“Susan’s dad died. I have to go.”
Saying it out loud made it feel real. I didn’t know anyone who died before, and it scared me. I decided I would walk so I could think about it on my way, so I could try to get rid of the relief I felt about the fact that he couldn’t hit Susan anymore. I was pretty sure you weren’t supposed to be glad someone was dead.
“Sorry,” I said to Brad, putting on my peacoat. “I’ll just see you later, okay?” I was still hyperventilating a little. My voice sounded stupid and small.
His face completely fell, and he grabbed my forearm as I reached for the knob on my bedroom door.
“Taylor?”
“What.”
“Just . . .” He stopped. I could tell that this shocking news was pushing something out of him. Tears formed in the corners of his eyes, which made me feel bad, because I was nowhere near crying.
“What?” I demanded.
“I love you,” he said. He reached out to touch my elbow, then changed his mind.
“Oh my God, Brad. Not now.”
I handed him Stephanie Tanner’s fish food.
“Can you feed her, please?” I asked. Then I left him standing there in my bedroom.
I was nine when Sandra won Stephanie Tanner for me at the Hopuonk Fair. That night, after we got her a bowl, both of us crouched in front of the glass, watching her dart around.
“She’s so cute,” I said, staring at her glittering orange body. “It’ll be so sad when she dies.”
Which prompted Sandra to say, “You just got her, Taylor. How are you already this nostalgic? You’re in fourth grade, for Christ’s sake.”
While walking to Susan’s house, I started thinking about Mr. Blackford. He was a real asshole.
There was the time he pinned Mrs. Blackford against the kitchen wall and said, “Of course I’m fucking Mrs. Greenberg, because I don’t get any at home,” and Mrs. Blackford was crying.
She’d held her cigarette down real low, and I could tell she was thinking of squishing it right into his cheek.
Susan and I watched from the hallway. We were eleven. Mrs. Greenberg was PJ’s mom. Her actual name was Debbie.
I remember thinking, Don’t you call people by their first names when you’re sleeping with them?
Susan was crying. She was holding my hand tight, and I hated both of her parents. At least when Sandra fucked people, she called them by their first names. Brian, Teddy, Frank. Johnny, I thought hopefully. They were people to her, at least.
Later that night, Mrs. Blackford brushed Susan’s hair so hard that the hairbrush broke in her hair and pulled a chunk of it out.
Whenever her parents fought, they used Susan against each other. For example, once when Susan’s mother said she couldn’t eat sugar cereal, her dad bought her a family-sized box of Lucky Charms, because he was angry. Susan ate Lucky Charms in a very specific way, by eating all the regular cereal pieces and leaving the marshmallows for the end, letting them turn the milk blue, which I knew because Sandra bought me sugar cereal whenever I wanted and Susan ate it at my house. But when Susan’s mother saw her eating the Lucky Charms, she grabbed Susan by the elbow and threw her against the wall, then went to scream at Mr. Blackford.
Sometimes, like the night when they fought in the kitchen about Debbie Greenberg, they went straight for Susan, even if she didn’t do anything wrong.
But then there was also the fact that Mr. Blackford would take us to Dairy Queen on Sunday nights and let us get whatever we wanted. Susan always got a butterscotch-dipped cone, and every time, I considered asking for a chili cheese dog, because it was the only non-dessert item on the menu, and I was curious. But instead, I always got an ice pop shaped like a star. And Mr. Blackford asked us about our week, and he actually seemed interested.
I could tell he wanted to remember being eleven, before everything got so bad. I understood his life a bit more now that I was older. He liked taking us for ice cream when we were kids because it reminded him of doing the same when he was young. Before he married a woman he did not love and got a boring job. Before he realized that even though he was the only one of his brothers to have a serious career, to go to college, it didn’t make him happy. He had a long commute into Boston every day, and I bet he spent the whole trip honking at people.
The thing was, when somebody died, even if they were awful, you wanted to just remember them getting you anything you wanted at Dairy Queen.
* * *
—
Looking through the front window, I saw that Susan was wide-awake, wrapped in a quilt on her sofa, the low blue glow of the television illuminating her cheekbones, a bottle of Harpoon wedged in the crevice of her lap. Her long coal-colored hair was piled on top of her head in a bun.
I rapped lightly on the front door, and she looked over briefly before turning back to the television. I gently turned the doorknob and stepped inside.
Susan didn’t look at me. She was watching the Discovery Channel, something with animals.
She usually watched Entertainment Tonight, soap operas, or sitcoms.
“I need a fennec fox,” she said, her eyes never leaving the screen. “They’re so sad. I can’t handle it.”
“Susan,” I said. My stomach churned. I was afraid to approach her.
One of her bare feet stuck out from the quilt. Her toenails were painted a light shade of purple, even though she usually didn’t bother with her feet because they were already messed-up.
She always took such good care of the rest of her body: her eyebrows, her cuticles. She had drawers full of creams and lotions and nail polish that she ordered from the ads at the back of Cosmo, concoctions to make her hair thicker, her lips shinier, her skin softer.
I expected Susan’s house to be full of people delivering casseroles, then realized maybe that was coming later. Instead, there was just her mother in the kitchen, smoking a cigarette and staring at the wall, another cigarette going in the ashtray on the table.
“Maybe if I move to the Sahara,” said Susan, “then I could get one. I would be willing to do that.”
“I had to walk,” I lied, moving a little bit closer. “My car wouldn’t start.” I slipped slowly out of my boat shoes, leaving them on the doormat.
“They only live for fourteen years,” Susan said, finally turning to look at me. “I could move back to Hopuonk after it dies.” Her cheeks and the tips of her ears were pink from the beer.
“Where is he?” I asked. This seemed like the stupidest question in the world, but it seemed impossible to me that he could be there, running, and then just not be.
Susan scooted over on the couch, making room for me, but not exactly inviting me to sit down. I gently squeezed into the space behind her, my stomach against her back.