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Chapter Three

It's 3:52. Joe sees Benny waiting on the front steps of the Grill.

"Get out of here," Joe says to me. Benny's making him nervous.

I take my apron off, fold it into a square, and put it in my pocket. I open the door and stand on the top step.

"Come on," Benny says. He walks to the back of the Grill, where there's a trash house and a few crummy picnic tables. I follow, dragging my feet. The very first time Benny came by to pick me up at the Grill, he stepped down from the steps, stopped, and stared at me. He just stared and smiled.

"What?" I asked. "What is it?"

"You."

That's all he said. "You." Like that was all he ever asked for -- all he ever needed.

Now Benny sits on a table that has a broken leg. The table wobbles. Flies hover.

"Let's go down to the river," I suggest. I want to take his hand and pull him down the bank, through the tall grass. I want to sit underneath the rushing falls.

"I can't, Jocelyn," he says.

"Why not?" My voice is that of Evil Soap Opera Girl. Evil Girl pretends to be sweet and innocent while deviously luring Boy away from goodness. Viewers know that Evil Girl is a manipulative bitch. But Boy doesn't figure it out. He wants to be lured.

Not Benny, though. Not this time.

"You know what will happen if we go down to the river."

I know. I know that if I draw lines on Benny's fingers or pictures on his strong forearms, he'll sigh. And he'll pull me close, and he'll listen, or at least pretend to listen to my reasoning about love while his fingers find the softer parts of my body. I will tell him that wanting to touch each other is instinctive, that we are only expressing our God-given feelings.

But, Benny will say, the Church says it's wrong. Father Warren says it's wrong. I gotta listen to what The Man says. He'll raise his eyes toward heaven as if I have just slithered up from the bowels of the earth and have no idea who "The Man" is.

Truth is, I don't know if what Benny and I do is wrong. I just know that it makes me feel wanted. Like someone is so very pleased that I am here on this earth.

"I made a deal, Jocelyn." Benny's voice is far away. Another town. Another universe. He fingers the silver Saint Christopher's medal around his neck, a medal for protection. Protection from me. "In church this morning I made a deal."

"For your mother?" I ask. But I already know the answer. Benny swapped being with me for his mother's life.

Benny nods. "You know I want to be with you, Joss. I think you're fantastic. You -- God, this is so hard."

"Then don't do it, Benny. Don't do this to us."

"I have no choice, Joss." Benny puts his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.

And I have no answers. We tried being "just friends," but it didn't keep. One of us makes a move toward the other, and it's all over. I turn and head home.

"Jocelyn. Come back!"

Benny follows for a ways. I know that he wants this to end well. I can feel him stop and stand in one place, hoping I'll turn around so he can do something magnanimous, like kissing me on the forehead. Or touching me on the cheek. Somebody taught him sweet. I want to stop, I really do, but I can't bear to have him tell me good-bye. I don't look back. I keep walking. It isn't until the big white town houses with porch swings turn to cabins with multiple additions and hanging tires and the sidewalks bleed into gravel that I buckle over and gasp for air.

Copyright © 2005 by Jennifer Richard Jacobson