“Miss Doolittle?”
“We decided not to use our real name.”
“Of course not,” said Thomas, still smiling. “When’s the big smoke out?”
“Tonight,” said Helen. “After Mom and Dad go to bed.”
“I’ll go with you,” said Thomas, getting up. “I’ll get Eddie to come. He’s a professional. We’ll meet at eleven o’clock at the duck pond.” Thomas walked in the house and up the stairs to his room. He took off his damp shirt and shorts, then wrapped a towel around his naked body. Before he headed outside to retrieve his swim suit from the clothesline, he stuck his head into Pammy and Helen’s room. Pammy was lying on the bottom bunk. “Hello, Miss Doolittle.”
Pammy’s mouth opened up into an O. Then she said, “Helen.”
Thomas held up one hand. “Not to worry, Miss Doo. Your secret is safe with me, until tonight.”
Pammy sat up on the bed. “What’s happening tonight?”
“Ask the tattletale.”
After delivering pizzas and before collapsing into bed, Thomas sometimes met his friends at the duck pond wall. Some smoked cigarettes; others sipped beers stolen from their parents’ garage fridges. Talking was the dominant activity, and flirting comprised ninety percent of the talking. He was completely unclear about the rules on touching, and he abhorred the conversation, which seemed contrived as well as stupid. So Thomas was more an observer than a participant. Plus, he still loved Anna. He hadn’t seen or talked to her since the night outside the pizza restaurant, but rarely a daylight hour passed that he didn’t think about her. He often thought about her at night, too, when he awoke unexpectedly. He tried not to talk about her, mostly because Eddie had told him to stop. Eddie had said he was tired of listening to a hopeless fairy tale, and that Anna was just a girl, a girl who had said no. Thomas had to let her go, Eddie told him. Thomas tried to follow Eddie’s advice, which he knew was good advice, but it was hard for him. Whenever he made time to sit on the wall, he made an effort to talk to the girls. But they were babies, and his heart wasn’t in it. And they knew that as well as he did.
That night, as part of the game, the boys and girls started the evening in separate camps. Soon enough, an ambassador from the girls’ assemblage approached the boys, looking for matches. One of the boys dutifully produced a book from his pocket and handed it to the girl. As the minutes passed, the errands and requests became more and more farcical, until the groups abandoned all pretenses and simply merged. By eleven o’clock that night, fifteen kids were congregated at the spot on the duck pond wall where Pammy and Helen were to meet Thomas. He saw them, from a distance, standing under the giant bushes that lined one side of the right of way. Since they had snuck out of the house, they avoided the streetlight. Realizing it had been foolish to ask his sisters to approach his peers, he elbowed Eddie, who was sitting next to him. “Let’s go, Eddie,” said Thomas, standing. Eddie, who was talking to Christine, whom he had lately taken to calling his intended, didn’t answer. “Eddie,” Thomas said again.
Eddie groaned loudly. “I’m coming.”
He removed his arm from Christine’s shoulders and stood. “Where are you going?” she asked him.
“On a mercy mission,” he said. “Say good-bye to my family.”
Several in the group laughed, including Thomas, who had taken a few steps in the direction of his sisters. “I know,” said Thomas, as soon as they were out of earshot of the group. “I owe you.”
“It’s okay,” said Eddie. “All night, I’ve been trying to picture Helen smoking.”
Pammy and Helen had moved out from under the bushes and into the street. A cool sea breeze blew their hair onto their faces, into their eyes. It was welcome after the heat of the day, the burn of the sun and the sand. They sat down—hardly anyone ever drove around the streets at night—and busied themselves with the shiny pack of cigarettes. Since it was just about smoking time, Pammy decided to remove the cellophane wrap.
“Why do they put that stuff on there, anyway?” Helen asked Pammy, who was bumbling the job.
“I’ll be damned if I know,” said Pammy in frustration. “Here, you try it.” She tossed the pack to her sister. Helen, holding the Marlboros up to her face, found the pull-tab and unwrapped the box with ease.
“It’s just like a pack of gum, Pammy. See?” said Helen, holding up the thin ribbon of plastic.
“So it is,” said Pammy, taking the pack back from Helen.
“Evening ladies,” said Eddie, standing over them.
Even though they had seen the boys coming, Pammy started when Eddie spoke, dropping the pack she had just opened and spilling the cigarettes onto the pavement. Scrambling to pick them up quickly, as if swiftly completing the task might eradicate its occurrence, Pammy stuffed the cigarettes back into the box.
“Let me hold them for you,” said Thomas, holding out his hand. “My pockets are probably bigger than yours.” Pammy gave the pack to her brother, looking up at him expectantly. “This way,” he said, indicating with his head the road that dead-ended at the woods. Pammy and Helen never ventured into the woods because Thomas had told them stories over the years that involved supernatural happenings there. They had not even been tempted to enter in daylight, in spite of the fact that all Thomas’s tales involved people who wandered into the woods after dark. “Eddie knows a place where no one will find us.”
They walked in silence, Thomas and Eddie leading and Pammy and Helen walking side by side behind them. At a break in the wood post and wire fence, they turned off the road and onto a dirt path that led into the trees and overgrown, unattended bushes. “Don’t we need a flashlight?” asked Pammy, feeling like her stomach had flipped over.
“Eddie knows the way,” said Thomas. “Follow in my footsteps.”
“Like I can see your footsteps, Thomas.” Pammy was trying to be tough, but Helen could tell Pammy was as frightened as she was.
Thomas said nothing until they came to a clearing. The moon shone down into the space, which was outlined by logs and empty cans of Budweiser and Schlitz. He and Eddie sat down and instructed Pammy and Helen to do the same. “Here are the rules,” Eddie began. “I don’t like to waste cigarettes, and neither should you. So, when you set out to smoke a cigarette, you’re going to finish it. I don’t want to see either of you taking a few drags, coughing your fucking heads off. . . .”
“I thought you were trying not to swear so much,” said Helen.
“And I’ve been doing pretty good, until just now.”
“Shouldn’t it be well?” asked Pammy, uncertain herself.
“Don’t start that grammar shit with me, Miss Doolittle. Thomas already drives me crazy,” said Eddie. “Okay, where were we?”
“Coughing our bleeping heads off,” said Thomas, legs stretched out in front of him, ankles crossed.
“Right,” said Eddie. “No matter how much you may want to pitch your cigarette, you must hold on to it. We don’t need to start any fires tonight. Understood?” Helen nodded her head. Pammy was looking at Helen, newly cheesed at her sister for telling Thomas about the Doolittle thing since he had obviously told Eddie. “Pammy? Pay attention.” Pammy shifted her gaze to Eddie. “Next, everybody’s going to inhale. This is a chosen activity, not something you were forced into, so we’re not going to be crybabies about this. Breathe the smoke into your lungs—it may burn a bit at first—then slowly let it out. You may feel dizzy, or you may feel sick to your stomachs, but you are to continue until the cigarette has been smoked down to the filter.” Thomas looked at his sisters, their widening eyes illuminated by the yellow light cast by Eddie’s BIC lighter. “Now,” Eddie continued, catching the pack Thomas tossed at him, “you’ve got twenty cigarettes, and I’ve got”—he removed his pack from his shirt pocket—“six, seven, eight. That’s makes twenty-eight. We’re going to sit here until they’re gone. I’ll smoke more than you two because I’ve been practicing, but you two must pull your weight. I figure you smoke, let’s say seven each, you�
��ve smoked your share. Any questions before we start?” Eddie stuck a cigarette in his mouth and held the lighter to its end.
“Wait!” Helen said, a little too loudly. Eddie pulled the lighter away from the cigarette and looked at Helen. “I didn’t really plan on having seven.”
“No?” asked Thomas, feigning surprise. “How many did you want to have?”
“I thought I’d play it by ear,” said Helen, using an expression she thought was grown-up. “I thought I’d just try it, but if I didn’t like it, I could stop.”
“Stop?” asked Thomas. “How are you ever going to learn to smoke if you stop after one, or half of one?”
“She’s right,” said Pammy, feeling bolder now that Helen had spoken. “We don’t want to smoke seven.”
Eddie recounted the cigarettes. They all watched him. “How about six then?” he asked.
“No,” said Pammy, a quaver in her voice.
“Five?” asked Thomas, persistent.
“No,” said Pammy, standing up. “I don’t want any.”
“Me neither,” said Helen, also standing.
They all waited a few moments in silence. Thomas stood. “Let’s go, then.”
The boys led the way out of the woods. Pammy and Helen followed closely behind. Hearing noises around them, Helen reached for and then held Pammy’s hand. Pammy did not pull it away or protest, like she sometimes did if she thought anyone would see them. “Are you mad, Thomas?” asked Pammy, when they reached the street.
“Why would I be mad?”
“Because we didn’t smoke,” said Helen.
“Actually, I’m glad you didn’t smoke.”
“You are?” Pammy was incredulous.
“Absolutely.”
Pammy looked at Eddie, who was standing next to her. “Look,” said Eddie, resting his arm for a moment on the top of Pammy’s head, “smoking is a lousy habit. I started when I was your age, Pammy, because I wanted to be cool. I wanted to belong to a group of people who all smoked. And now I’m hooked and can’t mow the lawn without coughing and breathing hard. I’m nineteen years old. How sad it that?” Thomas and Helen looked at him, too. “My best advice to you is never start. Live above the temptation.”
“You run home now,” Thomas said to Helen and Pammy. “It’s late.”
“Are you coming?” asked Helen.
“I’ll be along soon. Can you sneak in okay?”
“No problem,” said Pammy. “Helen could sneak into the White House.” Thomas and Eddie laughed, and Pammy was pleased.
“Run home now,” said Thomas.
Pammy and Helen took off at a jog down the street. Less than a hundred yards from her brother and his friend, Pammy stopped. “I need to rest, Helen,” she said, out of breath. Helen slowed down and walked next to her sister. “Well,” said Pammy, “that’s the last time we get Thomas to help us smoke. I can’t believe he wanted us to smoke seven cigarettes. I’ll bet Charlotte would only make us try a puff.”
“You’re going to ask Charlotte?” asked Helen.
“I might.”
“Why?”
“I want to try it,” said Pammy. “It looks like fun.”
“Pammy, if you can’t run a hundred yards and you don’t smoke, how far will you be able to run if you do?”
Pammy looked at Helen. “Good point,” she said.
A minute later, Pammy said she was ready to run again. They jogged the rest of the way home. Thomas and Eddie walked slowly toward the duck pond. They could see the wall and the outline of its nocturnal teenage inhabitants. “Thank you,” Thomas said to Eddie. “You were perfect.”
“It was your plan, Thomas. It worked like a charm. Hell, it almost worked on me.”
“Yeah?”
“Almost,” said Eddie, lighting a cigarette. “Maybe I’ll quit.”
“That would be good.”
“I could start tomorrow,” Eddie offered tentatively.
“You could start tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow it is then,” said Eddie, taking another drag.
They walked several more steps in silence before Thomas said, “I’m going to peel off here, Eddie.”
“Yeah?”
“I have the early bakery run.”
Eddie looked at his watch. “A half hour, Thomas,” he said. “Hang out for thirty fucking minutes. I think Cheryl’s got a thing for you.”
“Too bad I don’t have a thing for her.”
“Oh, but you do!” Eddie laughed.
“You are disgusting.”
Eddie took a drag from his cigarette. “I speak the truth, Thomas. I speak the fucking truth.”
“You may speak the truth, but I’m not giving my thing to Cheryl.”
“You gotta give it to somebody, Thomas. You gotta give it to somebody other than Anna.”
“Not now,” Thomas said. “Not yet.”
CHAPTER 31
2003
Claire woke in the night. Like an animal in the jungle, she quickly surveyed her surroundings, getting her bearings. She moved her heavy legs to the side of the bed, and then forced them over the edge. She lifted with effort her upper body to a sitting position, and then sat, resting. Grabbing her walker from the wall beside her, she lifted herself off the bed. Determined, she moved toward her door by placing the walker out in front of her and then carefully shuffling her feet to catch up to it. She opened the door on her first attempt, an anomaly since the knob had been tightened so many times over the years it was perpetually loose. I must get up in the night more often, she said to herself. I’m superhuman. However, at the end of the hallway loomed the insurmountable obstacle to the fulfillment of her craving for Barb’s oatmeal cookies and cold milk: the stairs. She sat on the top landing, defeated.
“Gainzer?” Her grandchildren, at her request, called her the name she had been called by her teammates so many years before.
Claire stared at the boy at the bottom of the stairs. Every body part had betrayed her except her eyes. “Ned, what are you doing up?”
“I heard you, I guess. What are you doing?” Ned and Todd, who were sleeping on the porch on blow-up mattresses (even though they could have slept on the pullout in the den, since Thomas and his family had chosen to stay in the motel, and Helen and Charles were now sleeping in Thomas’s room) had just closed their eyes after a marathon game of Risk. Todd had won, as he always did, and Ned had been sulking, giving his brother the silent treatment. Ned was waiting for Todd to launch into a recap of the game, of Todd’s strategy, of his reinforced armies, of everything he had done right and Ned had done wrong. It was always this way. Ned hated the game, but played because his brother called him a baby until he did. But tonight the words hadn’t come. Todd met Ned’s silence with silence. Within minutes, Todd’s even breathing told Ned he was asleep. When his grandmother spoke to him, Ned climbed the stairs.
“I’ll tell you what I’m doing,” said Claire. “I’m wishing I had my old legs back.”
“The legs that could kick you to the raft in less than a minute?” asked Ned, repeating the story that his mother had told to him many times since his early childhood.
“Those very legs.”
“My legs still work pretty good,” he said. “Do you want me to use them to get you something?”
Claire was proud of herself for not correcting her grandson’s poor grammar. Instead, she said, “Sit down, Ned.” He sat on the step beneath her and looked up into her face expectantly. While it was dark outside, the streetlight shone in through the porch screens and cottage windows, partially illuminating the staircase and Claire’s wizened face. “Do you know what I was thinking?”
“No,” he said.
“I was thinking how good some of your Aunt Barb’s oatmeal cookies and milk would taste about now.”
“No kidding?”
“No kidding.”
“That is an excellent thought, Gainzer, but we finished off Aunt Barb’s cookies after dinner.”
“So, we did,” said Claire
, remembering. “What else do we have? Any more of Aunt Pammy’s brownies?”
“Gone,” said Ned. “Daniel ate the last one after the cookies were gone.”
“Bummer,” said Claire, using a word she’d heard her grandsons say.
Ned thought for a moment. “Would chocolate do it?”
“Where did we get the chocolate?”
“Daniel brought it.”
“What kind?”
“One of those big yellow boxes, with the map on the inside of the top that tells you what’s in each piece.”
“Well, that was nice of him,” said Claire. “Yes. That might do the trick.”
“You wait here,” said Ned, stating the obvious. “I’ll be back in a flash.”
Claire pushed herself back against the wall and rested her head against it. In an instant, Ned was back, holding a two-pound box of Whitman’s chocolates. He sat down and handed it to his grandmother, who removed the lid. Not one piece was missing. Each chocolate, some milk and some dark, sat nestled in its own plastic cubby, waiting to be found on the diagram and then devoured by the person who sought a chewy caramel or a nougat center. It was like a treasure hunt in a box. Claire chose a dark oval with vanilla crème inside. “This,” she said, biting into it, “is my absolute favorite.” She held out the box to him. Ned chose a milk chocolate square. They both chewed for a few moments. “How do you feel about some milk?”
“That’s a great idea,” said Ned, standing. “I’ll be right back.” And within minutes he was back, carrying two tall glasses of milk.
“You are a speed demon,” said Claire. “No wonder you beat everyone you meet on the tennis court. I need to hear all about your match with the Fischer twins.”
As instructed, Ned started with the first serve of the first game and ended with the glorious overhead smash that sent the twins scrambling for the back fence. Claire listened intently, often interrupting to compliment her grandson on his excellent footwork or racket awareness, encouraging him to practice more, to enter tournaments in the town they both lived in, to compete. And in the middle of the night, Ned believed her, believed that he could win his age group, even though he knew his brother, Todd, carried their team, that he was the better player. But Ned could almost believe he was better than his brother—on some days he actually was—when the house was quiet, when the competition was sleeping.
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