Wish You Were Here

by Stewart O'Nan

  “Maybe he has a friend.”

  “No thank you.”

  “Come on, don’t be like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know, just … Can’t you just be happy for me?”

  “I am happy for you,” Ella said, but the way she said it made it clear she wasn’t.

  “Look,” Sarah said, “I promise I won’t forget about you. I know how that feels, okay? What do you think it’s like with my dad? It’s still going to be me and you most of the time. There’s no one else here I want to hang out with.”

  “I guess that’s a compliment.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  Ella said she did, but Sarah could tell she was hurt, the way Liz was when they went to a dance together and the guys only tried to hit on her. It wasn’t her fault that she was pretty, but Sarah wanted to apologize anyway. “You have to be aware of your effect on people,” her mother lectured her. And while she was right, Sarah wished she wasn’t. She hated when other girls didn’t like her just because of the way she looked. Sometimes she wished she was ugly or just plain.

  Justin and Sam were riding their bikes in front of the house, so they cut across the Wisemans’ yard for the porch. Rufus stopped to mark his territory and they passed him on opposite sides, not talking. Her mother and Grandma sat on the porch with their drinks.

  “Help yourself to the veggies and dip,” Grandma said. “It looks like we won’t be eating till late.”

  “Wash your hands first,” her mother instructed.

  Inside it was dark with all the lights off. Ella took the kitchen sink and she took the bathroom. She flipped on the light and closed the door, turned on the hot water, and let it run. For a while she stood there before the mirror, soaping her hands, glad to finally be alone. She set the soap back in the holder and held her hands under the faucet, and she discovered she had lied to Ella. Ella, her mother, her father, Mark—everything fell away when she thought of him. There was only the lake and the two of them, his house, the dark lawn and the sunset painting the sky. When everyone left, they would still be here.

  She dried her hands and opened the door, turned off the light. Ella had beaten her outside and she took the chair next to her, the plastic cushion settling with a hiss. The red pepper she bit into was juicy, the dip sharp. She didn’t know she was so hungry.

  “How was your walk?” Grandma asked.

  Ella looked to her as if they had a secret. Sarah dared her—go ahead and tell—and took a carrot stick.

  “It was good,” Ella said. “Rufus pooped.”

  12

  “Doesn’t everything look wonderful?” his mother said in the kitchen—to no one, to everyone.

  In the living room, alone with Ken, Lise mimicked her, throwing one hand extravagantly in the air and fluttering her eyelashes like a silent film star. She’d only had half a beer, and he thought he’d have to watch her.

  “And coleslaw!” his mother was saying for Sam and Justin’s benefit. “And sliced tomatoes—oh my. I think I’ll have a little bit of everything, how does that sound?”

  Lise mimed surprise, wagging her head, until Ken gathered her in a hug, smothering her routine.

  “But she’s so funny,” Lise whispered.

  “Stop.”

  His mother came out with her plate and gave them an odd look, as if their hugging was strange, then headed for the porch. Lise pretended to strangle him, shaking him by his neck, the side of her bottle chilly on his skin.

  “Thank you, all done now,” he said, and broke her hold.

  In the kitchen Meg was checking the corn and the air was wet. Sam fixed his plate, shying away from any vegetables, just chicken and cheese bread for him. Justin was brave enough to take a spoonful of coleslaw. Ella and Sarah waited, shaking their wicker plate holders like tambourines. Ken fitted a paper plate into a holder and gave it to Lise, then got himself one. Lise tapped his arm and nodded toward the back door. Outside, Arlene stood alone under the chestnut, smoking and looking at the rabbits across the road, the low, pink light gilding the tree trunks. She dropped the butt and ground it out but stayed there, folded her arms and kept watching.

  “Not too creepy,” Lise said.

  “You never watch the rabbits,” he challenged.

  He didn’t say that he’d done the same thing yesterday. It was a conceit of hers that his whole family was crazy, the bloodline diseased like in some cheesy old Poe movie, and he was the most normal of the bunch. It was supposed to be a joke, but, having had to actually deal with them over the years, he had come close to believing it himself. He trusted there were reasons for his mother’s harsh optimism and his aunt’s aloofness, somewhere in their history, but often he had to admit that they came off as eccentric old ladies. That he could almost believe it—he who knew better—convinced him that Lise did, the joke transparent.

  Lise drained her beer and got another from the garage, Arlene noting her as she passed.

  “Dad?” Ella asked.

  “What, hon?”

  “Are we going miniature golfing?”

  “I don’t think so. It’s kinda late.”

  “Okay,” she said, so sweetly that now he wanted to take them.

  “Maybe tomorrow.”

  “I think it’s supposed to rain tomorrow,” Meg said.

  “Please no,” Lise said, coming back in.

  “Is that right?” he asked, thinking he wouldn’t have any light to shoot with. He wouldn’t be able to take Sam fishing.

  “That’s what Arlene said.”

  For lack of anything better, it became the main dinner conversation. The radio said there was a 70 percent chance of morning showers, 90 percent by afternoon. Temperatures would be cooler. So forget the Holga. Ken thought if they ate fast and left the dishes for later, they could squeeze in miniature golf, but no one seemed in a hurry except the boys, typically impatient with any interruption of their fun.

  The chicken was lukewarm and greasy, and the coleslaw had a chemical tang. The corn was the one triumph, both kinds perfect, the kernels bursting. The kids took too much butter, poured salt on the floor. In the corner, beside the glider, Rufus sat drooling, alert for the littlest spill. He curled his tongue sideways to clean up a piece of chicken Justin knocked off his plate, then pounced again when Sam fumbled an ear. It rolled over the boards, leaving a smear of butter.

  “Rufus, no!” his mother said, and Rufus froze, uncertain, the corn within reach of his muzzle.

  Sam sat there with his plate tipped in his lap, as if waiting for someone to save him. He was too old to be so helpless.

  “Don’t just look at it,” Ken said, “pick it up.”

  He must have said it too hard, because Lise scolded him, “It was an accident.”

  She helped Sam wipe the floor, then held the screen door for him, and the two of them went into the kitchen, dinner continuing on the porch as if nothing had happened.

  “So no more word on this morning’s incident?” his mother asked.

  “The police didn’t call while we were out, did they?”

  “It’s all rather curious, I think.”

  “It seemed routine while I was there,” he said. “I gave them my statement and they took it down.”

  Lise and Sam returned, Sam without his plate, Lise with a soda. He sat, head hanging, arms folded, and Ken could see he’d been crying. Sometimes he cried for her attention or her sympathy—to deflect her from something he’d done—and Ken wondered if that’s what was happening. He hadn’t actually yelled at him, just told him to do something (which he didn’t do). Suddenly he was the bad guy. He took a swig of his beer, as if that might erase it.

  “There’s lots of corn left,” Meg prompted, but Lise waved her off. Sam was done.

  “Can I ask you what questions they asked?” his mother covered.

  “Just what I saw, that was about it. I think they were trying to put together a time line.”

  He didn’t tell her about the surveillance tape
that showed him and the other man like a pair of criminals, the two of them jerkily searching the aisles, disappearing into the little hallway by the rest rooms, leaving their money at the register. Is that you? they asked, but first—and this he definitely would not tell her—they reminded him of his right to refuse to answer their questions and to have an attorney present. There was an intensity in the room that he wanted to shoot: the washed chalkboard on wheels, the constellations of silver tacks on the corkboard above the tray of mugs. The detective, whose name he’d forgotten immediately but whose frayed collar tabs he could still picture, looked at him as if admitting the man on the video was him was crucial to the investigation. Ken didn’t point out that he was wearing the same clothes, just fingered the stilled image and said, “That’s me, and that’s him.” And you didn’t see anyone else? The entire time you were there? Tell me again about the coffee. The bag on the floor. Did you see anything else out of place? They went over it three times before writing it up, and while Ken signed it, photocopied his driver’s license, blowing it up so the state seal showed.

  “What do they think happened?”

  “They wouldn’t tell him,” Meg said.

  “My guess,” Ken said, aware that the children had stopped chewing to listen, “is that either the cashier robbed the place and made it look like a robbery, or someone else robbed the place and really did scare off the cashier.”

  “We’ll have to get a Post-Journal tomorrow,” his mother said. “They’d carry something like this, wouldn’t they?”

  “It should be in the police blotter,” Arlene said.

  “That might just be for Jamestown,” Meg said. “This would be Mayville.”

  “I don’t think the Mayville Sentinel handles things like this anymore,” his mother said. “They’re more of a tourist guide now.”

  “Can I be all done?” Justin asked, and showed Meg his plate—not clean but a better job than Sam’s.

  The girls were slow eaters, and then Sarah had three pieces of corn, her plate balanced on her clenched knees. Her dimples reminded Ken of Meg at that age. Like Meg, like his mother, she was the pretty one in the family, the same straight nose and sharp jaw of his mother’s softened, not as stark, and he had to quell his natural inclination to see her face as a work of art, the planes changing while he fiddled with his lights.

  They all helped to clear the plates, bunching up at the screen door. Lise commandeered the sink and he pitched in, hoping to break out of the doghouse. Meg and Arlene let them handle the dishes, going outside for a smoke. They waved at the bugs, stood watching the light fade over the lake. He dried the bigger items, interrogating the sky for any sign of rain.

  “Isn’t it red sky at night?”

  “That’s what I thought,” Lise agreed. “But I thought the kids were going to do the dishes too, so …”

  “Tomorrow,” he promised.

  “Yeah, yeah.” She really didn’t care.

  It was almost dark when they finished, the sky violet, the evening star low over the horizon. His mother had lit a citronella candle on the porch.

  “We have pie for all those who want dessert,” she announced, but only the boys took her up on it.

  “Maybe later,” Meg said.

  The adults had coffee. The kids stayed inside, the boys in the living room, the girls upstairs. On the porch, the candle flickered and the roof shuddered. Bats flapped raggedly between the trees, fireflies rose from the bushes. A boat went by with its running lights on. After it passed, they could hear the lake washing over the stones.

  “This is why I come here,” his mother said, and no one refuted her. She put her cup down. “I guess this is as good a time as any. I want to talk to all of you about the house.” She paused dramatically, and he could sense Lise stiffening beside him. “You’re of course under no obligation to take anything, and to be honest, most of it is junk. I’m as sentimental as the next person, but there’s no sense taking something if you’re not going to use it. I don’t want you to feel like something’s going to go to waste if you don’t take it. I’ve arranged for the Goodwill people to come next week, so anything we don’t want will eventually find a home.

  “Now, some of the things here are mine, like the gateleg table, and obviously I’m going to hang on to those—you’ll get them eventually— but most of the stuff is up for grabs. There will be some things that more than one of you are going to want. I think the best thing to do in that case is for each of you to put together a wish list of the things you want the most and rank them in order of importance to you.”

  As she spoke, Ken thought of his father’s golf clubs (though he was too tall to use them), and the twisted 7UP bottle on the low wardrobe (for Sam). The wardrobe itself was cheap, and he’d never liked the varnish, too dark. The cedar chest was a possibility, not that there was room in the car. His eye flitted through the rooms, and then the garage, the cave his father hid in, alone with his treasure. The barbecue starter, yes, and the little fridge, avocado and ugly with bumper stickers. No one else would want them. At least he could save something of the cottage.

  “So if you could give me your lists tomorrow that would be a help,” his mother said.

  “How many things can we put on the list?” Meg asked.

  “Five should be enough, I’d think. There really isn’t that much here. Oh, and Arlene is taking the TV, so that’s out. The other appliances are staying with the house—not that you’d want them.”

  “It’s like a silent auction,” Arlene said, amused.

  “And please,” his mother said, holding her arms wide, “look around this week. It’s all got to go.”

  Little things, he thought. All the crap on the mantel. Marbles, tees, ball marks, penlights. Decks of cards he knew the backs of intimately, softened by a family of hands and years of humidity. One summer they played hearts every night, the scorecard on the refrigerator keeping track (he’d cried then, quit because he was so far behind). Bridge, gin, Michigan rummy. His father was a quiet player, a conservative bidder, never letting you see what he had when he lost. Like me, Ken thought, then worried that he was flattering himself. His father was a better man than he was, more secure, far more capable. His father wouldn’t be surprised that, faced with deciding what he wanted most, he was thinking of childish trinkets.

  The cedar chest, then. That was a serious choice, and Lise would go for it.

  To their right, a spotlight suddenly cut on, and the Lerners’ house jumped out of the dark, the split-rail fence and boarded-up porch flattened like an O. Winston Link locomotive, followed by an electronic voice reporting “Intruder alert, intruder alert” over a monotonous high-pitched chirping.

  “What the hell?” Meg said, standing and holding her ears.

  “It’s their alarm,” his mother hollered.

  It was supposed to turn off in a minute, but they couldn’t wait that long and ended up going inside and closing the door.

  “Intruder alert,” the voice went on, menacing in its evenness, “intruder alert, intruder alert.” The chirping, barely noticeable to begin with, soon grew piercing. The boys stuck their fingers in their ears and rolled around on the carpet. The girls glared as if it were someone’s fault.

  “It’s probably a squirrel or something,” his mother said, already on the phone to the police. His father had left the number of the security company around here someplace but she had no idea where.

  The police would have to come and check out the house.

  “All this excitement in one day,” Arlene said.

  “I can live without it,” his mother said.

  They huddled inside as if under fire. When the alarm finally stopped, an echo hung in the air, then the buzz of locusts. “Intruder alert,” Sam mimicked, and Lise stopped him with one finger.

  Outside, the Lerners’ was dark again, the dock and the lake invisible, but the quiet tone was broken, the evening’s stillness ruined.

  They retreated inside again, the light and the drawn blinds m
aking the living room seem even smaller than it was. Lise and Meg pulled out their books and kicked the boys off the couch. His mother found her library mystery and took his father’s chair by the light in the corner as if it had naturally passed to her. Arlene announced she was taking Rufus for his constitutional. He wished he’d brought something to read, some project to work on. He was no good at vacation, couldn’t relax into it the way his father had his retirement, raking leaves, poking around the basement like a ghost.

  If it rained, he could sleep in. What they’d do with the rest of the day he didn’t know. Go to a movie? Lise would have to get out of the house. Maybe they could do the Book Barn, waste the afternoon picking through the shelves of cracked paperbacks. Or the old casino with its warped dance floor and basement full of video games—Lise’s idea of hell. There were only so many choices, and the kids didn’t go in for antiques.

  It was almost the boys’ bedtime. He’d get them down, then have a piece of pie as a reward. The girls could take care of themselves, and his mother would go to bed early. He hadn’t forgotten Lise wanting to make love on the dock. There was an old army blanket in the bathroom cupboard upstairs. He went up and liberated it. The girls were lying on their sleeping bags reading and didn’t bother with him. He left it at the foot of the stairs so the closed door hid it.

  It was too late for another beer, so he chose a soda, the light from the fridge making the little food they had seem meager and desperate, a bachelor’s rations. Meg came in with an unlit cigarette, said, “Hey,” and with a shake of her head beckoned him to follow her out the back door.

  She lit up before filling him in. “I told Mom, so I thought you ought to know. Next week we’re finalizing the divorce.”

  She gave him an apologetic smile in the dark, a shrug, and he held her. Her arm around him, her chin on his shoulder, she took a hit of her cigarette. Even now she had to come on tough, breaking, backing away. They could be in high school, hanging out by the smokestack, waiting for the bell to ring.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, but I thought …”