The Sweetness of Salt (12 page)

chapter

25

Over the next few days, Mom and Dad called no less than twelve times. Each time they both got on the phone, doubling up, as if it might increase their persuasive powers. Each time I assured them over and over again that yes, I knew what I was doing, and that yes, I was still staying. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. My throat ached when Mom cried and I closed my eyes when Dad swore, but I held fast. It was as if a wedge had already been driven between us; something built out of necessity, but there nonetheless. I wasn’t going to be the one to knock it back down. Not after all this time.

And to make sure of that, on the third day I turned my phone off completely and shoved it under my pillow.

Sophie and I worked on the outside of the house for the rest of the week. While I scraped, I thought about Maggie. Especially that black mohawk hair of hers. I wondered who in the family she resembled the most. Mom? Dad? Sophie? Me, possibly?

It was crazy that I’d never stumbled upon a picture of her over the years, something slipped in behind a loose photo in an album or hidden in between one of the cellophane pages. Mom had at least eight family photo albums—all organized by year—set up like encyclopedias in the living room. The first two were mostly of Sophie—up until she was about twelve years old. When she hit junior high, Mom said that Sophie developed a morbid aversion to having her picture taken and would dart out of the room whenever a camera appeared. She refused to pose for anything except our annual family Christmas photo, which, despite Dad’s threats, always captured her with her eyes glued to the floor. The next six photo albums were all of me—starting with preschool and going all the way up to my senior year. How was it that in all of those compilations of memories, no one had ever thought to include a picture of our sister? Why had Maggie—along with her death—been virtually erased from the world? And what was it about her that Mom and Dad didn’t want me to know?

The steady train of thoughts inside my head made the hours go by quickly, and on Friday, when Sophie came around to my side again, it was late in the afternoon. She surveyed my work, whistling in admiration. “Shit, girl. You’ve been trucking!” She smoothed her fingers against the smooth wood and nodded. “Nice work. Really nice work.”

“Thanks.” I wiped my brow with the back of my wrist, detecting a faint whiff of sweat. The underarms of my shirt were wringing wet, and my hair clung to the back of my neck.

“You stink?” Sophie grinned.

“A little.”

“That’s nothing,” she said. “Wait’ll I get you up on that roof. Then you’ll know what it feels like to sweat.”

I smiled, groaning inwardly. This was by far the most laborious physical activity I had ever done in my life. How much harder was it going to get?

Sophie swatted me on the side of the arm. “I don’t want to burn you out, though. You’ve done enough for today. Go upstairs, take a shower, and lie down for a while. Relax. I was thinking we could order some Chinese food for dinner. They’ve got a great place just a few miles away. You like Chinese food?”

“Love it.”

“Chicken and broccoli?” she asked, pointing her scraper at me.

“Shrimp and snow peas,” I said. “Extra spicy.”

“You got it,” Sophie said. “Go get clean.”

The shower felt good against my hot skin, almost like a salve. I stood under it for a good while, letting the water run over the planes of my face and down my hipbones. I had two more blisters on my fingers, and my shoulder blades hurt when I tried to rotate them, but when I got out of the shower I felt strangely refreshed. The scent of Sophie’s mint and grapefruit body wash lingered on my skin, and my hair smelled like apricots. I fastened my hair back with a rubber band and pulled on a pair of clean jeans, a T-shirt, and shoes. Then I headed downstairs.

Sophie was sitting on the side porch, smoking a cigarette and talking on her cell phone. “Yes, I
know
, Greg,” she said. “You’ve told me that at least a million times. Hold on, okay?” She pressed the phone flat against her shoulder. “What’s up? You’re not going to lie down?”

I shook my head and pointed to the phone. “Is everything okay?”

Sophie dismissed the question with a wave of her hand. “Oh, yeah.”

“Is Goober there?” I asked. “Can I say hi?”

“She’s napping,” Sophie said. “We’ll call her tonight.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’m gonna walk around then. I’ll see you in a little while.”

“Go down to East Poultney!” Sophie said as I headed down the driveway. “I’m telling you, you’ll love the gorge! It’s beautiful!”

chapter

26

I told myself I was going to keep walking in the direction of East Poultney. I’d read about gorges. And now that I thought about it, there had actually been a question about a gorge on my SATs. But I’d never seen a real gorge before. It would be interesting. Something different. An adventure.

Except that when I came to the fork in the road behind the high school again, my feet had other plans. In ten minutes I found myself at the foot of the little yellow house again, studying the flagstone path that zigzagged through the grass and the strange stone wreath on the door. There was something about this house, I thought. Something that made me want to stay, to go inside and take off my shoes and sit down in one of the kitchen chairs. It would smell like cedar and apples and the wooden table in the center of the kitchen would have an enormous jelly jar in the middle of it, filled with wildflowers. Along the windowsills would be a line of the same small stones that were in the wreath, set up like so many round dominoes. The only sound in the house would be my breathing, or maybe the soft footfalls of a cat slinking in and around my chair. Nothing else. No one else.

A faint whirring sound from the back of the house made my heart beat a little faster. I moved up the lawn cautiously, wondering if Aiden would come charging down again like he had the last time and order me off. The whirring sound got louder as I reached the top. I flattened myself against the side of the house and then rolled my eyes. What was I doing, sneaking around some strange house like this? This was so stupid. Practically stalkerlike, if you really thought about it. Which was not me.

I turned around quickly and headed back down the expanse of lawn.

“Hey!” I froze as Aiden’s voice charged out at me. “Julia?”

He had the same black hat on his head, and the same black Converse sneakers. Only his T-shirt—red, with a print of Pink Floyd on the front—was different. I thought fast. “Oh, hey, Aiden. Hi. Um…sorry to bother you. I was just looking for something. From the other day, I mean. I think I might’ve dropped it around here.” I scanned the grass around my feet helplessly. “On the lawn, I mean.”

He strode down toward me, his lanky frame tilted back slightly from the pull of the hill. “What’d you lose? I’ll help you look for it.”

“Oh, it’s nothing.” I took a few steps backward, desperate to get out of the lie. I hated lying. Plus, I wasn’t good at it. “Seriously. Go back to work. It’s nothing.”

“No, really.” He was in front of me now. “I was gonna take a break anyway. What’d you lose? I’m good at finding things.”

Damn. “I, um, I think I lost an earring. But seriously, it’s not a big deal. I can totally get another pair.”

But Aiden was already hunched over, peering through the grass. “Tell me what it looked like,” he said. “Gold? Silver?”

I closed my eyes, scurried a few feet away from him, and then quickly, furtively, withdrew one of the small rectangular amber studs that Mom and Dad had given me last year for my birthday. “Um…they were amber,” I said. “And sort of…rectangular shaped.” I gasped and made a show of reaching down into the grass. “I found it! Here it is. Oh my God, I can’t believe I found it!”

Aiden came over toward me. “Cool.” He watched intently as I reinserted the earring. “Amber’s a great stone. I don’t blame you for wanting to find it.”

I nodded, relieved the scene had ended.

“Did you just get in?” Aiden asked.

“In?” I repeated, before I realized what he meant. “Oh no. Actually, I never left. I’ve been here. In Poultney. All week.”

“Oh yeah?” Aiden shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “What happened?”

“Nothing, really. My sister and I just decided that I would stay a little longer. We wanted to, you know, extend our visit.”

Aiden raised one eyebrow.

“What?”

He shrugged. “Nothing.”

I could tell he didn’t believe me. So what? What did I care if he knew what was going on with Sophie and me? In the first place, it was none of his business. And in the second place, well, it was none of his business.

He motioned briefly with his arm. “Come on up,” he said. “Now that you’re staying a while, I can show you the stuff that I do.” I didn’t move. “If you want to, I mean.” He shrugged. “You did seem interested before.”

I watched the soles of his Converse sneakers as I followed him up the hill. The laces, tied carelessly in a single knot, drooped on either side in wide loops. It reminded me of the time Dad tried to teach me how to tie my shoes: “
bunny ear, bunny ear, criss-cross, loop.
” For as intelligent as I was—even back then, at four years old—this simple task had eluded me. I simply could not, no matter how many times I tried, get the bunny ears to cooperate. Finally, I had kicked off my shoe, hurling it across the room in exasperation. Dad had been shocked by my outburst. Speechless even, for a moment. “That’s something I would expect Sophie to do,” he said finally. “Not you, Julia.” The disappointment in his voice—as well as the comparison to Sophie—was something I never forgot. Ever.

“Holy cow,” I said now, surveying the patio, which seemed more or less to have been transformed into a pottery studio. There was even a partial roof over half of it, shadowing the bricks underneath. A brick wall, no higher than my knees, was flanked at either end with flat, raised pedestals. On top of each pedestal was a design made out of little white stones.

“Did your dad make these too?” I stared down at one. It was a starfish. Tiny stones, no larger than ladybugs, had been arranged into what looked like swaying pieces of seaweed on either side.

“Yeah.” Aiden stood next to me, regarding the starfish. “That was the first one he ever did. It took him about a year. The other one”—he stopped and pointed at the other end of the wall—“only took him about six months. He’s gotten pretty good at it now.” I walked down to examine the other design. It was a tree with bare branches. No leaves at all. Just stark limbs, stretching out in all directions, like spindly fingers.

“They’re so beautiful,” I said, running the pads of my fingers along the pebbly surface. “And so sad.”

“Sad?” Aiden raised his left eyebrow again. “How do you get sad out of a stone tree? Or a starfish?”

I shrugged, embarrassed suddenly, and walked over to the large contraption I’d seen the day before. The broken leg had been reattached with duct tape. Several magazines had been wedged under it for leverage, but it still sat at a slight angle. In the middle was a large mound of pale brown clay. “Tell me about this thing. What is it?”

“This,” Aiden said, squatting down to examine the taped leg, “is my Laguna Pacifica Glyde Torc 400.” He looked up at me. “Or your basic pottery wheel. I was right in the middle of centering a new piece when you came by.”

“Centering?”

“Yeah,” Aiden said. “After you prepare the clay, you’ve got to center it on the wheel. It’s actually pretty hard to do. Sometimes it takes me four or five times to get it just right.”

“Can you show me?”

“Now?” Aiden asked.

“Well, yeah. I mean, if you want to.”

Aiden hesitated, but only for a moment. “Okay.” He straddled the little chair attached to the far end of the wheel and yanked off the mound of clay in the middle. “Centering is pretty much just what it sounds like,” he said. “You’ve got to make sure your clay is directly in the middle of the wheel. Otherwise, you’ll just fight the clay the whole time you’re trying to shape it.” He turned the mound over, looked at it, and then plopped it firmly on the wheel. “Doesn’t look too hard, does it?”

“Not really.”

“Okay, now comes the hard part.” He looked up at me expectantly. “You ready?”

“Yes.”

Aiden pressed a pedal beneath the wheel with his foot. It began to turn, slowly at first, and then more rapidly. I sat down along the edge of the wall, watching as his hands pressed and pulled and shoved the clay between them. His whole body tilted as he leaned into the wheel, almost as if he was forcing the clay in a direction it didn’t want to go. Suddenly, like a tree trunk growing at superspeed, a column of clay began to rise up from between his fingers. And then in the next moment, even under his flat, steadying palms, it flopped over and sank down into a heap. It looked like a crushed baby elephant’s trunk.

Aiden sat back. “And that is what happens when your clay has not been centered properly.” He began scraping the mound off the wheel again. “You know, all the glory around this process goes to the shaping and the decorating and even the firing of the clay, but centering is really the most important thing of all. None of your pieces will ever work unless the middle is strong enough.”

He started again, putting the clay down and kneading it back and forth as the wheel began to turn. Small grunts came out of his mouth as he worked. Overhead, a few yellow leaves from a birch tree fluttered lightly, and somewhere in the distance I could hear a dog barking.

“I think it’s…,” Aiden said. “Come on, come on!” All at once he sat back, his hunched shoulders releasing themselves, and exhaled. “There she is!” he said. The wheel was still turning and the clay had not been shaped into anything worth mentioning. But it was centered. And even as it sat there, pale and bloblike, I thought it looked almost strong. Maybe proud, even. And ready.