Illumination Night: A Novel Page 6

  The bowl Vonny makes for Jody is a dark, jeweled green, with a border of sgrafitto leopards circling the rim. When she sees the bowl, Jody wishes she had gotten Vonny something as beautiful. She keeps her earrings and necklaces inside and when she spins the bowl, the leopards run in a circle. Jody has learned quite a lot since coming to the Vineyard. How to defrost a refrigerator, how to fake an orgasm, how not to flinch when she helps her grandmother into the bathtub. Her parents have now officially separated. Her father has an apartment in New Haven. He’s invited her to visit, but not to stay. Her mother calls once a week and complains that all the good men are either married or dead. Both of them assume that Jody will be coming home after the school term. They think that Jody misses her friends, the local mall, her two younger brothers. Jody wonders sometimes if Vonny is the only person who understands her. Vonny knows she doesn’t want to leave. And, Jody is certain, she knows how much Jody wants Andre. If Jody goes back to Connecticut he will forget all about her. She will die if this happens, yet she tells herself she is trying to forget about him. She takes hot baths to burn out whatever it is that makes her so bad. Her fingers and toes grow pruny. Steam rises from the old white bathtub. When she steps onto the bathmat she is weak from the heat. Where is her heart? Why doesn’t she feel anything when her mother phones late one night and, in a desperate moment, asks Jody to come home because she’s lonely? Is she the sort of girl who could watch her family perish in a burning building, then go out and buy eyeliner? Why does she go on robbing other girls of their worthless boyfriends when, having done so, she’s more repelled when she has to kiss them than when they take off her clothes?

  She feels closer to Vonny than anyone else and yet she would betray her in a minute. Her desires are huge. Her tears blood red with fury. Every day she pretends to be normal. She drinks orange juice, she combs her hair, she babysits for two fifty an hour. She wants to explode. She wants to be so fresh that strangers on the street will slap her. If she doesn’t go home something awful will happen. Every morning when she passes Elizabeth Renny, who is out on the porch feeding birds, Jody bites her tongue so she will not beg her grandmother to let her stay. The cats, Margot and Sinbad, always perch beneath a bird feeder. They know their bells would give them away, scattering the birds, so they dare not leap. Instead they lick their lips and lie unmoving, as though completely relaxed, but their ears twitch.

  It is the week after New Year’s, finals week, and Jody has a history test she will probably fail since she has not opened a book once or even considered studying. She makes a last-minute check of her bookbag before going outside: mascara, cigarettes, notebooks, twelve dollars and fourteen cents. She zips her bookbag closed and swings it over her shoulder. She’s wearing an old pair of her grandmother’s shoes she found in a closet, shoes she thinks Vonny would appreciate, black open-toed pumps with three-inch heels. So that they’ll fit, she’s put on thick white socks. Since people at school stare at her, she might as well give them something to stare at.

  Elizabeth Renny is at the far end of the porch, shredding crusts of bread.

  “See you later,” Jody calls to her grandmother.

  Elizabeth Renny is trying to follow the flight of a pine warbler, but it’s not a fair test. The warbler always takes his bread up to the top branches of the pine tree and she can never judge if she’s imagining the bird or still seeing him.

  Jody stands with one hand on her hip. She thinks it must be her fate to be ignored by everyone but boys she doesn’t care about. She wants to be stopped. She wants to be sent home, to be caught at something and punished. She thinks about all the possible varieties of trouble she can get into. It’s not fair that she can’t break bones. If she forced a fight with another girl at school, the most she would get is hair pulled. She wants a boy’s kind of trouble. Something with sirens. Something serious.

  Elizabeth Renny doesn’t notice her granddaughter until she’s walking down the driveway on her way to the school bus.

  “Have a nice day,” she calls.

  “Sure,” Jody says, knowing already that’s not what she’s after.

  The school bus makes so many stops on the way to Oak Bluffs that Jody is tempted to get off at one. When they pull up in front of the high school, she clipclops down the steps in her high heels and takes out a cigarette while the other kids walk on toward school.

  A girl named Garland, who’s also a junior, lags behind. She’s been studying Jody’s shoes.

  “Those are pretty neat,” she tells Jody.

  “They’re ancient,” Jody says coldly.

  “I like old things,” Garland says.

  “I don’t do things because other people will like them,” Jody informs her. She blows out smoke in short puffs.

  Garland nods, interested. She’s often left out of things and she doesn’t know it is social suicide to be friendly to Jody. As they walk together through the teachers’ parking lot, Jody slows her pace to match Garland’s without thinking. But when they reach the door, Jody stops.

  “Go on,” Jody tells Garland.

  “You don’t want to be out in this parking lot alone,” Garland tells her. “Weird things go on here. Some seniors saw a werewolf over the summer.”

  “Hah,” Jody says. “Don’t make me laugh.”

  “Seriously. There’s also a giant who lives on the road to Chilmark.”

  “Have you ever seen him?” Jody asks.

  “Not personally,” Garland admits. Jody tosses her cigarette down and crushes it with her toe.

  “I’m perfectly safe,” Jody says.

  The first bell rings for homeroom. A teacher opens her hatchback and begins to collect parts of a science project. The pieces make no sense. The teacher carries a plastic model of the digestive tract past Jody and Garland. Still in the hatchback are three white rats in a mesh cage, some wire tubing, and a basket of lettuce.

  “We’d better go in,” Garland says.

  “I guess it’s not a school day for me,” Jody says.

  “You’re going to get in trouble,” Garland says.

  “Well, that’s my business,” Jody says. “Isn’t it?”

  When Garland goes inside, Jody feels a moment of regret. If she had a real friend, not someone like Becky back home, not Vonny whom she can’t be honest with, she might be able to explain and understand her feelings about Andre. But she’s bad and she knows it. Why should someone be her friend? She walks back to the parking area and sees that the science teacher has left her keys in the car. Without hesitating, she flips the hatchback closed, then gets into the driver’s seat. She slams the door and turns the key in the ignition. The motor drowns out the sound of the rats scraping against their cage.

  Jody can feel a wave of heat as she presses down hard on the gas. She pulls out of the parking lot and onto Edgartown–Vineyard Haven Road, surprised by the ease with which the wheel turns. She has driven her father’s car once, and his car didn’t have power steering. A little pressure from her fingertips, and she’s up on the curb. Jody regains control and keeps on going. She has no idea where the switches for the lights or windshield wipers are and hopes she will not have to drive in the dark or sleet. Before turning onto County Road she tries the brakes. The car jerks to a stop so violent that Jody’s head snaps back. Jody guns the engine and the car flows onto the road like cream. She cranks the window all the way down so she will not die of the heat her body is giving off. She tries her best to stay within the yellow lines.

  If she knew how to read the speedometer, she’d be delighted to know she was going eighty-four miles an hour. The other cars she passes are blurs of color. The wind is fierce. For a moment, when the speedometer has passed ninety, Jody is so giddy she nearly passes out. Then, quite suddenly, she realizes she is driving a car. She has taken a car that belongs to a teacher. She doesn’t know how to stop it. She has trouble finding the brake. She pulls the car over, fifteen minutes after she has stolen it, swerving over a low embankment, then wrenching the car into park. Her clot
hes are drenched with sweat. If anything, she feels worse than before. Now she knows she cannot be stopped. She leaves the car and starts walking back toward the high school. Even though she’s back at school in time for second period, she’ll continue to sweat for days afterward whenever she hears a siren, not knowing it is virtually impossible to solve a petty crime like this without an eyewitness. Three of the eyewitnesses escape when the police arrive and one officer mistakenly lifts the cage’s latch. The rats jump out of the cage and disappear into the woods before the officer can convince his partner the cage has ever been anything but empty. The only other witness, a high-school girl named Garland, calls Jody after school to ask if she’d like to get together over the weekend and share a pizza. Jody considers, and then says yes. When she hangs up the phone, she realizes that she’s staying.

  She will make herself indispensable. She carves out green peppers and fills them with a mixture of hamburger, rice, and tomato sauce.

  “Oh, hi!” she says cheerfully when Elizabeth Renny peeks into the kitchen to see what all the banging and sizzling is about. “I thought I’d make something great for dinner.”

  Elizabeth Renny notices the recipe page from an old issue of Ladies’ Home Journal on the counter. Jody’s hands are slick from the chopped meat, and without her eye makeup she looks about twelve years old. An unusual amount of steam is pouring out of the sides of the lid on the rice pot. Elizabeth Renny knows her granddaughter wants something. The stuffed peppers are soggy and have a burnt taste, but Elizabeth Renny and Jody both politely eat everything on their plates.

  After she’s cleared the table, Jody sits down. “My parents think I should come back home,” she says. She clears her throat, then goes on. “I think I should stay and help you out.”

  Elizabeth Renny wonders if helping out means leaving homework untouched for weeks, wearing purple nail polish, having a string of boyfriends who rudely honk their horns to announce their arrival. If Jody went home Elizabeth Renny would hear the wind again at night instead of rock music.

  “It’s real hard to switch schools in the middle of the year,” Jody says. “It’s disorienting. I won’t have any of the right books.”

  “And you’d miss chorus,” Elizabeth Renny says.

  “That’s right,” Jody quickly agrees. “I’d miss it like crazy.”

  Jody puts up the kettle for Elizabeth Renny’s tea and gets herself a Diet Coke from the refrigerator. She’s lost weight, Elizabeth Renny is sure, from all her running around and diet drinks.

  “It would be a waste to spend all winter here and then miss out on summer,” Elizabeth Renny says.

  Jody is not certain she understands. It is more than she’d hoped for.

  “Through the summer?” she says.

  Elizabeth Renny wonders if by then she will be blind. She frequently tests to check if a film has begun to spread over her good eye. Once that happens, she will have to send Jody away. It would not do at all for Jody to be the one to find her. Elizabeth Renny has decided that she will not allow herself to become sightless. She knows what they would do to her. They’d take her to a nursing home somewhere near Hartford, they’d tie her into a wheelchair, lock all the windows, feed her applesauce and milk. If she’s lucky, she’ll last long enough to see the orioles who nested under the eaves last summer return. She knows that if you set out seed for birds in the spring and summer, some won’t migrate because of you. You have to go on feeding them all that following winter or they’ll starve. She has not yet decided whether to order a fifty-pound bag of birdseed this spring. The truth is, she has never been able to ignore even the freshest birds, not even the bluejay who, when Mrs. Renny takes her breakfast outside on sunny mornings, swoops down to her plate and carries off pieces of toast.

  SHE should not babysit for them anymore and she knows it. But it’s hard to turn Vonny down when she asks. Harder still to give up the chance to be in Andre’s house. She has found one of his sweaters in the dresser upstairs and has slipped it on. The T-shirt she’s wearing is warm enough, but she wants the feel of wool next to her skin. She wants something that belongs to him.

  After Simon’s had his supper—a grilled-cheese-and-tomato sandwich Jody cooked a little too long—they make popcorn. Simon carries the bowl into the living room and watches as Jody picks blocks off the floor and throws them into a large cardboard box. She slides the box into the toy corner, collects a few books, and goes to sit next to him.

  “Not these,” Simon says when he sees the books. “Tell me a story.”

  “‘The Three Little Pigs’?” Jody says.

  “No,” Simon says. “Something scary. Something good.”

  “You’re going to be sorry,” Jody says.

  “No, I won’t,” Simon says. “Please!”

  Andre and Vonny went out to dinner and are probably at the movies by now. Jody can’t help but wonder if they’re holding hands. If she were the one beside him, he wouldn’t be able to stop at just holding her hand.

  “How about a werewolf?” Jody says.

  “What’s that?” Simon asks.

  “I know,” Jody says, “a giant.”

  Simon nods and reaches his hand into the popcorn.

  “If anyone looks at him they get so scared their hair turns white overnight.”

  “Even kids?” Simon says.

  “Oh, yeah,” Jody tells him. “He keeps a treasure under his pillow, but if you try to steal it you’re in trouble. There’s a ring of nails around the treasure, but the giant’s head is so hard he doesn’t even feel them through the pillow.” She tosses some popcorn into her mouth, then makes a face. “We need salt.”

  Jody goes into the kitchen. Simon stays alone on the couch until he notices that the corners of the room are dark. Then he gets up and follows her. Jody opens the cabinet above the stove and when she turns around Simon is right behind her.

  “I told you you’d be scared,” she says.

  “I’m not,” Simon insists. He hears something, huge footsteps on the porch. They’re getting closer.

  “Yes, you are,” Jody says.

  She goes to the door, opens it, and lets Nelson inside.

  “What else does the giant do?” Simon asks.

  “He snores so hard he blows down trees,” Jody says.

  “No, he doesn’t.” Simon laughs.

  Jody salts the popcorn, then tries some.

  “Come on,” Simon says. “What else?”

  “He has shoes the size of rowboats.”

  “Tell me the scary part,” Simon says.

  “Uh uh,” Jody says. “Let’s color. Get the crayons.”

  “Tell me how he eats children for dinner.”

  “Simon!” Jody says. “That’s disgusting.”

  He’s right behind her on the way back into the living room. Jody puts the bowl of popcorn on the coffee table and props up her feet. Simon sits down so close to her he’s nearly in her lap.

  “When he’s tired he covers himself with a tent instead of a blanket,” Jody says.

  Simon moves closer and twists a curl in his hair.

  “He can chop down a tree with his hands,” Jody says. “He can reach through the clouds and grab the moon.”

  She wishes she could go upstairs and climb into Andre’s bed. Pushing up the sleeves of his sweater she feels a chill.

  “You know how strong he is?” Simon says.

  “How strong?” Jody smiles.

  “As strong as thunder. You know how tall he is?”

  “Taller than a mountain?” Jody says.

  They work on a Mickey Mouse puzzle and are just finishing when Andre and Vonny come home. Andre’s sweater has been folded back into the dresser drawer and the dishes have all been washed.

  “Everything okay?” Vonny calls from the kitchen.

  “Mommy!” Simon shouts.

  Simon races into the kitchen and Jody picks up the empty popcorn bowl and brings it in.

  “He’s been great,” Jody tells Vonny.

  Andre
is opening the refrigerator, looking for a beer. He can smell butter and whatever soap Jody bathes with.

  “I’ll bet somebody had popcorn,” Andre says,

  “Somebody did,” Jody says.

  Andre closes the refrigerator and looks at her.

  “Did you bring back any candy?” Simon asks his father.

  “Candy?” Andre says. “At this hour?”

  “Damn it,” Vonny says, looking through her pocketbook. “I don’t have any singles.”

  “That’s okay,” Jody tells her. She has to walk past Andre to get her jacket. “You can pay me next time.”

  “Andre?” Vonny says.

  He reaches for his wallet and counts out eight singles. He’d just as soon never go to a movie again if he has to go through this.

  “Eight, right?” he says to Jody.

  She wants him to tell Vonny it’s too dark for her to walk home alone. She wants to make it only halfway across the yard before he stops her and slides his hands under her jacket.

  “Eight’s fine,” Jody says.

  Andre puts the money down on the table so he won’t have to touch her. Jody rolls up the bills and slips them into her pocket. She hugs Simon good-bye and goes out the door while Andre’s back is turned. She runs until she reaches the place in the yard where he might have held her. She stops there and closes her eyes before she runs the rest of the way home.

  VONNY spends days preparing Simon. She tells him they’re going to a party, but Simon knows what it really is. An introduction to kindergarten, which he will have to begin next fall. The yard and roads are slick with mud, so Simon wears his red boots, Vonny, her high laced boots and a rain slicker. When they go out to the truck the air is damp and their faces shine. Andre is waiting for them, one arm thrown across the length of the seat. Simon’s deepest wish is not to be separated from his mother and have to go to school. It might be easier if he could go to the little schoolhouse in Chilmark, but kindergarteners have classes in the larger West Tisbury school. Yesterday Simon had a temper tantrum and kicked a hole in the wall by his bed. But there is no escape. He climbs up into the truck and lets Vonny strap him in.