by Jandy Nelson
“Where’s Joe?” Big asks. I realize then why the despair is so naked this morning: Joe’s not here.
“In prison,” I say.
Big looks up, smirks. “What’d he do?” Instantly, the mood is lifted. Wow. I guess he’s not only my life raft.
“Took a four-hundred-dollar bottle of wine from his father and drank it one night with a girl named John Lennon.”
At the same time, Gram and Big gasp, then exclaim, “Four hundred dollars?!”
“He had no idea.”
“Lennie, I don’t like you drinking.” Gram waves her spatula at me. The sausages sizzle and sputter in the pan behind her.
“I don’t drink, well hardly. Don’t worry.”
“Damn, Len. Was it good?” Big’s face is a study of wonder.
“I don’t know. I’ve never had red wine before, guess so.” I’m pouring a cup of coffee that is thin as tea. I’ve gotten used to the mud Joe makes.
“Damn,” Big repeats, taking a sip of his coffee and making a disgusted face. I guess he now prefers Joe’s sludge too. “Don’t suppose you will drink it again either, with the bar set that high.”
I’m wondering if Joe will be at the first band practice today – I’ve decided to go – when suddenly he walks through the door with croissants, dead bugs for Big, and a smile as big as God for me…
“Hey!” I say.
“They let you out,” says Big. “That’s terrific. Is it a conjugal visit or is your sentence over?”
“Big!” Gram chastises. “Please.”
Joe laughs. “It’s over. My father is a very romantic man, it’s his best and worst trait, when I explained to him how I was feeling—” Joe looks at me, proceeds to turn red, which of course makes me go full-on tomato. It surely must be against the rules to feel like this when your sister is dead!
Gram shakes her head. “Who would have thought Lennie such a romantic?”
“Are you kidding?” Joe exclaims. “Her reading Wuthering Heights twenty-three times didn’t give it away?” I look down. I’m embarrassed at how moved I am by this. He knows me. Somehow better than they do.
“Touché, Mr Fontaine,” Gram says, hiding her grin as she goes back to the stove. Joe comes up behind me, wraps his arms around my waist. I close my eyes, think about his body, naked under his clothes, pressing into me, naked under mine. I turn my head to look up at him. “The melody you wrote is so beautiful. I want to play it for you.” Before the last word is out of my mouth, he kisses me. I twist around in his arms so that we are facing each other, then throw my arms around his neck while his find the small of my back, and sweep me into him. Oh God, I don’t care if this is wrong of me, if I’m breaking every rule in the Western World, I don’t care about freaking anything, because our mouths, which momentarily separated, have met again and anything but that ecstatic fact ceases to matter.
How do people function when they’re feeling like this?
How do they tie their shoes?
Or drive cars?
Or operate heavy machinery?
How does civilization continue when this is going on?
A voice, ten decibels quieter than its normal register, stutters out of Uncle Big. “Uh, kids. Might want to, I don’t know, mmmm…” Everything screeches to a halt in my mind. Is Big stammering? Uh, Lennie? Probably not cool to make out like this in the middle of the kitchen in front of your grandmother and uncle. I pull away from Joe; it’s like breaking suction. I look at Gram and Big, who are standing there fiddly and sheepish while the sausages burn. Is it possible that we’ve succeeded in embarrassing the Emperor and Empress of Weird?
I glance back at Joe. He looks totally cartoon-dopey, like he’s been bonked on the head with a club. The whole scene strikes me as hysterical, and I collapse into a chair laughing. Joe smiles an embarrassed half smile at Gram and Big, leans against the counter, his trumpet case now strategically held over his crotch. Thank God I don’t have one of those. Who’d want a lust-o-meter sticking out the middle of their body?
“You’re going to rehearsal, right?” he asks.
Bat. Bat. Bat.
Yes, if we make it.
We do make it, though in my case, in body only. I’m surprised my fingers can find the keys as I glide through the pieces Mr James has chosen for us to play at the upcoming River Festival. Even with Rachel sending me death-darts about Joe and repeatedly turning the stand so I can’t see it, I’m lost in the music, feel like I’m playing with Joe alone, improvising, reveling in not knowing what is going to happen note to note … but mid-practice, mid-song, mid-note, a feeling of dread sweeps over me as I start thinking about Toby, how he looked when he left last night. What he said in The Sanctum. He has to know we need to stay away from each other now. He has to. I tuck the panic away but spend the rest of rehearsal painfully alert, following the arrangement without the slightest deviation.
After practice, Joe and I have the whole afternoon together because he’s out of prison and I’m off work. We’re walking back to my house, the wind whipping us around like leaves.
“I know what we should do,” I say.
“Didn’t you want to play me the song?”
“I do, but I want to play it for you somewhere else. Remember I dared you in the woods that night to brave the forest with me on a really windy day? Today is it.”
We veer off the road and hike in, bushwhacking through thickets of brush until we find the trail I’m looking for. The sun filters sporadically through the trees, casting a dim and shadowy light over the forest floor. Because of the wind, the trees are creaking symphonically – it’s a veritable philharmonic of squeaking doors. Perfect.
After a while, he says, “I think I’m holding up remarkably well, considering, don’t you?”
“Considering what?”
“Considering we’re hiking to the soundtrack of the creepiest horror movie ever made and all the world’s tree trolls have gathered above us to open and close their front doors.”
“It’s broad daylight, you can’t be scared.”
“I can be, actually, but I’m trying not to be a wuss. I have a very low eerie threshold.”
“You’re going to love where I’m taking you, I promise.”
“I’m going to love it if you take off all your clothes there, I promise, or at least some of them, maybe even just a sock.” He comes over to me, drops his horn, and swings me around so we are facing each other.
I say, “You’re very repressed, you know? It’s maddening.”
“Can’t help it. I’m half French, joie de vivre and all. In all seriousness though, I haven’t yet seen you in any state of undress, and it’s been three whole days since our first kiss, quelle catastrophe, you know?” He tries to get my wind-blown hair out of my face, then kisses me until my heart busts out of my chest like a wild horse. “Though I do have a very good imagination…”
“Quel dork,” I say, pulling him forward.
“You know, I only act like a dork so you’ll say quel dork,” he replies.
The trail climbs to where the old growth redwoods rocket into the sky and turn the forest into their private cathedral. The wind has died down and the woods have grown unearthly still and peaceful. Leaves flicker all around us like tiny pieces of light.
“So, what about your mom?” Joe asks all of a sudden.
“What?” My head couldn’t have been further away from thoughts of my mother.
“The first day I came over, Gram said she’d finish the portrait when your mother comes back. Where is she?”
“I don’t know.” Usually I leave it at that and don’t fill in the spare details, but he hasn’t run away yet from all our other family oddities. “I’ve never met my mother,” I say. “Well, I met her, but she left when I was one. She has a restless nature, guess it runs in the family.”
He stops walking. “That’s it? That’s the explanation? For her leaving? And never coming back?”
Yes, it’s nutso, but this Walker nutso has always made sense to
me.
“Gram says she’ll come back,” I say, my stomach knotting up, thinking of her coming back right now. Thinking of Bailey trying so hard to find her. Thinking of slamming the door in her face if she did come back, of screaming, You’re too late. Thinking of her never coming back. Thinking I’m not sure how to believe all this anymore without Bailey believing it with me. “Gram’s Aunt Sylvie had it too,” I add, feeling imbecilic. “She came back after twenty years away.”
“Wow,” Joe says. I’ve never seen his brow so furrowed.
“Look, I don’t know my mother, so I don’t miss her or anything…” I say, but I feel like I’m trying to convince myself more than Joe. “She’s this intrepid, free-spirited woman who took off to traipse all around the globe alone. She’s mysterious. It’s cool.” It’s cool? God, I’m a ninny. But when did everything change? Because it did used to be cool, super-cool, in fact – she was our Magellan, our Marco Polo, one of the wayward Walker women whose restless boundless spirit propels her from place to place, love to love, moment to unpredictable moment.
Joe smiles, looks at me so warmly, I forget everything else. “You’re cool,” he says. “Forgiving. Unlike dickhead me.” Forgiving? I take his hand, wondering from his reaction, and my own, if I’m cool and forgiving or totally delusional. And what about this dickhead him? Who is it? Is it the Joe that never talked to that violinist again? If so, I don’t want to meet that guy, ever. We continue in silence, both of us soaring around in the sky of our minds for another mile or so and then we are there, and all thoughts of dickhead him and my mysterious missing mother are gone.
“Okay, close your eyes,” I say. “I’ll lead you.” I reach up from behind him and cover my hands over his eyes and steer him down the path. “Okay, open them.”
There is a bedroom. A whole bedroom in the middle of the forest.
“Wow, where’s Sleeping Beauty?” Joe asks.
“That would be me,” I say, and take a running leap onto the fluffy bed. It’s like jumping into a cloud. He follows me. “You’re too awake to be her, we’ve already covered this.” He stands at the edge of the bed, looking around. “This is unbelievable, how is this here?”
“There’s an inn about a mile away on the river. It was a commune in the sixties, and the owner Sam’s an old hippie. He set up this forest bedroom for his guests to happen upon if they hike up here, for surprise romance, I guess, but I’ve never seen a soul pass through and I’ve been coming forever. Actually, I did see someone here once: Sam, changing the sheets. He throws this tarp over when it rains. I write at that desk, read in that rocker, lie here on this bed and daydream. I’ve never brought a guy here before though.”
He smiles, sits on the bed next to where I’m lying on my back and starts trailing his fingers over my belly.
“What do you daydream about?” he asks.
“This,” I say as his hand spreads across my midriff under my shirt. My breathing’s getting faster – I want his hands everywhere.
“John Lennon, can I ask you something?”
“Uh-oh, whenever people say that, something scary comes next.”
“Are you a virgin?”
“You see – scary question came next,” I mumble, mortified – what a mood-killer. I squirm out from under his hand. “Is it that obvious?”
“Sort of.” Ugh. I want to crawl under the covers. He tries to backtrack. “No, I mean, I think it’s cool that you are.”
“It’s decidedly uncool.”
“For you maybe, but not for me, if…”
“If what?” My stomach is suddenly churning. Roiling.
Now he looks embarrassed – good. “Well, if sometime, not now, but sometime, you might not want to be one anymore, and I could be your first, that’s where the cool part comes in, you know, for me.” His expression is shy and sweet, but what he’s saying makes me feel scared and excited and overwhelmed and like I’m going to burst into tears, which I do, and for once, I don’t even know why.
“Oh, Lennie, I’m sorry, was that bad to say? Don’t cry, there’s no pressure at all, kissing you, being with you in any way is amazing—”
“No,” I say, now laughing and crying at the same time. “I’m crying because … well, I don’t know why I’m crying, but I’m happy, not sad…” I reach for his arm, and he lies down on his side next to me, his elbow resting by my head, our bodies touching length to length. He’s peering into my eyes in a way that’s making me tremble.
“Just looking into your eyes…” he whispers. “I’ve never felt anything like this.”
I think about Genevieve. He’d said he was in love with her, does that mean…
“Me neither,” I say, not able to stop the tears from spilling over again.
“Don’t cry.” His voice is weightless, mist. He kisses my eyes, gently grazes my lips.
He looks at me then so nakedly, it makes me lightheaded, like I need to lie down even though I’m lying down. “I know it hasn’t been that long, Len, but I think … I don’t know … I might be…”
He doesn’t have to say it, I feel it too; it’s not subtle – like every bell for miles and miles is ringing at once, loud, clanging, hungry ones, and tiny, happy, chiming ones, all of them sounding off in this moment. I put my hands around his neck, pull him to me, and then he’s kissing me hard and so deep, and I am flying, sailing, soaring…
He murmurs into my hair, “Forget what I said earlier, let’s stick with this, I might not survive anything more.” I laugh. Then he jumps up, finds my wrists, and pins them over my head. “Yeah, right. Totally joking, I want to do everything with you, whenever you’re ready, I’m the one, promise?” He’s above me, batting and grinning like a total hooplehead.
“I promise,” I say.
“Good. Glad that’s decided.” He raises an eyebrow. “I’m going to deflower you, John Lennon.”
“Oh my God, so, so embarrassing, quel, quel major dork.” I try to cover my face with my hands, but he won’t let me. And then we are wrestling and laughing and it’s many, many minutes before I remember that my sister has died.
THE.
WORLD.
IS.
NOT.
A.
SAFE.
PLACE.
(Found on a candy wrapper half-buried by the roses, Gram’s Garden)
I see Toby’s truck out front and a bolt of anger shoots through me. Why can’t he just stay away from me for one freaking day even? I just want to hang on to this happiness. Please.
I find Gram in the art room, cleaning her brushes. Toby is nowhere in sight.
“Why is he always here?” I hiss at Gram.
She looks at me, surprised. “What’s wrong with you, Lennie? I called him to help me fix the trellising around my garden and he said he would stop by after he was done at the ranch.”
“Can’t you call someone else?” My voice is seething with anger and exasperation, and I’m sure I sound completely bonkers to Gram. I am bonkers – I just want to be in love. I want to feel this joy. I don’t want to deal with Toby, with sorrow and grief and guilt and DEATH. I’m so sick of DEATH.
Gram does not look pleased. “God, Len, have a heart, the guy’s destroyed. It makes him feel better to be around us. We’re the only ones who understand. He said as much last night.” She is drying her brushes over the sink, snapping her wrist dramatically with each shake. “I asked you once if everything was all right between you two and you said yes. I believed you.”
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to coerce Mr Hyde back into my body. “It’s okay, it’s fine, I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” Then I pull a Gram and walk right out of the room.
I go up to The Sanctum and put on the most obnoxious head-banging punk music I have, a San Francisco band called Filth. I know Toby hates any kind of punk because it was always a point of contention with Bailey, who loved it. He finally won her over to the alt-country he likes, and to Willie Nelson, Hank Williams and Johnny Cash, his holy t
rinity, but he never came around to punk.
The music is not helping. I’m jumping up and down on the blue dance rug, banging around to the incessant beat, but I’m too angry to even bang around BECAUSE I DON’T WANT TO DANCE IN THE INNER PUMPKIN SANCTUM ALONE. In one instant, all the rage that I felt moments before for Toby has transferred to Bailey. I don’t understand how she could have done this to me, left me here all alone. Especially because she promised me her whole life that she would never EVER disappear like Mom did, that we would always have each other, always, ALWAYS, ALWAYS. “It’s the only pact that mattered, Bailey!” I cry out, taking the pillow and pounding it again and again into the bed, until finally, many songs later, I feel a little bit calmer.
I drop on my back on the bed, panting and sweating. How will I survive this missing? How do others do it? People die all the time. Every day. Every hour. There are families all over the world staring at beds that are no longer slept in, shoes that are no longer worn. Families that no longer have to buy a particular cereal, a kind of shampoo. There are people everywhere standing in line at the movies, buying curtains, walking dogs, while inside, their hearts are ripping to shreds. For years. For their whole lives. I don’t believe time heals. I don’t want it to. If I heal, doesn’t that mean I’ve accepted the world without her?
I remember the notebook then. I get up, turn off Filth, put on a Chopin Nocturne to see if that’ll settle me down, and go over to the desk. I take out the notebook, turn to the last page, where there are a few combinations that haven’t yet been crossed out. The whole page is combinations of Mom’s name with Dickens characters. Paige/Twist, Paige/Fagan, Walker/ Havisham, Walker/Oliver/Paige, Pip/Paige.
I turn on the computer, plug in Paige Twist and then search through pages of docs, finding nothing that could relate to our mom, then I put in Paige Dickens and find some possibilities, but the documents are mostly from high school athletic teams and college alumni magazines, none that could have anything to do with her. I go through more Dickens combinations but don’t find even the remotest possibility.
