1128
PARTISAN REVIEW
to seat herself on the rim of a packing stand. "Well, tell me," she said,
without greeting, thinking her voice sounded reassuringly familiar.
"I saw you coming out the door," Jesus said. "I heard you run-
ning part of the way, too."
"Uh-huh," Rosie said. "Now tell me the secret."
"I was afraid you wouldn't come," he said.
Rosie delved around on the chicken-wire bottom of the stall
for number two tomatoes, ripe, which she was sitting beside, and
came up with a left-over that felt edible. She bit into it and began
sucking out the pulp and seeds. "I'm here," she pointed out.
"Rosie, are you sorry you came?"
"Sorry? What for?" she said. "You said you were going to tell
me something."
"I will, I will," JesUs said, but
his
voice contained disappoint–
ment, and Rosie, fleetingly, felt the older of the two, realizing a
brand-new power which vanished without category under her rec–
ognition.
"I have to go back in a minute," she said. "My aunt and uncle
are here from Wintersburg. I told them I was going to the privy."
Jesus laughed. "You funny thing," he said. "You slay me!"
"Just because you have a bathroom
inside,"
Rosie said. "Come
on, tell me."
Chuckling, JesUs came around to lean on the stand facing her.
They still could not see each other very clearly, but Rosie noticed
that Jesus became very sober again as he took the hollow tomato
from her hand and dropped it back into the stall. When he took
hold of her empty hand, she could find no words to protest; her vo–
cabulary had become distressingly constricted and she thought des–
perately that
all
that remained intact now was yes and no and oh,
and even these few sounds would not easily out. Thus, kissed by
JesUs, Rosie fell, for the first time, entirely victim to a helplessness
delectable beyond speech. But the terrible, beautiful sensation lasted
no more than a second, and the reality of Jesus' lips and tongue and
teeth and hands made her pull away with such strength that she
nearly tumbled.
Rosie stopped running as she approached the lights from the
windows of home. How long since she had left? She could not guess,
but gasping yet, she went to the privy in back and locked herself in.
