Mariah

“Wow,” I say, stepping into the soft grass. “This is amazing.”

Lance leans on the hood of his car, an arm extended towards me. Like on auto-pilot, I step next to him and take in the view.

The entire city of Linton can be seen from up here. There are pine trees and tulip poplars dotting the hills that flow on all sides of this peak. On the left there are fields with muddy ruts and to the right the trees have been knocked down on the gentler slope.

“This is Bluebird,” Lance says, resting his cheek on the top of my head. “We used to come up here drinking when we were young and dumb. And in the winter, my brothers and I still get together at least once and slide down that side just to prove we aren’t too old to do it.”

“Looks painful.”

“It can be,” he chuckles. “Peck always devises some crazy sled and tests it out. One year it was an inner tube sprayed with cooking spray. Last year he used a piece of Plexiglas that almost killed him.”

“He seems really nice,” I note.

“He is. We all give him hell, but he’s a good guy.”

We stand still for a few moments, taking in the scenery. Lance’s heart thumps steadily, his chest rising and falling in a way that could put me to sleep if I let it. Every time I’m with him, I just want to be with him more. Every time I want to be with him more, I know I better watch myself because if the rug gets pulled out from under me, it’s going to hurt like hell.

“What do you do up here?” I ask, pulling away.

“Lots of things,” he says, strolling to the back of the car. “But today, I have about a hundred essays to grade.”

“Sounds awful,” I kid, joining him at the trunk. He pulls out a blanket and a worn leather briefcase before latching the lid.

I follow him to the front of the car where he spreads the multicolored blanket out on the grass. “Nana made this,” he tells me. “She made each of her grandkids a blanket when we graduated high school.”

“And you’re putting it on the ground?”

“Trust me. She’d be happier to hear I’m using it than have it rotting in a closet somewhere.”

We grab our drinks and my book and settle on the blanket. The sun hovers over the tops of the trees, a large, orange circle that seems to shine just for us.

The only sound is the crinkle of Lance’s papers and the occasional swirl of the pen against them. The air is tinged with the scent of pine and the spice of Lance’s cologne.

My book rests on my lap, a love story with a heroine loved by two drastically different men. I’ve wondered what it would feel like to be loved by two heroes, but now that I sit on top of this hill with Lance at my side, I wonder what it would feel like to be loved by one, everyday kind-of-guy.

A guy like him.

“What?” Lance’s voice startles me, bringing me out of a daze I didn’t know I was in. He removes his glasses and wipes them on the end of his shirt. He watches me with a careful curiosity. “Something wrong?”

“No. Nothing is wrong.”

“Um, yeah. Something is going on. I can tell by the way you’re looking at me.”

I’m not about to tell him what I was thinking, so I glance down at the stack of papers next to his side. “What made you want to be a history teacher?” I say off the cuff.

“Honestly?” He places his glasses on his lap. “I couldn’t imagine working for an asshole eight, ten hours a day. I saw what my dad went through owning his own business and I didn’t really want that either. I didn’t want to spend my entire life at work like everyone else.”

“But why teaching?” I ask.

“Well, I dislike most adults,” he laughs. “Kids have always been more my speed. They’re pretty innocent most of the time and you can still mold them into becoming something good for the world. So, it was either that or becoming a veterinarian and I don’t like getting bitten. Most of the time.”

We exchange a grin as he clamps the shoulder I marred a couple of days ago. My body hums with the memory. Instead of going there, I keep us focused.

“Was there a moment though when you knew teaching was it for you?” I ask.

“What’s with all the teaching questions?”

“I’m curious.”

“When did you know you wanted to be a librarian?” he asks, turning the tables.

“When I was eight and we took a field trip to the library,” I say easily. “I walked in that building with its dusty shelves and tattered covers and knew it was where I wanted to spend every day for the rest of my life. Now you. When did you know?”

He stretches back, his hands on the line where the blanket meets the grass. His watch sparkles in the sunlight, his forearm flexed beneath it.

“When I was in high school, there was a girl in my grade who was going through some shit at home. We all knew it. It was a different time then though, people didn’t get in other people’s business like they do now. Know what I mean?”

“Yeah. It was a different world then.”

He nods, gazing off into the distance. “Her dad killed himself accidentally in a hunting accident the year before and she never really got over that, I don’t think. I remember her sort of not being in the gymnasium, not being in the cafeteria, not really participating in classes we had together.”

His tone gets soft on the last few words. He works his jaw back and forth as he relives a memory I’m not privy to.

“What happened?” I ask.

“She killed herself.”

The sentence is harsh. Black-and-white. So final. The reality of the end of a little girl’s life, a child I didn’t know, spirals over my skin, chilling it to the core.

“Oh, Lance. I’m sorry,” I say.

“We all went to the funeral,” he continues, not moving his eyes from the tree line below. “I remember sitting there and wondering why no one helped her. How all of these people sort of let her down, you know? I think I knew that day I’d be a teacher or somehow working with kids. I’d be the guy who maybe sees those things and helps somebody out.”

“That’s why you’re so great with Ollie, huh?”

He shrugs. “It’s hard to explain.”

“You explained it just fine,” I promise, resting my palm on his calf.

“My mom was always beating us on the head to be decent people,” he says, dragging himself into a sitting position. He takes my hand when I start to pull it away and places it on his knee, his hand pressing on top of it. “She had four kids. All of us were healthy. All of us were bright, capable kids. Almost every night at dinner, piled around a round table in her kitchen, we’d say our prayers. When we’d open our eyes, she’d be sitting there, one hand holding Dad’s, just watching us almost in awe.”

The picture he’s describing comes to life in my imagination, a woman with dark hair like Lance’s and brighter eyes, smiling back at him. I can see them all sitting at a table, passing around bowls of homemade dishes, the room full of a love I’ve never known.

My heart aches at the vision. It squeezes, craving to have something fill it in a way Mrs. Gibson’s heart must’ve been full.

“She would tell us,” he continues, “that we couldn’t rest on our laurels. That we were given more blessings than other people for a reason and that was to help those who needed a hand or an extra set of eyes or ears.”

“She sounds amazing. I can’t imagine being raised by a woman like that.”

He chuckles. “She was tough as nails though. There were expectations and we had to meet them.”

“Like grades and stuff?” I ask as he squeezes the top of my hand.

“Kind of. I guess we had to work to our potential. But she better not catch you back talking or driving by a broken down car or not holding a door open at the grocery. That happened to Machlan once. Poor guy,” he says, smiling at the memory.

“She sounds lovely.”

“She was lovely.” He sighs, seemingly content with the conversation. So, I press my luck.

“What was your dad like?”

He wiggles on the blanket, taking a moment to get comfortable again. “Dad got up every morning at four forty-five. He was out the door by five-thirty and rolled in a few minutes before six every evening. We had supper at six sharp and then he’d take out the garbage while two of us kids did the dishes and Mom relaxed. Then he’d take one of us outside to do something. Throw a ball, work on a car, head to the bait shop. Whatever it was that needed done or we wanted to do.”

“I love that he made you do the dishes,” I giggle.

“Oh, trust me. These hands have met their fair share of dishwater,” he laughs. “If it needed done, he didn’t care if you were a boy or a girl. Blaire took out the trash, she took her turn mowing the lawn. Us boys would clean toilets and mop floors. You were never too good to get your hands dirty,” he smiles.

“I think I would’ve loved him.”

“I did,” he admits. “I always envied my dad in a way. He was a man’s man, you know, without the chauvinism. He was proud of his family. Proud of us. But if someone said something cross to him, he’d kick the fuck out of them.”

I burst out laughing, my hand slipping out from under his. “I didn’t see that curveball.”

“Let’s just say Machlan got it honest,” he laughs. “I guess Dad was a ruffian back in the day too. I hear stories now sometimes about him in the eighties in the pool hall downtown.”

“Days of the pool halls,” I sigh. “I had this little fantasy for a while growing up that I would walk into a pool hall and some bad boy would whisk me away.”

“Sounds like you watched too many Patrick Swayze movies.”

“There’s no such thing,” I giggle. “My first crush. I wanted to have all his babies.”

Lance’s smile falters. He scoots around again, a wrinkle dotting his forehead. “What about now?”

“What about now what?”

“Do you still want to have babies?”

I’m not sure if it’s because he doesn’t look at me when he says it or if it’s the tone he uses to pose his question, but it feels like it’s a set-up of some sort. I give him a second to turn to me, but he doesn’t. He keeps his gaze across the hills towards the setting sun.

“Yes. I want to have babies,” I say, my voice soft. “I’ve always wanted to be a mother. What you had growing up, I didn’t and I always wanted it. I wanted to create my own little family who had dinners together and took vacations together and built forts together with blankets in the living room on rainy days.”

He nods his head, working his jaw back and forth. “You’ll be a great mother.”

“Thanks,” I whisper. “I hope so.”

There’s really no reaction from him.

“What about you?” I ask. “Do you want to be a father?”

He starts to laugh, but the little lines around his eyes that come out when he’s amused aren’t there. There’s a crease instead, one that is foreign to me.

Sitting up, he licks his lips before turning to me. His eyes shine with something that causes my heart to ache.

“I always wanted three boys and a girl, just like my dad. I wanted the girl to spoil like he did Blaire and the boys to tell about my glory days.” He almost smiles, but not quite. “I think I grew up in such a comfortable, happy home that I just wanted to replicate it.”

“Can I ask you something?”

He shrugs.

“Why are you so anti-relationship now? It seems counter-productive if having a family is what you want.”

“Maybe …” He forces a swallow. “Maybe I’m not sure how much like my dad I really am after all.” He swipes up his glasses and puts them back on his face. “What about your dad? What was he like?”

It’s a definite, intentional change in topic. There’s so much more to his story, one I want to know. I can’t press it; it’s not my place. And as that little piece of reality splashes me in the face, I feel like I’ve been hit with a bucket of cold water.

“My dad was meh,” I say, trying to move my thoughts to the new conversation. “He calls sometimes, but I think he really just said ‘screw it’ and wrote us off.”

“I can see him writing off your mom, maybe even your sister. But not you.”

“Yeah, well, I’m inclined to think I should’ve been more unforgettable too,” I laugh.

“Have you heard from Chrissy?”

“Nope. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. I’m not hedging my bets either way.”

“Do you want her to?” he asks, wrapping his hand around my ankle.

I shrug. “I don’t know. Can people like that change, Lance? Can she go from being a total, outrageous asshole and then become this sisterly person?”

Could you go from being a man whore to a monogamous man?

Biting down on my tongue is the only way to keep that thought from slipping out of my mouth.

He squeezes my leg and thinks. “I used to say no. Tigers, stripes, all that. But lately I’ve been considering maybe people can change. I don’t know.”

“Okay, let’s say they can. But do they always revert back to what they were?”

“Maybe people are less like tigers and more like … onions.”

“People do stink,” I giggle.

“True,” he says, shaking my leg. “But maybe they’re also layered.”

“So what you’re saying is that as you go through life, you shed layers?”

“Maybe,” he shrugs. “Or, as you go through life, it sheds them for you. I think of Cross, right? He dated this girl named Kallie for years. Cross was a pure hell raiser and Kallie had enough and left. Maybe if she would’ve stayed, he would’ve still been high on her sofa,” he laughs. “It’s possible her leaving made him shed a layer. Now he’s an all right guy.”

“Maybe,” I sigh. “Maybe having Betsy made Chrissy shed a layer.”

“And maybe it didn’t,” he adds. “Whether we want to think people can change or not, we have to remember that history says things are not only cyclical but also fairly predictable. Remember that.”

That’s what I’m afraid of.

“What’s that look about?” he asks.

“What look?”

“That one.” He points at my face. “The one that looks like you were ready to cry.”

“I was just thinking about cycles and predictability and how I hope I don’t try blue eye shadow again.”

His laugh is free and loud. He leans back again, the stress melted away from his shoulders. “I bet you look just as pretty with blue eye shadow on as you do now.”

“That’s a bet you’d lose, Mr. Gibson.”

“I can’t imagine you wearing anything and looking bad.”

I bask in his words, feeling the wash of power settling over my skin. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” He bites his bottom lip as he takes me in. “Want to shed something for me?”

“What do you have in mind?” I ask, fluttering my lashes.

Resisting the urge to reach up and kiss him takes everything I have. I want to climb on top of him, inside him, surround myself with him in every way. My skin craves his hands on my body, my lips die for his mouth on mine. When he’s in control, all I can do is relax and feel a way I can feel with no one else.

Biting my lip, I wait impatiently so I don’t appear too needy.

He laughs. “Just come here, will ya?”

“I’ll think about it.”

He lunges towards me, knocking me on my back as I yelp into the evening air. My laughter fills the top of Bluebird Hill as Lance hovers over me.

Looking down intently, his chest matches the rise and fall of mine. He brushes a strand of hair out of my face as he studies me.

“Some people have to peel away their layers to get to the good stuff,” he says. “You’re already there.”

“Stop being so sweet,” I whisper. “It makes you irresistible.”

“I’m irresistible way before I kick in the sweet factor,” he teases.

I pretend to mull that over as he lowers his face to mine. Our mouths move together in an effortless, easy dance that distracts me until I can’t think of anything else.