Damn.
“I got locked out,” he said, sounding pathetically childlike. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. There were tears on his face, he was drowning in an obvious state of paralyzing panic, and his sneakers were too white. It was not the way he wanted to be seen. Damn. “I went outside, and I didn’t know they’d put a lock on this outside door, and I got locked out.”
Jesse reached a hand down to help him up.
Billy looked at the extended hand for too long before taking it. But in time he did bring himself to take it, and be helped to his feet. He could feel his own hand trembling as Jesse pulled on it, and he knew Jesse could feel it, too.
“You went out, though,” Jesse said. “That was good.”
Oh, God. He knows. He knows everything.
“I have to practice,” Billy said in a shaky voice.
They walked down the hall together, toward Billy’s apartment door. Jesse had a hand on Billy’s shoulder. Apparently Jesse was smart enough to know a helium balloon when he saw one. He knew better than to let go.
Billy dug his keys out of his pocket with trembling hands and opened his door.
As he stepped back inside his familiar cocoon, everything drained away. Everything. His panic. His energy. His ability to think. Everything. It left him empty and hollow enough to echo, like a shell that washes up on the beach when the organism has vacated it through death.
He sat down hard on the couch and looked up at Jesse with dull eyes.
“I thought it was interesting,” Jesse said, “when you said you were going to Grace’s dance recital. I thought, Wow. If you’re agoraphobic, that’s a big statement to make.”
All is lost, Billy thought, though fortunately the thought was backed with little emotion. Jesse knows everything.
“I thought I could practice,” Billy said in barely over a whisper.
“You can,” Jesse said, sitting too close to him on the couch.
“Today was a glorious example.”
“Tomorrow will be better, because I’ll make you a copy of the key to the outside door.”
The cat came meowing around, and Billy picked her up and held her tightly, enjoying her warmth, the softness of her fur, and the rumble of her purring. Unfortunately, though, it forced a few more tears to slip past the guards. But it was too late, anyway. It was too late to hide who he was from Jesse.
“I don’t think one day will be time enough to recover.”
“OK. Day after tomorrow.”
“I don’t think I can,” Billy said, his face buried in cat fur.
“Want some help?”
Billy looked up, half aware of a cat hair in his eye. “What kind of help?”
“Want me to come along? It’s better if you’re not alone, right?”
“I wasn’t alone. Actually. I was walking to school with Rayleen and Grace. But then I had to go back, and they kept walking.”
“So if I came along, I could make sure you got back OK.”
It was too much, really. It was simply all too much. On the one hand, it brought a swell of elation to think of taking a walk with Jesse every morning. But like that? With Jesse as a nursemaid to make sure he got home without falling apart? It was simply too many emotions at once, and Billy had no capacity left to process them.
“I’m so ashamed,” Billy said.
“Why? Why should you be ashamed? I had an uncle who had agoraphobia and a panic disorder. He never tried to go out. The whole time I knew him. You tried.”
“I tried,” Billy said, parroting emptily. “I failed.”
“Big deal,” Jesse said. “So what? Keep trying.”
Grace
Billy held Grace’s hand as they walked up the stairs to Jesse’s.
He was dressed nicely, Billy, in a white sweater and jeans, and Rayleen had given him a haircut, and then she’d blow-dried his hair so it looked soft and fluffy and shiny. He looked like a regular person, just like anybody else. And, also, he was walking up the stairs to Jesse’s, just like anybody else. Maybe that little walk out of doors on Monday had done him good. Then again, four more school days had gone by, and Billy had ignored them all and stayed in. So, then again, maybe not.
“You’re doing good going upstairs,” Grace said, because her first-grade teacher had taught her that you should always say something positive and nice about somebody before you criticize.
“Thanks,” he said. He was never too talky outside his own apartment.
“But you are going to try walking to my school again, right?”
“Oh,” Billy said. As if she were just waking him up in the morning. “Oh. Right. That. Yeah. Tomorrow. Tomorrow I will.”
“Tomorrow’s Sunday. You missed the whole rest of the week. You know this has to be Saturday, because if this wasn’t Saturday, then this wouldn’t be the first day everybody could come to the smudging meeting all at the same time. Did you really not know that?”
“I guess I was doing my best not to think about it,” he said.
Grace had been all set to argue with him, but then she didn’t, because she thought that was a very honest answer.
By now they were standing in the upstairs hall in front of what used to be Mr. Lafferty’s apartment, and it made Grace’s tummy nervous, because, the last few times she’d been here, it had been weird, even if the last time did end on a great note with the arrival of the cat. Billy’s hand got a little tighter on hers, too, and she didn’t think it could be for the same reason, but she didn’t know what reason it could be.
“Jesse is going to come along next time we walk,” he said.
“Why?”
“For moral support.”
“What’s so immoral about it?”
“Not that kind of moral. Like morale. Like when you want someone’s morale to be better, so you come along for moral support.”
“I have more trouble trying to understand you when you talk, Billy.”
“I know. It’s a wonder you put up with me.”
“Yeah. OK. Fine. So bring Jesse. I like Jesse. Rayleen, though. Rayleen’ll be pissed.”
“True,” Billy said. “She will.”
The door flew open wide.
“Neighbors!” Jesse said.
Then he looked at Billy for a long time, and took hold of his shoulders, and turned him first one way, then the other. Like there were sides of Billy he just had to see.
“You cut your hair.”
“Rayleen cut it,” Billy said, sounding embarrassed.
“Looks nice. She did a nice job.”
“She kept saying she couldn’t do it. Only Bella could do it. But I told her whatever she did would be better than leaving it the way it was. When I finally wore her down it turned out fine.”
“That’s a lot of hair to lose after all those years.”
“Tell me about it. I feel weirdly light.”
“You should give it to that place—”
But Grace knew what he was going to say, so she jumped in and said it for him. “That makes wigs for cancer people! Rayleen thought of that. She took his ponytail to work with her, so she could do that.”
“Should’ve known Rayleen would think of everything,” Jesse said.
? ? ?
The white sage made Grace’s nose tickle, as though she might be about to sneeze. It was wrapped up into something like a stick, like the world’s fattest cigar made out of sage leaves. But instead of being wrapped in one big solid leaf, like a cigar, it was wrapped in a criss-crossing of heavy blue and green threads that burned as the sage burned. Jesse held a lighter to the end of it for the longest time while Grace watched a curl of the smoke rise up to touch the ceiling of what had used to be Mr. Lafferty’s apartment.
Jesse had grouped them all around in a circle, with a plate in the middle for the sage, if he needed to put it down. Next to the plate Jesse had set a copper bowl and a short, thick, carved wooden stick, both of which Grace had been watching, because she knew those two things fit into all this somewhere, but she didn’t know where.
She looked around the circle, and around the apartment. Jesse didn’t have a lot in the way of furniture, probably because he had come to LA on a plane, and was only staying a few months. But, even so, even without much stuff, the place was nice because he had all the drapes pulled back and the windows wide open. So there was light, and air. Nobody else’s apartment had light and air. Grace knew they were afraid of unlocked doors, and each other, but what did they have against light and air?
Grace already felt she might miss Jesse some when he moved away again.
“Wait,” she said to Jesse. “We can’t start yet. Somebody’s missing.”
She did a quick count in her head. Billy was here, and Jesse of course, and Rayleen, and Felipe, and of course Grace herself was here, too.
“Mrs. Hinman! We have to wait for Mrs. Hinman,” she said.
“She’s not coming,” Jesse said. “She says this is preposterous.”
“Oh,” Grace said, surprisingly disappointed that there should still be disagreements within the group. “But it isn’t. Preposterous. Right?”
“I guess it is if you think it is,” Jesse said.
It was one of those sentences that seemed to make sense to grown-ups, and Grace was wise enough not to question it.
Jesse put down his lighter and blew on the end of the sage stick, which glowed brightly red.
“The former Mr. Lafferty,” Jesse said, like he was saying hello to him directly. Like Mr. Lafferty was right here at the meeting, and not former at all. “I didn’t know you at all. These people I brought here today, they all did. They have some thoughts they want to get off their chests, I think. They feel like you were unkind to them, and I’m not saying you weren’t. I see no reason they would lie. But now that I’m living here in your leftover energy, I want to tell them something they probably don’t know — and maybe you didn’t even know it, either. You were scared. Did you know you were mean because you were scared? Well, you were. I know what fear feels like, and that’s what you left behind in this room. So we’re going to clear this room of all the leftover fear, but we’re going to remember just enough of it to remind us to live our lives and be less afraid. See there? Everything has a purpose, even if it’s only a reminder of what not to do.”
Jesse stood in front of Billy, and Billy got this weird, shy smile on his face that Grace had never seen before, like he was embarrassed, but embarrassed in a way he sort of enjoyed. He also didn’t look like he was just dying to run back to his own apartment, but maybe he was, and Grace just couldn’t see it from the outside. Or maybe he wasn’t, because maybe Jesse was giving him morale support.
Jesse blew on the end of the sage stick, sending a soft curl of smoke Billy’s way. Jesse waved at the smoke with his hand so that it wafted all around Billy, from over his head to down below his knees. Billy didn’t sneeze.
“I’m smudging each of you at the same time as the apartment,” Jesse said, “in case there’s any of his leftover energy in you. Which there probably is. Billy? Want to say anything to your former neighbor?”
Billy filled up his chest with air. It got big and puffed-out. Grace could see how big it got.
“Yes. I’ve decided I forgive you,” Billy said, and then looked surprised, almost as if somebody else had said it. He looked around a minute before saying anything more. “I forgive you for yelling at me when all I did was look out the window at you, and I forgive you for all the terrible mean things you said when you came to my door that day. I really do. I’m not just saying that because I think I’m supposed to. All of a sudden I really do. You know why?” He looked around at different parts of the ceiling, like he was trying to decide which direction to talk in. “Because I only had to deal with you twice, but you had to live with you every minute of every day, which is probably why you didn’t live very long. So now I just feel lucky. And I feel bad for you. So, whatever you did or said to me, the hell with it. I’m seriously ready to let it go by.”
Billy brought his gaze down from the ceiling to Jesse, who smiled at him, and the smile made him get that weird shy look again.
Jesse could make people do things they never did, and be ways they’d never been before, Grace decided. Jesse was magic. Not magic magic, like more than just a real human person. Just better at making things happen than anybody else. At least, anybody else in Grace’s world.
“Oh!” Grace said out loud, and everybody turned and looked at her. “Sorry,” she said. “Nothing. It was nothing. I just all of a sudden figured something out.”
Jesse wasn’t afraid of everybody else. That was what she’d figured out. Grace had finally met somebody who wasn’t afraid of people! That’s what was so different about him. But she didn’t say so out loud.
Meanwhile Jesse held out the little copper bowl on the palm of his hand and gave Billy the carved stick, and showed him how to hit the bowl one quick time on the side like it was a gong. Billy tried it, and this amazing tone filled the room, like a bell ringing out, high and clear, and lasting and lasting and lasting. It made something nice tingle inside Grace’s middle.
Jesse moved on then, to Felipe, and smudged him with the little trails and curls of whitish smoke. Felipe looked serious, as though he had an important job to do.
“Well, I sort of thought I didn’t forgive him,” Felipe said. “Because it’s hard to forgive somebody for hating you for such a bad reason. But maybe he was just scared of me, like Jesse says. Besides, if Billy will do it, I can try to do it.”
Felipe took the carved stick from Billy and hit the bowl, and the tone was much shorter and harder, and it hurt Grace’s ears a little bit this time, but she still liked it.
Then Felipe handed the carved wooden stick to Grace.
Jesse blew on the sage again, and a cloud of smoke billowed out on to Grace and made her sneeze. It reminded her of Peter Lafferty, sneezing in this apartment because he was allergic to the cat. Her cat. It was already weird to think that Mr. Lafferty the Girl Cat had ever been anybody else’s cat besides hers.
“Bless you,” Jesse said.
“Thanks,” Grace replied. “I sort of liked him OK. Not that I don’t think he was mean. He was. But he did some nice stuff for me. So, at least somebody has something nice to say about you, Mr. Lafferty. The person, I mean. At least it’s not like you just died and nobody cares at all. Oh. And by the way. We’re taking good care of the cat.”
Grace waited, expecting Rayleen to take her turn. But Jesse didn’t move away. Just as she was starting to wonder why, Jesse held the bowl high on his palm.
“Oh. Right. Sorry.”
She gave it what she thought was a good hard tap with the stick, but it just made a pretty, but little, sound that faded away soon enough. Just the opposite of me, Grace thought. Quieter than you were expecting.
Jesse moved over then and stood in front of Rayleen, and looked right at her face. But Rayleen just kept looking at the glowing end of the tied-up sage. Jesse smudged her with waves of his hand in the smoke, but maybe for longer than anybody else. It seemed long to Grace.
“OK, that’s good,” Rayleen said, but she didn’t sound like she meant it was good. She sounded like she meant it was enough. “I don’t know a hell of a lot about forgiving people, to be real frank. I’m not set against it, I just haven’t practiced much. I just more or less set things down and get on with it. I pretty much only came here for Grace’s sake. And I can’t stand here like Billy did and say I really mean it. But, like Felipe said, if Billy’s willing to do it, I guess I can do it. Or at least I can try. He sure was an unhappy guy. I sure see Billy’s point about that.”
She took the carved stick from Grace, and struck the bowl with the most enormous sound. It wobbled. It echoed. It hung around and around, and everybody just stood still and marveled at how long it took to fade. At least, Grace knew she marveled. And everybody else stood still, so she figured they marveled, too.
Grace wondered if Mrs. Hinman could hear that last big tone from upstairs, and if it made her sorry she hadn’t come. After all, it sounded so beautiful, and not preposterous at all.
? ? ?
“We have to wait,” Grace said, hitching the straps of her backpack higher on to her shoulders.
“For what?” Rayleen asked, sounding foggy.
Some mornings Rayleen could drink two or even three cups of coffee and still sound like she’d just rolled out of bed. Grace had noticed that. This seemed to be one of those mornings.
“Billy is coming.”
“Oh. Good.”