Summerspace
In the summer she would turn twenty-six, Cece worked as a part-time assistant in a temporary preschool in Brooklyn. Her boss, Lennie, grouchy Lennie, fox faced and thin, was experimenting with language at the Crestview Houses. These were a group of rusty dark mid-rises built in the forties near the Gowanus Canal. Lennie’s experimental preschool operated out of the community room, which opened to a wedge of outdoor space with a swing set, a bench, and a few gingko trees. Junipers sprawled low in oval-shape beds. Sometimes Cece liked to sit there under the trees and draw after school. One of the children would join her or at least circle around.
Usually Lennie left school immediately, locking the community room behind her. On her way past Cece, a quick flat-handed salute, a reminder of warnings already issued. Then she’d rush off to tabulate the day’s observations while still fresh. She had the taut, expectant mouth of a secret smoker. Her hair was buzzed and bleached.
Cece’s hair was something she was ignoring, yanked tight into a ponytail and forgotten. This emphasized a wide-eyed quality Lennie felt they could all live without. Cece’s shoulders curled forward around her drawing pad. She had a goofy unconscious smile when she drew. Lennie was photo shy. Cece was not. Cece’s mother, Faith, liked to say that Cece’s face hadn’t altered since the day she was born. An observation, if she knew, Lennie could have believed.
Now the summer was just about over, and Lennie’s preschool was closing at the Crestview Houses. For the autumn, she had a better opportunity in the Bronx. Tomorrow Cece’s best-ever paycheck would be suspended.
As Cece saw it, her main duties at Lennie’s preschool had been to keep the kids from running away from all the enrichment, running straight up to the edge of the stillborn canal and jumping in. Overjoyed, as if those half-submerged steel prongs were inflatable toys.
But she still had the English bulldogs to walk on Pacific Street. And a colicky baby boy terrorizing his parents on Baltic. Any time Cece could give them was gratefully received. She was also a “researcher” for Mrs. O’Hara, the retired Macy’s dress buyer working on an imaginary history of her ancestors. Mrs. O’Hara lived housebound on Atlantic Avenue. Her current focus: a mysterious great-great-grandmother, very possibly a Gallatin. A gifted botanist who’d ruined her career by murdering the nanny. She’d been hanged! Which was the heart of Mrs. O’Hara’s mystery. Hanged? When streets and towns were named for her? Cece’s job was to make strong oolong tea and take notes on any new discoveries. Then, according to Mrs. O’Hara’s instructions, Cece typed up scenes. Scenes of intense ardor. Even the nanny’s murder was only a moment of confused devotion.
Most of her employers appreciated Cece’s gentleness. They all used the word. But Lennie deemed this quality a liability at the Crestview Houses. Cece’s summer evaluation had been waiting in an envelope on the snack table this very afternoon. Cece certainly loves the children, but we’re doubtful about the academic quality of her input.
That was it. Two copies. One to be signed and returned to Lennie the next day. And then Cece would take a slow train for a nonnegotiable visit to her mother on the Jersey Shore.
Which was lousy timing because just last night, a text had arrived from her old friend Sebastian. He was in Brooklyn! Not Nepal, not Kashmir. Actually in Carroll Gardens with his sister, Chloe, and her new baby, Karl Jr. Sebastian had sent a photo of a gluey-looking infant in close-up. Eyes matted and miserable. A widemouthed cry of alarm. Cece understood. Again and again, Sebastian was being prompted to spontaneous joy or else. And just twenty-four hours in, his well of delight had run dry. Cece looked at the baby midwail and smiled. Save me, Sebastian texted. He begged to stay at her place for just a day or two. Save me. Cece’s place was a dark studio on the street level. His admiration muscles could relax there.
Yes. Yes. Meet me after work, four o’clock, she replied. She sent a map to the Crestview Houses, to the swing-set area outside the community room. About a ten-minute walk from his sister’s home.
But in her experience, Sebastian often got lost on the way to anywhere. It amazed her to think of him in Nepal. He was on the creative team with a Danish NGO working on inflatable housing? Disposable housing? Anyway, something flat-packed and easily erected in extremity. Political unrest. Disastrous weather. All this she knew from a long email he’d sent in February. Also Sebastian’s general wish to see her. To say something a bit overdue, okay? Before that, it had been years without a word.
Lately, Cece was toying with the idea of another class at Hunter College. In the spring, she’d taken Shakespeare, the comedies. Over the summer, she’d audited a broad-stroke English survey course. A grab bag—Wordsworth, Dickinson, Morrison, Burroughs.
If only Cece would buckle down and take actual courses for credit, her mother said. By December she could complete her freshman year! Faith also said Cece’s life was her own to ruin now.
Even so, Faith had hoped—demanded, really—that Cece spend this last summer weekend on the shore. Together they’d close up her grandmother’s house in Spring Lake. Leased out as a seasonal rental now that her grandmother was gone. Faith and Cece would sweep away all the summer strangers. Repair the beloved garden. This isn’t optional, said Faith.
Someday soon, her mother and uncle would need to put her grandmother’s house up for sale, but for now, her mother had agreed, temporarily the summer rental income in Spring Lake could subsidize Cece’s sublet in Brooklyn, as long as she pitched in on the cleanup. A disheartening arrangement for Cece. But not one she could refuse. So she’d named a train time and she couldn’t change now without serious complaint from Faith. But tonight! Sebastian! Here, in Brooklyn. She’d give him a key. He could stay as long as he liked.
Well past four o’clock and only Cece and her preschool student Clarence were outside now at the Crestview Houses. Cece had spread sheets of drawing paper on the sodden bench under the gingko trees. Clarence lay belly down on one of the new hard plastic swings. These had replaced the sling-style eco-friendly seats that Lennie had sourced and installed in June. The eco-swings were immediately deemed unacceptable by the community. Slashed to shreds in the night by bored teenagers. The replacement swings were hard and backward looking, maybe, but bladeproof. They were also heavy. Clarence dragged his sneakers in the mud and never achieved liftoff. This was a soothing activity Cece understood. She would not exhort him to sit up and pump even during school hours. And besides he was only keeping an eye on her, until the guy arrived. Whoever he was.
Cece was a source of fascination among the preschoolers at Crestview. She was so often in trouble with the boss, Lennie, so often in the wrong. And even after a sudden heavy August downpour—with hail!—sent everyone inside to escape the wet, noxious steam that followed, a scout was required, Clarence, to watch and see just what kind of craziness would show up for Cece today.
Cece sat cross-legged on the bench and waited. She was thinking about whether to discuss her work evaluation with Sebastian. She thought of him as strategic or maybe just opportunistic, and that could be a blank spot for her. Clarence was sticking out his tongue to indicate boredom.
Chess, Clarence?
Clarence took his time answering. This was too sweet an offer. To be held in suspicion until other factors clarified his decision. Like the imagined approval or disapproval of his friends. Cece was someone to be toyed with, sure, but to be placated sometimes, too, all at a very low level, so not to mess her up. Her volatility was something they’d never seen. Or rather its clamped-down expression. Like she’d swallowed a burning helicopter but didn’t know it. So they were careful with her, and she didn’t know that either.
Clarence was already five years old and in the fall he’d be in kindergarten on the older end of his class, but in the track for kids unlikely to read well, ever. Lennie offered all kinds of language-enrichment modules at her experimental preschool, but Clarence was indifferent, and this indifference had influenced his publi
c school placement. The only kid, as far as Cece knew, to get such a low recommendation.
This outcome, this lifetime prediction about Clarence, based solely on Lennie’s fleeting opinion made Cece want to burst into tears, and she did know that much. The fury she felt at her employer. Just thinking about it. The burst of spikey rage. Lennie should be arrested! And the odd contrasting peace sitting on this wet bench, under the dripping trees, a brief hop from the superfund canal that glugged through the neighborhood, the little boy, whose rude pink tongue on lazy display was meant to insult her but calmed her instead. Come on, Clarence, she said. Play some chess.
Cece’s version of chess wasn’t the one that Clarence’s sister, Deirdre, loaded on her phone to distract him. Cece’s chess had to do with a thick drawing pad she kept in her backpack. That and some worn-down crayons. She would draw something; Clarence would draw something. It was boring until it wasn’t. She’d study the shapeless blobs he made on purpose. It wasn’t like he would show her anything. But she got so interested it seemed like he was winning, so he did end up drawing stuff.
Inside the community room, the official crayons were in primary colors only. But now the crayons and paper and Legos and whiteboards and plush floor cushions shaped like frogs and beavers were already packed away in Thule crates. Lennie had posted notices around Crestview Houses about her move to the Bronx for new data in the fall. Goodbye.
Clarence’s sister, Deirdre, said, No big loss. But Clarence wasn’t so sure. What about the music? He didn’t say. That had been nice. And what about Jokes 101? That had been Cece’s big idea. Who cares, said Deirdre. You’re done with that now.
No one would come outside soon, so Clarence slid off the swing in slow motion and walked sideways. He could change his mind if anyone opened a window and shouted out a different guidance from above. But the loudest thing was the air conditioners choking for coolness inside. No one would come out into this. So he made it all the way to Cece’s bench, where she’d started drawing without him. Cheater!
He picked up a crayon in his fist. A reject color, something mauve. Cece only carried the odd ones.
I’ll start over, she said. Not looking at him, she flipped to a fresh page. Immediately she drew an angular crushed-looking flower. Clarence began to correct what a flower usually did on his side of the page. So far the mauve would work out.
Tomorrow, for the final day, there wasn’t much on the schedule. The kids could officially say goodbye and pick up a certificate. There would be juice. But Deirdre didn’t see the point of Clarence going. You’re finished with that bullshit, okay?
It looked like Cece might be finished with that bullshit, too. As she colored in some fronds, she realized she didn’t need cunning Sebastian to tell her she wouldn’t be invited to the Bronx. Because Lennie knew, and Cece knew herself, that she wasn’t likely to ever really be an educator, experimental or otherwise. And she wouldn’t be reinventing the language of crisis housing like Sebastian either. And no doctoral program for Cece, like the one awaiting her amateur therapist, Kai McCann—quite suddenly her former therapist. Kai would go to Columbia in January after tidying up her thesis in the fall. And Cece would continue to slow-walk bulldogs, type up love-saturated murders for Mrs. O’Hara, calm the deepest fret of a baby boy.
During Cece’s Shakespeare semester at Hunter College, a free student mental health counseling service, a pop-up, was offered. Colloquially—and experientially, in Cece’s view—called the amateurs. Clinical social work students doing a little service research. In February, actually not long after Sebastian’s surprise email arrived from Nepal, Cece had filled out a form. What the hell, it was only one page. All about childhood, ages zero to twenty-one. Ten one-word questions: Divorce? Desertion? Death? Illness? Addiction? And so on. Each question had an additional line to fill in only if the box had been checked. Who went to prison? And that was it. She was told she’d be notified by text if her questionnaire found an interested counselor in training. She also signed a disclaimer about what little help to actually expect. But she was curious.
Late May, to her surprise, Cece had been chosen. The grad students set up shop for the summer in an old gym. Her new counselor, Kai McCann, was at least a year or two younger than Cece, with a baby face she offset with a black wedge of hair on one side, shaved irritated stubble on the other. Kai wore a uniform for her research, blue oxford-cloth button-downs, emphatically wrinkled. The weekly sessions in the gym began in early June. By August, Cece had come to appreciate Kai, her irascible, unsuitable nature, the sweat-saturated stink of the consulting cubicle. Therapy with Kai was like playing house with the least friendly kid in the neighborhood.
It was so hot now at the Crestview Houses the rocks under the juniper bushes let off a greenish steam. Clarence was deciding if his leaves needed some extra points on the sides—probably yes—when he saw a shadow slither along the ground. Cece was concentrating on the mashed-up tree she was coloring, wrongly, in burnt orange, so she missed it entirely, but Clarence let his eyes slide over toward the nearest door.
Cece dotted grooves on her tree trunk before glancing up, too. Nothing. Just a wind gust shaking the branches. They both went back to drawing but tentatively, because there were hard rules about Cece’s presence here. Mostly to do with light and time. But also equipment. In daylight, before five in the afternoon—but not after, no matter how bright the sun—and as long as she had something educational in her hand, like the drawing pad, she was welcome here.
Welcome was too strong a word. Lennie had talked to Cece about her blindness, her naivete, her stupefying tra-la-la worldview. This pep talk had come after the teenage boys who’d slashed the sling-style eco-swings had cornered Cece late one afternoon in June on the bench under the gingko trees where she was sitting now.
They were big boys, thirteen, twelve. And they knew how to intimidate. They practiced on each other. That’s really all they were doing here: practicing, playing, surrounding this dopey young woman staring off into space. Didn’t she have a home of her own to stare and be foolish in? They just asked her for their old swings back. Quietly. The splintery wooden ones that had been replaced by useless sling-style trash. At least that’s how it started.
They were tall now and that was only recent and they were still finding out how that might work. On the subway, for instance, if they leaned close to each other around a seated woman, kind of encased her with their new tall bodies and said some loud very explicit things, over the lady’s head, about the girls they were fucking or would be soon, that usually got at least a frown. So it was really only that. A choreography they were still playing around with that had them draw in close to Cece, sitting too late on a sunny afternoon in June, and muse, just to each other, out loud, what the fuck had happened to the old swings? They liked the old swings just fine. But something seemed to happen to Cece that was new to them. They were just kidding around, but she was melting, like they were made of fire. Her face was getting strange, and it scared them.
When Cece was still in regular college—it seemed a long time ago but only five years, almost six years really—on the glorious campus with the mountain sunsets and the woodland paths, back when she was a regular freshman, the very worst thing hadn’t been the attack itself or the gawkers and the filmmakers who came later but Sebastian’s near-immediate withdrawal from what had been the sweetest friendship of her life. As if she’d survived something life extinguishing only to be felled by a snub.
But she hadn’t known it was possible to find a friend that tender, that funny. Oh, sweetheart, her mother had said. That’s college for you.
But her mother had no idea about real college. And now neither would Cece, ever. In a moment of desperation, she’d told Faith all about losing Sebastian. She’d told her nothing else and probably never would. But just before Cece left school for good, she called her mother and told her how, on a dime, he stopped being her friend. She was sobbing by the end.<
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Oh, honey! Faith had sounded so helpless. Sweetheart, sweetheart. I’m coming. As if Cece were a fussy infant in the next room. Then: Cece, my love, you do know it couldn’t possibly be about you. His mother is so—
This isn’t about his mother! Cece cried.
Okay, said Faith. Okay. Well, then. I wonder if for you, this friendship was maybe—
Oh no, said Cece.
I’m just wondering—
He really doesn’t, Mom, said Cece, angry now. He doesn’t.
Well, he reminded me of your brother, said Faith. Something in his walk? When I first met him.
This was the trouble with Faith. Virtually everyone reminded her of Cece’s little brother. He had died when they were tiny. A freak accident and he was gone, except for Faith, who saw her son everywhere. Cece didn’t have the heart to tell Faith she had no memory of that time. Cece couldn’t tell Faith because it would leave her mother all alone with her unquenchable loss.
That night on the phone, she managed to croak out a pinched reversal: Possibly? Possibly you’re right. And then a goodbye, because if she didn’t Faith would call her back immediately.
Maybe it was a week later, maybe two, but college stopped making sense soon after that call.
Recently, her mental health counselor, Kai McCann, had something interesting to say to Cece. She’d probably read the material on her phone that morning. But she told Cece something she didn’t already know. After an assault, Kai began. It was strange to hear that word, but Kai used it a lot. It was discordant, like a mismatch for what Cece remembered or mostly didn’t remember. It seemed too specific and large. But Cece had checked the box for sexual assault on the form, and she’d told Kai about it during their first session, as if with Kai, who so clearly didn’t know what she was doing, it didn’t really count. So Kai said attack, assault, rape, and she said it often.
The Ocean House Page 13
