How to Say Goodbye in Robot

  “What the hell is that supposed to be?” Burt said.

  “It’s a picture,” Myrna said. “It’s us.”

  “It’s the Night Lights, riding the Flying Carpet,” I said.

  I had set up some dolls on a small Persian carpet in front of the most elaborate starry backdrop I could paint. I did my best to make the dolls look like the real Night Lights. One of my Madame Alexanders sported a black beehive, red nail polish, and lots of jewelry. A small Buddha statue stood in for Larry, and a G.I. Joe—dressed in a natty suit—for Herb. I’d found a Casper puppet to play Jonah, and I’d put a doll’s dress on a red Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robot to make a Robot Girl.

  Larry banged his white cane on the floor. “Tell me what the picture looks like, Myrna.”

  “Some dolls are riding to Ocean City on the Flying Carpet,” Myrna said. “And the dolls look just like us! There’s even a doll version of you.” She patted Larry’s big belly. “The sky is just beautiful. And the stars spell out something…‘Happiness Must Be Earned.’”

  I’d copied that motto from an old Douglas Fairbanks movie, The Thief of Baghdad, silent version. The thief and the genie are riding on a magic carpet and the stars spell those words while the soundtrack plays Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade. It’s a lovely scene. I just wanted to go live in that night sky whenever I saw it.

  “That sounds like a fine present,” Larry said.

  “How come I’m not in the picture?” Burt grumped.

  “You are,” I said. “See?” I pointed to a rubber duckie I’d stuck on the carpet, just because I liked it.

  “That’s not me,” Burt said. “You think of me as a duck?”

  “Why not?” I scrambled for something nice to say. “Everybody loves ducks.”

  That seemed to satisfy him. He ordered another beer.

  “Do you like your present, Ghost Boy?” I asked.

  “You should go to art school in my place,” Jonah said. “You know how to make beautiful things.”

  He pressed his hand on mine, the same way he did at the art show.

  “A toast to the birthday boy!” Myrna shouted. “Welcome to the adult world, hon. It’s lonely, it’s miserable, and God help you. But there are bright spots, and nights like tonight are one of them.”

  We clinked our bottles of beer in honor of Jonah the Ghost Boy. Myrna nudged the piano player, and he played “Happy Birthday.” The whole room sang along. By the end of the evening, Myrna and Larry were holding hands, Burt and Kreplax were trying to bribe the pianist to play “Stairway to Heaven,” and Jonah’s face…I’ll never forget Jonah’s face. A light poured out of him and became the spirit of the room, like a genie released from a bottle after centuries of darkness.

  CHAPTER 20

  The day of the prom, a package arrived for me. Inside was an aluminum tiara decorated with rhinestones and glass rubies. The note said, For the Benevolent Queen of the Freaks, from their Stern and Silent King. Long May We Reign.—J

  I held the tiara up to the light. It didn’t sparkle, exactly, or gleam, but I thought it was beautiful. It was my first gift from Jonah, unless you counted the paper airplane addressed to Beatrice from Future Beatrice, which I kept by the radio on my night table.

  After dinner, I dressed in a midnight blue gown and put on Miss-America-Gone-Psycho makeup. Mom sat on my bed and watched me glob on the mascara.

  “So, Jonah’s your date,” she said, deadpan.

  “Yep,” I said.

  “Funny,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. You never struck me as the prom type.”

  I concentrated on not poking my eye out with the mascara wand. “Wonders never cease.”

  “They never do,” Mom said. “Jonah doesn’t seem like a prom type either.”

  “It’s just a dance,” I said.

  “Do you see silver sparkles?” she asked.

  I put away the mascara and set the tiara on my head, artfully askew. “That again?”

  “Silver sparkles,” Mom said. “When you kiss him.”

  “When I kiss who?”

  “Jonah.”

  I’d never actually kissed Jonah. Not in any way other than friendly, sisterly, fondly. Certainly not in a way that would produce silver sparkles, or visions of any kind. But he was my “prom date.” Kissing was expected. So I played along.

  “Not silver,” I said. “Gold.”

  “Ah,” Mom said. “That’s nice.” She hugged me, her back muscles tense.

  Dad waited for me downstairs. “Maybe we’ll stop by the Owl Bar later on and check up on you,” he said when I appeared in my prom-queen-from-hell glory.

  “We will not,” Mom said. “We’re not that screwy.”

  “I was just kidding,” Dad said. He kissed me and straightened the tiara. “Needs to sit just right. A tiara’s not an easy thing to pull off.”

  I heard the chug and rumble of Gertie’s engine pull up outside.

  “Prince Charming’s here,” Mom said.

  The doorbell rang. Dad answered the door. I grabbed my spangled evening bag, readjusted my tiara, smudged my eyeliner, and went to meet my escort.

  Jonah’s powder blue polyester tux and white dress shoes emphasized his pallor. “This is for you.” He handed me a clear plastic box with an orchid in it.

  “A corsage! Thank you.” I kissed him on the cheek and slid the corsage onto my wrist. The orchid was hideously beautiful, which suited my getup perfectly.

  “I’ll be back before supper tomorrow,” I said.

  I grabbed the small suitcase I’d packed, and we ran down the front steps like bank-robbing newlyweds dashing for their getaway car. Gertie rumbled to life. Mom and Dad stood on the porch and watched us drive away. I saw that look in Mom’s eyes again, the look I’d noticed on the first day of school: Please hurry up and leave leave leave LEAVE NOW.

  Don’t worry, Mom, I’m leaving as fast as I can.

  “We’re off!” I leaned across the seat and rested my head on Jonah’s shoulder, just for a second. Like I was his real girlfriend, and he was my real boyfriend, however inadequate those words might be. I switched on the radio. It was a beautiful evening, warm even for mid-May.

  “We’re off!” I cried.

  We drove through the city, right past the Belvedere Hotel. Limos stacked up outside, and there were all our classmates in tasteful dresses and tasteful black tuxedos, ready to go inside and dance the night away with the same eighty or so people they’d attended every dance of their lives with. Anne Sweeney clutched Tom Garber’s arm, claiming him. He’d broken up with Meredith, I’d heard, and was cycling back through his old girlfriends again. I wondered if, at the beginning of the year, Anne knew he’d do this and was in a hurry for Tom to get me out of his system, so he’d get to her faster.

  “Open the glove compartment,” Jonah said. “I’ve got another surprise for you.”

  I opened the glove compartment. Tucked inside were two plastic water pistols, loaded.

  “One for you and one for me,” Jonah said.

  He slowed down in front of the hotel. We squirted our pistols out the car window. I got Tom Garber on the back of the head. Anne waved to us, so I spared her and hit Carter instead. She gave a satisfying shriek.

  “Got ’em!” Jonah laughed. “Let’s book.”

  He hit the gas and we squealed off.

  “I’m so glad I’m not there,” Jonah said.

  “Me too,” I said.

  We hit the highway and drove east to Ocean City. It was dark by the time we rolled over the Bay Bridge. Crossing the Chesapeake was just like a Flying Carpet ride. The boats twinkled on the water below, and when we reached the Eastern Shore, I caught a whiff of salt on the air.

  “I can’t believe you’ve never been to Ocean City before,” Jonah said.

  “Is it like Atlantic City?” I’d never been there either, but I’d seen it on TV.

  “Please,” Jonah said. “The Jersey Shore is a pale imitation. They wish they had a c
ool place like Ocean City. By which I mean Ocean City, Maryland, not Ocean City, New Jersey.”

  “There’s an Ocean City in New Jersey?”

  “It’s hardly worth mentioning.”

  We drove past dark, greening cornfields and grubby antique towns. Once we reached Assawoman Bay, the salt air smell grew strong, laced with French fries and cotton candy.

  We crossed the 62nd Street Bridge and headed south toward the Ocean City Inlet. Fancy high-rise condos gave way to older Jetsons-style motels, then the oldest hotels and rooming houses, squat clapboard buildings below Twelfth Street. Neon lights flashed everywhere: ICE CREAM, MINI-GOLF, STEAMED CRABS, STEAKS, SEAFOOD, AMUSEMENTS. Cars cruised Ocean Highway, the boys calling to girls who darted through the traffic in tank tops and flip-flops.

  “Where are we staying?” I asked.

  “The Majestic,” Jonah said. “Queen of the Boardwalk since 1925.”

  We parked behind the pool and checked in. The Majestic had a big front porch overlooking the boardwalk. Old people rocked in their chairs and watched the vacationers troop past—gangs of kids looking for trouble, tired parents with sugared-up toddlers, preening teenagers baring their navels.

  Our room was small, clean, plain, and white, with twin beds and a window overlooking the parking lot. I opened it, and the roar of the ocean rumbled like a bassline under the traffic noise.

  “Ready, Queen Beatrice?” Jonah said. “It’s time to meet your subjects.”

  I grabbed a sweater and we headed out into the night, strolling arm in arm down the crowded Saturday-night boardwalk.

  The moon rose full over the ocean. We passed a monstrous sand carving of Jesus’s head, lit with rainbow-colored lights. A handwritten cardboard sign said, CARVED BY DAVID SMITHSON! NEVER FORGET! JESUS DIED FOR YOUR SINS!

  “That Jesus guy’s here every year,” Jonah said. “There’s usually a bunch of summer Bible school kids singing Christian folk songs in front of it.”

  We trolled through a trinket shop, examining bongs, T-shirts, puka shell necklaces, and gun-shaped lighters. I found a dusty Halloween mask in a forgotten corner of the store.

  “Jonah, look. Casper.”

  Jonah put the mask over his face. The elastic string made his hair stick up in the back. I laughed.

  “Looks just like you. I can’t tell you’re wearing a mask at all.”

  “You’re hilarious,” Jonah said, his voice muffled. He paid the cashier a dollar for the mask. “You have your tiara. I need something to wear too.”

  We made an odd pair, a rag queen and a ghost, but the boardwalk carnival world welcomed us. Jonah wore the mask all evening, resting it on top of his head when he ate. Children pointed at him, some laughing, some frightened. Otherwise, we blended well with the Confederate hats, the scraggly beards, the missing teeth, the cleavage.

  We ate French fries for supper, then rode the bumper cars and the roller coaster. The Ferris wheel whisked us away from the noise and smells of the boardwalk for a few seconds, high over the sand and water. The moon bleached a strip of the sea. We dipped down, down through the squeals and shouts and bangs and pops and up, up again into the fresh air, the lights of the toy city below. I wished I could live at the top of the Ferris wheel, just high enough to walk on the clouds if it’s cloudy, but close enough to the ground to keep an eye on everybody.

  We stopped at a photo booth and took a strip of pictures of ourselves to commemorate our prom night. Jonah pumped quarters into the machine and sat down on the stool behind the curtain. I perched on his lap.

  “Take your mask off,” I said.

  “No,” Jonah said.

  A light flashed, the first picture taken.

  “Come on, Jonah, take it off,” I said again. “Just for the pictures.”

  Jonah poked his tongue through the mask’s mouth hole. The light flashed again. Jonah snatched the tiara off my head and propped it over the mask. Flash. The third photo gone.

  “Give me that.” I lifted the mask. The tiara clattered to the floor. Flash. The glare blinded me.

  “Gotcha,” I said.

  “You shouldn’t have done that.”

  He pulled the mask back over his face. I picked up my tiara. We bought ice-cream cones and waited for the photos to develop. They slipped out of the machine, wet as a newborn baby. Three pictures of prom-tux Casper and me. One picture of Jonah, his bare face stricken in the light, my profile in shadow.

  “They’re funny,” I said.

  “Let me see.” He stared at the strip of pictures, then folded it in half and slipped it into the pocket of his jacket.

  The rides closed up around eleven. As we were leaving Trimper’s Amusements, we passed a Haunted House.

  “One last ride,” I pleaded.

  “It’s a rip-off.”

  “That’s why I like them. Please, Jonah. It’s my prom night. You’re supposed to spoil me. In ten years, I’ll write a scathing memoir about all the innocent childhood pleasures I missed because of you.”

  “Ugh, okay.”

  “Last ride of the night,” the ticket taker said. We settled into a cart and rested our hands on the greasy metal bar that locked us in. “Don’t stick your arms out or you’ll get electrocuted.”

  The cart jerked to a start. We glided into the spook house through double doors painted like the entrance to a coal mine. Down a long, dark tunnel. The spooky noises began. Jonah pressed a smooth bottle into my hand. “Here.”

  “What is it?”

  “Wild Turkey.”

  I felt for the top, unscrewed it, and took a sip. “You’ve been carrying this all night?”

  “For emergencies.” He took the bottle back, pulled his mask up just high enough, and drank.

  The first few displays were under repair. Then we rode through the torture chamber. A man was being sliced in half by a buzz saw. A speaker shot his piercing screams right into our ears.

  “I hate spook houses,” Jonah said. “Why did I let you talk me into this?”

  “It’s fun.” I took his hand.

  “Fun that can get you electrocuted,” Jonah said.

  The cart forced its way through another pair of double doors. A skeleton in a wig and a dress sprang out at us, cackling. We jumped in our seats. Jonah yanked his hand away.

  We rolled outside, along the balcony, a brief respite of reality, the boardwalk below us emptying quickly. Then back inside for more scenes of horror: a man in a guillotine overseen by a blackmasked executioner, a pile of bloody heads in a basket at his feet; a golden-haired maiden who lowered her hand mirror to reveal a ravaged face; a rocky ride through a world of fake flames, lorded over by a red devil.

  In the final chamber, a careworn judge banged his gavel in a courtroom, pointing his long bony finger at us. “Guilty!” he screeched. “Guilty!”

  “We’re guilty all right,” Jonah said. “Guilty of paying way too much for ten minutes’ ride through a dump. And a firetrap.” He took another sip from the bottle and stashed it in his jacket.

  The cart emerged into the yellow haze and jerked to a stop. We stumbled out, bleary, and strolled up the boardwalk to our hotel. Kids clustered in pools of lamplight, up to no good. The beach seemed vast and dark, an ocean of sand. Distant squeals drifted on the breeze.

  Back in our room, Jonah switched on the clock radio and turned the dial to the Night Lights. I went into the bathroom and changed out of my prom dress into a T-shirt and sweatpants. I hung my tiara on the mirror. Jonah put on pajamas. Cool night air poured in through the window, riding the roar of the waves. We sat on our beds, separated by a night table, and listened to the show.

  “I wonder how the prom went,” I said.

  He shook the pint of Wild Turkey at me. “Still got a little left.”

  I took a sip and passed it back. My whole head felt warm. The voices murmured on the radio, the sea crashed faintly outside, the bathroom light fixture buzzed.

  “I wish we could live here for the summer,” I said. “Or longer. Forever.”
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  “Yeah.” Jonah drained the bottle. “I wish Matthew could live with us too. He’d like it here. He’d see the ocean and breathe the salt air—”

  “—watch the sun and moon rise over the water—” I said.

  “—and listen to the waves for hours and hours,” Jonah said. “He can do all those things. That’s a life.”

  “A good life.”

  Jonah sank down against his headboard.

  “If we were characters in a movie, we’d rescue him,” he said. “We’d break into St. Francis and kidnap Matthew.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “We’d bust him out.”

  “We’d take him someplace no one would find him,” Jonah said. “Like…here. Ocean City. Lose ourselves in the crowd.” He rolled onto his stomach and looked at me. “We could rent a cheap room. I’d run rides at Trimper’s, and you’d waitress at Phillips.”

  I laughed. “You’d work at night and I’d work during the day,” I said. “We’d take turns watching Matthew. We’d be a family on the run, wary of snoops, always looking over our shoulders for the cops…”

  “Maybe Matthew would get better,” Jonah said. “He’d have fresh air and real stimulation. He wouldn’t be stuck in a home. St. Francis is so depressing. He’s going downhill and they won’t let me see him…”

  Jonah rolled off the bed and took a sketchbook and pen from his bag. “We should do it. We should bust him out.”

  “For real?”

  “Why not?” Jonah said. “We’ll save my brother’s life.”

  “But how?” I said. “How are we going to break into St. Francis and sneak out a boy in a wheelchair?”

  “Simple,” Jonah said. He drew a map of the hospital, all the windows, entrances, and exits he could remember. “We’ll do what they do in the movies. We’ll make a plan.”

  I woke up the next morning draped across the still-made bed, Jonah sleeping next to me. The radio chattered. I switched it off.

  My head ached. The sun hurt my eyes. The empty bottle of Wild Turkey lay on the carpet. I kicked it away.

  The floor was littered with paper, drafts of our big plan to kidnap Matthew. The details were a little fuzzy, but we’d come up with something that had seemed amazingly brilliant at the time.