Immaculate, page 25
I hopped off the table and crossed the floor to face her. I reached my arms out and hugged her, wrapped myself tightly around her as I closed my eyes and leaned into the fresh lemony scent of her coat.
“Thank you, Dr. Keller.”
“Like I said before, Mina—anytime. I mean that.”
I gave one more squeeze and pulled back, my head still too busy spinning with her words to speak.
“I’ll see you in two weeks, Mina. Be safe, and keep on doing what you’re doing.” She smiled and reached out for the handle on the door. “You’re getting so close to the end now.”
• • •
“I have to say, Jesse, when you first suggested a trip to Long Beach Island, I thought you were crazy,” Hannah said, stomping through the hard, wet sand in her furry black winter boots. “But now that we’re here? It feels perfect. Insanely perfect.”
“Good to hear, Hannah. So glad you approve.” Jesse grinned at her, kicking a soft spray of sand in her direction. She shrieked and kicked back, running to the water’s edge as he chased after her.
I smiled, pulling my hood tighter around my face. I’d thought the idea was crazy, too. A deserted vacation town at the end of December, temperatures hovering in the low twenties. Jesse and I had discovered on one of our morning car rides that we had both spent our childhood summer vacations along the sacred beaches of LBI, a skinny stretch of island off the New Jersey coast. It was always bursting with people during the summer, mostly families with lots of sticky, screaming kids in tow, but it was a ghost town in the winter. Restaurants and stores boarded up until Memorial Day weekend, houses dark and stripped of the usual kitschy island decor, driveways emptied of boats and cars. I would have expected to be depressed to see my golden summer world so gray and desolate, but now that we were there, I loved it, loved the peace and solitude. I could breathe here in the winter—I could let my hair blow in the cold, salty wind, stare out over the water, and scream at the top of my lungs if I wanted to. No unsupervised kids ramming against me with their boogie boards or sobbing about the fierce green bottle flies.
This was the island at its most pure and most raw, and the effect was amazingly cleansing. Revitalizing. I felt more spiritual standing by the brutal, beautiful force of the ocean than I had at church on Christmas Eve. Maybe this was how I would worship from now on. Not in a pew, contained by walls and a roof, but out in nature instead, surrounded by water and trees and birds, all reminders of just how many pieces came together to make up our world. All the little miracles that came together just so, by chance or by will, at random, or according to plan—I wasn’t sure that it mattered. Whichever way, the world’s creation was nothing short of miraculous.
I spread our old red-and-white-checkered blanket along a patch of dry sand and plunked down on it, stretching out as I lay on my back and knotted my hands on top of my belly. The sky was bright blue and cloudless, a perfect beach day even if the winter sun couldn’t warm my upturned face. Hannah and Jesse gradually made their way over, settling down next to me. Not the tree house but the beach, and a new threesome of friends, but it was the same ratty, well-loved blanket that had seen us through so many adventures. Jesse, it seemed, had effortlessly filled in that third spot of the trio. But no matter how much I appreciated him, he could never be Izzy. No one would ever be Izzy.
We lay there in silence for a while, all of us lost in our own thoughts as we stared out at the ocean. The sound of the waves crashing felt more important than any words I could think of to say over them.
But then Hannah cleared her throat, and I looked over to see her winding a finger through a loose curl of hair. I tensed, waiting for whatever announcement was coming next.
“So I know I haven’t really talked about the whole college application thing much in a long time. It just hasn’t seemed as . . . I don’t know, as important as everything else, Mina. Plus I know it’s all probably kind of weird for you, since you’re still not sure what you’re doing next fall . . .”
“Hannah.” My cheeks burned, the sudden warmth at odds with the cool of the sea winds. “Seriously, please don’t think that you can’t talk about college in front of me. It’s fine. I’m fine. I’m still planning to commute to the Penn State branch next year and try to take as many online classes as I can. I’ve already been accepted, so there’s really not much else to decide about for right now. One step at a time, that’s all I can do. So what about you, Han? What’s the latest?”
Maybe I had avoided—we had avoided—the topic of college. I hadn’t intended to, not consciously at least. I cared about my friends’ futures, where they were going, what they’d be doing in the next eight months. I just couldn’t stand to think about Green Hill without them. Of course they’d want to move on, just as I had wanted to six months ago. The difference was they still could.
“Well, I don’t know anything yet, but I just finished my application to NYU for their journalism program. It’s my top choice by far.”
“What happened to Ole Miss?” I asked, afraid to feel too relieved. “Becoming a belle? I thought that was your new dream?”
“Oh, that. That was just a silly summer notion. I don’t want to go that far, Mina. New York is only two hours away, so I can come back all the time. And you can come visit, too. You and the baby, of course,” she added. “It’s a great school for journalism, hopefully not too great for me to get into. But more important, I can still see you when I want, not just on the major holidays and summer break.”
“Firstly, with your SAT scores and GPA, I’d be floored if NYU would be stupid enough to reject you. But secondly, I only want you going there if it’s what you want, Hannah. This can’t be about me. I can’t let you do that.”
“It’s about both of us. You’re not letting me do anything.” She was using her mom voice on me, the tone that meant there was zero room for debate. “So, Jesse, how about you? Have you heard back from anywhere? You’ve been pretty silent about the whole college thing so far.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t like to get my hopes too high. And I don’t like to tell other people and then risk disappointing anyone else when it doesn’t happen. I’ll be disappointed enough on my own.” He took a deep breath and exhaled into the wind. “But, since we’re all being pretty open and honest here . . . I guess I can make an exception. I want to be in New York, too. It’s the only place other than LA to be for film, and I have family in Brooklyn, so I figure I could maybe live with them and save some cash. I have my submissions in at NYU, too, like you, and then Columbia, Pratt . . . But it just depends on what kinds of loans I can lock down. My parents aren’t able to help, so . . . So yeah, we’ll see. No promises.”
“So I might have a friend in New York!” Hannah squealed, her face lighting up. “That’s so awesome! Now Mina has double the reason to visit, and we can come back together on the weekends.”
“Hannah, seriously, dial it down a few notches,” Jesse said, tossing a handful of sand at her. “You’re jinxing both of us. It’s just a possibility. A maybe. We’ll see.” Jesse turned to me then, eyebrows cocked, and I knew he was waiting for my reaction.
I pressed my lips together and made myself smile. “That’s so exciting, guys, seriously. I would love to have both of you just a few hours away. And in New York City, too! You’ll be my tour guides.”
The words felt false on my lips, and I was furious at myself for not feeling happier about their news. Why didn’t I? Why couldn’t I be thrilled for them—following their dreams, moving to a big, bright new city, and studying at fantastic schools? I wanted to believe that I was only jealous because they’d be going off to all the excitement of New York while I’d still be in Green Hill.
But it was more than that; I knew it was. I couldn’t stop the shiny montage spinning through my mind: Jesse and Hannah laughing together in class with their brilliant, interesting new friends, exploring Central Park on the weekends, lingering in a downtown bookstore on a lazy Sunday afternoon as they drank overpriced French press coffee and talked about which indie movie to see in the Village that night.
They would not only both experience so many amazing new things—they’d experience those amazing new things together.
Without me.
Sure, they’d think about me, talk about me, call and visit and write e-mails with clever observations about their day, but it wouldn’t be the same. We wouldn’t be the same.
The beach day suddenly felt much less perfect and exhilarating. The air felt downright cold rather than refreshing and invigorating, the sand felt too dense and difficult to walk through, and the little grits I could feel gathering inside the edges of my sleeves made me want to be curled up in my clean, smooth sheets with a warm mug of chamomile tea in my hands. I wanted to be anywhere but there, with anyone but the two of them. And I felt even more terrible for wanting that—for wanting to be away from two of the best friends I would probably ever have. But it made me feel nauseated watching them, noticing now just how close the two of them had gotten. It wasn’t me and Jesse and me and Hannah. It was me and Jesse and Hannah. A full set of three, not two separate pairs. That realization should have made me happy, an old friend and a new friend getting along so well.
But I wasn’t happy, not at all, and I was ashamed of myself for it.
After we all started getting too cold to pretend we wanted to stay much longer, we piled back into Jesse’s truck. Hannah squeezed in the middle seat between us—which bothered me, though it hadn’t caused a second thought on the drive there that morning. We drove up the strip in silence until we found the first open restaurant, a tavern that would have looked entirely forlorn and vacant if not for the bright yellow OPEN flag flying by the front entrance. The restaurant looked just as abandoned inside. There was only one other customer being served—an old, grizzly looking man dwarfed beside his massive plate of battered fish, absorbed in the newspaper he had spread across the table. The sole waitress in sight was a frowning middle-age woman with purplish auburn hair to match the dark circles under her eyes.
The atmosphere couldn’t have been more perfectly aligned with my mood. But after brooding over the menu, I was determined to at least pretend that everything was normal.
“So . . .” I started, staring down at the heaping plates of fried, unrecognizable bits of seafood that the waitress had dropped onto our table. “You’re both still coming over for New Year’s Eve, right? Wild night at the Dietrichs’?”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Jesse said, squinting at the misshapen lump of batter he’d just speared on his fork.
“Actually . . .” Hannah’s voice faded out as she bit down on her straw. “I wasn’t going to mention anything until I was absolutely certain, but I just found out before we met up today that Lauren and the baby are definitely going to be staying over that night, so my parents want me to be at home. I’m sorry, Meen. I feel bad, and trust me, it’s not really my dream New Year’s either. Quite a difference from Nate’s awesome party last year.” She cringed as soon as she mentioned Nate, her cheeks reddening as she looked back down at her soda. “Anyway, I’ve just been so busy lately with everything, I haven’t spent much time with little Ella. Or Lauren, for that matter. Don’t be mad at me?”
“Of course I’m not mad,” I said, and I was relieved to realize that I meant it. And I was also relieved to realize that the sound of Nate’s name no longer pummeled me in the gut just to hear it. Progress. “Now if you were jumping ship for a kegger at Kyle Baker’s house . . . then I might hold a grudge. But it’s family. It’s Ella. You have my blessing.”
“So it’s just you and me then, Meen?” Jesse asked.
I bit into a big piece of what I assumed was fried scallop to hide my nervous grin. “Looks that way. Oh, and there’s Gracie, who I’m sure will at least pretend she’s going to stay up until midnight. My parents will be out of the house for some party with a few of my dad’s coworkers. They’re clearly cooler than we are.” So I would be alone with Jesse, or practically alone at least, on New Year’s Eve. But it was just like any other night, only with a ball dropping on the TV screen and some fake champagne. No big deal, right? I swallowed and smiled at him from across the table.
“That’s you, isn’t it?” a rough voice croaked from the aisle just behind me. I jerked my head back, startled, to see that the tiny, birdlike old man had gotten up and was now standing just inches away from me, his news-paper clenched in his fist and dangling in front of my face. “That’s you, that’s both of you, isn’t it? Together like that in front of church on Christmas Eve. A church! A church of all places to be going about your shameful business . . .”
The tips of my ears and my cheeks were scorching hot, and it took every ounce of focus I had left to keep the last bite of fish batter down my throat.
“Yes,” Jesse said from across the table, not missing a beat. He stared the old man straight in the eyes. “Yes, that is us. Thank you for saying hello. Now, if you wouldn’t mind leaving us alone, we were having a private conversation.”
“It’s not right,” the man spit out, his thin, withered lips twisting, adding to the many folds and wrinkles already etched across his leathery brown face. He had spent too many hours under the sun, out on his boat, deep-sea fishing and sailing away the weekends.
“I tell you, you’re both playing with the Devil, and I have no doubts that you’ll both come out burnt for it.” He turned to Hannah then, ticking a knobby finger in her face. “And I don’t know who you are, but get away. Get away from these two before it’s too late for you, too.”
“We’re leaving,” Jesse said, shoving back against the booth as he rushed to his feet. “Now.” He reached into his pocket and tossed a few bills onto the table.
I had gotten used to the kids at school talking about me, had gotten used to the website posts and even the unanswered calls that still somehow came through, even with our new number. But a stranger yelling accusations in my face?
No. I would never get used to that.
I was shaking by the time I had my jacket and purse in my hands, and Jesse looped his arm around my back as the three of us walked to the door. The old man was still calling out behind us, and I couldn’t stop myself from glancing back one last time. The waitress was trying to block him from me, it seemed, her hands waving in front of his face to make him shut up. But the waitress looked smaller, her hair looked whiter . . . Iris.
I sucked in my breath and closed my eyes to stop the dizzy feeling that washed over me. And sure enough, as soon as I opened them again, Iris was gone, the tired-looking waitress in her place. But the waitress was still doing her best to silence the man, shooing him away to get his jacket and leave her restaurant.
“He doesn’t know you, Mina,” Jesse said, pulling me out into the frigid night air. “He’s a crazy, lonely old man.”
I nodded, still trying to shake Iris out of my mind. No. She hadn’t been a hallucination. I had to trust myself. But even so, she seemed to be appearing more and more often, which terrified me. What if Iris was trying to tell me something? What if I was missing something important that connected all these moments? I was torn between wanting to tell Jesse and Hannah and not wanting to worry them. I worried them enough already without these Iris sightings tacked on to the list.
“He’s right,” Hannah said, wrapping an arm around me. “You can’t let that awful old man bother you.”
Of course the old man had bothered me. Of course I was bothered that a total stranger hated me, a stranger who probably had grandkids who called him Pappy and visited him every summer for boat rides and sand castles and double scoop ice cream cones.
His judgment made me want to prove myself somehow, to march back in there and convince him that I wasn’t the blackhearted heathen he thought I was.
“Your video,” I said, gasping as I took a deep breath of the frosty air. “People need to see me. They need to really see me. We have to finish it and get it out there. Soon. But do you . . . do you think it’ll even work? Will it make any kind of difference?”
“I hope so,” he answered, tilting his head against mine so that his thick curls brushed along the top of my forehead. “I really do.”
He talked about the project for much of the ride home—the footage he was using, the editing finished and still to be done, the music I might want to add, where and how to post it, any people or ideas or moments we could have forgotten to include. Hannah gave good answers, and I chimed in when I had to. But for the most part I was more caught up in the reflection of my face in the passenger-side window, the faint outlines of my lips, my nose, my windblown hair, competing for visibility against the dark blur of shapes in the passing scenery outside.
I couldn’t look away from that girl in the window. How could the rest of the world see someone so different from who I saw? How could a face, a body, a person—an entire life—become so distorted and grotesque in other peoples’ eyes?
We passed a brightly lit rest stop, and my face blinked out of sight, the reflection lost in the yellow glow of restaurant signs and street lamps. I disappeared, just like that. Just that easily.
Maybe, I thought, the realization crashing with a sickening thud to my stomach—maybe that really was the only solution. The best way to move on for everyone involved.
I would disappear, slip off the radar. I would stop weighing down my friends and my family, all the people who were the most loyal to me—all the people who least deserved this kind of punishment. I would run away, find a new place, make a new name. And I would be just like any other single mom trying to make it work.
I couldn’t keep doing this to all of them, and I wouldn’t. If the video did nothing, if the pressure and the scrutiny kept getting worse and worse . . .
