"Get… out… of… here! Now!!!"
I hardly had time to get out of sight. I closed my door almost all the way… just left it open a crack so I could peek. And Nancy backed out of Eric's apartment with her face the color of a ripe tomato. She was stammering and trying to make him listen, but his door shut right in her face. So she whirled around and stomped down the hall to the stairs. She shot a black look toward my door and disappeared.
Eric's door opened again and he came out. He stood there for a minute looking toward Duane's apartment, then mine. And finally he came toward me. I shut the door in a panic. What was I going to do? I leaped across to my bed and shoved my bra under the pillow and Eric was already knocking.
I tried to keep from shaking as I went to the door.
"Lee, I…" He hesitated while he studied me.
My mouth felt dry and stiff. I couldn't even smile. And Eric looked terribly uncomfortable.
"I… Look, Lee. I'm sorry about what I said downstairs this morning. What… How did it happen?"
"Would you like to come in?" I stammered. When I saw his glance go around the bedroom I added quickly, "To the sun porch, I mean. It's the only living room Mark and I have."
"Oh. Well…"
I stepped back, hoping. I felt as if my heart were going to jump right out of my chest while I wondered if he'd accept the invitation.
"Well… yes."
I led him through the bedroom. I was ashamed of the mess it was in but he didn't seem to notice. The sun porch looked better and he took one of the rattan armchairs Ma let us have because they were too beat-up to go anyplace else. For awhile he didn't say anything, just sat with his forearms resting on his legs and studied me some more.
He finally asked again. "How did it happen?"
"Will. Mark went out to mess around with a football… some of the kids on the street. Only in a few minutes Will came and said Duane had him in his apartment… accusing him of taking something. So I was scared what Duane would do to him… I went with Will and… and…"
He was mad; I could tell. His lips got tight and pale and a hard, round little lump appeared near the back of his jaw. His eyes got real narrow, their blue looking icy cold. He started talking, more to himself than to me. "Been a plain damn fool. Hear stories and think you're shrugging them off for gossip, but they settle to the bottom and stay there rotting and spoiling everything else." He looked up at my face. "Remember when I first came here, Lee…? That time we were going to drive up to Topeka for a steak dinner?"
Did I remember! You couldn't have reached me with a pole, I was so high then! Only something had ruined it. He'd said things about an unexpected meeting with the higher-ups, but I'd known he'd begun hearing those stories.
"I remember," I said, my voice kind of chokey.
"I blew that one," he said. "Blew the hell out of it. Look, you think after all this time we might try that again?"
"You… you really mean that, Eric?" All of a sudden I didn't dare let my voice rise; I had to keep it low and soft.
"Yeah. The fact is, I've been fighting myself. Hell, Lee, there's something about you… I mean, it's been like having something real special right in front of you and being scared to touch it. Everything I see makes me want you – tells me you're the right girl. And the lousy tongue-waggers kept scaring me off. I'm sorry! Think maybe you could forget what a Goddamn jerk I've been?"
Omigod! I thought. Omigod, that's right next door to proposing! He's not just talking about a date in Topeka!
"Eric… Oh, Eric! I know! I understand, Eric! I'm not mad at you!" But there were things in my background. Sure, the stories he'd heard were lies, but things had happened that were maybe just as bad. I felt like I was cutting my heart out and throwing it on the floor, but I had to be fair with him. "Eric, things do happen to a girl… I mean…"
He shrugged and looked me right in the eye. "So?"
He stood up, still staring into my eyes, and I got to my feet and went to him. I think they could have taken the floor right out from under me without my noticing; my feet didn't even touch it. And there I was, where I'd wanted to be ever since he'd come to Ma Conner's. His arms were just as big and warm as I'd dreamed they would be. And he kissed just as hard and gently as he looked like he would.
But it was awful knowing I hadn't even gotten to take a shower since coming away from Duane's apartment. So I pulled away as soon as that first rush of love eased enough to let me breathe. And I realized how my boobies were tingling where they'd been crushed against him without a bra to keep them in.
"I've… I've got to…" I stammered, then stopped confusion. How do you tell a man you've got to take a shower before you can kiss him any more?
I didn't have to. He seemed to have something on his mind. A grim expression came over his face and he squeezed my shoulders. "Something I've got to do, honey," he said. "Maybe it would be fun to go for a walk in a little while. See if the cats are jumping clear out of the water like Nigg says."
He meant walking a block to the north edge of town and the half mile or so to the river to see if the catfish… Well, anyway, that was a sort of offhand way of saying it was a nice day to spend an hour or two by the river. And it was!
When he left my apartment he didn't even stop at his; he went right past it to Duane's. And he only had to knock once before Duane opened the door. Eric didn't say anything I could hear from where I was peeking through the crack at my door. He just went in with Duane backing away before him. And they didn't shut the door.
There wasn't any noise I could hear. No crashes or grunts of pain or angry voices. Nothing. And I realized I was being pretty sneaky to spy on them. So I took the shower I needed so badly. And Eric came back for me and we went for our walk.
CHAPTER NINE
Emporia is a pretty big town, but it isn't a city by any means. It's about twelve blocks from one side to the other, wherever you start, and then you're either at one of the rivers or on somebody's farm. But there's quite a bit of land right around the town that doesn't get farmed because it floods every time one of the rivers rises. And there's lots of willow and rushes and young poplar so walking to the river is like walking through a miniature forest. The kids mostly like the Cottonwood because it's broader and deeper and has stretches where there's sand on the banks and a rocky bottom; it's just more fun to play in.
But Neosho is a quieter, moodier river. Willows grow right along the bank and hang out over the water. And the poplars and cottonwoods grow up through them and their boughs spread way out across the middle of the river and get mixed up with the branches of trees on the other side and it's sort of subdued like a great big church. In the summer there's a humming from bees and chirping from different kinds of birds. And the frogs make a racket and when you hear a splash out in the water you don't know whether it's because a frog jumped in or a fish was leaping for one of the low-dipping dragonflies.
It's sort of steamy, too, because summer days are so hot there and everything's so moist along the bank. And there's a greenish mistiness to the light under all those trees so it's a little like being in some kind of fairy-land.
Eric and I found a place in a bend of the river where the water had cut a shelf under an overhanging bank and then receded, letting a carpet of grass grow, with tiny wildflowers peeking through it. We sat there and let the magic of the place get to us, with Eric skipping a flat stone across the mirror-face of the water once in awhile and a kingfisher squawking and jumping into the air when he did. We got all sentimental telling each other about when we were kids and what our folks were like and… Well, first thing I knew we'd sort of drifted into talking about how, kids ought to behave and that brought up how they ought to be trained and led right into what our kids were going to be like.