Everything You Want Me to Be(64)

“Maybe later.” I reached into my backpack for my script. “I have to memorize the rest of my lines first, remember? Will you help me?”

“Seriously?”

I nodded and he groaned. “Come on, Hattie. I can’t read that stuff.”

“It’s good for you.” I smiled, a flirty little smile, and sat down on the bed next to him, opening the book. “See, you just have to read whatever comes right before Lady MacBeth’s lines and then make sure I’m saying them right.”

I pointed out the highlighted text, but Tommy was concentrating on other things. He pulled me against him and landed a sloppy kiss behind my ear.

“Not now.”

When I tried to pull away he tightened his grip, keeping me close.

“Just a little,” he mumbled and moved to my mouth.

Somehow his other hand found the back of my head and held me still as he kissed me. I felt like I was suffocating and couldn’t even picture Peter the way I usually did.

“Tommy,” I managed when he came up for air.

“What?” His hand squeezed my breast. How did he grow so many hands?

“Not now,” I repeated and managed to squirm away.

He grunted and lounged back against the wall, not even bothering to hide the bulge in his jeans. “It’s not ever with you.”

“My mom’s here. And I really do have to learn this.”

“I don’t understand why you’re doing this play.”

“I don’t understand why you play football.” I mimicked him in the same stupid tone as I cued the video camera on top of the dresser.

“Okay, okay.” He sighed and picked up the script, then squinted at it like it was in Chinese. “This part?”

“You’re a sweetheart.” I gave him a peck on the cheek and backed into the center of the room. While he worked up the nerve to say Shakespeare out loud, I let myself become Lady MacBeth. I looked at Tommy until the horny teenager faded away and he became my instrument. I looked at his fingers and saw a hand that was mine to wield, that I could drive to murder the king himself. I looked at his confused expression and saw the madness that we would soon share. I became cold, too cold to feel. By the time he cleared his throat to say his first line, I could taste my own death.



Somehow on the Friday of spring break we got a perfect day, the kind of nauseating perfection you only see in commercials. The sky was cloudless and the sun warmed you in your bones as it devoured the snowbanks. Dad immediately disappeared into the barn, getting his equipment ready for planting, while Mom paged through seed catalogs for her garden and hung sheets out on the line to dry. I was giddy because during my shift on Wednesday Peter had dropped off a flash drive with a single picture on it. It was a photograph of the barn.

“Enjoying your spring break?” he asked nonchalantly when he came back for the picture.

“It’s nothing special.”

“Maybe it’ll pick up by Friday morning.”

“Mmm, I hope so.” I tried to sound bored as I rang him up and contained the excitement that rocketed around inside me.

I left the house as if I was going to work and called in sick. Peter was waiting for me when I got to the barn. His wife and mother-in-law had gone to the hospital for a bunch of tests all day, so we hiked into the middle of their property, away from any roads or houses or outbuildings, where a giant oak tree marked the intersection of four fields. We’d both come prepared this time. I brought a quilt and the book he’d given me for Christmas and he brought a picnic basket and a bottle of wine. He flipped through the book and read some lines aloud while we picked at the cheese and crackers and sipped pinot noir from Dixie cups. I’d never had wine outside of church before and even though it tasted dry and coppery, I didn’t mind. I’d rather drink wine with Peter than all the beer in the world with Tommy.

After a while I laid my head in his lap while he leaned against the tree trunk, read, and stroked my hair. I listened more to the tone of his voice than the actual words. I started to feel like a cat, like I wanted to rub my head against his thigh and stretch and roll in the warmth of the sun. Maybe the wine was getting to me.

“So he spends his entire worthless life searching for V.” Peter flipped the book shut and set it aside.

Usually I loved listening to him talk about books, to hear that crisp analytical tone in his voice as he lectured the class, but the more he’d read of this one, the more depressed he sounded, especially about that weird stalker character. I asked him who V was, to change his focus, and he perked up a little.

“That’s the unsolvable mystery, the unknowable question. Pynchon would never be so prosaic as to attempt to answer it.”

I rubbed my cheek against his pant leg. “Well, I didn’t ask Pynchon. I asked you.”

He was quiet for a minute while his fingers continued to sift through my hair, starting at my scalp and smoothing the strands over his thigh and down to the ground. It was hypnotic, addictive. I wanted to lie in the sun and feel him stroking my hair forever. My eyes drifted closed.

“I should say that I’m not that prosaic either, but it’s irresistible. She haunts you as you read, like a ghost drawing you through each page.” He paused again, hesitating. “When I gave it to you I thought V was you, in about fifty years.”

I laughed. “And you’re the man searching for me?”