“Let’s go,” she says, instantly confirming my fears.
“Go where?”
“Outside. It starts in less than half an hour.” I think she can tell from my blank expression that I have no idea what she is talking about, so she explains. “The eclipse, Andy. Remember?”
I do remember, at least partly. I remember that Laurie had said an eclipse was coming and that it would be really nice if we could lie outside and watch it together. Unfortunately, it never entered my mind that God would have scheduled an eclipse at the same time the Knicks were in their first play-off game in four years.
My mind races for a solution; there must be something it can instruct my mouth to say to get me off this literally astronomical hook. “Now? The eclipse is now?” Suffice it to say, I was hoping to come up with something stronger.
“Eight-thirty-one,” she says, since eclipses are really precise things.
“Just about the beginning of the second quarter,” I say. “Talk about your coincidences.”
“Andy, if you’d rather watch the basketball game…” She doesn’t finish the sentence, but based on her tone, an appropriate finish would be, “then you can kiss my ass.”
“No, it’s not that,” I lie. “It’s just that it’s a play-off game, and it’s the Knicks. How often does that happen?”
“The next eclipse won’t happen for over four hundred years,” she counters.
I shake my head. “That’s what they say, but don’t believe it. They always announce that the next one won’t come until 2612, so everybody goes out to see it, but then there’s another one two weeks later. The whole thing is a scam.”
“Who’s doing the scamming?” she asks, a slight gleam in her eye, which could mean that she’s either secretly finding this amusing or planning to kill me.
“I’m not sure,” I say. “It could be the telescope industry, or maybe blanket and pillow manufacturers. But take it from me, these people are not to be trusted.”
“I’ve got an idea,” she says. “Why don’t you tape it?”
“Great!” I say enthusiastically. “I didn’t even know you could tape an eclipse.”
Her expression turns serious; banter time is over. “Andy, we need to talk.”
Maybe there’s a more ominous phrase in the English language than “We need to talk.” Perhaps “Michael Corleone says hello.” Or maybe “I’m afraid the test results are back.” But right now what Laurie just said is enough to send spasms of panic through my gut.
I could be overreacting. Maybe it’s not so bad. “We need to talk.” That’s what people do, they talk, right? But the thing is, a talk is like a drink. It’s fine unless you need to have it. Then it’s a major problem. And I’ve got a feeling Laurie is going to play the U.S. Air Force to my Republican Guard and drop a cluster bomb in the middle of my life.
I take a pillow from Laurie and follow her outside. Tara trails along; she clearly considers this “talk” potentially more entertaining than the Knicks game. We don’t say anything as we align the blanket and pillows to view the stupid eclipse. I’m so intent on what is about to be said that if the sun and moon collided, I wouldn’t notice.
“The sky’s clear; we should be able to see it really well,” she says.
Is she going to chitchat first? I swallow the watermelon in my throat. “What is it you wanted to talk about?” I ask.
“Andy…” is how she starts, which is already a bad sign. I’m the only other person here, so if she feels she has to specify whom she’s talking to, it must mean that what she has to say is very significant. “Andy, you know that my father and mother split up when I was fifteen.”
I wait without speaking, partially because I am aware of her parents’ divorce, but mainly because I want this to go as fast as possible.
“My father got custody simply because my mother didn’t contest it. She no longer wanted a family—I don’t know and it doesn’t really matter why—and he made it easy for her. He found a job here and took me with him. One day I was living in Findlay, and the next day I wasn’t. I literally never even said goodbye to my friends.”
She takes a deep breath. “And I never went back. Not once. Not even a phone call. My mother died five years ago without me seeing or talking to her. That’s how she wanted it, and it was fine with