Flying (3 page)

CHAPTER THREE

What Stella did would never hang in a museum, but there
was
an art to touching up photos. Smoothing the lines of concern in a forehead. Erasing blemishes bad enough to leave scars. The scars themselves she never took away, unless the client had specifically requested she do so. Consequently, photos that came in with a lot of scars ended up in her queue, and that was fine with her. She knew too well how scars could define a person, no matter how ugly.

Today, her job was to touch up a family portrait taken for a church directory. A set of graying parents, a sullen teenage girl. A young marine son in uniform. The parents and the girl made a triangle, the son slightly separate despite the mother’s clenching hand on his shoulder. Her grip had a somewhat desperate look to it that Stella wouldn’t be able to do anything about, but she totally understood.

The marine had clearly seen some action. The right side of his face had been burned. The ridges of his scars were still purple and red, the curve of his eyebrow bare of any hair, the lashes missing from that eye. His mouth pulled down on that side. But he stood straight, gaze fixed firmly on the camera. Not smiling, not frowning. It was impossible to tell if he was resigned, ashamed or simply bored.

The clients had requested some shadow removal, along with the standard pimple erasure and taking away the reflection on the father’s glasses. The last one was the hardest thing to do, so she left it for last. Stella focused on getting rid of a few flyaway hairs and bulges, things not even checked on the client’s list and that they wouldn’t even notice had been improved. But they’d notice if they weren’t, she knew that much.

Her gaze kept coming back to the marine’s face and the digging curve of his mother’s fingers. Stoic, she decided. That’s how he looked. Not bored or anything else. Simply stoic.

His mother, however, looked faded and tired, her mouth pursed, her hair limp. Maybe she’d sat by his bed while he recovered from his injuries, holding his hand. Or maybe he’d suffered alone, healing enough to be sent home. How terrible it must’ve been, no matter how it happened, the first time his mother had to look at that ravaged face.

Stella closed her eyes suddenly, fingers stilling on the mouse she’d been manipulating. She took her hand away and folded both in her lap while she gathered herself together. Slow breath. Deep breath. Counting to five, then seven, then ten.

It would never stop haunting her, she thought with a mental shake she echoed with a physical one. Opening her eyes, Stella let out an embarrassed laugh when she saw her coworker Jen peeking around the edge of her cubicle. Wordlessly, Jen held up a coffee mug and an e-cigarette.

“Sure,” Stella said. “Give me a minute.”

Stella had taken up smoking in college, but quit when she got pregnant. She’d never stopped missing it. She sometimes took a cigarette when she was flying, depending on the situation and who was offering her the smoke. So far as she knew, Jen didn’t really smoke either, other than the e-cigarette she’d bought a few months ago and used with nicotine-less cartridges. They’d simply both figured out last year that smokers got breaks and nonsmokers didn’t.

Grabbing a fresh cup of coffee from the break room, Stella pushed through the back doors of the building and found Jen waiting. Phone in one hand, coffee in the other, she lifted her chin in greeting as Stella came out.

“Chilly as fuck out here,” she said around the e-cigarette tucked between her lips. “My nipples could cut glass.”

Stella rubbed at her arms, grateful she’d grabbed a cardigan today. She sipped hot coffee, making a face. “This is swill.”

Jen laughed and pulled the e-cig from her lips. “No kidding. I guess they think if they make better coffee we’ll drink more of it? And then spend more time in the bathroom, therefore getting less work done?”

“Diabolical.” Stella laughed, though it made sense. “Remember when they had the coffee and sandwich service?”

Jen sighed wistfully. “Yes. That guy was so cute. I spent more money on shitty, stale bagels than I made in this place.”

Stella didn’t want to sit at the splintery picnic table, so she settled for leaning against the brick wall while she warmed her hands on the already cooling mug. “I don’t know why they stopped him from coming.”

“Because they can take a percentage from the vending machines,” Jen said matter-of-factly.

Stella hadn’t thought of that.

Touching up photos for the Memory Factory was far from a terrible job, especially if you could get past the deathlike near silence in which they worked. The hours were good, and the pay based on completion of training levels meant that Stella was earning the top rate. More than she’d make in an office anywhere else. But it was no secret that the company itself, which had started off as a small mom-and-pop photography service and was bought by a national corporation, was money hungry. Famished, actually.

Jen drew again on the e-cig, blowing out a plume of mist into the October chill. “I heard Randall’s going to be pulling people in for performance reviews soon. Guess we got too many complaints this past quarter.”

“I’m not worried about that. Are you?”

“Girrrrl,” Jen said with a grin, “no way. But some of the temps are shaking in their boots. Which is good, because maybe they’ll get fired, and we can get some hours back.”

The previous holiday season, the company had hired on a bunch of temps to handle the extra workload that always happened around Christmas and lasted until just after New Year’s. For whatever reason, four of the temps had been asked to stay on. None of them were any good, none had passed more than the basic level of training and none of them got along with anyone else in the office. Stella was sure two of them spent most of the day getting high in the supply closet, when they weren’t fucking in there. She wouldn’t have minded, if their presence hadn’t meant, as Jen said, a cutback in some of the overtime that they and the other eight people who worked in their department had come to count on over the summer during vacations.

“They’ll just hire more next month anyway,” Stella said.

Jen snorted softly. “True. But different ones. Maybe ones that aren’t assholes.”

Stella laughed at how unlikely that would be. Her coffee had started off bitter, but now it was cold too. She dumped it to the side of the concrete slab and watched it make a stain in the gravel, already thinking ahead to the evening. She was going to dig out her flannel sheets tonight.

“...with me?”

“Sorry, what?” Stella looked up.

“I said, what are you doing tomorrow night? Jared and I are going to hear one of our friends sing at open mic night. Want to come along?”

Stella lifted a suspicious brow. “Are you trying to set me up again?”

“Oh, c’mon. One time. One!” Jen held up a finger. Then another, and after a hesitation, a third. “Okay. Three times. But you have to admit, all three times it was totally legit.”

“Jen. I can’t date guys who are just a few years older than my kid. Anyway, I told you, I’m not interested. Too much effort.” Stella shook her head, looking at the sky, which had gone gray with the promise of rain. Too early for snow, right?

Jen sighed. “How can you not be interested?”

“I’m just not. Boyfriends take up too much time. Too much work.” Stella shrugged. “I don’t want to deal with a guy on a regular basis. I’m happy being alone.”

“Nobody,” Jen said darkly, “really wants to be alone.”

Stella shrugged again. “Not forever. No. But right now I have enough to deal with at home. Tristan goes to college in two years. I’ll have plenty of time to put up with bullshit then.”

“It’s not all bullshit,” Jen said.

“That’s because you’re in looooooove.” Stella grinned and made kissing noises that had Jen ducking her head with laughter. “Things are different when you’re in love. You put up with all kinds of shit you’d never tolerate from someone else. Love makes people lose their minds.”

“So does great peen,” Jen said solemnly.

Stella carefully kept a straight face. “All the more reason to avoid it.”

“If you’re not careful, your vajayjay’s gonna dry up like a tumbleweed and blow away.”

“I’ll take my chances,” Stella said.

CHAPTER FOUR

At birth, Tristan had weighed six pounds, four ounces. He was sixteen inches long. He had no hair, bald as an egg, and had cried nonstop, round the clock, insatiable and inconsolable for the first month and a half of his life.

Sixteen years later he was taller than both his parents, outweighed Stella by about sixty pounds and had the same insatiable appetite, though fortunately he’d replaced the constant screaming with incessant commentary on the world. At least, he used to talk all the time. Now, instead of the hugs and the “love you, Mamas,” Tristan’s conversations had become stilted and intermittent. He’d replaced his formerly goofy sense of humor with a more sarcastic edge that sometimes bordered on cruel but was nevertheless bitingly funny. Stella hated to laugh at him but usually did, especially when he was making fun of his stepmother.

“That’s not nice,” she murmured at his demonstration of how Cynthia’s mouth was always slightly parted. “Eat your grilled cheese.”

She’d made his favorite with thick slices of rye bread and cheddar, along with a few strips of crispy bacon and thinly sliced tomato. Not the healthiest dinner, but Tristan had grown up and stretched out so much she figured he could stand the extra calories, especially with all the running he’d been doing. For herself, she had a grilled chicken and spinach salad.

Tristan looked at the plate, then at her. “Can’t I have what you’re having?”

She paused with her fork ready to stab the spinach. “You love grilled cheese.”

Tristan said nothing. He cut his gaze from hers, looking so much like Jeff it hurt her heart. Tristan pushed the plate with the tips of his fingers. “No, I don’t.”

“Since when?” Stella tried to keep the edge from her voice, too aware how easy it would be for them to slip into an argument. He not only looked like his dad; he had a lot of Jeff’s personality too. All the things that had driven her nuts about her ex-husband were blooming in her son. No matter how much she’d determined Tristan would never be the sort of man who expected the world to hand him a living on a platter, it seemed nature sometimes did win over nurture. She loved her son, always, with every breath inside her. But there’d been a lot of days lately where she found it very difficult to like him.

“Since always.” He muttered something else and moved the plate another half an inch away from him.

Stella stabbed her salad. “What was that?”

“Nothing. I didn’t say anything.”

“You did,” she said. “I heard it.”

“Nothing. Forget it,” Tristan repeated stubbornly. He got up from the table, leaving the plate. “I’m not hungry, anyway. I’m going out for a run.”

He was already through the kitchen doorway before she called out to him, “Hold up. Put the sandwich away for later and put your plate in the dishwasher.”

He did, dragging his feet and heaving a sigh as if she’d asked him to amputate all his limbs with a rusty carrot peeler.

“I shouldn’t even have to ask you that. C’mon, Tristan.” She managed to keep her voice steady and focus on her salad. “You should know better.”

“Yeah?” he challenged. “Well, so should you!”

Before she could ask him what the hell he meant by that, he’d stomped away. Footsteps pounded up the stairs and down the hall to his room. The door slammed.

Stella’d lost her appetite too but forced herself to eat anyway. When Tristan thundered down the stairs and toward the front door, she called out again, “Where are you going and how long do you think you’ll be gone?”

“For a run, I told you, and I don’t know.”

There was no way for her to force a different answer from him without a fight, and she was tired of arguing with him. “You have your phone?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t go too far,” she said. “Remember—”

“Yeah, I know, it feels twice as long on the way home as it does on the way there. I know, Mom.” Again, the muttered exclamation that probably included the sort of profanity she heard all his friends using when they thought no adults were listening.

She thought of something else as the front door slammed. He was already halfway down the driveway by the time she got to the door. “Tristan!”

For a moment she thought he was going to pretend he didn’t hear her, but then he turned. “What?”

“Be back before it gets dark.” That didn’t give him much time, but the thought of him running alongside the rural roads or even the highway in the dark twisted her stomach. “I mean it!”

He gave her a wave that might as well have been a flip of the bird, and took off down the driveway. She watched him until he disappeared past the trees, then went back inside. She stabbed again at her salad before dumping it in the trash and clearing away the table. She took her time with the cleaning spray and dish cloth, making sure to get all the smudges. She moved to the stainless-steel fridge, then the fronts of the microwave and oven, the stovetop. The cabinets.

Nothing was really dirty, but she cleaned it anyway.

In the days when Jeff had lived in this house, there’d always been too much clutter, too much mess, for Stella to keep up with. It had been like living with a hurricane. Kids, dog, cat, spouse—every other creature in the house had seemed to create a swath of destruction while she ran behind with the vacuum and mop, her laundry basket overflowing. Now, with Tristan spending half the time with his dad, sometimes the only mess in this house was one she made herself.

Sometimes she left her laundry on the empty side of the bed for the whole week without putting it away. She left the cap off the toothpaste tube, didn’t put the lid down on the toilet before flushing. She bought the brand of coffee she preferred and played the music she liked best as loud as she wanted. Basically, she did everything she wanted, how she wanted it.

And she did it alone.

In the middle of the worst time, when the concept of divorce had changed from feeling like a failure to salvation, Stella had turned the idea of being alone over and over until her mind had spun with it. Would she really like it, if that’s all she had? In the end it had been Jeff who’d left her, not that she could’ve blamed him. She’d grown sick of herself by then. But in the end, she’d also decided that being alone was better than wishing she was.

The day Jeff had moved out, Tristan had been away at summer camp, and Stella had opened every window in the house even though a storm was on the way. She’d danced in the backyard, in the rain, risking being struck by lightning. She’d thrown her face up to the sky and let the rain wash everything away and make her clean.

The feeling hadn’t lasted long, but it had been long enough. Eight years later, she was still alone and Jeff had remarried. She assumed he was happy in his much bigger house and much younger wife. She didn’t really care.

The kitchen was clean. She’d run a few loads of laundry and folded most of it. She took Tristan’s, piled high in his basket, down the hall. Passed the closed door between her room and his without pausing. She set the basket just inside his bedroom door with a wince at the sour smell of teenage boy. He wasn’t allowed to eat in there anymore, not since she’d had to call the exterminator to deal with an infestation of both mice and ants. And he had strict orders to put his dirty clothes out in the hall every Monday to be washed, or suffer wearing dirty clothes all week. Or do his own laundry. Beyond that, Stella kept out of her son’s room. She relished her privacy and figured he did too.

She lingered for a minute or two now, though. It was dangerous to dwell on things the way she had done in the shower this morning. Melancholy wasn’t productive. Yet something pulled her in a step or two. He’d long outgrown his twin bed, so one of the first things Stella had done after the divorce was give Tristan her old headboard and mattress and buy herself a new bedroom set. He’d adorned the spindles with stickers and ribbons from science fairs and competitions. A few baseball caps. At the foot of the mattress, he still kept a pile of stuffed animals, shoved mostly between the mattress and the wall.

Mr. Bear. Tigger. Tristan had always preferred the soft plushies to harder toys like action figures or miniature cars. He’d spent hours with them as his backyard companions, wearing them into filth even the hottest setting in the washer couldn’t clean. Other mothers had spoken with sighs about kids attached to blankies and teddy bears, some even buying more than one identical lovey toy so their kid wouldn’t be traumatized by even a momentary loss. Tristan hadn’t ever been like that. He’d loved all his toys equally and also as noncommittally. When limbs were lost or a stuffy simply too ruined to play with, he willingly gave it up in favor of another.

That’s why it amused and touched her to see them all now. She’d have thought he’d dumped them ages ago, along with his outgrown footie pj’s and the cowboy sheets. Stella nudged the laundry basket inside the room a little farther and reached for Mr. Bear. Her mom had bought him for Tristan when he was a toddler. Mr. Bear had been stuck against the wall next to some unnamed carnival prize snake, green with blue polka dots, incongruously wearing a top hat. When Stella pulled Mr. Bear’s arm, the snake came free. So did a few of the other toys.

So did the baby.

It was one of the smallest toys, a soft sculpture baby about the size of her hand. A round, fat body, two stumpy arms and matching legs and a round head without a neck. Dimples and colored thread made the face, two wee eyes and a red kiss-print mouth. Three or four strands of orange hair. It had no gender, really, but the outfit was blue so it was meant to be a boy.

She’d grabbed it up without knowing what it was, but at the sight of that yarn hair, the stubby, floppy arms, she dropped it back onto the bed. It fell facedown, limbs akimbo.

* * *

“Where’s your baby? Where’s your baby?”

He toddles to her, two teeth proudly showing in his bottom gums, the baby clutched in his chubby fists. Blue blanket sleeper. Fluff of reddish hair. Drool in a silver thread she doesn’t even mind wiping away as she scoops him up, burying her face in the sweet scent of little boy. Her boy.

“Show Mama your baby.”

He holds up the toy, and she enfolds him into her arms, kissing him until he squirms to be put down. And she does, she puts him down, and he stumbles away from her on unsteady feet. Her boy.

Oh, her boy.

* * *

Stella left it there and went out, closing the door and locking the memories behind her.

Hours had passed since dinner. No sign of Tristan. No message, no text. Night had fully fallen, not even a hint of setting sun left for her to forgive him by. Her jaw set as she pulled out her phone to tap the screen.

WHERE ARE YOU?

Since she’d personally witnessed her son texting multiple people in different conversations while he played Xbox and watched TV and ate snacks, all at the same time, she knew the only reason he didn’t reply to her within a minute or two was because he was ignoring her. Or something had happened to him.

Stella’s mother had made a habit of saying, “Be careful” every time Stella left the house. Stella, smart-ass that she’d been, had usually answered, “Nope, I’m gonna take a lot of risks and do dangerous things.” Her mom hadn’t found that funny.

“You’ll understand,” she’d say, “when you’re a mother.”

Stella’s mother still told her to be careful every time they parted, and now a mother herself, Stella did understand. She knew all too well how easily horrible things could happen.

She paced in the dining room, looking out the front windows at the darkness. She went to the front door and opened it, looked out the screen door, then went outside. October nights were cool and alive with the sound of crickets or katydids or whatever the hell it was in the woods that made so much noise. Cicadas? Didn’t they come out only every seventeen years...?

She was freaking out. She wished for a cigarette, even one of Jen’s e-cigs. Instead, she tapped out another message.

ANSWER ME.

Another five minutes passed. An eternity. She was just about to send another message, thinking of calling the police, or at the very least Jeff, when her phone shook in her hand and played its distinctive triple ding.

ran too far

She hadn’t realized how slick her hands had become with sweat until her phone slipped from her grasp. She caught it before it could hit the sidewalk. She typed a reply.
Where? I’ll come get you.

No. I’ll come home.

She wasn’t going to play this game with him. Instead of another text, Stella called. Tristan sounded out of breath when he answered, and she didn’t bother to identify herself. “What did I tell you about getting home before dark?”

She’d jumped on him too hard; she heard it in his reply. “Sorry.”

“I’ll come get you.”

He hesitated, panting. “Pick me up at Sheetz.”

She frowned, estimating the distance from their house to the convenience store. “You ran to Sheetz?”

“Just pick me up there. I want to get something to eat anyway.”

There was another argument there, a reminder about the sandwich she’d made for him and that he’d rejected, but what sort of shitty mother let her kid go hungry? She sighed and disconnected.

He was waiting for her at one of the outside tables, already drinking from one of those insanely huge fountain drinks and eating a burrito when she pulled into the parking lot. Bugs swooped and swarmed, dive-bombing him and the overhead lights that made him look extra pale. His hair stuck up in the back and clung to his forehead with sweat. He probably reeked.

She kept herself from hugging him by pretending she was angry. The truth was, she was just glad to see him all in one piece. Not that she forgave him—there’d be recriminations for this. There had to be. She’d specifically told him not to run too far and to be home before dark, and he hadn’t been.

But maybe she didn’t have to really punish him. Maybe her annoyance would be enough. Maybe only a few snakes had to come out of her hair. Half a momdusa, not the full-fledged explosion.

She went inside and got herself a frozen latte, even though the temperature had dropped enough to make a hot coffee drink sound better. They gave her stomachaches, but she couldn’t resist. When she came back outside, Tristan had finished his food and crumpled the garbage. He was busy tapping away at his phone, playing a game or texting or Connexing or whatever it was the kids did these days.