Chapter 18
Searching for Beauty
Our domestic situation didn’t exactly improve after Dad and I got rid of Lucy’s clothes.
My mother took it as a betrayal. I don’t know how it affected her; her life is just going back and forth from bed to sofa, sofa to bed.
If she’s not in one of those places, I always know she’ll be in the other.
But it doesn’t matter if she’s mad at me. I don’t need her for anything anymore.
Or at least, that’s what I tell myself every day.
I don’t need her, I don’t need her.
On Monday, I have more fun than usual walking Mr. Fluff, and when I get back to Ms. Rogers’s house, I find her in the kitchen and don’t manage to get out with my week’s pay, which she always leaves in an envelope, before she stops me. “Hey there, Greta. How’s everything?”
“Good. I set out the dog’s food.”
That’s obvious from Mr. Fluff’s loud crunching, but Anne isn’t paying much attention to him. “Thanks. Hey, tell your mother hi for me.”
“Sure, I will,” I answer, trying to be nice.
It’s a lie. Anne must know that.
Still, she doesn’t add anything else, and soon I’m on my way to the homes of Emily Trenton and Karen Stewart to take their dogs out too.
I never imagined myself doing this for a living, and it hardly pays enough for me to live on, but it’s a good fit for my present situation, for the limbo that is my life.
That’s all I do the whole week: walk dogs—nice ones—go to group therapy, sit in the window and watch the night fall, think about texting Will, avoid it because I don’t have the courage, and wander around my house like a ghost.
When Friday comes and my day’s over, I ask Mom, “Have you eaten?”
“No.”
“Should I make you something?”
“Thanks, but I’m not hungry.”
“Not even a sandwich?”
“No, Greta. Really.”
I stop insisting and go to my room, which is like an extension of myself, full of all the things I can’t manage to keep in: my incorrigible obsessions, my questions without answers, my lost words, photos of moments that aren’t mine…
I lie down in bed and read Lucy’s letter again.
Little Greta:
You’re halfway through the game. Remember what I used to tell you when we talked about Risk?
The equator is always a key point—it allows you to get anywhere.
I think that’s true in life too. You’re at a midpoint and now you should decide whether to keep going.
If you do, push forward with all your strength and don’t look back.
Can I tell you a secret? When I go to your room, I feel like you don’t think you can change the outside world, so you’re happy just being queen of your little castle.
And that’s fine, but I wonder if there’s some fear lurking behind your collection of pretty things. What are you trying to hide, Greta?
To finish the next task, you need to be honest with yourself because you’re the only one who will know if you did it. The task is this: search for beauty.
I know you’ll understand what I’m talking about when you find it.
Love,
Lucy
My mind is a blank, and I have no idea what she wants me to do.
The first time I read it, I thought my collection meant the words and photos and art postcards on the wall.
Those were all things that had once moved me.
And they were beautiful, tremendously so: photos by Nan Goldin, Dorothea Lange, Cindy Sherman.
Michelangelo’s Pietà, which always shakes me to the core, the Venus de Milo, Laocoon and his sons, Myron’s Discobolus.
And not far from them Guernica, Van Gogh’s Starry Night, Monet’s Water Lilies, Klimt’s The Kiss.
I grab this last one and pull it off the wall, looking closely, almost touching it with my nose.
It fascinated me the first time I saw it in one of my high school textbooks.
It must be the tenderness and devotion in it, the love, even if I try never to say that word.
Or maybe it’s simply that I like shiny things and the clash of artistic styles dazzles me, plus the fact that it was made with real gold leaf.
Or the intimacy of it, the way the man holds the woman and she closes her eyes with abandon.
Could this be the beauty Lucy’s talking about? The way a work of art can make your stomach tingle? The way a book can get caught in your soul?
Unsure, I leave the Klimt postcard on my nightstand.
My phone rings soon afterward. It’s Grandpa.
“How are things, Greta?”
“Good.” Phone squeezed between shoulder and ear, I pick up some clothing on my bed and start folding it. “And you?”
“I’m really good. I decided I’ll come back in midsummer.”
“Wow.” I didn’t think he’d stay there that long.
“But if you think you need me before then—”
“No! Of course not!” It sounds a bit brusque, but it’s just that I don’t want him to cut his vacation short, especially not for me. I’m supposed to be an adult. I shouldn’t be a burden to him or anyone else. “You just stay there and relax.”
“How’s your mother?”
“Sometimes better, sometimes worse,” I say, to keep from saying more.
“Sure.”
“Hey, Grandpa?”
“Yes?”
“What is beauty to you?”
“Beauty…” He takes a deep breath and pauses. “It’s a concept that changes with the passage of years. Right now, I think it’s an afternoon sitting with my fishing pole in one hand, a beer in the other, and watching the seagulls fly over the sea.”
“Not bad.”
“I’m going to let you go, Greta. If you need me for anything, call. And remember to stop in and water the plants at my house. It’s starting to get hot out. Oh, one more thing: Congratulations on the driver’s license! It was about time!”
I hang up and put my clothes away in the closet.
Then I take a look at Klimt’s The Kiss one more time and reflect on what Grandpa just said. Maybe looking for beauty in art is too obvious. Maybe I need to go beyond that.
To the world I’m living in.
To the shape of a snail’s shell, the beauty of insects, the skeletal membrane of leaves, the scent of earth, of the sea, being on a clifftop, watching snowflakes whirl before they land on the white ground, lifting a thin sheet of ice up toward the sun and seeing it glow in rainbow colors…
And just then, I think of one place I know beauty can be found.
I put on my Converse and take the steps two at a time downward.
“Something up?” Dad just got home.
“No. Can I take the car?”
“Where are you headed?”
I’m surprised he cares. “I’m not sure yet…”
“Greta…”
“But I won’t leave a scratch on it.”
“All right.” He takes the keys from his pocket and passes them to me. “Be careful. Where’s your mother?” I point upstairs. The last time I saw her, she was asleep in her room. “Do you know if she’s eaten?”
I shake my head and he sighs.
I get in the car and buckle my seat belt and ask myself if he’s ever truly tried to talk to her.
And I don’t know the answer. I can’t even imagine them having a conversation that’s not made up of monosyllables.
How did they ever manage to plan Lucy’s funeral?
Did they talk about the coffin, what to put on the tombstone, and all that?
I tried to talk to Mom for two months after Lucy left us.
Grandpa did too. Over and over, I told her, “Mom, I think you need help.” But after repeating “Leave me alone” and “I’m absolutely fine” a million times, she turned around one day and said, “Shut up, Greta,” and it was so harsh, so cruel, so hurtful, that I gave up.
I drive slowly. I’m still terrified of hurting someone, but I do think I’ve gotten better behind the wheel. I park next to the burger place and look at the RV park. In my mind, I walk the short path to Will’s RV.
Not until I’ve actually done it, though, not till I’m standing in front of his door, do I ask myself what exactly I’m doing there.
What if he thinks it’s ridiculous? What if he’s not even interested in the game and is just going along with it because he feels bad that Lucy died and her sister’s a loser? What if someone’s with him inside?
I’d never thought of that possibility before, and now that I do, I have a bad taste in my mouth. I’ve never talked about any of that with Will. Or much else. All I know about him are bits and pieces that I’ve struggled to put together to try to get a vague picture of who he really is.
Regretfully, I turn on my heels without even knocking. But before I get far, the door opens and Will appears on the threshold.
“Greta? What are you doing here?”
“You know. I was close by, and…” I bite my lip as I feel his eyes pierce me. “I just thought maybe you’d like to go somewhere with me. If you’re not doing anything else. Or hanging out with someone.”
“Where to?”
“It’s a secret.”
He narrows his eyes. “Give me a minute.”
He vanishes inside, and I wait there until he returns in a spotless white T-shirt that draws out the green of his eyes.
He doesn’t ask any questions; he just follows me to the car and gets in the passenger’s seat.
“I like not driving for once,” he says as we abandon Ink Lake.
For the rest of the trip, he stares out the window.
I follow a winding path rising up a hill twenty minutes or so outside of town.
When we get out of the car, I think about how there’s no one around for miles, and I shiver.
The terrain is rocky, and the higher we go, the harder the wind blows.
We walk until we find a flat, jutting stone we can sit on.
We can see everything from up here: acres of corn and soy, farms, cattle ranches, and the city, curving and asleep, looking like a toy or a model off in the distance.
“What are we doing here?” he asks.
“We’re looking for beauty.”
He nods. His silence is a space he offers me that allows me to expand, encourages me to talk about Lucy’s letter and my wall and what I’m hoping to find.
“Well, we’re here. Did you find it?”
“We’ve got to wait for dusk,” I say.
“Okay.”
“Do you mind waiting?”
“No. Sounds great.”