cancer,” I said. “Can you believe it?”
She believed it. She invited me to her party lickety-split, and Haskell Crocker danced with me, and Danny Harris held my hand, and every girl brought me pink punch, such beautiful punch, with foamy globs floating on top, and slices of orange and lemon in it. Sweet. Sweet. The whole time, it seemed, Elton John was singing about the sun going down, and I saw it, all the wolves howling while the sun went down, casting steep shadows, marks of sin on me.
• • •
My mother picked me up from that party. Before I left, Sarah said, “You could come again next time.” On the one hand, I was thrilled. The cancer story had been a brilliant idea, brilliant. On the other hand, there was something wrong with the tone of her invite. She’d said it in such a soft, gentle way, in a voice so full of pity I felt pathetic.
I got in the car with my mother. I had a numb feeling, and when I looked at my hand it was not mine. That’s all I can say.
“Mom?” I asked.
She didn’t turn to me, though. She kept driving. Her mouth was grim and pressed while above her passing streetlights floated in her beehive hair. The car so quiet. I saw a dead dog on the side of the road.
I thought I might have a seizure. Sometimes I said a little prayer, “Please, God, prevent it from happening, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.” The counting to ten was the most important part of the prayer.
I prayed then, counted to ten, and looked out. The car hummed along in a smoothly sinister way. I recognized nothing, not the houses, not the yards. “Where are we?” I said.
Still, she didn’t answer.
“Mom!” I yelled.
Then she answered. Her voice clacked out of her throat like a prerecorded message. “Calm down,” she said.
“Where are we going?” I said. “This isn’t the way home.”
“I am running an errand,” she said.
I rolled down my window and air, clean and fresh, rushed in, filled my mouth like sweet lake water when you dive down. Through the dense night, I saw we had entered a new kind of neighborhood, a place where the houses were sprawling and pillared, where blue pools lapped and the lawns were wide.
My mother pulled over and turned off the car. “Wait here,” she said. Ahead of us stood a massive home.
“What errand are you running?” I said.
“My editor, Suki Israel,” she said. “I just need to drop off some work. I’ll be right back.”
And then she wafted up the white brick walk, a door mysteriously opened, she sucked into the dazzle of light. And then gone.
I waited.
At first only five minutes passed, then what seemed like ten, and then I lost track of time. It was April, and the night grew chilly, and frost fell on the windshield. I wanted to cry.
I waited some more. The car engine, still hot, ticked, and stopped. I thought it was possible my mother wasn’t coming back. I stepped out of the car, then, and heard a stillness that was not of this world. It was the stillness of a stage set, of a madman’s sleeping mind. I crept toward a window.
What I saw inside there I will not forget. Huge aquariums were built into every wall, jellyfish like lamps in the green water, octopi bobbing, my mother nowhere around. It was beautiful in a frightening way. I saw, then, how essentially ahuman the world was, a place where the real turned to waves, and washed away.
I went back to the car. What felt like a long time later she emerged, smoothing her skirt, her hair slightly mussed—or did I just imagine that?—smiling now as she stepped down the path, and when I said, “It’s been hours, Mom,” she said, “It’s been minutes, Lauren,” and I got so confused—water, vapor, twisted time—that right then I felt a craving in me, acraving for something safe and solid and absolutely absolute.
• • •
That was the night I started to steal. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I really started to steal a few days after that, or a few weeks
She believed it. She invited me to her party lickety-split, and Haskell Crocker danced with me, and Danny Harris held my hand, and every girl brought me pink punch, such beautiful punch, with foamy globs floating on top, and slices of orange and lemon in it. Sweet. Sweet. The whole time, it seemed, Elton John was singing about the sun going down, and I saw it, all the wolves howling while the sun went down, casting steep shadows, marks of sin on me.
• • •
My mother picked me up from that party. Before I left, Sarah said, “You could come again next time.” On the one hand, I was thrilled. The cancer story had been a brilliant idea, brilliant. On the other hand, there was something wrong with the tone of her invite. She’d said it in such a soft, gentle way, in a voice so full of pity I felt pathetic.
I got in the car with my mother. I had a numb feeling, and when I looked at my hand it was not mine. That’s all I can say.
“Mom?” I asked.
She didn’t turn to me, though. She kept driving. Her mouth was grim and pressed while above her passing streetlights floated in her beehive hair. The car so quiet. I saw a dead dog on the side of the road.
I thought I might have a seizure. Sometimes I said a little prayer, “Please, God, prevent it from happening, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.” The counting to ten was the most important part of the prayer.
I prayed then, counted to ten, and looked out. The car hummed along in a smoothly sinister way. I recognized nothing, not the houses, not the yards. “Where are we?” I said.
Still, she didn’t answer.
“Mom!” I yelled.
Then she answered. Her voice clacked out of her throat like a prerecorded message. “Calm down,” she said.
“Where are we going?” I said. “This isn’t the way home.”
“I am running an errand,” she said.
I rolled down my window and air, clean and fresh, rushed in, filled my mouth like sweet lake water when you dive down. Through the dense night, I saw we had entered a new kind of neighborhood, a place where the houses were sprawling and pillared, where blue pools lapped and the lawns were wide.
My mother pulled over and turned off the car. “Wait here,” she said. Ahead of us stood a massive home.
“What errand are you running?” I said.
“My editor, Suki Israel,” she said. “I just need to drop off some work. I’ll be right back.”
And then she wafted up the white brick walk, a door mysteriously opened, she sucked into the dazzle of light. And then gone.
I waited.
At first only five minutes passed, then what seemed like ten, and then I lost track of time. It was April, and the night grew chilly, and frost fell on the windshield. I wanted to cry.
I waited some more. The car engine, still hot, ticked, and stopped. I thought it was possible my mother wasn’t coming back. I stepped out of the car, then, and heard a stillness that was not of this world. It was the stillness of a stage set, of a madman’s sleeping mind. I crept toward a window.
What I saw inside there I will not forget. Huge aquariums were built into every wall, jellyfish like lamps in the green water, octopi bobbing, my mother nowhere around. It was beautiful in a frightening way. I saw, then, how essentially ahuman the world was, a place where the real turned to waves, and washed away.
I went back to the car. What felt like a long time later she emerged, smoothing her skirt, her hair slightly mussed—or did I just imagine that?—smiling now as she stepped down the path, and when I said, “It’s been hours, Mom,” she said, “It’s been minutes, Lauren,” and I got so confused—water, vapor, twisted time—that right then I felt a craving in me, acraving for something safe and solid and absolutely absolute.
• • •
That was the night I started to steal. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I really started to steal a few days after that, or a few weeks
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