Tell Tail
They’d already
gone through all of the boring questions you’d expect to hear on a first date
over dinner. Where are you from? What do you do? Oh? What’s that like? What do
you like to do on weekends? Where did you graduate? What’re your favorite
movies? What are your favorite books? What music do you listen to? And the other
tedious questions that tempt a person to eat the garlic bread that is calling
so tantalizingly to be paired with that plate full of spaghetti, but could tarnish
a goodnight kiss.
But now, as they
lay on the hood of Tim’s dark green car gazing up at the stars in one of those
little dirt service roads that run through the middle of cornfields, he propped
his head with an elbow to face her and said, “So tell me about your first kiss.”
“Well,” Anna
smiled and did that thing girls do where they stroke their hair behind an ear
and make guys want to feel it for themselves. “It’s not that exciting a story.
I didn’t have one of those horribly awkward near misses or anything.”
“Uh huh?”
“When I was
fourteen, I went to summer camp. A bunch of us went by the fire pit after
dinner one night to play truth or dare in the dark. This guy I liked picked
dare. So they said he had to carry me into the woods and couldn’t come back for
five minutes. Ended up being more like fifteen.”
“Ooooh,” Tim
teased.
“And you?”
“Oh, mine was awful.
Sophomore in high school. I had a crush on this girl who always ate lunch in a
tree. One day she fell out, broke her leg and I kissed her in front of
everybody after helping her up. She started crying and one of the football
players carried her to the nurse’s office.”
“You’re lying.”
“Yep.” He paused
long enough for her to raise her eyebrows before starting over. “I really was a
sophomore in high school and I really did have a crush on a girl who ate lunch
in a tree. But it was me who fell while trying to join her. She jumped down and
held her ice pack to the back of my head for a bit, so I just sorta leaned in.”
Anna laughed. “And
what broke you two up?”
“She got cast as
Juliet in the school play and dumped me for the guy playing Mercutio.”
“Ouch.”
“High school,” Tim
shrugged. “He was Mercutio and I was the guy with fifty toy alligators.”
“Fifty?” She
raised an eyebrow, incredulous.
“More now.” Tim
tapped the decrepit car’s hood with an almost childlike smile, “This is Propagator.”
Anna blinked.
“Hold on a sec…” He
dusted the flakes of old paint off his hands, jumped off the hood and scampered
to the rear door of the car. After a moment of rummaging through binders and
spare backpacks, he emerged with a plastic alligator with wide-open jaws and the
letters I-N-S-T-I written on its stomach in black Sharpie. “And this is Instigator.”
“What does he
instigate?”
Tim made
Instigator face her and let his voice go flat as he said, “So this is that date
you met online?” Instigator turned from Anna, back to Tim, and back again
before settling on Tim. “She doesn’t like you. She thinks you’re an overgrown
toddler.”
Tim squeezed
Instigator’s jaws shut between a thumb and a forefinger. “Shuddup.”
“Huh… So you just
keep plastic alligators in your car?” she thought for a moment before deciding with
an internal shrug that it was more cute than weird. If she were the type to
regularly use wordplay, she’d categorize it as adorkable.
“Not always.
Sometimes I have a hand puppet or a stuffed animal.” He put Instigator on the
hood.
The stars were
bright without any clouds to obstruct them, and the moon was in that crescent
shape that looks like the outline of a closed eyelid. A light breeze whispered
through the corn stalks and crickets passed rumors around in a constant buzz.
After a few
minutes of silence, Tim said, “So you mentioned earlier that you have a
brother. Are you close?”
“He’s a real piece
of work,” she said. “You know, when he was around six, he managed to stick a
live cockroach as long as your thumb to the kitchen floor with plastic packing
tape, and then sat back to watch and see who would round the corner first and
step on it. I suppose it’s not a surprise that his idea of pest control a
decade later was to pour half a bottle of rubbing alcohol on a fire ant mound
and set it alight.”
“He sounds like a
charmer.” Tim smoothed his short, light hair back from a prominent widow’s
peak- a motion that suggested that he’d worn it longer in the past.
“Haven’t seen him
in like two years. By now, that pet scorpion of his will be gone I suppose.
What’s your brother like?”
“My older brother
had me completely convinced that our house was built over the grave of a
murderer and that he was going to beat his way through the floor of my
bedroom.”
“Aren’t brothers
the best?”
“Well, the younger
one gave me an alligator soap dispenser when I graduated from college.” Tim
watched the blinking lights of an airplane cross the sky and released one of
those sighs that Anna could feel hum through the hood of the car. She shifted a
bit and tilted her head slightly towards him to avoid resting it on the little
jet that shoots cleaner at the windshield.
“Let me guess,”
Anna joked, “Exfoligator?”
“Nope. That’s the
loofah.”
“Right. Of course,”
she smirked.
“Obviously.”
“Clearly.”
“Naturally.”
“How could I have
thought otherwise?” Anna swept the back of her hand to her forehead like an
actress fainting in a silent movie.
“Not a clue.”
“Ever try to get a
pet gator?”
Tim shook his
head. “My yard’s too small and I don’t think Murphy would have liked the
arrangement.”
“And Murphy is…?”
“She was my
big-assed bunny,” he replied matter-of-factly.
“You had a bunny?”
Anna sat up and gave him a disbelieving stare.
“Uh huh.”
“You?”
“Yep.”
“Not a bearded
dragon? Or an iguana? Of all the things to keep as a pet, you chose a
salad-eating alligator snack?”
Tim grinned
boyishly. “She had goofy ears.”
Anna let out one
of those laughs that some guys think is annoying, but the good ones find
adorable.
“What?”
“You’re such a
child.”
“I’m older than
you,” he said a bit more defensively than he intended.
“I know,” her
giggles subsided. “It’s cute.”
“You say that
now…” he joked-or he hoped he did. He’d gone out with a freshman while he was
in grad school; she’d dumped him with those words.
Tim picked up
Instigator again and made the toy gator whisper loudly, “That’s why he keeps
asking about you when you were younger. He’s still such a child himself, he’s
only trying to relate.”
Tim flicked
Instigator on the nose and said with a mock glare, “I told you to shut up.”
Anna studied his
face for a moment, waiting for him to say something more, but his gray-green
eyes stared so fixedly at the sky that the moon’s reflection was clearly
defined on the irises. After several seconds, she shrugged and lay back on the
hood. The silence stretched on. Anna twirled a lock of hair around a finger
until it stayed in a tightly wound curl. She glanced at Tim again, but he
seemed entranced by the night sky, so Anna scanned the stars for the few
constellations she knew.
She’d found the
Big and Little Dippers and was picking out the last few stars of Orion when Tim
continued as if their conversation hadn’t come to an awkward halt. “What were
you most scared of as a kid?”
Anna thought for a
moment. “Ummm… I don’t know.”
“Yeah you do.”
“Well I don’t know
about ‘most,’” Anna frowned. “But growing up, we had a cottage on a lake in the
woods. All of the running water came from this pump anchored to the bottom by
this white plastic lawn chair.” She felt the hair on the back of her neck rise
at the memory of treading water over that stupid chair. “It always looked like
a skeleton tied down there by giant leeches and I was always afraid to swim
over it. Still gave me the shivers when I was there 3 years ago.” Anna had told
herself she would swim down and touch it that summer. She never did.
Anna found herself
faced again by Instigator, who seemed to stare at her for a moment before
saying in his flat monotone, “That’s stupid.” The plastic gator turned to Tim
and continued. “She’s scared of a chair. She’s stupid.”
Tim glared at the
toy, but there was a joking glint in his eye. “Shut up, Instigator, or you’re
going back in the car.”
“Why gators?” Anna
asked.
“What do you
mean?”
“What’s the
appeal?”
“I like gators.”
“What about
crocodiles?” she prodded.
“No! No
crocodiles. Just gators.”
“You’d like Texas
then. About an hour from where I grew up, there’s a state park where the main
attraction is a walking path around a swamp that’s crawling with alligators.
There’s no fence, so sometimes the gators sun themselves by lying right across
the path so nobody can get by.”
“That’s cool.”
“And there’s a
nature center there where you can pet baby alligators too. It’s a fun spot.”
“Florida’s even
better,” Tim said. “There’s a guy there who will bring five-foot-long
alligators to your pool party for less than two hundred bucks.”
“That sounds
fantastic actually,” Anna mused.
“What was your
favorite birthday party growing up?”
“My favorite
birthday party…” She thought for a moment and absently scratched at the peeling
paint on the hood. “Favorite… birthday party…” The slightly sharp edges of the
paint flecks and the roughness of the rust underneath reminded her of the old
bike that had always leaned against the back of her grandparents’ garage. The
one that nobody had ridden for decades. “Probably when I turned eleven. We had
games set up in front of our house and a stray puppy wandered into our yard. I
didn’t see him until my dad had picked him up, and my parents didn’t have the
heart to tell me in front of everyone that he wasn’t a present. So we got to
keep him. Mom and Dad told me years later that they tried to find out if he
belonged to anyone behind my back, but nothing turned up.”
“What did you name
him?”
“Kelev. It’s the
Hebrew word for ‘dog.’”
“Cute.”
“Well what about
you?” Anna asked, “Any special birthday memories?”
“Not really. Mine’s
so close to Christmas that it kinda gets overshadowed. Plus it’s always been in
finals week or during winter break when everyone goes home.”
“Mine gets pretty
much forgotten when it happens to coincide with Election Day.”
“That sounds
pretty awful. At least mine is blotted out by candy and fat men in costumes.”
“What makes you so
sure mine isn’t? It’s right after Halloween, you know.”
Tim laughed.
“Touché.”
“What was the best
Halloween costume you’ve done?” Anna asked.
“I was Calvin and
Hobbes once. I turned my hair yellow, wore a red and black striped t-shirt, and
had a giant stuffed tiger.”
“Sweet.” Anna
smiled, remembering the stuffed animal collection she’d had when she was
little. There were so many of them that the miniature hammock on the wall
struggled to contain them. She sometimes regretted only having two left.
“What was your
best one?”
“I was the
headless horseman for three years in a row. I made a fake set of shoulders out
of a baseball cap and two coat hangers, and put a shirt and a cape on top.
Nobody could even tell it was a girl under there.”
“How long did it
take to put that together?”
“From idea to a
finished costume? Fifteen minutes? Probably less. As long as you’ve got enough
black clothes in your wardrobe, it’s the easiest costume out there.”
“Doing it again
this year?” Tim asked.
“No. It’s time for
something new. And maybe a bit less manly.” Three years was more than enough of
a lesson in how it smells to keep breathing the same air with a shirt over her
face for hours.
“You’re not gonna
go from badass to one of those Playboy bunny things that stampede Greek Row
every year are you?”
“No…”
“Okay, good. That
would be a shame.”
A shame? Anna
frowned and resisted the urge to look over her reflection in the windshield. She
covered her pause by grabbing Instigator off the hood and deepening her voice
to say, “Why’s that? You think she’s not pretty enough to pull it off?” It felt
oddly natural to voice a toy animal again after ten years or however long it
had been. She turned Instigator to face herself and continued. “He doesn’t
think you’d make a good slutty bunny. He thinks you should stick with the
costume that covers your face.”
“Don’t listen to
him,” Tim said. “Halloween’s supposed to be scary.”
“What’s scary
about Calvin and Hobbes?” Anna asked.
“What’s not scary
about a smartass little kid with a pet tiger?”
“Fair point.”
“Also, it’s one of
the only recognizable costumes that I can pull off without wanting to jump off
a building. You know,” Tim said with the amount of disgust that is usually
attributed to food poisoning or flesh eating bacteria, “I once had a high
school girl tell me I looked like Edward Cullen.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was awful.”
“To be fair,” Anna
teased, “you’re closer to thirty than twenty, and could still pass for a
college freshman.”
“Oh, shuddup.”
“You have some
special laser that zaps the age off your face?”
“No. I’m a geek.
We spend all of our time indoors where the sun can’t find us to send updates.”
“I see,” Anna
said. “I guess that explains why you never grew out of your toy animal
collection.”
Tim feigned
indignation. “Are you this mean on all of your first dates?”
“Yep,” Anna tapped
him on the nose with a finger.
“Shame. I was
wondering why you’re single…”
“Ooh, burn.” She
grinned.
“Is there anything
else I should know on the subject?”
“Of why I’m
single?”
“Yeah.”
“Well,” Anna
started twirling her hair again in a slow, consistent motion that seemed more
like an old habit than a conscious decision. “I was with this guy who came to
study here for a year, but he’s gone back to Sweden. We’re still friends, but
neither of us wanted to do the long distance thing.”
“Yeah. Long
distance sucks.”
“So whatever could
cause a gator-obsessed electrical engineer to be single?”
“We’re an acquired
taste,” Tim shrugged. “And my ex’s mother was constantly introducing her to
Jewish bachelors when we weren’t together.”
Anna winced.
“Subtle.”
“Yeah. It did
strain things a bit.”
“I bet.”
“So what about
you? Have any crazy old boyfriends?”
“No. Not like
that,” Anna mused. “But I did have this crush once who I knew was a complete
loser and was fed up with myself for liking him. I’d known him for a year, so
to snap myself out of it, I pushed all of his buttons at once. Nothing mean-
just little things like correcting his grammar, making references to shows he
doesn’t watch, putting my hat on his head, and sticking my tongue out. Yeah. I
think that was all of it. Anyway, he dropped off the surface of the earth and I
didn’t see him again for more than two years.”
“And?”
“He got fat.”
Tim snorted.
“Ouch.”
“It was weird- I
was so used to him being a skinny guy, and now he has an extra chin.”
“That’s
fantastic.”
“Same issues, same
buttons, same sense of style; just a couple sizes larger.”
“And what’s your
sense of style?” Tim asked. “Not now,” he added, taking in her fringed black
skirt and bright red tank that was embossed with the pattern of a lacey bra
underneath. He hoped Propagator’s ‘skin condition’ wasn’t going to wreck her
clothes. Maybe he should have brought something to spread out on the hood. “I
mean as a little kid.”
“Oh, I was bona
fide fashionista,” Anna said. “When I was two or three, I would dump my
brother’s Tinker Toys on the floor and put my feet in the empty cans. They were
the hottest boots around. There’s actually a picture of me that has them in an
ensemble including a Simba nightgown and a plastic hard hat.” She sat up so she
could stare down at him. “Top that.”
“I can’t. But I
still carry a Ninja Turtles backpack. It actually looks like a turtle shell.”
“That’s still
pretty cool. Can’t outgrow it. I still remember curling my toes under when my
feet got bigger than the Tinker Toy cans. I was so disappointed when I couldn’t
wear them anymore.”
“I would be too.”
“Yeah…” Anna sighed
forlornly and sank back down. After a few beats of silence, she turned to face
him. She mentally traced the outline of his profile; the slight cleft in his
chin; the defined jaw line that was sharp enough to be called square, but still
had enough of a curve to it to lend him a boyish charm; the sharp cheekbones
running under gray-green eyes set deep enough to be surrounded by raccoon-like
shadows in the wrong lighting; the thick, light brown brows that narrowed
suddenly into a dainty curve; the straightedge of a nose with its own hint of a
cleft; the dimples that made an almost imperceptible twitch at whatever he was
thinking about. “Tell me a secret.”
“A secret?” Tim turned
and suddenly his eyes were very close.
“A really
embarrassing secret.”
“Umm…”
“Yep. The one
that’s making you blush right now.” Her brown eyes glittered in the dark and
her red lips slowly spread into a smile.
“Well…” He could
feel his ears starting to match her lipstick.
“Come on. I won’t
laugh.”
“I… uh…” Tim tried
to avert his gaze without moving, but she was too close, and everywhere he
looked, from where her curls rested against her slender neck, to the glinting
opal studs that were just visible between the strands, to her forehead which
was slightly wrinkled by a single raised brow, brought him back to her eyes
that teased from between mascara coated lashes that flared outward like an open
zipper. “A few years ago… I named my penis Invagigator.”
There was a silent
stillness Tim could have sworn lasted at least ten minutes before Anna’s left
eyebrow joined the right one near her hairline and she bit her lower lip,
restraining herself to only a few giggles.
“You said you
wouldn’t laugh.”
“Trying my best,”
she visibly forced her face to something like straight.
“Alright. Your
turn.”
“Okay,” Anna said,
and paused to keep from cracking up before continuing. “When I was little, my
parents told me that the cream inside of Oreos make your eyes feel better if an
eyelash gets stuck there. It happened a lot and they were tired of me screaming
when there wasn’t actually anything there. So when I was in first grade, this
boy found me lying on the floor with Oreos on my face and called me stupid in
front of everyone, so I snuck back into the classroom during recess and peed on
what I thought was his backpack, but it was actually his friend’s.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. The teacher
spent the rest of the afternoon trying to figure out who did it and made us all
sit silently and wait for someone to fess up.”
“Did they ever
find out?” Tim asked.
“You’re the first
person I’ve ever told.”
“In fifteen
years?”
“Yup. I got so
used to having to hide a dirty little secret that I didn’t say anything even
after I wouldn’t have gotten punished.”
“That’s awesome.”
He smiled, a naturally carnivorous smile with incisors that extended a little
past their neighbors and prominent canines rooted a little out of line with the
rest and ending in surprisingly sharp points. He must not have chewed on ice as
a child.
“I’ve got another
question,” Anna said.
Tim’s face was
still only inches away. The gray-green eyes blinked. “Do I want to know?”
“I’m just
wondering…” There was a mischievous glint in her eyes. “Your OkCupid account’s
personality rating made me laugh.”
“What about it?” Tim
asked as the blood rushed back to his face.
“Are you really
about fifty percent less sex-driven and spontaneous than the average twenty-six
year old?”
“Uh, I dunno.” He
felt long, slender fingers that belonged on piano keys, run through his hair,
and the distance between them suddenly closed.
Anna felt his
startled hesitation before returning the kiss. She couldn’t help thinking, “Engineers.
They think they’re so clever, but put a girl in their arms at any age and they
don’t know where to start.” She let the thought drift away as a big hand slid
down her back and pulled her close.
They were
interrupted when Tim’s phone vibrated in his pocket and then started playing a horrible
electronic rendition of Maynard Ferguson’s “It’s the Gospel Truth.” He took the
phone out and read the caller ID. Gary.
“You gonna get
that?” Anna ran her finger along his jaw line, and his dimples deepened in a
smile.
“It’s my PhD adviser.”
“Past midnight?”
“He never does
that.” Tim answered the phone. “Yeah? …No. Why?” The smile vanished and he sat
up with a jolt. “What!” The color drained from his face. “Okay. I guess I’ll
call you tomorrow.”
He hung up.
A strong breeze
gasped through the cornstalks as Tim put the phone back in his pocket.
“Is something
wrong?” Anna asked.
“Yeah…” Tim said,
dazed. “Um, this is gonna be really weird. I, uh, can’t go home tonight. The
whole neighborhood’s blocked off.”
“What’s going on?”
“I live too close
to the lab.”
Anna frowned,
confused. “So?”
He blinked a few
times. “It’s on fire.”
