“Is she all right?” Britta asks.
Christian is still swinging that bathroom pass.
“I don’t think so,” Dominic says.
I look toward the stairs. Britta squeezes my hand, but I don’t know if it’s a let’s just go to the office squeeze or a go with him squeeze. Before I can answer, he gives up on me.
“Fine, you know, forget it.” His face has grown red, and his lips are set in a tight, thin line.
“What?” I demand.
“You can’t take even the slightest step off the path, can you?”
“Hey now,” Christian says.
I can speak for myself, though. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Your sister is in trouble, but you’re too concerned about your perfect reputation to help. You said it yourself. You care too much what other people think.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Then prove me wrong.”
Proofs—that’s something I’m good at.
ii.
I expect sneaking out to involve subterfuge with a rendezvous point and synchronized watches. Britta says she’ll make up a cover story for me, but I don’t even need her help. Dominic and I walk right out the front door and no one stops us. We get into Dominic’s black beater of a car. I move some perhaps dirty napkins off the seat before sitting down. I watch the school as we pull away, feeling liberated and strange.
“So where are we going?”
“It’s on the edge of town.”
That isn’t an answer, but I don’t push it. If he wants to have his super-dramatic moment, then fine. I just want to get back to school in time to meet Mr. Tompkins for the conference.
“Are you sure she’s there?”
“I saw her on her way this morning.”
I watch him as he drives. When he’s not making his wolf smile, his lips are both full and long, almost too big for his face. There’s a cut right in the corner, sharp and red.
“So that’s what a knight in shining armor looks like,” he says, eyes on the road.
“Drop it.”
“Steadfast and reliable, that’s for sure. And a demon with a bathroom pass.”
I squeeze the edge of my seat. “God, what is your deal with Christian? Would you just let it go?”
“I could say the same thing to you. Do you love him?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Do you?”
“Why do you care?”
He doesn’t have to ask the question again. Just raises his eyebrows.
“No.” I look at the pile of junk on the floor of the car: paper coffee cups, an old paperback without a cover, and three pens, none with caps. “No. I thought I did, but I guess I’m not sure what that feels like.”
“It’s not neat and clean and easy, if that’s what you expect.”
“Let’s not have this conversation again.”
“You’re the boss.”
I shift in my seat. It’s a sunny day, and the car is getting warm. I push the button to lower my window, but it doesn’t do anything. I don’t want to ask him to do it for me. I don’t want to ask him for anything.
Dominic turns onto a road that I’ve never been on before, strange in this small town. It winds around a number of curves and up and down subtle hills.
After a few minutes he turns to the right and I see the sign: Town of Essex Transfer Station.
iii.
Dominic drops the car into coast as we approach the guarded entrance to the transfer station. Beyond the gate I can see heaps of organized garbage: wood in one pile, tires in another, metal scraps, plastic, pallets, appliances, computer monitors—all the detritus of our lives neatly categorized like a hoarder’s museum.
“This is where she is? The dump?”
He nods.
“But why?”
“I don’t know. We don’t have to go and see her. Maybe it’s just enough for you to know?”
I stare at him like he’s gone as far off the rails as Ramona, and he starts the car rolling again.
We pull up to the gate, and Dominic puts down his window. Before he can say anything, the man in the booth says, “You here with that other girl? For the school project?”
“Yes, sir,” Dominic says without hesitation. “We’re in the same class.”
“Starting late, aren’t you? She’s been here all semester it seems.”
“She’s an extraordinarily dedicated student.”
The man nods. “Park over by the truck.”
Dominic does as instructed. I reach for the door with my right hand just as he places his left hand on my arm. His smile now is unlike his normal sly grin.
“I’m fine,” I say, and turn my body away from him.
That’s when I see her, right at the periphery of the scrap-metal heap.
Ramona.
Stooped and fragile, she holds a long pipe in one hand like a staff. She has a pink feather boa wrapped around her neck that flops from side to side as she moves. She hears me coming and looks up. Her face tightens like a prune. “What are you doing here?” she demands, but her voice lacks force.
“School project. You?”
She bends over again, and picks up something glinty and silver, which she drops into a large bag she has slung over her shoulder. I step closer. “Ramona, is this where you’ve been coming instead of school?” I try to make my voice sound soft and calm, but I can’t get rid of the edge. It makes her shudder. I take another step.
“Leave me alone,” she says as much to the ground as to me.
“Ramona.”
She stands up and starts backing away. “Why do you even care?”
“Ramona, please. Of course I care. Just tell me what’s going on.”
She looks over her shoulder at the various piles of trash behind her. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.” I want to run to her, grab her, and shake her out of whatever funk she is in. And she can tell. She keeps backing away from me. “Come on, please. We can go get a frappe at Ruby’s or something.”
“You’re talking to me like you think I’m crazy.”
“It’s the sculpture, isn’t it?” Dominic says from behind me. “You’re the one making it.”
She looks past me at him, and her posture softens. She nods and tugs on the feather boa.
Of course. Of course.
I was so sure it was Dominic—so wrapped up in that drama—that I missed it.
I keep walking, slowly, until I’m right up beside her. “I thought—” I began. “I thought you didn’t care. I thought—”
She shifts the weight of her bag on her shoulders.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“About what?”
“That it was you, I mean. Why didn’t you let anyone know?”
“I didn’t want anyone to know. It was between me and Nonnie.”
“Why did you do it?”
Her body tightens again. She leans on the long pipe and it seems to be holding her up like a shepherd’s staff. “For Nonnie. It’s what I needed to do. It’s like it’s a part of me, to give to her, and if I don’t take care of it—” She stops herself as if she’s afraid she’s revealed too much. She turns her back to me.
Dominic moves up so he is standing by my side. “Come on, Very.” He puts his hand on my upper arm.
“Ramona, please let’s just go home.” She bends over and picks up another small piece of metal and drops it into her pack. I don’t think there is any chance we will get her to leave, and so I turn to go with Dominic.
“Okay. We can go home.” Her voice is soft. I hear her put down the pipe and she follows us to the car.
She crawls across the backseat to the driver’s side, leaving the front passenger seat of his two-door tilted forward. It is almost an invitation—the only one she’s given me recently—so I climb in back with her.
Ramona’s hip digs into mine as every slight bounce seems to jostle her.
When w
e turn onto School Street, “Veronica” comes on the radio.
After the first verse, Ramona turns to look at me. “This is a crappy song.”
“Yeah,” I agree.
“To be named after, I mean,” she clarifies.
Dominic’s eyes lock with mine in the rearview mirror. “It’s not so bad,” he says.
“It’s better than being named after a children’s book character.”
“You’re not named after that Ramona,” I say.
She picks at dirt I can’t see on the back of Dominic’s seat. “Yes,” she insists. “You named me after the books. Mom says.”
I shake my head. I hadn’t even been a fan of Ramona—always getting in trouble; I found her bratty. I definitely related more to older sister Beezus. I wanted to name Ramona Charlie, after a boy in my swim lessons, but then she was born a girl. “Dad named you after the Ramones,” I tell her.
She frowns.
“Think about it,” I tell her. “I was only two when you were born. I wasn’t reading Beverly Cleary yet.”
“Whatever.” She stares out the window at students kicking a soccer ball back and forth as part of gym class. I can see Adam Millstein, with his Ronald McDonald hair. Ramona doesn’t seem to see anything.
iv.
Ramona practically climbs over me to get out of the car. Her feather boa falls off. I pick it up off the ground, as Dominic gets out of the car. He walks around and tucks his head into the backseat, then extends his hand to help me out. Once I’m standing, he doesn’t let go, so I tug my hand free. “I should go,” I say. “I need to get back to Ramona. I’m going to take her home.”
“Of course.”
I look over my shoulder and see her sitting in my car. The top is down, and the wind dances her hair around her head. “She looks like a fairy. Not that I ever believed in them. She did. Not me.”
“Well, they aren’t real. You can’t fault yourself for not believing in them.”
“I could’ve pretended.”
“She’ll be all right.”
“Ms. Pickering told me I should bring her to the school psychologist. Maybe.” I shake my head. “I guess maybe I should.” Then I laugh. “And maybe I should go, too.”
“Maybe,” he says.
A crow circles above us, then lands on the power line. Immediately after another joins it.
“Dominic, I’m—”
“Sorry. I know. You said that. Several times.”
“I lied to you the other night. You’re right. It was easier than the truth.”
“What is the truth, then? Tell me the truth of your lie.”
“Maybe someday—” I twist Ramona’s feather boa in my hands. One of the pink feathers slips out and twists toward the ground. Dominic bends gracefully and catches it in his hand.
“I don’t operate in somedays, Very.”
He turns his head and looks across the parking lot. I turn in the opposite direction, toward the school. So we stand there like birds on a wire, staring away.
He speaks first: “Here’s what it comes down to: I like you. A lot. Neither of us knows what’s going to happen, so you just have to make the best of every moment, and for me the best possible moment is with you.” As he speaks, he rolls the base of the pink feather between his fingers. “I don’t want to be that guy, you know, pestering you after you said no, but I guess part of me still thinks I have a shot.”
The first crow caws and a third crow joins them. They balance on the power line as it sways in the breeze. Do they feel unsteady up there? Or have they gotten used to life on that slack line?
“Why do you use that smile?” I ask. “The fake wolfish one?”
His eyes look up from beneath the blue-veined lids. I think for a moment that he’s going to deny it, maybe even flashing the wolf smile while he does so. “I guess you’re not the only one trying to write a story about yourself.”
“It’s not a good story,” I tell him.
“It’s not.”
“None of your stories are. The one about your dad. Your mom. But you, actual you . . . Hope is the thing with feathers, right?”
“I guess.”
I unfold his hand, where the pink feather is now lying matted and crushed. “Hope,” I say.
“Veronica Woodruff, did you just use literary symbolism?”
“I’m not entirely sure. And it’s not a promise.”
“I know. It’s hope.”
I watch his feet walk away from me. Sand falls out of the treads of his Doc Martens in faint footprints. His car door opens. Shuts. The car starts. I could wave my hand, and he would stop. He’d throw open the door and I could run across the parking lot and jump into the warm, sweet-smelling car. We could drive away without looking back.
I don’t, of course. I know I have to take Ramona home.
v.
We don’t talk the whole drive. We are each waiting for the other to do something. Ramona waits for me to question her; I wait for her to make a confession. I feel her glancing at me, a shift of the head, and then a shift right back. And I peek at her, too. But neither of us manages to say anything.
I park the car right in front of the sculpture, we both sit still for a moment, staring at it. I leave my hands on the steering wheel and look at the instruments below, as if the odometer could tell me not only my distance but also how to talk to my sister. Instead I hear the click of her unbuckling her seat belt.
“Thanks for the ride,” she mumbles.
“No problem.”
She stares out the window. The air between us is growing warm, stale. I want to tell her that I understand, even though I don’t, and that I’m there to help.
“I’m going to take it down,” she says.
“What? Why?”
“It’s ruined now.”
“No it’s not. It’s beautiful,” I tell her.
“Mom doesn’t like it.”
“Mom loves it.” That’s the problem, although I don’t tell Ramona that.
“I thought we could have, you know, something nice here. I thought it would make us happy.” I notice then that she is crying. She wipes at a tear with her wrist.
“It did make us happy.”
Her hand is still on the door handle. Dirt is packed in around her nails. Her hair, too, is greasy, and I wonder when she last showered.
I watch her go inside, and check my clock. Plenty of time to get to school and meet Mr. Tompkins. I can just drive back and stroll into the building as easily as I went out. Unless they stop me. Today isn’t a day that I have class at the college, and so I have no reason to leave campus. I tap my fingers on the steering wheel. I need a good excuse, and I’ve been working the Nonnie one too hard. If I go in and get my graphing calculator, then I’ll have a plausible story.
I’m halfway up the stairs to my room when I hear a thud from my mom’s studio.
If your mom trashes her studio, and you pretend not to hear it, does it make a sound?
I can’t just leave. I want to. I want to get in my car and go back to school, find Dominic, and maybe get some French toast sticks from the cafeteria before I meet Mr. Tompkins and head to the conference. But instead I pivot and make my way to her staircase.
I hear three more thuds before I reach her studio, low and hollow.
With a deep breath, I press open the door. The studio is spotless, no trace of her outburst, not even one wayward shard of glass. She’s by the window stretching canvas over a frame and hammering it in.
“Hi,” I say.
“Hi, yourself,” she replies. She has nails in her mouth, pressed in her lips, but she takes them out and tucks them into the pocket of her denim painting apron. Her eyes seems clearer than they have in weeks, but they’re surrounded by dark, sleepless circles. “So I’m starting again,” she says. “Again and again and again.”
“On the portraits?”
She shrugs. “Maybe I’ll do something more abstract. Reinvent myself. A series on the body that shows a square of flesh or a stra
nd of hair, all out of context.”
“Good. I’m happy for you.”
“Don’t be. It’s not like I have a choice. We begin again. That’s what we do. Over and over, even though we know it’s going to be another disappointment. Boats against the current and all that.”
“It doesn’t have to end the same way.”
“That’s what your grandmother always said, and look how it wound up for her. She made something new, and it disappointed her even more than her first life.”
“She wasn’t—” I stop myself, shaking my head.
“I’ll paint and I’ll hate them and then I’ll paint again. You’re lucky, you know.” She bends over to grab another canvas and I see gray streaks at the roots of her hair. I didn’t even know she colored it.
“I brought Ramona home. She’s sick.” My voice is flat.
“But you’re leaving?”
“Yeah, I just needed to bring Ramona home. I’m going back. I have—I have this thing with Mr. Tompkins.”
“Oh, don’t go down that road, Very. He’s a handsome man and all, but don’t go down that road.”
“I’m not.” I stop myself from lobbing an insult at her. I’m not like you, Mom. Not like you. Not ever. “Ramona’s sick. Let her sleep.”
Mom smiles wanly.
The canvas and the wood make the studio smell more like a workshop than usual. Mom tucks some hair behind her ear. “This weekend we’re going to need to have some conversations. Family conversations.” She forces a chuckle. “Maybe you and Ramona can make dinner again.”
“I don’t think so,” I say. I don’t think Ramona will be up for much of anything for a while.
“We need to talk about the house, and—”
“You’ve already made up your mind, Mom.” Maybe it’s not entirely fair to say this. If Ramona’s right, Mom and Dad won’t have much of a choice: they can’t afford the mortgage payments. “Will Dad be there?”
She touches her fingers to her temples. “We need to talk about the house and where we’re all going to be going. Dad has some ideas of his own.”
“You do what you need to, Mom—”
“Come on, Very. Enough.” Her voice cracks with exasperation.
I step farther into the room so I’m standing next to a butcher-block counter where Mom usually keeps her paints, but there are none on it. No paints or brushes. “I’m not being bratty. I’ve got seven months left of school, and then I’ll go to college. I’ll figure it all out.”
Very in Pieces Page 27
