"You just said it, 'the poor guy,' " Bill Hill said. "For him to be poor and left alone is not only dumb, it's a sin; because when you're gifted and you don't take advantage of the gift and use it, you know what that's like? It's like an insult to Almighty God, telling Him you don't want the gift. 'Keep it, Lord, I want to be left alone and hide out in some monastery or alcohol center.' "
"Bill, leave. Okay?"
He got up, studying her with a relaxed, confident expression, straightening his tan trousers and short-sleeved safari jacket.
He said, "You look nice, you know it? You ought to dress up more."
"I'm not dressed up."
"Those are good-looking slacks, nice fit--nice starched white blouse. You ought to throw those cutoffs and that Bob Marley T-shirt away. And take Waylon down, get a nice painting."
"Bill?"
"I'm going. Have a nice time with your boyfriend."
* * *
Lynn's two-bedroom-with-balcony apartment was on the second floor of a four-unit tan brick building that was less than ten years old. In the mile-square complex of the Somerset Park Apartments--with its curving streets, sweeping lawns, its golf course, tennis courts, swimming pools--all the buildings were two stories, beige, tan, or gray, cleanly styled with sort of mansard roofs. The front door of each building was always locked. A visitor pushed the button opposite one of the four names and the front door was buzzed open from inside the apartment.
At ten after three, Lynn heard the sound and jumped--again, even though she was expecting it--as anxious, excited, as she had ever been in her life.
She buzzed the door and went out into the hall to wait, facing the stairway, the wrought-iron railing, the cathedral window that rose from the landing--the turn in the stairway--all the way up to the ceiling. The sun was streaming in through the window. It was quiet. It was perfect.
Juvenal came up the stairs, smiling. Not looking around, smiling right at her.
Chapter 20
"HOW'D YOU GET HERE?"
"They let me use a car."
"You found it all right?"
"Sure. I was here before."
"But I drove. You know, unless you were paying attention--"
"I remembered."
"Well, you look good."
"So do you."
"I was surprised when you called--"
"I had to get out of there. All the people coming to see me, even Time magazine and Newsweek, I couldn't believe it. It got so the news people were taking over the coffee shop." Juvenal paused, waited, looking at her. "That's not the reason I came though."
"I know," Lynn said.
"I came because I wanted to see you. In fact--do you want to know the truth?"
"Tell me."
"I was dying to see you."
She wasn't sure who moved first. Her arms went around his body and his arms gathered her in close, around her shoulders; she could feel his hands on her back. They held each other very tightly, standing in the hall, the sun coming in. They had reached this point almost immediately, after only brief moments of looking at each other, making opening remarks, barely able to wait, because they both knew and felt it and didn't have to hint or fool around or be coy about it. They both knew. They wanted to hold each other as tightly as they could and that's what they were doing. For the moment there was nothing else.
"I was dying too," Lynn said.
"I couldn't wait. I couldn't get out of there fast enough."
"Let's go inside, okay?"
He said, "Just a second."
She raised her face. His face was there, eyes looking into eyes, to see the person in there. They began kissing each other's mouths, moving their heads and sliding gently and getting the soft fit, trying to get inside and be lost in each other. Was it possible?
They held and kissed again, without moving, standing in the living room.
They held and kissed on the cranberry couch with Waylon above them and the newspaper accounts of Elvis on the coffee table . . . Lynn a young girl again kissing, necking--no, it wasn't necking, it was kissing and feeling it as though for the first time, kissing for kissing, not to lead to something else, though it was going to, she knew. There were things she wanted to say to him but didn't want to speak now unless she could whisper very, very quietly and not interrupt the mood or the silence. For a moment, a split moment, she saw herself alone again, after, and was afraid.
He said to her, very close but looking at her, both of them low on the couch, half sitting, half lying, he said that he loved her. He said, "I love you," in a way she had never heard before in her life. "I love you."
Lynn said, "I love you." And then tried it again, "I love you. Either way, it's true. Any way you can say it. But I wasn't prepared. I mean I knew I loved you, but I wasn't prepared to say it. I don't want to talk yet."
He said, "Boy, it's good."
She said, "I want to feel you. I'm dying to. Can I feel you?"
He said, "I want to feel you. I want to see you."
She put her hand on his groin, on the tight, hard bleached denim. "I feel you. There you are, right there. Part of you."
He put his hand on her breast. "I feel you."
"You felt me before."
"No, I wasn't feeling you then."
"I know you weren't."
"I'm feeling you now. You feel so good. That's you, isn't it?"
Her hand moved up to unbutton the buttons of his shirt and slid into the opening, her fingers brushing his side that had bled, moving up to his chest. "I love your body. I saw your body and I loved it and now I love it more."
He said, again, "I want to see you. Where are you?"
"I'm here."
He unbuttoned her blouse and opened it.
"You said my breasts were okay."
They were smiling at each other.
"Your breasts are beautiful. Your breasts are the most beautiful things I've ever seen. They're not things, but I can't think of a good word. The most beautiful breasts I've ever seen--no, because that's not right."
She was looking at him with a question, a doubt, hesitant.
He said, "Don't think. Don't talk now."
She said, "I love you so much. But I don't want you to feel--you know, after, that I'm making you do something."
He said, "What I feel, I feel good. Listen, do you want me to tell you exactly how I feel, if I can, how much I love you and how I feel when I'm with you?" He was brushing her face with his mouth. "Do you want to talk about what we're doing or do you want to just be here and that's all, because I think it's enough. I can say I've never said this before to anyone. I have no practice, no moves . . . let's take our clothes off . . . do you say that or do you just take them off or do you say something romantic first? . . . No, don't tell me, because what difference does it make . . . if you've never done this before you think, well, there's only one way to do it, not several ways. How many ways can you take off your clothes? You can tell me that."
Lynn said, "Come on with me."
She said, "God, I love you." She said, "I love you so much, I don't believe it. Like it can't be happening."
They were lying on her double bed with the top sheet and the spread thrown back, the window shade pulled, the bedroom dimly more light than dark.
He said, "It's happening. I'm pretty sure it is." Lying on his back he moved his right hand to her thigh and brought it up slowly between her legs. "Yes, it's still happening, I can feel it."
"We're lucky," Lynn said. "Right now we are."
"You sound very solemn."
"You're right, I've got to watch that," Lynn said. "The most important thing you can do in life is not take it too seriously. I wrote that down once."
"Why?"
"Because it's true."
"Who said it?"
"It was Errol Flynn in a movie called Escape Me Never, with Ida Lupino." When Juvenal turned his head to look at her, Lynn said, "I'm not trying to be funny. It was in the movie and I remember it. On television."
"On television," Juvenal said. "Well . . . I think it's all right to take serious things seriously. As long as you don't wail and gnash your teeth. Or kick and scream. The problem is figuring out what's serious and what isn't."
She was looking at him now, her head turned on the pillow. "Are you trying to tell me something?"
He said, "I think what I'm saying is, being in love is serious and making love to the person you love must be the best thing there is. You lose yourself completely. It's awesome when I think about it." He smiled, moving against her. "But it's also a lot of fun it's so good. What I'm trying to say is that being serious doesn't mean you have to be solemn."
"My instant reaction," Lynn said, "I want to say, But it's too good to be true."
"Or, it's so good that it's true," he said. "Unless, for some reason, you want to be sad."
"Did you read that?"
"No, I didn't read it. I don't think I did."
"I have a terrible feeling that when something good happens it's not gonna last," Lynn said. "But when I look back, the good things that've happened to me haven't been all that good. So it doesn't matter they didn't last. But now--do you know what I mean?"
"Well, you told me you're not in love with anybody else."
"God, no."
"You don't have any binding commitments."
"None."
"I don't either," Juvenal said, "so what's the problem? I haven't read any book on this, I'm feeling my way along"--and smiled at her as his hand moved gently into the hollow of her stomach and down to the patch of soft hair between her legs-- "you might say, going by instinct. But are you supposed to worry about it? Why can't we just accept what's happening and say fine?"
She said, "But you're not just someone, some guy--"
"Sure I am. I'm Charlie Lawson--and I haven't heard that in a long time. You want, you can call me Charlie."
"You're more than that, a name."
"How should I act then?"
"You were in a religious order--"
"I came out. Priests come out now, get married, it doesn't seem to bother anyone."
"You're different."
"Right, I wasn't even a priest."
"You know what I mean, you bleed. God, I'm lying here with you--from the same as Christ's wounds--do you realize, would you like to try to look at it from over here? Put yourself in my place."
"I bleed from my own wounds," Juvenal said. "They aren't even wounds. I bleed from my mind, who knows? Or God makes it happen. Maybe. But there aren't any conditions, rules of behavior. It happens to me, so how do I handle it? What do I do? I accept it--I told you that--because I don't have any other choice." He paused. "What else? I touch people--" He paused again. "And you touched me. You took my hand--"
"I want to be with you," Lynn said, "but I don't want to be in your way. This is something, it's way over my head and I guess that's part of what I mean I don't believe it's happening. You have to understand, I was married to a saddle bronc rider."
"You want me to pretend to be pious?"
"You act like it's nothing."
"If it's mine, if it's happening to me--" His voice was very quiet as he said, "How do you want me to act?"
"I don't know." She closed her eyes, to rest or run away for a moment.
He waited until she opened them again.
"I don't know either. But if there aren't any rules, why can't I be myself?"
"Maybe . . . your Church won't let you."
"You mean a person in the Church? Who?"
"Well, what if--and I'm serious--what if it turns out you're a saint?"
"What if I am? What if we both are? We'll be canonized in two hundred years and young girls will pray to Saint Lynn. Will you intercede for them, take their petitions to God?"
"Is that how it works?"
"Who knows? What do we know that we're sure of? I'll tell you the only thing I know and can feel and believe," Juvenal said, "I love you, I want to be with you."
"But why?"
"Because I've known you all my life and maybe even before that and I feel good with you. I'm beginning to know what it means to feel one with another person. I don't mean making love, and that's an unbelievable experience, making love with someone you love; but it's part of it, trying to be physically one with your bodies"--looking at her body now--saying, "I love your body," and smiling at her. "I'm talking more than I've ever talked in my life. Let's make love to each other again."
It was in Lynn's mind to say, "You're really something," or "You're too much." But she didn't. She smiled back at him and said, "Okay."
He slept. Lynn lay awake. She would look at him and slowly look away from him and catch glimpses of the other two, the ones from the TV channel and the radio station. But it wasn't the same thing, what she did with him and what she did with them. He said you lose yourself in each other and that's what it was like, being with-him in-him while he was in her, feeling him and feeling herself as one, not wanting it to end it was so good--and it didn't end because they clung together after for a long time, mouths touching, brushing, and the after was another experience in itself and could go on for a long time, as long as they wanted, until they smiled and touched places and began at the beginning again. But it wasn't like that with the other two. It was an act with the other two with a beginning and an end and awareness of where she was and what she was doing and what they were doing--"Do you like that?" "Uh-huh"--every step of the way. She had never closed her eyes and fantasized, imagined the man was someone else. She could have done it with the other two, because there was room in her mind to fool around with fantasies or think of appointments or movies. But not with the man lying beside her now, who knew nothing of pretense or that men must appear to excel at this and leave the girl exhausted as they lay back or rolled over--there, that's done. She thought, What did you expect from them?
And then thought, Don't put them down.
See? She felt different with Juvenal, being with him. His kindness rubbed off on her, his innocence . . .
But he had said something . . .
Talking about it being an unbelievable experience, making love to someone you love. And he'd said it before that, in the living room, about the seriousness of it, loving someone and making love to the person.
As opposed to making love to . . . someone you didn't love? How would he know the difference?
In the kitchen, reading the Jiffy Pop label, she was wearing bikini panties and an apron that covered her breasts in front but left them bare on the sides . . . where his hands slipped in from behind and took hold of her after pulling open the tie strings.
"I like your outfit."
She relaxed against him, dropping the Jiffy Pop on the counter and reached around to feel his bare legs. "What do you have on; nothing?"
"My drawers."
"Nuts."
"You're close." He said then, "I'll ask you one question, okay? Is this how people talk?"
"It's how we talk."
"I feel like I can say anything I want to you and you won't laugh or think it's dumb, even if it is."
"I don't think there's a book on it," Lynn said. "I don't think people who write how-to books say goofy things. I don't know, maybe they do. When you're alone you can say anything you want, nobody's listening to us. But even if they were--"
"You're right. Who cares?"
"Can I ask you one?"
"Sure."
She hesitated, then said, "Have you met Antoinette Baker yet?"
"Yeah, she and Richard came--you know everybody calls him Richie and he doesn't like it. I had a feeling--I called him Richard when I met him and saw him light up a little bit. Then when we were talking he told me, he hates Richie, the name."
"Did you like her?"
"The mother? I didn't dislike her. But that's not what you were gonna ask me."
"You're scary, you know it?"
"Have I ever made love before to anyone. Why couldn't you ask that?"
"It's none of my busine
ss."
He turned her around to face him, his hands on her hips, fingers touching the elastic top of her pants.
"I did. Sort of."
"It's not something you do sort of. But, listen, you don't have to tell me."
"I do now. Who knows what you'll imagine. Right?"
"Did you like her?"
He hesitated now. "I liked her, yes. Her name was Annie, twenty years old--we spent the night in a motel."
"How did you meet her?"
"In a bar downtown. She was a prostitute."
"Oh--"
"I didn't know it at first. We were talking--I liked her because she seemed very open, she was funny, a nice-looking girl."
"You spent the whole night together?"
"Uh-huh. I was drunk. I don't mean that as an excuse--I was very curious about the girl, about going to bed with her and all, finding out what it was like--but the being drunk, during that period, right after I left the order and walked out of Duns Scotus, I was drunk most of the time for about three weeks."
"I can't imagine you drunk."
"That's why I finally went to Sacred Heart. I thought I was an alcoholic."
"But you weren't."
"I was a third-rate amateur. Do you know what alcoholics call New Year's Eve? Amateur night. I was thinking too much, going around in circles, beating on myself for leaving the order and trying to work up a good feeling of guilt, because that's what I thought I should feel, guilty. Quinn straightened me out in about three days. He said I could stay if I wanted, as long as I wanted and . . . here we are."
"It didn't take you long."
"I wasn't that bad off. I just had to resolve the guilt thing."
"You don't feel it now?"
He smiled. "You mean with you? No. There might've been more to it than guilt; I suspect there was, anyway. But I have no reason to dig around in the past to find out what it is."
"Do you think about the girl?"
"No. I barely remember what she looked like, except she had dark hair, she was small, pretty."
"A pretty whore."
"What's the matter with that?"
"Nothing. See, that's a prejudice coming out, a little smart-assness. The thing is, I'm really glad you told me, because then I don't feel like the only one who's fooled around, but I don't like to think of you with someone else."