The Bus (part three)

The Bus (parts one and two)
http://borneback.blogspot.com/2010/11/bus.html
http://borneback.blogspot.com/2010/12/bus-part-two.html

Part Three

The next time I saw her was at a party at Ryan's house. Ryan was my only real friend in town; we hung out most of the time. We had some stuff in common, I mean we listened to the same music and neither of us were really into video games, but it was mostly because his father was an artist and my father was an English teacher. His father was a potter. He had a little studio behind their house which was just around the corner from our house. The house was big and red, with a front porch that was wood but built on a foundation of river stones, all different sizes fit together to create this swirling effect.

Ryan was played pee-wee football, and was going to try out for the high school J.V. team, which was cool, but I didn't know what it meant as far as our friendship, because I wasn't going out for any teams. Maybe track, but probably not. I didn't go for any of the team sports.; I didn't like much of anything that I was forced to do with other people.

I'd seen "Breaking Away," and that summer my father and I took our bikes out for a ride. He had an old ten speed orange Raleigh from the seventies, and I had a BMX bike that Ryan and I liked to jump off a ramp that his father built for us sometimes. I had also read a book about bicycle racing and I guess I thought maybe it was something I could be good at.

So we went out for a ride. First, down by the river, to where the railroad tracks and the highway passed over it, and to the end where the farmhouse stood, guarding the rows and rows of corn behind it. Then back, and we weren't tired so we kept going. We rode all the way to Walton, over the highway and the state routes. We stopped once and shared an energy bar and the one bottle of water we'd brought with us. That was when we decided that we had gone far enough that we might as well keep going, because to turn back would be the same distance anyway and there's no point going backwards when you can just move forward.

So we rode to Walton, up and down the rolling hills, past the reservoir, and on the hills I would have to stand up and do the biker's dance that I'd read about, swaying from side to side, standing on my pedals, pushing myself harder and harder to keep up because my bike had no gears. And when we got to Walton, we went straight to the diner because we were starving and I ordered a Lumberjack's special and ate the whole thing in about three minutes, and when it was time to pay, my father realized he hadn't brought his wallet with him, so he went outside to call my mother from the pay phone, and she came to get us. I guess Dad had asked her to drive down the river to the farm house first, to see how far our whole trip had been, and when she got there she yelled at us for being so stupid, for biking 35 miles with no wallet and hardly any water, but I could tell that secretly she was a little proud, of me and Dad both.

But in September, Ryan would try out for the J.V. football team, and make it. He would hang out with the kids on the football team, at practice and they'd have party's on the weekend, and maybe we'd still see each other sometimes, do homework together on weeknights, jump our bikes off the little wooden ramp, but it wouldn't be the same. I wouldn't go out for a time, because it's not like the Deposit Middle-Senior High School had an bicycle racing team, or a rock climbing team, or a hiking team. I would just be Mr. Rastelli's son, from New York City.

In September things would change, but it was July, and Ryan was having a party and he was my best friend. When I got there, I went straight to the basement and there she was, sitting on the torn out bus seat. She was wearing a little plaid skirt and little black fishnet leggings that went up to the middle of her thigh, but the way she was sitting I could see about three inches of skin between where her fishnets ended in a band of solid black and her skirt started and I thought it was just about the most incredible thing I had ever seen. I grabbed a beer from the mini fridge under the stair case and said hi to Ryan. She hadn't seen me yet. I leaned in to him and whispered, "What's she doing here?" Ryan smiled at me like he had a big secret and said, "Dude, I told her we were having a party. I thought you'd be into her. You know she fucking asked about you? I mean I know you've been checking her out all fucking summer, but you could get some tonight." I took a sip of my beer. Then I took another sip, a bigger one. "Well, thanks, man," I said.

And then I grabbed another beer from the fridge and went outside, behind the pottery shed. I leaned back against the wall and slid to the floor, and chugged the first beer and then I opened the second one and I drank most of that, too. I lit a cigarette and smoked slowly, blowing the smoke up into the summer sky, watching the stars and finishing my beer. I stood up slowly, walked back to the house, down to the basement, grabbed another beer and sat down next to Chris. She was still on the bench, alone, staring around at the little clusters of people drinking in dark corners of the basement, that half smile drawing the left corner of her lips slightly up, wrinkling her eyes just a little bit, this devilish, aloof grin. I was starting to get a little drunk. I put my hand on her thigh, where the black elastic met her bare leg. "Hey," I said. "Nice to see you." She looked sideways, smiled and said, "you too. Nice shirt." I was wearing the same Smashing Pumpkins shirt I'd been wearing at the football field the day we met. "Get you a beer," I asked? "No," she said, "I'm good." I took another sip of mine and looked down at the ground. I was really pretty buzzed and bummed that I was dumb enough to wear the same fucking shirt I'd worn the first time we kissed, even though I had no clue she'd be there at the party. Then I realized my hand was still on her leg, and I could feel her skin and it was warm and my hand started to sweat as I realized how close I was to her, and I went to pull my hand away but she grabbed it, and put it back where it was and kissed me hard on the lips.