by T. Greenwood
“I’ve been looking online. There are some packages for Disney World. You know, they have hotels right there at the park? You can even have breakfast with all the princesses,” she said to Gracy. Gracy lifted her head from Trevor’s chest, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
“Really, Mumma?”
“Of course, that might be too expensive, but sometimes there are deals. I’m going to keep looking.”
Kurt stopped running the water and turned around. “Trevor, go run a bath for Gracy. Gracy, go get your jammies on.”
Trevor lifted Gracy up obediently and walked with her down the hallway.
“What’s going on?” Elsbeth asked. Kurt had been acting strange since he got home. She thought it was because of Trevor, but now she was beginning to think it was something else all together. Something bad.
“I’m gonna be working a couple of night shifts at the 76 station.”
“What?” she said.
“A second job.”
Elsbeth felt her whole center getting hot.
“Only a few nights a week. Just through the summer.”
“But we were going to take a vacation,” she said, the hot center of her spreading to her limbs.
Kurt turned toward her, his face apologetic. “The kids will be out of school in a week, and we’re going to need to pay to send them somewhere while you’re working.”
“You promised,” she said, her breath like steam. She felt the words escape, hissing and then dissipating in the air before her face. Kurt didn’t say anything. Her face flushed and tears pooled hot and heavy in her eyes.
But then she realized it had just been a dream all along. He’d just been humoring her stupid daydreams. Of course they weren’t going anywhere. She’d been stupid to think otherwise.
“It’s only temporary,” he said, but nothing about this was temporary. This was just the way it was, the way it always had been, the way it would always be.
At the Walgreens that weekend, Elsbeth wandered the aisles aimlessly. She’d left the house before anybody else was even up. Kurt had worked his first shift at the 76 the night before, crawling into bed, smelling like gasoline, at seven thirty in the morning. She hadn’t been able to get back to sleep, and so she left.
She never went shopping at Walgreens without Gracy. She knew it was stupid. She knew that she was asking to get caught. But after wandering the housewares aisle, she found herself drawn to the sunscreen display that had been up since Memorial Day. She lifted each bottle to her nose, inhaling the scent of coconuts. She snapped the cap off an aerosol can and pressed her finger hard on the trigger. The spray made her nose sting and eyes water. She squeezed her eyes shut and thought about the beach, about the ocean, about the sun. Then she opened her eyes, glanced quickly around to make sure no one was watching and pocketed a stick of Banana Boat sunscreen for baby faces. When she looked up again, the checker girl, the one who’d had the baby, was standing there, staring at her.
Elsbeth smiled at her, wondering if the girl could see her heart beating through her T-shirt.
“Are you finding everything okay?” the girl said, accusingly.
Elsbeth nodded, suddenly wanting the girl to say something. Willing her to say something. Willing her to call her out.
But the girl just kept standing there, hands on her hips, staring at Elsbeth’s pocketbook.
Elsbeth felt light-headed. High. Do it.You caught me. Say something. She picked up a stick identical to the one she had pocketed, and studied it. SPF 50.
The girl’s eyes widened, but she was silent.
They stood like this for so long Elsbeth felt like she might pass out. Elsbeth looked her right in the eyes. Unflinching.
“Well, you just let me know if I can help,” the girl finally said and walked away, shaking her head.
Something about this pissed Elsbeth off. Her acting like she was any better than Elsbeth. She reached angrily into her pocketbook, took out the stolen sunscreen, and placed it back on the shelf. Her hands tingled and her head pounded. She left the store without buying anything. She had to sit in her car for ten minutes before her leg stopped shaking enough that she could press the clutch and hold it long enough to get the goddamned thing started.
On the morning of graduation, Crystal stood in the shower, letting the hot water beat against her face. When she opened her eyes, everything was blurry, like looking through her mother’s eyeglasses when she was a little girl. When her vision cleared, she touched the tender spot, the secret spot at her hip.
The woman at the shop in Montpelier hadn’t asked about the stretch marks, the red rivers that ran across her belly. She simply had Crystal lie down in her panties on the table that reminded her of the OB/GYN’s office and asked her where exactly she wanted the tattoo. An hour later, she had walked out of the shop with a bandage at her hip and found Angie sitting on a bench out in front of the art store, sketching in a new sketchpad. She’d thought about how powerful a few simple brush strokes could be, about indelibility, about permanence.
Now the feathery script was healed: the secret name embroidered on her skin. She sat on the edge of her bed in her underwear, traced the calligraphy with her fingers, and looked out the window at an angry sky. Angie came in and sat down next to her, leaning her head against her shoulder.
“Hey,” Angie said. “You okay?” She touched Crystal’s arm, and it felt like a shock. When they were little they used to tear through the carpeted living room in the winter making sparks. Crystal used to think this was something only she and Angie could do. That it was like a super power.
She wondered if the Stones would adopt other children, if her baby would ever have a sister. She imagined her running through the labyrinth of that house, slippery socks on hardwood floors. She dreamed of pigtails and dress-up and the little girl watching Mrs. Stone do her makeup in the mirror. She thought about her legs swinging under the table at dinner, about birthday cakes and backyard parties. School dances and soccer games and dance recitals. Graduations. The skin at her hip pulsed with pain. This terrible call and response. Every thought of the baby made her body wince.
“Yeah. I’m fine. Is Dad still downstairs waiting?”
Angie nodded. “He’s so excited.”
She’d wanted to skip the graduation ceremonies; she had pleaded with her mother to understand, but she was still making her go. “It’ll kill your father if you miss it,” she said. Her father’s wishes clearly trumped any sliver of compassion her mother might have. And so she put on the rented cap and gown, bobby-pinning the cap to her head.
“Come on, come on,” he said, grinning stupidly, his camera in one hand and his camcorder in the other. He ushered her out to the front yard and made her stand in front of the giant maple tree where he’d taken a picture of her and Angie on the first day of school every year since kindergarten. In the photos she always held a sign with her grade on it. After about the sixth grade, she’d grimaced in every shot. 7, 8, 9, 10 ... “Here you go, now don’t look so glum,” he said, and handed her a sign that said CLASS OF 2010! “Say Limburger!” he said, fiddling with the camera lens, her mother fussing with her hair.
She was ready to get in line and get it over with, ready to walk down the paved walkways, littered with cherry blossoms, to the football field where there was a makeshift stage assembled. Ready to get her diploma and get on with her life, whatever that meant. But the sky was ominous, dark and thundery, and it was already ninety degrees at only ten o’clock in the morning. It was clear the outdoor ceremony wasn’t going to happen, and something about this break in tradition seemed fitting somehow. Nothing was going the way it was expected.
The principal announced over the loudspeaker in the cafeteria where they had all been herded that the ceremonies would be moved to the ice arena across the road from the school. Mrs. Noyes, the PTA president, with her cotton candy hair and cotton candy breath and her cotton candy dress, lined them up alphabetically and then they waited as the ice arena across the street fill
ed with proud parents and grandparents and siblings. Finally, Mrs. Noyes made them follow her in a winding line, leading them like a caterpillar rope of preschoolers, making them look both ways before crossing the road as if they weren’t all at an event celebrating their entrance into adulthood.
Inside the ice arena, it was even more suffocating and oppressive than it had been in the cafeteria. Crystal could see Angie and her parents sitting near the stage in the very front row. They’d taken out a huge ad (Let the McDonalds Sell Your House!) in the graduation program in exchange for front-row seats. “You scratch my back,” her father had said, “and I’ll scratch yours.”
“Hey, Cryssy,” Ty said softly. The hairs on the back of her neck and on her arms stood up.
He was standing behind her in line. She’d ignored him the best she could while everyone was hustling to get into the right spots and then as they inched their way from the cafeteria to the ice arena. But now he was talking to her. She couldn’t pretend like she didn’t hear him; they were smushed together too tight, she could practically feel his breath on her neck.
She turned around to look at him. His mortarboard sat crookedly on his head, his trademark flop of brown hair peeking out and covering one eye. He smiled that familiar coy smile, and for a minute, she just wanted to forgive him. To reach for his hand and squeeze it and say, “It’s okay.”
But instead she just nodded and said, “Hey.”
“So I never found out where you were going to school,” he said. “I heard you were going to UVM?”
“Yeah,” she said. “What about you? You got into Middlebury, right?” Middlebury. Their big plan to go to school close to each other. Like a forgotten vegetable in the fridge, rotten now. She almost reeled from the stink of everything gone so slowly and perfectly bad.
“Actually, I’ll be at UC Berkeley,” he said.
“Berkeley?” She felt her throat thicken. In all the years she’d known him, he’d not once mentioned California. It was the same as if he’d said he was going to Alaska for college. To the moon. “You’ve wanted to go to Middlebury for, like, forever,” she said. How in the world did she not hear about this?
He shrugged and straightened his cap. “My mom got a full-time faculty gig, finally, in San Diego. That means I get tuition free at any UC school.”
“Oh,” she said, feeling sweat rolling down her sides under her gown. Her head aching, her heart aching. “So your whole family’s moving to California?”
“Well, yeah. I totally thought you knew. Your mom and dad are selling our house,” he said. “They didn’t tell you?”
They hadn’t said a word. She glanced across the sea of people and located her mom and dad in the crowd. Crystal was hot now, steaming, and pissed off. They really thought that if they just pretended like none of this had happened, then they could undo it. That if they willed Ty out of her life, he would disappear. And they were right. Ty and his entire family were just disappearing. For good. Like nothing ever happened.
She thought about his family. About the afternoons she had spent with his mother in their kitchen, about the cracked blue Congoleum and her chipped Fiestaware bowls. She thought about Dizzy with her spy kit and the baby, Squirrel, stuffing things in her mouth. She thought about the basement puppet shows and all the bottles stuffed with notes she and Ty had set sail on the river. She thought about lying on the trampoline in his backyard, holding hands, looking up at the stars. She thought about his bed. The sheets worn so soft they felt like skin.
It was so hot in the arena, she could barely breathe. “When do you ...”
“Lena and I broke up,” he said, his words tumbling over hers. “In case you didn’t know.”
She didn’t know about California, but she did know about this. She’d heard about the breakup only minutes after it happened, Marcy Madden delivering the news like some wretched present.
“Yeah, I heard.” She nodded, trying not to cry.
“It was kind of stupid,” he said.
“Yeah,” she agreed, not knowing whether he was talking about dating Lena, or everything he’d done (and not done) in the last six months.
They sat next to each other in the uncomfortable metal folding chairs. She was sweating so badly, the polyester gown was making a sort of furnace. Everyone was using their programs as fans. You’d think in an ice arena they could make it a little bit cooler. The Zamboni looked like a metallic dinosaur parked at the edge of it all. The commencement speaker was some old guy, an alumnus from like a hundred years ago, who wrote a book about thermodynamics or something. Totally dull. And then, finally, they were being called up on the stage one by one.
“Crystal McDonald,” the principal said, and she took a deep breath. There were a few cheers. She could see her mother and father grinning and nodding in the front row. Her mother was dressed in the red blazer she always wore for open houses; she had one immediately following the ceremony and wouldn’t be joining them for the nice dinner out her father had promised.
When she got back to her seat, clutching the rolled-up diploma, she was suddenly absolutely overwhelmed with emotion. She hadn’t planned on this, hadn’t planned on feeling much of anything besides relief. She wouldn’t have to go to school anymore. She wouldn’t have to dash into the girls’ room every time she saw Ty coming down the hall. She wouldn’t have to spend her entire day avoiding confrontations. It was over now. California. He was leaving, and chances were, she would never see him again.
“You know, you could come out and visit me sometime,” Ty said, and Crystal felt her stomach clench. “Like during spring break or something?”
She turned to look at him in disbelief. So now that Lena was out of the picture, he was suddenly interested in salvaging whatever it was they had ever had? Her eyes filled with tears at his audacity, at his stupidity. She wanted to say something that would let him know how much he’d hurt her. Something that would hurt him. But words failed her. They tangled together like knotted shoestrings in her mind, so she said nothing.
They both stared straight ahead for the rest of the ceremony, as everyone with last names from N–Z got their diplomas. It was raining hard outside now; it pounded against the metal roof of the arena. When the principal said, “Congratulations to the Class of 2010!” and everyone threw their mortarboards into the air, she and Ty looked at each other before yanking their caps off. Just briefly, but long enough to make that empty place ache with pain.
Normally, after the ceremony, people would gather outside for pictures, but the rain was coming down so hard now, everyone just found their families and ran for their cars. She lost Ty as soon as they exited the arena. It took her almost ten minutes before she found her parents. By the time her dad pulled the car around for her, she was drenched, her mascara running down her cheeks. But at least nobody knew she was crying. It could have just been the rain.
LAST SUMMER
On June thirtieth, Kurt peered toward Pop’s house, at the ravaged edges of the yard. It looked barren, stripped. Like a victim of some violent act. Pillaged. It had been raining nearly every day, and the driveway was just a rushing river of mud and gravel and debris. For two weeks he and Maury had spent every spare minute working on cleaning up the yard and making the repairs outlined in the notice from the county. Maury had called in a favor from a contractor friend and gotten an industrial-sized Dumpster for the week. It was brimming with refuse now, completely full. It sat in Pop’s desolate yard like a monster with its mouth hanging open.
Beal had watched the shop for a few extra hours each day, keeping things going, happy for the additional work. He talked about wanting more hours now that the twins were here. His wife hadn’t been able to get the hang of breast-feeding, and formula was costing them a fortune. It made Kurt feel awful, because as soon as this business with Pop was taken care of, he was actually going to have to cut back Beal’s hours. Kurt was dreading that conversation, but he had no choice; taking over Beal’s hours himself could make the difference between making th
e new mortgage or not. Even with the added income from the night shifts at the 76, they were still coming up short now that the kids were out of school. They’d had to dish out four hundred dollars so the kids could be at swim camp every morning while Elsbeth worked. Four hundred dollars he was going to have to come up with by the time that first balloon payment came on August first. He tried to put it out of his mind, but it was nearly impossible.
Kurt had come back to Pop’s today to be there when the inspectors returned with their clipboards and their checklists. He was pretty sure he and Maury had taken care of all of the infractions, but you never knew. While the outside had mostly been cleared, the dead cars and old trailers towed to the yard, the trash and debris thrown away, the inside of the house was still packed solid. Pop hadn’t let them throw away anything but obvious garbage. He’d refused to get rid of pots and pans and radios and ratty paperback books. He’d gone into a rage about a collection of coffeemakers and toasters Kurt found underneath the kitchen sink when they were repairing a leak.
“This is gonna kill him,” Maury had said, shaking his head.
Kurt had thrown up his hands. “No, living in a rat-infested house is going to kill him. Whatever that stuff growing up through the bathroom floors is, is going to kill him. The fucking exposed wires and the rotten drywall are going to kill him.”
Now Pop sat on the front porch on a metal folding chair, a drink in his lap. It was ten A.M. He stood up and started to walk into the house, listing, righting himself by grabbing onto the doorway. Kurt didn’t know whether it was his leg or the drink at fault.
“Pop, I think we should at least get the kitchen table cleared off before they come. So they’ve got some place to sit if they need to.”
“No more!” Pop hollered, swaying like he was on a ship.
“We don’t have a choice, Pop. They will take your house away. They’ll take all this stuff away.”
“I am a goddamn decorated veteran. I served my country.” Pop looked skinnier than usual: his belt pulled tighter, the waistband gapped. He was unshaven, the few hairs left on his head sticking up. His eyes were glassy and unfocused. His face was furious, red. “Last I knew, this was a free country.” He went into the house, the screen door slamming behind him.