Authors: Emma McLaughlin
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Coming of Age, #Contemporary Women
“Yeah, now we’ve got three weeks to work on it. Not that I plan on working on it for the next three weeks,” I backtrack. “I mean, Laura and Benjy are at the battlefield right now, so they’re also getting a head start, yeah.” I lean against the bottom of the old wood railing, willing the cold to numb my nervousness.
He pulls his hat off and stuffs it in his pocket before flattening his hair with the palm of his red hand. “My dad was so impressed I was coming here on a Sunday he just handed me twenty bucks for, like, nothing.” He looks down at his handlebars. “So I’ll just…” Jake walks the bike over to the rusted rack bordering the empty gravel parking area and kicks the stand. The metal drops between the stones.
“Yeah, should be fine.” I try to keep my hands out of my pockets as the biting air whips around us. “I doubt the millions of other Whiteforest Settlement Historical House visitors will steal it.”
“I don’t know, I think we just beat the Whiteforest Settlement Historical House rush.” He jogs up the steps as I laugh. I didn’t expect him to be funny. “I bet there’s a bitchin’ souvenir shop.” He opens the door and holds it for me to walk in behind him. As we stand, thawing in the humidified heat, I realize that the same classical music that was on Mom’s car radio is playing from a black transistor on the windowsill.
“Hello!” An elderly woman in a lavender nubbly suit stands behind a wood table displaying a few stacks of brochures to lower the radio. “Hello there!” Our arrival seems to have brought a flush to her hollow cheeks behind the two circles of rouge. “A donation is suggested, but not required, and I will just put my book aside to give you a tour.”
“That’s okay,” Jake and I speak at once. He continues. “We’ve been here before.”
“Lots,” I add.
“It’s our favorite place, so we know our way around.” Jake smiles winningly.
Placing her liver-spotted hands atop the brochures, she sinks back into her chair, her shoulders sagging in disappointment. “All right, if you know your way around…”
“Thanks, though,” Jake says. “So, um…” I turn to him, raising my eyebrows encouragingly. “You always like to start with the, uh, upstairs, right?”
“Yes,” I say. “I love the upstairs.” I follow him to the narrow staircase and, my eye line level with the yellow stitching on his back pockets, we steadily climb, stooping as we clear the last step to a small room blocked off at waist level with Plexiglas. We stand for a few minutes while I pretend to look at the worn quilt, its surface mottled by the straw mattress poking up from beneath, breathing in the sweet smell of him.
“I was hoping for more,” he says. I start laughing again. “No rides? Not even a tram or something?”
“She’s going to hear us,” I whisper.
“So? We’re enjoying the Historical Settlement House,” he whispers back.
I glance to the stairs. “We didn’t even make a donation, I feel bad. She really wanted to give us a tour.”
“Of what, though? This place is tiny.” He smiles, the gray light from the small window filtering in from behind him, the faint sound of the wind blowing around us mixing with bits of symphony from downstairs. I force myself to stay perfectly still, not to wrap my arms around him. “Miss?” he calls out, his eyes still on mine. “If it’s not too late, we actually would like a tour.”
From below we hear, “Not too late at all, I’ll be right up!”
Standing inches from him in each of those five rooms, as she prattles on about loom weaving and coal-warmed beds, her face alight, all I can think is,
this
is the beginning. All the drama and the humiliation will be Before. And today marks the beginning of After. I will become the girl who is dating Jake Sharpe.
I follow him to the door as he fishes the twenty his dad gave him from his ski jacket and drops it into the donation basket. “Thanks a lot.” He waves at her as he opens the door for me. “It was a great tour.”
“Oh, my goodness, thank you.” She looks down at the crumpled bill, probably having just set some record.
“Yes, thanks! It was great!” I cheer. Be sure to invite you to the wedding!
We jog down the steps into the crisp dusk. Jake zips up his coat. “That was really…”
“Boring?” I smile.
“No!” He laughs. “The part about dipping candles was cool.” He pulls the folded assignment sheet out of his pocket. “I think I’m going to use that as one of my three artifacts. So don’t steal it. I’m calling dibs on the candle dipper. How ’bout you?”
“Yeah…”
He grins. “You weren’t even listening in there!”
“What?” I laugh. “No! I was!” I straighten my face. “She’s really happy now.” I point over his shoulder at the window where our guide tidies the table with purpose, a smile on her ridged lips. “We did a good deed.”
We both watch as she folds contentedly back into her chair with her dime-store paperback. He looks at me over the collar of his ski jacket grazing his chin, and tucks his lips around the zipper tab. “Is your family big into church or something?”
“No.” But they absolutely could be if you want. “Why, is yours?”
He cocks his head. “It’s just…I don’t hear people talk about good deeds so much.”
“That’s my parents, I guess.” I shrug, trying to figure out how I can move us toward hot chocolate at the diner.
“But not you?”
I look up at the darkening indigo sky. “I guess I am. I mean, if it’s easy to do something that’ll make things better for somebody…”
He laughs, his green eyes warm on me, “Oh, I see, as long as it’s easy.”
“Was that tour easy?” I dart a daring finger into his chest.
“Like a history test.” He grabs it.
“Next weekend we’ve definitely earned a cheesy movie.”
And I don’t know if he actually steps back or just leans, but all at once my finger is released and he’s gone. He looks to his sneakers, his hair falling forward. I want to tuck it back—a second ago would have, but he sighs with frustration, digging his toe into the gravel. “Katie, I’m not going out with anyone.”
“Sure! Of course!” I push myself. “No, I just meant—”
“After Kristi.” His lips twist as he stares past me, they’re chapped. The wind is building in fierceness, irritating the browned nettles along the fence. I pray for it to lift me right out of this, sweep me across the field and all the way to California.
“No, totally. This was just for school. I didn’t mean…”
He steps away to reach for his bike, kicking the stand up. I race for some way to save this, some way to take it back, but he starts talking again, his voice low as he tugs out his hat and pulls it on. “I should get home. My mom wants me to help get the decorations and stuff down from the attic tonight.”
“Yeah! Go ahead. My mom’ll be here any sec, so…”
“Thanks for the tour.” He looks at me before throwing his leg over the bike. “Seriously, Katie.”
“Sure,” I manage.
He looks like he’s about to say something else, but doesn’t. Instead, standing to grind the wheels across the gravel, he turns away and, launching into the pedals, takes off down the street.
My eyes sting, my everything stings as Jake Sharpe gets smaller. Our minivan comes into view three blocks down, lights on, slowing when it passes him. I don’t move as Mom rolls toward me and stops the car.
She lowers her window, her face bright with barely contained curiosity. “So?”
It is my turn to stare at the gravel. I tuck my head into my chest and round the front to get in, the scent of her Chloe enveloping me. I grit my teeth, trying not to fall apart, willing her to just take me home. Her hand gently brushes my hair as she goes to grip the headrest to back the car up. “Craig Shapiro called for you,” she offers tentatively as she makes the K-turn. “He wants you to call him back.”
December 22, 2005
“Manicotti’s getting cold, and we’re ravenous,” Dad calls from the stairs as I’m hastily rifling my closet of yore—the Betsey Johnson bodysuits, the babydoll dresses, the military jackets.
“I’ll be right down!” I say as I finally unearth Mom’s college sweater. I shake out the black cashmere, pressing the wrinkled three-quarter-length sleeves against my chest, and try it on.
Dad knocks. “You okay?”
“Yup,” I say as my head reemerges, needing to keep moving.
He pushes the door farther open, coming in to take a seat on my bed. Stepping over the heap of my airplane-aromatized outfit, I wait for him to say something. He doesn’t.
“So, full-time sand, huh?” I feel him out, reaching for the Lord & Taylor bag.
“Round the clock.” He nods. “That looks nice.”
“Thanks. But you always stay on the deck under the umbrella. And you hate the mosquitoes.”
He flexes his fingers. “Have you checked in with your office?”
I swipe my old Mason Pearson from the dresser top and tap it against my thigh to shake the dust free. “No, I’m waiting for them to file a missing persons—see if they really love me.”
“I’m sure they really love you. I do. Most days.”
“Thanks.” I flip over to brush the flight knots out of my shower-damp hair. “Actually, I was on conference calls during both layovers and after working straight through Thanksgiving and this Buenos Aires thing, they should be able to deal if I take off for Christmas two days early.”
“Fair enough.”
“So what’s the story, Dad? Why are you fleeing the state?”
He pulls a Kleenex from his pocket. “That’s a funny question coming from you.”
“Ha ha.” I dump the makeup out on the bed, catching my side view in the mirror. “Crap—there’s a hole.” I lift my finger under the tiny puncture. No time for, and even less interest in, excavating Mom’s underwear drawer for a camisole, I swipe a Sharpie from my desk, lift the sweater up an inch and draw an eraser-sized dot on my ribs. I flip the fabric down and—“Voila!”—no hole.
“You are a genius.” He blows his nose.
“Thanks.” I turn back to the mirror. “I just can’t shimmy, which is fine, as there is no shimmying in my game plan. My game plan is devoid of shimmying—and details.”
“Mine, too.” His hearing aid begins to whistle and he reaches in with his pointer finger to adjust it.
I hunker in front of him, studying his face. “So, Dad, how are you feeling?”
“Knock on wood.” He raps his knuckles on his scalp, then, realizing his hair has fluffed, smoothes his hand across it.
“How are you sleeping?” I touch the knee of his corduroy trousers.
“No worse than anyone my age.” He starts patting down his pockets, his comfort reflex, and I instinctively stand and step back to give him room. “You walk down our street at three
A.M
. and you’ll see everyone’s got their telly on.”
“Are you? Walking down the street at three
A.M
.?”
He slaps his palms against his thighs. “Come, your mother’s waiting to eat.”
“Hold on. Dad, are you still seeing Dr. Urdang?”
“Katie, unless you are renewing my insurance during this visit—”
“I just want to get a handle on why all the subterfuge.”
“I’m boning up for a second career with Her Majesty’s Secret Service.”
“Dad—”
“Katie.” He slips the tissue back in his pocket.
Infuriated by his childish obfuscation, I start ripping the cardboard packaging off the new makeup. “Okay, can you please give me a real answer here?”
He stands. “Listen, bun, I have cartons of notes from the research center that I’ve been wanting to turn into a book for years.” I nod to that oft-heard sentence. “And I was sitting in that god-awful fluorescent-lit library listening to the same five people have the same stupid budget fight they have every year, and I just snapped. What was I waiting for?” I don’t know—your IRAs? “I feel fantastic. We’ve finally unloaded this albatross—I’m cooking again, I’ve been catching up on my reading. I’m off those bloody pills that made me feel like a zombie—”
“You’re
what?”
I sputter.
He steps over the threshold. “Come on, Katie, my puttanesca sauce is at its best hot.”
“Does Mom know?”
Pretending not to hear the question, he pulls the door shut.
Fuck.
I look at the alarm clock. I look at the makeup piled in a crashed pyramid on the quilt. I flip open the compacts, quickly applying the colors in the mirror backing the door.
“Kate?” Mom calls.
“Right down.” I hold the mascara wand up to see my hand is shaking.
I jog into the kitchen as Mom turns to me, innocently proffering a bottle. “Care for some wine?”
“No, thank you,” I say, staring at Dad, imploring him to speak. But he looks down obstinately, continuing to ladle manicotti onto plates.
“Milk then?” Mom cants her head inquiringly as she reaches for the refrigerator door. I cannot take my eyes off of Dad’s mouth, set in a grim line.
“Thanks, but I need to…”
Dad sighs.
“Get this over with. Now.”
Lifting her shoulders, Mom chirps, “Car keys are on the side table.”
“Thanks, but I’ve gotta walk,” I say, kissing her cheek, my heart clenching as I round the island, not looking at him. “I still have to figure out what to say.”