The Mourning After (9 page)

“Look up,” a voice calls out from over his shoulder.  “If not you can’t see what’s getting you down.”

It is her voice.

“Hey, wait up,” she says from behind, following him in the wrong direction.  “Aren’t you gonna turn around?  I’d call you by your name, but I don’t know it.  We were never properly introduced.  I’m 5955, your neighbor.”

Lucy.  He knows her name is Lucy.  He hadn’t seen her on the bus. 

She has caught up to Levon and is keeping in step with him.

“You are 5945, aren’t you?”

Levon will remember this moment for a long time because it is when he first realizes how his new neighbor can be physically present in many places at once.  They are strolling side by side down an endless block of cement.  Lucy is on Levon’s right—he is sure of it because every few steps her left elbow brushes into his—though he’d swear he can feel her circling around him, swirling around his neck, his legs, and nipping on his ears.  Maybe it is the way she walks with her arms flailing at all degrees and how her legs don’t step, they waltz.  She bounces, he decides, and her vibrations leap around him, ricocheting off trees and the sidewalk and into the sky.  There was something wraithlike about her, and if he touches her, she might disappear.

“Do you have a name 5945, or do I have to refer to you in code?”

Levon focuses on the ground in front of him. Without looking up, he acknowledges his new neighbor with, “Your dog crapped on our lawn.”

She tosses her long blonde hair to the side and laughs.

“Your Dog Crapped on Our Lawn.  That’s your name?  Do you have a last name?”

“Yes,
Today
,” he answers.  “Your Dog Crapped on Our Lawn Today.”

Levon thinks his attempt at humor is moderately funny.

“I’ll have a talk with George.  That’s his name, by the way.  I’ll make sure he steers clear of your lawn.”

“There are rules you have to follow in our neighborhood.  People pick up their dog’s poop here.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, “usually I’m pretty good at cleaning up after him.”

“My grandmother’s shoe and George now know each other intimately.”

“Yuck,” she says, apologetically.  “Unless you want to talk about dog poop all the way home, I’m Lucy,” she says, brandishing her hand out for him to shake.

Levon studies the friendly palm that sends a signal to his legs to halt their concentrated march.  The day had been so tense.  He is having a hard time thawing out. He doesn’t want to be rude to a new neighbor.

“I’m Levon.” He hands her his chubby fingers and finds her eyes beneath tortoise-shell rectangular glasses.  On her, they are impossibly cool, and the gray of her eyes, or green, he’s not sure, is a maddening combination of mischief and mystery.

“Levon?” she asks.

“Yes, Levon.”

“I think I liked Mr. Your Dog Crapped on Our Lawn better.”

Levon doesn’t know what to make of this.  Whatever cynicism was there earlier has suddenly been zapped away.

“Were you named after the Elton John song?” she asks.

Levon considers his parents’ hasty decision to name their least favorite child after a great uncle six times over.

“And he shall be a good man,” she begins to sing.

“Who?” he asks.

“Levon,” she answers.  “That’s the song.  Are you a good man, Levon?”

He takes a breath and feels his legs go weak.  “I’m all right, I guess.”  It is an effort to take the next few steps, and he knows he will have to tell her soon that they are going the wrong way.  The sun is beating down on their backs, and he feels a line of sweat dripping down his shirt.  Here is someone who knows nothing of the damage he’s caused.  Here is a person he can be someone else with.  Except next she asks about the bandage across his face.

“Ice hockey accident.”

“Tough sport,” she says.  “I bet it hurt like mad.”

“You have no idea.”

What did she care anyway?  She was gorgeous and blonde and light and dreamy and no one like her had ever paid any attention to him unless they wanted to get access to David.  She had to be blind, he thought.  She
is
wearing glasses.  He is unsure of what to say next.  He’s never had idle chatter with such a luminous creature.

“Okay, seeing how I have to pull information out of you, and you’re reluctant to ask about me, we’re going to play a little game.  I’ll give you the answers, and you tell me the questions.”

Levon shifts his backpack from one shoulder to the other.  Lucy circles around him, stepping up her pace until she is directly in front of him walking backwards.  Their eyes are level with one another, and with each backward step, she hurdles an answer into the air.

“Fifteen.”

“That’s easy,” he says.  “Your age.”

“Atlanta.”

“Presumably where you used to live.”

“Two points,” she smiles.

“White.”

This is high school and uniforms are a thing of the past, so perhaps Lucy has her own dress code that dictates her flair for all things white.  White linen pants and a white cotton T-shirt.  The only hint of color is a pair of beaded necklaces in turquoise and gold that fall down the front of her top and clatter when she sways.

“Your favorite color.”

“Is that your final response?”

Levon doesn’t answer.  He should reply with something clever and sarcastic, but the sentences and words are jumbled by the thrill that has tickled his nerves.  To refrain from any further embarrassment and to ensure that their exchange continues—because he enjoys being near her—he explains that they need to turn around because they are walking in the wrong direction.

“You don’t think I know that,” she says, turning around and continuing her backwards walk. “You were the one who looked lost.”

He doesn’t know how she manages to know everything, walk backwards, and not fall on her butt.

“Okay,” she says, “let’s move on to level two.  This is where it gets infinitely harder.  And thank you, by the way, for making this two-minute walk a marathon. Ready?

“Ricky.”

“Your boyfriend?”

“Nope.”

“Your sister?”

“Close,” she tells him.

“Your brother.”

“I gave that one to you,” she teases.

“One-hundred and twenty-two.”

“How many boys have tried to kiss you?”

“Eh,” she buzzes, “try again.”

“I give up.”

“All the Facebook friend requests I’ve ignored.”

“Wow, you’re not nice.”

“Thirty-one.”

“Flavors at Baskin-Robbins?”

This gets a laugh.  “No. Are there really thirty-one?” she asks.

He would never tell her he actually tried them all on a dare from Bruce two summers ago. “No clue,” he says.

“The number of times I’ve read
The Alchemist
.”  Then, she says, “Watch it, Levon, don’t step on that cute little caterpillar,” at which she bends down and picks it up gingerly before returning it safely to a patch of grass.

“Gabriel Byrne and Andy Garcia,” she begins again, resuming her position in front of him.

“Your favorite actors.”

“Those old men?  Hell no, they’re my mom’s.  Mine are—”

“Let me guess,” he teases.  “Vanessa Hudgens and Zac Efron.”

“You obviously have me mistaken for one of the local cheerleaders.  Didn’t you see Don Cheadle in
Hotel Rwanda
?  Unbelievable performance.”

“And the other one?”

“That’s easy, DiCaprio, of course.  Ready for your next challenge?”

“The suspense is killing me.”

“Football, basketball, baseball,” she says.

“Words that end in ‘ball’?”

“Wrong, try again.”

“Your favorite sports?”

She rolls her eyes.  “No, dummy, sports with grossly overpaid athletes.  Golf is my sport of choice.”

She is smiling at him, a full-toothed, genuine grin.  “You like this game,” she teases.  “You could’ve just asked me questions yourself.  That’s what neighbors do.  Here’s one of my favorites.  ‘They’re afraid of something, they love something, they’ve lost something, and they’re dreaming of something.’”

Levon says, “It sounds like a riddle.  What does it have to do with you?”

“It has to do with all of us,” she quips. “You should know this, Levon.  Think about it.”

He thinks about it and draws a blank.

“Think about you, think about me, think about strangers meeting.”

When she says this, she points at him with her fingers, and then back at herself.  It is a signal of alliance.  “You lost me,” he says.

She takes a break from walking backward, which is a wise move, because they are about to cross the street.

“If you want me to tell you, I will,” she taunts him, “but I think it’s something you should think about.”

Levon believes it would bring her great pleasure and satisfaction to blurt it out.  “I think too much already,” he says.  “Just tell me.” But she’s off, galloping across the street, leaving Levon in her wake.

“Catch me, first,” she yells, taking off along the tree-lined streets and expecting him to follow suit.  Levon admires how she maneuvers across people’s front lawns with her bag tucked in the fold of her arm.  She cuts back and forth under trees and over flower bushes, darting left and right.  She is approximately two blocks ahead of him before she turns and realizes that he hasn’t even begun a fast walk.  He is meandering down their street watching her fly through the air like a butterfly let out of a cage and though he wants to run—wants to be near her again—his stiff legs hold him back.

“Run, Levon, run,” she shouts, this time perched outside his house with her bottom against the hood of his mother’s dark Mercedes.

Levon takes his time getting to the house.  She patiently waits for him to arrive.  He is flustered, less from the heat than by her being there. 

“I so hope that’s not the fastest you can run,” she deadpans.

Levon is panting. He is out of breath when he asks her, “Are you going to tell me the answer to your little riddle?”

“No,” she says, sliding off the car and heading toward her house.  “Master George awaits,” she calls out over her shoulder.

When she is halfway up her driveway, she stops abruptly and turns around. Levon watches her glide through the air, planting her feet directly in front of him.  He’s not sure what to expect; anything can come flying out of this girl’s mouth.  Then she asks, “Who died?”

The question is as daring as the person asking it.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want…but I would tell me if I were you.”

“Don’t be so sure about that.”

“Was it someone you were close to?”

A line of loud, sporty cars coming from the direction of their high school roar down the street and break the wordless silence.  The radio blares Ne-Yo complaining how he’s sick of love songs, and the assertion along with the hum of their engines drown out the tidal wave that is building in Levon’s mouth.  When they finally pass, the silence strangely resumes. 

It’s the despair in Levon’s eyes that prompts Lucy to change her mind. “You’re right,” she says, “it’s probably none of my business.”  He watches her turn again and head up the driveway.  Her steps are not hurried; her arms are flat by her sides.  Levon wants her to stay.  When she is almost out of earshot and takes the first step up the stone stairs leading to double doors, Levon shouts, “My brother.”

Lucy’s fingers are on the handle; they remain still.

“Did you hear me?  I said
my brother
.” 

Lucy’s lithe movements are replaced with rigid ones.  She and Levon are joined in their awful clumsiness.  For Lucy, letting go of the brass handle is a laborious task.  Her body has been seized by revulsion.  Levon wonders what she is thinking while she stares at her front door.  She finally releases the knob and begins the journey once more across the grass that borders the two homes.  The sun’s glare on her glasses hides her eyes, though Levon can see something slipping down her face from beneath the frames.

“I’m really sorry.”  She straightens herself and is close enough for him to touch.  “I don’t know what to say.”

Levon tells her many things without opening his mouth.  She apologizes for asking.  She says if she had known it was his brother, she would have never been so insensitive.  She was only trying to be friendly. 

“It’s okay.  You didn’t know.”

“I always put my foot in my mouth.”

“There are worse things,” he says.

They stand like that, awkward and broken, until Lucy asks if he wants to walk George with her.

“I can’t today,” he replies, “but Chloe, my sister, wouldn’t mind an introduction.  She loves animals.”

“I’m really sorry, Levon,” she says again, and he nods his head.  He can tell that she means it. “They’re the four things you need to know about someone when you first meet.”

Levon doesn’t understand.  “Is this another of your riddles?”

“It’s the answer to the first,” she explains.  “When you meet someone, remember they’re afraid of something, they love something, they’ve lost something, and they’re dreaming of something.  I had no idea your loss was so huge.”

Levon says, “Yeah, it’s a big one.”

“I’m sorry,” she says.

“It’s an interesting insight.”

“I ripped it right out of my
Life’s Little Instruction Calendar. 
Have you ever read it?  The guy’s a genius.”

“It’s good, even for a plagiarist.”

“There are tons of books on life instructions.  I have thousands of stolen ideas on how we can live fuller lives.  I’ve even come up with some of my own.  You’ll just have to wait until tomorrow.”

Levon laughs, thinking she can’t possibly be serious.

“Thousands,” he repeats, “can’t wait.”

“So I’ll see you tomorrow?” she says.

Long after his mother’s tempered interrogation about school, and even after the family eats a silent dinner from Epicure, while Madeline hides in her bedroom with the curtains closed and shades drawn, Levon escapes to his room.  It is almost time and his body senses it as much as the telltale chimes of the clock.  The pull is real, not something he imagines, and it leads him to the window and a starlit night.

Her lively stride—she is crossing over to their property.  Levon can’t make out her features in the darkened night, though he would venture to guess that she is smiling the same bright, beautiful smile that captivated him hours before.  In a fleeting second, she passes from sight.  Lucy Bell’s version of fifteen is baffling to Levon—an incongruous age—part childlike, another part old soul.  She is a mixture of temperaments: strong and sarcastic, wholesome and grounded, honest and withholding.  She is air and light infused with darkness and thunder, an array of contradictions.