“How did you know?” I asked him.
“The night at the movie. Your fingers were white the whole time.”
“Charlie, they’re beautiful.” I slid on the gloves, then stood and gave him a quick hug. He was still wearing the handsome overcoat. “Thank you.”
“Sure.” He ducked his head a little. “Any time.”
I glanced at my mother then, expecting her to want to open her first gift, but she was taking a drag on her cigarette. She let out a huge blue plume, then tapped her lips with one fingertip, over and over.
All through dinner I was chatty. Charlie had given my mother matching ashtrays, three of them, monkeys who see and hear and speak no evil. She held them up and cackled, then gave him a poke in the arm.
“You are an all right guy, Charlie Fish. You are all right.”
Which was better than I could have hoped for. The food was good enough, the lights stayed low, the snow turned to rain, but we didn’t care. Sometimes Charlie would say something that sounded like math, about how air moves in waves through organ pipes for example, and I would think: this is not the guy for me. Other times I would glance up from my plate and he would be looking at me, straight on and not hiding it one bit, and what girl doesn’t like to be admired a little?
During dinner my mother was prickly as a cactus with me, as usual, but to Charlie she was ripe peaches and sweet ice cream. When the meal was done, and he’d brought the last plates into the kitchen, she told us to vamoose while she cleaned up.
“I need to get back to the dorm anyway,” he said. “Lights out is at eleven, and I have early duty tomorrow.”
My mother, wearing yellow rubber washing gloves whose fingers were almost worn through, threw an arm around his neck. “Merry Christmas, Charlie Fish.”
“Thanks for a great dinner. And for the Humphrey Bogart coat.”
“It’s nothing, kiddo,” she said in a Bogart voice. “Brenda, walk him to the door so he doesn’t get lost along the way.” She made a sweeping motion with her rubbery fingers, then cranked the hot water on and began washing dishes.
Of course it was awkward at the door. How could it not be? Maybe some kids are sophisticated about such things by that age, but not us. As Charlie pulled on his coat, snug as he did the double-breasted buttons, I slipped my new gloves on again.
“That was a really nice evening, Brenda,” Charlie said. “You saved my life with the eggnog—”
I silenced him with one gloved finger on his lips. Charlie started to make his surprised face again, startled wide open, until I stood on my toes and put my lips where that finger had been.
You never know about some people. You think you do, you have an expectation, and then they turn out to be something else entirely. I would never, for example, have imagined that Charlie Fish would be a good kisser.
I could not have been more wrong. Charlie pulled me to him, suddenly very much strong and in command, and kissed me for all he was worth. I found myself grabbing the hair on the back of his head—where did an idea like that come from?—while he swept me closer and our bodies pressed together their whole length.
There is no shame—I say this now as a frail old lady who has not been smooched in a long, long time—no shame in enjoying a kiss at nineteen. Or any other age. Sooner or later the kisses will stop, this is a certain thing, one day there will be a last kiss, and I would venture to say that for every single human being, it will come too soon.
Today I would gladly exchange every remaining hour of my life to have one minute more with Charlie Fish, just one, and to spend it kissing. Like days, the kisses of a life are numbered. Perhaps that makes each one all the more precious. And none so special as the first.
Then he released me. It took us a few seconds to untangle. “Merry Christmas, Brenda.” Eyes bright, he swept open the door, damp and cold poured in, and out went Charlie Fish into the slushy December night. I could hear him singing the “Hallelujah Chorus” as he skittered away up the street.
I stood there a full minute, stunned by the strength of desire I felt for this unimpressive fellow—a sensation I had never known a glimmer of with the boys I’d smooched after a night of dancing or a show—bringing the gloved fingertips to my mouth, touching my lips, fully perplexed and utterly changed.
“Brenda?” my mother called from the kitchen. “I’m running out of rack space. Would you please get in here and dry?”
8.
Santangelo was a terrier with a rag in his mouth. He would not let it go.
Every noon, he’d invite a different guy to join him for lunch. Half a sandwich along, he’d start asking about that boy’s math, what was he working on lately, a regular interrogation that continued either until the guy became suspicious, or Cohen rang the one o’clock back-to-work bell.
“Damn that bell,” Santangelo said, falling into line. “I feel like a pet.”
But one afternoon he sidled up to Charlie’s desk in better humor. “I’m putting it together,” he confided. “Everyone has a separate part, but they all interlock. It’s a jigsaw puzzle.”
Charlie made less conversation than anyone else in those days, as he strove to accelerate his output. Outside it might snow all day, and he would only know when he left the building at night. If the hour was reasonable, he went to Brenda’s, but many nights it was too late. Dorm proctors locked the doors at eleven, and he had missed lights-out only once—going back to the math rooms to spend a miserable night on the floor. Once had been enough.
“A puzzle?” Charlie continued with his work. “Figure anything out so far?”
“Well.” Santangelo sat on the adjacent desk—which, after its prior occupant shipped off to the army, had remained unoccupied. “There is a major installation somewhere in New Mexico. I’ve seen the numbers. They’re using tons of construction materials, plus heavy equipment like bulldozers and bucket loaders. There is at least one mine.”
“A mine? What in the world for?” As he spoke Charlie drew an x on his page, to represent an impact spot one thousand feet off the ground. That was his latest assignment, and he could not imagine anything more useless. Calculate the falling time, aiming, and variables for an object released at thirty-five thousand feet, but stopping a thousand feet off the ground. Why not start at thirty-four and end on the earth, like all bombs do? Raising his eyes, he realized Steel Wool was waiting for an answer. “Maybe all that equipment is so they can put in a swimming pool for Mather.”
“I admit it sounds flaky.” Santangelo bent closer. “But I know one thing.”
“How’s it going, girls?” Cohen snapped from the doorway. “Fish, you guppy. Always glad to see you have time to chat.”
“He came over to my desk.”
“He came over to my desk,” Cohen mimicked in a falsetto, before ducking back down the hallway.
“Most annoying human on earth,” Charlie grumbled.
“What does he care anyway?” Santangelo asked. “It’s not like your uncle is going to heave you.”
“That is exactly what he means. I am sitting in the bucket of a catapult. Snip the rope and wheeee.” He made a curve with his hand, as though it were sailing off somewhere.