Words and Their Meanings (15 page)

I don't love him.

Not really.

Water laps against the wall of the tank. Holding tight to the ladder, I lean over and put one free hand against the metal. I feel what's there without being able to see it.

Our date has stretched into its ninth hour, exactly 32 minutes past my curfew. Our moments are stacking up like bad dominos, so I'm grateful for a reason to call it a night. When Mateo slides into the passenger seat and says:

“So where now?”

“I'm already late for curfew.”

“I know. Does it matter, by degree of lateness, how much trouble you will be in with your ma?”

The way he grips my thigh tells me too much. When people know they are losing someone, they take time to drink in every possible detail. It's what I used to dream about doing after Joe died. It's why I watch my grandfather so closely now.

“I'm not in the habit of going out at all, so I don't really know.”

“Will she worry?”

I think about this. Mom would worry—would straight up panic—if Nat's mom hadn't informed her over lunch that I was having a date with a very cute boy tonight. She practically shoved me out the hospital doors, she was so thrilled to know I was doing something “normal.”

“No,” I say, looking out the window. “I think she's probably sleeping.”

“Then please, will you stay out a little while longer?”

“Do you really want to keep driving around?” An exhaustion sweeps through me.

“I do, Anna.”

He says this with such fierce conviction that I flash to a poem shaped like a bride and groom, words falling on top of words, moving from head to toe. It's like I've already fallen asleep. Like I am dreaming of a different me in a different life.

“So. Where to now?” He tries to sound casual, but his fingers are hooked in the pocket of my shorts like I'm a flight risk.

I shrug and start the car.

We drive away from endless rows of half-vacant strip malls, pit stopping only at this place called Tony's, where a lot of kids from school hang out. Mateo doesn't ask why when I request he be the one to go inside and order our chocolate milkshakes. He also won't take the six bucks I'm holding.

“This stuff is like heaven on earth,” Mateo says, shaking his head back and forth, taking off the plastic top for a gulp.

“I'm kind of hoping God has higher standards.”

“Are you crazy? This has to be divined from some higher power. I gotta say, you've introduced me to some seriously good junk food, Ms. O'Mally.”

I stick my tongue out. He responds by lifting my free hand up, kissing each joint. I almost drive off the road.

“You know, those Simon and Garfunkel song lyrics you wrote, the guy who is painting those around town … well, he's making a statement,” Mateo says after we've been quiet for almost three minutes. “He's saying something about art and healing and—”

“And what?”

“You kind of missed the point.” He sounds like a teacher, the way he says it. Like when Mrs. Risson showed up at the house for the first time during my junior year with a stack of unfinished assignments tucked under her arm and an offer to help see me complete them.

“Don't act like you know what I was thinking,” is all I say back.

We travel in the general direction of east, under the green cart bridge near the County Club, beyond the big homes lining the golf course. When I turn into a driveway made only of two lines of gravel with grass between, Mateo takes a turn, suggestively raising his eyebrows. Thanks to the stealth mode of a hybrid, my car creeps up the drive with no noise, and now, no lights. Not that it matters. The white house in front of us, covered in ivy, is barely visible in the dark cover of night. It's also empty.

“Where—”

“This is Theodore Roethke's house.”

“I'll bite,” Mateo says. “Who's Roekthke?”

I sigh.

“He was this poet from our town. Obviously, not super famous in most circles. He's been dead a long time,” I explain.

What he doesn't know—what I won't tell him—is this: I actually have a key to this house-turned-museum.

The windows are up and it's steamy but I like the sound of Mateo's straw slurping the bottom of his milkshake too much to let the rest of the world in just yet.

The sounds of night still creep in, crickets tuning up, mourning doves cooing, cars on the four-lane road just behind us zooming this way and that way. I ask Mateo to lean back his seat so I can crawl over, and when I do, I forgo his lips and lay my head straight into the crook of his shoulder. We fit like sculpture pieces. I would stay here forever; his heartbeat a metronome in my ears, his hands moving in barely traceable lines up and down my back.

Except he wrecks it all, because when he opens his mouth he asks about Joe. Not about Gramps. Not about the person I love who is dying in the present moment. He wants to know about the person I loved more than anything. The person who is gone forever because of me.

And I want to bolt upright and start the car and break all the speed limits until Mateo is gone and I'm alone. He whispers into my scalp and I feel his words seep inside and he's saying it's okay. It's okay to talk to him. I try to stiffen. Try to conjure up the prison of a coffin, the empty stare, the frozen breath. I try and I fail. I open my mouth and I tell him everything.

I tell him about this house, this summer thing of Mrs. Risson's and how she offered it to me like the participation ribbons they give everyone who sucks at Track and Field Day. I tell him how I lost London, and how in that moment I lost everything I knew to be true.

I tell him how Joe always, always made things better.

When Gran died, Joe spent a month learning to make origami lanterns and took Gramps fishing one night so he could light them and let them float down the river. It meant so much to Gramps, who understood the language of literal things like machines and folded paper. And whenever my parents would fight, Joe would order pizza, set the table all fancy, crank up the “soft jazz,” and use a fake Italian voice to call them into the kitchen for a date. They smiled and kissed and made up every time.

But when I needed him? He vanished. He was too busy going places he couldn't tell me about, places I'm now sure had to do with a not-Sameera girl. He wouldn't even look at me. He said I wouldn't understand. He said I wasn't ready to grow up. How could he not see that betraying me when I needed him most, it forced me to grow up? How could someone who promised to always be there, to always put family first, just stop caring because of what … some girl?

Then I tell him the rest. The stuff I've never said to anyone but Nat.

How I used my bout of fever and lingering cough as ingredients in a foolishly simple recipe to make Joe stay home. I hacked all over his pillow. I backwashed in the water bottle he kept on his nightstand. I wiped my germy hands on his bedroom door handle.

I did everything I could to pass my germs on to him, because I wanted him to get sick. I wanted him to stay
with me.

“I did that to him,” I say, hoarse from letting a truth that big claw up my throat. “Joe's eyes were rimmed with pink from the very first day he got sick. His breath stopped at the top of his chest. You could see it get stuck there, the way his stomach distended and retracted and everything hurt. He got so much sicker than I ever could have imagined, moving from influenza-related bronchitis to a pneumonia so severe that no antibiotics, no treatments were strong enough to even touch it. It got worse and worse and worse and there was nothing I could do to take it back.”

I say the rest into Mateo's chest. How later, Joe begged, in rasping, semi-conscious gasps, to let go. And then, how he died. How I walked up that center line of the highway with stardust beneath my feet.

I whisper this.

Mateo's arms tighten around me. He kisses the top of my head, strokes my hair, holds me like I might stop existing if he lets go. After a minute, he tilts my chin up. He's going to say he loves me. His eyes are soft and warm and see every bit of who I am.

I bolt up in a panic.

“Forget about the whole Joe thing.” I scramble back over to the driver's seat. “I was just being dramatic. He got sick and he died and that's the whole story.”

Mateo doesn't respond. The words were swallowed without so much as a cough. He unclasps the gold necklace he's been wearing lately and re-clasps it around my neck. It's one of those Catholic things—a saint medallion. I don't give it back even though I'm still shaking. Catholic accessories don't mean anything. They just look cool.

Until you go home and Google them, only to find out Saint Dismas is actually the patron of thieves, conflicted criminals, and jail inmates.

Oh, and liars.

Daily Verse:

We gave each other what the other didn't have.

35

M
o
m is in the cafeteria, restocking her red Jell-O supply. Bea is with Dad (and Lori, but I try to forget this part). I'm sitting next to Gramps, fiddling with the saint around my neck. I tell him who Saint Dismas protects. I tell him I need to rebuild my walls. His machine chugs back a reply. It says, “I know. I know. I know.”

My phone buzzes.

Nat:
We've got the wise child complex

I
can't help a half-smile. Nat's quoting
Frannie and Zooey
, the other famous J.D. Salinger book. We both read it, instead of
The Catcher in the Rye
. I play my line back.

Me:
We're the tattooed lady

Nat:
agreed. Now, can we try to not analyze everything?

This is how we make up. We speak with words that aren't exactly our own. It makes things less complicated.

Me:
PS was with Mateo last night

Nat:
I know. Called your house and your Dad answered.

Me:
what?!?

Nat:
chill. He was just picking up Bea from Mrs. G. Nice that she covered for you. Again. Was it fun?

Me:
…

Nat:
Subject change?

Me:
Yes.

My phone stops buzzing. I feel bad. We've been best friends for fourteen years, but there's nothing to say. When a new text comes in, it's from Mateo.

Mateo:
Dinner with my family tonight? 6 p.m.?

Me (to Nat):
Can we go hang at Satopia Park today?

Me (to Mateo):
pick me up at home?

Nat:
Pick me up at play practice half an hour …

Mateo:
cool

I walk over to the window. A new dad wrestles with a car seat, then rushes over to help his wife, who slides in the back beside her baby. He checks them three times before driving away. In the distance, the river glitters. It's a sunny day. I don't know how I feel about any of this.

Mom is sitting in my seat when I turn back around. She watches me watch the world outside.

“Hey. I didn't hear you come back in.”

“You were lost in thought.” She says this with a tired smile.

“Is it okay if I head out for the day? I know Bea's not back until tomorrow, and if you are going to be here for dinner—”

“It's fine. Just don't break curfew tonight again, okay?”

“You noticed?”

“Of course I noticed.”

“I thought you were already sleeping when I came home,” I say with a shrug. “Sorry.”

“You think a lot of things, Anna. Doesn't make them true.”

She holds my gaze a long time.

“I better go. Bye, Mom.”

Old Town Playhouse is just minutes from the hospital, so I slip inside and settle in the back row of the theatre to
watch the rest of Nat's practice.

The Playhouse's summer musical is
Frankenstein
, and Nat plays Victor Frankenstein's wife, who gets murdered by the monster. She's very excited to die on stage for the first time.

I cry when I watch. I'm glad the house lights are down. When the run-through is over, I slip back outside and wait in the car.

“Hey,” Nat says as she opens the door. “What did you think? I saw you sitting in the back.”

“You were great.”

What I can't articulate is how haunting it was, how it felt like Nat understands death more than me, despite a year-plus of coffin yoga.

–––––

Satopia Park used to be my favorite. It's a mix of baseball diamonds and hiking trails, and it's one of the few places in our town where the ground wasn't pushed flat by glaciers. Instead, small hills slope along a little lake. I've found six four-leaf clovers in this park. Kids come here to play Frisbee and hula hoop and sometimes get stoned. It's kind of the township's version of Neverland.

When we pull in today, Nat leans down and pulls a big purple bottle out of her theater duffle.

“Bubbles?” she says, holding the bottle and two wands up for me to see.

“Bubbles,” I repeat. “Okay.”

We stroll over the giant weeping willow near the trailhead and flop down. This is our tree. We've been coming here since eighth grade, when we used to hitch rides with Sameera and Joe and their group of friends.

“Remember the time we saw Rebecca Sanderson run out of the woods half-naked?”

Nat's bubbles float into the willow's stringy branches and leaves, popping one by one.

I nod as she hands me a wand with three circles. Rainbows of soap reflect inside them. “We were totally freaking out because we thought maybe somebody was like, hurting her.”

“Especially since Bobby Fischer ran out two seconds later with only one pant leg on, swearing so bad Sameera got all frazzled and covered your eyes instead of your ears,” Nat adds, rolling back with laughter.

“But then that skunk came trotting out behind him, with its tail held all high and proud.” I can't finish because Nat's giggling too hard.

“That was a good day,” she says finally, with a big sigh.

“It was. Remember how we got all the kids in the park together, post skunking, to play kickball on the baseball field? The stoners and Joe's group and the art kids who were doing a photoshoot—”

“Oh, I forgot about that,” Nat squeals. “They were wearing thrift store wedding dresses that were covered in ketchup as fake blood. That was the best part, watching them try to run the bases in those huge, puffy getups!”

“I think the best part was just being there, with everyone.”

Nat nods, moving out from under the willow tree. She blows another set of bubbles, and this time, they keep going up into the sky.

“I was thinking about your list of suspects this morning,” she says. “And I don't think it could be Sarah Sheldon. I'm pretty sure last June she was at Camp Hiawatha. Alex's brothers were there as soon as school let out, and she was a counselor. I remember Alex saying she was bragging about getting asked to be head counselor, which means she would have had to be there for a few weeks getting ready for campers to arrive.”

My face is warm. It could be the sun. I burn pretty easily.

“I think it's the other Sarah.”

“You called her?”

“We had coffee. A few days ago.”

“Why didn't you tell me?” Nat's voice is a little shrill. She must not remember how self-righteous she was about me leaving the whole Joe's-cheating mission alone.

I shrug in response.

“Well, all right. Fine. I wanted you to take a break. Can you blame me?”

I blow a set of bubbles in her direction.

“I'm glad you can still do that,” I say.

“What?”

“Know what I'm thinking so I don't have to say it.”

Nat rolls her eyes.

“Can we get back to the discussion at hand?”

She's tossed her wand into the bottle and started pacing, weaving in and out of the curtain of willows.

“She said she had something to tell me,” I recount. “But I don't know what it is, because I had to go before she could. Also, she was staring at the bracelet.”

“Where did you have to go so fast that you couldn't listen to what she wanted to say?” Nat's stopped walking. Her hands are on her hips.

“Home.”

“Why? What couldn't wait?”

“Geez, Nat. Chill out. Mateo was there. Mrs. G texted, all tweaked out about a boy bringing food over and waiting on me to get back. So I left.”

I expect Nat to break into a wide smile, because she's been so bent on playing matchmaker. Instead, she slumps against rough bark and frowns.

“I can't believe you haven't called her back. What if she changes her mind and decides not to tell you anything? What if you missed your window to know the truth?”

Behind us, a group of middle schoolers are gathering at the baseball field. I watch them circle up and divide into teams. They hoot and tease each other before the first pitch. A bat cracks, cheers erupt, and dust clouds rise and settle on the diamond.

I can't explain why I haven't called Sarah back. Part of me knows I don't want it to be over, back to the place where there's nothing new to discover about Joe. And part of me doesn't want to know because I hate believing he really did this. But there's another part too. It's like an out-of-focus photograph. This fuzzy knowledge that I may have to choose between days like yesterday and sitting across the table fro
m a Sarah in the coffee shop.

I move to sit next to Nat. We rest our backs against the trunk. Blowing a round of bubbles into the ground, I say, “I'm glad we're here.”