The Trouble with Lexie (16 page)

“I didn't feel like hanging out with everyone. My head felt all speedy.”

“Did someone give you their Ritalin?” Lexie made sure she came off as cool and casual. That was the way to get to the Ritalin source.

“Nah,” Ethan said. “There are, like, five guys in Rilke who have prescriptions and none of them will give up any.”

“Are you doing straight speed?” Again, casual. Nonchalant. When Ethan didn't answer right away, Lexie looked around the room. “How big do you think this room is?”

“Maybe . . .” Ethan stood and walked along the wall. “Fifteen—” He walked the other direction. “By eighteen. And I'm not doing speed.”

“Okay.” Lexie clicked on the twelve-by-fifteen rug and dragged it into her cart. “So you're not doing speed but you're feeling a little speedy.”

“Yeah. My head was rushing.” Ethan sat again. “And it suddenly hit me that Mrs. Harrison, who has been sleeping two floors below me for four years—”

“You've always been in Rilke? Only seniors are allowed here.”

“My dad loved Rilke so much senior year, he made sure I lived here every year.”

“Interesting.” The life of an über-privileged kid. Thank god Ethan was a kind person. “Okay. Your head was speeding and you
were thinking about Dot.” She should have said Mrs. Harrison. Too late for that. And who cared at this hour?

“Yeah, I was thinking that this is the fourth year she's slept below me and suddenly it seemed so strange to me that she isn't here.”

“Do you feel sad?”

“Well . . .” Ethan pointed at Lexie's computer screen. “I like that couch.” Lexie zoomed in on it.

“You were saying you felt sad.” He hadn't said that, Lexie knew. But she wanted him to clarify if he could.

“Yeah, I'm totally sad. And it . . . it feels so incomprehensible. The idea of someone being there and then, poof, she's gone. She doesn't exist. It's like she disappeared off the planet. I like the other one better.” Ethan pointed at a couch on the screen.

“This one?” Lexie clicked back.

“Yeah. It's sleeker.”

“It's seventy-two inches. You think that'll fit?”

Ethan stood and walked along the wall again. “The couch would go from here”—he walked in the other direction—“to here.”

“Perfect.” Lexie put the couch in the cart. “So you were pondering nothingness . . .”

Ethan sat cross-legged beside Lexie. “I was thinking about life and death and what's the point in anything if in the end you disappear?”

“I guess it's a matter of how you're going to spend the time between today and the disappearance.” Lexie looked at the plastic-covered furniture. Would she remember Dot any less once her belongings were hauled away? Had Peter felt that Lexie would be forgotten once he dumped out all her stuff? The wedding dress
was probably making a hell of a clang knocking around the closet next to Peter's flannel shirts.

“But in the face of death, isn't everything pointless? Like, should I actually spend four years of my life at some school my parents want me to attend?”

“No. You should spend four years at the school that you want to attend. Did you download the Berkeley and UCLA applications?” Lexie lowered the top of the computer so Ethan wouldn't be distracted by the images.

“Yes.”

“So stop worrying about it. If you get in, you'll think about how to deal with your parents.”

Ethan shrugged. “But if we're only spanning time between now and nothingness then nothing's important.”

“Well, you're right in some ways. I mean, most things that we think are important aren't important.”

“Like which school I go to?”

“Yeah, sort of. I mean, being at a school will connect you to people and people are important. The exact school you go to probably isn't as important as your parents—all the Ruxton parents—think. What's important is that you feel like you're part of something bigger, that you feel a connection to humans and feel your life as part of their lives.”

“I guess I feel that here.”

“Yeah, you do. That's why you're sad about Dot not sleeping two floors below you anymore. That's why you and J.T. are cracking up every time you're together. You have a connection. You matter to each other.”

“I'm not sure how much J.T. matters to me.” Ethan cracked
a smile. Lexie could tell he was about to go off on some guy-put-down humor but then thought better of it.

“And something like this couch we picked—” Lexie flicked a nail at the half-shut computer. “This couch definitely isn't important. The truth is, it's shallow, vain, and self-centered for me to spend the school's money on a couch that I think reflects my taste or some idealized version of myself.”

“Okay, so connecting to people is the only thing that matters?”

“Mmm, yeah, I guess. How you love, who you love, and that you love are the only things that matter.” Lexie was glad she loved Daniel. She was glad she wasn't going to stay with Peter when he wasn't the great love she had thought he was. She was sad Dot wasn't around to see how it all turned out.

“That's so John Lennon of you.”

“You like the Beatles?”

“My dad loves the Beatles, so I know all the songs by heart from listening to him play them.”

“On the guitar?”

“On the piano. He likes to play piano and sing Beatles songs.”

“Neat.” Daniel had never mentioned that he played the piano. Lexie liked that about him. Loads of guys played the guitar. Every guy in college who wanted to get laid learned how to play the guitar (it usually worked). But piano? Not that many guys played the piano beyond “Chopsticks.”

“If love is all that matters, was Mrs. Harrison's life well-spent? I mean, she lived in this crowded apartment by herself and barely left the campus except to pick up donuts for us.”

“Did she seriously do that?”

“What, the donuts?”

“Yeah. Did she go out two mornings a week to buy you all donuts?”

“Yeah, she did that. She also ironed our clothes if there was some important event and we needed to look nice. She was more of a mother than a teacher.” Ethan laughed. “Except she cursed in front of us all the time! Never in class, and never at morning meetings. But if we were in her apartment, she'd say
fuck
or
shit
and she even said
motherfucker
once and, I swear, it was totally hilarious.”

“I'm sure it was.” It made Lexie happy to think of Dot swearing.

“And sometimes after she swore, she covered her mouth, like she'd burped or something and she'd say,
Pardon my fucking French.
”

Lexie laughed. She wished she'd videotaped Dot, if only to hear that old vinyl record voice say
What the fuck, Lexie? What the fuck is that fucking whore-faced Janet Irwin even thinking?!
“So are you worried that Dot didn't live a great life?”

“Yeah. I mean, what kind of life is that, ironing clothes for some spoiled shit like me?”

“Well, a well-lived life is all about human connections. And living here, ironing your shirts, buying you donuts, that gave Mrs. Harrison a whole lot of connection to a whole lot of people. Do you have any idea how much she talked about you guys? Especially the senior class. She would predict which colleges each senior would go to and, I'm not kidding, nine times out of ten she was right.”

“Where did she say I was going?”

“I don't think she'd made her list yet. Or, at least, I haven't seen it.”

“Bummer. I thought all my problems would be solved.” Ethan
looked at Lexie with a half-sly grin. Lexie wondered if he was as sad as he had pretended when he first walked in.

“You're alive, so things are great for you.”

“And you think things were great for Mrs. Harrison, too, right?”

“Absolutely. There is a passel of boys sleeping above us this very second who all knew her and loved her, and will never forget her. No one forgets the woman in high school who buys you donuts.”

“You're having a hard time getting over that donut thing, aren't you?”

“Yes! I don't want to get up early and drive off campus to Stop and Shop for donuts two days a week!”

“You could buy cases of them ahead of time.”

“They're bad for you anyway. Anyway. There are a bunch of people up there”—Lexie pointed at the ceiling—“and they all carry her memory. I mean, you probably knew about her from your dad before you even met her here.”

“How did you know my dad knew Mrs. Harrison?”

Lexie's heart thrummed for a second until she remembered. “You said he lived in Rilke. Mrs. Harrison always lived in Rilke.”

“Oh, yeah.” Ethan looked at the plastic-covered mountain again. “My dad never mentioned Mrs. Harrison. But when I have kids and I tell them about this school, I'll totally tell them about her.”

“That's nice. And maybe your kids will tell their kids about her—about the wacky old lady who tap-danced and sang when their grandpa and great-grandpa went to Ruxton.”

“But eventually the chain will burn out and no one will remember her.”

“That will happen to everyone. Except a few, like Shakespeare. I mean, do you know who Tonya Harding is?” Lexie flipped up the lid of the computer and typed Tonya Harding into Google images.

“No. Who's Tonya Harding?”

“She was an ice-skater who hired someone to slice open her competition with a skate, or hit her on the head with a brick, or break her leg or something. I don't remember. It was a pretty big scandal at the time, and my mom—who was obsessed with her—said over and over that Tonya Harding would forever be a part of history. Well, guess what, she's already not a part of history. Few of us are. We do disappear, but not for a while.” Lexie clicked on a picture of Tonya Harding and turned it toward Ethan. He pulled his head back and looked at the computer with his eyes flattened into horizontal slits.

“Okay, I'm not sure you're making me feel any better. You've confirmed that even someone who spent a year or two in the spotlight is totally forgotten a couple decades later.”

Lexie had to smile. “Let's look at it another way. Why is it important to you that you're remembered forever? Isn't it enough to simply be here now?”

“Are we back to
love is the point
?” Ethan was starting to loosen up. Whatever sadness he'd felt appeared to be lifting. He was resuming the role of a lanky, broad-shouldered boy with giant feet, sitting on Lexie's living room floor.

“But love
is
the point!” Lexie said.

“Did you find a chair yet?” Ethan pointed to Lexie's laptop. She clicked over to Crate and Barrel.

“What about this?” Lexie showed Ethan a streamlined, yellow upholstered chair.

“You're not very girly, are you?”

“Not when it comes to furniture.”

“I like it. Get two.”

“Two it is.” Lexie put the chairs in the cart.

“So we all disappear and nothing matters except love.” Ethan's face glowed blue and yellow in the light of the computer screen.

“Yes. Love the people you love, be open to love, be good and do good.”

“Is that what you're doing?”

“I'm trying. It's hard to be good and do good sometimes, but I'm always trying.” Lexie thought she needed to try harder. She hoped she could be a better person—the person she advised her students to be—from here on out.

AFTER THEY'D PICKED OUT THE NECESSARY FURNITURE AND EATEN
most of the stale holiday cookies from the tin in the cupboard, Ethan left. It was almost midnight. Lexie went to her email, found Mitzy's hotel confirmation for the wedding week and canceled the room. It was on Peter's credit card and who knew if he'd remember to cancel it. She wrote a long email to Betsy Simms and a shorter email to Mr. and Mrs. Simms. She told everyone about the canceled wedding but no one about Daniel and only Betsy (and not her parents) about the El Kabong incident. Lexie reassured everyone she was fine, relieved, and that no one should worry. This was a step in the right direction. She also mentioned that Mr. and Mrs. Simms should get their money back for Mitzy's ticket. And if it was too late for a refund, Lexie would pay them back.

Once she'd finished emailing, Lexie picked up her cell phone. It had been sitting facedown on the floor with the sound off. Lexie
expected there to be a text or phone message from Daniel. Wasn't he worried after reading the El Kabong text?

Lexie texted:
Did you get my message? He didn't hit me w/guitar, he hit my car w/it. Car fine. Guitar totaled.
She considered getting his attention by mentioning Ethan's visit but she knew it was wrong. Even in her apartment, they were ensconced in the bubble of confidentiality. She'd mention it to Amy because it was part of their professional relationship—they treated students together (with medication from Amy and counseling from Lexie) in many instances. But short of Ethan being suicidal or homicidal, there was no reason for her to tell Daniel.

Lexie's text burp sat there. Gray. Unanswered. Daniel must not have his phone with him, she thought. It was odd to think of him as someone in the same category as Dot (and Janet Irwin!), but he was: the over-fifty crowd, the people who didn't see their cell phone as an extension of their hand. Lexie went to bed confident that she'd wake up to a text from Daniel.

I
T WAS A LUXURIOUS SLEEP EVEN THOUGH LEXIE HAD BEEN SLUICING
across the air mattress like a Slip 'n Slide. If there were no such thing as addiction or side effects, Lexie would take a Klonopin every night to put herself into that dreamy-cushioned sleep.

Lexie reached beneath her pillow and pulled out her phone, plugged into the wall beside her. A text from Daniel read:
Occupied (faking it) with extended fam all wkend. Will leave and drive to Ruxton if you need me. V. v. v. concerned about the El Kabonging.

In the clear morning light Lexie remembered that Daniel had mentioned earlier his in-laws coming to town. Catholics. Jen hadn't told them they were separated so Daniel had to stay home and play house. Lexie typed,
All fine. Ordered furniture, getting ready for a new life!
She took a picture of her lips making a kiss. She hit send.

Five seconds later, a text from Daniel:
Love that photo! I'll call Mon. morning. Now impossible. Xxx

Lexie swiped over to the next text. It was Amy making sure she was okay, urging her to call when she woke up. Lexie didn't
want to call; she didn't want to rehash the El Kabong incident. She'd rather it floated away so that her memories of Peter would be everything before the breakup: the singing, the smell of fresh-cut wood, slipping her cold feet under his calves on cold winter nights, her icy hands warming in his armpits.

As Lexie was texting Amy, telling her that all was fine, the phone rang. A picture of Mitzy in her Heidi Pies uniform, smoking a cigarette, appeared on the screen. Lexie's stomach lurched. She hadn't yet told Mitzy about the canceled wedding.

Lexie touched the green answer button. “Hey, Mom.” She wriggled off the air mattress, leaned over the open coffin-sized suitcase and pulled out jeans, underwear, and a soft sweater.

“Bonnie Simms said you canceled the wedding. Did he hit you?”

“No, he didn't hit me. I fell out of love.” Lexie held the phone against her ear with her shoulder as she pulled on the panties and then the jeans. The painters would be arriving within minutes.

“Well, everyone falls out of love. That's why they invented marriage. To lock you in!”

“Ah, funny.” Lexie wasn't smiling.

“Why didn't you tell me you canceled?”

“I was about to call you. I emailed the Simmses first because I was worried about them getting their money back for that ticket.” Lexie threw back the first bra she'd pulled out and exchanged it for a black one that matched her panties.

“They gave it to me.”

“What?” Lexie paused with her bra hanging off one arm. Her body was cocked with tension, a gun ready to fire.

“The ticket. They gave me the ticket. They said they didn't pay
so much because they used credit card air miles for one half the trip or something and that I should keep it and go visit you.”

“You want to visit me?” Mitzy had never visited Lexie. Anywhere.

“Well, it'll be nice to see where you live and everything. We can have fun! You can take me to bars and we'll meet guys and tell them we're sisters!”

“That would be great, Mom.” Lexie quickly hooked her bra and pulled the sweater on. She was a razor's slice from tears. To put her mother on an air mattress in this apartment—or the bed, while Lexie herself slept on the air mattress—would be like being stuck in an elevator between floors. You know you'll get out eventually, but still you want to bang on the doors screaming. The only option was a hotel and Lexie could barely afford that. Yes, Daniel would pay for a hotel. But Lexie had no interest in launching their relationship with a request for him to pick up her mother's tab.

“Too bad your dad's not around to see me getting on an airplane. He once said he'd bet his life I'd never step foot on one of those things.”

“Because you're scared of flying?” Maybe Lexie would get lucky and Mitzy would chicken out. Her mother was so San Leandro–based she rarely even went to San Francisco and that was only forty minutes away.

“I'm not scared, I just don't wanna go nowhere. Why should I leave San Leandro when everything I need is here?”

“You've got a point there.” As soon as she discovered there was a world beyond San Leandro, all Lexie had wanted was to leave.

“He's probably rolling around in his grave, jealous as hell that he's not the first one of us to get on a plane.”

“Why would he be rolling around in his grave, Mom? That's something you say for someone who's dead.” Lexie dug through her bag, searching for boots. She found one each of two different pairs. Hopefully the mates weren't at Peter's house.

There was a startling silence on the other end of the line. Lexie dropped the boots to the floor and stood straight in the center of the room.

“Mom?” Lexie said. “Dad's not dead, is he?”

“I thought I told you.”

“You thought you told me that my dad was dead?” Here it was: evidence that Lexie was the genetic offspring of two people incapable of properly responding to death. Why was she surprised that she'd decided to leave Peter the day she found out about Dot's death? Look who she'd come from!

“Well, maybe I told you and you forgot.”

“Are you kidding me?! We're talking about my father!” Lexie put the phone on speaker and placed it on the floor. She pulled all her clothes out of the bag and flung them onto the air mattress. The mate to each boot was at the bottom of the bag. Lexie sat on the pile of clothes and put on her socks and boots.

“Well excuse me if I didn't know that you two had some sort of relationship!”

“We don't! Or, we didn't.” Lexie swept the clothes off the air mattress and lay down. “I don't even know where he lives. Lived!”

“So why are you giving me all this crap about not telling you that he's dead?!”

Lexie breathed deeply, focusing on using her diaphragm. She wanted to take a Klonopin but she wouldn't. This wasn't a panic attack. This was . . . she couldn't even name what this was—it
was something brackish and foul—not grief, not regret, simply a general unsettled discomfort. Lexie often felt like this when she thought of her parents, although now she felt it more acutely than ever. “When exactly did he die?” Lexie's voice had calmed. She was easing into the narrative: Her father had died. Her mother had forgotten to tell her.

“About two or three months ago. Let's see, we were doing the plum pie special, so it must have been summer.”

“So during all these conversations we've had about him the past couple months, you were thinking of, and talking about,
dead Bert
?” Lexie tried to remember the last time they discussed him. Was it when her mother had last brought up the affairs? Had Mitzy used the past tense in referring to him?

“You're too damn busy with all them rich kids to remember that I already told you.”

No point in getting into that. “Where did he live?”

“In Omaha.”

“So he never went to Reno?”

“Fuck if I know. He didn't keep in touch with me.”

“Well how did he die?” Lexie stared at the spiderweb cracks in the ceiling. She wondered if Dot had ever noticed how crinkled the ceiling was. Did she care?

“I dunno. They just found him in a chair in his apartment. Dead.”

“Who found him?” Lexie always associated her father with the couch. It was hard to place him in her mind in a chair.

“The supe.”

“What kind of chair was it?”

“I dunno! How would I know what kind of chairs he had?”

“He was just sitting there? Was he doing drugs or something? How old was he anyway?” Bert had been gone so long, Lexie had never kept track of his age.

“I guess he was fifty-three.”

“Ugh.” The word came out without her realizing it. Bert was, or had been, the same age as Daniel. It was an idea that made Lexie a little queasy; an idea she didn't want to explore further. Especially now.

“Ugh what? Whatchu uggin?”

“Nothing. Death. What was he doing when he died?”

“He was watching TV.”

“How do you know that?”

“His cousin Gordy told me that the supe found him in his chair watching TV.”

“I never met Gordy.”

“No, you never met no one except his parents a couple times.”

“What was he watching?”

“How the fuck would I know?”

“Well, do you know what station the TV was on?” Lexie imagined Bert watching an old movie on TNT. It would have been nice for him to have departed from the living while Audrey Hepburn was on screen. Or the Nicholas brothers were tap dancing.

“Lexie, what's your problem? No one else in the whole dang world gives a shit what station the TV was on when your dad died!”

“Mom, I'm trying to process this, okay? It's a lot to take in.” In truth, Lexie felt far less immediate grief over this loss than she did about Dot. She had mourned her father years ago, when he
had left. After that his only appearances had been in the form of a birthday card her mother dropped off at the Simmses each year until Lexie went to college. By the time Lexie got the card (there was never a return address), the envelope had already been opened by Mitzy, and whatever cash he'd put in—usually mentioned in the note,
Buy yourself something sweet with this!—
had been removed.

“How did his cousin Gordy find you?” Lexie slid off the mattress. She threw the scattered loose clothing back into the suitcase.

“He called me at Heidi Pies.”

“Was there an estate?” Lexie knew there'd be nothing coming her way. But she wanted to know what was left since her father had, in the words of Ethan Waite, disappeared off the planet. Who took the television? Where was the chair he'd been sitting on? Who was driving his truck, assuming he owned one? Was there someone who would be remembering him through the things he'd left behind?

Mitzy laughed. “If he ever had anything, you can be sure he pissed it away. That was a man who'd spend ten bucks if he had five in his pocket, and forty bucks if he had twenty. Always in debt.”

“Do you know if he had a girlfriend?” Lexie hoped he wasn't lonely. She liked to imagine Bert ended his life in a relationship better than the one he'd had with Mitzy.

“Honey, he always had a girlfriend. Even when he already had a girlfriend he had another girlfriend.”

Lexie found it difficult to imagine that women were drawn to Bert the way Mitzy claimed they were. The sacks of loose flesh he'd prematurely had under each eye years ago could have only gotten worse. And he smelled like a litter-strewn back alley: cigarettes and booze. Though they were the same age, he and Daniel Waite were
as similar as a warthog and a panther. But her mother had loved him once. So maybe, as Mitzy imagined, others could love him, too.

There was a knock at the door. Lexie went to the living room and opened the door. Five Korean men nodded their heads and walked in with their painting supplies. They immediately started setting up.

“Mom, I've gotta go. The painters are here and I have to show them where to paint.” That was a lie, but Lexie needed to get off the phone.

“Whatchu getting painted? Bonnie Simms told me you were moving into the dormitory on campus.”

“It's an apartment in a dorm building on campus. The school is repainting the whole thing. They're buying me new furniture, too.”

“Well, aren't you fancy.” Mitzy's voice was sharp as razor wire.

“Let's talk later, Mom. We'll plan your trip.” Lexie rolled her eyes. She'd rather plan her own funeral.

“Bonnie Simms said I could change the dates. Go after the snow melts since I don't have any of them moon boots or whatever you people wear out there.”

“Don't know what you're talking about with the moon boots. But it'll be a lot warmer in spring, so maybe you should come then. But I've gotta go. I'll talk to you soon.”

Lexie hung up and stared at the phone. She shut her eyes and repeated the word
compassion
over and over again. It was the only sane approach when dealing with her mother. They were two grown women and Lexie had all the advantages. To resent or blame Mitzy for Lexie's childhood would be a pointless act of adolescent whining. Lexie was in charge of her own life, and the past—how her parents had parented her—was no longer relevant.

Lexie tapped out a text to Amy:
Found out my dad died a few months ago. Feels like a splinter compared to the axe in my heart from Dot.
Lexie copied the text and sent it to Daniel, too. How strange that she already felt as close to him as to Amy.

Lexie clicked back to the last text Daniel had sent her. Simply seeing words he had written gave her a feathery feeling in her chest. Impulsively, Lexie leaned in and kissed the phone right where the text lit up the screen.