They're determined, they work hard, and they survive despite exterminators. They also happen to have a soldier caste."
"Crazy," he said, shaking his head. "Chas the termite."
"May I be Lucy?" I asked him.
He wheeled his chair over to where I was sitting and took my hand.
"Do you think that's possible?" he said, looking sternly at me. "No bullshit now. All I'm asking is, do you think it's possible?"
"Yes," I said, "I think it's possible."
He set his glass on the floor and reached for me. I put my glass aside and leaned to him. It was a twisted, strained embrace, fumbled and awkward, but we managed. We kissed.
"Tommy," I said, stroking his cheek.
"Lucy," he said, and we both giggled.
I don't know what they call it now, necking, petting, smooching-it all sounds so old-fashioned. But that is what we did, kids in a secret place, exploring while the rain surrounded us and blanked out the world.
It was sweet, so sweet.
We stopped, breathless, and stared at each other.
"Give me time," he said in a voice that was almost a croak.
"I need time. Please."
I nodded and smoothed his hair back from his brow. We picked up our glasses and finished our wine without saying another word.
After a while I rose, gathered up my things, and gave him a farewell peck. I left him slumped in his wheelchair, head bowed.
I drove home slowly through a downpour that seemed to be worsening. I tried to sort out my feelings, but they were too chaotic for easy classification. It was only after I was safely home, showered, and in bed that I was able to put my thoughts in order and determine what I wanted to do.
I must have this man, I decided that. With marriage, without marriage, with sex, without sex-none of that seemed important. I just needed him in my life, and I thought he needed me. He had lost his legs and would never regrow them. I had lost-or was in danger of losing-part of myself as well. The loving part. I didn't want that gone. I wanted it to thrive.
I felt I knew Chas. I recognized his weaknesses and deficiencies as clearly as I did my own. But what of that? Love, if not blind, is uncaring. I mean there are really no requirements or standards, are there?
These meandering musings before I fell asleep had a curious conclusion.
They made me question if I analysis of Mabel Barrow and had been correct in my Herman Todd. I had labeled them insubstantial personalities intent only on sexual gratification. Now I wondered if I truly understood them.
Perhaps, like me, they were simply hopeful searchers, aching to give, eager to have their tender passion requited. just to love and be loved in returnit sounds so simple, doesn't it? So easy.
So right.
Then why is it so rare?
ANA TODD told my mother that I didn't think Chester Barrow was a very practical boy, and she laughed and asked me why I thought so.
"Because," I said, "his father bought him a fishing cap with a long bill that shades your eyes. But Chet wears it backwards so the bill shades his neck and the sun is always in his eyes."
"Well," she said, "maybe that's a fad with boys these days.
I see a lot of them wearing their caps backwards."
"I think it's silly," I said.
I didn't tell her the other ways that Chet wasn,t practical, because it was about our running away. For instance, I had to tell him what to take and help him pack. And I was the one who looked up the telephone number of the cab company so we'd have it when we were ready to leave home and go out to my Uncle Chas to get the hundred dollars.
"Now here's what I think,', I told Chet. "Labor Day is on September seventh. Then school starts on Tuesday, the eighth. So I think we should leave on September second, which is a Wednesday."
Why on that day?" he asked me.
I sighed. Sometimes I have to explain things to Chet twice or maybe three times. I know he's smart, but he just doesn't pay attention.
"We decided we would leave before school started," I said.
"And September second is just as good a day as any. Also, it's in the middle of the week, so it will be easier getting a cab than if we leave on a Saturday or Sunday. And besides, your mother and father might be home on the weekend, and mine, too. So Wednesday is when we'll leave." i guess," he said.
"Now you must be all packed on Tuesday night," I said. "And I'll be ready so we can just take off on Wednesday anytime we want. I think we should go around noon, which will give us time to pick up the money from Uncle Chas and start out before it gets dark."
"Boy," he said, "you sure are bossy."
"Well, my goodness," I said, "somebody's got to think of these things.
And I wish you'd wear your cap the right way. You look silly."
"Do not," he said.
"Do so,' I said. "But if you want to look silly, I really don't care."
"Listen," he said, "my folks haven't been so bad lately.
Maybe we should talk about this some more."
"You mean you don't want to go? Chet, it was your idea."
"I know it was," he said like he was mad at me.
"I'm just saying maybe we should give them like another chance."
"Chester Barrow, " I said, "if you back out now after all my work, I'll never speak to you again as long as I live.
"I'm not backing out," he said, getting that look he gets sometimes when he clenches his teeth. "I just mean my mother and father have been nicer to me lately, like I told you. Are your parents still fighting?"
"Yes, they are," I said, "and if you don't want to leave home, then I'll go by myself."
"Oh, no," he said, "you can't do that. I'll go, I'll go just like we planned."
"Promise?"
"Sure," he said, "I promise."
I felt sort of guilty because to tell you the truth my parents hadn't been fighting lately like they usually did. My father was still missing dinner and coming home late smelling from alcohol, but it didn't seem to bother my mother anymore, because she didn't yell at him, and she smiled a lot and was always humming. just because I'm a girl going on nine doesn't mean I don't notice things, and I wondered why she was acting so happy.
We were eating in the kitchen one night late in August, and I said, "I wish Daddy would come home to have dinner with us every night."
And Mom said, "Oh, I think he will. I think he'll change his ways real soon."
I wasn't so sure. "Can people change the way they are?" I asked her.
She said. "People change of course they can," All the time."
I thought about that awhile. "I think Chet Barrow is changing," I told her.
"Is he, dear? How is he changing?"
"I don't know," I said. "But sometimes he says things, and then he goes back on them. I don't like that.
Suddenly she looked sad. "Men are like that, Tania, she said. "As you get older, you'll learn that they frequently say things, promise things, they don't really mean."
"Well, that's just lying."
"Not exactly. Sometimes they'll say things because they want something, or to keep you happy, or because they don't want an argument."
"And all the time they don't really mean it? I think that's awful."
"Yes, it is," she agreed with me. "But you'll just have to learn to put up with it."
Well, she could put up with it if she wanted to, but I wasn't going to.
So the next time I was alone with Chet I spoke right out.
"Now listen here, Chester Barrow," I said, "I don't like the way you've been acting."
He looked at me. "What are you talking about?" he said.