Anna wanders back holding my grandfather’s copy of The Great Gatsby.
I glance up as she comes in. “Haven’t you read that book a hundred times?”
“This is a first edition,” she says reverently.
“Did he say you could take it?”
“I didn’t want to bother him. He’s upstairs in his study.” She settles down on her bed. “Anyway, I’m not going to read it, I just want to lie in bed and stroke it. Who knows, maybe we’ll even get to second base.”
“You’re such an idiot.” I laugh.
“I am,” Anna says. “‘That’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.’”
“Can one of you girls come help me get supper on the table?” Granny Myrtle calls from the kitchen. “The potatoes need peeling.”
“I’ll go,” I say to Anna. “You stay and get felt up by your book. Can I do the carrots instead?” I ask, coming out of our room. “I’m bad at peeling potatoes.” I always end up with pale pentagonal lumps, most of the potato still attached to the peels. I will disappoint Granny Myrtle, which I hate.
“Why don’t you run down to the road and get the mail,” Granny says. “I’ve left it all day.” She goes to the sink and starts peeling potatoes. Their razor-thin skins fall elegantly into the basin. I come up behind her and nuzzle her cheek, making soft, burring pony noises.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, you silly girl,” she says. But she’s smiling. “My rubbers are in the front hall if you need them.”
Outside, the drizzle has turned to pelting rain. Lightning cracks the sky, silhouetting gravestones across the road. Seconds later, a thunderclap.
May
I wake in a flop sweat, my back to the door. I have fallen asleep on my watch. A streetlamp casts tree shadows on the wall above me—witch fingers. I can’t see him, but he’s there behind me, beside the bed. Watching me. Deciding. I shift my position, murmur in REM, wait for him to leave. But he doesn’t move. The tip of a finger touches my ankle, draws a line up my leg, stops at the border of my hem. It presses into my thigh. A damp, squishy press. And I realize then, it’s not his finger. I jerk away before I can stop myself. Too quick. Too aware.
“Elle?” softly.
I curl away into an inverse proportion, shoulders concave, knees to chest, whimpering at a nightmare. “It’s not a peacock,” I mumble. My arm thrashes at nothing. “Your house is here.”
Conrad steps away into shadow. He waits for me to settle. When my breathing slows, he lets himself out. The door sighs behind him.
16
1983. June, New York.
Eight a.m. and already the city is stifling and muggy, giving off the dusty gray smell of warm sidewalks, dog piss, oil stains on asphalt, the sweet, pale scent of linden trees. We are leaving for the Back Woods today. The car is double-parked. I’m helping Leo load. He’s anxious to get on the road. We have a six-hour drive ahead of us and he wants to beat the traffic. But Mum still hasn’t managed to catch the cat, and the car is only half packed because Conrad, who’s in charge of bringing our bags downstairs, is moving so slowly he looks like he’s swimming through honey.
“Can you move those short legs of yours a bit faster?” Leo says.
“Asshole,” Conrad says.
Leo says nothing.
My mother leans out the window of our third-story apartment. “Elle, did you want me to pack your Waterpik? Oh, and I need you to run across to Gristedes and get me one more cardboard box. Something I can use for kitty litter in the car.”
When the car is finally packed, Mum comes out of our building holding a picnic basket and the cat-carrying case.
“He was hiding under the bed.” She puts the cat case on the back seat, hands me the picnic basket. “Can you fit this at your feet, Elle? Leo doesn’t want to stop for lunch. There’s an apple and three nectarines. I made peanut butter and mayonnaise, or roast beef.” She settles into the front seat, fans herself with a piece of junk mail from the dash.
I move the cat case to the middle of the seat to make a wall between Conrad and me.
“Why can’t we get a car with air conditioning?” Conrad says.
“You’ll be swimming in the pond in a few hours.” Leo slams the rear door shut.
I roll down my window letting in the swampy breeze. I can’t wait to get to the woods. Anna is spending the summer at a kibbutz in Northern California, so I’ll get our cabin to myself. I’m signed up for sailing lessons. And Jonas will be back this summer. Last year his parents were on sabbatical in Florence. His mother is working on a biography of Dante. I’m excited to see him again. I wonder whether he will have changed a lot, or if I will have outgrown him.