Chapter 61: Anala, Part II

August, 1983, Chicago, Illinois

I walked in the near 90°F heat to Carla's place. I was grateful that the humidity of the morning had dropped significantly; otherwise, the heat would have been unbearable. By the time I walked up the steps to the apartment over the photography studio and knocked on her door, I had broken into a light sweat. Carla answered almost immediately and invited me inside her studio apartment.

The air was moderately cool, and the window air conditioner was running full blast and straining against the heat. The odor of garlic and tomatoes filled the room. Carla invited me to sit on the couch and she offered me some lemonade, which I accepted. She poured two glasses, bringing me one while keeping the other for herself, and then sat with me.

"Dinner is about fifteen minutes. Veal with garlic and tomatoes," she said. "It's an old family recipe."

"Rizzi — is that Italian?" I asked.

"Yes, of course! Did you see The Godfather?"

I chuckled, "I did. That was Connie's husband, right?"

"It was. I read the book. Did you actually see the movie?"

"My dad took me to see it. I thought it was pretty cool."

"You were like nine years old, right? You're two years younger than I am?"

"I don't remember for sure if it was before or after my birthday, but it was right around then in '72."

"You seem to have had a lot of experiences, given that you're only 20."

I chuckled, "You probably don't even know the half of it. I don't think I mentioned that I lived in Sweden for a year or that I've been back a few times. My family also moved a lot, and we traveled a lot. My dad had a Winnebago Chieftain motorhome, the 27-foot long one, and we traveled all over the western US, western Canada, and Mexico during the Summer of '72. I went to a different school every year until eighth grade."

"Holy cow! I've lived in the same house since I was little. I think my parents bought it about a year or so after I was born, because the apartment was too small to raise me and my older brother. I was in the Barrington School District for my whole time in school. I lived with my parents until I got the job with Dustin. I had been in Chicago like twice in my entire life before that."

I'd asked her a bit about that before and now I was absolutely sure that she was a naïve, small-town girl who had very little worldly experience. And I'd bet that she was a virgin, too. She'd claimed in the sauna that she wasn't a prude, but everything she said and did seemed to indicate that she was very conservative. That meant I had to adjust my behavior to not make her uncomfortable, though she had shown that with a bit of coaching, she could handle some amount of teasing.

She got up to check on the meal and said that it was almost done. She put dishes on the table, set out bread, olive oil and cheese, strained the pasta, then put the veal dish and pasta on the table. She lit a single candle and opened a bottle of red wine.

"Come to the table, please. Dinner's ready. Do you drink wine?"

"Yes, of course," I said, and she poured a glass for each of us.

We sat down at the table and I picked up some bread, poured a bit of olive oil on the small plate, added the cheese to it, and dipped my bread.

"How do you know how to do that?" she asked. "Adams sure isn't an Italian name!"

"A couple of friends of mine back in Ohio are Italian. I used to eat dinner about once a month at their grandfather's house and one of them, Joyce, used to cook for me every few weeks. I learned that from her."

"She cooked for you? While you guys were in High School?"

"We'd get together, and she'd cook and we'd eat and drink wine. It was a lot of fun. She was a huge help when my girlfriend died."

"What?!" Carla gasped. "I'm so sorry to hear that! What happened?"

I gave her a short version of the story and concluded with, "But that was more than five years ago. It took a lot of time, and I've dealt with it, I guess. I still think about Birgit, and I feel like she's always with me. I don't think that kind of love ever really goes away."

"Is there ANYTHING you haven't done?" she asked.

"I never played baseball for the Reds and I've never flown in the Space Shuttle!" I grinned.

"OK. Anything that's actually possible!" she smirked.

I wanted to say 'slept with you' but I didn't want to make her uncomfortable.

"Lots of stuff, I'm sure."

"Compared to me, though."

"You're only 22! You have a lot of time."

The veal was delicious, and the wine was decent, though not as good as the wines that Joyce usually brought back in High School. When we finished eating, Carla offered coffee and filled our wine glasses for the third time, emptying the bottle.

"Did you decide on a movie?" I asked.

"Well, we saw Risky Business and I don't want to see another stupid teen sex comedy. I'm not into horror movies so I don't want to see Cujo. I wanted to see The Star Chamber but it's already gone from the theaters in the city, so I guess it really sucked."

"That more or less eliminates movies, unless you have a VCR."

"No, I don't. They're too expensive. You have one?"

"I do. We could always rent a movie and watch it at my house, if you wanted," I said.

"We can just hang out, if that's OK. Maybe we can get some ice cream?"

I agreed, and we walked to the ice cream shop. In two years, I still hadn't managed to find good ice cream in Hyde Park. There were some good places in the Loop, and in the suburbs, but not here. I was sorely tempted to order a sundae and make a cherry joke, but decided against it and got a cone just like Carla did. She was turning out, in some ways, to be more conservative than Kara, though not to the extreme that Sandy van der Meer was.

"Carla, you have some chocolate on your chin," I chuckled.

"I didn't get a napkin! It's only a block back to the store, let's go back."

I was tempted to offer to take care of it for her, but I didn't know for sure how she'd respond. I could walk on eggshells with her forever, or I could just be myself, though dialing back my usual teasing somewhat. If she couldn't handle even that, then I wouldn't bother seeing her again. Not because she wouldn't 'put out' but because I hated having to not be myself.

"No need," I chuckled. "Let me take care of it for you!"

"Down, Boy!" she said firmly.

"Never mind," I said, my voice showing a touch of exasperation. "Let's go get your napkin and I'll walk you home."

"I did it again, didn't I?" she said quietly.

"You did. I can't continue to walk on eggshells around you. It's just not me. If you had smiled or laughed when you said that, it would be one thing, but you barked it like an order. I can't do this. You run hot and cold and I can't tell which Carla is going to respond. When we talked about this date, you were cool with teasing a bit, and you even said that if I was a good boy, I could have a goodnight kiss. I took that to mean you were actually open to the possibility. I was wrong. Come on; let's go get your napkin."

"So now you're pissed at me because you expected to get something from me? Figures."

"Oh for Pete's sake! That is NOT what I'm upset about. It's that I can't be myself. Look, you decide what's right for you, and I'm totally behind that. But I decide what's right for me, too. I just don't think we're compatible."

"But I like you!" she said, her voice a touch whiney.

"You're a nice girl, Carla. You're gorgeous. You're smart. But the chemistry just isn't there. I can't be myself, and that's a recipe for disaster in any relationship."

We got back to the ice cream shop, and she grabbed a couple of napkins and wiped her chin, and we started walking back towards her apartment.

"All guys are the same!" she said, clearly as frustrated as I was. "They just want one thing!"

"Bullshit!" I declared. "You THINK that's all they want and so you treat them as if that's all they want. Do you even give them a chance? Let me ask you this, have you had a serious boyfriend? I mean, someone you went out with for at least six months?"

"Yes, of course!" she said.

"And you think that's all he wanted? Sex? Nothing else?"

"All he did was try to push things! When I wouldn't let him, he broke up with me."

I had a sneaking suspicion that it was way more complicated than that, especially given how she sent mixed signals. I could see a guy in High School being thoroughly confused. There were girls who behaved that way at Milford High School, but I simply ignored them because I'd had so many other possibilities. Most guys didn't.

"Carla," I said gently, "if you acted the way you do with me, don't you think he might have felt that you were interested, but just playing hard to get, or being coy? That he saw the mixed signals and, being a teenager, he had no clue about things?"

"So now you're blaming me? Cause he wanted to do stuff with me?"

"Partly. If you tease, then slam on the brakes, a guy has to try to figure out exactly what it is you're trying to tell him. Do you really think a sixteen or seventeen-year-old guy is going to figure that out? Hell, I have trouble and I'm twenty and I'm sure that I have WAY more experience than some kid at Barrington High, or whatever it's called. I'm frustrated because I have to pretend to be something that I'm not. That's no fun and I honestly don't have time for it."

"Why are you being so mean?"

"Mean? For telling you how I feel and what I see? I suppose that you could see it that way. And that's fine, I guess. All I'm doing is telling you honestly how I feel. And why I don't think I should see you again."

"But if I have sex with you, then you'll see me again? Is that it? Is that what this is all about?"

"Oh for Pete's sake!" I said again, now completely exasperated. "What the heck is wrong with you?! You're twenty-two and we can't have a relationship conversation because you think all I want to do is get you into bed? That's not only not true, but it's the last thing on my mind right now. If you asked me, I'd turn you down. Flat. It would be the absolute dumbest thing I could do to take you to bed. My instincts were right the other night. I shouldn't even have kissed you goodnight. You can't handle even a simple kiss without making a federal case out of it!"

We'd come to the photography studio, and I stopped at the bottom of the stairs. She started up, and I stayed standing on the sidewalk. It was time to go home, and I didn't see any possibility of moving forward in any way with Carla. In the end, I just didn't have the time or the inclination to play the kinds of games she was playing.

She stopped on the third stair and asked, "You're not coming up?"

"Why would I? I'm going to head home."

"Why?" she asked, crossing her arms.

"Because you're too immature to handle an adult relationship, that's why. It's like you're stuck in Junior High. I know girls six years younger than you are who are way more mature."

"You are so mean!" she whined.

"If that's what you think, then you shouldn't be too upset that I'm going home. Honestly, Carla, I had hoped we could have a nice date, but I was wrong. Thanks for dinner. Good night."

I turned and started to walk away.

"Steve, stop, please," she said plaintively.

Her tone caused me to stop. If she'd barked it out, I'd have simply kept on going. I turned to face her.

"Can we please talk about this?" she said softly, sounding defeated.

"I'm not sure what that's going to accomplish."

"Just talk to me, OK? Please? Come back and talk."

I sighed and looked at my watch. It wasn't late, and I didn't have any homework to do, so I didn't really have to be home. But I also didn't think this would accomplish anything at all.

"Talk about what? I think we've pretty much concluded that there's a huge gulf between us — you don't like my style and I don't like yours."

"I can explain, if you let me," she said.

I suddenly had a very good idea of what had happened and why she was like she was. But the whole sauna incident didn't fit what I was thinking. Or did it? If I was right, then I knew exactly what needed to be done — put her in touch with Bethany. It all fit.

"OK," I said, walking back.

We went upstairs to the apartment and sat on the couch. She offered me a glass of wine and I accepted it and she poured one for herself. She gulped half the glass and then took a deep breath. I knew what she was going to say.

"When I was seventeen, I went to Prom. Afterwards, we went to an all-night party in the forest preserve. My date tried to force me to have sex with him. The only thing that prevented it was some other kids came along to the place where we'd been making out."

I was close. I'd thought she'd actually been raped, but it was only close. It was a huge difference in one sense, but not in another.

"And you've been afraid to even make out with a guy ever since," I said.

"Yes," she said. "I guess that's why I put on the brakes, as you call it."

"And a good-night kiss is safe because it can't really lead to anything," I said. "I am REALLY sorry about the sauna. Now I feel like a total cad."

She smiled, "That was the first time I'd ever actually seen one, you know, up close and personal. I was shocked that you would do that and assumed it meant that you were planning to have sex with me."

"It was foolish of me. I should have read the signs better. In hindsight, I see where I made my mistake. Have you talked to anyone about this? A counselor or therapist? A friend?"

"No. Why?" she asked.

"My best friend was raped when she was thirteen. It was similar circumstances to you, though at a party, not Prom. She spent years seeing a counselor to work through all the personal and relationship problems that caused. Now she's studying to be a psychologist. I wonder if you would talk with her? I think she might be able to help you. I don't mean professionally, but one girl to another. She's going to be in town in two weeks. I think you two should talk."

"To a total stranger? I don't know if I could do that," she said.

"You're talking to me! And I guarantee that Bethany will listen and maybe she can give you some advice. I can't even begin to put myself in your position. On the other hand, I did offer to kill the asshole who raped Bethany. She asked me not to, and fortunately, he ended up in jail, but not before he raped a couple of other girls."