The Sky is Everywhere(24)
Author: Jandy Nelson

“Yeah?” I say. “What?”

“You know that mask Big brought back from South America when he was studying those trees. I think that it might have a curse on it.”

I’ve always hated that mask. It has fake hair all over it, eyebrows that arch in astonishment, and a mouth baring shiny, wolfish teeth. “It always gave me the creeps,” I tell her. “Bailey too.”

Gram nods but she seems distracted. I don’t think she’s really listening to me, which couldn’t be more unlike her lately.

“Lennie,” she says tentatively. “Is everything okay between you and Toby?”

My stomach clenches. “Of course,” I say, swallowing hard, trying to make my voice sound casual. “Why?” She owl-eyes me.

“Don’t know, you both seemed funny last night around each other.” Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

“And I keep wondering why Sarah isn’t coming around. Did you get in a fight?” she says to further send me into a guilt spiral.

Just then, Big and Joe come in, saving me. Big says, “We thought we saw life in spider number six today.”

Joe says, “I swear I saw a flutter.”

“Almost had a heart attack, Joe here, practically launched through the roof, but it must have been a breeze, little guy’s still dead as a doornail. The Lennie plant’s still languishing too. I might have to rethink things, maybe add a UV light.”

“Hey,” Joe says, coming behind me, dropping a hand to my shoulder. I look up at the warmth in his face and smile at him. I think he could make me smile even while I was hanging at the gallows, which I’m quite certain I’m headed for. I put my hand over his for a second, see Gram notice this as she gets up to make us breakfast.

I feel somehow responsible for the scrambled ashes that we are all shoveling into our mouths, as if I’ve somehow derailed the path to healing that our household was on yesterday morning. Joe and Big banter on about resurrecting bugs and exploding cakes – the conversation that would not die – while I actively avoid Gram’s suspicious gaze.

“I need to get to work early today, we’re catering the Dwyers’ party tonight.” I say this to my plate but can see Gram nodding in my periphery. She knows because she’s been asked to help with the flower arrangements. She’s asked all the time to oversee flower arrangements for parties and weddings but rarely says yes because she hates cut flowers. We all knew not to prune her bushes or cut her blooms under penalty of death. She probably said yes this time just to get out of the house for an afternoon. Sometimes I imagine the poor gardeners all over town this summer without Gram, standing in their yards, scratching their heads at their listless wisteria, their forlorn fuchsias.

Joe says, “I’ll walk you to work. I need to go to the music store anyway.” All the Fontaine boys are supposedly working for their parents this summer, who’ve converted a barn into a workshop where his dad makes specialty guitars, but I get the impression they spend all day working on new songs for their band Dive.

We embark on the seven-block walk to town, which looks like it’s going to take two hours because Joe comes to a standstill every time he has something to say, which is every three seconds.

“You can’t walk and talk at the same time, can you?” I ask.

He stops in his tracks, says “Nope.” Then continues on for a minute in silence until he can’t take it anymore and stops, turns to me, takes my arm, forcing me to stop, while he tells me how I have to go to Paris, how we’ll play music in the metro, make tons of money, eat only chocolate croissants, drink red wine, and stay up all night every night because no one ever sleeps in Paris. I can hear his heart beating the whole time and I’m thinking, Why not? I could step out of this sad life like it’s an old sorry dress, and go to Paris with Joe – we could get on a plane and fly over the ocean and land in France. We could do it today even. I have money saved. I have a beret. A hot black bra. I know how to say Je t’aime. I love coffee and chocolate and Baudelaire. And I’ve watched Bailey enough to know how to wrap a scarf. We could really do it, and the possibility makes me feel so giddy I think I might catapult into the air. I tell him so. He takes my hand and puts his other arm up Superman-style.

“You see, I was right,” he says with a smile that could power the state of California.

“God, you’re gorgeous,” I blurt out and want to die because I can’t believe I said it aloud and neither can he – his smile, so huge now, he can’t even get any words past it.

He stops again. I think he’s going to go on about Paris some more – but he doesn’t. I look up at him. His face is serious like it was last night in the woods.

“Lennie,” he whispers.

I look into his sorrowless eyes and a door in my heart blows open.

And when we kiss, I see that on the other side of that door is sky.

I
CAN’T
SHOVE
THE
DARK
OUT
OF
MY
WAY

(Found scrawled on the bench outside of Maria’s Italian Deli)

I make a million lasagnas in the window at the deli, listening to Maria gossip with customer after customer, then come home to find Toby lying on my bed. The house is still as stone with Gram at the Dwyers’ and Big at work. I punched Toby’s number into my phone ten times today, but stopped each time before pressing send. I was going to tell him I couldn’t see him. Not after promising Bailey. Not after kissing Joe. Not after Gram’s inquisition. Not after reaching into myself and finding some semblance of conscience. I was going to tell him that we had to stop this, had to think how it would make Bailey feel, how bad it makes us feel. I was going to tell him all these things, but didn’t because each time I was about to complete the call, I got transported back to the moment by his truck last night and that same inexplicable recklessness and hunger would overtake me until the phone was closed and lying silent on the counter before me.

“Hi, you.” His voice is deep and dark and unglues me instantly.

I’m moving toward him, unable not to, the pull, unavoidable, tidal. He gets up quickly, meets me halfway across the room. For one split second we face each other; it’s like diving into a mirror. And then I feel his mouth crushing into mine, teeth and tongue and lips and all his raging sorrow crashing right into mine, all our raging sorrow together now crashing into the world that did this to us. I’m frantic as my fingers unbutton his shirt, slip it off his shoulders, then my hands are on his chest, his back, his neck, and I think he must have eight hands because one is taking off my shirt, another two are holding my face while he kisses me, one is running through my hair, another two are on my breasts, a few are pulling my hips to his and then the last undoes the button on my jeans, unzips the fly and we are on the bed, his hand edging its way between my legs, and that is when I hear the front door slam shut—