Girlfriend and boyfriend—I use the words loosely.
Jimmy had been going with Amanda Parish for three months when I died. I was the one who introduced them to each other, at my eighteenth birthday party. They hadn’t met before, largely because Jimmy had gone to a different high school. Amanda was another one of those friends who wasn’t a real friend—just someone I sort of knew because of her mother. But I liked Amanda a lot better than I liked Beth. She was some kind of beauty. My best friend, Jo, once remarked—in a poetic mood—that Amanda had eyes as gray as a frosty overcast day and a smile as warm as early spring. That fit Amanda. She had a mystery about her, but it was always right there in front of you—in her grave but wonderful face. She also had this incredibly long dark hair. I think it was a fantasy of my brother’s to bury his face in that hair and let everyone else in the world disappear except him and Amanda.
I have to admit that I was a bit jealous of her.
Amanda’s presence at my birthday party had had me slightly off balance. Her birthday had been only the day before mine, and the whole evening I remember feeling as if I had to give her one of my presents or something. What I ended up giving her was my brother. I brought Jimmy over to meet her, and that was the last I saw of him that night. It was love at first sight. And that evening, and for the next few weeks, I thought Amanda loved him, too. They were inseparable. But then, for no obvious reason, Amanda started to put up a wall, and Jimmy started to get an ulcer. I’ve never been a big believer in moderation, but I honestly believe that the intensity of his feelings for her was unhealthy. He was obsessed.
But I’m digressing. After calling out to Mrs. Parish, I crept into Jimmy’s room. Except for the green glow from his computer screen, which he was in the habit of leaving on, it was dark. Jimmy’s got a weird physiology. When I started for his desk and his brush, he was lying dead to the world with a sheet twisted around his muscular torso. But only seconds later, as I picked up the brush, he was up and heading for the door. I knew he wasn’t awake, or even half-awake. Sleepwalkers walk differently—kind of like zombies in horror films, only maybe a little faster. All he had on were his boxers, and they were kind of hanging. I smiled to myself seeing him go. We were upstairs, and there was a balcony he could theoretically flip over, but I wasn’t worried about him hurting himself. I had discovered from years of observation that God watches over sleepwalkers better than he does drunks. Or upset teenage girls . . .
I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean it.
Then I thought of Amanda, possibly downstairs with her mom, and how awful Jimmy would feel if he suddenly woke up scratching himself in the hall in plain sight of her. Taking the brush, I ran after him.
It was good that I did. He was fumbling with the knob on the bathroom door when I caught him. At first I wasn’t absolutely sure there was anyone in the bathroom, but the light was on and it hadn’t been a few minutes earlier. Jimmy turned and stared at me with a pleasant but vaguely confused expression. He looked like a puppy who had just scarfed down a bowl of marijuana-laced dog food.
“Jimmy,” I whispered, afraid to raise my voice. I could hear Mrs. Parish whistling downstairs and was becoming more convinced with each passing second that Amanda was indeed inside the bathroom. Jimmy smiled at me serenely.
“Blow,” he said.
“Shh,” I said, taking hold of his hand and leading him away from the door. He followed obediently, and after hitching up his boxer shorts an inch or two, I steered him in the direction of my parents’ bedroom and said, “Use that bathroom. This one’s no good.”
I didn’t wake him for a couple of reasons. First, he’s real hard to wake up when he’s sleepwalking, which is strange because otherwise he’s a very light sleeper. But you practically have to slap him when he’s out for a stroll. Second, I was afraid he might have a heart attack if he suddenly came to and realized how close he’d come to making a fool of himself in front of his princess.
After he disappeared inside my parents’ room, I returned to the bathroom in the hall and knocked lightly on the door. “Amanda, is that you?” I called softly.
There was a pause. “Yeah. I’ll be right out—I’m getting some kitchen cleanser.”
Since she wasn’t going to the bathroom, I thought it would be OK to try the knob. Amanda looked up in surprise when I peeked in. She was by the sink, in front of the medicine cabinet and a small wall refrigerator, and she had one of Jimmy’s syringes and a vial of insulin in her hand. Jimmy’s insulin had to be kept cool, and he’d installed the tiny icebox himself so he wouldn’t have to keep his medication in the kitchen fridge downstairs where everybody could see it. He wasn’t proud of his illness. Amanda knew Jimmy was a diabetic, but she didn’t know he needed daily shots of medication. Jimmy didn’t want Amanda to know. Well, the cat was out of the bag now. The best I could do, I thought, was to make a joke of the matter.
“Amanda,” I said in a shocked tone. “How could you do this to your mother and me?”
She glanced down at the stuff, blood in her cheeks. “Mom told me to look for some Ajax, and I—”
“Ajax,” I said in disbelief. “I wasn’t born yesterday. Those are drugs you’re holding. Drugs!” I put my hand to my mouth. “Oh, God.”
I was a hell of an actress. Amanda just didn’t know where I was coming from. She quickly put down the needle. “I didn’t mean to—” she began.
I laughed and stepped into the bathroom. “I know you weren’t snooping, Amanda. Don’t worry. So you found the family stash. What the hell, we’ll cut you in for a piece of the action if you keep your mouth shut. What do you say? Deal?”
Amanda peered at me with her wide gray eyes, and for a moment I thought of Jimmy’s expression a moment earlier—the innocence in both. “Shari?”
I took the syringe and vial of insulin from her hand and spoke seriously. “You know how Jimmy’s always watching his diet? Well, this is just another part of his condition he doesn’t like to talk about, that’s all.” I opened the medicine cabinet and fridge and put the stuff away. “It’s no big deal, is what I’m saying.”
Amanda stared at me a moment; I wasn’t looking directly at her, but I could see her reflection in the medicine cabinet mirror. What is it about a mirror that makes the beautiful more beautiful and the pretty but not exceptional less exceptional? I don’t understand it—a camera can do the same thing. Amanda looked so beautiful at that moment that I could imagine all the pain she would cause my poor brother if her wall got any higher. And I think I resented her for it a tiny bit. She brushed her dark hair back from her pink cheek.
“I won’t say anything to him,” she said.
“It’s no big deal,” I said.
“You’re right.” She nodded to the cupboard under the sink, “I suppose I should have been looking down there.”
We both bent over at the same instant and almost bumped heads. Then I remembered that Jimmy was still wandering around. Excusing myself, I left Amanda to find the Ajax and went searching for him. When I ran into him, coming out of my parents’ bedroom, he was wide awake.
“Have I been sleepwalking?” he asked.
“No. Don’t you remember? You went to sleep standing here.” I pushed him back into my parents’ bedroom and closed the door. “Amanda’s here.”
He immediately tensed. “Downstairs?”
“No, down the hall, in the bathroom. You almost peed on her.”
Sometimes my sense of humor could be cruel. Jimmy sucked in a breath, and his blue eyes got real big. My brother’s pretty cute, if I do say so myself. It runs in the family. He’s the solid type, with a hint of refinement. One could imagine him herding cattle all day from the saddle, playing a little ball in the evening with the boys, taking his lady to an elegant French restaurant at night where he would select the proper wine to go with dinner. Except he would mispronounce the name of the wine. That was Jimmy. He was totally cool, but he wasn’t perfect.
“Did she see me?” he asked.
“No. I saved you. You were about to walk in on her when I steered you this way.”
“You’re sure she didn’t see me?”
“I’m sure.”
He relaxed. Jimmy always believed everything I told him, even though he knew what an excellent liar I was. I guess he figured if I ever did lie to him, it would be for his own good. He thought I was a lot smarter than he was, which I thought was stupid of him.
“What’s she doing here?” he asked with a note of hope in his voice. I couldn’t very well lie and tell him Amanda had come over to see him. When I had been in the bathroom with her, she hadn’t even asked if he was home.
“Her mom brought her over. She’s downstairs cleaning up the mess from the cocktail party. Amanda wants to ride to Beth’s party with me.”
“Why’s she going? Is she a friend of Beth’s?”
“Not really. I don’t know why she wants to go.” I had to wonder if Amanda had had time to buy a present, if she even had the money to buy one. She and her mom didn’t exactly enjoy material prosperity.
“Is she still in the bathroom?” he asked.
“I don’t know. You’re not going to talk to her, are you?”
“Why not?”
“You’re not dressed.”
He smiled. “I’ll put my pants on first.’’ He started to open the door. “I think she’s gone back downstairs.”
“Wait. Jimmy?” I grabbed his arm. He stopped and looked at me. “When was the last time you called her?”
“Monday.” He added, “Four days ago.”
“That was the last time you talked to her. You called her yesterday. You called her the day before that, too. Maybe you should give it a rest.”
“Why? I just want to say hi, that’s all. I’m not being fanatical or anything.”
“Of course you’re not,” I lied. “But sometimes it’s better, you know, to play a little hard to get. It makes you more desirable.”
He waved his hand. “I’m not into all those games.” He tried to step by. I stopped him again.
“I told her you were asleep,” I said.
“She asked about me?”
“Yeah, sure.” I wasn’t even sure why I was so uptight about his not talking to her. I guess I couldn’t stand to see Jimmy placed in a potentially humiliating situation. But perhaps I was just jealous. “We have to leave for the party in a couple of minutes,” I added.
He began to reconsider. “Well, I guess I shouldn’t bother her.” He shook his head. “I wish her mom would tell her when I’ve called.”
“Jimmy—”
“No,” he said quickly. “Amanda really doesn’t get the messages. She told me so herself.”
I couldn’t imagine that being true, but I kept my mouth shut. “I’ll drop sly hints to Amanda tonight that she should call you tomorrow.”
He nodded at the brush in my hand. “Isn’t that mine?”
“Yeah, mine broke.”
“You have a dozen brushes.”
“They’re all broken.” I gestured to our mom’s makeup table behind us. She never went out of the house without fixing herself up for an hour. Some might have called her a snob. I had called her that myself a few times, but never when my father was around. We didn’t have a lot in common. “And mom wouldn’t let me use one of hers.”
“What did Amanda ask about me?”
“If you were getting enough rest.” I patted him on the shoulder. “Go to bed.”
I tucked Jimmy back in bed so that he could be fresh when his alarm went off at three in the morning and finished getting ready. When I went back downstairs, I found Amanda and her mom in the kitchen discussing whether a half-eaten chocolate cake should be divided into pieces before squeezing it into the jammed refrigerator.
“Why don’t we just throw it in the garbage?” I suggested.
Mrs. Parish looked unhappy about the idea, which was interesting only because she usually looked so happy. Maybe I should clarify that. She wasn’t one of those annoying people who go around with perpetual smiles on their faces. Her joy was quiet, an internal matter. But if I may be so bold, it often seemed that it shone a bit brighter whenever the two of us were alone together. I could talk to her for hours, about everything—even boys. And she’d just listen, without giving me advice, and she always made me feel better.
Jo, “Little Jo,” had given her a nickname, too—“Mother Mary.” I called Mrs. Parish that all the time. She was a devout Catholic. She went to mass several times a week and never retired for the night without saying her rosary. That was the one area where we didn’t connect. I was never religious. Oh, I always liked Jesus, and I even went to church now and then. But I used to have more important things to think about than God. Like whether I should try to have sex with my boyfriend before I graduated from high school or whether I should wait until the Fourth of July and the fireworks. I wanted it to be a special moment. I wanted my whole life to be special. But I just hardly ever thought about God.
I’m repeating myself. I must be getting emotional. I’ll try to watch that. Not everything I have to tell is very pleasant.
Back to that blasted cake. Mrs. Parish felt it would be a waste to throw it out. “Shari, don’t you think that your mom might want some tomorrow?” she asked.
“If it’s here, she’ll eat it,” I said. “And then she’ll just complain about ruining her diet.” I ran my finger around the edge and tasted the icing. I had already tasted about half a pound of it earlier in the day. “Oh, wow. Try this, Amanda. It’s disgusting.”
Amanda looked doubtful. “I’m not a big cake person.”
Mrs. Parish suddenly changed her mind about saving it. “Maybe we should throw it out.”
“You don’t like cake?” I asked Amanda. “That’s impossible—everybody likes cake. You can’t come to Beth’s party with me unless you eat cake. Here, just try it. This little piece.”
I could be so pushy. Amanda had a little piece, along with her mother, and I had a slightly larger little piece. Then I decided that maybe there was room for it in the refrigerator after all. I didn’t care if my mother got fat or not.
Mrs. Parish sent Amanda to check to see if our vacuum cleaner needed a new bag. For a moment the two of us were alone, which was nice. I sat at the table and told her about the party we were going to, while she stacked dishes in the dishwasher.
“It’s for Big Beth,” I began. “I’ve already told you how she’s been flirting with Dan at school. It really pisses me off. I’ll see the two of them together on the other side of the courtyard, and then when I walk over to them, she greets me like she’s really glad to see me, like nothing’s been going on between them.”
“How do you know something is going on?” Mrs. Parish asked.
“Because Dan looks so uncomfortable. Yeah, I know, why get mad at her and not at him?” I chuckled. “It’s simple—he might leave me and run off with her!”
I was forever making jokes about things that really mattered to me. I doubted that even Mrs. Parish understood that about me. I may not have been obsessed with Daniel the way Jimmy was with Amanda, but I couldn’t stand the thought of losing him. Actually, I honestly believed he cared for me. But I continued to worry. I was never really cool, not inside, not about love.
“Is Dan taking you and Amanda to the party?” Mrs. Parish asked, carefully bending over and filling the dishwasher with detergent. She had an arthritic spine. Often, if we were alone in the house, she would let me help her sweep the floor or scrub the bathrooms. But never if anyone else was present. I’d noticed she particularly disliked Amanda knowing she needed help.
“Yeah. We’re picking Jo up, too. He should be here in a sec.” I paused. “Mary, what do you think of Dan?”
She brightened. “He’s very dashing.”
I had to smile. Dashing. Great word. “He is cute, yeah.” I took another forkful of cake, although I needed it about as much as I needed another two pounds on my hips. “What I mean, though, is do you like him? As a
person?”
She wiped her hands on her apron and scratched her gray head. Unlike her daughter’s, her hair was not one of her finer features. It was terribly thin. Her scalp showed a little, particularly on the top, whenever she bent over, and she was only fifty. To be quite frank, she wasn’t what anyone would have called a handsome lady. She did, however, have a gentle, lovely smile.
“He seems nice enough,” she said hesitantly.
“Go on?”
“How does he treat you?”
“Fine. But—”
“Yes?”
“You were going to say something first?”
“It was nothing.”
“Tell me.”
She hesitated again. “He’s always talking about things.”
“Things?” I asked, even though I knew what she meant. Daniel liked things: hot cars, social events, pretty people—the usual. Since the universe was composed primarily of things, I had never seen it as a fault. Yet Daniel could be hard to talk to because he seldom showed any deep feelings or concern for anything but “things.”
Mrs. Parish shrugged, squeezing a couple more glasses into the dishwasher. “Does he ever discuss the two of you?’’
“Yeah, sure,” I lied.
“You communicate well when you’re alone together then. That’s good. That was the only thing I was concerned about.’’ She closed the door on the washer and turned it on. The water churned. So did my stomach. I pushed away the cake. I’d heard a car pulling up outside. It must be Daniel, I thought. I excused myself and hurried to the front door.
I found him outside opening our garage. Graduation was a couple of weeks off, but my parents had already bought me my present. I can’t say what it was without giving the impression I was spoiled rotten.
It cost a fortune. It was fast. It was foreign.
It was a Ferrari.
Oh, my car. I loved it. I loved how red it was. I loved everything about it. Daniel loved it too, apparently. He hardly noticed my shining presence when I came out to greet him. He fell in love with my car at first sight.
He had taken longer to fall in love with me.
Thirst No. 3: The Eternal Dawn Page 36
