A Certain Slant of Light (30 page)

  
"Why does everything you say sound so appealing?" he whis
pered.

  
"Is it a half day tomorrow?" I asked suddenly.

  
His face lit up. "I forgot."

  
"But Cathy will probably pick me up early."

  
"Maybe she won't remember," said James. "Mitch didn't
know when we had the last one."

  
I stopped listening and put a hand on his arm. There was a
girl, walking with a group of twenty or more, all wearing red and
white shirts and shorts, about thirty feet from us. She had stopped
and was fixed on the sight of James. He looked to see what had
drawn my attention. When he met her eyes, the girl turned so
chalky gray, I was sure she would faint, but a friend came back a
few paces and whispered to her. The pale girl, her eyes deeply
shadowed, folded her arms against the vision of him and let her
friend coax her away.

  
"Who was that?" I asked.

  
"I don't know," said James. "They're from Wilson, I think.
They look like cheerleaders."

  
"She knows Billy," I said, which was certainly not difficult
to see.

  
"But I don't think she likes him." James gave a small laugh, but I knew it bothered him.

  
"Blake," a voice called. It sent a chill through me. "We wanna
talk to you."

  
The same young man who had stopped to talk to James in the
library was walking up to us with another boy. The one following
had tangled red hair down to his shoulders and a dirty denim
jacket covered with words he'd written on it himself. James gen
tly but firmly turned me in the opposite direction and gave me a
little push. I walked away without looking back.

  
After school, I didn't see James at the parking lot. And I didn't
see the maroon car. Instead I saw Jenny's father pulling up in his
van. It seemed like an ambulance, it was so white. He waved, and
I tried to be subtle as I unpinned my Smike button and tucked it
into my book bag.

  
"Hi, Puppy."

  
"Hi, Dan." I sat down, putting my bag in my lap. Then I real
ized my mistake. "I mean father."

  
"When did you start calling me father?" he asked.

 
 
"Sorry, Dad." Then I said something that surprised me. "I've
been changing a lot lately," I told him.

  
I believe Cathy would've been disturbed by this, but Dan's
glance at me seemed impressed. "You can call me father." As he
pulled away from the school, I looked back, hoping to catch a
glimpse of James.

  
"You're not going to decide you want to be called Jennifer al
of a sudden, are you?" he laughed.

  
"No," I said. "I'm not a Jennifer."

  
"You'll always be Puppy to me."

  
"Where's mother? I mean Mom?"

  
"It's Tuesday," he reminded me. "She's at Missionary
Meeting. Where did you think?"

  
I sighed, tired of making mistakes.

  
"Buckle up," he ordered.

  
I pulled the shoulder strap across my chest and smelled there
the soft scent of gardenias.

Twelve

"Want to practice?" Dan asked, when we were a few blocks
from school.

  
"Practice what?"

  
"We could go to the Market Basket parking lot, if you don't
mind the Previa." He winked at me, but I was terrified as soon as
I understood.

  
"What is it?" he frowned.

"No, thank you." I heard the fear in my own voice.

  
Dan turned chilly, tightened his grip on the steering wheel.
"The righteous are bold as a lion."

  
He was calling me a coward, and although he hadn't ordered
me to practice driving, I felt strongly that I had disobeyed. I tried
to imagine what Jenny might say to mend his temper and show
respect.

  
"I want to study hard tonight," I lied. "I have a quiz tomorrow.
I want you to be proud of me."

  
This seemed enough. He relaxed, placing a hand on the back
of my neck. It felt like a yoke of heat dragging me down.

  
When we got home, I crept quickly into the bathroom and
bathed. Today there was no blood on my clothes. I didn't know
where Dan was in the house. It was as perfectly still as a museum
after hours. I tiptoed to the study, and then, as I neared the half-
open door, I heard him talking on the phone. While trying to
start back toward my room, a creak in the floor startled me.

  
"Well, okay." His voice shifted into a new volume. "I'll be there if I have to."

  
I ducked into my room and was already sitting on the bed,
holding
Romeo and Juliet
(right side up, no less) in front of my
face when he knocked once and entered.

  
"Is that your homework?"

  
"Yes," I lied.

  
"Your hair's wet," Dan pointed out.

  
It was a miracle that he didn't realize Jenny had no English
class this term, for everything else I did that strayed from the
daily routine was noticed. Every breath counted, every step meas
ured. I struggled for an explanation, but before I could speak, he
left me alone.

  
I had grabbed the Shakespeare in such haste that I'd knocked
the book bag over. I righted the bag, but the button James had
given me fell out and rolled on its edge under my dresser. I had to
get down on my knees to feel beneath it. When my hand closed
on the disk, I accidentally banged the bottom of the lowest
drawer. There was a rattling sound there that I found curious. I
pulled the button out and looked into the bottom dresser drawer.
I found some scarves and stockings there and one knit hat but
nothing that would rattle. I shook the drawer and heard it again.

For some reason, at that moment, I saw Mitch, his brow furrowed
with intention, delving in the toes of Billy's boots, like an egg-
hungry snake.

  
I emptied the drawer of scarves and soft gloves. The bottom
was lined with yellow and white gingham paper, just like the
other drawers and the shelves in the closet. I tapped on it, and it
sounded hollow. Then I saw a tiny piece of cream-colored ribbon sticking out of the middle of one side. I pulled on it, and the false
bottom lifted out. There, in the space beneath, was a lumpy
lavender pillowslip and a manila envelope. I felt my heart jump
forward to a trot. I glanced at my door, but it was closed. Slowly I
took out Jenny's secrets, but I was almost afraid to open them.

  
It's all right to look, I told myself. Perhaps they're messages for
you. Gingerly I unrolled the pillowslip. There were three items
inside—a camera called a Polaroid, a package of film in a blue
box labeled BLACK AND WHITE, and a small plastic bag with a few
dollar bills and a few coins. I wrapped them up again, afraid
someone would walk in. Next I opened the envelope. A stack of
photographs slid out. The ones on top were like the picture on the
film box—small, square, with black-and-white images. There
were a dozen or so. I was fascinated. Not one was like the last. Some had words hand-printed under the image in black ink. One
was of a pale hand, probably Jenny's own, stretched up to touch a
leaf on the branch of a tree. Under it were the words
Adam's
Reach.
One was of Jenny, her whole self head to foot, dressed in a
thin white nightgown, looking at herself in the mirror of her
closet door as she jumped, balletlike, frozen in midair, the flash of
the camera in front of her face making a blinding little star
where her head should have been. Another was a flock of pigeons
blurred in group ascent, a flutter of frozen wings. Another was of a cat's footprints on a car windshield.

  
Under these were some larger photos, also in black and white
and I scrutinized them one by one. Jenny, nude, curled in a ball
sitting on the floor in front of her closet mirror, with the camera on the carpet beside her. The blackness behind her and in all the
curves of her form made the lightness of her skin seem to glow
One was of her own feet, one stepping up the wall in the arch of
midstride with the other lifted in a turn, like a folk dancer
headed for the ceiling. Another was of Jenny—I assumed it was Jenny—with a white sheet over her head, sitting with a suitcase beside her on the bed. I couldn't tell where the camera was. This
one had a piece of white tape in the upper-right corner with the
words
the ghost waits
written on it. The last, the most startling to
me, was Jenny's face, taken in the dressing table mirror. She rested her chin in her hands, looking into the camera with ab
solute peace. It was a disturbing picture because I had never seen
her this way. I had seen her with myself behind her eyes, and.
had seen her empty but never with Jenny's soul inside. For the
first time, I wondered where she was, and the fact that it was the
first time I had done so made me sorry.

  
It was the sound of the front door that sobered me. I slipped
all the photographs back into the envelope and put both it and the pillowslip back into the bottom of the drawer. As I heard
Cathy coming down the hall calling to Dan, I lowered the false
bottom back in place. Just as she opened my door, without knock
ing, I picked up one scarf and started folding it.