Taken Back Page 2

a command. I had heard it from my parents in so many ways, yet for some reason this way it was easier to take.

  We walked the six blocks to Green Bay Road to catch the local bus. Each step lasted an hour as we talked about high school, her growing up in the South, and why I didn't go to college. Her gift at writing had gotten her into Vassar. I asked politely as possible about Harvard boys. She had dated one until he had forced himself on her. She said he never listened and had to be the best at everything.

  I told her about all the movies I had seen, usually alone, my new favorite records, and anything but the immediate future. She spoke with such confidence it became harder not to look her in the eyes with each passing block. The dome lights on the bus lit up their silver center with a blue tint mimicking the absent moon. It was at this moment in which I couldn't help myself.

  "I'm sorry," I said, probably interrupting her. She looked up from her hands, again with an unexpected smile and then chuckled with a bounce that cause her glowing hair to jump off her shoulders for a split second.

  "I know," she said, "Just don't forget that." Her soft hand grabbed mine before she finished speaking and pulled me off the bus. The beach was our stop. Running because it felt natural, not because we were in any hurry, she began to tell of her plan. "See, they launch the firecrackers off the pier over by that water plant on the north side over there. The crowd is all on the beach and the park is right above it. But follow me over here."

  Without the whites of her shoes, I would have lost her in the night. We made our way through a rough trail in a small forest across the street from the park. I was losing my breath as quickly as I was losing Christine. Suddenly, the only footsteps I heard were my own. A familiar touch pulled me onto the ground in a clearing.

  I peered off the tops of the trees into the cloudy night. Lying on our backs in the grass, we were under no moon or stars. The only source of light was coming from Christine. That was the last I saw of the sky as she lifted a breath of air and placed her hand on my heaving stomach.

  "You remember that day I moved in, Charles?"

  "Kinda. I remembered you coming over to me and me making an idiot of myself. Does that count?"

  "Nuh-uh, you were throwin' a baseball to yerself, so I came over to say 'hi'. you stood there lookin' at me as if I had crabs crawlin' from my ears. You were so shy and you looked so alone. Just as you did all through school and every day in the ice cream shop. Even with yer friends around you look alone. And I don't want you gettin' on that bus tomorrow, goin' off to a world where you are alone, thinkin' you don't have a place to share with someone, or anywhere you can really call home."

  As fast as she ran ahead of me, she stopped in her words. She looked at the empty sky one last time and from then on my eyes never left hers. Somewhere in between, we met again as a crash in the sky painted it green, and then twice more in red and white.

  The blasts of color covered her words, but they remained clear, "And today when I came back to the sop, I wasn't sure if I just felt sorry for you or had a huge crush on you for the past seven years."

  I stared through the changing sparks in her eyes off into a distance, beyond any place I have been before. I had never felt so close and connected to anyone as I did at that moment. I had never been touched like that before, by her hand resting on my stomach, by her eyes burning into mine, by her compassionate voice. In listening to her and watching her as she shared herself with me, I realized something. I wasn't scared anymore. I was no longer a ghost. I was myself. She turned her neck slightly and smiled at me.

  "So that is what your smile looks like...You should use it more often, Charles." She paused for a few beats, as if she was searching for the right words. "I...I want you to have something to remember about me, and about this place. Your last night and what it's like to be home. Everyone needs a real good memory to get them through the tough stuff."

  With that she began to kiss me. My eyes drifted shut with the moisture on my lips. When they flickered open, her naked back was painted in the raining colors of the fireworks. They closed again as I felt her dress move down my body. As the sky blackened again, I saw only accents of gold in her figure as she lay on top of me. When my eyes were open, they never left hers. When they were closed, we rose above the ground as the sky fell. Suspended above the feeling of ecstasy, well beyond the common contact of another person, she brought me to life. When it was over, we laid in place never letting go of each other's bare skin.

  When the moon finally broke through the clouds, we made our way back to the corner of Glenwood and Iris, where I first laid my blind eyes on Christine Carlson. Her unpredictable smile made one final appearance as she whispered, "Goodbye Charles Duff-ay," into my ear. She turned her back and drifted into her house. There was no hesitation or eye contact, no sign of fear, as I have none; thinking of home on a bus full of ghosts, men, and me.