Lake Overturn (41 page)

A shadow of fear passed over Tommy’s face, a fear Enrique understood because he had felt it so many times himself: that what was being implied, if named, would stick.

“You’re a jerk,” Tommy said. He spun on a heel and walked away.

At least Enrique didn’t enjoy it. He hated it, regretted it, was ashamed of it. This difference between himself and Pete Randolph was the only solace Enrique could take as he rode his bike home that afternoon—this, and the fact that the “trial period” had not yet ended, and he needn’t go back.

W
ANDA RETURNED TO
Portland for a five-day stretch. The awkward giddiness had worn off, and there was a solemn sense of duty to her early-morning ritual. Melissa’s parents came for the weekend and, at dinner, politely skirted Wanda’s role in the household. Wanda excused herself early, claiming that she needed fresh air. There was the rich smell of moss in the woods, and the spongy soil sucked at Wanda’s sneakers. She chastised herself as she walked for not making more of an effort with the grandparents.

But her conscience was eased the next night, when Melissa returned from work, poured herself a whiskey, and made a ringing announcement to her house: “Thank God they’re gone!”

This seemed to restore humor and romance to the little family, and before dinner they took the dogs for a long walk. They used the trail, Wanda noticed, that Melissa had taken that first evening, all those months ago. The hues of the forest had deepened since then, and there were birdsongs echoing through the pines. When they reached the open, boulder-strewn slope, Wanda remembered Melissa’s command and kept her eyes on the trail. Only when they reached the top of the clearing did she turn.

The gorge had transformed. The forested slopes had changed color from cool granite to glowing emerald. Everywhere, new leaves caught the light, and all along the great corridor—waterfalls. Some dropped from the plateau’s edge like strands of silk while others charged, white and frothy, down rocky ravines. Their distant rumble, along with the whistling breeze, made Wanda feel like a speck lodged between the fingers of a living, breathing giant’s cupped hand.

Wanda couldn’t help but feel that somehow it was the waterfalls that did the trick—the unfreezing of the earth—when, a week later, the plus-sign bloomed on the stick test like a tiny blue flower.

S
ALT
L
AKE
C
ITY
was Boise’s big brother. This thought always struck Chuck when his father-in-law picked him up at the airport and they drove from the white-encrusted banks of the lake into town. It was bigger and busier than Boise, the mountains that rose beyond it were taller and more majestic, and the gothic spires of Temple Square—which seemed to have been plucked from Europe or some other place with history and plopped down in this desert valley—made the Boise Temple look like a fast-food restaurant.

“Thank you for coming, Chuck,” Grandpa Nelson said as he turned onto the freeway. “I know that Sandra had asked you not to. But sometimes illness clouds our vision and we don’t see what’s best for us. I’m sure you’ll be a comfort to her.”

“When it comes to Sandra,” Chuck said curtly, “I do what Abby says.” This close to the end, it seemed pointless to pretend.

“Don’t be bitter, Chuck,” Grandpa Nelson said. “We’ve had our differences over the years, but it’s time to put that behind us.”

Grandpa Nelson, and the whole Nelson clan, really, had made little secret of the fact that they found Chuck to be a disappointment again and again. He had taken Sandra away, to live in Idaho. He had given her only one child. He had become what he and Sandra called “ill” but what seemed more like mere laziness. And he had broken with the church. Never mind that this last and most important failing had been Sandra’s decision. “Doesn’t it all seem
implausible
to you, Chuck?” she had said on the way home from the ward house one Sunday, seven years ago. “Joseph Smith and Moroni. All this money we give, and the little old ladies are still sniffing for coffee on my breath.”

“Not in front of Abby, dear,” Chuck had whispered.

“Why not? She’s old enough to think for herself.”

Abby, visible in the rearview mirror, had sat blinking like a dazed little bird. Poor girl. That nose would keep the boys away.

“I’m not saying we should break with the church,” Sandra had continued, taking Chuck’s hand. “I’m just saying, next Sunday maybe we could catch up on some gardening.”

He had admired her then for her independent thinking. She had still been his tall, sleek, urbane wife. When had she turned on him?

“Abby’s been such a godsend,” Grandpa Nelson said, apparently wishing to return to common ground. “She’s the type who sees what’s in front of her and does what needs to be done.”

“Always has been,” Chuck offered.

Grandpa Nelson gave a great sigh. “Gets that from you,” he said.

They reached the house and Grandpa Nelson stopped Chuck from leaving the car. “Just one second, Chuck. Like I said, we haven’t seen eye-to-eye on everything over the years. But you’re here now, and for that I’d like to thank you . . . son.”

Fuck you, old man.
“Thanks for saying that. That means a lot.”

When Sandra was gone, there would be no reason ever to see this man again.

Inside, Grandma Nelson made a tamping-down motion with her hands. “She’s resting. They had a bad night.”

Chuck went to the bedroom door and quietly pushed it open. Abby had her mother’s hand in a large plastic bowl and was soaking the fingernails in water. She took the hand out and laid it on a folded towel in her lap. With a Q-Tip she worked delicately and intricately to clean along the cuticle. Here was proof of what her grandfather had just said: who else but Abby would know the perfect act for this moment, something so gentle, soothing, and banal as doing her mother’s fingernails? He wanted to rush to Abby, but that would have woken Sandra.

Abby looked up with her wonderful, deep, sad eyes. She drew her lips tight. It wasn’t a smile, it was closer to a frown, in fact, but it spoke much more: everything she had gone through, how glad she was to see him, how hard this was going to be.

Lodged in the corner of the easy chair, Sandra looked completely different from the way she had the last time Chuck saw her. Free of makeup, her face was gray and withered. She no longer wore a wig, and in the weeks since they had deemed her “beyond” chemotherapy (as if she had somehow graduated), her hair had grown back, an inch of silver straw, tousled like a young boy’s. What a funny little haircut, like a pixie. It made Chuck smile. Maybe he breathed an audible laugh, because Sandra shifted. She opened her eyes and lifted herself in her seat. Then she saw Chuck, and everything in her face twisted into an awful look of dismay. She shook her head,
no . . . no . . . ,
and took her dripping hand back from Abby. She covered her eyes and leaned forward as if to bury her face in the mounds of blankets.

Chuck retreated, gently pushed away Grandma Nelson, who tried to embrace him, and went upstairs.

Abby called Grandma Nelson to sit with Sandra. She found her father with one index finger hooked into the crease between his nose and mouth, the other fingers splayed like bars over his lips. His eyes were wide, studying a tree out the window as if they had never seen one before. Abby pulled a chair up beside him and draped her arm over his shoulders.

“I shouldn’t have come,” he whispered.

“Daddy,” Abby said, “she wants you here. No, she does. She asked me to have you come. She’d never admit it, she’s too proud, but she changed her mind.”

“Really?” Chuck said.

Abby bit her lip and nodded.

This was the first lie in what would become, for Abby, a season of lies:

Yes, she is in a better place now, isn’t she?

I feel like she’s watching us right now.

Abby would be surprised how, after the first few, they would roll off her tongue fluently, as if she believed them. It would be the only way to take care of the mourners and keep them at arm’s length.

She always cherished your friendship.

At least we know we’ll see her again one day.

Oh, me? I’m doing all right.

Step Six:
Results

Chapter 21

M
ay was a verdant flash in Idaho’s yellow year. For a week or two the sagebrush and its big, silver-blue brother the Russian olive flushed green before returning to their metallic hues. The cheat grass did the same, and the hillsides were sprinkled with candy-colored wildflowers. The scraggly wild rosebushes produced some tightly rolled buds among the thorns. In town, the air carried the syrupy smells of lilac, honeysuckle, and wisteria, and the birds, who had all returned, chattered in the trees.

The theme of Eula High’s senior prom, chosen after weeks of debate, was
Miami Vice
. The decorating committee borrowed nearly every tropical houseplant and lawn flamingo in Eula and rented several large inflatable palm trees from a party supplier. An announcement in the
Eula High Gazette
showed a cut-out Don Johnson reminding everyone that “Pastels are Mandatory!!” As soon as Ron’s Formal Wear on the boulevard ran out of tuxedos in aqua, peach, and lavender, Eula High seniors headed to Boise.

Jay found his periwinkle-blue tux in Chandler. It was a little short in the legs, but otherwise, he thought as he watched himself in the bathroom mirror tug at the lapels and jut out his chin, it looked pretty good. So did his hair, which he had blown from its drooping waves into a fluffy, middle-parted pyramid. He went to the kitchen and from the refrigerator took the plastic box, which looked like it was made to hold a cake but instead held a massive wrist corsage that wobbled as if it were alive. It was a thicket of Madagascan jasmine and curling fronds topped by a single obscenely splayed, speckled-tongued orchid. It had cost $20 at Eula Floral.

Lina walked into the living room and gasped. “Look at you! Let me take your picture.”

“Come on, Lina,” Jay groaned.

“Just one second,” she yelled, running back into her room. “Where’s the Polaroid?”

“I’m going to be late,” he said. But he wasn’t.

“I’ve got it!” Lina said, returning with the black plastic cube with its red button. She popped it open, squeezed the button, and with an irritated hum the camera spat the picture out. “Another one outside,” Lina said, following Jay out toward the car. “Smile this time.”

Jay set the box on the roof of the Maverick. He gave his lapels a final tug, then gave Lina the smile he had practiced in the bathroom mirror minutes earlier—practiced it for the portrait that he planned to have taken later tonight, in which he and Liz would stand together like newlyweds.

The smile hit Lina like a fist. She steadied herself and took the picture. Jay had never smiled brightly like that for her before; she hadn’t known he could.

Jay came over to watch as the white square slowly began to show a shadow that then became him, in dazzling blue, and his gray car. The lane behind him was lined with trailers, white shoeboxes with colorful trim; above them the pale blue sky showed three vertical wisps of clouds, like brushstrokes. “Looks good. Gotta go.” As if doing it quickly would keep it from going on record, Jay tossed an arm around Lina and buried a kiss in her wiry, graying hair. She froze, shocked again but in a different way.

As Jay walked to his car, he caught Gene next door watching him from a window that had been propped open with a soup can. Jay gaped his mouth and bugged his eyes, aping Gene’s expression, which sent the little troll back into the darkness.

Lina stood there for a long time listening to the chirrup of crickets and the hum of cars on the boulevard and the occasional hysterical cry of the killdeer that made her nest in the gravel back by the chain-link fence. Then all this was interrupted by the rustle and snap of someone crossing the weeded lot, and Lina wiped her eyes.

“Beautiful evening, isn’t it?” Connie said.

“Uh-huh.”

“Are you all right, Lina?”

“Yeah. Jay just left to the prom. He looked so handsome and grown-up it made me cry, is all.”

Connie smiled. She held her hands solemnly against the front of her skirt, like a member of a choir. “I’ve been meaning to ask a favor of you. I can’t believe I’ve left it so long.”

“What is it?”

“I have to go away for a few days. It’s family business in Kansas City. I can’t take Gene, of course, because of school. I’ve talked it over with him, and he seems to think he’s old enough to stay in the house by himself. He can get himself breakfast and lunch, but dinner . . . Could I send him over to your house for dinner for the next few nights?”

“When are you leaving?”

“Tomorrow. I know, I’ve left it too long. But it would be a great help. I could give you some money for groceries . . .”

“Well, sure, I don’ know. School’s out in a few weeks. You can’t wait till then?”

“Unfortunately, no.”

“You know”—Lina hesitated—“Enrique and Gene haven’t been such close friends lately.”

“To be honest, Lina, I’m kind of up a tree. I have no one else to ask.”

Lina looked into her face.
What a lonely, lonely woman
, she thought,
lonelier than her son, even
. Connie had always seemed like a crabby aunt, even though she was only a couple years older than Lina. If only she would take her hair out of that bun, she would look so much younger. As it was, her head with its narrow jaw on its skinny neck was the shape of a lightbulb.

“Sure. No problem. Just tell him to come over at six every night. If he doesn’t show up, I’ll come get him.”

Connie broke out in a little laugh of relief. “Thank you, Lina. God bless you.”

The sky was growing paler and the wisps were turning blue as if cloud and sky were trading colors. Connie and Lina stood together under this show for a minute more before returning to their homes.

. . . .

J
AY WAS RELIEVED
to see, as he pulled up to the Padgetts’ house, that Winston’s car was not in the driveway. He must have gone to pick up Kelly Mills, one of his sluttish on-and-off girlfriends, the one he had decided to take to the prom. Last Monday, Winston had arrived in first-period speech class holding an empty pop can. On days when he and the other boxers weighed in, not only would they fast, but they’d carry containers around and spit into them all day long, dehydrating themselves in hopes of being placed in a lower weight division. Winston sat down heavily at the desk next to Jay’s and said, “Look, man, Liz doesn’t need you to do her any favors.”

“What do you mean?”

“She said you’re taking her to the prom.”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“It’s no big deal, man. We’re just going.”

“You think she needs you or something, like no one else will take her?”

“No.”

“Then why the fuck did you ask her?”

“I just did. What’s the big deal?”

Winston puckered and dropped a dollop of foam into the can. The teacher started to call roll. “It’s fucking
weird
, Jay, and I don’t like it, understand?”

Jay had crossed Winston’s line; they hadn’t spoken a word to each other since.

Jay parked and ascended the winding walkway bordered so crisply by vivid green grass it might have been fabric that had been cut and hemmed. He tugged at his pants, trying to get them to completely cover his white gym socks.

Inside, Liz was putting the last touches on her look for the evening. She wore the royal blue dress she had bought to wear to a banquet last year. It was plain and tasteful, with only one flourish—a ruffled strap over one shoulder. She hadn’t bought a new dress because she hated pastels and wanted her attendance at the prom to appear as an afterthought, which it was. Last week she had opened her locker to find a folded note atop her gym clothes. She laughed, picked it up, unfolded it, and saw the unevenly typed letters that already inspired a flutter of nostalgia for the days of the treasure hunt.

May I take you to the prom?

It was so sweet. She laughed in the immediate knowledge that she
should
go to the prom with Jay, for old times’ sake, in honor of the history that it suddenly seemed they had. At odds all their childhood, they had overcome Jay’s crush to emerge as friends. And, more than that, they were alike. Liz had begun to credit Jay with being a quiet rebel like herself; the fact that he found her beautiful was the only proof she had, or needed. So he must consider the prom an inconsequential amusement, high school’s ludicrous last act, which—like the end of the rodeo, when the clowns came out and played with the bulls—would acknowledge that the whole contest had been laughable. Jay was, after all, asking her less than two weeks in advance.

Last year, Liz had proved she was above it all by not attending her junior prom. Now it would be fun to make people talk about the mismatch of her and Jay. She could walk into the dance, laughing with Jay and punching his arm like one of the guys, then go off and talk to her friends and dance with whomever she chose. She could even imagine Jay bringing a flask, and she would chide him, then take a slug or two herself.

Liz had done one special thing today to mark the event and to maximize the impression she would make upon entering the gymnasium—she had given in and let her neighbor, Mrs. Warner, do what she had always begged to do: curl her hair. Mrs. Warner had swept it up one side, sprayed and pinned it, then allowed a lacquered tower of curls to cascade into ringlets like overflowing champagne onto Liz’s shoulder, the bare one. A little wild, but it was only for one night. The girls would hop up and down in their formal shoes and tell her she looked like a movie star.

For once, Liz was glad Abby—who would have been absolutely merciless—was away.

The doorbell rang. She gave her hair, which had already settled a little, a careful nudge as if it were a sleeping animal she wanted to awaken without angering. She smoothed her dress, stepped into her shoes, and went downstairs. She took a deep breath, opened the door, and there was Jay, handsome, if a little silly, in light blue. Jay’s eyes darted up to her hair.

Jay hated it.

Liz could see that he hated it.

Jay saw that Liz saw.

“Hey, Jay.”

“Wow. You look great.”

“Can you believe my hair?” She prodded it again and rolled her eyes.

“It looks awesome.”

Jay couldn’t help feeling pleased that she cared what he thought, that her smile had gone stale when she saw his disappointment. He cast his gaze down. “You look beautiful,” he said humbly.

With her pointed black shoe she kicked his shin lightly. “Let’s not do the whole
prom
thing,” she said. “Let’s just have fun.”

“Okay,” he said, offering the corsage. He had wanted to do the whole prom thing.

C
OOP WORKED A
toothpick into his gums and sucked on his false incisor. “Durn good,” he said.

“I’m gettin’ cold,” Wanda said. “You about ready?”

He slurped the last of his coffee and, with a few heaves, scooted out of the booth. He was lighter now. Although surf and turf at Denny’s was an important exception, he had been following the diabetic’s diet Uncle Frank refused. And Wanda was heavier. She liked this new weight. Everyone said it looked good on her.

“Y’all takin’ off?” asked Gina, slipping Wanda the check, as was their custom.

“Yeah, it’s been a long day,” said Wanda.

“On the bus?” asked Gina.

“Nope,” Coop said, putting his arm around his little sister. “On an airplane.”

Wanda jabbed him with her elbow.

“Fancy that,” Gina said, loading a few rattling dishes into one hand. “I’ll see you Monday, Coop.”

They walked out the door into the big, sweet-smelling evening. The air felt good against Wanda’s skin, which had tightened and goose-pimpled in the air-conditioning. It seemed Denny’s was kept frigid in the summer and stiflingly hot in the winter, as if the customers’ first grateful expressions upon entering, before they noticed the temperature extreme, were all that mattered.

As they drove across town toward Wanda’s, Coop said, “I might go out to Maria’s tomorrow.”

“Want me to look in on Uncle Frank?”

“You’re sure it’s not too far to walk? Don’t want the little one to jiggle loose.” Coop wore the same old smile, but his eyes squinted shyly, as they always did when he mentioned the baby.

Wanda laughed. “I’m supposed to exercise,” she said. The doctor had told her that just this morning at her eight-week appointment. Then she and Melissa had picked up Randy and they had gone out for a celebration lunch at a restaurant where they had cloth napkins and the waiters wore bow ties. Melissa had ordered a bottle of wine, and insisted that Wanda have one sip. “Your last, until afterward,” she had said.

Coop pulled up to Wanda’s apartment and the two bid each other goodnight. Wanda walked into the apartment and was surprised to see the TV on, and more surprised to see a strange girl nestled in the couch with her feet folded under her. “Oh!” the girl said, sitting up. “Oh!”

Wanda looked around the walls, to make sure she hadn’t walked into the wrong apartment.

“She’s here!” the girl cried. “Hank? You better come out here.” The girl sheltered the little bowling ball of her belly in her hands. Wanda could hardly name the wide-eyed expression on the girl’s face, so unaccustomed was she to provoking it: fear.

Then the bedroom door opened, and out came Hank wearing brown cords and no shirt. His chest collapsed a little at his sternum—there was a small depression under his ribs and over his belly. His hair was neat at the part, then fell in oily strawberry-blond waves over his ears and down his back. He gave Wanda the skeptical look he gave men with whom he was picking a fight, which Wanda suspected he had borrowed from the kung fu movies he liked to watch Saturday mornings: he jutted his chin forward and narrowed his eyes. His shoulders rode back, and he bounced his weight between his feet. “Where
you
been?” he asked.

“What do you care?” Wanda demanded, leaning to the side to set down her suitcase. “You better get outta here.”

“Why should I?”

“Because it’s my house, that’s why.”

Hank put out his hands and spread his fingers like a woman showing off her rings. Then he smiled, sat down on the sofa’s lip, and splayed his hands on his knees.