“I’m sorry,” he said softly, and I was unnerved by how solemn he sounded, how serious. As if he’d found that map after all and was dangerously close, circling.
“It’s nothing,” I said.
He was quiet for a second, and I had a flash of his face earlier that night, caught unaware by Don’s pronouncements, and the vulnerability I’d seen there. It had unsettled me, because I was used to the Dexter I liked, the funny guy with the skinny waist and the fingers that pressed against my neck just so. In just seconds I’d seen another shade of him, and if it had been light where we were now, he’d have seen the same of me. So I was grateful, as I had been so often in my life, for the dark.
I rolled over and pressed myself into the pillow, listening to the sound of my own breathing. I heard him move, a soft noise as the guitar was put down, and next his arms were around me, circling my back, his face against my shoulder. He was so close to me in that moment, too close, but I had never pushed a guy away for that. If anything I pulled them nearer, taking them in, as I did now, sure in my belief that knowing me that well would easily be enough to scare them away.
Chapter Ten
“I mean, God,” Lissa said, stopping in front of a huge display of bedsheets, “who knows the difference between a duvet and a comforter?”
We were in Linens Etc., armed with Lissa’s mom’s gold card, the list of items that the university suggested for all incoming freshmen, and a letter from Lissa’s future roommate, a girl named Delia from Boca Raton, Florida. She’d already been in contact so that she and Lissa could color-coordinate their bed linens, discuss who should bring what in the way of televisions, microwaves, and wall hangings, and just to “break the ice” so that by August, when classes started, they’d already “be like sisters.” If Lissa wasn’t already glum about starting college post-Adam, this letter—written on pink stationery in silver ink, and spewing forth glitter when she pulled it from the envelope—had pretty much done her in.“A duvet,” I told her, stopping to eye a stack of thick purple towels, “is a cover for a comforter, usually a down comforter. And a comforter is just a glorified quilt.”
She crossed her eyes at me, sighed, and pushed some hair out of her face. Lately she’d just seemed cranky all the time, defeated, as if at the age of eighteen life already sucked beyond any hope of improvement.
“I’m supposed to get a comforter in a purple/pink hue,” she said, reading off Delia’s letter. “And sheets to match. And a bed ruffle, whatever the hell that is.”
“It goes around the base of the bed,” I explained. “To cover the legs and provide a sort of color continuity, all the way to the floor.”
She looked at me, eyebrows raised. “Color continuity?” she asked.
“My mother bought a new bedroom suite a few years back,” I said, taking the list out of her hand. “I got an entire education in thread count sheets and Egyptian cotton.”
Lissa stopped the cart next to a display of plastic wastebas kets, picking up a lime green one with blue trim. “I should get this,” she told me, turning it in her hands, “just because it will so clash with her predetermined scheme. In fact, I should pick the most butt-ugly furnishings as a complete protest against her assumption that I would just go along with whatever she said.”
I glanced around: butt ugly was entirely possible at Linens Etc., which carried not only lime green trash cans but also leopard-patterned tissue holders, framed prints of kittens frolicking with puppies, and bath mats shaped like feet. “Lissa,” I said gently, “maybe we shouldn’t do this today.”
“We have to,” she grumbled, grabbing a pack of sheets—the wrong size, and bright red—off a nearby shelf and tossing them into the cart. “I’m seeing Delia at orientation next week and I’m sure she’ll want a freaking update.”
I picked up the red sheets and put them back on the shelf while she pouted around the toothbrush holders, completely un-enthused. “Lissa, is this really how you want to start college? With a totally shit attitude?”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, yeah, well that’s easy for you to say, Miss Going-across-the-Country-Free-and Clear-No-Problems. You’ll be out in sunny California, windsurfing and eating sushi while I’m stuck here in the same place I’ve always been, watching Adam date his way through the entire freshman class.”
“Windsurfing and sushi?” I said. “At the same time?”
“You know what I mean!” she snapped, and a woman pricing a stack of washcloths glanced over at us. Lissa lowered her voice and added, “I might not even go to school anyway. I might defer and join the Peace Corps and go to Africa and shave my head and dig latrines.”
“Shave your head?” I said, because, really, this was the most ludicrous part of the whole thing. “You? Do you have any idea how ugly most people’s bare heads are? They’ve got all kinds of bumps, Lissa. And you won’t know until it’s too late and you’re flat-out bald.”
“You’re not even listening to me!” she said. “It’s always been so easy for you, Remy. So gorgeous and confident and smart. No guy ever dumped you and left you shattered.”
“That’s not true,” I said in a level voice. “And you know it.”
She paused at this, as our shared history caught up with her. Okay, so maybe I was known for having the upper hand in my relationships, but there was a reason for that. She didn’t know what happened that night at Albert’s, within shouting distance of her own bedroom window. But since then, I’d been stomped on my fair share. Even Jonathan had caught me unaware.
“I planned my whole future around Adam,” she said now, quietly. “And now I have nothing.”
“No,” I told her, “now you just don’t have Adam. There’s a big difference, Lissa. You just can’t see it yet.”
She harrumphed at this, yanking a cow-print Kleenex box cover off the shelf and adding it to the cart. “I can see that everyone else is doing exactly what they wanted with the rest of their lives. They’re all at the gate, pawing the dirt and ready to run, and I’ve already got a lame leg and am this close to being taken around back of the stable to be put out of my misery.”
“Sweetie,” I said, trying to be patient, “we’ve only been out of high school a month. This isn’t even the real world yet. It’s just in-between time.”
“Well, I hate it here,” she snapped, gesturing all around her, including not only Linens Etc. but the world itself, “in between or not. Give me high school any day. I’d go back in a second, if I could.”
“It’s too early for nostalgia,” I told her. “Really.”
We walked along the main aisle toward the miniblind section, not talking. As she grumbled over curtains I walked over to the clearance section, where summer picnic ware was on special, one day only. There were plastic plates in all colors, and cutlery with clear handles, forks with metallic prongs. I picked up a set of tumblers decorated with pink flamingoes: definitely butt ugly.
But I was thinking of the yellow house, where the only dish-ware consisted of one ceramic plate, a few mismatched forks and knives, some gas-station freebie coffee mugs, and whatever paper goods Ted had managed to score from the damaged bin at Mayor’s Market. It was the only time I’d ever heard someone ask, “Can you grab me the spoon?” as opposed to “a spoon,” which at least connoted there was more than one. And here, on bargain special, was an entire plastic, blue-handled set of cutlery—a virtual plethora of flatware—for only $6.99. I picked them up and put them in the cart without even thinking.
About ten seconds later, it hit me. What was I doing? Buying flatware for a guy? For a boyfriend? It was as if I, like my brother, had been suddenly brainwashed by aliens. What kind of girl purchases housewares for someone she has hardly been dating for a month? Psycho desperate-to-get-married-and-pop-out-babies types, that’s who, I told myself, shuddering at the thought. I threw the cutlery set back onto the table with such speed it crashed into a stack of dolphin-patterned plates, causing a commotion loud enough to distract Lissa from the reading lamps.
&nb
sp; Calm down, I told myself, taking in a deep breath, then promptly spitting it out, since everything in Linens Etc. stank of scented candles.
“Remy?” Lissa said. She was holding a green lamp. “You okay?”
I nodded, and she went back to browsing. At least she was feeling better: the lamp did match the trash can.
I pushed the cart through hand towels, storage supplies, and halfway into candles—where the smell became a stench—all the while reminding myself that everything does not necessarily have a Greater Meaning. It was just a bargain set of plastic ware, for God’s sake, not a promise ring. This settled me somewhat, even as the more rational part of my mind reminded me that never, in the course of oh, say, fifteen relationships since junior high school, had I ever had the urge to buy a boyfriend anything more permanent than a Zip Coke. Even at birthdays and Christmas I kept to my basic gifts, stuff like shirts and CDs, things that would eventually go out of style. Not like plastic picnic ware, which would probably be around to greet the roaches after the final nuclear holocaust. Plus, if you really went deep into the meaning of gifts, dishes equaled food, food equaled sustenance, and sustenance equaled life, which meant that by giving even one plastic fork I was basically saying I wanted to take care of Dexter forever and ever, amen. Yikes.
On the way to the checkout, Lissa and I passed the clearance table again. She picked up a retro-looking alarm clock. “This is cute,” she said. “And look at those plastic plates and silverware. Maybe I could use those for when we fix stuff in the room.”
“Maybe,” I said, shrugging and ignoring the table as if it was someone I’d dated.
“But what if I didn’t use it?” she went on, in the voice I recognized as Lissa entering Prime Indecisive Mode. “I mean, it’s only seven bucks, right? And it’s cute. But I probably don’t have room for it, anyway.”
“Probably not,” I said, starting to push the cart again.
She didn’t move, the alarm clock in one hand, fingering the cute plastic pouch the cutlery came in. “It’s really cute, though,” she said. “And it would be better than using takeout stuff all the time. But still, it’s a lot of silverware, I mean it’ll only be me and Delia . . .”
This time I didn’t say anything. All I could smell were those candles.
“. . . but maybe we’d have other people in sometimes, you know, for pizza or whatever?” She sighed. “No, forget it, it’s just an impulse thing, I don’t need it.”
I started to push the cart again, and she took a couple of steps. Two, to be exact.
“On the other hand,” she said, then stopped talking. A sigh. Then, “No, forget it—”
“God!” I said, reaching behind me and grabbing the plastic pouch, stuffing it into the cart. “I’ll buy it. Let’s just go, okay?”
She looked at me, wide-eyed. “Do you want it, though? Because I’m not really sure I’ll use it—”
“Yes,” I said loudly. “I want it. I need it. Let’s go.”
“Well, okay,” Lissa said, somewhat uncertainly. “If you really need it.”
Later, when I dropped her off, I told her to make sure she took everything, even the plastic ware. But in typical fashion, she cleaned out every bag from my trunk except one. I promptly forgot about it, that is until a few nights later, when Dexter and I were unloading some groceries he’d bought for the yellow house—peanut butter, bread, orange juice, and Doritos—from my car. He grabbed all his bags, then was about to shut the trunk when he stopped and leaned over.
“What’s this?” he asked, pulling out a white plastic shopping bag, knotted neatly at the top—I’d taught Lissa well—so that its contents wouldn’t spill.
“Nothing,” I said quickly, trying to take it from him.
“Wait, wait,” he said, holding it out of my reach. The peanut butter fell out of one of his other bags, rolling across the yard, but he ignored this, too intrigued by what I didn’t want him to see. “What is it?”
“Something I bought for myself,” I said curtly, grabbing for it again. No luck. He was too tall, and his arms too long.
“Is it a secret?”
“Yes.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
He shook the bag slightly, listening to the sound it made. “Doesn’t sound secret,” he decided.
“What does secret sound like?” I asked. Idiot. “Give it here.”
“Like tampons,” he told me, shaking it again. “This doesn’t sound like tampons.”
I glared at him, and he handed it over, as if now he didn’t want to find out. He walked across the grass to pick up the peanut butter, wiping it on his shirt—of course—and chucking it back into the bag.
“If you must know,” I said, as if it was absolutely no big deal whatsoever, “it’s just this plastic ware I bought at Linens Etc.”
He thought about this. “Plastic ware.”
“Yes. It was on sale.”
We stood there. From inside the yellow house, I could hear the TV, and someone laughing. Monkey was standing on the other side of the screen door, watching us, his tail going full speed.
“Plastic ware,” he said slowly, “like knives and forks and spoons?”
I brushed a bit of dirt off the back of my car—was that a scratch?—and said casually, “Yeah, I guess. Just the basics, you know.”
“Did you need plastic ware?” he asked.
I shrugged.
“Because,” he went on, and I fought the urge to squirm, “it’s so funny, because I need plastic ware. Badly.”
“Can we go inside, please?” I asked, slamming the trunk shut. “It’s hot out here.”
He looked at the bag again, then at me. And then, slowly, the smile I knew and dreaded crept across his face. “You bought me plastic ware,” he said. “Didn’t you?’
“No,” I growled, picking at my license plate.
“You did!” he hooted, laughing out loud. “You bought me some forks. And knives. And spoons. Because—”
“No,” I said loudly.
“—you love me!” He grinned, as if he’d solved the puzzler for all time, as I felt a flush creep across my face. Stupid Lissa. I could have killed her.
“It was on sale,” I told him again, as if this was some kind of an excuse.
“You love me,” he said simply, taking the bag and adding it to the others.
“Only seven bucks,” I added, but he was already walking away, so sure of himself. “It was on clearance, for God’s sake.”
“Love me,” he called out over his shoulder, in a singsong voice. “You. Love. Me.”
I stood there in the front yard, at the bottom of the stairs, feeling for the first time in a long while that things were completely out of my control. How had I let this happen? Years of CDs and sweaters, interchangeable gifts, and now one set of picnic ware and I totally lose the upper hand. It seemed impossible.
Dexter walked up the front steps to the door, Monkey bursting forth and bustling around, sniffing at the bags, until they both went inside and the door slammed shut behind them. Something told me, as I stood there, that I should just turn around, go back to my car, and drive home as fast as possible, then lock every door and window and hunker down to protect my dignity. Or my sanity. So many times it seemed like there were chances to stop things before they started. Or even stop them in midstream. But it was even worse when you knew at that very moment that there was still time to save yourself, and yet you couldn’t even budge.
The door swung open again, and there was Monkey, panting. Above him, dangling past the doorframe from the left, was one hand, fingers gripping a bright blue fork, wiggling it around suggestively, as if it was some kind of signal, spelling out messages in supersecret spy code. What was it saying? What did it mean? Did I even care anymore?
The fork kept wiggling, beckoning. Last chance, I thought.
I sighed out loud, and started up the steps.
There were certain ways to tell that my mother was getting close to finishing a novel. Fi
rst, she’d start working at all hours, not just her set schedule of noon to four. Then I’d start waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of her typewriter, and look out my window to see the light spilling in long, slanting squares from her study onto the side yard. She’d also start talking to herself as she wrote, under her breath. It wasn’t loud enough to really make out what she was saying, but at times it sounded like there were two people in there, one dictating and one just rushing to get it down, one clackety-clacking line at a time. And finally, the most revealing sign of all, always a dead giveaway: when she hit her stride, and the words came so easily she had to fight to hold them back long enough to get them on the page, she always put on the Beatles, and they sang her to her epilogue.
I was on my way down for breakfast in the middle of July, rubbing my eyes, when I stopped at the top of the stairs and listened. Yep. Paul McCartney, his voice high, something from the early years.The lizard room door opened behind me and Chris came out, in his work uniform, carrying a few empty jars of baby food, one of the daily diet staples of the lizards. He cocked his head to the side, shutting the door behind him. “Sounds like that album with the Norwegian song on it,” he said.
“Nope,” I told him, starting down the stairs. “It’s that one where they’re all in the window, looking down.”
He nodded, and fell into step behind me. When we reached the kitchen we saw the bead curtain was drawn across the entryway to the study, and beyond it Paul’s voice had given way to John Lennon’s. I walked over and peered through the curtain, impressed by the stack of paper on the desk beside her and one burned-out candle. She had to have had two hundred pages, at least. When she was rolling, nothing could stop her.
I turned back into the kitchen and pushed aside two empty cans of Ensure—I was determined not to clean up after Don, although I was tested daily—before fixing myself a bowl of oatmeal with bananas and a big cup of coffee. Then I sat down, my back to the naked woman on the wall, and pulled the family calendar—a freebie from Don Davis Motors, featuring Don himself smiling in front of a shiny 4Runner—off the wall.