by Emma Straub
Birdie gestured. “Just put them there. Honey, it’s fine.” She looked to Cecelia, and then Nicky. Cecelia covered her ears, but Birdie was calm. “Honey, he’s trying. The building on the roundabout. He bought it. Which is great. We actually had a good conversation about it.” Cecelia slowly lowered herself to the floor and crawled under the table.
“And I don’t want to tell tales out of school, but he’s been talking to some big places,” Nicky said.
“Big places? Bird, you knew about this?” Astrid looked back and forth between them. “What’s a big place? A chain? Which one?” Visions of Clapham as a shopping mall danced in her head. “Why does no one tell me anything? How is it possible that everyone else knows this but me? I am the only person who actually asks him anything, and he tells me nothing! What am I doing wrong? Someone, tell me, please! What am I doing wrong?” Astrid was shaking—it was just like with Porter. How many things had she missed, how many choices, how many mistakes, how many heartbreaks? She had no idea what mattered to any of them, what was boiling inside. She was asking! She had asked. Watching Barbara get hit had made her want to be honest, but it wouldn’t work if the honesty went in only one direction. Astrid felt like she were walking through spiderwebs, trying to claw to the surface. Everything she knew about Porter had been about her daughter being carefree and aimless, Peter Pan. Now that she knew about the abortion, did she need to go back and recalibrate, to reinterpret everything that came after? And if Elliot was happy in his marriage and buying up historic buildings in the middle of town, was he happy? She thought she’d done something so awful, this one thing, and maybe it was awful. It was. But what else had she missed with Elliot, because that moment was all she could see?
“Well,” Nicky said, gently. “I think you’re finally starting to ask the right questions.” Astrid looked at her beautiful baby, eyes oniony just like hers. There had to be things she’d done wrong to him too. God. Astrid wished that there was a button everyone could push that immediately showed only their good intentions—how much pain that would save. Nicky could see it, she thought. He kissed her on the cheek.
Chapter 40
The Harvest Parade
The Harvest Festival Parade was scheduled for ten A.M. on a Friday. The rest of the Harvest weekend was for tourists and returning weekenders, putting in one last good-weather hurrah before retreating until Christmas, but the parade was for the town, homegrown and proud. All around the roundabout, and up and down Main Street, people set up folding chairs starting at dawn, staking out their spots. Parents brought bags of snacks for their toddlers and let them run wild in the temporarily closed-off streets. Wesley Drewes was set up at a booth, broadcasting live, and people stopped to take selfies with his gloved hand waving in the background. The air smelled like apple cider and cinnamon donuts, both of which were available at a stand in front of Spiro’s, Olympia ladling out the steaming cider into paper cups. Cecelia, August, and the rest of the Parade Crew stood behind their creation about fifty feet up Main Street, just out of sight. And, oh, what a sight it was.
Cecelia had not had much faith. The float was really just a decorated platform on the back of a small flatbed truck, and Cecelia’s only skills were following directions and not gluing her fingers together. August and Ms. Skolnick and the rest of the crew, however, had made something magnificent. Not only had they built a small-scale gazebo that looked exactly like the actual gazebo at one-eighth of the size, they’d made waist-high miniatures of the entire roundabout. There was a tiny bookstore, a tiny Spiro’s, a tiny Shear Beauty, a tiny vacant storefront, tiny trees, tiny benches, the whole shebang. Cecelia had helped glue down the AstroTurf grass. She had painted planks of particleboard. August had sewn tiny curtains and cut out hundreds of multicolored leaves. The whole thing sat on a circular platform that could be rotated, very slowly, by a member of the Parade Crew walking alongside the float.
“This could be your job,” Cecelia said to August. “Making things.”
August rolled his eyes. “That sounds lucrative. But thank you.”
Ms. Skolnick shooed them all together. Megan and James, so moved by their work, had their tongues halfway down each other’s throats, and their hands shoved into each other’s back pockets, cupping and squeezing to their heart’s content. “Please, guys,” Ms. Skolnick said, lowering her camera. “This is PG.” They all smiled and squished together. For the first time, Cecelia could see Clapham—big Clapham—in her future. She and August going to the prom together in complementary gowns, Porter’s baby learning how to walk toward Cecelia’s encouraging hands. It wouldn’t be so bad. It could even be nice. It was like the Thanksgiving balloons, only smaller. The high school had a float, and so did the fire department, and the Elks Lodge, whatever that was. They were all lined up in a row, a tiny armada. Ms. Skolnick handed out branches—real branches with large, watercolored leaves—for the crew members to wave along the route, which sounded both like wholesome fun and complete and total humiliation, depending on your perspective.
“Reporting for duty,” someone said, and Cecelia spun around to look.
Sidney stood with her arms crossed, a small beige Band-Aid stretched across the bridge of her nose. Cecelia didn’t think that there was an accompanying bruise, but even if there had been, Sidney was wearing enough makeup to cover it and then some: Her eyelids sparkled gold, her lips were magenta, and the rest of her skin had been shellacked into a solid peach mask. No matter that it was high fall, and everyone in front of Spiro’s was wearing a fleece zip-up—Sidney was wearing a strapless party dress that flared out at her knees. Her bare arms and legs were already pimpled with goose bumps.
“Oh, great,” Ms. Skolnick said. “Right this way, all aboard.” She kicked a small stepladder over to the side of the float and held up her arm for balance. Sidney teetered up, her ankles wobbling in heels. When she got to the platform, she lightly rested a finger on the top of the gazebo, which came up to her waist. “Cute.” She made a face that neither confirmed nor denied that she was speaking earnestly. Sidney rubbed her arms and bounced on her toes. “Everyone else should be here soon.”
She meant the rest of the Clapham Junior High Harvest Festival Court, of which she was the queen. There had been no surprises in the listing of the names: Sidney, Liesel, Bailey. No one had any imagination. But that wasn’t what Cecelia was thinking about. She and August walked around to the opposite side of the float and stood behind the model of Shear Beauty. Cecelia peered inside, as if expecting to find tiny models of Birdie and her gammy.
“Hey!” Cecelia said. “Are you sure about this?”
August held up a tote bag. “As ready as I’m going to be. Come back and change with me?”
Cecelia nodded. “Hey, Ms. Skolnick, we’ll be right back, okay? We’re just running to the bathroom.”
Ms. Skolnick looked at her phone. “We’ve got ten minutes. Go fast, okay?”
Cecelia and August hurried down the block and into the municipal hall, which had the nicest public bathrooms. They went into the single stall together.
“I’m really nervous,” Cecelia said. “Not for me, but for you. Are you sure you want to do this? I know I already asked you that, but I just don’t want anyone to be mean to you. Are you doing this because I hit Sidney?”
August set a tote bag down on a chair and pulled a long dress out of it. Cecelia recognized the dress from Secondhand News—it had been on a mannequin in the window. It was pale yellow, from the 1970s, made of polyester, with floaty sleeves, a dress made for dancing. “Cecelia,” she said. “This isn’t about you.”
“I know,” Cecelia said. “I know it’s not. I just don’t want to be responsible for pushing you to do this before you’re ready.”
August smoothed out the dress and held it against her body. “I promise,” she said. “I wouldn’t do this if I wasn’t ready.” Then she pulled her T-shirt over her head. She was wearing a padded bra—Cecelia had the sam
e one, and her heart fluttered a little bit, realizing how much more she and August had in common than she thought, how many things there would be for them to talk about, always. She took the dress out of August’s hands and unzipped it, holding out the wide opening for her friend. August rested one hand lightly on Cecelia’s shoulder and stepped into the dress before sliding her jeans off her hips. Cecelia tied the string around her neck and then, together, they looked in the mirror. And then there she was. She’d taken her costume off.
“Okay, Robin,” Cecelia said.
Robin looked at her in the mirror. They were two girls standing side by side. Robin pulled her hair out of its bun, and it tumbled down past her shoulders. Cecelia could see it all: Robin as an adult being so proud of everything she’d done, of herself, and wishing that she had taken more than one minute to do her hair. Cecelia could see further too: some future Clapham High School reunion, the first one that Cecelia could convince Robin to come to—Cecelia could see Sidney Fogelman sheepishly approach her at the punch bowl, and Robin be as gracious as possible, while patiently waiting to talk to someone she had actually liked in school. She would apologize, Sidney, and that would make the conversation tolerable, until she’d awkwardly try to follow Robin into the bathroom to keep catching up.
* * *
—
Porter stood next to Nicky in front of Shear Beauty. Elliot and Wendy were on her other side, trying to keep the twins from disappearing into the crowd. Astrid and Birdie were inside, and Juliette was sneaking a cigarette around the corner. Being French was like being a teenager forever, gorgeous and immortal.
“Her float is first,” Porter said, tugging on Nicky’s sleeve. She regretted saying it right away—it must have been hard for Nicky and Juliette to come to town and see that she and her mother knew so much more about Cece’s life, that they knew her teachers and her friends. Her friend. They knew something, at least.
“I’m nervous,” Nicky said. “I don’t know why, but I’m nervous.”
Juliette came back and reached her hand across Porter’s lap like a seatbelt, and Nicky took it. Porter tried to make herself invisible, but it was hard, especially because the belly that Nicky’s and Juliette’s hands were clasped around was full and hard, a person-filled balloon. The baby kicked, as if on cue, and both Nicky and Juliette turned toward their hands, as if their touch had caused a tiny earthquake.
“Was that her?” Nicky asked.
Juliette nodded, because mothers know. Juliette held on to Nicky’s hand with her left hand, but shifted her body so that she could put her right hand flat against Porter’s belly. The baby pressed out, as if in response. “Bonjour,” Juliette said, her voice soft. Porter watched as Juliette looked up at Nicky. She watched them remember Juliette’s belly, with Cecelia inside, a miraculous, invisible fish. People touched her belly all the time—acquaintances at the grocery store, Dr. McConnell, people she barely knew, her mother, Jeremy—but everyone reacted like meeting a cute puppy on the sidewalk: charmed, sure, but not moved to tears. Everyone who touched her had been closer to other pregnancies before, ones that mattered more to them, and were just using Porter’s body as a time machine into their own memories. But Nicky and Juliette cared—this baby mattered to them, which meant that she mattered to them. She was already someone’s mother, Porter. It had happened. The baby was there, and growing. She was listening. She was paying attention.
There was applause down the block—the parade had started. Aidan and Zachary cheered, and Elliot and Wendy each hoisted one child into the air. Nicky spun around to knock on the window at Shear Beauty to let his mother know. Porter and Juliette were craning their necks to see the floats begin their slow journey. It was like watching manatees race.
* * *
—
Cecelia and Robin left the bathroom holding hands. Their dresses were long, and they were wearing matching beaded sweaters, but still, the air was chilly and they were nervous. Cecelia thought she heard kids laughing, but the whole town was at the parade, and everyone was in a good mood—who was to say what anyone was laughing at. They forged through the crowd back to their float, where Ms. Skolnick was looking back and forth from her phone to the crowd, clearly searching for them.
“Oh thank god, you guys, come on! We’re up first. The queens are restless!” She pointed toward the shivering threesome atop the tiny roundabout. Megan was doing an interpretive dance that looked remarkably like Regina George’s Santa Claus dance in Mean Girls, and Cecelia couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be mocking Sidney and her posse or titillating James, but it seemed to be doing both. Sidney and Liesel scowled down at her while Bailey posed for photographs, pictures that the other two would no doubt veto before she posted them, rendering them all but useless. Then Ms. Skolnick noticed that they’d changed clothes. “Oh. Hi. You look fantastic, August. You, too, Cecelia. But August. Truly, gorgeous.”
“You can call me Robin. Call me Robin. Could you call me Robin?” She curtsied.
“Robin, yes, I sure can,” Ms. Skolnick said. “You know what?” The driver of the truck honked. It was their turn. The Parade Crew had gathered around, rubbing their hands together, waiting for instructions. The only person who didn’t look cold was the kid with the beard and the shorts, who never looked cold, not even in February. “How would you feel about riding up top, Robin?”
It would mean waving. It would mean smiling. It would mean standing close to Sidney and Liesel and Bailey, and taking photos. It would mean a picture in the yearbook, with all their names printed underneath. Robin Sullivan, eighth grade. It would mean an introduction, a debut, a thousand corrections, confusion, applause. Robin turned to Cecelia.
“You can do it,” said Cecelia. “I’m right here, we’re all right here. I’ll be your bodyguard. Not that you need one.”
“Okay, yes,” Robin said.
“Wonderful,” Ms. Skolnick said. “Sidney, make room!” The three girls already aboard the float scuttled backward. It wasn’t a lot of room, especially because the gazebo took up the whole center of the float, and so they had to circle the small white structure with their bodies, which made it harder to see, but nobody cared. Robin stepped up onto the float and smiled.
“Wow,” Bailey said. “You look, like, amazing.”
“Yeah,” Liesel said. She looked Robin up and down. “I love that dress.”
“Thanks,” Robin said. “I like yours too.” Her eyes flickered down to Cecelia’s, to let her know that she was just being kind, because it was a kind moment, that Cecelia’s vigilance was appreciated but unnecessary. That Cecelia could stand down, at least for now. Cecelia understood: They were Sidney’s henchmen, but really they were just stupid magpies, going toward whatever was most glittery. They didn’t have any real allegiance to Sidney; they were probably terrified of her. It was just that Sidney was the most beautiful girl in their class, and glamour had power. Bailey and Liesel just wanted a model to copy, to make themselves feel better about the miasma of junior high. And Robin was suddenly the most glamorous person in sight. It didn’t mean there wouldn’t be mean things said, or bumps along the way, but Cecelia saw that Robin herself was what would make it easy for girls like Liesel and Bailey, who could look at her and see themselves—pretty. Even the shallow could be accepting. It was oddly comforting.
The float started to move, and Cecelia stayed close to the side that Robin was on both for emotional support and physical support, just in case. She was the spotter. Sidney was facing forward and stumbled on her heels when the float started up—she didn’t have a spotter, not really, and for a split second, Cecelia felt bad for her. Sidney stared straight ahead like someone trying to drive through a thunderstorm. Cecelia wondered what Sidney was thinking—if she was angry that she had less room, or that her popularity contest wasn’t the only thing that mattered, or something else. You never really knew what someone else was thinking. Robin was waving, and the breeze blew her hair
off her shoulders. Cecelia wondered where Robin’s parents were, but then she saw them, off to the left of the float, standing in the middle of the dead-end street that led from the roundabout to the river. Robin’s father had his hands over his mouth and he was crying, crying and smiling, crying and laughing and cheering all at once. Robin’s mother was pumping her fists in the air, and Cecelia felt so proud of her friend, and proud of herself at knowing the difference between privacy and secrecy, between being a support and an accessory. Cecelia waved at Robin’s parents, having forgotten, for the moment, that her own parents were also in the crowd somewhere.
* * *
—
Porter saw the CJHS float coming, the young girls standing on top in their seasonally inappropriate dresses, as if their youth made them impervious to weather. When she’d been the Harvest Queen, on the high school float, she’d felt like an adult. But she wasn’t, was she, no matter what she thought at the time. Her dress had been green, and flowy, made for disco. Astrid had hated it, had tried so hard—with bribery, with insults—to get her to wear something else. Bob Baker had driven the float. Porter couldn’t even remember who the other girls were. She’d known her parents were there somewhere, and Nicky, and Jeremy, and everyone, but she hadn’t wanted to see them. That just felt embarrassing. But then she’d heard her name and realized it was her parents, standing on the sidewalk in front of the hardware store, both of them waving. She had seen her mother more clearly than her father—years later, Porter would hate that this was true. She should have jumped down from the float like an action movie heroine and run up to him, putting her face just inches away from his and clicked her internal camera right then. She wanted to remember him better than she did. But that day she hadn’t minded the fuzziness—it had made things easier. And so she’d bared her teeth and laughed with her mouth open, genuinely happy.