A Certain Slant of Light (45 page)

  
"Why do they think that?"

  
Last night she'd been wearing a blue sweater with daisies on it and her favorite perfume. I tried to remember the look on her face when she'd heard the word
adultery.
And I wondered how
much Dan had told her about the Mr. Brown affair.

  
"That's not important," I told her. "But he's not my lover."

  
"He's not," she repeated. "Is there someone else?"

  
The words were poison coming from her lips, and her per
fume was making my eyes sting. "Yes," I admitted.

  
"Who?" Her sweater today was black with pink roses on it. I wondered whether she had a different flower for each day of the
week.

  
"A boy from school."

  
"Jennifer, did you let this boy touch you?" The judgment in
her expression made my cheeks burn. She folded her ballerina
arms.

 
 
"Well," I said. "You know how it is. You fall in love and you
want to do more than just hold his hand."

  
"But you knew it wasn't right," she reminded me.

  
"I'm sure you must've felt the same way," I said. "You know
it's a sin, but you just want to be with him, as much as you can, no
matter what. You'd do anything to have just one more minute
with him. You can almost feel his body in your arms when you lie
in bed alone."

  
Miss Ballerina had gone white again. She fumbled for a pad
and pen.

  
"Haven't you ever felt like that?" I asked.

  
She didn't answer but frowned as if taking notes. The pen
tapped spastically on the pad.

  
"Tell me about how you fought off that kind of temptation in
your life," I said. "I need to learn."

  
She put down her pen.

 
 
"Of course, it's not like he had a girlfriend and we were
sneaking around," I said. "That would be different."

  
"I think perhaps Pastor should meet with you," she said.

  
I stood up.

  
Now she looked at me. "Mrs. Leighton can make the appoint
ment."

 
 
"Whatever you say," I shrugged. "No need to come out. I'll
tell my mother."

  
She looked relieved. I stepped out the door and instead of go
ing to the right, back toward the secretary's desk, I turned left
and pushed open a door to the back parking lot.

I didn't know how much time I had before they'd send the police
after me. I took the back streets because I didn't have bus fare,
and I didn't want Cathy or Dan to hunt me down too quickly. When I'd found my way onto Amelia, I started remembering
what I'd heard on the phone the night before. Ever since then, I'd
tried to convince myself that James was still here—that he'd
hung up on me only because there were others too near—he was
trying to protect me. But now the truth was growing heavy in my
limbs, like liquid metal filling my legs. I recalled the wretched
emptiness of being left on earth as each of my hosts had died—
wondering why God wouldn't let me follow. Now I dragged my
feet along until I saw them, Billy and Mitch, standing in the
driveway. As soon as Billy's eyes met mine, I knew.

  
"Gimme a wrench," said Mitch as he crouched down beside the rusty frame. Billy saw me standing two doors down on the
sidewalk, staring, and he stared back.

  
"Wake up," said Mitch as he slid under the car on his back.

  
Billy pulled a tool from the apple crate at his feet and put it in the
hand that reached out from between the tires.

  
I looked at the face of a stranger, a beautiful boy, but no one I
knew. He frowned at me and flicked the hair out of his eyes with
a jerk of his head, not with his hand the way James would've.

  
"Hey," he called. I was startled. I moved closer, just to make
sure.

  
Billy wiped his hands on his smudged Skull T-shirt and came
to meet me halfway.

  
"Do you remember me?" I asked, trying to keep a quaver out
of my voice.

  
"Sure," he said. "You go to my school."

  
"You don't remember anything else?"

  
He squinted in the sun and shrugged. "Your name's Jenny
something." Then fear gripped him. "Is this about the trial?"

  
"No."

  
He relaxed, but still it was so lonely being with him, my heart was twisting.

  
"Did you want something?" he asked.

  
"I needed to see whether you were okay," I told him.

  
He looked perplexed. I took a step backward, away from him.

  
"We used to be close," I said.

  
"We did?" He shook his head. "I got pretty messed up," he said. "I don't remember everything." He wasn't ringing hollow.
He was Billy on the inside.

  
"It's all right." I turned to go.

  
"Sorry for whatever I did," he called.

  
I ran even though I could hardly see.

The cool wind made my eyes water down my face, but I felt dry,
too empty to make real tears. Mitch probably should have been at
work and Billy at school, but Mitch must have kept him home as
if it were a holiday, and whether they knew it or not, it was a homecoming. But it was a celebration I could not share with
them.

  
Something had happened at the prison that had sent Billy fly
ing back into his flesh. I tried to imagine what magic words had
called him home. When Mitch looked into their father's eyes, did
all his rage finally explode, sending an alarm bell tolling into the
void where Billy wandered? Had the boy rushed back into his
body in time to catch his brother when the anger cracked into
sorrow, the desire to hold him and to be held too great to resist?

  
If passion was the magic formula, why hadn't Jenny heard me
raging at Cathy the night before and come flying back? Hadn't
she heard her mother weeping?

  
All my mistakes were looming hard in front of me like iron bars. I shouldn't have written to or called Mr. Brown. I should never have taken his picture or gone to see him in his office. I
should have made James take me back to the theater loft instead
of to his bed where Mitch could catch us. I should've walked past
Jenny's body. I should've stayed with Mr. Brown and let James fall
in love with a human girl. I was so weary. I started to dream,
though my eyes were open and I must've been walking over pave
ment and through streets. I dreamed I saw James, not with Billy's
face, but with the face of the soldier he'd been. He seemed to be
climbing down a huge tree toward me, smiling at me, though
rain dripped from his hair.

  
"You're in uniform," I said to him, as if he had asked me
what he was wearing. Next moment, I was standing in Jenny's
driveway alone. The garage was open, but only the maroon car
was parked there. I could hear a strange sound from the house as
if a wolf were tearing up the furniture inside. I was too tired to
feel afraid. I walked in to face whatever was waiting.

  
I found Cathy taking framed pictures off the front room walls and opening them frantically, throwing down the frame and glass
with angry growls and tearing the photographs, or twisting them
if they were too tough to rip up. She didn't seem to see me. She
had tears and makeup running rivers down her cheeks. She looked
at the mess but stepped right on a pane of glass with her small shoes, breaking it and grinding it into the carpet as she hurried
down the hall. I followed, feeling ill. I wanted to speak to her, but
I felt so exhausted I just watched. She stormed into the den and
pulled the Monopoly game off the shelf, bringing Scrabble down
with it, plastic houses and wooden letters mixing around her feet
as she crouched down and fumbled through the chaos.

  
She got something small in her hand and shot up, throwing it
with all her might as a yell ripped out of her. The object hit the
window with a crack and bounced to the floor not far from me. It
was a tiny metal top hat.

  
Now she saw me. She gulped back a sob and stared at me, stunned. She wiped her face with both hands and smoothed her
clothes.

  
"Where did you go?" she asked in nothing more than a
whisper.

  
"I had to see my friend who was in trouble," I told her. "He's
all right now."

  
"Well, that's good." Then she held her stomach as if she
might be sick.

  
"What happened?" I asked her.

  
"We'll talk about it later. Go to your room, please." She
wanted to sound stern, but then she looked at the mess she had
made and started to shake.

  
I took a step toward her, but she put out a hand to stop me.
'Til clean it up after—"

  
"Where's Dad?" I asked.

  
Again she seemed to forget me. I followed as she marched into
the study and started pulling books off the shelves, dumping
them in a pile on the floor. She was jerking open desk drawers
and rifling through them, throwing pens and, I suppose, other
things of his onto the pile of books on the rug. She took one of
the time management books and opened it in the middle, putting
her weight into it but not able to tear it in two.