Immersed in Archie’s life, Amanda forgot about the Coke. When she remembered it again the can was no longer cold, and the bubbles had vanished. She took a gulp but did not swallow. For a moment she held the sweet tepid liquid inside her mouth. The soda was inside her but it was not yet part of her, as it would be in the next moment. When she swallowed, it would become lost, part of her, indistinguishable from her stomach, her lungs, all the parts of her in her interior that she could not feel. The soda turned warm inside her mouth, the sweetness took on the taste of the insides of her cheeks. The light from the bedside lamp made a warm pool in the dark room. Swirling the Coke over and over in her mouth, Amanda turned a limp yellow page. As she did so she heard the front door slam softly.
Amanda swallowed the mouthful at once and put the can back on the table. Quickly she slid the comics under the bed and turned out her light. Her mother went into the back hall, toward the kitchen. Faintly Amanda heard her mother talking to Maria, then she heard her mother come back alone. Maria left by the service elevator.
Amanda lay in bed, her eyes tightly shut. She listened to her mother’s footsteps, muffled by the hall carpet. The footsteps went past Amanda’s door, and she heard her mother’s bedroom door shut. Amanda opened her eyes, but she did not turn the light back on; her mother might come in to say good night when she herself was ready for bed.
Amanda lay still. Her new window did not look out on Park Avenue, so at night she no longer heard the smooth steady swoosh of cars when it rained. This room looked out on a side street, where the traffic was always stop and go. Instead of the quiet dreamlike sounds of solitary cars pausing for a light in the middle of the night, she heard the loud anguished strain of the garbage trucks, over and over.
Now it was quiet outside, and Amanda listened in the dark for sounds from her mother’s bedroom. But both doors were shut, and she could hear nothing. She lay without moving, listening in the dark until she fell asleep.
One night, the winter Amanda was eight, she woke suddenly. A nightmare still had possession of her; threat and terror swirled inside her head, and her room was filled by something frightening. At first she lay in her bed listening to the sounds outside her window. A garbage truck was groaning down the block, and there was the faint cry of a distant siren, but neither sound was what had started her heart pounding. She watched the lights shift on her ceiling. Fear held her fixed in place, her arms and legs still. The shadows on the ceiling. And the shadows in her closet, behind the partly open door. The silence of the hall outside her bedroom.
When the fear of staying still outweighed the fear of moving, Amanda climbed quickly out of bed. Heart pounding, she ran to her door. Her mother’s room was just down the hall. Amanda opened her door and, without looking into the darker reaches in either direction, bolted diagonally across the hall to her mother’s door. She could feel terror racing through her. She opened the door, ready to sprint through the dark into her mother’s bed. As she opened the door, she had already started, she had already taken the first step.
Her mother’s room was lit. The small lamp on bedside table threw shadows from the bed hangings onto the ceiling. The rest of the room was dark and vague. The door was directly opposite the four-poster bed, with its heavy curtains. Amanda, standing in the doorway, was looking straight at the illuminated bed. It did not have her mother in it. There was instead a huge nightmare body under the sheets. Amanda stared straight at the rumpled excitement of this figure, at the confusion of heads on the pillow. Frozen with horror—it was like her dream—Amanda stood in the doorway, staring at the figure as it heaved and fought under the covers. Suddenly her mother’s face appeared, detaching itself from the rest of the unruly bulk.
“Amanda?” she said. The figure was still at once. It had another head, but without a face. The other head was covered in dark hair.
“Amanda, go back to bed,” her mother said. Her voice was furious; Amanda had never heard her mother sound like that before. “Go back to bed right now!” Amanda turned and left, shutting the door behind her.
Back in her own room, Amanda pulled the quilt off her bed and picked up a sheaf of comics. She took these into the closet, where she turned on the overhead light and closed the door behind her. Beneath the row of dresses, she pushed aside her shoes, making a clearing in the deepest recesses of the space. She put down her quilt and sat on it, pulling it up around her shoulders. The floor was cold, and Amanda was shivering, but inside the small closed closet it was quiet, and inside the cocoon of her quilt it slowly became warm. In the dim light from overhead she picked up the top comic on her pile, holding it on her knees. She began to reread the stories, already memorized, about Riverdale, about convertibles and cheerleaders.
The next morning, neither Caroline nor Amanda mentioned the night before. On her way to the kitchen for breakfast, Amanda looked through the open doorway into her mother’s room. The bed was empty, the pillows punched and disorderly, the sheets rumpled and ghastly, one trailing on the floor. Amanda did not stop but kept on going to the kitchen. What her mother made for breakfast was cold cereal. Her mother bought whatever ones Amanda said she wanted.
15
On Friday they left New York late, after Tess and Amanda had had dinner. It was summer, the evening was long, and when they started out it was still light. Peter drove, with Emma beside him in the front. Amanda, who was eight, and Tess, four, knelt, facing each other, in back. The long slippery backseat was a separate country, wild, filled with adventure, inhabited only by them. They were playing Wonder Woman.
Amanda described the action as it occurred, in an urgent undertone. She clung precariously with one superstrong hand to the back of the seat, dangling in space from the side of a skyscraper. Tess watched, avid: she was Wonder Woman’s helper.
“Now the kidnappers are leaning out the window above me,” Amanda whispered. “They’re trying to cut my magic lariat.”
“They can’t,” Tess said, shaking her head firmly. “You can’t cut it.”
“I let it out further,” Amanda said, ignoring Tess. “I slide down the skyscraper until I see an open window. I’m forty-seven stories above the street.”
“And the wind comes up,” Tess suggested.
“They’re banging at the rope from above, trying to wham me against the side of the building,” Amanda said. She pushed herself back from the seat, her hands springing against the cushion.
Emma turned around to look at them. “How are you girls doing?”
“Fine,” Amanda said.
“We’re playing Wonder Woman,” said Tess, bouncing once on the seat. “I’m the helper.”
“Good,” Emma said. “And what’s happening?”
“We’re winning,” Tess said. “The kidnappers almost trapped us, but we’re getting away.”
“Good for you,” Emma said, and turned again to the front.
“Now he leans way out the window,” Amanda whispered. “He’s trying to shoot me.” Amanda flattened herself against the seat.
“Use your magic bracelets,” Tess suggested.
“Wonder Woman puts up her magic bracelet,” Amanda said, not looking at her. She held her wrist up. “Ping! Ping! The bullets bounce off it. Then I make the other end of my lariat into a noose, and throw it at Black Bart.”
“It goes over his head!” Tess said triumphantly, clapping her hands.
Amanda looked at her. “Tess,” she said, in a different voice, “I’m telling this.”
“Okay, okay,” Tess said fiercely.
Amanda went on in the secret whisper. “The magic lariat pulls him out of the window. Wonder Woman reaches out as he passes, and catches him with her superstrength!”
“Why did you catch him?” Tess asked, in her normal voice.
“Because,” Amanda said, in hers, “Wonder Woman is good. She never kills people. Anyway, it’s too soon for it to be over.”
Amanda stretched an arm out clinging with her other hand to the backseat. “Wonder Woman holds on to him
as she bangs against the building.”
“When am I going to do something?” Tess asked.
“Soon,” Amanda said, “as soon as Wonder Woman gets inside.”
“You always say that,” Tess said.
“She’s got hold of the windowsill,” Amanda whispered, “she’s just about got it.”
Tess sat up, pulling her knees up to her chin, her feet apart. She banged her knees together impatiently.
“She gets inside!” Amanda said triumphantly. “She gets inside and sees her helper!”
“What do I do?” Tess asked.
“Wonder Woman gets Black Bart in through the window,” Amanda said, struggling and pulling, “and her helper is waiting with a big huge book. A dictionary. The helper hits him on the head with it as he comes inside. She knocks him out!”
“Amanda,” said Tess, “I want to use the magic weapons. I don’t want to use a dumb old dictionary. Why can’t I ever use the magic things?”
“Because, Tess,” Amanda said, her voice urgent. “They belong to Wonder Woman. They only work for her. Anybody knows that. No one can use them except Wonder Woman.”
“Then I don’t want to play anymore,” Tess said. She turned away and stared straight ahead, her mouth set. “Or I want a game where I’m Wonder Woman,” Tess said. “I want to be Wonder Woman.”
“Tess, look,” Amanda kept her voice down. She did not want Emma to hear this. “I’m bigger. Wonder Woman can’t be smaller than her helper.”
“Okay, fine, Amanda,” Tess said. “You be Wonder Woman. I’m not playing anymore.” She folded her arms, her face stony.
“Okay, fine, Tess,” said Amanda. “But you’re going to miss the big important thing that the helper does. She saves Wonder Woman.”
“I don’t care,” said Tess angrily. She leaned into the front seat. “Mommy?”
Emma turned her head.
“Can I come in the front with you?”
Emma lifted her arms, and, traitorously, Tess clambered into the other world, with the grown-ups.
Amanda, alone, sat in the backseat. The world that had populated it—vivid, crowded, demanding—suddenly vanished. She was nowhere now. She was alone in the backseat. She looked out the window. Cars streamed past, in the relentless monotony of the highway. Amanda kicked her legs. She put her finger to her mouth and chewed on her nail. Boredom rose in her like a wave.
She leaned against the back of the front seat, behind her father. She looked at the back of his neck, the collar of his plaid shirt. The hair was cut short and plushy down at the base, and it grew longer and featherier as it went up on his head. Amanda brushed the back of his head with her hand.
“Dad?”
“Hi, Nanna,” Peter said.
“When is it my turn to sit in the front seat?” she asked.
“You mean on Emma’s lap?” Peter said. Tess, her thumb in her mouth, eyed Amanda suspiciously.
“Tess always gets to sit there,” said Amanda. “I should have a turn in the front.”
Tess pulled her glistening thumb from her mouth. “No!”
“It’s not fair,” Amanda said to Emma. “Why does Tess always get to sit in your lap and I don’t?”
“Because she’s so much smaller than you,” Emma said, her voice light and brisk. “My lap isn’t big enough for you, Amanda, you’re such a big girl!” Emma smiled at her brightly.
There was silence for a moment.
“Amanda is too big to sit in your lap?” Peter said to Emma.
“Amanda is actually quite big,” Emma said. Her voice was still brisk, and she didn’t turn to look at Peter. “Amanda is growing up. Her arms and legs are longer than you think.”
Amanda waited, her head pressed against the seat behind her father, but her father said nothing more. Tess lay against Emma’s chest, her thumb back in her mouth. Amanda looked at her, and Tess pulled her thumb out and stuck out her tongue at Amanda. Amanda made a mean face, squinting her eyes. Then she sank away into the backseat. She threw herself down on the seat, flattened by boredom and resentment. She hated Tess. She hated both Tess and Emma. Emma always did that. One time when her father was away and Amanda had been staying with them, Emma had let Tess sleep with her. Amanda had asked if she could sleep there too, and Emma had said there wasn’t room.
Amanda lay in resentful silence, watching the wild headlights slip past. She hated her father for saying nothing. The car slid from lane to lane, from one stream of headlights to another. Cars rushed past in the other direction, endlessly, slipping past forever. The car beneath Amanda surged along through the night. Alone in the backseat, in the roaring darkness, she slept.
She awoke at the silence, when the car stopped.
“We’re here,” Peter said, and opened his door. Outside it was dark and quiet. There was only a quiet rushing sound from the wind. Amanda could smell the sea. Tess had been asleep too. Her eyes were bleary.
“Everyone take something,” Emma said, but she really meant Amanda. She and Peter were carrying things anyway, and Tess was too small. Amanda carried her own suitcase, and they set off on the little path toward the house.
The Kirklands were waiting for them at the front door. Mr. Kirkland, who was tall and frightening, kissed Emma and Tess. He shook hands with Peter and Amanda.
“Hello, Kirk,” Peter said to him, setting down a suitcase. “You remember Amanda, my daughter.”
“Hello, young lady,” Mr. Kirkland said, looking down at her from underneath his eyebrows. He was very tall.
“Hello, Amanda,” Mrs. Kirkland said. “I’m glad to have you here.” She leaned over and put her arms around Amanda. Her arms felt strange and uncertain. She kissed Amanda’s cheek. Amanda waited without moving for her to stop.
“Gonny!” Tess shouted loudly, showing off. She threw herself against her grandmother, closing her eyes to show rapture.
“Well, I don’t know what you’ll find to do here,” Mr. Kirkland said loudly to Amanda.
Emma stopped and turned to her father.
“She’ll find lots to do here, Daddy,” she said. “She and Tess will do things together.”
“Good, good,” Mr. Kirkland said. He frowned all the time.
Upstairs, they crowded along the hallway. Tess, holding on to her grandmother’s hand, led the way, bossily. “This is my room, Amanda,” she said, looking back at Amanda. They were to share it. There were two beds and a faded rag rug. Between the beds, in a battered gold frame, was a picture of a girl in old-fashioned clothes: a black cloak and hat, with a fur muff. Shelves, built into the walls, held china mugs, a pincushion, a collection of shells. All the furniture was painted white. Nothing looked new.
Tess sat on the bed closest to the door. She bounced on it and declared, “This is mine. I get this bed.”
“Now, Tess,” Mrs. Kirkland said, “remember that you’re the hostess. You ask your guest what she would like.”
Tess looked at Amanda. “Amanda, would you like that bed?” She pointed to the bed near the window.
Amanda shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t care,” she said.
The next morning, Amanda woke first. Resisting, her eyelids shuttering against the light, she finally opened her eyes. It was the light that had wakened her; the room was awash, aglare, with brightness. There was nothing to keep it out: at the windows were only thin white curtains, not drawn. Flimsy white shades kept out only the sight of the ragged pines and sandy flat lawn outside. Nothing at all kept out the sun, which had entirely invaded the small room with brilliance.
At home, Amanda was never awakened by light. In her bedroom, the blue-and-white-checked curtains were always drawn at night, and the heavy white shade was pulled securely down to the windowsill. The window itself was tightly shut against the night. The enclosed air moved peacefully through her lungs again and again through the night. She was surrounded by a breathing, murmuring web she wove herself, warm, familiar, close.
The nights were different when Amanda was with Emma and her fath
er. Nights with them were not safe. Emma always made Amanda sleep with the window dangerously open: anything could get in from outside. The dark wind came into her room at will. And last night Amanda had heard strange noises. There were rushing noises outside, and inside there were creaks and incomprehensible patterings. At home in New York there were no sounds like that. There was only the sound of traffic, or the rising song of a distant siren, or normal noises like that. In the mornings there was the strident familiar racket of heat rising powerfully through the pipes. All of these sounds were known and comforting.
Amanda slid further up on her pillow and looked around. Tess, of course, was asleep. Tess slept all the time, she took naps, she went to bed early, she woke up late. Her head was pressed deep into the pillow, her eyes tightly closed, her mouth slightly open.
Amanda looked around the room. It was shaped wrong: the ceiling, instead of being flat, slanted down on either side of the window, cutting the space into strange uneven shapes. But everything here was strange.
The house made Amanda uncomfortable. It was old and the furniture was rickety, the rugs were frayed and there were holes on the chair arms. Amanda’s mother would never have lived in a place like this. Amanda had been to her real grandparents’ house, Caroline’s parents’, to their whitewashed brick house. There, the floors were smooth and polished, and the walls had no cracks in them. The furniture was not faded, and there were no holes in the chair arms.
This house, Emma’s parents’, was poor. Emma seemed unembarrassed by it, but to Amanda its poverty was shaming. She held herself aloof from it: the faded slipcovers, the shabby floors, the dusty corners. None of it had anything to do with her. She was only marking time here, waiting to leave. She had to be here. Her father made her come. The games with Tess were the only times she was not waiting to leave.
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