49 LOVE LANE - Section 3

This section was sent to Nalini on 15 April...

5. Psychological Impact

Anders Lehigh returned a few days later, bringing with him three Latin American men to do all the digging. I saw the truck pull into the driveway—no music this time, perhaps out of respect for the three men huddled like hitchhikers in the truck bed—and ran out to greet him.
It was another boiling hot day, the first of its kind since the last time Lehigh had stopped by. The three Latin American men moved slowly, removing shovels and hoes from the truck, their serious brown faces carved from some dark wood. Lehigh spoke to them in halting Spanish before turning to me.
“I have a question for you,” I said, my voice vibrating as he pumped my hand.
“Shoot.”
“That story you told. About the baby getting killed?”
His expression told me he’d been expecting something like that.
“Do you remember the name of the family?”
He adjusted his cap, scratched his head. His face was as dry as powder in the sun. Mine was already wet, a mustache of sweat tickling my upper lip.
“Let’s see,” he said. “My friend’s name was Bill. That I remember.”
“Uh-huh.” I waited. Meanwhile, two of the men wandered the yard picking up twigs and branches that had fallen during our most recent storm. The third had opened the truck gate and was positioning a metal ramp. These men were short, bowlegged, but solid in their faded flannel shirts and scuffed jeans. They looked like they could do almost anything asked of them: climb a tree, break a wild mustang, construct a pyramid.
“I’m trying to remember,” Lehigh said. He called out in Spanish to the man at the truck, who was carefully unloading a heavy machine down the ramp. It looked like a small, pushable steam roller.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Oh, that’s the aerator.”
There were small, pointy knobs on the drum.
“We roll that across the lawn before planting grass seeds.”
He directed the man toward the far side of the yard.
“Billings?” he said. “Billingsly?”
“Was that it?” I asked. “Billingsly?”
“Something like that. This was twenty-some years ago, mind you. And that was the last time I ever saw them.”
“Well, if you remember, can you let me know?”
“Sure,” he said. Then, “ Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned all that.”
“No, no. I’m sort of glad you did, actually.”
I’d already called the realtor, who assured me she knew nothing about the murder, though her defensive tone made me wonder. “There’s even a requirement in the contract for that sort of thing,” she said. I dug it out and sure enough, there it was, paragraph 21: The SELLER represents that the Premises are not psychologically impacted as defined in CT General Statutes sections 20-329cc, et seq. When I asked how I could track down the previous owners, she tried to dissuade me. She said that, in her opinion, that never helped. “It’s like asking old friends for their honest opinion of your new girlfriend,” she said. “It just opens up doors you’d rather leave closed.” When I persisted, she told me to go to the town hall and look up the field cards in the tax assessor’s office. “You can find the names of all the former owners there.”
While Lehigh’s men poked at the lawn with their shovels, I sat out on the deck drinking iced tea and sweating. I had to wait for Abby and Daisy to return from the grocery store so I could go to the town hall. We still had the one car and were going to need a second before classes started, but the thought of car shopping and shelling out all that money made me quiver. The down payment on the house had drained our savings—Abby’s savings, really, from her lawyer days—and the mortgage payments stretched out ahead of us like monthly blood lettings. My salary at the Pfister School was not as high as it had been at St. Ann’s, and I wouldn’t even get a paycheck until the Fall, but we figured we could make ends meet, at least until Daisy was in school and Abby could return to work.
Today I was also supposed to call Frannie Johnston and thank her having us over for dinner. Abby refused to do it, and I’d put it off for days now. I kept seeing that pale ass in the night, and hearing Monica cry out, “Oh God!” I still was not convinced it had been Arnie, and Abby couldn’t say for sure, but just the idea that it might have been him gave us both the heebie-jeebies. Did Frannie know anything? How could I talk to her in a normal way after seeing that? She’d probably want to make a plan—another dinner, drinks—and we’d have to see Arnie and the girl, pretend everything was normal. Maybe it had been some local boy, but Abby was sure it was an older man, at the very least. But why do you think it was Arnie? I’d asked, but she couldn’t say. She just had a feeling.
The Latin American men worked like patient, persistent mules while Lehigh leaned against his truck and chatted on his cell phone. Soon the offending shrubs had been removed and a patch of lawn by the stone wall had been tilled and bordered.
“You’ll need some deer netting when you put in the flowers.”
Lehigh had materialized on the deck steps.
“Those bastards’ll eat anything,” he said.
Just the night before I’d seen a large buck on the lawn. I happened to glance out the window and there he stood, his antlers silvery in the faint moonlight, his eyes glowing red as he stared back at me. “Look!” I’d said to Daisy, lifting her up to see, but the buck ran off in that graceful awkward way they have.
“Want some iced tea?” I asked Lehigh. I’d already guzzled down two tall glasses of the stuff but still felt as though I were locked in a steam bath.
“Nah, thanks.” He watched his men for a while, his eyes following their movements. One aerated the lawn, another followed with the seeder. The third spread hay across the seeded ground.
“I can tell it bothers you,” Lehigh said. He was now standing beside me.
“What bothers me?”
He sat across from me and rested one thick forearm on the metal-topped table. “That story.”
“Oh. It’s not that it bothers me so much. I just find it interesting.”
“Some people wouldn’t be able to live in a house where that happened.”
“Like you?” I asked.
“Honestly, I don’t know.” He turned to gaze through a window into the living room.
“You want to go in?” I asked.
I could almost hear his mind turning the thought over, like a taffy machine. He swallowed and said, “Okay.”
I stood and walked to the sliding door. Lehigh yelled something in Spanish to his men, then followed me inside. He paused after three steps and looked around.
“Look any different?” I asked.
“The same. But different.” He glanced into Daisy’s room. “That was Bill’s room.” He stepped inside. “Seems so much smaller now.”
Back in the living room he said, “Those skylights weren’t there.”
“You want to see the other rooms?”
His face was now shiny with sweat.
“It’s hot in here,” I said. “Sorry.”
I led him to the kitchen and the dining room.
“Looks more or less the same,” he said.
“And here’s the bedroom,” I said, opening the door. “Excuse the mess.”
He stood in the doorway and looked inside. The bed was unmade, and Abby’s clothes were piled on the floor. He blinked at the sweat rolling into his eyes. He breathing sounded shallow, as if his lungs were small tin cans.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Fine, fine. It’s just…”
“This is where it happened, right?”
“Yup.”
“Which wall was it? Do you remember?”
He looked at me as though I’d asked him to name the capitol of North Dakota.
“The wall,” I said. “Didn’t you say the guy threw the baby against the wall?”
“Uh huh.” He stared at the far wall, his adam’s apple bobbing. “Nice picture,” he said.
“Yeah. That’s my wife’s parents.”
Just then the kitchen door squealed open. I heard Abby say something, then Daisy babbling.
“Carl!”
Anders Lehigh turned and headed straight through the living room to the sliding glass door.
“Carl! I need help with the groceries!”
Lehigh opened the door and stepped out into the glaring sun.
“Carl?”
A few moments later, as I was leaving to go downtown, Lehigh and his men were packing up the truck.
“I’ll mail you a bill,” he said.
“Is there anything I need to know?”
“Just keep the lawn watered for the next few days. And get some of that netting for the flowers.”
“Do we need to schedule a follow-up or something?”
He considered this for a moment. One of the men slammed the truck gate and Lehigh jumped.
“Nah,” he said. “Not necessary.”
I thanked him, then climbed into the Corolla and pulled out. As I drove off, Lehigh was standing beside his truck, staring up at the house.
*
The town hall was a simple, two-story brick building on Main Street. I parked on the street in front of a sign that read “2 HR PARKING,” and they were serious—no sooner had I gotten out of the car than a uniformed old codger with a white mustache drew a line on my front right tire with a long piece of chalk. He tipped his cap, then walked slowly away through the heat, his underarms dark with sweat.
Inside, I found the tax assessor’s office down a dingy flight of stairs. The low-ceilinged room glowed pale green under fluorescent lights. A tall, regal woman in pearls stood behind the counter. She was in her fifties, at least, but very well preserved. She led me to a small room off to the side where a set of metal shelves lined three of the walls. The shelves were lined with thousands of pale blue field cards the size of greeting cards. She looked up my address in a folder and found that our house was on Lot 70B. She searched among the field cards in Section B, but number 70 was not there.
“That’s odd.” She worked her elegant fingers through the cards on either side of where number 70 should have been. “Ah-hah.” She removed a card. “Lot 70B. Someone else must have looked this up at some point and then misplaced it.”
I thanked her and she left me alone in the room. The air was dusty with the smell of slowly decomposing paper. I sat at a large table and opened my pocket notebook. I turned past pages of phone numbers, addresses, ideas for novels I’d never write, and lists of books to read, to a blank page. According to the field card, there had been more than a dozen owners of 49 Love Lane in the past thirty-five years. Alexander and Geraldine Stanitzky lived there for about twelve of those years; the rest lived there for periods of one to two years each: John and Annette Bingham, followed by just Annette Bingham, Rana and Alan Lieberman, Herman and Joanna Kydd, John and Lisa Lord II, Thomas and Lydia Sennett, Foster Peck, Matt and Donna Anthony, Jerry and Mary DeSantis, Henry and Clare David, Michael Harms, and, most recently, Sally and Kevin Prince, from whom we’d bought the house. It must have been the Binghams—not the Billingslys—who had lived at the house when Anders Lehigh was there. For two years Annette Bingham owned the house on her own. Maybe John was in jail, or else they divorced before the murder and the baby killer was some other man not listed on the field card. I held the pale blue card in my hand for a moment. The names were written in pencil, all but the last two in different handwriting. I imagined some town hall employee—the regal-looking lady, and those before her—sitting at this old table in this windowless room and carefully noting down the names as they came in. I replaced the card, careful to slide it into the proper slot, thanked the regal woman, and left.
The town library was located just down the block, a one-story brick building that looked to have been constructed at the same time as the town hall. Even that short walk was laborious in the heat. Trees lining Main Street drooped. The sidewalk reverberated beneath my shoes. Air conditioning units hummed and dripped and gave off even more heat, curdling the air.
The library was over-cooled. The instant relief lasted a moment, then quickly became discomfort. My sweat felt like ice on my skin.
The information librarian, a fragile-looking lady wearing a coarse-haired wig over her deeply lined face, directed me to the microfilm room. She helped me find the film spools for the local weekly newspaper from twenty-five years earlier, then patiently explained how to use the viewer. It was an ancient-looking machine, with wheels and knobs and a scratched-up screen. There was a small plaque on the table: “Donated by Friends of the R------- Library.”
“Let me know if you need any more help,” the librarian said.
“Is it me,” I asked, “or is it freezing in here?”
Her thin, drawn-on eyebrows arched. “Seems fine to me.”
She wore a wool sweater over a pantsuit.
“Must be me, then,” I said.
And so, shivering and with teeth chattering, I rolled through a year’s worth of newspapers, concentrating on the front page stories. It was mostly dull local politics, sports, and human interest stuff. Tax Rate Up Mill From 78. Dogs Bite 14 People Since July 1. Tigers Whip Knights, 31-7. Prestidigitating from an Early Age. Another Dog Warden Quits. I also kept my eyes peeled for the police blotter, but it consisted mainly of drunk driving and marijuana possession arrests.
I was cursing myself for not asking Lehigh to be more specific about the year of the murder when I spotted the headline: Local Man Charged With Manslaughter. The subhead was Tragic Death of Toddler Shocks Town. The story, written in a claustrophobic prose by a reporter who had clearly never covered a crime like this, told of an Arliss Taylor, who lived on Love Lane with Annette Bingham, and how Mr. Taylor had allegedly killed the child by “use of blunt force.” There were no more specific details about the murder itself—nothing about smashing the baby’s head against the wall. There was a fair amount of space devoted to the reactions of such locals as Sheriff H. R. Simpson, who was outraged and hungry for justice, and First Selectman Nico Papadopoulis, who vowed to enact a special law protecting children from abuse. Neighbor Thomas Schwinn was aghast that such a thing could darken his sleepy neighborhood, where everyone always said hello and no one locked their doors at night. Mr. Larry Winters (father of Jerry, I assumed) noted that the accused had not exactly been loved by his neighbors, and he was personally not surprise that he’d landed in trouble. There were no quotes from Arnie or Frannie Johnston.
The murdered child—aged sixteen months—was not named. Nor was there any mention of another child or children in the house on the night of the murder.
The following week’s edition had a smaller headline: Child Killer Pleads Guilty. There were a few more details, including that Arliss Howard worked for a local waste removal company. The article also said that Howard and Annette Bingham were engaged—not married, as Lehigh had said—but there was nothing in either article that specifically said he was the baby’s father. There was a reference to the coroner’s report, which found that the child had suffered a fractured skull that led to massive internal bleeding. There was also a photograph of Howard, a thin, lanky man with deep-set eyes, being led to a patrol car by the sheriff. And there was a photo of the house. Seeing it on the screen, the image dark and grainy, missing the deck and with slightly different shrubbery, took the chill right out of me. My face, my hands, went all warm. The caption read: Murder Site on Love Lane.
The story also referred to “strange things” having gone on in the house. There were vague references to infidelity and bizarre religious practices. The source for this information was “a neighbor who wished to remain nameless.” I pictured Mrs. Schwinn whispering to a reporter from behind a mostly-closed door.
The following week’s paper had a brief follow-up story on page two. Taylor was to be charged with involuntary manslaughter rather than murder because he’d pleaded guilty at his arraignment the week before.
After that there were no more stories about the murder. I looked for news of Arliss Howard’s sentencing, but couldn’t find any.
I returned the microfilm and left the library, barely noticing the heat as I walked back up Main Street. That photograph of the house had burned itself into my eyes. The house looked so seedy, nothing more than a grisly crime scene. It was like the mug shot of a drunken celebrity—I wasn’t sure I could look at it again without remembering the murky image from the newspaper.
As I climbed into the car I noticed a piece of paper on the windshield. It was a parking ticket.





Dear Daisy,
You said your first real word today: “Baby.” Up until now you have spoken only nonsense words, or adorable pseudo-words, like “Wa-wa” and “Ba-ba.” Once I thought I heard you say “Mama” but your skeptical father disagreed. He claimed you were just babbling. Today, however, the word rang out clearly: “Baby!” You were crawling around the house, your little arms and legs pumping, and you zipped into mommy and daddy’s bedroom and said, “Baby!” I clapped and cheered and you grinned, showing your three beautiful teeth (two on top, and now there’s one on the bottom!). When your father comes home I’m going to open a bottle of wine and we’ll celebrate. I wish your grandparents—mommy’s mommy and daddy—were alive to hear you speak. Their photo hangs on the wall of the bedroom and it looked to me as though you were peering up at their faces as you uttered your first word. I lifted you up to get a closer look and again you shouted, “Baby!” as if showing off for them. Someday you will inherit this picture, a faded old portrait your grandma and grandpa had taken at some department store. Your grandpa was a high school shop teacher. He looks so sweetly awkward in his tight-fitting suit and tie, his still-dark hair slicked back. Grandma appears more self-assured, as she did in life, her gaze hard beneath her stiff black hair. When I went to set you down you started fussing and whining, but when I lifted you back up you continued until I didn’t know what to do with you. Sometimes it’s so hard to know what you need, dear little Daisy. “Baby! Baby!” you kept crying, wriggling in my arms so that I worried I might drop you. Finally I carried you into the living room to the sofa. You lunged for my breast and I let you suckle there, feeling guilty for continuing breast feeding so long—your other grandmother says I should have weaned you by your first birthday--but also feeling wonderful. This is the best time. I’m writing this now as you drink from me. It’s like we are still one, as we were when you were inside me for those nine months. It was so hard to give you up. I know most women are ready by the last month but I was not. I wanted you to stay with me. For weeks and weeks I compulsively rubbed my big belly and somehow saw your face, your big blue eyes, your tiny fingers and toes. The first time you kicked, I wept. After a big meal—every meal was a big meal!—I would take off my blouse and watch for the little lumps you made by pushing out with your hands and feet. Not yet, I’d whisper, not yet. Someday, God willing, you’ll know what I mean. You

6. Liar

The white, clapboard-sided buildings of the Pfister School for Boys campus were nestled into the grassy hills north of town. At the base of the hill were tennis courts, a swimming pool, and the school’s barn-like gymnasium. From here a private drive wound past classroom buildings to the administration building at the top of the hill. From the parking lot I gazed down upon the bucolic campus and toward the town in the distance.
I’d met the school’s Headmaster, Lucas Berk, three months earlier, after he’d responded to my letter and resume. The school was looking for an English teacher and Berk brought me in for an interview. All had gone smoothly, and after a second interview with Berk and the other administrators, I’d been hired for the Fall.
Now I sat waiting outside Berk’s office, crossing and recrossing my legs. The headmaster had called that morning and asked me to come in. There had been no explanation.
The waiting room was small, with four simple chairs, a water cooler, and a desk for Berk’s assistant, who was not in. Sitting there I felt like a naughty student who’d been sent to the headmaster for some unspecified infraction. There was no window, and the stained pine walls seemed to lean inwards.
This may have been due to my hangover. Abby had opened a bottle of wine the night before to celebrate Daisy’s first word, and I had drunk most of it. I was glad to see Abby in a happy mood, though she soured after a glass and a half of cabernet. It was like watching a helium balloon slowly drift back to earth. She was unable to coax Daisy into saying the word she’d apparently been exclaiming all day—“Baby”—plus she was sore because Daisy had bitten her pretty hard while nursing. She showed me and there were three little teeth marks around her nipple.
“Maybe she doesn’t want to breast feed anymore.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Abby went off on how the World Health Organizaion recommends breast feeding until at least two years, preferably three, etc. That’s when I started filling my wine glass to the rim.
I was about to get some water from the cooler when the door to Berk’s office swung open.
“Come on in, Carl.”
The headmaster was a tall man with a ring of wispy gray hair above his ears. His otherwise bald head was mottled with moles and age spots, giving him the appearance of a toad. He wore a dress shirt without a tie, and khakis—almost exactly what I was wearing.
“I figured you’d be somewhere exotic about now,” I said. “You know—recharging for September.”
Berk’s desk was littered with papers. On the wall hung old photographs of the school campus and faded class portraits.
“Have a seat,” he said. He squeezed himself between his desk and the picture window. From my chair I could see the valley spread out all the way to town.
“I’m not going to beat around the bush, Carl,” he said. “I got a call last night from--” He consulted a slip of paper. “—a Tad Greff.”
Tad Greff was headmaster of St. Ann’s. But I wasn’t picturing Tad. I was picturing the cool green eyes of Okay Peterson.
“How is Tad?” I asked.
“He’s perturbed.”
“He is?”
“Yes.” Berk sat forward in his chair and leveled his eyes at me. They were a dark brown, almost black. “Mr. Greff told me a very disturbing story,” he continued, though I could have sworn his lips did not move.
“What sort of story?”
Berk didn’t budge. Someone looking in through the window might have thought this was a still photograph of two men in an office.
“What can you tell me,” he finally said, “about a Miss Okay Peterson?”
“Okay Peterson?”
“Come now, Carl. Surely you wouldn’t forget someone with such a name.”
“Right. Well, she was a student of mine last year. Smart kid.”
“Pretty?”
I saw the dark black rain of hair across her face. “Sure. I guess so.”
Again, a pause. This was classic headmaster stuff: the stare, the waiting. Most teenagers can’t handle it. They crack, and confess everything. I had the urge to go there myself, but I wasn’t sure what Berk knew, so I held off. Still, I was positive the man could detect the sour wine smell that was now pouring out of me.
“Apparently,” Berk said, “Miss Peterson’s parents recently paid a visit to Mr. Greff.”
“Oh.”
“Yes,” Berk said, laying the word down on his desk like a sword. The whole sorry episode was carved into the sharp blade.
“Look,” I began.
“I’m not interested in explanations,” Berk interrupted. “It’s all very simple. Is it true what Miss Peterson told her parents?”
“Well—“
“Yes or no, Carl.”
“Can you please tell me what they told Tad?”
“Let me put it this way, Carl: did you have an inappropriate relationship with this girl?”
There were a lot of images floating through my head. None of them could be called appropriate.
“Yes,” I said.
“Thank you.”
At last he looked away and leaned back in his seat.
“You know, Carl,” Berk said, “I’ve been here at the Pfister School for Boys for twenty-seven years, nine of them as headmaster. I’ve seen it all. We had a young lady here, an art instructor, who slept with three of our boys. There was a history instructor, an older fellow, who would have the lads over to his condo to watch World War II movies with crème soda and buttered popcorn, and as far as anyone knows he never laid a hand on them—but it looked bad, didn’t it? We’ve had boys traipse off together into the equipment room only to be found by Mr. Mulroney, the maintenance man, in flagrante. We can’t really blame the youngsters, though. Their chemicals are boiling over, aren’t they? That’s why our staff must maintain the highest level of appropriate behavior at all times. Otherwise, the whole thing breaks down, you see.”
“I’m awfully sorry, Mr. Berk,” I said. “I’ll be perfectly honest. I should have told you, but I was afraid you might not hire me.”
“Maybe I wouldn’t have,” he said. “But I would have been interested in your side of the story. This Mr. Greff certainly has his opinion.”
“I’m sure he does. And I’d like to tell you my side.”
“Save it, Carl.”
“Sir?”
“I’m not interested any more. Perhaps the girl is exaggerating a bit. Perhaps Greff doesn’t care for you for some other reason. I know how office politics are at learning institutions. But the thing is, Carl—I can’t trust you. And I have to trust my instructors.”
“What are you saying, Mr. Berk?”
“I’m saying we won’t be needing your services in the Fall.”
“But you can’t do that!”
“Already done.”
“I signed a contract!”
“Yes, and if you’ll read it, you’ll see we’re perfectly within our rights.”
“But it’s almost August. You’ll need someone—“
“Taken care of.”
“But we’ve moved! We bought a house!”
Berk sighed and looked at me the way he probably looked at students expelled for cheating.
“We can’t have a liar here at Pfister School for Boys,” he said.
“A liar?”
“Good luck, Carl.”
With that he opened a manila folder and began to read some papers. I managed to stand on wobbly legs and walk the three miles to the door. My mouth was parched. Winey acid burbled up my esophagus. In the waiting area I took a paper cup and pressed the water cooler lever. Nothing. The cooler was empty. I turned around and saw a man sitting in the seat I’d occupied earlier. He wore a crisp linen suit with a pale blue shirt and yellow necktie. He looked to be about my age, but more fit and well-kempt. His brown hair was parted with a ruler. He smiled and drank from a paper cup. He crumpled the cup and tossed it across the room into a small trash can.
“Two points,” he said.
The inner door opened. Berk stood there. He was surprised to see me, I could tell. I took what little pleasure I could from his discomfort. He turned to the other man and motioned for him to enter. The man nodded, stood, and went into Berk’s office.
*
Okay Peterson performed beautifully on opening night. From the seats she was tough but vulnerable, a complex, real character. From backstage she struck me as fearless and totally in control. Unlike most of the cast, she knew her lines and she listened while the others spoke. Most teenagers aren’t mature enough to really listen. They just wait for their next line and pray they don’t forget them. For an hour and a half, I forgot that I’d kissed this girl the night before. I gave notes after the show and had to make up something to tell her so the other actors wouldn’t feel bad. Again, she lingered around the theater until everyone else had gone.
“Aren’t you going to the cast party?” I asked.
“I guess so.”
“They’ll all be waiting for you—the star of the show.”
“Where’s Mrs. Hammond?” she asked.
“Home.” I tried to make it sound like I didn’t care, though Abby and I had argued about it all week. I’d wanted to hire a sitter but she insisted Daisy was still too young.
“Will she come tomorrow, or Sunday?” Okay asked. “I’d love to meet her.”
“I don’t think so. Look, Okay, you were great tonight. I mean it, but you really should go.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“I was great?”
I shut out the theater lights and was standing by the side door that led from backstage to the street. My hand was on the push bar but something was stopping me.
“Yeah,” I said. “You were awesome.”
The only light was from a streetlamp outside the small, reinforced window in the door. Okay wore a shearling jacket over a short dress. Her long, bare legs disappeared into a pair of puffy boots. She pushed her black hair off her face.
“Aren’t you going to the party?” she asked.
“I was thinking of stopping by, just for appearances.”
The party was being held at the home of the stage manager. His parents owned a brownstone four blocks away.
“We can walk there together,” Okay said.
“Well, actually, I might skip it. Nothing cramps a party like the appearance of a teacher.”
“No! You’re so wrong, Mr. H. You’re like one of us.”
“Really?” I felt foolish that this made me feel so good.
“Oh, yeah. You’re the coolest.”
My hand still refused to push the door open. Okay didn’t seem to be in a hurry. She was a good six inches shorter than me. I tried not to look at the smooth, freckled skin above her breasts.
“I really do like you, Mr. H.,” she said.
“I like you, too, Okay,” I replied through dry lips.
“No. I mean I really like you.”
“Listen, Okay—“
“I mean, I dreamed about you last night.”
“Wait,” I said, not really meaning it. The thing was, I’d dreamed about her. I couldn’t remember much beyond the kiss, but I knew I woke up in a state of serious tumescence.
“I dreamed about our little kiss,” she said, and I instantly wondered what she meant by little. Then she went on: “It was a beautiful dream, Mr. H., just beautiful, and I thought about it all day, and I used my feelings—you know, my feelings of love, and fear—all of that—in the play tonight. So you see, if I was great, like you said—if I was awesome—then it was because of you. It was because of the kiss.”
And, goddamnit, that’s when it happened.