The House in the Pines(53)

She’ll apologize before the Tender Wallpaper concert tonight. She has her ticket tacked to the corkboard on her wall, and the band sticker that came with it stuck to her nightstand. Around noon, she goes to the kitchen for cereal and a glass of orange juice. The phone in the kitchen blinks red with missed calls—the ringer’s on silent, as it usually is after her mom works a night shift.

She gets a bad feeling even before she sees who the seventeen calls are from.

As she goes to check, the receiver lights up with yet another call.

It’s him.

She recognizes his father’s landline on the caller ID and sets the receiver down as if it were alive. She doesn’t want to answer but knows that if she doesn’t, he’ll keep trying until someone picks up—and Maya doesn’t want that person to be her mom.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey, Maya . . .” He’s always been so confident, so cool, but now he sounds raw and anxious. “How are you?”

“Fine.”

She should’ve thought more about what she was going to say. How she would tell him.

“You seemed pretty upset last night. I was worried.”

She considers explaining why she was upset, but doesn’t, because what good would it do? Frank’s a liar. She just needs to make him stop.

“Maya?”

“I’m here.” She takes the cordless phone to the porch, so she won’t wake her mom.

“What are you up to today?”

“I’m actually pretty busy . . .” she says as gently as she can. “I have a lot to do before I go . . . Listen, I don’t think we should see each other again.” This feels like the easiest way out—quick and to the point. And it’s true she wants to spend what little time she has left with the people she’s going to miss the most: her mom and Aubrey. Maya’s only sorry she didn’t realize this sooner.

Frank is quiet a long time. “Okay,” he says. “Cool. No problem.”

She exhales.

“Oh, so the other reason I was calling,” he adds, “and I hope this isn’t weird, but I was wondering if you could hook me up with Aubrey’s number?”

A knee-jerk flash of envy is unavoidable—it was only yesterday that this question would have punched a hole right through Maya—but today it is hard not to laugh at Frank’s pitiful attempt to make her jealous. “Sure,” she says with purposeful, pleasant indifference. “I don’t see why not. Do you have a pen?”

“Mm-hmm.” A yes through clenched teeth.

“Four-one-three . . .” she begins. But then it occurs to her that Aubrey probably wouldn’t want Frank to call her.

“Hello?”

“You know,” Maya says, “I should probably ask before giving out her number.”

Frank lets out a dark, sarcastic laugh. “How is it,” he asks, “that you can be jealous of Aubrey at the same time that you so obviously look down on her?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she says angrily. “Listen, Frank, I have to—”

“You know what I’m talking about. You don’t want me to call her, do you?”

Maya grips the phone tighter. “I honestly don’t care what you do, Frank.”

“You don’t want me to call her, but at the same time, you don’t want to call her either. I’ve seen the way you treat her, it’s like she doesn’t matter. Like she’s some townie and you’re not. Like you’re smarter, you’re going places, and she’s a loser for staying here.”

“What?! But I—”

“And now you’re doing the same thing to me. Blowing me off because I’m not good enough, just like I’ve seen you blow off your best friend and your own mother whenever you had something better to do.”

Her eyes sting with tears.

“I mean, is there anyone you’re loyal to?”

“Fuck you, Frank. Don’t ever call me again.” She hangs up.

But Frank does call again. And again and again.

Eventually she has to tell her mom, who has taken the day off work and is relieved to hear the relationship is over. “We’ll just leave the ringer off,” her mom says. “I’m sure he’ll get the message. Let’s get out of the house, go do something.”

Maya feels her departure in the air as they hike up Bousquet Mountain that afternoon. She remembers when she was little, and her mom had to carry her part of the way. Now they walk straight up the slope without stopping, in and out of the chairlift’s frozen shadow. Her mom yodels when they reach the top, as usual, something that usually embarrasses Maya, but today it makes her smile, and when she looks out over the hemlock and white pine sea and sees her hometown in the distance, it’s more beautiful to her than the Alps. She can’t explain the tenderness she feels today, not just toward her mom but toward Pittsfield as well. To be from here is to know the Housatonic River, to have walked alongside it, maybe crossed it on the way to school each day, but been unable to swim in it because General Electric had contaminated the river with PCBs. It’s to have grown up either before GE left—back in the days of holiday window displays at England Brothers, the popcorn wagon on Park Square, and cruising North Street on Thursday nights—or to have grown up after. Maya has wanted to leave Pittsfield for so long, but now, even before she has left, she feels as though she is seeing it through the eyes of someone who’s already gone.