Stranger Things Happen (15 page)

Myron won't come over to the Harmons' house anymore. He goes to
the Y instead, plays basketball, until his mother comes to pick him
up. He avoids Hildy at school, and finally Hildy calls and explains
that she needs him, that it's an emergency.

They meet in the gazebo, of course. Myron won't go inside the
house, he says, even to pee.

"How are things?" Myron says.

"Fine," Hildy says. They are formal as two ambassadors.

"I'm sorry I called your cousin a communist."

"That's okay. Look," Hildy says. She presses the heel of her Ked
against a loose board until the other end pops up. In the hollow
there is a stack of white envelopes with square holes where the
stamps have been cut out. She picks up the top one, dated July 19,
1970. "It's her secret place. These are her letters."

"I hope you didn't read them," Myron says. He sounds prim, as if
he thinks they shouldn't read other people's letters, not even
letters from spies.

"Of course I did," she tells him. "And she's not a spy. She just
misses her parents."

"Oh. Is that all?" he asks sarcastically.

Hildy remembers the cool surface of the mirror, the way it
almost gave way against her forehead, like water. "She wants to go
home. She's going to disappear herself. She's been practicing with
the light switch, moving it up and down. She's going to disappear
herself back to Indonesia and her parents."

"You're kidding," he says, but Hildy is sure. She knows this as
plainly as if Jenny Rose had told her. The letters are a history of
disappearance, reappearance, of travelling. It is what they don't
say that is important.

"Her parents always tell her how much they love her, they tell
her the things that they've seen and done, and they ask her to be
happy. But they never tell her they miss her, that they wish she
was with them."

"I wouldn't miss her," Myron says, interrupting. Hildy ignores
him.

"They don't tell her they miss her, because they know that she
would come to them. She's the most stubborn person I know. She's
still waiting for them to say it, to say she can come home."

"You're getting as weird as she is," Myron says. "Why are you
telling 
me 
all this?"

Hildy doesn't say, 
Because you're my best friend
.
She says, "Because you have terrible handwriting. You write like an
adult."

"So what?"

"I want you to help me steal her next letter. I want you to
write like them, write that she can go home now. I can't do it.
What if she recognized my handwriting?"

"You want me to get rid of her for you?" Myron says.

"I think that if she doesn't go home soon, she'll get sick. She
might even die. She never eats anything anymore."

"So call the doctor." Myron says, "No way. I can't help
you."

But in the end he does. It is December, and the R.M. has
canceled two conferences with Jenny Rose's teachers, busy with her
church duties. It doesn't really matter. The teachers don't notice
Jenny Rose; they call on other students, check off her name at
attendance without looking to see her. Hildy watches Jenny Rose,
she looks away to see Myron watching her. He passes her a note in
class on Tuesday. I can't keep my eyes on her. How can you stand
it? Hildy can barely decipher his handwriting, but she knows Jenny
Rose will be able to read it. Jenny Rose can do anything.

This morning the R.M. almost walked right into Jenny Rose. Hildy
was sitting at the breakfast table, eating cereal. She saw the
whole thing. Jenny Rose opened the refrigerator door, picked out an
orange, and then as she left the kitchen, the R.M. swerved into the
room around her, as if Jenny Rose were an inconveniently placed
piece of furniture.

"Mom," Hildy said. The R.M. picked up Hildy's cereal bowl to
wash it, before Hildy was finished.

"What?" the R.M. said.

"I want to talk to you about Jenny Rose."

"Your cousin?" said the R.M. "It was nice having her stay with
us, wasn't it?"

"Never mind," Hildy said. She went to get ready for school.

#

The three of them sit in the boat. The water is green, the
boat is green, she is surprised sometimes when she opens her eyes,
that her skin isn't green. Sometimes she is worried because her
parents aren't there. Sometimes there is another girl in the boat,
bigger than her, always scowling. She wants to tell this girl not
to scowl, but it's better to ignore her, to concentrate on putting
her parents back in the boat. Go away, she tells the girl silently,
but that isn't right. She's the one who has to go away. What is the
girl's name? The girl refuses to sit still, she stands up and waves
her arms and jumps around and can't even see that she is in danger
of falling into the water.

Go away, she thinks at the girl, I'm busy. I blew the roof
off a prison once, I knocked the walls down, so I could look at the
stars. Why can't I make you go away? I can walk on water, can you?
When I leave, I'm taking the boat with me, and then where will you
be, silly girl?

#

Hildy loves her mother's preaching voice, so strong and
bell-clear. The R.M. and Hildy's father fight all the time now; the
R.M. stays in the kitchen until late at night, holding
conversations in a whisper with Mercy Orzibal, Myron's mother, over
the phone. Hildy can't hear what the R.M. is saying when she
whispers, but she's discovered that if she stands very quietly,
just inside the kitchen door, she can make herself as invisible as
Jenny Rose. It is just like hiding under the Ping-Pong table. No
one can see her.

At night, when the R.M. screams at her husband, Hildy covers her
ears with her hands. She sticks the pillow over her head. Lately
Hildy never loses at Ping-Pong, although she tries to let her
father win. The skin under her father's eyes is baggy and too pink.
Next week, he is going away to a conference on American
literature.

The R.M. stands straight as a pin behind the pulpit, but this is
what Hildy remembers: her mother sitting curled on the kitchen
floor, the night before, cupping the phone to her ear, smoking
cigarette after cigarette. Hildy waited for her mother to see her,
standing in the doorway. The R.M. slammed the phone down on the
hook. 
That bitch
, she said, and sat sucking smoke in
and looking at nothing at all.

Hildy's father sits with the choir, listening attentively to his
wife's sermon. This is what Hildy remembers: at dinner, the spoon
trembling in his hand as he lifted it to his mouth, his wife
watching him. Hildy looked at her father, then at her mother, then
at Jenny Rose who never seems to look at anything, whom no one else
sees, except Hildy.

It is easier now, looking at Jenny Rose; Hildy finds it hard to
look at anyone else for very long. Jenny Rose sits beside her on
the wooden pew bench, her leg touching Hildy's leg. Hildy knows
that Jenny Rose is only holding herself upon the bench by great
effort. It is like sitting beside a struck match that waits and
refuses to ignite. Hildy knows that Jenny Rose is so strong now
that if she wanted, she could raise the roof, turn the communion
grape juice into wine, walk on water. How can the R.M. not see
this, looking down from the pulpit at Hildy, her eyes never
focusing on her niece, as if Jenny Rose has already gone? As if
Jenny Rose was never there?

Even with her eyes closed for the benediction, Hildy can still
see Jenny Rose. Jenny Rose's eyes remain open, her hands are cupped
and expectant: her leg trembles against Hildy's leg. Or maybe it is
Hildy's leg that trembles, beneath the weight of her mother's
voice, her father's terrible, pleading smile. For a moment she
longs to be as invisible as Jenny Rose, to be such a traveler.

#

When the mail comes on Monday, there is a letter from Jenny
Rose's parents. Hildy extracts the letter from the pile. Myron
watches, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He is not
happy about being in the same house as Jenny Rose.

All weekend Myron has been practicing two short phrases, with
the aid of one of the original letters. Hildy steams open the
letter over the teakettle, while Myron watches. The light in
Hildy's bedroom flicks on, flicks off, flicks on again. Hildy can
feel it pulling at her: for a moment, she feels as if she were
tumbling down the spout, falling into the kettle. She might drown
in the kettle water. It's that deep. She's gotten too small. She
shakes her head, takes a breath.

They take the letter down to the basement, and sit under the
Ping-Pong table while Hildy quickly scans it. Myron, who has gone
to the trouble of collecting an assortment of pens, adds a
postscript in black ballpoint. 
We miss you so much,
darling Jenny. Please, please come home.

"It doesn't match," Myron says, handing the letter to Hildy. She
folds it back into the envelope and glues the envelope shut again.
It really doesn't matter: Jenny Rose is ready to go. Hildy realizes
that she wasn't worried Jenny Rose would recognize her handwriting,
it wasn't because of that—Hildy just wants a witness, someone who
will see what she has done, what Jenny Rose will do.

"I saw your father," Myron says. "He was at my house last
night."

"He's out of town," Hildy says. "He went to a conference."

"He stayed all night long," Myron says. "I know because when I
went to school this morning, he was hiding. In my mother's
bedroom."

"You're such a liar," Hildy says. "My father is in Wisconsin. He
called us from the hotel. How do you think he got from Wisconsin to
your house? Do you think he flew?"

"You think Jenny Rose can fly," Myron says. His face is very
red.

"Get out of my house," Hildy says. Her hand floats at her side,
longing to slap him.

"I think you're nuts," Myron says. "Just like her." And he
leaves. His back is stiff with outrage.

Hildy rocks back and forth, sitting under the Ping-Pong table.
She holds the letter in her hand as if it were a knife. She thinks
about Jenny Rose, and what is going to happen.

Hildy is theatrical enough to want a bang at the end of all her
labors. She wants to see Jenny Rose restored to herself. Hildy
wants to see the mythical being that she is sure her cousin
contains, like a water glass holding a whole ocean. She wants to
see Jenny Rose's eyes flash, hear her voice boom, see her fly up
the chimney and disappear like smoke. After all, she owes Hildy
something, Hildy who generously divided her room in half, Hildy who
has arranged for Jenny Rose to go home.

No one is in the house now. James, two months away from his
birthday, has gone to register for the draft. Her father is still
in Wisconsin (Myron is such a liar!), and her mother is at the
church. So after a while, Hildy brings the letter to Jenny Rose,
gives it to her cousin, who is lying on her bed.

Hildy sits on her own bed and waits while Jenny Rose opens the
letter. At first it seems that Hildy has miscalculated, that the
post-script is not enough. Jenny Rose sits, her head bent over the
letter. She doesn't move or exclaim or do 
anything
.
Jenny Rose just sits and looks down at the letter in her lap.

Then Hildy sees how tightly Jenny Rose holds the letter. Jenny
Rose looks up, and her face is beautiful with joy. Her eyes are
green and hot. All around Jenny Rose the air is hot and bright.
Hildy inhales the air, the buzzing rain and rusted metal smell of
her cousin.

Jenny Rose stands up. The air seems to wrap around her like a
garment. It sounds like swarms and swarms of invisible bees.
Hildy's hair raises on her scalp. All around them, drawers and
cabinets dump their contents on the floor, while T-shirts whoosh
up, slapping sleeves against the ceiling. Schoolbooks open and flap
around the room like bats, and one by one the three oranges lift
out of the blue bowl on the bedside table. They roll through the
air, faster and faster, circling around Jenny Rose on her bed.
Hildy ducks as tubes of lipstick knock open the bureau drawer, and
dart towards her like little chrome-and-tangerine-,
flamingo-and-ebony-colored bees. Everything is buzzing, humming,
the room is full of bees.

And then—

"I'm making a mess," Jenny Rose says. She tears the stamp from
the envelope, gives it to Hildy. Only their two hands touch, but
Hildy falls back on the bed—as if she has stuck her fingers into an
electrical outlet—she flies backwards onto her bed.

Jenny Rose walks into the bathroom, and Hildy can see the
bathtub full of water, the silly little boat (is that
what 
she 
wanted?), the green water spilling over
the lip of the tub and rushing over Jenny Rose's feet. Be careful!
Hildy thinks. The door slams shut. As Hildy catches her breath, the
air in the room becomes thin, and her ears pop. The magic trick is
over, the bathroom is empty: Jenny Rose has gone home. Hildy bursts
into tears, sits on her bed and waits for her mother to come home.
After a while, she begins to pick up her room.

This is the first and most mysterious of three vanishings. No
one but Hildy seems to notice that Jenny Rose is gone. A few months
later, James goes to Canada. He is dodging the draft. He tells no
one he is going, and Hildy finds the brief, impersonal note. He is
failing his senior classes, he is afraid, he loves them but they
can't help him. Please take care of his fish.

When Mr. Harmon moves out of the house, Hildy has resigned
herself to this, that life is a series of sudden disappearances,
leavetakings without the proper good-byes. Someday she too might
vanish. Some days she looks forward to learning this trick.

What sustains her is the thought of the better place in which
one arrives. This is the R.M.'s heaven; the Canada that James has
escaped to; it is in the arms of Mercy Orzibal with her bright,
glossy mouth, who tells Mr. Harmon 
how witty, how
charming, how handsome 
he is. It is the green lake in the
photograph Jenny Rose has sent Hildy from the island of Flores.