The first time I ever ate dinner at the Zlotnicks’, Sheila served them, and because I didn’t know what to say and because I’d decided I wanted to lose my virginity to her daughter, I said, “These are great—I should tell my mom about them.” Sheila jumped up and wrote the recipe on an index card in very careful handwriting, then put the card in an envelope and wrote, For Carol—potatoes à la Moises on the front. In the five months since, I’d never eaten a dinner there without those potatoes. And not only weren’t they good to eat, but they actually hurt to eat. By the time I’d cleaned my plate, the back of my mouth would be stinging like I’d been sucking all night on pennies.
In front of her parents Wendy turned into a little girl, but she would always catch my eye and wink at me, or else put a hand on my leg under the table. “What did you do today, Mom? Is your knee feeling OK?” And then a big smile. And her mom, her scratchy-voiced, hairy-armed little mom, would say, “Thank you so much for asking! Well, my knee doesn’t hurt as much. Not as much. It doesn’t feel good, but I think these exercises may be starting to really work. Let’s see what I did today. I went to physical therapy at ten, and that was hard, really excruciating today. And then I had to go to Sutton Place to talk to Carlos about the party on Sunday, and then … God, senior moment! Then I went over to Angie’s and we had tea and talked about Susan’s graduation—the most insane production I’ve ever seen in my life, and I have no idea how she’s getting through it. And I think since then I’ve just been …” What kind of thrill does it give Wendy to rub my thigh while her mom goes on like this? Why? While her dad looks at Sheila hoping she’ll shut up so I can start talking, and Sheila stares up at the ceiling trying to remember what she did before she started cooking dinner, Wendy—trying to remind me how wild she is, maybe?—teases me about a hand job.
After dinner Wendy and I went to the basement. This was what we always did after dinner, so we could make out and watch TV. For the first few weeks we were together, I thought this—watching David Letterman’s monologue with Wendy clinging to me in just her underwear—was a kind of simple, animal happiness that might actually last. Slipping off her shirt, unbuttoning her pants, even she could make my heart speed up. Every once in a while her mom would open the door at the top of the stairs (“Knock, knock!”), and we’d have to jump under the blanket and stare at the screen. But all this had started feeling like a trap sometime in May or even April.
Before we sat down Wendy turned down the lights and with one motion took off her shirt so she was only wearing jeans and her blue bra. On the couch she started to kiss me, but I turned my head.
“I want to talk,” I said. “I don’t know how happy I am anymore.”
“You’re not happy?” She put a hand on my shoulder and suddenly she really was the sweet girl she pretended to be upstairs. I remembered her in tenth grade, turning red when Mr. Vazquez made fun of her for not being able to roll her Rs.
“I’m not happy with us,” I said.
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think it has anything to do with you, but … I don’t know, I just stopped wanting this. Something changed.”
“When?”
“I don’t know. A week? Two?”
“Two weeks?” I wasn’t sure if she thought that was a lot or a little. “Let’s talk about it,” she said. “I want to figure out what’s going on.” There were goose bumps all over her chest.
“My brother asked me to move to New York, and I think I want to go. I told him I would. I think I want us to just be friends.”
She was starting to cry a little, but less than I expected. “So just done. Like that. Your feelings just changed for no reason? Obviously there’s something. What did I do?”
I didn’t say anything, and suddenly I didn’t know if I was going to make it out of this without crying too.
“What if I came with?” she said, and looked up. “To New York.” The look on her face, wanting to believe in what she was saying, was terrible to see. “I could do the whole thing, wait tables during the day and act at night, or the opposite, or however they do it.”
“I don’t think I want you to go with me. I want to go and just get serious about music. By myself.”
“You’re not going to start practicing just because you’re in someone else’s apartment. What, do you think you’re going to be out meeting girls at clubs, everybody crawling all over you?”
“No. I just want to stop living like I’m fourteen.”
“OK, so why are you going to live like you’re twelve, in someone else’s house, going to bed when they go to bed, not even working?”
“I’ll be working. David knows somebody who can get me a job at the zoo, and at night I’m going to get gigs.”
“You sound ridiculous. I can’t believe you’re doing this. I can’t believe I’m crying.” She stood up and didn’t bother to put on her shirt.
“I think I’m going to leave.”
“Why don’t you give my dad a hug and tell him you’ll write. He’ll probably cry harder than I will.”
“I’m going out through the back. Tell your parents thanks for dinner.”
Sounding less like she cared and more like she was just annoyed, she said, “So am I going to see you again before you leave?”
“I think I want to leave this weekend, so I’m not sure.”
She went into the bathroom and clicked the door locked. She blew her nose, and I could tell she wasn’t coming out for a while. I stood up and went out into the backyard, my shoulders tingling. Passing the side of the house, I saw into the kitchen, where Mr. Zlotnick was standing in front of the family calendar and massaging his chin. I thought of the face he’d make when he found out, when in a few minutes Wendy came upstairs with smeared eye makeup, and for a minute, as I ran up Drummond and through the alley and onto Cumberland, I felt full of dizzy energy—something like the feeling of tearing off a scab. The rest of Wendy’s summer would happen—the rest of her dull, complicated life would happen—and with fifteen minutes’ work I’d cut myself free from it.
* * *
My last night at home I stayed up with Olive, lying at the foot of the stairs. Olive’s always been fat, but now her legs were giving out and I wasn’t sure I was going to see her again. Lying in the dark, with Olive the only other Elinsky awake, I started to feel like I might miss home a little bit. The grandfather clock ticking its tick I could feel in my teeth, and this same soft carpet I’d been lying on since I was four. I could hear Walter snoring downstairs. Mom, Dad, and Walter, each having a dream, tugging a sheet, twitching. Even a prisoner must feel whatever comes before being homesick when he knows he’s seeing his cell for the last time.
I lay on my side facing Olive on her side, and we were like an old married couple in bed. The rug smelled very strongly of dust. She lifted her paw and put it down on my shoulder. “Take care of everybody for me, OK?” I said. “Mom needs it the most, probably, so just go over and sit with her sometimes. And keep letting Dad take you on walks. Try to do it at least every other day.” She flmmphed out her lip, breathing hot on me, and closed her eyes and fell asleep. I rubbed behind her ear and said, “Bye, girl. I love you very much. I’m going to bed.”
