by Tom Perrotta
Come on, she told herself. You can do this.
She was nervous as she made her way up the driveway and across the stone path that led to the steps. It was one thing to have a fantasy of disappearing, of leaving your friends and family behind, and another thing to go ahead and make it real. Saying goodbye to Kevin was a real thing, the kind of action you couldn’t take back.
You won’t see me again, she’d written in the letter.
There was a lantern hanging in the archway, but it wasn’t lit, and the area below it seemed darker than the rest of the world. Nora was so focused on the mailbox that she didn’t notice the bulky object resting on the stoop until she almost tripped right over it. She let out a gasp when she realized what it was, then knelt down for a closer look.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t see you there.”
The baby was fast asleep in its car seat, a tiny newborn with squirrelly cheeks, vaguely Asian features, and a fine fuzz of black hair. A familiar smell rose from its body, the unmistakable sweet-and-sour fragrance of new life. There was a diaper bag next to the car seat, with a scrawled note tucked into an outside pocket. Nora had to squint to read what it said: This little girl has no name. Please take good care of her.
She turned back to the baby. Her heart was suddenly beating way too fast.
“Where’s your mommy?” she asked. “Where’d she go?”
The baby opened her eyes. There was no fear in her gaze.
“Don’t you have a mommy or daddy?”
The baby blew a spit bubble.
“Does anybody know you’re here?”
Nora glanced around. The street was empty, as silent as a dream.
“No,” she said, answering her own question. “They wouldn’t just leave you here all by yourself.”
The car seat doubled as an infant carrier. Out of curiosity, Nora raised the handle and lifted it off the ground. It wasn’t that heavy, no more unwieldy than a bag of groceries.
Portable, she thought, and the word made her smile.
* * *
THE SLEEPOVER had seemed like a cool idea in the abstract. But now that she was actually walking toward Ginkgo Street, Jill could feel some resistance building up inside of her. What were she and Ms. Maffey going to do all night? The idea of talking in whispers had seemed exciting at first, even vaguely illicit, like campers staying up past curfew. On reflection, though, it struck her as dishonest, like serving people ice cream on their first night at the fat farm.
Hey, have some more hot fudge! You’re gonna love it here at Camp Lose-a-Lot!
She wasn’t as happy about Aimee moving out as she might have expected, either. Not for her own sake—they’d been over each other for a while now—but for her father’s. He’d gotten pretty attached to Aimee in the past few months and would be sad to see her go. Jill had been jealous of their friendship, and even a bit worried about it, but she was also aware of how much pressure it took off her, and how much more her father would be needing from her in the coming days and weeks.
Not a great time to be leaving him alone, she thought, switching the sleeping bag from her left hand to her right as she made her way down Elm Street.
She stopped short, startled by what sounded like a gunshot coming from the direction of Bailey Elementary. A firecracker, she told herself, but a cold shudder ran through her body, accompanied by a harrowing vision of the dead man she’d found by the Dumpster on Valentine’s Day—the liquid halo encircling his head, his wide eyes staring in amazement, the endless minutes they’d spent together waiting for the police to arrive. She remembered talking to him in a soothing voice, as if he were still alive and just needed a little encouragement.
Only a firecracker …
She wasn’t sure how long she’d been turned away from the street, listening for a second explosion that never came. All she knew was that a car was veering toward her when she turned around, moving quietly and way too fast, as if it meant to run her down. It straightened out at the very last second, swooping in parallel to the curb, stopping neatly beside her, a white Prius facing in the wrong direction.
“Yo, Jill!” Scott Frost called from the driver’s seat as the tinted window descended. A Bob Marley song was playing on the car stereo, the one about the three little birds, and Scott was grinning his usual blissed-out grin. “Where you been hiding?”
“Nowhere,” she said, hoping she didn’t look as rattled as she felt.
His eyes narrowed as he studied the sleeping bag in her hand, the overnight bag slung across her chest. Adam Frost was leaning in from the passenger seat, his identical handsome face stacked a little above and behind his brother’s.
“You runnin’ away?” Scott asked.
“Yeah,” she told him. “I think I’m gonna join the circus.”
Scott considered this for a few seconds, then chuckled approvingly.
“Awesome,” he said. “You need a ride?”
* * *
THE GETAWAY car was right where it was supposed to be. There were two men up front, so Laurie opened the back door and climbed inside. Her ears were still ringing from the blast; it felt as though she were encased in the hum, as though a solid barrier of sound had intervened between her and the rest of the world.
It was better that way.
She was conscious of the men staring at her, and wondered if something was wrong. After a moment, the one in the passenger seat—he was a tanned, outdoorsy guy—opened the glove compartment and removed a Ziploc freezer bag. He peeled it open and held it out.
Right, she thought. The gun. They want their gun back.
She lifted it with two fingers, like a TV detective, and dropped it in, trying not to think about the difficulty she’d had removing it from Meg’s hand. The man gave a businesslike nod and sealed the bag.
Evidence, Laurie thought. Hide the evidence.
The driver seemed upset about something. He was a moonfaced youngish guy, slightly bug-eyed, and he kept tapping himself in the forehead, like he was reminding a stupid person to think. Laurie didn’t understand the meaning of the gesture until the guy in the passenger seat handed her a Kleenex.
Poor Meg, she thought, as she brought the tissue to her forehead. She felt something wet and sticky through the paper. Poor, brave Meg.
The guy in the passenger seat kept handing her tissues, and the driver kept touching various parts of his face to indicate where she needed to wipe. It would have been easier if she’d just looked in the mirror, but all three of them understood that that was a bad idea.
Finally, the driver turned around and started the car, heading down Lakewood toward Washington Boulevard. Laurie settled into her seat and closed her eyes.
Brave, brave Meg.
After a while she glanced out the window. They were leaving Mapleton now, crossing into Gifford, probably headed for the Parkway. Beyond that, she knew nothing about her destination and didn’t really care. Wherever it was, she would go there, and she would wait for the end, her own and everyone else’s.
She didn’t think it would be long now.
* * *
THE BMW had built-in satellite radio, which was pretty cool. Tom had tried listening a few times on the way down from Cambridge, but he had to keep the volume low so as not to disturb the baby or irritate Christine. Now he could just crank it up, switching from old-school hip-hop to Alternative Nation to Eighties nostalgia to Hair Metal whenever he felt the urge. He stayed away from the Jam Band channel, figuring there’d be more than enough of that when he got to the Poconos.
He was feeling a little less shaky now that he was on the highway. Escaping Mapleton had been the hard part. He kept heading out of town, then losing his nerve and circling back at the last minute to check on the baby. He did this three times before finally working up the courage to make the break, promising himself she’d be okay. He’d given her a bottle and changed her right before he left, so he figured she’d probably just sleep for a couple of hours, by which point somebody would get home
to take care of her, or one of the neighbors would hear her crying. Maybe he could call his father from the next rest stop to say hi, pretend it was a coincidence, just to make sure everything was okay. If nobody answered, he could always call the cops from a pay phone, make an anonymous tip about a baby abandoned on Lovell Terrace. But he hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
In his heart, he was pretty sure he’d made the right decision. He couldn’t stay in Mapleton, couldn’t go back to that house, that kind of life, at least not without Christine. But he couldn’t take the baby with him, either. He wasn’t her father, and he had no job, no money, no place to stay. She’d be better off with his dad and Jill, if they decided to keep her, or with a loving adoptive family that would give her the kind of secure, stable life Tom could never provide, at least not if he didn’t want to be completely miserable.
Maybe someday he and Christine could go back to Mapleton and reclaim her baby, re-create the family that Tom had dreamed about. It was a long shot, he knew that, and there was no point in getting ahead of himself. What he needed to do right now was find that solstice festival, join those Barefoot kids dancing under the stars. They were his people now, and that was where he belonged. Maybe Christine would be there, and maybe she wouldn’t. Either way, it sounded like a pretty good party.
* * *
JILL SAT on a raspberry-colored sling chair in the finished basement, watching the ball fly back and forth across the Ping-Pong table. For a pair of stoners, the Frost twins played with surprising skill and intensity, their bodies loose and fluid, their faces taut with concentration and controlled aggression. Neither one made a sound except for the occasional grunt, and a matter-of-fact announcement of the score before each serve. Otherwise it was just the hypnotic chatter of ball-against-table-against-paddle-against-table, over and over and over again, until one of the brothers seized his advantage, rearing back for a monster smash, which the other one more often than not managed to return.
There was a beautiful symmetry to their game, as if a single person were occupying both sides of the table, hitting the ball to himself in a kind of self-sustaining loop. Except that one of the players—Scott, the one on the right—kept searching out Jill’s eyes in the lull between volleys, carrying on a silent conversation, letting her know that she hadn’t been forgotten.
I’m glad you’re here.
I’m glad, too.
The score was tied eight to eight. Scott took a deep breath and hit a wicked spinning serve, slashing his paddle down on a sharp diagonal. Adam was caught off guard, leaning to the right before realizing his mistake, lurching all the way across the table to make an awkward backhand stab, hitting a feeble lob that barely cleared the net. And just like that they were back into the rhythm, a steady, patient pock-pocketa-pock, the white blur bouncing from one orange-padded paddle right back to the other.
Maybe another person would have found it tedious, but Jill had no complaints. The chair was comfortable, and there was nowhere else she’d rather be. She felt a little guilty, picturing Ms. Maffey standing by the entrance gate of the Ginkgo Street compound, wondering what had happened to her new recruit, but not guilty enough to do anything about it. She could apologize tomorrow, she thought, or maybe the day after.
I ran into some friends, she could write.
Or: There’s this cute boy, and I think he likes me.
Or even: I forgot what it feels like to be happy.
* * *
THE HOUSE was dark when Kevin pulled into the driveway. He turned off the engine and sat for a few seconds, wondering what he was even doing here when he could have been back at the Carpe Diem with his teammates, celebrating their hard-won victory. He’d left after a single beer, his festive mood dampened by the text he’d received from Jill: I’m at a friend’s. In case ur wondering, Aimee moved out. She said to tell u gdbye and thnx for everything.
In a way he was relieved—it was easier not to play the heavy, not to have to ask her to leave—but the news saddened him nonetheless. He was sorry it had happened like this, that he and Aimee hadn’t had the chance for one last morning talk out on the deck. He wanted to tell her how much he’d enjoyed her company, and to remind her not to sell herself short, not to settle for a guy who didn’t deserve her, or get stuck in a job that didn’t give her any room to grow. But he’d told her those things on numerous occasions, and just had to hope that she’d been listening, that his words would have sunk in by the time she really needed them.
For now, though, he’d just have to add her name to the list of people he cared about who’d moved on. It was getting to be a long list, and it contained some pretty important names. In time, he thought, Aimee would probably seem like a footnote, but just now her absence felt bigger than that, like maybe she deserved a whole page to herself.
He got out of the car and headed across the driveway to the bluestone path that had been Laurie’s first big project when they moved into this house. She’d spent weeks on it—choosing the stones, plotting the winding course, digging and leveling and fine-tuning—and the results had made her proud and excited.
Kevin paused at the edge of the lawn to admire the fireflies that were rising like sparks from the lush grass, lighting up the night in a series of random exclamations, turning the familiar landscape of Lovell Terrace into an exotic spectacle.
“Beautiful,” he said, realizing even as he spoke that he wasn’t alone.
A woman was standing at the bottom of the front steps, facing in his direction. She seemed to be holding something in her arms.
“Excuse me?” he said. “Who’s there?”
The woman began walking toward him at a slow, almost stately pace. She was blond and slender, and reminded him of someone he knew.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “Can I help you?”
The woman didn’t reply, but by now she was close enough for him to recognize her as Nora. The baby in her arms was a complete stranger, the way they always are when we meet them for the first time, before we give them their names and welcome them into our lives.
“Look what I found,” she told him.
Also by Tom Perrotta
The Abstinence Teacher
Little Children
Joe College
Election
The Wishbones
Bad Haircut: Stories of the Seventies
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE LEFTOVERS. Copyright © 2011 by Tom Perrotta. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Perrotta, Tom.
The leftovers / Tom Perrotta. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-312-35834-1
1. Life change events—Fiction. 2. Psychological fiction. I. Title.
PS3566.E6948L44 2011
813'.54—dc22 2011019509
First Edition: September 2011
eISBN 978-1-4299-8913-8
First St. Martin’s Press eBook Edition: August 2011
