When Tito Loved Clara by Jon Michaud Page B

entrance then a long living room opening to an alcove kitchen and leading to the second bedroom. The previous tenants had lived in filth and disorder, with clothes and garbageon the floor, but the place was clean now. All of the rooms had windows that opened into the airshaft—and therefore were visible to people in other apartments—except for the second bedroom, which had a view of the ballfields of Inwood Hill Park. On the hardwood of that second bedroom, Tito had laid out his old sleeping bag, along with a sheet, a blanket, and two pillows. He brought up a vase of flowers. He brought up toilet paper. When the buzzer rang, he was in the bedroom looking out the window at a Little League game.
    Clara was wearing nothing special—jeans, sandals, and a lacy short-sleeved blouse—but she looked astounding to him. He tried to kiss her as she entered the apartment, but she danced away, laughing. He could tell that she was in a strange mood. “So, come on, show me around our new place,” she said.
    He walked her from room to room, describing the apartment as if they lived there together. In the first bedroom, he said, “This is your study. Notice the bookcases over there, and the desk with the nice new computer. See that, I had your diploma from Cornell framed and put up on the wall.”
    â€œThat's very thoughtful of you.”
    Every time they went to another room, he tried to take her hand or kiss her cheek, but she moved away. “This is the kitchen,” he said, prepared to leave it at that, but she said, “So, who's the cook in the house? You?”
    â€œOf course,” he said. “Look what I made earlier today.” He opened the fridge and showed her the roasted chicken and the rice and beans his mother had left for him.
    â€œMmm,” she said. “And wine, too? You hoping to get lucky or something?”
    â€œHoping,” he said. She had been willing all summer, but now that they had the opportunity, she had become coy.
    He walked her through the living room, pointing out the projection television and the oriental rugs. In the second bedroom, heindicated the sleeping bag and said, “This is our new fourposter bed.”
    â€œLet's try it out,” she said, and sat down. He got down beside her. He was desperate to feel her skin, even a glancing brush of its warmth, but, continuing to tease him, she rose again and went to the window where he had been when she rang. Tito followed like a dog. She had her back to him and he stood behind her, with his hands on her hips. She did not try to move away. He turned her around and reached up to her face, swept his fingers across her cheek and let his hand glide along her throat. He tugged at her earlobe, teasing the nub of flesh between his fingers like a little piece of dough. She was watching him, her mouth slightly open. His other hand reached behind her and curled up into the back of her blouse. She was naked beneath it and he felt the little canal of her spine between the muscles of her back, the way it flattened out just below her waist. He brought his hand away from her ear and pulled her close. Her mouth felt pulpy. They lowered themselves to the sleeping bag and she was still silent, but busy now, her hands on him, in his hair, clutching at his neck.
    Tito was on his knees and she was sitting up in front of him. “Take it off me,” she said, pulling at her blouse with a gesture of impatience. Using both hands, he pulled it over her head. He bent forward to kiss her breasts but she stopped him. “These too,” she said, squirming as she unzipped her jeans and hooked her finger through a belt loop. “Take them off me.” Tito grabbed the cuffs and pulled. They came off slowly at first as her hips resisted his tugs and then they slipped quickly down her legs and she was naked on the sleeping bag before him in the broad afternoon light. Nothing about her was coy anymore and, seeing her this