Read Online The Beginners by Rebecca Wolff - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Rebecca Wolff
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them?”
I was about to say that I would like to see them, very much—not that I needed proof of the veracity of her tale—but then Raquel spun to look at the clock by the bedside. “Ginger, don’t you have to be at work?” She was cajoling me. I had an unpleasant awareness suddenly that I might be a third wheel. Did Raquel like Cherry better than she liked me? That would be no surprise. Certainly Cherry was the gregarious one, the entertaining one. She had more winning ways. She was, on the whole, more representative of the norm of teenaged girlhood, and I understood already that Raquel greatly admired whatever was normative. “I don’t want you to be late on my account. All that’s left of this story, anyway, is the sad part, the boring old adult part, where we settle down together and try to make each other happy.” I had risen off the bed, was about to make my parting address, when Cherry answered for me.
“Oh, please, that’s not boring. What was it like? Did you call your parents right away after you got married? Were they so excited?” I noted Cherry’s new expression. Greedy. Lustful. It was as though Raquel had opened a thick vein for a freshly minted vampire, one burdened, burning, with the hunger of a lifetime.
I felt stifled in the damp coziness of Raquel’s bedroom, the rising smell of drying textiles. The patter of the now-light rain on the windows promised some relief outside and so I made my exit. Raquel waved a little wave and made warm promises of future days just like this one. Cherry said to call her after work. I left them comfortably established, and as I went down the stairs I heard Cherry say, in her soft, slightly toneless voice, “But were you in love?”
8.
Sunday Night
L ater that night, as promised, I spoke with Cherry on the phone, as I did almost every night, even when we had just spent the whole day in each other’s company.
“I have to tell you,” she said. “Something about the Motherwells. You’re not going to believe this.”
On the contrary, I thought that I would probably believe anything anyone told me about the Motherwells. I had just spent the afternoon and early evening leaning against the counter at the Top Hat, musing over all the fantastic truths I had yet to absorb, all the credulity that was still mine to be exercised. Another form of power.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but those people are so bizarre. Raquel told me the weirdest things about her and Theo. Maybe I shouldn’t even tell you. It’ll just freak you out . . . I know how squeamish you are about boys, and sex, and that stuff.”
She was only waiting to be convinced of the impossibility of the idea that she would withhold anything from me. I suppose this is one of the bonuses of such a friendship: until something unspeakable comes to pass that truly cannot be repeated, even to your best friend, there can be no doubt that you are like books open to each other’s eager eyes. This is probably the lesson of such a friendship, in fact: if there is one person whom you tell everything to, there must be some people you only tell some things, and some whom you tell nothing. Parents usually serve well in this last capacity.
“After you left . . .” she began, and I shifted my weight from my right hip to my left, where I knelt lopsided in front of the desk on the thin gray carpet in the telephone nook. “Raquel started to tell me things. I’m sure she would have told you, too, if you’d stayed. How was work?” Typically, her narration was scattershot.
I assured her that work had been, as always, uneventful. I suppressed a problematic visit from Randy: he had lingered outside the café with his coffee-to-go, smoking a cigarette, and more than once thrown his wiry glance in the direction of where I sat—although perhaps he was just checking the clock on the wall above the counter, or perhaps the glass was impermeable at that moment, glazed as it was by the low late-afternoon sun
I was about to say that I would like to see them, very much—not that I needed proof of the veracity of her tale—but then Raquel spun to look at the clock by the bedside. “Ginger, don’t you have to be at work?” She was cajoling me. I had an unpleasant awareness suddenly that I might be a third wheel. Did Raquel like Cherry better than she liked me? That would be no surprise. Certainly Cherry was the gregarious one, the entertaining one. She had more winning ways. She was, on the whole, more representative of the norm of teenaged girlhood, and I understood already that Raquel greatly admired whatever was normative. “I don’t want you to be late on my account. All that’s left of this story, anyway, is the sad part, the boring old adult part, where we settle down together and try to make each other happy.” I had risen off the bed, was about to make my parting address, when Cherry answered for me.
“Oh, please, that’s not boring. What was it like? Did you call your parents right away after you got married? Were they so excited?” I noted Cherry’s new expression. Greedy. Lustful. It was as though Raquel had opened a thick vein for a freshly minted vampire, one burdened, burning, with the hunger of a lifetime.
I felt stifled in the damp coziness of Raquel’s bedroom, the rising smell of drying textiles. The patter of the now-light rain on the windows promised some relief outside and so I made my exit. Raquel waved a little wave and made warm promises of future days just like this one. Cherry said to call her after work. I left them comfortably established, and as I went down the stairs I heard Cherry say, in her soft, slightly toneless voice, “But were you in love?”
8.
Sunday Night
L ater that night, as promised, I spoke with Cherry on the phone, as I did almost every night, even when we had just spent the whole day in each other’s company.
“I have to tell you,” she said. “Something about the Motherwells. You’re not going to believe this.”
On the contrary, I thought that I would probably believe anything anyone told me about the Motherwells. I had just spent the afternoon and early evening leaning against the counter at the Top Hat, musing over all the fantastic truths I had yet to absorb, all the credulity that was still mine to be exercised. Another form of power.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but those people are so bizarre. Raquel told me the weirdest things about her and Theo. Maybe I shouldn’t even tell you. It’ll just freak you out . . . I know how squeamish you are about boys, and sex, and that stuff.”
She was only waiting to be convinced of the impossibility of the idea that she would withhold anything from me. I suppose this is one of the bonuses of such a friendship: until something unspeakable comes to pass that truly cannot be repeated, even to your best friend, there can be no doubt that you are like books open to each other’s eager eyes. This is probably the lesson of such a friendship, in fact: if there is one person whom you tell everything to, there must be some people you only tell some things, and some whom you tell nothing. Parents usually serve well in this last capacity.
“After you left . . .” she began, and I shifted my weight from my right hip to my left, where I knelt lopsided in front of the desk on the thin gray carpet in the telephone nook. “Raquel started to tell me things. I’m sure she would have told you, too, if you’d stayed. How was work?” Typically, her narration was scattershot.
I assured her that work had been, as always, uneventful. I suppressed a problematic visit from Randy: he had lingered outside the café with his coffee-to-go, smoking a cigarette, and more than once thrown his wiry glance in the direction of where I sat—although perhaps he was just checking the clock on the wall above the counter, or perhaps the glass was impermeable at that moment, glazed as it was by the low late-afternoon sun
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