The Center of Everything (34 page)

I lean back in my seat and look up at the apartment buildings, all four of them, A, B, C, and D, the concrete balconies stacked on top of one another, four on each side. A macramé plant holder on the top balcony of our building drifts back and forth in the breeze.

“Wow,” Travis says. “Just look at the stars.”

I nod, saying nothing. Deena is mad at me for wearing the dress. That seems a little silly. Eileen made it for me, and I have to wear it somewhere. And if anyone should be mad and jealous, it’s me. It’s still me.

Travis brings one of his feet up to the seat and turns so he is facing me, tapping his cigarette in the ashtray. “Graduation’s coming up, huh?”

“Yeah,” I shrug. “It’s just dumb. It’s going to be hot and boring.”

He nods, his eyes on mine. “And then it’s off to college for you.”

“I guess so. I move into the dorms in August.”

“You paying for it?”

“I got a scholarship. Ms. Jenkins helped me. I’ll still have to work, but just part-time.”

“Wow.” He takes a long drag from the cigarette and exhales slowly, still watching me, still not looking away. “What are you going to do with your McDonald’s money?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a car. I might try to study abroad or something.” I’m talking too quickly, my teeth almost chattering. “I might get to go to Costa Rica. We’ll see.”

“Costa Rica. Listen to you.” He pokes my shoulder, and his finger lingers for a moment, twisting half a circle against my skin before pulling away. “That should be me going,” he says. He is still smiling when he says this.

It takes a minute for me to register what he has said, the way he has said it. I’m not sure if it was mean, or if it just didn’t make any sense. It’s not as if only one of us could go to college. It’s not like he’s not going because I am. “You could still go, Travis. Get your GED, and then maybe.”

He shakes his head. “Nope. I’m roped and tied.” He reaches across my knees to the glove compartment, getting out another pack of cigarettes. I look at my knees, one of them scraped from when I fell yesterday afternoon. I tripped getting off the bus, thinking there were fewer steps than there were, and pitched forward, landing hard on the pavement, my hands out in front of me, breaking my fall. Libby picked up my backpack and helped me to my feet. “Listen,” she said, pointing at me with her cane. “I’m the one who falls down around here.”

“Deena thinks you hate her,” I say quickly, pushing all the words out in one breath. “She thinks you’re going to leave her with Jack.”

“I won’t leave Jack.” He leans back, shaking out the match. “But yeah, I have to say, I kind of hate her.” He looks at me, one side of his face lit up by the parking lot light, the other side dark.

“Why?”

“Don’t act stupid. You know, Evelyn. She did it on purpose. You know that.”

“She’s sorry, though. She’s sorry.”

“I think we’re both pretty sorry by now.” He grins, wagging a finger at me. “But Evelyn Bucknow is going to college.”

“Yeah.” I try to laugh, looking away. “If I don’t do anything to screw it up.”

He finishes his cigarette, throws the butt out the window. “It’s not fair. I was always smarter than you.”

Again, I can’t tell if he is joking. I look at him carefully, trying to see. He has gotten closer, I realize, his arm on the back of my seat. “Just kidding,” he says quickly, looking away and then back again. “You know that’s not true. I’m the biggest dumbass there is.”

“Why are you saying that?”

He looks at me, green eyes wide, and then breaks into laughter. “I married
Deena
. I’m nineteen years old, and I’m fucking married to
Deena
. I love my kid, but hello, I’m not going anywhere for the next couple of decades.”

I can think of nothing to say to this. It’s like when we sat on the steps after his father left, me trying to think of something that was kind as well as true, coming up with nothing.

He flicks the keys on his key chain, still dangling from the ignition. “I wish I were with you and not her.”

I could hit him. I have to hold on to the edge of my seat. He says it again.

“Oh stop it,” I say. “Give me a break. You chose her. You chose her and not me.” And I make myself remember it, the three of us walking home from Ed’s van, back across the snowy field. I am angry, but also, terribly, hopeful. I want him to tell me something now that would take away the sting of that night, to say that really he always loved me, even then, even when he first put his hand over his heart and asked me to repeat her name.

“You chose her,” I say, pressing, waiting. “You act like all of this just happened to you. Poor baby. But it’s not true, Travis. You chose it.”

He puts his hands over his face. “I know.”

“Why?” I am crying now, though I don’t want to. It’s a terrible question, this why.

He looks like he doesn’t understand, squinting at me in the darkness. “I thought she was pretty.”

I feel the muscles in my arms and legs tighten, closing down. “Well, she still is then. You have what you wanted.”

He closes his eyes. “I know, Evelyn. I know.”

“Yes, I know you know. I know you’ve always known.”

He looks confused now, befuddled, and I remember he has been drinking. But what I am saying makes perfect sense to me, even the bitterness in my voice makes sense, though I can see his lovely eyes are turning glassy, rimmed in red. He rests his elbows on the steering wheel, gazing out in front of him, at the shrubs in front of the mailboxes, at the Treeline Colonies parking lot, full of unshiny cars.

There is a chance, I realize, that Travis still does not understand my heart at all, that I am, and have always been, in this alone.

But looking at him, even with the scratching claw inside me, I feel bad for him. Maybe he didn’t really choose this. Maybe he didn’t get to choose at all. It could be that the decision was made for him, the first time he saw her. It’s biology, after all, pushing us into each other, pushing us around. Sitting here, looking at him, I can understand better than anyone how you can be pulled toward someone even when you don’t want to be, just because of the way his voice sounds, the way his skin is stretched across the bones of his face.

I think of dead moths inside of a porch lamp, lemmings jumping to their deaths.

“What?” he says. “What are you thinking about?”

“Dead moths. Lemmings.”

He laughs. He goes to tap himself on his temple and pokes himself in the eye. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I never do. Did you know that? Even when we were little, I just pretended.” He laughs again. “But I like you anyway.” He says this warmly, turning toward me. But all I can think is that he is still saying
like
and not
love
. There is so much difference between these two words, a line you have to cross to go from one to the other.

He’s close again, though. His arm rests on the back of the seat, his hand grazing my shoulder. I can smell his minty breath on my cheek, and I know that all I have to do is look up. The air that I am breathing in is air he has just breathed out, warm and dizzying, air I can almost taste.

All I have to do is look up.

I put my hands flat against the dashboard. The stars are still glimmering, still shiny as eyes. They are not eyes, though, just hot balls of gas, far, far away. But on the floor of the car, a baby rattle rests by my feet, bright yellow with a smiley face painted on it, a crescent of Jack’s tiny teeth marks on one side. The car seat, I know, is in the back. I think of Deena, lying on the couch with her mouth open, and I imagine her waking up, yawning, looking around, the television turned off and nobody home.

“I have to go,” I say.

“What? Why?” His fingers run lightly off my shoulder, up my neck.

“I just do. I have to.” I open my door and stand up slowly. “I have to get up early tomorrow. I told my mom I’d watch Sam.”

“Okay.” He squints up at me. “Everything all right?”

“I’m fine,” I say. “Thanks for the ride.”

I shut the door without looking back, and put one foot in front of the other, moving quickly up the walkway. A small swarm of mayflies and moths swirls around the light by our door, and though I pass just beneath them, they are not disturbed.

My mother knocks twice on my door.

“Come in,” I say. Finally. I have trained her.

“What’s the story, morning glory?” She lifts my window shade quick and hard, letting it roll up with a snap.
“Zap!”
she says. Travis’s sweatshirt hangs on the back of the chair to my desk, and my hair smells like smoke.

I yawn. “What are you doing? What time is it?”

“It’s nine. Remember? You said you’d watch Sam today. Did you forget?” She stands in front of the mirror on my closet door, frowning. “Is this dress too tight?”

She is wearing one of her dresses from before Samuel was born, the flowered one, and the seams on the sides look strained and puckered, the material stretched tight across her hips.

“Mom, that dress is like eight years old. Maybe you should just get a new one.”

“Dammit.” She frowns at her reflection, patting her stomach down. “Dammit dammit dammit.”

She looks nice though, really. She’s not wearing the red glitter hat, and her hair has gotten longer. She’s started wearing lipstick again, even earrings when she goes to work.

“I thought you were just going for a walk,” I say. “What’s the big deal?”

Instead of answering, she runs her hand along the books on my bookshelves. “Three months,” she says. “Three more months and my baby’s gone.”

“Two months and twenty-one days.” I watch her carefully. “Why are you getting dressed up? Where are you going?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe Kansas City or something. It’s getting ready to storm.” She smiles and turns away, starting down the hallway. I stay in bed, thinking about this. She’s acting stupid. And there’s no reason for her to go to Kansas City.

I get up and go into the front room. Samuel is asleep in his beanbag, already dressed in his shirt and overalls, his hair parted neatly on one side. The television is on, President Bush is giving a speech. My mother stands at the sink, rinsing off the dishes from breakfast. She glances up at me and then down again. She’s wearing mascara.

“Why are you going to Kansas City?”

She rolls her eyes. “I’m going with Franklin. Okay, Miss Nosey?”

Franklin. “DuPaul?”

She nods. She won’t look up.

“Why?”

She shrugs. “Why not?” There’s something in her face I have not seen in a while, a flush, a glisten.

“Are you guys
dating
?”

“I don’t know.” She squirts dishwashing soap on a sponge. “He wants to take tango lessons.”

“What?”

“Tango,” she says. “You know.” She holds her arms up as if she were dancing with someone, one arm in an embrace, the other stretched out in front of her, still holding the dishwashing scrub.

I’m confused. I can’t imagine this. “Are you going too? Is that where you’re going?”

“I don’t know.” She shuts off the water, drying her hands on the skirt of the dress. “I mean, today, maybe. But I don’t know about every week. I don’t know what I’d do with Sam.”

I am watching her eyes, trying to see if she is joking or not. They’re just a little crossed, the way they always are. She’s serious. But I can’t really picture her dancing the tango, slinking around a ballroom in Kansas City with DuPaul. For so long now, I have only thought of her wearing the red glitter hat, tired and kneeling before Samuel, trying to put on his socks.

“I’ll watch him.”

She shuts off the water. “It’s once a week, Evelyn. For the rest of the summer. Don’t say you’ll do it if you won’t.”

“I’ll do it,” I say. “Until I have to leave for school. I really will.”

Samuel stirs in his beanbag. We wait to see if he will fall asleep again, but he starts to cry. “I’ll get him,” I say, holding up my hand. “Really. Go get ready.”

She starts to walk back to the bathroom, but then stops and turns around. “Listen, Evelyn. I’d like to take the lessons if I can. If you’re really serious, I’d appreciate it. It would be nice.”

“I said I’d do it. Jeez.” I try to look annoyed, but really, I like how I have surprised her. I have startled her, just by being nice.

“Thank you,” she says. She looks out the window, tugging on her earring. “But don’t say anything to Eileen, okay? I just don’t want to hear that Tribe of Ham bullshit just yet.”

“Okay.”

She smiles, twisting one of her toes on the linoleum. “I like him a lot, if you want to know the truth, and I’ll let her know pretty soon, when I’m up to it. Because I can tell you right now, there’ll be a fight.” She turns around and throws little punches up in the air, walking back into the hallway. “Buy your tickets now.”

When I go to move Samuel, he pulls away from me, pointing vaguely up at the television. I can’t tell what he wants. I start to change the channel and then stop. “Can I try a different channel?” I ask. “See what else is on?”

I wait for him to point to the
YES
or the
NO
, but he doesn’t do either. I scan the channels. There is Billy Graham on one station, the weather report on another. On the weather report, a man points to a map of the Midwest, Kansas outlined in black underneath the animated clouds. There are tiny cartoon lightning bolts in the upper corner of the screen, and
SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING
blinks across the bottom. The weatherman talks about pockets of low pressure, barometer readings, low fronts and cool fronts. Radar blips in the background make things seem urgent, exciting.

But Samuel doesn’t care about the weather report. He’s pointing over my shoulder now, at something behind me. I don’t know what he wants, and I can see he’s getting angry. I try various objects from the counter, placing each on my head, one at a time: the phone book, a mug, a bottle opener, a box of matches. I try one of the cats. He shakes his head and keeps pointing, getting agitated, groaning now, red in the face.

“I don’t know what you want, Sam. I’m sorry.”

He bangs his head on the side of his wheelchair and points again. I look into his glassy blue eyes, hoping for hint, a flicker, something, but I see only blue, and my own reflection.