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Deeper

They sat there with nothing to say for almost a half an hour.  The sun shown delicately through the leaves of the cottonwood they rested under, letting specks of sunshine dance across her face.
He watched her as she sat there, sitting up against the trunk of the tree, her head leaned back against it, her eyes closed and her arms resting at her sides. She could almost be taken for an innocent girl, right then, right at that moment. It was a rarity that her make up was worn off enough for anyone to see her freckles. Her cheeks were always naturally flushed, which made her look more like a child than she desired.
The wind picked up, letting the sun spots violently sweep back and forth across her face, and blowing her hair over the bridge of her nose and along the trail of freckles, strands getting stuck in her lip gloss and small beads of sweat forming on her forehead.
They were both exhausted.  The afternoon heat welcomed them to take a break from their rigorous activities of the morning. Two shovels lay where they had left them, before their spontaneous romantic session, which left them even more lifeless than when they had started.
When Kevin Doyle became interested in Anna, he had no idea what he was getting himself into. Just looking at those doe eyes, that pretty copper hair, those delicate shoulders and that flower stem spine that shown through her thin cotton spaghetti strap number that she was wearing that day, he never
would have guessed the kind of brilliance that lurked in her adorable little mind.  Light pink and off-white lace, he though, surely dominated this girl’s world. He was wrong. He wanted to know more, he wanted to know everything about her. But Kevin had to work for it, Anna was not one to begin a conversation, let alone, disclose details about her life. She had a hunch that one day she would say the wrong thing to the wrong person, and end up in a place that she did not want to be in. It was much simpler to play the part she was good at; the cute red head with the cotton summer dress and pretty eyelashes.
The part that Kevin played, however, was a little different. Kevin’s script persisted of “Yes, my accent is real, and its New Zealand, not Australian, thank you,” “No, I’m not married,” “My age has nothing to do with my profession,” and “Yes, I’m sure I’m not gay.”  He worked as a history professor for the local college, an adjunct faculty member, Anna had his class three times a week two quarters ago, and requested they meet somewhere for an office meeting, as Kevin didn’t have one for himself. He was thirty, for anyone he actually chose to tell the truth to, twenty-five if he was pushed into the question by an older woman, and seventeen to interested men his age. It wasn’t that Kevin appeared gay off the bat, it just seemed that a single man of that age who were successful and attractive dressers were typically gay.
Anna was the hardest to convince otherwise. She had simply put it, at coffee where they had decided to meet, that she was certain he was queer, even if he didn’t know it yet. And if he had a true argument against that, he had better present it soon, before she passed into permanent belief of his fruitiness.  It was then that Kevin took his chance, risked his career, his sanity, his heart, and his legal rights as a citizen, and took Anna, who was only sixteen, back to his place.
It became a common ritual. To get out of any sort of talking, Anna advanced upon Kevin, leaving him ultimately speechless anyway. He was determined to learn things  about her eventually, but as long as she was willing to give it, he was willing to take it.
Anna had truly bizarre rituals that both confused and attracted Kevin even more. She habitually picked pretty flowers she saw, and then pressed them in her oversized Webster Dictionary under  “F” for ‘flower.’
She stored important pictures and souvenirs in that dictionary as well under “M” for memory. Apparently she used this section a lot, as the page was tattered, and seemed to have mistakenly had a corner taken off.
Anna had a sense of humor as well. Kevin would sometimes follow her and watch  her to see her as a stranger might.  He once followed her to a Barnes and Noble, where he then watched her plight books such as “Sex for Dummies,” And “The Illustrated Guide to Getting it On.” She then ventured into the children’s literature section, where she randomly placed the books upon the shelves between the Box Car Children and Dr. Seuss.  After watching her do this, Kevin knew that there was much more to this girl than he had anticipated.
Kevin looked up at Anna’s face again, her green eyes were shut and she took deep, peaceful breaths, her little chest inflating and deflating with small occasional feminine hums that escaped her lips. He lay there, his head propped up on his hand, looking intently at her face, searching for any sort of sign that would indicate or justify this girl being driven to where she is.
No. No signs. Just a beautiful, elegant creation of nature. He touched her hand and watched her eyes open. He could see the wheels turning in her head, trying to figure out where she was and how she had gotten there.
Anna looked down at Kevin. She didn’t smile, but in her head, she was smiling. What a piece of work this guy was. The first to actually have to guts to make a move. She had this fetish. A teacher. Someone older. He seemed to know what she needed. And he respected her. That was a different twist. Nobody had truly respected her before. But he wanted to know her. And she wasn’t sure she wanted that.  Today, however, she decided she would answer his questions. Whatever they were. She was sure they were coming. Questions that he expected her to avoid. But she wouldn’t this time.
“Anna, tell me about her. Your mother?” he asked, looking up at her and playing with her fingers. He knew this was a touchy subject, but apparently, so was everything else. He figured, given the situation, that this one was the most appropriate.
“Well…she was a beautiful woman.  She was slender, and gorgeous. She had the most beautiful singing voice that most people had ever heard. She was the perfect woman who always wore Chanel.”  She paused. Her expression went to stone. Then she continued as if it were painful. As if she were being forced to swallow more of something than she could handle.
“She was an over achiever. She always had to be the best and be perfect.  She was always the heroine in her stories. She always exaggerated, but they loved her for it. She lit up a room with her smile.  She was the sort of person who shopped at Goodwill, but only bought brand name things.  Everything was about image for her. She always told me to sell myself. And to do that, I had to be beautiful. And I was never beautiful enough. I was too fat. Always ten more pounds. Ten more pounds, just another ten pounds! Another fucking ten pounds! Just another ten!” Anna had to stop, tears were beginning to well up in her eyes, and she’d be damned if she let Kevin see her cry.
She sat there and remembered the real scenes of her mother that played in her head. Finding the woman hunched over the toilet, the tip of her Chanel scarf floating delicately in the toilet water, her head resting on her arm.  Anna stood in the doorway, with that same expressionless face, looking at this pathetic pile on the floor that was her mother. She crossed her arms and walked out the door. she walked into her own bedroom bathroom and enforced the phrase, “like mother, like daughter.”
“ I have her face, her hair. But it’s not good enough that I look exactly like her. It was never good enough that I tried as hard as I could to be what she wanted. I was always…..”
She broke off, her face as hard a rock, looking straight ahead at absolutely nothing.
Kevin swallowed hard, unable to believe what had just come out of that little girl. A waterfall of passion, and years of feelings all built up. He was afraid to push her. He knew that this was just the tip of the iceberg and that far more was to come flowing out of her. He wanted so desperately for her to continue. But she was pulling herself together now, he could see it.
She straightened up and wiped away a little tear, her eyes still like ice. No feeling, no emotion. She had molded herself into a matter-of-fact mistress through the years of avoiding this subject.
“You could never be her, Anna. You’re you. And it sounds like that would never be good enough for her. And that’s not your fault.” he said, holding her hand.
Anna got up swiftly, her baby blue cotton skirt fluttering with the breeze. She walked over to where they had been digging and pulled a crumpled piece of paper from her bra and unfolded it.
Kevin got up as well, but kept his distance from her. She obviously needed space, or he was afraid that she’d bolt. He watched her from behind, holding that little piece of paper and looking into the hole.
She turned around to face him, her hair blowing slightly, again with the breeze. Cotton bits floating in the air caught the sun and created a surreal background for her placement. A firefly rose and softly blinked on and off. Then another, and another.
She looked the most beautiful in this moment than she ever had to Kevin.
“I know,” she said, letting the piece of torn paper flutter into the hole and land on the body at the bottom. She began to walk away, and Kevin passed her, on his way to the ditch, peering in to read the word “Mother, (n)…” on the paper.
Kevin paused, staring at the tarp covered body, so disrespectfully tossed and mangled at the bottom of the ditch.  Just as he counted the ways to make Anna happier, to improver her life, their small spot in the woods echoed with the clanging of a shovel cracking a human skull.
Kevin fell into the hole, landing on top of Anna’s last victim, becoming a twisted addition to the rigor statue and Anna tossed another torn piece of paper on top of Kevin, spelling “Mistrust: (n) mis-trust: To put trust in the wrong place…”
Wiping off her forehead with the back of her hand, she leaned on the shovel and looked down at the two of them for a moment, before throwing the shovel in with them, kicking a few token clumps of dirt on them  and nonchalantly collecting Kevin’s keys from where they had fallen out of his pocket under their tree. She calmly walked away. Leaving the sun to set, and trusting the fireflies to keep quiet- for their sake.