Harvesting the Heart Page 16

  just as strongly as he wanted himself in. I met his eyes shyly. "I don't think it's all right--that way--anymore."

  Nicholas nodded, his jaw clenched. A pulse beat at the base of his neck, and I watched it for a moment while he regained control of himself. I pulled the comforter over the swell of my stomach, feeling guilty. I never meant to scream. "Of course," Nicholas said, his thoughts a million miles away. He turned and left the room.

  I sat in the dark, wondering what I had done wrong. Groping across the bed, I found Nicholas's discarded button-down shirt, glowing almost silver. I pulled it over my head and rolled up the sleeves, and I slipped underneath the covers. From the nightstand I pulled a travel brochure, and I flicked on a reading light.

  Downstairs, I heard the refrigerator being opened and slammed shut; a heavy footstep and a quiet curse. I read aloud, my voice swelling to fill the cold spaces of the colorless room. " 'The Land of the Masai,' " I said. " 'The Masai of Tanzania have one of the last cultures on earth unaffected by modern civilization. Imagine the life of a Masai woman living much as her ancestors did thousands of years ago, dwelling in the same mud-and-dung huts, drinking sour milk mixed with cow's blood. Initiation rites, such as the circumcision of adolescent boys and girls, continue today.' "

  I closed my eyes; I knew the rest by memory. " 'The Masai exist in harmony with their peaceful environment, with daily and seasonal cycles of nature, with their reverence for God.' " The moon rose and spilled yellow into the bedroom window, and I could clearly see her --the Masai woman, kneeling at the foot of my bed, her skin dark and gleaming, her eyes like polished onyx, gold hoops ringing her ears and her neck. She stared at me and stole all my secrets; she opened her mouth and she sang of the world.

  Her voice was low and rhythmic, a tune I had never heard. With each tremble of her music, my stomach seemed to quiver. Her call said over and over, in a clicking honey tongue, Come with me. Come with me. I held my hands to my belly, sensing that quick flutter of longing, like a firefly in a sealed glass jar. And then I realized these were the first felt movements of my baby, reminding me just why I couldn't go.

  chapter 1 1

  Paige

  To my disappointment, Jake Flanagan became the brother I had never had. He did not kiss me again after that lost moment at the drive-in. Instead he took me under his wing. For three years he let me tag along right at his heels, but to me even that was too far away. I wanted to be closer to his heart.

  I tried to make Jake fall in love with me. I prayed for this at least three times a day, and once in a while I was rewarded. Sometimes, after the final bell of classes rang, I'd come out onto the steps of Pope Pius and find him leaning against the stone wall, biting on a toothpick. I knew that to get to my school, he had to cut his last class and take an uptown bus. "Hello, Flea," he said, because that was his nickname for me. "And what did the good sisters teach you today?"

  As if he did this all the time, he would take my books from my arms and lead me down the street, and together we'd walk to his father's garage. Terence Flanagan owned the Mobil station on North

  Franklin, and Jake worked there for him afternoons and on weekends. I would squat on the cement floor, my pleated skirt blown open like a flower, while Jake showed me how to remove a tire or how to change the oil. All the while he spoke in the soft, cool voice that reminded me of the ocean I had never seen. "First you pop the hubcab," he'd say, as his hands slid down the tire iron. "Then you loosen up the lug nuts." I would nod and watch him carefully, wondering what I had to do to make him notice me.

  I spent months walking a fine line, arranging for my path to cross Jake's a few times a week without my becoming a pain in the neck. Once, I had got too close. "I can't get rid of you," Jake had yelled. "You're like a rash." And I had gone home and cried and given Jake a week to realize how empty his life could be without me. When he didn't call, I did not blame him; I couldn't. I showed up at the Mobil station as if nothing had happened, and I doggedly followed him from car to car, learning about spark plugs and alternators and steering alignment.

  By then I knew that this was my first trial of faith. I had grown up learning of the sacrifices and ordeals others had survived to prove their devotion--Abraham, Job, Jesus Himself. I understood that I was being tested, but I had no doubts about the outcome. I would pay my dues, and then one day Jake would be unable to live without me. I swore by this, and because I had given God no alternative, it gradually became true.

  But being Jake's sidekick was a far cry from being the love of his life. In fact, Jake went out with a different girl every month. I helped him get ready for his dates. I'd lie on my stomach on the narrow bed as Jake picked out three shirts, two ties, worn jeans. "Wear the red one," I'd tell him, "and definitely not that tie." I covered my face with a pillow when he dropped the towel from his hips and shrugged into his boxer shorts, and I listened to the slip of cotton over his legs and wondered what he would look like. He let me part his hair with the comb and pat the aftershave on his burning cheeks, so that when he left I would still be surrounded by the strong scent of mint and of man that came from Jake's skin.

  Jake was always late for his dates. He'd tunnel down the stairs of his house, grabbing the keys to his father's Ford from the pegged knot on the end of the banister. "See you, Flea," he'd call over his shoulder. His mother would come out of the kitchen with three or four of the younger kids hanging on her legs like monkeys, but she would only just catch the edge of his shadow. Molly Flanagan would turn to me with her heart in her eyes, because she knew the truth. "Oh, Paige," she'd say, sighing. "Why don't you stay for dinner?"

  When Jake came home from his dates at two or three in the morning, I always knew. I would wake up, miles away from where he was, and see, like a nightmare, Jake pulling his shirt from his jeans and rubbing the back of his neck. We had this connection with each other. Sometimes, if I wanted to talk to him, all I had to do was picture his face, and within a half hour he'd be on my doorstep. "What?" he'd say. "You needed me?" Sometimes, because I felt him calling out, I would phone his house late at night. I'd huddle in the kitchen, curling my bare toes under the hem of my nightgown, dialing in the pencil-thin gleam of the streetlight. Jake answered at the end of the first ring. "Wait till you hear this one," he'd say, his voice bubbling over with the fading heat of sex. "We're at Burger King, and she reaches under the table and unzips my fly. Can you believe it?"

  And I would swallow. "No," I'd tell him. "I can't."

  I had no doubt that Jake loved me. He told me, when I asked him, that I was his best friend; he sat with me the whole summer I had mononucleosis and read me trivia questions from those Yes & No game books that come with magic pens. One night, over a campfire on the shores of the lake, he had even let me cut his thumb and press it close to mine, swapping blood, so that we'd always have each other.

  But Jake shrank away from my touch. Even if I brushed his side, he flinched as if I'd hit him. He never put his arm around my shoulders; he never even held my hand. At sixteen, I was skinny and small, like the runt of a litter. Someone like Jake, I told myself, would never want someone like me.

  The year I turned seventeen, things began to change. I was a junior at Pope Pius; Jake--out of high school for two years--worked full time with his father at the garage. I spent my afternoons and my weekends with Jake, but every time I saw him my head burned and my stomach roiled, as if I'd swallowed the sun. Sometimes Jake would turn my way and start to speak: "Flea," he'd say, but his eyes would cloud over, and the rest of the words wouldn't come.

  It was the year of my junior prom. The sisters at Pope Pius decorated the gymnasium with hanging foil stars and crinkled red streamers. I was not planning to go. If I had asked Jake he would have taken me, but I hated the thought of spending a night I had dreamed of for years with him humoring me. Instead I watched the other girls in the neighborhood take pictures on their front lawns, whirling ghosts in white and pink tulle. When they had left, I walked the three miles to Jake's house. />
  Molly Flanagan saw me through the screen door. "Come in, Paige," she yelled. "Jake said you would be here." She was in the den, playing Twister with Moira and Petey, the two youngest Flanagans. Her rear end was lifted into the air, and her arms were crossed beneath her. Her heavy bosom grazed the colored dots of the game mat, and between her legs, Moira was precariously reaching for a green corner circle. Ever since I had met her three years before, I had wanted Molly as my own mother. I had told Jake and his family that my mother had died and that my father was still so upset by it, he couldn't bear to hear her name brought up. Molly Flanagan had patted my arm, and Terence had raised his beer to toast my mother, as was the custom of the Irish. Only Jake realized I was not telling the truth. I had never actually come out and said this, but he knew the corners of my mind so well that from time to time I caught him staring at me, as if he sensed I was holding something back.

  "Flea!" Jake's voice cut through the romping music of the television, startling Moira, who fell and caught her mother's ankle, pulling her down as well.

  "Jake thinks he's the king of England," Molly said, lifting her youngest daughter.

  I smiled and ran up the stairs. Jake was bent over in his closet, looking for something in the mess of socks and sneakers and dirty underwear. "Hi," I said.

  He did not turn around. "Where's my good belt?" he asked, the simple question you'd put to a wife or a longtime lover.

  I reached under his arm, tugging the belt from the peg where he'd placed it days before. Jake began to thread the leather through his khaki slacks. "When you go to college," he said, "I'm going to be lost."

  I knew as he said it that I would never go to college, never even draw another picture, if Jake asked me to stay. When he turned to me, my throat ached and my vision grew blurry. I shook my head and saw that he was dressed for a date; that his grease-spotted jeans and blue work shirt were puddled in a corner under the window. I turned away fast so that he wouldn't see my eyes. "I didn't know you were going out," I said.

  Jake grinned. "Since when haven't I been able to get a Friday-night date?" he said.

  He moved past me, and the air carried the familiar scent of his soap and his clothing. My head began to pound, surging like a tide, and I believed with all my heart that if I didn't leave that room I was going to die.

  I turned and ran down the stairs. The door slammed behind me, and the wind picked up my feet for me. I heard the concern in Molly's voice reaching out, and the whole way home I felt Jake's eyes and their questions burning into my back.

  At home, I pulled on my nightgown and fell into bed, drawing the covers over my head to change the fact that it was only dinnertime. I slept on and off, waking with a start just after two-thirty. Tiptoeing past my father's room, I closed the door, and then I went down to the kitchen. Feeling my way through the night, I unlocked the door and I opened the screen for Jake.

  He held a dandelion in his hand. "This is for you," he said, and I stepped back, frustrated because I could not see his eyes.

  "That's a weed," I told him.

  He came closer and pressed the wilted stem into my hand. As our palms touched, the fire in my stomach leaped higher to burn my throat and the dry backs of my eyes. This was like being on a roller coaster, like falling off the edge of a cliff. It took me a second to place the feeling--it was fear, overwhelming fear, like the moment you realize you've escaped a car accident by precious inches. Jake held my hand, and when I tried to pull away, he wouldn't let go.

  "Tonight was your prom," he said.

  "No kidding."

  Jake stared at me. "I saw everyone coming home. I would have gone with you. You know I would have gone with you."

  I lifted my chin. "It wouldn't have been the same."

  Finally, Jake released me. I was shocked by how cold I became, just like that. "I came for a dance," he said.

  I looked around the tiny kitchen, at the dishes still in the sink and the muted gleam of the white appliances. Jake pulled me toward him until we were touching at our palms, our shoulders, our hips, our chests. I could feel his breath on my cheek, and I wondered what was keeping me standing. "There isn't any music," I said.

  "Then you aren't listening." Jake began to move with me, swaying back and forth. I closed my eyes and pressed my bare feet against the linoleum, craving the cold that came from the floor when the rest of me was being consumed by flames I could not see. I shook my head to clear my thoughts. This was what I wanted, wasn't it?

  Jake let go of my hands and held my face in his palms. He stared at me and brushed his lips over mine, just as he had three years before at the drive-in, the kiss I had carried with me like a holy relic. I leaned against him, and he twisted his fingers into my hair, hurting me. He moved his tongue over my lips and into my mouth. I felt hungry. Something inside me was tearing apart, and at my core was something hot, hard and white. I wrapped my arms around Jake's neck, not knowing if I was doing this right, just understanding that if I did not have more, I would never forgive myself.

  Jake was the one who pushed away. We stood inches apart, breathing hard. Then he picked up his jacket, which had fallen to the floor, and ran out of my house. He left me shivering, my arms wrapped tight around my chest, terrified of the power of myself.

  "My God," Jake said, when we were alone the next day. "I should have known it would be like this."

  We were sitting on overturned milk crates behind his father's garage, listening to the hiss of flies sinking into puddles left from the rain. We were not even kissing. We were simply holding hands. But even that was a trial of faith. Jake's palm enveloped mine, and the pulse in his wrist adjusted to fit the rhythm of my own. I was afraid to move. If I even took too deep a breath, I would wind up as I had when I had run into his arms and kissed him hello--pressed too close for comfort, lips burning a trail down his neck, with that strange reaching feeling that started between my legs and shot into my belly. For the first time in three years I did not trust Jake. What was worse, I did not trust myself.

  I had been brought up with stricter religious values than Jake, but we were both Catholic, and we both understood the consequences of sin. I had been taught that earthly pleasure was a sin. Sex was for making babies and was a sacrilege without the bond of marriage. I felt the swelling of my chest and my thighs, heavy with hot running blood, and I knew that these were the impure thoughts I had been warned of. I did not understand how something that felt so good could be so bad. I did not know who I could ask. But I could not help wanting to be closer to Jake, so close I might squeeze through him and come out on the other side.

  Jake rubbed his thumb over mine and pointed to a rainbow coming up in the east. I was itching to draw this feeling: Jake, me, protected by the bleeding strands of violet and orange and indigo. I remembered my First Communion, when the priest had put the dry little wafer on my tongue. "The body of Christ," he had said, and I dutifully repeated, "Amen." Afterward I had asked Sister Elysia if the Host really was the body of Christ, and she had told me it would be if I believed hard enough. She said how lucky I was to take His body into my own, and for that precious sunny day I had walked with my arms outstretched, convinced that God was with me.

  Jake put his arm around my shoulder--creating a whole new flood of sensations--and wrapped his fingers in my hair. "I can't work," he said. "I can't sleep. I can't eat." He rubbed his upper lip. "You're driving me crazy," he said.

  I nodded; I couldn't find my voice. So I leaned into his neck and kissed the hollow under his ear. Jake groaned and pushed me off the milk crate so that I was lying in the wet crabgrass, and he brutally crushed his mouth against mine. His hand slipped from my neck to my cotton blouse, coming to rest under my breast. I could feel his knuckles against the curve of my flesh, his fingers flexing and clenching, as if he was trying to exercise control. "Let's get married," he said.

  It was not his words that shocked me; it was the realization that I was in over my head. Jake was all I had ever wanted, but I could see now tha
t this fever inside me was just going to grow stronger and stronger. The only way I'd be able to put it out would be to give myself completely away--unraveling my secrets and baring my pain --and I did not think I could do that. If I kept seeing Jake I would be consumed by this fire; surely I would touch him and keep touching him until I couldn't go back.

  "We can't get married," I said, pushing away from him. "I'm only seventeen." I turned my face up to his, but all I saw in his eyes was a distorted reflection of myself. "I don't think I can see you anymore," I said, my voice breaking over the syllables.

  I stood up, but Jake still held my hand. I felt the panic building in me, bubbling up and threatening to spill. "Paige," he said, "we'll go slowly. I know you better than you know yourself. I know you want what I want."

  "Really?" I whispered, angry that my self-control was slipping away and that he was probably right. "What, exactly, Jake, do you want?"

  Jake stood up. "I want to know what you see when you look at me." His fingers dug into my shoulders. "I want to know your favorite

  Stooge and the hour you were born and the thing that scares you more than anything else in the world. I want to know," he said, "what you look like when you fall asleep." He traced the line of my chin with his finger. "I want to be there when you wake up."

  For a moment I saw the life I might have, wrapped in the laughter of his big family, writing my name beside his in the old family Bible, watching him leave in the morning. I saw all these things I had wished for my whole life, but the images made me tremble. It wasn't meant to be; I didn't know the first thing about fitting into such a normal, solid scene. "You aren't safe anymore," I whispered.

  Jake looked at me as if he were seeing me for the first time. "Neither are you," he said.

  That night, I learned the truth about my parents' marriage. My father was working in the basement when I came home, still restless and thinking of Jake's hands. He was bent over his sawhorse work-table, screwing a plastic fitting onto the back of his Medicine Pacifier, which, when finished, would be able to dispense controlled amounts of baby Tylenol and Triaminic.