Resolved to my task, I raised my fist and knocked on her door firmly.
It was less than ten seconds before it swung open and Anita herself, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt appeared to me on the other side.
"Billy!" She said, her face beaming. "Come in! I knew you'd come back."
"I'll stay out on the porch Anita." I told her firmly. "What I have to say won't take but a minute."
Her face clouded, trying to retain some of the hope it showed when she first saw me. "What do you mean?"
"Anita," I said. "I'll make this short and to the point. Our relationship is over. Over and done. I'm sorry I ended it so abruptly and I'm sorry I hurt you, but it is over. You need to stop calling my house and asking for me to come over and do chores for you."
"Billy, I was just trying to stay friends with you." She told me, fresh hurt marring her features. "Don't you want to still be friends?"
"You know that being friends after a sexual relationship is not possible." I told her. "That is not why you're calling. You're hoping I'll come over and resume where we left off. I will not do that. You need to stop it. You're making my mother very suspicious and if you push much harder the consequences are going to unpleasant."
She became indignant. "Well maybe your mother SHOULD know about what happened between us. Maybe I should just tell her."
I shook my head, disgusted with both her and with myself for bringing her to this point, this desperation. "Think about that for a second Anita." I told her. "Do you think that if you tell my mother about our relationship she's going to order me to come over here and marry you? Is that what you really think? Well I'm here to tell you that if you tell my mother anything it will be the worst mistake you'll ever make in your life. Mom will be very offended by it and she will not be directing her offense at me. You are the adult in this situation and in case you forgot, I am a minor.
"I imagine Mom would probably call the cops about this and you would end up with a criminal charge of some sort. You may not be convicted of anything but you would almost certainly have your children taken away from you. Is that what you want?"
Though the shock that overcame her expression was painful to watch, it was also a relief. I had managed to break through to her, to get a point across.
"Your mother wouldn't do that." She protested, but weakly.
"To tell you the truth Anita, I don't really want to find out. I didn't come over here to torment you and despite what you probably think, I don't hate you. I just need you to acknowledge that our relationship is at an end. That it's over. I don't want you to get into trouble Anita, I just want you to leave me alone."
She gulped, tears running down her face. "I'll leave you alone." She whispered, barely audibly.
"What was that?" I asked.
"I said I'll leave you alone." She nearly shouted. "Are you happy?"
"No Anita." I answered. "I'm not. But I'm glad you agreed with me."
This time I was able to get away before the sound of her sobs reached my ears.
Before she left Tracy was royally chewed out by my mother for not calling or writing more often. She left us with a promise to phone at least once a week. It had been three weeks since she'd left and so far she'd kept up with her promise well. As to how long that would last was anyone's guess.
I was home alone when she called on Wednesday evening, a week prior to Christmas vacation.
"Hey Bill." She said cheerfully. As before I could hear girlish revelry going on in the background. "Just making my obligatory weekly call so that Mom doesn't cut off my funding."
"Well, you wasted a call." I told her. "There out at Dad's school's Christmas party. They probably won't be home until midnight or so."
Tracy giggled. "And when they do get home, Dad will be drunk and Mom will be ragging on him about having too much to drink and swearing that she's not going to take him to next year's party."
"Gee," I mocked, knowing that Tracy was correct. "You sound like you've lived through this before."
"Oh, I might've witnessed something like that a time or two." She agreed. "So how's things with you?"
"Well," I said. "I think I have the Anita problem stabilized. She's not calling here anymore, hasn't since I had that little talk with her."
"It was the right thing to do." Tracy assured me. "It worked didn't it?"
"But it wasn't terribly fun."
"Well," Tracy opined, "Maybe you'll learn to consider the consequences of your actions a little better."
"Maybe." I agreed.
"How about Nina? Any developments there?"
"Unfortunately, no. She still won't talk to me or have anything to do with me. It's kind of hard to declare your love for someone who is repulsed by your very presence."
"I told you Bill," She said. "She's not repulsed by you. She probably still loves you. She just doesn't want to subject herself to pain again. If she can get away from you when you try to talk to her, she will. You need to put yourself in a situation where she can't get away from you, where she's forced to listen to you. Then you can say your piece to her. And it had better be a good piece."
"How about kidnapping her at gunpoint?" I asked sourly.
"That might not serve your interests very well." Tracy commented. "Don't worry, you're a smart guy, you'll think of something. You'd just better do it quick. Remember the more time that goes by…"
"The harder it will be." I finished for her. "I know that very well, thank you. So how about you? How are things on your end?"
"I'm hanging in here." She answered. "I don't get into cars at all anymore.
I bought a bicycle and I use that to ride everywhere that I need to go. It's not terribly fun, especially when it rains, which it does a lot here, but at least it's keeping me in shape."
"That's good thinking Trace." I told her. "Very good thinking."
"I do what I can." She said.
"Are you still coming home for Christmas?"
"As soon as Mom and Dad buy me the ticket." She said. "Try to have some good news to share with me when I get there, okay?"
"I'll try Trace. I'll try."
They say that fortune favors the bold. That may be so. But sometimes it favors the clumsy and the inattentive. This is especially true if the clumsy and the inattentive are blessed with quick thinking.
It was Monday afternoon, the last week of school before Christmas break. I was at my ROP worksite in the basement of the trauma center. My work partner, Brett Jackson, and I were about to begin putting together some sterile chest tube kits for the emergency department. In a few years Jeff Foxworthy would put out a list of indicators that you might be a redneck. Brett would fit nicely into many of them. He was a large, jovial kid that continually fidgeted and whined during the work period because, in the sterile environment of central supply, he was not allowed to suck on the large plug of chewing tobacco he habitually stored in his bottom lip at all other times. As we finished up laying out the sterile packaging on the sterile table with our sterile hands that were encased in sterile gloves, Brett was regaling me with his favorite, indeed his ONLY subject of conversation.
"So I got the Hearst shifter put in with my last paycheck," He told me, "And with my next one I'll be able to put a down payment down on a set of glass packs."
I had only the vaguest idea what he was talking about. Cars were not and still are not my forte'. I had picked up that glass packs were mufflers but as far as a Hearst shifter went I was pretty much clueless. I figured it probably had something to do with the transmission although why a Hearst shifter was superior to the one that had come with the car was a mystery to me.
"That's cool Brett." I said absently, putting down the last piece of packaging.
"Yep." He said, nodding. "And if I get hired here at semester break I can double my salary and quit workin' at fuckin' McDonald's. More money and more time to work on my car. That would be sweet." He said this last the way other males talked about having two women at once, in the tones of mystical fantasy, of the ultimate pleasure.