“Is it gorgeous or what?” Maravelle chirps.
It probably is to somebody and that somebody is Maravelle. Why should Shelby burst her bubble? There’s a gas fireplace and a good-size dining room. In the kitchen there are new appliances and white floor tiles that Shelby knows will be hell to clean when the boys stomp around in muddy sneakers.
Shelby goes to the window and gazes into the yard. It reminds her of where she grew up, out in Huntington. There’s even a picnic table.
Jasmine is going to hate it.
Maravelle comes to stand beside her. “Pinch me,” she says. Shelby does, and Maravelle squeals. “Hey, bitch!” Maravelle rubs her arm and grins. “This house is due to you, you know.”
Shelby gives her friend a look. She refuses to take responsibility for Valley Stream.
“You made them give me the manager’s job,” Maravelle says gleefully.
That’s true, but Shelby won’t admit it. They go out the kitchen door to the patio. It smells like rain and grass.
“You know Jasmine’s not going to want to move here, right?” Shelby says.
“She’ll get used to it. The high school is three blocks away. I don’t have to worry about the kids taking the bus. My mother can walk to the supermarket.”
Shelby sits cross-legged on a retaining wall and lights a cigarette. She knows there’s no safety in this world, even if you’re on Long Island. What happens in Queens can happen here too. Still, she keeps her opinions to herself.
Maravelle comes to sit next to her. “What do you really think?” Shelby is brutally honest. That’s why Maravelle likes her. Maravelle is brutally honest too. You can’t have many friends if you act that way, but you can depend on the ones you have.
“I’d kill myself if I lived here,” Shelby says. “But I’m proud of you.”
Maravelle leaps up, arms out, and twirls on her tiptoes. “Suburbia, I love you!” she shouts.
The last few leaves are falling from a grapevine that grows along the side of the garage. Shelby can’t help but imagine what a mess it’s going to be when the grapes are overripe and scattering everywhere and angry bees buzz through the air, drunk on the juice. Maravelle won’t be dancing around then.
“You did good,” Shelby says. “Your kids will be safe and everyone will live happily ever after.”
“Will you go furniture shopping with me?” Maravelle is really excited about this home ownership situation.
“Not on your life. But I’ll visit you and bring Chinese food from the city because it’s probably terrible out here.”
They get back into Maravelle’s car and head for Queens along Sunrise Highway. There’s a lot of traffic in Valley Stream, especially around the mall. The fact that it’s called Green Acres is a joke. Parking lots, cars, chain stores filled with stuff no one needs. Shelby hates malls. She hasn’t been in one in years. She sighs and gazes out the window. She thinks about the town where she grew up and how excited she and Helene were that they’d be moving to New York City when they graduated.
As if she could read her friend’s mind, Maravelle says, “Don’t say anything negative. Don’t tell me this isn’t my dream come true.”
Maravelle was Shelby’s friend when Shelby was bald and smoking pot four times a day. She was Shelby’s friend through bad breakups with two boyfriends. More important and for reasons Shelby will never understand, Maravelle trusts Shelby with her children. Why should Shelby ruin her day by telling her that a teenage girl who doesn’t want to be in suburbia can put her mother through hell? She did it, after all. It was easy.
It happens two weeks later, on the eve of the move. Maravelle calls Shelby at ten o’clock at night, frantic. The boxes are all packed, the movers are coming in the morning, and Jasmine has taken off.
“Wait until midnight to get hysterical,” Shelby advises. The witching hour, the time of night that scares parents most. Jasmine will be back by then.
Except that she’s not.
Maravelle calls all of Jasmine’s friends, waking some of their parents, but Jasmine isn’t with any of them. Maravelle then races through the quiet neighborhood, searching the park, a place no one with any sense would go after dark. She calls Shelby on her cell phone from the corner deli near the school bus stop. Shelby can barely understand her over all the crying.
“She’s trying to scare you,” Shelby says.
Shelby certainly wouldn’t wish the scares she gave her own mother on anyone.