While He Was Away

by Karen Schreck

  “Yellow Rock,” I say.

  When Justine draws back in surprise, I tell her about her photograph and Owen’s letter too.

  “I had to hide things like that from Ernest.” She shakes her head wonderingly. “I’d hide them in the strangest places, places he’d never think to go. I guess I forgot about the photo and the letter.”

  “I’ll give them back to you.”

  “They’re yours now.” She sounds relieved at this. “I’d like to see them, that’s all.”

  “Sure.” I tell Justine how I found her then. I tell her I saw the newspaper article and the painting she made. I tell her I like to draw and paint too. I’ll show her my drawings and paintings someday, if she wants. There’s a viaduct I want to show her—

  I think of Ravi banking up the mural wall, and Caitlin and Jules running beside me, laughing there, and then I think of David and me, painting each other big and blue, and I can’t say anymore.

  “I want to see everything,” Justine says. “I want to live my life now, the way I wasn’t able to then.”

  I put my hand on her arm. “How did you finally decide to come back?”

  Justine pats my hand. Her fingers are startlingly cold. “Tom found me years ago. When Ernest died and left everything to Linda and you, Tom let me know. A few months ago I sold my little place in Yellow Rock to a friend. I moved here. Hoping.”

  Hearing his name, Tom descends again. He tells Justine that she’s getting tired. He tells me I’d better get ready for work. I glance at my watch. He’s right. Tom holds out a hand and hoists me up. He walks me to the door.

  I hesitate there. I look back at Justine, who, leaning deep into the red couch cushions, looks nearly lost again.

  “It’s one thing with me,” I say. “It’ll be another thing with Linda.”

  “At least I’ll have tried,” Justine says.

  “But how—?” I can’t even finish the question.

  Justine glances at Tom. “Could we come to the house? I’d like to see it again on the inside.” She smiles at me now. “It’s my old house, you know, from my first marriage. Ernest moved in when he married me.”

  I nod. “I’ve been wondering if you slept in my bedroom or Linda’s,” I say, realizing that, yes, I want to know that. Like Justine, I want to see and know everything I can.

  Justine’s smiles, and in her smile I see her eighteen-year-old self—the girl before so much sadness and so many mistakes. I see me.

  “Why don’t you all come to Red Earth some time?” This idea hits me out of the blue, and my words tumble over each other. “Linda will be more likely to behave there. I mean, she is the manager.”

  Tom shrugs. “It’s possible.”

  “Sometime soon,” Justine agrees. “From Yellow Rock to Red Earth. How do you like that?”

  Tom follows me out of the house. We stand on his driveway, eyeing each other.

  “I know you think I should have waited,” I say. “But what if I waited one day too long?”

  Tom nods. “And there’s something else.” His voice is rough with emotion.

  “What?”

  “The doctor, he says she’s in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. It comes and goes now. She can be real bad, or she can be clear as a bell. But you’re right. We shouldn’t wait too long for anything or anyone that we really care about.”

  •••

  I don’t walk home. I run, the hem of my green sundress fluttering at my knees.

  I hurry to my bedroom. There is my window. I go to it, breathe in fresh air, morning sunshine, life now. There is the honey locust tree, the tree that I love. I love the smooth, silvery brown bark and its long, lean, lithe shape, and the delicate little leaves that extend so neatly from their stems. I love the way the tree shades my room and cools it. I love the shadows it casts on my walls by day and night. I love the way David used to stand beneath it, waiting for me. I love knowing that Justine and Owen must have stood there too.

  I will never forget any of this. I will remember for her.

  I grab a piece of paper and start sketching shapes that grow into the honey locust.

  I check my computer then. No news from David. No message on my cell from him either, though Caitlin has left a text telling me to check my email.

  She’s sent the picture of me at the viaduct. I look good in it. I look happy. I might even look too happy. But I promised. So I write David an email, telling him I’ve found Justine. I can’t wait for the two of them to meet. Then I attach my picture at the viaduct and send it off.

  If he asks who I was with, I won’t lie. I’ve got no reason to lie. “Caitlin, Jules, and Ravi,” I’ll tell him. “I can’t wait for the five of us to hang out when you get home.”

  Don’t wait too long for anything or anyone that you care about.

  But I’ll have to.

  I guess I’m figuring out how.

  •••

  “Justine won’t come tonight.” Tom has joined me at the coffeemaker, where I’m filling two cups for the couple arguing at the table in the corner. “She says she’s not ready yet. She’s old, Penna. I’m old, and I think I’ve got it rough. But she’s old old. I can just imagine. She’s got to take it easy. When she doesn’t take it easy, that’s when her mind seems to go. Even she knows that now.”

  It’s nearly ten. Except for an arguing couple, Red Earth’s tables are empty. No one is even drinking at the bar. It’s been so dead tonight that Linda is talking about shutting down early. She and Isaac have things they need to take care of in the kitchen—measurements for some new appliances. They’d just as soon do it now as after midnight.

  Tom heads back to the bar, and I turn toward the couple, steeling myself to interrupt what seems to be an increasingly heated disagreement.

  Caitlin elbows me.

  I am getting better at balancing things. Barely a ripple breaks across the coffee.

  Caitlin laughs. “Good job. You passed the test.”

  I stick out my tongue.

  “I’m so into getting out of here early.” Caitlin sounds giddy with the possibility of a few extra hours of freedom. “I texted Jules, and she said she’s already on her way over to Total Rush. The paintball place, you know. She’s picking up some other kids too. She asked them about you. Some of them are going to be seniors this year. They remember you from school.”

  “Really?” I hesitate. Then I think of Justine. I think Justine would want me to go. Live your life, I think Justine would say. It’ll help you hold on.

  “Oh, come on, Penna! Don’t do this. Don’t make some dumb excuse.”

  “I’m not.” I grin, realizing this is true. “Let’s see how quickly we can get out of here.”

  Caitlin beams.

  I head for the arguing couple, balancing the brimming cups like a pro. The couple—an older man and a younger woman—barely look up as I set the cups down. They are in the thick of it, that’s for sure. I sweep crumbs, straws, and cracker wrappers from the floor until the man throws a bill on the table, and the two of them push back their chairs and storm out.

  I go over and pocket the cash. I don’t want it ever to get that angry between David and me.

  From the kitchen door, Linda calls, “Closing time!”

  Together, Caitlin and I have prepped everything for tomorrow. All I have to do is clean up this table.

  I’m wiping it down when Caitlin walks over, dangling her key chain from her hand. She swings it like a pendulum before my eyes. “You are getting sleepy, very sleepy,” she intones hypnotically. “You are going to have a very good time.”

  I pull this zombie look, slack jawed, empty eyed. I stick my arms straight out in front of me, turn, and lumber mechanically toward the kitchen to get my bag from the closet there.

  That’s when I see Linda and Isaac through the kitchen door’s round window.

  Linda and Isaac, kissing like crazy.

  I stop lumbering. I lower my arms.

  “Ooh-la-la,” Caitlin mutters from behind me.
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  Like she senses something, Linda comes up for air. She sees me seeing her. She pulls away from Isaac. She bangs open the kitchen door and comes at me. Wait, don’t run away. I can explain everything—just let me hold you, her expression says.

  I hold up my hand, and she comes to a stop just in front of me.

  “It’s fine,” I say coolly, keeping my voice under control. It’s not hard, actually. I’m that stunned. “Call me crazy, but I’ve always believed in true love. You know that.”

  Though who knows what kind of love this is for Linda? She’s never been exactly the “true love” type.

  I push past her, go into the kitchen, stride past Isaac (catching a scent of the musky cologne he wears, which I realize only now I’ve smelled on Linda too), grab my bag from the closet, and go out the back door, where I meet Caitlin by her car.

  “Did you know?” I ask.

  Caitlin shrugs. “I had a hunch.”

  I sink down in the seat, grimly grateful for the pebbles Caitlin accidentally spews onto Linda’s VW peeling out. I brace my feet on the dashboard.

  Caitlin glances over at me, but she doesn’t complain.

  “Good thing you’ve got on those kick-ass Docs,” she says. “You’re going to need them where we’re going.”

  Sixteen

  Caitlin doesn’t seem to need to talk or listen to music, and I’m glad for some quiet. So we drive in silence toward the viaduct and Total Rush.

  It burns me, I realize, staring out the car window. It burns me that I’ve waited for Linda, wondering where she is. All my curfews, the ones I tried so hard to keep. All that stuff she said about independence, all that stuff about letting go of David—that really burns me. And yet there she was, holding on to just who she wants.

  So that’s what she’s been doing all those long hours at work. Getting all dependent on someone besides herself.

  I think of our house, the little hallway there, lined with photographs of me, of her, of me and her. Am I jealous of my mother? Is that it? Or am I just mad that for once she’s caring more about herself than me? More about what she wants than what I want—which happens to be David, safe and sound at home again. And Justine, who lives right around the corner but might as well live a world away. Would it hurt Linda to be a little more accepting of what I want? Then maybe I’d be a little accepting of her.

  “Almost there,” Caitlin says, interrupting my thoughts.

  Just as well. I’m sick of thinking about Linda.

  “Good. Except I’ve never played before,” I say.

  “No worries,” Caitlin says. “It’s not hard. Soon you’ll be addicted like the rest of us.”

  And then we’re there.

  •••

  Except for the cars parked in the dirt parking lot out front, the spotlights illuminating the metal steps leading up to the entrance, and the neon sign reading “Total Rush” above, the big old factory looks just the same on the outside as it did when David and I used to drive by: crumbling brick, boarded-up windows, lots of graffiti.

  Or it seems just the same from inside Caitlin’s car. Once she and I get out—well, then it’s another story. Music thuds from inside the warehouse—metal so loud it makes the air jump. I press my hands to my ears, and the throbbing baseline gets muffled, but like that it reminds me of the raves David and I used to go to, just over there at the viaduct, and then I’m thinking of David and how he loved those raves—and how he loved.

  I wish he were here.

  I lower my hands, and the warehouse music hits me hard.

  “Come on!” Caitlin yells. She grabs my hand and drags me across the parking lot and up the metal steps to the warehouse’s doorway.

  “Don’t be scared.” I think that’s what Caitlin says as she leads me inside. The entryway door swings shut behind us, and the music settles on my head like a heavy helmet. For a moment I can’t see straight—sound dementia. And the black lights have turned everything ghoulish—most notably Caitlin’s glowing teeth as she smiles. The flashing strobes pepper blasts of brilliance into the darkness. When Caitlin turns, a strobe fractures her body. She jerks her way over to a counter, and there’s a cash register there—I see that now—and behind loom what look to be lockers for gear. Then I register the bulky guy in blaze orange standing behind the cash register. He’s taking a credit card from Caitlin. I tug at her arm, protesting, but she waves me off.

  “You’ll get me next time,” she yells at me.

  “Thanks,” I yell back, but she waves this off too, shouting, “We’re in this together.”

  Somehow Caitlin lets Blaze Orange know that I’ve never been here or played before. He glowers like I’ve done something wrong, and then he hollers, “Got to brief her, I guess.” He turns, flings open the lockers, and grabs kneepads, face masks, and padded vests for Caitlin and me. He shoves these things across the counter at us. As we scramble to hold on to everything, he grabs a couple paintball guns too.

  He gestures with the guns for us to follow him, and then he hustles Caitlin and me down a narrow hallway and into a room that reminds of the walk-in freezer at work—not because it’s so cold, but because I feel claustrophobic the minute I step inside. In the dim light, I make out a couple of benches. I follow Caitlin’s lead and sit down on one of them. The guy slams the door shut, and the music is instantly muffled. It’s at mall decibel now; this must have been some kind of vault or meat locker or padded cell, once upon a time. I can hear myself think. I can hear Blaze Orange’s words too, when he starts giving the lowdown about this place.

  “You’re starting the newbie with paintball, right?” he says.

  “Yes, sir.” Caitlin nods like a good soldier.

  Blaze Orange nods back. “My personal preference. I mean they’re both about the territory and the goal, the killing, but you can’t beat the realism of paintball. The fog of war, man.” He pumps his fists in the air. “It’s all about the fog of war. Know what I’m saying? I’m talking Capture the Flag gone gonzo. Battlefield action. Everything and everyone, fair game. I mean, the sound of those paint pellets flying overhead, the smoke and the mess, the slippery floor—it really pulls you in like nothing else. Know what I’m saying?”

  “In laser tag nothing really matters except having accurate equipment.” Caitlin is clarifying this for my sake, talking fast as she slips on the protective vest. She can’t wait to get out there. That’s clear from the way she’s grinning. “In laser tag there are a lot of beeps and lights, but it just isn’t the same as blasting and getting blasted. You know those old-lady bath beads? Well, any thoughts you ever had about those are about to change.”

  Jules barges into the room then. She’s all geared up and looks like she’s been playing for a while, because she’s sweaty too. She has two rectangles of black smeared beneath her eyes. They remind me of tribal markings, war paint.

  “’Scuse me,” Jules says to Blaze Orange, and she plants herself in front of Caitlin, pulls a little jar from her jeans’ pocket, opens it, dips her finger inside, and then smears two rectangles beneath Caitlin’s eyes. Then Jules does me.

  We all bash knuckles and whoop.

  “Now that that’s done…” Blaze Orange hoists his pants up over his gut. He’s built like an ex-linebacker, his muscle only just starting to turn to fat. “Here’s the deal. You two may know how to play.” He jerks his head at Caitlin and Jules. “But you, I got to fill in.” He jerks his head at me. “It’s a legal thing.”

  I nod, twisting my face mask around and around in my hands.

  Blaze Orange talks about teams, rules, referees. “No physical contact whatsoever allowed,” he says loudly. He clears his throat and lowers his voice, but just a little. “Just point and shoot. Does it hurt? Sometimes, like when you get snapped with a wet towel. Little welts, maybe you’ll get some of those. Big injuries, probably not. But remember, no shoving, no hitting. No touching. Got it?”

  “Got it,” I say.

  “Watch the uneven surface,” Blaze Orange continues.
“There are these steel supports—watch for those. When you get splashed, you’re out. You go to the safe area in the sidelines with the other girls.” Here he pauses to catch his breath, glowering at me like I’m a born rule-breaker. “You stay in the safe area until the next game. Got it?”

  I’m frowning at his assumption about girls being the only occupants of the safe area. But I’m antsy. The mask feels clammy with the sweat that’s suddenly slicking my palms. I want to get on with it, end the suspense, solve the mystery. So I don’t comment other than to say, “Got it.”

  “When all the players on one team are out or one team captures the other team’s flag and gets it to the opponent’s home base before the time runs out—that’s when you win.” Blaze Orange pumps his fists in the air again. He loves his job. “Now get your gear on!”

  Jules and Caitlin help me suit up. The goggles on my mask make everything that was already strange go a stranger green.

  “Number one golden rule,” Caitlin says, adjusting the straps on my vest. “If some dude starts talking smack about you because you are a girl, kick his butt.”

  So that “girls’ safe area” crack bugged her too.

  Before I can respond, Jules turns me toward the door and gives me a shove. I stumble toward it.

  “To the Wild West Room!” Jules cries. “Everybody’s waiting there. Yee-haw!”

  Blaze Orange flings open the door then, and we fall out into our version of some war.

  •••

  David would die laughing, seeing this place. That’s what I think when I walk into the Wild West Room. David liked to play paintball outdoors; he did it all the time before he met me. But he wouldn’t have been able to take this indoor version of the West seriously. Nobody should—not with the paintings of cowboys and bucking broncos covering the walls, the small, rickety oil derricks, and the gigantic hay bales, water barrels, and tumbleweeds. Everything’s off scale, even the child-sized skeleton dressed in Indian garb hanging from a fake tree and the mummified mini-rustler dangling nearby.

  The sign above the big fenced-in area right in front of Jules and me reads “Corral,” and inside hulk lumpy, mangy-looking cows, bulls, and horses—all fake, of course. There’s a covered wagon that’s definitely seen better days. And then there are the two other hallways that lead out of the Corral, down which I glimpse other signs set on posts outside other rooms—Bank, Depot, Saloon—all waiting to be explored and seized as territory.