Chapter Three - Paul
CHAPTER THREE
Paul
I THINK ABOUT all the things I was right about:
He’s a mechanic. He’s got cigarette-burns on his kitchen table. There’s engine grease staining his fingers. The scent of him after a ride on his motorcycle.
And his eyes.
Oh, his eyes.
I lie in bed with my hands clasped together as if I’m in prayer, but really I’m just holding it all right there. Everything about him is in between my palms and close to my heart.
And his eyes.
I should read or sleep or do something more useful than just lie here.
But I don’t want to. I just want to lie here and dream.
Dream while I’m awake. I turn over on my pillow and close my eyes so I can fully see his.
They’re as blue as a new day, but there’s a kindness around them I hadn’t noticed from so far away.
A gentleness that diminishes the sternness when he smiles.
And he smiled at me. There’s no way I imagined that.
What a thing to happen, to go from mortified to… this.
I pick idly at the tufts of yarn in the quilt.
My grandmother made it, and wouldn’t she just be turning over in her grave to know what I think about when I lie under it?
Wouldn’t she just be panicked in her pearls and starched skirts, beseeching Aunt Amy to drag me to a head shrink?
I don’t have a bit of shame. Not a drop.
I’ll revel in the delicious thoughts of his lips when he smiled at me, the clear blue sky of his eyes when he looked at me at the drive-in, and how I was able to touch him on that bike.
I’ll do it until I’m dead. Nothing will stop me from reliving today over and over and over again.
I never in a million years would’ve dreamed, and I can dream… oh, I can really dream.
Is this what Marius felt like? When he first saw Cosette?
When he first spoke to her? In that garden, in the evening, and in secret.
She couldn’t let her father know, and I get it.
I get that. But let us not forget the one who brought them together, let us not forget the tragedy that is éponine. Let us not forget those that sacrifice.
I turn on the lamp and get up for my book.
I decide to read the part where Hugo just goes on and on about the cloistered nuns where Valjean sends Cosette.
That square could really babble, but it’s important.
It shows that M'sieur le Maire was keeping his promise to Fantine when he took Cosette to raise as his own.
He was a good man, a brave man. And I need that bravery. I need goodness.
Now is the time for it and Marius was brave too.
I’ll have to be brave tomorrow when I go over.
And what are we going to do? Just sit around?
Talk? I’m nervous at that gaping hole of unknown.
In just one day, everything has changed and I don’t like not knowing what to expect.
I liked to watch him each day because he was reliable, predictable.
But now it’s all been cast into chaos, and I don’t know what to expect.
And, in a way, I can’t help but worry this is a trick.
I’m being tricked by….something. Someone.
Maybe when I get over there tomorrow, he’ll be annoyed.
Looking at me the way he did when I first showed up at his door.
He was ready to let me have it, and I can’t blame him.
So, maybe all that earlier, that “come by if you want” was just him being polite.
The things people say to be nice, but they don’t mean.
It’s like how Pops would look at me across the dinner table when my mother wasn’t there, how he’d say, “Well, just let me know if you need anything.”
Just let me know.
And that wasn’t what I needed. People say that to one another to be polite, but it’s really cruel. Throw it back on the other person, the one who needs. Absolve oneself of having the burden and still be able to sleep at night.
And Pops knew what I needed. He knew. He saw me.
I went into their bedroom when my mother first stayed at the hospital.
She was there for a week, and they said there were all these tests they had to do, and I didn’t want to know, so I went into the closet.
I ran my fingers over her dresses. I sat on the blush-colored carpet and looked up at all her things.
Hat boxes arranged like she’d need her winter ones within reach.
And Pops came in, undid his tie in the mirror.
I caught his eye in the reflection, and the way he scowled at me, I guess he couldn’t hide it any longer.
I was never the son he wanted. Let’s just be honest. All his friends’ sons played in the big game while I watched.
All his friends’ sons were exuberant, extroverted, and extraordinary.
All his friends’ sons were broad and strapping and could crush me in a fight.
My mother was between us, always, providing that much-needed zone of peace.
Neither one of us was willing to trample over it to be at each other’s throats.
And then she was gone and there was nothing there but a wasteland.
Sooner or later, one of us was going to snap.
I burrow myself under the quilt. I read and try to forget, but that’s the thing.
Forgetting isn’t forgiving.
I’m pacing around the sitting room and Aunt Amy’s doing her needlepoint.
She’s got the TV off because we usually watch Lassie at seven and then Lawrence Welk right after, but I think I might not be here. Maybe. I look over at her, and she’s watching me with that raised brow.
Before she can speak, I say, “I’m leaving.” I point to Asher’s apartment. “I mean, just going over there. Later. Just right there.”
She blinks at me, needle paused. “Oh. Well. That’s nice.” She starts the needle up again. “Is that the fellow from yesterday?”
“Yeah. I mean, yes.”
A mild smile crosses her lips. “I’m glad, you know. Making friends.”
“Yea—yes. Sure.” I sit, my knee bouncing with nerves.
“What’s he like?” she asks, her attention on the pattern she’s making. It looks like a goose in a dress with a bonnet.
“Huh?”
“Your friend. What’s he like?”
“I don’t know. He rides a motorcycle.”
“Oh, that’s who that is.” She pulls a stitch out of the beak. “I wondered, you know. I hear it all the time but wasn’t sure who it belonged to. And I suppose it would be someone in that building.”
I look down at what I’m wearing and consider changing clothes again.
He seemed to think what I wore yesterday was odd, when I thought I looked pretty swell honestly, so today I’ve got on one of my button-ups, short-sleeved, and my blue jeans.
At first I tucked the shirt in, then untucked it, then repeated the pattern about five times before I settled on it just hanging out.
Because I could see him doing that. That’s what he’d do.
I look over at her. “What do you mean that building?”
She shrugs. “You can always tell someone by how they keep their house. That’s all I’m saying.” She glances over at me with a faint smile. “I’m sure you’re a good judge of character, though, and it’s good you’re getting out and about.”
“Is it?”
“Certainly, Paulie. It’s good to do things.”
“So I can just forget about before already and get out of your hair?”
Her head turns to me, and I feel a kick of defiance.
Followed swiftly by guilt. It isn’t her fault.
None of this is her fault. Almost two months ago, she stood between me and the cop in her chiffon nightgown, hairnet and everything, as if the cop’s questions might hurt me even more.
She had one big man-hand on my shoulder, reassuring, and she cleaned up my bloody lip and put a frozen chicken on my eye.
I was in no state to answer questions, so she was the barricade between me and the law.
And she didn’t have to do it. Not at all.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t know why I said that.”
Her face creases with hurt. “I don’t want you to forget anything. And you’re not in my hair.” She purses her lips. “I just wish that…” She shakes her head. “Never mind.” She stands up and goes into the kitchen. “I’m going to make some tea if you want any.”
I just wish that you’d forgive him.
She’s never said it, but I know she thinks it.
And it’s fine. I can hold this over my father’s head for as long as I want.
The phone calls from him aren’t going to convince me.
Oh, no. I already know there’s nothing he can do.
Nothing he can say. Lines were crossed. And the thing of it is, I’m not forgivable, and I know that I’m not, so I can hold my own absolution hostage for as long as I want.
If Asher had wanted to, he could have stormed over here and told Aunt Amy what I was up to.
And the very next phone call she would have made would have been to Pops, and I’d be out of here.
What else could she do? Her nephew’s a peeping Tom.
It would have been humiliating for her. But Asher didn’t, and now it’s like we’re pals hanging out.
And all because I couldn’t keep my eyes off him.
This can’t possibly be the consequences, can it?
Aunt Amy sits back down with her needlepoint while the kettle boils.
She settles into her chair, her fingernails freshly polished, because she always does them on Saturday nights.
She doesn’t ever have any callers, so why not?
I look down at my own fingernails and try to picture them Man-Killer Red.
She turns to me. “Do you —”
“I was spying on him.”
She stops the needle midpoint. “What?”
“I was spying on him. The guy in that building. His name is Asher Douglas. And he caught me. That’s why. That’s how we’re…friends.”
She looks at me, mouth open, false lashes blinking.
“I just thought…I was worried he’d tell you, and you’d make me leave. You’d want me to go.”
She sets her needlepoint in her lap.
“But he’s not mad. I mean, I guess he’s not. He invited me over. I washed his motorcycle. So, it’s like we’re even.”