It was past nine o'clock before I woke. By the time I'd brushed my teeth and put on the bathrobe, my parents and Craig were sitting around the breakfast table, sipping coffee.
"You look like you've been out in a windstorm," said Dad. "When are you going to cut it again?"
"I've worn it long for five years, Dad." I didn't remind him that I'd grown it for Mike. Even after the divorce, I kept it long. It attracted flattering comments and lustful looks, especially in Bernie's Grill, where looking sexy paid off in tips.
I picked a piece of toast from Craig's plate, spread some jam on it, and began to chew. My mother glared at this minor evidence of intimacy, but said nothing.
"Can I get you some coffee?" asked Craig, standing up.
I nodded, and he said, "A little milk, right?" He knew exactly how I took my coffee, but clearly, he was trying to avoid revealing the degree of our intimacy.
"As always," I said. "And another slice of toast. You know how I like it." My mother's face reddened, but she said nothing. I didn't like provoking her, but I wanted her to understand that I'd really put Mike behind me.
"So what's on the schedule for today?" I asked.
Mom said, "The Labor Day parade in Morris is at 10 o'clock, and there's a memorial service for the Grundy County men killed in Viet Nam right afterward. So I guess folks will start showing up around noon. We'll start the cookout at four. We moved it up an hour so you could get back to the city before it gets too dark."
I showered and brushed out my hair, and put on a tee shirt that was about a size too small, some short-shorts, and a pair of socks and sneakers. I looked myself up and down in the mirror. Am I only doing this to show Mike what he's missing? Or so I could display my assets for Craig? Maybe it was both. A brick sat in the pit of my stomach, nervousness over the coming encounter between Mike and Craig. Anything could happen.
Just as I was applying a touch of lipstick, an engine throbbed outside. I recognized that sound. Mike had never put a decent muffler on his Gran Fury. He liked the throaty rumble that announced his arrival, and claimed to like the smell of exhaust inside the car. I finished my ablutions quickly so I could be there when Mike and Craig met.
When I went out onto the porch, Mike had just unfolded his long body from the car. We both froze, staring at each other. He was unchanged--three days' growth of beard, long stringy hair, NRA tee shirt, faded jeans, black biker boots.
"How are you, RoseAnn?" he said, with unexpected gentleness.
I couldn't help myself. The broad shoulders and penetrating blue eyes made my pussy clench and grow wet. My own body was betraying me.
"I'm fine, Mike. You okay?" I tried to make my voice as neutral as possible.
He shrugged and opened the Gran Fury's back door, retrieving a case of Bud.
His passenger, a heavy, red-haired girl, struggled to get out of the car. Once she stood up, I saw that she wore a sling on her left arm, which, together with her weight, had made an awkward chore of getting out of the car. With a shock, I remembered who she'd been, about a hundred pounds ago.
"Do I see Cheryl Norman?"
She must have seen the surprise on my face. "I guess you remember the thinner me," she said shyly. "Trailer park disease, RoseAnn. I guess nearly all of us get it."
True enough. She'd been one of the slimmest, most attractive girls in my high school class. While I lived with Mike, I'd watched other women pile on the weight in the tight social environment of the trailer park. Too much time alone, too much television, too many gossip sessions over boxes of Dunkin Donuts or burgers and shakes from McDonald's. I'd had to keep lots of fruit and iced tea on hand to keep my own weight under control.
I pointed to her arm. "Hurt yourself?"
Mike reflexively tried to move between Cheryl and me, and it told me all I needed to know.
She blushed. "I fell down the trailer steps. You know, when you carry a basket of laundry and you can't see where you're going. Sooner or later, well..." She saw Mike's fierce glance and shut up.
I was tempted to call her on it. After all, I'd built the laundry room with my own hands, and made it accessible from floor level. It wasn't necessary to go down any steps. But this wasn't the time or place to set off fireworks, not with Craig and my family present.
The screen door banged behind me. It was Craig.
"Craig," I said, "this is Mike Perez and his friend Cheryl Norman. We were all in high school together." I turned back. "This is Craig Warburton. He works at Circle Campus."
"You forgot to say," said Mike, "you and I were married until a year ago."
"Craig knows that." I didn't know what to say next, but Craig took it out of my hands. He stepped down and shook Mike's hand, and then Cheryl's. He was a foot shorter than Mike. "You a Sox fan, Professor?" asked Mike, opening a conversation that soon had the two men sitting on the hood of the Gran Fury, sipping at beers. He didn't normally like beer, so I knew he was working to fit in.
Good for you, Craig.
I sat on the steps, sipping at my own beer and listening, while Cheryl looked uncomfortably about for a place to sit down. She finally opened the car of Mike's car and leaned against the front seat. As the men talked, I watched the thick muscles under Mike's tee shirt, the bulging biceps, the slim waist, the brilliant blue eyes. How could I still feel an ache for him after all this time, and after the things that happened? The good memories came unbidden, so I forced myself to recall kneeling on the hard linoleum floor, my hands gripping the backs of his solid thighs, his cock thrusting into my mouth and brushing the back of my throat.
I felt cool sweat on my neck, and hot moisture in my crotch. I was getting excited. That was just stupid and ridiculous. I felt nothing for Mike, not any more.
I glanced at Craig, and he was looking at me, and his eyes were troubled. Could he see my thoughts?
I escaped inside the house and helped my mother get sandwiches ready for the lunch snack. Most of the work had been done before Craig and I had arrived, but there were still a hundred details.
A few at a time, the relatives and friends drifted in. "Hey, RoseAnn, is that your new boyfriend talking to Mike outside?" asked my Aunt Jenna. "He's a little short, isn't he?"
"He's big where it counts," I said. I waited for the surprised gasp from my mother before I laughed and said, "He's got a big heart." This drew smirks and snorts of laughter from the women who were quickly filling up the kitchen and fussing with the food they brought.
Through the window, I watched the arriving men form a circle around the hood of Mike's car. A couple of my male cousins were missing. They'd been caught in the draft and sent to Viet Nam, but they'd be back for next year's Labor Day.
I imagined half of the men were waiting for some sort of confrontation between Mike and Craig. My stomach turned leaden as I dreaded the coming afternoon.
We carried the plates of sandwiches outside to the picnic table, and soon everyone was eating. Lawn chairs clustered in groups, mostly divided by sex and age. Conversation hummed in the warm afternoon. The garbage bin quickly filled up with Bud and Busch empties, until my Uncle Albert finally suggested, "Anyone for baseball? I brought my equipment."
"Make it softball, and I'm in," I said. "How about you, Craig?"
"I'll bet Craig only plays sixteen-inch," taunted Mike. "Don't you, Craig?"
"Anything else would be crazy in the city," said Craig, not rising to the bait.
I only knew 'sixteen-inch' as a form of softball peculiar to Chicago. The ball was larger and softer than a softball, so the game could be played in vacant lots or a street lined with parked cars. It rarely broke windows, an added advantage. I'd never played it myself. Finding open space to play baseball or touch football had never been an issue in Bitumen.
We trooped the half-block to the two vacant lots that had served as a local park for most of my life. Mike walked on ahead, carrying a bat and tapping a ball ahead of himself down the street as if playing miniature golf.
Craig dropped back to walk with me. "I like your family."
"They're good people," I said.
He lowered his voice. "I like Mike, too. I expected different, after everything you said."
"Don't trust him. He can act fine when other people are around. In school, he was always the tough guy that'd fight anybody. Everyone wanted to be his friend."
