The Sky Is Everywhere (10 page)

“Where do you want this, Gram?” Joe says, like it’s the most natural thing in the world to be moving the couch outside. This must be Gram’s surprise. We’re moving into the yard. Great.

“Anywhere’s fine, boys,” Gram says, then sees me. “Lennie.” She glides over. “I’m going to figure out what’s causing the terrible luck,” she says. “This is what came to me in the middle of the night. We’ll move anything suspicious out of the house, do a ritual, burn sage, then make sure not to put anything unlucky back inside. Joe was nice enough to go get his brother to help.”

“Hmmm,” I say, not knowing what else to say, wishing I could’ve seen Joe’s face as Gram very sanely explained this INSANE idea to him. When I break away from her, Joe practically gallops over. He’s such a downer.

“Just another day at the psych ward, huh?” I say.

“What’s quite perplexing . . .” he says, pointing a finger professorially at his brow, “is just how Gram is making the lucky or unlucky determination. I’ve yet to crack the code.” I’m impressed at how quickly he’s caught on that there is nothing to do but grab a wing when Gram’s aflight with fancy.

His brother comes up then, rests his hand carelessly on Joe’s shoulder, and it instantly transforms Joe into a little brother—the slice into my heart is sharp and sudden—
I’m no longer a little sister.
No longer a sister, period.

Joe can barely mask his adulation and it topples me. I was just the same—when I introduced Bailey I felt like I was presenting the world’s most badass work of art.

“Marcus is here for the summer, goes to UCLA. He and my oldest brother are in a band down there.” Brothers and brothers and brothers.

“Hi,” I say to another beaming guy Definitely no need for lightbulbs Chez Fontaine.

“I heard you play a mean clarinet,” Marcus says. This makes me blush, which makes Joe blush, which makes Marcus laugh and punch his brother’s arm. I hear him whisper, “Oh Joe, you’ve got it so bad.” Then Joe blushes even more, if that’s possible, and heads into the house for a lamp.

I wonder why though if Joe’s got it so bad he doesn’t make a move, even a suggestion of one. I know, I know, I’m a feminist, I could make a move, but a) I’ve never made a move on anyone in my life and therefore have no moves to make, b) I’ve been a wee bit preoccupied with the bat in my belfry who doesn’t belong there, and c) Rachel—I mean, I know he spends mornings at our house, but how do I know he doesn’t spend evenings at hers.

Gram’s taken a shine to the Fontaine boys. She’s flitting around the yard, telling them over and over again how handsome they are, asking if their parents ever thought about selling them. “Bet they’d make a bundle on you boys. Shame to give boys eyelashes like yours. Don’t you think so, Lennie? Wouldn’t you kill for eyelashes like that?” God, I’m embarrassed, though she’s right about the eyelashes. Marcus doesn’t blink either, they both bat.

She sends Joe and Marcus home to get their third brother, convinced that all Fontaine brothers have to be here for the ritual. It’s clear both Marcus and Joe have fallen under her spell. She probably could get them to rob a bank for her.

“Bring your instruments,” she yells after them. “You too, Lennie.”

I do as I’m told and get my clarinet from the tree it’s resting in with an assortment of my worldly possessions. Then Gram and I take some of the pots and pans she has redeemed lucky back into the kitchen to cook dinner. She prepares the chickens while I quarter the potatoes and spice them with garlic and rosemary. When everything is roasting in the oven, we go outside to gather some strewn plums to make a tart. She is rolling out the dough for the crust while I slice tomatoes and avocados for the salad. Every time she passes me, she pats my head or squeezes my arm.

“This is nice, cooking together again, isn’t it, sweet pea?”

I smile at her. “It is, Gram.” Well, it was, because now she’s looking at me in her talk-to-me-Lennie way. The Gramouncements are about to begin.

“Lennie, I’m worried about you.” Here goes.

“I’m all right.”

“It’s really time. At the least, tidy up, do her laundry, or allow me to. I can do it while you’re at work.”

“I’ll do it,” I say, like always. And I will, I just don’t know when.

She slumps her shoulders dramatically. “I was thinking you and I could go to the city for the day next week, go to lunch—”

“That’s okay.”

I drop my eyes back to my task. I don’t want to see her disappointment.

She sighs in her big loud lonely way and goes back to the crust. Telepathically, I tell her I’m sorry. I tell her I just can’t confide in her right now, tell her the three feet between us feels like three light-years to me and I don’t know how to bridge it.

Telepathically, she tells me back that I’m breaking her broken heart.

When the boys come back they introduce the oldest Fontaine, who is also in town for the summer from L.A.

“This is Doug,” Marcus says just as Joe says, “This is Fred.”

“Parents couldn’t make up their mind,” the newest Fontaine offers. This one looks positively deranged with glee. Gram’s right, we should sell them.

“He’s lying,” Marcus pipes in. “In high school, Fred wanted to be sophisticated so he could hook up with lots of French girls. He thought Fred was way too uncivilized and Flintstoneish so decided to use his middle name, Doug. But Joe and I couldn’t get used to it.”

“So now everyone calls him DougFred on two continents.” Joe hand-butts his brother’s chest, which provokes a counterattack of several jabs to the ribs. The Fontaine boys are like a litter of enormous puppies, rushing and swiping at each other, stumbling all around, a whirl of perpetual motion and violent affection.

I know it’s ungenerous, but watching them, their camaraderie, makes me feel lonely as the moon. I think about Toby and me holding hands in the dark last night, kissing by the river, how with him, I’d felt like my sadness had a place to be.

We eat sprawled out on what is now our lawn furniture. The wind has died down a bit, so we can sit without being pelted by fruit. The chicken tastes like chicken, the plum tart like plum tart. It’s too soon for there not to be one bite of ash.

Dusk splatters pink and orange across the sky, beginning its languorous summer stroll. I hear the river through the trees sounding like possibility—

She will never know the Fontaines.

She will never hear about this dinner on a walk to the river.

She will not come back in the morning or Tuesday or in three months.

She will not come back ever.

She’s gone and the world is ambling on without her—

I can’t breathe or think or sit for another minute.

I try to say “I’ll be right back,” but nothing comes out, so I just turn my back on the yard full of concerned faces and hurry toward the tree line. When I get to the path, I take off, trying to outrun the heartache that is chasing me down.

I’m certain Gram or Big will follow me, but they don’t, Joe does. I’m out of breath and writing on a piece of paper I found on the path when he comes up to me. I ditch the note behind a rock, try to brush away my tears.

This is the first time I’ve seen him without a smile hidden somewhere on his face.

“You okay?” he asks.

“You didn’t even know her.” It’s out of my mouth, sharp and accusatory, before I can stop it. I see the surprise cross his face.

“No.”

He doesn’t say anything more, but I can’t seem to shut my insane self up. “And you have all these brothers.” As if it were a crime, I say this.

“I do.”

“I just don’t know why you’re hanging out with us all the time.” I feel my face get hot as embarrassment snakes its way through my body—the real question is why I am persisting like a full-fledged maniac.

“You don’t?” His eyes rove my face, then the corners of his mouth begin to curl upward. “I like you, Lennie, duh.” He looks at me incredulously “I think you’re amazing ...” Why would he think this? Bailey is amazing and Gram and Big, and of course Mom, but not me, I am the two-dimensional one in a 3-D family.

He’s grinning now. “Also I think you’re really pretty and I’m incredibly shallow.”

I have a horrible thought:
He only thinks I’m pretty, only thinks I’m amazing, because he never met Bailey,
followed by a really terrible, horrible thought:
I’m glad he never met her.
I shake my head, try to erase my mind, like an Etch A Sketch.

“What?” He reaches his hand to my face, brushes his thumb slowly across my cheek. His touch is so tender, it startles me. No one has ever touched me like this before, looked at me the way he’s looking at me right now, deep into me. I want to hide from him and kiss him all at the same time.

And then: Bat. Bat. Bat.

I’m sunk.

I think his acting-like-a-brother stint is over.

“Can I?” he says, reaching for the rubber band on my ponytail.

I nod. Very slowly, he slides it off, the whole time holding my eyes in his. I’m hypnotized. It’s like he’s unbuttoning my shirt. When he’s done, I shake my head a little and my hair springs into its habitual frenzy.

“Wow,” he says softly. “I’ve wanted to do that...”

I can hear our breathing. I think they can hear it in New York.

“What about Rachel?” I say.

“What about her?”

“You and her?”

“You,” he answers. Me!

I say, “I’m sorry I said all that, before...”

He shakes his head like it doesn’t matter, and then to my surprise he doesn’t kiss me but wraps his arms around me instead. For a moment, in his arms, with my mind so close to his heart, I listen to the wind pick up and think it just might lift us off our feet and take us with it.

THE DRY TRUNKS of the old growth redwoods creak and squeak eerily over our heads.

“Whoa. What is
that?”
Joe asks, all of a sudden pulling away as he glances up, then over his shoulder.

“What?” I ask, embarrassed how much I still want his arms around me. I try to joke it off. “Sheesh, how to ruin a moment. Don’t you remember? I’m having a crisis?”

“I think you’ve had enough freak-outs for one day,” he says, smiling now, and twirling his finger by his ear to signify what a wack-job I am. This makes me laugh out loud. He’s looking all around again in a mild panic. “Seriously, what was that?”

“Are you scared of the deep, dark forest, city boy?”

“Of course I am, like most sane people, remember lions and tigers and bears, oh my?” He curls his finger around my belt loop, starts veering me back to the house, then stops suddenly. “That, right then. That creepy horror movie noise that happens right before the ax murderer jumps out and gets us.”

“It’s the old growths creaking. When it’s really windy, it sounds like hundreds of doors squeaking open and shut back here, all at the same time, it’s beyond spooky. Don’t think you could handle it.”

He puts his arm around me. “A dare? Next windy day then.” He points to himself—“Hansel”—then at me—“Gretel.”

Right before we break from the trees, I say, “Thanks, for following me, and ...” I want to thank him for spending all day moving furniture for Gram, for coming every morning with dead bugs for Big, for somehow being there for them when I can’t be. Instead, I say, “I really love the way you play.” Also true.

“Likewise.”

“C’mon,” I say. “That wasn’t playing. It was honking. Total face-plant.”

He laughs. “No way. Worth the wait. Testament to why if given the choice I’d rather lose the ability to talk than play. By far the superior communication.”

This I agree with, face-plant or not. Playing today was like finding an alphabet—it was like being sprung. He pulls me even closer to him and something starts to swell inside, something that feels quite a bit like joy.

I try to ignore the insistent voice inside:
How dare you, Lennie? How dare you feel joy this soon?

When we emerge from the woods, I see Toby’s truck parked in front of the house and it has an immediate bone-liquefying effect on my body. I slow my pace, disengage from Joe, who looks quizzically over at me. Gram must have invited Toby to be part of her ritual. I consider staging another freak-out and running back into the woods so I don’t have to be in a room with Toby and Joe, but I am not the actress and know I couldn’t pull it off. My stomach churns as we walk up the steps, past Lucy and Ethel, who are, of course, sprawled out on the porch awaiting Toby’s exit, and who, of course, don’t move a muscle as we pass. We push through the door and then cross the hall into the living room. The room is aglow with candles, the air thick with the sweet scent of sage.

DougFred and Marcus sit on two of the remaining chairs in the center of the room playing flamenco guitar. The Half Mom hovers above them as if she’s listening to the coarse, fiery chords that are overtaking the house. Uncle Big towers over the mantel clapping his hand on his thigh to the feverish beat. And Toby stands on the other side of the room, apart from everyone, looking as lonely as I felt earlier—my heart immediately lurches toward him. He leans against the window, his golden hair and skin gleaming in the flickery light. He watches us enter the room with an inappropriate hawkish intensity that is not lost on Joe and sends shivers through me. I can feel Joe’s bewilderment without even looking to my side.

Meanwhile, I am now imagining roots growing out of my feet so I don’t fly across the room into Toby’s arms, because I have a big problem: Even in this house, on this night, with all these people, with Joe Fabulous Fontaine, who is no longer acting like my brother, right beside me, I still feel this invisible rope pulling me across the room toward Toby and there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do about it.

I turn to Joe, who looks like I’ve never seen him: unhappy, his body stiff with confusion, his gaze shifting from Toby to me and back again. It’s as if all the moments between Toby and me that never should have happened are spilling out of us in front of Joe.