The Window

by Jeanette Ingold

  Also, I've got my dress for the dance Friday and I don't know what I look like in it, although Aunt Emma tries to tell me when I put it on so she can mark how much to take up the hem.

  "The copper matches the highlights in your hair, Mandy," she says. "A nice fit—you've got a sweet figure."

  Uncle Gabriel asks, "Isn't it a little old for her?"

  "Nonsense," says Aunt Emma. "She's a young lady."

  It's the lowest-cut thing I've ever owned, except a swimsuit, and Aunt Emma says I'm a lady in it. I hope, somewhere, Mom's laughing.

  On dance night Hannah picks me up, the way we planned. We get Ryan and go last to Ted's.

  "Let's all go in," Hannah says before I have to ask where the door is. Also, this way I can leave my cane in the car, and that's been worrying me. I want Ted to see me in my new dress, without it.

  Ted's parents are just like Aunt Emma was after the football game, acting like this date is Ted going on a world cruise. His mother takes so many pictures she has to change film, and his dad offers us cookies. Then his mother fusses over my dress and Hannah's and fixes and refixes Ted's tie.

  "I'm sorry about that," says Ted as we walk to the car. He sounds absolutely, miserably embarrassed, which is one way I've never heard him sound before.

  "Parents," says Ryan, like it's no big deal. "They're all like that."

  I barely hear Hannah's quiet, "No, they're not."

  The dance is fantastic.

  Whatever worry Ted had about not hearing the music, I realize right away it's not going to be a problem. The DJ has the volume up loud enough to feel, and certainly loud enough to blast its way past Ted's ears.

  And I know I can dance. I always have been able to, even if it used to be alone, in front of a mirror.

  There's a moment when Ted shouts in my ear, "Want to try?" that I'd chicken out if I could. But he's pulling me into an empty spot, and I'm moving, little movements, and then bigger and bigger.

  Dancing in the dark is like nothing I've ever done before. Sometimes I brush against Ted, or get bumped by somebody else, but even that feels good. I dance, and the music goes on and on, and I can imagine what everything looks like with me in the middle of it all.

  Me, Mandy, in the middle of it all.

  I'm having such a good time it's a shock when the music stops.

  "Mandy," says Ted, and his voice seems both unsure and proud, "you're beautiful."

  No one's ever told me that before.

  When the music starts back up, Ted has to ask, "Are you ready?" because I'm still standing there thinking about what he said.

  I find the beat. "Ready," I answer.

  We're out there for dance after dance, until suddenly it's time for the DJ to take a break and Hannah and Ryan are next to us. "Come on," Hannah says, "let's get in line for pictures."

  And while we're waiting she whispers, "Where'd you learn to dance like that? Mandy, you're good."

  "How was the dance?" Emma asks. She and both uncles have waited up.

  "Wonderful," I say.

  The room is warm from how happy they are for me.

  They've got the TV on, and I sit down next to Emma on the sofa. She puts an arm around me, pulls my head to her shoulder. "A good time, huh?"

  Her shoulder is bony and soft at once. I guess it won't hurt to be held, a little while.

  Then, upstairs, I find someone has gotten my room ready for me. My bed is turned down, my window open, the lace curtains down from their hooks.

  I don't want to be pulled out there, not now, not when, for once, things are close to perfect.

  But I hear a voice calling, Gwen's mother calling her, and I can't shut it out. I'm drawn, slow and unwilling, into Gwen's world. Slow like a spoon being pulled from honey. Past limp curtains that hang summer still even though it's December, I'm pulled into a syrup night.

  I feel as though I'm somersaulting slowly through the thick night into a motionless day.

  Turning in slow motion to see my room. Its painted pink walls bounce sunlight so bright it hurts my eyes. A clutter of things that aren't mine—bobby pins and nail polish and movie magazines—cover the dressing table.

  It is a day that feels no degrees, and Gwen is stretched out on the bed, looking too hot to move. I can feel the uncertainty in her, knotting her belly....

  "Gwen, GwwennnNNN ... I need you!"

  Gwen rolled onto her stomach. If she didn't answer, maybe her mother wouldn't come for her. Wouldn't need her enough to climb all those stairs to come get her.

  Hot. It seemed like the hottest August ever.

  She pulled the back of her shirt out of her shorts and waited for the fan to come around and dry her back. Rolled over and bared her front. Felt the sweat evaporate so fast her stomach chilled into goose bumps even while the rest of her poured more sweat.

  She covered her ears against her mother's footsteps coming up the attic stairs.

  "Gwen, didn't you hear me ... Gwen! Pull down your clothes and get off that bed. That's no place to be in the middle of the day, anyway, and you without a shred of modesty. I don't know what..."

  "Gwen, why didn't you..."

  "Gwen, how many times have I told you..."

  "I'm coming, Mama," said Gwen, sitting up as if she was. But when her mother's footsteps went away, Gwen dropped back. Remembered...

  "Gwen, come away with me," Paul had said, his face sweaty against hers. "Gwen, I love you."

  And Gwen had wondered if she would ever know him well enough to say, "You were the first person to tell me that." Probably not, he'd think she was saying he was the first boy. How do you tell someone you're from a house where nobody says "I love you"?

  "Gwen," he'd said, "please come with me."

  And she'd known he'd meant to Louisiana, where they'd find someone who'd not push questions about how old she was and who'd marry them. Marry them, and when Paul left to join the Air Force, his going wouldn't be an end—they'd be married.

  "OK," she'd said. It had seemed so much better than staying home and snapping beans forever in the hot summer.

  She'd made up a story for her mother about visiting a girlfriend and she'd gone off with Paul.

  Come back with Paul three days later, in time for him to report for induction. "I'll send for you as soon as I can," he'd promised.

  Come home alone and told her mother she'd had an all right visit with her girlfriend.

  And now the afternoons were hotter than ever, and she had to tear up Paul's letters once she read them because they started, "Dear Wife."

  Dear God, fifteen. What had she done?

  Her mother was again at the foot of the stairs. "Gwen, I want you downstairs now, and working..."

  Chapter 10

  SATURDAY MORNING I sleep late and stay in bed even later, my thoughts going back and forth between Gwen and the dance.

  Gwen, secretly married at fifteen?

  Me, a success at a dance? I run my fingers along my face and wonder if it has changed from the way I remember Am I really beautiful, like Ted said?

  I hear Emma and Gabriel in the hall beneath the attic stairs. Gabriel's heavy footsteps come partway up to my door, but I hold my breath and keep perfectly still. He goes back down, says, "I think she's still asleep, Emma."

  "Let her be," Emma answers. "I used to sleep in after a dance, too."

  And a moment later I hear Emma laugh. "Put me down, silly. I've too much to do for dancing in the middle of the day."

  But Gabriel's singing something, and his footsteps are in three-beat time. And then he switches to another song, and it's one my mother used to like.

  Mom ... I remember how she'd hum it. Her body wouldn't really move, but she'd seem like she was swaying, lost in a still waltz.

  I remember her sitting in front of her makeup mirror, humming, frowning a bit because she was trying to match a magazine picture. The lipstick was dark stuff, deep red.

  "It says you've got to respect your contrasts," Mom said.

  Mom must have bee
n about forty then. The deep color made her look even older, but I didn't want to tell her.

  It was Christmas morning, the Christmas morning we were living in Florida, and we didn't either one of us have anything to do. I'd given her a leather key case with her name, Karen, stamped on it, and she'd gotten me a necklace with a silver flamingo, but we'd finished opening those in about five minutes and the hours had stretched out since.

  Mom leaned closer to the mirror, seemed to decide she was done and she wasn't going to stay in the apartment any longer. "Come on, kid," she said, "let's join America."

  So we'd gone out to join America, only America had closed down. The mall was shut, the drugstore, even the kosher deli was shut.

  We'd driven to the beach and walked along it, with the old people who were walking two by two, and I thought they were having a lonely Christmas, also.

  I'm still in bed, thinking about my mother and about Gwen, when the doorbell rings. I hear Uncle Abe calling, "I'll get it."

  A minute more and Hannah's in my room.

  "I guess I should have phoned first," she says.

  "I wasn't really sleeping."

  I wonder if I should tell Hannah what Gwen has done. It would be fair—Gwen's our secret that we share. But ... my grandmother, married at fifteen'? Such a thing wouldn't happen in Hannah's family, and I don't want her to look down on me.

  Besides, it's another personal thing, personal to Gwen, I mean. It wouldn't feel right to expose her like that.

  Then I realize Hannah's trying to tell me something.

  "...aren't getting along," she's saying. "They whispered all night, mean whispers, and this morning Dad said he'd be gone for a few days. Mom looked like she'd been crying."

  "Everybody fights," I say, the first thing that comes to mind. Actually, I don't have the faintest idea if that's true. I haven't heard Gabriel and Emma fight, and they're the only couple I've ever lived with.

  But I've said what Hannah wants to hear, and soon she's rummaging through my dresser, looking for shorts.

  "It's practically summer outside," she says. Her voice is too bright, and I know she's already regretting telling me about her folks. "It really is a lot warmer than usual. Really warm for December. Maybe we can even get tans."

  "In December? In the morning?"

  "It's afternoon. Didn't you know?"

  Hannah's like a cat, moving about my room. I can feel the energy coming off her, the way you can feel it come off the big caged cats at a zoo.

  "Don't you ever feel like breaking out?" she asks. "I feel like I can't breathe in here."

  Now she's dragging me downstairs, saying, "Let's sleep outside tonight. You ever sleep outside, Mandy?"

  "Outside?" I echo, feeling dumb but not sure I know what she means.

  "In a tent?"

  We find Emma sorting wrapping paper. She says, "Certainly you can't sleep outside. It's December."

  But Hannah promises we'll keep warm and the weather forecast is good, and I hear myself saying, "Please, Aunt Emma."

  So while I'm getting dressed, Hannah helps Uncle Gabriel get an old tent from the barn, a pup tent from his army days, he says. They set it up by the side of the house.

  Hannah and I spend the rest of the afternoon hauling stuff out to it, like we're preparing a room to move into. We run an extension cord so we can plug in my CD player. Get a cooler from the pantry and fill it with ice and sodas. Take out blankets and pillows and two big feather comforters.

  I'm blowing up an air mattress, listening to hear if air's escaping out any holes, when it comes to me that I'm going to be outside at night, out where Gwen's and the others' voices have come from.

  As though Hannah and my aunt have each caught some small part of my thoughts, Hannah says she wishes we had her Ouija board, and Emma asks, "Are you sure you girls won't be scared?"

  Gabriel reassures her. "We'll keep our bedroom window open. The girls can call if they need anything."

  We go out to stay about nine o'clock, and Hannah tells me it's a dark night, without any moon.

  "Hang on to me, Mandy," she says, "I've got the flashlight." Then we start giggling because that's crazy, the dark is no different for me.

  We settle in, and the temperature's dropped enough that the blankets feel good. About the time Hannah's saying we should have got hot chocolate instead of cold drinks, Aunt Emma comes out.

  "I've brought you girls a couple of my flannel nightgowns," she says. "I don't want either of you getting sick this close to Christmas."

  And after she leaves we pull them on over our T-shirts and underpants.

  And maybe it's that, being out of the house in mainly underwear, that makes this night seem wild and wicked and not a night to just let end.

  "You sleepy, Hannah?" I ask.

  "No."

  "I wish we could do something, go someplace."

  A car drives by on the road and slows down.

  "Mandy," says Hannah. "The lights picked up our tent."

  She pauses, draws in her breath, whispers, "What if it's a kidnapper? Or a serial killer?" Hannah is faking fright, and I realize she feels the excitement in this night the way I do.

  "Hannah, save me. I'm too young to die," I say, trying to sound terrified.

  Hannah switches to her phony voice, the one she used with the Ouija board. "It might be," she says, spacing her words, "the Texas ax murderer. The one who likes young girls!"

  She grabs me so fast I scream before I can help it, and she says, "Shush!"

  "You two all right down there?" Emma calls.

  "We're fine, thank you," Hannah calls back.

  I hear her move to the foot of the tent and undo a couple of snaps.

  "Mandy," she says, and this time her voice really is a bit shaky, "the car's backing up." Then, and her voice is altogether different, "Mandy, I think it's Ted's car ... It is."

  She's gripping my arm and undoing the rest of the snaps. "Be quiet," she says and pulls me, almost running, toward the street.

  Almost running, and it feels like flying; I'm moving fast along the lawn in Aunt Emma's nightgown. My bare feet pound on winter-dry cold grass, pound down on stinging thistles, and cool air blows up my legs. Hannah says, "Careful," just as we bump up against Ted's car.

  "You OK, Mandy?" It's Ryan's voice. There's a pause and then he adds, "Pretty sexy clothes."

  "You like?" asks Hannah.

  Ted ignores the two of them. "You shouldn't be barefoot, Mandy. You could step on a piece of glass or something." He must realize how fussy he sounds. "You want to go into town for something to eat?"

  "Now?" Hannah asks. "We can't..."

  "Why not?" I hear myself saying, and then I'm getting in the front seat next to Ted, and Hannah's in the back with Ryan.

  And for an hour we drive around town, ducking every time we meet another car because Hannah and I are in Aunt Emma's nightgowns.

  Except at the hamburger place, where we get french fries and Hannah knows the girl at the drive-in window. "Sit up and say something, Mandy," she whispers. "We'll pretend we're going to a costume party."

  And then, after all that hiding, we're driving along listening to the radio when suddenly Hannah says, "Ted, stop."

  She reaches past me to turn the music up loud, and in another minute all four of us are out in the middle of the road, dancing. Dancing in the headlights of Ted's car, lights that shine through my eyelids when I turn toward them.

  Cars go past and everyone honks, and the guys are laughing as hard as we are.

  Then Ted says, "That's a police cruiser," and we scramble back inside his car.

  We're sitting in the car's four corners, trying to act like we haven't been doing anything unusual, when the patrolman comes to the window. He swings his flashlight around; I see the light when it crosses my eyes.

  "You kids OK?" His voice gets louder, I guess at some indication from Ted. "Everything all right here?"

  "Yes, sir," says Ted.

  But the patrolman says, "Girls?
" and waits until both Hannah and I answer.

  "Then you better get on home and get dressed," he says.

  "Yes, sir," says Ted again, and then, once we're driving, we laugh and laugh like we're going to laugh forever. I say, "Ted, he meant us, Hannah and I should get dressed."

  "How do you know?" Ryan asks, and the four of us about die laughing, Ryan the hardest, and Hannah tells Ted to watch the road.

  Chapter 11

  HANNAH AND I wake up in the tent, sometime in the middle of the night. It's cold and damp, and I say, "Hannah, let's go up to my room." We go inside, climb into my big double bed, which is chilly, too, until the sheets warm.

  And then we don't wake up again until Aunt Emma's at the steps, calling that if we're not downstairs within the hour we'll miss lunch.

  "I can't believe we did that, go to town in nightgowns," Hannah says.

  "Me either."

  "My mom would kill me."

  "Aunt Emma, too," I say, even though I don't think she would. "I had fun last night."

  "Me, too." Hannah pauses, and I get the idea she's choosing her next words carefully. "Mandy, don't take this wrong and get all huffy, but I want you to know I really admire you." Her voice takes on a raw edge, like she's suddenly close to tears. "I mean, whatever happens, you just kind of charge forward and deal with it, and I'm not always so good at that."

  There's no way I can imagine she's joking because her voice tells me she's not, and I'm too stunned to answer quickly enough.

  Hannah turns over, and when she speaks again the rawness is gone. "I guess if my folks get a divorce my brother and I will stay with Mom. Dad will probably get us on weekends."

  "Is that what you want?"

  "That's how it's usually done," she says. "Want doesn't come into it."

  "Want doesn't come into it." Gwen's mother's words, and hearing Hannah say them makes the skin on my arms tighten into goose bumps.

  Hannah asks, "Should I pull up another blanket? You shivered."