Anne shot me a curious look, like she was thinking, Look who’s talking, party-bot. “There is no way out,” she said. “I’ve tried them all. Short of being hospitalized for meningitis, you’ve got to show your face at the faculty parties.”
“I don’t see why. It’s not like anyone really wants to talk to us.”
“We’re proof they can reproduce.” Anne kicked a white sneaker aside and sat on her bed. I sat beside her. She lay back and stared at her ceiling. I did the same. The ceiling was white and smooth except for a grapey lump where an old lighting fixture used to be.
“So, you’ve been hanging with Jonah a lot,” Anne said. “Speaking of stiff.”
“Uh-huh,” I said.
“It’s not…you know…a thing, is it?”
I pretended not to know what she was talking about, just to annoy her. “What do you mean?”
“You know. Carter says she saw the two of you kissing in front of the Morgue, but I told her no way, you had to be sharing a cig-gie or something. Right?”
Jonah and I had never kissed, and neither of us smoked. I didn’t know what Carter saw, but it wasn’t a kiss. All I said was, “I don’t smoke.”
Anne sat up and faced me, propped on her elbow. “So it is a thing? I’ve been telling everybody that you’re one hundred percent just friends.”
“Why does everybody care?” I asked.
“They don’t, really, except we’re all so bored we’ve got to talk about something,” Anne said. “And since Jonah hasn’t had a friend in like ten years, it makes people wonder, that’s all.”
“Why hasn’t he had a friend in ten years?” I thought I half knew the answer—something about his family tragedy, and Jonah’s withdrawal—but that couldn’t be the whole explanation.
“You know,” Anne said. “The ghost thing. The way he’s kind of not really there. It’s not all our fault. He’s never been the chummiest guy in the world. Or much of a friend.”
“What do you mean?”
“He makes stuff up. You can’t trust him. He lies, or at least exaggerates. When we were really little, he used to talk about these cats he had. He would try to get me to come over and play by telling me he had these two amazing cats who did all sorts of incredible tricks, and it was a total lie. He didn’t have any cats. I went over to his house lots of times, and I never once saw a cat.”
“He was just a kid,” I said. “Maybe he was lonely.”
“Don’t you get it? It’s manipulative. It’s one thing to be lonely, but don’t try to trick people into playing with you, that’s all.”
“Maybe he grew out of it.”
“Maybe. But some people don’t grow out of it. They just get better at manipulating you.”
I thought she was overreacting to the whole cat thing, but I didn’t say so. I didn’t want to hear any more about it. She was implying that I couldn’t trust Jonah, but could I trust Anne? I didn’t know her well enough to say. I wanted to believe in Jonah.
“You’re cleverly evading my question,” Anne said. “You and Jonah. If you don’t smoke and you don’t kiss, and you never go to parties anymore…what do you guys do—read comic books?”
What could I tell her? We listen to the radio, we think about heartbreak, we look out for time travelers, we cut yearbook meetings, we go to the library, we call institutions looking for Jonah’s lost secret twin…All of that was part of a different world, a foreign country to Anne and everyone else at school. She wouldn’t understand—except maybe the part about cutting yearbook meetings.
And besides, I couldn’t explain it. Some of it, I didn’t understand myself. We were best friends. Were we in love? Were we headed that way? I didn’t know, and I didn’t want to bring it up with him. It was like the one thing we couldn’t talk about. Our friendship was delicate, like a bubble, and I was afraid it would pop if I asked the wrong question. Where is this going? definitely felt like the wrong question.
“We just hang out,” I said. “It’s no big mystery.”
“You know what Garber told me?” Anne said.
“What?” Since I’d become friends with Jonah, Tom Garber had stopped trying to microwave me. I didn’t know if he’d given up or thought Jonah’s proximity tainted me in some way.
“He’s lonely,” Anne said. “He hasn’t had a girlfriend since the summer.”
“Three whole months. Poor guy.”
“No, really,” Anne said. “He’s in a tight spot, kind of like a prince or a movie star. He’s already been out with most of the cute girls at Canton at least once or twice over the years, if you start counting at around sixth grade, and he’s hit all the hottest Radnor and St. Mary’s girls too. He’s running out of options.”
“How does that make him like a prince or a movie star?” I said.
“Our social world is small and exclusive,” Anne said. “Like, you know how a prince can only marry other royalty, pretty much, and there are only so many princesses to go around? And movie stars have to marry each other because their lives are so weird no non-celebrity can understand them.”
“Tom’s cute but he’s no movie star or prince. Maybe he should relax his standards. There, problem solved.”
“Relax them to what?” Anne said. “Who’s he going to go out with, some grit from Glen Burnout with feathered hair and a Bawlimer accent?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said, though actually I did understand a little bit from things I’d picked up on the Night Light Show. The callers’ accents varied by neighborhood—the bluer the collar, the heavier the accent. The Canton kids—who mostly lived in North Baltimore and the suburbs—had slight drawls, barely noticeable. “What about you?” I asked. “When’s the last time you had a boyfriend?”
“I went out with a lifeguard from the pool last summer,” she said. “I’m not interested in Canton boys anymore. I’m holding out for college. I can wait.”
“So Tom can wait too. Sorry, but I just don’t feel bad for him.”
“You don’t understand,” Anne said. “He’s smart and he’s good at sports, but girls are part of his identity too. It’s sad to see him without a girl; it’s like something’s missing. He’s got no one left to chase—except for you.”
“Boo hoo hoo.” This idea that I must succumb to Tom for some vague greater good, like a virgin sacrificed to pacify a dragon, disgusted me, but it also thrilled me, and that was a secret I would reveal to no one, definitely not Anne, not even Jonah.
“He hasn’t paid much attention to me lately,” I said. “I think he’s lost interest.”
“He thinks there’s something between you and Jonah,” Anne said. “Once I reassure him that there isn’t, I bet he’ll ask you out. So what should I tell him? Is there, or isn’t there?”
Is there or isn’t there what? How do you define a boyfriend? If a boyfriend is the first person you think about when you wake up in the morning and the last face you see before you fall asleep, then I was in love with Jonah. But if a boyfriend had to involve physical chemistry and kissing and sex and stuff, then, no, he wasn’t that.
“It’s too complicated for yes or no,” I said.
“Bullshit,” Anne said.
Someone knocked on the door. “Anne? Is Beatrice in there with you?”
“Yes,” Anne called. Her mother opened the door. Dad hovered behind her in the hall.
“Bea, have you seen your mother?” he asked.
“She was downstairs a minute ago,” I said. “She went to the bathroom.”
“We can’t find her anywhere,” Caroline said. “Could she have gone home?”
“She wasn’t feeling well,” I said, covering for her.
“Her coat’s still here,” Caroline said.
I knew Mom had left. I could see her now, picking her way down Charles Street in her high heels and party dress, shivering in the November dusk.
Dad cursed under his breath. “She might have said something if she wanted to leave. I’d better go find her.”
Dad hesitated.
“It’s okay.” I got up off Anne’s bed. “You stay here, in case she comes back.”
“Take the car,” Dad said. “I’ll walk home.”
“I’ll drive you home later,” Anne’s mother said.
“Will you call as soon as you find her?” Dad said.
“I will.”
Anne followed me to her parents’ room, where the bed was piled with coats. I picked out my peacoat and Mom’s black velvet with the fur collar.
“What’s the deal with your mom?” Anne said.
I shrugged into my coat. “I guess she hates these parties even more than we do.”
We lived about a mile from the Sweeneys. I slowly cruised the streets, keeping an eye out for an underdressed, wobbly woman. She was halfway up the front steps when I reached our house.
I parked in the alley and went in through the back door. By then she was already upstairs. “Mom?” I called. The only answer was her shoes thunking to the floor as she kicked them off. I went upstairs. She was lying on the bed, still dressed in her wool shift and stockings.
“Why did you leave like that?” I said.
“The food in that house didn’t smell right,” she said. “Did you smell that stench from the kitchen? It was making me sick.”
She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. End of discussion. I should have known better than to bother asking.
Caroline Sweeney dropped Dad off around eleven. He found me in the kitchen making a peanut butter sandwich. I’d forgotten to eat dinner.
“Where’s your mom?” he asked.
“Asleep. She’s been asleep since we got home.”
“Great,” Dad said. “That means she’ll be up half the night trying eye shadow combinations in the bathroom mirror.”
“Is that what she does all night?”
“Usually. Sometimes she dials the time and just lies next to me, listening to that automated voice count off the seconds. At the tone the time will be…” He shuddered.
“The party went late,” I said.
“You should have come back for dinner—Caroline roasted a goose. Have you ever eaten roast goose before?”
“I don’t think so.”
“It’s delicious. Well, good night, honey. Maybe I can snatch a few hours of sleep before the makeup seminar begins.”
“Good night, Dad.”
He went upstairs. I sat in the kitchen eating my peanut butter sandwich and drinking a glass of milk, one eye on the clock, waiting for the magic hour of midnight to strike. I imagined Mom lying awake with the phone next to her ear blaring, At the tone the time will be…twelve…midnight…and no seconds. Beep.
I went back to my room and turned on the radio.
Don Berman:
DonBermanDonBermanDonBermanDonBerman! [Click.]
Herb:
Nighty-night there, Don. Next caller, you’re on the air.
[The scratch of a needle on a vinyl record, the pop of a record player, and a cheesy old song plays. Lots of strings and horns, very Vegas 1976.]
Herb:
Is that you, Larry? Sounds like Larry from Catonsville. He never says much, just treats us to an old song every once in a while.
[The song plays, then fades out.]
Larry:
Hi, Herb. That was an oldie but goodie, “After the Lovin’” by Engelbert Humperdinck.
Herb:
Thanks for that walk down memory lane, Larry. I want to take a moment to remind everybody about the annual Night Light Christmas Luncheon. This year’s event will be held as usual at Mario’s Italian Palace on Route 40, in the heart of beautiful downtown Catonsville, on Saturday, December nineteenth at eleven A.M. I hope to see you all there. This is the perfect chance to see old friends and meet some of the voices you hear on your radio night after night. I’ll be there—I’m hosting the luncheon personally. Reservations are required—call the station. What do you say, Larry? Will you make it this year?
Larry:
I’ll be there, Herb. Wouldn’t miss it.
Herb:
Glad to hear it. And now a message from our sponsor, Mr. Ray’s Hair Weave. Gentlemen, is your hair thinning? Do people think you’re older than you really are? Patch up that thatch at Mr. Ray’s! Our professionals sew genuine human hair right to your skull…
I dialed Jonah. It was late, but I didn’t care. He had to be listening.
“We’re going to the luncheon,” I said.
“Your wish is my command,” he said.
“Have you ever been before?”
“I wanted to go last year, but I felt weird going by myself. And I didn’t have anyone to take with me. Until you came into my life, darling. You know, even after the lovin’, I’m still in love with you. Funny how that works. How was La Sweeney’s party?”
“Yawn. How do you think? What did you do tonight?”
“I sat in my room and drew a portrait of my closet door. Wait till you see it. It looks so true-to-life.”
“I’ve seen closet doors before.”
“Not like mine. It takes blankness to a new level.” He paused. “So did she say anything to you? Did she tell you any big secrets from Our Collective Past?”
“Who?”
“You know who.”
What kind of secret was he afraid Anne would leak to me? That silly thing about the cats? “No,” I lied. “We talked about faculty parties and what a drag they are. Not much else. I had to leave early because of Mom.”
“What did she do this time?”
“Nothing, she just left early.”
“But she did it in some bonky way, right?”
How did he know? “Not that bonky. She just didn’t say goodbye to anyone. And she forgot her coat.”
“I knew it. I love that woman.”
He did seem to like my Mom stories. That would have annoyed me except that I understood why: They made us more alike, more equal on the family weirdness scale. In the dysfunction sweepstakes Jonah would always win, but at least Mom brought me into his league.
“The show’s back on,” I said. “It’s Kreplax. Talk to you later.”
I clicked off and turned up my radio.
Kreplax:
Salutations from the World of Tomorrow, Herb.
Herb:
How was the party for the People from the Future, Kreplax? Sorry I couldn’t make it.
Kreplax:
The party was fabulous. Several Futurians showed up and dropped hints about what lies ahead for our troubled human race. One major prediction was making the rounds. It’s a shocker, and I thought your listeners should know.
Herb:
What’s that?
Kreplax:
A comet, Herb. A deadly comet is coming this way.
Herb:
When, exactly?
Kreplax:
I’m still working out the details. Basically, it’s huge, it falls into the ocean—some disagreement as to which ocean, which is of course crucial—and floods the coasts, big time. Not only that, it carries horrible viruses we have no cure for, as well as a few tiny aliens with a fascist takeover in mind.
Herb:
Sounds pretty bad. Are you sure about this?
Kreplax:
Oh, I’m sure.
Herb:
Well, I don’t know what we can do to prepare, except say our prayers.
Kreplax:
[snorts] Good luck with that, Herb. God died in 1945.
Herb:
Thanks for the update, Kreplax. Not a very cheerful outlook for the holidays, is it? Next caller, welcome to the Night Light Show…
After a few hours, I drifted to sleep with visions of aliens in my head—aliens dropping tinsel bombs all over town.
DECEMBER
CHAPTER 10
Every year before Christmas, the Canton fourth-year language classes performed holiday skits for the rest of the school. It was a special Holidays Around the World Assembly Week, a
nd our French teacher, Mr. Meath, announced that our class’s theme would be “Christmas at the Movies,” or “Cinémathèque Noël.” We would split into teams and write our own skits in French. Tom Garber volunteered me to be on his team, which also included Anne and Walt Carrey.
“Instead of doing live skits,” Walt said in class, “why don’t we film our skits and show them to the school like a movie?”
“Bonne idée, Jean-Pierre,” Mr. Meath said. Jean-Pierre was Walt’s French name.
The next question was: What movie should we spoof in our skit? Our team met after school at Anne’s house to figure it out. We each nominated a film. I rented Female Trouble, the John Waters movie Jonah had told me about, and showed my skitmates the scene where Dawn Davenport expects cha-cha heels for Christmas.
“It’s not really in the Christmas spirit,” Anne said. “It’s just kind of icky.”
“I think it’s funny,” Walt said. “Everybody else will be ripping off Elf or Miracle on 34th Street. Nobody will think of this.”
“That’s for sure,” Garber said. “What the fuck, let’s do it.”
That’s how I ended up spending a week’s worth of free periods with Garber, Anne, and Walt, translating, rehearsing, and filming our French Christmas skit on Anne’s video camera, much to Jonah’s annoyance.
“You don’t understand,” I told him. “I have to do it. It’s for French.”
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