“What?” Anxiousness sounded in my voice, but my dad didn’t notice it.
“I’m glad you’re here, because I wanted to talk to you, anyway.” He coughed. Not just a little. My dad is a real throat-clearer. But I am used to it. I know he’s around when I hear it.
“What about?” I said. I wandered away from him, toward the easel.
Whatever this was, I didn’t want to hear it. My dad never used the words I want to talk to you.
I stuck my fingers in the little mounds of drying oil paints. The outer shell of oil paint hardens, but underneath is a treasure of wet color. It oozes out from the sides or any little hole you make in it.
When I was little, my dad used to set up a little easel for me right beside his. He used an oversized sketch pad propped up inside an old clothing rack. He taped the pad to the sides with duct tape. I could paint while he painted, and I wasn’t supposed to talk. But my paintings talked. Well, the fanned-out brush strokes that I made talked. They ran around the paper, chasing each other and getting into trouble. (Getting into trouble was a big explosion of oil paints all mixed together and swirled around till the paper almost ripped.)
Sometimes my dad took one of my paintings, framed it, and hung it in the house.
“Well, I’ve already tried talking to Ian.” My dad cleared his throat again.
This must be something bad.
It’s really the smell of my dad’s studio that I love. And it always stays the same—turpentine, oil paint, even the woven, natural smell of a brand-new canvas. It was like I was born into this, so when I walk in and smell the studio, I know I am home.
“I’m expecting more from you, Gabby,” my dad went on. “I’m hoping that…”
I turned away and walked toward a big painting my dad was working on. It was a scene from the farm just up the road. Two cows grazing in a flat field. Mostly the picture was the sky with huge, white clouds suspended in air.
“Gabby, it’s about Cleo. I know how much you like her.”
Oh, no. It is bad. I felt tears jerk into my eyes. There was a small pond that the two cows were going to drink from. The shadows of the clouds darkened the grass below.
“I wondered what you think of Cleo and me getting married.…”
“You are?” I whisked myself around. “You already told Ian? What did he say?”
“Not much,” my dad told me.
“Well, I think that’s a great idea, Dad,” I said.
He looked relieved to be done talking. He picked up his charcoal and began working again. “You know your brother doesn’t like change. That’s all there is to that,” he said.
But for some reason I thought there was more to “that” than that.
Chapter 16
After talking with my dad I plopped down on the couch to watch TV. When Cleo got back I could talk to her. Soon, I supposed, I could talk to her whenever I wanted.
Ian was still in his room practicing through his amplifier, loudly. He had his synthesizer going, too, with a fast, constant rhythm. Usually when Ian is playing too loud my dad goes and raps on his bedroom door and yells, “Keep it down!” But my dad was still out in the studio, and I guess his staying away had something to do with whatever Ian had said when my dad mentioned marriage. The bass on Ian’s amplifier vibrated the walls.
Then it all stopped.
I was finally getting to watch (and hear) my show when Ian appeared in the doorway. He didn’t say anything for the longest while. Then he spoke in this annoyed tone of voice, as if he had been trying to get my attention for hours.
“I hope you told him it was the worst idea he’s ever had.” Ian glared at me. He didn’t step out all the way into the living room.
“Huh?” came out before I figured out what he was talking about.
“I hope you weren’t a wuss,” Ian said.
“You’re a wuss,” I answered back.
There is a kind of language between my brother and me. We don’t have to use many words, but we know what the other one means. Ian understood that I had said Dad getting married to Cleo was okay, and I knew Ian was saying he wanted me to stick with him. And oppose Dad.
I have to admit, for a moment I was torn. Ian had never asked me for anything, that I could remember. He didn’t need me for anything, and yet, here he was. He needed me.
I flipped off the television.
“I like Cleo,” I defended.
“So what?” he shot back. “You can like her all you want. She doesn’t have to move in with us and ruin everything.”
I hadn’t even considered that she’d move in. I had just been so glad she wasn’t leaving. Now I thought about it. I could watch how she did things. She could make me lunches for school. Maybe show me how to wear my hair. Ian wouldn’t have to baby-sit me on the Saturdays when my dad had his first-weekend-of-the-month class.
I could fill up my list journal in no time.
“Ruin what?”
“Us!” Ian shouted. “There are three of us. That’s how it is.”
I had never seen Ian like this. His face wasn’t the calm picture of indifference. His mouth, which was like my mouth—thin lips and a neat row of small teeth. His eyes, which were mine—light brown, with half-moon upper lids. Especially his nose—small, kind of pointy—my nose. They were our mother’s eyes and mouth and nose. I had seen the same face in her picture sitting on my grandfather’s shelf—our face, Ian’s and mine.
“It’s just the three of us now,” he said again. “Why would you want to go and ruin that?”
I realized then that there had been a time (for Ian, at least, in his memory) when there had been more than three of us. Ian had been almost seven when our mother died. I had been only three.
I didn’t answer. When Ian couldn’t persuade me, he began to dismiss me. “We’re fine the way we are. You’re just too stupid to see it. We’re fine.”
“It’s easy for you to say,” I shouted back. “You’re a boy and you still have a dad.”
Once I started there was no turning back.
“Well, I’m a girl and I need a…”
I recognized the look on my brother’s face. It must have been exactly how my face looked the night before at Taylor’s house. Staring up at the endless grayness above my head. Words useless.
I just said it.
“I’m a girl and I need a mother more than you do.”
Chapter 17
Taylor called Sunday night. I guess she never figured out that I was upset about the other night. I wasn’t even mad anymore, but I kept my distance as a matter of principle.
“Hi, Gabby!”
Hi.
“I was busy all weekend,” Taylor said. “I was with my mom. And Richard. All day. He has kids, you know. From his first wife.”
I didn’t know Richard had other kids, but I said, “Yeah?” (I almost said, “Yeah, so what?” but I didn’t. I wanted Taylor to know I was mad, but not that mad. She must have sensed the stiffness in my voice, but she ignored it.)
“I didn’t like it, Gabby,” Taylor went on. She was talking in the same nervous, high-pitched voice as she had the first day I met her on the top of the hill.
“He was different with them. And my mom! Oh, she was the worst. Acting like she didn’t care when they dropped soda all over her rug.” Taylor imitated her mother’s regal tone of voice. “Oh, well, that’s what rugs are for—to catch the spills. Tee-hee-hee.”
I started to smile. “Hmmm.”
Taylor must have heard my smile, because then she tried even harder. “Ha! Sure, Ma, that’s what rugs are for! Wanna see what the couch is for?”
I had to laugh. “Got milk?”
Right away, Taylor came back with, “I looove the chocolate glaze!”
It felt good to laugh.
“Hurry, get a paper towel,” I added, to see if Taylor remembered the spill on her leather couch.
She howled for what felt like a full minute. I couldn’t help but join in, and it felt good to laugh.
“Gabby?” Taylor’s voice dropped. “I’m sorry about what I said the other night. About your mother. About my life being harder than yours. I didn’t mean it,” she said. “I was just feeling sorry for myself”
“You’re the best friend I’ve ever had,” Taylor told me then.
“Mine, too,” I said.
“You’re my YBF.”
“Your what?”
“Your Best Friend,” Taylor explained. “I used to have a sort-of best friend at my other school. Not like you, Gabby. But her older sister made that up. She used to sign her letters like that to her best friend—YBF. So we used it for a while.”
“YBF,” I said, trying it out. “I like it.”
“I’ll see you in school, YBF,” Taylor said.
“Okay, YBF. Bye.”
“Bye.”
*
It was just beginning to rain when I hung up the phone. It drummed steadily, filling the river and soaking into the ground, all through that night.
Chapter 18
It was raining so hard the next morning. My brother’s friend Paul had picked up Ian in his van and driven them to the high school. Paul was a couple of years older than Ian and played bass and keyboards. In Paul’s presence, I was always certain to say something dumb, and not just my normal dumb, either. So I had hidden in my room till I was sure they were gone.
Cleo knocked on my bedroom door and called out, “Want me to drive you down the driveway? It’s pouring.”
I accepted Cleo’s offer not only because I didn’t want to get soaked, but also because waiting in my room so long, I was late. I hopped into the passenger side of Cleo’s V.W. We waited at the end of the driveway. Our view of my bus stop and the farm next door was visible for a second, then pelted again with raindrops, as the windshield wipers flew back and forth.
“Why don’t I just drive you to school?”
“Are you sure it’s okay?” I asked. I didn’t want to get out into that rain, but I wasn’t one to ask for favors.
“Oh, once you’re in the car it doesn’t make any difference,” Cleo said in a singsong voice. And we pulled out in the pouring rain.
For a while it was just the sound of the wipers: Swoosh, swoosh. Swoosh, swoosh.
“So your dad talked to you the other day?” Cleo finally spoke.
“Yeah,” I said. “He said you guys were thinking about getting married.”
“That’s what he said?” Cleo’s voice squeaked.
Swoosh, swoosh. Squeak. Swoosh, swoosh.
“He told you we’re thinking about getting married?” She said this a bit more calmly, but she was hitting the brakes too much and letting up on the clutch too quickly.
“I mean, he said you were getting married, and he asked me what I thought.” I hoped that was better.
It seemed to be. Cleo switched right over to, “Your dad told me that you’re happy about it.” Cleo was back to normal. No beating around the bush. Open.
“Yeah. Aren’t you?”
Cleo let out a sharp laugh. “Well, I would hope so.”
We were in town. The rain kept the streets empty of people. Cars pulled in and out of stores and side streets. We stopped and started again. Then stopped completely. The one traffic light in New Paltz was red.
“But Ian doesn’t agree with you, I take it,” Cleo said again as soon as we were moving, past the old Elting Library, up the hill toward the newer sections of town. I thought that must have been hard for Cleo to say, but she didn’t show it.
“Oh, Ian’s a big jerk. Who cares about Ian?” I said, and I instantly regretted it. For two reasons. The first one was just a thought—the image of a lonely Ian no one cared about. The second reason was more immediate—Cleo didn’t like what I said, and I could tell that right away.
“I care about Ian,” Cleo said, making me feel worse. “He’s had to adjust to living without a mother for all these years, and now the thought of some new woman living in his house must be hard.”
He hasn’t had to adjust to anything, I thought. Ian is just so used to being mean, he can’t be anything else. What does Cleo know?
“No, really he’s just stubborn,” I stayed in my fair territory, but I softened my tone, just to sound nicer. She would see I was right.
“He may even feel like he’s betraying her,” Cleo said.
“Who?”
“Your mother,” Cleo said. She turned left onto LeFevre Street. The middle school was built in what once was an apple orchard. There were still old, bent-over trees lining the way.
“No,” I protested. “He doesn’t even remember her. He never talks about that at all.”
This conversation was getting very uncomfortable. Why was I feeling like the villain? It was Ian; he was the problem. Not me.
“Just because he doesn’t talk about it, doesn’t mean he isn’t thinking about it. Missing her,” Cleo said softly. Now I was really angry. I couldn’t miss my mother if I wanted to. And Ian didn’t, either.
Though once a long time ago, when Ian and I were visiting our grandparents before Nana died and Grandpa got married again, we were alone and we were talking. Ian asked me if I remembered anything.
Did I remember that morning she died?
“What morning?” I asked.
“When we tried to wake her up?”
“How did we do that?”
“Do you remember when we went in the elevator?” he asked.
“We did?”
“Do you remember the doorman?”
“The what?”
Ian stopped talking then. But ever since, I’ve had my own memory of riding in an elevator with Ian. Everything is dark all around us, and then there is a bright light. It’s so much like a memory—and I know it isn’t real. My brother asked me some questions, and so I made up some pictures in my mind to go with it. Now it’s stuck there in my brain, calling itself a memory even though it’s not.
Cleo pulled up the brake and jiggled her stick shift. We were three cars behind the drop-off to the New Paltz middle school. Two apple trees away.
I saw Lynette get out of her truck just ahead. She had her knapsack and a Grand Union grocery bag in her hands.
Oh, crud! I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to bring the heavy cream for my group’s final home economics project. My project group was Amber, Lynette, and me.
Of course, Amber will have her ingredient. Look, even Lynette remembered. Oh, damn, I thought. I closed my eyes against the worry, against facing the home ec. teacher and Amber, who would be furious if I ruined the rice pudding.
“What’s the matter?” Cleo asked.
If Cleo were my mother she would run to the Grand Union right away, as soon as I mentioned that I had forgotten something. She wouldn’t think twice. And she’d get me what I needed and bring it to the office, labeled with my name.
But I couldn’t ask. She might not be able to go, and then Cleo would be uncomfortable having to tell me she couldn’t do it. Or worse: She’d say no, and I’d have to feel terrible that I had asked and she said no.
No, I couldn’t even imagine asking.
But wouldn’t it be nice if I asked and she had smiled and said, “Yes, of course. I’ll get you whatever you need.”
“So are you getting married to my dad or not?” I asked as I opened the car door to get out. As if I cared anymore.
“Yes. Yes, I am,” Cleo said firmly.
I was so glad. Soon, real soon, I’d be able to ask for heavy cream, if I ever forgot to bring it again.
Chapter 19
“I can’t believe it,” Amber was saying. She put her hands up to her head and rocked it back and forth as if she’d just learned that someone had dumped nuclear waste into the town’s water supply.
“It’s not that big a deal,” I said.
Lynette, Amber, and I were in kitchen unit number seven, the one in the far corner by the window, where the rain outside hit steadily against the panes. Each kitchen unit had a stove, a sink, and a wood-block table. Ther
e was only one refrigerator for everyone, and that was in the main kitchen area. Mrs. Drummond, the home ec. teacher, was in kitchen unit number three helping Peter, Kevin, and Booby with their baked Alaska. (That’s his name—Booby, as in booby prize. His real name is Abe.) From the sound of things, the baked Alaska wasn’t going well.
“By the time she gets to us, she’ll be in a really bad mood,” Amber wailed. “How could you forget one little container of cream?”
I turned to look at Amber with my don’t-start-with-me look, but Lynette was suddenly in the way.
“It will be all right,” Lynette recited, “Three tablespoons of butter and seven-eighths of a cup of milk.”
Amber paid no attention. As far as she was concerned, Lynette could be singing a nursery rhyme. Peter and Booby were flicking egg whites all over each other while Kevin was getting ready to put their baked Alaska in the oven. Mrs. Drummond left them and headed over to unit number five. There, everything seemed to be under control. Mrs. Drummond was smiling again.
“Three tablespoons of butter and seven-eighths of a cup of milk,” Lynette said again.
We had already started to cook the Minute Rice and milk and added the raisins before I had the heart to tell my group about the missing cream.
“I brought the rice,” Amber ranted. “And I brought the eggs!”
Amber was stirring the mixture of vanilla, sugar, and eggs sans heavy cream. “This is for our final grade.”
“Your grade for sixth-grade rice pudding should not really be the most crucial moment in your life,” I said. Still, I felt terrible, and I had already checked everyone else’s supplies. No one had heavy cream.
We could hear Mrs. Drummond praising unit five on their strawberry shortcake.
“Three tablespoons of butter and seven-eighths of a cup of milk,” Lynette said.
“Will you stop saying that!” Amber turned to Lynette.
“What?” I said, trying to remember what I had just heard but hadn’t listened to. “What did she say?”
“Something about butter,” Amber said curtly.