The One That I Want (22 page)

“I’m not doing this again, you know. I’m retired after this. It’s too much, too hard.” She nods, understanding and anxious all at once. “But I did it because I get it,” I say. Our eyes meet now, both too sad for two people so young. “I mean, I guess I always wondered what could have been different if I’d known what would happen in the future. How many times did I wish for that after my mother was sick and then died?”

“I know,” Ashley says. “I sensed that in the tent that day.”

“So you also know that I can’t change anything anyway. That I can only see what happens, that what happens is going to happen regardless.”

She nods.

“I saw your mother.” I sigh. “She is very ill.”

“I already know that,” Ashley says quietly.

“But my dad was there too. What was my dad doing there too?”

A
week coasts forward, and summer has flitted out as quickly as it came in. Already, the fall winds are nipping all around us; there will be no extended summer this year, no last gasp of lingering days by the lake, late-evening barbecues during those final minutes of sunset.

In years past, I have loved fall, much like I have loved the first few days of the school year, but now, the season only reminds me of how change rushes in too fast—one day you’re weeding in your garden in a tank top, the next, you’re hauling through your closet in search of an extra sweater. But, because I am trying, at the very least, to distract myself now, and, at the very best, to pull myself out of the muck, I set out to complete Eli’s assignment, to document the ins and outs of Westlake High from the view of his Nikon.

“You’re totally trying to please him,” Susanna said yesterday during our first dress rehearsal when she noticed the lens dangling from my neck.

“Oh, give me a break,” I said, then shouted to Wally to
ease up on the jazz hands already!

“Wally, dude, this is the fifties, and you’re the resident stud,”
Darcy said from the piano bench. “We’re not doing
A Chorus Line
here.” The kids in the ensemble laughed, and Darcy sat up a little straighter. Darcy had recently told Midge Miller that she would take over full-time, and Midge just cracked her knobby arthritic fingers, shrugged, and shuffled out of the auditorium.

“Anyway, I’m not doing this to impress him,” I said, turning back to Susanna. “I enjoy this; you know I do.”

“Who says it can’t be both?” she answered, keeping time with her foot. “And hey, I’m not criticizing. You were always good with what other people asked of you.”

True
, I thought, watching the teenagers attempt to master the hand jive sequence, which for most of them seemed about as natural as speaking Cantonese. Elbows were askew, knees were out of sync, a mishmash of misinterpreted rhythms and too-complicated choreography.

But yes, I have milled through the halls for the past five days, popping into classrooms, loitering in the gym, stealing candid frames of my students’ lives. The prom committee convened in my office on Wednesday, and rather than dictate the remainder of the to-dos—the invitations needed to be printed, the chaperones needed to be confirmed, the éclairs, which they had all readily agreed on, ordered in bulk from the bakery in Tarryville—I simply handed the list to CJ and clicked, clicked, clicked while they hashed over the details themselves. It was almost exquisite, I thought after they headed out of my office, their faces flushed, their words running over each other—
berets, canapés!
—that when I stepped aside, took my hands off the wheel, they somehow managed to steer it just fine without me.

Oddly enough, the same can also be said of my father and Darcy. It’s not that Darcy has totally absolved him, but just that there’s less rancor when she speaks of him, less rage when she speaks
to
him, which they’ve been doing regularly now, mostly
about me and my mental health. I hear them sometimes, whispering when they think I’ve fallen asleep or zoned out in front of the TV.

“I don’t know what to do with her,” my dad said the other night when he thought I was out of earshot. “I can’t stand to see her like this! I’m going to kill that kid.”

“Let her be,” Darcy replied, as she always does. “She’ll pull through. She’s more capable than you realize.”

I listen to them go back and forth, too exhausted to go out there and say,
“Hello! I can hear you!”
but it hasn’t escaped me, how much credit Darcy’s been giving me, how much faith she’s placing in me, when maybe I’ve never done the same for her. When, frankly, it’s been hard enough to imagine doing the same for myself.

And as I stole through the school this past week, I couldn’t help but be awed by these kids, with their naked sense of invincibility. Just like I once had. How Tyler and I had linked arms our senior year, and just like CJ and Johnny Hutchinson, or Gloria Rodriguez and Alexander Parsons, or any number of the couples who pocked the hallways and the parking lot and the make-out spot behind the gym, we felt shinier, braver, more human than we had been without each other. I lifted the camera to my eye and marked their bravado not just for the yearbook, but for me, to remind myself that once upon a time, I, too, was untouchable.

Eli is staring out the back window of the art room when I swing the door open and plunk the camera down on his desk. I don’t want to look at him, don’t want to loiter, because even though it’s been two months since my premonition, and even though I have done
everything I can to stop thinking about it
, and even though my husband has abandoned me and broken my spirit and then infuriated
that spirit more than I thought possible, I am still unnerved at my jealousy over his girlfriend.

“Here,” I say, not meeting his eyes, though he has turned toward me. “I’m returning this. But I did what you asked, and I’m pretty sure you’ll find good stuff for the yearbook.”

“And what did you think?” he asks, taking three steps and sitting on a stool at one of the painting tables. He shuffles it closer, and it squeaks against the tiled floor.

“I thought it was fine,” I say, the blood in my cheeks defying my ambivalence.

“Fine?” He laughs, a disbelieving but kind laugh. “This from a former art nerd? You simply thought it was fine?” He pushes out an adjacent stool, an invitation.

“Okay, it was pretty great,” I acknowledge, still standing. I wonder if he knows that my husband has left me, though I then remember that of course he knows that my husband has left me—it may as well have been the headline in the
Westlake Courier
.

“Sit,” he says. “I’m tired. And you look tired too.”

I
am
tired, so rather than argue, I obey.

“What was your favorite thing you used to photograph? Back when you used to do it a lot?” He weaves his fingers together, his hands on the table, his nails a collage of purple and blue paint that has stubbornly refused to come off.

“Oh, God, I can’t even remember,” I say, though of course I can remember. I remember it instantly. In the last two months of my mother’s life, she was mostly bedridden, incapacitated, tortured by being housebound. My mother’s zeal was boundless, passion that poured into her music, informed her love of all earthly things. In the summers, she tended to her garden; in the winters, she would layer long underwear and disappear for an hour through the dense forests in the neighboring woods. She would return with crisp cheeks and a bright Rudolph nose, and pour us hot
chocolate before we all piled on the couch to watch a movie. I was never one for the cold, so I’d always beg off joining her. Luanne sometimes went, and once Darcy was old enough, especially that last year, she tagged along without hesitation.

When my mother grew too sick to inhale anything other than stale bedroom air and later suffocating hospital air, I decided to bring it to her instead. Darcy and I would amble outside, through those same woods, and I would click, click, click. It was summer then, so Darcy would run through the stream near the fallen, hollowed-out oak tree, and
click
, my mother wouldn’t miss out. Or we’d stumble on a patch of errant wildflowers, willfully growing in the lone patch of sun, and
click
. I’d hurry to the darkroom shortly thereafter and then,
“Here, Mom, look what we brought back for you.”

Those were my favorite moments, of course, my favorite images to lock down forever.

“My favorite is probably children,” Eli says. “Probably in Kenya.”

“You’ve been to Kenya?” I say. I haven’t even been to L.A.

“Last March.” He nods. “It was hot as hell, and I couldn’t stop sweating, but still, it was amazing. Just their appreciation for what they had, which was basically nothing. But these kids, oh man, they didn’t stop smiling. They’d play soccer in these dirt roads, singing and clapping, and even though I went there to get away from some things, I felt centered, balanced, you know?”

I don’t, but I bob my head anyway. “What were you getting away from?”

“Oh, you know, relationship crap. Bad breakup. That boring old stuff.” He waves his purple-and-blue-spotted hands. He looks at me, and I know that he knows, that he is well aware that I’m a stray dog milling about, feeding on emotional scraps. But he doesn’t articulate this, and for one gushing moment, I am so grateful
that he refuses to pity me, that he doesn’t ask me
“What happened?”
and say
“Oh my gosh, Tilly, I simply cannot believe that Tyler up and left!”
which is exactly what Gracie Jorgenson said three days ago in the cereal aisle at the Albertson’s.

“I guess I’ve always wanted to go to Paris,” I hear myself saying, though I didn’t even realize this to be true.

“Well, that explains prom.” Eli laughs.

“I guess it does.” I laugh along with him, a cramp building in my belly like in a muscle that hasn’t been used in far too long.

“So go,” he says simply.

“Nah, maybe one day. But not now.” I dismiss it with a flop of my hands.

“Paris is amazing,” he says. “My parents took us there when I was ten. My dad worked for the government, so we were always traveling around. We lived there for six months, and my sisters—I have four older ones—used to take me out to cafés and storefronts and roaming about the streets …” He pauses, his thought a memory. “Anyway, you should go, you’d love it.”

“Why aren’t you married?” I say suddenly, and then realize my candor, a look of utter horror illuminating my face. I burst into staccato nervous laughter. “Oh my God, I’m sorry! I’m going a little crazy right now.”

He laughs with me. “No, no, fair question. I think my parents would like an explanation too. All of my sisters are, though one is getting divorced.” He winces. “I’m an uncle five times over … but, I don’t know, I guess I’m always moving around, looking for the next big adventure. It’s just never suited me well for relationships.”

“Hence Kenya,” I say.

“Well, actually, Kenya was a reaction to the one relationship I’d decided to stick around for. Turns out she didn’t want me to.”

We fall silent, a mutual understanding of the pain of being so disposable.

“Anyway, you’ll like those pictures,” I say finally, pushing back the stool, heading for the door.

“Take a look at them with me,” he says.

“I have to run,” I answer, which isn’t true at all, but I feel like I’ve already exposed too much.

“Well, then, hang on.” He unsnaps the tiny door on the bottom of the camera and pulls out the memory card, then reaches for another in his desk and slides it right in. “This is yours for now. Take it. Bring it back when you’re ready.” He pushes the Nikon over to my side of the table.

“I can’t,” I say, though certainly, I know that I can, that I’d even like to.

“You can,” he answers, as if he can read my mind.

I stop by my father’s store on the way home from work. Darcy has opted to pick up a shift or two each week as a means for extra cash; when she finally dialed her boss at the bar she waitressed at in L.A. last week to inform him that her return date was indefinite, he promptly also informed her that he’d fired her back in August.

The store is deserted in this dead time of late September to early November, the before-Christmas shopping moratorium that too many households impose on their budgets. Not cold enough to replace heating systems, not warm enough to overwork a freezer. Come November, the door will be in nonstop motion: DVD players for wives who intend to learn yoga at home (though they never will); big-screen TVs for husbands who already spend too much time watching ESPN and big bass fishing on Saturday mornings; Wiis for teenagers who should be studying instead.
Jesus, Christmas
. I wonder whether or not I can shove a metaphorical bag of coal right down Tyler’s figurative stocking.
Possibly
.

As I get deeper inside, I hear them arguing near the stockroom, in my father’s office. I wind my way back there, through the mini-fridges, and the boxed-up microwaves, and the digital cameras. It smells like stale coffee here, in the bowels of the store, which, I consider, is better than smelling like old beer, which it once did.

When I pop into my dad’s office, they both freeze, creating a vacuum of noise. Their eyes are wide orbs, and quickly, though they clearly hope that I won’t notice, they glance over to each other.

“Hi, love bug,” my dad says. “What brings you here?”

“What’s going on?” I’m deflecting. “Why were you guys fighting?”
Why weren’t they fighting?
I think, only to realize I hadn’t heard Darcy snap at him in the better part of the last few weeks.

“It’s nothing, doll,” my dad says, leaning back in his rickety office chair, which emits a squeak in reply.

Darcy glares at him—her look of a thousand scorched suns—and her neck turns stiff.

“It’s nothing,” he repeats, deflecting her gaze, shutting her down.

“Are you okay, Darcy?” I ask. “Is something going on with you?”

“This isn’t about me! Why don’t you ask him?”

“Um, are
you
okay, Dad? Is there something going on with
you?”
I consider the past month, whether anything has been particularly askew, whether or not my dad still seems sober, whether or not I can even remember monitoring him, keeping track.
No, not really, I can’t
. I eyeball him up and down.