SHE TOLD ME BEFORE we done it, after it was over she couldn’t see me for a few days. Her parents and the cops crawling all over her and all. So at first I just wait. The next day, on account of all the time she’d been spending at the school, they have it on the announcements that Mrs. Maretto’s husband died, and they do this minute of silence where everybody’s supposed to be thinking about Mrs., Maretto. Yeah, well I was thinking about Mrs. Maretto all right. But maybe not like they meant.
Four, five days later, when I still ain’t heard a peep out of her, I’m getting anxious. She hasn’t come round or nothing, which I can understand, but still, you got to think she’s got a little time by now to at least contact me. No dice.
Lydia goes to the memorial service. Not me, that would freak me out. So I ask Lydia would she deliver a message to Mrs. Maretto for me. I want to see her. We wouldn’t have to do it or nothing. I just got to see her.
Lydia said Suzanne didn’t say nothing when she told her that. It was like Lydia was invisible. “She’s probably still pretty shook up, Jimmy,” Lydia tells me. “Her being a widow all of a sudden.”
The next week I go over to her parents’ house where I hear she’s been staying, knock at the door. “I got to see you,” I say. “I just can’t wait one more day.”
She laughs. “Oh yeah?” she says. “Why? What do you think would happen if you did?”
I’d bust. I’d yell and scream. Fuck, I don’t know. Only I got to touch her skin. Got to put my face in her hair. Got to climb on top of her and ball her.
“Well,” she says. “I been thinking. That it’s not such a great idea. Seeing you. Considering,” she says.
“Considering what?” I say. I’m whispering, but I want to scream.
“Considering you’re sixteen and I’m twenty-five. Considering the last book you read was the owner’s manual to a Harley-Davidson and the last time you took a shower was probably last Saturday. Considering I’m planning on taking an intensive seminar in broadcast technique this summer in California. I mean what did you think?” she says. “Did you picture us going out to dinner with my folks or something? Did you imagine taking me into the city to a Phil Collins concert or out to dinner at a nice restaurant? Get real.”
“What about what happened?” I says. “What was all that about? I thought the whole point was so we could be together.”
“Well sure,” she says. “Only it didn’t work out. Things change. That’s the nature of life.”
“So what am I supposed to do now?” I ask her.
“That’s not my problem,” she says. “I’m not your mother.”