She says it all so easy and casual. She touches my arm and smiles at me. We pick over the remains of her world, showing each other things and nodding yes or shaking no to indicate their importance. There isn’t much that gets a yes.
“You could move in with me until you clean this up,” I offer when the conversation drifts that way. “It looks like this is going to take a while.”
“Thanks,” she says and kicks at a piece of dining room chair with her toe. “But I have somewhere in mind already.”
“Ray’s?” I ask, stumped.
“Be serious,” she says. “Do you think he could look at me every day and not wind up in a puddle under the coffee table?”
“Chris?” I say, excited. “Is he moving here? Don’t tell me you’re going out there. I couldn’t stand it. Don’t you dare move to LA. Break up with him,” I finish, laughing at my own turnaround in attitude.
“No, I’m not going to LA,” she says. “I’ve been thinking about a new project. I think it’s time.” She holds out a bag of garbage that used to be her house. “I could become one of those Found Object artists.”
“Well, you said you were looking for something new,” I say.
“There is something sort of poetic about it. Making art from tragedy—literally.”
Her whole life is art from tragedy. I guess I’m not surprised that she knows. I remember that night on the porch. Everything was so fragile, like the world was covered in eggshells. I wanted her to remember, but she was right—it wasn’t the time. How gracious of a child to know her place in the world, her hold on the universe. How unselfish to remain quiet when quiet was needed. All this time. It makes Lola seem angelic to me. Capable of love so deep that self is less important.
I watch as Lola looks through the broken contents of her house. She seems happy. Free.
“Lately I feel like there is something else I’m supposed to be doing,” she says.
“What do you mean?”
“I feel like I’ve closed myself inside a little golden birdcage, and I’ve just been waiting for the door to be left open. Now I think it is. I don’t really know if these wings work, but what’s the point in having them if I don’t give them a try?”
“Is that why you told Ray?” I ask.
“He needs to try, too,” she says. “It’s time for all of us to fly.”
Maybe not today, but one day, I will fly. Lola was six years old when she said that, running as fast as she could across the yard and leaping over the ditch, hoping to catch air and keep going. We were young, and the world had been made just for us.
I’ve stopped trying to fly. I forgot I had wings.
17
I meet Ray for lunch at the pizza place around the corner from his work. It feels so normal to sit with my brother and share a large spinach-and-Italian-sausage pie. I think about that image of us hacking through the jungle of the path less traveled. I fear rising up from a good dream and thinking that things are right with the world only to have wakefulness dissolve into reality.
I know he knows that Lola knows, but he hasn’t said anything and I don’t know why. I can’t help myself. I blurt it out. “Ray, Lola told me.”
“Told you what?” he asks, taking a sip of soda.
I cock my head at him.
“Oh,” he says. “Can you believe it? Did you know she knew? You could have told me.”
“No, I couldn’t have,” I say. “But I didn’t know.”
Not really.
I shrug my shoulders. I think we all wanted so badly for the white picket fence dream to be real, that even as the veil was lifting, we still played along. Pay no attention the man behind the curtain. We were all just as guilty as Mom, trying to pretend a better life.
“There were times she said things back then,” I say. “You must have had an idea, too.”
He shrugs his shoulders back at me. This means yes. But back then, the fear of that knowledge was scary enough to shut Ray up.
“When did she tell you?” I ask.
“At the cemetery. The day Mom buried Dad’s ashes.”
The waiter comes by and refills our glasses. I was so wrapped up in my own torture, I hadn’t even seen Lola talking to Ray. I missed something huge enough to shake the whole world.
“When did she tell you she told me?” Ray asked.
“Yesterday. I went over to her house to help her clean up.”
“Was what’s-his-name there?”
“Chris,” I say. “Yes.”
“That’s good.” Ray nods.
I want to talk more about it, but I know this is already more than Ray can stand. Ray and I finish our lunch, and he calls for the check.
“On me,” he says. “No argument.”
“I fear the unemployment line is holding a space for me,” I say. “So I’ll take you up on that.”
Ray pays, and we head outside.
“I’m surprised you’re still here after she told you,” I say. “I would have thought that news would send you into outer space.”
“It did,” Ray says. He stops right in the middle of the sidewalk, and people part around us like water running past rocks.
“Do you wish you’d known?” I ask. “Back then? Do you think it would have made things better or worse?”
“Do you mean, do I think I’d have messed up my life this bad if I’d known she knew?”
“Yes.”
“I think it would have been worse. I don’t think I could have handled it back then.”
“Now?”
“Now, there’s Michael,” he says. “And you guys. And Dad is gone, and it’s time for old Ray to grow up. If it’s not too late.”
“I don’t think it is,” I say. “I don’t think it ever is.”
Ray starts walking, and I follow. We don’t say anything for a while and then he stops again. The people behind us have to short step around us to keep from colliding. Ray grabs hold of my arm.
“I think it might be, though,” he says, his voice soft and brittle. “Too late. Nicole is used to living without me. She doesn’t need me. And maybe Michael doesn’t either. Lola thinks I’ll just leave again, and she might be right. I know that’s why she won’t come around. No one needs me anymore.”
“Sure they do,” I say. I do. “You’re hurting my arm, by the way.”
Ray turns me loose. “I want to do this the right way, but I don’t think I can. I’m not sure she’s going to let me in. I can’t read her. She keeps me at arm’s length, and I’m going to screw it all up. I just know it.”
I don’t know if he’s talking about Lola or Nicole, and I guess it’s the same either way.
“Where is this all coming from?” I ask, guessing that Ray must still be in outer space.
“I feel desperate,” he says, his eyes darting around. “Like I’m about to do something stupid. I know I shouldn’t. But I’ll probably do it anyway.”
“You’re scaring me a little,” I say. “A lot. Are you drunk?”
“I’m sorry, Sis.” He starts walking away from me so fast that I have to run to keep up.
“Ray,” I call after him.
He doesn’t slow down even after I catch up with him. He just keeps talking like he knows I’m there.
“I just want it all so bad, but I didn’t put in the time—not in the right places, anyway—and it’s not mine to have. It’s just not mine.”
We get to his office, and he leaves without saying good-bye. He opens the glass doors and disappears from view behind them. I stand on the street, shouting his name, but he doesn’t come back out.
Later that day at work, I find out that I’ve joined Ray in his boat called Desperation setting sail on the high seas of Nowhere to Go from Here.
“We’ve been absorbed,” my boss says to me.
“Absorbed?”
; “Eaten up,” she says. “We’re closing. I didn’t want you to hear about it with the masses. We’ve known each other a long time, and I owe you the value of the upper hand going in there.”
The staff has been called together, and the watercooler buzz has gone from bad to worse.
“So that’s it?” I say. “What about thirty-two stupid ways to make lemonade?”
“We’ll wrap up these last few projects, then all the titles will be taken on by another house.”
“What about me?” I ask. “Are they taking me on, too?”
“They have their own photographers,” she says, her face a squinched-up apology. “Although I’m sure you could give them your resume. I’m sure they freelance. Maybe.”
I sigh.
“I really am sorry,” she says. “It’s still a month off, though.”
“Only a month?” I ask incredulously.
“You’ll have time to finish the lemonade book. You’ll get the photo credits and a nice check. Plus a little bit of a severance and some time to figure out what comes next.”
“There’s a severance?”
“Not much,” she admits. “A couple of months’ pay. One of the perks of being a staff photographer, if you want to look at it that way. You can apply for unemployment. Look for work.”
“Have a nervous breakdown.” I continue the obvious line of thinking.
“I’m sorry,” she says again. “I am. I really am, Nina. You came onboard at my insistence instead of freelancing and consulting, and I had hoped to give you a more steady and secure job. And it didn’t pan out.”
I’m grateful she doesn’t give me the “You’ll be ok” pep talk. She looks at her watch and excuses herself. Kids and a husband. Dinner, baths and bedtimes to adhere to.
I go home to my empty condo.
I want Dad. I want to talk to him. Hold-It-In Nina could let it out with him. I want to tell him about Oliver, about running into Jack, losing my job, about giving up. Dad was my flashlight in the dark, my spotlight in success, the sun, the moon, the fluorescents in my office—everything was lit by him. Now the power is out, and I’m stumbling around, banging my knee on the coffee table that I know is there but can’t see now that it’s dark.
I turn to the only thing of Dad’s that I took from Mom’s house. His old record player.
I put on his favorite song and pretend I’m not lost at sea.
In the still of the night . . .
I smile and begin to cry. I love this combination of emotion—the way one small thing can make you grieve and recover at the same time, sadness and hope in the same tears.
I held you, held you so tight . . .
. . . in the still of the night.
I sit on the couch and hug a throw pillow.
This is your lemonade year, I can almost hear Dad say to me. You’ll be all right, Sweet Pea. Come on, Big Guy. Give her just one good thing to turn it all around.
18
“I took him,” Ray says when I answer the phone. His voice sounds like he’s a recording on an old record.
I’m shooting one of the last lemonade photos over at Mom’s house. It’s a tea-infused concoction, which means I can use all of the unwanted tea Lola has given to Mom.
“Who’s that?” Lola asks, perched on the countertop across the kitchen from me.
“Is that Lola?” Ray asks, having heard her voice. “Pretend I’m not me.”
“Easier said than done,” I reply, stepping away from her as if a few feet will mute the sound of my voice.
“Do not tell her who is on the phone,” he says in a hushed, staccato voice. “Where are you?”
“Mom’s.”
“Nina,” Ray says, “do not tell anyone who you’re talking to.”
This is scaring me to death.
“It’s Oliver,” I lie to Lola in case she can discern a male voice. “Mom’s not home,” I say to Ray.
“Oh,” Lola says. “Tell the little hottie I said hello.”
“Who the heck is Oliver?” Ray asks. “What is Lola talking about?”
“Never mind,” I say and excuse myself from the kitchen so that Lola can’t hear me.
“Are you dating someone from TV too?” Ray says, distracted.
“He’s not on TV,” I say, hiding behind the dining room table like an idiot. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“Wait a minute,” Ray says. “You’re dating someone?”
“I’m not really sure.”
“You’re not sure?” Ray says, and I can almost see his perplexed expression through the phone line. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. It’s not important right now. What is going on?”
“I took him,” he says again. “Michael. I took him from the park.”
My brother is an idiot.
We knew that, girl.
Whose isn’t?
I always had a crush on Ray.
You guys are no help.
“Don’t say anything,” Ray says after I’ve said nothing. “I know it was stupid.”
“Understatement,” I say, my heart pounding. “Where is Nicole? Does she know you have him?”
“Yes,” Ray says, and I sigh loudly. “She’s pretty ticked at me about it though.”
Lola yells from the kitchen. “I’m going to drink this lemonade if you don’t come back in here soon.”
I feel like I’m in some twisted play.
“Start from the beginning,” I tell Ray. “And don’t leave anything out. What did you do?”
I sit down on the floor cross-legged and wait for the story that will likely send my brother back to jail, unless Nicole is more merciful than he deserves.
“I met them at the park,” Ray says. “It was great. Nicole was laughing, and Michael was talking to me about this new toy he just got. I swear, Nina, to anyone who didn’t know, we looked just like a real family.”
“And because things were going well, you decided to sabotage it?”
“No,” he says, and then I hear him speaking to Michael in a soft voice, “Finish that up and you can get another one.”
“Ray?”
“I asked Nicole if I could take him for a walk—just the two of us,” Ray says. “She said yes. He took my hand and went with me. Just like that. He likes me.”
I don’t say anything. I can’t.
“I don’t know how to have him to myself any other way,” Ray whispers across the phone line. “I’ll take him back. I will. I know I will.”
“Promise,” I say. “And do it fast.”
I can’t process this.
“I just want it to be like I’m his dad,” Ray says with a voice that makes me want to cry. “I want it to be like we’re driving to Dairy Queen for ice cream and if he wants to get two scoops I’ll let him, even if I think he’s just going to drop the whole thing on the seat.”
“Ray,” I interrupt. “I don’t understand this at all.”
“When we got back to the playground, Nicole was talking to a friend,” Ray says. “I asked Michael if he wanted to go for a drive, and he said yes. So instead of going back to the bench, we got in my car and drove off.”
“Without asking Nicole,” I say in confirmation.
“She knows I have him. She’s left me about six blistering messages telling me to bring him back right away.”
“And yet you haven’t,” I point out.
“He came with me,” Ray says from somewhere on the end of the line, somewhere far away. “Just took my hand and smiled at me.” Ray sighs. “I’m pretty sure this the last straw, so I might as well make the most of it.”
“That’s terrible logic.”
“I know,” he says in a voice so sad my eyes fill with tears.
Lola calls out to me again. “Your lemonade has a funny taste, but I gue
ss it’s not all bad.”
“I love you,” I say to Ray. “I love you so much.”
“I know that,” he says and ends the call.
Lola’s face appears in front of me. “I thought you guys were still trying to see where things were going. I guess they’re going well.” She grins at me.
“I need to make a call,” I say to Lola as I crawl out from behind the table. “I’ll be on the porch.”
“Sure,” she says and tilts her head at me. “Not as good a hiding place, but there’s a nice breeze. You’re not calling Jack, are you?” she calls to me as I rush to the front door.
Outside, I call an old number I have for Nicole. Turns out the number I have is her mother’s. When I give my name, Nicole’s mother bursts into tears.
“Please tell me you know where they are,” she says. “It was Ray, wasn’t it? I told Nicole not to trust him. She won’t tell me it’s him, but I know it.”
I assure her that everything is fine, and after much crying and catching her breath, she gives me Nicole’s address.
“Your brother is an idiot,” Nicole says when she opens the door and sees that it’s me. “He could at least call me back and tell me they’re ok. I’m out of my mind here. I mean, I know Ray wouldn’t do anything on purpose, but this is Ray we’re talking about.”
“They’re ok,” I say, and her shoulders relax into a slump. “They’re getting ice cream.”
“Ice cream?” she says incredulously and sighs deeply.
She turns away from the door and walks back into her apartment. I’m still standing on the steps outside, unsure if I’m supposed to follow her in or not. After a moment, I step inside and close the door behind me. I find her in the living room, sitting on the couch with her head in her hands.
“Have you called the police?” I sit down beside her.
“The police?” She looks up at me sharply. “No, that’s not a scene that I want in Michael’s head—being pulled away by an officer while your father is pushed to the ground and handcuffed.”
I think about the times Ray has been arrested. I never saw it, and now I have a picture in my mind that hurts my heart.
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