All We Know of Heaven (26 page)

You’re going to leave me?”

“Danny, I don’t want to leave you. But you’re going to Montana! You’re going to Colorado!”

“Not necessarily,” he said. But he realized that what he had planned was to do just that—try out life in another place, counting on the fact that Maureen would be here, or at UM, waiting for him to come home for Christmas, for the summer, waiting for him unless he was drawn to some one new. She’d turned the tables on him. It was she who was leaving him before he ever got a chance to decide . . . if he wanted her.

He had believed she was his for the asking. “So this is, like, it,” he said.

“No. Maybe. I don’t know,” Maureen said. “If you want to know if I’ll miss you, I’ll miss you every day. I’ll come home at spring break and in the summer. . . .”

“Big deal.”

“You’re right. Those things never work out,” Maureen agreed. “Take me home now, Danny.”

He did, getting out with her to make sure she negotiated the steps safely.

And when he turned to leave, it was Maureen who pulled

him to her, holding his face between her hands as if learn ing it by heart. “It was you who helped me get here, Danny. You told me that I could do this.”

“I guess I dug my own hole,” he said. “I hope you love it, Maury. I hope you knock ’em dead.”

“I think my health issues were mostly why I got in,” she said. “I don’t think they expect me to be the next Julie An drews. And don’t act like it’s the last time you’ll see me. I’ll come to see you wrestle at state. I’ll be cheering for you.”

“Will you write to me?”

“Do you think that’s a good idea?” she asked. “Probably not. It will just make it harder.”

“Danny,” she said. “I love you. I just wish it had always been me.”

“Me, too. I hope I don’t figure out it always was,” he said. “Merry Christmas, Maury.”

She stood in the doorway and watched until his car rounded the corner and disappeared.

after life
‌

The workload at Iowa Liberal Arts Academy made home work at Bigelow look like making cupcakes in the sandbox. Miss Bishop had made it clear right away that ILAA was not a “performing arts” school. It was a good college prep boarding school with opportunities to develop fine arts talent. But it wasn’t a conservatory. Maury would be held to the highest standards of performance in her classes—even more so than in her singing. Singing was only an enrich ment. Many of the kids at ILAA were planning careers as doctors or teachers or athletes. They simply also had a love

of drawing or creative writing or music.

Maureen had lessons the first week with two different sopranos and then was assigned to one of them, a beau

tiful woman called—oddly enough—Melody. She studied with Melody for an hour twice a week. She was expected to practice voice for at least a half hour each night.

And then there were the academics.

History, math, HONORS English, ASL as a language, and her elective, Basic Acting.

She had two free tutors, both students from the college in Ames, to work with every night in the study center. She was never assigned exercises in acting that required her to run or leap. But nobody made concessions outside her special needs. They weren’t that special. There were three kids at the school in wheelchairs who were doing fantasti cally—one majoring in violin performance.

So Maureen had to keep up somehow.

Biting the bullet, she realized that if she could play the piano, even with many mistakes, she could learn to touch- type properly. She did it with a little program her mother sent her in the mail, typing for hours on weekends with a towel over her hands on the keyboard so she couldn’t see the letters.

After two weeks, she didn’t need the towel anymore. But she was still studying four hours a night, and some

times just grabbed a sandwich in the cafeteria and went back to her dorm to work through dinner.

Her first exercises in typing had been emails to her folks—a line or two—and longer letters to Molly and Evan, and to Danny.

She missed him so much she thought it would make

her physically sick. Every night she allowed herself to take out and relive one of their moments together, turning the memories this way and that until, if they had been gar ments, they would have been soiled with fingerprints and tears. She could imagine the shape of Danny’s hands, the smell of his hair.

Hi Champ,
she wrote.
Well, I am really being put in my place here. Obviously the teachers at B. were giving me pity grades, but no one is here. I’m so scared of the first-quarter exams. I know I’ll flunk everything. Then I’ll be back, ha ha, and you will get caught with Emily Hay. Seriously, I hope you are having fun with her and with everybody. I wrote to Molly, but she does not write back for days. I guess everyone’s busy. It’s beautiful here. The campus is right down by a little lake, and people go ice skating. Not me! Dad told me you finished with a first in state in our division! Danny! Why didn’t you tell me? The scholarships must be lining up!

Love, Maury

She waited for a day, then two, then three, before she wrote again.

Did my email get to you? Because you didn’t

answer. It turns out that I’m really a cruddy singer. My coach, Melody, says we have to rip me apart and put me back together. I told her, Been there, done that. But she says I have so many bad habits, like puffing my lips out when I sing, that I have to learn all over again. Well, I’m good at that. The food is pretty basic here, so tell your mom any goodies will be greatly appreciated. My mom sent me some gingersnaps the other day. Hard as hockey pucks. She never was much of a baker, but your mom is a pro.

Love, Maury

A day later she got an answer.

Great that you’re having so much fun. Same old, same old here. I’ll tell my mom to send you some cookies. Everybody says hi.

Your friend, Danny Carmody

Your friend? Danny CARMODY? Well, what had she expected?

He was either still mad at her for leaving or never cared at all.

When the brownies came, she gorged on a few, then shared the rest with her suite-mates. Four girls shared

a common bathroom, and her roomies were merciless. When she took too long, they pounded on the door and told her to get her slow butt moving. All in all, that was good for her.

Just before the Valentine’s Day dance, one of her suite- mates, a girl named Ali who’d become a friend, told her that Josh Jancy had a crush on her but didn’t know if she had a heavy hometown honey. Of course, they all knew who she was, but no one made a big deal about it.

Aching for Danny, Maureen made it clear that she would happily accept Josh’s invitation.

Josh Jancy stopped the next day after history and asked, “If I’m willing to wear a suit for you, will you forgive me for stepping on your feet?”

“I’m not much of a dancer,” she told him nervously when he picked her up at her dorm, just across from the Great Hall.

“Most people just stand there and shuffle from foot to foot,” he said. “When they start the fast songs, I sit down. So you’re safe with me.”

A week later, on Saturday night, Maury was surprised her gossamer prom dress still fit. Josh picked her up at eight at her dorm across from the Great Hall. “You can walk over, right?” he asked.

“You have to carry me, “Maureen answered.

They talked more than they danced. Josh was study ing piano but didn’t want to concertize—not that he was good enough. He wanted to get into a good school, such

as Northwestern, and become some kind of interpreter. He was basically fluent in Spanish. Maureen began to wonder if she might be able to make a living signing, not singing. She had learned to sign in rehab, to help her communicate when she had trouble retrieving a word. There were all kinds of places that used people who could do simultaneous translation for the deaf—from churches to the theater. “I’ve always loved watching the interpret ers,” she said.

“I don’t know,” Josh said. “I’ve heard you sing. You might be able to do that if you could write songs.”

“I have written a couple,” she said, as he put his arms around her and they moved out onto the dance floor. Josh was so big and tall, much taller than Danny, that she prac tically felt lifted as they danced. They raced for the tables when the deejay began to spin R and B. “I can sing it, but I haven’t got the moves,” Maureen told Josh.

“Not everybody has to be able to dance,” Josh told her. “Half the girls here just dance with their arms anyway. It’s like they were cheerleaders.”

“I was a cheerleader,” Maureen said. “Before I got in a bad car accident.”

Josh gave her a turned-down smile. “I know,” he said. “We all know. You’re some woman.”

“Not so much,” Maureen told him. “Anyhow, I didn’t have a choice.”

“Most people would have just curled up in a ball.” “I tried!” Maureen said. “They wouldn’t let me.”

Butshestilltiredsoonerthantheothersdid. Joshwalked her back to her dorm room before the event ended.

“Sorry,” she told him. “I’m just not used to the grind here yet. It’s a hard school!”

“Can I come in and talk for a while?” he asked. She knew he didn’t mean talking, really, and felt a little thrill in her chest.

Both of them were flushed and sweating after half an hour of making out on her bed.

Finally she said, “You better get going before my room mates come back. And, this is really as far as we should go.” “I didn’t think you’d even let me kiss you. I know you’re

still all over your guy back home.”

“He’s not my guy,” Maureen said. “We broke up before I left. Mutual.”

“So I wasn’t out of line,” Josh said with a smile. “Not at all.”

“So if we go to brunch tomorrow, it’ll be okay.”

“Sure,” Maureen said. At the door, she stood on her tip toes—her right foot cooperating for the second it took—and gave him a kiss.

Then, without even bothering to take off her silver dress, she threw herself on the rumpled bed and thought,
At last. I’m over Danny.

But she couldn’t sleep. She tried drinking a glass of milk and eating a few saltines, then finishing her paper on Em erson. Still, she couldn’t sleep. By the time Josh showed up tomorrow, she’d look as if she were forty. At last, she

flipped open her laptop and scanned her emails. The usual greetings from Mom, who warned her to wear her boots with the treads on icy walks. A cheerful hello from Dad and a note from Jack, saying he was traveling to Spain with the soccer team at spring break.
Fabulous,
she wrote back.
We’re all hitting the road!

There was no word from Molly or Danny.

Although it was past one
AM
, Maureen tapped out a note to Molly, describing the dance and Josh, telling Molly she had become the biggest grind in the history of the world and that she was sure she’d be back in Bigelow by spring, having flunked out of this place.

To her shock, a message from Molly popped back up al most instantly.

Hey baby!
Molly wrote.
I’m so glad you’re settling in. We miss you so much! We just got you back and you took off. But really, I am so happy for you. I’m trying to get my parents to let me drive there and pick you up for spring break—you would think it was France instead of one state south! It’s really neat about the guy. I’m dating someone new, too. It’s weird. Everybody in a small school seems to end up dating everyone else. Well, I got my acceptance letter back from UM! I’ll be Nurse Molly in a few years! Got to crash now. . . . LUV U MOST!

Before Molly could go off-line, Maureen typed,
A new guy?

Tell, tell, tell! Now I know why you’re so slow answering me!

She thought Molly must have shut down and was about to do the same herself when a reply popped up.

Actually, I’m dating Danny, Maury. I’m surprised he didn’t tell you. It’s totally nothing serious . . .

Maureen couldn’t bring herself to read the rest. She looked down at her dress, the dress she had worn on the night she and Danny . . . on the night she came back to life. Carefully, sure she would rip it to shreds if she let her self and then regret it later, Maureen got her dress into its garment bag and slipped into her pajama bottoms. In the drawer, she found Danny’s old Bulldogs wrestling T-shirt andtenderlypulleditoverherhead.
I’mglad I lovedhim
, she thought. But suddenly her world seemed to have shrunk to the size of the room. Molly! How could Molly do this? But she was the one who’d left. Maybe Molly made Danny think of her—as she had once made him think of Bridget.

She was better off out of it.

But she messaged Josh, telling him that she had real ized too late that she was too backed up on studying to go to brunch—how about next Sunday? When Ali knocked, Mau reen said she had a stomachache and was going to sleep it off. After writing to Molly that she was happy for her and for Danny, Maureen lay down carefully on the bed.

This was as bad as it got, she thought. It didn’t get worse than this.

What her parents went through when they thought she was dead was worse; but for someone her age, this was ma jor. If she could get through this, she would be fine. She would be fine.

Maureen slept for hours, then hopped into the shower and joined everyone for dinner.

A note from Danny was waiting for her when she got back to her room. A real, printed note, not an email. Her hands tingling, she opened it. A valentine.

On the front was a small boy offering half his candy bar to a little girl. On the inside, Danny had written,
“I said you’d be the one who goes. I guess you did. But there isn’t a day goes by I don’t think of you, and how proud I am of you. Maury, you were my first real love. Don’t expect me to forget.”

Maureen almost tore the card in two—he would have written this days before Molly told her the truth. Then, in stead, she placed it in her top drawer, beneath a stack of clean and folded shirts.

And she didn’t hear from Molly again for a month.

The annual concert was to be held a day before the school closed for spring break. Molly wrote that her parents were being total idiots and would not let her come; but Mau reen’s parents surprised her by telling her they were com ing to bring her home and to attend the concert, with Pat and Henry and even Rag Mop. The drive was not that long.