Ten Thousand Saints - Eleanor Henderson [150]
“Can people see in here?” Eliza asked, pointing up to the painted glass ceiling.
“Just the lights,” Jude said, but he didn’t want his mother to see even that. He locked the door. With his flashlight, he found the melted stump of a candle and lit it.
Eliza walked over to one of the fish tanks that housed Harriet’s glass. She took out a bong and pretended to hit it. “Mmm,” she said, blowing out a mouthful of imaginary smoke.
“Funny,” said Jude.
He slid the old mattress leaning against the wall onto the floor, then uncoiled the sleeping bag, unzipped it, and spread it open across their bed. He felt dizzy, as though he were made of a gas. He pulled his shirt over his head, tossed it in the rocking chair, and lay down. Eliza followed him, coming down knee by knee, then hand by hand. They lay on their backs, side by side.
“We’re like old people,” Jude said.
“I feel all googly from that hypnosis stuff.”
“Googly?”
“Like, relaxed.”
He reached for her hand and fit it in his. The candle puddled a yellow light across the floor, over their legs. He couldn’t see anything beyond the painted glass ceiling, but he could imagine the stars coming out on the other side, bright as they were only here, millions of miles from any city.
“Is she going to hate me?” she asked.
They stared up at the underbelly of the roof, dark as a womb.
“Who?”
“Annabel.”
Jude closed his eyes. He thought of all the people who had done this before him, lain beside another body, seeking its warmth, like the two figures in the diagram his mother had drawn for him years ago. Queen Bea and Ravi, Harriet and Les, Johnny and Rooster. His unnamed mother and unnamed father in some unnamed room. Eliza and Teddy. If this was the crime they’d committed, it wasn’t the worst thing in the world. This was forgivable.
“No,” he said, opening his eyes. “She’s just going to miss you.”
There were no eyes upon them. They were alone. He leaned on an elbow, close enough to kiss her, and then he did. He put his hand on the nape of her naked head. She did the same. Outside, the crickets pulsed.
“Is this why you brought me back to Vermont?” she asked. “So you could take advantage of me in the bong house?”
“It was my master plan.”
They kissed again. His fingers tangled in the bow of her bikini top. His hands were shaking. He leaned closer. His weight pressed over hers. Her dress was soggy with sweat. Or lake water. Or maybe something else. He didn’t care.
“Hold on,” she said.
“What?”
“My back.”
She struggled to sit up. He sat up with her. She was frozen for a few seconds, her legs straight in front of her.
“You okay?”
“I’m not supposed to lie flat. It puts pressure on a vein or something.” She took a deep breath, then let it out. Her face was in shadow. “Did you think your first time was going to be with a pregnant bald girl?”
“What?” he said, smiling, embarrassed, not knowing what to say. “It’s good.”
“It’s good,” she agreed.
They kissed sitting up for a while, and then she pressed his shoulders back down to the floor, and then, slowly, ploddingly, she straddled him, tucking her knees against his ribs. Now she was inside the ring of the candle’s light. In one motion she peeled off her damp dress and in two more she untied the strings at her back.
“You’re gorgeous,” he said. Her belly was a white moon floating on the lake. Between her breasts, her necklace flashed.
In the morning, they started in the garden, scattering handfuls like seeds. Then three rights and a left to Teddy’s. They crawled under the house, tossed a handful there, too, into the dirt and sparse grass, over the softened shards of