by Jandy Nelson
Tonight, the woman on the mountaintop will have to be Bailey.
I sit down and tell her how sorry I am, that I don’t know what’s wrong with me and that I’ll call Toby and cancel the date first thing in the morning. I also tell her I didn’t mean to think what I thought in the woods and I would do anything for her to be able to meet Joe Fontaine. Anything. And then I ask her again to please give me a sign that she forgives me before the list of unpardonable things I think and do gets too long and I become a lost cause.
I look over at the boxes. I know I’m going to have to start eventually. I take a deep breath, banish all morbid thoughts from my mind, and put my hands on the wooden knobs of the top desk drawer. Only to immediately think about Bailey and my anti-snooping pact. I never broke it, not once, despite a natural propensity for nosing around. At people’s houses, I open medicine cabinets, peek behind shower curtains, open drawers and closet doors whenever possible. But with Bailey, I adhered to the pact—
Pacts. So many between us, breaking now. And what about the unspoken ones, those entered into without words, without pinky swears, without even realizing it? A squall of emotion lands in my chest. Forget talking to the picture, I take out my phone, punch in Bailey’s number, listen impatiently to her as Juliet, heat filling my head, then over the tone, I hear myself say, “What happens to a stupid companion pony when the racehorse dies?” There’s both anger and despair in my voice and immediately and illogically I wish I could erase the message so she won’t hear it.
I slowly open the desk drawer, afraid of what I might find, afraid of what else she might not have told me, afraid of this rollicking bananas pact-breaking me. But there are just things, inconsequential things of hers, some pens, a few playbills from shows at Clover Repertory, concert tickets, an address book, an old cell phone, a couple of business cards, one from our dentist reminding her of her next appointment, and one from Paul Booth, Private Investigator with a San Francisco address.
WTF?
I pick it up. On the back in Bailey’s writing it says April 25 4 p.m., Suite 2B. The only reason I can think of that she would go see a private investigator would be to find Mom. But why would she do that? We both knew that Big already tried, just a few years ago in fact, and that the PI had said it would be impossible to find her.
The day Big told us about the detective, Bailey had been furious, torpedoing around the kitchen while Gram and I snapped peas from the garden for dinner.
Bailey said, “I know you know where she is, Gram.”
“How could I know, Bails?” Gram replied.
“Yeah, how could she know, Bails?” I repeated. I hated when Gram and Bailey fought, and sensed things were about to blow.
Bailey said, “I could go after her. I could find her. I could bring her back.” She grabbed a pod, putting the whole thing, shell and all, into her mouth.
“You couldn’t find her, and you couldn’t bring her back either.” Big stood in the doorway, his words filled the room like gospel. I had no idea how long he’d been listening.
Bailey went to him. “How do you know that?”
“Because I’ve tried, Bailey.”
Gram and I stopped snapping and looked up at Big. He hulked over to the table and sat in a kitchen chair, looking like a giant in a kindergarten classroom. “I hired a detective a few years back, a good one, figured I would tell you all if he came up with something, but he didn’t. He said it’s the easiest thing to be lost if you don’t want to be found. He thinks Paige changed her name and probably changes her social security number if she moves…” Big strummed his fingers on the table – it sounded like little claps of thunder.
“How do we even know she’s alive?” Big said under his breath, but we all heard it as if he hollered it from the mountaintop. Strangely, this had never occurred to me and I don’t think it had ever occurred to Bailey either. We were always told she would be back and we believed it, deeply.
“She’s alive, she’s most certainly alive,” Gram said to Big. “And she will be back.”
I saw suspicion dawn again on Bailey’s face.
“How do you know, Gram? You must know something if you’re so sure.”
“A mother knows, okay? She just does.” With that, Gram left the room.
I put the card back in the desk drawer, take St Anthony with me, and get into bed. I put him on the nightstand. Why was she keeping so many secrets from me? And how in the world can I possibly be mad at her about it now? About anything. Even for a moment.
Bailey and I didn't talk too much
about Gram's spells,
what she called her Private Times
days spent in the art room
without break.
It was just a part of things,
like green summer leaves,
burning up in fall.
I'd peek through the crack in the door,
see her surrounded by easels
of green women, half-formed—
the paint still wet and hungry.
She'd work on them all at once,
and soon, she'd begin
to look like one of them, too,
all that green spattered on her clothes,
her hands, her face.
Bails and I would pack
our own brown bags those days,
would pull out our sandwiches at noon,
hating the disappointment of a world
where polka dotted scarves,
sheets of music, blue feathers,
didn't surprise us at lunch.
After school, we'd bring her tea
or a sliced apple with cheese,
but it'd just sit on the table, untouched.
Big would tell us to ride it out—
that everyone needs a break
from the routine now and then.
So we did—
it was like Gram would go
on vacation with her ladies
and like them
would get caught somewhere
between here and there.
(Found on a piece of paper in Lennie’s clarinet case)
Len, you awake?
Yeah.
Let's do Mom.
Okay, I'll start. She's in Rome—
She's always in Rome lately—
Well, now she's a famous Roman pizza chef and it's late at night, the restaurant just closed and she's drinking a glass of wine with—
With Luigi, the drop dead gorgeous waiter, they just grabbed the bottle of wine and are walking through the moonlit streets, it's hot, and when they come to a fountain she takes off her shoes and jumps in...
Luigi doesn't even take off his shoes, just jumps in and splashes her, they're laughing...
But standing in the fountain under the big, bright moon makes her think of Flying Man's, how she used to swim at night with Big...
You really think so, Bails? You really think she's in a fountain in Rome on a hot summer night with gorgeous Luigi and thinking about us? About Big?
Sure.
No way.
We're thinking about her.
That's different.
Why?
Because we're not in a fountain in Rome on a hot summer night with gorgeous Luigi.
True.
Night, Bails.
(Found on a piece of notebook paper balled up in a shoe in Lennie’s closet)
The day everything happens begins like all others lately with Joe’s soft knock. I roll over, peek out the window, and see only the lawn through the morning fog. Everything must have been moved back into the house after I’d gone to sleep.
I go downstairs, find Gram sitting at her seat at the kitchen table, her hair wrapped in a towel. She has her hands around a mug of coffee and is staring at Bailey’s chair. I sit down next to her. “I’m really sorry about last night,” I say. “I know how much you wanted to do a ritual for Bailey, for us.”
“It’s okay, Len, we’ll do one. We have plenty of time.” She takes my hand with one of he
rs, rubs it absent-mindedly with the other. “And anyway, I think I figured out what was causing the bad luck.”
“Yeah?” I say. “What?”
“You know that mask Big brought back from South America when he was studying those trees. I think that it might have a curse on it.”
I’ve always hated that mask. It has fake hair all over it, eyebrows that arch in astonishment, and a mouth baring shiny, wolfish teeth. “It always gave me the creeps,” I tell her. “Bailey too.”
Gram nods but she seems distracted. I don’t think she’s really listening to me, which couldn’t be more unlike her lately.
“Lennie,” she says tentatively. “Is everything okay between you and Toby?”
My stomach clenches. “Of course,” I say, swallowing hard, trying to make my voice sound casual. “Why?” She owl-eyes me.
“Don’t know, you both seemed funny last night around each other.” Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.
“And I keep wondering why Sarah isn’t coming around. Did you get in a fight?” she says to further send me into a guilt spiral.
Just then, Big and Joe come in, saving me. Big says, “We thought we saw life in spider number six today.”
Joe says, “I swear I saw a flutter.”
“Almost had a heart attack, Joe here, practically launched through the roof, but it must have been a breeze, little guy’s still dead as a doornail. The Lennie plant’s still languishing too. I might have to rethink things, maybe add a UV light.”
“Hey,” Joe says, coming behind me, dropping a hand to my shoulder. I look up at the warmth in his face and smile at him. I think he could make me smile even while I was hanging at the gallows, which I’m quite certain I’m headed for. I put my hand over his for a second, see Gram notice this as she gets up to make us breakfast.
I feel somehow responsible for the scrambled ashes that we are all shoveling into our mouths, as if I’ve somehow derailed the path to healing that our household was on yesterday morning. Joe and Big banter on about resurrecting bugs and exploding cakes – the conversation that would not die – while I actively avoid Gram’s suspicious gaze.
“I need to get to work early today, we’re catering the Dwyers’ party tonight.” I say this to my plate but can see Gram nodding in my periphery. She knows because she’s been asked to help with the flower arrangements. She’s asked all the time to oversee flower arrangements for parties and weddings but rarely says yes because she hates cut flowers. We all knew not to prune her bushes or cut her blooms under penalty of death. She probably said yes this time just to get out of the house for an afternoon. Sometimes I imagine the poor gardeners all over town this summer without Gram, standing in their yards, scratching their heads at their listless wisteria, their forlorn fuchsias.
Joe says, “I’ll walk you to work. I need to go to the music store anyway.” All the Fontaine boys are supposedly working for their parents this summer, who’ve converted a barn into a workshop where his dad makes specialty guitars, but I get the impression they spend all day working on new songs for their band Dive.
We embark on the seven-block walk to town, which looks like it’s going to take two hours because Joe comes to a standstill every time he has something to say, which is every three seconds.
“You can’t walk and talk at the same time, can you?” I ask.
He stops in his tracks, says “Nope.” Then continues on for a minute in silence until he can’t take it anymore and stops, turns to me, takes my arm, forcing me to stop, while he tells me how I have to go to Paris, how we’ll play music in the metro, make tons of money, eat only chocolate croissants, drink red wine, and stay up all night every night because no one ever sleeps in Paris. I can hear his heart beating the whole time and I’m thinking, Why not? I could step out of this sad life like it’s an old sorry dress, and go to Paris with Joe – we could get on a plane and fly over the ocean and land in France. We could do it today even. I have money saved. I have a beret. A hot black bra. I know how to say Je t’aime. I love coffee and chocolate and Baudelaire. And I’ve watched Bailey enough to know how to wrap a scarf. We could really do it, and the possibility makes me feel so giddy I think I might catapult into the air. I tell him so. He takes my hand and puts his other arm up Superman-style.
“You see, I was right,” he says with a smile that could power the state of California.
“God, you’re gorgeous,” I blurt out and want to die because I can’t believe I said it aloud and neither can he – his smile, so huge now, he can’t even get any words past it.
He stops again. I think he’s going to go on about Paris some more – but he doesn’t. I look up at him. His face is serious like it was last night in the woods.
“Lennie,” he whispers.
I look into his sorrowless eyes and a door in my heart blows open.
And when we kiss, I see that on the other side of that door is sky.
I
CAN'T
SHOVE
THE
DARK
OUT
OF
MY
WAY
(Found scrawled on the bench outside of Maria’s Italian Deli)
I make a million lasagnas in the window at the deli, listening to Maria gossip with customer after customer, then come home to find Toby lying on my bed. The house is still as stone with Gram at the Dwyers’ and Big at work. I punched Toby’s number into my phone ten times today, but stopped each time before pressing send. I was going to tell him I couldn’t see him. Not after promising Bailey. Not after kissing Joe. Not after Gram’s inquisition. Not after reaching into myself and finding some semblance of conscience. I was going to tell him that we had to stop this, had to think how it would make Bailey feel, how bad it makes us feel. I was going to tell him all these things, but didn’t because each time I was about to complete the call, I got transported back to the moment by his truck last night and that same inexplicable recklessness and hunger would overtake me until the phone was closed and lying silent on the counter before me.
“Hi, you.” His voice is deep and dark and unglues me instantly.
I’m moving toward him, unable not to, the pull, unavoidable, tidal. He gets up quickly, meets me halfway across the room. For one split second we face each other; it’s like diving into a mirror. And then I feel his mouth crushing into mine, teeth and tongue and lips and all his raging sorrow crashing right into mine, all our raging sorrow together now crashing into the world that did this to us. I’m frantic as my fingers unbutton his shirt, slip it off his shoulders, then my hands are on his chest, his back, his neck, and I think he must have eight hands because one is taking off my shirt, another two are holding my face while he kisses me, one is running through my hair, another two are on my breasts, a few are pulling my hips to his and then the last undoes the button on my jeans, unzips the fly and we are on the bed, his hand edging its way between my legs, and that is when I hear the front door slam shut—
We freeze and our eyes meet – a mid-air collision of shame: all the wreckage explodes inside me. I can’t bear it. I cover my face with my hands, hear myself groan. What am I doing? What did we almost do? I want to press the rewind button. Press it and press it and press it. But I can’t think about that now, can only think about not getting caught in this bed with Toby.
“Hurry,” I say, and it unfreezes and de-panics both of us.
He springs to his feet and I scramble across the floor like a crazed crab, put on my shirt, throw Toby his. We’re both dressing at warp speed—
“No more,” I say, fumbling with the buttons on my shirt, feeling criminal and wrong, full of ick and shame. “Please.”
He’s straightening the bedding, frenetically puffing pillows, his face flushed and wild, blond hair flying in every direction. “I’m sorry, Len—”
“It doesn’t make me miss her less, not anymore.” I sound half resolute, half frantic. “It makes it worse.”
He stops what he’s doing, nods, his face a wrestling match of competing emotion
s, but it looks like hurt is winning out. God, I don’t want to hurt him, but I don’t want to do this anymore either. I can’t. And what is this anyway? Being with him just now didn’t feel like the safe harbor it did before – it was different, desperate, like two people struggling for breath.
“John Lennon,” I hear from downstairs. “You home?”
This can’t be happening, it can’t. Nothing used to happen to me, nothing at all for seventeen years and now everything at once. Joe is practically singing my name, he sounds so elated, probably still riding high from that kiss, that sublime kiss that could make stars fall into your open hands, a kiss like Cathy and Heathcliff must have had on the moors with the sun beating on their backs and the world streaming with wind and possibility. A kiss so unlike the fearsome tornado that moments before ripped through Toby and me.
Toby is dressed and sitting on my bed, his shirt hanging over his lap. I wonder why he doesn’t tuck it in, then realize he’s trying to cover a freaking hard-on – oh God, who am I? How could I have let this get so out of hand? And why doesn’t my family do anything normal like carry house keys and lock front doors?
I make sure I’m buttoned and zipped. I smooth my hair and wipe my lips before I swing open the bedroom door and stick my head out just as Joe is barreling down the hallway. He smiles wildly, looks like love itself stuffed into a pair of jeans, black T-shirt, and backward baseball cap.
“Come over tonight. They’re all going to the city for some jazz show.” He’s out of breath – I bet he ran all the way here. “Couldn’t wait…” He reaches for my hand, takes it in his, then sees Toby sitting on the bed behind me. First he drops my hand, and then the impossible happens: Joe Fontaine’s face shuts like a door.
“Hey,” he says to Toby, but his voice is pinched and wary.
“Toby and I were just going through some of Bailey’s things,” I blurt out. I can’t believe I’m using Bailey to lie to Joe to cover up fooling around with her boyfriend. A new low even for the immoral girl I’ve become. I’m a Gila monster of a girl. Loch Ness Lennie. No convent would even take me.
