by John Cariani
Chad looked at Randy and answered his question honestly and truly: “I think I just fell in love with you there, Randy.”
And Chad looked at Randy.
And then he suddenly and completely—and almost in slow motion—crumpled to the ground again, his knees hitting first and the rest of his body following until he had face-planted in the snow again.
Randy jumped away from Chad as he fell.
“Whoa,” said Chad, laughing, and feeling a little delirious—but freer than he had ever felt. “Yup—that’s what that was. Me falling in love with you.”
Randy stared at Chad, wondering what the heck was happening. And started backing away from him slowly—like he was possessed. Or dangerous.
Chad started to get up again.
And when he was back on his feet, he looked at Randy and suddenly and completely and almost in slow motion crumpled onto the snow again.
And he laughed again—a confused, amused laugh.
But Randy was not amused. And he charged Chad. “What are you—drunk?” he demanded.
“I don’t think so.”
“Get up!” Randy bent over and pulled Chad into an upright position, and Chad protested, because he knew he was just going to fall down again. And he was right, because, no sooner was he upright than he was past upright and crumpling down onto the snow-covered ground again.
“WOULD YOU CUT THAT OUT?!?” Randy yelled apoplectically.
“WELL, I CAN’T HELP IT!!” Chad yelled back, sitting up. “IT JUST KINDA CAME OVER ME!! I’VE FALLEN IN LOVE WITH YA, HERE!!” Chad had never heard himself speak with such force or authority before. And neither had Randy. And it scared both of the young men.
Randy took in what Chad had just said. And didn’t move. For a while.
He was so angry.
“Chad,” said Randy. His voice was low, and his demeanor was eerily calm. “I’m your best buddy in the whole world,” he began. “And I don’t quite know what you’re doin’ or what you’re goin’ on about … but … what is your PROBLEM?!? What are you DOIN’?!? YOU’RE MY BEST FRIEND!”
“Yeah—” protested Chad weakly.
“OR YOU USED TO BE!” roared Randy. “AND WHEN YOU’RE FRIENDS—WELL, YOU DON’T MESS WITH THAT! AND YOU MESSED WITH IT!” He started back up the snowbank. But realized he wasn’t done yet and wheeled around and charged Chad again. “’Cause, you know somethin’?” he said, his voice calm but intense. “You’re about the only thing that feels really good and makes sense in this world to me, too, and now you’ve gone and fouled it up, by doin’ this whatever-it-is-you’re-doin’”—he indicated Chad, who was still sitting in the snow—“And tellin’ me … what you told me.” He couldn’t bring himself to repeat exactly what Chad had told him, because it was the most disgusting thing he had ever been told. “And now,” he added, “nothin’ makes sense at all!” And then he roared again, “AND NOTHIN’ FEELS GOOD!”
Randy turned and started to go back up the snowbank again, taking off his Red Sox cap and wiping his brow, because now he was sweating. And then he stopped again. And he slapped his cap back on his head and he suddenly turned toward Chad. He wanted to charge down the mound of snow and pummel him like he had done to the dozens of other guys that had crossed him in his lifetime.
But he couldn’t bring himself to hurt Chad—because the poor guy looked so helpless. And what if he actually had something wrong with him?
But he needed to let him know that he had done something unforgivable, and he yelled, “YOU KNOW, YOU’VE DONE A REAL NUMBER ON A GOOD THING, HERE, BUDDY!! ’CAUSE WE WERE FRIENDS!! AND THERE’S A LINE WHEN YOU’RE FRIENDS THAT YOU CAN’T CROSS! AND YOU … CROSSED IT!”
Randy was about to turn and finish the climb up the snowbank and head back down the other side to his truck when he suddenly and completely fell down—almost in slow motion: his legs crumpled, and his knees hit the packed snow of the snowbank, and he listed to one side and tumbled down the snowbank until he reached its base and skidded to a stop about a dozen feet from Chad.
His flashlight came skittering down behind him and disappeared somewhere in the fluffy snow at the bottom of the snowbank.
The guys felt like everything had stopped again. And another cosmic shutdown had occurred.
And everything was silent and still again.
And Randy started feeling a strange lightness suddenly grow inside him. It made him feel like he had a road flare burning somewhere deep in his guts. And like gravity had no hold on him, even though it had just pulled him to the ground.
He felt like that lightness had gently jump-started the cosmos and made everything start moving again, and the stillness gave way to motion and the silence gave way to sound as Randy blew some snow and some snowy snot out of his nose and rolled over onto his side and sat up and looked around to see if he could locate Chad.
And he found him—about twelve feet in front of him, sitting up and looking at him, totally dumbstruck. Because he had just witnessed Randy’s crumple and tumble down the snowbank.
It seemed that what had happened to Chad had also just happened to Randy.
Chad felt the lightness start growing inside him again.
It was the same lightness that Randy had just started feeling.
And then Chad and Randy realized that all they wanted to do was get to one another.
Because they knew they needed to be with each other.
So they started to get themselves up off the snowy ground and back up onto their feet so they could make their way to one another.
They were a little dazed and a lot unsteady.
And they looked to one another.
And there was enough starlight that each could make out the whites of the other’s eyes.
And they searched one another’s eyes for an explanation of what was going on. Because they didn’t know where else to look.
And then—suddenly and completely—and almost in slow motion—they collapsed again, knees first, with the rest of their bodies following.
And they found themselves facedown in the snow again—twelve feet apart.
And they did not want to be twelve feet apart.
So they got up on their feet again to see if they could get themselves closer to one another—without falling down.
But when they were upright, they looked at each other, and their knees buckled, and they crumpled to the ground again, face-planting in the snow.
Frustrated but not defeated, they slowly lifted their heads up out of the snow.
And they got up again.
And looked at one another again. But crumpled to the ground and splatted in the snow again, face-first, when their eyes met.
Randy and Chad tried several more times to get up onto their feet—but with no success. Until they were too tired—and maybe too discouraged—to try getting up anymore.
Because they were no closer to each other than they had been when they started falling.
And then they flipped over onto their backs, because it’s not particularly comfortable to lie facedown in the snow.
And when they did, they saw the northern lights pulsing and dancing in the sky above them.
They had been hovering up there since the first time Chad had fallen.
But neither of them had seen them, because they were too busy falling.
In love.
But now they were seeing them.
And they were pretty spectacular.
But not as spectacular as what was happening to them.
And, after a while, they wondered if they’d ever be able to get up again. And if they’d ever be able to walk again—so they could get out of there. Because they didn’t want anyone to find them there, lying in the snow behind the church, and wonder what was happening.
Because what would they tell people?
And then they got scared.
Really scared.
And then the northern lights faded.
But what Randy and Chad were feeling for one another didn’t.
And they sat up and still wanted nothing more than to get to one another.
So Randy rolled onto his stomach again and started crawling on his belly toward Chad.
And Chad started crawling on his belly toward Randy.
And when they got to each other, they reached out to grab hands.
And had no idea what was going to happen next.
4
As Ginette passed St. Mary’s, she thought about how glad she was that Pete didn’t like thrash metal music—like whoever was plowing the parking lot did. And she thought about the music that he did like to listen to—old country songs that his dad would play for Ginette and Pete on his record player.
A lot of those songs were story songs that made Ginette feel like she had read a whole book in three minutes.
And, as she walked, she wondered if she’d ever get to listen to those songs again. Because she probably wouldn’t be going over to Pete’s anymore, now that they weren’t together.
And she wondered how they had gone so quickly from being together to being so far apart.
And then she stopped wondering, because she knew why.
It was because of Pete—and his stupid theory on what it means to be close. Why the heck did he have to say that she wasn’t really close to him—and that she was actually about as far away from him as she could possibly be—when she was leaning right up against him?
She was confounded.
And hurt.
And when people get confounded and hurt, their faces look like what Ginette’s face looked like as she made her way home on the Road to Nowhere.
* * *
It was 8 p.m. when Ginette reached Ma Dudley’s, an old farmhouse that was about a quarter of a mile down—and across—the road from St. Mary’s. Ma and her husband of fifty-seven years, Sunny, had converted the farmhouse into a boardinghouse decades ago, and they rented seven rooms for daily, weekly, or monthly rates.
As Ginette walked past the boardinghouse, she saw Ma and Sunny dancing together in the living room through the big picture window. And she couldn’t help but stop and watch them as they swayed back and forth in a warm yellow light to some music that seemed like it was bouncy—but gentle.
Marvalyn LaJoy was watching the old couple, too, from inside. She had just come downstairs from her room on the third floor and was on her way to the laundry room in the basement to switch her clothes from the washers to the dryers. And, as she passed the living room, she saw Ma and Sunny dancing to some gentle old-time big-band music.
And she stopped and watched the sweet sight.
And she wished that she and her boyfriend, Eric, danced together like Ma and Sunny.
But they didn’t.
And when Ma and Sunny kissed, she tried to look away, because it’s creepy to watch people kiss when they think they’re alone.
But she couldn’t look away. And she wondered if she and Eric would kiss like that when they were old.
They hadn’t kissed like that in a while.
Maybe they would again someday—when their circumstances improved.
“Oh!” Sunny had caught sight of Marvalyn standing in the doorway and was surprised to learn that what he thought was a private moment wasn’t actually private.
“Hi, Mr. Dudley!” Marvalyn smiled, embarrassed that she had been caught staring.
“Huh? Oh!” said Ma simultaneously, turning and seeing Marvalyn and pulling away from her husband.
“Sorry!” chirped Marvalyn. “Hi, Ma! Sorry!”
“Hi, Marvalyn,” Ma mumbled coldly. She was not very happy that such a tender moment had been observed—and interrupted.
“Didn’t see you there!” Sunny said, smiling sheepishly.
“Yeah—sorry—I was just—I’ve got some laundry in, and I’ve gotta check on it. You two look so good together, dancin’!”
“Naw,” snorted Ma, mortified that someone had seen her and Sunny dancing. And kissing.
“Yeah!” countered Marvalyn.
“I like to think we’ve still got it,” said Sunny, winking as he took the needle off the record, stopping the music.
“You do!” giggled Marvalyn.
“Pshh,” said Ma. “Listen, you better get down there and finish up. It’s after eight.”
All laundry had to be completed by 10 p.m.—house rule.
“Oh, I just have to switch stuff over to the dryer,” said Marvalyn.
“You got plenty of time, dear,” assured Sunny.
“Yeah—sorry if I interrupted anything,” said Marvalyn, and she started toward the door to the basement.
“You didn’t interrupt nothin’,” barked Ma. She knew this was a lie and was deeply disappointed that she and Sunny had been interrupted. But you sacrifice some privacy when you operate a boardinghouse.
“G’night, Marvalyn,” said Sunny.
“’Night!” called Marvalyn, and she headed down the stairs to the basement.
When she reached the staircase landing, she hung a left and entered the laundry room, a public, utilitarian space that had two washing machines, two dryers, two clothes-folding tables, and a bench in the middle of the room—and lots of signage, reminding people not to overload the machines and to clean out the lint filters. One of the signs read, “Ma Dudley isn’t your mother. So clean up after yourself.”
The washing machines weren’t quite finished with their cycles when Marvalyn arrived, so she turned on the radio that was on the shelf between some laundry detergent and some fabric softener and an old coffee can labeled “the pay-what-you-CAN.” And she tuned the radio to the country station out of Presque Isle. A song about sunshine, summertime, and six-packs came on, and Marvalyn turned it up and danced and wished it was summer. And then went over to the bookshelf to see what there was to read while she killed the couple of minutes that were left on the spin cycle.
Someone had added a magazine called YOU! to the magazine collection—probably the new girl who had moved in on the second floor a few weeks ago. Her name was Vivian. Or Vicky. Or Veronica. Or some weird name that began with a V. She seemed like a really nice person.
Marvalyn felt herself get all tingly when she saw what the cover story of the YOU! magazine was: “YOUR GUIDE TO A MARVELOUS LIFE: Be the Best YOU Ever!”
Because it seemed that the current issue had been written especially for her.
Marvalyn had always hoped she’d have a marvelous life. Her mother hoped so, too. That was why she had given her daughter her unusual name: Marvalyn. It was a name to live up to.
But Marvalyn hadn’t quite lived up to it yet.
But she still hoped that she’d be able to. And maybe the YOU! magazine article on how to have a marvelous life could get her back on track.
Marvalyn had just started reading when a buzzer cut through the country music on the radio and let her know her clothes were clean. She put her YOU! magazine on the dryer and unloaded her laundry from the washers and transferred the wet clothes to the dryers and threw a couple of fabric softener sheets into the machines, and then she closed the dryer doors and set the timers for thirty-five minutes and hit both start buttons. She put a dollar (for the use of the machines) and a couple of quarters (for the detergent and fabric softener she had used) into the pay-what-you-CAN, picked up the YOU! magazine, and started reading her article again, eager to see what she needed to do to make her life marvelous.
A song about what a girl needs to do when she has leaving on her mind came on the radio while she read.
And then a song about what a girl should do with a guy who’s dead weight came on.
And then a song about what a woman needs to do to restart her heart came on.
And then some commercials came on.
By then, Marvalyn had finished the article on how to have a marvelous life. It was mostly about how important it is to exercise and eat better. And to limit your alcohol intake. And to stop smoking if you smoke. And to start following your bliss and pursuing your dreams.
Marvalyn thought
that maybe it was time for her to start pursuing her dreams again. But she had no idea how to go about doing so.
So she thought maybe she’d try following her bliss first. But she didn’t know what her bliss was. Which is sad for a young woman whose last name is LaJoy.
So she decided that, first, she was going to work on exercising and eating better.
Which she would do after she started limiting her alcohol intake.
Which she would do after she stopped smoking.
Which she would do after she had one more cigarette.
She had about twenty-five more minutes, she guessed, before her clothes would be dry, so she dragged the magazine off the dryer and shuffled over to the bookshelf and dumped it where she had gotten it. And went outside and sat on the front porch and smoked the last cigarette she would ever smoke and looked out over the potato fields of Norsworthy’s Potato Farm. And took in the sky. And the stars. And wished upon a couple of them. And took a few more drags on her cigarette. And thought about how that cigarette really did need to be the last one she ever smoked. Because she needed to start taking better care of herself so she could be marvelous, like the YOU! magazine article said.
Then she thought about maybe going to Sandrine St. Pierre’s bachelorette party at the Moose Paddy. It’d be going strong, she bet. And it’d be fun, she bet. And a lot of her friends would be there, she bet. And she hadn’t seen her friends much lately.
But she didn’t want to go to Sandrine St. Pierre’s bachelorette party without telling Eric she was going. Because that would make him mad.
And she didn’t want to wake him and ask him if he minded if she went, because that would make him mad, too.
So she decided to just stay home.
She could read the rest of the YOU! magazine once she finished her laundry. There was an article about getting the right pair of jeans and how they could make you look ten pounds lighter. Marvalyn wondered if there were jeans that could make her look twenty pounds lighter.
Or forty.
She finished her cigarette and wondered if she’d gain more weight if she stopped smoking.
And hoped she wouldn’t.