The End of Eve by Ariel Gore

Author:Ariel Gore [Gore, Ariel]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780989360418
Publisher: Hawthorne Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Book Three

Underground

17.

Blindfold

“YOUR PROBLEM IS THAT YOU DON’T TRUST ANYBODY,” the girl in Albuquerque said as she fastened the blindfold over my eyes.

I didn’t think that was my problem exactly, but I was going along with it because she was cute and the way she’d always flirted with me on the commuter train made me feel like everything that was wrong with me and Sol was just wrong with Sol.

I’d missed the 5:34 evening train on purpose because I’d glanced behind me and knew she was going to miss it. We were at the bottom of the cement stairs on Central Avenue, cold wind against my face.

The girl in Albuquerque. Girl/woman. She must have been at least 35, but she dressed like a skater boy in her baggy jeans and faded black T-shirt. I wanted to know her name. She had coffee-colored skin, wore silver stud earrings, her eyebrows plucked into thin arches.

That’s all I asked – her name – and she didn’t answer me and that’s when she pulled out the blindfold and said, “May I?” and turned me around and told me what she thought my problem was. Trust. Not trusting anybody.

Now the girl in Albuquerque was pushing me down Central Avenue and I was blind-tripping forward. She turned me against the wind and then turned me around, pushed my back against a cold brick wall and nudged the blindfold off and leaned in to kiss me, her breath hot on my cheek. She had the prettiest brown eyes.

“I can’t,” I whispered.

“Can’t?” she raised those thin eyebrows. “You think I didn’t just see you miss that train on purpose?”

It hadn’t occurred to me that she might have seen me. Trust. “I have a girlfriend who wouldn’t like it.”

The girl in Albuquerque smiled at me. Her teeth were bright white and crooked. “And does your girlfriend still kiss you?”

I wished I was 21 or a bigger liar or somehow otherwise only partially responsible for my actions – for what might happen on a windy night in an alleyway in Albuquerque. I wished it badly.

The girl in Albuquerque was still close to me, still held me against the bricks. “Your girlfriend just owns you like that? Outright? It’s a waste.” She pushed me just a little harder against the wall. “I’m stronger than you,” she whispered.

I glanced at the curve of her bicep. “I can see that.”

“But I can take no for an answer.”

And I said, “Thank you.”

But now the girl in Albuquerque looked like she might cry. Thin, arched eyebrows. She said, “Why you got to thank somebody for acting right?”

I didn’t say anything.

“Don’t ever do that again. Thank me for doing something sweet for you.” She let go of me. “Don’t ever thank anybody for acting right.”

“Okay.”

She stared at me for a long time. “Promise.”

And I said, “All right. I promise.”

The wind and the bricks. All that cold felt like elation and I didn’t know what it meant, but something in my life had broken open. I trusted the girl in Albuquerque completely.

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