Cruel Beautiful World

by Caroline Leavitt

  There were all sorts of rumors. Kids could either take the grade they had when the strike began, or they could wait until fall and take the final exam then. It was case by case, someone told Charlotte, and it was completely up to the professors, some of whom were already working at the strike center themselves.

  Charlotte went to talk to all her professors. A few lifted up their hands and told her they didn’t know and not to worry about it. “You won’t get kicked out of school,” her math professor told her. But her professor in Zoology, the one course she was most worried about, was different.

  “I’ve been studying so hard . . .” Her voice faltered.

  He leaned back in his seat. “Well, do you want to take your exam now?”

  “Could I take it in the fall? I can study more—” Charlotte said, and then she felt him looking at her.

  “I know that you’ve worked hard this semester,” he said. “I’ve been watching you. You come in early to class. You’re always taking notes when everyone else is staring into space.” He shuffled some papers. “I wasn’t going to get to this until later, but now’s as good a time as any. Do you have plans for the summer? Are you working for the strike center?”

  She didn’t know what to say, what he might think was the right answer.

  “I’ve got an internship, if you want it,” he said. “It’s perfect for you because it’s with Fur Friends, the veterinary office off Moody Street.”

  She stared at him. An internship like that would be amazing. It would look great on her application to vet school and, of course, give her real experience. She had to have a paying job. She didn’t want to put off her professor, but there was no way she could do this. “I—I have to work . . .” she said.

  “This one pays,” he said. “Pretty decently, too. I pulled some strings to get them to offer this. And if you do a great job, I’ll count it toward your final.”

  “It’s paid?”

  “That’s right.” He smiled at her. “Pretty cool, right? Not often something like this comes along.”

  “Why are you doing this for me?” she asked.

  He glanced out his office window, at the students milling around. “Because sometimes, in crazy times, it helps to do something nice for someone,” he told her.

  TWO DAYS LATER, Charlotte moved into her sublet on Moody Street. It was furnished, so she didn’t have to buy anything, and if the couch was a little ratty, the table unbalanced, it didn’t matter because she’d spend most of her time working.

  In June she started her job. The doctor running the place was named Martin Bronstein. He was tall, thin, and bald, with blue wire-rimmed glasses, and he didn’t smile very much, not until he said, “We’ll work you hard here,” and Charlotte said, “Well, I hope so. That’s what I want.” He was about forty, and he wore a wedding band, and when she went into his office, it was filled with photographs of animals, each one signed as if the pet could write. Thank you for saving my leg! Love, Muffin. I hated the dog cone collar, but I loved the liver treats you gave me! Love, Annabel. What a softie, she thought. It made her like him.

  First he gave her the tour: the waiting room for the patients and their pets, the two examining rooms, the surgical area, and the recovery area in the back, where another woman in a white coat was busy feeding a tortoise lettuce. She looked up at Charlotte. “He won’t eat unless I wiggle it and make it seem like live food,” she said. Then she stuck out her hand to shake Charlotte’s. “Priscilla,” she said. “The tortoise’s name. I’m Jo.”

  Dr. Bronstein took Charlotte to the closet and handed her a white lab coat. “We’ll get you a name tag later,” he said. As soon as she put it on, she felt special. Important. She put her hands deep in her pockets and beamed. “Let’s get started,” he said, handing her a list of everything he wanted her to do: greet the patients, call in the animals and calm them, help him with some simple procedures, and make sure everyone—including the staff—was fed and watered. Charlotte laughed at that. “And always call people in by their pet’s name,” he said. “Give the animals that dignity.”

  She didn’t mind that he was crabby, that when he wanted her in an examining room, he wouldn’t come out to look for her but would simply shout, “Charlotte!” so loudly that everyone in the waiting room could hear. He was a stickler for doing things right, but that was fine because she was just learning. By the end of the first week, she could give a dog a shot and administer its medication, and she could pull thorns out of a cat’s paw. Dr. Bronstein never praised her, but he gave her more and more challenges, and Charlotte met every one.

  Most of the time that first month, she worked through lunch, but sometimes she had a sandwich at a local deli with Annie, the receptionist, who gossiped about Dr. Bronstein. “His wife is a knockout,” Annie said, “And they have about six dogs at home.” Sometimes, too, Charlotte put up flyers about Lucy, right next to the ones at the Brandeis strike center about a teach-in to stop the war.

  When the day was over, Charlotte, exhausted, would go home to her sublet. Sometimes she tried to study. Sometimes she read or called Iris. She always told Iris that everything was under control, that she was working hard, that her grades were going to be stellar, that she was getting closer to finding Lucy. “I’m sure all my posters will get someone’s attention,” she said. Charlotte knew she was lying. She heard the ticking clock of Iris’s health, and it propelled her. She had to find her sister before Iris died or was too sick to know. But she had a feeling Iris was lying to her, too, assuring Charlotte that she felt great even when she was coughing into the phone, fibbing about her blood pressure numbers, when all Charlotte had to do was call Iris’s doctor to get the real results.

  But most nights she was too tired to do anything other than shrug off her lab coat and eat a quick dinner. Then she would stretch out on her bed and fall into a deep sleep.

  Chapter 17

  The gun seemed to be giving off vibrations from the drawer, actual heat Lucy felt when she walked by. She kept checking on it from time to time, hoping the gun might be gone, but it was always in the same place, the box of shells beside it.

  She began biking the roads again. Sometimes she walked. She couldn’t bear to be inside the house all day, especially with the gun there. She could no longer go to Patrick’s, though she had conversations with him in her head. She was always apologizing, but he told her that it didn’t matter, that people sometimes did things you couldn’t understand, but that it didn’t mean you didn’t still love them. She wrote in her blue journal, a fantasy about running into him one day, and he would see her and there would be that fierce connection between them and he’d realize his mistake. He’d know that she was his next great love.

  The roads seemed even quieter than usual today. She could hear every footstep she took. Maybe she’d go to the supermarket, she thought, just to be among people.

  She had been walking for a little while when a car slowed and pulled up beside her. A woman with a riot of gray ringlets peered out at her. “Are you lost or hurt?” she called, and Lucy shook her head. “Then what are you doing on the road by yourself?”

  “Just walking,” Lucy said, and the woman frowned.

  “I’m going into Scranton. Can I drive you there?”

  Scranton. Lucy had heard William talk about it. It was a real town, a pretty big one. He had promised they would drive there some night, go out to dinner, walk around, maybe even see a movie, but of course they never had. “I’m happy to take you,” the woman said. “I have a daughter myself.”

  Lucy looked inside the car. Every door had a handle. The backseat was clean and empty, the front seat, too. Scranton, she thought, and she got inside.

  The woman kept up a patter the whole ride, and Lucy soon realized she was fishing for information. How old was Lucy? Because she looked fifteen, if you wanted to know the truth. Where were her parents? Because if her daughter were out there, she would want to know how to help her. “This is for me, not you,” the woman said, and so, becaus
e Lucy sort of liked her, she told her what she wanted to hear. “My parents are cool,” Lucy said. “I’m not in any trouble.”

  The trees began to give way to buildings. The deserted roads suddenly had shops and people, and everyone seemed to be moving in fast-forward. Brightening, she sat up straighter, craning her neck, wanting to see everything. The world was like a cold glass of water when you were thirsty. “It’s so lively,” she said, and the woman looked at her and pulled over.

  She dug in her purse and handed Lucy a card: NELL WILSON, REAL ESTATE. “You can always call if you need help,” she said. “What can I say? I’m a mother.” She peered at Lucy. “You promise, you’ll call if you need to?”

  “Yes,” Lucy said, taking the card. She stepped out onto the city street. She waited for the woman to keep driving, rolling the card over in her fingers. She started to put it in her pocket and then she took the card to the nearest trash can and popped it in. She didn’t want to risk having William find it.

  Everything around her seemed to be jittering with color and noise and scents. Restaurants she passed smelled amazing, like garlic and curry, and once she caught a whiff of melted chocolate and her mouth filled with saliva. Oh, how she had missed all this! The last time she had had chocolate was in school, when she used to buy three Snickers bars from the vending machine and pull off bits while she was in class. She had forgotten how wonderful real life was. A big kiosk fluttered with bills and posters, and she studied it. People were looking for roommates. Bright, sunny room. Shared kitchen. Wouldn’t that be something, to be able to live with other people and come and go as you pleased and not have to answer to anyone? There was an advertisement for a show, with two bands, Washing Machine and Dead to You. She used to go to shows at the Boston Tea Party, getting in with a fake ID. She had seen Nazz there, and the Velvet Underground, stepping on the lit floor, dancing by herself, lost in the music.

  For the first half hour, all she did was wander in and out of stores. She stopped in front of a Realtor’s window. She could imagine herself in that little studio with the natural light. Or what about that one-bedroom with the wood floors? But even the tiniest apartments were way too expensive, plus they wanted the first and last months’ rent and a safety deposit. She didn’t even have a job.

  She kept walking and spied a local high school. Maybe she could get her GED there, and with that she might get a real job, and with that she could get a place to live. Imagine being able to come here every week to study, get to know the local cafés, and maybe even make some friends.

  Maybe the school had summer classes and was still open. She strode to the door, grinning when it opened, and as soon as she got inside, she laughed, because it had that school smell: old bologna sandwiches and sour milk.

  Everyone was in classes, but she could see inside the rooms, through the windows in the doors. Kids were sprawled at their desks, taking notes, whispering to one another, and all Lucy wanted to do was slide into one of the desks beside someone. She remembered the fun parts of school. The kids. The parties. Imagine sitting in a classroom and doing experiments. Imagine getting to hang out with kids her own age again. All the things she had hated about school—writing reports, taking tests, even going to summer school—she now felt hungry for. If she could just have this chance, she’d do everything right this time.

  The bell rang and the doors flew open and kids sprang like colts into the corridor. Lucy walked among them. Kids lined the walls. She saw two girls laughing. A boy passed a note to a girl. A girl opened her locker, and plastered on the door was a photo of James Taylor. Everything Lucy had thought was childish and stupid before now seemed like nirvana. She ran her hand along the wall.

  She rounded a corner and found the office. “Do you have GED classes?” she asked, and the woman handed her a pamphlet without even looking at her.

  When Lucy went outside, the sky was already dusky, and yellow buses lined one side of the school. Kids began spilling out of the front door, couples holding hands, a boy taking out a cigarette, girls with their arms linked, carelessly laughing. Any of those girls could be her friend, someone to go to the movies with, to shop, to make plans that didn’t include making dinner and keeping house and trying to look and be older. She couldn’t stop watching them, the girls. She looked at the way they were dressed, in flowing paisley pants and tops with little embroidered mirrors in them and skirts so short the girls were constantly reaching down and tugging at the hems. She yearned for their white fishnet stockings, or the windowpanes one girl was wearing. Two girls walked past, and they looked alike, and Lucy thought maybe they were sisters, and for a moment she missed Charlotte so much she had to lean against the wall. Take me with you, she thought.

  She walked back toward the stores, where the cars might be more plentiful, hoping to catch a ride. She wished she had kept that real estate agent’s card, because she could have called her if she was desperate. She glanced at her watch. Four. She still had time to get home before William, but she’d have to hustle. She stood at the corner, jabbing out her thumb. There was traffic. Surely someone would stop. But cars drove right past by her. No one was stopping.

  By five thirty, Lucy began to panic. What if she couldn’t get a ride? She could never walk this far. What if William got home before she did? He’d go look for her in the woods, and he’d be furious that she hadn’t stayed closed to home. He might find her bike, and that would make him angry, too.

  Tears stung behind her lids, and then finally a car slowed. A guy wearing a suit and tie. His hair was clean and there was no trash piled in his backseat. All the doors had handles. It was against her rules to get into a car driven by a man, but it was also now five thirty, and she didn’t know what else to do. “Where you headed?” the man said. She saw a flash of gold on his finger. He was married. There was a photo of a little girl attached to his visor. His daughter, maybe. She got in.

  He drove without speaking, without glancing at her, which unnerved her a little, but he took her all the way to the lip of her road. And then she jumped out, thanking him, and he was gone, and she turned around and there was William, planted in front of her, his face unreadable. “William,” she said, and he took two steps toward her and then he hit her in the face.

  Her hands flew to the hard flash of pain. She stumbled, falling into the dirt, skittering back from him, like a crab. “Who was that man?” he shouted. “Are you seeing that man? Do you know how worried I was when you weren’t home? And then you show up with some guy? What are you doing, Lucy?”

  She scrambled away from him, drawing her legs up against her chest. Something was trickling down her face, and she touched it and drew her fingers away and saw that it was blood. “I hitched into town!” she cried. “I hitched back! He was my ride and that’s all!”

  “How do I know that’s the truth? Is he calling the cops now? Is that what’s happening?”

  She pulled out the GED paperwork and thrust it at him. The paper shook in the air, and he grabbed it, staring at it and then at her as if he didn’t know her.

  “You went to the high school?” His breathing slowed. “This is all to get your GED?”

  She nodded. He folded the paper and put it in his pocket, and then he crouched toward her. As soon as he touched her, she winced and drew back. He grabbed for her hand and pulled her up. “Why didn’t you tell me? I would have taken you,” he said.

  “You hit me,” she said, stumbling farther away from him. “You hit me.”

  He reached to touch her face and then drew his hands back. He started to tremble. “I didn’t mean to.” He swiped at his eyes. “I swear, when I saw that guy, I went crazy. I thought I’d lost you. I thought he was the authorities. Forgive me. You have to forgive me.”

  She kept silent. The pain rolled over her and she couldn’t meet his eyes.

  “I didn’t know what I was doing, but it will never, ever happen again. Let’s go inside the house,” he said. “We’ll put some ice on that eye. We’ll talk about your GED. I promis
e things will get better. I’m just under so much pressure. We’re just both on edge.” He began to guide her back toward the house, his arm around her, a weight. “Soon we can be out in the world together,” he said. “Together forever.” He tightened his grip and walked her inside.

  HE SAT WITH her in the kitchen, watching her put the ice to her eye. He put on music, the Doors album she liked, and for the first time since Waltham, he cooked her dinner, her favorite, spaghetti with sauce he made himself, mashing up tomatoes in a pan with fresh garlic and basil. Her appetite was gone, but she moved the food around to make it look as if she had at least nibbled. “I’ll do the dishes,” he said. “I’ll clean up. You just relax.”

  He washed the dishes and put things away while she sat at the table. When they went to bed, he held her, spooning against her, a vise. When he lifted his hand, she tensed. “Want to know how I know we’re perfect together?” he said. He moved closer to her. “Because we fit together. Just like this.”

  Like silverware, she thought. Like inanimate objects made of metal. She stayed still, waiting for him to go to sleep, hoping he wouldn’t want to have sex. Her eye throbbed, but she couldn’t risk waking him to go get ice.

  She knew it now. Falling in love with William had been a terrible mistake. She had felt so grown up when it had all happened, and now she felt clueless as a child. And worse, trapped. What had she been thinking? We did what he said. He was Jesus. Wasn’t that was what the Manson girls had said? And look what happened to them.