Chapter 3 #2
“Where’d you learn that?” I was excited to show the trick to Bobby and Janet. Mae and my father would like it as well.
“I read it somewhere.”
I had to laugh. I was still getting a handle on how smart he was, and how much he read. Leonard wasn’t even a senior, but he’d already taken three classes at the junior college because he kept testing out of what the high school offered. I did all right in school, but not like that.
He took my hand again, and I started humming “Blue Moon.”
“I love that song,” he said. “I feel like I could have written it.”
I didn’t understand. “It’s a sad song,” I said. “He’s standing alone, without a dream in his heart. Even the moon is blue.”
Leonard shook his head. “But when he looks again, it’s turned to gold.” He turned to me, looking shy again, like the first time we talked in the courtyard. He took a breath, held it. “Because he’s fallen in love.”
Oh, that moment. I wanted to grab hold of the night, the stars above us, the waning moon, all of it, and stuff it down into my pocket to keep.
Someone could have tapped me on the shoulder and said, Excuse me, miss?
Nora Chesnow? You can exchange this night for a million dollars, and I would have said, Keep your money!
I felt like my heart would explode, joy bursting out everywhere.
When I told him I, too, was in love, he gave me such a smile, and even his mournful eye looked happy.
For a while, all we could do was stand there looking at each other, still aching, still knowing we’d be like a key and lock, but also grateful for what we’d already found, and had.
—
A few nights after the dance, when his mother and I were alone in her kitchen, she touched my shoulder and whispered, “You’ve been so good for him.” Even as she smiled at me, I could tell she was listening for his footsteps. She wouldn’t have wanted him to feel embarrassed.
“He’s been plenty good for me,” I whispered, also watching the doorway.
When he did come in, I could see he guessed we’d been talking about him, though he seemed more amused than anything.
What I always noticed, watching Leonard with his mother, was that he didn’t just love his mother—he liked her, too.
When she said something funny, he laughed.
When she was being serious, he listened.
Even when they argued, there was real affection between them.
That winter, a local theater put on Our Town, and Leonard’s mother played the part of Mrs. Soames.
When she was in rehearsals, she told us it was just a little part.
But Leonard told her no, Mrs. Soames had real significance, as she was the one who pointed out that life was both awful and wonderful.
“That’s the most important line in the play!” Leonard thumped his hand on the counter, almost knocking over his water glass. “Mom, come on. That’s what the whole play is about!”
“Well,” she said. “That and death.” But you could see she liked his point.
He went to see the play twice—once with his father, on opening night, and a second time with me.
Before the curtain went up, Leonard told me, “Get ready. She’s so good you might not recognize her,” and he was partly right.
I mean, his mother wasn’t wearing a wig or anything.
But I’d never seen the play, and it turned out Mrs. Soames was the town gossip, always getting in other people’s business.
Mrs. Lifton, playing this woman, seemed like a different person.
Onstage, there was nothing elegant about her.
You’d never guess she’d lived in France, or even that she was as pretty as she was.
When she moved across the stage, she had Mrs. Soames sort of strutting in a way that made people laugh.
When she said her big line, it sounded natural, not like words she’d memorized from a script.
The same couldn’t be said of the other actors, I’m afraid, though I could see they were all trying.
When the play was over, I gave her the flowers I’d brought and told her how much I admired her talent.
“You’re sweet, Nora.” She sniffed the flowers and squeezed my hand.
“No,” I said. “I’m a terrible liar. Ask anyone. If I was just being sweet, you’d know.”
She laughed, leaned down to kiss my cheek, and thanked me again for the flowers.
As comfortable as I felt around her, just being myself, Leonard’s father was a different story.
He worked late most nights, and on weekends, too, so I didn’t see him much.
When I did see him, he would make polite conversation with me, but not for long, and even when I asked him questions about the hospital, I always got the feeling he wished I weren’t there.
Mr. Lifton had a low, quiet voice, excellent manners, and, at least when he was talking to me, a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
After a while, whenever he entered a room or took his seat at the dinner table, I’d hear Dracula music in my head.
It wasn’t anything he said. It was more the way he looked at me, like he and I were old enemies, which didn’t make any sense.
I didn’t know him, and he didn’t know me.
For a while, I thought maybe he was just a serious person, not friendly in general.
Or maybe he was just too tired at the end of a workday at the hospital to want a dinner guest at the table.
But then one evening Leonard and I were downtown with Dale, and we bumped into Leonard’s parents.
Mrs. Lifton looked even more sophisticated than usual, wearing lipstick and a dress that cinched in at her waist. She greeted all of us, but her husband saved his friendliness for Dale, asking him about his parents and his older brother, who was already away at college in Rhode Island.
He might not have been aware of the difference in his manner when he spoke to me and when he spoke to Dale. But I noticed it.
That evening, when Leonard was driving me home, I asked him why his father never seemed particularly happy to see me.
He didn’t answer, or say anything at all, and I knew it was something he didn’t want to say.
Leonard put his arm around my shoulder, steering with one hand, and we were both quiet the rest of the way.
When he parked in front of my house, I saw my father in the picture window, wearing his old bathrobe.
My window was rolled down, and I scooted over to it and gave a little wave.
My father waved back, then made a show of checking his watch.
“You should go in,” Leonard said. When I didn’t move, he sighed and cut the engine.
I turned to face Leonard. “Just tell me.”
The knee started to bob. “He doesn’t want me entangled.”
“Entangled?”
“That was his word. It’s not personal, Nora. Nothing against you.” He paused. “He doesn’t want anything to stop me from going away to school.”