It was his heartbreak song that did it. He came by the tepee with his guitar after Lazy Elk had moved out the last of his things and sang my mother a song (an original this time, not one of Dylan’s)—“I wrote it thinkin’ about what happened to you, Jean”—about how being wronged was no reason to close down your heart for good. I stood behind him and made gagging motions, trying to catch my mother’s glance and crossing my eyes. But my mother, with tears in her eyes, hugged him tightly for so long that I thought she might never let go. I couldn’t believe it.
“It’s just a dumb song,” I said as she clutched him.
She flashed me a look over his shoulder, banishing me from the tepee as well. I stomped out. When I came back later, Zack’s guitar was next to the closed curtain that surrounded her bed.
“Just a dumb song,” I mumbled as I got into bed and clung to the necklace.
Zack, unlike Lazy Elk, seemed to have no expectations of me. He did not try to treat me like a daughter or go out of his way to befriend me. He did not take me on walks through the woods or tell me bedtime stories about Trickster Coyote. Zack barely acknowledged me, coming and going from my mother’s bed like a thief with a nervous little smile on his face. If I stared at him long enough, I could make his ears glow red.
But the thing I remember most about their brief affair was how he made my mother laugh. I don’t know what he said or did, but night after night, I would hear my mother’s laughter from behind the curtain enclosing her bed. She would laugh quietly at first, a little embarrassed maybe, then her laughter became louder—uncontrollable, hysterical, almost weeping. And beneath this, I would hear the sound of his whispers, the rustle of sheets.
It was also around this time that my mother began to sew. Needlework was my mother’s first foray into the world of arts and crafts. After this, she would try weaving, pottery, and, finally, painting, which would stick, but in the beginning, my mother sewed.
She set up a little sewing table in the area of the tepee where Lazy Elk had made his jewelry—as if she had to fill that space somehow, make it her own. Her first project was a pillow with cross-stitching: A Happy Home Is a Home of Love. It seemed a funny message considering all that had happened in her own home. And a funny picture: a carefully stitched, square white house with neat blue curtains and perfectly symmetrical trees in the yard. I tried to imagine the tiny family you might see if you could open the door or pull back the curtain. I knew they’d be a different family than we were. The kids would have a mother and a father. A dog maybe. Hot running water. Steak dinners. The tiny people who lived in that house had nothing to do with our lives, is what I thought back then, at ten years old, watching my mother sew.
Sewing seemed to keep my mother happy, to give her something to help fill her days. And at night, she had Zack. After dinner, he’d play his guitar while she sewed, then they’d give each other a conspiratorial look and rush off to bed.
Desperate, I rode my bike down and left a note in Lazy Elk’s mailbox, telling him about Zack and that he needed to come home and make things right before it was too late. He never came. I guess he figured it was already too late, Zack or no Zack.
When I filled Del in on the saga of Droopy Moose (deciding to leave out the part about Zack) she laughed and said he must not have been so droopy after all. Not the important parts at least. I pretended to get the joke. I also pretended that it didn’t matter that he was gone. No skin off my butt. He was just a dumb hippie with a goofy name anyway.
THE DAY BEFORE SCHOOL LET OUT, I went to the field looking for Del in the afternoon, carrying the necklace I’d taken from Lazy Elk to give to her. No longer believing it held the power to bring him back, I wanted it gone. I was hoping to use it as a sort of conciliatory gesture: Del had not been entirely satisfied with the job I’d done spying on Ellie and Sam.
My double agent scheme had been going as planned for weeks. I simply told both sides what they wanted to hear, sprinkling the made-up stories with bits of truth. To win and keep the friendships of Ellie and Samantha, I reported that yes, it was true that the Potato Girl rode her pony naked—I even told them he was called Spitfire. I told them her bedroom was really the root cellar and that she knew how to shoot a gun.
I told Del that Ellie wore a retainer at night, that Samantha had an older sister who was retarded (both true), and that they were both secretly in love with school bad boy Artie Paris (this, of course, was pure fiction, but Del ate it up).
In the last week of school, both sides were desperate for the ultimate dirt. They seemed unimpressed with whatever tidbits I brought them. I was afraid of losing my hold on Ellie and Sam, who demanded that I bring them something really good. And Del was unmoved when I told her that both Ellie and Sam had had lice, warts, pinworm. I had to pull out the big guns.
So I told Del that Ellie had invited Artie over to her house and they ended up kissing. Del didn’t believe me—she rolled her eyes, shook her head, and said simply, No way. I worked hard to convince her, making up details as I went along: they were in Ellie’s basement, Artie forced Ellie into it at first, then she realized it wasn’t so bad and gave in. I even told Del that Ellie, who didn’t know any better, worried that she’d gotten pregnant from the kissing and was always asking her friends if they thought she was starting to show.
“Stuupid!” Del exclaimed, and I wasn’t sure if she meant my story or Ellie thinking she was pregnant.
And to Ellie and Sam, I told a half truth, simply because I’d run out of lies. I told them I knew Del had a tattoo.
“No way!” they squealed. “What of?”
We were standing in our usual meeting place, under the monkey bars. Other kids walked by, and I felt warm all over, proud and glowing to be seen talking with Ellie and Sam day after day. Only when Del watched us did I feel the cool pangs of guilt and regret.
“I’m not sure,” I told them. “I only saw the edge of it when she was changing once.”
“Are you sure?”
“Swear to god. It’s right on her chest.”
“It’s probably a potato!” Sam suggested.
“The part I saw was all black,” I told them.
“A rotten potato!” Ellie cackled.
What I didn’t know, what never occurred to me, so secure had I become in my role as informer, was that a boy named Travis Greene, who had a crush on Ellie, would also be told about the tattoo, and that he in turn would tell most of his friends, including Tommy Ducette, the fat kid and number-one henchman of Artie Paris. Nor did I know that on the last day of school, Artie Paris had something planned—his good-bye gift to Number 5 Elementary School and its graduating class of fifth graders.
WHEN I COULD NOT FIND DEL in the fields or root cellar, I decided she must be up at the cabin. I began to make my way from the root cellar to the woods, Lazy Elk’s necklace tucked into my pocket, but was stopped by the excitement in the pigpen. One pig, it seemed, had gone crazy.
It trotted in circles around the pen, squealing—screaming, really. When another got in its way, the crazy pig would lash out, butting against it, biting.
I stood, pressed against the fence, trying to get its attention.
“It’s okay, Pig,” I said. “Come on now, Pig.”
But the pig just ran harder, faster, looking like it would take flight, like it thought if it just could run fast enough, it might be able to escape.
“You get away from them pigs now!”
I jerked away from the fence and turned to see Del’s father standing before me, a man I’d only glimpsed from a distance. Ralph Griswold was a tall man in dirty bib overalls, with large square shoulders and a boxy jaw covered in dark stubble. His black hair peeked out from under his cap and was just long enough to cover his ears. He had Del’s pale gray-blue eyes.
About the only thing on earth that Del was afraid of was her own daddy and there he was, three feet away from me.
“I was…just looking for Del.” As I spoke, I noticed the man’s hands, big as boards. In his ri
ght hand, he carried a large pistol.
“Well she ain’t in the pigpen is she? Now get! You’re worrying my pigs!” He waved his hand at me, the one that did not hold the gun. I took off running and when I got to the path, I heard a single shot, but did not dare to turn around.
I was out of breath when I made it to the clearing. My legs felt like rubber bands. I heard voices from inside the cabin and called out as I approached.
“Del? Nicky?”
My shouting was followed by silence, then I watched as a familiar figure hurried through the leaning cabin’s doorway. It was Zack—the boy who made my mother laugh herself to sleep each night. He wore a white T-shirt and blue jeans with holes at the knees. He was barefoot, just like always. Zack had not worn shoes since I met him, except for a pair of red rubber boots he slipped on to go out in snow. I imagined my mother’s sheets must have been filthy from the dirt he carried in on his feet.
“Hey,” he said when he saw me. It was the greeting he always gave, whether he was sitting down opposite me at community dinner in the big barn or crawling out from behind my mother’s curtain first thing in the morning.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, truly perplexed. I watched as his ears reddened. I felt unsettled, like my two worlds had somehow slipped together without my knowledge or consent. I would’ve been just as surprised to find Del shoveling a loaf of bread into the oven at New Hope.
“Nothin’.” He shrugged, looked around the clearing as though I bored him. “Just out walking. See ya, Katydid.” And with this, he was headed back down the path with his usual tall man loping gait. First, Zack invaded my life in the tepee, now here he was at Del’s. Who did he think he was?
I stepped inside the cabin and heard rustling from the loft.
“Del?” I called. My mind raced. Had Zack been there to meet Del? Could he be the mysterious boy who gave her the tattoo? It dawned on me abruptly that Zack’s last name was Messier—was that what the M stood for? My stomach churned at the thought.
“Just me,” Nicky’s voice drifted down. He peeked his head through the loft’s rail and smiled down at me. “Come on up, Desert Rose. Have a smoke with me.”
I climbed the ladder. Nicky was sitting on the mattress. Beside it sat a good-sized bag of pot. The air was sweet with its smoke. It was a smell I knew well from New Hope. It was Lazy Elk’s smell.
“What’s new?” he asked as he handed me a Camel. His eyes were red and glossy. He was playing with the plastic-handled hunting knife, sliding it in and out of its leather sheath.
I breathlessly told Nicky about what I’d just seen down by the pigs, about meeting his father with the gun and the shot I heard fired. Nicky only nodded.
“That sow’s not right. Hasn’t been the same since she had the piglets. Daddy’s turning her into bacon. One shot, right in the middle of the head.” Nicky turned his hand into a gun. “Bang,” he said, then blew on his fingertip.
I was quiet a minute. Nicky sat smiling stupidly at me, looking like some part of him was far away.
“You’ve been smoking dope,” I said.
“And?” he asked, eyebrows raised.
“And how do you know Zack?”
“I know lots of people.”
“Well what was he doing here?”
“Bringing me this,” Nicky answered, nodding at the pot.
“He gives it to you?”
“No dummy, I buy it from him. It’s some good stuff. Want to try a little?”
“Nope.”
“Wimp.”
“Am not. For your information, I could smoke that stuff any time I wanted at home.”
He shook his head, grinning now.
“You’re such a wimp.”
“Bullshit,” I said.
“Ouch, the little lady swears. You been hangin’ out with my trash-mouthed sister too long. She’s what you might call a bad influence.”
“Funny, she says the same about you.”
“Double ouch. And tell me, Desert Rose, just what has Del told you about me?”
“That you’re really just fourteen, not sixteen like you say, that you’re B-A-D spells bad, and that you’ve got some kind of secret or something.”
“My oh my, how the baby sister talks. And did she say what this big secret I’m supposed to have is?”
“Nope. Just that I might not want to know you if I found out.”
Nicky chewed on his thumbnail.
“You really think if I told you, you might not want to know me anymore?”
I shrugged my shoulders, looked at his moist eyes, and thought, No way.
“What, did you kill someone or something?” I laughed.
“Nah, it ain’t nothin’ like that. It’s…well, it’s complicated. That’s all.”
“I know all about complicated,” I said, thinking of the mess at New Hope.
“It’s not that I think you wouldn’t get it, it’s just that I don’t know how to explain it right. But I will. I promise. I’ll figure it out and I’ll tell you the whole story.”
“When?”
“Soon, Desert Rose. I promise.” He reached out and took my hand, looked down at it, then smiled his sly fox smile. “I got another secret, though. Want to hear it?”
“I guess,” I said, disappointed that I would have to settle for some second-rate confession.
“Long as you promise not to run away and think I’m B-A-D spells bad and all that.”
I glanced at Nicky and he squeezed my hand. He was smiling at me, and his teeth were so white they seemed to glow. Teeth are bones, I remember thinking. This made me smile.
“I promise,” I said.
“Good. Now here it is. Lean closer so I can whisper it.”
I leaned in. Nicky’s breath was warm against my ear and cheek. He smelled like marijuana and cigarettes, but under that I detected a musky smell, like sweat only more pleasant.
“I’d like to kiss you. I’d like it an awful lot. And I think you’d like to kiss me, too.” The words were moist puffs that seemed to hit my skin and sink in, warming the flesh beneath.
“Would you?” he asked, his voice low and more gravelly than ever. “Would you like to kiss me, too?”
I nodded. Closed my eyes like the girls in movies did. His lips came against mine softly, like a butterfly landing, but once there, pressed harder. He took my lips between his and sucked them, pried them open with his tongue. His tongue worked its way around my mouth like some kind of grub seeking the darkest, dampest corner of my mouth. His teeth hit mine, clacking so hard I thought we would both walk away with chips like the one Del had. I wondered if that’s how she got hers: from kissing.
Kissing seemed like getting into a train wreck. There was that much force. That much danger. As we kissed, I remembered the sound of that single shot fired right into the brain of the pig. My own head buzzed. My teeth ached. I thought I tasted blood.
We kissed until our lips were swollen and our mouths dry. Until I forgot all about what bad secrets Nicky might have. I learned to use my tongue the same way Nicky used his. He gripped my shoulders so tight that I had bruises the next morning. His breath was coming so hard and fast that I thought he would turn blue and pass out.
“Hang on,” I mumbled, or tried to mumble as he kept pressing his mouth against mine. It could have gone on forever. And may have. But Del’s voice stopped everything.
“TRAITORS!” she screamed, her voice filling the cabin, a force all its own, more powerful than the train wreck that was our kissing, more startling than the crack of her daddy’s pistol. We jerked apart and looked down from the loft just in time to see Del bolt out through the open doorway. I turned to Nicky, but there was no question of whether we should go on kissing. What I saw in his eyes was not love or lust or even guilt, but pure, stark fear.
We scrambled down the ladder after Del, but she was long gone. Nicky told me to head home. He said he’d find Del back at their place and patch things up. She might need some time to cool down, but he promised
she’d be fine by morning. I pulled the necklace I’d brought for her out of my pocket.
“Give this to her,” I told Nicky. “And tell her I’m still her deputy.” Nicky nodded, and went down the hill after his sister.
WHEN DEL WOULDN’T LOOK AT ME, refused to even look up from the ground the next morning at the bus stop, I realized that Nicky hadn’t been able to keep his promise to make things right. And although I wanted nothing more than to get down on my knees and beg her forgiveness, I was afraid. Afraid she would just humiliate me further, make me feel worse than I did.
I wanted to ask if Nicky had given her the necklace, make some joke about Droopy Moose, say it was true that I was her deputy always. Her best friend forever.
But the only thing I could think of to say was about that crazy sow.
“I heard your daddy killed a pig yesterday.” This at least got her attention. She raised her head and I saw that her left eye was black and blue, nearly swollen shut. She looked at me with such fierce hatred that I was relieved to hear the bus coming, to see the flashers go on as Ron slowed to a stop and swung open the doors.
ALL MY LIFE I have wished I could go back and live two moments differently. I do not long to travel back through time and change the fate that led me to drop out of med school and get married, or the choice I later made to abort the only child Jamie and I conceived. No, odd as it may seem, the two instants I wish I could do over both took place on June 16, 1971, when I was ten years old.
The first was that morning at the bus stop. I would get down on my knees and beg forgiveness. I would promise whatever Del asked, do whatever she wanted. I would demand to know who had given her the black eye, and swear vengeance upon him, upon anyone who would hurt her.
The second thing I would take back was what happened later that day. It was, I believe in my heart, even now, the worst thing I’ve ever done. Yes, I abandoned my mother; yes, I aborted a child that I truly wanted; yes, I have been unkind and uncharitable a thousand times. But this is the one thing that comes back to me in endless bad dreams, keeping me awake at night as I replay the scene again and again, imagining that it turned out differently, but knowing it was too late.
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