Love and Other Unknown Variables (19 page)

5.5

O
nce Charlotte is sleeping, I slip off to my room. My nerves are buzzing, making me jittery. I need a good distraction. I could finish that physics chapter I was reading earlier, but for some reason it doesn’t appeal to me. I pace my room a few times and notice my backpack half-slung under my bed. I drag it out and fish inside for the novel I stole today.

I collapse on my bed with Ms. Finch’s copy of
To Kill A Mockingbird
. I smell the aging paper and hear the spine crackle, like it had under Ms. Finch’s careful fingers, as I open the book and am transported from my world to hers.

There are inscriptions on the title page:

To Charley: You are old enough to understand real courage.

For my Jo: You need this now.

I look more closely at the ink drawings in the margins, illustrations of the story. They are beautiful and intricate and each one is overflowing with something. Some tangible feeling. This is how Charlotte sees the words.

Between the illustrations, in a cramped script, are poems, each one a snapshot of the people in the story. This is how Ms. Finch sees the words.

The book is a conversation between sisters. A love letter.

I know the right thing to do is to return the book right this instant. Drive to Ms. Finch’s house and slide it in the damn doggie door. But I don’t.

I read.

I read through what remains of the night, hearing the characters in my head and seeing them on the page before me in beautiful details. Scout scowling in class as the teacher instructs her to stop reading so she can learn to read = loss. But then Atticus encourages her to continue, to do what’s right for her = win.

Jem wriggling out of his pants in his escape from the Radley yard = loss. Then the pants appear, patched and everything, and the kids begin to realize they have a secret ally = win. Crazy Mrs. Dubose and her Camellias. Well, that’s a big win.

Atticus defends Tom in court and I’m sure he’ll win. But Tom is found guilty.

Loss.

Tom Robinson’s life ends as he’s running to save it.

Loss.

Bob Ewell falls on his knife.

Loss.

Boo Radley saves Jem.

Win.

But goes back into hiding.

Loss.

I can’t figure out how Atticus stays so strong. Why doesn’t he flip the hell out? Everything is falling apart, but he’s as calm as he was the day he taught Jem about courage, not by staring down a gun barrel at death, but by standing by a person he admired as she died.

I read until the sun rises and filters through the white blinds in my windows. When I finish, I am so filled with the story, I feel alive. And I want to share the feeling with Charlotte.

Becca reads in her nest beside the bed where Charlotte is still asleep. It would be cruel to wake her, so I sit next to Becca with the book in my lap and wait.

“Morning,” Becca murmurs. Instead of looking at me, her eyes lock on the book in my hands. “You’re reading?”

“Have you read this?” I show her the cover.

“More than a dozen times.” People do that? Becca takes it from me and continues, “I’ve never seen one with such lovely illustrations.” She squints at the margins then looks up at me with wide-eyes. “Whose is this?”

“Teacher.” I shrug, but it looks more like a spasm.

“Charlie,” she breathes in an exasperated huff. She flips to the front of the book and reads the inscriptions. “Did Ms. Finch let you borrow this?”

“Sure.”

“Un-huh. Does Charlotte know you have it?”

I snatch it back from her.

“That’s what I thought,” she says, blanching at my rough treatment of the book. Her face gets a hard look about it I’ve never seen before. She points her finger at me like mom. “You listen to me, Charles Hanson, and you listen good. If anything happens to this book, you’ll have to answer to me.”

I grin. Just a tiny one because, who is she kidding? She takes the finger she’s wagging at me and pokes me in the chest, hard. “I’m. No. Joke,” she says, punctuating each word with another hard jab.

I nod, my grin slipping away. I flip through the pages again. “He didn’t win, Bec.”

“No. Atticus failed.” She sighs, dropping her head onto my shoulder. “That’s what makes the story so good.”

I scoff. “How is it good to lose? No wonder I hate reading. Literature is weird.”

Becca laughs. “Sometimes life is like that, you know. It smacks us when we’re down. The brave get back up. At least, they do in the books.”

“Atticus is seriously kickass.”

“Duh,” she says, rolling her eyes at me.

I rest my cheek on her warm, brown hair. “What are we supposed to do now?”

“Be brave,” she whispers, tucking her hand in mine like when she was three and I was five and our biggest fear was thunder.

5.6

T
he doorbell rings that evening as I’m putting the last of the dinner dishes in the dishwasher. Mom and Dad, lounging on the couch, shout, “Not it!”

“You guys are serious slackers tonight,” I say, drying my hands on a dishtowel. I snap it at them as I walk by the couch, and they both laugh.

“Some of us woke up before two in the afternoon,” Dad says, tweaking his mouth to one side, his mustache following suit.

Tossing the towel over my shoulder, I open the door.

“Merry Almost Christmas,” Charlotte cries. Her nose is pink from the cold and she’s holding a large stack of presents, the top one threatening to fall at any second. She looks much better than this morning. I was excited to see her wake up, but she was more concerned about not puking on me than talking books. Becca cleaned her up and took her home.

“Oh, wow, uh, Merry Christmas.” I step inside holding the door open. “Can I help you with those?”

“I don’t know, can you?” Her face lights up.

“You have to stop,” I say, catching a present as it topples.

“It’s hard to resist, but I’ll try.”

Charlotte brought us all gifts before she leaves for her dad’s. Becca opens a handmade copy of
The Velveteen Rabbit
, one of her favorites from childhood. Charlotte illustrated the story in bright watercolors and pen and ink sketches. The brown rabbit in the illustrations has Becca’s eyes. Inside, Charlotte inscribed it:
For Becca, who is indeed a Real girl.
Both Becca and Mom cry over each beautiful page.

While they are busy sharing the book, Charlotte hands me a flat package saying, “Merry Christmas, Other Charlie.”

I mean to smile, but end up frowning at the present instead. “I didn’t get you a gift,” I say.

Charlotte’s smile doesn’t fade. “I have everything I need. Open this, and use it well. It’ll be your present to me.”

I hold her gaze for as long as I can before it hurts too much. I tear back the paper revealing a journal. The pages are blank inside, but on the cover Charlotte has drawn a complicated pattern of birds beginning with a point in the center and radiating outward. Each set of birds gets smaller as they approach the edge of a large circle.

“What is this?” I say, tracing one of the birds.

“It’s a mockingbird.” My head snaps up to study her, but she’s still looking at her work. There are so many questions.

“Mockingbird?”

“There’s one outside my window at Jo’s house. Sings even in the middle of the night. Unusual birds, but I do love them.”

I swallow a knot in my throat. “But what is this?” I ask trying to indicate the piece she’s drawn as a whole.

Charlotte smiles, this wide glorious thing that makes my brain hum. “It’s a fractal.”

The humming in my head speeds to my chest; filling it with so much sound it may explode. “You know what a fractal is?”

Charlotte wrinkles her nose. “Not exactly. Becca explained it to me.”

“Becca Hanson? My sister explained fractals to you?” Becca looks up at her name. Noticing the book in my hand, she smiles even more widely.

“Of course,” Charlotte says. “All I remember is something about repeating patterns and infinity. Oh, and there’s some geometry in there, too.”

“Ya think?”

Charlotte chuckles, and tucks a curl behind her ear. “I learned to draw one by studying M.C. Escher. You’ve heard of him, right?”

I try to focus. I try not to pull the errant curl back out so it can curl along her cheekbone again. “Escher’s the dude with the stairs.”

“Yep. Pretty amazing what happens when you combine math with art.”

I trace the flying mockingbirds as they soar outward in an infinite plane.

“You’re the amazing one.” I say it before I even think it. It’s like the humming inside of me couldn’t stay contained and what it sounds like on the outside is “Absolutely amazing.”

Charlotte quirks an eyebrow as her cheeks flush. It makes her even more irresistible so the feeling of wanting to pull her into a kiss comes rushing back.

Unfortunately (or fortunately—I don’t know anymore), Becca throws her arms around Charlotte, tackling her back into the couch pillows with a hug. “Thankyouthankyouthankyou,” she’s murmuring as she squeezes Charlotte. “Come on,” she says, dragging Charlotte up to her room.

Studying the infinite set of mockingbirds that Charlotte has placed in my hands, I begin to understand this one simple truth: the thing I want most in this world is the thing I am most assuredly going to lose—Charlotte Finch.

I
take my journal up to my room and brood over it. Charlotte said I should use it well, but I have no idea what that means. I dig in my desk drawer for a pen, but I freeze once I’ve found one and am poised to write in the book. For a second, I think I might write out Cantor’s Infinity Proof, but the madness passes. Nothing I could ever write would be equal to Charlotte’s brilliant artwork.

I close the journal and watch the mockingbirds soar on the cover. I begin counting them, but the pattern is so intricate I lose count around eighty every time. I’m not sure how long I’ve been counting when I hear Mom hollering for me from the foyer.

When I reach the bend in the front stairs, I see Mom and Dad and Becca all crowding around Charlotte and wishing her happy holidays and a safe trip. I can’t help but notice how close she’s standing to the ugly, plastic mistletoe Dad hangs up each year. She’s one step away.

Everyone says good-bye and Happy New Year, and I toss in a wave before the door closes behind Charlotte.

My chest thuds with the sound of the lock clicking.

Without a real plan, I run back upstairs and grab the book I stole. I’m out the door in the freezing cold and calling, “Charlotte.”

She meets me on the bottom step of the porch.

“I do have something to give you.”

Charlotte stretches out her hands, and I place her book in them. Confusion flickers over her porcelain features.

“I took it.”

Charlotte thumbs through the book. “Why?”

“I wondered about Atticus.” Charlotte’s expression masks her feelings. I hurry on, “I know now I shouldn’t have taken something so special.” The words pour onto the open pages of the book. I lean closer, choking on my fear and a hungry need to erase all the space between us.

Charlotte’s eyebrows knit low over her eyes. I freeze. She closes the book, and her fingers linger on the spine. “You read it?”

I nod. I’m inches from Charlotte. Ensconced by her perfume.

“And?”

“I liked it.” I cup her face. “A lot.” I can see our breath meet in the cold air. She closes her eyes, tucking an entire ocean behind her lids.

When our lips meet, it’s as if all the answers I’ve been looking for explode and burn in hot licking flames that flare, then smolder. The ashes of those answers blow away, and I realize, I don’t need them. I need this—Charlotte’s warm lips moving against mine, like lines of poetry strung together on a hyperbolic plane. Her tongue caresses my bottom lip, and when I sigh, it is an invitation for her to explore more of me.

Her fingers clasp the back of my neck, pulling me closer. My heart races and my hands ache to hold her. I rest them on her shoulders, but they feel so fragile, too small. I place one on the back of her neck, slipping my fingers under her scarf, but the bones of her spine meet my fingertips and I pull them away. I cup her face again, but by now I’m concentrating on all the wrong things, and Charlotte knows it.

She sinks back on her heels to look up at me, her expression bereft. She went against her better judgment, letting me in even though we said we couldn’t do this, couldn’t hurt Becca, and I let my insecurities take over and ruin the moment. I swallow and try to say I’m sorry, but it comes out as a sigh. I draw my thumb across her cheek and try again, “Charlotte—”

“Charlotte!” Dad’s voice echoes mine as he emerges on the porch. “You forgot—” The words die on his lips. Charlotte’s keys dangle in his outstretched hand.

Charlotte pulls away, her teeth closing around her bottom lip. “Thanks, Mr. Hanson.” She grabs the keys and backs toward her car, waving. “Well, I’ll see you all next year, I guess.”

I watch her drive away, not wanting to face Dad. When I do turn, his look, like everything else, is complicated.

5.7

C
hristmas break sucks. I am drowning my sorrows with cookie dough and cold milk, waiting for Dad’s first batch of cookies to come out of the oven when Mom comes in from getting the mail and announces that a package has arrived. A chill wind sneaks in behind her, but she back kicks the door closed.

Tossing the mail aside, she sets the package on the island. “Cookies?”

“Almost,” Dad says, opening the oven door so the kitchen fills with the aroma of sugar and goodness.

Mom turns her attention back to the package. “Open it, Charlie. Aunt Muriel said she sent you something. Maybe that’s it. Her gifts are so cute.”

I tear open the package without looking at the label as Dad takes the first batch out and sets them on the counter. The cookies look much better than any old package from Aunt Muriel. Last year she sent me reindeer socks.

I abandon the box for a hot cookie instead. Mom opens it for me and reads the enclosed note, her mouth tightening as she’s reading, so her lips all but disappear.

“You’ll want to open this, Charlie,” Mom says as she finishes reading the note. “And for heaven’s sake, let the cookies cool before you eat them.” She removes a little brown box from the package and pushes it into the middle of the kitchen island.

I’ve shoved the piping hot cookie into my mouth, which means I have to chew it with my mouth open to let the gooey steam escape. It’s the best way.

“Whaisit?” I garble through the molten cookie. Mom doesn’t say anything, though. She just watches me. I swallow in one big, burning gulp and tug the string on the gift box.

Inside, laid upon a large, white, starched handkerchief, is the most perfect orange rose I’ve ever seen. Its face is huge and open and soft, and its sweet aroma wafts around me. I’m transported back to the warmth of autumn and the big harvest moon Mrs. Dunwitty loved so much. This is one of her prize-winning roses, perfectly preserved.

Mom hands me the note, which is definitely
not
from Aunt Muriel..

There, in impeccably formed letters on pristine paper, Mrs. Dunwitty rats me out for driving over her garden. The rose is a token of her gratitude for my hard work repairing it. She had it freeze-dried to preserve it for me, which is actually pretty cool. She closed the letter with, “It’s not enough to be your best. You need to be someone else’s best, too. And since I’m old and running short on time, I’ll say it even more plainly so you don’t get confused. Kiss the girl, Jack.”

“You drove over her garden?” Mom asks.

I nod. Behind me, I hear my dad choke on a mouthful of cookies.

“When?” asks Mom.

“I don’t know. Late August?” I say as I brush the tip of my finger along the petals.

“And you didn’t tell us? And you’ve been driving around ever since? What else have you run over?” She’s getting louder with each question.

“Nothing. Just the garden, and I fixed it.”

“That’s good,” says my dad, licking crumbs from his finger.

My mother’s look says, “Not the point.”

Dad clears his throat and continues, “I mean it wouldn’t do to try to sell her house with the garden a mess.”

“Sell her house?” I look up from the rose.

“Haven’t you seen the sign in the yard?”

I haven’t mown Mrs. Dunwitty’s lawn since the first frost, just after Thanksgiving. I suddenly feel horrible for not inventing some other excuse to visit her. Her porch did need repainting. Why didn’t I do that? My thoughts are building to a crescendo.

“No!” Now it’s my turn to shout. “I haven’t seen any signs.”

Dad flicks a look at Mom like my fragile mind may be slipping again. Then he places a hand on my shoulder and explains, “Charlie, Mrs. Dunwitty’s son moved her to an assisted living home. She’s more comfortable this way. Keeping up with her house and garden was just too much work.”

That’s bullshit. Dimwit doesn’t need an old folks’ home. She’s not ready for a place to go and die.

“I’ve got some work to do upstairs,” I say, grabbing the box.

In my room, I sit in the center of my floor with the rose in my lap, its bright moony face peering at me from the box. I feel like an ostrich that wants to stick its head in the sand, but someone’s gone and filled in my head hole so I’m stuck facing all this crap.

Dimwit can’t die. Yes, she’s old, but it doesn’t feel right. She’s a permanent fixture in the neighborhood. She’s always been here with her roses blooming each summer, perfuming the street while she rocks on her porch with the flamingo-ass door, looking at every kid riding by on a bike like he might be her next meal.

Of course, this explains why her yard was looking shabby. And maybe the cane was for real and not just for threatening me with blunt force trauma. And there was the way her skin felt on my arm, dry and brittle, like a breeze might crumble her to pieces and carry her away.

I struggle to remember what she said the day we planted the roses. She smelled the big orange bloom and was transported back to her youth. She said a rose would smell differently to me because my experiences are unique. Actually, what she said was, “Perception is a powerful tool.”

I inhale the aroma of the rose in my lap. It smells like sadness now.