It was not moving, and it certainly was not a male sex organ, which I had been expecting to see. I shook my head and had to laugh. My imagination was obviously working overtime.
Still, considering all I had been through in the last twenty-four hours, with Kenny, and his cock, and David, who was just a prick, maybe it should not be so surprising that I would envision an animated male organ rummaging around in my bag.
I knew one thing, I was not going to tell anyone about this hallucination, especially Courtney.
I stared at the doll a moment longer before driving off, headed toward my dad’s house in Waban.
****
Finals week was more hectic than usual. Preparing for and taking multiple exams at the end of a semester is always chaotic, but between everything else that was going on in my life at the time, I felt totally frazzled by the time I took my last test. Moving back home, into a house where my mother was still alive the last time I lived there, made it difficult to concentrate on my studies. I thought about her a lot, and I felt her presence everywhere. My sister’s constant questions and comments about David and Kenny did not make the transition any easier, nor did the frequent texts and emails from David wanting to talk.
While I ignored David’s attempts to contact me, I could not get Kenny out of my mind. When I was on campus during finals week, several times I could have sworn that I saw him off in the distance, standing head and shoulders above the swarming Boston University students. Each time it turned out to be a looming statue, a lofty shadow, or nothing at all.
I was not sure when Kenny might be coming back from Arizona, and wanting so desperately to see him one more time before he left had my mind playing tricks on me. I was tempted to just drop by his office, lock the door behind me and proposition
him right then and there. It would have been so easy to walk to the Social Sciences Building amid the sea of white and scarlet jackets and hooded sweatshirts and slip down into the offices of Native American Studies on the basement level without being seen. Kenny had asked me to have faith in him, and I remained optimistic that he would return to me, in one form or another, just as soon as he could.
With no school for a month over Christmas break and no way of contacting Kenny, I occupied my time working half days for Dr. Graham at his veterinary hospital in Wellesley, hanging out with Courtney and my dad, and getting ready for Christmas. It was a lot of fun stringing lights on the shrubs and trees in the front yard and decorating the inside of the house for the holiday. It was just like it was when I was growing up.
Almost.
My mom had been gone three years, and her absence was still very deeply felt. She had died just three months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. It all happened so quickly, it was hard to accept. Even now, I was half expecting her to come sashaying out of the kitchen at any minute in her signature apron and carrying one of her famed Sunday dinner dishes, like her cider-glazed roasted ham, shepherd’s pie, or baked soda bread.
In the days leading up to Christmas, the kitchen smelled wonderful with all the baking that Courtney and I did. We made several different pies and trays and trays of cookies. Butter balls were still my favorite. They actually turned out pretty good. They were not as good as Mom used to make, but they weren’t bad.
December around Boston was always beautiful, with the city streets a spectacle of sparkling lights and beautifully decorated Christmas trees. Two of the biggest trees stood proudly in Boston Common and in Faneuil Hall Marketplace. Another huge tree perched above Macy’s in Downtown Crossing, plus plenty more in shopping areas, hotel lobbies, and restaurants. There was always ice skating at Boston Common and a variety of holiday shows and performances to take in, from The Nutcracker to the Radio City Rockettes to the Boston Holiday Pops Concert at Symphony Hall.
It was unseasonably warm right up until the week before Christmas, with temperatures in the forties and fifties during the day. It made me think of Kenny in a sweat lodge in Arizona. I had done some research online and learned that before a person began their vision quest, they were purified in a sweat lodge, which was just what you might imagine it to be. Stones were heated in the structure, usually a small domed hut or covered pit, and then water was poured over them to produce steam. In the Western world its equivalent might be a plain old steam room, but to Native Americans their usage was wholly ceremonial in nature and part of their religious and spiritual beliefs. It was the place where the visions of the questers were later interpreted by the Medicine Man.
There were really no similarities between what Kenny was experiencing during that time and what I was feeling on the other end of the country. I thought about him all the time, and I could not wait to see him again. I only hoped that he felt the same way about me.