He’s quiet for a moment, then he says, “Well, u better! I’m coming all this way! I get there Fri nite at 10. Can’t u sneak out? Tell a friend 2 cover 4 u.”
I shake my head. “There’s nobody,” I type. “I kind of stick 2 myself. There’s stuff I don’t want people 2 c.” I think of my arms and tug my sleeves down to my wrists. I glance at the back of my hand.
He’s quiet again and when he stays quiet too long, I get scared. I can’t lose him. “I’ll find a way, Marcus,” I type. “I LUV U!”
“I luv u 2,” he says right away. “I can’t wait 2 c u. 2 hold u. Will u show me the stuff u don’t want others 2 c?”
I think about that. I think about how we make love and how, when we see each other for real, there won’t be a computer screen between us. If we really truly make love, the way he says we will, then I’ll have to be naked. Completely. And it might not be dark.
“Amy Sue?”
“Yes,” I type. “Yes, I’ll show u. But Marcus?” I stop. I don’t know how to ask and Marcus’ question mark appears like a black snake on my screen. “Marcus, I might need it 2 B dark that 1st time.”
He types in a smiley face, then says, “OK w/me, baby. All that matters is that I can have my arms around u. I’ll B able 2 feel u, even if it’s in the dark.”
For some reason, I begin to cry. I’m glad he can’t see me.
“Make sure u meet me at 10,” he says. “The bus lets me off at the intersection of Main St. and Cheerful Ave. By some restaurant. Do u know where the station is?”
I laugh, which makes the tears start to go away. “LOL! This is What Cheer, remember? The bus just stops at a parking lot downtown, at the Tick-Tock Quick-Stop Restaurant. Really. Where r u going 2 stay? There’s no hotels here.”
The next face he types uses an O for the mouth, so big and gaping like he’s finally realized he’s coming from the middle of nowhere to an even bigger middle of nowhere. From zip to zip. To find me. “I’ll figure out something. Maybe I’ll sneak into yr house and sleep in yr bed w/u.”
The thought of him here makes me shake. I picture my mother, on the other side of the locked door, screaming and swearing while Marcus takes me for the first time. I picture myself yelling, “He loves me, Mom! He loves me!” while he covers my face with kisses and then I can’t yell anymore because he’s kissing me on the mouth, hard, his tongue sliding around mine. I squirm in my seat, then type, “That would B 1derful, if u cd. But I don’t think so.”
“You know what I’d do if I cd? If I cd get u there, in yr own bed?”
“What?”
“Sit back, baby, and lemme tell u. But this time, if u can, type in when yr cumming, so that I know. So that I know I’ve got u. And maybe I can cum at the same time.”
And I do. We make it together and it’s the best feeling I’ve ever had.
“
M
om?” I say at supper that night. It’s just take-out, Dad stopped by the restaurant on his way home. “There’s a dance at school on Friday night.” There is too and I try to remember the theme.
“They’re calling it Spring Fling.”
She grunts, then goes back to shoving potatoes around her plate. I glance over at my dad and he looks at me while he chews on a drumstick so I point my words at him. “Can I go?”
He nods toward my mother. She leans back in her chair. “Spring Fling, huh?” she says. “How cute.”
I swallow. “I can’t help what they call it.”
“I suppose some young stud is taking you.”
My father freezes in mid-chew. But I shake my head so he looks away. “Just a bunch of girls I’ve been hanging with. And we thought…we thought we might stay over at someone’s house, if that’s okay. Not here, I mean. A sleepover.”
She lights a cigarette. I watch the tip flame up, then soften to that orange glow. I know that glow is even hotter than the flame. I know that for a fact. She inhales deeply, then releases a stream of smoke through her nose. I wonder if that burns too. “Yeah, go,” she says. “Maybe your dad and I can get it on without you here. Give us a night of ro-mance.” She bats her eyes at my father and smiles, her lips stretched so wide, I wonder if her face will split. “How’s that, honey-babe?” she says, reaching under the table and doing something that makes him squeal like a pig. He grins back at her and I leave the table in a hurry.
I should’ve known. When you barely exist, it’s easy to sneak away.
I
hang at the dance for a while, so if my mom asks later, I can say I was there. Though she probably won’t care. Besides, there’s nothing else to do until ten o’clock when Marcus’ bus arrives.
I watch the kids dance, some doing pretty good, others just jumping and wiggling and shaking their arms. I wonder which I would look like if I got up to dance. A couple boys ask me and I say no. Nicely, though. But I’m taken. Marcus is coming.
At nine-thirty, I go into the girls’ restroom to brush my hair and check myself out before the walk to the bus stop. I’m thinking I look pretty good. I pulled on my low-riding flares, light blue, and I’ve got on a pink long-sleeved t-shirt that says Angel Baby. Marcus always calls me baby, so I think he’ll like it. I brush my hair, smoothing the waves over my shoulders and wish for the thousandth time that I had dark straight hair. Serious hair. Not this goofy baby fuzz cheerleader hair. I cross my eyes and stick out my tongue at my reflection.
A girl behind me laughs and I see her in the mirror. She grins at me and pats her own hair, dark black and stick-straight. “Hello, Blondie,” she says. She thwacks me on the head with flicked fingers. “Little Miss Fucking Curly Locks.”
I step away.
She flicks me again. Her fingernails are sharp and they flash black in the air. “You can change it, you know.”
I look at her, but I don’t say anything. I don’t know what she wants. Her hair is really, really dark. It’s like the night in March in the middle of nowhere, Iowa.
She touches the ends, like she knows what I’m thinking. “It’s a dye job. And I straighten it. I’m just as blonde as you, really.” She vamps, flips her hair between twisted fingers. “You’d never know, wouldja? Little Blonde Bimbo Babe. Better not tell anyone.”
I know who she is. Her name is Reggie, though she was Regina in grade school. I remember her from kindergarten and she was blonder than me, almost white, her hair poofed around her head like a halo. She’s pretty tough now, hangs with the rougher crowd. I look at her baggy jeans and black leather shirt, ripped out at the elbows.
She shoves her sleeves up with those pointy nails. “Bet you’d never change it though. You’re too chickenshit. Little Yellow Chickie Hair. You’re Amy Sue Dander, right?”
I turn back to the mirror, not sure if I should be flattered that she knows my name. My hair has frizzed out already, lifting off my shoulders like a fluffy yellow dandelion.
“You wanna blow this action?” Reggie says, looking at my reflection over my shoulder. “It bites the bag. My friends and I are heading out to this place we have in the middle of Old Man Yanker’s cornfield.”
I flush with pleasure at the invitation, but hesitate a second, wondering if there’s enough time before Marcus, wondering why she’s asking me. But then I shake my head. “I can’t. I have to meet this guy.”
She shrugs. “See, I told you. Chickenshit. Later, Bimbo Babe.” She flicks me one more time, her fingernail catching one strand and yanking it from my scalp. I flinch, but refuse to let my eyes shine with tears.
After she leaves, I take a deep breath and smooth my hair one more time. I look at my bellybutton and think about a ring and I wonder if Reggie has one. Then I shake the thought away and head out. The noise of the dance smacks at my ears and I see Reggie and a bunch of black-clad kids leave through the back door of the gym. I go out the front.
The further I move from the school, the quieter it gets. Downtown What Cheer is dead at night, no stores stay open, even the restaurant closes at nine. There are no cars. Walking toward the stop, I think about actually seeing Marcus, seeing his real smile, not a computer emoticon, and then feeling his very real arms around me. I’m not sure where we’re going to go…but I don’t care. We’ll be together. It’s warm enough tonight, I could just take him to the park. There’s a shed, all the kids use it. Or even back to the dance. I wonder if I could find Reggie in the middle of a cornfield.
There’s a bench outside the restaurant and so I sit down. I cross my legs this way and that, settle my arms on my lap, then on the back of the bench. I wish I could see what I look like.
I hear a rumble and I see headlights coming down the way. Standing up, I clear my throat, then quickly smooth my hair, tug down my shirt, check my sleeves. The bus pulls up and the door opens. One man gets out and I look behind him for Marcus. But there’s nobody. The driver waves, then shuts the door and pulls away.
No Marcus.
The tears well up again and I look at the man, standing there. He hasn’t moved. He’s wearing an old letter jacket and I see a red W on it. But it looks like he can’t snap it shut anymore. He turns for just a second, to check out the names on the street signs. And I see his brown ponytail.
He looks at me and smiles. I step backwards. “Amy Sue?” he says. “Baby? Is that you?”
“Marcus?” He has to be about forty years old.
“Yes, it’s me!” He reaches toward me, but I dodge away. “Amy Sue? What’s the matter?”
“You can’t be Marcus!” I blurt out. I move around, put the bench between us. “Marcus is a freshman, he plays basketball!”
“Oh, Amy Sue.” Marcus sits down on the bench. “You misunderstood. I’m a teacher, I teach freshmen, and I coach basketball at my school, Burlington West. I thought you knew.”
I stare. I think about all I’ve told him, all we’ve done together. I look at his hair, trailing down his back. He removes his hat and I see a bald spot. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.
His arm dangles over the bench back, his fingers stretching toward me. “Well, it doesn’t have to be bad, does it? We’re still friends. I’m still Marcus, you’re still Amy Sue. I’m just…not what you pictured. But we’ve shared a lot of things.”
I nod.
“Look, come sit down. We’ll just sit here and talk. Unless we can get some coffee.” He motions toward the restaurant.
“It’s closed.”
He blinks. “You’re kidding. Is there a Starbucks?”
I laugh. “Welcome to What Cheer, Marcus. Home of the Big Lie. It’s not cheerful at all.”
He laughs too and I feel a little better, so I sit down and we talk.
And he
is
Marcus. He’s just like he was online, only older. And he looks different. But his laugh is there, and his smile, and his voice is as low as a lullaby. If I close my eyes, I can still picture him, the Marcus I knew online, and he had that voice, so soft when he called me baby. He begins to recite a poem, a poem he wrote for me, and it’s full of those low sounds, soft s’s and f’s, and I close my eyes and sink into it, like the lake on my grandmother’s clock.
“What is it, baby?” he asks.
I open my eyes and see him.
“So how is your mom?” he asks. “You got out of there okay?”
“She thinks I’m at a school dance.” I shrug. “And then I’m supposed to be going to stay at a friend’s house for a sleepover.”
He reaches forward, touches my hand. “I wish I could get you out of there, Amy Sue,” he says. “You don’t deserve to be there. You deserve to be someplace warm and safe, where you can do what you want, be what you want. You shouldn’t ever be hurt.”
I feel the tears again, but I blink them away. Or I try to. But then they come too fast for me to stop. He’s saying just what I wanted Marcus to say.
“Amy Sue?” He leans forward, touches my cheek. I watch as he puts his fingertips to his mouth, tastes my tears. Then he presses his forehead to mine. I start to pull away, but his hands steady my shoulders and I stay. “Show me,” he whispers. “Amy Sue, show me the stuff you don’t want others to see.”
I swallow, then reach down and tug back my sleeves. Under the streetlight, my skin shines, spotted and scabbed, and he gasps. Then he takes one of my arms and he holds it, supports it, one hand at my elbow, one at my wrist.
When he begins to kiss my arm, I close my eyes. I know exactly where he is, which scar or scab or scorch his lips touch. When he starts on my other arm, I begin to tremble.
“I want to make it better,” he says, putting his face against mine again. He kisses my lips and for a moment, I respond. “I love you, Amy Sue.”
I remember then who he is and who I thought he was and though I don’t want to, I jerk back. He’s old enough to be my father. He sighs and leans away and my body cools without him. “I’m sorry,” he says.
We don’t say anything for a moment, and then I pull my sleeves back down. “It’s okay,” I whisper. Then I look at my watch.
Marcus stretches and stands up. “Guess we better start thinking of a place to stay.” He doesn’t look at me, but I know what he’s thinking. And I’m not sure what to do. What it is I want.
“I’ll show you where the park is,” I say. “There’s a shed there, everyone knows about it. It’s for the maintenance man, but he keeps a cot in there and he takes naps. We…or you…can probably sleep there. He doesn’t work on the weekends.”
“It’s not locked?”
“It’s been busted for years.”
We start to move down the sidewalk. He takes my hand and I don’t pull away. It feels sort of good. He has a big hand and it’s warm. “I might just head home then,” I say. “I don’t know.”
He doesn’t answer and I wonder if he heard me. As we walk, I look up at the sky. The stars are bright, like spring makes them new too, like the green grass and flowers. Marcus looks up as well. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he says. “I like the Iowa sky.”
“What’s the Vermont sky like?” I ask.
“Closer,” he says. “Closer and wider, with just a streak of classic rock.” That’s just the sort of thing Marcus would say, something that I don’t quite understand, but that sounds pretty anyway. He moves steadily beside me and his hip bumps into mine every few steps. Then he slips his arm around me and though I hesitate, I put my arm around him too. We fit and for a moment, I’m happy.
We walk through the park and I point out the duck pond, the playground, the sandpit where I used to play for hours. I take him the long way, trying to give myself some time, trying to figure out what to do. We get to the shed and I open the door. The moonlight falls in, letting in just enough light to see the shape of a cot. “Well, this is it,” I say. “It’s not a hotel, but it’s What Cheer’s finest.”