Zen and Xander Undone

by Amy Kathleen Ryan

  “Solving string theory, are we?” I ask her.

  “I’m off cosmology,” she sighs. “I’m thinking particle physics now.”

  “You should try at least to seem humble.”

  “Why?”

  Xander is the salutatorian of the senior class, second only to Dion Jefferson. She’d probably be valedictorian if she ever cracked a book, not that her grades even matter at this point. She got a perfect math score on her SATs, and won the National Science Fair for devising a new way to diagram quantum equations. Some reporter from the New Scientist wrote a tiny blurb about her, and now all the big science universities, like MIT and Caltech, are taking her out to lunch, which has swelled her head to the size of a nuclear reactor. She’s just toying with them because she likes the attention. I know she’ll pick MIT. Caltech is too far away.

  “Don’t you want to see my list?” she wheedles as I slather lotion on myself.

  “Read it to me.”

  “Okay. Number one: Martha.”

  “No way.”

  “She’s Mom’s best friend since high school!”

  “No, she lives like ten thousand miles away.” Martha moved to Hawaii four years ago. She almost didn’t make it to Mom’s funeral. “Remember, the video was left on the porch.”

  “It could have been sent by courier,” she says. “It’s the perfect cover.”

  “That’s what you would do, not what Mom would do. Next.”

  Xander must agree with me, because she moves on without a quibble. “Mr. Blackstone.”

  “Possible, but he’d never tell us if he was the one. Attorney-client privilege or something.”

  “He’d tell me,” Xander says, twisting her hair with an evil grin. Mr. Blackstone gets all blustery around Xander, so naturally she tortures him. “Anyway, we can find out without him ever knowing.”

  I don’t want to know what she means by this. “Next.”

  “Aunt Doris,” she says.

  “She’s the most likely one,” I say. Even though Mom was ten years younger than Doris, they were always very close. And Doris is within easy driving distance.

  I hear a screen door slamming across the street, and pull aside the curtains to see Adam and his mom, Nancy, walking to their beat-up car. Adam is wearing a suit and tie, and Nancy is in a flowing silk dress. Xander sticks her head out the window and yells at Adam, “Nice suit! Is there a fuddy-duddy convention in town?”

  “He’s the keynote speaker,” Nancy says as she opens her car door. “I’m very proud.”

  “Where are you guys going?” Xander asks.

  “None of your business,” Adam says as he gets into the car.

  “He’s surprising me,” Nancy says eagerly. She bites her lower lip, which makes her buckteeth look even bigger. Nancy has kind of a stretchy, comical face, and it goes with her personality. “Why don’t you girls come along?”

  “Thanks for the pity invitation,” Xander says. “It being Mother’s Day and all, I think I’ll be getting drunk instead.”

  “Splendid!” Nancy says, clearly choosing not to take Xander seriously. “Have a gimlet for me.”

  “I bet Adam’s taking you to Marnie’s on the Lake. Aren’t you, Widdle Adam?”

  He glares at her, so she must have guessed right.

  “Oopsie. Did I spoil the surprise?” Xander giggles demurely. “Get their niçoise salad, Nancy! It’s delicious!”

  Adam starts the engine and drives off before Xander can come up with anything more to say.

  Xander turns around as if none of that happened, shakes her list of suspects in my face, and says, “And of course Nancy was fourth on my list. Who do you want to check out first?”

  “Mom, at the cemetery.”

  “Ghoulish! I hate going there.”

  “It’s Mother’s Day, for god’s sake!” I yell at her.

  “Fine,” she says, but she mopes.

  Now that I’ve said it out loud, suddenly the whole day seems dark and bitter. Mother’s Day hurts. We’re silent as I search through my drawers for something to wear.

  I wriggle into my black pants. Even if Xander is dressing like a stockyard hag to go to the cemetery, I’ll represent the Vogel daughters with some dignity.

  “Did I miss anyone on my list?” Xander asks without really meaning it. I can never think of things she doesn’t already consider.

  “The list is fine. Too bad we’re not asking any of them.” I fight my way into the only black shirt I own, which is a turtleneck. I talk to her through the dark fabric. “They’ll all deny it anyway. That’s how decent people behave, after all, Xander. They respect people’s dying wishes.”

  When I emerge from my turtleneck I see Xander’s already gone. A minute later I hear a car horn and look out my window. She’s waiting in the hatchback for me, in the driver’s seat. When she sees me looking, she blows a huge purple bubble.

  I look in my desk drawer. All my gum is gone.

  Bitch.

  Mother’s Day

  IT’S A GOOD DAY to visit Mom. A million birds are weaving their little voices through the breeze. Mom liked birds. She could imitate birdcalls for fifteen different species, and giggled like a little girl when the birds answered her back.

  Lots of puffy clouds shuffle across the sky, which is the kind of bright blue that only comes on spring days before the summer haze settles on the hills. We live in Vermont, in a college town on the shores of Lake Champlain, and our summers are blistering and humid. They’re still my favorite time of year, and not just because school is out.

  We park and climb up the hill to the upper part of the cemetery where Mom is. Even though it’s early, I’m already wishing I hadn’t worn a turtleneck. I fix my eyes on the top line of the hill as we climb, watching Mom’s headstone slowly appear over the summit, until finally we’re standing at the foot of Mom’s grave, next to the empty plot Dad depressingly got for himself.

  Xander is the first to see the letters, and she falls on her knees. They’re taped to Mom’s headstone, each in a plastic baggie. The writing is unmistakable.

  Of course she would write to us on our first Mother’s Day without her.

  Xander rips hers off the headstone and leans against the tree Mom’s buried under. She doesn’t even seem to notice the bee buzzing around her hair as she reads. I take mine and lie down on top of Mom’s grave.

  Dear Zen,

  Happy Mother’s Day, sweetheart. How’s my little chickadee?

  Well, if the doctors are right, it should be about ten months after I’ve expired. I hope by now you’ve gotten used to my being gone. You’re not the type to wallow, and neither is Xander. So I’m not worried that you’ve gained fifty pounds, or joined a cult. But I do hope that you’re finding ways to have fun.

  With that in mind, there is something I would like you to do for me. It’s your junior year, and I want you to go to the prom. I know you don’t like to do anything girly, but I really think you could miss out on something special. Branch out of your world a little. Life isn’t all jumping sidekicks, after all.

  And because I enjoy infuriating you from the great beyond (and also because I don’t trust you to go without some pressure), I’ve chosen your dress and your date. Your dress should be arriving this week in the mail, and your date is Adam Little. After all, you two are good friends, and you’ll have fun together.

  Adam agreed to this months ago, so there’s no point in being embarrassed about it now. (It’s remarkable what you can get people to do when you’re on your deathbed.)

  And don’t try to weasel out of this. I’m watching. Have fun, sweetie.

  Love always,

  Mom

  I can’t believe Mom has done this to me.

  Actually, yes I can. She was always a meddler.

  I hear a cry of outrage and look over to see Xander scrunching her lips together in the way she does when she’s furious. “No! No way!”

  “What? Is Mom making you do something too?”

  “She can’t ma
ke me do anything.” She smashes up her letter and throws it on the ground, but the breeze pushes at it until it starts to roll, so she runs after it.

  “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,” I say to her when she sits back down, leaning against Mom’s headstone.

  “She told Grandma I was coming over to spend the evening with her for Mother’s Day. But I won’t! I won’t do it!”

  “Lucky,” I say. “She’s making me go to the prom.”

  Her jaw drops and she stares at me, her dark eyes brimming with glee. “Oh, that’s a good one!”

  “It’s not funny!”

  “Are you kidding? It’s hysterical!” She holds her belly and rolls on the grass. She laughs so hard, she almost makes me see the humor. Almost. “Who are you supposed to go with? All the decent guys are taken already!”

  I drop my head. There’s no avoiding it. She’s going to find out sooner or later. “Adam.”

  Complete silence. “Oh. My. God.”

  “Yep.”

  “How the hell did she rope him into that, do you think?”

  “He didn’t have to be roped!”

  “Oh, trust me. He was roped.”

  “What’s so awful about going to the prom with me?”

  “Well, for one thing, he has no chance of scoring with you. Whatsoever.”

  “Just because I’m not a slut like you doesn’t make me totally closed off.”

  “Then why don’t you ever go out on dates?”

  “Because no one asks me.”

  “Because you give out ice queen signals.”

  “I can’t help it if I’m naturally reserved.”

  “You’re naturally frigid.”

  “Let’s just pay our respects and get out of here.” I pick at the weeds growing around the ivory-colored stone and brush away the dirt collecting in the carved letters.

  Marie Lillian Vogel

  1965–2007

  Beloved Wife and Mother

  Higher still and higher

  From the earth thou springest,

  Like a cloud of fire

  The blue deep thou wingest,

  And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

  The poem is by Percy Shelley. My dad chose it for her because they met in graduate school in a class on English Romantic poetry, and because Mom loved birds so much. The poem is sort of about a bird, but it could also be about a woman. I guess it’s a good choice for her tombstone, though Xander doesn’t think so. She wanted to have them engrave lyrics from Mom’s favorite Rolling Stones song. When Xander suggested it, Dad said, “Nothing Mick Jagger says is going on your mother’s tombstone!”

  “‘Ruby Tuesday’ was Mom’s favorite song!”

  “The lyrics don’t even make sense!”

  “The Stones never make sense! That’s not the point!”

  I didn’t want to fight about it, but the epitaph I wanted wasn’t by a poet or a rock band. It was something Mom whispered to us herself on her last day alive: “Every moment with you has been wonderful.”

  That’s the kind of thing that should be carved in stone.

  Blackstone Legal

  XANDER AND I are quiet in the car on the way home. I can’t tell if Xander is angry or sad. Maybe she’s both, like me. She’s sitting hunched, her nose two inches from the top of the steering wheel, hanging on it as though her backbone is made of soft licorice. She’s chewing my grape bubblegum at about 500 rpm, and I can tell by the way her dark eyes are darting over the street that she’s thinking hard.

  It’s not until she rolls right by Williston Road that I get any inkling we’re not headed home. “Hey, where—”

  “I just want to see if he’s in his office,” she says. Xander always skips preliminaries like explaining who he is, or what office she means. She just waits for me to catch up.

  It doesn’t take me that long. “You want to try to pry something out of Mr. Blackstone?”

  She shrugs. “Maybe. Or maybe I’ll distract him while you pretend to go to the bathroom and get Mom’s file.”

  “Oh, that’s a great idea. I’m going to steal from a lawyer.”

  “Like he’d press charges.”

  “He’s a lawyer. So he might.”

  “No one’s going to send a motherless orphan to jail. You’ll be fine.”

  “I wouldn’t even know where to look.”

  “The files are in the back, just outside the bathroom.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Hello? Eidetic memory?” She taps at her temple. Everything Xander sees, hears, smells, touches, everything, she remembers, completely. I hate that about her.

  “You’re not the only smart one, you know,” I tell her angrily. “My PSAT Verbal was—”

  “Seven ninety. Yes, I know. But your math was five forty. So suck it, Vogel. Suck. It.”

  “You just lost your partner in crime,” I tell her.

  “Okay. I’ll drop you off and do it myself.” She bats at the turning signal, pretending that she’s going to take me home, but I call her bluff. She reaches Colchester Road, our last chance to get home without backtracking, and looks at me out of the corner of her eye. I am silent, waiting. She huffs and turns the signal off, heading straight downtown. “It’s a two-woman job.”

  “Why don’t you get one of your derelict lovers to do it for you.”

  “Fine. Wait in the car,” she says, knowing full well I won’t.

  Mr. Blackstone’s office is in a pathetic-looking strip mall thing. Most of the other offices there are empty. His car is parked at an odd angle in front of the building. For a lawyer, he drives a heap. It’s an ancient sedan, and tendrils of rust run along the seams of the body like they’re trying to find a way in. Xander parks next to his car, and we get out.

  The office is dark except for a single fluorescent light toward the back. Xander leans into the door, cupping her hand over her eyes, and knocks on the glass. The parking lot is very quiet, though there are a couple boys taking turns riding a bike that’s too small for them. “He doesn’t want to be bothered, Xander,” I tell her.

  “He will when he sees who’s bothering him.” She wiggles her eyebrows lasciviously.

  “Gross, Xander. The man’s fifty at least.”

  “Ha!” she yells. “Here he comes!”

  From the back I see Mr. Blackstone’s long-legged frame. He’s a very tall man, and he has such a large paunch that he seems to lean back to counterbalance it. He’s got overgrown gray hair, and a scruff of whiskers on his face as though he hasn’t shaved for a few days. “Vogels!” he exclaims when he sees us.

  “We saw your car,” Xander says. She twists a lock of her hair, and grinds her toe into the sidewalk in a way that swivels her hips. He smiles at her with a strange mixture of lust and fatherly affection. Gross.

  “Come on in! I was just having a sandwich.” He leads us down the hallway to his office, which is mostly bare except for an ancient-looking oak desk and an oversize padded leather chair.

  “I can’t resist Sammy’s Sunday Special,” he says apologetically as he gestures to the absolutely enormous sandwich splayed on a paper wrapper on his desk.

  “Smells good!” Xander says appreciatively.

  “Want a bite?” he offers. “It’s their classic Italian.”

  She accepts the half sandwich he offers her, opens her mouth so wide she reminds me of a python swallowing a goat, and manages to take a huge bite of the sloppy sandwich in a shamelessly provocative way. Only Xander could devour an Italian sub and make it look like she’s having the most sensual experience of her young life. (She’s not.) Mr. Blackstone watches her attentively.

  It takes physical effort not to roll my eyes.

  Once Xander swallows, she says, “Actually, Chuck, we had an ulterior motive for stopping by.” She gives him a seductive little grin.

  “Oh yeah?” he asks, also taking a huge bite, looking none too provocative in the process.

  “Zen here has to go to the bathroom,” she
says, raising one eyebrow at me.

  “Is that okay?” I blink a couple times. “Too much root beer.”

  He smiles. “Heck yeah.”

  I walk out. I hear Xander ask him about the Patriots, and he starts spouting off about yards gained last season or something.

  It’s dark in the back room, and cool. There’s a kitchen table and a couple metal folding chairs, and a small refrigerator. An ancient coffeemaker on the countertop is coated with a thick film of what looks like coffee scum, if there is such a thing. Lining the back walls are about ten filing cabinets, all clearly marked. I go to the corner and carefully pull open the drawer marked V—Z. It slides open easily and quietly. I finger through the files until I find the one labeled “Vogel, Marie.” I tuck it under my bulky turtleneck and shove it down the front of my pants to keep it from falling.

  I go into the bathroom, flush the toilet, and run the sink for a second. When I wander back into Mr. Blackstone’s office, arms folded over my middle to hide the folder, Xander is shuffling through his papers.

  “Wow. Who knew divorce documents could be so boring?” she says to him, holding up a thick packet. “I was hoping for seedy details, but it’s all like ‘party of the first part’ crap.”

  “Divorces aren’t really seedy until you get into the depositions. Then you should see what people will do to each other!”

  “I believe it!” Xander shakes her head ruefully. “A lasting attraction between two people is so rare, isn’t it?” She turns her darkly fringed eyes upward at him, raises one brow. “Chuck?”

  He nods nervously.

  I clear my throat. “We better get going, Xander. We’re meeting Dad, remember?”

  At the mention of our father, Mr. Blackstone’s face takes on a wary professionalism. “Oh yes, well, tell Dr. Vogel I send my regards.”