The Age Read online

Henry laughs. “Definitely not.” His voice comes clear. She can tell he’s standing still. “I didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye.”

  “You’re going now?” She had worked it all out in her head. He was the only person she wanted to see after the march. Maybe she would tell him, maybe not, but she needed to be with Henry, to hold her accomplishment in his presence. “You’re staying for the weekend, right?” Even as she tries to force it down, a shakiness rides up in her voice.

  “Would that I could.”

  “I don’t understand. Why do you have to go right now?”

  “That was a good talk we had.”

  “Just stay one more day.”

  “I’ve had time to think. Dark night of the soul and all that. I think there’s a valuable lesson here. For you, I mean. I spent my whole life trying to be the person other people could live with, and look how I’ve failed. I’m batting a thousand where failure’s concerned. But here’s a new question: why not just be the person I could live with? What would that look like? Who would I be? Doesn’t that make sense? Now that I know the right question, I can’t put off finding out the answer. Can you understand that?” Scraping, rough and uneven, echoes through the phone.

  “What’s all that noise?”

  “Implementation.” The word stretches out, strained.

  “What are you talking about?”

  He stops with a grunt. “Before I forget. Very important. That bike is yours.”

  “You can’t leave right now.”

  “I’m already gone.”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Henry.”

  He sighs. “I’m at the house. But don’t dally.”

  Blocks from Henry’s former house, she hears the sirens, the winding, guttural blare of emergency vehicles as they grind through rush hour traffic. The sun slips behind a smatter of tall trees, casts only faint light, a silvery limbo. She coasts to a stop in front of the house, braces a lamppost, balances on her pedals to see above the heads of a crowd gathered on the lawn. Cartoonlike smoke, a string of black cotton balls pumps from the chimney. An overworked fireplace. Not Henry’s best idea. She imagines his meaty hands tearing apart Mrs. Cross’s books, photo albums, clothes, dangling them over the flames until they catch.

  The firemen form a line, herd the crowd back onto the road. Flat hoses stretch across the lawn like giant tapeworms. The men shout to one another above the bang of wrenches and ladders. She rides around, hops up on the opposite sidewalk, the block crammed with red trucks. A police car coasts in behind, announces its arrival with a lazy siren whoop. Henry will appreciate the overreaction. She hopes he had the sense to leave through the back.

  The crowd is a jumble of late-afternoon routines. An older woman clutches a TV remote, a housewife in a stained kitchen apron fans herself with a pair of oven mitts, men returned from work stand with raincoats slung over bent arms, briefcases wedged between their calves. A group of college-aged girls look ready to record a workout video, braided headbands, sweatshirts off their shoulders, twinkling Spandex dipped in neon legwarmers. Curvy and giggling, they pose to distract the firemen, start their own fires. Gerry drifts back and forth along the street, stretches to search the crowd, expects to find Henry camouflaged with the other suits. The men are all too tall, too thin, too young. With each pass the crowd deepens.

  Through the thicket of sweaters and sports jackets, she notices a leak of smoke from the side of the house, pinched tendrils from the bottom ledge of two closed windows. She rolls her bike toward a man in a ratty T-shirt and corduroys, a video camera propped on his shoulder. “Has anyone come out yet?”

  The man turns his head. “Dunno. One of the guys said there’s stuff pushed up against the windows and doors. They’re trying to get in through the back.”

  She sees now that the curtains are strangely drawn, crushed flat against the front windows. The bike tangles in her legs as she tries to throw it down. She sprints across the street. Like a slow, choreographed dance, a fireman steps in front of her, opens his arm and catches her waist, swings her off the ground. “You need to stay back.”

  “There’s someone inside there.” Her hands slip against his canvas jacket, her legs kick, hanging and useless.

  He carries her in long, easy strides past the crowd to an empty patch of grass by the curb, knocks his leg under hers, plants her hard on the grass. “He’s in there!” She screams it into the pocket created by their bodies. Heads turn to gawk, then swivel back, more interested in the fire.

  “If anyone’s in there, we’re trying to get them out. What you need to do is stay put. Otherwise, you’ll have to wait in the squad car.” He points to the swirling lights, short slaps of red and blue. She nods. The fireman stands, gestures for another, skinnier fireman to keep an eye on her.

  A glassy pop cracks the air. The crowd gasps. Flames bursts from an upstairs window, lick at the sky. Gerry hugs her knees, draws the charred taste of smoke into her lungs, waits for Henry to fall from the opening, his body lit.

  The crowd is herded back once more, up onto the sidewalk beside her. Those nearest glance out of the corners of their eyes. She covers her head with her arms to avoid their prying. A second window pops, a smaller one, off the living room. The crowd stays quiet, heads shake. Flames crawl up the outside wall, then curl back under the eaves. She thinks of the mantelpiece, the photo of the husband who wasn’t Henry, how it might have hurt him, how she shouldn’t have mentioned it.

  Down the block, neighbours stand on their lawns, garden hoses dribbling, others with plastic buckets, clownish efforts at self-preservation. If she had a pack of matches, she’d light their houses herself. She tries to stare them down, singe them with loathing, but their nervous eyes tip her back into despair. Their outlines blur in a smoggy haze. She rocks herself, struggles to breathe. Around her people cough, wave hands in front of their faces. She buries her head in her arm until the wind changes direction. When she looks up again, more anxious neighbours have taken up posts, hose-toting sentries. Dizziness forces her to look past them, focus on a distant hedge. She tries to slow her breath. A block away, obscured by fog, a car idles on the wrong side of the road. Its brake lights blink red, flash a steady signal. She stares, mesmerized, allows her eyes to blink in rhythm. Shave-and-a-haircut.

  She pushes the ground away. The skinny fireman calls out, but she passes him, jogs down the block. The car pulls out just as its brown back end comes clear. “Wait!” she shouts. From the driver-side window an arm reaches out. The wide hand waves, and from its fingers a piece of litter flutters toward the curb, lands in a patch of weeds.

  “Wait!”

  The car accelerates to the corner, signals right, and slips into traffic behind a panel van. Gerry kneels in the grass, grabs up the folded paper, picks it open, flattens it on her thigh. A scrap of heavy stationery. On one side, her name written with a flourish, on the other, the inky curves of digits, a phone number.

  She walks back to the house slowly, amazed by the sensation of her feet on the ground. The need to smile strains at her mouth. She joins the crowd. People frown as she giggles into her sleeves. When two more windows blow out, she cheers, claps her hands above her head. The gawkers step aside, give her room. Some shake their heads in disgust, others in pity. Best are those who inch away, fearful her exuberance is catching. She lifts her face to feel the flat heat. Firemen aim their hoses, jets of water peak together at the roof, but the fire shows no signs of retreat. Beside her, clicks and drags, a busy chorus of hobby photographers.

  The sunset creeps violet and pink across the hazy west sky, orange flames laps against the pitch of black smoke boiled on the breeze. Evening lowers a chill. While her front absorbs waves of pure and dangerous heat, the backs of her arms prickle with gooseflesh. She thinks to stay until the last embers, bed down on the grass to watch the pile smoulder as firemen trample through the charred remains of the house.

  The crowd sways, shoves into her. Roote
d bodies move to break a path. Mrs. Cross steps into the street, handbag slung over her shoulder, folded umbrella in her gloved hand. She looks back at the crowd, wide-eyed, her silver bob swinging at her jaw. Gerry has never seen her this close. What binoculars sharpened and smoothed into narrow cheeks and elegant bone structure appears now as the gaunt, inward collapse of age, her face pinched and wrinkled. Her stillness vibrates with a palsied tremor.

  She takes a step toward the house and the skinny fireman steps in front of her, arms stretched in a gangly barricade. As she cranes to see past, her hands grab his arms. Her momentum pushes him back one step at a time. She stumbles, and the fireman struggles to support her. Gerry holds her breath. Mrs. Cross collapses to the ground, and the fireman goes down with her. Her knees splay to the side as she hunches on the wet street. He makes an attempt at comfort, tries to lift her arms and shoulders into his lap. Mrs. Cross wails. Her cry cuts through the thunder of fire and water, sucks the blare of sirens, the shouts of men into the vacuum of her misery. The wind changes direction, scatters dark flakes of ash over the crowd, people cup their hands over mouths and noses. Gerry’s eyes tear with the sting of smoke.

  At home, her mom hovers in the foyer, grinning. Her fingers patter the edge of the front door as Gerry pushes her bike through. The uncontained enthusiasm drains her. “What?”

  “Come, come, come.”

  Her mom pulls her along, down the hall, through the kitchen, hand tight on her wrist. Gerry’s sneakers suction across the floor.

  With a flourish, her mom swings open the back door, urges her out. “Ta-da!”

  The pool takes up the entire yard. Through briny water, bulbous lamps protrude along the walls, glow obscene. Tiny ripples on the surface twinkle against the amphibious haze. Vent flaps release bubbles of gaseous breath. The florescence of it all forces her to squint.

  “What do you think?” Her mom bounces beside her.

  Saliva gathers in the pockets of Gerry’s cheeks. She fights the urge to stretch forward and christen the artificial blue with her spit. Instead, she crouches, reaches out her fingers. She expects slippery warmth, the coddle of piss-temperatured water they were made to swim in at school. The water bites her wrist. She shakes her hand dry, the pool more ridiculous now, like a tan in winter. “It’s freezing.”

  “They said it would take a while to warm up and, you know, clear up.” Her mom leans in close, sniffs at her neck. “You smell like smoke.”

  Gerry lifts her T-shirt to her nose, inhales the charred scent, imagines Henry driving into the sunset, unbuttoning his shirt collar, flinging his tie out the window. “There was a fire. I stopped to watch.”

  Her mom frowns. “That’s a bit morbid.

  She shrugs off the judgment, feels it slip easily from her shoulders.

  “I thought I’d make a celebratory dinner.”

  The workmen have left no trace of themselves, every wheelbarrow and shovel gone, boot tracks raked, the path hosed clean. “Where’s Randy?”

  Her mom’s silence confirms what Gerry already knows. The breeze blows a tide across the pool’s surface. Water laps at the liner, licks away a faint line of dirt. For a moment she feels angry at not being able to say goodbye, a chill she shakes away as pathetic. What would she have said to him, anyway? She doesn’t want to know the details and hopes her mom isn’t in the mood to share.

  Her mom sighs. “It does look good though.” She sways. “As soon as the weather warms up, you can invite some girls over for a pool party.”

  “Wicked.” Gerry squeezes her mom’s arm as she steps past her into the kitchen, assured and grateful that her mom has no idea who she is.

  At dinner her mom opens a bottle of red wine, lets Gerry sip a small glass. The liquid creeps musty over her tongue. She swallows, wants to like it, resists a reflex grimace. She chews a piece of steak to work away the stale taste.

  “I thought we could see a movie tomorrow. A matinee. Maybe that musical one with Kevin Bacon?” Her mom was always like this after a breakup, eager for activities.

  “I have plans.”

  “You can change them. Spring break’s almost over and we haven’t spent any time together. You’ll be back in school on Monday.”

  Gerry mashes her peas with her fork, pushes them into the fluff of her potato. She hadn’t thought about Monday, wonders if it will be like any other day, drowned in the rodent chatter of girls, the factory drone of teachers, the armpit and menstrual blood smell in the PE change room, the threat of yogurt flung in the cafeteria or a juice box squirted into her locker. The outside world unchanged, the only difference inside her.

  “I wonder what they’ll think of your hair.” Her mom raises her chin as she chews, prepared to receive the answer through clairvoyant transmission. “I think they’ll like it.” She smiles as she reaches for her glass. “I like it.”

  Gerry knows exactly the type of girl her mom was in high school. Pretty enough but not mean enough to be popular. The kind who coasted on good grades and a winning personality, got along with everyone. A girl who was nice to the fat and pimple-ridden because she felt sorry for them, said things like, “You know, you’d be really pretty if you just …” It hurts her to think her mom sees her that way, a misfit, a project, her encouragement fuelled by pity. “I’m going to the peace march tomorrow.”

  “Really?” Her mom’s eyebrows arch with surprise. “I had no idea you were into that. The peace thing.”

  Gerry makes a peace sign with her fingers.

  “Well, this is good. We can go together. You father and I went to a few peace rallies in our time.”

  Gerry pictures a sea of hippies. Braids and headbands, bellbottoms and megaphones, signs and talking sticks bouncing in the air, and at the centre of the crowd, her father, stiff in a suit and tie, briefcase in hand, her mom in her lab coat, stoic prisoners of a cannibal tribe. “I’m going with Ian.” She takes another sip of wine, this one refreshes, slakes a hidden thirst.

  “Oh. It’s a date.”

  “God, Mom.”

  “What? I don’t understand why you have to be so secretive about these things. I mean, what’s the big deal?” Her mother’s eyes are circles of glass, her cheeks bruised with wine. Gerry contemplates the smugness of her open-lipped smile and for a second considers telling her everything, grabbing her hands and whispering the details into her mouth, watching her mom’s oblivious delight fold, collapse in on itself with news of the terrorizing thing her daughter has become.

  Her mom’s eyes narrow. “Are you having sex with him?”

  “Mom!”

  “I mean, he is older than you, is he expecting sex? Is he pressuring you for sex?”

  “Please stop saying sex?” She pushes her knife flat against a bulge in her steak, watches the blood seep from the cut meat. “We’re friends. That’s it.”

  Her mom sighs, rests her cutlery on her plate, and folds her hands. “I just want you to be able to talk to me, Geraldine. I don’t want it to be the way it was with my mother. I want you to feel free to ask questions. About anything.”

  Gerry overheard talk at school of moms who demonstrated for their daughters how to insert a tampon, who chattily answered questions over graphic drawings in The Joy of Sex, who celebrated with shopping and a lavish lunch after taking their daughters to the clinic for the pill. She can imagine nothing more horrifying. The prospect squelches inside her, triggers an oozing distress. Her mom’s face is hopeful, bright with anticipation.

  “What’s wrong with us?” Gerry pushes her steak back and forth.

  Her mom’s brows pinch together. “That’s a question?”

  “Why are we the reject family?”

  Her mom plays with the edge of her placemat, fingers flattening a stubborn curl in the corner. She looks up. “I’ve told you a thousand times. He went to work in California, and he met someone, who, I guess, he loved more than me, and he decided that he wanted to stay there and have a family with her. It’s got nothing to do with you.”

 
Gerry’s face burns. “See, you say that because it’s supposed to make me feel better, but it doesn’t, it just makes me feel like I don’t even exist.” She tips the wineglass to her lips, prays for a heavy, wet mouthful, feels instead a trickle on her tongue.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “It’s like we’re these ghosts or something, wandering around this house, like we’re supposed to be ashamed of something, and I don’t even know what we’re supposed to be ashamed of. What we said, or what we did–” Her voice thickens, retreats to the back of her throat. She closes her eyes, feels her mom’s hand on her arm.

  “He’s the one who should be ashamed, not you.”

  Her jaw aches with the effort of stillness. She sniffs and clears her throat.

  “I know we don’t talk about your dad a lot. But we can. Whenever you want. Maybe if we talked about him more, it wouldn’t hurt so much.”

  She keeps her eyes closed, her body like an overfull water balloon. She imagines water draining out of her feet, flooding the kitchen floor.

  “For instance, I could tell you a funny story about your dad. Would you like that?”

  “Sure.” The word takes effort, comes out wind-thinned and small.

  “We were on our honeymoon–”

  “No, thanks.”

  “There’s no sex in this story.” Her mom shifts on her seat, holds Gerry’s hand, her grip warm and powdery. “So. We were in the Rockies, in Banff. Your dad and I were walking together down the main street, looking in the shop windows, enjoying all the touristy stuff, and along comes this grizzly bear. Not a real bear, mind you, but a man dressed in a bear suit.” She releases Gerry’s hand and raises her arm, mimes the bear’s lumbering gait with a scrunched, bearlike expression on her face. Gerry smiles.

  “Okay, so huge, right? And he grabs hold of your dad and starts dancing with him, waltzing him around the sidewalk. Well, your dad is mortified but trying to look like he’s enjoying it. And I’m laughing and clapping and wishing we owned a camera so I could take a picture because no one would believe this was happening, especially to your father. But we didn’t have a camera until much later, so I just laughed and clapped. Then all of a sudden the bear stops and just wanders off down the street, I guess to look for some other tourists to entertain. A few blocks later, your dad realizes his wallet is gone, all of our wedding money. And wouldn’t you know it, we couldn’t find that goddamn bear anywhere.” Her mom goes quiet, stares at her plate. Gerry has a sudden image of her, lost on a mountain, digging herself out of an avalanche. Her mom shakes her head. “Well, I thought that would be a funny story, but I guess not.”