Chapter 1: Halloween

Knut Gustafson figured that he was entitled to a couple of years of peace before Rebecca became a teenager. Why did she keep acting like one now? “It’s so boring,” she said.

“It’s the costume that you chose yourself,” Knut reminded her.

“Tammy’s mother sewed her a lovely Princess costume, much better than this one.”

“So why,” a voice inside Knut’s head ran, “didn’t you ask your mother to sew you one?” But he couldn’t ask that. Besides, he doubted that Candice could sew that much better than he could. Maybe a little; she had taken home ec. Still he didn’t think that Rebecca would enjoy a costume that Candice could sew. “Well,” he said aloud, “if you wanted a princess costume, there were plenty in the store. You asked for a Batman outfit.”

That wasn’t the point, and he knew that very well;, but she stopped arguing. He put on a white plastic rain cloak for its reflectivity. They went downstairs, crossed the porch, and knocked on their landlords’ door.

The Sandovals exclaimed over how good she looked. They were still talking when the doorbell rang. The pirate who entered was dressed in a home-made costume, and an imaginative one at that.

The woman with him looked good, too. Both kids turned right when they left the Sandovals’ place. “I’m Sarah Jenkins,” the woman said. “That’s Billy.”

“Knut Gustafson,” he answered, “and this is Rebecca. Rebecca, say hello to Mrs. Jenkins.”

“Hello, Mrs. Jenkins.”

“Hello, Rebecca. Nice to meet you. Like Newt Gingrich?” Everybody asked that these days.

“Like King Canute who couldn’t command the tides. Kay Enn Yew Tea. The K was once pronounced. I’ve no idea if the Svensk still do, but it’s silent in English.”

The kids got a little ahead of them and the boy looked like he was going to dart across. “Hold it!” Knut said. “Okay guys, this is the drill. We are going to wait until this car goes, and then we are going to all cross together. Stay with the adults and watch for cars.” Then he realized what that must sound like to Mrs. Jenkins. “Sorry.”

“Be my guest.”

Mrs. Jenkins’s voice was decisive, even though they kept their voices low in the darkness. Her silences were comfortable, too. Innocently, he took both kids upstairs in the first 6-flat while she stayed below. When she took the next building, however, he couldn’t tear his eyes from her butt as she climbed the stairs.

The steps tightened the skirt, and he could see where her hips flexed under the cloth. She swayed a little as her weight went from one leg to another. The most attractive sight was the little corner her bones turned after they left her pelvis, the greater trochanter -- he’d looked it up. The wide spread said “woman” to him.

Of course, she was another man’s woman, married with a child.

So he walked an inch further from her as they traveled the dozen yards to the next entrance. Still, he watched her climb in the building after that, wished the flexion was for him, knew it never would be.

There was only one more 6-flat after that one, his turn -- unfortunately. Soon after that she said: “That’s our place across the street. I think we’ll cross here.”

“Good idea,” he responded. “Okay, let’s all stay together and look both ways.” They crossed the street together; Rebecca was good about that. When Billy and his mother started into a courtyard, however, she darted down the walk towards the Walters’ house. The courtyard was well-lighted and empty. He had no excuse to watch them home. “Sorry,” he said as he followed ‘Becca.

“Good night,” Mrs. Jenkins called after them.

He and ‘Becca stopped at three more houses, in one of which the family wasn’t home.

When they climbed the stairs to their apartment, he still had a memory of hips tightening under a tightened skirt. He wished that he could have seen which entrance she had headed towards.

After ‘Becca was in night clothes and had her “two pieces of candy, and that’s all tonight” (one of the Reese packages being, predictably enough, her second “piece”), she brushed her teeth and climbed into bed.

“Did you know Billy at all before tonight?” he asked her.

“Daddy! He has to be in second grade, maybe first.” Thus, obviously unworthy of the attention of a sixth grader. He considered comparing that to the attention (and candy) that adults on the block had showered on the two of them that night. Then he gave it up.

On his way home from work the next day, he happened to notice the poll sheet prominently displayed -- as the law required -- on the front of their precinct’s polling place. Sarah Jenkins was listed at 1243. No other Jenkins was.

Now, her husband might not be interested in voting; he might have missed the registration deadline, Sarah being listed as a new registrant since the primaries; she might be using her own last name, half the young women today seemed to. On the other hand, she might be a single mother or a divorcee. She might even be a widow.

He had to force himself to turn in at his own door. He was not going down to 1243 to see whether there was another name on the mailbox with Jenkins. Still, as he climbed the familiar stairs to his apartment, his mind couldn’t resist the memory of those hips tightening, relaxing and swaying up those other stairways.

This was Rebecca’s weekend with her mother. She was bathed, dressed in clean clothes, and packed by the time Candice got there. The discussion was brief, but civil.

After his dinner, he stripped her bed and consolidated her dirty clothes with his. Then he undressed and turned out all the lights except the lamp by his bedside.

He had too active a libido, and too inactive a social life, to restrain himself all the time that his daughter was home. Still, he always felt restricted by her presence in the next room, or even outside playing.

He took a tape and a stack of magazines from the locked cabinet into bed with him. As his excitement rose, he stroked himself everywhere but his genitals. Staring at the frontal shot of a dark beauty, he pretended that it was her fingers teasing the insides of his thighs. Turning to the picture of a platinum blonde, he would imagine her lips and teeth -- rather than his own fingers -- on his nipples.

He avoided his cock until the distension there pained him. Abruptly, he rolled backward and stretched to the play button on his tape recorder. He scratched and stroked the sack of his balls while the female voice established the minimal and silly plot. As soon as she began describing intercourse, however, he stared at a picture of a kneeling woman spreading her labia between her globular hips.

He stroked himself, slowly at first. His speed increased as the tape played the sounds of a simulated orgasm. As that woman moaned her last, he started throbbing through his wrapped fingers.

When he’d caught his breath, he wiped his hand on the sheet. He rolled over, shut off the tape recorder, and switched off the light. He felt slightly guilty, but not enough to keep him awake.

The next morning he sprayed Spray-N-Wash on the places where he had spurted on his sheets, added those sheets to the wash, and took it to the laundromat. The video place was only a few doors away. He took his time selecting two films from the XXX shelves while the washers ran. He often wondered what the salespeople thought of his selection of two pieces of porn one week and one piece of Disney fluff the next. Probably nothing; “You would worry less about what people think of you if you knew how seldom they do.”

He and ‘Becca stopped at the grocery after church a few weeks later. They always did on her weekends with him. A woman was bent slightly over checking a price on the machine provided for that purpose. The sight delightfully reminded him of the woman climbing the stairs in front of him on Halloween. As he went past, the resemblance continued. “Aren’t you Sarah Jenkins?” he asked.

“I’m Knut Gustafson,” he continued. Yes, this was Sarah. “Rebecca, greet Mrs. Jenkins. She went trick-or-treating with us.” Which told Sarah who he was, too.

“Hello, Mrs. Jenkins,” ‘Becca said.

“How do you do, Rebecca? I wouldn’t have recognized you not dressed as Batgirl.” Rebecca had been Batman, and her face said that she resented the mistake. But she thought better of saying so and moved on to the next aisle. “Stocking up for the holiday?” Sarah asked.

“No. Rebecca is spending Thanksgiving with her mother. This is two weeks’ worth. She doesn’t trust me to keep her favorite foods in stock without supervision.”

“Well, that’s a shame; but that gives you Christmas day this year. Or, at least, that’s how it works for me.”

“Uh-huh,” he said. Hey, she wasn’t taken, after all! “You know the drill. Is Billy with you this Thanksgiving?”

“No, but I’ll have him a long time at Christmas. We’ll go visit his grandparents.”

Well, that was an opportunity which might never come again. “Y’know, Thanksgiving is no holiday to spend alone. There’s a local restaurant that serves a traditional Thanksgiving feast, turkey and everything. Would you be willing to be my guest there?”

“Why, thank you.” Their conversation continued. ‘Becca, choosing between her pout and supervising his shopping, returned. When they got to the checkout line, he went first. Sarah didn’t have much, and she might leave while he was going through.

“Do you have wheels?” he asked when Sarah had paid. She pointed at a ‘shopping cart’ of the two-wheeled, personally- owned, sort. “That’s ridiculous. Wait with ‘Becca while I get the car, and we’ll give you a ride home.”

In the car, he got her phone number. He parked close to her back stairs and carried one bag upstairs. “See you Thursday,” he said, unable to think of any more reasons to prolong this visit.

He got the stuff upstairs and into his freezer before they drove over to the movie-rental place. He checked ‘Becca’s seat belt from the front seat, before taking out his notebook. “That’s one point for Gryfindor here, and one point for fastening it at the grocery store. And a couple of points for swallowing your anger about being called ‘Batgirl.’”

“I was Batman.”

“And so you were, and so you may tell me. But not telling Mrs. Jenkins was a good choice. That’s four points total.” And, if she hadn’t gone off in a sulk it would have been five.

Thanksgiving, he was antsy. He resisted calling until one. “This is Knut Gustafson. Are we still on for two?”

“Yes.”

“I was going to offer you the option of walking; it isn’t far. But I don’t trust the weather. I’ll be parked in front of your building at two.”

When his watch showed the hour, he rang her apartment bell. “I have a confession to make,” he said after he had started driving. He preferred the smorgasbord, and she might like it better, too. “This place serves a turkey dinner on Thanksgiving, but I’m going for the smorgasbord. So you’ll have to choose whether to be seasonal on your own.”

They had to wait, even though he had made a reservation. Her child would be a safe topic. “Is Billy a fussy eater?”

“He’s not bad. He could live on hamburgers, but he enjoys other foods as well.”

“You ever visit the Vietnamese restaurants in the neighborhood?” he asked. “What does he think of those?”

“Loves Chinese, especially sweet-and-sour,” she answered. “I haven’t started him on the Vietnamese places yet. He’ll even eat vegetables in those dishes which he won’t eat for me.”

“Offer a prayer of thanks. I keep dreading that Rebecca will get into the ‘Mickey D’s or nothing’ phase. Look: she has a table for us.”

The waitress asked about drinks. “I’m driving,” he said, “you?”

“Coffee.” She was an entertaining conversationalist. And she listened to his comments, too.

He brought up Billy, again, but she must have thought that he was trying too hard.

When they were winding down the meal, the rain was incredibly heavy. As nobody was coming in, the waitress wasn’t anxious for them to leave. He was willing to talk with this woman until supper time -- until breakfast time, if it weren’t for ‘Becca’s coming home. Her life was fascinating. His only experience with substitute teachers was from his own days in high school, and he wasn’t anxious eager to tell her about that. When a pause in the rain seemed imminent, he asked, “Do you want any more?”