by Tom Perrotta
Sansome fouled off the next pitch and the one after that, hanging on for dear life. Gonzo’s next pitch sailed so high over his head that Steve Wiscziewski had to leap out of his crouch to grab it.
“Ball four!” bellowed the umpire. “Take your base!”
The runners advanced as Sansome trotted to first. Hoping to calm Gonzo’s nerves, Steve called time-out and walked out to the mound for a conference. Pete Thorne wandered in from shortstop to put his two cents in. While they chatted, Kevin retreated deeper into the outfield, showing his respect for Tallerico’s power. With Carpe Diem up by three, they could afford to give up a run or two. What he wanted to avoid was a scenario in which the ball sailed over his head, and he had to chase it down and nail a long throw to the relay man to prevent a grand slam.
“Let’s play ball!”
Pete and Steve returned to their positions. Tallerico lumbered up to the plate, tapping the surface with the fat end of his bat, doing an amused double-take when he saw how far away Kevin was standing, maybe ten yards from the edge of the woods. Kevin took off his blue hat and waved it in the air, hailing the big man, inviting him to bring it on.
Gonzo wound up and pitched, dropping a fat one right over the plate. Tallerico just stood there and watched it fall, not the least bit fazed when the ump called strike one. Kevin tried to imagine the conversation he would have to have with Aimee at the breakfast table, wondering how she’d take it, and how he’d feel when it was over. He’d lost so much in the past few years—everyone had—and had worked so hard to stay strong and keep a positive attitude, not only for himself, but also for Jill, and for his friends and neighbors, and for everybody else in town. For Nora, too—especially for Nora, though that hadn’t worked out so well. And right now he was feeling the weight of all those losses, and the weight of the years that were behind him, and the weight of the ones that were still ahead, however many there might be—three or four, twenty or thirty, maybe more. He was attracted to Aimee, sure—he was willing to admit that much—but he didn’t want to sleep with her, not really, not in the real world. What he was going to miss was her smile in the morning, and the hopeful feeling she gave him, the conviction that fun was still possible, that you were more than the sum of what had been taken from you. It was hard to think about giving that up, especially when there was nothing waiting to replace it.
The chink of the aluminum bat snapped him out of his reverie. He saw the flash of the ball as it rose, then lost it in the sun. Raising his bare hand to shield his eyes, he stumbled backward, then a little bit to the right, instinctively calibrating the trajectory of an object he couldn’t see. It must have been a towering shot, because it seemed for a second or two that the ball had left the earth’s atmosphere and wouldn’t be coming down. And then he saw it, a bright speck streaking across the sky, arcing downward. He lifted his arm and opened his glove. The ball dropped into the pocket with a resounding smack, as if it had been heading there the whole time and was happy to reach its destination.
* * *
JILL ASKED if she should wear white to the sleepover, but Ms. Maffey told her it wasn’t necessary.
Just bring yourself and a sleeping bag, she wrote. Things are pretty casual at the Guest House. And don’t worry about the Vow of Silence. We can talk in whispers. It’ll be fun!
As a gesture of when-in-Rome goodwill, Jill picked out a stretchy white T-shirt to wear with her jeans, and then packed an overnight bag with pajamas, a change of underwear, and a few toiletries. At the last second, she added an envelope containing a dozen family photographs—a sort of rough draft of a Memory Book—just in case her visit lasted longer than a single night.
Aimee wasn’t usually home in the evenings, but Jill had heard her moving around in the guest room, so she wasn’t all that surprised to go downstairs and find her sitting on the living room couch. What did surprise her were the suitcases flanking Aimee’s feet, matching blue canvas wheelbags that Jill’s parents had bought when Tom was still in high school, when the whole family went to Tuscany for spring vacation.
“Going somewhere?” she asked, conscious of the rolled-up sleeping bag dangling from her own hand. They could have been taking a trip together, waiting for a ride to the airport.
“I’m leaving,” Aimee explained. “It’s about time I got out of your hair.”
“Oh.” Jill nodded for longer than necessary, waiting for the meaning of Aimee’s words to sink in. “My dad didn’t tell me.”
“He doesn’t know.” Aimee’s smile lacked its usual confidence. “It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing.”
“You’re not going home, are you? Back to your stepfather’s?”
“God, no.” Aimee sounded horrified by the thought. “I’m never going back there.”
“So where…?”
“There’s a girl I met at work. Mimi. She’s pretty cool. She lives with her parents, but it’s like a separate basement apartment. She says it’s okay if I crash there for a while.”
“Wow.” Jill felt a twinge of jealousy. She remembered how amazing it had been when Aimee first moved in, the two of them as close as sisters, their lives all tangled together. “Good for you.”
Aimee shrugged; it was hard to tell if she was proud of herself or embarrassed. “That’s what I do, right? I make friends with people at work and then I move into their houses. Then I stay for way longer than I should.”
“It was fun,” Jill murmured. “We were happy to have you.”
“What about you?” Aimee wondered. “Where you off to?”
“Just—to a friend’s,” Jill said after a brief hesitation. “No one you know.”
Aimee nodded indifferently, no longer curious about the details of Jill’s social life. Her eyes took a nostalgic tour of the living room—the wide-screen TV, the comfy sectional, the painting of a humble shack illuminated by a streetlight.
“I really liked it here,” she said. “This was the best place I ever lived.”
“You don’t have to go, you know.”
“It’s time,” Aimee told her. “I probably should’ve left a few months ago.”
“My dad’s gonna miss you. You really cheered him up.”
“I’m gonna write him a letter,” Aimee promised, speaking to Jill’s feet instead of her face. “Just tell him I said thanks for everything, okay?”
“Sure.”
It felt to Jill like there was something else that needed to be said, but she couldn’t think of what it was, and Aimee wasn’t helping. They were both relieved when a horn sounded outside.
“That’s my ride.”
Aimee stood up and looked at Jill. She seemed to be trying to smile.
“I guess this is it.”
“I guess so.”
Aimee stepped forward, reaching out for a farewell hug. Jill responded as best she could with her one free hand. The horn sounded again.
“Last summer?” Aimee said. “You kinda saved my life.”
“It was the other way around,” Jill assured her.
Aimee laughed softly and hefted up her luggage.
“I’m just borrowing these. I’ll bring them back in a few days.”
“Whenever,” Jill replied. “There’s no rush.”
She stood in the doorway and watched her former best friend in the world roll the suitcases out to a blue Mazda waiting by the curb. Aimee opened the back hatch, stowed the bags, and then turned to wave goodbye. Jill felt an emptiness open inside of her as she lifted her arm, a sense that something vital was being subtracted from her life. It was always like that when somebody you cared about went away, even when you knew it was inevitable, and it probably wasn’t your fault.
* * *
UNBELIEVABLE, TOM thought as he drove down Washington Boulevard for the first time in more than two years. It looks exactly the same.
He wasn’t sure why this bothered him. Maybe just because he’d changed so much since the last time he’d been home, he figured that Mapleton should have changed, too. But e
verything was right where it was supposed to be—the Safeway, Big Mike’s Discount Shoes, Taco Bell, Walgreens, that ugly green tower looming over the Burger King, bristling with cell phone antennae and satellite dishes. And then that other landscape, when he turned off the main drag onto the quiet streets where people actually lived, the suburban dreamworld of perfect lawns and groomed shrubbery, tipped-over tricycles and little insecticide flags, their yellow banners hanging limp in the evening doldrums.
“We’re almost there,” he told the baby.
It was just the two of them now, and she’d been sleeping the whole way. They’d waited around the rest area for a half hour, in case Christine decided to turn up, but that was just a formality. He knew she was gone, had known it the moment he returned from the bathroom and found the baby girl alone in the car, buckled into her little seat, gazing up at him with glassy, reproachful eyes. And, even worse, Tom knew it was his own fault: He’d spooked Christine, shoving the child into her arms like that, when she clearly wasn’t ready.
He searched the car, but there was no note, no apology, not a word of thanks or explanation, not even a simple goodbye to the loyal friend who’d supported and protected her when no one else would, her cross-country traveling companion and almost-boyfriend, surrogate father to her child. He scoured the parking lot, too, but found no trace of her, or of the van full of Barefoot People headed for the Poconos.
Once the initial shock subsided, he tried to convince himself that it was all for the best, that his life would be easier without her. She was just dead weight in the car, one more burden he had to carry from place to place, every bit as selfish and demanding as the infant she’d abandoned, and a lot harder to satisfy. He’d been kidding himself, thinking she was going to wake up one morning and suddenly realize that she was better off with him than she would’ve been with Mr. Gilchrest.
You missed out, he thought. I was the one who loved you.
But that was the problem, the one his mind kept returning to as he steered the BMW toward the place that used to be home: He loved her and she was gone. It hurt to think of her rolling down the highway in that van full of Barefoot kids, all of them talking about the big party, all the crazy fun they would have. Christine probably wasn’t even listening, just sitting there thinking how good it was to be free, away from the baby and from Tom, too, the two people who couldn’t help reminding her of everything that had gone wrong, and what a fool she’d been.
It hurt him even more to think of her emerging from the fog a week or maybe a month down the road, discovering that the worst was over, that she could laugh and dance again, maybe even hook up with some lucky stoned idiot. And where would Tom be? Back home in Mapleton with his father and sister, raising a child who wasn’t even his, still pining for a girl who’d left him at a rest stop in Connecticut? Was that where his long journey was going to deposit him? Right back where he started, just with a bullseye on his forehead and a dirty diaper in his hand?
The sun had set by the time he turned onto Lovell Terrace, but the sky was still a deep blue above his family’s big white house.
“Little baby,” he said. “What am I gonna do with you?”
* * *
DON’T HESITATE. That was guideline number one. The martyr’s exit should be swift and painless.
“Come on,” Meg pleaded. She was leaning against a brick wall beneath an outdoor staircase at Bailey Elementary, her chest rising and falling with each ragged breath. The barrel of the gun was only an inch or so from her temple.
“Just a second,” Laurie said. “My hand’s shaking.”
“It’s all right,” Meg reminded her. “You’re doing me a favor.”
Laurie took a deep calming breath. You can do this. She was prepared. She’d learned how to shoot the gun and had faithfully performed the visualization exercises included in the instructional memo.
Squeeze the trigger. Imagine a flash of golden light transporting the martyr directly to heaven.
“I don’t know why I’m so nervous,” she said. “I took a double dose of the Ativan.”
“Don’t think about it,” Meg reminded her. “Just do it and walk away.”
That was Laurie’s mantra for the evening, her task in a nutshell: Do it and walk away. A car would be waiting at the corner of Elm and Lakewood. She didn’t know where they were taking her, only that it would be far from Mapleton and very peaceful there.
“I’m gonna count down from ten,” Meg told her. “Don’t let me get to one.”
The pistol was small and silver, with a black plastic grip. It wasn’t that heavy, but it took all of Laurie’s strength to hold it steady.
“Ten … nine…”
She glanced over her shoulder, making sure the schoolyard was empty. When they’d arrived a couple of adolescent girls were gossiping on the swings, but Laurie and Meg had stared at them until they left.
“Eight … seven…”
Meg’s eyes were closed, her face tense with anticipation.
“Six…”
Laurie told her finger to move, but her finger wouldn’t obey.
“Five…”
She’d gone to all that trouble to tear herself away from her family and friends, to withdraw from the world, to move beyond earthly comfort and human attachments. She’d left her husband, abandoned her daughter, shut her mouth, surrendered herself to God and the G.R.
“Four…”
It was hard, but she’d done it. It was as if she’d reached up with her own hand and plucked out one of her eyes, no anesthetic, no regret.
“Three…”
She’d made herself into a different person, tougher and more submissive at the same time. A servant without desire, with nothing to lose, ready to obey God’s will, to come when called.
“Two…”
But then Meg had shown up, and they’d spent all that time together, and now she was right back where she’d started—weak and sentimental, full of doubt and longing.
“One…”
Meg clenched her teeth, preparing for the inevitable. After a few seconds went by, she opened her eyes. Laurie saw a flicker of relief in her face, and then a flood of annoyance.
“Goddammit,” she snapped.
“I’m sorry.” Laurie lowered the gun. “I can’t do it.”
“You have to. You promised.”
“But you’re my friend.”
“I know.” Meg’s voice was softer now. “That’s why I need you to help me. So I won’t have to do it myself.”
“You don’t have to do it at all.”
“Laurie,” Meg groaned. “Why are you making this so hard?”
“Because I’m weak,” Laurie admitted. “I don’t want to lose you.”
Meg held out her hand.
“Give me the gun.”
She spoke with such calm authority, such utter faith in the mission, that Laurie felt a kind of awe, and even a certain amount of pride. It was hard to believe that this was the frightened young woman who’d cried herself to sleep her first night in Blue House, the Trainee who couldn’t breathe in the supermarket.
“I love you,” Laurie whispered as she handed over the pistol.
“I love you, too,” Meg said, but there was an odd flatness in her voice, as if her soul had already left her body, as if it hadn’t bothered to wait for the deafening explosion a moment later, and that imaginary flash of golden light.
* * *
NORA KNEW it was ridiculous, walking all the way across town to deliver a letter she could just as easily have dropped into a mailbox, but it was a beautiful evening, and she didn’t have anything else to do. At least this way she’d know for sure that the letter hadn’t gotten lost or delayed by the Post Office. She could just cross it off her list and move on to the next task. That was the real point of this exercise—to do something, to stop procrastinating and take a small concrete step in the right direction.
Leaving town and starting a new life was turning out to be a bigger challenge than she’d expecte
d. She’d had that manic burst of energy last week—that exhilarating vision of her blond pseudonymous future—but it had faded quickly, replaced by an all-too-familiar inertia. She couldn’t think of a new name for her new self, couldn’t decide where she wanted to go, hadn’t called the lawyer or the real estate broker to arrange for the sale of her house. All she’d done was ride her bike until her legs ached and her fingers went numb, and her mind was too tired to put up a fight.
It was the prospect of selling the house that had tripped her up. She needed to get rid of it, she understood that, not just for the money, but for the psychological freedom that would come with leaving it behind, the bright line between before and after. But how could she do that when it was the only home her kids had ever known, the first place they’d go if they ever came back. She knew they weren’t coming back, of course—at least she thought she knew that—but this knowledge didn’t stop her from tormenting herself, letting herself imagine the disappointment and bewilderment they’d feel—the sense of abandonment—when a stranger answered the door instead of their own mother.
I can’t do that to them, she thought.
Just this afternoon, though, she’d hit on a solution. Instead of selling the house, she could rent it through an agency, make sure someone knew how to get in touch with her in the event of a miracle. It wasn’t the clean break she’d been fantasizing about—she’d probably have to keep using her own name, for one thing, at least for the rental agreement—but it was a compromise she could live with. Tomorrow morning she’d head down to Century 21 and work out the details.
She picked up the pace as she neared Lovell Terrace. The sky was dimming, the night settling in on its lazy warm weather schedule. Kevin’s softball game would be over soon—she’d made sure to check the online schedule—and she wanted to be far away from this neighborhood by the time he got back. She had no desire to see him or talk to him, didn’t want to be reminded of what a nice guy he was, or how much she enjoyed his company. There was nothing to be gained from that, not anymore.
She hesitated for a moment in front of his house. She’d never been there before—she’d made a point of staying away—and was startled by the size of it, a three-story colonial set way back from the street, with a gently sloping lawn big enough for a game of touch football. There was a small arched roof over the front entrance, a bronze mailbox mounted beside the door.