Also by Sarah Pekkanen
The Opposite of Me
Skipping a Beat
Washington Square Press
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2010 by Sarah Pekkanen
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First Washington Square Press ebook edition December 2010
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ISBN 978-1-4516-4257-5 (ebook)
All Is Bright
I was rounding the corner of a grocery store when my cart almost collided with one coming the other way.
“Sorry!” called a voice from my past.
I froze, gripping the cold metal handle, as Griffin’s mother’s sweet, crisp voice conjured a series of memories that swept through my mind like flashcards: her giving me a lime-flavored lollipop and bandaging my skinned knee after I tripped on a rock during a game of tag in her backyard. The expression on her face—pure disappointment; so much more potent than anger—when she caught Grif and me sharing a Marlboro Light, purloined from his aunt’s purse, at the age of fifteen. The tears she didn’t try to hide the night of my senior prom as she snapped photos of her son and me, our dark straight hair, blue eyes, and the bright red of my dress and his cummerbund all forming a pleasing match.
“Elise! What are you doing back in town?” Janice cried now as she hurried over in her parka and puffy down boots—a far more sensible ensemble for the Chicago winter than the Levi’s and brown leather boots I’d pulled on before my flight in from San Francisco. “Your dad and Clarissa are in . . . India, is it? Or could it be Iceland? They send postcards, but it’s hard to keep track! Does Griffin know you’re here?”
Another Janice memory: Her questions tumbled over one another like socks in a spinning dryer. But the habit had always soothed me. Janice’s chatter wasn’t demanding; you could pick which questions you wanted to answer, and she’d skip ahead to new ones without backtracking over the ones you ignored.
“Indonesia,” I said into her auburn-tinted hair, because her arms were wrapped around me. Janice always hugged like she meant it. “They’re in Jakarta right now. I came home because I didn’t want Nana to be alone on Christmas.”
“Of course. How is your grandma? Your dad said her arthritis hasn’t worsened much, thank goodness. But you’re staying alone in that big old house?” Janice asked. Her eyes widened. “Unless you brought someone with you . . .”
“Oh, no way,” I blurted. “I’m not seeing anyone.” That had come out wrong. “I mean, not that it’s bad to be dating already—I’m happy Grif is. Truly.”
Smooth, my inner critic threw into the conversation.
“Did you just get in today? The house must be so chilly. And nothing in the fridge, of course, after all these weeks . . . If I’d known, I would have dropped off some milk and bread. But that’s what you’re taking care of right now, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “I took the red eye in, ran into the house and blasted the heat, and headed straight back out for coffee and groceries. We were delayed on the runway for three hours and I sat next to a guy with a bad head cold. I’ve never been happier to walk off a plane in my life.”
“Poor thing.” Janice reached out and rubbed circles on my back. I swallowed against the lump filling my throat. Janice was small and thin, with quick birdlike gestures, yet she managed to be all soft edges. How could I have imagined she’d hate me? I thought as her brown eyes smiled up at me.
I hadn’t talked to Janice in more than eight months—since the night I sat next to Griffin in his bottle-green Jeep as we drove away from a sushi restaurant, tears staining both of our cheeks. Seeing Janice again made my heart constrict with the realization of how much I’d missed her. Not Grif—her. That encompassed the reasons why Grif had broken up with me, and why I hadn’t been able to end things with him long ago. The truth was, I was more afraid of losing his mom than of losing him.
Griffin and I had dated on and off since our sophomore year of high school—taking a long break during college, and another, longer one when we were twenty-five. After we got back together for the final time, he moved to Los Angeles for a new sales job and I went along, hoping things might finally work out for us. But over a carafe of cold sake at a restaurant in Huntington Beach, a week after my thirtieth birthday, he asked if I wanted to get married. He wasn’t proposing, just revisiting a discussion we’d had before. I’d always told him I needed more time.
“You’re never going to be ready, are you?” he’d said. “Will it ever be the right time, Elise?” I’d looked down at the napkin twisting in my hands, thinking about the chemistry lab we’d once taken together. We’d spent the whole semester putting two different elements together and waiting for reactions—a fantastic explosion, a fizzle, or something in between. Grif was funny, handsome, and smart, and yet I never saw sparks or felt a burst of heat with him—I was always stuck somewhere in between.
Two weeks later, I left L.A. for San Francisco, hoping distance would help both of us heal. I’d sent Janice a note a month later, and she’d written me back, both of us being careful and polite. Too polite. I hadn’t known how she really felt until now.
“You know, we’re on our own this year, too,” Janice was saying. “Jake came home for Thanksgiving”—Jake was their older son, who’d gotten married to his boyfriend a few years earlier—“but they flew out to be with Dave’s parents for Hanukkah. They rotate their visits every other year. And Griffin went to Minnesota to meet Ilsa’s family. It’s funny how empty the house seems. We’ve gotten used to it, for the most part, but during the holidays . . .”
Grif went to meet Ilsa’s family? For Christmas?
I felt a pang in the middle of my rib cage. Grif and I spoke or e-mailed every month or so—we were still trying to navigate our way back to the friendship that predated our romance—but I hadn’t realized his new relationship was so serious.
“I brought something for you and Stephen,” I said when I realized the silence had stretched out a beat too long. “I was going to drop it off tomorrow on my way to see Nana.”
She hesitated, then smiled. “Why don’t you come over tonight for dinner?”
“Are you sure?” My voice was so eager it embarrassed me. Janice’s house was never unwelcoming, but oh, at Christmastime . . . She made homemade gingerbread whoopie pies, layered with whipped cream and caramel, and spiced cider bubbled on the stove. The hearth was lined with stockings for two cats and a shaggy old dog along with the rest of the family. And every year since I’d turned seven or eight and began spending almost as much time at Griffin’s house as my own, there was a gift labeled with my name under the tree. Neighbors popped by with jugs of eggnog or plates of iced sugar cookies, and everyone gathered around the upright piano as Stephen played and he and Janice sang caro
ls—a tradition that had deeply humiliated Grif as a teen. When he entered his twenties, he joined in the singing, and so did I.
It was the way I imagined—dreamed—my house might have been, if my mom hadn’t succumbed to leukemia when I was six. Don’t get me wrong; my father is a very good man. He came to all of my track meets, cooked simple dinners, helped me with my English essays. But he seemed so much more comfortable reading the sports page than talking; sometimes I felt sorry for him as he stuttered through explanations of menstrual cycles and the importance of birth control. Dad had never remarried, but for the past decade he’d had a live-in girlfriend named Clarissa. When he’d retired a few months ago, they’d taken off for their long-planned around-the-world trip.
“We could cancel the trip and come see you instead,” he’d offered after Griffin broke up with me. “I know this is, ah, a . . . tough time for you. If you think the holidays might be too hard . . .”
I knew how much he’d been looking forward to the trip. His deposits were probably nonrefundable, too. Making that offer was perhaps the single kindest thing he’d ever done for me.
“Absolutely not,” I’d insisted. “I’m so busy with work now anyways.” That part was true; my graphic design business was, luckily, quite portable, and business had only increased as I’d picked up more clients in California.
“And don’t worry about Nana,” I’d said before Dad could bring it up. “I’ll come home and check on her at Christmas.”
But visiting Nana in her assisted living home wasn’t the only reason why I’d returned, I realized now. I’d been yearning to see Janice again. To feel her forgiveness.
“How about five o’clock?” Janice was saying.
“I’d love it.” My voice trembled and I blinked, hard.
She started to walk away, turned back, and said, “Honey? It is so good to see you.”
* * *
Six hours later, I turned the corner and walked down Grif’s street, smiling as I remembered what had happened after senior prom. We were both exhausted from dancing and hitting after-parties and finishing it all off with pancakes at a twenty-four-hour diner with a group of friends. When he’d finally pulled up in front of my house at four a.m., his red bow tie was dangling around his neck and my shoes were on the floor of his parent’s station wagon.
“My feet are killing me,” I’d groaned, reaching for the two-inch heels that had rubbed blisters on my toes.
“Oh, yeah?” Grif had said, raising an eyebrow. “Feel like you can’t walk another step?”
He’d gunned the motor and pulled up over the curb while I shrieked. He drove clear across my front yard before finally braking with his fender almost touching the steps leading to my front porch. I’d laughed for a good five minutes before I finally unbuckled my seat belt and kissed him good-bye.
Now I raised my hand to ring his old doorbell, just as I had hundreds of times before. “Come in, it’s open,” Janice’s muffled voice called from somewhere inside.
The hinges of the front door still complained as it swung open, and everything else in the house was exactly the same, too, down to the hanging ferns and soft-looking furniture and rich maroon paint on the walls. The dark wood banister was wrapped with greenery, and a sprig of mistletoe hung from the ceiling between the living and dining rooms.
“Hey, Scout,” I said, rubbing behind the ears of the ancient golden retriever who’d ambled over to greet me. His snout was almost pure white and his eyes were rheumy, but his tail wagged as eagerly as ever.
“Elise? Welcome!” Griffin’s father, Stephen, rounded the corner from the kitchen, a mug of cider in his hand. He looked exactly like Grif would in another thirty years—tall and fit, with classic features.
“Thank you so much for having me,” I said. Way too formal, I chided myself. I thrust the gifts I’d bought in San Francisco—a handcrafted teapot with a box of peppermint tea for Janice, and a box set of Miles Davis CDs for Stephen—toward him.
“Thanks. Happy you could make it,” he said easily, tucking the gifts under his arm. He leaned forward and kissed my cheek. “We’ve got a buffet set up in the kitchen. Neighbors are going to be wandering in and out all night. Come on and get the best stuff before they gobble it up.”
I exhaled and felt warmth flood through my body. It was as if I’d been here just yesterday.
* * *
I was working my way through a second sinfully delicious whoopie pie when the telephone rang.
“Griffin!” I heard Janice cry a moment later.
I brushed my hands against my pants to remove the crumbs and stood up. I wanted to say hi to Grif, too. To let him know I was thinking of him. Missing him, even.
“Yes, Dad’s right here,” she was saying. “Come on, honey, Griffin wants to talk to both of us at once.” Stephen bent over and Janice held the phone receiver midway between their ears. They were silent for a long moment, then erupted into cheers.
“Oh my gosh!” Janice squealed.
“Congratulations, son!” Stephen chimed in.
I knew—before Janice called out the news to the assembled neighbors; and even before that, during the pause when the phone had dangled between their expectant faces—exactly what had happened.
“Griffin just got engaged!”
I instinctively took a step backward, then a few more, until I’d moved out of the living room and into the hallway. I slipped into the guest bathroom and stood there with the lights off.
A moment later I heard Stephen’s voice, louder than ever. They’d come into the hallway to continue the conversation privately, I realized.
They don’t know I’m in here.
Their words seemed to float into the bathroom, crowding around me. I could almost reach out and touch the sharp, bright sentences.
“I can’t believe it’s only been five months since you met,” Stephen was saying. “Of course your mother and I dated for seven months before we got engaged. When you know, you know.”
Grif had known about me, too. Or maybe he only thought he had.
“Oh, let me talk to her!” Janice cried. “Welcome to the family, sweetheart! Two weeks? Stephen, Ilsa just said they’re coming for a visit in two weeks so we can meet each other! And Griffin might try to get transferred back here!”
She laughed in response to something Ilsa had said. “Don’t you dare call us Mr. and Mrs. Henderson ever again! We’re Stephen and Janice . . . or you could call us Mom and Dad.”
Those were the words that made me fold my arms across my stomach and bend over, even though it wouldn’t bother me if Ilsa started calling Griffin’s father “Dad.”
I had a father.
* * *
“I wish you didn’t have to leave so soon,” Janice said a half hour later.
“I should get going.” My voice was unnaturally high, and I tried to dial it down a few notches. “I have to get up early. Nana will be waiting.”
“Of course,” Janice said. Her mouth opened, then shut. It was the first time I’d ever seen her at a loss for words. She walked me to the front door, and even though the hallway was only eight or so feet long, it seemed to take forever.
“Drive safely tomorrow, okay?” Janice said as she opened the door. The sky was black and a gust of frigid air hit my face like a slap.
“Oh, sure,” I said.
She hesitated, despite the cold streaming into the house. “How long are you staying in town?”
“I’m flying back on the twenty-sixth,” I said lightly. “I’ll probably head out by noon.”
I could see in her eyes that she wanted to invite me over again before I left. But what if Ilsa didn’t like the idea of Grif’s old girlfriend hanging around? What if Griffin didn’t? It was right that Janice hadn’t mentioned to Grif that I was standing five feet away when he announced his engagement. I had no place in that moment. Not in their family, anymore, either, other than as a casual acquaintance.
“Please take care of yourself, honey,” Janice finally said.<
br />
My throat was closing up again, this time for the opposite reason than it had yesterday when I’d seen Janice in the parking lot, but I managed to chirp, “Will do!”
She hugged me again, then shut the door.
I began to walk around the block toward home, my head bent low and my hands tucked into the pockets of my red coat. I thought about how the engagement must have unfolded: Griffin would’ve asked Ilsa’s father for her hand, since he was traditional that way. That must have been why they’d gone to her family’s house for the holidays. I pictured Grif inviting Ilsa to go for a walk in the snow, under the stars. They were holding hands, laughing as they stomped their feet to keep warm. Then Grif was reaching into his pocket and dropping down on one knee and looking into her eyes as snowflakes fell on his dark hair. Because it was Minnesota in the winter, Ilsa was wearing gloves. She was pulling them off to put on the ring, and Grif’s knee was getting cold and damp. Later they’d probably laugh about that; it would become part of the story they’d tell again and again, a sweet pivot point in the history Grif and Ilsa were building together.
Grif would be a kind husband, a devoted father. Maybe they’d have three or four kids, and Ilsa’s heart would still leap in her chest when she looked up and saw him enter a room. The way mine should have, but never did, no matter how hard I wished for it to.
Did Ilsa know how lucky she was? Soon she and Janice would start forming their own relationship, through the giddy planning of the wedding. Janice’s white gown was preserved in a box in the basement, waiting for a new bride in the family; she’d offer it to Ilsa to wear. If Grif didn’t get transferred back right away, they’d probably settle into regular phone chats. They’d almost certainly move closer together when grandchildren came along.
Another flash card came unbidden into my mind: this time a memory from when I was a freshman in high school. Grif and I were best friends—he hadn’t yet leaned over on the school bus on our way back from a track meet to kiss me—and I was home from school, burning up with a fever. I was a teenager, certainly old enough to find a bottle of Motrin, a cool washcloth, and the television’s remote control. And yet on the second day I found myself staring out my bedroom window, my eyes traveling in a straight line down our backyard, over the wooden picket fence, through Griffin’s family’s backyard and up to his ranch-style house. A few minutes later, a knock on our front door had startled me.
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