A Nearly Normal Family(82)

Okay, I responded. But give me two hours.

I had to talk to him. This couldn’t continue. Even if I enjoyed his laid-back attitude and his desire to live in the moment, I had to make sure that we were on the same page about what we were doing. I was afraid someone was going to get hurt.

After the incident with the car, it sure couldn’t hurt to make the house look nice before Mom and Dad came home on Friday. I started with the living room. I straightened, vacuumed, and scrubbed the table. On to the kitchen. I emptied the dishwasher and reloaded it, put stuff away in the cupboards, and scrubbed the counter until it gleamed.

At last I had a whole pile of garbage bags in the entryway. The stench prickled my nostrils as I lugged them through the door.

I absolutely adore those warm summer nights when the sun has set, but there’s still a little bit of light left in the sky, when the air stands perfectly still and the birds are singing lullabies.

After I’d dumped the garbage bags in the bin, I lingered on the driveway, just enjoying a rare sense of peace in my body.

Suddenly something flapped around in the bushes. A quick movement. A bird, maybe?

I walked over to check. More flapping. A large shadow against the wall.

My heart flew into my throat. I didn’t dare breathe.

“Is someone there?” I asked out loud.

Five meters away, the bushes moved again. Rustling leaves, the crack of a twig.

“Who is it?”

I dug through my pockets for my phone but realized I must have left it in the house.

I ran back and pulled the door shut behind me. I flipped both locks and listened to my own gasping breath.

Was I imagining things? Was I becoming paranoid?

Maybe it was just a bird. A large bird. Or some other animal. A cat?

Or was someone sneaking around out there?



* * *



Chris brought a bouquet of roses. I didn’t mention what had happened when I was taking out the trash.

He walked through the house like a museumgoer. The first thing he did in my room was sit on the bed and bounce as if he wanted to check its durability. Then he caught sight of the wall with my map of Asia on it, with pins in all the spots I wanted to see.

“You had a map already?”

It was pretty awkward. I hadn’t been able to say anything when I received the present from him, and I didn’t know what to say now either.

Chris made a gesture that meant it’s fine.

“Know what?” he asked. “I’ve arranged things so I have February and March off next year. That’s a great time to visit Asia.”

I just smiled. What could I say? That I preferred to go by myself? That there was no chance he would be coming with me?

Chris pressed up against me. He gently swept my hair out of the way and kissed me slowly. His hand slid along the hem of my underwear; I closed my eyes. No one else had ever turned me on so much.

“Where do your parents sleep?”

Without letting go of me, he backed out through the door.

“There?” he said, pointing at Mom and Dad’s bedroom.

He guided me through the hall in a reluctant dance. Obviously I wasn’t about to lie down in their bed. I pushed Chris away but he came right back. The door opened and we stumbled into their bedroom. I tensed my body, grabbed the handle of the door and struggled.

“Not here.”

Chris laughed and let go of me. He stood there motionless, looking down at my parents’ double bed.

“So this is where Papa Pastor sleeps.”

When he looked at me, I felt the sting of his smile.

“Come on,” he said, putting his arms around me. “I want to have you in Mommy and Daddy’s bed.”

“No, stop it.”

I struggled against him. He made an attempt to tip me over onto the bed, but apparently he underestimated my strength. I filled my feet with energy until they were stuck to the floor like suction cups, then used my upper body to push him off. I’d been through much tougher wrestling matches on the six-meter line of the handball court.

“Okay, okay,” Chris said, laughing, trying to disarm me with his expression. “It was just a thought. An experiment. Don’t you like to experiment?”

I thought of the objects in the locked drawer of the file cabinet.

“Not like this, anyway,” I said.

“No?”

All my desire was gone.

“Let’s go sit on the couch for a while.”

Chris made a wounded face and waited a moment before following me down the stairs. I turned on the TV and rested my head on his shoulder. My thoughts were going a mile a minute.

What was keeping me with Chris? I had been so goddamn tired of how nothing ever happened, so when Chris showed up I had thrown myself headfirst into the unknown. But now? I didn’t want a boyfriend, much less one who was thirty-two. I wasn’t about to experiment in my parents’ bed. Above all I just wanted to take off on the journey I’d been dreaming about for ages. No fucking guy was going to stand in my way.

I looked at Chris. He was, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful beings I’d ever been in the vicinity of. But what did that matter? I wasn’t even eighteen yet—I had my whole life ahead of me.

Chris gazed at me for a long time. His smile was back to being all kind and adorable. All the hard edges had been erased.