“That’s too bad,” he said, “that’s just one of ten thousand things that’s just too damn bad right now.” The words were tight but not unkind.
He emerged from the shadows with the suitcases, which he plunked up on the porch; Penny slowly followed. Her Frye boots thumped the wood planks. “She doesn’t want to see you right now, though,” I hurried to say to him. “Still kind of mad. You know.” Again, that flicker of a sigh: he knew not to believe me, but he wanted to.
“Right.” He nodded, wouldn’t meet my eyes, then rested one hand on Penny’s shoulder, his fingers jerking in slight tapping motions.
You ass, I thought, hug your daughter, hug her, hug her.
He stammered the sentences: “I—I’ll come by tomorrow, and we’ll grab lunch, maybe buy you some new clothes at the mall. We’ll get Jess to come along. God knows she’s never said no to shopping. She’ll pick you out some things, whatever you want.” To me, he said, “I’ll be at the Palmer House. Tell Jess to call me.”
“Got it,” I said. “The Palmer House.” That wouldn’t be cheap.
Quickly he bent over and wrapped half a hug around Penny; it was pretty awkward and uncomfortable looking—the pillow stuffed between them got in the way—but it may have been the best hug he was capable of with me standing there watching. Penny squeezed the pillow, squeezed deeper into this sad little hug, and her shoulders started heaving.
“Don’t cry,” he said. “Don’t cry, lovey.”
I gasped. For him to say it. This girl belonged to him. This girl was real.
“I miss her,” Penny sobbed.
“I miss her, too,” he murmured, glancing over Penny’s shoulder to finally meet my eyes. I tried to keep my face impassive. I tried not to think anything. I tried to think about where we might have extra sheets and blankets, and then I realized Penny would have to sleep in my bed and I would have to sleep on the couch, in case Jess came back. I realized that Penny would be sleeping in the same room as the boxes of rocks Jess’s mother had given me. I imagined her sleeping with her baseball mitt tucked up near her face. Seeing that would break open anyone’s heart, even Jess’s.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said, murmuring into her hair. “I miss her so much, too.”
She clutched at him harder. “Don’t leave me,” she said.
He stepped back, keeping his eyes locked on to mine. “I’ll be at the Palmer House,” he repeated, like I should be impressed or something.
“Got it.” I imagined that he had met up with Penny’s mother there early on, when he first started cheating. That hotel was right in the Loop, near his office. He would be a man who valued convenience.
And yet. He was more than that kind of easy villain. I didn’t think I was going to cry, but something prickled behind my eyes.
I said, “It’s a really terrible thing that happened. I’m sorry. I know you”—the words had to be so, so careful—“lost someone, too.” Then there was a picture in my mind of him kissing Penny’s mother in a corner room at the Palmer House, pulling her shirt up over her head, years of him pulling her shirt up over her head with his big hands, his gaudy ring, his too-long fingernails. Maybe Penny’s mother liked the ring, the fingernails. Or maybe Penny’s mother liked that he bought real Frye boots for her daughter.
His eyes were larger than I remembered. They kept me transfixed, the way the refrigerator light had earlier, and I thought he should say something—like, maybe, “thank you”—but he simply stared at me. All action, all movement, seemed drained from his body.
“I’ve lost how many people tonight,” he said. “I’ve lost myself.”
So I stepped forward. Again, that same emptiness when I would have wanted to feel something, to feel “now I’m an adult.” I snaked my arms around Penny, feeling the points of her shoulder blades, gently shifting the deadweight of her body off him and onto me. She slumped heavily against me, into me, hard enough that I stepped back for support from the splintered rail; she sobbed into her pillow, onto my shoulder, recklessly, as if she didn’t care where she cried or for how long, as if nothing could stop her.
Once Jess’s dad was free, he hurried down the stairs, down the sidewalk, his fancy shoes clacking on the pavement. He didn’t look back, and I didn’t blame him. I wouldn’t have either. I dragged Penny inside before we had to hear the sound of his car engine, and I sat her on the couch and went back for her two suitcases, which I pulled into the entryway. I grabbed a box of tissues from the bathroom that I plunked onto the coffee table, next to Jess’s mother’s coasters. The sobbing had trailed down to sniffles.
“Such a long day, you probably want to go to bed,” I suggested in the way that left no room for disagreement, and then I yawned to cement the idea.
She yawned back, reached for a Kleenex, and blew her nose. Her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen, and they traced the contours of the room, examining it as if she were an anthropologist studying an ancient culture; I imagined her taking mental notes to tell her mother... then remembering her mother was dead, so I jumped in: “You can have my bed, and I’ll sleep on the couch. I’ll set the alarm so there’s enough time to get ready for... him, when he comes to get you for lunch tomorrow. Towels are in the bottom cupboard in the bathroom, and you can use my Crest. Did you bring a toothbrush? I don’t care if you use mine, which is the red one, but I know that’s kind of gross, so for sure we’ll get a new one for you tomorrow. Um, what else? Want a glass of water? I’ll be right out here the whole night if you need something. Or if you’re hungry, there’s peanut butter and jelly, or some cheese.”
She said, “Where’s Jess? Shouldn’t I at least say hi to her?”
I was standing propped up against the recliner that came with the “furnished” part of the rental, an oversized brown-and-orange tweed behemoth that Jess and I despised because it smelled like cigarette smoke up close. Also, there were cigarette burns in the arm upholstery, which made me think of someone old and sad sitting in the chair smoking at four in the morning, almost falling asleep and burning down the house. Mostly it was just ugly. But I slid down into it. It was actually comfortable if you could get past its immense ugliness.
“Well...” I said.
She watched me, unblinking. The room felt suddenly quiet. I felt she was listening to me breathe. I held my breath until I couldn’t anymore.
I’d forgotten how kids that age don’t know the rules the way adults do. How kids won’t hear “well” and immediately get the nuance of the situation, what isn’t spoken but is as clear as an elephant crowded into a phone booth. And how hopeful kids are. The worst thing about kids, I thought, was all that hopefulness, especially when you were the one going to squelch it.
“So, nothing to eat?”
She shook her head.
“Where’s your mitt?” I asked.
She pulled it out of her fringy leather hippie bag and set it next to her on the couch. I wondered if the purse was a hand-me-down from her mother or if she bought it at a yard sale or what. I thought about asking her, but finally I said, “Jess isn’t here.”
“Where is she?”
“She’ll be back later.”
“When?”
“Later.”
“But she knows I’m staying, right?” Steady words, like water glasses balanced on a tray.
I said, “No. Not yet.”
After a moment, she said, “He knew that, didn’t he?”
I shook my head and nodded and shrugged virtually all at once, the actions of a marionette. But not like I could say, Yep, your dad’s the creep who left you here with me. So I said, “You look tired.” I was tired for real, thinking ahead to a long night on the lumpy couch, the gaps between cushions hitting the wrong places of my back; how it would be me shaking Penny awake in my bedroom tomorrow morning, dragging her into the day, wondering if Jess’s father would show to pick her up and what he’d spend on lunch and shopping. And Jess returning tonight or tomorrow or eventually. And Penny’s dead mother. It was so simple
to take a Tylenol, the simplest thing in the world. “You must be tired,” I pleaded.
“It’s unfair.” Penny looked me straight on and said, “This is what I prayed for all that time? This?” She waved one arm in a vague semicircle. Her voice burned with anger. “This... family?”
“Exactly,” I said, standing up. Not nearly as poetic as “isn’t it pretty to think so.” But she was a smart girl. I liked that about her, though I knew being too smart made everything that much worse.
Part II: The Beginning
Strategies for Survival #5: Practicality
(spring, freshman year)
Jess and I planned to be roommates sophomore year, going in together for the housing lottery. You hoped for a low number, so you could pick exactly the dorm you wanted. North campus or south. The difference was immense: no more trudging Sheridan Road to class, fifteen minutes there and fifteen back, icy winds daggering and slush trashing your boots. Frat parties were on north campus. Dorms with views of Lake Michigan were north. The library was smack in the middle. Communications and English classrooms were south. My work-study job in the admissions office was south. My other job answering phones at the divey take-out pizza place was south. I walked everywhere, and Jess had her car.
Jess wanted to live north, by the parties.
The numbers arrived in our mailboxes on a Saturday in March, sealed in a white envelope stamped DO NOT DISCARD. I was up early, needing a whole day in the library to read the articles on reserve that I’d put off until the test. My number was 37. It was the luckiest I’d been in my whole life. A number like that could mean the top floor of Shedd Hall with the shimmering lake framed by the window, a perfect view of the hugely full moon, glowing white as it rose out of the water. Or a corner suite in the new dorm on the edge of south campus, filled with fresh furniture un-sat on by a million asses, carpets without the ground-in crud of two million feet. Thirty-seven meant that whatever I wanted I could have. Nothing had ever meant that before. This knowledge was so overwhelming that I ran all the way to the library.
Jess’s number was 3201.
“This is stupid,” she said, crumpling the envelope. “Rigged.”
Why anyone in the housing office would care enough to rig dorm rooms wasn’t a concern of hers, or why she in particular would be conspired against.
“What’s yours?” she asked. As potential roommates, we’d use whichever was lowest. We were partners.
I sneezed. Her Kleenex was softer than the brand my roommate bought and definitely was like silk compared with the cheap toilet paper in the hall bathroom. “Higher than yours,” I said. I don’t know why I said that. I guess I liked knowing something she didn’t.
She groaned, then ranted harder. Her father could fix it for us, she said, he could fix anything. She said she’d die if they trapped her on south campus another year. She’d rather go live at home, she said. She’d heard there were dorks and burnouts who sold their numbers. She said, “I’d pay anything for a good number. Like something under a hundred. Like double digits.”
“Wow,” I said, “sell a housing number? Totally scummy.” My used tissue looked pale on her roommate’s desk.
“Right.” Jess shook her head. “Still. Sure wish I knew who those people were right now.”
What ended up happening was that she met Tommy at a frat party that night. He lived in his fraternity house, up on north campus. Jess decided that she absolutely would have to move to north campus no matter what, or she’d lose out on Tommy. She told me her dad called some people, and so by the time we reported to the housing office, she had a good number for us.
What also happened was that I knew a guy who knew someone who handed over a bundle of fives and tens in exchange for my 37: $135, bargained up from $120, when what I got from the pizza restaurant was $20 out of the cash drawer for a five-hour weekend shift of jangling phones, never sitting down, and endless complaints from rich college kids about their order taking forever.
The number Jess got for us, the number that snagged a corner room with a lake view on the fourth floor of Shedd Hall, was 37. A hundred and thirty-five dollars was so much money for me. But I should have realized there was always more.
Anyway, during our sophomore year, because Jess declared herself in love with Tommy, she spent most nights with him, over there at his single in the frat house, which she said reeked of beer and bong water and Polo cologne. Now and then, as I was changing into my good sweater or slicking on lipstick before meeting whichever guy promised he was into me, I caught a giant moon out the window. Everyone was right: on certain nights, the white moon hung suspended, tremendously huge and low, ascending from the waters of Lake Michigan. It might have seemed magical if I hadn’t taken astronomy, where we learned that the simple fact was the moon is always the same size. This “moon illusion” was in our heads. Simply bend over and look upside down through your legs, the professor explained, and the moon would appear normal. “Not on the test,” the professor had said, “just something interesting to ponder.”
BAD GIRL
(spring, sophomore year)
Then this happened in April, near the end of our sophomore year, on a very warm, very sunny Thursday, one of those astonishing days when the sky over Lake Michigan widens ten times bigger, throbs a thousand times bluer. Dramas eddy all around—couples split up or accidentally create babies no one wants or shriek regretful words or whisper them under their breath. The thing is you don’t know this. You remember only your own drama, though you won’t recognize it as such until later.
He wore a blue shirt—nothing special, something vaguely denim with white buttons that were more lustrous than regular white buttons. Faded, milky blue, soft to the touch. Well, I didn’t know it was soft because I couldn’t touch it, not even the sleeve, not even that way girls might laugh too long at a dumb joke, that laugh the excuse to seize the guy’s arm. Flirting 101.
But I wasn’t allowed to do that with him, with my best friend’s boyfriend.
Off-limits.
We were skipping our one o’clocks, the three of us, heading to the strip of south campus beach along Lake Michigan. He juggled two ratty lawn chairs; I carried the blanket. I would end up on the blanket—he and Jess would take the chairs. That’s how it would be. I should have gone to class. There was a quiz—I’d already missed two or three quizzes or four. I would have to absolutely ace the final. I shouldn’t have liked that pressure, but it was interesting, that tinge of excitement.
We complimented the day as if we had planned the weather ourselves: spring in Chicago had never been so warm, the sky never this blue. We talked as we set up the chairs, the blanket, the bottle of once-icy vodka lemonade, sweaty now in its paper bag. We talked as if no one in the history of the world had ever had such a conversation, such thoughts; as if we weren’t surrounded by dozens of students cutting one o’clocks, pulling out icy vodka bottles.
“Take the chair,” Tommy said.
“I’m fine down here,” I said, sprawling across the blanket, automatically stroking the frayed corner that had been at my cheek when this blanket covered my childhood bed in Iowa.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “The chair is better.” He plopped down next to me.
“Yes.” From above, Jess’s voice bumped in. “The chair is better. Don’t be ridiculous.”
He sat close. The shadow of one blue sleeve skimmed my bare arm. Neither of us moved, not even to breathe. The water seemed far away, though a quick run and you’d plunge in. The lake would be frigid this time of year. No swimming.
I had to breathe, so I turned toward Jess, who adjusted her sunglasses against the glare. She wore a black bikini bottom. Her legs weren’t well shaved, so a band of goose bumps rose along each shin. There was a bikini top, but over it she wore a lavender tee with cut sleeves and a torn neckline; her shirt also looked impossibly soft. And expensive. If I owned that shirt, I wouldn’t have had the heart to slash it up. I had watched her go at it with a big pair of cheap scis
sors. “What if you don’t like it when you’re done?” I had asked. “I’ll buy another,” she’d said, “and give this one to you.” But she liked it fine. The color was good on her. She knew it. She cinched the waist in a side knot, unknotted it, knotted it again.
“Loose,” I recommended from the blanket.
“You’re right,” she agreed, letting the shirt hang free. She looked like a picture in a magazine, an ad that makes you want to be there, makes you believe the product totally would be the thing to transform your life. That was how she always looked.
I had on elastic-banded gym shorts and a discolored high school mascot T-shirt that had shrunk. The thing I did was not wear a bra. My breasts were small enough that I could do that easily and comfortably, almost casually, but also the thing was that this tiny T-shirt was pale blue, virtually faded white. It was how to get attention.
But he was staring straight out at the water, not at me, not at Jess. His mirrored sunglasses reflected the unruffled lake and the empty sky. Near us: a noisy frat-boy Frisbee game with profuse arguments. Gaggles of sorority girls lay flat on their backs, absorbing sunlight, impervious to the proximity of the uncaught Frisbee, the tornadoes of kicked-up sand, the sky, the day, aware only of the glow of their serene radiance. A couple plunked next to bikes tangled in the sand, alternating bites of a sandwich, first him, then her, distracting me with the inefficiency of their eating. People were all around, the sun was all around. A guy with a beard flopped on the bare sand reading a thick paperback, but I couldn’t see the title. I was thinking that if I could, I might feel less alone, though also maybe more.
I usually felt alone. Maybe he did, too, that guy rhythmically shaking sand from the pages of his book, and this ache might be something we shared. I couldn’t tell.
After Jess and I met way back on that first day, she told me I was the only girl in the dorm she could stand for more than a couple of hours, the only person who understood her. She wasn’t that hard to understand, I didn’t think, but I understood not to tell her that. She wanted to be understood. Not me. This is how we knew we could be friends.
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