It Happened on Maple Street Page 4

Did he want the cow even though it had peeked its head out of the barn?

  Had he really liked me to begin with?

  I wished my big brother was home from college. And I was glad that he wasn’t there to witness my humiliation. He called, though.

  “What’s up?” He asked when Mom told me to pick up the phone.

  “Nothing.”

  “That’s not what I hear.”

  “What? I got an A on a paper this week. I wrote about Angel and Cherie.” Cherie was the family’s toy poodle. Angel was mine.

  “Mom said you have a boyfriend.” He didn’t give a darn about my school work. Never had.

  My face burned. I didn’t want to know what Mom had told him. Was I in trouble? Or going to be teased?

  “I guess.”

  “What’s his name?”

  Like Mom hadn’t told him.

  “Tim.” And don’t you dare say anything bad about him. Don’t criticize. And for God’s sake, don’t tease.

  The silence was excruciating. I adored my big brother. And I’d never had a boyfriend. What would this new territory bring between Chum and me?

  “He plays tennis,” I blurted. Chum had played on the high-school team. He didn’t play at college though. He bowled there.

  Did that make Tim better than Chum? Because he was playing collegiate tennis?

  Had I just put my big brother down?

  “You like him,” Chum said.

  “Yeah.”

  “A lot.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Just make sure he treats you right.”

  The knots in my chest let go. I started to breathe. “He does. I promise, Chum. He’s the sweetest guy I’ve ever known.”

  At least I hoped he was.

  “I’ll have to meet him.”

  “I know.”

  “Just tell him that.”

  “Okay.” I would. Maybe not exactly like my brother had ordered. I’d lose the warning tone. But I’d tell Tim that Chum wanted to meet him. If I ever heard from Tim again.

  I waited all weekend for him to call. He did not. By Sunday night, I wished I’d never met him, never brought him home. My first foray into dating and I’d screwed it up horribly. I’d given Tim things I couldn’t take back, ever. I’d given him my first taste. My first touch.

  And I’d done it right there in my own home. I’d betrayed my parents. I started to take the long way around to the kitchen so I could avoid the basement door.

  I was angry. At him. And mostly at me. I knew better. My father had taught me better. My church had taught me better. And the first time a guy showed interest in me, I threw all of my morals, my convictions to the wind. I was nothing but a cheap loser.

  He didn’t have to know that, though. I went to geology class on Tuesday with one thought in mind. Act like I didn’t care.

  I managed to pull it off, too. Right up until I walked down the hall toward the lecture hall and saw him standing out there. He had on a green striped sweater with a button-up shirt under it. The shirt’s collar, also green, lay neatly on top of the sweater. His jeans looked new. And that belt buckle . . .

  It was big. Metal. And I remembered the cold hard chill of it against the bare skin of my stomach.

  Leaning one shoulder against the wall, he was watching kids come around the corner. Like he was waiting for someone.

  If I’d known a way to back up and unshow my face from around that corner, I’d have done so. My heart was beating so fast it was interrupting my breathing. My stomach was churning.

  He looked right at me. And pushed away from the wall. He smiled. Walked closer.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  He reached his hand out toward me, looking me in the eye. My hand moved, before I could form a single thought. And with our fingers entwined we walked into class.

  He had been waiting for someone.

  Me.

  The following Thursday, Tim sat with Tara in class, playing with the palm of her hand. Her left hand. She was taking notes with her right hand.

  “Think about what we’re going to be doing this afternoon,” he leaned over to whisper. He couldn’t think of anything else.

  Him and Tara. Downstairs on that couch.

  Every time he looked at the tightly ribbed blue-striped sweater she had on with her jeans, he thought about the soft skin and breasts that he knew were underneath it. Kept thinking about touching them.

  “My lips on your lips.” He leaned over again.

  “Sssshh.”

  Not quite the response he’d been looking for.

  And neither was the welcome they received that afternoon when they finally got to Drywood Place. Tara had asked him if he wanted to drive this time, and he pulled into the driveway next to a shiny new blue Cadillac.

  “My dad’s home.”

  There was reservation in her voice, which transferred to him, doubling in intensity on the way from the passenger seat.

  The front door opened as they approached and a man who was more his mother’s age than Tara’s mother’s age stood there in a dark blue suit, white shirt, and red tie. His shoes were the kind you saw in fine stores with high-dollar price tags.

  His hair was almost as long as Tim’s. And his glasses were tinted.

  “Dad, this is Tim.”

  They weren’t even in the house yet. Tim stuck out his hand.

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Gumser,” he said.

  The older man’s grip was crushing, but Tim held his own. Tara’s dad said something, probably “Nice to meet you,” or “Welcome,” or maybe “You touch my daughter again and I’ll kill you.” What Tim heard coming back at him was, ”Ugh.”

  They finally made it in the door, and Tara’s mom was there.

  “Hi, Mrs. Gumser. Nice to see you again,” Tim said, relieved to see the familiar and friendly face.

  “Come on in, Tim. Would you kids like something to drink?”

  “Pepsi,” Tara said, when he was going to decline and hopefully guide her toward the basement.

  “Tim?” All three of them stood there looking at him.

  “I’ll have a Pepsi, too,” he said, sweating beneath the striped sweater he’d pulled on that morning, hoping she’d like it—imagining her fingers underneath it.

  They all sat at the table. Mr. Gumser didn’t like him, but he was classy about it. Tara and her mom did all the talking, except when Mr. Gumser was inserting questions for Tim—all of which Tim managed to answer.

  “My wife tells me you go to Wright State.”

  “Yes, sir. I’m a freshman.”

  “Tim’s majoring in geology,” Tara inserted quickly, and then turned to her mom. “I got my pebble paper back today.”

  Tim knew about that already. She’d had to do a five-hundred-word essay describing something, and Tara had described a pebble.

  Tim figured he’d have gotten ten words out of that one, if he’d been lucky.

  “I got an A,” Tara told her mom.

  And so it continued. Tara and her mom talking, Tara’s dad interrogating.

  The man was looking out for his daughter. Tim understood that. And all in all he was happy to be there—even if they weren’t in the basement, yet.

  They didn’t make it there later that day either. Tara surprised him yet again when, shortly after her father left the table she stood up and said, “You want to see my room?” She just blurted it out. Right in front of her mother. And then she looked at her mom. “It’s okay, isn’t it?”

  “Of course,” Mrs. Gumser said, clearing their glasses from the table. She was making something in the kitchen—dinner, he supposed, though it was still a little early in the day for that.

  “Sure, I’d like to see it,” Tim said, wondering what kind of family he’d walked into. Either Tara’s parents were the most trusting adults he’d ever met, or the most open-minded. Judging by the inquisition he’d just been through, and the girl he was getting to know, he figured it was the former.

  Her parents trusted h
er. Enough to let her take a boy to her bedroom.

  The room was . . . girlish. Brown carpet. Yellow walls. A big bed with some drape thing over the top of it, like a princess in a Disney flick. The rest of the furniture was kind of white with some gold on it. And there was a gold velvet-looking chair in a corner by the window. It had a lamp and marble table sitting next to it. Not one thing was out of place or just laying around.

  There was nothing in the room that he could relate to, until he saw the instrument leaning in another corner.

  He headed straight for it—keeping his gaze off the bed.

  “Is this your guitar?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you play it?”

  “For me, only. Like I told you, my dad and brother are the musicians in this family. You should hear Chum play the guitar. He’s good enough to be a professional. We actually had a band for a while in high school, but I didn’t play guitar. I just played the tambourine. And sang.”

  “Your band ever play anywhere?”

  “A couple of school gigs, a party someone hired us to do. And then Chum formed a band with some older guys, and they played some parties and things until he left for college.”

  He still held the guitar. The frets were well worn. The rest of the instrument gleamed like it was brand new.

  And expensive. It was a Yamaha FG-75—he read the sticker on the inside of the case.

  “What can you play?”

  She shrugged. “Lots of things. But I only play for me. I’m not, you know, good or anything.”

  “What kind of stuff do you play?” he asked again.

  “John Denver stuff. I don’t know, other things.”

  She stood there at the end of the bed, looking happy and worried at the same time. And he couldn’t help thinking about her there at night, all alone, without her clothes on . . .

  He handed her the guitar. “Play something for me.”

  “No, really, I’m not that good.”

  “I don’t care. I just want to hear you. Please?” He looked her straight in the eye, and it was like something happened. Like they said something without using any words. Weird.

  What in the hell was going on?

  Whatever it was, Tara took the guitar and climbed up on the bed. Her jeans stretched across her thighs as she crossed her legs Indian style and settled the guitar across her lap.

  She strummed a couple of times, staring down at the strings, and then started to play strings individually.

  “There is . . . a house. . . .” When she started to sing “The House of the Rising Sun,” he didn’t move a muscle. He couldn’t look away, either. She played like someone who was plugged in to a different place, like no one was in the room with her.

  She’d lied.

  “That was really good,” he said a couple of seconds after the room fell silent.

  “Thanks.” She didn’t look at him, putting the guitar back where it belonged.

  He’d been planning to kiss her, had been fantasizing about it on and off all day, but he didn’t. They hardly made out that day at all.

  He was still glad he’d gone.

  Five

  I’D NEVER BEEN HAPPIER. NOT EVER.

  Nothing in life—not summers with my best friend in all of the world, not horse camp when I was twelve, or the trip to Disneyworld when I was fifteen, not even coming home from work to find a new car waiting for me in the driveway all wrapped up in ribbons and bows— compared to being Tim’s girlfriend.

  I wasn’t Tara Gumser anymore. I was part of a couple.

  I kept reminding myself of that fact the Saturday night after Tim had met my dad. I was sitting in the car Tim had borrowed from his twelve-years-older-than-him—and married—brother.

  The Ford station wagon wasn’t like anything I’d ever been in. It was pretty new, like Mom’s car, but my folks only drove GM products.

  The car smelled like cigarettes. My folks had quit smoking forever ago.

  We were on our way to Tim’s house on Maple Street. He was going to show me his weights. I was going to watch him work out.

  “You sure you want to do this?” Tim asked, taking his gaze from the road long enough to look at me. He had on a black jacket and blue jeans and just looking at him made those feelings come back between my legs.

  “Yeah, of course I do.”

  It felt so right, sitting there with him in a family car. Like we were a couple who were going to have kids to fill up those backseats.

  “We could do something else if you want.”

  “I want to see your house. And watch you work out.” I got a little hot saying that, but I was going to be really disappointed if he changed his mind. I thought about him all day and all night and I didn’t even know where he lived. Where he slept.

  Besides, I’d spent my whole life watching guys do their sports. If not in person, then on television. The male domination in my household insisted, collectively, that a sporting event, any sporting event, took precedence over any other show being broadcast on television.

  I was actually looking forward to the weight-lifting part.

  The reason I was tense enough to split in half, which he must have picked up on, was because I was going to meet Tim’s mom. She wasn’t going to like me. I just had this feeling.

  I was too sure of my opinion. I said what I thought.

  Yeah, not good.

  And when I wasn’t saying what I was thinking, I didn’t say anything at all.

  I just wasn’t good at social pleasantries. Mostly because I thought they were duplicitous and a waste of time. I’d tried to make casual conversation a time or two, but the words just sounded dumb and I’d embarrassed myself.

  Tim’s mom was going to hate me.

  “Have you ever seen the Rhoda show?” We were driving forever. Really far from home. Out into the country. There were no towns around. Not a fast-food hamburger joint anywhere for miles.

  I was completely out of my element.

  And I wanted to be with him so badly. I focused on his hands on the steering wheel. They made me feel safe.

  And excited me at the same time.

  “Yeah,” he said. He was excited, too? Had I said that out loud?

  And then I remembered the Rhoda question. That was so me, having three different conversations going on in my head at one time.

  “With Valerie Harper?” I asked. The Rhoda question came from my earlier thoughts about sports reigning supreme in my house.

  Watching Tim lift weights sounded . . . erotic . . . but I did not want to saddle myself with a guy who thought life revolved around sports.

  What I did want to do was saddle myself with Tim. I knew that already. I was thinking about a future with him. Wanting a future with him. A lifetime’s worth of future.

  I might not have dated before, but I knew what I wanted. I’d always been that way. And I was generally right—about what I wanted.

  “Yeah, Rhoda with Valerie Harper.”

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Rhoda, as on Mary Tyler . . .”

  “Moore,” he finished, sitting back with the ease of a man comfortable with the powerful machine he controlled.

  “You watched Mary Tyler Moore?”

  “On Saturday nights.”

  So had I. Every single Saturday night all through high school. Whether I was babysitting or at home.

  “Did you see the one where Rhoda’s mom stayed with Mary?” The episode had aired in the first season back in ’70 or ’71.

  “Ida? Because Rhoda wouldn’t see her? Yep.”

  He really knew the show. And why was I surprised? He was my perfect mate.

  “Rhoda was always my favorite character,” I felt free to share now. “I was thrilled when I heard she was getting her own show. I couldn’t believe it. I looked forward to that show all week. I didn’t plan anything that whole night because I wasn’t taking any chances that I’d have to miss that first episode.”

  He nodded, like
he’d done the same.

  “So the night for the season opener comes, and I’m there at the TV fifteen minutes early with the channel on, ready to watch, and my dad comes in and turns the station. It was Monday Night Football. There would be no Rhoda.”

  “Did he know you’d been waiting to see the show?”

  “Yeah. But it was Monday Night Football.”

  “So after all that you missed the show?”

  “No, my mom got the little television in the basement to work well enough for me to see it down there. It just had lines going through it the whole time. But what really made me mad was that my dad slept through the football game that was on the big color TV upstairs.”

  “That’s not right.”

  That’s what I thought.

  And Tim had just passed my test.

  We’d also passed all the miles between my house and his. We were on Maple Street, and he was pulling up beside a lovely wood-sided home that was historic and antebellum in feeling. It had character, unlike the identical brick homes that had overpopulated the town where I lived.

  And panic set in. This was where I was going to fail the Mom test.

  “Tim? Is that you?”

  The voice struck a chord of fear through my already shaking body.

  “Yeah, Mom. We’re here.” Holding my hand, Tim pulled me inside the kitchen door, through the dining room, and into the living room where his mother sat. There was an end table beside her. It had a lamp on it. She was a lot older than my mom.

  “Mom, this is Tara. Tara, this is my mom.”

  I smiled. “Hi.”

  “It’s nice to meet you. Tim says you’re from Huber Heights.” I didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

  “Yes, ma’am.” At least being Walt Gumser’s daughter meant I’d had manners drilled into me.

  She nodded and looked like she was going to say more.

  I was just thinking I might do okay when Tim pulled at the hand that was still attached to his and I was turning my back on his mother.

  He was making me rude when I was trying so hard to be perfect.

  “We’re going to lift weights,” Tim told his mom.

  Before I could say more, we were heading back the way we’d come.

  He didn’t stop pulling until we were in his room. It was on the first floor in the middle of the house and was long and kind of narrow. A stereo and turntable were on the left side of the door next to a desk. The weights were across from the desk. Behind all of that was his bed.