Half In Love With Death (11 page)

As Edie washed the dishes with surprising efficiency, she said, “Tony's taking Lizzie to pick up her baby sister. Lizzie watches her at night when her mom's at work.” She paused. “Tony lets Lizzie stay over with the baby whenever she wants to. He even buys diapers and formula. He loves helping people.” She gazed up at the fly-filled light fixture. I was surprised Jess hadn't mentioned any of this.

She passed me a dish to dry. “Can you keep a secret?”

I slid the cloth over the dish, thinking, here it comes, my reason for being here. “Yes.”

Her brown eyes widened. “It isn't really Lizzie's little sister.”

“No?”

“No.” Her eyes grew even wider. “It's her baby, and she doesn't even know who the dad is.”

“How old is she?”

Edie shook her head. “Sixteen. She looks older, doesn't she? She's so lucky to have Tony. If he didn't drive her places and let her hang out here, she'd be stuck at home all the time.”

“She doesn't go to school?”

“Lizzie had to drop out, but it's no big deal. They don't teach you anything worth much in school. I dropped out, too. Just because I wanted to.” She looked proud of this.

“How old are you?”

“Fifteen.”

“I'm fifteen, too,” I said. “I hate high school.”

“You should drop out. Then we could hang out all the time.”

I shook my head. Much as I hated it, I couldn't imagine not going. You had to go to high school. “I'd like to, but my mom would kill me.”

“Promise me you'll think on it,” Edie said. “My mom says as long as I don't hit her up for money, I can do what I want. And since Tony and I are going be married, it doesn't matter so much if I'm in school.”

“Married?” I almost dropped the plate I was holding.

She stared at me as if I were an idiot. “He gave me a ring.”

“Aren't you a little young to get married?” Tony was going to marry Jess, and now he was going to marry Edie? This didn't make sense.

She frowned. “You and your bourgeois attitude. Tony says when it comes to love, there are no rules. There's only feelings.”

My sister would have been furious if she'd found this out. “But what about Jess? She's Tony's girlfriend, you know.”

Edie bit her lower lip. “Look, I know she's your sister and all, but I mean, where is she? You can't expect Tony to wait around for someone who just up and disappears.”

She had a point. It would be just like Jess to take off in a huff and expect the whole world to stop and wait while she was gone.

Outside the small window above the sink, a black and yellow bird landed on a wooden fence. As it opened and closed its beautiful wings, I felt a catch in my throat. Had Jess ever seen a bird like that here? Had she thought it was beautiful? Did she even notice?

“I suppose,” I said. Edie handed me a glass to dry.

As I reached into it with the dishcloth, she touched my shoulder. “The day of that party, Jess wouldn't stop calling Tony. She drove him crazy.” She reached into the soapy water. “He wanted to break up with her, but he didn't want to hurt her feelings.” She paused. “If I had anything to do with her running away, I'm sorry.”

“It's okay.” I stared at the water-splattered floor, wishing Jess had told me more about what was going on. If she had, I could have talked her out of leaving.

Edie wiped her wet hands on her jeans. “I want to marry Tony more than anything, but if Jess comes back and Tony wants her and she wants him, I can deal with that. No point in not going with the flow. Everything comes around sooner or later.”

She twisted the leather bracelet on her wrist. “Do you believe in other lives?” Before I could answer she said, “I do. Tony says no one dies. They just step out of one body and into another. He learned that when he almost drowned.” She looked out the window. The bird spread its black and gold wings and flew away.

“I hope that's true,” I said. “But that would mean there are no ghosts.” I eyed her, thinking of the rumors May had mentioned.

She gave me a shove. “There are ghosts. Sometimes spirits get trapped in this place between lives called the bardo. You can read all about it in
The Tibetan Book of the Dead
.” She hesitated. “You can summon spirits, but you gotta be real careful if you summon a bad one.”

She was making my head spin. “So have you summoned a spirit?”

She smiled. “No, of course not.”

I put the dishcloth down. I had to ask her one more thing. “You didn't see the blond guy who was driving the red car, did you?”

For a moment she looked like she didn't know what I was talking about. Then she said, “Now that I think of it, maybe I did. He was the real handsome type Jess would like.”

“Handsome? Debbie said he looked like he just got out of prison.”

She bit her lower lip. “There are handsome guys in prison. But maybe he wasn't. I didn't look that close.” I wondered if Lizzie was right and Edie really was a liar. Debbie said he was a criminal with bad skin. Edie said he was handsome. Someone was lying.

“It's strange the way Debbie always hangs around Tony, though she's nothing to him.” Edie wrinkled her nose. “She reminds me of a dead fish, cold and creepy.”

“Especially with her white lipstick,” I said.

She smiled, stood behind me and unwrapped the towel from my head. “Let me rinse your hair out, and then we'll sit out in the sun until it's dry.”

• • •

As we sat on lounge chairs beside the pool, I shut my eyes and let the heat press down on me. I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew Edie was shaking me, saying, “Come on, you have to see yourself. You look great.”

When we went back inside, I stood on my tiptoes to see myself in the mirror over the mantel. My hair was a golden blonde. I didn't look like May, or Jane Asher. I didn't even look like me.

“Do you like it?” she said.

I looked more closely. At least it wasn't as light as Edie's. “I guess.”

Edie pressed her face next to mine in the mirror and was saying, “We're like twins,” when Tony and Moose came back.

Edie grinned at them. “What do you think?”

Tony stared at me, a look on his face as if he'd seen a ghost. I touched my hair. Was something wrong? He came over and stood so close behind me I could feel his warm breath on my neck. He lifted my hair and let it fall. “Lovely,” he said. He turned my face toward him. “Like you.” He studied me intently, his eyes like a blue drink, two parts sadness, one part loneliness. It was hard to turn away.

“You really like it?” I said.

“I do.” He took my hand. I glanced at Edie, hoping she wasn't jealous.

Moose was gawking at me, his mouth open, as if he couldn't believe what he saw. He started to say, “She looks just like . . . ” when Tony put his finger to his lips, and he stopped.

Nervous, I stepped away and pointed to the photo on the mantle. “‘My witness is the empty sky.' What does that mean?”

“You'll have to ask Jack Kerouac.” Tony smiled. “He wrote that book
On the Road
. I'm a fan of his. He's a free thinker, like me.”

“I've heard of him. Was Jess a fan?” I asked.

He looked at me sadly. “She wasn't like you. She never paid attention to anything but what she wanted.” I nodded. The quietness in the room crept up around us.

“I'm so hungry I could eat a moose.” Moose grinned.

“Come on.” Edie led me over to the fridge. “They have to be fed.” She pulled out a package of hot dogs, put a pot of water on the stove, and dumped them in. Then she stood on a chair and began rummaging in the cabinets above the sink. “I feel like baking a cake for the party tonight.”

“Party?” I asked.

“It's always a party at Tony's.” Her smiled faded, both of us remembering that other party. I thought again of what Edie had said about Jess threatening to reveal something about Tony. It didn't make sense. Jess wouldn't tell on Tony or anyone. But she had said something important was going on, something she couldn't talk about.

The room filled with the smell of boiled hot dogs, their pink skins splitting as they bounced around in the pot. My stomach lurched. I glanced at my watch. It was five o'clock. If I didn't make it home for dinner tonight, especially with my hair dyed blonde, there was no telling how much trouble I'd be in.

“I'm sorry,” I said to Edie. “But I've got to go home now.”

“I'll give you a ride,” Tony said.

She pouted. “But Caroline didn't even have her hot dog.”

I told her maybe next time.

• • •

As we walked by the pool, I tried to catch a glimpse of myself, but it was full of cloudy green shadows.

When we got in the car, the way Tony stared at me, as if I was someone else, someone I couldn't possibly be, made me nervous. I slid over close to the door. He lit a cigarette, checked himself out in the rearview mirror, and started the car up, the cigarette hanging out of his mouth as he backed out of the driveway.

This afternoon had left me with more questions than answers. They were all swirling around in my head, and with Tony sitting next to me, I was afraid to ask anything. He was the most important person to talk to, but also the hardest. But there was one question I had to ask. I took a deep breath, trying to be brave for my sister.

“Tony.” I struggled to clear my throat. “Did you and Jess fight about anything other than Edie?”

He fiddled with the radio. “Why? Did Edie tell you something?” He settled on a song called “I Know a Place” about a place where your worries can't find you. He glanced at me. “Because if she did, I hope you realize she's a liar.”

“I've heard that.”

He tapped his hand on the steering wheel to the beat of the music. “You can't trust a word that comes out of her mouth. I tried to explain that to Jess, but she wouldn't listen.”

I leaned my head against the seat, wishing that the big hopeful song would lift my worries from me. “I love this song,” I said.

He cast a quick glance my way. “Me too.”

Before I knew it, we were about a block from my house. He pulled up to the curb. “Better get out here so Mom and Dad don't see me.” His pushed my hair behind my ear and said, “I like you as a blonde.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “But you know what the best thing is?” I looked up. “You're not sad anymore.”

“You mean about Billy?”

“No. You know what I mean.”

I did. All these weeks, sadness had seeped into everything I'd done. But now, for the moment at least, it wasn't there. I was amazed that Tony knew this. It was like he could see straight into my heart. No one had ever done that before. “I've been thinking,” he went on. He turned the radio down. “Remember how you told me Jess said something was going on that she couldn't talk about?” I nodded. “Did she say anything else strange that night that might help us figure out what she was referring to?”

“There is one thing.”

He raised his eyes.

“As she climbed out the window, she said, ‘Would you?'”

“Would you?”

“She didn't finish the question.”

“You sure that's all she said?” He sounded a little mad. I could almost feel the roughness of his beard beneath his fingers as he scratched his chin. “And you didn't talk about anything else that night?”

I looked down at the dirty floor mat. “I asked her about Arnie.”

“That dude from California?”

“I thought maybe she was going to break up with you,” I said softly.

“Honey.” He touched my cheek. “Jess wasn't going to break up with me.”

I sat stone still with his hand on my cheek. It was so close and hot in the car, I felt like I couldn't breathe. He was half facing me, his legs slightly parted. He slid his hand down my cheek and then lightly touched the tip of my nose. “Caroline,” he said.

“What,” I almost shouted.

“Caroline,” he repeated. He pulled me close and then he was kissing me. It wasn't like with Billy. His lips were soft, his hand tight against the small of my back. Feelings rose up from deep inside me, like I was on fire and sad and weeping at the same time. When he let me go, I turned away. He was Jess's boyfriend. How could I have kissed him?

He smoothed my hair. “I shouldn't have done that.”

“It's okay,” I said in a voice that was almost not a voice. It was as if he'd heard my thoughts. He took my hand and we sat there in the hot car for a timeless time, while on the radio a song that sounded far away played over and over.

He touched me softly under the chin. His fingers tickled. “Try to remember more. I will, too, and we'll talk about it next time. If we work together, we'll find Jess. I promise you.”

“Okay,” I said, thinking, together?

I fiddled with a pearl button on my blouse. When I was younger, my mom told me that she liked pearls because they capture the sea and moon in a little ball. It was so strange for her to say something like this that I never forgot it. Now I looked down at the innocent little button on my shirt and thought, I have the sea and moon right here before my eyes. I thought of what Edie said about just going with the flow. All this time I'd been trying so hard and nothing worked out for me, but now it was like everything was moving and opening up all at once. Of course we'd find Jess—together. I could almost see her, lovely and tiny, seated on the petal of giant flower.?

As I opened the car door, Tony stroked my arm. “I can't get over your hair. It's like you're her.” He gathered it up in a ponytail, then let it fall.

“I know a place,” he said, just like in the song, “in California where the kids go sometimes. There are lots of people there and those people know other people. I bet she's there.”