Eventide (Plainsong #2)(76)

Will you come in? she said.

Ma’am, I don’t know. I’m not much good in other people’s houses.

Come in. Let me make you some coffee.

He shut off the engine and came around and opened her door and they walked up to her house. While she went back to the kitchen, he sat down in a large upholstered chair in the front room and looked around at her pictures, everything so clean and carefully arranged and put in order. Rose stepped into the room and said: Do you want sugar and milk with your coffee?

No thank you, ma’am. Just black.

She brought the cups in and handed him one. She took a seat on the couch across from him.

You have a beautiful place here, he said.

Thank you.

They drank their coffee and talked a little more. Finally Raymond had a last sip and stood up. I think it’s time for me to get on home, he said.

You don’t have to go yet.

I better, he said.

She put her cup down and walked over to him. She took his hand. I would like to kiss you, she said. Would you allow me to do that?

Now ma’am, I —

You’ll have to bend down. I’m not very tall.

He bent his head and she took his face in her hands and kissed him thoroughly on the mouth. He held his arms straight at his sides. After she’d kissed him he reached up and touched at his mouth with his fingers.

Wouldn’t you like to come back to the bedroom? she said.

He looked at her in surprise. Ma’am, he said. I’m a old man.

I know how old you are.

I doubt if I could do you any good.

Let’s just see.

She led him back to her bedroom and turned on a low lamp beside the bed. Then she stood in front of him and unbuttoned his blue wool shirt and drew it off his shoulders. He was lean and stringy, with a growth of white hair spread over his chest.

Now will you unbutton me? she said. She turned around.

I don’t know about this.

Yes, you do. I know you know how to undo buttons.

Not on a woman’s dress.

Try.

Well, he said. I suppose it’s kind of like counting out the steps in a waltz dance, ain’t it.

She laughed. You see. It’s not so bad. You’ve made a joke.

A awful little one, he said.

He began awkwardly to unbutton her peach dress. She waited. It took him a long time. But she didn’t say anything, and when he was finished she slipped out of the dress and laid it over the back of a chair and turned to face him. Her slip was peach-colored too, and she looked very pretty in the slip. Her round shoulders were freckled and she had full breasts and wide hips. What would you think of getting out of your pants and boots now? she said.

I’ve come this far.

That’s right. You can’t turn back now.

They finished undressing and got into bed.

In bed Raymond was amazed at how it felt to be next to her. It was past all his experience, to be lying next to a woman, both of them unclothed, her body so smooth and warm and full-fleshed, and she herself so good-hearted. She lay facing him with her arms around him, and he slid his hand across the smooth point of her hip, feeling along the upper reaches of her leg. She leaned close and kissed him. Shut your eyes, she said. Try kissing me with your eyes shut.

Yes ma’am.

She kissed him again. Wasn’t that better?

I like looking at your face too, though. At all of you.

Oh my, she said. Aren’t you a nice man. Aren’t we going to have us some fun together.

I’m having a pretty good time already, Raymond said.

Are you?

Yes ma’am. I am.

There’s more, she said.



LATER SHE LAY WITH HER HEAD ON HIS ARM AND HE SAID: Rose. You’re awful good for a old man like me.

You’re not so old, she said. We’ve just had evidence of that.

You’re going to embarrass me now.

There’s no reason for embarrassment. You’re just a healthy man. And you’re good for me too. There aren’t many men like you available in Holt. I know, I’ve looked.



HE LEFT HER HOUSE AT MIDNIGHT AND DROVE HOME IN the dark on the narrow blacktop highway. Out in the flat treeless country he counted himself more than lucky. Victoria and Katie in his life, and now to have whatever was starting with this generous woman, Rose Tyler. He drove with the windows rolled down, and the night air came in and brought with it the smell of green grass and sage.





39


THE FIRST SATURDAY NIGHT OF APRIL. AND DJ AND HIS grandfather were at the tavern on Main Street and it was not yet late, only about eight-thirty. The old man’s pension check had come and he wanted his monthly night out.

They had been at the tavern for an hour sitting at the table near the wall with the other old men. DJ was seated behind his grandfather, watching the blonde barmaid as she moved around in the crowded smoky room. She had not asked him to come up to the bar and do his homework as she had before, though he had brought his school papers specially with that in mind. She seemed indifferent to him this night and had done no more than smile at him when she’d brought his cup of black coffee. He sat and watched her, while he listened to the old men’s stories.

She was not wearing the low-cut blouse this time. Instead she had on a long-sleeved black blouse that came up to her neck. She was wearing the same pair of tight blue jeans though, with the deliberate hole in the thigh that revealed that much of her tanned skin. While he watched her he noticed that every time she passed along the bar a man turned on his barstool to look at her and say something. DJ had only a vague idea what a grown man like that one would be saying to her. He had seen the man before around town on the streets, but didn’t know anything about him, not even his name. He seemed to be upsetting her. The blonde woman looked tired and unhappy, and appeared to be much bothered by whatever he was saying, and she gave him no response of any kind after the first two times she passed by, but just went on working in the loud crowded room.