Along for the Ride (3 page)

And just like that, my summer changed.

The next morning, I packed my car with a small duffel bag of clothes, my laptop, and a big suitcase of books. Earlier in the summer, I’d found the syllabi to a couple of the courses I was taking at Defriese in the fall, and I’d hunted down a few of the texts at the U bookstore, figuring it couldn’t hurt to acquaint myself with the material. Not exactly how Hollis would pack, but it wasn’t like there’d be much else to do there anyway, other than go to the beach and hang out with Heidi, neither of which was very appealing.

I’d said good-bye to my mom the night before, figuring she’d be asleep when I left. But as I came into the kitchen, I found her clearing the table of a bevy of wineglasses and crumpled napkins, a tired look on her face.

‘Late night?’ I asked, although I knew from my own nocturnal habits that it had been. The last car had pulled out of the driveway around one thirty.

‘Not really,’ she said, running some water into the sink. She looked over her shoulder at my bags, piled by the garage door. ‘You’re getting an early start. Are you that eager to get away from me?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Just want to beat traffic.’

In truth, I hadn’t expected my mom to care whether I was around for the summer or not. And maybe she wouldn’t have, if I’d been going anywhere else. Factor my dad into the equation, though, and things changed. They always did.

‘I can only imagine what kind of situation you’re about to walk into,’ she said, smiling. ‘Your father with a newborn! At his age! It’s comic.’

‘I’ll let you know,’ I told her.

‘Oh, you must. I will require regular updates.’

I watched as she stuck her hands into the water, soaping up a glass. ‘So,’ I said, ‘what did you think of Hollis’s girlfriend?’

My mother sighed wearily. ‘What was she doing here, again?’

‘Hollis sent her back with a gift for me.’

‘Really,’ she said, depositing a couple of glasses into the dish rack. ‘What was it?’

‘A picture frame. From Greece. With a picture of Hollis in it.’

‘Ah.’ She turned off the water, using the back of her wrist to brush her hair from her face. ‘Did you tell her she should have kept it for herself, since it’s probably the only way she’ll ever see him again?’

Even though I’d had this exact same thought, after hearing my mom say it aloud I felt sorry for Tara, with her open, friendly face, the confident way she’d headed into the house, so secure in her standing as Hollis’s one and only. ‘You never know,’ I said. ‘Maybe Hollis has changed, and they’ll get engaged.’

My mom turned around and narrowed her eyes at me. ‘Now, Auden,’ she said. ‘What have I told you about people changing?’

‘That they don’t?’

‘Exactly.’

She directed her attention back to the sink, dunking a plate, and as she did I caught sight of the pair of black, hipnerdy eyeglasses sitting on the counter by the door. Suddenly, it all made sense: the voices I’d heard so late, her being up early, uncharacteristically eager to clean out everything from the night before. I considered picking the glasses up, making sure she saw me, just to make a point of my own. But instead, I ignored them as we said our goodbyes, her pulling me in for a tight hug – she always held you close, like she’d never let you go – before doing just that and sending me on my way.

      Chapter

      TWO

My dad and Heidi’s house was just what I expected. Cute, painted white with green shutters, it had a wide front porch dotted with rocking chairs and potted flowers and a friendly yellow ceramic pineapple hanging from the door, that said
WELCOME!
All that was missing was a white picket fence.

I pulled in, spotting my dad’s beat-up Volvo in the open garage, with a newer-looking Prius parked beside it. As soon as I cut my engine I could hear the ocean, loud enough that it had to be very close. Sure enough, as I peered around the side of the house, all I could see was beach grass and a wide swath of blue, stretching all the way to the horizon.

The view aside, I had my doubts. I was never one for spontaneity, and the farther I got from my mom’s house, the more I started to consider the reality of a full summer of Heidi. Would there be group manicures for me, her, and the baby? Or maybe she’d insist I go tanning with her, sporting matching retro
I LOVE UNICORNS
tees? But I kept thinking of Hollis in front of the Taj Mahal, and how I’d found myself so bored all alone at home. Plus, I’d hardly seen my dad since he got married, and this – eight full weeks when he wasn’t teaching, and I wasn’t in school – seemed like my last chance to catch up with him before college, and real life, began.

I took a deep breath, then got out. As I started up to the front porch, I told myself that no matter what Heidi said or did, I would just smile and roll with it. At least until I could get to whatever room I’d be staying in and shut the door behind me.

I rang the doorbell, then stepped back, arranging my face into an appropriately friendly expression. There was no response from inside, so I rang it again, then leaned in closer, listening for the inevitable sound of clattering heels, Heidi’s happy voice calling out, ‘Just a minute!’ But again, nothing.

Reaching down, I tried the knob: it turned easily, the door opening, and I leaned my head inside. ‘Hello?’ I called out, my voice bouncing down a nearby empty hallway painted yellow and dotted with framed prints. ‘Anyone here?’

Silence. I stepped inside, shutting the door behind me. It was only then that I heard it: the sound of the ocean again, although it sounded a little different, and much closer by, like just around the corner. I followed it down the hallway, as it got louder and louder, expecting to see an open window or back door. Instead, I found myself in the living room, where the noise was deafening, and Heidi was sitting on the couch, holding the baby in her arms.

At least, I
thought
it was Heidi. It was hard to say for sure, as she looked nothing like the last time I’d seen her. Her hair was pulled up into a messy, lopsided ponytail, with some strands stuck to her face, and she had on a ratty pair of sweatpants and an oversize U T-shirt, which had some kind of damp stain on one shoulder. Her eyes were closed, her head tipped back slightly. In fact, I thought she was asleep until, without even moving her lips, she hissed, ‘If you wake her up, I will
kill
you.’

I froze, alarmed, then took a careful step backward. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I just –’

Her eyes snapped open, and she whipped her head around, her eyes narrowing into little slits. When she spotted me, though, her expression changed to surprise. And then, just like that, she was crying.

‘Oh, God, Auden,’ she said, her voice tight, ‘I am so, so sorry. I forgot you were… and then I thought… but it’s no excuse…’ She trailed off, her shoulders heaving as, in her arms, the baby – who was tiny, so small she looked too delicate to even exist – slept on, completely unaware.

I took a panicked look around the room, wondering where my dad was. Only then did I realize that the incredibly loud ocean sound I was hearing was not coming from outside but instead from a small white noise-machine sitting on the coffee table. Who listens to a fake ocean when the real one is in earshot? It was one of many things that, at that moment, made absolutely no sense.

‘Um,’ I said as Heidi continued to cry, her sobs punctuated by an occasional loud sniffle, as well as the fake pounding waves, ‘can I… do you need some help, or something?’

She drew in a shaky breath, then looked up at me. Her eyes were rimmed with dark circles: there was a pimply red rash on her chin. ‘No,’ she said as fresh tears filled her eyes. ‘I’m okay. It’s just… I’m fine.’

This seemed highly unlikely, even to my untrained eye. Not that I had time to dispute it, as right then my dad walked in, carrying a tray of coffees and a small brown paper bag. He was in his typical outfit of rumpled khakis and an untucked button-down shirt, his glasses sort of askew on his face. When he taught, he usually added a tie and tweedy sport jacket. His sneakers, though, were a constant, no matter what else he was wearing.

‘There she is!’ he said when he spotted me, then headed over to give me a hug. As he pulled me close, I looked over his shoulder at Heidi, who was biting her lip, staring out the window at the ocean. ‘How was the trip?’

‘Good,’ I said slowly as he pulled back and took a coffee out of the carrier, offering it to me. I took it, then watched as he helped himself to one before sticking the last on the table in front of Heidi, who just stared at it like she didn’t know what it was.

‘Did you meet your sister?’

‘Uh, no,’ I said. ‘Not yet.’

‘Oh, well!’ He put down the paper bag, then reached over Heidi – who stiffened, not that he seemed to notice – taking the baby from her arms. ‘Here she is. This is Thisbe.’

I looked down at the baby’s face, which was so small and delicate it didn’t even seem real. Her eyes were shut, and she had tiny, spiky eyelashes. One of her hands was sticking out of her blanket, and the fingers were so little, curled slightly around one another. ‘She’s beautiful,’ I said, because that is what you say.

‘Isn’t she?’ My dad grinned, bouncing her slightly in his arms, and her eyes slid open. She looked up at us, blinked, and then, just like her mom, suddenly began to cry. ‘Whoops,’ he said, jiggling her a bit. Thisbe cried a little louder. ‘Honey?’ my dad said, turning back to Heidi, who was still sitting in the exact same place and position, her arms now limp at her sides. ‘I think she’s hungry.’

Heidi swallowed, then turned to him wordlessly. When my father handed Thisbe over, she swiveled back to the windows, almost robotlike as the crying grew louder, then louder still.

‘Let’s step outside,’ my dad suggested, grabbing the paper bag off the end table and gesturing for me to follow him as he walked to a pair of sliding glass doors, opening one and leading me outside to the deck. Normally, the view would have left me momentarily speechless – the house was right on the beach, a walkway leading directly to the sand – but instead I found myself looking back at Heidi, only to realize she’d disappeared, leaving her coffee untouched on the table.

‘Is she all right?’ I asked.

He opened the paper bag, pulling out a muffin, then offering it to me. I shook my head. ‘She’s tired,’ he said, taking a bite, a few crumbs falling onto his shirt. He brushed them off with one hand, then kept eating. ‘The baby’s up a lot at night, you know, and I’m not much help because I have this sleep condition and have to get my nine hours, or else. I keep trying to convince her to get in some help, but she won’t do it.’

‘Why not?’

‘Oh, you know Heidi,’ he said as if I did. ‘She’s got to do everything herself, and do it perfectly. But don’t worry, she’ll be fine. The first couple of months are just hard. I remember with Hollis, your mom was just about to go out of her mind. Of course, he was incredibly colicky. We used to walk him all night long, and he’d still scream. And his appetite! Good Lord. He’d suck your mom dry and still be ravenous…’

He kept talking, but I’d heard this song before, knew all the words, so I just sipped my coffee. Looking left, I could see a few more houses, then what appeared to be some sort of boardwalk lined with businesses, as well as a public beach, already crowded with umbrellas and sunbathers.

‘Anyway,’ my father was saying now as he crumpled up his muffin wrapper, tossing it back in the bag, ‘I’ve got to get back to work, so let me show you your room. We can catch up over dinner, later. That sound good?’

‘Sure,’ I said as we headed back inside, where the sound machine was still blasting. My dad shook his head, then reached down, turning it off with a click: the sudden silence was jarring. ‘So you’re writing?’

‘Oh, yeah. I’m on a real roll, definitely going to finish the book soon,’ he replied. ‘It’s just a matter of organizing, really, getting the last little bits down on the page.’ We went back to the foyer, then up the staircase. As we walked down the hallway, we passed an open door, through which I could see a pink wall with a brown polka-dot border. Inside, it was silent, no crying, at least that I could hear.

My dad pushed open the next door down, then waved me in with one hand. ‘Sorry for the small quarters,’ he said as I stepped over the threshold. ‘But you have the best view.’

He wasn’t kidding. Though the room was tiny, with a twin bed, a bureau, and not much room for anything else, the lone window looked out over an undeveloped area of land, nothing but sea grass and sand and water. ‘This is great,’ I said.

‘Isn’t it? It was originally my office. But then we had to put the baby’s room next door, so I moved to the other side of the house. I didn’t want to keep her up, you know, with the noises of my creative process.’ He chuckled, like this was a joke I was supposed to get. ‘Speaking of which, I’d better get to it. The mornings have been really productive for me lately. I’ll catch up with you at dinner, all right?’

‘Oh,’ I said, glancing at my watch. It was 11:05. ‘Sure.’

‘Great.’ He squeezed my arm, then started down the hallway, humming to himself, as I watched him go. A moment after he passed the door to the pink-and-brown room, I heard the door click shut.

I woke up at six thirty that evening to the sound of a baby crying.

Crying, actually, was too tepid a word. Thisbe was
screaming
, her lungs clearly getting a serious workout. And while it was merely audible in my room, with just a thin wall between us, when I went out in the hallway in search of a bathroom to brush my teeth, the noise was deafening.

I stood for a second in the dimness outside the door to the pink room, listening to the cries as they rose, rose, rose, then fell sharply, only to spike again, even louder. I was wondering if I was the only one aware of it until, during a rare and short moment of silence, I heard someone saying, ‘Shh, shh,’ before quickly being drowned out again.

There was something so familiar about this, it was like a tug on my subconscious. When my parents had first started to fight at night, this had been part of what I’d repeated –
shh
,
shh
,
everything’s all right
– to myself, again and again, as I tried to ignore them and fall asleep. Hearing it now, though, felt strange, as I was used to the sound being private, only in my head and the dark around me, so I moved on.

‘Dad?’

My father, sitting in front of his laptop at a desk facing the wall, didn’t move as he said, ‘Hmmm?’

I looked back down the hallway to the pink room, then at him again. He wasn’t typing, just studying the screen, a yellow legal pad with some scribblings on the desk beside him. I wondered if he’d been there the whole time I’d been sleeping, over seven hours. ‘Should I,’ I said, ‘um, start dinner, or something?’

‘Isn’t Heidi doing that?’ he asked, still facing the screen.

‘I think she’s with the baby,’ I said.

‘Oh.’ Now, he turned his head, looking at me. ‘Well, if you’re hungry, there’s a great burger place just a block away. Their onion rings are legendary.’

I smiled. ‘Sounds great,’ I said. ‘Should I find out if Heidi wants anything?’

‘Absolutely. And get me a cheeseburger and some of those onion rings.’ He reached into his back pocket, pulling out a couple of bills and handing them to me. ‘Thanks a lot, Auden. I really appreciate it.’

I took the bills, feeling like an idiot. Of course he couldn’t go out with me: he had a new baby at home, a wife to take care of. ‘No problem,’ I said, even though he was already turning back to his screen, not really listening. ‘I’ll just be back in a little bit.’

I walked back to the pink room, where Thisbe was still going full blast. Figuring at least this time I didn’t have to worry about waking her up, I knocked twice. After a second, it opened a crack, and Heidi looked out at me.

She looked more haggard than before, if that was even possible: the ponytail was gone, her hair now hanging limp in her face. ‘Hi,’ I said, or rather shouted, over the screaming. ‘I’m going to get dinner. What would you like?’

‘Dinner?’ she repeated, her voice also raised. I nodded. ‘Is it dinnertime already?’

I looked at my watch, as if I needed to confirm this. ‘It’s about quarter to seven.’

‘Oh, dear God.’ She closed her eyes. ‘I was going to fix a big welcome dinner for you. I had it all planned, chicken and vegetables, and everything. But the baby’s been so fussy, and…’