Virtual Silence Page 2

  This time she turned, and I saw that her eyes were moist. It didn’t take much to set her off these days. I held the socks out to her, but it took a moment for her expression to soften. “I’ve never seen those before,” she whispered.

  If I told her that Dad had bought them for me, she’d refuse to wear them, so I mumbled something about having inherited them from Jill, Terri’s older sister who had moved to Texas over the summer. Hesitantly, she reached toward my outstretched hand, but just as her fingers were about to make contact, I jerked mine back—not far, just enough to let her know that there was more going on here than a simple act of charity. The brief display of bewilderment that appeared on her face made my heartbeat quicken. “I need to borrow twenty bucks,” I said briskly. “I’ll pay you back as soon as I find a job.”

  Her hand withdrew in haste. “No!” she snapped. “If you couldn’t find a job over the summer, how do you expect to find one now?”

  “I tried!” I whined.

  She was on her feet, tilting toward the basement door. She must have known I’d follow, because she kept right on talking. “You call that trying? What’d you make, three phone calls? Four? If you’d really wanted to find employment, you would have by now. You should be ashamed, a girl your age.”

  As we hurried down the stairs and turned toward the washer, I had to bite my lip to keep from reminding her of how long it had taken her to find her job, as a receptionist in a local insurance agency. “This is really important,” I pleaded.

  She opened the lid and weeded through the dirty clothes within until she finally came up with the same pair of blue socks that she had worn to Bingo the week before. She held them up and inspected them for holes. “The answer is no. I’m not even going to ask what you want it for,” she said.

  That was best, because I wasn’t prepared to tell her. “Well, can you at least drop me at Dad’s on your way out? And pick me up on your way back again? Maybe he can spare a few dollars.”

  She lifted the socks to her nose, sniffed, jerked her head back in response, then shrugged and bent to slip them on anyway. She turned from the machine and, having had a second thought, spun back around to pour some powder in and start it up. Then she squared up her shoulders, brought her hands up in front of her face, and crossed them with her palms facing her. Slowly, and with her eyes empty and her lips pursed in concentration, she raised one knee to her chest, then kicked, Tai Chi fashion. I couldn’t be sure whether her imaginary adversary was Dad or me, but whoever it was, she must have imagined a reaction to her assault too, because she smiled. “Sure,” she said, stepping past me. “Just be sure that you’re out by the Dumpsters at eight sharp. I’m not going in to get you.”

  At the top of the stairs we ran off in different directions, she towards her bedroom to finish dressing and I towards mine to answer the phone. “Did you get it yet?” Sharon asked.

  “I’m still trying,” I confessed and hung up.

  Dad’s tiny kitchen smelled of burnt meat. They’d been separated for nearly a year, and he still hadn’t learned to cook. “Ginny! Come in,” he said, even though I’d already closed the door and was standing with my back to it. I knew he’d have preferred me to knock, but if I didn’t have to announce my entries into my mother’s house, I didn’t see why I should when I came to his apartment. I had talked it over with Terri, and we had concluded that it was my duty as their daughter to insure that both the pleasures and the drawbacks of parenting remained equally distributed in spite of their split.

  He was smiling his closed-lipped smile, and it occurred to me that almost all the adults I knew smiled that way. It was the kind of smile that could have hidden anything, a formality more than a genuine response to delight. He was sitting at the table. Clustered before him were the tools of his trade: computer, books, paper, pencils, ashtray, smokes, matches, and beer bottle. At the far end was his dinner plate, a blackened steak bone in the middle of it. As there were no other food scraps, I assumed he’d either had a single-serving dinner or literally licked the plate clean. “Can I take that home for Surge?” I asked.

  “Sure,” he said. “Sit down. Tell me how your mother’s doing.”

  I looked past him, at the gray Formica counter. Except for the microwave, which had come with the apartment, there wasn’t a single thing on it. I thought of the counter space at home, cluttered so tightly with food processors and coffee pots and canisters, so many various trinkets that “space” was hardly the word to define it. “She went out tonight wearing a pair of dirty socks that she took from a load of laundry that had been sitting in the washer for a week,” I said.

  His smile elongated. This was the kind of thing he liked to hear. It confirmed that he had used good sense in allowing her to throw him out. I only stooped that low when I wanted something, but he hadn’t caught on to that yet. If she was the bad guy, then he had to be the good guy. It rendered him more inclined to give in to my requests. I might have gone on about her, mentioned that she seldom made her bed anymore or that she hadn’t read a newspaper in over a month, but I didn’t have time to beat around the bush. “How’s your financial situation?” I asked.

  He let his eyes drift down to the computer screen, not a favorable indication. “Didn’t your mother get my last check?”

  “Yes, but we had to use it all up on school clothes. Then this other thing came up.”

  I hesitated. Sharon had called just after dinner to inform me that tomorrow was the day; I hadn’t had time to formulate a decent fabrication. Then something hit me. “I broke a string on my violin,” I said.

  He looked up at me. I lifted my chin and smiled his tight smile right back at him. We both knew I practiced the violin as infrequently as possible; in fact, I hadn’t had a lesson in well over a year. Still, it was he who had started me on it, he who had insisted that it would round me out, make me the target of more college solicitations than I could imagine. And it was his lies to my mother that had gotten him thrown out; he was in no position to risk an accusation.

  He puffed out his cheeks and exhaled, a trace of smoke from his cigarette emerging with his breath. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

  He got up from the table, wiped his hands on his back pockets, and left the room. I leaned over immediately to see what was happening on his computer. He was in his word-processing program, but there was only one line on the screen: She moved across the deck in the dark. Shit! I didn’t know whether the expletive was part of the text or only his reaction to it. Starting was always tough for him. He’d rewrite first chapters for months on end before he got the tone and tempo the way he wanted. Once he got through that though, his books were as good as done. This one was going to be an historical novel about some pirates. I didn’t know much about pirates myself, except that they were a superstitious lot and would rather take their chances swimming with the sharks than to sail with a woman on board. It figured that my father would feel compelled to go against the grain and insert one in there anyway.

  He gave me five bucks more than I’d hoped for and offered to make me a cup of tea, which I declined. Then, thinking that I should compensate him for the money, I began to tell him all about my first week of school. I described each of my teachers, exaggerating their eccentricities so as to get him to laugh. But he didn’t; he just smiled and nodded his head.

  I looked at the clock, and seeing that it was almost eight, I mumbled something about Mom coming for me and got out of my chair. Uncharacteristically, he got up too, to see me to the door. “So, when will you be coming by again?” he asked.

  I stepped halfway out and stared down the catwalk, considering. My eye fell on the woman who had just emerged from the stairs at the end. It was just getting dark, so I couldn’t make out her features very well, but what caught my attention was her size. Being so small myself (one of Bev’s friends had told me that I could pass for an eighth-grader), I had always been interested in people of uncommon stature. This lady was practically a giant. But you could tell by the way she walk
ed—hips swinging, longish hair bouncing from side to side—that she liked herself that way.

  My father had been staring at Goliath too, but he dropped his gaze abruptly when I turned to tell him that I’d probably stop by over the weekend. Then he put his hand on my back and said that it had been nice to see me. He didn’t exactly push me out, but there was some pressure in his fingertips, which, in my confusion, I responded to.

  I walked some twenty feet and then looked back over my shoulder. Dad was no longer at the door, but the ribbon of light there confirmed that he had left it slightly opened. When I turned back again, the woman was just in front of me. She was wearing faded red leggings and a purple V-necked sweater over a white turtleneck. Her shoulder bag was enormous. “Hello,” she said.

  I smiled one of my father’s throw-away smiles and picked up my pace. There were only two apartments after his, and I didn’t remember either of them having their outside lights on. The woman’s footsteps ceased. I listened for voices but heard none. I didn’t hear any knocking either.

  When I arrived home, I got my trampoline out from beneath the bed and began to bounce. My father, the way I saw it, had no right to a private life, or at least not one so private that it excluded me. What, I wondered, was in Goliath’s bag? Toiletries and a change of clothes for tomorrow? The phone rang, and I went down on my knees and bounced up again with the receiver. I told Sharon that I had gotten the money and would see her in the morning.

  I jumped and reviewed our visit several times over. At first I was inclined to give Dad the benefit of the doubt. Goliath’s arrival might have been a surprise to him, too, in which case his not mentioning it made perfect sense. Then I remembered that he had offered me tea, which, except when I was sick, I never drank. He must have realized that. Had he offered me a soda, which he always had on hand, I would have said yes. Then I might have stayed a little longer, given him more details about my classes. It wouldn’t have been the first time I’d let Mom sit in the car and stew.

  The light went off in the living room, signaling that Mom was going to bed. “Get your homework finished?” she asked as she passed my door. The question was reflexive and required no response.

  I jumped harder to increase my altitude, until I was almost touching the ceiling. Jumping Ginny, my father used to call me, but that was back in the days when he was still computer illiterate, back when he still moved from room to room when he needed something and was, therefore, apt to pass my door and take note of me.

  Ironically, Mom bought him his first computer as an anniversary present. She might just as well have introduced him to the sexiest woman she knew. He was seduced immediately, and being an organizer by nature, he spent months on end transferring not only his manuscripts, but all his personal records into tidy, accessible computer files. Mom complained, because he seldom left his home office during this time, but he assured her that once he had completed his task—and, with his documents at his fingertips!—he’d have all the time in the world for her. But then he upgraded and went on-line.

  Instead of going to the library, where Mom had often accompanied him, to do his research, he began to do it over the Internet. He stopped reading the newspaper, which he and Mom had liked to share, because he could get the news faster on his modem. Computer forums enabled him to parley with fellow hackers. However, being a private man, he preferred one to one “conversations” via electronic mail. It was in this manner that he met Prissy Walker, the woman with whom he had the affair. Nothing would have come of it, he told Mom later, if it hadn’t turned out that she lived only forty miles away.

  We had had a talk some time ago, after the affair had ended, and he had implied that he was just waiting for time to pass, that his long-range objective was to wiggle his way back into my mother’s affection. I had no reason at the time to think he was equivocating.

  Surge nosed my door open and came in to lie down on the rug at the foot of my bed. He was old now, slow and cautious. Even the act of settling himself for sleep appeared to take some effort. Watching him, I realized that I had forgotten the bone I’d meant to bring him. I had been ushered out of Dad’s apartment that fast.

  2

  It was sticky in the morning. The sky was gray and there were gnats flying around my head. A faint breeze stirred the leaves of Mom’s neglected tomato plants as I waited for Sharon and Terri to pick me up in Terri’s mother’s Buick. Bev was taking the bus to school and we were to meet her out on the lot. There was some danger involved; there was always the chance that one of our teachers might see us leaving. But the episode with my father had kept me awake half the night, and I was in a risk-taking mood and looked forward to a near escape.

  Our timing, however, was meticulous. Bev’s bus was just unloading as we pulled into the lot. She saw us, nodded solemnly, and walked toward the corner of the building. We made the turn and stopped just long enough for her to slip into the back seat. Then we continued around the building and exited from the rear lot. A moment later we were coasting south on 402, heading for the highway. “Where to?” Terri asked.

  “The City? The Met?” I offered. We cut school infrequently, only three or four times a year. It seemed a shame to risk an ISS—an In School Suspension—on anything less.

  “That works for me,” Terri said, adjusting her glasses.

  I turned to look at the other two. Sharon, who was wearing her raincoat in spite of the heat, was staring out the window, at the rolling green pastures, a dreamer’s smile at play on her lips. She had informed me the day before, quite uncharacteristically, that she didn’t care where we went. Clearly, she was only too happy to be in Bev’s company. Bev, however, was sitting forward, her mouth opened, her tongue pushing against the back of her lower lip. I turned around again. “Bev doesn’t want to go to the City,” I told Terri.

  “Whatever,” Terri said, glancing in the rear-view. “Where do you want to go then, Bev?”

  “New Jersey,” Bev said, and she sat back as if to indicate that she would tolerate no challenge on the issue.

  “New Jersey!” I exclaimed. Even Sharon, whose dazed expression usually didn’t evaporate until noon, turned her head from the window to cast an astonished eye on her.

  “I’ve got a reason,” Bev said defensively.

  “A reason to go to New Jersey? That’s an oxymoron,” Sharon mumbled, but she smiled lest Bev should think her critical.

  “There are malls in New Jersey,” Bev continued. “I want to go to one of them, I don’t care which. There’s something I have to buy. Let’s get out of the area and then stop for something to eat. Then I promise to tell you all about it.” She shot a glance at Sharon. “It’s something very serious; I don’t want to talk about it in the car.”

  Silence followed. What else could have succeeded a declaration like that? We stopped for gas, Bev and Sharon and I each handing over a five to Terri so that she could fill up the tank. When we started off again, I put down the visor and popped open the plastic cover on the mirror, ostensibly to see what shape my hair was in. I moved the visor around until I had Bev in my view. She was looking down at her lap, where her hands were neatly folded.

  Since school had begun, I’d noticed a change in her. She’d been herself in the cafeteria—which is to say at the center of things—cheerfully describing her adventures in Maine, the seals she’d encountered, the people she’d met, the volleyball games on the beach, and so forth. But I’d come upon her in the bathroom the day before and found her staring at her reflection as if it were a stranger’s, so intent on her own thoughts that she didn’t even notice me behind her until I said hello. And I’d seen her later in the hall with her head bent, until Jack appeared at her side and took her arm. Sharon had told her last spring that we cut school a few times during the course of the year. Though Bev had listened enthusiastically, she had given no indication that she had any interest in joining us. Yet it was she who had approached us about this particular escapade. When Terri had said that we usually waited until after the
first quarter, by which time our teachers had come to trust us, Bev argued that there was no better time than now, when our teachers were still laying out their curriculum.

  I put the visor back up and tried to imagine what she could possibly have on her mind. Her parents were wealthy and together. Sharon was writing a play for her, and Mr. Muddle had already offered her the lead in the school play. Jack had a job and a car and sent her roses every month to commemorate their anniversary. Her skin tanned the moment she stepped outdoors, and the platinum streaks in her hair, which she had acquired even before she left for Maine, looked as though they would prevail all winter long. I concluded that she either had cancer or was pregnant and made some attempt to forgive her for the somber mood that had taken hold in the car.

  We took the highway to the end and paid the toll to get onto the thruway. It couldn’t be cancer, I realized. Bev’s mother had driven her in to school the first day, and Sharon, who had waited outside for her, had commented later about how cheerfully Mrs. Sturbridge had greeted her. It was as unlikely that Bev could have cancer without her mother knowing it as it was that Mrs. Sturbridge could know it and still be cheerful. That left being pregnant, but now that I’d had some miles to think about it, that didn’t seem a possibility either. Bev was smart, cautious, and had mentioned once that she was on the pill. More likely she had had a fight with Jack, and that was what she needed so desperately to talk about. If she wanted to go shopping, it was probably to get some trinket to appease him.

  Just past the “Welcome to New Jersey” sign we had our first hazy glimpse of the City off in the distance. I pointed it out, thinking that it still wasn’t too late to alter our destination. “The trouble with us is that we have no sense of adventure,” I declared, rising above the temptation to exclude Sharon and Terri and myself from the “us.” “We can talk anywhere. We can park the car in a lot and take a subway to the Met. Sharon loves subways, don’t you, Shar? Or we could get on the parkway, drive down to the New Jersey shore, do our talking while we’re scouting out beached whales and medical supplies in the surf.”