The Sea of Tranquility (16 page)

My friend Lily called me for months, but the only things she ever had to talk about were auditions and recitals and practice. I tried to be happy for her, but I wasn’t. I was jealous and pissed. It was like watching my best friend blissfully dating my ex-boyfriend who I was still madly in love with; watching her have everything I loved but couldn’t have anymore. In other words, painful, depressing and unhealthy. And I’m nothing if not healthy.

Even if I was talking, because let’s face it, the silent thing is definitely a barrier in terms of making friends, I probably still wouldn’t have any. I lost almost the entirety of my sixteenth year. While other girls my age were thinking about homecoming dances, driving lessons and losing their virginity, I was thinking about physical therapy, police line-ups and psychiatric counseling. I left the house to go to doctor’s offices, not football games. I interviewed with police detectives, not the manager at Old Navy.

Eventually, my body healed as much as it was going to. My mind started getting put back together, too. I think it’s just that the pieces got put back a little out of order. It seems like the more my body healed, the more fractured my mind became, and there aren’t enough wires and screws to fix the breaks in it.

So I didn’t do the normal stuff I was supposed to be doing at fifteen and sixteen. At the age when most kids are trying to figure out
who
they are I was busying trying to figure out
why
I was. I didn’t belong in this world anymore. It’s not that I wanted to be dead, I just felt like I should be. Which is why it’s hard when everyone expects you to be grateful simply because you’re not.

It left me lots of time to think, lots of time to get angry and feel sorry for myself. To ask
Why me?
To ask
Why?
period. I have a black-belt in self-pity. I was an expert in the field. Still am. It’s a skill you never forget. Needless to say, all the thinking and all the questions didn’t accomplish much. That’s when I started focusing on the anger. I stopped worrying about being polite, about hurting people’s feelings and saying what I was supposed to say, healing the way I was supposed to heal so that everyone could believe I was okay again and move on with their lives. My parents needed to believe I was okay, so for a long time I tried to convince them that I was. I tried to convince myself, too, but I was a much tougher sell because I knew the truth. I was so very not okay. I realized that I was going to feel shitty either way. I was probably going to feel shitty for the rest of my life, a life I should not even still be living. A life that should have let me go. So I got angry. Then I got very angry. Then I got angrier still. But you can only go so long being angry before you learn to hate. I stopped feeling so sorry for myself and started hating instead. Whining was pathetic, but hate got things done. Hate strengthened my body and shaped my resolve and what I resolved to do was to get revenge. Hate seemed pretty damn healthy to me.

Nonetheless, I’ve learned that although hatred is good for some things, it won’t make you a lot of friends. I turn away from Sarah and the girl who has since been introduced as Piper.
Piper.
I roll it around in my head. It’s a pointless name, a meaningless name (unless you count pipe player as a meaning and that thought makes me laugh, because well, you know,
pipe player
), a name for someone like her. As I walk toward the dining room, I’m not at all confused about why I have no friends.

Despite the presence of Sarah and Piper, dinner is fun again. We, okay,
they
talk about college applications, building the homecoming float, drama auditions and how drastically the tax laws are changing. That last one is courtesy of Mr. Leighton who is a CPA. I kind of tune out at that point because the intricacies of tax law are a little outside of my sphere of comprehension, but then the conversation starts turning toward debate.

“We’ve got a tournament two Saturdays from now,” Drew tells his parents.

“What are you arguing?” his Dad asks, refilling his wine glass. Mrs. Leighton stares at it like she’d like to rip it out of his hand but I guess she’s not allowed. Pregnancy puts a crimp in the whole wine-drinking thing. I can’t blame her, though. I’d kind of like to rip it out of his hand, too.

“I’m not sure exactly. Something centering on the importance of the conservation of fabric.” He looks in my direction, focusing on my clothes, or lack thereof, while he bullshits them. “Mr. Trent assigned Nastya to help me with the research so I wanted to pick something she was passionate about.”

At that point Sarah chokes on whatever she has in her mouth. Mr. Leighton continues swirling his wine around in his glass as if he’s actually giving credence to what Drew said and considering the relevant arguments on the topic. Piper doesn’t even seem to have gotten the joke. I watch Josh’s jaw twitch out of the corner of my eye, the only sign at all that he’s sitting at the same table with the rest of us, listening to this conversation. I’m still watching him struggle to remain stoic and unaffected when I hear the sound of Mrs. Leighton’s shoe connecting with Drew’s shin.

CHAPTER 17

Josh

My father started teaching me how to build after my mother and sister died when I was eight. I don’t know if he necessarily wanted to, or if he had no choice because I just kept following him. He holed up in the garage all the time and if I wanted to see him I had to come out here. He never really talked, but I took what I could get. In the beginning, I mostly watched him. I picked up on a lot just by paying attention, but once I got the tools in my hands, I realized how little I knew. The first thing I built was a lopsided birdfeeder. I ended up making four of them before I got it right. I’ve been at this for almost ten years and some days I still feel like I don’t know shit.

I wonder how much Nastya picks up on. She watches everything that goes on in shop, though she hasn’t touched so much as a nail since the hammer incident. She’s been watching me here at night for the past two weeks. I haven’t been successful in getting her to leave so I’ve given up. Last night I tried being outright rude. I figured if telling her to get the fuck out didn’t do the trick, nothing would, so that’s what I told her. She didn’t get the fuck out, at least not until she felt like it an hour later.

She’s sitting in her normal spot on the counter again, watching me right now, so I guess that’s my answer. Her legs are ceaselessly swinging back and forth, taunting me as if to say,
Ha, ha, we’re here and you can’t make us leave‌—‌so suck it
. I think they’re using a mocking, sing-song, playground voice when they do it. I want to tell them to shut up. I’m pulling the battery off of my drill and putting it on the charger and trying to figure‌—‌

“Why do you have so many saws?”

You would think I would spin around at this moment in some sort of shocked frenzy, but it’s almost like I’ve been expecting her to talk to me since the day we met and I’ve just been wondering what she was going to say. I can tell you that I’ve run through more than a couple scenarios in my mind and in not one of them did she ask me about the number of saws I own. I do turn around because I need to see her right now but it’s a lot slower and more controlled than even I planned.

“They’re all designed for a different purpose, for different jobs, for different kinds of wood. It’s complicated. It would take me hours to go through them all.” OK, it’s not really complicated. It would just take a very lengthy, tedious, boring explanation and right now I don’t want to think about saws. I can’t believe this is what we’re talking about. The word surreal does not suffice.

“I don’t think I want anything, but I’ll leave if you want me to.” It takes me a minute to switch gears and realize that she’s answering the question that I asked her over a week ago. Is she calling my bluff? I look around the floor for the gauntlet she’s thrown down because she’s obviously waiting to see if I’ll pick it up. I have to decide if I really do want her gone, because if I tell her to leave this time, I have no doubt that she’ll take my word for it.

I should say yes. Hell, yes. I’ve been trying to get rid of you since you showed up, but that’s a lie and we both know it. I’m not ready to give her an answer yet, so I answer her with another question. She’s talking; I want to keep it that way. Part of me knows that there’s a very real possibility that when she walks out of here tonight, she may not come back no matter what I tell her and I may never hear her speak again. It hits me, once more, just how much she reminds me of a ghost and how at any moment she might just fade away.

“Who else knows you talk?” I ask, and not just to keep her talking, but because I really do want to know. Does Drew know and he hasn’t told me? Does she talk to her family? Drew said she lived with an aunt‌—‌actually he said a hot aunt‌—‌but that’s all I really know.

“No one.”

“Did you ever talk? Before now?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to tell me why you’ve taken this vow of silence?”

“No,” she says, looking right into my eyes. Neither of us will break eye-contact. “And you’re never going to ask. Ever.”

“OK. I’m never going to ask. Check,” I say matter-of-factly. “And why have I agreed to this?”

“You haven’t.”

“And why should I?”

“I don’t know that you should.”

“So I haven’t agreed to keep your secret and you can’t give me any reason why I should. You’re not really making a strong case for yourself. What makes you think I won’t tell anyone?”

“I don’t think you want to.” And this is where she wins even if she doesn’t know it yet. She’s right. I don’t want to tell anyone. I want her secret all to myself but she has no way of knowing that.

“That’s a big gamble on your part.”

“Is it?” She cocks her head to the side and studies me.

“You have no reason to trust me.”

“No, but I trust you anyway,” she says, walking out toward the driveway.

“And I’m supposed to trust you?” I say to her back. This girl really is crazy if she thinks she’s walking in here, out of nowhere, and expecting me to do that.

She stops, turning to level her eyes at me before she goes.

“You don’t have to trust me. I don’t have any of your secrets.”

***

She leaves before I can respond. She never even sat down, but in the few minutes that she was here, everything shifted. Maybe she’s giving me time to decide if I want this, whatever this is. Her secret? Her friendship? Her story? Maybe I don’t want it. I do know that I
shouldn’t
want it and that may make my decision right there.

I know something about her that no one else does. I haven’t had a secret in years. Everybody knows my story. Mother and sister killed in a car accident.
Tragic.
Father has a heart attack.
Dies
. Grandmother fights ovarian cancer.
Loses.
A year later grandfather picks up the cancer baton. I don’t know if I’m supposed to die now, too, or if I’m just supposed to be the last one left.

I can’t help thinking that there must be something better to be known for.

I won’t tell anyone about her. I know that much. I still have a hundred questions formulating in my mind but only one that keeps coming back again and again.
Why me?
It’s the obvious question, the question that still plagues me even hours after she’s left. It’s the one question I don’t ask, because no matter what the answer is, I don’t want it. I just don’t care.

***

It’s been days since she spoke to me. I expected her to show up the next night but she didn’t. Or the night after. Or the night after that. I’ve seen her at school every day but she hasn’t so much as looked in my direction once. I’m beginning to think I imagined the entire encounter. Maybe I’m the batshit one in this scenario. I’ve spent the last several days trying to make myself believe that I was glad she had stopped coming and that I couldn’t care less. After all, it was what I wanted. I made several arguments to myself. I wasn’t very convincing.

I hadn’t even had the excuse of seeing her at Drew’s on Sunday. Leigh was here for the weekend and I was with her. It should have made things easier but I think it might have made them worse.

“You don’t have an accent.”

When she finally shows up, exactly one week after she spoke to me, this is the first thing I say.

“No.”

“I thought you would. The name.” I can’t stand the name. It doesn’t fit. But then maybe nothing about her does. She considers this and for a minute I think she might say something, but she doesn’t. She just keeps walking around my garage and touching tools and running her hands across half-built pieces of furniture and it’s starting to piss me off.

“Are you Russian?” I ask, hoping to distract her.

“You got to ask the questions last time. Tonight’s my turn.” She didn’t answer the question but at least it seems to have temporarily shifted her focus away from all my stuff.

“I don’t remember agreeing to that.”

“I don’t remember giving you the choice.” And she’s back to wandering around my garage again. Studying. I feel like grabbing my crotch and checking to see if my balls are still there because I think they may be in her pocket and I need to get them back. This was fun or different or intriguing for a little while but not anymore. It’s one thing to have her sitting and watching, but if she wants to start with the interrogation and the inevitable teenage girl psychoanalysis, I’m out.

“You know who likes to talk? Drew. Why don’t you head over there and make his day?” I need to walk away. I pretend I have to get something out of the tool chest across the room. She’s settles back on the workbench and the legs start swinging immediately.

“I think there are other things he’d rather I did with my mouth.” There’s nothing coy or suggestive in her tone. She says it like she’s talking about helping him study for trig.

“Did you really just say that?”

“Believe so,” she says blandly.

“Well, if you do that you might make his week.”