Anthropology of an American Girl: A Novel - By Hilary Thayer Hamann Page 0,144

and evenings working in a roadside restaurant, by expressions of flesh and trials of desire, I found no end to my interest in the wild. Wherever I looked, I wanted to lie, though that was not always possible. It was like being hungry for blood and smelling it everywhere around, hearing it drive, and you do not mind it touching you when you are it and it is you. If, at night, I would have dared to leave his side, I would have walked into the velvet stealth, knowing that nothing would ever hurt me there. That summer I felt the casing of my skin dissolve. I felt myself connect as pools connect.

In the mornings, I would sit on the step beneath the chipped front door after a shower, waiting for the sun to dry the water from my skin. I would push my heels into the grass and warm dirt, thinking, God really is everywhere. Rourke would join me, coming to the porch with a pot of coffee and a cup for us to share. A space between the houses across the road revealed the smoky blue bay, and through that slender break we would look to the west. And him reaching, his hands touching my hair. And pain, a knowledge of the advance of time, an instinct that luck does not last, a feeling of modesty in regard to the opulence of my circumstances. And a sense that we had to hurry.

“Is it time?” I would ask.

“Yeah,” he would say. “I bet you’re hungry.”

The GTO would barely drop speed before veering to the shoulder at Four Oaks, where we bought breakfast—either there or at Herb’s in town. Our doors would pound in unison, and I would walk a little behind, watching the even force of his legs as they hit the street. Sometimes Doreen, the cashier, would wave before we reached the door, and Rourke would toss up his arm. If you didn’t know already that Doreen drank Jack Daniel’s, you could tell by the purple swell of her face. Once at Tipperary, Rourke bought her a drink. She thanked him, and when she lit a cigarette, the hand gripping the match trembled. The bartender brought a rocks glass filled with rust-colored stuff, not bothering to ask what she’d like, and she sat back in her chair and sipped like she was comfortable, more comfortable there than at home.

Inside the deli, the floor tiles felt stark under my bare feet, and the air was so cold it seemed to come from my bones. Near the coffeemaker was a platter of collapsed and sorry Danish. I would dig through for a few free of flies while “Piano Man” played on the radio. If people were talking to Rourke, as often they did, I would wait by the creaking novelty rack, spinning it to see the latest yo-yos and water pistols, and the guys behind the counter would stare, calculating the circumference of my ass. My eyes would pass over theirs, as if to say, Do you honestly think you could do to me the things he does?

Sometimes he would scan the headlines while we waited for sandwiches, other times he avoided them, in either case striving to follow his way. He would run a hand through his hair, then turn to find me, as if afraid that I might have vanished. Upon seeing me he would return to summer, seduced again, despite some sounder verdict of which I remained unaware. It was as if everyone had been evacuated, but by some miracle of stupidity we remained.

“That everything?” Rourke would ask, pulling bottled water and peaches from my arms, and tossing knots of cash on the counter.

At the beach, we would eat. He would run several miles and swim several miles, and I would read and sleep, and if he thought I was getting too much sun, he would lay a shirt on my back—the cotton dropping down like a parachute. When he stood or walked, women would adjust their glasses and arch the bridges of their ribs. If they lay on their bellies, they would tug the strings of their suits higher around their lifted bottoms and spy him through the fragrant triangles between arms and blankets. Jealousy was not possible; no one could love him better or more. I would just turn away and face the sun, feeling it heal the flesh he’d used. The women didn’t know what I knew. They knew nothing of unconditional discretion or