Free Lara Reznik - The Girl From Long Guyland by Lara Reznik

Drake had split.
    The cold wind began to chafe my face. We all staggered back inside. Ben sat on the couch and strummed his guitar. He sounded like Neil Young. My trippy state took me back to Long Island and my parents. “Does anyone have a pencil?”
    No one answered. Chris and Doc sat playing cards.
    I scrambled into the kitchen and tore a piece off a paper bag. Searching through the drawers I found a stubby pencil. Seconds, minutes, or hours later I scribbled a poem at the kitchen table. Time ticked along in strange intervals.

    The Suburban Blues
    by Laila Levin
    Please pass the corn beef hash and don’t chew your food so fast
    I mean the last time you were home
    We might not have known.
    Once you were the apple of Daddy’s eye
    And now he just sighs when anyone mentions your intentions.
     
    You’ll be lucky if you see twenty-one, with all your fun
    According to Life Magazine
    Quite Obscene.
    Call collect, the least we expect
    Make sure you eat every day
    And stay away from dirty business, okay?

    The words flowed out as fast as I could write them as I sat alone in the kitchen. Now, I yearned for company and meandered back to the living room in search of Chris. Darkness and silence greeted me. Where was everyone? Through the window a pale sun rose on the pink horizon with the promise of a new day and the meaning of life. My God, it was right upstairs in the attic. Time for me to find out.
    Two at a time, I rushed up the steps. I was turning eighteen and ready to become a woman with Chris my love, the father of my future children. No longer fearful, I bade farewell to my girlhood. When I reached the attic, I stumbled around in the total darkness that engulfed me. Chris had always lit candles when I’d been there before. His breathing guided me to the bed where I slipped off my jeans and sweater and folded them tidily on the floor. I pulled up the covers and snuggled next to him.
    His body felt warm. Two naked bodies molded into one.
    The ceiling opened up and snowflakes fell from the sky, wetting the blankets. Mind tricks? A leak in the roof? He rolled over and kissed me. His breath smelled different. His chest hair was damp against my breasts. He kissed my neck, then his lips made a zigzag path down my body.
    “Make love to me,” I said, but I didn’t think he heard me.
    Time kept skipping around and I remember only parts of what happened. The pressure of him enter inside me. Feeling wet. It didn’t hurt like Denise had said.
    He thrust up and down, up and down. My body joined in the rhythm.
    Oh my God, it did feel good. It felt great. I wanted to see him, to gaze in his eyes.
    We rolled around and I found myself on top. He lightly bit my neck, and moved back on top. Seconds later, he moaned and slid off of me.
    I felt sticky-wet between my legs. “Chris. Was I okay?”
    He didn’t say a word.
    “You know, I never got to tell you this was my first time.”
    “You’ve got to be fucking kidding.” His voice sounded strange. He bolted from the bed and snapped on the lamp.
    I squinted in the harsh light of a bright yellow bulb, blinked twice, and thought I was still hallucinating.
    There before me stood Ben Franklin Jones.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    The Note

    Flushing, New York, 2012
    The private detective who visited Chris in Tucson is now at my lake house in Austin. Chris broke the pact and told her that Joey and Denise had been my friends. Do he and Ben think I’m still the naïve seventeen-year-old they knew in 1970?
    Katie peels out of the Starbucks’ parking lot headed for Denise’s mother’s house in Flushing. “Which way do I turn?”
    “I don’t want to go there,” I say. “Chris has betrayed me. Why should I help?”
    “Don’t be a fool,” Katie says. “We all need to see this note.” She snatches the GPS from the console and attempts to program in the address. “Damn it, can you give me a hand here?”
    I shake my head. “Hello. Did you not feel the hostility of Denise’s brother? The guy’s