“So your mother’s finances . . . ,” Gail began, as she and Mary stood together in front of the sink rinsing and loading. “Are you girls provided for?”
Mary’s chin dropped as she handed Gail a plate. “She did what she could.”
“Well, that motel,” said Gail, the anxiety making her voice tinny and shrill. “I’m sure you could get something for the motel.”
“I don’t know if it’s going to be enough.”
And Gail turned the water hotter, higher.
When Mary put Hannah to bed that evening, she filled their big pink bathtub to the brim, adding way too much bubble bath so that Hannah was surrounded by peaks of white fluff. “When we last saw our beautiful princesses,” Mary began, starting to spin one of her tales, “Princess Hannah was trapped in the cloud kingdom.” But Hannah wasn’t in the mood for a story tonight.
“Mary?” started Hannah, her light blond hair messy and wild, her eyes almost disproportionately large. “When can we go home?”
“Oh, Bunny,” said Mary, lifting her hand out of the water to place it on her sister’s head. “It’ll be soon.”
Hannah looked down into the soapy bubbles, and Mary could tell by the set of her chin that she was trying not to cry. “I miss Mom.”
Mary watched Hannah for a moment, and she felt a tugging inside her, painful but precious and pure. “I know,” she said.
“When can we go save her?”
Mary’s hand whirled slowly through the bubbles. “I’m not sure.”
Hannah hadn’t understood the funeral, hadn’t understood what it meant to be dead. As she stood staring at the enormous flower-ringed box with its lid shut tightly, Hannah kept asking where their mother was. And so Mary told her a tale, whispering in her ear that Diane had been on a journey and was pricked by a poisonous thorn, and now she would sleep unless Princess Hannah and Princess Mary could find the enchanted scroll, the words of which held a magic powerful enough to bring back a dead mother.
HANNAH FELL ASLEEP EARLY, Mary tickling her back until her eyes slipped shut. Then in the dark of their room, Mary applied another coat of lip gloss, ran her fingers through her hair, and moved silently back down the wide cream-colored stairs.
Gail and Ron were facing each other, their arms crossed over their chest, their whispers turning into too-eager smiles as soon as Mary entered the room.
“Hey,” said Ron, clapping his hands together on seeing Mary. “There she is!”
Gail took a sip of her white wine and looked away while Ron summoned Tim on the intercom system. “Tim!” he said curtly. And that was all it took. Tim came slinking down the stairs, hands in his pockets, his chin elevated regally. He brushed silently past both Mary and his parents, and went right out the door that led to the garage, leaving only stares in his wake. It was a fledgling defiance that Mary recognized at once. “Well,” she said, with a good-natured shrug. “I’ll see you in a bit.”
Ron made a noise of disgust toward his son, as Mary followed Tim out the open door into the humid night.
“Hey, Tim!” called Mary, as she jogged to catch up with him. He was walking quickly without looking back. “Wait up.”
But Tim didn’t slow nor did he look at her even after she had reached him. For a minute or two, they walked in silence as Mary worked to keep his pace, sprinklers spitting and whirring in the dark between spotlight-illuminated palms.
Finally, Tim spoke, his eyes gazing straight ahead, his steps not slowing. “My mom doesn’t want you here. She thinks you’re looking for a handout.”
He had meant it to sting. Mary took a moment to think tactically. Tim didn’t like girls, she could tell. So her usual arsenal was of little use. But Tim went on. “She put some of her jewelry and the silverware in a safe-deposit box,” he said. “She thinks you’re going to steal it.”
Mary stopped suddenly, and the surprise of it made Tim stop, too. He turned around to look at her. She stared at him for a moment, and she saw the effort it took for him to hold her gaze. Looking Mary in the eyes could be like staring into the sun. “You could,” she said, nodding her chin in his direction. “You could take something and say it was us after we’re gone.”
Tim let out a vicious laugh. Mary had been right to play off his hatred for his parents. He was imagining it now, a pair of diamond earrings sitting in his sock drawer as his mother went wild, pulling her room apart looking for them. “They’re such assholes,” he spat. “My mom pretending to be all perfect, but she’s so scared that her dead cousin’s kids are going to ask her for some money that she told me that we have to keep Christmas ‘humble’ this year. In case you guys saw how much shit she usually buys. We’re going to have a second Christmas on New Year’s when I’ll get the rest of my presents.”
Tim turned and started walking again, head down, hands in his pockets.
“What about your dad?” asked Mary. It was a deliberately ambiguous question, one open to interpretation.
“He and my mom don’t even talk. She goes upstairs every night after dinner with a glass of wine and takes a sleeping pill. He sits in his office and counts his money.” Mary found his angst charming—a quaint offering from a native son.
Tim stopped abruptly and gestured in front of him—a grandiose sweep of the hand. Mary looked up. In front of her were rows of beautiful boats gleaming white in the night and bobbing on the black water. “The marina,” said Tim, with false pomp.
Mary had seen plenty of boats, often walking down to the harbor in Sandy Bank with Hannah to watch as the summer people launched their vessels. But unlike the Dackard’s tacky bourgeois home, these yachts reminded Mary of something rarer than money. These yachts were white stallions pawing at the dark liquid earth, ready to take her to faraway lands.
“It’s beautiful,” she said, the sentiment plain and uncalculating.
“It’s supposed to be,” said Tim. Then he looked sharply at Mary. “My mom said that she heard things about you.” Mary felt herself rise ever so slightly—a reflexive response to a challenge. “She said she heard that you’re wild.”
Mary smiled, her teeth ultraviolet white in the dark. A gentle gust of warm air licked her skin, but she didn’t respond. She just pulled an errant strand of hair off of her face and looked past him.
“I can get cocaine,” dared Tim.
“Oh, yeah,” said Mary, with a laugh, as she turned to walk back toward the house. Now it was Tim who was struggling to keep up with her. “That’s cool.”
She and Tim walked more companionably home, Mary asking him what he liked about school. Nothing. Maybe History. And what music he was into. Duran Duran. Talking Heads.
“I saw Duran Duran in New York,” said Mary.
“Where?”
“The Palladium.”
And Tim nodded with respect.