Illumination Night

by Alice Hoffman

  “I guess you might,” Vonny says.

  Simon begins to feel better.

  “It’s a good thing the spots are showing up now,” Vonny says. “They only last for three days. After that you won’t be contagious.”

  “Maybe it’s another kind of pox,” Simon says. “A longer-lasting one.”

  Vonny smiles as she rinses out the cake pans. “I’ll let you choose,” she says to Simon. “Chocolate or vanilla?”

  Every morning the first thing Simon does when he wakes up is take hold of the wooden spindles of the headboard and stretch out on his mattress to see how far his toes reach. He closes his eyes and blocks out the sounds of birds and cars. If it’s quiet enough, if he listens hard enough, he may be able to hear his bones growing.

  AT Simon’s party there is chocolate cake, two kinds of ice cream, blue balloons taped to the windows, and party hats with elastic chin bands and gold fringe. The guests are two other four-year-olds—Kate and Matt—and their parents, two couples Vonny and Andre would never have spoken to had they not all been in a natural childbirth class together. Matt’s parents, Jane and Doug, are architects from Boston, and the houses they design have decks jutting out at odd angles and walls made entirely of glass. Most of these houses are occupied only two or three months out of the year and their owners belong to associations that own private beaches. Rather than tell them he thinks locked beaches are immoral, rather than ask why anyone in his right mind would build a house of glass overlooking the Edgartown airport, Andre does not talk to Jane and Doug at all. And Kate’s parents, who both teach at the regional high school, cannot seem to bring themselves to speak to Andre for reasons of their own. For nearly three years the mothers have had a weekly playgroup, which Vonny and Simon have both come to dread. Kate will not share any of her toys, and Matt is a biter. Whenever Matt controls his urge to sink his teeth into someone, he’s given a yellow sticker of a smiling face. He now has hundreds of stickers, perhaps the largest smiling-face collection in the world. Twenty minutes after Simon’s birthday party has begun, Matt bites Simon on the leg. Vonny rushes over to see if the skin has been broken, and Andre swoops down on Matt and carries him over to a corner.

  “No biting here,” Andre says to the startled offender. “Got it?”

  After Simon has been given ice to press to his leg, Vonny signals Jane into the kitchen and tells her she and Simon won’t be able to make it to play group anymore.

  “I don’t blame you for dropping out,” Jane says. “Actually, I’m relieved. Can you believe the way Kate hoards her toys?”

  “It’s not just Kate,” Vonny says. “It took me all this time to realize Simon’s not going to be friends with someone just because I chose them for him.”

  “I know just what you mean,” Jane says. “They have such disgusting little minds of their own.”

  Vonny is making coffee for the grownups, hot chocolate for the kids.

  Jane, who has straight blond hair and an assured, direct gaze, leans her elbows on the counter and watches. “Only give Matt half a cup,” she tells Vonny. “Chocolate makes him bite more.”

  Jane has confided that she has considered divorcing Doug, but she’s afraid to lose him as a business partner. They have both had affairs, but for some reason it makes Vonny uncomfortable to know that Doug sleeps with his clients. She knows it is awful to think his is the worse betrayal because he’s a man. Every now and then, Vonny plots what she will do if Andre betrays her. She will leave the Vineyard and go back to Boston. She will rent an apartment in a good school district and buy a car and a color TV. When Andre comes for his visit with Simon every second weekend, because that’s all the judge will allow him, she will wear gorgeous clothes that will drive him crazy. He will spend hours wondering how she can afford them and who it is exactly she’s dressing for. Whenever the thought that Andre might want custody of Simon enters her mind, Vonny quickly stops thinking. And anyway, if she has to she will beg her father for a loan so she can afford the best lawyer in Boston. Or she will go all the way and use a New York lawyer, who may fall in love with her.

  That evening, when the guests have gone home and presents are scattered all over the living room floor, Vonny can’t stop thinking about her New York lawyer. She’s exhausted and Simon is still wound up. He has turned four and is still exactly the same size. He wonders if parents can return their children and get brand-new ones. He whines and pouts and calls Vonny stupid. When told to sit in the corner he kicks at the wall until a small chunk of plaster falls onto the floor. He will not eat supper and when it’s time for bed he throws himself on the floor and refuses to let Vonny put on his pajamas. Outside, a cold rain soon turns to sleet.

  “All right!” Vonny shouts. “Go to bed without pajamas. Freeze!”

  “Don’t yell at me!” Simon says. His lips are trembling. His eyes are wet with tears.

  “Are you putting these on or not?” Vonny says meanly. Let him cry buckets, she thinks.

  Simon stands and tries to make a break for it, but Vonny reaches for his arm, knowing as she does so she is grabbing him too hard. She pulls Simon down on the rug and forces one foot into pajamas. Simon is so surprised and wounded by her cruelty that his breath comes out in little gasps. Vonny can see terror on his face, but she can’t seem to stop. She is still screaming.

  “You’re four years old,” she says, “and you’re acting like a big baby.”

  “I’m not a baby!” Simon shouts. His face is wet with tears.

  Vonny drops the pajamas and sits back on her heels. She has forgotten that he is. He is afraid of the dark. He has never heard the word death. Vonny’s made sure of that. Andre has been forcing himself not to interrupt, knowing Vonny will be furious if he does. Now he walks over and picks up Simon. Simon throws his arms around Andre’s neck and begins to weep. Crouched on the floor, Vonny herself feels like weeping.

  “I’ll put him to bed,” Andre says.

  “Sure,” Vonny says, just as if she were a normal person and not a monster.

  Later, when Simon has been bathed and dressed for bed, Andre brings him back into the living room to say good night. Simon walks over slowly and hugs Vonny. She cannot bear how tentative he is. When Vonny whispers that she’s sorry, Simon nobly acts as though he’s forgotten the entire episode. In fact, he kisses her twice. Later still, when Vonny and Andre get into bed, Vonny remembers crying in her room after fighting with her mother. Though she has no idea what their fight was about, she remembers how hot her tears were and how they stopped, as though a spigot had been turned off, as soon as her mother came into her room to kiss and make up.

  The sleet comes down harder. Ice coats the bare rose of Sharon and the pickets of the wooden fence out front. By morning there will be traffic warnings and Nelson will have to be walked on a leash so he won’t slip. Tonight there is no moon and the only sound is something hard falling from the sky. When Andre and Vonny make love they try to forget that in the room next to theirs a child shifts in his sleep. They do not think about how many times they will disappoint him or each other. As the house settles, birds line the eaves to escape the bad weather, and even those sparrows who never sing at night call a hoarse warning.

  ELIZABETH Renny is too old to be someone’s caretaker. She has been the voice of reason to the screaming fury of adolescence once and that was more than enough. It surprises Elizabeth Renny to discover that she no longer cares about much of what seemed so terribly important when her own daughter, Laura, was young. Things that should shock her do not. She knows Jody lies to her constantly; is she really expected to believe that this girl with a red streak in her hair and smudged eye makeup comes home late from school every day because she has joined the chorus? She doubts that Jody knows the difference between an alto and a soprano but she can well imagine that the blond boy with the red car is already her granddaughter’s lover. Though she has never seen marijuana, she can imagine that too, smoked in pipes in the backseat of the boy’s car. Laura’s rebellions were nothing co
mpared to Jody’s reckless spirit. Every move she makes spells out her desire for danger. In time, Elizabeth Renny can tell, this blond boy will no longer please her granddaughter.

  What surprises Elizabeth Renny most of all is that she doesn’t want to send Jody away. It has nothing to do with Laura’s cheerful announcement that she and her husband, Glenn, are considering a trial separation. Living with Jody is like living with an interesting time bomb, and it takes Elizabeth’s mind off the dark spot in her eye.

  Jody’s newest trick is to come home at ten or eleven, then sneak out again at one and stay out till dawn. The first time it happened, Elizabeth Renny thought a robber had entered the house. She slipped off her wedding ring and hid it beneath her pillow. The cats mewed when the door opened, and when it closed again Elizabeth Renny got out of bed and went to the window. Jody was running across the lawn to the waiting red Toyota. At least the boy had had the decency to cut the headlights so he wouldn’t wake the neighbors. Jody grows braver and more careless all the time. Often she has the blond boy park in the bushes near Andre’s shed and then takes off all her clothes, daring Andre to see. Staying out all night gives her gray eyes an unearthly cast. She gets only a few hours of sleep in the morning, and always has to rush to get ready for school.

  Jody has overslept again. She runs downstairs, still buttoning her shirt, and finds her grandmother has made breakfast for her. On the table are plates of scrambled eggs, two half grapefruits, English tea.

  “I don’t have time,” Jody explains as she pulls on her black boots. “I’m late for school.”

  “I’d like to talk to you,” Elizabeth Renny says.

  Jody slings her canvas bookbag over her shoulder. She wears a pink necklace she doesn’t particularly admire. A present from James, the blond boy.

  “I’ll be back by four,” Jody says, “unless I have chorus practice.”

  “Sit down,” Elizabeth Renny insists.

  Jody sighs and sits down heavily. Her bookbag slides down her arm and falls between her feet. She can hear James’s car pull into the driveway, and for some reason the idea that he’s out there waiting irritates her.

  Elizabeth Renny has prepared for this conversation and she hopes she doesn’t seem too prepared. She has dressed carefully, and is perhaps a little too formal in her black wool dress and heels. Just below her collar she wears a garnet pin in the shape of a dog.

  “I’d rather you stayed out all night on weekends,” Elizabeth Renny says.

  Jody looks up at her grandmother.

  “Wouldn’t it be better to stay out on a Friday rather than a Monday when you have to get up early? Then you could sleep late on Saturday.”

  Jody clears her throat. She knows she made absolutely no noise going out last night. Maybe it was when she came back this morning. Or those damn cats following her upstairs.

  “Doesn’t it make sense?” Elizabeth Renny says.

  “Oh sure,” Jody says. She is studying her grandmother carefully, just to make certain there’s no sarcasm intended.

  “Well that’s settled,” Elizabeth Renny says.

  “I’m not in love with him or anything like that,” Jody says suddenly. “He’s all right, but I’m not about to marry him.”

  “In my day,” Elizabeth Renny begins, but Jody cuts her off.

  “Girls didn’t throw themselves on the first boy who came along,” Jody says contemptuously.

  “Girls always thought they were in love,” Elizabeth Renny says.

  Jody looks down at her hands. The red Toyota has been idling in the driveway for some time, and now the horn honks impatiently.

  “I guess I’m going to be real late,” she says.

  Elizabeth Renny wishes her granddaughter would leave. She has brought up the subject of Jody’s night rambling because she is, after all, the girl’s temporary guardian. And, she realizes now, it would be impossible for Jody to stay on if she failed every single one of her classes.

  “Don’t worry,” Elizabeth Renny says without thinking. “You’ll fall in love.”

  “I’m not worried,” Jody says coldly. “I never worry.”

  She grabs her coat off the hook and walks outside. After she gets into the Toyota, she slams the door. In the past, Jody has thought of her grandmother not as a person but as a piece of furniture that had to be navigated around on her nightly route. She’s not about to care what her grandmother thinks. She refuses to be upset. She will make James stop on the way to school so she can get a can of Diet Coke and some cigarettes. He is in her power. He is a slave to the things she will do when they are alone, if she feels like it. For all she knows they may not make it to school at all. Of course she will never feel quite the same, sneaking out at night. But when she limits her all-night dates to Fridays and Saturdays it’s not because her grandmother has asked her to but because she’s growing tired of James. After a while, she’ll do almost anything to avoid him. And that is the only reason she stops on her way home to get the Sunday papers for her grandmother after she’s been out all Saturday night. She has a good excuse not to touch him when there’s newsprint on her hands.

  NELSON lies on the floor of the porch as Vonny works. Vonny can almost feel the pain in his hips, which are stiff and arthritic, as he stretches to find the comfortable position that forever eludes him. Sometimes he comes and puts his large head on Vonny’s knee. He stares at her dreamily. His eyes are cloudy and, because of cataracts, a phosphorescent green when the light hits them.

  Nelson has taken to following Vonny from room to room. She stumbles over him sometimes. She has to brush dried clay out of his coat each time he insists on accompanying her into the sun porch where he lies near a barrel of wet clay as Vonny works. Perhaps she allows him to follow her and get in her way because Nelson is the canine equivalent of herself, overly sensitive—what Vonny’s mother, Suzanne, calls an empath, what others might call easily overwhelmed. Both Vonny and her dog are prone to take on another creature’s pain. When Simon has a tantrum and howls, it’s Nelson who hides in a corner and whimpers. When anyone stubs a toe, Nelson limps and licks his paw.

  Vonny’s mother insists that empathy is a gift, but then Suzanne is a woman who, although married to an optometrist and living in a condominium, battles the acidic Florida soil so she can grow ginger in her backyard, a plant she believes will ensure her second husband’s fidelity. Vonny, on the other hand, does not believe in astrology, black magic, or even dreams. She thinks of her empathy as a flaw, like a scratch on her soul that lets in vibrations. She stays clear of people with strong vibrations, and she’s thankful that her flaw doesn’t take a physical form. She sees no blue auras around people’s heads, no sparks of light shooting out from their fingertips. She pities her mother’s next-door neighbor, who swears she has seen a silver spaceship floating above Delray Beach. She pities herself because this gift of hers allows her to feel Andre’s recent torment. Every time he walks past a window, she knows he is thinking about the girl next door.

  Of course she has no proof. But Vonny is sure enough of his attraction to imagine murdering him in various ways several times a day. What can she do to save her marriage before Andre does something stupid? She has long telephone conversations with her childhood friend, Jill, who advises her to wear silk and act as though she’s got a lover of her own. She can wait it out. She can cook the sort of dinners he prefers, those without green leafy vegetables. She can have it out with him, punch him, disappear into the night. Or she can startle him by doing what he least expects, which is hire Jody to babysit so they can go to a dinner party at Jane and Doug’s where she will show him exactly how much he’s got to lose. Vonny wears a red satin dress and black high heels with open toes in spite of the weather. Although Andre hates parties and has stated, for the record, that Simon doesn’t know Jody well enough to be left with her, Vonny knows she’s made the right move as soon as Jody comes over. Jody is wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, and Vonny makes certain to stand close to the girl when Andre comes downstairs. Bes
ide her red satin Jody all but disappears. Andre pays no attention to Jody, and Vonny is somewhat annoyed when Simon seems pleased to see her and doesn’t mind when they leave him.

  At the party, Vonny lets Andre see that other men are interested in her. She smiles anytime a man talks to her, no matter what he says. She drinks four glasses of wine and lets Doug’s squash partner stand a little too close to her. Andre spends most of the evening in a corner, but Vonny can feel him watching her. By midnight she figures she’s proved her point. When they get home, Simon has been asleep for hours and Jody is on the couch, reading magazines, an open bag of pretzels propped up beside her. Vonny almost feels sorry for her and adds a two-dollar tip when she pays her. Andre and Jody ignore each other so completely that, for a moment, Vonny wonders if she needn’t have bothered to put on her red dress.

  “Ten bucks to be bored by Doug’s friends,” Andre complains when Jody has left. “Next time let’s stay home.”

  While Andre rinses out the coffeepot for the morning, Vonny goes upstairs to check on Simon. Jody has dressed him in summer pajamas and he’s huddled, knees to chest, for warmth. Vonny tucks him in with an extra blanket. In the bedroom, she takes off her dress and kicks her high heels into the back of the closet and unclasps her pearls. On her way to the dresser, she bumps into the bed and Andre’s pillow falls onto the floor. Vonny is holding her pearls in one hand. In the place where the pillow has been there is a sheet of notebook paper. Vonny sits down. She can hear the door slam downstairs as Andre takes the dog out. She thinks, at first, she has found a love note, but when she unfolds the paper she sees that “I hate you” is written in blue ink. Vonny quickly crumples the paper and, because she can not bring herself to throw out the evidence, sticks it in her top dresser drawer. She doesn’t mention the note when Andre comes to bed.

  In the morning she makes breakfast, then begins to pack their summer things in boxes that will later be carried up to the attic. She can never get herself to do this task, cleaning away summer once and for all, until the weather report predicts snow. Soon the upstairs hallway is littered with Simon’s summer toys: buckets and shovels and his three-wheeled bike. The beds are covered with folded T-shirts and shorts. After lunch, Simon goes down for his nap, and Andre goes off to Vineyard Haven to buy new snow tires that are now on sale. Because there is nothing to stop her, Vonny leaves the folded clothes unboxed and the toys scattered in the hall. She goes downstairs, pulls her hair back with a rubber band, then dials Elizabeth Renny’s number and asks to speak to Jody.