“Who the hell are you?” Beth said.
“Wavy.” As soon as I said it, I knew he hadn’t told the woman about me. She didn’t even know who I was.
9
KELLEN
The way her bare shoulders stiffened, I knew what it looked like. There I was living with some woman who didn’t even know about Wavy. All I’d meant to do was protect her. It didn’t seem fair to say her name to anybody.
“You fucking pedophile,” Beth said. “You said it was a mistake. One time, you piece of shit. That’s what gets you off? Little girls? I ought to call the cops. I swear. How old is she?”
“Twenty-one,” Wavy said.
In a couple months she would be, but seeing her naked in broad daylight for only the second time, I didn’t blame Beth for thinking the worst. Wavy was almost as small as she’d been at thirteen. She was all long legs and narrow in the hips. Her tits were perfect, but not even big enough to fill my mouth, let alone my hands. She hadn’t hardly grown at all. Did it make me a pervert that I still thought she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen? Did it make me less of a pervert that twenty and thirteen looked the same on her? When I had her in my arms, none of that mattered.
“Like hell you’re twenty-one,” Beth sneered. “Let me give you some advice, little girl. This is his thing. Whatever he told you, he doesn’t love you. He just wants your little hairless twat.”
Wavy laughed. I almost did, too, except Beth glared hard enough to stop me.
“This is her. Wavy’s the girl I went up for,” I said.
“You did six years for her? God, how old was she, you creep? She doesn’t look old enough to get a driver’s license now. You’re so goddamn stupid, Jesse. You want to ruin your life, go ahead, but don’t think I’ll lie to your parole officer for you. Get out.”
Beth went back into the kitchen and I pulled my duffel bag out of the closet and shoved clothes into it, with Wavy watching me.
“Get dressed, sweetheart,” I said.
“Yeah, get dressed you crazy little bitch.” Beth walked back into the bedroom and tossed Wavy’s clothes on the bed. “Goddamn, my new sheets, too.”
Wavy started putting on her clothes, but she did it like a backwards strip show, smiling at me while she pulled her panties up.
“No cops this time,” she said.
I couldn’t even manage a smile to answer that, because maybe the cops weren’t going to show up, but Beth stood there in the doorway, glaring at us.
“Get out. And I want your key,” she said.
While Wavy buttoned up her dress, I took the apartment key off my ring. After I gave it to Beth, Wavy and I went down the stairs and out into the street.
“Where’s your car parked?” I said.
“My roommate dropped me off.” Her voice just about killed me. Grown up, but still quiet. And happy, the way I’d dreamed about.
When she took my hand, I let her. We walked down the block to my truck, swinging our hands between us. She smiled at me, sure everything was going to be okay, when I knew it wasn’t. I held her hand until I had to let go to toss my duffel in the back and open the door for her.
“Nineteen sixty-nine,” she said as she stepped up on the running board. I didn’t have no secrets from her. She knew exactly why I was driving that truck. For love. For good luck. Because that was the year she was born.
Sitting in the truck, holding her hand again, I thought about all the things I wanted to tell her. I’d spent all those years in a cell thinking about talking to her, but now there was only one thing I needed to say to her.
“Wavy, I can’t see you. I’m breaking the conditions of my parole right now, just sitting next to you, talking to you. I can’t have any contact with you.”
She looked at me hard, not even asking a question. Pissed off and hurt, and I didn’t blame her. I deserved that look, but she could be as mad at me as she wanted. It didn’t change a damn thing.
“Tell me where to take you and I’ll drop you off and—and that has to be that. I can’t see you again. Do you understand?”
After that she wouldn’t look at me and I couldn’t look away. Probably it’d be the last time I got to see her. I’d thought that before, when I was arrested, so seeing her one more time was a gift. I woulda counted the last hour as a gift, too, except this was how it was gonna end. It shoulda been our wedding night, and instead it was just good-bye. She sat up straight, her shoulders square, looking out the windshield. Her hair was cut short, with little curls teasing at her bare neck. Like that birthday night when she’d worn it up.
“My deposition,” she said.
“Yeah, I read your deposition. You were brave to do that. To keep me from getting framed for something a lot worse. They really wanted to pin your mama’s murder on me.” I sometimes wondered if it coulda gone differently. Maybe I coulda pled to a lesser charge, if she’d told the truth.