How it Ends (7 page)

Wow.

I think Gran’s losing it.

It’s the only possible answer. How else could you ever forget the way you and your true love met?

No wonder she looked so freaked. I’d be freaked, too, if someday my granddaughter asked me how Grandpa Seth and I met, and I couldn’t even remember. And no wonder Grandpa Lon scolded me. I bet he was embarrassed for her.

Now I feel kind of bad.

I should have just told the story myself. It would have been perfect for today, with Gran being seventeen and going to that Thanksgiving dance at the church, and Grandpa being twenty-two and driving through town on his way somewhere else, getting a flat tire, and going into the dance to see if anyone had a jack, taking one look at her dancing to
Moonlight Serenade
in her red taffeta dress with the wide neckline, and falling head over heels in love. Asking her to dance—they did a thing back then called cutting in, where if you were dancing with one guy and someone else wanted to dance with you, all he had to do was tap on your partner’s shoulder and say,
“May I cut in?” and if the guy you were dancing with was a gentleman, he had to let him.

I think that’s cool.

So Grandpa cut in and Gran said he was breathtaking, a handsome stranger with snowflakes melting in his hair and a strong, steady grip that felt like he was never going to let her go.

When their dance was over, he said, “I have some things to do but I’ll be back to see you home, so don’t leave without me.” And she said, “You don’t even know my name,” and he said, “I don’t know what it is now, but next year I’m hoping it will be Mrs. Lon Schoenmaker.”

Oh my
God,
that’s so romantic.

I wish there was some way to let Seth hear that story.

Maybe he would get the hint.

Right.

There was a message from Hanna
on the answering machine when we got home, saying she was sorry for putting me on the spot and that I shouldn’t worry if I didn’t remember how I met Grandpa because she’s pretty sure that memory loss happens to a lot of old people—

“Good Lord,” I said, hitting the pause button and staring at Lon, aghast. “She thinks I’m going senile!”

He stared back at me, lips twitching.

“No! I am not going to let that girl think I’m a doddering ancient who has to write her address in her underwear just so she can find her way home again,” I said, tossing my purse onto the chair and struggling out of my coat.

Lon reached past me and hit play on the machine.

“—and it’s totally natural, so I’m sorry I got all weird and I’ll see you guys soon,” Hanna said cheerfully and hung up.

I stood a moment, then reached up and yanked the clip-on earring from my dented, aching lobes. My hands were still shaking and the gold buttons rattled in my cupped palm. “Will you feed the cats for me, please? I’m going to bed.”

“It’s only seven thirty,” he said.

“Well, I’ve been up since five and I’m exhausted,” I said, pausing for a second to lean against him as I made my way past. My knees were trembling, my legs felt leaden, and I didn’t know how I was going to make it all the way upstairs.

“She didn’t mean anything by it,” he said, sliding his arm around me. “She was just looking for an answer to something she didn’t understand and that’s what she came up with. Don’t take it to heart.”

“I won’t,” I said and, gripping the banister, crept up step by step, listening to the sounds of Lon going into the kitchen, putting away the food Melanie had sent home with us, and finally opening the back door and calling the cats into the porch to eat.

But I
did
take it to heart, to the deepest core of my heart while lying awake for hours watching my foot twitch under the cover and being unable to stop it.

I thought of the research I’d done and of the possible causes of this palsy.

None were very promising.

Most were terrifying.

Then I thought that since no one but Lon knows the real reason behind my refusal to go see a doctor you, Hanna, will someday be forced to make up a reason, to decide my reluctance was sheer pigheadedness or cheapness or, God forbid, that insulting catchall senility.

It made me angry and then sad because I’d always believed I’d have time to clear up the lies I’d told you, that someday when you were grown and married with a little one of your own we would sit on the porch in the afternoon sunlight, watching as your baby played with my newest batch of stray kittens, and you would understand when I
explained why I’d buried the truth and woven you so many happily ever afters, because you had a daughter of your own now and would do anything to protect her.

You would understand my need to preserve your faith in me, to live up to that shine in your eyes that said I was your hero, and to fight the fierce sickness that filled my heart at the thought of ever letting you down.

You would understand me then, Hanna, and you would forgive me, oh God, I hoped you would, and your love wouldn’t lessen at hearing my terrible truths but remain as steady and strong as it was when you were little and you knew that Grandma Helen would rather die than ever let anything or anyone hurt you.

I thought we would have that time together, but now I see how badly I’d wanted to believe in fairy tales, too.

Black Friday and I definitely earned
my salary today.

There was a long line of people who wanted their pets’ picture taken with Santa, mostly dog owners who never stopped cooing, “Sit
down,
Tiara, and stop that bad-girl barking or Mommy is going to take you right home!” or guys doing just the opposite, jerking their dogs’ choke collars and bellowing, “Knock it off!”

I felt bad for the dogs and worse for the cats in the carriers, hauled out and handed to a fat guy in a fuzzy suit while all around them dogs were going crazy.

What a mess.

Today is the first day of deer season.

The shooting is sporadic from dawn to dusk every day until the season pauses for Christmas, and then starts up again just in case there’s still anything left alive in the woods.

I’m being sarcastic because this is not my favorite time of year.

My mother doesn’t like it, either, and gets up at like 5 a.m. in the dark, lays out the fluorescent pink knit hats we’re supposed to wear
from now on whenever we go outside just so no one mistakes us for deer and shoots us because, yes, it does happen.

I wore mine at breakfast and cracked her up.

My father says the hats are
not
pink; they’re Day-Glo orange, but just to tweak him, every time we see someone wearing one we say,
Oh, what a cute little pink hat!

My father says someday our smart mouths are going to get him punched in the nose.

Our property is posted
NO HUNTING
and so is Gran’s, because we believe everything needs at least one place in the world where it can rest and be safe.

There’s nothing we can do about the guy who built the cabin next door, though. He shows up in his business suit late every Friday, changes into full-blown camo, and plays weekend warrior, building a blind to hide behind and putting out acorn blocks and other bait to keep the hungry deer around so he doesn’t actually have to get off his butt and work up a sweat trying to kill them. He doesn’t eat them, either. Just saws off the bucks’ heads for trophies and leaves the does there to rot.

Gran and I found one of the carcasses once when we were out walking her property line during an early spring thaw. The doe’s corpse was horrible—sunken, gnawed, and rotten—and heartbreaking, since it looked like she had been trying to get back to the safety of Gran’s woods and just couldn’t run fast enough.

She hates this guy for a lot of reasons but mostly because when the does are killed it means the fawns lose their mothers after having them for only maybe six months and are left to fend for themselves through winter, the harshest season.

She gets all freaked when she says it; her chin gets really firm, and she adds in a big voice (even though no one is arguing with her), “And since rut usually occurs before the season opens, the does they’re
killing are pregnant. How do you
gut
a pregnant doe, for God’s sake?”

This is when my father and Grandpa turn green, mumble a lame excuse, and sidle out of the room so as not to attract any Amazonian woman outrage.

Sometimes before they leave, Grandpa will wink at me, then tiptoe over to Gran pretending like he’s scared of her and either swoop down and give her a loud, smacking kiss on the cheek or pinch her butt, which drives her crazy, and then, laughing, hurry out of the room.

It’s really cute and always makes Gran blush.

I hope me and Seth are that cute someday.

It started snowing today. Me and Sammi were out in the courtyard along with half the student body and Seth came over to us. He smiled, reached out, fluffed the snowflakes from my hair, and said, “You look like a snow bunny with big chocolate cupcake eyes.”

While I stood there hopelessly melting, he added, “Merry Christmas if I don’t see you again before the end of the day,” and ambled away.

Oh, God.

Maybe I should just go back down to Crystal’s and let karate guy throw me around a little more. I know it would hurt less than this.

Christmas was small but good.

Gran cried when I gave her the five cases of cat food, then cried harder when we gave her the giant bags of cracked corn and the extra veterinary gift card my parents had bought before my father was laid off.

She got even more emotional when she gave us our gifts, a homemade cookbook of all her favorite recipes for my mom, a batch of homemade peanut butter fudge for my father, and an excellent pair of fat white crocheted mittens and a scarf for me.

“What?” I said, crouching in front of her and taking her trembling hands when she started crying. “I love them, they’re perfect, I swear. What?”

“I wanted to do so much more,” she said finally, gripping my hands hard.

“Oh, stop, come here,” I said, rising and giving her a hug because now I was starting to get all teary, and if I went, I knew my mother would, too, and then we’d all have a very soggy Christmas.

After we ate I went up and changed into the hot new black angora
sweater dress Crystal left for me under our tree (I gave her the same dress in red) and my new pair of high-heeled black boots and headed down to her house.

When I got there she had her dress on, too, so we took pictures and were being so loud that her parents and her brother down in the family room yelled back, wanting to know what was up, so of course we planned an entrance, with her going downstairs first and me following her down the four carpeted stairs to her family room.

Except that when I stood at the top of the carpeted stairs, my boot sole slid over the edge of the step, my knees buckled, and I skied down on my shins, landing at the bottom in a humiliated heap.

Her mother ran to help me up, but Crystal, her brother, and her father were laughing so hard they were crying, and her mother kept trying not to laugh, but these moist giggles kept bursting out of her until finally she gave in and fell back against the wall, roaring.

Once I saw I was okay, I stood up, smoothed the dress, and started laughing, too. Crystal’s mom hugged me and I had just stopped dying of mortification when somebody knocked and Crystal staggered over to let them in.

It was karate guy, who walked into the foyer without noticing me, shrugged off his leather jacket, and slung it over the coatrack. Shaking out his hair, he took one step into the room, spotted me, and went still.

I really liked that reaction.

“Whoa,” he said as a slow smile crept across his face. “So
this
is where Santa left my present.”

“Merry Christmas,” I said. “You missed a great show. I just fell down the stairs.”

But it was like he hadn’t even heard me. “Damn, woman.” He gave me a thorough up-and-down and shook his head. “Are you
sure
you’re only fifteen?”

“Fifteen and a half,” I said, laughing. “Want to teach me how to flip somebody again?”

His gaze met mine. “I’m pretty sure you already know.”

And that flustered me because he was still smiling but his eyes were all dark and velvety and serious, and the room was hot and my knees were starting to sting from their downhill run, and the rest of me was tingling, and everyone was watching and—

“Another one bites the dust,” Crystal’s father said and snorted. “Keep it in your pants, Jesse. She’s jailbait.”

“Dad!” Crystal said, whacking the back of his head. “Don’t be disgusting.”

“What’s disgusting about that?” he said, surprised. “I was young once, too, you know.”

“Mom, will you make him stop?” Crystal said. “He’s grossing me out.”

“Come on, handsome,” Crystal’s mom said, prodding her husband to his feet. “Let’s go into the kitchen and you can talk dirty to me while I spice the cider.”

They left, the guys left for a party, and I followed Crystal back upstairs, where I found out that karate guy’s full name was Jesse Yennet and his mom had been our fifth-grade art teacher.

I was like, “What’s his deal?” and Crystal gave me this interested look and said, “Why? Do you like him?”

“No, he’s just always nice to me and I’m curious, okay?”

“Mm-hmm,” she said and laughed. “What? I think you guys make a cute couple.”

“Sure, especially since once my parents see his big ‘fuck’ tat, my father will tattoo his work boot against my butt. Are you
kidding
?”

And then she said Jesse got it from some hole-in-the-wall place after his mom was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and almost died, because that was pretty much how he felt about the world.

“When was this?” I said.

“When we were in sixth grade, don’t you remember?” Crystal said. “She left in the middle of the semester and took like a year’s leave of absence because she was so sick. Jesse was what, a freshman or a sophomore?”

“But she made it, right?” I said.

“Yeah, but he thought she was going to die and his dad was totally focused on her and Jesse just kind of got lost trying to deal with it. He started partying way too much and dropped out of school in junior year and got arrested for driving without a license but they went easy on him because of his circumstances—”

“You knew all this and you never told me?” I said.

“Why would you have cared?” she said, amused. “Everybody’s got a story behind them, Hanna. You know that. You read.”

“Well yeah, but that’s fiction. This is like,
real
.”

“Well, don’t feel sorry for him because his mom’s okay now and he quit partying and got his brown belt in karate and his GED. He’s an apprentice stone mason and that’s union so he makes really good money. And he’s got that new bike and…oh, yeah, you already know about that part,” she said, nudging me and grinning.

“Yeah,” I said absently.

Can you even? I mean, I had no idea there could be so much to karate guy.

Jesse.

I got home as Gran and Grandpa were just leaving so I changed and walked the deer path with them, putting down the corn and some apples as a holiday treat because the second wave of deer-hunting season began at sunrise, the day after Christmas.

On the way back I couldn’t help wondering if peace on Earth really
was
supposed to be a sentiment people meant for only a day.

And right as I crossed through the gap in the little woods between our properties, I got a text from Seth.

Merry Xmas
.

I stared at it with growing wonder, and then, shaking a little from both cold and happiness, replied,
Merry Xmas to you, too
.

A pause, and then:
Party at Connor’s NY’s Eve. Want to go?

I clapped my hand over my mouth, eyes huge, and let out a muffled half laugh, half sob, then, getting a grip, punched out,
What about Bailey?
Freaked, deleted it, and replied,
I need a ride.

I’ll come get you.

I said,
OK,
and danced all the way home.

I called Sammi and told her how he might come get me on New Year’s Eve.

“Do you believe him?” she said. “I mean, I’m not trying to jinx it or anything but…”

“I know,” I said because she didn’t need to say it: What if he said he was coming and then just didn’t show up?

Seth hasn’t texted me again but I’ve been operating as if he
is
going to come over and maybe even hang out for a while before the party, so I spent an insane day cleaning my room, trying to find a way to make it sexy and alluring and comfy and a major reflection of me all without letting my mother know that’s what I was trying to do.

Well, I mean the sexy and alluring parts.

“So who is this guy that I’ve never met or even heard mentioned that I’m supposed to let upstairs into my fifteen-year-old daughter’s
bedroom on New Year’s Eve?” my father said, lowering the paper and arching an eyebrow. “Want to fill me in on this, Hanna, or am I going to have to grill him when he gets here?”

“Mom,” I said, giving her an impatient look. “You said you wouldn’t let him do that!”

“Really,” he said, sounding interested and glancing at my mother, who had covered her face with her hands and was shaking her head. “What else am I not allowed to do in my own home when Prince Charming is here?”

“Call him
that,
” I said, freaking. “And please,
please
don’t wear those dorky reading glasses or do that killer-grip handshake thing or make two thousand trips upstairs to get dumb things, because it’s
so
obvious—”

“Good,” he said, nodding. “I
want
it to be obvious. No hanky-panky—”

“Mom!
That
word!”

“You’re not allowed to say
hanky-panky,
either,” my mother said, giving him a twinkling look. “But don’t worry, it’s not only you. I’m not allowed to wear my bunny-head slippers—”

“God,
no,” I said, shuddering.

“Or sing any of my lame songs or…what was the last one?” she said.

“Ask him if he’s thought about what he’s going to go to college for because that’s just so…ugh…I can’t stand it,” I said, not missing the wry look they exchanged. “And don’t wear your ugly mom jeans, either, okay? Wear the newer ones.”

“You getting all this?” my father said.

“Let me write it down,” my mother said, smirking and reaching for a pen.

“No!” I hollered. “Then you’ll leave it out on the counter or something and he’ll see it and know it’s a big deal and he can’t know that
ever.”

“Oh my Gawd,” my father said, clapping a hand to his chest. “He’ll
know.”

“You guys give me a pain,” I muttered, but I wasn’t really mad and they knew it, so I grabbed the Pledge and ran back up to my room to give it an overhaul it hadn’t seen since I’d graduated eighth grade.

Every shirt I own is stupid and ugly.

All my jeans make me look fat.

My new sweater dress is too dressy, but Crystal got a nice, tight plum-colored hoodie she said I could borrow, so maybe that with black cords and my new black boots?

He should call so I know what time he’s coming to get me tomorrow before I go completely over the edge.

What if he met somebody else and made plans with them and I just don’t know it yet?

I think I would have to quit St. Ignatz and go back to public school just so I would never have to see him again.

He called and he can’t get the car but his buddy Phil said he’d drive us to the party if Sammi came, too.

I said, “Oh. And what did you say?”

He said, “I said it’s good with me as long as it’s good with Hanna and Sammi.” Silence. (And thank God he couldn’t see me writhing around on my bed and biting my own arm to keep from shrieking with joy.) “So do you think she’ll go?”

I pulled my gnawed-up forearm from my mouth and, wiping it on the comforter, said, “Oh, yeah, definitely.” I was so over the rainbow that I almost forgot to give him my address but he reminded me, and that made it seem all the more real.

The last thing I said was, “And if something happens and you can’t come—”

“I’ll let you know,” he said and it sounded like he was smiling. “Okay?”

Oh, yeah.

I think I’m in a dream.

Or maybe it was the shot of blackberry brandy on an empty stomach.

Whatever it is, I don’t want it to end.

It was so easy having Seth and Phil, the good little parochial schoolboys, come in, say hello to my parents and back up my ‘going to the movies and out to eat’ story without a hitch, then climbing into the backseat with Seth and leaving poor Phil alone up front while we drove over and picked up Sammi.

Seth had his arm along the back of the seat behind me and only moved it to smoke a joint. I didn’t smoke because I didn’t want to forget any of what would happen tonight or say anything stupid or miss my chance by moving too slow, but there was plenty of secondhand smoke, so that’s probably why the first part of the night seems a little blurry.

Walking into the party with Seth, having everyone there see his arm around me and mine locked around him was almost too intense. My knees were weak, my face hot, and I couldn’t stop trembling with excitement. Finally, Seth looked down at me, smiled, and said, “Cold?”

The place was like a steam bath but what was I going to say? “No, I just can’t take being close to you”? so I nodded and he pulled me closer, which only made it worse, and that was why I decided on the brandy.

Anything to help me ease down a little and get some self-control back.

So we hung out and he talked to some of his friends, and me and Sammi kept exchanging excited eyeball messages across the room. There was food but I didn’t eat because I didn’t want to get caught chewing if he ever decided to kiss me. I know we talked but all I could focus on was his hand, warm at the back of my neck under my hair, sliding across to one shoulder, then down over my bra strap to the curve of my back right above my low-rise cords, like he was exploring my landscape, and my God, I was dying.

Finally, he leaned down, put his mouth against my ear, murmured, “Come on, it’s too crowded in here,” and led me through the knots of kids, up the stairs, and into the first unoccupied bedroom.

He closed and locked the door, turned to me standing there trembling in the dark, and with a smile in his voice, said, “Where’d you go?”

“I’m here,” I whispered, and then his arms came around me, and an exhale swept out of me carrying all the strength I had left. I melted against him and lifted my face, and his mouth found mine, and oh, God, the sweetness was unbearable. I think he felt it, too, because he just kept kissing me as we found the bed and sank onto the edge of it, as he eased me back and stroked my arm, my hair, settled a hand on my waist and slid it to my stomach. I tensed when he did that, not on purpose but because he was making my whole body crazy for him, so he moved his hand back to my waist. I put my arms around his neck and pulled him down, wanting to feel his heartbeat against me.

I don’t know how long we kissed but I was nearly senseless from the heat when I felt his hand ease up my side to my ribs, and it was like a drop of cold water plunked right down on the center of my sizzling delirium, not enough to put it out but just enough to wake me up a little. I brought my arm down, trapping his hand from advancing, and he smiled against my mouth and moved his hand, only to slip it back up again a few minutes later.