Jumpstart the World (18 page)

Silence. I shoveled in more ice cream. I had no idea what you say about a thing like that.

Shane said, “Done?”

Bobby nodded once.

“There was this girl when I was thirteen. She was in my history class. We used to write all these notes in class. And they got more and more … well, you know. It’s kind of personal. Anyway,
we were making plans. You know. In the notes. Like a romantic thing. But then she got cold feet. And she not only didn’t want to be my girlfriend, she didn’t even want to talk to me. Or look at me. Except one day she cornered me in the girls’ room and said she wanted to borrow the notes back. She knew I saved every one. She said she wanted to see what they said. Like, how incriminating they’d be. So I loaned them to her, even though they were just about the most important thing I owned. And she took them home and burned them. I know it sounds stupid. It was just a stack of papers. But it was the closest I’d ever come to having a girlfriend. I was so brokenhearted I stayed home from school for a week. I came to dinner every night with sunglasses on.”

I couldn’t help interjecting here. “What did your parents say?”

“Nothing. They didn’t notice.”

“How can you not notice sunglasses at the dinner table?”

“Well, they didn’t let on that they noticed. I tried to get them to let me transfer to another school, but I wouldn’t say why, and it didn’t fly. So I wore my sunglasses in school for the rest of the year, and stayed as far away from the note burner as I could. Are we depressing you?”

“Sort of. But I was sort of depressed to start with. So it’s okay.”

After a bit of an awkward pause, Big Bob said, “You have to promise not to think I’m totally sick if I tell you I was in love with my cousin.”

He paused for reaction, but no one reacted. Just a lot of spoon action.

“Actually, he was just a second cousin. It’s not like I thought we’d get married or anything. It’s just that he was really handsome, and a couple years older, and he was smart and athletic and funny and he was nice to me. So I admired him, you know?
Looked up to him. I loved him, but in a lot of ways. Anyway, when I was thirteen, we were at this family party for another cousin’s wedding. And he took me out and got me high. So we were hanging out in the bushes in the dark, smoking weed and talking. And I thought I could really trust him. So I told him I was gay. He didn’t say much. Just listened. But then the next day I found out he told everybody.
Everybody
. My parents. All of our relatives. All his friends from school. And I never really saw him again. I mean, if you don’t count from across a room.”

I looked down into my ice cream carton and was stunned to see I was an inch or two from the bottom of the quart.

“That’s so sad,” I said.

Big Bob said, “Which one of them?”

“All of them.”

Shane said, “Should we have just kept shut?”

“No. No. I’m actually glad you told me. It actually almost sort of helps in a weird way. Not that it changes anything, really. But it’s like you get this thing in your head where you think life’s being unfair to you. And from the outside it looks like it’s being more fair to everybody else. But then you hear more about the inside of them, and you feel like … I don’t know. I don’t know how to say it. Like it’s just life. Like life is unfair to everybody sooner or later, and it just happens to be my turn. You know?”

Only, really, if I was to be completely honest, life was being fairer to me than most. Because Frank hadn’t hurt or betrayed or humiliated me. He just had to go.

Silence. I dipped again with my spoon and hit the bottom of the carton. My knees and hip joints and sitting bones were aching from sitting cross-legged so long. But I didn’t move.

Wilbur spoke up suddenly. “I’m going next, then.”

I said, “You don’t have to, Wilbur.”

“No. I’m going. If it helps you, then I’m going.”

I scraped the bottom of my ice cream carton while he gathered himself up to go.

“When I was eleven, my mother had this boyfriend named Enrique. And Enrique had this brother. Esteban. And Esteban came and lived with us for a while. And he paid a lot of attention to me. A lot. He played games with me. We went for walks. He taught me how to fish. He cooked special lunches for me. Refried beans and tortillas from scratch. We even sat on the couch every night and watched TV together, just the two of us. I’d never gotten much attention before. So I thought the sun rose and set on him. And then one time, after about five months, my mom and Enrique went away for the weekend and left me alone with Esteban. And he molested me. And not in that sort of statutory-but-not-really-forcible way, either. He was rough. And I was scared. And he hurt me a lot. And then, I don’t know if he felt guilty, or if he was just afraid he’d get in trouble, but he took off and I never saw him again. And I missed him so much. I know that sounds weird. But I missed him every minute of every day. I hated what he did. I didn’t want him to come back and do it again. I wanted him to come back and be nice to me like before. But … this is the really weird part … I’ve never said this to anybody, so the next part stays right here in this room, okay?”

He looked to each of us in turn, collecting four solemn nods. Shane even put her hand over her heart.

“I didn’t want him to come back and hurt me, but if I’d only had two choices, I would have chosen having him molesting me over not having him at all.” Silence. “Is that really sick?”

“It’s really sad,” I said.

“No,” Shane said. “It’s just human. Kids need attention. They’ll pay anything.”

Nobody said anything for a long time. I just scraped the last of my mocha almond fudge out of the carton and thought about something I’d never considered before. I thought about how little attention anybody had really paid me. At least, until I met Frank.

Later that night, right after they left, I stuck my head out the window. Frank was out on the fire escape. Just staring off into the dark. So I quick climbed out.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey.”

“I was hoping you’d come out.”

“Oh. My friends were here.”

“So, you’re still friends with them. That’s good. I guess you got around whatever you were mad at them for?”

“It wasn’t their fault, anyway. It was my fault.”

“Well, anyway. I’m glad you came out. I thought maybe you didn’t want to talk to me.”

I didn’t answer at first, because I didn’t know what to say. Then I said, without knowing I was about to, “Do I owe you an apology?” Something about Frank thinking I wasn’t speaking to him, I guess.

“No,” he said. Very fast and definite. “Do I owe you one?”

“No. Why would you owe me an apology?”

“Maybe I should have told you sooner. Like when we first started being friends.”

So he did remember.

The sudden change of direction made my stomach turn. I guess the quart of mocha almond fudge wasn’t helping. I wanted
to ask if we could talk about something else. But I couldn’t say that to Frank.

So I just said, “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

And we sat for a while without talking.

While we were doing that, I decided that not talking is like a litmus test for a real friend. You can just sit there and be. Not always be filling up the air with words.

After a while, I figured I’d have to go in soon. I had to go to the bathroom, and I hadn’t fed the cat. I said something unusually honest.

I said, “I have no idea what to do with how much I’m going to miss you.”

He digested that for a minute. Didn’t leap up to try to fix it like most people would.

“You know,” he said, “there are a variety of communication devices than can bridge the gap between New York and South Carolina.”

“What will they think of next?” I said, playacting as if I hadn’t known. “Are you going to have e-mail?”

“Even if I have to do dial-up. But hopefully we’ll be able to afford high-speed. You could e-mail me and tell me about your day.”

“That would be nice. Would you e-mail me back?”

“Of course I would. The longest e-mails I can bring myself to type with my left hand.”

We sat quiet for a minute more, and then I said I had to go in.

“I wish I didn’t have to leave, too,” he said.

“I’m scared that people will be more prejudiced in South Carolina. I’m worried about you.”

“I survived it the first time.”

“Well,” I said. “Good night, I guess.”

“Good night, Elle.”

For some weird reason, it felt good to hear him say my name. I knew it wouldn’t be the same to see it in an e-mail typed with his left hand.

Then, on the other hand, I’m guessing that Shane’s note burner and Little Bobby’s pediatrician and Big Bob’s second cousin and Wilbur’s mother’s boyfriend’s brother hadn’t encouraged them to keep in touch by e-mail.

Maybe I should just have been happy for what I got.

FIFTEEN
Say Something Brilliant Before You Go

T
he last time I got to spend any serious time with Molly was the day she let me use her darkroom. Of course, I didn’t know enough to use it on my own. She helped me. Together we developed the Wilbur pictures.

Well. Mostly she developed them. But I was there.

We didn’t say much at first. I think I was a little nervous about how they’d turn out.

When Molly hung up the first few prints to dry, I could barely contain my disappointment. Whatever I’d seen in my head I hadn’t caught on film. They were just ordinary snapshots. At best.

I withdrew. I went and sat with my back against the wall. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched her work in the dim red glow. I was feeling like I’d miss her when she moved away, but I didn’t know how to say it.

I was wondering what I’d say to Wilbur when he asked how his photos turned out.

After a few discouraging minutes, I heard her say, “Wow.”

I quick got over there to see what she saw.

Among dozens more losers, she had just hung up what I could only describe as the perfect Wilbur photo.

It’s hard to describe what makes a perfect photo of someone. The best I can say is that I think I photographed more than was actually there.

No, that’s not saying it right. Because my camera didn’t add anything to Wilbur.

It’s like I saw something more through the lens. Something I swear I couldn’t have seen with just my eyes. At least, I had never seen it before, and I was getting to know Wilbur pretty well. It was as though I had photographed right through his eyes into everything that had ever hurt him. It was all written there, like notes on a wall, and yet his overall look was not wounded. He was calm, steady. Almost proud. He was more than I’d ever seen Wilbur be. I guess he was himself.

And I had just caught the whole thing right there. And I had frozen it forever. Like proof.

“This is amazing,” Molly said, and I felt that same sense of spreading warmth that I felt the other time she praised me.

I felt the need to push it away again.

“But the rest of these are such crap.”

“We’re not done yet. Besides. You got one really great one.”

“But I took, like, seventy photos.”

“Right. That’s what photographers do. We take seventy photos to get one that’s really worth keeping.”

“We do?”

“We do if we’re lucky. If we’re good. If not, the numbers are even bigger.”

“You know, Molly,” I said. And then paused. “I’m going to miss
you
, too.” I didn’t say, Until a minute ago, I thought I’d only miss Frank. I didn’t need to. It was painfully clear.

She surprised me with a big side hug, her arm around my shoulder, pulling me in closer to all that plump warmth.

“You’re a sweet girl,” she said.

“I wasn’t always sweet.”

“I wasn’t exactly perfect, either.”

So I guess we still were both holding on to our own personal trespasses.

I said, “You know I was never judging Frank for what he is, right?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I know.” A long silence. It felt a little tense. But maybe it’s harder to know what to make of something in the mostly dark. No, I take it back. It’s easier. “I know you were confused. Because you had a crush on Frank.” I noticed she used the past tense. Like it was all done and gone now. “But you see … that’s the other reason I was mad.”

“Oh,” I said. That made so much sense I wondered why I hadn’t thought of it on my own. I didn’t exactly say I was sorry. What’s the point of being sorry for what you feel? “It’s not like I did it on purpose,” I said.

“Right. I know.”

Maybe this is not healthy, but I think I slightly enjoyed the feeling that she took me seriously enough to even barely think of me as a threat.

I noticed she hadn’t said she would miss me, too. But we can only ask for just so much.

We finished developing and hanging the photos, and there
was not even one more really good one. But I wasn’t sure that mattered. I would take the one perfect one, and hand it to Wilbur. And I knew he would say, Wow. I knew he wouldn’t say, But what about the others?

On the day they were actually leaving, I sat out on the stoop in front of our apartment house and read a book. Rather than my usual position on the fire escape.

I wanted to be able to say goodbye one more time.

I’d gotten caught up in an exciting part of the book, and I didn’t even realize Molly was standing over me until I heard her voice.

“I guess this is it,” she said.

I put down my book and looked up at her. Shading my eyes from the sun with one hand. “Yeah. I guess.”

She was wearing her big sun hat, and she had a tote bag slung over her shoulder that looked like it must weigh about 142 pounds. She set down a soft-sided pet carrier she’d been holding. Either Gracie or George.

“I’ll miss you,” she said.

That pretty much turned all my thinking upside down.

“You will?”

“Yeah. I will. Don’t sound so amazed.”

“Why? What have I done that I deserve to be missed?”

“Well. You took an interest in photography. No, more than that. You took an interest in the world. Through your camera lens. And you’re good at it. And you were a good friend.”