Jumpstart the World (16 page)

And yet, there she was. Standing at my kitchen table, shuffling through some papers. Some of
my
papers. Just homework. But it really pissed me off.

She hadn’t seen me yet.

She picked up one of the papers to look at the text more closely. But she held it farther away from her face, not closer. As if she wished she had longer arms. I’m pretty sure she needed reading glasses and was refusing to admit it to anyone. Herself included.

I stepped inside. “You better not have let my cat out,” I said. “He’s just barely recovered. He still has stitches in his gums.”

My mother looked up at me. “You’ve been skipping school.”

“What happened to your promise about calling first? Not to mention knocking.”

“That was before I found out you haven’t bothered to go to school for days.”

“Haven’t
bothered
to? It’s not like I’m just being lazy, Mother. There’s been a lot going on around here.”

“Tell me all about it.”

“No thank you.”

She said nothing. Just leveled me with a look that made me feel six years old and in trouble deep.

“I’ll go back to school,” I said. It wasn’t such a big compromise. I’d already been planning to go back to school.

She just stood there, taking it all in. She was still holding my math homework, but she was holding it too tightly, and I wanted to tell her not to wrinkle it. But I didn’t want us to be fighting. I was in a place where a mother might not have been a bad deal. Granted, my mother had always been more like a cheap mother substitute. But she was still the only one I had. And I didn’t want to be fighting with her. So I didn’t tell her to be careful how she held that paper.

Besides. I could always print out another copy.

As if she could read my mind, she set it back on the table. Then she walked over to my new couch and sat down.

“All right,” she said. “I’m listening.”

“Mark this day on your calendar,” I said. Half under my breath. But she heard it.

I know she was hurt, but she spoke in soft, measured words. “I said I was listening. And I am.”

I took a deep breath. There wasn’t much of this I was prepared to say to my mother.

“My best friend has been in the hospital. He nearly died. He could have died.”

“That young man next door?”

“Yes. Frank.”

“I know why you like him so much. You think I don’t but I do.”

My gut went icy and a little sick. I said nothing.

“It’s because he listens to you. Right? Right, Elle? He’s your friend because he listens. I can hear subtext, you know.”

I guess it was a strange thing to think, but I thought, Wow. She heard something. She really did.

“Talk to me,” she said. “I’ll listen. Tell me what’s going on in your life.”

I just stood there in front of her for what felt like a long time. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say.

“It’s not quite that easy.” Not after all these years.

She rose to leave.

“It’s okay, Mother. Really. We’re okay. All I’m saying is … baby steps.”

She glanced at me over her shoulder on her way out the door.

“I’ll go back to school now,” I said.

“You bet your ass you will.”

Then she was gone.

THIRTEEN
Mascara, and Other Things That Run

I
wish I could say for a fact how much time passed by before the next really important thing happened. I’m thinking it was about ten or eleven days. Thing is, you don’t know another big thing is about to happen. So you don’t keep count. But it must’ve been around a week and a half.

I was sitting out on the fire escape. Even though it was getting really cool in the evenings now. I guess it must seem like I never did much of anything else but just sit out on my fire escape. But it’s strangely addictive, watching the world move. I didn’t have a TV. I didn’t even really want one. And I liked the feeling of the seasons changing. I loved the feel of air that wasn’t hot.

I looked down and saw a man walk out of the apartment house across the street. He was wearing an orange shirt and carrying a broom.

At first, I didn’t think much about it at all. Other than maybe it was a little strange for somebody to sweep the street in front of
his own apartment building. Unless he was the super or something.

Then after a few minutes, I started wondering why he looked familiar. He reminded me of somebody. I just couldn’t for the life of me think who that might be.

When it hit me, it felt like it hit me almost literally. Like a fastball you take right in the gut. My whole body felt freezing cold, but especially my stomach.

I thought, No. It couldn’t be. They couldn’t have let him out. They were supposed to keep him locked up forever. For the rest of his life, so nobody could get hurt.

I had this flash of memory. Sitting on the fire escape with Frank for one of the first times ever. He said when Harry was back on his meds, he was the nicest, quietest neighbor you could possibly want.

I wondered what Frank would say about Harry now.

I crawled back in through the window and got my camera, and my big, long close-up lens. Before I ran to Molly and Frank with this, I wanted to be absolutely sure.

I crawled back out on the fire escape and watched him through the camera sight. It had one of those viewfinders that sights right through the lens.

It was him all right. My body got all cold again. I wanted to run tell them right away. But first I snapped off a couple of shots. There was something weirdly precise about all of his movements. Like he might miss a piece of dust if he swept too fast. I wasn’t sure if I could get that on film. What it would look like with the action frozen. But I was in a period of discovery. Experimentation. I tried to get everything on film. Otherwise, how would I know?

Thing is, I hadn’t been developing anything. Even the photos
of Wilbur were still sitting in little film canisters, undeveloped. Like I’d been too tired and too busy and too much just barely coping with all this newness to follow through. Like I might not be strong enough to get the feedback on how I had done.

When I’d taken a few more photos I might never develop, I ran next door. Knocked on the door.

“Who is it?” I heard Molly call through the door.

“It’s me. Elle. Molly, he’s back. Crazy Harry. He’s back.”

The door opened. I looked at her face. Her eyes looked lost and far away. Hurt. Not really furious like I’d expected. And not really shocked.

“Okay,” she said. “Thanks for telling me.”

I just stood there. Waiting for something more, I guess. Something easier to recognize.

“Why’d they let him out?” I asked.

Like she would know.

“I guess if he’s back on his meds, they probably judged him not a danger to himself. Or to others.”

“Why didn’t they put him in jail? Somebody could have died because of him.” I heard myself speak as if I were standing outside myself. And I thought it sounded strange, the way I said “somebody.” Like I couldn’t bring myself to say who.

“He doesn’t belong in jail, Elle. He has a mental illness.”

“Well, he doesn’t belong on our street, either.”

“Well, he has to be somewhere.”

Then the doorway was empty. She didn’t close the door. Just stepped back from the doorway. Into her apartment. When she appeared again, she was wearing her big sun hat.

I wondered if Frank was asleep.

I followed her down the stairs and outside.

She crossed the street, but I didn’t. I just watched. I still had my camera hanging from its strap around my neck. I couldn’t hear what they were saying to each other. But I could see their body language. The way they leaned in toward each other. Like they were sharing some sort of confidence. I snapped off a couple dozen photos with my close-up lens.

When she came back across the street, I was wired and not sure what to say. I wanted to know what she’d said to him. But it didn’t feel like any of my business. It felt like a private place. Someplace where I had no right to trespass.

But I think she must have seen the disbelief in my eyes.

“It’s not like he ever meant Frank any harm,” she said.

“So you forgive him.”

“I know I wouldn’t have said this when it first happened. I would’ve probably taken the guy apart with my bare hands. But, in a way, there’s really nothing to forgive. It was just sort of a freak accident. I mean, all he did was make a sudden noise.”

“So you forgive him.”

“Yeah. I guess.”

“Does Frank forgive him?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t asked him.”

Then she went back inside.

I looked up to see Crazy Harry, still across the street. Leaning on his broom. Watching her go.

It was much later that evening. Dark. And the temperature was perfect. That perfect crisp autumn night.

Or so I thought.

I was sitting out on the fire escape. And I heard a little sound. A familiar sound, but I hadn’t heard it for a while. It was the sound of Frank’s window opening next door.

I watched, almost in disbelief, as he very carefully climbed out onto his own part of the fire escape. He was using only his left hand, and being extra slow and cautious. I think he knew I was there, but he hadn’t actually looked at me yet.

When he’d settled himself with his back up against the building, he said, “Hey.”

Just kind of quiet. Still not looking at me.

But it felt good, because it felt familiar.

“Hey,” I said back.

Then we just sat for a while. Maybe five minutes. Or maybe less, and maybe it just felt like five minutes. I had this deep feeling that felt suspiciously like being happy. It was an actual physical feeling, around in my gut. Like something priceless had been returned to me. Just as I was accepting that I’d never see it again.

Then Frank said, “I have to tell you something.”

The feeling left.

“Okay. Tell me.”

Silence.

I looked away. Looked at the building across the street and one over. Through one of the windows I could see a couple fighting. Not hitting, just screaming at each other. Even though I couldn’t hear the screaming. I watched them because watching them kept my eyes turned away.

“I hate to even tell you,” he said.

“I caught that.”

I could feel that sensation again. Like when I found Frank’s glasses lying in the street. In the blood. That sense that my feelings just closed up shop and went home. All quiet on the western front.

“We have to move back to South Carolina. We can’t afford to stay here.”

He waited for a minute. Maybe to see if I wanted to talk. I didn’t. I just watched that couple. The man kept walking away and the woman kept following after him. But they just kept going around in a circle.

“We have lots of medical bills because, up to a hundred thousand dollars, my insurance only covers eighty percent. And I won’t be able to work for months because I won’t be using my right hand. So we don’t have next month’s rent. So we’ll be leaving at the end of the month.”

In the silence that followed, I did the math. Not on the medical bills. On the time we had left. Eleven days.

“What are you going to do for rent in South Carolina?”

“Molly’s brother and sister-in-law have a little apartment over their garage. Sort of like a big guest room.”

I didn’t say anything for a time. The couple pulled the shade and then turned off the lights. I wondered if that meant they were already planning to make up, which seemed just about unfathomable enough to make my head explode.

“Do they accept you?”

“Yes and no. They don’t really know me. They knew Franny.”

“Did they accept Molly and Franny?”

“Better than most of Molly’s relatives, I guess.”

I really hate to admit that I winced a little at the image of Franny. Just the tiniest bit. Another of those feelings that you think should go away but it doesn’t entirely. I guess all feelings are
like that. Information doesn’t affect them as much as you think it should.

“Well, thanks for telling me.”

I crawled back into my apartment, even though the night was perfect and I had planned to stay out there until I was too tired to keep my eyes open any longer.

Toto had been sleeping on the couch, but he booked it when he saw me come back in.

I stood in the middle of my own living room for a minute. Or more. Like I couldn’t remember what comes next. No, worse than that. Like I couldn’t possibly make up anything that could even potentially come next. No matter how hard I tried.

Then I stuck my head out the window again.

Frank was still there. Just sitting. Staring off into the dark.

“Are you ever coming back?”

“I hope so. But it’s probably going to take a couple of years.”

I took my head back.

I went to bed. But I wasn’t sleepy. And I didn’t go to sleep.

Sometime after eleven—maybe even closer to midnight—I heard a knock at my door.

I hadn’t been asleep.

“Who is that at this hour?” I yelled, without even getting up.

The voice came back a little muffled, but I managed to make out the words. “It’s me. Wilbur.”

I got up. Threw on a robe over the thousand-year-old
FRANKIE SAY RELAX
T-shirt I’d stolen from my mother to use as a sleep shirt. Answered the door.

I half expected him to look like he’d been beaten up or something. But if his stepfather had laid a hand on him, I couldn’t see
where. I could tell he’d been crying, though. His mascara streaked all the way down onto his cheeks. Startlingly black.

I looked down at his hands but they were empty.

“No beer,” I said.

“I’m trying to cut down.”

I snorted one single blast of something like laughter.

“You better come in,” I said.

It was about two in the morning and I still couldn’t sleep.

“Wilbur?” I said. Loud enough to sound like a whisper by the time it reached the living room. Or so I hoped.

“Yeah?”

“Are you asleep?”

“Obviously not.”

“
Were
you asleep? Did I wake you?”