Love Over Matter (25 page)

According to Haley, the stint Mrs.
Madden served in jail, however brief, did her a world of good. In
the last ten days, she’s sobered up, filed for divorce, prepped the
house for sale (which explains the fantastically clean state the
place is in today) and flooded the job market with
resumes.

Sometimes you have to
crash to reset things,
I think, remembering
a line from a recurring dream (or nightmare, depending on your
point of view) uttered by a complacent George as he steered us (I’m
in the car with him in this alternate reality) toward that deadly
tree.

In the case of Opal’s mother, though,
the idea fits. “It’s beautiful in here,” I say as we snake our way
to the church’s giant kitchen, where the heart of the party beats
merrily away.

Someone (Haley, Opal and/or
Mrs. Madden, I suspect) has painstakingly draped a canopy of
streamers across the ceiling in sweeping waves. In the background,
a mishmash of old dance music—
La
Bamba
has just bled
into
The Twist
—zips along. I shoot a passing glance at Mom and Dad, who are
twittering in each other’s ears like schoolchildren. Mom spots me
and winks.

At least they still love
each other,
I think,
after all these years.

I pull my gaze from my parents, only
to spy another pair of lovebirds: Ian and Rosie. Until now, their
romance has been nothing more than a ticking suspicion at the back
of my mind. But his arm draped easily over her shoulder, her
fingers dancing across his chest, their eyes locked in the sparkle
of love leave no doubt.

Opal grinds to a stop by an oversized
island, which is mobbed by a spread of food: finger sandwiches,
fruit plates, a tower of pastel-frosted cookies. “Have whatever you
want,” she instructs, motioning at a tray of meats and cheeses.
“There’s plenty more in the fridge. Oh, and the sodas”—she leans
over and flips open a cooler—“are right here.”

Aleks grabs a ginger ale, and I take a
root beer. I’m just about to reach for a snickerdoodle when a boom
of thunder hits my eardrums, making me jump. Aleks catches me by
the waist one-handed, saving me from tripping over my own feet.
“Oops,” I say, giving him a sheepish grin.

He spins me to face him. “Jittery, are
we?”

A violent cloudburst breaks loose,
drowning the Maddens’ small yard. Everyone stares moon eyed at the
downpour.

Haley is the first to get bored; she
sidles up to Aleks and me with a smug face. “Long time no see,” she
says, popping a grape in her mouth. “Ian’s looking for
you.”

I take her hint and extricate myself
from Aleks’s helpful grasp. He follows me to an alcove by the
pantry, where Ian and Rosie are curled obliviously around each
other, making me doubt Haley’s recent proclamation. “Hey,” I say
once Ian’s gaze connects with mine.

He looks caught, as if snuggling with
Rosie is a betrayal. “Oh, good. You guys showed up.” He nods at
Aleks. “Thanks for bringing her,” he says, equating me with a
bottle of wine or an invalid.

“
Nobody brought me,” I
object. “But Aleks was nice enough to give me a ride.”

Rosie rolls her eyes, revealing whose
side she’s on.

Aleks cracks open the ginger ale and
takes a sip. “So when do you leave?” he asks Ian.

“
Move-in day is
Thursday.”

Rosie looks crushed.

Ian returns the question to Aleks.
“What about you?”

“
Right after this,” he
replies, gesturing at the festivities. “As long as the rain stops,
that is.”

A spark of recognition hits Ian’s
face. “You’ve got the bike, right?”

Aleks nods. “Yup.
Unfortunately.”

Lightning flashes through the sky,
sending eerie shadows bouncing across the Maddens’ kitchen. Another
clap of thunder echoes. “You can stay one more night, if you have
to,” I say.

He politely declines, on the basis
that he’s due to help his dad wrap up that research study. By the
day after tomorrow, I’ll have lost not only George, but Ian and
Aleks too.

But I can’t dwell on that now, because
there’s celebrating to do. And one thing I won’t allow is a
depressing sendoff for my next-best friend.

The music has leapfrogged a
few decades to
Love Shack.
“Wanna dance?” I ask Ian, offering my
hand.

Rosie practically shoves him at
me.

With a shrug, he says, “I
guess.”

Like I said, the Maddens’ kitchen is
humongous (in its former life, it must’ve been the hub of the
church-supper wheel). Ian and I shuffle over to an expanse of empty
linoleum and, a little self-consciously (and ridiculously badly, I
might add), begin hoppin’ and boppin’ and bringing the house
down.

Out of mercy—or perhaps pity—Aleks and
Rosie join us. Then Haley and Opal. Dad invites Mrs. Madden onto
the floor, leaving Mom to sift through the five or six teenage
partygoers (Ian has friends other than me, and the proof is right
here) who are lingering around the periphery swapping nervous
laughter. Somehow Mom coaxes Eva Ryan, Milbridge High’s star
softball player, into serving as her dance partner with hilarious
results. Soon even the looky-loos cave and, for three or four songs
straight, we all gyrate around in a stew of feverish movements that
would make a Tasmanian devil proud, the ongoing thunder enhancing
the beat of the music, the lightning generating a natural
strobe-light effect.

Eventually, Mom tires out, her face
flush and her hair matted with sweat. I get a jolt of worry over
her heart, but then I remember that the cardiologist has given her
the all clear.

Little by little, the rest of us peel
away from the dance floor and congregate around the island,
greedily replacing the calories we’ve just burned off. “How’s it
going?” I ask Mrs. Madden as she fills up on Swiss cheese beside
me. The furrows in her face have miraculously relaxed, making her
appear ten years younger.

She waves my question away. “Oh, you
know . . .”

I repeat my earlier statement. “This
place looks great.” But I fail to think through what I say next.
“Too bad you have to sell it.”

Her eyes—and somehow
only
her eyes—flinch.
“I
will
miss it
here,” she responds wistfully.

I rush to backpedal. “A fresh start
will be nice too, though,” I try. “Right? And you and Opal can come
visit anytime. Haley would be thrilled.”

Her gaze hangs on Mom and Dad. “We
just might take you up on that,” she says, patting my arm with her
still-papery fingers.

Someone (if I had to bet whom, I’d put
my chips on Haley) has duct taped a donkey poster to the inside of
the Maddens’ back door. How I’ve overlooked the thing until now I’m
not quite sure. “Here,” Opals says to Aleks, passing him a
golf-themed necktie pilfered, I assume, from her stepfather’s
wardrobe. “We’re using these for blindfolds.”

Aleks looks amused. “Okay,” he says,
being a sport. He gives the tie a shake. “Thanks.”

Apparently, the golf-themed
accessories run deep, because I get a kelly green neckerchief that
is sprinkled with nine irons. I’m not so gracious about accepting
it, though. “Uh, I don’t know. Is there going to be spinning
involved? I don’t do well with rotation.” This isn’t just a lame
ploy to get out of playing pin the tail on the donkey; when I
chanced riding the teacups at Six Flags, I morphed into
The Exorcist
’s
demonically possessed girl-child, projectile vomiting and
all.

Opal shrugs and moves on with her
basketful of blindfold substitutes. Once everyone is properly
attired, the fun begins. “Please form a line here,” Mrs. Madden
instructs in an elevated tone that barely surmounts the torrent
outside.

Haley is first to oblige, then Opal.
Mom and Dad squeeze in next, followed by the unit known as Rosie
and Ian. Aleks and I are wandering over to fill out the middle when
the remaining guests rush in and take our place, leaving us solidly
at the end of the line. “What do we get if we win?” I mumble,
trying to find the upside of such a nausea-inducing
activity.

To answer my question, Mrs.
Madden brandishes a glass replica of a giraffe that reminds me of a
giant bejeweled scepter. “Closest to the . . . well,
the
buttocks,
” she
says, making the word sound more risqué than seems possible, “gets
to take Mr. Lincoln home.”

The giraffe is named Mr. Lincoln? As
in our sixteenth president? If I squint, I guess I can see the
resemblance.

Mrs. Madden is exempt from competing,
but the rest of us are issued push-pin-studded “tails” (narrow
slices of cardstock that more resemble crescent moons than mammal
appendages), each in a distinct color.

“
I hope I don’t get sick,”
I mumble, clutching the hot-pink tail to my chest.

Aleks pats my back reassuringly, and I
begin to relax. “Look,” he says, pointing over my shoulder at
Haley, who, after twirling like a top for thirty seconds, is
wobbling back our way instead of forward at the donkey. “Your
sister’s not doing so hot.”

He’s trying to cheer me up, and it’s
working. “True,” I agree with a chuckle.

Before Haley gets too far out in left
field, Opal latches on to her arm and redirects her, resulting in
what could be the winning tail placement.

“
Woo-hoo!” someone (Mom?)
yells. A number of people clap and whistle as Haley, looking a bit
green in the face, staggers to a chair and collapses.

It takes a while to get through the
eight or nine people in front of us, but eventually Aleks and I are
on deck. “Ready?” he asks, tugging the neckerchief from my hand and
preparing to fasten it over my eyes.

I shoot the donkey a last-minute
glance, noting the cluster of tails pinned around Haley’s early
attempt—and slightly southeast of buttocks central. “I’m never
gonna be able to . . .” I complain, my vision going
dark.

“
Don’t worry about it,”
Aleks whispers. “I’ll help you.”

His hands feel more familiar than they
should as they cup my elbows and shimmy me forward. We stop, and he
gives me two slow rotations. The tail is ready for action, but he
steadies me for a few extra seconds before letting go. “Straight
ahead,” he breathes into my ear.

As easy as he’s taken it on me, I
still feel woozy. I hold one hand out and risk a couple of awkward
steps, my fingers landing on the poster with ease. Once I find the
sea of tails, I aim northwest and give a careful stab. Then I whip
the blindfold off and grope along the wall until I’m in line with
an empty chair, where I flop down beside Haley and close my
eyes.

Aleks is up last. Everyone hoots and
hollers and cheers him on. I can’t open my eyes, lest the bubble of
nausea in my gut multiply. Still, I hear Mrs. Madden announce that
the game has ended in a tie: Aleks and I must share Mr.
Lincoln.

Is he okay with joint
custody?
I wonder.
And liberal visitation rights? Should we vacation together,
for the sake of our giraffe?

I focus on my breathing, try to keep
down the egg salad sandwich I’ve recently consumed. When I pry my
eyelids apart, it’s obvious that the weather has done a one-eighty.
Instead of the gloomy, rain-drenched atmosphere that existed
before, the Maddens’ stained-glass window now overlooks a sparkly
Eden (everything is glistening, as if dipped in dew) in the grip of
full-summer sun.

With an extra shot of determination, I
lurch out of the chair and speed to Aleks’s side. “I’ve gotta get
some air,” I blurt.

His eyebrows pinch together in
concern. “Oh. All right.” Furiously, he scans the kitchen
for . . . someone to babysit Mr. Lincoln? “Mind
watching this?” he asks Haley, already pressing the kitschy thing
into her hands.

My sister’s reaction is nothing if not
predictable. “Whatever.” She sighs and rolls her eyes.

When we reach the Maddens’ cozy,
plant-filled yard, the steam lifting off everything gives the
impression we’ve just landed on a tropical jungle-planet. “Phew,” I
say, wiping away the beads of moisture already speckling my
forehead.

“
This might not be a good
idea,” Aleks tells me. “It’s so
muggy
out here.”

He’s right, of course. “I’ll be okay,”
I argue, not knowing if this is true.

For reasons unknown, Aleks looks lost.
Sad. Lonely. He treads the twenty feet between the church and the
white-picket boundary fence, where he peers sullenly into a copse
of trees abutting the Maddens’ property.

I feel like a voyeur. An interloper.
The violator of a sacred trust. Whatever is weighing on him is
clearly painful, and I haven’t earned the right to witness it
yet.

But I trace his steps anyway, because
he’s George’s brother—and my friend. “Hey,” I murmur, the dense air
thickening further with emotion. I fumble for his hand and
squeeze.

What happens next reeks of
hallucination. Delusion. A wounded girl’s desperate grab for Xanadu
on the horizon.