The Mothers of Voorhisville (7 page)

“Billy Melvern didn't die in Iraq. It was Afghanistan.”

“Still,” Theresa said.

Elli sighed.

Theresa snapped off the radio. Elli snickered, loudly. They drove the rest of the way to Voorhisville in silence.

*   *   *

What was it about him? Later, Theresa would spend many hours trying to name the thing that made Jeffrey so attractive. He arrived late, and, with a nod towards the moderator, sat down. That was it. He sat there, nodding, occasionally recrossing his legs as they talked about Faulkner, Hemingway, Shakespeare, and Woolf.

Theresa felt like she was in way over her head. She thought this would be like Oprah's Book Club. Well, before Oprah started doing classics. To Theresa's amazement, Elli was talking about one of Shakespeare's plays. That's the first time the stranger spoke. He said, “We are such stuff as dreams are made on,” and Elli smiled.

It was just a
smile.
There was nothing extraordinary about it. Well, other than that Elli had smiled. Theresa didn't give it another thought after that. Certainly she hadn't thought it
meant
anything
.

Afterwards, when they were trying to decide if they would all go out for coffee, Mickey Freedman showed up and invited Elli to spend the night. “Are you
sure
it's okay with your mother?” (Theresa was perpetually suspicious of Mickey Freedman who, though only Elli's age, always acted so
confident
.)

“Yeah, it's no problem,” Mickey said. “You wanna call her?”

Theresa considered the small purple phone the girl dug out of her backpack. The truth was, Theresa had no idea how to use these portable devices. She turned to Elli, who was chewing gum as though it was a competitive event. “Well, have a good time,” Theresa said, trying to sound breezy, fun.

The girls didn't wait a second. They were gone, leaving the scent of gum, as well as something Theresa only noticed after the fact: a worrisomely smoky scent, wafting in the air behind them.

At that point, Theresa discovered everyone had left without her. There were only two places in Voorhisville where a book group could meet for coffee and conversation: The Fry Shack, out on the highway, or Lucy's, which was a coffee shop in the pre-Starbucks sense of the word—a diner, really; though Lucy was fairly accommodating of the new fashion for only ordering coffee, as long as it was during off hours. Theresa walked out of the library and took a deep breath.

“Smells nice, doesn't it?” the stranger said.

He was standing by the side of the building. Almost as though he'd been waiting.

Theresa nodded.

“Mind if I join you?”

What could she do? She couldn't be rude, could she? He seemed perfectly nice, it was still light out, and it was
Voorhisville
, for God's sake. What bad thing could possibly happen here?

“I'm not going to Lucy's,” Theresa said, turning away from him.

“Neither am I,” he said, and fell in step beside her.

What had it been; what had it meant? Over and over again as the leaves fell to the dry flameless burn of that season, Theresa Ratcher asked herself these questions, as though if she asked enough, or in the right mental tone, the answer would appear. What had it been; what had it meant? As leaves fell in golden spiral swirls, on autumn days that smelled like apples. What had it been; what had it meant? As ghosts and vampires and dead cheerleaders carried treat bags and plastic jack-o'-lanterns through town—Theresa had forgotten what day it was—she returned home to find her husband in the living room watching
The Godfather
again, and she stood in the kitchen and stared out at the lonely unbroken dark.

What had it been; what had it meant? When she said, “I'm pregnant,” and her husband looked at her and said, “Are you kidding?” and she said, “No,” and he said, “This is going to be expensive,” and then, “Wait, I'm sorry, it's just … are you happy?” and she had shrugged and gone to the kitchen and looked out the window at the lonely dark fields of broken corn.

What had it been; what had it meant? Standing in the frozen yard, snowflakes falling, swirling around her and then suddenly gone, leaving a cold ray of sun and the feeling in her body as though tortured by her bones.

What had it been; what had it meant? Opening the door to Elli's bedroom, and seeing her standing there, naked, and realizing that she had not merely been gaining weight. “I'm your mother. Why didn't you tell me?” Theresa asked. “I hate you,” Elli screamed, trying to cover her distended belly with a towel.

 

E
LLI

We are running out of the library, giggling because we are free! I see the guy from the library, not the old one with the tie, but the cute one with the eyes like Eminem. He smiles at me and I smile at him and Mickey goes all nuts and says, “Who is that?” and I just shrug. We are walking down the street and Mickey says, “The graveyard,” and I go, “What?” and she says, “Old Batface'll tell my folks if we have a party or anything, but I know where my dad hides his peppermint schnapps. Let's go home and make hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps and go to the graveyard. You're not scared, are you?”

“I'm not afraid of ghosts,” I say. “It's real people that freak me out. What if Batface sees us leave?”

“She watches
Seinfeld
all night long. We'll go out the back door.”

So we walk down the street to Mickey's house and that line keeps going through my head: “We are such stuff as dreams are made on.” I feel like I am in a dream, like I have a body but I don't feel inside it, like we are surrounded by fireflies, even though it's light out, like the sky is filled with twinkling; and I feel free. Free from my mom with all her fears and rules and that depressed way of hers, and free from Dad with his stupid jokes, and free from the farm with its shitty smell and the silence except for all the birds and bugs.

Mickey says, “Who should we invite?”

“Where's your brother?” I ask. “Isn't he supposed to be watching you?”

“Vin's got one goal between today and Sunday night, when my parents get back, and that's to get into Jessica's pants. He doesn't care what I do, as long as I don't get in his way.”

Sure enough, when we open the door, we see a purse and two wineglasses. Upstairs, there is the sound of pounding, and Mickey looks at me and says, “Do you know what that is?” I shake my head.
(We are such stuff as
dreams are made on
.) “He's doing her,” she says and we giggle until we are bent over. Then Mickey opens cupboards and says, “Here, make the hot chocolate. I'll be right back.”

I fill the teakettle with water and put it on the burner and think,
What are we doing, why are we doing this?
Then Mickey is back, talking on the phone, saying, “Yeah, all right.” Through the window I can see right into Mrs. Wexel's living room where she's sitting in a chair in front of the TV, and in the TV is tiny Jerry Seinfeld saying something to tiny Elaine, and even from all this distance I think how big their teeth are. Mickey puts the teakettle on and says, “They're going to meet us there.”

We are such stuff as dreams are made on.

I pour hot water into the thermos and the light begins to fade and we leave out the back door, cutting across driveways and yards until we are on the road walking past the crooked house with the roses that smell so sweet, going up the hill to the graveyard, which is glowing. Mickey says, “You're sure you're not afraid?”

I say, “We are such stuff as dreams are made on.”

“Did you make that up?”

Before I can answer, Larry is standing there and Mickey says, “Where's Ryan? Where are the guys?” Larry says, “He couldn't come. Nobody could come.” He looks at me and nods and we trudge up the hill, weaving through the graves, past the angel, back past where all the dead babies are buried. We spread out the blanket and drink hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps. I feel like one of those body diagrams in science class. I picture a red line spreading to my lungs and my heart and into my stomach as the hot liquid goes down, and I think,
We are such stuff as
dreams are made on.
The fireflies are blinking around the tombstones and in the sky, which is sort of purple, and that is when I realize Mickey and Larry are totally making out, and just then she opens her eyes and says, “Elli, would you mind?” So I get up and walk away, weaving through the headstones and the baby toys, the stuffed animals on the graves. I head up the hill to where the angel is, and that's when I see him sitting there, and he smiles at me, just like he did at the library, and I am thinking,
We are such stuff as dreams are made on,
and I must have said it out loud because he goes, “Yes.”

I thought I saw a light shining out of him, like a halo, but let's face it, I was wasted and everything was sort of glowing—even the graves were glowing. He didn't try to talk to me and he didn't ask me to come over, I just did. He didn't ask me to sit down beside him, but I did, and he told me I had beautiful bones: “Slender, but not sharp.” I never saw wings, but I thought I felt them, deep inside me. He smelled like apples, and when I started crying, he whispered over and over again,
We are such stuff as dreams are made on.
At least, I think he did.

I passed out, until Mickey was standing over me going, “Jesus Christ, Elli, I thought you were dead or something. Why didn't you answer me?”

“Did you do it?” I asked.

“He didn't bring any condoms.”

“But you still did it, right?”

“What are you, nuts? I don't wanna get AIDS or something.”

“Larry isn't going to give you AIDS.”

“Come on, I feel sick. Let's go home. You all right?”

“I had the strangest dream.”

She was already walking down the hill, the blanket trailing from her arms, dragging on the ground. I looked up at the angel and said, “Hello? Are you here?”

“Shut up, Elli. Someone's going to call the cops.”

I felt like a ghost walking out of the graveyard. “Hey, Mickey,” I said, “it's like we're ghosts coming back to life.”

“Just shut up,” Mickey said.

Dogs barked and lights came on the whole way back to her house, where the two wineglasses were still there but the purse was gone. Mickey dropped the blanket on the floor and said, “I am so wasted.”

I said, “Nobody even knows we are here.”

Mickey rested her hand on my shoulder and said, “Maybe you shouldn't drink so much.”

I followed her up the stairs into her room where we went to bed without changing our clothes. It wasn't long before Mickey was snoring and I just lay there blinking in the dark, and it kept repeating in my head, over and over again:
We are such stuff as dreams are made on.
I fell asleep thinking it and I woke up thinking it and I'm still thinking it and I just keep wondering,
Is any of this real?