The Last Forever (22 page)

But Henry has other things on his mind. He is heading us toward a curve of the beach, a cove, a pitch-black cove, where the beam of the lighthouse falls away. As soon as we are in the cove’s generous half circle, I can see why Henry has brought me here.

I can’t speak because it’s so beautiful. The beach—it is glowing with endless blue dots, a spilled curve of them, along the water’s edge. They’re in the water too. It’s magic. It’s a glow-in-the-dark painting, not possibly real. I close my eyes and open them again, and it’s all still there before me—a cast spell, blue-glowing fairy dust.

“What is this?”

“Plankton, basically,” Henry says. “A plant. A bioluminescent plankton called dinoflagellates.”

Oh, Henry. He’s so romantic.

“Did you know that eighty percent of all creatures known to produce their own light live in the ocean?” he asks. “And did you ever stop to think that all along this part of the sea, this muddy ground we call beach, it’s all planted with
seeds
?”

“Kiss me, Henry.” I want to be in the moment of beautiful, glowing blue. There’s science, and then there’s the wonder of science. Henry has things to teach me, but maybe I have a thing or two to teach him.

He leans in. It’s a distracted kiss. When we stop, he says, “Seeds. Everywhere. They can lie dormant for years. And then, with the right set of circumstances, a seed rises from the ground and floats into the ocean. It can germinate and reproduce and
from there it can drift and drift until it plants itself into new, far-off waters.”

“Sit,” I say, and pull him down beside me. This is a nice, big flat rock I’ve found. I lean my head on Henry’s narrow shoulder. He puts his arm around me. The waves crash and sigh, crash and sigh. The sheer number of things I don’t know sets me awestruck. Life is large, large, large. Knowledge is so comforting, but so is mystery.

“Seeds,” Henry says.

“Henry, enough about seeds.”

I didn’t know Henry well enough yet to know how fixed he can get on a topic and how determined. Don’t even try to budge him, is my advice.

“I’ve been trying to call you all day to tell you something important. About Svalbard. And about our very own Dr. Harv Johansson,” he says.

The sky is all white sparkles above us, and below, on the sand, are those glowing speckles of blue. The night smells briny and deep, and a lone seagull makes his way across the sand as if contemplating where it all went wrong.

“Okay, I give up,” I say.

“Dr. Harv Johansson is a”—here, Henry crooks his fingers to make quote marks in the night air—“
Notable adviser
to Seeds Inc. And what, you may ask, is Seeds Inc.? It’s an organization that preserves heirloom plant varieties. They regenerate them and then distribute them. Their aim is to preserve all these diverse and endangered plants for future generations.
They have their own seed bank, but more important? They were one of the three.”

“Three.”

“The Svalbard Three.”

“Sounds like a band of criminals.”

“Listen.” Henry whacks my leg. “Only three groups from the United States have deposited seeds into Svalbard, right? Well, Seeds Inc. was the only citizen-led group. They put five hundred varieties in there when it first opened. And now? They’re planning to contribute another nine thousand varieties this winter.”

“Wow.”

“And old Dr. Harv is a ‘notable adviser.’ And his wife is an agriculturist and plant conservationist, also a ‘notable adviser.’ ”

“Wait. I remember. He had this book on his desk.
The Seeds Inc. Yearbook
. I thought it was kind of funny.”

“Tess,” Henry says. He sets those brown eyes on mine. He holds me there with them. “It’s more than funny. It’s fate.”

“Fate.”

“
Fate.
We’re going to get the pixiebell seeds in that vault.”

“How are we going to do that?”

“I have no idea. We have to get them accepted, from what I know so far. And after that, we’re going to bring them there.”

I laugh. I mean, I saw the pictures. It is the most far-off place in the world. I am a regular girl, in a real place, with a regular (sort of regular) boy.

“Ouch,” he says. “Why’d you pinch me?”

“I was thinking about you being real and regular.” Henry pinches me back. “Ouch! It’s the Arctic, Henry. Come on. We don’t go places like that,” I say.

“We do.”

“We do?”

“Yes.”

And as I sit on that real and regular rock, looking at that unreal and mystical glowing blue, I almost think it’s possible.

chapter eighteen

Beta vulgaris
: beet. The seeds of this plant are impossibly hard and inflexible. They resemble a knucklebone, and to even get one to germinate, it’s advised that you soften it up first, soaking it in water for hours or even days. The seed obstinately grows in the most hostile environments, and has a history that dates back to the second millennium BC. Remains of the plant itself have been excavated in the Third Dynasty Saqqara pyramid at Thebes, Egypt. But don’t plant different varieties too close together. The seeds need at least a quarter of a mile between each other, lest they intermingle and try and take each other over. In other words, the beet seed is wildly stubborn.

“I told you he wouldn’t be back in two days,” I say to Jenny.

“I can’t concentrate when you keep talking.” Jenny’s back is to me. She is facing a large canvas, now tacked up on the far wall of her studio. She has a brush in her hand, and the tip is glossy with an orangey brown paint.

“Naples Yellow Deep. Raw Sienna.” I read the tubes. I like the names of paint colors. “One
week
.”

“And you know why, Tess. He told you. He told me. He is settling some financial matters of your mother’s. Several accounts she had . . .”

“She probably hid her own inheritance money so he wouldn’t buy a bunch of pot plants and start a business. I can’t blame her.”

Jenny lowers her eyebrows at me in warning.

“Is this why you and my mother didn’t get along? You defend him no matter what? Two days, my butt.”

“Okay, fine.” Jenny sets her brush down with a snap. Little bits of Naples Yellow Deep and Raw Sienna fleck the table. She scoots a stool over, one her students use in art class, and it screeches against the floor in protest. She straddles it, sets her fists on her hips. “Go for it. Let it out. Sock it to me.”

Now that I’ve been given permission to say whatever I want, I suddenly have no inclination to speak.

“Your mother and I are both stubborn people.” I love Jenny for using the present tense, even though she’s scowling at me. “Do you know how your parents met?”

“Of course I know how my parents met. Chamber music concert their first year of college. Held in a room in the music building. A whole six people in the audience. Love at first sight.”

“I never understood why Thomas went to that concert. He was a rock ’n’ roll boy. Never met a cello he didn’t dislike. That’s a double negative for you.”

“He saw her shiny hair across the quad. Followed her in.”

“Ah. I never heard that part.”

I feel a little superior about having more information about my parents than she does. I also feel sort of superior about my mother’s beautiful hair, which had the power to draw the rock ’n’ roll boy into a whole damn room of cellos.

“He told me they were getting married after only three months.”

“A year,” I say.

“
Three months.
I was there, remember?” My superiority vanishes. “Three months, and I told them both that I thought it was a hasty decision. Well, neither of them liked that. I told Anna that I thought Thomas had some growing up to do. She disputed this fiercely. Of course, his playful, free spirit is what she loved best about him, and whatever you love best in a person is what’ll likely drive you craziest later. Naturally, they got married anyway.”

“And then you wrote them out of the will,” I said.

“Ha. No. But your mother never forgave me for my disapproval, and I never forgave her for not forgiving me. And then, for many years to come, we proceeded to love and defend the same person, your father. They brought you to visit once. You were maybe two. Toddling around. He took you to the beach. Let you climb rocks. You fell and cut your chin.” Jenny motions to her own, rubs two fingers there. “Old Dr. Marshall Fey had to give you stitches. Your mother was furious with him. Your dad, not Dr. Fey. She was furious with
me
. Probably in part because, by this time, she saw I was right about some things.
But she also thought I never held him accountable when he was younger, and therefore . . . Well. He was a boy with two hardheaded mothers fighting over him. He stayed with me once, when he ran away from home for a weekend. Five or six years ago, maybe. Do you remember? Some argument over . . . I don’t even know. Money, perhaps.”

I don’t remember him ever leaving, except for that camping trip he took with his old friends from high school, Johnny Frank and Matt Pattowski. So this was the camping trip? His mother’s house on Parrish? Mom and I ate pizza in bed and watched movies. We had a mass cleaning that even involved the fluff and stuff under our beds. It was the weekend she let me get my ears pierced.

“Mostly, though, I think your mother and I were just a lot alike. Too alike.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. What were you expecting?”

“I don’t know. Something more, at least. Some big, dramatic story. Some buried secret that makes it all make sense.”

“That’s part of what’s so damn sad. It was pettiness. Mere pettiness. The shameful secret was how little it all mattered. Your mother and I—we made a fatal error—we let hurt feelings get in the way of love. And I made another one. The first one. I didn’t keep my big damn mouth shut.”

“You’re right. It
is
sad,” I say.

“We thought we had all the time in the world. And now,
well . . . You do things that you can’t undo, and that’s just a rotten fact about life.”

I look at Jenny in her big denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up and her wrinkly tan face and her blue, blue eyes. If she and my mother were alike, then I am also like both of them. The three of us are all stubborn and loving and petty; we’re guilty and easily hurt and big-hearted. And we all love the equally mixed bag that is our own Thomas Quincy Sedgewick.

“Why do you always paint trees, Jenny?” I can see them now in that canvas in front of me, more clearly than I did when I first saw the large painting in her living room. There are three trees, in Naples Yellow Deep and Raw Sienna and Cadmium Lemon and Gold Ochre. They are set against a sky of Davy’s Gray and Titanium and Silver Number Two.

“I guess I like how calm they are. The way they
do
keep their big damn mouths shut. And they are settled to their fate, right? To the story? They rise from the ground. They spend their life growing and giving, and then they die. Such a simple story. But such a majestic one.”

“Hey, I’m going to go write a poem now,” I joke.

“You asked.”

“I did. And I love your trees.”

“And I”—Jenny stands, swings the stool out of the way to get back to work—“love
you
.”

*  *  *

A paperback
Roget’s Thesaurus
props open the front door. Henry Lark is worried he might not hear me knock because he
is playing the piano. The music filling that room is dramatic and sad, and I watch Henry’s narrow shoulders play passionately. His fingers fly until he somehow realizes I am there, and then he stops.

“Don’t stop,” I say.

“You’re here.” He pushes the bench back and stands to greet me.

“What was that?”

“Schubert.
Winterreise
. It’s a series of poems, actually. That one’s called ‘Rückblick.’ ‘Retrospect
.’
Usually there’s a singer.”

“La-laaaa.” I try my best opera.

“Hmm. Or something,” Henry says.

“Is your mom home?”

“Nah. She’s at work. We’re alone.” But he doesn’t say it like a lot of boys would, like Dillon would have. There’s no eyebrow-raising opportunism in it. Too bad. He’s just stating a fact, without expectations. One thing about Henry Lark, he’s a gentleman.

“I came right over.”

“Good. You’re going to love this.”

Henry is taking the stairs two at a time with those long legs of his. I follow. “Is he back yet?” he asks.

We know enough about each other now that our conversation unrolls with its own shorthand.

“No. Legal stuff of my mom’s is taking a while, supposedly. It doesn’t even hurt me anymore. He and Cat-Hair Mary are probably in Hawaii.”

Henry Frisbees a postcard to me, and I catch it like a pro. Pretty good for someone who can’t bounce a basketball and walk at the same time. The postcard is a photo of a beach with the word “Mexico” in playful letters above it, festooned with a cartoony Mexican flag and a pair of maracas with googly eyes. I read the back.
Miss you, kid.
“Glad I got the mail before my mom.”

“I don’t picture you with a father like that.”

“He doesn’t picture himself with a kid like me.” Henry sifts through the mess on his desk. Somewhere in there is that framed picture, and I imagine myself opening the desk drawer, lifting it out, turning it over. He and Millicent will have their arms around each other under a ridiculously blue sky. Her cheeks will be flushed pink, and his eyes will be dancing. I want to ask Henry about his broken heart, but I don’t want to ask him. I’m not sure I want to know. The past is a good place for the past. And there’s something about Henry. . . . I don’t even want to admit it, but there are pieces of him that feel very far away. So far away that maybe he himself can’t reach them. Those pieces scare me.

“Now, in
good
postal news . . . ,” Henry says. “The reason I’ve asked you here.”

He hands me an envelope. This is not thrown my way, but given over most gently. In the corner it says
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, DEPARTMENT OF BOTANY AND PLANT PATHOLOGY, HITCHCOCK HALL.
“It’s fat,” I say.

“I should’ve given him your address, but I didn’t know it.”