Nightingale Page 2

  “Oh, how tragic!” Mom said. “Those poor boys.”

  “I know they’ll certainly enjoy being cooked for and fussed over, while they’re here,” Dad said. “It’s very important that we schmooze them as much as we can. When we walk through the door, you will offer us scotch on ice. Have the house ready for guests. Have dinner ready to eat as soon as the drinks are done. We’ll have two scotches each, then another at dinner.”

  “Yes—” Mom nodded as she took in her directions “—of course.”

  “As soon as the meal is finished, hurry to clean up the table and serve coffee and cake, and probably more scotch.”

  “Of course.”

  “Are you getting any of this, June?” Dad demanded suddenly. “Aren’t you wondering what your role in all of this will be?”

  Maybe he wasn’t as thick as June often thought.

  “I’m listening, Dad,” June said, working to keep her voice light and noncontrary. “I suppose you’d like me to help out Mom as much as I can, yes?”

  “Your mom doesn’t need help,” Dad answered. “Although heaven knows you could certainly use the practice. No, I’ve got something more important for you to do.”

  June’s stomach dropped, heavy inside her. What could he possibly want from her in all of this? “What is it, Dad?”

  Dad finished the drink in his glass and handed it to Mom to take away. Understanding that her part in the conversation was done, Mom was quick to squirrel it away to the kitchen to be washed and dried and put away. By the time she returned, June was sitting there looking aghast.

  “You want me to what?” June said.

  “Don’t get sassy with me,” Dad said sharply, leaning forward in his chair a little bit more. “Robert is twenty years old, only three years older than you. There’s no reason you can’t go on a few dates with him. At your age, June, you should have boys lining up around the block to flatter me into letting them take you out. Feel lucky. Robert is an exceptional young man, the kind you want to look out for as a young woman.”

  June’s cheeks had reddened considerably then. It was true, she’d never been asked out on a date. Never had much interest in it: she was always too busy reading, or working on her story, or taking the bus into town so she could go to the drugstore and look through travel magazines. Awful, horrible possibilities flashed through her mind: What if this Robert character was unkind or—worse—unfunny?

  The only rule June had ever set for herself regarding a potential mate was that they’d need to be able to make her laugh, no exceptions. Laughter was all she had to get through life sometimes, and to lose it would be to lose everything.

  “So it’s settled,” Dad went on without waiting for her to reply. “Tomorrow, I’ll bring Stewart and Robert. Then again on Friday. This deal could change our lives, girls. Our family needs it. If we all work together, we’ll achieve it.”

  And so it started: the chain of dinners, the meat loaves and roasted chickens and casseroles, coffees and cakes and pies and puddings, always cocktails and cigars in the den to follow. Robert was strikingly handsome but painfully boring; June rather liked him in a nonromantic sense but often grew tired with his ideas of fun, like walks in the park, coffee downtown, or long drives in his car while he talked about himself and never asked about her.

  Once the business deal between Dad and Stewart Dennings had finally been closed, June got the courage to teach Robert a little bit more about her real self, as opposed to the dressed-up, tidy little thing that Mom had transformed her into before every one of their dates. Dad and Stewart were on their fifth scotch each and had gotten into a particularly animated conversation about politics, both on the same side and simply repeating the same three or four tenets to each other over and over.

  “I want to show you something,” June said, rising from where she sat on the couch and catching Robert’s eye. “In my bedroom.”

  days past

  The idea for the story had bloomed aggressively in June’s brain in a single blinking instant. She’d been sitting in the dark at her bedroom window, looking down on the empty street, as well as up to the night above, which was filled to the brim with stars. Despite being a voracious reader for most of her life, June had never held any dreamy thoughts about writing. She’d never had a good enough idea of her own, or anything even close to one.

  Too often, the rest of the household would fall asleep far too early for June’s personal tastes, so she would sit at the window seat in her bedroom to dream and to ponder, usually unrealistic ideas about exciting things to do once high school ended. Sometimes a stray dog would wander down the street, and June would watch its every move, trying to figure out exactly what it was thinking, imagining exaggerated situations that could have ended with the dog being alone.

  The night June’s father had told her that she would be dating Robert, she had sat at the window and opened it for once, letting the cold air bite at her face, neck, and arms. She had shivered a little and pulled her knees to her chest, hugging her legs as she looked down like she usually did, reflecting.

  What a strange situation, to have found her very first boyfriend in a circumstance that actually had little to nothing to do with herself! She imagined what might happen if Robert showed up the first time and found June viscerally appalling. What would Dad do then? How was he so sure this arrangement was a good idea? He wasn’t, June knew; he was just greedy and willing to try anything he could to secure that money.

  June couldn’t blame him, she supposed as she watched a squirrel dart from mailbox to mailbox, hiding behind each post as though looking for something. More money would certainly make Mom happier and less likely to complain about all that she had to do on her own to run the house.

  She was wondering how long she’d end up with this Robert fellow after all was said and done, when she noticed a flash of light in the sky, quick enough to distract her eye from the squirrel. A shooting star perhaps? June’s hand flew over her heart as she began to whisper her deepest wish, but she stopped when she realized that the flash of light wasn’t fading away or disappearing. It kept hovering in the same spot, but it was blinking, and before June could make sense of it, two identical lights appeared on either side of the first one. Blink. Blink. Blink.

  Then, as quickly as they’d come, the lights were gone. They must have been the result of an airplane or something, although even then June knew that airplanes didn’t work like that. Why had the lights struck her so? It was as though they were familiar to her in some eerie sort of way. They made June feel thrilled and frightened at the same time.

  Click.

  The idea for the story filled June so quickly and massively she’d actually gasped out loud, her heart quickening at the strange feeling. She had no idea what would happen at the end of the story or even in the middle, but the beginning was so terrifyingly vivid that June actually feared what might happen if she didn’t get it out of her mind and onto a page.

  It didn’t matter that her newfound project distracted her in a way that made her withdraw from the few friends she had at school, and that made her grades get even worse than they’d been. The night June started her book was the night she’d gone from having nothing solid to strive for to feeling like she may have actually stumbled across her destiny, her true self, self-evident at last. She started her story that very same night, and by the time she decided to bring Robert into her bedroom to show him a glimpse of her real mind, she already had a few chapters of the story written.

  Ordinarily, such a thing would probably be considered to be inappropriate, but June knew her parents were so happy over the fact that she was dating anybody at all that they had set virtually no rules or limitations to her relationship with Robert. This became particularly helpful if she wanted to leave for a long drive on a weeknight, to clear her head and get away from Mom and Dad. It was helpful again now, on the odd Saturday night as Robert followed June up th
e stairs and into her bedroom, which Mom had cleaned to be neat as a pin like she always did when the Dennings men came for dinner. All of June’s school books were neatly stacked, bound absurdly with a belt, which made her roll her eyes but chuckle at the same time. June’s mother was so strange.

  “What did you want to show me?” Robert asked now, his eyes sweeping over the bedroom as he settled on the bed. He took a long drink of his scotch. June pretended she didn’t notice, making her way to the opposite side of the room, where her desk was. Her typewriter sat there in all its glory, no messy stacks of papers marked up with edits surrounding it like before.

  Mom must have stuffed them into the drawers, June thought, and when she opened one she could see that she was right. Clearly, Mom had never imagined that Robert would see the inside of the desk drawers, so they had been stuffed with all the odds and ends that June usually kept out on her desk. She gathered the bound stack of papers closest to the top, the one with a title page that said nothing but The Gift of the Stars typed on it. Taking a deep breath, she pulled the rubber band from around the stack of papers and handed it to Robert.

  “What’s this?” he asked, looking dubiously at the papers in his hands. He appeared to have been inconvenienced as he set his drink down on the dresser and lifted the title page away to expose page one of the story beneath. It was then that June felt the first wave of doubt wash through her.

  June watched Robert’s eyes move uneasily over the text.

  She was in the forest when they took her. She tried to scream, but they knocked her out. When she woke up, she was naked on a cold metal table. There were unseen straps holding her down, a strange smell in the air like nothing she’d ever experienced. Like formaldehyde and warm sea water. There was a circular window near her; outside of it, she could only see the deepest reaches of outer space.

  Robert’s brow relaxed from its previous furrow; June took this as a good sign, and her doubt receded. In its place, she felt a wonderful and terrible rush of adrenaline flood over her, the idea that finally somebody besides her was reading over the words she’d crafted so carefully on the page. June decided right then and there that if Robert complimented her writing, she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from walking up to him and kissing him right on the mouth.

  They hadn’t embraced or kissed or done anything more than hold hands for five minutes at a time, but watching him now, June could feel her body give in to the curiosity of what it might be like if he were to touch her, grab at her, kiss her neck and slide his fingers into the place that the rest of the world loved to pretend didn’t exist. Why not make the best of the situation? she thought as she watched him read her story. I may not love him, but he’s nice enough. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind the physical exchange.

  “What do you think?” June said softly, but Robert didn’t answer, didn’t even lift his gaze from the paper. He must be really into it, she thought, unable to help the smile that erupted over her face. I’m so glad I decided to show him after all.

  “‘The things came in through an electronically wired door,’” Robert read out loud. “‘They looked a little like men, but not quite. Their skin was as gray as ash. Their eyes were three inches apart, and all shining black.’”

  He looked up from the paper finally, and June met his gaze with more vulnerability than she’d ever allowed with him before. “I didn’t know that you like to write,” he said.

  “I love to,” June had answered, turning away so he couldn’t see her flushed skin. There was no way she’d be able to stop herself from kissing him, she knew that now, her tongue anxious to explore his, her insides aching with want. She suddenly became hyperaware of the feeling of her cotton underwear stretched tightly over her skin. June turned back toward him, and his mouth opened just the tiniest bit at the look on her face, understanding fully her intent.

  Robert set the manuscript down on the dresser beside his drink, then stepped to the bedroom door and shut it. June followed, reaching intimately around his side to lock it. “I never expected something like this from you,” he said, and June swelled at the idea of being complex, interesting, a surprise. “I’ve really enjoyed the time we’ve spent together so far, June.”

  “So have I,” June said in a near whisper, realizing that while it wasn’t true in the same way he meant, it was true in a general sense. She stepped closer to Robert, their stomachs lightly pressing against one another, reached her hand to curl around the back of his head and pulled his mouth to hers.

  They kissed deeply, mouths open, June’s blood electric with excitement. She’d never fooled around with anybody but herself before, but she felt like she’d done it a million times, like she knew exactly what to do. It’s easy when you follow your body, she thought, stepping away and breaking the kiss. He moaned slightly and reached his arms out for her, but she gently pushed him away. She took a step back and began to unbutton her dress. Shame was nonexistent.

  He’d read her story. He’d thought it was wonderful, she could tell. He knew her insides now.

  It felt so good to open the dress over her chest, to expose her skin to the open air and to his eyes. The thick housedress hadn’t required a bra, and as he watched she rubbed her hands over herself, over her mounds of warm flesh, over their hardened tips. She could see the front of his pants bulging.

  June didn’t understand the intensity of the feelings that only got more desperate by the second. This was Robert, the boy from all those boring dates, content with sitting and doing nothing for hours. Now, at least, they were certainly doing something. She stepped out of the dress, and out of the underwear that felt confining and alien.

  June lay down on the bed, on her back, writhing around a little bit, not letting herself think about what she was doing on a physical level but clinging to the feelings that came from sharing her writing with Robert and feeling like finally, finally, someone understood her. He watched her for just a moment before he reached up and loosened his tie, pulled it off, and wrestled with his belt buckle.

  She pulled him toward her, pressed her bare chest on his, lifted her hips to grind greedily against his warmth. June knew she was surprising herself more than she was surprising Robert, which was really saying something—if his eyebrows pulled any higher, they’d certainly fly off his forehead. She briefly forgot how any of this had started, what had come over her to make her want this so badly, and remembered that Mom was downstairs with a drunk Dad and Stewart Dennings.

  But the doubt lasted only until Robert kissed her again and pushed himself into her, and she let him, letting out a brief but strained moan at the sensation. They bucked against each other, each breathing hard in between the moments of kissing. She’d heard in the gossip groups at school that men were all talk when it came to the subject of stamina. By the way Robert was moving now, she believed it.

  Finally, he gave out a final moan and then rolled off her, her clammy skin flourishing with goosebumps at the chill in the air. Their eyes met and they both smiled, but then there was a loud thumping sound downstairs that seemed to snap them out of their ease and back into nervousness. They dressed quickly, neither speaking, and while she leaned over the vanity to brush her hair and wipe the smeared lipstick from her face with a tissue, he took his drink from the top of the dresser and drained what little was left.

  June stood up, her eyes falling to the manuscript beside the empty glass. “I’m glad you liked my writing,” she said shyly, not understanding how she could ever be shy in front of him again, yet here she was. “I’ve always been afraid to show it to anybody.”

  “Well,” he chuckled, making his way over to the bed to straighten the comforter they’d rumpled. “It was certainly something, darling. And so are you.” He leaned forward, tenderly brushed a curl from her face, and kissed her on the cheek.

  “I’d love to write stories for a living after I’m out of high school,” she said brightly, taking the manuscript back to t
he desk, not bothering to stuff it back into the drawer. “This is my first one. And when I finish it, I’m going to submit it to publishers.”

  “Publishers? With an odd story about aliens from outer space?” Robert asked in a way that made June’s heart fall with such a sudden crash that she had to be careful not to glare. “I don’t know about that part, darling.”

  “Why not?” she asked, crossing her arms. “Why in the hell not?”

  He looked at her, at the anger on her face, and let out a pitying smile. “You are so adorable,” he said, leaning forward again, this time to kiss her forehead. “Honestly, I think that it’s a great hobby for you to do in your spare time.”

  Hobby. She felt as though she could murder him. Didn’t he know that this story had essentially caused her to completely withdraw from whatever form of social life she’d had before? It wasn’t just a casual project based on a whim; it was her life, her whole life.

  “You should go back downstairs,” June said, stepping away from him, sore and irritated. “They’ll be wondering where we’ve gone. Would you mind telling my mother that I’ve got a headache, if she asks? Tell her I’ve decided to lie down.”

  Robert nodded and went for the door, and she suspected he knew that the headache was both a lie and not a lie. “I...think I may be falling in love with you,” he said, pausing with his hand on the knob. She wanted to laugh, but it was too depressing. When June didn’t reply, Robert blushed and let himself out.

  As soon as he was gone, June went into her closet, retrieved a shoe box hidden beneath some scarves, and took out the thin stack of papers that she’d placed in there just last week. On the papers were all sorts of questions about June, from basic information to longer, more thoughtful questions about writing and reading.

  She’d taken the application from the library the last time she was there. There had been a table set up to advertise a writing program out East. June had overheard the fellow manning the display explain all the details to another man who had inquired about it.