Better Than Running at Night Read online

  This is what Ed should be teaching us, I thought.

  But there wasn't anything stopping me from learning on my own, so I checked the book out and started running home.

  Beyond Second

  Before I got home, I stopped and turned back toward the path to Nate's house. Wind was blowing through the creaky bare branches. I walked halfway up the path, not even sure why I was there. I didn't have time to hang out or anything; I had to get up early for class.

  His lights were out. I thought I saw his thick hair moving above where his futon would be, but after a few seconds I couldn't see him anymore. Must be a reflection in the window, I thought.

  I remembered Nate's lips against my ear. And how he kissed my body in the night. I wondered what would happen next time I saw him. I had finally gone beyond first base. Beyond second, too. I imagined what it might be like to go all the way with him. Maybe someday we would.

  I saw the movement through his window again. But this time it looked like two heads. And one was a girl's. My heart sped up. I walked a few feet closer to the house and squinted at the window for a few minutes. Nothing there.

  A gust of wind blew at my face and reminded me how cold it was. 1 turned back down the path and ran home. The sky was clear and the stars looked like snowflakes stuck in place. I wasn't ready to go inside, to let the cold layer on my throat defrost. I ran a circle around my house, feet stamping the frosty grass.

  I tagged stray rocks with my toes as I went, wind slapping my hair across my cheeks.

  When I completed the circle, I ran up the steps to my apartment and through the door. Then I collapsed on my bed, heart pounding.

  I closed my eyes and tried to imagine the feel of Nate's hair in my hands.

  Time to Proceed

  "Remember, blocks have thickness!" Ed shouted. "Be sure to include every side that you see." He circled around us.

  Ed had arranged our easels at equidistant points around the block setup.

  "And no modeling!" he shouted. "Only lines! You'll have plenty of time for modeling later. Modeling is the frosting on the cake!"

  Modeling was the word Ed used for rendering the lights and darks. He called it modeling because it created a sculpturesque three-dimensional illusion.

  Ed wanted our lines to be perfectly straight. We weren't allowed to use rulers. I wondered if Leonardo had ever drawn from a setup like this. It seemed too simple to be a real art-school assignment.

  But it was harder than I'd expected. If you didn't get the base lines at exactly the right angles, the blocks looked like they were floating rather than sitting. If the edges didn't appear to be parallel, you would have a lopsided cube, which really isn't a cube at all. If you didn't give each block enough space, they would look like they were occupying the same space on the table, which is physically impossible.

  The class was quiet, other than Ed's constant shuffling around.

  As I drew I thought about Nate. About Nate in my bed.

  I wondered if I would actually have time to spend with him. Ed had made it clear that he was going to work us hard; lectures and instruction all day and assignments for evenings and weekends. There must be time for dating, I thought.

  "Yes yes yes, you're almost there, Ellie!" Ed shouted in my ear.

  I jumped to the side, breath caught in my throat.

  "You see? All it takes is some concentration! Just lower the curve on the bottom of that cone a smidge and watch out for the tall cylinder! It looks like the Leaning Tower of Pisa! Get that worked out and you'll be ready for the next step!"

  He moved on to Ralph, whose sky-blue shoes matched the cloud scene on his shirt.

  "Achoo-achoo-achoo!"

  "Bless you! Bless you! Bless you!"

  "Ed, I'm allergic to sawdust," Ralph said accusingly, rubbing the bottom of his nose with one finger.

  Ed looked down and kicked at the dust.

  Ralph sneezed.

  Ed blessed.

  "My goodness, you are allergic, aren't you!" Ed gasped. "Well, we'll certainly have to do something about that, won't we? At the break, Sam, Ellie, what do you say we mop up this mess for our friend Ralph?"

  Sam and I exchanged glances. "Okay," I said. Sam nodded once.

  "Terrific!" Ed shouted, then turned back to Ralph. "It's pretty good, Ralph, it's pretty good," he said, pointing at Ralph's drawing. "But that sphere in front looks about eight times bigger than the sphere in the back, and really, they're the same size! And next time you could shrink the whole image by five percent!"

  "Five percent?" Ralph asked, shooting me a Was I the only one who heard that? look.

  "Yes, Ralph," Ed said. "It would give your page more space and it would give your teacher some peace of mind. I feel claustrophobic when I see an image that doesn't have room to breathe!"

  "And how are we doing, Sam?" he asked on his way to Sam's easel.

  "Okay," Sam mumbled, pulling nervously on the brim of his cap.

  "Straighten out those lines, Sam, and you'll be in business. Right now you've got blocks made out of noodles!"

  At noon Ed yelled, "Everyone, put down your charcoal and pick up a broom! Everyone except Ralph, that is!" He handed a broom to me and one to Sam, and kept the third for himself. "Ralph, you are free to go if you wish."

  But Ralph didn't wish to go. Instead, he stuck around and pointed to spots we'd missed, sneezing all the while. When we had swept every last bit out the garage door, Ed presented us with mops. We filled the buckets in the human-size sinks.

  By the time we were soaking the floor, Ralph decided it was safe to leave.

  As he left the room, I mopped my way past Sam. He said almost imperceptibly, "That guy needs to take a chill pill."

  Ed gave us an extra half hour for lunch because we did such a "sparkling good job." Ralph was finishing the last bites of his spinach salad when we got there. Unlike us, he had to be back on time so he left just as we were sitting down. He didn't even thank us.

  Since we had both taken seats facing Ralph, Sam and I were left eating side by side. I was cornered in against the wall, so I thought it was his job to move to the chair across from me. But he stayed where he was, the two of us facing outward as if the dining hall was a play we were watching.

  "So Ralph had us working for him today," I said, unable to think of anything less obvious.

  "Yeah," Sam said. "Bummer."

  From then on chewing was the only noise we made.

  I kept sneaking glances at Sam as he munched. He had the most well-defined masseter muscle I'd ever seen.

  We had finished eating before the half hour was up.

  "Do you want to head back?" I asked.

  "Okay," Sam said.

  He snatched an apple from the fruit bin on our way out, when no one was looking. You weren't supposed to take any food out of the dining hall.

  As we walked down the hill, Sam said, "You're quiet. Like me."

  "I'm not really quiet," I said. "I just can't think of anything to say."

  He handed me his apple. "You want this?" he asked. "I'm not hungry."

  "Why not." I chomped on it the entire way back. It kept me from having to invent conversation with him.

  For the next couple of hours, we worked out our drawings' imperfections. Ed circled around, giving us advice.

  After six or seven rounds, Ed entered the center of the room and stood by the blocks.

  "Everybody!" he announced, extending both arms as if offering us a gift. "It is time to proceed! Proceed to the modeling!!"

  You would think, from the expression on his face, that he'd just told us we had won the lottery.

  A Realistic Tree

  I should've known better than to wear brown pants and a green shirt to the studio. It was our third day of Foundation, and we were working in the evening on our first out-of-class assignment.

  Ralph's face lit up like an ambulance on the run.

  "Ellie, you're a tree!" he exclaimed, as if I had dressed just to please his freaky fashion se
nse.

  Sam was on his way out.

  "Leaving already?" I asked.

  "Gotta get dinner," he said, pulling on his cap. "Haven't left since class."

  Ed wanted us to draw compositions from the blocks, which he had rearranged in a new setup. The assignment was to imagine cutting geometric chunks out of the shapes in our drawings, making sure they looked perspectively correct. When we had all the lines right we could begin to model the drawing. We had to keep our invented lighting inside the holes consistent with the lighting on the forms' exteriors.

  "Remember, the shadow is always darkest when it is closest to the light!" Ed had reminded us that day in class.

  It was a pretty mechanical process, and I soon forgot that Ralph was standing at the easel beside me.

  But he stopped drawing after about two hours and turned in my direction, hands on his hips and nodding. My drawing had just begun to come into focus, and I was almost ready to plan where I'd be cutting into my blocks. Ralph hovered around me, eying me from head to toe and squinting as if he was doing calculus in his head.

  "There could be branches coming out of the shoulders. We'd be sure to place them where they wouldn't obstruct your vision. And we could hint at roots growing out of your shoes! I wonder if you could weave actual wood into the fabric—little pieces like in Chinese curtains!"

  My lack of response encouraged him to continue. As if maybe I didn't get it yet.

  "Wouldn't that be great? You could be a tree! I mean, you're close now, but you could be a realistic tree!"

  "Yeah, a tree would be perfect," I said flatly, still staring at my easel.

  He must have been insulted because he stopped talking. He was harder to tolerate without Sam there. Whenever Ralph got annoying I could always count on an eye roll from Sam.

  Ralph gave up, and we both got sucked in by the display of cubes, spheres, and cones and our mission to convincingly remove pieces from them. For a long time my thoughts revolved around words like space, line, and perspective. Every once in a while Nate entered my mind and at those moments I wanted to be lying in bed with him, to feel his breath on my neck. But I forced myself to concentrate on the assignment.

  Then Ralph piped up again.

  "Check it out, Ellie!" he cried. "This piece I just cut out looks exactly like Mickey Mouse, and I didn't even do it on purpose!"

  "Oh, wonderful," I sighed.

  I wanted to feel Nate's hair in my hands. And his lips on my ear. So much that my lines weren't coming out straight anymore. There were ghosts of about sixteen erased marks in one spot where my accuracy had failed. Standing there, looking at my drawing but not really seeing it, I knew it was time to escape the world of Ralph LaLande.

  It seemed silly to go home and call before heading over, when I'd be passing his house on my way. And anyway, he'd asked for a surprise.

  I ran straight to his apartment.

  What Makes It Crazy

  Nate was on the phone when I arrived. I waded through the fire hydrants and took a seat on his futon. He paced from the doorway to the stove to the night table and back to the doorway again. Each time he retraced his path he placed his feet in almost exactly the same spots as the time before, always avoiding the sculptures.

  The radiator was banging.

  "This isn't a good time," he said to the person on the other line.

  Pause.

  "No, no. Yes I want to, but not now."

  Pause. The dim light flickered.

  "No, look, I have a guest." He winked at me.

  I leaned back and glued my eyes to the ceiling, to make it seem like I wasn't listening. The molding was tinged brown and the paint was peeling.

  "Oh, come on."

  Pause.

  "Yeah, okay. Tomorrow. Bye. You too."

  His hang-up bordered on a slam.

  "Is something wrong?" I asked.

  "No," he said. "It's just this old high school friend. We fight a lot."

  The scar moved in unison with his mouth as he spoke.

  The little men were hammering hard inside his radiator.

  I wanted to shut it off.

  Nate held out his hand, and I grabbed on with both of mine as he hoisted me up. His tight rocking squeeze molded me against his body. He put his lips on the hair that covered my ear and said, "I missed you. I know I just met you, but I missed you."

  His fingers crept inside the back of my shirt, and I did the same to him. He kissed me long and slow, and before his lips left mine he reached behind my head and flipped the light switch off. In the dark, he began a new kiss and put his hands on my waist and gradually lifted my shirt. His hands were like parentheses around my body, pushing my shirt up and continuing over my raised arms until they got to my fingertips. He tried to unhook my bra. After letting him fumble a little while, I did it for him.

  I took his shirt off the same way he had removed mine.

  We were still standing near the futon. He tackled me to the mattress.

  His touches were like hot air blowing over my skin. But his kisses were rushed, like he was racing to some abstract finish line.

  I reached around him and ran my fingers up and down his spine, slowing down for each bump along the way. Then I moved out to the sides. Over ribs, scapulas. I had always thought of backs as being flat, but there in the dark I couldn't find a single flat spot on it. My favorite part on him was the curve between his scapulas. They stuck out like handles, like they were meant for grabbing on to.

  He planted kisses all over my face and landed on my nose. He bit it softly.

  "Be crazy," he said, "make love to me."

  "I don't love you and you don't love me," I answered. His face was barely visible, but I could see his eyebrows arching in upside-down smiles.

  "That," he said, "is what makes it crazy."

  "I don't know." I kissed his eyelids so he couldn't see I was nervous.

  "Come on, Ellie. It'll be fun. I have condoms, if that's what you're worried about."

  That was the only thing I was worried about, right? Protection and sobriety, that was it. Sobriety, just to make sure I really wanted to do what I was doing. Maybe Nate didn't love me, but he seemed to like me a whole lot. I always told myself I had to do it with the right guy. Someone who would take it seriously, who wouldn't forget about me afterward. He seems like he could be the right guy, I thought.

  I had to think fast because he was unzipping my jeans.

  Almost all the girls I knew in high school had already lost their virginity. I guess it shouldn't have felt like such a big deal. This was the moment I'd wondered about and looked forward to for so long, but I'd imagined it unfolding differently. Slower.

  Plus, how could I say no at this point? He'd think I didn't like him. Or maybe he wouldn't like me anymore.

  I wriggled my legs to help him get my pants down and over my feet. He took care of removing the rest of my clothes and his.

  He pulled the blankets over us and held me, both of us completely naked.

  Once you're naked, there's no turning back, I thought.

  "You okay?" he asked.

  "Yeah."

  "You sure?"

  "Mmhmm."

  He began and I followed his lead. At first he had trouble getting in. Then he ran his tongue over my neck and chest like he was drawing a maze, and it got easier. The beginning part felt all right. But the farther we went, the more it seemed like we were two incompatible machines that someone had experimentally hooked together and then pushed go. And his machine was definitely winning.

  The pain was a weird kind of good pain. I wasn't sure if I wanted him to keep going or not, but at this point I felt like it was too late to tell him to stop.

  It was over before I knew it. He rolled off me and onto his back and pulled me close so my head could rest on his chest. His heart was pounding against my face and he was sweating.

  Then he sat up and ripped the blankets off the bed.

  "What are you doing!" I said louder than I meant to.
r />   "Stand up." He held his comforter out like a cape.

  "Why?" I asked, curled up in a shivering ball.

  "Just do it," he said, "and you'll be warm."

  When I rose, he wrapped the blanket around me. Then he peeled a corner back and joined me in the cocoon. He took my hand and started for the door.

  "Outside?" I asked, holding back.

  But my feet kept moving because Nate and the blanket were pulling me.

  "It's too hot in here," he said. "We need fresh air."

  It wasn't as cold outside as I'd expected. But the ground was frosty and I walked on my toes. The sky was so light, the street lamps were irrelevant.

  We sat on his front steps watching our smoke breath disappear into the night.

  My feet snuck inside the blanket, leaving only my head exposed.

  Then out of nowhere it began to snow. Hard.

  "Is that snow?" Nate asked.

  "Of course it's snow," I said. "What did you think it was?"

  "I've never seen snow." He tilted his head back to let the quarter-size flakes fall in his mouth.

  "SNOOOOOOWWW!" he yelled, leaping off the steps and dashing down the path, leaving me feeling very clothed in my blanket. It was coming down so heavily his hair was completely white, like a mammoth attack of dandruff. He ran back toward me, limbs flailing in all directions.

  His arms and legs weren't the only parts of him that were flopping around.

  "Let me in! Let me in!" he called in a crackly pubescent voice.

  All of his muscles were well defined, like the diagrams in Human Anatomy for Artists.

  I stood and opened up a side for him. He shook out his snow-covered hair, spraying me in the face. I was about to play-slap him, but he had wrapped himself around me, and I was paralyzed by his freezing wetness.

  He pulled me, arm around my waist, to the path, which was quickly fading to white. My feet stung so much I could hardly feel them, had no control over which direction they were going. Nate ran us into the wooded area, weaving between trees. Well, we were half running, half hopping because of all the rocks and fallen branches. He was whooping and I was laughing. Twigs snapped beneath my feet. He brought us back around to the house, but instead of going up the steps, he pushed me against the brick building. He pinned me with his pelvis and leaned his head back to catch a mouthful of snow.