The April Tree

by Judith Arnold

  When Elyse finally decided it was time to fall in love, she would not love anyone in a letter jacket.

  As she crossed the driveway to the baseball fields, she noticed the baseball players streaming out of one of the locker room doors beyond the gym. Maybe they would have looked more regimented if they’d been in their uniforms, but this was a practice, and most of them had on dirt-gray baseball pants, baggy T-shirts, and sun-faded caps. A couple of the boys wore those odd baseball shirts that were white across the torso, with vividly colored sleeves that ended midway between their wrists and elbows.

  Squinting, she made out Tommy. He had on a white T-shirt with something written on the chest. She couldn’t read it from across the field, but she was relieved it wasn’t one of those two-tone baseball shirts.

  He peeled off from the group and jogged across the sunburned grass toward the Snack Shack. He carried a bulky gear bag, its strap slung over his shoulder, and it made clanking noises as it bounced against his back. Last year she’d attended a couple of Little League games with April, whose brothers both played. They used to carry all kinds of stuff in their gear bags—bats, gloves, balls, water bottles, crumbling granola bars, and assorted toys to show off to their teammates while they were in the dugout, waiting their turns at bat. Elyse wondered idly whether Tommy had any toys in his bag.

  The top half of his face was lost in the shadow cast by the visor of his cap. As he drew near, she saw that what she’d thought was writing on his shirt was actually smears of rust-colored dirt and grass stains. That was all right. He didn’t have to be properly groomed for baseball practice.

  “Hey,” he greeted her. “’Sup?”

  They had reached the Snack Shack, and she continued around to the far side of the building, not bothering to glance over her shoulder to see if Tommy would follow her. She could hear the rattling of his gear bag and the heavy tread of his cleated shoes against the packed dirt. The Snack Shack was a squat hut constructed of splintering gray wood, but its roof extended into a canopy above the counter where snacks were sold during games. The counter was shuttered right now; no one was selling chips and soda and greasy hot dogs. Only Elyse and Tommy and the slanting shadows existed on this side of the shack.

  She halted and turned to face him. He was watching her, looking mildly curious. “I really have to be at practice,” he said.

  “I know.” She felt obligated to speak quickly, which was probably a good thing. Just spit it out, rush it through, get this thing going. “Will you have sex with me?”

  “What?” He started to laugh. His voice lived in a deep male register, but his laughter rose in pitch, verging on childish.

  Maybe this was a mistake. The guy, the idea, the whole thing. “All right, look—”

  “No.” A final laugh escaped him, a wheeze of sound. He wasn’t smiling, though. “You want to have sex with me?”

  “Only on certain terms,” she said, the words spilling out staccato, like bullets from a machine gun. “You don’t tell anyone. We don’t date or anything. We use a condom. We do it once.”

  “Why me?”

  “If you don’t want to, just say so.”

  “No, I mean . . . ” Another laugh slipped out, this one low and almost gentle. “I mean, why?”

  “I can’t tell you why. Just say yes or no.”

  “Well, yeah.” He shook his head. “Shit, yes.”

  “Good. We’ll work out the details. And remember, you can’t tell anyone.”

  “I—I wouldn’t,” he said.

  Elyse didn’t know how to take that. Was he embarrassed that anyone would think he’d had sex with her? Or just sex in general? Was he devoutly religious, born again? Or was he a player with dozens of notches on his belt?

  It didn’t matter. He’d said yes. She’d figure out the rest later.

  Chapter Twenty

  APRIL, APRIL died in May.

  April, April. Hey.

  The June night hugged Wheatley like a cloak of black velvet. Becky sat at the base of the tree, the sky so dark she couldn’t make out the dome of leaves sheltering her. She’d brought the shiva candle with her, rather than the citronella, because the biting insects seemed happy to swarm regardless of which candle she was burning, and the shiva candle was specifically for mourning.

  She was mourning.

  Alone.

  Her parents were at an event at the home of one of their faculty colleagues—raising money for a candidate or a cause or some such thing. Elyse was—Becky shuddered—with a guy tonight, being deflowered. Having intercourse. Fucking. Honestly, there was no nice way to say it, no pleasant phrasing for the act. And Elyse, who had always shared everything with Becky, wouldn’t tell her who the guy was. “I just can’t,” she’d insisted. “We’ve sworn each other to secrecy.” As if Becky couldn’t be trusted.

  She’d considered calling Florie, then considered again.

  Florie could barely comprehend the theoretical idea of sex, let alone the reality that Elyse was engaging in it. If Florie were here with Becky now, she’d spend the entire time talking about Elyse, fretting, letting the situation boggle her mind.

  Alone was fine, Becky assured herself. Being alone was good. It allowed her to feel closer to April. No babbling voices to chase away her spirit. No questions, no plans, no promises, nothing but early summer heat, a moonless sky, and a wisp of flame rising from the blue glass.

  Being alone was what Becky would be from here on in. She loved Elyse, she could probably grow to love Florie, she loved her parents. She had other friends. She had aunts and uncles and cousins.

  But April was gone. The space in Becky’s soul that April used to occupy was now a vacuum, a black hole, sucking in everything that surrounded it. That space was where Becky existed, alone.

  I miss you, April, she thought. I miss you so much. Where are you? Why did you leave? Why can’t I know?

  How do I keep going?

  She didn’t expect answers. None existed. Only the flame, the unyielding surface of the tree trunk at her back, the night’s shifting shadows, the shrieks of crickets calling to each other, high and bright.

  School was almost over for the year. Becky’s parents had enrolled her in a summer class on robotics at the Harvard Extension School, and she had a few babysitting clients. Other than that, she would fill the long, hot days with Elyse and Florie, playing tennis, riding her bike to Gunderson Pond to swim. Next year she could get a job and earn some serious money, but this year she would be hard pressed to fill the days. And she had to fill them to keep them from filling themselves with thoughts of April, all the summers they’d spent together, the secret societies they’d formed, the make-believe games they’d spun, the movies and TV shows they’d viewed together, the whispers and giggles shared in April’s abundantly pink bedroom.

  April, April died in May.

  April, you’re too far away.

  I wish I knew how to pray

  Or how to cry. Help me, okay?

  I love you, April.

  The candle flickered. The crickets chirped. The night pressed down on Becky. Was this what death was like, this dark, heavy solitude? Was this shantih, shantih, shantih, the peace that passeth understanding?

  Peace should not hurt this much, Becky thought.

  PART TWO

  Five Years Later

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “YOU’LL NEVER guess who I spent last night with,” Elyse said.

  Becky sighed. Elyse spent her nights with lots of men, more than Becky cared to keep track of. More, probably, than Elyse cared to keep track of. Men were like collectibles to her, obtained, appraised, possibly enjoyed, but ultimately stashed on a shelf where they sat, decorative and dusty, something you might glance at as you were passing through the room.

  Becky didn’t judge. In fact, she envied Elyse, who a
pparently enjoyed sex a lot more than Becky did. Beyond the sex, Becky envied the way Elyse was willing to take risks. She envied the way Elyse could plunge into a relationship and then extricate herself, usually with minimal wear and tear. Maybe a scuff or a dent, but no lasting damage.

  Becky cast a furtive glance over her shoulder at Emerson, who was still asleep, his knees and elbows bent in such a way that his lanky limbs looked broken, as if he’d fallen from a great height. He lay belly down on the bed, his head nestled deep into the pillows, his hair black and straight and short enough to stick out from his skull like a porcupine’s quills.

  He was a good man. Pleasant looking, funny, smart. Saddled with the unfortunate name Emerson Fong, because his immigrant parents had wanted to give him a quintessentially American first name, and Emerson had seemed profoundly American to them. “Could’ve been worse,” he often joked. “They could’ve named me Ralph. Or Waldo.”

  She didn’t mind that he spent so many nights in her room. She’d scored a coveted single in McGregor House, with a view of the Charles River that compensated for the cell-block decor, whereas Emerson shared a bedroom in a seedy frat house with three other students who tended to drink excessively and act rowdy when he wanted to study, or sleep, or have sex with Becky. He was thin enough that they could both fit snugly in her narrow bed. He had a quirky sense of humor, and he’d introduced her to some interesting cuisine across the river in Chinatown, dishes made of sea cucumber and squid and salty, slippery beans. He was majoring in chemistry, and he understood her research about as well as she understood his, which was not much. They had no classes together; they rarely crossed paths during the day. Becky saw this as a positive thing. She didn’t want him meddling in her work or hanging out with her all day long. Having him in her bed at night was enough.

  She wished she could love him.

  She swiveled her chair so her back was to him. Should she gaze at her monitor or the Charles River? The monitor displayed a screen full of code—she was currently designing a stupid computer game because Professor Cashin thought his students would consider such an assignment cool. The river was a mirror of silver water with sailboats gliding across it, tiny white triangles of wind-filled canvas, and beyond them, the trees and brick buildings of the Boston shoreline. Boston University occupied the far side of the river. Sometimes Becky liked to imagine she could actually see Elyse’s window from her own.

  “I give up,” she said into the phone. “Who did you sleep with last night?”

  “I didn’t sleep with him,” Elyse corrected her. “We talked. Or tried to. He was really fucked up.”

  “Just your type.”

  “Don’t be bitchy. Do you want to know or don’t you?”

  Becky peered over her shoulder at the guy she’d slept with last night. One thing Emerson wasn’t was fucked up. “I apologize. Tell me who you spent the night trying to talk to.”

  “Mark Gottlieb.”

  The name sounded familiar. Becky had probably had half a dozen Mark Gottliebs in her classes over the past couple of years. Emerson’s parents might have wanted their son to have an American name, but he’d wound up at a university that didn’t much resemble American demographics. Asians and Jews were disproportionately represented. Lots of Levines, Schwartzes, and Gottliebs, along with all the Tanakas, Banerjees, and Fongs.

  How would Elyse have spent the night with one of Becky’s classmates, though? Becky crossed the river to Elyse’s side a lot more often than Elyse crossed the river to Becky’s.

  “You don’t remember Mark Gottlieb?” Elyse sounded a little miffed.

  “I might. Where do I know him from?”

  “Wheatley.” Elyse paused, considerately giving Becky a chance to run through her memory bank. When she failed to come up with the right answer, Elyse said, “The driver.”

  A tiny gasp escaped Becky. If she hadn’t already been sitting, her legs would have buckled. As it was, her chair swiveled slightly, making her dizzy.

  “Damn,” she said in a near whisper. She’d had no qualms about waking Emerson up earlier—although a brass band could have paraded through her room performing a Sousa march and not roused him from his deep sleep. But she didn’t want him waking up when she thought about Mark Gottlieb. Or April. Or the car, the tree, the accident, the death. Her head filled with a strange noise, like the sound of glass shattering.

  “Are you okay?” Elyse asked.

  “Sure.” Becky hated allowing anyone to think she was rattled. She determinedly unrattled herself. “How did you find him?”

  “It was a very weird night. Trust me.”

  “Damn,” she murmured again. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Really, Beck. It was tres bizarre, but I’m fine.”

  “Have you eaten yet?” Becky glanced at the lower right corner of her monitor, where the time was displayed. Nine thirteen. She’d been up since eight and downed a cup of green tea at her desk. She’d figured on having breakfast with Emerson when he woke up.

  “I tried to eat a stale biscotti,” Elyse told her. “I almost broke my tooth on it.”

  “I’ll come over,” Becky said. “We’ll get breakfast and talk.”

  “Yeah. We need some coffee to get through this.”

  “I’ll be there in twenty.” Becky didn’t have to specify where they’d meet; they had their favorite coffee shop on Commonwealth Avenue where the atmosphere was grungy, the omelets were cheap, and Becky had never seen the bottom of a coffee mug.

  She clicked a clean Word screen onto her computer and typed, in a huge font that Emerson would see as soon as he sat up in bed, “I’m meeting Elyse for breakfast. I’ll be back later.” Then she stuffed her wallet and room key into one of the deep pockets of her cargo pants, grabbed a hoodie, and departed from the room, closing the door with a quiet click so as not to awaken him. The later he slept, the less he’d miss her, and the less guilty she’d feel about abandoning him to forage for breakfast on his own.

  The morning was brisk but sunny. Trees along Memorial Drive were gaudy with color, yellow and rust-hued foliage fluttering in the breeze that lifted off the river. Becky wished the colors soothed her. She wished she could view the beautiful urban scenery like a tourist and experience the vibrancy of autumn in New England as if it were a wonder of the world, which it truly was.

  But her mind was not on the leaves, the trees, the sailboats skimming lazily along the water. It wasn’t on the diamond-bright sun or the relentless blue of the sky, or even the project she’d risen early to work on, a computer game in which warrior women had to rescue handsome but feckless men who were trapped inside black holes. Creating the black holes had been easy enough, but she didn’t know how to make the male characters interesting, since they didn’t do much but wait passively to be saved by the Amazonian avatars she had created. At least she’d come up with a name for them: bimbums. The male version of bimbos.

  Thinking about bimbums didn’t make her smile. Thinking about Emerson slumbering so peacefully in her bed didn’t, either. She had never even told him about April. Maybe she would, someday, if they stayed together. They’d been a couple since last spring. She didn’t know how long it would take for her to trust him enough to tell him.

  April, April died in May, she mouthed as she neared the Boston University Bridge. It was one of the uglier bridges spanning the Charles, a roadway with a couple of curved trestles arching alongside it and a railroad bridge crossing beneath it. The Harvard Bridge was a masterpiece of red brick, echoing the architecture of Harvard itself; the Longfellow Bridge was constructed of chiseled blocks of stone. The BU Bridge looked as if it had been built with an Erector Set.

  She murmured the April chant beneath her breath as she crossed the river. She recited it often enough that the words blurred together: Apra apra dida may. I still miss her every day.

  Why couldn’t she te
ll Emerson about April? She could confide in him about her parents, about their ability to be so brilliant and simultaneously so clueless, about their earnestness and their failure to make her feel as if she was as important to them as they were to each other. She could confide in him about her honors project on the properties of zero, about her graduate school applications, about her uncertainty over what kind of career she wanted to pursue. She could confide in him about her professors, about the interpersonal dynamics of the second sopranos in the university’s concert choir, about the dykey barista at the coffee house near Kendall Square who always added a few extra shakes of unsweetened cocoa to the steamed milk topping Becky’s cappuccino.

  But she couldn’t confide in him about April. April was private. April was a place she could travel with only a few select friends.

  Not a few—two. Elyse and Florie.

  Even though Elyse lived just a couple of blocks from their breakfast place, Becky arrived first. The cafe was crowded, groups of six crammed into booths designed for four, but a table for two stood open near the door to the kitchen, and Becky grabbed it. She even had time to stuff a folded paper napkin under a wobbly leg to stabilize the table before Elyse arrived.

  Elyse looked beautiful, as usual. Even tumbling out of bed, before she’d splashed water in her face or untangled the snarls in her long, dark hair, she looked beautiful. Becky had shared plenty of sleepovers with her, even in college, so she knew this for a fact. Elyse was beautiful from the moment she blinked her eyes open at the start of her day until she was in the throes of REM sleep at one a.m. Give her an extra ten minutes for grooming, and she could cause people to walk into walls. Without that extra ten minutes, she still looked ravishing.