“Quit stressing out, Dad. I’ve got it all taken care of.”
“Is it Harvard, Angela? Is it Yale? Is it—oh, I don’t know—Stanford?”
He knew exactly who’d offered me a place; it was just that online colleges didn’t rate on his academic snobometer.
“Let her go where she wants, David,” called Mom from the top of the basement stairs. “You’re so controlling. Isn’t he? Why the fixation, David? It’s not like you’ve led the way with a dazzling career path.”
Dad rubbed his head harder.
“I’ll graduate college. It’ll all be fine.”
I knew that was like pulling a grenade pin inside his brain, but I didn’t care. He followed me to the blackest corners of the house to hint at his intellectual frustrations, but he never spelled any of them out exactly, just skirted around their edges. The best way I’d found to deal with my father in battle was to pretend I didn’t understand his point.
While he fretted and paced, I’d enrolled in some generic online university—I couldn’t care less about which institution I attended: it wasn’t like I was going to frame my degree and hang it on the wall. I had a new plan: I wanted to be an archivist, and with the course credits I already had from Oxford, I could take an accelerated program. From one quiet, dank work space to another, and the only company I wanted was books and computers. I’d take literature and library studies and once in the archives of complex systems, I would organize documents into an order that made sense. I’d be doing everyone a favor. Archivists hold history in their hands—they write the endings of all the stories—just think how much everything relies on the input of data these days. The world is littered with unsatisfying closures; it was time somebody took back the helm.
You were angry,” Novak cuts in. The sun is setting outside, streaking the table with burnt orange. “You wanted to be in charge because, in reality, you had control over nothing.”
“There’s something comforting about facts,” I concede.
“I like facts, too, Angela.” He pats Freddy’s letters again, which remain on the table between us. “When people commit their thoughts to paper, it makes things so much easier for us.” His eyes burn holes into mine.
“What else have you touched in my room?”
“Oh, we’re just getting started.”
I shake my head. “Some things are private, you know. Besides, maybe you shouldn’t get your fingerprints all over those.”
His laugh is measured as he peels his hands from Freddy’s top envelope. “What a team player. Don’t worry—they already have my prints on file. If this is a whodunit”—I can smell the sour coffee on his breath—“I’m pretty sure they know it wasn’t me.”
chapter
* * *
13
I didn’t escape seeing Saskia a few more times through that summer. I waited in line behind her at the grocery store, listening to her brag to the sad-eyed cashier about the year she’d just spent in Europe. It was bloody awesome, she said before she caught sight of me. Oh, Little John, good on ya! Wasn’t Oxford so beaut? You were there—you know. In July she pulled over in HP’s truck to offer me a ride when she saw me walking along the street alone. I had headphones in and didn’t acknowledge she’d stopped. And then, maybe a week later, she made a point of veering towards me at the movie theater when I was standing in the doorway looking at the posters.
“Are you watching this one, LJ? You can sit with us.” She was holding hands with HP as she said it, even though it looked like he was trying to let go.
“I’m not . . . I’m just looking.”
“Sure, darl? The offer’s there.”
She was like a child, wandering out of a burning building, with no concept whatsoever that she’d lit the match.
Mom hovered two steps behind me most of the summer. One evening as I sat quietly on the porch, she came out of the house holding an empty mason jar. She’d labeled it, and the lid was open.
“Darling.” She patted my knee, but her nails dented my flesh. “I’ve been having a think. I’ve found this jar and according to research, whatever you put in here comes true.” Her eyes were watery.
“What research?” I took the jar and rotated it slowly. Across the label she’d written MANIFESTATIONS in swirly cursive.
“Well, the girls at my music class if I’m honest, but darling, I’ve looked it up on the World Wide Web and all of it’s true. You take little pieces of paper, write down your hopes and dreams and pop them into the jar.”
I put both fists to my chin, leaning on my knees.
“Whatever you put out into the universe is an energy that changes everything.” Her voice rose like an evangelist on TV. “It’s manifest destiny.”
I snorted.
“It can’t hurt to try, can it? I mean”—she took the jar back and hugged it to her chest—“we’ve all had a miserable summer. But it’s time to forgive and forget—you know?—and get life back on track now. Isn’t it, my beautiful girl? Come on, look alive.” She slapped my knee with a rousing palm. “You have so much going for you, and nobody likes a Droopy Drawers.”
I kept the jar for a couple of weeks, scribbling all of my nineteen-year-old angst onto paper scraps and dropping them into the glass, the thickness of which only magnified my vitriol when held up to the light. After that, I threw the jar out in the trash. Nothing was coming true. At least, that’s what I thought then; but here, now, it’s frightening to think that maybe Mom’s witchy voodoo might have worked, albeit more slowly than she thought. Saskia’s vanished, hasn’t she? It’s kind of terrible, although deep down, in a part of me I’ll never let anyone see, I also don’t mind if she doesn’t come back. That sounds bad, I know. But people can’t always control their thoughts; they just control what they do about them. Saskia came in like a hurricane that summer, ripping whole dwellings apart, and maybe Mom was right. The energy you put out into the world does change everything.
About a month later, in September, HP left a voice mail on my cell, the first message I’d received from him since getting back from Oxford.
“There’s a party at Fu Bar tonight.” He’d called at 5:30 p.m. Thanks for the afterthought. “Everyone will be there. Saskia’s visa ran out so it’s a good-bye thing. Later.” His tone was curt.
“God bless the department of immigration,” said Mom when I told her.
“I don’t know why he thinks I’d show up to her good-bye party.” I picked at the label of a bottle of beer I’d opened. Mom eyed me, hoping I’d fetch a glass.
“But you must go. Darling, it’d be good for you. Go out for the evening, kick up your heels. You’ve been holed up here in this cave for months; it’s not good to spend so much time alone. Come, I’ll help you pick out an outfit.”
“Nothing fits.”
“Well, you’re thin right now. You need to eat a bit more.” She tried to tuck my hair behind my ear, but I pulled away. “You look striking with those high cheekbones of yours. And now HP is going to be on his own . . .”