Chapter 17: The Night Before

At one in the morning I gave up on sleep and went down the back stairs in my aunt's cardigan.

Elio's truck was parked in the alley beside the loading door, with the engine off and a blanket over the wheel.

The silver car had left at midnight.

I had watched it go from my window.

I opened the passenger door and climbed in.

He had been awake.

He sat with his boots on the dash and the seat tipped back, and he put them down as I shut the door.

"I couldn't sleep," I said.

"Neither could I."

"I keep seeing the room tomorrow. The tables, and Carina in white, and her mother at the front."

"Her mother will hear it."

"That's what I'm afraid of."

He turned in the seat to face me.

"Tell me."

I looked at the dark windshield.

"On the night I had the fever, I held the call button for an hour," I said.

"I didn't press it. I wanted somebody to come on their own."

"I know."

"Nobody did, until the soup."

"And now I'm sitting in a truck with a man who keeps sleeping at my curb, and I don't know what to do with it."

"You don't have to do anything with it."

"I know. That's what scares me."

He lifted his hand slowly, and waited, and then touched my cheek.

I turned my face into his palm.

It smelled of motor oil and soap.

"I've been thinking about the zipper for nine hours," I said.

His breath caught, and he laughed under it, helplessly.

"So have I."

"I saw your hand shake."

"I know you did."

"Say it, Elio."

"I wanted to put my mouth on your back," he said, "right where my thumb was."

"In front of three women and my aunt?"

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