"A hundred times," he says, winking, "before I hit eighteen."
When I head home, just before the eleven o"clock news, my mother is so pleased with me. She says I"m growing up into a good and thoughtful person. Her silky new kimono tied tight at her waist, she feeds me doughy cinnamon rolls from the oven like when I was a kid, the kind that come with the plastic disk filled with frosting.
She sits with me at the kitchen table and I know she"d like me to tell her things, to tell her what"s going on with the investigation and how Mr. Verver is doing. But I don"t feel like telling her. I wouldn"t know how to make her understand.
She leans toward me, her chin tucked in her hands, and I feel it like a breathless tug.
She wants me to confide, and then she will confide too.
Oh, how it must twist in her that I sit there and I lick that icing, and lick it off all my fingertips.
I just look at her and take another bite, my hand sinking over the softly wheezing roll.
I just look and look and look and my face gives her nothing.
I give her nothing.
It"s just past midnight, and I"m sitting on the front porch, which I know would make her crazy. But I can"t sleep and the air conditioner was thundering at me and I felt all closed up. Out here, it"s still a heavy June heat, but the air moves a little, it stirs.
And I have something to watch. It seems like I always do.
A car is in front of the Ververs" house, a lonely blue car.
I recognize it right away. Bobby Thornhill. Bobby Thornhill is back. Everyone elsea"neighbors and the slinking mailman and even the slow guy who delivers the church circularsa"have all hunkered away since everything happened. All keeping a safe distance, not wanting to push, to touch, to graze against, to get too close.
But not Bobby Thornhill, and there"s a funny warming in my chest. I"m somehow grateful for it. Despite everything, there"s still this. This still lives and breathes and gasps and stutters. This doesn"t change. This doesn"t stop.
Bobby Thornhill still inches his car along the streetlit curb, lights off, shoulders slouched, neck craning, peering at the Verver house.
Bobby Thornhill still gazes yearningly up at Dusty"s window, that window beaming with promise, a faintly curtained invitation.
"How long can you just look?" my brother once said. But what boy ever really put hands to Dusty, tongue to her teeth, her pearly ear, searching for ways in, and found what he"d been promised by that curving smile of hers, that golden girl-face? I know it must have happened, but I can"t remember it. I can"t even picture it.
"I see Dusty with college fellas," Mr. Verver once teased, lying back on the pillow balanced on Dusty"s tanned lap.
Evie and I perked our heads up, so eager to know what he meant, what he knew about Dusty and what she should and would have.
"Graduate students. Wire-frame gla.s.ses and bottles of Scotch. They"ll recite odes to her, write songs about her on battered acoustic guitars, and promise to take her away from all this suburban dread."
Dusty rolled her eyes magnificently and pretended to snore and tugged at Mr. Verver"s dark hair, twisted it between her dainty fingers.
Bobby Thornhill, though, I am glad for you. You remind me of before, just when "before" seemed gone forever.
I slink along the driveway and I think maybe I"ll get closer and maybe I"ll see something. Something I might want to see, with his head jerking, his eyes glazed, and such magic behind them, visions of Dusty stretched out before him, reclined, finespun curls twirled in her own twirling hands.
I think I might see Bobby seeing that and I don"t mind whatever I see, not even that.
I"m so close, and suddenly his car door pops open, and I jump back, feet on the curb. Startled, Bobby looks at me.
"What"re you doing?" he says, leaning out, eyes on me.
"Nothing," I say.
There"s a half-empty six-pack of beer on the seat next to him, the cardboard sweating. I can smell gusts of it when he talks.
"You"re not calling the cops, are you?" he says. "Or her dad?"
"No," I say.
"He seems like a cool guy," Bobby says. "Everyone says he is. I feel bad for all of them."
I nod, not knowing what else to do.
"She came out here two nights ago," he says. "Maybe you don"t believe me. You"re just a kid. But she came out."
I don"t know if I do believe it. But I can"t guess why he"d lie.
Then I think again how she"s never out there in the backyard with Mr. Verver anymore. Is his heartache so great she can"t bear it, just like I almost can"t, seeing it on him, wanting to fix it?
I think about her up in her puffed pink room, restless and bored. She doesn"t know what to do with herself, I think. She doesn"t know what to do if she"s not under his bright lights.
"She came out and she stood right here." He points to where I"m standing. I look down at myself, my k.n.o.bby legs and bare feet.
"She asked me what I wanted, but I didn"t know what to say," he says. "And then she just got in the car with me. I couldn"t believe it.
"And I couldn"t believe it when she let me kiss her."
I pictured it, the kiss, his hands grasping at her, at Dusty"s clean, tight pureness. Would she let it unbend, unfurl for him?
I imagine him trying so hard, his mouth on her, on her cheek, the side of her mouth, her neck. Trying to animate her, to share all that want, show her what it means, and what it can do.
No, no. It was all so wrong. I didn"t know why, but I couldn"t see it. Dusty"s eyes gla.s.sy with want, with surrender. There was no picturing it, not like this.
"It was like she was giving me my shot," he tells me. "To see what I"d do."
He looks at me and his eyes are sad, helpless.
"But it turned out I didn"t know what to do," he says, and he"s not even embarra.s.sed to tell me. Maybe I don"t count enough to be embarra.s.sed. "Because she"s not like other girls. That"s why she"s Dusty."
What made him think he could do this? What made him think he could touch, even with the most delicate fingertips, much less with those hapless, grabbing hands of his?
He looks up at the window, past my tugged-loose ponytail, his voice breaking softly.
"I never thought she"d come outside."
Fourteen.
My head filled with thoughts of the yearnings of Bobby Thornhill, I slink back in through the patio door. The kitchen is pitch-black, and my bare feet skid hard on the linoleum. I stumble, and there is a feeling of softness, like I"ve slid into a basket of laundry, but I haven"t, and I see the flash of eyegla.s.ses, and it"s Dr. Aiken, shirttail hanging out, arms holding me up, in our kitchen.
I feel the half scream from my mouth and I stop it fast with the heel of my hand.
"Lizzie," he whispers, loudly, and tries to keep me upright, hands on my jerking arms.
"I don"t know you," I say, and the light flashing on his gla.s.ses, I can"t see his eyes.
"I"m a friend of your mother"s. I was just leavinga""
That"s when the hall light streams across us and I see my mother whirl around the corner, tying her kimono fast around her.
"Lizzie," she hisses, and her eyes fix on the open patio door and my gra.s.s-stained feet.
"Lizzie, what were you doing outside?" Her hand claws over my wrist. "Were you out there? By yourself outside, with everything that"s happened?"
Her hand on me so tight, and she has so much nerve, and I raise my chin and the words jump from me. "I can do what I want," I bellow. "Don"t you?"
Like that, her hand leaps to my face, a slap that sings.
"Diane," Dr. Aiken says, and he reaches out. "She wasn"t outside. I was the one who opened the door. She must"ve heard something and come downstairs. We just surprised each other."
I look at him, my cheek throbbing. I look at him, listen to him save my lily-white skin, but all I can see is the light on his gla.s.ses and I don"t say anything.
At breakfast, my mother wants to reach out to my face, I can see it on her. Ted"s started his summer job at the country club and it"s just the two of us. There"s been no talking about anything, and I slept dreamlessly, waking to the sound of her on the phone, whispering plaintively, her voice rising once, saying, "I don"t know what to say. I don"t know what to say."
I sc.r.a.pe the black off my toast mercilessly. She tries to start conversations. She says pained, half-embarra.s.sed things, all without saying anything.
There"s something wobbling in her and her hands shake and all the heat and tingliness she usually has after he has been over are gone. She raps her knuckles on the newspaper and sighs and slathers a dishrag this way and that and swivels noisily around the kitchen.
And finally she leaves for work too.
I wander the house, lingering in the doorway to my mother"s room. I don"t go in, I just can"t, but I see the bed"s unmade and I can almost feel the pocketed warmth in the center.
Does she think, now that he"s seen what he"s seen, her doctor will be gone forever?
Fleeing, nights, late, the closeness of his house, the wifely claws snaring him. He runs from it and finds such ease, such leg-stretching, laughing ease here, and it"s so wonderful, so warm and fun, and who wouldn"t want that?
But then it just gets scissored through, doesn"t it? The seams are torn and he sees all the misery he thought he left at home, well, it"s here too.
All that misery"s burst through and you might choke from it.
An hour later, maybe more, of ambling around the house, and I see the way time can nearly stop.
I can"t imagine the stretch of summer days without Evie.
I can"t imagine summer without Evie. I"ve never had summer without Evie.
It"s pouring rain too, and I keep looking outside and it"s almost noon when I see Mr. Verver out there with Detective Thernstrom. Mr. Verver"s face is so white. It"s the whitest face I"ve ever seen.
I inch toward the open window screen and try to hear, but I can"t.
Mr. Verver has one hand on his hip and he"s shaking his head, nodding, and looking down at the pavement. He"s soaking wet, and Detective Thernstrom is trying to keep him under his umbrella, but Mr. Verver doesn"t seem to notice, keeps drifting away.
I feel a churning in my stomach and before I know it, I"ve pushed myself out the screen door and into their driveway.
Mr. Verver turns and looks at me, and his face, the rain glittering on it, I can"t read it. It"s like an a.s.sembly of the parts of his face with nothing behind them.
But suddenly I know it, I just know.
It"s because of that look on his face, all that blood and life and feeling wiped clean.
The rain keeps pelting at him, pelting him so hard, like when ancient statues are worn away.
It happens just like that.
I suddenly feel Evie"s fingers slip through mine, feel her falling into the earth itself.
How could I have missed it, the way I knew her, the way I could put my hands on my own face, body, throat, heart, and know it was hers, how could I have let it go by? She slipped from me while I, while Ia "Lizzie," Mr. Verver says. And Detective Thernstrom continues to look at me, the rain slanting from the black umbrella.
"What happened?" I say, and I feel the wet hanging on me, and I can"t move, my sneakers filling with water.
Detective Thernstrom walks toward me.
"We thought we found her," he says. "But it wasn"t her."
"Found her," I say.
"They found a body, Lizzie," Mr. Verver says, and he puts his hands on my shoulders, and his hands are wet and heavy and I feel myself sinking. "They called me a few hours ago to tell me they found the body of a girl down in Preston Hollow. We thought it might be her."
His hands loosen, his wrists turned up, resting on my shoulders. "But it wasn"t. It wasn"t her."
Detective Thernstrom slopes the umbrella so it coc.o.o.ns me. The rain on the dark canvas throbs.
"Everything"s the same," he says. "We"re back where we were."
But it isn"t true, is it. Because in that minutea"a minute that had been hours for Mr. Ververa"everything changed forever.
In that minute, I felt Evie dead and now I knew she could be.
Mr. Verver is drinking beer from a green bottle. We"re in the paneled bas.e.m.e.nt. It"s three o"clock in the afternoon now, still raining. We"ve been here for hours.
I know I should be home, I know my mother"s probably called to check on me, but there is no way for me to leave. And I can"t think of leaving. We have been here for hours, hearing the rain tick-tick-ticking. We have eaten potato chips and played darts and backgammon.