I stayed until there was nothing left in my mug but cold milk and soggy chunks of Swiss Miss, then shook his hand. “Thanks for the hot chocolate, Mr. Dexter.”
“Just keep doing what you’re doing for our Dex.” Our Dex, like you were a secret we shared. He walked me to the door. “And you better listen to that album, young lady. I’m waiting on your report.”
I saluted. “Yes, sir, Mr. Dexter.”
“My friends call me Jimmy.” Not Jim but Jimmy, which he probably thought lent him boyish charm but actually made him sound like he needed to live under adult supervision.
“Are we friends now?”
“Any friend of Dex’s,” he said. “You know the rest.”
IT WAS JUST TALK. THERE’S nothing wrong with that.
Sometimes I cut school without you. Your dad was home a lot during the day. More than he should have been, you and your mom would probably say. Even the first time, he didn’t ask what I was doing there. Neither of us bothered to pretend I was looking for you.
“Hot chocolate?” he said.
“How about a smoke?” I tossed him a pack of Winston Lights.
We took them into the backyard. I liked puffing the smoke into the cold, watching it fog the air. It was like breathing, only better.
I’d spotted the stains on his fingers, the way he kept tapping his spoon against his mouth. The tiny hole at his knee where the denim had burned away. Secret smokers recognize each other. There’s a whiff of unfulfilled need about us, of unspoken desire. You want my opinion, I don’t even think he likes smoking. I think he just does it because he’s not allowed to.
“God,” he sighed, blowing it out. “God, that’s good.”
The first draw is always the best.
He taught me to puff a smoke ring. I reminded him—later, when we knew each other better—how to roll a joint.
That day, though, we smoked our cigarettes standing up, leaning against the back wall. The shitty patio furniture seemed like your mother’s territory, all those vinyl flowers and pastel pillows.
“Can I ask you something, Blondie?” He liked to play with the cigarette, carving up the air with its glowing tip. I liked to watch. He has man hands, your dad. Big enough to curl his fingertips over mine when we pressed palm to palm, crooked like they’re still trying to curl around an invisible guitar. “It’s probably inappropriate.”
“I think we’re past that, Mr. Dexter.”
“Jimmy.”
“Jimmy.” I liked to make him tell me again.
“Does Dex have . . . I mean, she’s never brought a boy home, but that doesn’t mean . . . I was wondering—”
“Why, Jimmy, are you asking me if your daughter has a boyfriend?” I said.
“Well . . .”
“Or if she’s a dyke?”
“That’s not what I—”
“Or are you just concerned with the state of her cherry, whatever drink it’s in?”
“You’re, uh, mixing your metaphors there, Blondie.” It was cute the way he tried to play it cool, pretend like his skin wasn’t crawling off his bones.
“Don’t ask me about Dex.”
This was the week after that night at Beast, when you went a little nuts with the tequila and decided you should put on your own personal bartop strip show. You didn’t even remember it in the morning. What you did or what you wanted, or how you cursed at me for dragging you out of there, so you can’t appreciate that I took you back to my place, tucked you up tight under my covers, rather than dumping you off on your parents’ porch, a drunk, drooling, half-naked and half-catatonic mess for them to clean up. Sometimes I lie to protect you, Dex, so you can keep lying to yourself. You didn’t want to know how much you wanted that guy in Beast, just like you didn’t want to know how, in that field with those idiot farm boys, you were jonesing to get your hands on the axe. You don’t want to know that you swung it high and hard and laughed at the blood.
I kept your secrets for you—from you. I wasn’t about to spill any to him.
“You don’t want to know whether I have a boyfriend?” I said. “Or whether I’ve been in love, any of that crap?”
“That crap’s none of my business, Blondie.”
“They’re all idiots. Guys my age.”
“Not just your age,” he said.
“So now you’re suggesting I should look into the lesbian thing?”
We weren’t looking at each other. We usually didn’t. He preferred leaning against the house, hiding behind his sunglasses and watching the back lawn like he was scanning for movement, that caveman stare, this land is mine and I will protect it. Wild boars, deer, errant mailmen—he was prepared. I focused on the same middle distance and snuck glances at him when I could. Sometimes we caught each other out. I liked it when he blushed.
“The thing to know about men is that they’re pigs,” he said. “Especially when a pretty girl comes along.”
“Are you calling me pretty, Jimmy?”
“Shoe fits, Blondie.”
“You don’t have to worry about me,” I told him. “I have a dad of my own, you know.”
“I know.” He did look at me then. “It must be hard, not having him around.”