excerpt
Poodie took her arm and gestured
at the path. She frowned and shook her head in perplexity.
His smile radiated reassurance. The flush she had felt in the pool
and the dressing room would not go away. She took a hesitant step,
then another, and soon they were moving along the path that led to
the old Thorp place a half mile north.
At the doorstep of the cabin, Poodie turned his key in the lock
and the door swung open. In the dimming light she saw the order
and charm of the room. It was all right. She would go in. It would
be all right. In the golden shaft of sun, her shadow fell across the
bed and disappeared when he closed the door. She looked startled,
and he patted her arm as they sat on the edge of the bed. In a
moment, Marcie’s skirt and blouse were a soft pile on the chair and
her sandals were slipping to the floor. He was smiling, holding her
hand. She unbuttoned Poodie’s shirt. They settled back. The cabin
was growing darker, and Poodie smiled down at her.
The sun was gone when she dressed. Leaving, she kissed Poodie
on the forehead, put a finger to her lips and said, “Shhh.”
Poodie lay thinking about Mildred. Ah, Millie; another swimmer,
Marcie’s age, short, with black hair, and eyes the color of a twilight
sky. At the school for the deaf, Millie and Poodie often stayed
behind after team practice, swimming extra laps, One evening, the
student in charge of the natatorium left to study for a test, asked
them to close for the night, and they found themselves alone. They
sat talking in sign language on a corner of the pool, legs dangling in
the water, now and then touching. Their hands went exploring.
He led her into the pool office and onto the couch. He was seventeen.
When he took the train east, Millie was on the platform,
smiling beneath her little straw hat, tears on her cheeks. They
promised letters. In the Thorp’s cabin, he wrote eight pages, looking
up now and then to see the lean pickers from Arkansas on the
front step singing about home to the quiet chords of a guitar. She
never answered. He wondered where Millie was, who she married,
how many children she had.
Libros Libertad 