Now Is Not the Time to Panic(17)

“I have to babysit tonight,” I told him, checking my watch.

“Okay,” he said, looking disappointed. He took the map out of his backpack and searched until he found the geographic location of this abandoned house and made a star with his pen. He held it open and we looked at the stars on the map. Even though Coalfield seemed like the dinkiest place on earth, when we counted the stars, all the open space that was still unmarked, I felt a little overwhelmed. I felt like maybe I wouldn’t be able to sleep until the whole map was a single constellation.

I thought that the saddest thing that could happen was that something inside your head worked so hard to make it into the world and then nothing happened. It just disappeared. Now that I’d put those words into the open air, I needed them to multiply, to reproduce, to cover the world.

“Maybe just a few more stops on the way back home?” I offered, and this seemed to please Zeke.

“We can just use the rest of the copies,” he said. He took one of the posters and folded it up, again and again, until it was a tiny square. He had to hold it closed with his fingers or it would open up again, expose itself. I wanted to eat it, but I didn’t. I let him hold it in his hand, and then we walked out of the house. The sun was still in the sky, and it hurt my eyes. It made me want to hiss at it. We got into my car and Zeke held the map open, guiding us into so much territory left to chart.

THE NEXT MORNING, I AWAKENED FROM A DREAM WHERE THOSE giant hands from the poster, the ones Zeke had drawn, kept reaching out for me, the fingers wiggling like they were casting a spell of bad intentions over me. I moaned and groaned all the way into the kitchen, where my mom was eating yogurt at the counter, humming along to Tracy Chapman’s “Give Me One Reason” and, like, really putting her hips into it. My brothers were inhaling Cookie Crisp in the living room, watching VHS tapes of an old SummerSlam pay-per-view on mute. I unwrapped my first Pop-Tart of the day, let the sugar seep into my gums, wake me up, my teeth aching.

I tried to imagine my dad back in this house with us, the summer sun so bright through the windows, the house just a little too hot because we were trying to save money on the A/C. But even though he’d only been gone for two years, I had trouble picturing him. Or maybe I tried not to. Because if I imagined him sitting in the easy chair in the living room the way he used to, I had to imagine his new wife, maybe making pancakes in the kitchen. And I had to imagine that other Frances, sucking on some melba toast, her disconcerting little baby fingers. It was strange, how his absence meant that I had to work hard to keep him out of my mind or else he took up too much space. I preferred to think that my dad was dead and his inheritance was coming to us in monthly installments, just enough to clothe and feed us.

I tried to imagine Zeke in the house, too, but he didn’t make sense unless everyone else was gone. I could only picture him alone, on the couch, asking me to sit next to him. I finished my Pop-Tart, immediately wanted the second, but decided to save it for later. My mom looked up at me and smiled. “You look different,” she said.

“I haven’t combed my hair or anything,” I said, feeling embarrassed.

“No,” she said. “You just look happy.”

“Oh, okay.”

“I’m not used to seeing it, honestly,” she told me. “It makes you look the tiniest bit crazy.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

“Will you see Zeke today?”

“Probably,” I said, but, yeah, duh, of course I would see him.

“And do what?” she asked.

At that moment, I could feel something opening up in me and I realized how hard it was to walk through the day when you had an obsession and you couldn’t say a word about it. I wanted to tell her that I was a fugitive, that it had happened so suddenly that I could scarcely believe it myself. I wanted to ask her if gold seekers were good or bad people. I wanted to ask her if she thought I was a gold seeker. I wanted to describe the feeling of pressing a single piece of paper against a brick wall, that little piece of duct tape trying to adhere to the rough surface, and how important it was for the tape to hold. I wanted to tell her that, maybe, if she made her own poster, and if she mailed it anonymously to my father, she would feel better. I wanted to tell her that I could breathe in time with the Xerox machine, that my insides felt like a copier. I wanted to ask if it was possible to have sex, to get it over with, without actually having sex. I wanted to ask her if my dad, when they first met, asked her to slice her finger and enact some weird blood oath. I wanted to show her my novel about the bad girl. I wanted to read it to her. And I wanted her to say, “This is so good, Frankie.” And I’d say, “I don’t feel like I belong here,” and she’d say, “You mean Coalfield?” and I’d say, “Anywhere.” My mouth was wide open. My mother had no idea what could come out of it.

“Hang out,” I finally said. “Just, like, hang out.”

She looked at me. If she brought up the condoms again, I would die. I wanted her to understand that there was something so much weirder inside of me, even if she didn’t know exactly what it was.

“Well, have a great day,” she said. She kissed me, collected her purse and keys, and left the kitchen. I reached for the other Pop-Tart and ate it in three bites.

“See ya, dum-dum,” Charlie said, and my brothers rose, the whole house shifting to accommodate them, and they were off. I wished that I had two more of me. If there were three of us, three Frankies, maybe I’d stop vibrating so much, trying to keep it all in one stupid brain. I thought about that other Frances, my half sister. I decided that when she was a teenager, I’d show up at her school in a silver Porsche and kidnap her. I’d drive her to Coalfield. I’d show her one of my posters. And if she didn’t understand, I’d drive her right back to my dad’s house and kick her out of the car, not even slowing down.