Chapter 8
The doorbell rings, and Richard is standing at my front door in his standard striped Oxford button-down, hands in his pockets.
He’s framed by the setting sun behind him, making his skin look even more perfect than usual.
His hair wings out around his ears for a completely adorable effect, and something about the way he always tilts his head to the side to look at me makes me shiver in the best way. He’s doing it now.
“Hi,” I say, a little too loud. My hand reflexively checks on the bump to make sure it’s covered. It still feels huge.
“Hi,” he says, relaxed.
“Hi,” I repeat, realizing I forgot to come up with a mystique-filled first line. “Um, come in.”
He glides inside. All his movements are like choreography.
He’s like a character from some old movie where the women pluck loose each finger of a pair of satin gloves, pull them off, and tuck them away in a clutch without missing a beat of conversation.
I’d probably have to break out the scissors if I wore those gloves.
Currently, I’m just trying not to trip over my own feet.
I lead him downstairs to our rec room. I don’t pause at the living room to introduce him to my dad, even though I might get a lecture for that later.
Avoiding the awkwardness seems worth it, though.
I don’t want to put Richard through any sort of gauntlet.
And anyway, technically I’m allowed to have boys in the house as long as I leave the door to the room we’re in open.
Our basement is “finished,” but it was done so long ago that the definition of finished in this case means “washed-up and ready to be retired.” The wallpaper is meant to resemble a vintage newspaper, covered in sketches of ladies with bustles trying on hats and ads for blacksmith tools.
The flooring is thin carpet directly on top of cold cement, so it always feels damp, and the drop ceiling is made of those institutional Styrofoamy tiles that pop into a metal frame.
It’s as ugly as a room can get, but it has a pool table, a flat-screen, and most importantly, some privacy.
I’m used to seeing Richard in public, in large spaces like the auditorium and the band room.
Being here at home with him, alone, feels vulnerable and invigorating all at once.
It’s like I can sense electrons jumping off him and careening from air molecule to air molecule until they collide with my skin.
Say something. “So, what do you want to do? Should we run that scene?” That was why I said I wanted him to come over, after all. Figure I should stick to the script.
“Do we need to? You’re such a quick study,” he says.
“Flattery will get you everywhere.” I swing into flirt mode, and he raises an eyebrow.
“How about we watch a movie? I want to show you Doctor Zhivago. Omar Sharif is so good. He’s my inspiration for our show.
” Richard is a boy born a century too late.
But I’m happy to agree. Sitting and watching other people talk rather than coming up with all the conversation ourselves is a relief.
We pull up the movie and I purchase it, again skipping the part where I check with my parents.
As the strange chords of the balalaika fill the basement, I click off the overhead lights to stop the glare on the screen, leaving only the lamp on the end table providing a soft glow.
The fact that the romantic quotient in the room just went to an eleven embarrasses me.
I wasn’t sure whether he knew I wanted this to be a date when I asked him, but suddenly it seems like we both know exactly what this is.
He’s spread his lanky limbs over the entire couch and is reclining sideways, his elbow bent and his head propped up in his hand to face the screen.
He looks supremely comfortable, like this is his own couch at his own house.
I sit on the edge of the couch in front of his legs, tentative. I try to pay attention to the actors, to figure out the jumping around of time and place in the first scenes of the movie. But his electrons make the air alive around me.
“Come down here,” he says, like of course the next logical step is to just lie down next to a classmate.
I bring my feet up and slide down in front of him.
I can’t believe we’re spooning. I think of the moments he’s touched my hand before, how overwhelming that felt, and now here we are, pressed together along the entire length of our bodies.
I lie stock-still, like if I move a muscle, this whole fantasy will evaporate.
If I got an itch in this moment, I would just have to let it itch.
At first, I don’t even think I’m breathing, but then realize I am because our inhales and exhales have become synchronized.
I take in his amazing smell. Is he wearing cologne?
Does he own cologne or is it his dad’s? Then his arm reaches around me.
He interlaces his fingers with mine and pulls me closer.
Wow. I try to stop my brain from wondering what this means and what our relationship status is now. I try to relax into the warmth.
It’s too late for me to figure out the plot, so I let the movie wash over me, all snowy rooftops and fur hats and significant looks.
We are watching a great love story. Maybe we are a great love story.
At play rehearsal, I’m always scrabbling for Richard’s attention, a stray smile, a few exchanged sentences.
But here I have him all to myself for the length of an epic film.
I lie in front of him, a barrier between Richard and the rest of the world.
It reminds me of how people say, “To get to him, you’ll have to get through me first.” Good luck getting him now, Amanda.
He’s mine. Honestly, I can’t believe my luck.
I can’t help it, I finally move. I turn to look at him, and he kisses me.
This isn’t my first kiss. I made out with a boy at overnight camp last summer while we were at a dance in the dining hall.
But that was different. The boy at camp was all tongue, his mouth open so wide that it was like he was trying to swallow my face.
I had liked that he liked me, liked that he was hard for me under his jeans when we danced, but while we were kissing I found myself mostly just getting through it and wondering when it would be over.
With Richard, the kissing is everything.
His mouth is pressed against mine, like we might be sealed together, and then he pulls back a bit.
His tongue flits in, gentle. He nips at my lips with his teeth, which for some reason makes me think about my own mouth differently, makes my lips feel very full and luscious.
This dance between urgent pressure and playfulness makes me forget where I am, who I am.
My hands clutch at him, one on his back and one in his hair, pulling him closer even though he’s already as close as he can get.
He still seems relaxed somehow, almost amused.
I, on the other hand, am in full swoon. I can’t keep track of his whole body at the same time, and my attention is bouncing around, to his lips, to his hand on my waist, to my fingers on his scalp, then back to his lips.
“You’ve been keeping a secret from me,” he murmurs.
Oh, crap. What does he know? Reality threatens at the edges of my pleasure.
“What do you mean?” I say, trying to also murmur.
“You didn’t tell me you were a world-class kisser.” I can’t respond for a minute because he starts kissing me again, hard.
When he pulls back for a breath, I’m ready. “Only when I’m inspired,” I say.
He rolls on top of me, and the weight of him pressing down on me makes my body arch up to press back.
I start to wrap my arms around him but he catches one of my hands and presses it down above my head, like he’s captured me.
Where did he learn that move? I can’t help it, I love it.
It makes me feel like I’ve bewitched him with my sheer sexiness, like he’s beside himself with desire. Maybe he is.
His pelvis presses against mine and a rhythm starts between us, and now the feeling has shifted from simple enjoyment to being more goal oriented.
Each rub of his jeans against mine takes me farther down the path, good feeling piling on top of good feeling.
What do they call this—dry humping? That sounds so gross, but this isn’t gross at all.
I always thought that having an orgasm with someone else would be more difficult than what I can accomplish in my own room by myself, but this is easy, natural.
I feel his knees pushing into the couch on either side of me as the energy between us becomes so intense that every muscle in my body is contracting simultaneously. As long as he doesn’t stop.
Suddenly, I hear a voice behind me.
“Hattie?” It’s my dad. Richard’s eyes fly open. We both freeze.
I manage to pull my mouth away without making any smacking, kissy sounds. I look at Richard fiercely, trying to transmit a message. Don’t panic and everything will be fine.
I reach above my head to the armrest and press pause.
“Yeah, Dad?” I say breezily. Looks like I’m getting some acting practice after all.
My dad is halfway down the basement stairs. Of course he can’t see us, but it feels like we’re standing on a tightwire in a high wind. One false move and this could be messy.
“Your mother and I are going to our appointment.” Oh, right, it’s therapy night. No wonder he doesn’t have time to worry about his daughter and what she’s doing with some stranger in the basement.
“Okay. We’re just going to finish up this movie.”
“What are you watching?”
“Doctor Zhivago. One of your favorites, right, Dad?” That could have been an error. He might want to stay for a beat and quote some of his favorite lines now.
But no, we’re safe. All he says is, “Yes. Great film. Mom has her phone if you need us.” And he feels his way back up the stairs.
I stand up, my hands over my mouth in disbelief at what has just happened. Richard groans and rolls onto the floor, making like a dead body.
“You know my dad’s blind, right?” I say.
He grimaces with his eyes closed. “I fucking do now!”
Richard always looks calm, cool, and collected, but he doesn’t look that way currently. He looks disheveled and traumatized, like he went through a cycle in the dryer. I start laughing. He looks at me, mock offended, but I can’t stop. Life is too ridiculous. He starts laughing, too.
“Hey, wait,” he finally says. “If your dad is blind, how does he have a favorite movie?”
My laughing almost shifts gears right into crying.
I clear my throat, try to sound objective about the whole thing.
“He wasn’t always this way. Plus, you know, there’s a lot more to movies than what you see.
There’s the great dialogue, plus the score, the sound effects.
He still watches movies, actually, even though he’s not technically watching.
” I know I wanted to talk about deep stuff with Richard, but this is not the topic I would have picked.
“Ah. So was he in an accident? Traumatic brain injury?” Richard runs his hand through his hair and it falls effortlessly into place, any hint of his recent dishevelment gone.
He’s all business now. I appreciate the respect he’s giving this, but I’m not sure I want to do the whole genetics lesson.
Especially if he makes the logical leap to my own hereditary situation.
“No, it just got worse over time. It’s progressive,” I say, plucking tiny nubs of lint off the throw pillow I’ve pulled into my lap.
I look at the floor. I’m suddenly embarrassed, but what is there to be embarrassed about?
It’s just medical fact. But even worse than that, somewhere underneath that discomfort I’m ashamed.
What’s wrong with me that I can’t be proud of my own father?
And why not? Because he’s a little bit outside the band of normal?
Richard drops onto his knees in front of me, and tips up my chin so our eyes are locked. “That must be really hard,” he says, his voice soft.
I bite my lip. “Yeah, I think it is. He hasn’t been handling it that well lately, to be honest. He might be in denial or depressed or something.”
He closes his hands over both of mine. “I meant for you.”
For me. I’m so stripped inside that I almost spill my guts all over the clammy basement carpet. Like, hey, Richard, you think that’s bad? That’s nothing. I’m going blind, too. Just enough that I see dead people—either that or I’m also going crazy. You wanna go back to making out?
Instead, I smile and smooth my 1920s hair swoop back behind my ear. “You’re sweet,” I say. “But I’m okay.”
“If you say so, m’lady,” he says, and slides back onto the couch to sit next to me. “Now, how about we get serious about this movie? I feel like you weren’t even really paying attention before.” He winks.
“I’ll be more disciplined, I promise,” I say.
So we start actually watching the movie.
The energy in the room is different now, comfortable, almost more intimate.
I suddenly don’t regret the conversation.
Some truths came out tonight. Not everything, but something, some actual unpleasantness, and he didn’t scream and run away, so that’s encouraging.
Plus, now he’s resting his arm in my lap like we’ve known each other for a hundred years. And this is just the beginning.