In Sight of Stars

by Gae Polisner

  On the other hand, I can’t do much in this condition.

  “I’ll be right back” I say, adding hopefully, “Or Sarah could come wait in my room.”

  “I think not,” my mother says.

  “I’m fine here,” Sarah adds quickly.

  Her hair is still wet from the shower, so she must have gotten up recently, too. When she reaches to pull it back into a ponytail, her shirt rides up higher, nearly exposing the soft, gentle shadow of her chest. My mother clears her throat, so the best thing I can do now is get washed up and get us both out of here.

  “Back in five,” I say, racing down the hall, then yank on jeans and a clean T-shirt and head to the bathroom.

  I brush my teeth, feeling stupid that I haven’t told my mother about Sarah. Or more accurately, told her only the most minimal things. She knows we went to the city. But through my mother’s eyes, now, I can see how it looks like more, and, well, it feels like more, and so maybe I should have prepared her. For Sarah’s sake, if not hers.

  I’m back in the living room fast. Sarah sits across from my mother on one of the Queen Anne chairs. She’s saying, “… at North Side General. In the neonatal unit,” so I figure she’s talking about her mother.

  “Hey! Okay. Ready! So, you want to go for a ride or something? I ask too anxiously, then to my mother, “Okay if I take the car? Not far. Just down to the river or something.”

  “Of course,” my mother says, but her eyes dart nervously from Sarah to me, as if she has something to say. I give a look to Sarah and she stands.

  “Let’s go,” I say, ushering her to the front door.

  Outside, I steer Sarah down the front steps and to the far side of the driveway, letting her into the passenger side before I realize, though the car is unlocked, the keys are still in the house. “Be right back!” I call and rush back to the house to retrieve them.

  “Here you go,” my mother says, standing at the front door, the keys dangling from a finger. When I grab at them, she holds them back, and gives me a long, intense look. “You like her a lot?”

  I roll my eyes. “You can relax, Mom. I barely know her,” I say, even though I’m not sure I believe this myself. Still, I need to shut her down. I don’t have time for this right now. Besides, I’m not the one who wanted to come live here, so she doesn’t get to dislike the one thing that might actually make it bearable.

  “It’s just … She seems like a lot of girl to handle. And sometimes, well, Klee, sometimes we choose people for the wrong reasons, for what we want to see in them, rather than who they are.”

  “Great. Noted,” I say. I mean, last I looked, my father killed himself, so maybe you’re not an expert on relationships, I don’t add. “Can I go now?”

  “Yes, sure. You know I just worry about you…”

  “Well, don’t,” I say, turning away before her hand reaches my cheek. “It’s a little late for that, anyway.”

  * * *

  There is so much stuff in my mother’s arms and at her feet she looks as if she’s arriving for a stay at a resort. A Louis Vuitton carry-on. Some weird sort of duffel or laundry bag that has no strings that I don’t recognize. An easel, for God’s sake, but the fat-legged, plastic kind they use in preschools that she must have gone out and bought because that’s what they allow in here, or something.

  I see now, too, that her clothing is wet, her nice sage green suit jacket and beige slacks streaked dark in places from the rain. She looks expectantly at me from the door.

  “You carried all that?”

  “A nice young orderly helped me,” she says. “But you can help me from here.”

  I move toward her and quickly grab the bag and the easel so I don’t have to hug her. I know I should, but I can’t. My body feels off and shaky, like I’m about to be light-headed again.

  “My dearest M…”

  “Come in,” I say, pushing the suitcase into the room with my foot. I eye it, hoping my laptop is in there, but know better. No social media allowed. No contact with the outside world, except immediate family.

  “… a lot of girl to handle…”

  “Klee?”

  I stop, sudden fury hitting me fast and hard. “Yeah?” I ask, voice sharp. I exhale slowly.

  “It has wheels. Please don’t do that.” She bends and lifts the retractable handle and drags it the rest of the way into the room. The door closes behind her, resting open the last few inches thanks to the rubber stop. “Some of your schoolbooks are in there in case you want to keep up with your work. That’s why it’s so heavy.”

  “Got it. Good. Thanks.” I haven’t thought much about my remaining schoolwork. My grades have already been sent to Boston, so I basically just need to pass my classes. My portfolio is the main thing I need to get done. Hence the easel, I guess.

  “I wasn’t sure what you might need. It would be wonderful if you could keep up while you’re here, for when you go back—”

  I nod and walk to the bed, and unzip the duffel bag. There’s a plastic box of my brushes, all sizes, and not one but two new sets of Amsterdam Expert Series acrylics, the large tubes, enough to cover a small house with, seriously. Now I can really be like Van Gogh, painting away in the asylum.

  I give her a look, and she says, “I know, overkill. But I wanted to make sure you had everything you might need. And the staff says the brushes are okay.” She shifts uncomfortably. “Anyway, you look good, Klee. You really do. I’m so glad for that.” She walks over and moves her hand up as if she’s going to stroke my hair, but I pivot away and walk to the window instead. She sits awkwardly on the edge of my bed. “It’s a relief to see you … You look better than I thought you would.”

  “My dearest A…”

  I laugh now—I don’t know why I laugh, but I do. Not a funny laugh, but a harsh one, coughed out, and her eyes flash up at me, then land, concerned, on the small bandage that still covers my ear. “You have lost weight, though,” she says.

  “The food here isn’t exactly gourmet.”

  “Well, for the cost, you’d think it might—” Too late, she checks herself, realizing how she sounds. She looks away, apologetic.

  I know I should be nicer. More appreciative or something. It can’t be easy for her to be here, to see me in here, like this. Not to mention to have dragged all this shit here in her nice clothes in the rain. But the letters, her typed words, keep infiltrating my brain.

  “… My dear, beautiful man…”

  “You know,” I say, anger now cracking my voice, “you could really use some regular weekend-type clothes. Jeans. Sneakers. Something that says, ‘Casual Saturday-morning visit with my son at the mental hospital.’”

  “Klee, please! Please don’t call it that.” She winces and I almost feel bad. “I’m sorry if I brought the wrong things. Wore the wrong things. I’ve been worried sick … I was trying to be helpful. I just thought you might like something to do while you’re here. They said no electronics. I figured you must be going crazy—”

  She hears it, same as I do, and I can’t help myself and say, “Sorry, went already. Apparently.” It’s just too easy to let it slide.

  It gets the desired effect, too. She stands and moves toward the door.

  “Forgive me for trying, Klee. For the life of me, I don’t know what I’ve done.” She sounds so deeply wounded, I’m surprised she stops again at the door. “One more thing, Sarah keeps texting you. I know it’s none of my business … I’m not snooping. I plugged your phone in to charge. I thought you’d want me to … It keeps buzzing, and her name pops up. I can’t read the texts, it’s locked. I just see her name, so don’t worry. But I thought maybe someone should let her know how you are, and that you don’t have your phone in here, so she won’t keep trying. Maybe she thinks you do.”

  My throat closes and I look away.

  “Would you like me to text her or something?”

  “No! I’ll deal with it. Do you know when I’m allowed to have it back?” I manage.

  “Your
phone?”

  “Yes, all that stuff. My phone, my laptop.”

  “How would I…? Hasn’t Dr. Gomez told you?”

  “It’s Alvarez. Jesus, Mom.”

  I can’t stop it any longer. The seawall breaks and Saturday night rushes through like a fucking deluge. The letters. My mother’s stupid emails … and the knife.

  Dunn’s house in the rain.

  The ambulance, and Sarah crying …

  My phone must have been in my sweatshirt, my sweatshirt covered in blood. My mother must have taken it all home. Thrown one out. Plugged the other in.

  “That’s what I meant, Klee. Sue me. Alvarez,” she says. “Shall I go home? It sounds like you’d like me to go home?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Please. I’m not feeling too well. I’m sorry.”

  “Sure.” She folds her arms to her chest and shakes her head, tears welling in her eyes. “I’m not sure why you’re so angry at me, Klee. I was hoping this wasn’t going to be a full-blown thing, that you were going to be okay, that you’d be out of this place by now. That you might…” She trails off, swallowing hard. Finally, she says, “But I understand it’s best that we wait until you’re ready.”

  “Right. Great. That’s what we’ll do.”

  “Okay. Let me know what I can do … If I can help.” She pulls the door open, then turns to me again. “I want to help, son. I don’t want to make things worse. You’re all I have.”

  “… I shouldn’t print them, I know, but I can’t bring myself to delete them. Sometimes they’re all I have…”

  I don’t look at her, don’t respond, and she leaves.

  “You should have thought of that fucking sooner!” I finally call out, but not until she’s gone, my words rendered impotent against the wall of the mostly closed door.

  * * *

  I drive the two miles to Sarah’s house from mine, turning down Old Basin Road. I don’t remember what day it is. I can’t keep track anymore. Maybe mid-November. It’s a weekday, Superintendent’s Day, this I remember. And that it’s the first time things with her go really bad.

  Come over, she texts. Mom at work. Whole house to ourselves. ;)

  The past few weekends, we haven’t had much time together. There always seems to be a football game, and everyone goes, no question. Northhollow is undefeated, 7–0, and you’d think each game was the Super Bowl. Everyone is there to support Abbott and Dunn. Everyone is there to cheer on Northhollow.

  And, of course, there’s some party after.

  I don’t go to the games, can’t bring myself to. And, the parties? Yeah. I definitely can’t bring myself to go to those.

  But in school, at least, I’ve been trying. Trying to be cool and friendly to Abbott and Dunn.

  “Maybe next one,” I tell Sarah, making up one lame excuse after another.

  I don’t fit in. I’m not one of them. So why would I stand around drinking and bullshitting? We have nothing in common. They know it. And I know it. The two of them are like some fucking Tweedledee and Tweedledum.

  Okay, maybe that’s not fair. But I’m sure they don’t give a shit about me either. What do I have to offer them? They already think they’re God’s gift to Northhollow, simply because they know how to hike a ball. And maybe they are. But it’s not like two players from Northhollow are ever going to be making the NFL. They’ll never get near the pros, let alone a Division 1 college, any more than I’m going to be the next Van Gogh.

  But I care what Sarah thinks, and I know she already has her friends. I’m the new guy here. So I’m not about to stop her from hanging out with them. I’m guessing I’m not going to change her mind about them, either.

  Maybe I’m just jealous. Maybe that’s why I don’t like the way they hang around her. All possessive, like they own her. Abbott, especially.

  “We’re just friends, Klee,” she reassures me. “I told you, we’ve been friends since kindergarten. He gets me. I’m like a sister. He doesn’t ask anything of me. He doesn’t want anything from me, either. He just lets me be who I am.”

  And I don’t? Besides, she’s being totally naïve. It’s obvious that dude would put the moves on her in a hot second if given the opportunity.

  “Besides, Klee,” Sarah said to me the other day, “you’re the one who thinks you’re too good for everyone. Because you lived in the city. Because you’re an artist. Because you’re going to some Ivy League school.” All of her sentences are spit out like she has a foul taste in her mouth.

  “That’s not true, Sarah,” I say. “It’s not fair. And it’s not Ivy League.”

  “Whatever. Museum school. Same difference. You know what I mean.” She’d pulled me in then and kissed me hard, like she wanted me to know she was just joking. But sometimes it’s hard to tell. Sometimes, no matter how hard I try, I feel like an outsider. Like I’m competing with them for her affection. “And those guys?” she’d finally added, “I know they can seem like assholes, but they’re not. I promise you. It’s all they’ve got. They’re not trying to impress anyone but themselves.”

  But, here, now, rolling Dad’s car down her driveway, I want to forget all of that. I just want to spend one whole day alone with Sarah.

  In daylight, the house shocks me. A gray clapboard cottage with peeling paint and an overgrown, weed-filled lawn that doesn’t look like it’s been mowed in over a year. I couldn’t really see it that first time in the dark. But now that I can, the windows need fixing, as do the front steps. A freestanding shed or garage has half its door bashed in, a large gaping hole in the side, as if someone didn’t see it was down and drove a car through it. We may live only two miles apart, but the houses here might as well be a million miles apart from the new construction water views where I live. It might as well be another country.

  By the time I turn off the engine, Sarah is skipping outside.

  Seeing her makes everything better. The grin on my face must be huge.

  “What are you smiling at, Alden?” She pats the hood of the car.

  “You. Got a problem with that?”

  “Well, I do love you when you are moody,” she teases. “And I always forget you have these fancy wheels. Did you have to leave the Bentley at home?” She laughs and opens the passenger door and slides in, leans across and kisses me, then falls into me, urgent, all mouth and tongue. Underneath her minty-fresh-toothpaste breath, I think I might taste the vaguest hint of alcohol.

  “Man, you’re so easy,” she says, slipping her hand between my legs.

  “I am. You should take advantage of it.” She throws her head back and laughs, then slinks down in the seat, propping her bare feet up on the dashboard. “So, where should we go?”

  “We’re going somewhere? I thought you had the house to yourself. Didn’t you want me to come in?”

  She shakes her head. “I changed my mind. The place smells. And it’s a mess. It depresses me. And anyway, it’s beautiful out. Let’s go somewhere.”

  “Wherever you want.” I give her a sideways glance. “But it is way too cold to be jumping in any water.”

  “Wuss. But okay. None of that. I swear. Just other things.” She kisses my cheek.

  “Do you need to get shoes? A jacket or something?”

  “Nope, you’ll keep me warm, won’t you?”

  She leans against me, and I drive. She tells me to hook a right, then another at the bottom of Old Basin Road, and then we’re driving up a hill, and suddenly I’m pretty sure where we’re going and I can’t stop smiling. Lookout Ridge at the very top of River Drive. I’ve heard kids at school talking about it, some unpaved path that takes you through the woods to a secluded spot where all the couples go to hook up.

  “Turn left here,” she says, pointing out a narrow dirt road without a sign that she says is River Drive. After another few hundred yards, we go from dirt road to pretty much unexcavated pathway covered in low bushes and foliage trampled down from years of cars and all-terrain vehicles plowing through.

  Finally, we arrive at a clear
ing that ends at a rickety old metal rail, and she points and says, “Park there.” Off to our left are thick woods, and in front of us, steep cliffs spill down into the Hudson. I must look unsure because she says, “Promise you, it’s okay. No one will care. No one comes to this spot, except a few stoners looking to get high.”

  “And people looking to hook up.”

  “Nope,” she says. “Other direction. Were you hoping?”

  I laugh, but maybe my heart sinks a little. Still, I turn off the ignition and start to open my door. But instead of getting out, Sarah crawls into the backseat and says. “I prefer the less-traveled places, and it’s too cold out there. Plus, you’ve got this fancy car to take advantage of. You coming to warm me up, Alden?”

  I close my door again and tumble into the back, and we make out like lunatics, and then, she’s working at my pants, my fly, her teeth biting my lower lip, her sweet-mint tongue sliding in and rolling around with mine.

  “You want me?” she asks, and I do—of course I do—but I don’t answer, because I actually need to slow things down.

  But she’s not waiting for an answer, or for me to find a way to chill. She pulls my hands up under her T-shirt, and says, “Don’t be shy. Go ahead. You can.”

  I cup her perfect breasts in my hands, let my fingers pull softly at her nipples. She moans and undoes her jeans, pushing them down, and letting my hand slip between her pale, soft thighs. I touch her there, over her panties, then follow suit, yanking my jeans off, leaving only my boxers, delirious at the feel of her body.

  “Wait, do you take something?” I whisper, realizing what we’re about to do, yet unable to stop myself from pressing against her. I feel her pulse against me through our underwear. Or maybe it’s me I feel pulsing. Either way, it doesn’t matter. I’m done before I ever get my boxers fully down.

  There’s sticky wet bullshit all over the inside of my legs.

  Fuck.

  Shit.

  Jesus, Klee.

  Cant you do anything right?

  I can’t breathe. I can’t think. This has never happened before. Not in the city. Not with either of the other two girls I slept with there. It never happened before fucking Northhollow.