Honey, Baby, Sweetheart (5 page)

Travis Becker laughed loudly over the wind. “Whooee!” he shouted. His hair was whipping around wildly. He didn’t even have a helmet on.

A shout,
Slow down!
stuck in my throat. I didn’t, couldn’t, let it out. Here it is—I was afraid of looking stupid, which is, of course, when you do the most stupid things of all.

I thought about the possibility of hitting a piece of gravel. I thought about the way you lunge forward when you stub your toe. I thought about the way your skin would be peeled off if your body flew across the asphalt at this speed.

I shut my eyes against Travis Becker’s back, and when I thought I couldn’t take any more, he went faster. Up a notch of speed, and I closed my eyes, squinched them tight and prayed simply to get out of there safely, though I wouldn’t blame God or anyone else for not listening to someone who had gotten herself into such a mess. I’m
not here,
I begged my mind to believe. I’m
somewhere else.
I could feel sweat dripping down my arms in rivulets. If I got out of there alive, I’d be embarrassed about my wet shirt.

He slowed down again, turned in to one of the Christmas tree farms, and stopped, turned the engine off. Already some of the trees in the rows were taller than Travis Becker, though some barely reached my knee. I got off his bike; my legs were shaking. He put his kickstand
down and got off too. His face was red, his eyes bright and exhilarated, ice blue flashes of electricity. I unsnapped that helmet from my chin, took it off.

“You know how fast we were going?’ he said.

“No,” I said.

“Over a hundred. Over a hundred, and you didn’t even scream.”

“Why would I scream?” I said. To tell the truth, I felt like throwing up. Right on top of his expensive athletic shoes.

“Oh, shit,” he laughed. “You’re fearless.”
Fearless.
A single word can hold such power. I could be that, if that’s what he thought I was. I could be a lot of things I never considered before.

Travis Becker took off running. “Catch me,” he yelled. He disappeared into the rows of tall trees. I could see flashes of his yellow T-shirt between the deep green of the tree branches. It’s possible that Travis Becker was a little crazy.

I ran after him. “I see you!” I called. I hate P.E., as you know. I think it qualifies as one of those cruel and unusual punishments we are supposed to be protected from in our constitution. But I’m a good runner. I’m fast.

I darted around one tree, quick enough to see him take a fast turn down another row. I dashed after him.

“I see you again,” I called.

“Impossible,” he yelled and took off running.

“You’re wearing yellow, you idiot,” I said.

I wove my way to the row he was in. His back was
against a tree and he was huffing and puffing pretty hard. “I give up,” he said. He was bent over, his hands were on his knees. “What did you call me?” he panted.

“I called you an idiot, you idiot,” I said. I don’t know why I said it. For a minute, running between the trees in that yellow shirt, he made me think of my brother, making a snow fort and hiding behind it, not knowing that the round ball on top of his woolen hat was cruising along over the top, a perfect little moving target.

Travis Becker looked over at me and laughed. “You know what? I like you,” he said. “Come on. I got to get back.” He pretended to stagger forward from the exhaustion of his spree.

“Just another pathetic rich boy,” I said and sighed. I learned my role fast.

“Shit,” he smiled and laughed again. “Piranha. Man-eater.”

That was me, all right. Ruby McQueen, Man-Eater. I could have a T-shirt made.

We got back on his motorcycle. When I held on, I could feel that his shirt was damp and sweaty from running. We drove back at a normal-fast speed. There were no more tests—then at least.

He drove up his driveway and parked on the lawn. I got off, unstrapped my helmet again. I’m sure my hair looked just marvelous.

“Why do you park on the grass?” I asked. “You could fit six cars in that garage.”

“Because I can,” Travis Becker said. “And I like the
way it looks there.” He held up his fingers as if to make a frame around what he was seeing, the way film directors do in the movies. “You know what we did today?”

“Is this a trick question?” I said.

“We did a ton. That’s what it’s called, doing a hundred on a bike.”

“What’s doing a hundred and twenty called?” I said. I didn’t know this person who was talking. I wasn’t even sure I liked her. Maybe I read about her in a book once or something. She was fearless, all right. But to tell you the truth, she was making me nervous.

“Man, you are something,” Travis Becker said. He took a bit of my hair, tucked it behind my ear. He looked at me for a while, as if, amazingly, he liked what he saw. “Wait. Wait here. I want to give you something.” He turned and jogged toward the house. I hoped he’d hurry. I kept worrying that Mrs. Becker would appear and think I was a trespasser or one of the help she didn’t recognize. Maybe she’d ask me to wash the windows.

Travis Becker trotted happily back out. From underneath his shirt he pulled out a black velvet box. He handed it to me. I thought it was a joke. I mean, I knew they were rich, but giving anything in a velvet box to some stranger who you just met a few hours ago seemed ridiculous. Most people wouldn’t even give their phone number.

I opened it. It was one of those soft black boxes with the springy lids that come down like the jaws of a snapping turtle. A gold necklace lay inside, held flat by two
white elastic hooks. Travis Becker released the necklace, then took the box back from me and let it drop on the grass. “Lift up your hair so I can put it on,” he said.

“I can’t take this,” I said.

“Sure you can,” he said.

“This is nuts. I don’t even know your name. You don’t even know mine.”

“You don’t know who I am?” he laughed.

“Well, it says Becker on the mailbox.” Of course, there was no mailbox. They probably had their mail delivered to their doorstep on the back of some endangered animal or something.

“Travis,” he said.

“Ruby McQueen,” I said. I’ve always hated my name. It made you think of a rodeo cowgirl in some porn movie or, maybe worse, a Texas beauty queen runner-up. My parents had agreed on it for their own reasons. Before I was born, my mother was reading a lot of Southern literature, and my father, who was already dreaming of Nashville stardom, thought it would make a great stage name someday.

“Ruby, like the jewel,” Travis Becker said.

“Like the slippers. ‘There’s no place like home.’ I still can’t take this. Where did you get it, anyway? You just keep these around for girls you give rides to?”

“I was going to give it to someone. I changed my mind,” he said. “So shut up and lift up your hair. No, wait. A better idea. Close your eyes.” He took hold of my arm and bent it in front of me, then did the same with the
other. I felt the cool slither of the gold chain drawing my wrists together and I opened my eyes to see the necklace looped twice around both of them, handcuff-style.

“Hey, it looks great,” he said.

“Very funny. Get it off.”

“You’re my prisoner.”

“Off,” I said.

“Give me a kiss first to say thank you.” He lurched forward and I turned my head; his mouth hit the side of mine. I changed my mind and let him kiss me. I’d been kissed before, just once by Sydney’s cousin, and by Ned Barrett in the seventh grade, behind the gym after the school holiday music concert. Ned Barrett had a locker next to mine for two years in a row and played the bass in the orchestra. He was lugging it back to the music room when, suddenly overcome with holiday cheer, I guess, he called me over. I thought he needed help with his bass, but he kissed me instead, the bass standing there like a nosy third person. But Travis Becker’s kiss was different. He knew what he was doing, that was for sure.

The kiss left me dazed, forgetting about Mrs. Becker or anything else, for that matter.
“Now
I’ll take it off,” Travis Becker said. He unfastened the necklace, slid it into the pocket of my jeans. “Don’t say no. Or we might not be friends anymore,” he said. “Anyway, it’s your prize for not screaming.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Say thank you.”

“Thank you. For the ride too.”

I kept it right there in the pocket of my jeans as I walked home. I would reach my hand toward it, rub it between my fingers. To be honest, it did not have a nice feel. It was that flat kind of gold, so slithery and cold that it almost felt wet. It felt wrong in my pocket. I knew it didn’t belong there any more than I had belonged on Travis Becker’s motorcycle. But I reached my fingers down into my pocket and felt the slick links anyway. Touching it was my only proof that the afternoon had been real.

I like to assign human personalities to different dogs I see. Sydney’s dog is a tall, lanky golden retriever. He would be one of those amiable athletes, good at the hurdles but not too bright. My friend Sarah Elliott has an Airedale. He’s got this little beard and kind, knowing eyes. King Arthur, in
The Once and Future King.
Fowler, one of the librarians my mom works with, has this poodle that acts like some of the blond girls at school who are always putting on makeup behind their math books and who have apparently become mentally damaged by all that hair swinging, because they now think being called
spoiled
is a compliment. Fowler’s not the poodle type, but it followed him home one day after getting lost and wouldn’t leave, which shows that even poodles have their moments of humility.

My dog, Poe, though, he’s another thing altogether. He’s a Jack Russell terrier, but more than that, he’s a kindergarten boy with a hyperactivity disorder. Once he ate through my mother’s bedroom door, leaving a hole
the size of a man’s head. Another time he knocked himself unconscious by tripping and falling down the porch steps after he ran full speed out the back door with a mouthful of my brother’s dirty socks. He thinks the vacuum cleaner is an intruder, which, admittedly, he has successfully wrestled to submission a few times. The handle has been chewed to a rough and gnarled state, and you’ve got to wrap a kitchen towel around it if you want to use it without hurting your hands. Last winter he went to get a drink from his water bowl that had frozen during the night and got his tongue stuck there. We are sure that Poe assumes his name is You Dumb-Ass Dog, as that’s what my mother is always calling him. He probably thinks it’s German for Dog of Great Intelligence.

When I arrived home, Poe was even more keyed up than usual. He was walking along the back of the couch like a circus performer, minus the tutu. He leaped down when he saw me and jumped up, his toenails scratching my legs. His excitement must have had something to do with the car that was in our driveway, the Ford Windstar with the Oregon plates.

“Where’s Dad?” I asked Chip Jr. He was sitting on the couch, his knees pulled up to his chin. He was watching TV. Chip Jr. hardly ever watched TV. He was usually in his room building something—card houses, the Taj Mahal out of LEGOs. I’m not kidding.

“In the kitchen.”

“Why aren’t you in there too?”

“I have to watch this.” I looked at the television.
There was a lizard burying something. Close-up to a disgusting pile of what must have been its oblong, yellowish eggs. Of course, that might have been our TV. Our TV was old and decrepit and prone to turning everything to custard shades. It could fill the Winter Olympics with more yellow snow than any sicko eight-year-old boy could even imagine. Librarians, at least the one I lived with, did not put a premium on the latest technological equipment. Or appliances, for that matter. A pair of socks can get our washing machine off balance, making it shake so hard and loud you think it’s going to shimmy on down the hall.

“Why do you have to watch this?”

“Because it’s about
lizards,”
he said, as if that explained something. “Shit.” He was acting up, too.

“Shit shit,” I said.

“Shit-shit. A Chinese noodle dish. Shit-shit with chicken or pork,” Chip Jr. said to his knees.

“Slippers on a kitchen floor. An old lady’s. Shiiit, shiiit.”

He thought for a while. “Someone with a lisp asking you to take a seat,” he said. “Please do shit down.”

“Okay. I’m going in the kitchen,” I said. I pretended to put on protective gear, snapped on a helmet, knee pads. I saw a little smile start at the corner of Chip Jr.’s mouth, disappearing into a crinkle of his jeans, where his chin was tucked.

My father looked the same, only his hair was longer than usual. He’s the kind of man women fall all over,
even if you don’t like to think of your father that way. That’s how handsome he is, and it’s the truth, like it or not. He has dark brown hair, long enough so that he occasionally has to comb it dramatically from his face with his fingers, permanent stubble, a strong nose, dark eyes that look like he just woke up or is lost in thought. Everyone says I look just like him (except for the stubble, I hope), and it’s true that I have his nearly black hair, worn long and straight, and his dark eyes. But I also have my mother’s lines and angles—too-pointy chin, long thin legs, wrists like a bird’s, if a bird had wrists. It was hot that day, nearly eighty, and my father wore a T-shirt, denim vest, and cowboy boots, which tells you right there that his vanity was greater than his need for comfort.