by Nina LaCour
“Marin. Mabel. You’re in luck, because there’s a fireplace in my living room and also a fold-out couch.”
Even though I’m glad to hear this, it doesn’t hit me until after we step inside his little cottage on the edge of the grounds that this is what we needed. I’d gotten so cold I almost forgot what it felt like to be warm enough. His fireplace is crackling and bright, casting light across the ceiling and the walls.
“I’ve got the oven on, too. This old thing could heat the house on its own—just be careful not to touch it.”
All the walls are wood paneled, and everything is worn in and soft. Rugs upon rugs, sofas and overstuffed chairs, all of them strewn with blankets. He doesn’t offer to show us around, but it’s a small space and we can see most of it from where we stand, waiting for him to show us whether we’ll spend the evening making small talk or if he’ll say good night and retreat to the door at the end of the short hallway.
“It’s just six thirty,” Tommy says. “I assume you didn’t eat.”
“We had some food a couple hours ago,” I say. “But no dinner yet.”
“I’m not big on dinner myself, but I have some pasta and a jar of sauce. . . .”
He shows us how to light the burner with a match on his old-fashioned stove and fills a heavy silver pot with water. He keeps his spaghetti in a canister; there isn’t much inside.
“As I said, I’m not too big on dinner. Hopefully this’ll be enough for the two of you.”
I can’t tell if he’s lying. I should have thought about all the food in the dorm refrigerator before we left, but I can’t fathom going back out into the snow and the dark, walking all that way.
“Are you sure?” Mabel asks. “We could make it work for all of us. We don’t need that much.”
“No, no, I’m sure.” He takes a look in the canister again and frowns. Then he opens his freezer. “Jackpot!” He pulls out a bag of frozen dinner rolls.
“And the oven’s already preheated,” I say.
“Meant to be. I’m going to have a couple rolls and some slices of cheese. You’ll have pasta and the rest of the rolls and whatever else you see that pleases you.”
He opens the refrigerator so we can take a look. There isn’t much inside of it, but it’s clean and neatly arranged.
“Sounds great,” Mabel says, but I just nod.
This is the first time I’ve been in a home since leaving mine, and my eyes are adjusting to the dark, and every new thing I make out fills me with wonder.
A few dishes are in his sink; a pair of slippers rest by the doorway. The freezer has three photographs on it—a little boy, Tommy with some friends, a man in a military uniform. Books are strewn across the coffee table along with two video-game controllers.
Nothing in his refrigerator is labeled. Everything here is his own.
There was a blue-and-gold blanket that lived on Gramps’s recliner in the living room for my entire life. I spent so many winter hours nestled under it, reading my books, drifting to sleep. It was almost threadbare in some places, but it still brought me warmth.
I don’t know where it is now.
I want it.
“Marin,” Tommy says. “I needed to get ahold of you anyway. I’m heading off campus for Christmas and will likely be spending the night away. I’ll be with some friends in Beacon. Call me if anything goes wrong, and here are the numbers for the police and the fire station. Call these direct lines, not nine-one-one.”
“Okay. Thank you,” I say, careful not to look at Mabel. I wish I could ask if she knows what happened to all of our things. Did anyone save anything? Did they wonder where I was?
Ana and Javier. They waited in the police station for me. Where did they go next, once they discovered I was gone? The looks that must have been on their faces—I don’t even want to imagine it.
Why won’t I just say yes? Why won’t I fly home to them and apologize for my disappearing act and accept their forgiveness when they offer it and sleep in the bed they made for me in the room with my name on the door?
If I could undo that decision in the police station, I wouldn’t have left through the back. The two weeks in the motel would never have happened and the thought of diner coffee wouldn’t make me choke.
Tommy’s putting the frozen rolls in the oven. He’s sparking the flame of a burner using a match, saying, “Good thing it’s gas,” and Mabel is nodding yes and I am, too.
But I’m not hungry.
“I’m still feeling really cold for some reason,” I say. “I’m just going to sit by the fire if that’s okay.”
“Be my guest. As soon as these rolls are done I’m going to head to the back and you guys can make yourselves comfortable. I’ve got some presents to wrap and I was just waiting for an excuse to go to bed early. Power outage’ll do it.”
So I drift to an armchair and I look at the fire. And I think of all of these things from what used to be my home.
The blanket.
The copper pots, passed down from Gramps’s mother.
The round kitchen table and the rectangular dining table.
The chairs with their threadbare cushions and wicker backs.
My grandmother’s china, covered in tiny red flowers.
The mismatched mugs, the delicate teacups, the tiny spoons.
The wooden clock with its loud tick-tick-tick and the oil painting of the village Gramps was from.
The hand-tinted photographs in the hallway, the needlepoint pillows on the sofa, the ever-changing grocery list stuck to the refrigerator under a magnet in the shape of a Boston terrier.
The blanket, again, blue and gold and soft.
And now Tommy is saying good night and walking down the hallway, and Mabel is in the living room with me, setting small bowls of pasta onto the coffee table and lowering herself to the floor.
I eat without tasting anything. I eat even though I don’t know if I’m hungry.
chapter ten
JUNE
IT WAS A COUPLE WEEKS after the night at Ben’s and the Colombian driver, and Mabel and I decided to sneak out on our own. Ana and Javier always stayed up late, sometimes into the early morning, so I fell asleep a little after ten knowing that my phone would buzz hours later to announce her arrival and I’d slip out then.
Gramps cooked dinner at six o’clock most nights. We usually ate in the kitchen unless he made something fancy, in which case he’d tell me to set the dining room table, and we’d eat with shiny brass candlesticks between us. After dinner he washed and I dried until the kitchen was as clean as it could be given its age and constant use, and then Gramps drifted off to his back rooms to smoke cigarettes and write letters and read.
My phone buzzed and I left quietly, not knowing whether I was breaking a rule. It’s possible that Gramps would have been fine with Mabel and me going to the beach at night to sit and watch the waves and talk. I could have asked him, but we didn’t work that way.
Mabel was on the sidewalk, her dark hair spilling from under a knit cap, her hands in fingerless gloves clasped together. I had a parka zipped over my sweater.
“You look like an Eskimo,” she said. “How am I going to offer to help keep you warm?”
We laughed.
“I can ditch it if you want, baby,” I joked.
“Why don’t you run upstairs, get rid of that jacket, and come back with some of Gramps’s whiskey.”
“Actually, the whiskey’s not a bad idea.”
I let myself back in and crossed the living room, slipped through the open pocket doors to the dining room, and grabbed the bottle of whiskey that lived on the built-in hutch.
Then I was back on the street, stuffing the bottle under my jacket. Two girls walking to the beach at night was one thing. Add an open and visible bottle, and we’d be inviting the cops to stop us.
It was almost
three in the morning and the city was still. Not a single car passed us all four blocks to the beach. We didn’t have to bother with crosswalks. We stepped straight from the street to the sand, scaled a dune, and then found ourselves near the edge of the black water. I was waiting for my eyes to adjust to the dark, but it wasn’t happening, so eventually I had to give in to it.
“Remember how we used to practice kissing?” I asked, pulling the top off the whiskey.
“We were determined to be experts by the time we were sophomores.”
“Experts,” I said, laughing. I took a sip, and the burn of it surprised me. We were used to pilfered beers or vodka mixed with whatever juice was in our friends’ pantries. “Here, drink at your own peril,” I rasped.
Mabel took a sip, coughed.
“We were so giggly and nervous,” I said, remembering us as freshmen. “We had no idea what it meant to be in high school. What we were supposed to act like, what we were supposed to talk about . . .”
“It was so much fun.”
“What was?”
“All of it. Let me have another try with that.” Her hand felt around in the dark for the bottle, and then she found it and I let go. She tipped her face toward the hazy moon. Handed the bottle back. I took a swig.
“Better this time,” she said, and she was right. And with each subsequent sip it got easier to swallow, and soon my body felt heavy and my head swam, and everything Mabel said made me laugh and every memory I had was meaningful.
We were quiet then, for a little while, until she sat up.
“It’s been a long time since we practiced,” she said, crawling toward me until our noses touched. A laugh started in my throat, but then she put her mouth on mine.
Wet lips.
Soft tongue.
Her legs wrapped around my waist and we kissed harder. Soon we were lying in the sand, her salt-thick, tangled hair through my fingers.
She unzipped my parka. Her cold hands found their way under my sweater as she kissed my neck.
“What would Sister Josephine say?” I whispered.
I felt her smile against my collarbone.
It took her a couple tries to get my bra unclasped with one hand, but when she did, the cold air against my skin was nothing compared to the warmth of her breath. I unbuttoned her sweater, pushed her bra over her breasts without unfastening it. I had never felt so ravenous. It’s not like my experience was vast. It’s not like I was used to being touched this way. But even if I had already been kissed by dozens of mouths, I would have known this was different.
I loved her already.
With our jeans unfastened, Mabel’s fingers grazing the elastic of my underwear, she said, “If we regret this tomorrow, we can blame it on the whiskey.”
But the sky was fading from black to gray; it was already tomorrow. And I didn’t regret anything.
We opened our eyes to the morning fog, a flock of sanderlings darting across the sky. Mabel’s hand was in mine and I was looking at her fingers, smaller than mine and a few shades darker, and I wanted them under my clothes again but didn’t dare say it.
Without the darkness we felt exposed, and the early-morning commuters were already heading to work. The overnight shifters were finally off. We had to wait at every crosswalk.
“What are they all thinking of us?” I asked.
“Well, we’re clearly not homeless. Your jacket’s too nice.”
“And we did not just roll out of bed.”
“Right,” she said. “Because we are covered in sand.”
The light changed and we crossed the Great Highway.
“Maybe they think we’re beach creatures,” I said.
“Mermaids?”
“We’re missing the tails.”
“Maybe they think we’re scavengers, up early to comb the sand.”
“Yes,” I said. “Like you probably have a few gold watches in your pockets, and I have some wedding bands and rolls of cash.”
“Perfect.”
I was aware of how our voices were a little higher pitched than usual, our words rushed. I was aware of how we hadn’t looked into each other’s faces since we stood up and dusted the sand off our clothes. Of the sand that still clung to my skin and the scent of Mabel everywhere.
Gramps spotted us before I saw him. He was waving at us from across the street with one arm, pulling the garbage bin out to the curb with the other.
“Hello, girls!” he shouted, as though it were a pleasant surprise to see us out this early.
We didn’t know what to say as we walked toward him.
“Morning, Gramps,” I finally mustered, but by then his expression had changed.
“My whiskey.”
I followed his gaze. I hadn’t even realized Mabel was carrying it like that, by its neck, totally exposed.
He could have looked at us and seen our kiss-swollen lips and blushing faces. Could have seen how neither of us could look him—or each other—in the eye. But he was looking at the bottle instead.
“Sorry, Gramps,” I said. “We only took a few swigs.”
“We’re lightweights,” Mabel tried to joke, but her voice was thick with regret.
He reached out and she surrendered the bottle. He held it eye level to get a good look at how much was inside.
“It’s okay,” he said. “It was only a little.”
“I’m really sorry,” Mabel said.
I wished I were back on the beach with her. I willed the sky to turn dark again.
“Gotta be careful with this stuff,” Gramps said. “Best not to get involved with it at all.”
I nodded, trying to remember kissing Mabel’s mouth.
I wanted her to look at me.
“I have to get home,” she said.
“Have a good day at school,” Gramps told her.
“Thanks.”
She was standing on the sidewalk in torn-up jeans and a sweater, her dark hair falling to one side, so long it grazed her elbow. Her brow was furrowed and her eyes were sad until she caught me, finally looking, and she smiled.
“I hope you don’t get in trouble,” I said, but how could trouble find us?
We were miraculous.
We were beach creatures.
We had treasures in our pockets and each other on our skin.
chapter eleven
ABOVE ME IS the head and neck of a deer. A buck, I guess. His antlers cast long and graceful shadows along the wall. I imagine him alive, in a field somewhere. I think about spring, grass and flowers, hoofprints and movement and a body, intact. But now there is stillness and drips of candle wax and quiet. There are the ghosts of who we used to be. There is the clink of Mabel setting our dinner bowls into Tommy’s sink, and the exhaustion that comes with knowing that something will have to happen next, and then after that, and on and on until it’s over.
We haven’t talked about sleeping yet. On the sofa are a set of sheets and a comforter, a reminder of the space we are supposed to share.
Maybe we’ll stay up all night.
Mabel returns from the kitchen. She crosses to the bookshelf and picks up a deck of cards.
She turns to show me, and I nod. She shuffles and deals ten for me, ten for herself, places a card faceup. Queen of spades. I can’t believe I didn’t buy a deck of cards for us. It would have answered the question of what to do each time it came up. We wouldn’t have had to trick ourselves into sleep to stave off the need for conversation.
We dive into gin rummy as though no time had passed. I finish the first round ahead twelve points, and Mabel gets up to find us a pencil and paper. She comes back with a Sharpie and a postcard mailer for a Christmas tree lot. Nothing beats the smell of fresh-cut pine, it says, and below the sentence are photographs of three types of fir trees: Douglas, noble, and grand. Mabel writes our names below a P.
S.—We have wreaths, too!—and adds the score.
It’s a close game, which means it’s a long one, and by our last hand my vision keeps blurring from tiredness and the strain of seeing in the dark. Mabel keeps losing track of whose turn it is, even though there are only two of us, but in the end she calls gin and wins the game.
“Nice job,” I say, and she smiles.
“I’m gonna get ready for bed.”
The whole time she’s gone I don’t move. Maybe she wanted me to pull out the bed, but I’m not going to do it. It’s a decision we have to make together.
She comes back a few minutes later.
“Careful,” she says. “Some candles burned out. It’s really dark back there.”
“Okay,” I say. “Thanks.”
I wait for her to do or say something.
Finally, I ask, “So should we get the bed ready?”
Even in the dark, I can see her concern.
“Do you see other options?” I ask her. There are only a couple of chairs and the floor.
“That rug is pretty soft,” she says.
“If that’s what you want.”
“It isn’t what I want. It’s just . . .”
“He doesn’t have to know. And it’s only sleeping, anyway.” I shake my head. After everything, this is so stupid. “How many times did we sleep in the same bed before anything happened? Hundreds? I think we’ll be okay tonight.”
“I know.”
“I promise not to mess anything up for you.”
“Marin, come on.”
“It’s your call,” I say. “I don’t really want to sleep on the rug. But if you don’t want to share the bed I can sleep on the couch without pulling it out so you can have more room. Or maybe we could push two chairs together or something.”
She’s quiet. I can see that she’s thinking, so I give her a minute.
“You’re right,” she finally says. “I’m sorry. Let’s just get the bed ready.”
“You don’t have to be sorry,” I mutter.
And now I’m taking the cushions off the sofa, and Mabel is moving the coffee table to the side of the room to make space for the bed to fold out. We find handles on each side and pull. Squeaky bedsprings, flimsy mattress. She shakes out the fitted sheet and we put it on together, tuck in the sides because the mattress is so thin.
