The Geography of You and Me(40)
Author: Jennifer E. Smith

What he wanted was fire: heat and spark and flame.

Across the table, Paisley was saying something about the trip down, but when Owen met her eyes, something in his expression made the words fall away. Her mouth formed an O—the start of a question—but before she could voice it, he leaned forward.

“Paisley,” he said quietly, and a look of surprise passed over her face.

Outside, it was just getting dark.

19

In Prague, Lucy walked.

This was her first trip to continental Europe. It was her first time at the opera and her first glimpse of the Charles Bridge. It was her first visit to the biggest castle in the world and her first parentally sanctioned taste of beer, served in a mug so big she had to hold it with two hands. It was her first proper puppet show, the dangling legs of the marionette dancing wildly as a street performer with kind eyes and wrinkled hands commanded it, and it was her first introduction to Kafka. They hadn’t even made it out of the airport when she asked Dad for enough korunas to buy an English-language copy of The Metamorphosis.

She was under no great illusion about why her parents had brought her along, for the first time ever, on one of their trips. Just over a week ago, they’d broken the news to her that they’d be moving again. This time, to London.

“That job,” Dad had said, examining his tie. “The one from before? The other guy didn’t work out, so it’s opened up again.…”

“And they offered it to you,” Lucy said flatly.

“And they offered it to me.”

“And you want to take it.”

He coughed. “I’ve already taken it, actually.”

She knew they expected her to be furious. Here they were, pulling her from a school only five months after they’d dropped her into it, yanking her away again less than half a year after they’d separated her from her home.

But Lucy simply couldn’t muster the expected anger. Her heart was still too heavy for arguments or fireworks; instead, she just sat there feeling resigned—thinking of Liam, who hadn’t been able to look at her since she’d broken up with him; of Arthur’s Seat, with its views of the city; and the town house with the red door, which sat on a street shaped like a croissant—and listening as her parents strung out a long chain of promises.

“We’ve found a mews house in Notting Hill,” Dad was saying. “Very nice little place.”

“And there’s a lovely school nearby,” Mom told her.

“And we’ll wait until spring break,” said Dad, “so it won’t be as disruptive.”

“And to make it up to you, we were thinking maybe a little holiday was in order,” Mom had said, her smile too bright. “What do you think about Prague?”

So the weekend was a three-day apology tour. But even so, this did nothing to squash Lucy’s enthusiasm for the great buzzing city with its sweeping plazas and oddly shaped buildings and swaying groups of drunken tourists.

As it turned out, Prague in February meant a low gray sky and fits of stinging rain, but Lucy didn’t mind that, either. All weekend, the three of them dashed from one museum or gallery to another, moving through squares filled with people and umbrellas. Her whole life, she’d been surrounded by this kind of art; she’d grown up within miles of not just the Met, but also the Guggenheim and the Whitney, the MoMA and the Frick. But they’d never gone together. Not once. Her parents’ lives had always seemed to run parallel to their children’s. They weren’t so much a constellation, the five of them, as a series of scattered stars. There had always been something far-flung about their family, even when they were all in the same place.

Yet here they were now, meandering through the National Gallery in Prague together, spread out along a marble corridor until one of them called for the others, and they all three huddled together before a framed canvas, murmuring their thoughts.

“What did you think?” Mom asked Lucy afterward, moving over to share her umbrella as they stepped outside into the silvery rain.

“I loved it,” she said, and then the words tumbled out before she had a chance to weigh them: “We should have done that more back home.”

“You used to go to the Met all the time,” Mom said, glancing over at her.

The rain beat on the umbrella, and Lucy spoke over the noise of it. “I meant together.”

Mom paused, just briefly, but enough to fall behind. When Lucy turned back, she could see the rain making maroon polka dots across the shoulders of her red coat. After a moment, she shook her head, as if clearing water from her ear, then stepped forward to duck underneath the umbrella again. Up ahead, Dad was already pushing through the crowd, his black coat disappearing.

“There are plenty of museums in London, too,” Mom said, looping an arm around Lucy’s waist, and then together, they hurried to catch up, the rain falling in sheets all around them.

20

In Portland, Owen dreamed.

The rain was loud against the thin roof of the motel, and he woke with a start, the memory of his mother still with him. He felt around for the alarm clock, spinning it so that the red numbers shone in his direction. It was 5:43 AM, and the light that leaked in around the brownish curtains was pale and new.

In the next bed, his father was still sleeping, his breathing soft. Owen propped himself up on his elbows, still rattled by the dream, where his mother had been pinning plastic stars to the roof of the red Honda, which flew off one by one as they drove away from her, scattering in the wind.

Now he swung his legs off the bed and rubbed his eyes. On the floor beside him, Bartleby rustled in his shoe box. Owen stood, slipped on a pair of sneakers, and grabbed a sweatshirt, then opened the door to the hallway, pressing it closed behind him with a quiet click. At the end of a hall lined with dozens of identical doors, there was a small terrace, which was littered with cigarette butts. Owen stepped outside and sat down on the edge of it, so that his head was shielded from the rain even as the toes of his sneakers quickly soaked through. He didn’t mind; the cool air felt nice, and the rain smelled like morning.

The terrace looked out over a huddled collection of blue trash cans, which were arranged haphazardly along the perimeter of the parking lot. But beyond that, over the tops of the trees, he could see the mountains. As the sky paled all around them, their outlines grew sharper, like a photo coming into focus. Owen leaned forward to pick at a loose thread on one of his shoes, letting out a sigh he’d been holding for what felt like days.