Wish You Were Here

by Stewart O'Nan

  “They’re going over,” Emily warned, pointing, just in time for Arlene to see one of the Lasers heel dangerously before recovering.

  “It must be blowing out there,” she said, and again the music returned like a soundtrack, filling in the silence. Bees zigzagged through the croquet set. She didn’t have much to pack, yet she wanted everything— the fireplace, the awful drapes, as if she could turn her apartment into the cottage, keep this lazy feeling year-round.

  “Are you making the trek to Panama Rocks?” Emily asked.

  “I’m afraid I’ll have to decline.”

  “Discretion being the better part.”

  “Exactly. You?”

  “Mrs. Klinginsmith’s supposed to call. Are the girls up yet?”

  “Not to my knowledge.”

  “Well they better get their act together because they’re not lounging around here.”

  The race was a chaos of sails. They must have been rounding a buoy. There was a break in the music and Emily took up her book.

  “Want anything?” Arlene asked, getting up.

  “No, I’m fine.”

  Inside, Arlene noticed the puzzle was half done but thought she didn’t have the energy to finish it, or the time. It didn’t make sense—the day was maybe the nicest they’d had. The wasted effort nagged at the teacher in her. She’d never been to Buckingham Palace, unlike Emily, and she wondered when the picture was from. Forty, fifty years ago, when she should have gone, Walter taking her in stiff hotel sheets, ordering room service while she showered. It would be left unfinished, swept into the box, the completed sections bending like good lace, and she had the absurd idea of taking it home and setting up the card table she used for grading, working quietly under the hot light late into the night. She could imagine what Emily would say. She might as well take the board games while she was at it.

  She hoped Goodwill would be able to use it, some underprivileged child from Jamestown fitting the spiked iron fence together. She could see it ending up in a wet dumpster, the pieces sprinkled over donated sheets and gray underwear. She’d never even liked the puzzle. It was pure selfishness, childish, like her instant rejection of the mere idea of Point Chautauqua.

  Some of that was jealousy, the ancient hurt of being displaced by Emily and then the children, her birthright traded away, all because she’d chosen to make a life for herself. That was childish too, picking at old wounds, yet at times she felt justified. Not that it made a difference at this point.

  She would take anything. Pride was a poor companion. She could see why women her age fell for boyish con men.

  She made it into the kitchen and stopped between the fridge and the sink, stood there frozen, squinting just short of closing her eyes, concentrating. For the life of her she couldn’t remember what she’d come in for. Iced tea? A peach?

  The damn puzzle. Let it rot for all she cared.

  What was it?

  She tried retracing her steps like she did at home—she’d been sitting with Emily, came inside, saw the puzzle—and when that failed, looked around the room for clues. The dish soap stood honey-colored by the sink, the teapot sat cold on the stove. The only thing on the red-and-white-checked tablecloth was a stack of paper napkins, the fancy kind Emily liked. Outside, the cicadas were already beginning to simmer, shrill as an electrical charge, dissipating then winding up again. At home they would be the same, and then one day they would be gone, the season over, their empty shells stuck to the trees.

  “Oh fudge,” she said. And then she remembered.

  4

  Ella watched her. There was nothing else she could do. She watched the way she walked, the way she stood in the sun from the window, the way she bent over to close her sleeping bag. She watched the way her body filled her nightshirt and the way she gathered her hair back and kept the barrette in her teeth. When there was no one else around Ella found herself staring, absorbing or memorizing her, marveling at how perfect she was. It was sick.

  And it was dumb. It only discouraged her more.

  She rolled over so she wouldn’t have to see her go into the bathroom, then tried not to imagine what she was doing from the sounds. Sarah closed the door but she could walk in and Sarah wouldn’t think anything, so she lay there waiting, searching the ugly jungle of the carpet and feeling stupid.

  The shower pounded the stall. Now Sarah was pulling her nightshirt over her head, now she was stepping in, the shock of the water raising goose bumps. Now she was getting her hair wet.

  Ella rolled over again to make herself stop. Her shorts from yesterday reminded her that she was supposed to pick up her dirty clothes, and she yawned and rolled halfway back so she was looking at the ceiling, the pillow holding her head, the rest of her pinned to the floor by gravity and other facts. She didn’t want to go to Panama Rocks or tubing or to stupid Webb’s for dinner, she just wanted to lie here until it was time for the fireworks and then go to sleep and get up tomorrow and leave.

  At home no one would know. She’d think about her when she was alone, but once school started she’d be busy. She wouldn’t forget, she wouldn’t be that lucky, but the feeling wouldn’t be like this all the time—at least she hoped not. If it was, she didn’t know what she’d do. She had her e-mail address, she could call her, but the phone was even harder than talking face-to-face.

  She thought of Sarah taking her hand during the fireworks—like at the party in her dream—and then the two of them kissing in the dark and no one noticing.

  The water stopped. Sarah would stand there a second to drip-dry, then open the door and start toweling off, bending to do her legs, wrapping her hair in a turban.

  Ella shook her head and pushed the flap off, irritated at the trapped heat of the bag. She would be with her all day today, but with everyone else around, and tomorrow she’d be gone. The thought brought up the same flush of panic she’d felt since Niagara Falls. It was like being sick, the alarming waves of nausea that warned you right before you threw up. She pressed it down, a reflex. Tomorrow would be a relief, though she couldn’t see how she would get through the weeks before school. All she could see was her room, her made bed, the day stretching out ahead of her and nowhere to go.

  In the bathroom Sarah blew her nose—using toilet paper, Ella knew. She’d throw it in the toilet, not the wastebasket, they’d agreed that was nasty.

  And then the door opened and there she was in her nightshirt, a wet spot clinging to one hip, and even lying down Ella was conscious of her own posture.

  “It’s all yours,” Sarah said.

  Ella obeyed, then with the door closed took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. In the mirror she was disappointed with her hair, as if it might have saved her face.

  It didn’t matter anyway.

  The water was still hot, and she hung her PJs from the knobs of the linen closet. As she stepped in, the fine spray touched her first and she gasped at it, and then the heavy warmth spread across her chest and ran down her stomach. The sulfur reeked. She bowed her head and felt the chill around her legs, turned up the heat and stood with the water matting her hair until everything was one solid temperature. She closed her eyes, surrendering to the feeling, and remembered a horror movie where the scalding water wouldn’t turn off and the stall door wouldn’t open so this girl drowned behind the glass, a fish in a tank. It was dumb but made her check that the drain at her feet was working. She bent down to reach the shampoo in the corner and her butt bumped the stall, knocking her forward so she had to catch her balance with a hand on the wall.

  “Graceful,” she said, echoing her mother, and squeezed a handful of shampoo.

  She was just rubbing it in when the door opened, a cold gust stirring the fog above her. Her instinct was to turn away, but she stopped herself, twisted to make sure by the shape of the person that it was Sarah, and it was, stopping in front of the mirror, probably to brush her hair. Ella stood straight, facing the shower. She knew from experience that if Sarah leaned her head to the right she cou
ld see the blurry outline of her, the abstract patches of color. Compared to Sarah, she had little to offer, and again she felt the urge to turn toward the wall and hide herself.

  There was no reason. Sarah wouldn’t be looking.

  Ella lathered her hair and ducked under the rush, closing her eyes like she normally did. She rinsed, feeling daring and paranoid, the air touching her everywhere. The water suddenly turned cooler, losing strength, and blindly she twisted the knob all the way. It helped for a second but that was it. It always happened at Chautauqua—she was the last one.

  Sarah had the dryer out, and Ella thought she might finish her shower before Sarah was done brushing her hair. She would notice if Ella stalled until she was gone.

  The water was cold, puckering her front. Sarah teased her hair and smoothed it with a hand, and Ella thought of stepping through the door wet, standing on the bath mat, dripping, without a towel. Sarah could turn away or make a joke, but at least she would have tried.

  It sounded good when she put it that way, but that wasn’t how it would turn out, and anyway, that wasn’t what she wanted. That wasn’t who she was.

  The dryer refused to stop. Even freezing, the water smelled. Ella turned sideways, but that was just as bad. She needed to grit her teeth and finish. She bent down for the conditioner and stood straight in the spray, face front, as if nothing was wrong.

  5

  “How am I supposed to know what time it is when I don’t have a watch?” Sarah protested.

  “You still can’t find it?” Aunt Margaret asked.

  “No.”

  “I’m not surprised,” his mother said. “You can’t find anything up there.”

  “We cleaned up,” Ella said. “It’s not there.”

  “Whoa, whoa,” their mother said, “try another tone,” and the way Ella shut up, Sam thought she would tell on him. He felt like the time at the Stop-n-Shop when he thought the lady behind them in line saw him.

  “Did you look in the car?” his father asked. “It could have fallen between the seats.”

  “When was the last time you saw it?” his mother asked.

  They were all hot from tennis and were sitting on the porch. The argument had started because the girls hogged all the hot water, and now he was the one who was going to get in trouble.

  “I had it when we went to the movies because I remember looking at it when we came out.”

  “What day was that?”

  “That was Monday,” his father said.

  “Did you look in the couch?” Aunt Arlene asked.

  “No.”

  “You’re not going to find it if you don’t look,” Aunt Margaret said.

  “I’m sure it will turn up,” Grandma said. “I’ll keep my eye out for it while I’m cleaning this afternoon.”

  “Why are you cleaning?” his mother asked, and the conversation swerved away from him, turned safe and then boring.

  He and Justin went outside and knocked around the croquet balls in the sun. They were supposed to go to Panama Rocks, but what he really wanted was to go tubing. When he thought of the boat he saw it blasting across the water with him behind it, and below, way down at the cold brown bottom of the lake, the watch ticking in the weeds.

  The meeting on the porch was breaking up. They weren’t taking showers, they were going to go all grubby. They’d just get dirty anyway.

  “We need to wear shoes,” his mother announced to everyone. “No sandals or open toes. Boots are best but sneakers are okay.”

  All morning he’d been riding his bike in his flip-flops and thought he might get in trouble for it, but when she came out to bug him she didn’t say anything. She made him put away his mallet the right way, and his ball, so no one would trip over it (but not the wickets). Aunt Margaret took Justin inside and they were alone.

  “Thank you,” his mother said when he was done, and stopped him with a hand on his shoulder like she might give him a hug, except she didn’t bend down, just held him there so he had to look up.

  Her face was serious and he realized what she was going to ask him.

  He’d kill Ella, the tattletale.

  “You haven’t seen it, have you?”

  “What?” he said, making his face blank.

  It wasn’t fair; they had to catch him.

  “What. Your cousin’s watch.” She made it sound obvious, sick of him playing dumb. She seemed sure, as if the only thing he could do was confess. He could say anything and she wouldn’t believe him—and without any proof. Later he’d be sad about this, but now he was angry that she was blaming him just from what Ella said. It made it easier to say no.

  6

  They went out by the drive, for the children, though the boys had reported it. As they cruised by the neat white houses and professionally tended lawns, the lake glinting between them, Ken felt an odd sense of loss, an opportunity missed, as if they were leaving for good and he was abandoning her. Lise had told him to go, shoot, but he knew it was just another test, and those had become more important to her, and not only because they were here. She was unsure of herself and therefore of him, and he couldn’t figure out what he’d done or not done to trigger this latest fit of insecurity. Nothing had changed between them.

  They had to go past it. There was only one road. From the highway he could see the cars far across the ponds, and for an instant processed the shot, already composed for him, the low line of trees and giant sky, the insignificance of Man (with the shadow of his father in there somewhere). Morgan would groan and flip the print over as if it hurt his eyes. Don’t try to make statements, just feel what’s there. Like most of Morgan’s advice, it was too sixties, too groovy for Ken, but he’d never say that, not until he did something worthwhile.

  Beside him, driving, Meg let the scene slide by without a word, as did Lise behind him. In the way back, the boys craned for a look, the girls ignoring them, bored, and he wondered if his fascination was only a poorly rationalized version of theirs, juvenile and mindless, at base sensational.

  He could feel something around Tracy Ann Caler, he couldn’t say what—a buzz, a current—but it was there, good or bad. What was almost more exciting was that no one else seemed to have caught on to it. He wanted to believe his attraction was real and noble, if mysterious, and took the lack of any actual connection between them and the strength of his feelings as proof of rather than evidence against that. She was as much his as she was her abductors’, and he could see the slipperiness of his position. He wondered if that would change if they found her. It would have to, he thought. Otherwise it was just rubbernecking, Life-magazine crap.

  “Everyone ready for Gravity Hill?” Meg asked the car at large.

  From the back came mocking, halfhearted cheers.

  “Ah, let’s skip it this year,” Ken deadpanned. “They’re probably too old.”

  “I want to do it,” Justin spoke up.

  “What about the rest of you? Let’s take a vote.”

  All he got was muttering, though a real vote would have been close. Lise was only here because she didn’t want to be stuck in the house with his mother, and Meg only came for the kids. Sam and Justin were on his side, but that was it—boys against girls.

  “How many say yes?”

  “Not funny, Dad,” Ella said.

  “Okay,” he said, “we’ll go.”

  He used the ensuing silence to look out the window, his eyes sifting, gleaning. He’d brought the Nikon, but the light was too strong, shadows sharp on the trees, every leaf precise. The road was so familiar he could see beyond the fronts of the Snug Harbor Lounge and the rotting billboards and the cabin of the pro shop at Willow Run to the pastel asbestos houses and their sorry garages, the high weeds in the ditches gone brown. September was coming. He could feel the day getting away from him and he wanted to stop the car and walk along the berm, saving it all. He could follow the road around the lake that way, make a circle; all it would take was patience. He could shoot the seasons, show skaters standing
where the ferry ran, the Rod and Gun Club’s built-in grills capped with snow. Thousands of dull, unassuming photos. He would head out every morning with his lunch and a water bottle in a backpack. He wouldn’t think, he’d just bang away, then sort them out later on the contact sheets. When he died they’d find hundreds of undeveloped rolls, every inch of Chautauqua documented, a kind of map.

  “Our turn must be coming up,” Meg asked, testing him.

  “Up on the right,” he said, but she was already signaling.

  She knew. They used to come every year.

  The land back here was rolling, dairy farms cut from the woods, rusted wire fences. The barns tempted him, but it was pointless from the car. They had to go under the interstate, and then halfway across a yellow field the road abruptly turned to oiled gravel, stones plinking beneath them.

  “I don’t remember it being this bad,” Meg said, sounding just like his mother.

  It stopped, and the asphalt was all patches, jostling them. The woods closed in on both sides. Ahead, a kid Sam’s age was driving an ATV on the wrong side of the road without a helmet. Before they caught up to him he turned onto a dirt trail and was lost in his own dust. The road rose to cross some train tracks, and as Meg slowed to save her suspension, Ken could see far down the green tunnel of leaves. They could have buried her anywhere out here, just left her back in the woods somewhere. The marina seemed too public.