All We Know of Love

  “It’s great, Dad. The snow is great.” Just as I say this, a bright light flashes across the highway and illuminates the raindrops outside like a strobe. They appear to freeze in time, followed by a loud clap of thunder.

  “Gotta go, Dad,” I say. “Love you.”

  I flip my phone shut and the magazine lady gives me the dirtiest look, like she’s got something to say about all this.

  Get a life, why don’t you?

  Who does she think she is? Like she never lied to anyone?

  Bet you didn’t have any friends in high school, lady.

  Seventeen magazine assured Marissa that her prom night would be the best night of her life — if only she were sure to follow seven important steps. Glamour magazine had a whole spring issue dedicated to how to look the best at your high-school prom. Have a snack, take a bath, make a list, have some water, strike a pose, advised Cosmopolitan. Marissa devoured every magazine article as if starving, hungry for the words that would shape her story. And make her happy.

  One magazine suggested getting a tan, so as not to look washed-out in the photos. After all, photos last a lifetime. This was promised to be the best, most important night of her entire life.

  Still, as she lay under the lights at Sunsations Tanning Salon for her final twenty-minute treatment before the prom, for some reason Marissa’s mind fell backward. And back, so that she couldn’t stop it. And it landed her the summer before boys, the summer before sixth grade.

  At the Mohonk Mountain resort, where her best friend’s father worked maintaining the hundreds of wooden gazebos that sat along the trails, and in the gardens, and beside the lake, in all places of magic. Lying flat as she could, Marissa remembered that she spent almost every night that summer at her best friend’s house, and they spent every single day up at Mohonk.

  Marissa never took off all of her clothes in the tanning booth, but she lowered the straps of her bikini so she wouldn’t have embarrassing white lines. Her prom dress was a strapless A-line, pink. Marissa adjusted the plastic cups over her eyes and settled into the warmth of a coffin that emanated ultraviolet light.

  Even though they say you are not supposed to, Marissa felt heat as she fell ever backward.

  A single bead of sweat raced down her back, thirst dried her mouth, still Marissa and her best friend wouldn’t hide inside, where it was cool. They had to run. It was summer. The whole world was theirs. The entire hotel, the cold glacier lake, the paddleboats, the trails up to the tower, the lemon squeeze, the candy shop, horse stables. Everything but the golf course. You were not allowed on the golf course.

  Except of course, late at night, when together they snuck out of their beds. In the moonlight, their white nightgowns glowed like cobwebs after a rain. Freshly cut grass stuck to their bare feet, thick between their toes. No time to stop. They ran. Reaching up into the night sky, pretending to fly, pretending to swim. Pretending, and not having to, because there was nothing but this moment. No need for anyone but each other — to see them, or watch them, or tell them they were content.

  They dropped to the damp ground with their arms above their heads, holding each other’s hands, and rolled down hill after hill. They stood up, dizzy and laughing, and ran to the next. Never letting go.

  Marissa opened her eyes because something gripped her like a panic. She pushed open the lid of the tanning bed just enough to sit up and swing her legs over the side. She didn’t even look at the timer. Or worry about her uneven tan lines, or her diet, or the party bus, or whether her date even knew her last name, which she knew he probably didn’t.

  What was that friend’s name?

  She couldn’t remember. It wasn’t that long ago, damn it. What was her name? They had been best friends, the summer before sixth grade, the summer before boys.

  Adam wanted me, and I never got a chance to consider whether I had wanted him back or not. Then after a while, that distinction became irrelevant. Because I had fallen in love.

  Adam had a way of holding me in his arms that made the whole world disappear. Part of it was his height, that my head rested perfectly in a hidden-away place just under his shoulder. Part of it had to do with the length and strength of his arms, which wrapped completely around me, hiding me away.

  It was easy to forget about everything else.

  “I’m crazy about you, Natty,” Adam said.

  I liked that, too. Loved it. I’m crazy about you. It was better than “I love you.” It meant that he was out of control, somehow couldn’t help himself. Not responsible for his actions, just as I wasn’t.

  The first time it hurt.

  It did. And I bled a little, like a ritual coloring, rite of passage. I coveted the brownish stain on the inside of my leg, the tiny spots on my underwear. I thrilled at the blood sacrifice. I would soak in every detail, regarding this a milestone. My ultimate passage into womanhood.

  Adam drove me home that night; we sat in his car by the curb outside my house saying good-bye. I was still sore between my legs. I had to pee so badly, and I knew it was going to sting when I did. But I wouldn’t have shortened this time together for anything in the world, least of all for myself. Our warm breathing, our whispered talking, had already fogged up all the windows. It was mid-October, dark and chilly out. Condensation happens.

  Adam wrote my name with his finger on the wet glass. He stopped saying anything. He kissed me, holding my face in his hands. That was his signal. I knew he was ready for me to leave.

  Open the door. Get out of the car. Say good-bye.

  Sure, I told myself, I can say good-bye.

  Can’t I?

  I wanted something in that moment, something more, something much more. A promise of some kind, a long cord. A long invisible cord that would stretch as far as either of us could travel. Good-bye didn’t feel adequate at all. In fact, it felt like the antithesis of what I was looking for. There should be some new words for this, another expression. I belong to you now. I gave myself to you.

  We are parting but only in a physical sense. I am yours now.

  But what I didn’t know then was that just because something belongs to someone doesn’t mean they know how to take care of it.

  Richmond.

  The bus has arrived in Virginia, and it must be dinnertime, because everyone is breaking out the brown bags and Tupperware again. The guy next to me offers me a piece of his sushi, but this time I have some snacks of my own. Everything I bought that Claire didn’t like. The woman across from me offers me one of her magazines.

  “Thanks.”

  She’s not so bad.

  Richmond.

  We have a forty-five-minute wait here.

  Next stop in four hours. Fayetteville, North Carolina.

  Just moving right along.

  “Oh, sorry,” the man in the seat next to me is saying when his hand slips and touches my arm for an instant. He pulls it farther away than he needs, giving me more than my share of the armrest.

  But I appreciate it. He is far too sensitive about my personal space not to be gay, and that makes me feel safe. Saf-er.

  “It’s OK,” I tell him.

  “It’s crowded,” he says.

  “Yeah.”

  He looks at me, and I know I am right. There’s just a sense I get from him. Or a lack of one.

  Because there is always that radar in my brain that goes on whenever I am near a stranger, someone bigger, stronger. Male. Different. Because there is always a potential danger. Sometimes you can sense it; sometimes you can’t. Sometimes it is obvious, and crude, and even illegal, and other times it is not.

  Some danger is avoidable; some is not. Some is in our control. Some is not.

  In any case, I remember the exact moment I discovered what it was to be female in this world.

  To be forever vulnerable.

  We were riding bikes, Sarah and I, back to my house from town, our week’s library books stuffed in our knapsacks. It was late summer, maybe early fall. I just know it was beautiful out, not to
o hot. Perfect. Everything was perfect.

  Sarah’s stick-thin legs, all muscle, stretched out long from her cutoff shorts. I remember my body had gotten rounder, that summer before sixth grade. I had the tiny beginnings of breasts where Sarah had none. The top part of my legs wider than my shins and calves, my hips fuller. It already bothered me; my body embarrassed me. I tried to never let my legs lie flat on a chair or a seat when anyone could see me.

  But that afternoon we just pedaled and pedaled, letting our skin moisten with sweat and letting the air rushing by cool us off.

  I could forget all those other things, with my body in motion. Free and unseen.

  We came to the intersection, where the road split. One way up toward the mountain; the other stayed companion to the river and the cornfields. We both stopped, tipping our bikes with one leg for balance, when a pickup truck pulled up alongside. There was a stop sign, so we didn’t think anything of it.

  I remember this as my last thought as an innocent little kid: I am a car. Vroom. Vroom.

  It was the three of us, revving our engines, preparing to pull away from the start with the drop of the imaginary checkered flag.

  Vroom. Vroom.

  Sarah was right beside me. I turned to smile and wink at her so we could shift our gears and speed off first. She was looking back toward me, but something was wrong. Her expression was locked and blank.

  And afraid.

  It was a beautiful day.

  The sun shining down on the world, my world.

  I am a car. Vroom. Vroom.

  Then I turned my head immediately back to see what Sarah was seeing. The truck’s window was wide open.

  The driver was looking back at us. He had one hand on the steering wheel and the other hand in his lap. My eyes were drawn to a movement of his hand, the color of flesh he was holding, the indistinguishable but unmistakable shape. An image imprinted forever on my brain.

  Danger. Immediate and primitive, for although I had no reference, it was real. Neither one of us had to understand to know we needed to run.

  I flipped my head back to Sarah. Then without a word, and with tears streaming from our eyes, we both turned our bikes around and rode directly into the shelter of the cornfield. When we couldn’t ride over the dry mud any longer, we dropped our bikes and ran, as fast as we could. The spiky, broad corn leaves cut at our bare arms, but we kept running until we reached the river.

  Nothing happened. Nothing. We waited until the bugs drove us crazy, and we stepped back out to the road. The truck was gone. Our bikes were right where we had left them.

  Nothing had happened. But everything had changed.

  Sarah’s mother forbade her from riding her bike to my house. Too long an empty stretch of road. There were things girls needed to understand. She had been foolish to allow it before.

  You rode into the cornfield? She was livid.

  I never told my dad.

  I wouldn’t have known what to say.

  People’s heads and a bunch of loose belongings suddenly lurch forward.

  A water bottle comes rolling under my feet like it’s in a big hurry. Then everything jerks back and stops.

  The bus is no longer moving.

  “Are you all right?” The guy next to me is asking.

  “Yeah,” I say slowly.

  A smattering of overhead lights go on around us, as people wake up and the quiet of the night turns to murmurs and then more panicky voices. The wind still howls outside, and the rain is steady. I turn to look out the window but it is black. All I can see are beads of water and our reflections.

  “What happened?” I ask, because this guy is the only grown-up I know here. For some reason, in the dark, this becomes important.

  “I don’t know yet. I think maybe there’s an accident or something. Looks like traffic is completely stopped.”

  “Shit. You’ve got to be kidding,” I say. I am still groggy. My magazine is no longer on my lap but on the floor by my feet. I must have fallen asleep.

  The man murmurs a soft laugh, which I know is for me, for my cursing. “When I was your age . . .” he begins. His voice is almost feminine, calming.

  “I know. I know. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s just different now,” he says. “By the way, I’m Paul. Paul Brown.” He says his name with an odd urgency, like he wants me to believe him. I think he must be much older than I first thought. Maybe my dad’s age or even older.

  “Hi, Mr. Brown,” I say.

  “Paul. I prefer it.”

  “I’m Natalie.”

  The driver’s voice comes abruptly out through the tiny speakers in the roof of the bus. “There seems to be an obstruction in the road. Power lines. I have radioed in for assistance. Please remain seated.”

  “Shit is right,” Paul says, which makes me laugh. I don’t think I’ve laughed since I left home. What? Ten hours ago? Twelve? I look at the time on my cell phone. Fifteen hours ago. I shut off the power.

  “I’m going to lose battery,” I say out loud.

  “Do you have someone else to call?”

  I realize he must have heard me on the phone before, clearly lying to my dad, but he doesn’t say anything.

  “If you need to, I have a phone.” He pats the briefcase that is still on his lap.

  “Thanks. I’m fine.”

  “Kids always say that nowadays, don’t they?”

  “Say what?”

  “I’m fine, instead of no. Or yes. Language is funny like that. It changes.”

  There doesn’t seem to be any particular judgment in Paul’s tone. Just interest.

  “I never thought of that.”

  “Oh, yes. Language changes all the time. It reveals so much about a culture. Just to study their words. Names, too. Names change.”

  Then a red emergency light appears outside beside the bus, spinning around, reflecting off the trees in the darkness, the bus windows, and into the rain again. The police must be here. I sigh, figuring it’s going to be a long time.

  “Are you in a hurry?” Paul asks me.

  I am not in any hurry at all. In fact, I have no reason to believe my mother will be at 1711 Fernando Street when I get there, if I get there. I have never heard of St. Augustine, Florida, though it does have a nice sound to it, like a make-believe place.

  I have just enough money to pay a cab, find her house, and get a bus ticket back home, hopefully all before spring break is over and I can show up at home without explanation.

  “Trying to get somewhere fast?” he adds.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I guess I am.”

  Paul Brown nods. “I used to be like that.”

  Arnie Braunschwiegger loved his English teacher, Mr. Cowell, plain and simple. And he did so from the first moment he saw him, which was the exact moment he knew his love would never be reciprocated.

  Not in quite the same way.

  Not ever.

  Only this understanding did nothing to lessen Arnie’s obsession. Once it began, he carried it with him day and night. During the day, it took the form of “arrangements.” Arnie drove to school — his father’s old Dodge Dart — so he was able to arrive early. Just early enough to pass by the main office, and look casual.

  “Has the New York Times arrived yet?” Arnie would ask the office ladies. He would be careful to act as if it were the paper he was interested in, its owner only secondary.

  But he knew. He already knew, because he had seen the truck outside. Certainly no one else in Harrisonburg, Virginia, got the New York Times delivered every weekend. Maybe nobody else in Harrisonburg even read the New York Times, to Arnie’s knowledge, at least not regularly, as Mr. Cowell did.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact,” the principal’s secretary said. She passed Arnie the heavy paper, tied in twine, across the counter. “Are you going to bring it to Mr. Cowell again, Mr. Braunschwiegger? How nice of you.”

  She spoke slowly, and the way she said his full name, it was as if she knew his secret. Arnie hated his name
in that moment, and he vowed, that morning, that someday he would change it.

  “Yes, thank you. I’ll take it to his room.” Arnie hurried along. She couldn’t know. How could she?

  Mr. Cowell always read the whole paper. It took him the entire week, and by that time a new edition would arrive. If any of his students so desired, they were welcome, encouraged, to join him and read it as well. Mr. Cowell taught them how. He explained all the different sections. There were so many. He showed them how to fold a towel across their laps so the ink wouldn’t leave a stain. How to fold the paper and snap it smooth, so you could read without having to take up so much space. And he showed them a whole new world, of “Travel” and “Real Estate.” And Arnie’s favorite, “Arts and Leisure.”

  Mr. Cowell arrived at school early each day and thought to bring extra cups of coffee and doughnuts for any student who showed up. But Arnie could never eat in Mr. Cowell’s presence. It was as if his hunger vanished, replaced by a new sensation, a kind of joyful agony he came to feel he couldn’t live without. In fact, it was almost as if the more Arnie felt his love unrequited, the greater his love grew. The deeper it ran.

  The first part of Arnie’s arrangement was simply showing up, learning to read the New York Times, without appearing too overanxious, too eager. To become as easy and comfortable as the Times itself. So Mr. Cowell would look forward to his visits and miss him when he didn’t show up.

  “Mr. Braunschwiegger, I see you brought the paper.”

  It was his voice: deep and masculine, but tender, as if he had really listened and thought about what he was saying in advance. It was also the smell of his cologne, and the way he’d hold his own hands together, rubbing one thumb over the joint of the other, while he was thinking.

  “I can always rely on you,” Mr. Cowell said. He was behind his desk, grading papers.

  Arnie smiled back, but inside, his heart twisted with pain, so much he could hardly enjoy their time together. It was as if every moment simply brought them closer to the end. The bell would ring, and first period would start. He would not see Mr. Cowell again until English, last period of the day. And then there would be other people around. Distractions. It was not as easy to arrange to be seen or even heard by Mr. Cowell. Mr. Cowell might call on another student. He might be standing in the hall, talking in hushed tones to another teacher.