Part 7 (1/2)
Meredith shouts back, ”Fine, we're leaving!”
They ride their bikes to the arroyo, where the red and yellow state flag balloon pa.s.ses overhead. It's so close they can hear the whoosh of the flame. Claire gets her camera out of her purse and clicks a couple of shots; one of the men in the gondola waves down at them.
They follow it for several blocks through the next neighborhood, pedaling fast past the horseshoe driveways, trying to stay directly beneath it. Eventually, the girls run out of gas and stop their bikes at the edge of a field full of young soccer players who buzz around like orange and white ants. Claire takes one final picture.
”I wish we could ride in a balloon,” Meredith says, pink-faced.
”My mom would say no.” Claire imagines what they look like to the men in the balloon. What the world looks like. When you get as far up as some of the balloons, everything below would be like a miniature city, the kind in an electric train set. Plastic people waving and smiling next to plastic trees as the train snakes around and around.
What would it be like to crash in one of those?
”Let's go to the mall,” Claire says.
”I'm not supposed to go that far without telling Pat.”
”She's playing tennis, remember?” Claire starts pedaling. ”C'mon, race you.”
At the mall food court, they go from Hot Dog on a Stick, with its pretty girls in colored stripes, to Orange Julius, where a line of blenders whirs in tandem. From there it's Contempo Casuals, The Limited, and Dillard's, where Meredith zig-zags among the jewelry counters, practically drooling. Claire likes jewelry too, but not enough to spend all day leaning on gla.s.s cases. The saleswoman watches them from under her beehive hairdo.
Claire sees the coat display the moment they enter Juniors. White, with fur around the collar and sleeves. She hands Meredith her Orange Julius cup and tries it on in front of the triple mirror.
”That is literally the nicest coat ever,” Meredith proclaims. ”You look so pretty.”
It is the nicest coat ever. Claire's glad she tried it on first; now she has dibs between the two of them.
Meredith looks at the dangling tag. ”Real fox fur. Someone killed a fox to make that.”
”And he's already killed so I might as well wear it.”
”Claire, it's two hundred bucks!”
”I'll ask for it for Christmas.” She and Bryce each get one gift from their parents, so they have to make it count. Not like Meredith, who gets a ton of stuff and even gets presents on Easter. And has her own phone in her room!
Meredith leans close to the center mirror to pop a zit on her forehead. Claire spins left and right like a fas.h.i.+on show model.
After the mall, the girls stop at the pharmacy, with the old man up at his high counter, counting pills into bottles. Grouchy and always wiling to hara.s.s kids, yelling at them to leave their backpacks outside of his cluttered, dusty empire. Inside, the usual routine: Meredith looks at the spinner rack of Harlequin romance novels, Claire pockets some candy, they walk out. They share a Hershey bar on the way home; while Meredith won't steal anything herself, she's more than happy to reap the rewards of someone else doing so. In her entire life, Claire has paid for something at the pharmacy maybe twice.
Yet they've never stolen from anywhere else, never even been tempted. It's the old man's fault for being so mean.
At home later, Claire's dad stands on the back porch, trying to light the barbecue. ”Hi, Clarabelle, see some balloons today?”
”Uh-huh. Where's Mom?”
”Search me.” He jumps back when the flame bursts.
”I need to tell her what I want for Christmas.”
”Already decided in October?”
”It's a coat.”
”It is?” He takes pieces of chicken off a plate, coats both sides with Pam cooking spray, lays them on the grill. ”We're having chicken tonight. That ok with you?”
”Sure.”
”Because if there's something you'd rather have...”
”Chicken's fine, Daddy.” She goes inside. A rainbow striped balloon floats out over the mountains.
The next morning, the Vanzants are back at church (”The Life G.o.d Blesses”) and Claire has a perfect view of them from the pew across the aisle. Mrs. Vanzant looks only at whatever she's holding, first the hymn book, then the Bible. Mr. Vanzant sports a frown worthy of a cartoon character, so severe it looks like someone drew it on him.
Claire used to look across this same aisle to where Dakota sat with her parents. Those days when the two girls' eyes met were the best; Dakota would mouth the song words extra dramatically toward Claire, or draw on the program: smiley faces, Tic-Tac-Toe grids.
Their own service going on under the surface of everyone else's.
Other days, Dakota's eyes stayed closed, or aimed toward Pastor Mark and the choir. Claire could stare for the entire hour shouting Look over here! inside her head and never be acknowledged.
Pastor Mark says from the front, ”G.o.d blesses our life not because we deserve it, but because He is gracious and kind. As the New Testament puts it...”
Hands keep reaching forward from the pew behind the Vanzants, grabbing their shoulders, squeezing, withdrawing. When Claire leaves for her leisurely bathroom stroll, she wants to invite them to come so they can get away from all the attention. Sometimes people just want to be left alone.
29.
Cameron sits across from his dad, Hal, at Red Lobster. ”Get anything you want, son. This is a monumental occasion?” His dad's voice goes up at the end of certain sentences, creating random questions throughout a conversation. He's already informed both the hostess and the waitress of his boy's eighteenth birthday. Cameron hopes this isn't one of those places where everyone comes out and sings. He used to have his birthdays at Farrell's ice cream parlor, where they rang a bell and made a big deal; that stopped being appealing long ago.
The real celebration would come when Bryce hit eighteen in a few months.
His dad b.u.t.ters a biscuit. ”I heard about the gal next door. Deborah.”
”Dakota,” Cameron snaps back.
”Really too bad, she was a cutie.” He starts reminiscing about Dakota and Cameron's younger years on the cul-de-sac, throwing out random moments like the kids tying their sleds to the back of Mr. Ingalls' pickup truck as if to justify getting her name wrong.
His dad's scalp s.h.i.+nes through his peninsula of hair. He wears gla.s.ses, too, the only other one on either side of the family besides Cameron. Thanks, Dad. As long as the hair stays, all is forgiven.
The day the Iranian hostages were released in January, 1981, Cameron's parents sat him down in the living room after school. The TV was on the whole time, pictures of President Reagan, men filing off an airplane, hugs, crying. This followed a period when his dad had been gone on several business trips, where he'd disappear for days with no warning and no explanation (to his son, at least).
A thought hit Cameron there on the couch: What if these mysterious trips had something to do with the hostages? What if his dad...? That would be awesome. But then his mom was dabbing her eyes with a ball of Kleenex. She and his dad kept looking at each other, like they were daring the other person to talk first.
Finally, his dad said the word.
Separation.