Jack Kerouac is Dead to Me

by Gae Polisner

  I strip off Mom’s kimono, hanging it under some towels on the hook, and slide my arms into the robe, wrapping its thick fuzzy warmth around me, and sit on the edge of the tub and breathe in the soft, distant scent of him.

  On my way out, I change my mind again, yank open the drawer with the box, and shove the entire wad of bills into my pocket.

  So be it. She’ll probably never even notice it’s gone.

  As I turn to go, I catch my reflection in the edge of the darkened mirror. Red lips, wild hair.

  Jailbait.

  I smile.

  Maybe Aubrey is right. Maybe I’m a slut and a thief and a Jezebel.

  I pucker my lips, hold my hand to my mouth, and blow a kiss goodbye to that sweet Norman Rockwell girl.

  Part III

  Moths, not butterflies, spin silk cocoons.

  Butterfly caterpillars molt like reptiles.

  LATE MAY

  TENTH GRADE

  “Jean Louise?” I startle at the light, at my mother standing in the doorway of my room. “Why are you wearing that?” I sit up, my mind racing. Dad’s blue robe. “Why do you have that lipstick on?”

  I wipe drool from my mouth and try to gather myself. She’s not even talking about the robe.

  On my bed is my history book. I meant to wash up, take the robe off and hang it back on her door, and study. My eyes shift to my desk, to the lower left drawer where I shoved the money, wrapped in a wad of construction paper.

  “No reason.” I shrug, trying to breathe normally. “I just thought maybe…”

  She walks to my bed and sits. She wears a turquoise kimono embroidered with chartreuse vines.

  “You don’t need all that.” Her voice is dreamlike, her hair wet from a shower. “You’re beautiful just as you are.”

  “Mom!” I stop her. I can’t stand it—her—any of it anymore. She has a pile of envelopes in her hand.

  I close my history book, push it away, and stare at her.

  “Yes?” She lifts her hand from the folds of the kimono, and I can see them, the words, the name, the dreaded purple stamp that’s coming in a week or two. A whole new pile. Return to Sender. No known addressee.

  I turn away, tears stinging my eyes, and yank Dad’s robe off and throw it on the floor of my closet, and head to my bathroom to scrub off the makeup. I should have known better than to worry about the robe, about the money, about any of it. I should have known better than to hope for one normal moment with my mother.

  “I’m going out,” I say, slipping on my sneakers.

  “Jean Louise?”

  I glare back at her.

  “He’s dead, Mom! You know that, right? I know you like his books, and Nana kissed him. But he’s dead. Jack Kerouac, the author? He’s dead. I keep trying to tell you that. Why won’t you listen? He died, like a long, long time ago.”

  She turns to me, a faraway look on her face. “Of course I know that. Don’t be silly, Jean Louise.”

  As if I am crazy. As if she doesn’t still have the envelopes right there held in her hand.

  LATE MAY

  TENTH GRADE

  I know where I’m going, even if I don’t realize it at first.

  But I’m not sure why I’m going to Aubrey’s house, or who I’m hoping to find.

  The evening is warm; dusk has settled. Max’s house, the money, all feel like eons ago.

  It’s nearly summer. In a few short weeks, it won’t turn dark until close to nine.

  At the Anderssons’ driveway, I stop. Only the red Mustang is out front. The other cars could be in the garage.

  Part of me hopes Mrs. Andersson is home. She’s not exactly warm, but she’s known me forever. Until that stuff with Ethan, she was as close to a surrogate mother as I’ve ever had.

  But that was then and this is now. I’m guessing she knows what happened and hates me for it. Maybe she even told Aubrey and that’s why Aubrey isn’t my friend anymore. But if Aubrey knew about Ethan, she would have said something to me a long time ago.

  There’s another possibility: Mrs. Andersson wouldn’t have guessed in a million years that Ethan could like me, or put the moves on me, no matter what she might have seen that night. Her precious son would never have done that. I would never have been worthy.

  Even if Mrs. Andersson did know, that was nine months ago, and I’m with Max now, and Ethan has moved on to college. Everything is different. And she’s a grown-up, so she wouldn’t hate me. She would be worried for me. When she sees me, she’ll wrap her arms around me and welcome me in.

  Don’t be such a stranger, JL! she’ll say, hugging me. We don’t see you around here nearly enough anymore!

  I walk up the front steps, hope filling my chest, trapped like a cloud in a bottle. Despite me knowing better. I ring the bell and in a matter of seconds, Ethan answers.

  He’s in shorts, and sneakers, a T-shirt clutched in his hand. Beyond us, his red Wilson tennis bag sits on the hallway chair.

  “Hey, Markham!” My heart skips a beat and shadowy thoughts streak through, but if Ethan feels anything but happy to see me, he doesn’t let on.

  “Did I interrupt something?” My voice shakes. I feel light-headed and stupid remembering how he knows about Max.

  “No, just got back from two sets.” He wipes his bare chest with the T-shirt. “The ’rents are out to dinner. I was about to shower.”

  I look away, my cheeks burning. I shouldn’t have come here. Not for him. Not for Aubrey. Not for anyone.

  I don’t know what I was thinking.

  “Come in,” he says. “Don’t just stand there.” He smiles like everything is fine and normal.

  “Is Aubrey home?”

  He holds the door wider, but I stay frozen on the stoop, wondering if there’s a way for me to turn around and head back in the direction of home.

  “Yeah, she’s here. But don’t just stand there like a stranger; seriously, come in.”

  But I feel like a stranger. I pick at a drip of cement on the brickwork that frames the front door, my stomach roiling with hunger, the sour taste of beer rising again. “It’s okay. It’s nice out. I’m good waiting here, if she’ll come down.”

  He gives me a funny look. “Suit yourself. I’ll get her.” He heads back inside, toward the center hall stairs, but I call out to stop him.

  “Actually, Eth, is she alone?” He turns and studies me, brow furrowed with concern. I wrap my arms tight to my chest and shake my head at him, a plea not to ask questions. I struggle not to let tears erupt. I’m being stupid getting so upset. “It’s no big deal if she isn’t,” I say, sounding utterly unconvincing. “I’m just not so close with her other friends.”

  He walks back to the door. “You mean Thing One and Thing Two?” he says, lowering his voice conspiratorially, and I feel instantly better, like maybe someone else sees it; it’s not only me. Like maybe someone’s on my side after all.

  I nod and let out a lame little laugh. “That would be them, yes,” I say.

  “Well, now I get it, and I can’t say I blame you. Sometimes I question my sister’s judgment. But no, they’re not here. Just her. And don’t worry, Markham, you guys will be okay.” He reaches out and puts a hand on my shoulder and squeezes, sending a surge of adrenaline coursing through me. “Friends go through stuff. Especially girls, you know? You and my sister will be fine. Best friends again in five minutes. Or maybe five days, or five weeks, but you will. So don’t let those other girls bother you.”

  I shrug, wanting to believe him, but I can’t seem to find the words to say so.

  “Trust me on this, Markham: Once you get out of high school, you won’t even care. All this, here”—he motions around him at the front lawn, the house behind him—“is a dim memory. A whole world that’s not high school is waiting out there.”

  “Thanks,” I say, trying not to focus on what that makes me.

  “Anytime. You sure you’re okay, kiddo?”

  I back away, enough to cause his hand to drop.

  “Y
eah, thanks. It’s just been a hard few months. I feel much better now.”

  He squints at the lie. “Well, good, come in. Let me get my dopey sister down here.” He takes a step back making room for me, and I follow, but only one step inside the door. “Hey, Aubs, your friend is here!” he yells up the stairs. Then to me, “Hold on, she probably has her music on, and can’t hear.”

  He runs upstairs, and I turn and stare outside, to the stoop, to the front lawn, where Aubrey and I used to have our cartwheel competitions. We would practice for hours, begging Ethan to judge us until we made him crazy, saying he had to score us on all sorts of point scales, legs straight, toes pointed, et cetera. “You’re both good,” he would whine after the fifth round. “I give you both tens. I’m not playing this stupid game anymore!”

  “JL?”

  “Hey, yeah.” I jam my hands in my pockets and force a smile. I feel like an idiot for being here.

  Aubrey stands before me, her curly brown hair piled up with a clip on the top of her head. It looks good like that. Messy. Effortless. I could never do that with my pin-straight hair. I say that, as dumb as it is, and she laughs. “Thanks,” she says.

  “Anyway, I’m sure you’re busy—did Ethan say you had to come down?” My eyes scan for him, but he hasn’t returned from upstairs.

  “No, not at all. Why? What’s up?”

  I want to blurt everything, about Max and what I did today, about the money, and how I’m thinking about going to California. Instead, I say, “Not much. I don’t know. Nothing really. I just … I had a thing with my mom, and one of the butterflies died, and, well, I found myself out walking and … here.”

  She looks down at the tile floor. “Oh,” she says, softly. “Do you want to come in and sit or something?”

  I shake my head. “Can we sit outside for a few?”

  * * *

  The Anderssons’ green sloping lawn gives way to mini gardens that flank each side, perfectly manicured and symmetrical, a tall weeping cherry in the center. When we were little it would drop its pale pink blossoms in profusion in late spring, and we’d gather them by the fistful, tossing them into the air, and watching them fall down on us like magical pink rain.

  “Unicorn rain,” I say out loud, the name coming back to me.

  “Yeah. I was thinking that, too.”

  “You were?” Aubrey nods. “And remember the cartwheel competitions? How we’d make poor Ethan judge?”

  She laughs. “Nothing about Ethan is ‘poor.’ You of all people should know that.” Panic rises in my throat, but she quickly adds, “He’s so spoiled, isn’t he? Even now, he gets his way with everything. You thought High School Prince Ethan was bad, you should try living up to the U Penn Dean’s List King Ethan.”

  I breathe, relieved none of this is about me. Or me and Ethan. Just about beautiful, perfect Ethan, himself, and Aubrey and me in agreement. And for a while that’s enough; we sit quiet, thinking and staring out at the darkening front yard, the fireflies, appearing, blinking, and disappearing in the indigo air.

  “I didn’t mean to bother you,” I finally say, unable to stand the silence.

  “You’re not bothering me, JL.”

  “Well, it feels like I am—like I do.”

  “Stop. Besides, you’re one to talk … You’re always with him.” She pauses. “Which is fine, I mean, it’s just—I tried, remember? Like the time we all—” But she doesn’t finish that sentence, either.

  I’m not taking the blame for all of this, because once or twice I blew her off to hang with Max. Times when we weren’t alone anyway. Those girls were always there.

  Anger rises in my chest. I suddenly want her to say it, to tell me how awful I am because I want to spend time with my boyfriend. Because I like Max Gordon. Who she thinks she knows anything about, but so doesn’t.

  “Go ahead. Tell me,” I say.

  “Tell you what?”

  “What it is that’s so, so bad about me.”

  “You’re not bad,” she says. “Not at all. I feel horrible even saying anything. It’s just, it’s all weird. It’s not like it’s even your fault.”

  “What’s not my fault, Aubrey?”

  “It’s … Your mom … Well, people talk, JL, and even my parents are worried about you, about us, spending too much time together. They think you’re not—They say you’re unsupervised. A little wild. You know your parents can be … that anything goes in your house—”

  “You used to like that,” I snap back. “You liked that my parents were cooler than yours. ‘Free spirits,’ remember? You always wanted to be at my house, not yours.”

  “I know; I did. I do. But with your mother so, well, maybe it will…” Her voice trails off, but I don’t need to hear more. The fury is so swift I can’t breathe.

  “Will what? Rub off on me? Jesus, Aubrey! She’s sick! She’s trying. She’s seeing a doctor.” My eyes fill with tears, and I can’t hold them back, can’t swipe at them fast enough as they slide down my cheeks.

  “I know. I’m sorry,” she says. “You know I don’t think that. It’s my parents. My mom. She thinks we should take a break. That, with everything going on, maybe that’s why you’re not like you used to be, and that we—”

  But I’m already up and moving toward the street.

  “JL! Please. It’s just a little break, that’s all.” I wheel and walk backwards as she moves down the lawn toward me. The lawn where we used to toss unicorn rain and spin cartwheels until we were dizzy. “You’re taking this wrong,” she says. “Or I said it wrong. They love you, my parents. They care about you. But they think you’re acting different, and maybe it’s because of the stuff with your mom. It’s not your fault. It’s their fault—her fault—that you’re behaving like this.”

  “Behaving?” I stop now and glare at her in disbelief. “Behaving? You’re the one who’s changed, Aubrey! You’re the one who’s acting all high-and-mighty with those girls. You’re the one judging me.”

  I start to walk again and she follows me, down to the edge of the street.

  “Those girls get straight A’s, JL,” she says. “Those girls don’t drink. Those girls aren’t hooking up with Max Gordon.”

  I whirl around and laugh loudly. I laugh so hard I have to steady myself with my hands on my knees. I’m crying I’m laughing so hard. Finally, I straighten and stare her right in her judgmental face. It helps that I can only half-see her in the blanketing darkness. But I’ll be damned if I’m letting her have the last word on Max Gordon.

  “For the record, we’re not ‘hooking up.’ And even if we were, we’re in love. But you wouldn’t know the first thing about that, would you, since you don’t have a boyfriend, and never have? And here’s another news flash, Aubrey: You don’t know the first thing about Max Gordon. You and your rumors and the shit Ethan may have told you years ago, neither of you have any idea who he is. How good he is. Smart and kind and funny. You have no idea what he’s been through. So you really ought to shut the hell up.”

  I don’t say more, because I won’t have her pity him. I won’t betray Max and all the private stuff he’s told me. Like he said, he doesn’t have anything to prove. And I’m never going to convince Aubrey, or her stupid, judgmental, holier-than-thou family.

  “I’m not saying that, JL. But he has done stuff. It’s not rumors. It’s the truth.”

  “So what?” So what if Max isn’t a saint? So what if he drinks a little and gets stoned? This isn’t middle school. Half the kids in high school get stoned. Hell, my stupid parents get stoned.

  Screw the Anderssons. How do her parents even know about my mother? Because whatever Aubrey knows, whatever I’ve told her, she was sworn to secrecy. I told her in confidence, because I was worried. She promised not to tell.

  “People talk,” she had said.

  What people? Who? Screw them, too. I’m done with everyone. Everyone can go to hell, but Max.

  “JL, please—” I shake my head. “You’re right. Don’t go. Let’s talk about t
his. I—I don’t know what to do.”

  “Forget it, Aubrey!” I call over my shoulder. “No worries. You’re off the hook. You and your family are rid of me.”

  When she calls my name again, I don’t even think about turning around.

  LATE MAY

  TENTH GRADE

  Mom is still in my room, sitting in front of the habitat, unmoving, as if she is meditating or something.

  Does she meditate now?

  I have no idea what she’s doing.

  “Mom?”

  “You’re back,” she says, not turning. “I’m so relieved.”

  She is?

  “Yeah, I went for a walk. Are you—?”

  People talk … It’s not your fault … It’s … Your mom—

  “Yes. Yes, of course I am.”

  “Are you okay? is what I mean, Mom. Not relieved.” Her constant confusion crushes me.

  “Yes. I know. And sure. But I’m worried for you. You’re my girl. I love you. I want you to be happy.” Her words make me uneasy. There’s something stilted and off about them, like she’s saying them, but they’re not quite hers.

  I walk over and sit on the floor next to her.

  The smell of her still-damp hair, her lotions and perfume, fills me with this distant, uneasy memory. I’m little, maybe five or six, and we’re sitting at her vanity looking in her mirror. She’s made room for me on the bench next to her while she puts on her makeup, her jewelry. She picks up a small black bottle with gold letters and holds it out to me in the palm of her hand. The light sparkles off the glass, making it look almost purple.

  “This one your father bought for me when we went to Paris,” she says. “Hundreds of dollars per ounce. It’s made from real jasmine and styrax.”

  I don’t know what either of those things are, but they sound special and rare and exotic. She takes the cap off and puts a tiny dab behind each of my ears, and on the front of my neck. The smell is cloyingly sweet and singes my nostrils.