Light from a Distant Star

by Morris, Mary Mcgarry

  Into her thoughts came one of those conversations a kid half listens to but doesn’t quite get, the tangled strands now suddenly making sense. Her father had been telling Lazlo about the historian’s responsibility to recognize the difference between literal truth and ideal truth. When it came to Boone, she had chosen the latter, a story of life as it should and might still be, so that Max wouldn’t give up hope.

  Some things were absolutely true. Charlie was the same, she wrote, except for an outbreak of shingles that finally sent him to the doctor. Wanting it to be a long letter, one that would help pass the time in his lonely cell, she wrote about how Lazlo had moved in, and how Henry had half the roof done on the tree house, and even though Max didn’t know him, how Tenley Humboldt had installed a floodlight aimed directly at the tree house. It came on with a motion detector, so they’d be illuminated if they went into the tree house after dark, which was a really strange sensation, like being in a space ship. She told him a little about Ruth and the reason she was finally acting human again, which was because Patrick Dellastrando had practically told her to get lost. She’d gone from heartbreak to grievous insult, now to a state of general dreariness. Nothing could make her too angry or too happy. She was flat-lining through the days, off to the takeout window every afternoon, then home at night no later than nine to shower off the vestiges of hot fudge and strawberry sauce before stopping in Nellie’s room to philosophize about how life sucked and what a raw deal she’d gotten, having a father who didn’t care if she even existed. Nellie even told Max about Danny Brigham but not that she’d intercepted his letter to Ruth.

  She also wrote about how much fun it was hanging out with Krissie Potek again. Not only didn’t Krissie mind Henry always tagging along, but she actually thought he was funny, a quality lost on Nellie lately. She thought Max would find it interesting that Krissie was a good fisherman (“or is it fisherwoman?” she wrote, she wasn’t sure). Krissie had been fishing with her father and older brother ever since she could remember. She said she’d asked her father if Nellie could come next time they went, but so far it hadn’t happened. Krissie had admitted that while her father liked teaching, he didn’t really like kids that weren’t his own too much. So what do you think that’s all about? she asked Max, hoping to engage him, and, if not, at least make her letter seem more conversational. She pictured him dragging in from the hot, shadeless prison yard (doing what? she wanted to ask, but figured she’d save that for her next letter) and looking forward to stretching out on his bunk and reading her letter again, probably for the third or fourth time that day. Maybe no one else cared, but he’d know she did.

  “Well, anyway,” she wrote on the twelfth page, “school starts in three weeks.” And the trial, a couple weeks after, though she hadn’t written that, but probably would in her next letter. Her family might be dreading the trial, but it had occurred to her that Max might be looking forward to it. Given the chance to finally tell what had really happened that day, he’d be moving that much closer to freedom.

  Jessica’s calls wanting Nellie to go hang out with her or asking to “come here” had gotten so persistent that, now, everyone checked caller ID before answering the phone. The message box—squawk box, her father called it—was filled with her plaintive begging and infuriated demands that Nellie please, please call her back. “Goddamn you, Nellie!” she finally screamed in one. “I know you’re standing right there listening to this, you selfish bitch. Pick up the phone! Pick up the goddamn phone!”

  A brutal mistake and Jessica knew it, immediately calling back, and for the rest of the day leaving messages of apology and regret, but it was too late. The entire Peck family had played the message, even Nellie’s mother, who listened in shocked silence. When Nellie played it for Krissie, she hugged her arms and said, “That’s scary. That’s really scary.”

  “She’s like the last person I’d be scared of,” Nellie laughed.

  “She’s just so mean. Her feelings, they’re not, like, normal. Like when she hurts people, that funny look she gets,” she said, which surprised Nellie.

  Krissie was usually making excuses for Jessica. Because Mrs. Potek and Mrs. Cooper were good friends, it was a loyalty Nellie’d had to swallow. But apparently not anymore. Krissie began telling her how last May, Mrs. Cooper had complained to the high school principal when Mr. Potek refused to let Patrice Cooper take a makeup test when she got a B on her math final. Mrs. Cooper said Patrice had told Mr. Potek right before the final how sick she felt, but he had made her take it anyway. That B had kept Patrice from being class valedictorian, and the complaint had gone into Mr. Potek’s record.

  “You’re kidding.” Nellie couldn’t wait to tell Ruth.

  “My mother couldn’t believe it. She was, like, really upset.”

  “I bet.”

  “My father said she’s not the nice, sweet lady everyone thinks.” Krissie grimaced. “But you can’t tell anyone that,” she added, wide-eyed. “He’d kill me.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t,” Nellie said, eagerly repaying the confidence with her tale of Jessica’s sending Henry home so she could show her Louis’s stash of pot and then how Mrs. Cooper had flipped out on her with Jessica giving it right back, and Nellie feeling trapped like she was in some kind of asylum where the guards were as crazy as the patients.

  “Really?” Krissie whispered, her long black hair falling across her pale face.

  “Yeah,” she whispered back. With Jessica out of the picture, it would be good having Krissie to herself.

  “Wow. So maybe that’s what’s wrong,” Krissie said. “Maybe they’re all screwed up and Jessica, she’s the only normal one.”

  “I don’t get your logic.”

  “I know,” Krissie admitted. “But now I feel bad for her.”

  “Well, don’t,” she said, and would wish she hadn’t.

  SHE’D QUICKLY FOUND her seat in the back row. The first few minutes of class were noisy with students’ looking for their seat assignments. Mrs. Duffy was their homeroom teacher. She stood by the door scanning her chart to make sure no one switched seats. Mrs. Duffy was young and pretty but really tough. And very pregnant. Nellie tried looking everywhere but at her big, round belly, which just didn’t seem right somehow for a teacher. No matter how hard Nellie tried not to, she kept thinking about how she’d gotten that way. Roy and Rodney Shelby came in and sat next to her in the back row. She smiled, but they stared straight ahead. “Hey!” she said across the aisle. “How’s Boone doing?” she asked Roy, who was closer. He nodded, then hunched over his notebook. Charlie had told her mother that Mrs. Shelby had asked if they could keep Boone for good. Charlie had said he didn’t care. Unfortunately, Charlie hadn’t been caring about much lately. It wasn’t just the shingles, her mother said, but the trial and having to testify. Nellie knew how nervous she was starting to feel.

  “What’s that?” She leaned across the aisle to see Roy’s drawing. He ripped the paper from his notebook and passed it to her. A quick sketch, but it was a perfect likeness of Boone with his head tilted to one side. She’d forgotten the twins’ talent for drawing.

  “Excuse me, Miss Peck. If you don’t mind,” Mrs. Duffy said, already halfway up the aisle, with her hand out.

  “It’s just a dog,” she said, eyes level with her belly as she snatched the paper. “His name’s Boone,” she added, hoping to defuse Mrs. Duffy’s anger, but she was already crumpling it up. Nellie shook her head in blurry disbelief, so angry the lenses on her glasses were fogging up.

  Krissie glanced back with a sympathetic pout.

  “There’ll be no notes passed in this class, thank you very much!” Mrs. Duffy declared, waddling to the front of the room. She dropped the ball of paper into the wastebasket. “And from now on, save your drawings for art class, Mr. Shelby.” She glanced at the little squares on her chart. “Roy, that is.”

  Roy squirmed, shrinking miserably into his seat. To Nellie’s knowledge, and they’d been in school together since first grade
, neither twin had ever been reprimanded by a teacher.

  “Thanks anyway,” Nellie whispered, but he stared straight ahead.

  The bell rang and Mrs. Duffy checked her chart. One empty seat. The intercom sputtered on as Mr. Perkins, the new principal, began a staticky speech welcoming everyone, himself included, to Timmony Middle School, an experience he likened to an astronaut returning to Earth from the moon, and if it was a joke, he’d either forgotten the punch line or lost his train of thought. Nobody seemed to get it. Even Mrs. Duffy looked puzzled. Then, as the Pledge of Allegiance was ending, the door opened. Hand high over her belly, Mrs. Duffy looked back as her tardy student slipped behind his desk with a wink.

  Not only hadn’t Bucky Saltonstall gone back to wherever he’d come from (by then Nellie’d lost track of his tall tales), but he was enrolled at Timmony. In eighth grade, team B, her homeroom. After the announcements, Mrs. Duffy called Bucky up to her desk. As she spoke, she sniffed at him. He kept shrugging.

  “Excuse me, class,” she said, getting up. She and Bucky left the room. Twelve minutes into the very first day of school he was being escorted to the assistant principal’s office, late and smelling of cigarettes. His turned-out pockets contained only a book of matches, and a fifty-dollar bill. Following school board–mandated protocol, Mr. Hadley drowned the matches in a glass of water. The money was another matter. Arriving within minutes, wearing a yellow rain poncho over her housecoat, Bucky’s grandmother explained how she must have given him the fifty by mistake, as lunch money, thinking it was a five-dollar bill. Bucky said he’d walked to school behind two construction guys who’d been smoking, which is how the smell must’ve gotten on him. Obviously, his grandmother agreed, sniffing his head. There should be laws against smoking near children, she declared.

  Bucky looked handsome in his new school clothes. His thick, sun-tipped hair had been trimmed, and in this new setting Nellie was impressed by his manners. As the day went on, even Mrs. Duffy seemed to be softening a little. Bucky was very smart and way ahead of practically everyone in math, except, of course, for Roy and Rodney, runners-up in last year’s state math tournament. “Yes, sir or no, ma’am,” Bucky would answer teachers, a maturity she found stirring. His voice was deeper than the other boys’ and he was a head taller than most. He sat by himself at lunch and ate slowly, all the while looking around. He seemed so self-contained, at times even mildly amused, more like an observant adult than a loner. At recess he cruised the playground, hands in his pockets, moving from group to group, pausing to watch them playing basketball, soccer, Hacky Sack. Nellie was playing foursquare with Krissie, her cousin Betsy Potek, and Brianna Hall, the most beautiful girl in eighth grade. Jessica stood on the sidelines, demanding to play, even though she knew she had to wait her turn. Their ball handling was flawless. Nobody wanted to suffer Jessica’s tirades once she got in, her inevitable name calling and cries of cheating.

  “Come on! The bell’s gonna ring!” she yelled. “You’re not being fair!”

  Arms crossed, Bucky had been leaning against the chain-link fence, watching. Really watching Brianna, Nellie could tell.

  “Hey, look out!” he cried, jumping at Nellie, causing her to drop the ball. “Your turn,” he told Jessica, who yanked at the crotch of her tight pants and ran into her square, laughing.

  At the end of the day, Nellie lingered outside the classroom door. As soon as Mrs. Duffy left, she slipped back in and rummaged through the wastebasket. The crumpled drawing was at the bottom. She smoothed it out and put it in a notebook. She was going to send it to Max.

  NELLIE AND KRISSIE were headed downtown. She had a dollar in her pocket and an hour left before she had to be home for Henry. “What a jerk,” she said, meaning Bucky.

  “He was just tryna help Jessica,” Krissie said.

  “Bucky Saltonstall never helps anybody but himself, believe me.”

  “Well, he seemed nice to me.”

  “Oh, God,” Nellie groaned, hearing a familiar voice.

  “Wait up!” Jessica called, running to catch up. “I was looking for you guys. I even went in the park.” Panting, she tried to catch her breath. Her cheeks were bright red. She kept pulling at the back seam of her pants as she walked. Other than the weight she’d gained since Nellie’d last seen her, little had changed. She acted as if nothing had happened between them. She couldn’t stop talking, mostly about Bucky. She’d seen him smoking in the park this morning and then again a few minutes ago, as soon as he got off school grounds, and guess where he’d hidden his cigarettes? In a French dictionary.

  “He showed me.” She hurried to keep up. “He, like, cut the pages in the shape of the pack.”

  “Ooh, that’s original,” Nellie said, rolling her eyes.

  “He’s gonna get caught. It’s just a matter of time,” Krissie warned in her teacher’s-daughter voice.

  “He drinks, too,” Jessica said. “Beer. In his yard he’s got this, like, underground thing. He dug it out and put a cooler in, and that’s where he keeps it.”

  “What a loser,” Nellie groaned.

  “No, he’s not,” Jessica said with a scornful look.

  “Right.” Nellie quickened her pace.

  “You’re just jealous, that’s your problem,” Jessica said.

  Just then a horn tooted. Mrs. Cooper’s silvery blue BMW pulled up alongside. “What do you think you’re doing?” Her face was gray.

  “I’m going with them. Downtown,” Jessica added in a weak whine.

  “I have been sitting outside of that school for the last fifteen minutes waiting for you. And then I went inside looking for you. And now you’re late.”

  Late for Jessica’s therapy, Nellie knew. It had always been on Mondays, right after school.

  “I forgot!”

  “Get in the car!”

  “Well, if I’m late, then just call—I can go another day!” Jessica said.

  “Jessica.” Mrs. Cooper fortified herself with a deep breath. “Get in this car and get in right now, and let’s not have any problems about this. Let’s just move on from here. Okay?” she said with a forced smile and warning eyes. She had yet to acknowledge the other girls.

  “No, just make another appointment, that’s all, and then I can—”

  “Jessica—”

  “—go with them. I never have a chance to be with my—”

  “Stop it!”

  “—friends, and now you won’t let me.”

  “Are you going to make me get out of this car?”

  Yes, Nellie thought, please get out and wrestle her to the ground, so we can be on our way.

  “I just want to go with my friends, that’s all,” Jessica whined with a punch on the car door.

  “Well, maybe you can all go tomorrow. How does that sound, girls?” Mrs. Cooper asked, the steel leash of her gaze locked on her daughter. “Sodas’ll be on me!”

  “Okay,” Krissie agreed in a wan voice.

  “I’ll pick you all up after school. It’ll be fun!” Mrs. Cooper called out as Jessica climbed, still whining, into the front seat.

  “I can’t!” Nellie called back the minute the door lock clicked. “I’ve gotta do stuff. Thanks though!” Ignoring Mrs. Cooper’s glare, she waved. She had to get free of Jessica’s control somehow. Jessica might not get it, but surely her mother would.

  “See! I told you!” Jessica was shrieking as they drove off.

  AS ALWAYS, THE first thing Nellie did after school was bring in the mail. Still no letter from Max. But here on this warm September day right after the advertising circulars and bills was a pale green envelope postmarked Australia. The return address sticker said Blair Brigham. She ran into the kitchen, turned on the electric kettle, and waved the envelope through the rising steam. The flap curled quickly and she peeled open the envelope. Inside was one page of the same pale green stationery.

  Her hands shook as she read the grim, black-inked script.

  Dear Ruth,

  I am Mrs. Daniel Brigham. The r
eason I’m writing is because I’m the one who opened your letter. It was the first I knew of your claim against my husband. In a way I wish I hadn’t because now I’m in the uncomfortable position of having to tell you that Daniel doesn’t want to hear from you again. He says he has already told you this in his letter answering yours, but you keep writing anyway. You say you have a lot of problems at home, but we are in no position to help you, financially or emotionally. And there is also the matter of not really knowing who you are or what you want. If you continue sending letters here, we will be forced to turn them over to our lawyer.

  Sincerely,

  Blair H. Brigham

  “Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod,” Nellie panted, taking the stairs so fast her glasses slid down her nose and she kept tripping. Ruth would be home soon. She locked her bedroom door, dropped to her knees, and frantically clawed out dust and shoes from her closet floor. She lifted the strip of linoleum, then slid the letter under the loose board into the dark, gritty cavity that now held two. And if she didn’t get Ruth to stop writing to Danny Brigham there’d be more, or worse, maybe even a lawsuit. She couldn’t very well give her this letter and not the first one. Here was the rueful liar’s conundrum: the entire truth or none at all. But maybe she’d think the reason she’d never gotten Daniel Brigham’s letter was because it had gotten lost in the mail. Sometimes that happened. Just last week hadn’t Nellie heard her father telling her mother that maybe Mr. Cooper’s copy of the signed purchase and sale agreement had gotten delayed in the mail. But then again, did she want to be responsible for her sister’s unhappiness? She knew how hurt she had felt reading Mrs. Brigham’s letter. She couldn’t imagine how painful it would be for Ruth to read. It might just push her over the edge, though exactly where and to what depths Nellie couldn’t begin to fathom, beyond the gleaming, dagger-point, paralyzing certainty that one way or another she was going to be in more trouble than she’d ever been in her entire life.