James Hynes - Next

Kevin inches forward.

“Lousy, frustrating, infuriating movie, because you want Gregory Peck to deck somebody, or shoot somebody, or at least take the girl he loves away from that bonehead Charlton Heston. Instead, he’s doing Atticus Finch, only with less balls.” Easy, thinks Kevin. “Meantime, I’m half-watching this goddamn movie, and half-watching the Philosopher’s Daughter nestled in the arms of this asshole who has no idea how lucky he is. And the thing is, she knows I’m watching her. She catches me at it, and she doesn’t look away. She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t smile, doesn’t frown, just watches me back until I can’t stand it anymore, and I have to look back at the screen. And that’s the moment I knew I was in love with her, and it’s also the moment when I knew that I was as big a pussy as Gregory Peck in that movie, because I was afraid to do anything about it.”

“So do something,” says Claudia unexpectedly. “Tell her.”

He’s surprised she spoke up, he’s half-certain he’s boring her senseless, but she’s leaning across the table, watching him intently.

“I did!” he says. “Eventually. I mean, even Gregory Peck rode off in the sunset with the schoolteacher. So after her boyfriend left for Europe, I ended up taking her out to see bands two, three times a week. I was working at a record store that summer and I used to get comp tickets, so I took her to see some pretty amazing stuff — U2, before they were really big, okay? But the thing is, these weren’t like dates, per se, it was more like, hey, I’ve got tickets to this thing, you want to go? And she always said yes. We used to go dancing all the time, too, sometimes at clubs, sometimes at parties at people’s houses we knew, and sometimes,” Kevin laughs, “sometimes we’d walk the streets near campus on a Friday or Saturday night until we found a big party, and just walk in. I mean, nobody cared, everybody was usually pretty drunk already, it was…” He’s lost in the memory for a moment.

“God, she was a great dancer!” He sighs. “This is going to sound really stupid, but she danced like Molly Ringwald in The Breakfast Club, back when Molly Ringwald was really something. Do you remember how she danced? She used to toss herself back and forth, like that.”

He almost demonstrates from his chair, but to his surprise, the thoracic surgeon nods.

“And one night we were at a party, dancing, drinking beer, and we went out on the porch of this house.” He pauses. “I don’t remember the address, but I could find it for you again, it’s still there, out on West Liberty, in the Old West Side. Won’t mean anything to you.” He waves his hand, clearing the air before him. “But that was the night I… That was the night we were… That was the night I decided to…” Pause. “Well, I didn’t decide anything, it just happened, because we were both really relaxed and happy, we’d both been drinking but we weren’t really drunk, we were just dancing without thinking about anything, brushing up against each other and touching and…”

Kevin can feel the mild midwestern heat of that summer, not like the stifling heat here in Austin. He can hear the crickets, the throb of the bass from the stereo inside the house, the cries of the dancers inside, the thump of their feet. He can see the Philosopher’s Daughter leaning against the porch railing in the dark, irresistibly silhouetted against the glow of a streetlight. He can see the red spark of her cigarette.

“We went out to take a break, to cool off, and she asked me, ‘Do you think I dance like a geek? Am I totally embarrassing myself?’ And I couldn’t help myself, so before I had a chance to think about it I said, ‘I love the way you dance. You’re adorable.’ God, I just…”

Twenty-five years after the fact, even in the Texas heat, Kevin’s blushing.

“Thing is, she had this way of watching you like she thought you were really funny, or really stupid, or stupid in a really funny way, and she’d laugh at you, but I didn’t care, because she had the loveliest laugh. I can’t explain it, but she was always watching you like she was right on the cusp of derision. But in a nice way, if that makes sense. And even in the dark on the porch, even when I couldn’t see her face, I knew she was watching me like that.”

Somehow in the heat, Kevin’s face feels cool again.

“So of course that’s when I told her I loved her. Just blurted it out.” Pause. “Dead silence.” The thump of the bass. The crickets. The Philosopher’s Daughter in exquisite silhouette, saying nothing. “They were playing the B-52s inside the house, ‘Rock Lobster,’ and everyone was chanting, ‘Down, down,’ and sinking slowly to the floor in a big tangle. Meantime, me, on the porch, having just handed my beating heart to this girl, I just stood there like an asshole, listening to dead silence from the girl I just said I loved.” Kevin stops.

“What happened?” says Claudia after a moment.

“Here’s the thing,” says Kevin hoarsely. “This is why I thought of this right now. This was my moment like the one with your father. This is why I brought this up. You know what she said to me?”

Claudia waits.

“She said to me, ‘Kevin,’ she said to me, ‘I don’t think I could love you.’ Bad enough, right? Under the circumstances.”

Claudia says nothing.

“Bear in mind, we’re in the dark, I can’t see her face, I can’t see her eyes. But she can see through me like a fucking x-ray. And if she laughs right now?” Kevin shakes his head. “But I’ll give her this much, she knew better than to laugh. Even she wasn’t that cruel.”

“What did she say?” Claudia says quietly.

“She asked me a question,” says Kevin. “She said, ‘Do you want to know why I don’t think I could love you?’ ”

Claudia gasps slightly.

“Exactly,” Kevin laughs. “Loaded question, right? I’m not as dumb as I look, so naturally I said, ‘No, not really. I’d actually rather you didn’t tell me that.’ ”

Claudia waits.

“And then she told me anyway.”

Claudia breathes out.

“She said, ‘I don’t think you’re capable of tenderness and passion.’ ”

Claudia winces.

“Yeah. Ouch, huh?”

“You just should have kissed her,” says Claudia.

“Thought of that,” says Kevin briskly. “Not right then, of course, not till it was too late. At the moment I was too busy bleeding to death. And anyway, if I was going to kiss her, it should have been before she told me that I had no soul, not after.”

“She shouldn’t have said that to you.”

“Maybe not,” says Kevin. “Unless it was true.”

“Was it?”

Kevin gasps, turns it into a weak laugh. I asked for that, he realizes, I left myself wide open. He feels a little spike of anger, but then he gave her the opportunity. And anyway, it’s just like him wanting to know what she did or didn’t do to that patient who died on her operating table.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I shouldn’t have asked that.”

“It’s a fair question,” says Kevin. “And it’s not like I haven’t asked it myself, every day of my life for the last, oh, quarter of a century.”

“Maybe you give her too much power.”

“I could say the same thing to you.”

Claudia gives him a sharp look. “That’s different. That was my father.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“You ever tell her?”

“Tell her what?”

“How she made you feel.”

Kevin shrugs. “I haven’t seen her in years. I don’t even know where she is anymore. And by now, what’s the point? I’m going to call her up all these years later, and say, hey, remember stabbing me in the heart and twisting the knife that night back in the eighties?” Kevin laughs. “She must be, what, forty-five now? Whatever she did to me, whether she meant to hurt me or not, by now she’s no doubt had the same or worse done to her.” He smiles ruefully. “Bombardier, it’s your karma.”