Nantucket Blue

by Leila Howland

  We always made a game of cleaning up in the morning in our pajamas. She’d make a big pot of coffee, Dad would buy a dozen doughnuts, and we’d see how many plates we could wash in the span of an ’80s song. Barefoot, her toenails painted red, and high on coffee and sugar, Mom sang all the lyrics in perfect pitch. I remember watching her sing Bon Jovi with her hair down, and wondering why she wasn’t famous.

  But that was a long time ago, back when there was color in her cheeks, and her hair was long, and she got dressed up for school even though the other teachers wore jeans and sneakers. That was before the parties stopped and the fighting started. It was before I heard swearing through the vents instead of laughter. It was before Dad moved out and the house filled with silence: heavy, hovering, raincloud silence.

  The phone rang, startling me out of my memory. I had a feeling it was Jules, but I couldn’t find the phone. It wasn’t on its base, and I had to follow the electronic beeps around the living room until I finally found it between the sofa cushions on the last ring. “Hello?”

  “Hi, it’s me,” Jules said.

  “Jules?” She didn’t sound like herself.

  “Hey,” I said. “Are you okay?” There was a pause. My stomach dropped. I sat on the edge of the sofa. “Jules?”

  “My mom died,” she said. Her voice was flat and clipped. “She had an aneurysm in New York.” She said the word like she’d known it her whole life.

  “A what?” I asked, breathless.

  “It’s when the head bleeds, on the inside.”

  “Oh my god,” I said, and lay down, shocked that Jules was defining the medical term. I closed my eyes. My throat cinched. My stomach hurt. “Jules, that’s terrible. I’m so, so sorry. I can’t believe it.” I waited for her to cry or scream or say something, but I couldn’t even hear her breathe.

  “I love you,” I said. “And if you need anything, anything at all, just call me, okay?”

  “Thanks,” Jules said. I gripped the phone, pressing it to my face. I didn’t know what else to say. After a few more seconds of silence she said, “I need to go now,” and hung up.

  I ran up the stairs and crumbled into my mother’s bed. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d cried to her. I’d been stoic during the divorce—locked, lights off, like a school on Christmas. I’d been all politeness and competence. It was too dangerous to cry in front of her. It was what she wanted from me, to openly admit defeat, to hop aboard the sadness train, to check in with her at the broken-down Casa de Divorce, and I wasn’t going to do it. But this was different.

  “I loved her,” I said, breathing raggedly.

  “I know you did,” Mom said. I hung my chin over her shoulder, my whole body shaking, my breath ricocheting in my ribs. “Poor Jules,” she said. “Poor, poor Jules.”

  My mom let me skip Founder’s Day and Prize Day, even though I’d won the Anne Hutchinson Achievement in History Prize and the Chafee Citizenship Award. I could collect them later, Ed said. I went to graduation, where the seniors stood on the stage in tea-length white dresses. I sang “Simple Gifts” and “And Did Those Feet in Ancient Time” with the choir, as I had at every other school commencement. It actually made me feel a little better. Neither my mom nor my dad is religious; I guess those school songs, which I’d sung for eleven years now, were the closest things I had to prayers. Jules wasn’t there.

  I wanted to call her, to go over to the Claytons’, climb into the twin bed, eat a box of Munchkins with her and Zack, and watch movies. I wanted to sit in the backyard on the striped cushions and listen to South African jazz. I wanted to drink a glass of Nina’s red wine and cry with the rest of them. But my mother insisted that I stay put; said I needed to give them time alone to grieve as a family. She used her teacher voice. I knew she was right, but who else would understand? Who else was feeling like this? We sent a plant. I was jealous of the plant. It got to be with them.

  On the third day, I made them lasagna. I found a healthy recipe online (they need healthy food, I thought; they need vitamins), but the whole-wheat noodles were gooey in the middle and crunchy on the ends, and the thing didn’t hold together. “We can’t take this,” my mom said, sticking a spatula into the congealed mess. Tomato-colored water leaked out the top. We picked them up some cookies and a loaf of Portuguese sweet bread. But Jules wasn’t there when we dropped them off. Her grandmother had taken her to the movies. I slipped upstairs to get my phone. I don’t know what I was expecting, but Jules’s room looked the same as it always did. My phone was plugged into the wall. There were three texts from Jay in the last three days.

  #1 Hi!

  #2 Heard about Mrs. Clayton. I’m so sorry. (This was followed by a missed call, but no message.)

  #3 Leaving for Nantucket tomorrow. See you there?

  The memorial service was at the church near Brown University, the one Nina liked to go to every now and then because they had a good choir. It was an old New England–style church, pretty in a simple way, without pictures of Jesus or stained-glass windows. Nina had dragged Jules and me to a choral concert there once last spring, and the church had seemed almost spacious, but there had only been about twelve of us in the audience. Now it was packed with people, and it felt small and cramped, especially without any air-conditioning. Kids were using their programs to fan themselves. There were hardly any seats left when Mom and I arrived. We found room in a pew a few rows back from the Claytons, on the opposite side of the aisle, next to some people I didn’t know but who I guessed were from New York. I could see the sides of Zack’s and Jules’s faces as we all stood to sing “Morning Has Broken.”

  “And now I want to give her children a chance to speak,” the minister said after delivering her eulogy. She had the gray hair of an old lady, but the smooth, tanned skin of a young one. “Jules?”

  Jules walked to the front of the church and stood behind a plain wooden podium. She looked blank. Her lips were pressed together so tightly they were colorless. She seemed someplace else; I’d seen this expression when she checked out of math class. She scanned the crowd, gazing into some kind of middle distance for what felt like a hundred seconds too long.

  “Um,” Jules started. I watched her eyes dart to Zack, but his eyes were closed, his shoulders were shaking, and tears streamed down his face and dripped from his chin. I’d never seen a boy cry before. That’s one of the things about going to an all-girls’ school your whole life: it’s hard to believe that boys are people too.

  “Hi,” Jules said, and waved a weird, stiff hand at the crowd. Her eyebrows rose. Oh my god, she was now biting her lip because she was trying not to laugh. It was happening. I’d heard about that happening to people at funerals, and now it was really happening to Jules. There was a long silence. A baby cooed. A few people whispered. One corner of Jules’s mouth twitched upward. She looked like she was in physical pain. Breathe, I thought, as her face turned red. She needed oxygen or she was going to pass out.

  I stood up.

  “Cricket?” my mom whispered.

  “She needs me,” I whispered back and slid past her, out of the pew. Maybe my mom was the type to disappear into herself when things got rough, but I wasn’t.

  It couldn’t have been more than ten paces from my pew to where Jules was standing, but it felt like it took forever to get there. I could feel everyone looking at me as I walked down the aisle. My ears were hot, and my feet were sweating inside my too-tight flats. I locked eyes with Jules. Her head tilted and her brow pinched as she watched me approach. For a second I wondered if I was doing the right thing, but leaving her standing there alone, suffocating in front of everyone, was not an option. Not for her best friend.

  “It’s okay,” I whispered when I finally reached her. She looked at the ground and took a big gulp of air. I turned to face the crowd.

  “The last time I saw Nina,” I said, “I was over at Jules’s studying for exams. I was really stressed out.” I could hear myself speaking, like an echo on a cell phone. Then without meani
ng to, I started to focus on a pleasant-looking dad type with foppish hair and wire-rimmed glasses. There was something kind about him, like a beloved English teacher. His head tilted. “And she was in the backyard, painting a big fish, like applying paint to an actual trout or something.” The man smiled, his eyes squinting behind his glasses.

  “She was making these fish pictures. And she was barefoot, one pant leg was rolled up, and her hair was doing that thing where it kind of stands up on one side.” At least ten people laughed. Jules walked back to her seat. My mouth was dry, but I kept going. The story seemed to be telling itself. “And she had that look on her face. The one she got when she was really into something?” A horse-faced woman with a headband nodded. “That look that meant she was ready for anything, ready for action, ready for life.” That last word hung in the air. My breath caught. “And before I knew it, I had a cold fish in my hand and she was teaching me how to use a trout to make a print, which was actually fun—gross and messy and fun. I forgot all about my exam. We made five and left them drying in the basement.” I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. “I don’t remember what happened to the fish.”

  “So that’s that smell,” Mr. Clayton called from the front row. This time almost everyone laughed. Except Jules. She was slouched, her hands in the lap of her black crepe dress, her face as still as a doll’s. I tried to make eye contact with her, but she was staring at the ground. Zack looked right at me, though. Something about the way he was smiling, crying with his eyes open, urged me to keep going.

  “And that was the thing about Nina. She looked at a dead fish and saw an art project; she’d look inside a refrigerator and find nothing but hot dogs and mayonnaise, and she’d throw them together and make you feel like you’d had the best meal of your life.” I was gesturing wildly with my hands—they seemed to have a life of their own. “She looked at you,” I choked, “at me, and saw someone to love.” The man with the wire-rimmed glasses dabbed his eyes with a Kleenex. “She was the best, and I’m going to miss her so much,” I said. I walked quickly back to my pew and slid in next to my mother. I looked at Jules, but she didn’t turn around.

  “You know, it’s not healthy to be handling raw fish like that,” Mom said, as she handed me a tissue. “You could’ve gotten sick.”

  I looked at her in disbelief. How could she have chosen this moment to criticize Nina? How could she have missed the whole point of that story? If I hadn’t been crying, I would’ve screamed.

  After, the church parlor was crowded. I knew a lot of the people—parents from school, people I’d seen around Providence. Practically our whole class was there, gathered in a corner, a cluster of navy and black dresses. Arti waved me over, but I didn’t want to join them. They hardly knew Nina, and they certainly didn’t love her. They wouldn’t know how I was feeling. I didn’t want to talk to anyone but the Claytons. While my mother talked to the woman with the yellow dogs from the yellow house on the corner, I studied a bulletin board of community announcements and ate a crustless egg salad sandwich and a handful of wet red grapes. I was hungrier than I’d been in days. In fact, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had an actual meal. I was reading a flyer advertising a playgroup for toddlers when someone tapped me on the shoulder.

  “I know that you’re drawn to the neon-pink paper, but you can’t join that group,” Zack said. He’d dripped Coke or coffee on his tie.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Too old.” He shrugged. “And you have to be potty-trained, so there’s that.” His exhausted smile pained me.

  “I’m working on it,” I said. “Every day.”

  “Thanks for what you said about Mom,” he said.

  “Really? I was a little worried that maybe I shouldn’t have,” I said.

  “No, it was good,” he said. “It was funny. And sweet.”

  “Thanks,” I said, taking in a sharp breath. “Where’s Jules?” I asked. The reception was so packed that I’d lost sight of her. I’d figured we talk, finally, when it had thinned out a little.

  “She just left,” Zack said, and shrugged his shoulders. “She’s on her way home. You might be able to catch her.”

  As soon as I stepped out of the church, I saw her down the street, three blocks away. I jogged in my flats, which were murdering my pinkie toes, and caught her as she was about to turn up her street.

  “Hey,” I said.

  She gasped. “You scared me.”

  “Do you want to go and get some iced coffee or something?” I asked as I caught my breath. Little trickles of sweat ran down my back. “We could go to The Coffee Exchange.”

  “Um, no. Not right now.”

  “Later, maybe?” I licked my upper lip. Summer was here early.

  “Sure,” she said. I walked with her up her street. “Only thing is, my cousins are here, so I don’t know what we’ll be up to. Hey, I saw that Jay called you.”

  “Yes, but that’s not important right now. You are.” I put my hand on her shoulder, where it hung awkwardly as she walked fast and I tried to keep up. “Jules, are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” she said. We stopped in front of her house. I wanted to ask her if she’d been about to laugh up there, if she’d been sleeping okay, if she wanted to collapse in my arms the way I had in my mother’s. I wanted to peel back the clear plastic curtain that seemed to be hanging between us so I could touch her. I wanted some proof that she was still herself. I wanted her to cry.

  “Is it okay that I stood up there and said that stuff?” I asked.

  “Yeah, it was great,” she said. “I was freaking out. I’m just tired.”

  I sighed with relief. “Well, just so you know,” I said, feeling a little shaky, “this summer, I’m there for you no matter what. We don’t have to go to parties. We can stay in and watch ’80s movies. We can go for walks on the beach every day. I’ll do whatever. Just whatever makes you feel better. You’re my best friend and I’m here for you one hundred percent.” Anyone could come up with those words. Where were the right words?

  “Thanks,” she said, and crossed her arms. “I’m going to change out of this dress. I feel like a freakin’ pilgrim.”

  “Okay,” I said. She stood on the bottom step in front of the closed door. “I guess I’ll head back to the church and find my mom. Call me, okay?”

  I was standing in front of the mirror, brushing my teeth, when Jules called the next morning. I spat and picked up. “Hey!”

  “Hey,” she said, sounding like her old self again. “What’s up?”

  “Uh, not much,” I answered. “How are you doing?”

  “Oh my god, it’s so crazy in this house,” Jules said.

  “I can’t imagine,” I said, and looked out the window. Frankie, the neighbors’ beagle, was curled under the one patch of shade in their backyard. It was going to be another hot one.

  “My little cousin is sleeping in my room, and she wet the bed last night, all the way down to the mattress. It stinks so bad in here. And my grandmother ironed all my jeans stiff as a board. With pleats. I’m not kidding.”

  “Well, that sucks,” I said, surprised at how normal she sounded. “I was thinking maybe we could ride our bikes out to Bristol?” Bristol is a little seaside town with coffee shops and a cool antique store. Jules and I liked to look at the stacks of old photographs in back of the store.

  “Not today,” she said. “My whole family is here.”

  “Oh, right. I just thought, you know, it would be peaceful out there. Anyway, that reminds me, should I bring my bike to Nantucket?”

  “Actually, that’s what I was calling to tell you. You can’t come with us anymore.”

  “Oh,” I said, as I watched my face pale in the mirror. “Okay.”

  “It totally blows, but my dad said only family in the house this summer.”

  “Of course. I understand. Of course.” I sat on the closed toilet seat and hung my head. How could I be thinking of myself? I burned with shame. “I totally get it.”

&nbs
p; She sighed and added, “But you can get your babysitting job back with the Kings, right?”

  Four

  THE FIRST TIME I THOUGHT of going to Nantucket by myself, I was about to pick up the phone and call Deirdre King, mother of Andrew. I’d already typed in her number on my phone and was staring at it on the screen. My lip curled. Why, I wondered, was I doing it? I hated that job. Last summer, Andrew was obsessed with the word boobies. He’d say “boobies,” then punch me in the boob. It really sucked. Especially when Mrs. King found it funny, which maybe it was if it wasn’t your boob. I didn’t want to play the straight man for Andrew King’s comedy act again. I hung up the phone. I won’t do it, I thought, falling back on my bed. I won’t.

  I started to think of other babysitting jobs, ones that provided housing, ones that I heard paid twenty bucks an hour or more. Ones on Nantucket.

  A little seed was planted.

  The second time I thought of going to Nantucket by myself, I was sitting on the front porch, texting with Jay. It was supposed to have been my night at Dad’s, but Alexi wasn’t having a good night, so none of us was having a good night. Polly had adopted him from an orphanage in the Ukraine when he was three years old, and he’d had a pretty rough time there, which I guess is why he sometimes had these fits. Alexi loved the Beatles, and that night, after the fifth time of listening to “Yellow Submarine,” I was going a little insane, so I changed the song. I put on James Taylor, one of Dad’s favorites, but it set Alexi off. He started rocking on the floor, kicking his heels and wailing, even after I’d switched it back. Polly had to make him feel better, which meant that Dad had to make Polly feel better. I slipped out the back door without even touching my grilled steak. Dad was too swept up in the chaos to convince me to stay. He just waved good-bye and blew me a kiss.