It’s better once we get outside. I don’t have to look at him. We amble up Kirkwood in what passes for a companionable silence. He smokes. After a while he says, “I can see how it would be annoying. People making such a big deal about the money.”
“It’s not that,” I say. “It makes me feel stupid, that’s all. Like, because I have it, I’m supposed to know what to do.” I glance at him. “Don’t put that in the story.”
“I told you before, Emma. I don’t have to write a story.”
“Ha!” I say, attempting humor. “And you want to be an ace reporter? I hate to tell you, but there’s no Pulitzer Prize for being nice.”
He stops suddenly, puts his hand on my arm. “Listen, I’m sorry,” he says. “I think I’ve said something that upset you.”
He is sorry. He’s nice, too. I’m the one being a pain in the ass. But I’m not up to trying to redeem myself. Just then, a bus rumbles up and stops beside us. The doors sigh open. I look at Gabe. He’s about to apologize again. Or worse, try to help me.
“It’s not your fault,” I say. “Really.”
I step into the bus; the doors close. I have no idea where it’s going.
It’s hot inside, the windows steamy. It’s almost empty, but I go all the way to the back and slump into a corner seat, where I try not to think about Gabe Parker. Or worse, what he might say about me if he sees Josh when he gets back to the fraternity house.
“Is she, like, a little—”
“Whacked?” Josh might say. “Listen, whatever you do, just don’t let her get a crush on you. Believe me, you’ll be sorry.”
Two small comforts:
1) Maybe being attracted (major understatement) to Gabe Parker means I’m finally over being in love with Josh—or could be, if…but there’s no way, no possible way Gabe Parker is attracted to me too. So forget that.
2) This one’s more reliable. If Josh and Gabe actually do have a conversation about me, Josh will stick with what a loser I am. He’d never in a million years tell Gabe the truth about what happened between us, especially what a shit he was after I told him how I really felt about him—the rude remarks he made whenever I passed him in the hall, or the way he made fun of me every time I raised my hand to answer a question in class. How, at our high school parties, he’d get blotto and hit on some freshman girl right in front me, how he quit the cross-country team, which made everyone, including the coach, freeze me out until I quit a week later—then how he joined back up the very next day.
Just thinking about all this brings back my own incredible stupidity in a flood. How dumb it was to convince myself that telling him that I loved him was the only honest thing to do, that I had to do it, because we’d always been honest with each other. How dumb to believe that we could just go on the way we’d been before, best friends, if he didn’t feel the same way.
Even so, I still can’t believe he turned on me the way he did.
There were extenuating circumstances, I remind myself for the millionth time: his parents were in the midst of an ugly divorce, his whole world was falling apart—then I pulled the rug out from under him and he lost me, his best friend. Psychologically, it makes sense—though it still doesn’t make me feel any less miserable or ashamed. It doesn’t keep me from remembering the absolute worst thing that happened, either. I see myself in the locker bay, just like it was yesterday, screwing around, shadow-boxing with Ryan Farber.
As usual, I got a little carried away, whacked him harder than I meant to, and he put up his hands and stepped back, laughing. “Help me, man,” he said to Josh, who I was mortified to realize was standing nearby. “She’s killing me.”
Suddenly, everyone was staring at the two of us. Josh was looking at me like, you dipshit. I felt like I was about ten times my size, like one of those balloon figures in a parade. I’d act like it was a big joke, I decided. So I laughed. I punched him lightly on the arm and said, “Ha! You can’t take me either.”
And Josh decked me. No lie: he hauled back and punched me right in the face. Next thing I knew, I was on the floor. My nose was gushing blood. Everyone was freaking out all around me.
Except Josh. He was just standing there with this look on his face, like he couldn’t believe what had just happened. Then he turned and walked away.
Lisa Chochrun scooped me up and helped me to the nurse’s office. Ms. Riley made me lie down with a wet cloth over my face, while she dragged out of Lisa what had happened and then called the principal’s office. Pretty soon I heard on the intercom, “Josh Morgan, come to Mr. Bergen’s office immediately. Josh Morgan, to Mr. Bergen’s office.”
Josh was in deep shit, needless to say. He would’ve gotten expelled, but the second my nose stopped bleeding and Ms. Riley released me, I ran upstairs, burst into Mr. Bergen’s office, and begged him not to make a big deal about it because it was at least partly my own fault. He held firm, till I started sobbing. But he made Josh apologize.
“I’m sorry I hit you, Emma,” Josh said. He didn’t look one bit sorry, though. He looked mad as hell. Especially when Mr. Bergen launched into a lecture about how it just wasn’t acceptable to react to girls in a physical way.
As miserable as I was, I could see the irony in that. If the thought of reacting to me “in a physical way” hadn’t totally repulsed Josh, we wouldn’t have had this problem in the first place. The sad thing was, I knew him so well, I knew he saw the irony, too.
Before, when we were friends, we’d have listened to this crap, then laughed our heads off later. But I knew that would never happen again. At best, we’d be polite to one another. And I missed him so much that moment, I thought I would die.
Like I miss him right now—and always will. Ha! So much for the idea of being smitten with Gabe Parker solving that. I feel like crying to think that I will never, ever get over Josh, and maybe I actually make some pathetic sound, because a guy sitting a few rows in front of me turns and gives me a weird look.
“It’s good to remember how much loving Josh hurt,” I tell myself sternly. Hurts. Not to mention the disastrous consequences. So don’t even think about Gabe Parker. He’s way out of your league, just like Josh is.
The bus makes a loop around campus. I ride past my dorm twice, then once more to be absolutely sure that Tiffany will be well on her way home with Matt. It’s dark now, and the first snow of the year has begun to fall, fat, lazy flakes that drift down, settling on the shoulders and heavy backpacks of students who trudge along, returning from their last classes before Thanksgiving break. The big houses along Fraternity Row look hazy and picturesque, like an advertisement for college life.
I’m glad to be going home for Thanksgiving break myself, though I wish we were having Thanksgiving at our ski house in Michigan, like we usually do. It sort of pisses me off that Mom and Dad planned their trip to St. Maarten so they’d get back late last night and wouldn’t feel like making the long drive. But the truth is, when I think of going, it’s not me now that I imagine. It’s the little-kid me, standing at the dining room window, waiting for Dad to come home so we can leave.
Weird, how vividly I remember what it was like then. Standing so close to the window that my breath made little wet circles on the frosty glass, my jacket already on, my red backpack, stuffed with books and games, at my feet. My teddy bear, Lori, peeking out the top of it, the red and green scarf I knitted for her tied jauntily around her neck. There were secret treats in the backpack, too, Milk Duds that Mom didn’t know about. Later, when Dad turned the stereo up loud, I’d crawl under the blankets in the back of the Subaru, open the box as quietly as I could, and let the little caramel candies melt in my mouth, one by one.
You big baby, I tell myself, blinking back tears. The next time the bus goes by my dorm, I get off and step into the snow. I cross the street and go in the side entrance, avoiding the dorm’s lobby where I might run into girls from my fl
oor. I take the stairs instead of the elevator, peer through the door that opens onto the hallway to make sure the coast is clear, and sprint for my room, retrieving my backpack and duffel full of dirty laundry before heading home.
Seven
When I get home, Mom and Jules are vegged out, watching a movie on TV. “The Corvette got here this morning,” Mom says, rolling her eyes. “Your dad’s been out in the garage all day, communing with it.
“You go out there,” Jules says. “He’s already dragged us out a million times, making us look at every little thing.”
It’s a great car: 1962, 327 engine, 4-speed. Cherry red. Mint condition, with its original red leather seats buffed to perfection. The car of his dreams. He spent practically the whole week after he won the money tracking it down on the Internet, and had it transported from some obscure town in Utah so it would be here when he got back from St. Maarten.
When I open the garage door, he’s bent over, rubbing some invisible spot with a chamois cloth. Gramps is on a bar stool, attending. But when he sees me, he sets the can of beer he’s been drinking on Dad’s workbench to engulf me in a hug that leaves me breathless. Dad throws his arm around my shoulder and gives me a squeeze.
“What do you think?” he asks, gesturing toward the Corvette, as proud as if he were introducing a new, third child in the family.
“Nice ride,” I say. “Have you had it out yet?”
“Oh, man,” he says. “It goes.” Then he launches into a long, mind-numbing recitation of all its glories, Gramps occasionally interrupting to put his two cents in.
When I’ve marveled over everything, from the Ram’s horn manifold and reverse-flow muffler to the original hubcaps, not to mention the Corvette shift knob Dad bought at a junk yard when he was sixteen just in case he ever got it together to buy the car to go with it, I ask Gramps if he’s on the lookout for one too.
“Nah,” he says. “Too damn small. I’ve got something else in mind.”
“Yeah? What?”
He produces a Winnebago brochure from his back pocket and hands it to me. “Take a look at this.”
“You’re buying an RV?”
“Thinking seriously about it,” he says. “I got a buddy down in Florida, and I’m thinking I might head down there after the first of the year. Hook up in his yard for a few weeks. Then maybe head west in March. You know, see the Grand Canyon. The whole shebang.” He nods at the brochure. “What do you think?”
“‘An unprecedented level of excitement, sophistication and style,’” I read aloud. “That’s you all the way. Plus, it comes with ‘elegant brocade bedspread with coordinating pillow shams.’ You should definitely go for it.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Gramps says good-naturedly. “Which one, though?”
“Chieftain!” I say. “What else?”
He beams. “Think so? I’ve been kind of leaning that way.”
“Absolutely,” I say.
“I’m with you,” Dad says. “I told him, just don’t start wearing Hush Puppies and Sansabelts, like the other old farts who drive around in those things.”
“Fat chance of that,” Gramps says. “Hell, I’m way too old to change. I figure I’ll be wearing these cowboy boots and blue jeans when I get to the pearly gates. Saint Peter’s got a problem with that? Shoot! I’ll go the other way.” He’s quiet for a moment, then says rather wistfully, “Boy, your mom would’ve had a ball with all this dough.”
“Tupperware stock would definitely be on the rise,” Dad says.
Gramps snorts.
“So, what else are you in the market for?” I ask him.
“Maybe a little Mustang convertible,” he says. “Tow it behind the RV. Pick up gals.”
“You wish,” Dad says.
Gramps laughs. “I bought Margaret a new car. Hers went on the blink. Old Buick. Ernie bought it right before he died—ten, maybe twelve years ago now. She was always having trouble with the damn thing. Big gas guzzler, too.”
“Margaret let you buy her a car?” I ask.
He grins. “I just bought it and parked it in her driveway with the keys in it. Nice little red Camry. Sun roof. Zippy engine.”
Gramps’ next-door neighbor Margaret is a sharp, no-nonsense lady, always perfectly turned out in slacks and matching sweaters, her stiff white hair sitting on her head like a helmet. I can just see her standing at the window, her hands on her hips, steaming about some interloper parking in her driveway.
“She didn’t call the police when she saw a strange car there?”
Gramps grins wider. “She was about to when I went over and came clean. You know Margaret. She tried to argue with me. She’s says, ‘For heavens sake, Dutch. You can’t buy me a car. It’s not right.’ I said, ‘Yeah, well, I just did. I’ve got more goddamn money than I know what to do with, and if I want to buy you a car there’s not a thing in hell you can do about it.’”
“So how many chocolate cakes has she brought you since then?”
“A few,” Gramps says.
It makes me happy to think of fussy Margaret tooling around in a zippy little car, and even happier to be hanging out in Dad’s garage just like old times. And later, to be gathered around the kitchen table, eating carry-out Chinese, everybody talking a mile a minute.
Mom and Dad look great, tanned. Dad’s wearing a LIFE’S A BEACH T-shirt. Mom shows us some postcard-size watercolors she made while she was there.
“They sunbathed au naturel,” Jules says. “Is that a trip or what?”
“No way,” I say. “Mom, did you? Really?”
She looks a little sheepish. “There’s not much of a walking beach there, so we went over to Orient Beach, thinking we could walk there. We didn’t even know part of it was a nude beach.”
Gramps looks startled. “Nude?”
“In the buff,” Jules says. “It’s a French island, you know.”
We all crack up at the expression on Gramps’ face.
“It’s not what you’d think,” Mom says. “I mean, it was strange: this whole long beach, with lounge chairs and umbrellas. Bars and restaurants. And everybody stark naked. But it wasn’t a bunch of perfect bodies. There were a few of those, of course—girls wearing nothing but gold chains around their waists, hunky gay guys playing badminton. Mostly, though, they were people our age and older—every kind of body you can imagine. It was wonderful. The feel of the sun and breeze on the whole surface of your skin.”
She sighs, glances at the bare maple tree framed by the kitchen window with a bemused expression, as if she’s not quite sure how she got back to this entirely mundane place. “It’s so beautiful there,” she goes on. “The resort where we stayed was in this little scoop of harbor dotted with sailboats, with these sort of friendly green mountains rising up on either side. Turquoise water, all these pretty pastel houses. Honestly, it’s paradise.”
“You could move there if you wanted to,” Jules says. “Live au naturel. Did you ever think of that?”
“Live there!” Mom looks alarmed. “Good God, I don’t even want to think about anything as drastic as that. Just suddenly having all this money is plenty weird for me right now. I still can’t make any sense of it.”
Dad leans over and puts his arm around her shoulder. “You don’t have to make sense of it. Remember? You just have to enjoy it.”
“Right,” she says. She doesn’t look convinced, though, and segues into a long description of the island women in African dress, their beautiful black hair clicking with bright beads, who set up small tents on the beach where they stand braiding the hair of tourists, their fingers flying. They’d call back and forth to one another, and to the tourists walking past. When they talked they sounded like they were singing.
“‘Lady, braid your hair?’” Mom says. “‘Lady, you want to take a bit of the island home w
it you?’ It was funny. All these girls on the plane coming home with their African hair.”
Jules shudders. “White girls should not even consider braids,” she says firmly. “Ugh. All you see is their scalp.”
“I’ll write that down,” I say. “In my Book of Rules to Live By.”
Jules sets her imperious gaze on me, the one she’s used to keep me in my place since the day I was born—and it makes me unaccountably happy.
––––––––––––
Thanksgiving dinner the next day makes me happy, too. The usual gargantuan feast, no surprises. We eat till we can hardly move, then Mom gets the bright idea that we should walk the calories off by going down to the canal to feed Freud, so we do—except for Gramps, who heads home to ponder life on the road in the Winnebago he’s now decided for sure to buy.
Freud’s personality hasn’t improved any. He comes waddling at us, squawking.
“Whoa,” Dad says, tossing breadcrumbs Mom didn’t end up using for the dressing. “We bring gifts.”
Freud stops, his neck an arrow pointing at us, hissing.
It’s funny, really. Dozens of ducks start hurrying up from the water, quacking, happy to get the bread we throw out to them, but Freud won’t touch it. Like he’s thinking, jerks! They’re millionaires on account of me, and they’re bringing me stale bread?
When we get back, Mom and Dad sit Jules and me down and Dad says, “Your mom and I want to talk to you about some arrangements we’ve made.”
“What arrangements?” I ask.
Money, it turns out. Dad goes to his den and returns with two intimidating folders, which, he tells us, hold information that explains everything in detail. “For the time being,” he goes on, “all you need to know is, you’ve got a million dollars each. The money’s been invested, though; and—until you’re thirty—you can only spend the interest it earns. After taxes, that’ll probably average out to be around seventy thousand dollars a year.”
Of course, I have to be a smart-ass. “Only seventy thousand a year?” I moan. “God, Jules, how will we ever survive?”
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