The Lightness of Hands

by Jeff Garvin

  The show. Lone Arrow. Shit.

  I reached into my back pocket, but my phone wasn’t there. It must still be on the bus, probably knocked to the floor when we went off the road. As I jogged toward the RV, I noticed that the engine hatch and the fuel filter compartment were open, but Dad was nowhere in sight.

  I opened the door and then froze. Dad was standing on the top step with my phone pressed to his ear. He stared straight ahead and didn’t acknowledge my presence.

  “I see,” he said into the phone. “No. That won’t be necessary.”

  Finally, he looked down at me. I couldn’t read his expression, but he was paler now than he had been moments after the accident. I grasped the handrail and waited.

  “Thank you.” He ended the call and leaned heavily on the dash.

  “Sharon from Lone Arrow called,” he said.

  My heart slowed: it hadn’t been Flynn or Grace. Thank God.

  “I explained about the accident. She understands. She’ll book us some other night.”

  “That’s good,” I said.

  Dad looked down at the phone. “Then another call came in. Las Vegas area code.”

  I stiffened.

  “I thought it must be the Tack & Saddle.” He inhaled sharply through his nose. “It was Jif Higgins.”

  The breath rushed out of my lungs like air from a breached spacecraft.

  “He said—he said you tried to rent my old . . . that vehicle.” Dad looked at me, his jaw tight.

  This wasn’t how he was supposed to find out. Not like this. Not now. He wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready.

  “He said you told him we’d booked a live television appearance. Flynn and . . . He . . .” A laugh burst out of him, a dry, ugly sound like an old car backfiring. “Ellie,” he said, his lips drawn back in a grimace. “Tell me he’s a liar.”

  I tightened my grip on the handrail, tried to moisten my tongue, tried to speak. But all I could do was shake my head.

  Dad’s eyes went unfocused. When he spoke, his voice was gravel and ash. “You want to make a fool of me. Is that it?”

  I shook my head again.

  “You want to humiliate me. Show everyone what a miserable failure I am.”

  “No, Dad. That’s not—”

  “Goddamn it, Ellie!” He pounded the dashboard.

  I flinched.

  “You had no right. You had no fucking right!” He raised the phone high in one hand and hurled it at floor. It hit with a crack and tumbled down the steps to rest at my feet. Dad moved toward me, and I backed away like a frightened dog, my body moving of its own accord.

  I had never seen him so furious.

  He blew past me and strode toward the back of the RV, feet crunching on the gravel. I watched him for a moment, then leaned over and picked up the phone. The screen had spiderwebbed, but I could still read most of the display.

  Clutching the phone in shaking hands, I sat down on the steps. I had to make this right. I had to fix it. I collected myself and got to my feet.

  I found Dad squatting near the back tire, shining his small Maglite under the carriage. He sensed my presence, turned off the flashlight, stood.

  “Does the phone still work?” he asked without looking at me.

  “I think so,” I said, offering it up.

  He took it gently and began to walk to the front of the RV.

  “The axle is broken,” he said. “We’re going to need a ride.”

  Dad rode shotgun in the big rig that picked us up, while I curled up in the bunk behind the trucker. He was a big man with a marine corps tattoo who chain-smoked Marlboros and blared old-school metal. The smoke masked the body odor that seemed to permeate the cab, and the music drowned out any possibility of conversation. I was grateful for both.

  I had crashed the RV just east of Sun Valley, Arizona. We didn’t have enough money for a cab, let alone a flatbed tow truck, and we couldn’t afford impound fees; so Dad removed the license plates from the RV and the trailer, then walked to the side of the highway and stuck out his thumb. When dusk came, not a single car had pulled over, so Dad reluctantly let me take a turn.

  The first truck stopped.

  Since I turned fifteen, I’d gotten used to being ogled, teased, and harassed by men at parties and bars and corporate events. Being objectified was part of the performer’s life, I told myself. But when that trucker pulled over, it was different. The way he looked me up and down, evaluating me like I was something on a menu. I felt gross. Frightened.

  And then his manner changed entirely when he saw that I wasn’t alone.

  Dad didn’t say a word to me, didn’t even look at me—but with the driver, he was quick and charismatic. He spotted his tattoo and engaged the guy in conversation about the Gulf War. The trucker went from potential rapist to harmless uncle in an instant.

  One thing I’ve learned: Men are capable of far more shocking transformations than magic could ever account for.

  “I’m not going to Flagstaff,” the guy had said, scratching his graying beard. “But I can drop you near Phoenix. How does two hundred bucks sound?”

  As if we had a choice.

  Thirty minutes into the ride, the war stories ran dry, and the driver cranked up his radio. I wanted to sleep, but my mind was whirling, counting and recounting everything we’d left behind.

  Some of the big props had looked fixable—but with the RV’s axle broken and the trailer hitch beyond repair, we had no way to take them with us. I’d crammed all our close-up stuff—cards, coins, cups—into my backpack and duffel bag, along with toiletries and a few changes of clothes. We had padlocked the overturned trailer in case we ever came back for it, but I had little hope. It lay in plain sight of the road, where anyone with a pair of bolt cutters could get in. Our props were gone, our RV was wrecked, and all prospects of financial rescue had evaporated. All my rage at Dad had been wasted; I was the one who had made us hit bottom.

  At sunset, I had walked a quarter mile north, opened the door to the bird cage, and watched the doves flap away into the spreading desert darkness.

  Now I lay in the back of the cab, staring up at the cracked screen of my phone. Some of the shards looked jagged enough to open a vein.

  But no. I couldn’t afford to think like that, couldn’t afford to start down that slope.

  I considered calling Grace to beg for help. If Flynn & Kellar were going to pay us five grand just to appear, maybe they could offer some kind of advance to help us get there. On the other hand, if Grace found out we didn’t even have props yet, she might take us off the bill. I couldn’t risk it.

  And then it occurred to me that none of it mattered anyway, because Dad wasn’t going to do the show.

  The trucker dropped us off at a motel half a block from a big mall. I thanked him and smiled and tried not to vomit as he looked me up and down one last time before I shut the door and walked away.

  The water pressure was low, the mattress was hard, and Dad maintained his silence. I could feel him ignoring me as he moved around the room, unpacking what little there was to unpack. He put a few shirts in a drawer, hung his coat in the closet, set his nearly empty prescription bottle on the nightstand with a rattle. He hated living out of a suitcase, he said, so he preferred to make himself at home wherever he was. I didn’t see the point.

  I lay on one of the beds, which smelled like chlorine and cigarettes, staring at the water-stained cottage-cheese ceiling and trying to fight off spiraling thoughts. I picked up my phone and thumbed the cracks in the screen, thinking about that open vein. A quick step into fast traffic. A bedsheet and the closet pole. A razor and a red bath. The images were sharp and incessant and impossible to banish.

  My eyes felt dry and too big for their sockets, and my pulse beat low and slow in my wrists and neck. All that blood, like a river. In the back of my mind somewhere, a thought swam. Ripley would want me to call him. Molly, the nice woman at the Suicide Prevention Lifeline, would want me to call her. But I didn’t want a pep talk. I wan
ted to sleep and maybe not wake up.

  I glanced up as Dad closed his suitcase and moved toward the door.

  “I’ll be back in an hour,” he said. “Lock the door behind me, and don’t leave the room.”

  Before I could remind him that I wasn’t six years old, he was out the door.

  I got up and paced, thrashing around for something else—anything else—to think about. I spotted my laptop bag, then glanced at the clock on my phone. I still had two hours before my earth science summaries were due. I could sit down and start working.

  But as soon as the thought of homework occurred to me, it seemed ridiculous—rearranging those deck chairs on the Titanic. I glanced down at the comforting glow of my phone. The icon for my messaging app sat there in the corner. Against my better judgment, I tapped it and reread my last text to Liam:

  If everything works out, I’ll be in LA in four days. Are you still down for In-N-Out?

  It had been over twelve hours, and he still hadn’t replied. Even if his battery had died, or he’d left his phone at home, he should have texted back by now. I should tell him exactly what I thought of him. I should make him feel as small as I felt. I typed out a new message:

  What the fuck, Liam? Do you even care? Or were you just trying to get in my pants?

  But I knew the answers. Liam was a good guy. He’d had several opportunities to get more physical with me in his Mustang—and I probably would have let him—but he hadn’t. Which meant he wasn’t using me. He probably had wanted me on some level, but my behavior had pushed him away. What kind of girl gets horny when her dad collapses? Probably, he had been disgusted by me. I was disgusted.

  I deleted the fuck-you text and typed:

  I miss you.

  I clicked Send and immediately wished I could take it back—but a second later, the phone rang. I stared at it stupidly, as if it were a rock that had suddenly come to life in my hand. It rang again. The name on the display was Liam Miller. I snapped out of it and answered.

  “Liam?” There was a long pause on the other end, then:

  “Who are you?” It was a girl’s voice. Low-pitched and husky.

  My body stiffened. “Who is this?”

  “I’m Liam’s girlfriend.”

  Heat spread up the sides of my face.

  “You need to stop texting him,” the girl said, her voice shaking. “Delete his number. Now.”

  The line went dead. I sat there with the phone pressed to my ear, and then I let it drop to the mattress.

  I should have known. I should have known. I should have known.

  Sobs overtook me. I fell facedown on the bed and buried my face in the pillow. Of course he had someone else. I was so stupid. My shoulders shook. My stomach muscles spasmed.

  From the corridor outside, I could hear footsteps and laughter passing my door—

  And then the tears just stopped, like someone had shut off the faucet. The heat drained from my face, and the fist around my midsection let go. I felt flat. Hollow. Like a sleepwalker, I stood up, not knowing where I was going, my legs moving on their own.

  I stood in front of the sink. The counter was stained with rust. The cold tap squeaked as I turned it, and I listened to the pipes moan as the basin filled. Then I turned off the water and plunged my face under the surface.

  As the water rose over my ears, sound faded to silence. The red circles of my eyelids grew dimmer, taking on a sickly green tint. Slowly, I expelled the air from my lungs. Gently. Calmly. The last of the bubbles tickled my face as they floated to the surface.

  Underwater, I could hear my own pulse, hear the shoosh-HOOSH, shoosh-HOOSH of blood squirting through the small vessels in my ears. Somehow, the quiet and the dark made everything louder. Brighter. Clearer.

  Green bled into black at the corners of my vision. Stars burst across my field of view. I felt my head go light and my knees get weak. I counted to ten, then twenty, then thirty.

  At forty, I gave up.

  I pulled my face slowly out of the water, feeling the surface tension break, one pore at a time. Then I gasped, sat down on the toilet lid, and reached for a towel.

  CHAPTER 14

  I WAS IN BED WHEN I heard Dad’s footsteps approaching the door to our motel room. I didn’t want to talk to him. I didn’t want him to see my face and know everything. I shut my eyes and pretended to sleep.

  He entered, locked the door behind him, and approached the bed. I felt his weight warp the mattress as he sat.

  “I’m sorry for being so angry,” he said. “None of this is your fault.” He put the back of his hand on my cheek, his fingers warm and thick and strong. He hadn’t done it since I was a little girl. It took all my control not to stir. I wasn’t ready to face him.

  “Forgive me,” he said, and I felt his weight come off the mattress. I heard a drawer open, the rattle of his heart pills in their orange bottle, the squeak of springs as he got into bed.

  Ten minutes later, he was snoring.

  I lay in bed exhausted but awake, mind spinning, thoughts blurring. Pieces of the crash: the hum of the rumble strip and the bleating dashboard alarm; splintered wood in the blinding red sunlight; twisted steel and the jagged feel of spiderwebbed glass under my thumb. Liam’s girlfriend, tall and pretty next to him in bed as they laughed. Dad hurling my phone down the steps, collapsing in the field behind the roadhouse, standing over me weeping in the dark as I drowned.

  For a moment I thought I really was hearing the rumble strip—but it was my phone, vibrating on the particleboard nightstand. I lurched for it, thinking it might be Liam calling to apologize, to tell me that the girl had been just a friend playing a prank, calling to tell me anything.

  But it wasn’t Liam; it was Ripley. I frowned, rubbed my eyes. He had never called without texting me first.

  Something was wrong.

  I held my thumb over the green button but couldn’t bring myself to tap it. I was drained, exhausted, unable to comfort myself, let alone another person. I was using every watt of energy I had just to stay alive, to keep from going under. There was nothing left for anybody else.

  But then I thought about how Ripley had been there for me when I needed him most, despite the shit going on in his own life. And now, for once, he might need me. So I took a deep breath, squeezed my eyes shut, and answered the phone.

  “Ripley?”

  There was no response at first, only sounds of rustling fabric and something hard dropping to the floor.

  “Ripley, are you there?”

  I heard arguing voices somewhere at the outer range of the phone. Then Ripley’s voice, nasal and high-pitched:

  “You’re high. Go home!” More rustling as if the phone was in his pocket instead of his hand. “Why did you even let her in?” Something else incomprehensible.

  I got up, glanced at my dad to make sure he was still asleep, and left the motel room as quietly as I could. The night air was a cold slap in the face; it tethered me back to reality.

  On the phone, I heard a kid crying.

  “Ripley, are you okay?”

  “Jude, come back!” A door slammed. Then, for the first time since the phone had rung, Ripley spoke directly to me. “Hang on.” Another door slammed. When he spoke again, his voice was thick and shaky. “Are you still there?”

  “Yes, I’m here. What’s going on? Are you all right?”

  “My mom came back.”

  “Oh, no.” I moved down the walkway, out of earshot of the room, and leaned against the railing for support.

  “Nothing for three months, and then she shows up and rings the fucking doorbell. Wakes up Jude.”

  I tried to focus on what Ripley was saying, but the sound of every car on the road made me flinch with memories of the crash. I went down the steps and into the alcove where the ice machine was. Its hum insulated me from the sounds of the street.

  Ripley was saying, “. . . and then Dad let her in like an idiot.”

  “What happened?”

  “He started talki
ng to her. Being nice to her, as if she hadn’t wrecked our whole fucking family.”

  I made a sighing noise that I hoped sounded sympathetic. I pictured my own mom showing up on the doorstep. Even if she was drunk or high or half-dead, I couldn’t imagine doing anything but throwing my arms around her.

  I swallowed. “She was high?”

  “Fuckin’ A. Eyes popping. Talking a million miles a minute. And Dad had Heather over!”

  I blinked, trying to remember who Heather was.

  “She had cooked us dinner and everything. She was literally in the kitchen washing the dishes. And then she showed up.” Ripley’s voice caught. “So what does Dad do? He ignores his girlfriend of eight months and runs to comfort his deserting addict wife. He’s so pathetic. They both are.” Ripley sniffled.

  My throat was tight and my head buzzing; it was a huge effort to stay in the moment, to listen. “Ripley, I’m so sorry.”

  “I know.” Ripley, usually sensitive to my feelings, clearly couldn’t detect my distress through the storm of his own. I couldn’t blame him. I knew how that went.

  From my position in the alcove, I could see across the road to the mall. The lights in the parking lot were still on. I heard a car honk, but not from the street. From the phone.

  “Where are you?” I asked.

  “Walking down Imperial Highway,” he said. “I had to get out of there.”

  “It’s past midnight.”

  “I’m in Park Hills, Ellie. The worst that could happen is that I get busted for curfew.”

  Across the street, faceless white mannequins stared at me from the Neiman Marcus window.

  “Is there any way I can help?”

  “Teleport here and take me to IHOP?” He gave a humorless laugh.

  “It’s bad, huh?”

  Ripley sniffled again. “Jude’s taking it harder than I am.”

  I tugged at my hair, hoping the pain would keep me focused on Ripley instead of myself.

  “Have you ever thought of taking him to Alateen?” I realized this was my version of pawning him off on the Suicide Prevention Lifeline, but it was all I could think to say. “It’s like AA, but for the kids of addicts.”