All the Major Constellations (6 page)

“HEY, FAGGOT, YOU HOME?”

Andrew was sitting up in bed and doodling in his journal when he heard this pronouncement. Becky, who had been peacefully dozing, awoke with a start. She barked softly. Andrew tucked his notebook under his mattress. The page he'd been drawing on was filled with sketches of Laura surrounded by question marks and crosses.

He stood up and looked at Becky. “Let's get this over with,” he said. Was it his imagination, or did she grimly nod?

When they got downstairs, the television was blaring, the sink was running, the back door was open, and Brian was shouting into the phone.

“Yeah, yeah. I'm back. I don't know. A few weeks? Coach's got something going on in Tampa in August. So, whatever, maybe I'm down there and . . . hey, don't touch that! Let it get
cold,” Brian said to Andrew as Andrew reached to turn off the sink.

“There's ice,” Andrew said.

“Then get me some,” Brian said.

“Go fuck yourself,” Andrew said, but Brian had already resumed his conversation on the phone. A curious feature of Brian's massive physicality was that he was always hot. He wore shorts in the winter, cranked down thermostats, complained bitterly about the lack of central air in the house. He was like a gigantic engine for an industrial complex—vibrating, sweating, making infernal noises, producing vast amounts of pollutant energy and expending it into the atmosphere.

And the beast needed to be fed and watered, Andrew thought bitterly. Brian liked hot food and cold drinks. Their mom usually had a few bottles of sports drinks in the freezer. Andrew grabbed a red one and threw it at Brian's head. Brian caught it, of course. He caught it without looking, without thinking. He caught it with an easy absentmindedness, a powerful, effortless grace. Andrew had thrown the bottle awkwardly and hard, but somehow, as it neared Brian, it seemed to slow down, to arc in the air with beauty, as if merely being in Brian's presence altered its flight trajectory. Brian was, if nothing else, a superb athlete.

“What's going on with your friend? The hot one,” Brian asked over his shoulder, the phone pressed to his chest.

Andrew was about to answer, or perhaps just curse at him again, but before he could get a word out, Brian was once again yelling into the phone.

“I'm here, I'm here. Got to do dinner or something with the folks. Then I'll come out. Pick me up. No, dude, you drive. I want to get fucked-up.”

Andrew emptied a can of dog food into a clean bowl and placed it in the microwave. Becky waited at his feet while her food heated up.

“Oh, hell yeah, it's on!” Brian said, and slammed the phone down. He opened the bottle of sports drink and squeezed some of it into his mouth. It had already gone partly slushy from the warmth of his hands. He brushed past Andrew and knelt down to Becky. “You're getting old, girl,” he said. Becky sniffed Brian's hand and turned her head away. Andrew took her food out of the microwave and tested it with his fingers to make sure it wasn't too hot. It was, so he mixed in some cold water with a fork. He felt Brian's eyes on his back. Andrew braced himself as Brian cuffed his neck.

“God, you're such a fag,” he said softly.

He bound up the stairs. After a few moments Andrew heard the shower running.

Fucking Brian. The prodigal douche-bag returns.

What's going on with your friend? The hot one.
Andrew closed his eyes and leaned against the fridge. Again he wondered where Sara was. In a kind of otherworld? Asleep and yet not asleep? Moving through darkness? Maybe it was like a nightmare from which she could not awake, no matter how hard she tried, no matter how loud her subconscious screamed—she was trapped. It was horrible to think about.

“Why is the door open?” his mother said. She had just come
home from work, and her arms were full of groceries. Andrew took the bags from her.

“Why do you think?” he said.

“Brian?” she said. Her voice was tentative, anxious.

“In the shower,” he said.

“Your father and I thought we'd go to the steakhouse.” She looked at Andrew out of the corners of her eyes. This was their routine, and he knew his part perfectly.

“I've got plans later. Sorry,” he said.

“Okay,” she said, relieved.

He was about to say something mean but stopped himself. Of course she didn't want to referee him and Brian. That was pretty understandable. He started to put the groceries away.

“How's your friend?” she said.

“The same, I guess,” he said.

He heard the bathroom door slam open and Brian whistling as he walked to his bedroom. His mom was arranging a snack of pretzels and fruit on a platter. She'd always babied Brian; perhaps he demanded that kind of treatment. A few moments later Brian came down the stairs, and she squealed with delight. He briefly embraced her.

“Hey, Mommers,” Brian said. He went right for the platter and grabbed a handful of pretzels. “This homo here can eat the fruit.”

“Brian,” their mom said.

“It's okay, Mom,” Andrew said. He picked up Becky's empty bowl and washed it. He couldn't care less what Brian said or did. He had made a decision. He was going to call Laura.

SHE WAS WAITING ON HER porch and staring off into the distance. As he drew closer to her, his heart beat faster and his palms started to sweat.
Calm the fuck down,
he told himself. He was a few yards from her now. She turned toward him and smiled. Her dark blue irises looked even larger than usual, like when a child widens her eyes before crying or telling a lie. Or both. She raised her hand in a half wave, blushed a little, then brushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

Calm down.

She wore jeans and sneakers and a pink T-shirt. A sweatshirt was wrapped around her waist. She stood and came down the stairs when he reached the porch.

He was with Laura, and this wasn't a dream. They were side by side. It was so windy that the pink ribbon holding her hair
had been blown out and tossed down the street. Andrew was going to chase after it, when she touched his forearm and said, “Leave it.” Now the long amber strands whipped around her face and occasionally grazed his left shoulder. The little brief bites of contact between her hair and his body made Andrew feel crazy.

He was glad for the cold wind. Sultry weather would have killed him. A hot still day and the nearness of Laura might have driven him to commit some rash act of foolishness, like a confession of love, or do something lustful and insane like . . . He looked up at the sky. A gray sky, a slight drizzle, and the sun hanging behind the clouds like a hazy pearl. He looked at Laura, who was grabbing handfuls of her hair and twirling it around her fingers. A nervous gesture?

“I'm so glad you finally called,” she said.

“Me too,” he said. He had restrained himself from contacting Laura until after graduation.

“I just wanted to express my condolences about Sara,” she said.

“She's not dead,” Andrew said, then regretted his abrupt tone.

“I know that,” Laura said while looking at him carefully. “But I'm sorry all the same.”

Andrew nodded.

“So, Sara is . . .” Laura let the question hang in the air.

“She's in a coma. She's on a ventilator, too. They don't know how much brain damage there is. They were able to get her off
the vent for a little bit, but then she got worse and they had to put her back on it. She keeps getting pneumonia.”

“That must be really hard to watch.”

“I wouldn't know. She got transferred to a big hospital in New Hampshire. Marcia is with her. She calls with updates and stuff.” Andrew felt the color rise in his cheeks, partly because Laura had put her hand on his back, and partly because he felt like he might cry. He thought of the brief and sometimes terse phone conversations that had been occurring between him and Marcia every few days.

How is she?

The same.

And you?

Fine.

Andrew and Laura walked in silence for a few minutes. He felt like he had betrayed Sara by talking about her condition so openly. He felt confused and overwhelmed by Laura. His happiness to be with her was also excruciating.
Just calm down and be cool,
he thought, but he couldn't think of anything cool to say.

“We missed you at graduation,” she said.

“How was it?”

“It was really great. And Jason said a lot of nice things about Sara.”

“He must have been thrilled,” Andrew said.

“What do you mean?”

“Getting to make the speech. Because Marcia wasn't there.”

“Oh, Marcia was the real valedictorian?”

“Yes, of course.” Andrew felt annoyed. Didn't everyone know how smart Marcia was?

“Oh. Well, I feel sad for her. I mean, it would have been her big moment.”

“To tell you the truth, she was dreading it. She's very . . . shy.”

“Oh?”

Andrew fell silent. He did not want to talk about Marcia. Graduation had occurred so close to the accident that Andrew had decided to skip it. The protestations of his parents were mild. Like Marcia, he took his exams, picked up his diploma, and called it a day.

“How are you feeling about everything?” Laura asked.

“Fine. Thanks for asking,” he said.

“People care,” she said.

“That's really nice,” he said.

“I think of Sara sometimes—you know, in my prayers,” she said.

“That's cool,” he said.

“Sometimes . . .” Laura paused and looked at him. “Sometimes I think it helps to focus on someone you care about with . . . with, like, greater intensity than normal. I mean, more intense than usual. Um, does that make sense?” she asked, and gave a nervous little laugh. Her fingers shook, and she clasped her hands behind her back.

“Sure, yeah, that makes sense,” he said.

“Like, you know, focused intensity,” she said.

A fog began to clear for Andrew. “You mean prayer? So, prayer is just intense focus?” he said.

“Well, not just—” she said.

“No, of course not,” he said.

Andrew thought of one of Janet's friends—Helen, who wasn't really a friend but someone from the cheese factory who had showed up at the hospital one day to offer her
support
. Helen was pushy and unpleasant. She kept crowing about the power of prayer and gripping a Bible in her hands as though it were an oxygen tank and she couldn't breathe without it. Eventually, in a rare show of her pre-accident self, Janet told Helen that she smelled like rancid whey, and the stench was making her ill.

It was different with Laura. They were just talking, right? And the idea that she was trying to lure him into her faith was paranoid and mean. Or maybe not. He needed to make things clear.

“I don't believe in that stuff, Laura.”

“That's okay,” she said quickly. Her hands fluttered out from behind her back, and she crossed her arms in front of her chest. She looked at the ground and rose up and down on her toes; she was either nervous or impatient or both. It was strange, because she'd been so calm and confident when she'd first given him the note. Andrew wondered if maybe she'd been compelled by someone, somehow, to have this conversation with him. Maybe
it had something to do with her church. He had a feeling that these religious types went after people when they were grieving and vulnerable. But Laura wasn't like that, was she? Or maybe she didn't want to be like that. He felt sorry for her, but then he thought,
Screw it. I've got to keep this going.

“Religion is really interesting, though. In literature and films and paintings and stuff. It's always a big deal. A big th-theme, I mean,” he stuttered, then continued in a hurry. “It's interesting, you know, in a conceptual way . . .” His voice trailed off.
Stop babbling.

“Never mind,” Laura said. “I mean, it's okay.” She cleared her throat. “Would you like me to go to the hospital with you or something? Is it very far?”

“No,” Andrew said. “I mean, yes, it's a few hours. But I don't think you should come.” A protective feeling for Sara reared up inside him as he raised his eyes to Laura. He didn't want the hottest girl in their class staring down at the second-hottest girl in their class. It would somehow diminish Sara even further and complete Laura's absolute and incontestable triumph. But he knew such thoughts were ridiculous, petty, and strange. He knew that Laura and Sara were both incapable of thinking about the situation as he did. “I think I'm going crazy,” he said.

He started to walk away, but she followed him.

“I want to show you something,” she said. She lightly tugged him in the direction of the park on the outskirts of their neighborhood. He followed her.

Halgin Park was twenty square miles of protected state forest. The first few miles were outfitted with fitness paths, community shelters, and picnicking sites. Farther in it became wilder, acres and acres of woods with occasional man-made or animal-made trails. They crossed paths with a few joggers who said hello or smiled at them. A very thin woman wearing weights strapped to her ankles and wrists seemed to frown at Andrew. Or perhaps she was just concentrating on her own misery, he thought. Brian used to wear a kind of weighted vest while he was training for football season. He came home sweating rivers, smelling terrible, and idly basking in the adoring gazes of their parents.

“This is a deer path,” Laura said, interrupting Andrew's thoughts.

“How can you tell?”

“Because it's so thin. They have small feet and they walk single file. They're very graceful.”

“Yeah. Beautiful. Sometimes my dad and Brian make noises about hunting them, but it never happens.”

“Because they don't want to kill them?”

“Inertia. They'd rather sit on the couch and watch the game. Or at least my dad would. But I don't think anything would stop Brian if you gave him a gun and a license to shoot it.”

Laura turned around and looked at him, her eyes searching his face. He held his breath. Laura said she was taking him to a special place where she liked to pray. Andrew assumed they were
going to Shaman's Point, a sun-drenched valley that appeared like a miracle in the deepest part of the woods. Andrew didn't know if Laura knew the unofficial name of the clearing, and he wasn't sure that she'd like it, given its witchcrafty tang.

He was realizing that Laura was curiously, beautifully ignorant of the local customs and culture of other people her age. Even though they'd attended the same schools and grown up in the same neighborhood, she and her religious kinsmen were somehow isolated from the larger world to which Andrew belonged. Laura didn't know that half the kids in their high school went to Shaman's Point to make out or have sex. She didn't know that this wasn't a deer path they were walking on, but cleverly made to look like one.

“Brian's your brother?” she asked.

And she didn't know who Brian was. Andrew felt a warmth in his body that spread up through his heart and reached into his throat.

“Yeah. He's three years older than me. He was a big star on the football team. Plays college, too,” he said.

“Oh,” she said, and continued to walk.

The canopy of green above them grew thicker and thicker. The sun-dappled light faded, and soon they were enclosed in the daytime semidarkness of a mature forest. He heard the soft rustle of leaves as small animals scurried past. He blinked as his eyes adjusted. The scent of pine became almost sticky in its sweetness. He could feel the wet of the air on his lips and cheeks.

Laura.

Andrew shoved his hands into his pockets, where he fingered pieces of lint that gathered in the corners.

“Careful,” Laura said. She stepped gingerly around tree roots and fallen branches. The valley was just up ahead. A ray of sunlight hit the path in front of them and cast a glow over Laura. Her hair was parted, and the nape of her neck was just visible. Andrew gazed hungrily at that patch of bare skin. It wasn't so much that he wanted to kiss her as that he wanted to pull her to him and press his face into her neck. He was right behind her, inches from her.

Then they were in the valley. Sunlight was everywhere at once. Laura took off in a sprint. Andrew jumped.
Shit,
he thought. What was she doing? Was she running from him? He must have scared her. Breathing down her neck like some hulking monster. Fuck! Then Laura, mid-sprint, leaped up into the air like a ballet dancer and twirled around. She shouted to him, but he couldn't understand her.

“What?” he yelled back.

She ran closer until she was about five yards from him. She was laughing and smiling. Andrew had never seen her so happy, so unreserved.

“Come on,” she said, and took off in another direction.

Andrew was not about to start running around.

“I like watching you,” he said to her retreating form, knowing she couldn't hear him. He was baffled and charmed by
this childlike side of her. She continued to dash around the field. He was almost embarrassed by the whole scene. Laura was so terribly pretty, and the field so picturesque, that it seemed like she was filming a commercial for panty liners.

He caught up to her at the rocks, the most appealing part of Shaman's Point. The six huge concave formations were smooth enough to sit on comfortably for hours. They looked as if they'd been hollowed out by the ocean, which they probably had been. He knew one of the rocks had a fish fossil on its side, but you had to hunt around to find it. Andrew smiled to himself. Another thing not to mention to Laura. Her parents, or perhaps her church, had arranged for her to leave class whenever the science teacher discussed evolution. Andrew felt bad for her when this happened. “Laura,” Ms. Devaux would say. “We're going to talk about Darwin now.” With a small, frightened, apologetic nod, Laura would get up and leave class with her eyes on the ground. A few people would usually chuckle, and girls who were jealous of Laura's beauty would make catty comments. But never Marcia or Sara. They just weren't like that.

Laura sat on the largest rock and waved him over. He sat next to her and waited as she caught her breath. His first kiss had been on this very rock. He and his one and only girlfriend, Rachel, had made out and fumbled around with each other's bodies on an almost daily basis for three months when they were fourteen. She dumped him right before sophomore year, after a mutually unsatisfying and almost entirely physical relationship.

“Want to pray?” Laura asked. She was catching her breath and grinning at him.

“Seriously?” Andrew said.

“Why not? I like praying when I'm happy like this.”

“So you jog around before you pray? What if you're at home? Do you bust out some push-ups and sit-ups and then start?”

Laura looked baffled before she realized that Andrew was teasing. She burst out laughing. When her giggles subsided, she took on a serious expression. Her shift in mood, from hilarity to grimness, came too quickly, too suddenly. It puzzled Andrew. Before Laura could open her mouth, Andrew spoke.