Anyway, she was gone from the window when he looked again, and a moment later, answering the front door, all she said was “What did you bring me?”
“Nothing.”
“And I bet you want some lemonade and all kinds of stuff.”
He shrugged and smiled and Carol made a disapproving face, what he thought of as a woman’s expression. She wore a pink blouse and white shorts, and though she was fourteen, as he was, she seemed much younger. She was thin and slight, with small breasts and fragile wrists and fingers, a body so slender it was like a young boy’s, a compact bum and skinny legs. But she had blue eyes, full lips, light curly hair — an angel’s face.
“You might as well sit over there,” she said, pointing to the porch swing, and she vanished from the doorway. She was gone some minutes, but he knew why when she returned with the glasses of lemonade and redder lips.
“You’ve got lipstick on.”
“Big deal,” she said, and pressed her lips together as if to make her lip color emphatic.
They sat apart, at either end of the porch swing. They held their glasses, and the only sound was the clink of the ice when they raised them to sip the lemonade.
“So, guess what, my parents just went out.”
He was gladdened by her saying that, and sipped again from his glass, and looked off the porch to the house opposite — the Martellos’—to scrutinize the sky above its roof. He wanted dusk to fall, he wanted shadows, he wanted to be insubstantial himself, smaller and less obvious in the dark, his face in shadow, his eyes hidden.
“Did you tell them I was coming over?”
“I forgot to.”
He laughed a little and saw that she noticed and got fierce.
“But I’m going to tell them,” she said, “that you came over looking for trouble.”
Horrified by the truth of what she said, he accidentally chinked the glass against his front teeth.
“Where did you tell your parents you were going?”
“Up the park. Softball game.”
The park was not far, two streets over, behind a tall fence, the game in progress and audible — shouts, cheers, the sometime slap of bat and ball meeting in a solid hit. Their revelations were like complicity, like an admission they were doing something wrong, and knew it, and were glad of it. But because he could hear the sounds of the softball game it seemed to make sitting on Carol’s porch with her less of a lie.
“What if they find out where you really are?”
“I don’t care,” he said. “I would have snuck out anyway.”
She seemed to like that. She sat back, shoving herself against the cushion, and said, “So why were you trying to steal my stuff off the clothesline?”
He shifted on the swing and said, “I wasn’t even looking at it.”
Her blue eyes narrowed on him. He could not tell what she was thinking, for the lower part of her face was in shadow. As long as there were shadows he did not care what she was thinking. And anyway, he liked her giggly teasing voice and her pretense of scolding, even her threats — they seemed to show that she liked him and wanted him to stay.
“I bet you want more lemonade.”
“I don’t care,” he said, although he did. But he was choking with desire and confusion and did not know what else to say.
She went for the lemonade and took longer than before, and when she returned he immediately smelled the perfume, stronger in the smoky dark of dusk on the porch. He loved the fragrance; he had never smelled such flowers; the odor pricked his eyes.
He thanked her for the lemonade. She tossed her curly hair. They rocked on the porch swing.
Finally she said, “My father says you’re smart.”
He turned to her. At the far end of the swing she was now mostly in shadow, except for her bright white shorts, so small on her body.
“I think you’re a sneak,” she said.
“No sah.”
“Yes sah. So why are you sneaking over here to sit on my front porch and drink lemonade?” she said. She had hitched forward and was kicking the porch floor, propelling the swing back and forth with each kick and accusation. “You know my parents are out.”
He felt guiltily that because this was so, he was a conspirator. His silence made her sharper.
“Or else you wouldn’t be here,” she said. She kicked again, a skid-squeak of her rubber sole. “And you were sneaking around the clothesline.”
This was also true, and so accurate in its blame he said, “No I wasn’t. What do I care about all that old washing? I was just taking a shortcut.”
Instead of replying, she leaned so that he could see her smiling. She kicked the floor again, hard, and sent the porch swing backward, and he felt all her insistence in the movement.
“Please don’t tell them.”
“I’m going to,” she said, and it sounded like gunnah. “I’m going to blab everything.”
Now he wanted to go, but he could not rise from the moving swing, and when he finally got a grip on the arm of it and tried to hoist himself, she was talking again in that same teasing tone.
“I bet you want to come right into my house.”
“No,” he said, his voice breaking, and turned the small word into a squawk. He just wanted to leave. The day had gone dark, though he hadn’t noticed it until now.
“Then why did you come all the way over here?” And seeing that he was flustered and at a loss for a reply, she laughed softly.
The lights had gone on in the park, illuminating the treetops, and he still heard the sounds of the softball game, the cries of the spectators, the shouts of the players — easy to tell apart. He was thinking of all that passion and noise, just a game being played, so innocent, so blameless, an honest ball game under the lights. And he knew that he was doing something wrong, enacting a secret in the shadows he could never explain or justify.
“So why didn’t you bring me anything?”
He was silent. Another ball was smacked, another cheer: the players were harmless and happy and he was wicked.
“Because I got something for you. Want to see it?” She did not wait for a reply. “Stay here.”
She went inside and closed the doors — the screen door, the solid inner door, and he heard the thunk of the bolt. He remained sitting, wondering whether anyone could see him. He felt conspicuous and impatient and sensed he should go home. After a few minutes he rang the doorbell to tell Carol he was leaving. The bell was loud, but even so, there was no answer, not even footsteps. He waited, feeling trapped by the silence. Like a gasp, an expelled breath, a light inside went off.
And then came the metallic swallowing of the door bolt and a movement of the inner door. He could not see past the screen — only the outline of the doorframe, the darkness within. He plucked open the screen door and saw nothing but the dim hallway.
“Go in there,” she spoke from behind the door. He could see only her bare arm pointing to the living room. “Wait a little while. Then you have to find me.”
As soon as his back was turned she hurried away. He did as he was told, continued into the living room, his heart pounding, excited by the suspense. The living room was shadowy, lit by the street. He sat, and fumbled, then stood and listened, tremulous, his hands damp.
Her muffled voice came from somewhere upstairs in the house. “I’m ready.”
He went to the stairway and listened, and hearing nothing more, he climbed the stairs, looked into one room and then another, all in darkness, but he could make out the shapes of chairs, the lumps of beds, the glint of mirrors.
He entered a room at the front of the house, and though there was more light here from the street lamps, he did not see Carol at first because she was motionless, standing upright, almost posing. But he could see what she was wearing: short blue baby-doll pajamas and a pair of fluffy slippers. Her hair was fixed in two high bobbing brush-like ponytails, her shoulders were bare, her skin so pale as to be almost ghostly. The diaphanous blue cloth shimmered in the scanty, slanted light.