Zebe called the next morning, asking if I wanted to hang out with her and Sophie, but I told her I was going shopping with Mom. I didn’t think I could stand acting normal and pretending that things were fine, and my other option, letting myself fall apart with them, sounded like it would take more energy than I could stand. I wanted to be away. It didn’t matter where away was. The air was low on my own bike tires and I didn’t want to stop and pump them up, so I grabbed Dino’s bike, the one with the basket on the handlebars, and started to ride out to the ferry docks. The burned curtain lay in a heap on the floor after Mom took it down, and the whole house looked hung-over from the party. On top of everything else, the caterers had done a crappy job of cleaning up and there were cups set in odd places—the potted plant, behind the toilet —and bits of food on napkins. Two people had forgotten their coats. Dino had still been sleeping when I got up, but Mom looked haunted and stressed and she snapped first at me when I dropped my toast on the floor and then at Dog William when he lunged at it with greedy opportunism. God knows what she’d be like when Dino woke up, or what would happen then.
My hands were freezing on the handlebars and my legs were cold even through my jeans, but I didn’t care. The fresh air felt good. The atmosphere inside that house felt doomed. It felt fatal.
It’s mostly downhill to the water, and the ferry dock is the end point of the bay. I had Brief Fantasy Number Four Thousand Twelve, of sailing straight down that hill and flying off the end of the dock, destructo-movie style. I like those kinds of movies. Things blowing up and strong, definite action. Zebe and I go together because we can’t stand the frilly-ass movies of girls fighting their way to the big cheerleading final, or some such dance-movie-drama crap. We both like the certainty of action movies.
I sped past the bakery, warm smells catching up to me a block later, and the haircutting place and the bookstore. I passed the new Thai restaurant, with the surprising name of Phuket. We couldn’t believe it when they put the sign up. Even Dino laughed. Brian Malo told us he called the place a few times, just to hear them answer the phone. I have no idea if this was bold humor on the restaurant owners’ part, or if these poor people had no idea they’re telling the nice folks of Seabeck to Fuck It.
I set the bike down on its side. I was so cold my nose felt like it could break off, making me one of those Roman statues you see in the museum. I sat on one of the benches on the dock, shoved my hands into my pockets. There were a few fishing boats tied up, though what you’d fish for that time of year, I have no idea. My fish knowledge is on the slim side. It smelled like green out there, murky. The smell of fish/seaweed/cold depths. Seagulls were walking around with the aimless air of those with nothing better to do, or were perched on pilings, wearing the cool, unaffected looks of those secretly sure they are being admired. Kind of like the jocks in the cafeteria at lunch.
I watched a ferryboat come in, knocking into the dock, reminding me of my stint during driver’s ed when I backed into the side of the garage. The boat unloaded and reloaded, glided away again. There was something about watching the ferryboats come and go that was calming—the rhythm of the departure and arrival. I was wondering how many people on that boat led simple lives where they ate meatloaf and worried about their lawn having weeds and their bathrooms being shiny. That’s how it was supposed to be, wasn’t it? But maybe supposed to be was what was wrong. Maybe supposed to be was like a child’s drawing of a night sky—stars all alike, a yellow moon—simple and pretty and nothing to do with reality. It seemed cruel to feel all this shame because we had more than weeds to worry about.
I was deep in my own profound (ha) line of thought when I saw Rocket trotting down the dock. I was surprised and so glad to see her. I was just so happy to see a creature who was so nice and simple and cheerful. I patted my leg, and she came to me. She set her chin on my knee, and I gave her a good scruffing under her ears, all the while looking around for Ian. My stomach was lurching around like crazy with sudden nerves-slash-excitement. I couldn’t see him anywhere, though, and wondered if Rocket just regularly went off on these small, independent adventures.
I was already planning my return of Rocket to her home—I thought she might be lost—when I saw Ian walking up the dock. I almost didn’t recognize him—he wasn’t wearing his long black coat, but instead had some puffy ski jacket on. It was good to see him. God, it was so good. Happiness was spilling over.
“I saw you ride down here,” Ian said.
“Fly down here,” I said. It was so freezing out there that when I spoke I felt like a member of those African tribes you see in National Geographic, with the discs in their lips. I sounded the way you do when you get back from the dentist.
“You can see this whole area from the bedrooms upstairs,” Ian said.
“Wow.”
“It makes up for the fact that the rooms are midgetsize. I heard you came by.”
“I just … I don’t know. Something possessed me.”
“Hey, I’m glad. I’m glad you didn’t go in too.”
“Why? Your mom seemed great.”
“She is great. The house, you know, we’re still moving in.”
“Trés Zen. Feng shui.”
“We might’ve had that for dinner last night,” he said. God, I liked him.
“My lips are so cold I can barely talk,” I said.
Ian reached out his fingertips, set them on my mouth, the way you would shush someone you loved. That gentle. Then he moved his hand to the tip of my nose. “Your nose is cold, too.”
I took hold of his fingers, held them in my hand. We were just standing there on the dock, me holding Ian’s hand, and Rocket looking on to see what might happen next. We were both smiling away at each other.
“I haven’t seen you in a while,” I said. I hadn’t really seen him since we kissed. Except for when he was at my house last, when he left in a rush after that horrible, humiliating lesson.
“I’m quitting.”
“What? What do you mean? Don’t let him do that to you. If this is what you want, don’t give in because he’s an asshole. …”
“He’s an amazing player. Amazing, God,” Ian shook his head. He settled his hand more comfortably in mine. “Amazing doesn’t even touch how he plays.”
“But he sucks as a human being.”
“I don’t know how you take it. I don’t think I can. Is he always like that?”
“Domineering?” I asked. “Critical? Mean?” I didn’t say crazy. The other things were bad enough. “Yeah, pretty much. He’s got a few really likeable moments, and that’s about it. I don’t know how I take it. I’ve been thinking about moving in with my Dad.” I didn’t know I’d been thinking that—it just came out. One of those times the subconscious is clicking along doing its own thing, like when you’re walking home and realize you’re there but don’t even remember the trip.
“What about your mom? She needs you.”
“Maybe.” I thought about the lesson I’d overheard. You must save your mama, Ian…. What had Dino meant? There was something about this comment that seemed unapproachable, but I wanted to approach it anyway. I decided to tread carefully, to give Ian an open door in case he wanted to go in. “My mom can take care of herself, though. I mean, doesn’t yours?”
“Sure, she does,” he said. He ignored my open door. Maybe the comment was more of Dino’s usual craziness. “I just thought you’d worry about hurting your mom’s feelings by moving out.”
“You’re right. It’s the only thing that’s keeping me from getting out of there.” I cared about Mom. Too much to let her think she failed me.
“Rocket!” Ian yelled. The dog had trotted off and was smelling a net that a fisherman had thrown onto the dock. “Come on, girl.”
Rocket looked up to see if Ian was sure, and when he clapped his hands, letting mine go, Rocket came reluctantly back. Ian sat down on the bench, and I sat beside him. He told me about Thanksgiving, how Chuck and Bunny made lasagna and garlic bread. Bunny had brought over some incense and it stank so bad Ian’s mom had to open the windows and they all had to wear their coats as they ate. I told him about mine, but left off everything about Dino’s behavior. I only told him about the food, and the guests, and the two waiters on the brink of a passionate affair.
“See everything you’ll miss if you quit?” I said. I don’t know why I was encouraging him. His continuing meant one thing—that Dino would do whatever he could to help get him into Curtis. That Ian would move a zillion miles away. Still, I’d rather have him go away than quit what he loved because of Dino.
“Everything I’ll miss? Everything I’ll be free of, is more like it,” Ian said. “Pretentious people.”
“Endless practicing?” I offered.
“Nothing but music. I’m so goddamned sick of it. I want other things in my life.” He looked at me then, and a jolt passed between us. At least, I felt it. He took a strand of my hair, wound it around one finger. My hair had never been so happy.
“Free of Dino’s nastiness,” I said.
“That accent.” Ian shook his head. “I hear it in my sleep.”
“And all of the endless stories about Italy. God, I get sick of that.”
“He tells me them too.”
“His mother teaching him to play the piano, which he couldn’t do, but when they brought out his father’s old violin …”
“He played some song like he learned it in the womb,” Ian interrupted.
“I hate when he gets to the ‘in the womb’ part. Womb is a creepy word anyway, but when he says it …”
“Wuuum,” Ian tried out an Italian accent.
“And the bicycles,” I said.
“In the canals,” Ian said.
“I’ve heard it five thousand times.”
“I never understood why they threw them in,” Ian said.
‘“We were hooligans.’” I tried out my Italian accent. Mine was better.
At that moment, that very second, we both looked at Dino’s bike, lying on its side there on the dock.
“That’s his bike, isn’t it?” Ian asked.
“Mmm hmmm.”
“It had to be.”
I turned to Ian. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Let’s do it.”
“Ve are zuch hooligans,” Ian said. He sounded kind of German.
I picked up my end of the bike by the handlebars; Ian lifted the back tire. I was giggling away like mad. “Ze bicycles in ze canal,” Ian said. “Is ze serious matter.” He was more German by the second.
We lugged the bike to the end of the dock. Rocket was looking on, giving us the Those wacky humans dog look.
“Hold ze bicycle in ze air,” Ian said. His hair was in his eyes.
“A moment of victory,” I said.
I tried my best, but it was heavy. My end was drooping during that part of the ceremony.
We counted. One, two, three. We heaved it as far as we could, which was maybe a few feet. It landed in the water with a splat more than a splash, and lay on the top for a minute before the back wheel started heading down.
We started to clap. I was filled with a surge of joy. Water rushed through the wire basket.
“We are ze king and ze queen of bicycle tossing,” Ian said.
“Conquerors and champions,” I said.
Ian took a pinch of my sleeve, brought me in to him in a hug. I could smell his coat, nylon left outside; his hair, some kind of clean vanilla.
“I’m quitting lessons, Cassie,” Ian said.
“Don’t do it if it’s just because of Dino. Don’t let him have that kind of power.”
“It’s not just Dino. Cassie? I don’t want the violin running my life. I want more.”
“Okay, then. All right,” I said.
“And I don’t want to go away to Curtis,” he said. I set my cheek against him, let the hope fill me. I could hear his heart, even through his puffy coat. It was beating pretty wildly in there.
“Then you won’t go,” I said.
We pulled apart. Here’s what I felt—our eyes, they made a pact. To be away from the music, the all-encompassing enemy, to be safe with each other. It was settled. No more violin, no more frenzied, singular visions. Ian would be the place where everything was okay.
Ian leaned in, kissed me. Warm, so warm, soft. A long, slow kiss. I didn’t pull away, and I didn’t run. He swallowed me up and brought me in.
When we pulled apart again, we just looked at each other. Because of course, everything had changed.
I started seeing Ian every day after school. He hadn’t told his mom that he’d stopped going to lessons, so he’d pretend to leave at the same time each day and we’d meet somewhere. Sometimes we’d go to the ferry dock, and sometimes we’d go to the planetarium, because Dave, the guy that works there, always lets me in for free. We’d sit in the plush seats, and I’d point things out to Ian and he’d interrupt me with questions. Every now and then Ian would have Bunny’s car, and we’d park somewhere and kiss and steam up the windows and go to the edge of want. Or we’d sit in the chairs in the back part of the library and talk, and once we listened to classical music on the big, puffy library headphones, those old kind from when headphones were first invented. He explained to me the difference between legato and staccato, and for the first time in my life I actually cared. About the music, about someone else. Cared—love. My God, love. Here it was, and it was fantastic. Everything felt larger. I felt like things made sense. I was myself, and more than I ever knew I could be. I wanted to be so close to him that I was of him. I wanted to be in his mind, in his arms. I loved the way his hair fell in his eyes, his gangly limbs, the way I had to stand on my toes to reach him. I loved his sudden laugh, the way he thought about things, his intelligence. I started wearing his coat around when we were together. I would have worn it when we were apart, if I could. And Ian was a harbor. A place to hide from what was happening at home. A gazebo to run to and take shelter in during a thunderstorm. If you think that all of this is corny, tough shit. That’s the way it was.
I explained away my absences with my handy Honduras project. It was the biggest project in the history of projects. It was the longest, too, even though we’d given the oral report on it weeks ago, Nicole holding and gesturing to the visual aids like a game show hostess, and Jason sulking and not saying anything because we’d rejected his idea of playing music in the background while we spoke. He’d brought in a tape recorder and a compilation of Hawaiian favorites. He perked up when we let him pass out the information sheets to the class, though. Of course, all three of us got an A, even though the only thing those two really contributed to was my understanding of homicidal behavior.
I kept different pieces of my life in different places. I was overcome with this bizarre need to talk about Ian, to bring him to me with words, but I only gave in and did this with my bonded twin, Zach Rogers, the talented duct taped snake impersonator. I chose Zach to mention Ian to because one, he had every class with me, and two, because he had the memory of a goldfish. I didn’t tell any of my friends about Ian, even Zebe.
“What is with you?” she asked me at lunch one day. “You aren’t yourself. I feel like I’m talking to my Coke can. No, wait. It’s more responsive.” She held the can up to her ear. “Yeah, uh huh, I know,” she said to the can. “God, Cassie. You’ve been acting weird for over a week now.”
“No, I haven’t. I’m fine.”
“Shit, you know? I thought I was your friend.”
“I’m sorry. There’s really nothing …” I thought quickly. “Things are messed up at home. More than usual. I’m thinking of moving in with my dad. It’s just really been on my mind a lot.”
“You can’t talk to me about that?” Zebe said. “Man, oh, man, you gotta share this stuff or it kills you. I was going to tell the counselor you had an eating disorder just so she’d call you into her office.”
I still got together with everyone on most weekends, but inside I was rushing through those times and others. I had an ever-present inner hurry up! until I could be with Ian again. So that I could be free in the afternoons with the ease of one all-encompassing lie, I told my friends and even Siang that Mom got me a job helping with symphony correspondence.
I’m not sure why it felt so necessary to keep Ian a secret. I guess I wanted what we had all for myself, to protect it. I didn’t want what was happening between Ian and me to become the usual thing, where you date for a few weeks and everyone talks about it like it’s a ridiculously moronic soap opera, and your friends call his friends and his friends call you and it all becomes stupid and shallow. It was too special to have as the news of the day. It was too deep to be about other people.
I also didn’t tell my parents about Ian for obvious reasons, and though I did tell Ian about my parents, I didn’t talk about Dino. I didn’t tell him that since Thanksgiving, Dino was up and down and paranoid and rational. I was sure it was too bizarre for him to handle. It was too bizarre for me to handle. Let’s face it. Mental illness is embarrassing. In a perfect world, we wouldn’t look down on people too ill to hold it together, who cry while looking out the window and don’t bother getting fully dressed before going out. We’d be patient and understanding, instead of letting out our fear and uneasiness with the same kind of jokes we make about funeral directors. But it does make you uneasy. You do want to hold it away from you by saying his tie would match his straitjacket, even if that’s not nice. This is not me, this is not mine. My mom makes cookies, too.
I couldn’t show Ian that part of my life. It was something I wanted to run from, so why wouldn’t he? And there was another thing, too. Ian was a part of the situation in a way a stranger wouldn’t be. I can honestly say that I lost track of who I was protecting, and why.
“He didn’t show up for his lesson again,” Dino said one night as we were all in the car going out for dinner. “Two times, now. Two times!”
“I told you, just let him sort it out on his own. He’s obviously struggling with the music just now.”
“I’m going to call his mother. You want me to wait until it happens a third time?”
“Third, fourth. Let him have a rest. You know how the pressure can get to you,” Mom said. “Let him decide he wants this. Be calm, Dino.”
“We’re losing precious time, Daniella,” Dino said. “Don’t you see? We’ve only got three and a half months before his tape must be in.”
“Why is this so important to you anyway?” I asked. I never did get that. I mean, why not let Ian be?
“How can you understand? I can make a difference in his life. I can save him the struggle I had,” Dino said. His eyes in the rearview mirror looked disgusted at my question.
“You see yourself in him,” Mom said.
“Youth, need, talent …” Dino said. “But how can I help him if he doesn’t help himself? It’s a waste, and I detest waste. He will lose his chance if he doesn’t stop these foolish games.”
“Maybe he quit,” I said. I couldn’t help myself. I was a little smug at having the inside information. I also wanted to help Ian out. He was so happy about not playing anymore that the sooner Dino got it through his head, the better. Dino’s pride at not having succeeded with his first student would just have to hurt a little. Or a lot. The Curtis School a zillion miles away would just have to do without Ian. If you’re thinking here that my motivations were selfish, you’re right about that too. Sure, I was glad he quit. If it meant he wouldn’t leave, I’d have been happy if he decided to become a ferryboat driver and live here forever.
“Ha,” Dino said. “He’ll never quit.”
A little flame of anger rose up. “What makes you so sure?”
“I know. He will never quit. He’ll be back.”
“You can’t know,” I said. “You can’t know for sure what someone will or won’t do.” I hated the look of the back of his neck, that curly hair he was so proud of. What I’d have given for a pair of scissors.
“Don’t be ridiculous. He’ll be back. I’ll call his mother in the morning,” Dino said.
“No, Dino. It will be better if he comes back here on his own,” my mother said. “You know how it gets sometimes. You think you never want to see a sheet of music again.”
We pulled up to the restaurant. I didn’t feel like eating. I didn’t want to sit across from Dino and see him get salad dressing in the corners of his mouth. Hatred and nourishment didn’t go together.
“His mother will do what I tell her to do. They always do. That idiot Andrew Wilkowski would jump off a bridge if I told him to,” Dino said.
“Wearing his music-note tie,” my mother said.
“Tacky man. William Tiero, that prick. He was the only one who wouldn’t. He told me what to do, and I hated it. How many years, I followed like a lamb.”
“All right, love. Let’s not think about that now,” Mom said. She opened her car door.
“They would all jump off a bridge if I told them to.” Dino snapped his fingers in the air. Just like that, those fingers said.
Christmas came. A big tree was brought into the house, delivered already decorated, a present from Andrew Wilkowski, who probably had just gotten his first commission check for the deal he set up for Dino, the CD currently titled, Then and Now, a mix of his old stuff and the new pieces, a way of putting out a new album without a full set of fresh material. You should have seen this tree—it was the kind of thing that you see in department stores, with miniature packages wrapped in gold paper and gaudy, huge ornaments and sparkly pears and doves. It was either gorgeous or horrid. Either way it didn’t exactly give you what you would call a warm, Chestnuts Over the Open Fire kind of feeling. More, Nordstrom’s Holiday Home Sale. When it was being delivered, Courtney and her media-monster brothers practically wet themselves with excitement. They stood in the street and watched the tree—and the two delivery guys it took to carry it—disappear into the house. Mom said Courtney actually brought her parents by later to gawk. This wasn’t hard to do. You could be three miles away from the front window and still see it. Thank God there were no lights on it, or the Coast Guard would think there was a ship in distress.
In spite of the tree, there were bits of evidence of the way Christmas used to be too, when it was just Mom and Dad and me. There was this decrepit gingerbread house we’d made years ago, the candy so ancient that it was pale and drippy and would kill you if you ate it, and our old Nativity scene. Mom and I still liked to have fun with it by moving the figures around in what you could politely call “nontraditional positions.” Mom’s not very religious in any regular way. She called the Nativity “Christmas Town,” as in What’s happening in Christmas Town today? I’d wake up to find the camel in the manger, say, with Joseph chipping in with parenting duties out front, and then I’d move them around to surprise her the next day with everyone standing in a circle around the donkey. Several years ago, the scene acquired a large plastic dinosaur, and later, a miniature replica of the Statue of Liberty that Mom got when she played a festival in New York. The poor folks of Christmas Town ran from Godzilla one day, and the Statue of Liberty got to be a fourth wise man. I remember that my dad used to get a little ticked at us for this, as Christmas Town had been a gift from Nannie, and he disapproved of our sacrilege. I remember Mom sticking out her tongue at him, and him swatting her butt. I don’t think Dino even noticed Christmas Town. I’m not sure Dino even noticed the Christmas tree that had invaded the living room.
I spent Christmas Eve with my dad. There was no talk of his Dino detective work right then, thankfully, but I saw that the books and notepads were still in his room, stacked neatly beside his bed. Dad had brought Nannie and two other old ladies home with him for the holiday, and he made a fantastic dinner that all the old ladies loved. One of them, Helen, drank too much wine and fell asleep before we had dessert, snoring away in Dad’s favorite chair. We opened presents, and Nannie and the other old lady, Mary, got rambunctious.
“That would look lovely on Helen,” Nannie said when she opened the nightgown from Dad. She placed it on top of the snoozing old lady.
“Put the necktie on her too,” said Mary. So Helen got decorated with Dad’s new tie, a car-washing mitt, and my new hat. Mary and Nannie were laughing so hard I thought we’d have to call the medics. Dad was trying to get Helen to hold the hand mixer I’d given him, when she snorted and flinched kind of violently, sending the car-washing mitt sailing and landing on the coffee table in a half-empty bowl of Dad’s clam dip. Nannie was holding her stomach with laughter, and had to hurry off to the bathroom. I’d never seen her this loose.
“Jeez, what was in that wine?” I said to Dad. He was happy and relaxed, having a grand time, too. When we got everyone packed in the car to go, Nannie had to come back in because she’d forgotten the slippers I’d given her. She was in there so long that it shouldn’t have been a surprise that when we came home, we saw that her own Nativity scene had been moved to the dining room table, and the Christmas cards had been set upright along the mantel, just as they used to be when she’d lived there with Grandpa.
Christmas day I spent at home with Mom and Dino. If your parents are divorced, you know this is one of the side benefits of the whole deal, the time when all of the crap and the moving from house to house actually starts to pay off a little. Two or more Christmases, two or more birthdays. Zebe won the holiday lottery. She has five Christmases and one Chanukah. She has Christmases with her Mom, Dad, Grandpa, Grandma (they’re divorced, too), and her other set of grandparents. Her stepmother is Jewish, so she gets Chanukah with them, too. Handing her the keys to a department store would be easier. Everyone wants to give you the holiday they remembered. You actually start to feel sorry for those kids whose parents are married to each other, poor deprived souls. Your social calendar becomes busier than the president’s during election year, and keeping track of everything becomes akin to solving those annoying puzzles where you slide around the numbers and try to get them back in order. You never want to see another Christmas cookie or a turkey again in your life. You realize there are many stuffing variations, all pretty gross. You realize how truly different Mom’s family is from Dad’s family. But you’ve got a stocking in every house, and candy and love and presents rain down upon you, like the Red Cross flying overhead, dropping packages. All this because your parents sucked at being married to each other.
Dino had apparently done his shopping in no less than fifteen seconds total, and in the gift section of the men’s department. He gave Mom a six-in-one flashlight, a gold pen, and a box of handkerchiefs. He gave me an executive desk dartboard and an executive stress-buster ball to squeeze in your hand. I was glad he passed on the golf ball-care kit and the six-pack of holiday boxers. The day was nice but uneventful, and after dinner, Dino went into his office to work. There were only three months left until the concert. Mom and I sat in the kitchen and ate a piece of apple pie, then took thin slices of what was left in the dish until we were thoroughly disgusted with ourselves. Dino emerged, his hair disheveled and tired-looking, his eyes with dark circles. Mom made him tea, rubbed his neck.
“We would have a pomegranate, this time of year,” Dino said. “In Italy. No, a pomegranate every day.”
“You must be exhausted,” Mom said.
“Unspeakably.”
Dino went to bed, and after I let Dog William outside for a last holiday pee, I headed for bed, too.
Mom must have been feeling sentimental. She’d come in my room to kiss me good night. “Merry Christmas,” I said to her.
“You too, my girl,” she said. Her braid had swung over my face. Her own face looked thin and tired.
“I hope it’s a really good year,” I said.
Mom paused a beat. “I want that too,” she said.
I woke up really early and happy the next morning, knowing that Ian and I were going to meet. Something about the morning seemed oddly still, too quiet, and when I peeked through my blind I saw why—it had snowed during the night, and it was a beautiful soft white everywhere. Snow is magical, and if you don’t think so, you won’t see magic anywhere. I got that excited feeling, like there’d be school closures, even though we were off school already. I went in Mom and Dino’s room, shook Mom awake so she could see. She crept up so as not to disturb Dino, went out in the backyard in her nightgown and made a snowball to put in the freezer, like we always did. I told you I thought it was going to snow. I could smell it in the air, she said. She was always proud of her weather-predicting abilities, especially after no one believed her. There was no practice that day, so she went back to bed, and I got showered and dressed. I was too excited to go back to sleep.
I was hunting around the back of my closet for warm stuff when I heard a big bamp at my window. I swore at first, thinking it was Courtney’s brothers, but when I looked out I saw Ian standing right outside, and bits of a snowball dribbling down my window. The street was still sleeping, and Ian’s boots had made a path down the road. God, it was pretty out, and Ian had on his dark coat and held a slim white box. He was standing there in full view, really dangerous, and I urged him down the street with my hands, held up one finger to indicate I’d be right there.
I grabbed the slim white box in my own room, shoved on my mittens and my old boots, but got this in reverse order, since I couldn’t work the laces. I flung off my mittens and tried again, pulled on my new snow hat from Nannie, and was happy/unhappy about it. Unhappy because it was scratchy, happy because the scratchiness reminded me of really great snowy days in uncomfortable hats. I tried not to clump down the stairs, and when I stepped outside, the only thing the cold hit was my face. I had on layers of clothes and so I could barely move, just the way it should be. Ian was down the street, clapping his mittened hands for me to hurry.
I clomped and sloshed down the street. I picked a clean patch so that I could make my own footprints. Something about marring smooth sand or snow and making our mark must go back to our caveman days, because it is such a satisfying feeling. I was hot already and pulled off my hat, making my hair look superb, I’m sure. Otis, the neighbor’s cat, was picking his way across the snow with tenderly raised paws and a great deal of caution.
I tossed a snowball in Ian’s direction. “That’s for the one at my window,” I said. My aim sucked and I hit the Fredericis’ mailbox.
“You better watch it,” he warned. If my hair had gone all undersea creature on me, Ian didn’t seem to care. He grabbed me up in his arms and lifted me up and set me down again.
“Snow,” he said. His breath came out in a puff.
“I love it,” I said. “This is the best.”
“Let’s go to the riding trail, then we can do the presents,” he said.
“Okay.”
We walked hand in hand, or rather, mitten in mitten, which is about the coziest and Everything All Right with the World feeling you can get. We walked toward the school, the center part of the island, where there is a perimeter of forested riding and walking trails. We walked past the trail marker, and I slid the snow off its top into a heap. The trail didn’t look real. It was a postcard day. The branches of the trees were heavy and drooping with white thickness, and the ground was a soft and sparkly carpet.
“So beautiful,” I said.
“You too,” Ian said. He took hold of one strand of my hair, looked at the color of it against his mitten. He looked at my face. “Brown hair, dark eyes, white snow.”
We walked a bit, just listening to silence. Snowy quiet is more quiet than regular quiet. It’s like the world is holding its breath.
After a while, Ian stopped. “Presents?”
“Sure,” I said.
We both knew what we were getting each other. We agreed to get each other the same thing, only we’d choose which kind. Eliminate all gift-giving hassle and anxiety. We swapped boxes. I bit the fingertips of my mittens and pulled them off, tossed them to the ground so that I could open the package.
“Ready?” I said, and we both pulled the scarves from the boxes. Mine was red, amazingly soft, fuzzy. The one I’d chosen for Ian was blue, with thick, wide stitches.
“Let me,” Ian said. He wrapped the scarf around my neck.
“I love it,” I said, and wrapped his around his neck, tucking the ends inside his coat.
“Me too,” he said.
We hugged for a while, stood together, and I had that feeling you get in nature that you are small against its grandness, same as when you used to see the tiny figure of a person against the Latitude Drive-in Movie screen, before they tore it down to put a strip mall there. Ian put my mittens back on my hands, and we walked a little, boots crunching.
“Fir, cedar, evergreens,” Ian pointed. “Spruce. Poplar. Deciduous. Water can go up hundreds of feet, to the tiniest branches up there. Just travels up, molecule by molecule.”
“I didn’t know you knew about these things.”
“I like to study trees.” He looked upward, and his dark hair fell away from his eyes. “They’re quiet. They’re solid. Sure of where they are.”
“You must get tired of sound.”
“God, really.”
“You could study trees instead.”
Ian laughed.
“You could.”
“I’d love that. I would so love that.”
He stopped on the trail then, and we kissed in the snow, in our new scarves. It was one of life’s perfect moments, where you look around and think I want to remember this. You try to etch it in your brain so that when you are Nannie’s age and are living at Providence Point, you will look out the window and see red and blue scarves against a white background, Ian’s breath against the backdrop of trees, new snow beginning to fall; at first, small diamonds, and then huge fat flakes that sat on the shoulders of Ian’s dark coat and fell upon his hair. You will remember the soft flakes against your upturned face, the way they fell upon your tongue, and Ian telling you he loved you into your hair. You would remember all of it, and feel that sense that you had everything you ever wanted in the world.
We walked back home, stopped at the beginning of my street. The media-monster boys didn’t even have their sleds out, and there were no forts or snowball fights or snowmen and women, but the blue light from the television shone from the living room windows. Mr. Frederici was shoveling his walk, even though the snow would likely turn to rain by night, and the snow would be mostly gone except for a few lingering patches by tomorrow. That’s how the snow was around here. A day or two of thrill and traffic all messed up, and then you had to wait another year for it to happen again.
Ian put his mittened hands against my cheeks and kissed me, his mouth cold, and then warm again. His dark hair was wet from the snow. I’m sure I had mascara all over my face, but he looked at me like he loved me. Then Ian gazed down my street, at our house.
“My mother was playing one of his recordings yesterday,” Ian said.
I was silent. We both just stood and looked at my house. Unease was starting at my toes, creeping up. The day had been so perfect.
“What his music does to you—there aren’t even words.”
Perfect, and fleeting.
Ian returned to his lessons, of course.
He didn’t even tell me. I just heard his voice in the house a few days later and I knew what had happened. God damn it, it made me mad. I wasn’t sure who I was so mad at. Dino, for being right. Ian, for giving himself up. He had broken our pact. It was settled. At least that’s how I saw it.
“Ian!” I called, after he left on his bike. He put on his brakes, had his head down. Like Dog William when he peed on the carpet. I ran to catch up to him. Fury, confusion, and hurt all mixed together so I didn’t know which was which.
“You didn’t tell me.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know. I couldn’t.”
“Why? And why are you doing this? You don’t even want this. Why? Please. I just don’t get it.”
“Look at you. I knew you’d be hurt. I didn’t want to hurt you. I just couldn’t do it.” He reached over, picked up my hand. He rubbed the top of it with his thumb.
“What happened, Ian?”
“My Mom found out I quit lessons, and flipped. I told her about us. She doesn’t even want me to see you anymore. Cassie, I don’t want that.”
Great. Nice Janet with the chipped toenail polish. Anger bubbled up. Love meant nothing, I guess. Not compared to what that violin meant. I turned my head away. I stared at the Fredericis’ house. I didn’t even want to look at him.
“I don’t want that,” he said. “Do you hear me? Cassie.”
“I don’t see what the point is. You’re going away. You’re going away, right?” I said to the Fredericis’ house. I didn’t understand. I didn’t get how things could change from that perfect day in the woods to where they were now.
“Cassie, look at me.” He took my chin. Brought my eyes to his. “You know I love you.”
“You sold yourself out. You’re going away, right?”
His eyes were wet, from cold maybe. Maybe he was about to cry. “Yes.”
“Leave me alone,” I said. I broke away from him. Hurt, the winning emotion, was rushing forward, gathering up my insides and holding them too tight. Hurt squeezed my heart, and I ran. He betrayed himself, so he’d betrayed me.