only thing you left behind in New York other than me.” Then I’m held tightly beneath him, and he is pounding into me. My heated blood moves through my body. I writhe. He isn’t gentle, but there’s no pain. There’s nothing in my body, my veins, or my senses, except Alan.

  ~~~

  I lie on Alan’s chest, wishing away the soon to come daylight.

  His arms tighten around me. “I’ve been out of my mind since you walked out on me in New York.”

  I lift my face. “I didn’t walk out on you. Stop saying that. I told you that when I left New York. I had to go back to Santa Barbara. I wasn’t leaving you.”

  An emotional shudder rolls down his arms. “By the time I landed in San Francisco I hated you, but more, I hated myself for wanting you. I hated you and I came to you anyway.”

  I kiss his chest. “I left New York because of me. Not you.”

  He stares; the emotion-sparks in his eyes changing too quickly for me to read any of them.

  “So now that we’re together, where are we, Chrissie?”

  I lay my cheek back on his chest. “I don’t know.”

  I can feel Alan’s stare, intense and indecipherable as it burns into me. Then, after several minutes, he leans in, capturing my lips and starts kissing me again.

  ~~~

  I open my eyes and then shoot upright in bed. The stillness in the air makes reality cruelly inescapable. I’m alone in the condo. Alan is gone.

  He left while I was sleeping without so much as a goodbye. Why would he do that?

  Then, all the reasons it is better this way, one by one, flitter through my head. Nia. Neil. That it would hurt too much for me to watch him walk out my door.

  I lie back down and curl around his pillow. It’s better this way. An ending we both needed. The dangling strings tied up. One last goodbye, understood, with the least amount of pain.

  My eyes fix on an object on the nightstand. Alan’s silver lighter, and I recall that day in New York when he threw one at me and it hurt so much seeing it laying on the floor. I pick it up, an oversight, nothing more, but maybe not since I’m never sure of anything with Alan. I run my finger along its cool surface, feeling its coldness without bite. It was just an oversight, nothing more, but touching it hurts me, anyway.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I catch a plane for Santa Barbara instead of Seattle.

  I exit the terminal and find Jack waiting at the curb in the drop-off loop. “Hey, Daddy. Thanks for picking me up.”

  Jack smiles, taking my bag and putting a kiss on my cheek. “I was surprised when you called this morning. I thought you were going to Seattle with friends.”

  I cringe internally. I’m almost twenty and I still fib to my dad about guys. How lame is that? Really lame, since it’s obvious Jack must know Neil is sort of living with me. Alan figured it out in two minutes.

  “I’m still going to Seattle,” I say, climbing into the car as Jack puts my bag in the backseat. “I just wanted to come home for a few days.”

  Jack climbs into the driver’s seat and turns on the ignition. “Everything all right?”

  I tense. “Great, Daddy. Homesick, I guess.”

  Jack smiles. “I miss having you around, too, baby girl. Get homesick any time you want to. I like having you here.”

  We drive for a while and I stare out the window. Now that I’m here, it isn’t as easy as I thought it would be. And I suspect I was wrong thinking it would be easier in person instead of on the phone.

  I take in a deep breath. “Daddy?”

  “Yes, Chrissie?” he says with humorous exaggeration.

  “Have I gotten any letters or anything at the house? Anything you’ve forgotten to give to me?”

  Jack’s brows hitch up. “No. Are you expecting something?”

  I search his face. “I don’t know. Maybe. I’ve been applying for internships for next year. I haven’t gotten any responses. I thought, maybe, I put the wrong address on the forms.”

  I turn to look out the window again. Jeez, that sounded stupid.

  Jack shakes his head. “We haven’t gotten anything for you here. But ask Maria. She always knows everything.”

  Jack laughs and I force myself to laugh, too.

  “So how’s Neil?”

  “I don’t see him very much. He’s on the road a lot.”

  “That’ll keep you out of trouble,” Jack says, in a way that makes my entire face color.

  “God, Daddy.”

  Jack laughs again.

  “You doing OK at school?”

  “Great. It’s been weird having Rene gone for the summer, but I think it’s been kind of good, us having a break from each other.”

  Jack parks the car in our driveway. I climb out and wait while he retrieves my bag.

  Inside the house, I ask, “Where’s Maria?”

  Jack shrugs. “I don’t know. She’s home somewhere.”

  I move down the hallway, poking my head into rooms, and then into the kitchen. OK, not here. I turn around and make my way down the far hallway, past my bedroom to the door at the end, and knock.

  “Yes?” Maria calls.

  “It’s Chrissie. Can I come in?”

  The door opens and Maria smiles at me.

  “Come, Chica.” She gestures me in with her arm. “I’m only resting. It’s hot today, but it is nice to see my girl.”

  Maria closes the door and I sink on her bed, waiting until she sits in her chair.

  “Maria? Have I gotten any letters, anything, you haven’t given to me?”

  Maria stares and my entire body feels covered in needle pricks. I can tell, I can see it. Before she speaks it is on her face; it was her that kept Alan’s messages and letters from me.

  I stand up, angry now. “Maria, answer me.”

  Her face changes. “Oh, Chrissie...” and then the room is flooded in a rapid torrent of Spanish and English, the words too quickly spoken for me to fully understand. Something about protecting me. Something about me being like her own daughter. Something about Alan that I’m not even close to being able to translate.

  Maria is crying, wringing her hands, worried and miserable.

  “Please, stop talking,�
� I beg anxiously. “Why did you do this to me?”

  “I love you, Chrissie. I did not want you hurt.”

  “Well, you hurt me, Maria. More than you know,” I exclaim harshly.

  “Señor Jack...”

  “Don’t blame this on my father,” I say, cutting her off. “My dad would never have done this to me. He may not have wanted to give me the messages and letters, but he would have given them to me.”

  She brushes at her tears and her face changes. “I kept the letters, Chrissie. I sent the gifts back. But I have the letters. I have them all. If you want them, the letters.”

  She’s at her armoire, rummaging through things. She pulls out some kind of metal tin and hands it to me. It’s an old cookie tin, the kind we get fancy shortbread cookies in.

  Seeing the tin makes me think of when I was little, watching Maria save everything—used tin foil, paper towels, half eaten meals—and that she is the only mother I’ve ever really known.

  “I’m sorry I got really angry, Maria.”

  She hands me the tin. “I did not think it good for you to give you this last year. So much was happening all at once. You and Señor Jack, both so unhappy.”

  Her face is so sad that now all I can do is nod.

  “Are you going to tell your father?” she asks.

  I shake my head. “No, Maria.” I kiss her on the cheek. “I just wish you hadn’t done this.”

  And before she can say anything else, I’m out the door toward my bedroom.

  I sink on the bed, staring at the tin, afraid to open it. A year of my life in an old cookie tin. A year that cost me Alan forever. I’m not sure I should even look.

  I lift off the lid. My eyes round. There are dozens of letters. I pick them up, my hands trembling. I start laying them on the bed by date. I wipe my nose, dripping with tears. I rip open the first letter and lay back on my bed.

  I’m emotionally exhausted when I finish the last letter. They’re surprisingly long. Painfully loving. Achingly angry at times. In the last letter, a two page rant about what a bitch I am, below his name Alan still scribbled a phone number and wrote: I can’t breathe. I can’t work. I can’t think. Please, Chrissie, call me. Even if it’s only to tell me you’re OK.

  New tears start and I didn’t think I had any more in me. I left New York. But nothing, not time, not even the angry letters Alan sometimes penned among the beautiful ones here, changed a thing.

  I’m still in love with Alan, and he’s still in love with me. The only thing to change in a year, is that Alan is married and we are no longer possible.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Spring 1991…

  I lie on my bed, trying to focus on my book, but I can’t.

  Neil is reclined with his back against the footboard, sitting in his boxers, facing me. He’s listening to music on his Walkman. He’s doing nothing to disturb me, but I can’t concentrate.

  He’s been back from Seattle for almost a month this time. He leaves for the road again tomorrow. On-again off-again, that’s what we’ve been for the last seven months. It’s an oddly comfortable arrangement, one I would have never expected to work for me.

  As if he senses me studying him, Neil opens his eyes, pulls off his earphones, and smiles. “Why are you staring at me that way, Chrissie? Are you already sick of having me back in Berkeley?”

  I give him a shove with my leg. “I like it when you’re home.”

  His green eyes darken. “If you married me, Chrissie, this would really feel like home.”

  I try to ignore him and look down at my book. I turn a page and I can feel him watching. I look up and say, “You ask me every month. The joke is getting old. Maybe you should give it a rest.”

  He grins. “I ask you every month hoping that will be the month you say yes.”

  I arch a brow. “Aren’t you afraid someday I might say yes?”

  He shakes his head in that lazy way he has, his brown waves doing a gentle float against his pillow. “Try saying yes, Chrissie, and see where it gets you.”

  I crinkle my nose. “The last time I made a rash decision I ended up as a storage locker for your stuff.”

  He grabs my book and holds it out of my reach. “I’m not giving you back the book until you fuck me.”

  I reach for it. He pulls it away. “You’re impossible today.”

  He nods. “Probably.”

  I laugh. He’s so cute when he’s being stupid and irritating.

  “Are you going home to Santa Barbara after your midterms?” Neil asks.

  “I’m not sure. Rene wants to go to Palm Springs for spring break.”

  Neil makes a face. “She couldn’t be any shallower if she tried.”

  I nudge him with my foot. “Be nice. She’s been really nice to you lately. Don’t stir things up again. It was awful when she stomped around here, pissed at me all the time.”

  “She asked me this morning when I was going to get my shit out of here. Does that count as her being nice?”

  “For Rene? Yes.”

  Neil laughs.

  “Instead of Palm Springs, why don’t you travel with me during your break? You haven’t done that before, Chrissie, gone out on the road with me. It could be fun.”

  I make a gag me face.

  “Fun, huh? Traveling in a van with you and four guys? Staying in those lovely places you tell me about that Ernie Levine has you staying in? No thanks.”

  “Not even to be with me?” he says, moving his way across the bed.

  “Nope.”

  “You’re such a princess.”

  I resist as he tries to claim my mouth for a kiss. “You guys should fire Ernie. He’s a crummy manager. He books you in crappy venues. He doesn’t even try to get you radio play. And he should definitely be pushing you to record something more commercial.”

  “I’ll fire him when you say yes and marry me.”

  I shove Neil away, laughingly. “Go away. You’re so irritating at times.”

  He kisses my neck. “Why do you think I’m joking when I ask you to marry me?”

  “Ah—because you are.”

  Neil surrounds me with his arms. “Maybe I’m not joking when I ask.” Then his eyes widen. A teasing glint appears. “Maybe I’m joking.” He plants a kiss on my stomach. “Or maybe it means I just wanted to get laid.”

  His hands close on my hips, tugging me under him, and then he covers me with his body.

  I make an aggravated groan. “I need to study, Neil.”

  He gives me a kiss, and his hand moves under my dress, then his fingers are beneath my panties, and he starts to lightly stir me there. No fair, he knows exactly where to touch me to win.

  He pushes his lower body into me, deepening the kiss, and teasing me with the erection straining inside his boxers.

  I push into him, answering his kiss. We feel really good together lately. A subtle change between us, a strange aftermath of me fucking Alan. Neil pulls my panties off me and then he is working his way into me. I groan as his body fills me, curling my legs around his hips, holding me to him.

  “God, I miss you when I’m on the road, Chrissie,” he whispers in veneration. “You don’t…” A gentle glide deep. “…have any idea…” a teasing slow swirl and pull out. “…how much I think of this…”

  His words fade with the sudden thrusting of his body, and I close my eyes, feeling the build up inside of him. I kiss his neck. I run my nails across his back and meet the thrusts of his body with my hips.

  I cry out, my nails digging into his back, and arch up. The shudders roll down my limbs; rippling wave, wave, and then gone. His breathing is ragged as he tries to keep himself from coming. Then, he lets loose inside me.

  I open my eyes to find Neil staring down at me. He smiles, kisses me, and pulls out. He lies beside me on the bed, settling me against him. “Do you want to go out tonight? Listen to some music somewhere?”

  “I can’t. I have to study.”

  He rakes back his hair with his hand. “Do you mind
if I go out?”

  I shake my head, amused. “Why do you always ask me that? You can do whatever you want to do. You don’t need my permission.”

  Something flashes in his eyes, and I flush and quickly say, “Neil, don’t get pissed. I didn’t mean it the way it sounded.”

  His eyes sharpen on my face. “Then what way did you mean it, Chrissie? How else am I supposed to take that one?”

  I sit up beside him. “I was just saying, you don’t have to worry that you have a girlfriend who’s going to go ballistic every time you’re out for an hour.”

  I can feel him studying my face. “You never get jealous? Not even a little? Not even when I’m on the road?”

  “No point in either of us being jealous when we’re not together. It’s a stupid emotion.”

  “Is it really that simple for you?”

  I pretend to think it over. “Today, it’s that simple for me. Tomorrow, I might be a crazy-ass bitch, so you should probably enjoy it while you can.”

  Neil laughs, shaking he head. “God, you are crazy. Do you want me to run out and get you some dinner first? There’s nothing in the kitchen to eat.”

  “It was my turn to do the shopping. I forgot. Rene’s pissed.”

  “What do you want?” he asks.

  “I don’t care. Anything.”

  I follow him with my eyes as he dresses and moves towards the door.

  “Hey, Neil, let me study for two hours. Then I’ll call it quits. We can go out and kick around for a while.”

  “Are you sure? I was just giving you a hard time, Chrissie. I like to give you shit, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  “Nope, it’s your last night here. I want to go out tonight.”

  He smiles. “I’ll be back with your dinner in about thirty minutes.”

  ~~~

  As we walk down the street toward the club, I notice there’s a line. I shove my hands into my pockets to keep them warm and I wait as Neil speaks with the bouncer to get us in.

  I haven’t been in this part of Berkeley before. Not exactly my kind of neighborhood. But the club looks popular. Neil takes me by the hand and guides me into the bar. It’s a dim, smoky tomb, pulsing and loud. A lot less trendy than the clubs in San Francisco. The room is packed with counter-culture types. No college preppies here. Hardcore rockers, floor to ceiling. This is Neil’s kind of haunt, not mine.