Connie sat for a while before speaking, just as she had the last time. But now Ed didn’t watch her with an open expression, attempting to draw her out. He gravely gazed at his own folded hands.
Finally Connie laughed and said, “Do you want to hear one of my self-pitying thoughts?”
Ed gave a wry smile and a barely perceptible nod.
Connie gathered herself up, almost like a little girl about to recite a poem. “I look forward to helping my clients onto the toilet. Isn’t that strange? I was wondering the other day, why do I look forward to this, when it’s one of the nastiest parts of my job? Then I realized, part of helping them—” Connie breathed. “The old people embrace me.”
Ed closed his eyes.
“I’ve spent many hours thinking about our last meeting,” Connie continued. “Days, really. And what I’ve decided, just now, in your waiting room, is that I give up. I’m willing to remarry, even if God sees me as an adulterer.”
“Connie,” said Ed in a voice just above a whisper, “does this have anything to do with Bill Howard?”
“No!” Connie barked. But she didn’t hide the panic in her face. She let it betray her.
“Because I realized, in talking to Pamela Hendrick the night of the progressive dinner, that Bill hadn’t said, in his presentation, that he’s engaged to be married. He is.”
These electric heaters had made the air so dry it was hardly breathable. Connie’s nostrils felt sunburned. She couldn’t speak for a moment, too busy folding herself down into a little square so tight as to be impervious.
“I wanted to tell you that night, on the lawn,” Ed continued carefully. “Janey Tanner is one of Bill’s fellow missionaries. She’s in California, speaking to churches there. Bill’s going to meet her there for Christmas. They’re going to marry before returning to Africa.”
Now Connie was in control again, albeit from deep, deep inside, and able to say, “But Ed, really, this has nothing to do with Bill Howard.”
Ed nodded.
“I just wanted to tell you my decision,” she said.
“Okay.”
“Thanks for taking me without an appointment. I’ll see you Sunday.”
Connie rose and left, knowing already that she wouldn’t be in church on Sunday.
. . . .
THAT AFTERNOON, WHEN the final period let out and the other boys ran through the halls, banging locker doors, shooting rubber bands, titty-twisting each other in celebration of the weekend, and the girls congregated under the stairs and by the drinking fountain, hugging their books like teddy bears as they gossiped about the boys, Enrique spotted Miriam walking through the fray alone and approached quickly and directly, just as he had planned. “Hey, Miriam,” he said.
Having not seen him approach, she jumped. “Hey,” she said.
“I need a partner for the State Science Fair. Do you want to be my partner?”
“Are you insane?” she asked.
He said nothing, but continued to look at her intently. He hadn’t fully worked out the effect he wanted to achieve, but insane was good.
“We haven’t spoken a word to each other in, like, weeks,” Miriam said.
“I know,” Enrique said. “I’m tired of not being friends.”
Miriam gave him a hard look, then dropped her shoulders. “Me, too.”
“So, friends?”
“Yeah.” They shook on it, but still Miriam didn’t smile. They strolled together toward the stairway that led up to the school entrance. Seventh-graders had their lockers in this subterranean hallway. Pale light flooded in through the building’s glass front and shone in rippled reflection on the painted concrete floor like a pool of water. “Still,” Miriam said, “I don’t know why you’d want me to be your partner.”
“Well, it’s like, at the science fair, you presented evidence on the other side. It was the scientific method. You proved my project wrong. So I was thinking you could help me fix it.” Enrique knew that he would have to change his presentation, given that Lake Overlook was only twenty-five feet deep, so the idea had occurred to him to see how an appeal to Miriam’s vanity worked, to ambush her with the surrender and the spoils all at once. He was getting lonely anyway, and, as Abby had pointed out, he needed a partner. “That is,” he added when Miriam was slow to respond, “unless you hate my project so much you can’t even stand to look at it.”
“Actually, Enrique, I think your project is really neat. I just think you did the wrong thing by telling people they could all be killed, when it totally couldn’t happen here.”
“I know. That was Gene’s idea anyway.”
“I figured,” Miriam said. Then she laughed suddenly. “I had been feeling pretty stupid about my project. But it looks like you actually listened.”
“Totally.” Then Enrique told the lie that he had planned to use only if Miriam was resistant and required hardcore convincing: “I wish you would have stayed for the award presentation. I was going to invite you up with me and share the prize with you.”
Miriam gave him an incredulous look.
“Like, I hadn’t decided one hundred percent to do it, but if you stayed I think I would have.”
“If I help you, Enrique, you’re going to have to change it. It can’t be the same project all over again.”
“I know.”
“Well, should I come over and look at it?”
“How about Monday?”
“Neat.”
“I’m glad we’re friends again, Miriam. I think you’re my best friend.”
Miriam smiled and nudged Enrique with the wrist that held her textbooks. Then she ran up the stairs and outside.
Sometimes, in order to avoid riding the bus with Gene, Enrique stayed and did his homework in the high school library until Jay had finished basketball practice. There was a tacit agreement that if Enrique waited by the car and didn’t bother him with attempts at conversation, Jay would drive him home. Often he dropped Enrique off, then headed to some other, unnamed destination. Today, though, Enrique was excited again about his model and wanted to spend some time with it before dinner. So he boarded the bus and went to the back, far from where Gene would sit when he boarded. Sitting back here over the past weeks had afforded Enrique a view of how the grade-school kids scrunched up their faces in an imitation of Gene as they walked down the aisle, sometimes putting a finger to their foreheads to indicate the tuft of hair between his eyebrows.
Coop had noticed the rift between the boys. On one hand, he was saddened. Who would pick up Gene now that Enrique had dropped him? Gene seemed one of those kids who could drown in himself, unnoticed. Louis, Coop’s youngest brother, had been that way, although Louis had splashed around and groped for wreckage before he went down.
On the other hand, Enrique, a well-behaved seventh-grader, unintentionally served as a kind of hall monitor in the back of the bus; the rowdy kids had quieted down significantly since Enrique and Gene had parted ways.
Enrique and Gene both got off at the same stop, but now Enrique used the main entrance to the trailer park while Gene went through the hole in the fence.
Dinner that night was Wednesday’s chili, reheated, with some scrambled eggs thrown in to liven it up. It had gotten spicier in the intervening days, an effect Enrique liked—he enjoyed the sweat on his scalp and the burn on his tongue that he smothered with a soft, cool, folded piece of white bread.
“I don’ see how you could want her to be your partner, cariño, after what she did,” Lina said.
The two hunched over their bowls and didn’t look up as they spoke. “I need a partner, Ma, and Miriam’s one of the smartest kids at school. It’s not a big deal, what she did. She made a mistake. She’s my friend. You’re supposed to forgive and forget, right?”
“There’s plenty of other nice kids for you to be friends with.”
“There aren’t, Ma. That’s not how it works.”
Lina was quiet. Of course that wasn’t how it worked—she remembered—but she wanted i
t to work that way for him. After a moment, she said, “Is Miriam, kind of, your girlfriend?”
“Ma!”
“Just asking, baby. You can talk to me about that stuff, you know.”
Enrique returned to eating. Lina watched the muscles of his jaw lurch as a blush rose from his neck to his face like the red of a thermometer. It was the first time she had raised the possibility that Enrique should have a girlfriend. And it was the arrival of a doubt with which she would wrestle for years before calling a truce: the doubt that he ever would. She turned quickly away from it now. There was another explanation for Enrique’s loneliness, his inability to fit like a puzzle piece into the world the way other kids seemed to. It was Jay’s fault. Enrique had been happy before Jay came.
As if summoned, there was the rev of the Maverick outside, and headlights illuminated the curtain. Lina went to the cupboard, got a bowl, and ladled in some chili.
Jay burst through the door and marched straight into his bedroom.
“Jay? Are you going to eat?”
He came to the table and, without sitting, took a spoonful of chili. Lina knew by his eyes, black with rage, that he had spoken to Janet Van Beke. Jay put the spoon down and said, “Tastes like shit.”
“Jay? Jay?” said Lina, her voice elevating as he went back into his room. “Excuse me, Jesús!”
“What!” he yelled.
“If you’re not going to eat, could you please clear your bowl?”
He marched back in, took his bowl, and threw it into the sink, where it crashed against the other dishes and sent a spray of chili across the wall.
Lina sprang to her feet. “How dare you!” she cried. “Who tol’ you you can act like that?”
“Fuck off,” he said.
She turned him by his shoulder. “Don’ you walk away from me, Jesús. Apologize. Apologize and clean that up.”
“Or else?”
“Or else you can just get the hell out of here.”
Jay laughed in her face. He dropped to his knees and pressed his palms together in prayer. “Please, please, kick me out. I want you to. Por favor, Madre. Save me! Save my soul!”
Lina pushed him, and he caught himself from falling. “Desgraciado,” she cried. “Stop that! You want to go to hell? Get up.”
He rose to tower over his mother. He took the flesh of her upper arm just under the shoulder, and squeezed until she whimpered. “You pushed me,” he said through his teeth.
“Don’t you touch her!” Enrique screamed, shoving himself between them. “I’ll kill you!”
“Faggot.” With a move so quick and effortless it was hardly visible, Jay pushed Enrique, sending him stumbling across the room to hit the wall. The dishes jumped on the table, and a pan fell from a peg in the kitchen. Then Jay turned and stormed out of the house.
“Enrique!” said Lina, and ran to him.
Jay stormed back in, grabbed his basketball, which was wedged under a chair in the corner, then left again.
Lina held Enrique. “Are you all right, baby?”
Enrique sobbed and held his arm where he had hit the wall. “I hate him so much!” he cried.
Jay returned yet again and went into his room. He cared so little what Lina and Enrique thought of him that he didn’t mind diminishing the drama of his exit through repetition. He threw some clothes into his gym bag, took his school books from his desk, and left the room, drawers agape and papers littering the floor.
“You’ve ruined my home!” yelled Lina. “You don’ belong here!”
“That’s right, I don’t,” Jay said emotionlessly. This time he sped off in his car.
Enrique suddenly saw that the last thing Jay had seen was Lina cradling him like a baby. He pushed her away and sat up. She gasped. For a moment their eyes locked, and Enrique teetered on the verge of apologizing, kissing her, and helping her to her feet. He had a choice, to melt or to freeze. He froze.
Lina heaved herself up and began cleaning and muttering Spanish words to herself.
There came a voice from the porch. “Lina?”
Lina threw down her rag and went to the door.
“Is everything all right?” Connie half-whispered.
The ruckus had roused her from that spot deep inside herself from which she had been operating, turning her head and seeing out of her eyes like a periscope, since her meeting with Reverend McNally that morning. “Should I go over?” she had asked Gene, who had considered, then answered: “Yes.”
Lina’s face remained fixed in its stony scowl. “Yes, everything’s all right.”
“I just . . . I’m sorry . . .”
Connie began to turn away, and Lina reached out and squeezed her arm with a hand still wet from cleaning. Connie said nothing, but expressed her solidarity with a nod. When Lina went back inside, Enrique had disappeared into his room.
Chapter 16
The following Monday, in distant Portland, Wanda sat against the sticker-festooned bumper of Melissa’s jeep, waiting. Five-thirty; Melissa would have to come out soon. Unless she worked late, that was. Wanda drew her coat more snugly around her and tightened the cross of her legs. The cold here was different than in Eula—wetter and more invasive—and Wanda’s clothes weren’t up to the task of fending it off. Every so often the mottled gray sky released a few fat snowflakes, which caught in her hair and melted.
“Ma’am?”
Wanda looked up. It was the guard from the booth of the parking lot. His beige uniform with its official-looking patches on the breast and shoulder was a little tight around the middle.
“Is that your car?” he asked.
“My friend’s. I’m supposed to meet her here.”
“When?”
“Um, now.”
“You’ve been here over an hour. Nearly two, actually.”
“Well, she’s late.”
“I’m going to have to ask you to move along.”
Wanda paused. For the first time in over a month, she wanted a cigarette, only because this moment required one—to be flicked away angrily before she rose. The guard followed her to the lot entrance, then returned to his little booth. Wanda walked slowly up the sidewalk to Melissa’s office building. She pushed through the heavy revolving door and sat down on a vinyl-upholstered bench behind a planter. She watched the bank of elevators, scanning each group of businessmen that filed out for Melissa’s glazed curls. Before long, however, another guard, this one wearing a gray suit and red tie, approached. “Ma’am?”
Wanda went and waited outside on the street. The sun fell behind the buildings and she was chilled to the bone by the time Melissa emerged from the building. She wore a black coat with shoulder pads, a fluffy pink scarf and matching beret, and held a folded newspaper under her arm. She looked up at the sky. Wanda gently approached. Melissa looked at her and froze.
“Melissa,” Wanda said.
Melissa turned and walked down the street.
“Just let me walk you to your car. I just need a minute. I came all the way here on my own money, from babysitting.”
Wanda said this not only to prove to Melissa that she had earned a moment of her time, but also to fully disclose everything. No more lies. She didn’t have a job at K-mart. Before, she hadn’t had a job at all. Now, for the first time since she was a teenager, she was babysitting.
It seemed to work; Melissa slowed a little.
“Remember when you first saw me? When you cried? That was real, Melissa, for me, too. I never believed in this stuff, but I was meant to have your baby. If there’s a God, He wants it. I really, really mean it, Melissa, and I think you know it’s true. Maybe there’s no reason for me to be here, in the world, you know? But if there is, this is it. This is my job. I know I should act all calm and cool about this and try to convince you with some smart argument, but I can’t. It’s about this feeling, Melissa. It’s not about reasons, and it’s not about the money.”
Melissa still walked ahead; Wanda could not see her face. “I know it’s not about the mo
ney,” Melissa said.
“I lied to you and that was wrong. But no more lies. No more surprises. I swear on everything—on my mom and dad’s graves. Just forgive me, and we can pick up where we left off. We can have this baby.”
They had reached the parking lot entrance. Melissa turned to face Wanda. With her fuzzy pink-gloved hand she pointed to her face, which was wet with tears. “I never cry,” she said with a desperate hiccup of laughter.
Wanda moved to touch Melissa’s shoulder, but Melissa stopped her with a severe look. They stood for several seconds, Melissa searching Wanda’s face skeptically. Then her shoulders dropped and she turned slightly. “I’ll talk to Randy,” she said. She walked away a few steps, then turned to Wanda again. “I’ll talk to Randy,” she said with a trace of humor, “and he’ll agree.”
THAT NIGHT, AS planned, Miriam came over to Enrique’s house. “Why don’t you give me the presentation how you did at the science fair,” she said, “just so we have it fresh in our minds.” She sat on the sofa’s armrest and folded her arms.
Enrique propped the posters against the wall behind the model in the order they had been hung on the wall. “Well, how I started out was—” It felt awkward to give the presentation standing with the model at his feet, let alone give it to the very person who had shot it down. Enrique knelt, to be at the same level he had been, relative to the model, at the fair, and began: “On August 21 of this year over seventeen hundred people died in the middle of the night.”
Miriam nodded slowly as Enrique gave the presentation. The crease between her eyebrows grew though—a little valley of trouble—which made Enrique wonder, was she finding new faults with the project, or reliving the pain she had experienced at the science fair? When he came to the part (which had been his favorite) when he said, “But could lake overturn happen at Lake Overlook?” his voice lowered in pitch and increased in speed, and his gaze left Miriam to wander about the corners of the room.
When he finished, Miriam stood and chewed on a pen as she paced back and forth before the model. “So, the idea is we make it just about Lake Nyos, about what happened there. It’s like a mystery the scientists are trying to solve, and by suggesting that it might have been carbon dioxide and not some poison gas, we’re offering one possible answer.”
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