The Half-Life of Planets (14 page)

“Well, Mother, I did see the look on her face, but as you should be well aware by now, I have difficulty interpreting such things. There are some helpful books on Asperger's syndrome on the shelf in the living room, if you'd like me to bring you one.”

Mother, red-faced, turns to the sink for twenty seconds, then finally turns back around. When she speaks, her voice is quiet and even. “Go out there and talk to her. Tell her dinner will be a few minutes and talk to her and apologize to her and try to fix this.”

I've had enough of Mother's company for a while, so I am more than happy to obey her orders. I take the root beer and proceed out of the kitchen, apparently to fix something I didn't even understand was broken.

“So,” I say as I approach Liana, “I got your root beer.”

“Thanks,” she says. She takes the bottle without looking at me.

“It's cold. It's in glass. Not plastic.”

“These are all observations I made myself,” she says.

“So apparently I've screwed up,” I say. Liana doesn't answer. “I mean, you told me about your sister. I was supposed to tell you about my father, I guess.”

Finally Liana looks up. “I really don't get that. After everything I've told you, I just don't get how you could hold that back.”

“Well, this is what I meant. I didn't get that I owed you a—”

“Christ, Hank, you didn't owe me anything! But it's something we have in common! You know? It's something that would have made me feel closer to you instead of like a million miles away!”

“I'm right here,” I say. “Where else would I be?”

Liana looks at me, opens her mouth, closes it, then smiles. “Well,” she says, “it is your house, after all.”

“Exactly. Mother has worked hard preparing dinner, and Chase took the unusual step of staying sober until dinner-time and I…I just want you to eat with us. All I did was buy the root beer.”

“I appreciate it. Let's go eat.”

“Great. I asked Mother to prepare us some guacamole, but she refused to purchase a stone mortar for the occasion.”

“Well, I find guacamole makes an unsatisfying meal anyway.”

I want to explain that I didn't mean we should have guacamole for the entire meal. I want to explain to her the beauty of the guacamole preparation ritual, the itch in my brain it scratches, but then I look at her. She's smiling at me. I take this to mean she's not angry. And so I decide to quit while I'm ahead and just smile back at her.

“You never did this before?”
Hank grunts. He shows up at my door this afternoon, presumably after checking Espresso Love and finding that our usual table was minus one. I wanted to be pissed—and really I was—I mean, who neglects to mention that their dad died? During the dinner at his house I learned that a) his mother is much cooler than my parents could ever be, complete with tattoo and former punk past, and b) Chase is still a lothario, and c) Hank's dad died, and d) his dad died, and e) all of the above, and his dad died and he never told me, even when I told him about Jenny. So I sat with my telescope, staring up at the Seven Sisters cluster, the constellation that most people totally overlook in favor of the Big Dipper, and let the anger roil through my limbs. But then it occurred to me: I never told him what I was supposed to, either. At Planet Guitar I just hesitated and then got blown away by his playing, so I semi-forgot. And then at the dinner I was so shocked by the dead-dad thing that I couldn't even begin to process the words “I cannot kiss you.” So I never said anything.

“Here, move like this,” Hank says, biting his lower lip in concentration. He turns me by the waist so I'm level with the wall and better able to reach. “So did you? Do this before, I mean?”

“Never,” I say, and try not to hurt him as I stand on his palms and grasp the basement window.

“I would have,” he says, supporting me, and holding steady as I wedge the speaker into the window frame. “I've almost got it.” Hank showed up at the side door of the house and right away asked if we could go to the basement, which didn't mean what it meant when Jett Alterman came over and wanted to “go to the basement.” Most of the time when guys ask things, it's in quotes, like “go for a walk,” “see my paintings,” “hear me play ‘Going to California,'” or “see what your room looks like.” But Hank just meant go to the basement.

“Careful! Ouch.” He winces, and I look over my shoulder to signal at him to let me down.

But he doesn't get my signal, so I say, “Let me down now, Hank,” and he does.

“We did it.” We stand in the dank darkness of the basement, admiring our handiwork. On Hank's suggestion, we lugged the huge ancient speakers from the storage area over to the windows so we could listen to my parents' old records outside on the porch. The turntable is down here and I wasn't about to try and undo the system, but Hank knew just how to fix the problem.

“There are quite a number of records here,” Hank says, and slumps onto the floor across from the small room where the boiler, heating, and AC system sound alive, churning and whirring all night long. “You've got ELP—‘Lucky Man' is not bad, you've got every Dylan. Wow—shit—imported
London Calling
—that's worth money, not that I'd sell it, but you could. Like online or something.” He plows through one of the cardboard boxes labeled on the side in my mother's writing, the ultra-ambiguous “stuff.”

I join Hank and place my hands on the side of the box. “I think they used to keep all this upstairs, lining the floors, or something. But it all got moved to the basement…”

“But they didn't throw it away. That's good. You shouldn't trash things just because they aren't current.” I look to see if he means more than just records, like old friends, or dead family members, or people you rolled around with on your bed and then never spoke to again, but he doesn't. He just means records, I guess.

Hank's face is intense as he studies the liner notes from a Talking Heads album. Underneath the records are other items: obsolete cords and wires, slips of paper, photographs. Hank picks up a pile of the papers and puts them on the floor between us.

I begin sorting through things, first halfheartedly, crumpling up things we just have no reason to keep. “Look—seems they were out of dish soap. And apples. And cinnamon. Maybe she was making apple crisp or something.” I point to the grocery list. On yellow lined paper my mother's old script is underlined. Clearly the spices were crucial.

“Did she always bake?” Hank asks, still clutching a couple records.

I shrug. “I don't know. I think so.” Then I sniff, sure I can smell the apple crisp, the lemon shortbread baking upstairs, even though rationally I know I'm wrong. “I think it kind of helps her.”

“Like therapy?”

“Yeah. All that sifting and measuring…” My voice trails off.

Hank nods. “Did you know that before Gene Simmons and Ace Frehley and the other guys, Peter and Paul, became KISS, they were in this band called Wicked Lester?”

I laugh and push aside one of my kid drawings, wondering if Hank has a reason for saying this, or if it's just more slightly useless knowledge.

“Do you like KISS?” I ask, and my mouth tangles on the last word. Kiss. Kiss. Kiss. Kiss. Hank opens his mouth to answer, but I cut him off. “Here. Look. That's her.” Then I think of my father and his grammar. “That is she. Jenny.” Hank takes the photo, holding it carefully by the sides, which strikes me as so sweet since it was shoved away under a pile of moldy albums, tossed aside, but right now, held lovingly by him.

He points to her. “She had lighter hair than you, huh?” I nod. In the picture, Jenny is wheelchair-bound, in a plaid skirt, her head tilted to one side. She is maybe five, but it's hard to know.

For some reason, looking at it, at her, in the grimy basement light where I once kissed Jonah Jacobs, where old records and cast-off items reside, I start to cry. Hank keeps his eyes locked to the photo but carefully moves one of his hands so it rests gently on my forearm. His touch feels like the anchor to this moment, like I could fly off and float away if he weren't here.

I point to her hair. “It was kind of red, I think.”

“There's a song by the Eurythmics. ‘Jennifer.' It's pretty much just rhythm and Annie Lennox saying ‘Jennifer, with your orange hair. Jennifer with your green eyes,' but it's very alluring.”

For once, this trivia doesn't feel meaningless. It feels intentional, like he wants to calm me down and also keep talking about her, about this nothing-but-something in my life. “Thanks, Hank.” I put my hand, just for a moment, on his and then take it away. We are surrounded by a mess of records, covers, old splatter art of mine, and the photos. “Want to listen to the albums now?”

Hank smiles. “Of course. I'll cue up down here and meet you out there?” He points to the deck. “Bring these.” He hands me a few liner notes that include lyrics and background information I've never really contemplated. “And this.” He hands me the photo of Jenny.

Outside, while I wait for him on the deck, I remember I'm supposed to be angry at him. That he didn't tell me about his dad. That I'm supposed to be finding a way to tell him what I didn't at the dinner.

“Okay,” Hanks says, nearly knocking the screen door off its slide. “This is The Band.” He waits for me. “As in ‘The Weight,' ‘Stagefright'?” I shake my head. He plops down onto the wooden deck and looks up at me as sound crackles through the speakers. I sit down near him, facing the water view, the overly green grass of late summer, and block my eyes from the sun's brightness. Hank's whole body seems to be infected with the music. “You've got the fiddle, tambourine, pump organ, acoustic and electric guitars, piano, bass, and drums…and it's just so raw and real, you know?”

I listen to the lyrics and think. I say, “It's like they're afraid of being out there, in front of a crowd, but also out there…” I motion to my heart, but Hank looks confused.

“I don't get what you're saying.…Do you like it?”

I nod. “Yeah, I do, but what I mean is, even with all those instruments, with the lyrics, they're scared. ‘Stagefright.' Not just being booed off or whatever, but with being honest…in a song.” Hank absorbs every word I'm saying. “You don't pay as much attention to the lyrics, do you?”

Hank tucks his knees to his chest, shielding his eyes with his hand. “I do. No, wait, not like that. I know them. I can quote songs. But I've never…I guess when I got into music I was more concerned with the playing, the sound, the history.” He stands up. “Time for the next song.”

“Aren't we listening to albums?” I imagine Hank frenetic, leaping up after each song to DJ the next one, and realize it's not a very conducive way to have a conversation. “Maybe pick a whole album?”

“But there's so many I want you to hear. Or, if you've heard them, re-hear.” He pauses. “With me.”

I swallow hard. “I still wish you'd told me about your dad.”

Hanks eyes drift away from mine, flitting around anywhere, everywhere, but not on mine. “I didn't think it mattered.”

“To you? Or to me? Because I think it matters to both of us.” Hank crouches down and The Band continues playing, the banjo twanging out, happy and sad the way banjos always sound. “When I told you about Jenny, back in Chase's room that time…that was the time you could've said, Well, actually, Liana, my dad…”

Hank presses his fingers into the spaces between the wooden deck planks. “You mean, there's one time to say stuff? It's just too complicated.” His voice wavers. “I can't…I never know when that time is.”

I meet his gaze. “Hank, there isn't just one time. You can say what you want to say—and if you miss an opportunity, you find another one. Like when you played guitar at the store—I didn't know you'd messed up, and even if I had, I wouldn't have cared. But you knew and you kept going. That's the same thing with talking. With telling.”

Hank looks like he's going to either fall backward or fall right into me, so I stand up and pull him along with me. “So…you want to know about my dad?” he says.

“If you want to tell me,” I say. Inside, the timer goes off on my mom's oven items. I head in, my eyes immediately adjusting to the shade as I grab a mitt and take the Pyrex dish from the oven. Hank comes in, the music still going outside.

“I wasn't always into music.”

I put the dish on the stove top to cool, the sweet rich buttery smell wafting up into the air. “I can't imagine that. What'd you talk about?” I lean on the kitchen island and watch Hank shift around, tugging on his sleeves, chording on his thighs. I take the photo of Jenny from my back pocket and put it on the counter, lying facedown. Then I flip it over.

“Maps.”

I wait for more, but Hank disappears downstairs, and when it's been five minutes and he's still not back, I shout down to the basement. “You okay?”

He mumbles something, and I head out to the deck, this time reclining, lying flat with my face to the sun, my legs exposed and arms tingling with the breezy warmth until a shadow appears over me. I tilt my head back and look up. “Maps? You liked maps?”

Hank sits up next to me, and I can see him eyeing the length of me, my toes up to my hair. “Cartography. Scale models of special concepts. Geographical information conveyed on paper.” He twists his mouth, and when I poke his leg, he laughs. “What? I never said I was cool.”

“And then what happened?”

Hank scoots to my right and then lies next to me. “Then he died and I rolled up all my maps and all paraphernalia that went with them and…” He pauses. “I never knew him. Not well. Not like you're supposed to.”

I blow my bangs off my forehead, and Hank sits saying nothing—nothing—for a whole minute, then chords briefly. I thumb my tattoo in response, tracing the planets and then covering the skin with my tank top. The needle scratches inside, and Hank jumps up, bounds away, fixes the record player, and slides right back where he was, but maybe just a fraction closer, so our legs are touching. From above, we must look like gingerbread people, all cutouts of arms and legs.

“This is that song,” he says. “The one I told you about at dinner? The Kinks.” The music starts. “‘Waterloo Sunset.'”

We lie there, the chords distilling into the air, away from us but hovering in the heat. The lyrics make my heart pound: boy meets girl at the train station and finally kiss as the sun sets. The sun is a few hours from setting here, in non-song world, but our bodies are close. “It's really good, isn't it?” Hank asks, rolling his head so we're looking right at each other.

“It is,” I say. “What comes next?”

Hank smiles. “The same song. I put it on repeat.”

I sigh and laugh at the same time. “Why? I always like to hear other ones…”

“Certain songs are so good that you want to hear them again, right away. Get to know them…like in the middle, how the tone dips but then they speed up the sound and—”

I listen to the song as it starts up again. Instead of feeling annoyed that I'm re-hearing everything, I listen more. “So we're just going to listen to this?” I ask. Hank nods. His eyes are intensely beautiful, his mouth so ripe, his fingers chording on his thighs but reverberating on mine.