The Center of Everything

  We park on campus. Ms. Jenkins gives me a map and tells me she’ll meet me back at the information counter at five. It’s a nice day, a breezy, cool Thursday morning. I buy a sandwich and a Coke and sit outside, on one of the large patches of grass. There’s grass everywhere, neat and very green.

  When the bells chime, the students come out of the buildings all at once, and there are suddenly more people walking on the sidewalk than there are in all of Kerrville, maybe more than I have seen in one place in my entire life. A lot of them look like people I would see in Kerrville, but there are also black people, people from other countries too, people speaking Chinese. A man with a beard and glasses walks by wearing flip-flops and a T-shirt that says STOP U.S.-FUNDED MURDERERS IN NICARAGUA NOW! They all have backpacks full of books, carrying them quickly from one building to the next.

  I walk in and out of the large, yellow-bricked buildings, keeping up with the flow of people. I try hard to look not like a visitor but like a college student already, wearing comfortable shoes and a backpack, even though, right now, there is nothing inside.

  I spend a long time at the Natural History Museum, moving up and down the silent stairways, looking at the displays. There are snakes on the second floor, including a live boa constrictor, green and black and large enough to eat a dog or maybe even a person, its body moving in one smooth coil around itself. On the next floor, there is a skeleton of a dinosaur, and the sign next to it says that most of the bones are real, dug up from under layers of dust. Its head is the size of a small coffee table, the jaws open wide, so it looks like maybe it was screaming when it died. The eyes are just empty sockets, large enough for me to stick my hand through. But the best display, the panorama, takes up the entire fourth floor. It’s a large, dark, rounded room, quiet as under water, almost entirely surrounded by glass. Behind the glass is an even bigger room to look into, softly lit, a twilight sky painted on the background. A small river with real water runs down the middle, trickling over rocks.

  The sign says the point of the panorama is to show all the life zones, from the Polar to the Tropical, all in one room. There are animals inside, and they must have been real at one point, I think, but now they’re dead and stuffed. Someone has taken great care to put them in different positions—crouching in the grass, peering through branches—so they look as if they are still alive and are just being very still, listening for something in the distance.

  The Tropical Life Zone is on the left, and inside there is a toucan and a three-toed anteater. I have to look at the signs. Something called a mantled howler monkey hangs from a tree. It gets a little cooler as you move to the right, and then there are deer and two mountain lions fighting, a cactus in the background. The changes happen gradually, one life zone fading into the next. The trees in the background change, from palm trees and Mexican figs to cacti and then cottonwoods. Then there are beaver and white-tailed deer, then mountains in the background, two rams and a moose. It gets colder and colder, or at least it looks that way, until you get to the right side of the circle, the arctic, and then it’s just polar bears and seals, their coats sprinkled with white confetti that’s supposed to look like snow.

  I’m going to try to get a job at this museum. I have to do work-study for my scholarship anyway, and I would love it if I could work with the snakes. Also, I’m sure they need someone to go behind the glass and clean the panorama at night, at least once a week, and I want to be the one to have this job. I would dust off the leaves of the Mexican fig and make sure the water in the river was running smoothly. They would not have to pay me to do this. They might have to give me a key.

  It would be like magic to get to walk around back there, from the arctic to the tropics and back again, easily stepping from one world to another, taking it all in at once.

  A week before graduation, it’s still light enough at eight to walk to Deena’s, the sky west of the highway gold and pink against the setting sun. I’m wearing the sundress Eileen made for me. It’s the first night warm enough, and I love the way it looks, the skirt light and swirling above my knees. But a half mile away from Deena’s, a car slows down, and a man with sunglasses leans out to ask me if I want a ride. I say no, not even looking at him or turning off my headphones, and cross to the other side.

  Jack opens the door when I knock, wearing a T-shirt and diapers, jelly on his cheek. “Ebelyn,” he says. He sets his cup down on the carpet, kisses me on the knee.

  “Good boy,” Deena says, waving at me. She is vacuuming the carpet, holding a Tab in her free hand. When she leans over to shut the vacuum off, Jack starts to cry. “Oh, okay, honey, I’m sorry. You want to do it?” She places the hose in his hand and turns the vacuum back on. “You want a soda, Evelyn? It’s been in the fridge.”

  “Thanks.” I go to the refrigerator, open the door. Inside, there are several six-packs of Tab, and several more of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. There are two cardboard pizza boxes on the top shelf, and jars of baby food line the door. “How are you?”

  “Good. Okay. I need a nap. How are you?”

  “I’m good.”

  Her eyes drift back to the television. “Oh God, Evelyn, this show is hilarious. It’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.” She turns off the vacuum with her foot, and Jack starts to cry, still holding the hose. “No no, honey. Mommy’s show is on.” She picks him up and sits down on the couch, wiping the jelly off his face with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “Come on, sit down. You’ve got to see this.”

  The show is a series of short clips sent in by people who have their own video cameras. There are children putting shaving cream on a dog, and then a bride sitting on a chair that isn’t there, falling on the floor, her white gown popping up over her head. A studio audience laughs in the background, and Deena laughs when they do, pausing in between to kiss Jack on the head. He sneaks sips of her Tab when she isn’t looking, pulling the glass down to his mouth with tiny, quick fingers.

  “Where’s Travis?”

  She curls her lip. “He hates this show. He’s back in the bedroom, reading. It’s all very impressive.”

  “Is he staying in tonight?”

  Jack slides off her lap, tottering over to his basket of books.

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  Jack hands her the sun book, its cover torn off the front now. Deena smiles, yawning.

  “Are you guys in a fight?”

  She takes a sip of her drink, thinking this over. “He’s being a shit.”

  “Shit,” Jack echoes, opening the book.

  “No, honey, don’t say that.” She looks at me, trying not to laugh. “It’s like having a freaking parrot.”

  Travis emerges from the dark hallway, rubbing his eyes. He looks like he is in a bad mood, or maybe just waking up. But he smiles when he sees me.

  “Evelyn. Hey. You look nice.”

  “Thanks.” I can feel Deena’s gaze, moving from my knees back up to Travis’s face. I pretend to have to bend down to tie my shoe, but I am wearing sandals.

  “What?” he asks. “I can’t even talk to Evelyn now?”

  Even Evelyn. Like I’m a cousin. Or a dog.

  Jack starts to cry again, and Travis reaches down to take him. “It’s okay, buddy,” he says, jiggling him lightly. “Come on. Nobody’s mad at you.”

  Deena turns away from me and looks back at the screen, her arms crossed, and Travis says something under his breath. It’s like I’m eleven again, sitting in the truck with Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell.

  “Maybe I’ll go home.”

  “No, stay,” she says, pulling me back down. “It’s so nice to have somebody who actually wants to spend time with me, who doesn’t treat me like I’m an idiot.”

  Travis rolls his eyes and carries Jack into the kitchen. The video show comes back on: circus music plays along to a rapid succession of clips showing people falling down. A man on skis waves at the camera before crashing into a tree. A woman, walking and talking to her friend, accidentally steps off a pier into a lake. A cl
own riding a unicycle crashes into a wall. I can hear Travis consoling Jack in the kitchen. “You’re my boy,” he says. “Daddy’s not mad at you. You’re my tough guy.” He swings him up in the air and back down again, making a whistling sound like a plane dropping a bomb until Jack is laughing, the tears not even dry on his cheeks. Travis carries him back over to Deena and sets him in her arms. “Good to see you, Evelyn,” he says, grabbing his keys. “I’ll see you later, Dee.”

  “Have a good time,” she says, still looking at the screen. “I hope you have a really good time.”

  He stops walking, his hands over his eyes. “You want to come? Evelyn said she’d stay with Jack.” He pauses, waiting. “I’m just going to hang out with Ed.”

  She stares up at him, unblinking, and though she says nothing, the look on her face is bad enough. Jack reaches up and pulls her glass over, spilling ice on her lap.

  “I would like it,” he says, the words slow and heavy, like he is a child in a school play, saying words he has memorized, “if you would come with me.” He looks to me for help, but there is nothing I can say. He shrugs, turning away. “Good to see you, Evelyn.”

  Jack flinches at the sound of the slamming door.

  “Bye, sweetie!” Deena calls out. “I love you too!” She leans forward and turns off the television, and we all three sit in silence.

  “He hates me,” she says finally.

  I glance at Jack.

  “Oh please. He knows. He lives here. He’s not retar—” She turns away.

  This is true. Clearly, Jack isn’t retarded. But I am even careful with what I say around Samuel. You don’t really know what’s in there—what they hear, what they understand. There is no way to tell how much of this is seeping into Jack’s brain, like water into a crack.

  “You saw the way he looked at me,” she says. “He doesn’t think I’m pretty anymore. He thinks I’m stupid too.”

  “Deena, you’re still pretty, and you’re not stupid.”

  It’s true. I’m not lying now. She is lovely still, even wearing green sweatpants and one of Travis’s sweatshirts, the pink polish on her fingernails chipped and cracked. If anything, she is more beautiful than she used to be, her cheekbones more hollowed, her skin paler against her dark hair. But she frowns at me, looking down at my sandals.

  Jack opens the book, pointing at the page. “Story?” he says. He looks worried. “Sun?”

  She nods, and begins to read, but she’s crying now, her voice cheerless, wrong for the words. “Good morning, rooster! Good morning, cow!” Jack keeps glancing up. When she gets to the last page, he hands her another book, holding her hand against the pages.

  I am trying to think of a way to escape. I can tell she is mad, not just mad in general, but mad at me. I haven’t done anything, but I can feel it, a heaviness between us. I could walk home, but it’s already getting dark.

  After four books, Jack’s eyelids start to flutter. When they finally close, she stops reading and peers down at his face, her fingertips grazing his ear. She has told me before that babies actually get heavier when they fall asleep. I said that doesn’t make any sense, but she said she can tell when Jack’s asleep, just by the way he feels. “Let me put him to bed,” she whispers, and she stands up so smoothly that he doesn’t even stir.

  But when she gets to the hallway, she stops and turns around, her eyes moving down to my feet and then up again. “By the way,” she says. “Nice dress.”

  Travis gets home after midnight. I hear the Datsun rumble into the parking lot, the radio cutting off in the middle of a song. But he’s quiet coming down the stairs, and Deena does not wake when he opens the door.

  “Hey,” he whispers. Deena is still stretched out on the couch, snoring lightly now, her mouth open, her brow furrowed, as if she had been getting ready to sneeze, or say something important, just before she drifted off. She lay down just after putting Jack to bed, and fell asleep immediately.

  “Jack’s in bed?”

  I nod. “She put him down around nine.”

  He looks down at Deena, his hands in his pockets, his face difficult to read. “Well, let’s let sleeping Deenas lie. I’ll take you home.”

  When we get outside, Travis takes off his sweatshirt and hands it to me. “It got cool out. There’s supposed to be a storm tomorrow. A big one.” His sweatshirt smells like the detergent Deena uses. I stand by the passenger door and look up while I wait for him to unlock it. It’s a clear night, the stars shining brightly as eyes against the blue-black sky.

  “Evelyn, Evelyn, Evelyn,” he says. “Evelina.” I don’t know why he says this. I don’t smell the alcohol until after we have pulled onto the highway. He steers with one hand, whistling, his cheeks pink.

  “Are you drunk?” I tug on my seat belt, making sure it will hold.

  “No. Not drunk.” He smiles. “Little Miss Serious. I’m driving fine.” He turns on the radio, and country music comes on so loud it makes me jump. He laughs, turning it down. “Relax,” he says. “Relax.”

  “Still with the country music,” I say. “And now you’re drinking too.” I’m joking about this, but really I am a little mad. I cannot get killed in a car accident now, just before everything is about to get better for me. Eighty-two days until I move into the dorm. Eighty-one and a half.

  “Oh, come on, Evelyn. You’ll like this one. Just listen.”

  The man on the radio sings about his heart being broken years ago, a guitar strumming gently in the background. Travis starts to sing along, sort of kidding around, but mostly not. His voice is nice, low and earnest-sounding, better than the man singing on the radio, I think.

  “You’re a good singer, Travis.”

  He keeps singing. I wait for him to laugh, to start making fun of himself, but he doesn’t.

  If someone would have shown me this scene a few years ago, played it on a screen like a clip from a movie, I would have been happy. I’d have taken one look at me and Travis in a car on a starry night, listening to love songs on the radio, Travis singing along, and I’d have thought, “Oh good.”

  He’s still singing when he pulls into the parking lot of Treeline Colonies, slowing the car far away from the buildings. “Stay a minute,” he says, turning off the engine.

  I lean back in my seat and look up at the apartment buildings, all four of them, A, B, C, and D, the concrete balconies stacked on top of one another, four on each side. A macramé plant holder on the top balcony of our building drifts back and forth in the breeze.

  “Wow,” Travis says. “Just look at the stars.”

  I nod, saying nothing. Deena is mad at me for wearing the dress. That seems a little silly. Eileen made it for me, and I have to wear it somewhere. And if anyone should be mad and jealous, it’s me. It’s still me.

  Travis brings one of his feet up to the seat and turns so he is facing me, tapping his cigarette in the ashtray. “Graduation’s coming up, huh?”

  “Yeah,” I shrug. “It’s just dumb. It’s going to be hot and boring.”

  He nods, his eyes on mine. “And then it’s off to college for you.”

  “I guess so. I move into the dorms in August.”

  “You paying for it?”

  “I got a scholarship. Ms. Jenkins helped me. I’ll still have to work, but just part-time.”

  “Wow.” He takes a long drag from the cigarette and exhales slowly, still watching me, still not looking away. “What are you going to do with your McDonald’s money?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe a car. I might try to study abroad or something.” I’m talking too quickly, my teeth almost chattering. “I might get to go to Costa Rica. We’ll see.”

  “Costa Rica. Listen to you.” He pokes my shoulder, and his finger lingers for a moment, twisting half a circle against my skin before pulling away. “That should be me going,” he says. He is still smiling when he says this.

  It takes a minute for me to register what he has said, the way he has said it. I’m not sure if it was mean, or if it just di
dn’t make any sense. It’s not as if only one of us could go to college. It’s not like he’s not going because I am. “You could still go, Travis. Get your GED, and then maybe.”

  He shakes his head. “Nope. I’m roped and tied.” He reaches across my knees to the glove compartment, getting out another pack of cigarettes. I look at my knees, one of them scraped from when I fell yesterday afternoon. I tripped getting off the bus, thinking there were fewer steps than there were, and pitched forward, landing hard on the pavement, my hands out in front of me, breaking my fall. Libby picked up my backpack and helped me to my feet. “Listen,” she said, pointing at me with her cane. “I’m the one who falls down around here.”

  “Deena thinks you hate her,” I say quickly, pushing all the words out in one breath. “She thinks you’re going to leave her with Jack.”

  “I won’t leave Jack.” He leans back, shaking out the match. “But yeah, I have to say, I kind of hate her.” He looks at me, one side of his face lit up by the parking lot light, the other side dark.

  “Why?”

  “Don’t act stupid. You know, Evelyn. She did it on purpose. You know that.”

  “She’s sorry, though. She’s sorry.”

  “I think we’re both pretty sorry by now.” He grins, wagging a finger at me. “But Evelyn Bucknow is going to college.”

  “Yeah.” I try to laugh, looking away. “If I don’t do anything to screw it up.”

  He finishes his cigarette, throws the butt out the window. “It’s not fair. I was always smarter than you.”

  Again, I can’t tell if he is joking. I look at him carefully, trying to see. He has gotten closer, I realize, his arm on the back of my seat. “Just kidding,” he says quickly, looking away and then back again. “You know that’s not true. I’m the biggest dumbass there is.”

  “Why are you saying that?”

  He looks at me, green eyes wide, and then breaks into laughter. “I married Deena. I’m nineteen years old, and I’m fucking married to Deena. I love my kid, but hello, I’m not going anywhere for the next couple of decades.”