Thin Ice (5 page)

Scott was home when I got in from the play, close to midnight. He was nursing a beer and listening to music. A woman vocalist, jazzy, unfamiliar. I foraged in the kitchen for my own bedtime snack. Toast.

I was slathering peanut butter on a third slice when he joined me. “What’s that?” I asked.

He held up his beer bottle and looked at it. “Pig’s Eye.”

“No, the music.”

“One of Mom’s CDs. Ella Fitzgerald sings Cole Porter. Her favorite. It’s her birthday today, you know.”

“Ella Fitzgerald’s? No, I didn’t—”

“Mom’s.”

I finished a bite of toast. “I guess I’d forgotten.” A small offense, brother. Don’t look at me like that.

“Hers was February second and his was November twenty-eighth,” he said.

“I know that. I just forgot. Sorry, okay?”

But he didn’t want an apology, he wanted a promise. “Don’t forget, Arden. What little you know about them, don’t ever forget.”

CHAPTER 14

Years from now, when I reflect on my junior year in high school, I suspect that I will have no trouble deciding upon my greatest achievement. It will not be my solid A in biology. Not the money I’d made with Arden Art. Not even the Thai curry I produced last fall for Scott’s birthday.

It will be the pompadour.

Right before Thanksgiving I’d had an English assignment to write a personal essay based on a family photo. I found one of my parents taken on the day Mom graduated from medical school. She had this huge amount of hair piled on her head. Not sixties beehive, but turn-of-the-century puffs. A pompadour.

Sometimes I forget what my parents looked like, and I had totally forgotten that my mother once had hair like mine. Long, thick, reddish brown.

The teacher wanted five to seven pages of familial insight, but I was more interested in the mysterious man standing behind my father in the picture. I wrote about the stranger, and it steamed the teacher. C plus. Okay, maybe I didn’t produce a great essay. But after weeks of practice, I did manage to produce great hair. Special-occasion hair. Prom-night hair. Graduation-day hair.

But for the pomp’s first public appearance, it was trip-to-the-mall hair.

“How do I look?” I asked Scott.

He poured some orange juice and drank before answering. “You look like a member of a very conservative religious group. And I’m not sure it works with the pants.”

I frowned. New hair deserved new pants, so I’d purchased some red-and-green-plaid logger’s pants. Thirty-three-fifty at the farm-supply store.

“If you’re going to criticize, then at least let me have that bagel. I’m running late and Kady and Jean will be here any minute.” He handed it over. “Funny smell,” I said as I lifted it to my mouth. I bit down anyway.

“Just oiled my jacket; maybe there was a little left on my hands.” He had his new snowmobiling jacket on his lap. Black leather, silver studs. Scott stuck a hand into a sleeve and pulled out what looked like a Day-Glo-green jump rope, only this rope would never be approved for children: short, sharp metal claws protruded from the handles.

“Quite a weapon,” I said. I took another bite of bagel and tongued it into the side of my mouth. “Expecting trouble on the trail?”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full. It’s an ice claw. A tool, not a weapon.”

“What’s it for?”

“Some guys wear one through their coat sleeves; then if you break through and land in water, you’ve got it handy for holding on to the ice.” He jabbed the air with one end of the rope.

“Sort of like mitten strings on a baby’s coat?” I picked up the other end and ran my thumb over the sharp metal teeth. “Yes, a perfect infant accessory.”

“Thanks for the image; I guess I’ll keep mine in the saddlebag.” He yanked it and the rope flew out of my hand and scraped across the smooth leather of his jacket sleeve, scratching the newly oiled surface.

He swore. I smiled and grabbed my own jacket. “Don’t miss and hit yourself, brother. That looks like a twenty-stitch weapon.”

He held both ends and jabbed the air again—left; right. “Just stab the ice and pull myself out of the water,” he said. “Oh, Arden, I’m taking tomorrow off. Leave the Honda home, and I’ll change the oil.”

A car horn honked.

“Gotta go. Don’t look for me for supper, okay?”

He nodded, intent on his ice claws. Left, right; left, right. “I might be eating at Claire’s.”

“Should I wait up?”

He made a face and faked a jab at me; then his hand froze midswipe as if he had clawed a thought out of thin air. “That hair is actually very nice.” As soon as they were tossing the mushy balloons, I sat and defiantly repinned my hair. Dignity was gone, but the five dollars
would
be mine.

The hair lasted through the show and through the crush of autograph-seeking children who besieged us during our late lunch in the food court. It even survived trying on clothes at Ragstock, where I insisted we go after the mall. I’d seen an ad for a new shipment of bowling shirts. Wasn’t much of a shipment, as it turned out, and there weren’t any as nice as my “Franz” or “Morrie,” but there was a whole rack of Japanese baseball team shirts. Who could resist?

I tried on seven and bought one. Gold and purple, with plenty of Japanese script on the sleeve and the name ARITA across the front.

“Does it look good with the pants?” I said to Kady when I stepped out of the dressing room. She cupped her ear. Music was blasting out of the store’s speakers. I shrugged and returned to the cubicle. Okay, maybe the colors didn’t work with the green-and-red-plaid pants, but it felt good, and that’s all that should matter.

The hair lasted through Jean’s slow perusal of true-crime fiction at the used-book store, and through Kady’s detailed discussion of college application essays with a guy at the coffee shop. I was about to refill my cup from the pump pots when I realized what they were doing: stretching out the day in a gambit to win the bet.

“I need to get going,” I whispered to Jean. “I’m not feeling so good.” I could gambit myself. I put my hand on my stomach.

She looked a little worried. Would I vomit in their car? “Let’s go,” she replied.

A good thing that we did, because by the time we left downtown Duluth and were on the long bridge that crossed the harbor to Wisconsin, snow was falling. At first it was just nonthreatening fluffy stuff, but ten miles out of Superior we hit a serious storm. Wind and snow mixed to obscure the road; Jean slowed the car to a crawl. Kady changed music on the tape player and Beck’s raucous vocals gave way to soothing Mozart piano sonatas.

The wind eased a bit as we turned onto our street.

Jean picked up speed and drove too fast into their driveway, and the car skidded to a stop just inches from the garage door.

I patted my hair. “It lasted the day. I win.”

“Maybe so,” Jean said. “But who got you home safe?”

Good point. And I had cheated, slightly. I tipped my head in concession, pins dropped, and the hair toppled down.

CHAPTER 15

That was not an idle warning. Twice before, when I’d assisted the twins, I had been slightly wounded by flying objects. Sometimes when they wanted to make a quick change in the show, they’d toss things to whoever they’d corralled to assist. I was one of the usual suspects. The two times I’d gotten hit, I had looked away at the wrong moment, perhaps enchanted by the sight of some young child in their audience adjusting underwear or picking a nose.

“What are these?” Kady asked. She leaned over the car seat and fingered my pants.

“Farm-store special. You might say something nice about the hair.”

I could see Jean eyeing me in the rearview mirror. “We could, if you wanted to hear a lie.”

Kady shook her head. “Arden, you’re going to scare the little kids.”

Jean put the car in gear and we raced in reverse down the driveway. “Five dollars says that hair doesn’t last the day. It’s already sagging.” She shifted again and we lurched forward.

I groped in the seat cracks for the seat belt, pulled it free, and wiped away the food bits that had popped out. I buckled, then stretched to see myself in the mirror. God, I looked good. I patted my hair. “Five dollars says it does.”

* * *

I won the bet. Maybe it wasn’t an entirely fair victory because I repined once during the show, when they were intent on exchanging balloons loaded with ketchup. But it was a fair repin, I argued with myself, because they had just publicly coerced me into joining the performance, hauling me up to hold balloons as they filled them. Both of them had made a big deal of rolling their eyes, smirking, and pointing at me whenever one of the plastic ketchup bottles they were squeezing emitted a fartlike noise. The crowd of children roared, loving the clowning, the noise, my dismay.

As soon as they were tossing the mushy balloons, I sat and defiantly repinned my hair. Dignity was gone, but the five dollars
would
be mine.

The hair lasted through the show and through the crush of autograph-seeking children who besieged us during our late lunch in the food court. It even survived trying on clothes at Ragstock, where I insisted we go after the mall. I’d seen an ad for a new shipment of bowling shirts. Wasn’t much of a shipment, as it turned out, and there weren’t any as nice as my “Franz” Or “Morrie,” but there was a whole rack of Japanese baseball team shirts. Who could resist?

I tried on seven and bought one. Gold and purple, with plenty of Japanese script on the sleve and the name ARITA across the front.

“Does it look good with the pants?” I asked Kady when I stepped out of the dressing room. She cupped her ear. Music was blasting out of the store’s speakers. I shrugged and returned to the cubicle. Okay, maybe the colors didn’t work with the green-and-red-plaid pants, but It fel t good, and that’s all that should matter.

The hair lasted through Jean’s slow perusal of true-crime fiction at the used-book store, and through Kady’s detailed discussion of college application essays with a guy at the coffee shop. I was about to refill my cup from the pump pots when I realized what they were doing: stretching out the day in a gambit to win the bet.

“I need to get going,” I whispered to Jean. “I’m not feeling so good.” I could gambit myself. I put my hand on my stomach.

She looked a little worried. Would I vomit in their car? “Let’s go,” she replied.

A good thing that we did, because by the time we left downtown Duluth and were on the long bridge that crossed the harbor to Wisconsin, snow was falling. At first it was just nonthreatening fluffy stuff, but ten miles out of Superior we hit a serious storm. Wind and snow mixed to obscure the road; Jean slowed the car to a crawl. Kady changed music on the tape player and Beck’s raucous vocals gave way to soothing Mozart piano sonatas.

The wind eased a bit as we turned onto our street.

Jean picked up speed and drove too fast into their driveway, and the car skidded to a stop just inches from the garage door.

I patted my hair. “It lasted the day. I win.”

“Maybe so,” Jean said. “But who got you home safe?”

Good point. And I had cheated slightly. I tipped my head in concession, pins dropped, and the hair toppled down.

CHAPTER 16

Scott wasn’t home, no surprise. Probably cozily dining with the girlfriend. I checked the machine for messages, then made a face when I saw that he hadn’t left it on. What had I missed? What wild and exciting event in this town had I missed hearing about?

I decided to count on a snow day tomorrow and skipped doing homework. Nothing was due anyway, so why strain myself? I did have several ArdenArt orders due, so I went to the workshop. Nothing was working, though. I finished one wax-lip mirror, but I nearly supplied it with the real thing when I slipped off my stool and almost sliced my face with a mat knife. Then I spilled my cache of precious lips on the floor and hit my head on the worktable as I rose from collecting them. “Give it up, girl,” I ordered myself. Nine-thirty. The day was dying, but I still had choices. TV, bathtub, bed, or a book? I picked all four.

I was in Scott’s huge tub when I heard the phone ring. Had I turned on the machine? No, I remembered as it rang for the fifth time. Six, seven. “Let it go,” I said as I lowered myself in the water.

I was walking with Jane Eyre across the moors when it rang again. I slapped the book closed, swung my feet out of bed, tripped on the bedding, stubbed my toe on the doorjamb, and was hobbling when I reached the phone. It stopped. I dialed the Drummonds’ number. “Did you call?” I asked Jean. “Someone called.”

“Not us. Think we’ll have school tomorrow?”

I looked out the window. “It’s letting up.”

Jean groaned. “I was counting on a snow day. I didn’t study for history.”

“I blew off a paper. Thank God for first-hour study halls.”

“Maybe it’ll pick up again.”

“We can hope. Call me if you hear.”

I’d never spent a night by myself. Sure, plenty of nights I’d been alone until late, but never the whole night, not all the way through. What with the windborne noises it might have bothered me this time, except I didn’t know I’d be alone all night. I went to bed assuming that my dear, reliable brother would roar home during the wee hours and, as usual, be up in time to have juice made for me in the morning.