How to Build a House (9 page)

“Listen, Harper.”

That’s always the beginning of a serious conversation. The command to listen, as if I wouldn’t anyway, is Dad’s way of signaling that something important is about to follow.

“I want to talk to you about Tess. I’m worried that the two of you are letting everything that’s happening with Jane and me get in the way of your relationship.”

“That’s stupid, Dad. No offense, but really. Of course everything is getting in the way. How could it not?”

Dad sighed. “I know it’s hard, but this shouldn’t change things between you. You have your own relationship that has nothing to do with anybody else. I know it’ll take work to push everything to the side, but it’s critical. You need each other.”

“I don’t know if you’d be saying all this if you knew how she felt about you.”

A silence wedged itself between us on the bench.

After a little while, Dad leaned down and scratched Pavlov between the ears.

“Dogs,” he said. “Their love is unconditional.”

“That’s only because you feed them and let them outside to shit.”

“You’re crude.”

“No, Dad, you are. It’s crude to compare the love of a dog with what I’m going through with Tess.”

“I know what you’re going through—believe me, I know. But please, don’t worry about what she thinks of me. Let her hate me if she has to. You don’t have to defend me. It would mean much more to me if you two worked things out than if you gave her the silent treatment out of some kind of loyalty to me.”

“But why is she so mad at you?”

“That’s a good question.”

He put his hand on my knee and gave it a squeeze.

“Listen.” Again with the
listen
. “Let it go. You two don’t have to figure this all out. All you have to work on is how to stay who you are to each other.”

So the next day after school I went over to Tess’s new house.

We sat in Cole’s room. He let the tarantula crawl up his arm and we squealed and told him it was gross and he beamed with pride. Tess painted his toenails blue and I threw two games of Go Fish. When it was time for me to go back home, Cole cried, held onto my leg and told me he wanted me to stay.

HERE

I’ve always had this thing about people eating dessert alone. I can’t think of anything more depressing than someone sitting all by herself about to dig into a piece of pie. It’s almost unspeakably sad.

And a whole pie? That’s not sad. That’s disgusting.

So I invite Captain and Frances and Marisol to share my pie, after dinner, in my room. And since Teddy brought it, it only seems right to invite him too.

It would be poor manners
not
to invite him.

This has nothing to do with his eyes. Or his smile. Or his accent.

But I don’t know how to get in touch with him. I can’t look him up in the phone book because his house is gone. He has a cell phone, but I don’t have the number.

I’ll ask Linus.

He knows everything.

Dinner is in an hour and I find him sitting on a patch of dead grass out behind the motel, meditating. As I get closer I decide maybe I shouldn’t interrupt him, but when I turn to leave he calls my name.

“Sorry,” I say. “I don’t mean to bother you.”

“You’re not bothering me at all.”

I sit down next to him on the grass and consider how different we are. Linus seeks out these times to think, and I seek out anything that might keep me from thinking.

“Do you mind if I ask what it is you say as part of this mantra thing?”

I’m curious how someone like Linus finds God, or solace, or peace, or whatever it is he finds out here alone, in the grass, while he’s reciting words. Is it just a matter of believing what you say?

“It’s an ancient Sufi text. I think you’re technically supposed to recite it in the morning, when the sun comes up.” Linus scratches his beard. “Me? Sometimes I’m too busy, and sometimes the moment I need it comes at the end of a day.”

“And it makes everything better?”

“No, it just helps me remember certain things it’s important for me to remember.” He stands up and brushes the grass off his clothes.

“Will you tell me what it is, this ancient Sufi text? I think maybe I could use a mantra.”

He smiles. “Another time. I promise. Right now I have to get things ready for dinner. If we don’t feed you, you might revolt.”

“Or foment.”

He looks at me curiously and shrugs. “Whatever.”

He starts walking away and I watch him, almost forgetting why I came looking for him in the first place. “Wait!”

He turns. “Yes, Ms. Harper?”

“I need to reach Teddy. Do you have a number for him?” I’m embarrassed by Linus’s knowing smile, so I quickly add, “It’s about a pie.”

“Oh, well, in that case.” He pulls out his cell phone, punches a few buttons and hands it to me. It’s already ringing and Linus is walking away.

“Give it back to me at dinner,” he calls over his shoulder.

I’m flustered when Teddy answers, but I manage to piece together a coherent sentence about how eating pie alone is sad, and would he like to share it with me, and some others, in my room at nine o’clock.

“I never say no to Mom’s pie.”

A few minutes before nine I think to put on some makeup. This is hard to do because everyone is already in my room, so I sneak into the bathroom, and when I emerge Marisol says, “Someone is looking hot. And for once, it’s not me.”

Captain whistles. Loud. Both fingers in his mouth.

We all shush him. We’re breaking the rules. The official policy about boys in girls’ rooms is that it isn’t supposed to happen unless (A) the door is wide open and (B) you have at least three feet on the floor.

When Linus distributed the handbook I asked him what would happen if you both lay down on the floor. He shrugged. “You’d probably wind up with some serious rug burn.”

But even if nobody takes the rules too seriously, I tell Captain to keep it down.

Frances eyes me. “I’m searching for a more graceful way of saying this, but I’m coming up empty-handed. So here goes: Are you wearing
that
?”

I look down at myself. Baggy shorts that go to my knees. Pink camouflage tank top.

“What?”

“I can tell by the last-minute makeup job that you haven’t forgotten a certain young stud named Teddy is en route. So … the tank top is okay. It’s cute and it’ll come in particularly handy if we get lost in a pink jungle. But the shorts have to go.”

I panic. Frances is right. The shorts are shockingly bad.

“What do I do?” I ask to Frances’s back. She’s up and out the door and back in a matter of seconds with a pair of her jeans.

“Quick. Put these on.”

“They won’t fit. They’ll look terrible on me.”

“Harper. Bathroom. Now. Jeans. Go.” Frances shoos me inside. Through the closed door she says, “You know, it wouldn’t kill you to wear something a little tight on a night like tonight.”

I squeeze myself into her jeans, and miraculously, I’m able to button them up without too much effort, and even more miraculously, they look pretty good on me.

There’s a knock on the door.

Teddy.

I rush out of the bathroom, Captain manages a quiet whistle and I whisk Teddy inside and close the door behind him. He’s wearing jeans and a black T-shirt and black Vans exactly like the ones I have at home. He’s got a messenger bag over his shoulder and a guitar case in his hand.

“So this is the pie party?” he asks.

“Yes, it is,” says Captain. He’s lying on Marisol’s bed with Frances curled under his arm. They’re officially a couple now.

“I come bearing refreshments.” Teddy reaches into his messenger bag and pulls out a bottle. “It’s a Tennessee tradition. Peach pie and Jack Daniel’s.”

“Ugh. That is such a guy drink,” says Marisol. “Have you ever met a girl who drinks Jack Daniel’s?”

“Sorry, Marisol,” says Teddy. “If I knew how to make a cosmopolitan, I’d have brought you that.”

“Sexist.”

“What? You’re the one who said girls don’t like Jack Daniel’s. And anyway, I bet Harper would drink some Jack.” He looks at me. “Am I right?”

He pulls out a stack of Dixie cups and pours a little for me into one with Winnie-the-Pooh on it.

He holds it out. “Don’t let me down, girl.”

I take a whiff. It’s strong. I’m more of a wine cooler kind of drinker, but I can’t resist a challenge.

I take a sip and it burns.

“Not bad,” I manage with my throat and stomach and all sorts of other organs I can’t even name on fire.

We all toast and then dig into the pie.

At ten-thirty the “lights-out” knock arrives at our door. Tonight it’s Susannah, covering for Linus. She’s a college student, here for the summer with her boyfriend, Brad, and it’s probably been no more than three years since she was a high school volunteer herself, so I don’t think she cares much who’s in the room doing what. I’m glad Susannah is on duty tonight. It feels better somehow pulling one over on Susannah than it would feel to be pulling one over on Linus.

“Where’s Seth?” asks Teddy.

I guess he’s pretty clueless or else he wouldn’t be asking this question. Poor Seth. He has it bad for Marisol. He buzzes around her constantly like a big, sweaty fly, and she’s too nice to tell him to back off. Also, boyfriending him seems to do absolutely nothing to deter him. Even blatantly shameless boyfriending of this sort:

I really miss my boyfriend
. Or,
My boyfriend is going to call tonight
. Or,
You like the Black Eyed Peas? My boyfriend
loves
the Black Eyed Peas!
Or,
You eat with a fork? My boyfriend eats with a fork!

Nothing works.

So Marisol knows, as do the rest of us, that inviting Seth to sneak into her room late at night would be more than the poor guy could take.

But maybe Teddy has missed all this, maybe he saw tonight as some kind of triple date. Captain and Frances. Seth and Marisol. Him and me.

Or maybe I’m overthinking things.

I take another swig.

By midnight, when we start to hear the doors opening and closing in the nightly pilgrimage to the pool, I’m pretty buzzed. Captain wants to go, but I tell him, “Friends don’t let friends swim drunk.”

Marisol is in the bathroom with Teddy’s cell phone, making a drunken call to Pierre full of whispering and giggling. Frances has fallen asleep, and I’m not far from passing out myself.

I’m lying on my bed and Teddy is sitting on the floor picking absentmindedly at the strings of his guitar.

“Play me something,” I say.

“One of your favorite Jesus songs?”

“Anything.” I adjust my flimsy pillow.

He plays a few chords, quiet and beautiful. And then he begins to sing:

“I saw you dancing
,

You were dancing
,

Over the water, over the waves
,

And you were singing
,

I heard you singing
,

I whispered on the wind to say
,

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful
,

So beautiful, beautiful, beautiful
,

Beautiful.”

I listen, carefully, trying to figure out if this is a song about Jesus, or if it’s a song about somebody else, but then the song turns into a lullaby, and before I can find the words to ask, I’ve fallen fast asleep.

STEP FOUR:
INSULATE YOURSELF

I
make it back to work in time for the raising of the walls.

I wouldn’t have thought we could do it. There was a split second, as I stood with a few of my friends behind that first wall, when it felt as if it might tip over on us, as if the gravitational pull of the earth was too great for us to override. But we just pushed a little harder and it stood up, and other people rushed in and nailed the wall braces in place. The rest of the walls went up like that, and everything fit together like it should, and now when you look at what was once a pile of dirt and lumber, you see the skeleton of a house.

Skeletons signify death. The end. Decay. But when you stand here with your boots in the crackling grass and look at what we’ve built so far you see renewal. Life. About to burst forth.

HOME

Christmas this year was unbearable.

Despite the fact that I’m currently obsessed with Christian rock anthems about loving Jesus, I’ve never cared much about the day of his actual birth.

Christmas in our house was always lackluster. Jane went along with the tree begrudgingly, and Tess and Rose seemed awkward accepting gifts, even when they came wrapped in Hanukkah paper. I always felt secretly annoyed with all of them at Christmastime, like if they weren’t around, Dad and Cole and I could have the holly jolly Christmas you hear about in that inane song.

Christmas was the one time of year when I had a moment of wishing my family were different.

And then this year, when my terrible wish came true, I ended up feeling the absence of Jane and Tess and Rose more acutely than ever.

Things had evened out in the weeks since they’d left. Tess and I hung out at school and at parties, and we talked about many of the same things we always did: other people, and what they were doing, with whom, and how they looked while they were doing it.

I hadn’t told her about what happened with Gabriel. And we didn’t talk about the family, unless it was about Cole. Cole was safe territory. We loved him and his idiosyncrasies with equal devotion.

I’d seen Jane only a handful of times since our lunch at the café on Montana. There were a few times I stayed long enough at their new house to watch Jane arrive home from work, put her keys in the bowl by the front door and then kiss Cole, Tess and finally me, each on the top of the head.

I didn’t know how to think of Jane, or how to explain who she was to me, and sometimes when I was with her I seemed to swallow all of my words until they sat like a brick in the bottom of my stomach, but I still loved her.

Christmas Day found me in a deep, dark funk. Cole was over at his new house in his new room with the red striped curtains. Rose was home from college and I hadn’t had a chance to see her yet.

They were all together.

I was alone with Dad.

I might have called Gabriel, but he was off skiing with his perfectly intact family of four. If he’d been around I might have suggested we hang out, which probably would have led to sex, even though he was kind of going out with Sarah Denton. She was the girl he’d kiss near a keg at a party. He sometimes drove her home from school. None of this seemed to alter our encounters. They were as random and convenient as ever. They were our secret, although without the excitement that often goes along with knowing something nobody else knows. The best I can describe it is that I felt less numb when I was with Gabriel than I did when I was alone.

Dad and I went to the movies. A big-budget comedy with obvious jokes. Afterward we went out to dinner at this restaurant that’s known for having the best burgers in L.A. It was strewn with white Christmas lights and mistletoe and blown-glass ornaments, and the effort they’d put into making the place feel festive put me over the edge.

I ordered a Coke. I was still drinking poison then.

“Nothing else?” Dad asked.

“Nope.”

“You sure?”

“Yep.”

“You okay, kiddo?” Dad cocked his head and studied me. “It’d be an understatement to point out that you seem kind of glum.”

“This sucks.”

He sighed. “I know it does.”

“I miss them,” I said.

“Me too.”

“Well, then?”

He looked at me and took a long drink from his beer. “It’s not that simple.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“Listen,” he said, but then he stopped. I was waiting. Ready for important information to follow. But Dad just sat there.

“The Little Drummer Boy” was playing in the background for what seemed like the third time in a row. I fought off an urge to beat that Little Drummer Boy senseless with his own drumsticks.

“Do you want to know more? Should I try to explain?”

“I don’t know. You’re the psychiatrist. Do I want to know more?” I was extremely irritated now. With the song, with the lights, with the insufficient carbonation in my soda, with my father.

He sighed.

“You probably don’t, but you deserve to know more. You aren’t a child, and furthermore, you’ve had the misfortune of learning early that not everything works out as planned.”

His voice cracked. He looked around the room.

“If you’re looking to blame somebody, blame me. I wanted, so badly, to give you the kind of family you deserve, and I tried. Jane tried. But we failed. Everything just fell apart.”

He paused and tried to catch my eye, but I avoided looking back at him.

“I don’t want to be sitting here in this burger joint any more than you do. But the bottom line, kiddo, is that you should be worrying about your own relationships and doing your best to survive your teens. No easy feat. And I’m terribly, terribly sorry for complicating things.” He reached for my hand; I pulled it back a little but then stopped. He held me by the fingertips.

“Look, I love you. Jane loves you. Tess and Rose and Cole love you. That’s what matters. That’s what I think. But I’ve already done too much talking. What do you think?”

I didn’t say anything for a long, long time.

Come, they told me, pa-rum-pa-pum-pum
.

“I think I want to go home.”

HERE

Today is the thirty-fifth annual Bailey barbecue and fireworks display.

The main drag is packed with a few too many red, white and blue sequined outfits, in my humble opinion, but I can’t help appreciating the effort.

A favorite song of the L.A. bat mitzvah circuit, “Celebration,” is blaring from the DJ booth.

There’s a party goin’ on right he-ere

A celebration to last throughout the year
.

I’m singing along. I’m moving to the music. I’m even feeling a little sheepish about my khaki shorts and black tank top. Would it have killed me to wear our national colors?

People have come out in droves and they’re
celebrating
, and it’s great, but when I stop and think about it, I can’t for the life of me understand why.

The way I see things, the people of Bailey have every reason to be angry. To feel cheated. To feel unpatriotic. To see themselves as standing alone holding the short end of the cosmic stick.

Setting aside the question of whether irresponsible human activity is to blame for the tornado, which I still argue it is, this tornado struck Bailey at the wrong political moment.

Too soon after Katrina.

Fortunately, Homes from the Heart stepped in to help. But when the people of Bailey asked for help from the government, all they got were a few FEMA trailers and a “Hey, sorry, guys, but the hurricane kind of wiped us out.”

So it would seem perfectly reasonable to me if these people didn’t feel like celebrating the USA. But they’re out here in red, white and blue and it dawns on me that patriotism is about much more than what your government gives you, or fails to give you, when you need it most. Patriotism is about what and who we are to each other.

And it’s about disgusting food.

Take the Bailey Bun, a dessert that appears only on the Fourth of July and has made the town semifamous. It’s some kind of bread stuffed with something creamy, dipped in strawberry preserves, deep-fried, then rolled in sugar, studded with raisins and put on a stick.

I don’t want to seem unpatriotic, so I eat one, and I find that indeed it is just as gross as it looks.

It’s a beautiful day.

Captain came in second in the hot-dog-eating contest. He was beat out by Early Joe, the town champion nine years running, who outweighs Captain by two hundred pounds.

I’m sitting in a booth with Teddy’s little sisters, Alice and Grace, helping them sell lemonade and homemade cookies to raise money to rebuild the medical clinic.

Grace wanders off in an effort to round up some more customers.

“Do you like my brother?” Alice asks. She’s the one in the denim sundress and red cowboy boots. Grace is the one in the baseball cap.

“Of course I do.”

I stopped by the trailer the other day with Teddy to thank Diane for the peach pie, and we all sat around drinking iced tea while Grace kicked a ball back and forth with a boy half her height and Alice braided my hair. “Your hair is just like Mama’s,” she’d said. “You should wear it in braids.”

“No, I mean do you
like
him like him?”

“You’re nosy.” I swat her on top of the head.

“You kno-ow,” she singsongs. “Teddy had a girlfriend.”

Now I’m paying attention.

“Grace really liked her, but I didn’t so much. She was okay. Nice enough. But she wasn’t as pretty as you.”

I love this kid. She’s the greatest person in the entire world.

“I don’t know why they broke up. Maybe it was because she’s a lesbian.”

“What! Do you even know what that means?”

“Of course I do. It means that she loves other women.”

“What makes you think that’s what happened between Teddy and …”

“Amber. I saw it on TV. That’s why this couple broke up on this show I watch on The N.”

“Well, you watch too much TV.”

“I read too.”

“Good.”

“And in this book I read there was a girl who broke up with her boyfriend because she was a lesbian.”

“Okay, Alice. Enough. Let’s sell some lemonade and get your mom’s clinic rebuilt.”

“Prude.”

“How old are you again?”

“Ten. I’ll be ten in September.”

“So you’re nine.”

“I’m basically ten.”

“Whatever you say.”

Grace comes back to the booth with Teddy in tow.

“Is Alice giving you a hard time? She has a habit of asking too many questions.”

Alice sticks her tongue out at him.

“Not at all. We were just having a nice little chat,” I say, and she sneaks me a grin.

“Good. Now, if you two don’t mind,” he says to his sisters, “I’m going to steal Harper away. I know the perfect spot for watching the fireworks.”

They protest. They want to come too, but he tells them they have to stay with their parents, and we walk off into the crowd.

The sun is going down and the heat is fading. At the edges, the sky is the color of a kitten’s tongue. People are finding each other and walking with their folded-up blankets to the field on Bill Parson’s farm.

“This way,” Teddy says, and he starts walking in the opposite direction.

I take a quick look around for Marisol, Frances and Captain.

“We’ll catch up with them after,” he says. “C’mon.”

We climb into his pickup truck, and the engine starts with a groan.

“Where are we going?”

“A little faith. That’s all I ask.”

“You sound like Jesus radio.”

“This has nothing to do with Jesus. This is about fireworks.” He pauses. “And being alone with you.”

I turn to look at him, but he looks straight ahead. I don’t know why I’m looking at him. If he were to turn and look at me, I’m certain I’d look away. But I’m staring at his profile, his dark curls, his eyelashes, his high cheekbones, his chin with just the smallest trace of stubble on it.

He’s smiling.

“I … I …”

My heart is racing. Words are tumbling around in my head, in my throat, but I can’t grab hold of them and string them together.

There’s a battle going on here.

I want him. I do. I wouldn’t allow myself to believe that it could come to this with Teddy, that he would want me too, that he would want to be alone with me, and yet here we are.

But I’ve been through this before. I’ve been with the boy who one minute is your friend and then, when nobody else is around, and at moments you can never anticipate, is willing to be more.

I flash forward to tomorrow. I’ll be helping insulate the walls and Teddy will be doing whatever his assignment is and I’ll take a break and wander over to find him and he’ll look at me blankly, and there won’t be any sign, in any corner of the skeletal house, of anything having happened between us.

“I think we should go to Bill Parson’s farm with everyone else,” I say quietly.

He stops the truck.

“Really? Because if we go over on Stutter Road and climb the hill we can see the fireworks from the other side. We’ll be closer than the farm, and higher up, so it feels like they’re right in your face.”

He’s looking at me now. And now it’s me who’s looking straight ahead. It’s not quite black outside, it’s the deepest hue of blue, and in this light I feel lost.

“It’s totally safe. I swear. I’ve watched from this same spot for the past few years. But if you want to go back, let’s go.”

“I don’t know what I want.”

Sometimes, when you imagine places you’ve never been or things you’ve never done, you find that the real experience isn’t too far off from the one you invented in your head. Like New York. Before I ever went, I dreamed of it, and the concrete and height and glass and noise and smells of it all matched my imagination.

I pictured this summer in Tennessee for months before I came. What I imagined was heat. I imagined building strength in my biceps from operating power tools, and gaining space in my head. I pictured anonymity. I pictured no history, no present. Just work.

I didn’t picture this.

A town with stories and people and fading light at the end of each day that breaks my heart. A new set of friends. Another boy. Another relationship I don’t understand, with lines I can’t see.