The Mourning After (16 page)

The way she tied up their cozy alliance left no room for Levon to recant what was factually true.  He was already putting up with an insurmountable level of crap from her, both of the figurative and literal nature.  The
extension of family
business actually appealed to him in his needy, desperate attempt to latch onto something meaningful and long-lasting.

The bus pulls up to their stop, and Levon is already sliding his body off the seat and shoving the journal with its folded-down, wrinkled pages back into his bag.  Hiding the words and sentences won’t obliterate the image from view.  Lucy would always know how he scribbled something of hers onto his private pages. The passengers on the bus file out one by one, slower than Levon can tolerate.  He is frustrated at the pace which leaves Lucy positioned directly behind him, lingering over his shoulder, like a hungry mosquito salivating before taking a bite.  She whispers in his ear, “Forgiveness.”

Levon’s humming to himself, so he doesn’t have to hear her breezy voice circling around his ears.  “That’s what the ideogram stands for,” she says, again, “forgiveness.”  He is stepping off the bus counting the seconds until they are free from the confining odor, a stale dinginess reminiscent of a summer he spent working in a bagel shop on Alton Road, wearing mildewed sneakers. 
Forgiveness.
  The word grazes Levon like a bullet.  It slows up, speeds forward, entirely unsure of its target. He has thought about forgiveness many times over the last several weeks though not for the typical reasons.  His forgiveness meanders down a long and convoluted path, one he chose to take alone.  In that moment, the short-sighted, reckless decision to save David was easy.  The outcome, however, could never have been predicted.  Her
forgiveness
falls on deaf ears.

Passing the memorial on their right, Lucy is once again drawn to the sculpture of the hand at the end of the towering arm.  She stops to appraise it while Levon complains that they’re going to be late.  He shuffles past her unaware of the other tattoo, the one scribed on the outstretched arm that erases identities.  Crossing the street, she runs to catch up with him. Together they head toward the crowd of students filtering into the cream-colored buildings. Lucy is swirling around him in her circular Lucy style.  “Come on, Levon.  Don’t be so melodramatic.  It’s really not a big deal.  It’s kinda nice you find my tattoo interesting enough to give it a blurb in your journal.  Most people think it’s appalling, that I’m too young for anything that permanent.”

Voices creep around them as they step into the busy hallway. Levon considers what she has said about permanence, and he wants to write it down before the words slip from his memory. 

We all have inscriptions, whether visible or hidden.  Though some are easy to see with the naked eye, others are concealed deep within and leave a lasting impression—a permanence on our souls.

Levon is well aware that he has to respond to Lucy.  She knows enough about him that his refusal to acknowledge what she’s saying might infer that he cares—he’s not sure if he does.  “I’m glad it means something as substantial as
forgiveness
because I thought it meant
rice cake
.”

“You looked it up?” she asks.

“I tried.”

“Levon Keller,” she begins, grabbing him by the shoulder, insisting that he stop walking.  The bell is about to ring and hordes of kids are passing, knocking into them.  She’s about to say something profound.  Levon can tell by the way she wrinkles her nose and stares him in the face.  She even manages to stand still, something he’s almost certain he’s never seen her do.  But before the words come tumbling out, a tall, pretty cheerleader steps right in between them.

“Hey, Levon,” says Rebecca. 

Lucy takes a step back and lets Rebecca take her place. 

“Who’s your friend?”

The girls wait for Levon to make the introductions while he stands there speechless, cheeks growing redder by the second.  A month ago, no one would have ever believed Levon Keller, the boy who resembles Drake’s brother Josh in the Nickelodeon tween show, would be surrounded by two of the school’s most beautiful girls. 

“I’m Rebecca,” she says, and before Levon can stop himself, the phrase that he has repeated so many times rolls off his tongue, and he blurts out, “David’s girlfriend.” 

Lucy stares at Levon while Rebecca looks to the ground.

“Lucy’s the new neighbor,” he begins again.  “She’s a sophomore.”  Turning to Lucy, he continues with information she probably could care less about.  “Rebecca’s a senior, captain of the cheerleaders.”

The girls exchange niceties, and Rebecca tries to persuade Lucy to try out for the junior varsity squad.  “There’s always room for more girls,” she says.

Levon can hardly wait to hear Lucy’s response.  She is gorgeous with a killer body, which automatically makes her a contender for anything obnoxiously popular and cool by high school standards, but Levon knew early on that Lucy had no interest in the social class pecking order or in their afterschool clubs.

“I’ll have to think about that,” Lucy says with a smile.  “I’ve never really considered being a cheerleader.”  Levon assumes she is mocking Rebecca, but she doesn’t seem to be.  The smile is real.

“I’m really sorry for your loss,” she says to Rebecca.

Rebecca nods, and the swell of tears forming in her eyes is hard to miss.

“Levon, are you doing okay?” Rebecca asks. “When are the stitches coming out?”

“I’m all right,” he answers. “I think two more weeks.”

“You know, you should probably start putting Vitamin E on your skin now.  It helps it to heal.”

“I’ll take that under advisement,” he says.

“I’m glad you’re back at school,” she says.  “Last week was hard.  I really want to talk to you.  Can I stop by after school?”  Lucy watches the two of them with growing interest.  “Or maybe I can give you a ride home?  I heard you’re taking the bus.”

“It’s not so bad,” he says, unable to formulate words or find an affirmative answer.  If she knew he was taking the bus, then everyone in the whole school knew.  Rebecca was considerate, patiently awaiting his response, though she knew his answer.  No one in his right mind had ever turned her down.

“Meet me by my car after school.”  Then she turns to Lucy and asks her if she would like a ride too.

“And miss the bus and all its glamour?  No thanks,” she laughs.

Levon can barely swallow and shoots Lucy a look.  Just when he’s convinced himself that being around Rebecca Blake and her fruity scent doesn’t send a shiver down his spine, he feels a fluttering, and Lucy, with her expression as smug as ever, gets to watch.

A loud bell echoes through the busy corridor.  Rebecca disappears from sight leaving Lucy and Levon the last to get to their classes.  Everything about the two girls, from their coloring, to their sense of humor, to the bold branding on Lucy’s ankle, distinguishes the two girls from one another.  Rebecca is a goody-goody, the sweetest kind.  Tattoos are for naughty girls.  Somewhere in the middle of the vastly disproportionate range of virtue is where Levon finds himself.

“What were you about to say to me?” he asks, remembering the look on her face before Rebecca walked over to them.

“Your dead brother’s girlfriend?” she asks.  “Say it isn’t so.”

He raises a hand to stop whatever it is that is bubbling over in her brain.

“The plot thickens.”

Levon turns and begins to walk away.  If he doesn’t make it to English class in the next thirty seconds, he will have to face the humiliation of Ms. Seward’s scolding.  He doesn’t need to draw any more attention to himself.

“He didn’t know about it, did he?” she yells.

Lucy’s reference to David as a measly pronoun, depersonalizing him as if he weren’t a real solid presence, incenses him. 

Levon turns around.  A couple of feet separate them.  Lucy’s arms are hugging her books.  She is staring Levon down, waiting for him to speak.  She has no concept of the time, nor does she care if she’s late. 

“His name is David,” he says, his voice rising while fingers clenched his language arts folder.  “It
was
David,” he begins again, “until I got behind the wheel of a car, and we ended up wrapped around a tree.” 

He pauses.  “You want to know about me?  You want to know about my brother?  I’ll forever be the kid that killed him.  How’s that for your stupid game of Jeopardy?” 

“Levon…”

“No, Lucy, you asked, and I’m gonna tell you.  I shouldn’t have been driving.  I shouldn’t have left my sister home.  I knew better, but I did it, for him, for David.  Are you satisfied now?  I’m a frickin pariah in this town.  I was a loser before, and I’m a bigger loser now.  You can thank me for sparing you the trouble of a friendship based on lies and hypocrisy. You would’ve figured it out sooner or later.”

Lucy is stunned into silence.  She is facing him, and her mouth drops—nothing comes out of it.  The hallway is barren and Levon’s self-inflicted battering resonates in the air around them.  “It wasn’t ice hockey…I had no idea,” she says.

“Of course, you didn’t,” he spits at her. “How could you?  You wanted to believe we were kindred spirits connected by coincidence in a paltry Kevin Bacon game, but we’re not.  We’re very different people.  I’m not who you think I am; I’ll never be that person.”

“We all have our demons, Levon,” she finally says.  “You’re not the only one who makes mistakes.”  She starts to move away from him, and Levon sucks in his breath ready for a reprimand.  She says, “I decide who my friends are, not you, and not Miss Florida over there either. 
Me.  I decide.
  You want me to feel sorry for you?  I don’t.  I told you things happen for a reason, and do you know why I said that? 
Because they do.
It’s the reason you did what you did, and if you can find some truth to that, you might be able to forgive yourself.  Stop waiting for everyone around you to do it for you.”

“My truth will never set me free,” he quietly utters.

“We all have secrets, Levon.”

“Not like this,” he says.

“How do you know?”

“Because I do.”

“You don’t know,” she says to him, before turning her back and heading down the hall.  “That’s why they call them secrets.”

Lucy dumps her books on the kitchen table and finds her mother preparing dinner.  A self-described foodie, Carol Bell can whisk up a gourmet meal with her eyes closed and with whatever may be in the pantry.  The Bell women have inborn skills and talents; their fluid motion, precise timing, and keen awareness make them masters at their gifts. 

The older woman’s gaze is fixed on her daughter while she sprinkles a handful of spices into the simmering pot on the stove. She asks what’s on her mind, and Lucy says
nothing
, while all she has been able to think about is the Keller family.  When she had intimated that big things were going to happen, she hadn’t expected blood and a visit to the hospital, or the news that Levon was driving the car that killed his brother.

Carol Bell holds up the wooden spoon to her daughter’s open mouth and offers her a taste of her famed marinara sauce.  Lucy savors the rich blend of tomato and garlic, careful not to drip on her white T-shirt.  Her mother often brags about her secret ingredient, though Lucy is well aware of the bottle of Chianti that she generously poured into the pot, which she keeps hidden in a cabinet.

Lucy hears the car pull into the driveway next door and pretends not to care.  Witnessing Levon trip over his words around that cheerleader girl made her want to puke.  He was not turning into the best protégé.  There are weaknesses they need to work through, especially when it comes to cheery pink lipstick and pom-poms.

“Something’s not right,” Lucy says, licking her lips.

“What do you mean?  It’s my usual recipe.  I haven’t changed a thing.”

“Not the sauce, Mom.  The sauce is perfect. I meant next door.”

Closing the lid on the simmering pot, she responds, “That’s putting it mildly.  What happened over there is tragic.  Nothing right about it at all.  I brought some fresh, baked challah to them the other day.  The mother was worse than I had imagined.”

“Challah?  I didn’t know you knew how to make it.”

“George and I ran into the rabbi leaving the house.  I thought it might help.”

Lucy observed her mother and her gentle displays of thoughtfulness. 

Levon rarely spoke of his mother, and when he did, it was with fear and mistrust.  She didn’t know if it was a result of the accident, or if he had always felt this way.  Levon and Chloe needed their parents during this unstable time.  Something was nagging at her that she hadn’t quite put her finger on yet.

“Have you ever heard of glycogen storage disease?” she asks her mother, who is chopping into a large onion.  The tangy scent infiltrates their matching eyes, and simultaneously, both women dab at their tears.

“Please, no more bad news,” her mother begs.

“It’s Levon’s sister. She has it.  It’s like the opposite of diabetes.”

“That poor family.  They’ve been through so much.”

“I wish there was something we could do for them, a way we could help.”

Carol Bell stops cutting and wipes her hands on her apron.  “You’re doing everything you can possibly do.  Grief is a process.  You know that better than most. All you can do for them is be there and listen.  Unless you’ve been in their shoes, it’s impossible to fully empathize.”  She reaches across the granite island and tucks a strand of Lucy’s hair behind her ear.  Lucy doesn’t need her mother to stroke her hair.  She has read between the words and clichés enough to know what the gesture means.

Peering out the kitchen window, she watches Levon and the cheerleader in her shiny red car. 
Attention seeker
, she grumbles under her breath, detesting the words and what they imply.  “I’m going to walk George,” she says.

“He was just out back.”

Lucy shrugs her shoulders.  Levon and pom-pom don’t know that.

George comes pouncing toward Lucy when he hears the rattle of the chain.  “Sit,” she tells him, and surprisingly, he listens.  “Good boy.  Listen carefully,” she begins, grabbing his puppy face in her hands. “It’s very important that you steer clear of the big red toy out there in the driveway.  Get it?  No leg lifting, no poops, nothing within five feet of that car.  Understand?”  George stares lovingly at his boss and lathers her with his tongue.  “I’m going to take that as a yes.”  He tongues her again to clean away the salt from her onion tears.  She lets him do it some more.