The Word for Yes

by Claire Needell

  “Sorry I wasn’t focused on you enough? I mean, maybe I needed to focus on you, not Erika. I always worry about her.”

  “Why? Because she’s too pretty?” Melanie let the word pretty hang in the air between them. Of course she was pretty, too, but she wasn’t Erika-pretty. “And dumb,” Melanie added. The word sounded absurdly childish even to her, and she half regretted saying it, but then Julia clicked her tongue and looked away. Her expression of helplessness gave Melanie a sudden chill.

  “I wish you two could watch out for each other. But I guess it’s not fair to expect that.”

  “You mean it’s not fair to expect me to be like Jan?”

  The waitress returned to the table and placed Melanie’s poached egg in front of her. Melanie dove into her breakfast.

  “I don’t expect you to be like Jan, but I don’t like the way you push Erika away all the time. I know she isn’t exactly cool, but she cares about you more than you know. Anyway, I know you’re both disoriented without Dad here, and that’s exacerbating the issue.” Her mother’s mouth quivered in the way that made Melanie at once furious and uneasy. Why couldn’t her mother pull herself together? She didn’t blame her mother for her father’s leaving, and she hated it when her mother seemed to blame herself. She hated that her mother seemed to be moving on, interested in other guys, even lame-looking ones, who wore stupid, trendy man-bracelets. It made it seem like everything, their whole family, Melanie’s existence, was part of a huge mistake.

  Melanie sighed. She knew Erika cared. In fact she cared too much. She was always getting in her business, like the time she took it upon herself to report to their parents that she had been smoking cigarettes, when she’d taken a few puffs off a tangerine-mint-flavored electronic cigarette. Erika had claimed she was concerned about Melanie’s health, but Melanie knew that wasn’t the case. Erika just needed to stick her nose where it didn’t belong. All this crap about showing her concern for Melanie was really a way for Erika to appear superior, a way for her to be like Jan, to seem like the new oldest. “I don’t want to talk about it,” Melanie said, her mouth full.

  Julia buried her face in her coffee cup. It seemed like Melanie, with her prickliness, had won this round. Ever since Mom had found out about “the incident,” Mom had been easier on her. She’d taken her word for it that she didn’t need any tests for STDs. Melanie had known Gerald since forever and knew for a fact he’d had zero real experience with girls. In the meeting with Ms. Jensen, Mom even said that, at least for now, she wasn’t going to mention the whole thing to Dad. She had said something about it being a “women’s issue” and that maybe when and if she was ready they could talk to her father, and consider the part her drinking had played in it all, but for now Mom seemed to think that Melanie needed time to “heal,” and Ms. Jensen agreed, and then sent her off to pudgy Pat Landau.

  Pat Landau had said healing takes time, and she’d explained about trauma, and she even asked Melanie to whack the back of a chair with a stuffed sock, and said that she could visualize Gerald when she was hitting the chair, if that helped. She could visualize whatever made her angriest. But all Melanie could see was Pat Landau, the chair, and the sock, all of which made her angry enough to whack the red metal chair back ten or fifteen times with all her strength. She hated the chair for being one of those school-building chairs you never saw anywhere else. She hated the sock for being a sock, a stupid, stupid prop in a therapy ritual that didn’t help her heal at all, only humiliated her further, since only a total idiot would spend her time whacking chairs and talking to sympathetic, dough-faced therapists.

  If everyone at school would get out of her life, she’d heal just fine. She thought of Jan and Eliza and how they had talked about frat guys at Brown, and boys in high school.

  Maybe what they said about what boys wanted was true. But if it was, what did girls actually want? What had she wanted on the balcony with the good-looking pirate boy who’d laughed at her?

  Melanie suddenly felt stuffed. Mom bent over and got her purse and picked up the bag of Erika’s scones. Melanie knew she’d been irritable with her mother, but this time she didn’t regret it. Mom had pretty much admitted to favoring Erika. Anyway, what was she doing with this whole Scott thing? Why would she want to get a drink with a guy like that? That he had a dog with him was a lame excuse. The whole story made Mom seem a little sad. A little sad and maybe kind of pathetic since Dad was gone. Mom was too old to go chasing after guys like that, guys she knew nothing about, who wore jewelry, who were absolutely nothing like her father.

  When Melanie and Julia got back home, Erika was doing a yoga video in the living room. “Oh, I just started this—anyone want to join me?” Erika didn’t get out of her deep, wobbly lunge, and the sight of her sister straining to hold such a basic pose filled Melanie with contempt.

  “Oh, I’ll give it a try, although I’m so full I think I’ll burst,” Mom said, and Erika paused the video to wait for Julia to change. Melanie stared hard at Erika, who stood alone in the living room in her yoga pants and a gray T-shirt. She wasn’t wearing a bra, but she had the kind of long, sinewy figure that looked great au natural. She had her hair pulled up on top of her head, showing the full length of her golden-brown neck and her improbably tiny ears. Erika wasn’t pretty. She was extraordinary, like some sort of animal, filled with a natural grace. Melanie twirled a strand of hair and tried to feel something other than a pure hatred of her sister, but nothing was there. She couldn’t do it for Mom. She couldn’t do it to keep the peace now that it was only the three of them at home.

  If only Erika had been a normal girl none of this would be happening. The Halloween party would be something Melanie might talk to Jess about once or twice, but it would be her secret to do with what she wanted. Now she was “the girl who . . .” and she’d never live it down, even with her own family. Now Gerald was lost to her—not that he’d ever been so important, but did he really deserve to have everyone in school calling him horrible things? Spitting and jeering at him? But even if he did deserve it, it didn’t help Melanie put the whole thing behind her. It sucked to have a sister like Erika. It sucked to live with a clueless, tattle-tale genius. It sucked to have a sister everyone would die to look like, but no one would ever want to be.

  Melanie went to her room and shut the door. She didn’t open her computer or check her phone, her usual first reflexes whenever she got home. Instead she lay on her bed and looked at the ceiling. There was nothing to be done about the situation at school. What could she say to a bunch of whispering idiots? They’d talk as long as they wanted. Everyone at RD loved drama. Calling Gerald a perv made them all feel righteous. Pitying her gave them some sort of thrill, too. She was like a girl in a book or a magazine or one of Ms. Jensen’s inane scenarios from Adolescent Issues. She was the girl for whom all of that well-meaning adolescent advice came too late. Therapy might allow her to talk about her problems, but it didn’t allow her to fix them. There had to be something she could do.

  19

  It was mid-November—the best time of year to be in the Berkshires. The leaves had mostly fallen and made great mounds on either end of the yard that Gerald and Edward had been forced to rake. Gerald still had the blisters on his hands from the weekend before to prove it. But now were the tasks he’d come to enjoy—the wood-splitting and the burning of debris. Their father had taught them how to do both of these tasks over the last ten years. When the boys were younger—Gerald ten and Edward thirteen—their father had shown them how to clear the area around the brush, removing anything that might burn; how to feed the fire the larger branches and leaves first; and how to tamp the leaves down so the burning leaves wouldn’t be caught in the wind and become airborne fire starters. He’d taught them how to split wood, not because they couldn’t buy all they needed right down the road at Coleman’s shop, but because it was something a guy ought to know how to do. Gerald liked the way the ax felt in his hand. Even more, he liked to use the chain saw with his dad, like
d how the saw’s vibrations ran up his arms and through his chest.

  Now, it was Edward who was working at the edge of the yard battling back the saplings that encroached too far into the grass for his liking. Gerald was readying the leaves for burning. He was carefully pushing the leaves down beneath the larger branches he and Edward had gathered from the property—branches that had fallen last year during the ice storms and nor’easters—branches that had snapped off in the wind, branches they had been lucky hadn’t fallen on the house.

  Gerald had always thought of their city apartment as his mother’s and the country home as his father’s, although, naturally, they each owned them both. The Berkshire house, however, had been Gerald’s father’s family home for at least three generations. At some point, it had been operated as an inn, and it felt that way inside—a rambling place with no real center to it. Once when he was a little boy, Gerald hid on the third floor below the rafters where his mother hung her old clothes, and it had taken the family almost a full hour to find him, although it had occurred to Gerald since then that, perhaps, no one had actually been looking for him.

  Gerald never forgot for a single moment that his father was dead. His absence stood in contrast to everything he saw, everything he felt. But at the house, his father’s absence was so thick, so impossible to navigate, that he had given up trying and simply lived there with his ghost. If he cut wood with Edward, the nearness of his father’s image was with him. If he walked down the road to the store, there was his father, buying the New York Times. If he drove with Edward into town, or snuck a beer from the fridge, always, there was his father, neither approving nor disapproving, but felt as an ever-receding outline. Someone he still longed for, if only to say good-bye.

  Gerald’s father had died the summer Gerald turned twelve. It had been only that spring that his father had begun throwing up blood, so that his mother had taken him to the emergency room. After that, he’d been home only for a few weeks. It had been stomach cancer. It had taken his father without anyone even noticing. Sometimes Gerald wondered what would have happened if one of them had been paying closer attention—if they had caught on to the symptoms a few months, or even weeks earlier. Sometimes he blamed Edward, who was the oldest, and the closest to their father. Sometimes he blamed his mother, who knew everything about him. Often, he blamed himself. He was the quiet, less athletic boy. He didn’t have as much to do as Edward, who played three sports to his one. With all that time Gerald spent messing around in his room, playing video games, you’d think he would have had the time to notice that his father was dying.

  Now, whenever they went to the country, which was most weekends, Edward and Gerald did chores, things their father had always done. They cleaned gutters, and did the yard work. They picked out a new grill. They called the guys to come and remove the old furnace and install a new one. They did these things because their mother was alone. She worked hard all week as an attorney at a midtown firm. She paid their way, along with Dad’s life insurance, for everything they needed. But she wasn’t a strong woman. After their father died, she worked all day, then came home and cooked, and then she drank. Gerald didn’t know how much she drank. He didn’t think she was an alcoholic. But she drank the way some women read or did yoga, as a pastime, as a way to stave off boredom. She was bored with her husband gone, and just the kids to care for. She was bored with her life, and Gerald was afraid of what would happen when she finally realized she didn’t want to drink a bottle of pinot noir each night in front of the TV. He worried that she’d no longer have other options.

  What was different about gathering the yard debris and lighting the fire this time was that Gerald was not content to simply do these things side by side with Edward, each of them working on their own separate tasks until their bodies ached with fatigue. What was different was that Gerald wanted to talk. What was different was that Gerald was so tired of his loneliness, his pariah-like status at school, he’d given in and let the words tumble out.

  It wasn’t until he had asked his question, and stood to throw a last branch on the fire, that it occurred to Gerald that talking to Edward might be a mistake. Edward had displayed an almost brotherly affection toward Melanie Russell for years. Gerald hadn’t missed that Melanie seemed to flirt with Edward and was more inclined to hang around at his house when his brother was home. Gerald had often felt jealous of Edward and annoyed by the way Melanie seemed to hang on his every word. Edward was tall and muscular. He ran winter track and was, without question, the reason Rose Dyer made it to the Independent Schools final conference.

  Edward was on Gerald so quickly, at first Gerald thought he’d been hit not by his brother’s fist, but by a branch that had somehow become dislodged from the brush fire. He thought he had somehow caught fire, the pain in his jaw was so intense.

  The question Gerald asked had touched a nerve. He had begun hesitantly, but then blurted the end out all at once. Had he, Edward, ever, you know, messed around with a girl when maybe he shouldn’t have—when maybe they were both too drunk? It was something Gerald needed to know. He needed to know whether what he had done had been done by other boys, by other men, who were not criminals—who might even be in love with a girl. He wanted to know if it was possible to do something, and to know that it was wrong at the time, but still not be completely at fault. Could drunkenness absolve you of having made a bad, albeit somewhat conscious, decision? Was there something so terrible in what he had done, when he had wanted Melanie Russell for so long, and then she had come to him, so sweetly, so yieldingly, floating on a stream, as it seemed at the time, of rum-spiked punch?

  The blow that landed on Gerald’s jaw was a response to this question. So was Edward’s glowering face that appeared unnaturally contorted over the flames of their bonfire. The ringing in his ears was too loud for Gerald to take in what Edward was saying, but he heard the words “motherfucker” and “loser.” Then he heard something about frying his balls in the bonfire. But that couldn’t be right. Edward had already been walking away. What he’d heard might have just been the wind, or the crackling of the leaves and wood. When he got to his feet, Gerald’s shirt smelled like smoke, and he could taste blood in his mouth. He felt, however, somehow cleansed. He knew now for certain what he’d suspected for the last two weeks at school. That in the eyes of the entire world, he was a piece of shit.

  20

  The clock said six o’clock. Melanie’s first reaction was to roll over and go back to sleep. She usually didn’t get up until at least six thirty, sometimes seven. But then she realized something was wrong. She was in her clothes and her watch was still on her wrist. Out the window, the sun was beginning to set over the Hudson. Melanie had the vague recollection of her mother coming into her room and touching her on the forehead, just as she drifted off to sleep. She recalled feeling her mother’s gaze—her breath as she stood over her, as if waiting for her to wake. Melanie had half wanted to get up, but the effort required to rouse herself from sleep was too great, and she let sleep take her under, like the pull of a wave.

  Now it was six in the evening, and she was groggy. She could hear voices in the kitchen—it was Erika and Jan and Eliza. They must have gotten back from shopping. Jan and Eliza were lucky. They were done with the whole vomit bowl of high school—off in college—free—Melanie couldn’t wait for the day.

  She listened to their voices. They were unpacking the groceries they had gotten for Mom, since Mom had to go uptown to meet with her editor, Dana, at Candy. Melanie had told the others that she had work to get out of the way before the holiday and couldn’t help them shop for Thanksgiving, but that was a partial truth. What work she had could be knocked off in an hour. She simply didn’t want to go along with the rest of them. She had been avoiding Erika every chance she could, and she wasn’t about to change her policy. Her fury at Erika was so intense it was almost a pleasure. When looking at Erika, she could feel her lips curl in a distaste that was almost a smile. She hated the way Erika wore her hair
in a too-high ponytail. She hated the purple Converse sneakers she wore with everything. She hated above all the almost unnatural smoothness of Erika’s skin. She looked like a doll. But a huge doll. A huge ungraceful doll in a constant state of surprise. Whenever Erika wasn’t surprised, she was sad or hurt. Just this morning, Melanie had told Erika to go to school without her and Erika opened her mouth and stared at her like a fish. “Why?” she choked out.

  “I’m changing—I’m not ready,” Melanie had answered and had retreated into the bedroom. She had found some excuse or another every day to leave either before Erika or after her. Occasionally, if they left at the same time, Melanie stopped off in the bodega for a soda or gum. She’d dart in at the last minute, leaving Erika either to follow foolishly, or walking along the street not even realizing, until it was too late, that her sister had bailed on her yet again.

  But Erika hadn’t asked this morning why Melanie wasn’t ready. She’d asked a different question.

  “Why do you hate me?” Erika had asked. “Why do you hate me so much?” She stood there with tears in her eyes, with her book bag on her back, looking like an enormous toddler.

  “I don’t,” Melanie had finally answered. “I just want you to leave me alone. I want you to stay the fuck out of my life.” She wanted Erika neutralized. She wanted Erika to shut up. She wanted Erika to stop looking at her, waiting for her. She wanted Erika to stop.

  Earlier, before she retreated to her room, Melanie had been staring out the window wondering how long it would take Jan to figure out something was going on—or how long it would take Mom to spill the beans to Jan and bring her into the big mess with Gerald, assuming she hadn’t already. That was when Melanie noticed Mom down at the dog run.