Everything Breaks (16 page)

She squinted and shook her head. “But it was so very strange. I'd been
remembering
that sound, but then suddenly I heard the hum of the fluorescent lights as well and I knew I was awakening from my trance and coming back to the library. I smelled the books and looked down to see the scuffed tile floor, but when I looked straight ahead of me, all was lost in swirling, murky shadows. And
still
there was the sound of those waves breaking upon the beach somewhere quite, quite close.

“Then the Marilyn Monroe entity materialized a few feet in front of me, her eyes simply blue eyes again. She held out her hand and said to me, in that breathy voice, ‘Give me what you have in your pocket and I'll take you where you long to go.' And then she took several steps backward with her hand still out, like a TV hostess revealing some prize behind a curtain. And the swirling shadows parted so that I was suddenly staring right at the Gulf of Mexico, there where the library computer bank usually was. There where the big pink dinosaur sign ordinarily stood, directing patrons to the children's room downstairs. It was now all churning water, and there was the evocative sound of seagulls, and there was a little green boat drifting in the distance, and . . . and . . .”

She closed her eyes and said in an urgent whisper, “My hand found my pocket and I clasped the obolus as hard as I could! Oh, how I
yearned
to pay the fare so I might sail away to the land I dreamed of, where my lost love was waiting for me!”

Mrs. Beetlebaum slowly turned her head to look down at the obolus there on my bed. She sat very still, her eyes glistening with longing as she clasped her hands in her lap and held them so tightly they shook. I knew she was standing on that dark shore in the landlocked library again. She longed to take back the coin, to make the decision she hadn't made that day when she'd had the clear opportunity.

I knew all that because I was feeling that longing again myself. I had to shove my hands hard into my pockets to keep from reaching for that coin. I wondered if I could ever give up the feeling that I should have been with them, should have been the fourth guy to make the set complete, and also in some strange way to look after them. Could I give up that feeling when it would mean I was giving up the best friends I would ever have, saying good-bye in some more complete way than I could imagine doing? Could I ever figure out how to do that, to say good-bye and still remember? Could she give up the sad dreams she dreamed of recovering her lost love? Doubtful in both cases.

This wasn't good. I gathered a breath, then whispered, “Uh, Mrs. Beetlebaum?”

She jerked, startled, then gave a deep sigh and used the chair arms to raise herself to a slow stand. “I must get to a yoga class tonight,” she murmured, clucking her tongue as she slowly straightened her back. “I missed two evenings last week and it has me stiff.”

She touched the knuckles of my hand, the one with Trey's rock. “Keep that safe,” she said, then she gave me a wink and walked to the door. “I'll see you tomorrow at school, Tucker.”

“Wait, Mrs. Beetlebaum! You didn't say why you
didn't
give up the coin!”

She had her hand on the doorknob, but she turned. “Actually, Tucker, it was the library cat, Dickens. As I stood entranced by the roiling water and that dear green boat, I felt Dickens winding himself around my ankles, and when I glanced down at him, he looked up at me with the expression cats have when they need you for something. He had just eaten, so I knew he simply wanted to be petted, and without thinking about it, I crouched and ran my hands over his sleek gray fur. And, well, I found I didn't want to put my hand back into my pocket then. The coin was just too cold after the particular warmth that only comes from warm, beating, purring life.”

I picked up the obolus and wiped most of the mud on the hem of my T-shirt. “You almost forgot this, Mrs. Beetlebaum.” I hurried to her, holding it out.

But when I reached her, she put her hands on my shoulders and whispered, “Shall I tell you what
truly
happened, Tucker?” She narrowed her eyes, giving me a sly smile. “Dickens wound himself around my ankles, and I crouched to stroke him. He began to purr, and I suddenly had the most vivid memory of a small event from the early days of my marriage. I was still a college student when we married, struggling to pay my tuition from my library salary. Theo and I were in the park one summer afternoon, eating ice cream cones. There was a skinny little yellow stray kitten following us, and I found a large leaf and broke him off a chunk of my ice cream and cone. And while we crouched there watching the kitten eat, I mentioned to Theo that I was thinking I might quit school so I could use my salary at the library to help with our apartment rent. And Theo adamantly shook his head and leaned close to push my hair behind my ear. ‘You can't quit school, you're a born teacher,' he said. ‘You'll see. Teaching will be the love of your life.' He himself was a math teacher, which made him a bit of an authority. I rolled my eyes and even laughed, I think, but because of what he'd said, I didn't quit school. I was in my last semester when he died.”

Mrs. Beetlebaum gave my shoulders a squeeze, then released me. “Teaching
has
been the love of my life, Tucker, second only to Theo. I believe Theo somehow communicated that small but life-changing ice cream moment to me, through Dickens. And that's what made me keep the obolus in my pocket and long for life again.”

She turned back to the door, opened it, and stepped through. “I am so sorry for your loss, Tucker. Bud was a fine man.” She waved good-bye over her shoulder.

“Mrs. Beetlebaum, you forgot the obolus!”

“It stays with
you
now, Tucker,” she said without turning. “Someday you will spot the person who should have it next. That's part of the deal, so keep your eyes open, but at the same time, don't act too quickly with so much at stake!”

XVI

I STATIONED M
YSELF
at the kitchen sink that night and washed the dishes that had been accumulating all weekend. I gave the dishwasher a complete pass and just washed everything by hand, silverware, glasses, everything. I took my time. The voices of the people still stopping by the house flowed over me in a soothing, monotonous way without my having to actually follow conversations like I would have had to if I'd hung around in the living room.

I used the time to try and figure out where I should keep the obolus. My pocket was no good, not even for a minute. Even there on my bed it had brought unhealthy longings to both me and Mrs. Beetlebaum. Out in the open anywhere in my room felt unsafe for that same reason and also because it might get lost, or even be thrown away by Janet on a cleaning rampage. My dresser drawers would also be subject to Janet when she put away clean clothes. The obolus looked like some video game token, some arcade souvenir. She could easily mistake it for worthless junk and decide to get rid of it.

At first, each time the dish drainer got full, I stopped washing and dried stuff myself, but at some point Officer Stephens wandered in, pulled the dish towel from my shoulder, and took over that part. I remember he mumbled a couple of times something about Janet being exhausted and he sure wished these good people would go home to bed now. I nodded and smiled from one side of my mouth, totally agreeing, but what could you do?

“Here, these are yours,” he said when we'd been working silently for a while. “I almost forgot why I came in here. Janet wanted me to pass them along to you.”

I glanced over. He was holding out a couple of car keys.

“Keys to the Taurus?” I nodded and kept on swabbing a coffee cup. “Thanks.”

Janet had been talking about making me a set, for when she needed me to run some errand or for those occasions when I took her car to fill it or wash it. In fact, that afternoon I'd had to ask for her keys to take the Taurus around back so I could clean it.

“No, to the Olds,” Officer Stephens said. He put the two keys on the drain board and picked up one of the three wet bowls waiting for his attention. “Janet says it's yours now. These keys are extras Bud had up in that old Vaseline jar where he kept his state quarter collection and his favorite chewed-up toothpick.” He chuckled.

I remember I froze in place with my dishcloth wadded into that cup. The suds in the sink sparkled in a strange way, all blue and filmy. I had never in my life felt the sort of weak-kneed desire for anything I was suddenly feeling for Bud's car. The junk crammed into the glove compartment, the formfitting sags in the driver's seat, the green dashboard lighting, the smells of grease and sweat and hair oil, the way the wind traveled so freely through it. It was like stepping back into a time when baseball was played on dirt fields and you got root beer in a glass mug, at least if Bud's stories were to be believed.

I finally swallowed and said, “Janet needs to sell the Olds. She doesn't know how much a vintage car like that can bring these days. Everything's retro, and that car's in great condition now that the grime is off it. I mean, sure it's a gas guzzler, but it's also a classic. Somebody will buy it to drive once a week, and not far, to shows and stuff. She needs the money it'll bring. She needs to sell it.”

I hadn't heard Janet come into the kitchen, but she said quietly from not far behind me, “Sweetheart, I could never sell Dad's car. He would be so proud to see you have it.”

Bud, proud of me having his car? I didn't turn around. I couldn't. “You don't know everything that happened,” I pushed out. “He . . . had a heart attack. I took him to the emergency room, but I couldn't make him go in. I
didn't
make him go in. All he wanted was to look for his truck, so that ended up being what we did. The
last
thing he did.”

Silence. Then, Janet said, “Do you know how many times that happened to
me
with him, Tucker? At least three times I got him to the hospital parking lot and that was as far as I could get him. Other times he checked himself out of the hospital against doctor's orders. That was Dad. As he liked to say, his wounds were his own. You gave him the ride of his life, taking him up to his old farm like that. You know that, don't you?”

I braced my palms against the stainless steel rim of the sink as tears I hadn't known I had began hitting the suds, popping and scattering them, exploding them like shells falling from the sky can explode a muddy trench, can blow things into bits too small to recover. Like a great red bird of a flying car can explode into ashes that rain back down, scalding both chilly sand and fragile flesh, melting everything together so you don't know what is what. You just don't know what is . . . what.

My shoulders were heaving, but I tried not to make any noise, tried to stifle at least the sound. My mouth was open and my nose was running. I could taste salt.

I hoped no one would touch me, and they didn't.

“Janet?” I whispered. “Trey and I loved those stories of Bud's so much. I don't know why we quit listening, I guess we just grew up. But Trey remembered things from those stories all the time, like just a couple of weeks ago he reminded me of what Bud said about his dad's two mules and how they were yoked together to load walnut logs onto a railroad car. On the way to Nebraska, Bud told me more stories, and I know he knew that was exactly what I needed, his stories. I mean, Janet, I'll always be so grateful for Bud's stories, and for getting to watch his old game tapes with him. I loved that too.”

I heard Janet draw in a breath and begin sobbing again, then after a few minutes I think they knew I needed to be alone, because I heard the two of them quietly leave the kitchen. They closed the door behind them, and I just kept standing there, dropping tears, destroying the suds so that I had to keep adding more detergent.

When all the visitors had finally gone home, I went out to the driveway and pulled everything out of Bud's glove compartment. I put the obolus inside, then crammed everything else back in on top of it.

• • •

So all that happened right before Halloween, and now it's almost Thanksgiving. The chamber of commerce has all the streets downtown looped with green and gold lights, and there are banners of smiling fat turkeys with Pilgrim hats giving folks a wing wave. Clevesdale spends a fortune on bizarre holiday decorations. You should see Christmas.

At school, people have made shrines of Steve, Zero, and Trey's lockers, piling stuff in front of them, starting with leftover homecoming carnations in the school colors and Halloween candy, which was finally removed when the night custodians caught a bunch of the school mice having a midnight feast. The wilted carnations are still there. There's also a lot of stuff taped to the doors, which started with these cheesy poems one of the English classes wrote. I guess I shouldn't be like that about people's poetry, but if you write about a thing like death, your words should, well, bring some uniqueness to the subject. These poems are mostly about crying, and I have a feeling that's because so much rhymes with that word, including the obvious first choice,
dying.
Buying, lying, trying, denying, drying
(as in the tears you were crying), even
why-ing.
Would you believe it, four of those poems used
why-ing
? “I can't understand and so I keep why-ing.” Well, who
can
understand death? Not understanding death is universal, is a given, no use going on and on about it, as Bud might have said.

One night I was doing homework at my desk when Janet knocked and came in with a clean pair of my jeans over her arm. She noticed the mustard-stained napkin on my bulletin board for the first time. “What's this?” she said, and stood there reading.

I got up and took the jeans from her, then stood beside her. “Bud's rules of the road.”

She bit her bottom lip and ran her fingers under her eyes, then she started at the top and quietly read the list out loud.

“One. Never leave a lady stranded on the highway. Two. Things loom up fast, remember. Three. Keep a map in your vehicle, but know when to toss it. Four. Carry tools in the trunk and don't be tempted to take them out and use them for whatnot around the house. Five. Change the oil every three thousand miles. Six. A day of freedom on the open road beats a year cooped up inside four walls.”

She turned to me and smiled. “That sounds just like him.”

I've had the six things on Bud's list memorized for quite some time, but still the list stays up there. There's a narrow ledge along the bottom of the bulletin board where I keep Trey's green lighter and the last rock he threw. The rock no longer jiggles, never dances around on a windless night. He's gone from it, completely. From it, not me. I wish I could show Trey Bud's old car.

Officer Stephens picks Janet up and drives her to work now, so the Taurus stays in the garage most of the time and the Olds stays in the driveway. I keep it polished up. It's that sort of car, needs to have a shine. I like how I can see it from my window. I like how the moving leaves on the big sycamore tree in our yard are mirrored in its chrome hubcaps and along the wide bumper.

Last week I was standing at Trey's locker, reading some of those bad poems, when I felt someone nearby and glanced over to see Grace Reiser. She wrinkled her nose and said, “I think they should throw away these ugly dead carnations, don't you?” She crouched down and gathered up a handful. Her dark hair moved like water, came sliding across her shoulder. “I'm tossing some of these,” she looked up and told me.

I nodded. “I don't know about some of these poems, either,” I surprised myself by confiding. “But, well, I guess I don't know all that much about poetry.” I shrugged.

She smiled. “Are you okay, Tucker? Can I help in any way?”

“I'm fine,” I told her, then I decided on more honesty. “Well, I'm getting there.”

She shifted her books, shook back her bangs, and smiled again. Then she walked on.

I was watching her go down the hall when someone clutched my elbow from behind and jerked me backward, hard. “What is
wrong
with you, Tucker?”

I turned to look into the legendary green eyes of the beautiful Aimee.

“What?” I asked. Had she forgotten what a loser she'd decided I was, that I was far too hopeless to communicate with? No, wait—she was probably here to remind me, in case I'd let the fact of my loserness momentarily slip my loser brain.

“What's up, Aimee? I gotta get to track.”

She smacked her gum in a you-are-too-stupid-to-live sort of way while she explored a strand of her own hair. “Ick, a split end,” she murmured, then she flipped her hair over her shoulder, folded her arms, and ran her eyes over me from head to toe, shaking her head in obvious disgust.

I had a sudden inspiration. I read somewhere that if you want an honest evaluation of yourself, you should ask an enemy. “Aimee, what do you think Trey and Steve and Zero . . . liked about me, as a friend?” This was really lame, but I was in too far to go back. “I mean, I sometimes wonder why they wanted me to hang out with them. They were so flashy and I'm . . . obviously not.”

She frowned at me, then shrugged. “There's this thing that's honorable about you, like you'd try not to let anyone down. It's kind of old-fashioned, and it's really cute.”

I waited for the shot of sarcasm, but she stood there like what she'd said was a given.

Then she delivered a zinger. “Tucker, you
are
a good-looking guy, especially now that your long eyelashes have grown back. Still, if it weren't for sweet Zero, I would give up on you completely, you are
that
dense. News flash! That cute girl has been hitting on you for weeks.”

Something in me turned over. “Grace Reiser? No way.” I snorted.

“Whatever you say, Tucker.” She sashayed down the hall still shaking her head, then turned around to call to me, “I'm so sure
you're
better at reading such things than
I
am, you're such a social guru and
so
in the loop.”

She had a point. And as I thought about it, I did remember a couple of things. Grace had asked me to hold her place in line once in the cafeteria, then offered to save me a seat since I would be coming through after her. And she'd called one night to get clarification on a homework assignment. Several of her girlfriends were in that class, so she could have called one of them instead. Wow. Grace Reiser.

On the other hand, Aimee might be pulling something, trying to trap me into making a fool of myself for retribution since she was convinced I'd deliberately tried to make a fool of her and her friends at the funeral. Funerals. I mean, she might have just noticed me watching Grace walk away and seen her chance to make me look stupid. Stupider.

Thing is, hanging out with Zero, Steve, and Trey so much had made me rusty where approaching girls was concerned. The girls I'd dated had basically been girls I'd gotten to know at parties or Trey's band gigs where I'd gone with the three of them. I'd just end up with a girl from some cluster of girls we all met and we'd go out for a while.

There'd been no one like Grace, though. I decided to call her, about homework.

Her mother answered. “Um, I think she's with Josh. Should I have her call you when they get back?”

“No, thanks. It's not important.” I hung up the phone, glad that at least I hadn't given my name. Which Josh? Probably Josh Hinstrom. I felt gutted, hollowed out.

It turned out Grace figured out it was me who'd called from caller ID, and after school the next day she tapped me on the shoulder while I was feeding the soda machine in the gym. She was buckling on a bike helmet, which for some reason made me notice the delicate line of freckles across the bridge of her nose.