Chapter Eleven

She finally called, around five o'clock.

"I was going to call you earlier, but I kind of got sidetracked."

Raymond could hear giggling in the background. "Who's with you?" he asked.

"Some people from the wedding. A bridesmaid and one of the grooms-people, and the maid of honor and her husband." More giggles. One of the girls shrieked like she'd been goosed.

Raymond could hear she was having a good time. "Well, if you don't really want to do anything tonight, that's fine." Maybe there was something on TV.

"What are you talking about?" She suddenly sounded serious—her are-we-an-item voice. "What are you thinking, Raymond?"

He sat down on a kitchen stool and hoisted his feet onto the upper rung. "Okay," he said, pushing his hair back. "You want to do something tonight?"

"Sure. What?"

"I don't know," he told her. "What's there to do?"

Suddenly the gushing Susan returned. "I was hoping you'd ask. Kiersten and Jeff, Lynn and what's-his-name have to—"

"Carl!" screamed somebody from the background.

"Lynn and Carl have to go back to Oregon, of all places, tomorrow at noon. Anyway, I thought a beach bonfire was in order."

"Sounds great."

"You bet your ass." She paused, and the giggling continued in the background. "You don't, by any chance, have a guitar, do you?"

"No."

"Do you know somebody who has one?"

"No."

"Too bad."

"Why?"

"Come on! You can't have a beach bonfire without somebody dragging out a guitar. Where've you been?"

"Arizona."

She laughed out loud, a short burst. "Almost as bad as Oregon. This is true. Well, the search here is going on for the elusive six-stringed instrument, so I'll be off. Can you be here at eight-thirty?"

"I can try."

"Great! Uh, wait a second."

There was a pause, and Raymond would have figured she'd hung up on her end, except for Kiersten and Jeff and Lynn and Carl in the background. Then Susan returned, with her serious voice again. "You want to hear something kind of silly?"

"Sure."

Her voice was quiet, maybe so the others wouldn't hear. "I missed you yesterday. Now, I mean, isn't that kind of silly?"

He smiled. "I don't think so."

"I'll see you at eight-thirty?"

"You bet your ass."

She laughed again, and hung up. Raymond moved his feet down to the bottom rung and sat there thinking, Danny came in, opened the refrigerator and stood in front of it as it hummed and poured out cold air. He said something Raymond didn't catch.

"What was that, Danny?"

"You bet your ass." He scooped out a handful of Jell-o and wandered into his room.

"Don't say that," Raymond called after him.

* * *

Raymond shoved Julie's card in his back pocket on his way out the door. He knew she'd get a kick out of the bug-eyed cat. When he got to Susan's house, she was waiting for him on the steps. She met him as he got out of the car, and hugged him hard, squeezing his ribs together. He groaned and she backed off.

"Your ribs, still?" Looking worried, she reached over and brushed his hair out of his face.

He nodded, trying to catch his breath. His lungs ached.

"You really should see a doctor about that. It's dangerous, you know."

Raymond half-smiled. "What's he going to do, put my chest in a cast?"

"It's been two weeks."

"I'll probably survive two more."

She rolled her eyes, then took him by the hand and led him around the house. They all introduced each other, shaking hands all around. Carl and Lynn, Jeff and Kiersten—Raymond surprised himself with the thought that Susan's friends were so haole. The way they looked and talked seemed so oddly foreign to Raymond that he had to take a second and remind himself that he was haole too. Okay, he allowed, not quite as haole as these four. Any more, that is.

They had a pile of driftwood laid out in the sand below the terrace. One of the guys lit the newspaper crumples and they waited for the fire to grow. The others talked, while Raymond told Susan about the bowling and the Bloods and Super-PJ to the rescue. She nodded as he told the story, her grin widening as he went.

"Told you!" she said when he'd finally finished.

"How did I know you were going to say that?"

"Can you blame me?"

"Not really."

She laughed quietly to herself. "It's kind of funny, if you think about it. Because you went along so you could protect your sister from him. Right?"

"Thanks for pointing that out for me."

They hadn't, in the end, managed to find a guitar, so after roasting marshmallows, the fire burned down with the rushing of the waves as its only accompaniment. Nobody said much. Occasionally partners whispered to partners, but there was no conversation, just the music and the elemental sounds of the waves and the wind and the fire. Eventually the group broke up and the couples turned inward. Lynn and Carl gathered up their blanket, strolled down the beach and disappeared, becoming a faint horizontal hump in the sand. Jeff and Kiersten increased their nuzzling, and Susan and Raymond moved up to the grassy terrace. This time he sat and she put her head in his lap. He ran his fingers through her hair, the way Julie had liked.

"Cold?" he asked her after a while.

"A little." She had on one of her bikinis and a long tee-shirt. He shifted a little so he was between her and the wind, and she pulled her legs in close to her. He rested his hand on her hip, his arm along the ridge of her thigh.

After a time, Raymond said, simply, "I got a letter from Julie yesterday."

Susan waited a moment to respond. "Oh?"

He nodded, looking down at her. "Well, a card, anyway. I brought it with me, in case you were interested."

"Should I be?"

A large wave broke; they felt the mist. "Not really."

"I don't want to move. Paraphrase."

"Actually, I mostly just thought you'd get a kick out of the card itself."

"Let me guess. Some sort of little 'Precious Moments' wench with bug-eyed unicorns and rainbows?"

"Well, yeah, only with cats."

"And inside?"

"Basically she said I'm a terrible person for not answering her calls and that she doesn't love me and never did."

"Funny, that's not the impression I got."

"She's just mad at me."

Susan took his hand with both of hers and held it to her belly. He could feel her stomach expand and contract with her breathing. Her legs were warm.

"She's just a sophomore—only fifteen."

"You're just a junior." Susan laughed. "You're only … what?"

"I'm almost seventeen."

She chuckled again, and they fell silent for a space. Then, suddenly, she sat up and turned to him. "Do you love her?" She sat slightly away from him, waiting for him to answer her, tiny upside-down moons in her eyes.

"No," he said.

"Did you ever love her?"

"No." He didn't need to think about it. "I'm not even sure somebody our age can love, anyway."

She digested that, still looking at him. "Then why?" she asked.

"Why, what?"

"Why, everything?"

He sighed carefully and looked out at the water, feeling awkward in Susan's stare, like she was accusing him of something he should feel guilty about. "I don't know," he told her, scrambling for an answer. "Simple high school necessity—you know? Someone to be with. Something to do."

"Something to do? Is that all I am?"

He looked back at her, straight at the moons. "Don't be stupid."

She bridged the gap, and they held each other for a while, warm on the inside with cold backs, like it had been at the fire. He ignored the creeping pain in his left lung. He could feel her heart thumping at his chest, and his own, pounding in his ears.

He'd never told Julie that he'd loved her, though she'd asked him to time and time again. He'd kept that for somebody special. Maybe that somebody would be Susan. Inside, he wanted it to be. But, he reminded himself: he was only almost seventeen. He didn't know what he wanted from life. He didn't even know what he wanted to be. It was early, yet.

It was getting late. From down the beach, Raymond heard distant, muffled laughter. Susan pulled back and looked at him, her arms locked tightly around his neck. It was the most natural thing in the world to lean down and kiss her, and she kissed him back. They continued for a while—warm, friendly kisses—then held each other some more.

It had been getting late, but now it was early, the single-digit hours at the beginning of something. He felt his roots thicken, grow deeper. He'd been in Hawaii for three and a half weeks, but somehow he felt as if, just then, he'd finally arrived.

* * *

Kiersten and Jeff had already gone inside when Raymond and Susan decided it was time to call it a night. Susan suggested with a titter that the other two probably didn't want to be disturbed. Raymond conceded.

They stood, staring at the bed of coals in the center of the sunburst of unburned wood. The wind had died down but it was still cold there, without the roaring flames. Raymond fished the pink envelope out of his back pocket.

"Julie's card?" she asked.

He took the note out and tossed the envelope onto the coals. It lay there for a moment, until black dots bloomed and the fire seeped through. In the flaring light, Raymond showed Susan the card. She snorted. "Big-eyed hyperthyroid kitty-cats. Gag me." Raymond added the card to the tiny blaze. All at once flames engulfed it, and then it was just a curl of black ash. Susan gave him an extra squeeze.

Rather than running to the house for a bucket to douse the coals, Raymond picked up the cold ends of the big pieces of wood and, one by one, threw them into the water. The glowing embers whirled in the air, neon windmills, hissing and winking out when as they hit the water. After lingering a moment, they walked through the house, ignoring Kiersten and Jeff on the couch, went out the side door and onto the porch. Susan didn't bother to turn the porch light on.

They stood there for a moment, him with his arms around her waist, her with her hands locked behind his neck—like the second slow-dancing position. He pulled back and looked at his watch, tilting his head to catch the moon with its face. He shook his head.

She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. "I'll call you in the morning."

"It is the morning. Call me in the afternoon."

"Okay."

He walked down the stairs and got into the car. She stood and watched him go. As he pulled out onto the highway, he caught a glimpse of her in the rear view mirror. He drove home smiling, conscious of the "Susan smell" lingering on his shirt. He went to sleep in that shirt.

* * *

She called at about 12:30, to tell him she was coming over.

"Fine with me," he said

"I'll see you in a bit."

"Great."

She hung up, and Raymond looked at his mother quizzically.

"Who was that?"

He put the receiver back on the hook and cleared his breakfast plate into the sink. "That was Susan, the girl whose house I was at last night."

"Until three in the morning," his mother added.

"Right. She's coming over."

"Oh. Do you two have something planned?"

Raymond smiled and shrugged, swiping his hair out of his eyes. "Not that I know of. But you never know with Susan."

Jeff dropped her off at the curb; Raymond waved to him in his rented Honda as he drove away. She met him on the driveway and kissed him hello, and they walked into the house holding hands. Mrs. Harmon stood in the kitchen archway, wiping her hands on a dishtowel and looking at them patronizingly.

"Mom," Raymond began, "this is Susan Murello. Susan, this is my mother, Mrs. Harmon." The two ladies shook hands, and Susan kissed Raymond's mother on the cheek. Surprised, Mrs. Harmon muttered a startled "Pleased to meet you," and retreated into the kitchen.

Susan turned to Raymond. "Guess what?"

"What?"

She reached into her back pocket and pulled out a pair of scissors.

"Scissors!" Raymond exclaimed.

Susan spun around, snipping at the air. "Yes, they're scissors. And do you know what we're going to do with these scissors?"

"No, but I bet you're going to tell me."

"Yes," she said, her face animated. "We're going to cut your hair."

Raymond smiled and shook his head vigorously, his bangs dropping down into his eyes. "No we're not."

Susan sighed, exasperated, and sat Raymond down on the couch. "Now look," she began.

"I'm not going to look, and you're not going to cut."

"It falls into your eyes and you push it back. It flops back down and you push it back up." She demonstrated. "It's like you need something to do."

"I like it the way it is."

She knelt on the couch, put her arms around his neck and raked her fingers through the hair on the back of his head. "I like it, too. It's all nice and curly and long. But when it falls forward like that, I can't see your face. And I like to see your face." She gathered his bangs and held them in a clump on top of his head. "Sometimes I think you're hiding behind them."

He folded his hands in his lap and looked her in the face. "What about your makeup?"

She stopped in mid-breath. She had on her standard war paint except for the lipstick, which she had benevolently left off. Above her eyes were the green smears and her cheeks were rouged with a deep tan. Heavy pencil lined the rims of her eyes.

"Hold that thought," she said, and retreated to the bathroom. Raymond heard the water gush and, a minute later, Susan emerged with a clean face.

"There," she said matter-of-factly. "I've taken off my mask; now it's time to take off yours."

"I hope you didn't leave mascara on the good towels."

"Come on, you baby."

Raymond stood up and allowed her to lead him to the bathroom, where he leaned against the sink and held the wastepaper basket under his head.

* * *

Mrs. Harmon stepped into the bathroom just after Susan had snipped the final strands. "You're the girl who was on the couch that night!" she said.

Susan put down the scissors. "Bingo."

Mrs. Harmon snapped her fingers triumphantly. "I knew I'd seen you before, but I was darned I if could place your face. I thought maybe …" She just then noticed Raymond. "Oh my stars!"

"No profanity in front of the kids, mother."

"He let you cut his hair."

Susan nodded. "I twisted his arm until he said 'auntie.'"

"I've been trying for months. You must really be someone special to get him to let you do that."

"Mom—"

Susan took the comb from the counter and parted Raymond's hair, swooping what was left of it to one side. "I think he looks a hundred times better."

Mrs. Harmon agreed.

Raymond pushed his hair back, hair that wasn't there anymore. Maybe Susan had been right—he felt naked without his bangs. He let out a pitiful whimper.

"You'll live," Raymond's mother told him. "And by the way, Sarah's bringing PJ over for dinner tonight. Why doesn't Susan come, too, so we can have the whole family?"

"Mom—"

Susan smiled her sweetest smile. "I'd love to, Mrs. Harmon."

The two ladies went out into the living room together, leaning Raymond alone in the bathroom. He stared longingly at the clippings in the wastebasket.

© Copyright 2002 by David S. Baker