Jonah and I checked out of the hotel, loaded our stuff into Gertie’s trunk, and walked a few blocks to a diner for breakfast. My mouth was cotton-dry but I felt good, anyway. Maybe it was the ocean air, and having a plan of action, however drunkenly conceived.
Jonah’s mind was still buzzing. “We should do it during the day, when there’s traffic, people coming and going…We’re less likely to look suspicious. At night there are alarms to deal with, security guards, and, who knows, maybe dogs.”
“And we’re settled on the date?” I said. “This Saturday?”
“Right. In one week.”
“We’re really going to do this?”
“Yes. We’re really going to do it.” He poked a quivering blob of egg with his fork. “Bea, I’m serious about this. You are too, right? Because if you’re not, I’ll find a way to get Matthew by myself.”
I felt dizzy. Scheming at night had been delirious and fun, but the plan looked a little crazy in the light of day. Were we really going to bust Matthew out of an institution?
On the other hand, this was a chance to do something real, something that mattered. After all the years of reading and writing and adding and subtracting, schoolwork and swimming lessons and learning how to behave, I was ready to make a big, dramatic gesture. Wasn’t this what it meant to be adult—taking action?
“I’m serious,” I said.
“Good. We’ll keep it simple. We’ll just walk in, wait until they leave Matthew unattended, and walk out with him. Drive that wheelchair right out of there.”
The plan wasn’t quite that simple.
On one of his visits, Jonah had met a large family, the Keanes, whose disabled aunt lived at St. Francis. The Keanes visited often. They had a daughter our age named Georgia. Georgia looked a little like me, Jonah said—stick body, lollipop face—only blond.
I planned to disguise myself as Georgia Keane and say that I’d come to visit my Aunt Candy. Jonah would rig up a fake photo ID in case the receptionist questioned me. I’d only been to the hospital twice, and Jonah didn’t think the staff would remember me, especially if I wore a blond wig.
Jonah, also disguised, would pretend to be a friend of mine. We’d get him past the receptionist somehow.
We’d leave the car at a side door, an emergency exit near the dayroom, where Matthew was sure to be waiting out visiting hours. We’d grab him, race the chair down the hall, out the emergency exit (which would probably blare an alarm, but that didn’t matter), into our waiting car, and speed off. We’d drive straight to Ocean City, find a cheap room in one of the old boarding houses off the main drag, and start our new life.
That was our plan.
We had a few weeks of school left, but we didn’t care. We were just killing time in our classes. We could show up for graduation if we really felt like it, then zip back to Ocean City and our real lives. Swimming in the ocean, running the rides, pushing Matthew down the boardwalk in his wheelchair, watching him get stronger every day…
The whole summer stretched out before us, long, hot, endless. September flashed like a tiny red warning light in the distance, but if I squinted, I could ignore it. I decided to squint for a while.
“It’s going to be wonderful,” I said.
I broke my promise to my parents and got home after dinner on Sunday night. I found Mom sitting on the front steps, smoking a cigarette. Which I had never seen her do before.
“Where’s Dad?” I said.
Mom said, “He left.”
CHAPTER 21
“God, I am so punished,” Anne Sweeney said at Assembly on Monday. “AWAE and I were up for thirty hours straight.”
“That’s rough,” I said. I was pretty punished myself, but in no mood to explain, not to Anne of all people. “What happened to Tom?”
“He passed out by four A.M. and one of his friends dragged him home.”
“Lightweight.”
“And then I come home for dinner last night and find your dad sitting at the kitchen table. Like, shocker.”
“My dad had dinner at your house?” I said.
“My mom felt sorry for him.”
I’d seen Dad later that Sunday night, in the dorm room where he was staying.
“Dad,” I said when I found him. “What the fuck?”
He flinched. “You never used to speak to me that way.”
“You never used to live in a dorm,” I said.
“I’m not living here,” Dad said. “It’s only temporary.”
“Only temporary? Where are you going to move to from here? The Sweeneys’ house?”
“That’s not fair,” Dad said. “Caroline Sweeney is a good friend, that’s all.”
“Then why is Mom so crazy?” I said.
“I don’t know why she’s so crazy,” Dad said. “I love your mother. I tried to understand what she’s going through. But after a while I got tired of trying. She doesn’t respond. I’ve forgiven her, but she doesn’t seem to—”
“What do you mean, you’ve forgiven her?” I said. “You’re the one who’s never around. You’re having an affair, aren’t you? Isn’t that why Mom’s so upset?”
“No, I am not,” Dad said. “I’m not the one—”
He stopped.
There is a separation between parents and children that shouldn’t be breached when the children are young. The parents’ adult follies are private. They’re disturbing and hard to understand. But eventually the kids wise up, the follies start leaking out, and the parents are revealed in all their flawed humanity. Dad and I were about to cross that boundary for good.
“It isn’t me,” Dad said. “It’s your mother. She’s the one who had an affair. With some guy in Ithaca. It ended when we moved. He was married too. He wouldn’t leave his wife. That’s why she’s been so upset.”
Mom was having an affair? How did I miss that?
My head reeled.
“What guy?” I said.
Dad shrugged. He looked exhausted. “I don’t know. Some loser who works at a costume shop.”
Oh my God. Motorbike Mike’s? Mom had an affair with Motorbike Mike?
I remembered the mysterious phone call in New York, the man who wasn’t Dad. That must have been Mike.
Maybe Mom had secretly planned to meet him in New York. That’s why she wanted to go with me so badly. It wasn’t meant to be “just us girls” at all.
I felt queasy. I automatically scanned the place for a bathroom in case I needed to throw up. Next to the closet. Check.
“You know what?” I said to Dad. “Don’t tell me this stuff. Don’t tell me any more. I don’t want to know.”
I drove home and confronted Mom, only instead of begging to be left out of their business, I demanded to know why she hadn’t clued me in.
“Dad said you’ve been having an affair!”
She looked startled. “He told you?”
“Yes, he told me. He said a costume-shop guy. It’s not who I think it is, is it?”
“Don’t worry, that’s over.”
“So it was him? Motorbike Mike?”
She nodded. I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. I flopped down on the couch. I couldn’t believe I’d thought Dad was the bad guy.
“Honey?”
Mom touched my hair. I knocked her hand away.
“Mom, that is so…ick.”
Now it was Mom’s turn to knock me away. She didn’t even have to raise a hand. All it took were a few words and a glance.
“You’ll never understand,” she said.
“What’s going on, anyway?” Anne asked me. “At dinner your father told jokes and acted all cool. But he looked like he hadn’t slept in, like, a long time.”
“Just a spat,” I lied. “Nothing big. Dad’s coming home soon. Probably.”
“A spat? That’s not the feeling I got—”
It was time to change the subject. “Was it fun?” I asked. “The prom and everything?”
“The prom was okay. The after-party basically
never ended. Half the class spent the weekend at Harlan’s house. His parents were away, and they’ve already filled the pool—” She looked at me straight in the face for the first time that morning. “Hey, where were you?”
“You just noticed I missed the prom?” I said.
“Well, sure, I noticed that night,” Anne said. “After you nearly ruined my silk dress with your squirt gun. Totally juvenile, by the way. But then I forgot, and I just remembered again. Give me a break—I’ve got the hangover of the century.”
“Jonah and I went to Ocean City,” I said. “But don’t tell your mother. I told my parents I went to the prom. So if anyone asks—” I was just going through the motions. My parents had bigger things to worry about than where I’d spent the weekend.
“Don’t worry, I don’t tell my mother anything. But—” Dismay played across her face. “You and Jonah? Did you—you know—?”
“We slept in the same room, but we didn’t—”
“Oh my God! In the same bed?”
Technically, we had ended up sleeping on the same bed, in our clothes, on top of the covers, sideways and about a foot apart. This was not the juice Anne wanted to hear.
“We had twin beds,” I said. “We didn’t sleep together. Or kiss, or anything.”
“But—why? Why go to the beach with a boy who’s not your boyfriend?”
The stupidity of the question, the narrowness of her vision, gave me a headache. “To go to the beach?” I said. “To ride the rides and eat ice cream and play pinball? For fun?”
Anne leaned away from me as if I had bad breath. “I was just curious. You don’t have to get mad.”
“Jonah and I are friends. I don’t understand why nobody gets it.”
“Maybe because he hasn’t been friends with anyone in about ten years?” Anne said. “So we’re all just a little surprised.”
The room began to fill. Jonah slipped into his seat. Anne clammed up.
Lockjaw took the podium. “I’m glad to shee you juniorsh and sheniorsh shurvived the prom lasht weekend, if barely. Now that we’ve got that mileshtone under our beltsh, I’m happy to announche that the yearbooksh are almosht ready and should arrive from the printer’sh next week.”
Anne glanced past me at Jonah. “How does it look?”
He shrugged. “Like a yearbook.”
I came home from school that day to find Mom energetically cleaning the house. She hadn’t cleaned in months. I’d kept things livable, but the grime was starting to catch up with us.
“Is somebody coming over?” I asked. “Motorbike Mike, perhaps?”
“Don’t be silly,” Mom said. “I told you, that’s over.” She put on some music and danced while she dusted.
“So what’s the occasion?” I asked.
“No occasion,” she said. “The house just needs cleaning. Haven’t you noticed what a sty it is?”
Yes, I’d noticed. Where’d she been all this time?
“So we’re not having company?” I said. “No one’s coming over?”
“No. And it’s nice to know for sure who’s going to be home and who’s not, for once.” She danced around like she used to, bumping and grinding to the beat.
“Mom, have you lost your mind?” I said.
“On the contrary,” she said. “I haven’t felt this good in ages.”
“Did you see Dr. Huang today?” Dr. Huang was her therapist. At that moment I thought she must be a miracle worker.
“Yes, I did. She said that now that everything’s out in the open and your dad and I have stopped denying our problems, things can only get better.”
“Get better? How?”
“However is better. We don’t know yet. We’ll have to wait and see. The suspense is part of the exciting mystery of life!”
“I don’t like the suspense,” I said.
“Don’t be such a stiff. Suspense is good. Embrace it!” Mom fluffed a couch cushion and threw it triumphantly back in place. “She also upped my Celexa and refilled my Xanax prescription, in case you were wondering.”
I escaped to my room and closed the door. A few hours later Mom called me down for dinner: broiled rockfish, scalloped potatoes, baked carrots, spinach salad, and cupcakes for dessert.
“Where’s the roast chicken?” I asked.
“Haven’t we had enough chicken for a while?”
It was the best dinner we’d had in a long time. I ate it, completely baffled. Mom had been falling apart all year, and I expected Dad’s leaving to blow her to smithereens. But it didn’t. Unless becoming supermom was her way of going to pieces. Anything was possible.
Mom continued on her personal road to sanity. Now Dad was losing it. After four days, he was tired of living with his students and wanted to come home. But Mom told him she needed more time and to submit another request next week.
“She’s in the wrong, you know,” Dad complained when he took me to dinner at the Hopkins Rathskeller Thursday night. “She cheated on me.”
“It’s complicated. Can I have a beer?”
Dad looked at the graduate students drinking all around us. “Sorry. I have to set an example. Will root beer do?”
He rambled on about how Mom had wronged him and if she had any heart, she should let him come back. Sure, he left her, but he never meant it to last more than a day or two. Her weirdness was getting to him and he’d needed a breather, that’s all. “She’s up, she’s down, which is it? It’s like living on a roller coaster…” I drank my root beer and tuned him out, watching the students play darts. Next year that will be me, I thought. Mom and Dad can stir up all the drama they want; I won’t have to know about it. I’ll be in New York with Jonah, learning about the real world.
Then I thought, No, I won’t. I’ll be in Ocean City, waitressing at Phillips and taking care of Matthew.
Which was it? Which was my real future? I didn’t know. They both felt equally unreal.
I told Jonah about my new domestic arrangement, and he listened sympathetically. But his mind and heart were focused on Matthew. He burned with a new intensity. All his thoughts were on his reunion with his twin, just days away.
So I focused on Matthew too. I was too confused to think about anything else.
CHAPTER 22
On Saturday, Jonah came to my house to get into costume. I dressed up as Georgia Keane in a blond wig and a frilly dress that Jonah said approximated one he’d seen her wear. Jonah was going to be my friend, young Professor Tannhauser. I gave him a curly brown wig, tinted glasses, a newsboy cap, and layers of sweaters to bulk him up under Dad’s tweed jacket.
“I would never wear a cap like this in a million years,” Jonah said.
“That’s the point,” I told him. “Don’t forget to speak viz a Cherman eksent.”
“Jahwohl, Mein Kewpie Doll,” Jonah said. “Now let’s go get my brother.”
We drove out of town to the country. It was late May, warm, a haze of pollen in the air.
“I wish it were cloudy,” Jonah said. “This doesn’t feel like kidnapping weather.”
“Good beach weather, though,” I said.
“First things first.”
Twenty minutes later, we rolled through the gates of St. Francis. We skipped the circular drive at the front entrance and pulled the car around to the side door.
“So far our plan’s going perfectly, see,” Jonah said in a James Cagney voice.
“You’re supposed to be German,” I said.
“Oh, right.”
“Don’t talk unless you have to.”
We left the car unlocked and walked around to the front entrance. “Hello,” I said to the receptionist. “I’m Georgia Keane. I’m here to visit my aunt Candy.”
“Oh, hi, Georgia,” the receptionist said. “Where’s the rest of the family?”
“They’re coming later,” I said. “They had to stop off and pick up a present for Aunt Candy. Some, um, candy. Aunt Candy loves candy. Obviously.”
The receptionist checked her logbook.
“Oh, they’re already here,” she said. “They’re back in the dayroom.” She squinted at me. “Do you have a twin?”
“Us Keanes all look alike,” I said, taking Jonah’s hand. “By the way, this is my friend, Professor Tannhauser. Okay, see you later.”
“Jahwohl!” Jonah said.
Jonah and I walked down the hall as fast as we could, too scared to look back.
“Do you think she suspects anything?” I whispered.
“Yes,” he said. “Let’s move.”
The dayroom was crowded with patients and visitors and aides, who proudly showed off the patients’ latest art-therapy projects. Maybe Matthew would have a blob of clay to show us.
“Do you see him?” Jonah said.
I scanned the room. It was hard to pick out Matthew among all the wheelchairs and helmets.
Jonah tensed up beside me. “Do you see him?”
“No,” I said.
“He’s not here,” Jonah said. He approached one of the aides. “Excuse me. I’m looking for Matthew Tate.”
The aide peered at Jonah, who must have looked strange in his tweed cap, glasses, and wig. She opened her mouth, then stopped.
“Where is he?” Jonah’s voice cracked. A few visitors glanced our way.
The aide didn’t answer, and now she looked nervous. Jonah grabbed her arm.
“Where is my brother?”
“Who are you?” the aide said.
“I’m Jonah Tate. I’m Matthew’s brother.” The German professor was forgotten.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” the aide said.
“But I am here,” Jonah said. “Where’s my brother?”
No one answered him.
“Where’s my brother?” Jonah shouted. “Where’s my brother? Where’s my brother?” His voice grew louder and shriller with each repetition, until he was screaming. “WHERE’S MY BROTHER?”
“Quiet! Quiet!” the aide said. “Just a minute.” She went to a phone on the wall and called someone. Jonah trembled beside me, muttering, “Where is he?” I watched the aide as she spoke, trying to read her body language, but it told me nothing.
How to Say Goodbye in Robot Page 18