I Love You, Stupid! Read online

  He stuck out his tongue—ugh!—and brushed that. In the other room Wendy was talking to Sally. Wendy was here—good. Maybe he’d streak through the living room, and cheer everyone up.

  Pants on, shirt tucked in. Grab some bills from the bureau. He was ready to fly. “Wendy, you coming?”

  “What’s your rush?” Sally said. “I haven’t seen you all week.”

  “No time for small talk. Gotta fly, Sally. Wendy, let’s go.” And he was out of the apartment.

  “How do you feel, Marcus?”

  He put his finger to his head and pulled the trigger.

  “That bad?” Wendy’s hair stood out around her head like a halo.

  Marcus crossed the highway to the Donut Shoppe. Forget Karen … forget her.… How could he have begged her? He’d pretended his feelings were so pure and elevated. Love and adoration. But all the time the beast in him had wanted to put his hands on her breasts. Marcus the Beast. That’s what he was. He could feel the skin tighten around his mouth, his lips twist cynically. The lips of cynicism, burned into his face forever. Cold, disdainful lips, a face that made women tremble. He checked his sneer in the window of the Donut Shoppe. A little too theatrical.

  Inside, a cute girl in a pink uniform waited on them. She had a fat little mouth, a fat, hot, greasy little mouth. He ordered a headlight, a taillight, a cinammon, a Dutch apple, a chocolate-covered donut, and two Bavarian cremes. “What’ll you have, Wendy?”

  “Indigestion.”

  He took the donuts in a white bag, and then they jogged toward the park, where he threw himself down on the grass and looked up at the sky. “Wendy B., you are patient, kind, and good to put up with me.”

  “You’re telling me.” She broke apart a Bavarian creme and gave him half.

  “You know what I’d like to do with this donut?” Marcus said. “Push it into Karen’s face.”

  “You act like she did something to you.”

  “She did. She made me want her. She made me want to kiss her.”

  “That isn’t what you told me before.”

  “Wendy, whose side are you on?”

  “Is this a war? You grabbed her. She didn’t grab you. You attacked her.”

  “Attacked!” Marcus sat up. “So now I’m a criminal.” He threw the donut down. “Jesus, Wendy, I kissed her, that’s all. Is that a crime? In the total order of crimes, from swiping a kid’s lollipop to murder, where does stealing a kiss fit? Where would you put it, Wendy? Is it high crime or low? If you want to know what I think, I did her a favor kissing her.”

  “If you want to know what I think, you took what you had no right to take.”

  He looked off. Past the trees, some men were playing baseball. “You sang a different tune the other night.”

  “You were in pain then.”

  “I’m still in pain. Am I that awful? I brush my teeth every day. Do I smell, Wendy? You’d tell me if I did, wouldn’t you? What makes her so perfect, so much better than me that she can abuse me?”

  “Abuse you? I don’t believe this.”

  “She hit me with the teddy bear. Don’t laugh. Nobody likes to be hit with a teddy bear. What if I kissed you? Would you hit me with a teddy bear?” He reached over and pulled her toward him.

  “Marcus!” She raised a donut.

  “Do it.” He thrust his face forward. “Right into my mouth, mash me.”

  “Don’t tempt me.”

  “Come on, just mash me. I’ve always wanted to be hit with a jelly donut.”

  “I can just hear you crying to the police: ‘That woman just assaulted me with a jelly donut.’ They’ll file it with your other report of assault and battery with a teddy bear.”

  Marcus fell back on the ground, put his hands behind his head. “I don’t want to talk about Karen anymore. I’m sick of the subject. You’re right, Wendy, I shouldn’t have touched her. I know it, but I still hate her.”

  “You ought to stop thinking about her.”

  “Aren’t you still thinking about Alec?”

  She shrugged.

  “See. You’re still thinking about him.”

  “No, I’m not! Not much, anyways.”

  Marcus ruffled her hair. “You can always cry on my manly shoulders, Wendy. I’ve been crying on yours enough.”

  Tuesday, Bill came home, looking brown and fit, and there was a lot of excitement. Bill grasped Marcus’s hand, gripped his shoulder. A muscular male greeting. It was good to have Bill back.

  Sally brought out the liquor bottles from the bottom of the cupboard and put them on a serving cart in the dining room. She never drank when Bill was away. Bill poured wine for each of them.

  “Oh, before I forget,” Sally said, putting down her glass. “There was a phone call for you, Marcus. The woman you work for wants you to stop by.”

  Marcus sat down, worked the drink around in his hand, then put it down. “I’m going out,” he said. “There’s something I have to do.” He hooked his bike over his shoulder and hurried out.

  At Karen’s house he rang the bell, then stood back. Don’t act too eager, he told himself, but he was sweating. He heard steps on the stairs. Then the door opened a crack and a girl squinted at him suspiciously. “What do you want?”

  “Where’s Karen?”

  “Out. Who are you? Are you Marcus?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wait, I’ve got something for you.” She ran back upstairs and returned. “Here.” She handed him a white envelope. “She said to give this to you, if you came.”

  He folded the envelope in half and put it into his breast pocket. “Did she say anything else … about coming back?”

  “No.”

  He nodded and turned away. When he was around the corner he opened the envelope. There was money inside, the exact amount she owed him for baby-sitting. Not a word, not even his name on the outside. He pocketed the money and threw away the envelope.

  16

  (From Marcus’s notebook)

  Walking Down Wyoming Street

  Past houses and bushes and under trees,

  Where roots push the sidewalk up,

  Through sunshine and shade we’re moving,

  And you’re talking, and I’m listening,

  Or I’m talking and you’re listening.

  You notice the plants some lady has up on her porch in tomato-juice cans,

  And I point to the sky-blue color somebody has painted their house.

  And I get that friendship feeling,

  That talking-and-walking-down-Wyoming-Street

  With-my-friend-Wendy feeling.

  17

  The money Karen had paid Marcus sat on the bureau in his glass penny jar. Each time he saw the crumpled bills he remembered. It was like a closed door opening a crack. It hurt, and he pulled it shut fast.

  It wasn’t Karen, anymore. He could forget Karen. He was forgetting her. But the memory of what an ass he’d made of himself lingered. It was something he was never, never, never going to do again—if he could help it—which he doubted.

  These days he felt close to Wendy because they’d been through something together. Well, not exactly together, but she’d helped him, and the things they’d felt and the disappointments they’d both had gave them a lot in common.

  He was sick of looking at Karen’s money, and decided to have a party with it. He asked Wendy if she wanted to help him celebrate. “This is going to be a how-I-kicked-the-habit party. It’s on Karen.”

  “We’ll make it a double celebration,” Wendy said. “I talked to Alec today. I was right up next to him, and I hardly got a twinge.”

  They went to the Persian Room. Marcus wore blue slacks and a white jacket he’d borrowed from Bill, and Wendy looked really different with her hair pulled back, and wearing a green velvet dress with thin straps that showed her shoulders.

  When the waiter brought the menu and Marcus saw the prices, they had a quick conference on what they could order. No lobster tonight, and they had to leave a fair tip. No desse
rt either. Marcus wanted Wendy to order first so she could have something good. “Why don’t you order the shrimp? I’ll have the French leek soup.”

  “I should have brought some money with me,” Wendy said.

  “It’s my party,” he said. “Go ahead, order. I’ve always wanted to try French leek soup.”

  When their orders came there was only a small cup of soup, but he made it last by eating it slowly. “It’s nothing,” Wendy whispered. “Did you see what they charged for that?”

  “It’s the best leek soup I’ve ever had.”

  “It’s the only leek soup you’ve ever had. Here, take some of mine.”

  Marcus looked around. He didn’t see anyone else sharing their food. “We better not.”

  “I’m not going to eat and have you starving,” Wendy said. She pushed her plate toward him.

  He thought people were looking at them, thinking they were a couple, at least going together. Being here, dressed up, he felt different, as if they really were a couple. He liked the way Wendy was sitting, and the careful way she ate. Neither of them was completely at ease, but still, as Wendy whispered to him, he felt they were as good as any of these elegant couples around them.

  He kept glancing at Wendy. What if they were really going together? Neither of them had anybody and they liked each other. He’d never noticed before what really nice hands she had. And her shoulders, and the way her ears lay against her head. It was funny, because he’d never thought about her shoulders or ears before, or her legs either. They kept bumping into each other under the table. “Oops,” Wendy said and drew her legs back. He did too, but he wanted to bump knees again, maybe catch her legs between his.

  Jesus! King George was awake. Just the thought of Wendy’s legs.…

  Marcus shifted uncomfortably. “What’s the matter Marcus?”

  “I’ve got a charley horse in my leg.”

  “Stand on it,” she advised. “That’s the only way to get rid of it.”

  “No, that’s all right.”

  “Do it. Don’t be embarrassed. If you’re in pain—Nobody’s going to say anything.”

  He forced a smile. “It’s okay now.” But every time he looked at Wendy he was in trouble again. He just couldn’t control it. He thought how frustrated they’d both been over other people. What if they were going together, wouldn’t that solve all their problems?

  And then he realized he was thinking like a pig, thinking only about himself. It was the sex thing, that horniness in him that fastened on to any female he was near. He still hadn’t forgotten the time he’d fallen on Wendy and what she’d said. She’d made it clear that they were just friends. Still he couldn’t keep from thinking how perfect it would be, neither of them with anybody special of their own, both of them stuck on the kiddie side of the wall. He was ready to say something, but he didn’t want it to come out wrong.

  “Look, Karen—”

  “Karen?”

  He stopped, horrified, and struck himself in the head. “Wendy, Wendy, Wendy!”

  Wendy got a little red.

  “Wendy, I wasn’t thinking about her. I was thinking about you, about us, about the way we are together.” He had her attention now. “What I’m thinking …” He worked the glass of water around and around. “I think I have a solution to our problem.”

  “I didn’t know we had one.”

  “You know, you with Alec, and me with Karen.” Then his nerve failed him and he said, “We’ll probably be doing things together this summer, right? So why don’t we go together officially?”

  “Go together?” she repeated.

  “You know: boy-girl. You Jane, me Tarzan.”

  “We are together,” Wendy said.

  “Just friends, though.” He got embarrassed then, because this other idea was in his head and he wasn’t expressing it. “If we go together, then we belong together.” He put his fingers over his eyes. “I can’t talk about this. Do I sound like an idiot?” He was reverting. The Complete Adolescent. He pulled himself up. “Okay, Wendy, forget what I just said. Let’s start again. Remember that time we were in the mall and then we walked to your aunt’s and talked about experience? I told you I didn’t have any, and you were surprised, and then you said the same thing.”

  She nodded. “I remember.”

  “Does that still hold?”

  “Do you mean, did something happen with Alec? I told you, nothing happened, Marcus.”

  “I thought so, but I want to be sure.”

  “What’s the matter?” Wendy said. “You won’t associate with a girl who’s done it?”

  “No, no!” She was getting it all wrong. “Look, we’re friends. I like you; we like each other. We’d be, well, helping each other out.” If she didn’t get that part, she was hopeless.

  “What would we do that was different from now?” Wendy said.

  She didn’t get it. “I wish you weren’t so dense,” he said. “What do people do when they go together, Wendy?”

  “Oh, Oh! You mean boyfriend and girlfriend.”

  “You make it sound like Beauty and the Beast. Come on, Wendy, it’s hard enough talking about it without you being dumb about it.”

  “Okay, I get it. You want us to go together.”

  “Right, right.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Oh, I never thought that you and I—”

  “Right,” he said. “Have I told you my wall theory?”

  “What wall is that?”

  “It’s like the Great Wall of China, only this wall is bigger and longer and goes all around the world. It divides the whole human race. Every human being is either on one side of the wall or the other.”

  “I hope we’re on the same side, Marcus.”

  “We are, but it’s the wrong side. We’re on the side with the babies.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “Only if you’re a baby. When you grow up you realize it’s the wrong side of the wall and you want to get over on the other side with the big people. Everyone wants to get over that wall but they can’t do it by themselves. Two people have to go over the wall together. Sometimes two people on the wrong side help each other.” Marcus paused. “If they’re friends and like each other.”

  “Like you and me?”

  “Exactly! Well, what do you say, Wendy?”

  “About what?”

  “The wall,” Marcus said. She could be so thick sometimes.

  “I know about that wall,” Wendy said.

  “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  Every time she said “what” she made him feel like a fool. “Do you want to go over that wall with me or not?”

  “I’ve thought about it.”

  She really got to him, the way she said it, so calmly.

  “Sure, I’ve thought about it. A lot of times I feel I just want to climb over and not kill myself, and be on the other side.”

  “But not with me?”

  “I wouldn’t say that. I’ve thought about a lot of possibilities.”

  “What did you think about me?”

  “For a long time I thought we’d always be just friends. Even that time when you made me so mad coming down on top of me like a big ox. Afterward, I felt sorry, you were so embarrassed. I really loved you then. I’ve always loved you, but, you know, like a friend.”

  “And friends don’t?”

  “No, maybe friends do. Maybe that’s the best way of all. I’ve been waiting for lightning to strike, but that can scare you too, like with Alec.”

  Why was she bringing Alec up now? Because she still liked him, that’s why, liked Alec a lot more than she liked Marcus.

  “I think I got so excited about Alec because I was feeling so alone. New school, by myself so much. I thought he was so sensitive at first.”

  “Alec? Sensitive?” Oh, this really hurt.

  “I know Alec didn’t feel about me the way I felt about him.”

  “You bet he didn’t!”

  “For a while I thought Alec w
as interested, really cared. I know I could have let myself go with him.”

  “You already said that.”

  Wendy looked at him. “This is upsetting you. I thought we could be open with each other.”

  Yes, yes, he agreed. He put on his serious, I’m-listening-to-you-Wendy expression. Dr. Fraud looking intelligent.

  “What if Karen called you back now? What if she said, Come back, Marcus. Would you go?”

  “No, not now.” Said it and knew he lied. He still dreamed about Karen, but in these dreams he didn’t beg. And he got what he wanted. He dreamed about Bev and about Wendy, too, and all his dreams were for him, his need, his satisfaction. It was selfish, he was selfish, that was the truth. How was he supposed to explain that to Wendy?

  “Alec and I were never friends, not the way we are, Marcus. I guess that’s why this really makes sense to me. I mean, climbing that wall together.”

  “It does! You do!”

  “Yes, but we can’t take chances.”

  “I understand. Do you want to take care of it? Can you get the pill?”

  “I don’t want to. It had a bad effect on my mother.”

  “What does she use, then?”

  “The coil, but that’s no good if you’ve never had sex.”

  “Oh, then it’s up to me. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Maybe somebody else would think this is, you know, a little cold-blooded. I never thought I’d be talking this way myself. But we are talking, and I’m glad. I guess we’re making an agreement.”

  “We are, we certainly are.”

  “It feels right.” Wendy spoke softly. “There’s no other boy I like as much as I like you, Marcus. I feel good about you, and we trust each other, and we’re friends.”

  “Wendy,” he said taking her hand. “This is going to make us better friends than ever.”

  18

  BARRETT AND ROSENBLOOM IN AGREEMENT

  ON DELICATE SUBJECT. DETAILS

  STILL UNDISCLOSED.

  After a period of round-the-clock negotiations, Marcus Rosenbloom and Wendy Barrett have reached an agreement on a delicate subject, the agreement to be implemented in an as-yet-undesignated location, sometime soon. The two young people have no one else to do it with, are tired of waiting for it to happen, and know they can trust each other not to be moody, ugly, exploitive, or sensational about the upcoming event.