The Headmaster's Wife(34)

Leading into the winter of 1973, the only thing that tempers the beauty of the thing she and Russell Hurley have is the specter of Arthur, Arthur who seems to be everywhere all of a sudden. Coming out of class, she finds him there, moving silently by her, determined not to show her he cares, and one night, while she is walking with Russell across the fields she once walked with Arthur, he appears like an apparition out of the dark, and she is startled he is upon them, and Russell, with the ease that certain large men seem to have, gives Arthur a hearty hello, and, when he does not respond, turns to her and says, “Don’t worry about him, okay?”

And mostly she does not, for she is too busy falling for Russell Hurley. The relationship, unlike with Arthur, is not immediately sexual. He does not push her, and she likes how slow he is going, like some crazy long-drawn-out tease, and at night they sometimes just kiss for twenty minutes or so, and she likes the feel of his strong, long body against hers and the way he sometimes opens his big peacoat and brings her inside it like it’s a blanket and just holds her to him.

She likes how small she feels next to his bulk. She’s never thought of herself as big, though she considers herself awkward and clumsy, but in his arms it’s as if the physical grace that promises to make him the greatest basketball player in the history of Lancaster has somehow rubbed off on her.

What she likes most, though, is that there is no bullshit between them. Russell doesn’t try to impress her or embellish his life. He tells her it kind of sucks at home, and it kind of sucks at home for her, too, though she has never heard anyone else at Lancaster admit such a thing.

When she imagines the life of a Lancaster student when not in Vermont, she pictures summers on islands, holidays in the city, trips to Paris. Russell is not much different from many of the boys she knew back in Craftsbury, and while part of her wants to run from that, there is something entirely disarming about his genuineness. And not only does he speak truthfully about where he came from and why he is here, but he also wants to know everything about her. She finds herself talking much more than she is used to. In fact, she tries to tell herself to shut up but she cannot, for he is so passionate about listening to her.

“I want to know everything about you. I mean everything,” he says one time when they are sitting down among the wrestling mats in the gym where they have gone to squirrel away and make out before dinner.

“Everything?” she says.

“I don’t want us to have secrets. I want to know all of it. All the embarrassing shit. The things you hate about yourself. The things you love. Your most secret fantasies. The stuff you would never, ever dream of telling anyone else.”

“Ha! No way,” she says.

“I’m serious. And I’ll do the same. Nothing is sacred. Everything out in the open.”

“Then tell me something about you that no one knows.”

“I’m a virgin,” he says.

She smacks him. “Bullshit.”

“Really.”

“Wow. You’re not kidding.”

He shakes his head. “Nope, never done it.”

“I would have thought, you know, big basketball star and all.”

Russell smiles and shrugs. “Not that I couldn’t have. I just haven’t.”

“Wow,” she says. “Well, I think it’s cool.”

“My turn. Tell me something about you that no one knows.”

She looks across the darkened room and says the first thing that comes to her mind and does not filter it. “This is the only time I have ever been happy.”

“When?”

“Right now.”

“You mean this minute?”

“Yes. This very minute. This second. Right now.”

“Why?”

“Why am I so happy right now? Or why is this the only time I have ever been happy?”

“Both.”

She smiles. “Well, I am happy right now because the only thing I am thinking about is right now. I mean, I’m right here, you know what I mean?”

“You mean sometimes you’re not?”

“I mean sometimes, I don’t know, I get so caught up it’s like I can’t catch my breath. And when you do that you’re not really living. Everything is so … so heavy, I guess. Like where I am going to go college? Even you—I mean, everyone here seems to know what they are doing. I’m just here, you know? It’s all future, and if it’s not the future, it’s the past. My family. My mom and dad and little sister. What are they doing? All of that shit. But being here with you it’s like it’s just you and me and nothing else. That sounds weird, I know.”

“No, no, it doesn’t.”

“You’re sweet.”

“So why never happy before?”

“For the same reason.”

“What reason?”

“You.”

“Me?”

“You and me. Don’t make me say it; you know what I mean.”

It is his turn to laugh. She looks away, and he laughs that big tall-man laugh, the one that starts low in his belly and moves up through his body. It is a laugh she loves, though now it embarrasses her, and she looks away at the moment he sweeps his arm around her and says, “You want me to say it?”

She turns toward him. “Yes.”