Despite Jay’s advice, I couldn’t stop thinking about Kierce’s rules. Rule 264: All you need is a sick mind and a healthy body. Rule 15: Girls always want guys to make the first move. Rule 78: Time waits for no man. I knew that one was true. If I wanted something to happen, I had to just do it.
The night after I talked to Jay, I directed Lisa to a dark dirt road outside of town and got her to park at the end of an old lane. We fought our way through tangles of wild rose bushes to a little grassy meadow at the top of a hill. There was a full view of the ocean and, off in the distance, the lights of Deep Cove seemed to blend seamlessly into the starlit sky above. It was the most romantic place I could think of, and I knew we wouldn’t be bothered there. In my back pocket was one of the condoms Jay had given me.
“Wow,” said Lisa when we got to the top, “this place is beautiful!”
“Yeah. My parents used to take me here to pick berries when I was a kid.”
“No way. You really had a Tom Sawyer childhood, didn’t you?” She walked over to the edge of the tall grass and sat down. I followed, and we sat side by side, gazing out at the night in front of us. She lit a cigarette, and for a long time neither of us said anything.
“I never told you about my mom, did I?” Lisa was almost whispering when she broke the silence.
“No. Well, you said she had some issues, or something like that.”
She laughed. Not a happy laugh. “Yeah, well I guess you could say that. Basically, she’s fucking crazy.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I didn’t say anything.
“When I was a kid, she was always normal, or at least I thought she was. She loved to take my brother and me to museums or to the zoo in Central Park, that kind of thing. When she was in a good mood, she laughed all the time, and she and my dad were always kissing and joking around and stuff. Every year we’d go on a big family vacation. France, Japan, all kinds of places. Anyway, as long as she was happy, we were all happy…”
She stubbed out her cigarette and was quiet for a bit before continuing.
“But once in a while, my mom would just kind of—disappear. She wouldn’t leave our apartment. She’d just get really distant, and sometimes she’d go into her room and close the door, and we wouldn’t see her for a while. My dad never said much about it. He’d be like, ‘Your mom has a headache.’ Stuff like that. Usually it would only last a few days, then we’d wake up and she’d be in the kitchen, smiling and making breakfast like nothing had happened. Will—that’s my brother—he and I just thought…I guess we thought it was normal.
“So then, one day when I was about eight and Will was almost twelve, my dad went away on a business trip to Chicago. For a day or so she seemed fine, but then she locked herself in her room and wouldn’t come out when we were there. Thank god my brother was there. We had no idea how to get in touch with my dad, but Will found her purse and took money out to order us pizza.”
“She didn’t come out of her room? Did you try to talk to her?” The whole thing sounded almost unbelievable to me. My parents could be super annoying, but I knew they would never deliberately neglect us.
“Oh, yeah. We’d call through the door. We must have tried the doorknob a hundred times. Nothing. We knew she wasn’t dead, or whatever. We’d hear her moving around, and the water would run in her bathroom every so often. But she wouldn’t say anything. It was really scary.”
“How long was she in there?”
“A week.”
“Oh my god! Wow. So what happened?”
“Well, we went to school every day because Will was worried that if we didn’t show up, our parents would get in trouble or something. Finally our dad came home. He could tell as soon as he walked into the apartment that something wasn’t right, and he went straight to the bedroom and banged on the door. She let him in, and he was in there for a long time. The next day, we came home from school and she was gone. Off to a mental hospital. For two months.”
“Wow,” I said again.
“So anyway, eventually she came home, and she seemed a lot better, and there were lots of apologies. She explained to us that she had been sick, but now she had medicine that was making her better, and that was it. She was fine for a long time, and then last year she started to act weird again. Will had already moved away to university, and I was out with my friends all the time, and nobody really noticed. I guess she stopped taking her meds. Who knows why.”
“What about your dad?”
“Dad was away on business a lot, and then when she started to act weird again, he said he’d had enough and he just kind of picked up and left for good. Pretty weak, I guess, but hard to blame him. Anyway, that’s when she really went off the deep end.”
She looked at me, almost apologetically. “Am I boring you with this?”
“No! Not at all, seriously!”
“A couple of months ago, she od’d on sleeping pills. We’d had a big fight, and I’d gone to stay at Naomi’s place, but Will happened to come home for the weekend and found her, and got her to the hospital in time.”
She gave me a crooked smile, but I could see that her eyes were wet. She wiped the back of her hand across her face and took a deep breath.
“Long story short, that’s why I’m here for the summer. My Aunt Cheryl flew in and helped Will arrange everything, and my mom went off to the loony bin again. Then I came here for the summer. I didn’t want to,” she said. “Especially so soon after she got out of the hospital. I felt guilty. I thought I should stay with her. But Will and Cheryl insisted. They said I deserved to get away for a while and have some time to myself, and that it wasn’t up to me to look after her.”
“Yeah. For sure.” I was finding it hard to think of anything appropriate to say. Sorry your mom’s nuts didn’t seem like the right response.
“I know it makes me sound like such a bitch,” she said, “but the whole thing just pisses me off. It’s like, did she even think about me at all?”
I nodded. I knew it must have been really hard on her, but it didn’t sound to me as if her mom had done any of it deliberately. She obviously had some real mental issues, and Lisa seemed to be going easy on her dad. But what did I know? My parents were pretty normal, all things considered. My own problems paled in comparison to this stuff. It was like something out of a movie. Central Park? Mental hospitals?
She threw her arms out in front of her with mock enthusiasm. “So here I am! Stuck in the middle of nowhere! I’m sorry for unloading my shit on you. It’s just tough to talk to Cheryl about it. She’s been so awesome already, I don’t want her to feel that she has to be my shrink or something.”
She jumped up, then reached down to grab my hands and pull me up.
“Thanks so much for listening to me, Danny. It means a lot.”
She pulled me into a hug and held on for a long time, with her head on my shoulder. I turned and buried my face in her hair, and the world stopped moving for a few moments. Everything became quiet and still. The stars were thick in the sky, the air was warm and sweet, her hair smelled incredible. I knew that if I was going to kiss her, this was the perfect opportunity. I pulled my head back slowly to look at her, and she looked up at me, smiling.
I thought about what Jay had said—just do it. But it was no use. Her voice was soft, her breath smelled like cherry lip gloss, and her breasts were pressed up against my chest. This wasn’t what I wanted.
“Do you know what I like about you?” she asked, pulling away and looking at me with a crooked smile.
“What?” I asked, my head spinning.
“You’re not always trying to get into my pants like every other pervert dude I’ve ever met.” She laughed. “That is an excellent trait in a guy.”
What would she think if I told her I was another kind of pervert altogether?
She smiled brightly and reached up to mess with my bangs. “We should probably hit the road; it’s getting late,” she said. Then she turned and ran back down the hill in big flying leaps, laughing the whole way.
I followed her at a distance, battling two emotions: relief that nothing had happened, and disgust with myself for feeling relieved.