“I need to be with you, Ann.”
“I knew this would happen,” she said. She opened her eyes and I took my hand away from her face. “I think that night, the night I came down and saw you with Jade and then made love with Hugh, I was making love with you, wasn’t I? You know, everyone thought we were lovers, you and I. Not then, not from the very start, but later. I often ached with curiosity to know how you explained yourself to poor Jade.”
“She asked me once. She asked me and I said it wasn’t true.”
“Well, I was flattered,” said Ann. “That the others were finally recognizing I could do such a thing. And that a boy like yourself, you know, certifiably insane with love for such a pretty little girl, that you’d want me. You know, whatever you said to Jade about it didn’t stop her believing it. It must have been a very tepid denial. And that made me believe you liked the others to suspect us and I was glad for that.”
“But Jade knew I could never be with anyone but her.”
“But that’s not so at all, David. She always believed you and I made love. Sometimes she thought it only happened once and other times she was sure we sneaked away together whenever we had the chance.”
“No,” I said. “She never believed that about us. She brought it up only once. It was nothing. I remember it very clearly. It was a beautiful day. We were sitting on the Midway. Jade was wearing sandals, brown shorts, and a sleeveless blouse that buttoned in the back, big tan buttons just the color of her hair. I was a little nervous because you could see in her blouse from the side, at the bottom of the armholes.”
“I’m sure you remember everything,” Ann said.
“No, wait. Listen to me. Jade had her head on my shoulder and when a breeze came up, her hair touched my face. We started talking, about what it would be like when we had kids and I said I’d be very jealous of the baby for having its whole body inside of her. And then she said—and this was so casual, it was right off the top of her head, it seemed—‘What’s going on between you and Mom?’ And I said I liked you, or something like that. Then she lifted her head off my shoulder and looked me right in the eyes and she smiled and said, ‘Did you ever fuck her?’ And I said, ‘Fuck her?’ but really loud so it made us nervous and we laughed. Then Jade said, ‘Well, did you?’ and I said, ‘You’ve got to be out of your gourd. You better tell me what you’ve been smoking because I’m going to try some as soon as we go home.’ And then, and this was the last of it, this was all she said, she said, ‘So you never made love with her or saw her naked or anything?’ I don’t even know why I answered her seriously, but I did. I shook my head and said no, never. And that was the end of it.”
“Except it wasn’t,” said Ann. “It never ended. Jade still believes we were lovers. Even the last time I saw her with the whole family together, or what we call being together these days, which is something very odd and altogether…” Ann fell silent and rubbed her eyes. “Oh God,” she muttered to herself. Then fixing her reddening eyes on me, she said, “I’m sorry. I’m unraveling. What I’m trying to say is Jade still believes we were lovers. At Keith’s a couple of months ago she brought it up in the most remarkably naked and ugly way. It all hinges on the fact that you and I had a secret bond. We were emotional conspirators. Lovers. Whatever Jade thinks of you, David, and I don’t know and don’t want to, but when she said she knew what was going on between us, I mean a few months ago, it was like living in Chicago, standing in the old kitchen. Only now, with everybody a little more bruised and callused, no one tried to smooth things over. They all joined in and they all let me know that they believed then that you and I were lovers and they believe it now. Jade was so relieved she actually wept—and you know how she is about tears, how hard it is for her to cry. It meant she wasn’t crazy, that the whole terror wasn’t the work of her imagination and her unconscious. They all agreed.” Ann took my hand again, gently now, with nothing casual or accidental, and absolutely nothing unconscious; she moved my thumb away from the bulk of my heavy, moist hand, moved it until the tendon stretched and began to hurt.
“Don’t misunderstand me,” she said.
“I don’t want to misunderstand you,” I said.
“Everyone thinks we’re lovers, or were, so maybe we ought to do them the favor of making them right,” Ann said. She waited for me to say something. Then she said, “I’d love to go to bed with you. I’d love to feel you in me.”
She was so close to me and her bravery alone made me want to hold her. And hearing that she wanted me inside of her made me want to make love. Yet it was alien for me to think of a woman so much older than me in sexual terms. I had never loved an older woman. I was not one of those eight-year-old boys who want to marry their mother. I had never had a crush on a teacher, never stared longingly at a friend’s older sister, and wasn’t interested in movie stars or even those naked models in the skin magazines. They were too old and I was blind to them. The most erotic photograph of my early adolescence was from a National Geographic article about the Seychelle Islands and it was of a half-naked African girl walking along the beach—she was just my age or perhaps a year younger.
“I could never go to bed with you, Ann. I could never do that.”
I shook my head. I wanted to put my arms around her and I wanted her arms around me: I was in terror and I wanted her to protect me.
“I think you’re misunderstanding me,” Ann said. “I’m not doing this because of what they said. It’s you. I want you. I want this night with you.”
“I want to be with you,” I said. “I’ve been in agony for half this night but it’s heaven anyhow because it’s here, with you, and this is my real and only life. But I can’t do the other. Don’t laugh at me for saying this, please, but I can’t make love with anyone until I see Jade again, until I can be with her. It’s very difficult but it’s the only way I can do it. It would be worse if I ever went with anyone else. It would put me further from Jade than ever. You know, it’s not even loyalty, probably, it’s fear. I have to wait.”
Ann’s hands were closed into fists and she rested one on either leg. She was flushed, no longer looking at me. If she wanted to hurt me, it was the perfect time to tell me of Jade’s lovers, and I waited for the worst, already telling myself that it wasn’t necessarily true, that Ann was only speaking out of spite.
“I should be angry,” Ann said.
“No.”
“Yes. I should be. I should be furious. It’s elementary, my dear Watson.” She stopped, closed her eyes, amazed she had made light of herself. “This is what all anger is. Being denied. Not being held. Not being satisfied. This is war and mayhem and I should be in a rage. I’m so sick of myself. I’m still waiting for life to begin.”
“I better go,” I said. My heart was pounding; it felt frail and absolutely out of control. I felt very close to dying on the spot and not at all concerned.
Ann got up and went to the windows. I wondered if she was going to do something horrible but she seemed calm.
“I’ll go,” I said, standing. The blood that raced to my head was thick with stars and slashes of colored light. “I’m sorry about tonight. I’d like to call you tomorrow. That’s what I’ll do. But I’ll understand if you don’t let me—”
“It’s late,” Ann said. I could see she was looking at my reflection in the window. “And you don’t know your way around.” She turned toward me, her arms folded over her chest. “Sit down,” she said, and when I did she walked past me and down the hall.
She was back in a moment carrying a pillow, sheets, and a pale blue blanket. “Get up,” she said.