"No, I'm going to do dishes. You listen and tell me if you like the song or not."

I took a quarter from my tip bowl, went to the jukebox, and punched in the numbers for "Would You Lay with Me (In a Field of Stone)" by Tanya Tucker. I didn't think twice about it. I did not know I was going to do it, yet something in me must have known, because I did the thing without thinking.

In the back room I did exactly one load of cups and gla.s.ses: I put the plastic tray in the dishwasher, let it cycle through, pulled cups and gla.s.ses out, put them lip down on the drying table. I felt bad then for some reason, panicky and sick that Kevin Keel was sitting out there listening to a song I played for him, but I thought, You started it, Vangie, you finish it.

Kevin was smoking a cigarette when I came up to his table. He had both arms up on the table, and I looked at the skin of his forearms and then through the smoke to his face.

"So that's what you played for me," he said.

"That's what I played."

"What's it mean?"

I said, "What do you think it means?"

"Says you want to lay down with me."

I looked at the little hollow place right at the base of his throat, the place where the skin curved in over the hollow. I thought how I would be able to touch Kevin where the skin pulled over his collarbone, and how I would put my mouth on the hard bone. I liked the words lay down and I liked hearing a man say them.

"Well then, that's what I mean."

"I thought you had an old man."

"I did. I do," I said, because I didn't know which one was true of Del anymore. "Does it bother you?"

"Don't bother me, but it ought to bother him."

Kevin sat a while longer, taking me in, then he said, "All right. How late are you working?"

I didn't think it would happen that night, but then I thought, why not? I didn't know what difference it made anymore, and I didn't want to be alone in that house again.

When I told him midnight, he said, "All right. I'll be back."

I told him I'd be ready. Because of course all the while there were currents flowing in other people, there was one flowing in me, too.

AFTER I finished shift, I washed my face and neck and as much of my chest and arms as I could get to with the soap in the globe dispenser in the ladies. After, I used the rough brown paper towels to dry. The grease from the kitchen clung to my hair and made it heavy and shiny, but I couldn't do anything about it, or my smell-cigarette smoke, french fries, sweat. I thought I was going to be a pretty smelly date, and I thought of telling Kevin I'd changed my mind, but then I remembered that I did not want to be alone, and I remembered the way Kevin looked at me after I played the song. I decided he wouldn't care if I reeked of Dreisbach's.

He was waiting in the side entry hall when I came out of the bathroom, and he smiled at me. I thought how I could see June's face someplace in his, and I tried not to feel so scared about what I was doing.

"Are you ready to go out now?"

"I'm ready," I said.

I wondered if anyone was there watching as we walked out the side door of Dreisbach's, but it seemed there was no one anywhere, just the stink of the trash cans and the whir of the kitchen fan.

"Been wanting to ask you out a long time, to tell you the truth," Kevin said, taking my hand.

"Why didn't you?"

"It seemed like you were happy."

I kept my hand loose in his. His hand felt funny to me, the skin and bones so different from Del's, but I was glad to be holding hands. I couldn't remember the last time Del and I had done that. f.u.c.k, yes, but hold hands? That I couldn't recall.

"I was happy," I said. "I'm not now."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Kevin Keel said.

We did not talk much in his truck. I watched him drive, and again I wondered what I was doing. But I thought again of the house, and how, if I weren't with Kevin, I'd be alone there, waiting to hear Del's car pull up or hear him open the door. I thought anything was better than that.

Kevin took me to Sweet Arrow and parked in a place I'd never been before, there on the south side, down a dirt road I didn't know. He put on a tape and played it just on his battery.

"You like that?"

"I like it," I said.

"You like the lake?"

"Yeah, I like it."

He laughed at me. I was nervous, and he knew it. He lit a joint and pa.s.sed it to me, and I took a heavy toke.

"Now you'll relax," Kevin told me. "You're thinking too hard."

"I'm always like that."

We sat in silence then, listening to the tape. I liked the music okay -Jackson Browne's "Running on Empty."

"You believe that? 'You gotta do what you can to keep your love alive"?"

"I don't know," I said. "I never thought about it."

I was trying to think of some way to answer the question when he pa.s.sed his hand over my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. He did not turn to face me, he just stuck out the arm that was between us and pa.s.sed his hand over the front of my uniform. He found each of my nipples, and he pulled at them through the fabric.

"Don't think so hard," he said. "It's just a song."

I knew then that I didn't want him to touch me, but I didn't stop him. I let him go on feeling me sideways, then I let him pull me up against him. He opened the zipper on my uniform and took my b.r.e.a.s.t.s in his hands, squeezing them through my bra.

"So, you need a good d.i.c.king down," Kevin said.

I knew then that whatever kind of fantasy I had cooked up in my mind wasn't going to come true. I made the movement to kiss him, because I thought if we could kiss, if we could at least have good kisses between us, maybe it would be all right.

His kisses were dull and wet, and the taste of his mouth sickened me. But by then I did not know how to stop. He had taken off my bra, and my uniform was down around my waist. It seemed easiest to go through with it then, since I was the one who started it. I still did not know-it was not clear in my mind-that I should have done anything to get away from him: get down on my hands and knees, crawl naked through the woods.

Kevin Keel started by eating me, but what he did was more like ripping. Maybe that was when my skin began to tear-later I wasn't sure. What I did know was that after he got done snarling into my c.u.n.t, he f.u.c.ked me so hard I thought I could feel my skin pulling and breaking. I was so scared I wasn't wet at all except from his spit. I tried not to move, tried to let him up my dry c.u.n.t.

He pumped into me awhile, then he said, "Good p.u.s.s.y doesn't just lie there."

So I pushed back against him and made noise. I thought if he came, it could all be over.

Instead it lasted a long time. When I started to cry, he said, "Is it sore?"

"Yes," I said, but I would not look at him when I said it.

"I'm almost done," he told me.

At the end, as he came, he slapped my face once, hard. Then he jerked out of me.

"Nice set of t.i.ts," he said when he climbed off me.

I didn't say anything. I was shaking and had trouble pulling on my clothes. I didn't even try to put my nylons back on, because of the burning between my legs.

Keel took me back into town, to Dreisbach's, where I was parked. When I went to get out of his truck, he pulled me to him and kissed me.

"Sweet dreams," he said after he wiped his mouth on my mouth.

I walked away without looking back. When I got into my truck, I couldn't believe everything in it looked just the way it had when I left it that afternoon: the box of tissues, the crumpled napkins, my sweater. I sat a long time with my arms wrapped over the steering wheel, but stuff started seeping out of me and it burned, and I thought I better get on home.

I stood a long time on the back porch of the house before I could go in. I didn't know why. Del still wasn't home and there was no one to see me, but I just couldn't bring myself to put my hand on the doork.n.o.b and turn it and go inside. But I made myself do it, just like I made myself wash between my legs, over and over, even though the soap burned and it hurt to pa.s.s the washcloth over myself. I washed my hair three times, not to cut through the grease of the kitchen like I usually did, but to get Keel's whispers out of my hair. When I was finished, I could not smell him, but there was nothing left of me, either.

I did two more things before I went to bed that night. I washed my blood out of the skirt of my uniform, because it was already turning dark. There was not a lot of blood, and it wasn't in blots like when my period began. This blood stained the fabric in thin, red streaks. Then I ran the water until it was icy cold, and I soaked a washcloth in it. I took that washcloth back to the bed with me, and I lay with it between my legs until the heat from my body warmed it. When I was lying there I knew for the first time that June had told me only half the truth about Kevin. It wasn't one of his friends who f.u.c.ked her when she was ten-it was Kevin. It all fit. I didn't let myself think anything else about it.

For the first time in days, I hoped Del would not come home. I didn't hate him anymore. I just hoped he would stay away.

17.

I needn't have worried about Del coming home. His mother called me the next morning to tell me he was in detox at the hospital in Deer Run. He had overdosed on alcohol and quaaludes, and had almost stopped breathing. The police had picked him up. As he wasn't allowed any phone calls from the hospital, she was calling.

"I don't approve of you two living together," she said. "But I know you care for him."

"I do care for him," I said.

"Did you know any of this was going on?"

"I knew he was drinking," I said. I didn't think there was any point in telling her about the huffing.

"He has a lot of lessons to learn," she said, and then she told me it was G.o.d's will he didn't die.

When I asked her what I could do, she told me I couldn't do anything. He wasn't allowed any visitors, not even her or his old man. She told me I could pray, and that she and Del's dad were praying. I didn't know how all the praying fit into the way Dels old man used to beat Del, but I didn't get into it on the phone.

And though I did not believe in any of it, I did pray for Del to be all right. I didn't pray for the one thing I really wanted -to take back everything that had happened with Kevin Keel. I knew I couldn't have it, so I didn't bother to ask for it.

BY THE next afternoon it hurt so much I could barely walk or pee. I took down the small mirror we had nailed to the bathroom wall, sat on the bed, and held the mirror between my legs. It took me only a few seconds to find the tears that burned. One was on the small lip leading up to my c.l.i.toris. The place was swollen with black blood. The other tear was right at the bottom of my c.l.i.toris. Keel had split the bottom of that round b.u.t.ton. They were small rips, but they ached and burned when I moved or when my urine hit the open skin. Who knew what was torn inside my v.a.g.i.n.a where I couldn't see.

I took myself to the hospital in Ontelaunee. The nurse thought I was another VD patient and asked me to name my partners.

"He wasn't a partner," I said. "I don't know his name."

She left me alone after that, but before she left the room she did a funny thing. I'd left my panties on top of my jeans on the chair, and yellow and red streaks were showing. The nurse folded them in a way that all the mess wouldn't show. I didn't know who she was hiding them from.

The doctor gave me antibiotics and some cream for my v.a.g.i.n.a. He wanted to know how it happened.

"Things got carried away," I said. "That's all."

"Do you want to see the police?"

"No, I don't," I said. I didn't think he would have believed me if I told him I was the one who started it, that I was the one who chose Keel.

It was the truth. I had chosen him. I knew all the stories about him, and he was the one I went to. I knew he'd help me start any fire I wanted to start. At the time I thought I just wanted to hurt Del, but that was not all the truth. I wanted something for myself, too. What it was I couldn't name. I kept wanting to call it love, but it was more like obliteration.

I knew that even then.

IT HURT so bad to go to the bathroom that I hardly drank anything for the next few days. When I did pee, my urine burned the open places, and it was so sharp and hot that I could barely make myself stay on the toilet seat. I closed my eyes and pressed against the bathroom wall with my shoulder. As soon as I was done, I wiped everything away with a wet washcloth.

The whole thing scared me. I worried not just about the pain, but also about everything being infected. I could not stop thinking of the black blood showing through my skin, the way that inner lip was swollen and bruised, and I could not stop thinking about the tear in my c.l.i.toris. I had a dream where I could see the cells in my skin. The cells were pink and egg-shaped. Sometimes they were small, and sometimes they were so big they took over the dream. When I woke up, I felt like I was going crazy with all the throbbing and aching in my body I made myself more upset by pinching the mirror between my legs again-this time with the bedside lamp aimed right at me. When I saw the mess, I could not stop crying. So I cried for a while, and when I did stop, I didn't feel anything, just flat and blank.

I think I was crazy those few days. I broke apart. My head ached and my eyes burned all the time. I slept as much as I could and then I slept some more. I did not talk to anyone-not June, not my mom, certainly not Del. I don't know how long my craziness would have gone on, but then something happened.

I was lying in bed, trying to sleep again after sleeping almost all day. I could not turn off my thoughts about my body, though, or about Del, and I felt like my whole body was clenched in fear. I didn't know what else to do, so I started smoothing my own hair back from my face. I wasn't pretending it was Del's hand, but I wanted something to comfort me, and I tried to give it to myself.

And I guess I fell asleep like that, with my own hand at my face, because the next thing I knew, I felt someone brushing my hair back from my face, and I thought, Good, Del's here and he understands.

I lay and let myself feel the brushing, and then I knew it wasn't Del's hand on my face but the wing of a bird. It was so light. I closed my eyes to better feel the softness, and that's when I saw that it was an owl, and that he had his great wing over my face. All my worrying and crying was being brushed away, and I felt myself go calm beneath the feathers.

When I woke the next morning, I remembered everything. I knew I was probably just healing, but I could feel my pain was not nearly as bad, and it somehow seemed connected to the dream.

That was how I put myself to sleep for the next few nights: thinking of that great, soft wing. I puzzled over the dream - wondered what the owl meant, why he had come-but I did not puzzle over the feeling the dream gave me. I stopped worrying about my cells, and I let my body do its work. Something still ached inside of me when I thought of how I brought the whole thing on myself, and I still felt sick when I thought of Del and the new lie I'd have to tell him, but my body did not frighten me anymore. A piece of me had gone far away, but I was still there.

The needle in my brain stayed stuck on how I was the only one to blame for the mess, but one idea brought me some relief: if it was true that I was the one who chose Kevin Keel, it was also true that I was the only one who had to know. I knew I could take anything if I was alone, if it was just me who had to stand it.

18.

AFTER five days, I could pee without crying, and I went back to Dreisbach's. Once I got there, though, I didn't know if I would make it through my shift or not. My stomach felt like it was a fist, and I dreaded turning and having to meet Kevin Keel's eyes.