bottom. Eveline. It was nice that he looked for me there; no one had ever looked for me there.
Kate invited them into the kitchen. Tim hopped right off the hearth, but Rourke remained, continuing to scan the shelves in silence. When she called him once again, he moved to join them, first turning off the desk lamp that Kate had put on. His hand lingering on the switch, his back to me.
I looked for new music. I’d lost interest in bossa nova. The woman Rourke awakened in me was not gifted with delicacy or political cause; she came in an atomic rush, possessing nothing more than instinct and courage. I chose Al Green’s “Here I Am (Come and Take Me).” The song played the way I felt—knowing, but new, secretive, but open.
I can’t believe that it’s real, the way that you make me feel
A burning deep down inside, a love that I cannot hide
Rourke’s jacket was across the room. I resisted as long as I could, and then I crawled to the couch. My hand felt the leather. In the kitchen they chatted capably, as though they’d been brought together by choice rather than chance.
“Actually,” Rourke was saying, “I took a costume design course in college.”
“You’re kidding!” Kate giggled.
Tim said, “Why not, Kate? It was probably an easy A.”
“Not quite. I almost failed.”
“Oh, shit,” Tim groaned. “There goes the GPA.”
“I asked the teacher if there was anything I could do to bring up the grade. She said, ‘As a matter of fact, Mr. Rourke, there is. I’ll give you the weekend to make a wedding dress.’”
There was an explosion of laughter. “No!” Tim said. “The bitch.”
“What did you do?” Kate asked.
“I made a wedding dress.”
“And did your grade go up?”
“I got an A,” Rourke said, “and several marriage proposals.”
They laughed again and then moved into a discussion of politics and sports and classic cars. Rourke talked about the upcoming election and President Carter and the Soviet Union and Afghanistan and the boycott of the winter Olympics. Coming from his voice, with its rich cadence, worldly things did not seem petrifying. It intrigued me, the way he excelled socially, the way he spoke that language but also mine. If I was sorry not to know more about current events, I was consoled by the fact that I could mold a finch from clay and recount in detail the aroma of a half-dead oak leaf. But possibly that all counted for nothing.
One by one, I burned my cutout attempts. The dolls made a contorted lattice on the logs, leaping eerily to puppet-like existence, contracting to pitiful cinders. It was like a breath—like breathing life into, like sucking it out again. There was a place in the middle where they looked best. It was the place of my dream.
A single sheet of paper remained. I folded it, then cut without penciling, my body reaching for each new inch, going by sense of feeling, and as I went, I kept thinking, It’s not the chime of the bell, it’s the echo of the chime.
To make the inner openings around the bodies and swings, I used an X-Acto knife, unfocusing my eyes, steering through resistant folds. Just as I made the final incision, and the curious remains dropped to the floor, the glow of the firelight darkened.
“What are you making?” he asked. Rourke spoke with care, as though aware in advance of the difficulties he might face. He wanted me to know he regretted using words on me so soon after using words on them and that the words reserved for me were different words. His caution was not inappropriate: somehow I felt I’d been lied to.
He squatted, his knees coming to the height of my shoulders. He allowed me to examine him, letting my eyes go slowly over. In his willingness to be searched and to be seen, in his conscious quietude I perceived his resolve. I had the feeling of being a cat to catch. Once Powell taught me how to catch cats. We were at the tracks, crouching to lure a stray kitten. “Build trust,” he instructed, hardly moving his lips. “Gesture slowly.”
Rourke’s forearms ventured off his legs. They reached into my vicinity then paused. When I did not pull back, they came farther. He took the paper from me, and I let him.
“I had a dream,” I said, speaking because he willed me to. “I was a cutout. On a swing.”
From each end of the chain, he grasped a doll’s hand,