John Calvin Hughes
Voices Carry
"Hush."
"What? What is it?"
"Voices carry in this house. You can hear
everything."
We were sitting cross-legged on her bed, my cousin
Rose and I, late at night, talking. My aunt said I
could sleep in her room since I was only going to be
staying with them overnight before I went on to the
military academy where my parents were sending me
instead of junior high school.
Rose was two years older than I, tall and skinny and
beautiful, with thick curly red hair and skin as white
as stone, pale freckles peppered like stars on her
arms and legs and face. Instead of pajamas, we wore
only T-shirts and shorts, so nearly all of her skin
was exposed. I can't say I sat there wanting to touch
her. What I remember is thinking that touching her
was not even possible. I could smell her though.
Baby powder, hair conditioner, the rose red aroma of
her was as real as a kiss. I was in the breathless
grip of a giant crush and hanging on every word she
said. I never wanted to go to sleep.
Though my aunt had turned out the light, it was
pretty bright in the room because the moon was shining
through a tall south window. Rose was as pale as a
vampire in the moonlight.
"That's why I asked Mama to open the window before
she left out. They'd surely hear us if we tried to
open it."
"Why? Are we going out?"
"You gotta know it, kiddo. There's some stuff I want
to show you before you leave."
She slipped off the bed and slippered over to the
closet in her sockfeet. I followed. She eased the
closet door open and looked over her shoulder at me
with her finger to her lips, shushing me, though I was
perfectly quiet. Then she crawled halfway into the
closet and dug around looking for something. Being on
her knees like that and reaching into the recesses of
the closet made her T-shirt ride up and gave me a look
at her behind. I was all attention. Suddenly I was
too warm. I couldn't take my eyes off her. I didn't
think it was right to look at her like that, bent over
and vulnerable, unaware of my eyes on her, but all the
same I couldn't stop. The moonlight washed out
whatever pastel her panties might have been, and they
appeared as white as her skin. Her shape was full,
even then like a grown woman, and I wanted to lay my
head, however briefly, on the softness of her behind,
the soft pillow of my desire.
Finally she emerged. In her hands she had a beat up
cigar box. She carried it over to the window and set
it on the sill. Inside was a jumble of ribbon and
paper from which she pulled a crumpled package of
cigarettes. She shook out a partially smoked butt and
put it between her lips. The match flare lit her face
momentarily, a brilliant white, darkening to gold.
She puffed on the cigarette until the end glowed. She
took a deep drag and said, "Kiss me."
She pulled me to her and we kissed, my lips pressed
tightly together. She pushed me back and blew the
smoke out the window into the night. "You don't know
how to kiss, do you?" I shook my head dumbly. She
thumbed my bottom lip down and said, "You have to open
your mouth. I was going to blow the smoke into your
mouth. That's how grownups do it." She passed the
cigarette to me and I pretended to smoke it, then gave
it back to her.
I studied her profile in the moonlight while she
finished the butt and chucked it out the window. She
stared off into the distance and I stared at her.
Then we heard something. Soft at first, thumping
quietly, like a heart, steady and urgent. We looked
at each other, and she smiled. She beckoned me to
follow her. We tiptoed down the hall, Rose giggling.
She knelt in front of a closed door and pressed her
ear to it. She listened for a moment and then without
taking her ear from the door beckoned me to sit down.
I leaned against the door and closed my eyes.
Her parents were making love. The bed was creaking
loudly. Rose's mother, my aunt, was going oh oh oh in
time with the bed. It went on and on and on. I
looked at Rose. She had her eyes closed too, trying
to imagine, I imagined, what the lovers looked like.
Trying to be in the room with them, to stand next to
the bed, to learn the secrets, to lie down with them
and feel the rise and fall of the bed, hear their
groans sounding in the springs. I imagined she
imagined this because that's what I imagined. "I love
you," I said, right to her face. She jumped up and
shushed me, a little too loudly I thought, and dragged
me down the hall back to her room. There she pulled
on her floor-rumpled jeans and began tying her tennis
shoes. I looked for my pants. She straddled the
windowsill and looked back at me.
"C'mon. Let's go already."
