Michael folded the rug over and pushed it up against the door. He had the bed already made, the pillows shaped like a body under the quilt. He came back and got up on the bed and carefully opened his window. It didn’t make any noise. He held still and listened. He didn’t hear anything.
He stepped up on the bed, then slid his body out the opening. Turning back around, he eased the window down, and listened.
Crickets droned from somewhere in the backyard. He could smell his mother’s jasmine. His Ford sat mute next to his mom’s vw and his dad’s Chevy.
He walked to the bicycle leaning against the carport post and pushed it down the driveway and walked it, going left up the nighttime street.
The houses along both sides of the street were all dark with only the Keplar’s bedroom lights on.
Viola Keplar was his mom’s best friend and very weird.
One afternoon she had come out of her house in a bathrobe just as Michael was coming home from school. As he got out of his car she called him over and asked him what she should do about her husband. Michael had said, “Excuse me?” She said, “I was told you had the highest IQ in the high school so I thought maybe you could help me figure out what to do.”
Her bathrobe had been partially open and he saw a rounded curve of her breast that was definitely bigger than Beverly’s, and he didn’t know what she wanted, so he said, “I don’t know how I could help you,” and thinking about it now he thought about Gunderson whose thirty-year-old neighbor was sleeping with him every noon hour, or so Gunner said, which was at least partially true, true that she was sleeping with Gunner, but was that what Vi Keplar had in mind? And the real truth was that he and Beverly had not really had sex, had sexual intercourse, and Vi Keplar scared him.
Michael wondered what Vi Keplar was doing behind that lighted window. Don Keplar’s car was home. He was probably in the bedroom with her. Of course he was.
Then Michael was past their house, and he got on the bike and began riding down Winnebago toward Modoc and on Modoc turned left toward town. Beverly was babysitting the Monahan kids on Cherokee Street and by going down Modoc at this time of night there was far less chance of anyone seeing him.
So far there had been no cars. He looked at his watch again. Ten minutes past one. The night air was cool. The bike moved silently. Headlights appeared down the street and Michael quickly turned up a driveway and got off by the parked car and waited until the car passed by. A dog started barking two houses over.
Michael got back on the bike and rode it out onto the street and headed toward Cherokee. Beverly’s dad, Glenn, was known to drive by and check on her when she was babysitting, sometimes sitting inside his big Buick down the street, watching. The sound of the barking faded away. Then Michael was turning left along Cherokee and he didn’t see any cars parked where they shouldn’t be. The Monahans had a nice cat that Michael liked. The cat was very friendly to Michael and would always appear when Michael showed up. It was a gray-and-black-striped cat with yellow eyes and would arch its back when Michael rubbed the fur on top of its head right above its eyes. He wondered if it would show up tonight.
Michael coasted up the driveway, dismounted, and walked the bike into the shadows at the back of the house and placed the bike there.
He heard the cat purring at his feet and he reached down and picked her up. She lifted easily, and he cradled her with his left arm crossed along his stomach and rubbed her head and neck with his right hand walking her along the back of the house to the sliding glass doors that opened onto the brick patio and the backyard.
The cat was purring heavily when Beverly came to the door and opened it.
“I didn’t think you were coming,” she said.
“I had to make sure that my folks were asleep.”
“Well, it’s really late,” she said, “and I don’t know what time they’re coming home. They could be here any minute.”
“I love this cat,” Michael said. He put the cat down.
Beverly took his hand and led him through the kitchen into the living room.
“What do you want to do? Should we watch TV?”
“I don’t know,” Michael said. “What were you doing before I arrived?”
“Sleeping,” Beverly said. “I tried staying awake, but I fell asleep. I don’t know what woke me up.”
“Maybe it was the cat,” Michael said. “When did you let her out?”
“Just before I went to sleep, I guess.”
“C’mere,” Michael said, and he put his arms around her and she stepped into them and put her head on his chest, and then turned her face up for a kiss. It was a good, long kiss with his tongue going into her mouth and her lips firm and wet against his, and he felt her tongue going into his mouth and he started getting really excited and he felt himself getting hard and they sat down on the couch and the cat jumped up on the arm of the couch and Michael felt it brush itself against the back of his neck and then it was gone and his hands were up inside Beverly’s shirt and he was cupping her breasts and getting even more excited, girls were so wonderful and so strange, how they were built, and how they felt and tasted and smelled, so different, and yet so familiar, and she helped him undo her brassiere, and lifted her shirt and pulled her bra off and offered her left breast to him while she guided his mouth to it with her fingers pulling his head lightly down to it and then it was in his mouth and he thought he was going to come and he pulled back.
“What’s wrong?” she said.
“Nothing,” Michael said. “Let me just take a minute.”
“No!” she laughed, and she pulled him to her again and Michael said, “No, wait for a minute,” and he reached over and turned the floor lamp off so the only light in the room was coming from the light left on in the kitchen, and this time when he put his mouth on her breast he unsnapped his jeans and let his cock come out and she put her hand on it and touched it and slowly pulled on it and he lifted her skirt up and pulled her underwear down and she laid back on the couch and let him pull the underwear off along both legs over her shoes and she kept holding on to him and pulled on him and then he was lying on top of her and slowly rubbing himself back and forth on her and they were kissing and he felt something stopping him and she winced and he pushed again and said, “Am I in?” And Beverly said, “No, I don’t think so.”
“No?”
“Maybe,” Beverly said. “I don’t know. I don’t think so, but I’m not sure.”
“I’ll go slow,” Michael said.
“I don’t know. Maybe we shouldn’t,” she said.
Michael had not yet ever been inside a girl, and this would be the first time for Beverly, too, and he lay still against her for a moment in the dark, feeling her heart beating and her breathing, and then he heard the cat meow and meow again and then car headlights swept into the driveway outside and Beverly said, “Oh, my God!” and was pushing him off, and Michael said, “Jesus!” and she was sitting up and then scrambling on the floor for her underwear and he grabbed his jeans, pulling them up, and she said, “Hurry, Michael, hurry! Go out the back. They’ll come in the front door and it’s locked.”
Michael was already moving, and going into the kitchen he saw the car lights go out and heard the car door open and slam shut and he waited by the back door until he heard the other car door open and shut with the footsteps going away on the concrete toward the front of the house.
As he slid the door open the cat came outside with him and he silently tried to put her back inside but she wouldn’t go. He slid the door closed and waited. The cat was rubbing herself back and forth on his leg and he heard them go inside the house and saw the light from the living room go on and he waited another moment, his heart still beating really fast, and whispered, “I’ve got to go,” to the cat.
He got the bike and wheeled it down the side of the house along the Monahan’s Chrysler and got on and started pedaling back up the street.
The cat, running on the side of the street along the other houses, darting in and out among the shrubbery, followed him for several blocks and then she was gone.
Michael was pedaling now as fast as he could get the bike to go. Everything was dark out and he felt safe. His only worry now was getting home unseen, then getting inside without waking anyone. But what if his mom had already come in to check on him and had discovered the pillows under the covers? Or his dad had?
Well, he would know in a few minutes. He really hoped they hadn’t.
He was sweating under his arms and sweat broke out on his forehead now, and he pushed hard, the bike flying, and by Paul Hayes’s house the automatic lawn sprinklers went on, shooting spray out across the grass and into the street. Michael rode through the showers, the little drops hitting his face and neck and arms, and then he came off Modoc and turned down Winnebago, all the lights of the houses still out except for the Keplar’s bedroom window, and then it went out just as Michael approached, and he coasted on the bike, not wanting them to hear him.
Then, for some reason, not knowing why he was doing it, he let the bike slow, and dropped it on the grass right by the curb and walked up to the bedroom window.
There was a curtain across it, and stepping up to the sill he pressed his ear to the glass and tried to listen. Someone was saying something, but it was too hard to hear, and then there was nothing, and then, just as Michael started to step back, he heard Don Keplar say, “Say I am fucking. Say it. Say I am fucking.” And then Vi Keplar said, “I am fucking.”
“Say it again,” Don Keplar said.
“I am fucking,” Vi Keplar said. Her voice had gasps of air in it.
Michael was stunned.
He pulled away from the glass. He couldn’t believe it. He pressed his ear against the glass again. This time there was nothing. He couldn’t hear anything. He stayed there a moment longer. Then he turned and banged into a garbage can.
Michael took off out onto the lawn, grabbed up his bike and ran across the street with it. Moving into the carport he saw his dad’s Chevy was gone. Oh, Jesus, he thought, he’s gone out to look for me.
A car went by on the street, headlights flaring. It was a black four-door Oldsmobile, not anyone’s car he knew. The street went quiet, the sound of the car vanishing. Michael laid the bike up against the post, then walked around back to his window. He waited and listened. The crickets were working. The smell of jasmine was strong. He slid the window up. The rug was still pushed up against the door. No one had looked in, thank God.
He boosted himself up and slid in on his stomach and got down on the bed and waited until his breathing calmed down. Where had his dad gone? He undressed and tossed his clothes on the floor and got into bed and lay there for quite a while, thinking about his dad and how there was no way he would know that he, Michael, had gone out, and about Beverly and what she must have said, if she had got caught or not, and then about Vi Keplar and Don Keplar and how somehow that made it all sound dirty, really dirty, and how with Beverly it didn’t feel like that at all, and if he and Beverly had really done it yet, had really achieved the sensation of having arrived on the planet, as Gunner had put it, and he was really glad he really didn’t know Vi Keplar and how she was, not at all, and that Beverly was going to be babysitting at the Monahan’s for at least two more nights this week since both of the Monahans were working out at the county fair, and that he would have to sneak out of the house much earlier than he had tonight. He could do that. He knew he would do that.
Then it was late in the morning, and when he got up and went into the kitchen his mom was there mixing up pancake batter, and she said, “Good morning, sleepyhead.”
“Where’s Dad?” Michael said.
“I don’t know,” his mom said. “You want some pancakes?”
“Sure.”
“Would you get out the milk? I need a little more here.”
Michael went over to the refrigerator and took out the milk.
“You know what, Mom?” Michael said. “I’d like to get a cat.”
“A cat?”
“Yes.”
“What would you do with a cat? You’re going off to college soon enough. Who would take care of it then, me? No, thank you.”
“Cats take care of themselves.”
“Oh, brother,” his mom said.
The phone rang and his mom answered it.
Michael brought the milk over to the counter and set it down next to the bowl. His mom was listening on the phone.
“Really! That’s terrible!” she said. She listened for a few moments, then said, “No, come on over. I really want to hear this.”
She hung up the phone.
“Who was that?” Michael said.
“Vi. She’s coming over for a coffee. They had a prowler last night.”
She picked up the milk and poured a little into the bowl.
“They did?” Michael said.
“I guess so. Don heard something outside and went out to look and he saw a car going away down the street.”
“What kind of car?”
“I don’t know. She said a black car.”
“That’s scary,” Michael said.
“You just never know,” his mom said, stirring the batter.
“You know what, Mom?” Michael said. “I’m going to skip breakfast. I’ve got to get going.”
“Over to Gunner’s. We’re going over to Richland today to look at some cars.”
“What’s wrong with the car you’ve got?”
“Nothing’s wrong with the car I’ve got. We just like to look at cars.”
“Well, you should wait and hear what Vi has to say. If she describes the car Don saw maybe you’ll know whose it is.”
“I don’t think so, Mom. If this is about the pancakes, it’s all right. I’m just not hungry. Thank you anyway. I’ll let you make them for me tomorrow.”
“Well, aren’t I the lucky one,” his mother said with a laugh. “Go on. Get out of here.”
Michael turned to go.
“About the cat,” his mother said. “You’ll have to ask your father.”
“He won’t care,” Michael said. “He’s never here.”
He hadn’t been looking at his mom when he said this and now as he did, he saw her face had broken. A bad feeling, blinding him to the space around them, flooded out into the room, his mother standing there in the middle of the darkness of it.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” Michael said.
“You don’t know how hard it is,” his mother said. “You don’t know how hard I try to keep things the same for you. Things aren’t the same. I can’t do it anymore.”
She broke out crying.
“I am so sorry, Mom.” He was stepping to her.
“Go on. Get out of here,” his mother said. “I need to compose myself before Vi gets here. If you want a cat you should get one. Who am I to say you shouldn’t?”
“Jeez, Mom,” Michael said. “I am really sorry. Come here.”
Michael put his arms around his mom. Her shoulders felt so thin.
Chimes rang through the house.
“That’s Vi,” his mom said.
“What am I going to do?” his mom said.
“I don’t know,” Michael said.