Revolution (5 page)

8

“M
om?” I shout as I open the door to my house. No answer, which is not unusual, but the fact that the house is all lit up is. “Why is it so bright in here?” I mutter. “Mom?”

Footsteps come, hard and quick, from the parlor.

“Where were you?”

That voice. Those words. They stop me cold. They were exactly what he said to me that morning. The day Truman died. Only he shouted them at me. Over and over again.

“Well, hey, Dad,” I say. “Long time, no see. How’s all that D, N, and A?”

“Where were you?”

“At a party. At the Goodes’ house.”

“The Goodes? Andi, don’t tell me you’re dating Nick Goode.”

“I’m not.”

“Thank God.”

“I’m dating Rupert.”

His face darkens. “Is that supposed to be funny? Because it’s not. Why do you always have to be so …”

Horrible? Terrible? Downright shitty? So I can pretend we’re standing ten feet apart with no hugs, hellos, or how-are-yous after not seeing each other for four months because I’m being shitty. Not because we hate each other.

“… caustic. This is unacceptable. Totally unacceptable. Why didn’t you call me? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“About Nick’s party?” I say, confused.

“About St. Anselm’s! About your grades. The paintings. Your mother. Why on earth didn’t you tell me about her?”

I panic. “What’s wrong? Where is she? Does she know you’re here?”

I’m scared that he’s upset her. He has a way of doing that. I blow by him and run into the parlor. To my relief, she’s there. Painting. Just painting.

“Hey, Mom,” I say. “You hungry? Want some cereal?”

She shakes her head.

“Dad? Cereal?”

“No, I—”

“Toast?”

“What I want is an explanation!” he shouts, gesturing to the walls.

“They’re paintings. Mom’s a painter, remember?”

He turns around in a slow circle. “Every wall is covered with paintings. Completely covered.”

He’s right about that. She’s started to nail them to the ceiling.

“There must be two hundred of them,” he says. “All of Truman. How long has this been going on?”

“I don’t know. A few months.”

“
Months?
”

“Look, she’s happier this way. When she’s painting she isn’t crying or screaming or throwing things, okay? What do you want, Dad? Why’d you come?”

He stops staring at the ceiling and stares at me. “Because I …” he begins. But his words fall away. He looks confused. He looks flustered and sorry. Like you do when you run up to someone you think you know and take her arm and she turns around and you were wrong.

“Because I got a letter from St. Anselm’s,” he finally says. “I called you about it. Twenty times. No one answered. I left messages. No one called back. So I got on a plane. Ms. Beezemeyer says you’re failing all your classes. That you’re going to be expelled. What the hell is going on, Andi? Are you taking your pills?”

“Yes, I’m taking my pills, and for the record, I’m not failing
all
my classes. I got an A in music. Did Beezie mention that?”

He doesn’t hear me. Or pretends he doesn’t.

“Two years ago, you were a straight-A student. You won prizes in French and biology.”

“And music.”

“I don’t understand this. I don’t understand you. What’s happened to you?”

I look at him in disbelief. “Are you serious? You’re asking me that? Seriously? Did you catch Alzheimer’s or something?”

He’s silent for a few seconds. All I can hear is the sound of Mom’s brush against her canvas and the mantel clock ticking.

Then he says, “Damn it, Andi, Truman’s dead.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“So let him go.”

“Just like you’ve done, right? New life. No strife.”

“Truman died.
Truman
. Not you,” he says.

“I know. Unfortunate, isn’t it? For all of us.”

He looks like somebody tackled him. He sits down in a chair, covers his face with his hands. “God, what am I going to do?” he says softly.

This is it. The big reconciliation scene. Where I run to him and he holds me and we cry bright silver tears and everything is better. I wait for the music to start. I wait for someone to cue the violins. For the cheap Hollywood score to kick in. But it doesn’t. And it won’t. I know that. I’ve been waiting for two years.

“When does winter break start?” he asks me, lowering his hands.

“Today.”

“When do you go back?”

“The fifth.”

He takes out his BlackBerry. “Okay,” he says, after a few seconds. “That works. Actually, that works well. You can come with me.”

“We tried that once, remember? It doesn’t work. Minna hates me.”

“I meant to Paris. I’m flying there on Monday from Boston. For work. As long as the airline doesn’t call a strike, that is. They’ve been threatening to all week. I’m staying with G and Lili. They have a new place. Plenty of room. You’re coming with me.”

I laugh out loud. “No, I’m not.”

“No arguments, Andi. You’re coming to Paris and you’re taking your laptop with you. We’ll be there for three weeks. Plenty of time for you to work up an outline for your thesis.”

“Aren’t you forgetting something? What about Mom? What do we do about her? Just leave her here by herself?”

“I’m checking your mother into a hospital,” he says.

I stare at him, too shocked to speak.

“I called Dr. Becker. Right after I got here. He’ll get her into Archer-Rand. It’s a good place. They have a good program. Can you pack some things for her? I’m going to take her early tomorrow morning and—”

“Why? Why are you doing this?” I shout angrily. “You were never here when you were supposed to be. Now you’re not supposed to be and here you are. Nobody asked you to come. We’re doing fine without you. Totally fine. We’ve always done fine without you.”

“Fine? Is this what you call fine?” he shouts back. “This house is a dump. Your mother’s lost her mind. And you’re about to get kicked out of school. Nothing’s fine, Andi. Nothing.”

“I’m not going. I swear I’m not.”

I pick up my bag and head for the door.

“Where are you going? Andi? Andi, I asked you a—”

There’s a crash from the parlor.

“Marianne? Are you all right?” Dad shouts. He runs into the parlor.

“I’m not going to Paris,” I say, slamming the door behind me. “I’m not going anywhere with you. I swear to God I’m not.”

9

I
t’s cold on the streets of Brooklyn.

I’m standing on the corner of Cranberry and Henry. A neon Santa is glowing in the window of Kim’s Deli. Under his smiling fat face, three words flash on and off:
Ho, Ho, Ho
.

Kim’s is closed. Mabruk’s is closed. In the dry cleaner’s next to Mabruk’s, clocks showing times all over the world tell me it’s 5:35 a.m. in London and 6:35 a.m. in Prague.

I need to go inside. I’m freezing to death. I forgot my jacket. I blow on my hands. Hug myself. For a few seconds, I let myself imagine what it would be like to go home, build a fire, have some hot cocoa with my parents, and talk everything through.

Ho, Ho, Ho, says neon Santa.

I look at the clocks again. 5:36 a.m. in Reykjavik. 8:36 a.m. in Riyadh. Riyadh … Is Sunday a workday in Saudi Arabia? If it is, King Abdullah’s sure to be up and about, and Vijay Gupta will be, too—trying to get him on the phone.

I head for Hicks Street. Number 32 is a small brownstone with a statue of Ganesha in the front yard. The house is dark, except for a light burning in a window on the second floor. I see Vijay in that window. He’s got a headset on. I fish some coins out of my pocket and throw them at the glass. One hits. Vijay comes to the window and waves. A few minutes later, the front door opens. He tells me he’s on hold with Kabul.

It’s dark in the hallway but we don’t turn any lights on. I follow him up the stairs and into his room. It’s a full-on fire hazard. I can’t cross the floor without stepping on issues of the
Economist
and the
New Republic
. He’s got Aljazeera streaming on his laptop, the BBC on his PC. I’ve never known anyone so interested in the whole wide horrible world.

I flop into his bed and pull his comforter around me. He puts a plate on the pillow. Samosas. The Guptas own ten Indian restaurants.

“What’s up?” he says, sitting down at his desk.

“Can I—” I start to say, through a mouthful of food, but he holds up a finger.

“Yes, ma’am, I tried the press office,” he says into the phone. “They gave me your number. No, I’m not a reporter. I’m trying to get President Karzai to comment on my thesis. I’m a student. An American student. At St. Anselm’s. Um … St. Anselm’s? In Brooklyn? Hello? Hello?”

He takes his headset off. Swears.

“Wow, V, I’m shocked,” I say. “I thought for sure Karzai would tell the Taliban to chill for a sec so he could take the call. Especially when you said you were from St. Anselm’s.”

He gives me a look. I’m about to ask him if I can crash in his room tonight when we both hear it—the sound of footsteps, brisk and purposeful, coming down the hallway. And then a voice, “Vijay? Viiiiijay!”

“Duck and cover,” he says. “Here comes the Atom Mom.”

She’s fearless, Mrs. Gupta. I can think of so many unsavory things a seventeen-year-old boy might be doing in his room after midnight but Mrs. Gupta doesn’t even knock; she just throws open the door and stands there, hands on her hips, eyes blazing—the goddess Kali in a terry cloth robe.

“Vijay! I heard you talking!”

“I was on the phone!”

“I heard two voices! Two! Why aren’t you studying? Do you want to stir curry all your life? Do you think Harvard wants boys who fool around day and night? Why are you wasting your time like this?”

“Gee, thanks, Mrs. Gupta,” I say. Her first name is Rupal. I’ve never heard anyone use it.

“Ah! It’s you, Andi. What are you doing in my son’s bed at this hour?”

“Trying to sleep.”

“What about your own bed? In your own house? How can Vijay study this way? How can you study this way? Life is not party, party, party! You must get good grades. Both of you. Do you know what awaits you if you do not? No? Well, then, I will tell you …”

Vijay leans back in his chair and groans.

“… a life spent making chapatis for every Tanmay, Deepak, and Hari! You’ll be living with ten roommates in some filthy apartment in Jackson Heights because you won’t be affording Brooklyn Heights on the minimum wage. No, no, no! How will you eat? How will you pay your bills? This is not the ATV world you two seem to think it is—”

“MTV world,” Vijay says.

“—where silly people with tattoos play guitars all day and no one ever works!” She pauses for breath, then adds, “You are heartless, you children. The worry you make for your parents!” When she finishes, she gives Vijay the most tragic look imaginable, as if she had a serial killer for a son instead of a Harvard-bound valedictorian.

“Go home, Andi,” she says to me. “Home is where young ladies belong at this hour. Your mother will be anxious.”

To Vijay she says, “Did you try President Zardari?”

“Go back to bed, Mom!” he shouts.

Mrs. Gupta leaves. Vijay says, “Ah, yes, winter break in Mombai. No place I’d rather be. So anyway, why are you in my bed at this hour?”

“Because I want you, baby.”

We both laugh hysterically at that. Vijay dates the valedictorian at Slater, a beautiful girl named Kavita who wants to be a pediatrician. They go running in Prospect Park. I date guys who look like Joey Ramone. They go running, too. Out of stores, mainly. With security guards behind them.

“What happened?” he asks me again.

“Nothing. Why do you think something happened?”

“Something always happens with you. Did you go to Nick’s party?”

“I did.”

“And?”

I wink at him. “It’ll be on the front page of tomorrow’s
Post.
”

“Seriously, Andi.”

I want to tell him it almost was in the
Post
. I want to say that I came close tonight. Up on Nick’s roof. The closest I’ve ever been. One step. All I needed was one step. I want to tell him about my father. And my mother. And Paris. That’s why I came here. I want to tell him that I’m afraid. But I don’t. Because looking at him, with his headset and his books and his notes, I know he shouldn’t be dealing with me tonight. Or ever. He should be on the phone with Downing Street and the Élysée Palace and the White House. Because he’s that smart and that good.

I get up. “I’m going to head,” I say. “I’ll let myself out.”

“Stay. You can crash here.”

I kiss him on the forehead, fierce and quick, because he still tries when everyone else has quit and I have no idea why. “Zardari’s waiting,” I tell him. “Pakistan’s got the bomb now. You better not piss him off.”

And then I’m gone. Outside again, on my way home. I don’t want to go there but I’m cold and tired, and where else am I going to go?

I’ve got my shoulders hunched and my head down, so I don’t see it when I turn onto my street. But when I get to my house, there’s no missing it.
DYE SLUT
is written on the sidewalk at the bottom of my stoop. In giant spray-paint letters. I know who did it. There’s only one person in all of Brooklyn who could spell
die
wrong.

That’s bad, but what I see next is worse. Far worse. Keith Richards’s guitar. On the sidewalk. In a million pieces.

Arden hates me. That much is clear. Nick must, too. A quick grope cost him a really nice guitar. And once Arden gets busy IMing, anyone at St. Anselm’s who doesn’t already hate me, will hate me. All of Brooklyn Heights will hate me. New York State. The East Coast. North America.

And suddenly, Paris doesn’t look so bad.