“What? Help me here,” Joshua said. Even though I wasn’t going to kiss his booboo and make it better, I yanked the Band-Aid off.
“Wavy’s engaged. She’s going to see her fiancé as soon as she gets out of the shower.”
*
I would have needed new clothes and hours to get ready. Wavy showered, fluffed her wispy hair, and put on her favorite dress. It was gray with thin white stripes in it, worn to limp softness. She hadn’t seen him in almost seven years and that’s what she was wearing.
On the drive, we made a plan. Or I made a plan anyway. I would drop Wavy off at Kellen’s house, and then I would go to the library at Wellburg College and work on my Women’s Studies essay. That way my evening wouldn’t be a total waste, and Wavy could check in with me before I drove home.
By the time we got to Wellburg, it was late afternoon and it had started to rain. We circled Kellen’s address and then parked half a block back, where we could see the front door to the apartment building, which was a run-down brick tenement. It faced onto what was basically an alley, with garbage Dumpsters on the sidewalks.
Would Wavy want to live with him in that dismal place? It hadn’t occurred to me that I was orchestrating the end of us being roommates. I’d been going along thinking I was Shakespeare, but I’d written myself out of the play. I was staring out at the rain, feeling sorry for myself, when this big old truck drove past and parked at the end of the block.
“Nineteen sixty-nine Ford F-250,” Wavy said. She was weird that way. She always knew the years of cars. The man who got out of the truck wore blue work pants and a blue and white striped shirt, like a uniform. Reaching back into the truck cab, he pulled out a baseball bat. He ducked his head against the rain, but he didn’t run for cover. Walking up the block slowly, he looked around, but he didn’t see us watching him.
8
WAVY
Kellen had lost weight. Of course, they hadn’t fed him well in prison, but I could make all his favorite foods and fix that. Seeing him free, my heart jumped in my chest. Not empty, not burning. Alive.
“Oh my God, that’s him? That’s him,” Renee said. “What are you going to do?”
I opened the car door, but she grabbed the sleeve of my raincoat.
“Wait. Should I wait for you? What should I do?”
“I don’t know.” My heart was moving too far ahead to think about that.
“Well, I’ll be at the library. Just let me know everything’s okay.”
Kellen was already through the apartment building door. I ran across the street, splashing through puddles, and my hand shook on the door handle. I was all the things I’d almost forgotten how to be—nervous, excited, happy. I wanted to run up the stairs, but my legs could only manage one step at a time.
There was no doorbell, no peephole.
I knocked and Kellen answered.
Water dripped out of his starling-wing hair. Embroidered over the pocket of his wet uniform shirt: Jesse Joe. Three buttons undone, showing the tops of the arrows and the calumet on his chest.
“Wavy,” he said.
I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t thought about that at all. Did I have to say anything? I never had before. I took a step forward, wanting to be in the same room with him. To breathe his air. His eyes weren’t soft. They were hot and frightened. He was afraid of me. I was afraid of me.
Sunlight broke through the clouds and rain stopped pounding against the windows. Kellen’s breath hitched. Anything could happen. Everything. I pressed against him, smelling him. His sweat.
“Wavy, you can’t be here.”
I tried to will him to kiss me, the way I used to, but he frowned down at me with his mouth closed. I turned my back on him, and a spiraling hot thing in my chest said, Leave. Behind me was the kitchen table. Grabbing the closest chair, I carried it to Kellen and stepped up. Then I was the Giant, towering over him. I took his face in my hands the way he did on the morning I knew he loved me. I lifted his mouth to mine. Would he resist? No.
He opened his lips and I knew Val had been right. People could get into you that way. I was creeping into Kellen. He wanted me to. He kissed me, but he wouldn’t touch me, so I took off the raincoat. I unbuttoned the dress myself and dropped it to my feet. The slip, all slippery silk, whispered off me. The panties, which I wanted him to ease down the way he had the first time. The last time. This time my hands did it. My hands for his hands.
Freeing his mouth for a moment, I looked into his eyes, to see if he would come to me.
“Kellen,” I said.
“Are you real?”