“Yes,” Gary says, closing the door. “Those little girls remind me of that doll. Unkempt but lovable.”
“Really?” Marjorie says, surprised. “They aren’t lovable at all to me.”
“MRS. MACOMBER?” Justin says.
He has a way of appearing behind her, out of nowhere, and frightening her. It is very hot today, and humid. He is covered with a shiny layer of sweat, and standing close enough that his smell seems to cling to Marjorie.
“I can’t find the gasoline, for the mower. Maybe you’re out?”
Marjorie sighs. She has left the cool comfort of central air conditioning inside just long enough to get in her car and drive to the pool at the club. All she has on is a navy blue shift dress, her bathing suit underneath, and sandals. She doesn’t want to get all hot and sweaty rummaging through the garage.
“Well,” she says, “did you root around inside?” She motions toward the garage behind them. Between them, the hot air ripples. What was it Bonnie said he looked like? A god? Dizzy from the heat, Marjorie can agree. But he smells so ungodly, so earthbound. She wishes he would wear a shirt, at least.
“That’s how I know you’re out,” he says, cocky.
She can’t imagine Gary would let something like this happen. It’s his job to take care of things like gasoline for the lawn mower, and oil changes for both cars. And hiring gardeners, she adds, turning around and going into the cool dark of the garage. She never comes in here. It smells like metal and fuel, a smell that tastes metallic on her tongue. The light has to be turned on by a string that hangs from a bulb somewhere; she can’t find it.
But the boy has followed her inside and says, “It’s supposed to be over here.”
Instead of searching for the light, Marjorie follows him to one distant corner. She wonders if she’s ruining her sandals, getting motor oil on them.
“See for yourself,” he says.
She pokes around, among mulch and watering cans and a garden hose coiled up like a snake.
“Hey,” the boy says. “Boss.”
She turns and he is right up behind her in that way he has. Marjorie feels a dull throb in her groin. This is so cliché, she thinks. She wonders what he expects from her. Is he stupid enough to believe she will grab him and take him right here? But as she thinks it she feels a quiver in her thighs, high up.
“You’re a stupid arrogant boy,” she says.
He laughs and moves right up to her, pressing her lightly into the bags of mulch. The garden hose is hard against her shins.
“Lady,” Justin says, not even bothering to whisper. “You drive me nuts. I mean, I know you’re probably even older than my mother, but the way you lay out there all greased up, with that flat stomach and those gorgeous tits, I’m about to go crazy.”
Is this really me he’s talking about? Marjorie thinks, excited by the idea that a boy who looks like this boy would think of her this way.
“I’m going to be a grandmother,” she says.
It is the first time she has ever spoken to him in such a voice, inviting and honest. She imagines she has not used this voice in years, since she was a girl not much older than him, before all the things that happen to a person had happened.
“No shit,” Justin says, and lets out a low whistle.
Marjorie reaches up and pulls out the rubber band that hold his dark hair in its ponytail. His hair spills out around him like a girl’s.
“Can I touch you?” he says.
She is surprised he asks; his boldness and confidence imply that he just takes what he wants.
As if someone else is controlling her movements, Marjorie takes his hand and moves it under her shift, inside her bathing suit, to where she is hot and wet.
He moans.
Is it possible that she still has this kind of power over someone so young and beautiful? His fingers, rough from garden work, slip inside her and move in the right way. She wonders how many girls he has had, so young.
When Marjorie was in high school and college she believed her virginity was a precious thing, and she held on to it until she and Gary were properly engaged, the wedding date set, everything official. What she did in those days—and what she has not done since—was to take boys into her mouth, feel them swell and push and then burst with come that she used to drink up.