Little Wrecks Read online

“I am. You want necessary? It’s necessary. We need to put everything right if we want Henry back.”

  “Okay, listen. A: we’ve already smoked kind of a lot of it. B: if we put it back, what happens to us? Our escape plan is shot. And C: how the hell are we going to even do it? We’ll get caught.”

  “Duh, in the opposite way we did before? Robbery on rewind. But we need to do it soon. Tonight.”

  “Did you hear that? That thud? That is the sound of my houseboat hitting the mud, of the wheels collapsing under the bus of your dreams, man. No, Magda.”

  “Are you saying you’ll trade Henry for some weed, Isabel?”

  “Not fair. If we put the weed back, we’re all trapped, Magda. Henry, too. It was all for nothing.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe it’s the leap we have to take. From here, nothing means anything, unless we make it mean something. Maybe this is the test.”

  They’re on the other side of the estuary now, and only the high-pitched screams of the kids in the water make it across to them. Ms. Carter drives back in and parks up, with a cop car behind her. She’s out of her car, leaning on the roof, shading her eyes and scanning for them before the cops have turned off their engine.

  “Shit.” Isabel looks around for an escape route.

  “No, Isabel. We have to go over there. If we don’t, it’s on Ruth’s mom. That’s not fair.”

  “Why is everything we need not fair?”

  With their jeans rolled up and their hair tied in messy knots, they look like girls on a beach vacation. For a minute Magda imagines them in a different life—a pair of girlie virgins reading books by Judy Blume and going to their mothers’ Mary Kay parties. There is nothing to tell them from anyone else at a distance. Life only looks like what it is from the inside. They pick their way through the runnels of fresh water and the scurrying crabs back to the parking lot.

  “Are you Magdalene Warren?” the cop says to Isabel.

  “No.” Isabel points. “She is.”

  They’ve picked Isabel out as the WASP of the pair. Kids named Warren who live on Sycamore Avenue mostly don’t look like Magda. Officer Kemp is married to their Health teacher. Magda doesn’t recognize the other one. He’s young and wearing hippie clothes, a poncho even, but with a cop hat. Is that supposed to be some undercover disguise? Don’t they realize what a small town they’re in?

  “Do you know where your brother is, Miss Warren?” Officer Kemp asks in his stern but benign voice.

  “No.” Isabel gets between them. She may be clueless, but lately it turns out she is kind of brave. “Uh, that’s why we’re looking for him.”

  “I was asking Miss Warren. You are?”

  “Isabel. I’m her friend. I’m trying to help.”

  “Isabel O’Sullivan?”

  Crap.

  “It’s all right, Isabel,” Ms. Carter interrupts. “They just want to ask Magdalene some questions, so they can try to find Henry.” She doesn’t even look nervous. She’s an actual hippie. Plenty of practice dealing with cops.

  “He’s gone.” Magda’s voice comes out flat, like nothing’s bothering her. The Patty Hearst effect again.

  “When did you last see him?” Officer Kemp is running the show, doing all the talking while the young one in the ridiculous disguise leans with his arms on the top of the cop car.

  “I saw him last night,” she says, “when we went to bed.”

  “And you didn’t go anywhere? You didn’t take him out?”

  “No! I told them this morning, I read him a story and then shut his door.” Magda’s voice cracks a little and Isabel’s eyes slide away from her.

  “You were seen in town last night, Miss Warren. What were you doing?”

  Oh.

  “I went for a walk. Henry was in bed.”

  “Get in the car with us. We’ll drive you back to your house. Your father wants you at home.”

  “She’s with us; you can’t make her go with you!” Isabel shouts. “What are you, arresting her?”

  “Don’t worry, Isabel,” Ms. Carter says. “They just want to take her back to her father. They need to be sure they look everywhere and talk to everyone. Magdalene should be at home right now, no matter what.”

  The pretend hippie opens the back door of the cop car and makes a gesture like some kind of bodyguard, inviting Magda in.

  Magda looks back at Isabel. “Get Ruth. Go to Matt’s. You guys have to do it.”

  The back of the cop car smells like nothing at all. How do they do that? For a minute, Magda thinks maybe she’s being carried off into a featureless world, a navy blue absence where her blank exterior will fit right in. But she never has been that lucky. They’re taking her home.

  five

  FADE TO WHITE, Ruth thinks.

  She shakes the blinding afternoon light out of her eyes and walks up the bandstand steps into the shade. She twists her hair up off her neck and fans it with one hand.

  “I could tell this morning it was summer rolling in,” Danny says. “You see the fog before you even notice it’s warmer.”

  “Jeez, man, what time did you get up?”

  “I went out last night after me and your mom got back from the movies. I slept on the boat, raked for a while, and came in with the tide to offload before the sun came up. That’s the life, flowergirl. Time and tide and all that stuff.”

  “That’s what Isabel wants, you know, to live on a boat, but not on the ocean. She wants to live on some cute little tugboat being a surrealist with her typewriter and her bohemian friends drinking absinthe and shit.”

  “Yeah, what’s wrong with that? You don’t sound convinced.”

  “God, you are, like, Mr. Contentment, aren’t you? Everything’s cool with you. Nothing’s wrong with it, it’s just not realistic, is it? Know how she wants to save up the money? Working in the Lagoon.”

  “They don’t hire underage girls,” Danny says. “They couldn’t get away with it.”

  “Yeah, she’s got the whole long-term plan going, but it’s still a stupid idea. Okay, yeah, so she’s all in charge of her own body and stuff, but she has no idea, is my opinion. I mean, do you know Vicky, who works in Dunkin’ Donuts?”

  “Yeah, I know her big sister. Why?” He looks worried. “She a friend of yours?”

  “What if she is, man? She’s a person.”

  “She’s a person in over her head, Ruthie.”

  “Do NOT call me Ruthie. And yeah, I get that. I’m not stupid. My point is that Isabel is. Would you look at Vicky and think, ‘cool, amazing, I want to live her life’?”

  “Don’t think I’d make a lot.”

  “Oh, ha, ha.” Ruth stops to call out Henry’s name.

  They even get down on the ground and look through the latticework on the bottom of the bandstand. It’s so dark under there that Ruth has to cup her hands around her eyes to block out the glare of the sun. It takes a minute for her vision to adjust, but then there are just syringes and empty bottles of Jack Daniel’s and Boone’s Farm.

  “So what about you?” Danny’s voice comes through the littered darkness from the other side of the bandstand.

  “What about me, what?”

  “What’s the long-term plan?”

  “Don’t have the foggiest. I mean, the thing I love most is drawing, but where’s that get me? I don’t want to be all pompous with arty Village friends who drink nasty green stuff made of herbs, and I don’t think I have the kind of chutzpah it takes to be Magda, so I need to think sort of . . . I don’t know, not smaller, but less dramatic. Sometimes I think going away with Magda is just a cop-out.”

  “Going away where?”

  “Oh yeah, well, the plan is to buy a van and drive it till we can’t go any farther. California, basically. Keep your pants on, we’re not going till high school’s over. Magda’s gonna work for a year while she waits for me. And don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of it. I want outta here, for definite. It’s just, the thing about Magda is, you don’t have to decide anything. You just let
her do it.”

  “You don’t seem to me like someone who can’t find your own way.”

  “Don’t be fooled, man. Even when Magda’s not here, she’s in my head, pointing. Until today, anyway. Today is just twisted.”

  “Yeah, well. Everything happens for a reason.”

  “No, Danny. It does not. You’re doing good here; don’t blow it with stupid clichés. Save that for your transcendental-meditatin’ yogi friends.”

  “I mean, Henry will come home and you will be different. Deny it or whatever, it’s a truth.”

  “I am kind of different recently. I mean, I think I might not be Sidekick of Saint Magdalene anymore. I still love her, but there’s stuff going on I don’t feel like talking to her about, and that’s weird. The other day I was upset, and I didn’t call her up. I can’t remember that ever happening before.”

  “Come on.” Danny pulls out his keys. “Let’s get back to your mom’s. They might have heard something. Upset why?”

  “Nah, the details aren’t important. You know, someone gave me something amazing and I should have known I couldn’t keep it. When they took it back, it was like being kicked in the stomach. I felt like I’d been run over, bruised everywhere. Couldn’t breathe for a minute, you know?”

  “Must have been some thing.”

  “Yeah, but it doesn’t matter. Point is, the way to keep it is to keep it to myself. Not to tell Magda. I couldn’t take her rolling her eyes at me over it. Lately, it’s too much space inside me. Like, you know”—Ruth gives a sarcastic smirk—“emptiness or something melodramatic. I feel too light, like I might blow away. I know that sounds nuts, but sometimes it’s good.”

  “Listen to me not saying people go through changes at different times in life.”

  “Whatever. When I’m drawing they come together: the driving west and the keeping stuff to myself. All I want to draw the past couple of days is space. Big giant landscapes, deserts, planets in the void, the ocean: space, space, space. I’ve always been scared of my own drawings. Like they were bigger than me, like they come out of me but they’re not really mine, you know? But now I get it. I can just let go and it’ll be all right.”

  The two Mr. Lipskys drive past them heading down Main Street. Manny waves at Ruth, leaning around his son.

  “Crap, Danny, I forgot I’m supposed to clean Old Mr. Lipsky’s apartment.”

  “Should I come back and get you?”

  “No, thanks though, Danny. Tell Isabel I’ll be at Mariner’s. Pop the trunk. I need my bucket.”

  “Well, anyway, it was good talking to you, Ruth.”

  “All right, Pavlich, don’t get comfortable.” But she laughs when she says it and suddenly her lungs seem big enough to breathe with for the first time in weeks.

  “Maybe you could go to college for art?” Danny says.

  “Yeah, I could.” She leans in the passenger window. “I might. But not around here. This place is poison for Carter women, man. Um, no offense.”

  “None taken, flowergirl.”

  Ruth reads the sign on the door of Mariner’s Maps and Books that says, Out to lunch. Back at Three. It’s way after three already. The alley in back is empty, and she stops to smoke a cigarette before she knocks on the door.

  “The little movie star!” Manny Lipsky says when he opens the door and sees her standing there. “What are you doing at the back door?”

  “Shop’s closed. You ready for me?” She holds up her cleaning bucket.

  “I’ll get you some iced tea,” Old Mr. Lipsky says. “Come on up.”

  In the kitchen there is a board made of brown cork tiles on the wall, with pictures on it. Some are the pictures everybody has, father and son with a fish, everybody opening presents in faded color around a table. There’s one that must be Young Mr. Lipsky, wearing a prayer shawl and a yarmulke and pimples. They’re all in the muted colors of the past, surrounded by white borders.

  Old Mr. Lipsky puts a braided candlestick down on a rubbery plastic cloth with yellow flowers on it.

  “My son says this isn’t a tablecloth, it’s a fire hazard.”

  “I like it,” Ruth says, because she can tell he does.

  “My son’s a snob. Did you notice? I like it, though. You can just wipe it with a sponge. Cuts down on the laundry. Laundry makes me feel like an old woman.”

  “Are you suggesting that old women wash their clothes and old men don’t? Ewww.” Ruth laughs and he does too. It’s like having a granddad.

  “Go through to the living room. I’ll bring you an iced tea in a minute, Ruth.”

  He lights the candle, then bows his head and covers his face with his hands.

  In the living room, there is a glass coffee table and modern furniture that looks like it came off Star Trek, white with a big brown stripe down it, made of something that hardly weighs anything at all. When Ruth sits on the couch, it feels hollow. She can hear Mr. Lipsky in the kitchen, mumbling into his hands.

  Old people go back to living in apartments in the end. When they have kids, they’re all obsessed with their house and their yard. Parents like the O’Sullivans act like stuff has to last forever. It isn’t permanent though, not at all. Ruth can see that someday everyone will be in an apartment like this one, fading out of the picture.

  Old Mr. Lipsky comes through carrying two glasses of iced tea.

  “So you believe in God, Mr. Lipsky?”

  “Not really.” He doesn’t use a coaster on the glass table, so she doesn’t either. “It’s called a havdalah,” he says. “The candle.”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “I believe in people. I think it’s good to remember them. Parents, children, grandparents. They make life good. I’m thankful, even though my son calls me an old woman for lighting Sabbath candles. It’s supposed to be a woman’s job, when there’s one in the house.”

  No one in Ruth’s life does anything at the same time every week. That’s the exact reason people think her life is great. But a granddad who lights candles and speaks another language would be cool, too.

  “A house without women is a sad thing, Ruth. How’s the little Buonvicino?”

  “Magda? She’s not having such a good day, Mr. Lipsky. Things are bad right now. Isabel is coming to get me when I’m done here. Isabel O’Sullivan, my other friend?”

  “I knew the Buonvicinos, the little one’s grandparents. They had a great little place on 25A. It was on my route. Delivered them plenty of Asti and Sambuca, back in the day.”

  “I remember them. Magda’s grandparents. They were sweet. Tiny and sweet, and always trying to make you eat figs.”

  “Anthony and Carmelinda did all the cooking themselves and the waiters were always somebody’s paisan. In the summer you could sit under the grape arbor in the back. Nice people. Anthony’s dad came from Italy around the same time my wife’s people came from Russia. They could have landed at Ellis Island the same day. Irene Buonvicino was only little back then. I remember when she used to do her homework at the table in the back. Her and her brother, Tony.”

  “Well, I should get started, Mr. Lipsky.”

  “Manny.”

  “Manny. You did all the dishes already? I would have done them. I’ll start in the bathroom.”

  The candle keeps burning the whole time she’s vacuuming, and she’s not sure whether to move it to wipe the tablecloth. The pictures on the corkboard keep her company, and for a minute it feels like this could be her house. Her mother is way too much of a hippie to have a plastic tablecloth, but she likes Old Mr. Lipsky as much as Ruth does.

  “Pop!” It’s Young Mr. Lipsky, shouting from the bottom of the stairs.

  “All right!” Manny cups his hands around his mouth to shout back. “Gotta go, honey. Time for the postprandial stroll. He’s a snob, but he’s a good kid. Thanks for the visit. Come back and see me again when you’re not cleaning. Miriam would have liked you, and I’m not getting any grandkids of my own, obviously.” He jerks his thumb towards the stairs and smirks.<
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  “Pop! Let’s go.”

  “All right, all right.” Mr. Lipsky picks up a pipe from a side table and the box of matches from the kitchen.

  “Are you supposed to leave that burning?” Ruth points at the kitchen table.

  “I always do. I feel like it keeps Miriam company, even though I know that’s nuts. Don’t tell Samuel.”

  “Pop!”

  Ruth waits for Isabel in the doorway of Mr. Lipsky’s store. The sign is still there. She rests her head against the glass underneath it, like it’s a label for her. Out to lunch. Back at Three, that’s me. She laughs and touches the bay window where Gaius Pollio is patting the other side of the glass with his paw.

  “Mr. Lipsky says the other grown-ups on Main Street think he’s a joke”—Isabel stands over her, looking at the sign that’s almost five hours out of date now—“because he closes the store in the middle of the day.”

  “Has he met Mrs. Gellaghtly? She leaves Attic Antiques wide open and sits downstairs drinking tea while we clean the place out. Capitalists in this town are useless.”

  “Ruth, what if Henry is . . . I don’t know, I mean, what if they don’t find him or something?”

  What if he isn’t even there anymore? Like he wasn’t old enough to stay put in the world. Like they just wafted his little body back to wherever it came from. Ruth pictures Henry laughing his laugh, and the laugh is like a bubble, carrying him up and away.

  “Do you ever think people might just start disappearing, Isabel? I mean like maybe Henry is the first of us to go. Maybe the reason all of us are different from other people is because we’re not solid enough to stay in place? We’re not really here in the way other people are.”

  “Henry isn’t one of us, Ruth. Don’t lay that on him.”

  “I mean, I don’t really think that, but I feel like that sometimes, you know?”

  Isabel looks at her sideways. “I guess.”

  Ruth closes her eyes and breathes, filling the new space inside her with ocean air. She can still feel Isabel without looking, but she can feel the rest of the world, too. Full of long roads and a thousand possibilities and a million kinds of light.