Long, Hot Summer Ch. 08

I parked the car at the curb, several houses down from Eleanor Kaminski's, and sat there for a few minutes before getting out and heading slowly down the sidewalk. I didn't especially feel like being there, but at the same time, I didn't feel right about standing her up when I told her that I would come back. There were lights in several of her windows but the front porch light was off, and I wondered if that was a sign, though we hadn't talked about any such thing. But then I saw the glowing coal of a cigarette, and realized that she was sitting at the top of her front porch steps, in her robe of pink and purple flowers, drinking a bottle of beer. She didn't get up or wave or say anything. I came up the walk, climbed the steps, and sat down next to her.

She handed me her beer. It was fresh and cold. I drank some, set it down on the step between our feet.

"I really didn't think you would come," she said.

"I said I would."

"I know. But I thought maybe I went a little too far today and upset you."

"I wasn't upset," I said. "It was... well, it was pretty hot, really. Nothing like that has ever happened to me before. Probably won't happen again any time soon, if ever. When I'm back to my old habits, that's probably the thing I'll be thinking about when I defile the inside of another garden shed."

She made a funny, sputtering sound of surprise and started laughing. She drank more of the beer, then took a book of matches and her box of Parliaments from the pocket of her robe and offered me one.

"The only reason I don't tell your mother on you for smoking is because you're such a good fuck," she said in a low, husky voice as I lit my cigarette. The night was a soft hum of insect sounds, a silky cadence, but it was otherwise so quiet that when I touched the matchhead to the condensation on the beer bottle the hiss seemed to stretch out into the darkness. I didn't say anything.

"Oops," she said. "Wrong thing to say. I'm sorry. I was just trying to keep things light."

"It's okay," I said. "Seriously. I'm just a little flat."

"I don't expect anything from you," she said.

"I know. You told me before."

"No, I mean tonight. I don't expect anything."

"Okay."

We took turns at the beer for a couple-three minutes. The quiet suddenly gave way to fire engine sirens howling in the distance, dopplering toward us through the darkness and then away.

Finally she said, "Ed and I got married right out of high school. It wasn't like my dream to get married, I never felt like I had to do that as soon as possible or anything. But Ed was fun, a Good Time Charlie, always doing something or other, liked to party. He wasn't one of those guys who just sits around drinking all the time; he had lots of friends, and they always did things?still do things?together. Hunting, fishing, playing sports, camping. I liked to be around that. I was a little more introverted?I know, you're probably going to laugh at that, right? But I was. Still am. So I always enjoyed being around that sort of... energy, I guess.

"It's just, these last few years... I don't know. He still has fun, still does all those things. But me? Not so much anymore. The fun part, I mean. Things just aren't quite as fun anymore. I don't know why. I don't blame him. He's exactly the way he's always been. It's something with me.

"What I'm trying to say is, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done what I did with you. I don't mean the sex part. I mean the flirting part. The teasing part. I don't know if I ever thought you would act on it or not. I don't know if I even thought that far. It was just... easy. It was an easy thing to do, the easiest way to... get someone to pay a little more attention. Sometimes you get to a point in your life where all you want is someone to pay a little more attention to you. Single you out. Flaunting myself was a way, an easy way, to have someone, you, single me out. But it wasn't the right way."

She lay her head on my shoulder.

"You're a good boy," she said. "You didn't do anything wrong."

Eleanor Kaminski brought out another beer, which we shared. She handed me a ten dollar bill that she'd folded up into a tiny square, as she always did?money that she still owed me from the afternoon I'd passed out in her upstairs hallway.

When I finally got home, my mother was still awake, watching the 11:00 o'clock news and working one of those hidden word puzzles.

"You're awfully late," she said.

"Yeah. Sally, from the A