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Warren is waiting for me. Actually waiting for me when I step out from the store and head toward my bike. A spark of electricity shoots through me, and all the hairs on my arms rise to stand. “Warren.” I let his name roll off of my tongue in a long vowel.
“Hey, Alison,” he says, a little sheepish, a little young for his age.
“So are we on a four-week schedule, or is it five?” I smile, feeling powerful under his gaze. I am eating well. I am biking, I am more physically fit than I have ever been. Even my hair looks better than it ever has before, with highlights from the sun making it copper.
He laughs, blowing a puff of air through his nose. “I hear ya.”
“Where have you been?” It’s a serious question, but I dress it in a frivolous coat.
“Can I take you out?”
“I don’t know. Are you going to disappear tomorrow?”
“Maybe,” he says, sauntering closer to me. I catch the scent of him, warm male flesh and the remains of his last smoked cigarette. It is an intoxicating scent, and my knees feel weak. His lips are as red as I remember, as I play them in my imagination at night, when I am alone in my rose splattered room remembering all the pieces of my life. Last Christmas when I met him, when we kissed, still holds sway, even though it draws up other emotions that are very difficult to tag and place in an appropriate box. I don’t think about the things that happened that night, afterward, the things that I don’t remember anyway. His lips on mine, that happened. His hand on the back of my neck, drawing me close, that happened. Him stringing Christmas lights through the tree at the corner of the trailer to make me smile, to give me a Christmas, that happened. Nothing else happened.
Because he is here, and because all my memories of that time are getting less intense, I let it be. I don’t pick at that little scab. I can’t change it. I can’t fix it. If I leave it alone long enough, maybe it will scar over and stop festering, stop being a wound. As long as Cal is gone, it’s like it never happened. Nobody else knows.
“Well, if you’re going to just disappear on me, I don’t know that my heart can handle it.” I do a little attempt of a Southern accent, my best Scarlett O’Hara from Gone with the Wind, which I am reading for the first time. She is such a bitch and so freaking strong. That’s what I want to be. Strong and independent.
“Why don’t you come with me?” His arm comes around my waist, and I let him pull me in, my body against his body. Nobody else could do this. If Jay or Tommy or even Dylan touched me like this, I would pull away, I would shove back, but Warren touches me and my body says touch me more. His lips brush over my ear, and I feel my spine caving backward. The door to the store opens, and we shift, back upright, him taking a small step away.
“You all right, Alison?” Rob asks, stepping out from the store. He is a big lumberjack of a man who is married to mom’s friend, Faye.
I nod, pushing a strand of hair behind my ear. “I’m fine, Rob. You know Warren?”
“Hey, man,” Warren says, putting out a hand to shake Rob’s. Rob nods, shakes his hand. My eyes move from one man to the other, taking in the complete oddness of the exchange. Rob holds Warren’s hand maybe a second longer than normal, in a grip that is maybe tighter than necessary, and they look at each other, taking a measure. This is what it would have been like to have a father. The thought rushes through my mind, and my stomach does a little flip.
“Hey,” Rob says, “Warren.” Those are the words he says, but what he means is, I know your name, I know where you live, and I will harm you if you harm her. Even I can hear the message telegraphing out of him. It makes me want to hug him. It makes me want to fly. The two men release each other, and Rob heads back into the store.
“That was intense,” Warren says, and I giggle.
“That was intense,” I agree and edge close, trying to get back to where we were before Rob came out, but he steps back and holds me at arm’s length.
“So let’s go out sometime,” he says, letting his eyes slide down the street, looking strange and uncomfortable.
“Okay,” I say. “When?”
“I’m on the route tonight, but tomorrow? Where can I pick you up?” Warren does a vending machine route three or four nights a week for a company called Vendor Tender.
“How about here?” I don’t want him to come to Leslie’s, don’t want to mesh my two lives into one. I know that Leslie and Mr. McGill would not approve of Warren, with his tattoos and eyebrow piercing and his clearly-over-twenty-one age.
“Seven?” he asks.
“Seven,” I say and lean forward, hoping he’ll draw me close again, but he doesn’t. He squeezes my hand, giving me a wink and a sideways smile. He nods toward the store, and when I glance around, I see Rob standing large and imposing in the front window, his eyes fixed on us. He raises a hand to wave at me. Telling me without saying a word, that, yes, he is watching me. I roll my eyes, but feel a happy little flutter in my chest for Rob trying to take care of me. “He’s okay,” I say.
“Yeah,” Warren says in a maybe-so-but-I-don’t-want-see-him-when-he’s-not sort of way. “See you tomorrow?” I nod, and he goes back to his car and slides in, never taking his eyes off of me.
Rob is waiting for me when I step back through the door. “How old is that boy?” he asks, and I laugh.
“I don’t know.”
“He’s too old for you,” Rob says, setting his jaw, causing his beard to jut forward and he looks more lumberjack than ever before. I almost laugh again.
“He’s a nice guy, Rob.”
“Uh-huh,” he says, adding, “there are no nice guys.”
“You’re a nice guy. Mr. Billups is a nice guy.”
“No. We’re not nice guys. We’re just old.” He takes my teasing, but a serious look hangs in his eyes. “You be careful if you’re going to be hanging with people like him.”
It echoes through my head, and my mind falls back to the night I overheard Dylan’s parents warning him to not love me, “People who come from that repeat it. It’s what they know.” That was his mother, Vaude, talking about my mother. Talking about me. His mother, who I thought loved me, or at least liked me. Really they were just keeping the enemy close.
“He’s not like you think,” I say, a hard edge coming into my voice. I won’t do what Dylan did when his family put me down and told him to be careful about getting involved with me. He had said “It’s not like we are dating. She’s just a friend. It’s just that her life is so messed up.” As if we hadn’t nearly been caught, just twenty minutes before, with his hands inside my clothes and making out like we couldn’t let each other go. We sure did, though, didn’t we? We let each other go. He still doesn’t know that I heard him. I never told him, I never confronted him, or them. I just let them put me in my place and slunk back into my mud puddle. So, I stand up for Warren. “He’s a good guy.” Proud to be the kind of person who will stand up for somebody, even though I am not too sure that Warren is, necessarily, a good guy.
“You’re a big girl, Al. I get that. I’m just worried about you. The choices you make are going to shape your life. For the first time, you’re not stuck by somebody else’s mistakes. From here on out, it’s on you.”
This doesn’t sink in, doesn’t resonate with me. I’m not ready for a big life lesson tonight, with my blood still humming from that kiss out on the street. I feel like a different person, with all the options of food in Leslie’s fridge and the washing machine that leaves my clothes clean without adding a tang of “dingy.” I have friends that are just normal kids who like me because they like me, not because they feel sorry for me. I’ve talked to Leslie already about what I need to do to get emancipated, and she helped me sign up for a three-week course that will get me my GED. My life is on track. I am going somewhere, and it isn’t back to that shitty high school.