Tully

‘Five,’ said Julie. ‘But why were you so sure it was going to be a car?’

Because it’s what I always wanted, Jennifer thought, and wearily said so.

‘Going to St Mark’s, Jen? My grandmother wants me to take communion today.’

‘Not today, Jule, okay? I really gotta help clean up.’

They talked about Tully a little and hung up; afterwards Jennifer sat back down on the bed with hands folded on her lap and waited – until Robin called.

‘Jennifer, I want to take Tully out,’ said Robin.

Jennifer sighed. The only phone calls she had received were from Julie and now from Robin to ask permission to see Tully.

‘Go right ahead,’ said Jennifer. ‘By all means.’

Robin was pacing around his bedroom. He could tell Jennifer was not listening to him, and hated finding himself in a ridiculous position of having to confer with a seventeen – no, eighteen-year-old. But he remembered Tully’s face and sweet lips as she kissed him. He would have been delighted with her lips alone. The rest of their encounter confounded him. Robin felt vaguely that unwittingly and unknowingly, he was being sucked into some bottomless mire. That last night’s encounter with Tully felt like he had been had. With no choice in the matter. Simply sucked in, and had. Tully seemed like a mosquito in the summer that sucked just enough blood to feed itself but not to kill him, and when the mosquito was swollen and bloated with the little it took, it buzzed off, to digest Robin’s blood and then feed off some other poor slob. Still, Robin felt persisting for Tully was the right thing to do. It felt like the right thing to do.

‘Jen, can you help me out a little, please?’

‘What can I do for you, Robin?’

‘I want to take her out.’

There was a short pause.

‘What would you like me to say?’ said Jennifer.

What’s she like? Robin wanted to ask. Is there something about her I should know? Do you think I’m her type? Is there something that’ll scare me off her? But he already knew the answer to that one. She was scary as hell, devouring him as she did, on a whim, unexpectedly, and then patting him on the back, sort of like, good boy, Robin, good doggie, now sit. But all Robin asked was, ‘Well, is she going out with someone?’

‘No,’ said Jennifer. ‘But you are.’

Robin ignored her. Gail was strictly short-term.

‘She said her mother is sick. Is it a chronic thing?’

Another pause, slightly longer. Robin sighed into the phone. Dentist visits were easier than this.

‘Oh, it’s pretty chronic, all right,’ said Jennifer.

Robin was silent.

‘Robin,’ said Jennifer. ‘Tully is not the easiest person to take out, you know.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t know. I was hoping you’d tell me.’ Pause. ‘She told me to come in the afternoon to her house and take her for a drive,’ he said finally.

‘She did?’ Jennifer seemed to liven up.

‘Yes, uh-huh.’

Jennifer chuckled. ‘She didn’t mean it.’

Robin’s circular pacing around his bedroom speeded up.

‘How’s your dad?’ Jennifer asked him.

‘Fine, fine,’ he said. That was not strictly true, but he really did not want to talk about his dad at the moment. ‘What’s Tully’s dad like?’

‘He’s not,’ said Jennifer, ‘around.’

‘Not at all?’ asked Robin.

‘Not at all.’

‘Is he dead?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Jennifer.

‘How long has he been not around?’

‘Ten years,’ said Jennifer.

‘Jennifer, will you do me a favor?’

He heard Jennifer sigh. ‘Robin, I kinda gotta go. I’m expecting a phone call.’

‘Jennifer,’ said Robin. ‘If he’s going to call, trust me, he’ll call back – now please, would you?’

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Call Tully, find out if she really wants to see me again, and if she does, please find out the best way I can get to her. Can you do that for me?’

Jennifer quickly agreed, and they hung up. Robin sat quietly for a few moments. He was thinking of Tully, of the way she held on to him last night and of her soft needy moans. Then he inadvertently remembered how upset Gail was with him and how he meant to apologize. Robin thought of calling Gail up but decided against it. He did not want to be talking to Gail while he was thinking of Tully.

Tully was the first girl whose smell and taste and expression affected him enough to humiliate his date at a party for a mutual friend. Robin hoped Tully was worth it.

When Robin was twelve, six months before his confirmation and seven months before his mother’s death, he found out that he and his younger brothers were all adopted by Stephen and Pamela DeMarco from some adoption agency that had managed to palm off all three little male siblings to one set of parents. Sort of like a kitten litter. Robin had been three, Bruce a year and a half, and Stevie three months.

Robin had been looking for his birth certificate because he wanted to open his first savings account for the anticipated earnings from his confirmation. His adoption papers shattered him. Robin ran downstairs to his parents, wildly waving the certificate and crying ‘Why didn’t you ever tell us? Why? Why didn’t you ever tell me?’ The DeMarcos tried in vain to comfort their oldest boy. But for the next six months, young Robin went to school, worked his paper route, came home, ate dinner, did his homework, watched a little TV, and went to sleep. For six months, he hardly spoke to his mother and father. At his confirmation, he coldly kissed Pamela DeMarco and thanked her for going through the trouble of throwing him such a great party, even though he was not her son.

A month later, Robin’s mother died unexpectedly of congestive heart failure. Young Robin quickly forgave himself for not forgiving his mother in time. After graduating from high school, he went to work for his dad and proved himself to be a hardworking and smart manager. The family business prospered under Robin. Then money came his way. Money, good clothes, great cars. Robin worked, played soccer, and took in a great many women. He usually had his pick of most girls he met – and he met a great many girls. He was always courteous to them, but often he was not particularly sensitive. He spoke little of himself and regularly broke up with his girlfriends without letting them know about it; one day he would just start going around with a different girl and that seemed to say it all for him – what more was there to say?

Shying away from girls who were in touch with their feelings and wanting to talk all the time, Robin preferred those similar to his adopted mother: flashy, fair-haired, and private. Gail was nothing like his mother.

The phone rang again as soon as Jennifer put it down. She closed her eyes and let it ring three times before picking it up.

It was Tully. Jennifer sighed.

‘No, no, don’t worry,’ said Tully. ‘I know that you are glad to hear from me deep down.’