The Sky Is Everywhere Page 7

  “She wouldn’t want that, Toby.” I can’t keep the pleading out of my voice.

  He sighs, frustrated. “I know that, I know.” He picks up his pace as if to leave behind what he just told me.

  “She’d kill me.” He says it so definitively and passionately that I wonder if he’s really talking about skating or what happened between us.

  “I won’t do it anymore,” he insists.

  “Good,” I say, still not totally sure what he’s referring to, but if it’s us, he doesn’t have to worry, right? I’ve kept the curtains drawn. I’ve promised Bailey nothing will ever happen again.

  Though even as I think this, I find my eyes drinking him in, his broad chest and strong arms, his freckles. I remember his mouth hungrily on mine, his big hands in my hair, the heat coursing through me, how it made me feel—

  “It’s just so reckless…” he says.

  “Yeah.” It comes out a little too breathy.

  “Len?”

  I need smelling salts.

  He looks at me funny, but then I think he reads in my eyes what has been going on in my head, because his eyes kind of widen and spark, before he quickly looks away.

  GET A GRIP, LENNIE.

  We walk in silence then through the woods and it snaps me back into my senses. The stars and moon are mostly hidden over the thick tree cover, and I feel like I’m swimming through darkness, my body breaking the air as if it were water. I can hear the rush of the river getting louder with every step I take, and it reminds me of Bailey, day after day, year after year, the two of us on this path, lost in talk, the plunge into the pool, and then the endless splaying on the rocks in the sun—

  I whisper, “I’m left behind.”

  “Me too…” His voice catches. He doesn’t say anything else, doesn’t look at me; he just takes my hand and holds it and doesn’t let it go as the cover above us gets thicker and we push together farther into the deepening dark.

  I say softly, “I feel so guilty,” almost hoping the night will suck my words away before Toby hears.

  “I do too,” he whispers back.

  “But about something else too, Toby…”

  “What?”

  With all the darkness around me, with my hand in Toby’s, I feel like I can say it. “I feel guilty that I’m still here…”

  “Don’t. Please, Len.”

  “But she was always so much … more—”

  “No.” He doesn’t let me finish. “She’d hate for you to feel that way.”

  “I know.”

  And then I blurt out what I’ve forbidden myself to think, let alone say: “She’s in a coffin, Toby.” I say it so loud, practically shriek it – the words make me dizzy, claustrophobic, like I need to leap out of my body.

  I hear him suck in air. When he speaks, his voice is so weak I barely hear it over our footsteps. “No, she isn’t.”

  I know this too. I know both things at once.

  Toby tightens his grip around my hand.

  Once at Flying Man’s, the sky floods through the opening in the canopy. We sit on a flat rock and the full moon shines so brightly on the river, the water looks like pure rushing light.

  “How can the world continue to shimmer like this?” I say as I lie down under a sky drunk with stars.

  Toby doesn’t answer, just shakes his head and lies down next to me, close enough for him to put his arm around me, close enough for me to put my head on his chest if he did so. But he doesn’t, and I don’t.

  He starts talking then, his soft words dissipating into the night like smoke. He talks about how Bailey wanted to have the wedding ceremony here at Flying Man’s so they could jump into the pool after saying their vows. I lean up on my elbows and can see it as clearly in the moonlight as if I were watching a movie, can see Bailey in a drenched bright orange wedding dress laughing and leading the party down the path back to the house, her careless beauty so huge it had to walk a few paces ahead of her, announcing itself. I see in the movie of Toby’s words how happy she would have been, and suddenly, I just don’t know where all that happiness, her happiness, and ours, will go now, and I start to cry, and then Toby’s face is above mine and his tears are falling onto my cheeks until I don’t know whose are whose, just know that all that happiness is gone, and that we are kissing again.

  When I'm with him,

  there is someone with me

  in my house of grief,

  someone who knows

  its architecture as I do,

  who can walk with me,

  from room to sorrowful room,

  making the whole rambling structure

  of wind and emptiness

  not quiet as scary, as lonely

  as it was before.

  (Found on a branch of a tree outside Clover High)

  Joe Fontaine’s knocking. I’m lying awake in bed, thinking about moving to Antarctica to get away from this mess with Toby. I prop myself up on an elbow to look out the window at the early, bony light.

  Joe’s our rooster. Each morning since his first visit, a week and a half ago, he arrives at dawn with his guitar, a bag of chocolate croissants from the bakery and a few dead bugs for Big. If we aren’t up, he lets himself in, makes a pot of coffee thick as tar and sits at the kitchen table strumming melancholy chords on his guitar. Every so often he asks me if I feel like playing, to which I reply no, to which he replies fine. A polite stand-off. He hasn’t mentioned Rachel again, which is okay by me.

  The strangest part about all this is that it’s not strange at all, for any of us. Even Big, who is not a morning person, pads down the stairs in his slippers, greets Joe with a boisterous back slap, and after checking the pyramids (which Joe has already checked), he jumps right back into their conversation from the previous morning about his obsession du jour: exploding cakes.

  Big heard that a woman in Idaho was making a birthday cake for her husband when the flour ignited. They were having a dry spell, so there was lots of static electricity in the air. A cloud of flour dust surrounded her and due to a spark from a static charge in her hand, it exploded: an inadvertent flour bomb. Now Big is trying to enlist Joe to re-enact the event with him for the sake of science. Gram and I have been adamantly opposed to this for obvious reasons. “We’ve had enough catastrophe, Big,” Gram said yesterday, putting her foot down. I think the amount of pot Big’s been smoking has made the idea of the exploding cake much funnier and more fascinating than it really is, but somehow Joe is equally enthralled with the concept.

  It’s Sunday and I have to be at the deli in a few hours. The kitchen’s bustling when I stumble in.

  “Morning, John Lennon,” Joe says, looking up from his guitar strings and throwing me a jaw-dropping grin – what am I doing making out with Toby, Bailey’s Toby, I think as I smile back at the holy horses unfreakingbelievable Joe Fontaine, who has seemingly moved into our kitchen. Things are so mixed up – the boy who should kiss me acts like a brother and the boy who should act like a brother keeps kissing me. Sheesh.

  “Hey, John Lennon,” Gram echoes.

  Unbelievable. This can’t be catching on. “Only Joe’s allowed to call me that,” I grumble at her.

  “John Lennon!” Big whisks into the kitchen and me into his arms, dancing me around the room. “How’s my girl today?”

  “Why’s everyone in such a good mood?” I feel like Scrooge.

  “I’m not in a good mood,” Gram says, beaming ear to ear, looking akin to Joe. I notice her hair is dry too. No grief-shower this morning. A first. “I just got an idea last night. It’s a surprise.” Joe and Big glance at me and shrug. Gram’s ideas often rival Big’s on the bizarre scale, but I doubt this one involves explosions or necromancy.

  “We don’t know what it is either, honey,” Big bellows in a baritone unfit for 8 a.m. “In other breaking news, Joe had an epiphany this morning: He put the Lennie houseplant under one of the pyramids – I can’t believe I never thought of that.” Big can’t contain his excitement, he’s smiling
down on Joe like a proud father. I wonder how Joe slipped in like this, wonder if it’s somehow because he never knew her, doesn’t have one single memory of her, he’s like the world without our heartbreak—

  My cell phone goes off. I glance at the screen. It’s Toby. I let it go to voicemail, feeling like the worst person in the world because just seeing his name recalls last night, and my stomach flies into a sequence of contortions. How could I have let this happen?

  I look up, all eyes are on me, wondering why I didn’t pick up the phone. I have to get out of the kitchen.

  “Want to play, Joe?” I say, heading upstairs for my clarinet.

  “Holy shit,” I hear, then apologies to Gram and Big.

  Back on the porch, I say, “You start, I’ll follow.”

  He nods and starts playing some sweet soft chords in G minor. But I feel too unnerved for sweet, too unnerved for soft. I can’t shake off Toby’s call, his kisses. I can’t shake off cardboard boxes, perfume that never gets used, bookmarks that don’t move, St Anthony statues that do. I can’t shake off the fact that Bailey at eleven years old did not put herself in the drawing of our family, and suddenly, I am so upset I forget I’m playing music, forget Joe’s even there beside me.

  I start to think about all the things I haven’t said since Bailey died, all the words stowed deep in my heart, in our orange bedroom, all the words in the whole world that aren’t said after someone dies because they are too sad, too enraged, too devastated, too guilty to come out – all of them begin to course inside me like a lunatic river. I suck in all the air I can, until there’s probably no air left in Clover for anyone else, and then I blast it all out my clarinet in one mad bleating typhoon of a note. I don’t know if a clarinet has ever made such a terrible sound, but I can’t stop, all the years come tumbling out now – Bailey and me in the river, the ocean, tucked so snug into our room, the backseat of cars, bathtubs, running through the trees, through days and nights and months and years without Mom – I am breaking windows, busting through walls, burning up the past, pushing Toby off me, taking the dumb-ass Lennie houseplant and hurling it into the sea—

  I open my eyes. Joe’s staring at me, astonished. The dogs next door are barking.

  “Wow, I think I’ll follow next time,” he says.

  I'd been making decisions for days.

  I picked out the dress Bailey would wear forever—

  a black slinky one—inappropriate—that she loved.

  I chose a sweater to go over it, earrings, bracelet, necklace,

  her most beloved strappy sandals.

  I collected her make-up to give to the funeral director

  with a recent photo—

  I thought it would be me that would dress her;

  I didn't think a strange man should see her naked

  touch her body

  shave her legs

  apply her lipstick

  but that's what happened all the same.

  I helped Gram pick out the casket, the plot at the cemetery.

  I changed a few lines in the obituary that Big composed.

  I wrote on a piece of paper what I thought

  should go on the headstone.

  I did all this without uttering a word.

  Not one word, for days,

  until I saw Bailey before the funeral

  and lost my mind.

  I hadn't realized that when people say so-and-so

  snapped

  that's actually what happens—

  I started shaking her—

  I thought I could wake her up

  and get her the hell out of that box.

  When she didn't wake,

  I screamed: TALK TO ME.

  Big swooped me up into his arms.

  carried me out of the room, the church,

  into the slamming rain,

  and down to the creek

  where we sobbed together

  under the black coat he held over our heads

  to protect us from the weather.

  (Found on a piece of music paper crumpled up by the trailhead)

  I wish I had my clarinet, I think as I walk home from the deli. If I did, I’d head straight into the woods where no one could hear me and fall on my face like I did on the porch this morning. Play the music, not the instrument, Marguerite always said. And Mr James: Let the instrument play you. I never got either instruction until today. I always imagined music trapped inside my clarinet, not trapped inside of me. But what if music is what escapes when a heart breaks?

  I turn onto our street and see Uncle Big road-reading, tripping over his massive feet, greeting his favorite trees as he passes them. Nothing too unusual, but for the flying fruit. There are a few weeks every year when if circumstances permit, like the winds are just so and the plums particularly heavy, the plum trees around our house become hostile to humans and begin using us for target practice.

  Big waves his arm east to west in enthusiastic greeting, narrowly escaping a plum to the head.

  I salute him, then when he’s close enough, I give a hello twirl to his mustache, which is waxed and styled to the hilt, the fanciest (i.e. freakiest) I’ve seen it in some time.

  “Your friend is over,” he says, winking at me. Then he puts his nose back into his book and resumes his promenade. I know he means Joe, but I think of Sarah and my stomach twists a little. She sent me a text today: Sending out a search party for our friendship. I haven’t responded. I don’t know where it is either.

  A moment later, I hear Big say, “Oh, Len, Toby called for you, wants you to ring him right away.”

  He called me on my cell again too while I was at work. I didn’t listen to the voicemail. I reiterate the oath I’ve been swearing all day, that I will never see Toby Shaw again, then I beg my sister for a sign of forgiveness – no need for subtlety either, Bails, an earthquake will do.

  As I get closer, I see that the house is inside out – in the front yard are stacks of books, furniture, masks, pots and pans, boxes, antiques, paintings, dishes, knickknacks – then I see Joe and someone who looks just like him but broader and even taller coming out of the house with our sofa.

  “Where do you want this, Gram?” Joe says, like it’s the most natural thing in the world to be moving the couch outside. This must be Gram’s surprise. We’re moving into the yard. Great.

  “Anywhere’s fine, boys,” Gram says, then sees me. “Lennie.” She glides over. “I’m going to figure out what’s causing the terrible luck,” she says. “This is what came to me in the middle of the night. We’ll move anything suspicious out of the house, do a ritual, burn sage, then make sure not to put anything unlucky back inside. Joe was nice enough to go get his brother to help.”

  “Hmmm,” I say, not knowing what else to say, wishing I could’ve seen Joe’s face as Gram very sanely explained this INSANE idea to him. When I break away from her, Joe practically gallops over. He’s such a downer.

  “Just another day at the psych ward, huh?” I say.

  “What’s quite perplexing…” he says, pointing a finger professorially at his brow, “is just how Gram is making the lucky or unlucky determination. I’ve yet to crack the code.” I’m impressed at how quickly he’s caught on that there is nothing to do but grab a wing when Gram’s aflight with fancy.

  His brother comes up then, rests his hand carelessly on Joe’s shoulder, and it instantly transforms Joe into a little brother – the slice into my heart is sharp and sudden – I’m no longer a little sister. No longer a sister, period.

  Joe can barely mask his adulation and it topples me. I was just the same – when I introduced Bailey I felt like I was presenting the world’s most badass work of art.

  “Marcus is here for the summer, goes to UCLA. He and my oldest brother are in a band down there.” Brothers and brothers and brothers.

  “Hi,” I say to another beaming guy. Definitely no need for lightbulbs Chez Fontaine.

  “I heard you play a mean clarinet,” Marcus says. This makes me bl
ush, which makes Joe blush, which makes Marcus laugh and punch his brother’s arm. I hear him whisper, “Oh Joe, you’ve got it so bad.” Then Joe blushes even more, if that’s possible, and heads into the house for a lamp.

  I wonder why though if Joe’s got it so bad he doesn’t make a move, even a suggestion of one. I know, I know, I’m a feminist, I could make a move, but a) I’ve never made a move on anyone in my life and therefore have no moves to make, b) I’ve been a wee bit preoccupied with the bat in my belfry who doesn’t belong there, and c) Rachel – I mean, I know he spends mornings at our house, but how do I know he doesn’t spend evenings at hers?

  Gram’s taken a shine to the Fontaine boys. She’s flitting around the yard, telling them over and over again how handsome they are, asking if their parents ever thought about selling them. “Bet they’d make a bundle on you boys. Shame to give boys eyelashes like yours. Don’t you think so, Lennie? Wouldn’t you kill for eyelashes like that?” God, I’m embarrassed, though she’s right about the eyelashes. Marcus doesn’t blink either, they both bat.

  She sends Joe and Marcus home to get their third brother, convinced that all Fontaine brothers have to be here for the ritual. It’s clear both Marcus and Joe have fallen under her spell. She probably could get them to rob a bank for her.

  “Bring your instruments,” she yells after them. “You too, Lennie.”

  I do as I’m told and get my clarinet from the tree it’s resting in with an assortment of my worldly possessions. Then Gram and I take some of the pots and pans she has deemed lucky back into the kitchen to cook dinner. She prepares the chicken while I quarter the potatoes and spice them with garlic and rosemary. When everything is roasting in the oven, we go outside to gather some strewn plums to make a tart. She is rolling out the dough for the crust while I slice tomatoes and avocados for the salad. Every time she passes me, she pats my head or squeezes my arm.

  “This is nice, cooking together again, isn’t it, sweet pea?”

  I smile at her. “It is, Gram.” Well, it was, because now she’s looking at me in her talk-to-me-Lennie way. The Gramouncements are about to begin.