Tully

Shying away from girls who were in touch with their feelings and wanting to talk all the time, Robin preferred those similar to his adopted mother: flashy, fair-haired, and private. Gail was nothing like his mother.

The phone rang again as soon as Jennifer put it down. She closed her eyes and let it ring three times before picking it up.

It was Tully. Jennifer sighed.

‘No, no, don’t worry,’ said Tully. ‘I know that you are glad to hear from me deep down.’

‘Very deep,’ said Jennifer. ‘Robin called, asking for you.’

‘He did? Did you tell him he called the wrong house? I don’t live with you.’

‘But wish you did,’ said Jennifer, half kidding.

‘Well, that’s pretty thrilling,’ continued Tully. ‘I didn’t think I’d see him again. What did he want?’

‘He asked if you were going out with anyone.’

‘And you said…’

‘I told him that you weren’t going out with anyone but that he was.’

‘Nice going, Jen.’

‘I told him,’ continued Jennifer, ‘that your mother might be a problem.’

‘Well done!’ exclaimed Tully. ‘Nothing a guy likes more than a problem mom.’

‘Tully, did you tell him he could pick you up at your house?’

‘Yeah,’ said Tully. ‘I say that to everybody. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t think he’d show up.’

Jennifer said, ‘Well, he was definitely going to show up. Good thing I talked some sense into him.’

Tully was silent.

‘Tull, you wanna see him?’

Silence. A grim ‘A little.’

‘He’s going out with Gail, and Gail was very upset with the both of you,’ said Jennifer.

‘Fuck Gail,’ Tully said. ‘Is he in love with her?’

‘Tully, she’s seventeen and I think she kind of loves him.’

‘Yeah, so? I’m seventeen, too. Besides,’ she added, ‘I’m not responsible that he calls me up.’

‘That he calls me up,’ Jennifer corrected her, smiling at the phone.

Jen arranged to pick Tully up in her new Camaro and drive her over to The Village Inn, the popular hamburger place on Topeka Boulevard, where Robin would meet them. Then she called Robin to tell him the plan. Jennifer thought that Robin seemed pleased with that, and this struck her as odd because she always perceived Robin as unemotional. He must like Tully, thought Jennifer.

‘Is there anything I should know about her?’ Robin asked Jennifer.

Well, there are a lot of things you should know about her, thought Jennifer, but right now, I really want to get off the phone.

‘Yeah, she is not much into talking.’

‘She and you both. What’s she into?’

A different kind of communication, Jennifer thought. Tactile communication.

‘Into? Dancing,’ Jen replied. ‘Music. National Geographic. Books.’

No one knew Tully better than Jennifer, no one knew Tully on such personal terms, but even Jennifer was hard-pressed to define what Tully was into, or what was into Tully. When she was twelve, Jennifer overheard her mother and father discussing adopting Tully; she wished she could have heard that conversation better, but the words were big and vague. Something about Wichita, something about foster care. Then Tully more or less dropped out of Jennifer’s and Julie’s life. Oh, Tully came over, ate dinner, did some homework, talked, watched TV.

But it was all pretend. Like the games they used to play when they were children. Pretend. Tully was a Stepford Tully during 1975, 1976, 1977. Jennifer knew only a bare skeleton of Tully’s life during the years Tully was dancing and getting into dance clubs with her fake ID.

In 1977, things got a little better. Tully showed Jennifer the ID. ‘Natalie Anne Makker,’ it read. ‘Female, 5’6”, 105 pounds, gray eyes, blonde hair, b. January 19, 1955.’ Jennifer had been shocked at how Tully looked in the photo, done up so old. Tully made herself to look six years older, but she might as well have made her lie be sixteen years or sixty, so large had been the chasm separating Tully from Jennifer. And even after 1977. They didn’t play softball anymore, Tully and Jen.

‘Yeah, Tully is really not much into all that verbal stuff,’ Jennifer finished.

‘Ahhh, a girl after my own heart,’ said Robin, hanging up.

Afterwards, Jennifer sat back on her bed and did not move for an hour until it was time to go pick up Tully in her new Camaro.

‘Nice car, Jen,’ Tully said, getting in. ‘Now you can drive us all to school.’

‘Makker, Julie and I walk to school. And I’m not driving every morning to pick your ass up from the boondocks of town, that’s for sure.’

‘Oh, yes, you are, Mandolini,’ said Tully. ‘You got nowhere else to go but to pick me up.’

‘I got plenty of places,’ said Jennifer.

‘Yeah? Name one. Admit it, you don’t really need this car.’

‘I admit it,’ said Jennifer. ‘But Makker, whether I need it or not, you are not getting this car, not even for five minutes. Absolutely not.’

‘I don’t want this silly car,’ said Tully, smiling and touching Jennifer’s hair. ‘I just want you to teach me how to drive.’

At The Village Inn, Robin sat down across from Tully. Or rather, Tully sat down across from Robin. Tully looked entirely different from last night, looking more as she did when she first arrived at Jen’s: no makeup. She was wearing old faded jeans and a HAVE FUN! IT’S TOPEKA! sweatshirt. Her eyes were sweet and gray and she had large blue bags under them. Her nose was a little misshapen and her mouth was pale. She had short, kinky hair. She didn’t look like a party girl, she didn’t look scary, she didn’t look much like anything, but as Robin sat and watched her dig into her burger and talk to him, he thought she was the most beautiful girl he had ever met.

‘Why did you tell me I could come to your mother’s house?’ he asked her.

She flashed him a smile. ‘I didn’t think you’d come.’ Beaming at the waiter, Tully ordered black coffee and lemon meringue pie.

‘You really transform yourself for a party, don’t you?’ Robin said.

‘What’s the matter? Regret you came today?’ Tully asked.

He shook his head quickly. Gray is not an especially warm color, he thought, never having seen gray eyes before. ‘No, you look better now, but different.’

They sat and talked for an hour.

‘What do you do, Robin?’ Tully asked him. ‘With yourself? When you’re not accompanying high school seniors to parties?’

‘I work for my dad,’ he told her. ‘DeMarco & Sons. Fine men’s clothing.’

‘In Manhattan?’ Tully seemed surprised. ‘Is there a market for that sort of thing out there?’

Robin shrugged. ‘We have no competition. It’s not bad.’

‘Well, that explains why you’re so well dressed,’ said Tully, smiling lightly.

As Tully talked, she gestured with her hands, which reminded Robin of his profoundly gesticulate family, and he found her hand motions very Italian and very endearing. They were having a good time. She was funny, nonthreatening, and, well, seemed entirely normal to him. They both smoked. He lit her cigarette for her, and she stared into his face as she inhaled.

But while Tully was holding up her hands – thin, white, and thoroughly pleasing – to imitate a friend of hers during a police raid on a dance club, Robin saw her wrists. On both her wrists, very close to her palms, he saw two horizontal scars, jagged and dark pink, scars about an inch long. He inhaled sharply. She stopped talking and looked at him; Robin could only imagine what his expression looked like to her – fear? pity? more fear? How often had she seen these expressions on the faces of men who encountered her and those wrists of hers? All that mixed with lust and tenderness. How often?

Instantly, her demeanor changed. She wasn’t animated anymore, and her eyes were cold.

To sit and say nothing seemed somehow unthinkable, somehow worse than acknowledgment, so Robin steadied himself and acknowledged Tully. Touching her sleeve, he said, ‘Are you okay?’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I’m great.’

Robin looked at her wrists, and so did she. ‘Oh, these,’ Tully said. ‘I cut myself shaving.’

‘Oh,’ Robin said, letting go of her sleeve and feeling himself go pale. ‘I hope you don’t…shave them very often.’

‘Not too often, God help me.’ She attempted a smile.

I love her, Robin thought then and there with a spasm of emotional clarity that pulled at his stomach and tugged at his throat. I love her. How is that possible? How? What has she done?

After leaving The Village Inn, they drove to 45th Street and headed east, in the direction of Lake Shawnee and Lawrence. Tully was much quieter than she had been at the restaurant. Basically, she just sat and stared at the road, commenting that the weather was certainly turning chilly.

‘Shawnee County is really beautiful,’ Robin said. ‘Look at this place. Hills and valleys and meadows.’

‘And long grass,’ said Tully impassively. ‘It’s the prairie, Robin.’ She looked out the window.

‘Yeah, but looking at this, you wouldn’t think it was the prairie,’ said Robin.

‘It’s the prairie, nonetheless,’ said Tully.

They parked at Lake Shawnee and had sex again; it was just as brief this time, just as confounding. There was no one around. Tully stroked Robin’s hair, and then gently pushed him off her. He sighed and got dressed. ‘Done with me, are you, Tully?’ he said.

‘I’m not done with you at all,’ said Tully, touching his cheeks. ‘But I have to get back.’

‘What’s the matter? Your mother sick?’

‘Very sick,’ said Tully. ‘If you only knew.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Nothing to tell,’ said Tully.

Robin took a deep breath and told her about his dad’s cancer.

‘I’m sorry, Robin,’ said Tully, cracking her knuckles. ‘My mother is not really sick, nothing like that. She is just…strict, that’s all.’

‘How strict, Tully?’ he wanted to know. ‘Is there a curfew? Does she insist you do your homework all the time and not go out? Does she make you do housework?’

‘If only,’ said Tully. ‘No, nothing like that. Robin, it’s really hard to explain about my mother. She is not very communicative.’

‘From what I understand, neither are you,’ said Robin.

‘Right,’ said Tully. ‘So, me and my Mom, we just don’t talk much.’

Silently, Robin looked at the lake. ‘She is still your mother, Tully,’ he said. ‘She’s the only mother you’ll ever have.’

Tully glanced at him. ‘Robin, that’s not necessarily a good thing,’ she said. ‘Let’s go.’

It was nearly seven in the evening when they hit 45th Street again. The sun was hiding behind the hills. The trees, the barns, and oblong grain silos were dusky silhouettes along the road. Robin and Tully had been driving for about ten minutes on 45th when a car coming the opposite way passed them and all of a sudden something hard and black bounced off the other car, and then the Corvette smashed it with its right fender, and the black thing bounced off and fell with a thump to the ground.

‘Robin!’ exclaimed Tully. Both cars stopped. Two young men in plaid shirts came out of the other car, and all four of them carefully stepped to the middle of the road to see a Doberman, prone on its side still breathing but unable to move any part of itself.

‘Oh, God,’ said Tully.

‘Hey, where did he come from?’ said one of the plaid-shirted men excitedly. ‘I was driving, didn’t see nothing, and then all of a sudden this thing just jumps out in front of my car, poor bastard.’

‘And I hit him,’ said Robin, shaking his head.

‘Nah, he bounced off my car, man, there was nothing you could do. I feel bad, though, he must be a guard dog for one of them barns over there. His owners are gonna be pretty sad when they find him.’

‘My God,’ said Tully. ‘He’s not even dead.’

And it wasn’t. The Doberman was trying in vain to lift its head, but all the while its black eyes were open, staring mutely at Tully and at Robin. They looked at each other, and then at the road. A car was coming. ‘We gotta move him,’ said Tully.

‘Nah, he’ll be better off if a car puts him out. Look at him, he is suffering,’ said the guy.

‘We gotta move him!’ said Tully louder, looking at Robin.

All four of them had to move out of the road. The car slowed down but didn’t stop as it went barreling past them and over the Doberman, flinging the animal a little closer to the shoulder, but not close enough, because seconds later another car went by, and this one didn’t even slow down as it ran over the Doberman. The dog remained in the road, no longer trying to move its head. Amazingly, it was not dead. Its mouth was open as it slowly gulped some air, its black eyes still open, and still watching. The four of them stood motionless. The only sound in the air was the dog’s belabored, difficult breathing. Tully wrung her hands and moved toward the three men. ‘Guys, please! Just move him, move him, don’t let him be hit again, please! Robin!’

Robin stepped over to the dog. ‘I wouldn’t do that if I was you,’ said the plaid-shirted driver. ‘You don’t know how that thing’s gonna react, man. It’s a Doberman, for God’s sake. He may just get crazy right then and there, rip into you or something. I wouldn’t do it. Just let him be. He’ll die soon enough.’

Robin stopped. ‘He is right, Tully,’ he said.

‘God!’ Tully screamed. ‘The dog is in the middle of the road! Hasn’t he been run over by enough cars? Goddamn it,’ she said, walking over towards the animal, ‘you’d move it if it was your mother lying in the road, wouldn’t you?’

Tully grabbed the Doberman’s hind legs, and with great effort dragged it ten feet, all the way into the grass. The three men watched her, and the driver of the other car leaned over to Robin and whispered, ‘She is crazy, man, crazy. That thing goes for her and she’ll be in bad shape. Crazy, I tell you.’

Tully wiped her hands on the grass and said to Robin. ‘Let’s go.’ She did not look back at the dog.

‘Well, it sure is pretty eventful being with you, Tully,’ said Robin, parked in front of Jennifer’s house on Sunset Court.

‘What do you mean, with me? Nothing ever happened to me until I started being with you,’ said Tully.

‘Somehow,’ said Robin, ‘I find that pretty hard to believe.’ And Tully smiled.

‘I’d like to see you again,’ Robin said.

She stared at her feet. ‘It will be a little difficult,’ she said at last.

‘That’s all right.’

‘I can’t get out much.’

‘Still, though.’

‘I can’t stay out.’

‘Well, there you go,’ said Robin.

‘Aren’t you going out with Gail?’ Tully asked him.

‘We’re not serious.’

‘You are not serious,’ she corrected him.

Robin smiled. ‘I’ll talk to her. I really want to see you.’

‘When?’ asked Tully.

Robin breathed out. ‘I work every day,’ he said, and tried not to show his pleasure. ‘Uh, except Sundays. How about next Sunday?’

‘Sunday is okay,’ she answered. ‘Same deal? In the afternoon? ’Cause I usually go to church on Sunday mornings.’

‘You go to church, Tully?’ said Robin with surprise.

‘Well, you know,’ said Tully. ‘Just to keep Jen company.’

‘That’s fine. Next Sunday, I’ll take you to lunch. Somewhere nice.

‘Okay,’ she said, leaning over and kissing him on the lips. It was a long time before Robin stopped seeing her serious gray eyes and smelling the coffee and meringue on her breath.

Jennifer and Julie were waiting for Tully in Jennifer’s kitchen.

‘Well,’ said Julie. ‘Do tell all!’

‘Not much to tell,’ replied Tully, sitting down and taking a sip from Jennifer’s Coke. Jennifer got up and got herself another one.

‘Where did he take you?’ asked Julie.

‘For a drive. Jennifer, you should’ve told me his father has lung cancer.’

Jennifer stared at Tully. ‘I didn’t think it was my place,’ she replied. ‘Did you want me to tell him stuff about you?’

Tully rolled her eyes. ‘Can you tell me if he is nice, Jen?’

‘Of course he is, very nice, but what do you think?’

‘He is very good-looking,’ Julie put in. ‘And drives such a good-looking car! What does he do?’

Tully said, ‘He manages his father’s ritzy-glitzy men’s fine clothing store,’ adding, ‘And he is good-looking. He knows it, too.’

‘This bothers you?’ Julie smiled. ‘But what does a handsome, well-off, grown-up guy like him want from you?’ She poked Tully in the ribs.

Tully was unperturbed. ‘The same thing,’ she said, ‘that an ugly, poor, young guy wants from me.’

The girls drank their Cokes.

‘Are you going to see him again?’ asked Julie.

‘Next Sunday, if Jen’s willing.’ Tully patted Jennifer on the head and turned back to Julie. ‘Are you going to see Tom again?’

‘Tully!’

‘Yes, yes, of course. You looove him!’ Smiling, Tully turned to Jennifer, who sat there, spaced out. ‘Jennifer? Has he called?’

Jennifer looked at Tully and Julie as if she couldn’t be sure which one spoke to her.

‘Jennifer, has he called?’ repeated Tully.

Jennifer got up. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘He hasn’t called!’ Tully and Julie chimed in unison.

‘You both are so silly and immature,’ said Jennifer.

‘I agree,’ said Tully. ‘But Julie, have you ever seen a guy who wears tighter Levi’s?’

‘Never,’ said Julie. ‘But I hear it’s a sign of maturity –’

‘To lust after someone with tight Levi’s? Absolutely,’ finished Tully.

‘Girls,’ said Jennifer, ‘I really think it’s time for you to be driven home.’

She ran into Jack on Monday.

He walked over to her locker and said, ‘Hi, Jen, great party, thanks for inviting us, hope we didn’t all trash the place, hope you can make it to the Homecoming game in a couple of weeks.’ Hope this hope that thanks for this thanks for that, blah, blah, blah.

And Jennifer smiled and nodded politely and said of course and yes and I’ll see you at practice and I hope you play well at Homecoming, and then he left and she closed her locker, took her books, and went to her American history class, where she had to take a surprise quiz and failed.

Back home, she walked past her mother, went upstairs, closed the door behind her, and lay face down on her bed until her father came home and it was dinnertime.

Jen kept to herself at dinner, slightly amused at the recurring topic of dinner discussion nowadays: Harvard. Harvard and the SATs. Harvard, the SATs and med school. Harvard, the SATs, med school, and isn’t she amazing, Lynn? Isn’t she just amazing? And she, their amazing daughter, sat and concentrated very hard on driving each of her fork tines through four green peas. Sometimes she only managed to get two or three instead of the full four and this made her want to fling the entire plate across the room. But she set her jaw and kept on, while Lynn and Tony continued. So what if the mean SAT score was 1050, while Jen got a combined 1575 on her mock SATs last year, out of a possible 1600? Mock SATs! Even Jack got 1100 on them. And Tully got 1400, except no one knew it because no one cared. Nobody cared what Tully got on her mock SATs, and that was really okay with Tully, Jen thought. At least she didn’t have to hear this during dinner seven days a week for months. Jennifer thought of telling her parents that she had no intention of going to Harvard; Jennifer and Tully had their plans. But she just couldn’t be bothered. She excused herself, went back to her room, and spent the rest of the evening calling his number and hanging up before it rang.

Hundreds of times, many hundreds she must have called his number, and hung up many hundreds of times, dialing it with unseeing eyes, in her master bedroom.

2

Robin finally called Gail. Her voice was like ice, and he was not surprised. His adoptive mother was as warm as the noon summer sun, but Gail was nothing like his mother. Robin apologized to Gail, saying he had never misled her; they were never in any way serious. Gail asked him if he actually thought she would stand, could stand him seeing both of them at the same time. Robin was surprised at this: he had no intention of seeing Gail at all. But to her he said, ‘No, of course. I understand. I could never stand being two-timed, either. I hope we can still be friends.’

The following Sunday, Robin took Tully to Red Lobster with Jennifer’s help. They ate well. Tully wanted to know if he had said anything to Gail, who had been slithering past her in school like an old cobra.

‘I swear, I never saw her before in my life,’ Tully said. ‘And this week, I see her every day and she walks past me and hisses venom in my direction. You haven’t talked to her, have you?’

‘I have,’ Robin replied, ‘but what’s there to say?’

‘Watch out,’ said Tully. ‘Or she’ll start telling you things about me.’

Robin smiled. ‘What kind of things?’

‘Oh, all sorts of things of a very sordid nature.’

‘All damnable lies?’ he wanted to know.

‘Of course not,’ said Tully. ‘But of a very sordid nature.’

Robin suggested that she tell him about these things herself, but Tully declined politely, saying only that she used to dance well, and for a while everyone knew it.

‘Used to? Have you stopped?’ he asked.

Tully nodded. ‘I haven’t stopped, I’ve just…cut down.’

‘How is your mother?’ Robin wanted to know.

‘Splendid,’ said Tully.

‘Have you always gotten on so well with your mother?’

‘Yes,’ said Tully with mock cheeriness. ‘We have a very special relationship.’

In the parking lot of Red Lobster, Robin kissed her and Tully put her hand on the back of his head, and he touched her hair and felt that old familiar stirring. They drove out to Lake Shawnee and quickly and efficiently had sex again. The lake was gray and beautiful; the trees had shed many of their leaves; it was windy; but Robin didn’t notice the lake much, so busy was he making love to Tully. Afterwards, Robin wanted to touch her, to do something for her; Tully refused. ‘Not necessary,’ she said evenly.

‘But I want to,’ persisted Robin.

‘I don’t,’ replied Tully.

‘You’re really something,’ he said as they were driving away from the lake. ‘I just can’t figure you out.’

‘What’s to figure out?’ asked Tully. ‘I’m an open book.’

‘Yeah, and I’m your knight in shining armor,’ said Robin.

3

‘You wanna go for a drive?’ Jennifer asked Tully one Sunday on the way back to the Grove.

‘Yeah, sure,’ replied Tully, looking at her friend. It had been three weeks since Jennifer got her car and this was Tully’s first invitation for a drive. The girls usually sat in Jen’s kitchen and looked over college catalogs. Twice Jennifer let Tully get behind the wheel. In the driveway.

‘Where do you want to go?’ asked Jennifer.

‘California.’ Tully smiled. ‘But I’ll settle for Texas Street.’

Jennifer smiled back. ‘It’s been a while since we’ve been there,’ she said.

‘Speak for yourself,’ said Tully, getting comfortable in the seat. ‘I go there all the time.’

‘Oh, yeah?’ said Jennifer. ‘It’s four miles away from you. How do you get there?’

‘I walk,’ said Tully, and then, seeing Jennifer’s expression, added, ‘It’s worth it, to see it.’

The girls drove to Texas Street, a short narrow road between the Topeka Country Club and Big Shunga Park. The southwestern end of Texas Street curved downward to a dead end, but if they walked through the trees, they came out to the Shunga Park fields. That’s how Jennifer and Tully found Texas Street the very first time, five years ago. They were still playing softball then, and they left a game early – their team was losing 2-17 – and wandered into the woods, coming out onto Texas Street.