Zoe shakes her head. “Nowhere.”
“You sure?”
“Nowhere.”
Peter looks at her curiously, then turns and scrounges around inside the wagon, returning with his sketchbook. He flips it open, turning the spiral-bound pages till he comes to the picture he wants. A rough charcoal sketch of Zoe walking away down the path through the park. There she is, thin as a straw, knapsacked, skinny-legged. Embarrassed, Zoe doesn’t know what to say. How can she praise it? She looks as plain, as ordinary as she fears she is.
“I’m going to give you that for your birthday,” Peter says. “It’s going to be your birthday present, but first, I’m going to fix it up. Going to make this a road you’re on, cars traveling along, a sign that says Arizona Highway 55.” As he talks he’s already rubbing out the park background with his thumb. “Traveling Zoe, I’m going to call it,” he says with satisfaction. “You come here Saturday, okay?”
“Saturday? Sure.”
“Tell you what. Come on over about eight o’clock, we’ll have a birthday breakfast. English muffins, dates, and mint tea.”
“Oh!” Zoe bites her lip. Every year on her birthday Marcia makes a special breakfast.
“You want to do that?” Peter says.
“I’d love to, but—”
“But nothing! It isn’t every day you’re fourteen.” He hugs her.
“Okay,” Zoe says. “Okay! I will.” Somehow it will work out. She thinks back to her ignorant pre-knowing-Peter self. Imagine: if she had never gone into the park she would never have met Peter. The fine line between Peter-in-the-flesh and Peter-not-at-all makes Zoe shudder. Is all life so chancy?
When Zoe leaves a little later, Peter shouts after her, “Saturday!”
Zoe turns, walks backward. “Okay!” she yells back. “And maybe I’ll see you tomorrow, too, okay?”
Peter raises thumb and forefinger in a circle.
Then Zoe starts running, runs all the way home. It’s late. She’s not sure how late, but she knows it’s a lot later than she’s ever come home before without an explanation.
And sure enough, the moment Zoe enters the kitchen, her grandmother says, “Where’ve you been?” She yanks a pan of food out of the oven. “You’re late, Ducky.”
“Sorry, Marcia. I was—uh—just walking.”
“Walking? Where were you walking?”
“Nowhere.” Zoe shakes her head, hunches her shoulders. “Noplace.”
“Well, you got to walk someplace, Ducky,” Marcia says reasonably. “Someplace to take so much time to get home.”
“I was just mooching around.”
“Mooching around?” Marcia repeats. “What’s this? What’s this mooching around?”
It’s a word she’s picked up from Peter. She feels the heat in her face. “Um, just walking slowly, I guess,” she says.
Marcia lights a cigarette and lets it dangle from the corner of her mouth. She never inhales and likes to say, “I smoke like a chimney, but I’ll never die of cancer.”
“Walking slowly,” Marcia says. “What do you mean, walking slowly, Ducky? What was to walk slowly about?”
“Nothing. I guess—um—” Zoe shrugs and smiles at Marcia.
“Were you walking with someone?” Marcia’s brown eyes spark joyfully as she senses a little fight coming. “Ducky, don’t turn your head like that, give Marcia an answer.”
“I wasn’t walking with anyone,” Zoe says softly, trying to stick to the technical truth. She takes her schoolbooks out of her knapsack, looks at each one intently, as if she has nothing else in the world on her mind.
“Was a boy walking with you? Is my pretty ducky attracting boys now?”
“Marcia. I’m not pretty.” Zoe adjusts her gold wire-framed glasses.
“Who says you’re not pretty? What kind of talk is that? Has someone been telling you garbage about not being pretty?” Marcia looks ready now to fight the world, not Zoe.
“I can tell myself,” Zoe says. “I’m not pretty.” She raises her shoulders, lets them drop. “I can see that for myself, so can you. I’m not pretty. Okay?”
“I don’t want you thinking negatively about yourself, Ducky. Pretty is as pretty does!”
“I know,” Zoe says. She waits for Marcia to add, Beauty is skin deep.
Marcia blows smoke through her nose. “Beauty is skin deep,” Marcia says. “Think about that.”
“Okay,” Zoe says.
Maybe beauty is skin deep and pretty is as pretty does, but some people have something, and some people don’t. Zoe knows she doesn’t, while Mama does. Elegant Mama, stylish Weezy. Even Marcia, though neither elegant nor stylish, has such crackling energy that wherever she goes she is noticed.
And Zoe? Next to the three women, she often feels like a negative, faint, dim—a grayish splotch against their vivid background.
“So, who is the lucky boy?” Marcia says.
“Huh?”
“Zoe, don’t say huh.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Huh sounds stupid.”
“I know.”
“Did he walk you home?”
Zoe’s lips firm. She’s not going to talk about Peter. “Marcia, no boy walked me home.”
“You’re awful late, Ducky, there’s gotta be a reason.”
Later, at the dinner table, along with the tuna fish casserole, Marcia serves up Zoe’s late homecoming.
“Bet she’s got a boyfriend,” Weezy says, bracelets clinking. “Zoey? Come on, no secrets now.”
“Sly Boots isn’t talking,” Marcia says.
“Why shouldn’t she have a boyfriend?” Mama says. “Plenty of boys are going to break their hearts over Zoe, before long.”
“Look at her there with that smile on her face,” Weezy says. “Oh, she’s got secrets, she’s got secrets.”
“Wonder who he could be?” Marcia says, vigorously forking up her food. “What’s his name? Jimmy? Johnny? Marshall?” They repeat delightedly that she was just “mooching around.”
“Mooching rhymes with smooching,” Marcia says.
“Smooching?” Zoe says. And they all laugh. Mama’s eyes sparkle, she looks wonderful when she laughs.
“Don’t tell me this generation doesn’t know about smooching,” Marcia says. “Oh, my, what do the young people do today?”
“Ask me no questions, Mother, I’ll tell you no lies,” Weezy sings. “They just move in together, that’s about it, or else share a mattress.”
“Weezy, that’s vulgar,” Mama protests, looking at Zoe.
The bantering, joyful and persistent, goes on, surrounding Zoe like a soft woolly blanket, familiar, comforting, binding. They’re all smiling, relaxed; they lean in toward her, radiating their love like little fires in the dark. Weezy reaches for the last cinnamon bun, then pushes it toward Zoe. Mama strokes her hair, her hand soft, soothing, making Zoe feel sleepy, yet faintly irritable.
“Zoe isn’t going to be late anymore, is she?” Marcia says, leaning back comfortably with her first after-dinner cigarette.
“But—” Zoe presses her lips together.
“But what?” Weezy says. “But—but—but—but I want to ‘mooch around,’ the girl says!”
“Oh no, she doesn’t. Just had spring fever today. Tomorrow she’ll be all cooled off.” And Marcia, who started the whole brouhaha, ends it by saying, “Now let’s leave her alone, we’re going to wear her right out with this nonsense.”
And it’s true, Zoe feels unaccountably weary, and goes to bed early. When she’s half asleep, Mama comes in and leans over her. “Sweetie,” she says, half whispering, “you know if there is a boy—”
“What?” Zoe mumbles sleepily.
“I don’t want you to have secrets from me, sweetie. I love you, I don’t want you to be hurt.”
“I know.” Zoe almost says, Mama, I met Peter in Walton Park—She closes her eyes. Mama puts cool fingers on Zoe’s eyes. “Sleep well.” She tiptoes out, shutting the door quietly. The room i
s dark. Beyond, Zoe hears the comfortable noises of the house, familiar and soothing.
Now she is wakeful again. She thinks about Peter. Behind that red beard does he have a weak soft chin like Richie Eberhardt? Is there something a little crazy about a man living in a station wagon? She rolls over on her back, puts her hand to her chest. Her heart seems to be pounding right up into her throat. Maybe she’s crazy, breaking the rules, making friends with a total stranger, a vagrant, a vagabond, a nineteen-year-old drifter and loafer.
After a while, she falls asleep, but wakes suddenly from a horrible nightmare: Someone is throwing a knife at Mama, she sees it flying through the air, sees red blood on Mama’s white linen dress. It takes her a long time to fall asleep again.
Thursday morning, Marcia is singing in the kitchen, Weezy is in the shower, but Mama doesn’t get out of bed. Zoe goes to her room. “What’s the matter?”
“Migraine,” Mama says in a weak voice. Her room is darkened, there’s a damp towel across her forehead, her face is bled of color. Zoe strokes her hand helplessly. Mama tries to smile. “I ate chocolate,” she whispers. “Isn’t that stupid and greedy? Whole chocolate almond bar yesterday.” Mama’s migraines are triggered strangely. Allergies to chocolate and fish can bring on the devastating pain, or a worry, or seemingly nothing.
“Poor Mama, poor Mama,” Zoe says, kissing her cheek. What can she do to take away the pain? She feels as sad, as sorry, as guilty as if she caused the raging storm in Mama’s head. By “mooching around,” by deception, by half-lies, and ugly dreams. “I’ll be home right after school,” she says, stroking the limp hand. “Right home. Okay? You rest and try to feel better.” She adjusts the shade, smooths the covers, lingers for a moment, then leaves.
After school she goes resolutely home, walks past Walton Park’s stone gates. She closes her eyes and makes a tiny prayer, an offering. I won’t see Peter, okay? So, in return, please take Mama’s headache away.
On Friday, Mama is almost recovered from the migraine, but she stays home from work feeling weak, drained. Zoe promises to bring her peach ice cream after school. She veers briskly around Walton Park. Still can’t allow herself to see Peter. Mama isn’t all better yet. Tomorrow, though, she promises herself.
She stops in the little corner grocery and, besides the peach ice cream, she buys a rubber troll with wispy white hair. Mama has collected these grotesque little dolls for a long time.
“Oh, no, not another one,” Marcia says when Zoe produces it. Marcia hates the trolls lined up on Mama’s bureau and threatens to throw them all out. Mama always says, “You give up cigarettes, Mother, and I’ll get rid of the trolls. Word of honor.” It’s a standoff.
Waking on Saturday morning, Zoe opens her eyes and thinks at once of Peter. She promised she’d be there by eight, and it’s already ten minutes past. From the kitchen she hears Marcia, busy with the whirring blender. In the other bed Weezy sits up and smiles. “Happy birthday, Zoey!”
Zoe gets up, pulls on her jeans. If she runs she can still be there in time. But in the kitchen there’s a stack of gaily ribboned packages laid by her plate and Marcia waiting to make blueberry pancakes. “You always want blueberry pancakes on your birthday,” Marcia says, hugging her. And Zoe, for the third year in a row, can’t tell Marcia that she no longer adores blueberry pancakes that much. And can’t find the courage, either, to disappoint them all and say she wants to go out for a while.
“Happy birthday, happy birthday, happy birthday to you, happy birthday, darling Zoe,” Mama sings, sitting down at the table. Mama looks fresh, creamy, completely recovered. She squeezes Zoe’s hand. “It’s going to be a wonderful year for you.”
Weezy, wearing her red velvet robe tied at the middle, pours syrup over her pancakes. “I gave Zoe my birthday wishes already.” Reminding the others that these days she, alone, is privileged to share early mornings with Zoe.
Zoe stares at the mound of pancakes with their little blue bubbles, like blue pimples. She looks up at the clock over the refrigerator. It’s nine o’clock.
“Open your presents, Zoey,” Weezy says eagerly.
Slowly Zoe unwraps the first present, a leather-bound address book from Mama. “It’s beautiful. I love it.” She looks around at their waiting, joyful faces and sinks down in her chair, opening the next present. There’s a turquoise ring from Weezy, a comb and brush set, scarves, a graceful porcelain cat for her cat shelf. “Mother, that must have cost a little fortune,” Weezy says, stroking the sleek, shining back of the cat. “Porcelain!”
Marcia juts out her chin satisfiedly. “I found it at a house sale. You don’t mind, Ducky?”
“I love it,” Zoe says again.
All day it’s Zoe’s day. They don’t leave her alone or forget her for a minute. No chance ever to get away. Take her out to lunch, then to a movie. They eat popcorn and jelly beans in the movie and whisper back and forth to each other. They have a steak dinner, big baked Idaho potatoes, and chocolate cake with candles and more singing of Happy Birthday. And finally, her big present, a ten-speed European bike that Weezy, smiling gloriously, pedals into the living room.
“Surprise! Surprise!”
Zoe gets on her new bike and rides it in circles around the living room.
“It’s been a lovely day,” Mama says.
“Perfect,” Weezy agrees. “A wonderful birthday. And I am utterly pooped.”
“We didn’t forget a thing,” Marcia says with satisfaction.
In the middle of the night Zoe wakes up, terrified, from a half-remembered dream. Something about an accident, bodies on the road. She thinks she dreamt that Mama, Weezy, and Marcia were all in a terrible accident. All dead. Her throat pulses. She still remembers the last words of the dream, but can’t make sense of them. Oh, no you don’t.
She lies rigid, staring into the darkness. There are oceans pounding in her ears. The darkness is like filthy water. She gasps for breath. It’s impossible to stay in bed. She stumbles to the bathroom, turns on the light, and sits on the toilet seat. And there she is overcome with grief, senseless, profound, irresistible grief. She sobs wretchedly. She thinks of Peter waiting for her, waiting all day. She chokes back her sobs. If they hear her, they will all come running. She washes her face with cold water, douses her eyes. Peter, she thinks. She wants to see Peter.
She gazes, nearsighted and astonished, at her own reflection. Peter? Yes. And now. She wants to see him right now.
She goes to her room, fetches her light coat from the closet and puts it on over her short nightgown. All this coming and going and clattering has finally brought Weezy awake. She sits up, switches on her bedside lamp, and stares at Zoe. “What are you doing?”
Zoe says nothing. She is incapable of speech. Only one thought. I’m going to see Peter. She glances back at Weezy as she leaves the room. Without makeup, Weezy’s face looks flattened, as if seen through layers of water.
Zoe walks swiftly through the dark house. As she opens the door she hears them behind her, all of them, crying in confusion. “Zoe, wait!… Zoe, you can’t … Ducky!… Zoey … come back here, Zoe baby!…”
She is out on the street, A light rain is falling. She walks swiftly. Will Mama come after her in the car? Why didn’t she take her new bicycle? She turns a corner, another. It is crazy, crazy, and yet she feels perfectly calm, sensible, and sane. She is going to see Peter, that’s all there is to it. She’s going to see her friend. It’s her birthday and she hasn’t seen her friend yet. So be quiet, Mama! Be quiet, Weezy and Marcia! This is just something I have to do.
She’s never been out so late at night. The streets are deserted. She thinks it must be one or two, maybe even three o’clock. Not even a dog barking. Far away there’s a hum from the highway. She’s never heard the city so quiet. She hurries past the darkened houses. Only then does she notice that her feet are bare. The cool, gritty, slightly dampened sidewalk feels pleasant.
She goes down another street. No one has seen her. No one has stopped her. Her
mind begins to hum pleasantly. She will knock on the window of the wagon to wake Peter, gently knock, so as not to frighten him. He told her once about being wakened from a deep sleep by police who made him move his wagon then and there, didn’t even allow him time to put on a pair of shoes. Peter will sit up, fuzzy-eyed, rub his red beard, then smile as he makes out her face in the light from the park lamps. You! Goldie, what are you doing here?
I couldn’t get away this morning, but I’m here now.
You sure are! He’ll snap his fingers. Was I sorry you didn’t come. I had everything ready for our celebration.
I’m sorry I broke my promise to you, Peter. But here I am, anyway.
In the middle of the night? You nutty kid! But he’ll be grinning. He’ll open the tailgate. Look at you, barefooted. Come on in.
She’ll climb into the wagon, sit on his mattress, shivering and smiling. Peter will put a blanket around her, then his arm. What a nutty little sister, he’ll say, hugging her. And he’ll kiss her on the cheek, then on the lips.
Zoe walks faster as she enters the park gates. Her feet scrunch on the gravel path and she veers off to the grass. Her hair, freed from the daytime braids, floats around her shoulders. The park lamps are all haloed with mist. The moon, thin as a slice of peach, shows fuzzily for a moment, then disappears behind a cloud.
She rushes up to Peter’s trees. She thinks it’s his tree, the blasted pine. No, she’s sure it’s his tree. But … the station wagon isn’t there. She frowns, blinks, sniffs, wipes her hand across her nose. The station wagon is gone. Peter is gone.
Zoe’s mind stumbles over this plain fact, unable to take it in. How can he be gone? Where is he? She must have come to the wrong place then. She rushes up the path, but turns back. No, she knows where the wagon was parked, and now it’s gone. It isn’t there. It’s vanished.
No, it didn’t vanish. He drove it away.
Drove it away. Those three words penetrate.
“Peter,” she calls into the blackness beyond the park lights. “Peter?”
There’s no answer.
She’s all alone in the middle of the night in Walton Park.
Dear Bill, Remember Me? Page 4