Where You End (4 page)

four

Across the street, our neighbor walks past a couple of plastic tombstones, high-fives Frankenstein, and reaches up the tree to turn on his polyester ghost. Mr. Wallace stands under the white sheet for a minute or so, to make sure it
's howling properly. I move closer to the window and figure about half the leaves are off our gingko. Last time I really looked at the tree, it was full of fruits that smell like sewage. Now they are thousands of miniature yellow fans covering our front yard.
Oooooohhhhhhhhh. OOOOOhhhhhhhhhh,
the ghost cries. My elbow is on the windowsill, and I'm watching it turn green, blue, and then white once more. The dishes rattle in the sink downstairs. The sun is setting. This is the view from my window. This is what I know.

My first real photo teacher always told us to take pictures of what we know. Stay close to home, he said, where it hurts to look. I wasn't sure what that meant, but now I'm getting closer to understanding. I watch Mr. Wallace walk back through the fake cobwebs toward his house.

I'm so tired I can barely hear the kitchen clatter downstairs, but when I lie down to sleep, everything suddenly conspires to keep me awake. I can't tune out the second hand tick-tocking on my watch. I take the watch off, and my ears start ringing a mean ring, like the batteries in my head have gone out. A dog barks. The computer hums. It doesn't matter that I took everything off my walls the minute I got home from Elliot's beach house—the photographs, the F-stop cheat sheet, the books off the shelves and the shelves off the wall. This empty room still haunts me.

I went to Ace Hardware by myself. I brought home painter's tape, a brush, and many quarts of dirty green paint. I did the whole room in one morning, while my parents were at the farmer's market buying heirloom tomatoes the size of your face. When they came back and saw the walls, my mom's eyes started twitching and my father dropped the rhubarb.

“It's the Atlantic Ocean,” I told them.

Someone knocks to interrupt my memory. I shut my eyes, breathing deep to feign sleep. The door squeaks open and Dad whispers my name. I picture my lids smooth and angelic. I float my tongue in my mouth to fake peace. He tiptoes out and I listen for his feet down the stairs, toward the dining room.

I run to the bathroom and roll up my sleeve to erase Paloma's writing, but when I reach for the soap I can't bring myself to do it. It happened. She wasn't a ghost. I turn off the water and get my phone to dial the number. It goes straight to voicemail. Instead of Paloma's voice, a little boy comes on. He tells me I've reached the number on my arm and tells me to leave a message. A girl laughs in the background.

“Miriaaaaaam. Dinner.”

Mom's call makes it past the floorboards, through the carpet, under my door. I hang up the phone right after the beep. It's Friday—the linen tablecloth, the heavy silverware, the challah, and the wine. We don't go to temple, but my parents take the weekly dinner pretty seriously. I get it. Rituals matter. They keep us together, and, when everything is changing, we know at least Friday is coming and we'll eat the same thing, at the same table, with the same people. Some things never change, and thank God for that. Elliot is holding hands with Maggie, but it's Friday. I pushed a Picasso, but it's Friday. I just hung up on the person who can turn me in, but it's Friday. It's Friday, and my period is exactly two weeks late.

“Miiiriaaaam. It's getting cold.”

I rub the ink off with the soap until it burns. The water feels good.

“Miriam, the sun!
”

I check outside. I can still see some light through the trees.

“Miriam.” Mom's voice is closer, outside the bathroom door. “We're waiting for you. What are you doing?”

When I open the door, with my hair all messed up and my eyes narrow and straight, Mom shoves a pack of matches in my palm.

“You do the blessing tonight,” she says, in a manner so clear and strong it immediately makes me think of bronze.

Following her down the steps, I notice her ass is sort of getting flatter. I imagine yanking her belt loops the way a toddler might, to make her mad, to pull her close. But she turns around and offers her eyes, round and deep, and says:

“I haven't told your father yet.”

Which part? Her voice suggests I did something worse today than make the bus wait. For a second I think maybe she knows, but that's impossible. Mom was working at her gallery. If she knew, she would've already forced me to go back and apologize, or called a friend to make me intern at the museum. I would have to read Picasso's biography. It would already be on my desk.

No. My mother thinks I escaped the tedium of a high school field trip to examine the work of a creative master, one of her masters. She has no idea what happened. She just wanted me to be on time, and she wants to light the candles before the sun sets.

Dad is standing behind his chair at the dinner table, his hands wrapped around the back, poised and eager to sit as soon as I say the blessing. The food is waiting on a tray shaped like a big olive leaf, a wedding present that comes out on Friday evening. I've been through the ritual countless times. Dad ruffles my hair and smiles. I close my eyes and picture the bread, the cup, the candle. Even Adam could do this by now, and his dad is a Quaker who believes Jerusalem should be shared.

Mom plants her eyes on my forehead and purses her lips in expectation. She's made all our favorite dishes. My body wants to sleep. I just want to sleep. She runs the gold charm back and forth on the thin chain around her neck—my initials and my date of birth. I think of Paloma's gold fish necklace. This whole thing feels like a test. Even Dad suspects it.

Mom pushes the candle across the table and brings her hands toward her eyes to prompt me.
Barukh atah Adonai.
I remember the words like a summer hit on the radio, and before reciting the blessing, I notice Mom peeking through her fingers, a kid cheating at hide-and-go-seek, to check on me. Like I said, a test.

I light the match and then blow it out before it can reach my fingertip.

“Light it again,” she says, her hands still in mid-air, mid-prayer.

“You do it, Mom. I don't remember how.”

“Light it again, Miriam.”

I put the matches down and look for Dad, whose eyebrows squint to read what's behind the tension. He lets me drown.

“I don't feel good, Mom.”

She drops her hands. God can wait until I get a grip.

“I thought you felt fine.”

“Yeah, I did … I do. I just don't want to do this right now. I just want to sit down and eat. I'm really tired. Can you do this, please?”

“That sounds reasonable.” Dad jumps in like a tiger through a hoop of fire.

Mom's shoulders assume position. This is familiar.

You may have your ice cream when you've finished your peas. You may watch TV when you've cleaned up your toys. You may go to Adam's when you've done the dishes. You may walk home alone when you know how to punch. You may use my Leica camera when you graduate from college. You may sleep with someone when you are ready to be with them. And always use protection.

Protection from what?

Dad lets out a weak sigh.

“I will say the blessing when you've lit the candle,” she says.

I roll my eyes.

“Sarah … ” Dad says, his eyes begging.

“Seth?” she says.

“Maybe we can try again next Friday,” he tries.

“It's not that hard, Seth. I've cooked an entire meal. She can light a candle.”

“I know, Sarah, it's great. Everything looks great. Let's just say the blessing and enjoy it. I'll say it.”

“You can't say it, remember? Only the women, it's tradition. Right, Mom?”

My voice comes out whinier than I intended, a kind of silly, entitled whine.

“Light it, Miriam.” Her final words.

I strike a match against the box, wait a few seconds until the flame is getting close, then drop it in my plate. Mom actually gasps. Before the flame can turn blue, I cover my eyes and say the blessing, for the bread, for the cup, for the Jews. Then I push my chair in and walk upstairs to my room, unable to shake the rage that has swallowed my head since Elliot told me he just didn't know.

I don't know, Miriam. I don't know if I'm in love with you.

As I dive onto the bed, I hope Dad is lighting the candles after all, that Mom is lifting the towel off the bread, and that he is devouring her delicious feast. To hell with me. It's not her fault I'm not as strong as she is, is it?

It's not her fault, it's not her fault, it's not her fault.

five

The
mal de mer
wakes me up. Mr. Wallace's ghost is silent and limp across the street. Next to my bed, there's a tray with some bread and a plate of leftovers, but I'm too nauseated to reach for it. I check my underwear. Clean. I tiptoe to the bathroom and try with the toilet paper. Nothing. I know I won't fall back asleep, so I do what I've done almost every night since the thought first occurred. I button my jeans, pull my hair into a messy bun, and I scan my room for his socks. Dark gray, slightly worn on the big toe, they smell like a basketball game. I've learned to roll them up so they don't bunch in my shoes. I'm a women's eight, Elliot a man's eleven. He forgot them here the last time we slept together, at the end of the summer, just before school started.
That
time.

When I bend down to tie my shoelaces, it feels like I'm on a hellish plane ride. The challah beckons, so I take a bite, hoping it will ease the sudden motion sickness. I brush my teeth twice, swishing and spitting furiously. My face is pale, and the freckles across my nose are graying. I have a crooked mouth.

I have two cameras to choose from: Lauren, the film camera (named after Lauren Bacall) and Bogart, the digital one, after her true love. They (the actors) met on the set of one of Dad's favorite movies,
To Have or Have Not
, second only to the legendary
To Kill a Mockingbird
, and that is only because Dad wants to be Atticus Finch. We used to watch these old movies together, when Mom was out late or in New York for a show. I liked to practice looking over my shoulder, lighting someone's imaginary cigarette, talking out the side of my mouth with that sultry voice. They barely even kiss in that movie, but Lauren Bacall taught me more about sex than sex itself. After watching the movie together, Elliot once told me I looked like her. Of course he did. I think that's when I gave in.

I walk past my parents' bedroom. Their door is open. His snores and her breath are warming up the hallway. I feel guilty, but I don't know what else to do. They're good parents. I'm just so tired. And, for better or worse, I can't sleep until I go out there.

While checking Bogart for juice, I think about the Picasso. The questions keep coming. Is the sculpture back up? Is it in the basement of the museum, where they keep the broken or ugly pieces? Do they have clinics for wounded art? I imagine a forensic scientist wearing goggles, brushing her hand across the sculpture's swollen belly, trying to determine how it happened. Who did this? Why? I check my recent calls: 240-667-8900. Is your light on tonight?

The bike rests against the back wall, and despite my general unease when I push the pedal, it does not disappoint. The tires are full and the breeze washes over the nausea. The first stop is Adam'
s house, but it doesn't count because I never really stop. I just have to go around the cul-de-sac and touch the mailbox with my right hand, like a trigger. It's a sad compulsion. The first time I went out at night, I came here but the lights were off. Adam's room faces the backyard. I didn't really want to see him. I just didn't want to betray him. Going out to take pictures is the sort of thing we used to do together. So, every time I go now, I pass by and touch the box, and sometimes I imagine it's a switch and that's how the lights come on. That's when I light up a house somewhere in Northwest DC, and all I have to do is find it.

Wisconsin and Connecticut, the main street arteries, are forbidden. It's too easy to find something there. It has to be a house. People have to live there. People who are sleeping, people who forgot to turn off all the lights, people who are too scared to turn off all the lights.

My tires cut the dry leaf piles on the back roads toward Chevy Chase. It hasn'
t rained in three weeks, and my feet itch like mad in these nasty socks. The oaks out here are enormous. I see nothing but street lamps so far. It must be past one. I've noticed the darkest hours are between one and four.

There. On the next block, left side, three houses up—a light is on. My guess is it's a living room, maybe dining. I stop the bike across the street. Before setting up, I check the houses around me. The rest of the block is lights out. Nobody is making secret phone calls in their parked cars. All the retrievers are snoozing in their monogrammed beds.

I forgot my tripod, which has never happened, but then again I've never knocked over a sculpture or deliberately messed with Shabbat, so this could be the new me, going bad like a child star on house arrest. I look for something flat to set the camera on, but the front garden has pretty stone walls that are too uneven to work with. I could try the roof of a station wagon, but I'm afraid the little red light flashing inside may be an alarm. The ground will have to do.

I take a composition book out of my trusted tote to even out the grass. The camera lens is wide open, like on a dentist's recliner. I check again. It's definitely a living room.

I make like a Navy Seal and lie perfectly still. My heart is finally beating, the way it does right when I'm about to take a picture. I Zen up and ignore the bed of acorns poking me everywhere.

It's perfect. There are bookshelves in the back, a coffee mug, a sweater draped on the arm of a green sofa. It takes forever for the lens to shut; my favorite kind of wait, when you can hear the light churning in there.

When I get back on the bike, I'm something close to happy. But happy is a ripple that hits land pretty fast these days and, after the first hill, I'm already thinking about him. I'm remembering my hair on his chin and him blowing it away. He just stared afterwards, right into my face. Neither one of us could bear to move. He was wearing a gray shirt that smelled like us. I was wearing a red button-down I stole from my dad's closet. At least three buttons were undone.

You could see whatever you wanted, if you were looking, and he was definitely looking. I felt brave. His arm was sprawled across my waist. I looked down at his toes, then the creases of the sheets, then a strand of my dark hair again—a little mischief, a little pride. The whole thing felt so big and so little at the same time, like it could never really leave the room, like it would always be between the two of us. I was awake and asleep; contained and in pieces. Whoever says sex is nothing hasn't had sex with somebody who stared at their face.

A drop of something warm dribbles down my chin. I take one hand off the handlebar to touch it. It's blood. My lips are cut. I've been biting down on the memory.

I wonder what I could offer this ghost, what I could do to make it go away. I already painted over my walls. I throw up. I don't sleep. I lie. I yell at my mother. I ignore my best friend. I push innocent sculptures. I used to make things. Now I just destroy them. Maybe I could bike to 18th Street and pay twenty bucks for fake sorcery, some kind of exorcism, somebody who will tell me to put garlic in my pillow and a pound of sugar under my bed. What do you want, Elliot? You happened. You left. Now stop happening.

A block or so before my own home, I take out my phone to try Paloma's number again, but it looks like she beat me to it.

IS THIS MAGGIE?
her text reads.

I type
No
and ride back to bed.