You might think I do this a lot, but I don’t, he said. She felt his breathing, deep and slow. From somebody’s house she could hear Christmas music. Nat King Cole.
His fingers had reached the front of her bra, the one she and her mother bought that day they went shopping together, though when she’d first gotten it, she still had to stuff Kleenex in the one side.
Oh, he said, as if he was discovering something he never would have known was there. Very slowly, he moved his fingers over the lace edge and under the fabric.
She hadn’t realized it, but he must have been holding his breath, because now he let out a long, slow sigh. Oh, he said again. She must have been holding her breath, too, because now she could feel the air leaving her lungs.
They stood that way a long time. He only touched the one breast. Part of the time while he was touching her, he was kissing her, but most of the time he just looked at her.
Some time passed. The Nat King Cole record was over. The people in the house with the blinking reindeer had turned off their lights.
I guess it’s late, he said. I wouldn’t want to go too far. I wouldn’t want you to do anything that made you feel bad after.
She didn’t say anything.
All through dinner, I was thinking how much I wanted to kiss you, but I didn’t know if we would, he said. I was just hoping.
She had not been thinking about it during dinner. For her, the kissing had come as a surprise, like the cameo pin and the special cactus.
They started walking back to her father’s house. That was probably the first nice Christmas I ever had, he said when they got to the door.
She thought about all the things her mother wouldn’t know about her now, all the things that had happened already, and her life was only starting.
After, she stood alone in her room and looked in the mirror. She thought she’d look a little different, but she didn’t.
She hadn’t realized, until it happened, how much she’d wanted someone to put his arms around her the way Todd did.
Wendy set the cameo pin in her jewelry box and folded up the note from Josh and put it in her drawer. She opened the clarinet case, and took out the pieces of the red clarinet, put them together. She wet her reed and slid it in the mouthpiece. Soft as she could, she blew one long low note, just to hear what it sounded like.
She had forgotten to call Josh and Louie back. The whole of Christmas had passed without talking to them.
They were all getting on with their lives, she figured. The best they knew how.
Her brother called in the morning. We had a sleepover at Kate’s, he told her. Poppy said it would be better than driving home in the dark with all our dishes and presents.
He had probably seen them in their bathrobes together then. But it didn’t sound as if he was upset about it.
I got the Tonka crane, Sissy, he said. Also a game called Operation where you have to take the parts out of the man and not make the buzzer go. Also Pokemon cards, and the Lego fishing trawler, and a book about whales, and smell markers, and a CD of music from Africa and a stuffed hedgehog. Kate gave me a tape of Thomas the Tank Engine and a kit for building pulleys.
Wow, Louie, she said. You made out like a bandit. After she said that she remembered where she learned the expression. Christmas night when she was tucking them in, that’s what their mother always said.
Who else was at Kate’s house? she asked him.
Just us guys, he said. Me and Poppy and Kate. Poppy made the turkey. He says Kate isn’t that great of a cook, but not to tell her because we don’t want to hurt her feelings.
Good idea, Louie, she said. Did he make that special dessert? The one in the shape of a log?
Louie must not have remembered the other years. We didn’t eat any logs, silly, he said. We had pumpkin pie.
Josh got on. I meant to call you back, but there was a lot going on here, Wendy told him.
That’s the way it should be on Christmas, Josh said. Hey, that’s a great shirt you got me. I never would have thought to get myself something like that.
But you’ll wear it?
Absolutely. The book looks good, too.
I love the clarinet, she told him. All the stuff. The sneakers and the CD’s. But especially the clarinet. It’s got a great sound.
How about that color? Kate was a little worried you might think it was too flashy.
I’ll definitely have the only red clarinet in Davis. Send me some sheet music, would you? she said. I’m in the mood to start playing again.
So you’re doing all right? I figured it was going to be a tough day for you.
I was thinking the same about you, she told him.
Mostly I’m just so glad to have it over. I was dreading Christmas.
Well, we did it, huh? she said.
I’m not sure which is harder, he told her. When you feel like you can’t go on any more, or when you start to realize you will.
Louie mentioned you stayed over at Kate’s after the meal, Wendy said.
It seemed like a good idea. I had a couple glasses of wine. Not that I was drunk, but I didn’t think I should drive.
There was the faintest sound in his voice, like how a kid gets when he’s talking to his parents, and a subject comes up he doesn’t want to discuss.
It’s good you slept over, she told him. And Louie’s sounding more like his old self.
I’m not even sure what changed, Josh said. I know he’s still dealing with plenty, but he’s got this kind of peaceful attitude like things are going to be okay eventually.
I’m doing okay, too, she said. Except for missing you two.
We’re right here, he told her. Anytime.
Garrett told Todd he was welcome to stay on with them as long as he wanted, but Todd said he figured he should get going to Colorado. He didn’t want to risk missing his brother. He was catching a train from Sacramento to Denver. Garrett said he’d drive Todd to the station.
Wendy and Todd stood outside the house. He had his backpack and skateboard, and an old army jacket rolled up under his arm for when it got colder in the mountains. She stood there with her arms at her sides. Now that they had kissed each other, it felt strange not touching him.
I hope I get to see you again sometime, he said.
Me, too.
You think you’ll stay out here?
I don’t know, she said. I hardly know anything anymore.
It looks like your dad’s really happy you’re here.
I hope you get back with your brother, she said.
You, too, he told her.
She heard the screen door slam. Garrett, with Shiva following behind.
What do you say we quit this stinking burg, you and me, Todd? he said in a cowboy kind of voice.
Carolyn had come out with him to say good-bye.
I made you a little packet of turkey for the train, she said to Todd. You know what they say. The leftovers are better than the actual meal.
That’s hard to imagine, he told her.
Thirty
The days passed. Carolyn kept sleeping over at Garrett’s house. Nobody said anything, it just seemed to happen. Then she started bringing plants over. Not all, just certain of her favorites.
Wendy was spending her days around the house more often now, drawing and playing her clarinet mostly. It was school vacation, so Wendy didn’t have to go through her usual routine of heading out every morning in the truck with her father or taking off on his bike. She had liked her adventuring days, but she liked staying home, too. She’d lie out in the yard with her colored pencils and her sketch pad, or her book, or fool around on her clarinet.
She finished The Butcher Boy, and, as she had expected, things didn’t go well for the boy. First his mother died. Then his best friend got sent away, and everyone started treating him like a crazy person, which he wasn’t. But finally he snapped. He went to the house of a terrible woman, Mrs. Nugent, who had been tormenting him through the whole book. He murdered her, and the
amazing thing was, by the time he did it, you could sympathize. You could actually understand how he’d got to that point. You were hoping he’d get away with it and knowing he never would. The next thing you knew, it was forty years later and the butcher boy had been locked up in a mental institution all this time. Now, instead of everyone just treating him as if he was crazy, he actually was.
How can it be, Wendy asked Alan, that you’ll be reading this story that’s so sad, it almost hurts to look at the words on the page? What happens to the characters practically tears your stomach out—and then the book is over. And the first thing you want to do is find another book like that.
Sometimes it’s almost a good feeling, hurting that way, he said. That’s what the blues is all about.
But maybe you should take a break from all this tragedy, he told her. He handed her a hardback copy of a book called A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. This girl, now, he said, she’s a survivor, like you.
Alan had asked her when she was going to tell her father and Carolyn the truth about school. She’d been thinking about that. When she started not showing up at school, she hadn’t really known them that well that it hadn’t felt bad lying to them, but now it did.
They had finished dinner. It was the day before New Year’s. Garrett was working on a drawing—something he’d started doing again since Carolyn had been around. Carolyn was sitting at the table drinking tea and reading her book about the woman going down the Amazon.
So, her father said. You looking forward to getting back to school?
She looked around the room, at his fishing poles and toolbox, Carolyn’s half-finished macrame plant hanger, Shiva on her towel, the dishes on the counter, the painting he’d made from years ago. Things that had seemed strange when she got here and seemed familiar now. Comfortable, even.
Actually, I don’t go to school, she said. I’ve been meaning to tell you.
Neither one of them said anything.
After that first day, I just stopped going, she said. I didn’t have a plan or anything. I just walked away.
I see, Garrett said. He had been working at a table over by the window, but now he pulled out a chair beside her and sat down.
At first I probably thought someone would do something about it, she said. Way back when it started, I sent them a letter, pretending I was you. I didn’t think it would work, but it did. Nobody ever noticed. I found other things to do instead.
Like what? he asked her.
I walked around. I rode your bike. I drew. I rode the bus into Sacramento sometimes and helped Violet with her baby. A lot of the time, I went to Alan’s bookstore and just read.
He knew about this?
Not at first, but later. I made him promise not to do anything about it. But he wanted me to tell you.
It’s not like I pictured myself being a dropout forever, she said. I know I need to learn things like geometry and U.S. history. I just wasn’t in the mood at the time.
Carolyn had gotten up. She reached for another mug and poured tea for Wendy. She looked over at Garrett.
Fact is, we knew this, he said. Not right off the bat, but for a while. It was Carolyn who figured it out, he said. I wish I could say I knew enough to see what was going on, but I didn’t. She kept saying it seemed like you had other things on your mind besides school. Which was understandable, of course.
From what I could see, you’re the type of person that if they were going to school they’d be doing it up right, she said. Writing reports and going to the library and so on. Also, you’d be the type that would be making friends. Which you did, of course, just a different type.
But you let me keep skipping school? Wendy asked.
Hey, he told her. I trust you. I figured you’d talk to me about it when you were ready, and look. You did.
I called the school, though, Carolyn said. I told them there’d been a change of plans and your father had made other arrangements. That was evidently enough for them. By the time they got that letter you sent, they’d probably already heard from us.
So what do you want to do now? Garrett asked her.
I guess maybe I should start going to eighth grade, Wendy said. I’ll be really behind.
Nobody said you had to turn up on the honor roll.
He drove her again. She told him he didn’t need to come inside with her, but he wanted to.
It’s not that I don’t trust you to stay. There’s just certain times a girl should have a parent around.
At the office, he explained that his daughter had been doing a home-schooling program. The guidance counselor said they’d understand if it took her a while to get caught up.
They gave her the same schedule she’d had in the fall. I guess this is where I’m supposed to take off, Garrett told her.
I’ll be fine this time, she said. The bell had rung for first period.
Hey, a girl said to her—the same one who’d told Wendy back in the fall that she’d tell Wendy which were the cute boys.
You look different, she said.
It’s probably my hair, Wendy told her.
They were reading Lord of the Flies in English. In history, they were studying the Spanish-American War. In gym it was basketball now.
Then came band. She’d brought her clarinet, figuring it might be a band day. Opening the case at the start of the period, as she took her seat in the woodwinds, she felt a little embarrassed at what the other kids would think when they saw her instrument.
The thing about a clarinet player, Josh had said. A clarinet player is low and thoughtful and crucially important to the sound of the band without making a big show about it. Very subtle and deep.
Nothing subtle about a red clarinet. Then again, there was that other part about the clarinet. Playful at times, Josh had said.
She took out the clarinet and started putting the pieces together. Assembled, it looked redder than in the box, and more so in a band full of wood-colored woodwinds.
That’s the bomb, a boy said sitting next to her, also a clarinet player. I never saw one like that.
My dad gave it to me for Christmas, she told him. He’s that type of person.
My dad’s more the black clarinet type, the boy said.
You want to give me an E flat? she asked.
She put her instrument to her lips.
School was fine, she told them when she got home. I don’t have a clue what’s going on in geometry, but history’s interesting, and I kind of like basketball.
Who did you sit with at lunch? asked Carolyn.
A boy from band. Henry. We might go bike riding together tomorrow if I can borrow your bike, she said, looking at her father.
Would this be during school hours or after? asked Garrett. Not that I want to cramp your style.
After.
When she heard about Wendy going back to school, Violet sounded sad.
I’ll still see you and Walter Charles, Wendy told her over the phone. Just not on school days.
Now I’ll probably turn into one of those people that sits around their apartment all day watching soap operas and Maury, she said.
You should call that number I gave you, Wendy told her.
Maybe next week, Violet said.
Listen, said Wendy. Why don’t you and Walter Charles come over for dinner Friday? If you took the bus over, my dad or Carolyn would drive you home.
So they did. Garrett barbecued chicken and Carolyn made a salad. She held Walter Charles during dinner to give Violet a chance to eat without having to worry about him for once. He seemed to remember her from before.
I really like this baby, Carolyn said. You get the impression he’s going to be one of those people who takes things slow but does them right. He’ll be the type that doesn’t have a million friends, but with the ones he has he’s true blue. He doesn’t need to be off at some bar all the time partying. He’s happy to just sit there looking at the stars.
You can tell all this from a baby? Garrett asked. To me they’re all pretty much the
same.
I suppose now you’re going to tell me all cactuses look alike, too? she said. Then, to Violet: But try telling him it doesn’t matter which lure he uses for trout fishing.
Carolyn told them about the cactus garden she was working on, in the atrium of the office building outside Sacramento.
I’m thinking about getting a job, too, Violet said. My mom’s old boyfriend offered me work hostessing at his bar. You’re supposed to be twenty-one, but they hardly ever check.
I was just thinking, Carolyn said. I could use some help with the planting, if you wanted to come over someday.
I don’t know how much help I’d be, with the baby, Violet told her. I’d probably have to stop a lot to pick him up or change him.
Or I could do that sometimes, said Carolyn. We could take turns.
After dinner they played poker. They had pulled a drawer out of Wendy’s bureau and laid some blankets in it for Walter Charles. All through the game, even when someone forgot he was there and got a little loud with a bid, he slept quietly. Now and then they’d hear a soft murmur from the drawer beside them, as if he was having a nice dream.
You know, it doesn’t really make sense driving all the way to Sacramento tonight, unless you’re bound and determined to get back to that apartment of yours, Garrett said. Otherwise we could put you two up here.
That sounded good, Violet told him.
In the morning, it was Carolyn who dropped her off. I could get attached to those two, but I’d better not, she said.
What do you mean? Wendy asked.
You can do your best, Carolyn said. But a person can’t always fix everything.
I was thinking you were going to read her palm, Wendy said.
Sometimes I’d rather not know what the future has in store, Carolyn told her.
Wendy had planned on going up to Homewood again Tuesday with Alan to see Tim but now she told him she couldn’t because of school.
The Usual Rules Page 32
