-
You Think I Care
- The Missouri Review
- University of Missouri
- Volume 19, Number 1, 1996
- pp. 99-110
- 10.1353/mis.1996.0005
- Article
- Additional Information
- Purchase/rental options available:
YOU THINK I CARE / Deborah Way ANNIE SEES THE MAN before he sees her. She's on her way to Eric's. A four-point-seven-mtie walk. Her mom and dad, as she was leaving, stopped their Saturdayin -November yard work and gave her the ritual I-spy. She had Marlboros in her pocket and a joint snuggled in her sock, but there were leaves to rake and chrysanthemums to pinch, and her mom and dad are never quite so KGB in dayUght, and today, especiaUy, you could teU they wanted to trust her—ifs the kind of red-cheeked, blue-sky autumn day that makes them want to beUeve in their daughter's goodness. In the end, they let her go with just a "Be home in time for dinner," and "Be careful on Lawton Pond Road." Annie nodded. Whatever. She's fifteen and Ui love, and today's the day she and Eric are going to do it. She'd been planning to ride her bike, but the very last thing her dad said as she was leaving was, "You don't want to ride that bike like that." The shrieking brakes, he meant. "Just wait," he said. "Five minutes. We'U fix it right up." Annie turned around, wheeled the bike into the garage, came back out and said, "I'm walking." She's had enough of those "five minutes" to last a lifetime. Standing there whUe her dad fixes. He's a banker. He tikes to think he's handy. "Here," he says. "Hold this." "Hand me that wrench." "Learn something new. It's good for you." Annie's learning just fine. She's getting hundreds in Algebra Two and ?-pluses in EngUsh, and even, in Biology, A's, which could be ?-pluses because Eric's been stealing the tests, but why be greedy; why tempt fate? And then her mom would come around to watch them work on the bike, and pretty soon she'd be giving Annie the eye, shaking her head and saying, "Two closets fuU of clothes, and you can't find something halfway decent." And her mom would look at her dad, and her dad would say, "She's right. You don't want to go out dressed Uke that." "You can't read in that tight." "You don't." "You can't." NormaUy, Annie would say, "Watch me." But today—the idea of riding off on her bike after that—it just seemed Uke aU the way The Missouri Review · 99 to Eric's she'd be steaming, poisoned, it would maybe bring her bad luck. Today of aU days she needs good luck. Eric's parents are Ui Peru, and they'U have the house to themselves and, please, she's already into her second pack of puis; she's spent how many Friday and Saturday nights naked with Eric in his bed, and she's tried, and he's tried—if she can't do it today, when wiU she ever? It's an old road, Lawton Pond Road, narrow and twisting, the kind of road where, if you're Annie's parents, you're tapping the horn every other minute because you can't see around the next curve. The kind of road, too, where, at least in southeastern Pennsylvania, there aren't many houses, because the ones there are, are super-fancy, with property up the butt: manicured grounds that turn to picturesque fields that turn to woods, acres and acres. The kind of houses you're never sure if people reaUy Uve in because even now, in November, when the trees are half-bare and you could see, you never do see anyone around. The man, when Annie spots him, is doing something to the passenger-side door of a junky old boat-sized American car—both of them, man and car, looking not exactly Uke what you'd expect in the driveway of what used to be a stone farmhouse but now is some super-rich farruly's home. It has bushes neatly covered with burlap, aU cozy and tucked in for winter. It has a garage, brUUant white, that used to be...