Light from a Distant Star (10 page)

“Yeah, right, I know how that goes,” Dolly sighed. Interesting, Nellie thought, how she could turn any subject around to herself. Such a useful skill, a kind of conversational veering through an obstacle course of dull topics. And being a kid, who wasn’t allowed to interrupt adults no matter how boring they were, Nellie was fascinated, even by Dolly’s detailed description of her pneumonia last winter: the green mucous and hacking cough, the creepy intern who kept coming in to listen to her lungs without a stethoscope, pressing his ear to her chest. At the stove Nellie mimicked her exaggerated shudder that had made her mother giggle. “Yeah, two and a half days I was in the hospital until they found out I didn’t have any insurance, so they kicked me out. Sick as a dog—they didn’t care,” Dolly said, even her pout seductive.

Lips also pursed, Nellie turned off the burner. A face like Dolly’s made secrets impossible. Her childlikeness was surprising to Nellie, who had never known an adult like her. Later, when she thought back, she would realize how much Dolly reminded her of Jessica. They were incapable of masking their emotions. Everything showed, every feeling and nuance, like a throb of blue veins just under the skin, a pulsating glyph of vulnerability.

Nellie poured the pudding into four sherbet bowls instead of the usual five. A package went further with Henry gone. She did miss him, though, but in the way you’d miss your shadow. Not something you needed or wanted, but not having one seemed strange. She hoped he wasn’t freaking out the Krugers with his weird moods and balky silences. Especially if they tried taking him into the woods.

“Lately I been getting this, like, spotting, I guess you call it.” Dolly’s sunny voice drifted on the fringe of Nellie’s bitter reverie. She’d been imagining what she’d say to Bucky when she saw him. It was becoming an obsession, all the possible scenarios worked out, the brutal force of her anger reducing him to pleas for forgiveness, her cruel words so brilliantly insightful that in the end he’d turn his life around, and for that his grandparents would honor her with their gratitude. She wasn’t sure exactly what form that honor would take or even what the phrase meant, but she’d heard it on NPR yesterday. And as the middle child, honor and gratitude didn’t come easily.

“… then, last month I wake up in the middle of the night, and the sheet’s, like, covered, soaked in blood, the mattress, everything. It’s like, nothing for two months, then next thing I know, some kinda geyser’s going off.”

She had Nellie’s rapt attention. So sweet and pretty and not even caring that she could hear every word of her most intimate details. Ruth was big into menstrual details, because it was another way of feeling superior to Nellie, so she wasn’t shocked. But there was an innocence about Dolly’s confidences that drew you into her life. Or maybe her into yours. She needed something, someone, anyone.

“You should see a doctor,” her mother was telling her, and Dolly agreed. Yeah, she should. Like, she knew that, and she was going to. She really, really was. Because the worst part of all were the clots, she said as Nellie scraped the last lumps from the bottom of the pan. Ruth could have her bowl. In fact, she was pretty sure she’d never eat pudding again. Dolly jumped up and said she’d better get going. A friend was taking her out to dinner tonight. She wasn’t sure where, though. It was supposed to be a surprise.

“Who’s your friend?” Nellie’s mother asked, and Dolly answered with a wink.

“Oh, that smells so good.” Dolly paused to look over Nellie’s shoulder. “And it’s from scratch.”

“No.” She showed her the box.

“Same thing. Kinda, sorta. Cooking it, I mean,” she said, with a quick look as if Nellie’d hurt her feelings.

“Here, have some.” She held out one of the warm bowls.

“Oh jeez.” Dolly seemed disappointed. “If I do, it’ll fill me up and I’m gonna have dinner.”

“Take it with you,” her mother said from the table. “You can have it later.”

“Yeah! That’s a great idea.” Dolly left, bearing the bowl in two hands, like a rare potion.

“Poor kid,” her mother sighed on the closing door.

“Why? What’s wrong with her?” Nellie asked.

“She’s …” Her mother paused to reconsider, which Nellie resented. Now if she were Ruth she would have come straight out with it. Her mother and Ruth were soul sisters, Sandy liked to say, two peas from the same pod, which always left Nellie wondering what pod she’d come from. “She’s had a hard life, that’s all.”

“Is that why she sounds so … well … kinda dumb sometimes?” she asked, and was stung by her mother’s reaction.

“Why’re you so judgmental all the time, Nellie? You make people feel very uncomfortable. You sound like your aunt Betsy when you say those things.”

Whoa! How many times had she heard that? She used to think it was a compliment. She thought Aunt Betsy was a very important person the way people always seemed to have an opinion about her. Now that she was older, though, she realized what a knife in the back the comparison was.

“It’s not a very nice trait,” her mother said, getting up when she heard Ruth race down the stairs. If her mother didn’t give her a ride, she’d be late for work again.

Nellie was hurt. She was a very kind girl and careful of everyone’s feelings, but if being a quick study of people meant she was judgmental, then there wasn’t a thing she could do about it. And she could see what was happening here. Yesterday Ruth and her mother had been sitting on the side steps with Dolly. The minute Nellie came around the corner, their chatter and laughter stopped. Her mother had been painting Ruth’s and Dolly’s toenails and they all sat there with cotton balls between their toes, looking back at Nellie as if they’d swallowed the wrong way. She had become the outsider. In her own home, which was only turning her into more of a Dolly stalker than she already was,
listening for footsteps, latenight car doors, laughter and tears, with her ear at the bathroom wall trying to make out the murmurous voices.

L
ATELY
C
HARLIE WAS
spending less time in the junkyard. He’d taken up fishing. Max was teaching him how. In the middle of the afternoon they’d padlock the gate, and with the old, dented metal canoe lashed to the top of the truck, they’d drive down to the Hawnee River, which ran through the center of town. Max preferred lake fishing, he was telling Nellie, as he tossed a second bungee cord over the canoe. She followed him to the other side of the truck. With Henry gone, she was bored out of her mind being stuck in the house all day. She’d even started looking forward to Jessica’s return. She’d asked her mother if there was anything she could do at the beauty shop—sweep the floor, fold towels—she didn’t care. Her mother didn’t think so, but she’d ask Lizzie.

“Another one! Two’s not enough,” Charlie called from the shade of the barn and Max waved in agreement.

“You should go to Lake Branmore,” Nellie said on Max’s and Boone’s heels, back around the truck. “That’s where my brother is. Maybe they took him fishing. The family he’s with, the Krugers. I should tell Charlie.”

“He doesn’t like the feeling, not being close to land,” Max said, attaching the third cord.

“How come?” It was hard to hide her pleasure when Max talked to her. Whenever she delivered meals or medicine to Charlie, she went out of her way to be friendly to him. After all, he’d saved her brother’s life, which she made a point of mentioning every time she came, and her grandfather trusted him, which she suspected had more to do with cheap labor than anything else. But most important, Max was one more of those people she found strangely fascinating. Kind of like Bucky, who’d come to the house yesterday, banging on the door, but she hadn’t answered. Max had that same kind of edginess. The difference was that Max often seemed so skittish. She wasn’t sure if it was shyness or fear. Maybe both, but she could tell she was making inroads. Today when she’d come through the gate, he’d said hi first instead of pretending he hadn’t seen her.

“Charlie can’t swim. Least, I don’t think so,” Max said from the back of the truck. Just when you thought he hadn’t heard, he’d answer your question.

“You’re kidding,” she said, watching the gruff old man who’d always considered his grandson such a whiny pansy.

“Okay!” Charlie called as he limped toward them.

“You got a sore foot?” she asked.

“My damn hip,” he said, patting his thigh. “Junk, like everything else here.”

“Spare parts,” Max said, getting behind the wheel. “That’s all it takes. They can pretty much fix anything nowadays.”

“Yeah. Well. One of these days.” With a heaving groan Charlie hauled himself up into the truck.

“Hey!” she called before he could close the door. “Can I come? I love fishing, but nobody ever takes me.”

“Hell, no!” Charlie barked.

“I’ll be really quiet. I won’t even talk,” she said, and Charlie gestured for Max to go.

Max looked over at her with an apologetic shrug. She knew right then and there that deep down inside he was a nice person. And sooner or later she’d be right where she wanted to be, sitting in the middle of that canoe on her way down the Hawnee, pole in hand.

I
T WAS THE
hottest day so far. Almost 90 degrees. Henry was coming home tonight, two days early. It was mostly his stomach, Mrs. Kruger had said. Nothing she could pinpoint. Strange, because his appetite seemed okay, and yet he’d been complaining of cramps. And bad headaches again. He’d told Mrs. Kruger that lately he’d been having a lot of headaches at home. Not true, but her mother didn’t rat him out as the wimp he really was. Though, Nellie had to admit, the Bucky incident in the woods had made her a lot more sympathetic.

Nellie was at the beauty shop when Mrs. Kruger called. It was her second day on the job, not that she was getting paid a cent, though. Her mother had told Frederic it was just to keep her busy. Ruth and her friends were going swimming practically every day, either at different
pools or driving to the lake. Her mother didn’t like her being alone in the house all day.

After sweeping up all the hair from the floor, folding three loads of towels, cutting squares of tinfoil, polishing mirrors, and straightening magazines for the tenth time, Frederic called Nellie into the rear salon where he coiffed only his best customers, those ladies and a few men who wanted their work done not just privately but in utmost secrecy. He sent Nellie to the luncheonette with ten dollars for his lunch, ice tea and a Greek salad with extra feta. When she returned, he told her to keep the change. Her mother took her into the back room and said she had to give it back. Two dollars and twenty-five cents.

“It’s not pay, it’s a tip,” Nellie protested.

“He’s doing me a favor,” her mother hissed, staring at her. “I should be paying him.”

Insulted that she considered this babysitting, Nellie stalked out front and sat in the small waiting area and read the latest
People
magazine. If no one appreciated all her hard work, then what was the point?

Her mother’s two o’clock had just arrived. Lisa Glickstein. Her daughter was Ruth’s age and her son had just graduated from high school. Billy Glickstein, a real jock—she’d seen him around.

Nellie was seeing a side of her mother she wasn’t sure she liked: friendly and as upbeat as ever but way too agreeable with everyone in a breathy voice she only used here.

“I don’t blame you,” she said for the third time as she painted gloppy brown paste onto a strand of Mrs. Glickstein’s hair, then rolled it into a tinfoil square. “I would’ve called them, too.”

“I just felt so bad,” Mrs. Glickstein said. “I mean, the Brickmans, they’re both so sweet. They were so upset.”

“But I’ll bet it was an expensive bike,” her mother said.

“Oh, God, yes. Almost a thousand dollars. Billy’s aunt, for his graduation. Just something to get around campus with, I told her, but that’s the way she is.”

“At least he’s got it back,” her mother said.

“But he’s going to pay for the new tires with his own money,” Mrs. Glickstein said. “It’s his own fault for leaving it on the front walk like that.”

“Kids, they think—” her mother started to say.

“You got some here.” Mrs. Glickstein pointed to the dark stain on her forehead.

“Sorry.” Her mother dipped a cotton pad into a jar, frowning as she dabbed at the spot.

“Last time it didn’t come out for two days.”

“I’m sorry.” She leaned closer, rubbing. “So what’re the police going to do?”

Nellie’s eyes burned as a jackhammer drilled between her temples.

“Nothing they can do, I guess. Not as long as the grandson keeps denying everything. I’ll tell you, though, he’s a bad seed, that one.”

M
R
. K
RUGER BROUGHT
Henry home at six. Never had she been so glad to see her brother. Maybe it was the news of Bucky’s grilling by the police or maybe Henry had just saved his vomiting for the privacy and comfort of his own toilet, but when Nellie went to bed he was in the bathroom again, gagging.

S
HE’D SPENT THE
next afternoon searching for Bucky. She’d even left a note in his grandparents’ mailbox. His face, now inches from hers, gleamed with sweaty flecks of grime. They were on a bench in the park.

“What the fuck did ya cut the damn tires for?”

“I didn’t cut any tires,” she snapped back.

“Yeah, right. So now I got the stupid cops on my ass all the time.”

“You shouldn’t’ve stolen the bikes in the first place.”

“Oh okay, Miss Law and Order, like you didn’t know, right?”

“Right! I thought you were getting them from people to fix up.”

“Oh, Jesus! C’mon! And the moon, you probably think that’s just some guy up there.” He was jiggling a rock in his hand.

“You know what your problem is? You don’t have any respect for anybody.” On message, she was moving in for the kill, which seemed to amuse him.

“I respect you.” He grinned.

“Like what you did to my brother, that was so disgusting.”

“What? What’d I do to your brother?”

“You know what you did.”

“Tell me.”

“No!”

“They’re sending me back to New York.”