Trip Wire_ A Cook County Mystery - Charlotte Carter [30]
“So now the biggest problem in our lives is Jordan?”
He pulled himself up slowly. “I’m sorry. I try to keep focused. But I can’t. I’m too bummed out. I guess I’m just not as together as you are.”
“Me? You think my shit’s together? Cliff, that’s a joke.”
“No, it’s not. You’re the youngest one of all of us, but you’re the one who’s taking all the licks.”
“I want to know why Wilton died. I have to know.”
“Yeah, yeah. Believe me, I get that. But you’re also keeping the rest of us together.”
“I’m taking Mia’s place, you mean.”
“No. Not like her. In your own way. The thing is . . . It’s over anyway.”
“What is?”
“The commune.”
“Why? Because I might move back in with my folks? So what? You guys lived here before I moved in. You can get other people.”
He shook his head. “Nobody’s gonna stay here, Sandy. Soon as the police close out the murder, we’re going to break up. I know it.”
“You can get another apartment.”
“No. Taylor’s got a woman now. He’ll probably go live with her. Beth’s parents have money. She’ll get an apartment in some fancy neighborhood, like they wanted her to do in the first place.”
“And what about you?”
“I’ll go home, I guess. I kind of want to anyway.”
“You’re not going back to school?”
“I could go someplace in Connecticut. I don’t know. I don’t care.”
“Don’t be stupid. You could get drafted. You want to go to Vietnam, man?”
He shrugged. “Cary went. They killed him over there, and the same thing’ll happen to me. Who cares?”
“Come on, Cliff. Don’t.”
“Remember how we all used to be so fucking glad to be with each other? Bunch of people. All like each other. Respect each other. Wanna do what we have to do without all the hippie nonsense. Live right. Like Wilton used to say, Live right. That’s how you change the world. Remember?”
“I remember.”
“Well, maybe in the next fucking world.”
All that anguish and cynicism just sounded pathetic coming from an overgrown boy in a green reindeer sweater. Cliff took a distressed-looking handkerchief from his back pocket and turned away from me while he blew his nose.
“Feel like smoking?” I asked.
“No.”
“How about some hot tea?”
“I don’t want it.”
“Then make me some.”
I ran a tub while he was in the kitchen, stripped out of my funky clothes and threw my leggings into the trash.
I peeked out of the bathroom door and saw him sitting quietly in the kitchen, staring at the steaming kettle.
Well, what now, Lord?
In a few minutes he came crashing in with the big yellow mug. “Ex-cuse me, going off like that. After what you went through, I shouldn’t—God, I’m dumb.”
“Cliff, you’re in the bathroom with me. And I don’t have on any clothes.”
He set the cup on the toilet seat, and in the same gesture, it seemed, he had his arms around me. He pushed the hair away from my forehead, brought my face close to his. “Where’re you coming from, Sandy? How’d you get to be so great?”
I didn’t know what to say. But I noticed something I never had before. Cliff’s eyelids. They were so light, it was as if you could blow gently on them and they’d float away, like that fuzzy flower that grew wild in the country.
He kissed me, kept on.
I began to cooperate. As he pulled me closer, I felt the damp wool of his sweater against my bare breasts.
“You never thought about me like this?” he said.
“No.”
“No, I guess you didn’t.”
And his funny face was sweeter than I remembered, too, especially that lump at the end of his nose.
We kissed more.
“I did,” he said. “A lot. I wanted to be with you a lot.”
“I stink, Cliff. Wait.”
“No. Don’t make me.”
Were we going to do it on the spot, standing up? Would we just roll into my room? Or were we going to try to fit our substantial young bodies into the tub?
I stepped into the warm water, and he pulled quickly out of his sweater and thermal undershirt. He picked up the sponge and began to soap me while I worked at the buttons of his jeans.
I had my hands on the last one, the pants just starting to slide off his ass, when we heard the ruckus. Annabeth and Taylor were pounding hysterically