Phantom Limbs

by Paula Garner

  I hoped she still had a sense of humor. Meg famously had no sense of direction. In fact, she’d gotten lost on the first day of school in fifth grade, three months after she moved in next door. I was taking the attendance to the front office when I heard someone sniffling in the hallway. Meg had gone to the bathroom and couldn’t find her way back to the classroom. I don’t think anyone was ever so glad to see me in my entire life. Tears shimmered in her eyes, and I almost couldn’t take it. I wanted to put my arms around her, but we had never hugged before. So I just took her to the classroom, quietly pointing out the landmarks along the way: straight past the music room, left after the water fountain . . . When we got there, she looked into my eyes for a long moment before turning to go into the classroom. I still don’t know exactly what was behind that look, but it stirred up feelings in me I’d never had before.

  Meg’s fear of navigating new territory stuck with her. For good reason, too: that girl could leave Chicago heading for Wisconsin and end up in Kentucky. It made me smile. Thank God for GPS. Without it, she’d be a lost cause behind the wheel when she turned sixteen this July.

  I also hoped Meg had another kind of GPS. One that would navigate her back to me.

  I BARELY LEFT MY VIGIL AT THE COMPUTER except to scarf down dinner — spaghetti with a garlicky tomato sauce, fried eggplant cubes, green olives, and fresh basil. I covered mine with grated Romano cheese and spicy red pepper flakes and thought, Meg would like this. She’d been was one of those kids who liked everything — anchovies, blue cheese, sushi, you name it. She single-handedly broadened my palate to span nearly everything — I wanted to like everything she liked. I bit into an olive and recalled our parents’ martini phase — Meg and I liked to nick the gin-soaked olives from their cocktail glasses. Did Meg drink now? Or was she a total square like me?

  Over dinner my mom and dad treated the subject of Meg and her dad’s return like a land mine to be tiptoed around. Before everything fell apart, our parents had been almost as close as Meg and I were. In the summers, we all had dinner together more nights than not, and we often planned our weekends together, too. Our parents referred to us as “the kids,” as if we were siblings. But I didn’t really know exactly how much our parents stayed in touch after Mason died and the Brandts moved away. The geographical distance was probably the least of their challenges. And the subject of the Brandts in general was one all three of us tended to shy away from.

  “You know,” my mom said, swirling the wine in her glass and glancing up at me, “it’s possible they won’t even stay in Willow Grove. They could stay in the city. Jay might want to be close to work.”

  “They’re staying up here,” my dad said quietly. “Could you pass the chili flakes?”

  “They are?” My mom’s eyes flicked to him, sharp, accusing. She didn’t hand him the chili flakes, which were right in front of her, so I reached across and slid them toward my dad. “How do you know?” she asked him. “How much are you talking to him?”

  “I’m not! He mentioned it in his message, that’s all.” My dad picked up the chili flakes and sprinkled them over his pasta so carefully that I was pretty sure he was more worried about setting my mom off than over-spicing his spaghetti. His defensiveness made me wonder if he missed Jay. He must. But my mom was the primary force in his life and we all knew it. He would probably do anything to keep her happy — even giving up a good friend. That didn’t seem fair to me.

  “Well,” my mom said, reaching for the salad bowl, “I don’t see why Meg would want to be up here. She obviously left it all behind when they moved.”

  You could cut the subtext with a knife.

  Something out the dining-room window caught my eye and I glanced up. The kid next door was running after a soccer ball that had rolled into our yard. He dribbled the ball back toward his yard, but his dad rushed in and tried to steal it. Their legs tangled and the boy tumbled to the ground, flinging his arms out dramatically and playing dead. Laughing, his dad pulled him up.

  My dad used to laugh.

  I watched him twirling pasta onto his fork. “Dad? How long have Jay and Karen been separated? Do you know?”

  He shook his head. My mom watched him for a long moment, then stabbed some salad onto her fork. It was so quiet after that I could hear the chewing.

  After practice I had a message from Meg. I read it in the locker room, which did nothing to slow down my post-workout heart rate. Then I endured an interminable six-minute drive home with Dara before I could tear up to my room and open it on my computer:

  I know, it’s kind of crazy. I can’t believe my dad’s really moving back.

  FYI, I’ll be back June 11. We’re staying in that Extended Stay hotel at 43rd and Sanders. You know the one.

  We used to pass it on our bikes. I’m there for three weeks, and then I have to be back after the Fourth.

  I will wisely take you up on that tour, if you were serious.

  For a casual message, it pretty much knocked the wind out of me. I was still reeling from the fact that after three years of silence, here she was, talking to me. And she wanted to see me — I reread that last line about the tour until it was seared on my brain, smiley face and all. And she had referenced Mason, sort of: those bike rides were our unauthorized visits to the cemetery.

  One month. She’d be back in town in one month. It seemed unreal. I wrote:

  I definitely was serious about the tour. June 11, OK. I have a swim meet on the 25th. You’re welcome to come to it, if you want to.

  I considered deleting that. It seemed stupid. Why would she want to come to my fucking swim meet? But I wanted to make it clear that I wanted to see her, and the joke about the tour seemed too easy for her to dismiss.

  I stared at my message, then finally hit Send.

  I tried to study for my calc test while I waited for a response. Finally, at eleven, it came:

  I’d love to come to the swim meet, if I can. So hard to imagine you swimming! In a Speedo and everything? I can’t picture it.

  Just the word “Speedo,” coming from her, sent an electric jolt through me. Did she realize I wasn’t exactly the same skinny little weakling I was when she last saw me? Still, the idea of her thinking about me almost naked gave me palpitations. I had to look better naked than Football Guy. A swimmer and a football player? Please. Bring it on.

  Oh God — had she seen him naked?

  Must. Stop. Thinking.

  I couldn’t come up with a single safe thing to say. Ultimately I just wrote:

  I’m looking forward to seeing you. It’s been a long time.

  Saturday morning after practice, I showered and dressed, then waited in the hall for Dara to come out of the locker room. Kiera emerged, combing her wet hair. “Hey, Otis. You know Dara left, right?”

  “She did?” I checked my phone for a message. Nothing.

  “You need a ride home?” Kiera smiled at me and tipped her head. It reminded me of Meg, who had this way of tilting her head when she asked me a question, or when she listened to me. It made me feel interesting. Important. Loved.

  “Earth to Otis?” Kiera widened her already-big brown eyes and jingled her car keys.

  “That’d be great. Thanks.”

  Kiera’s car was new — a far cry from Dara’s. It had that glorious new-car smell. Dara’s had that chlorine-and-old-french-fries smell.

  “So you’re practicing a lot out of season,” I said as Kiera drove to my house. She knew where I lived without asking for directions, which I decided not to overanalyze. “Don’t you usually just do mornings?”

  She shrugged, squinting against the late-morning sun. “I don’t mind swimming doubles in club season, if I have time. I don’t know how you keep up with homework, the way you train. And don’t you have, like, a four-point-oh GPA?”

  “No,” I said, waving her off — though it actually was pretty close to a 4.0.

  We talked about our honors English class. Kiera thought Chapman was kind of a dud, but I didn’t think he w
as so bad. “Well, sure, you’d think that,” she teased. “You’re his favorite, obviously.”

  I blushed and, unable to locate actual words, made a few random noises.

  When she pulled into my driveway, she turned to me with that provocative smile of hers. “Hey, are you hungry? ’Cause I’m starving.”

  Under other circumstances, I might have said yes, but all I wanted to do was sit and watch for a message from Meg. “I’ll probably just raid the fridge for leftovers,” I told Kiera, picking my bag up. “I have a ton of homework.” I rolled my eyes for effect.

  She nodded, but I felt her disappointment.

  “Thanks for the ride,” I said as I got out of the car. I started up the walkway, habitually averting my eyes from the front bay window. It’s where Mason used to sit, in the window seat, watching for me to get home from school. The perpetual emptiness of that window was a chronic stab of pain. It never got easier.

  Kiera beeped as she pulled away, and I turned to wave. As she drove off, my eyes were drawn to the magnolia, now in obscene full bloom. On impulse, I pulled out my phone and took a picture of it.

  Upstairs, I posted the photo without comment on Facebook, where I never posted anything, and made it public. If Meg ever stalked me the way I stalked her, she might see it.

  I ate lunch, and then worked on my last English homework assignment for the year — a sonnet, courtesy of Chapman and our unit on Shakespeare.

  Fucking sonnets. They’re only ever about one thing: love.

  I was screwed.

  I got up and looked at the window that once was Meg’s. A ten- or eleven-year-old boy lived in that room now, but I could still envision it as it used to be: the violets-and-ivy wallpaper border, the antique quilt that covered her bed, the corner of her room dedicated to her ten thousand stuffed animals, each of whom had a name, a distinct personality, and a complicated backstory that she’d made up — or made me make up. She liked it best when I did it.

  I gazed at the magnolia tree, remembering the view of it from Meg’s window — framed by white lace curtains and her collection of snow globes on the sill.

  Beneath your window our magnolia stands.

  There it was — line one of my sonnet, iambic pentameter and all.

  Froofy. I could hear Dara’s voice in my head. Ignoring it, I stretched my arms, rolled my head around, cracked my knuckles, and continued.

  By evening it was finished. It wasn’t Shakespeare, but I thought it wasn’t bad.

  Magnolia

  Beneath your window our magnolia stands,

  Its blushing petals seem to wave and sigh,

  Its branches like so many outstretched hands,

  In benediction, reaching toward the sky.

  Though winters stilled the beauty springs bestowed,

  And shadows fell where footprints once were new,

  Within my heart the heady mem’ries glowed,

  As fresh and precious as dawn’s sparkling dew.

  This spot where souls and secrets mingled bold,

  Where tender lips surrendered to the night,

  Is now awash in sun’s unearthly gold,

  Thus rendering the scene a holy site.

  New hope illuminates days dimmed by grief;

  You are and e’er shall be my heart’s relief.

  Meg was not a terrible muse.

  Waiting to see if she’d comment about the magnolia photo was killing me. She was probably out for the evening — it was Saturday night, sacred date night for couples. For losers like me, options were kind of pathetic. The guys were getting together at D’Amico’s house for pizza and a slasher movie. They kept texting, cajoling me into coming over, but I wasn’t in the mood. Dara texted, too, saying, Wanna go eat?

  I was about to decline, but then Meg posted a new picture of herself with Football Guy. Apparently he also plays guitar. Fuck me. They had their mouths open in the same position, so I guessed they were singing together. Suddenly I felt like I could use a change of scenery.

  Sure, I texted Dara.

  I waited for her downstairs, watching the NBA playoffs with my dad, while my mom, whose sports interests centered on football, paged through some work papers. My dad and I didn’t know all that much about basketball, but even we knew to root for the Bulls and to hate the Cavaliers. If Meg’s dad had been watching with us, he would’ve yelled for Derrick Rose and complained about bad calls and commented endlessly about pick-and-rolls and triple-doubles and flagrants and other things my dad and I had little comprehension of. I wondered if he was watching the game in California, and if Meg was watching with him. Meg could holler at basketball with the best of them.

  My dad and I cheered as we watched, and soon I heard the screech of Dara’s brakes in the driveway.

  My mom sighed loudly, then looked at me over her reading glasses. “Can’t you get that girl to stop tearing into the driveway like a maniac? You tell her if she can’t drive safely, she won’t be driving you at all!”

  Sure. I’ll do that. Right after I kiss my balls goodbye.

  “If you’d let me get my license,” I said, pulling my jacket on, “I could drive myself.”

  She went back to her papers. “When you get your fifty hours behind the wheel, you can get your license.”

  “Nobody cares about that stupid log!” I’d turned sixteen in October — more than six months ago — but the combination of my training schedule and my mom’s reluctance to let me drive in winter conditions meant I still had no license.

  “I care.” She gave me a pointed look. I met my dad’s eyes; we both knew it was futile to argue with my mom over anything related to child safety. “Keep me posted on where you are,” she said, glancing around for her phone.

  The smell of the lilacs hit me as soon as I stepped out into the warm evening. It wasn’t even dark yet; a last remnant of orange glowed at the horizon. Some kids down the street were shooting hoops and trash-talking in the waning light of dusk. It was almost summer.

  Lou Reed’s distinctive voice emanated from Dara’s car — one of those poetic, stoned-sounding Velvet Underground songs. We were in the 1960s or 1970s tonight.

  Dara sat in the passenger seat, her head tipped back, eyes closed. I peered in at her through the open window. “So what’s going on here?”

  “You’re driving,” she said without opening her eyes.

  “How come?”

  “Guys should know how to drive a stick.”

  There was probably a metaphor in there somewhere.

  “The manual transmission is practically obsolete,” I informed her.

  “You’re obsolete,” she mumbled.

  I rolled my eyes and walked around and opened the driver’s-side door. I fastened my seat belt and looked over at Dara. Her head lolled against the window, her eyes still closed.

  “Are you drunk?”

  She lifted a shoulder.

  I gaped at her. “And you drove here?”

  “God, would you relax? I didn’t drive you, did I?”

  “So? You could’ve hurt someone!”

  I’d seen her drink a beer on countless occasions, but usually just one. I hadn’t considered that maybe it was just the only one I saw.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Just drive.”

  I eased out the clutch as I backed up. I didn’t have a lot of experience driving a stick shift, but Dara had given me a few lessons after I’d gotten my permit. One night last summer, she drove us to the Ascension Cemetery and Mausoleum — thankfully, not the cemetery where Mason was buried. “Cemeteries are perfect for learning to drive,” she had explained. “No one’ll ride your ass for going slow, and you don’t have to worry about hurting anyone — everyone’s already dead.” I struggled with that damn clutch for what seemed like hours, jerking us backward and forward and killing the engine more times than I could count as we both alternated between hollering and laughing hysterically. I wish all of my memories of Dara were as good as that one.

&n
bsp; I drove down the street and came to a complete stop at Willow, looking both ways before proceeding. Dara mumbled, “You drive like an old lady.”

  “Why’d you leave practice this morning?”

  “Oh God. I was freaking out.”

  “Why?”

  “I think Abby asked me on a date.”

  “What?” I tried to keep my eyes on the road. “Why do you think it was a date?”

  “Well, duh! Because it’s Abby.” She put her bare feet up on the dashboard. “She asked me to go to a movie, and we’re not even that good of friends. And sometimes she . . . looks at me in the locker room. And she always wants to help me with my goggles. And my cap, at meets — she’s always the one to put it on for me.”

  “But that’s how she is.” Abby was sort of the mom of the team. I’d always figured she was just being nice to Dara, not that she actually liked her. Liking Dara could be a tall order.

  “Also, she touched my left arm.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “She touched your stump?”

  “Not on the stump, but here,” she said, touching her upper arm. “But nobody’s ever touched that arm except you. And the doctors.”

  “What about your dad?”

  “Please. He doesn’t touch me, period.”

  I hated that man. Russian-speaking, mustached, and barrel-chested, he seemed to go through life managing to avoid eye contact almost completely. I mean, I felt sorry for him, losing his wife and all. But, Jesus, Dara lost her mother. Man up! He was all Dara had. Except for me, I guessed, but I was hardly a fit parental substitute. Half of the time I couldn’t even figure out how to be her friend.

  “Well,” I said, remembering to clutch as I braked for a red light, “maybe she’s just hoping. Or maybe she just wants to be better friends.” I was being circumspect. Of course what I really wanted to know was could Dara be interested in Abby? But I couldn’t ask her outright. At best she’d ignore me, and at worst I’d be holding an ice pack to my nuts all night. “Anyway, you’re graduating in a week,” I pointed out. “Who cares anymore?”