Eleanor (13 page)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

T
hey were tired the next day. Tabitha had promised Eleanor that she could sleep in the car, but she couldn't. Her mother dozed for half the drive, but Eleanor hadn't closed her eyes since she heard the footsteps in the snow the night before.

After the Venns left and Eleanor recovered her senses, she collapsed into a hysterical fit of laughing and crying. Tabitha made some warm milk and sat with her until she couldn't stay awake any longer and fell asleep on the couch. Eleanor watched her mother sleep and envisioned the far off Canadian tundra she had almost fled to that night.

In the morning, she cleaned up and made herself some breakfast, then helped prepare Tabitha for the long drive and the doctor's visit. At eight fifteen, a state van pulled up in front of their house, crunching the spent fireworks tubes under its tires. The driver honked, and Eleanor led her mother outside and into the back seat.

The driver tried to make small talk. He offered to stop for a drive-thru coffee or a breakfast sandwich, but Eleanor responded with such terse monosyllables that he shut up and drove in silence, leaving her to her thoughts and her mother to sleep.

Riverton was not a large town. Eleanor had read about large towns, cities, actual cities with millions of people. Riverton was the largest human habitation she'd ever actually entered. She had skirted around larger ones, Denver in fact, but she'd kept to the fringes and gone a long way around.

She was of two minds now about cities. There was the old distrust of people, the concentrated danger for her and her kind that cities represented. But now she imagined also a marvelous melting pot where she could hide unnoticed among the throngs of city dwellers. Cities promised an anonymity not shared by small towns like Jamesford or Riverton, where everyone knew and watched and judged everyone else.

The Riverton Oncology Clinic was a modern glass-and-steel construction that tried to conjure feelings of modern miracles and capable technology. None who visited it more than once kept that feeling long. To Eleanor it was a glistening tombstone. It smelled of lingering death and the wicked thing inside her mother that teased and tortured, and now, growing tired of the game, had set itself to her final destruction.

Tabitha told Eleanor that the day they met, she'd meant to die. She'd checked herself out of a Salt Lake City hospital by simply walking out the door. No one stopped her. She drove home, changed clothes, let her dog out, and never went back to her apartment. She drove north at speed. She'd crossed into Idaho before she knew where she was going and why.

Turning toward Yellowstone, the most wonderful place she'd ever been, she conjured happy childhood memories of bears and fishing with her father, her mother sweeping out a rented camper with a borrowed broom. That was where she'd die.

She knew the diagnosis was fatal. She was a nurse. She knew the odds, and no one pretended there was a chance of recovery. She might stay alive a year or ten, but the cancer would kill her as certainly as night followed day. Her doctor told her bluntly that the only way it wouldn't kill her was if she died sooner by another, less horrific means. She'd worked as floor nurse long enough to know what was ahead of her and to despair.

She knew a place by the lake on a beach—a special spot where she had seen the rabbits so many years ago when her parents were still alive. There she would eat her pills. She'd wash the entire bottle down with cheap whisky she bought in West Yellowstone. And then, when her head grew dizzy, she would swim out into the cold mountain water and never look back. She would cross the lake or she would die. She would die.

It had been a bright beautiful day as Eleanor remembered. She'd watched Tabitha from behind a thick pile of deadfall past the parking lot. Eleanor had felt exposed. She glowed like a fish's underbelly in the light, and felt a need to hide, but something about the woman in the little car interested her.

Tabitha tossed her keys onto the seat, and, carrying only a purse, left it with a certain finality Eleanor found alarming. She'd followed the woman to the lake, hurting her feet, still woefully soft and inadequate for the forest.

She watched her sit down and stare out over the lake for a long time.

Tabitha did not know Eleanor was there until the girl called out. Eleanor was sure she'd heard her clumsy footsteps in the pine needles, but Tabitha later swore she hadn't.

When she was right behind Tabitha, Eleanor said, “Asdzaan.”

Tabitha was surprised to see the naked girl standing so close behind her. She was covered in dust and dried mud, briars and twigs in her hair, cuts on her legs, mosquito bites everywhere.

“Asdzaan,” she repeated.

“I'm sorry, dear,” Tabitha had said. “I don't understand.”

“Woman,” she translated.

“Yes,” Tabitha said.

“Bidin,” she'd said then shook her head. “Need,” she said. “Alone me.”

“Oh, baby girl,” said Tabitha standing up and opening her arms. “Come to me.”

And Eleanor had.

When she retold this shared story the many times over the many years, Tabitha would often say that at that moment, when the little girl had run into her arms, Eleanor had saved her and given her the strength to live.

She had fought ever since to stay alive. “To repay the favor, if for nothing else,” she'd say.

The van dropped them off and they arranged for a short shopping trip before heading back to Jamesford. The driver was in no hurry. He was there for the duration with nothing waiting for him at home. Tabitha thanked him and wished him a good lunch.

The waiting room was bright and cheerful. Arrangements of fresh flowers masked the scent of desperation. A professional decorator, fond of yellows and pinks, had tried to conjure feelings of spring mornings, healthful breezes, and enduring life with swirling colors and wavy lines. He had done the best he could, but the atmosphere in the office still weighed heavy with misery.

The staff busied themselves and avoided direct eye contact with the patients. Under orders, they forced pleasant, hopeful expressions onto their weary, spent faces. Eleanor knew they had seen death a thousand times and were tired of it. They did not want to know Tabitha. They refused to even remember her name and had to look it up each time even though she'd come here every other month for over seven years. By their calculations, surely Tabitha was a miracle, a long-time cancer survivor beating the odds if only by one day, one month, one year. But it was only delay, and they couldn't allow an emotional investment in her or her daughter. It would only lead to sorrow when the inevitable happened.

Eleanor waited on a bench and tried to ignore the neutered, upbeat music filtering down from hidden speakers. She waited while Tabitha was radiated, scanned, probed, and stabbed. She'd be strapped to a gurney for an hour while one-eyed robots stared through her skin, determining the cancer's advance. They'd promised to bring her back to sit with her mother when the tests were done—about an hour. Of course they lied. She knew it was two at least, likely three.

Eleanor also knew what the doctors would tell her. They'd say it in their most compassionate voices, using their carefully chosen vocabulary that kept hope alive when none should. The cancer had spread. Eleanor had smelled it on her mother's breath, heard it in her stiffening bones, seen it her mother's weak steps and uneaten food. She'd seen it in her mother's eyes and knew that Tabitha also knew.

“The goal will be to get some meat on your bones,” the doctor said. “Bread, chocolate, ice cream, and high fats. Go for it,” he said like he was letting a child out for recess. “Get a few pounds on you and we'll try more ‘aggressive' therapy.”

He handed Eleanor a stack of prescriptions. “Take these to the pharmacist for your mother,” he told her.

“Are these the same as before?” she asked him.

“I increased the pain medicine and added something to perk up her appetite,” he said. And then he looked at Tabitha. “If you know anyone who knows anyone, you could also try that other thing,” he said and winked.

Tabitha nodded. “Are these expensive?” she asked.

“They should be the same,” said the doctor. “Are they too expensive?”

“No, just curious,” said Tabitha.

The doctor opened a drawer and took out a box of pills individually packaged. He checked the expiration date. “Perfect. Okay, when you run out of these, fill the prescription,” he said. “I'll see if I can get you some more.”

“Are you sure?” asked Tabitha.

“They expire at your next visit. It's perfect. I won't have to send any back.”

“What about your other patients?”

“I'll call the drug rep. He'll be here in an hour with more samples. Trust me. He will.”

Eleanor helped her mother dress. When they were done, the doctor came in with two more boxes. “There,” he said. “This should tide you over until next time.”

Eleanor took the boxes.

“That'll save us a bunch of money,” Tabitha said when they were in the van. “We have enough for a prom dress now.”

“What?” Eleanor said. She'd entirely forgotten about the dance. She'd focused entirely on her ailing mother. “No,” she said. “We can't afford a new dress.”

“Okay, then let's see what's at the secondhand.”

When they stopped, the driver offered to unfold a wheel chair from the back for Tabitha, but she refused it. She leaned on Eleanor for support, and together they shopped for a dress.

“Of course I'm assuming you'll go with David,” said Tabitha.

“Do you think I should?” she asked.

“Of course I do,” her mother said.

“But you're sick.”

“I've been sick for a long time.”

“What if you—”

“Then I do,” she cut in. “Live, Eleanor. Live. This is life. Grab it. Dance. I'll be fine for one night. I survived without you for a week, didn't I?”

“I'll be noticed,” she said, thinking she should tell her mother about the new gossip. Tabitha had forgiven her for what she'd done, helped her recovery, and even, finally, when Eleanor was still in pain, barely able to move, but finally herself again, her mother had kissed her forehead ever so tenderly and told her she was proud of her. She called her “the bravest little girl she'd ever known with a heart as big as a bear.” It was something her real mother had once said to her, or something like it. She couldn't remember telling Tabitha about it, but it made her happy, and she recovered faster for it.

“Eleanor, you're a beautiful girl no matter what you look like. People are going to see that, the good people especially. You're going to be noticed. Let's stretch a little bit, come out from under our rock and live a little.”

Eleanor wasn't sure. Survival instinct told her to remain in the shadows, dart out, scavenge, and run for cover. It was that instinct that had kept her alive. It was the same instinct that had nearly driven her from this woman's side the night before into a frozen wasteland, never to meet again. She realized then that she had made this decision last night. By taking that step into the house instead of out the back door, she had given herself up to trusting Tabitha. She had overridden a millennium of instinct, decades of practice, and her own personal fear, for trust in Tabitha, the dying woman she'd met at the lake.

“I think I'd like something in blue,” she said to her mother. “Maybe something with puffy sleeves, you know, like Anne of Green Gables wore?”

Tabitha laughed. “Do you even know what that looks like?”

“No,” Eleanor admitted.

“We'll just see what they have.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

T
abitha made the driver stop at a fireworks store on the way home. They'd found a dress, shoes, and even a shawl so she wouldn't have to cover up with her old cloth coat. Some mending and tailoring would be needed, but Tabitha thought she could handle it.

“You have to answer in kind,” she told Eleanor. “It's tradition.”

They couldn't afford a show like David had made. Eleanor was startled to see how much such things cost and quietly calculated what David had literally blown asking her out.

“We can't afford any of these,” she said to her mother.

“When money's low, your imagination should be high,” she said and pointed to a box of sparklers. “I have an idea.”

When they got home, Eleanor fetched a piece of salvaged plywood from the shed. Using a rusted saw left over from a previous owner, they cut off the chipped edges. With a handle-less file, they smoothed off the splinters. They worked into the night with crayons and a hair dryer. They melted the wax crayons in psychedelic designs around the simple message: “Yes.” The next day, Eleanor punched holes into the letters with a hammer and nail. She threaded the sparklers through the holes, bent and taped the ends on the reverse side.

“What are we going to light it with?” wondered Tabitha.

“A match?” suggested Eleanor.

“We have to get all the sparklers going at once,” she said. “A match won't do it. We need a road flare.”

“How about another sparkler?”

“That might work,” she said. “If we work together.”

“You're coming?” said Eleanor, surprised.

“Of course. I wouldn't miss it.”

And so that night after dark, Eleanor and Tabitha, bundled up in layers of coats and socks, carried the board between them to the trailer park. They made their way slowly. The weather was mild. They saw their way by low clouds reflecting flashing neon light from main street diners.

Tabitha had arranged with Mrs. Venn to be home with David at ten o'clock, but they didn't arrive until closer to half past.

They propped the board against a barbecue grill by the door. Eleanor heard sounds inside the house. They'd made so much noise setting up the board that she wasn't surprised when the house fell silent. But they hadn't opened the door yet, so she lit two sparklers from a wooden stick match and handed one to her mother.

The big three-letter word had forty six sparklers in it. They started together at E and moved out from the center, Eleanor to the Y, Tabitha to the S. As fast as they could, they lit the sign. Eleanor finished first and sprinted to the door and rang the bell, then she jumped off the porch and ran across the road.

Tabitha had just lit the last sparkler when David appeared in the doorway. Eleanor saw him in the brilliant white light. His expression lit up as he scanned the darkness for Eleanor but couldn't find her. He settled on Tabitha and grinned.

“How'd you get those colors?” he asked her.

“Imagination,” she said. She waved to Mrs. Venn and Wendy, who peeked out around David's shoulders and legs. Then Tabitha left and found Eleanor waiting down the road. Eleanor threw her arms around her mother and hugged her a long time.

David had done a miracle. The following days, Eleanor was still talked about in the halls of Jamesford High, but not as she had been. David's pyrotechnic dance invitation was the talk of the school. There'd been creative invitations in the past—a car filled with balloons, cookies baked and delivered, a singing telegram, but nothing as spectacular and memorable as David's firework display.

It was a hard act to follow. When David described Eleanor's answer, the girls were also put on notice. She thought she had done a good job with her mother's idea, but David embellished it until that old piece of plywood could be hung in the Louvre. Eleanor heard their names mentioned as potential prom royalty. She was gobsmacked.

Girls whom Eleanor had never talked to sought her out to ask what she was going to wear. Girls who'd tried to talk to her in years past, maybe even tried to be her friend but were unsuccessful, approached her again like they were bosom buddies.

Eleanor's suspicion kept them at a distance, but after the third day, she relented at her mother's urging and took part in discussion of hair styles and makeup. Eleanor's sudden popularity was contagious, even to Eleanor.

Jennifer Hutton laughed at Eleanor's ignorance of lip-gloss, but it wasn't mean-spirited, at least she didn't think so. She patiently told Eleanor about the benefits of lip-gloss over lipstick. “It makes your lips look wet,” she said.

Jennifer was a popular girl who floated in and out of different cliques without social consequences. She was something of a barometer of school popularity. She orbited new stars like a roaming comet, and Eleanor felt both privileged and frightened to have her attention.

News of David's fireworks also reached the teachers, and Mr. Graham commented on it in one of his lectures, saying that David Venn knew about exothermic reactions better than anyone. Russell Liddle stopped ignoring David and began to actively dislike him again. He guffawed at Mr. Graham's comment, possibly thinking there was a double entendre there somewhere, but he was alone. Eleanor remained wary and watched his comings and goings carefully during the days leading up to the dance.

Five days before the dance, she watched him leave his friends and walk to Barbara Pennon's table. Barbara sat with Alexi and Crystal. Eleanor knew that Alexi was going to the dance with Robby Guide and suspected Bryce Sudman had asked Crystal, but she didn't know if Barbara was going. She couldn't imagine her not going.

At Eleanor's table, David and Brian Weaver were in a conversation while Eleanor, Jennifer, and Midge, who'd become a silent regular at her table, listened to Aubrey, also a new addition, describe her cat's acrobatics on the drapes. Eleanor had known her for years and never heard more than a sentence wrung out of her mouth, but at Eleanor's lunch table, she had become a little chatterbox.

“My dad was so mad,” she said. “The whole thing was ruined—tears and rips, floor to ceiling. But it was so cute seeing her climb up. I couldn't stop her.”

“Shhhh,” said Eleanor. “Look.”

The group followed Eleanor's gaze across the lunchroom. She'd been watching Russell, trying to pick out snippets of his conversation with his friends when he got up and approached Barbara's table. The entire lunchroom noticed his awkward advance and fell silent. Eleanor perked up her ears.

“So, we're going right?” said Russell.

“What?” Barbara said.

“The dance, you know,” he said, his hands in his pockets. He glanced over his shoulder to his friends who also watched with interest. “The guys, well Tanner, thought that I should, you know, make sure we're still on.”

“He's asking Barbara to the dance,” said Eleanor.

“No way!” said Jennifer.

“Here? At lunch? A week before?” said Aubrey. “She's not going to like that.”

“She doesn't,” said Eleanor.

“What's she saying?” asked David.

“That's the best you got?” Eleanor translated. “You're a punk, Russell. A classless punk.”

“She really said that?” Jennifer said.

“Yeah, I got that, too,” said David, though Eleanor doubted he had.

Barbara lowered her voice. “That stupid David Venn made that wallflower Eleanor Anders the queen of the prom, and this is all you got for me?” Eleanor didn't relay this to the table.

“Well, you know,” Russell stumbled, his flushed face visible clearly to the entire sophomore class who all watched the drama now. “You know, we're already going together, so I assumed that, you know, we were already on for the dance.”

“Looks like he's getting eaten alive,” said Brian. “Oh man, serious girl foul.”

Barbara suddenly became aware of the entire room looking at them. Even the upper classmen sensed something and followed the stares of the tenth graders to her table. She leaned in to him and whispered.

“Okay, you lout,” she said. “I'll go with you, but only because no one else has asked me yet.” Whispers carry farther than people think. Eleanor had no problem picking her out of the quiet crowd. “You better pull out the stops at the dance,” she said. “Actually, you better start pulling them out now. Flowers every day until the dance.” She glared at him. He nodded.

“She's going with him,” Eleanor said. “But he has to bring her flowers every day.”

“It's your fault, David,” said Brian. “You made it hard for all of us. You cut Russell off at the knees.”

“Yeah, I have a knack for that,” he said and laughed. Eleanor didn't share his mirth. She watched Russell walk back to his table. By the time he rejoined Tanner and the others, he was all bravado and confidence again, but Eleanor knew he'd be at the florist's after school.

The next day, Russell delivered a bouquet of flowers to Barbara's table. She accepted them like a ballerina on opening night and then dismissed him like an autograph seeker.

“So here's the plan,” David said. “We'll double with Brian and Jennifer. We'll go to Chang's for dinner and then the dance.”

“What about Aubrey and Midge?” she said.

“Oh, um,” David said looking at the girls. “It's kinda up to the guys. Their dates haven't talked to me.”

“Is there room?” asked Aubrey.

“Yeah, I think so,” said David. “We have a van.”

“Are you sure it's okay?” asked Aubrey. David nodded. “Then I'll see if he has plans.”

“Who's taking you?”

“Eric Collins,” she said.

“Oh, okay. Yeah, I get along with him. Tell him to call me if he wants in. We're starting at five.”

“I have a ride,” said Midge. No one hid their surprise.

“Who asked you?” said Jennifer in a way that did not wholly insult Midge but only a little.

“You don't know him,” she said.

“So we'll get to meet him at the dance?” said Aubrey.

She nodded.

“Great. We'll all sit around and drink punch and hope no one sees us dance,” said Brian.

“Speak for yourself,” said David. “I know how to boogie.”

“I can line dance,” said Aubrey.

“Arghh,” said David. “Tell me it's not all going to be all country and western. I hadn't even thought of that.”

“I've never been,” said Jennifer, “but we are in Wyoming.”

“We don't have to dance,” said Eleanor.

“Oh, we'll dance,” he said. “I'll burn a couple songs to a disc that we can dance to without spurs.”

“Okay,” she said. Eleanor had begun wearing a headband to keep her hair off her face and she was not used to it. She'd put it on in the morning when she was anxious to go to school and see her new friends and talk to David. Halfway on her walk, she'd take it off and stuff it in her backpack feeling stupid and self-absorbed. Before the bell rang, however, she forced herself into the bathroom and put it back on before David saw her. Typical boy, he hadn't noticed the accessory, but had commented frequently and earnestly on how pretty she was.

David glanced at her and smiled. She felt suddenly exposed and bobbed her head to summon her shield of hair out of habit. When it failed to cover her, she looked away and hoped her cheeks didn't blush.

“It's going to be a great dance,” David said.

“It'll be the best I've ever been to,” said Jennifer.

“You've never gone to one before,” said Brian.

“Then you have a chance to set a high bar,” she giggled.

“He's from the res,” Midge said suddenly.

“What?” said Aubrey.

“My date,” said Midge to her lunch tray. “He's lives on the reservation.”

“Oh,” said Jennifer.

“That's fine,” said David. “As long as he likes warm punch, he'll fit right in.”

Midge relaxed and finished her lunch. Aubrey talked about dancing and wanted to know what everyone did with their arms during a two-step.

Eleanor listened to her friends talk, but her mood had darkened. Like Jennifer, she was unsure about an Indian joining their group.

She mulled it over with Tabitha that night as they fitted the dress. Without a sewing machine, Tabitha had done all the stitching by hand. “I got nothing better to do,” she said through a mouthful of pins. She understood Eleanor's trepidation with Midge's date, but told her to ignore it.

“You're going to run into people,” she said. “You can't hold what others did against them. That's just wrong.”

“I'm scared,” she said.

“You're always scared, cupcake,” she said. “And that's healthy, especially for you. But they're just people. People do dumb things, ignorant things, all the time. But even the ones who are stupid are not without value. They can learn. People can change. I've often thought that even those Indians back then lived to regret what they did. I don't mean they were punished, or put on trial or anything. I'm not that optimistic. But I bet it weighed on their souls.”

Eleanor didn't think so. But Tabitha was right. She was being prejudiced. She'd gotten along well enough with Robby Guide. True, he'd not moved to their lunch table, but maybe he had a better offer. Or maybe he'd sensed Eleanor's unease with him and stayed away out of courtesy. And then she wondered, as she always did around Native Americans, if he hadn't sensed what Eleanor really was and kept away because of it.

“You're going to be the prettiest girl there,” Tabitha said, standing to admire her work. Eleanor turned around and looked at herself in the mirror. She didn't recognize herself. It took her breath away. She was beautiful.