The Sky is Everywhere(15)
Author: Jandy Nelson

“It’s so haunting,” Joe says.

“Hmm, yes … that’s my daughter, Paige. Lennie and Bailey’s mom, she’s been away for a long, long time…” I’m shocked. Gram hardly ever talks about Mom voluntarily. “One day I’ll finish this painting, it’s not done…” Gram has always said she’ll finish it when Mom comes back and can pose for her.

“Come now, let’s eat.” I can hear the heartache in Gram’s voice through three walls. Mom’s absence has grown way more pronounced for her since Bailey’s death. I keep catching her and Big staring at The Half Mom with a fresh, almost desperate kind of longing. It’s become more pronounced for me too.

Mom was what Bails and I did together before bed when we’d imagine where she was and what she was doing. I don’t know how to think about Mom without her.

I’m jotting down a poem on the sole of my shoe when they come back in.

“Run out of paper?” Joe asks.

I put my foot down. Ugh. What’s your major, Lennie? Oh yeah: Dorkology.

Joe sits down at the table, all limbs and graceful motion, an octopus.

We are staring at him again, still not certain what to make of the stranger in our midst. The stranger, however, appears quite comfortable with us.

“What’s up with the plant?” He points to the despairing Lennie houseplant in the middle of the table. It looks like it has leprosy. We all go silent, because what do we say about my doppelgänger houseplant?

“It’s Lennie, it’s dying, and frankly, we don’t know what to do about it,” Big booms with finality. It’s as if the room itself takes a long awkward breath, and then at the same moment Gram, Big and I lose it – Big slapping the table and barking laughter like a drunk seal, Gram leaning back against the counter wheezing and gasping for breath, and me doubled over trying to breathe in between my own uncontrolled gasping and snorting, all of us lost in a fit of hysterics the likes of which we haven’t had in months.

“Aunt Gooch! Aunt Gooch!” Gram is shrieking in between peals of laugher. Aunt Gooch is the name Bailey and I gave to Gram’s laugh because it would arrive without notice like a crazy relative who shows up at the door with pink hair, a suitcase full of balloons, and no intention of leaving.

Gram gasps, “Oh my, oh my, I thought she was gone for good.”

Joe seems to be taking the outburst quite well. He’s leaned back in his chair, is balancing on its two back legs; he looks entertained, like he’s watching, well, like he’s watching three heartbroken people lose their marbles. I finally settle enough to explain to Joe, amidst tears and residual giggles, the story of the plant. If he hadn’t already thought he’d gained entry to the local loony bin, he was sure to now. To my amazement, he doesn’t make an excuse and fly out the door, but takes the predicament quite seriously, like he actually cares about the fate of the plain, sickly plant that will not revive.

After breakfast, Joe and I go onto the porch, which is still eerily cloaked in morning fog. The moment the screen door closes behind us, he says, “One song,” as if no time has elapsed since we were in the tree.

I walk over to the railing, lean against it, and cross my arms in front of my chest. “You play. I’ll listen.”

“I don’t get it,” he says. “What the deal?”

“The deal is I don’t want to.”

“But why? Your pick, I don’t care what.”

“I told you, I don’t—”

He starts to laugh. “God, I feel like I’m pressuring you to have sex or something.” Every ounce of blood in a ten-mile radius rushes to my cheeks. “C’mon. I know you want to…” he jokes, raising his eyebrows like a total dork. What I want is to hide under the porch, but his giant loopy grin makes me laugh. “Bet you like Mozart,” he says, squatting to open his case. “All clarinettists do. Or maybe you’re a Bach’s Sacred Music devotee?” He squints up at me. “Nah, don’t seem like one of those.” He takes the guitar out, then sits on the edge of the coffee table, swinging it over his knee. “I’ve got it. No clarinet player with blood in her veins can resist Gypsy jazz.” He plays a few sizzling chords. “Am I right? Or … I know!” He starts beating a rhythm on his guitar with his hand, his foot pounding the floor. “Dixieland!”

The guy’s life-drunk, I think, makes Candide look like a sourpuss. Does he even know that death exists?

“So, whose idea was it?” I ask him.

He stops finger-drumming. “What idea?”

“That we play together. You said—”

“Oh, that. Marguerite St Denis is an old friend of the family – the one I blame actually for my exile up here. She might’ve mentioned something about how Lennie Walker joue de la clarinette comme un rêve.” He twirls his hand in the air like Marguerite. “Elle joue à ravir, de merveille.”

I feel a rush of something, everything, panic, pride, guilt, nausea – it’s so strong I have to hold on to the railing. I wonder what else she told him.

“Quelle catastrophe,” he continues. “You see, I thought I was her only student who played like a dream.” I must look confused, because he explains, “In France. She taught at the conservatory, most summers.”

As I take in the fact that my Marguerite is also Joe’s Marguerite, I see Big barreling past the window, back at it, broom over head, looking for creatures to resurrect. Joe doesn’t seem to notice, probably a good thing. He adds, “I’m joking, about me, clarinet’s never been my thing.”

“Not what I heard,” I say. “Heard you were fabulous.”

“Rachel doesn’t have much of an ear,” he replies matter-of-factly, without insult. Her name falls too easily from his lips, like he says it all the time, probably right before he kisses her. I feel my face flush again. I look down, start examining my shoes. What’s with me? I mean really. He just wants to play music together like normal musicians do.

Then I hear, “I thought about you…”

I don’t dare look up for fear I imagined the words, the sweet tentative tone. But if I did, I’m imagining more of them. “I thought about how crazy sad you are, and…”

He’s stopped talking. And what? I lift my head to see that he’s examining my shoes too. “Okay,” he says, meeting my gaze. “I had this image of us holding hands, like up at The Great Meadow or somewhere, and then taking off into the air.”