Love, Stargirl

  Her mouth twisted as if she had just bitten into a bug. “How should I know?”

  July 19

  I’m telling you this, Leo, because:

  1. You’ll never wind up reading this World’s Longest Letter anyway, so it won’t make any difference.

  Or…

  2. You will read it, which means you and I would be together, because there’s no way I will mail this to you—you may receive it only from my loving hands. Which cannot happen unless we are together in the same room, and I will never again be in the same room with you unless I know that we will be together forever. If that’s the case, then, again, it won’t make any difference.

  So…

  I missed planting this week’s marker at Calendar Hill (that’s what I call it now). No, my alarm clock isn’t broken. It woke me up on time today. I just never made it out of bed. I had been dreaming. I dreamed I was sitting atop one of the stone piles when Arnold came shuffling by. He was saying something, but it was low and mumbled and I could not understand. I called down, “What did you say?” No answer. He just kept walking. “Please!” I called. But he kept walking, and the farther he went, the louder I called. “Please!” At last he came to the canal and jumped in. I ran after him, stood at the edge, peering into the dark waters. I could see a shadow moving, and I knew that it wasn’t Arnold anymore, it was someone, or something, else, and I wanted to jump in but I was afraid because I knew that once I entered the water I would drown and become a moving shadow myself.

  That’s when the alarm went off. I awoke clenched and sweating. I felt relieved and not relieved, because I knew that the dark moving shadow was Perry, and Perry was Ondine and Ondine was Perry, and to prolong a dream moment that was both delicious and dreadful, I chewed time like a wad of bubble gum and stretched it across the darkness all the way to dawn, when the light at the edge of my window told me I was too late to greet the sunrise.

  July 23

  No dream water today, but real, from the sky: rain! Breaking the heat wave. The grass gave a standing ovation. The flowers cheered.

  We were eating Rice Krispies squares in Betty Lou’s kitchen—Cinnamon was licking the marshmallow from his own piece—when Dootsie pointed and said, “Night!” We turned to the window. The sky was almost black. Distant rolling rumbles. Lightning flashed white in the kitchen.

  (I had a goofy thought: Did God just take our picture?) Thunder whacked us. Cinnamon flew into my lap. Dootsie bolted for the back door. I caught her before she got outside.

  The violence was over in twenty minutes, but the rain muttered on. Dootsie and I kicked off our shoes and danced in the backyard. We tried to get Cinnamon to dance with us, but he is not fond of water. He scooted under a hydrangea leaf and watched us from there. Betty Lou watched from the screen door. Dootsie and I were holding hands and twirling ourselves dizzy at the end of the yard when Betty Lou shrieked: “Be careful! My night-blooming cereus!” I stopped and looked. The nearest plant rose out of a large, brick-colored clay pot: a gray, woody, spiny vine curling up a broomstick pole. It came up to my shoulder. I remembered that I had first seen it inside the house, by the living room window. “This?” I said.

  “Yes. It’s my pride and joy. Don’t knock into it.”

  When we came back in, she made us get out of our wet clothes and into bathrobes. Staying inside 24/7 as she does, Betty Lou has lots of bathrobes in her closet. Dootsie looked as if some blue, furry carnivore had swallowed all but her head.

  Betty Lou told us about the potted plant:

  “It blooms only at night. And only one night each year. That’s all. Then it’s gone for another year. In fact, mine doesn’t even bloom every year. It hasn’t bloomed for two years now. See, it’s a cactus. It belongs in the desert, not here in Pennsylvania. It misses its home. It comes inside for the winter. My neighbor Mr. Levanthal lugs it in and out for me.”

  She looked longingly out the window. “My night-blooming cereus.” She sighed. “Such a wonderful scent. Like vanilla. It’s almost intoxicating. You have to hold on to something or you’ll faint from the fragrance.”

  “What’s all that mean?” said Dootsie.

  “It means it smells good, honey,” said Betty Lou. She looked at me sadly. “It used to be the sweet center of my life. Now it’s bittersweet.”

  I could guess why, but I asked anyway. “How so?”

  Another sigh. “I used to be able to tell when it was going to bloom. I would observe the bud closely every day.” She chuckled. “I felt like its mother. When I knew it was coming—tonight!—I would call the neighbors and we would all gather in the backyard at sunset and have champagne and wait and watch through the night as the petals unfolded and the fragrance filled the air, and we simply stood there as silently as if it were a church and soaked it in, imprinting the rare, fleeting sight in our memories. Sometimes we could actually hear the moths fluttering around us.”

  “Moths?” I said.

  “Oh yes. Many of them. Night-blooming cereus is pollinated by moths. I believe they, like us humans, are also attracted by the fragrance. Or maybe it’s the white petals of the flower.”

  “Only one night,” I said.

  She nodded. “Only one night. Well before sunrise the petals are already drooping, the blossom is dying.”

  We didn’t speak for a while. The only sound was the click click of Cinnamon’s hind feet toenails on the tabletop as Dootsie held him upright by his tiny hands, trying to teach him how to dance.

  “Ironic,” Betty Lou said at last. “The cereus insists on sunlight—that’s why it must be at the end of the yard. And yet it saves its flower for the moon. The sun never sees what it fathers.”

  “It takes from the day,” I said, “gives to the night.”

  She patted my hand. “Very good. You should be a writer.” She went to the screen door. The rain had stopped. “Sun’s trying to come out,” she said. She took a deep breath. “Ahh…I’m not so crazy that I can’t appreciate a breath of fresh air. Come here, Stargirl.” I went to her. “Look at this yard, how drab it is. There used to be an old lady in a hamburger commercial, she would complain, ‘Where’s the beef?’ Well, I say, ‘Where’s the flowers?’” She wagged her head forlornly. “Oh, girls”—she turned and nodded at Cinnamon—“pardon me—oh, girls and boy, if only you could have seen my garden before I came inside to stay. It was a showpiece, if I do say so myself. I used to catch people standing at the back fence, looking in. But what’s a garden”—she turned away and closed the door—“without a gardener?”

  July 25

  I saw Arnold ahead of me on the sidewalk today. Two little boys were sneaking up behind him. One reached out and tugged the hem of his peacoat and both yelped, “Gotcha!” and ran. I had this sense that I was watching a play on a stage, that I could come back here day after day and see the same thing. As the boys ran toward me their eyes went buggy with fright—they saw me as a grown-up who was going to holler at them. Just before they got to me they veered off across the street, laughing and pointing at each other: “He did it!…He did it!”

  I wanted to call after them: “It’s okay! You’re just being kids! He’s just being Arnold! It’s all part of the play!”

  July 27

  There’s a banner across Bridge Street. Blood-red with black trembly letters:

  THE BLOB IS COMING!

  The Blob is a sci-fi movie from the 1950s. They say it’s a cult classic. Part of it was filmed right here at the Colonial Theatre. So every year now they have the Blobfest. No Queens or string bands for this festival. During the day there’s a kind of block party downtown—the Blue Comet grills Blob Burgers on the sidewalk—but mostly this is a nighttime event. The townspeople go to the Colonial and watch the original movie. There’s no candy or popcorn for sale in the lobby. Instead, Margie sets up shop and hands out Blobbogobs, which are dollops of fried dough that she makes a creepy red with food coloring. The theater is so crowded that people are sitting in the aisles, which makes the fire chief nervo
us, so the doors are kept open and a fire truck is parked in front of the marquee.

  Then they show the movie. The Blob is this alien, dark red glob of goo that lands on earth and terrorizes a small town. It sounds to me—remember, I haven’t seen it yet—like the Stomach from Outer Space. It just sort of slimes from place to place and oozes onto people until the people are inside of it and it’s digesting them. I’m told it’s actually more funny than disgusting because the special effects in 1958 were not very convincing. But don’t tell that to the little kids in the audience, who are screaming away. And because of what’s coming, the grown-ups talk themselves into being scared too. Everybody wants to be in the right mood, because what the Blobfest is, more than anything else, is a reenactment.

  The climactic scene was filmed in the Colonial Theatre itself—right where the people are sitting. The Blob oozes into the projection room and digests the projection man. Then it starts oozing out through the projection room windows. Somebody in the audience looks up and sees it, and before you know it the whole audience is racing, screaming out of the theater into the street. That’s the moment that appears on Blob posters all over town—the screamers running from the theater—and that’s the scene that the audience a month from now will reenact.

  Dootsie told me long ago that I’m taking her. She’s already practicing her scream.

  July 28

  How do you know him?

  He comes in sometimes.

  You mean to Margie’s?

  Yeah.

  I don’t usually go to Margie’s on a Saturday. Today I did. He wasn’t there.

  I listen to the summer symphony outside my window. Truthfully, it’s not a symphony at all. There’s no tune, no melody, only the same notes over and over. Chirps and tweets and trills and burples. It’s as if the insect orchestra is forever tuning their instruments, forever waiting for the maestro to tap his baton and bring them to order. I, for one, hope the maestro never comes. I love the musical mess of it.

  Every day now I stop by Betty Lou’s backyard and check the night-blooming cereus. The bud is very long. It reminds me of a giant string bean. It seems fatter, more swollen, with each passing day. And the days are hot and dry again, as if Arizona is visiting. I think of the flower in the bud: huddled, compressed, dark. Yet somehow it feels the night, knows moon from sun. It waits…waits.

  We never heard the crickets together, Leo. I never saw the moon in your eyes. If you ever kiss me again at night, I’m going to take a peek.

  I’m lonely.

  July 29

  Color now on the end of the bud. White tinged with pink. Feathered, layered, sleeping petals. A miniature swan about to be born.

  I groomed two gardens today. I’ve never seen a night-blooming cereus anywhere but Betty Lou’s.

  July 31

  I hadn’t meant to fall asleep. I just flopped onto my bed after dinner, and next thing I knew it was night. The house was dark. I leaped from the bed and ran for my bike. I had told my parents about the flower and that one of these nights…

  I pedaled furiously for Betty Lou’s. The moon was high and bright, lighting my way. My tires spat stones as I careened into the alley. I could smell it already: vanilla! I jumped from the bike, threw open the gate. There it was—so lovely I wanted to cry. As if a stone had dropped into pooled moonlight: this was the splash. Its size staggered me—it was as wide as both my hands side by side. I swooned at the fragrance. I fell to my knees, so that now it was taller than me. I became aware of faint flutterings—moths were swirling, alighting on the flower, flying off. I thought: Queen of the Night. Kneeling there for I don’t know how long, I began to have the strangest sensation, as if a communication, a conversation, were passing between the beautiful blossom and the moon. I closed my eyes and allowed myself to sink into the wonder of it. And yet, as wonderful as it was, something was missing. It needed to be shared. I wanted you there, Leo. Or Archie.

  I picked up a handful of pebbles from the alleyway. I threw them at Betty Lou’s bedroom window. Finally her face appeared. I pointed. I whispered as loudly as I could: “It’s blooming!” Her face vanished from the window. A minute later the back door opened. She stood there in her robe behind the screen door. I held out my hand. “Come on.” I think for a moment I forgot her problem. But she didn’t.

  “I can’t,” she said.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said.

  Her face was moonlit with sadness. “I know.”

  I held out both hands. “I’m here,” I said. “Just for a minute. It’ll be all right. You’re safe.”

  “I can smell it from here,” she said.

  “I know. Yes! Now come see it. It wants you to see it.”

  There were no words for a long time. Then the faint creak of the screen door opening. Her arm reached out, ghostly pale. I took her hand. It would not come with me. “I can’t,” she said. “I’m sorry.” She was crying.

  I told her to wait there. I returned to the flower. It took a long time, and I really don’t know how I did it, but somehow I managed to get the great potted plant up the yard to the back door. And that’s how we spent the night—Betty Lou and me and the night-blooming cereus. Betty Lou opened a bottle of champagne for herself, as she always did on this occasion, and a cranberry juice for me. The dark screen between us, we toasted the Queen of the Night. We toasted moon and moths and all brief things. We held hands through the opened door and sang soft songs by turns to each other. We shared our dreams. We fell silent as the flower. We fell asleep, she against the screen door, me on the step. When we awoke, the sun was rising and the flower was dead.

  August 2

  My happy wagon is down to five pebbles.

  The temperature today reached 100 degrees. I had a garden job today. I beat the heat by starting early in the morning.

  August 3

  I awoke in a sweat despite the whirring floor fan at the foot of my bed. I had been dreaming, but already the dream had fled.

  I got dressed and tiptoed downstairs. I rode through the night and the high moon, down the middle of empty streets, under the Blob banner, to the canal. I crossed the bridge and coasted to a stop in the dust in front of Ike’s Bike & Mower Repair. A car was parked out front. I laid the bike down carefully and stood there, listening to the insects. I walked around back. When I saw the ladder I gasped. The roof was only one story high, but it seemed to scrape the moon and felt as forbidding as Babel. I took a deep breath and started climbing.

  He was in the middle of the roof, spread-eagled on a blanket, bare-skinned except for the ragged cutoffs he had worn at the pool, sheeted in moonlight. I thought of you, Leo, keeping the shade of your bedroom window up so the moonlight could fall on you. I sat on the raised edge of the roof, watching, listening to his breathing. I think I would have been comfortable staying like that all night—watching, silent—but this was a person, not a backyard flower. At last I called from the edge: “Hi, Perry.”

  He didn’t move.

  I tried again, a little louder. “Hi, Perry.”

  His eyes opened to the sky above. Then they began to move, though the rest of him still did not. They finally landed on me. His head came up several inches from the blanket. His voice was croaky: “Who’s that?”

  I realized that the moon was behind me now; my face was in shadow. His simple question stumped me. As far as I knew, he didn’t even know my name. So how should I identify myself? I thought over several possibilities and finally said, “I’m the girl you spat at.”

  He laughed, or at least something that resembled laughter came out of his mouth. His head flopped back down. His eyes closed. I was afraid that was all, but in time he spoke again: “What do you want?”

  The questions weren’t getting any easier. “Dootsie said you sleep on your roof on hot nights.”

  “Didn’t answer the question.” He was right. His voice was straining, its tone saying, Leave me alone so I can go back to sleep.

  “I guess I don’t know what I want,” I said
. “I woke up. It was hot. I couldn’t sleep. I remembered what Dootsie said. And here I am.”

  “You don’t have your own roof?”

  “Well, sure, but it’s not flat like this. Besides, you’re not on my roof. You’re on this one.”

  “You want to sleep here?”

  “No, no, I don’t mean that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I was very uncomfortable. Whatever had compelled me to come here was gone. “I don’t know,” I said. “I do things without thinking.” I stood. “I’ll go. I’m sorry I woke you up.”

  His hand flapped in the air. “It’s okay. I’m awake now.” I sat back down. “You got a name?”

  “Stargirl,” I said. For the first time ever, I felt self-conscious saying it out loud.

  His eyes opened. “What?”

  “Stargirl.”

  “What?”

  I said it for the third time: “Stargirl.”

  I thought he was going to make a big deal out of it, but he just said, “Okay,” and closed his eyes again.

  This was such a new script to me. I had no idea what my lines were.

  I said, “How can you stand to suck on lemons?”

  “Juice is juice,” he said.

  “Are you going to the Blobfest?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “I’m going with Dootsie.”

  “Good for you.”

  “You sneak into the pool a lot?”

  “When I feel like it.”

  “You’re braver than me. I’ve never gone off a high dive.”

  “No big deal.”

  “It is if you’re afraid to do it.”

  “So you’re a coward.”

  I don’t know how I expected things to go, but it wasn’t like this. What had made me think I might be welcome? I stood again. “Perry, I really am sorry. I—”

  Suddenly he sat up. He snapped: “You came over to my house and climbed up here and woke me up. And now I’m wide awake. Is that what you wanted, to wake me up?”