Tully
Paullina Simons

Copyright

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Harper

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Flamingo an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1995

Copyright © Paullina Simons 1994

Cover design by Jane Waterhouse and HarperCollins Design Studio

Cover image © plainpicture/Boris Leist

Paullina Simons asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780006490012

Ebook Edition © JANUARY 2012 ISBN: 9780007386864

Version: 2018-05-23

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

To Alla and Yuri Handler,

my mother and father

Strait is the gate

and narrow is the way

That leads unto Life

And few there be that find it

St Matthew 7:14

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Copyright

Epigraph

I Jennifer Lynn Mandolini

ONE Three Friends

TWO The Party

THREE Robin

FOUR Winter

FIVE Jennifer

II Railroad Days

SIX A House of Little Illusion

SEVEN Jeremy

EIGHT Hedda Makker

NINE Robin and Jeremy

TEN A Postcard from Home

III The House on Texas Street

ELEVEN Back Home

TWELVE Wichita

THIRTEEN Infancy

FOURTEEN Lake Vaquero

FIFTEEN Painting the House

IV Natalie Anne Makker

SIXTEEN Jenny October 1986

SEVENTEEN California

EIGHTEEN Mother

NINETEEN Husband and Wife

TWENTY Tully

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

I Jennifer Lynn Mandolini

Ah Life,

I would have been a pleasant thing to have

About the house when I was grown

If thou hadst left my little joys alone!

Edna St Vincent Millay

Mama’s gonna make all of your nightmares come true

Mama’s gonna put all of her fears into you

Roger Waters

ONE Three Friends

September 28, 1978

One warm September afternoon, Tully, Jennifer, and Julie sat around a kitchen table in a house on a street named Sunset Court.

‘Tully, go home,’ said Jennifer Mandolini. ‘I don’t want you at my party looking like this.’ She pointed to Tully’s face.

Tully Makker ignored her, busy stirring the French onion dip she made rarely but well. ‘One more taste and I’m out of here,’ she said. But the Mandolini kitchen smelled of apple strudel, while at home the kitchen smelled nothing like apple strudel. Tully was sitting at the table with her feet up on Julie’s lap, and Tully was comfortable.

Jennifer reached over and took the dip away from Tully. ‘One more taste and there’ll be nothing left.’

Tully watched her put the dip on the kitchen counter and sighed. Jen was right. It really was time to go.

Turning back to Tully, Jennifer added almost apologetically, ‘We’ll have nothing for the guests, right, Jule?’

‘Right, Jen,’ agreed Julie Martinez, sipping her Coke.

Tully reluctantly got up from the table, strolled over to the kitchen counter, and picked up her onion dip. ‘Jennifer, they’re going to be much too busy dancing with you to have dip,’ she said, running her finger around the rim of the bowl. She began to hum ‘Hotel California.’

Jennifer wrested the bowl away. ‘Makker, it’s five o’clock!’ she exclaimed. ‘You’ve got a two-mile walk home,’ she said, getting Glad Wrap and covering the dip, ‘and a two-mile walk back. And I don’t have wheels yet to cart your ass around.’ She put the dip in the fridge. ‘Get the hell out of here. Go put your face on.’ And then to Julie, ‘Julie, why won’t she leave?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Julie. ‘She’s never liked it here before.’

‘Girls, girls,’ said Tully. ‘You can leave me alone now, I’m on my way.’ Tully did not go, however; quite the opposite: she walked back to the table, sat down, and put her feet up on a chair.

Jennifer perched down next to her. ‘Go,’ Jennifer said, but gentler. ‘I don’t want you to be late, that’s all.’

Tully didn’t move. ‘And it’s only three miles there and back.’

‘Get out of here,’ repeated Jennifer, sighing with exasperation.

Tully reached around Jennifer for the tube of Pringles. It had been a good Saturday afternoon. Quiet. Fun. Warm.

‘Listen, Mandolini,’ Tully said, handing Jennifer a potato chip. ‘You still haven’t told me how many people are going to be here tonight.’

‘Thirty,’ replied Jennifer, taking the chip, getting up, and opening the kitchen door. ‘And I did tell you.’

‘Thirty,’ echoed Julie cheerfully. ‘Half of them football players.’

Licking the salt off her lips, Tully eyed Jennifer. ‘Oh, Jen?’ she said. ‘By the way, how is cheerleading?’

‘Good, okay, thank you for asking,’ said Jennifer, standing by the door.

The breeze felt good on Tully’s arms. ‘Ahh,’ she intoned, glancing meaningfully at Julie but trying to keep a poker face. ‘Ever get to talk to any of the football players?’

‘Not often,’ said Jennifer, walking over to the sink. ‘Every once in a while they come around and shout obscenities at us.’ Tully stared at Jennifer’s back.

‘So you don’t talk to any football players in particular?’

‘No, not really,’ said Jennifer, carefully ripping off a paper towel and wetting it.

Julie cleared her throat and said, ‘Jen, isn’t your locker right next to a guy who looks just like a football player?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Jennifer, not turning around. ‘I guess.’ And she began to wipe up the counter in earnest, with her back to the kitchen table.

Tully and Julie exchanged a look.

‘Yeah,’ said Tully, getting up and walking over to Jennifer. ‘I do recall seeing you talk to some guy who wears those sexy football jerseys with a number on the back. What’s his number, Jule?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Julie.

‘Maybe sixty-nine?’ offered Tully, trying to peek at Jennifer’s face.

Jennifer didn’t answer, just pushed Tully away with her wet hand.

‘Jule?’ asked Tully. ‘What does he look like again?’

‘Kind of blond?’ said Julie.

‘Kind of tall?’ said Tully.

‘Always wears Levi’s?’ said Julie.

‘With stubble?’ said Tully.

‘Levi’s with stubble?’ said Jennifer, compulsively wiping the stove-top. Tully and Julie ignored her.

‘Really built?’ Tully went on.

‘And I heard he’s really smart, too,’ added Julie, getting up and laughing silently into her hands.

‘Julie!’ said Tully. ‘Smart? I heard he can spell his name but has a little trouble with his address. I guess that’s smart for a High Trojan.’

Julie shook her head. ‘Well, if Jen can be valedictorian and cheerleader, why can’t he be smart and a football player?’

Jennifer swirled past Tully to the closet and got Tully’s bag.

It was a warm and sunny early evening. Tully thought Jennifer looked warm and sunny, too, wearing a yellow tank top with white cotton shorts. She is so pretty, thought Tully. Does she even know? She’s got these nice thin legs and those beautiful arms. Her hair looks so nice permed. I should have mine permed again, except it’ll never look like hers, not in this lifetime.

Jen looked Tully flush in the face and said, ‘Are you two quite finished?’

‘Actually, no,’ said Tully, taking her bag and touching Jennifer’s hand with her fingers. ‘Jule,’ Tully said. ‘I didn’t go to the Junior Prom, but didn’t you tell me that some guy danced a lot with Jennifer? And that Jennifer danced a lot back?’

Julie smiled an unsuppressed smile. ‘Yeah,’ she replied. ‘Come to think of it. But I don’t think it was the same guy. I mean, the Junior Prom guy was blond and tall and well built and everything, but he was clean-shaven and wearing a suit.’

‘Oh, of course, we’re being silly, right, Jen?’ said Tully. ‘That was obviously a different guy.’

Jennifer folded her arms. ‘Are you two quite finished?’

Julie and Tully looked at each other. ‘I don’t know,’ said Tully. ‘Are we, Julie?’

Julie laughed. ‘Yup, I guess we are now,’ she said.

‘Good,’ said Jennifer. ‘Because I have nothing to say to either one of you. Get the hell out.’

‘We’re out of here,’ Tully said, pulling Jennifer’s hair.

‘Don’t forget my presents, girls,’ Jennifer said.

When Tully and Julie were at the end of the driveway, Jennifer yelled after them, ‘Oh, by the way, smartasses!’

They turned around.

‘He is number thirty, for your information.’ And slammed the screen door.

2

Outside, on the corner of Wayne Street and Sunset Court, Julie turned to Tully. ‘Why won’t she tell us?’ she asked.

Tully shrugged. ‘I suppose she’s told us as much as she wants us to know. Have you ever spoken to him?’

No, Julie said, and walked the five blocks from 17th to Huntoon in silence. Tully did not go to the Junior Prom last May, Julie thought. Tully had not seen Jennifer unable to look up into the face of a seventeen-year-old boy who had his arm around Jennifer’s back and her hand in his hand. Seeing them together and seeing the look on Jen’s face impressed Julie, but since Jennifer never mentioned the Junior Prom, or the boy, and since Julie did not see him all summer, she forgot to make him a big deal to Tully. Not until Julie saw the same look in Jennifer’s eyes while talking to a boy near her locker did she connect the dots. Then she told Tully. And Tully was a troublemaker. She put the boy in the fan and blew him around Jennifer every chance she got.

‘He can’t be that important,’ said Julie, stopping at the corner of Wayne and 10th. ‘We don’t even know his name.’

Tully punched Julie lightly in the arm. ‘But we will. We will. Tonight.’ As an afterthought, Tully asked, ‘Is Tom coming with you?’

‘But of course,’ said Julie.

‘But of course,’ mimicked Tully. She rolled her eyes and snorted.

Julie leaned close to Tully. The girls were standing in the middle of the road, in the middle of Topeka, in the middle of America, in the middle of an Indian summer. ‘I’ll tell you a little secret, Tull. He doesn’t like you, either.’

‘What’s to like?’ said Tully.

What’s to like? thought Julie as she rushed to get ready. What’s to like? she thought as she walked down the stairs, unhappy as always with her Mexican face and her slightly rounded Mexican body. Tom wasn’t there yet, thank God, to hear her mother ‘Oh, conchita! Why, you so beautiful! What a beautiful dress, turn around, let me look at you, my, aren’t you growing up, your hair looks so lovely, you gonna be such a heartbreaker!’

Tom did hear her mother, though. Angela Martinez continued to gush well after he arrived. ‘Isn’t she beautiful, Tom, isn’t she lovely?’ Julie rolled her eyes, a gesture she borrowed directly from Tully. ‘Mom! Please!’

‘Yeah, she is,’ said Tom. ‘Now, let’s go.’

Angela came over and hugged Julie. ‘All right, Ma, all right,’ said Julie, hugging her back. ‘You’re messing up my hair.’

‘Julie! Julie!’ Vincent, the youngest of her four brothers, came running from the kitchen, his hands full of raw cookie dough, and grabbed her around the thighs. ‘Julie!’ whined three-year-old Vinnie. ‘I want to go with you!’ She screamed, peeling him off her. ‘Ma! Get him off my dress!’

‘Take me with you!’ repeated Vinnie.

Julie looked intently at her mother. Angela turned to her youngest boy. ‘But Vinnie, who’s gonna help Mama make cookies? Or did you eat all the dough already?’

Vinnie was torn, but stomach won over brotherly affection, and he bolted back into the kitchen after kissing Julie’s dress good-bye.

‘Your mother!’ said Tom when they were outside.

‘Yeah, I know,’ Julie nodded. ‘She only likes me ‘cause she’s got no other daughters.’ But though she said that, she felt a little defensive. Yeah, that’s my mother. Everyone should be so lucky to have a mother like mine. She glanced at Tom. He annoyed her sometimes. Oh, well, she thought. Being in the history club together is fun enough.

3

After Tully and Julie left, Jennifer sighed and went upstairs into her parents’ bedroom. Her mother, just out of the shower, was sitting on the bed, one hand on a towel, one on her cigarette.

Jennifer said, ‘Ma, did you know that Marlboro just patented a waterproof cigarette?’

‘Don’t start with me, Jen,’ said Lynn Mandolini.

‘I’m serious. I’ve seen the commercial. “Why not enjoy two pleasures at once? Wash your hair and inhale nicotine at the same time. You’ve always wanted to do it, and now you can. It costs a bit more, but it’s worth it.”’

‘Are you quite done?’ asked Lynn. Jennifer smiled.

No mother and daughter could have looked less alike. It was a running joke in the Mandolini household that Jennifer, Lynn and Tony’s only child, must have been born to a Norwegian family who got tired of all those fjords and came to landlocked Topeka, only to get tired of baby Jennifer. ‘But Mom, Dad,’ Jennifer would say. ‘Didn’t you tell me you found me in a cornfield where the sun made my hair blond?’

Jennifer was a tall, blond, busty girl, who had always battled with weight. At eighteen, she was still winning; just. But she had the kind of body that with time and kids and plenty of good cooking might get heavy around the middle. Big breasts, small behind, thin legs. She was the only one on the cheerleading squad with a chest larger than 34B. Tully was usually merciless when she described the mammary attributes of the rest of the team when compared with Jennifer, and Jennifer all too frequently had to point out that Tully herself fell into the 34B category. ‘Yes, but I don’t go around parading my tits in a low-cut costume while I dance,’ Tully would say. At this, Jennifer would raise her eyebrows, widen her eyes, and stare mutely at Tully, who’d say, ‘All right, all right. But never on a football field, and only very rarely with a pom-pom.’

Jennifer’s mother was as dark and thin as Jennifer was fair and robust, outwardly anxious as Jennifer was outwardly calm, elegant as Jennifer was casual.

‘Everything ready?’

‘More or less,’ replied Jennifer. ‘Tully ate all the dip.’

‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’ Lynn smiled. Then, ‘You must be happy Tully was allowed to come tonight.’

Tully and Jack. Yes. I’m not unhappy. ‘Sure,’ Jennifer said. ‘It’s been a long time.’

‘How’s she doing?’

‘Okay. Her guidance counselor’s giving her a hard time.’

‘Oh, yeah?’ Lynn said absentmindedly. ‘Why?’

Jennifer did not want to talk about Tully at the moment. ‘Oh, you know,’ she said, rolling her eyes, a gesture she borrowed directly from Tully. ‘Guidance counselors.’ She plodded back downstairs into the living room, where all the furniture had been moved to the walls. Jennifer sat down on the carpet. Her thoughts ran to the calculus quiz she had failed earlier in the week and told no one about; thoughts ran to the calc quiz and passed onto cheerleader practice on Monday. Here the thoughts stopped. Jen, a cheerleader! The valedictorian of her middle school, a former president of the chess and math clubs, a cheerleader! Well, at least she wasn’t a very good cheerleader. It seemed every time she threw her pom-poms up, they fell to the ground instead of into her hands. She got up off the floor and lumbered into the kitchen.

Her mother came up close to her and touched Jennifer lightly on the cheek with her floured fingers. ‘My baby. My eighteen-year-old, grown-up, big, big baby.’

‘Mom, please,’ said Jennifer.

Lynn smiled and hugged her. Jennifer smelled Marlboro and mint, and did not pull away.

‘Are you enjoying your senior year?’ Lynn asked.

‘For sure,’ said Jennifer, remembering her father’s exact same question three days after senior year began. At least Mom waited a few weeks, Jennifer thought, patting her mother gently on the back.

Lynn let go of Jennifer and went to look for her bag. ‘What’s the matter, Mom?’ Jennifer said. ‘Too long without a cigarette?’

‘Don’t be fresh.’ Lynn lit up.

Jennifer silently sidled after her mother, watching her make pigs in a blanket and sprinkle a little cinnamon on the apple strudel. Jennifer loved apple strudel. She walked over to the counter and broke a piece off the end.

‘Jenny Lynn, you stop that now,’ said her mother. ‘Go upstairs and get ready, will you?’

Jennifer went back into the living room instead. She was a little sorry her dad wasn’t going to make it to the party. Tony Mandolini, assistant store manager at J C Penny, always worked till ten on Saturday nights, and after work tonight, he said, he would rather disappear to his mother-in-law’s than face Sunset Court with thirty howling kids. He promised Jennifer a great present tomorrow when she woke up. Jennifer already knew what it was; she heard her parents talking one evening.

I hope I can gush effectively, she thought. Hope I can satisfy them with my gushing.

She looked outside the living room window onto Sunset Court. Sunset Court. Sun-Set Court. Jennifer had always liked the sound of that. Sunset Court. Unlike Tully, who said she hated the name of her own street, Grove Street, and told everyone she lived in ‘the Grove.’ Please drive me to the Grove, Tully would say. The Grove.

‘Jen, phone!’

She picked up. ‘How’s my birthday girl?’ boomed a familiar jolly voice. ‘Couldn’t be better, Dad,’ she said. Maybe a little better. ‘Ma, it’s daddy,’ she called across the house, relieved he didn’t want to talk to her again. This was the fourth time he had called today, each time greeting Jennifer with a resounding ‘How’s my birthday girl?’

Jennifer went back to arranging the records. Bee Gees, Eagles, Stones, Dead, Van Halen. The Grease soundtrack, the Beatles. A little lone Garfunkel. Pink Floyd. As she worked, her face was soft, her gaze blinkless, her body outwardly relaxed, nearly motionless. But inside her head there was a relentless noise, and to shut it out she started counting her records and then counting sheep. One sheep, two sheep, three sheep…two hundred and fifty sheep think of nothing but sheep. Calm, she thought, calm.

4

Tully walked purposefully but not fast. She knew she had to go home – it was five-fifteen and home was more than a mile away from where she had left Julie. She needed to shower, get ready, and walk back to the party by seven. Yet Tully did not rush. She walked slowly up Jewell.

The three girls lived in a geographical near-straight line from each other, with Jennifer’s house on Sunset Court the farthest away from Tully and in the nicest neighborhood. Julie lived on Wayne and 10th, in a four bedroom two-floor bungalow that housed five kids and two adults. Tully lived closest to the Kansas River. The low-level rush of the river would’ve been soothing to her if only the river hadn’t been drowned out by the endless hum of the Kansas Turnpike and the clanging of freight trains on the St Louis Railroad. If not for the Kansas Pike and the railroad, and the sight of the horrendous structure that was the City of Topeka’s sewage disposal plant, the sound of the river would have indeed been pleasing to Tully.

On her way home, Tully passed a park so small it had no name. There the kids from the nearby elementary and nursery schools played on weekdays. The playground was long on the ground and short on the play, with only the standard slide, a swing, and a seesaw to entice the little ones. Not like the great playground at Washburn University. Now, that was a playground, thought Tully, sitting down on the swings and swinging for a while. She was rocking herself gently, back and forth back and forth, when she heard a woman with two young babies heading her way. The older boy was toddling along and griping about something, while the infant was squawking in a huge pink carriage. The trio passed by her, the little boy grumbling to his mother to take him to the ‘baby sings.’ Looking at Tully, the woman smiled wanly, walking after her son. Tully smiled back. She watched them putter about, watched them aimlessly, without time, without thought, without feeling – until she remembered Jennifer’s party, got up hastily, and hurried out.

Standing in front of her bedroom mirror, Tully appraised herself. Her hair needed perming and bleaching again. Skin was too pale, thanks to the sunless summer, and her cheeks had on too much rouge – made her look like a clown in the daylight. But now, in the evening, it was more acceptable. More acceptable to who? Tully thought. To mother?

Tully had not been to a party by herself for more than a year.

Tonight’s the night, she thought, straightening her collar and adjusting the belt on her leather pants. I’m too angly. Not quite thin, but angly. Arms, legs all over the place. And not enough breasts to go with them. Wide hips with no meat on them. She touched her behind. Too flat. To match my chest. She peered into her face, bringing herself flush against the mirror. Squinted her eyes. Hey, you. You going to a party by yourself? Aren’t you a little young to be going anywhere by yourself? Aren’t you only seventeen? Hey, you?

Too much makeup, she’ll say, thought Tully. Too much eye shadow, too much mascara. Will she even notice? She was sleeping when I came in, maybe she’ll stay asleep…In any case, I’m not coming into a house full of people with nothing on this face, that is just not what’s going to happen. Say it.

‘I am plain,’ she said. Plain. ‘Plain Tully, that’s what they call me.’

But I look all right now. The red blouse’s nice (to match my red lips). But tight. Pants are tight, too. She’ll never let me out again if she sees me. Seventeen and a half, but just too young to go out, just too young to go. Tully snickered. Now, isn’t that just the biggest joke in the Grove. Ah, yes, but I’m so safe here at home. Why, this is the safest place.

Tully found a toothpick. A party! How many people? How many of them guys? How many on a football team? Nice going, Jen. She smiled. Jennifer even promised there might be some guys at the party Tully – remarkably enough – did not know.

Tully started making friends with boys when she was around thirteen, going to a bunch of boozeless kiddie parties. Then boozeless kiddie parties started to bore her silly, and when she was fourteen and fifteen and sixteen but looked nineteen, twenty, twenty-one and had the ID to prove it, she went around with a wilder crowd. Most of the girls she hung out with were not in school anymore. Some were pregnant, all were husbandless. Some were still in school but truant; many were in foster homes. It all seemed kind of fun at the time. Nothing quite like a dozen kids, running around the Midwest, going to College Hill, drinking beer, dancing on the tables, smoking pot, having a good ol’ time. She got to know some older boys then, too; some college students. They looked like men and talked deep like men, but when it came to wanting to touch her, they had no self-control, just like boys. Mother did a lot of sleeping back in those days and didn’t mind Tully’s going out. After working hard for the Topeka refuse plant every day, who would have the energy for anything but sleep? Tully had been telling her mother she was sleeping over at friends’ houses since she was thirteen, knowing Hedda Makker would always be too tired to check. That’s what it was, thought Tully, as she ran a pick through her frizzy hair. She’s always been just plain too tired to ask me where I’ve been.

The younger boys and the older boys had all watched Tully dance, danced with her, and cheered her when she danced alone. They came up to her, they bought her drinks, they laughed at her jokes. All those boys who kissed her told her she was a good kisser; who fondled her told her she had a good body. Tully scoffed but listened to them all the same. And some had come calling for her in the following few days but did not stay long, disheartened by the stares of her mother and her Aunt Lena, or by the condition of the beaten-down house in the Grove with a broken front window, broken during Halloween of 1973 and boarded up ever since. Or disheartened by the Grove or by the railroad or by the river.

In many ways, Tully minded Topeka more than the Grove itself. Oh, it was just a town, a small, subdued green capital town, with empty streets and lots of cars. But when the town ended, and quickly end it did, after a narrow street, or a road that suddenly became a hill, there was nothing but the prairie stretching out ad infinitum. Fields and grass and an occasional cottonwood, all on their way to nowhere, windblown, ravaged by fires, never broken up by an ocean or even a sea. Just pastureland, millions of miles long, seemingly up to the sky, westward, outward, onward, to absolutely nowhere. Tully never felt more intensely confined than when she thought about the vastness beyond Topeka.

For sure, there were other nearby towns. Kansas City bored her. In Manhattan, there was nothing to do. Emporia and Salina were smaller than Topeka. Lawrence was a university town. Wichita she had been to only once.

The Grove emptied out on the western side into Auburndale Park, right next to the Kansas State Hospital with its Menninger facility for the insane, and on the eastern side into Kansas Pike. Fortunately, the Grove was too far a walk for most of the boys who got interested in Tully. It was just as well. Most of the boys Tully met were not to her mother’s taste.

When Tully was sixteen, all the ‘staying over at friends’ houses’ had stopped. Hedda Makker, having been too tired for years, suddenly expressed interest in the contents of Tully’s desk and found some condoms. Tully swore up and down that they were given to her as a joke, for balloons, that she knew they were bad but didn’t know what they were. It was to no avail. The ‘sleepovers’ stopped. That was a shame. Tully had made a lot of money on those dance contests up on College Hill.

Tully went nowhere for six months, except Jennifer’s and Julie’s, and when she had turned seventeen last year, her Aunt Lena came with her. Loud, laughing, partying teenagers, who drank Buds and told dirty jokes and sang the Dead, and Aunt Lena, sitting in some corner like a fat mute duck, watching, watching, watching her.

Not being able to go out and party, Tully, who for years had tried to shut out her childhood friends, reluctantly returned to the Makker/Mandolini/Martinez circle. They became known around Topeka High as the 3Ms. They were always together again, but it wasn’t the same. There were…things they did not speak about.

And they never slept outside in Jennifer’s backyard anymore, like they used to when they were kids.

Tully kind of missed that. But at sixteen, she missed College Hill more. Missed the dancing.

Tully was not allowed to stay out past six o’clock on school days or weekends. Last February, Tully stayed an extra few hours at Julie’s. Upon her return, at six-thirty, she found all the doors and windows locked. No amount of banging and crying made Tully’s mother shift from her TV chair before the eleven o’clock news ended. Hedda must have fallen asleep on the couch like always and forgot all about Tully.

In the summer before Tully’s senior year, Hedda Makker loosened up. But Tully suspected Mother had simply become too tired again to watch over her.

Tully called the summer of 1978 her ‘a-storm-a-day summer.’ It had not been a good summer. She watched a lot of ‘All in the Family’ and ‘General Hospital.’ But even sunny summers were a drag in landlocked Topeka. The girls managed to get to Blaisdell Pool in Gage Park once or twice. Tully went to a number of barbecues at Julie’s and Jen’s and read – a lot, all trash.

The girls celebrated Julie’s eighteenth birthday a month ago in August, with Aunt Lena pleasantly in tow.

Tully’s bedroom door opened.

‘Tully, it’s after six, are you ready to go?’

‘Yes, just brushing my hair.’

Hedda Makker came near and ran her hand over Tully’s frizzy locks.

‘Mom.’ Tully pulled away, and so did Hedda, looking her daughter over.

‘Your hair looks awful. The roots are growing out.’

‘Yes, I know, thank you.’

‘I’m only telling you because I care about you, Tully. No one else would care enough to tell you the truth.’

‘Oh, I know, Mom.’

‘I don’t have the money for your hair, Tully.’

‘I know,’ Tully said harshly. Then, ‘Mrs Mandolini will need me to clear up all the leaves soon,’ a little milder.

‘So will I.’

But will you pay me, Mother? thought Tully. Will you pay me to clean up your leaves and dance on your table?

‘I’ll rake them soon, okay?’ Tully said, her mouth stretching into a nominal smile. Hedda stared at her daughter and said, ‘You should let your natural hair grow out. It looks terrible now.’

‘Mom, I get the picture.’

Hedda squinted at Tully in the dim light. ‘Tully, you are wearing too much –’

‘Makeup,’ Tully finished. ‘I know.’

‘Tully, I know you know, you tell me you know, but you don’t put any less on. Why?’

‘Because I’m ugly, Mom, that’s why.’

‘You aren’t ugly. Where’d you get that idea from?’

Tully looked at her mother’s drawn, broad face; tired eyes the color of mud; lank hair, roughly the same color; thin, colorless lips.

‘Mom, I’m plain.’

‘But Tully, when you wear so much makeup, do you realize how you look?’

‘No, Mom,’ said Tully in a tired voice. ‘How do I look?’

‘You look slatternly,’ said Hedda. ‘You look cheap.’

‘Do I?’ Tully stared at herself in the mirror. Now be very, very quiet, Tully Makker, she thought.

‘Yes, you do. And when you look cheap, boys will think you are cheap, they will come on to you and treat you with no respect. And boys your age, they can be very…’ here Hedda paused, ‘persistent. You may not be able to fight them off.’

Fight them off? Tully thought. ‘Yes, Mom, you know, I think you’re right. Maybe I am wearing a little too much makeup.’ And taking a cotton puff, Tully began to vigorously rub her face.

Hedda stared at her. ‘Are you humoring me, Tully?’

‘No, of course not, Mom, I just don’t want to upset you.’

Hedda said nothing, turning to go. Tully got up out of her chair, then immediately sat back down when she saw Hedda looking at her leathers.

‘Tully, what’s that you’re wearing?’

‘Nothing, Mom, nothing. Just some pants I bought.’

‘Bought? Bought with what?’

With Jennifer’s money. ‘I did some work for Mrs Mandolini, and she gave me a little money for it.’

‘And this is what you bought with her money?’ Hedda’s voice was extremely quiet. She turned on the overhead light in the room to see better.

With my money, thought Tully, saying, ‘Mom, they are just leather, that’s all.’

‘Just leather? Just leather? Do you realize how you look in them? Look!’ And she yanked Tully by the upper arm out of the chair and stood her in front of the mirror. ‘Look! How do you look to boys and to girls? How do you look to Jennifer’s parents? Do you know what they’ll think of me for letting you wear something like this to their home?’

Jen and her mom helped me pick these out, Tully thought. ‘Mom –’

Hedda wasn’t listening. ‘I know what they’ll see. Here’s a girl, a young girl, with bleached permed hair, roots showing. Bright red blush, bright red lipstick, eyes covered with black and blue gop, and those pants. And that shirt.’ Hedda’s voice was stone cold and dead slow. ‘That slinky red shirt, with the first button right between your tits!’

‘Mom! Please!’

‘Are you gonna be…bending over a lot, Tully?’ asked Hedda menacingly. ‘Are you…wearing a bra, Tully?’

Tully threw her hand to the top of her blouse, but too late – Hedda got there first, pulling Tully’s shirt away from her body to reveal two pale, moist-with-sweat breasts.

Hedda’s eyes narrowed and Tully’s widened.

‘Mom, I only have two bras and they were both dirty. I couldn’t wear them.’

‘Shut up, Tully Makker, shut up.’ Hedda’s voice was as slow as before but an octave higher.

‘Who else besides you would know that your two bras were dirty, who?’ Hedda paused, panted, then sprung again. ‘Are you wearing any panties, Tully?’

‘Yes, of course I am, Momma,’ Tully replied, remembering just what she was wearing – a black G-string.

‘Open your pants.’

‘Mom, no.’

‘Tully, you are lying to me? I wanna know how far you stooped, what a dirty trash you become. Now open them.’

Tully uttered a small sound. And unbuttoned her trousers; unzipped them just enough to show her mother the top of her black underwear.

Hedda looked at the panties, then at her daughter’s face. She let go of Tully’s arm, finally, and Tully sank into the chair.

‘Get undressed. You aren’t going nowhere.’

Tully made an inarticulate, throaty cry.

‘Mom, please. I’m sorry. I’ll change. Please don’t do this.’

‘Tully, you’ve done this to yourself. You’re a tramp. My daughter’s a tramp. Where have I gone wrong?’

Tully heard her mother cracking her knuckles. ‘Didn’t I try to raise you properly?’ Hedda said. ‘Didn’t I try to put some values into you?’

Tully’s eyes were on her mother’s hands. ‘You have, and I am, I mean, I have good values, I am moral. Please, Mom.’

‘What you think your father would say if he was here?’

I do not know, mother, Tully thought desperately. I really don’t know. ‘Mom, I’m sure he’d accept my apology.’

‘Oh, you don’t know your father, Tully, you don’t understand how he thinks.’

Hedda’s face was purple-red, and her big German body was heaving.

‘Truth is,’ she continued, ‘what does it matter if you do what I want and wear proper clothes? Truth is, you want to go braless, you want to show off your tits and have boys pull off those leather pants of yours and see that piss-poor excuse for panties you got on. That’s what you want, so what does it matter if to make me feel better you do what I want?’ Hedda’s face got a bit redder. The little blue veins in her hands stood out as she clenched and unclenched her fists. Tully saw another question dawn in her mother’s eyes. Hedda sat on the corner of the wooden table and brought her face so close to Tully that Tully could smell the sausage and sauerkraut of Hedda’s dinner. Well, that’s about as close as we get, Mom, thought Tully, intensely wanting to move back.

‘Tully,’ Hedda’s voice was quiet again. ‘Tell me, are you a virgin?’

Tully moved her head away from her mother and looked down at her hands while the little droplets of sweat collecting on her forehead dripped into her eyes.

Hedda persisted. ‘I mean, all these years I kept you home and sent Lena with you wherever you went and forbade any calls from boys to this house, tell me, Natalie Anne, was I…too late?’

Tully finally gazed at her mother in cold disbelief. ‘Mom, what are you talking about? Have you for –’ and then broke off, looked down, and said. ‘No, Momma, you weren’t.’ Hedda placed her finger, thick as the sausage she had just had for dinner, under Tully’s chin and lifted up her daughter’s face. And must have seen the fear.

They looked at each other for a few moments, until Tully tried to drop her gaze again.

Hedda’s voice was calm, almost reasonable.

‘Is that what you wanna do tonight? You want some boy? Any boy in particular, Tully, or are you…mmm…not particular?’

‘Momma, really, honestly, I just wanted to look attractive. But I’ll wear something else, I swear.’

Tully noticed her mother had stopped clenching her fists and was cracking her knuckles again. Kneading each finger tensely, twisting and turning them until the sound came, the sound of logs popping open in the fireplace. Crack.

Nowadays, Hedda did not lose her temper often; Tully would attest to that. Most of the time it was difficult to get Hedda to notice Tully was in the same room. But when Hedda did blow, it was always prefaced by this knuckle cracking. Last time Hedda lost her temper was the night of the condoms. The time before that was when Tully was thirteen and got caught kissing some boy outside the front door. When Tully was younger, Hedda’s loss of temper was like Tully’s hunger: sometime during each day, Tully would feel hunger. And sometime, during the day, Hedda would lose her temper. Mother was probably trying to get used to living life on her own with an uncommunicative and unattractive child (‘Come here, you dumb dog! Come here, you unloving cow, and tell me about your day!’), and loss of temper was as random as clouds. Didn’t sweep the floor in the corners, left the frying pan on, broke a table (left too often on her own, Tully once decided to turn the coffee table into a slide), didn’t feed the cat (it died eventually; nobody fed it), pulled up Aunt Lena’s dress just for fun, didn’t take a shower for three days, and so on and so on.

Sweat trickled from Tully’s forehead steadily now, like syrup. When she was younger Tully had become inured to Hedda’s fury the way she had finally become inured to persistent lack of sleep. But in the last few years, she hadn’t seen much of Hedda and had forgotten a little. Now, too frightened to wipe off her sweat, Tully sat immobile in the chair and watched her mother.

(How did your daughter break her nose, Mrs Makker? By walking into a door, was her mother’s reply to the hospital nurse, and two years later, when Tully was nine and had her nose broken a second time, Hedda didn’t take her to the doctor and the nose healed on its own, though not well. Didn’t take her to the hospital again after that, not even when she chipped Tully’s front tooth with a phone receiver.)

‘Mommy, please,’ whispered Tully. ‘Please, I am so sorry, Momma, please. I don’t want any boy, I just want to see my friends, be there for Jen’s birthday, I’ll wear anything, please, Mom!’

The fist flew out and caught Tully square across the jaw, snapping her head backward. The other hand bloodied her nose. Tully’s only reaction was to wipe the blood off with the sleeve of her red shirt. She did not look up, and she said nothing. Hedda panted, hovering over Tully.

‘Do you know what your trouble is, Tully?’ her mother said through gritted teeth. ‘You don’t learn. That’s the trouble with you. You don’t learn at all. All your life, you knew exactly the things that make me so angry, but you still defy me. You know what makes me very angry is this sort of thing, this slut way you have about yourself, and still, after all this time, you throw it at me, you parade in front of me like the tramp that you are, flinging yourself in front of me, to say, “You can beat me, you can punish me, but I’ll still do exactly as I please, because I am a slut.”’

Hedda paused for breath. Tully said nothing but wiped her nose again.

‘Say it, Tully. It’s true.’

‘I won’t say it! It isn’t true.’ The fist came out, knocking both Tully’s hands from her face, striking her cheek and mouth, making her nose bleed again.

‘Say it, Tully. Say, “I am a slut.” Say it!’ Every letter enunciated.

Tully remained mute.

Another slap, this one with the other hand; her head snapped sideways, her ear and eye hurt; and another, hard on the temple and the ear again; Tully put up her hands to her face to protect herself and only succeeded in having them rammed into her bleeding nose. Then another, another, another –

‘All right, Mother, all right,’ said Tully inaudibly. ‘I’m a slut.’

‘I didn’t hear you.’

‘SLUT!’ Tully screamed. ‘I am a slut! SLUT! SLUT! SLUT! SLUT!…SLUT!’

Hedda Makker carefully, watchfully, looked at Tully with her lifeless swamp eyes. Her gaze was hard at first, but then it softened; Hedda seemed satisfied.

‘Tully, there’s no need to scream, but all right.’ She looked at Tully’s swollen face and said, ‘Go and clean yourself up. And put on something decent.’

Hedda reached out to touch her daughter’s cheek. But Tully flinched, and Hedda saw it. She drew away and left the room, rubbing her hands together.

Tully stood up and stumbled to the bed. For a few minutes she cried a dry, choking cry, then tried to wipe the blood off her face, shaking in her effort to calm down.

It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, she chanted to herself. I must get ready. I’m allowed to go. Now get yourself together, Tully Makker, and go! Get up, Tully, just one push, you are up off the bed, you are okay, forget it, sit up, pull your knees up to your chin, bury your head and rock back and forth, back and forth and forget, forget, it will all go away, it will all go away, it will it will, rock back and forth, it will; just go on, Makker, go right on. Go on, Tully, don’t give up. Don’t give up because of her, Natalie Anne Makker. You really want to give up, don’t you? What? Do you think all the rest of your life will be an encore of this life? Well, if you think that, then give up, Makker. JUST GIVE THE FUCK UP. Or you can just count your sheep, Tully, one sheep two sheep three sheep. I understand: how can a bad pseudo-Catholic girl like you not give up finally? But cut this pathetic self-pity and get up and get dressed and go see your best friend Jennifer on her eighteenth birthday.

Tully stopped rocking eventually and breathed slower. No one to watch over me but me, she thought. Go on. It’ll be all right. This is the last year. Next year…just think! Hang on, Tully Makker, ignore her and hang on, until next year.

Tully came down the stairs wearing no makeup, a black loose skirt, a beige baggy sweater. All old. All worn a hundred times. She walked quietly past the sofa where her mother and Aunt Lena sat watching TV. Aunt Lena did not look up at Tully. Tully was not surprised. Aunt Lena usually did not look up after hearing the scenes from upstairs.

Tully put on her only coat: brown, gabardine, torn, worn.

Now she had to ask carefully what time to be home.

Aunt Lena looked up. ‘Tully! You look wonderful!’ she said. Tully didn’t answer. When taking into account Aunt Lena’s impression of the visible universe, Tully always reminded herself that her aunt was registered as legally blind. However, Tully very quickly remembered an episode three weeks ago when she was just about to go over to Jen’s for a barbecue and Aunt Lena asked her when she would be back. Tully didn’t answer, Hedda threw a cup of coffee at Tully, with the coffee still warm, and Tully ended up going nowhere, no barbecue, no television, no dinner.

‘Thank you, Aunt Lena,’ she replied. ‘I’m going now, okay, Mom?’

‘What time will you be back?’ asked Hedda.

Here it is, thought Tully. Again, deliberately trying to stump me, trying to make me pay, trying to make me make myself not go. How many times did I get stuck on this question because I couldn’t figure out what time she had in mind? There was no correct response.

Tully held her breath. It’s only a stupid party. Stupid party. Fuck you, I say, and I go upstairs and don’t go. I’ll see Jen tomorrow at St Mark’s. There’s never anyone good at these parties anyway. They are all so lame. Fuck you, Mother, I don’t want your fucking permission. I don’t want to go anymore.

Sweat collected under her armpits and trickled down her sides. But she did. She did want to go. And Hedda was waiting. Tully had to answer. The correct response was not dependent on any particular set time; there was no curfew time in the Makker household, there was only the barometer of Hedda’s mood that was certainly not helped by the goings-on in Tully’s bedroom a half hour ago.

Asking her mother when might be a good time was a bad idea. Hedda invariably said that if she, Tully, didn’t know at the age of (fill in the blank – Tully had heard this line from about seven) when a good time to come home was, then she certainly wasn’t responsible enough to go out.

Still, the question lingered in the air and needed to be answered. Hedda would not look at her. Hedda was waiting. Fortunately, Aunt Lena for once meddled to Tully’s rescue.

‘Will you get a ride, Tully?’

‘Yes, Jen’s mom will drive me home.’ That was a lie.

Tully looked at her watch. Six fifty-five. Come on. Come on. Come on.

‘Ten-thirty,’ said Hedda. ‘Now go.’

Tully descended down the porch steps and smelled the rotting leaves. Tomorrow I’ll have to clean them up, no doubt. She walked slowly and steadily down from the Grove to Kendall, and then, when she knew she was out of view, she ran.

TWO The Party

September 1978

Out of breath, Tully rang the bell with little hope of being heard and then walked right in. Look at this place, she thought, and immediately some guy ran? fell? out of the hallway, spilling beer on her and himself, too. She backed away with distaste; he got up halfway to apologize, saw her, and smiled. ‘Tully!’ he called, ambling up to her and grabbing her waist. ‘Be-bop-a-lula, she’s my baby…’

‘That’s nice,’ she said, trying to get away from his arm.

‘I’m not letting you go till you dance with me, Tully. We’ve all been waiting for you! But I get the first dance, and “save the last dance for me!”’ he sang.

‘I will, I will,’ she said, prying his arm off her. ‘Let me go change first.’

‘“Don’t go changing/to try to please me…”’ he sang drunkenly, bending closer to her. Tully ducked underneath his arm and saw Lynn Mandolini watching her from the kitchen.

‘Hi, Mrs M.,’ Tully said when she got loose.

‘Hi, Tully,’ said Lynn. ‘Who was that?’

Tully rolled her eyes. ‘Who the hell knows? Never talked to him before in my life. Rick something or other.’

‘He seemed to know you pretty well.’

‘He seemed to be drunk pretty well,’ said Tully. ‘There’s liquor at this party?’

‘Not anymore,’ said Lynn. ‘What are they playing? Listen to this noise.’

Music. The Stones? Van Halen? Tully couldn’t tell for sure. Ah, yes, The Who. There was a stone in their shoe, apparently, and they couldn’t get to it.

‘Pretty loud, huh? I rang but no one heard.’

‘Who’d hear you? And have you lost your key?’

Tully smiled. ‘Never had a key.’

‘Well, by God,’ said Lynn cheerfully, ‘maybe it’s time you got one.’

Putting her Marlboro out, she looked Tully up and down.

‘Let me take your coat.’ Lynn stared at Tully a little closer. ‘You’re a bit late,’ she said.

‘Yes, I know.’ Pause. ‘I got held up.’

‘Everything all right, I hope?’

‘Oh, yes, fine, fine.’ Tully became acutely aware of her swollen, bluish face. How well was it hidden behind the cake powder? My nose feels twice its size, Tully thought, I wonder how it looks. ‘Where’s Jen?’

‘Upstairs. They’re destroying the house,’ said Lynn, lighting another cigarette and downing her Alabama Slammer. ‘Simply destroying.’

Tully patted Mrs Mandolini on the arm. ‘It’s a good thing an eighteenth birthday comes only once, ain’t it, eh?’ she said, leaving the kitchen and heading upstairs. Rick something or other was still out in the hall, now milling around another more willing victim.

Jennifer had the master bedroom. Needing a bigger room for all her junk, she pleaded and pleaded with her parents until they gave in, or so Jennifer had said. Tully and Julie postulated an entirely different scenario. Tully said that Jennifer probably mentioned it once at supper, and Lynn and Tony immediately started clearing out of their master bedroom.

Upstairs, the noise was less deafening. Again, beer cans, plastic glasses, cigarette butts. The Mandolinis really should’ve waited to install a new carpet, Tully thought. And what a nice clean cream color it used to be, too.

Five or six people stood in the hall, shouting a conversation at each other. They nodded to Tully; she nodded back and pushed her way into Jennifer’s bedroom.

‘Hi, Tull,’ said Jennifer. Tully grunted, looking around the room. Jennifer peered into Tully’s face and at Tully’s clothes. ‘Hey, you okay?’

‘Great,’ Tully said. ‘Couldn’t be better.’ She nodded hello to Julie and Tom, who were sitting on the love seat. But Tully wasn’t that interested in her friends just then. Instead, her eyes were on someone in the room she didn’t know. A young dark boy, nearly a man, very well groomed, who looked up at Tully when she walked in. Unfortunately, there was some bimbo on his lap, marring the otherwise impressive view. Tully would have to ask Jennifer about him when she had a chance. But right now she needed to go and get changed. Trying to look un-selfconscious, Tully sauntered over to the drinks bureau.

‘Mmm, nice,’ she said to no one in particular. ‘I haven’t seen so much Coke and lemonade in a long time.’

‘You know, we are not allowed to drink if we’re not eighteen,’ said Tom from the couch.

‘Really?’ said Tully, irritated by his self-righteous tone. ‘Wow, thanks. I didn’t know that. That’s so helpful.’ She gave Julie a withering look that made Julie move a foot away from Tom.

‘But Tom,’ said Tully sarcastically, ‘did you know that though we can’t drink, we can go to Kmart and buy ourselves a teeny-weeny handgun with super-duper bullets?’

Tom made some kind of a noise. Tully continued in the same helpful tone. ‘And did you know, Tom, that not only can’t we drink even beer, but we can’t drink hard liquor until we’re twenty-one?’

Tom methodically rubbed his hands together.

‘But that’s neither here nor there, Tom,’ Tully went on. ‘What is here and there, though, is that I distinctly remember seeing you at a twenty-one-and-over club last summer, swilling those twenty-one-and-over cocktails down with an incredible twenty-one-and-over speed –’ Tully saw Julie’s astounded face.

‘Oh,’ Tully said quickly. ‘My mistake.’ She looked at Julie. ‘Ha! Must have been someone else. So many tall, skinny, freckled guys around. Of course. I’m wrong. Silly me, huh, Jule?’

‘Yes,’ said Julie, glaring at Tully. ‘Silly you.’

Moving away from them, Tully took a beer and peeked at herself in the mirror. My first party without Aunt Lena in a year and a half and look what I’m wearing. She sneaked a glance at the good-looking boy with the bimbo. He must’ve heard all that entire exchange with Tomboy. Yeah, but look how I look. Who cares what comes out of my mouth when I look like this? Tully wanted to speak with Jennifer before disappearing into the bathroom, but Jennifer was all over the place, in, out, in, out. She seemed to be enjoying herself. Tully was mildly surprised. Jennifer was usually a wallflower.

Propped up by a piece of furniture, Tully stood alone for a few minutes. Julie and Tom were kissing. Tully fought an impulse to roll her eyes. Tom held Julie with his right hand and a beer with his left. Well, I guess he’s eighteen, he can do those things, Tully thought. They weren’t the only ones kissing. The lap bimbo was making out with the cute guy.

Tully went over and sat by Julie.

‘What’s the matter?’ Julie asked.

‘Nothing. I want to dance.’

‘Let’s go.’

Tully rubbed her forehead. ‘Are there a lot of footballers?’

‘So many!’ Julie said. ‘You’re in luck.’

Tully ignored her. ‘Did Jennifer’s friend come?’

‘I think so. I haven’t been watching her every minute.’

‘Where is he?’ asked Tully.

‘Downstairs, I think.’

‘They spend much time together?’

‘Dunno,’ said Julie.

Tully shook her head. ‘How strange, don’t you think, Jule? I mean, don’t most girls like guys in the image of their fathers?’ Tully looked derisively at Tom.

Tom sat up straight. Julie laughed uncomfortably.

‘What kind of guys do you go for, Tully?’ he asked. ‘Do you go for guys who look just like your father?’

Julie stopped laughing.

Tully skipped one beat – but only one. ‘I don’t like to limit myself, Tom. I like all guys, but you should know better than most what kind I don’t like, am I right?’ said Tully. ‘Or am I wrong again?’

Julie was now glaring at Tully and at Tom.

Tom looked the other way, mumbling, ‘Oh, I’m sure you like all guys, I’m sure.’

Tully got up and walked out of the room.

‘Tom!’

‘Julie, calm down.’

‘What’s wrong with you?’

‘What did I say?’

Julie leaned close and screamed at him over the Stones, who were screaming they could get no satisfaction. ‘I’m sorry I ever told you anything about my friends, you shit!’

Tully, at this time, was demonstrating her offended feelings by pinching Jennifer’s behind on the way to the bathroom.

She locked herself in and looked around. Whether she needed to or not, Tully always made sure she visited the Mandolini bathroom at least once. Their entire house was neat and well kept, but the best, cleanest, prettiest, most organized room in the house was undoubtedly the bathroom. Spacious and gleaming, it had spotless white tiles with roses and daisies on them, an ivory white carpet, mirrors on all four walls, chrome taps, soft pink bulbs, blush-pink carnations, fresh-smelling towels and shower curtain. Unlike the Makker household, where everything in their gray bathroom smelled of diseased mildew, the Mandolini bathroom smelled not like seaweed but like the sea. Not that I have any idea what the sea smells like, thought Tully, looking in the mirror.

Her face was puffy. No amount of makeup, no matter how diligently applied, could hide that in the harsh light. She turned off the fluorescent and turned on the soft pink. Ah, that’s better, she thought. Now I just look a bit…fuzzy. Oh, well. She opened her big bag (Mary Poppins called hers a ‘carpetbag,’ but even Mary would’ve been surprised to find what lurked in Tully’s) and took out her makeup case. She put on another layer of cake powder, added another hue of black to her eyes; Tully liked her eyes, her eyes were all right. A shadow of all colors. Yes. Oh, but her dress! She couldn’t have looked more frumpy in Aunt Lena’s nightgown. She retrieved out of her bag a thin black polyester skirt, with a zipper at the front, a slit in the back, and a length of about ten inches.

She quickly slipped out of her skirt and shirt and tried to stuff them into her bag, but they were much too bulky, sort of like squeezing a brick through a keyhole, and so she ended up dropping them into the hamper.

‘Jule, I’m sorry, don’t be mad,’ Tom was saying in the meantime. ‘I can’t help it that she rubs me the wrong way.’

‘And what the hell did she mean about that twenty-one club anyway?’

‘I don’t know what she meant,’ Tom said.

‘What club was she talking about?’

‘Julie, how should I know? She’s got me mixed up with someone else. She knows a lot of men, believe me.’

‘How the hell do you know?’

Tom giggled awkwardly. ‘Julie! She’s got a re-pu-tation.’

‘How the hell do you know? What does that have to do with anything? And who are you? The Pope?’

‘Look,’ Tom said. ‘Everyone in school knows.’

Julie got up. ‘Tom, you’re gonna have to stop this. You’re gonna have to stop talking about Tully that way. As long as me and you are together, you’re just gonna have to be nice to her, just gonna have to.’

‘Why?’ he asked.

‘Because,’ Julie said, ‘I can always get another boyfriend.’

‘Oh, that’s delightful,’ Tom said. Julie became silent.

‘What is it, Tom? What is it? You have something personal against her, or what?’

‘Nothing personal,’ he said grumpily.

‘What is it?’

‘Don’t hound me,’ he snapped.

‘Go to hell,’ she snapped back, and walked out of the room.

Tully remained in the bathroom, with a long line of footballers lining up outside the door, knocking and muttering obscenities. To complement the black skirt, she put on black high-heeled pumps and a white short-sleeved T-shirt – plain, thin, no bra.

That’s me, thought Tully. That’s what I am. And when I die, that’s what will be on my tombstone. Plain, thin, no bra. The T-shirt was cut off at the navel, showing her young stomach. Some more red lipstick, some more black eyeliner, and she was set.

She strolled out of the bathroom, looked bemusedly at the herd of guys scrambling past her, and then stood against a wall. Lighting a cigarette, she scratched the inside of her bare thigh and smoked. A guy walked by and ogled. Another guy also ogled, until the girl with him pinched him hard; he walked on. A couple was walking up the stairs. The male gave Tully an appraising up-down. The female’s glare was less appraising, more abrasive. That girl didn’t even notice me before, thought Tully. I wasn’t properly dressed before. She smiled.

Tully must have looked good, judging by the reaction of the females; always, but always, she told herself, judge your appearance by the reaction of the females. The more derisive the look, the better Tully was attired. And I haven’t even danced yet, Tully thought gleefully.

She stubbed out her cigarette on her shoe and got out a piece of gum. Satisfied with herself, Tully was about to go downstairs in search of Jennifer when Julie stormed out of Jen’s bedroom with Tom behind her. Tully sighed.

Julie stopped near Tully and smiled. ‘Well, Tull,’ she said. ‘I’ll be damned. I shouldn’t be surprised, really.’

‘Surprised at what?’ asked Tully, ignoring Tom’s expression at the sight of her. He looked at her as if she were not the same person he had just insulted. Finally, she smiled an obnoxious smile at him and cracked her gum. ‘Mary Poppins bag to the rescue once again,’ she said to Julie. ‘Remind me to take my clothes out of Jen’s hamper before I go.’ She pulled out another Marlboro. ‘Julie, every day in school you see me metamorphose myself. Why are you looking at me as if I’m from Mars?’

‘Tully,’ said Julie, touching her friend’s upper arm, ‘like I said, I shouldn’t be surprised, but you never cease to amaze me.’ She rubbed some blush off Tully’s cheek. ‘Not too much metamorphosis, eh?’ she said.

‘Thank you, Julie,’ said Tully, moving ever so slightly away from Julie’s hand. ‘Earth to Tom, Earth to Tom,’ she said. He stood dumbfounded and deep red, obviously embarrassed by his own inability to stop staring at Tully’s breasts poking through the T-shirt.

Departing for the bathroom, Julie left Tom red-faced, self-conscious, and alone with Tully.

To talk at all seemed impossible – the music was loud and they would have to come close to each other. Tom would have to bend his head down to her mouth, and Tom looked as if the thought of coming closer to Tully were already rendering him insensible. But just to stand there and not talk seemed equally unpleasant, so Tully moved away from the wall and closer to him. He backed away, was stopped short by some guy right behind him. He looked to her as if he would burst. She stood on tiptoe until her mouth was an inch away from his ear and said, ‘I think you should grow up and not hold it against me anymore.’

Tom didn’t look at her. ‘I don’t hold anything against you,’ he said. ‘So when are you going to be eighteen?’ In January, she told him, and he said, ‘That’s nice!’

He didn’t hear me, thought Tully. He is not even listening. He has not stopped staring at my tits, and this really pisses him off.

Tully stopped trying. A misunderstanding between them – when any conversation was already so undesirable – was too much to take, so when Julie emerged from the bathroom, Tom rushed straight to her, and Tully slipped out of sight and down the stairs.

Watching Tully disappear, Julie poked Tom in the chest. ‘You’ve obviously frightened her. I’ve never seen her go down the stairs so quickly. Why, I think she took them two at a time!’ Tom wiped his sweating forehead and apologized to Julie for his earlier behavior.

Tully found Jennifer loading up on apple strudel in the kitchen.

‘What a loser,’ she muttered.

‘Ease up, will ya?’ snapped Jennifer. ‘I want to eat it, it’s my birthday, so ease up!’

Tully looked at Jennifer as if she were from outer space. She came close, broke off a piece of the strudel, shoved it into her mouth, and said, ‘Hello, Mars. Not you, you nut, Tom.’

‘Oh.’ Jennifer looked relieved. ‘Him. I thought you were gonna bug me about my weight. Forget him. He doesn’t like us. He thinks we are a bad influence on Julie.’

‘He’s an idiot,’ said Tully. ‘I think he is a bad influence on Julie.’

Tully wanted to change the subject and ask Jennifer, who seemed absentminded and listless, about the brown-haired boy, but Mrs Mandolini came in with a clutter of people wanting more ice, more strudel, more Jennifer.

Jennifer left Tully in the kitchen peacefully stuffing her face and smoking.

‘You shouldn’t smoke, Tully,’ said Mrs Mandolini from behind her. ‘It’s bad for you. And your mother would kill you if she found out.’

How right you are, thought Tully, taking a deep drag and moving toward the living room.

Tully stood against the wall in the living room and watched Jennifer offer a beer to a blond guy. In the way Jennifer handed it to him and looked up at him and minutes later danced to ‘Wild Horses’ with him, Tully took a shot in the dark and guessed it was the guy. He sort of looked like the guy at the lockers. It was dark and Tully couldn’t be sure. He wasn’t wearing a football jersey.

Look at her, Tully thought, amused. Jennifer was stumbling over her own feet, looking at them instead of at him. She looked awkward, especially when compared to the boy’s tall, fluid grace.

Tully lit another cigarette and sighed. She wanted to dance, too.

Dancing. Tully had learned when she was young how to dance; with a God-given talent and a love for music, both classical and rock, she had learned at twelve how to move, dancing naked in her room late at night in front of the mirror. Tully had spent endless solitary hours in her room, banned from the living room or the dining room, or avoiding sleep – dancing. She had learned to make good use of that mirror, of her naked body in front of that mirror, of music and her naked body, breastless, hipless in front of the mirror; and then, when she began to bud and grow, Tully had already worked out her own private, emotive, erotic act. She started to dance at the spin-the-bottle parties, at first with others and then tentatively by herself in the corner, and soon in the middle of the room. She danced fast and she danced slow, the boys clapped, the girls joined in or just watched; in any case, it became quickly known around Robinson Middle School that Tully Makker was a fine dancer.

But it was at fourteen, when Tully volunteered to dance at a special talent show one Friday night, that the whole faculty was made aware of her ‘gift’ as she danced with her eyes closed to Beethoven’s Emperor. The principal, labeling Tully’s dancing morally reprehensible, called Hedda, who had missed her daughter’s performance. Where had a fourteen-year-old learned to dance like that? the principal asked Hedda. Mrs Makker wrung her big, clammy hands and cried, but Tully was suspended for a week anyway.

The full-length mirror was taken away and Tully was never locked in her room anymore, but it was too late. Tully had grown to love the reaction of her peers and her elders. Feeling that she had a true talent, Tully, in the next three years, proved to the enchanted and drunk patrons of Topeka’s nightclubs and bars, to the students and the rugby players and the farmers, just how prodigious and how wasted her talent was. Tully was sure the punishment Hedda meted out when she found the condoms in Tully’s room would have been a lot harsher had she been aware of the hundreds of dance contests that Tully had won, of the money her daughter had made, of the boys and men Tully had danced with, and more.

And tonight, Tully stood alone and smoked only briefly, barely managing to finish her cigarette before three guys from school came over to her and asked her to dance, all at once; and she smiled and did. She was so breathless afterwards that she even danced with Julie. Cheek to cheek, Tully danced with her friend, knocking into people and bouncing off. And then she grabbed on to Jennifer, but there were now too many guys around Tully who, having recognized her, would not let her alone, and Tully, still wanting to have a word with Jennifer, managed only a quick whirl with the birthday girl to part of Neil Young’s ‘Hey, Hey, My, My.’

Afterwards, Julie got Tully alone for a moment.

‘Tully,’ Julie said, ‘I’m sorry about Tom.’

Tully waved her off. ‘But Jule, how could you have told him anything at all about me?’

Julie looked embarrassed. ‘Tull, I’m sorry. He is my boyfriend. I thought I could trust him.’

‘Oh,’ panted Tully. ‘Don’t you get it? It’s not yours to trust him with.’

Julie lowered her head. ‘I’m sorry, okay?’

‘Okay,’ said Tully, and went back to dance.

After an hour of frenetic dancing, a sweaty and exhausted Tully sat down on the sofa in the living room, soaking up the lights, the music, the smoke, the booze, the guys.

I spy with my little eye something beginning with – ah, but I don’t know his name. She spied the brown-haired guy, dancing with his girl, though dancing was a strong word for what she was doing. Tully did not pay attention to his dancing; she was much more forgiving when it came to the male sex.

Jennifer was talking to her blond footballer in the corner. As Tully studied him, she had to grudgingly admit that with the lights off, strobes blinking, music blaring, cigarette smoke fogging up the room, he did not look bad. In fact, he almost looked kind of…okay. He was tall and broad-shouldered. It impressed upon Tully in some visual, non-specific way that he held his head high, impossibly high, even when he was bending down to hear Jennifer.

The Stones were ‘Waiting for a Friend’, and the brown-haired boy and his girl, deciding to sit this slow one out, snuggled on the couch next to Tully. She watched them out of the corner of her eye. Eventually he got up – to get a drink, apparently. His girl sat still, not turning her head to look at Tully. She sat there with her little skinny doe-like legs uncrossed and close together.

The boy came back with the drinks and sat down, not between Tully and his girl, but rather at the very end of the couch. Well, that’s all right, thought Tully. Now I can see his face.

After a few moments, he looked away from his date and stared calmly at Tully, then politely smiled and once again faced his girl.

He is even better looking than I first thought, Tully mused, sipping her beer, but older than most guys I know. She appraised his groomed slick look, his southern European, round, clean-shaven face. When he talked to his girl he tilted his head and smiled, showing perfect white teeth. When he laughed, his eyes lit up. Tully noticed his Levi’s were ironed (what kind of a man irons his Levi’s!) and even his pink Izod shirt looked freshly pressed. He doesn’t look very tall, thought Tully, but in every other way – Tully smiled inwardly – well, let’s just say I wouldn’t climb over him to get to his date. But it was obvious that the little mouse was not about to let him out of her sight and in fact kept turning around and shooting lethal glances at Tully.

Tully supposed that if she had a hunk like that, she would be throwing lethal glances at everybody, too. Tully was eager to ask Jennifer about him, but Jennifer had not stopped talking to her blond, who by now seemed quite drunk (how come he has a full beer bottle in his hand at all times while the rest of us are still nursing the beer we latched on to at seven?) and was leaning over her, his arm strapped around Jennifer’s neck. Her face, usually devoid of expression, tonight was a happy face. Tully saw it and felt a stab of pleasure and light envy. She looked at the blond’s face and immediately felt something else, too – anxiety, small and sharp.

For there was no happiness in the blond boy’s face; only beer.

Tully sought Julie out with her eyes and found her talking heatedly to a group of people, including Tom. Probably about whether or not the Americans should have been helping the French in Vietnam in the first place, thought Tully.

Minutes passed. Tully did not move from the couch. The boy got up and offered his girl another drink. She nodded. He was about to walk away, but then moved carefully toward Tully and asked if he could get her anything.

Good voice, she thought. ‘Oh, yes, please, a Bud, please, if you can find it.’

‘If that’s what you want, I will find it,’ he said.

He has a good, deep male voice, Tully thought; so what if he’s as corny as the rest of them?

Sitting stonily with hands firmly clasped to her knees, the mouse shot Tully another poisoned-arrow glare. Tully smirked and settled back on the couch, uncrossed and crossed her bare legs, one arm on the arm of the sofa, one arm on its back. Tully sat in this pose until the boy came back, handed her a beer, and sat next to her.

‘Thanks,’ said Tully, and smiled. He smiled back politely.

‘Yeah,’ said the girl. ‘Thanks, Robin.’

Robin! That’s his name! That doesn’t sound too Italian. Tully’s thoughts were interrupted by a guy perching himself on her lap, asking her to dance. Tully gave him a hearty push and he fell off, laughing hysterically, and crawled away. Under no circumstances was she about to get up from the couch. Tully could’ve gotten up and danced – she had wanted to at one time – but here, in this smoke-filled, music-filled, people-filled house, she had found what she had come for.

‘Tully!’ Jennifer yelled in Tully’s ear, crouching beside her. ‘Why are you sitting here all alone? Guys are complaining that you’re not dancing!’

‘I’m not alone!’ yelled back Tully, grinning.

‘Why are you sitting here by yourself, then?’

‘I’m not sitting here by myself!’

Jennifer looked over to Robin and his mouse. ‘Tully, uh-uh! Absolutely not! He is taken!’

‘Ohhhh. Jennifer! Pooh! I want you to be a good host and introduce me to him.’

‘Tully, he is taken.’

‘Be a good host, will ya, Jen?’ said Tully into Jennifer’s ear. ‘Just introduce me.’ And she stared intently into Jennifer’s open face. Jennifer sighed.

‘Robin,’ she said, standing up and walking over to him. ‘I don’t think you know Tully. Robin, this is Tully. Gail, you must know Tully from school. Are you in any of the same classes?’

‘No,’ said Gail. ‘We’ve never met, but I have certainly heard of Tully. Tully Makker, right?’

‘Well, that’s funny,’ said Tully. ‘Because I have never heard of you.’

‘Nice to meet you,’ said Robin.

‘Robin’s father,’ Jennifer continued, ‘is an old friend of my father’s. In fact, my dad started out working for your dad, right?’

‘Right,’ said Robin. ‘A number of years back.’

Tully stretched out her hard, small hand to Robin, who took it into his hard, wide hand. Tully did not offer her hand to Gail, who sat back and said nothing.

‘Jennifer! Come and dance with me, Jennifer!’ boomed a guy’s voice behind them, and Jennifer smiled into a broad, flushed, sloshed face. Pulling him by his arm, Jennifer said happily, dizzily, ‘Tully, Robin, Gail, this is Jack Pendel.’

And Jack Pendel pumped Robin’s hand, hard, without looking at him, too busy bending down to peer into Tully’s face. In his bloodshot, barely focused eyes, Tully saw a puzzling ray of a sober thought, a clean expression of…Tully couldn’t tell what, but she stretched out her hand, and Jack took it, held it, and said, ‘So you are Jen’s friend Tully,’ and then, not letting go, Jack bent – nearly fell – on top of her and pressed his beery wet lips to her hand. It was a drunken, funny gesture, and Tully had to push him back to help him straighten up. They all laughed. Jennifer and Jack left to dance, while Robin turned to Tully.

‘So how do you know Jennifer?’ he asked, looking straight at her.

‘We’ve known each other since we were five,’ said Tully.

‘Wow,’ said Robin. ‘I don’t think I know anyone that long, except my family.’

‘Well, there you go,’ said Tully. Then she pointed to Julie fifteen feet away. ‘I’ve known her since I was five, too.’

‘Are the three of you friends?’ asked Robin.

‘Best friends,’ said Tully.

Robin leaned over. ‘Almost like they’re your family, huh?’ he said.

‘Almost,’ said Tully. Robin smiled. She smiled back.

‘Have you lived in Topeka all your life?’ Robin asked.

She nodded. ‘I did go on a trip to Lawrence once or twice,’ she said. ‘You live in Topeka?’

‘Uh-uh. Manhattan,’ he said, looking at her face and neck. ‘You been to Manhattan?’

Tully glanced at her watch. Almost time. ‘Uh-huh,’ she said. ‘Once or twice.’

‘How far do you live from Jen?’ Robin inquired.

‘Oh, a few miles.’

‘Do you have a car?’

‘No, I walk it,’ she replied. ‘I walk it all the time. It’s no big deal.’ He was nearly caught. Like any good salesman, Tully knew by heart Dale Carnegie’s Five Rules of Selling: Attention, Interest, Conviction, Desire, Close. This guy was already attentive, interested, convinced, and desired.

He paused. ‘You walking home tonight?’

‘Yeah, of course. In fact, I kind of gotta go now.’ She saw his expression and said, ‘Told my mom I’d be home early. She’s sick.’

He was thoughtful; she held her breath.

‘Want a ride home?’

She breathed out. Closed.

‘Oh, sure, if it’s no trouble, that’d be great, thanks.’

‘No trouble at all,’ Robin answered, not looking at Gail. He glanced over at the grandfather clock. Tully looked, too. Ten-ten. Time to go.

‘Can you be a little late?’

‘It is late,’ Tully said.

Robin looked at her peculiarly. Tully managed a smile. ‘Gotta cook my mom something to eat.’

‘But you haven’t been here long.’

He noticed. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But my mother’s sick.’

Robin did not look at Gail when he said to Tully, ‘We could go now if you want.’

Tully nodded. ‘If it’s no trouble.’

Reluctantly turning to Gail, Robin said, ‘Gail, I’m going to take Tully home. She lives far away and doesn’t have a car. I’ll be right back.’

Gail blinked and said, ‘I’ll come with you.’

Robin touched her hair. ‘I’ll be right back. Besides, you know I have a two-seater.’ He did not look at her when he spoke, and she did not look at him but stood up quickly and walked away. Not so quickly, though, that Tully wasn’t able to stare at Gail’s chest. Hmm, she thought. Nothing there. Totally perplexing.

Robin and Tully got up. ‘Want a quick dance before we go?’ she asked.

He said yes, never taking his eyes off her, while hers were all over the room. ‘Hotel California’ just finished. Tully wasn’t sure if Jennifer was hugging her drunken blond or holding him up. Julie was making out with Tom and adjusting the zipper on the side of her dress at the same time. Stones again, and Jagger’s hoarse ‘You’re out of touch, my baby…’

Tully grasped Robin’s fingers and skated with him onto the ice. Closing her eyes, Tully saw the music and moved to the music, while Robin moved to her. Tully, eyes closed, swayed her hips and thrust them closer to him, almost grinding against him. With her eyes still closed, she let go of his hands and ran her palms up and down her torso, from her breasts to her thighs, pulsing to the rhythm. When the song ended, she was sweating, panting, grinding up to him. She opened her eyes. Tully saw him looking at her with an expression she knew very well and had seen very often. He was definitely closed. Okay, now she was ready to go.

They said their good-byes quickly. Tully ran upstairs and got her clothes out of the hamper. Striding over to Jennifer, Tully noticed Jen had an embarrassed look on her face, having just finished talking to Gail. Jennifer let Tully kiss her on the cheek. ‘Happy Birthday, Mandolini,’ Tully whispered. ‘And thank you.’

‘Are you coming with us to St Mark’s tomorrow?’ asked Jennifer.

Tully shook her head. ‘Not tomorrow, okay?’

‘Tully, you haven’t been since school started.’

‘Not tomorrow, okay? I’m going to have to rake the leaves in the morning.’

Jennifer made a skeptical face. ‘You don’t have a rake.’

‘With my teeth, okay?’ said Tully, moving away and waving.

Robin opened the door for her, and they were out. The cool air smelled so fresh after the staleness of the living room. It was quiet and windless, unusual for Kansas. Tully’s head throbbed and her ears rang a continual dog whistle, as they always did after hours of loud noise, even if it was Jagger noise.

In the car, Tully silently bit her nails.

The walk home was long, but the ride seemed short. If he is going to get to work, he’d better get to work fast, thought Tully.

‘Would you like to see me again?’ Robin finally said.

‘Yeah, sure,’ Tully replied laconically.

He drove slowly, at one point obeying the stop sign for about a minute.

‘Tully,’ Robin said at the stop sign. ‘Tully. That’s an unusual name.’

‘Robin. That’s an unusual name. Is that Italian?’

‘Third generation DeMarco,’ he answered. ‘My mother was of mixed blood and my father wanted to Americanize the family. Also,’ Robin added, ‘they were bird lovers.’

‘Were?’ said Tully.

‘My mother is dead,’ said Robin, and drove on.

Tully swallowed, and said, ‘My brother couldn’t pronounce my name properly and it stuck.’

‘So is that your name?’ asked Robin. ‘Properly.’

‘Yeah, that’s me,’ said Tully. ‘Properly Makker.’

‘What’s your real name?’

‘Natalie,’ said Tully. ‘Natalie Anne Makker.’

‘That’s nice,’ said Robin. ‘What’s your brother’s name?’

She paused. ‘Henry, Hank.’ She almost did not mind the questions, for this one was particularly cute. Still, she bit her nails furiously. She had no harmless answers. Why do they always have to know so much before they fuck you? she thought. Why?

‘There are three brothers in my family,’ Robin said. ‘I’m the oldest.’

‘How old is oldest?’

He looked over at her and smiled. ‘Oldest is twenty-five. Is that very oldest?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Ancient.’

‘How many kids in your family?’ Robin asked. ‘Two?’

He is tough, she thought, shaking her head. She had nearly forgotten how tough they all were. ‘Only one,’ she replied. Only one left.

‘One? I thought you said you had a brother.’

‘I did,’ said Tully, ‘have a brother.’ Two brothers, even. Two that I know of. ‘He’s not around anymore. Make a right at the next corner.’

Tully navigated him through the short streets near her house. And then the Grove. Robin pulled up near her house, took one short look at it – broken porch, long grass – and then one long look at her.

‘Can I come and see you tomorrow?’ he asked.

Nothing would be better, thought Tully. My mother on one side of him, Aunt Lena on the other. And so Tully smiled and gave him her stock answer, the answer she gave to all the boys, the only answer she had. ‘Sure, great, come. Maybe we could go for a ride in the afternoon.’ She looked around her. ‘Am I sitting in a red Corvette?’

‘With red leather seats,’ he replied.

‘Cool,’ said Tully. Right in front of him, she pulled on the big black skirt over her little skirt and a sweater over the T-shirt, then took a tissue and started wiping her makeup off.

Robin watched her. ‘You live pretty far away from everything, don’t you?’ he said.

‘Oh, but that’s not true,’ she said. ‘I live very near the railroad.’

‘The railroad? The St Louis and Southwestern Railroad?’

‘I guess. What does it matter?’

‘It’s got a lot of history,’ Robin said.

‘Oh, good,’ said Tully.

‘Like you?’

‘Me? I’m history-less,’ Tully said.

‘I never would’ve guessed you live near a railroad. You didn’t strike me as the type.’

‘Oh, but that’s not true.’ Tully smiled. ‘I am exactly the type. You can always tell.’

‘Always? How?’

‘Because,’ Tully said, handing him the smeared tissue, ‘the girl who lives near the railroad always wears the brightest lipstick.’

‘Hmm,’ said Robin. ‘As I recall, when you came in, you weren’t wearing any lipstick at all.’

The look she cast him quickly prompted him to ask her if he could walk her to the door.

Shaking her head, Tully said, ‘My mother is very sick.’ Hedda’s room was on one side of the house and Aunt Lena’s on the other; the house was dark, the entire street was dark, not too many people were up. Tully leaned over and kissed Robin full on the mouth. His lips were soft and wet; he smelled of alcohol and apple strudel. She liked that and kissed him deeper. Deeper and deeper; his lips were open while his eyes were closed. Tully always watched when she kissed them. What’s the point otherwise? Their faces are everything. She groped for him; his lips got more urgent, more and more urgent. She touched his hair, his neck, his shoulders. He groaned softly as he ran his hand under her skirts, over her bare legs, over her thighs, to touch her, one hand under her skirt, one on her breast. She was almost naked underneath her clothes; the Corvette windows got all fogged up. Robin kissed and kissed her. He pulled up her T-shirt and buried his face in her breasts as Tully stroked his hair, nearly shutting her eyes herself at the feel of his brown head. ‘Tully, what are you doing to me?’ he whispered, getting over to the passenger seat, on top of her, grinding himself against her. ‘What are you doing?’

Tully felt his erection, his need, his want, his breath, oh, this was just what she wanted. It had been such a long time since she had smelled lust and desire, had felt an erection. She moaned aloud, and that only made Robin grind harder against her. She unbuttoned his pants and took him out. He groaned. Really wanting him inside her, Tully moved her G-string over and guided him in. Robin went to touch her with his fingers, but she was already pushing him past them, inside, inside, inside.

Robin was much too excited, and it was over very quickly. As Tully liked it; she always liked it best when they came fast and out of control. It wasn’t very comfortable in the car; backseats were better, but the Corvette seemed better altogether. Tully had never been in one. When Robin came, she held him against her and caressed his back. Good, she thought, and smiled. Good. He stayed there, propping himself up but on top of her for some minutes, until she patted him lightly on the arm. ‘I gotta go,’ she whispered.

‘Oh, Tully,’ he said. Gently, she pushed him off her, and when he moved back to his own seat, she adjusted her skirts and brushed her hair. Robin buttoned his pants. ‘So you gotta go. You don’t want anything else? Anything else for yourself?’

Tully was amused. How to tell him that in the last ten minutes she got everything for herself she possibly could get from him, and anything else was out of his league, out of his Corvette, and in any case, completely unnecessary.

‘Robin, I’m so fine,’ she told him. ‘But I really gotta go.’

‘Can I still see you tomorrow?’ Robin said, touching her cheek.

Tully smiled. This one was a real gentleman. Some of them were. ‘Sure, great. Come,’ she said, kissing him quickly, and then was out, up the path, up the porch steps, and inside.

THREE Robin

September 1978

Sunday morning, Jennifer sat by the phone and waited for Jack to call her. Last night he said he would call her, but here it was, noon already. Jennifer didn’t even go to St Mark’s for the ten o’clock Mass, waiting for him to call.

The last guests had left by about midnight, and Jennifer spent until two in the morning compulsively cleaning her room before she lay down in her bed. How did he get home? Jen had thought. He left around eleven, mumbling something about getting a ride. But he lived nearby, so he might have just stumbled home.

Jennifer slept poorly, waking up at five-thirty in the morning to sneak into the garage. Then she started cleaning up the house, and at six-thirty her mom and dad got up and helped her. Jennifer went back to her room, vacuumed, dusted, polished, shined. Then she came down to breakfast.

Sunday breakfasts! How she loved the mozzarella and onion omelettes her mom made; the whole family, all three of them, did. But this morning, Jennifer looked down into her omelette and thought about his breath, his breath on her shoulders, on her hair, his breath as he leaned over and laughed in her ear while she felt his sweat-soaked blond hair brush against her face.

‘Jenny, did you have a good time?’ Tony Mandolini asked her.

‘Great,’ she said into her food.

‘Did anyone get drunk or embarrass themselves?’

And they danced, oh, they danced together to ‘Wild Wild Horses.’

‘Only Mom,’ replied Jennifer, trying to be jovial, ‘but everyone knew she can’t handle her liquor, so they were real sympathetic.’

‘Jennifer!’ Lynn slapped her daughter’s arm.

Jennifer smiled. ‘No, everything was great, Dad, thanks.’

‘Hey, your mom did most of the work. Thank her.’ Tony reached over and patted Lynn’s thigh.

Tony and Lynn glanced at each other, and then Lynn said, ‘We have another surprise for you, Jenny,’ handing Jennifer a little wrapped box with a white bow.

Jennifer stopped eating, put down her milk, wiped her mouth, looked at her mom and dad, and picked up the little gift. She knew what it was. So when she ripped the wrapping paper, opened the box, and took out a pair of keys, Jennifer summoned all her powers to open her eyes wide and to put on a big surprised smile on her face.

‘Dad! Mom! What’s this? You know, I already have a pair of keys.’

Tony and Lynn were grinning. ‘Yes, darling, it’s what you always wanted,’ Lynn said.

It’s what you always wanted rang in Jennifer’s ears as they went outside and her father opened the garage door and showed her a huge white bow, this time wrapped around a brand-new baby-blue Camaro.

To match my eyes, thought Jennifer wearily.

‘To match your eyes,’ said Tony as his daughter stood and stared. She then effused sufficiently. Hugged and kissed them both. But did not take the car for a ride just then and spent the rest of the morning in her bedroom, sitting on her bed in utter silence, not moving at all.

‘I told you they were gonna get me a car,’ Jennifer said when Julie called at nine-thirty.

Julie squealed. ‘A car! A beautiful car! Your car! You can take us all everywhere in your car!’

‘Hmm. What are you so happy about? You didn’t get a car.’

‘I should’ve been so lucky,’ Julie answered.

‘Well, maybe if your mom and dad didn’t have twenty kids, you might’ve,’ commented Jennifer.

‘Five,’ said Julie. ‘But why were you so sure it was going to be a car?’

Because it’s what I always wanted, Jennifer thought, and wearily said so.

‘Going to St Mark’s, Jen? My grandmother wants me to take communion today.’

‘Not today, Jule, okay? I really gotta help clean up.’

They talked about Tully a little and hung up; afterwards Jennifer sat back down on the bed with hands folded on her lap and waited – until Robin called.

‘Jennifer, I want to take Tully out,’ said Robin.

Jennifer sighed. The only phone calls she had received were from Julie and now from Robin to ask permission to see Tully.

‘Go right ahead,’ said Jennifer. ‘By all means.’

Robin was pacing around his bedroom. He could tell Jennifer was not listening to him, and hated finding himself in a ridiculous position of having to confer with a seventeen – no, eighteen-year-old. But he remembered Tully’s face and sweet lips as she kissed him. He would have been delighted with her lips alone. The rest of their encounter confounded him. Robin felt vaguely that unwittingly and unknowingly, he was being sucked into some bottomless mire. That last night’s encounter with Tully felt like he had been had. With no choice in the matter. Simply sucked in, and had. Tully seemed like a mosquito in the summer that sucked just enough blood to feed itself but not to kill him, and when the mosquito was swollen and bloated with the little it took, it buzzed off, to digest Robin’s blood and then feed off some other poor slob. Still, Robin felt persisting for Tully was the right thing to do. It felt like the right thing to do.

‘Jen, can you help me out a little, please?’

‘What can I do for you, Robin?’

‘I want to take her out.’

There was a short pause.

‘What would you like me to say?’ said Jennifer.

What’s she like? Robin wanted to ask. Is there something about her I should know? Do you think I’m her type? Is there something that’ll scare me off her? But he already knew the answer to that one. She was scary as hell, devouring him as she did, on a whim, unexpectedly, and then patting him on the back, sort of like, good boy, Robin, good doggie, now sit. But all Robin asked was, ‘Well, is she going out with someone?’

‘No,’ said Jennifer. ‘But you are.’

Robin ignored her. Gail was strictly short-term.

‘She said her mother is sick. Is it a chronic thing?’

Another pause, slightly longer. Robin sighed into the phone. Dentist visits were easier than this.

‘Oh, it’s pretty chronic, all right,’ said Jennifer.

Robin was silent.

‘Robin,’ said Jennifer. ‘Tully is not the easiest person to take out, you know.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t know. I was hoping you’d tell me.’ Pause. ‘She told me to come in the afternoon to her house and take her for a drive,’ he said finally.

‘She did?’ Jennifer seemed to liven up.

‘Yes, uh-huh.’

Jennifer chuckled. ‘She didn’t mean it.’

Robin’s circular pacing around his bedroom speeded up.

‘How’s your dad?’ Jennifer asked him.

‘Fine, fine,’ he said. That was not strictly true, but he really did not want to talk about his dad at the moment. ‘What’s Tully’s dad like?’

‘He’s not,’ said Jennifer, ‘around.’

‘Not at all?’ asked Robin.

‘Not at all.’

‘Is he dead?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Jennifer.

‘How long has he been not around?’

‘Ten years,’ said Jennifer.

‘Jennifer, will you do me a favor?’

He heard Jennifer sigh. ‘Robin, I kinda gotta go. I’m expecting a phone call.’

‘Jennifer,’ said Robin. ‘If he’s going to call, trust me, he’ll call back – now please, would you?’

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Call Tully, find out if she really wants to see me again, and if she does, please find out the best way I can get to her. Can you do that for me?’

Jennifer quickly agreed, and they hung up. Robin sat quietly for a few moments. He was thinking of Tully, of the way she held on to him last night and of her soft needy moans. Then he inadvertently remembered how upset Gail was with him and how he meant to apologize. Robin thought of calling Gail up but decided against it. He did not want to be talking to Gail while he was thinking of Tully.

Tully was the first girl whose smell and taste and expression affected him enough to humiliate his date at a party for a mutual friend. Robin hoped Tully was worth it.

When Robin was twelve, six months before his confirmation and seven months before his mother’s death, he found out that he and his younger brothers were all adopted by Stephen and Pamela DeMarco from some adoption agency that had managed to palm off all three little male siblings to one set of parents. Sort of like a kitten litter. Robin had been three, Bruce a year and a half, and Stevie three months.

Robin had been looking for his birth certificate because he wanted to open his first savings account for the anticipated earnings from his confirmation. His adoption papers shattered him. Robin ran downstairs to his parents, wildly waving the certificate and crying ‘Why didn’t you ever tell us? Why? Why didn’t you ever tell me?’ The DeMarcos tried in vain to comfort their oldest boy. But for the next six months, young Robin went to school, worked his paper route, came home, ate dinner, did his homework, watched a little TV, and went to sleep. For six months, he hardly spoke to his mother and father. At his confirmation, he coldly kissed Pamela DeMarco and thanked her for going through the trouble of throwing him such a great party, even though he was not her son.

A month later, Robin’s mother died unexpectedly of congestive heart failure. Young Robin quickly forgave himself for not forgiving his mother in time. After graduating from high school, he went to work for his dad and proved himself to be a hardworking and smart manager. The family business prospered under Robin. Then money came his way. Money, good clothes, great cars. Robin worked, played soccer, and took in a great many women. He usually had his pick of most girls he met – and he met a great many girls. He was always courteous to them, but often he was not particularly sensitive. He spoke little of himself and regularly broke up with his girlfriends without letting them know about it; one day he would just start going around with a different girl and that seemed to say it all for him – what more was there to say?

Shying away from girls who were in touch with their feelings and wanting to talk all the time, Robin preferred those similar to his adopted mother: flashy, fair-haired, and private. Gail was nothing like his mother.

The phone rang again as soon as Jennifer put it down. She closed her eyes and let it ring three times before picking it up.

It was Tully. Jennifer sighed.

‘No, no, don’t worry,’ said Tully. ‘I know that you are glad to hear from me deep down.’

‘Very deep,’ said Jennifer. ‘Robin called, asking for you.’

‘He did? Did you tell him he called the wrong house? I don’t live with you.’

‘But wish you did,’ said Jennifer, half kidding.

‘Well, that’s pretty thrilling,’ continued Tully. ‘I didn’t think I’d see him again. What did he want?’

‘He asked if you were going out with anyone.’

‘And you said…’

‘I told him that you weren’t going out with anyone but that he was.’

‘Nice going, Jen.’

‘I told him,’ continued Jennifer, ‘that your mother might be a problem.’

‘Well done!’ exclaimed Tully. ‘Nothing a guy likes more than a problem mom.’

‘Tully, did you tell him he could pick you up at your house?’

‘Yeah,’ said Tully. ‘I say that to everybody. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t think he’d show up.’

Jennifer said, ‘Well, he was definitely going to show up. Good thing I talked some sense into him.’

Tully was silent.

‘Tull, you wanna see him?’

Silence. A grim ‘A little.’

‘He’s going out with Gail, and Gail was very upset with the both of you,’ said Jennifer.

‘Fuck Gail,’ Tully said. ‘Is he in love with her?’

‘Tully, she’s seventeen and I think she kind of loves him.’

‘Yeah, so? I’m seventeen, too. Besides,’ she added, ‘I’m not responsible that he calls me up.’

‘That he calls me up,’ Jennifer corrected her, smiling at the phone.

Jen arranged to pick Tully up in her new Camaro and drive her over to The Village Inn, the popular hamburger place on Topeka Boulevard, where Robin would meet them. Then she called Robin to tell him the plan. Jennifer thought that Robin seemed pleased with that, and this struck her as odd because she always perceived Robin as unemotional. He must like Tully, thought Jennifer.

‘Is there anything I should know about her?’ Robin asked Jennifer.

Well, there are a lot of things you should know about her, thought Jennifer, but right now, I really want to get off the phone.

‘Yeah, she is not much into talking.’

‘She and you both. What’s she into?’

A different kind of communication, Jennifer thought. Tactile communication.

‘Into? Dancing,’ Jen replied. ‘Music. National Geographic. Books.’

No one knew Tully better than Jennifer, no one knew Tully on such personal terms, but even Jennifer was hard-pressed to define what Tully was into, or what was into Tully. When she was twelve, Jennifer overheard her mother and father discussing adopting Tully; she wished she could have heard that conversation better, but the words were big and vague. Something about Wichita, something about foster care. Then Tully more or less dropped out of Jennifer’s and Julie’s life. Oh, Tully came over, ate dinner, did some homework, talked, watched TV.

But it was all pretend. Like the games they used to play when they were children. Pretend. Tully was a Stepford Tully during 1975, 1976, 1977. Jennifer knew only a bare skeleton of Tully’s life during the years Tully was dancing and getting into dance clubs with her fake ID.

In 1977, things got a little better. Tully showed Jennifer the ID. ‘Natalie Anne Makker,’ it read. ‘Female, 5’6”, 105 pounds, gray eyes, blonde hair, b. January 19, 1955.’ Jennifer had been shocked at how Tully looked in the photo, done up so old. Tully made herself to look six years older, but she might as well have made her lie be sixteen years or sixty, so large had been the chasm separating Tully from Jennifer. And even after 1977. They didn’t play softball anymore, Tully and Jen.

‘Yeah, Tully is really not much into all that verbal stuff,’ Jennifer finished.

‘Ahhh, a girl after my own heart,’ said Robin, hanging up.

Afterwards, Jennifer sat back on her bed and did not move for an hour until it was time to go pick up Tully in her new Camaro.

‘Nice car, Jen,’ Tully said, getting in. ‘Now you can drive us all to school.’

‘Makker, Julie and I walk to school. And I’m not driving every morning to pick your ass up from the boondocks of town, that’s for sure.’

‘Oh, yes, you are, Mandolini,’ said Tully. ‘You got nowhere else to go but to pick me up.’

‘I got plenty of places,’ said Jennifer.

‘Yeah? Name one. Admit it, you don’t really need this car.’

‘I admit it,’ said Jennifer. ‘But Makker, whether I need it or not, you are not getting this car, not even for five minutes. Absolutely not.’

‘I don’t want this silly car,’ said Tully, smiling and touching Jennifer’s hair. ‘I just want you to teach me how to drive.’

At The Village Inn, Robin sat down across from Tully. Or rather, Tully sat down across from Robin. Tully looked entirely different from last night, looking more as she did when she first arrived at Jen’s: no makeup. She was wearing old faded jeans and a HAVE FUN! IT’S TOPEKA! sweatshirt. Her eyes were sweet and gray and she had large blue bags under them. Her nose was a little misshapen and her mouth was pale. She had short, kinky hair. She didn’t look like a party girl, she didn’t look scary, she didn’t look much like anything, but as Robin sat and watched her dig into her burger and talk to him, he thought she was the most beautiful girl he had ever met.

‘Why did you tell me I could come to your mother’s house?’ he asked her.

She flashed him a smile. ‘I didn’t think you’d come.’ Beaming at the waiter, Tully ordered black coffee and lemon meringue pie.

‘You really transform yourself for a party, don’t you?’ Robin said.

‘What’s the matter? Regret you came today?’ Tully asked.

He shook his head quickly. Gray is not an especially warm color, he thought, never having seen gray eyes before. ‘No, you look better now, but different.’

They sat and talked for an hour.

‘What do you do, Robin?’ Tully asked him. ‘With yourself? When you’re not accompanying high school seniors to parties?’

‘I work for my dad,’ he told her. ‘DeMarco & Sons. Fine men’s clothing.’

‘In Manhattan?’ Tully seemed surprised. ‘Is there a market for that sort of thing out there?’

Robin shrugged. ‘We have no competition. It’s not bad.’

‘Well, that explains why you’re so well dressed,’ said Tully, smiling lightly.

As Tully talked, she gestured with her hands, which reminded Robin of his profoundly gesticulate family, and he found her hand motions very Italian and very endearing. They were having a good time. She was funny, nonthreatening, and, well, seemed entirely normal to him. They both smoked. He lit her cigarette for her, and she stared into his face as she inhaled.

But while Tully was holding up her hands – thin, white, and thoroughly pleasing – to imitate a friend of hers during a police raid on a dance club, Robin saw her wrists. On both her wrists, very close to her palms, he saw two horizontal scars, jagged and dark pink, scars about an inch long. He inhaled sharply. She stopped talking and looked at him; Robin could only imagine what his expression looked like to her – fear? pity? more fear? How often had she seen these expressions on the faces of men who encountered her and those wrists of hers? All that mixed with lust and tenderness. How often?

Instantly, her demeanor changed. She wasn’t animated anymore, and her eyes were cold.

To sit and say nothing seemed somehow unthinkable, somehow worse than acknowledgment, so Robin steadied himself and acknowledged Tully. Touching her sleeve, he said, ‘Are you okay?’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I’m great.’

Robin looked at her wrists, and so did she. ‘Oh, these,’ Tully said. ‘I cut myself shaving.’

‘Oh,’ Robin said, letting go of her sleeve and feeling himself go pale. ‘I hope you don’t…shave them very often.’

‘Not too often, God help me.’ She attempted a smile.

I love her, Robin thought then and there with a spasm of emotional clarity that pulled at his stomach and tugged at his throat. I love her. How is that possible? How? What has she done?

After leaving The Village Inn, they drove to 45th Street and headed east, in the direction of Lake Shawnee and Lawrence. Tully was much quieter than she had been at the restaurant. Basically, she just sat and stared at the road, commenting that the weather was certainly turning chilly.

‘Shawnee County is really beautiful,’ Robin said. ‘Look at this place. Hills and valleys and meadows.’

‘And long grass,’ said Tully impassively. ‘It’s the prairie, Robin.’ She looked out the window.

‘Yeah, but looking at this, you wouldn’t think it was the prairie,’ said Robin.

‘It’s the prairie, nonetheless,’ said Tully.

They parked at Lake Shawnee and had sex again; it was just as brief this time, just as confounding. There was no one around. Tully stroked Robin’s hair, and then gently pushed him off her. He sighed and got dressed. ‘Done with me, are you, Tully?’ he said.

‘I’m not done with you at all,’ said Tully, touching his cheeks. ‘But I have to get back.’

‘What’s the matter? Your mother sick?’

‘Very sick,’ said Tully. ‘If you only knew.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Nothing to tell,’ said Tully.

Robin took a deep breath and told her about his dad’s cancer.

‘I’m sorry, Robin,’ said Tully, cracking her knuckles. ‘My mother is not really sick, nothing like that. She is just…strict, that’s all.’

‘How strict, Tully?’ he wanted to know. ‘Is there a curfew? Does she insist you do your homework all the time and not go out? Does she make you do housework?’

‘If only,’ said Tully. ‘No, nothing like that. Robin, it’s really hard to explain about my mother. She is not very communicative.’

‘From what I understand, neither are you,’ said Robin.

‘Right,’ said Tully. ‘So, me and my Mom, we just don’t talk much.’

Silently, Robin looked at the lake. ‘She is still your mother, Tully,’ he said. ‘She’s the only mother you’ll ever have.’

Tully glanced at him. ‘Robin, that’s not necessarily a good thing,’ she said. ‘Let’s go.’

It was nearly seven in the evening when they hit 45th Street again. The sun was hiding behind the hills. The trees, the barns, and oblong grain silos were dusky silhouettes along the road. Robin and Tully had been driving for about ten minutes on 45th when a car coming the opposite way passed them and all of a sudden something hard and black bounced off the other car, and then the Corvette smashed it with its right fender, and the black thing bounced off and fell with a thump to the ground.

‘Robin!’ exclaimed Tully. Both cars stopped. Two young men in plaid shirts came out of the other car, and all four of them carefully stepped to the middle of the road to see a Doberman, prone on its side still breathing but unable to move any part of itself.

‘Oh, God,’ said Tully.

‘Hey, where did he come from?’ said one of the plaid-shirted men excitedly. ‘I was driving, didn’t see nothing, and then all of a sudden this thing just jumps out in front of my car, poor bastard.’

‘And I hit him,’ said Robin, shaking his head.

‘Nah, he bounced off my car, man, there was nothing you could do. I feel bad, though, he must be a guard dog for one of them barns over there. His owners are gonna be pretty sad when they find him.’

‘My God,’ said Tully. ‘He’s not even dead.’

And it wasn’t. The Doberman was trying in vain to lift its head, but all the while its black eyes were open, staring mutely at Tully and at Robin. They looked at each other, and then at the road. A car was coming. ‘We gotta move him,’ said Tully.

‘Nah, he’ll be better off if a car puts him out. Look at him, he is suffering,’ said the guy.

‘We gotta move him!’ said Tully louder, looking at Robin.

All four of them had to move out of the road. The car slowed down but didn’t stop as it went barreling past them and over the Doberman, flinging the animal a little closer to the shoulder, but not close enough, because seconds later another car went by, and this one didn’t even slow down as it ran over the Doberman. The dog remained in the road, no longer trying to move its head. Amazingly, it was not dead. Its mouth was open as it slowly gulped some air, its black eyes still open, and still watching. The four of them stood motionless. The only sound in the air was the dog’s belabored, difficult breathing. Tully wrung her hands and moved toward the three men. ‘Guys, please! Just move him, move him, don’t let him be hit again, please! Robin!’

Robin stepped over to the dog. ‘I wouldn’t do that if I was you,’ said the plaid-shirted driver. ‘You don’t know how that thing’s gonna react, man. It’s a Doberman, for God’s sake. He may just get crazy right then and there, rip into you or something. I wouldn’t do it. Just let him be. He’ll die soon enough.’

Robin stopped. ‘He is right, Tully,’ he said.

‘God!’ Tully screamed. ‘The dog is in the middle of the road! Hasn’t he been run over by enough cars? Goddamn it,’ she said, walking over towards the animal, ‘you’d move it if it was your mother lying in the road, wouldn’t you?’

Tully grabbed the Doberman’s hind legs, and with great effort dragged it ten feet, all the way into the grass. The three men watched her, and the driver of the other car leaned over to Robin and whispered, ‘She is crazy, man, crazy. That thing goes for her and she’ll be in bad shape. Crazy, I tell you.’

Tully wiped her hands on the grass and said to Robin. ‘Let’s go.’ She did not look back at the dog.

‘Well, it sure is pretty eventful being with you, Tully,’ said Robin, parked in front of Jennifer’s house on Sunset Court.

‘What do you mean, with me? Nothing ever happened to me until I started being with you,’ said Tully.

‘Somehow,’ said Robin, ‘I find that pretty hard to believe.’ And Tully smiled.

‘I’d like to see you again,’ Robin said.

She stared at her feet. ‘It will be a little difficult,’ she said at last.

‘That’s all right.’

‘I can’t get out much.’

‘Still, though.’

‘I can’t stay out.’

‘Well, there you go,’ said Robin.

‘Aren’t you going out with Gail?’ Tully asked him.

‘We’re not serious.’

‘You are not serious,’ she corrected him.

Robin smiled. ‘I’ll talk to her. I really want to see you.’

‘When?’ asked Tully.

Robin breathed out. ‘I work every day,’ he said, and tried not to show his pleasure. ‘Uh, except Sundays. How about next Sunday?’

‘Sunday is okay,’ she answered. ‘Same deal? In the afternoon? ’Cause I usually go to church on Sunday mornings.’

‘You go to church, Tully?’ said Robin with surprise.

‘Well, you know,’ said Tully. ‘Just to keep Jen company.’

‘That’s fine. Next Sunday, I’ll take you to lunch. Somewhere nice.

‘Okay,’ she said, leaning over and kissing him on the lips. It was a long time before Robin stopped seeing her serious gray eyes and smelling the coffee and meringue on her breath.

Jennifer and Julie were waiting for Tully in Jennifer’s kitchen.

‘Well,’ said Julie. ‘Do tell all!’

‘Not much to tell,’ replied Tully, sitting down and taking a sip from Jennifer’s Coke. Jennifer got up and got herself another one.

‘Where did he take you?’ asked Julie.

‘For a drive. Jennifer, you should’ve told me his father has lung cancer.’

Jennifer stared at Tully. ‘I didn’t think it was my place,’ she replied. ‘Did you want me to tell him stuff about you?’

Tully rolled her eyes. ‘Can you tell me if he is nice, Jen?’

‘Of course he is, very nice, but what do you think?’

‘He is very good-looking,’ Julie put in. ‘And drives such a good-looking car! What does he do?’

Tully said, ‘He manages his father’s ritzy-glitzy men’s fine clothing store,’ adding, ‘And he is good-looking. He knows it, too.’

‘This bothers you?’ Julie smiled. ‘But what does a handsome, well-off, grown-up guy like him want from you?’ She poked Tully in the ribs.

Tully was unperturbed. ‘The same thing,’ she said, ‘that an ugly, poor, young guy wants from me.’

The girls drank their Cokes.

‘Are you going to see him again?’ asked Julie.

‘Next Sunday, if Jen’s willing.’ Tully patted Jennifer on the head and turned back to Julie. ‘Are you going to see Tom again?’

‘Tully!’

‘Yes, yes, of course. You looove him!’ Smiling, Tully turned to Jennifer, who sat there, spaced out. ‘Jennifer? Has he called?’

Jennifer looked at Tully and Julie as if she couldn’t be sure which one spoke to her.

‘Jennifer, has he called?’ repeated Tully.

Jennifer got up. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘He hasn’t called!’ Tully and Julie chimed in unison.

‘You both are so silly and immature,’ said Jennifer.

‘I agree,’ said Tully. ‘But Julie, have you ever seen a guy who wears tighter Levi’s?’

‘Never,’ said Julie. ‘But I hear it’s a sign of maturity –’

‘To lust after someone with tight Levi’s? Absolutely,’ finished Tully.

‘Girls,’ said Jennifer, ‘I really think it’s time for you to be driven home.’

She ran into Jack on Monday.

He walked over to her locker and said, ‘Hi, Jen, great party, thanks for inviting us, hope we didn’t all trash the place, hope you can make it to the Homecoming game in a couple of weeks.’ Hope this hope that thanks for this thanks for that, blah, blah, blah.

And Jennifer smiled and nodded politely and said of course and yes and I’ll see you at practice and I hope you play well at Homecoming, and then he left and she closed her locker, took her books, and went to her American history class, where she had to take a surprise quiz and failed.

Back home, she walked past her mother, went upstairs, closed the door behind her, and lay face down on her bed until her father came home and it was dinnertime.

Jen kept to herself at dinner, slightly amused at the recurring topic of dinner discussion nowadays: Harvard. Harvard and the SATs. Harvard, the SATs and med school. Harvard, the SATs, med school, and isn’t she amazing, Lynn? Isn’t she just amazing? And she, their amazing daughter, sat and concentrated very hard on driving each of her fork tines through four green peas. Sometimes she only managed to get two or three instead of the full four and this made her want to fling the entire plate across the room. But she set her jaw and kept on, while Lynn and Tony continued. So what if the mean SAT score was 1050, while Jen got a combined 1575 on her mock SATs last year, out of a possible 1600? Mock SATs! Even Jack got 1100 on them. And Tully got 1400, except no one knew it because no one cared. Nobody cared what Tully got on her mock SATs, and that was really okay with Tully, Jen thought. At least she didn’t have to hear this during dinner seven days a week for months. Jennifer thought of telling her parents that she had no intention of going to Harvard; Jennifer and Tully had their plans. But she just couldn’t be bothered. She excused herself, went back to her room, and spent the rest of the evening calling his number and hanging up before it rang.

Hundreds of times, many hundreds she must have called his number, and hung up many hundreds of times, dialing it with unseeing eyes, in her master bedroom.

2

Robin finally called Gail. Her voice was like ice, and he was not surprised. His adoptive mother was as warm as the noon summer sun, but Gail was nothing like his mother. Robin apologized to Gail, saying he had never misled her; they were never in any way serious. Gail asked him if he actually thought she would stand, could stand him seeing both of them at the same time. Robin was surprised at this: he had no intention of seeing Gail at all. But to her he said, ‘No, of course. I understand. I could never stand being two-timed, either. I hope we can still be friends.’

The following Sunday, Robin took Tully to Red Lobster with Jennifer’s help. They ate well. Tully wanted to know if he had said anything to Gail, who had been slithering past her in school like an old cobra.

‘I swear, I never saw her before in my life,’ Tully said. ‘And this week, I see her every day and she walks past me and hisses venom in my direction. You haven’t talked to her, have you?’

‘I have,’ Robin replied, ‘but what’s there to say?’

‘Watch out,’ said Tully. ‘Or she’ll start telling you things about me.’

Robin smiled. ‘What kind of things?’

‘Oh, all sorts of things of a very sordid nature.’

‘All damnable lies?’ he wanted to know.

‘Of course not,’ said Tully. ‘But of a very sordid nature.’

Robin suggested that she tell him about these things herself, but Tully declined politely, saying only that she used to dance well, and for a while everyone knew it.

‘Used to? Have you stopped?’ he asked.

Tully nodded. ‘I haven’t stopped, I’ve just…cut down.’

‘How is your mother?’ Robin wanted to know.

‘Splendid,’ said Tully.

‘Have you always gotten on so well with your mother?’

‘Yes,’ said Tully with mock cheeriness. ‘We have a very special relationship.’

In the parking lot of Red Lobster, Robin kissed her and Tully put her hand on the back of his head, and he touched her hair and felt that old familiar stirring. They drove out to Lake Shawnee and quickly and efficiently had sex again. The lake was gray and beautiful; the trees had shed many of their leaves; it was windy; but Robin didn’t notice the lake much, so busy was he making love to Tully. Afterwards, Robin wanted to touch her, to do something for her; Tully refused. ‘Not necessary,’ she said evenly.

‘But I want to,’ persisted Robin.

‘I don’t,’ replied Tully.

‘You’re really something,’ he said as they were driving away from the lake. ‘I just can’t figure you out.’

‘What’s to figure out?’ asked Tully. ‘I’m an open book.’

‘Yeah, and I’m your knight in shining armor,’ said Robin.

3

‘You wanna go for a drive?’ Jennifer asked Tully one Sunday on the way back to the Grove.

‘Yeah, sure,’ replied Tully, looking at her friend. It had been three weeks since Jennifer got her car and this was Tully’s first invitation for a drive. The girls usually sat in Jen’s kitchen and looked over college catalogs. Twice Jennifer let Tully get behind the wheel. In the driveway.

‘Where do you want to go?’ asked Jennifer.

‘California.’ Tully smiled. ‘But I’ll settle for Texas Street.’

Jennifer smiled back. ‘It’s been a while since we’ve been there,’ she said.

‘Speak for yourself,’ said Tully, getting comfortable in the seat. ‘I go there all the time.’

‘Oh, yeah?’ said Jennifer. ‘It’s four miles away from you. How do you get there?’

‘I walk,’ said Tully, and then, seeing Jennifer’s expression, added, ‘It’s worth it, to see it.’

The girls drove to Texas Street, a short narrow road between the Topeka Country Club and Big Shunga Park. The southwestern end of Texas Street curved downward to a dead end, but if they walked through the trees, they came out to the Shunga Park fields. That’s how Jennifer and Tully found Texas Street the very first time, five years ago. They were still playing softball then, and they left a game early – their team was losing 2-17 – and wandered into the woods, coming out onto Texas Street.

The oaks stood ancient and tall on opposite sides of the street and their branches intertwined in the middle, casting Texas Street in perpetual shadow through which glimmers of sunshine struggled.

Tully and Jennifer parked near the dead end of the street, opposite ‘their’ house. They sat on the Camaro’s warm hood for a long time, not speaking.

‘Still looks magnificent, doesn’t it?’ said Tully finally.

‘Yeah,’ said Jennifer. ‘Sure does.’

‘What are you looking wistful about?’ said Tully. ‘You who live in a master bedroom on Sunset Court.’

‘Look at that porch,’ said Jennifer. ‘Have you even seen a porch that size?’

‘Yeah,’ said Tully. ‘On Tara.’

‘I think Tara’s was smaller,’ said Jennifer, jumping off the hood. ‘Come on Scarlett, let’s go.’

Tully didn’t move. ‘I wonder what the houses are like in Palo Alto.’

‘Who cares?’ said Jen. ‘We’re going to live under the shadow of the El Palo Alto, under its leaves and thousand-year-old branches. We won’t need a house.’

‘Still, though,’ mused Tully. ‘I wouldn’t mind living in this house.’

‘Who would?’ said Jennifer, looking at its four wide white columns. ‘It needs paint,’ she said. ‘Imagine having a house like that and not painting it every year. Let’s go.’

On the way back, Tully looked over at Jennifer and said, ‘Jen, you okay?’

‘Great,’ said Jennifer.

‘How’s cheerleading going?’

‘Uh, you know.’

‘I don’t know. How are things?’

‘You know,’ said Jennifer.

Tully looked away.

4

‘So when am I going to meet your mother?’ Robin asked one afternoon when he called Tully.

‘Never,’ she said jovially, but after they hung up, she sat in her room and did not feel so jovial. So she called Julie. Julie would cheer her up. But Mrs Martinez said Julie was doing something or other with her history club. Who cares what she is doing? Tully thought as she hung up. She’s never around anymore to talk to.

Tully called Jennifer, who wasn’t home, either.

Nobody’s home but me, Tully thought petulantly.

She turned on the radio and danced in her room with the windows open. Hers was the only room besides the bathroom on the tiny second floor. It almost felt like the attic. ‘I will fly away,’ she sang. ‘I will fly away/fly away/so far/I will fly away.’ She stopped dancing, went to her closet, and took out a National Geographic map from one of her milk crates. Spreading the map open on her bed, Tully knelt down in front of it. With careful fingers, she touched the towns, villages, hamlets, cities, oceans, and deserts of the state of California. Palo Alto, here we come, Palo Alto, San Jose. Nowhere else but Palo Alto nowhere else but Palo Alto nowhere else but –

Tully remembered the time. She ran downstairs to the kitchen before her mother came home. Sometimes Tully made hamburgers nicely, putting bread crumbs and egg and fried onions in them. There was no time for that tonight. It was five forty-five. She slapped the patties together roughly, unevenly, and threw them in the frying pan. Then she peeled the potatoes and put them on to boil.

Hedda walked through the door a little after six, hung up her coat, and walked past Aunt Lena and Tully on the couch. Aunt Lena was watching TV, and Tully was reading a magazine. They both looked up and said hello when Hedda came in, but Hedda rarely looked at them, rarely said hello back. Tonight was no different. She grunted past them to the kitchen. They ate in near silence a half hour later. Aunt Lena kept jabbering on about something or other; Tully did not pay any attention. After dinner, Tully cleared her throat and, not looking at her mother, asked if she could go to the Homecoming dance. Hedda, also not looking up, sullenly nodded. ‘Thank you,’ said Tully, and went to make some tea before clearing up.

Hedda took her tea into the living room, sat on the couch, and watched Walter Cronkite, then ‘Let’s Make a Deal,’ and then an old movie. Tully washed the dishes and went upstairs to her room, where she danced quietly so they wouldn’t hear her down below.

At eleven o’clock, Tully came downstairs to wake her mother and tell her to go to bed. Aunt Lena had long gone to her rooms. What does my aunt do all day? thought Tully. Every day she’s by herself, sitting there, watching TV, knitting; knitting what? She always has the knitting needles in her hands, but I never see any knitting. I’m convinced she’s had the same ball of yarn in her plastic bag since Uncle Charlie died four years ago. Poor Aunt Lena. I’m afraid mother and I aren’t such good company. But then, neither is Aunt Lena. If she really is knitting, she’s knitting with one needle, for sure.

Upstairs, Tully washed her face and brushed her teeth. After staring at herself in the mirror for a few seconds, she got a pair of tweezers from the medicine cabinet and plucked her eyebrows. In her room she took off her jeans, baggy sweater, socks, bra. She used to not wear a bra under her baggy sweaters, but her mother had recently taken to giving her surprise quizzes, and Tully made sure she was always prepared. Putting on an old summer tank top, Tully climbed into bed. She left the light on, lay on her back, and looked around her room.

The walls were painted light brown and stood bare of all the trappings of obsessive teenagehood – no pictures of the Dead or the Doors, no Beatles, no Stones, no Eagles, no Pink Floyd. Not even her favorite Pink Floyd. No Robert Redford, John Travolta, Andy Gibb. No Mikhail Baryshnikov, Isadora Duncan, Twyla Tharp. No postcards, no photographs obvious to the eye. No bookshelves, no books. No records. Near the window there was an old wooden table that served as a desk, a makeup stand, and a bed for Tully. In front of the table there was one chair. There was an old dresser by the corner near the closet. On the nightstand near the bed, there was a lamp and a phone. Tully did not have a TV, but she had a small AM/FM radio.

And that is all Tully saw as she lay in her bed and fought sleep. But she knew that in the closet, four milk crates belonged to her: one was filled with National Geographics, a subscription gift from Jennifer, and the others with all the books she had read, ‘presents’ from Jennifer or Julie. And in the top drawer of her table, beneath some general debris there was a photograph of little Tully, about six years old, blond and skinny, flanked by a chubby Jennifer and a dark-haired Julie. In the photo, Tully held a toddler in her arms.

Tully fought sleep for about an hour or two. She turned and tossed. She sat up, rolled her head, rocked back and forth. She laughed, stuck out her tongue, mumbled. Getting out of bed to open the window, she stuck her head out – it was cold, nearly freezing – Tully thought of screaming at the top of her lungs. But the Kansas Pike, the trains, the river, were already screaming. No one would hear Tully. Leaving the window open, she got back into bed and pulled up the covers. Finally she was restlessly asleep, sleeping just as she was awake, tossing and turning, rolling her head back and forth, rocking on her back. Tully kicked back the covers and lifted her arms up above her head, then put them back down again, sweating profusely.

As Tully dreams, she finds herself lying on her bed, trying to keep awake; she sleeps and dreams of trying to keep awake, closing her eyes, her head snapping with pre-sleep, but she is sitting up, and finally lying down, finally sleeping in her dreams, and as she sleeps she hears the door open and footsteps creaking on her wooden floor. The footsteps are slow and careful; Tully tries to open her eyes, but she can’t, she shakes her head from side to side, side to side, but it’s no good; the footsteps are close to her, they are next to her, she feels someone bending over her – to kiss her? – and then – the pillow, the pillow over her face, as she flails her arms up and twists, but the body is on top of her, holding her down, and she is twisting, twisting, she tries to scream, but she cannot open her mouth, there is no breath, she is choking, wheezing soundlessly. Tully tries to draw her knees up, but there is a body on top of her, holding her down, the pillow, oh no oh no oh no – and then she comes to, sitting up sharply, gasping for breath, drenched with sweat.

She panted and wheezed, her eyes closed; she panted, her hands around her drawn up knees; she tried to get her breath back. Then she went to the bathroom and threw up. She took a shower, dried herself, put on a sweat suit, and sat behind her desk in front of the open window. She sat there in the cold until her head was too heavy to hold up, and she put it down on her wooden desk. When she heard the first birds, Tully fell asleep.

5

Robin wanted to come and pick Tully up on Homecoming day. He also wanted to meet her mother. But Tully thought it was a bad idea and said so.

‘Tully, but I’m tired of playing these games. Involving Jennifer, lying, sneaking about. There’s got to be a better way.’

‘Sure there’s a better way,’ said Tully. ‘You can go out with another girl.’

‘She can’t be that much of an ogre,’ said Robin. ‘Doesn’t she want you to have a good time?’

‘I haven’t thought about it,’ said Tully vaguely. ‘Probably not.’ She only hits me in the face, because she knows it’s the only place I care about, Tully thought. Good time? I don’t think so.

‘Don’t you think she’d like me?’ Robin asked her.

Tully sighed. ‘I’m sure she’d like you, Robin.’ she said. ‘You’re very likable.’

‘How are you getting to Home Bowl? Are you walking?’

‘Sure, why not?’

Tully heard Robin’s breathing through the receiver. ‘Let me get you a bike,’ he said at last.

She laughed. ‘Robin, I don’t need a bike. Thanks, anyway,’ said Tully.’

Tully walked over to Julie’s on an October Saturday afternoon and Julie’s dad drove them to Home Bowl at Washburn University. The Topeka High Trojans played all their home games but one at Home Bowl. The girls cheered on the Homecoming football heroes and tried to get Jennifer’s attention, but she seemed so busy throwing her pom-poms that she did not notice them.

Robin arrived shortly before the game. Tully introduced him to Julie and Tom and then climbed down the bleachers to say hi to Jennifer, who was sitting on the ground during a short break. Jennifer stared at Tully and didn’t say a word.

She’s silent a lot these days, thought Tully. Not just quiet, for Tully spent many quiet years in Jennifer’s company, but silent. Like a voice stopped talking inside Jennifer’s head and she was just sitting around waiting for her body to go silent as well. Like a TV with the sound permanently off. Maybe that thing is coming back into Jen again. But so late?’

‘I gotta go, Tull,’ said Jennifer at last, getting up from the grass.

‘Go on, go on,’ said Tully. ‘Go and cheerlead us into victory.’

Tully climbed back up, and she and Julie tried to figure out which uniform-clad butt was Jack’s.

‘Didn’t Jen say he was number thirty?’ said Tully.

‘Is he a linebacker?’ asked Julie.

‘He’s a throwbacker,’ Tully replied.

‘He is the captain of the football team,’ interjected Tom.

‘Yes, he is, isn’t he?’ said Tully icily.

Despite the relentless rain that started in the first quarter and did not let up, the High Trojans won 12-10, and afterward the two couples went to the Sizzler. Robin had to relay drive, since he was the only one with a car – a two-seater. Jennifer stayed with the cheerleaders. Before Tully and Julie left, they hollered on three, ‘Well done, Jen!’ but she didn’t look up.

Twirling her pom-poms, Jennifer stood there with rain falling on her face, unable to see in front of her. She thought of being eight and running home with Tully after they got caught in a terrific Kansas summer storm. In the end, they got a little frightened and, drenched, climbed under someone’s porch and huddled together. And Tully, getting out her sodden handkerchief and wringing it, was laughing and tenderly wiping Jennifer’s face – her forehead, her cheeks, her mouth, her eyes. Jennifer could smell Tully’s breath – warm fruit gum – and see Tully’s own wet face. That is what Jennifer thought of, when she looked and looked but couldn’t see Jack in front of her.

The Homecoming dance was in the Topeka High School cafeteria. Their Senior Banquet later that year, catered and all, would also be in the Topeka High School cafeteria. Not that it was a bad cafeteria – it had a fireplace and everything. It was just amazing to Tully how she never left the school unless she went up to College Hill. I wonder if the Senior Prom is going to be in the cafeteria, too. The Junior Prom was.

Tully killed most of the four hours until Mr Martinez came to get them at eleven by dancing. Mostly with Robin, but Robin didn’t seem to want to be there, not even to dance with Tully. When she rubbed up against him, though, she felt hardness against her leg and thought, Well, maybe he does want to be here after all.

Julie was arguing with Tom, and Jennifer was standing in the corner. Tully went over to Jennifer.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ Tully said, guiding Jennifer onto the dance floor. ‘You seem so out of it.’

Jennifer grunted something incomprehensible in reply, something about bad wet weather and Tully’s not being there.

‘What are you talking about? I was there.’

Jennifer mumbled something.

‘What?’

‘I said, I couldn’t see him…the rain.’

Tully stopped dancing. ‘We were talking about me a second ago. Who are you talking about? Jack?’

Jennifer looked at Tully with sweet sad eyes. ‘Jack,’ she said, and before Tully could ask, was dragged away by her cheerleader buddies.

In a little while, Tully left with Robin, but the name, ‘Jack’ continued to ring in her ears. Jack, Jen said. Or, Jack? Tully wasn’t sure if Jennifer meant it as an answer or a question.

Jennifer stood in the corner, sipped her Coke, and watched Tully leave with Robin. Julie was busy with Tom, and Jack was just plain busy. Often, Jennifer couldn’t even find him. He would dance with this girl and that, or stand and laugh with his friends. His other friends. His team won and he reaped the accolades. He was the captain. Too busy to come near her. Two girls came around collecting ballots for Homecoming Queen. Jennifer had forgotten to fill hers out, so now she scribbled Tully’s name and put the paper in the basket. ‘I think Shakie’s gonna win,’ said the shorter girl.

‘Shakie?’ asked Jennifer.

‘Shakie, Jen! She is only on your cheerleader squad,’ said the girl. ‘Last year’s Homecoming Queen.’

Oh. Shakie. Yeah. I guess. But can Shakie dance? And then Jen saw Shakie dancing with Jack, and all she could think of was that at least it was a fast song and they weren’t touching each other. Not like we were touching during ‘Wild Horses,’ she thought. Where is that Tully? Tully, Tully, Tully. Please come back.

Jennifer stood there for a little while longer and then decided to go home. She walked slowly around the dance floor. Then she heard his voice. ‘Oh, Jennifer, ohhhhh, Jennifer! Where do you think you’re going?’

Holding her breath, she turned around and faced Jack. ‘Where are you going, Jennifer? I thought we were going to dance.’ Her mouth began to widen to a smile, and just then two of his teammates and some girls ran up, giggling, talking, and grabbed his arms and pulled him away. Jack just made a face, a what-are-they-doing-to-me face, but not an I’m-sorry-we-didn’t-get-to-dance face. Jennifer watched him being dragged away and then went home.

At eleven, Mr Martinez came to drive Julie and Tully home. Julie was sullen; she was thinking of breaking up with Tom again. She wanted to tell Tom she did not want to see him anymore. All they ever did was argue about politics. They took their history club and their current events club with them everywhere. But what’s the point of breaking up? she thought. It’s not like I have anyone else I like. At least this way I have someone to go out with. Julie was sad. She really wanted to like somebody. She wondered if Tully liked Robin. She could never tell with Tully. Julie looked over at her friend. Tully was sitting with her head thrown back against the seat and her eyes closed. She is always kind of the same on the outside, thought Julie. What’s not to like about Robin?’

There had been several boys who were interested in Tully, several who even spoke to Julie about her, but Tully was always so indifferent. Julie would have liked to like a guy like Robin. If a guy as handsome as Robin with a Corvette really liked Julie? She’d never leave his side. Tully, however, was the type who wouldn’t care if her guy drove a beat-up Mustang and wore jeans and T-shirts all day. Tully always was the kind of girl, Julie thought, who did not jump up and down for a guy. Any guy. Kind of like Julie herself. Would Tully like to jump up and down? Julie wondered. Would I? Would Tully ever tell us if she fell in love? Julie didn’t think so. Jennifer likes Jack, Julie thought, she likes Jack hard, it’s obvious as the eyes on her face, and look where it’s getting her. Jen’s regressing again to her old ways, for sure. She hasn’t been this bad for some time.

Julie had been seeing Tom since the Junior Prom, but their sexual relationship had never developed. They made out often, and once or twice Tom felt her breasts, but he was awkward, and she wasn’t into it at all; it didn’t do anything for Julie when Tom touched her, so they stopped and discussed politics instead. Watching Tully sit there with her eyes closed, Julie wondered if she and Robin had just had sex. If they did, Julie knew it would be far from the first time for Tully. Tully apparently had some pretty interesting years. Tully told her best friends about some of the boys she met in those bars. Julie had felt that some of the boys were disrespectful to Tully, but now, as she said good-bye to her friend, came home, and sat down with her parents to watch ‘Saturday Night Live,’ Julie wished someone would be disrespectful to her.

6

The following week Gail called Robin up to scream at him for ignoring her at the Homecoming dance, and in a heated discussion told Robin some nasty things about Tully that he did not want to hear and did not believe. But something rotten got inside him, so he got indignant and hung up, and on the ride from Manhattan to Topeka to pick Tully up from school, he could not stop thinking about it.

Tully climbed into his car, kissed him on the lips, and smiled. He did not smile back, but revved the engine and drove.

‘Robin, what’s the matter?’ Tully said after a while.

‘Nothing,’ he said, and continued to say it was nothing. He told her he’d had a bad day at work, this and that and the other thing. Tully had to be home before Hedda, around six. Robin and Tully went to ‘their’ deserted lot again. It wasn’t actually deserted, it was the after-work parking lot of the Frito-Lay factory. It was far from her house, as far as they could go without actually leaving Topeka, but somehow that Frito-Lay sign was familiar to them already.

They parked in the farthest corner of the parking lot and had sex. It wasn’t so cold that afternoon, even though it was nearly November. Robin did not leave the car on, and Tully moaned a little again and he came fast again. He lay on top of her and thought of asking her if she liked it, if she came, if she ever came, if maybe next time she wanted to go to a motel or something, but he asked her none of these things, saying instead, ‘Tully, are you a virgin?’ Knowing full well that she could not be.

Tully laughed. ‘Robin, that’s a very funny thing to be asking me after we just had sex. Yes, Robin, of course I’m a virgin. What else could I be after having sex with you?’ She laughed some more, but he didn’t laugh. He got off her, pulled up his pants, and climbed over the stick shift to the driver’s seat.

‘You know what I mean,’ he said. ‘Were you a virgin before me?’

She moved the chair from horizontal to vertical, found her underwear, put them on, pulled down her skirt, buttoned her blouse. Then sat and looked at her hands and said nothing.

‘Tully, are you going to answer me?’

‘No, Robin, I’m not.’

‘Why? I’m just curious. I simply would like to know.’

‘It’s none of your business.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘That means take me to Jen’s, Robin, right now.’

He started the car, began to drive. This just was not going the way he wanted it to. Tully was not playing ball. But he was angry with her now and needed her to be angry back.

‘Tully, I heard that you had a reputation in school. I heard,’ he said, feeling braver, ‘that you were labeled the girl most likely to.’

‘Oh, you heard that, did you?’ she sneered. ‘You must have heard that from one of my friends.’

‘Well?’

‘Well, what? Well fucking what?’

‘Do you?’

‘Robin!’ she shouted. ‘It’s none of your goddamned business!’

He persisted. ‘I think it is my business. You are my girl now, and I don’t want people to be talking behind your back about you.’

She laughed an awful laugh. ‘I’m your girl? Since when am I your girl?’

He was baffled. ‘I thought it was understood.’

‘Nothing is understood, Robin. I am not your girl and you are not my boy. We meet once in a while and you take me to lunch and then fuck me in your car! Let’s not make a mountain out of that, shall we?’ Her voice was loud and cold.

‘And tell me something,’ Tully said. ‘If you thought for a moment that I was a virgin, is this what I got from you, is this the very best you had to give a virgin, taking my virginity from me in your Corvette, without even keeping the engine on? Is this your very best, you asshole?’

‘Okay, Tully, okay,’ he said. ‘I got my answer.’

‘Yeah, you got your fucking answer, all right,’ she said. He drove her to Sunset Court, and she got out of the car, slammed the door, walked into Jennifer’s house, and did not look back.

Robin went home feeling like shit. It did not go as well as he had hoped at all. Maybe it was difficult for a thing like that to go well. Maybe she was right. Maybe it was none of his business. But what should he do? She wasn’t his girl? It had only been about four weeks, but he liked her, that much was obvious. How she felt was less obvious – Tully always had the mental equivalent of one arm’s length, maybe two, separating herself from him. But he didn’t want to stop seeing her. Stop seeing her and do what? Go back to Gail?

Robin worked and moped for a couple of days. Being at home depressed him and now there was not even a Tully on Sunday to look forward to. Robin’s dad was home from the hospital. There was nothing more a hospital could do. Stephen DeMarco, Sr, had been sick with lung cancer for about six months now and the whole family was waiting for him to die, Robin included, because he could not stand the sight of his father in pain, or worse, on morphine – delirious, debilitated, and dying. The entire house smelled of chloroform and death. To make himself feel better, Robin took Gail out to dinner, apologized to her, brought her back to his house, and had sex with her, all the while thinking of Tully groaning beneath him, her arms wrapped tightly around his neck.

Two weeks passed, and Robin couldn’t stand it anymore. One day he left work early and drove over to Topeka High. He sat in front of the main entrance for two hours without turning the radio on.

Jennifer and Julie walked out of the school together, schoolbooks against their chests, and when Robin saw Jennifer and Julie looking at him, he thought: they know. They know, and they think I’m an asshole. Robin asked them where he could find Tully. He was surprised by their answer. Washburn University Day Care?

Driving over to Washburn University, he parked on the southwestern corner of the campus and watched Tully through a wire fence play with a group of children. The sign on the fence read KEEP OUT. PRIVATE PROPERTY. WASHBURN UNIVERSITY NURSERY AND DAY CARE. Robin noticed all the kids clung to her, and Tully, bending down or kneeling in front of them, listened to each of them speak. Then the children chased her around the playground at manic speed and she ran from them a little slower so that they could catch her. Robin saw that Tully was laughing, and the kids were laughing, too.

Robin waited until five o’clock and then beeped the horn. Tully saw him, and slowly came through the gate to the car. She did not get in.

‘Please get in, I want to talk to you,’ Robin said.

She got in.

‘I gotta get home. My mother’s home by six o’clock.’ Robin drove to the Potwin Elementary School, a block away from the Grove, and parked there.

‘So what’s this about the day-care center?’

She shrugged. ‘Just something I do on Thursday afternoons.’

‘Every Thursday afternoon?’

‘Sure.’

‘For how long?’

Tully rubbed her hands together. ‘This is my third year.’

‘For God’s sake, why?’

Tully shrugged again. ‘All the teachers – they’re all older. The kids need someone young to play with.’

Robin touched her hair tenderly. ‘It’s obvious they like you.’

‘Yeah, you don’t know what we play. I’m the Wicked Witch of the West, and they’re supposed to kill me when they catch me.’

Robin smiled. ‘You like children, Tully.’

‘Yes, for two hours a week, I like other people’s children,’ she said, moving away from his hand on her hair.

Robin cleared his throat. ‘Listen, I’m sorry about the other day. I didn’t mean to upset you. Please go out with me again, and if you don’t want to tell me anything, I won’t ask you. You can set the rules, Tull, just don’t break up with me.’

Tully was glad he had come. She missed him, but she also thought it was a good time to be honest with him about some things. ‘Robin, I’ll be glad to go out with you,’ Tully said. ‘I like you, you’re a nice guy, but you just have to understand a couple of things about me. One – I don’t much like to talk about my business. And two –’ Tully struggled to find the right words. ‘And two, this – we – can at best be a temporary thing.’ She felt a little tight inside seeing his reaction, his blank stare, a hurt, mute face. What does he expect? she thought. What the hell did he think was going to happen?

‘Robin, what?’

‘Why temporary, Tully?’ he asked.

‘Robin, because I have plans. I got plans.’ That just don’t include you.

‘Plans?’ he said wearily.

‘Yes. I’m a senior, you know. I’m going to be eighteen years old. I’m going to do something with my life.’

‘Like what? Dance?’

Tully shook her head. ‘No dancing. All that practice, all that competition, those grueling hours, that’s not a life, not a life for me, anyway. From one jail to another,’ she said. ‘No, I like to dance, been dancing since I was young. You could say’ – she half smiled – ‘that dance was my first passion –’

‘That’s nothing to be proud of, Tully,’ Robin said.

‘Who is proud?’ she said defenselessly. ‘I’m not proud of it, that’s just the way it is.’

‘So pursue it.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to be trapped by dancing.’ She rubbed her hands together. ‘Classical dance is out of the question and every other kind involves taking your clothes off.’ And I just don’t want to take my clothes off. She never had been able to spend the hundred-dollar bill she won the time she took off her shirt during a dance contest in Tortilla Jack’s on College Hill.

‘You don’t seem like you much want to be trapped by anything,’ said Robin.

‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘So?’

Robin wanted to know what else was there.

‘College.’

‘Good, college is good,’ he said. ‘So?’

She sighed. ‘Jennifer and I are applying to Stanford. My grades aren’t great. I’ll never get in of course…’ she trailed off.

Robin interrupted her. ‘Stanford. That’s an Ivy League-type school. Where is that?’

‘California, actually,’ said Tully.

‘California?’ exclaimed Robin. ‘I see. So what do you plan to do at this Stanford?’

‘If you’d let me finish, I said I’ll never get in. But UC Santa Cruz is nearby, so I applied there too. Get a degree, get a job, dance on the weekends, see the ocean,’ said Tully.

‘A degree in what?’

‘Whatever. Who cares? A degree.’

‘What about Jennifer?’

‘Jen is going to be a doctor. A pediatrician. Or a child psychiatrist.’

‘And Jennifer wants to do this, too, does she? Go to California?’

‘Of course she does,’ said Tully. ‘She suggested it.’

‘Oh, well, then I guess that’s that,’ said Robin, looking away into the side window. ‘I guess that’s that.’

Tully sat quietly. ‘So I see,’ said Robin.

‘So what do you want to go out with me for? Do you just want me to tide you over till next year?’

‘Next year?’ said Tully. ‘I was thinking more like till next week.’

‘Yes,’ said Robin. ‘Oh, yes, I’m sure,’ he said sarcastically, hitting the wheel. ‘I’m sure. So, Tully, tell me, what do you want to be, in California, when you grow up?’

‘Dream-free,’ replied Tully.

FOUR Winter

November 1978

‘What do you mean, you want to go to California with Tully?’ said Lynn. Tony stopped eating his steak.

‘I mean,’ said Jennifer, ‘just what I said. We want to go to California. We are going to California.’

‘What are you talking about?’ said Tony. ‘You are going to Harvard. I thought it was all agreed.’

Jennifer shook her head. ‘We’ve applied to Stanford. That’s where we’re going.’

Lynn and Tony exchanged a long look. Lynn said, ‘Jenny Lynn, honey, whose idea is that? Is it Tully’s?’

Tony raised his voice. ‘Of course it’s Tully’s! Tully, Tully, Tully! I’m tired of hearing that girl’s name!’ He turned to his wife. ‘I kept telling you she was a bad seed!’ And then to Jennifer, ‘What do you want to do, Jennifer? What do you want?’

‘I want to go to California,’ Jennifer said stubbornly.

‘Goddamn it!’ shouted Tony, throwing his fork down on the plate. It made a loud noise that rang in everybody’s ears. ‘I will not let that girl make a loser out of you, Jennifer! I will not let that girl make another her out of you.’

Lynn asked Tony to lower his voice. Jennifer put her utensils down and laid her hands on her lap. ‘Dad. Going to Stanford is not a loser thing to do. It just isn’t.’

Lynn and Tony talked for a while, heatedly and passionately at first, then slowly, pretending to be reasonable. Jennifer withdrew completely and watched as her parents argued with one another about just who was responsible for letting this happen to their Jennifer.

‘You’re the one who is always here talking to her!’ yelled Tony.

‘Yes, and you’re the one who is never here talking to her!’ Lynn yelled back.

Tony said, ‘I told you and told you about that girl. And you wanted to bring her into this house. I told you: she is no good, Lynn. She came from no good and she will come to no good, and in between she will do no good for anybody. That’s Tully.’

‘That’s not true, Dad,’ said Jennifer. ‘Tully will come to good. She will. You watch. Tully wants to help kids. Be a psychologist, maybe.’

‘Help kids? Tully is not helped herself!’ Tony screamed. ‘A psychologist? Jennifer, to be a psychologist, one needs to like to talk! And your friend Tully is nearly a deaf-mute!’

‘Dad! What are you talking about?’ Jennifer said. ‘To be a bad psychologist, one needs to like to talk. To be a good one, one needs to like to listen. And Tully is not a deaf-mute, Dad. Just because you don’t hear her, she is not a deaf-mute. She’s not the one.’

Standing up, Jen cut her father off before he began again. ‘Dad, Dad! Besides! This is not about Tully, goddamn it!’ she screamed, backhanding her glass of Coke across the room. It smashed against the dining room wall and shattered loudly, echoing through the quiet house. Her parents sat there and did not react. Lynn finally said sadly, ‘Jenny, we thought you always wanted to go to Harvard.’

‘No, Mom,’ said Jennifer. ‘No. You always wanted to go to Harvard.’

‘Well, honey, there is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with Harvard.’

‘Yes. And there is nothing wrong with Stanford either.’

How to tell them, how to explain just how much she wanted to go to California! How to explain to them that her poor Tully just wanted to be close to her. Alone upstairs, Jennifer laughed softly. They’d never believe it if I told them. They’d never believe that California is not Tully’s idea at all. How little it actually has to do with Tully. Jennifer strongly suspected that, left to her own devices and despite all her protestations, despite all the maps and all the dreams and all the talk of palm trees, left to herself, Tully would not go to California. Oh, Tull would certainly disagree with that, certainly. But Jennifer just had a feeling about it. Without Jennifer, Tully would never go. But how to tell her parents that? And how to tell them that despite a number of colleges nationwide wanting him to play football for them, Jennifer alone knew that Jack Pendel, nineteen years old this November, captain of the High Trojans for the second straight year, would be going nowhere else but Palo Alto.

2

‘…Take me now

Baby, here as I am

Pull me close

Try to understand

Desire and hunger’s the fire I breathe

Love is a banquet on which we feed…’

Robin was singing very loudly in the shower. It was Saturday night, and he was going to see Tully. Somehow – miraculously! – she made Saturday night happen. He booked the best room at the Holiday Inn three days ago when she told him she could make it.

Robin got out of the shower and toweled himself off in front of a huge floor-to-ceiling mirror. The mirror was all fogged up, but Robin ran a towel over it and then stepped back to look at himself. ‘Hmm, I look pretty good,’ he said aloud, and got dressed.

His great mood was marred only by the anxiety of leaving his family store’s money to be counted on the busiest day of the week by a nineteen-year-old assistant. I really need to relax, man, thought Robin, pulling on his best tan slacks and a Polo sweater. Look at my brothers.

Stephen DeMarco, Sr, too ill to get out of bed, left his store to be managed by his three sons, but Robin’s brothers were not at all interested in the family business. Bruce and Stevie were too busy dating and playing ball. Dating and playing ball was all Bruce and Steve wanted to do.

Stevie was a sophomore at Kansas State University at Manhattan, majoring in rugby, beer, and girls, while Bruce had been playing the guitar since his high school graduation five years ago. He was ‘trying to find himself.’ At present, he had apparently found himself in dairy products. Bruce became convinced that he could ‘self-actualize’ only through farming, and, with that in mind, he bought, with his dad’s help, a hundred-acre farm twenty miles north of Manhattan. Replete with horses, chickens, and corn. So instead of wearing Pierre Cardin suits and Polo shirts like Robin, Bruce wore overalls and got up with the cows. He played his guitar to the horses, and they seemed to like that; so did the girls.

That left only Robin to work the store. Before Tully, Robin worked the entire seven days the store was open. When he told Tully that he was off Sundays, he wasn’t telling the truth. The truth was that Robin hadn’t taken off a Sunday in seven years, but seeing that Tully could drag a dying Doberman single-handedly off the road, Robin figured he could also show some backbone and take off one day. He realized, though, that no one knew the merchandise as he did, no one could sell it as he did, no one could offer the customer exactly the right thing or know the customer’s style and size and price just by the way the customer dressed and talked, quite as Robin did.

And then, of course, there was the small question of cash. Not much was cash – mostly it was VISA and personal checks. But on a good Sunday, there could also be five hundred to a thousand dollars in small bills. Okay, okay, no big deal, he was insured against theft, and in any case what was a grand to a company whose annual gross sales were nearly $2 million? But theft! And there were plenty of ways to steal from him. There were some expensive Ralph Lauren and Pierre Cardin shirts in his store. Some pricey ties and belts, some $200 Bally shoes. Robin’s floor guys could just walk off with three or four $75 shirts, and that wouldn’t make Robin happy at all. So he methodically made note of the merchandise on display, and the following day matched what was missing to the receipts in the register. It was neurotic, he knew, but he just hated the thought of being taken.

Robin put on Paco Rabanne and blow-dried his hair. After a few months of taking off Sundays, Robin locked the supply room, locked away the inventory sheets, and began to take off Wednesdays, too. A couple of times he brought Tully to Manhattan on Saturdays to watch him play soccer in the afternoons. Playing soccer on Saturday afternoons felt to Robin like cutting school – wrong and slightly delicious. Usually he went back to the store after a few hours, but not tonight.

‘…Because the night Belongs to lovers…’

he sang, locking the house and starting up his car.

‘…Because the night Belongs to us…’

Even though Robin was fretting about work, he was thinking of Tully most of all.

He was stroking her hair after they had just finished making love.

‘Tully,’ Robin whispered. ‘Tully.’

‘What, Robin, what?’

‘You do this with many guys?’

She laughed. ‘Well, never in a Holiday Inn.’ She looked around the room. ‘Nice. Great bed. I’ve never been on a bed like this before. This big.’

‘I’m serious.’

‘Yeah, I’m sure you are.’ She smiled and sighed. ‘Not so many.’

‘Do you remember your first?’

She stiffened, and her body became lifeless. ‘Who doesn’t?’ she said evenly. ‘Don’t you?’

‘Sure.’ He smiled. ‘It was with an older woman. Meg. She came into Dad’s store, you know, to buy something for her husband.’

‘But was looking for something for herself, too?’ offered Tully.

‘I guess,’ Robin said. ‘A little for herself.’

‘How much older?’ Tully wanted to know.

‘I was sixteen, she was twenty-five.’

‘Kind of like you and me, reversed,’ said Tully.

‘Kind of,’ said Robin. Except that for Meg he had felt nothing but gratitude. ‘Was your first older, too?’

‘Yeah,’ said Tully. ‘He was older.’

‘How old were you?’

‘I,’ said Tully, ‘was younger.’

3

‘Is this all you got?’ said Tully to Julie in early December. The girls were getting ready for their Senior Banquet. As always, Tully was borrowing a dress from Julie, who was about two sizes larger with bigger breasts. Tonight’s dress was flower print. ‘Got anything black?’

‘No, Tully, I don’t have anything black. Don’t be so picky.’

‘All right, all right,’ said Tully. ‘I’m a beggar, after all.’

‘You’re not a beggar, Tully. I just don’t have anything, all right?’

‘All right,’ Tully said, putting on the dress. ‘God, look at me,’ she said in front of the mirror. ‘I look like a bouquet. Hope nobody comes up and smells me or pins me to their chest like a corsage.’

Julie rolled her eyes, and Tully laughed.

‘Tully, how did you get your mom to let you stay out so late on a school night?’

‘Oh, you know. Jen this, Jen that. Of course I’m not going with a boy, Mom, to even think! This is not the prom, you know! This is a dinner for us seniors! So we can get to know each other better.’

‘And she bought it, huh?’

‘Yeah, well, she’s a little suspicious. She wants Jen to come in and say hi to her. At midnight! But that’s my mother. Suspicious for the right reasons but at the wrong time.’

‘How is Robin?’ asked Julie.

‘Fine,’ said Tully. ‘How is Tom?’

‘Fine.’ Julie cleared her throat. ‘Umm, speaking of Tom, will you ever tell me what you meant by your cute remarks back on Jen’s birthday?’

‘God, Jule, you got a long memory. Why haven’t you said anything before?’

‘I’ve been busy,’ Julie said. ‘I just thought of it.’

‘Don’t think so much about it,’ said Tully.

‘Well?’

‘Well, what? Julie, I got him mixed up with another guy.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ said Julie.

‘So what the hell are you asking me for?’

‘Please tell me, Tully. I won’t be upset. It really doesn’t matter.’

‘Well, if it really doesn’t matter,’ Tully mimicked Julie’s voice, ‘then what the hell are you asking me for?’

‘He was there, wasn’t he? In some club? And he made a pass at you, before he even knew who you were, and you must have turned him down, didn’t you? And this really riled him, really really did, because, you see, he was under the impression that you didn’t turn anybody down. That’s what happened, isn’t it?’

Tully bent her head for a few minutes, and when she looked up, she said, quieter, ‘Well, Julie. Since you think you know everything, what the hell are you asking me for?’

‘Do I? Do I know everything?’

‘Yes,’ said Tully, taking her friend by the shoulders and spinning her towards the door. ‘You know everything.’

‘Is that really what happened?’ Julie asked Tully when they were on their way to Topeka High in Jen’s Camaro.

‘Yes, uh-huh,’ said Tully. ‘Don’t think about it so much. Does it bother you?’

‘No, uh-uh. What Tom did before he met me is his own business. It amuses me, though.’ She turned around in the front seat to face Tully in the back and saw Tully’s slightly embarrassed face.

‘What?’ said Julie. ‘What kind of an expression is that –’ And then her eyes opened up and her mouth, too. ‘Ahhhh,’ she said. ‘Wait. I don’t know everything, do I? I thought of everything, except the when, didn’t I? Well, Tully, you did say it was over a year ago.’

‘I was using the term “year” loosely,’ said Tully. Jennifer stifled a laugh.

‘So exactly when was it, then?’ said Julie. ‘Try to be specific.’

‘August,’ said Tully.

‘What? This August? The one that just passed?’

‘Yes, uh-huh,’ said Tully, and her face became blank and inscrutable.

Julie faced the front again, mouth slightly ajar. ‘What do ya know,’ she said. ‘Well, I’ll be damned.’

‘Forget it, Julie,’ said Jennifer.

‘Yeah, Jule, it’s no big deal,’ echoed Tully.

‘Yeah,’ said Julie. ‘No big deal.’

When the three of them were walking toward Topeka High, Julie leaned over and asked Tully, ‘Listen, tell me, did you refuse him because you were my friend or because you just didn’t like him?’

Tully put her arm around Julie. ‘I refused,’ she said, ‘because I am your friend. But if I wasn’t your friend, I would have also refused, because I don’t like him.’

Makker, Mandolini, and Martinez – or the 3Ms – sat at the same table in the decorated cafeteria. The food was nondescript, to go with the nondescript music. But after dinner, everyone was able to walk around to the other tables. Tully saw Jennifer pass by Jack’s table. He waved to her, and she waved back but didn’t stop. Tully was amused but became less amused when afterwards Jennifer was mute for a half hour until Tully dragged her out to what was passing for a dance floor and the girls danced together, their flushed faces inches away from one another.

Gail was there, looking almost nice in a blue dress and new hair, Tully thought grudgingly. Tully stopped by Gail’s table to talk to a guy in her math class, and Gail did not even look Tully’s way. Strolling over to Gail, Tully lowered her head and said quietly, ‘I’d ask you to dance, but I can’t take your rejection.’

‘Get away from me, you tramp,’ said Gail.

Tully recoiled as if her mother had slapped her. But her face was a Tullyface, and she coldly smiled when she said, ‘Gail, you’re a sore loser.’

‘Get away from me,’ Gail repeated, shaking.

‘Ooops, what I meant was,’ said Tully, ‘Gail, you’re just a plain loser.’

Tully and Jennifer danced together some more. There wasn’t much of a dance floor and there wasn’t much dance music, either. Wait till the prom, the girls said to each other, and then Jack, in a suit and unshaven, walked over and took Jennifer’s upper arm and asked if he could cut in. When he said it, however, he stared right at Tully, making her go red. Watching them dance, without touching each other, Tully felt even more uncomfortable, feeling another stab of the anxiety that moved her at Jennifer’s party. Tully saw in Jennifer’s face lost deer and something else, too. Insanity. Sheer, raw, naked insanity. All she needs is a straitjacket for that expression she’s got on her face. She never talks about him! thought Tully. She never talks about him, yet where does it all go? Where does all that’s behind the crazy look on her face go? Who sees it? Not me. And if not me, who? Julie? No, Julie and I both have no clue. Does he see it? I hope so, thought Tully, I fucking hope so.

And then the inexplicable happened. When the song ended, Jack and Jennifer came over to Tully. A new song began. Yvonne Elliman not wanting nobody baby if she couldn’t have you, and Jack asked Tully if she wanted to dance.

‘You’re famous, Tully,’ he said. ‘Let’s dance.’

Tully shot Jennifer a quick look. She seemed fine about it, if a bit vacant. And then Tully and Jack danced. Tully toned it down so much that she even heard some guy shout from across the room, ‘Come on, Tully Makker! Show him your stuff!’

But Tully wasn’t going to be showing Jack any of her stuff with Jennifer standing there looking at them. Tully made sure she barely touched him. He was much taller than she was, even with her heels. Tully usually danced with her eyes closed unless she was drunk, but tonight she wasn’t drunk and her eyes were open. She casually looked up into his face. Jack smiled at her, and again Tully saw something in his eyes. Something…clear.

‘Jack-ieeee!’ squealed a voice near Tully. She turned around. A girl was standing next to them. Shakie Lamber. Everyone knew Shakie. She was the Homecoming Queen.

‘Jack-ieeee!’ whined Shakie again. ‘Pleeeease, can I cut in?’

‘Do you want to dance with me or Tully?’ asked Jack.

Shakie gave Tully a perfunctory smile. ‘With you, of course, I’m afraid Tully is just too good for me.’

‘Well, then, you’ll have to ask Tully if you can cut in, won’t you?’ said Jack.

‘Be my guest,’ said Tully, relieved to get off the floor and not be stared at anymore by Jennifer.

Soon the noise got to be too much for Jennifer. She never liked noise, and Tully joined her in a walk down the school corridors.

‘How many lockers on the first floor?’ asked Tully, passing by the front doors.

‘Counting the ones in the Admin office and the wings? Five hundred and twenty.’

‘How many handmade bricks did it take to build our school?’

‘Nine hundred thousand,’ answered Jennifer automatically.

‘What’s Topeka High’s minority population?’

‘Piss off,’ said Jennifer, snapping out of it.

Tully smiled. ‘Want to go upstairs to the library?’

‘It’s closed,’ said Jen.

‘Let’s try,’ said Tully, leading her friend up the stairs.

It was open. Tully and Jennifer walked in, softly shutting the door behind them. They sat on the bench near the fireplace with their feet up.

‘God, this place is creepy in the dark,’ said Jennifer. ‘Those stained glass windows seem so pretty during the day, but at night, boy, are they creepy.’

‘I wish the fireplace was lit,’ said Tully, with her back to the stained glass windows. She wasn’t creeped out at all.

‘Soooooo,’ said Jen slowly. ‘Did you and he talk about anything?’

‘What, while we jigged around? No,’ said Tully.

‘Nothing?’ Jennifer wanted to know.

‘Nothing, Mandolini,’ said Tully. ‘If you wanted me to talk to him you should’ve sent me there with a mission. I’ve never spoken two words to him in my entire life. You want me to engage in conversation on the dance floor when your stare is driving me to distraction?’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Jennifer. ‘I didn’t mean to stare. I just thought you might talk, that’s all.’

‘Talk about what?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Jennifer. ‘Something.’

‘Like? The weather? Politics? Football, God help me? You?’

‘You, maybe?’ said Jennifer.

‘Why the hell would we want to talk about me?’

‘Me, then,’ Jennifer said.

‘Now you’re making sense,’ said Tully. ‘We didn’t, though I’m beginning to wish we did, just so you’d stop interrogating me.’

‘It’s okay,’ Jennifer said. ‘Let’s go home.’

Later, in the Camaro, Tully said, ‘Jen, you know, you lost a bit of weight. I noticed when we were dancing, you’re getting this thin waist. Are you dieting?’

‘No, I just kinda go on not being very hungry lately,’ answered Jennifer. ‘Not thin like yours.’

‘No, but then I don’t have boobs like yours, either.’

Jennifer didn’t say anything.

‘Love your car,’ said Tully.

‘Yeah, it’s pretty neat, isn’t it?’

Tully sighed. ‘Okay, that’s it. Jennifer, what do I usually ask you? How’s cheerleading going? Well, tonight I’m gonna ask you something different. How is Jack?’

Silence. ‘Great. You danced with him.’

‘Yes, I did. You did, too. You guys looked good dancing together.’

‘We did?’ Jennifer brightened a little. ‘I always wonder what we look like when we are together. Whether we fit, you know.’

‘I know,’ said Tully. ‘And you do.’ Tully saw it in Jennifer’s eyes again, the mute withdrawal, and changed the subject. ‘When do you think we’ll be hearing from Stanford and UCSC?’

‘February,’ replied Jennifer.

They parked in front of Tully’s house.

‘Do you really want me to come in with you?’ asked Jennifer.

‘You must,’ said Tully. ‘That is, if you want me to live.’

They woke Hedda up, who sat with her head drooped and mouth open in front of the late news. Tully woke her up.

Hedda thanked Jennifer for driving Tully home and asked Tully where she got her pretty dress. Tully actually felt lucky then that she looked like a flower shop.

‘Want to sleep over, Jen?’ Tully turned to her mother. ‘Is that okay, Mom?’

‘Tully!’ Jennifer said. ‘You want me to sleep over? I haven’t asked my own mother.’

Tully nodded. ‘So ask her.’

Jennifer looked briefly away but called her mother and made sure it was all right.

‘Jennifer, how could anything not be all right with your parents?’ Tully said as they were getting ready for bed. ‘If you told them you were heading for Texas to become a tattooed rodeo girl, they’d pay your way.’

‘You’re wrong, Tully,’ said Jen. ‘They’re not happy we’re going to Palo Alto.’

‘Are they paying your way?’ asked Tully, adding, when she saw Jennifer’s expression, ‘See?’

They climbed into Tully’s bed together. When Jennifer was younger she had many nightmares, many bad things frightened her in the night, and Tully, who used to stay over at Jen’s house three, four times a week, would climb into Jennifer’s bed to calm her down. Tully did not mention all the bad things that came to her in the night. The habits of children die hard, and as they got older, Tully did try to sleep on the floor when she stayed over. When she did, it felt as if she and Jen were fighting, so they continued to sleep alongside each other. When Julie stayed over with them, all three girls slept on the floor. In the last few years, Tully seldom slept over with just Jen.

Tully pulled her blanket over them and spooned Jennifer, the only position in which Jen liked to sleep. Tully occasionally wondered through the years what it would be like to be spooned herself, but never brought it up. It was never that important.

Jennifer’s hair smelled faintly of Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific. Tully touched it. Jennifer didn’t stir. She seemed tired, or silent. Uncomfortable?

‘Jen, your hair smells terrific. Jen?’

‘Hmm?’

‘Jennifer? Are you uncomfortable?’

‘Me? No, why should I be uncomfortable?’

‘You go through these things sometimes. You get awkward.’

‘I’m okay, Tully,’ Jennifer answered. ‘I’m glad to be here. I haven’t been here in so long. With you for so long.’ Jen paused. ‘We missed you, Tully, when you weren’t with us.’

Tully swallowed and held Jennifer tighter. ‘I was with you guys, I was constantly over.’

‘Not constantly,’ said Jennifer. ‘Not like before. And never alone with me. Admit it, Tull, you wanted to be away from us.’

‘No, that’s not true,’ said Tully.

‘So why did you do it, then? Why did you stay away?’

‘Who knows? I guess I just wanted to be with people who didn’t know me at all.’

‘Yes, but why?’

‘Because,’ said Tully, ‘I guess I needed some seclusion.’

‘Seclusion? Like anonymity?’

‘Yes, just like that.’

Jen was quiet. ‘Anonymity, like…death?’

‘Yeah,’ said Tully slowly. ‘I guess like death.’ In the dark, she could almost bear it.

‘So would you say that you sort of, like, died during those years?’

‘Yes,’ said Tully. ‘I guess you could say that.’

Jennifer was quiet. ‘Why did you need that so much, all that anonymity? What happened to you that you needed to…die? Did you fall in love with someone? Did something break your heart?’

Tully shook her head. ‘Jenny, I didn’t fall in love. And no one broke my heart.’

‘Tell me, Tully,’ said Jennifer.

After a moment of silence, Tully said softly, ‘Nothing to tell, Mandolini.’

‘Makker, you even stopped playing softball. Come on.’

‘Really,’ said Tully, smelling Jennifer’s hair again. ‘Believe me.’

‘Makker, you are full of shit. You really don’t want to talk about it, do you?’

‘No, Jen, I really don’t.’

‘Well,’ said Jennifer, ‘in any case, I’m glad you came back, Tully. We missed you when you were gone.’

And I missed you, too, guys, thought Tully, but remained silent.

‘Tell me, Tully,’ said Jennifer. ‘Tell me about the first time with your wrists.’

Tully moved away slightly. Jennifer reached around and pulled her back. ‘Go on.’

‘Not much to tell,’ said Tully.

‘Tell me why you do it.’

‘Jennifer, what the hell is wrong with you, what are you asking me this shit for?’

‘Just tell me, Tully,’ whispered Jen. ‘Tell me. Do you do it to die?’

Tully sighed. ‘No,’ she said slowly. ‘I don’t think I do it to die. I do it because I want to feel what death feels like. I just want unconsciousness to wash over me, I do it almost like they did it in the ancient times – to heal myself. And then when all the bad is out of me, I come to and go on.’

Tully trailed off, thinking of the very first time she sat down inside a bathtub filled with water with a double-edged razor in her hand. She thought her young breastless body was all relaxed, but when she put the razor near her wrists, her fingers were shaking so badly, she had to put them back in the water for a few minutes until she calmed down. Am I going to die? thought Tully. I mean, is that what’s going to happen to me? Am I going to die? I’ll cut my wrists and lose consciousness and bleed to death like the Romans did, except that nobody will find me until next week, after I will have been stone dead for so long. Am I going to die? I cannot count on anyone to come and save me, that’s for fucking sure, so before I put this steel blade to my hand and watch my veins pop open like dough out of a Pillsbury can, I want to be sure that I don’t want to die. Tully looked around the bathroom, looked at the towels near her, at the gauze bandage, at the iodine, and thought, I am ready. For whatever. For what-fucking-ever. And she took the blade out of the hot water and sliced an inch-long horizontal gash in her left wrist, thinking Oh, goodness me, my hands are so steady, oh, my goodness me, look at all that blood. She put her wrist down and watched the water near her slowly turn pink. She lifted her hand and, fascinated, watched her prepubescent blood pour down her arm. She touched the blood with her fingers, then tasted it. It was salty and slick. And then Tully cut her other wrist. She put both her hands under the water and closed her eyes, but that wasn’t as good as watching herself bleed. She opened her eyes and lifted both her hands up high, lying down all the way up to her neck in the blood water, and gazed in disbelief as the bright red blood oozed down her arms. It was when Tully’s eyes started to close, it was when she started to hear strange noises and see water and waves and rocks in front of her eyes, it was when she started to smell the salty sea, that Tully thought, It’s time, or I will die. If I don’t get up now, I will die. She felt herself to be in slow motion, moving with all the deliberate speed of a tanker on the horizon – seemingly immobile and soundless – when she lifted her body out of the water and bent over for the towel. Again, rocks were washed over with water in front of her eyes, water broke against the rocks, making gurgling sounds. Gurgling, burbling waves rose up and crashed in front of her, whooshh…whoooshhh…whoooshhh…whooooshhhh…Let me lie down for a moment, Tully thought, just for a moment. But she didn’t. She pulled herself up and grabbed on to the towel instead, pressing it to one wrist, then the other. She kept herself up, kept her arms up, got out of the bath, got another towel, and, wrapping it around the other wrist, pressed her wrists together hard and sat there naked on the cold tile floor, with her arms up and together, eyes closed, trying to will the blood to stop. And it did, eventually. The towels were ruined. Tully didn’t even need to dry herself off, so long had she sat on the floor. When she unwrapped her wrists, her gashes were black and swollen, but no longer fluid. That was good. Pouring iodine on the wounds was not so good. Tully whimpered and grit her teeth, and finally bit her lip to blood to keep herself from screaming.

She bandaged her wrists tight, went to her room, and prayed, swearing to God that she would never, never do that again.

But time passed, and her wounds healed, ragged, jagged scars though they remained. Tully forgot the closeness to death, remembering only the closeness to the waves and the rocks. And so she cut her wrists again some time later, and again and again, longing to be washed away by the salty water.

Jennifer’s back was to Tully. Nudging her and getting no response, Tully sighed and said, ‘Jen, what’s wrong with you?’ feeling tightness around her stomach. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Of course. Why shouldn’t I be?’

Tully patted Jennifer’s shoulder. ‘Jennifer, you’re not playing ball. Want to talk?’

‘Tully, there’s really nothing to talk about.’

‘Don’t I know it,’ said Tully. ‘There never is. You forget who you’re talking to. Still, though,’ she said, using one of Robin’s phrases. ‘Something you want to tell me?’

‘Nothing to tell, Tully,’ said Jennifer sadly. ‘Wish there was.’

Taking a deep breath, Tully said, ‘Jennifer, have you slept with him?’

Jennifer didn’t answer, and then began to cry. Tully was speechless. Crying! She touched Jennifer’s hair and managed only, ‘Please, please.’ Crying, my Lord, over what? I cannot believe, just cannot, is she really crying over –

‘Oh, Tully,’ Jennifer sobbed, sitting up against the wall. Tully sat up, too. Oh, Tully? What the hell was Oh, Tully? Jennifer was smearing tears all over her face with her fist, like she used to when she was young, but God, it had been since about then that Jen last cried in front of Tully. ‘You just don’t understand.’

‘Then explain it to me,’ said Tully softly.

‘It’s nothing like you think.’

Tully thought Jen was wrong there. Tully was afraid it was exactly as she thought.

‘Jennifer, my God, but are you crying over him?’ Tully, shaking her head, got up for a box of tissues, sat on the edge of the bed and gently wiped Jennifer’s face. It was minutes before Jennifer was collected enough to speak.

‘Jennifer,’ Tully said. ‘You’re fucking crazy. Have you slept with him?’

‘No, Tully, I haven’t,’ said Jennifer. ‘But do you know why I haven’t? Do you know why? Because he hasn’t asked me. He hasn’t asked me!’ she cried. ‘And if he had asked me, I would say, When? Now? And if he asked me to jump before I did it, I would say, How high, Jack Pendel, how high? Here I am, a virgin till I die, as you say, and I would give it to him faster than I could say Jack.’

Tully was at a complete loss for words as she wiped Jennifer’s face. At a loss, and helpless, too. Helpless in part because she did not understand her. Tully Makker just did not see what the problem was.

‘So go after him, Jen, go after him. You want him. Tell him you want him. Let him know you want him. They get it after a while, they do, believe me.’

‘Oh, Tully, you really don’t understand, do you? It’s not a matter of going after him, don’t you see?’ Jennifer began to cry again. ‘Don’t you see that if he wanted me, he would’ve seen by now what’s so plain to me and to everyone else? He would’ve seen it. But he doesn’t see it because he doesn’t feel the same way.’

Tully disagreed. ‘Jen, he doesn’t get it because he is a football jock.’

‘No, Tully, he doesn’t get it because he doesn’t love me. When you don’t love somebody you never get how they feel. You don’t even look for it.’

‘Hmm,’ said Tully. ‘I know plenty of people who love each other and still don’t get how they feel.’

Jennifer waved her off. ‘Who do you know, Makker?’

Tully wavered. ‘Well, your parents, for one. Julie’s too.’

Jennifer was still crying. Tully coughed and switched tactics. ‘Jenny, okay, so he doesn’t get it,’ she said. ‘For whatever reason. So you just say fuck you and move on. That’s it. Just move right on,’ said Tully, making a sweeping motion with her hand. ‘Move right on to Palo Alto,’ she added. ‘Where there are so many Jack Pendels, where there will be so many Jack Pendels dying to steal your heart and with it your bikini, you will have to buy twenty just to keep up. Bikinis, I mean.’

‘Tully, you just don’t get it, do you?’

‘Honestly, Jen?’ Tully said apologetically. ‘No, I don’t. See? I don’t get it, but we love each other.’ Tully was trying to make a little light of it, but Jennifer hit at Tully impatiently.

‘It’s not the same, now, is it?’ said Jennifer.

‘It’s not?’ said Tully.

‘Well, of course it’s not!’ exclaimed Jennifer. ‘Makker, that’s why I don’t want to talk to you sometimes. You’re just so obtuse.’

Tully saw in Jennifer’s face that thing, that crazy crazy thing. She is so far out there that where she is, not even I can reach her.

‘Don’t you understand, Tully?’ Jennifer said. ‘I love him, I love him.’

‘You do?’ said Tully distastefully. ‘So, okay. So, un-love him.’

‘Tully, you don’t – you just can’t – just stop loving the people you love.’

‘You can’t? Why the hell not?’

‘I don’t know, I can’t,’ said Jennifer brokenly. ‘He is my first love. My very first. And I will never stop loving him.’

Tully sighed and tried to reason with her. ‘Jen, I know, but everyone says that. Everyone feels that way, that we will never stop loving someone, that we will never love anyone else, that we can never feel more than we do right now, but yet…we do, somehow, stop loving. We do get over it. Don’t we? We have to. We must. Otherwise, how could we go on?’

‘Tully, I know you, of all people, are skeptical. I don’t expect you to understand. I just know the way I feel about him and have felt about him for a long time. I will never love anyone else for the rest of my life.’

Tully patted Jennifer’s head. ‘And it may be a very short life indeed, Mandolini, because if you don’t stop crying, I’m going to have to kill you.’

Jennifer laughed a little and wiped her face with her arm.

‘I love when you do that,’ said Tully, handing her a tissue. ‘You look soooo attractive.’

The girls settled back into bed. Jennifer faced the wall and Tully lay down beside her.

‘I’m hot, Tully, I’m very hot. Can you blow on my forehead?’ Jen said, turning around. And Tully did, while Jennifer whispered with closed eyes that trickled tears. ‘Why do I love him, Tully, why? For what good and damned reason do I love him?’

‘Because he is beautiful and he moves well?’ said Tully.

‘You think he is beautiful?’ exclaimed Jennifer.

‘No,’ said Tully quickly. ‘You think he is beautiful.’

Jennifer closed her eyes again. ‘I shut my eyes and I see his face,’ she whispered. ‘I see his face as it talks and laughs, I see only his face and nothing else. Not even you, Makker, not even you. You know? I don’t even see Palo Alto anymore. Just him. My God, Tully, what’s happening?’

‘You’ve taken complete leave of your senses,’ Tully said gently.

Jennifer continued to cry, but softer and slower, and Tully continued to wipe her face and blow on her forehead, but softer and slower. Finally Jennifer fell asleep, but Tully did not.

She lay perched on her elbow, tenderly blowing on Jennifer’s face for a long time, remembering the first time she had met her. Julie had introduced them. And Julie had met Tully by finding her wandering on the street not far from Lowman’s Hill Elementary School, where Tully attended kindergarten. Tully had gotten lost again – accidentally on purpose – and Angela Martinez brought the five-year-old girl home. Tully played with Julie while Angela called the police. ‘Oh, it’s that Makker kid again,’ the cops said when they arrived. ‘She’s always getting lost, once a week, about. One day she’ll wander out onto the turnpike and that will be the last we’ll see of her. She’ll just keep going. She’s a spunky little kid. We’ll drive her home now.’

Oh, no, Julie and her mother had objected. Let her play. We’ll take her home. They fed Tully dinner: burritos and tacos. Tully had never eaten such delicious food.

Angela was worried that Tully’s parents might be going out of their minds looking for her. Tully wanted to tell the nice woman that was not a problem, but Angela found out soon enough when she brought Tully home and Hedda said, ‘Have you been out again? What did we tell you? Stay in the yard.’

From then on, Mrs Martinez tried to pick Tully up from kindergarten and bring her to the house. Tully remembered that several weeks later during the summer, Lynn Mandolini brought Jennifer over. Jennifer! So plump, so bossy! She came into Julie’s house and immediately told the two girls to give her the bike. The three of them played together all summer, and every summer after that. When Jennifer was young, she lost her temper frequently when she did not get her way. Screaming, she would throw toys that weren’t hers, throw sand, throw herself on the ground, spit. When Tully was younger, she found Julie a little easier to get along with; Jennifer’s tantrums upset her.

Jennifer improved as she got older, and it was only when Tully was older herself that she discovered Jennifer was moderately autistic at the age of two and three, and Jennifer spent years overcoming the remnants of the illness as an adult. Minor vestiges of withdrawal remained: the compulsive neatness and slight detachment from physical closeness were the most obvious. But there were other things, too. Every day, Jennifer counted the number of cracks in the pavement from her house on Sunset Court to the corner of 17th Street and Wayne. She always verbalized the discovery of a new crack and showed it to Tully and Julie. She counted the number of lockers on each floor of Topeka High. She kept careful track of the gross national products of the twenty-five most developed countries, and of the broken streetlights from 17th Street to Gage Park. Also Jennifer got 800 on her math SATs she took last October. Tully pressed her lips to Jennifer’s damp forehead.

Before Tully knew Jen was sick, she thought that Jennifer was the luckiest girl on earth. Out of the three of them, she seemed to Tully the one destined to live in perpetual sunshine, having lived a sunshine childhood. After all, Jennifer had the fortune to be born to two people whose sole mission in life was Jennifer’s happiness.

While Tully played barefoot and alone in a dirty yard with chickens and stray cats. Dusty and unwashed, Tully spent her summers and afternoons in that yard of the house on the Grove, looking out onto the turnpike and the railroad. Who put suntan lotion on her? Who kissed her boo-boos and washed her face and gave her toys? The early years swam together for Tully. Somewhere in there, there were two brothers and even a father, but then Hedda and Tully were alone, and Aunt Lena and Uncle Charlie came to live with them to help Hedda with the mortgage. When Uncle Charlie died, it became easier to pay the bills with his insurance. Hedda worked as she always had, while Aunt Lena stayed home, having never worked a day in her life. Aunt Lena was gray and heavy, though she had been only forty when she became a widow. She kept mostly to herself in her rooms: she took a bedroom and a dining room after Uncle Charlie died. She said she was entitled to the space since the house now technically belonged to her.

Tully breathed on Jennifer’s face. Jenny, so many things you have at God’s grace. But I don’t care. I don’t care, and I mean it. I don’t give a shit. I can’t believe I’m thinking this, but I swear to you, Jennifer, I would relive my whole life exactly the same if somehow God, by again denying me, could bring you happiness, bring you what you really want, want with all your heart, the only thing you want. Dear Jennifer. It’ll be all right.

The next morning, her eyes red and swollen, Jennifer lay in bed and said, ‘Tull, tell me your story of the turtle and scorpion.’

‘Jen, get the hell out of here. I am dead tired. The sun is out, isn’t it? I’m like a bush baby. Now I go to sleep. You slept all night.’

‘Tell me, Tully, tell me, and please rub my back while you do it.’

‘God, Mandolini, you’re fucking demanding. Oh, all right.’ Tully sighed, sat on top of Jennifer’s rear end, and began to rub Jen’s shoulders. ‘Once upon a time,’ began Tully, ‘a scorpion swam all the way to the middle of a big lake. And when he got there, he realized he did not know how to swim and started to drown.’

‘Not so hard, Tully, not so hard!’ exclaimed Jennifer.

Tully sighed and continued, ‘“Help! Help!” the scorpion yelled. But no one came to help him. A turtle was swimming by, and the scorpion saw her and said, “Turtle, please help me. Can’t you see I’m drowning?” And the turtle said, “No, I will not help you. If I come near you, you will bite me, and then I will die.”’

‘Tully, now I can’t feel it at all. A little harder, please.’

Tully stuck her tongue out at the back of Jen’s head.

‘And stop sticking your tongue out at me,’ said Jennifer, her eyes closed. ‘I know you did it. Just go on with the story.’

‘The scorpion protested,’ said Tully loudly. ‘“Turtle, I swear to you, I will not bite you. I’m not stupid, turtle. You could save my life. If I bite you, I will drown, and I do not want to die.” The turtle believed him, swam over, put the scorpion on her back, and started swimming with him back to shore. When the turtle was close to the shore, the scorpion bit her. And as they were both drowning, the turtle turned around and said, “Why? Why did you do it, scorpion? Now we’re both going to die. Why did you do it?” And the scorpion replied, “Because I am a scorpion. I cannot help myself. It is my nature.”’

Jennifer lay there quietly on her stomach. ‘I love that story,’ she said.

And I love you, Mandolini, thought Tully.

4

For Christmas, Robin took Tully to his father’s funeral. Mr DeMarco died on Christmas Eve.

They buried him next to Pamela DeMarco on the twenty-seventh of December. Robin introduced Tully as his girlfriend, and Tully smiled cordially. She observed a lot of grief on a bitterly cold and windy December day. She wondered how it was possible to display so much emotion in public. Robin stood still, dressed in somber black, and his face was a mask. But when he and Tully got back to his house and he smelled the camphor and saw his father’s chair, he broke down. Tully patted his back and again wondered. Robin never seemed to talk much or show much feeling about his dad’s cancer; yet, here he was, struck.

New Year’s Eve was better. Shakie, the Homecoming Queen threw a party, and everybody went. Even Julie seemed to be having a marginally good time with Tom. But it was Jennifer who held Tully at attention most of the evening, for Jennifer spent most of the evening with Jack. In fact he never left her side. Tully did not waste time looking at Jennifer’s face, knowing already what she would find there. Instead, she watched Jack to see what was in his. It was hard to tell with Jack. For one, he was drunk. And two, his face was the kind of face that would not be read easily. It seemed composed even under the glaze of alcohol. But his hands touched Jen’s shoulders and arms, touched her face and her neck. His eyes laughed with her, and so did his mouth. Bending his head down to talk to her Jack almost seemed tender to Tully. Tender- what an absurd word! Yet tenderness was what came to her mind when she saw Jack looking at Jennifer. And familiarity, too. Sort of like he knew her face well. Who can tell? Who can tell anything. Who can tell even heaven from hell. But Tully didn’t hum the familiar beloved Pink Floyd tune, not even under her breath. The small prickle of anxiety about Jennifer was suddenly too sharp for singing.

Jack is a popular football captain, thought Tully. That should tell me everything I need to know about his feelings for Jennifer. But all Tully wanted was what Jennifer wanted, and all Jennifer wanted was Jack.

They said good-bye to 1978 and greeted 1979 with champagne and kisses and ‘Auld Lang Syne.’ Robin kissed Tully, and she smiled and squeezed his arm. I don’t need to sing a song to figure out what he is feeling, she thought. She lost sight of Jennifer for a moment and then couldn’t find her again anywhere. Not her, not Jack.

5

Jennifer closed her eyes and then opened them again in a hurry. Yes, sir. He is here. Open your eyes, Jen, all you wanna do is look at him and you’re closing your eyes? What’s the matter with you?

She assumed they were driving to his house. He didn’t make it clear. Right before midnight, he whispered to her, ‘Let’s get out of here,’ and then said little else. Did Jack perhaps think they were going to Jennifer’s house? He seemed very drunk.

Okay, Jen, hold on to the wheel with both hands, steady on, now, girl, and drive. You’ll have plenty of time to look at him. Just drive now. Must be well past midnight, she thought. Did he ask me to drive him home or did I just volunteer? Does he even know where his home is? Look at him, will you just look at him. Jennifer, drive the car, steady on.

At Lakeside Drive, Jack asked her to come in. No one seemed to be home. ‘No one’s home,’ he confirmed, disappearing into the bathroom. Jennifer sat on the sofa and looked around. She was in the back room – the family room. It had been a long time since the last time she was at his house. Nearly a year, she guessed. She had always liked this room. It had a lot of pretty white-painted wicker furniture and many plants.

Jennifer looked up as Jack handed her a Coke. ‘Your favorite, right?’ he said. She wanted to tell him that no, wrong, he was her favorite, but thought that was too trite.

He sat down next to her and touched her hair. ‘Your hair feels so nice, so soft,’ he murmured. ‘You smell so good, I love the way you smell. I’ve always loved the way you smell.’

‘Always?’ she asked.

‘Always,’ Jack confirmed, moving Jen’s hair to expose her neck. She helped him, and he leaned over and kissed it, kissed her neck. Jennifer leaned into him and Jack kissed her throat all over. Jennifer wanted to keep her eyes open so she could look at him, so that she could look at him kissing her throat, but that was just impossible. As soon as his lips touched her neck, her eyes closed.

She wrapped her hand around his neck and with her other hand touched his face like a blind person. At first Jack was kissing her gently, then his kissing got more urgent; his mouth ran up her jaw and he began to kiss her lips, roughly and gently, roughly and gently. Jennifer tried to keep track of what he was doing to her, but it seemed her brain, like her eyes, closed as well. Keeping track was clearly not possible. She stopped keeping track of anything except his mouth and his big rough and gentle hands that ran all around her. Jack knelt down in front of Jennifer and unbuttoned her blouse. Putting his face between her breasts, he kissed her skin between them while his hands fumbled with the back of her bra. ‘It opens in the front,’ she said helpfully, and he unfastened her and took her breasts out; looked at them and moaned. ‘Jen, you are so beautiful, look at you, you’re unbelievable.’ He kissed her breasts under the nipples and over the nipples, sucked her nipples, sucked the skin of her breasts under and over the nipples, Jennifer moaned and moaned, her eyes permanently shut, her hands clutching his blond hair; she was just so lost.

I can’t believe I am really here with you. I can’t believe you are kissing me. I can’t believe you are kissing me. When Jennifer had dreamed of what it would be like to have Jack kiss her and touch her, when she dreamed of him and his lips every day for the past four years, this is what she dreamed it would be. Being completely lost in his lips.

Jack carried her up to his bedroom, kissing her all the while. He laid her on his bed and began unbuckling his belt. Unbuckling his belt. I am lying down on his bed. Jennifer watched him do it, but incoherently; crazed with aching, she just wanted the feel of him.

And she got him. Jen managed to wrap her hands around him, seconds before he thrust himself inside her, and her only thought was, My God, it is so big, is this what they are all like, this big?

‘Oh, you are so wet.’ He groaned. ‘You are so ready for me.’ She could only groan in response; she was here with him, under his smooth wide chest, with his big muscled arms propping him up, with all his blond hair falling into his beautiful drunk face above her. She was here with him, and her readiness just did not matter, for she had fallen so hard for him, she had been perpetually at the ready.

Jack had had a lot to drink, and it took him forever to come. They tried this and that. Jennifer even went down on him, as incredible as that was: she had never even seen one before tonight. There was a certain pleasure in that, Jennifer thought, as she rubbed him with her hands. He is my first everything. Jack went down on her; she got on top of him; he got behind her; then he got a mirror and brought it to the bed so that they could see themselves. He asked her to touch herself; then he asked her to touch him. Finally they had come full circle and he was on top of her again. It had not hurt at all for him to take her virginity from her, for she was not a virgin in the strictest sense. But now, after strenuous intercourse, Jennifer had come back to earth and began to feel some physical discomfort. Discomfort or not, however, all Jen thought of was making him last, and if he whittled her genitalia away by his thrusting, it would be worth it, to feel him above her, to be lost in space, to be lost in Jackspace.

He came, finally! collapsing on top of her in a sweaty heap and promptly falling asleep. Jennifer did not care.

Jack was wet and heavy. His hair, all matted up, clung to his head. His breathing was uneven; his legs were between her legs. I think mine are asleep, Jennifer thought. They’ve been open for so long, I must look like a frog ready for dissection. Jennifer stroked Jack’s legs with hers. She ran her fingers on his back and kissed his temple.

How long did she lie there awake? What did she think about? Nothing. Nothing, and everything. She thought about having sex with him again, she thought about him kissing her on the street and impossibly about taking her to the prom. She thought about having used no contraception, about it not even occurring to her to use any. He didn’t ask her and certainly didn’t wear any himself. She thought about being pregnant, and laughed. And then she thought, I love him. I am in love with him. I love him. This is what it feels like; this is what it’s all about. This is the only way I want to feel when I have someone above me. This is what I want to feel when I look up into someone’s face, and if I don’t feel this, I feel nothing. Everything else is an illusion. Jennifer continued to lie there stroking his back lightly with her fingertips, thinking of the years they had been friends. Remember softball, Jack? Remember Shunga Park? Before you became a football captain? You remember those days? And then she fell asleep.

Jack was still on top of her when he woke up. He quickly got off her, mumbling an apology, and then went into the bathroom. When he came out, he pulled on a pair of shorts. Sitting on the bed next to her, Jack rubbed his temples.

‘Jen, it’s six o’clock, are your parents going out of their heads?’

My parents? Me, I am going out of my head.

‘Yeah, I guess.’ Jennifer smiled at him and Jack smiled wanly back.

‘Do you think you should go?’

‘If you think I should go, I will. Otherwise I can call them.’

Jack seemed surprised. ‘You can call them? The only child and daughter of Italian parents, you can call them at six in the morning and say – say what?’

Jennifer thought for a moment. She did not want to go.

‘If you think I should go, I will,’ she repeated dully.

Jack did not reply, but he did not look at Jennifer, either.

‘Okay,’ she said, getting up out of bed, still completely naked. ‘I understand totally.’

After she got dressed, Jack, clad only in a pair of shorts, walked her to the car. His hand rested on her shoulder. ‘Listen,’ he said. It was freezing cold. ‘I apologize. I really needed and wanted to do this. I’m glad we did. I hope you understand.’

She understood. Of course. She stretched her lips into what she hoped was a smile and not a grimace, and Jack bent down and kissed her on the cheek. ‘I’ll call you,’ he said. ‘Be careful driving back.’

Jennifer drove off, and drove and drove. Instead of going home, she drove to Lawrence, drove around the Kansas University campus, drove to Eudora, drove to De Soto, where she sat in front of a barren cornfield, lost in a timeless vacuum. Then she drove to Tully’s house. Came around back and threw rocks at Tully’s window until one of the rocks hit the sleeping-at-her-desk Tully on the head.

‘Come on, you light sleeper, let me in,’ said Jennifer from below.

‘You almost killed me,’ said Tully, opening the front door. ‘Where have you been? Your mother is frantic.’

‘Okay, I’ll call her,’ said Jen. ‘After we sleep. Let’s sleep.’ Jennifer undressed to her underwear and climbed into bed.

Tully spooned Jennifer and softly said, ‘Jennifer, I know that smell. I recognize it. You smell of a guy.’

‘Tully,’ whispered Jennifer, ‘ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies.’

Tully said nothing and lay there for two hours wide awake until Hedda came into the room, saying there was a half-crazed Mrs Mandolini on the phone. Jennifer talked to her mother for a few minutes and then climbed back into bed and pretended to sleep.

6

In February, Mr and Mrs Mandolini went to a parent-teacher conference and sat grimly with Jennifer’s math teacher, Mr Schmidt, while he told them about the ‘big problem’ with Jennifer and about Jennifer’s performance in school.

‘There is nothing wrong with our daughter’s work, Mr Schmidt,’ said Lynn. ‘She is under a lot of pressure,’ she continued, not giving him a chance to interrupt. ‘You know she applied to Stanford, and you’ve seen her SAT scores; it’s just too much for one teenager to take.’

Mr Schmidt was shaking his head. Tony flared up a little. ‘What? Problem, problem! Why are you trying to make some kind of a big deal out of this? I don’t get it. Is it personal?’

Mr Schmidt took a deep breath before speaking. ‘Mr and Mrs Mandolini. Lynn. Tony. I’ve known you now for the three years Jennifer’s been with us – you know how I feel about her. No, of course it’s nothing personal. The only personal thing I feel toward Jennifer is affection. However, her work and her lack of interest in her work gravely concern me.’

‘Well it doesn’t concern us,’ said Tony. Getting up, he turned to his wife. ‘Let’s go.’

‘Tony,’ said Mr Schmidt, cracking his knuckles. ‘Wait. Do you understand, that Jennifer’s math grades have slipped from a ninety-nine average last year to an eighty-two in the beginning of this year, and by the second quarter…’ he paused again, ‘well, you saw her report card, I gave her a sixty-five, because I like her and am concerned for her. However, you must know that she failed all of the tests I gave last quarter – that’s four exams, six quizzes. Failed every single one of them. Jennifer could do math while asleep standing on her head in nine feet of water. She used to correct me, for God’s sake! I’ve been a teacher for twenty years and have never known anyone to get a perfect score on their math SATs.’ He paused for breath. ‘I’m just trying to tell you, her performance is a cause for concern.’ He looked at them, sitting there with their eyes to the floor. ‘I’m sure this is not the first time you are hearing this,’ he said gently. ‘I’ve spoken to her other teachers. This is a running problem. She is not doing well.’

‘Mr Schmidt.’ Lynn looked up at him. ‘It’s Senioritis. Senioritis! Have you forgotten about being young? Young, eighteen, a cheerleader!’ She swallowed. ‘You know, we’ve done nothing all her life but push and encourage her.’ Lynn looked at her husband, who was nodding vigorously. ‘But,’ she went on, ‘this is her senior year! Let’s ease off her a little. Right, Tony? She is going to Stanford next year; let her have a good time before she has to work so hard. Right, Tony?’

‘Absolutely!’ he said.

Mr Schmidt sighed. He made one more attempt. ‘She was valedictorian of her middle school. Now, how is she going to be valedictorian of Topeka High, having failed everything?’

Tony got up. ‘You know, Mr Schmidt, we are proud of our daughter no matter what she does, and the most important thing to us is that she is happy. If she is happy not being valedictorian because of her own personal reasons, then it’s okay with us.’

‘Is her…’ Mr Schmidt began carefully, ‘is her, hmm, problem, her, hmm, withdrawal…is she having withdrawal symptoms? Like she did when she was young? Is it coming back? She is nearly mute in class.’

‘Jeeezzus!’ Tony exclaimed. ‘You’re not a doctor! You’re a math teacher.’

They did not want to talk to him anymore and left. Mr Schmidt looked after them and then went next door to Miss Keller, who taught biology, and asked her about Mr and Mrs Mandolini.

‘They don’t want to hear it, Jim. It must be really hard for them. She’s always been such an excellent student.’

‘Well, I’ll tell you this. I’ll bet we won’t be seeing them at the spring parent-teacher conference,’ said Mr Schmidt.

Tony and Lynn still had two more teachers to see, English and history, but without saying a word to each other, they just walked out of the school, got into their car, and drove home in utter silence.

‘Should we?’ asked Lynn, chain-smoking in the middle of the Sunset Court kitchen.

Tony was making himself and Lynn a drink. ‘No, absolutely not. She’ll think we’re ganging up on her. Let’s leave her alone for a while, okay?’

Two hours later, Lynn said, ‘She hasn’t come down to see us.’

‘She’s probably on the phone or listening to music. Let’s leave her alone, okay?’

At midnight, when Lynn and Tony walked past Jennifer’s bedroom on the way to bed, their daughter’s light was off and there was no music. Lynn couldn’t help herself. She knocked and quickly opened the door.

‘Mom,’ said Jennifer’s voice from the bed. ‘What’s up?’

‘Nothing, babe, nothing,’ said Lynn. ‘Sleep tight.’

The following night at dinner, Lynn said carefully, ‘Jennifer, the teachers seem to think you are not doing too well in school.’

Jennifer looked up and stared at her mother. ‘Mom,’ she said. ‘Didn’t you see my report card a week ago?’

‘Yes, honey, of course we did,’ said Tony. ‘But the teachers said you were actually doing even worse than what the grades showed. They said you really haven’t passed anything at all this quarter.’

‘That’s true, Dad. I haven’t.’

‘Honey, is anything the matter?’

‘No, Daddy, why should anything be the matter? I just didn’t have a good quarter, that’s all.’ She added, ‘I’ll do much better next report card, you’ll see.’

Lynn and Tony smiled tensely. ‘Oh, we’re glad to hear that, honey,’ said Lynn. ‘We’re so glad! We want you to do so well!’

‘I know you do, Mom. I’m sorry if I disappointed you.’

Lynn reached out her hand to Jennifer. ‘Jenny, you cannot disappoint Daddy and me,’ she said seriously. ‘We’re just concerned. We want you to be happy, that’s all.’

‘Mom, it’s my senior year. I’m having such a good time,’ replied Jennifer.

After finishing her dinner, Jennifer went to the upstairs bathroom. Locking the door, she stood there for a moment looking around, and then stepped on the scales, with her sneakers and pocket change. This was the first time Jennifer got on the scales in about three weeks, but she had eaten particularly well the last few days and felt she deserved it. She stood on them and stared at the wall for about a minute (Please please, please) before looking down to see the three-digit number on the black line. She let out a small, yelplike scream. But there it was. 102. One-oh-two. 102! Pretty soon, it won’t even be a three-digit number, she thought frantically.

Jennifer got off the scale and went into her bedroom, where she undressed, got into bed, turned off the light, and let out another scream, another stifled dark groan, and another and another. She had to turn the stereo on to drown out her crying. When her mother opened the door to say good night, Lynn said happily, ‘Jenny! Music! You’re playing music!’

Yeah, thought Jennifer. Music and the maiden. She lay there a long time before sleep came. Tully taught her to think of nothing but sheep when sleep or peace wouldn’t come, and tonight and every night Jennifer tried to do just that. But tonight Jennifer’s sheep were not going to sleep. Over and over and over, her sheep were running through a meadow and going to Stanford and becoming adults and doctors and parents. The rest of their lives seemed so close to the sheep.

Late February, Tully, Jennifer, and Julie sat in the Sunset Court kitchen.

‘Okay, what are we putting in our yearbooks, guys?’ said Julie. ‘We need to write out a will and a dream.’

‘We need a will to dream,’ said Tully.

‘Or a dream to will,’ said Jennifer.

‘Makker, Mandolini,’ said Julie. ‘Shape up. Let’s have it. The yearbook committee is not going to be waiting around for you. The deadline is March second. That’s this Friday, for your information.’

‘Oh, yeah? And who died and made you president?’ said Tully.

‘Secretary, actually,’ said Julie.

‘Well, inspire us. Let’s hear your will, Martinez,’ said Tully, doodling on her sheet of paper. ‘What are you going to leave Tom? Are you going to leave him your virginity? Or is it too late?’

Julie punched her in the arm. ‘Stop talking nonsense. Stop drawing nonsense, too. Work, work, work. How are you guys going to go to college if you can’t concentrate?’

‘My, she is bossy,’ said Jennifer.

‘I learned from the best,’ answered Julie, smiling and pointing at Jennifer, who didn’t smile back.

Tully changed the subject. ‘Where did you say your loved one was going?’ she asked Julie.

‘Brown.’

Tully smiled. ‘Yes. And you are going where? Northwestern? How many miles apart is that? A thousand? Knowing how intimate you guys are, I’m sure you’ll really miss that physical closeness you two share.’

‘Tully!’ said Julie.

Tully went to get a bag of pretzel sticks. Julie grabbed a handful. Jennifer said she wasn’t hungry.

A little later, Tully said, turning to Julie, ‘Robin asked me again if I’d consider moving in with him.’

‘He did?’ said Julie. ‘Again? That’s great.’ She saw Tully’s face, and Jennifer’s face, too. ‘Isn’t it? Isn’t it great? Isn’t it just what you want? To get out of your mother’s house?’

Jennifer and Tully stared at her, then exchanged looks. Tully nodded. ‘You know what it is, Jen,’ Tully said. ‘It’s all that great sex she’s been having with that Romeo of hers. She’s lost her mind.’

Jennifer smiled.

‘Why do you say that? It’s not fair,’ said Julie, banging the table.

‘Martinez,’ said Tully, banging the table herself in jest. ‘You haven’t listened to a word I’ve said the last two months. What are you paying attention to? Tom? The crisis in the Middle East, God help you?’

‘Tell me already!’ said Julie.

‘Julie,’ said Tully, shaking her head. ‘You know Jen and I are going to California.’

‘So don’t go,’ said Julie. ‘So stay. Robin is worth it.’

‘Worth it, huh?’ said Tully.

‘Sure,’ drawled Julie. ‘You stay, you get married, you have a couple of babies. He’ll buy you a house.’

‘Hell, why stop at a house?’ said Tully. ‘Why doesn’t he just buy me a whole life?’

‘Ask him, he’ll do it for sure.’

Tully smiled. ‘What’s wrong with you, Martinez? I don’t want to have babies, I don’t want to get married. I’ve been telling you that since I was about ten.’

‘Well, at ten maybe you didn’t want to,’ said Julie. ‘Right, Jen?’

‘Right, Jule,’ said Jennifer.

‘But you’re eighteen now.’

‘Nothing’s changed,’ said Tully.

‘I don’t believe you,’ Julie said. ‘What do you call Washburn Day Care every Thursday?’

Tully looked at Jennifer with a what-am-I-to-do-with-her look. Jennifer shrugged.

‘Besides,’ continued Julie, ‘what are you going to do with Jen in California? You know she’ll leave you first chance she gets. She wants to get married. She wants to have children. Right, Jen?’

‘Right, Jule,’ said Jennifer, looking at Tully.

‘Jennifer wouldn’t leave me,’ Tully said, mock pouty. ‘Would you, Mandolini?’

‘First chance I get,’ said Jennifer, smiling.

‘I don’t know. It seems a shame to throw Robin away, Tull,’ said Julie. ‘You guys sure do spend a lot of time together.’

‘A lot?’ asked Tully. ‘What, out of a whole day? A whole week? A year? Out of a life?’ Tully laughed. ‘We sure spend a lot of purposeful time together. That red leather in his ’Vette beckons us and seems better than, say, talking.’

Jennifer and Julie giggled. Jennifer was drinking a glass of milk and dipping her index finger into the glass, drawing concentric circles on the table.

‘But think about all the advantages of moving in with him,’ Julie persisted. ‘He’s got plenty of money. He’ll sire cute offspring.’

‘And Tull, think about it,’ interjected Jennifer. ‘If you ask, I’m sure he’ll buy you that house on Texas Street. Dad found out for me who owns it. An old lady.’ Jennifer raised her eyebrows. ‘A very old lady.’

Tully looked from Julie to Jennifer. ‘What is it with you guys? Leave me alone, will you? Jen, what’s the matter? What about Stanford?’

Shaking her head, Jennifer patted Tully on the arm and continued decorating the table with milk rings.

‘Think about it Tully,’ Julie said. ‘You’ll be out of your house.’

‘Yes,’ said Tully. ‘And in somebody else’s.’

‘Oh, yes, but on Texas Street! Just think!’ said Jennifer.

‘Mandolini!’ Tully exclaimed.

Jennifer laughed mildly. ‘I’m only joking, Tully,’ she said. ‘Julie, Tully doesn’t think she loves Robin. And how can you reason with a heart? Right, Tully?’ Most of the milk from Jennifer’s glass was drying on the table.

‘Right, Jen,’ said Tully, looking away.

‘Tully, how do you know you don’t love him?’ asked Julie.

‘I don’t know,’ Tully said slowly. ‘How would I know if I loved him?’

‘You’d know,’ said Julie, glancing at Jennifer. ‘Right, Jen?’

‘Right, Jule,’ Jennifer replied slowly.

Together, Jennifer, Tully, and Julie accomplished nothing that afternoon. At six in the evening they agreed to give up and surprise each other when the yearbooks came out.

In the car, Jennifer sat in the passenger seat and let Tully drive the Camaro to the Grove.

‘You’re doing well, Makker,’ she said. ‘A few more years, and you may pass your test.’

‘Get out of here,’ said Tully. ‘My test is March seventeenth.’

Jennifer shook her head. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Maybe you should pray to St Patrick.’

FIVE Jennifer

March 1979

The days spun on. Their pattern was the same, small and uninspired, but each blade of grass brought with it the field of spring, each rainfall washed away the smell of winter. Each breeze carried off the last of winter air. The process was slow, of each tree’s and flower’s rebirth, of each day’s light getting longer by the minute and nightfall’s coming yet later and later. Had they all seen what was growing in the spring of all their lives, they would have paid more attention to those petty things that slip by so unnoticed, so unremembered. Time, however, is slow when nothing happens; and those cracks in the foundation seemed so unrelated, so trivial, that each incident was absorbed and forgotten, the way breakfast and sunset are forgotten – as part of the sameness that filled everyone’s days, especially theirs, especially the days of the young, when they gulped the air and lived to see the better world, the grown-up world, when they could not wait for the days to end so that they could get on with the rest of their lives.

February snowed into March. And in March, it rained.

The smell of spring came with the winds and the storms. There was a tornado alert every day, and rain every day, and sun every day, too. A typical Kansas March.

Tully was busy with Robin, with keeping him away from her mother, and busy keeping herself away from her mother. She received a small scare in the first week of March when she found a letter addressed to Hedda Makker in the mailbox one afternoon. What surprised Tully about the letter wasn’t that it was addressed to Hedda Makker, but that the address was handwritten. Hedda, besides bills, never received anything – certainly nothing handwritten. Upon closer examination, Tully noticed Hedda was misspelled. Heda Makker, it said. The Grove. Okay, thought Tully, and took it upon herself to commit a federal offense.

She was glad she did when she tore open the envelope. ‘Mrs Makker,’ the note said. ‘Your daughter is fooling around with my boyfriend. A lot. Every week. She stole him from me and now she’s lying to you every Wednesday and Sunday.’

The note was unsigned. Tully wasn’t so much stunned by the arrival of the note. She half expected some form of sabotage. What surprised her was the depth and accuracy of Gail’s knowledge. Not only did she know what days Tully met Robin, but she also knew to a useful extent the difficulties Tully had with her mother.

Tully tore up the letter, deciding to keep very quiet about it to everyone. She figured that Gail must have gotten all that information from the guileless, unsuspecting Julie, who was in the same English class. If Gail now thought her ploy had succeeded in getting Tully in deep shit, then she wouldn’t attempt any more war missions.

Julie was busy with the debating society, the history club, the current events club. ‘Talk is the one four-letter word you and Tom can enjoy together,’ Tully called it.

Jennifer continued to lose weight.

Monday, March 12, at Sunset Court, when Jennifer left the kitchen for a moment, Tully mentioned the weight loss to Lynn Mandolini. Lynn got a little defensive, saying her daughter never looked better.

‘Mrs Mandolini, yes, twenty pounds ago she never looked better. I’ll be surprised if she is a hundred and ten now.’

‘Oh, Tully!’ said Lynn, lighting up and taking a drink. ‘A hundred and ten! Really!’

‘Jen,’ said Tully when Jennifer returned. ‘How much do you weigh?’

Jennifer looked as if she’d been hit. ‘I – I don’t know. Why?’

‘Jennifer, you used to get on the scale twice a day. How much do you weigh now?’

‘Tully, don’t badger her!’ Lynn said loudly.

‘Mom, Mom. It’s okay. I weigh about a hundred and fifteen,’ answered Jennifer.

Lynn looked at Tully with an I-told-you-so look. Tully stared back defiantly.

‘Oh, I see,’ she said. ‘One hundred fifteen. Would you say that’s about a thirty-five-pound loss since September?’

Later, when they were alone, Tully said, ‘Mandolini, you lie. You lie. How much do you really weigh?’

‘Tully, I did not lie – ’

‘Jennifer, stop! I know your lying face even if your own mother doesn’t. Now, how much?’

Jennifer mumbled something.

‘What?’ said Tully.

‘Ninety-six,’ whispered Jennifer.

Tully was cold for the rest of the evening.

Later that night, in her own home, she slept, after hours of anxious restlessness, after counting 1,750 or 2,750 sheep. She slept at her desk, wind blowing about the curtains and her hair. Her hands were under her face, between her and the wood. Tully slept and dreamed that she was in the desert. She was walking in the desert by herself, she was completely alone, and she was thirsty. It seemed that she had walked for days and had not drunk for days. God! how she wanted to drink. To drink or to die, thought Tully in the desert.

‘Julie, there is something very wrong with Jennifer,’ said Tully, Tuesday morning, March 13, right after homeroom. Julie seemed a little absent-minded. ‘I think she’s anorexic.’

‘Are you crazy?’

‘Julie, I know you haven’t been paying attention to a lot of things lately, but don’t tell me you haven’t noticed Jennifer is now thinner than me.’

Julie looked thoughtful. ‘Well, maybe she does seem a little thin, but –’

‘Julie!’ Tully exclaimed. ‘She is ninety-six pounds! Ninety-six!’

Julie turned red and said, ‘Tully, don’t scream at me! Yes, that seems very thin. Sick, even. But what do you want me to do about it?’

‘Julie!’ Tully folded her hands together, pleading. ‘Don’t you care?’

‘Tully, of course I care. But I have an English report to write by sixth period, and after school we’re going to the Statehouse on a fact-finding mission – Look, she’s always been a little plump and she lost weight lately. And you kind of gained weight lately.’

Tully shook her head. ‘Don’t you get it? I haven’t gained weight lately. And Jen hasn’t just lost weight, she is sick.’

‘I’ve got to get to class,’ said Julie. ‘We’ll talk to her.’

‘You and your stupid fact-finding mission. Where have you been all these months? Where? I don’t know who has more of a problem. Do you know Jen got sixty-fives in all her classes and that’s only because the teachers felt sorry for her? Do you know she has not passed one test since January and is still failing everything?’

‘How do you know that?’ asked Julie, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other.

‘I know, that’s how. I know because I was talking in gym to two girls who are in Jen’s math class. They told me Mr Schmidt is worried about Jennifer. He keeps talking to his students about her.’

The bell rang. Julie sped down the hall. ‘We’ll talk to her, we will,’ she yelled.

Tully stared after Julie dumbly. Wanting to feel better, she had approached Julie, but now she felt worse. Books pressed hard against her chest, Tully went to class with a punched-in-the-stomach worry.

Four days later, on St Patrick’s Day, at eleven in the morning, Tully passed her driving test. Jennifer was with her.

‘I guess Saint Paddy listened to my prayers,’ said Tully, smiling.

‘Guess so,’ said Jennifer.

‘Thanks for teaching me how to drive, Jen.’

‘You’re welcome, Tully,’ said Jennifer.

Tuesday, March 20, after school, Julie gingerly approached Jennifer. She had wanted to do it earlier, or over the weekend, but there was so much to do. The president of the history club asked her to talk about Indonesia’s involvement in World War II, and she knew nothing about it. Today she had her current events club meeting, but she hadn’t read the paper over the weekend or Time or Newsweek on Monday, so she decided to spend Tuesday afternoon with Jennifer instead.

‘So, Jen, how is everything?’ Julie said as the girls ambled down 10th Street to Wayne.

‘Fine, thanks,’ Jennifer replied, kicking stones out from under her feet.

‘You and Tully excited about Stanford?’

‘Tully’s going to UC in Santa Cruz. She’s pretty excited.’

‘What about you? Are you excited?’

‘For sure,’ said Jennifer.

Julie just did not want to ask Jennifer, just did not. She did not want to bring up a subject Jennifer so obviously had no interest in discussing. How long ago did Tully and Julie stop teasing Jen about her crush on Jack? January? When Julie made some silly remark about how Jennifer could not hide her obsession with Jack’s butt, and Tully glared at her and Jennifer looked away. Julie never brought the subject up again, but now, two months later, she wondered why she never asked Tully about it. Why she never asked Tully if something happened between Jennifer and Jack.

Julie sensed uneasily that something had happened. Something happened to make Jennifer go from a plump, content girl to a darkening shadow. But, truthfully, Julie just did not want to deal with it. Just did not want to, and Julie felt ashamed on this windy, sunny March afternoon as the girls walked to Julie’s house. Ashamed that Jennifer’s heart was too much for Julie to help heal because it would take so much time and so much energy and so much of their day, which, instead of being spent in jokes and TV and their senior year, goddamn it! would be spent in tears.

Julie lowered her head; and when she did, she remembered school days the last few months when she would see Jack stroll by and smile his jock smile and feel Jennifer physically stiffen, remembered her own lowered head at this sight – of smiling Jack and stiff Jennifer – and Julie recognized that then, too, she was lowering her head in shame.

Julie looked at Jennifer’s gaunt, pale face. Her lips used to be so red, but now were bluish pink. All the highlights were out of Jennifer’s hair and it looked a lot like Tully’s hair before she had it bleached and permed for her eighteenth in January. Jennifer’s body was well hidden by a long, loose black skirt (Tully’s?) and a large sweatshirt. That’s all Jennifer wore nowadays. Loose skirts and large shirts. Ninety-six? Was it possible? And what to do about it? Julie cleared her throat.

‘Jen, have you lost weight?’

‘God!’ Jennifer said in a raised, exasperated voice. ‘What is it with you people? Everybody keeps asking me the same question! Can’t you be original and ask me something else? What about how I’m doing in school –’

‘Jennifer, how are you doing in school?’ said Julie quietly.

‘Great! I actually got a sixty-two on my English lit exam. Mr Lederer said I was improving. Anything else?’

‘Yes,’ said Julie. ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’

Jennifer did not reply.

At Julie’s house, they played with Julie’s two youngest brothers, Vinnie and Angelo. Jennifer seemed to cheer up a little playing with Vinnie, who was her particular favorite because he would latch on to her and not let go until she left.

She did leave, though, before dinner, saying she wanted to eat at home. Julie walked her to Wayne and 10th, and they stopped at the corner.

Julie skipped a beat and said, ‘Jennifer, tell me what’s bothering you.’

‘Nothing, Julie,’ said Jennifer. ‘I forgot when to stop dieting. I’m a little low on energy. I’m going to have to start eating more.’

Julie was unconvinced.

‘I’ve been going through a little period of self-doubt,’ admitted Jennifer.

‘How long a little period?’ asked Julie.

‘Oh, about seventeen years,’ replied Jennifer, and they both laughed.

‘You? Self-doubt?’ said Julie. ‘Jen, what do you have self-doubt about? You’re brilliant, beautiful, strong…what self-doubt?’

Jennifer paused, then said, ‘Yes, well, it’s hard to argue with all that,’ not answering Julie’s question.

They hugged each other good-bye and as Julie watched her, a pit developed in her stomach. She loves that asshole, thought Julie, and was nearly knocked out by sympathy and pity and envy, yes, envy, goddamn it. Loves him! But then pity swam back into Julie. Loves him with all the bittersweetness of first love and now she’s trying to find a way to cope. Jennifer should talk to Tully more, thought Julie, heading back to her house. Tully would teach Jennifer how to cope.

Bright, beautiful, brilliant, billowy, blighted, blind, thought Jennifer as she meandered home, looking straight ahead with unseeing eyes. Yes, I’m all these things, I am so many things, so many of them good, some of them wonderful. I should know: I’ve been told nothing else my entire life, so how can it not be true? Yet it is as I have always suspected. All those things mean shit, for the world is full of beautiful people, full of beautiful, brilliant, billowy people. And so what? Ugliness is now inside me. Beautiful! What does beautiful have to do with anything? He does not want me. Everyone told me he was worthless and I was precious, but this worthless guy did not want precious me.

So if he was so worthless and still did not want me, how in this world could anyone worthwhile want me?

And he is not worthless. He is serious and strong. He is a lot like Tully. Maybe that’s why I just can’t stop. I’ve tried to do what Tully tells me to do. I’ve tried to study and drown myself in Tully’s heart because I know she cares so much. I’ve tried to eat, to sleep, and to listen to music. I’ve tried to look at other guys and think of Stanford. But what’s California to me without him?

I’ve tried to forget him. But every day I see his face above my face. Above me. I see his smiling face when I was a cheerleader and he was a football captain. When we played softball together. When he danced with me to ‘Wild Horses.’ When he was my friend. I have but a few memories, but the ones I have are all in my throat, the ones I have are all in my face when he walks by and smiles his ‘Hey, Jen, what’s happening?’ smile at me. I cannot even hate him. He has done nothing, this is not his fault. This is no one’s fault. Not even mine. Tully taught me how to fight, but even she cannot help me heal this sick, tired feeling inside me. And that’s how I feel. Sick. And tired.

Wednesday, March 21, Tully reluctantly went to dinner at Jennifer’s. There was something in the Mandolini household nowadays that reminded Tully too much of her own.

Silence.

Silence in the kitchen, silence at the table. Jennifer, Lynn, and Tony Mandolini sat and passed the spaghetti and dug into the meatballs and chewed on the bread, and around them there was no TV, no radio, no words, only silence! Just like home, thought Tully, and swallowed her bread too fast and started to cough, breaking the sound barrier. When she quieted down, she thought, I want to go home.

Lynn chain-smoked, unable to wait until she finished her dinner. Tony drank and looked only into his plate.

Tully could see that Jennifer was practicing voodoo self-control. She was counting the squares in the tablecloth and then the number of hairs on her arms.

My God, at least the radio used to be on. Maybe they started turning the radio off so that they could hear each other.

She’s doing it to them. They have no idea what’s going on, and she won’t tell them. They’re as lost now as she is. At first they thought she was doing so badly in school because she was so happy and having this great time, but they can’t even fool themselves with that one anymore. She is so obviously not happy. Maybe they’re afraid that thing is coming back to stay. I’m sure she’s anorexic. I wonder if she throws up? Would she tell me if she does? Would she tell even me that? Would she speak even to me?

After dinner, the girls washed the dishes and Mr and Mrs Mandolini went to catch The Deer Hunter before the Oscars, which were in a few weeks’ time.

‘So, Jen,’ said Tully when they were finally alone. ‘Tell me, Jen, how often do you pass dinner like this?’

‘I’m sorry,’ she answered. ‘Were we quiet?’

‘Quiet?’ said Tully. ‘What the fuck is wrong with all of you?’

Jennifer did not answer her, just kept on drying.

‘You gotta snap out of it, Jen,’ Tully said. ‘You just gotta.’

Jennifer said nothing.

‘You are making everyone miserable. We don’t know what to do for you,’ continued Tully. ‘And we all would do everything, anything, to have you back to your usual semi-normal self again.’

Jen smiled a little, but again did not speak.

‘Jennifer, tell me, are you anorexic?’ asked Tully.

‘Anorexic? God, no!’

‘Are you throwing up in the toilet?’

‘Tully, please!’

‘Jennifer, you really need to talk to somebody who doesn’t know you; you need to do something for yourself.’ Tully’s voice was getting louder. ‘And if you can’t, you have got to tell your parents to open their eyes and take you to a doctor, get you healthy again, get you on your feet again.’

‘On my feet again,’ repeated Jennifer dully.

‘Jenny, you have been taking this lying down, you lay down three months ago with him and you are still lying down, you have not gotten up, and you have to.’

‘I have to,’ said Jennifer.

Tully turned off the water and turned to her friend. ‘Yes, have to. You have no choice. Gotta do it, Jen. Just think, three months and you’re out of school, out of him, and then it’s summer! We work, we hang out, we go swimming in Lake Shawnee, and then it’s August and we’re off! Off we go. Hi-ho, hi-ho. Palo Al-to. A new life. I’m so excited. A beginning. So cheer up. And keep going. Come on, Jen. You’re stronger than all of us.’

‘No, Tully,’ said Jennifer. ‘You are stronger than all of us.’ Jennifer stood there blankly, her hands down at her sides.

The girls watched Love Story on the ‘Million Dollar Movie.’ They had seen it three times already, and the fourth time found them sitting and watching the flickering screen, absorbed in everything but Jenny Cavilleri’s death. Tully sat curled up on the couch entirely dry-eyed, entirely without movement as she looked unflinchingly and frightlessly at Oliver Barrett IV sitting at the Central Park ice skating rink without his Jennifer.

Tully’s own heart, however, was as frightened and tight as a narrow path in the dead of night in the dead of winter.

Jennifer did not even see Oliver sitting in Central Park. She was imagining Harvard and meeting someone like Oliver in Harvard. She tried to imagine holding her heart with both hands so it wouldn’t jump out of her chest for an Oliver in Harvard and drew a black blank. Instead, she remembered lying out in the middle of the night in her backyard on Sunset Court with Tully when they were kids. When they were about seven, eight, nine, ten. Eleven. Even twelve. Every summer, Tully would come over and make a tent in the backyard, and they would dig and twig, doodle and dawdle, talk and talk, and smell the Kansas night air.

‘Do you think the stars are this bright everywhere in the world, Tully?’

‘No, I think Kansas is closer to the stars than everywhere else in the world,’ said eight-year-old Tully.

‘How do you know?’

‘Because,’ said Tully, ‘Kansas is in the middle of America. And in the summer America is closest to the sun. Which means it’s closest to the rest of the sky, too. And Kansas, being in the middle, is the most closest.’

‘Are you sure about this?’

‘Positive,’ answered Tully.

Jennifer was quiet for a while, absorbing, thinking. ‘Tull, do you think the stars are still there when we go to sleep?’

‘Of course,’ said Tully.

‘How do you know?’

‘Because,’ said Tully slowly, ‘I see them all night long.’

‘You don’t see them when you sleep,’ argued Jennifer.

‘I don’t sleep,’ said Tully.

‘What do you mean, you don’t sleep?’

Now it was Tully’s turn to be quiet.

‘What do you do if you don’t sleep?’

‘I dream,’ said Tully. ‘I have…bad dreams a lot. So I wake up and look outside a lot.’

‘Much?’

‘Every night.’

Jennifer clicked the TV off, and the girls sat there in darkness, with only the blue light from the street coming in through the bay window.

‘Tully,’ said Jennifer hoarsely. ‘Tell me about your dream again.’

‘Which dream?’ Tully looked at Jen.

‘The rope dream.’

‘Oh, that old dream. Jennifer, I don’t wanna tell you about any of my dreams. You know them all.’

‘Humor me,’ said Jen. ‘Tell me again.’

Tully sighed. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘Do you still have it?’

‘Yes, every once in a while.’

‘How often?’

‘I dreamed it a few weeks ago,’ said Tully.

‘Is it still the same?’ asked Jen.

‘It’s a little different,’ answered Tully.

‘What’s the same?’

‘The rope,’ said Tully. ‘The rope is always around my neck. I fall off the tree and pray that this time my neck would break so I won’t have to suffocate.’

‘Does it?’

‘Never. I just can’t breathe.’

Jennifer was quiet. ‘What’s different?’

‘The setting. Last time, I was in the desert. In a musty palm tree. I guess I’m thinking about California.’

Jennifer touched Tully with her fingers. ‘Did you like your palm tree? You’ve never seen one.’

‘Its bark was rough like a pineapple’s. It was pretty cool.’

‘Was the rope tight?’

Tully could not see Jennifer’s face.

‘It’s always around my neck,’ said Tully slowly. ‘When I fall, it’s tight.’

‘Did you suffocate?’ Jennifer was barely audible.

‘Yes, and then I woke up.’

‘Have you ever…died in your dreams?’

‘No. I don’t think you can. I think when you die in your dreams, you die in real life. No, people don’t die in their dreams.’

‘Not even you?’

‘Not even me,’ said Tully.

‘What stops you?’ asked Jennifer faintly.

‘I wanted a drink of water,’ said Tully. ‘I was really thirsty. I did not want to die. I wanted to drink. And then I wanted to go swimming.’

After a while, Jennifer said, ‘Well, at least you are getting out of the house.’

Tully smiled thinly. ‘Yeah. I used to do it in front of my mother, in the living room, and Aunt Lena would say, “Tully, can you move a little? You’re blocking the TV,” and my mother wouldn’t say anything at all.’

Jennifer stared into the dark. ‘I remember thinking you were sick for dreaming that. I remember thinking that you didn’t really want to die, you were just screaming for help.’

‘Yeah, screaming,’ said Tully. ‘Obviously loudly.’

‘To people who didn’t care,’ said Jennifer.

‘Hey, wait a minute. You’re talking about my mother here,’ said Tully. ‘And we all know how deeply she cares.’

‘Yes,’ said Jennifer. ‘Deeply.’

The girls said nothing for a little while and then Tully asked, ‘Jennifer, why are you asking me this? We haven’t talked about this in years. Why now?’

‘We haven’t talked about a lot of things in years.’

‘Like?’

‘Like why you stopped coming around here. Around me and Jule.’

‘I thought I told you.’

‘Yes, but you didn’t tell me why. Why, Tully?’

Tully didn’t answer. She thought back to the time she was twelve. And thirteen, and fourteen, and fifteen. 1973, 1974, 1975…Bicentennial. July 4, 1976, she went with Jennifer and Julie to watch the fireworks at Lake Shawnee. Tully had called up Jennifer. And Jennifer, as if nothing were wrong, invited her out, and Tully came. It wasn’t the first time in two and a half years the three of them got together, but it was the first time in two and a half years Tully did the calling.

Those years, thought Tully. It was as if I disappeared off the face of the earth. I did all the usual things; I went to school, I did my homework, I learned how to dance and made some new friends, and hung out and smoked, and danced in dance clubs and won some money to buy myself clothes. I occasionally slept and occasionally saw Jennifer and Julie. But I don’t myself know how I made it through those years. Certainly nothing worth repeating to this crazy person sitting next to me on the sofa.

Jennifer rolled her eyes. ‘Forget it. Tell me, do you think you love Robin? Honestly.’

Tully looked over at Jennifer’s shadow in the dark room.

‘I don’t particularly want to lose him,’ she said. ‘Is that love?’

‘Tully, have you ever loved any of the boys you’ve been with?’

Tully did not hesitate. ‘No,’ she replied. ‘I haven’t. Not one. Not even remotely.’

‘Is that why you don’t cry at the end of Love Story?’ asked Jennifer. ‘Because you can’t imagine what it would be like to love someone?’

Tully patted Jennifer’s leg. ‘Who said I don’t cry at the end of Love Story?’

‘Tull, I’ve never in twelve years seen you cry.’

‘I don’t,’ said Tully, a brittle rock inside her chest, ‘cry much.’

‘Not even in front of me?’

‘Obviously not,’ said Tully, then giving in a little. ‘I try sometimes to…imagine loving somebody like that.’

‘Like Oliver loves Jenny?’ she asked.

‘No,’ said Tully, squeezing Jennifer’s leg. ‘That I understand. Because I love Jenny, too. I know what it’s like to love Jenny.’ Tully smiled. ‘I want to know what it’s like to love Oliver.’

Tully saw Jennifer press the tips of her fingers hard to her eyes and not let go, and Tully nearly wanted to press her own fingers to her eyes, to press out the image of Jennifer suppressing her demons.

They sat there silent and unmoving in the dark. Tick tock, tick tock. Tick. Tock. Tick.

‘I want to go home, Jen,’ said Tully.

‘Come upstairs with me,’ Jennifer said. ‘Please.’

Tully went upstairs. And gasped when she saw Jen’s room: usually immaculate, it was now an unbelievable mess.

‘My God, Jennifer! Who lives here now? Not you!’

‘Well, I’ve been too busy to clean up.’

‘Busy. Of course,’ said Tully.

They sat on the bed next to each other. Jennifer looked at her feet and then pressed her fingertips to her eyes again, hard.

Tully sat on the unmade bed, next to her.

‘It’ll be all right, Mandolini,’ Tully said, feeling desperately helpless, nearly angry, when it came to all of Jennifer’s unreachable, untamable animals, baring their teeth at Tully’s meaningless comforts. Her words sounded dull and void even to herself. ‘Forget it…forget him, Jennifer Lynn Mandolini,’ whispered Tully. ‘Please. Forget him.’

But inside, Tully thought, Who cares about him? There is a whole life to be destroyed by or excited by. A whole fucking life.

Far off, Tully heard Jennifer speak.

‘What was that poem you wrote, Tully? Remember?’

‘No,’ Tully said quickly. ‘I wrote a couple of poems. The summer poem?’

‘I don’t know the summer poem,’ Jennifer said. ‘The disconsolate poem.’

Tully cleared her throat.

‘I used to sing

I used to be

Disconsolate, alone, yet free

Now that my soul has been encased

Whatever will become of me…?’

Jennifer closed her eyes. ‘That’s nice,’ she said. ‘Now tell me the summer poem.’

Tully moved slightly away on the bed. ‘Maybe some other time, okay, Jen?’

‘Okay, Tully,’ said Jennifer.

Tully’s heart gripped and ripped as she listened to Jennifer’s erratic breathing. A small scared thought ran darkly through her like a roach surprised by light. How’s Jen ever going to handle anything if she cannot handle something even this minor? Jen had always suspected there would come a time when she would be called upon to deal and wouldn’t be able to. No, I told her, don’t be absurd. Don’t be silly. Everything that happens only makes you stronger. Remember what Nietzsche said? ‘All that doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’ But yet, here she is, weaker than ever, and I cannot find the right words.

‘I want to go home, Jenny,’ said Tully finally.

Jennifer let Tully drive the Camaro home. They opened all the windows to let the wind in. The March air was cool, but it smelled like spring. As if everything were about to bloom.

‘Car handles well,’ said Tully.

‘Tully, you’ve never driven anything in your life,’ said Jennifer. ‘What do you know about handling?’

‘That’s not true,’ said Tully. ‘Robin lets me drive his Corvette.’

‘Yeah, in the parking lot,’ said Jennifer. ‘I’m sure you’re a real speed demon in the parking lot.’

At the Grove, the girls stood on the porch facing each other. ‘Jennifer,’ Tully said. ‘I’m going to ask you something, and I want you by God to answer me. Jennifer, are you screaming for help?’

Tully could hear Jennifer’s belabored breathing.

‘What a brave question, Tully,’ she finally said.

‘Give me a brave answer, Jennifer, don’t buy time, tell me right now, are you?’

‘No, Tully,’ Jennifer replied. ‘I’m not.’

‘Promise?’

‘I swear on our friendship.’

Tully stood right in front of Jennifer, looking brokenly at Jennifer’s thin face. After a moment, Tully’s right hand went around Jennifer’s head. Tully brought Jen’s face close and kissed her hard on the lips, pulled away, and then kissed her again.

‘Mandolini, I love you,’ Tully said, drained and in pain.

‘And I you, Tully.’

Friday, March 23, in school, Tully, Jennifer, and Julie sat together at lunch – a rare event. Jennifer usually sat with her cheerleader pals even though cheerleading season was long over. Tully thought Jennifer seemed brighter. The heaviness that clung to Tully lifted a little. That Friday night, the girls went to see The Deer Hunter.

‘I think it will win Best Picture,’ predicted Jennifer on the way home.

‘I think Coming Home will win,’ said Julie.

‘Oh, you’re joking!’ Tully laughed. ‘They couldn’t have been more heavy-handed in that film if they had tied you to a post and beat you over the head repeatedly with a ‘War is b-b-b-a-a-a-a-d-d-d’ shovel.’

‘Oh, and here, killing Nick in the last five minutes of the movie, when we were all thinking he was gonna make it, what is that, huh? That’s not heavy-handed?’

‘I didn’t think he was gonna make it,’ said Jennifer, keeping her eyes on the road. ‘I thought from the beginning he would die. He wanted to be so strong,’ she said evenly. ‘He wanted to be as strong as Michael, but he just wasn’t, no matter how he tried, and he tried really hard. In the end, he just lost faith.’

‘Yeah, but Stephen made it,’ said Julie. ‘And he was the weakest of the bunch.’

‘Stephen never even tried to be strong,’ said Jennifer. ‘It wasn’t important to him like it was to Nick. To Stephen, Michael was so far out in the stratosphere, to be respected certainly, but never to be understood. But Nick wanted to be as strong as Michael and in the end was shattered by his own weakness.’

Julie waved her off from the backseat. ‘I don’t think Michael was so strong. I think he pretended to be strong.’

Jennifer shook her head. ‘No. He was strong through and through. He was invulnerable.’

‘Nobody is invulnerable, Jen,’ said Tully thickly. ‘It’s a myth.’

‘I think you’re reading too much into it, Jen,’ Julie said.

‘Yeah, but unlike with Coming Home, we’re actually able to read something into it,’ said Tully. ‘I agree with Jennifer. Deer Hunter will win.’

‘When are the Oscars?’ asked Julie.

‘Monday, April ninth,’ said Jennifer.

‘Well, we’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?’ said Julie. ‘And the loser buys lunch.’

Julie was dropped off first, and when Jennifer parked in front of Tully’s house, she folded her hands across her chest, hung her head, and said, ‘Maybe you like me too much, Tully.’

Tully turned her face away from Jennifer. The fog around Tully was so dense, she could not see well. She blinked, trying to blink back the aching that, like anchors, weighed down her eyes. Shaking her head in short, convulsive strokes, Tully said quietly, ‘I definitely like you too much, Jennifer, I definitely like you way too much, but…’ Tully paused, ‘what does that have to do with anything?’

‘I wish,’ said Jennifer, ‘that maybe you wouldn’t like me quite so much.’

Tully’s head did not stop shaking. ‘Don’t be so concerned. Do we seem close to you? We’re close with Julie, too.’

‘Not that close,’ said Jennifer. ‘You and me are too close.’

‘What’s wrong with close?’ whispered Tully. ‘Everything will be okay, Jen.’

‘I just wish you wouldn’t be so attached to me, Tully,’ said Jennifer a little stridently. ‘I just wish you wouldn’t be.’

‘Okay, Jen,’ said Tully, ‘I won’t be.’

‘Promise me you won’t be?’ said Jennifer.

‘I promise, Jennifer,’ said Tully, her throat so tight she was surprised any words could get through, even little ones. ‘I won’t be.’

Saturday, March 24, Tully, Jennifer, and Julie went to watch Tom pitch his first baseball game of the season. His team won 11 –9.

Jennifer was talkative and cheerful. She narrated Tom’s game, much to Tully’s superficial amusement, and afterwards ate a double scoop of strawberry and chocolate ice cream. Even when she saw Jack with Shakie Lamber on his arm, Jennifer did not flinch. Tully watched her. Jennifer did not say hi or look Jack’s way. Only her unblinking eyes gave away the remains of her soul.

Sunday, March 25, Jennifer as usual picked up Tully and drove her to church, and then to The Village Inn. Rather, Jennifer let Tully drive the Camaro to St Mark’s and to The Village Inn.

‘I really like my car, Tully,’ said Jennifer. ‘Don’t you?’

‘Great car,’ said Tully. ‘Great fucking car.’

‘I’ve really come to like it,’ said Jennifer.

Yes, all the Stanford jocks, Tully wanted to say, will go crazy over you in your Camaro, shiny and baby-blue.

Sunday night, Jennifer sat between her mom and dad and watched the ‘ABC Sunday Night Movie’ with them. Afterwards, she said, ‘Mom, Dad, I’m sorry, but I’m just not going to make valedictorian this year.’

Lynn and Tony exchanged looks. ‘We know. We understand. It’s okay, honey. Honestly,’ said Lynn.

‘I haven’t been feeling very happy, lately,’ continued Jennifer. ‘As I’m sure you’ve noticed. And my grades have suffered.’ She breathed in deeply.

‘Are you okay, Jen?’ Lynn asked. ‘Do you want to go see…someone?’

‘Like who?’ said Jennifer.

‘Like Dr Collins. Your breathing…it sounds…not so good.’

Jennifer smirked. ‘Maybe. Yes. We could do that. I am having a little trouble catching my breath.’

Tony said, ‘What about maybe talking to him about, you know, to see if, you know –’ he broke off.

‘If I’m slipping back again, Dad? Don’t worry. You guys love me so much, and I love you back so much, I’m sure I’ll be fine. Teenage blues, you know.’

‘Oh, honey, don’t we know!’ exclaimed Lynn. ‘We’ve all been there. You’ll be all right.’

‘I know I will, Mom,’ said Jennifer. ‘And anyway,’ she added, ‘the good news is that I haven’t lost any of my hair like Dad.’

‘Good news indeed.’ Tony smiled.

Jennifer then kissed her mom and dad good night and went upstairs. She brushed her teeth and washed her face. Then she took a long shower, washing her hair four times and deep-conditioning it. She shaved her legs, from her ankles to her thighs, and her underarms, too. After the shower, she put on Oil of Olay all over her body, taking particular care of her face. When she put on an extra long T-shirt and a fresh pair of underwear, she got on the scale. The two-digit number above the black line read 89.

She was having trouble sleeping. So she spent the next two or three hours quietly cleaning up her records and books, picking up her strewn-about papers, putting away her magazines, and throwing out dirty paper plates from months ago when she was still eating. Around two in the morning, Jennifer opened the window, moving the curtains out of the way so that the fresh air could get through, and got into bed. She lay on her back, hands under her head, looked up at the ceiling, and remembered that she hadn’t called Tully tonight. Just as well, she thought. Reaching under the bed, she pulled out her notebook journal and flipped it open.

Tully, wrote Jennifer in the dark,

It breaks my heart to break your heart, my Tully, my Natalie Anne Makker, my faithful friend. But Tully, I assure you, you would not have wanted me to live my life out with my soul such a screaming raging zoo. You would not have wanted me to live my life out in such pain. You taught me all I know about caging the animals that run rampant inside me, for the monsters have been running rampant inside you for years. But strength is not like a will: you cannot will it to me. And though you tried to teach me, you could never give me any of your strength. Which is really good, because now God is going to call upon you to summon all your strength, all your iron-clad, gritted-teeth, clenched-fisted will to pull through. And pull through you will have to. Cope you will. I’m sorry, though, Tully. It seems that we all have done nothing but break your poor heart…

She scribbled a few more lines and then shoved the journal back under the bed, flinging her head back on the pillow. Jennifer started counting sheep, and sleep came before the twenty-seventh sheep jumped over the fence.

Monday morning, March 26, Jennifer was not in homeroom. After homeroom, Tully pulled Julie aside and said, ‘Jennifer was not in homeroom.’

‘I know. I’m in the same homeroom, remember?’

‘Where is she?’ said Tully.

‘How should I know? Home sick.’

‘Let’s call her,’ said Tully.

They called from the downstairs cafeteria. Tully let it ring twenty times before she hung up. ‘Let’s call her mother,’ she said tensely.

‘Oh, great, Tull!’ exclaimed Julie. ‘Let’s call Mrs Mandolini and tell her her daughter is not home and not in homeroom.’

‘Well, where is she, then?’ asked Tully.

‘Maybe she’s taking a shower,’ replied Julie. ‘Maybe she has the music on so loud that she doesn’t hear us – ’

‘Impossible,’ interrupted Tully. ‘The stereo is unplugged.’

‘Why is it unplugged?’

‘She says because she doesn’t listen to it that much any more and she doesn’t want it using passive electricity.’

‘Passive electricity?’

‘That’s what she says,’ answered Tully. ‘What are we going to do?’

‘What’s the matter with you? I don’t know what you’re going to do, but I’m going to Health.’

‘Julie.’

‘Tully! What kind of a face is that? You are out of your mind! Listen to me. She is taking a shower. She is listening to music. She plugged it back in. She went shopping. She went for a drive. She went to Kansas City. She’s a big girl.’

Tully stood motionless. ‘Come with me, Jule,’ she said.

‘Tully, I’m going to Health. I’ll talk to you at lunch,’ said Julie, and ran to class.

Tully continued to stand there. She then slowly went to her locker, stashed her books, and left the school. Outside, she thought of calling Robin and asking him to come and get her. But it was a feeble thought, and Tully dismissed it, wrapping her arms tightly around herself. What am I going to say to him anyway? Robin, please come and drive me to Sunset Court? I just don’t want to be alone going to Sunset Court. In fact, I don’t want to go to Sunset Court at all. Robin, please come and drive me to a desert, drive me to a palm tree, drive me to drink, but just drive me away from Sunset Court, Robin. Tully sat down on the bench outside the side entrance, sat there motionless for such a long time that the sun moved from the bottom of the trees in the courtyard to near the top of the sky before she got up and crossed 10th Street. She trod to Sunset Court with her shoulders as squared as possible. On the way, Tully studiously counted every car that went by, numbering them at fifty-seven by the time she walked up to Jennifer’s house.

Walking past the garage, she held herself tighter with her arms and continued on to the back gate. She sat herself down at the picnic table, arms folded around herself, unyielding, shaking arms, gripping her around the chest, and sat there looking at the grass until she heard the car door slam in the front. Tully ran to the driveway, but it was not Jennifer’s Camaro, only Mrs Mandolini’s Chrysler Plymouth.

‘Tully, what are you doing here, what’s wrong?’

‘Oh, nothing, Mrs Mandolini.’

‘Tully, you’re ashen. What’s the matter? Is everything all right at home?’

My home? My home is wonderful, here it goes, here it goes, here it falls right now, right here, here we are, I am going to turn around and walk out of this house and I am never going to come back. I just cannot stand here in front of her.

‘Want some lunch?’ Lynn walked business-like into the kitchen, swung open the fridge, and pulled out the Tupperware bowl of tuna salad.

‘I’m glad you’re here. You haven’t talked to me in some time. I feel very close to you, Tully. You’ve been very dear to me, but you know that, of course.’

‘Of course,’ mouthed Tully, to whom Lynn Mandolini’s voice sounded as far away as Zaire and just as black.

‘And to Mr Mandolini, too, despite how he acts sometimes. Want something to eat?’ Lynn asked Tully with her mouth full.

‘Mrs Mandolini,’ said Tully, putting her hands to her throat. ‘Do you know if Jen’s car is in the garage?’

‘Well, of course it is, we always put it there overnight.’

‘Could you check, please?’ Tully asked, trying to keep the raw edge out of her voice. But Lynn must have seen something in Tully, heard something from Tully because she put down her sandwich – though not her Marlboro – and said, ‘Tully, where is Jennifer?’

‘Not in school,’ said Tully. ‘I’m thinking maybe she went shopping or something.’

‘Playing hooky from school? Jennifer?’ Lynn shrugged her shoulders and picked up her tuna sandwich. ‘Well, I suppose anything’s possible,’ she said, her mouth full.

They walked outside to the garage. Lynn turned the key and Tully closed her eyes, wanting not to see. She heard the garage door pull slowly up. When Tully opened her eyes, she saw a brand-new 1978 Camaro, shiny and baby-blue.

Tully did not move and neither did Lynn. Nothing moved except for the ash on Lynn’s cigarette, which broke off and fell to the floor.

‘Gee,’ said Lynn. ‘I wonder where she could be. Where do you think she could be, Tully?’

Tully did not hear her. She was holding on to a low tool shelf, keeping herself steady, and was stunned at the anger that swam over her. Yes. Anger. Fucking, naked anger. Goddamn it, Jennifer, goddamn it, couldn’t you at least go out on the open road, couldn’t you do at least that, to spare us all just a little? Just a fucking little?

‘Tully, where do you think she could be?’ said Lynn, a little more urgently.

Tully looked up at her, met her gaze head-on, and said as calmly as she could, ‘She is in the house, Mrs Mandolini.’ But when she let go of the shelf, her legs gave out under her, and she collapsed to the cement floor.

‘Tully! What’s the matter with you, are you sick?’ said Lynn, helping her up with one hand, the other one still holding on to the Marlboro. ‘You look so awful, why don’t you come in. I’ll have Jen drive you home.’

Tully struggled up. She thought wretchedly as she walked back into the house that if Jennifer wanted to drive, she would have already driven off somewhere. But the car! The car was in the garage.

‘Jennifer!’ yelled Lynn Mandolini at the foot of the stairs. ‘Come and have something to eat. Jenny Lynn!’

There was no answer. Lynn looked at Tully, who was clutching on to the banister. Lynn went up first. Tully trailed behind her. ‘I hope she is all right,’ said Lynn. ‘She hasn’t been feeling well these past couple of days. But it’s so strange. She seemed perfectly fine this morning. Very chipper and everything. Ate a big breakfast.’ Upstairs, the door to Jennifer’s room was shut and so were all the other doors upstairs, making the hallway a dark tunnel. Tully came to stand near Jennifer’s bedroom door.

‘Tully! Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to open the door?’ She walked past Tully and turned the knob.

Jennifer’s room was empty. They both walked in. It was not only empty, it was spotlessly clean. The bed was made, the floor was vacuumed, the window was halfway open. The books and records were in their places.

‘Wow, when did she do that?’ Lynn wondered. ‘Last night it was really messy.’

Tully sat down on Jennifer’s bed. Her hands were wet. ‘This morning. She did it this morning.’

‘What, instead of going to school?’ Lynn said. ‘Well, maybe. I thought you said she was in the house.’

Tully pressed her fingertips to her eyes so hard that when she stopped she saw red spots. ‘Mrs Mandolini. She is not in school and her car is in the garage.’

‘But she is not in the house, either, Tully,’ said Lynn, sounding slightly irritated. ‘Listen, my lunch hour is almost over.’

‘Mrs Mandolini,’ said Tully. ‘Jennifer is in the house.’

‘Tully, the house is completely quiet except for you and me. She can’t be in the house. Where could she be?’

‘Did you try the bathroom?’ Tully said faintly, hating Jennifer at that moment.

Lynn Mandolini started to breathe very hard. ‘There is no noise in the bathroom,’ she said. ‘Why would she be in the bathroom?’

Tully carefully got off the bed, slowly walked past Mrs Mandolini across the hall, and put her hand on the bathroom doorknob.

The door was locked.

Tully stepped away and sank to her knees. ‘She is in the bathroom,’ said Tully, putting her hands to her face.

‘Don’t be absurd,’ said Lynn. ‘Here, let me try. It’s probably just stuck, it sticks sometimes.’

The bathroom door was locked.

‘Jenny?’ said Lynn.

Tully bit down on her lip until she tasted salt and metal.

‘Jenny Lynn,’ said Mrs Mandolini, knocking on the door. ‘Jenny Lynn, honey, open the door, what’s the matter? Honey, please open the door, Jenny Lynn. Jenny Lynn? Jennifer! Open the door! Open the door, Jennifer! Open the goddamn door!’

Tully knelt with her eyes closed, her hands to her ears, mumbling incoherently to herself, ‘Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name…’ all the while listening to Mrs Mandolini’s weeping voice, to her body thudding against the door, to her crying, ‘Jenny Lynn, Jenny Lynn! Honey, please! Open the door for Mommy! Open the door for your mommy, Jenny Lynn!’

Mrs Mandolini ran stumbling downstairs, got a screwdriver, ran back up, knelt down in front of the door handle, and started to frantically unscrew the lock, her right hand on the screwdriver, her left wiping her face, and all the while muttering, ‘Jenny Lynn, Jenny, it will be all right, honey, it will be all right.’

Behind her, Tully clasped her hands. ‘…Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven…’

Lynn got one screw out and before the other one was out she shoved the door open with her shoulder as Tully lowered her head and clenched her trembling hands. ‘…Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those…’

Tully’s eyes were shut tight, but she was not deaf, and only the deaf and the dead did not hear Lynn Mandolini scream and scream and scream when she pushed open the bathroom door and found her daughter.

II Railroad Days

Be still my soul; be still

A.E. Housman

SIX A House of Little Illusion

May 1979

Shortly before Tully’s high school graduation, a woman named Tracy Scott approached Tully at the Washburn Day Care Center where Tully continued to work on Thursday afternoons. Tracy Scott was a large-boned woman of about twenty-five whose skirts were short, exposing a good deal more of the fleshy white thigh than Tully cared to see.

Tracy’s three-year-old son Damien attended the Washburn nursery. Tully wasn’t sure how many credits the parents actually needed to take at Washburn University to enroll their kids in Washburn Day Care. Tully guessed by listening to Tracy that it couldn’t have been many.

Tracy Scott wanted to know if Tully would mind looking after her little Damien for the summer, five or six nights a week.

‘My new boyfriend’s a musician,’ Tracy Scott told Tully. ‘And me, I wanna be with him to support him, you know, while he plays. He’s real good. He sure is. You’d think so, too, if you saw him. Maybe you can come sometime.’

Tully was uncertain. Where did Tracy live?

‘Right across from White Lakes Mall. On Kansas. Well, really, it’s right behind Kansas. There may be one or two late nights. Dependin’ on where we gotta go for a gig. I used to take Damien with me, but I don’t think Billy likes that too much, Damien gets cranky. Besides, Dami needs a little…what d’ya call it? Peace. He’s just a little kid. Maybe staying out so late isn’t so good for Damien, don’t you agree?’

Tully couldn’t have agreed more.

‘I can’t pay a lot, Tully,’ said Tracy. ‘But Damien sure likes you, he talks about you at home. I’ll be able to make up what I can’t pay you with room and board, how’s that? I have a spare room you can use, you’re still livin’ at home, right? So what do you say? Will you think about it?’

Tully said she would.

A few days later, Hedda was walking home from work when she was accosted by a thin girl in cutoffs and a tank top. The girl walked behind Hedda for a little while, but finally got the courage to approach her.

‘Are you Hedda Makker?’ she asked.

Hedda looked the girl over and said, ‘Who are you?’

‘You don’t know me,’ the girl answered. ‘But I know your daughter.’

Hedda immediately sharpened up.

‘What’s your name?’ Hedda asked the girl.

‘Gail,’ the girl answered, trying to keep up with Hedda. ‘Gail Hoven.’

‘Gail, is there something you want to tell me?’

‘Hmm, yes, hmm, well.’ Gail seemed extremely nervous. ‘Did you get my letter?’

‘What letter? I’m really tired, Gail,’ said Hedda. ‘I’d like to go home now.’

That seemed to encourage the girl. ‘Mrs Makker,’ she said. ‘I think you should know that your daughter has been going out with my boyfriend since September.’

‘Ahh,’ said Hedda.

‘At Jennifer’s eighteenth birthday party she met him and they’ve been meeting, like, two or three days a week ever since!’

‘Three days a week, huh?’

‘Yes, ma’am, uh-huh,’ Gail said. ‘She’s been lying to you. I just thought you might like to know.’

‘Well, thank you, Gail,’ replied Hedda. ‘But I already knew that.’

Gail seemed baffled by this. ‘Oh, oh,’ she stammered.

‘She is a big girl now,’ said Hedda. ‘She can do as she pleases. Now let me go home, Gail.’

‘Yes, of course, Mrs Makker,’ said Gail, stopping in the middle of the street.

‘Oh, and Gail?’

‘Yes, Mrs Makker?’

‘Maybe you should try getting yourself another boyfriend, or doesn’t anyone else want you?’ said Hedda, walking away without turning around.

At home, Hedda waited for Tully. She did not make dinner. She did not talk to Lena. The TV was off. Hedda sat and waited. At seven-thirty, she asked Lena to go to her rooms.

Tully did not get home until after eight. She had gone to visit Tracy Scott’s home. Tracy lived in a trailer – a trailer, for God’s sake! And not just a trailer, but a dirty, run-down trailer, with dirty washing and dirty dishes and dirty Damien all over. But that’s not what offended Tully. What offended her was that Damien lived in a dirty, run-down trailer, with dirty washing and dirty dishes all over. Tracy apologized for the mess and the smell. ‘I’m real sorry. I been so busy, I didn’t get a chance to clean up.’ But somehow Tully doubted Tracy Scott ever had a chance to clean up. The trailer’s dirt looked lived-in. Well, this would certainly be a lateral move, thought Tully as she drove home. Like it mattered, anyway.

When Tully came through the door and saw her mother’s face, she said, ‘Sorry I’m late, Mom, I was over at Julie’s.’

Hedda got up off the sofa, strode over, and hit Tully full-fist in the face. Tully staggered back from the blow and fell. Hedda, teeth clenched, sweating, completely mute, came close and kicked Tully in the stomach.

She kicked Tully again and again and Tully started to shriek. Her screams carried through the front screen door into the Grove, and a few neighbors came out. They whispered to each other, but no one dared go near the house.

‘Ma!’ shrieked Tully, still supine, trying to scramble away from her mother’s foot. ‘Stop it, stop it, stop it!’ She finally managed to get up and put her hands over her face, while her mother, foaming at the mouth, punched her, hissing, ‘Slut, slut, slut.’

From the time Tully was two, she learned fear, and with fear she learned hate, and with hate she learned silence. But something else, too, came out this evening. As Tully struggled up, hands over her face, trying to protect herself, Tully felt rage rising. It nearly lifted her off the ground with its force, and she grabbed her mother’s hand and knocked it against the wall, hissing back, ‘Stop it! Stop it, you crazy woman, stop it!’

Hedda was much stronger than Tully and seeing her daughter angry only made her crazier and stronger. Hedda flailed at Tully, grabbed her with both hands around the neck and began to shake and strangle her.

For Tully, the sensation of not being able to breathe was an odd one in real life. She had woken up with the sweat and fear of death so often that to not be able to breathe at first felt oddly like a dream, and – as if in a dream – Tully felt her suffocation in slow motion and didn’t fight. Quite familiar with the feeling, she did not panic, nor even gulp for air. She finally lifted her knee and hit Hedda with what strength she could muster square in the crotch. Hedda gasped and let go. Seeing Hedda’s hands between her legs made Tully braver. Tully gritted her teeth and grabbed Hedda’s tangled hair, yanking it up and down and hissing all the while, ‘You’re fucking crazy! Fucking crazy!’

After a few moments, Tully let go of her, and as mother and daughter backed away from each other, they saw they were both covered with blood. They stood there for a long moment, looking at each other dumbly. Hedda stared at her own hands, her own shirt, and then at Tully. Tully stared at her mother and then held up her unstitched wrists, which had opened up. Having been recently cut again – for the first time in three years – they had had no time to heal and were bleeding profusely onto Tully’s palms and fingers and down to the floor in the hall. Drops of dark blood formed red quarters on the black and white tiles. Tully pressed her wrists to her chest.

Hedda started screaming. ‘You slut, you liar!’ she shrieked. ‘You slut! You liar!’ And then, out of breath, she lunged again for Tully, who, calmer now and prepared, backed away fast, to see her mother fall on her knees, get up, and lunge for Tully again. And again. Trying to move away, Tully became slower and calmer, as if too much tension and anger weakened all her defenses. But she knew it was not tension and anger that was calming her down, for the light-headed feeling turned into the familiar Whoooshhh, and she saw not Hedda in front of her, but the waves and the rocks. Rocks blended in with the visual unreality of her mother, her mother screaming at her for being a slut and a liar while Tully stood there and bled.

‘What are you saying, you crazy woman, what are you accusing me of?’ Tully said weakly, holding her wrists to her chest. She knew she had little time. Her legs were buckling under her, and she wanted to hold on to a chair or sofa, yet couldn’t while holding on to both her wrists.

‘You’ve been fucking since September!’ screamed Hedda.

Tully lost all her sensibilities. She charged at her mother, flinging her hands in front of Hedda, her wrists spitting blood into Hedda’s face. ‘Since September? September! You mean since September ’72, don’t you, Ma! Since September ’72, right, Ma, starting with your brother-in-law – my Uncle Charlie! Right, Ma? Right?’

Hedda, supporting herself by leaning against the back of the couch, looking at Tully and breathing hard, shook her head and hissed, ‘This will all come to a complete stop, do you hear me? You will not be a slut and a liar under my roof!’

Glowering at Tully, Hedda went for her again, but fell on the floor, spent, and from the floor said, ‘Not while you are living in my house, do you hear me?’

‘Great!’ said Tully. ‘Fuck you!’ She wanted to shout it, but she had nothing left in her to shout with. Her split wrists shouted ‘Fuck you!’ all over Hedda’s face and floor, while Tully turned and stumbled up the stairs and into the bathroom.

Hedda lay there until she got her breath then stood up, wiped her face with her sleeve, and went upstairs. She found Tully on her knees in her room, in front of her bed, wrists sloppily bandaged, stuffing clothes into milk crates.

‘What are you doing, Tully?’

‘I am getting the hell out of here, Mother,’ said Tully, not looking at her.

‘You are not leaving this house.’

‘Uh-huh. Right.’

‘You aren’t leaving this house! Tully! Did you hear me?’

‘Mother, did you hear me?’

‘You aren’t going anywhere, sit down and calm down. You’re hurt. You been cutting yourself again.’

‘I don’t want to talk to you anymore, Mother. Get out of this room and leave me alone.’

‘Tully, don’t you fucking talk to me like that!’ Hedda shrieked, and started toward Tully.

Tully got up off her knees and, standing up straight, legs apart, both bandaged hands in front of her, pointed the long barrel of a .45 pistol at Hedda Makker.

Hedda stopped cold and stared at the gun.

‘Where did you get that?’ she whispered.

‘Mother,’ said Tully. Her voice was weak, but her eyes were those of a madwoman. ‘That doesn’t matter. What matters is that I am leaving and I am not coming back. You must be familiar with that, Mother, your family leaving you and not coming back?’

Hedda flinched.

Tully laughed. ‘How could I say that to you, Mother? Because you’re fucking nuts! That’s how! And you’re making me crazy, too.’ She lowered the gun but continued to stand legs apart in front of her mother.

‘Put the gun down,’ said Hedda.

‘Mother, I want you to leave this room. I will be out of your house in just a few minutes.’

‘I don’t want you to go,’ said Hedda. ‘I lost my temper.’

‘Too late,’ said Tully.

‘I don’t want you to go,’ repeated Hedda dully.

‘Ma!’ Tully screamed. ‘Get out of this room right now so I can get out of this house! Do you hear me?’

Hedda did not move.

‘Because I’ll tell you something, and you might be surprised to hear this. If you try to stop me, if you come near me, or if you go crazy on me, I will kill you. I will shoot you dead, do you understand?’

Hedda stared at her daughter.

‘I will shoot you like a crazy rabid dog in the middle of the street and spare you the rest of your life!’ screamed Tully, panting. ‘You might think I have some bad feelings for you, but Mother, I hate you. Hate you! Now get the fuck out of my room!’

Hedda stretched out her hands and took two steps toward Tully.

Tully lifted the gun, cocked it, and before Hedda could move any further, pointed and fired a foot away from Hedda’s face. The explosion was deafening, but the bullet slipped into the wall near the door, making only a small neat hole in the Sheetrock. Tully shuddered.

Hedda stood motionless. Tully recocked the gun and said, ‘Ma. Get out of my room, because next time I won’t miss.’

Hedda did not turn around, but backed up toward the door, opened it, and staggered out.

Tully put the gun down, went over to the phone, and yanked the cord out of the wall, not giving Aunt Lena a chance to call the police. Thirty minutes later, Tully got into her not so new car and drove out onto the Kansas Turnpike.

It was night, and Tully drove and drove, heading west, with $800 in her pocket and a gun.

Everything hurt.

She suspected that something in her was broken: either her nose, or her ribs, or both. She didn’t know. And then KW AZ put out a tornado alert and Tully stopped the car.

It was unbelievably windy, particularly here, she thought, in the middle of Kansas in the middle of the Great Plains. The highway was pitch-black. The prairie must be all around me thought Tully. There were no stars, and no other cars. There was only Tully, two hundred miles west of home, and a tornado. She pulled over to the shoulder on I-70, ran down the slope, found a ditch, collapsed in it, and promptly lost consciousness.

2

When she came to, it was morning and raining. Her body ached and her wrists throbbed. She crawled up the embankment, got into her car, turned around at the next exit, and drove 150 miles east, back to Manhattan, to DeMarco & Sons. Her quest for the west had brought Tully as far as WaKeeney on the Central Plain.

In Manhattan, Robin took care of her. Tully spent forty-eight hours at Manhattan Memorial, where the doctors reset her nose for the second time in her life, bandaged up her two cracked ribs, and put a half dozen or so stitches in each of her wrists.

She stayed with Robin for two weeks, until the middle of June. Tully didn’t really want to stay with Robin, but she didn’t have much choice. He was at work most of the day, anyway. She drove around and shopped and spent some time at the library. Sometimes she went to Topeka to see Julie. Tully did not see Julie very often.

In the evening, Robin and Tully went out to dinner or to bars or movies or nightclubs. Once, Tully entered a dance competition with a handsome Kansas State dance student, and when they won, she said to him that she’d never met an Irish guy who could dance, and he told her he’d never met anyone who could dance like her. They won two hundred dollars. He gave her half and bought her a drink. Later that night, she and Robin had a ranting, jealous fight.

The following day, Tully called up the student and drove over to the off-campus house he was sharing with three other dance students. The two had sex in the afternoon. Tully left, concluding that he danced much better than he fucked.

For two weeks Tully didn’t know what to do with herself. She often just drove out onto I-70 and turned around somewhere around Salina.

Once Tully drove to Lawrence to visit Mr and Mrs Mandolini. Lynn never came back to the house on Sunset Court, but stayed with her mother until Tony could get them a place out of town. They moved to Lawrence and now lived in a one-bedroom apartment off Massachusetts Street. Tony commuted every day, continuing as assistant manager at Penney’s. Lynn Mandolini was no longer working. Tully didn’t see Mrs Mandolini. Tony said his wife was not well, and the bedroom door stayed shut. Tully did not stay long.

Before she left, Tony put his arm on her shoulder and asked, ‘Who is J. P.?’ showing her the Will Section in the Topeka High School 1979 Yearbook.

When Tully found her voice, she was going to tell him, but the look in his eyes reminded her of the look in George Wilson’s eyes in The Great Gatsby.

So Tully didn’t tell Mr Mandolini who J.P. was, shrugging her shoulders and shaking her head instead.

They were silent for a moment, and then Mr Mandolini said, ‘I’m sorry, Tully. This is hard for us. But if you should ever need for anything…’

Tully smiled colorlessly at him.

When she came back to Robin’s house, she packed her milk crates and left him a note: ‘Dear R. I’ve gone back to Topeka to work for Tracy Scott. T.’

Tracy was very pleased to see Tully. She set her up in a tiny little room in the back and offered to pay her a ‘little extra’ if she helped clean up.

A little extra, thought Tully. I don’t think she has a little extra to buy her kid a toy, much less pay me. ‘Not to worry,’ said Tully.

It was a scorching summer. Kansas weather was changeable; it had something in it for everyone. But this summer, whether it poured or shined, whether there were thunderstorms or tornadoes, it was always 105 degrees.

Tracy was rarely home during the day, even though during the day she was supposed to be home. Tracy usually caught a quick breakfast and then went out ‘on errands,’ staying out longer and longer. Her boyfriend Billy the musician was sapping all her energy. Tracy got dolled up in the morning and said she’d be back by lunch but wouldn’t return until six o’clock, when she’d change her clothes while Billy waited in his van. Then she would fly out, kissing Damien good-bye.

Tully frequently took Damien to Blaisdell Pool, where she taught Damien how to swim. After the pool, they would often visit the World Famous Topeka Zoo or ride on the carousel. Every Sunday, Tully went to St Mark’s with Damien. A few times on Sundays, after going to church, Tully, Robin, and Damien would go to Lake Shawnee. Sometimes on Saturdays, Tully would drive to Manhattan with Damien to watch Robin play soccer.

Tully rarely saw Julie.

‘Tully, why don’t you come around no more?’ asked Angela Martinez one afternoon. ‘My daughter misses you,’ Angela added as Julie looked down at her barbecued hot dog.

‘I’m very busy, Mrs Martinez,’ Tully said, patting Damien on the head. ‘It’s not so easy taking care of a little child.’

‘Don’t I know it,’ said Angela. ‘I have five of them.’

‘Mom, I’m not your little child,’ Julie said sullenly.

‘Till the day I die you will be my baby,’ avowed Angela.

When Tully left with Damien that day, she felt as if she would be really happy not seeing Angela or Julie again till the day she died.

In July, Tully became aware of a pattern in Tracy Scott’s trailer that displeased her. Tracy would leave with her man Billy about seven in the evening and not get in until late the following morning.

‘Tracy,’ Tully said one day. ‘I thought our agreement was for five or six nights a week.’

‘Yeah, and?’

‘Well, it’s more like seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. At first you were “running errands” early in the morning, but now you sleep for six hours and are away the other eighteen.’

Tracy Scott was defensive. ‘I’m paying you, right?’ she said rudely. ‘What do you want, a raise?’

‘No, Tracy, I don’t want a fucking raise,’ said Tully. ‘Your little boy misses you. You are never with him. And no, you are not paying me to work around the clock.’

Tracy didn’t get it. ‘He is well taken care of, ain’t he? He’s got clothes and toys and food. And he loves you – ’

‘No,’ Tully interrupted. ‘He likes me. He loves you.’

‘Look, Tully,’ said Tracy intensely. ‘I’m trying to work out my life, you know what I mean? If I work out my life, it’ll be good for me and it’ll be good for Damien. If Billy comes to live with us, it’ll be good for everybody. I mean, where is Damien’s dad? I don’t fucking know. And I don’t give a good goddamn. I don’t want that bastard back. But I do want Billy. What’s the big deal? It ain’t like I don’t come back every day. What’s the big deal, Tully? It ain’t like you got anything else to do.’

Tully sat outside on the trailer steps and watched Damien dig a hole in the ground with his little shovel.

It ain’t like I got anything else to do, thought Tully. Nothing else to do. Nothing at all. Well, she is certainly right. Nothing else to do but look after her kid, her unkempt, ill-behaved kid, who bites his nails and throws things and spits and curses. I’ll look up little Damien in the State Correctional Facility for Youths in about a decade. Why not? I’ll have nothing else to do. Nothing at all. No money, no job, no home. That woman pays me just enough to entertain and feed her boy. I live in a trailer with a child who’s not my own. I keep house in a trailer. My God, what’s happened? What has happened?

In mid-July, Tully and Damien waited all night for Tracy and her man to come home, but they did not come. Not that day, nor the next. Little Damien was cranky and cried a lot. Tully was plenty cranky herself. All of a sudden, things began to feel totally out of control to her. Here it was July, five weeks in the trailer, five weeks of more and more responsibility with a three-year-old, and now Tracy was not even coming home. Tully woke up with the boy and spent all day with the boy and went to sleep with the boy and when she woke up the next day, she was still alone and still with the boy.

Finally Tracy Scott and Billy came back. Tracy hugged her son, apologizing profusely. ‘I’m sorry, honey, I’m sorry, baby, Mama had to go with Billy to Oklahoma, and do you know where Oklahoma is? It’s so far away.’ Tully, who heard this, wondered if Tracy herself knew where Oklahoma was. She doubted it. Tattoo-covered Billy just stood there and smoked.

A week later, Tracy disappeared again, for about four days this time. Little Damien bit his fingernails to blood and started to strike out at Tully. Tully retaliated by snapping at him or ignoring him. They rarely went to the pool or to Manhattan anymore. Tully stopped seeing Julie completely. On Sundays Tully and Damien still went to church.

Mostly Tully just sat in the chair and watched Damien play. They watched the trains go by, not ten yards away, and cars go by on Kansas Avenue. Across the street was the back of Sears Automotive and Carlos O’Kelly’s, a Mexican cafe.

When Tracy came back, she was less apologetic and more defensive. It seemed to Tully that Tracy Scott was almost resentful that she had to come back at all.

‘Listen, Tracy,’ said Tully, not leaving anything to chance. ‘Next time you go away for more than twenty-four hours, maybe you can take Damien with you.’

‘Oh, that’s really great, that’s just great!’ exploded Tracy. ‘And who’s gonna take care of him on the road, huh? Who?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Tully. ‘Let’s see. Maybe, hmm…you?’

‘I already told you,’ Tracy whispered, almost hissed. ‘I’m in bars, clubs. I can’t take care of him.’

‘He is your son, not mine,’ said Tully. ‘You pay me ten bucks a day to be a mother for you and I can’t do it. I don’t want to do it. I want to go back to our old arrangement. You’ve got to find it inside yourself to do the right thing, Tracy.’

‘Oh, yeah? And what the hell would that be?’ said Tracy belligerently.

Tully was tired. ‘Listen,’ she said. ‘During the day, I don’t want to watch him anymore.’

‘Then you can’t live here, if you don’t want to watch him anymore,’ said Tracy.

‘That’s fine,’ said Tully. ‘You’ve made it very easy for both of us. I don’t want to work for you anymore.’

Tracy hastily apologized. She said Tully got her all hot and bothered over nothing. ‘Of course you can live here. And just look after him at nights, that’s okay. I’m real sorry.’

Tully reluctantly stayed. For about seven days, she went out at nine in the morning and did not come back until six at night when it was time to watch Damien. For seven days, Tracy Scott took care of Damien while Billy slept in the bedroom, or smoked, or went out without her.

After seven days of watching Damien, Tracy Scott went out to watch her Billy be a musician and did not come back the next day. That’s it, Tully thought. That’s just fucking it! As soon as she comes back, I’m out of here so fast. A day went by, then two, then three. Then four, then five, then six.

After eleven days, Tully began to suspect that perhaps Tracy Scott went so far that she couldn’t find her way back to her trailer and her son. And every day for those eleven days, as Tully sat there in a stupor, waiting for Tracy to come back, she thought, I got nothing else to do. I. Got. Nothing. Else. To. Do. And she looked down at the little boy and thought, there is nothing else I can do. Because what am I going to do with him?

After thirteen days, she remembered how Hedda took in a boarder about ten years ago, to help pay the bills. A seven-year-old boarder. The State of Kansas paid Hedda a sum of money, including extra for his food and clothes, and the seven-year-old boarder lived with them for about eight months. After eight months, the child’s parents claimed back Hedda’s boarder, and Hedda, helped out by the arrival of Aunt Lena and Uncle Charlie, refused any more boarders from the state.

The State of Kansas foster home program. Tully remembered it existed, just in time.

She left Damien with Angela Martinez for a few hours one afternoon and drove over to Docking building, across from the Capitol, going up to the fourth floor, to Social and Rehab Services. The receptionist pointed her in the direction of the door that said FOSTER HOME RECRUITMENT AGENCY and told her to speak to Lillian White.

Tully related Damien’s story to Lillian White, who sat behind her big table with her big hands folded and said, ‘What would you like me to do about it? Bring his mother back?’

‘No,’ said Tully, disturbed by the response. ‘I would like for you to find him a suitable home.’

‘Miss, this is Foster Home Recruitment and Licensing. We do not find them suitable homes. We find them homes. If you would like suitable homes, you should speak to a private adoption agency. Besides,’ added Lillian, ‘his mother will almost certainly come back. They nearly always do, and always want their kids.’

Tully was aghast. ‘But he has no one to take care of him while he waits for his mother!’

‘Ah, but that’s not true,’ said Lillian White. ‘He has you.’

‘Me? I’m eighteen. I’m even less suitable than she is, if that’s possible. Besides, I am not available,’ Tully said, helplessly forced by this unfriendly, overweight woman to make some kind of a decision on her life. ‘I start Washburn this month.’

Lillian lifted her eyebrows. ‘You do? What are you studying?’

‘Child development,’ Tully said, suddenly remembering something from her life before March 26.

Lillian stared at Tully intently. ‘And you’re going to Washburn?’

‘Yes,’ said Tully, calmer. ‘I applied to Stanford, in California, but I didn’t get in. So I’m going to Washburn. Eighteen credits. Also I found myself a job,’ rattled Tully. ‘Carlos O’Kelly’s. It’s a Mexican –’

‘I know what Carlos O’Kelly’s is,’ Lillian cut her off. ‘And I know where Stanford is. Well, let’s see what we can do for him. Can you keep him with you until we find an available family?’

Tully nodded. ‘How long do you give the parents to come back before you put the children up to be adopted?’

‘Eighteen years,’ replied Lillian, and when Tully got up to leave, she strongly suspected that Lillian wasn’t joking.

Oh, man, she thought when she walked outside. Yuk. And they have her running the Foster Program?

Telling Lillian White about Washburn made it somehow real for Tully. She told that woman it was happening and now had to follow through.

It took Tully less than an hour to go to Morgan Hall – the Washburn Admissions Office – get an application, fill it out, drive to Topeka High, get a copy of her transcript, go to the trailer, find her SAT and ACT scores, and drive back to Washburn. Afterward, she went to Carlos O’Kelly’s, lied about her waitressing experience, and got a job. Four days later Tully was accepted for the fall semester – with a late registration fee. It took Tully about two minutes to dig out the cash she had stashed away, and another two minutes to pick out her courses from the catalog – all general education requirements. A little English Comp, a little Religion, a little Communication. ‘Have you thought about your major?’ she was asked by the Registrar’s secretary. ‘Child Development,’ she said dully. It really didn’t matter. She could have said Home Ec.

The State of Kansas quickly found Damien a place: the Baxters on Indian Hills Road. Bill and Rose Baxter were a couple in their fifties, and their two children had married and left. The Baxters said they wanted to make another child happy before the grandchildren came. But there was something about them that bugged Tully. Their house was too small to have housed four human beings, Tully thought. And there were no pictures. No pictures of chubby kids running around the yard or playing in the kiddie pool. Nothing.

‘Damien,’ Tully said to the boy that night. ‘Until your mommy comes back, you’re going to go and live with Aunt Rose and Uncle Bill, okay?’

Damien frowned. ‘Where is my mommy?’

Tully felt grateful that he was only three.

The next morning she drove Damien to Indian Hills Road, with his clothes and books and trucks, and tried to tell the Baxters what he needed and liked, but she was received with near indifference. How much are they getting paid to take care of Damien? Tully wondered achingly as she hugged him, telling him she was going to come by and visit him real soon. While driving away and waving to him Tully – in the sideview mirror – saw her own face. It looked as small and pinched as Damien’s.

3

At Carlos O’Kelly’s, the manager, a small, pretty Guatemalan woman named Sylvia Vasquez, tried Tully out in the part of the restaurant that did not serve alcohol. The tips were smaller, but it was slower, too; more to Tully’s speed, since she had never worked as a waitress.

Sylvia gave Tully a cute outfit – a solid blue shirt and a short, flowery cotton skirt. The first week Tully worked three nights, and with a salary of $1 an hour and tips made about $60. It was Tully’s very first $60 that she had made at a real job – a real job that did not involve dancing or running errands for Lynn Mandolini or babysitting. The second week, she made $80; the third, Sylvia gave Tully an extra ten hours and she made $120.

Tully continued to live in the trailer, having moved most of Tracy’s stuff to the spare room that once was Damien’s.

When Robin saw the trailer for the first time, he could not hide his disappointment.

‘Tully, why in heaven’s name would you want to live in a dump like this?’ he asked her.

‘It’s not a dump,’ Tully said defensively. ‘I cleaned and painted it. It doesn’t smell anymore. It’s only a hundred dollars a month. And for now, it’s all mine. How many trailers can you say that about?’

‘Tully, you have my whole house. Five bedrooms, a pool, a maid, and all freshly painted,’ said Robin. ‘Why would you choose this instead of that?’

‘Because this,’ said Tully, ‘is dirty, cheap, near the railroad, and all mine. How many places can you say that about?’

‘Who the fuck wants to be near the railroad?’ He grimaced. ‘When will it be time to get away from the railroad?’

‘Can I get away from the railroad?’ Tully wanted to know. ‘I’m a railroad girl, after all.’

Robin just sighed.

August was nearly at an end when Julie came to visit Tully at Carlos O’Kelly’s. Ordering a chimichanga and a Coke, Julie said, ‘I haven’t seen you for a while.’

‘No,’ said Tully, looking intently into her order pad. ‘I’ve been real busy. Will that be a Diet or a regular Coke?’

‘Make it regular,’ said Julie. ‘So Tom left for Brown a week ago.’

‘Oh,’ said Tully, going to clear off the adjacent table. ‘How do you feel about that?’

‘I don’t know. We haven’t spoken since he left.’

‘Now, there’s a surprise,’ said Tully.

‘Here’s a surprise for you,’ said Julie. ‘I don’t even miss him.’

‘What’s to miss?’ said Tully.

‘Tom and I used to talk a lot,’ said Julie, adding, ‘More than you and me.’

Everybody talks more than you and me, Jule, Tully wanted to say.

‘But that’s not why I don’t miss him,’ said Julie.

I know why you don’t miss him, thought Tully, but didn’t say anything.

When Julie finished eating and paid up, she waited for Tully to come out of the kitchen. The girls stood awkwardly near the front doorway.

‘Tully, I’ve come to say good-bye,’ said Julie. ‘I’m leaving for Northwestern tomorrow.’

Tully tried to smile. ‘Oh, well, that’s great, Jule. That’s great. Listen, I’m sure you’ll have a good time. Be sure to write, you hear?’

Julie looked at her bitterly. ‘Yeah, sure, Tully. You, too, okay?’

They hugged each other quickly and moved away.

‘Where are you living now, Tully?’ asked Julie. ‘Are you back home?’

Tully rolled her eyes. ‘No way. I’m right across the street,’ she said. ‘At the trailer park.’

Julie stared at Tully. ‘Ah,’ she said. ‘Well, that’s great. Listen, I gotta go. Take care, will you?’

Tully watched her go out the doors and then went back to her tables.

‘Tully! Tully Makker, right?’

Tully stared blankly into a blithely cheerful face.

‘Remember me? Shakie. Shakie Lamber.’

‘How could I forget you, Shakie Lamber?’ replied Tully. ‘You were Topeka High’s Homecoming Queen.’

‘Yeah, that’s it! And Prom Queen, too, but I didn’t see you at the prom.’

‘I didn’t go,’ said Tully.

‘Didn’t go to your prom? Wow!’ said Shakie. Then, ‘Did you go on the Senior Trip?’

‘Noooo,’ said Tully, already weary. ‘How was Denver?’

‘What a city!’ said Shakie.

‘I’ll bet,’ said Tully. She liked working at Carlos O’Kelly’s, but she sure did run into many of the people she went to high school with. Too many.

‘So how’s it working for this place, Tully? Not too difficult?’

‘No, it’s great. Piece of cake,’ said Tully.

‘Good,’ said Shakie. ‘Because I think I’m gonna apply for a job here. While I’m going to beauty school,’ she added.

‘On the other hand, Shakie,’ said Tully, ‘the hours are horrendous and you have to clean your own tables and the customers don’t tip too good, and –’

‘You’ll help me with this, won’t you?’ said Shakie. ‘I’ve never had a job before.’ She leaned closer to Tully. ‘Not even babysitting.’

‘Great,’ mumbled Tully under her breath.

Shakie got hired and for the first few weeks, Sylvia had her ‘shadowing’ Tully, who couldn’t avoid her. Much as she tried.

‘Shakie,’ Tully would say, ‘you’re going to have to stack your dirty plates, you just can’t carry them out one by one. The tables remain dirty too long and you’re wasting time.’

‘Well, I just can’t do that yet, Tully. I’m new at this. I’ll get it right,’ Shakie would say, and throw her blond mane back. Sylvia finally had to ask Shakie to keep it in a ponytail after one customer left Shakie a $5 bill but commented that he would have preferred a little less hair in his burrito.

Shakie didn’t have a car and usually would wait for her mother to come pick her up. One Saturday night in October, Tully offered to drive Shakie home.

The girls walked across Kansas Avenue to Tully’s trailer. ‘You live here?’ said Shakie.

‘Yeah,’ said Tully. ‘What about it?’

‘It’s real nice,’ said Shakie. ‘And it’s all yours. Must be great.’

‘Shakie…what kind of a name is that?’ Tully asked her when they were on their way.

‘Shakira,’ answered Shakie. ‘I think Mom was expecting an Indian baby. What kind of a name is Tully?’

‘Natalie,’ Tully gave her stock answer. ‘My brother couldn’t pronounce it properly.’ How ironic, Tully thought. I’m asking her what kind of a name she has. Shakira. She’s putting me on.

‘Oh, you got a brother?’ she asked, but before Tully had a chance to respond, Shakie said, ‘I have three brothers. All older. I’m the youngest. The baby of the family.’

‘Swell,’ said Tully.

‘Nice car,’ Shakie said, touching the seats and the dashboard. ‘You make enough money at Carlos to afford a car like this?’

Tully waited, breathed, counted to five. Then she spoke. ‘No, it was a gift.’

‘What, by your folks? Nice parents. We got too many kids in my family, no one has anything newer than 1975. I don’t even have a car yet.’

The girls chatted a while longer.

‘Thanks a lot, Tull,’ said Shakie, opening the door, and Tully winced.

‘Is it okay if I call you Tull?’

Tully nodded her head slowly. ‘Rhymes with gull, right?’ she said. ‘Why not? I love birds. My boyfriend’s name is Robin.’

‘Great,’ said Shakie. ‘Listen, are you busy tomorrow? If it’s a nice day, we’re having a barbecue. Come if you can.’

Tully thanked her for the offer and said she would make it if she could.

Luckily it rained on Sunday and the decision was spared her.

‘So, Shakie,’ asked Tully one Saturday night when she was driving her home again and the girls stopped at the Green Parrot, ‘Who are you going out with these days?’

‘Oh, just here and there,’ said Shakie absentmindedly, and then leaned over to Tully and said, ‘Don’t tell my Mom or anything, but I’m waiting for Jack to come back.’

‘Oh,’ said Tully coldly. ‘Where is Jack nowadays?’

‘Oh, Jack.’ Shakie shook her head. ‘He is somewhere. Nowhere. Anywhere.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I don’t know. Didn’t he have a football scholarship to someplace or other?’ asked Shakie.

‘Why are you asking me?’ Tully said. ‘You went to the prom with him. How should I know?’

‘Well, nobody knows for sure. I think he had a scholarship to a college in California. Palo Alto or something. I don’t think he went.’

‘Ahh,’ breathed Tully, her lips suddenly numb. She tried to bite them. Palo Alto! Palo Alto. My God, my God.

‘Don’t you keep in touch with him?’ Tully asked after long minutes passed. Tully was grateful for the dimness of the Green Parrot.

Shakie laughed. ‘In touch? Nah. He is out there finding himself. People who are finding themselves are always out of touch. So how come you didn’t go to the prom?’ Shakie asked Tully.

Finding himself? Tully thought.

Shakie repeated her question.

Tully shrugged. ‘Didn’t feel like it.’

‘Didn’t feel like going to your own Senior Prom? Wow!’ exclaimed Shakie. ‘We had a bitchin’ time. Bitchin’. Jack and I were King and Queen.’

Oh, I’m sure, thought Tully. I’m so sure you were, Shakie Lamber, cheerleader and Homecoming Queen.

Shakie took a sip of her Miller Lite. ‘I’ll tell you something, Tully, because you’re a friend. I was pretty crazy about that Jack.’

‘No kidding,’ said Tully weakly.

Shakie smiled. ‘Well, he certainly had some craze-inducing parts to him, yes, I can tell you that right now.’ She ordered another drink. ‘But he is gone. I think it was just this high school thing between us. But! I keep hoping, nothing wrong with that, right? Oh, I’m not just sitting on my behind, though, Tully. I’m going to beauty school. The Topeka School of Cosmetology. I want to work at Macy’s. In the fine makeup department. Chanel or something like that.’

‘Oh, yeah?’ said Tully. She finished her beer in two gulps. ‘Listen, it’s kind of late. I gotta get to sleep. Let’s go.’

Tully and Robin were invited to Shakie’s for Thanksgiving, 1979. Robin didn’t go; he was spending the holiday with his brothers.

Tully went alone and met Shakie’s three brothers, her huge six-foot-six lumberjack of a dad, and her five-foot-nothing mom, who got all the male Lambers to help her with dinner by screaming at them at the top of her lungs, while Shakie sat with Tully in the living room.

‘I’m the youngest and the only girl,’ Shakie explained. ‘I never have to do anything.’

‘Martha! Dinner!’ yelled Shakie’s mom.

‘Martha? Who’s Martha?’ asked Tully.

Shakie laughed uncomfortably. ‘Oh, that’s me,’ she said. ‘Martha Louise Lamber.’ And when they got to the dinner table, Shakie whispered fiercely to her mother, ‘Shakie, Ma, Shakie!’

A few days later in Tully’s trailer, Robin asked, ‘So, is Shakie a replacement friend?’

‘Replacement for who?’ snapped Tully.

Robin looked away. ‘For Julie,’ he said. ‘Maybe for me.’

‘Certainly not for you, Robin,’ Tully answered. ‘But Julie is far away. I can’t help it if Shakie likes me. We’re not that close, though.’

‘You’re not that close with anyone,’ said Robin.

‘No,’ said Tully, ‘1 guess I’m not. Still, though, what a brave thing to say to me, Robin DeMarco.’

‘Do you like Shakie?’ Robin asked.

‘What’s not to like?’ said Tully. ‘And as if I have other options. What would you like, Robin, for me not to be friends with anyone but you?’

Robin sighed and made room for her in the bed, pulling the quilt over both of them. ‘As if what I wanted really mattered, Tully,’ he said.

‘Jack is back!’ said Shakie happily as the girls started their Saturday night shift.

It was nearing Christmas.

‘He is, is he?’ said Tully. ‘Why?’

‘Oh,’ said Shakie, brushing her hair in the middle of the restaurant, ‘His dad died. So he’s back! Sounds like a song, doesn’t it? “I’ve been waiting to happen/till Jack comes back!/Now, Jack is back/and I’m ready to happen/Jack is back/and it’s straight in the sack!”’ She sang and danced and flung her blond mane all around the empty tables.

Tully watched her and then laughed. ‘Shakie, you are so full of shit.’

‘He really is back, Tully,’ Shakie said seriously.

‘No, that’s not it. What about all that bullshit that it was just a high school thing?’

Shakie shrugged and smiled. ‘You’re right. It was bullshit.’

‘Besides, his father died, how can you be so happy?’ said Tully.

‘Well, he’s gonna need a lot of cheering up, ain’t he?’ replied Shakie, gleaming. ‘And I mean a lot of cheering up!’ She giggled and jumped up in the air.

Tully laughed despite herself.

She saw him a few days later when he came to pick up Shakie. Shakie’s station was full, so Sylvia sat him down at one of Tully’s empty tables. Tully came up to him, real calm, real cool. ‘What can I get you?’ she asked. He looked the same as ever. Better. Sun-drenched, blond, and hard. But Tully’s eyes were all fogged up like wet glasses.

‘How are you?’ he asked Tully.

‘Oh, all right, getting along, couldn’t be better.’ She tried not to blink and not look at him, either, while her heart gripped and ripped her.

‘What can I get you?’ she repeated, her voice cold.

He reached out and touched her fingers, lightly. ‘I’m sorry, Tully,’ he said. ‘I am. So sorry.’

He said that at graduation, too. Sought her out – cornered her, almost – and said, ‘I’m sorry, Tully. I’m so sorry.’ Now, as then, his serious, intent face made her speechless.

‘Oooohhh, Jackie!’ squealed Shakie, throwing herself and her hair all over Jack, kissing him and giggling. Jack rubbed Shakie’s back. ‘All right, all right, what’s gotten into you?’ he said.

Tully left them and finished her tables, married some ketchups, and filled some saltshakers and sugar bowls. She kept her eyes on her unsteady hands.

‘Tully, do you need a ride?’ he asked her on his way out.

God! I wish he didn’t know my name, she thought.

‘You must be joking!’ said Shakie before Tully could answer. ‘She’s got the most brilliant car. A 1978 blue Camaro. She should be asking you if you need a ride.’ Jack stared at Tully so hard and so sad that she wanted to smash his face in. Smash his face in or break down right in front of him and his girl.

A week later, Shakie walked over to Tully’s trailer after work. She entered, sat down, and burst into tears.

Tully rolled her eyes. Walking over slowly, she sat carefully on the corner of the sofa. She wanted to put her arm around Shakie but just couldn’t do it.

‘What’s the matter. Shake? He leave?’

Shakie nodded, crying. ‘Going to.’

Tully rubbed her hands together. Clenched her fists, unclenched them.

‘I thought he’d be staying, I thought maybe he would stay,’ Shakie was muttering. ‘But no, he had to go, he said, had to go back. Didn’t want to be back here anymore, he said.’ She continued to cry, and Tully continued to sit there and say nothing. They sat for a long time, until it got too much for Tully, just too fucking much, and she said, ‘Shakie, I’m really sorry, because I like you and wish I could be a better friend to you now that you need someone, but I can’t make you feel better about this. Do you understand?’

Shakie wiped her eyes and looked at Tully.

‘Shakie,’ continued Tully, cracking her knuckles, ‘I will cover your ass for Sylvia, and I will clean your tables, and I will drive you home. I will help you with anything else, but I cannot help you with this. I just can’t, please understand. I just can’t help you.’

Shakie stared at her.

‘Powerless!’ exclaimed Tully. ‘Yes, powerless, and helpless. And I cannot stand to see you cry over this!’ she screamed suddenly and stood up. Tully’s face was a mask of pain and Shakie just sat on the bed, astonished. Tully pressed her clenched fists to her eyes and whispered, ‘I cannot stand to see you cry over him.’

It was a while before Tully took her hands away from her face. ‘Please be a friend to me, don’t do this in front of me, Shakie, okay? Otherwise I really won’t be able to be friends with you anymore. Okay?’

‘Okay, okay,’ Shakie said quickly, getting up and coming close to Tully. ‘Okay,’ she repeated, and went to hug Tully, who backed away.

It was dark but Tully wasn’t afraid. After Shakie left, Tully drove up to St Mark’s, parked the car, and walked around back. The gate screeched when she opened it, badly needing oiling. Making her way carefully through the backyard, Tully stopped near a wrought-iron chair, which had been brought out by Father Majette when he had found Tully lying on the ground. ‘God doesn’t distinguish between the dead and the living, my child,’ he had said. ‘He loves both equally. You’re still living, Natalie Anne. You wouldn’t want our Lord to mistake you for the dead, lying as you do among them.’

Only barely, thought Tully, moving the chair out of the way and lying down on the December Kansas ground. Only barely living, she thought, lying down in her coat and scarf and gloves next to a flat gravestone embedded in the earth. She ran her fingers carefully and gently over the cold stone.

4

One, two, three, four minutes of screaming. Raw, ugly, horrible screaming. Lynn Mandolini was shaking Jennifer, shaking Jennifer and screaming. Tully pressed her palms hard against her ears, wanting to break her eardrums, wanting just stop, stop.

She opened her eyes and saw Lynn pressing her lips to Jennifer’s face, pressing her mouth to Jennifer in an attempt to, Tully didn’t know what, but she shut her eyes quick, pressing the balls of her hands to her eyes to go blind to ward off Lynn Mandolini to stop to stop. But it was too late. The image of Lynn bending over and desperately pressing her lips to what was left of Jennifer burned like a big black tattoo into Tully’s head. Tully closed her eyes but continued to see a crazed mother bending over her only daughter.

Still on her knees, Tully moved towards the bathroom. ‘Mrs Mandolini, Mrs Mandolini,’ Tully whispered, her head bent. ‘It’s no use.’

But Lynn didn’t hear Tully, through her bloodcurdling screaming and whimpering, whimpering that made ants crawl on Tully’s skin.

‘Please, Mrs Mandolini,’ Tully repeated inaudibly, briefly looking into the bathroom.

There she is, lying in her mother’s arms. Lying in them. She lay in them when she was born and she is lying in them now. Well, it is only right that she should be lying in her mother’s arms, and not in mine.

Tully could not see Jennifer’s head, covered as it was by Lynn’s upper body, but she could see that Lynn’s face and hands, Jennifer’s white T-shirt, the floor, the shower curtain, the walls, the toilet all were dripping, saturated, soaking in what remained of Jennifer.

The doorbell rang; Tully went downstairs to answer it. She saw the policeman outside.

‘Is everything all right?’ he said, raising his cap. ‘A neighbor across the street – ’ he pointed to an elderly woman, standing still. ‘She seemed to think,’ he continued, ‘there was some trouble.’

‘There has been…some trouble,’ said Tully blankly, and then Lynn started to scream again. The policeman gently pushed Tully aside and ran up the stairs. Tully continued to stand near the open door. I could just go, go right now, just walk on out, right now, walk down the driveway, down the path, away from Sunset Court, away forever from Sunset Court.

‘Miss, miss.’ The police officer ran back down the stairs. He didn’t look the same anymore, thought Tully. ‘We need to call an ambulance,’ he said, and Tully noticed he was shivering. She noticed that she herself became calmer and calmer the more tumultuous the reaction around her got. The more she heard Lynn Mandolini’s screaming, the more something was swinging shut inside her. The more steady her hands became, the more regular her breath, the less she prayed, and the less she closed her eyes. And now the near-panic of this man for an ambulance made her almost, almost amused.

‘I think,’ she said, ‘it’s a little late.’

The ambulance came anyway, in about ten minutes. Two ambulances. And another police car. The lights, the blue and white colors, flashed so insistently, they nearly drowned out the image of Jennifer’s red blood. The sirens coming up the street nearly drowned out the sound of Lynn’s terrible screaming. After the paramedics rang the bell, they stood politely near the door, waiting for Tully to let them in, just like insurance salesmen or plumbers. ‘Have you thought about insurance?’ ‘We’ve come to replace your pipes.’

Swinging the door open, she pointed them upstairs, where the police officer was prying Lynn off Jennifer. Before he went up there for the second time, he went into the downstairs john and quietly threw up. Tully heard that sound. Compared to the screaming, it was an unchained melody to her. The paramedics had to give Lynn five hundred milligrams of Thorazine before they were able to detach her from Jennifer.

‘Miss, what’s your name, miss?’ said another policeman, touching Tully on the arm. She flinched from his touch.

‘Makker,’ she said, her mouth numb, like it was full of Novocain. Novocain that had been administered only after the dentist had drilled raw into her nerve endings.

‘Would you like something to calm yourself?’ the police officer inquired, and Tully looked down at her body, completely still, completely immobile.

‘If I was any calmer,’ she said, ‘I’d be in a coma. No, thank you.’ One of the paramedics grabbed her wrist and felt her head, uttering, ‘Shock. Needs to go to the hospital. Needs to be treated. Put her in with the mother.’

Tully snatched her wrist back from him. ‘I am fine,’ she said. ‘I’m just fine.’

‘Shock,’ the paramedic repeated in the same flat tone he might use for ‘Left. Right. One, two, three.’ ‘Needs to be treated.’

Tully did not move from the couch. She turned towards the stairs, and then quickly away, almost losing control of her bladder, seeing two men carrying down a covered stretcher.

Minutes passed. Sound waves stopped breaking through her barriers. The men moved and the blue lights twirled and whirled like party lights for a party girl, for a dancing girl. The crowd of people gathered outside for the party show. A whole crowd at noon. Have they nowhere else to be?

There was movement, and there was vision, but there was no sound, no sound at all. I wonder if he is right, Tully thought. I wonder if I am in shock. I wonder if this is what she felt like withdrawing from us all at the age of two and three, withdrawing because the sounds we made stopped making connections inside her head. I wonder if this is what she felt like when she was a little girl and was trying to shut out the whole world.

‘Miss Makker,’ she heard dimly. ‘Miss Makker. Could you tell us what happened? I know it’s hard for you, but you must try. Please, Miss Makker.’

I’m not her keeper, she wanted to say. I am not her keeper. I could not keep her. Could not.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Have you called Mr Mandolini?’

‘We need to. Miss Makker, were you here when it happened?’

Yeah, sure, she thought. Why, I helped her. Me and her mom, together. We helped her and then watched.

‘Was it, perhaps,’ the police officer was saying, ‘an accident? That’s what we’re trying to find out. What to put in the police report. Could it have been, perhaps, an accident?’

Tully slowly shook her head and stood up. She felt a light-headedness not unlike what she felt when she ‘healed’ herself She sat back down. Ah. That was better. Still, though, I’m breathing shallow. She touched her skin. It was cold and clammy. ‘Look, I am in shock, right? I cannot help you very well right now. But you know,’ she said, her voice catching a little, ‘she was a good Catholic girl. Perhaps if you say it was an accident, she’ll be able to be buried by the Church. You know how the Church doesn’t approve of those…unaccidents. So perhaps maybe you could just do that, what do you think?’

Tully looked him straight in the face and saw his eyes fill with tears. ‘Miss,’ he said. ‘I’m a police officer. I have to do my job. I have to put in what really happened. I’m sorry, Miss.’

Tully’s eyes went hard. ‘In that case,’ she said, ‘it was an accident. She was playing around, I didn’t even know they kept a gun in the house. It was an accident. She had everything going for her. We were going to go to California, you know. She was gonna be valedictorian of her class.’ Tully looked down at her hands and began to shake.

‘All right, Miss, all right,’ said the policeman, putting his hand on Tully. ‘All right.’

And they all left soon thereafter. Even the crowd disappeared. Well, why not? The show was over. They all had stood and stared as two stretchers were wheeled into the ambulances. The sirens back on, the police cars forged ahead, paving the way to Stormont-Vail Hospital. The only thing the crowd had the decency

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