Paullina Simons - Tully

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.