White Elephant

by Julie Langsdorf

  Something glinted near a clump of wet leaves by the curb. Jillian nudged it with her foot. A purple cigarette lighter. She picked it up carefully, as though she’d just unearthed a grenade. It sparked like a Fourth-of-July sparkler when she tried to light it. “Look, you guys.”

  “Cool,” Lindy said, grabbing it. She flicked it on, making a smooth flame flicker in front of Jillian’s face.

  “Let’s put it back,” Jillian said, but Lindy touched the flame to some leaves. They were wet. She had to light it a few times to make them smoke. Mark offered to help, then stuck the lighter in his pocket. Lindy swooped and dove, to take it back, succeeding in grabbing it finally with a joyful “Wa-hoo!”

  “Quiet,” Jillian said, stomping out the smoke. Now she felt as though she were the parent and they the children. “Do you want everyone to notice we’re skipping?”

  “Lighten up, Miller,” Lindy said.

  They took a left on Pecan.

  “It’s so quiet,” Jillian said. “It’s like there’s been a nuclear attack.”

  Lindy and Mark said nothing.

  “It could happen,” she said. “We’re in Washington, D.C., right?”

  No response. She wanted to kick them. “Maybe it already happened. Maybe they used a sort of gas. Maybe we escaped it because the school walls are thick, but maybe we’re about to die from it too. Or maybe some people could be immune to it. What would you do if you were the only person in town to live?” she said.

  “I’d move to the country,” Mark said.

  Jillian coughed dramatically. “I’m dying.”

  “You guys are so immature,” Lindy said. She stopped in front of the Sawyers’ old house, a split-level with a no-trespassing sign nailed to a tree. “We own this,” she said.

  “Sure,” Mark said.

  “We do. I go here all the time.”

  “No you don’t,” Jillian said.

  “How do you know?”

  “You would have said,” Jillian said.

  “I have a fort at the White Elephant, though. Don’t I, Jill?”

  “She does,” Jillian said.

  They walked around to the back. Lindy went down the steps that led to the basement door and tried the doorknob. It didn’t turn.

  “We’re trespassing,” Mark said.

  “Want to bet?” Lindy stared at the door, as though she could open it with her eyes. When it remained locked, she went back up the little staircase and poked around the yard. She came back with a rock the size of a fist. She smacked it against one of the little panes of glass that ran along the side of the door, once, twice, until it burst open like an egg. She reached her hand in and fiddled with the knob. When she pulled her arm back out, her wrist was cut. Lindy sucked at the blood.

  Jillian and Mark gave each other a look, a look that said, She’s crazy, but they followed her into the basement nonetheless. He was on Jillian’s side. She could tell. The thought made her happy despite the fact that she was walking into what she thought a crypt would feel like. It was cold and a strong smell rose up, like old things: old papers and dust. Nesting animals, maybe. Or dead ones. Where had the Sawyers gone? “This is a bad idea,” Jillian said. “Let’s go to the White Elephant. We can play Ouija.”

  They walked through the unfinished basement. Jillian had been here years before, when Vicky Sawyer had a clown come to her birthday party. Vicky, a year younger than Jillian, spent most of the party crying.

  “Why doesn’t anyone live here?” Mark said.

  “Yuck. Would you live here?” Lindy said.

  “It’s my house,” he said.

  “Ha, ha,” Lindy said.

  “It is. The rooms are all in the same place.” He rapped on a cinder-block wall. “The laundry room is over here.” Sure enough, the laundry room was over there. Jillian laughed for the first time since they’d broken in.

  They had broken in, hadn’t they? The truth of it hit her. Lindy had been the one to do the actual window smashing, but she and Mark were accomplices. So far today, she’d ditched school, kidnapped a kid who was home sick, and broken into a house. Her stomach twisted. They’d go to jail, or to juvie at least. She’d have to sleep on a metal bed and she’d never get to see Candy again. “Let’s get out of here,” she said, following the others upstairs by the flame from the purple lighter. There was a pillow and a light blue blanket neatly folded on the floor of one of the bedrooms. “We have a blanket like that,” Jillian said.

  They made their way back to the kitchen. The refrigerator was gone. One of the cupboard doors dangled from a hinge. Mouse poops dotted the counter. Lindy opened the cabinets one by one. She found a box of animal crackers in the drawer by the stove. She poured some into her hand.

  “Don’t eat that,” Jillian said.

  “They’re mine,” Lindy said. “It’s my house.”

  “Let’s go,” Mark said.

  “Let’s just warm up for a while,” Lindy said.

  “The heat isn’t even on,” Mark said.

  Jillian flicked the light switch. Nothing. “This is creepy.”

  “I’m leaving,” Mark said.

  “Me too,” Jillian said.

  “You guys are chickens.” Lindy flapped her elbows.

  Mark unbolted the kitchen door. The venetian blinds, dusty, shivered when he opened the door. Jillian followed him outside. They looked at the ground.

  Mark kicked the old snow. “I have a fever.”

  Lindy came out, glaring. “So where would the My Little Pony Club rather go? The playground?”

  “He’s sick,” Jillian said.

  “I know where,” Lindy said. Blood trickled from her wrist.

  Jillian and Mark exchanged looks again. They could stand up to her. There were two of them. They could tell her they weren’t going to listen to her anymore, but they didn’t. One bully was more powerful than two nice people, it turned out. They followed Lindy past the community garden, withered in the January chill, down to the woods. They ended up at the tire swing by the creek.

  “This is a bad idea,” Jillian said.

  “Everything’s a bad idea to you.”

  “We might run into my uncle. My dad said he was taking a vacation day, to get an ice scraper.”

  “An ice scraper? Like for a car?” Lindy laughed.

  Jillian shrugged, smiling because she liked her uncle. He was quirky, but she liked him.

  “Is he retarded, or what?” Lindy said.

  “He’s learning disabled.”

  “Same thing,”

  “It is not,” Jillian said. “He’s smart about a lot of things.”

  “We’ll tell him it’s a snow day,” Lindy said.

  “He’d know if it’s a snow day,” Jillian said. “He calls to tell me when it’s a snow day.”

  “We’ll tell him a pipe broke at the school. That’ll be our story if anyone stops us. A pipe broke.”

  “Where are the other kids then?” Jillian said.

  “You think too much.” Lindy swung her leg over the tire, hung from a rope on a tree branch. “Push me,” she told Mark. She shrieked happily when he swung her out over the icy water.

  “A kid died here once,” Jillian said. It wasn’t true, but it got Mark and Lindy’s attention.

  “When?” Mark said.

  Jillian tossed a rock through the ice. “A really long time ago. Like when my dad was a kid. He fell off and died.”

  “Liar,” Lindy said.

  “He hit his head on a rock.”

  “Higher,” Lindy told Mark.

  “The town cut down the tire after that, but someone put up a new one in the same spot. No one knows who,” Jillian said, picking up another rock.

  “Why didn’t they cut it down again?” Mark said.

  “They did,” Jillian said.

  “What was his name?” Lindy said.

  “The boy?” She thought of an old-fashioned name. “Billy. Billy Wheeler. The other kids called him Frookie. Billy Frookie.” Details made things seem true. />
  “Why?”

  “I never heard this. You ever hear this?” Lindy asked Mark.

  Mark shrugged.

  “It’s true. My dad grew up here. He remembers it,” Jillian said.

  “Your dad,” Lindy said, rolling her eyes.

  “What about him?”

  “Mr. Moratorium.” Lindy raised her eyebrows at Mark.

  “What?” Jillian said.

  Lindy looked back at her, innocent. Mark wouldn’t catch Jillian’s eye. Sometimes Jillian wanted to hit him, to make him choose. She skimmed the rock across the ice. It stopped on a branch.

  “Tell the story,” Lindy said.

  “They cut the swing down again, but the next day, another one was up in its place. They cut that one down too. They kept watch for a while, to keep a new one from going up, but whenever they stopped watching, someone put a new swing up. After a while, they just left it.”

  Lindy shrugged. “So what.”

  Jillian threw a big rock to see how thick the ice was in the middle. It fell in with a plonking sound, splashing water up onto Lindy’s pants.

  “Hey!” Lindy said.

  “Sorry,” Jillian said.

  “I’m all wet.”

  “I didn’t mean to.”

  “I’ll get you back,” Lindy said, meanness in her eyes.

  “Give her a break,” Mark said.

  “What’s it to you? Is she your girlfriend?”

  Mark grabbed the rope and eased the swing to a stop. He let it hover in midair, over the water. Lindy shifted her leg over from the other side of the tire and sat sideways. “Your turn,” she told Jillian. “I’ll push you.”

  Jillian shook her head.

  “Afraid you’ll end up like Billy Frookie?” Lindy said.

  “No,” Jillian said.

  “Chicken! Chicken! Cluck, cluck!”

  “I’m going home,” Mark said. He let go of the swing, sending Lindy tumbling off. She landed with a thump and a splash. She screamed. “Help me!” Then, when they stood stone still, she cried, “You’re going to pay for this, Jillian Miller!”

  Mark and Jillian looked at each other—their faces like mirrors reflecting exhilaration and terror—and they ran.

  GRANT, SITTING NEXT TO MARIE ON A PICNIC TABLE OVERLOOKING Willard Creek, watched a squirrel dash up a tree and crawl out to the end of a branch. The branch bobbed from its weight.

  “Don’t jump!” Marie cried.

  “Think of the children! Think of your dear mother!” Grant said. He and Marie were so high. So, so high.

  The squirrel jumped, landing with a scramble in the next tree. Marie and Grant hugged in mock relief.

  “That is one skilled squirrel,” she said.

  “No doubt.”

  “Maybe I should have his kids. I’m not getting any younger. Have to settle down sometime.”

  “It’s worth considering.”

  “My brains, his agility. I’m thinking Olympics. Scholarships to college at least.”

  “On the other hand, he might already be with someone—or even more than one,” Grant said. “Probably. And he probably has a lot of kids. You want a lot of squirrel stepchildren? I don’t think so. Squirrels are not known for monogamy. You want monogamous, stick with gibbons.”

  “Gibbons?”

  “Gibbons, wolves, eagles, barn owls, beavers.”

  “Truly? Beavers are monogamous? Are you making this up?”

  “Adam told me.”

  “Does he even know what monogamy is?”

  “Probably. He probably does.”

  “Well, shit,” Marie said, and her entire body shivered; she nestled in a little closer to Grant.

  “Want to sit in the car?”

  “No. Fresh air, my friend. After sitting in a hospital all night, you need fresh air.” She closed her eyes, tipping her face toward the weak January sun.

  Grant took another bite of his sub. It tasted so good. It was the best food he’d ever eaten. Ever. “Thank you,” he said.

  “For what?”

  He held what was left of his sub over his head like Lady Liberty’s torch. “For this.” Then he lowered it and took an enormous bite. Marie took a similar bite of hers, and they laughed, turkey and bread threatening to either come out of their mouths or choke them. When he’d swallowed enough to be able to speak, he said, “I’m a bad husband.”

  He’d left the hospital hours ago. Suzanne would think he’d abandoned her. He shifted uncomfortably on the wooden table, still moist from the melted snow.

  “You’re not so bad . . . ,” she said, and then the sound of kids running and laughing, leaves and sticks being trampled, interrupted them.

  They watched through the branches as first a boy—Nina Strauss’s kid?—then Jillian, ran past.

  Grant sprang up, suddenly not high anymore. “What was that?” he said.

  “Two kids.”

  “I know them. Do you think she saw us? Jesus. I mean, I’m sitting here at the park while my wife is in the hospital. She definitely did. I’m an idiot. Do you think she’s okay?”

  “Who? Suzanne?”

  “Jillian. The girl.”

  “She was running and laughing. Sounds like the definition of okay.” Marie put the remains of her sub in the bag and tossed it at the trash can, where it smacked against the metal and slid to the ground, dumping meat and bread in the snow. “See, told you. Zero athletic skill.”

  Another girl ran past. Cox’s kid.

  “They’re supposed to be in school, I think. Right? I should go after them. We’re staying at their house. Jillian’s.”

  “They’re just kids, Grant. They’re doing what kids do. Skipping school. Hanging out. Don’t you remember?”

  “Jillian wouldn’t do that.”

  “So run after her. I don’t know.”

  “You think I should? I should. And I should go back to the hospital, right? I’m a jerk to leave her alone.” He tapped his fitness tracker, idly.

  “I thought she had a friend with her.”

  “I’m her husband, Mare.”

  Marie laughed, but there was no pleasure in it. “I’m such an idiot.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I drive all the way up here, like an idiot.”

  “What do you mean?” Grant said.

  “You should be with your wife, Grant.”

  Grant nodded. “You’re right. I know.”

  Marie stood.

  “Where are you going?” he said.

  “What’s up with us, General? Why did you even ask me to come?”

  She was the one who’d offered to come, but it didn’t seem the time to quibble. “Because you’re my friend?”

  “Your friend.”

  They stared at each other.

  “Your fuck buddy,” she said.

  “You’re not . . .”

  “Your ex–fuck buddy.”

  “Stop it.”

  “Your ex–fuck buddy who you call and e-mail every day, and text about a million times a day. How often do you text Suzanne?” She started walking up the hill, toward the road.

  “Where are you going?” He followed her.

  “I love you. You know that, right? I’m such an idiot,” she said, opening the car door.

  “Don’t say that.”

  “That I love you or that I’m an idiot?”

  “We’re pals, Mare. You’re my BFF.” And she was his best friend. His best friend whom he wanted to kiss.

  “You’ve got a wife and one and a half kids, General. It’s time to call it quits. Give me your phone.”

  He gave it to her.

  She borrowed his thumb to unlock it, then started tapping on the screen.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Erasing my number.”

  “No!”

  “We can’t stay in touch. No more texts. No more calls.”

  “I memorized it, so ha.”

  She slapped him, hard, across the cheek. They stared at each other. “O
h my God!” she said. Her hand rushed to her mouth, hiding a laugh.

  Grant touched his cheek.

  “I can’t believe I just did that.”

  “Me neither.” He wiggled his jaw to see if it was broken.

  “Wasn’t it theatrical though? Wasn’t it just right?” She laughed. “I’m sorry.”

  He laughed, too, despite the throbbing. “I guess. I guess it was.”

  She kissed his cheek gently. “I’m sorry. Your face is all hot. And red. Wow. That felt good. I should have done that a long time ago.”

  “The kiss or the slap?”

  She laughed as she got in her car.

  “Don’t go,” he said.

  “I have to. It was the perfect ending. What could we possibly do to top that?”

  He leaned down into the car and kissed her. She tasted like onions. She tasted like summer. She tasted like high school and freedom. They kissed for a long time.

  KAYE CHEWED ON THE ARUGULA IN HER SALAD, FEELING LIKE A COW in a field, munching, munching, munching. She was trying to learn to like it. It was weedy and it was bitter and it was in all the salad bags they sold at the Willard Park Market. She poured on more ranch dressing, hoping it would take the edge off, but it didn’t.

  Carmen had taken off early to go to the doctor, which was fine. Kaye didn’t need the housekeeper to babysit her or anything, but it made lunchtime a heck of a lot lonelier. No matter. She got out a notepad and pen. She had things to do.

  Grant had accepted their offer to move in. Kaye thought she’d have a hard time convincing Nick, but he liked the idea. “It’ll probably piss Ted off,” he’d said, and Kaye didn’t bother to correct him.

  She made a list of things she’d have to do to get ready for their guests: make up beds for the three of them, put out fresh towels, do a grocery run. It felt good to have purposeful work. When she looked up, Lindy was outside the kitchen door, her face muddy. She fought with the doorknob, fury in her eyes.

  “Honey, oh honey!” Kaye unlocked the door.

  Lindy slipped as she came in, practically knocking both of them over. Her jacket and pants were soaked and she was gasping, as if she’d been running. “Are you okay, Lin? What happened? Why aren’t you in school?”

  “I’m hurt, okay?” Lindy snapped. She showed Kaye her wrist. It was bleeding.

  “Oh, sweetheart! What happened?”

  Lindy tossed her jacket on the floor. She opened the refrigerator and drank the Coke straight from the liter bottle. “Jerks,” she said.