The Sky is Everywhere(21)
Author: Jandy Nelson

“I think you’ve had enough freak-outs for one day,” he says, smiling now, and twirling his finger by his ear to signify what a wack-job I am. This makes me laugh out loud. He’s looking all around again in a mild panic. “Seriously, what was that?”

“Are you scared of the deep dark forest, city boy?”

“Of course I am, like most sane people, remember lions and tigers and bears, oh my?” He curls his finger around my belt loop, starts veering me back to the house, then stops suddenly. “That, right then. That creepy horror movie noise that happens right before the ax murderer jumps out and gets us.”

“It’s the old growths creaking. When it’s really windy, it sounds like hundreds of doors squeaking open and shut back here, all at the same time, it’s beyond spooky. Don’t think you could handle it.”

He puts his arm around me. “A dare? Next windy day then.” He points to himself – “Hansel” – then at me – “Gretel.”

Right before we break from the trees, I say, “Thanks, for following me, and…” I want to thank him for spending all day moving furniture for Gram, for coming every morning with dead bugs for Big, for somehow being there for them when I can’t be. Instead, I say, “I really love the way you play.” Also true.

“Likewise.”

“C’mon,” I say. “That wasn’t playing. It was honking. Total face-plant.”

He laughs. “No way. Worth the wait. Testament to why if given the choice I’d rather lose the ability to talk than play. By far the superior communication.”

This I agree with, face-plant or not. Playing today was like finding an alphabet – it was like being sprung. He pulls me even closer to him and something starts to swell inside, something that feels quite a bit like joy.

I try to ignore the insistent voice inside: How dare you, Lennie? How dare you feel joy this soon?

When we emerge from the woods, I see Toby’s truck parked in front of the house and it has an immediate bone-liquefying effect on my body. I slow my pace, disengage from Joe, who looks quizzically over at me. Gram must have invited Toby to be part of her ritual. I consider staging another freak-out and running back into the woods so I don’t have to be in a room with Toby and Joe, but I am not the actress and know I couldn’t pull it off. My stomach churns as we walk up the steps, past Lucy and Ethel, who are, of course, sprawled out on the porch awaiting Toby’s exit, and who, of course, don’t move a muscle as we pass. We push through the door and then cross the hall into the living room. The room is aglow with candles, the air thick with the sweet scent of sage.

DougFred and Marcus sit on two of the remaining chairs in the center of the room playing flamenco guitar. The Half Mom hovers above them as if she’s listening to the course, fiery chords that are overtaking the house. Uncle Big towers over the mantel clapping his hand on his thigh to the feverish beat. And Toby stands on the other side of the room, apart from everyone, looking as lonely as I felt earlier – my heart immediately lurches toward him. He leans against the window, his golden hair and skin gleaming in the flickery light. He watches us enter the room with an inappropriate hawkish intensity that is not lost on Joe and sends shivers through me. I can feel Joe’s bewilderment without even looking to my side.

Meanwhile, I am now imagining roots growing out of my feet so I don’t fly across the room into Toby’s arms because I have a big problem: even in this house, on this night, with all these people, with Joe Fabulous Fontaine, who is no longer acting like my brother, right beside me, I still feel this invisible rope pulling me across the room toward Toby and there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do about it.

I turn to Joe, who looks like I’ve never seen him: unhappy, his body stiff with confusion, his gaze shifting from Toby to me and back again. It’s as if all the moments between Toby and me that never should have happened are spilling out of us in front of Joe.

“Who’s that guy?” Joe asks, with none of his usual equanimity.

“Toby.” It comes out oddly robotic.

Joe looks at me like: Well, who’s Toby, retard?

“I’ll introduce you,” I say, because I have no choice and cannot just keep standing here like I’ve had a stroke.

There’s no other way to put it: THIS BLOWS.

And on top of everything, the flamenco has begun to crescendo all around us, whipping fire and sex and passion every which way. Perfect. Couldn’t they have chosen some sleepy sonata? Waltzes are lovely too, boys. With me on his heels, Joe crosses the room toward Toby: the sun on a collision course with the moon.

The dusky sky pours through the window, framing Toby. Joe and I stop a few paces in front of him, all of us now caught in the uncertainty between day and night. The music continues its fiery revolution all around us and there is a girl inside of me that wants to give in to the fanatical beat – she wants to dance wild and free all around the thumping room, but unfortunately, that girl’s in me, not me. Me would like an invisibility cloak to get the hell out of this mess.

I look over at Joe and am relieved to see that the fevered chords have momentarily hijacked his attention. His one hand plays his thigh, his foot drums the ground, and his head bobs around, which flops his hair into his eyes. He can’t stop smiling at his brothers, who are pounding their guitars into notes so ferocious they probably could overthrow the government. I realize I’m smiling like a Fontaine as I watch the music riot through Joe. I can feel how intensely he wants his guitar, just as, all of a sudden, I can feel how intensely Toby wants me. I steal a glance at him, and as I suspected, he’s watching me watch Joe, his eyes clamped on me. How did we get ourselves into this? It doesn’t feel like solace in this moment at all, but something else. I look down, write help on my jeans with my finger, and when I look back up I see that Toby’s and Joe’s eyes have locked. Something passes silently between them that has everything to do with me, because as if on cue they look from each other to me, both saying with their eyes: What’s going on, Lennie?

Every organ in my body switches places.

Joe puts his hand gently on my arm as if it will remind me to open my mouth and form words. At the contact, Toby’s eyes flare. What’s going on with him tonight? He’s acting like my boyfriend, not my sister’s, not someone I made out with twice under very extenuating circumstances. And what about me and this inexplicable and seemingly inescapable pull to him despite everything?