Chapter Six: Caleb
What the hell am I doing?
The box of condoms in my pocket feels huge and heavy, and even though Romy can’t possibly know they’re there, somehow I’m convinced I’m going to give it away.
And yet, I asked her out for coffee.
Somewhere, in a mansion on the north end of town, right by the water, Claudia Dexter is waiting for me. I’m already late. She’s expecting me to arrive at any moment. But here I am.
With Romy. A jittery feeling tingles in my chest. She walks by my side, closing her eyes every time the breeze ruffles her hair. I’m tempted to offer her my cap, but that would be weird. “So … did you get anything done Wednesday night after I left?” I ask. I know what Daniel told me, but I want to hear it from her.
She gives me a sidelong glance and then looks away quickly. “I did, actually. I really appreciated the guidance.” She pulls her lacy cardigan around her, tight over her breasts. I have to tear my eyes away.
“You’re really good at teaching,” she says quietly.
How does she do that? Make me feel like I’m worth something? “Thanks. I enjoy it most of the time.”
“Most of the time?”
I shrug, thinking about Claudia and what awaits me tonight. Her husband left on a business trip this afternoon. I met him on Thursday. He lumbered in while Claudia had me in the gallery room, and I shook the guy’s hand with gratitude, because she was about to make her move. He said he looked forward to seeing my work. He actually seemed like a nice guy. Either he has no idea his wife wants to get in my pants, or he doesn’t care. My stomach tightens. “I think it depends on what people want to get out of the class. People come for all sorts of reasons.”
“And that affects your enjoyment of teaching?” She’s staring straight ahead, at the white lights shimmering on the lake a few blocks up. I can see the water through the trees at the edge of the park. I’m realizing there’s no coffee place open this late, but for some reason, I’m hoping Romy hasn’t figured it out yet.
“It does sometimes,” I tell her. “I like teaching students who want to be there for the joy of it. Kids are like that.”
“You teach kids’ classes?”
“After-school classes. A lot of them walk right over from the middle school. And I teach classes for little kids on weekends.” I smile. “It’s messy as hell, but so much fun. They really get into it.”
She pulls her eyes from the water and looks up at me. “How do we forget that?”
“Forget what?” I stare into the deep green, heavy on the blue, light on the yellow, except for this little circle right around the edge of her pupils. Golden brown. We’re standing under a street lamp. I can see every detail.
“How to lose ourselves in the joy of something,” she explains. “Adults can’t do that as easily as kids can. At some point, we forget how.”
“I think when you forget that depends on who you are. Maybe some people never do.” I tug on the edge of my cap, pulling it a little lower on my forehead as we reach the end of Main Street. The bag in my pocket crinkles. “I don’t know anyone like that, though. Daniel probably comes closest.”
“I can see that. I’m kind of jealous. Sometimes I want to lose myself like that. I’d like to remember how.”
“Yeah?” Suddenly, I’m imagining what she might look like, lost in the joy of … something.
She glances up at me and bites her lip, and it takes all I have not to run my thumb along the edge of her mouth. She’s not wearing lipstick. Her lips are crimson red and titanium white and the tiniest hint of cadmium yellow, blended perfectly into this pink so delicate that I want to taste it and—
“Want to go sit by the lake?” she blurts.
“Sure.”
We cross the street and head along the sidewalk to the benches that line the boardwalk right by the water. She’s wearing a long skirt that flutters around her ankles as she walks, revealing open-toed shoes. Bare feet, painted toenails peeking out at me. I wonder if she’s cold, but I don’t ask because I don’t want to give her any reason to leave. “So what’s your reason for coming to my class?” I ask as we sit on a bench right under a decorative street lamp, nice and bright. Safe.
She pulls her sweater around her again. I should offer her my jacket, but there’s a goddamn box of rubbers in my pocket, and for some reason, I desperately don’t want her to know that. This is like the definition of lose-lose. I’m trying to figure out if I can chuck the whole bag in the trashcan next to me without her noticing when she says, “I signed up for the class because I missed painting. It was part of me and I lost it. I wanted it back.”
Her words freeze my stupid thoughts in place. “How did you lose it?”
As soon as I say it, I know it’s the wrong question. It’s like I can see her gates slamming shut, being reinforced from within. Her fingers curl into the thin fabric of her cardigan. “Or maybe I gave it away,” she murmurs, then shakes herself. “I just got busy with school.”
Now she’s lying. I can tell. Her voice is all breezy-easy. Katie does that sometimes, but she never fools me. Still, I know what it means—back off. “Fair enough. You should take the advanced oil techniques class I’m starting up, though. I think you’d find it more interesting.”
She gives me a hesitant smile. “When is it? I didn’t see it on the online schedule.”
That’s because it wasn’t on there. I decided to start the class ten seconds ago. “Uh … I’ll have to check …”
“I have a class on Monday nights.”
“It’s definitely not on Monday nights.”
She laughs, and I slide my arm along the bench behind her because I’m insane. As soon as I do it, she goes very still, and those dark green eyes land on my face. “When you figure it out, let me know when it is,” she says. Her expression is cautious and hopeful and challenging and scared and hot, all at once. “I might switch.”
There’s a freckle on her right cheekbone, the exact shade of dark brown sugar. I imagine tasting it, and my muscles pull tight. “It might be a small class.” Maybe just her and me.
“I’m sure there are plenty of students who’d be eager to sign up,” she says, and by her tentative smile and the curious sweep of her gaze, I know she’s noticed Claudia and her friends, how they look at me. My jaw tenses as I remember where I’m supposed to be right now.
“How’s your painting coming?” Romy asks.
I should be relieved that she changed the subject, but for some reason, thinking of my painting only reminds me of the way Claudia looked at it. “I’m struggling with it.”
“The whole thing looked like a struggle,” she says, pretty much summing up my entire life. “That was why I liked it.”
“You’re in a very small minority.” I force a chuckle. “I don’t have a style people want to look at. One of my professors told me that last May, right before I graduated.”
Her mouth drops open. “What a terrible thing to say! Besides … I wanted to look at it. I thought it was honest and brave, and it made me uncomfortable, and maybe that’s good for people sometimes. It means they’re still capable of reacting to something. It means they’re not numb.” She bows her head. “It’s not good to be numb,” she murmurs, almost to herself, and then she looks up again, her words coming out in a rush. “And you paint things that make people feel. They might feel bad or sad or disgusted, but that’s better than apathy. Not every artist can get a visceral reaction out of people.”
I stare at her in awe, knowing I shouldn’t take her words too seriously; it would hurt too much if she didn’t mean them. My heart is beating like a jackhammer. I could go a few different ways with this, but only one path is safe. I plaster on my best casual smile. “If only you owned one of the galleries downtown, all my problems would be solved,” I say. Breezy-easy. If there’s one thing I know how to do, it’s keeping things from going too deep.
Romy’s so still, so somber. Like she’s looking right into my mind, right past all my bullshit. The joking smile slides off my face, too heavy to hold in place.
“I’m sorry it’s been such a struggle for you,” she says quietly. “I think you’re really talented.”
“You look cold,” I blurt. Her teeth are starting to chatter. I’d be a selfish asshole if I didn’t say something, right? I’m not avoiding this conversation—I’m merely pointing out the obvious. I want to unzip my jacket and invite her inside. My fingers play with the tab on my chest.
Romy watches my nervous movements as I stare at her throat, the slope of her neck. “I don’t mind,” she says. “I like it out here.”
Am I imagining that she’s leaning a little closer? The thought sends a scorching wave of heat through my body. My arm tilts off the edge of the bench, touching her back. If she shows the slightest sign of discomfort, I’m backing off. Regardless of what she said, there are some situations where being uncomfortable is not a good thing at all.
But she scoots in, seeking me out. It’s like a fucking miracle. My fingers are almost steady as I trace the edge of her hair along her forehead. She closes her eyes when my fingertips skim along her face. Her hair is so short, but I like it, because I can see the line of her jaw and the smooth plane of her brow. I should say something to her, about how I think she’s beautiful, about how I don’t know her but want to, but not a single word makes it past the torrent of sensation. Her lips look so soft, and the longer I stare at them, the harder I get. She smells incredible, a warm, subtle, clean kind of scent, so faint that she has to be close to pick it up. And I want her close. Closer than this.
I shouldn’t want her this much.
I can’t want her this much.
I’m supposed to be somewhere else right now.
Five thousand dollars, whispers a voice in my head. You’re going to give up five thousand dollars for a chance to touch this girl? Three months of rent. Groceries. A chunk of Katie’s last hospital bill. Katie’s new prescription. I can’t afford to be selfish right now.
I shoot to my feet as reality crashes in on all sides. “I have to go,” I say, my voice breaking.
Romy’s eyes pop open, and she blinks a few times as a warm, pink flush suffuses her cheeks. “Oh … okay. Of course. Sure.” She clears her throat and stands up, too, keeping her face turned away from me. She probably thinks she’s read the situation wrong. If I were free to do what I want, I’d tilt her face up and kiss that blush away. But I’m not free. I’m in a cage, and I stepped into it willingly.
“I’ll walk you back to the theater.”
“It’s all right,” she says. “You don’t have to.”
I scowl at her. “I’m walking you back. It’s one thing during the day, and it’s another at night.” Plus … I am selfish. I want every minute of this, even though I’ve already ruined it.
The corner of her mouth twitches. “We’d better get going then.” She looks at me expectantly, and I realize I haven’t started to walk yet.
So I do. We haven’t even made it a block before my phone buzzes in my pocket. I ignore it.
“You can get that if you need to,” she says.
“I don’t.” It’s probably Claudia. Katie was fast asleep when I left this evening. And she’ll stay that way. I watched her take the meds with her pizza tonight.
The lights of Main Street seem much brighter than before, harsh and unforgiving as we step back onto the sidewalk and head for the theater. Romy is silent, like her thoughts have swallowed her. I’d pay a lot to know what she’s thinking. But I don’t have money, and that’s exactly the problem.
We reach the theater, and Romy glances up at the marquee. SORG, it says. If there’s a worse name for a movie, no one’s yet come up with it. Romy lets out a sigh. “I’d better get back in there, I guess.”
“Hang in there,” I say. You have no idea how much I wish I could go with you.
She stares at me for a second, then touches the tab of my zipper, right in the middle of my chest, with her fingertip. She pulls her hand back quickly, like she didn’t mean to do it. “You, too,” she says softly. And then she opens the door to the theater and disappears inside.
I jam my hands into my pockets, crushing the little box of condoms in my fist, wrestling down the urge to follow her, to pull her back, to finish what we started on that bench by the lake. My phone buzzes again, and I pull it out. Claudia. I’m waiting.
I peer into the lobby of the theater. Romy’s nowhere to be seen. She’s gone back to her friends. Back to her life. I swallow the lump in my throat and reply: On my way.