The Great Perhaps (17 page)

Amelia frowns. She doesn’t say anything. She watches her dumb little sister trying to dance with her crippled grandfather, detached, disconnected, uninterested in any of it. Her father takes a seat beside the bed, holding the portable player in his lap. “I brought some Woody Herman, too, Dad. The girls here, they thought it would cheer you up.”

Their grandpa nods, his face expressionless.

“You’re not going to die, Grandpa,” Thisbe chirps. “We’ve been praying for you.”

Their grandpa does not seem impressed by that. He closes his eyes as Thisbe continues to move his hands about, still pretending to dance. Amelia sighs, glancing out the small window at the top of a line of trees. She stares down at her watch, then out the window at the trees again.

“Amelia, tell your grandpa about what you’ve been doing. Dad, Amelia is writing for her school paper. She’s doing very well.”

Amelia rolls her eyes.

“I don’t know, it’s just stupid stuff. About school and stuff.”

“Maybe we can take him for a walk,” Thisbe suggests.

“I don’t think he’s strong enough yet,” their dad explains. “Maybe in a couple of days.”

“Maybe never,” Amelia says to herself under her breath.

“How about some Woody Herman, Dad?” Amelia’s father asks. He pops open the CD tray and exchanges the discs. “Listen to this, Dad, do you remember this one?”

Her grandpa closes his eyes, smiling, maybe nodding off.

Amelia shakes her head, standing up, anxious. Her father frowns at her. “What’s the matter, kiddo?”

“It’s really depressing being here. I mean, he doesn’t even recognize us.”

“He recognizes you guys.”

“No. It’s like we’re totally bothering him.”

Her father nods. “Okay. Well, why don’t you go take a little walk or something?”

“Where? It’s all like old people out there.”

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you, Amelia. Your grandfather’s not doing so well. He might not be with us for much longer. You need to be a little more considerate. If you want to go wait in the car, you can. But I think you ought to say goodbye to him for now at least.”

Amelia crosses her arms in front of her chest. Her hives, still itchy, are now dull and fleshy. She stands beside her sister, leans over her grandfather, and kisses his wrinkly cheek. “I’m sorry,” she whispers and then rushes out, taking the car keys from her father.

O
N THE RIDE HOME,
Amelia stares out the passenger-side window, watching as the dark skyline flashes by. Without looking at her father, she suddenly asks, “Did Mom move out?”

“I don’t know,” he says without heat. “I think she’s taking some time for herself right now.”

“Well, I think it’s ridiculous that you guys aren’t getting divorced. I mean, like why do you guys keep acting like everything is going to be fine?” She looks over at her dad, but he is pretending to be busy driving and does not answer. When the Peugeot nearly stalls at the next stoplight, her dad glances in the rearview mirror at Thisbe, then over at Amelia, and whispers, “Amelia. Someday you’re going to have to learn that being nice is much more important than being able to say everything you think.”

B
UT THE
V
OLVO
is parked in the garage when they arrive home. Amelia, in the passenger seat, almost smiles seeing it. Then she actually does, turning away from her father, the slightest grin appearing on her face. The family stumbles lifelessly into the house and Madeline, sitting before the television, says hello. That is all. No one asks her where she’s been. No one asks how long she is going to stay. No one tries to talk. The family, for one brief moment, all glance at each other, then cross silently into their separate worlds, Amelia and Thisbe climbing upstairs, Madeline returning to the television, Jonathan closing the door of the den, all of them disappearing without another word.

A
MELIA, FINALLY ALONE
in her room again, hunches over the nearly finished explosive device lying on her desk. The dresser drawer of stolen and found items hangs open across the room, the tragic voices of these disposed and disposable products no longer crying. Instead there is only an odd metallic hum, as if each object is quietly vibrating. Amelia hardly notices this strange sound, however. In front of her on the desk is the silver digital watch stolen from the principal’s secretary. There is the cigarette case from Professor Dobbs. There is the old metal airplane belonging to her grandfather. She will use them all. She will take these mass-produced, insignificant objects, the detritus of a rampant capitalist system, and make something meaningful out of them. The silver watch will be the bomb’s timer. The matches from the professor’s cigarette case will be torn from their matchbook, their flammable heads will be carefully clipped off from their paper necks, and then they will be refashioned as the bomb’s main explosive. The old metal toy itself—once hollow—will become the bomb’s container, the vessel, once it is packed fully with the match-heads and mixed with some black fireworks powder, which Amelia thinks she still has somewhere in her room, the remnants of a failed science project from last year. Carefully, Amelia will insert the lead wires through the plane’s cockpit—the object’s only opening—and then she will close up the cockpit with several passes of black electrical tape. Before she does any of that, though, she has to get her hands to stop shaking. She glances from the three newly liberated objects to the spools of tiny red and black wires, comparing these components to the diagram on her computer screen. With her hands still trembling, she begins snipping off the match heads with a small pair of scissors. She holds her breath with each cut, until there are enough match heads to begin to place inside the silver airplane. One by one, she slips them through the cockpit’s opening, trying to avoid any sort of friction. And somehow the amateur pipe bomb does not explode.

T
HE VERY NEXT DAY,
T
UESDAY AFTERNOON, FINDS
Thisbe singing with Roxie in the Caspers’ garage. They have decided to start a band. Now is the time for such bold moves, while her father has retreated to his fort in the den and her mother has all but vanished. Each of the girls sits on an orange milk crate, Roxie playing a bright pink guitar that is covered in Magic Markered words Thisbe is unable to read. Roxie is strumming the guitar wildly, playing a song Thisbe does not recognize. Already, like chorus, this is not going so well. First of all, the girls are not allowed to use Roxie’s amp. Thisbe’s dad has already said no, in a rare moment of actual fathering. “Bob Dylan did not need an amp until after he was famous,” her dad argued. “Same with Joni Mitchell. Both of them didn’t need amps.” Thisbe, unfamiliar with the works of either musician, had no choice but to agree. But now it all seems kind of stupid. Roxie says so anyway. “This is kind of stupid. I mean, how can we be a band if we don’t use amps?”

“Maybe we should make some songs up first. Then we can practice them and when we’re good maybe we can play them with amps.”

“Okay, fine, whatever. Do you have any songs?”

“No,” Thisbe says. “What about you?”

“No.”

“Well, maybe we can write one now,” Thisbe suggests.

“Okay, I don’t care.”

“Okay, so should we write the music first or the words?”

“I don’t know. The words.”

“Okay,” Thisbe says. She reaches into her book bag and finds her math notebook, the back of which is filled with her failed attempts to redeem the neighborhood’s pets. Thisbe ignores these numerous tally marks and retrieves a ballpoint pen. “Okay,” Thisbe says. “What should our first song be about?”

“I don’t know. Elephants.”

“Elephants?”

“Yeah. Like how they have their own graveyards and everything.”

Thisbe taps the pen against the page, unsure.

“What?” Roxie asks, strumming the guitar again.

“Nothing. It’s just that I don’t think people sing songs about stuff like that. It seems kind of like a joke.”

“Well, that’s what makes it cool.”

“I guess.”

“Well, what are your big ideas?” Roxie asks.

“I don’t know. Like about Love and Heaven. That kind of stuff. Like the songs from musicals. Important songs.”

“Listen, this is just supposed to be fun, right? Why are you making it all serious?”

“I’m not,” Thisbe whispers, though she knows she is.

“You are.”

“We can write our first song about elephants, I don’t care. It’s fine.”

“Well.” Roxie nods, then gives the guitar another strum. “You start it.”

“Okay. Um. How about like…
Elephants don’t forget you when you leave the room
…”

Roxie smiles, clapping her hands. “That’s good. Write that down.” She strums the guitar again, making a C chord.

“
They don’t ever forget you, remembering is what they do…
”

Roxie slowly switches her fingers, making an awkward G.

“
I wish you were an elephant, I wish I knew how you feel…
”

Thisbe closes her eyes, smiling, holding the pen before her open mouth like a microphone.

“
I’m getting tired of trying to find you because you don’t even seem real.
”

“Wow, cool,” Roxie says, giving Thisbe a gentle shove. “You’re like a poet. You’re totally like a good singer when you don’t try.”

“I don’t think so,” Thisbe whispers.

“No, you totally have like a good talking voice.”

“Wow, thanks,” Thisbe whispers. “You were good, too.” She shoves Roxie back, her hand touching the other girl’s shoulder, the feeling momentary, electric. Before she can begin to feel awkward again, or guilty, the garage door lurches open, and Thisbe sees her dad behind the wheel of his car, dreary-eyed, his beard uncombed and blond and gray, as he begins to pull into the open space.

“Dad!” Thisbe shouts, standing up.

Her father shrugs his shoulders, then honks, motioning for his daughter to move.

“Okay, okay, God!” Thisbe hisses, sliding the orange milk crates aside. “It’s my dad,” she announces, sadly defeated. “He’s okay, but he’s been weird since him and my mom got separated.”

“My dad is in Guam. He’s in the Navy. I haven’t seen him in like ten years,” Roxie whispers.

Thisbe’s father climbs out of the car with a distracted frown.

“Dad, this is Roxie,” Thisbe says, humiliated.

“Hello there,” Thisbe’s dad murmurs, opening the backseat of the rusty Peugeot. An enormous stack of papers and maps tumbles out, Thisbe’s father sighing as he leans over to scoop it up.

“What is all that stuff, Dad?”

“It’s from the museum. I had to clean out the research lab.”

“Oh.”

“But it’s okay, I think, well…your mother’s not home again?”

“No.”

“Okay. Well, your friend is welcome to dinner. I’m making microwavable mac and cheese. Do you guys want some?”

“No, thanks,” Thisbe groans. Her father stares at her, perhaps equally embarrassed at the sight of himself, and then, arms full of scientific data, he stumbles off toward the house.

“Wow, what does your dad do?” Roxie asks.

“He’s a scientist. He looks for squids.”

“Cool.”

“Not really. So what do you want to do now?” Thisbe asks.

“I don’t know. I have to be home in like a half hour. My mom totally freaks if I’m not there when she gets back from work.”

“Yeah,” Thisbe says, sympathizing, though it’s almost impossible for her to remember either of her parents freaking out about anything, other than themselves.

“We could go to the field for a while. By the lake,” Roxie suggests.

“I guess. If you want to,” and then Thisbe’s heart begins to beat madly.

A
S THEY PEDAL
toward the hidden field, the secret field, Thisbe starts to pray, a prayer unlike any other she has whispered to herself:
Dear God in Heaven, who is Holier than Holy, dear God, please, please, please do not punish me for my wicked, unhealthy thoughts. Do not let a car hit me or a bus run me over or an airplane fall out of the sky and crush my pathetic heart. Do not let acid rain or a hailstorm or one of your terrible plagues destroy me. Do not let the arrows of Your most Holy light pierce my breast or snakes or falcons come and smite my traitorous heart from my chest, not until I have held Roxie’s hand again.
Waiting for brimstone, waiting for a flash of lightning to cleave her from existence, Thisbe pedals with one eye open, following Roxie, the flick and float of the other girl’s skirt the only thing she sees.

O
N THEIR BACKS
—leaving their bicycles twisted atop each other at the end of the trail—Thisbe stares up into the shocking blue sky and does not feel like she is flying. Instead, it is like she is falling off the face of the earth. She grasps at the tall green grass around her, the clouds drifting silently at her feet. She closes her eyes and feels her heart racing in her chest, her breath unsteady, ragged. She is aware of the wind as it brushes over her bare face and feels as if she is falling from some unimaginable height. She opens her eyes in panic, then turns her head and looks at Roxie, her short blond hair like a halo above her tiny ears, her snub little nose, her pink lips. Roxie smiles and takes her hand, both of the girls shutting their eyes. In that moment, they begin to fly. Their two bodies drift silently above the field, the sunlight streaking their faces as the clouds begin to swell around them. Thisbe feels like crying. She has never been so happy. But this time it is much shorter. For just as soon as she feels herself becoming weightless, just as soon as she’s left the ground, Thisbe opens her eyes and sees they have already descended. She is only lying there, stretched out on her back. Beside her Roxie is humming, her green eyes still closed tight, pulling at the grass near her small hands. A strange, unfamiliar thought races through Thisbe’s brain—
How would it feel if I suddenly climbed on top of her?
—and, immediately ashamed, Thisbe looks away. Roxie, opening her eyes, turns and drops a handful of grass on Thisbe’s stomach. Thisbe smiles, picking the blades off one by one, and finds Roxie’s hand moving along the waist of her skirt. Thisbe closes her eyes, feeling like she might start crying.
No, no, no, no
, she thinks.
Please don’t touch me. Please don’t touch me
, but the thoughts are only thoughts and have nothing to do with the feeling that has begun to vibrate all along the bottom part of her body. The other girl’s fingers are warm and inch along her skin like a spider, creeping along the waistline, back and forth, as if she cannot make up her mind. Thisbe hears her breath coming and going quicker now, the rasp in her lungs beginning to catch, a spot somewhere in the back of her knees starting to tighten, and then Roxie’s face is above her own, her face is floating there, her face is the sun, the moon, it is the entire horizon, her green eyes flickering with a question that Thisbe does not know how to answer. Roxie has placed her hand in Thisbe’s hand and is looking down at her and neither one of them is laughing now or making any kind of sound at all, they are just staring at each other, the question beating in the air around them, the only sound the sound of a perfect collision of thoughts, like birds’ wings, Thisbe thinks she now understands the question being asked but is too afraid to answer, how can she even begin to answer? The other girl’s hand is against her own, their palms forming a perfect dark universe, Roxie’s smile disappearing, replaced by something else, some new expression, something not quite serious, though by this look it is clear that this is not entirely a game now either. Thisbe does not get up. She does not run away. Even though her lungs have begun to burn, even though she is aching to be alone, in her room, on her bicycle, safe, her feet planted back on the ground where they belong, not pointed upward toward the sky, where nothing is at all clear, Thisbe does not know why she doesn’t just go. When Roxie moves closer, kissing her on the corner of her mouth, then her nose, then her chin, then her neck, Thisbe closes her eyes and pretends it is the kiss of something else, something blessed, something she does not know by name, something she’s sure she’ll never quite understand. Thisbe lies there, happy for one moment, though she does not try and kiss the other girl back. She is content to be floating, adrift in that autumn sky, caught among a cloudy heaven and earth, sun and grass, fixed somewhere between what she thought she most wanted and the sound of this other girl’s lips.

B
Y THE TIME
the kissing episode is over, Roxie, uncharacteristically embarrassed, her face flushed bright red, afraid to look Thisbe in the eye, mumbles a weak goodbye and pedals off, leaving Thisbe there alone in the field to wonder what she has done. What
has
she done? She doesn’t know but she is sure of the gravity of her sin. She knows God has seen what has happened and is terribly, terribly disappointed in her. She murmurs ten Hail Marys and a dozen Our Fathers, one for each place she let herself be kissed, her mouth, her neck, her cheek. She decides to go visit her grandfather, hoping to find forgiveness in dutiful service to the elderly. Pedaling away from the lake, down the wide boulevard, she does not bother to pray. She closes her eyes and imagines a sky full of locusts sweeping down, tearing her arms from their sockets. When she opens her eyes and the sky is still blue, and there are no scalding clouds of brimstone, what she feels then may be the worst disappointment of her life.