The Vanishing Half(37)

“Mama, there’s nothing wrong with my voice.”

“Not wrong. Different. You think I can’t tell?”

They were meeting the girls at Venice Beach; she’d just started packing a picnic basket when the phone rang. She hadn’t called home in a month, so she felt too guilty to ask to talk later, but now she regretted answering. What did her mother mean, different? And how could she even tell? Jude hated the idea of being so transparent to anyone, even her own mother. Then again, hadn’t Barry noticed right away? Two days after the blackout, she’d met him by the fountain outside the May Company and before she’d even walked over, he was suspicious, squinting at her.

“What happened?” he demanded. “Why do you look like that?”

“Like what?” she said, laughing.

Then it dawned on him. “You didn’t,” he whispered. “Oh, I can’t believe you! You sat right there on my couch and told me you had some big fight—”

“We did! I mean, nothing had happened then, I swear—”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he said. “I don’t know why neither of you called me.”

But after the blackout, she hadn’t told anyone. She wasn’t even sure how to explain what had happened between her and Reese. One night they’d been friends, the next lovers. He’d left for work by the time she awoke in the morning. She’d reached across the wrinkled sheets, still warm from his body. In the light of day, the previous night seemed like a fever dream. But those still-warm sheets. Her panties on the floor. His cologne on the pillow. She rolled over, burying her face in the smell of him. All day, she imagined how he would tell her that the previous night had been a mistake, but he climbed into her bed that night and kissed the back of her neck.

“What’re we doing?” she said.

“I’m kissing you,” he said.

“You know what I mean.”

She rolled over to face him. He was smiling, playing with the fringe of her T-shirt.

“Do you want me to go?” he said.

“Do you?”

“Hell no, baby.”

He kissed her neck again. When he tugged off her pajamas, she reached for his belt and he squirmed away.

“Don’t,” he said softly, and she froze, not knowing what to do. Lonnie had never been shy about what he’d wanted. Shoving her hand down his boxers, pushing her face toward his lap. But there were rules to loving Reese and over time, she learned them. Lights off. No undressing him. She could touch his stomach or arms but never his chest, his thighs but not between them. She wanted to touch him as freely as he touched her but she never complained. How could she? Not now, not when she was so happy Barry noticed it radiating off her from across a shopping mall, so happy that her mother could even hear it through the phone.

At the beach, she sat on her towel, watching Barry and Luis and Harley splash around in the water. They’d been stuck in traffic for an hour, slowly creeping toward the coast; when they finally arrived at Venice, the girls shucked their shirts, tossing them in a careless pile, and ran yelping toward the shore. Reese rested his head in her lap, watching as they dipped into the water, slick under the sunlight. She raked her fingers through his hair.

“Don’t you want to swim?” she said.

He smiled, squinting up at her. “Maybe later,” he said. “Aren’t you gonna get in?”

She told him that she didn’t like to swim. But she’d loved going to the city pool in D.C. In Mallard, she never dared to swim in the river—imagine showing so much of yourself. She wasn’t in Mallard anymore, but somehow, the town wouldn’t leave her. Even now at Venice Beach, she pictured sunbathers laughing as soon as she tugged off her shirt. Snickering at Reese, too, wondering what on earth is he doing with that black thing?

That night, when they came home from the beach, Reese slid on top of her and she asked if she could flip on the light. He laughed a little, burrowing his face into her neck.

“Why?” he murmured.

“Because,” she said, “I want to see you.”

He stilled for a moment, then he rolled off her.

“Well, I don’t want you to,” he said.

For the first time in weeks, he slept on the couch. He came back to bed the next night but she still remembered the loneliness of sleeping without him, only a wall apart. Sometimes she felt as if that wall had never quite fallen. She never felt what she wanted to feel, his skin on hers.

“I’m seeing someone,” she told her mother the next time she called.

Her mother laughed. “Of course you are,” she said. “I don’t know why you think I don’t know anything.”

“He’s . . .” Jude paused. “He’s nice, Mama. He’s so sweet to me. But he’s not like other boys.”

“What you mean?”

She thought, for a second, about telling her mother Reese’s story. Instead, she just said, “He keeps me out.”

“Well,” her mother said, “I’m sorry to tell you but he’s just like other boys. Exactly like all the rest of ’em.”

The door unlocked, and Reese shuffled inside, tossing his jacket on the back of the chair. He smiled as he walked past, reaching over to stroke her ankle.

“Jude?” her mother said. “You still there?”