Part II: Too/Easy/Dangerous

I was working at a restaurant not far from the boarding house that summer, waiting tables and doing my darnedest to flirt with the older ladies so they'd tip well.

I saw Ruth the evening after my fling with Helga in the bathroom. She was sitting at one of the skinny window tables – it suited her. I'd come to understand where people would want to sit just by looking at them. The large, older people would want the wide, comfortable booths. And girls like Ruth – they always picked the tall tables near the windows with the bar stool chairs – always with one foot perched to leave, non-committal, looking beyond this tiny moment.

I puckered when I realized Ruth was sitting in my section – even then I had some inkling that this might be a bad thing: me, Ruth, on an up-in-the-air night like that. It was the kind of night where anything goes, the air was too clear, people's smiles were too easy. Dangerous.

" Hey," I said, lowering my eyes when I went to her table, " Can I get you something to drink?" I willed myself not to look at her – or to look, but not focus or study. But she cleared her throat – demanding attention – and I obeyed.

She was as tall and thin as ever, a wafer, willing to break only for the right guy. Poised and elegant, the slant of her eyes and the careful shape of her sparse eyebrows suggested snobbery, and I accepted that. Always had. I would have licked Ruth's shoes if she'd asked. But that was high school. And that was over. Wasn't it?

She stared at me, and I realized slowly that she'd said 'iced tea with lemon'. I nodded, jotted down her request and asked dumbly:

" Would you like any sweetener in that tea?" Ruth's eyebrows moved impatiently, the slightest sign of annoyance restrained.

" No, honey," she said coolly, re-folding her menu, " If I wanted sweetener, I would have asked for sweet tea, right?"

" Um, yes, I suppose," I said with a stupid laugh, walking off. She did horrible things to me, horrible. I wondered what the hell she was doing back in our two-bit town. Gerald (who had become the school gossip as we grew older) had told me not too long ago that she was on scholarship at Brown.

Ruth McDougall. I made her tea, and in a strange moment, checked to see if anyone was looking and spit in it. I watched my addition meld with the bubbles and thought, there. She drinks my spit, she has no control over me. Then I dumped it out and made a new glass. The bus boys eyed me suspiciously. But I knew she would be able to tell, somehow. I couldn't have her hating me.

She was looking out the window as I set her tea down on the table. She must have caught a good glimpse of me reflected in the glass as I fumbled with my notepad, because she asked:

" Didn't you go to primary school with me?"

Primary school, whereas I would have said elementary. I found her word for grade school much more charming, and I flustered when I realized she somehow remembered me.

" Oh, yeah, I think so," I said, squinting my eyes crudely and doing a bad impression of suddenly realizing I knew her. She stared back, bored, fingered her menu.

" Well, anyway," she said, dismissing our connection, " I'll have the chef salad. And before you ask – no dressing, please."

" How can you eat a salad without dressing?" the words fell mutinously from my lips before I could stop them. She scoffed daintily, disbelieving. I shrank. " I mean –"

" Eating salad dressing feels like, ugh, like eating mayonnaise plain," she shuddered inwardly. She looked up at me, surprised with herself. " Your name was Arnold, right?" I nearly fainted.

" Yeah," I managed, " How'd you know?" She looked at her nails, spread her fingers on the table.

" I know some things," she said softly, " So, are you going to bring me the fucking salad, Arnold, or what?"

I realized later that I was wearing my stupid nametag. It was no miracle that Ruth knew my name. She was just toying with me, and it didn't end there.

She left her number on the credit card slip, and I tore it off before I turned in my checks at the end of the night. Her small, neat handwriting seemed to taunt me as I tucked it into my jean pocket – what the hell are you going to do with me? the phone number laughed in my face. Still, she had left it for me – no one had a gun to her head. But her motives worried me, and there was something else at tugging me, too. Helga, and the cloudy events of the night before.

I walked home the long way, past Helga's brownstone. Looking up at the windows on the top floor, I tried to remember which room was hers. I had been there once, taking care of her after I injured her with a baseball. I remembered holding an umbrella for her the next day, helping her with her obviously imagined 'amnesia'. I didn't mind the charade – she was nice to me for one day, the novelty was amazing. Helga and I as friends.

" You gave me your umbrella." She'd said this just as she started crying the night before. But she was talking about the day we met – back in pre K, when we drove up alongside her – a little girl in pigtails, walking in the rain without so much as a jacket. I'd never forget that look on her face when I let her slide under the umbrella, gave her the simplest compliment:

" I like your bow." She looked at me as if it was those were the first kind words that had ever been bestowed on her. I hoped that wasn't true.

A light went on in the third room from the left, and I slipped into the shadows and watched the window.

" Are you okay?" I whispered. Her shadow moved through the room, and my heart rate sped up – afraid of being caught spying, but another feeling suddenly came over me – I wanted to see her.

The light went out, and I walked home with my hands in my pockets. I felt the crafty slip of paper that had Ruth's number on it, and toyed with the idea of bringing it out and releasing it into the evening winds. But I didn't.

I don't have to wonder about regretting that.

^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^

I called Ruth two days later and asked her to meet me for coffee that weekend. I had a feeling that what she wanted from me wasn't caffeine and pleasant conversation – but I suggested the cozy premise of a coffee shop anyhow, hopeful. She agreed. I hadn't seen Helga since the night I'd spied on her bedroom window.

The coffee shop was crowded, and Ruth was two hours late. The only reason I bothered waiting was that I expected this from her – a test, to see how badly I desired her company. When she finally arrived she was wearing a tight, white tank top and a flowing black skirt. Bra-less, with a single silver bangle on her left wrist. I had a hard time excepting the fact that she was my date. I thought of Lila's Friday evening ensembles – a white and green checked long sleeve shirt, maybe, tucked into blue jeans with a brown belt. Pigtails, always.

" Well," Ruth threw her tiny purse on the table, and cigarettes and pens spilled out. " You're here." She sat across from me and rested her elbows on the table, head propped up in her hands.

" Um, Ruth-" I didn't have anything prepared.

" Arnold," she said, impatient, " I think you're extremely good looking, and the novelty is, you don't even know it," she sighed. " There are so few left. Would you like to dance?"

" It's a coffee shop, Ruth." I was beginning to wonder if I could handle her.

" Not here," she told me, standing.

We went to her "place", which was her parents old house on the upper-class side of town. Near Rhonda Lloyd's penthouse, it stood silent and abandoned, and inside the chairs and tables were covered with sheets.

" They're selling it," she explained, " I'm just crashing here until I leave for Amsterdam at the end of summer." She gave me a meaningful look: Don't get attached. I wasn't planning on it. The inside of the building reminded me of Rhonda's house, the prom party, her bathroom. I wanted to speak with Helga, but I didn't have the gall to call her.

Ruth gave me red wine and danced in front of an elaborate, dusty stereo system in the living room. She turned on the electric fireplace and kept the lights off, moving strangely to funky alternative music. A Garbage song came on, and she turned to me. I was sitting on the couch, sedated by alcohol. Wondering if this was becoming some sort of pattern – would I forget my roll in the hay with Ruth, too?

" I'm not like all of the other girls . . ." Ruth sang along with the song. And she wasn't. Ruth was otherworldly. Especially then, in the low light, her slim body moving through the melodies as if they were palpable. She reached for me, pulling me to my feet.

" Do you dance?" she asked, and I could smell the wine thickly on her words – she was drunk, too. " I find it abhorrent, men who don't dance." The word 'men' stuck in my head awkwardly – I still felt like a boy. I struggled to match her liquid movements, hiding the fact that I was a boy who attempted dance, but didn't know what he was doing. Ruth ignored my ineptitude, if she even noticed it, and flowed around me effortlessly.

She put on an inventive rap CD, and we made love on the sheet that covered her parents sofa. Drunk but still coherent, I had expected my first time to blow me away – and with Ruth McDougall, no less. But I felt jaded, not new. It was my mind's first experience, cruising through the motions of sex – but my body betrayed its innocence. It wasn't my first time – I remembered things in bursts as Ruth moved over me – Helga's bare shoulders, surprisingly delicate.

" Well," Ruth said afterward, climbing up from the sofa and standing, stretching her lovely body like a cat after a nap. " I'm starving." I stayed in my place on the couch, admiring her bare backside as she made her way into the kitchen, retrieving some grapes and cheese. She returned and we snacked together – it was almost cozy, and she told me about her professors at Brown, how pompous old age could make you.

" God," I muttered, looking outside at the pitch black sky that was breaking into morning – " What time is it?" She laughed.

" Have you ever been to Europe?" she asked, running a hand along my thigh. Her touch made me jerk unexpectedly now that I was sobering – the way she stroked me reminded me of Dr. No in the James Bond movies, petting his white cat, calculating.

" Europe – what?" Hadn't I just asked about the time?

" No one in Europe wears a watch," she said with a sigh, resting her head on the back of the couch. " You can leave whenever you like," she reminded me, without the slightest hint of concern.

I started getting dressed, blathering about my grandfather worrying about my whereabouts. Which was utter garbage – Grandpa slept soundly, even when I didn't return home before he turned in – he trusted me. Ruth remained seated, watching me carefully, her gaze causing me to slip and struggle with my jeans.

" You're holding back," she said gaily, a curious little smile spreading across her face, " You have a girlfriend?" she asked, hopeful. I was stopped in my tracks. I gave her a look, preparing to tell her that she was assuming out of nowhere.

" Yes," the word fell, clumsy, from my mouth. I thought of Helga. She would have slapped me.

" Ahhh," Ruth said slowly, amused. " Let me guess. Blond with blue eyes? Quiet? Perfunctory?"

I didn't know what perfunctory meant, but she was anything but quiet. The hair and eye color was dead on, but I shook my head anyway.

" No, no, nothing like that," I said, suddenly irritable.

" Hmm, defensive," Ruth said, pondering. " Then why run to me? If she's . . . worth defending?"

I wanted to shout that I didn't run to her, but instead:

" She's not speaking to me at the moment." Ruth laughed.

Walking home, I felt blasphemous. How ridiculous to think of Helga when I was telling Ruth I had a girlfriend. Why had I said that? I didn't want anything to do with Helga. The idea that we'd had sex – the fact, actually, that was surfacing slowly – repulsed me. To lose my virginity to Helga Pataki! When Ruth was right around the corner! I willed myself to shiver in disgust.

^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^

Graduation came shortly afterward, and I finally saw Helga, taking her diploma from the principal and walking indignantly from the stage. Phoebe was our valedictorian, and her speech was about 'growing up'. She was teary-eyed, and it was actually quite good. Lila, the class president, gave a speech as well.

" We've all made some mistakes," she gushed, and I heard a good number of people snicker maliciously. Lila was loved, but I was the original Golden Child, and most of our friends had sided with me. I tried to take some comfort in this, but I felt uneasy. I searched for Helga again in the sea of square, black hats, but couldn't find her. I had a strange, sinking feeling, and I rose from my seat in the middle of Lila's speech. Whispers arose, but I wasn't leaving because of hard feelings.

I walked from the chapel where the ceremony was taking place, toward the parking lot. Sure enough, she was there – leaning against the railing on the front steps. Helga, her hat in her hand, her robe unzipped and billowing like a poncho around the black dress she wore underneath. She eyed me as I emerged from the chapel, and frowned.

" Its over?" she asked.

" You were going to leave before commencement?" I asked her. She snorted, and I noticed the cigarette in her hand.

" Bob and Miriam had to bribe me with new tires for my car just to get me to come," she said with a phony grin, " What are you doing out here, anyway?" she asked, " Don't you have to give the Most Likely to Save the World from Itself Award acceptance speech or something?" I laughed darkly.

" You don't know me at all anymore," I said, realizing it only as I spoke the words.

" Is that so," she muttered, putting the cigarette to her lips. " Maybe you're right. You haven't told me that I'm killing myself yet."

" What?"
" With this," she said, blowing smoke rings and gesturing to the cigarette she held.

" Do you want me to?" I asked, " It's a nasty habit. Very unattractive." I thought of Ruth. Her smoking didn't bother me – it suited her. But I hated the taste on her lips.

Helga rolled her eyes, " I wasn't trying to attract you, so sorry to say." She threw the cigarette down and stamped it out on the steps of the chapel. " But you followed me out here, didn't you? What the hell for?"

Her words actually caught me by surprise – I had followed her, hadn't I? I wasn't sure why, so I let my question spill before I lost my nerve:

" Helga, what happened on prom night?" I asked, " In the . . . bathroom? Of Rhonda's house?" She laughed.

" It was obviously firsties for you," she said, feigning apathy, " Two-minute man. You sincerely don't remember?"

My cheeks burned red, " I – I remember bits of it – did we use anything?" I asked, my voice nearly breaking. I never thought I'd have to say something like that. I swore off drinking forever. (That didn't last).

Her face fell; she couldn't pretend that she didn't care. " I don't remember that much, either." She said slowly, " Just that – that it was horribly quick and uncomfortable." I pinched my eyes shut.

" Shit." A rumble of applause burst forth from inside the chapel – the hats were being thrown, graduation was over. I let go of my own cap – the wind blew it across the parking lot, a fledgling tumbleweed.

Helga clutched her stomach, " Don't . . ." she began, and trailed off. " Its not your fault," she said quickly. We walked down the steps and across the parking lot, escaping before the doors were thrown open, parents and graduates celebrating, carefree.

A/N: I realize I made Ruth a little smarter than the series did – I wrote this before I'd seen/heard about the Valentine's Day ep. And anyway . . . people can change, right? ^_~ Part 3 is done and will be up soon. ~ M