The House of Tomorrow

by Peter Bognanni

  “You actually know how to do this,” I said. “You know how to compose songs.”

  I walked over, fighting a little dizziness, and punched him in the shoulder.

  “I was in church choir,” he said, still facing the window. “And elementary band.”

  “I thought your mom was exaggerating,” I said.

  I punched him again.

  “Don’t punch me,” he said. “It’s not a song yet.”

  “It’s something resembling a song, though.”

  He took a drag. “Yeah, but it’s not a real song. I’ll figure it out.”

  Mrs. Whitcomb’s voice came suddenly up the stairwell and interrupted us.

  “Jared!” she said. “Guitar practice is over. It’s time for lights-out!”

  “Okay!” he yelled. “One minute!”

  “And Sebastian has to come down here!” she said. “You shouldn’t be sleeping in a room with someone sick.”

  We waited in silence and heard her footsteps retreat from the stairs. I watched the slivers of streetlight cut across Jared’s sweaty hair. He took another drag.

  “I would always watch for my dad through this window,” he said. “It’s the one right above the driveway, so I could see the car come in when he was home from trips.”

  He exhaled, and the smoke gathered by the screen before being sucked out by the night.

  “When he came home, I would flick my lights twice. Then he would flick his headlights twice. It was our secret signal.”

  He took one more drag, then stamped out his cigarette in a little metal jar.

  “My mom was waiting downstairs, too. I wonder what she thought of those flickering headlights? I wonder if she ever asked him about it.”

  He coughed out a laugh.

  “When he stopped coming home, it was just the two of us awake, actually. Me and Janice. On separate floors. Two idiots waiting around for something we both knew wasn’t going to happen. Really pathetic when you think about it. I thought about going down there a few different times, just to let her know I was awake, too. But I never did.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Because I was pissed. She was driving him away with all her yelling and holy-rolling bullshit. The day after we found out I needed the surgery, she just woke up and didn’t laugh anymore. Maybe it didn’t happen that fast, but it felt like it. Everything became so fucking serious all of a sudden. And everything my dad did was wrong. He couldn’t keep all the details straight. We missed an appointment once and Janice kicked him out of the house for the night. And the longer I went without a transplant, the longer the trips he took. Then one day, he just didn’t come home.”

  Jared turned his head around and looked at me.

  “He’s come back after the surgery, but only now and then. He sticks around for a few days, sometimes as long as a week. Then the fighting starts again, and he’s gone.”

  Jared slammed closed the window, and the walls vibrated.

  “Now I don’t even hear from him,” he said. “She doesn’t allow him near the house.”

  “Yeah, but . . .”

  “I’m not trying to be a whiny bastard here!” he interrupted. “This is how things are, Sebastian. And it’s her damn fault!”

  He walked over to his bed and sat down. He took off his glasses and his eyes looked so small and beady.

  “She’s worried about you,” I said.

  “So what,” he said. “Great. She wins the worry award.”

  He wiped his lenses with his band T-shirt. Then he slapped his glasses back on his face, and I watched his eyes enlarge in front of me.

  “I didn’t go downstairs to talk to her,” he said, “because she didn’t deserve it. She doesn’t deserve to be my friend.”

  He made a nasal breathing noise.

  “You got anything else to say about it?” he asked.

  “No.”

  He lay down on his bed, one arm hanging off the side.

  “Good,” he said.

  He swung his skinny arm, his fingertips just grazing the dark carpet.

  “I keep my promises,” he said. “Tomorrow we’ll go make sure your grandma’s okay. But you should head downstairs now. I bet you’re infecting me with some kind of foul dome-scabies as we speak.”

  I turned and started walking out of the room. Then I stopped.

  “Jared,” I said.

  “What?”

  “You have an immense musical talent.”

  He was quiet as I walked outside his door. But eventually, I heard him answer so softly I couldn’t tell if he wanted me to hear it.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  The light snapped off in his room.

  I SLEPT ON THE COUCH THAT NIGHT, COVERED IN THE same old blanket. In the same strange living room. I slumbered in short bursts, never longer than an hour. And each time I woke up again, it was harder to get back to sleep. Finally, around four in the morning, I got off the couch and made my way into the Whitcombs’ kitchen. There was a telephone hanging on the wall, and I picked it up and listened to the soft whine of the dial tone. Then I punched in the numbers to our home telephone number at the dome. It rang easily seven or eight times. We had no answering service, so I could let it ring all night if I wanted to. But on the tenth ring, Nana picked up. If she’d just said hello, I might have poured my heart out to her. I might have broken down and begged her to allow me back.

  Instead she rasped, “Leave me alone, you bloodsuckers! Stop calling here. You understand nothing of my project!”

  Then she hung up. I set the phone delicately back in its cradle. I opened the fridge and searched around, half blind, for grape drink, but there was none to be found. I settled on something orange and sat down at the kitchen table. It had never occurred to me that there would be so much fallout from one insignificant article in the newspaper. But the more I reflected on it, the more it made sense. People had always thought we were strange. Maybe they were just waiting for permission to laugh at us. Now they had it. The paper told them they could mock. I felt a rush of anger, the exact kind Jared had been speaking about earlier. Only hours ago, the dome had still been my home, too. Those harassing phone calls were meant for me as much as Nana.

  At least I was sure she was alive. That was the only thing that calmed me. It was no small revelation. Part of me had been convinced she would walk into the woods hours after I was gone and drink herself into a comatose state. I didn’t know what she was capable of anymore. And the sound of defeat in her voice was the scariest part of it all.

  There had been a time when she would have fired back at any potential attackers without the slightest injury to her confidence. I remembered one instance vividly. A Halloween night, years ago, when a group of high schoolers from town thought it would be funny to shine their industrial-strength hunting spotlight onto our dome from a strategic spot in the woods. I was eight years old. Maybe seven. But I remember each moment in great detail.

  First the beam cut through our home, refracting in the triangles into hundreds of mini-beams. It was quite a sight in retrospect, all those points of light shooting through the rooms like lasers. But it also frightened me to the point of bed-wetting. Yet only seconds after the light came in, I heard Nana’s voice. “Stay where you are!” she called up to me.

  Then I heard our front door slam, and I watched out my wall while she sprinted through our backyard, a slight figure in pajamas. The silhouette of her hair was wild, and she carried a crowbar I didn’t even know she owned. As she got closer to the source of the light, I heard the laughter of the high school boys. But their guffaws died in a collective gasp when the crowbar connected with the searchlight. The sound of the impact, that hollow pop and shatter, rang over the hill like a gunshot. I saw a flare of sparks, some running boys, and then the woods were left in total darkness again. The only sounds that followed were high-pitched screams a
nd the churning of jeep wheels in the mud. I also heard Nana’s voice over the din.

  “It is my right to kill anyone on my property in self-defense! And by the power of the Greater Intellect, I will use that right! I will return you to your fundamental elements!”

  After she came back into the house, we stayed up laughing about how frightened they were of a little old lady. We drank chamomile tea with lots of honey and Nana retold the story until I got sleepy. She put me back to bed. Then she made her own bed of blankets on the floor next to mine. She kept her crowbar in her palm, and told me not to worry. Everything was under control. Nobody was going to hurt me. I heard her say it in between long breaths. Nobody was ever going to hurt me as long as she was around.

  20.

  The Mission

  THE DAY AFTER OUR FIRST SONGWRITING SESSION was a Monday, and everyone in the house got up early. Janice was up at six A.M. to get to her part-time job at the church. I lay on the couch while she got ready, pretending to be asleep. I watched her whisk by, and I wondered what she used to be like before Jared’s illness. Did she look different? She was pretty now, but it was easy to see the worry lines when she grimaced. And it was easy to see in her eyes that she didn’t sleep much. I tried to think if I had ever heard her laugh. I pictured her, rearing back her head and opening her mouth, but no sound escaped.

  She walked up to me before she left and rested a palm on my forehead. I held my eyes closed tight. She moved my tousled hair out of the way and touched my brow in different places, feeling for a fever. I didn’t open my eyes until the hand was gone and I heard the click of the front door lock. A light perfume hung in the air around me.

  An hour later Meredith rose, and I got up from the couch and watched in fascination while she prepared herself for school. For nearly an hour, she meandered in and out of the bathroom near the kitchen, glossing her lips, blow-drying her hair, trying on three or four different combinations of clothing. She knew I was watching, but she didn’t say anything. She just went about her regimen, talking on the phone at times, listening to headphones at others. Finally she grabbed some kind of pastry from the toaster and breezed right by me and out the front door.

  “Have a pleasant day at school,” I said.

  She closed the door hard, and I went to the front window to watch her. She ducked into a car full of girls who looked identical to her in hairstyle and dress. But none of them was as beguiling. None of them had that mystery, that fiery look in their eyes. Meredith could try to blend in, but it was impossible. Her intensity and her beauty betrayed her. Right before I turned away, I saw her look up at the window. She met my eyes and smirked so quickly it was almost imperceptible. But I saw it. She was looking for me, hoping I’d be there to torment one last time before the official start of her day.

  I woke up Jared soon after she left, and then looked on while he cooked us “Scrambled Eggs Whitcomb.” He made room for me by the stove and turned the gas on underneath the pan. Then he took me through the secret process. First, he added cream to whisked eggs. Then pepper, sea salt, and a splash of green Tabasco. He whisked again and poured them into the pan (he showed me right where to scrape with a half-melted plastic spatula). When they had been properly executed, Jared and I took them upstairs and ate steaming forkfuls while he worked on finessing our song from the night before.

  I practiced my bass part, stopping only for intermittent bites of spicy eggs. I was feeling better in the light of day, and I found I had a gluttonous appetite. We finished all the eggs and moved on to the toaster pastries. They were frosted and filled with syrupy apples and spices. I ate two, but I could have consumed the entire box.

  “Jeez,” said Jared, “didn’t the old bat feed you?”

  We practiced our song easily ten times that morning before Jared stopped to rest. I ventured out of the room and down into the front yard to attach his “pegs” to my Voyager. The procedure didn’t take long. Just some unscrewing and tightening of a few nuts and bolts with a socket wrench from his father’s old toolbox. I fastened the white footrests to the center of the wheel so tight that my palms were raw when I was finished. But the pegs were on securely, and the bicycle was ready for a passenger.

  When I was done, I stopped in the front yard and watched the purple tennis shoes twisting around a bare tree branch. I remembered what Jared had said about them being a signal for Meredith’s parade of amorous visitors. The laces were begrimed now from hanging up so long, and the lining was frayed. The color had faded to brownish lavender. I walked directly over to the tree and grabbed on to a low limb. I brought the other hand up and pulled myself up and into a prime climbing spot. The bark scraped across my stomach. I sat down on the long branch, just as I’d seen Jared do, and shifted my way down. When I got far enough, I plucked the sneakers from their place and held them up by the laces. They were smaller up close. Meredith had delicate feet. I kept them aloft and surveyed the neighborhood. It felt good to be up high again. I stayed up there a minute or two, shivering in the wind, before I dropped back down to civilization.

  Inside, I tried the handle to Meredith’s room. I don’t know why I expected it to be locked, but the door opened. It smelled like her all over the room. Or at least, it smelled like the row of cuisine-themed beauty products on her dresser. Moisturizing Almond Body Butter. Nutrient-Enriched Apple Face Lotion. Pomegranate Power Scrub. Was the idea to slather yourself in sweet sauces and fruity relishes? To prepare yourself for consumption? There were clothes all over the floor and I was afraid she wouldn’t even notice the shoes, so I set them on her bed, neatly, side by side. I thought about leaving a note, but I decided she would understand my message without one. “Meredith,” I hoped the shoes would shout, “why are you doing this with the shoes? You don’t need to do this with the shoes. Put them away and choose me!”

  EVENING CAME AND WE ALL SAT DOWN AT THE TABLE again. A “real” dinner this time, complete with some kind of roasted beef that dissolved in my mouth, and a dessert of peach cobbler that was even better than the morning pastries. Conversation at the table was minimal, but not entirely unpleasant. Janice asked Meredith about her day, and Meredith responded with mostly single-word answers. Fine. Yes. No. Okay. Lame. Whatever. She didn’t look at me once. Janice made sure we were all attending the Youth Group meeting that week. We were. Then Jared cleared his throat.

  “Mom,” he said, and stopped for dramatic pause. “I need you to sign Sebastian and me up for the talent contest at Immanuel. We’ve formed a . . . group.”

  Janice’s tired eyes brightened noticeably. “Oh, Jared, that’s great,” she said. “I’ve been trying to get you to sing at that thing for years.”

  “Well, your dream has come true, Mother,” he said. “At long last.”

  “What are you going to sing?” she asked, transporting more food onto my plate.

  “ ‘Stupid School,’ ” I blurted.

  “What?” said Mrs. Whitcomb.

  Jared laughed in a short high-pitched burst. “Sebastian’s just kidding,” he said. “We’re probably doing a hard rock version of ‘Awesome God.’ ”

  Meredith smiled smugly at Jared, her mouth full of cobbler.

  “Oh,” said Janice. “That sounds like your style.”

  She looked over at me, and I thought I saw a pinch of admiration in her expression. “Is Sebastian comfortable playing a religious song?”

  “Of course,” said Jared.

  “I like the tune,” I said quietly.

  “Me too,” said Janice.

  We continued eating our dessert. Meredith excused herself. I expected a sarcastic comment, but she left quietly and proceeded to barricade herself in her room again. I watched her disappear with longing.

  “I think this is a good idea,” said Janice.

  She beamed at me. Then she walked over and put a hand on Jared’s shoulder.

  “I do, too,” said Jared.

  She left her hand t
here a moment. Something seemed odd about it, and I soon realized that it was the first time I had seen her touch him (when he wasn’t fake-collapsed on the floor). It was only a second, then it was over, and she walked to the sink to begin the dishes. She flipped on the radio. Jared shook his head violently at me. He mouthed something at me that looked like “What were you thinking?” I shrugged. Then Janice looked out the kitchen window and turned around. “Does anyone know why Meredith took her track shoes down?” she asked.

  WE WAITED UNTIL MIDNIGHT TO COMMENCE OUR mission. We spent the evening hours listening to record albums at a reasonable volume. As soon as one ended, Jared sent another one spinning. MC5, The Stooges, The New York Dolls, Television. The theme of his audio lecture was the birth of punk. We listened, then went to bed at eleven without being asked. We lay in the dark, across the room from each other, just like the first night I stayed over. Only this time we didn’t speak.

  At twelve o’clock exactly, Jared tapped me twice on the shoulder, which was the agreed-upon sign, and we padded softly across his carpeting to our clothes. Jared dressed in three jackets, with his leather coat on the top. He pulled his hat tight over his head and put on a pair of thermal fingerless gloves. “So I can still smoke,” he said, wiggling his pink fingertips. He pulled his hat down, and I saw that it was a face mask with eyeholes. He put his glasses on over the mask. I stared.

  “You got a problem with my ninja mask?” he said.

  I shook my head and fastened myself inside my bubble coat. I put a stocking hat on under my bicycle helmet. We crept to the foot of the stairs and started down. There was no sound behind Meredith’s door, and the light was out under the crack. We advanced through the kitchen and into the living room. Then we were outside and the whole neighborhood was dark around us. Even the streetlights looked dim.

  My bike was kept in the garage now, so we had to take it out a side door. In the driveway, I hopped on and held it steady for Jared’s ascension. Using my back to balance himself, he stepped onto the pegs and then grabbed onto the back of my seat. I turned around and looked down at his worn black sneakers, sitting perfectly on the rests.