Animal Dreams - Barbara Kingsolver [55]
Just being held felt unbelievably good, the long drink I’d been dying for. For a second I hugged back as tightly as I could. Something inside his buttoned shirt pocket made a crackling, cellophane sound. I raised up a little and poked it with my finger. “If you’ve got a condom in your pocket, Loyd Peregrina, this is my lucky day.”
He did. It was.
By late afternoon the shade had moved, and we also had rolled over a few times in the grass, I suppose, traveling from our original spot. Anyway we were in the sun. We disconnected and I lay on my back, feeling the forbidden touch of sun on my nipples and eyelids.
Loyd lay with his head propped on his elbow, just looking at me again, the way he had on the day of Emelina’s party. With a finger he traced concentric circles around my breasts, and triangles on my abdomen, as if warpainting me for some ceremonial mission. Whatever it might be, I felt up to the job. I knew when reason returned I’d be scared to death of feeling that good with another person, but my body was renewed. I felt like a patch of dry ground that had been rained on.
Jack had come into the courtyard and was sleeping in the shade, a little distance away. “He found his way in here without any trouble,” I said. “You boys must come here a lot.”
Loyd kissed my check and sat up and pulled on his jeans. “Yep, kind of a lot. Not as much as I’d like to.”
I thought of the condom in his pocket, the presumption, and felt irritated. “Well it’s a good seduction spot. It worked on me.” I found the rest of my clothes and concentrated on getting my shirt buttoned up. I’d lost an earring somewhere.
Loyd stared at me for a full half minute, and then lay back down, his hands clasped behind his head, looking straight up. “I don’t mean that I bring people here. Nobody but me and Jack’s ever been here before.” He glanced at me, and then away again. “But I guess that’s just what you expect me to say.” He didn’t say anything more for another minute, and then he said, “Shit.”
“I’m sorry. I guess I believe you. I do believe you.”
He was wounded. I suppose some sharp thing in me wanted to sting him, for making me need him now. After he’d once cut me to the edge of what a soul will bear. But that was senseless. Anybody would say that baby was my own fault, and he didn’t even know about it. I looked at this grown-up Loyd and tried to make sense of him, seeing clearly that he was too sweet to survive around me. I would go to my grave expecting the weapon in the empty hand.
“Codi, I couldn’t believe it when you said you’d come up here with me. I couldn’t even believe I asked.”
I sat forward, letting the point of my chin dig into my knee. “I can see what it means to you. I’m sorry for thinking what I did.”
He spoke slowly. “I’ve been looking forward to this ever since Labor Day. Not because I thought we’d…Not for any one reason. I just wanted to come here with you.”
I looked at him. It was the truth. I could think of nothing at all to say.
“I don’t blame you if you’re still pissed off at me for when we were in high school.”
My heart lost its rhythm for a second. “What for?”
“For being a jerk.”
“You remember that?”
I suppose it was an insulting question. He said, “I have a lot of reasons in my mind for the way I was, but they don’t make much difference. I hurt a lot of people.”
I looked at him carefully. “In what way exactly do you think you hurt me?”
He shrugged. “Well, maybe I didn’t. Maybe you didn’t care. But still, I could have been a lot nicer. We went out those couple of times, and then so long sucker, that’s it. Loyd’s a good-time boy, he don’t call the same girl twice.”
I breathed out. Nobody knew, so Loyd couldn’t, but for one minute I’d been afraid. I didn’t want him to know how much of a mark his careless love had made on my life. It would oblige