"Ssh." He raises his finger to his lips, breathing deeply. "I'm recovering. You got a little carried away."
Ignoring his protest, Marlowe plops heavily on the bed beside him. She leans over him, craning her neck. "Look at this," she orders. "Look at my neck. You see that?"
His drowsy eyes fall on a purplish mark the size of a blackberry. "Looks like a hickey."
"Yes!" Marlowe retorts sharply, swatting his arm. "I haven't had a hickey since I was seventeen!"
"That's a crying shame," Lucas replies wearily, scrubbing his hand over his jaw. "We'll have to do better than that."
"Lucas," Marlowe intones impatiently, "I brought a sleeveless dress for the party. It's gonna show."
"Darn. Ow - Jesus!" Lucas jack-knifes to a sitting position to protect his belly from further attack.
"Tell me you didn't do this on purpose."
"I didn't do it on purpose," he parrots obediently.
"For real?"
Lucas simply smiles in reply. He throws up his hands in defense when she moves to attack. "I didn't," he protests, grabbing her wrists. "I got carried away too."
Marlowe snorts. "You never get carried way."
"You rode me like a bareback mustang in the yard," he murmurs, kissing her wrists. "First time for everything."
Marlowe smiles reluctantly. She can't deny his charm, his good humor, or the reckless abandon with which she took him in the grass, in the bed, and then again in the shower. She put his libido to shame. And now here they are in the afterglow, separate, ordinary, and sparring like combatants. They talk and listen through the deepest problems and they fight for fun. He shouldn't know her so well, but he does. He's smiling at her now, seeing inside of her. Marlowe lets herself be seen. She enjoys his scrutiny now in a way that she didn't before when she was afraid to look within and see her own errors. But that time has passed; a page has turned. There is no turning back.
When the phone rings, Marlowe sighs, closing her eyes. "Boy, go get dressed before I do something to you," she warns as she rises.
"Is that an offer?"
Marlowe chuckles as she pads to the living room clutching a towel around her wet hair. She picks up the handset from the side table. "Ross residence."
"Mo!" Tamara exclaims. "Where have you been?"
"Uh. . . huh?" Marlowe asks dumbly, her eyes wide.
"Nate called and said he came by with the chairs but nobody was home."
"What?" Marlowe cries. "When?"
"I don't know; he just called a few minutes ago. He said he left them in the yard. Where were you?"
"Moving your furniture. I must not . . . I didn't hear the doorbell. We didn't," she corrects, glancing up as Lucas slowly stalks up the stairs.
"Oh. Well get the chairs set up, okay? Put the ice cream on and . . . oh, I got another call. I'll be back in an hour."
"Okay," Marlowe replies but Tamara has already hung up. Clutching the phone to her chest, Marlowe races to the front door and throws it open. Three stacks of chairs are lined up in the entryway, each emblazoned with 'Antioch' like an omen. "Errr!" Marlowe slams the door, marches back to the side table, and slams down the phone.
"What's wrong?" Lucas is standing in the middle of the staircase in his cargo shorts, watching her.
"It just gets better and better, huh? Goddamnit!" She swings around in Lucas' t shirt; her wet curls spring free as the towel comes loose and falls in a wet heap on the floor.
Lucas bounds down the stairs and stops in front of Marlowe, staring. "What?"
"Nate was here." She bites her lip, frowning deeply, her eyes troubled and unfocused. "He left the chairs out front," she explains, pointing at the door.
Lucas blinks, waiting. "What's the problem?"
"He saw us, Lucas." She covers her eyes with her hands.
"That was him on the phone?"
"No - Tamara. She said he called her and when he came by here, no on was home."
"That doesn't mean he saw us, Marlowe."
"He didn't ring the bell," she explains dismally. "I mean, did you hear it?"
Lucas thinks back; he shakes his head.
"He was supposed to call Tamara so we could go get the chairs. But he brought them instead. The truck was in the garage; he couldn't see it!"
"How does . . ."
"On the front porch, Lucas?" Marlowe interrupts. "Would you do that? Or would you take them to the back?" Her eyes flicker and flash. "He saw us. I know."
"No, you don't. Calm down," Lucas murmurs, taking her by the shoulders. "Quit jumping to conclusions."
"I know what I'm talking about," she protests sharply, shaking off his hold. "He knows."
"Fine. He knows," Lucas concedes darkly. "He was going to find out anyway. That's what you want, right?"
Marlowe almost chokes. "Not like that! You don't know Nate; he can be trifling when he gets ready. I don't even want to hear your name come out of his mouth. And I definitely don't want him talking about this shit. I don't want them thinking that you're a . . . fetish," she decides, gesturing wildly with her hands. "'Oh girl; been there, done that. You'll get over it'," she recites harshly. Her eyes darken as she recalls Tamara's first reaction. Tamara didn't say that but the implication was there anyway. Marlowe felt it the next day in the kitchen when they brought in the food and Tamara said nothing. Silence rather than words speaks volumes about Tamara's hidden reluctance.
Lucas stands silently for a moment, weighing the situation. "Fine. When Nate shows up, I'll ask him."
"No. No!" Marlowe grabs his hands; she locks eyes with him. "You stay clear of him. You hear me? Lucas!" She yanks his arms. "I am dead serious, boy. Don't even think about it. I'm not trying to break up a fight tonight."
"Talking and fighting are two different things," he replies grimly.
Marlowe raises a brow. "Who are you trying to fool? Talking and touching are the same thing to you. Stay away from him. For real." She heaves a breath and swipes her hair back. "You just have to be cool, okay? Please. Just sit down somewhere, be quiet, and look out for Roderick. That's all I want you to do."
Story of my life, Lucas thinks. "I'm going to hit the shower," he says quietly, moving towards the stairs.
"You already took a shower."
Lucas doesn't answer. He troops up the stairs, withdrawing into stillness. Follow procedure - that's all he can do.
At a quarter to one, the party descends on the house like a swarm of bees, frantic, droning, and subtly threatening. Don't make any sudden moves, Lucas; don't rattle the hive. Above all, keep your hands out of the honey. At first, Lucas retreats to the kitchen to be near Marlowe and ostensibly to help Tamara. But when the wives and girlfriends swarm, they warn him off with bright smiles and cool glances. "Oh, I remember you," they say. "How are you? Where's Roderick? He ain't here?" So what are you doing here? Buzz off, they declare with their body language; they crowd together and squeeze him out.
Lucas finds a vacant folding chair and takes up a post between the staircase and the dining room. He and his companion, a rapidly warming bottle of domestic beer, alternately watch the door for Roderick and scan the room for Marlowe. She's hard at work circulating like a servant with bowls of chips and nuts, napkins and coasters, toothpicks, plastic cups of ice that will be filled with liquor from brown paper sacks. She takes the same route every time: from the kitchen to the dining room to Lucas, on to the front door, then back through the living room to the command center. She doesn't really speak to him when she passes. She offers him some of whatever she's carrying, smiles, and chucks her head as if to say, "Keep your head up." Then second after she leaves him, her smile dissolves into a carefully controlled grimace.
He would be alarmed by the things they say behind her back if he hadn't already heard them. Sitting as he is just out of the way of the buffet traffic, Lucas is privy to every comment, every measuring once over. If Marlowe is standing up straight, she's "high and mighty." If she's bent over or slumping, she's "such a poor little thing." Her hair is a "mess" and needs to "get done." She's too dark for some and too light for others, possibly not even Roderick's real sister. Each and every criticism is aimed at capturing her, pining her down, dissecting her, all because she has dared to live out of bounds, to roam in the wild. That is Marlowe's great crime: she has become too big to be confined by their terribly too small words. No matter how they try to cut her down to size, she still remains.
And she still bleeds. Marlowe doesn't need to hear what they say about her. She can feel it in the way they watch her, waiting for a misstep, a reaction. Their greedy eyeballs sink into her skin like sharp animal teeth.
"Mo - get daddy a pop. Diet; no ice."
"Okay, Tam," Marlowe replies, setting an empty deviled egg tray in the sink. She shifts on her feet and rotates her shoulders; the heels she borrowed from Tamara are pinching her toes. She wanted to wear her red flip flops, but that wouldn't do. "With a dress?" Tamara had asked, frowning. No - that wasn't good enough.
Marlowe pulls an empty cup form the stack next to the refrigerator and a diet cola from the freezer. She used to think that it was love to be fussed at and fussed over, to bear the scrutiny of her family with patience and a wry smile. But patience is another word for waiting, and Marlowe is just realizing what she has been waiting for: resolution. There are some things that fussing can change; there were broken places in her life that Tamara's and Roderick's and Caris' scolding have mended. But some things shouldn't change. The aberrations of her life and birth belong to her; they are her gifts, her burdens, the things that make Marlowe Ross real. She shouldn't be scolded for her looks, her quirks, the way her heart beats long and loudly and forever. She shouldn't be punished for daring to defy those things in life that will change even though we think they cannot, even though we skulk around them and bow to them as though they are institutions. Even stones crumble and mountains decay. The very brave climb over what they cannot move though they sweat and scramble and sometimes fall; the very wise know the difference between a stop sign and a yield sign.
So Marlowe presses on, waiting, watching for the last hand hold before she reaches the summit. When the front door opens at three o'clock, she narrows her eyes and sizes up her opponent. She pulls his drink of choice from the refrigerator, pops the top, and strides purposefully out of the kitchen.
Lucas leans forward on his perch, following her with his eyes. She marches past him like a soldier in the heels she has been wobbling on all day. He glances towards the front door; his eyes widen with surprise and confusion.
"Nate." Marlowe stops a few feet away, holding the beer bottle between them like a loaded gun. They are sequestered by the side table where Nate is depositing a bouquet of flowers for the hostess. "Nice touch; Tamara loves tulips."
"I know. I was at the wedding," Nate replies in his smooth baritone. He pulls his phone from the holster at his hips and flips it open, substituting the subtle dismissive gesture for a greeting. Despite the suburban calm of his polo shirt and crisp khakis, he is a predator wise to the art of war.
"How's it going, Nate?" Marlowe asks, thrusting the beer at him.
"Can't complain; wouldn't help if I did." He takes a drink while he looks her up and down, long and lewdly. "You still look good."
He used to call her "Slim" when what he really meant was fragile; that's what she was, before. But everything changes. "Sorry I missed you today. I heard you came by the house."
Nate betrays himself with a short laugh that he quickly covers with another swig of beer. He studies Marlowe as he drains the bottle, already thinking of another. "Sure did. You know, ya'll make a cute couple: dirty and dirtier."
She waits and waits as she has been waiting for years, but he doesn't say anything more. Nate simply stares at her, anticipating her reaction. Marlowe takes a quick breath, steeling her nerves. She didn't approach him to be threatened. She came to show him that she is not afraid; she isn't going to run this time. "Well, all the food's in the kitchen. If you need something, you know where to find me."
Nate nods, accepting the duel. "Appreciate it."
Marlowe simply turns and walks away feeling lighter, even buoyant. She has taken something back, leveled the field; she can see clearly now over the tall grass of subtext and insinuation. Patience was her handicap; she has been waiting a long time for an apology that she now knows will never come. She will always be watched as she is now; she will always come under the knife of scrutiny. She is the point around which everything is converging; she is the point of change. That is her weapon.
She stops in front of Lucas, rubbing away the makeup that she caked over his brand. She cleans her fingers on the hem of her dress, kicks off Tamara's heels, and offers her hand. "Dance with me, sugar."
Lucas doesn't hesitate or ask any questions. He takes her hand and follows her to the dining room where a few other couples are gathered, swaying to a Jill Scott tune. As he hand claims the small of her back, he studies her eyes for apprehension, caution, concern. But there is nothing except that look that he has seen in the faces of women who belong to other men, a look that now belongs to him. "You called me sugar," he comments quietly, drawing her hand up over his heart.
"That's what you are," she replies. And this is revolution. Their dance doesn't cause a stir; no one shouts or rushes at them or makes a scene. They pretend that it doesn't matter; they mumble amongst themselves about how polite it is, how fitting that Roderick's outlaw sister should be kind to Roderick's outlaw friend. That of course is the real insult - that love should be mistaken for something less, confined to a more fitting idea. They should be able to imagine more from the way that he holds her, the way that she smiles into his eyes, the way that they move as one over Tamara's soft beige carpet. It's more than an insult; it's a crime.
When the song ends, Marlowe runs her hand down the arm of Lucas' soft linen shirt. "Meet me in the backyard," she whispers. She answers his questioning gaze with a smile. "Trust me." After Lucas nods and departs through the pool room, Marlowe goes to the kitchen and taps Tamara on the shoulder. "I'm going to get some ice," she declares.
"Uh huh." A hundred things are said in the silent look that passes between them, all of them involving love. And because it is Tamara, she releases the words that she has been holding on to. She pulls Marlowe close and presses the car keys into her hands. "Ya'll look good together," she whispers.
Marlowe smiles victoriously. "Thanks, Tam."
"You know I love you, right?" Tamara croaks.
"I know. I love you too."
"Go on then," Tamara croons, shooing Marlowe away. "Bring back two bags; we're running out."
Marlowe skips through the living room triumphantly, oblivious to the buzz of bees. She's beyond thought now. She stops by the guest room for her red flip flops, fairly dances through the front door, and cuts around the house to where Lucas is waiting.
He's sitting in one of Tamara's elegant chairs next to the shed, frowning slightly. "Returning to the scene of the crime?"
"Yeah." Marlowe pads softly across the grass and then sits down on his lap. She drapes her arms around his neck.
Lucas is silent for a long time, staring at her. "I don't believe I'm saying this, but I can't keep up with you. What's going on?"
"Everything," she murmurs, kissing his forehead. "You." She kisses him on the neck.
"What happened with Nate?"
"I figured it out," she says, sighing breezily. "Nate isn't the worst thing that ever happened to me. But you are the best." She kisses him on the mouth. "And that's that."
"That's that," he repeats between kisses. "So what are we doing out here?"
"Going to get ice," she mumbles against his lips. "We got caught in traffic." Smooch. "There was an accident."
"Shit happens," he replies, folding his arms around her.
