Everything Beautiful in the World

by Lisa Levchuk

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  “I don’t know,” he says.

  “You don’t know what?” I ask. I can feel dread rising up through my body. Losing Mr. Howland is not something I want to contemplate. I can’t really say it to him, but he is keeping me happy.

  “Don’t you see?” he asks. He asks as though I can’t possibly be so stupid as not to see. “I love you.”

  “I know,” I say. “You said that already.” But I don’t see. I really don’t. I don’t see why he is so upset about everything. I have never been happier in my life than I am now with Mr. Howland.

  We drive away, out of the secret spot, the prickers scraping the sides of the car as we pull onto the road. Mr. Howland rests his hand on my knee when he isn’t shifting. I think of a vocabulary word from English class. The word is “ominous,” and I can’t get it out of my head. The day was ominous.

  “I feel ominous,” I tell Mr. Howland.

  He squeezes my knee and continues on down the road.

  The Gold Chair

  EVER SINCE MY MOTHER LEFT for the hospital, Kippy won’t move out of the gold chair next to her bed. At first it wasn’t a big deal, but now she is losing weight and she’s hardly eating or drinking. You see, Kippy loves my mother more than anything in the world. She follows her everywhere. Until she got sick, my mother made Mighty Dog hamburgers in the frying pan for Kippy’s dinner each night. To be honest, they smelled pretty good. She added eggs and salt and sometimes a slice of American cheese. Kippy never let my mother out of her sight.

  I used to be like Kippy. I even dropped out of Lincoln Nursery School because I liked being with my mother better than with the screechy-voiced lady who ran the school. Back then, I didn’t like my mother to be beyond the reach of my voice. If I was in the tub, I’d call out every few minutes just to hear her answer. If I was playing Monopoly in the den with Sucan, I’d wander out to the living room to make sure my mom was still around. There was one day when I was five years old that I couldn’t find her. I stood in front of the window screaming and screaming for her until she came back. She’d only walked over to the neighbors’ for a minute.

  My father doesn’t know what to do about Kippy. Kippy doesn’t really like my dad very much, and he doesn’t want to upset my mother by telling her that Kippy isn’t eating. The other day when I got home from school, I went in and petted Kippy for a few minutes even though she isn’t too crazy about me either. The cleaning lady feeds her from a spoon. I’d try cooking up one of those special Mighty Dog burgers, but I’ve never made anything on the stove. The only cooking experience I have ever had has not left me inclined to try again. Back when I was a Girl Scout, each member of my troop had to enter a bake-off. At the last possible moment, as it was becoming clear that I would be arriving at our troop meeting with nothing, my mother whipped up some cornflake macaroons. Naturally, they won the contest, and I moved forward into a district level bake-off. I had to wear my Girl Scout dress with the sash and show up at a home economics classroom at the high school, where I was to prepare my prizewinning recipe right there in front of a panel of judges. My mother had run through the steps of the recipe with me the night before, but none of the information stuck and I had no real idea how to make cornflake macaroons. There is a photograph of me to commemorate this disaster. In the photo, I am holding a pan of burnt-looking cookies for the camera; my uniform, including the sash, is coated with flour and the remnants of macaroons. Though I am smiling, it is clearly a smile more of fear and fakery than of happiness. The part of the story where the macaroons were prepared has been blocked out of my mind. Needless to say, I didn’t make it further in the competition. That was my first and last year of Girl Scouts.

  Since my mother has been away, her friends have brought food, but I haven’t been overly hungry myself.

  Another Night at the Pharmacy

  I AM STANDING AT MY REGISTER waiting for the perfect moment to shove two packs of cigarettes into my purse when who walks in the door but Mr. Howland. I’d had a panicky feeling lately that he was sort of avoiding me because of the weird stuff in the car the other day, but here he is. He is wearing what he would describe as a shit-eating grin and browsing around with his hands in the pockets of his jeans as if he is an ordinary customer, except he’s wearing his Ray-Ban sunglasses. While we do have an unusual climate in here, it isn’t sunny. He waves to me, and I wave back. Emory buzzes, and I go to the pharmacy counter.

  “Who in the world is that?” Emory asks.

  “A guy I know.”

  Besides looking like Elvis and being drunk most of the time, Emory is spookily psychic.

  “You want me to get rid of him? He looks like a creep.” Emory emphasizes the word “creep.” He exaggerates his slight Southern accent, probably so that he can better resemble Elvis.

  “That’s okay,” I tell him. “I’m okay.”

  I return to my register, and Mr. Howland comes up with a bottle of saline solution. As far as I know, he doesn’t wear contacts. Maybe his wife does. It feels wrong for him to be here in a way I can’t explain.

  “Can you meet me tonight at eight?” he asks. “Witchy-Poo is going out.” He always calls his wife some dumb name.

  “At the church?” I ask. “I get out of here at seven.”

  It seems weird that neither one of us has plans on a Friday night.

  “I’ll meet you there at eight,” he says.

  I ring up his saline solution and ask him if he’d like a bag.

  “Keep working hard,” he says, “or hardly working.”

  I smile and don’t give him a bag. I hate puns or whatever it was he said. Whenever Mr. Howland says something stupid like that, I wonder if I even love him. The phone buzzes and I pick up. It’s Emory.

  “Hey, Smiley,” he says.

  “What is it, Emory?”

  “How’s your friend?” After he asks, he laughs and laughs. “Now where in God’s name did you make a friend like that?”

  “Did you want something?” I ask.

  “I’m low on V8,” Emory says. “Take twenty out of the register.”

  So I walk down the row of stores in the strip mall past the nail salon and the doctor’s office to the Cumberland Farms, where I get Emory a six-pack of V8 and myself a Coke. On my way out I see Mr. Howland’s car pulling onto the highway, and his head looks too big through the window. I don’t know why I never noticed before how big his head looks when he is driving. It could be his hair. I put the change in my pocket because I know that Emory won’t remember to ask for it and I won’t put it back in the register.

  A Quick Stop at Home

  AT HOME I RUN UPSTAIRS without looking for my father and put a record on my new stereo that I paid for with money both earned and stolen from Emory. I listen to “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” by Led Zeppelin while I search for a comb. I’m supposed to be writing a short paper expressing my opinion on the Iranian hostage crisis for Western Civ, but I’m banking on the fact that Mr. Wallace will forget to collect it. There is barely enough time for me to smoke a cigarette before I head back to the church; I have the music turned up pretty loud, and I’m hanging my head out my bedroom window to keep the air clear. What I really want is to listen to “Madame George” off Astral Weeks before I leave, but I don’t have enough time. I change into jeans and a T-shirt and go downstairs.

  I walk through the family room toward my father’s office and I hear the sound of gunfire from his favorite program, G.I. Diary. For a moment I consider going in there and talking to him, but then I realize I am late, I might still smell like smoke, and my father would have yet another reason to be disappointed in me. For some reason I’ve been thinking about Peter Robin a lot lately. I can see the whole thing so clearly in my mind—my father sitting on the side of my bed and me smaller than I can imagine myself being.

  Back to the Secret Spot

  I LEAVE THE HOUSE without saying anything to my father. Inside the car, I light another cigarette and roll down the window.
I’m blasting “Monkey Man” by the Rolling Stones. It’s not far to the church and Mr. Howland. It is easy to keep my mind clear by focusing on the sound of music and the wind. He’s not there yet when I pull into the parking lot, so I park where I can look at the oncoming row of headlights. The BMW’s are like a cat’s eyes. I am starting to panic, worrying that he won’t come, and a big black sinking feeling is rising inside my stomach. Then I see the cat’s eyes coming toward me and my spirits lift.

  Mr. Howland looks handsome as usual in his white button-down shirt and jeans. He wears scuffed-up penny loafers on his handsome feet, and his head doesn’t look nearly as big as it did in the pharmacy parking lot.

  “I missed you, you little nut,” he says.

  “I missed you, you big nut,” I answer.

  “Ready for takeoff?” he says.

  “Rodger Dodger,” I say.

  We leave my car not under the streetlight but in a dark and inconspicuous area of the parking lot. It is pretty warm outside and coincidentally Mr. Howland has the Rolling Stones playing in the tape deck and this is what I think happiness is. It is not sitting in your room doing homework and trying to get an A or doing dishes to make your father who doesn’t talk think you are a good daughter. And it is not visiting your mother in the hospital where she could be dying for all you know. It is this. It is riding in the car with the windows down on a warm night knowing that soon your clothes will be off and you will be held closely by a clean-smelling, handsome man on a semisoft blanket. It is feeling good while doing something wrong at the same time. It is being where no one would think to look for you. Happiness used to be lying under my quilt listening to stories about Peter Robin, but those times went away and I suspect it wasn’t my fault. As far as what happiness will be later on, I really can’t say.

  We pull through a thick clump of pricker bushes into the clearing, or what Mr. Howland thought was the clearing, but we’ve made a mistake and the car bottoms out in a ditch—a culvert—something pretty deep, and Mr. Howland starts cursing like a madman.

  “Shit, piss, and corruption,” he yells.

  Our wheels are spinning. They are spinning so fast that they make a whizzing and whining sound. I am pretty sure that being stuck means we are truly screwed. This is the opposite of happiness. This is your buzz killed as you discover that you are about to be caught doing something both illegal and morally wrong. This is picturing a tow truck with your father in the passenger seat pulling up to where you are standing next to a BMW in the ditch with your Ceramics teacher as your father looks at you like it is impossible that you are the same person who used to be small and listen to stories about Peter Robin.

  Mr. Howland gets out of the car, slams the door, and stands outside looking at the tire.

  “Get in the driver’s seat,” he orders.

  “What for?” I yell. My trust for his ideas and theories is diminishing the longer we are stuck.

  “You need to rock the car,” he says. “I’ll push.”

  There is a trace of panic in his voice. I climb over the stick shift into Mr. Howland’s seat. I see him through the windshield, standing in front of the car with his arms on the hood, spookily illuminated by the headlights. He looks like the maniac from the scary stories you tell around a campfire. He gives me the signal to begin rocking.

  “You’ll wreck your penny loafers,” I yell.

  “First and then reverse,” he yells. “I want to go backwards.”

  Mr. Howland puts our sex blanket under the tires for traction. I’m rocking and getting into an impressive rhythm when my foot slips off the clutch and the car lunges forward. Mr. Howland dives to the side as the car springs forward, almost as if the car itself was trying to kill him. I scream pretty loud as my foot finds the brake.

  “Jesus H. Christ, Edna,” I hear from the darkness.

  Mr. Howland has a few scratches on his face, and there are burrs and prickers stuck in his hair and on the sleeves of his shirt. There is sandy dirt caked on his pants and shoes. But the good news is that we are free. I try to pick the stickers and burrs out of his hair as Mr. Howland gets into the driver’s seat and guides the car out of the false secret spot—the trap. When we are both sure that we are safe, we start laughing even though almost killing someone isn’t that funny. Mr. Howland gets the blanket and then drives about fifty yards down the road until we see the entrance to the real secret spot, though there isn’t much time now. He’s pretending to be out at a bar and I can’t stay out too late. We have a little while to be together, but all we can do is laugh and feel scared about what almost happened.

  “What did you do?” he asks. “I was pushing so that we’d go backwards and out.”

  “I’m not sure,” I tell him. “I think my foot slipped.”

  On the way home, we always pass a house that catches my eye. The house is so small it looks like it has one room. When it is daylight, you can see toys scattered across the lawn, including a Big Wheel and a red plastic fire truck. There is a car with no wheels balanced on cinder blocks. The hood is up and it looks like someone is trying to repair it, but my guess is the car will never be fixed. It is probably the person who lives there trying to find a way to pass the time—to keep trying to fix a car that can’t be fixed. I must admit to worrying about the kids who live in that house and play with the broken-looking toys. My mother once helped out at a church bazaar and she let me come along. There were long tables where people were selling cookies and homemade pot holders and other stuff to raise money for the church. I only had two dollars, and with that small amount of money I bought two stuffed animals, a board game, and a car for my Barbie doll. When I got home, both of the board games were missing pieces, the stuffed bear had weird bald spots that I hadn’t noticed, and the Barbie car was missing the steering wheel. There was something wrong with every one of those toys. That is what I think of when I see the toys scattered around that yard—you have a pretty good idea that something is wrong with each and every one of them. This time I am waiting for the cinder-block house. I point to it as we pass. It’s almost too dark to see, but I bet Mr. Howland knows which house I’m talking about.

  “How would you like to live in that house?” I ask.

  “I’d like to get rid of the house I have,” he says.

  It is becoming clear to me there is no easy answer to the question of how and why one family lives in a broken-down house like that one while my father and I share such a huge house, a house so big we don’t even see each other most of the time. Or why one person spends his free time trying to fix a car up on cinder blocks while another person watches G.I. Diary.

  Mr. Howland and I say goodbye. We kiss, and he hugs my head against his chest, where there are still a few remaining remnants of the burrs. His hands pull me close, and I feel the love coming through him and into me. It is a feeling you don’t get very often, especially when your mother is in the hospital. It is the main reason I won’t tell Dr. Chester about Mr. Howland or any of this, because I am pretty certain he would not understand—I’m not sure there are many people who would understand anything about it. Dr. Chester would probably call the pervert police and make me stay in counseling for the rest of my stupid life. I’d be trapped in some room with a bored-looking bald guy in a poplin suit asking questions until I figured out the answers that would make him go away.

  The Gold Chair Empty

  MY FATHER HAD TO TAKE KIPPY to the vet because the cleaning lady can’t get her to eat anymore. He is probably pissed because Kippy always gets sick and it costs a fortune to fix her. Kippy and I have never been best friends, but I felt pretty bad when I saw my father trying to pry her off that gold chair. She is still convinced my mother is coming back. When I felt her nose, it was hot and dry, and even I know that a dry nose is a bad sign for a little dog. My father carried her out to the car wrapped in a blanket. He said not to tell my mother Kippy was sick, but I don’t talk to her so he doesn’t need to worry.

  A Party at Patty’s House

 
THE NEXT NIGHT Patty’s mother is going to see a play in New York, so Patty invited Barbie and me over to hang out. As Barbie and I have grown apart, Patty and I have gotten closer. The most obvious reason is that Patty and I have three classes together this year. The tough part is that my family is pretty well off, but since Patty’s dad died, her mom has to watch money carefully. She told Patty that even though her heart might be set on Holy Cross or even Yale, she’ll probably have to take a scholarship from Rutgers. As it is, Patty has to work at Burger Chef to save money. Another point of contention between us is that while I seem to have a charmed life when it comes to not getting busted for things, Patty gets caught even when I’m the culprit. Her mother found my cigarettes under Patty’s bed and Patty took the blame. I was too much of a coward to confess. The worst part is that Patty’s mother keeps telling her she should be more like me.

  I told Mr. Howland that we were going to be at Patty’s tonight. I haven’t been to Patty’s house in over a month, since the night Mr. Howland and his wife were there. It’s about eight o’clock, and we’ve been drinking screwdrivers since seven. On the way over here I told Barbie about Mr. Howland and me. It’s gotten to the point where someone needs to know, and I knew that Barbie would be trustworthy. We have a long history together, especially when it comes to secrets. Barbie is the nicest person I know. Even when we were in elementary school and I bossed her around and made her play games I invented, she was always nice. We had sleepovers every Friday when we were in fourth grade and made up songs about how much we hated confirmation class. Sometimes we played with our Barbie dolls until midnight. Whenever I do see her, I still feel like we’re best friends.

  “Guess what?” I said.

  I was driving the Triumph TR7. Barbie hasn’t really gotten a chance to ride in it, so she wanted me to pick her up even though she lives quite close to Patty.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I’m having an affair.”