How to Be Lost (4 page)

We spent many afternoons in our made-up city, stopping into each other’s apartments and discussing our boyfriends and careers. Even in our imaginations, my sisters and I played our roles. Madeline was the good one: she did imaginary laundry. Ellie dove headlong into pretend adventures, like sailing in the hammock to Tahiti.

I kept us safe. It was my job in our real lives and our dreams, and I took it seriously. I didn’t trust anyone, and I was always ready for something to go wrong. Sometimes I wonder who I would have been if I hadn’t had sisters. Maybe I would have been the good one. Maybe I would have been able to take a chance.

I do not know what my mother did that Saturday; when we came inside for dinner (we made peanut butter and bologna sandwiches for ourselves), she was still sitting at the kitchen table in her ridiculous tennis getup, looking out at nothing.

We did not feel sorry for them, my parents, wandering miserably through their grand house like ghosts. All we knew was that they were not like other parents, and we hated them for it. Other mothers spent afternoons making a cake with you, not sleeping or talking about their old boyfriends. Other fathers sat down to dinner, and played Zim Zam on Sunday afternoons instead of drinking in the den. When you are small, if you reach out, and nobody takes your hand, you stop reaching out, and reach inside, instead. That’s just the way it was.

The night of my date with James O’Hara was damp. It was March, and the weather was unpredictable. With my sisters, I chose an outfit carefully: denim miniskirt, pantyhose, green and yellow striped sweater with a plain white T-shirt underneath, in case the restaurant was overheated. I told my sisters I wouldn’t kiss James O’Hara, but secretly considered it.

My parents didn’t usually care where we went at night. Sometimes, we walked to the library or, in the summer, to the Cherokee Golf Club. A mother took us all bowling or to Pizza Hut once in a while. It was never our mother.

I did not tell my parents that I had a date on Wednesday. Somehow, I thought it would all work out.

James rang the bell at precisely six. I was ready to go: I smelled of my mother’s Chanel No. 5, and my socks were bunched just right above my sneakers. My father was in the den, the door closed, the sound of Benny Hill behind it. My mother was in the back of the house or in bed, I didn’t care. My sisters and I sat cross-legged in the front hallway waiting. We generally avoided the front hallway, as it was too close to my father’s den; the door could swing open suddenly, say, if my father wanted another drink, and there you’d be: caught, and he could tell you you were fat or lazy or he would want to wrestle on the rug.

Madeline’s eyes widened when the bell rang. Ellie’s face bloomed with her grin. I stood, never feeling more like a queen than at that moment, but before I could take a step, the door to the den opened. Madeline made a panicked sound. My father appeared in a bathrobe. His eyes were bleary, full of both confusion and cruelty.

The bell rang again. “Who is it?” my father asked. By now, my mother had come into the front hallway as well.

“How am I supposed to know?” I said.

My father pulled his bathrobe closed, yanked the sash around his fat stomach (the alcohol was causing his girth to widen, although I did not know this at the time). He opened the door.

Standing on our front steps, James looked like an angel. He wore a nylon jacket, jeans, and a navy sweater. From five feet away, I smelled his cologne: Drakkar Noir. He had shaven, but I could see where the hair had been.

I cannot remember if I actually felt lust at that moment, or if I even knew what lust was, or if I just wanted to be owned by someone other than my parents. James looked at me, and the room fell away.

“Can I help you?” said my father.

“Oh,” said my mother, “it’s the boy from the body shop.”

“I’m James,” said James, and he brought a bunch of carnations forward. Their stems had been wrapped carefully with aluminum foil. “I’m here for Caroline,” he said.

“Oh, you’re here for Caroline, are you?” said my father, his eyes narrowing.

“Yes, sir,” said James.

“Well, well, well,” said my father. He put his hands on his hips, and I could see him trying to decide how to handle the situation. “Why don’t you give me just a second to have a word with my wife?” he said, finally. My mother followed my father back into his den.

James was still standing in the hallway. He looked puzzled and a little frightened.

“I’m Ellie,” said my baby sister, holding up her hand in a wave. She was not quite as tall as James’ chest, and he bent down to her.

“I know you,” said James. Ellie’s cheeks grew pink. She was wearing leggings and a T-shirt with bare feet, and her hair had not been cut in a long time. It fell in snarls and split ends down her back. Ellie’s eyes danced, and she drew her palms together and grinned.

“And don’t I know you, too?” said James to Madeline, who nodded, speechless.

“That’s Madeline,” said Ellie.

“Hello, Madeline,” said James.

Madeline did not speak.

The door to the den opened, and my father came out with an arm tightly around my mother. My father’s fingers on her shoulder were red.

“James, is it?” said my father.

“Yes, sir.”

“James, my wife and I have had a little talk,” said my father, and my mother tried to meet my eyes. I knew what was coming; I looked down. “You won’t be taking Caroline anywhere,” said my father. “Good night.”

“Oh,” said James, and my father led him out by the elbow and shut the door in his face.

“Well then,” he said, “I’m ready for a little fresher-upper.”

I turned to him. “Fuck you,” I said. There was a pause, and then he lifted his hand and brought his palm to my cheekbone. We stood across from each other for a long moment, my face hot. My father struck me again, my sisters silent, and my mother stood and watched.

We planned our escape carefully. We decided that the Oldsmobile made the best getaway car: the company car and the BMW were too flashy, but no one would notice an Oldsmobile. We could live in it, too, if necessary.

We had some money. I babysat for years, and was a Junior Lifeguard at the Oyster Shores Club. I had saved about three hundred dollars. Madeline kept everything that was given to her—each birthday card with ten dollars, each letter from our grandfather with money—and she had put away about two hundred dollars. There was an American Express card for emergencies, but using it, of course, would give us away. We made a trip to the Holt Pharmacy, where we stocked up on gum and hair spray. Madeline, ever the pragmatist, bought a bottle of cough medicine, bags of nature trail mix, and sunscreen.

Ellie didn’t have any material possessions, of course, but what she had was precious: a belief that life had joy in store for us, and an unwavering faith in me.

We spent evenings, in those final weeks at home, hunched over the Rand McNally Atlas, trying to decide where to spend the rest of our lives. The Atlas made me want to cry: it was a wedding present to my parents from someone who had written “For all the adventures you’ll share!” My father hated to travel, and after their disastrous honeymoon on Sea Island, my parents hadn’t really gone anywhere except Savannah.

Looking back, I think we chose New Orleans because it was what Madeline wanted. Madeline was unsure from the start about the whole plan, and we wanted her to be happy. When we watched A Streetcar Named Desire on television, late one night, Madeline was rapt. “Could we go there?” she said, and we said yes.

New Orleans seemed like the perfect place: dreamy and warm. We imagined everyone there was blond, and dressed in silk. We loved Baskin-Robbins daiquiri ice cream, and assumed it would be even better down south. Our mother was from the South, and we had all heard stories about how wonderful it was, how beautiful her life had been before she had gone and married a Yankee.

*

We decided to wait until the last day of school, June seventeenth. On the night of the sixteenth, we packed the car, knowing that my mother never drove it anymore. She rarely even got out of bed. I almost wished we could bring her, but she wasn’t strong enough to make it, and we were. She’d probably call my father from the pay phone at some McDonald’s, begging to come back home. I hated her.

“Colecovision?” said Ellie.

“No!” I said. “We might not even have a TV.”

Ellie’s face sobered as she tried to contemplate such a thing.

“I’m bringing all the Lord of the Rings books,” said Madeline.

“OK,” I said. “And clothes. We might have to get jobs, so bring some nice stuff.”

“Jobs?” said Ellie.

“Not you, probably,” I admitted.

“Gummi bears?” said Ellie.

“Sure,” I said. “Bring all the candy you want.”

It was strange to pack up our rooms. We had to leave so much behind, but we had things we didn’t need, or even want, when it came down to it. I wanted all of my hair stuff, I’m embarrassed to say, and my self-tanning cream and pink razor. There was a part of me that believed looking beautiful was the source of all happiness. My mother had told us as much, every time she started to ramble and elaborate on what a beauty she had once been. And it was true, she had been lovely. She kept a scrapbook of all her magazine ads (she had pages from Vogue, Mademoiselle, and McCalls’), and in the pictures she looked as if everything was in front of her. Her smile was real. But look what had happened to her.

“Don’t forget sleeping bags,” I told my sisters, “and toothbrushes.” Madeline packed carefully, folding everything and pressing out wrinkles, while Ellie just crammed it all in. When our bags and pillowcases were filled, we snuck down to the garage where the car was parked. We knew how to walk carefully on the stairs. Our mother was in bed, the lights turned off, but our father was in his den.

The only sounds in the house were the muffled television and my sisters’ breathing. It was thirty-six steps to the bottom.

The garage was cool and damp. We didn’t turn on the lights, just felt our way along the cement wall. We could see the dim outline of the cars. “Don’t open the car door,” whispered Ellie. “He’ll hear it.” Her cotton nightgown fell to her toes. She smelled of Pert Plus shampoo.

“Where should we put them?” asked Ellie. Her pillowcase was filled to bulging, and she could barely hold it in her chubby arms.

“Under the car,” I said. “I’ll get them in the morning.”

We had just stashed everything when we heard footsteps. “Yikes!” said Madeline.

We looked for a place to hide, and then the door that led from the house into the garage opened.

“Hello?” said our father, “who’s there?”

We stood silent, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the shadowy light, waiting for him to see us.

“C
AROLINE
?” It was Ron, his hand on my shoulder. “You ready to go back to the condo? Don’t want to miss Christmas mass.”

I looked at Ron. He was smiling, and I saw that he hated all this as much as I did.

“Were you brought up with any religion?” I asked Ron, throwing my cigarette into the water and turning to walk back.

“My mom was a lapsed Episcopalian, but she took us to church once in a while,” he said.

“Really? I thought the Catholic wedding was your deal.”

“Mine? No. Maddy insisted on it.”

“That surprises me,” I said.

“Why?”

“I guess I didn’t know she cared about things like that.”

“You don’t have any idea what she cares about,” said Ron in a sharp voice.

Tears sprang to my eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I said.

“Forget it.”

“I will,” I said. I tried to swallow the anger I often felt around Ron and his judgment. We walked back to the house, and I could smell the ocean.

My mother and Madeline were standing outside the front door shivering. “Where have you been?” said my mother. She wore large, gold earrings.

“Just taking in Christmas Eve,” said Ron, slipping his arm around Madeline, who seemed unresponsive. She had blown her hair straight, and wore a plaid headband that matched her shoes. She was engulfed in a mink coat.

“Nice coat!” I said.

“Anniversary,” said Madeline, climbing into my mother’s Mercedes.

Ron and Madeline’s anniversary was in June, which seemed a strange time to give someone a mink coat. They had been married three years before. Ron started the Mercedes and my mother glanced at the car clock.

“Yeek,” she said. “We’re going to miss the carols!” She turned on the radio, and found a station playing “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” “It’s Elvis!” she said, delighted.

We drove past the gatehouse, waving to Mitchell, the senile man who protected us from whatever nefarious types lurked around a small Westchester town on Christmas Eve. “Have you been smoking?” Madeline whispered, disgustedly, to me.

“Yes,” I said.

“God,” said Madeline. She rolled down her window.

“Madeline,” said my mother, “it’s freezing. Roll that back up immediately.”

Madeline sighed, but did as she was told.

At St. David’s, we parked and walked quickly to the entrance. My mother was right: we had almost missed the carols. Nonetheless, she was able to walk up the aisle toward a pew, winking and smiling at her friends.

As soon as we genuflected and sat down, she began to fill me in on the year’s gossip. As the mass wore on, my mother’s voice in my ear was a comforting hum: now see that woman with the bad haircut? That’s the sister of Mary Lou, whose daughter’s in rehab somewhere like St. Louis. Mary Lou was married to Owen—remember him? He bought twenty boxes of your Girl Scout cookies one year—but then his secretary got pregnant, at least Mary Lou got the house, that white colonial on Kenny Avenue, and her son’s at Lawrenceville….

I scanned the churchgoers for familiar faces, and saw a few: girls I’d known, now wearing blouses with big collars, children in their laps or by their sides. The church was decorated with dozens of poinsettia plants and white candles. When the priest passed the collection basket, Ron pulled a fifty from his wallet. Madeline gave him a look I didn’t understand: a look between annoyance and pride. My mother pressed a quarter into my palm, the way she had done when I was small. I thought about protesting, pulling bills from my own purse (it was purple velvet; Winnie had given it to me for my birthday), but I kept quiet and dropped the quarter in the basket when it came by.

Right about Eucharist time, Madeline put her fingertips over her mouth. “Are you OK?” I whispered.

“No,” she answered.

People were starting to shuffle in their seats, getting ready to receive the Lord and show off their Christmas outfits. “What’s the matter?” I asked, but Madeline shook her head.

“Look,” said my mother, nodding toward the line of people filing past our pew toward the altar. “Is that the ugliest dress you’ve ever seen or what?”

When the man in the gray suit stopped next to our pew, we stood and made our way toward the altar. As we passed people who had taken communion, my mother winked and smiled. I felt like a fraud taking the bread and wine, but didn’t know what to say to get out of it. Madeline went before me, settling on her knees awkwardly and refusing the wine. She bent her head for a quick prayer—we knew that any prayers made at the altar were that much closer to God—and I looked at the back of her neck, exposed as her hair fell in two wings over her shoulders. The skin was pale.

I knelt, but realized I had forgotten which hand went on top to receive the bread, so I hurriedly stuck out my tongue. The priest murmured something and I murmured something back. He placed the wafer on my tongue. It was dry, and stuck to the roof of my mouth as I chewed. I closed my eyes and then I saw her: Ellie. She was kneeling at the altar, five years old and balling her fists, saying, “This is so boring!”

I opened my eyes, and a woman wearing too much base makeup was standing above me with the chalice. She had finished wiping the glass, and held it toward me. I brought the silver cup to my mouth and drank.

I’m alive, said Ellie.

I heard the voice. But then it was time for me to stand, straighten my skirt, and follow Ron’s wide back to the pew. I felt dizzy, but it had always been Ellie who had grown dizzy in church. She had once passed out, and my mother carried her outside and put her in the cool car with a soda from the machine in the rectory.

I knelt in our pew, and spoke to God. God bless my father in heaven, and my mother. God bless Madeline and Ron. God bless Winnie and Jimbo and Georgette. God bless Ellie.

I remembered the last time I had seen her, walking from Mrs. Lake’s car into Maxwell Elementary. Her legs pumping, the sunlight making her brown hair shimmer. Her red T-shirt, her blue jeans and sneakers. Arms swinging at her sides.

As the choir began to sing around me, I pressed my eyes closed, to keep the tears inside. The organ rang out, the voices sang Glooooria! My mother pulled me to my feet and kissed my cheek. “Merry Christmas,” she said.

Ellie had not looked back, that June morning. She just walked into her school, stepped inside, and the door closed behind her.