“The dogs, we’ll have to make sure they get to play together often.”
“Oh. Oh, yes, we will. I’ll be right back, Kendra, I’m going to put something on.”
He felt her eyes on him as he left the living room. In his bedroom, he put on shorts and T-shirt and flip-flops.
Reznick kept imagining resting his cheek between her breasts, feeling them on both sides of his head, so soft-skinned, so plush, so fragrant with youth.
He’d done that with Victoria when he found her. After he’d called the cops. He lay down on top of her and placed his head between her breasts, as if he were listening for the heart that would never beat again, but really just to be close to her one last time, to have one final intimate moment. That was how they’d found him, babbling and crying with his head nestled between her bloody breasts.
Kendra stood suddenly and smiled and said, “Do you think I’m pretty?”
“Pretty?” he said, his voice a hoarse whisper. “No, you’re not pretty, Kendra.”
Before he was halfway through the sentence, Kendra’s face shattered like a reflection in a broken mirror. Her smile disappeared and the look in her eyes changed drastically, but subtly – she went from looking happy and childlike to appearing on the verge of tears, or perhaps holding back some painful cry of defeat.
“Oh, don’t get upset, sweetheart, I’m not finished!” he said. “You’re not pretty – you’re gorgeous. You’re beautiful. You passed up pretty a long time ago.”
She gasped and slapped both hands over her mouth. Her eyes became huge. She pulled her hands away and said, “Are you – really?”
“Really. You’re beautiful, Kendra, and you should never let anyone tell you any different.” He spoke in a low tone, as if he did not want to be overheard.
Kendra said, “Nobody ever… said that to me before today.”
“Then I guess it’s about time someone did, huh?” He smiled, but he wasn’t sure it was a successful smile because his lips trembled when he tried to move them. He sniffed and turned away from her. “Can I get you something to drink, Kendra?” he said.
“No, thank you. I should go. Never know when Mommy might come home a little early and find me outside the trailer. I’m supposed to stick to the trailer while she’s gone.”
“Then you’d better go.”
Instead of walking around him, she squeezed between Reznick and the wall, and her body brushed against his, her breasts crushed against him. He wouldn’t have been surprised if sparks had scattered from the friction between them – she felt hot to him. He felt hot, too – his face, his hands. He felt his heartbeat in his fingertips and it pounded rapidly.
She stopped, still pressed between Reznick’s body and the wall, and whispered, “I’ll come back over with Dexter again later.” Then she kissed him.
The illusion ended there. She puckered her lips up like a child and made a smacking sound as she pressed them to his mouth. She smiled again, then slipped on by and left the trailer.
She’d kissed him the way a little girl would kiss.
But with those lips, he thought, a little training’s all it would take.
Then he thought, Should I feel guilty for thinking that?
He chuckled and muttered to himself, “You’ve got plenty of other things to feel guilty about without bothering with that piddly shit.”
Besides, he told himself, it’s true – all Kendra needed was a little gentle guidance, which he suspected she would welcome, and she would probably be a passionate kisser. All the women Reznick had ever known had loved kissing – a few more than sex itself. He was sure Kendra would be no different – she would enjoy it, and she’d probably take to it quickly, just like everyone does.
He’d been haunted by the fact that she lived next door. That at the age of forty-one, Marcus Reznick had been swept away by the girl next door. Just two walls away. Thin walls – trailer walls. Never far away. His mind was like radar – it kept picking her up, showing her to him.
He wanted two things as he stretched out on the couch. He wanted an ice-cold bottle of vodka to drink from to make him numb to the aches and pains of his soul, while the lovely Kendra Dunfy did things to him she’d probably never even heard of yet. And he didn’t have it in him to feel guilty for it, either, not today, when his mouth was puckering on the inside and his tastebuds imagined things like vodka martinis and vodka gimlets. It had been a year since his last drink, but his tastebuds had excellent memories, and they were feeling very nostalgic that hot afternoon.
He thought of her again. That wasn’t quite true – she was always on his mind now, just off to the side a little. Then she rushed up front fast, front and center.
Everything else had been right. The look on her face, whether she’d intended it to be or not, was the look of a young woman waiting to be kissed, to be taken hard in a man’s arms and kissed. Her eyes had been right – half-closed and dreamy. But her puckered lips, the little-girl peck on his mouth – they had reminded him what she was. And what he was becoming if he continued to pursue thoughts about her.
But he did not pursue them, that was the problem. They pursued him.
Fifteen
Anna Dunfy climbed the steps and entered her trailer. She found Kendra stretched out on the floor watching a game show on the Game show Network and coloring in a coloring book with felt-tip pens. Anna dropped her purse to the floor and spread her arms wide. “Congratulate me!” she said.
Kendra beamed up at her. “Congratulations, Mommy!” Then, a moment later: “For what?”
“They want me to come back.”
“They do? Who does?”
“The people at the place where I worked today.” Anna went to couch and sat down, took her shoes off and rubbed her feet. “Redding Tractor and Lawn Mower. I worked in their office today. Apparently, the woman I filled in for is always out. She knows how to work the system, see. She comes in only as many days as she absolutely has to. The rest of the time, she’s sick. Says she’s depressed and can’t work. They’re getting fed up with her, though, and the way they talk, she won’t be there much longer. They want me to start working there nine-to-five. Starting tomorrow.”
“A full-time job?” Kendra said.
“A full-time job,” Anna said, nodding. “Starting tomorrow.”
“That’s great, Mommy!”
“Yes, it is great. That means you’ll have to get up early so I can take you over to Aunt Rose’s before I go to – “
”Huh? No! No way!” Kendra got to her feet and faced Anna. “You haven’t even asked me how my day went. It went just fine. Nothing went wrong, I’m okay, nothing bad happened. I even walked down with Dexter and got the mail and nothing bad happened. Now, if I can do that one day, why can’t I do it every day? And it’ll only be for the summer, until school starts.”
Anna leaned back on the couch and thought about it. Kendra had handled herself well this afternoon. Anna had no reason to think she couldn’t take care of herself while Anna was at work.
“You’ll miss the rest of Vacation Bible School,” Anna said.
“No, I won’t. Not if Calista Hoffman’s mother comes and picks me up and I go to Vacation Bible School with Calista. Then they can drop me off on their way home. They drive right down Stingy on their way to the church and back.”
Kendra clearly had put some thought into it. She was determined to have her way in this, determined to have her independence for the summer. Anna saw no good reason to deny her of it.
“All right,” Anna said. “I’ll call Mrs. Hoffman and see if she won’t mind picking you up.”