Empty Arms: A Novel (7 page)

As I pulled the knife from the soft patch of earth next to my foot, I realized that he had moved us away from the hard, dry dirt near the oak tree to softer ground so the knives wouldn’t bounce up at our shins. I steadied the knife in my hand. I hadn’t noticed that he’d left his shoes behind until now. “You sure about this?” I called, studying his perfectly shaped toes.

“Only if you are.”

I raised the knife to my temple and drew it back. With a flick of my wrist the metal blade soared through the air and speared the ground five inches from his right foot.

“Nice throw.” He slid his right foot until it was touching the blade. He leaned over, pulled the knife from the ground and balanced it between his fingers. His next throw landed about eleven inches from my right foot.

I widened my stance and bent to retrieve the knife. “So how do you win this game?” I pitched the knife back at him and it landed about ten inches from his right foot. “Or is this about artfully outmaneuvering your opponent too?”

He grinned and widened his stance. “Last one standing wins.” With that, he chucked the knife eleven inches from my right foot.

I widened my stance again and teetered as I bent to pick it up.

With every throw, our feet moved farther and farther apart and after a couple of more rounds I toppled over with a scream. I laughed as I lay on the forest floor staring up at the treetops. I’d never had so much fun with a boy.

A second later, James was leaning over me. “You all right?”

“That was fun.”

“You’re a good knife thrower—for a girl.”

I punched him in the shoulder. “Thanks a lot. You’re not so bad yourself.”

He reached down and pulled a leaf from my hair. His warm eyes fixed on mine, sending my heart into a gallop. His body leaned into mine ever so slightly, and I braced myself for the feeling of his soft lips.

Behind us twigs snapped and leaves rustled. “Cate? Are you all right?”

Our heads turned toward the voice. Angela was standing there, panting. “I heard a scream.”

“We’re fine,” James said, helping me sit up.

The concern in her eyes turned to betrayal when she saw me and James. Then she noticed the knives scattered around us. “What the hell are you guys doing out here?”

James stood up and offered me his hand, pulling me back onto my feet. “We were just throwing knives.”

“Well, the eclipse is going to be starting soon. You guys should come back to the party.”

I helped James gather his knives, but I could feel Angela staring at me. We followed her through the woods back to the party, and when James ran off to his car to put his knife case away, she spun toward me. “How could you?”

“How could I what?”

“You know I like him.”

“You said he was hot, I didn’t know you liked him. Besides, I thought you liked Creighton.”

She put her hands on her hips and huffed. “I thought you were my best friend.” She turned and stormed off.

I glanced over my shoulder at James stowing his knives in the glove compartment. He was different from the other guys our age, and I liked him too. But the disappointment in Angela’s eyes and the hurt in her voice forced me to turn away and return to the riverbank alone. I shot her a look.
He’s all yours
. She smiled and started toward him but he brushed past her on his way to the keg. And a couple of minutes later he reappeared at my side with two full beers.

“Thanks,” I said, accepting one. But over his shoulder, Angela scowled at me with crossed arms. I sighed, hating myself for giving in to her, but it was what best friends did. “James, there’s something you should know. My best friend, Angela, likes you.”

His head jerked back. “Which one is Angela?”

“From the woods.”

He glanced over his shoulder, and Angela’s grimace morphed into a smile. She waved and tossed her hair over her shoulder. He waved and turned back to me. “Can you tell Angela something for me?”

Of course I could. Relaying messages from hot guys who wanted to hook up with her was my job description.

“Tell her that I like her best friend.”

I bit my bottom lip but my smile broke loose anyway.

The sky began to darken then, as if a huge storm cloud was snuffing out its light. “It’s happening!” someone shouted. We all turned toward the sky and watched the moon creep between our planet and the sun until the golden orb disappeared from sight. The entire time, I was acutely aware of James’s body next to me. I sat frozen on the riverbank, pretending to be absorbed by the eclipse, but all I could focus on was the place where the side of his hand and the side of mine accidentally met in the soft blades of grass.

“This is a very rare moment,” James whispered in my ear.

I turned to him, and when our eyes connected I was no longer sure if it was the total eclipse he was talking about.

The boy in the photograph is just the way I remember him: wild black hair, fearless smile, and magnetic eyes. The tequila tempts me to rip it to pieces. The bottom is torn from the time I almost did. Even though it’s been twenty-three years, I still hate him for breaking my heart. Before he went back to Texas, he made me promise to keep in touch. I sent letter after letter but never got a single one in return. I finger the small tear but I can never bring myself to destroy the beautiful face I once loved so deeply.

I toss the photo aside and place the vinyl on the record player. I adjust the volume so I don’t wake Mom and I move the needle until I find the gentle guitar chords I remember. “For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her” drifts through the speakers. The melody and the sweet words take me back to that summer.

After the eclipse, Angela stopped speaking to me, and James and I started spending more time together. During the day, I helped him on his uncle’s farm. We fed the animals, milked the cows twice a day, and bottle fed their calves to preserve their mothers’ milk. James worked on his uncle’s tractors, repaired the barn roof, and ensured that everything was running smoothly. When the farm work was done, we spent our afternoons canoeing down the river, swimming at the falls or hiking in the mountains. Every moment with James was pure bliss.

The first time he kissed me it was like a dam had been released, and a rush of feelings that I never knew existed flooded my body. Before James, I’d kissed two other boys. In eighth grade, it was Seth Grossman, the boy whose tongue had tasted like the bologna sandwich he’d just wolfed down in the lunchroom. In ninth grade, it was Jude Nelson, whose clammy palms had left a film of sweat on my cheeks and caused me to break out. Both experiences left me wondering what all the fuss was about. Kissing James, on the other hand, was exhilarating, like getting drunk and doing a back flip off the top of Angel Falls. He showed me, in no uncertain terms, what all the fuss was about.

Eventually our kissing led to other things, and one day at the end of July it led to even more. Raindrops, followed by a crack of thunder, brought an abrupt end to our afternoon hike along the Appalachian Trail. The sky opened up and rain pelted us. James grabbed my hand and led me back the way we came. The dirt path turned to mud beneath our feet. We sloshed and slid down the mountain, holding onto each other for balance.

By the time we reached the car, the rain had let up but our hair was drenched and tangled, our clothes were soaked and clung to our bodies, and our feet and shins were thick with mud. I laughed at the sight of us. “What do we do now?”

James pulled off his shirt, then his shorts and finally his underwear. My heart pounded as I watched him set his clothes in a patch of sun to dry. He wrapped his arms around me and kissed me, gently tugging at the bottom of my shirt. I raised my arms and let him undress me. He unbuttoned my shorts and they fell to the ground. He took my soggy clothes and laid them in the sun next to his. He took my hand, led me into the backseat of his car and turned on the radio. He kissed me and pulled me close until our legs intertwined like wild vines and our mud-caked bodies stuck to the vinyl seats.

W
HEN THE SONG ENDS
, I lift the needle and play it again. “For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her”; it’s the song I lost my virginity to, the one I named our daughter after during the few precious moments I knew her.

I
WANDER DOWN
an empty street. There are no cars or people. The shop displays are dark, and the echo of my footsteps fills the vacant night. In the distance I hear church bells. I follow the sound down an alleyway and freeze when I see her standing at the end of it.

“Emily,” I call to her. “It’s me.” I take a step toward her, but she moves away. That’s when I notice she is standing on the ledge of a building.

“Wait!” I offer her my hand, but she doesn’t take it.

“We’re supposed to walk on frosted fields of juniper and lamplight.”

This makes her laugh and fall backwards off the ledge. She floats like a feather, drifting and gliding out of sight.

I run to her and dive over the edge. She is somewhere in the darkness beneath me; I can hear her laughter. I reach for her, grabbing for an arm, a leg, anything I can hold onto. But she is forever out of reach.

I
SQUINT WHEN THE SUN PASSES
by my window at just the right angle for its rays to sneak out from behind the blinds and dance on my eyelids. I shield my face and roll away. That’s when I notice I’m surrounded by a sea of blue carpet. I sit up, knocking over the tequila bottle. I pick it up quickly but it’s empty and the pain deep in my temples reminds me why.

Next to me, the record is spinning on the player but the arm lies broken by its side. I pick it up and turn it over, examining the place where it broke free from its base. I must’ve hit it in my sleep. I rub my eyes and fragments of the nightmare return—the eerie streets, the alleyway, reaching for her—it was a manifestation of “For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her.” I glance over at the spinning record. The album jacket lies next to it with James’s photo on top.

I
N THE KITCHEN
, Mom is cooking oatmeal. She’s still in her nightgown, but her hair is done and she’s wearing lipstick. I never understood this about her. She always claimed it was for Daddy. No man should have to look at a wreck across the breakfast table. But Daddy’s been gone for years, and yet here she is with her hair done and lipstick on. It can’t be for my benefit because my own hair is stacked in a messy bun on top of my head and remnants of mascara are smudged beneath my eyes.

The truth is it’s for the neighbors. It always has been. It’s for the off-chance they happen to be pressing their noses against their windows at the exact moment Mom pokes her head out the front door to grab the newspaper off the porch. She drops a pat of butter and spoonful of cinnamon into the oatmeal and stirs the chunky mash. I doubt the neighbors would even be able to tell whether her hair is done or not. Besides being the color of steel wool, it’s flimsy and flat at the roots. Near the ends it takes on a life of its own, twisting and curling into nonsensical corkscrews that remind me of the lure on Daddy’s fishing pole. It’s as old-fashioned as she is. I’m often tempted to tell her that she’s the only who presses her nose against the window and that, despite what she thinks, nobody cares what she’s doing over here in her outdated kitchen. But this routine makes her happy, and Lord knows I’m in no position to judge anyone for their bizarre rituals.

“Did you sleep all right?” she asks over her shoulder.

“It took me a long time to fall asleep,” I admit, leaving out the tequila and the late-night journey down memory lane.

She slides a mug of steeping Earl Grey in front of me. “Was it your bed or something on the brain?” She sets the sugar bowl next to it.

I spoon sugar into my mug and stir the hot liquid, imagining how alarmed she’d be if she knew I slept on the floor. “A little of both, I suppose.”

She places a bowl of steaming oatmeal in front of me and sits down across from me, spotting her opening. “Do you want to talk about it?”

I blow on a hot spoonful of oatmeal and shove it into my mouth with a shrug.

She folds her hands under her chin and sucks in her breath as if she’s bracing herself for whatever bombshell I’m about to drop this time. When she found out I was pregnant, she had a meltdown of nuclear proportions. After years of criticizing men who drank too much and ran around on their wives, women who dressed too provocatively or spent too much of their husband’s money, she had a pregnant teenage daughter. For a woman who considered herself a good Christian, my sin threw her whole world off-kilter. She pulled me out of school, made me say goodbye to Angela and all my friends, and shipped me off to a maternity home to shield our family from embarrassment and protect her good name.

“Catharine? What’s going on?”

I tuck my right hand up my left sleeve and trace over the hard crusts of healing skin. “I can’t get pregnant.”

She breathes a sigh of relief. She probably thought I was going to tell her that I’d broken my marital vows or come out as a lesbian. She catches herself then and looks at me with sympathy.