-9-

 

“I think I might be sorta crazy... but’s it’s the GOOD kind, for once.”

--Lilah

 

Time kinda ticked by. Sunday dinner with the family was something I never missed, even if I really wanted to miss it from time to time. It had been five uneventful days since I ran away from Rex like an idiot. The only thing on my mind was curling up with a bottle of wine, but my sister had other ideas.

It was fashion show time.

“What do you think of this one?” Dezzy held up a yellow sun dress with spaghetti straps and a ruffle-thing that went around the middle. “Too much?”

I stared, squinted, and pushed my glasses back up on my nose. My white curl slid out from behind my ear and hung in front of my face. No bandana – I never wore one around my sister.

Sure, I was looking at the dress, but I wasn’t thinking about it. Just over a week since Rex and I first met in jail, a week and a day since I hung in a tree outside his house, and five days since I fell apart in his arms and ran away, scared.

And there wasn’t anything else I could think about except that weird, crazy, and somehow beautiful whirlwind. I wanted to make it better. I wanted to fix what I screwed up.

I am driving myself insane.

“I’m just a little confused,” I said. “I thought you said you didn’t have a date with anyone. What are you getting all dolled up for?”

“Dolled up?” she scrunched up her nose. “It’s called dressing nice, Lyle. I’m, you know, putting myself out there. You shouldn’t ever wear sweatpants out of the house. It’s like giving up on life.”

I looked down quickly to make sure she wasn’t making a pointed critique of my fashion sense. I admit, mine’s not exactly impeccable, and I’m absolutely not above wearing sweats most of the time, but at least that one time, I escaped with my dignity. “Little harsh, isn’t it?” I asked. “I mean, what are you doing? Going to some meat market club? Why are you dressing up?”

“Like I said, Lyle. I’m putting myself out there. I’m not talking about a boyfriend – I mean what if a talent scout for some pro soccer team is on campus? They look at you off the field too, you know. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with the right man seeing me, either.”

“Hold on,” I cut in. “Like two weeks ago you were going on and on about how you didn’t need a man in your life, and you just needed your sports and your classes and that was good enough. Also, didn’t you say you were on the lacrosse team?”

“They might be pro soccer scouts looking at lacrosse players?” she asked, cocking an eyebrow and giving in to a short little laugh.

For a few seconds, she turned from side to side, examining what the held-up skirt looked like. Out of nowhere, she whipped her shirt off over her head, bent down gracefully, unzipped her jeans and kicked them off.

“What? Since when do you get weirded out by me stripping in front of you?” Dezzy grinned, making like she was going to pull the dress on, but then she paused. “You helped dress me for school when I put my clothes on backwards in third grade because I couldn’t tell the difference.”

“Third grade?” I asked. “You sure that wasn’t junior year? I think... huh, well I think I remember it differently.”

She shot me a playful, nasty look and I noticed her eyes getting a little more golden than they normally are. Her teeth got a bit sharper and pointier, and she got a hell of a grin across her face. Standing there in her bra and panties, she was thin, lithe, but still muscled. “You’re all curves in the right places,” I said, “but I’m still a lot meaner than you, sis.”

She snarled a little and I couldn’t help laughing. It was fun sometimes when we got into it and ended up in a heap. I usually got her in a headlock, but she really could kick pretty hard. Still, I wasn’t in the mood for a championship bout just then.

“Ha, okay fine. You win. I don’t have the energy for an old fashioned sister-beating,” I said with a laugh. “Not today anyway. I happily admit that I didn’t have to dress you for high school. Very often anyway. But no, I just thought you were focusing all your energy on stuff that wasn’t boys.”

She wasn’t paying any attention – or so I thought. When I denied her the chance to have a wrestling match, which we still did after all these years, I’m not too proud to admit, Dezzy pulled the dress over her head. She shook her tan-tending-to-gold hair and let it settle down in a gentle sweep along her shoulders.

“You never know when someone’s going to appear out of nowhere and take your breath away,” she said, almost an afterthought.

That hit me like a whole sack of socks, all filled with quarters.

“You look like you just got hit by a truck,” she said, eyeing me in the reflection. “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” I said, too quickly to be believable. “I like it. The dress, I mean. Looks good with your hair.”

Dezzy eyed me sardonically. “You’re not telling me something. You always make that face when you’re lying.”

“What face?” I asked.

“The one where you pucker your lips, suck the bottom one between your teeth. Oh, and you also rub your left-hand fingers together and check to make sure your white hair is behind your... yep, just like that.”

She turned around to face me. “I thought we got past all that pretense and make-believe shit years ago, Lyle. Tell me what’s going on.”

I stared right in the middle of her forehead, wishing there was something to stare at instead of just a blank stretch of head interspersed with a fallen golden-tan curl.

“Nothing,” I intoned, doing my best not to sound like a soulless robot. Turns out, I didn’t do a very good job because she immediately pointed it out.

“You do that, too,” she said. “You act like you aren’t upset that I keep picking at whatever you’re obviously upset about and then you tell me ‘nothing’ in that ridiculous monotone. I don’t know why you try to get away with this all the time. So, what is it? A guy thing?”

I took a deep breath – was I going to admit it? Was I really going to admit that I had been in the world’s shortest whirlwind relationship that I got scared of and ran away from? And was I going to admit that it was with pretty much the best guy I ever met? How crazy could I be, anyway? Still, she probably would like the story about me stripping naked and breaking into Mac’s, so I decided to deflect her.

“I, uh, did something I haven’t done in a while,” I said. “Kinda on my mind.”

“Oh,” she replied flatly. “You finally got laid?”

My cheeks burned and my ears got that prickly feeling they get when someone a long ways off is talking about me. I can hear really well, but it seems like the only things I ever happen upon are people saying bad things about me. Almost like I’m wired to hear that kind of thing above all else.

“I... er...” I stammered.

She cocked an eyebrow. “Holy ass, Lyle, I didn’t expect to actually catch you that off guard. Must be true then, huh? How long’s it been? I bet it was like the top blowing off a smokestack, huh?”

“No!” I groaned, trying to keep myself from laughing.

The truth of course was that it probably would be a hell of a lot like an underground super-volcano exploding, forget about a smokestack.

My thoughts turned immediately back to Rex, and the way he entranced me with his eyes and the way his fingers curled against the back of my hand. It was too much to be real, too much fantasy to actually believe had happened... but then there it was – actually real.

“Not exactly,” I said. I hoped that would be enough, but of course it wasn’t. “Anyway, let’s talk about that professor of yours, huh? I hear—”

“Not exactly? What’s that supposed to mean? Like you got half undressed and started grinding and there she blew?”

I started giggling so hard it was a little embarrassing. “No!” I said, waving my hands in front of my face, sputtering in my incredibly enchanting way that I sputtered when I got laughing too hard and I was already flustered. “Nothing like that, really! I just, well I met someone, is all.”

Oops.

“Oh,” Dezzy said, obviously disappointed. She scratched behind her ear, the way she does when she suspects something. Or, well, the way she does all the time. Hyena and all, she can’t help the scratching. “That’s it? Jeez, sis, seems like everything that’s incredibly boring gets really exciting when you’re old.”

I shot her a nasty look.

“Oh all right, fine,” she said. “I guess that might’ve been a little too harsh even for me.”

It didn’t actually bother me, her calling me old, but anything to distract Dezzy from asking more questions about Rex was a good thing in my book.

“I’m just glad you found someone, I—”

“Yeah, hold that thought right there,” I cut in. “I said met, not found. Two totally different things. One of them indicates absolutely nothing involving a commitment in any shape, form or fashion. The other one doesn’t even connote that I know his phone number.”

Forget the whole hanging in a tree outside his house episode.

“Who uses phones anymore?” she said, turning back to the mirror and smoothing her dress, then hitching it up a little, showing off about an inch more of her admittedly gorgeous legs.

“He’s a bear,” I offered.

“Oh,” she said. “Yeah, okay, bears I can see using phones. Why do they always insist on living so far outside of town? They’re so weird and... what’s the word? Clannish? Pack...ish?”

I had to snicker at that, but when I did I thought about Rex sitting there, holding that picture of his cub, and of the delicate, unbelievably intricate lines that circled his eyes. “He has tattoos.”

“Hot ones? Or like bad ones of naked women?”

“Well,” I started and then trailed off for a second. “No naked women. I don’t know what they are exactly. You know how bears have their clan markings and things like that? It’s those, but I’ve never really looked at them up close until I saw his.”

She took a deep breath and looked pretty satisfied with her appearance. “Close up, huh? I’m happy for you. Glad you got a boyfriend.”

I could have kept fighting her, but she obviously was just baiting me. Then the reason for her eagerness occurred to me.

“Something’s bothering you isn’t it? You always get really excited about my life when there’s something you want to get off your chest. Am I right or am I right?”

“You’re right both ways,” she said. “That’s a trap.”

“Right, and now you’re deflecting. What is it? You can tell me anything, you know that,” I said. I shuffled over a couple feet on her bed and patted the mattress for her to sit down beside me.

We used to do this all the time, especially when she was just starting at Jamesburg High and I still lived at home. It was like the nightly therapy session – every night after dinner, we’d come up here and I’d sit on the end of her bed and listen to whatever had been bothering her.

And with Dezzy? There was always something that bothered her.

“It’s Winter,” she said. “And Mitzi too, but mostly Winter right now.”

The Gingers – yeah, that’s really their name, and no they aren’t actually ginger gingers – were the town unicorn family.

Yup.

Anyway, there was only one of them born every hundred years because of some ancient prophecy blah-blah-blah, and so then youngest Ginger was always really interesting. This one was a yoga instructor in training. Her mom, Rain Ginger, was the single, solitary yoga teacher in town, and someday Winter was going to take over the family business. She wears hemp pants with draw strings, and reminds everyone about recycling. She’s a really great, nice person, and she’s not too pushy with all of that kind of thing, but... there it is.

Also, she shoots rainbows out of her horn, which is to be expected, but when Winter gets bored, she does it for no good reason. Just sprouts a horn and starts firing off rainbows. Movie theaters are my favorite place where she puts on light shows, but she’s done it at just about every inappropriate juncture I can name.

Mitzi is... maybe even somehow more ridiculous than Winter Ginger. She’s... I’m just going to say it. Mitzi is a Pomeranian-shifting cheerleader.

Yeah, I’m just going to leave that right there.

“What’s up with them?” I asked.

“It’s this new professor, Graves, that I was telling you about? He’s... like I said, he’s really weird, but he’s got this way of turning his eyes on you that kinda... well, it makes you feel things. It’s hard to explain.”

“Didn’t you have sex-ed?” I asked, happy I got to get her back for her earlier jab. “We call those tingles and tight sensations, we call those ‘desire.’ I’m sorry to say that you might be... hot for teacher.”

“Shut up!” Dezzy said. “It isn’t me, really. But Winter and Mitzi... all they do is talk about him. I don’t see why, I mean he spends most of his time up in his office hunched over that weird book he has in a glass case. He is kinda hot, in a witchy-sorta way.”

“Don’t you mean warlocky? I mean, he’s a guy, right?”

Dezzy let out a long sigh. “But seriously, it’s weird the way they’re acting. I’ve never seen either of them get all worked up over someone before. Certainly not someone like Professor Graves.”

“Maybe it’s just youthful, I dunno, excitement? Like here’s this teacher who is young, sort of, and good looking.” I shrugged. “Seems pretty normal a thing to me.”

“Yeah well,” Dezzy said. “I get weird vibes from him. At least your boyfriend got out of jail. This guy? He’s got these eyes. I can’t explain it, but they’re just... they kinda mesmerize you.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Some guys are... wait a minute. What did you say? Got out of jail? What do you mean?”

My phone buzzed in my pocket, distracting me from pursuing that any further, but as I checked my email, she told me that it was just a guess – where else would I meet any men. That was great. Real great. But true enough.

I swung my feet out from underneath where I was sitting with them crossed under me and curled my toes into the carpet. “I guess I better get out of here,” I said. “Getting late. Gotta get some painting time in.”

“Late?” Dezzy said with a snort. “It’s like half past nine. We just ate. And since when do you paint at night? What the hell do you have to do... oh. Oh,” she had that tone in her voice that said she was about to get cute with me. “You have a date don’t you?”

“Shit,” I said. “If only. No, I just have some stuff to do before I go to bed. And if I’m going to pick you three up tomorrow I gotta get some sleep. By the way, when is one of you getting a car? I hope you’re not going to use me as a chauffeur for the rest of the year.”

Dezzy was just sitting there shaking her head. “You just talked me in a circle that made me so dizzy I kinda think I’m going to fall over. The car, uh, yeah no it should be mostly fine. Winter’s going to borrow her parent’s pedal car starting next week, so we’ll take that instead.”

“Oh, okay,” I said, ignoring the rest. I hopped up off the bed and grabbed my purse, my keys, and yanked the bandana out of my back pocket in a quick pirouette. “See ya!”

“Yeah,” I heard her saying in a confused voice as I trotted down the stairs. “See ya.”

I was halfway to the car by the time I realized my phone buzzed a second time, and halfway home before I bothered to check the message.

Sitting at a red light at the intersection of Maple and Bluff, across the street from the courthouse, I was a little afraid the number – which I didn’t recognize – was going to be Cooper or someone asking me to come in to work.

It... wasn’t.

“This you?” the message read.

No clue who it was, but somehow, deep down in my stomach, I knew. At least, my stomach knew, because I felt like I was going to either throw up or do a dance.

“Where can I meet you? Or... stop me if this is too much or too weird or too soon. I’m not like this normally.”

Still, coulda been anyone. Sure, that’s what I told myself. Wasn’t definitely Rex.

“I owe you for those burgers though, and a Lee always pays his debts.”

“Freaking out,” I announced to the inside of my Hyundai. “Freaking the hell out right now.”

Diane Rehm kept talking about California fiscal policy like she hadn’t even heard me through the radio.

“Freaking out, freaking out,” I repeated like it was a mantra. “What... how... how did he get my number? I can’t...”

“If you say stop,” the next text came in. “I’ll stop now. I can’t believe I’m saying this, because I want to see you so badly, but... it’s up to you.”

And just like that, they stopped.

My heart didn’t though. It was pounding a thousand miles an hour, like I’d been doing a nine-hill run on the treadmill for the last hour and a half. Sweat beaded up on the sides of my face. It was completely ridiculous, completely stupid, and... completely me.

The light had turned green and red again about four times since I bothered to look up again. My mouth hung open in a very undignified gawking sort of way.

Despite my best effort, I was pushing the buttons to reply.

“No,” I typed. “I was hoping you’d call.”

Three seconds later, I typed, “I mean text. Or, you know, whatever.”

I spent a week and a half hoping he’d call me so I wouldn’t have to brave my own feelings. And here he was, saving me from myself.

“Can I see you again? Or is it too soon?” his words appeared on the screen and I could hear his voice.

“No,” I texted. “I mean about it being too soon. Yes to the other part. Give me a few, I’ll text soon.”

Yep, looking down at the string of half-coherent messages I’d sent, it was plain as day, as clear as the sky.

I hadn’t just fallen for this guy, I’d gone completely stupid.

Sitting in the front seat of my Hyundai, I started to tap out my next message. “Meet me in thirty?”

I gulped, trying to force myself not to panic. Hastily, I added: “I mean if that’s okay. I don’t want to... do you want to go somewhere besides my house? I’m not all that great at this.”

 

*

 

Home and alone, I threw on the old shirt and the pair of jeans I always wore when I painted. If I was going to have to wait for Rex to say something back to my string of awkward, badly worded text messages that meant I wasn’t going to sleep.

If I wasn’t going to bed, I thought, I may as well get some work done. Dezzy’s joke about my sexual release being akin to an exploding factory reverberated in my mind as I swirled brown, yellow and a dab of white together. I wasn’t even sure what I was making, but I didn’t bother to think about it much, either.

I’ve always been a planner; often to the point of making myself a little crazy with my minutely detailed schedules and routines. It used to drive my parents crazy, which is funny when a cop doesn’t want a strict routine. It drove Dezzy crazy too, but then, she’s always been the free spirit between the two of us – again, which is funny, as I’m the one who could never stop painting or drawing or doing origami for long enough to study math lessons, and she’s the one who’s going to end up an engineer.

The bandana I had stuck in my pocket was just perfect to dab accidental blobs of paint off the canvas when dipped in a little cleaner. It was also good for getting really cool smears. I plopped a dollop of my golden-tan mixture down, and then used the corner of my bandana to work it into a circle. On top of that, I added a drop of black.

It struck me that he hadn’t ever responded to my last message, but then again, there really wasn’t much to say. I guess it was kind of up to me to do the inviting.

My phone buzzed, and my heart skipped a beat. I only bothered to look at it long enough to see it wasn’t a certain bear, and then I went back to my canvas.

Gliding along the canvas, apparently on its own accord, my brush left a loping line, and then another on the other side.

For a time, I was lost in my own head. I get into this kind of spaced-out Zen state when I paint, and that’s exactly why I paint. It’s what I’m supposed to be doing, what my soul wants me to do. Some people account, some people doctor, some people police. Me? I paint.

I took a deep breath and then dabbed another line, smudging it to blend two colors into one. Finally, I stepped back from the easel and set my paint board down. I grabbed the cup of wine I poured when I walked in the front door and then promptly forgot in the heat of the moment.

The sour, sweet liquid worked down my tongue and then spread warmth as it ran down my throat. “God I needed that,” I told my fake Van Gogh wall hanging. The second drink was longer, and had a couple of swallows involved.

As soon as I realized that an entire glass of wine had magically vanished – don’t ask me how – my phone buzzed again, startling me.

I swabbed my paint-covered index finger on my pocket bandana and swiped the screen, then almost choked on the drink I hadn’t yet swallowed.

“Wait, where IS there” he texted. I sent him my address before I really got it into my head what was happening.

My throat pretty much turned into a vice. I hardly even knew who I had turned into. I’m normally not like a pent-up prude, or a weird celibate or something – although my sister wasn’t exactly wrong about my recent dry streak.

I stumbled over one of my easel’s legs as I tried to get a grip on myself. Without even thinking about it, I shot a hand out to balance myself. Only, there wasn’t anything to balance on.

My feet went over my head, somehow, and then my feet hit the ground – only my head was between them. And then, somehow I managed to flop myself over in mid-air, catch myself on a hand I forgot I stuck out.

But then, just as I thought my micro-crisis was over, I happened to look toward my couch. The paint board. It was teetering, then tottering, and I did not want to pay that clean-up bill.

Lunging, I got my hand underneath the circular plate with about a third of a second to spare. My hand was covered in a gorgeous smear of all sorts of colors rolled into one, but at least I saved the carpet – and my wallet – from all that mess.

“Whew,” I gasped, taking a breath to steady myself and then standing up. “That was... stupid.”

I adjusted my shirt, making sure everything was in place. Luckily I remembered not to do anything with my hair until all the wet paint was off my hands. Just about then, I finally looked at what I’d painted from more than a couple feet away. Looking at it all at once, I was surprised, to say the very least.

“I painted you?” I asked the painting.

Unsurprisingly, the brooding, dark-eyed image I’d painted of Rex just stared back. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d gone at a painting with such single-minded ferocity.

 

Then again, I’m not sure if I ever knew such intense desire, such unquenchable longing, as I had the first time I laid eyes on Rex.

I had to see him. I had to get over my own ridiculous fear and angst and whatever else it was.

And then I realized there was something else behind my nervousness. Hope, call it, or maybe anxious excitement. Whatever it was, the only cure was Rex Lee.