The Beautiful Between (10 page)

“That’s what Connelly helps me with,” Jeremy interjects.

“Connelly,” Mrs. Cole says, and I look at her, thinking she’s asking me a question, but then I realize she’s just considering my name. “It’s an unusual name, isn’t it?”

“It’s my father’s mother’s maiden name.”

“Oh. Irish?”

I shrug. “I guess; I don’t honestly know. The rest of my family’s Jewish.”

“It’s an Irish name,” Mr. Cole says.

I’m nervous that the conversation might dwell on my family, but instead Mrs. Cole says, “My first name—Joan—was my father’s mother’s first name. I wish he’d thought of something as interesting as her maiden name instead. I can’t even remember what it was—isn’t that awful?”

I smile at her.

“And I did the same thing to Kate—my grandmother’s name. Parents should be more creative.”

“Nah,” says Mr. Cole. “Then you’d have kids walking around with ridiculous names.” He looks at me. “No offense, Connelly.”

“None taken,” I say, and I grin, at ease because he teases just like his son.

“You could have named me Staddler instead of Jeremy,” Jeremy says.

“No. Your father was set on Jeremy.”

“Mom, you were the pregnant one. I think you could have had your way.”

Kate speaks up. “She had her way with me. She chose Kate.” She’s been quiet all night; I think she must be exhausted, since she usually talks so easily.

“That’s right, I did,” Mrs. Cole says, as if, without Kate’s having reminded her, she might have forgotten.

I imagine Mr. and Mrs. Cole sixteen years ago, fighting over what to name their son. Maybe she’s lying on her back in bed, barely able to see over her big tummy, and maybe he’s lying with his hand on her stomach, trying to see if the baby kicks when he says a particular name, the name he wants. Jeremy. It’s such an intimate moment. And here are their kids, talking about it like it’s nothing. Maybe my father fought to name me Connelly. Maybe my mother doesn’t even like the name. I would never ask her how they ended up choosing Connelly, whether they fought, why my father wanted it. I wonder if my father was especially close with his mother, and whether this was something he wanted to do for her.

I turn to Mrs. Cole. “Were you close with your grandmother?”

“Oh, I suppose,” she replies lightly. “As close as one can be to someone when there’s such a generation gap.” I’m disappointed with her answer. I guess I was hoping she would give me more information, something I could apply to myself somehow. I hope my father didn’t settle on my name as lightly as that.

I’m pleasantly surprised to find that I’m not at all uncomfortable with the Coles. Kate eats her white rice carefully and I can’t help but remember watching Anorexic Alexis eating her food with the same care, sitting next to Jeremy in the cafeteria, as I am now in his dining room. When we started staring at Alexis ripping lettuce into shreds, then picking the shreds up one at a time and chewing them slowly—I never would have imagined that I’d end up here, with Jeremy, at his home, watching another skinny girl. Kate dips each grain of rice—she eats them one by one—into a pool of soy sauce on her plate. (She’s obviously not scared of spilling like I am.)

The Coles eat small portions—all except for Jeremy, who, like most teenage boys, could eat anyone under the table. Mrs. Cole has one helping of rice and one Peking duck pancake. She takes longer than I do to finish, and I think she must be starving by the time we get up from the table.

“Kate,” Jeremy says, “want to come watch movies with us?”

She nods, and we settle in the den to watch TV. Kate falls asleep lying across our laps on the couch. I’ve never, that I can remember, had someone lie on me while sleeping, and Kate’s weight across my thighs is warm. We’re watching our second movie when Jeremy’s parents stick their heads in to say good night, and his father lifts Kate off the couch to take her to her bedroom. I feel her absence on my legs. The Coles, extraordinary though their circumstances may be—the money, the ill daughter, etc.—seem the picture of a family to me. Like something out of a storybook.

Jeremy surprises me by coming home with me and lighting up outside my lobby like usual.

“You know, my mother said we could smoke upstairs.”

“God, my mom would go nuts.”

“Well, I think the thrill of having a Cole regularly at the house …”

“Shut up.” It’s the first time I’ve said anything to him about his royalty, his social status compared to mine. Jeremy and I grin at each other. I bring my cigarette to my lips.

“Jesus Christ, Sternin, you barely inhale.”

“Hey, I’m here for the company, not the nicotine.”

Jeremy begins to laugh, but his smile drops abruptly and he presses his temples with the thumb and middle finger of his left hand. “Thanks for coming to dinner.”

“My pleasure.”

“I mean it; it was nice having you there.”

I smile, and Jeremy smiles back at me.

While I’m getting ready for bed, I feel like there’s something terrible I’ve done, but I can’t remember what. Like I said something wrong at dinner, or stole an ashtray or something.

It’s awful, but I’m jealous of Jeremy. It’s so wrong to be jealous of someone when the person he loves most in the world is so sick, but I’m jealous of him for having Kate to love. I’m jealous of the way that his parents said good night to us, and I’m jealous of Kate’s legs across his lap. Worst of all, I’m grateful for Kate’s illness. Without it, Jeremy and I wouldn’t be friends.

I get out of bed, walk over to my bookshelves. Without turning on the light, I locate my copy of
A Farewell to Arms
, open it to where I’d stuck that picture of my parents. In the darkness, I can just make out their shapes. I wonder if this is what Jeremy’s parents looked like when they were that age. I put the picture back, put the book back on its shelf, get back into bed.

I remember how empty my lap felt when Kate was put to bed. I imagine Jeremy walking around with that emptiness every day for the rest of his life.

And I’m still jealous.

14

On Saturday, I wake up frantic, my skin itching. Why haven’t I figured it out yet? How much longer will I walk around without knowing the truth about my father?

Jeremy comes over in the afternoon to help me cram for the physics midterm on Monday. My mother’s not home, and for a change we sit in the living room, textbooks spread out on the coffee table. Jeremy’s up on the couch. I’m down on the floor, my legs under the table, and I’m trying to work on the vector problem in front of me, but I can’t concentrate.

“Sternin. Dude.”

I blink. “Huh?”

“You’ve been staring at that problem for hours. Do you want me to walk you through it?”

I look down at the textbook. I actually know how to do this problem. That’s not why I haven’t finished it.

“Sternin?”

I look back up at Jeremy.

“I can’t concentrate.”

“I can tell.”

How come Jeremy can concentrate when his sister is so sick and I can’t concentrate when my father has been dead for years?

“Sternin?”

“I’m sorry, Jeremy. It’s very nice of you to be here helping me, but I’m not paying any attention. You must have somewhere else …” I trail off, because I think he knows what I’m thinking: Why waste any time here with me when you could be soaking up time with Kate?

“I don’t want to go home, Sternin. It’s too hard to be there sometimes.”

“Oh,” I say. Maybe physics is actually an escape for Jeremy, time off from thinking about Kate.

“We can take a break,” he offers.

“It’s hardly a break when I haven’t been working.”

“Well, let’s just give up on the illusion, then.” He reaches for the remote and starts flipping channels.

There’s a reason Jeremy’s my first best friend. He’s the first person I’ve been friends with where there wasn’t this lie about my parents. It’s been so stupidly nice not to have to worry about slipping up; not to have to keep him away so that he won’t get too close, figure out my parents weren’t divorced, see something he wasn’t supposed to. With everyone else, I was so intent on maintaining the story that I never had a chance to think about finding out the truth. He’s the reason I’m going to find out. I want to tell him the whole story. I want just this one relationship, this one friendship, to be real.

“Jer?”

“Hmm?”

“Mute the TV for a second.”

“What’s up?” he asks, putting the remote down.

I slide up onto the couch beside him. “I know you befriended me because you thought I knew about losing someone to cancer.”

“Sternin, we’ve been over this—”

“No, it’s okay. I don’t mind—we’re good friends now.” I take a deep breath. Even now, saying that makes me happy.

I continue: “But I can’t help you.”

“I know, Sternin. You were so young when your dad died.”

“No, Jeremy, there’s more to it.” I pause. “I didn’t know my father had cancer until you told me.”

Jeremy looks at me like I’m crazy. “I don’t understand.”

“I pretended that I’d known. But my family never told me. I don’t know … I never knew how he died.”

“Why didn’t your mother tell you?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Haven’t you asked?”

I don’t answer right away. I don’t want to lie, so I say, “Maybe, when I was younger … I think I always understood that she couldn’t tell me.” I can remember the exact age I was when that became clear, the exact day. Just turned eight years old, just started third grade.

“Why on earth would she want to keep that from you?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Is that why you lied?” he asks. “Is that why you told everyone your parents were divorced?”

“Yeah. It seemed easier. That way, no one would ask questions I wouldn’t know the answers to. I could just make up the answers.”

“And never have to worry about finding out the truth.”

“Until now. This is the weirdest part—now I want to find out.”

“Why is that the weirdest part?”

I purse my lips and then try to explain. “Ever since that night when you told me you knew my father was dead—ever since then, I can’t explain it, I’ve needed to know. I’ve been so curious. Like, physically curious—like, it’s hard to sit still in my bedroom if I know there might be some clue in the living room that I haven’t looked for yet. Uncomfortably curious.”

Jeremy shakes his head. “But, Connelly, that’s not strange.”

“Why not?”

“I guess I think it’s stranger that you never looked before.”

This almost makes me laugh. Is it really more unnatural that I’ve never been curious before than it is to be filled with this alien sensation? Would it have been normal to be filled with it all my life?

“I never needed to know before.” I mean that my body needs to know, that my body actually won’t let me relax until I know.

“But I’ve told you about the cancer, so now you know. Why are you still trying to find things out? You have your answers.”

I shake my head. “No. I don’t.”

Jeremy speaks with certainty. “But it was cancer, I know it. I told you—the oncologist.”

“No, there’s more to it. You said that he said it was a tragic story.”

“I think he meant because of you—you know, a young daughter.” Jeremy’s uncomfortable, I can see, adding that last part.

“No, he’s a cancer doctor. He must see that all the time. There must be something more, don’t you see?”

Jeremy considers this, and I look straight at him as I continue.

“I don’t think cancer killed him. Or at least not the cancer alone. There’s something else that makes it worse. I just have no idea—I can’t even make something up about it.”

Jeremy grins at me. “And we all know that Connelly has an oh-so-active imagination.”

I blush. I don’t know whether Jeremy is joking or if he realizes how true this is. This is the first time in my life that I’ve had so many real things going on, so many things I can’t fantasize my way away from, or out of.

Jeremy continues, serious now. “Maybe your mom thought you were too young to know about death and then, by the time you were older, it seemed like—I don’t know, like she’d gone this long without telling you, so why bring it up?”

“I think there’s something more to it. Think about it, Jeremy—there are no pictures of him up in my apartment. My mother’s mother won’t even talk about him. His own parents don’t talk about him—like about when he was young, old stories. It’s like they’re mad at him.”

“Maybe they’re angry at him for leaving them. I’ve read about that, the stages of grief and all that stuff.”

I shake my head. “No. It’s been too long. They wouldn’t be angry at him for that anymore. Certainly not all of them.” I pause. “It’s not anger. She’s, they’re—scared to talk about him. It feels like something about his death was humiliating, and something about it was, I don’t know, worse.”

I hope Jeremy doesn’t think I mean that my father’s death was worse than mere cancer. Mere cancer is what’s hurting his sister, and I don’t mean that my father’s death was worse for my family than hers would be for his. But Jeremy doesn’t seem to interpret it that way. He’s still thinking of my family, not his.

“Connie, that doesn’t make sense.”

I don’t say anything, and Jeremy opens his mouth like he’s going to tell me I’m wrong again. Then he shuts it. I wonder if he’s conceding the point because I’ve convinced him, or because he just realized that it’s not his place to argue.

“I’m sorry you had to find out like that,” he says. “About the cancer, I mean.”

“I’m sure it never occurred to you that I didn’t know.”

“No. But it should have.”

I open my mouth to protest, but he stops me. “No, Sternin. I come from a family where everyone talks about everything—talks too much, if you ask me. I didn’t even think that yours might be a different kind of family. One where you don’t talk about things like that. It was selfish of me not to think past myself.”

I shrug. “Don’t worry about it. Really,” I add when he looks like he doesn’t believe me. “Anyway, I’m happy I know. Well, I mean, ‘happy’ isn’t the right word.”

“I know what you mean.”

I smile at him. “Okay. Thanks.”

“It’s funny, though. You’d think she’d—I don’t know.” Jeremy thinks for a minute, stretching his long legs out in front of him, crossing them at the ankles. “I don’t know, that she’d have made something up or something. So you’d know—something. Or at least, I mean, why not tell you about the cancer? Then you wouldn’t be searching for some other … some bigger thing.”

I consider this, then shake my head. “No, I don’t think she would.”

“Why not?”

I wait to answer, doing with my body the opposite of what Jeremy is doing with his: curling my arms around my legs, making myself small, resting my chin on my knees. I look at my feet. “I haven’t given her any reason to make something up. She’d only have to do that if I insisted on knowing, if I asked questions, and I haven’t. I made up a lie so that I wouldn’t have to ask her, so that the truth wouldn’t even matter.” I look up at Jeremy. “Plus, I don’t think she’d want to lie to me about it. I think she’d prefer this to having told me a lie.”

Jeremy leans forward, considering what I’ve said. “There’s something kind of nice about that—your mom not wanting to lie to you.”

I nod. “I know. But I need to know the truth now.”

“I understand. I’ll help you, if I can.”

I smile. “I know you will.”

Jeremy sits back again. “Thank you for telling me. I’m glad you feel like … I don’t know, that you can trust me.”

And Jeremy and I smile at each other, and finally I’m able to pick up my physics textbook and complete the problem I’d been staring at for so long. We work for the rest of the day, and Jeremy says he’ll take me out to celebrate if I get higher than an 86.

When I get a 95, we decide it has to be a major celebration. We invite Kate out for ice cream sundaes.

I’m standing in the Coles’ foyer again. It’s very different from the first time—I feel comfortable here now; there’s no chance I’ll be forgotten or ignored. I could have walked all the way inside if no one had been here to greet me. But that’s not what has happened today. Today I’m still in the foyer because I’m waiting to leave, and I’m working up a sweat under my winter coat. Kate is still getting ready because a few minutes ago, Mrs. Cole saw the three of us waiting for the elevator and said that Kate wasn’t dressed warmly enough. Kate didn’t like the coat Mrs. Cole wanted her to wear. So they disappeared into Kate’s room to negotiate what she’d been wearing underneath the lighter coat. Jeremy trotted after them. And so I’m waiting by the elevator.

Mr. Cole walks by and sees me.

“Connelly, how are you?”

“Fine. How are you?”

“Very fine indeed. You waiting for Kate?”

“Yup.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. She’s become pretty picky about what she wears since she lost her hair—I mean …” He seems flustered suddenly, to have said it so simply. I feel sorry for him and interrupt.

“Hey, twelve-year-old girls can be very stubborn about their sense of style,” I say, as though I don’t know that this is a bigger deal than that. But he seems to appreciate my feigned ignorance.

“Exactly.” He smiles at me. “Well, I’m sure they won’t be much longer. You might want to settle in, take off your coat, grab some provisions from the kitchen—just in case you end up camped out here, you know.”

I laugh at his joke and he moves past me, and I’m alone in the foyer again. I hear Kate yell, “No I won’t!” and I wonder what’s happened. She and Jeremy are walking toward me, Kate’s face obviously red from crying, but she’s wearing the same clothes she’d been wearing earlier.

“Come on, let’s get going,” Jeremy says. I press for the elevator.

Jeremy insists on taking a cab, even though the restaurant is just a few blocks away. I see that even though he’s allied himself with Kate in this fight, he’s worried about her getting cold too, and wants to spend as little time as possible outdoors.

It’s awkward in the cab. None of us says anything. Everything I can think of to say has to do with Kate’s outfit—like, Great coat; cute boots.

“What kind of sundae you gonna get, Connie?” Jeremy asks finally.

“I haven’t decided.”