Max shows me that the frame has a secret compartment on the back where he has hidden a folded note with a birthday message. When I read it, tears stream down my face. Everyone wants to see what it says, but Max insists it’s private. Not that I would share it with anyone anyway.
Last year my birthday breakfast looked very similar, except Bill was there. He gave me the coolest present I’ve ever received. It’s an old Viewfinder, one of those red binocular-shaped toys that you put slides in. He had created a wheel of personal slides. Images of all the places in the world we always talked about wanting to see. And on each one, he had superimposed pictures of us. So there was me and Bill in a market in Morocco, on a bridge in Paris, with Sherpas on a misty trail in the Himalayas. I catch Max in my room looking at it a lot.
Gordy hasn’t given me a heads-up as to what he has in store for today, other than “it won’t suck.” Once he’s scarfed the rest of the pancakes, he tells me to get stuff to go out on his boat. As I’m packing up a little bag, I get a text. It’s from Amanda. Happy Bday! Luvd hanging w/ u. We’re in NYC this wknd but c u Mon.
We.
So much for living the dream. My day, my life is ruined. I can tell myself all day that “we” is simply her family. But a picture of Amanda and James dressed as Daisy and Gatsby kissing in a rowboat in Central Park flashes into my mind. I’m happy for them. Really. The world is the way it’s supposed to be. And I will adjust to it. I’ll have to.
Gordy keeps his boat at Maxwell’s Shipyard. It’s a twenty-two-foot Seacraft with huge twin engines on the back. I love going fast in this boat. Gordy is a masterful driver and always makes me feel safe. We cruise across the sound over to Fishers Island, which is the most indescribably beautiful and serene place I know. After docking at the abandoned Coast Guard station, we hike across the not-yet-open golf course, and brilliantly colored pheasants streak across the ground in front of us.
Gordy takes my hand and silently points out three baby deer with their wobbly just-born legs. And while I stand there holding his hand, Kelly’s absurd little theory comes back into my mind. And I look over at Gordy’s profile, trying to see him with fresh eyes. And I see exactly the guy Kelly described. Rugged and beautiful at once. Kind and strong. We are connected to each other in a way nothing else could duplicate.
We get to Isabella Beach, which is my favorite beach, not just because of the dunes and the soft sand but because when you look out, all you see is an unimpeded view of the Atlantic and the horizon and the sky above.
He has packed a lunch with all of my favorite stuff. He made deviled eggs with plenty of hot Chinese mustard, Vietnamese spring rolls stuffed with crab meat (which he drove to New London to get from this little restaurant), followed by my de rigueur pièce de résistance, a gooey, dripping, cheesy meatball grinder from Universal Package Store. Dessert is homemade brownies and Joe Froggers (ginger cookies that whalers used to take to sea because they were not only protection against nausea, but they’re made with no dairy so they don’t spoil). He scored a six-pack of Stella Artois (which I appreciate as beyond the normal range of our Natty Light budget).
We sit on the tapestry he brought, eat our feast, and then play a few rounds of our competition Lightning Crossword. This consists of purchasing two ninety-nine-cent crossword puzzle books from the checkout line at the A&P, choosing one at random, and madly seeing who can finish first. I have never beat him at this. He knows more words than I do; he just doesn’t feel the compulsion to use them. He is, after all, a jock. He also scored higher (slightly) on his verbal PSAT. However, I crushed him in the math. Which he still resents.
As I race against him, I point out that it would be polite to let me win because it’s my birthday. “And,” he says, “because you’re just a girl.”
He kicks my ass.
After this, we lie down beside each other and take a nap in the sunny breeze. I always feel comfortable and safe with him. I wonder what he’s dreaming about. I wonder if he’s dreaming of me. As always, any daytime naps that Maggie or I take don’t seem to count. We never dream then.
When I wake up from my dreamless nap, Gordy is looking out at the white house on the cliff down the beach.
“Should we live in that one when we get married?” he asks.
“Oh, absolutely. We’ll have to do a lot of work, of course. Tear down walls and make it a lot bigger so the kids will have room to run around.”
He looks at me. I can’t tell what he is thinking.
“Kids need room,” is all he says.
On the way back in, we stop in the lee of Mouse Island so Gordy can pull up one of his lobster traps and pick out a couple of two pounders for dinner. The sun is setting beyond the tiny island, casting gold flecks in the water. I take the wheel and hold the boat into the wind as he hoists the trap onto the boat. His arms are so strong and he’s not at all afraid as he pulls the lobsters from the trap and snaps rubber bands over their pinchers.
Back at his place, we are alone. His folks are visiting his mom’s dad in Maine. Grandpa Tuck has been fighting cancer for a while and lives alone. I’ve met him lots of times, even spent a week up in Maine one summer with Gordy when we were nine. His grandpa taught us to whittle, and I made a seal out of driftwood that had washed up on the rocky shore of the little island he lives on. A jellyfish stung my leg, and I made Gordy pee on me because that’s the only way to neutralize the pain. He made me close my eyes. But I peeked.
So now I watch Gordy fling living creatures into boiling water that will scald them alive. He doesn’t find this any more cruel than eating a hamburger and feels that I’m irrational in being upset to witness the execution. I don’t know if cows scream when you slaughter them, but I guess they must. I know I would. So I listen to the lobsters’ screech (which is actually only water bubbles moving through their shells since they have no vocal cords; apologies to the Little Mermaid), and I wonder if I could spend the rest of my life with a man who is unaffected by that sound.
Kelly’s theory has become an internal debate. Could I spend the rest of my life with Gordy? Sure. Could I sleep with Gordy? Wow. I don’t know. But I certainly don’t go “ick,” so what does that mean? Probably nothing.
While we eat, I realize that this would be incredibly romantic or scary with any other guy. Maggie is unflappable. She just rolls into the fanciest restaurant on the arm of this older guy and doesn’t feel nervous at all. I’m rarely that self-assured. With Gordy in his kitchen, I feel confident and comfortable. Like just being myself is enough.
Gordy stares at me as I pick apart a piece of lobster. I can tell he wants to talk about this cheerleader Melissa who he dates whenever he needs a date. Her distinguishing trait is that she sucks. She is the classic bitch that boys always go for because they figure she must be too good for them. She is not too good for The Weed, let alone Gordy. Every time she treats him like shit, he laughs it off, telling me that it’s just because he won’t really make her his girlfriend.
But tonight, he asks if maybe he should give her a shot to be a real girlfriend, him having to find a prom date and all.
“You aren’t serious. This is a skank from skanksville. She is not worth the fifteen seconds we’re wasting on her right now.”
He smiles. “You always say that. Nobody’s good enough for me. That’s why you’re always stuck hanging out with me. Seems like you’d wise up and palm me off on somebody sometime.”
I study him, looking to see if he’s wondering what I’m wondering. No way to tell, so I take the first step.
“You ever think what it would have been like if we’d ever dated?”
“Nope. I don’t like rejection enough to fantasize about it.” And he laughs.
“Seriously. ’Cause I think about it sometimes.”
“It would depend on the reason we started. If it was casual, I might be lucky enough that it would be sort of like now. Only with sex.” And he wiggles his eyebrows to make a joke of that word so I won’t think it has ever been on his mind for
real. Which of course I now do. Not that there is anything wrong with that.
“What if it wasn’t casual?” I ask. “What if we wanted to see if we were actually right for each other?”
“The truth is”—Gordy takes a deep breath—“I think you’d have realized that there isn’t enough of me to keep you interested in that way. And maybe it would have broken us up, or made things weird between us.”
I stare in his eyes. I feel so terrible.
“This is a silly conversation, and I’m going to end it in one second and get back to my birthday with you. But before I do, you need to hear that there is more than enough of you to be of interest forever to any girl in this world.”
There is a silence.
“I actually baked a birthday cake,” he says. “From a box, but still. I’m really scared to try it.”
“We’ll drown it in Häagen-Dazs and hot fudge. Do we have hot fudge?”
He smiles. “And salted caramels. After all, it’s your birthday.”
We talk and eat and watch my favorite movie, which is Breakfast at Tiffany’s. He doesn’t get me home until one thirty.
Sitting on my bed is a small neatly wrapped package, obviously a paperback book. Nice ribbon, though. But there’s no card. I open it to find…
A copy of Siddhartha, which of course I read when I was twelve. The book was dog-eared and well used. Inside the title page is neatly printed: This is the first copy I ever read, and the notes are a little embarrassing, but first impressions often are. It struck me that there are thoughts in here I’d like to talk to you about someday. Happy birthday.—J.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
maggie
Emma hands me a book titled Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming.
“I hope you’ll read it. There are some thoughts in there I’d like to discuss with you,” she says as I begin to read the summary on the back of the book.
Of course I’ve done enough research into my, let’s call it my condition, to know that lucid dreaming is when you are aware you are dreaming. Tibetan yogis are really good at it. It’s not really a quick answer for our particular situation because I know I’m dreaming when Sloane is awake, just as she knows she’s dreaming right now.
“I think you have constructed an extremely intricate, recurring, controlled lucid dreamscape. And I think you did this out of necessity to try to comprehend your life and yourself in a world where your father no longer exists.” She says this very slowly, looking right at me. I’m critical of her delivery because it feels so rehearsed. But also because it doesn’t make sense. I wish it did.
“Thank you for taking the time to come up with that. But there are two problems with your theory. First, I’ve been dreaming of Sloane for as long as I can remember, before my father died,” I start. “I know all about her life, when she was a kid.” Emma interrupts with the answer she has prepared, knowing I would say this.
“You believe that now. But it could’ve begun when your father died and your unconscious created the belief and the memory that you have always dreamt of Sloane. Your mind filled in the details of her past.”
“Okay. Well, I don’t control Sloane.”
“You may not feel like you are controlling what Sloane does in your dream, but you are using her nonetheless. There are parts of you that you’re not willing to look at, so you keep them in the dark by living them out through Sloane. If we can get you to understand that, then you can consciously use your dream of Sloane to gain clarity about your own life, and you won’t need her anymore. And it’s time we begin to do that. Now.”
Her voice lowers, gets almost ominous. “At the moment, you at least still have control of your world, the real world. If we let this go much longer, I’m afraid that could change.”
I start to imagine what that would be like and it terrifies me so much I actually close my eyes.
“Thanks for the book,” is all I say.
That afternoon, I am suddenly motivated to read my GED material. I leave the book on lucid dreams next to my bed. Maybe by osmosis I’ll pick something up.
I get so engrossed in the Congress of Vienna, basically because the characters read like a dynamite stage play (Metternich, Talleyrand, those guys), that by the time I look up, it’s four o’clock, and like any good mom, I realize an hour late that Jade isn’t around.
I know she had no playdate today because I’m scheduled to take her to ballet, which Miss Twinkle Toes never misses. Maybe she just forgot about me and headed to Ms. Jeffries’s studio with one of her friends. But when I call the class, they are concerned because she isn’t there.
I call Nicole, basically because I love wasting my time under stress, and it is, after all, my best opportunity to talk to Jerome and hear yet one more excuse about how my mother is the world’s most unavailable person. No, she didn’t take Jade to ballet, didn’t say anything about it, and has been in budget meetings for the last four hours.
I dial the school. No one answers because anyone who would answer a phone is gone for the day. Nice job.
I come to my senses and call the kid’s Hello Kitty cell phone. No answer, which is alarming because she never switches it off. So as a rational and mature person, I’m positive it’s a brain tumor. She’s lying on a street somewhere, being stepped around by compassionate New Yorkers.
I call Jerome back.
“Jade is missing, at risk, and just a little more important than your getting yelled at for bringing a note to Nicole during some bullshit meeting. If you don’t go in there, whatever happens is your responsibility.” And then I hang up fast. And don’t pick up the phone when he calls right back. It’s his ball. He’s stuck with it.
I grab my jacket, head down to the street to trace the three different routes that Jade takes on her walk home. Sure enough, eight minutes of panic later, Nicole calls. She actually laughs and takes credit for not being angry with me for interrupting her stupid meeting. What a paranoid I am to be worried when Jade is simply taking an ice-skating lesson at Chelsea Piers.
Gulping back my rage, I ask when she signed Jade up for skating lessons, and why she didn’t bother to tell Ms. Jeffries at ballet? I’m told that Jade was supposed to call Ms. Jeffries. Kids today, what are you going to do? Blind with matricidal impulses (can you call it that if the person isn’t really a functioning mother?), I listen to the cherry on top of this whole horror sundae…
Jade didn’t sign up for skating lessons. She is being taught this afternoon by her new friend Andrew. Who drove her there in his GEM. And who never even bothered to mention any of this to me yesterday. Amazing. And I actually was beginning to like this guy.
I run up the West Side Highway, covering the mile in record time. Low and behold, here they are in the Sky Rink, a young man teaching a little girl to ice-skate. Why am I so angry?
Jade sees me and waves like crazy, and for some reason I don’t wave back. Andrew smiles at me, as if he’s done absolutely nothing wrong, and when I very definitely don’t smile back, he simply goes back to work with Jade and ignores me for twenty minutes. He is, maddeningly but predictably, fabulous with her. She’s laughing, flirting, and sort of learning to ice-skate.
I sit down on the hard bench and wonder what my deal is. Never mind wanting to control Sloane’s world. I’m irritated beyond belief that no one in my own life is doing things the way they should be doing them. Why wouldn’t anyone think to let me know this after-school date was taking place so that I wouldn’t worry? After a bit, Andrew leaves her to practice on her own and skates up to sit beside me.
“Okay, what happened? Did you lose the role or your boyfriend?”
“Neither. More like my faith in humanity.”
“How come you’re looking at me when you say that?”
I blink. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because we spent an entire day together and you never mentioned this.”
“Why would I?”
There is nothing worse than a question like that. Because any honest answer would reveal that I’m a
ngry because I feel left out and insanely jealous of my seven-year-old sister’s friendship with some guy who I’m completely platonic with anyway. Like it would matter. It is so unfair to have those humiliating feelings exposed as the result of a question so unassuming and innocent that I can’t credibly blame the guy for asking it.
“Well, for one thing, I’ve told you that Nicole is brain-dead and negligent, so you should have assumed that she wouldn’t tell me about this, and I’d be a little concerned when my sister went missing.”
“I did think of that. Which is why I told Jade to make sure you knew. And if she didn’t, I’m very disappointed in her. As to your mom, she is forgetful. However, she is also incredibly hot.”
“How would you know that?”
“Jade showed me a picture on her phone.”
“Why are we talking about this?”
“We’re trying to distract you so you’ll stop being angry with me. And start cheering for Jade so she has enough confidence in her skating to go to Ashley’s party. She asked me to come up with a lie for her to use to get out of the party because she’s embarrassed she doesn’t ice-skate. So I offered my services, which is the least I can do for a friend who invited me on a sleepover with three of her girlfriends. Don’t worry, I declined for obvious reasons. Much as I might have enjoyed the event.”
So I start cheering for Jade. And I stop being angry at him.
Maybe I am so pissed because I feel like Jade and I have become his kid sisters, who are fun passing time with until he can go home to his smoking-hot girlfriend.
I ask if he wants to grab dinner. He asks Jade what she’s in the mood for, and I remind her that she has a sushi date with Nicole. It’d be easy to get Jade out of it, but even if I’m no longer feeling angry about it, I certainly don’t want to be grouped in the little sister category. And besides, I tell him, I need his advice on a certain matter. “Sadly, however, I don’t have two friends who would include you in our sleepover.”
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