Everything You Want Me to Be(55)
“I was lying on the bottom of the quarry for what felt like forever. There was no shade and the sun made me nauseated. I knew my dad was coming and that I had to lie to him, and I was convinced that God would strike me dead. Honor thy father and mother, they said in Sunday school. I pictured God himself walking down those giant stairsteps, pointing a finger at me and never letting me come back up to the regular world.
“When Dad got there I told him I’d climbed down into the quarry on my own, even though the boys told me not to, and I’d fallen. I was crying and shaking, waiting for the judgment I was sure was coming, but Dad just scooped me up in his big arms and carried me the whole way back to his truck and drove me home.
“No one got punished that day. Not even me.”
I rubbed the scar absently as the waiter cleared our plates.
“Greg and the Beason boys were grateful. They even stole me some SweeTARTS—my favorite candy—but I was petrified all week. I was still waiting and I couldn’t bear it. I knew something awful should happen to me for what I’d done.
“At church that Sunday I said the first and only prayer I’ve ever prayed for myself. Dear God, I said. If you’re mad at me, strike me down right now.
“But nothing happened. The organist kept playing. My parents kept singing the hymn. A rush of relief washed over me as I realized I was safe. God didn’t mind at all. I started pretending more, being accepted more, and I prayed the same thing the next week and the week after that. I’ve said it every Sunday since I was eight years old. Dear God, if you’re angry, strike me down. Strike me down here and now.
“And every week when He doesn’t I leave the church feeling . . . absolved. Like I’m still covered in dirt but the dirt’s clean. I know I’m not good, Peter. I don’t think I can be. And that’s something I don’t know how to lie about. I can’t walk into church and say Bless me, for I have sinned. I know I shouldn’t be blessed. I walk in and say Strike me down. And even though I know God will take me up on it someday, I still can’t change, because as much as I should want to be good and one of the blessed ones”—I lifted his hand and kissed the palm and laid my cheek in it—“I want you more.”
I rubbed my face into his hand to absorb the texture of his skin completely, to memorize it for all the days ahead. His thumb brushed my cheek and he studied my face, like he was memorizing, too.
“What do you think?” I asked, shakily. “Was that true enough for you?”
“I think . . .”—he drew a deep breath and let it out slowly, then brought our hands down to the table and kissed the back of mine—“he’ll have to strike us both down now.”
We went back to the hotel and undressed slowly, savoring the revelation of each other. When our clothes were in piles on the floor he laid me down on the bed and traced me lightly all over. He murmured while he roamed, telling me how beautiful my breasts were and how sweet they tasted. He explored my stomach, my hipbones, the inside of my thighs, and his words created something inside me, a wild animal that bucked and clenched, forging a thousand invisible emotions trapped underneath my skin. When he lined our bodies up and pushed inside me, it became too much to contain and the happiness welled up in my eyes, trickling down my temples.
Out of nowhere I remembered my grandpa’s silent, tear-streaked face in that depressing nursing home room. It was probably the last time anyone should be thinking about their dead grandfather, like some final proof of how unnatural I was, but in that moment I understood, finally, how love could be too much for our bodies to hold.
When Peter saw my tears he stopped moving and got the strangest expression.
“What is it?” I whispered.
“I was going to say your name, but I don’t even know what to call you.”
I pulled his head down to the crook of my neck, hugging my entire being around him. “Call me yours.”
DEL / Wednesday, April 16, 2008
THE PROBLEM with DNA was it took too damn long. It wasn’t like in the movies where they poured something in a test tube, swirled it around, and got the name of the killer. You had to send the samples up to the crime lab in Minneapolis and they put your stuff in line behind everyone else’s stuff and they got to it when they got to it, which could take up to a year depending on the type of evidence. Lab people, working nine-to-five and looking at dead-girl cells all day long. They didn’t care about your dead girl. It didn’t make any difference to them. At least that’s what it seemed like from here in Pine Valley, where we only had one dead girl and she’d torn a wide, ugly hole through this town.
Hattie was all anyone was talking about, the only thing filling their eyes when they passed me on the street. Word got around about Tommy Kinakis’s DNA test, probably from Tommy himself, the big goon, and about Lund being pulled out of school for questioning. Phone calls poured in to dispatch and Nancy told most of them to stuff it, but she felt it was her duty to keep me up-to-date on the gossip as she tucked sandwiches and fresh coffee into the few bare spaces on my desk. Brian Haeffner kept playing politician, trying to set up daily press conferences. Every parent in town wanted to know about security for the high school. Thanks to Portia, the curse story had spread like wildfire and two vans from the cities’ news stations had camped out on Main Street last night. I’d stopped answering my phone unless it was Jake . . . or Bud. He had called around six this morning.