Justin Kramon (12 page)

“She hauled all Dad’s stuff out. I mean, like, all of it.”

“I had a feeling. I heard her last night banging around. Then she took a bunch of trash bags to the dumpster this morning.”

“Aren’t you pissed off?”

“I’m more sad than pissed, Finny.”

Finny hated when people said her name like that, like a rebuke. She was about to strike back at Sylvan, but instead she said, “Okay. What?”

“Dad died on the toilet.”

“What?” Finny said again, and started to laugh. She felt guilty for it, but she couldn’t help it. “Are you kidding?”

Sylvan shook his head. He explained that he’d gotten the whole story while the paramedics were on their way. It seemed that Stanley had woken up before five and told Laura he was going to the bathroom. “Probably to ‘brush his teeth,’” Sylvan said. When he didn’t return after fifteen minutes, Laura assumed his indigestion was worse than usual and fell back asleep. Stanley must have thought the same thing, because when Laura woke two hours later and went to the bathroom, she found him sitting on the toilet, his chin resting on his chest. The indigestion had been chest pains. He’d had a heart attack.

“I don’t believe it,” Finny said, still laughing. “I’m sorry. I don’t think it’s funny. It’s just so—
perfect
for Dad.”

“I know,” Sylvan said, and he began to laugh, too.

Then they started to laugh harder. Finny couldn’t have explained it, but soon they were falling back on the bed, gasping for breath. She laughed until her sides hurt, until hot tears sprang to her eyes. She pressed her face against Sylvan’s shoulder, and laughed until she could have puked.

And then at some point the laughter became crying. It was a funny thing. Finny wasn’t sure exactly where the transition was, the two acts felt so similar. But soon she and her brother were hugging each other in the bed, sobbing onto each other’s shoulders because they didn’t want to show their faces. She felt her brother’s breath on her neck, his chest rising and falling, tears on her shirt. She’d never seen him cry before. They stayed like that, holding each other, until at last they fell asleep.

Chapter
12
Things Begin to Brighten

It was easier now, during Finny’s spring break, to sneak over and see Earl, since Laura was on another planet. Laura spent most of her day in the bedroom, or else running small, unnecessary errands for the house, such as getting rugs cleaned, or buying new cords for the phones. When Finny said she was going out, Laura said, “Okay, sweetie,” and rarely asked where. Still, it was sad for Finny to see her mother this way. It was as if after Stanley died Laura’s foundations cracked. The façade was the same, but Finny knew the inside was crumbling.

Besides Sylvan, Earl was the only person Finny felt comfortable talking to about her father. When they went for walks, Finny explained to Earl how she felt as if Stanley had been snatched away from her, just as they were beginning to have some understanding of each other, just as they were beginning to get close. She told Earl about the letter Stanley had written her, how he’d said he was proud of her, and when she started to tear up, Earl hugged her and let her cry. Another boy her age would’ve gotten shy around all those feelings.

One day she took Earl to the old vineyard. Their feet scuffed the dirt path. Finny noticed their heads almost reached the top of the green walls on both sides of them. Yet there was a feeling of being sheltered. They stopped, faced each other, half-covered in shadows from the vines. Earl held her hands.

She let Earl lower her onto the dirt. He sat beside her, and they kissed for the second time. She put her arms around his neck. “Oh, Earl,” she said, and kissed him on the cheek, “I missed you so much when I was at school.” His cheek was scratchy. He smelled like oatmeal, and a little like pears.

They fell back on the dusty ground together. She snuggled close to him in the deep shade of the vines, her head burrowing in his neck, in the heat from his skin. He kept his arms around her, holding her like they were sleeping. At first Finny thought they would have to tussle around like she’d seen people do in movies, but neither of them tried to do that. They just lay there. It was what they wanted to do together, to curl up and sleep in each other’s arms. It was the most intimate thing Finny could imagine. Years later, holding Earl like this in a tiny apartment in Paris, Finny would feel just as warm, just as protected as she did now. More than kissing, even more than sex, this holding would always be Finny’s favorite part of love with Earl. It was when she could imagine them growing old together.

Most afternoons they would lie in the vineyard for hours and talk. Finny felt a remarkable freedom during these afternoons. She told Earl things she’d never thought of telling anyone, not because they were particularly private but because they seemed like thoughts you would keep to yourself, thoughts no one would be interested in. She told him about how she used to look at the fuzzy green ribbon of horizon from her bedroom window and imagine walking there one day, finding some magical landscape of mountains and waterfalls. She told him about the day after they’d met, when she’d gone to the pasture and seen that no one was there, and her heart sank because she thought Earl had already forgotten about her. Finny had never spoken so easily about her feelings, but something in her grief had liberated her. She spoke more directly now, and without fear of what people would think.

“Show me your house,” Earl said to her one afternoon, and they walked along the fence to Finny’s backyard. She pointed at her window.

“That’s it,” she said.

“I can imagine you there,” Earl said, “looking out.”

“Sometimes I thought I could see your house. I liked to think that.”

“Maybe I can come over one day. When your mom is feeling better.”

“Maybe,” Finny said.

There was another change in Finny that spring when she was fifteen. It had to do with her outlook on love—or rather, an aspect of love. She’d always thought of sex as silly, a little crude, all that poking and moaning and rolling around. It was hard to take seriously. And though she still saw the comedy in it, there was a part of her now that yearned for it, to be abused in that particular way. Sometimes when she lay with Earl in the vineyard, she felt herself getting warm, a kind of tingly excitement spreading over her body. She had to wrap her legs around Earl and squeeze him in order to push the feeling down in herself. At night, when she was dressing for bed, she noticed her breasts were plumper, the development she’d waited so long for. She felt a heaviness in her nipples, and sometimes she pinched them just for the electric thrill of it.

She was the one who started the touching. Reaching down to rub him, feeling him grow hard beneath her hand. She loved that—his almost instant response. He followed her lead, touching her the way she touched him. At first they felt each other above the clothes, and then just the underwear, then beneath it. Hidden between the green walls of the vineyard, Finny’s desire swelled. She was bolder than she’d ever been.

Once, she reached down to her own underwear and felt they were soaked, she’d become so aroused.

“Oops,” she said to Earl.

“Well, you can always wear mine,” Earl said.

And they laughed together. She didn’t need to hide or explain with him. She wasn’t worried about him judging her. With Earl sex could be funny, and Finny saw how important that was, too. When she got home that day, she looked at her underwear and saw a few dots of blood, he’d reached so far into her.

One day, when they were lying in the vineyard, Finny said to Earl that she thought he’d make a good dad.

“What makes you say that?” he asked.

“Just a way you have. Of making people feel good for the things that make them who they are. The important things. I don’t think you’d make a fuss over test scores and being the best on the soccer team.”

“Well, since my test scores aren’t so good and I can’t kick a ball straight, I don’t think that would make sense.”

“That’s what I mean,” Finny said. “You’re not stuck-up.”

“I’m very proud of my ability to prevent car accidents when my dad falls asleep at the wheel.”

Finny laughed. “That’s important.”

“Especially for me,” Earl said.

“Do you think you’d want to be a dad sometime?” Finny asked.

Earl was silent a moment. Then he said, “Yeah, I think so. It’s just hard to know how your life will turn out.”

Finny wasn’t sure what he was trying to tell her, so she asked him, “How do you want it to turn out, Earl?”

He thought for another moment. “I think I’d like to be a writer.”

And though Finny wasn’t sure what this had to do with the issue of children, she asked him why.

“Because there’s so much stuff you never get to say. Or never take the time to figure out how to say. There’s so much in the world, and I want to get it down somewhere. I just don’t know if I’d be any good at it.”

“I think you’d be a great writer, Earl. You’re more sensitive than anyone I’ve ever met. I’d read anything you wrote.”

“Thanks,” Earl said. “Then I know I can sell at least one copy.”

“And it better be signed.”

“I’ll write you a personal letter.”

“Deal,” Finny said.

“Oh, I forgot to mention it,” Laura said to Finny one morning at breakfast, “but we can’t afford Thorndon anymore.”

“Why?” Finny said. Though she’d had a feeling this news was coming. She’d be sad to leave Judith and Poplan, but she’d be closer to Earl and Mr. Henckel. It had to be one group or the other. Sometimes she wished she could just round up all the people she loved and move to a commune.

“You’ll be going back to the Slope School in the fall, with Sylvan. They offered you some assistance.”

“Assistance?”

“We need it,” Laura said.

Judith came to visit Finny the last weekend of Thorndon’s spring break, even though Judith knew Finny wasn’t coming back to school with her. She’d already gotten her tickets, and figured Finny could use the company anyway. Finny, Laura, and Sylvan drove to BWI to pick her up.

Judith stepped off the plane with her hair back in her usual ponytail. She was wearing a black sweater that hugged her well-formed curves, revealing the tiniest sliver of belly when she lifted her arms. She had a brush of makeup on her cheeks. She looked gorgeous, Finny thought, like some starlet, and Finny was struck once again by the thought that she didn’t deserve this beautiful girl’s attention. Finny was about to introduce her friend to her mother and brother, when Judith said, “Hi. I’m Judith Turngate. I’m very pleased to meet you. I was so sorry to hear about your family’s loss. Mr. Short was so wonderful to me when he came to visit Thorndon. I have the nicest memories of him.” She spoke with the poise of a woman twice her age. She held out her hand and shook Laura’s and Sylvan’s hands in turn. Then she stood there with her shoulders back, smiling sympathetically at Finny’s family.

For a moment they were speechless. There was a beat of silent appreciation, until Laura finally said, “We’re pleased to meet you, too, Judith.”

Finny understood they were both a little awed by Judith. She knew what that was like. It was the usual response, and she forgave them for it.

In the car they asked Judith where she was from, and about her family. She spoke about her life in New York in a completely different way from how she had to Finny. She explained that her father traded bonds, how he loved to play bridge and go for jogs in Central Park in the afternoons. “A pretty easygoing guy,” she said. Her mother was “a philanthropist.” Judith said she was working to try to make arts more affordable and accessible in the city, and she’d butted heads with a few politicians as a result. Her mother was tough, “but I know she’s a good person and has everyone’s interests in mind. Everyone but herself, I guess.” Judith laughed.

At dinner that night everyone seemed more animated than they’d been in the last couple weeks, like the colors and sound had been turned up on a television. They ate and talked in the bright dining room, in front of the wide windows that looked across the valley, the constellations of lights from the neighbors’ houses, the stretches of dark fields and trees. Finny laughed at how attentive Sylvan was to Judith, asking her if she needed more salad or bread. She’d never seen her brother so cowed by someone his age. But now he mumbled and blushed, smiled too much, asked awkward questions about the weather in Boston and what Finny and Judith had done on the weekends. Finny knew he was trying to figure out if Judith had a boyfriend. But it felt good to Finny, like her family was coming back to life.

Saturday was a lazy day. Laura made toaster waffles and eggs for brunch. Finny and Judith watched videos and read magazines and ate microwave popcorn. By dinner they were all feeling antsy. They went out for Chinese food, and then ice cream, and the whole family was in bed by ten o’clock.

After Finny and Judith had settled into Finny’s bed, Finny said to Judith, “I heard you were pretty close with your roommate before me. Jesse, right?”

Finny felt the covers rustle. “We had fun,” Judith said. “Actually, I can tell you this now: the reason she left is we got caught drinking together, and my parents bailed me out. But I’m really glad you came, Shorty Finn. You’re the closest friend I’ve ever had.”

On Sunday, Finny woke up before Judith. She knew she had a couple hours before her friend would want to get up. Her brother was already downstairs in the family room, seated on the couch, hunched over a large book, his hair flopping in front of his face. He was working on an English paper about Walt Whitman that was due in two weeks.

“Dork,” she said, pointing to him.

“Argument for birth control,” he said, pointing to her. It was pretty funny, Finny had to admit. Now that Judith wasn’t in the room, Sylvan was free to take up their usual arguments.

“You going to be working the whole day?” Finny asked him.

“Mom went out,” he said.

“Um,” Finny said, not knowing how to make the request she had in mind.

But Sylvan cut her off. “It’s okay,” he said. “Go see your boyfriend.”