Goldengrove (16 page)

My mother turned.

“What was that?” she asked.

“What was what?”

“I could have sworn you said something,” she said.

“You’re hearing things.” Then I mumbled, “If you guys go to Boston, can I stay here without you?”

The question had popped out of me. I wished I’d waited and thought it through.

“Absolutely not,” said my mother. “Why would you
want
that?”

My father found me in his rearview mirror.

“Watch the road, dear,” said my mother.

“Look who’s talking,” said Dad.

“Meaning what?” my mother said.

“Nothing,” said my father.

As we turned into our driveway, my mother heaved a theatrical sigh that, I suddenly realized, Margaret had learned from her.

“What a shame,” my mother said. “We were doing such a good job of pretending to be a happy family of three.”

Twelve

O
UR TOWN WAS SO PROUD OF ITS
F
OURTH OF
J
ULY, YOU WOULD
have thought the Declaration of Independence was signed in the musty Grange Hall where the Cub Scouts held bake sales. A rich woman who’d spent girlhood summers at Mirror Lake had left Emersonville enough money so that, every summer, we could hire a celebrity fireworks company to help us honor the birth of our nation.

On Mirror Lake we had a tradition within the tradition. All the families who lived on the shore held parties, and everyone got into boats and floated out on the lake, from where you could see the light show in its full unobstructed splendor. As the rain of stars fell around you and rippled over the water, all you could hear were the rockets popping and the oohs and ahs of the partygoers, carried on the night breeze.

No one ever got tired of it, no one ever outgrew it. When kids grew up and left home, they’d bring their own children back to see it. Long after Margaret and I had learned to act annoyed by everything that gave our parents pleasure, we couldn’t pretend we didn’t love being out in that firestorm of colored light.

That summer, any holiday would have been hard, but the Fourth was the hardest. We knew we’d never convince ourselves that we should try to enjoy it, that Margaret would have wanted that, that we should think of her and be happy. I still couldn’t look at the lake. I couldn’t imagine rowing out on the water and feeling my sister’s absence like a hole in the boat. Even if I stayed in my room, with the blankets over my ears, I would hear, or think I heard, the pop and hiss of the rockets, and the murmurs of the merrymakers too stupid to know they were a heartbeat away from disaster. But why begrudge them whatever happiness they could have before it was their turn to learn what we had found out?

Going away for the holiday would have seemed like an ideal solution if it hadn’t meant leaving Aaron alone in a town full of kids who’d already forgotten Margaret. My parents had each other, I had the two of them, but poor Aaron had only me to help him get through this.

Of course, it wasn’t the same for him. He’d never spent the Fourth on the lake with Margaret. My parents would never have invited him to come out on our boat. But one of his paintings at the Senior Show was of fireworks reflected in the water. Maybe he’d been on another boat, at someone else’s party.

I tried to remember last summer. Had Margaret seemed distracted? Had she gazed out over the lake, wondering where Aaron was, and if he was thinking of her? The only image that came to mind was of her glowing face tilted up as if the light were rain, pouring into her mouth. The Fourth shot to the top of my list of forbidden things, another reason for Aaron and I to try and survive it together.

I did what anyone my age would have done. I invented a barbecue with all my old friends, ferociously chaperoned by a posse of paranoid parents. I told my parents I’d miss them, but I would be sadder to miss the party. I argued as if my life were at stake, because I believed that it was, that I would die of boredom and grief if they separated me from Aaron.

I said, “It’ll be really fun. It’s the first thing I’ve wanted to do since . . .” They knew since when. I’d played the Margaret card with Elaine, but not, until then, with my parents. I couldn’t help noting that both times had been about wanting to be with Aaron.

I called Samantha and told her I needed a favor. If my parents phoned, her mother should back up my barbecue story. Samantha’s mom always seemed to enjoy lying to the other parents, and Samantha was so happy to be able to help her grieving friend that she didn’t even ask what I was really doing. She mentioned that Violet was going away for the holiday. I was glad she warned me. Violet’s mother occasionally stopped by the bookstore.

Samantha asked, “Do you want my mom to say you’re sleeping over?”

“No, thanks,” I said. “That’s okay.” At that point, I was still thinking that I could stay alone in my house.

“Wow,” said Samantha. “Who is it? Can I ask?”

“It’s not like that,” I said. “It’s not what you think.”

“I
believe you,” said Samantha. “Wow. Have fun, I guess.”

My parents never phoned Samantha’s mom. At first I was relieved that they trusted me, and then insulted that they still thought of me as a truthful child instead of a scheming, secretive teen. They didn’t think I was old or sophisticated enough to lie the way Margaret had. Anyway, they didn’t need to call. They weren’t letting me stay home without them.

I badgered them like a lawyer fighting to save my client (me!) from the sentence of spending the holiday without Aaron. I began with hopeless arguments, the dismissable litany of what other parents let other kids do. Kids my age babysat for infants, worked as camp counselors, traveled to Europe. My parents had always hated leaving us overnight, even when Margaret was in high school. They only did it twice, in emergencies—once when Gran Bradley had her second stroke, and once when her caregiver quit. Both times had been bliss. Tequila, old movies, loud music, falling asleep on the couch. When Mom and Dad came back, they’d seemed amazed and overjoyed to find us still alive.

The argument about the Fourth raged and smoldered for days. My mother stayed unmedicated. Some maternal instinct must have kicked in, but her determination only fueled my own.

One night, my father said, “We need to decide about Boston.”

Hadn’t the bookstore customers warned me: no decisions for a year? But the question of whether to go with my parents or stay in town with Aaron didn’t seem to require one. I kept thinking about Margaret telling me that sex meant knowing what you wanted. This had nothing to do with sex. The very idea was repulsive. Still, I imagined Aaron and I exchanging a chaste little kiss, the airy peck that an angel might give to express some tender promise. Happy Fourth of July. Okay, not happy maybe, but we’d gotten through it.

“Nico, you look flushed,” said Dad. “Are you feeling all right?”

“I’m fine,” I said. “It’s warm in here.”

“How do you like the fried chicken?”

“Fantastic.” I peeled a slippery tendon from a drumstick and dropped it back on my plate. My mother had stopped pretending to eat. She was losing weight, too. We should have been recovering. Why were we getting worse?

Dad said, “If we’re going, we need to make reservations—”

“Reserve two rooms,” my mother said. “We can always cancel. Reserve three rooms.”

“Eat something, Daisy,” said Dad.

I pictured myself in a hotel room, flipping through the channels while my parents napped next door. Or maybe they would insist that I be with them.
Together
. They would hand me the remote and pretend to be interested in what I wanted to watch. How much
fun
we were having, piled on the king-size bed! I’d torture them with MTV while I wondered what Aaron was doing.

Brandishing the drumstick like a ragged club, I said, “I’m not going. Sorry, that’s it. I refuse. I don’t want to leave.”

“All right.” My father sighed. “I guess we can all stay home for the weekend. It’s not going to kill us.”

My mother knocked on wood.

I said, “Mom! Dad! Don’t be hasty. Think it over. You guys could use some time alone.”

“We can’t leave you,” my father said. “Knowing you were here by yourself, we couldn’t possibly . . .” What was he going to say?
Enjoy
themselves?

“Can I say something?” I tried not to look directly into their heartbreaking faces. “What I want to tell you is, how great you guys have been, how much you’ve helped me during this . . . during this . . . you know. . . .”

I was sincere, or half sincere. The insincere half was thinking that I might get my way if I flattered their vanity about what good parents they were. Which was true, and not true. They loved me, they were good to me. But if they’d been more attentive, I wouldn’t have been trying to trick them into leaving me with Aaron.

My mother actually nibbled a scrap of crisp chicken skin.

My father said, “Thank you, Nico. But still—”

I said, “I
want
to go to this party.”

I could tell my mother was weakening even as she said, “I couldn’t stand to think about you knocking around this big house with no one here in case—”

“In case what?” I put my hands over my ears. My parents imagined fire, lightning, crazed pedophiles, ax murderers. I hadn’t imagined anything beyond watching the fireworks with Aaron. Only now did I picture coming home to a dark, silent house. Maybe Aaron would walk me inside, but that would be strange, too. I wasn’t afraid to stay by myself. But what if I couldn’t sleep? What if I heard noises? What if there was a thunderstorm and the power went out? My courage wavered enough so that I was almost glad when my father said, “You’re
not
staying here alone.”

“Okay, I won’t stay
here
a-lone
.” I imitated him perfectly, his tone of doom and foreboding. Even as I was mimicking him, inspiration struck.

I said, “I’ll stay at Elaine’s.” It was the perfect solution. What I wanted, minus the scary part. The look I gave my father was pure, flat-out blackmail.

“Hadn’t you better
ask
Elaine?” my mother said. And I knew I’d won.

Perhaps my parents were simply too worn out to argue anymore. Perhaps they welcomed this chance to let me try my wings in a limited test flight. Perhaps they were telling themselves that a new life was beginning, filled with risks and adventures, as they bravely stepped aside and let me past as I groped my way toward adulthood. Or perhaps they were simply tired of each other, of themselves, and of me.

E
VER SINCE
I
SAW
D
AD KISS HER HAIR
, E
LAINE HAD BEGUN TO
annoy me. Her voice was too loud, she smoked. I tried to come up with more irritating character flaws, but I kept forgetting and thinking disloyally that I liked her. It should have been more difficult now that I knew she was an evil homewrecking liar. I told myself that the ends justified the means of being friends with someone who could do that to my mother and me. I wondered how far I would go, how low I would stoop in order to be with Aaron.

When I asked Elaine if I could stay with her, I stressed how wonderful it would be if my parents could spend time alone. “They love each other so much. And it’s been
so
hard for them. They haven’t had a minute.”

Elaine didn’t flinch. She said, “A change of scene and a little privacy might be just what the doctor ordered. Of course you can stay over. We’ll have a pajama party. I’m not doing anything for the Fourth. A picnic with Tycho rushing around and scarfing down the aluminum foil and screaming when it touches his fillings isn’t my idea of fun. Fireworks terrify him.”

Elaine and I were standing on the sidewalk in front of the bookstore. My dad was at the counter, waiting for me to come in and take over. She hooked her arm around my shoulders and drew me away from the window.

She said, “Does your wanting to stay home have anything to do with . . . romance?”

Romance. The word disgusted me. Especially from Dad’s girlfriend.

“No,” I said. “We’re just hanging out. Just for the Fourth.”

“Just hanging out,” Elaine repeated.

“Right. I promise, okay?”

I’d promised without her prompting me. Maybe that was why she believed me.

“Okay. But if I’m going to be your stand-in mom for the weekend, I want you to come home early.”

I said, “What about the fireworks?”

“The fireworks? I thought you guys rode bikes. It’ll be dark.”

I improvised. For once, the staircase spirit would have nothing to add. “We can see the fireworks from the park. We can walk there.”

Elaine said, “Fine. Have a blast, so to speak. But I want you back at my place twenty minutes after the fireworks end.”

I calculated how long it would take from Miller’s Point to Elaine’s without speeding.

“How about twenty-five?”

“Deal,” said Elaine. “After that, you turn back into a pumpkin. And I’m calling out the state troopers.”

Thirteen

J
ULY 4 FELL ON
S
ATURDAY
. M
Y DAD CLOSED THE STORE FOR THE
weekend. Early that morning, my parents dropped me off at Elaine’s. They thought there would be less traffic on the holiday itself. They’d decided to stay just one night and come back Sunday evening. As we said our good-byes on the sidewalk, my parents hugged me and gave me so many warnings and so much last-minute advice, they could have been leaving the country or putting me up for adoption.

Dad said, “Don’t go back to the house by yourself. That’s the only thing we ask.”

“Why would I?” I said. “Don’t worry. Trust me, Mom and Dad. I’ll be okay.”

Underneath Mom and Dad’s fretfulness was the steely resolve they could show when they thought something was good for me, even if they didn’t like it. A party with other teenagers! How healthy for me to be with kids my own age! Why couldn’t they just have agreed that it was good for me to be with Aaron? Like me, they had learned nothing from Margaret’s death.

My parents told Elaine not to let me out of her sight and pretended they were joking. My mother kissed Elaine, and I monitored the hasty hug Elaine got from my dad, the heartfelt, grateful squeeze you would expect from one old friend entrusting another with his only Remaining Child. I did my best to keep the two Elaines apart in my mind: Elaine my father’s girlfriend and Elaine my guardian angel.

I was meeting Aaron at seven. He said he’d call around four. The rest of Saturday slipped into a lazy slo-mo trance. Elaine and I drank iced coffee. Tycho got up late. Elaine went to the supermarket, and he and I stayed home and played video games.

Maybe Tycho trusted me because I’d known him as a baby, before he became a crazy kid snorting and racing around. Or maybe it was because I’d known the rules for so long, I never screwed up: Don’t look at him, don’t touch him, zone out and be patient when he asks the same question over and over. Margaret used to say that Tycho was
really
born too late. Centuries ago, pilgrims would have flocked to him for prophecy and guidance. I knew that being with Tycho was sometimes difficult for Elaine, but it was easy for me. He made me laugh, and when I saw the pressure building, I’d ask if he wanted to sit on his exercise ball. He’d bounce on it and growl in his throat until he felt better, and I’d play both sides of the video game until he was ready to return.

Tycho’s windows had to be closed so the sound of firecrackers didn’t send him diving under his bed. I didn’t mind the heat. A breeze carried the scent of lilies from a vase in the living room and mixed with the oddly agreeable little-kid smells of sneakers and half-eaten peanut butter sandwiches stashed beneath the furniture. We played Doom Invaders, then Myst. I got the hang of playing for real and still letting Tycho win. I loved the slow, unhurried passing of time, every minute delaying the hour when I would see Aaron, and by extension the moment when we would say good-bye.

Elaine returned. Did I want to watch a DVD? I asked Tycho if he minded playing alone.

“Alone!” he said. “Grand Theft Auto!”

“You let him play
that
?” I asked Elaine.

“I know,” she said. “I hate it. It’s so disturbing and violent. I don’t know where he saw it, but he screamed for three days till I bought it.”

Elaine and I watched
The Red Shoes
, and after that,
Pygmalion
.

Elaine said, “Do you realize we’ve just sat through the same damn movie twice? Two stories about the ways that seemingly decent men need to bully and control otherwise intelligent women. Either they want us to work ourselves to death and not have a life, or else change us into some creepo template fetish of what they think women should be.”

It seemed like an odd little speech to be coming from Dad’s secret love. What made it even odder was that Elaine sounded so much like my mom, saying what my mom would have said if I’d watched those movies with her. I thought, People see everything through the lens of their obsessions. To me, both films were about Aaron’s trying to turn me into Margaret.

“Why did you pick
those
movies?” I said. “In general. Generally speaking.”

“Why?”

“Just asking.”

“God only knows,” said Elaine. “I remember liking them. Why?”

“Just asking,” I said. “I mean, I wondered if you knew they were connected, or if subconsciously maybe you—”

“Do me a favor,” said Elaine. “Lay off the caffeine.”

Four o’clock came. Aaron still hadn’t called. I began to think he’d forgotten, that I’d gone through all that drama with my parents for nothing. Now I actually
was
going to have to spend the holiday with Elaine and Tycho.

“What time are you meeting your . . . friend?” asked Elaine.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe he had to go somewhere with his parents. Maybe he got the date wrong.”

“He got the Fourth of July wrong?” Elaine said. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

Aaron didn’t call and didn’t call. I wondered if I’d been fooling myself about this not being a boy-girl situation. The silence devoured the oxygen. It was hard to breathe. I played another round of Doom Invaders with Tycho, then I lay on his bed and pretended to take a nap. I could have been in Boston with Mom and Dad. Every second, I thought, Ring
now
. Tycho picked up on my mood and starting pounding the computer keys until Elaine came in and gently steered him to the exercise ball.

I’d almost given up hope when, just before six, the phone rang.

“Whoever it was hung up,” Elaine said. “Probably it was for you.”

“Why did
you
pick up?”

“Because I live here?” said Elaine.

“Let me answer next time, okay?” I said.

Ten minutes later, Aaron called. I said, “I thought you were going to call earlier.” I sounded like a nagging insecure teenager. A nagging insecure teenage girl.

“Sorry,” Aaron said. “I was busy helping my mom.” He didn’t know he’d stolen hours from my life, time I would never get back. He was just calling, as he always did, to reconfirm, so that neither of us would be waiting alone by the side of the road.

Even after we’d settled that, he stayed on the phone. I could tell he wanted to ask me something and couldn’t figure out how.

“Could you do me a favor?” he said at last.

“Sure. Whatever you want.”
Whatever you want
, mocked the staircase spirit.

He said, “You know Margaret’s blue shirt with the glitter comet?”

“Sure,” I said.

“What?”

“I said
sure
.”

“Is it still around?”

“Yeah, maybe. Probably.” It had to be in her closet. All her things were still there.

I knew what was coming before Aaron said, “Do you think you could wear it tonight?”

I said, “I’ll try. I can’t promise.”

“Please. Please try,” said Aaron. “Wear the shirt, okay?”

“I will,” I said. “I mean, I’ll try. See you soon.”

It would have been hard enough if I’d been home and I’d had to force myself to go through my sister’s clothes and put on her favorite shirt. And going to the house was the one thing my dad had specifically forbidden. Why did Aaron want to ruin everything? I told myself to stay calm. We were still going to watch the fireworks. He just wanted one little favor.

There wasn’t time to bike to the house and back. Elaine would have to drive me.

“Was that the boyfriend?” Elaine said.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I said, though technically she was right. It
was
the boyfriend. Just not
my
boyfriend.

I didn’t want to ask her to drive me home right after I hung up. I didn’t want her thinking that it might be “the boyfriend’s” idea. After I’d sighed and flung myself around her living room for a while, Elaine said, “Okay, Nico. You’re killing me. What’s wrong?”

I said, “I forgot something up at my house. I don’t have time to go get it.”

“Forgot what? This had better be important.”

“It isn’t! But it sort of is. Elaine, are you superstitious?”

Elaine knocked on wood, like Mom. “No.” She laughed.

I said, “Did you ever have your heart set on wearing some lucky article of clothing, and you knew that nothing would go right unless you did?”

It wasn’t a feeling
I’d
ever had. I was borrowing from Margaret, whose wardrobe had been sorted into spheres of magical power. The red math-test sweater, the black skirt for musical performances, the blue shirt with the silver comet for special dates with Aaron. I was no longer just looking like her. I was thinking her thoughts. I felt as if I was watching myself recede into the distance until I disappeared. For a moment, I felt so shaky I almost wanted to tell Elaine the whole story of me and Aaron.

Elaine said, “If this has something to do with a boy . . . Did we, or did we not, just watch two movies about the insane, self-lacerating crap that women will do to please some guy? You shouldn’t care so much about what you wear, especially at your age, when any old rag you put on looks terrific. You should know that the guy likes you even in some ratty, torn sweatshirt. He should make you feel like a princess in disguise. End of sermon.”

Is that how my father made Elaine feel? He wasn’t like that with my mom. Every so often, when my parents were leaving for dinner with friends—friends they never saw any more—Dad would give Mom a look. Half a look. And she’d go and change clothes. I remembered Margaret getting dressed to go out with Aaron, molting one outfit after another onto her bedroom floor. If she did that, every woman did. Maybe at this very minute Aaron was stressing about his wardrobe. I liked the idea, but I didn’t believe it.

“Come on, Elaine,” I said. “Don’t tell me you never had some special thing you wanted to wear when you went somewhere with a person you liked? What about Tycho’s dad?”

Elaine flashed me a dirty leer, as if she was thinking that she and Tycho’s father never went anywhere, or wore clothes.

“Actually,” said Elaine, “I
do
know what that’s like. Or at least I used to.” I couldn’t tell if her sigh was about how much time had passed since she’d felt that way, or whether she was regretting some article of clothing she used to like and lost, or if she was sighing simply because she had to drive me home.

She said, “I guess you want a ride.”

I said, “I’d owe you forever.”

“You already owe me. If we’re counting. Which we’re not.”

Which we weren’t. Otherwise she’d owe
me
for not ratting out her and Dad. But whom would I tell? I couldn’t tell Aaron about Dad and Elaine, or about Mom and her pills. I didn’t want to make our family seem even more pitiful and damaged. The only person I could have told was Margaret.

“Look at you,” Elaine said. “Let’s go. I understand.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll bet you do.”

“What?”

“I knew you’d understand.”

“What’s
with
you?” asked Elaine.

“Nothing,” I said.

“I’m not your mother,” said Elaine.

I counted to five, then ten, then fifteen. “Thank you, Elaine,” I said.

Elaine belted Tycho in the back seat, and I sat up front beside her.

“Don’t crash!” said Tycho.

“I’ll try not to, honey,” said Elaine. “He says that every time.”

It took several tries to start Elaine’s geriatric Saab, which coughed and sputtered all the way from her house to mine. Stopping at the bottom of our driveway, she said, “If it’s all the same to you, I’ll wait down here and keep the engine running. I’d hate to get stuck up there and have to sweet-talk some white-knight mechanic into towing me back to town on the Fourth.”

My dread of not seeing Aaron trumped my fear of the empty house. Still, the driveway had never seemed so steep, and the house loomed above me like the motel where Norman Bates keeps his dead mom in
Psycho
.

I said, “I’ll be out in a flash.”

I heard Elaine’s car choking as I fought with the swollen back door. Was Margaret jamming the lock? I pushed as hard as I could and stumbled into the silent house. The quiet was peaceful. Neutral. It was as if we had all died ages ago, and I was an archaeologist come to catalog our artifacts. The house was no longer a danger zone but a site where a civilization had disappeared, leaving behind a ruin that was better off without the humans. A piano shawl, a mirror, framed photos of a happy family on the shore of a lake. A father, a mother, two daughters. The females doing yoga.

The house was so silent I could hear the ticking of a clock I’d never noticed before, the groans of the refrigerator. I moved swiftly, like a burglar. Then the energy drained out of me, and I longed to go to my room and lie down. But I couldn’t afford to be suffocated by the thick melancholy seeping from the dusty, airless rooms. I needed to stay attentive to the health of Elaine’s car and to the price I would pay if I let the house win.

Margaret’s room was sweltering. I walked over to the closet. The glitter comet winked at me. Margaret wanted me to find it.

I said, “I know you’re not angry. I know you understand.” Nothing stirred. Not a breeze. I said, “I’ll take that as a yes.”

I carefully folded Margaret’s blue shirt and slipped it into my backpack. Then I tracked back through the house, searching for telltale signs of my presence. There were none. I hadn’t been there.

“That’s
it
?” Elaine nodded at my backpack.

“A shirt,” I said, “I told you.”

As soon as we got to Elaine’s, I changed my jeans, put on Margaret’s shirt, dabbed the vanilla oil—Aaron had gotten me a new bottle—behind my ears. No time for indecision, no looking in the mirror.

I timed my departure precisely. Elaine was cooking dinner. I tried to sneak past the kitchen door with a wave and a promise to come home early.

“Uh-uh-uh,” said Elaine. “Not so fast. Let’s see how you look.”

In her new role as my substitute mother, Elaine was paying closer attention than my real mother was. Maybe people always try harder at the beginning. She called me into the kitchen and spun her finger. I twirled like the skater in Margaret’s snow globe. I braced myself for the inquisition. But all she said was, “You look beautiful.” I thanked her and left before she burst into tears, which she seemed on the point of doing.