This Must Be the Place: A Novel (35 page)

Astor took a deep breath and let it out slowly, looking sideways at his son and smiling.

“I’m a little excited,” he said.

“So you’re going to—”

“Make a real fake.”

Eugene felt like he was airborne. He didn’t know what to say. “That’s so cool,” when he finally managed to get it out, was embarrassingly inadequate.

“It’s so
fucking
cool, is what it is,” Astor said, eyes bright. “I might get something
into
a museum instead of
out
.” He laughed again, closed his eyes, and shook his head, and Eugene wondered, for the very first time, if his father was sick and tired of his life’s work; if he saw this as his final score, his last chance to make a mark before getting out and going legit. The explosion of excitement came from nowhere and vanished just as quickly, and in the too-quiet studio left behind, Eugene felt his father’s fatigue, his worry, and his hope for an end. Astor didn’t see himself as a superhero, or at least he didn’t anymore, and he wanted Eugene to know.

“I know your life . . . our life, really”—Astor inhaled—“has been odd.”

And amazing. It has been so amazing,
Eugene wanted to say, but couldn’t make himself.

“It wasn’t fair, to you or to Patricia. You know . . . I worry—I worry about the damage—the stress it must have put on you. I want you to understand that I—”

Eugene’s throat tickled. “Is this about the guitar?” he said. “Because that had nothing to do with—anything, really, and I won’t do it again. I have too much respect for guitars. It was just, in that one instance, I was probably doing the guitar a fav—”

Astor held up his hand. “It’s time,” he said. “To bow out with a bang.”

Then I won’t ruin it, Eugene had thought, even though a part of him died right then, in the studio with his father.
I won’t ruin it for you, I won’t I won’t I won’t.

To Oneida, he said, “Just junk. Nothing too exciting.”

“Well . . . I thought the bottle was neat.” She turned her head, pressing her ear to his sternum. “It’s gotta be an antique, right? Kind of reminded me of the weird glass stuff Bert has. She collects these little
glass slippers, like, fancy heels and boots made of bright purple and blue and green glass. Makes her place look like the closet of a gnome drag queen.”

Eugene laughed a little too hard, he was so relieved to be heading toward another conversation entirely.

“Who’s Bert?” he asked.

“An old crone.” She sighed. “She’s lived in the attic my entire life. My mom’s whole life too.”

“No way. The Darby-Jones has a crazy lady in the attic? She’s gonna burn this mother down if you don’t treat her right.”

Oneida didn’t laugh.

She sat upright, her face still and her eyes slightly narrowed, and stared at the dark television across from the couch. She opened her mouth once, thought better about whatever she was about to say, and closed it again. The relief Eugene had felt upon leaving the subject of the green glass bottle receded slightly.

“Do you want to . . . tell me about it?”

She turned toward him sharply. “Tell you what?”

“Bert freaks you out.” Eugene pulled himself up on his elbows. “It’s kind of obvious. Does she, like, lure kids up there with sweets and leave the bones?”

Again, she didn’t laugh. It may have been the result of hours of investigating the inside of her mouth, but Eugene felt a strange possessiveness overcome him: why didn’t she want to tell him? It was his right to know, after all, as her boyfriend, what made her worry her lower lip like that. “Hey,” he said. “Tell me.”

“Do you want a blow job?” she asked.

At first Eugene thought he’d had a stroke, because the words that he thought came out of Oneida’s mouth were
do you
followed by
want a blow job,
something he didn’t think he’d ever hear issue from an actual girl’s mouth when he was the only male in the room. Then Oneida laughed at him, said something about how his eyes were the biggest she’d seen all afternoon, and Eugene regained partial control of his speech.

“Yes, please,” he squeaked.

Oneida, thank God, didn’t laugh at that; but she did slide down the couch
(oh God this was going to happen)
and push up the bottom of his
shirt (
oh shit oh shit
) and kiss him right below his belly button, a tiny pressure like a damp fingertip, surprisingly cool against his warm skin, which effectively curtailed all cogent higher-level thought on Eugene’s part. Which was probably a good thing, considering Oneida’s mother chose that moment to enter the room.

16
Past and Present

Mona broke.

Information crashed into her in waves—music—couch—above the back, Oneida’s head—a face, the face of a boy, slightly recognizable—in her kitchen, weeks ago—and then she broke: broke like a glass jar full of beads, a crack and explosion of glass, her innards pouring out like colored sand, too fast and too various to scoop back together before they were everywhere, irretrievable, lost under furniture and baseboards forever.

All this, Mona processed in less than a second. Her mouth couldn’t keep up.

“
Foreigner
?” she shouted.

Oneida flew back and clutched the arm of the couch, rigid and redder than Mona had ever seen her. The boy (pants still fastened, thank God for that) gave an inarticulate cry and spun to the floor, cracking his skull on the coffee table in the process. He popped up, an adrenalized gopher, and just as suddenly went down again, clutching his head in mute pain. Mona would have laughed if she had been outside her body, if she had been watching this from the ceiling or on television: if it had been a pretend life in a story. But it was hers. It was her only life.

“I think I’m bleeding,” said the boy on the floor. His voice cracked.

“Arthur,” Mona said. “Please help.”

Arthur put his hand on her shoulder, and she remembered how it had felt, earlier, at Carrie now-Kessler’s reception, when Arthur touched her. “I’ll take him upstairs,” he whispered. “For a bandage.” Her mouth and brain were still in the process of syncing, so she nodded, and Arthur went to the boy’s side and helped him up and out of the room.

Oneida hadn’t moved. She crouched, tense as a rabbit, and blinked rapidly.

Mona’s throat filled. “I’m going to turn off the music.”

She coughed. Oneida didn’t speak.

Mona pressed the power button on the stereo and Foreigner died mid-warble. The silence that followed was flat and cold.

“I’m not mad at you,” Mona said.

Oneida still didn’t speak, or move, or do anything other than blink.

“I’m not mad at you at all,” she repeated. This can’t be right, she thought; this can’t be how to have this conversation. There must be a better way. Maybe if she sat down on the couch beside her daughter, her brilliant daughter, and held her hand and spoke perfect platitudes in gentle tones; that would be the way. She tried to remember how her mother had talked to her. What had she said? How had she said it? Had they ever sat down over tea and cookies and talked about—men? Sex? She didn’t think so. Everything she remembered learning, she’d learned from magazines. Television. Or Amy.

“I’m afraid for you,” Mona said again, and covered her mouth with her hand.

“The hell is that supposed to mean?” Oneida’s little-kid voice wobbled.

Mona tried sitting beside her on the couch. Her daughter leaned away.

“It means I’m afraid of what you don’t understand.” She swallowed. “I’m worried—about what you don’t know and how you’ll come to know it.”

Oneida shook her head slowly and rolled her eyes like this was the most ludicrous conversation she’d ever been forced to have.

“I don’t want you to get hurt,” Mona said. Finally, words that felt right. “Life hurts, and I want you to know how to protect yourself.” From all the ways there are to
be
hurt, she thought, but couldn’t quite say.
The people you love will hurt you worst of all
.

Oneida was still shaking her head. “I am not
you
.”

The crack through Mona’s heart widened. “What do you mean?”

“A, I’m not stupid. And B, I’m not a slut.”

Mona raised her hand.

She was as shocked to see it hovering in the air as Oneida was—palm out, flat and tilted and aimed for her daughter’s cheek—and it stayed there, in the air between them, frozen in space by the realization of everything that it implied. Mona would have cried in shame if her mouth hadn’t been so dry. Oneida looked at her with fear and pain and regret. She drew back against the couch, deeper into the cushions.

Mona tucked both hands against her sides.

“If that’s what you think of me”—she inhaled—“that’s your problem. I have done nothing but love you your entire life.”

Oneida stood up.

“Good for you,” she said, and walked out of the den.

Mona sat and listened to Oneida’s feet pounding up the stairs, and finally she rose and followed, heavy and slow—because she did
not
want to talk to her daughter anymore. Not about this. Not today. Today had been a day of visions from the past and from strange, impossible futures; she had swum in the latter and dreamed selfish dreams. She had seen Arthur at work, happy. They had shared a piece of cake.

But now Oneida was reminding her of other things—things that had been more present to her today than in years—things Mona would have preferred to forget. Things she had concealed from her daughter for a lifetime. How much Oneida suspected, Mona couldn’t say, but she did know she resented Oneida’s desire for the truth. She resented it the way she resented Oneida’s having to grow up at all, as a force beyond her control and a reminder that she had yet to accept the only unmitigated truth in life: that everything changes and everything ends.

Why today? Why any day?
she thought. She was close enough to the top of the stairs to see her daughter disappear into her bedroom and slam the door behind her.

“Oneida!” Mona called.

Silence bounced back.

“Apologize to me,” Mona said.

Still: silence. Mona tried the doorknob but it was immobile in her hand. Out of sheer frustration and unhappiness, she slammed her fist against the door and it rattled and she hated herself for having done it but she had to. She had to feel an object move beneath her.

“Pardon me,” said a voice she didn’t recognize. “May I talk to you for a moment?”

It was the boy from downstairs. She remembered a few weeks ago—when Oneida had had that group meeting—he had been there. He was very tall and very thin and his hair was dark. There was nothing about him that made sense to Mona. He was too young. He was too average. Boring, even. He had a strange little scar running through his eyebrow, but other than that—
Why this one, Oneida? Why this boy?
Did she have
no
idea how special she was?

He held out his hand. “My name is Eugene,” he said. He didn’t look at her when he spoke. “I’m sorry we had to meet under such—uh, awkward circumstances. So I’m thinking, How can I make it up to Oneida’s mother? You know?”

Mona shook his hand cautiously. “I don’t know,” she said. “How can you?” She saw Arthur down the hall, in his doorway, watching. He caught her eye.

“Oneida and me, we have this—project. School project. We have to, like, make a piece of art in the style of a famous artist and write an essay or something about it, and our guy is this weirdo named Joseph”—he looked back at Arthur, who nodded—“Joseph Cornell. He made freaky little collages and, like, Arthur here, I think he could be a tremendous help.”

“How does that make up for what happened here?” Mona asked.

“It would give you a chance to spend some time with me and I can prove I’m, like . . . not an asshole.”

Mona had to hand it to him; he had cojones. Too young, too average, but no shortage of confidence or ego. He grinned at her—no shortage of teeth, either. Her heart skipped in her chest. She could dictate the terms of the afternoon; she would be present. It would be a peace offering, if Oneida could be bothered to recognize it as such. And Mona knew she couldn’t protect her daughter forever, from the world outside or the secrets within. Was it wrong to use the outside world as a distraction—to buy Mona a little time and a few of her daughter’s good graces?
Have your boyfriend today, Oneida
, she thought,
and tomorrow I’ll tell you what you really want to know
.

Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe next week.

“That would be OK with me,” she said. “Oneida, what do you think?” She nodded at the closed door, which opened violently.

“What the hell are you doing?” Oneida thrust her head out.

“Me?” Mona asked.

“Him.
” Oneida jerked her thumb at the boy and hissed, “Are you freaking insane?”

“No,” he said. “I’d really like to get to know your mom and her boyfriend.”

“We’re not—” Mona started, before realizing she didn’t really know how to finish that sentence.

“Sorry.” Eugene held up his hands. “Didn’t mean to presume.”

Mona’s head ached. “I think you should go now,” she said.

The boy nodded, reminding Mona of a pubescent ostrich. She examined him again, tried to imagine what Oneida was drawn to: his bare, bony feet; his clothes, yards of extra fabric flapping around limbs like Tinker Toys; that little scar over his eyebrow? From a past piercing gone horribly awry? His eyes were almost black and thickly lashed. She had known boys like him in high school: boys whose bodies grew too fast for their brains, who spent the bulk of their teenage years masturbating because they hadn’t yet figured out how to love someone else as much as they loved themselves. Eric Cole had been like that. He had never figured it out, but not because Mona hadn’t tried to help.