Teach Me (22 page)

closing doors

“Alicia. She’s pregnant.”

The words are a needle. My lungs are deflating like pricked balloons.

Pregnant?

I can’t wrap my thoughts around the word, now that it’s something real, not just a weapon. Pregnant. That explains the flouncy clothes, the swollen ankles, the way she always seems to have a glow. He goes on.

“She came and told me. That’s what it was. I had to make a decision quick. Her father expected us to get married, had already been pushing her, arranging things. But she left the choice up to me. It was the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make. I knew it—”

I start to say something, end up only making a sound.

“I knew it would kill you,” he says. “I knew it would kill us both. But for once in my idiotic, selfish life I decided to do the right thing. For once I stopped trying to rescue myself and thought about somebody else for a change. And guess what? Somebody else did the rescuing for me.”

We look at each other. An ambulance screams up outside. Two paramedics hustle a gurney through the glass doors, bumping the handles. It’s an old woman with her hair bundled in pink curlers. She’s clutching her robe around her shins and speaking. I can’t make out the words.

A tightness comes across my chest.

“Were you—with her and me? At the same time?”

“No,” he says. “It happened when I was just getting to know you. I was desperately lonely. Stupid. I told her not to, but she came to see me one last time.”

I watch them shove the gurney through the Door. I’m trying to find the hate I’ve been carrying inside, see if I can piece it back together. Maybe it’s behind the Door. On the other side. I can’t get to it anymore.

I find his eyes. “So why didn’t you just tell me?”

He spreads his hands, palms up, moves them, trying to speak. I’m reminded of Boris Karloff in the old classic version of
Frankenstein
. Imploring his creator for food, light.

Love.

“There’s no easy answer,” he says finally. “At first I think it was mostly shame.”

“Shame?”

“Yeah.” Mr. Mann looks at the floor. “Shit, this is hard. It’s just—you meant so much to me, Carolina. I was finally over a really bad time in my life. I wanted to be good for you. I thought I was. I thought we were good for each other.”

“Okay.”

“But when I found out about Alicia—I told myself,
enough
. It stops here. Everything. Even if it meant I had to sacrifice you. Then when I saw the shock on your face, the hate—I couldn’t stomach myself. Couldn’t stomach you knowing why I did it. Maybe I was scared to death of making it any worse. I’m not as strong as you are.”

He looks at his palm, starts rubbing at the crease of his lifeline with his thumb as if he could wash it away.

“You said at first it was shame,” I say.

“Yes. In the beginning.”

“But what about after that? What stopped you from telling me?”

He stops rubbing his palm and lets his hands drop to his side. He doesn’t seem to know what to say.

“You’re so intense about everything, Nine. I’ve never known anyone as intense as you. I thought maybe someday I could tell you. But after what you did at the wedding, my apartment—I was afraid if I told you, you might go a little crazy on me.”

We look at each other.

My bandaged head. Schuyler’s blood on Mr. Mann’s sleeve.

“Crazy,” I say.

He laughs.

I laugh too. Now we’re laughing together. But it’s a good laugh this time. Cleansing. It takes a while to settle down again. Little bursts keep popping out like sneezes.

I’m cold. I pull the thin blanket around my shoulders. We don’t talk for a long time. I think about Alicia, the baby. In the middle of the silence, I realize I’m still falling, but maybe not so fast this time. It’s a controlled descent. The shields are holding. I think I’m going to be able to land. There’s a chance I can fly again.

“So. What does this mean?” I say finally. “We have to be friends?”

His face goes slack again. He breathes out. “Probably not. I don’t think we can. Not after what you’ve—not after what we’ve done to each other.”

Silence.

“I forgot to thank you,” I say.

“For what?”

“For saving Schuyler’s life. Saving mine.”

He looks down at his shoes. They’re muddy. His cuffs are starting to dry.

“You want a Coke?” he says.

I shake my head.

“Let me teach you something,” he says.

I give him a hard look.

“No, I’m sorry. Something I found out about hospitals. Did you know if you want a Pepsi, you have to go to a different floor?”

“No.”

“It’s true. This floor has nothing but Coke machines. If you want a Pepsi, you have to go one floor up. Coke and Pepsi alternate.”

My head is throbbing. I don’t say anything.

“I think I’ll get one,” he says. “It’s been a long day.”

He stands and heads to the elevator.

“What if I want a Dr. Pepper?” I call after him.

He stops and looks at me.

“I don’t know, Carolina,” he says. “I don’t know what you do if you want a Dr. Pepper. But I’ll see what I can do.”

He goes away getting smaller and smaller. The elevator opens for him. Closes.

Something has closed inside me. It will always be there, but it’s closed.

water days

Months.

Today I’m thinking about differences.

Wilkie Collins doesn’t feel so much different. His handling is a little more sluggish, if that’s possible. He still screeches and farts teal smoke. But his upholstery is new. Dad is a genius and an angel. I’m glad he didn’t look in the glove box.

Today I take Mr. Sprunk’s copperhead pistol out. I hold it by the tip of the handle between thumb and forefinger, a venomous creature. A swamp is a good place for a gun. It sinks in the mud with barely a bubble. I’m sure Mr. Sprunk has found another. For all those snakes out there in the world.

Mr. Mann’s chapbook is still lying on the floorboards, a wrinkly mess. I let it dry to read it; I’m surprised his poetry doesn’t do much for me. It feels complex, distant, not like Emily’s at all. Maybe he was trying too hard. I remind myself that he was very young when he wrote it.

Maybe that’s what being young is, pushing too hard.

Back home I open my book of Emily’s poems. I’ve read this one many times before. It means much more to me now.

 
THAT I did always love,
I bring thee proof:
That till I loved
I did not live enough.

x-ray heart

The mall.

Another May.

I’m with Mom and Schuyler.

She’s let her hair grow out straight again. It’s brittle and mousy silver. Cleopatra with an AARP card instead of an asp. I like it.

We’ve been to Dillard’s and the Gap; she’s loaded me down with clothes, some I even like. I smile and let her take her time. She’s taken her time with me, hasn’t she?

“What, sweetheart?” Mom says.

“Nothing. Just thinking out loud.”

Schuyler’s ears go up. “I’ve got my license,” he says.

“No!” Mom says.

“Yep. Guess I’m just tired of being a freshman, Miz Livingston.”

“Well, good for you, honey! I know your parents are proud.”

I bump into him on purpose when Mom is out of earshot. “Why didn’t you tell me? I would have come with you.”

“And hexed me all over again?”

“—!”

“I’m kidding, Nine.”

“So what’s college got to do with it? Being a freshman?”

“Not just college. Everything. I guess I just want to be able to do things. Older things.”

I smile into his frown. “Are you getting tired of me?”

“No! No, not at all. You know that. It’s just. You know.”

“Sure. You just want to grow a little. Let your hair down.” I brush my fingers through his springy mop. “If you can.”

“Cut it out.”

We’re passing through the food court on our way to Sears. Everything smells of chicken. Spring sunlight is flooding the atrium through the skylights.

I’m thinking about Mars, how it’s gone away now. But Dad is helping me build a new telescope, a twelve-inch Dobsonian reflector. I’m tired of refractors, trying to see surface details. I want to go deeper. I want to gather more light.

We’re cutting through a crowd of snacking shoppers when a raspy voice cuts into me.

“Well, cut off my legs and call me Shorty.”

Barb.

I gawk. She’s here with Vince. Mr. Mann. Alicia.

She rushes over and takes my arm, gives it a good wringing, then pulls me close for a hug that smells of Kools and peppermints.

I haven’t seen Mr. Mann in nearly a year. He looks fit; his hair is long again. If he held his head just right, he could touch his tongue to the locks.

He’s pushing a stroller.

“Hi,” I say. Nobody knows I’m saying it only to him. The moment feels like raising a flag that has no colors.

“Hello, Carolina,” Mr. Mann says.

Barb makes introductions all around. I do the same for Mom and Schuyler, minus Barb’s delighted braying. The baby thankfully gives us a focal point in the center of the awkwardness to park our attention.

“My goodness, how sweet!” Mom says. “And so big!”

A girl. I can’t help but look in the stroller. She’s plump. Her eyes are cobalt blue. On top of her head is a shiny half-pipe of hair, translucent as a fingernail. She smiles and coos. She doesn’t look like either one of them.

My eyes flick at Mr. Mann, hoping my expression passes for a coded message:
Don’t worry. Everything’s okay.
He’s poker-faced, stoic. Alicia’s face is even harder to read.

“So, you’re still nursing?” Mom says. “The first year is the most important. What did you name her?”

“Emily,” Alicia says. Mr. Mann glances at me, mouth closed, the muscles of his jaw working.

“Emily. Lovely. What a lovely name. You don’t hear old-fashioned names like that much anymore.”

“No. You don’t.”

So this little girl is the big, nasty secret. I’m surprised at how I feel toward her. I’m interested, an observer. But that’s all. There is no more. I don’t ache to take her in my arms, make her my own. Somehow she has nothing to do with me—and it hits me: of course she doesn’t. She isn’t mine. There is no connection there at all.

I meet his eyes again. There’s a piece of all this, everything that has happened, all that we felt between us, that will always be there. But more than that—there’s something settled there now. Something settled and good. I couldn’t call it happiness. Maybe he just seems content. Yeah, that’s it. Content.

He’d better be.

Like that, it’s over.

We’re moving away again. Mr. Mann is joining a swirl of shoppers lining up for teriyaki.

Will he look back?

I have to think about each step that carries me away from him. Don’t look. I won’t let myself look. I feel him pulling at my back. But it’s not so bad. Less of the fever, more of the dream.

He’s gone.

A woman in front of Sears is waving a pen, trying to get my attention. She wants to sign me up for a credit card.

“What? Oh. No, thank you. No.”

Why didn’t she approach Mom? How old do I look, anyhow? We walk past a rack of purple shoes.

“Isn’t this fun, darling?” Mom says.

I smile. “I’d rather be bitten by rat fleas infected with bubonic plague,” I whisper to Schuyler.

“
Xenopsylla cheopsis
and
Yersinia pestis
,” he says.

“Smart-ass.” I put my hand on his shoulder. It doesn’t feel quite so bony anymore. “One of these days you’re going to figure out it’s okay not to know something. It can even be a good thing.”

Schuyler frowns. “That’s a quarter.”

Today, for the first time ever, I put one in his hand.