One
River and me started going out one night when I got drunk, passed out, and woke up to him all over me. I never really knew he had it on for me before that, but I got a pretty good idea from the way he was going at it.
After that, we were a couple.
It’s good to be River’s girlfriend. His truck runs most of the time, so he can pick me up at my cousin Patsy’s and take us out to his granny’s old house, where we’ve all been hanging out all summer. None of my boyfriends has ever been as crazy for me as River is.
Which is why, in all the time that we’ve been going out, I’ve hardly asked River for anything. So when I want him to take me into town today, he puts up a little fight.
“Why you have to go and make a cake for Patsy?” River leans back against his old truck that’s half white and half rust and gives me that raised eyebrow and smile combination that just about melts my heart. It’s a slow smile, more on one corner of his mouth than the other, and every time I see it, I’m right back to when we first started hanging out at Granny’s, with River lording it over everybody, turning away enough people at the door that you felt real special when he let you in.
River’s not big—a little scrawny, if anything—but he has this way of moving—standing, even—that makes me notice parts of his body I wouldn’t normally look at. He puts his arms around me, and the July heat pushes us closer together, heavy on our skin. There’s not even a tiny breeze blowing through the soybean fields to cool us off.
“Because she’s my cousin.” I kiss River’s neck. “Because it’s her birthday.” I play with the ends of his sandy hair where it flips up from under his baseball cap, but he’s nowhere near saying yes. Yet.
“I have the afternoon off. Don’t you care about that?” He turns that look on me, all big sad eyes, then pulls me close and gives me kisses that start out soft but real quick show me what he cares about. Before I know it, my mind is tossing eggs, sugar, and butter right out the window, telling me Patsy won’t notice if I don’t make her a red velvet cake like she had at Bridget and Lonnie’s wedding three years ago.
I push away from River, catching my breath and my good sense as I step back on Granny’s gravel driveway. I shake my head. “No fair.”
River reaches for me again, and I duck up under his arm and jump in the truck.
“Besides, you told Lisa you’d go back this afternoon.”
River works for his mom, painting houses, and they are always either on-again or off-again, depending on how much River has screwed around on the job and pissed her off.
“Shit. She won’t care,” he says, but he gets in on the driver’s side.
“You promised me,” I remind him, as I scoot over on the bench seat. “You said you’d keep working as long as she wanted you. Without any fighting.”
River leans in so close he’s almost on top of me, picks up a long blond piece of my hair and plays with it. He brushes my forehead, my nose, my lips with it, all while giving me that white-hot smile, so bright against his summer tan. “And I’ve gone almost every day, haven’t I? I deserve a reward.” He looks at me with those clear eyes, like blue jeans that have been washed until they fit just right, and then he’s kissing me again.
It kills me that I can’t do this for him, stay out at Granny’s, kiss and everything all afternoon long. But then I picture Patsy’s face when there’s no cake for her birthday, no present from me. It takes everything I have, but I pull my head back.
“Cake,” I say, barely able to talk. “Please.”
River sighs. “Fine.” He pulls out of the driveway and down the lane from Granny’s so fast it’s like the cops are chasing us, attacking every turn like he’s taking a bite out of it and wolfing it down. I knock against his tan arm, tacky with sweat from the humidity that’s all around us like another person in the old truck.
Patsy’s dad, Uncle Leo, told us a long story about dew points making it hot and sticky here in Illinois all summer, but me and Patsy just nodded our heads till he was done, because knowing why something is doesn’t change how bad it feels.
I don’t think River’s pissed about leaving Granny’s, but I don’t say nothing more, just scoot right up next to him, fitting up under his arm like we were made out of the same piece of wood, carved apart, and just now fitted back together again.
I still can hardly believe it’s me and River here in this truck. That for a whole year he picked being lonely, and waiting for me, over any of the million girls who were throwing themselves at him, right up until me and Chris broke up. But he swears it’s true.
We pass fields of corn, then beans, then corn again. Fine, chocolate-colored dust coughs in the windows and settles on every damn thing, getting between my back teeth and making me sneeze. I trace River’s cracked, bitten fingernails, his hand almost the same size as mine, then I slip my finger under the light-blue hair tie on his wrist and pull it away from his skin, rubbing the red dent it leaves behind. Something about touching the little hairs on his arm feels all intimate, close, like I’m touching somewhere I shouldn’t, even now after we been together all these weeks.
“Maybe someday you’ll make a cake for me,” River chokes out, wheezing as the truck jumps a big chuckhole, raising a new cloud of dust. “If you care enough.” He plants a kiss in
my hair, gets a flyaway blond piece stuck in his mouth, and pulls it sharply out of my head as he jerks away. I push on the spot until it’s not stinging anymore and straighten my tube top.
“You want red velvet, too?”
“Hell no. None of that fancy shit. Chocolate with chocolate frost— Fuck!” River fishtails the truck as it slams into a chuckhole and stops. I’m tossed practically on River’s lap, and the truck is caught in the bear trap of a giant hole.
River opens the door, and we both just about slide out, the truck is tilted so far over. We head up to the front, and River squats down and puts his shoulder under the bumper. He goes all red as he pushes up with his legs, rocking the truck back, but it stays completely stuck.
I crowd in next to River and put my palms on the bumper to help. It’s hot and dusty and slick from where River already tried to push. My shoulder mashes up against him, and for just a second it’s enough, but River’s feet slide out from under him, and he lets go of the truck to catch himself.
“Pretty stuck, huh?” I ask him.
“The fuck do you think?” He slams the hood with a fist, and I take a step back while he stomps off, spitting in the dirt.
River might cool off all by himself, but more likely, he needs a little help. I tiptoe over to where he stands, hands on his hips, staring into the corn like he’s trying to force a tow truck to come out from between the rows. I sneak up under his arm and go all soft, put my head on his shoulder, and make the baby voice he likes.
“What’re we gonna do, River?” I open my eyes wide and pull up closer to him near the driver’s side door. The motor ticks as it cools, and the hot metal of the cab burns my bare shoulders, but I just wait him out.
Heat pours out of River, and I’m sticking to his neck. A drop of sweat slides down his nose and lands on my cheek as I run my hands up his sweaty back and hope my touch can cool him down some. He closes his eyes and takes one, two, three loud breaths through his nose. When he opens his eyes again, good River is back, and he looks at me through cool, clear, blue-jean eyes.
He pushes off the truck with one hand, while the other arm snakes around my neck. We start walking.
“You’re fucking magic, you know that?” he asks me. “Anybody else, I would’ve punched out the windshield or broke my toe kicking the truck, trying to get it free. You just look at me all sideways and next thing I know, I’m leaving my truck in the middle of the road and trying to hitch a ride home.”
“Sorry my phone doesn’t keep a charge. We could’ve waited here,” I tell him. “Patsy’s supposed to get a new one for her birthday, so I’ll probably get her old one.”
River just nods and pulls out his chewing tobacco from the back pocket of his cutoffs. He settles a new pinch in his lower lip and keeps walking like there’s a hundred-dollar bill at the end of the road if we get there soon enough. He doesn’t say nothing about how if I hadn’t
needed to make Patsy’s cake, we wouldn’t be out here in the first place, so I just try to keep up with him.
River’s fine with his tennis shoes, but my flip-flops aren’t doing so good on this gravel road, catching on chunks of rock as we go past row after row of soybeans. “Might as well be barefoot,” I say, catching myself on River’s arm.
The sun pours down on us, and I left my goddamn hair tie back in the truck. I grab at River’s arm and pull the blue one off his wrist.
“Oh no you don’t,” he says, grabbing it back from me. The sun sparks off his smile as he snaps it back in place. “You’re the one who made me promise to never take it off.”
River picks up even more speed, and I walk faster, trying to catch up. “You sure I said that?”
“I still can’t believe you don’t remember.”
“I was drunk.”
“You were. Drunk as hell and hot as fuck,” he says. “Any guy who didn’t keep that promise is a damn idiot.”
I got nothing to say to that, so we just walk on without talking. At first, it seems quiet out here on the road, but after a while I hear birds chirp from every direction, and a far-off airplane hum. I lean my head back to find the plane way, way up in the sky, its jet trail the only white in the hazy blue. I can’t believe it’s been almost six years since my plane ride with Mama to New York City.
I slow down even more, watching the jet trail, and like it was yesterday, I remember the smooth plastic airplane tray folded down in front of me, the rumble of the jets under my seat as we cruised over the clouds. My nose tingled from the ginger ale bubbles when I took a sip, and the seat belt buckle kept me fastened in tight.
I half expect to turn my head and see Mama leaning against the airplane window, her white satin sleep mask and earplugs blocking me out so she could catch some beauty rest before her interview for the Japan job. A hundred other people on the plane and all I remember is feeling completely alone.
I’m jolted back to the road as my flip-flop catches on a rock and shreds itself in half, landing in the middle of the road. “Dammit!” I hop all over on the good foot, just barely catching myself before I fall flat on my butt. I shake my head to clear away Mama and the plane ride.
Just thinking about her makes shitty things happen.
“What?” River asks, a few feet in front of me.
“Screw it.” I hop out of the other flip-flop, scoop them both up and toss them into the ditch before I can start to cry.
“Aww, Bliss. Now what?” River asks, heading back my way.
I take two steps, little tiny ones to try and miss the biggest rocks. The white gravel pressed into the tar is hot as hell and sharp as shark’s teeth, and I blink away a few tears. I’m
never making it to Patsy’s cake. I never should’ve even tried. There’s nowhere to step that doesn’t hurt, and there’s no way I can make it to town like this.
“My flip-flop.” I look at the tall grass on the side of the road, try to guess how many jagged steps to get there. I get up on my tippy-toes and inch over, every step a billion agonies. The grass between the road and the corn looked soft and cool, but it’s not a whole hell of a lot better than the road.
River looks down at my bare feet and turns his back on me. “Hop on.”
“You sure?” The air is thick and hot, and we might as well be swimming in it.
River holds his hands behind him, and I jump up, piggyback. We make it maybe five steps before River’s sweaty hands start to slip on my sweaty legs. “Jump me up,” I say, and he bumps me higher.
“Shit,” he says as I slip away from him again, landing on the sharp rocks of the road.
I tie my heavy hair into a knot to keep it off my neck, not near as good as a hair tie, but I’ll take anything right now. “The road is too sharp,” I tell him. “I can’t go any farther.”
River looks off over my shoulder, scanning the road back to where we left the truck, and says, “Empty as fuck. Nobody’s coming.”
I look ahead towards the blacktop off in the distance. “You go ahead. Get a ride, then get Long Tom or somebody to come get me.”
“Really?”
“Uh-huh. No sense both of us sitting around.”
River puts his arms around me, our skin clammy where it touches. “You sure?”
I nod. “Either one of us gets a ride, we’ll text Long Tom.”
River nods back. “Fucking Patsy,” he says. “I hope she likes her cake.” Then he kisses me and walks off.
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