Thirty #2
For lunch, Shug opened the cooler and pulled out a ham and cheese sandwich, mustard, no mayo, for Trudy, another ham and cheese for himself, and a peanut butter, jelly, and bacon for Pete.
“No crusts, and the bacon’s extra crispy,” Shug said as he watched Pete’s eyes blink with happiness.
“Awesssome!” Pete said.
He had planned for Pete. Halfway through his sandwich, Pete sacked out on one of the seats, his arm slung around a sleeping Bess curled in a tight little ball.
“Naptime,” Trudy whispered.
The motor would have woken them, so Shug let his paddle do the work.
He eased the boat toward a pocket of shade and slipped the anchor into the water, quiet as prayer.
The forest enveloped them like a cathedral of a billion leaves of gold and burnished copper flickering in the breeze.
From somewhere deep within the trees, whippoorwills sang their own Sunday hymn.
Sunlight poured through the canopy, catching on the moss along the limestone bluffs, which glowed electric green against the riot of fall.
It felt like the woods had lit themselves, just for them.
“How much do you know about your players?” Trudy asked.
“Everything.” One corner of Shug’s mouth turned up in a half smile.
“Hmm. Well, what if I told you I caught June Bug kissing somebody at the Booins Festival? Somebody other than Dee Dee Beaumont.”
Shug nodded, like a judge considering evidence. “I’d say leave that alone.”
“Yeah, but like what if he was kissing someone he could get in a lot of trouble for kissing?” she asked. “I mean, June Bug kissing this person? People would be very upset.”
Shug nodded again, this time as if the testimony confirmed something for him, but also as if taken back by the gravity of what she’d just said. “I’d still say leave it alone. And I told you.” He looked at her. “I know everything about those boys.”
Shug knew? Surely there was no way. “Everything?” she asked, just to confirm.
“I didn’t stutter.”
The conversation couldn’t end there. Leave it alone? That’s his advice? Shug had to do something. At least talk to them. “Well, aren’t you gonna say anything to him?” she asked.
“Like what? Tell June Bug Moody that he should get back to kissing a girl ... one he clearly doesn’t love ... because his daddy and the church says he supposed to?”
Trudy started to say something, but no words came out.
“And if that’s the rule,” Shug went on, “who’s gonna talk to you about being out on the river with me instead of at church with the superintendent?”
“This is much less complicated,” Trudy said. “And this was a bet.”
“That you lost on purpose.” His eyebrows shot up in triumph. His grin made everything less serious.
He took a sip of his Coke, closed his eyes, and swallowed, relishing that sweet, carbonated burn.
He chewed and looked out over the water in delight, the muscles in his jaw dancing.
His eyes conveyed an artful mystery; they seemed to orchestrate the curious way he could float right up to an emotion and then saunter back from it unscathed, the way he could wade into a feeling without being overtaken.
This capability enthralled her completely.
It was as if Shug felt everything, and nothing at all, in a single moment.
She couldn’t stand another second. She wrapped up what was left of her sandwich and set it aside. She took his Coke away from him, and set it down, his sandwich next. And then, overwhelmed by something she couldn’t explain, she leaned in to kiss him. He drew back in a startled jerk.
“What are you doing?” A confused smile erupted across his lips.
“Oh my God!” she said and looked over to Pete to make sure he was still sleeping.
“I’m sorry.” She took a breath and steamed it out.
“I don’t know ... Pete’s asleep ..
. and I like the way you chew ... and .
.. it got me thinking ... oh God, that was so stupid, wasn’t it?
” She scratched her temple and then her eyebrow. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“Shhh. It’s okay.” He smiled and gathered her hand in his. “This all right?” he whispered.
She nodded. It was more than all right.
“And this?” He gathered her other hand, and they both glanced to check the sleeping boy. Still sacked out. Bess rose her head, licked her lips, and then rested her chin back on Pete’s tummy.
“Sure.” She nodded. Electronegativity , she thought. The answer to question number four on this week’s quiz. What do you call the measure of the attractive force that an atom has on a pair of bonding electrons? was the question.
He brought her left hand to his lips and held it there for a whole year, his eyes shut and dreaming.
Before he opened them, she pulled her hand away and kissed him properly.
His stubble scratched and then burned and then tickled her nose, yet his soft, vulnerable lips anchored the whole world in place.
The exhilarating contradiction melted her.
Her arm found its way across his shoulders and back, her fingers brushed his neck, through the soft wisps of hair which escaped out of the bottom of his ball cap like hundreds of little cresting waves.
Her caress tipped his cap forward and they both hid beneath its bill.
Another year passed, and the kiss came to an end; he held his nose to hers for a week or two before he leaned back and peered into her eyes from underneath the now-sideways cap. “Did you say you like the way I chew ?”