by Unknown
They finally agreed to wait a few days and make some calls. Zooey would call Julie Shaw and check with her. Amy knew the names of a few others and would try to get their numbers and call them, though it was hard as the phonebook listings would be under their parent’s names, which they didn’t know. Zooey drove Amy back to Branford and then went home.
Zooey called Julie right away and she answered the phone, covering the phone and yelling at her younger siblings to shut up, she couldn’t hear. Julie hadn’t heard anything, hadn’t even seen Keeley since they graduated. She said she’d call Zooey if she found anything out and took her number.
Amy called a lot of wrong numbers the next day before finding two different friends Keeley had mentioned, both dead ends as far as Keeley’s whereabouts. Amy called Zooey to tell her and, after talking to Pam, the three girls decided they would meet at Friendly’s again in two days if they hadn’t heard anything, stop by Keeley’s again to make sure she wasn’t there, and file the report in person.
Zooey had missed classes to come home for both visits, and used the wait to catch up on her studies and do her assigned reading. When she’d offered her house to Keeley, she’d been prepared to put off school, but when the offer was refused, she decided to go to school after all. It was one of her better decisions. Home was lonely and depressing. Wellesley was exciting and challenging, filled with bright young female students who were friendly but intellectually competitive and professors who didn’t give away easy A’s. She loved the beautiful Gothic stone buildings, the park-like campus, and the dorm parties where revelers quoted Camus rather than Bruce Springsteen.
The evening after their decision, Zooey was stretched out on the couch in her father’s den reading a novel by a different famous author, Eudora Welty, and occasionally stopping to press her nose against the couch cushion and breathe in the lingering smell of her father’s cigars. It was the only room that smelled of them, and only faintly as he enjoyed one rarely, saying they were bad for him but he loved them too much to quit. Her mother had forbidden him to smoke anywhere else in the house, so the scent was concentrated there. When Zooey breathed in with her nose against the cushion and closed her eyes, she could almost imagine that he was simply in the other room, had just stepped away, could hear the echo of his resonant voice down the hallway.
She was engaged in this fantasy when she heard the doorbell and her eyes flew open. She lifted her head to look at the clock on the mantelpiece. It was nine o’clock at night. No one she knew would visit this late. Who could it be? She put her book down on the coffee table and stood up, joints crackling from being stationary for hours. The doorbell sounded again, this time sounding eerie, ominous. What if it was someone who knew she was all alone in the house? A murderer or a robber?
She stepped out into the hallway and looked toward the front door. She couldn’t see anything through the decorative glass panes on either side of the door; the front porch light was off and it was pitch black outside. She swore under her breath. She wished she’d put the light on. Now she’d have to go right up to the switch near the door to turn it on and whoever it was would see her. The doorbell sounded again, making her startle.
She walked slowly down the hall and looked in the living room. The phone wasn’t far. She could run for it and call the police before anyone could get in. Wait, had she locked the back door? She couldn’t remember. Damn. She’d gotten too lax, too comfortable being alone. What if…
The doorbell rang again.
“Okay! Okay!” She walked over to the switch and flipped it on, looking out the glass pane to see who was there and tensing to run.
Illuminated by the dull yellow glow of the hanging antique lantern, Keeley stood looking like a shriveled aged version of herself, worsened by her lopped-off hair that appeared to be a home job done with a pair of garden shears, her head lumpy with shorter and longer chunks of hair interspersed on her scalp.
“Oh, my God!” Zooey said and rushed to throw open the front door. “Keeley!”
Keeley croaked out a dry little sound and stepped forward, her knees buckling.
Zooey rushed forward just in time to catch her. She was remarkably light, her weight that of a young child in Zooey’s arms. She smelled sharply of hard liquor with an undercurrent of foul body odor. Zooey half-carried, half-supported Keeley over to the nearest couch in the living room and helped her lie down on it. Then she focused on getting Keeley some kind of sustenance.
Keeley slurped a little of the chicken noodle soup Zooey had heated up, took a gulp of the ginger ale Zooey had poured into a glass, and then let her head drop on the couch with a moan and was immediately asleep. Zooey propped up Keeley’s head with a pillow, covered her with a quilt, gathered up the barely touched food, and turned off the light in the living room before going to call Amy and then Pam, apologizing to each irritated parent that answered the phone before explaining.
Chapter 64
“What happened? How scary,” Hannah said, leaning in so close that Zooey could have leaned across and kissed her. Maybe she should, while she had a chance. The truth was about to come out. How would Hannah react?
“The haircut was self-inflicted, something she did one day when she caught herself admiring her reflection in the mirror in her bedroom. She said when she realized what she was doing - she had been preening a bit, combing her hair and thinking about washing it - she freaked out. Michael was dead and she was thinking about herself?”
Hannah made a sad sound and said, “But, of course she needed to take care of herself.”
Zo shook her head. “She didn’t see it that way. She took all the blame for Michael’s death, ravaged herself with her own words from the night he died. When she realized she was thinking about herself, something she’d promised herself she would never do again, she went and got some paper scissors and hacked all of her hair off. And it was a hatchet job, let me tell you. In some places, she had cut all the way down to the scalp, and it looked naked and sad, all bare like that.”
“Poor mom. But why did she leave? Where did she go? What happened to her bedroom door? Was it a friend?”
Zo took a deep breath and dived, bracing herself.
The whole terrible story came out the next morning. Amy and Pam arrived early that Saturday bearing fresh bagels and coffee and the four of them sat down at Zooey’s kitchen table to talk. Keeley was talkative for the first time in a long time, though she was a horror to look at, her body and face so emaciated she looked like an animated skeleton, worsened more by her crazy patchwork haircut. She wore a clean pair of pants and a blouse that Zooey had loaned to her, both of which swam on her. Her dirty clothes were in the washing machine, which chugged and sloshed away down the hall in the utility room.
After the haircut incident, Keeley had gone on hiding in her bedroom and waiting to die. She admitted that was what she wanted at the time. She hated a world where someone like Michael could die and someone like her could live. What changed her plans was the day her mother came knocking, and all hell broke loose.
Up until that day, they’d ignored each other. It was easy to do. Keeley remained locked in her room and didn’t ask for anything. Her mother continued her schedule of cleaning and cooking and errand running in the mornings and afternoons engaged in church-related activities, with the exception of Sundays, when she spent the whole day at church. Her father was only home late at night, when he’d rummage in the fridge for a late dinner before falling into bed in the guest bedroom where he’d been sleeping for the last few years.
Just before noon that Thursday, Keeley had been lying in bed as usual, when there was a knock at the door. It was her mother, saying she needed to clean Keeley’s room. Keeley sat up in bed and called back that she would clean it herself. Her mother knocked again, insisting she needed to do it. Keeley didn’t want to leave the room, and for the first time since the accident, didn’t just go along with the flow. She pleaded and promised she’d clean it well, that it would be up to her mother’s standard
s, just leave her alone. There was quiet on the other side of the door, so Keeley thought her mother had agreed. She lay back down.
That was when the pounding started, making Keeley leap out of the bed. She shouted through the door to stop, but her mother kept kicking at the door. Keeley could hear the wood giving in. When the frame started to shake and splinter, Keeley started to realize that if her mother got in, she might try to kill Keeley again. And that was Keeley’s turning point. There in her darkened bedroom, the fear coursing through her while watching her bedroom door buckle under her mother’s assault, she saw the light. She wanted to live.
She dressed as fast as she could, grabbing jeans and the first clean shirt on top of a pile that had been stacked neatly in her drawer in the spring when her mother still did her laundry and cleaned the empty room her daughter rarely inhabited at the time. Slipping on shoes and grabbing her wallet, she snatched up her overnight bag that still contained the dirty clothes and other items from her summer on Captain’s when the doorframe gave and the metal lock snapped. Her mother stumbled into the room, her hands out in claws and Keeley ducked behind her, feeling her mother’s intention like a thunderstorm, lightening ripping through the room. She heard her mother gasp, and knew she’d been spotted. She ran.
Clattering down the front stairs and opening the front door, she realized her mother wasn’t behind her, but she kept running. As she crossed the lawn, she felt something soft hit her calf, and looked down to see that it was her dirty nightgown which she had left on the floor in her haste. She looked up and saw that her mother was in her bedroom window. The window was wide open, and she was throwing things out of it at Keeley. She yelled, “Run! Good! Don’t come back! You’re not wanted in this house! Do you hear me?”
“It was like something broke inside of me, hearing that. Something that was already smashed to bits, but there was this one last piece intact, holding the whole thing together. When she said it, that piece broke,” Keeley said, leaning back in her chair and staring off into her memory.
They were all mesmerized. Hearing her talk openly like this was so new, it made Zooey wonder who this imposter was. Was this their Keeley, the tireless gatekeeper of her inner workings?
Keeley continued, “When I finally got far enough away to feel safe, I was in a park. There were lots of kids running and playing, moms pushing kids on the swings. The children were laughing and screaming, happy kind of screams. It was unreal. This was what childhood was supposed to be like. Not that. I found a park bench and sat down and tried to figure out what to do.”
She decided she wanted a fresh start. She remembered a story she’d heard about the small wine vineyards sprouting up out on the North Fork of Long Island. She could go out there, offer herself up to work picking grapes or any other manual labor jobs they were willing offer her. She liked the idea of picking grapes in the sun, sleeping in a barn, living the simple life.
The biggest problem was that she didn’t have any money or a car. How would she get out to the northern tip of Long Island? She could have asked any of her friends, especially the Barefooters, who she knew would have helped her in a heartbeat, but she was tired of depending on other people. Her mother wanted her out of her life. Her father didn’t care. She wanted to have a life where she was important, where her absence would be a problem, not a solution. Plus, suffering felt right, after what happened to Michael.
She decided to hitchhike. She knew it was dangerous, that any strange scary person could pick her up, but she also knew she didn’t look particularly good. Anyone picking her up would probably be doing it out of pity more than anything. It would be the last time she took favors from anyone. She walked to Route 1 and stuck her thumb out, her little bag at her feet.
The first car to stop was a station wagon with a mother and a little boy strapped into a child car seat in the back with a pacifier in his mouth, his wide round eyes regarding her.
“Do you know how dangerous what you’re doing is, young lady?” the woman asked, pulling back onto the road.
The car smelled of baby powder and peanut butter. Keeley was comforted by the homey scent, wanted to curl up and sleep next to the nice concerned mom who quizzed her on where she was going and tried to give her money. Keeley wouldn’t take it. The woman drove out of her way to give Keeley as big of a head start as she could, dropping her off near the New York border with a look of sad regret.
The next ride wasn’t as good. An old Buick rattled to a stop in the breakdown lane after she’d been standing with her thumb out near the New York border for an hour. The man was wearing a ratty stained white t-shirt stretched over his balloon of an abdomen and grunted most of his words, barely intelligible. Keeley told him she was heading out to Long Island and however far he could take her would be great. Then he started driving in the opposite direction, getting onto the highway and driving upstate, passing Rye, then White Plains before pulling off onto back roads.
“Oh, no. What did you do?” Amy said, leaning across the table, her eyes huge.
Zooey nodded in agreement and looked at Keeley, feeling worse and worse as the story came out. It was her fault. All of this.
Keeley said she decided to keep quiet, make it seem like she didn’t know any better. She didn’t want him to know that she knew she was in trouble. As soon as they stopped at a light, she threw open the passenger door and leapt from the car holding her overnight bag. She could hear him yelling as she ran the opposite direction up the sidewalk and then into the yard of a house to hide, running around back and pressing herself against a wall. He didn’t come after her.
She hid behind the house, immobilized by fear, until the sun started to set. There was still no movement in the house. A small toolshed toward the back of the property looked promising, and after finding it unlocked and apparently used as a storage area with boxes filled with Christmas decorations and old clothes, she decided it was as safe a place as anywhere to sleep that night. She found some old blankets in one of the boxes and made a bed on the floor, whispering thanks to her unknowing benefactors before falling asleep.
The next morning, the owners of the house were clearly home, sounds of activity coming from all parts of the house, and Keeley had to wait to leave until she was sure they were gone, which wasn’t until the afternoon. Finally, she left. She got back on the road, turned off of it onto another road, and walked for over an hour before ending up in a small town.
The town was tiny, actually. There was only an old closed-down gas station, the pumps removed, a pharmacy, a post office, and a bar. The bar, called Pete O’Malley’s, was open. Keeley went inside and asked the bartender if she could work for some food. He said he couldn’t offer her any work, but he gave her a sandwich anyway, letting her sit at the bar to eat it even though she was underage. She thanked him profusely and promised herself again that she wouldn’t take any more favors once she had a job.
She was sitting at the bar after finishing her sandwich when the bar started to fill up, working-class guys mostly, getting a beer before going home. One man, a friendly older gentleman wearing a navy blue uniform that she couldn’t place, offered her a ride as far as Mamaroneck when she told him where she was going. She accepted gratefully. That’s when he started insisting on buying her a drink. At first, she explained that she was underage, but he just waved his hand at her protests.
After a few more apologies, she gave in. She was surprised when the bartender readily poured her the drink and grateful when the vodka hit her stomach, warming it. The man plied her with drinks, cheap vodka and cranberry juice, saying, ‘just one more, for the road’, until she was very drunk. She had never been that drunk before, felt that completely out of control. She knew part of it was how thin she was. It didn’t take much.
Next thing she knew, she was in his car, dozing as the car rolled down dark streets, seeing streetlights flashing by overhead when she cracked open her eyes. Then she was out again and when she woke, she was still in the car and the man was on top of her, tryin
g to pull her jeans down and swearing softly. When he realized she was awake, he held her down. She fought him, scratching and trying to poke at his eyes, but he wouldn’t let her get near them, grabbing her hands with one of his and holding them above her head.
“That’s when I kneed him in the nuts,” Keeley said.
“Ooo,” Pam said, groaning.
“I know, but what was I going to do? Anyway, he let go and I jumped out and ran like crazy. The car was parked in this big parking lot that went on for what felt like miles, and I ran toward all the lights on one side. Then I stopped when I came to the turnstiles, saw the Victorian curly-cue buildings. I looked up, and there it was, the Dragon Coaster.”
“Playland! So, he had been driving the right direction!” Zooey said.
“I turned around just in time to see his car pull out of the parking lot, taking my overnight bag with him. The park was closed and there wasn’t anyone around. Someone had left the gates open, maybe that’s why he chose that lot. But I saw it as a sign. Two times in two days, looking like this. I knew someone somewhere was trying to tell me something. Even if there wasn’t, my luck was bound to run out and why chance it? I knew I could make it here, that it was maybe an hour’s walk. I swear, at the end, I really felt like giving up and just sleeping in someone’s yard, but I couldn’t stand any more trouble.”
Zooey couldn’t stand any more trouble, either. She reached her hands across the table toward Keeley. Keeley hesitantly took them. Zooey said, “You’re safe now and you’re not going anywhere.”
Keeley shook her head, “What about Wellesley? No, I should get a job like I planned.”
Pam interrupted. “’What about Wellesley?’ What about SUNY? You could still go back to school. Forget about the vineyards.”
“Hey, don’t knock having a job ‘til you have one,” Amy said. “And I have one. I’m hereby knocking it. It sucks. Go to school, Keeley. Trust me.”
