Traveling light, p.23
Traveling Light, page 23
“Ms. Zwolenick? What are you doing here?” It was Zackery, safe and all right. He stepped into the yard and hugged me. He was wearing his coat and hat and gloves.
“You going somewhere?” I asked.
“No, I was just—” But he stopped himself and stammered as if I’d just caught him rifling through my purse. “Yeah, I—I thought I might, you know—”
A bell went off in my brain. “Are you living in their garage?” I asked.
He put his hands in his coat pockets and looked at the ground. “Just these past couple of days.”
“Oh, Zack.” I didn’t know what to say to him. “Zack.” I shook my head.
“It’s not that bad.” He looked up, but past me, at the street beyond. “They’re gone for Christmas. Grandparents in Florida. Simon’s mom didn’t want me alone in their house, you know. I can still live here when they get back; she’s really cool. I told her I was spending Christmas with my parents. But—” His eyes met mine for a second before he returned his gaze to the ground and whispered, “I called them and they said they didn’t think that was a good idea.”
I reached out and touched his cheek with my fingertips. “You’re not spending Christmas alone,” I said.
“I don’t want to.”
“Do you want to come home with me? Until the Schifflers get back?”
He looked up at me and said too readily, “Yeah. That’d be great.” The corners of his mouth twitched.
“Go pack,” I said. “You need something nice. We’re seeing A Christmas Carol tonight.”
He nodded, and I followed him into the garage. As he sorted through his belongings in black garbage bags, I took in the electric space heater, the cot with a sleeping bag, the cooler, the water jugs. A stack of books was piled near the cot. The garage smelled of oil, and I could see my breath.
“Where do you go to the bathroom?” I asked.
He looked up from shoving clothes into a backpack. Red mottles blossomed on his neck. “Oh…you know. It’s like camping,” he said. “And there’s a McDonald’s right down the street.” He saw my expression and added, “It’s not that bad, really. Look at all the stuff Simon gave me. It’s only for four days.”
I nodded and walked back into the yard, desperate for clean, cold air to quell my nausea.
We got in the car after he’d locked the garage. We drove for a mile or two in silence. “I was really…scared,” he said, looking out the window. I thought about the gun he’d bought. Those fears had power when you were all alone in a dank dungeon of a garage.
“You are going to be bombarded by my crazy relatives,” I joked. “You don’t know what fear is yet.” He laughed, grateful. He knew I understood him and was not making light.
At the house he was welcomed warmly by Arnicia and Jacob, who acted as though I always returned from the grocery store with young homeless men in tow. Arnicia did say, “You didn’t tell me he was so cute,” and set Zack to blushing, though.
“You need anything?” Jacob asked him as we all unloaded groceries. “Soft drink? Juice? Tea? A beer?”
“Jacob!” I said. “He’s not even eighteen. Besides, it’s only ten in the morning!”
“Oh, honey, that has never stopped boyfriend from having a beer for breakfast,” Arnicia said.
“Hey, hey, now,” Jacob said. “Only in extenuating circumstances!”
“Such as?” Zackery asked, grinning.
“Well…you know…if I’m out of coffee.”
We laughed, and Zackery took a Coke. I took him in to meet Todd. Todd shook his hand and smiled. He gestured for Zack to sit and wrote to us, “I want to talk to Zack a while. There’s some things I want to tell him.” We left them alone, and they talked for over an hour. Several times we heard Zack’s laughter from that room. And several times it was silent.
Jacob left for the show, and I took special care preparing for the play, knowing I’d see Nicholas. I even curled my hair and pulled up the sides, fastening them with a pearl clip Grandma Anna had given me years ago. I hadn’t even taken that clip with me to New York but had recently rediscovered it. I held up a hand mirror to see the fall of strawberry blond curls shimmer against the navy blue velvet dress I’d selected.
Nicholas arrived, freshly shaven and stunning in a suit and tie. He hardly looked twice at me before helping wheel Todd to the limo Jake had arranged.
“I’ve never been in a limo before!” Zack said.
“Me neither,” Arnicia said. “I like living with these rich boys. They treat me like a…like royalty.” She laughed. “You all take note: I did not say they treat me like a queen. Get it?” We groaned.
We got Todd situated at the theater. “Thank you,” I said to Nicholas. He nodded at me, saying nothing. I wanted to grab him around the knees and tell him I was sorry, I was stupid, I took it all back and would marry him and follow him anywhere, but in the time it took me to think that, he turned away from me to talk to the sound board operator. I kissed Todd good-bye and took Zack to meet all my relatives in the lobby. His presence confused a few. “His folks had to leave town,” was all I said, “and he’ll be with us for Christmas.”
My mother knew the story of Zack. She hugged him and adopted him for the evening. When the lights flickered to warn us to get to our seats, she led him, arm in arm, to the one beside her own.
I settled into my seat and looked around the grand old theater and the sellout crowd. My chest tightened. I should be on that stage. This many people had stood and applauded me under this very same gold-and-green marble ceiling. Not a one of them knew me now.
The houselights fell, and I discovered that my aunt Marnee was wrong. It wasn’t the ghosts or tombstones that haunted those of us who had come.
It was Bob Cratchit.
I expected brilliance from Jacob but had not given much thought to the role he was playing. He wrung our hearts as he looked with such love and adoration upon his poor, ailing Tiny Tim. He looked with the eyes of a man who was prepared for inevitable loss. Who knew the loss would come, but who did all in his power to stave it off just a month longer…just a day…
And when that terrible, hooded Ghost we’d grown familiar with showed us the poor Cratchits of the future, without their beloved Tim, all three rows of us were quaking and sniffling. Grandma Cailee held my hand. Arnicia, on the other side of me, blew her nose. I stole a glance up at the dark booth but saw only the lights reflected on its glass windows. My father, on the aisle, got up and left. He didn’t return until the curtain closed, and his swollen red eyes gave him away.
Jacob looked up at the booth for the entire curtain call. His face shone, with sweat or tears, I couldn’t tell. When I made it to the booth to take Todd home, Jacob was already up there, and Todd had a swath of greasepaint on his cheek and the collar of his white shirt.
Back at the house, Todd’s pride for his Jacob transformed him like a blood transfusion. We propped him up, in full view of the party, a fresh stack of his yellow legal pads beside him. There were always two or three people around him and two or three people waiting, like a receiving line.
We’d been back only thirty minutes, and already Todd had asked me almost twenty times if Jacob was home yet. “Why are you asking me what you already know?” I teased him. “You know darn good and well that the very first second he gets here, he is coming straight to your side. He adores you.”
I did go peek out the kitchen window, though, just to appease him. The driveway and narrow brick street were lined with cars. Jacob might have to park a block away.
A cab slowed, then stopped. It sat there a full minute before anyone stepped out. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The cab drove away, and she stood there. I watched, unmoving, ignoring some cousin who called, through all the voices and music, “Whatcha lookin’ at, Summer?”
Just standing there for what seemed an eternity.
And then turning and walking away, up the street. I bolted out the back door. The cold air seared my lungs, burned the inside of my nose.
“Abby?” I called.
She stopped. I wove my way between all the cars to reach her. “Abby, where are you going?”
She wore an open black cape over a gown of green satin and spangles, obviously coming from or going to some formal event. “What was I thinking?” she asked. She didn’t ask me, as much as she seemed to ask herself.
“What, Abby? What do you mean? Please come inside. Todd will be so happy.”
She held a wrapped and ribboned box in front of her as if it contained a severed finger. “I wanted to find him the perfect present. I spent lots of money—lots. What was I thinking?”
I pulled on her arm. She took some steps, allowing herself to be led. “Come, give it to him. He’ll love it.”
She stopped. “No.”
“Abby, it’s freezing. You’re here. Come inside and give him his present.”
She shook her head and wouldn’t meet my eyes. “He’s not ever going to win his Academy Award,” she said, looking at the box in her hands. “He’s not ever going to be attending the premiere of Jacob’s first feature film. He’s not ever going to leave that house again, is he?” She stared at the house, streaming light and cheerful noise.
“No,” I said. “He’s not.”
She looked me in the eye. “So what the fuck is he going to do with solid gold cuff links?” She dropped the box on the frozen dirty ground and began walking up the street. Her heels sang with a clear ringing on the sidewalk.
“Abby!” I called. “Come back! Please? What am I supposed to tell him?”
But she rounded the corner and was gone.
I wanted to run after her. Everything in me wanted to run and find her and hug her. But I made myself turn and go back in the house.
I left the box on the ground.
Chapter Fifteen
I opened the back door, and although the heat enveloped me, it could not warm the cold pit in my stomach. I made my way to Todd, who gestured me over from across the room.
“Is he here yet?”
“Would you chill?” I laughed at him. “No, not yet!”
“What were you doing outside?”
“Oh, there was a parking problem.” I surprised myself with how easy and ready the lie was. “One of our neighbors. I schmoozed a little; everything’s okay.”
He frowned, but just then the door opened again. Jacob stepped in, and everyone applauded. Todd’s pride shone from him, his face aglow. I’m sure the raging fever helped, too.
And, as I’d predicted, Jacob did come straight to Todd with an unabashed kiss that made Aunt Marnee cluck her tongue and Aunt Emma flutter her double chins. He took Todd’s hands, and Todd whispered to him, close to his ear. They stayed like that, with Jacob “monopolizing” Todd’s company (according to Aunt Marnee) for ten or fifteen minutes.
I found Zackery, to make sure he was surviving. Now Grandma Cailee had adopted him. They sat on a couch, deep in conversation about Dylan Thomas poetry. He looked up at me and smiled.
“You doing all right?” I asked him.
“This is great. Thanks. Really.”
“He knows his Thomas!” Grandma said as though that were the highest compliment imaginable.
“Hey, he has a good English teacher,” I joked.
“I do. I really do,” Zack said, those eyes of his suddenly serious and deep as the dark wells on Grandma Cailee’s farm.
The chant of “Presents! Presents!” drew us to the bedroom. Everyone had gifts for Todd. Aunt Marnee gathered everyone around to watch the opening of the gifts, probably so she could keep track of whose was most expensive. She started off with her own, of course. Little Daniela sat on the edge of Todd’s bed and opened the packages for him. Aunt Marnee had bought Todd pink silk pajamas, a bold, if tactless, gift for her. Everyone oohed and ahhed, and Todd nodded and smiled. He didn’t wear pajamas, even now, and was fanatical about getting dressed in real clothes every day, even when it took him close to an hour to do so.
He received a lot of clothes, which was all well and good, I guess, but I could feel Todd’s growing exasperation as he opened items like wool socks and expensive sweaters and even new track shoes. He smiled politely, but the bemused furrow in his brow deepened.
Aunt Emma gave him a magazine subscription. A year’s subscription. He laughed out loud.
He opened the gift from Nicholas. Two handmade birdhouses to hang in the bay window, just as he’d promised, with seed to go with them. Todd smiled, and the furrows disappeared. He clapped his hands together like a little kid and looked around for Nicholas.
“He had to leave after the play,” Arnicia said. “He’s driving tonight to spend Christmas with his dad in Indiana.” My face burned. I hadn’t even gotten the chance to wish him a Merry Christmas.
Young Daniela and Samantha gave Todd a photo album scrap-book. “This is all the stuff we know you would’ve come to, if you could have,” Samantha announced, and everyone said, “Ahh…” in unison. Inside were photos and captions from Samantha’s school play and choir concert, and Daniela in her gymnastics class, and progress of their new puppy. The captions were written by the girls themselves, and it was obvious Aunt Shannon hadn’t interfered. Things like “The girl behind me in this one picks her nose—I’ve seen her!” and “We think the boy on the right is cute—do you?” Todd pored over the pictures, tilting his head to take it all in with his good eye.
Aunt Marnee grew bored with the photo album when Todd spent too much time on it for her liking. She turned and looked across the bed at Jacob. “And what did you get for Todd, Jacob?”
He appeared taken off guard. “Um…well, I didn’t get him…you know, a traditional present, like—”
“You didn’t get him a present?” Aunt Marnee asked, her words a condemnation.
A silence fell. “No,” Jacob said. He opened his mouth, but no further words materialized.
I saw Todd prod Daniela and point to another package at the foot of the bed. “Oh! Here’s another one,” she said, getting the hint. “There’s lots more. Open this one—it’s from Sheila.” Todd diverted attention back to the bed, away from Jacob. After a moment Todd caught my eye and tipped his head toward the kitchen. I looked. Jacob was gone. I nodded at Todd and slipped away myself.
Jacob had poured himself a drink and stood staring out a window. “Hey,” I said. “Don’t let her get to you.”
“It’s just, it had never crossed my mind, you know? And I know she doesn’t get it. She thinks I think it’s a waste of money, or worse, that I didn’t think he’d live this long.”
I put an arm around his waist. “You don’t care what she thinks.”
“No…but…shit. I just wish that for once, she’d get it. She’d get us. We don’t need presents. All those people giving stupid, obligatory gifts because tradition requires it. I wasn’t going to fucking buy him some material object that would be worthless to him. Some ridiculous thing to add to the inevitable haul to Goodwill when this is over. That man in there knows the secret to life. He’s traveling lighter than any of us. What could I buy him that he could use or need?” He downed his drink and reached for the Scotch bottle. I took it from him.
“Jacob. You did give him a present. Something he could use and need. You didn’t have to buy it, and it’s by far his favorite one.” I stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek. “You brought him home.”
He took the bottle from me and replaced it in the cupboard, then turned and hugged me. “Thank you,” he whispered. “You just gave me a present.”
The back door opened and Abby stepped in, still in her gown and cape. She held a basket in front of her and seemed strangely protective of it. She didn’t look at me; she and Jacob stood face-to-face, expressionless, the usual hint of challenge between them. “Todd will be glad you’re here,” Jacob said.
“I have a present for him. I—I want to know if it’s okay to give it to him.”
Jacob shrugged. “Sure. You don’t need permission to give your brother a present—”
She turned to me and said, “This gift didn’t cost me anything. I found it, as a matter of fact. But I love it. It’s been one of the few things in my life that I do love lately, and because of that, I want to give it to him.” She opened the basket and took out a sleeping yellow kitten, its eyes shut tight.
Jacob’s expression melted, and he reached for the kitten. Abby handed it to him. “Is—is that okay?” she asked.
“Abby, this is great,” he said. He held it up and looked between its legs. “What’s his name?”
Abby blushed, and I was struck by how beautiful she was. Exquisite, with her red hair swept up in a regal French twist, emeralds at her ears and throat. That throat, that long white neck, the envy of any ballerina. “I found him on Cooper Street behind the hospital one night. I just call him Cooper.”
Before I could ask her what she was doing behind the hospital at night, the back door opened again and Brad came in. He was still deep tan from his trip to Costa Rica, the lines around his eyes and mouth white in contrast. His hands looked brown at the end of his tux sleeves, the tux I knew he owned instead of rented. He wore too much cologne.
“Forget something?” he asked Abby, holding the box of cuff links. A dark smudge from the driveway soiled one corner of the box, and the ribbons were flattened now. “Jesus, have you been drinking? These cost a fortune. We’re not made of money, you know.”
“Oh, thank you, hon,” Abby said. “I didn’t realize I dropped them.” She took the box from him and kissed him on the cheek.
“Hey, Summer,” Brad said to me. He nodded at Jacob, then noticed what Jacob was holding. “Jesus Christ, what’s that cat doing here?”
Abby blushed again, but this time darker. “Well, I thought since I—since we can’t keep him, Todd might like him.”
Brad shook his head at her. “You’re passing this stray off as a gift?”
“I think Todd will love him,” I said.
Brad smirked. “The last thing a man with AIDS needs is a cat to give him toxoplasmosis.”
