CHARLIE HEART

CHAPTER NINE: LUCK BE A LADY TONIGHT

LUCK BE A LADY TONIGHT

         After that I can’t help but look at her differently. She was now a box of dark secrets and dirty laundry. A catacomb of rotten memories and horror stories that I’m not sure I want to ask about.
         We walk her to her car after the seminar ends. I ask her if I can have one of her books. She says no. She says it almost before I finish my question.
         “Why not?”
         “I’m sorry, Charlie, I... just don’t feel comfortable with you reading it... yet.”
         “Well, I had no idea you were a writer. Why didn’t you tell me?”
         “I don’t know, It’s not really that big of a thing, just kind of like, a side hobby.”
         I could tell she was hiding something. I can always tell when someone is hiding something.
         “You weren’t supposed...you just, can’t have one, Charlie.”
         “Alright,” I say softly and confused. “I hate reading anyway.”
         She lowers her head, then looks back up at me. She says, “So, what did you think of the seminar?”
         I have to be careful how I respond to this one. I can hear the old man’s voice ranting about things that make me itch in my head. ‘You now realize you are being pulled down by gravity. You can feel it holding you to the dirt, with out it, your intestines would start floating around in your body.’
         “...I loved it.”
         “Don’t lie.”
         She grins and turns. Her skirt does this little swaying motion that I like.
         I lie some more, “No, I um, thought it was very insightful.”
         She laughs. “Good, good...”
         “Ginger,” I say and grab her arm. I turn her around and look straight into her eyes. I get serious all over. She is a little taken back by this and gives me an unsure look
         She says, “What?”
         “Who, was it that hurt you so bad?” I can’t help being the kind of guy that gets right to the point. It’s been on my mind since we walked out.
          She looks afraid for a moment, unsafe and vulnerable, then she puts that smile back on. She shakes her head and claps her hands.
         “Oh, I almost forgot! I have something for you,” she says.
         I let her ignore me, maybe it’s not the time. She is starting to remind me of a sad rag doll that never stops smiling no matter how much you tear it up.
         “For me?” I ask.
         “It’s in my trunk.”
         She unlocks it and dives down in it. I can’t help but to check out her curves as she is lost in the mess of her car. She’s too good, too perfect. A little bit weird in the head but I’m used to that.
         “Here we go,” she says.
         She lifts out a heavy object about the size of my sternum wrapped in brown paper. She hands it to me then slams her trunk and I gently put it on the back of the car.
         “It’s heavy, what is it, a bomb?”
         She laughs, “Open it.”
         I look at her for a second, studying her. No one has ever given me a gift like this before. Not on my birthday, not on Christmas, nothing. I can’t help it, I feel like a happy little kid as I tear into it. She tells me to be carful about six times, it must me delicate.
         “A record player?”
         “Yah, but it’s not just any record player, watch this.” She looks at the player like its another person entering the conversation. “Record player, on!” The box lit up and the gears start spinning.
         “A voice automated record player?” I laugh. I laugh like Bruce laughs, a full gut laugh.
         She pulls out a record from her trunk and puts it on. It makes scratching sounds then finds the Frank Sinatra song, ‘Luck be a Lady tonight’. I love Frank Sinatra.
         She starts moving her shoulders and rocking her head to the song. Cute, sexy, Ginger.
         The next thing I know we are dancing like old couples do. The way the old ladies liked it at the nursing home. Hand on waist, other hand clasped in air. She is actually a good at it.
         “You spin like an pro in those heels.”
         “You’d be surprised, I can do a lot in these heels.”
         “Can you do this?” I spin her into me, then dip her all the way to the street. In this brief moment as she lays there, inches above the asphalt, she lets me have her, but just for a moment.
         She giggles.
         Her hair whips around both of us as she comes slinging back up into my embrace. For a second we just stare. It’s just her, me, and Franky, and I’m all right with that, that’s all I wanted in the first place.
         Luck, be a lady tonight.
         You now realize that your heart is pounding, your breathing is quickened and tight. You can almost feel the sweetness of her chapstick like an oven, tingling your skin as it hovers above you lips.
         You now realize that you will never forget those eyes.
         Our faces are so close I can taste her panting breaths, it tastes amazing. But we don’t kiss, she pulls away and puts her head on my shoulder. We rock back and forth and finish the rest of the song tightly knitted in a slow dance.
         That night I bring her to my roof top. Johnny, my teenage security guard is there. He sticks his hand out wanting cash like he always does. His jaw drops when he sees Ginger, now he wants double.
         “Wow, nice view,” she says.
         “I know right?”
         I turn around to check and make sure that Johnny locks the door to the roof for us and when I turn back around she is leaning over the edge.
         I come up and lean next to her.
         She says, “Is this where you bring all of your women?”
         I look at her quickly.
         “Just the ugly ones,” I say.
         “Takes one to know one,” she winks.
         She is quick, I like that.
         I ask, “Do you like it up here?”
         She shrugs and grabs the ledge tightly. “Roof tops scare me,” she says.
         “Oh, well we can leav...”
         “No, I like to be scared, I feel more like myself, more normal.” She looks at me the way mental inmates look at you when you take their paint supplies away. “ I mean, I think a person is the most alive when they are afraid, don’t you?”
         I smile a questionable smile and scratch my head.
         “I don’t know, I feel pretty alive right now,” I say.
         “Fear is what makes us vulnerable and imperfect. Fear is what makes us beautiful.”
         “Without fear we would be invincible,” I say.
         She tilts her head like a dog that just heard a curious sound.
         “Like you?”
         I smile.
         She says, “Did you know your brain can’t tell the difference between the feeling of falling in love and the feeling of being afraid?”
         I shake my head and shrug. “No, I didn’t.”
         She slowly walks up to me and puts her hands on my chest.
         “Are you going to fall for me, Charlie?”
         I’m a little surprised by this question.
         She pushes me and my arms flail out catching myself from tipping over the ledge. She screams and grabs on to me. We twirl around, trip, and land on the ground, back to safety. She breathes quickly and holds me close.
         You now realize that your skin is loosing and its stitchings are sliding off. You now feel a hundred needles pricking up and down your spine. Your knees are now made of rubber.
         “That’s not funny, at all,” I say. She laughs a soft short relieved laugh that breaks into a hysterical teasing giggle. She looks up at me. Now is when I start to think we should get off the roof.
         She says, “I guess your not going to fall for me then, are you?”
         I think for a moment before I respond. “...Oh, fall for yo...”
         She cuts in, “Charlie, are you afraid of me?”
         She doesn’t smile. She waits, for what, I don’t know but she looks me straight in the eyes, like she expects some amazing thing to happen.
         “Yes,” I say. “Either that or it’s love. My brain can’t tell the difference for some reason.”
         She snorts at my answer, stands up and leans back over the ledge. A gush of wind rushes through us. She lifts her chin and spreads her arms.
         “I feel like I’m in the movie ‘Titanic,’” she says. “I’m flying Jack, I’m flying!”
         I don’t get up. Not after that, my heart is still pumping, but I don’t tell her this.
         She starts to sing: “Near, far, where ever you are...”
         “Oh, please don’t sing,” I say.
         She gives me an ugly look.
         The entrance to the roof breaks open. Johnny shouts, “my boss is coming! You guys have to get out of here quick!”
         Not that I really care about getting in trouble, I can talk or buy my way out of most situations, but for Ginger, this made the night even more exciting. She gasps, grabs my arm and runs, I reluctantly follow. We hide behind a large power box, she holds me tight and tries to peek around the corner. We see shadows, and can hear a muffled Johnny talking to someone with a rusty voice.
         “Who’s up here, Johnny?”
         “No one sir.”
         Poor Johnny, always taking crap from everyone.
         Ginger giggles.
         I feel like I’m in grade school again.
         The door slams and we remain crouch and cuddled in a dark corner. I start to stand and Ginger pulls me back down.
         She whispers, “Where are you going?”
         “Apparently no where,” I say.
         Her hand touches my chest, she glides her fingers up my neck, around my cheek and touches my lips. She traces them, how a blind person would memorize something.
         In the dark all you can see are shadows, pieces of faces. I watch her, her eyes follow her fingers back down my neck and on to my belly.
         I slowly move my face to hers, her eyelids flutter a bit when we lock gazes, she gets nervous. I turn my face to kiss her and she turns away.
         “I have to tell you something,” she says.
         I don’t move. “What?”
         “I’m...”
         “What?” I say softer.
         “I’m kind of sick.”
         “What do you mean?”
         Her head starts to twitch, like a scratched record.
         She hesitates.
         “What, whats wrong?”
         She looks at the ground. “Do you ever get the feeling that death may be just around the corner? Do you ever feel that a long, happy, forgiving life is just not your destiny?”
         I act like I’ve never even heard of death before. The truth is a question like that, coming from her, shocked me, a lot. This was no ordinary girl, this was a deer on the side of the road that wont die. This was a tormented little child. This was someone like me. I can’t help but know exactly what she is talking about though, but I don’t tell her this. In fact I lie to her.
         “No, no, I don’t”
         She turns and gives me a sad look. A distancing herself from me look, then turns back to stare into the night.
         “I just feel like...I’m not always myself...never mind.” She shivers a cold shake. I wrap my arms around her.
         “Ginger?” I say softly. “Who hurt you?”
         All I hear is a sigh.
         “Alright,” I say defeated. “Lets get off the roof, I’ll make you some more of that cocoa.”
         I help her get to her feet. She starts to walk towards the ledge again and I grab her hand. She turns around so fast I thought she was trying to through me over again. She grabs my face and thrusts her thick lips into mine.
         You now realize that you are a light bulb filling up with light, wanting to burst. Your veins are wires humming with energy. Your lungs are spewing out hot beams of sunshine, and you like every second of it.