She smiles, or at least Ben thinks she does. He would do anything she asked. Even something stupid like robbing a convenience store. He’d leave everything behind and follow her to some far-off destination. He’d look for a miracle if he could.
“Probably,” he agrees. “I bet it does.”
But he hadn’t been enough of an idiot to actually open his eyes when he was at Helene’s window. He thought about those times he’d stalked her. Even then it was Shelby he wanted. He was just too afraid of what she’d do if he got caught spying on her. Helene was simpler. One night while he watched, Helene was on her bed, chatting on the phone. She was undressed, lying on her back, one bare leg thrown over the other. All she had on was a bracelet. She was almost too beautiful to be real. His eyes are closed now, and he imagines her as she was. He hears the echo of her voice as she talked on the phone to Shelby, cooking up some plans for the weekend. Her skin was snow-white; her hair was the color of roses. That’s the way she’ll always be to him. Some things are best remembered the way you want to remember them, like this road, these stars, this girl right beside him as they walk into the center of the cold night, looking straight ahead.
CHAPTER
2
On the day Shelby and Ben Mink move to New York City, Ben drops a bookcase on his foot and breaks three bones. They wind up sitting in the ER at Bellevue Hospital for so long someone barges into their apartment with the help of a crowbar and steals their TV, actually Ben’s TV, since Shelby owns nothing. Naturally, it’s Shelby who forgot to double-lock the door. Ben doesn’t blame her. He doesn’t raise his voice even though he now wears a soft cast and can expect to have pain for up to thirty days. He simply says, “Welcome to city living,” and begins to unpack everything that hasn’t been stolen, mainly clothes and pots and pans his mom gave him, along with his great-aunt Ida’s dining room table and chairs, a set so ugly no one in his right mind would steal it. Ben’s kindness only serves to reinforce Shelby’s notion that he’s all wrong for her. Before it’s even begun she knows she’s made a mistake.
She’s moved into a cramped studio apartment on Tenth Avenue with Ben because she was haunted in her hometown on Long Island. Ben is well meaning, with a kind and open heart. For some reason he’s fallen in love with her, so when he asked her to come to the city she said yes before she thought things through. She still doesn’t understand what he sees in her, but she doesn’t bother to ask. They’d been thrown together by fate and boredom. They began their relationship by reading chapters of The Illustrated Man to each other. Shelby blames Ray Bradbury for tricking her into having sex with Ben. His stories made her feel something around the edge of her heart. Still, the intimacy of being scrunched into a single bed in the basement with Ben felt all wrong. She thinks of sex as something nasty, quickly over and done with on a bathroom floor while someone holds you down and treats you roughly. Ben was tender, which was upsetting. Shelby didn’t know how to respond. This was her parents’ house after all. Once, while in bed, Ben was whispering something about being in love with her and she was thinking about the snow falling down, Shelby had heard her mother’s tread on the stair, probably as she carried down a basket of laundry. The washing machine was only a few feet away. Panicked, Shelby had shouted out, “Don’t come down here!” as if she were packaging cocaine or running a house of prostitution. Her mother had run back up the stairs and shut the door.
“It’s okay,” Ben had said, “I want to meet your mom.” He’d patted Shelby on the back to calm her, which only served to make her want to push him away.
Ben had pulled on his clothes. He wasn’t kidding about doing the proper thing. He’d gone out the back door, through the yard, around the house, then up to the front door, where he rang the bell and introduced himself to Sue. Shelby and her mom still laugh about the fact that he was wearing Shelby’s boots, which he’d put on by accident. He’d been forced to hobble around the house while Sue Richmond served him tea and cookies.