Better Than Running at Night Read online

  Instead of protesting that she'd had nothing to do with it, Sloane thanked him and said she'd been working on it. Posing makes her identify better with models in class.

  "Can you believe the nerve of that ho?" Nate demanded, kicking a fire hydrant head into the kitchen. "She shouldn't get credit for my stunt! Plus, I think she's actually beginning to like the attention! I'll have to throw in a real shocker next time."

  I couldn't take my eyes off a picture on his wall of him and Clarissa with her half-and-half hairdo.

  I wanted to ask him if Clarissa knew about this project. If she knew about me. What she thought about the situation, if she did.

  But the questions couldn't escape my lips.

  I felt as if right outside my mouth was one of those sharp toothy devices that they have on the ground at parking garage booths. You can drive over them, but if you back up, your tires pop. That's what would've happened to my words; once they came out they would have to keep rolling forward.

  We both stood there, staring at his two paintings of Sloane.

  Ask him now, I thought. Now, while we're not in bed.

  But I didn't. Pretending that I didn't have questions, that I didn't care if I was just another fling for him, was easier than dealing with a direct answer. Because hearing his answer might mean letting go of a warm body in the winter, of fingers in my hair, of a rib cage tattoo. And the thrill of running at night, knowing that someone in the place I just left was wanting me.

  Chill Space

  Sunday afternoon I went to the Garage to work on sketches for my 3-D assignment. Sam was there, too, hat pulled over his headphones and a bag of Dunkin' Donuts on his desk. I bet Sam would reach his freshman fifteen by the end of Wintersession.

  I started sketching from Human Anatomy for Artists, since I couldn't come up with any ideas for the project.

  Plus, maybe the book would say something about the Bowling Ball Phenomenon.

  I had left Nate's on Friday feeling bad. Neither of us felt like talking, for some reason. We didn't talk or see each other all of Saturday, either. I decided I wasn't going to call him first. I didn't want to talk to him until he was less distracted. Until his project was under control.

  But that's not to say I wasn't checking my answering machine for messages. Every half hour or so that night I'd go outside the Garage to the pay phone. Just in case. And each time, the electronic lady greeted me with the ever dreaded, "Hello, you have no new messages."

  Around seven o'clock I guessed he had given up on me. Well, good. He'd been taking up too much of my time anyway.

  I went back to the Garage.

  Sam was sitting backwards on his stool, arms folded and hanging over the chair back, feet planted on the rungs. His headphones hung around his neck and he was looking at the floor.

  "What are you doing?" I asked him.

  "I'm in my chill space," he said, still staring ahead.

  "Your chill space?"

  "Yeah."

  "What are you thinking?"

  "I'm thinking about chilling."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, Ed wants us to create a space, right?" He turned to look at me. "And my favorite space is my chill space, but, you know, people don't think of it as a space."

  "Why not?"

  "Because nobody else can go there but me. It's in my head, man."

  "I don't buy it," I said. "There must be a way for other people to go there. You're not so different from anyone else. You're just spaced out."

  "No way," he said. "When I'm in my chill space it's just me and the thinking machine." He tapped his skull.

  "Maybe if you talked more, other people could enter into your thoughts," I said. "If you don't tell people what you're thinking, of course they'll never know what's going on in your head."

  He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but no sound came out.

  There was a sudden draft from the door. And arms around my waist.

  "Guess what the NECAD film series is playing tonight!" Nate said.

  "What."

  "The Shining!"

  "Great flick," said Sam.

  "Thanks, I know that," Nate said. "That's why I came to get Ellie. We've got to go! It starts at eight, so we have to hurry!"

  He rubbed his cold cheek on mine. I smelled the frigid air on his jacket.

  "How did you know I was here?"

  "Well, I just tried calling your place and there was no answer, so I figured this was a safe bet."

  Sam was watching us. For the first time I was aware of what it was like to be on the participating side of PDA. In a way, it was uncomfortable having Sam there, but it also made me happy to know that Nate wasn't embarrassed to touch me in public. Maybe he thought of me as his NECAD girlfriend.

  "I missed you," he whispered against my face.

  "Me too," I whispered back.

  It was obvious I wouldn't be getting any more work done that night, so there was no harm in going. Plus, I'd always wanted to see The Shining, and here it was playing for free on a big screen.

  In the theater's tense darkness, Nate held my hand. Whenever the little boy, Danny, was riding his Big Wheel down the haunted halls, Nate yanked my hand onto his lap and gripped it so tight, he cut off the circulation. He held it hardest at the end, when the Jack Nicholson character was chasing his son through the snowdrift-filled topiary maze.

  We ran into Sam on our way out.

  "You had enough of the Garage, too?" I asked.

  "I couldn't resist The Shining," he said, pulling his cap up to make brief eye contact.

  There were about two inches of snow on the ground already. It was like the movie hadn't really ended and some maniac might jump out of the bushes at any second.

  As soon as we were alone, Nate said, "That guy's got a crush on you."

  "Sam?" I asked. "No way. I don't think Sam gets crushes."

  "Well, he has one on you. I can tell by the way he was looking at you."

  "It doesn't matter," I said. "I'm with you."

  Nate tracked snow into my room when we entered my apartment. I got him a towel and asked him to wipe it up. He scowled.

  Every time I closed my eyes that night I saw white. Pure white with a man running crazily through it. His face was too far away for me to see who he was. I kept opening my lids to make the image disappear.

  "Sorry about your hand," Nate said as I started to doze. "I just about tore it right off during the movie."

  "That's all right."

  "Having a cute date at a scary film is probably the best thing in the world," he said. "No matter how many times I see that movie, it scares me shitless. I'm glad you were there to protect me."

  "Imagine if that was your father," I said.

  "I can't," he said. "I never knew him."

  "Yeah," I said. "I never did either."

  I scooted back so I could feel his skin against me.

  That's how we fell asleep. Like two spoons stuck on their sides.

  Noise and Heat

  The white wind-lashed drifts practically reached the bars on my window. And still it fell in howling whorls.

  Classes were canceled. Nate's head shared my pillow.

  He was tapping on my stomach with his fingers.

  "This is perfect," he said, and kissed my neck.

  "Yeah," I said, holding his fingers against my stomach. My rectus abdominus.

  The snow was building castles on tree limbs.

  "It's strange that winter weather can be the most severe and there's never any thunder or lightning," I said.

  He squeezed me tighter.

  "Who needs thunder and lightning outside," he answered, "when we've got all the noise and heat we need right here?"

  He pulled the covers over our heads.

  Worst or Best

  "I can't figure out whether you're the worst or the best thing that's ever happened to me," he confessed.

  "What do you mean?" I asked. We were sitting side by side on my bed.


  We had showered together again, but this time I didn't turn the knob on cold. I hadn't done that since my first shower with Nate.

  "Well you know, I like to play around. To try different female flavors. But you—you make me feel like you're all I need. I mean, you're the most sensitive lover I've ever had. I feel this real connection with you, like it's not just sex. You're smarter than the rest. I mean, you don't obsess over your appearance like all the other girls I know. You just seem so much more real."

  I picked a pen up off the floor and started fidgeting with the cap.

  "Really?" I imagined how I used to look. How I used to spend hours getting my hair and black face paint satisfactorily morose.

  "Really. You know, I look around at all these girls and I find myself comparing them to you and they're just not as good. Life's one big competition to them. But you seem to be above all that." He looked out the window, then back at me. "I've never felt this way before."

  The pen cap clicked each time I removed it from the tip and replaced it again.

  "What about Clarissa?" The words just zipped out of my mouth. I wanted to chase after them and swallow them back up. Instead, I gulped hard on my own saliva.

  "Clarissa." He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. "Clarissa and I have known each other forever. For the last year we've decided to have an open relationship, since we're living in different states. Not that it wasn't open before, but now we don't have to lie about it."

  He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling.

  "I mean, it's hard to sit around and wait for someone," he continued. "Plus, we started fighting a lot once we weren't living near each other. But I still care about her. I guess she'll probably always be part of my life somehow, just because we've known each other so long."

  "Where do I fit into this?"

  The pen cap popped onto the floor. I picked it up and resumed clicking.

  "That's the craziest part about it all," he said, sitting up again. He took a long breath. "I've been dating Clarissa since high school. But I feel like I'm getting closer to you faster, like there's something deeper that's bonding us together."

  "What do you think it is?"

  "I don't know. I've been trying to figure it out. It's like we came from the same place, like I've known you longer than I actually have."

  He put his arm around me and squeezed my shoulder.

  "Do you know what I mean?" he asked.

  "Yeah. Yeah, I think I do."

  I stopped clicking the cap.

  "Like when I talk to you about my dad," he said. "Clarissa doesn't comfort me the way you do. She just gives me this look like she doesn't know what to say, and she changes the subject."

  "Do you think we're good together because we both never knew our fathers?"

  "Yeah, that's a big part of it."

  "I feel bad making that connection, though," I said. "You actually never had a dad. I did. I still do. Your situation is a tragedy. My mother just slept around a lot."

  "But it amounts to the same thing," he said. "That constant wondering, What if? And wondering, How would I be different if he was there? It's not that your life is worse this way. It's the frustration of never knowing."

  "Yeah," I said. "It has nothing to do with the dad I have. I'm sure he's been a better dad than the guy who fathered me, since that guy was probably sleeping around just as much as my mom. He might not have even cared about my mom at all. But I wish I knew that for sure."

  He put his other arm around me and pulled me close.

  "There are lots of things we'll never know," he said. "But I do know I'm glad I met you."

  Three Planes

  Since classes were canceled on Monday, Ed had to rush through our planes lecture. Not flying planes, but conceptual planes. Planes that define surfaces in space.

  There were three types. They moved on three axes. Ralph didn't get it.

  "Couldn't there be an infinite number of planes? Things don't just go in three directions," he argued.

  "Yes, Ralph, you are quite observant," Ed said. "The planes can lie on any angle. You name it. But they are all variations on one of the three types we have discussed. Can anyone tell me a body part that moves on all three planes? Sam?"

  Sam shook his head.

  "No, Sam, nice try. It's not the head. And our next contestant ... Ellie?"

  "The arm?" I knew the answer from my anatomy book.

  "Correctomondo! The arm! Our grand prize winner is ... Ellie Yelinsky! Da da-da da da-da..." He was singing generic game-show music and spinning his arms in circles.

  Then he swung them side to side. And front to back.

  "You can even make them each move on a different plane! Look at them go!" he yelled, watching his arms in awe.

  He brought his arms back down.

  "Now," he said, "when you begin your three-D projects, I'd like you to think about planes. See if you can build parts that sit on all three planes. You can even incorporate movement!"

  He started swinging his arms again.

  By the end of class I had decided what my project would be: a giant rib cage. I would pad the inside so you could lie in it. It would be a space for the body to rest, and for the subconscious when you slept. This way I could work from Human Anatomy for Artists. And I could use the skeletons in the nature lab for reference.

  Plus, Nate's tattoo was always just down the street.

  The Final Phase

  "No, I know he's an asshole. Everyone knows that!" Sloane said in her little-girl voice. She was with Maura and two other girls, huddled around a library table.

  I was at the anatomy shelves, looking for rib cage diagrams.

  "So, what are we arguing about then?" Maura asked. Her intonation sounded right this time; it was a real question.

  "All I'm saying is he's hot. That's all. You can hate someone, but that doesn't change how they look."

  I sat on the floor and thumbed through a medical textbook from the shelf, pretending I wasn't listening.

  "So would you sleep with him?" one of the other girls asked.

  "Well, I don't know," Sloane said, twirling her hair like a shy four-year-old. "I've heard he's a great kisser!"

  "From who?" another one asked.

  "Oh, I have my sources." Sloane smiled. "But you don't have to look hard to find someone who knows."

  I wanted so badly to believe they weren't talking about Nate.

  I put the book on the floor and held my fingers up to my ears, trying to make it look like I was just holding my head in my hands in an act of concentration. It didn't matter. Nobody was looking at me anyway.

  I looked down at the page my book had been open to the last few minutes. The top of the page had an illustration of the female reproductive system, which I started to copy into my sketchbook. I was about halfway done when the print on the page leapt out at me. The chapter was called "The Final Phase." My eyes drank in the information and I made a list of the darkest-sounding phrases—phrases that would have inspired me to paint back in high school:

  vaginal mucosa

  breasts engorged with blood

  increased secretory activity

  vestibular glands

  psychological stimuli

  The rest was all about rising pulse rate and blood pressure, muscular contractions, refractory periods, and multiple orgasms—which women can have, but men can't. Then at the end of the paragraph it said, "While men must ejaculate for fertilization to occur, women do not need to achieve orgasm for conception. Some women, though able to conceive, never experience orgasm."

  Of course I knew that guys climax. Duh, you couldn't miss it. But I have no recollection of them ever telling us in sex ed that girls do, too.

  I wondered if I had.

  I didn't think so. I wondered if other girls I knew did. If other girls who knew Nate was a great kisser ever had.

  In the Gutter

  We had what Nate called a "quickie."

  We'd run into each other by the path to his apartm
ent, and he said he couldn't resist me.

  We didn't even take off all our clothes.

  "Best painting break I've ever had," he said, zipping his fly. "And now, back to work."

  I watched him walk toward the painting studios. He stopped on his way and looked up at an apartment building. He stood there for about a minute before continuing on his way.

  As I ran home, something felt different. The cold air didn't fill me with exhilaration. Instead, it seemed to pass through me, as if my body were made of a broken plastic bag, with nothing inside.

  Sketching in my bed, I tried to make the empty feeling go away. The old me would've painted a person screaming.

  I let my pencil guide my hand.

  I wasn't even really sure why I was feeling bad. Maybe Nate and I aren't right for each other, I thought. But I quickly drove that idea from my mind. Surely I was overreacting.

  I paused to see what I'd been drawing. My marks had started to take the shape of a bowling alley.

  I added a ball, rolling down the gutter, completely missing the perfectly placed pins.

  Night Guests

  Nate's face was there, looking down at me through the window. White-knuckled fists gripping the black bars. Teeth clenched like he was benching Andre the Giant. That's when I realized he was trying to bend the metal.

  "You can come in the front," I said. "I'll get the door."

  I have to admit, I'd always fantasized about a guy climbing through my window in the middle of the night. But this seemed a bit ridiculous.

  By the time I got to my bedroom door, there was this enormous creaking kaboom. I turned around. The window was gaping and the curved bars made an opening like a missing tooth. In crawled Nate, tracking snowprints all over my bed.

  "What are you doing?" I asked.

  He said nothing.

  But he came toward me, lifted me and carried me back to my bed and started kissing me all over my face really gently. He laid me down and straddled me, holding me against the mattress by my wrists. Then he raised his head and whistled, as if he was calling a pet.