The Fortunes of Indigo Skye (26 page)

"You sound like Mom," Severin says.

"He's right," Trevor says. "You never say
'nuptials.' No one says 'nuptials.'"

"Fine," I say. "Anything you want,
Severin."

"Hey, you don't have to ...," Severin says.
"Okay, we're ready to lift."

Trevor sets down his Fresca. Lifts one corner
of the TV as Severin lifts the other.

"No," I say. "Knock yourself out."

"Okay, I think it's hanging. Yeah, it's on the
hooks," Severin says. "In? Hey, thanks. I don't want to look stupid with her,
you know?"

"Yeah," I say.

Trevor screws in the cable, and I push the
power button. The image is huge. Two kids at a table, eating breakfast. Their
father enters, snitches a handful of cereal from the box. His figure fills the
screen.

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"Holy shit," Mom screams. She is in the
doorway, suddenly. Her hand is to her chest. Bex stands beside her.

"We thought a man was in the house," Bex
says.

"That's a television?" my mother
says.

"It's hanging over into the hall," Bex
says.

"What's wrong with your voice?" I ask her.
She's talking funny, like she can't manage her own tongue.

"I went to the dentist," she says. "I can't
feel my lips."

The image on the television changes. Now some
woman is walking in a field of flowers, blowing her nose and looking
miserable.

"Huge nose," Bex says.

"Guys, this is ridiculous," Mom says. She
tosses her purse onto the seat of the poor rocker, which is adrift in the middle
of the room. "No one even watches TV around here."

"Because our TV is about four inches across and
you have to bang on it to get the color to come back," Severin says. He leans
back on his heels, crosses his arms, and stares at the woman blowing her nose as
if he's never seen anything quite so fascinating. Trevor aims the remote at the
television and shoots, and the image changes to some bald man heavy with middle
age, yabbing on about city government.

"Talking head. Get rid of him," Bex says.
Thalking head. Ge rih a him.

She moves Mom's purse and sits in the rocker,
scoots it in the direction of the TV.

"This doesn't fit the room. This doesn't fit
us," Mom says.

Trevor clicks and the government guy
disappears.

"Spanish channel," Bex says. Click. "Religion.
Whoa, big hair religion."

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"Let's call the number," Trevor says, but he's
already moved

on.

"Home shopping!" Bex yells. "Look! In? You want
that necklace?" My mind flashes on Dan Shugman and Richard Howards and their
ex-jewelry.

"Nah," I say. "Ugly."

"Guys. No one is listening!" Mom is raising her
voice. "Warning! It's the hormone hour. Do you need a pot holder to throw?" I
say.

"Cooking channel. What IS that? Eyuw, gross,"
Bex says. "Fancy shit," Trevor says.

"Hmm, I don't know," I say. "It looks kind of
good."

"History ... Sharks ... Cartoons! Keep it
there," Bex says.

Trevor has the power, though, and he's loving
it. Click, click, go the enormous images, and Severin hasn't moved. It's
understandable--I haven't either. It's all so large that it's hypnotizing. You
could fall in there and never get out.

"People!" Mom shouts. She snaps her fingers,
like trying to break a spell.

Erectile dysfunction ad (thanks for sharing),
shower cleaner. Guys in a bar drinking beer. And then Trevor stops. There's a
guy walking on a beach. A chick in a bikini walks up to him and sniffs the air
around him. "You smell sooo good," she hums.

"Missus!" Trevor says. He looks over his
shoulder at Mom. "Check it out!"

"Mom, your favorite!" Bex says.

"Axe!" Severin says.

"Whoo-hoo," I laugh. "Look, Ma, giant Axe ad."
Mom sighs. "I give up," she says.

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***

"I don't get how people think God and science
don't go together," I say as I look up at the starry night. My head is in
Trevor's lap, and we are on the dock at Pine Lake Park, our park, our place. We
arrived at twilight; Trevor pushed me on the playground swings and we watched
the trees turn yellow as I flew toward the sky. Then it got dark and the light
lost its magic, and the trees became secretive. "Just look at those stars and
tell me, how can you not believe in God? Yet, all these wacky people think if
you talk science you're some kind of atheist."

"We could buy a house here, you know, In,"
Trevor says. He is wrapping my hair around one finger.

"And why can't evolution and God go together,
anyway? Sure, that's not what the book says, but what are they gonna do, try to
explain the whole process to people who still thought the world was flat? I
mean, come on. God created, presto chango, that everyone could understand. But
why can't God have created evolution? I don't get it."

"We could probably even buy our house. You
think? We could knock on their door and offer them some fucking-tastic amount
they couldn't say no to."

"You're not even listening." I sit up. I circle
my knees with my arms.

"We've got some decisions to make here, In. I
mean, I think it's time we talk seriously about Nunderwear."

An ugly wave rises up inside of me. "And
I
think it's time we talk seriously about you talking about my money
every fucking second."

The swell of anger--it's not the worst thing.
What's worst is

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that Trevor looks at me then, gauging whether
I'm kidding or not. He thinks I am. It is not the kind of mistake Trevor-Indigo
of the past could have made. We always saw each other. But he doesn't see me. He
doesn't see
me.
He actually laughs. Like I'm just a great big
kidder.

"Anyway, I think if we get it started? It's a
way, you know, to have money make more money. It's a great idea, In. People are
going to love Nunderwear. People will love the Jesus lip balm. 'Lookin' smooth
for the Lord.' You gotta love it."

"I can't believe it," I say. But it's the I
can't believe it
that means you
can
believe it. Maybe that you
even expected it. The water is black and twinkly. A mosquito annoys my bare legs
and I swat him away. "Take me home." I stand up.

"What's the matter? In? What's going on?" He
stands up too. He holds my arms. I look at his blue eyes, under his shaggy
bangs. He is someone I know and don't know. Or maybe that's actually
me.

"If you keep talking about we and us and my
money, I'll start thinking we're a threesome," I say. I twist my head to the
side so I don't have to look at him.

He ducks and dodges so that he can meet my
eyes. "It's always been we and us," he says. "Is it wrong to want to make some
plans?"

I feel the pressure of his fingertips against
my skin. "You're holding me too hard," I say, even if this isn't exactly
true.

He lets go. "I don't get you, In. I don't get
what's going on here."

"I told you, I want to go home," I
say.

We walk to the parking lot. My arms are folded.
It was foolish to think nothing would change. I get in Bob Weaver and slam the
door.

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"Easy, In. Jesus," Trevor says.

For some reason, this pisses me off more. That
there's this object he cares about more than my feelings at the moment. When we
get home, my house is dark, except for the porch light glowing. A few mosquitoes
buzz there, too, like the last holdovers at a party. Trevor kisses me good night
and I kiss back, but it's a weird, absent kiss, performed by my body double. And
when he says he loves me and I tell him I love him in return, that, too, is
faraway, distant and echoey, like words spoken in a too-large and empty
room.

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12

Over the next three weeks Severin went to the
prom, and we both finished classes and had our graduation ceremony. Trevor and
Bex and Mom held up cards when Severin and I paraded in. Bex held we , and Mom
held love , and Trevor held you . They screamed their heads off when they saw
us, and Mom tried to take pictures with our new digital camera, but most of them
were a sea of purple gowns or the curly brown head of the woman seated in front
of her. She's not so good on the technical end. There were a lot of prom
pictures, though; Severin bought the super-deluxe pack, and he had wallets of
him and Kayleigh and refrigerator magnets and this huge eight-by-ten that sat in
a frame on the desk in his room. Kayleigh, in white satin and carrying a dozen
roses with roses at her wrist, looked like a prom queen who'd been hit by a
floral delivery truck, and Severin was tall and handsome beside her, his arm
around her waist.

Dad's graduation present to me was a book of
Emerson's essays. The note inside said
The source of my fatherly wisdom.
Remember who you are. Love, Dad.
I cracked it open, but was assaulted with
what seemed like a million tiny words; a
Hark!
leapt from the page, and I
shut the book again. Dad had planned on coming to graduation, but Jennifer had
slipped in a splotch of water sloshed from Keiko's bowl and had broken her ankle
and Dad needed to be there to take care of her. He sounded sad and disappointed
and he sent flowers and cards and called us twice that day, once beforehand to
wish us luck and once after to see

201

how it went. He pressed me on my future plans,
urged college now that money wasn't an issue. I had missed all application
deadlines so I had time to think, I told him.

Mom bugged me daily until I finally visited
Dad's financial adviser, who discussed investments with me and who gave me a
spending budget and set me up with a debit card. I hadn't made any Big Decisions
about the money yet. I bought a car--a VW Rabbit. I tried again to talk Mom into
getting one for herself, tried to talk her into moving, but she just got that
hard-as-marble face.
Save it for your future,
she said. I gave her rent
money one month, but found it later propped up on my pillow with a note:
We're fine, In. But thank you. XXXOOO Mom.
So, here I was with people
asking me for money I wasn't sure I wanted to give and people not taking money I
was
sure I wanted to give. Melanie gave up on me coming with her to
Malibu. She was leaving the next day for the summer, moving on to UC Santa
Barbara. Just like she said, her parents "worked something out."

"I cannot believe you are giving up this
chance," she says when she calls me that morning from the gym. Melanie's one of
those baffling people who get up at insane hours to work out when all other
sensible people are repeatedly hitting their snooze button. Right then, I'm
driving Severin over to Kayleigh Moore's before heading to work, and I'm
balancing my phone between ear and shoulder as I drive. "With all the people my
Dad knows? You could bring your guitar. You could play for some big-name
producer, who knows?"

"Who Knows is a big-name record producer? Never
heard of him," I say. Besides, my guitar and I are taking a break from our
relationship.

"Left up here," Severin says. He's all hyped up
because it's the

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first time he's seen Kayleigh Moore since prom,
and the first time he's been invited to her house since we worked there the
night of Chief's birthday. They're having some kind of swimming party, and
Severin is wearing his swimming suit. He has a rolled-up towel beside him, and
he smells like coconutty sun lotion. It seems a little early for a swimming
party, but hey, maybe seven a.m. swimming is some new fad among the
superwealthy.

"Don't you care about doing something other
than staying here with your family and working and being with Trevor? Don't you
find all this a little
small?
Someone has opened the door to your cage,
and you're just sitting there. How many places have you even been? And you think
Trevor's going to widen your world?" I hear someone shouting on her end, "Hey,
Wiley, stellar abs, man!" and then laughter.

The question scritches at my nerves. I think of
Funny,
How many places have you laid your head?
It occurs to me that
there are two and a half million ways not to measure up. "Isn't your Amazing Abs
class about to start?" I say.

"Aerobics and then weight training," she says.
"I'll
be ready when I go to put on a bikini."

"Pump it, work it," I say. "With buns of steel,
you can sit anywhere. You are my exercise role model. Ha, now that I have a role
model, can I skip doing it myself?"

"Left! Back there!" Severin says.

I glare at him. "Mel? I gotta go. I can't do
this driving-and-talking thing."

"I'm sorry you won't be coming, Indigo. I'd
love to have you. And I think you're missing out."

"Send me a postcard," I say.

I have to make a U-turn into a neighborhood
with a slow

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