Bones & All (6 page)

“Jamie was just showing me his telescope,” I said. “We're looking at the Pleiades.” The boy still had his face pressed to the eyepiece.

Mrs. Gash nodded to me. “Jamie, listen to me. I don't want you and Maren up here by yourselves.”

He turned around only to say, “All right.” Then he went back to the telescope, and his mother folded her arms, watching us.

“I mean
now,
Jamie. Why don't you bring our guest downstairs and get her something to eat? Do you like shrimp, Maren?”

“Yes, Mrs. Gash.”

“Try the sugar cookies too. Jamie and I made them from scratch.”

Jamie sighed as he followed us out of the bedroom and down the stairs. We wandered over to the beverage table set up near the Christmas tree, where he poured two cups of punch out of a cut-crystal bowl and handed one to me. “Sorry about that.”

I shrugged. “Thanks for showing me the Pleiades.”

Mrs. Gash had gone back to her hostess duties, and no one else seemed to notice us. I saw Mama talking to two women over by the fireplace. She was telling a joke, and when she got to the punch line they threw back their heads and laughed.

“C'mon!” Jamie grabbed my free hand and pulled me down the hall, away from the noise of the party, and I hastily sipped my punch so I wouldn't spill any on the carpet.

“Where are we going?”

“There's something else I want to show you downstairs.”

The basement door was next to the spare room. It was cold down there, and it smelled like paint and mold and mothballs, and the only light came from a naked bulb in a ceiling crisscrossed with unfinished beams. There was a washer and dryer at the foot of the steps, and the rest of the space was full of old furniture and stacks of cardboard boxes. The concrete floor was bare apart from a gray length of carpet in front of the laundry machines. “Why did you bring me down here?” I asked. “It's nicer upstairs.”

He laid his punch glass on top of the dryer. “Let me see it.”

“See what?”

He tugged at a belt loop on his jeans, his eyes on the carpet between our feet. “You know.”

There's something I want to show you downstairs
. My mistake. “No,” I said. “You first.”

He unzipped his fly and let his jeans fall to his ankles. There were comets and rockets on his underpants. Then he tucked his thumbs inside the waistband and pulled them down and back up again so fast that I hardly got a look at it. “Now you.”

I shook my head.

“You said you would.”

“No, I didn't.”

I could see him thinking back over the past minute and a half. He frowned when he realized I was right. “Well, now I feel stupid.”

“Don't,” I said.

“This was a bad idea. I never should have brought you down here.”

I took a step toward the stairs. “It's okay. Let's go up now.”

“Can you let me do just one thing?”

“What?”

He mumbled something.

“Huh?”

“Let me … kiss you?”

I knew I shouldn't, but I'd already hurt his feelings once.
Hurt them one more time, and you'll be doing him a favor. Leave. Now. Go.

But he took a step closer, and I didn't turn and run. Something in me was seizing up. I felt a rumble of panic down deep in my guts.
Go, go, go now—if he comes any closer you won't be able to stop it.

The naked lightbulb buzzed overhead, the chain swaying gently in a cold draft. For a second it was like I was an ordinary girl about to get her first kiss.

Go—leave—NOW …

I put my lips to his neck, pressed them there, and drank him in. I could smell the cocktail sauce on his breath, the little pieces of shellfish rotting in the dark corners of his mouth. I stepped back and looked at him. His eyes were closed and he was smiling like I could do anything I wanted to him and he'd be over the moon about it.
This won't be what you have in mind,
I thought.
But it's too late now.

When I was finished I fell onto the scrap of carpet in front of the dryer, shivering so badly I made the machine rumble like it was working. No one upstairs could have heard any of it. Through the speakers in the living room some sister act was crooning,
“Take good care of yourself, you belooooong to me…”

I sat there awhile longer, thinking about his telescope and his Chewbacca pillowcase and the Rubik's Cube on his dresser. Would they keep everything in the room the way it was? Why couldn't he have left me alone?

I found a crumpled plastic bag on the floor by the washing machine and I stuffed everything into it, his jeans and his red button-down shirt and his boy-who-fell-to-Earth underpants and the bits I couldn't eat—everything but the tortoiseshell glasses—and then I reached a hand into the cobwebs behind the dryer, searching out the gap where the hose met the drywall so I could cram the bag into the wall. I dragged the stained carpet scrap into the darkest corner of the basement. Someone would find it all eventually.
I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

I washed my face, pulled off my pants and turtleneck, and squeezed out the mess under the faucet in the utility tub. There was blood on my undershirt too, but no one would see it. I could wash it at home.

No, not home. There wouldn't be time for that.

I rinsed out my mouth and sat on the concrete floor with my back to the dryer, waiting for my clothes to dry. I jumped at every sound from the floor above, terrified that someone would come downstairs and find me.

Mama. I had to tell Mama.

I put on my shirt and pants and started up the basement stairs like I'd never arrive at the top. She was coming out of the spare room, our coats slung over her arm. Quickly I closed the door behind me and took a step away from it.

“Maren! We're leaving, okay? I've got your coat.” She handed me my jacket, and I put it on. “Where have you been?” she hissed.

“In the bathroom.”

“You know better than to lie to me. Why were you in the basement?”

I stood there in miserable silence as we heard Mrs. Gash in another room calling Jamie's name. I felt Mama stiffen beside me. Jamie's mother came into the front hall a moment later. “Where has that boy gone off to now?”

“He's not in his room?” Mr. Gash asked. He was standing by the front door, shaking people's hands before they went back into the cold. His white teeth shone beneath his shiny black mustache.

“Of
course
he's not in his room.”

“Check the roof,” Mr. Gash said, laughing over his shoulder as he reached for my mother's hand. “I'm so glad you could make it, Janelle.” He nodded to me. “Nice meeting you, Maren.” Then, turning back to my mother, he said in a low voice, “We'll talk first thing Monday morning, all right? Looking forward to it.”

Mrs. Gash went to the foot of the stairs. “Jamie! Jamie, where are you?”

“Me too,” Mama said faintly. She glanced down at me, and I could see how hard she was straining not to show her panic, her horror. Every time this happened she got a little better at hiding it.
You didn't. Please say you didn't.

Mrs. Gash turned back to us. “You were playing with Jamie earlier, weren't you, Maren?”

I shrugged, keeping my eyes on her shoes. How could I look her in the face? I was very close to tears again, and Mrs. Gash made the assumption that saved me.

“You poor thing! I just know he said something to upset her. He's a good boy, but he does have a tendency to alienate other children. A little too smart for his own good, if you know what I mean, Janelle. No harm done, I'm sure.”

Mama wasn't listening to a word Mrs. Gash was saying, and Mr. Gash was saying his goodbyes to someone else now. She clutched my hand so hard I gasped, and she took a step backward toward the front door, the wheels turning in her head all the while. She was calculating how long it would take us to pack and leave, tallying up a new list of disappointments. Come Monday there'd be no talk of a promotion—she'd never see any of these people again—and I felt her anger coursing down her arm, through her hand and into mine.

Mrs. Gash folded her arms tight across her chest and looked over her shoulder. “He's probably out back with his telescope. I'd better go and look for him.”

“Thank you for a lovely party,” my mother murmured.

Jamie's mother was already heading down the hallway toward the back door. “Thank you for coming, and drive safely,” she called as my mother turned the knob and pulled me out of the house. I wished so hard that I could undo it, that Mrs. Gash would find her son on the tire swing in the backyard, sulking because I wouldn't pull down my underpants.

We drove home in silence, ten miles above the speed limit the whole way. Mama glanced over when I took Jamie's eyeglasses out of my pocket and turned them over in my hands. She never said a word. I'd finished my homework before the party, but I never turned it in.

*   *   *

That night I learned there are two kinds of hunger. The first I can satisfy with cheeseburgers and chocolate milk, but there's a second part of me, biding its time. It can go on like that for months, maybe even years, but sooner or later I'll give in to it. It's like there's a great big hole inside me, and once it takes his shape he's the only thing that can fill it.

 

3

I couldn't face standing in that coffee shop waiting like an idiot for someone to leave me his seat. With burning cheeks I hurried out of the diner and kept walking.

A few blocks later I came to an Acme. I felt a little funny with my rucksack on my back but I went in anyway. I walked through the produce section, picked up an apple, circled around, and put it back. I turned the corner into the canned goods aisle and saw an elderly lady hurrying after a can rolling away along the shiny white linoleum. I picked it up and handed it to her.

The old lady beamed at me through pearly-pink cat-eye reading glasses. She was dressed in a pale green jacket with a red silk rose pinned to the lapel, a gray tweed skirt, and leather oxford shoes, as if going to the grocery store were a proper outing. “Thank you ever so much.” She handed the tin back to me. “Can you read that for me, dear? These eyeglasses are useless, I really must get myself a new pair.”

“Fresh Pear Halves in White Grape Juice,” I told her.

“Oh good, that's the kind I want.” She placed the tin in her cart. “Thank you.”

I was about to wish her a nice day when she asked, “Are you on your own, dear?”

I nodded.

“Doing the food shopping for your mother? How nice.” I didn't know how to answer that, and I guess that's when she decided to adopt me. “I could use some help bringing my groceries home. I take the bus, you see, because I never learned how to drive. Have you gotten your license yet?”

I shook my head.

“My husband always drove me wherever I needed to go.” As she spoke I looked over the contents of her cart: two red onions, kidney beans, a carton of eggs, orange juice, buttermilk, a package of bacon, four tins of cat food, and the pears. “Would you like some extra pocket money?” she asked. “Only if you don't have too many of your own bags to carry and you aren't too busy.”

I would have helped her for nothing. “I'd be glad to.”

“That's splendid. What's your name, dear?”

“Maren.”

Her hand was cold, but her grip was firm. “Maren! What a lovely name. Mine is Lydia Harmon.”

After she paid for her groceries we went outside and waited at the bus stop. It occurred to me that she might live near my grandparents, and I hoped she didn't. Mrs. Harmon sat on the bench beside a mother with too many kids to keep track of. The children laughed and hit each other, kicking at stones, while the woman just sat smoking a cigarette and staring through the pavement. Mrs. Harmon, oblivious, smiled up at me and asked if I was hungry.

When the bus came Mrs. Harmon paid my fare. As we pulled away from the curb I caught sight of an old brick building with
EDGARTOWN
PUBLIC
LIBRARY
etched in stone above the doorway. I watched a boy, nine or ten, hold the front door open for an old woman as she went in.

To my relief, we seemed to be going in the opposite direction of my grandparents' house. A block or two later I caught sight of someone else on the sidewalk—an older man, though not as old as Mrs. Harmon, in a red plaid shirt with rolled-up sleeves who didn't seem to be going anywhere or looking at anything. As the bus began to pass he gazed up at the windows, scanning the passengers' faces as if he were looking for someone. When he saw me, he smiled as if I were the person he'd been searching for. In that instant I noticed that the top half of one ear was gone, slashed on a diagonal. It made him look like an alley cat. I turned in my seat as we passed. He was still looking at me, smiling faintly, and he lifted his hand as the bus turned a corner.

“See someone you know, dear?” asked Mrs. Harmon.

“No. Just somebody who seemed to know me.”

“Oh,” she replied. “Isn't it funny when that happens?”

Ten years ago Mrs. Harmon's house would have been beautifully kept, but now the paint on the shutters was peeling slightly and the grass had grown high between the slats of the white picket fence. Still, it was a nice little house, white with cornflower-blue trim and a cheerful red door. The living room was bright and cozy—there were rows of records and hardback books in glass-fronted cases, and pictures of far-off places, the Grand Canyon and the Taj Mahal, and real sunflowers in a glass vase on an end table. I heard the clock on the mantelpiece before I saw it.

A cat with a mane, like a tiny white lion, jumped off a cushioned stool in front of the fireplace and marched across the carpet toward the kitchen. Mrs. Harmon laid her grocery bags on a chair by the door and bent down to pet him as he passed. “How's my Puss, eh?” Then she picked up the bags again and followed the cat into the kitchen. “He knows it's time to eat. He can hear the clinking of the tins in the bag.” She laughed. “And what would
you
like for breakfast, dear? I have eggs, and bacon, and maybe even a hash brown or two.…”