I am sitting in my study on what should be a tranquil August evening, listening to the percussive sounds of Sally in the kitchen downstairs, and those boots, those damned white boots that girl wore are tapping a staccato rhythm across my mind. Something smashes down there. A dish, most likely. It’s a battle of the sexes, and men are anything breakable, anything loud. By the sound of it, she’s putting up a helluva fight. And who can blame her? Go on, Sal, break everything, break the whole goddamned dinner set; only please drown out the sound of her boots.
To think that five minutes ago everything was fine between us. Then I tried to tell her what happened yesterday . . .
# # #
I took Clayton, our Airedale Terrier, for his Sunday morning walk. The world smelled good to him, it seemed: he frequently stopped to thrust his nose into a hedgerow or chase a scent around the base of a tree. The cold snap in the air invigorated me, too, while Sally’s lingering scent from our lovemaking earlier that morning reminded me that making babies, or trying to, was fun.
Seven years this October. A long time to stay on a rollercoaster. I’ve lost count of the crucial moments when it might have been easier to pack a suitcase, but neither of us did. In fact, we cut our teeth on those moments. There comes a time, though, when you realize you’ve made it through, and you step off that coaster to find you can’t walk straight and your world suddenly seems like a big place with an empty space to fill.
I want to call him Richard after my father.
Clayton lifted his hind leg and pissed against a lamppost. Dogs can help you see the lighter side sometimes. Seeing his tongue lolling out one side of his grinning mouth, I couldn’t contain a grin of my own. That’s when I first heard them:
tick, tick, tick, tick
Heels, approaching me from behind.
I turned around to look, but without glasses on I couldn’t see much of anything, only that she wore white boots.
Sally strides into the study while I’m gazing blankly at the newspaper and slams a stack of books and papers onto my desk. A clear signal: stay in your cave if you know what’s good for you. Neither of us has ever packed a suitcase following a row, and we’re not rowing, not quite, but Sally will systematically gather everything I’ve left lying around the house and drop it in front of me. She wants me, my stuff in here.
And I didn’t even finish telling her the story . . .
# # #
Crossroads, in every sense. I could have crossed the street and walked up Stewart Place to the south entrance of Greenview Park, my usual route, or I could have stood at the crossroads for the next minute, made it seem like I was waiting for Clayton to finish his business. She wasn’t far behind me by then, and I’d had a better look at her.
Long black hair. Brown eyes. Full-lipped mouth. Black halter top with revealing slashes laddering the front. No coat or jacket. Marl blue hipster jeans. Jutting hips. And those boots—those pay-me-then-fuck-me white boots.
I should have crossed the street.
# # #
“Was she pretty?”
While I’d been telling Sally about the girl, she’d seen something in my face that made her interrupt.
“Pretty?” I said, considering my next step through that particular minefield. “Yes, I suppose she was. But Sal, it was the strangest thing . . . ”
Her raised eyebrow stole my momentum.
It had sounded, even to me, like I had screwed that girl. Maybe in my mind, in a deep, dark, secret corner of it, I had. The long hair . . . the teasing sway of her hips . . . those white knee-highs with the three inch heels insistently tapping. . .
Okay, I admit I’d imagined sleeping with her. No, I’d imagined what it would be like to nail her from behind as she pushed against one of those fat oaks up in Dalton Wood and screamed in nothing but those white boots, because . . . because I thought dressed like that she had to be up for something.
# # #
I want a son. I want him to be me without the flaws. I’ll take him to the park, and we’ll play catch or kick a ball around. I’ll wish him luck on his first day of school, and if his angelic face greys with fear, I’ll smile and reassure him with a squeeze of his narrow shoulders. When he’s older, I’ll introduce him to my Bowie and Van The Man CDs, though he may not thank me for it. We’ll have father-son talks about everything, and when he’s ready, we’ll discuss the wonder of girls.
# # #
“I thought she was a prostitute, okay?”
The conversation with Sally. Part two.
She shot me one of her looks. This should be good, it said.
“It was the boots,” I said. “Those white boots. Look, we make assumptions all the time based on what people wear. So I jumped to a conclusion about her, it doesn’t mean I’m a bad person . . . what? It doesn’t!” I think I was trying to convince myself more than Sally. “The point is I didn’t talk to her, even though I thought she needed help. I didn’t say a word. I let her walk away. I wouldn’t be telling you any of this if something had happened between us, now would I?”
“That’s reassuring . . . ”
“Come on, Sal,” I said. “You know I didn’t mean it like that.”
“So why are you telling me about some girl you didn’t talk to and didn’t sleep with behind my back?”
“I just am, okay?” I said. “I’m sharing.”
“But that’s it, you’re not,” she said. “You’re not sharing. You’re edging around this like you want to say something but you won’t just come out and say it.”
“I—I can’t.”
“Why? I’m not jealous. I already know you found her attractive—only an idiot couldn’t see that. What else is there to tell?”
“Let’s drop it,” I said. “This thing isn’t straight in my mind yet. Forget it.”
“Easier said than done now you brought it up.”
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore, Sal.”
She shook her head and walked out.
# # #
I remember I closed my eyes and cursed the lack of traffic. I was loitering, waiting at the kerb to cross an empty street. White Boots was close, getting closer. The ticking of those heels climbed the ridges of my spine. I was too old to eye young women and get away with it. Sweat popped out across my neck and back, mingled with that from my babymaking earlier. I felt dirty, sleazy, hanging around that street corner.
Clayton saved me by taking another piss against a nearby tree.
With that excuse, I was able to stand my ground and glance across my shoulder as White Boots walked by. She looked about nineteen-years-old, narrow-waisted and big-hipped like the singer Beyonce. Stunning figure, and a pretty face, too. Her arms were folded, which was understandable because she wasn’t wearing a jacket, and it was too cold for just that halter. I assumed that she was walking home from a party somewhere, a party that had become a sleepover, and that she’d left her jacket behind. But I noticed the mascara tracks all down her face, and when she spotted me looking at her, she quickly lowered her eyes then turned her face away from me. I caught only that glimpse before she passed me, but it burned an indelible image on my mind.
I watched her as she angled across the road and headed in the direction of Greenview Park and Dalton Wood. I was torn between choosing a different route for Clayton’s walk and calling out to her to ask if she was all right.
In my mind’s eye, I saw her waving goodbye to her parents as she left for a Saturday night of chatting with the girls and flirting with the boys. A confident young woman, a long way from the trembling rabbit I’d just seen, wary of a glance from me—if not the fox, one of its kind.
She’s been raped.
The instant the thought occurred to me I was convinced it was the truth.
I wanted to cry out to her. She needed help. I had no doubt of that, and I was the only one around at that time to offer any kind. But I couldn’t do it. I tried to give myself a mental push: call out, find out if she’s okay, if she even wants help. Invite her back to the house, give her a blanket, some hot coffee while she waits for the police or her family to come collect her.
Wait, I thought. A minute ago you were thinking about something very different, and now you just want to do the decent thing and help her out, right? Come on. It’s an angle. Sal’s gone out for the day and you’re hoping this girl will accept your offer. Then what? What exactly do you think is going to happen?
“Never mind the park,” I said, and yanked on the leash, forgetting for a moment that Clayton was attached to the other end. “Let’s go home.”
So, Sally is upset with me. But who can blame her, really?
Five minutes ago everything was fine between us. Then I tried to tell her about what happened yesterday. And now—now I’m looking at the newspaper lying on my desk. Looking but not touching.
I can’t bring myself to pick it up and scan through the headlines. I’m afraid of what I might find. I have no doubt she’s in there, somewhere, either as one more nameless victim of sexual assault or rape, or a suicide some group of kids found hanging from an oak tree in Dalton Wood. She’s in there. In here. Waiting.
Sally’s downstairs, banging cupboards and rattling cutlery in the kitchen, but this will be a blip for her, a minor infraction. She won’t pack a suitcase. She’ll forgive me, and we’ll make another concerted effort tonight or tomorrow to conceive. But I have a feeling I’ll be distracted, or worse. I’ll be thinking about that girl and what I should have done to help her, and I’ll be thinking about what it is I’m passing on to my kid.
I hope he takes after his mother.
