Wish You Were Here (48 page)

Lise had been trying to be nice because of Sam's tooth, and then he couldn't find his damned Game Boy. They were all exhausted.

“It's not in the bathroom?” she asked, because Sarah was taking an endless shower and had thoughtlessly locked the door. Lise had bullied the boys into their PJs and then into their sleeping bags with instructions to brush their teeth when Sarah was done, but had gotten stuck on this one last point. “Could you have left it in the car?”

“No,” Sam said, sure.

But he was always sure. Last winter she'd had to search the school's lost and found for his new ski jacket three times. He couldn't tell her how it had ended up there. Things were never his fault, they just happened to him.

“Did you take it into the restaurant with you?”

“No.”

“Ella, have you seen your brother's Game Boy?”

“No,” she said venomously, as if Lise had accused her of something. She was still angry at him for elbowing her in the mouth while they were horsing around before bed. Her braces had cut her lip and Lise had had to intervene to prevent further bloodshed. It seemed the hardest thing in the world for him to say he was sorry. She wouldn't put it past Ella to kidnap the game in retaliation, but unlike Sam she wouldn't lie right to her face.

The room was a shambles, clothes thrown about, towels on the floor. She was too tired to make them pick up, her patience sacrificed to the drive, the makings of a headache branching like an aneurysm behind one eye. She thought she should take some Advil, but the bottle was in her kit sitting on the back of the toilet.

“Well, if it's not in the car and you didn't leave it at the restaurant, it's got to be around here somewhere. Maybe tomorrow we can clean up in here.”

Sam sighed, unhappy with her answer, but she held back. “I'll look downstairs. I don't see why you need it now because you can't play with it anyway, you've had more than your hour, but I will look for it. In the meantime, entertain yourself with this.”

She took the cheap tin telescope Ken had let him buy from off the low wardrobe and handed it to him. He held it as if he didn't know what it was.

“Good night,” she ordered.

He barely answered, Justin drowning him out. She retrieved her book from the cedar chest, determined not to let him get to her. On her way to the stairs she knelt down and asked Ella if she was okay and she said yes coldly.

In the shadow of the stairwell she composed herself, an actress waiting for her cue. The day had gone fast, thankfully. Her plan was to read for a little and then excuse herself, whether Ken was ready to go up or not. She could have died for a glass of wine, but it was late, and with Meg she thought she ought to be careful. She took a breath and stepped down, turning the knob and letting her weight open the door.

Arlene hunched over the puzzle, a dish of ice cream at her elbow. Meg had taken the far arm of the couch by the light, her legs tucked to one side. Lise noted Emily's absence not with relief but apprehension, as if she were lurking for her. She raked her gaze over the floor but didn't see the bright yellow case.

“Have either of you seen Sam's Game Boy?”

“No,” they both said.

“Is your car open?” she asked Meg.

It was, and when she went out to check she saw the light was on in the garage. Framed by the doorway, Ken was holding up a fat golf bag while Emily wiped it down with a rag.

She snuck by and tried to slide open the door of the minivan quietly, the oiled rollers gliding along the runners. By the dome light she leaned across the old french fries and lollipop sticks bonded to the carpet, involuntarily making a face. She twisted her head to peek underneath the seats but saw nothing except greasy bags and dented cups, straws pushed through their cracked lids. She had to climb in to check the far door pocket, and then the pouches in the backs of the seats, stuffed with trashed maps and atlases.

Kneeling backward on the seat, she thought of calling the restaurant. Information would have the name. She could even picture him taking it on the
Maid of the Mist
—he was that addicted. She wished it was lost. No, because if it really was, Ken would buy him another one, and think her mean if she suggested any different (while Emily could say whatever she wanted and then hold her responsible as the last line of defense). She should have never given in in the first place. TV was bad enough.

“What in the world are you doing in there?” Emily joked, Ken at her shoulder, carrying both bags.

“I'm looking for something of Sam's.”

“If it's his video game, I put it on top of the fridge. It was lying in the grass there. I figured that wasn't the best thing for it.”

“Thanks,” Lise said.

“You could have asked,” Ken said later, in the kitchen, the two of them whispering under cover of the radio. Emily had turned it on, supposedly for the weather. “How could she have known what you were looking for?”

“I don't know,” Lise said, “but I don't like being made fun of. I know you don't think so, but I'm telling you that's how it felt to me.”

“I'm sorry,” he said, as if he could apologize for Emily. And still he didn't see it; he was just trying to appease her. Typically, they ended up mad at each other while Emily skated away untouched.

“Forget it,” she said, not forgiving him but not hard enough to really hurt him either, and took her book into the living room. Sam could wait till tomorrow for his Game Boy.

“Any news on the girl?” she asked Emily.

She held up a hand as if Lise were interrupting her concentration, except the story was something about road construction in Jamestown.

“They haven't said anything yet,” Arlene answered her.

Emily put the hand up to her as well, so that when the newscaster switched to the latest in the continuing case of missing convenience-store clerk Tracy Ann Caler, they could all hear it.

State police investigators were using infrared cameras mounted on helicopters and had brought in specialized K-9 units, but so far they'd turned up no significant leads. The nineteen-year-old Mayville woman was last seen more than four days ago. Today's Jammers game that had been
rained out would be played tomorrow as part of a single-admission doubleheader. The weather would be sunny and warm for a change.

No one spoke until Emily turned it off, and then it was Ken, saying they'd have to wake up early if they wanted to get a decent tee time, as if talking about the girl was bad luck. Lise thought it was morbid the way Emily had adopted her, not that it surprised her.

“Well,” Emily announced, rising, “I think I've had about enough excitement for one day.” She thanked them all for taking her to Niagara Falls, then negotiated a time she and Ken should get going.

“Be quiet leaving,” Lise joked, thinking that would give her the whole morning. The afternoon she would spend on the boat with Ken—but as soon as she caught herself thinking this, she erased it, afraid of jinxing the day. Counting her chickens, as Emily would say.

They all watched Emily go, so when she stopped by the TV and asked if anyone minded if she left the bathroom light on tonight, they all responded, nodding or mumbling.

“The Lerners' alarm must have me conditioned. I keep waking up at three in the morning or some ungodly hour.”

As if anyone cared, Lise thought, and the sour taste of this stayed with her once Emily had brushed her teeth and closed her door.

“Why the big sigh?” Ken asked, beside her.

“I'm just tired,” she said, bypassing any real explanation, and went back to her book.

Harry was learning how to use spells and curses. The rules were confusing, and all the cute names were losing her. She found it hard to believe Ella thought this was funny, and very soon the pages revived her headache and she had to stop.

Around the room, they each sat quietly in their own circle of light, Ken bent over an old
New Yorker,
Meg reading, Arlene intent on her puzzle. In the bathroom, the toilet trickled, refilling, a jet rushing, then suddenly cut off. They had reached the peaceful end of the night, the children down, Emily safely in bed, yet instead of a feeling of release or freedom Lise felt constricted, the darkness pressing at the windows. If it were just herself and Ken it would be different, but the silence, being shared, was almost enforced. To put on the TV would be an affront. There was nowhere to go but outside, and then everyone would watch you leave and wonder where you'd gone and what you were doing.

Across the room, Arlene straightened up in her chair and clicked off her light. She rose and hauled on a padded jacket thirty years out of date, checking the pocket for her cigarettes.

“I'm going to take Rufus for his constitutional, if anyone's interested.”

Lise saw it as an opportunity to excuse herself, telling Ken she was heading up. He seemed disappointed, as if to say, Stay, it's still early.

“Don't be too late,” she said. “Remember you've got golf tomorrow.”

If he wanted to stay up all night with Meg, that was his decision, but upstairs, reading on the pot, she marked the time on her watch.

She'd forgotten the Game Boy on the fridge. It didn't matter.

Harry Potter was boring. She wished she'd bought that Oprah book. She was becoming as cheap as he was.

She set Harry down on the fuzzy crescent rug at her feet and rubbed her hair with her hands, her scalp loose on her skull. With her palms over her ears, she could hear a great trembling like an earthquake, a herd of buffalo a mile away. Why was she so tired? She'd done nothing but sit in the car. Her back hurt from standing in line. She wiped herself and stepped out of her underwear, catching her face in the mirror.

“Oh God,” she said, trying to be funny for someone.

She took three Advil, cupping a handful of sulfurous water to wash them down, the sweet coating lingering after. When she opened the medicine cabinet, her face slid off the mirror. She turned her back on it to brush her teeth.

She decided not to read. She took the side by the wall so he wouldn't have to crawl over her. The sheets were freezing, her headache that much clearer. She could hear the liquid hiss of Ella snoring. She wondered if Ken had a dollar to give Sam from the tooth fairy, because she knew he'd do it anyway, he couldn't be that ruthless. She wasn't either, Sam would discover that soon enough.

She was just frustrated, having to compete with everyone for Ken. She wasn't used to it, or was too used to it here, tired of fighting the same old ghosts. There was always a moment like this during their visits when she felt unstrung, her world provisional, at the whim of primal forces. She had to remind herself that as eternal as these positions seemed, they were temporary, that in a day or two they would go home and all of this would vanish, become nothing but a weekly phone call, or, in the case of Meg, a monthly one. Their lives would go on with minimal interruption. For
whole days they would talk to no one but each other. They'd go to bed and then wake up together, fix breakfast and tend the children, just the two of them, the bills their only worry, and the disasters on NPR.

She thought she should be alarmed at how tightly she held on to that promise, because at heart it was false—their problems were larger than she wanted to admit—and yet she wasn't. The week would end, as it had to. Eventually Ken would come to bed, first turning to her, then rolling over so she could nestle against him. She just needed to be patient, to forget about her watch ticking on the cedar chest. It wouldn't be long.

Without the rain, Arlene realized how loud the night was, how unserene and wild. She loved the peepers over by the marina, riotous, screaming away like frightened birds, the cicadas keeping time in the trees. As Rufus neared the dock, frogs plopped into the shallows, a musical handful of stones, and there, as the trees gave way to the oily calm of the lake, the sky opened up, a bowl of stars.

Arlene stopped and tipped her chin, gawked at them like a child, openmouthed with delight. There were things in life that had a power over her, things that could not be denied—autumn, Schubert, a child who wanted to learn. They restored her faith, she supposed, the same way the Institute had refreshed her mother every summer. This was why they came to the lake, why they muddled through all the crossness and soft water, the lumpy pillows and rainy days. She wanted to run back to the cottage and drag Margaret out to see it, this proof of goodness or reward, but knew that would ruin the feeling, send it fleeing like the brief illusion it was.

On the dock, Rufus waited for her, stock-still, as if she might take off and ditch him.

“You just hold your horses,” she said, and stepped onto the boards, a much different proposition than during the day.

The wind was mild and it was hard to see the water. Rufus went ahead, his nails tapping.

“Oh, now you can't wait for me,” she said, but he kept going, sure of their destination.

The bench was wet. She slicked off a spot with the palm of one hand, but still it soaked cold through her trousers, making her sit up straight and clench a breath. She lit a cigarette and tucked her other hand in her armpit for warmth.

The moon threw a surprising amount of light. It lay puddled on the water, cast shadows of the pilings across the motorboat. Perhaps she'd go out with them tomorrow if there was a spare seat. When Henry first bought it, the three of them used to boom up and down the lake, taking turns at the wheel, leaping wakes and skidding through turns, waving a rooster tail of spray. He stood up to drive, peering over the windshield, bare-chested and wearing his Ray-Bans, a can of beer in one hand. They'd come in sunburnt, bleached blond, the roots of their hair throbbing from the wind. She'd wanted Walter to see her like that, the ravishing beach bunny, but of course he couldn't come up. She told Henry about him, sure he would keep their secret, even if he disapproved, and he did—both disapprove and keep it.