All week he’d largely avoided her, even while wishing she would seek him out, single him out for attention, indicate in some way that she remembered him as he’d been: the torpedo she’d shot, toes pointed, through the water; the willing accompanist who’d strummed her guitar while she fingered the chords; her companion in the hammock as dusk fell and they pointed out to each other with their fingers the evening’s first bats.
“How long is she staying?” he’d asked last night, as they’d all been eating supper. The kitchen table did not easily accommodate five; they had to remember to keep their elbows tucked in, and still they wound up jostling one another.
“That’s rude,” his mother said.
He knew it was rude. But, “What?” he said, “I’m not allowed to be curious?”
“It’s okay,” Jess told his mother. “Not long,” she told Paul.
His mother had lain down her fork and knife. “You know you’re welcome to stay as long as you like.”
“Thanks.”
“Really.We’d love you to—stay.”
His father had reached over and squeezed his mother’s shoulder, and it was far beyond Paul why this should have made him feel bad.
“Thanks,” Jess said again. “I’m not sure the feeling’s unanimous.” She smiled at Paul, though, almost conspiratorially, and did not seem the least concerned.
Paul struggled not to betray himself. He bent over his plate, pretending to cut a piece of lettuce and hoping his fallen bangs masked his blush. “It’s immaterial,” he assured her. “This isn’t a democracy.”
“Paul!” snapped his father.
But Jess laughed.
“I apologize,” Paul mumbled. “May I please be excused?”
He’d retreated to his room in near-giddy confusion. His parents might’ve been shocked at his rudeness, but with this rudeness, if that’s what it was, he’d successfully captured Jess’s attention; better, had made her laugh.
He did not think Stephen Boyd or Noah Prager would have been able to accomplish this. In some sort of contest—if only it had been public! if only it held currency in the arena of middle school!—he was capable of besting them.
3.
For the second time in less than two weeks a daughter of John Ryrie’s was riding in his car. Gordie nearly made the observation out loud, but checked himself, turning, instead, to glance at her. Jess smiled back, her teeth gleaming apple-white, as if this were all perfectly normal, confirming Gordie’s sense that he was incapable of judging normalcy.
His palms were sweaty on the wheel. Certainly, he was a bit giddy, a bit revved by the unexpected turn of events. What his dad would’ve called in a froth. “What are you all in a froth about, then, eh?” Imagine how surprised his dad would’ve been to learn it had to do with a girl. Behind him, Ebie whined, panted a moment, then closed her jaws as if in forbearance.
He’d been encouraged by Jess’s friendliness in the park. Never mind that she kept calling him Jordie (he hadn’t managed to correct her), she’d known right away who he was. She’d been the one, actually, to initiate contact. Well: as far as Jess knew, she’d been the one to initiate contact.That was what mattered.
In fact he’d taken Ebie walking in Memorial Park several times over the past ten days, at calculatedly varied times, in hopes of “running into” any of the Ryries. He’d spotted Jess that morning first thing on arrival, and if he’d had any doubts that it was she, Ebie dispelled them by trotting right over, tail awag in recognition. He’d called her sharply away, mortified to think the dog’s forwardness might be construed as his own.
And then, although he’d observed from the corner of his eye Jess prop herself on her elbows and study them, Gordie had pretended not to recognize her: he’d given Ebie all his attention, immersed himself in this game of stick throwing with unusual intensity, the result being every aspect of it felt foolish, artificial. Here I am, athletic and good-natured. Here I am, loving my dog, who loves me. Here I am, lovable. Despite the knowledge that he was straining, that the whole thing was a bit of a charade, what singing good fortune he’d felt in his heart.To be noticed, to be aware of being watched, was like having a long thirst slaked. And she did watch, he saw. Once, she laughed. He felt elated and ashamed. It was very like another time he’d successfully gained notice through contrivance: last year when he’d tripped over a root in the woods in front of Hugh Chaudhuri.
Hugh Chaudhuri was built like Gordie, short and lean, with dark hair he wore shaggy and glossy dark eyes that had the power to melt anyone, girl or guy. His androgyny was undeniably part of his appeal, even as it added to Gordie’s confusion about his own proclivities. There’d been a drinking party in the woods—Gordie’s virgin foray into that kind of thing, the unsanctioned gatherings high schoolers held in locations lacking proper addresses (“the rez,” “the Hook,” “behind the tennis courts”). The invitation had come about by fluke: some people talking about it in the hall before industrial arts, where Gordie, too, had gathered, waiting for the previous class to be let out; Hugh mentioning he had room in his car for one more. He’d looked right at Gordie as he said it, smiled just so with his Junior Mint eyes, and minor explosions detonated throughout Gordie’s bloodstream. Was that the signal you wanted to be kissed? Gordie did not know what he wanted, but he had gone along, only to be disappointed later when he found himself consigned to the periphery of the gathering. The group, when they arrived, seemed already enmeshed, as though they shared a kind of fascinating, impenetrable history, forged long before Gordie had entertained even a flicker of desire to join. He’d stood at the edge of the schnappspassing, lighter-flicking activity, pretending to enjoy the encoded dialogue, taking a long swig each time a bottle was inadvertently passed his way, trying in vain to think of something witty or admirable to say.
When it had been decided (somehow, as if by an unseen signal) that it was time to go, Gordie had almost cried with selfrecrimination. He’d blown his chance to charm Hugh, a chance surely implicit in the offer of a ride. It would have been his first attempt trying to charm anyone, male or female, and the mechanics of the attempt had taken no concrete shape in Gordie’s mind beyond a vague notion of a look exchanged and then Hugh’s mouth closing in on—but never quite making contact with—his own. Did Gordie want to kiss? Or did he want to want to kiss?
On the way back to the road, sorting out his genuinely tipsy way between the trees, he’d grown aware of Hugh keeping pace just behind him, and in a last, desperate attempt to provide a romantic opening, Gordie had half willed, half allowed himself to stumble and fall flat on his front. When Hugh said, “Whoa! All right?” and paused above him, Gordie’d felt a rush of guilty triumph. When it turned out he had scraped and bloodied his wrist going down, he’d felt something like relief at acquiring this mark of authenticity, as though it absolved him of falsehood. But Hugh’s interest never rose above that moment, that mannerly pause while Gordie got back to his feet—he hadn’t even held a hand out to help Gordie up—and although they said hi after that whenever they passed in the halls, it was never more than perfunctory.
Being noticed by Jess, innocent of the fact that his and Ebie’s game of fetch was being performed for her benefit, was therefore similarly bittersweet, his sense of victory tainted by self-reproach, the knowledge that he had contrived this opening. Ebie, once she’d caught wind of Jess’s approach, had forestalled it with an onslaught of hospitality, bounding across the grass and bringing herself up short just before barreling into the girl, then wagging her hindquarters mightily while conducting, at her opposite end, olfactory operations of an almost surgical delicacy.
“Jess, right?” Gordie, wandering over, feigned uncertainty. “I didn’t notice you there.”
“You’re easy to spot, with your dog.” She wore an oversized sweatshirt—the very one, Gordie realized with a flush of embarrassed pleasure, that he’d worn the other day, while his own shirt dried—and a cotton skirt the color of tea.
“Oh. I guess, yeah.” He
’d ruffled the fur at the back of Ebie’s neck. Was the motion ever so slightly different from the way he might normally have done it? Did his voice sound just a little altered, lower, perhaps, more clipped? Or was it only that he was watching himself, listening to himself, differently? “She’s easily spotted, anyway.” Did it come out resentful? Christ—did he sound jealous of his dog?
The odd thing was that his awkwardness, his hyperconsciousness, instead of tightening its stranglehold—as he was used to it doing whenever it latched on—had ebbed in Jess’s prolonged presence. No: the odd thing was that she continued to be present, just as if she were enjoying his company, as if she didn’t have anything else she’d rather be doing.
They’d walked downhill, past the fenced playground and the field with its wide gazebo where bands played in the summertime, down to the water’s edge. Jess had her clogs in her hand all this time, right up until they reached the rocky bank, at which point Gordie could no longer restrain himself. “I gotta tell you,” he said, “there’s broken glass, crack vials, dog crap, goose crap . . . rats, too, actually; you see them sometimes, even in daylight.You have to put on your shoes.” He was rather pleased with the way this came off: cool, commanding. The novelty of issuing an imperative made him feel strangely confident.
“Yes, Grandma.” But she did as he said.The first shoe went on all right, while she stood storklike on the other foot, but she went wobbly trying to slide her foot in the second and flailed, teetering, until he gripped her arm and steadied her.
“Thanks,” she’d said, once fully shod. “Pregnancy does a number on your sense of balance.”
He’d nodded.Then a full beat later: “Oh.” Embarrassed comprehension washing over him. Was the embarrassment on her behalf or on his own? He felt the same quaking heat in her presence as he had in Hugh’s, the same dizzying recognition of possibility. But was it, in both cases, a feeling predicated on the reassuring certainty that nothing would come of it?
“Almost eleven weeks,” she added.
Gordie nodded again, as if it were commonplace, as if most girls he knew were somewhere in their first trimester.
They’d exchanged quite a lot of vitals then, during that hour hanging out by the river, most of it spent perching side by side on the back of a bench. She was going to be a single mother, she said. As one might announce the intention of becoming a doctor or an artist. Gordie didn’t know what to make of it.
“My dad was a single parent.”
“Yeah? What happened with your mom?”
“Died. Some kind of infection. When I was a baby.”
“Grim,” said Jess.
From their bench, as they chatted, they marked the rheumatic progress of a garbage barge as it made its way under the bridge, carrying its load toward Manhattan and the open sea. At last Jess announced, “My butt’s sore,” and stood up. “You have a car, don’t you?”
“A car?” Gordie scrambled after her onto the rocks, where she was picking her way precariously in those clogs. “Yeah.”
“We should go somewhere.You want?”
“Sure, maybe. Where?”
“New York.”
“The city? What do you want to do there?”
“I don’t know.Walk around. Get lost.”
She wasn’t looking at him but out at the water. A sailboat tacked to and fro. The river was at its widest here, nearly three miles across, and there was something quaint about the opposite shore at that distance; it was like a scale model in a train store, or a landscape in a tintype, glimpsed back at through time.
“What would I do with Ebie?”
They both looked around for the dog. Some twenty yards away, she was rolling around ecstatically at the water’s edge. “Ah, shit,” said Gordie. He jumped off the rocks and jogged toward her.
It was a dead seagull, its fetid body spread out on a patch of asphalt and weeds. Gordie had to use his sharpest tone to persuade Ebie to abandon her rapture. When at last she did, she bounded around, tongue lolling, as though to say, “Aren’t I a pip?” She reeked.
“Stop,” Gordie barked at Jess, who was progressing swiftly toward them. “You don’t want to get any closer.”
He experienced a flicker of satisfaction when she did, immediately, halt. Unaccustomed as he was to wielding authority, he felt he was doing it rather well, casually and in good cause. Evidently, though, he had not stopped her soon enough.
“Dude. She smells like a horror show.”
Ebie wagged her tail, guilty and low.
Gordie looked at her. “That’s right, you dope,” he said softly. Then, “So much for going to the city,” he called back over his shoulder. “At least, today.” He didn’t know if he was more disappointed or relieved.
“What will you do now?”
He shrugged. “Bathe her.”
Jess walked along with them back up the hill, through the park, toward his dad’s car. “Want help?” she asked, once Ebie had climbed in on top of the blanket in the back.
“With what?”
“Giving her a bath.”
“Are you serious?”
Jess flipped up her palms, shrugged.
Gordie thought about what it would entail. No one had been over since his dad got sick. Not that Gordie had lived in utter and complete solitude these months. He’d met up with a few of his dad’s friends in diners, dropped in at a couple of house parties held by former classmates. People had reached out, a handful of acquaintances left over from senior year: the dregs of the class, like him, people who hadn’t gone away to school, hadn’t moved on. But he’d had no one over.
He looked at Jess, in John’s great droopy sweatshirt and her petal-light skirt, her dark eyes (very like Hugh Chaudhuri’s, he noticed) squinting and watering a little in the sharp path of the sun. She had suggested going somewhere with him twice in the space of fifteen minutes. Was it that she wanted to be with him, or was it that she wanted to go?
“You sure?” he asked. “I mean.The car . . . the smell . . .”
But she was game.They drove through town with the windows rolled down and the fan blasting a potpourri of fresh air and stale cigarette odor at their faces. Something new had happened.
At the condo complex Gordie pulled into their numbered parking space. He wondered if Jess was surprised, if she’d been expecting a house, a single-family in town instead of a brick complex by the thruway. Inside, the stairwell was dim; a bulb was out. “Two flights,” Gordie said. Beneath poor Ebie’s stench Gordie could smell the regular odor of the hallway, not unclean exactly, but heavy and close. His awareness of it was sharpened by Jess’s presence. A soap opera was audible behind a neighbor’s door. It hit Gordie, as he unlocked the door to their own unit, that the kitchen was full of trash he hadn’t taken out, dishes he hadn’t washed. He was glad, at least, that the radio he’d left on for so many months, loath to end something his dad had set in motion, was no longer playing: he did not think he would have been able to bear being exposed at that level.
They stepped inside, Ebie pushing past them to inspect her bowl. Never had the condo looked so shabby to Gordie, at once eccentrically cluttered and just plain grungy.The sun was coming in at just the angle to best illuminate the crumbs on the Formica countertops; the vinyl flooring was sticky underfoot.A fly, trapped between two panes of glass, buzzed in the window above the sink. Just as the previous week he’d wondered if John Ryrie’s other daughter might be afraid of him, afraid of getting into a car with a strange man, now he wondered if Jess was having misgivings about getting herself into this situation, finding herself here in a seedy-looking apartment with a man she did not after all quite know. A sense of unfairness, bitterness, and defeat clamped down on him, as though she’d already changed her mind.
“I’m going to stick Ebie on the balcony while I fill the bath,” he muttered.
“Okay.”
He could feel her watching uncomfortably as he wrestled the foul creature outside and slid shut the heavy door. Ebie looked up at him and wa
gged slowly, smudging the glass with her nose. Jess said, “Is anything wrong?”
“I’ll start the water,” he said, going into the bathroom.
He turned on the taps, found the bottle of dog shampoo. He smelled his plaid jacket, shed it. In the mirror he saw a furrow between his eyebrows. He relaxed his muscles; it went away. He splashed water on his face. The little room began to fog. He felt the water in the tub, switched off the taps.
When he came back to the kitchen, it was empty. He glanced out to the balcony; Ebie met his gaze and gave a short whine. “I’ll be back,” he told her through the glass. He was relieved when he found Jess in the living room, not gone after all, not hitching a ride on Route 59, but standing with her hands clasped behind her, perusing the shelves. His father’s dioramas crowded there, long unattended, furnished with dust and the occasional cobweb, in places two deep, in places stacked one upon another.
“You made these?” Jess did not turn.
“No.”
He felt her reverence, her absorption, like a rise in barometric pressure. As he watched she stooped, then knelt, in order to peer into the ones on a bottom shelf.
“Is there more light?” It was a request.
He switched it on.
She whispered something he did not catch, did not think he was meant to. She said, “Your father?”
“Yeah. My dad.”
Looking at her looking at the boxes, he apprehended something about them.They were the root he’d stumbled on, the root his dad had left purposely sticking up.
The Grief of Others Page 16
