Oh, Carol-Ann, I thought, you’re nice, you’re pretty, you deserve someone who’s simply crazy about you.
Like Lloyd.
Like Lloyd had been about me.
For example:
One “Christmas Eve,” when I had “stomach thingy,” he “called in sick,” yelling at “Sergeant Blue” that, yes, “for crap-sake,” he knew they were “short-staffed due to the holidays,” but what “the hey” did that have to do with the fact that “his wife, man” (who Blueknewand, Lloyd had always thought,liked,having met her that time at “bowling alley”) could “barely stand the hell up?” No, sorry, Blue could “shove it,” if that’s what it came down to, no disrespect intended, sir, but gosh! Then Lloyd slammed the phone down, came over, lifted me up off the couch like I was a baby, sat back down on it with me in his arms, and tenderly put his lips to my head to see if I was still burning up.
Lost in this memory, I stopped short, causing Carol-Ann toclip-clip-clipdespairingly away down the driveway, taking the orb of her thoughts with her.
I was alone now, just myself, out in the world, free as the breeze.
—
And soon became aware of a powerful energy.
Like a beckoning call.
Emanating from inside the wedding-house.
From a sort of pantry in there.
In Iwhisked.
The bride and groom had snuck away, and he had her pushed into a corner and they were laughing at how long it was taking for her to hike up her voluminous—
This was not the first time they hadever.
But it was the first time they wouldtoday.
Doing it in the pantry like this, during the reception, was, they felt, proof of the daring, special, epic love-bond between them.
As long as they (yikes) didn’t get caught.
In it went. She gasped. From the kitchen came a sound, and they laughed (oh God, this wastoogood,toomemorable), and out it came, and the groom hustled off into the kitchen to fend off two snooping-around old ladies, by offering to show them the honeymoon brochure, if only he could find the darned thing, señoras, oh, wait, he knew where it was, it was in his jacket, out there in the reception, hanging over his chair at the main table, ladies, so please, come on, follow me!
Oh, the secret thrill of sneaking away.
Oh, the joy of someone wanting you so bad.
Lloyd (muddy “head to toe,” just having finished “sled run number 6”) flings “cardboard sled” away like it’s no longer interesting, given that, you know, hereIam, and his eyes light up with love, love forme,and he picks me up and totes me on his hip over behind the Sinclairs’ “garden shed,” while back on “patio,” “the gang” oohs and whoops and makes “smooching noises” and he whispers, “Jillie, kid, I want to give you what you really want,” which I find sort of risqué or racy, to which I go, “Oh, really, Mister Man, maybe this isn’t exactly the right time and place?” and his voice goes all soft, like: “Not that, kiddo, no. Well, yes to that, sure, any old time, but what I meanis, well: what you said you really wanted and have been bugging me about since basically day one? I just wanted to tell you that, you know, I’m ready. Whenever you are.”
Which, what that meant was: a baby.
Oh, dang, I could’ve ate that guy alive.
Eek, I was rounding a critical bend now and, tell the truth, felt a tad bit more Jill than not.
And was loving it!
Against my better judgment, just one more:
On “twin bed,” in little bedroom, in “duplex,” on “Crowne Street,” we tried and tried as, in through “open window” came (depending on “direction of wind”) “rose-scented breeze” or “garbage-stink” from “alley,” or, if “no wind at all,” it could be “hot as all get-out,” but “little did we care”! All that glorious summer we tried, doing it “every which way,” but it hardly seemed like “trying” for the sheer heat-sweaty lovely, longing, grunting, pushing, wanting of it all, and sometimes, from other half of “duplex,” “good old Jeri” would pound on the wall, shouting, “At least do it quiet!” But we would not do it quiet. No way. “Sorry, Jer!” Lloyd might shout back. “Come over and join us, kid!”
And from over there Jer would cackle.
Lloyd and I were “love match.” So “hot to trot.”
