Illumination Night

by Alice Hoffman

  AFTER she hangs up, Jody gulps down orange juice. She is actually shivering. She wishes she had gone with James to a deserted cottage in Gay Head he knows about. She could have waited while he climbed in an unlocked window, she could be there with him now. Certainly, she could have tolerated him for an afternoon. And there’s another boy who’s interested in her, a senior, who seems more dangerous and therefore more promising than James. She could have been waiting for him in the backseat of his car, a black convertible, instead of being here to answer the phone. She was so startled to hear Vonny’s voice that she agreed to go over before she could think it all out. Jody knows what’s about to happen. She’s been lectured to plenty of times. She can squeeze all the expression out of her face so she appears to be listening. She can recognize the long intake of breath that precedes the end of the lecture, the rush of freedom when you know you’re about to be released.

  Vonny wouldn’t dare invite her over if Andre were home. Walking across the lawn, she sees that his truck isn’t parked in the driveway. She wraps her sweater around her. It’s freezing today, but her face is burning hot. Even her shadow is red. She imagines Vonny reaching out and slapping her and her face grows hotter. At sixteen, having never slept with Andre, she knows she has become the other woman.

  When she sees Vonny waiting for her at the door, Jody has the urge to bolt and run. Instead, she decides she won’t say anything at all unless she’s asked a direct question. Vonny swings the door open, and Jody walks past her, bringing in cold air. Vonny has the chance to study Jody as she walks inside. It somehow gives her an edge. She feels like a principal who has called a student in for detention.

  “Have a seat,” Vonny says.

  Jody sits down and rubs her hands together.

  Like a spider, Vonny thinks.

  “Do you drink coffee yet?” Vonny says archly.

  One for Vonny, and Jody knows it. She also knows her next line. Is that why you asked me here? To drink coffee? But she doesn’t want to rush Vonny into anything. Her voice when she answers, sounds girlish, even to herself. “Sure,” she says. “With milk and sugar.”

  Vonny fixes two cups of coffee, one with milk, the other black. Her hands are shaking. She wonders if this is how murderers feel before they grab a knife. She gets the canister of sugar, puts it down on the table, then sits across from Jody. In the past, Nelson would have barked like mad as soon as someone walked through the door. Now, he wanders into the kitchen and as he slinks under the table Jody reaches out and pats his back.

  “I’ll bet you enjoy causing trouble,” Vonny says.

  Jody’s expression is absolutely impassive. This, she knows, drives them crazy.

  “Not that you have a chance with Andre,” Vonny says. “I just want you to know I’m on to you.”

  Jody takes a sip of her coffee. She has added two heaping spoonfuls of sugar and it’s still too bitter. It is time, and she knows it. Now Jody uses her line. “Is that why you asked me here? To tell me I don’t have a chance?”

  “To let you know you’ll regret it,” Vonny says.

  “I don’t have to talk to you,” Jody says. She starts to get up, but Vonny reaches across the table and grabs one of her wrists. Her grip is strong.

  “Sit,” Vonny says, and without thinking Jody obeys. “Let me tell you something,” Vonny says. “You wouldn’t even know what to do with him if you got him.”

  There is a very deep threat here, and Jody is momentarily derailed.

  “Men and boys are different,” Vonny says, no longer certain if she’s telling the truth or inventing something to scare Jody off.

  “You don’t scare me,” Jody says flatly, but she is thinking, for the first time, that she might not be able to live up to what she’s hoped to start.

  Jody’s face seems so open that Vonny can’t help but notice how clear her skin is. Vonny’s own face has tiny lines in unexpected places. She can well imagine how Jody could have fallen for Andre. A girl her age would be mystified by his silence, appreciate it.

  There is a thump upstairs, and Vonny hopes it’s not Simon, up early from his nap. When he wakes, his moods are unpredictable, and Vonny gives in to him, more, she knows, than she would if he were not so small for his age. She would hate for Jody to see her pleading with Simon to be good, to have a cookie, to stop kicking his feet on the floor. When there is another thump, Vonny stands abruptly.

  “I think that’s all we have to say to each other,” she says.

  “Oh, no it’s not,” Jody says. At this moment there seems no point to life if she can’t win Andre. She has tried to make him jealous enough to act. She has flaunted James, but Andre is like a stone. If he cried his tears would be made out of granite. Still, Jody knows that if he were free they would find real love, nights that lasted as long as other people’s entire lifetimes. “Just don’t think you can tell me how to feel,” she says.

  There is another sound, a sharp creak, and Vonny tilts her head. Sunlight through the kitchen window falls across her face. To someone like Jody, Vonny’s face has a strength Vonny has never seen or even imagined she possessed. She has high cheekbones and dark eyes. Her hair is cut bluntly and angled toward her neck. When she hears the creak a second time, a shadow crosses her face. Even Jody knows the damp smell of fear. When Vonny runs out of the kitchen, Jody follows right behind her. It’s hard for Vonny to breathe. The lighting has shifted and it’s dark in the living room. Vonny stumbles over the coffee table. She comes to a stop at the foot of the stairs and doesn’t even notice when Jody bumps into her, then backs away. She can hear Simon’s bike barreling along the upstairs hallway.

  “Stop!” she yells.

  Vonny starts to climb the stairs. And then she sees him, coming toward the stairs at full speed.

  “Stop right now!” Vonny yells. “Right now!”

  Her words seem enormous, they echo inside her head as Simon goes down the first step. He throws his head back, laughing, delighted by the speed he’s managed and the thrill of the bump of the first step. Jody reaches up and grabs the back of Vonny’s shirt, as though she had to steady herself.

  The stairs are old and so steep Andre has to bow his head when he walks up them. As soon as Vonny realizes there is nothing she can do, time takes on a curious quality. Everything is happening fast to Vonny—her heartbeat, the shadows moving across her skin—only Simon moves slowly. At this instant she can see his death. She can see his blood on the stairs. She knows the way she will lean toward him, seconds too late, unable to break his fall.

  If it does not happen, she will change her life. She will not hide how much she loves Simon anymore for fear of spoiling him. If she has to, she will give Jody her husband. Simon goes down five more steps. His head snaps back and he’s laughing harder. It’s like a carnival ride. He gets to the turn in the steps, and because he has gathered too much speed it is possible that he will take the rest of the stairs at once.

  “Stop!” Vonny shouts, hoping that Simon will jump off the bike, grab on to the banister, stop his own fall. Amazingly, the bike stops. The front wheel dangles over the edge of a stair and spins in place. Vonny runs, grabs the front wheel, and lifts it. Simon is out of breath but still giddy. Vonny pulls him off the bike with one hand, then lets go of the bike so that it crashes down the rest of the stairs. She smacks Simon on the bottom so hard that tears immediately come to his eyes. Vonny has never hit him before and Simon’s howls follow as soon as he’s realized what’s happened.

  Vonny’s fingers are like tentacles wrapped around the thin bones of Simon’s arm, but she’s no longer paying attention to him. Goose bumps rise along her arms and legs. She looks down and her eyes meet Jody’s. She wonders if she’s as pale as Jody is. She picks Simon up and takes him downstairs. He’s still crying but his sobs have turned to hiccups. Standing in the hallway, Jody and Vonny stare at the light coming through the landing window. The panes of glass are old and thick; they distort both clouds and sky. When a car horn outside honks, James’s perhaps,
they’re both startled. Vonny kneels and comforts Simon. Jody combs her hair away from her face with her fingertips. She has completely forgotten why she has come here. She has the urge to sit in someone’s lap. Instead, she follows Vonny into the kitchen, where Simon is given cookies and apple juice. He swears never again to ride his bike indoors and he is not scolded when he eats five Fig Newtons instead of the three he’s usually allowed. It is perhaps the greatest surprise of Andre’s life when he comes back from Vineyard Haven and finds Vonny and Jody at the kitchen table, drinking hot tea with honey, neither of them bothering to greet him or even noticing that he has come home.

  Chapter Three

  TO THOSE IN THE DARK

  IT is a starless winter night when Vonny leaves the Chilmark Store and discovers that the engine of the truck won’t turn over. Beside her is a half gallon of milk and some rolls for the morning. She had wasted time, dropping off some overdue books at the library, and had to bang on the market door to be allowed in after closing. She had forgotten how dark it can be at six o’clock. She had forgotten how deserted Beetlebung Corner, the center of Chilmark, can be.

  She turns the key in the ignition again and again, each time more panicked by the sound of the grinding motor. While she concentrates on the truck, the clerk locks the store and drives off. Vonny looks up and the parking lot is empty. There is not one pay phone between here and home. She should have known something like this would happen. It is too cold to leave home. Before she drove to the library Vonny had to hold a cigarette lighter to the door handle to force the key into the lock. This should have been warning enough. The Vineyard is encased in ice. Boats that left this morning will not be returning tonight.

  Vonny can hear the paper bag rip as she grabs the groceries. When she gets out of the truck the crunch of her own boots in the snow makes her heart race. She doesn’t bother to lock the truck, since anyone who might manage to steal the damned thing tonight is welcome to it.

  You have nothing to fear.

  Not even a maniac would be out on a night like this.

  Of course it is a mistake to think the word maniac. It is quite possible that weather like this is just the thing to give a madman the taste for blood. Were it not for the brightness of the snow, Vonny would not be able to distinguish between field and road. If she could run, she would, but the snow is slick with treacherous patches of ice. It is only a little past six, but it might as well be midnight. The night is deep and silver-edged, like a cloak wrapped around her. The darkness vibrates with a life of its own. Vonny knows that the sort of terror she feels is not rational. It is the terror of a woman who believes she may lose her way in the dark and step right over the icy periphery of the earth.

  As a child, Vonny had to sleep with a light turned on. At ten she was still prone to nightmares. Each house in their development was exactly the same, and she often imagined she wouldn’t be able to find her way home from school. After her parents’ divorce, she came to dread Sundays, for that was when her father, Reynolds, took her for drives in the country. She was so certain he would desert her on some unfamiliar road that she wouldn’t let him out of her sight. She followed him into gas stations and package stores. When it was too cold and he insisted she stay in the idling car, she did so with canine obedience. But she watched through the steamy window, frantic until she could see him on his way back to the car.

  When Vonny was eleven Reynolds remarried and that put an end to the Sunday drives. Reynolds’s new wife, Gale, invited her to spend the night and because Vonny could not think of a proper excuse, she agreed. Vonny’s mother and father were not speaking, so Vonny waited out on the curb for her father. As his car pulled up she had a strange, numb feeling along the backs of her legs. Secretly, she had hoped her mother would not allow her to go. On the way into Manhattan the radio was turned on so they didn’t have to talk. When they arrived, Vonny realized her father had kept a secret from her. He was rich. In that instant, Vonny discovered the divisibility of “we.” Never once did she think “we are rich.” This was all his. The living room, with its knotted rugs; the library Reynolds used as his office, with its red walls and blue couches; each room was large enough to get lost in, to have an echo all its own. Flanking the door to the dining room were two porcelain peacocks, so lifelike their throats seemed to pulse.

  Vonny was given a pink robe, which Gale said they would keep just for her. At bedtime, Vonny kissed her father and Gale good night, then went into the guest room. As always, she left the light on. Later that night, Vonny woke to hear voices in the hall. She kept her eyes closed when someone, her father or Gale, opened the door and switched out the light. She forced herself to remain motionless until she heard them walk down the hall to their own room. She began to search for the light switch, slowly at first and then frantically. Instead of the switch, she found the door. She went out into the pitch-black hallway, feeling her way along the wall. More than anything, she was afraid she would stumble and shatter the ceramic peacocks. A sort of paralysis came over her and so she stayed right where she was in the hallway, for hours, until the sky grew light. When she was able to make out the tops of trees through the tall French windows she realized she was facing the living room. She crept back into her room and sat in bed until her father came in at nine and told her it would soon be time for him to drive her home. Vonny dressed, packed her overnight case, then went in, past the peacocks, for breakfast. For weeks after her visit, she couldn’t sleep, and when her mother vowed never to let her spend the night in Manhattan again, Vonny was relieved.

  Vonny thinks of creatures far more dangerous than peacocks as she walks in the dark. She can feel the carton of milk she carries freezing, growing heavier in her arms. She does not allow herself to think of numbers, because if she did she would be reminded that she has three miles to go. Her breathing is so labored she swears there is ice inside her lungs. She will either die of fright on this walk or not. She will either be attacked by wild dogs or keep right on going. By the time she turns down their long dirt road, lined on both sides by summer houses closed down until Memorial Day, Vonny doesn’t know if she can make it. It is the worst part of her walk. She begins to hate Andre, who probably doesn’t realize that the store closed over an hour ago. Her own road seems unfamiliar, oddly narrow, oddly pitched. She wonders if it is her road or if, somehow, she has taken a wrong turn.

  You would be able to hear a wild dog long before it attacked.

  She knows that. That is a fact.

  You would hear it slipping on the ice.

  There is a sudden flare of color against the flat, white landscape. Vonny thinks she is seeing stars but soon realizes it is Simon dressed in his orange snowsuit. Simon and Andre run to meet her at the edge of the driveway. There is snow in Vonny’s hair and on her boots. Simon grabs her around her legs.

  “You’re back!” Simon yells, and he tugs on Vonny, hard, so that her legs buckle.

  The woman who panicked on the road is turning into smoke, evaporating so quickly Vonny can barely remember her. This is Vonny’s road after all. This is her house.

  “What happened to you?” Andre says. “Christ.”

  Vonny looks at Andre, unable to tell if he’s angry or just concerned.

  “The truck died,” she tells him. “You’ll have to go get it in the morning.”

  “We thought you were lost,” Simon says.

  “Oh, no,” Vonny assures him.

  You will be amazed to find how easy it is to lie, even to those you love best.

  “Not at all.”

  VONNY and Jody talk about everything but the way they feel. Jody babysits at least twice a week, and that gives them a lot to discuss. They talk about what time Simon went to bed while Vonny and Andre were out at the movies, what he snacked on, what books he asked to have read. They talk about recipes for making Play-Doh out of peanut butter and Oobleck out of cornstarch. They make certain never to talk about Andre. His name is not in their vocabulary. His name would make it impossible for them
to speak at all. Sometimes, Andre stands on the porch and listens to their muffled voices through the closed window. He can’t stand to have Jody in his house. She’s getting into everything; she leaves lipstick marks on teacups and her scent on his couch and in his carpets. He knows she has dropped her boyfriend with the red Toyota and now sees several others. He’s surprised that she’s good with children and jealous of his own son when Simon curls up in her lap.

  “Why do you have to hang around with a teenager?” Andre asks Vonny.

  “Why does it bother you?” she snaps back. “What’s your problem?”

  Of course he cannot answer. He has to let it go.

  “Teenagers,” he says.

  Somehow he has been displaced. He can’t understand why women like to talk so much, although he likes to hear their voices when he can’t make out the words. He imagines it’s a song he doesn’t know and has no hopes of ever learning. He’s not at all involved when they give each other presents for Christmas. Jody brings over a yellow metal bulldozer for Simon and one of her grandmother’s sour-cream coffee cakes for Vonny and Andre. All the time Vonny works on her present for Jody she is aware that their friendship, if that’s what it is, has nothing to do with trust. It is not unlike befriending a wild animal who would sink its teeth into your forearm without a moment’s hesitation. And yet, Vonny feels drawn to her. When she’s with Jody it’s almost as though she were with herself, as though she were reaching back for the sixteen-year-old girl she once was.