Hick - Andrea Portes [35]
Finally, just as I’m about to sleep or move or speak, he reaches his hand out and touches my bare skin. I stay still. He looks at me, tentative, wondering if I’ll wake. My stillness is near impossible to maintain. I try not to move a muscle.
I want to see what comes next.
He moves his hand down my arm and onto my thigh. Then he stops and looks at me, checking. So far, so good. He traces my leg down towards my ankles. Again, he looks at me. Again, I play dead.
And I don’t know why I let him, but I do. Maybe I just like watching myself, strange and quiet and real. There’s a suspense to it, like the music just got spooky. Even the crickets outside are hushed up and waiting.
He moves his hand up the inside of my leg. He stops and looks, making sure. I hold my breath. He moves his hand up over my hipbones and over my chest. His fingers are shaking. His movement is awkward, boy-like, fragile.
He stops, staring at me. He runs his fingers over the pink part, making an outline, tracing. I hold my breath.
The bar door slams, outside, breaking the moment in two. Then a fall. Then a cackle. Glenda reels in Blane’s arms, the gravel crunching beneath their feet.
Angel recoils to his position on the floor, guilty.
The front door slams shut behind Glenda, tipsy. Blane leads her to his room, quiet, slow, concerned. He closes the door gently behind.
Angel stares up at the ceiling, bothered.
I turn away now. Tired. Wondering. Exhausted by my thoughts and the endlessness of the day. The crickets turn back on, lulling me to sleep.
In the morning, we leave. Just like that. We leave without saying good-bye or coffee cups or anything. Glenda just wakes me up and we’re out in five minutes. And this is what I like about Glenda. This is what makes me want to stand next to her and jump inside her. She always knows when to leave and how. She knows how to read the silence and the pause between words. She knows what happens on the other side of walls and under good quilts in the dark.
And I know, somehow, she knew. Like clockwork.
She knew.
SIXTEEN
So, tell the truth, kid, and be honest. How’d ya leave it? Am I gonna see you on the back of one of them milk cartons? Cause I wanna be prepared.”
The Wyoming sky is flying past us, Indian summer setting fire to the sky. Up ahead phantom squiggles billow up in waves off the pavement. I’m tired of driving, tired of moving. I’m still back in that shack with Angel touching me in the quiet, thinking about hands in the dark and pink parts and eyes swirling.
I want to stop. I want to get a hold of the world and stop it turning. I want to walk into a bar and see my dad. I want him to pull up a chair next to me and tell a dumb joke. I want him to scruff up my hair and make pretend he just pulled off my nose. I want him to look at Glenda, fall for her, forget about Tammy giggling late night behind the bar. I want him to be young again. Happy.
The truth is, maybe someday I will run into him and maybe he’ll even recognize me, all grown up. Maybe he’ll see me at the end of the bar and remember that long lost girl he ran off from for a little while and then a little longer and then for good.
But I know he’s drowning. He’s out there somewhere, maybe even not that far away, maybe in the next town, maybe in that honky-tonk two towns back. Staring into his ice clinking. Silent. Brooding. Plotting his revenge, half-hearted. Stumbling out the bar, dazed. And maybe even some lady, some aging beauty queen, will take pity on him. He’ll sleep in her bed and she’ll try to solve the mystery of his silence. she’ll wait, patient, contemplating his stone-faced nature, trying to unlock the key, hoping someday this quiet will, miraculous, transform itself into love, hoping someday he’ll look at her and draw his hand up her dress, pushing her against the kitchen wall. Falling.
Something in him is letting go, giving up, surrendering.
I can feel it.
He won’t go back. I know it. Why would he? She doesn’t want him around anymore. she’d rather push him off a cliff than have him gaze up at her smitten. She doesn’t