Forgive Me (19 page)

Thirty-eight

NANTUCKET TO STARDOM

I have calmed down and found a new pen that works better. We are almost to Hyannis, so I don’t have much time.

I rode my bike all the way to the harbor, leaving Mom in the dust. As soon as the ferry pulled out, I went into the bathroom. Joe had given me a sample tube of Aveda gel, and I used it to fix my hair before changing into my suit. My hand had stopped bleeding, but I wrapped it in toilet paper just in case. Here is some blood from my hand:

I stared at myself, trying to ignore the anxious feeling in my stomach. It was just the swaying boat. I gave the new me a confident smile in the bathroom mirror, and the man changing his baby next to me said, “Looking spiffy, there.” I shrugged, and tried not to look at his baby’s bare bottom.

We are docking, so I will write more after my audition. This means everything to me, so please God, let me win. If I don’t win, I don’t know what I will do.

T
he audition is over now. I feel like a different person. It’s hard to write about what happened after I got off the ferry. Maybe I can find a way to tell it without crying. I’ll try. My hand feels better now.

Malcon was standing in the parking lot in Hyannis, leaning against his car. He wore another really cool sweater: yellow with cables running down the front. “Hey there,” he said as I walked toward him. I said hi.

He gave me a hug, saying, “Did you tell your parents you’re staying the night?”

“Yes,” I said. I wasn’t sure that Malcon was the answer to what I was looking for, but there he was, and he was better than going back.

“What’s the story with the hand?” said Malcon.

“I cut it,” I said.

“Let me see.” Malcon took my fist, opened it carefully. He unwrapped the toilet paper, traced the cut with his finger. “Let’s stop at a CVS,” he said. “Clean this up.”

“Okay.”

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” said Malcon.

“No,” I said. And he let it go. He took me to a pharmacy, and we cleaned the cut with cotton balls and hydrogen peroxide. Malcon put a bandage on and didn’t mention it again, which I appreciated. As we drove, we talked about Elvis instead. In Malcon’s opinion, Elvis’s later performances were much better than his early ones. Malcon’s favorite Elvis movie was
Charro!,
where Elvis had a beard. All I knew about Elvis was his Christmas album, which my Granny Gwen played every Christmas when we went to Woods Hole. She taught me all the words to the songs, and we even had a dance routine for “Santa Bring My Baby Back.” But I didn’t tell Malcon any of this. I just listened.

We drove past the Mashpee Mall, and Malcon honked. “Just wanted to mark the spot where you kicked ass,” he said. We turned north and discussed the previous season of
American Superstar.
The cheesy blonde from Kentucky had won, but Malcon thought the Korean American boy had been better. We passed a bunch of rotaries, and then we reached the Sagamore Bridge. It loomed high above the water, fancy metalwork stretching like a crown. Malcon drove around the rotary really fast, merging onto the lane that headed off Cape Cod. At the entrance to the bridge, a sign said,
WE CAN HELP
.
CALL THE GOOD SAMARITANS
, and then a phone number.

“That sign,” said Malcon, “gives me chills.”

“Why?”

He turned to me. “It’s for people who are about to jump.”

“Oh,” I said. “Jump off the bridge?”

“Yes, the bridge.”

“You mean, like, kill themselves?”

Malcon raised his eyebrows. “Kid,” he said, “you got rocks in there or what?”

“I don’t get it,” I admitted. “Why would someone jump off a bridge?”

Malcon shook his head, looking really old all of a sudden. “May you never know,” he said, staring straight ahead.

W
e drove for an hour on Route 3 to Boston. We passed Plymouth, where I had gone on a class trip to stand in the rain and look at a rock. We passed Sam’s Club, where Mom had taken me to buy a hundred-pack of Charmin and a million tubes of Crest. The city was on the horizon.

The truth is, I don’t really want to talk about the auditions. There were so many kids at Gillette Stadium that I realized I wasn’t so great after all. Maybe this affected my performance, I don’t know. I’ll say this: we waited for a really long time. The
American Superstar
judges were there. I didn’t rock the house. I knew it even before I was done. Instead of feeling filled with fire, I was room temperature, and I couldn’t stop thinking of Mom running after my bicycle. Chipe Basilia said, “Okay, thank you.” And Johnny Thunder said, “Was that a Broadway tune?”

“Yes,” I said. “I love Frank Sinatra!”

They all stared at me.

After a long afternoon, it was time to announce the winners. Even though I prayed and hoped each time the announcer opened his mouth, my name was not called. He finished, and people started packing up. It was over. I wanted to die. Malcon squeezed my shoulders and told me he was taking me to Quiznos’ Subs for dinner. “You can have anything you want, buddy,” he said. “I’m really sorry.” He put his arm around me as we walked toward the exit.

“It’s okay,” I said, “really.” But it wasn’t okay. If I wasn’t a star, then what was I?

“Tell you what,” said Malcon. “After dinner, we’ll get some ice cream and go watch movies in a hotel room.”

“Why don’t we just stay at your house?” I asked.

“My boring apartment?” said Malcon. “It’s all the way over on Beacon Hill.”

“I thought you said Copley Square.”

Malcon stroked my neck with his fingers. “Right,” he said.

I didn’t like the way Malcon was talking to me. I didn’t want his fingers on my neck. I missed my dad all of a sudden: I missed him so much I went cold. I remembered the way Dad used to take me whale hunting. Of course, you can’t catch a whale from the beach, but we spent hours knee-deep in the water, pretending. Dad would point and yell, and we would run toward the imaginary whales with our driftwood harpoons held high. Sometimes Dad would be a whale and thrash around, grabbing me around the waist and dunking me. It must have been so boring for him, standing around in the tidal pools all day. Mom would sit on the towel with her book and call out, “Boys! Sunscreen!”

“Come on, buddy,” said Malcon, holding open the door that led into the parking lot. I felt like maybe I shouldn’t follow him. But here I was in Boston. I couldn’t call my mom. Maybe I could call Aunt Lily from a pay phone?

Suddenly the loudspeakers crackled to life again. “Paging Harry Duarte,” said a man’s deep voice. “Harry Duarte, please report to the stage immediately. Paging Harry Duarte.”

I glanced at Malcon, but instead of looking happy, he looked nervous. “Maybe I won,” I said, excitement rising almost painfully in my chest.

“Harry Duarte,” said the loudspeaker. I ran toward the stage, not even noticing that Malcon wasn’t following me. My heart pounded in my ears as I pushed past throngs of disappointed kids. My name was echoed again and again as I neared the front. Visions ran through my mind, headlines proclaiming the regional winner who almost got away.

And then I spotted her, peering across the stadium with the same hope in her eyes that I felt in my rib cage. She looked beautiful under the spotlight, and as I got closer, I understood that in the same way I yearned for stardom, she yearned for me.

“Harry Duarte,” said the man’s voice again, and then my own voice rose up. “It’s me,” I said, “here I am!” She put her hand over her eyes and scanned the crowd. When she saw me, she smiled wide.

“Mommy!” I said, and I climbed on the stage, burying my face in her weird-o dress.

Thirty-nine

I
n her South African hotel room, in a lucid dream, Nadine went into labor. She felt radiating pain and struggled to sit up. She was on the couch in Hank’s living room, where she had taken to sleeping now that she was big and uncomfortable. The Nantucket night was cold and clear.

By the door, Hank had packed a bag for the journey: hard candy and lotion and a CD of his favorite heavy-metal music. “Can’t be too prepared,” he had told Nadine nervously.

Hank slept in their bedroom, snoring. The ravages of South Africa—of Massachusetts, for that matter—never filled his dreams. He saw a broken bone and wondered how it could be healed. He didn’t think about why it was broken, or what it would feel like if it had been his own leg. He did not lie awake at night, his stomach hurting after seeing an old man at a diner who looked frail and alone.

It was time to wake her husband. He would bundle up in his navy peacoat, with his gray wool hat. It was snowing in the dream, and they walked past the Nantucket Post Office. Suddenly, Nadine was inside the post office, a small boy next to her. They were picking up the mail, and the child had black curls and Ann’s violet eyes. He turned to Nadine and said, “Mommy, where doggy?” The post office dog—a collie—appeared and licked the boy, sending him into a fit of laughter.

It was summer, then, and Nadine was on a giant sailboat. Krispin was at the helm, and Sophia handed Nadine a gin and tonic. Hank reclined next to Nadine, and Lily sat opposite in a polka-dot bikini. Lily looked the way she had during their sixteenth summer, happy and tan, and Nadine hadn’t made any mistakes yet. The little boy appeared in a life vest. He climbed on Nadine’s lap and settled his cheek against her chest. Jim waved from shore, and Krispin steered the boat to him. “Mommy, I’m hungry,” said the boy. Nadine looked around for Ann, but then realized the boy was speaking to her. In Nadine’s hand was a packet of peanut butter crackers.

N
adine woke, and made her decision. She wanted this baby. She wanted to raise him on Nantucket, Massachusetts. There were children who dreamed of living in a wooden house with a screen door you could leave unlocked without the fear of someone coming in and taking your mother away. There were children who wondered if such a place was real, if it was possible in the same world as theirs. Nadine didn’t know what she could do to deserve the gift she had been given. For one thing, she could stop pretending it wasn’t a gift, and start being thankful.

Hank would look at Nadine and see a mother. He would take a guest room and create a nursery. Nadine could live in his vision, she could try. She could stop pointing out the cracks in the ceiling, the horrors in the world. Maybe Nadine could find a drug and stop seeing them herself. Nadine could say to one child,
I’ve got you. You live in a great country. You are safe.

Nadine could say it, and she could try to believe it, as well.

Forty

T
he next morning, Nadine sat next to Krispin and Sophia at the hearing. When they were called upon to make a statement, the Irvings stood. Sophia squeezed Nadine’s arm, and she and Krispin made their way to the podium.

“It’s hard to know,” said Sophia, her voice small in the microphone. The audience grew hushed. “It’s hard to know how you’ll feel if something happens to your child. If your child is beaten to death for no—” She stopped, paused, then continued. “For a reason that doesn’t make sense to you,” she said. She looked at Fikile, sitting in the front row.

“But it’s also hard for me to know what Evelina’s life was like. What her days consisted of, what conditions…why she felt moved to do such a thing. I can’t—I can’t pretend to know that. My son, Jason, he tried to be a part of her world. He tried to help change her world. And he would want me to stand here. And he would want me to say, I am trying. Evelina Malefane thought…somehow…she wanted to do something to help her country. I don’t know. But I am speaking for my son. I hope you will grant amnesty to Evelina Malefane, so she can make something of her life. Thank you.”

She lifted her head and took Krispin’s hand. They looked at each other for a moment, and then he embraced her. He cleared his throat, and said, “My son was a gentleman. He was a brilliant man. I will miss him every minute for the rest of my life. But punishing this—” He gestured to Evelina. “Keeping this poor young woman in jail doesn’t bring Jason back. Nothing’s going to bring him back.” The sadness in Krispin’s eyes hinted at unfathomable despair. Nadine realized she had moved her hands to cradle her flat stomach.

“Thank you,” said Krispin into the microphone, and then he led his wife back to their chairs. Later that afternoon, Krispin bent to speak softly in Nadine’s ear. “Grapes on the beach,” he said. He patted her knee. “That was a nice touch,” he said.

N
adine stopped to hug Fikile, and wrote down Albert’s address so they could keep in contact. When Evelina was given amnesty, Nadine wrote with congratulations. Evelina moved back home with Fikile and began to make up middle school and then high school classes. Albert wrote that Evelina dreamed of working in a fancy restaurant like the one her mother would never stop talking about, the one where Thola made them fix the tablecloth.

O
utside the courthouse, Nadine saw George sitting on a green bench. The sun was fierce; George squinted as he loaded film into his camera. When he saw her, he lifted it and began to take pictures.

“Stop,” said Nadine.

He focused on her face. “I don’t want to have to rely on my memory,” he said. “I want evidence of this moment.”

She sat down and looked directly at the camera. “What moment is that?” she said.

“The moment you tell me,” he said, snapping a photo. “The moment you say
Yes, I’ll marry you, George.
”

Nadine smiled wryly. “I’m going to the airport,” she said.

George put the camera down. “Of course you are,” he said. He snorted, a derisive sound. “Can’t keep running, darling,” he said.

“George, I’m sorry.”

“I’ll live,” said George.

“I mean, about that night. I made a mistake. I should have stayed.”

“It’s done now,” said George.

“I just wish I could…I wish Maxim—”

“It’s done.”

Nadine stood. “I’m going home,” she said.

“You?”

Nadine put her hand on her stomach again. She thought of Fikile, the look in her eyes as she pled for her daughter. “Me,” she said. “Believe it or not.”

“I believe it,” said George. He smiled forlornly.

Nadine kissed him on the cheek. “Good-bye,” she said.

T
he air outside Logan Airport was chilly and dry. Nadine’s hair—mashed from more than a day in airplanes—was filled with static, and she shivered in her thin sweater. A minivan stopped next to her, dislodging a pile of gray snow. The passenger-side window slid down. “Hey, stranger,” said Lily.

Nadine grinned. She threw the duffel in the trunk and opened the passenger-side door. She was immediately hit with hot air that smelled of McDonald’s. A high-pitched voice sang about the alphabet from the car stereo, and Nadine peered into the back, where Bo, Babe, and little Kristi were securely strapped into plastic seats. “I got you a Two-Cheeseburger Meal,” said Lily, tossing the bag on Nadine’s lap and pulling from the curb.

“Fantastic,” said Nadine, unwrapping a burger with relish. The stereo blared, “S! I love the letter S! Slithery snakes and sweet cupcakes…”

“What on earth is this music?” said Nadine.

“Welcome to the rest of your life,” said Lily. “Have you told him you’re coming?”

“No,” said Nadine. “I was afraid he’d tell me to fuck off.”

Lily sighed and turned up the car stereo.

T
he ferry dock in Hyannis was already crowded with cars and people sipping hot drinks. Lily gave Nadine a kiss. “You’re going to need this,” she said, pulling a parka from the backseat.

“Wish me luck,” said Nadine. “I’m a little scared.”

“Oh please,” said Lily. “It just gets harder from here.”

“I’m ready,” said Nadine.

Lily looked skeptical, but when Nadine opened the back door and kissed the children, Lily softened. “I love you,” she said.

“I know,” said Nadine. “Do you think I can do it?”

“I’m sure you can,” said Lily. “And there’s always Dark and Stormies.” Nadine shook her head at the mention of their favorite drink, a mixture of ginger beer and dark rum.

Nadine embraced Lily and took Hank’s duffel from the back of the minivan. She scrutinized the Steamship Authority weekend parking lot. Hank’s green pickup truck was parked toward the front: Lily had guessed right that he would rush from work to board the evening ferry. Nadine bought a one-way ticket and a Snickers bar. She was terrified.

As she boarded the boat, she jammed her hands in the pockets of the parka. In each pocket was something square and hard. She pulled out two Moleskine notebooks. One was titled
NANTUCKET
; the other,
NURSING
.

On board she wandered from room to room, scanning the passengers. Finally, as the ferry pulled from shore, she saw him. He leaned against the rail on the upper deck, gazing out at the water. Nadine stood behind a metal door and watched him. He wore a fisherman’s sweater, his hair still uncut and blowing in the wind. Nadine took a deep breath, and turned the knob.

There was no one else outside; it was freezing. Hank turned as Nadine approached him. He blinked, and happiness bathed his face. He smiled, then tried to hide the smile. He said, “Nadine?”

The horn sounded, and Nadine took Hank’s face between her hands. She kissed him, and he kissed her back. His arms, his arms around her.

Nadine looked at Hank, tried to burn the image in her mind. She closed her eyes, sending the postcard to her mother.