The Outside Lands Read online

  “What can I get you, Billy?” Jeannie felt Anita’s eyes on her neck.

  “Sorry about my friends yesterday. They were pretty loud.”

  “It’s always loud here.”

  “I’d like to take you on a date.” Billy clamped his jaw shut and blinked in surprise, like a fish had just leaped out of his mouth.

  “Oh. Well—”

  “A New Kind of Love is showing at the drive-in by the Cow Palace. Have you seen it?”

  “I haven’t.” Jeannie remembered the billboard. Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward locked in a romantic somersault, Woodward’s frothy green dress spilling to reveal a bite of petticoat.

  “Tomorrow night?”

  A date. About time, Nancy would say. And with a doctor. Billy’s face was working in a twitch; his own nervousness eased Jeannie’s shyness. “Sure,” she said, in a steady voice.

  Billy nodded and beamed. He gathered up his newspaper and grabbed his coat from the seat.

  “You’re not eating?” asked Jeannie.

  “Jeez—” Billy pulled back his sleeve to look at his wrist. “I can’t. I’ve got to run.” He wasn’t wearing a watch.

  He left the diner, and Jeannie watched him jog across the street, then run back and push his head through the door.

  “Pick you up?” he asked.

  “Here,” replied Jeannie. “Shift finishes at six.”

  “Well, there you go,” said Anita, sidling up to give Jeannie a pinch on the hip. “Who said breaking glass was unlucky?”

  Billy picked her up in what Kip would have called a clunker.

  “You live in the city?” he asked, thumping the stick shift with the heel of his hand. “Darn thing.”

  “The Sunset,” said Jeannie, her body stiff against the leather seat. “What about you?”

  “Born and raised in the city. On Spruce.”

  “It’s fancy up there.”

  Billy shrugged. “I live near the hospital now, up from Parnassus.”

  “You a doctor?”

  He looked at her and winked. “Almost.”

  They listened to the gripe of the engine.

  “Sounds fatal,” said Billy, and Jeannie laughed, and her shoulders loosened.

  As the car squashed over the gravel, Billy seemed embarrassed to discover it was buck night.

  “I didn’t know,” he apologized, handing over the dollar bill. “I’m not being cheap, I swear.”

  “You’re nuts,” said Jeannie, and gave him a smile.

  He smiled briefly back. “Now, where shall we go?” he said, and, seeing a spot, drove all the way to the front of the pit.

  I guess I’m safe, then, thought Jeannie.

  As the movie started, Billy pushed out his knee so it touched hers, and she didn’t move away. But after a few minutes, her leg cramped, and as she shook it out, Billy shifted in his seat and pivoted away from her. When Paul Newman called Samantha “a semi-virgin at the ripe old age of twenty-five,” Jeannie felt exposed, like someone had thrown a hot white spotlight on her. It didn’t look like she was going to get laid any time soon.

  After the movie, they shared a malt at the soda fountain on Geneva.

  “Thanks for taking me,” said Jeannie.

  “You liked the movie?” asked Billy.

  Jeannie considered the question. “It was a little lame,” she said.

  “I thought it was fun.”

  They lapsed into silence. Jeannie stirred her malt; she wondered what Nancy would say next. “He only fell in love with her when he thought she was a hooker,” she said.

  Billy swallowed. Jeannie felt a crackle of power.

  “He’s cute, though. Paul Newman.” Jeannie watched Billy; he leaned in on his straw, a blush rising at his jaw. Maybe men weren’t all that complicated after all. “What about Joanne Woodward?” she asked.

  Billy scratched his head, his face crinkling. “I’m more of an Elizabeth Taylor kind of a guy.”

  “She’s beautiful.” He preferred brunettes. Jeannie dared herself to hold eye contact; two beats, and he looked away, jerking his head to give a shy smile to the pretty waitress who wiped the counter in front of him.

  “So.” He drummed his fingers on the countertop. Jeannie feared she’d been too obvious; embarrassment scuttled over her skin. “Tomorrow,” he said.

  “Tomorrow?”

  “You voting?”

  “Oh.” Jeannie shook her head. “No. I can’t.”

  “You’re not twenty-one?” He leaned close, as though examining her for a time stamp.

  “Still a baby,” she said, sensing his eyes on her as she lowered her lashes and pulled a sip of malt.

  “Well,” he said, swiveling on his stool. “It’s been keeping me busy. Been to so many fund-raisers I’d be happy never to see a stuffed egg or pickled shrimp again.” He let the remark rest like he’d made it a half-dozen times before; Jeannie guessed it went down well with the kind of ladies he mixed with.

  “You’re interested in politics?” asked Jeannie.

  “My mother,” he said, pouring a slurry of chocolate into his glass and taking a gulp. A slop of malt washed onto his top lip. “Had me campaigning every spare minute. Had to tell her I was working tonight, otherwise she’d have me walking the streets with a clipboard.”

  “My father says he’s got it sewn up,” offered Jeannie, eyeing the mess on Billy’s mouth.

  Billy laughed. “You’re talking about LBJ. No, we’re gunning for Goldwater—In Your Heart You Know He’s Right!” He placed his hand over his chest and grinned.

  Jeannie didn’t have much more to offer on the subject; she searched for something to say. “My father says never trust an Army man.”

  “And your mother? She a Democrat too?”

  “From Texas,” said Jeannie. She nearly added was, but the word stuck.

  Billy clicked his tongue. “So that’s a yes.” He turned to her with a pink, open face; his eyes shone. “My mother would disapprove of you,” he said. Jeannie shifted on her stool, feeling the awkwardness of her hips and legs. Billy pushed his hand into his pocket and threw down a fistful of coins. A Goldwater in ‘64 button scurried over the counter.

  “Here,” he said. He plucked up the button and fastened it to her sweater. His fingers trembled. Jeannie turned her head to stop herself breathing on him. “There’s still time to change your father’s mind,” he said. He sat back to look at her, nodding in satisfaction.

  Jeannie thumbed the edge of the button. “What about your mother’s mind?” she ventured.

  Billy was looking at the headline of a newspaper that somebody had left folded on the stool beside him. VIET CONG ATTACK SAIGON AIRPORT. “My mother never changes her mind.” He picked up the paper and stuck it under his arm. “Come on.” He pulled a thick, final smile, the kind her dad did when he wanted to go to bed. “I’ll drive you home.”

  At her front door, Billy rattled the keys in his pocket and cleared his throat. He leaned in; she rocked back on her heels, then held herself still. And he kissed her, a wet mash of tongue and teeth, spit and chocolate.

  The next afternoon Nancy called by, her lilac skirt bouncing under her raincoat, a paper bag squashed in her hand. Jeannie noted the easy look on her friend’s face and felt relieved.

  “It came,” said Nancy, bending her knees in a small skip for joy.

  “It did?” said Jeannie, a smile spreading over her face.

  “That was so scary,” said Nancy. Jeannie beckoned her friend inside. “I was ready to throw myself under a streetcar.” Jeannie felt a sharp sting, like she’d been touched by the edge of a whip. “Because you know that if my mother had found out, she’d have pushed me in front of one.” She stopped and took Jeannie by the wrists. “Oh, Lord, I’m so sorry, Jeannie.”

  “It’s all right,” said Jeannie. “I’m glad you’re okay.” She slipped her hands into Nancy’s and squeezed.

  Nancy pulled Jeannie to her bedroom. “It came this morning and it ruined my best capri pants, but honest to
God, I’ve never been happier to see Rosie Red.” Nancy smiled at her own junior high turn of phrase, sat at the mirror, and shook a can of Aqua Net from the paper bag. “You’re not ready?” she asked, flicking her eyes over Jeannie through the mirror. (A week ago, Mrs. Cooper had asked them to chaperone at the middle school sock hop; Jeannie had assumed, after her fight with Nancy, that she was no longer needed.)

  Jeannie opened her dresser to find her gold pullover.

  “You okay?” asked Nancy, bringing a comb down on a white-blond ribbon of hair.

  “I went on a date,” blurted Jeannie.

  Nancy’s comb stopped, her eyebrows drawn high. “With who?”

  “Someone from Bernie’s.”

  “Gaël?” Nancy shredded the hair to a tangle, then picked another strand. “I told you he was hot for you.”

  Jeannie smiled and pushed her feet into her saddle shoes. “A customer.”

  Nancy put down the comb and scooted around to face her. “Is he older?”

  Jeannie nodded. “A doctor.” She threw the word like a pebble into a still pond, and watched the ripple.

  “A real doctor?” Nancy leaned forward, as if to hear better. “Is he cute?”

  Jeannie thought of Billy’s flat nose, his thick-knit eyebrows, the hairline creeping from his forehead. “He looks a little like Paul Newman.”

  “Tell me everything. What happened? Where did you go?” The tips of Nancy’s ears were growing pink.

  “He kissed me,” said Jeannie.

  They clicked down Noriega, the sunset tearing bloody strips out of the sky, the wind whipping dust from an empty lot. Nancy slid her arm around Jeannie’s waist; she smelled of soap and lemons.

  “You’re so lucky dating a doctor,” she said. “Mickey just got fired for stealing a ham.”

  “It was just one date.” Out across the highway, the ocean waited; it had been waiting and sighing that way since Jeannie was a child.

  “He got a friend for me?”

  “I’ll ask,” said Jeannie, snugging her own arm around Nancy’s middle and feeling a flush of contentment. They held each other tight as the wind charged them, slapping their raincoats against their legs and lifting their hair.

  In the morning, her dad told her that President Johnson had taken the election. “This country still has some goddamn sense, thank God.” Jeannie dressed carefully for her shift and wondered if Billy would stop by.

  “It’s not going to pop itself,” said Nancy, untangling Christmas lights from a dusty carton Jeannie had found under her parents’ bed.

  “What are you talking about?” asked Jeannie, crawling back under the bed for the other carton.

  “Your cherry.”

  “Jesus, Nancy.” Jeannie wriggled her head from under the bed. “Keep it down!” Kip and her dad were in the living room, putting up a Douglas fir. They’d picked it up by the roadside on Sloat; it had cost three whole dollars.

  “You’re twenty years old,” said Nancy, blowing on the lights and bouncing dust bunnies into the air. “You’re going to close up.”

  “You’re full of it,” said Jeannie, lifting the lid of the carton and unwrapping a Shiny-Brite from its wax paper.

  “I’m serious. It happened to my aunt Sylvia.”

  “You’re kidding,” said Jeannie as she unpacked another ornament. “Your aunt Sylvia never had a loolie.”

  Nancy laughed. “You’re going to do it with him, right?”

  Jeannie and Billy had been dating for six weeks. They had been to the movies, the creamery, the bowling alley, and the railcar diner on Pine. Always just the two of them; she had never met his doctor friends again, or even seen where he lived. Whenever he drove her home, he stopped by the beach and sat for a while—maybe being a gentleman, maybe finding his pluck—before leaning to kiss her, his fingers testing a button on her blouse, his hand sidling up her thigh. She let him hold her breast through her bra, keeping his hand in place with her own; once or twice he sneaked his fingers underneath the fabric and rolled her nipple like it was a bean. That week, after watching a Sophia Loren movie, he didn’t wait to kiss her; he slid his hand up her skirt, thumbed aside her panties, and pushed his finger inside her. She could feel her warmth against his cold hand, his knuckles pressing at her. The whole thing felt separate from her, like she was observing a scientific experiment. He took her hand and urged it against the hardness in his pants; Jeannie wasn’t sure what to do, so she let her hand rest there for a while, before pulling away and smiling. She never should have told Nancy.

  “First time you do it, it’ll hurt,” said Nancy. “Get him to spit on his fingers first.” She took a sip from her bottle of Dr Pepper. “The main thing is, he’s got to pull out. You don’t want to get knocked up.”

  “I don’t know, Nancy,” she said.

  “He’s going to want to do it, Jeannie,” said Nancy. She threw the bottle at the wastepaper basket; it missed and rolled across the carpet, dribbling soda. “If there’s one thing I know about guys—put out or get out.”

  Jeannie took a long bath before Billy picked her up that night. She washed her body using her treasured sliver of Yardley and dabbed her mom’s Unforgettable on the backs of her knees and wrists. She rolled and set her hair the way her mom had shown her, and painted her face. By the time she’d brushed out her curls and applied Nancy’s peach lipstick, it was seven o’clock. She walked into the kitchen to collect her purse; and Kip, who was setting the table for dinner, looked at her like he was watching a ghost.

  “Where are you going?” he asked. Anxiety and need mixed in his face; it was the look he used to get when he was little and their mom left them with the babysitter, and it made Jeannie want to run.

  “Meeting a girlfriend,” said Jeannie.

  “Liar.”

  They drove to Winterland, where they scratched over the ice, hand in sweaty hand, and sipped scalding cocoa from tall glasses. On the way home, Billy pulled off Lincoln and parked by the wasteland. Jeannie saw the old windmill, its vanes stuck still among the scrubgrass. When she was twelve, she saw a story in her dad’s newspaper about a pair of lovers who parked out here to be alone. A man smashed their window and dragged the girl from the car and into the park, where he stripped, beat, and raped her; he hacked all of the girl’s hair off. Jeannie felt a quick stride of fear climb her body. Billy sat in his seat, a dull light edging off his spectacles. Outside, it was pitch-dark, the only noise the sigh of the ocean. Then fingers tapping on the window. Jeannie’s throat tightened.

  It was only rain, the kind that scuttled over everything and stopped as suddenly as it started. Billy turned on the radio, and “She Loves You” played out happily; he turned to her, and Jeannie could see from the movement of his face that he was smiling. She unbuckled herself and climbed into the backseat. Come on, she said. A beat, and Billy clambered back, his neck stooped, his body crouched. He pulled her pedal pushers and panties down over her white thighs; undid his zipper, fumbled, and pushed himself inside her. Jeannie held still. Nancy was right—it didn’t take a minute—all of a sudden, Billy stopped as if someone had put a gun to his head, then shivered once, twice, and sighed. Then he put a blurry kiss on her mouth and they hurried home, Jeannie facing out the window, her thighs growing damp. At home, she wrapped herself in her mom’s housecoat and lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling until the seagulls started yelling and sleep came.

  A new year arrived, and Jeannie realized she was in trouble. She waited for her period with a superstitious vigilance, and when it didn’t come, she realized she’d known it wouldn’t, maybe even that night in the car. The first thing Billy did was tell his mother, Dorothy, and by March, Jeannie was on the steps of St. Dominic’s wearing an ivory taffeta empire-waist gown with off-the-shoulder cap sleeves that Aunt Ruth had sewn from a dollar pattern. The dress was stiff and shone metallic in the sunlight, and Dorothy’s expression—as if the dress itself had said something unforgivable to her—could, as Aunt Ruth put it, have “outstunk a skunk.”
r />   It was cold that day, but Jeannie felt her own heat, felt sweat crawling between her skin and her dress, a smell like lunch meat rising from her armpits. There was something furtive in the quietness and brevity of the service; Jeannie had the strange sensation that they were conducting the whole affair behind her mom’s back and that at any moment, her mom might sweep into the church wearing her wide-brimmed hat and ruched dress gloves and order the priest to start over. Jeannie’s dad and Kip wore the suits they’d worn at the funeral over a year back—her dad’s too large, Kip’s too small, like a double act who’d switched clothes—and afterward, at the luncheon in the mansion on Spruce, Kip wouldn’t leave her side, to the point where Billy’s uncle Jesse joked that he couldn’t figure out which one—Kip or Billy—was the groom. Nancy had run up her own short, flare-skirted dress in candy pink, and she drew eyes like bugs to a lantern.

  “That little girl’s going to get herself into a mess,” said Aunt Ruth, watching Nancy take a walk in the garden with Billy’s boss.

  “Messes have their perks,” said Uncle Paulie, flicking a wink at Jeannie as he threw back the last of his champagne.

  Jeannie played her part—as best she could—and waited. If she could get through the day and into their new place down on Noe, she might feel safe again.

  The house on Noe was a Victorian the color of egg yolk, with steps running up to a door set with stained glass. They had the rooms on the first floor; the upstairs rooms were kept by two quiet older men—brothers, Jeannie assumed. Billy’s father, Dr. Richard Harper—a large man whose taut belly and sprouting ear hair gave him the appearance of being overstuffed—handed them the keys shortly after their engagement: “All lovebirds need a nest,” he said, taking the couple in his arms and letting his fingers wander over Jeannie’s ass. Where the Sunset was caught in the whip of a westerly wind, Noe Valley was still and noiseless: standing on Twenty-Fourth gave the sensation of standing inside one of her mom’s snowglobes. Except that no one was shaking this particular globe: Jeannie was surprised each morning to find sunshine waiting quietly at the windows.