Lovely, Dark and Deep

by Amy McNamara

  She laughs a nervous laugh and her chandelier earrings flitter. She sits on the end of my bed.

  “And then I was afraid you might, you know . . . I mean, I didn’t know you . . . didn’t know what you were thinking . . .”

  I close my eyes and cover my face with my hands. I’m so embarrassed I could die. Too many people are mixed up in my stupid life.

  She goes on, “And then I’d never forgive myself for not doing it. He’d never forgive me for lying to him. But I decided to trust you. Someone has to. You’ll pull through this. You are pulling through. You wouldn’t do that—hurt yourself, hurt so many people.”

  She sounds certain. Wonder if I could borrow that.

  “I already did,” I say under my breath.

  Patrick’s mother, for example. The first face I saw when I came to. Her relief. Holding my mother’s hand. Worrying for me, us, when she’d just lost her son. I haven’t said a single word to her since that night.

  It comes to me like that. Flashes out of nowhere and so vivid I live them again. They pull me under. Make me lose my focus on the here and now.

  “What did you say?” Mary tilts her head sideways. Reminds me of a bird.

  Errands with Mary. An afternoon of it. It’s what a normal person would do. Make an effort. Nothing else is working.

  “Nothing.” I rub my eyes, like I can make it clear away. “I might go with you. Can I run first?”

  “I’ll be in the studio. Bang on the door when you’re back. It’ll take us an hour and a half to get in there, an hour if there aren’t any cops. Don’t take a long run.”

  I get up and face the day. Call Lucy. Apologize. Promise I won’t mess up again. She laughs and says with a high-pressure job like mine, a day off is just the thing. She doesn’t sound mad.

  My mom can wait. I try Cal. Voice mail. I leave a message. Tell him I’m going out with Mary and to call in the next hour if he wants me to come over or needs anything. I don’t know if I’m supposed to be working for him now, or what. Last night seems like something from another life. Not mine. I pull on my running gear.

  I leave my iPhone behind. Despite the crappy night’s sleep, there’s a new quiet in my head. The run works faster. I find my zone in the first mile. Scenes, thoughts, faces rise up here and there, behind this tree, or around that bend, but today I just watch them roll on by. The memories are like a Ferris wheel. I can ride it, go up to the top, feel the rush when everything seems like it’ll fall away, but then, if I keep my eyes open, I see the ground again. Patrick fades, and I don’t feel the crushing tightness in my chest or the ghost feeling of my seat belt locking me in, upside down, next to him.

  When I get home and out of the shower, there’s a missed call from Cal.

  I call him back. Because that’s what a normal girl would do.

  “Hi.” My heart’s skipping around in my chest.

  “Hi, yourself.” He’s cheerful.

  “I wanted to hear your voice,” I say.

  Subtle.

  “I know you went right home and freaked yourself out reading on the Internet,” he teases. Clears his throat a little.

  Caught.

  “Yeah.” There’s no point trying to hide it. “I’m sorry. I had to.”

  “You had to.” He’s sarcastic.

  I wince. Want to hang up. Say nothing.

  “Sorry,” he says, after a second. Sounds more pissed than sorry.

  “I didn’t know anything about it—I had to look. For instance, yours isn’t like your mom’s . . . ?” My voice trails off.

  Silence.

  “Right?” I want him to say something. Anything.

  “So far.” He’s brusque. Changes the topic. “Aren’t you supposed to be at the library?”

  “Overslept. Not exactly a model employee. And now Mary wants me to run some errands with her. Go shopping.” A perfectly normal day.

  “That’s great,” he says. “You’re going, right?”

  “On my way out the door now,” I say, woodenly. I can’t loosen up. I wish this were going better, but I don’t know what else to say. I remember what it felt like to have his hand on the back of my head, in my hair. Shiver a little.

  “I’m glad you’re going out. It’s good for you. Between working and all your running you’ll be like Lola from Run Lola Run. Did you ever see that movie? German thriller. This girl, lean, rosy-cheeked, kind of distraught, runs everywhere. No, wait, you’re already like her.”

  “Shut up.” I laugh, looking around the room for my wallet. I’ll have to take more cash from my dad. Lucy hasn’t paid me yet.

  “Did you run yet today?” he teases. The smile’s back in his voice.

  “Of course. You should try it. It might do you some good.”

  It rolls out of my mouth before I can stop it.

  He doesn’t miss a beat. “That’d be more like Fall Cal Fall.”

  I die a thousand deaths. “Oh God, I wasn’t thinking . . .”

  He lets me off the hook. Laughs.

  “I go to the gym,” he says.

  Mary sticks her head in. “Last chance, Wren, we’ve gotta get out of here.”

  Cal hears her through the phone. “Go, have a good day. And do me a favor, Lola—don’t stop talking all of a sudden?”

  I hang up. Try to get my head together. My face is burning. I just had a conversation with a guy who likes me. A guy I like. I’m going shopping with Mary. Look at me. I’m a regular person.

  a little

  like

  i might

  fly

  away

  MARY SWINGS US by Mercy House so she can run in and grab a different bag and an extra pair of socks. It’s an old wooden house on a lane just outside town. Over the door a weathered plaque reads MERCY CONVENT and just beneath it a more modern sign says MERCY HOUSE. I follow Mary up slightly sagging wooden steps to the porch. She pulls a brass skeleton key on a string out of her coat pocket and unlocks the glass-paned front door. We step into the silence of an oak foyer, surfaces polished to a shine, portraits lining the wall to the left, nuns in rows of black, smiling at an unseen photographer.

  “What is this place?” I ask, staring at all the women’s faces.

  Mary walks past me to a desk near the back, leans across it, and pulls a letter from an old hotel-style mail cubby.

  She turns and smiles. “You’re kidding, right? You’ve never been here?”

  Her eyes go to the envelope in her hand. Looks official. RISD logo on it.

  “Zara and Jeb started it years ago,” she says, kind of absentmindedly. “When the last of the nuns were moving into nursing homes. It’s a retreat space for artists. C’mon, I’ll show you my room. I just have to grab a few things.”

  I follow her through a wide, wood-paneled living room. The windows overlook a wraparound porch. In the side yard, I spy a gazebo that looks like it’s seen better days. And a huge, fenced-in garden plot, covered with hay and snow.

  Mary takes the steps two at a time. We come up to a long hall with six doors on either side.

  “Bathroom’s at the end if you need it,” she says in a quiet voice. “My room’s here.” She opens a door with an eight on it.

  “I’m okay,” I say, following her in.

  Despite the gray day outside, Mary’s room is bright, a narrow space, plain, with one tall window overlooking the yard. A delicate lace curtain hangs before it, translating the light into something more intricate, lovely.

  “Isn’t it marvelous?” she says, clearly proud. “Honestly, it’s the most peaceful place.”

  She throws her bag down on the bed and pulls open a few drawers in the bureau. Other than the narrow bed and dresser, there’s little room for much else. A small lace-topped nightstand holds a reading lamp, a water glass, and her sketchbook. A rickety little desk leans before the window, its chair tucked neatly into it.

  “I grew up in a house full of sisters,” Mary says, smiling. “I had to share everything. I think Zara’s brilliant for saving this old p
lace, offering it to artists as a place to think.”

  While Mary rummages through her things, I look at the photographs she has taped up on the wall near her bed. More than a few shots of herself with a set of three other girls who look like sisters, and her mother, five variations on the same face, smiling through time from birthday cake-laden dinner tables, wobbly-ankled in skates on ice-covered lakes, honeycombed together on inner tubes floating down a small, weedy river.

  “No dad,” I say, before I realize I’m speaking out loud.

  Mary’s head whips in my direction and her smile falters for a fraction of a second. But just a fraction. “Nope,” she says, looking at the pictures. “He missed out.”

  I don’t know what she means by this, but it’s the first time I’ve ever heard anything remotely resembling an edge in Mary’s voice, so I don’t ask.

  Freshly packed bag in hand and brilliant blue socks peeping from the tops of her boots, she guides me through the house, down a set of back stairs, through a large kitchen where a woman and a man are working together quietly. Three fruit pies, two loaves of bread, and one tray of cookies are laid out before them in various states of perfection. Mary greets the bakers and grabs us apples from a basket in the pantry, and we slip out the back. The snow under our feet squeaks like Styrofoam as we make our way back around the house.

  “It’s pretty empty right now,” Mary says, waving one gloved hand toward the upstairs. “The regular residencies are cyclical and this is a downtime. It was packed when I got here. The dinners were great. All the same, I’m kind of glad for the emptiness.”

  Her car’s still warm and I sink deep into my seat. We’re both quiet while it lifts and loops us inland through wooded hills. I’m still startled to find myself here with her, heading out. In one day, I’ve taken in more of the area than all the weeks I’ve been here so far. Finally she breaks the silence. “I’m so lucky to get to work with your dad,” she says, casting a twinkly smile in my direction.

  “Oh yeah?” I say. I really don’t want to have this conversation. Not with Mary. Everyone sucks up to my dad.

  She gives a bright laugh, like she’s read something into what I didn’t say.

  “You don’t understand,” she says. “Working with your dad is a big deal. I’m just glad to be up here.”

  I look out the window. The landscape looks like it’s the one rushing, pulling back and away. As we get further inland, the timber thins and yields to evidence of people. Drab gold and brown grasses lean, wet and bent. Mary puts on some music and sings along quietly. Snow sprinkles from the low sky in drizzly starts and stops. Beads away from us on the windshield as we cut through.

  Mary does Dad’s errands first, then we pull in by some shops.

  “Ah, the city,” she says with a wry smile, as if we’ve reentered civilization. I look around. The “city,” as everyone here calls it, could fit in New York’s back pocket, but Mary’s on a mission and pulls us right up to a row of vintage shops and a great bookstore.

  The store is packed, warm, and has that smell only vintage stores have.

  “This,” she says, holding a plum chiffon blouse up to me, “screams look at my gorgeous eyes!”

  I wish I could laugh. I work up a smile instead.

  She makes me buy the blouse, and another one, slate-gray cotton, kind of eighties style, with little rose-colored owls printed all over it. Already well-loved by someone, washed into a ridiculous thready softness.

  “One blouse for beauty, another for wisdom.” The cashier winks at me, twisting her pink hair into a bun she sticks in place with a pencil.

  “Clothes don’t fix everything,” Mary agrees, “but they can fix a lot.”

  The bookstore’s next. It’s a densely packed warren of old books offering themselves back to dust. Mary drops to the floor near the back to sift through a collection of German art books.

  I start to wander through the sagging shelves, look for poetry, but can’t get past a vintage periodic table hanging on the back wall. It’s identical to one Patrick had over his desk, and there I am again, listening to him plan it all out, his favorite game, the future. For him, more science. For me—he stumbled a little when he got to me, like my mother does. Wanted to box me in. Only what I wanted wasn’t hidden, it was just messy. Uncertain. In my heart it could have been anything less prescribed, something open, different. Something that got me out into the larger world, watching people, the secrets playing on their faces. Something true. I wanted to see something true. Collect as many stories as my heart could hold.

  My stupid heart.

  As if she senses something, Mary appears and laces her arm through mine. Pretends not to see how my eyes have filled. She pulls me out of the store. We swing into the coffee shop next door for mocha lattes and scones, then back to her Subaru to head to the mall.

  At the mall, I feel surreal, out of place. Mary leads me in and out of stores. I’m overwhelmed by the swath of faces we weave through, the biggest group of people I’ve seen since I left the city. Everyone out looking. A group of girls passes, laughing, but they don’t sound happy. Men lean against the glass railings, stacks of packages near their feet, their eyes like slow clocks, inspecting the floor below. I used to pray to open up, used to worry that I was like my mother, too closed off or something. I hauled my camera everywhere trying to see more. Now it’s like my lids are pinned back, nothing between me and—everything. How did I not see it? Pain is everywhere. I’m just another sorry story. All these people wearing smiles, dragging themselves around—do they all know already? Do they realize how fast the world can change?

  I’m losing it. My phone buzzes in my bag. I fish it out. My mother. I drop down on a fake marble bench a minute, ignoring the call, and close my eyes. I tell Mary I’m done, I’ll wait in the car while she tries on a few more things. She gives me a quick worried look but tosses me the keys.

  One last errand for Dad on the way back. At least it’s dark now, an enclosing relief. The lights in the dashboard are gentle, dim. We pull in to a shipyard. Mary runs up a few steps to a decrepit gray trailer-slash-office to get whatever it is we’re supposed to pick up. She comes back out. It’s still not ready. We’ll have to wait.

  “So,” she turns to me, radiant. “It sounds like your dad is going to have his Swap Night party this year after all.”

  Like I have any idea what she’s talking about. Or why it wouldn’t happen.

  “Swap Night?”

  “You don’t know what that is?” She’s astonished. “He has them every year. I’m almost done up here.”

  I’m lost.

  “Done?”

  “My fellowship . . .” she says, cocking an eyebrow.

  I shake my head.

  “Your MFA?”

  She looks at me like she feels a little sorry for me.

  “No, the fellowship. You know I’m up here on fellowship, right?”

  I didn’t. It hadn’t even occurred to me to wonder why she was up here. I thought she just was—one of my dad’s regular people.

  “I’m only here first semester. End of August through December. From RISD?” Her voice lifts at the end and she speaks a little more slowly, like she’s talking to an impaired person.

  That’s me. Fresh out of The Home. I shrink in my seat.

  “I knew that much, the RISD part,” I say. “He’s always talking about RISD.”

  But really I don’t know anything. My dad’s world has always been a given. People coming and going. Crowding around him. A full place, one that’s never had much space in it for me.

  “Well, it’s a fellowship; I’m on a fellowship. To work with your dad. He chose me. He takes two fellows every other year. And it’s almost done.”

  My heart sinks.

  “My replacement comes on Swap Night. Get it? We swap. The party’s legendary. New Year’s Eve. I hate to say it, but it’s part of why everyone wants to win the fall fellowship. The party. The contacts. There’s another gathering at the end of spring semester,
but apparently it’s hard to get people to come up here then. This one’s the best.”

  She eyes me like she’s a little embarrassed of her ambition.

  My mouth’s open. I close it. Close my eyes. I’m blown away. I have no idea about anything. I haven’t paid attention to anyone since I got here. A cold creeping shame climbs inside me.

  “Swap Night. On New Year’s? You know, good-bye old, hello new?” She looks at me, sad. Tucks a wisp of white-blond hair back into its arrangement on the top of her head. “You really didn’t know?”

  She starts the car again and flips on the windshield wipers. The snow’s coming down faster, closing us in.

  “You’re leaving?” I ask. I feel like an idiot. Of course she is. I’m the one not moving. I’m the one who got off the ride and is sitting here, sulking. It’s what people do, right? Scatter? It’s what I’d wanted to do.

  She nods, squints up at the white coming down.

  “But I’m just getting to know you.” It’s a whining, childish thing to say, but it’s out of my mouth before I can stop it.

  “Yeah, I have to get back down to school. It’s not that far. You know, you could come stay with me anytime, Wren . . .”

  She sounds like she feels guilty. Like it’s her fault I’m so clueless.

  Why are people even nice to me? I’m ill with shame. I’ve done absolutely nothing to get to know her, and here she is, feeling bad about leaving. Inviting me to visit, even. She should run fast and far out of here, no looking back.

  I sigh and lean my head against the cold car window. How could my dad go to Berlin right now, at the end of her fellowship? Berlin. His opening. It hits me.

  “Oh God! Mary, were you supposed to go to Berlin with my dad?” I feel sick.

  She gives a little shrug. Won’t commit. Looks over at the trailer like maybe she’s noticed someone coming out or something. No one. She glances at the gas gauge and turns off the engine.

  “You were—” I put my face in my hands. “You stayed back because of me.”

  I sink and sink.

  “Your dad says I can come back this summer if I want, since he’s been kind of distracted.” She gives me a quick smile. “That’s not usually how it’s done, he said, but since this year—” She takes in a quick breath. “When I heard about your accident—I was so surprised he didn’t cancel on me.”