Dani said, “I hope you get to see him soon.”
“Thanks,” Jess said.
Dani hugged her knees. “Have you had sex?”
Startled by Dani’s bluntness, Jess stuttered a moment but then admitted it. “With one guy, back home.” That was the first time she’d said it to anyone. Not even to her mother.
Dani flopped backward and kicked her feet in the air. “I can’t believe how much I love it. I mean, love it.”
Jess watched as Dani pointed her toes and pedaled her feet, trying to reconcile this giddy version of her with the standoffish girl in the classroom and wondering what else she had misjudged. For her, sex hadn’t been terrible, but it sure as hell didn’t make her want to kick up her feet. The sharp pain would start to ease, but as she would begin to feel a tingling warmth and lift her hips higher, the Boy would groan and stop moving. And that was it.
Unsure of how to respond, Jess walked over to the horned toad and peered down at it. Still dead. She touched the long spines on its head, the shorter ones on its tail.
Dani sat up and folded her feet under her. Her neck splotched with red, she pushed her glasses up her nose and looked away toward the window. Jess realized Dani was embarrassed, and she squeezed her hands into fists, trying to think of what to say to make it okay.
“Sorry,” Jess said. “I don’t know how to do girl talk. If that’s what this is.”
“Me either,” Dani said.
“I spend most of my time talking to my mom. Or to myself.”
Dani smiled. “Me too.” She gazed out the window as if searching for something, and then turned to Jess. “I know. We could do faces.” At Jess’s blank look, she said, “You know, like makeup. My mom has a ton of theater stuff upstairs. She used to practice on me, making me up into characters. I haven’t done it for a long time.”
“Like who?”
“Whoever you want. Come on.”
Jess followed her to a narrow set of stairs at the end of the hall, dodging the stacked boxes. They thumped up to the top floor, entering a small room with a pitched ceiling. On one side was a double bed with a cedar chest at the foot; the other half of the room held a tilted table spread with drawings, an easel with a half-finished painting, and a table with jars of paints and brushes. Several canvases were stacked along one wall. A large rectangular window overlooked the backyard, and the ceiling on both sides of the pitch had skylights.
Dani swept her arm. “The guest room slash Dad’s studio slash storage room slash my old play room.” She opened a closet next to the bed and began to pull out boxes.
Jess stood in front of the easel. “This is your dad’s?”
The painting was soft and smudgy—watercolor, she guessed—depicting a grove of bare aspens in a field of bluish snow, a burnt brown forest in the background.
Dani said, “Yeah. He was an art major in college, and when they were in New York, he did a lot, but he basically stopped when we moved here. He started up again a couple weeks ago. After his mom died.”
“Your grandma died? I’m sorry.”
“Thanks. It’s okay. I didn’t know her. My dad never talked to her or saw her, so I didn’t really think of her as my grandmother. She was a famous painter.” She pointed at the canvases along the wall. “Those are hers. My dad went to pick them up in Colorado. She lived up there in a cabin. Frances Barnes. She’s totally in the encyclopedia. An American realist in the tradition of Andrew Wyeth and Edward Hopper.”
“Wow,” Jess said. She looked at the half-finished painting again. It made her think of day trips to Flagstaff, avoiding the expensive downhill slopes on the Peaks and instead renting cheap cross-country skis and taking the offbeat trails near Mormon Lake. Swishing through the trees, following her father’s tracks, her eye on his gray sweater ahead of her, checking behind her for her mother in her red wool cap. Stopping on the rustic benches to eat their home-packed picnics, fat ham sandwiches thick with mayo, apples cut in quarters and tart with lemon juice. How hungry she’d be, wolfing the sandwich, gasping between bites, as the bright sun warmed them at the picnic bench.
“Your dad’s a Realtor now?” Jess asked.
“Lately. He thought he’d teach a couple classes at the Syc when they first moved, but he didn’t have the right degree, so that didn’t work out, and then he thought about getting certified to teach high school, and then changed his mind, and then, I don’t know. He works on the house, does a lot of errands to help my mom. He sold a house last month, though.”
Jess said, “My dad is an insurance adjuster. The world’s most boring job.” Unless, of course, you fall in love with a coworker and you leave your family for a whole new life. She bit her lip and gazed at the painting, tilting her head. She wasn’t sure what she was trying to see. She didn’t think it was very good—nothing like the paintings in Ms. G’s class. It struck her as hazy, like a milky eye. “I like it,” she said.
Dani shrugged. “I guess. I don’t think he ever finishes anything. I don’t know if he runs out of time or gets bored or what. He always says art is about failure, but then my mom says art is work, persistence. That’s the only time I see them argue. Whatever. I’m going into science.”
Dani hauled out a large hardside suitcase and what looked like a fishing tackle box, plunking them both on the bed. Inside the tackle box were squished tubes, pencils, vials, brushes, and compacts. In the suitcase were scarves and hair adornments, a peacock’s spread of silks and sequined pins and sparkly barrettes.
“Voilà,” Dani said. She rifled through the box. “I’ll do you first. Who do you want to be?”
“I don’t know.”
Dani pursed her lips, squinting. “How about Cleopatra? Timely.” She opened a round compact that held a puff and white powder. “Close your eyes.” She leaned in and patted Jess’s forehead and cheeks and chin. “Okay, open.” She picked up a mascara wand. “Don’t blink,” she said. She widened her own eyes behind the glasses, her mouth pulled into an O.
“I won’t,” Jess said. She glanced at the dark painting on the easel. A line from the play looped in her head. Act 4, when Cleopatra is memorializing Antony. She said it aloud, inflecting as she remembered Ms. G had: “His legs bestrid the ocean: his rear’d arm / Crested the world.” She loved that word, crested. She never wanted to stop saying it.
Dani smiled. She said, “But, if there be, or ever were, one such / It’s past the size of dreaming.” She rested the side of her palm on Jess’s cheek and daubed at her lashes. “This is why we’re friends,” she said.
Jess smiled back. She held her eyes open as wide as she could.
She called home and asked if she could stay for dinner, and her mother shouted her approval through the line. She and Dani ate pizza and ice cream in their makeup and headgear, she as Cleopatra, Dani as a glittery-eyed Titania—Dani’s parents both got it on the first guess. Dani’s parents drank red wine and regaled them with stories about their years working in New York, Dani’s mother as a playwright and actor and Dani’s father as a painter before they moved to Sycamore for Dani’s mother’s job at the college. Dani rolled her eyes and said, “Here we go again, the great New York saga.” Jess smiled at her but leaned closer to the table. Really, Dani’s mother told her, we were waiters and cooks. Sycamore was hardly thrilling, but it was stable, she said, especially with a two-year-old in tow. Definitely not thrilling, Dani’s father said, laughing. Turned out he was a better Realtor than painter. Unlike my mother, he said. Cheers to my mother, he said, raising his glass, still laughing, but it sounded to Jess as if he laughed a little too hard, or maybe that was the wine, and Dani’s mother looked down at her lap.
Before Jess left to go home, she and Dani stood side by side in the guest bathroom with its plush pink towels and wiped their makeup off, laughing at their smeared eyes and cheeks, making faces in the mirror, filling the wastebasket with blackened tissues. Jess washed her face with soap in the shape of a starfish, scrubbing with a pink washcloth. Because it was late, Dani’s fat
her loaded her bike in the trunk of the Squareback he was fixing up for Dani and drove her the quick few blocks home. The engine, a low thunder, vibrated in her chest.
“Thanks again, Mr. Newell,” she said as he pulled into the driveway.
“Adam,” he said. “Not a problem, Jess. Hang on, that door sticks.” He leaned across her, tugged on the handle, and gave the door a firm push. Then he got out and unloaded her bike from the trunk.
She took it from him, gripping its handlebars. “Thank you,” she said again, but she couldn’t bring herself to call him by his first name.
Under the porch light, he smiled and pointed at her face. “Missed a spot,” he said.
She scrubbed at her cheek.
“Here.” He reached out and wiped the place where her eyebrow met her temple, showing her the smudge of black on his thumb. She thanked him and pushed her bike to the front door as he got in the car. She turned and waved as he backed down the driveway, watching the headlight beams cut through the dark. She watched until the taillights disappeared at the end of the street.
Inside, though it was only nine, her mother was dozing on the couch. She sat up fast, blinking, when Jess nudged her shoulder.
“You’re home,” she said. “How’d it go? Did you finish your paper?”
“Done.”
“Good. Was it fun? How was dinner? How was everything there?”
Jess opened her mouth to tell her, to let loose the effervescence building in her as the idea reverberated—I have a friend—when she saw a stiffness in her mother’s smile. Jess knew that stiffness: They’re not better than us, J-bird. They just have more money. A queasy sense of guilt turned her stomach, still full of three slices of pepperoni pizza and a scoop of mint chip.
So she didn’t tell her mother about the makeup that had caked her cheeks and swooped across her eyes. She didn’t tell her that when she saw herself in the mirror, dark-eyed and glamorous, she’d thought, I look pretty. Exactly like my mother. She didn’t tell her how hard she’d laughed when Dani messed up her eye makeup, deliberately blinking until the black smeared her cheeks and eyebrows. She didn’t tell about the starfish soap or plush pink towels. She didn’t tell about the microscope, or the dead toad, or the bright-white kitchen with its cherry towels, or the big dining table she’d had the urge to slide across. She didn’t tell about New York. She didn’t tell about the painting studio, she didn’t tell about missing Dad. She didn’t tell her Dani’s father had driven her home. She didn’t tell her how he had wiped at a smudge on her temple. She certainly didn’t tell her that the moment he had, she’d felt a low fire somewhere in her, like the namesake of her hometown rising from the ashes, a shiver on her arms as if he were a poem, the word crested on her tongue. Something strange and uneasy, something she couldn’t tell herself yet.
All this she did not tell, holding it in her throat until it hummed, its own kind of burn.
Skates
Angie says it won’t be much longer on your car. About ten minutes. Can I get you anything? Water? I don’t work here, but I’m filling in till Beto gets back from lunch. Hope he hurries. I took a day off to take my mom to the doctor and deal with errands, and I still have to get to the grocery store. They never have enough lanes open during the week, do they? I always think it will be better with students gone for the summer. With work, I can’t ever get there more than once a week, so I end up with a total mess. Half of it’s not even food. Our daughter’s in this phase where she won’t eat anything but cheese slices and cereal without milk. My mom likes those stupid Hungry Jacks. When my dad died, she swore she would never cook again. Stood by it, too. Lets me do it now, ha. Within a year she retired, sold the house, and moved into the garage apartment we’d renovated. The three of us and now my mom, my sister sometimes, two dogs, a cat, and a turtle named Slow Poke. A regular zoo over at our house.
I’m sorry, but haven’t I seen you out walking? You’re the one who found the body, right? Not to get in your business, but people talk, you know. Oh my gosh, I couldn’t believe it when I saw the paper. You must’ve been freaked out, huh? I guess you don’t know the whole history. Everybody around here knows the story, has a theory about what happened. The cops never did figure it out. There were all these rumors about something going on with her best friend’s father and maybe he had her killed, stuff like that. I don’t know. Most people think she ran away. A lot of kids want to run away from here. But with the body being so close by, I don’t know now. Maybe they’ll be able to tell how she died. If it’s her. She was a year older than me. She came into the Patty Melt a few times when I was working. The last night anyone saw her, in fact. I served her fries and a Coke. Lots of ketchup. Kids tell ghost stories about her. Jess Winters is coming to get you. Isn’t that terrible?
You teach at the Syc, right? Thought so. It’s a good school. I went for a semester, but long story short, I had Hazel. Couldn’t keep up. I might go back, though. California—really? If I were from California, I’d never leave. I lived in Phoenix for a couple years, but that was a total disaster, so I ended up back here. I went to California senior year of high school for the class trip to Disneyland, though. Took a bus over at the crack of dawn, rode the rides till midnight, and then hopped on the bus home. We’re always talking about taking a beach vacation, but you know how those things go. I’ve always wanted to go to New York, too. Lots of places. Angie feels pretty bad about it, wants us to be able to go. With running the shop and helping at the motel, and now with my mom at home, seems like we can’t ever get ahead, you know? I guess that’s the way it goes sometimes. And we’re going to get married now, and so we have to save up for it. Boston or Connecticut, probably, or Vermont if it passes. Thanks. It is.
Listen to me! Going on. You have kids? Lucky you. Just kidding. I love my daughter. When she’s not working my last nerve. Cheese slices and cereal. Hazel, yes. She’s fifteen, almost sixteen. When did that happen? She wants to practice driving every second, says she’ll get her license the second she turns sixteen. Seems like it was yesterday she was wearing shoes with skates in them. God help us.
You know, I just remembered, my mom went to New York once, when my dad was in the army, before my sister and I came along. I forgot that. There’s a picture of them by the skating rink, the famous one? Rockefeller Center, right. They look cold in that picture, but happy too. So young. It’s hard to see them as your parents when they look like that.
Speaking of which, if you ever have visitors come to town, we own the Woodchute Motor Lodge down in the District. My sister Stevie runs the place, and I help out when I can. We’ve made a lot of improvements in the past few years. Well, Stevie has. You might have seen her around, pushing a wheelbarrow with her rocks? She drives a car covered in bottle caps and glass? She’s harmless, just not all there sometimes, if you know what I mean. Keeps making her art, as it were. Anyway, we’re booked up a lot these days, but she’ll work with you. She’ll give you a discount, since you teach at the Syc.
Hey, did you know there’s a recall on peanut butter? Salmonella. Thought that was chicken. Anyway, I don’t know if it’s all brands or what, but watch out. Oh, and now Hazel has decided she wants to be vegetarian. Veggie burgers! That’s on my list. Have you tried them? My mom says they look like cow shit and probably taste that way. Well, I’m going to get them for her anyway because at least it’s not cereal. I don’t know if I’d be able to do without meat. When I was pregnant with Hazel, I could not get enough. I’d eat it raw. You’re not supposed to, but she turned out fine. Wasn’t like I was smoking or drinking or anything. Although if I was, that’s my business. That was one thing I hated about being pregnant, how everybody felt like they could come up and tell you what they thought was best. They’d put their hands on you. Reach out and lay a hand on your belly. Like you’re public property. I mean, excuse me? That’s mine. ’Course, it’s not like I’m not used to people saying things. I wasn’t married or even with the father, and to put a cherry on it, I went ahead and shacked u
p with Angie a couple years later, so you can imagine.
You know, a couple weeks ago, I took Hazel out to practice driving and we went down to Phoenix without telling anyone. We kept on going, headed out to I-17, just us girls. Told my boss at the bank I was feeling sick and couldn’t come in, faked a cough. Told Ang I had to run some errands. I don’t know what got into me. I haven’t done that in a long time. For a while there, I thought, What if we keep going? I don’t know where. Somewhere. Ended up in Phoenix, though. I took the wheel, and we got lost even though I used to live there. I have a terrible sense of direction. I went down a one-way street the wrong way. Hazel was trying to read the map on her phone, and everyone was honking. Finally, finally, we got ourselves downtown and parked. We were so hungry, I spent twenty-five dollars on two sodas and two pieces of chocolate cake at this snooty place, at that one hotel with the restaurant at the top overlooking the city. The waiter got into such a huff about us making fun of that cake, stomping around, his nose in the air. We cracked up. We laughed and laughed the way you do. Hazel. She’s a good girl when she wants to be. I worry about her. This place can be hard. People are, I don’t know. Mostly live and let live, but it wasn’t always that way. I used to be scared shitless of who I was, and so was Ang. But we made it, and I can’t imagine my life without her. Hazel will have to figure it out, too. But damn, you don’t want your kid to suffer, you know? Almost sixteen. Not much younger than Jess Winters. Who knows if another place would be any better, though. Trouble can find you anywhere.
Anyways! Can you believe it’s 2009? Remember when the 2000s seemed like a million years away? Stevie used to think we’d have flying cars, and we’d go roller-skating on the moon. ’Course she’s like that. When I pointed out the teeny-tiny detail about gravity, she’d said, It’ll work. You’ll see. Anyway, here we are. Time’s the one skating right on by. I’m going to be thirty-three years old next month. Thirty-three. The age of Christ, ha. When did that happen? I used to think I’d be somewhere else. Or maybe not somewhere, but something. Sometimes I wish—well. If wishes were nickels.
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