Crystal Grader - Tag Cavello (reading women .TXT) 📗

do you get your cigarettes, Crystal?”

“Ooh,” she grinned, “trade secrets, Jarett.”

“But you know a dealer, right?”

“Of course.”

“And I’ll just bet you meet up with him in some run-down public restroom or under a rusty stairwell.”

“Her.”

“So you get the idea. Contraband flows heavy. It’s just a matter of finding the proper culverts.”

She laughed. “If you don’t mind, I’m not going to write that one down for later use.”

“Shut up, I’m getting into gossip mode here.”

Crystal pinched her thumb and finger together and drew them over her lips.

“One summer night in…oh, this must have been ’78 or ’79, I can’t remember which, we took a packet of bottle rockets to my house. Some dopey kid who used to live on Cortland Street gave them to us. I think he took one of my dad’s Playboy magazines for that. Again, I can’t remember. The cops were on high alert because it was close to July 4th. Crackle crackle, boom boom and all that. The locals were throwing parties at night and occasionally you’d get a guy who was crazy enough or drunk enough to try and blow something up with whatever nuclear warhead he’d happened to bring home from Sandusky. My neighbor, Doug Reed, was also on high alert. He absolutely detested people shooting off fireworks close to his house. Every July he’d make about ten or fifteen calls to the police to bitch about it. Or at least it seemed that way to me.”

“You grew up in Norwalk, right?” Crystal said.

“That’s right. On West Main Street. My house overlooked a valley that the B&O Railroad ran through. Still runs through. That’s Baltimore and Ohio, in case you’re wondering,” Jarett added.

“Got it.”

“We had a patio out back that you had to go down the basement and through a sliding glass door to get to. It was surrounded by trees, with of course the valley right in front, so we felt pretty safe about setting off a few rockets without getting caught.”

“But you did get caught,” Crystal said, remembering the newspaper clipping she’d read just over a year ago—the one Jarett kept locked in his closet.

“Damned near,” the other allowed. “Like I said, the three of us were in back of the house at around midnight, having a good time with our stash. The darkness was almost pitch. I had just lit a fuse on one of the rockets and was stepping back to watch it go, when all of a sudden Todd’s telling us to run! run! I looked up, totally dumbfounded, but by then he had already disappeared through the door. Next thing I know, the bottle rocket’s shooting up into the air…and there’s this huge, black shape coming through the garden. A cop. A big fucking cop, wearing a badge and a gun. Handcuffs. Me and Ted just about shit our pants.”

Crystal nodded, sipping a Diet Coke she’d fetched from the refrigerator. The story interested her, but it was still a ways off from where she wanted it to be. By now she felt almost certain that Vicky wouldn’t be in it.

“Of course we didn’t stick around to listen to him read us our Miranda rights,” Jarett went on. “Ted bolted through the door, and then me. I slammed the door shut on its track, which really impressed the other two, because that door had a tendency to get jammed. If it had that time the cop probably would have followed me right into the house.”

“What happened then?”

“Oh, we ran all the way up two flights of stairs. Ted hid in one of the bedrooms while Todd and I went out to the roof. By then flashlights were shining through the windows. Somebody knocked very hard on the front door—hard enough to shake the walls. Then we heard the living room door open.”

“Holy shit.”

“So I ran back inside to get Ted. He was hiding under the covers in Todd’s room. He looked up at me and smiled, but I could tell he was terrified. So was I. I told him we had to go to the roof and jump off. He said no way, it was too high. But there’s a place over the kitchen of that house that’s only about fifteen feet to the ground. I knew we could do it. I managed to get Ted out into the hallway. Right at that same time a flashlight beam hit the staircase.”

“So you didn’t have a choice,” Crystal said.

“We didn’t have a choice. We ran out to that roof and jumped off. Then we hauled ass through a lot of backyards, climbed over a few fences. Eventually we got to Ted’s house, and that’s where we stayed until the heat died down. About two hours. Two days later an article about a fireworks raid on West Main Street showed up in the newspaper. It covered everything except the fact that the cops came into our house. Chances are that part of the story was left out of the police report.”

“Because it was illegal.”

“Because it was illegal.”

“The cops never came back to the house to question anyone?”

“No,” Jarett said, sounding as surprised about this as Crystal felt. “Maybe they figured that one good scare would put some sense into us. Which it did. There were no more fireworks at my house for the rest of that summer.”

Bingo, Crystal thought, an opening.

“At least not the kind you light,” she said, watching him over the Coke can. “But what about the kind you and I had last week, loverboy?”

He flushed. “What about that kind?”

“Did you have any girls over? Ever?”

“My brother would have laughed his ass off at me had I done that. Then again he was always laughing his ass off at me. I was a pretty big joke to him.”

“Why’s that? Wasn’t he the younger?”

“Younger, but taller and better looking. And way more popular at school.”

“And where is he today?” Crystal asked, ready to help Jarett away from these feelings at first.

But then she began to think otherwise. After all, if he was going to open up to her about Vicky, she needed him vulnerable. Unconfident. Back on his heels.

“Saint Paul, Minnesota,” Jarett said, “making his way up the ladder of some law firm. But don’t get any ideas”—he tipped her a wink—“he’s as gay as they come.”

“Oh, darn. I was getting all excited about another conquest.”

“Nope. You can stop holding your breath.”

“Ha! There you go down that road again.”

“Sorry.”

Crystal shook her head as she swallowed the last of her Coke. She’d been meaning to ask him about this fetish anyway. Why not make it now?

“No, no,” she said, “it’s okay. But tell me something, Jarett: Why breath-holding? What is it that excites you about seeing a girl…” she trailed off, smiling. “God, look at you!”

Jarett pretended to look surprised. “Whaaat?” he whined.

“Your cheeks are red. You’re blinking like Hugh Grant in Four Weddings. Just talking about this makes you hot!”

“No it doesn’t!”

She fell back into the cushions, giggling. “It’s okay, sweetheart, it’s okay. I like it actually. It gives me a leash to tug you around on.”

“Woof woof, Crystal,” Jarett said flatly.

“But tell me why, Jarett. What’s the connection for you?”

“The connection to sex?”

“Yeah.”

Jarett leaned back in his chair. His eyes had stopped blinking.

“Well,” he said, “I think that sex and holding your breath have…similar qualities. Or effects on the body, if you will. With both you have this tension that keeps building and building. Eventually there comes a crescendo. With breath-holding it’s the pain in your lungs. With sex it’s the pleasure in…other places. And then comes the release—the gasp at the surface, the orgasm down below.”

“I hadn’t ever thought of it that way,” Crystal admitted after a few moments.

It was the truth, but hearing Jarett’s explanation, it all seemed so simple. He’d drawn a series of lines between two sets of very different dots, and against heavy odds, created a picture worth looking at. A picture they could both look at together.

“I don’t know if most women are too crazy about getting off the beaten track when it comes to sex,” Jarett said.

“Oh, but that is so not true,” Crystal rejoined, “at least not for me.”

“Not for you,” the other had to allow. “In fact I think you need the adventure.”

“But not every girl does?”

“Of course not.”

She leaned away from the cushions to challenge him on this, not only because she found it ridiculous, but because it might finally get him talking about Vicky.

“Name one,” she said. “One girl. Go on. I’m listening.”

Jarett didn’t waste any time. “Your friend,” he said. “What about her?”

Crystal blinked. “Lucy?”

“That’s the one.”

She stared at him, shaking her head. Then she laughed and threw the empty Coke can at his face.

“Hey!” Jarett cried, blocking her shot with his arm.

“Shut up! That was a lucky guess!”

The can rolled across the floor, prompting Chubby, who’d been lying near the fireplace, to trot over and investigate.

Jarett watched him. His face registered surprise but, as far as Crystal could tell, no anger. Seconds later her intuition proved accurate when he looked away from the dog and grinned.

“It wasn’t a guess,” he told her. “Five minutes with her is all you need to know she’s not one of those kids who yearn for a cliff face to hang-glide from.”

“We were together when I got the pictures of Shit-Shit,” Crystal pointed out, wincing inwardly at the way this subject had managed to bubble to the surface again. “Plus she has a boyfriend now. She’s making lots of progress.”

A noise of disgust came from the other side of the table.

“The pictures,” Jarett said, his cheeks pale. “There goes my appetite for dinner.”

“Bad memories are no match for my cooking. But come on, Jarett,” she continued. Her patience for tact had come to an end; it was time to go for broke. “I know I’m not your first girlfriend. Tell me about another. Tell me about your first.”

He laughed again. “Why on earth would you want to know about her?”

“Well somebody had to put this idea in your head about all of us being worshipers of Snow White.”

“Now now. That’s an exaggeration.”

“Isn’t that what writers do?”

“Some of them do. Comedians do.”

Crystal stood up. “Well I’m not joking here.”

A look of fear took hold of Jarett’s features. “I’m sorry if I offended you,” he said, moving back in his seat. “My opinion is purely—“

“No, no,” Crystal smiled. She sat down in his lap, kicking her legs up over the arm of the chair. “You didn’t offend me, sweetheart. I just want to know more about you.”

With that, she began to plant kisses around the corners of his mouth, one after the next.

“Tell me,” she whispered. “And stop looking out the window. No one’s ever going to catch us.”

“My first girlfriend?”

“Yeah.”

And if you lie to me, Mister, I’m going to know right away.

Jarett began to stroke her hair, as if that would somehow tease what memories he needed to find into the foreground of his thoughts. Then he kissed the side of her neck before whispering into her ear:

“Well…I guess I should start with her name.”

“That’s a good place,” Crystal nodded.

“Okay.” He kissed her again. “Okay.”

Yet several more seconds went by without another word. Jarett’s lips moved lower, until Crystal was obliged to tilt her head back and let his hot breath puff against her throat. Enjoying his appetite, she craned her neck over the side of the chair to take in an upside-down view of the fireplace.

“Her name,” Jarett said again.

And perhaps he really did need Crystal to help with those memories, for his fingers continued to explore her body, moving from her hair down to the hem of her blouse, which they lifted to reveal her ribs as they rose with a high, deep breath.

That breath she held, knowing it would excite him, give him courage. Jarett hesitated for just one final moment, and said:

“Her name was Vicky. She’s the love of my life. She always will be.”

And Crystal immediately looked up, letting her breath out like dragon fire.