Tales of Burning Love by Louise Erdrich

Author:Louise Erdrich
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2021-09-24T00:00:00+00:00

I was home by myself, reading, bolting down wheat crackers as fast as I could, when the doorbell rang. I had to sneak them into my room or my father would gently pull away the box, reminding me the baby was growing bigger too. I hadn’t heard a car drive up, so I went to an upstairs window and looked down to see who it was. If it was someone in black, I decided that I wouldn’t answer.

Jack was watching me watch him through the upstairs window. His face was tipped back, his skin golden, eyes dark and hair mink brown. He arched one brow, held out his hands. Would I let him in? I sighed. Here it came. I let the curtain drop. Before I opened the door, I brushed my hair from my face with my fingers, bit my lips a little. Still, what I had decided was this: He’d done the job of getting my parents together. I’d paid him with sex. Paid him too well. It was time to fire him even though I’d grown attached—maybe fallen in love. Still, no sooner that I decided he was for me than he suddenly said something stupid and I changed my mind. Conversely, the moment I decided that I hated him he warmed my heart with a perfect gesture. He had physical grace. He won me effortlessly and at the same time he drove me crazy.

I knew Jack’s basic history, his football career, his decent grades, his careless string of girlfriends. His big move to the outskirts of Fargo, then into the city itself to get his engineering degree. All normal enough, too normal for me! He told me he’d been married once, for a short time; he was a widower. I didn’t believe him. He worked with insane energy and on weekends he sang lead vocal in an awful rock band, throwing his hands high and rocking side to side on the balls of his feet. Although his voice was mediocre, he was tender and unashamed, with an outright joy or sorrow that affected people in the audience. He often sang off-key to loud cheers.

I tried to turn him from the door.

“It would be rude not to ask me in,” he said with smooth confidence I found annoying and also hard to resist.

I took a deep breath, opened the door wide, and nodded toward the living room.

My voice was as neutral as I could make it, but the edge was there. I wanted to get back to my little study, the safety of my stacks and piles of books and mail, my earnest little typewriter, my gloomy journals, my Thomas Merton paperbacks. My Castle of the Interior. He wouldn’t let me. He settled immediately into a heavy old chair, and drank the Coke I brought him. When the glass was empty, I didn’t offer him a refill, but still he sat there, looking at me. I was anxious to get it over with, then uncomfortable. I steeled myself not to feel his feelings but just to get it over, clean.

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