Beautiful Stranger. Ruth Wind

Probably not to the hell parts, though.”

      He laughed and stood up, turning to face her. “Now how’m I gonna be the poor beleaguered wounded guy if you keep making these jokes?”

      Marissa raised her eyebrows. “I guess you’ll just have to come up with another act.”

      “You’re not at all who I thought you were.”

      “Neither are you,” she said honestly, and somehow that was a lot more unnerving than that blue energy humming between them. “I didn’t know you could laugh.”

      “It’s been a while.”

      In the cool darkness, Robert did something he rarely allowed himself to do: he relaxed. Strange that he felt that freedom with this woman who was so far removed from his circle that she might as well have been a Martian, but there it was. Tonight she wore sweats and a long-sleeved T-shirt, and she smelled a little of soap and deodorant and sweat. It all made her feel more approachable, more real.

      They talked, in that aimless way of people who want to keep each other company but aren’t sure of the ground yet, of Red Creek and the historical project. Nothing important. But he found himself looking—almost helplessly—over her body now and then, discovering that he liked the ordinariness of it, too full across the bottom, still pretty solid in the thighs. A homey kind of body that made him want to sidle up to her, press himself close, feel all that giving terrain against the hard angles of his own shape.

      Weird. He knew it was weird for him even as he thought it, but there it was. As she laughed, he surprised himself by wanting to laugh, too. When she lifted her chin to point out a shooting star, he looked instead at the underside of her jaw and wanted to press his mouth there.

      Cool it. Obviously it had been just a bit too long since he’d indulged himself in some good old recreational sex. He hadn’t felt right about it with Crystal in the house. Not surprising he was getting a little hungry. Pushing himself away from the railing, he thought about going inside before he got any more bright ideas.

      But Marissa said, “That hell you spoke of?”

      Spoke of. It made him smile. “Yeah?”

      “Is that where Crystal’s from, too?”

      He turned his lips down, crossed his arms. A serious question. He shook his head. “Hers made mine look like heaven.”

      “In what way?” The earnest teacher gazed out of bright blue eyes.

      What could she possibly understand about Crystal’s life? Or his, for that matter? But she was so damned earnest, he had to at least give it a shot. “It was poor when I was there. Lot of drugs and booze and gangs. But no one could get their hands on guns. They do now.”

      “The guns are the biggest difference?”

      He shook his head slowly, struggling to find some way to quantify the difference, put it in terms she could understand. All the images he came up with—war and revolution and bad morale seemed too male to fit her experience.

      “It’s never quiet,” he said finally. “Not ever. There’s a siren or a party or a television or somebody’s radio going twenty-four hours a day. It’s never really clean. It’s old and tired and forgotten.”

      He narrowed his eyes against the memory, as if squinting would blur it enough to take the sting away. “If you want to walk down to the corner for a soda, you’ve gotta look out on the street to see who’s out there, first.” He paused, still thinking, and raised his finger to indicate there was more. “If you want to open the window, you better have bars. If you want to keep a pet, you’d better make damned sure it never goes outside. And at night, when things are bad, it’s a good idea to put the mattress on the floor.”

      A small, intense crease appeared between her eyebrows, but her eyes were steady and clear. “Thank you.”

      He nodded. “Probably lucky for her that her mother kicked her out of the house.”

      “She’s pretty lucky to have you, that’s for sure.”

      That caught him in the solar plexus. “Thanks.”

      “Do you know anything about the father of her baby?”

      He sighed. Shook his head. “She’s not talking, and I haven’t pushed. I gather it was consensual—beyond that, I guess it doesn’t really matter.”

      “I guess that’s true.” She seemed about to say something else, frowning into the distance. “It’s just…”

      “What?”

      She shifted a little, brushed a wisp of dark hair from her cheek. “She stares out the window in class like she’s waiting for someone to appear. Like she expects it.”

      Robert suddenly thought of Crystal’s favorite spot in the house: an overstuffed chair in front of the big picture window, where she would curl up as much as her growing belly would allow. She could sit there for literally hours, just looking outside. He’d thought she was simply looking at the mountains. “Very observant,” he said. “Maybe I’ll see if she has more to say.”

      A nod. “Well, I guess we ought to go back in. I’m starting to get cold.”

      “Yeah, me too.” But before she moved, he touched her hand. It surprised him that he did it, and he wasn’t aware that he had until he felt the tiny bones beneath his palm. She looked up at him, a little alarmed, and he was alarmed himself, though he didn’t pull away. There were a million reasons that starting anything with her would be a mistake, so he wouldn’t, but he wanted her to know that the thought had crossed his mind. It was an offering, maybe.

      He couldn’t think of the right lightness of words to offer, so he only stood there, his hand covering hers, looking down into the wide dark blue eyes for a long, silent moment. “Don’t let anybody ever tell you it’s stupid to care,” he said quietly, more fiercely than he intended. “You don’t have to understand it to reach out.”

      She nodded, dipped her head and slipped her hand from beneath his. “Thanks,” she said. “We should go back in.”

      Every Saturday morning, Robert and Crystal did their chores, and this day was no different. The routine varied little—they put loud music on the stereo, taking turns choosing CDs, and scoured the house top to bottom. She liked tackling the kitchen, something he hated with all his heart, so he let her. Robert dusted and vacuumed the living room, shook out the couch cushions, singing along with the classic rock Crystal rolled her eyes over. Her choices were even sillier—movie soundtracks, mostly, with a lot of very gentle, pop love songs that she knew every word to. None of the rap or blaring rock some of the younger laborers on his crew were so fond of.

      Thank God.

      This Saturday-morning ritual delighted the girl. She rose early, pulled back her hair, discarded her windbreaker and rolled up her sleeves. Singing, she scoured the sink and stove, wiped down cupboards and walls, practically spit-shined the floors. Every other week, she even washed the windows, something it had never occurred to Robert to do. When she finished, she tackled the bathroom and gave it a similar polishing, then stripped off her rubber gloves and walked happily through the house, lighting strategic sticks of incense that smelled of grass and fresh air.

      Midmorning, he took a list—one that Crystal insisted on preparing every week—to the grocery store. When he returned, she popped her head out of the kitchen, grinning happily. “Hey, Uncle, come look what I did for you.”

      He followed, dropping his bags on the counter. The room was fairly large, with a big window looking out toward the mountains, and all the cupboards, stove and refrigerator on one wall. A small windowed alcove had previously held a small breakfast bar and two stools, where they usually ate. But she’d dragged the breakfast bar into the kitchen below the window and dragged the old Formica-and-chrome table into the alcove.

      “You shouldn’t have been moving this stuff, babe. I would have helped.”

      “I