It Burns a Lovely Light (2 page)

By the time they stepped onto the pool deck, it was Adult Swim. Other than a few women in rubber bathing caps, chatting and side-stroking
along the deep end, the pool was empty. Some kids warmed themselves on the wet cement, fists clenched under their chins, shivering and talking. Others sat at the edge of the pool, legs in the water as they kept an eye on the clock over
the snack bar. The air was thick with the intoxicating mixture of chlorine, cheeseburgers, and fries.

William spotted the baby pool. "I'll just be a second, Mom."

Pauline gripped his shirttail. "Oh no you don't,
mister."

"Why not?"

"Because you're seven." She steered him toward the men's bathroom. "I'll wait for you outside the door."

Farley watched with pride as her father arranged their
chaise lounge chairs in a straight line. Other fathers didn't make everyday things special like he did. One by one, he spread their beach towels high into the air and let them float down over the plastic chairs. In his black swim
trunks and matching jet black hair, he was the most handsome man in the world.

Pauline approached, holding William's hand. Jack bowed and swept his arm toward her chair. "My darling, your chariot awaits."

"Oh my God," Farley groaned. She covered her face to hide her delight. People were starting to watch. Then again, she couldn't remember a time when people weren't struck by the star quality of Jack and
Pauline James.

Pauline untied her short terry robe and rubbed her baby oil and iodine mixture onto her legs, while Jack smeared lotion on William's pallid skin. Leaning back on her chaise, Farley smiled and tried to look friendly. Her
face was starting to hurt.

She observed the high divers from her chair. One by one they jackknifed, swan dived, and cannon-balled their way off the board. She wriggled her toes and clenched her hands in excitement. So far, not a single back dive
in the bunch.

"Want to give it a shot, Pauline?" Jack teased.

"Ha, ha." She reached over and poked him in the thigh. "Very funny."

As a teenager Pauline had had a bad experience with heights.
She and her twin sister Claire had been sunning themselves on a high ledge overlooking the Monongahela River. Down below, their younger brother Ryan skipped stones out into the water. Bored and seeking attention, Ryan swam away
from the shore. He began flailing his arms and screaming for help, pretending to drown. Pauline leapt off the ledge and into the water, grazing a boulder on her way down and injuring her back in the process. The result: two operations,
nine months in a body brace, and an understandably extreme and lifelong fear of heights.

It was time. Farley was ready. Index fingers tugging at the bottom of her bathing suit, she did the run-walk pool scoot all swimmers learn
at an early age. There were at least eight kids ahead of her, but she didn't mind. Standing in line was just another way to meet people. Maybe by lunchtime she would be eating with her new friends. Then they could all sit together and
wait for their food to digest. Waiting a whole hour was always torture, but nobody wants to die of a cramp. Someone tapped Farley's shoulder. That was fast!

Turning, she smiled at a girl with thin lips barely covering
a railroad track of metal braces. "Hi."

"Can I take cuts? My best friend is in front of you."

Finally, it was Farley's turn. She skipped a rung as she started the climb - a little something she picked up from watching the other
divers. Once she was higher than the fence around the pool, she spotted her new school. A few rungs more...she could see the beginning of the housing area. Another step, slower now. A jet touched down on the flight line. Beyond, the
desert shimmered in the heat. The slightest hint of nausea emerged. Her body began to tremble.

Farley stopped and leaned in to the ladder. Her heart beat faster and faster. To calm herself she looked down at her family. William stood
next to his chair, bouncing from one foot to the other and squeezing his weenie through his Speedo. That meant he was wound up.

"Keep going," he shouted, waving with his free hand. "You're almost to the top!"

To buy time, she turned what she hoped was a calm gaze out across the pool and pretended to look for someone.

"Go, already!" said someone from the line below. Someone who would definitely not be her friend.

Farley continued to climb, but her legs seemed to be moving in slow motion. She reached the top and knelt on the rough surface. Clutching the side guardrails, she stared straight ahead. Petrified.

"Come on, any day now!" Some little monster shouted.

"Awww, man!"

"Get off the board!"

It was like one of those dreams where you try to move but
your legs won't cooperate.

"Jack..." Farley heard her mother say from the safety of her pool chair.

From the corner of her eye, Farley saw her father walk toward the board.

"All right, kids," he said. "That's
enough."

The yelling and complaining promptly stopped. There were even a few 'Yes, Sir's.'

"Farley," said Jack, "everything all right up
there?"

There was a rushing sound in her ears. Unsteady, she tried to close her eyes, but the darkness made it worse.

"Help me," she whispered.

His wedding ring making a clanking sound as he touched the
ladder.

"Can you find the ladder with your feet and crawl back down?"

"No!" Her voice was shrill, as the horror of the situation began to sink in.

"I could come up and piggyback you down." He tried to say this quietly, as if she had any dignity left to save.

Farley shook her head. The thought of being carried down from this height was even scarier than jumping. She watched as a lifeguard
climbed down from his stand; probably dying for a shot at a good rescue. Moaning, she wondered if she would need mouth-to-mouth like Steve Dorfman.

"You don't have to be afraid!" cried William,
thrilled to see his sister frightened for a change.

Jack took his time with each word. "Farley, I want you to listen to me very carefully."

She knew that voice. It was the voice the hero in the movie
used when he was talking the crazy person down off a ledge, or telling the desperado to put the gun down. Easy now, partner. No one needs to get hurt.

"Keep your eyes on the end of the board and crawl toward it. Then, sit, and drop into the water."

Please, God. Let this be a bad dream. Let me wake up now.

"Farley, do you understand what I just said?"

She nodded.

"She nodded!" screamed William.

Not that he had to. The pool was quiet, everyone eager to see how the chunky girl in yellow would get down off the high dive. Farley's hands and knees dug into the prickly board as she crept forward. Every part of
her body was trembling.

"Take all the time you need, hon," said Pauline.

Thanks a lot, thought Farley. I'll bet you're off your chaise lounge now.

Her pace was hideously slow. The closer she got to the end of the board, the more it bounced. Her knee slipped over the edge, scraping her thigh. Frantically, she struggled to regain her balance.

That's it, she decided. Show's over, folks. She locked her
arms around the board and gripped the sides with her feet, allowing her bathing suit to return to its familiar wedge. She pressed her forehead against the rough surface and closed her eyes. They could bring in a helicopter for all she
cared; she wasn't moving another inch.

I've made a complete fool of myself before I even made a single friend. Maybe Ben Porgie will be my friend. Better yet, I just won't have any. I could use a year or two to myself. The mysterious loner...Lana
Turner in Madam X...chlorine sure is a lonely smell...

"I'm here, hon."

Lifting her head, Farley turned around as far as she dared. Behind her, squatting and clutching the board for dear life, was her mother.

"Let's show these folks how it's done," said Pauline, gesturing with a tilt of her head toward the crowd below. She was shivering so hard, Farley could hear her teeth clacking.

Stunned, Farley managed a twitchy, spasm-like nod.

Below, Jack cleared his throat. "Pauline?"

"We're fine, Jack!" said Pauline, loud enough for
the entire pool to hear. "This poor thing...I asked her to wait for me so we could go off together. By God, she waited, didn't she!"

Pauline crept forward until she was crouching directly behind Farley.

"I've got a good grip on the board," she whispered. "Use me to steady yourself and stand up."

For a moment they stood, trembling and clinging to each other, high above the rest of their lives. And then, one by one, they soared.

Hair swathed in a towel, sunglasses on, Pauline leaned back in her chair. "Wait till I tell Claire."

Farley giggled into her towel. That ought to shake up the
old bat's day. Not that she didn't love her aunt, but Claire was always so...
stern
. Librarian-stern.

Pauline placed a hand on her husband's thigh. "Darling, why don't we drink a toast to our new home?"

Jack summoned a waiter, gesturing toward his family as if they owned the place.

But then, he had no reason to believe otherwise.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

"Mother of God."

Claire stood the iron upright, her eyes never leaving the white boxer shorts. Reaching for her glasses, she lowered herself onto the
nearby sofa and examined the lipstick stains. Slowly, she ran her fingers over them, then pressed the shorts to her mouth and licked the largest waxy red streak.

The iron, sputtering and steaming, brought her around.
Resisting an urge to press her palm against the sizzling surface, she unplugged it and clicked on the overhead light. With disorienting clarity she saw for the first time how stale and tedious this room had become.

Working late again tonight, darling girl. Don't wait up.

From molten ladder to laborer to furnace man to steel pourer, Paddy Sullivan had worked his way up the Porter Steel pecking order. Recently an opportunity had literally fallen his way, when an iron rail holding
a massive ladle snapped. The ladle crashed to the ground, landing squarely on the broad-shouldered shift manager, who suffocated before the ladle could be hoisted off his chest. Paddy was assigned to step in as interim manager,
allowing the owners' time to consider their options. He meant to prove himself worthy of a permanent promotion. And Claire had been behind him all the way.

You can do it, hon. Go for it.

She reached for the phone, then put the receiver back on the
hook. Pauline had enough on her plate, moving into her new house in Arizona.

Thirteen-year-old Joe kept up a solid stream of chatter throughout dinner. Normally hockey was his topic of choice. He and his friends
played whenever possible...ice hockey, street hockey, table hockey in the cellar. Between practice after school and weekend games, Claire's son barely had time for schoolwork. But tonight he was all about football. This season,
for the first time, games would be televised on Monday nights. Monday Night Football had arrived.

Joe went on about his beloved Steelers - or as the neighborhood kids called them, 'those nice boys from Pittsburgh' - while
Claire's mind played a perilous game of chicken. Just when it seemed she couldn't hold on any longer, the pain would back off enough for her to stop herself from screaming at the dinner table. Paddy,
her Paddy
, had betrayed her.

"I'm telling you," said Joe, inhaling tater tot
after tater tot as he spoke. "Those 'nice boys' are going all the way this year."

Silence. Joe speared a fish stick with his fork and slowly waved it in front of Claire's face.

"Hello...earth to Mum?"

Joe helped his mother clear the dinner dishes, then bounded upstairs to his room, claiming homework. Moments later she heard his muffled
voice enthusiastically chatting on the telephone. Claire wondered how different her life might have been had she possessed the ability to approach each day with Joe's bare-it-all passion. But that wasn't her. She had always been the 'serious' one - as opposed to Pauline's 'pretty,' and Ryan's, 'good as gold.'

"That's me," she said, squeezing more than enough dishwashing liquid into the sink. "Thirty-seven, solemn, and second-string since the day I was born."

A growing mountain of suds spilled over the sink and onto the floor as Claire scoured the bottom of an already immaculate pot. The background clamor of evening traffic soothed her. When she first moved in, a young bride straight from the safety of her father's house, the roar of the
streetcar had jangled her nerves. When had she gotten used to the noise? Did she wake up one day, immune to it all? No, she supposed detachment happened over time, then one day you wake up and everything is different. Like the time
she turned around and her little boy had grown two inches, along with a faint suggestion of peach fuzz on his upper lip. Or when out of the blue all of her dresses were too tight around the hips. And when had she stopped looking
forward to the sound of her husband's key in the door?

"Oh, Paddy," she whispered.

She could still recall every detail of their first kiss. For the longest time she had disregarded his attention. Not because she didn't like
him. Never that. Who wouldn't love his kind green eyes, heart-melting Dublin accent and crazy-curly red hair? No, she resisted Paddy Sullivan because he wanted
her
. Awkward, pimply, warts-on-her-elbows Claire Justus; twin
sister to Pauline, the most attractive, popular girl at Saint Xavier's. Even the girls loved Pauline. Who in their right mind went for the crater-face girl, when there was a skinny, clear skinned, wart-free version standing right next to her? Something was wrong with a boy who would pick the clumsy, thicker twin.
Lack of good taste, for starters.