The Good Goodbye (11 page)

“
They’re old enough to understand more than we give them credit for. Better not let their imaginations have free rein.”

He’s the psych major and the one who works with kids, so maybe he’s right. But these are my kids and my instinct tells me it’s a bad idea. “Maybe in a few days. After things settle.” After we get some good news. After Arden has opened her eyes and can turn her head to smile at her brothers.

“Bring
Is Your Mama a Llama?
” I say impulsively. “Bring all her favorite books.” They’re the worse for wear, having endured the twins and, before that, all those years of reading to Arden and Rory, one little girl cuddled in on each side of me: Arden with her stuffed bunny clutched in the crook of her arm and her head drooping as she drowsed to the sound of my voice and Rory sitting fully alert with her legs sticking straight out and her thumb obstinately in her mouth. When kindergarten came around and Rory showed no signs of giving up her thumb, Gabrielle had resorted to all sorts of trickery, reasoning, prizes, noxious ointments, and outright threats. She’d been so afraid the other children would make fun of Rory. “The books are in the storage room.”

Theo’s standing by Arden’s bedside, looking down at her.

“Hey,” I say, softly. “It’s going to be okay.” I slide my arms around him, rest my head against his chest. His arms come up and I close my eyes, listen to his heart beat. “We’ve been here before. Remember? When Oliver was born, all the times Henry had croup? You said they should name the pediatric wing after him, we were there so much.” I smile at the memory. “Arden’s got great doctors. She’s in a top-notch hospital. She’s healthy and strong and she’s going to come out of this just fine. Right?” He’s silent. “Right?” He has to answer. I can’t do this alone.

Finally, finally, he tightens his arms around me. “Right.”

Arden

TIME SLIDES PAST
like Dalí’s melting clocks step into the painting, and I try to pick one up. I hear something. My mom’s voice. I stop to listen. I’ll paint her a picture—the fireworks over the lake, the water indigo and the sky an explosion of yellow and orange. I swirl the paintbrush in the can of water.

“Your friends came by to say hello. They’ll come back as soon as you’re feeling better.”

Which friends is she talking about? Doesn’t she know I lost all of them, one by one? Doesn’t she know I never really had them to begin with? Mackenzie says she’s Rory’s best friend, but Rory never hears from her anymore.
Who are Rory’s friends?
Aunt Gabrielle wanted to know. She leaned close, softening her face so I’d tell her. She thought she knew all the secrets. She thought she coaxed them out of me, one by one.

“Grandma and Grandpa will be by after their trip.”

Mom must mean Grandma Sugar and Grandpa George. She never talks about my other grandma and grandpa in the same sentence like that.

“I bet they’ll bring you girls all sorts of crazy things. You’d better be prepared.”

She’s trying to make me smile.
Why can’t I?
I lift the paintbrush and dab it in midair. The soft pink of her cheeks, the blue of her eyes, the messy brown waves that stick up on top of her head first thing in the morning before she’s brushed her hair. After Uncle Vince lost our money, she’d come home from Double, tie on her apron, and start cooking. Whenever she’s upset or worried, that’s what she does—heads straight to the kitchen. Once it was beef vegetable soup, another time dim sum. This time it was croissants, and this phase lasted for weeks. She set out a dish of malt and flour and sugar to draw the yeast straight out of the air—magic! Layering and buttering, rolling with the heavy wooden pin, proofing in the big plastic bin. In the early-morning hours, I’d come downstairs and find her pulling another pan from the oven. We’d sit, just the two of us, with sweet butter and homemade apricot preserves, a jar of Nutella.
We’ll figure it out,
she told me, over and over again.

All the things I want to tell her. She loves me, I know. But she’s always moving; her mind is always somewhere else. She’ll be looking at me and nodding, but then I’ll see her eyes drift and I’ll know she’s suddenly remembered the linen order’s got to be picked up, or she needs to call the VIP guests before they leave their offices. The twins need new shin guards, and why is the car making that weird noise?

I skim the very tip of my camel-hair paintbrush to make the finest line that winds all the way to where it started, a dandelion’s fluff of nothing. One exhalation and it explodes and floats apart. I am left holding a limp stem, unaware.

Why can’t I see you, Mom? Why can’t I move at all?

—

“I hate Shakespeare,” Rory complains as I steer the pontoon boat down the lake. She’s lying on her back with her head hanging over the edge, her hair trailing in the water behind her. I don’t tell her she looks like Ophelia. She’s upset about the B she got on her paper. She slaved over it, I know, but it’s a hard class.

“At least you can try to bring it up.” Rory had talked the teacher into letting her rewrite it. No surprise there. Everyone says yes to Rory.

“I’ll probably do worse.” She props herself up on one elbow and frowns at me, sitting hunched in the captain’s chair with my knees drawn to my chest. “Unless you write it.”

“Ha, ha
.
” I switch off the motor so we can float in the middle of the dark water. I close my eyes and rest my cheek on my bent knee. The sun beats down on the side of my face.

“I’m not kidding
.
What if you did?”

“This is why you ditched Mackenzie? So you could talk me into doing your paper for you?”

“No, of course not.”

“Right.” We both know she’s lying.

“Please.”

“No way.”

“But this stuff is so easy for you.”

“It’s not easy for me. I work hard. It’s just easier for me than it is for you.”

A pause, and I wonder if I’ve gone too far.

“Whatever, Arden. I’m talking about one stupid paper.”

“One stupid paper, a hundred stupid papers. It’s all the same. If my dad finds out he’d suspend me.” My dad has spies everywhere. People like him. They tell him things.

“No, he won’t.”

She’s just saying that. My cheek’s burning. I turn my head and expose the other cheek to the sun. I know Rory’s really upset, not just acting to get her way. I feel bad for her. B’s won’t get her into Harvard, which is all she’s ever wanted, ever since we were little kids, but getting suspended won’t get me into art school and that’s all
I’ve
ever wanted. Besides, I have my own homework—piles of it. “Ask Mackenzie,” I suggest, a little meanly.

“Mackenzie’s an idiot.”

I lift my head and look at her. “I thought she was your BFF.” Mackenzie gave Rory a BFF necklace and, swear to God, Rory’s even wearing it.

Rory gives me a slitted look, then rolls over onto her tummy, dips her hand into the lake and lets the water sparkle through her fingers. She doesn’t say another word.

That’s how it is at school the next day, too, only it’s not just Rory ignoring me. It’s everybody, even my lab partner, who’s supposed to be doing the experiment with me. She just sits there and doodles in her notebook, making it look as though she’s taking notes. Gym’s horrible, everyone either speeding up or slowing down so that I have to run the entire field alone. But lunch is the worst. I set my tray down at my usual spot across from Rory, and everyone—even the loser girls—shove back their chairs and leave.

I sit there anyway and pretend not to care, moving the food around on my plate, knowing everyone’s watching and laughing at the freak.

After that, I wait until I get home to eat in my room: cookies, crackers, peanut-butter sandwiches, and jars of pickles. “What’s the matter?” Mom asks when I yell at the twins for making too much noise. I can’t tell her. She’ll only tell Dad and then he’ll hold a special assembly about bullying.

A couple of days later, Kent Stegnor stops me in the hall to tell me he can’t take me to the tea dance after all—something’s come up. That’s exactly what he says:
Something’s come up,
which isn’t how people talk. He’s been practicing his exit line. “No problem.” I hate the way my voice trembles.

That afternoon, Rory’s at Double after school, goofing off with one of the dishwashers, when I show up. I thrust the pages at her. “I changed your topic sentence. It was totally lame.”

Rory looks thinner, the bones of her face sharp and her eyes large. The effect of the tanning booth, I think, but later I find out I was wrong. She’s lost weight and I’ve gained it. All this in an instant. All the words we don’t have to say.

The next day, I sit at lunch with Rory, surrounded by all her friends. “Hey, what’s going on, Arden?” Mackenzie greets me with a big smile. Anyone looking would think I’m having a blast, talking and laughing with all my besties.

Rory

CHELSEA LEE WEARS
mirrored aviator sunglasses. When I call out, she glances toward me as I run up. “Hi,” I say, breathlessly, looking straight into tiny twin reflections of my face. “I’m Rory Falcone. I’m in your Art History 101 class. Can I talk to you about something?”

“I have office hours tomorrow afternoon. I’d be happy to talk with you then.” She starts walking. I fall into step beside her.

“I know. But I have econ.”

“All right, then. Shoot.”

“Your syllabus says there’ll be a midterm paper and a final exam?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it’s just that the class description online never said anything about term papers.”

“You have a problem with papers?”

“No.”
Yes.
“I’m carrying a super-heavy course load paper-wise”—can she check and see it’s not true, and can she please stop walking so fast?—“and I’m wondering if you could let me take an extra test or something instead.”

“It’s not as though I have tests lying around.”

“It’s not fair to say a class is going to be one thing and then change.” Chelsea Lee had stood there with her hands on her hips, surveying us. She wore a long black jacket with padded shoulders over a dark blue chiffon blouse and black leggings tucked into high-heeled boots. Her long black hair was parted in the middle and she had thick eyebrows that slanted up at her temples. I couldn’t tell if they were real or if she’d drawn them in.

“None of my other students have complained.”

“A, I’m not complaining, and B, I don’t care what your other students do.”

She stops then and turns to face me, pushing her sunglasses up onto her forehead. Her eyes are dark brown and serious. No eyeliner or mascara, just a hint of blush and nude lip gloss. I’m impressed, despite the fact that she’s a super-bitch. It’s a difficult look to pull off. She’s eyeing me right back and I let her. I look good today, tough in my skinny jeans. “You said your name is Rory?”

“Rory Falcone.”

“Let me think about it, Rory Falcone.”

I watch her walk away.

—

“What do you think D.D. is short for?” I ask Arden.

She’s crouched by her dresser drawer, pawing through her things. “I don’t know. Ask her.”

She’s still upset about that stupid frat party. I teased her the next morning about disappearing off with one of the preppie guys and she flushed bright pink as she leaned over the sink to brush her teeth. She wiped her face on her hand towel and pushed past me without answering. I’d hit some kind of nerve.

“I did but she wouldn’t tell me. It’s got to be something awful. Dizzy Doolittle. Daffy Dishes. Double D’s can’t be it. She’s a B cup, tops.” This is a game we used to play, Arden and me, coming up with silly names for the strangers we spotted on the street or in Double. But Arden doesn’t even look over.

I grab my pillow and hug it to my chest, roll over to stare up at the ceiling. “Art history was supposed to be an easy pass.” I’d come into the auditorium and seen Arden all the way up front, rolled my eyes, and taken a seat near the back beside this guy with amazing blue eyes and day-old scruff. He’d grinned at me as he handed me the syllabus. I’d smiled back, taken the stapled sheaf of papers, stuffed it into my backpack—like I cared what it said—and crossed my legs. I was checking Facebook on my tablet when something the professor said caught my attention. “Does she really expect us to tell those lumpy stone sculptures apart? They all look exactly the same.”

“They go in sequence, from primitive to more advanced,” Arden says. “They show the whole development of depicting the human form. That fertility goddess…”

“Oh, God. I don’t need to hear her lecture again. What a weirdo.”

“I don’t think she’s weird.”

Arden has no filter. “Well, she is. Trust me.” I push myself off my bed and go to my closet. I flick through the hangers and stop at my green-and-white-striped Madewell tank top. I pull it out and pretend to consider it. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I’m ever going to wear this. You want it?” I’d caught her eyeing it the day I pushed it over the counter at the store, credit card lying on top of the bundled fabric.

Arden eyes me suspiciously. “Why?”

“It’s adorbs. It’ll look great on you.”

She folds her arms. “Uh-huh. What do you really want?”

“To give you a shirt?”

Arden looks around the room and then her gaze returns to my face, her green eyes flat. “No, thanks.” She turns back to her dresser and pushes the drawer in as far as it will go. Arden’s so messy. I hate offering her such a nice shirt, knowing it will only end up on the floor.

“You sure?” I dangle the shirt.

“No. No way. I told you. I’m not doing that anymore.”

“I wouldn’t have signed up for art history if I’d known. It wasn’t on the class description. Come on. You know it’s true.”

“So drop the class.”

“And take what, racquetball?” Arden knows I can’t change my classes. My mom would ask questions. She’d call the school and demand to talk to someone. “Please, Arden. Just this one time.” I hate the pleading note in my voice.

“No, Rory. I mean it. It’s not like it was at Bishop. It won’t work the way it used to. The tests are all computerized here.”