More than a month had passed since then and here he was, loitering in the depression under the curve of her jaw, listening to, without registering, the tiny noises she made, hardly more than vibrations in the back of her throat, a sound like the instrument of some lost Pacific Island tribe, when suddenly Lulu pulled away and asked him, “Do you love me?”
“What?” he said. “Yeah.”
This wasn’t the first time he’d said the words to Lulu. Lulu wasn’t the first girl. And he meant them in his way, inasmuch as he understood that he felt something for Lulu (the others, too, though the sensation was different in each case) which might have been love. He didn’t know. He thought about his parents watching TV every night until they fell asleep, his mother on the sofa, his father in the armchair, the living room quiet but for laugh tracks and/or dramatic music, depending on the hour, not a single word passing between them.
Lulu dropped her eyes now and chewed her bottom lip. Her lips were puffy from all that kissing. This was maybe an hour after the boys had finished with the possum and everybody had gathered downstairs for a beer, after they’d rehashed the whole adventure a few times (which had culminated with the second Neal bolting out from behind the Jeep for his turn, except the possum stood its ground instead of playing dead, bared rows of pointy teeth and hissed and chased him back into the house), after Ike had smoked a little weed. He’d taken Lulu’s question in stride (he knew from experience that girls needed plenty of reassurance) but the next thing she said caught him off guard. She raised her eyes, pushed her hair behind her ear.
“I ran away from home.”
Ike blinked and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. This was something that needed to be addressed—that much was clear—but he couldn’t quit staring at the cross hanging in the hollow of her throat.
“I don’t get it,” he said.
“There’s nothing to get. I wrote this letter for my mother. I mean, I told her everything, how much I love you and all and how much she’s a bitch. Then I cruised before she came home from work and hid behind the Dumpster til you picked me up.”
Ike said, “For real?”
“For real.”
“Dude,” he said.
Lulu said, “I know.”
They were quiet for a moment, meaningfully so. There, Ike thought. That was that. She thought something had passed between them. It didn’t matter what it was. He was already leaning in, shutting his eyes, anxious to get back to the business of her lips and neck and earlobes and the faint, hot flutter of pulse beneath her skin.
Stella
Roland Tiptoe met them at the door in a V-neck sweater and pajama pants. He wasn’t wearing a shirt so his chest hair was unbridled. His eyes were rheumy and obscene. Boyd put on a smile, explained the situation, wondered if Tiptoe knew where they might find his son. Stella was standing behind and to his left, looking past both men into the house, shag carpet right up to the door, dead ficus in the foyer, TV muttering somewhere out of sight. No sign of Lulu.
“That’s a nice car,” Tiptoe said.
He pointed at Boyd’s Mercedes, craned his neck to get a better look. The house was a redbrick rancher on a block of identical ranchers in a neighborhood featuring more of the same.
“Thanks,” Boyd said, “but listen—”
“Is that the new one?”
Boyd said, “Yes, but—”
“I went to the dealership the day those came out but they wouldn’t let me do a test drive. My credit didn’t clear.”
“That’s too bad,” Boyd said, “if you could just …”
But Stella wasn’t really listening anymore. She was wondering instead how this man Tiptoe had produced a son who so filled Lulu up with love that she was willing to throw her life away. He was one of the least attractive men she’d ever seen. He was taller than Boyd by an inch or two, and a little hunched, as if his head was too heavy for his spine. When he spoke, his Adam’s apple jumped around in his neck. Boyd was no movie star, that was true. He’d gone soft around the middle and under his jaw. His nose had gotten pulpy over the years. But he still had his hair and his posture and his stodgy way of dressing suited him, made him seem distinguished, and under no circumstances would he be asking irrelevant questions about cars or anything else if he was in Tiptoe’s shoes. It was hard to stay mad at him for not telling her about the Marchands’ party, about his date. He was here with her now.
“… so you understand we don’t want to make trouble for Ike,” Boyd was saying. “I’m sure he’s a good kid. And you better believe I remember how it was to be his age. We’re just worried about Lulu. That’s the thing here, Roland. We just want to find our daughter.”
Boyd cupped his hands together and rocked back on his heels, his summation posture. Stella had seen him many times in court. They were waiting for Tiptoe to reply when a woman shouted, “Ro-land,” from somewhere in the house. Tiptoe flinched.
“What?” he shouted back.
“You better come watch this.”
“We’ve got people here. I’m right now talking to these people on the porch.”
The woman said, “I’ve never seen anything so sad.”
Tiptoe made a face and stepped outside. He was just pulling the door shut behind him when a white Pekinese darted through the crack and down the steps and on into the yard. They watched as the dog sprinted three tight loops around the Mercedes, stopped, took a moment to catch its breath, then sprang onto the hood and curled into a ball as if to sleep.
Katie
There was no sign of either man on the sunporch or the deck. Katie made her way upstairs, her feet falling between half-finished cocktails and crumpled napkins and discarded coats. Halfway up, she passed a single red high-heeled pump. A hallway branched off from the landing. Katie could see four doors, all closed. The first opened into a closet. She was about to try the second when she heard a toilet flush. The door swung open from the inside and Donna Mason stepped out.
“Katie Butter!” Donna squealed at the sight of her and planted a kiss on her left cheek. “I know we’re supposed to do our business downstairs but did you see that line? Well, of course you did. Here you are.”
Her eyes were puffy and bloodshot and Katie wondered if she’d been crying.
“Is everything all right?”
Donna waved her hand before her face as if swiping at an insect. In the old neighborhood, the Masons had lived three doors down. Both Lee and Donna were known to be good cooks, collectors of folk art, infertile.
“Allergies,” she said. “There’s a cat somewhere in this house. Listen, we haven’t gotten to catch up. I’ll wait right here for you to finish. Then we’ll hide out and swap stories. How’s that sound?”
Katie said, “It sounds great, but Lee is looking for you.” The lie came so easily it felt almost a thrill. “I saw him just now. You go on.”
Donna smiled again, kissed her cheek again. She held Katie’s face in both her hands. “I’ll find you,” Katie said. She moved into the bathroom, listened for Donna’s footsteps on the stairs. When she was certain that Donna was gone, she crept down the hall, pressed her ear against the next door, heard mumbling, motion. Her heart bumped and swelled. She knocked once, then pushed the door open. The room was dark and Katie saw a great, vague heaving on the bed. There passed a moment (electric, strangely hopeful) when she believed that what she saw was Hugh and Haley Marchand. Then the shape on the bed untangled itself and Katie realized that she was hearing only male voices. She backed into the hall and shut the door.
“I am so, so sorry.” No answer. She waited a few seconds before continuing. She’d come this far. “Professor Urqhardt? I know this is awkward but I’ve been looking for you. May I come in? Is everybody decent?” She heard whispering. “I won’t take too much time.”
“What do you want?” Urqhardt said.
“Well, first off, I wanted to tell you I’m sorry for being rude. I guess my mind was … I was preoccupied, I guess. And I’ve been feeling rotten eve
r since.”
“Who is this? What are you talking about?”
“It’s Katie Butter.” She drummed her fingers on the door. “Remember? I’m coming in, OK?”
Katie closed her eyes, stepped inside, hesitated. When no one shouted at her, she opened her eyes again. A lamp was burning on the nightstand now. Urqhardt was running a comb through his hair. Kevin was tucking in his shirt.
“What is it?” Urqhardt said.
“It’s just that you were telling me about the way it felt when you came home from the movie, like you knew someone had been there. I was hoping maybe you could describe the feeling in more detail.”
Kevin said, “You’re talking about the robbery?” He didn’t seem the least embarrassed by the situation. Katie nodded. Without thinking, she began to make the bed. She fluffed the pillows, smoothed the sheets. To Urqhardt, she said, “You told me you felt a presence?” She drew the blanket into place.
“That’s right.” He looked flustered, suspicious, unsure of her intentions. “It’s hard to describe. It was like, I don’t know—”
“Like the apartment was haunted,” Kevin said.
“That’s not it, not quite.” Urqhardt squinted at her, palmed his brow with his right hand. “This is what you wanted to talk to me about?”
“I’m leaving my husband,” Katie said.
Kevin said, “Oh my.”
Miss Anita
Both Evan and Nicole dozed off well before midnight. Miss Anita sat there looking at them. There was nothing more beautiful than a sleeping child. Even the boy, she thought, hardly a boy anymore and filled up with desire. What a thing, desire. She remembered how she used to slap McGreggor’s face sometimes when they made love, how terrifying it was to lose herself in the way he made her feel, how feeling that way made her angry for reasons she couldn’t understand. McGreggor, with his broad back. McGreggor, who threw a clot and died. McGreggor, whose mother wanted him to have a white man’s name and wasn’t nobody whiter than the Irish.
She remembered, too, this one time she was waiting at the bus stop, when a man in a trench coat walked up and exposed himself. He was wearing a jockstrap with a clown face painted on it, his pubic hair dyed blaze orange. That was worse somehow than if he’d been wearing nothing at all. Her stomach lurched and her feet went cold. McGreggor had been in the ground ten years by then but she’d felt his absence in that moment like a craving.
Because she could think of nothing else to do, she’d shut her eyes and prayed.
“Tell him that you love him,” Jesus said.
“Is this really Jesus?”
He did not dignify her question.
“Tell him that you know exactly how he feels.”
So she did as He directed. Right away, the man’s eyes brimmed up with tears. He looked at her a second, then took off running down the street, his trench coat billowing out behind him like a cape. Miss Anita was, as usual, grateful to her Lord and Savior but even so, she went over to Kmart the next morning and started the paperwork on a gun.
Now, the boy stirred in his father’s chair and drew his knees up and tucked his fists under his chin. He mumbled something. According to the clock on the mantel, this year was nearly spent. And her husband was dead. And her babies were grown. And look at that boy right there, so beautiful and dumb. Miss Anita pushed unsteadily to her feet. Six empty miniatures were lined up on the coffee table like long, translucent bullets and she was feeling their effect. They’d left her nostalgic, a little melancholy, but also expansive and aglow.
She touched the boy’s shoulder, leaned in close.
“I love you,” she whispered. “I know exactly how you feel.”
Evan
Evan dreamed, predictably, of Veronica and Lucifer’s Gate. Except that the circles of hell were not dungeons or chambers of fire but the rooms of this house and the rooms of his school. Except that Veronica wasn’t always Veronica. In certain rooms, the school cafeteria, for instance, or Ms. Hempel’s class, she was Lulu Fountain, her new braces, the dusting of freckles on her nose, the perpetually embarrassed look upon her face. But somehow she was also and always Veronica at the same time. She said the kind of things that Veronica had said. She said big hot cock no matter whose face she was wearing. She said make me cum. Her dialogue was distracting, made it difficult for Evan to focus his attention on the demons he was supposed to kill. One might expect that these demons took the form of Miss Anita in the dream but this was not the case. They were run-of-the-mill video game demons, horns on their heads and talons on their hands and gaping, fang-thick maws. Sometimes dreams only seem predictable. In Evan’s dream, Miss Anita was nowhere to be found.
Lulu
Lulu’s parents decided to get divorced when she was away for two weeks at summer camp. She was nine years old. They’d driven her up into what passed for mountains in north Alabama, dropped her off at Camp Rising Fawn like everything was normal, waved a smiling farewell from the windows of the car. By the time they picked her up, they’d called it quits. As her mother described the new life Lulu would lead when they got home, her father nodding and grinning sad/friendly at the rearview mirror, she couldn’t shake the image of the two of them sipping a cocktail on the deck, her father turning to her mother and saying something like, “Well, I guess it’s about time we packed it in.” Back in reality, her mother craned around in the passenger seat and said to Lulu, “We love each other, we just don’t love each other anymore. Does that make sense?” And, while it didn’t make even a little bit of sense to Lulu, she couldn’t help feeling oddly thrilled at first. This was before anger and resentment settled in. She felt like a character in a movie of the week who was about to embark on what she would later remember as the most formative and meaningful period of her life.
Earlier tonight, as she’d let her pen go raging across a piece of lavender stationery, as she trotted down the steps and tucked herself out of sight behind the Dumpster, she had felt much the same way. She had emerged from that first important stage, battered and changed but better for it, wiser, more mature, and was setting out on a new course, a more permanent one, maybe the one she would maintain forever, through marriage (successful) and children (more than one; Lulu had always wanted a little sister, someone who would annoy her half to tears but whom she loved and who would learn all about life’s hard road from Lulu’s example) right on through to a heartbreaking but glamorous death, something that would waste her away, leave her thin and pale with Ike weeping at her bedside.
At the moment, though, with Ike licking the hollow of her throat, she was trying to ignore an impending sense of dread. She focused her attention on “the incident of the possum,” which is how her English teacher, Ms. Hempel, would have described it, tried to sort out what the possum might have “meant” in a larger sense. Lulu liked Ms. Hempel. She was young for a teacher, halfway pretty. She was weird about “Miz,” not “Miss,” and she cultivated a melancholy air. Just last week, they’d done a section on themes and symbols in English at Immaculate Conception. Lulu was a crackerjack English student. The idea of both life and literature as puzzles to be solved fit her notions of the world. From somewhere in the back of her mind came the word hibernation. Didn’t possums hibernate? Shouldn’t this particular possum have been snugged into a little den somewhere, dozing through the winter? If so, maybe the fact of its being present and awake at all was significant. And there was that phrase, “Playing Possum.” All by itself it sounded like the title of a mediocre romantic comedy featuring a Ms. Hempel type, only prettier, Hollywood-pretty, a teacher or a librarian or something, a transplanted Southern girl living now in some big city, who was only pretending to sleep through life. At night, she would take off her glasses and slip into a little black dress and high heels and break hearts all over town. Only what she wanted, though maybe she didn’t know it quite, was for someone to come along and love the librarian side of her instead of the knockout party girl. And maybe that someone had been right under her nose from the beginning
.
The trouble was Lulu couldn’t make any of these interpretations fit her situation. The “incident of the possum” was just something mildly humorous that happened on this night and the only thing it seemed to reveal was that Ike and his friends were ordinary, idiot teenage boys. Which returned her to that impending sense of dread. After all, Ike had hardly risen to the occasion when she told him she’d run away, hadn’t even come close to recognizing the symbolism of her actions. Namely that she had chosen him over her whole previous life. He’d simply stared at her a moment, then socked his tongue into her mouth. Maybe that meant something, too, something good, but Lulu had her doubts.
She cupped her hands over his shoulders, heaved him back. It was like trying to lift a sack of mulch.
“What?” he said.
“Do possums hibernate?”
Ike said, “How should I know?”
Lulu sucked her braces. Another word occurred to her just then: marsupial. She thought maybe she had her facts mixed up.
“Can I stay with you tonight?” she asked.
“Hunh?” A question. As if the idea that she would need a place to sleep hadn’t occurred him until now. Then, “Hunh.” The answer, in shorthand. “My dad might be cool with it, but Mom? I’m still on thin ice for stealing her tequila.”
The Holiday Season Page 10