What I Really Think of You, стр. 29

“Inside are little almond cookies,” Jesse told me. “You take the tissue off and make it into a tower, like this.”

He finally got the tissue folded so it could stand.

“What you do is light it,” he said, “and make a wish. If it goes all the way to the ceiling, you get your wish. Halfway, you half get it. If it fizzles out on you and doesn’t rise, you don’t get your wish.”

He helped me fix one with his tiny hands. We built two, and then he struck a match.

They both went up together, all the way.

“Do you want to know my wish?” he said. “I wished you’d go to a party with me.”

“Well, I will,” I said, and Jesse just laughed, throwing his head back, his eyes shut, face lit up like someone slain in the spirit. “Don’t you even want to know where it is, who’s giving it?”

I shrugged, and he reached out and hugged me once with his arm. “Oh, Opal … What’d you wish?”

“I wished we could get out of here,” I said.

“We can!” he laughed. “Come on.”

When I tell you what I really wished, you won’t laugh.

But right then and there you would have.

“Opal Ringer,” Mum said to me once, “you think about them too much. You think they think about you? You think about them, but they don’t think about you, so now you’re lopsided, honey. You got to straighten yourself out.”

“I know it,” I said.

I knew it.

He carried both our shoes under his arm, after we tried walking on the too-soft sand in them. His tie was hanging down and flying in the wind, sweet face, and I would have said I don’t think we should while we were already going ahead because we couldn’t stop ourselves.

His coat was around my shoulders and I was holding the empty sleeves thinking of them filled with his flesh and bones, hanging on to me like I hung on to them.

He said, “What sign are you, Opal?”

“You mean astrology?”

“Yes. I’m a drawer straightener. That’s what Bud calls Virgos.”

“Bud calls them that?” I said. “What does that mean?”

“That we’re fussy or something. You know Bud. He’s always got some smart remark.”

“One day he told me I had real pretty eyes,” I said. “He said, Opal, you’ve got real pretty eyes. …” And someday …

Jesse just shrugged.

I said, “I wonder when he’ll be back. Will he come back this summer?”

“Who knows?” Jesse said.

I felt happy thinking about Bud, walking with Jesse on the sand by the ocean, those two the only boys I ever cared anything about, mixing them up in my mind sometimes, like they were one person. Even though it wasn’t true I sometimes felt I knew Bud better, knew Bud’s heart, from knowing how he was with V. Chicken.

Jesse asked me again what sign I was.

“I’m Pisces, born February 28th,” I said, “but Daddy says astrology is from the anti-Christ. Says we shouldn’t look up our forecasts in the newspaper because it’s Satan’s talk.”

“Do you believe that?”

“I believe in The Rapture,” I said.

“Do you really, Opal?”

“Sure, don’t you?”

“I haven’t figured out what I believe in.”

“We shall all be changed, the Bible says. I believe that.”

Jesse made his voice real deep and mysterious sounding, quoting from the Bible, “‘Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.’”

“That’s right!” I said. “When we meet Jesus in the sky! I believe in that.”

“I wish I could.”

“You can. You just believe. Mum says you go to heaven without even dying when The Rapture comes.”

“How does your mum feel about astrology?”

“Same way he does. It’s from the anti-Christ.”

“That party I just mentioned? It’s a dinner party at the Cheeks’. You have to wear a hat that represents your zodiac sign.”

“How come?”

“The theme of the dance this year is The Zodiac. The dinner’s before the dance. Have you ever been to the dance? I haven’t.”

“What dance you talking about?”

“Have you heard of The Last Dance? I’m inviting you if you want to go, Opal. Do you dance? Do you want to go?”

“Do I want to go? I wanted to go to that thing my whole life!”

“Now you’re going.”

“Now I’m going!”

We ran like fools, I swear my feet ran on the air with the earth down below me, and by the time we stopped, we were past the dunes and up to where the car was parked. I panted like an old dying dog, caught my breath, and felt my heart hammer; well, go ahead, hammer now, you got a good reason for once, told myself.

He leaned against the car, out of breath too.

“I’ll brush your feet off,” I said and he caught me before I could bend over to do it.

“You do yours. I’ll do mine. It’s almost nine o’clock.”

(“Have her back by nine,” Mum said when we left the house. I said, “Moo,” and she gave me a look.)

When we got inside the car our breaths came back finally, and I felt so lonely and happy, let my hand next to him stay free on the seat beside us, wondering when he’d take it.

I said, “What did you really think of me the first time you ever saw me?” I even shut my eyes. Darling … Someday … I waited, hear a pin drop.

Next thing I knew the car motor was going, he was looking over his shoulder and backing out. “I thought you looked embarrassed because we’d come to the healing.”

“Embarrassed? Is that your name for it?”

You never know what you’re going to say or do. You never see behind things. You never know what you really wanted when things were going on, later told yourself well, what I wanted was for him to kiss me, for him to be Bud, say my name a hundred times, lips on the flesh of my cheeks, but that doesn’t mean you really did right then and there. That’s what amazes me.

After that, Jesse Pegler called me a few times at the