April & Oliver (13 page)

He glanced through a crack in the door and saw that his mother was giving April a lacquered box. Later April swore it was
only a common jewelry box, a sentimental keepsake, but Oliver felt sure there had been something inside.

He was ashamed when Daisy caught him snooping for it, but Daisy surprised him by offering to help. The two of them picked
through April’s things like crows through trash. Oliver went for the carton of papers at the back of the closet while Daisy
sorted through lingerie and cosmetics. Soon he forgot about his mother’s box. He didn’t know what he was looking for, but
he was sure it was there.

“Look at this,” Daisy said. “Seventeen shades of nail polish. I’ve never seen her wear any.”

Oliver wasn’t looking at the nail polish but at the white cotton underwear that lay in the open drawer. Somehow he had expected
something satiny and dark.

He went back to the closet, where he found the oddest things: a book about growing orchids, her brother’s preschool drawings,
and an envelope of news clippings about Oliver’s recitals.

“What’s that?” Daisy asked, taking one from his hand. “Young Talent Outshines the Rest. What a headline!”

“It’s the
Glenport Gazette,
” he said. “Not exactly the
New York Times.
”

“At seventeen years old, Oliver Night mesmerized his audience.” She laughed.

“Please.”

“During a spellbinding rendition of Beethoven’s Sonata in F Minor, opus fifty-seven, Appassionato, Night’s fingers became
a fury of simmering emotion, sweetened by its own restraint. His interpretation was edgy, looming on the brink of chaos, yet
soulful and soaring. In the extended, sometimes anguished first movement, he plunged the audience into—”

“Enough.”

“Modesty’s not going to help your career.”

“I don’t have one, remember?”

She slipped the clipping back into the envelope. “Come over here,” she said. “You’ll never guess what I found.”

In the bottom drawer of April’s dresser, beneath a layer of clothes, was a hardbound notebook. Oliver could not imagine April
keeping a journal, but there it was. Daisy picked it up and smoothed her hand over the surface. The binding was covered with
olive-green fabric, tattered and used. “What do you think she writes about?” she asked, holding the book to her chest.

“How should I know?”

“Well, we can’t look, can we. That’s going too far.” She handed it to him.

He didn’t want to take it, but it felt warm in his hands, alive. He felt the edges of the pages with his fingertips. Daisy
was watching him.

“Which way did it go?” he asked, placing it back in the drawer.

“The spine facing right,” she said.

“Are you sure? I thought it was this way.”

“I’m sure,” she said. “With the blue shirt on top.”

He closed the drawer and exhaled. “Let’s clean up,” he said. “My mother’s box isn’t here.”

Later, they lay clean and naked on Daisy’s futon. It was the only bedroom, with twin-size futons head-to-head in an L shape,
flush against the walls. Daisy fell asleep, lips parted and eyelids fluttering. Oliver dozed on and off, knowing he ought
to go home.

At one thirty he was awakened by the sound of an idling car. He heard voices but could not make out the words. He stood up
from the futon, careful not to disturb Daisy, and looked out the window.

Two stories below, April was standing on the curb beside the car. The driver was holding her arm through the passenger window,
repeating something in a plaintive voice. She pulled away, but he held on to the sleeve of her cardigan, stretching it. April
slipped out of the sweater, leaving it in his hands
. Quincy?
Oliver wondered.

When he heard April’s key in the door, he slipped back into bed. He tried to remember where he had left his clothes. He couldn’t
imagine why he had been so careless. Somehow Daisy and he had left the bedroom door ajar. He heard April dead-bolt the front
door and go to the window. She was panting, having run up the stairs.

The car slowly pulled away. There was a dull, beeping tone in the next room, and he realized April had taken the phone off
the hook. She went into the bathroom and ran the tap. Oliver felt the foot of the bed for his clothes, but could not find
them.

“Hm?” Daisy said groggily.

“Sh,” he said. “It’s her.”

April’s futon was directly beneath the window, awash in a pool of streetlight. Oliver recognized his jeans and underwear strewn
over the bedspread. He reached across Daisy and snatched the clothing just as the bathroom door unlocked. He froze. April
came into the room, barefoot but still in her clothes, walking with exaggerated caution; she had been drinking. He was sure
she must have seen him, but she sat cross-legged on her futon with her head in her hands, facing the opposite wall.

Daisy touched his chest beneath the sheet. He put his finger to her lips. They would just have to wait it out. Once April
was asleep, he would slip into his clothes and leave.

April sat for a long while, holding her middle, rocking. Oliver was in an uncomfortable position, supporting himself on his
elbows with Daisy beneath him, his jeans still in his fist. Daisy’s breathing grew deep and regular, her head lolling on the
pillow. Finally, April lay back. For a moment Oliver saw her face, eyes fixed on the ceiling. Her lips moved silently, and
she covered her face with her hands.

Lines of light from the blinds curved along her body. She rolled onto her side, her back to him. His eyes traveled the curl
of her waist, the rise of her hip, the downward slope of her thigh. Her pants were taut across her backside; he wondered how
she could sleep in them. But gradually her fist on the pillow opened one finger at a time, like one of his mother’s roses.

He looked down to find that Daisy was awake, staring at him blankly. He had the cold sense that they had been waiting for
this moment. There was no hesitation. He sank down, his groan loud enough to wake the dead.

April did not stir, but he imagined he could feel the seizure in her muscles, the suspension of breath. Daisy and Oliver looked
at each other without surprise, the pretense gone. They had known all along what they were about, each other’s door to
her.
Then, to be sure April had heard, Oliver closed his eyes and whispered to Daisy how desperately he loved her.

T
HE MIDDAY SUN
reflects sharply off newly fallen snow. April puts on her sunglasses, which fog from the inside. She lets the motor run while
she moves a broom across the car’s windshield, then plows the roof. Al comes out of the house with his jacket half on and
gets a scraper from the back of his Jeep. He lifts up her wiper and chisels away.

“What’s your rush?” he says.

“I’m working at four. Have to change first.”

“What are you doing after work?”

“You mean at two in the morning?”

“That’s right.”

“I don’t know. I thought I might go roller-skating.”

He smirks. “Hop on a train. I’ll meet you at Penn Station.”

“For what?”

“Nightcap. Breakfast. It doesn’t matter.”

“Don’t you have somewhere to fly to?”

“Not until Thursday.” He folds down the wiper and walks to the other side. “How about it?”

“There
is
something called sleep.”

“You won’t be sleeping,” he says. “Come on. I want you to say yes.”

“I can’t.”

He lets the wiper pop down. “You’re seeing him again, aren’t you.”

She goes to the back of the car and sweeps snow off the taillights.

“Not answering is the same as answering.”

“If you already know, why ask?”

“I could get you a date with Keith Van Horn, but you want the slob at the end of the bar.”

“He’s married.” She gives him a look. “Besides, if all I wanted was a bang buddy, I wouldn’t have to look as far as the NBA.”

“Darling, if that’s all you’re after . . .” He opens his arms, grinning.

She rolls her eyes, gets into the car, and turns up the defroster.

Al gets in beside her. “Oh, Jesus,” he says, flicking Buddy’s graduation tassel with his finger. “You’ve got to get out of
this death trap.”

“Are you offering me another set of wheels?”

“Take mine,” he says, holding out his keys. “I’d rather drive this myself than see you in it.”

“Don’t you have an ounce of sentimentality?”

“Yes, but I’m not much for morbidity. It’s time to rejoin the living, Rosie.”

“Hey, I got myself here last night, didn’t I?”

“And tonight?”

“I don’t think it’s any of your business.”

He hooks his hand around the back of her neck and pulls her toward him. “The hell with Van Horn,” he says. She smells cigarettes
and bubble gum, which he wedges into his cheek in order to kiss her. She slaps him away and he laughs. “Call me on my cell
phone if you change your mind,” he says, getting out of the car. “I can be at the station by three.”

She nods.

He circles around to her door and raps on the window, which squeaks as she rolls it down. “Rose,” he says. “Dump the cowboy.”
He kisses her, softly this time, then puts his hand on his chest and sighs dramatically.

“Get out of here.” She laughs, rolling up her window, and watches him trot to the house.

By the time April climbs the steps to T.J.’s room, it is a quarter past three in the morning. She lets herself in. The lights
are out, and she makes her way quietly to the cot, which she finds empty. She hears the door close and turns around to find
T.J. behind her. She goes to him, slides her arms around his neck, but he keeps himself rigid.

“I was expecting you last night.”

She steps back. “I told you I was going to my uncle’s house.”

“Straight from work? In the middle of the night?”

“Yes. That’s exactly what I said.”

He nods, unconvinced. “How’s your so-called cousin?”

“Fine,” she says. “Wonderful. They’ve set a date.”

“I’m talking about Razzle Dazzle,” he says. “Mister NBA.”

A draft chills her from within. “He’s fine, too, I guess. We didn’t really talk.”

“No, huh.”

“I told you to come along, T.J. I told you it was wrong to spend Christmas alone.”

“I wasn’t alone.”

She doesn’t touch this. “Look, if you want me to leave—”

He takes her purse and drops it on the floor. Then her jacket. Her scarf. He lifts her blouse over her head rather than waste
time with buttons. He turns on the light, a stark overhead bulb, and examines her body.

“Not everyone leaves marks.” It’s a dangerous thing to say, but he doesn’t seem to hear. He stares at her bare arms, her collarbone,
her ribs. She’s cold but keeps from shivering.

“Turn around,” he says. “Bend over.”

She does, not because she wants to, but because it doesn’t matter. He moves his big hands down her back. “God, I’m starting
to forget how Denise was different.”

“I need a drink first,” she says.

“I look at you, and I swear sometimes I see her staring back.”

“I’m her,” she says. “And I need a drink.”

He kneels down and moves his hands around her waist. “Five years,” he says, “and the longer she’s gone, the more I keep expecting
her.” He leans his face against the small of her back.

April looks at the room’s only window, small and painted shut. Rain pelts softly. Bits of ice slide down the glass. She can’t
see a thing. She thinks of Buddy’s girl in Kingston, the letter in April’s purse, sure now that she will mail it. The girl
needs an answer. Any answer.

T.J. leans back, sits on the cot, and hides his face in his hands. April turns and sits beside him. She touches his back,
but he’s unaware. “If only she hadn’t lied to me,” he says.

April withdraws her hand. “Forget that.”

“I saw them together,” he says. “I saw how she looked at him.”

“Stop,” April says.

Out on the street a dog howls.

T.J. takes the pillow and hugs it to his chest. He stares deeply at the wall. “When I was a kid, one of the places they put
me had a puppy, a little beagle named Keeper. Real happy and cute. Used to sleep with me at night.”

April isn’t following, but knows better than to ask. She pulls the bedspread and wraps it around her. It occurs to her that
she could have been with Al right now, watching a movie or sleeping in his armchair. He once offered to take her to an all-night
bowling alley. Why did she say no? She’s an idiot, that’s why. But it’s too late for her. It’s always been too late.

“It wasn’t the old lady’s dog,” T.J. continues. “She got it from her son after he died. Poor guy just wasted away till there
was nothing left of him. He must have been fifty, but he looked as old as she did. Used to come to the house every Wednesday
night and shoot up after the old lady was in bed. Left needles everywhere, but she never caught on.” He laughs softly—that
throaty chuckle of his. “She was real innocent-like. He used to take her money, too. He was all she talked about. She thought
he was Christ back on earth. God, if she ever knew the stuff he gave us. Anyway, he died and we got the dog.”

April doesn’t know what to say. She feels dazed, trying to understand. Foster care, is that it?

“Damn, that dog was cute. Slept every night curled up right here,” he says, hugging the pillow more tightly. “But another
kid, Cory, he was older than me, he wanted the dog with him. Every night he’d try to steal him away, and every night Keeper
would come back to my room. Finally, he told me if the dog slept in my room one more night, he was going to bash my brains
in. I said the dog sleeps where it wants. That night he locked it in his room. I heard it pawing at the door half the night,
then, I didn’t hear it no more. Not a sound.” T.J. goes silent, staring at the wall.

“ ‘No goddamn shitty-assed dog disrespects Cory Vanderwert,’
that’s what he said in the morning. I went out looking, ’cause I knew he couldn’t have gone far with it. Found it in the Dumpster
with its head turned the wrong way and its legs pointing out stiff like it was on a fucking rotisserie.” He laughs his strange,
hoarse chortle. “All it needed was a goddamn apple in its mouth.” He buries his face in his hands. “Fuck,” he says miserably.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”