Sweet Water

  “Are you sure you’re all right down there, Cass?”

  “Oh, yes, fine. Really, Dad. Things are fine.”

  “Because you can always—”

  “I know, Dad. Thanks. But really. Really, I’m fine.”

  “Well,” he said.

  “Well. Sorry to wake you up.”

  “Hey, anytime. I mean it.”

  “I love you,” I said.

  I hung up the phone and sat very still against the headboard. I thought I might cry. I thought I might cry, but I didn’t.

  When we buried him I thought that long awful stretch of my life was over, that the years I had left would be quiet and peaceful and only how I wanted them, not anybody else. It would be back to one way of remembering, not two competing memories whispering at each other in the night. Time was, he would wake with a cry and I’d put my hand on his arm and he’d shrink toward the wall, and I’d know he was thinking about it, though which part he was thinking about he wouldn’t say and I wouldn’t ask. Our words were bars keeping each other out, both of us locked inside a place nobody else could get to. We never talked about it, any of it, after that one time; we just lived together in a terrible illusion of intimacy, terrible in its rigor and exactness. He would kiss me on the cheek in front of the children, open the car door for me and take my hand to help me out. Reach for me sometimes in the obscurity of darkness, in the space between nightmares, and touch me tenderly and coldly, like a butcher preparing a chicken for sale—coldly, that is, and tenderly.

  I try to think the simpler thing; it’s easier that way. But then life complicates it, two minds living and thinking in the same small space. You think you’ve placed a thought or a memory so you can live with it, and then that other mind comes crowding in and knocks it down.

  After he died I anticipated long, quiet nights like black velvet. I thought I would wrap myself in them. Only me, only my dreams as I chose them and not as they were willed to me. The whole bed would be mine. I should have known that death doesn’t end anything, no, not even when you want it to. And memory is funny; it doesn’t do what you tell it. So now the bed is all mine, but in the night I think of him—and her. And her. I think of them and my head aches. My heart aches.

  It was Friday, a little after ten, and the bar was packed. I didn’t see him come in, didn’t even realize he was there until I was at the booth and saw his sandy hair under a dark felt hat. He’d been watching me as I approached. I felt my mouth go dry.

  He ordered Dickel’s straight up and introduced me to his friends, playing it straight. “This is my cousin Cassandra. She’s from up north. Tom, Billy, Ed,” he said, pointing at each with a trigger finger.

  They all half rose. “Pleased to meet you.” They tipped their hats and shook my hand.

  “She’s an artist,” Troy said. “Not much money to be made in art these days. Got to supplement your income.”

  “Don’t you know it’s true,” Tom said agreeably.

  “You paint pictures?” Billy ventured.

  “Sculpture, mostly. Clay.” I glanced toward the bar. Liz and Ryan were watching me like mothers.

  The guys laughed politely. Tom excused himself to play a video game.

  “Well, you came to the right place if you’re looking for clay,” said Billy. “Hell, take some home with you when you go! You’ll be doing us a favor.”

  As we were talking, I could feel those pale-blue eyes searching the bland mask I was wearing to hide the fact that I was caving in. He didn’t try to speak to me alone, didn’t say anything about anything, even when Ed and Billy went over to watch Tom rack up points on the screen. When I brushed his hand by mistake it was like touching an electric fence. I was sure he felt it too.

  Saturday morning I was reading the newspaper in my booth at the Eagle when I heard a rap on the window. I looked up to see Troy in a white T-shirt and a frayed jean jacket, his hands cupping his eyes against the glass. I was startled to see his face so close. He bounced back on his heels, motioned toward the door, and pantomimed drinking coffee. I realized that I’d never seen him in the cold light of morning, except that one time, and mornings after don’t count. They might as well be the night before.

  As he came toward me now his hair was wet and his face was clean and pale, as if it had been recently scrubbed. The waitress looked up from her card game and watched him. He smiled at her.

  “Hey,” he said to me, tapping two fingers on the Formica tentatively. “Mind if I sit down?”

  “How’d you know I was here?”

  “Pure coincidence. You never know who you might run into.”

  I just looked at him.

  “Okay, Alice told me. She said you come here every day.”

  “How does she know that?”

  He shrugged. “Better be careful, Cassie. Life gets predictable around here pretty fast.”

  I laughed nervously. “So she sent you over here, huh?”

  “That’s right.” He bent forward, holding out his hand with exaggerated formality. “And you must be Cassandra. I’m your cousin Troy. Nice to meet you.”

  “Nice to meet you, Troy,” I said, shaking his hand.

  “May I join you?”

  I gestured to the seat across from me.

  He slid in, and the waitress brought over a menu. When she left he said, “So you’re from the Big City, I understand.”

  “Most recently. Boston before that.”

  “Boston,” he said. “I believe I’ve heard of it. Something about a tea party. Some guy on a horse with a feather in his hat trying to get someplace by midnight.”

  “Fourth-grade social studies?”

  “Fifth. We’re a little backward down here, you know.”

  “And you live in Atlanta,” I said.

  “Indeed.”

  “Something about a big fire, Rhett and Scarlett, the Peachtree Hotel?”

  “That’s it. You ever been there?”

  I shook my head.

  “Well, we’ll see what we can do about that.” He scanned the menu. “This place has fantastic grits. You like grits?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I’ve never tried them.”

  “Oh, well, then you have to.”

  “I think I’ll stick with toast.”

  “Come on, now. Expand your horizons.”

  “I think I’ve expanded my horizons enough lately, thanks.”

  We sat in silence for a moment. Behind the lunch counter the juice machine made gurgling sounds. The large clock ticked loudly on the wall above it. When the waitress returned he ordered coffee, black, and she brought it right over. I watched him tear open three sugar packets and pour them in, one after another. Looking at the top of his blond head, I thought of how I had stood by the door inside his motel room as he sat on the bed pulling on his boots, head bent, tongue stuck out in concentration. When he glanced up and saw me watching, he had blown me a kiss.

  He stirred the coffee and then settled back against the corner of the booth, one leg propped on the seat, his arm dangling over his knee. He took a sip of coffee and watched me over the rim of the cup.

  “You’re even lovelier in daylight.”

  “Have you told anybody?” I asked.

  “I’m sure they can see it for themselves.”

  “You know what I’m talking about.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t play games, Troy.”

  Outside, a teenager in a large aqua convertible was trying to parallel park in front of the diner. The first time, his back wheels jumped up on the sidewalk; the next time, he couldn’t get closer than three feet from the curb. He kept hitting the front bumper of the car behind him. We watched him out the window until he gave up and left.

  “I came back this weekend because of you,” Troy said. He seemed to be studying my features. “I went to the bar last night because I knew you’d be there.”

  “Don’t.”

  “What?”


  “Don’t say that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Troy, we can’t—” I sighed. “We can’t even hold hands in public without creating a scandal.”

  He reached for my hand across the table and grasped it firmly before I could draw back. “I don’t see anybody screaming.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  He looked around. “I don’t see anybody calling the police.”

  The waitress came toward us with the coffeepot, and I pulled my hand away.

  “D’ja see that kid out there trying to park?” she said. “Didn’t look old enough to drive.”

  “Probably isn’t,” Troy said.

  “Nice car, though,” said the waitress.

  “Fifty-seven Cadillac. I wouldn’t mind one of those myself. They’re hard to come by.”

  “Just wait a month or two.” She laughed. “Check the junk lots. It might even be salvageable.” She filled our cups and went back to the counter, whistling.

  “Does your mother know you’re here this time?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “What’ll she say if she finds out?”

  He shifted in his seat, casting around for an answer. “Look, who the hell cares?” he said finally. “I have my own life. I can’t go around worrying what other people think all the time.”

  “But she’s your mother. And she’s hurt that you haven’t been in touch.”

  He shrugged. “To tell you the truth, I don’t even want to be around her. I always feel like she’s trying to swallow me up.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The only way she can get people to stick around is to control their lives, make them dependent on her. Look at my dad—she does everything for him but deliver his sermons. I know she writes them. And look at Clyde.” He shook his head. “It’s pathetic.”

  “What about Clyde?”

  “My mother treats her like a child. She can’t make a decision on her own without Mother butting in. Why do you think she lives in that development five minutes away? Mother didn’t want her too far out of sight.”

  “She is getting older, Troy.”

  “It doesn’t have anything to do with age. And it doesn’t have anything to do with Clyde’s well-being.”

  I stirred my coffee. “Well, whatever the reasons, I feel uncomfortable being seen with you when you haven’t told your mother you’re here. What would she say if she walked in right now?”

  “Alice told me you were here. We’re cousins. What can she say?”

  “Oh, yes, that’s right,” I said. “We’re starting from the beginning. Nice, normal, friendly.”

  He leaned forward. “Look, Cassandra. I can be your friend. I can be the best friend you ever had. But I’m not going to pretend that night didn’t happen.”

  I thought of that night: of how when he kissed me I smelled the tequila on his breath, of the way he cradled my arms and head beneath him, his fingers laced through my hair.

  He reached over and touched the line of my cheekbone with two fingers, and I watched his face, feeling a flush rise in my own. After a moment I lowered my eyes, and he let his hand drop to the table. We sat that way, listening to the loud ticking of the clock and the gurgling juice machine, until the waitress came by with the check.

  He glanced at it. “I suppose I should be going.”

  I nodded and waved my hand as if to say he was free to leave. He pulled a dollar out of his back pocket and put it on the table. The bill sat between us like a truce.

  He stood up. “See you soon,” he said, and softly touched my hand, running a finger down my wrist to my thumb.

  Through the glass I watched him walk down the street, his shoulders hunched forward a little, as if he were heading into a strong wind. I put some change on top of the dollar, and the waitress came over to clear the table.

  “That your brother?”

  “No.”

  “Y’all look an awful lot alike.” She picked up the change and put it in her apron pocket.

  I folded up the newspaper. “Well, we’re cousins.”

  “You don’t say,” she said, with sudden interest. “Hey, listen, I was thinking that maybe if I found out if that car might be for sale I could call him and let him know. You got a number for him, just in case?”

  “No, I’m sorry. He’s staying at some motel on the other side of town.”

  “And what motel would that be?”

  I looked at her steadily. “I really don’t know,” I said, getting up. “If I see him I’ll tell him you’re looking for him.” I put the paper under one arm and gathered my bags in the other.

  “See you tomorrow,” the waitress said. “And bring your cousin.” She smiled, and I noticed she had lipstick on her teeth.

  He stood in the doorway fingering his felt hat. Through the screen he could see me sitting on a stool in the dining room, my hands molding a figure, clay streaking my face and sweat trickling down my blouse, straw-colored wisps of hair falling out of a blue bandanna. It was early afternoon. Birds were quiet, keeping cool. Bugs sang in the hot grass. From where I was sitting I could see into each room on the ground floor and out a kaleidoscope of windows. When I heard the muffled rumbling of a jeep coming up the long grassy drive, I knew it was him and my heart started beating faster. Now it was racing and my sweat had turned cool and my hands were unsteady, though he couldn’t see that.

  “Hey,” he said, leaning against the screen, his right arm over his head as he squinted in at me. “Mind if I come in?”

  I shook my head, and he opened the door. The spring was loose, and the door slapped back against the side of the house. He put his hat on the table in the kitchen and came over to me. I looked at his jean jacket, wondering how he could stand to wear it on such a hot day.

  “What brings you to this part of town?”

  “I wanted to see you, Cassandra.” He said my name slowly, enunciating each syllable AS if it were a word he’d never said before, and then he lifted my chin and kissed me softly, lightly. He leaned back for a second and looked into my eyes, one at a time, and said, “Why don’t we just forget all the bullshit for now.”

  “Okay,” I whispered. Okay. I was willing to forget everything in that moment, and he kissed me again, his tongue in my mouth, then around the rim of my ear. He pulled off the bandanna, and I lifted his T-shirt with clay-covered hands and drew chalky lines across his chest with my fingers, feeling his skin, like fine-grained wood, the muscles of his stomach, the narrow feather of hair. I touched his nipples, making them hard; he slowly unbuttoned my blouse. He bent down, cupping my breasts with his hands and taking one and then the other into his mouth as my nipples rose and tightened in response to his hot breath, the cooling wetness of his kisses.

  His hands moved up my spine, and he slipped the shirt off my shoulders as I sat on the stool in the center of the room. I ran my fingers through his soft hair, all matted down by the hat. I felt like a sun he was orbiting; he touched my hair, the small of my back, my breasts, my stomach, my face, and then I slid off the stool and we knelt together, bare chests touching. I licked the salt off his neck while he undid my shorts, pushing them down, pushing me down, running his tongue between my breasts as I lay back on the pine floor, running his tongue down my ribs and flicking it over my stomach. My hands were in his hair, on the curve of his neck, gripping his shoulders as his tongue moved down to the hollow between my hips, leaving a trail like a snail. He kissed each hipbone and moved down one leg, brushing my thigh with his lips, stopping to bite a knee before coming up the other side.

  “Cassandra,” he whispered without looking up, “I wrote you a song.”

  I had never felt so exposed or cared so little as I lay there in the thick heat and brightness of midday in that house with twenty-eight windows, all of them open. Gently his tongue probed, and soon I didn’t care at all. His hands touched inside me, rubbed my breasts, clutched me from behind; his tongue was steady, insistent, and I was on a roller coaster, panting, t
wisting, and the ride got faster and suddenly I was soaring through the air, off the track. He held my thighs and kept licking, and I sailed higher and again, resisting and panting and saying his name, and then the feeling melted inside me like ice cream.

  I put my hands over my face and he came up, kissing my belly button and my freckled breasts and my collarbone, and then, moving my fingers aside, he kissed me on the mouth. After a while I stopped trembling and we lay side by side, facing each other, my hands curled against his chest, one of his arms under my neck and the other in the dip between my hipbone and rib cage.

  Later, in the dusky heat of early evening, he went around the room looking at clay pieces that were drying on plastic squares all over the floor. He ran his hand along the rounded side of one, as if feeling the flank of a horse. He tapped it. “Hollow.”

  “They all are,” I said. I was scraping clay off the bat of my potter’s wheel and lumping it into a pile.

  He looked over at me. “That piece is ruined.”

  I picked up the clay, weighing it in one hand and then the other, molding it into a ball. “I didn’t stop you.”

  “But still—I’m sorry.”

  “I didn’t like the way it was turning out anyway.” I smiled.

  He held up a small piece and examined it carefully. “How do you do this?” he asked. “How do you know what to do?”

  “You don’t, really—I don’t. You start with a basic idea and then just keep trying until something works, until it all comes together somehow. Or doesn’t.”

  “Like writing songs.”

  “Maybe. I don’t know what to compare it to. It’s the only thing I’ve done that feels this way.”

  He contemplated one of the glazed pieces. “Aha,” he said. “This is a head.”

  “Um-hm.”

  “And this is a leg.” He picked up a long, broad piece next to it. “Are all these parts going to fit together?”

  “Well, there’ll be three figures.” I covered the ball of clay with a damp cloth and went over to him. “See, this fits here.” I placed the head at an angle on a larger torso. “The different parts rest on top of each other like a rock pyramid. The ones at the top are smaller than the ones at the bottom.”