The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady - Elizabeth Stuckey-French [98]
It was strange how, when Gigi first started working with him, they’d done nothing but talk, and now they didn’t talk much at all. As they strolled on a paved path through a weird little glen dotted with stone benches that nobody ever sat on, Vic felt pulled toward Gigi, the same way he’d once been drawn to his former FTA coworker Wendy, the pregnant one, the one on whom he’d practiced successfully his all-and-nothing technique of avoiding adultery. He and Wendy used to saunter along these paths on their lunch break, and he had wanted nothing more than to wrap her in his arms, big belly and all, but he never did. They’d never even kissed, not once.
He and Gigi had already kissed, many times. They’d been having drinks and sometimes dinner every night after work. Hugging good-bye in the restaurant parking lots had escalated to kissing good-bye and finally to making out in her car like a couple of adolescents at a drive-in movie. It was ridiculous, shameful, and exhilarating.
Now he wanted more, or told himself he wanted more. He wasn’t sure which. As they moved together down the path, he was aware of the curve of her breast, the dimple in her left cheek, her hair bouncing on her bare shoulder. They walked down a little hill, Gigi’s sandals clacking on the pavement, and followed the path into a grove of pines, Gigi a few steps ahead of him. The hem of her wildly colored dress hit her a couple of inches above her knees, her freckled calves tightening each time she took a step. He imagined lifting her dress over her head, revealing nothing but her underneath. What was she thinking? Why didn’t she say anything? But he didn’t say anything either. He wasn’t ready yet. He was committing petty crimes, getting used to the idea of himself as a criminal, working up to the felony. It wasn’t too late to go straight, he reminded himself. He savored the excitement of teetering on the edge, feeling young and reckless. Nowhere near dead.
Gigi had stopped and turned toward him, one hand on her hip, like a model posing—Hipster in Hicksville. The two of them were at the edge of the FTA property line, marked by a barbed-wire fence. Across the fence was a pasture; and way off, under an oak tree, a group of Cracker cattle, brown with white spots, stood patiently waiting for the sun to go down. Little egrets hopped among them, eating bugs.
He pulled Gigi into his arms and kissed her neck, her ear, her lips. “You feel so good,” he managed to say.
She struggled away from him. “How long are we going to play this little game?” she asked him, sounding more hurt than angry.
Drunk with lust, no blood in his brain, he took the question literally. How long? Huh. Let’s see. Out in the field, fire ant mounds were scattered around like huge brown sand castles. “Would you look at the size of those ant hills?” he said.
Gigi harrumphed and gave him a shove. “Such a boy,” she said, and began clomping back up the path toward the low, flat-roofed brick building, sixties faux-prairie architecture gone amok. A landscaping guy on a golf cart crossed behind Gigi and waved at Vic. Had he seen anything? Why was he waving?
Gigi, a siren in her mod dress, kept walking toward the building and another afternoon of game playing, and before he knew it he was jogging after her.
* * *
Later that afternoon, after the scorers had gone home, Vic wandered into the language arts scoring room to ask Gigi if she was ready to go to Andrew’s. She had her back to him, so he snuck up on her as she sat at a long table under those god-awful lights, bent over a portfolio, her hair now drawn back in a messy ponytail with a plastic grip, moss green sweater wrapped tightly around her. As Vic tiptoed toward her, holding his breath, he wanted to wrap his arms around her and nuzzle her neck again. His all-and-nothing plan of action hadn’t worked worth a damn. And to answer her earlier question, he wanted to end the game right now. He was ready, even eager, to do