Nightingale

by Amy Lukavics

  “I think it’s just swell,” June said, smiling at her mom.

  Schoolwork helped, too, but not as much as it used to. Since the end of the year was so close, all of the major assignments had been completed, all the tests had been taken and returned marked. June did neither well nor poorly on her finals: she did just okay, and she was glad she’d never have to feel like her worth was connected to these high-pressure outcomes again. Mom and Dad didn’t care about grades at all, though, didn’t think June would have much use for them the direction her life was going. June figured that as long as she had books, she’d be just fine.

  “Well, go ahead and try it on!” Mom urged. “I can’t wait to see it on you.”

  Every time June remembered that, one day soon, she’d be gone from all of this, away from Mom and Dad and Robert and Fred, her face couldn’t help but light up. It put a bounce in her step, allowed her to refill Fred’s potato-chip bowl without wanting to smash it into his skull, gave her the energy to diligently use her hair curlers before dates.

  She let herself kiss and fool around with Robert more, now that she knew she was going to disappear. He was glad for it, and so was she: it was nice to be able to indulge with no strings attached, on her end, anyway, thanks to the diaphragm she’d stolen from the drugstore after her first time with Robert. She couldn’t manage to care about his end.

  June stepped out of the changing room, the dress swinging around her legs as she spun in a circle for Mom, who actually gasped and started clapping when June came out. “I just cannot believe my dumpy little girl has become such an upright young woman,” she said. “These past weeks have been so rewarding to experience with you, June. What a change! I’m proud of you. You’ve grown up.”

  Dumpy. Homely. Lazy. Words that June didn’t consciously process anymore because she was so used to hearing them from her mother’s mouth.

  Be a better young woman, June thought, scoffing. The girl who smiled, obeyed, picked mint-green dresses. That girl was only there to humor Mom, make her believe that she’d finally gotten the daughter that she’d always wanted, just before it would be made achingly clear to her, once and for all, that she was wrong.

  The sound of her teeth grinding filled June’s head, loud and grainy and violent. Her tongue got pinched in the chaos, and she tasted blood.

  “Thank you, Mom,” June said without skipping a beat, giving one final whirl. “So, can we get this one? First dress I tried on—what luck!”

  “Of course,” Mom said, rising from the cushioned store bench and straightening out her blouse. “I’ll go ahead and let the nice woman up front know.”

  June went into the changing room, closed the door, and took the dress off, replacing it with the plain cotton housedress she’d worn there. She fluffed out her curls, re-applied her lipstick—and wondered what exactly the insides of her head would look like if somebody cracked it open. At the thought, June’s breathing slowed. Her shoulders sank, her eyes widened enough to clearly show the color of her irises, and she found herself compelled to open her mouth wide and lean toward the mirror to peer into the darkness of her throat.

  Suddenly, Mom was knocking on the door and asking in an unsure voice if June was all right, saying that she’d already paid for the dress and that they could leave. June straightened up, closed her mouth, rubbed her eyes and emerged. Mom said she had been knocking for close to twenty seconds without an answer.

  At night, it was hard to keep still. June would stare at her typewriter from where she lay in bed, look at the shape of it in the dark silhouetted by the moonlight coming in through the window near the desk. She couldn’t stop thinking about her story, seeing it in vivid scenes in her head whenever she was bored. She could not wait to work on it again, was desperate to. Only nine more days, she told herself every time it got especially hard to resist and she unwittingly started grinding her teeth again. Eight days. Seven days. Six.

  She started getting stomachaches from the intensity of her feelings, and headaches, too. So many headaches.

  Every night she dreamed about it, dreamed that she was in a spaceship with big windows and many creatures for crew, some of them humanoid, others not. As she drifted off to sleep the night before graduation, June imagined writing.

  Day after day they hunched over her. They looked and they looked, and they communicated with one another, and she desperately wished she knew what they were saying. Because of what had happened after they let her free the last time, she was once again restrained with straps and metal clamps and invisible fields of pressure.

  June would always cut herself off once she thought of a few sentences, the excitement making her heart pound. All this thinking had revealed to her the true nature of the creatures’ motivations. She knew exactly how she wanted the story to end. She knew what would ultimately become of her heroine, who would soon be returned to Earth in order to fulfill her true destiny.

  Just like her heroine, all through June’s life there was this eternal, low buzz of knowing within herself that said she would live to become something truly great one day. The heroine didn’t understand at first why the creatures had taken her away from Earth, how she could possibly end up so doomed and unlucky. She wasn’t able to think beyond the circumstances, beyond the torture and the testing.

  Once June arrived in New York, she could finally reveal to her heroine exactly why her suffering was so very relevant to the destiny she had always felt was hers. June knew it’d be a perfect and excellent ending.

  On the morning of graduation, she rose before the sun was up and spent three hours secretly packing a suitcase for the retreat. Once done, she put it back in her closet in the place she always kept it, which she felt was the best hiding place possible—it wasn’t as though it looked stuffed full. She would be leaving early the following morning.

  June felt like she was walking on clouds for the rest of the day. She took a hot bath, ate the eggs and bacon and waffles that Mom had made for breakfast to celebrate her graduation, and then had ham sandwiches and potato salad for lunch. Every time Mom approached her with a mundane inquiry about anything that would be happening beyond today, June just smiled and nodded, agreeing to anything and everything, knowing she wouldn’t actually be there to do it.

  After lunch, she started getting ready for the ceremony, the fabric of her new dress pleasant against her skin. She powdered her face, groomed her eyebrows, put on mascara, applied lipstick. When she was finished, her parents oohed and aahed, while Fred scowled from the kitchen table, his arms crossed. June used to think that her brother hated how she was before, but from the looks of it, he wished she’d go back to irritating their parents so that he could be the golden child again.

  Just you wait, June wished she could tell him as they rode in the car to the school football field. It’ll be you again after tomorrow morning.

  The ceremony began shortly, and once all the speeches were through, the principal began the roll call. June watched her classmates go up one row at a time, all the people she’d known for so many years but had never really grown close enough with to keep in touch after it was all over.

  She found so many of them endearing now, especially through her new lens. She smiled along with them, waved back when someone waved to her. Maybe she’d go out with some of them after the ceremony, she thought. Maybe she could have an adventure before she took off, one last hurrah to propel her into the adulthood that was awaiting her at the bus stop tomorrow morning.

  June looked to the audience and saw her family and Robert and Mr. Dennings there, which made her stomach sink. Why was Robert’s father there? She didn’t like his presence. It somehow felt different than business-related dinners and brandy at home. She’d been pushing herself to believe that the business her father and Mr. Dennings had created was completely safe from being destroyed by her departure tomorrow, that there were no tightly attached personal strings. After all, Robert was too much o
f a grown man with his own life for it to really have any lasting effect.

  Right?

  She had to admit, she realized as she watched Robert lift a hand to wave at her, lately the talk at the dinners had been less business-focused and more personal. Mr. Dennings had complained about his housekeeper, asked Dad’s advice on which brand of aftershave to use, shared anecdotes about his dead wife, and all the adults would laugh and drink and exchange their own anecdotes. There was no way the business would fall apart just because she went on a writing retreat, right?

  It doesn’t matter, she told herself, waving back to Robert and shooting him a smile. That shouldn’t be for me to fret about. It’s not my fault that Dad forced me to date Robert.

  Still, she could feel her feelings of invincibility deflate just the slightest bit. If the business were to somehow fall apart, it would be a massive shock to her parents and put them in a difficult spot financially.

  Maybe the opposite will happen, though, June thought as her row was called to stand and make their way to line up beside the stage. If they’re such great friends, maybe Mr. Dennings would take pity on Dad, and Dad could take pity on Robert.

  “Mary Anne Harbinson,” the principal called into the microphone, and the girl in front of June stepped onto the stage to the applause of many. She smiled, waved, held her pose as she took her fake diploma for the photographer’s benefit. Then she stepped down from the platform, and it was June’s turn.

  “June Ellen Hardie,” the principal enunciated.

  June stepped onto the stage and walked across it with her head high, her new dress completely hidden beneath a graduation gown that flowed behind her as she went. She looked into the audience and saw her family cheering. Robert whistled. Mr. Dennings grinned and shot her a thumbs-up. June lifted a hand to them before accepting the rolled-up piece of paper bound with blue ribbon, posing for her picture and walking off. On the way back to her seat, more classmates whooped and waved than she had imagined would.

  When she sat back down, she took a deep breath through her nose, and told herself that everything would be okay. You’ve always known, remember? she told herself, an eerie amount of calm taking over her. You’ve always known that you were meant for something great. You’ve always known that your life would be spectacular.

  This time tomorrow, June would be on a plane, soon to land in New York.

  When the ceremony came to a close, everybody threw their hats into the air. June made a wish, threw hers as hard as she could, then watched as it flew high enough to get stuck on one of the cottonwood branches that loomed over the edge of the field. June smiled at the sight of the hat, then turned and strolled back toward the parking lot, through the sea of students hugging family members and each other.

  “Hey, June!” A girl called Esther waved frantically from where she sat on top of the backseat of a beat-up white convertible. “Joanna Volpe is throwing a massive party at her parents’ lake house! Wanna come along? We can give you a ride!”

  Esther and June had always been friendly—they’d met in elementary school and had had several classes together though junior high and high school. A few other girls were piling into the car, and a few guys, too. June imagined drinking liquor at the party, dancing with all those other girls, maybe even convincing them all to jump into the lake naked with her. The memories would last a lifetime, as memories were supposed to. It’d be the perfect way to spend her last night in town.

  She smiled at Esther and took a step toward the car, but stopped when someone grabbed her by the arm from behind.

  “Where’re you going?” Robert’s voice was casual, but his grip was strangely snug. “I’ve been trying to find you. Your mother made a cake and wants us all to go to your house to eat it.”

  June’s head whirled with different ways she could say there was no way in hell that she’d be going back to her house to eat cake instead of Joanna’s party at the lake house. She felt like the best option was just to leave, here and now, and just deal with getting yelled at by her parents when she came home. Then they’d send her off to bed, go to sleep themselves, and when they woke up, she’d be gone.

  “Oh, Robert!” June said sweetly, looking into his eyes while she pulled her arm back. “My mother must have forgotten. I already told her before we came to the ceremony that I would be with my friends tonight to celebrate. I’m sure she’ll remember if you just go remind her.”

  “Come on, June!” Esther cried out excitedly, reaching out with her hands, her fingers wiggling. “Let’s go!”

  June stepped toward the car, and then Robert’s hand gripped her arm once again, this time even tighter. June winced and looked back at him in surprise; his face was still as relaxed as ever.

  “I’ll meet you there!” June called to Esther, and the boy behind the wheel of the convertible pulled out, all of the passengers launching into their high school’s fight song.

  “Robert,” June said, turning toward him. “I’m sorry if you assumed we would be together tonight. It’s just that I’ve already made plans!”

  “Who would you rather spend a night like this with?” Robert’s voice was flat but loud. “Your family and the people who love you the most, or some shameless punks you never seemed to care about until tonight?”

  Who was he to talk about her life as if he actually understood it? He knew nothing. June noticed there were a few people looking at them, giggling behind their hands, whispering into each other’s ears as they took in Robert and his suit and his hair that was slicked to the side.

  “Let’s talk about this someplace else,” June said, dipping her head. She dragged him by her own arm to the side of the building. “I’ll be going to the party tonight, and can celebrate with all of you tomorrow night. Aren’t you and your father coming to dinner anyway, since it’s Saturday?”

  Without any warning, Robert shoved June up against the brick wall, her skull connecting hard enough to make her teeth click.

  “June,” he said with a light little chuckle, his eyes sparkling. “I appreciate your lust for life, but take it from me. It’d be a much better choice for you to come on home with me.”

  June’s eyes stung. She was ashamed to realize that she was trembling. How dare a pitiful piece of shit like Robert take the upper hand with her? Move away, she begged herself. Rip your arm out of his stupid little hand, and then punch him hard enough to break his nose.

  She couldn’t, though. June didn’t know if it was because she didn’t want to cause a ruckus enough for someone to call the police, or if it was because despite the shove against the wall and the death grip he currently had on her arm, Robert appeared to be perfectly calm, jolly even. In the end, June supposed it was because she was scared.

  “Okay,” she said, forcing the corners of her mouth upward. As she spoke, she gently pulled her arm out of his grip. “Let’s go, then.”

  June would forget about the party, forget about her vision of the perfect last night in town, follow along with everyone else’s plans this one last time in order to keep the peace. If it wasn’t for the packed suitcase and bus ticket waiting for her at home, June wondered if she’d be able to stand living through even one more day of this life. She didn’t think she could. The realization chilled her.

  Almost free.

  Robert chatted all the way home as usual, and as usual June didn’t listen to any of it, only remembered to nod or mmm-hmm every few seconds to keep him satisfied. The back of her head was sore from where it’d hit the brick wall, the wrinkles (scars?) beneath her eyes felt warm and unpleasant. At home, everyone was already waiting, happier than June could understand. It would seem that the occasion was more momentous to them than to June.

  Still, she forced herself to go along with it, to eat a piece of the lemon buttercream cake that Mom had made, the top garnished with candied lemon peel and sliced almonds. She drank hot tea without sugar, but didn’t blow on it
before gulping it, so she burned her tongue and throat. But still, her face beamed.

  “Oh, I know!” Mom cried out happily after four cocktails, her lips bright red from the maraschino cherries, her face flushed from the drink. “Let’s play charades!”

  “That sounds swell,” June said, wishing she could stand and turn over the coffee table with a guttural scream, throw things in their faces, slap them and scream. “How should we choose the teams?”

  The telephone started ringing from Mom and Dad’s room, barely heard over the drunken whoops and laughs coming from Mr. Dennings. Dad barked at Fred to answer the telephone and clapped a hand on June’s shoulder for the tenth time that night. “We should have the kids on one team and us more experienced folk on the other,” he said, and Mom agreed.

  June moved over to sit next to Robert, leaving a space for Fred on her other side. Robert set his hand on the small of her back, and she wondered if he could feel her recoil. If he did, he didn’t move his hand away.

  “I wonder who’s calling?” Mom asked, impatient to begin. June sometimes suspected that her mother was able to feel more useful playing charades than doing most things in her life, based on how enthusiastic she was about the game. In fact, she had such a competitive spirit about it that June always hoped to end up on the opposite team.

  “Fred, tell whoever it is that it’s a family night and that you’re busy!” Dad bellowed into the hallway leading to the dark bedroom. A few seconds later, Fred appeared, his eyes alive with excitement.

  “Sit down already,” Mom urged, pointing to the empty space beside June. “We’re going to begin.”

  “But the phone call...” Fred said, and went to whisper something in Dad’s ear. June watched her father’s face fall from its drunken high as her brother spoke. After a moment, he put his hand up to stop Fred and stood, everyone watching curiously.

  “So sorry, Stewart and Robert,” he said, putting his drink down on the coffee table. “It looks like we’re going to have to cut the night short.”