The airport was gray and shiny, like a hospital where Kyla was to be anesthetized and detached hygienically from home. A corridor of shiny gray time sucked her in along with Janey and Alice and Mr. Laskey, and then the crowd in which they were to be conveyed away compressed itself into the tube of the airplane.
“You get the window seat,” Janey said to Kyla. “You’re the guest.”
Seven days, Kyla had thought; seven days before she could go home, seven days of being the guest, seven days of having to have a good time—even though she was with Janey Laskey. “That’s okay,” she said. “Take it if you want it.”
“You take it,” Janey said. “I’ve been on lots of planes before. I get to go on planes all the time.”
Kyla looked around for Mr. Laskey, but he was already settled into the seat across the aisle from Alice, and one of the stewardesses was leaning over him, laughing and laughing, as he told a joke about a fox and a bunny rabbit. And Kyla would have taken the window seat then (because someone should show Janey she couldn’t always get away with that sort of thing) but the thought of her mother’s pleading look intervened, so she just shook her head and sat down, thunk, where she was.
Janey shrugged. “Okay,” she’d said, squishing her porky rear end past, to the good seat, “I guess some people don’t like it. Some people are scared to look out the window.” She opened the big book she was carrying and squinted down at it, following the print with her finger; her thin hair, the color of cardboard, drooped forward; obviously she should be wearing glasses.
Poor Janey. “What’s your book about?” Kyla asked.
Janey jumped slightly. “Oliver Twist?” she said, and looked at Kyla. “Is about orphans.”
“Sor-ry,” Kyla said.
Air whooshed through some little spouts above them, the lights flickered, and a heartless angel’s voice instructed them to strap themselves in.
No, Kyla thought. No no no no no. She closed her eyes; the gravity of her will flowed around the seats and into the little compartments: The plane was growing heavier and heavier—it would sit, the plane, heavy with her will; darkness would come; someone would open the door, and they could all go home. But for one instant there was a flaw in her concentration—or was it in her sincerity? Her will was flicked aside like an insect and the plane rose, through a great roaring.
The stewardess returned to make a big fuss over Alice. “Kindergarten, already?” she sang out, amazed, to Alice, who confirmed this with a gracious nod. The stewardess straightened up, twirled a bit of stray hair around her finger and tucked it back into place, smiling brilliantly at Mr. Laskey. Janey stared at her with loathing and then turned to the window.
“Guess what you can see from up here,” Janey turned back to say to Kyla. “You can see the bodies in the lagoons.”
“There are no bodies in the lagoons,” Kyla had said firmly, for Alice’s benefit, but Alice was playing happily with the safety instruction card, like someone who has no troubles in the world.
“They look just like mermaids, except they’re face up,” Janey said. “Their hair floats, and their legs are green and slimy.”
“Don’t,” Kyla said.
“Eleven-year-old Courtney Collier disappeared from the mall at ten o’clock this morning while her mother was buying a new tie for Mr. Collier,” Janey said. “‘Courtney was a beautiful little girl,’ authorities said. ‘We’re totally positive it was a sex crime.’”
Seven days; seven more days. Minus the three hours and fifteen minutes between getting from the Laskeys’ house to wherever it was they were now. Minus this second. Minus this second. Kyla leaned across Janey to see: Naturally there were no dead girls. You couldn’t even see the lagoons—all you could see were clouds.
Now most of that seven days was over with. Sunday night Kyla had settled into the room she was to share with Janey and Alice, with the blue carpet and the alien blue-flowered wallpaper, and she’d carefully put her clothing into a bureau drawer or hung it on the hotel’s heavy wooden hangers—how strange it looked on those hangers in that big, dark closet that smelled like wood and furniture polish and very faintly of other people, though nobody in particular. Then she and Janey had to play Brides with Alice to calm her down and they had all gone to sleep.
“I want you girls in bed early,” Mr. Laskey had said, “except on the nights we’ve got tickets. And there are going to be some serious naps around here. Agreed? The days will be pretty strenuous, and I don’t want to arrive back home with three little zombies. Now. I’ll be right next door, but I’m looking forward to a little stress-reduction myself, and you have an entire hotel staff downstairs at your disposal. Kindly take advantage of that unusual fact. If you need anything, Donald will be at the concierge’s desk every afternoon and night.”
And it had been…strenuous. On Monday evening they’d gone to a restaurant with waiters in tuxedos, where Kyla had worn the new party dress her mother had gotten her for the trip, and Tuesday night she’d worn the dress again, when Mr. Laskey let them stay up late and they’d gone to a show with poor people who were singing and dancing. And yesterday evening they had gone to another amazing restaurant, in Greenwich Village, where everyone—all the waitresses and all the customers—looked like models. And during the days they’d gone to the Empire State Building and the Planetarium and the Statue of Liberty and the Museum of Natural History and various other museums (which Janey claimed to enjoy) and they’d walked in the big, dirty, interesting park with the little fringe of silver buildings at the edges, and they’d gone in a horse-drawn carriage, and had taken a boat around the whole island, and along with all that there had been a revolving display of fascinating delis and coffee shops and people you couldn’t believe had even been born, and long, sludgy naps in the sad blue room where it seemed Kyla had been living with Janey and Alice forever.
So now there was only tonight and then Friday and then Saturday, and on Sunday they’d get back in the plane, and on Monday morning Kyla would wake up in her own bed and all the big blank obstacles that at one time had been between her and home would have dissolved into a picture she could remember for her mother at breakfast.
Because at the time something was happening, of course, you didn’t know what it was like. At the time a thing was happening, that thing was not, for instance, New York. New York was what her mother was at home picturing. The place where you actually were was a street corner with wads of paper in the gutter, or it was standing there, facing the worn muzzle of the horse that had pulled your carriage, or it was sitting in front of a little stain on the tablecloth. It really wasn’t like anything—it was just whatever it was, and there was never a place in your mind of the right size and shape to put it. But afterwards, the thing fit exactly into your memory as if there had always been a place—just right, just waiting for it.
On Monday morning, she would be home. She would be telling her mother over breakfast all about New York. And Kyla would know—because she’d be remembering it—just what New York was like. But today was the biggest obstacle so far. She was so tired that her body kept forgetting to do things in its usual way—even to sit in its chair properly, and Alice was easily upset, as though the nightmares that had plagued her all night long were rustling and hissing at her feet. And Janey was behaving…abominably, so Kyla had to be extra careful about everything. “It’s just perfect,” she said.
“Yes, this, girls, is New York as it used to be,” Mr. Laskey said. “Genteel, clean, gracious…” He sighed. “Oh, where are the snows…”
Janey rolled her eyes.
It was preferable, Kyla thought, when Janey just said whatever horrible thoughts were in her mind. Otherwise, they just leaked out and dripped all over your mind…
“Try to have a wonderful time, darling,” Kyla’s mother had said. “And make sure to remember everything for me.” And she looked at Kyla so sadly and sweetly.
Her mother was far away now. And tiny, standing there and peering through a dark distance for Kyl
a. Oh, why did her mother look so sad? Why? Kyla knew: because of her, because she had made her mother feel bad. She had made her mother feel—and this was a fact—as though she had forced Kyla to go on this trip against her will. And now, there was her mother, tiny and fragile across the miles, straining anxiously, as if Kyla had become lost right in the field of brilliant stars that at home shone so sparsely and coldly and far away.
Mr. Laskey raised his hand in the air to summon a waitress. “We’ll see if the ice cream is as good as it used to be,” he said.
“When Grandfather Laskey used to bring you here,” Janey intoned.
Mr. Laskey hesitated. “Yes, Jane…” he said seriously, as though Janey had brought up some interesting point (but soon, Kyla thought, and her insides felt odd and sparkly, Mr. Laskey was going to decide to get angry) “…when Grandfather Laskey used to bring me to New York—”
“—on business!” One of Alice’s spoons said enthusiastically to the other.
Janey snickered.
“Put those spoons down, Alice,” Mr. Laskey said. He signaled again for a waitress. “It’s not nice.”
Alice dropped her spoons on the table and put her hands over her face. “Aha,” Mr. Laskey said as a waitress appeared. “There you are.”
The waitress smiled unhappily around the table. “What pretty blue eyes,” she said to Alice, who was peeking skeptically through her fingers.
The waitress turned to Kyla first. She would be supposing, Kyla thought, that Kyla was one of them—that she belonged to the handsome man who only had to raise his hand in the air to bring over a waitress. Kyla, and not Janey. Because no matter how much Mrs. Laskey paid for Janey’s clothes (plenty, Kyla’s mother said), Janey always looked as if she’d been dressed out of some old lady’s trunk. Yes, the waitress was smiling in such a kind and unhappy way—she must be admiring Kyla’s soft brown hair, the dainty little skirt and sweater her mother had chosen for her at Baskin’s. The waitress herself was not pretty at all. Although that, of course, made no difference. Just, it was what Kyla could feel Janey was thinking. “I’m sorry,” Kyla said. “I haven’t decided.”
“So what can I get you, doll face?” the waitress asked Alice.
“What will it be for Alice?” Mr. Laskey said.
“Ice cream for Alice,” Alice confided huskily to the waitress.
“Yes?” Mr. Laskey said. He smiled at the waitress. “Are you sure? Or do you want cinnamon toast?”
Alice looked at Mr. Laskey uncertainly. “Cimona…” she began, and halted warily.
“Do you know, Alice,” Mr. Laskey said, “that this is one of the few places on the planet, along with our hotel, that still has cinnamon toast on the menu?”
He looked at the waitress, who made a little giggle and then looked surprised at herself. “That’s right,” she said.
Mr. Laskey tugged a lock of Alice’s soft hair. “She’s been eating nothing but cinnamon toast since we got to New York,” he said. “Haven’t you, Alice?”
Alice appeared briefly puzzled, then nodded vigorously.
“Good old Alice—sucking up to everyone as usual,” Janey remarked, in some neutral area between audible and not audible.
Mr. Laskey’s expression wavered, then settled down. “And what’s your pleasure, Kyla?” he said. “Decided yet?”
This was always a terrible moment, and it was one that occurred about three times every day. Her mother had told her to be especially careful not to order the most expensive thing on the menu, but it didn’t seem that the price of something was what Mr. Laskey was particularly thinking about.
She shook her head, watching him.
“Well, I’m having a hot fudge sundae,” he said. “Why not join me?”
She felt herself beginning to blush. “Okay,” she said.
“Good girl,” he said, and Kyla tossed her hair back.
“Alice…Alice…” Alice began.
“Chill out, Alice,” Janey said.
“You want cinnamon toast, sweetheart,” Mr. Laskey said.
“Oh,” Alice agreed cheerfully.
“Janey?” Mr. Laskey said.
Janey turned to him with the look she could make that was as if she were gazing at something on the other side of a person.
“A promise is a promise,” Mr. Laskey said. “Would you like a hot fudge sundae, too?”
Janey continued to stare at him as red waves came up into her face. “Fruit salad,” she said.
Mr. Laskey looked down at the table as if it were an old, old enemy. “I’d like the fruit salad, please,” he said.
A promise is a promise. And what it was that had been promised—Kyla had been there; she had heard it—was anything we like.
It was a night she’d had to sleep over at the Laskeys’.
“I hate going to the Laskeys’,” she’d said.
“Well, where will we put you, sweetie?” her mother said. “Because you’ve had too many sleepovers at Ellen’s lately.”
Kyla hesitated. “Could we call Courtney?” she said.
“Oh, no, sweetie,” her mother said. “I don’t think so, do you?”
“Why not?” Kyla said.
“Well, we don’t really know the Colliers very well, do we? We can’t ask them for favors.”
Favors, Kyla thought; was she a “favor”?
“Besides, we don’t really know what kind of people they are.”
Kyla looked at her mother. “They’re nice,” she said.
“I’m sure they are, sweetie,” her mother said. “But, no.”
“Why do I have to sleep over at anyone’s?” Kyla said.
“Oh, because,” her mother said. “I’m going out to dinner with a friend.”
“But—” Kyla said. “So why can’t I just stay home by myself? Until you’ve eaten dinner?”
“And what would you do for dinner?” her mother said.
“I could have something,” Kyla said. “From the microwave. Just like I do when you work late.”
Her mother stroked her hair. “Just as I do.”
“Why not?” Kyla said.
“Well, darling—” Her mother smiled gently. “Because I need time to see my friends just as you need time to see your friends.”
But the point was, Kyla thought, she didn’t need time to see her friends. All she and her friends had was time—time and time and time. Waiting through the long, dull afternoons, the whole funnel of Kyla’s memory, playing upstairs with the dolls or games or trading cards they’d been given to play with, doing each other’s hair, pretending Brides or Baby or Shopping just like Alice did now, pretending—there was nothing else to do—that they were pretending, until it was time to come back down for milk and cookies or for one of them to be taken home. Waiting to understand the point of the dolls or games they’d been presented with, waiting for the afternoon to turn into night or for Sunday to turn into Monday, or for August to turn into September, or for nine years old to turn into ten and ten to turn, heavily, into eleven. Waiting alone in front of the television for the long evenings to fall away. Staring at the screen as if they were staring through periscopes for land, and in the dim evening rooms, the world, the distant world—which was what they must be waiting for—approached, welled into the screens, and the evening fell away in half-hour pieces. And then, finally, there was bed, and another long day had been completed. “What friend do you need time to see?” Kyla said.
“Stand up straight, darling,” her mother said. “You don’t want to look like Margie Strayhorn, do you? Doctor Loeffler.”
Dr. Loeffler—Kyla stared. Dr. Loeffler had come over the week before and filled up their pretty living room, which he was much too big for, and her mother had made Kyla sit there for no reason at all. And the whole time—while Kyla looked at the shiny black hairs on the backs of his hands—this Dr. Loeffler had had a little smile, as if something were funny, or ridiculous. “You were planning this!” Kyla said. “Why didn’t you tell me before? You knew you were going to do th
is!”
“Darling,” her mother said with a breathless little laugh. “What do you mean?”
A tear had squirted into each eye, and yet the thing that Kyla meant, which had been so clear the instant before, was gone—simply gone—as if a hand had materialized and closed around it. “I don’t like Dr. Loeffler,” she said.
“Sweetie,” her mother said, and no trace of the laugh was left, “you mustn’t be so severe—you only met him once. Dr. Loeffler’s a very fine man—He’s only forty-two years old, and he’s the head of the entire division of internal medicine at Hillsdale.”
“Only forty-two years old,” Kyla said.
“Don’t be such a cross old thing,” her mother said happily. “Besides, maybe the Laskeys will give you spaghetti again.”
The Laskeys had not, however. Instead, there had been some sort of meat with a strange dark sauce and a fancy name.
“How was everyone’s day?” Mr. Laskey said—which was what he said first thing every time Kyla had ever had dinner at the Laskeys’. He looked around the table. “Richard?”
Richie raised his serious dark eyes and then lowered them again. “Fine,” he said.
“Yes?” Mr. Laskey said. He waited, his fork in his hand.
Dinner had only begun. Soon Mrs. Laskey and Janey and Alice would be crying and shouting, and then there would be after dinner, when Kyla would have to play with Janey, and then there would be morning, when she’d have to play with Janey yet again, before her mother came for her.
“Biology was interesting,” Richie said. “We’re studying the wheat rust cycle.”
“Very good,” Mr. Laskey said. “And what about calculus? Didn’t you have a test the other day? I never heard how that went.”
The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg Page 62
