The Distance Between Us

by Noah Bly

  He doesn’t answer, but he leans a shoulder against the wall and puts his hands in his pockets, waiting for me. A light chain necklace hangs loosely in the sparse chest hairs—also red—visible beneath his open collar.

  I rub my eyes, suddenly tired. “But honesty is not really Arthur’s forte, you see. He tried to tell the truth once, but he claims it gave him diarrhea, so now he avoids it like the plague.” I get to my feet, knees popping. “All right, I think I’ve caught my second wind. Ready to go?”

  He nods. “I’m sorry about the apartment. It would be perfect if it had a door.”

  I purse my lips. “As I said, there’s an entire floor between you and the rest of the house. No door can give you more privacy than that. You could run around naked up here with three drunken sorority girls and a German shepherd and no one would ever be the wiser.”

  He looks away. “It’s nothing like that. I just want a door. I don’t think I’d feel safe without one.”

  “Safe from what?”

  He pushes his glasses up on his nose and doesn’t answer.

  I narrow my eyes. “For God’s sake, boy, I’m seventy-one years old. Do you think I’m going to murder you in your sleep? I’m altogether harmless.”

  The sides of his mouth twitch. “Unless you happen to be an antique coffee table?”

  That startles a laugh out of me. “Well, yes. Good point. But that was entirely Arthur’s fault. He called this afternoon to tell me he’d be over later this week to get the rest of his things, and that set me off a bit. Ordinarily I’m as gentle as a lamb. Ask anyone.”

  His smile fades. “I’m sorry. I believe you. And I know it’s dumb not to jump at a chance to live in a place like this for as little money as you’re asking, but I’ve got to have a door. I don’t think I could sleep without one.”

  I start to argue with him but then shut myself up. Why am I wasting my time trying to convince this stubborn child to live here if he doesn’t want to? I’ll find someone less fussy; the ad in the paper has only been running for two days, and I’ve already lined up four other people who want to see the apartment tomorrow.

  “Fine.” My voice is more curt than I intended. “Shall I show you out, then?”

  He looks unhappy. “If you want.”

  I lead him down the stairs, and neither of us speaks as we pass by the third floor. But when we get to the landing outside my bedroom on the second floor, I step into the room on impulse and wave for him to follow me. “Let’s take the other staircase down this time. I might as well show you the rest of the house before you leave.”

  He hesitates but finally says, “Okay,” and trails in behind me.

  I flip the light switch on. In the short time since Alex arrived, the sun has already begun to go down, even though it’s only a little past four o’clock. I hate how early it gets dark in January; it’s so depressing. The fluorescent light leaves awful shadows in the corners of the room and glints coldly from the brass handles on my wardrobe and dresser, and my clean white bedspread looks stark and sterile, like the sheet on a hospital mattress. I hurry through to the other door and sigh with relief when we step on the landing by the west staircase.

  “There,” I mutter. “That’s better.”

  He stares at me. “Is something wrong?”

  “No, not really.” I force my shoulders to relax. “Sunsets in the winter should be outlawed, that’s all. I seldom go in my bedroom at this time of day because it looks like a morgue in there. I keep expecting to find my own corpse lying faceup on the bed.”

  I take a deep breath and flick a wrist at the two rooms facing the master bedroom. “Those were Jeremy’s and Caitlin’s bedrooms once upon a time. My other children.”

  He glances in the rooms but I don’t bother to look with him; I know what’s there. Just a bunch of rickety old furniture and empty bookshelves and threadbare carpets. No one ever goes in either room anymore except the woman I hire to clean for me.

  He talks with his back to me. “Do they still live in Bolton, too?”

  “Caitlin does. She’s the head of the English department at Pritchard.”

  He spins to face me, startled, and laughs. “Oh, my God. Caitlin Donovan is your daughter? I just met her yesterday. I’m taking a creative writing class from her this semester, and I’ve also got her for English Lit. She seems really nice.”

  I grunt. “Yes, well, she does have many redeeming qualities. She chews with her mouth closed, for instance, and she never, ever dangles a preposition. It’s quite impressive.”

  He gawks at me. “It sounds like you don’t like her.”

  I snort. “One doesn’t like Caitlin. One either worships her or flees from her, depending on her mood. You should be careful in her classes, by the way. She had a bad day last semester and ripped the colon out of a graduate student with her bare hands.”

  I pause. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m serious. It was in all the papers.”

  He laughs again. “How much wine did you say you’d had today?”

  I peer in my empty glass and smile at him. “Thank you for reminding me. I believe it’s time for a refill.”

  I lead him down the remaining flight of stairs and stop at the open door by the music room, then I step aside to wait for the predictable reaction.

  He stops beside me and gives an obliging gasp. “My God. Look at that piano. It’s gorgeous.”

  “Thank you.” I step in the room and caress the black finish of the music rack. My beloved piano is a glorious dinosaur, nearly eleven feet long—two feet longer than an average grand—with ninety-six keys instead of the standard eighty-eight. The body rests on four black tapered legs, each thicker at the top than my torso, and the lid could serve as a wing on a small airplane. “Arthur and I went into serious debt to buy this. It’s a one-of-a-kind Bösendorfer. There were only three of this specific model made originally, and the other two were destroyed in fires. There’s no other piano like it in the world.”

  In addition to the exquisite tonal quality of the instrument, the case is what makes it so valuable. Stretching from one end to the other is a hand-painted, enchanting scene of a forest at night under a full moon, with a number of woodland creatures hidden among the trees. The colors are all shades of green and gold and yellow, and the detail is breathtaking. The artist was a man named Jacques Previere, who apparently died from an opium overdose.

  Alex stands next to me. “It’s gigantic.”

  “Yes. The movers had a terrible time getting it in the house.”

  He plunks an “A” on the keyboard. “Do you play?”

  I stare at him. “You’re joking.”

  He looks puzzled. “What do you mean?”

  “My maiden name is Parker. I’m Hester Parker.”

  His face stays blank.

  I wince. “Dear Lord. You honestly haven’t heard of me?”

  He shakes his head, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. Should I have?”

  I turn toward the door, craving the bottle of wine. He follows me as I speak over my shoulder. “I used to be a concert pianist when I was a young woman. I toured all over Europe and the United States. Granted, it’s been a long time, but I was semi-famous for a while, or so I thought. Not like Rubinstein or Horowitz, of course, but most people have at least heard of me.”

  He doesn’t answer and I enter the living room and retrieve the bottle by the fire. It’s half empty. As I refill the glass some of the wine splashes on the frayed Oriental carpet. I stare at the stains and fight back sudden tears. “I was something of a household name, once, believe it or not.” I lift my chin and try to smile. “Like Crest, or Alpo. Or Preparation H.”

  He looks alarmed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  I wave a hand at him and ease myself down into the leather recliner facing the fire. “It’s all right.” I swallow a couple of times and sigh. “I’ve been ridiculously emotional lately. I cried at the grocery store last week because the lettuce was wilted and the bananas were overprice
d. The produce manager tried to pacify me with a free box of frozen brussels sprouts, but I was inconsolable.” I hold the bottle out toward him. “Are you sure you won’t have a drink with me?”

  He studies my face for a moment then takes the bottle from my hand. “Where do you keep your wineglasses?”

  I point over my shoulder. “In the kitchen, in the cabinet above the sink.”

  He returns in a moment with a full glass and sits on the edge of the chair facing me. The sun is almost down now and darkness is closing over the house. He rolls the stem of his glass nervously between his fingertips, and the firelight reflects off it, racing back and forth over the spines of the books in the floor-to-ceiling shelves surrounding us.

  We stare at each other for a minute in silence until he begins to squirm. “So,” he finally blurts. “Do you still play?”

  “I fractured my left wrist a number of years ago in an unfortunate tumble on the ice, and it’s never really healed properly, not even after surgery. Since then I’ve been unable to play piano for more than a few minutes at a time, because of a rather debilitating case of carpal tunnel syndrome.”

  His eyes dart to my wrist and I flex it for him. “Yes, it’s still fine for most things. Just not for the kind of beating that Liszt or Beethoven or Rachmaninoff requires. The last time I tried to play a full concert, by intermission I felt as if someone were digging a corkscrew into my thumb and forearm. It was excruciating, so I had to give up performing in favor of teaching.”

  I ponder my hands. “There’s repertoire available for one-armed pianists, of course, but with a few notable exceptions, it has extremely limited appeal for both soloist and audience. Besides, once you’ve had two good hands at your disposal … well, let’s just say it’s not much fun playing with only one. It’s like trying to run with a single leg.”

  “I see.” His voice is quiet and his face is somber. “Did you make any recordings before your accident?”

  “Oh, yes, indeed. Many.” I stifle a belch. “Wal-Mart has most of them available on cassette in their bargain bins. They’re three dollars and ninety-nine cents each. You better hurry, though, if you want one, because they’re selling like hotcakes.”

  I gaze at the fire and pull at a strand of my hair. “I’m lying, actually. The only place you can find my recordings these days is on eBay, usually after one of my few remaining fans passes away and his heirs auction off his belongings.” I sniff. “Then they all run out to the Mall of America, and use the money to buy extremely useful things like Playstations and iPods for their lazy, drooling children. God.”

  When I look back at him he’s grinning again.

  I lean forward. “So what brings you to Bolton? I believe you said on the phone that you’re transferring to Pritchard this semester?”

  He nods and his grin falls away. “Yeah. That’s why I need to find a place to live pretty soon. There are no openings in the dorms, and I can only afford to stay at the bed-and-breakfast until classes start next week.”

  He spins the glass faster in his hands and bars of firelight blur past my eyes.

  “Stop that, please. You’re going to give me an epileptic seizure.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. Just stop fidgeting.” I sink back in my chair and tuck my feet under me. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty.” He sips at his wine and coughs. “Almost twenty-one. My birthday is in March.”

  “Oh, dear. I’m giving alcohol to a minor.” I raise my glass to him. “Oh, well. Drink up. We’ll pretend it’s grape juice. I trust this isn’t your first time?”

  He shakes his head and smiles. “Not even close.”

  We fall silent again for a moment. A log breaks apart in the fireplace and a small shower of sparks sails up the chimney.

  I clear my throat. “So if you’re taking my daughter’s classes, are you an English major? She only teaches the upper level courses.”

  “Yeah. Technically I’m a junior, but I’m not sure all my credits are going to transfer.”

  “Transfer from where?”

  He shifts in his chair and looks out the window. “Wow. It’s getting really dark outside.” He squints at the garden. “Who’s that big statue of?”

  I stare at the back of his head, wondering why he didn’t respond to my question. I suppose I should pursue the matter further, but I can’t make myself care enough to try.

  “No one knows for sure,” I answer. “But it’s awful, isn’t it?” I take a pistachio from the dish by my elbow and pick the shell apart with my fingernails as I look out the window, too. The statue is barely visible, but I can still make out the stone Bible nestled in the crook of its left arm. “We call him Saint Booger.”

  He laughs. “Why?”

  “No particular reason. Arthur’s mother bought it—though only God knows why—without having any idea who it was supposed to be. Some visiting professor once told her he thought it was a Russian saint, but he didn’t know the fellow’s name, either.” I hide a yawn. “So shortly after that, Arthur started calling him Booger, the Patron Saint of Phlegm, and it stuck.”

  I pop the pistachio in my mouth and chase it down with wine. “It made his mother furious. She’d hoped that having a religious icon in her yard would impress the neighbors, but it was so ugly all people could do was laugh. She was heartbroken.”

  Alex tilts his head to see better. “He doesn’t look so bad from here.”

  “You should see him up close, in the daytime. He’s cross-eyed, and he’s missing three fingers on his right hand, and one of his legs is substantially bigger than the other. He also has patches of black mold in his nostrils that resemble armpit hair. It’s repulsive.”

  The grandfather clock in the study behind me chimes once to mark the half-hour: it must be five-thirty. I rest my head on the back of my chair and close my eyes for a moment. “I’d love to get rid of him, but the garbage men refuse to take him. They say he’s too heavy and they’d have to hire extra help to get him on their truck.”

  I open my eyes again and the room takes a few seconds to stop spinning. I reach out a hand and pull the chain on the table lamp to give us more light inside, and the statue disappears, replaced by a mirror image of the living room in the window.

  He finally turns away from the outside. “I kind of like him. He looks like he’s guarding the house.”

  I guffaw. “Of course. How appropriate. Saint Booger is my guardian angel. That explains a great deal.”

  He smiles at me. I offer him the bowl of pistachios and he takes a handful, settling back in his chair to eat them. He puts his wine on the table and starts making a neat pile of shells in his lap, one by one. He focuses on each nut with the intensity of a hungry squirrel, and for a moment he seems to forget I’m in the room with him.

  I sip at my wine and watch him, amused by the concentration on his narrow face. There’s something very appealing about his expression; it’s been a long while since I’ve seen someone take such conspicuous pleasure in the creature comforts of food and fire. We’re both quiet as he eats, but this time the silence doesn’t seem to bother him.

  After he finishes the pistachios, he collects the shells from his lap and stands up to toss them in the fire. They crack and sizzle as they hit the hot coals. He looks down at me. “Well, I guess I should be going.” His voice sounds reluctant.

  I stir in my chair. “Or not.” The wine is probably interfering with my judgment, but there’s something about this boy, something vulnerable and sincere, that makes me not want to let him go. “You can still have the apartment tonight if you want it.”

  He blinks behind his glasses. “Mrs. Donovan, I really can’t.”

  “Don’t call me that, please. It makes me angry, and I’m running out of furniture I can destroy.”

  He pauses. “Okay. Hester. Anyway, I love your place, and you seem nice and everything, but like I said, I really need to have …”

  “… a door,” I interrupt. “Yes, I know. You mentioned that
several times. It’s becoming tiresome, don’t you think?”

  I get slowly to my feet and stand a foot away from him. He’s a good eight or nine inches taller than I am, but I lock eyes with him and he seems to shrink down to my size. “Don’t be an idiot, Alex.” I’ve learned to trust my instincts about things like this, and when I speak my voice is certain. “You’re moving in.”

  I don’t blink or look away until he nods.

  Sometimes you can’t reason with people. Sometimes you just have to bully them into doing the right thing.

  CHAPTER 2

  The boy is coming down the stairs as I’m gathering my things by the door. On his shoulder he’s carrying a worn and dirty brown backpack, with a yellow and black patch on the flap that says, “How would you like it if an animal ate YOU?” His red hair is uncombed and wet, and he looks half-asleep.

  He’s been here a week or so, but we’ve barely spoken since the night he moved in. When he’s not in classes at Pritchard, he keeps to himself up in the attic, and even though he’s polite when he passes me on his way through the house, he’s shown no interest in striking up another conversation.

  I nod at him. “Good morning.”

  “Morning,” he grunts. He’s dressed in his usual attire: jeans and the blue flannel shirt he uses as a coat. He drops his backpack on the floor and squats to put his shoes on by the old metal milk pail that serves as my umbrella holder. Once again he’s not wearing socks.

  I finish buttoning my overcoat and peer down at him. “I’m on my way to the Conservatory, and it’s right next door to Pritchard. Would you like a ride?”

  He fumbles with the laces on his shoes and waits a moment before looking up at me. “Sure, I guess.”

  I can tell he doesn’t know what to think of me. He always watches me warily, as if he thinks I’m getting ready to pop his skull open and scoop out his brain with my fingers if he should dare to drop his guard.