Wilde Lake(35)

I saw them once, that summer between their freshman and sophomore year of high school. Our father had to go out of town for an annual meeting, something to do with being a state’s attorney. Teensy had a wedding in her family and my father decided that AJ, although only fifteen, was old enough to be in charge for a night. No parties, my father said. Of course, AJ said. And had a party. Bash found a burnout college kid who was happy to buy them beer and liquor at the Village Green. They weren’t really drinkers, but it was almost obligatory to have booze at a parent-free party. AJ put me in my father’s bed with a pound of peanut M&Ms and the remote control for the small black-and-white TV on top of what our father called a chifforobe. He told me that I could do whatever I wanted, but that I must stay in my father’s room except to visit the bathroom that connected it to my room. I wasn’t sure what they were doing that was so secretive. There was music and conversation, that sweet burning smell I had noticed before. I watched a horror film, one in which Leave It to Beaver’s dad ended up underground with the Mole People. I wanted to go to the bathroom, but what if the Mole People were under my father’s high, old-fashioned bed? If I climbed down from the bed, they would reach out and grab my ankles and drag me down to that terrible place, where I would be enslaved. But I had consumed almost a gallon of orange soda. There was no way I could make it through the night. I calculated that if I leaped from the bed, I might land out of arm’s reach of the Mole person. I jumped, landing on my knees, then made my way to the bathroom without incident. The house was quiet. I assumed everyone had gone home. I decided my own room would be a cozier place to sleep even if it didn’t have a television, so I cracked the door, checking carefully for any sign of Mole People.

And then I saw them.

Saw Bash, who was completely naked, which made an impression on me. My father was modest. I had never seen him or even AJ without clothes. I had never seen a man naked, not even his buttocks. Bash was so broad that I couldn’t see anything of Lynne’s body except her face over his shoulder. Her face looked very serious. Stern, a mean teacher face. She bit her lip, whispered in his ear. “Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop.” Yet she looked as if it were hurting, as if she yearned for him to stop. Bash made no noise at all. He barely seemed to be breathing. He tried to kiss her, but Lynne twisted her face to the side. “No, no. Don’t stop. Don’t stop. Dammit. You—Let me show you—” She made some adjustment in the dark. Whatever they were doing—and I knew, yet I didn’t know—she was better at it, I could tell. She had done it before and Bash hadn’t. She was like AJ, trying to teach me basketball. I remember the others teasing Lynne about a student teacher who had given her rides home from cheerleader practice and it began to make sense. I was at that age where so much begins making sense, where stray facts and memories lingered in some waiting room of the brain until context came and took them by the hand.

Lynne hissed: “Yes. Yes. That’s it. You can do it, Bash. You can do it.”

“I am doing it,” he said in wonder. He rose up. He looked like a merman, swimming along the tops of the waves.

I backed away, not even trying to close the door. I got into my father’s bed and pulled the covers over my head. Now I really couldn’t sleep. So that was sex. I knew, but I didn’t know. My father had done that with my mother. Had Teensy done it? But she didn’t have kids, so, no. Grown-ups everywhere did that thing. Did this make Lynne and Bash grown-ups? Lynne wasn’t much taller than I was. She was the cheerleader who was always at the top of the pyramid. But she had looked and sounded like a woman. Whereas Bash had a grown-up man’s body and a boy’s face. Would they get married? Would I get to go to the wedding? Would I be their flower girl? I didn’t want to be a flower girl. Or maybe I did.

Teensy came over on Sunday afternoon to check on us. The house was immaculate by then, every trace of the party swept away. It was too clean and Teensy stalked around, smelling a rat. But all she found was my mess—the empty bag of peanut M&Ms, the jug of soda. Plus, I had a full-on stomachache that I couldn’t conceal. I confessed to everything—the bad food, the horror movies, sleeping in my father’s bed. I said AJ had no idea what I was up to, that he had stayed in, as instructed, listening to records and watching television.

“What did he have for dinner?” Teensy asked.

I was a lawyer’s daughter. I saw how she was trying to box me in.

“I didn’t notice.”

“Did he offer to fix you anything? There were hot dogs and some frozen pizzas.”

“He probably did, but I wasn’t hungry.”

“After eating a pound of candy? I guess not, you fool.” She sat on my bed, felt my forehead. Teensy didn’t really believe in illness. Absent a fever or vomit, a child was not allowed to stay in bed on Teensy’s watch. But I must have looked ragged that day because she took pity on me, left me in my own bed, even brought in the little b&w television from her room, the one that we watched on a tray on those rare occasions we were allowed to stay home from school.

I dozed off and on in front of the television. I always did. My father did that, too. Still does. He’d rather fall asleep in his chair, the television droning as he reads, than go to bed. It was a Sunday, so a movie was on, but it was just adults talking. People whispered, told secrets. With my eyes closed, I saw Bash and Lynne again. Saw Bash, the freckled merman, riding the waves, his head thrown back as if he were about to sing. Milk and honey, milk and honey, milk and honey.