I'm Not Your Other Half (10 page)

I was outraged. We were talking about Kit dying, and he was there making paper airplanes and talking hormones. “There is nothing hormonal about getting irritated with you,” I said furiously, keeping my shout to a whisper so the entire restaurant wouldn't overhear. “And there's no reason to bring Judith into anything. You want to know about periods? You want to know about menstruation? You want a physiology lecture?”

Michael blanched. “No. We had health in seventh grade and that was enough for me. I'm just trying to understand, Fraser. It seems to me every time I do the right thing, it's the wrong thing. Like visiting Kit. You went and drove your folks both to work and fussed around getting an official class cut so you could drive into the city and back before you had to get your father and mother from work. But Fraser, if you'd told me, I'd have borrowed Judith's car and taken you and there wouldn't have been a fraction of the trouble. It's like you driving up to the University Library without telling me. I'd have taken you. But no. The day after you visited Kit, you didn't even call me. You just left. I phoned your house Saturday morning, and your mother says, Oh, didn't Fraser tell you? She's going to do research and won't be back till after supper.”

Saturday had been a queer day. Half of me was fascinated by Eliza and thrilled by the college atmosphere. Eliza was more interesting than anybody could have guessed, and every time I glanced at all the college kids I got a tingle of excitement knowing I would be one of them, right here, in another year. But half of me was in agony, remembering Kit at every page turn, thinking,
Will she die? And if she lives, will there be brain damage?

One poor little girl, who was dancing around at the top of the stairs and lost her balance. Oh, God, surely she deserves another chance to dance. Please God let her be all right.

I would read more about Eliza. About how she married Mr. Pinckney, whom she had adored from afar for years, and how she raised a son who became a signer of the Constitution of the United States.

And I would think, Kit could be an Eliza. Kit had—
has, has
—potential. Character. Determination. Don't let her die, God. If You go and let her die, I won't forgive You.

And I would think of all children in the world who don't have a chance, and all the terrible wars I researched last year that were still going on, and all the deaths that shouldn't be. Tears would drip onto the page about Southern plantation life and wrinkle the paper in curly bubbles.

It was Annie I wanted to talk to. But I couldn't reach Annie. Literally. Every time I telephoned, her mother told me Annie was off with Price somewhere. I felt like a person dialing 911 in an emergency and the line was busy.

I talked to my mother, but she can't bear to hear about children who die young. She kept shivering and saying, “I'm sure the child will be all right, Fraser, let's just don't worry so much.”

I wanted to talk about motherhood and childbirth and nurturing and all the things that Mrs. Lipton had done for Kit and what was the point? Where had it all led, if Kit was to die at age seven?

But there was no one, so I kept it inside.

Michael pummeled the ice shards at the bottom of his glass with a straw, as if it were a jackhammer. The straw bent like a broken leg. “I don't see why you don't come to me first,” he said. “Isn't that what this is all about?”

We were sitting across from each other, which was a mistake. We couldn't snuggle, we could only look into the angry features opposite. “What is what all about?” I said. I knew I was starting a fight. I knew I was being unfair.

“Us,” said Michael.

“Has nothing to do with Kit Lipton,” I said. I felt better, being obnoxious. What's the matter with me? I thought.

“It seems to me you're too emotional over everything,” said Michael.

“Too
emotional? A little girl I liked very much may die any hour and I'm
too
emotional?”

Michael set his jaw. He was wearing a heavy wool shirt, and the collar hadn't been ironed; it kept flapping, and each time he turned his head from me in anger, the collar point scraped his cheek and he had to shove it down. Another time, a more loving time, I'd have walked around the booth and gotten in next to him and tucked the collar inside his pullover sweater so it would lie quietly. Now I was perversely glad that at least something was bothering Michael.

“You're the first girl I've dated for any length of time, Fraser,” said Michael at last. He was so fidgety he could hardly sit there. I knew he wanted to drive off and abandon me. Only the fact that I would have no way to get home was preventing him. “I admit I don't understand. I admit I have different attitudes than you do about a lot of things, but—”

“All you care about is
you
!” I said fiercely. “Have you even asked me how Kit is? No. All you care about is who drove the car. Have you asked whether I got lots of research done? No. All you care about is I didn't have your permission to do it.”

“That's not true,” he said. “You didn't need permission. I'm not some creep who expects you to have my consent every time you turn around. I'm just dating you, Fraser. I want to spend time with you. Especially Saturdays. Especially free afternoons. It seems to me that common courtesy—”

“See? You
still
didn't ask about Kit.”

Michael sank back. His face became absolutely immobile. His breathing was so controlled I could not see his chest rise or fall. “Okay,” he said quietly. “How is Kit?”

But I didn't tell him. I kept the fight going. I said, “What, I have to give you orders to get you to exhibit a little concern?”

He ceased to look in my direction at all. He began folding and refolding the paper airplane, pressing the creases down with his thumb nail and then reversing the fold.

Oh, Michael, I thought, I'm not angry with you. I think I'm angry with God, for letting Kit fall down stairs. Maybe I'm really angry with Kit, for being clumsy. Maybe I'm angry at my mother for being afraid to talk about death, or at Annie for being too busy to consider what happened.

The anger seeped out of me. We sat silently in the booth, exhausted. I told myself to make an effort to repair things, but I didn't. I told myself to touch his hand and let the power of touch start the repairs, but I didn't reach out.

“Hey, what do you know?” Price boomed in my ear. “Told you we'd find them here, Annie.” Price slipped in next to me, and I had to shift over to make room for him. Annie sat next to Michael. She was flushed with pleasure. It was fairly warm out; spring was approaching; her light jacket was unzipped, and she was a riot of colors—a rainbow sweater, an electric-blue jacket.

“It's Monday,” I said to Annie. “How come you're not at your violin lesson?”

“I'm only taking every other week now,” she said. “It was getting to be too much to keep up with.”

If I had been sitting on the outside of the booth I'd have left. I would just have started walking, even though it was miles. But I was fenced in by Price, and by my former best friend, and by Michael.

My former best friend.

Their talk swirled around me. Two people having fun. One struggling to regain his equilibrium. And me, completely removed.

Annie was no longer my best friend.

In a dark booth at Vinnie's, part of my life ended. The other half of that life didn't even notice. She had become half of a couple, a piece of Price Quincy; and if there wasn't enough left for her violin, there certainly wasn't enough left for me.

“Listen,” said Price, as if we had any choice, with his loud sharp voice. “This time my father managed to get four tickets to the ice-hockey game. Last one of the season. Two fantastic teams. It should be wild.”

“I hate ice hockey,” I said. “It's too violent.”

“But they choose to be violent,” said Michael. “They know they're going to lose a few teeth and they figure it's worth it in order to play. It's not like war on innocent civilians, Fraser. Those guys want to be out there bashing each other's heads as often as the puck.”

Annie said, “Price and I went and it wasn't as bad as I thought, Fray. Hardly any blood at all. And the rest of the game is really exciting.”

“Oh, Annie!” I cried, at the worst possible time, in the worst possible company. “I can't bear how you've changed. What happened to you? How can you be like this?”

There was a long silence.

Price and Annie just looked at me. Blankly. It was a mark of how our friendship had dissolved that Annie did not know what I was talking about. Michael said, “She's upset about Kit Lipton, that's all.”

It wasn't all, but I was glad he had rescued me. It was a good excuse for saying something ugly; it would absolve me.

“Did you get in to see her?” said Annie. “I heard they weren't allowing visitors or I'd have tried to go, too.”

“I called her parents for special permission. They remembered me from Toybrary and agreed. Kit looks awful. Lying there like a frozen bundle of arms and legs, perforated with tubes and monitors. She looks dead already.”

Michael's hand went across the table to me and we clasped fingers. Mine were cold, his warm. I marveled at the power of touch.

“Oh, Fraser,” he said. “No wonder you feel so rotten.”

Annie said, “I wish there were something we could do. I feel so helpless. Doctors can't help, though, so neither can I. Price, this little girl was such a sweetheart. So bouncy. When she took a toy from Toybrary she hugged it to her heart as if it were the answer to her prayers. We adored Kit.”

Price nodded. “I'm not that crazy about little kids,” he said. “I'm just as glad you're not involved with Toybrary any more. It must have been boring.”

“Well, it was in a way,” said Annie. “Where are the seats at the Coliseum, Price? Are they good ones?”

“You kidding? Would my father get crumby tickets?”

Annie giggled. “Of course not.”

I've lost my best friend, I thought again.

In Toybrary, I watch a lot of little boys and girls. Boys never chatter. They exchange, they demand, they argue, they leave. But girls are apt to share emotions. Even when a toy is popular with both sexes—say, an old-fashioned toy, like the wonderful wooden Pinocchio marionette—the boys simply bring it back and set it down, whereas the girls tell you how they put on a little play. They'll even discuss the theme of the play—like say, getting lost and being found.

Boys seemed to me more essentially alone. Girls knew early on that good friends made a good toy or a good thought better.

Kit probably had a good friend, I thought. Katurah is probably angling for one, too. Katurah probably already knows that an older brother is all very well, but what a girl needs as her first line of defense is a friend. At Katurah's age, friends wouldn't share anything more important than broken crayons, but she'd be in training for the day when she had hoards of little girl friends and out of that hoard would come one, as Annie had come to me, just to talk to.

My mother and I have had the worst fights in our family, but we've had the best times, too. With my father, everything is so brief, so quickly summarized. He thinks a subject should be discussed once and then neatly packaged with a closing ribbon like “You'll grow out of this, Fraser”; “You won't even remember this next year, Fraser”; “Everybody feels that way, Fraser.” And then he believes the topic is closed.

But nothing is ever closed. No wound heals completely. The hurt of being left out, the shame of publicly failing, the ache of knowing that you're not expert enough to get what you want in a school with so much competition—these don't go away easily. The wounds need to be tended to. That's what a best friend is for. Tending.

That night I cried myself to sleep.

But I did not know if I was weeping for Kit, dying in a big-city medical center. Or for a friendship that was slipping away before I could catch it. Or for my own confusion over Michael—my never-fail technique at ripping apart the only good relationship I had ever had with a boy.

I
T WAS A SECOND
Wednesday—for years, Needle N Thread night at our house. But now Mom was home. “Mom?” I said.

“Yes, dear.”

“Don't you miss Needle N Thread?” I'll get her talking about her friends, I thought. Then we'll move into talking about Annie. About what's happened. About whether I'm the one who's crazy or Annie is. I won't aim for talking about Kit tonight; Mom can't handle that.

“Yes, I do,” she said. “It was an awful lot of fun. After all these years, we knew each other so well. You can be so much more productive sitting around, talking, while you do your needlework. I always felt sort of warm. Sort of Early American. Like a quilting bee.”

“But Mom, if you liked it so much, why did you quit?”

We were in the kitchen. Our kitchen was poorly designed. It has one long wasted wall with no counters, no space for a table to press up, no shelves because the corridor effect is too narrow. My mother wanted it to be an interesting wall, to make up for being a stupid wall. For years she bought old mirrors at tag and antique sales. She has seventeen large, and I don't know how many small, mirrors on that wall. Old primitive frames and narrow curlicued frames, speckled black reflections and quivery old glass. I looked at my mother and myself over and over, different sizes and angles in the mirrors. It made me queasy.

“Well, your father is home. If I have a choice, I like to be with your father.”

“But he's just watching television. You're in here making tomorrow's dinner ahead.”

“Well, I don't literally have to be in his arms, Fraser. It's just nice being together. I like being home when he's home.”

“But don't you miss your friends?”