All the Ugly and Wonderful Things

  In the end he was pounding into me, panting, saying my name. I was lying on the tracks under a train I was in love with. To not cry, I sank my teeth into his chest. I was a vampire and he had invited me in. He moaned and for a moment all of his weight was on me. Between my legs was an expanse of pain, but my lungs burned with pleasure, breathing him in.

  After, his eyes were full of me. I’d imagined he would have so many things to say, but he only lay beside me and looked at me. He was thinking of other ways for me to be his. The ring was on my finger, and I waited for him to see it and remember the one way I already belonged to him.

  “Wavy, what are we doing? What am I supposed to do?”

  “You love me?” Hearing him say it was like stolen food, to stuff in my mouth when no one was looking. If he said it a hundred times, I would ask him to say it again.

  “I love you. I love you with my whole heart.” He took my hand, pressed it to his chest, and saw the ring.

  The front door opened—click, swoosh—and filled his eyes with other things than me. Anxiety. Obligation. Guilt.

  “Jesse? Are you h—” A woman’s voice, then a puff of air, surprise. I hadn’t just invaded Kellen. I’d invaded his home. As the woman crossed the kitchen floor, he stood and pulled up his pants. I stayed where he left me on the bed. We were that way when the woman walked in.

  “I’m sorry, Beth.” Kellen fastened his pants while she watched. Orion’s belt buckled again. Always someone to walk in on us.

  “Do you love her?” I said.

  He didn’t make me wait for the answer: “No.”

  Beth’s mouth twisted, angry and hurt, but she didn’t say, “Liar.”

  Kellen loved me. Only me. I stood up naked in my boots, something hot running down the inside of my leg. I wasn’t embarrassed. I didn’t care what anyone but Kellen thought.

  “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.

  “It was a message to say I love you.” She looked at me and there were tears running down her cheeks. I had to look away.

  “My parole says no contact. I can’t see you, talk to you, touch you. I’m not supposed to be within a hundred feet of you.”

  “You were in me.”

  I was skidding on loose gravel, about to wreck my life again. Wreck hers again.

  “Wavy, you know I love you—”

  “Beth.”

  “No. Beth ain’t nobody to me. We can’t do this. I can’t do this. I’m always gonna love you, but they won’t ever let me have contact with you, because of what I did to you.”

  For once I was all out of words and that was scary as hell. Wavy nodded. I thought she was ready to say something, but she opened the door and stepped out. I scrambled outta the cab and stopped her before she crossed the street.

  “Let me take you home,” I said. It was dangerous, but I thought I could know where she lived and be strong enough not to go see her.

  She caught my wrist and turned my arm to where there was blank space on the inside. I’d always planned to get her name tattooed there after we got married. Standing there in the street with traffic going by, she reached into her purse and took out a Magic Marker.
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  She wrote three numbers on my arm, the first part of a phone number.

  “Do you remember that, Wavy? Me writing on your arm when I wrecked the bike?” Stupid thing to ask. After all that time, she’d come there and still wanted me. She remembered everything. Before she could write the rest of the number, I pulled away from her. The marker left a long black stripe down my arm.

  “I can’t,” I said. “You know I can’t. My parole says no contact.”

  She let go of me and crossed the street. Didn’t even put her marker away, just tossed it on the ground and kept walking. She didn’t stop when I called her name, so I went after her and caught her by the arm.

  “No, you cannot walk around down here. It’s not safe. This neighborhood is full of ex-cons and sex offenders. Folks worse than me.”

  She jerked her arm away from me, but I grabbed her wrist tight enough she couldn’t get loose. For a full minute, we glared at each other, her trying to pull her arm back and me squeezing it hard enough to feel the bones in her wrist.

  “I’m not messing around, Wavy. Now tell me where to take you.”

  “The college library,” she said.

  It was a fifteen-minute drive over to the university, but we didn’t say a word on the way there. As soon as I came to a stop in the library parking lot, Wavy opened the door and swung her legs out.

  “Wait. Wait,” I said.

  With one foot on the ground, one foot on the running board, she looked back at me.

  “I’m sorry. I love you—”

  Wavy slammed the door right in the middle of what I was trying to say. Maybe I hadn’t seen her in seven years, but I still understood her. She might as well have written LIAR on the dash of my truck.

  Seeing her walk across the parking lot toward the library’s front doors, I knew it had to be over, but I couldn’t believe that was how it ended. I wanted to take back everything I’d said, more than I wanted anything else. Being with Wavy would mean going back to prison, because her aunt would find out eventually, but I wondered how long we could have together before I got caught. Long enough to make another four years bearable? Or just long enough to mess up her life again?

  10

  RENEE

  I went to the library with the best intentions, but by the time I got there, the rain had stopped and the sun had come out. The sun and half-a-dozen shirtless college guys playing Frisbee in the grass by the library steps. Instead of going inside, I sat outside and read one of my sources for my essay.

  That’s what I was doing when Wavy walked up. I let the book on my lap fall closed and lost my place.

  “What happened?” I said.

  “He finally fucked me.”

  Finally. Finally? Wavy the chronic masturbator was a virgin? All along I assumed they’d done it, maybe a lot, before they got caught. I’d been so eager to see it as this beautiful romance, that I was willing to overlook Kellen having sex with little thirteen-year-old Wavy, but there she stood, freshly deflowered and looking devastated. Her eyes were red from crying, and she was holding her left arm across her body like it hurt. Her wrist looked swollen.

  “Well, looks like he did a bang-up job of it,” I said to make her laugh, but her face was empty. “Why are you here? Where’s Kellen?”

  “Gone. It’s over.” She used the heel of her right hand to wipe her eyes. I wished I could put my arm around her shoulders and make her feel safe. Seeing her that way was awful.

  “Over? What do you mean it’s over? I know you love him, but what kind of asshole screws you and then dumps you? Fuck him. You don’t need him.” I stuffed my book into my bag and stood up to lead Wavy to my car.

  I unlocked the passenger’s side first so Wavy could get in, but as I was walking around to the driver’s side, Kellen’s truck rolled to a stop behind my car and boxed it in. He got out of the cab and came around the end of it. Up close, he was a lot bigger than I expected. Not as fat, but taller and more muscular. Built like a bulldozer. Instead of the shaggy hair and the ’70s sideburns, he had a crew cut. That picture on Wavy’s nightstand had frozen him in my mind at my age, but he was at least thirty.

  Over, my ass. Wavy jumped out of the car and ran to him. Hugging and kissing commenced. As much as I wanted to eavesdrop, I got in the car and settled for watching them in the rearview mirror.

  Seeing them together as the sun went down and the stars came out, my heart did a little leap of joy. I wanted a fairy tale ending for Wavy, because if she could find happiness, there would be hope for me, too.

  11

  WAVY

  Kellen’s hands were shaking, so I squeezed them harder in mine, to tell him it was okay. We hadn’t said anything, but he was there.

  “The Evening Star.” That was the first thing he said. I looked up at it, felt him watching me. Not just watching me, but drinking me up. “You told me before, but I forgot. It’s not really a star, is it? It’s one of the planets, right?”

  “Venus,” I said.

  “Where I am there’s too much light from the city to see the stars. I want to go out and look at the stars with you. I missed that so much. I missed you.”

  He kissed me before I could say, “Cassiopeia.”

  When he let me breathe again, I said, “Come home with me. Renee and I have an apartment. Down in Norman.”

  He closed his eyes, squeezed them tight.

  “I can’t. It’s across state lines. I can’t leave the state without my parole officer’s say-so.”

  I kissed him again, thinking we had time to sort that stuff out. We had all the time in the world, now that he was free. It turned out we had too much time. Only a few seconds for me to lift my hand, longing to remind him, to have him kiss my ring the way he used to. A few seconds more for Kellen’s eyes to go wet, for his lip to tremble. He didn’t kiss the ring. He let go of me and, from the way he leaned against the side of the truck, I knew he was having a hard time standing up. I leaned my head into his chest and held on. Held him up.

  “Oh, goddamnit. I can’t be with you. If I break parole, they’ll send me back to do the rest of my sentence. If I could be with you after, I’d do those four years in a heartbeat. But I go back, and they’ll parole me with the same conditions.

  “And it’s not just my parole. You know, I ruined my whole life. I’m gonna be on the sex offender registry for the next fifteen years. Have to put my conviction on every job application I fill out. Have to ask every landlord how far is the nearest school.”

  “I was selfish to wish for you,” I said. All I’d ever thought about was how much I wanted him. Needed him. I never thought of what it would mean for him.

  “You’re not selfish, but you’re better off without me. I made nothing but trouble for you.”

  I shook my head against his chest.

  “It’s true. You were too young and I messed things up for you. It’s like your aunt said, you weren’t even fourteen really when I raped you.”

  I reached up and clamped my hand over his mouth hard enough that I felt his teeth through his lips. It wasn’t nice, and I didn’t care. I wanted to shove those words back down his throat. He pulled my hand away, and his soft eyes said everything was broken. I’d broken him.

  “You didn’t rape me,” I said.

  “Okay. Okay, but listen to me. I already ruined my life. I don’t want to ruin yours.”

  “It’s not ruined.”

  I wanted that to be true, but I couldn’t imagine what six years in prison would be like. Four years I’d been Aunt Brenda’s prisoner, but even when I promised not to sneak out, I went on doing it. That’s why it’s called sneaking. Kellen had spent six years in a cell. Six years among people who hurt him. Six years without the stars. Looking into his eyes, I knew he would stay with me. He was waiting for me to give him the look that meant stay. He wanted me to say, “Stay.”

  It had been so long since I had the ring resized that I had to spit on my finger to get it off. When it came loose, I put it in his hand.

  “N
o more prison. You’re free,” I said.

  12

  RENEE

  When Wavy opened the passenger door, I thought she was coming to tell me what she and Kellen were doing. Instead, she got in the car and slammed the door.

  “What’s up?” I said. She didn’t say a word, just sat there in the dark. “Are we leaving?”

  “Yes.” Her voice was raw from crying. Had he dumped her twice in one day?

  I started the car and put it in reverse, but Kellen’s truck was still behind me. Jackass. I waited for him to move, but he wasn’t even in the cab. I couldn’t see him at all.

  “Will you tell him to move his truck?” I said.

  “I can’t.” First time I ever heard Wavy admit she couldn’t do something.

  “Fine. I will.”

  I put the car in park and got out. Whatever I thought I was going to find when I walked around the truck, it wasn’t Kellen down on his knees. I couldn’t tell if he was crying or heaving. Had she gotten her revenge? Dumped him back? I know if I’d been in Wavy’s shoes, I would have been salting the earth of that relationship.

  “Um, could you move so I can back out?”

  He made this choking noise, but he braced a hand against the side of his truck and got to his feet. I could only guess what she’d said to him, because he looked destroyed. It took him a while, but he wiped his face on his shirt sleeve and sort of pulled himself together.

  “You her roommate?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  I swear, for a second, I thought he wanted to shake my hand, but he was trying to give me something. When I didn’t reach for it, he opened his hand. It was her engagement ring. Oh, yes, she’d dumped him.

  “Will you give her this?” he said.

  “No offense, but no. You give it to her if you want her to have it.” No way was I getting in the middle of that.

  He nodded and walked around to the passenger side of my car. Wavy wasn’t having any of it. He tried to open her door, but it was locked.

  “Goddamnit, Wavy. Please, will you listen to me?” He went on talking in this low, pleading voice, but the only word I could make out was her name.