This conversation with Mom is not calendar-worthy. In the years ahead, May 4 will come and go without any thought of this moment. And yet what has just happened with Mom will weave itself into every day, hardly noticeable but present nonetheless. Every once in a while for the rest of my life, the image of Mom’s sticky Coke bottle or the frame of me on her nightstand or the sound of her sweet words will pop to mind as a reminder of who I am. I might be driving in my car or in the middle of a job interview and Mom’s words will ring loudly in my ear. And so are you, Peg. So are you.
15. ALEX
Two Wednesdays Later
The chafing has tapered, which is good, considering that Zefi’s dad’s bike is my primary transport to and from school. At least until I get my license. The five and three-eighths miles each way to school is a little rough, but when the weather’s good on the flat back roads, I can hear the birds singing and get a glimpse of Lake West through the morning mist from across the grassy field. Pretty amazing way to start the day, actually. I can hear the traffic on the main roads just a quarter of a mile away and soak in the calm by comparison. This alternate route is scattered with run-down, boxy houses, some with whole planks of siding missing, others with shutters hanging by a nail. I never see lights on inside or trash cans along the curb or a mailbox flag raised. Ivy has woven itself into the stone walls that line the one-lane bridge and crept up the sides of the houses here, prying away the siding and shutters. A rusted-out VW Rabbit sits crooked and without plates in the green ditch along the road. I pass it every day, and every day I wonder what brought it here and who abandoned it. Green vines with dainty little pink flowers have curled their way inside the steel door and wrapped themselves around the steering wheel. The asphalt I’m riding on is riddled with potholes, its hard edges slowly fraying to the unspoken power of nature. I weave around tufts of green and sprouts of I don’t know what, all of which slow me down, but I don’t usually mind. Especially not today. In fact, each swerve gets me wondering if I shouldn’t just promptly turn around and go home. But if the Supergirls can stand up to a loaded gun, I can stand up to a little rejection.
This nameless dirt path leading to Rose Avenue is peaceful, despite—or maybe because of—the disrepair. The sound of cars zooming up the hill to school every morning is no more, and I close my eyes to listen to the breeze rustle through the grasses like her whisper. I breathe in the sweetness and give in to the power of Ina, who floats without a moment’s hesitation to the surface of my mind, clear and palpable. The light breeze rolls over my forehead like her kiss, the honey-sweet air reminds me of her skin. I drop my bike into the knee-high grass speckled with flowers and start picking. The purple ones first and then the yellows and pinks. When I’ve got a wet handful, I pull out the laciest ribbon I’d found in Mom’s wrapping-paper bin and tie the uneven, torn stems together. I shove the flowers into the canvas bag I’ve attached with an old jump rope to the back of my seat and ride on, beyond the downtown limits and into the unknown. This trip to her house—I’ve mapped it—is exactly eight miles long door-to-door.
The flat back roads near the school become windier and hillier as the houses get bigger. After a couple of hills, the scent of my freshly picked flowers gives way to that of my own perspiration. I’m on mile seven now, which, according to my calculations, means that Tapper Lane is coming up. A BMW 7 Series has just swerved past, windows down and classical music blasting from its top-notch stereo system. In the rusty handlebar mirror, I see an old-style Jaguar convertible following right behind, top down. Both cars zoom off, making sharp swerves to avoid manholes as they go. Manholes in the world of the rich and famous must be the equivalent of the orange workman’s cone in the normal world, and for some reason this makes me bitter. This is the world that made Dad suspicious of Greenbriar, that made him so supportive of my skateboarding and messy long hair. And as I watch these assholes speed away in their sports cars avoiding manholes, I get it. I am making it my duty from here until I reach Ina’s house to ride right over every manhole in my path. No swerving. Direct contact. No matter what.
By the time I see Tapper Lane ahead, the smell of flowers has been wholly lost and replaced by the smell of me, which, I might add, is worlds worse than Mom’s Hunger. And I don’t know if it has anything to do with the manholes I have purposely ridden over this last quarter mile, but the chafing between my legs has suddenly morphed into a god-awful itch. If I weren’t in public, I’d scratch the hell out of my inner thighs, but I can’t. Not here, not in a neighborhood like this. This is the kind of street where I’ll bet people refrain from picking their noses at the wheel, no matter how tinted the windows or how dark it is outside. The bottle of water I tied to my waist is empty, and I wonder if I’ll have a voice left once I get to Ina’s doorstep. It’s only now, with the prospect of losing my voice, that I start to think about what I’m supposed to say once I see her. Apart from the flowers, I’m winging it, just like Zefi suggested. But the flowers are quickly wilting in the morning sun. And as I gawk at these houses on steroids with windows that stare down at me like five sets of beady eyes, I could kill him.
And then I see it—257 Tapper. The biggest, squarest house on the block. A corner lot. There is a ten-foot-high gate at the driveway, and before I have a chance to decide whether I smell too bad or am too unprepared or itchy to go through with it, a man’s voice surprises me from behind.
“Whom are you here to see, sir?”
There is a camera built into the pillars along either side of the driveway, and I speak to it.
“Ina, please,” I say. Between the “whom,” “sir,” and my “please,” this is the most respectful and grammatically correct exchange I’ve had for months.
“Name, sir?”
“Alexander Hoffman.” There’s no turning back now. The gates open to a steep hill leading to the front porch, but because I have no momentum, the hill is impossible to ride, so I walk my bike up, hoping and praying that Ina’s not watching from the window. Guys don’t sweep girls off their feet by walking their bikes up hills.
I reach the door, but before I can raise the oversize brass knocker, it slowly creaks open, just enough for Ina’s eyes, those beautiful blue marbles of hers, to peek out at me. Her long hair, caught by the breeze, blows out the door and into my face, tickling my nose until I sneeze, which makes her laugh.
“What are you doing here, Alex?” Her sound is softer than I remembered. And sweeter. Between her lilting voice and the smell of her hair and those smiling eyes, I forget about my sweaty, itchy self.
“I don’t know, really,” I say.
“I’ve been meaning to text you back.”
“That’s all right,” I lie. “It doesn’t matter.”
“How’s school?”
“Fine,” I say. “Must be good to be out of the hospital.”
“I guess,” she says. Her gaze drops to the floorboards on the porch, and then there is silence. My mind turns in circles for conversational pieces, but the only thing flashing through my mind in capital letters is “MANHOLES.” My inner thighs are on fire.
“Are those for me?” She points to the petals that have pushed their way out of the bag. I carefully pull out what’s left of my plan. The lacy ribbon is wet and droopy and the remaining petals are bent and crushed, dark like old salad leaves.
“They didn’t look like this when I picked them.”
“Thank you, Alex.” Her eyes are squinty, like she’s happy, but she stays hidden behind the door. I try to imagine her perfect smile, the one I knew before I knew Ina, the one she flashed in the hallways at school.
I remember the first time Ina said my name, how privileged I felt that she knew it. No one says my name like she does. Her voice drops on the l and slightly rises with the short e before expiring with a drawn-out exhale of an x. No one, not even Mom and Dad, take the time to pronounce my name correctly. “Alx,” they say, rushing through it. But not Ina. Not ev
er. And here on the stoop is no different. My shoulders drop and my heart rate slows as soon as my name rolls off her lips like it means something.
With the bouquet held up to her nose, Ina steps out from behind the door to the porch and nudges me. And then she does something unexpected. When she nudges me a second time, she keeps her body glued to mine, her cheek nestled against my sweaty green shirt. The warmth of her body, the weight of her head on my shoulder, the strawberry smell of her hair, and my mind goes blank.
“They’re beautiful,” she says.
“You’re lying.”
“I’ve missed you, Alex.”
“You didn’t have to,” I hesitate. “You know. Miss me.”
“I’ve gotten the bandages off.”
“I can see that,” I say. “Despite the door and the flowers.” And then it hits me. “Ina, let me see.”
“The scarring was more than they expected,” she says. “At least with bandages, there was still hope.”
She leans in over the flowers until our foreheads touch. “Do you remember?”
“I can’t forget it. I mean, I don’t want to.” I’m spinning, literally spinning with her touch. “I might be a little dehydrated,” I say.
She leads me to the swinging bench next to the door and sets me down. And as she does, I catch a glimpse of her scars, the ones I put there, and my heart drops. The lines around her chin and bottom lip are thin but bulge slightly. Behind the glossy glaze on her lips, I can tell that their pucker is different. There isn’t the vertical gathering when she speaks but instead a horizontal scar that runs from one corner to the other.
“I thought I’d get used to the scars.” She holds the flowers in front of her face like a fan.
“I thought you were leading me on as payback,” I say.
“Payback for what?”
There’s good old-fashioned forgiveness for you. Always catching you off guard and leaving you naked with no threads of guilt or anger or self-pity to hold on to. I pull her close with a conscience undeservedly wiped clean and kiss her lips, the ones she’d been hiding, the ones I thought I’d never see again. And I’m grateful.
About the Author
Having been pegged as a future knitting machine fixer herself, Beth is a fervent defender against any and all categories. In high school, she wasn’t an athlete or a Homecoming Queen. She was never the president of the student body or a math whiz. But she was patient with her own slow development and had a faith in something special inside her that she couldn’t name or understand. Her writing is an effort to privilege that unnamed essence and to illustrate the poetry that underlies failures as well as second (to infinity) chances. She and her husband live in New York with their three daughters and dog, Piglet. She is delighted (and relieved) to say that she has never laid eyes on a knitting machine.
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