She grabbed a package of spaghetti as if it was a club
and stared at the wall paralyzed by the idea of them out there.
Well, they hadn't been going out for a week.
When Natalie got in his brother's car,
and rode out to the next county, they ate at Howard Johnson's.
She ordered an ice cream sundae, and he ordered a grilled cheese
sandwich to go, in case she wanted to go. all of a sudden.
She ate her sundae and ordered a milkshake.
He couldn't eat.
He bought her a blue shirt in a fancy store, a boutique.
It's a nice shirt, he said.
It looks nice on you.
It's a blouse, she said--
turning for him in the parking lot with her eyes closed.
A blouse, he repeated.
She made him drive faster, clinging to his arm
with her lips pecking gently against the nape of his neck.
God, she said-- god.
Her breath smelled of chocolate.
His eyes watered when she rested her hand on his knee
and started to rub his thigh as if he were cold.
She rubbed until his leg burned.
Her stomach rose and sank over the gentle slopes
as Dion pressed down harder on the pedal.
He said nothing, and she loved the way he said it.
She didn't want to go home, and so they kept
going in another direction.
All the roads look the same at night.
She said it clearly to him, love, just before dawn.
And he was afraid as they parked by a river--
further away from home than she had ever
been-- of touching her.
So she touched him, as she had seen herself touch him
in her mind.
And just as she had imagined, he held absolutely still.
If he said anything, he said what she thought he would say.
He said what she wanted him to say,
what we all wanted to hear, things
he had never said to anyone, words
he had never thought before, whose meaning he would not
have been able to explain.
But felt as he said them, as clearly as he
felt her breath on his neck, as surely sweet as her hair was
soft, as clearly as he felt he was not the same, he would not
ever want anything, anyone, as much as he wanted her.
The night she didn't come home--
the first night ever-- people thought of her bruised
and bleeding in the corner of some motel room
halfway between Vaughan and Mississippi.
Others thought of her in the Hyatt in Boston.
Or they wouldn't wait so long, the Marriott in Portsmouth.
Or they were on a cruise, probably,
on the Scotia Prince headed for Halifax gambling
in black tie and satin dress.
And still others said, shaking their heads no,
no, no, she's gone.
She's long gone from us lying somewhere
by the railroad tracks.
The man in the caboose will find her the next time
we hear the Boston and Maine.
She's somewhere between Haymarket and Bangor
bleeding into the gravel, her linens smudged, silk torn,
the blush of her cheeks chalk white.
And Dion, he's halfway to Mexico by now.
Andy was the only one who got it right-- the more
obvious answer.
They lay side by side in the back
of his brother's car parked on the edge
of a field in the next county.
Natalie pulled the blanket beneath her chin,
as he pulled her head against his chest
and ran a single finger through her hair.
When she tilted her head, only her bangs
and her lips caught the moonlight.
Everywhere my friend Andy and I went was in search of her,
just as Mr. Dawson drove up and down Litchfield Road and all
the way across town to the Quarry
and back, saying to himself, he was on an errand--
when he was really hoping, just for a moment,
to catch a glimpse of her.
Her mother told herself, she had known the time would come.
But not like this, she said to herself, not with him.
She'd thought of Ron and the wedding,
the white dress she would sew-- had already
spent hours and days, years, shaping in her mind.
Even if they found her, she would not be the same now.
The members of the basketball team,
sure that they would lose the final game in the season
and miss the playoffs, were home with their parents
watching television or eating potato chips
or talking on the phone or listening to their parents
talking in the next room or lying on their backs thinking
of Dion out there with her.
They listened to the sound of crickets and cars passing
and shouts from up the street and dogs
barking and pots clinking in the sink and footsteps of sisters
on the stairways, while they thought of him out there
touching her neck with the tips of his fingers
before looking away to drive the car.
All over town, parents of girls who would be like,
or wanted to be like her, and boys
who might think of doing what Dion had done,
lay in bed staring at the ceiling.
No image, no story once started, would complete itself
in their minds.
She was tied in the back seat.
The purple-- no, probably the pink silk shirt--
ripped down the front, and her pale breast
shivering in the moonlight with her nipples
like cherries on cream pie.
And where was he--
hovering above her.
Just a hand comes into view.
He was gentle now that he had what he wanted.
Or, she was running down the road
in front of the headlights.
In our minds, love had gone bad--
but not in theirs.
No, Natalie said, pushing off his chest, not here.
I want it to be perfect.
He didn't understand, though he obeyed her.
And she pulled him back against her
on the seat where they lay together.
Her lips traveling over his face.
Just hold still, she said.
I always knew, she said, it would be like this.
He didn't know what "it" was, or what "this" was, only
that he had been chosen.
He closed his eyes as she pressed his face
against her sweater.
All he could smell was her.
I love you, she said, again and again,
until the sound of her voice covered him like a blanket.
I want to hear you say it.
He said, he had already said it.
But she wanted him to say it again,
so he did, repeating it into her sweater, into her breasts.
You do, she said, don't you?
She told him to hold his hands at his sides
no matter what she did.
He smiled at her as if she was kidding.
He nodded in a way that made her love him even more.
He was her child.
Hold still, she said, and he nodded.
You nodded, she scolded.
And he tried not to smile.
She sat on his lap feeling her shorts ride up
and ran a finger along his forearm.
His fingers twitched.
Abruptly, she laid her palms flat against his chest
and pushed.
Angling her chin up, she took one shoulder in each hand
and ran her hands down his arms as if she were wringing out
wet clothes.
He grinned.
Stop that, she said.
She undid her blouse and bra, then put
one hand on each shoulder, one against the side of his cheek
and lowered her chest against his face--
wrapping her arms around the back of his head.
He raised his hands.
She pushed them back down.
He raised them again.
She took them and sat on them.
There, she said.
She leaned forward, pulling his nose between her breasts.
His mustache tickling her skin and found
the edge of his knuckle between her legs.
They rocked together as if in an embrace
of grief until her breasts came in quick, panicked bursts.
She squeezed the back of his head
so tightly he yelled into her chest.
And then, she rolled off him.
Backing against the far door, pulling her blouse
over her chest, her face was scrunched up and smeared.
Don't tell anyone what happened, she mumbled.
His mind raced for something to say-- not the wrong thing.
What?
What, he said, what happened?
She shook her head.
I don't know, she said.
Whatever had happened, it wasn't his fault. It was obviously
her fault. She was cold.
The windows had steamed up, but were now frosted over.
It's all right, she said, thinking of the movies, TV.
It had all gone just like that until now.
She tried to think of what would happen next.
I'm scared, she said, trying to follow the script.