Don’t Let Me Go(57)

“Emily.”

“I’m Grace. Are you alone? Because if you’re alone, you should come to our meeting.”

“I don’t know what you mean…alone.”

“It’s pretty simple,” Grace said. “I thought everybody knew what it meant.”

“Alone…how?”

“Like, do you have a bunch of family and friends?”

“I have a family.”

“Oh. Good.”

“In Iowa.”

“Oh. Bad.”

“I have friends. Well. A couple. I guess.”

“In L.A.?”

“Not really, no.”

“You should come to our meeting.”

“I don’t even know any of you.”

“Duh. That would be the point, wouldn’t it?”

“I have to unpack.”

“Is that all your stuff?” Grace asked, pointing to the suitcase, still lying on the stairs at her feet.

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“So how long do you figure it’ll take you to unpack it? We could wait for you. We don’t mind.”

“I’m awfully tired.”

“Right,” Grace said, knowing by feel that it was time to give up. “We’re going to have a meeting every week. Maybe you could come to the next one.”

“Maybe, yeah.”

Just then Mrs. Hinman appeared on the stairs, causing Emily to jump again. She picked up her suitcase and ran upstairs, brushing by Mrs. Hinman before Grace could even introduce them.

Mrs. Hinman eased her way down the stairs to the spot where Grace was standing, and the two of them very slowly walked along the hall to Rayleen’s, because there was no point hurrying Mrs. Hinman, and Grace knew it.

“Who was that?” Mrs. Hinman asked.

“Her name is Emily,” Grace said. “She’s moving in upstairs, where Mr. Lafferty used to live.”

“Oh. I see.”

“Why is everybody scared of everybody else?”

“Hmm. A good question. One of those mysterious aspects of the human condition, I guess.”

“You sound like Billy,” Grace said, making it clear by her tone that it was no compliment in this case. “What did all that mean, what you just said?”

“I suppose it’s a fancy way of saying some things just are.”

Grace sighed noisily, thinking that was a terrible answer, but not wanting to insult Mrs. Hinman by pointing it out.

“I guess maybe we can talk more about that at our meeting,” she said.

? ? ?

“Who wants to go first?” Grace asked. Then, before anybody could answer, she added, “Billy, can you hear us?”

Grace, Felipe, Mrs. Hinman and Rayleen were gathered in Rayleen’s apartment, the door standing wide open. Billy sat on a chair across the hall, just inside his open doorway. Sitting on his hands. Probably to keep from biting his nails, Grace figured. She’d already caught him at it once, and put a stop to it.

Billy wouldn’t come over to Rayleen’s, for obvious reasons, and Rayleen wouldn’t go over to Billy’s because of the cat. So, silly as it seemed to Grace, this was the only way to make a very important meeting happen.

“I’m fine,” Billy said.

“That doesn’t answer the question, Billy.”

“Well, I heard you ask, didn’t I? Or I wouldn’t have answered.”

“Oh. Right,” Grace said.

“Go first and say what?” Rayleen asked. “We’re still not too sure what this meeting’s all about.”

“It’s about how people shouldn’t be alone. Especially when there are so many of us. Look at all of you. You’re all alone, and there are four of you, and that’s really stupid, because there are four of you. So why be alone?”

“So what are we supposed to say when it’s our turn?” Felipe asked.

“You’re supposed to say why you’re alone. All except Mrs. Hinman. She doesn’t have to go, because she’s only alone because she lived longer than her husband and all her friends.”

A silence fell, during which Mrs. Hinman cleared her throat and shifted uncomfortably on Rayleen’s couch.

“Well, that’s not entirely true,” Mrs. Hinman said.

“But I heard that from you.”

“I know. Yes. I know you did. But what I’m saying is…really, if I were being completely honest, it’s not entirely true.”

Another long silence. This was the other thing Grace had noticed about grown-ups. In addition to being afraid of each other, it was hard to wring any information out of them. At least, if it was information about them. If it was about what kids ought to do, then they were nothing but words.

“Marv and I were very close,” Mrs. Hinman said, her voice quiet. Probably too quiet for Billy to hear. “And, even though I don’t suppose I would have seen it this way at the time, I might have used that as an excuse to let some of my friendships go. Some very old friends, too. I just let them drift away. Can’t even say why, for a fact. It was just so much easier. Just me and Marv seemed like less trouble. Fewer arguments and hurt feelings and misunderstandings and whatnot, all the things people bring into our lives. But then, at the end, even Marv and I weren’t as close as we used to be. Oh, I don’t know. I guess in some ways we were. On the outside you wouldn’t have seen that anything had changed. But there was something missing in there somewhere. Something hollow about it. I don’t know how to explain it any better than that.”