At school, I can’t concentrate. Every night when the packing’s done and Mom’s gone to bed, I drink cup after cup of coffee trying to stay awake to do my homework. Then, when I’ve finally finished, I’m too wired to sleep. I pace my room, stopping to touch the scarred walls, the desk and bookshelves my dad made when I started school, the bulletin board that’s displayed everything from pictures of Big Bird to the “Just Do It” poster that’s pinned there now. It’s cold up here; it’s always cold up here. I scratch my name in the ice that’s built up in the corner of the window glass. The world framed in this window is the world I saw when I was a baby lying in my crib.
fourteen
Party at my house tonight,” Stephanie Carr says to me Friday afternoon. “Want to come? I miss you, Jax. Why don’t you quit being such a hermit?”
“Maybe,” I say, embarrassed at how many times I’ve turned her down.
“Go,” Mom says when I mention it to her. “Honey, it would be good for you to do something fun.”
I get to Steph’s house a little after nine, a big brick Tudor near where our new house is. I recognize most of the cars parked along the street, but the house is dark. Standard operating party procedure when someone’s parents are gone. In the kitchen, by the light of the open refrigerator, a few people are milling around, talking, drinking beer from the keg that’s iced down in a baby’s plastic bathtub.
“Yo, Jackson!” Tom Best says, and raises his glass.
I wait for him to tell me to get myself a beer, or even to draw one from the keg for me and make me refuse it, but he just holds out his palm for the high five. “What’s up, dude?” he says.
“Little,” I say, and head down to the basement to find Steph. She’s dressed in a long, gauzy black skirt, a black sweater that would fit a person twice her size, combat boots, a bunch of silver bracelets, and a necklace of carved wooden unicorns. Her dangly earrings are made from tab tops. She flies over to meet me in her usual dramatic fashion.
“Oh, Jax,” she cries. “You came!” She gives me a big kiss on the cheek and makes me dance with her a while. Then she takes my hand and leads me back upstairs, into the living room. White furniture, white carpet, glass tables illuminated in the moonlight. “So,” Steph says, pulling me down beside her on the couch. “Talk. Tell me everything.”
“What everything?” I say.
Her eyes shine with tears. “You’re not okay, Jax. I know you; I see. You haven’t been okay since Brady left.”
I’m stunned by the relief her words bring, the sudden lifting of this secret from where it had been wedged inside me. I’m probably a heartbeat away from telling her how lost I feel when she says, “Primal scream. You’ve absolutely got to come to this group with me. These people are incredible! No kidding, Jax, they are so real. You won’t believe how good it feels to let out your feelings.”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I’ve been really busy.”
“Too busy to get sane? Jax, you can’t afford not to take the time to do this.” She leans toward me. “Listen, I heard about your mom. You know, getting married. Bummer. I mean, I figure this Ted guy’s got to be an asshole. I heard you guys bought that white house down the street from us—he must be as big an asshole as my stepfather if he’s rich enough to afford that. It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it, Jax. But, you know, I miss the talks we used to have when—”
She glances around, as if to make sure no one is listening. “Jax, have you heard from Brady?”
“No,” I say.
“Well, talk about assholes. Can you believe him? Taking off like that and not even sending a postcard. Like we don’t matter anymore. Like we don’t even exist. If I weren’t so worried about him, I’d be pissed out of my mind. Jackson,” she whispers, “he’s in danger.”
“How do you know?”
“Dreams. Every single night since Thanksgiving. He’s in this dark, loud place. Like something in the Inferno. In the dreams, I hear his voice. I look everywhere. But I can’t find him.
“What made me know for sure that something was wrong, Jax—I went to this psychic. It was so bizarre. He was this old guy. He wore tons of Indian jewelry, and he sat in front of this shrine with burning candles. You know, an altar, like. With this gold Egyptian ankh and a Buddha and a crucifix. Anyhow, he calls up these spirit guides—mine—and he’s talking to them. No shit, Jax, he told me things about my life nobody could have known but me. Or someone watching over me. That’s why I believed what he said about Brady.
“He didn’t have to say his name,” she said. “I mean, he said, ‘a friend,’ and I knew. He said, ‘It is someone very close to you. I see him traveling on a road. It is not a safe road.’ It had to be Brady. I’m totally, totally freaked out about it, and I keep trying to tell the others, but they just think I’m crazy.”
Her eyes look weird; she’s flushed. “Are you tripping?” I ask.
“That is not the point,” she says. “Whatever I’m doing—if I’m doing it—doesn’t change the fact that Brady’s in trouble.” She grips my arm. “We have to find him.”
There’s clearly no way to reason with her, so I say, “You’re absolutely right.” I almost smile saying it, remembering that Brady’s favorite Saturday Night Live skit is the one in which a guy responds, “That’s true, you’re absolutely right,” to every single thing anyone says to him, and it ends up they all think he’s a genius.
“Oh, Jax,” Steph says. “Thank God. You always know what to do. I knew you’d be the one to help.”
I imagine Brady grinning at me as if to say, see! I do smile this time, but Steph must think I’m smiling to reassure her, or maybe my smiling doesn’t have anything to do at all with why she suddenly takes my face in her two hands, and kisses me again—this time hard and long, on the lips, her tongue flicking like a lizard’s tongue on the roof of my mouth.
It blows me away. I shudder, heat rushes through me, and I get the biggest hard-on of my life. Steph looks at me with this dreamy look on her face, the same one Layla used to get sometimes when she was telling Brady and me what great kids we were.
“You are a decent human being, Jackson Watt,” she says. “I love you.”
Then she drifts back downstairs to the party as if nothing the least bit unusual has happened. Idiot! I think. You idiot! You could have done anything, she would have let you do anything. Christ, she probably wanted it, and what do you do? Sit there like a zombie.
I can’t calm down. I get hard all over again picturing myself leading Stephanie up the dark stairway to her bedroom. But then what? As usual, considering the logistics of sex is as good as a bucket of cold water. I have never yet been able to get through a whole fantasy, starting at Point A, the kiss—fully clothed—and going step-by-step all the way through to being naked, screwing in a bed.
I don’t want to go back to the party; I don’t want to see her. So I slip out the front door, hoping no one will notice that I’m leaving—and no one does. It’s a nice night, cold but clear. In the moonlight, the big houses on the street remind me of the dollhouse Ted and Mom bought Amy for Christmas. It has tiny furniture: tables, chairs, couches—even a Christmas tree, with minuscule ornaments and a ribbon garland. A little plastic family came with it, too: a mom, a dad, two children, and a dog. In the real houses I pass, there are real Christmas trees, real televisions with flickering blue screens. Real people. But they seem fake. Our house, the one we’ll soon be living in, is totally dark.
fifteen
The day before the wedding, I pull up and park in front of the new house, ready for duty. Grandma’s Cadillac is in the driveway, Ted’s van behind it. At the last minute Mom and Ted decided to have the wedding there, instead of in the judge’s chambers as they’d originally planned.
Grandma freaked, of course. “An empty house?” she said. “You’re having your wedding in an empty house?”
You could just see the little wheels in Grandma’s head turning, trying to come up with a way of talking her out of it. “Those carpets! Everyone tromping around on those beautiful white carpets. Spilling! Honey, in an empty house they won’t think to be careful.”
Mom said, “The carpets have to be cleaned anyway. Ted’s arranged to have them done right after the wedding. They’ll be clean and dry in time for us to start moving in on Wednesday.”
Grandma lit up, took a long drag. She put on her martyr expression. “Well, Ellen, if that’s what you want … ”
Mom said, “It is.”
“I insist on doing flowers, though,” Grandma said. “Just a cold, empty house … ”
“Absolutely,” Mom said. “Flowers would be wonderful.”
Now the house is full of them. In the entryway, the staircase curves up, its banister bearing pine boughs wound with red ribbon. Red poinsettias sit on every stair, and there are red and white poinsettias on either side of the fireplace in the living room, too. Garlands of green decorate the mantel. A Christmas tree stands ceiling-high in one corner of the room, bare except for twinkling white lights and the angel on top, gold like the Renaissance angels in my Western Civ book.
Last night, Mom and I went through our Christmas ornaments. She and Ted decided that we’d contribute our favorites and that he’d take Kristin and Amy to shop for some new ones of their own before he brought them over this afternoon. That way, the tree would belong to all of us.
It was a good idea. Well, it seemed like a good idea until Mom and I got our ornaments out and started trying to choose.
“Pretty tacky,” she said, holding up a sequined guitar that reminded me of Dad. She must have caught on because she didn’t say anything else about it, just put it in the “keep” pile.
I picked up one I thought I could part with, a cheap plastic teddy bear that must have gotten too close to the lights. The brown paint looked like melted chocolate.
“Jackson,” Mom said, retrieving it. “That was the very first ornament I ever bought for you.”
This went on for about a half hour, until we’d been through three of the five boxes and agreed on only four ornaments that could be left off the new tree. Mom reached up and massaged the base of her neck. “I don’t think I can do this, honey,” she said in a small voice.
I told her to go to bed; I’d finish. I picked out the prettiest ones for the new house, regardless of their history. The others I took to my room. I’ll put them on my own tree someday.
But now, compared to the beautiful angel and the delicate, old-fashioned glass ornaments Ted bought, even our best ornaments seem shabby.
This is harder than I thought it was going to be. I stand alone in the living room. Voices in the kitchen murmur like a wordless song. Quietly, I climb the front stairs, then the second narrow stairway to the room that will be mine. It seems huge, isolated. In the yard next door, there are children playing, two little boys. A third one zooms up the street on a blue bicycle. Up here, I hear nothing but the occasional whoosh of a car. I’ll get used to this place, I tell myself. Next week, my own things will be here, and it will seem more like home to me. Next week. I can’t really imagine it.
On my way downstairs, I see Kristin. She’s hunched in the window seat of the room that will be hers, her long skinny arms wrapped around her bent legs. She looks like one of those bendable rubber dolls. After Thanksgiving, I deepened my resolve to bide my time, to let Kristin and Amy show me in some way that they might want my attention. But Kristin looks so miserable all alone in the empty room that I can’t just walk by. I stop in the doorway.
“Weird, isn’t it?” I say.
She jerks up, freezes like a frightened animal.
I go over and sit beside her—not too close, though. “I was just up in my room,” I say. “I was trying to imagine myself actually living in it, but I couldn’t. It just seems like a big old empty room to me. A nice room, but not mine.”
“I’m not living here,” Kristin says. “Not ever.”
“True,” I say. “You’ll probably be here sometimes, though.”
“Well, even if I have to come here sometimes, this won’t ever be my real room. I don’t care what they do with it. I don’t know why my dad keeps asking me.”
“He’s worried about you guys. You know, because of the way he and my mom decided to get married all of a sudden. He doesn’t want you to think he doesn’t care what you want. So he asks you about fixing up the bedroom too much.”
Kristin gives me a stony stare. “How do you know so much about him?” she says. “He’s not your dad.”
“No,” I say. “I have my own dad. He hasn’t lived with me and my Mom for a long time. But I still miss him. Your dad’s nice, though. He’s been nice to me. I like him.
“You know, Kristin, it’s okay if it takes you a long time to get used to all this,” I say. “Nobody expects you to fall in love with me and my mom overnight. Hey, we’re not all that lovable. We know that. And just in case we might forget it, my grandma reminds us all the time.” I mimic Grandma’s voice. “Ellen, I don’t know why you insist on going around in those old jeans of yours when you have perfectly lovely clothes to wear. Looking your best is a matter of personal pride. And Jackson, for goodness sake, quit slouching!”
“Jaaackson!” Grandma hollers from downstairs. “Why didn’t you let me know you were here? Come on down wherever you are. It’s time to quit dillydallying and get this tree done. Do you hear me?”
“Coming, Grandma,” I shout. “See?” I say to Kristin.
She still won’t look at me, but her lips quiver, fighting a smile, and when I sigh and say, “Gotta go,” she gets up and follows me.
I don’t look back. Think of a cat, I tell myself. Think of how a cat may jump up on your lap but jump right back off again if you try in even the smallest way to make it stay there.
She doesn’t speak to me or even look at me directly while we decorate the tree, but she sticks close to my side. Now and then, she hands me an ornament, points to a spot on the tree higher than she can reach, and I hang it there. No one seems to notice. Grandma and Mrs. Harper are busy being in charge. Amy’s trotting back and forth from the tree to the cookies on the kitchen counter, her face dusted with crumbs. Mr. Harper’s leaning against the counter, out of the tree-trimming picture entirely. He’s watching basketball on the tiny television that he pulled from his pocket to show me earlier. Who knows where Mom and Ted are. They keep going off by themselves, supposedly on forgotten errands, returning flushed—guilty as teenagers.
“Now, we’ll meet Ted and Ellen at the club at five thirty, is that right?” Mrs. Harper asks Grandma. “They know where they’re going … ”
“Everything’s all set.” Grandma raises an eyebrow at me, as if to say, and you thought I was fussy.
“Do you think it’ll snow?” Mrs. Harper asks, peering out the window.
“It’s forecast,” Grandma says.
“Goody, I love snow!” Amy whirls. Her arms pass like spokes through the circles of light cast by the brass lamps on either side of the mantel. Her curly blond hair is haloed by the white lights on the tree.
“Settle down, dear.” Mrs. Harper catches her and draws her into a hug.
“I hope it does snow,” Kristin mutters, so that only I can hear. “I hope it blizzards.”
“If it does, I’ll come get you guys in the morning in my VW bus,” I tell her. “It’s great in the snow! We can go sledding.”
“Jackson!” Grandma orders me up on the stepladder to finish the top part of the tree.
From my perch, I watch Kristin wander over to the window.
“So, is that your very own, that orange van?” she asks me.
“Yep. My dad bought it for me when I got my lice
nse.”
When the tree is finished and it’s time to leave for the country club, she whispers something to Amy, who announces, “Me and Kristin want to ride with Jackson.”
“Okay by me,” I say, careful to sound as if it’s no big deal one way or the other, even though it pleases me. I did the right thing, stopping to talk to Kristin, I think. Maybe they’ll end up liking me, after all.
“I don’t know … ” Mrs. Harper says.
“Please,” Amy says. “Please.” She looks to Kristin for moral support, but Kristin ignores her. She has to keep up her image. I know that.
“Jackson is an excellent driver, Ruby.” Grandma smiles her mellow trust-me smile. “I’m sure Ted won’t mind a bit if the girls go with him.”
Kristin and Amy hurry to get their coats before Mrs. Harper has second thoughts. They scramble down the sidewalk. By some unspoken arrangement, Kristin takes the front seat in the bus, Amy the middle. I pop in a tape, a mix of B-52s songs, hoping the goofy lyrics will amuse them. Amy giggles at the song about a poodle called “Quiche Lorraine.”
“That’s funny, Jackson,” she says.
Kristin just looks straight ahead, her hands folded in her lap.
But then, just before we reach the country club, the snow begins to fall. Fat, lazy flakes. They land on the windshield and stick there like sequins. “Oh!” Kristin says, reaching out as if to touch them. Her pleasure is so deep, so surprising, that for one second she forgets herself and turns and smiles at me, her eyes shining.
That moment it’s as if she’s my real sister, telling me a secret. I wish I knew the right way to say to her, “don’t worry, you’re safe with me.” But since I don’t, I keep quiet—and later, when we get to the country club and she acts as if the moment never happened, I think it’s a good thing that I did. At the dinner table, she looks sullen, she picks at her food. She won’t drink the kiddie cocktail Ted ordered for her. If anyone speaks to her, she turns away. Every now and then, I look over and see that she’s watching me. She’s watched me all evening, even though she hasn’t spoken to me since she got out of the bus, or even come near me. Now, catching her eye, I smile, but poker-faced, she tilts her head and gives me a mean look as if to say why are you watching me?
Wish You Were Here Page 8