Single: Miss Tennessee b/w The Cryerer | Page 4

silly. Why do you thinking I'm calling you?"
"I don't know," I said. "Is everything alright?"
"Fine," Miss Tennessee said.
"With us, I mean."
"You shouldn't worry so much. Now are you coming over or not?"
I thought about it for a minute, although I knew what I would say.
"Sure," I said. I could hear Miss Tennessee talking as I hung up. "Yeees," she was saying. "Yeees."
I took a shower and made the bed. I combed my hair and shaved. I thought about shopping for something to cook, or maybe for something for Steve, but decided to go straight over. She met me at the door. Steve bounced back and forth behind her and jumped up at my knees.
"Yes," she said. "We missed you. See, he's going: We missed you."
She put her arms around me and kissed me on the neck.
"I missed you, too," I said.
As we lay in bed, Steve chewing on a deer hoof between us -- not the pet store kind but one I'd gotten from my brother -- Miss Tennessee nudged me with her foot.
"Look," she said. "He's going: Mmm. This tastes good."
"Very good," I said, rolling over on my side to look at Miss Tennessee's grin. "He's thinking: This tastes better than ever. Better than I remembered."
"He's going: I'll eat it all and then I'll be huge," she said.
"As big as you guys, with all your fruit and toast," I said.
"If it only lasted longer. This will be gone in no time." Miss Tennessee pressed her body against mine leaving just enough space between our legs for Steve.
"He's going: Hey. Tough guy. I hope there's more where this came from." I pulled her closer to me and kissed her on the forehead.
We were quiet and Steve scraped his teeth on the hoof like scissors on a golf ball. Miss Tennessee rubbed the soft heel of her foot up and down my shin under the covers.
"Look, honey," she said. "He's going: Too bad it doesn't last as long. It's over way too quick." Her voice got thin and dreamy as she continued. "I mean it starts and it's good and then it goes for awhile but then, poof, it's over and gone, burned up."
"As quick as it takes to make a phone call," I laughed. "I know that and my brain's no bigger than a walnut." Miss Tennessee got quiet. She pulled away a little, rolled over on her back, and the room was filled with the sound of Steve's scraping.
"Look," she said. "He's going: Really I hate this thing. I've got to bite it. I hate it. Like somebody who gets drunk and always talks too loud."
I rolled over on my back and stared at the ceiling.
"Like someone who thinks she can do anything she wants and pretend it never happened," I said.
"Like someone who passes out and snores," she said, sing-song, smiling at Steve.
"Like a liar," I said.
"Like someone who doesn't trust people."
"Someone who doesn't let people's feelings get in the way of her fantasy worlds."
"A mama's boy," she said.
"A flirt."
"Some pussy."
"Crazy."
"Like wood," she said, grinning.
"Look, look," I said, still smiling, putting an arm across Miss Tennessee's bare stomach. "He's saying: Are you so desperate and sad and stupid that you really believed that guy was an astronaut? He's not. I smelled him. I know."
Miss Tennessee shot out of bed and glared at me. As she stood there, bronze curls falling across her face, I looked at the fine lines of her long legs and hips, her appendix scar, her delicate neck, her thick upper arms and her thin wrists. I realized the little boys who wanted to marry her because of her smocks covered with balloons and clowns had the right idea, even if they didn't have all the information.
"Fuck you. Fuck you. You fucking fink. You fucker," she screamed.
When I went to get my things, school had already started. Miss Tennessee left a message and told me to come when she wasn't there, she would put my things in a box. I went one day after school. I was dressed in an Oxford and slacks, a disappointment after the shorts and t-shirts of summer, especially since it had yet to cool off.
I let myself in. Miss Tennessee had done as she'd promised. There was a cardboard box inside the door. I closed the door behind me and knelt down and opened the cardboard flaps. There were some paperback books, a few cds, two T-shirts, a pair of socks, a cheese grater, and a garlic press I'd brought over to work on a pan of lasagna. There were things I'd given Steve: a stuffed kangaroo with the eyes gnawed off, a pair of deer hooves, and a stick with a feather on the end (a cat toy, really) I teased him with. As I looked through the box,