Starry Night (17 page)

 

30

Nolan came home with me.

“Are you sure you want to come in?” We were on the bottom step of the staircase leading up to my house. The cheerful orange pumpkins and nubby gourds sitting on each step were no indication of the shit storm we would find inside. Nolan's nose and lips were rosy from the cold and his dark brown hair was windblown from running through the park.

“Absolutely.”

“My mother can be sort of—” and then the door at the top of the stairs flung open to reveal Dinah, still in her uniform, hand on her hip, head cocked to the side.

“You are going
down
!” she announced, not looking surprised at all that Nolan was standing there. I glared at her.

“Is Mom home?” I whispered loudly as I trotted up.

“Oh yeah, she is, and she's on fire. She had to start knitting because you are so late! It's a total ten.”

“I'm
not
late.” I pulled off my wool cap and looked back at Nolan. We only had four feet of foyer left before we passed through the second door and entered the lion's den.

“Hey, Dinah, I met you last night, I'm Nolan.” Mr. Cool was whispering too. Dinah was the only one speaking at full volume.

“Hi. You have balls of steel showing up here, man.”

“Dinah! Shut
up
!”

“What? You are going to get grounded for, like, ever.
Dad
came home from work to be here when you got home.”

“What?”
The last time Dad had left work early was when Oliver had broken his collarbone at some sort of after-school sports thing. I don't even think Dinah was out of diapers. The second door opened and there was Mom. Her hair had held the blowout from the party the night before, so she looked mad as hell but pretty. She was wearing jeans and a long gray sweater, and in her right hand she was clutching a tangle of knitting needles, chunky yarn, and an unfinished scarfy thing.

“Wren, it is
astonishing
to me that you are late coming home from—what is this?” She stuck out her pile of knitting at to Nolan.

“Mrs. Noorlander, I asked Wren if I could come home with her to talk with you and Mr. Noorlander about last night.” I wished I could have taken one of her needles and stuck it in my eye. I looked up and saw Dad standing behind Mom, holding May's collar so she wouldn't jump all over all of us.

“Dinah, go upstairs and start your math, darling. We have to talk with Wren,” Dad said totally calmly. Too calmly. The dog was not calm.

“But!”

“Go!”
Mom barked at Dinah, who deserved it for being such a smart-ass.

“Aw!” Dinah stamped her moccasin-slippered foot and ran upstairs as Nolan and I started stripping off our outside clothes, me like a guilty dog, and him like he lived there and nothing out of the ordinary was happening. After he hung up his scarf on the hook, Nolan turned around, stuck out his hand to my father and said, “Mr. Noorlander, I don't believe we got a chance to meet last night, sir, but I'm Oliver's friend, Nolan Shop.” They shook hands.

“How do you do,” said my father solemnly.

“Sir, that was a fine party and show you put on last night. Thank you very much for having me.” I gave my mother a quick glance to see the look on her face. Gob-smacked.

“Why don't you two come in. Nolan, this is Wren's mother, Mrs. Noorlander.”

“We met yesterday, David.” My mother did not have a “how do you do” for Nolan.

“Hi, Mrs. Noorlander,” Nolan said cheerfully. Mom looked at him like he had just belched loudly. Dad led us into the kitchen and leaned against the island in the middle. Mom stood next to him. I sat down at the round table and looked at Nolan to sit down next to me, but he didn't. He stood right up in front of my parents. I could see the staircase from where I was sitting, and Dinah's red head was peeking through the balusters at the very top.

“Well, I am at a loss.” I detected a slight New Jersey accent from my mother, like she was so upset she had turned into one of the Real Housewives.

“This is such a nice house,” Nolan said warmly.

“Thank you, Nolan,” my father said politely. “Nolan, we were expecting to speak with Wren alone this afternoon. Wren is our daughter, and I think this is business that belongs in the confines of our family.” I looked at Nolan to see how he would return this cannon of a serve.

“I understand, sir.” The respectful and steady tone he used is
totally
how to talk to my dad. “I just wanted to speak to you and Mrs. Noorlander before you spoke to Wren. I know she is in trouble, but it is my fault, sir.” I saw my father give my mother a very subtle are-you-kidding-me? look.

“You held a gun to her head and took her downtown last night?” my father said.

“No, sir, I didn't, but I don't believe Wren would have ever left the party if I hadn't come up with
many
reasons why it would be a good idea.”

“So Wren has no voice of her own? No common sense? No consideration of others? Is that what you are saying?” my father shot back.

When he takes the reins my mother is quiet.

“No, sir.”

“Wren? What do you have to say to this? Do you blame this boy for your actions or do you want to take responsibility for making everyone's night far more difficult and unpleasant and worrisome than it had to be?” I looked up at the stairs and Dinah was gone.

“I take responsibility, Dad.”

“I should SAY SO, young lady!” My mother couldn't control herself any longer.

“Nan.” That is all Dad has to say to get her to pipe down again.

“Sir, if I may just say something? And then I will respect your wishes and butt out, but may I just say one thing?”

We all were looking at each other in a little bit of amazement that this guy was daring to speak. His brown button-down sweater with suede patches on the elbows and worn blue jeans looked like a suit of shining silver armor to me. Dad held out his hand, saying it was okay for Nolan to take the floor.

“I am
not
suggesting that Wren has no mind of her own. In fact”—he reached out his hand like a politician making a salient and moving argument—“last night, when she was describing why she loved that picture you have of that girl on the second floor…”

Dad and I looked at each other. I mouthed, “The Vermeer.” Dad nodded and turned his focus back to Nolan, who continued. “It was her disarming point of view in particular and her sharp mind that made me want to spend as much time as I could with her, to get to know her better.”

“So why not get to know Wren's beautiful mind down in the party where she belonged?” said Dad.

“Well, I get that. In fact, I question myself why I would want to leave that great party, but I can be impulsive. Sometimes I don't think things through, and when my childhood friend, who is by many accounts a flat-out musical genius…” My father and mother raised their eyebrows, and I almost said something to stop him going down the musical genius road. Neither of my parents approve of the word “genius” unless you are describing Mozart or Darwin.

“I thought Wren would dig it, and I wanted to bring her.” I started to smile. He said “dig it.”

“I made a miscalculation by thinking it would be okay to have her back at home in the same time frame that she would be home from the party, and that was a misjudgment and a mistake. I didn't think it through, and I guess neither did you.” He looked at me. “Right?” I nodded like Scooby-Doo. “I mean, Wren, you were worried, for sure. But what I wanted to say was that, even though it was a mistake and we definitely messed up—we
both
had a strong instinct to do something”—he paused, looking for the right word—“exciting.”

I took in a big breath, besotted.

“We gave into something that, frankly, Mr. and Mrs. Noorlander…” He looked at my mother. “I can't really describe. But I want you both to know, the impulse came from someplace good.” He put his fist to his heart like he was pledging allegiance to the flag. “Not bad, even though it was ultimately wrong.”

“I'm sorry, Dad,” I said. Mom put her knitting down and walked around the butcher-block island toward the stove, wrapping her long gray cashmere sweater around her middle.

“Does anyone want tea?” she said flatly.

“Wren, you must think these things through. You must slow down, and think,” Dad said. I have heard these two sentences my entire life. Oliver is slow—it takes Oliver ten minutes to put his shoes on. I am fast, too fast. I started to cry, knowing he was correct. In. Front. Of. Nolan.

“I feel
bad
I worried Bennet.” I really did feel so terrible about that.

“I bet you do. Maybe you should go see him sometime soon and apologize.” He turned to my mother. “I'll have a cup, lovey. Or write him a letter.”

“I'll do that, Daddy.”

“I will too, Mr. Noorlander.”

“I don't think there is a need for that, Nolan. I'm not sure Bennet knows who you are,” he said with a dismissive formality as he took from my mother a steaming oversize greenish purple-ish kid-made mug. “It is Wren who put him in a terrible position.” He pulled the tea bag string up and down in the boiling liquid. “And it is Wren who has let him down.”

“Nolan.” My mother turned back to the stove. “I admire what you said.”

“Well,” Nolan started to reply. Mom turned and silenced Nolan with her hand.

“But I think you should go now. Wren needs to start her homework and we still must discuss what the consequences of her impulsivity will be. Then Mr. Noorlander needs to go back to the office.”

“I understand.” Nolan looked at me sweetly and then back at my father. “Thank you for hearing me out. I really am sorry.”

I stood up and watched as Nolan walked back to the coatrack, wrapped his scarf carefully around his neck, pulled on his army jacket parka, picked up his guitar, and strapped it on his back. While he leaned over to pick up his backpack, May wiggled and lifted her stubby front legs off the ground for a pat, which Nolan obliged. He even let her lick his cheeks.

“Bye,” he said, standing up. I put my hand up as still more tears fell out of my eyes.

*   *   *

I was grounded until Thanksgiving, which was a little more than two weeks away. No socializing, certainly not with Nolan, and no phone until then. I was suspended from wearing any of my mother's clothes until she decided otherwise, and I had to once again write a letter to apologize for being unthoughtful and taking advantage of a situation, but this time it wasn't to the seventh grade, it was to Bennet.

 

31

That night Dad had a work dinner
so it was only Dinah, Oliver, Mom, and me who sat at the kitchen table and plowed through leftover Viking stew almost in silence. Viking stew is lentil and sausage stew that my mother makes copiously once the weather turns cold. In order to get Oliver and me to eat it as children (Dinah would try anything in that high chair of hers) she told us it was so good for you and hearty that the Vikings ate it before going into battle. That sold Oliver, and as long as she crumbled the sausage instead of sliced it, and used the little black lentils instead of the big green mushy ones, I would eat it too. Dinah stole the dish for the “Winter Comfort Food” episode in her first season on Bravo.

“Isn't a two-part show on Thanksgiving slightly
bor
-ing?” Dinah said, breaking the silence as she ground more black pepper into her bowl. As far as I know, she is the only person under twenty-five who seasons her food with ground pepper.

“What did Wendy say?” asked my mother as she took the pepper grinder from Dinah and started going at it into her own bowl. Wendy is one of the producers on
Dining with Dinah.

“She said Thanksgiving has the biggest ratings in all of food television and we have to make hay while the sun shines.”

Mom's face contorted at the making-hay comment. She's not so crazy about Dinah talking about making money at age ten (I think she thinks it's crass). But she swallowed it.

“Fair enough.” She poured herself a splash more of red wine.

“Turkey, turkey, turkey.” Dinah rolled her eyes and looked around the table for a reaction.

“Do like three stuffings, that's the best part anyway.” This offering was the first thing to come out of Oliver's mouth since he got home. I gave him a meaningful look—about everything that didn't have to do with stuffing, like Nolan and Reagan.

“What?” Oliver said defensively. “Stuffing is the best part.” I didn't respond. Before dinner, Mom had told me that tonight I should just be quiet and think about my actions. I did think two things: one, that Oliver is right about stuffing being the best part of Thanksgiving, but two, that had I given
Nolan
a meaningful look, he would get it and not just think about ripped-up, seasoned bread.

“Wren, are you finished?” Mom asked. “Because I think there is plenty of homework you could be doing upstairs.” I hadn't said a word and she was annoyed at me just for existing.

“Yeah, I'll get on it.” I took a piece of bread from the basket in the middle of the table and placed it in the bottom of my bowl to soak up the last of my Viking stew.

“Oliver, help me clean up supper, okay? I want to talk to you.” My mother was totally going to talk to Oliver about Nolan, and I would have to be three flights away wrestling with math.

“Come talk to me after, will ya?” I said sotto voce to Oliver. He looked at me blankly.

“Wren, I think you should spend tonight staying on target and let Oliver do his own work.” The woman has the ears of a wolf.

I gave Oliver another meaningful look, hoping he would tune in and come up anyway, but for all I knew, he was still thinking about stuffing.