Circle of Three (2 page)

I
LEFT MY
mom this really chirpy note on the counter before school. “Yo, yo, I made killer tuna fish salad, eat it for lunch or else! XXOO, Ruth. P.S. Jamie and Caitlin might come over this afternoon to do homework. OK?” I drew two big puffy lips and wrote “smooch” underneath, with an exclamation point.

That was, like, code. It meant, “Eat something healthful for a change, and when I get home could you please have some clothes on so my friends don’t have to see you in Dad’s old bathrobe.”

Well, Jamie and Caitlin didn’t come home with me, that was more of a trick anyway, but it didn’t work because Mom was nowhere in sight and she’d left her own fake-cheerful note in the exact same spot as mine. “Hi! Drinks and snacks in ref.—don’t overdo.” She drew a smiley face. “I’m taking a little nap, so could you guys work downstairs? You don’t have to be quiet. (Within reason.) Love & kisses, me. P.S. Want to get a pizza tonight?”

Since Dad died, this is so par for the course. She’s asleep when I go to school, she’s asleep when I get home. I don’t know what she does during the day, except that it’s not cooking or cleaning. Eating—I know she’s doing that, because she’s gained about ten pounds in four months. She eats
spaghetti with butter on it, mashed potatoes and gravy, Minute rice in a can of mushroom soup with no water—really gross stuff, nothing but carbohydrates. She’ll eat right if I’m watching or if I make it, but otherwise it’s hot cereal, couscous, popcorn, and pasta. Comfort foods, I guess.

The other thing she does when I’m at school is make flower arrangements. She has a “job” with a craft shop in town owned by this woman who pays her like two cents per flower arrangement, so you know it’s only a matter of time before we’re living in a packing crate under the Leap River bridge.
God
. I guess I can’t talk, though, because I haven’t found a job yet either. I baby-sit for Harry, the next-door neighbor’s one-year-old, but the Harmons don’t go out that much at night so it’s not like I’m getting rich.

I don’t know what’s going to happen. About a month after the accident Grampa came over without Gram, which was pretty scary in itself, and had a long talk with Mom that I wasn’t allowed to hear. After he left, she sat me down and gave me the bad news. Bottom line, we’re poor. I thought it was sort of cool at first. “You mean, like, destitute?” No, just poor, which in a way is worse because there’s no, like, drama. Apparently my dad didn’t teach at Remington long enough to get a pension, so all we have is savings, Social Security, and his tiny little insurance policy.

I don’t let Mom know I’m disappointed, but I was supposed to get a car, either a nice used one or a cheap new one, next summer when I turn sixteen. That’s out now. Also, I might have to go to Remington. Which is the worst, nobody who lives in Clayborne goes there unless they have to—not because it’s terrible or anything, just because it’s local. All my life I wanted to go to my dad’s alma mater, Georgetown (if I could get in), or else UNC, but they’re both impossible now. UVA maybe, but wherever I go it has to be in-state.

I can’t stop thinking about what might’ve happened if I’d been there the night he died. For one thing, I’d probably have been driving, because I’ve got my learner’s and Mom
usually lets me drive, even at night, to practice. So even if he’d still had his heart attack, the car wouldn’t have crashed, so I could’ve driven him to the hospital and he’d probably have been saved. Or, I think it’s entirely possible he wouldn’t have had the attack to begin with, because everything, the atmosphere, the whole night, would’ve been different if I’d been there. I just have this really strong feeling that if I hadn’t gone to Jamie’s, he’d still be alive. His fate would’ve changed. Who’s to say the blood in his heart wouldn’t have stayed to the correct path or beat in the exact right amounts if he’d been sitting in the car relaxing, looking up at the moon instead of down at the road? I could make him laugh sometimes. What if he’d been listening to me tell some stupid story instead of to Mom or the radio? I just think things would’ve been different.

I have this picture, I keep it on my bedside table, of Dad, Mom, and me, about three Christmases ago, right before we moved to Clayborne, which is the town my mom grew up in but left when she was like eighteen. The three of us in this picture are lined up outside the old house in Chicago, showing off our new presents. Mom has her coat sleeve pulled up and her arm out, to show the watch Dad gave her. I gave him a green scarf and matching mittens, so he’s posing with his hands straight out, with the muffler wound around half his face so only his eyes show. I look even sillier in my new jeans, boots, and down parka, grinning and pointing to my ears to show they’re pierced. What a dork.

Sometime around when this picture was taken, maybe the next day but definitely during those same Christmas holidays, my dad and I went ice skating on the lake. Mom was supposed to go with us, but at the last second she said what she’d really like to do was have the house to herself for one whole afternoon. So it was just the two of us. I felt shy around him at first. We hadn’t done anything alone since…well, I don’t even know when. I felt sort of giddy, having him all to myself, almost like a date. I pretended we were a
couple, and I watched other people watching us, wondering if they thought he could be my boyfriend. He was forty but he looked pretty young then, it wasn’t impossible.

After the skating, we went for hot chocolate in a fancy silver diner on the shore, and I had the feeling, sitting across from him in the red vinyl booth, fingering my sore ears, putting quarters in the jukebox to play fifties songs like “Hound Dog” and “Lipstick on Your Collar,” that this was the beginning of our real, true relationship. My dad had just been waiting for me to grow up. I talked a lot, told him about school and my teachers and even this guy I liked in history and how math was my favorite subject by far, a slight exaggeration, and how I’d probably major in math at Georgetown and then go on to teach at some prestigious university.

It was so great. He talked, too, and laughed at my jokes, and told me things I didn’t already know. Like one time he and some of his friends from high school cut class to go sledding down Cashbox Hill, which is out in the country in New Jersey where he was from, and he slid into a barbed wire fence and cut his neck in back, under his hairline. He showed me the scar, which for some reason I had never seen before in my life, and just in that moment, everything felt right. Nothing was left out or dangling or mysterious, everything belonged.

The funny thing is, though, nothing ever came of that day. When it was over, we went back to who we’d been before, and it was like nothing had ever happened. He was nice to me, same as always, but he never again suggested we do something together, just the two of us. He went back into his study, you could say, and closed the door.

What I think happened was that I hadn’t grown up enough then—I was only twelve—and what’s sad is that now I’m probably finally old enough to be his friend and he’s gone. We lost our chance. It can never be the way I dreamed it. I thought—maybe this sounds stupid—I thought we’d be partners after I got my degree, my doctorate and everything. I saw us teaming up, having an office in some funky old building
in Georgetown and writing books together, solving complicated formulas that have stumped the entire math community for years, for centuries. I could see us with our feet up on either side of his desk when the day was over, drinking coffee, giving each other compliments on our work, planning the next day.
VAN ALLEN & ASSOCIATE,
it would say on the door. Stephen and Ruth Van Allen, Mathematicians.

No, I can see this is stupid. I don’t even know what mathematicians do, not really, except teach, which my dad complained about all the time. He made fun of the other professors in his department, who got ahead by kissing up or playing politics, whereas he just did his job and took care of business. He was sort of a loner.

That’s why it would’ve been so cool to be partners. I feel like, once I was older and had my math degrees and everything, I could’ve cheered him up, plus he’d’ve been proud of me. I hate that this is never going to happen.

I have got to do something about my clothes. I took this quiz in a magazine to find out my own personal style. You could be Fun, Preppy, Grunge, Goth, Corporate, I forget what else. Caitlin and Jamie took it, and they were both Fun, but when I added up my scores I didn’t have enough points to be anything. God, how pathetic. I can see the same thing going on in my room, which I now hate. I have a Dixie Chicks calendar—yuck! I can’t wait till it runs out!—and a picture of LeoD., and a poster of Natalie Imbruglia and some cutouts of Claire Danes and George Clooney and Siouxsie Sioux and the Banshees. I mean, what is that? Exactly what does that mean? So I’m going to take everything down, clear it all out, just have nothing, blank walls, and let my room fill itself back up organically. Then we’ll see.

Because Raven came over after dinner tonight, and for the nanosecond Mom let us be alone in my room, his face went into like total disgust and he mumbled, “Happening. Not.”

But that wasn’t even the worst. I told Mom afterward, if she can’t get dressed in regular clothes, daytime clothes, her
own
clothes, not her dead husband’s—I almost said, but that sounded mean, and plus we try to avoid the
D
word these days unless there’s a good reason—then she can just stay in her room when I have company over. It’s funny, I used to worry about what she thought of Raven, and tonight all I could think was what he must be making of
her
. She had on a pair of Dad’s old sweatpants, one of his plaid flannel shirts, and his gray wool bathrobe. Oh, and a pair of his running socks. I mean,
God
. No makeup, of course, and I don’t know when she last washed her hair. She has goldish brown hair, very long and stick straight, and until now I was always jealous of it. Mine’s curly, which I hate, and not as nice a color I don’t think, more of an ashy blond like Dad’s. Anyway—and her complexion’s changed, she used to have very delicate coloring, but now she’s like totally gray, probably because of all the junk she eats. She’s just washed out. “Um, my mom’s still kind of wrecked,” I told Raven when he was leaving, and he said, “Obviously.” Which I thought was unnecessary.

But he was nice, he came by to lend me a book, some selected stories by Edgar Allan Poe. He likes anything that’s creepy. After Poe his favorite authors are Anne Rice and Edward Gorey. I was not feeling that great to begin with, and he wouldn’t get off the subject of how everything ends, everything is loss, the only appropriate humor in life is melancholy, which did not exactly cheer me up. But I think it’s too cool that his real last name is Black. His first name is Martin, but his last name is Black. Raven Black. It’s like a sign.

After he went home, Mom came in my room and sat on my bed, where I was trying to do homework. She’s definitely not herself, because she hasn’t even been getting on me lately about what a sty my room is.

She didn’t say anything, so I kept reading, figuring she’d get to the point eventually. She started picking at the quilt she made me for my thirteenth birthday. It has blue and green stars, and it’s about the only thing I still like in my room. “
What
?” I said finally, and she smiled this really
shaky smile and said, “Sorry about tonight. Guess I’m not doing so great.”

“You’re okay,” I said.

“I’ll be better soon.”

“I know.”

“How are you, baby?”

“Fine,” I said.

“Really?” She touched my cheek with the back of her hand. “Tell me about school.”

“It’s the same. I got a B on my French test.” I didn’t tell her about my algebra test, she’d’ve freaked. That’s supposed to be my best subject. “What does it mean when you have a sore in your mouth that won’t go away?” I said.

“Let’s see.”

I showed her the inside of my cheek, which has this tender white spot I keep accidentally biting.

“Oh, that’s just a canker sore. It’ll go away.”

“Canker. That’s like cancer.”

“It’s not like cancer.”

I have spots in front of my eyes, too, which could be a warning sign of glaucoma. One of my ankles is bigger than the other.

“So,” she said, stretching out on her stomach. “What’s with you and Raven.”

“God. Nothing, Mom, there’s nothing
with
us.”

“Does he go to school in that makeup?”

“They won’t let him.”

“Huh. Do you like him?”

“Jeez, he’s not my boyfriend or anything. He’s just Raven.”

“Oh. Okay. Where does he live?”

“
God
. I don’t even
know
.”

She punched up one of my pillows and shoved it under her chest and folded her arms around it. “Well, anyway.”

“Anyway.” I sat up and started giving her a back rub, which she loves. “You’re incredibly tense. Your shoulders are like marble. Did you do flowers today?”

“For a while.” She groaned into the pillow, and I thought she was enjoying the back rub, but then she said in a pretend-panicky voice, “I have got to get a real job soon.”

“You will. I will, too. People are looking for Christmas help, I can get a job in the mall after school.”

“Mm. Except you’d need a ride to it.”

“You could drive me,” I said.

“Not if I’m working, too.”

“We could get a job in the same place.”

“Hey, that would be neat.”

It would be. Well, depending on the place. I could feel her finally starting to relax; the back of her neck wasn’t like a block of concrete anymore. When I was little I used to think I was helping to save her life when I’d rub her feet or do some chore for her. Like, if she’d ask me to run upstairs and bring down the aspirin bottle or go down in the basement and get something out of the freezer, I’d grumble and procrastinate, but inside I’d be glad because I had this idea that anything I could do instead of her would save minutes on her life. So if I set the table or got the paper off the front porch or ran and answered the phone before she could get to it—that gave her a couple of extra minutes at the end of her life. It all added up.