What You See in the Dark - Manuel Munoz [89]
“You getting shy now?”
“Not here.”
Not there. You watched the Ford retreat from the front of the Jolly Kone. You watched that girl give one last glare to the pretty waitress as the truck pulled away into the dark. You watched the Ford head back in the direction of that rented room above the bowling alley, the roads considerably cleared, and you could see the truck park in front of the green door leading up to that apartment.
You can see Dan Watson shutting off the engine. You can see the deserted street.
No, you were not there. But you could see it.
And that made it a fact, if you told it.
He stepped out, walking to her side of the truck. He opened her door and held out his hand and she took it. A large, sweaty hand. Strong. Not the hand of someone who could play a guitar softly.
At the shoe store, that girl had always patted her purse as if it contained something secret. Repeatedly. An assurance. What was in there, of course, was her apartment key.
That key slid into the lock of that green door and snapped it open, Dan Watson behind her, his arm above her frame.
The stairwell loomed dark, and what you do with darkness is pitch yourself into it.
So up the stairs they went, her hand fumbling along the wall for the switch but feeling, instead, Dan’s strength behind her, his hard torso underneath his shirt.
That night, your boyfriend, your husband-to-be, your clean hairline across the back of the neck, your Everly Brother, walked you to the front door, the light on, the parents sleeping assuredly inside, the porch swing still. At the Jolly Kone, his hand had moved yours to the aching bulge, urging, but marriage was coming. That was not respectable behavior anymore.
You behaved one way at the drive-in, but being a wife means something different. If there’s a promise to be a good husband, then the aching bulge can wait until the white fence appears, along with a house with the sparkling kitchen and the shiny teacups.
Up in that room above the bowling alley, she would have tidied up before she left for the theater. What little she had, she had put in its place, no matter that the room looked meager.
A single bed with light blue cotton sheets. A table and a chair. Tin cups, the blue-speckled kind. Blue curtains hanging on a rod.
The blue curtains were a fact. You saw them yourself, fluttering from the window once.
An electric radio? A rotary fan? An iron? The white blouses she wore to work. Her plain black flats. Her blue denim skirt. What else could she have had?
A yellow nightgown, lifted from the top drawer of the dresser, unfurling like a ghost. A patch of white fabric starting at the neckline and covering the breasts, a spring of flowers etched in as decoration.
Like yours.
On the porch, your boyfriend swallowed hard, full of nerve and frustration. You watched his Adam’s apple pitch up and down. “Sit with me,” he pleaded, pointing to the swing. “I’ll be quiet.”
What else? Deodorant on top of the dresser and bobby pins and a hairbrush, white cotton panties in the drawer. But toiletries are not possessions, and that girl came from nothing. So she had nothing.
If you bring down those blue curtains, nothing but the cold white light of winter pours in.
“Sit with me,” he said.
The way Ricky Nelson had sat on the kitchen table, boots perched on a chair, legs spread wide. Being able to watch him, take him in.
On the porch, you relieve him a bit, touch him. He still doesn’t know that he’s enormous and beautiful. He won’t ever really know, if he keeps the promise of his engagement ring, the metal rubbing him as he closes his eyes.
“You ever think about leaving Bakersfield?”
“Never.” That girl says it. The word slips from her because it’s true but false at the same time. But it’s you who dream of Dan Watson taking