Julia Pierpont - Among the Ten Thousand Things

They walked back in the darkening with Popsicles the shapes of comic book characters, gumballs for eyes. To Simon they were leaving the mother ship, lo mein and Coca-Cola, comforts of home. He carried with him two spare cans of soda, fearing there’d be nothing at the house but tap. One fell as they came around a bend near their street, detonating and spraying the sidewalk, the hedges, his shirt.

“Whoopsy-daisy,” his mother said, in a funny mood. “And then there was one.”

—

The house had only three bedrooms, so the kids would share the one with twin beds. The overhead light had gone out, but luck struck yet again when Deb dug a pair of flashlights out from the supply closet under the stairs, one with batteries that worked.

Simon and Kay had never shared a room before, and when they got back it seemed they were sharing it with yet another hulking someone, the mass of Simon’s clothes heaped on one of the beds. Before dinner he’d unzippered his bag and dumped everything out in one piece, sandcastle tight.

He heaved himself onto the other mattress, thinking how stupid it was that, before leaving, he’d sent Elena a message and that now, in this stupid house, his phone was out of network, and he could not get online. Let’s try to go without for a little while, his mother had said, like pioneers.

Kay shone the flashlight on the back of his head. “Where are you sleeping?”

“I don’t care.”

“You have to pick one.”

“I pick two.”

“Simonnnn.”

“Obviously I can’t sleep on both beds, Kay.” He bounced off the thin mattress and grabbed the flashlight from his sister, shining it onto his block of clothes, geological evidence of his packing order. An oak dresser in the corner waited to steep his clothes in its weird, rained-on smell. He wanted only to leave things as they were, to each morning excavate socks and underwear without ever upsetting the cube, sliding the empty case over it like a lid when this trip was finally over.

Instead he knocked the pile onto the floor. He flapped the sheets his mother had laid out over the mattress, not bothering with the corner parts, while his sister went out to change in the hall. By the time she came back, he was under covers, in the same clothes he’d put on in New York that morning, remembering what he’d written to Elena. He’d seen her the day before, sitting on the sandy dirt by the gym with Jared, when he was coming out of his geometry final.

His message had started:

heyhey. whats good?

“Simon?”

“What?”

“What are you thinking?”

“It’s not your business. Nothing.” heyhey. whats good? survive finals ok? what are u doing this summer? i’m gonna do some traveling, u? It was too many questions.

“Simon?”

“What, Kay? I’m trying to sleep.” He heard her turn away from him. Loudly he said, “I don’t know what you want,” though sort of he did. His sister wanted to talk about their parents, but Simon didn’t think there was anything to say. He couldn’t explain why he didn’t care, that there was something make-believe about all this that felt to her so real. He couldn’t explain how it was like they weren’t even there. Real life was his friends, school. He switched the flashlight off. A few minutes later, he switched it on again. He put it down on the floor between their two beds, pointed up at the ceiling, where it stayed on until morning.

The day they left, when he could no longer hear the elevator noises of his family falling away from him, Jack made himself a bowl of cereal and watched the morning shows, like a man who’d have the apartment to himself for a couple hours. There had been a moment in the hall when he’d thought of turning to his daughter. Just hugging her. But he’d been afraid of what Deb would say. He’d be accused of, what — physical influence? Something like that. Pressure by proximity.

Of course there was time yet, to fix everything. They’d stay up there, what, a week? A week tops. Or maybe they’d call and he’d come and join them. Definitely tonight Deb would call.

He picked up the paper from yesterday and read again the piece about his show. “Don’t Take the Bayt.” Very clever. Bravo. And they say journalism has gone to shit. “We deeply regret what’s happened. We were assured by the artist that the explosives had all been detonated and accounted for well in advance of the show, and we’re looking now into what could have possibly happened.” Stanley, you ninny. Well, throw me under the bus. The artist. Fine.

He sucked milk from his spoon and returned the Cheerio fossils to the bowl. There was one of those talk shows on, with its women, all white and one black, all liberal and one conservative, all postmenopausal and one who still got her period. They were talking about postpartum depression, which Jack knew had nothing to do with having babies and which he got every time he finished a project.

He walked to the kitchen and added more milk, came back to the living room and lay down. Maybe it was the milk that made him sleepy, or it could have been all those women’s voices. Maybe he was only sad.

Anyway, he slept.

—

Stanley was usually at the gallery Sunday mornings, and that was where Jack caught him, early, just opening up.

“Please, Jack, not before my coffee.”

“One more go. A few weeks. A week. ”

“Jesus, not before my vodka soda.”

“People will come.” Jack hit his palm against the hot brick. The sun made neither of them more agreeable. “Stanny.”

“People would come, just not for the reasons you want.” Stanley shook out his keys. “Rubberneckers. You want rubberneckers?”

“I’ll take rubbernecking.”

“My lawyers won’t,” he said, sliding open the heavy door. “Not until we know for certain this woman isn’t building a case.”

Inside it was not even cool. “Christ, you cancel the air in here too?”

Stanley pulled a triangle of handkerchief from his jacket pocket. “Everything’s backed up for me right now. Emily’s on vacation.”

“Emily who?” Jack asked. Stanley pressed the cloth to his forehead, blotting away the shine. “You know no one alive uses those. You iron those?”

“I’m going to Venice ,” Stanley said, running up around the white spiral stairs, “for the biennale. ”

“Hey, who’s Emily?” Jack called, hovering his hand over the receptionist’s desk, her silver cup of cheapie pens.

“You know Emily.” The AC clicked to life from the second floor. “You’ve met her a hundred times. My assistant, Emily?” Cold air began to fall.

“Oh, sure,” Jack mumbled. This was Emily’s desk. There was his note slid under the mouse. NO ONE MUST TOUCH THE DEBRIS.

“I fly out late Thursday.” Stanley was spry coming down the stairs, knees high. “You know, Jack, maybe you should take a vacation.”

“The bee-ehn-ah-lay? No thanks.”

“Or whatever. You guys have a house. Take the kids and go. The city’s a terrible cunt in the summer. Already it’s murder.” Poor Stanley. He was shining up again, surveying the room for what else to say. Jack looked down at the desk.

“Yeah, thanks, Stanny.” He shook the mouse until the computer came awake, the desktop a beach scene, palm trees. “Thanks. I think that’s just what we’ll do.”

Their first morning in Jamestown no one set an alarm, and still everyone woke up early. Hard to sleep through new places.

In the bathroom where Jack had done the tiling — tiny, white hexagons and black grouting, both dizzying and spartan — Deb relearned the eccentricities of the shower, fogging the mirror and making the faucet sweat over the sink. Out of it, dripping, she stood and examined her approximate shape in the mirror. Still the right shape, still in and out the right places. She rubbed clear her reflection and arched her spine, turned to look at the long back over her shoulder. And maybe she’d finally done the right thing, in bringing them here. Hopefully she had. With her hands gathering up her hair, she wondered how long they’d stay.