Night Blindness (7 page)

“Oh God,” I groaned.

D.J. came back with two menus. “Thank you.” I could hear the soft slur in my voice. “Maybe we should eat something.”

“We'll have the shrimp satay and caprese salad,” she told him. She shoved the menus across the table so he'd leave, then leaned in and whispered, “But that's not what I wanted to tell you.” She took a sip of her drink. “I want to have a baby.”

I spit out my mojito. “A human baby?”

She nodded. “I was fucking Philip and wifey, and they had pictures of their kids everywhere and their finger-painted artwork, and I just, you know, I'm ready for it. The husband, the spit-up, a house with, you know, food in the fridge.” She ate the mint leaf off my plate and a tiny fleck of green stuck to her glossed lips. “And I'm not getting any younger.”

“Mand, we're not even thirty.”

“I know, but don't you remember our master plan?”

We'd sat in her blue bedroom with those Jane Goodall prints on the wall and made a pact about being married with babies by the time we were thirty. “It was just a silly dream,” I told her. “We were fifteen.”

“And now we're not.”

I sat there, stunned. Of all the people I knew, Mandy was the last girl I thought would want a baby. She was so … free. “But you're allergic to serious.” She'd been the new girl at school our sophomore year. I existed mostly in the world of Will and Ryder, but she was so easy to chat with when we had study hall together or when I saw her at lunch. After Will died, she was the only person I talked to.

I'd almost convinced myself that just because my wild single friend didn't want a baby, neither did I. As if reading my thoughts, she eyed my belly, which felt concave. “I'm surprised Nic hasn't knocked you up yet.”

Nic's lazy drawl echoed in my head:
We can't fuck on the counter with a kid staring at us.
“You know he doesn't want kids.”

“That's a red flag.”

I groaned again. “Mand—”

“No, I'm just saying.” She put up her hands in defense. She sort of hated Nic for taking me away to Greece and marrying me and then hiding me away in Santa Fe. “Don't you ever think about it?” she asked. When I didn't answer, she said, “J.J.?”

“Actually, this thing with my dad has gotten me thinking.” Mandy's green eyes went wide. “We don't have all the time in the world.”

“You know what I think—” She put her chin in her hands.

“I know what you're going to say, and it's bullshit. ‘Everything happens for a reason'—that's what the minister said at Will's funeral, and it made me want to throw up.”

“Suit yourself, J.J. But you'll see.”

My phone rang, and I dug in my handbag for it. “It's Ryder,” I told her. “Let me make sure my dad's all right.”

“He's fine,” Ryder immediately said when I answered.

“Mandy's back from Madagascar,” I told him. I twisted my wedding band. “We're at Liv's”—I smiled at her—“and we're a little drunk.”

“Same as it ever was.” I could hear the laugh in his voice. “I just got off. There's a band playing at Bar tonight.”

I covered the phone and whispered this to Mandy. She crossed her arms over her chest. “I just got you to myself, and now he's going to steal you away?” And then louder: “No fucking way, Ryder.”

“I think that's a negative,” I told him.

“Okay, Miss Jenny.” He sounded a little sad. I was, too.

“Sorry,” I said, and before I could keep the words from falling out of my mouth, I added, “I'll call you later.” I hung up and tossed the phone back in my bag.

D.J. set our plates in front of us. “Anything else?”

“We're fine,” Mandy told him. When he was gone, she leaned across the table. “You're going to call him later?”

I closed my eyes. “Hang on, I'm still trying to picture you in sweatpants with baby poo on your sleeve.” I opened my eyes. “Mandy, I love Nic.” I picked up my fork.

She twirled a few hairs around her finger and watched me. “The same way you loved Ryder?”

Typical Mandy, just lay it right out. “Look how well that turned out.” I slid a shrimp off the skewer.

“Oh, girl.” She picked up her own fork. “If you hadn't run away to boarding school, he would have loved you until eternity ended. After you left, he used to follow me around Hamilton, asking if I'd heard from you. I almost couldn't wait for him to graduate”—she winked at me—“except he was so cute.” I watched her drizzle olive oil on a tomato.

After that day I'd tried to tell Jamie what we'd done, I swore I'd never tell anyone about Will. And then I'd taken off for Andover without explanation. But now, a little drunk, sitting across from Mandy in that old restaurant where we used to go on our birthdays and double dates, I watched her toss a shrimp tail on her bread plate and suddenly wondered why not. Why hadn't I told her? Maybe Mandy, who slept with married men and their wives and hung out with crocodiles in the Amazon, would understand, and then she'd know why I could never be with Ryder again. Because if I was with him, every night I would lie awake thinking about what we'd done to Will, and every morning I would get up having to face it again.

D.J. came toward us, holding a small round tray above his head. On it were two shots with gold flakes floating in them.

“Goldschläger,” he said, his hair over his eyes like a teenager. “Good news,” he told Mandy. “I got off early. If you want me, I'm all yours.”

Her mouth opened in an O. “Actually, you'll get off later.” She said those things without even trying. Everything, even his ears, turned red. As he walked away, she said, “Oh shit, and I told you to blow off Ryder.” She put her napkin on the table and turned toward the wait station. “I'm going to tell him to forget it.”

“God no.” I pulled at her arm so she'd sit. “Go forth and start a family.” I giggled. “He's good mating material.”

“Oh, bite me,” she said. “I know how to let a boy down.” She started to get up again. “I've been doing it since grade school.”

“Please,” I said. “I'm too drunk to stay out anyway.”

“You could come with us.”

“No way.” I was done with threesomes the night we played with poor Timmy. “Take Boy Wonder home, have a ball.” I took a sip of the shot. Cinnamon. “Are you ovulating?”

She rolled her eyes. “How will you get home?”

“Cab,” I said. “I love cabs. There aren't any in New Mexico. None that I'll get in alone anyway.”

She picked up her shot.

“One, two, three,” I said, and we downed them.

I was in a lovely drunken glow, as if I were watching myself from the ceiling. Ryder's voice kept coming back to me as if no time had passed, as if I'd never married the art professor and was now in the business of modeling nude for whoever would have me.

“I'm so glad you're home,” Mandy said. “Even if it is for a shitty reason. We're going to have so much fun.”

D.J. came back wearing faded jeans and a tight black T-shirt. He gave Mandy a hunky smile.

“Where's the check?” I asked him. I couldn't quite control my tongue.

“On the house,” he told me.

Outside, I stood on the sidewalk and took my phone out of my bag. “Hey,” I said when Ryder answered. “Will you come get me?”

*   *   *

The next thing I knew, I was sitting at East Rock Park with my feet dangling over the stone wall. Far below, the lights of New Haven spread out like stars. Ryder had his arm around me, and I was leaning against him. The sky had gone an inky black, and clouds shifted across the moon, but it all looked unfocused, blurry. Not because I was drunk, but because of my night blindness.

“Do you remember?” he was asking me. A hundred feet above us, the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument was a fuzzy outline. The year before Will died, Ryder and I had climbed the eighty-seven steps to the top. It was the first time he told me he loved me.

“I remember this.” I made a peace sign and put my fingers over my heart. It'd been our secret code, our silent
I love you.
Whenever Will went to the bathroom while the three of us were watching a movie or when we were at his football games, Ryder and I would sign back and forth.

He smiled and picked his hand up like he might do it back, then stopped. “I had a patient once who was a sign-language translator. I actually asked her if that's how you say ‘I love you.'”

I wanted to tell him that wasn't the only thing I remembered. As if reading my mind he said, “I remember everything.” He was watching me.

I put my hand back in his jacket pocket. I'd put on the coat when we parked, soft, camel hair, not something he would have ever worn when we were kids. It was about seven sizes too big, and while we'd walked, arm and arm, up the steep slope to the top, I'd felt around in the pockets. I didn't know what I wanted to find, but all I got was a crumpled wrapper.

“Jenny, look at me,” he said now.

I glanced at him, but his eyes were too intense. I made myself look away, at the monument. I knew that below it, carved in stone, were the cardinal virtues. I'd learned about them in ethics class: prudence, justice, temperance, and courage. I was exercising none of them.

“Tell me what you think about us,” he said.

“There is no us.” There was something frightening about Ryder. He was still the same boy who had taught me how to skip stones at Breakneck Lake, but with his sport jacket and banker haircut, it was like he was trying to be someone else. Or maybe he was and I just wanted him to be like he was before. Even the way he walked was controlled; everything was safe. Ironic as it was, the fact that he was safe scared the shit out of me. I tried to find my way to standing but lost my balance.

“Are you going somewhere?” he asked.

“I need to get home. My parents are going to wonder—”

“I called them.”

“You what?”

“Why are you doing this?” He watched me.

“Doing what?”

“Avoiding, Jenny.”

I gave up trying to stand and lay back on the wall. My head felt thick. “I'm not avoiding.” I thought of Luke on the piano bench.
You're afraid.
If I rolled left, I'd topple to the city below. I could feel Ryder's eyes on me.

“It sure feels like you are,” he said. “Escaping to boarding school, eloping to Greece.” I'd hardly ever heard Ryder angry; he'd always been laid-back, rarely in a bad mood. Now his voice sounded stilted, wrong, not rising, but getting lower. “Coming home in your flowy skirts and your long hair and calling me only when you're drunk.”

The back of my throat tasted acidic. I remembered rolling down the window in his Audi on the way to East Rock, leaning my head out for fresh air. “And you're trying to save people who can't be saved,” I said. “It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out why you chose that career.” This struck me as so funny or so terrifying, I started laughing. But underneath was a sliver of desperation; something inside me was screaming.

“How come you never wrote to me?” I heard him ask.

I quit laughing and opened my eyes. I felt light-headed, like I might blow away. The sky was deep purple and charcoal gray, and it kept moving. “It's not like you wrote to me,” I said. “And all those years coming to see my parents, you never asked them for my phone number?”

“Your dad told me about Nic.” He said it evenly, like he was trying to keep something out of his voice. “I wasn't about to fuck that up for you. And you made it crystal clear you didn't want to talk to me.”

I thought of Ryder, standing at my bedroom door a few nights before I left for Andover, his face pale, his eyes dark. “If I promise we'll never tell your parents, will you stay?” His voice had been shaking.

“
Who let you in?” It was a ridiculous question; he'd been coming to the house forever. In the corner was a box of photographs and notes from him. Will's football jerseys, clothes, and posters were stacked neatly in the garage. My parents had stripped our house of Will. And I had removed all evidence of Ryder from my room.

He came in and closed the door. “Why are you running away?” He was wearing a sweatshirt I'd brought back for him from Florida. “We need each other.”

I picked up a Doors CD he had given me and winged it against the wall like a Frisbee. The plastic case cracked in two. “You need another girlfriend,” I told him. “That's what you need.”

I remembered the quick, sharp pain when he'd grabbed my wrist. “We didn't do anything wrong.” His voice was low, vicious. “Will overreacted.”

“You're hurting me.” I tugged my arm free. I could feel tears coming, hot and ready. I turned back to straighten the rest of the CDs so they all faced the same way. It was suddenly very important to me that they were lined up right.

“Jenny.” I didn't answer. “Jenny, talk to me.” But I couldn't. “Jenny, goddamn it, I love you.” I kept stacking the discs in perfect order until he left.

A plane passing overhead startled me out of the memory. Ryder was watching me. “I just want to know.” He'd nicked himself shaving, and in the moonlight, he looked so fresh-faced. He'd always had a little scruff before. “What do you think about when you lie awake at night under that big Santa Fe sky?”

The question surprised me and my answer slipped out without my wanting it to. “I never stop thinking about what we did.”

He quit blinking. Quit moving altogether. “It was an accident.” He said it as if I were a child, like he was telling me not to go in the road, not to touch a hot stove.

“Accident or not”—I studied the tassels on his loafers—“it was our fault.”

We stayed that way for a long time, Ryder looking at the city he'd never left and me lying on the stone wall, watching his back. I thought maybe we'd stay there until the sun came up, but after a while he said, “Let's go.”