Better Nate Than Ever (23 page)

“Crushed,” I say, probably too loudly, because some kids laugh on the subway, though they might just be laughing at my underbite, or my everything else. My big furry hooded-coat. Trust: I’ve still got it.

The subway rocks and sways, and finally we break out from underground and, just like that, like a surprise, we’re on an outdoor bridge, zooming straight out like a leap. It takes my breath away; for a second I think we’re flying, like the driver made a mistake and we’re bursting out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’s glass ceiling.

Aunt Heidi touches my knee and says, “We’re Okay, Natey. It’s okay.”

“Keep going with the story.” I’m looking right into the sun. Nobody ever talks about how good it can feel to look right at the sun, probably because it’s so dangerous to. But it’s a fact: If you look right into the sun, you cannot feel scared or happy or anything. It puts you directly into a neutral state. True.

“You can imagine being your mom, Nate, and getting grounded and having your boyfriend taken away—your dad, now—and how much you’d resent
your little sister. Me. Especially when your parents go away and, you know. Die. Before ungrounding you.”

God. Oh my God.

“And she and I never really made up. We just . . .” Her voice drifts.

You know somebody has really cried a lot of tears over something when they don’t cry at the point a normal person would. This story—grandparents killed in a Jeep crash, and sisters not speaking to each other—she should be bawling. But her eyes are bone dry.

That’s therapy for you, I guess. Thanks, Aunt Heidi’s shrink.

“So—so that’s all?” I say. “You told Grandma and Grandpa that Mom had beer and they grounded her and that’s why she stopped talking to you?”

“Yes,” Heidi says, looking at me and then away, right away. “Yes, that and the fact that I had gay friends once I got to Pitt, and I loved theater, and I didn’t want to work at Grandma Flora’s flower shop. You know, all of it. We stopped talking because of all of it.”

Right. “Of course.” A very traditional barn with no room for black sheep.

I get an idea.

“Hey, Aunt Heidi? Do phones work on the subway?”

“Well,” she says, shifting and brushing something off her jeans, something that isn’t there. “It can be
kind of rude to talk on the subway, on the phone—not that everybody
doesn’t
—but, yeah, above ground, here, you can use it.”

“That’s okay,” I say. “I just want to text somebody.”

I pull out my dying Nokia (three hours’ talk time,
tops
) and compose a text: “hey. in addition to not going as little bill for halloween, can you do me a huge favor & not tell anyone at school about anthony and his beer thing? just keep that to yourself. to us.”

And Libby texts back right away: “aye aye, captain manners.”

I close my phone and I guess I must be smiling, because Aunt Heidi says, “Good news, Natey?”

“Nah. I’m just trying to not let history repeat itself, is all,” and we pull up to Aunt Heidi’s stop and plop down the stairs two at a time, onto the street below.

And for just a second I allow myself to remember that this was an exciting adventure, no matter what, even if I didn’t get
E.T.
Even if I have to go home.

James Madison’ll be expelled, after all.

And one of the Bills is an outcast now.

Hey. Maybe he’ll need a friend.

F
reckles meets us at a Duane Reade.

There’re Duane Reades in Queens, too, FYI, for people who are thinking of moving out here; though, ask your parents first, because you don’t want them showing up drunk at your aunt’s house, believe me, if you run away.

Freckles picks up some fruit and milk and deodorant (“I’m low on Arm & Hammer,” he says, elbowing me. I must have used a lot.) “Your mom,” he says, as some kind of preparation, “is feeling a lot better. I think she’s just really embarrassed, and maybe you guys can . . . I don’t know. This isn’t my family. But maybe you guys can be extra nice to her when you get back.”

Aunt Heidi buys fresh flowers for the apartment. I bet you could even get a new
car
at certain Duane Reade locations. And I find a Maxwell House canister (Mom’s favorite) and decide to buy her an apology
card in the Hallmark section, something that features a cartoon boy crying his eyes out, holding a broken plate. Scenes from my life. At the last minute, I go more mature and buy her a blank card with the Brooklyn Bridge on the cover. Something to help subliminally convince her that the bridges here are fewer but cooler than back home. Maybe she’ll let me come back for some audition. Someday.

But I avoid the Reese’s Pieces in the candy aisle. Duh.

Freckles asks about the audition. And perhaps my stomach drops and perhaps he can tell.

“Nate,” Heidi says, glaring at Freckles, “I’m telling you. You never know what could happen. They just didn’t need to see anything else
today
. They could have just said to you, ‘Thank you, you aren’t going any further at all in the
E.T
. process.’”

For the record, I have heard the phrase “the process” about a jillion times since getting to New York. Still have no idea what it means.

“They could have just cut you. But maybe they’re still considering you. You never know.”

“That’s right,” Freckles says, lamely.

We pay for everything (Heidi does), and she and Freckles lead me out through the entrance vestibule, and just before we’re about to break to the street, I pass another homeless coat-drive box.

“Hey, Freckles, wait,” I say, and he turns around. “We wear about the same size jacket, right?”

He laughs.

“For real, though, can I borrow a sweatshirt the rest of the day, back at your apartment? And I’ll give it back before Mom and I take off, tomorrow or whatever.”

“Okay . . . ,” he says.

And I remove the yellow/burgundy thing (it takes a couple tries, it’s
that
big) and drop it in the box, shocked at how much work it takes to stuff the whole thing in. Man, was this coat gigantaur. God, there was even a built-in change purse, I see now, and an umbrella holder made of mesh. It kind of had everything going for it but an appropriate fit.

Somebody else’ll appreciate it.

“Are you sure your mom would let you donate that jacket?” Freckles says.

“Yeah, it was kind of on loan, anyway.”

We race back to their apartment, my bare arms freezing.

Kids are starting to appear in costumes, on the street, looking just like the kids back home. The getups aren’t any better, and that really blows my mind; I’d think in New York the ghosts would be ghostier and the witches witchier. But I guess a kid’s Halloween costume is the same everywhere. A bunch
of little boys, smaller than even me, come toward us, dressed as a pack of cowboys.

“Look out for Indians,” Aunt Heidi says, and Freckles sort of fake-hits her and says, “Native
Americans
,” and we sort of laugh.

For a second, I think that we’re passing a pretty convincing caveman, but it turns out to be a really wrecked homeless guy, his beard stringy and dotted with bits of food. He is shivering, a ratty tank top hanging from his frame. He reaches out his hand and says, “Spare change, please?”

“Sorry, man,” Aunt Heidi says. “We’re actors.”

We
are
?

We
are?

Freckles takes his own coat off and hands it to this man, calling me an inspiration as we walk away.

“Aunt Heidi!” I say. I’m still stuck on being called an actor. To be
part
of this club! It’s intoxicating. I guess she’s right, though: I’ve been through a weekend of Broadway auditions, and they didn’t even hate me. They even asked to see some of the things I did a second time, even if Garret Charles said, at one point, “I can’t figure out why that’s so compelling, young man,” in his British accent, “but I could watch you slam into that wall a thousand times. It is . . . vibrant, somehow.”

Heidi’s walking ahead of us, concealing a smirk.

“So
we’re
actors?” I say.

Freckles sort of skips, and tickles Heidi, just like a nice boyfriend might, and says, “Are we, Heids?”

And she says, “Oh, we’re nothing until something happens. But my old commercial agent called, and they want me to go in for a Talbot’s ad tomorrow.”

“No way!” I say, or scream. “That’s, like, so huge.”

“Well,” Aunt Heidi says, grinning or trying not to, “it’s not huge until I get it. And I don’t think people my age even wear Talbot’s, so I’m kind of insulted about that. But, yeah. It’s whatever. It’s nice.”

“Wait,” Freckles says. “Weren’t you going upstate tomorrow? Wasn’t Troy taking you on some hayride or something?”

Aunt Heidi sighs, smiling at a girl dressed as a dead girl, and says, “Oh, you know what? Troy only takes me on road trips when he’s been seen in bars with women I could have mothered. So, you know? I just—I canceled on him.”

Freckles hides a smile.

“I said something had come up.”

“You’re so going to get that Talbot’s commercial, Aunt Heidi. You so are.” And I know she will, actually.

We get to their lobby, the rain just starting up again.

“Okay, when we get upstairs?”

“Yes?” they both say.

“I don’t know what. I don’t know what to say to her, but I need you to stand between us in case she’s come to her senses and wants to ground me.” Though, hey: I’d technically be grounded in the state of New York.

And just as we’re about to get into the elevator, I look over and see that dead lobby plant, from earlier, and—you wouldn’t believe it—a single bud, popping up from a branch.

“Look at that,” I say, stopping, dropping my bookbag. “Wasn’t that thing dead before?”

“It was. Yeah, actually,” Heidi says, with real wonderment.

Freckles says, “It’s the weirdest thing. We have a joke about that plant. We call it—”

“The Charlie Brown Christmas tree,” Aunt Heidi says, completing his sentence. It’s a ridiculous thing to call it, of course, because it’s obviously a tropical plant and not a tree at all. But I know what they mean by the joke.

I walk over and inspect it and, sure enough, all the leaves have lifted. Raised like they’re being held by something small and invisible underneath.

“Elevator’s here, Nate,” Freckles says. “You should pick off that little flower for your mom.”

But I shake my head. “Nah, let’s leave it,” I say, backing up from the plant slowly. “Aunt Heidi bought
flowers. Let’s give the little Charlie Brown plant a chance.” And the elevator door dings shut and I watch as, I swear to you, the whole plant exhales.

Pushing itself up maybe another half inch.

You have to be as short as Nate Foster to appreciate how big a half inch can feel, or look. Or sound, on a résumé.

We get back to their apartment, but Mom’s nowhere in sight. Maybe she just left me here. And, weirdly, I hope she hasn’t; I hope she’s not back on the road by herself. Dad called me brave. A brave person worries about other people and not just himself.

Heidi pours us all a glass of water, and we sit on the futon, all three of us, and right then the bathroom door opens and out she comes.

Wearing Heidi’s Pitt T-shirt.

“Sherrie,” Heidi says.

“Heidi,” Mom says.

They both stay exactly still, and the way the light is hitting (or maybe it’s the fake Halloween lantern in Heidi’s window, but still), Mom looks so young. Tired, sure, but so pure, her face scrubbed so clean; her hair up—I didn’t even realize it’d gotten this long—in a ponytail. She looks, in fact, just like my aunt, from all those photos Heidi’s hiding under the coffee table.

Mom steps forward and shifts on her feet, a baby taking her first walk, and then puts her head in her
hands, and her shoulders shake. And Aunt Heidi stands up to walk over, but just stops. Stops and lets out a little cry. The cry of a girl ready to be forgiven, years after having sold her sibling out to a pair of adults who would, a short time later, die on a distant continent.

The cry of a woman ready to weep with her sister.

“I just
stepped
on something,” Heidi says.

Or not.

“Like a
mouse
or something.”

And that makes Mom and me scream, at exactly the same pitch. And that makes Freckles and Heidi laugh. Thank God.

Heidi reaches down and picks up my lucky rabbit foot, dropped this morning—so early—when Mom flung me across the room. I guess I must have blown that audition all on my own, on account of no rabbit foot.

Aunt Heidi places it back in my hand like it’s a rosary.

And when I look up again, the air is knocked out of Heidi’s lungs, such is the type of hug Mom is giving her. They look like Siamese twins, like the
Side Show
actresses (infamous musical flop about Siamese twins, but this reference isn’t being used here in a swear-word context.)

And I guess Aunt Heidi
didn’t
get rid of all her
tears after all, not in therapy or anywhere else.

Because here they are, the Monongahela and the Allegheny meeting Mom’s Ohio River, the two of them sobbing like strangers going as long-lost sisters for Halloween. Trick-or-Treat, and hot
Doonesbury
, they got treat. They ended up with a bag full of treat. And I think one of them keeps chanting
“We have so many missed birthdays to make up for”
but who knows? Their voices overlap in a general emotional girl-babble.

It’s pretty embarrassing for Freckles and me, but it’s also pretty wonderful for me.

The doorbell ding-dongs, and children squeal outside, and Freckles goes, “God! We spent all that time at Duane Reade and didn’t even think to pick up candy.”

But I say, “One sec.” And you better believe it, I’ve still got a few handfuls of Reese’s Pieces in the bottom of my bag.

I open the door, and standing there is a little boy, dressed up as—oh, God—Elliott from
E.T
. A red hooded sweatshirt and a blacked-out face. It’s very meta. He’s not just Elliott but actually going as “Halloween Elliott,” just like in the movie.