Soul Catcher (22 page)

‘Nicky,’ Janet said, ‘you don’t have to be the way you were before. There are so many things you can do. Finish school. You don’t have to drop out just because you’re not here anymore. You can be anything you want. Don’t worry.’

Nicole cried in helpless convulsions.

‘You all don’t know what it’s like out there for us,’ Rawlene said. People think the civil rights changed things, but...’ She shook her head.

‘I know everyone thinks I’m hard or tough or something,’ Janice said, ‘but I know what you’re talking about, Nicole. It’s safe here. But if you’ve got to go, then tell yourself, say: Nicole, I’m gonna make it work. And do it. Do it for Nicole the lady.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Nicole said slowly. She looked into her lap, away from us, as if our faces would hurt her.

‘Do we have a consensus?’ Pam asked.

Tired assent came automatically. Girls filed past Nicole, kissing and touching her as they went off to bed. There was no anger even after what she had put us through. Each one of us understood, in our own way, how terrifying it was when your only support system was about to buckle out from under you. And anyway, we had achieved the purpose of the meeting, which was to get to the truth.

I stayed in the lobby, frozen by the window. I could see Patrick pacing nervously beneath the tree. He was beautiful. He looked so strong — but he wasn’t strong. That he would consume my strength came as a sudden thought. I watched him rub the inside of his arm, and I knew what my decision had to be. When he needed more than I could give him, he’d
be gone again, hooked, lost. Alone in Florida with a junkie I loved. I couldn’t do it.

Gwen came up behind me and put her hand on my shoulder. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine.’ I shoved Patrick’s note deeper into my pocket.

‘Everyone’s going to bed,’ she said.

‘I’ll go in a minute.’

‘You sure you’re okay?’

I nodded. I didn’t want to turn around. I didn’t want her to see my face.

‘Okay. See you in the morning.’ She laughed. ‘I mean, see you later.’

Patrick hugged himself against the cold. He stared at the windows of Upper Girls. Did he see me? I couldn’t bring myself to move away.

W
e beat our own deadline and finished the dome at the end of March. In the final stages, I dreamed of Patrick every night. It would always begin with him in Florida, with his black-haired, pale-skinned girl, and end with me in my bed at Grove. The Florida parts of the dream were in technicolor, full of lush palms and emerald skies. Patrick would be wearing bright Hawaiian shirts and white pants, and his girl would be all in black. Her pageboy haircut framed her face like a window. Her eyes were grey, colorless, like mirrors. She never smiled, but her face was always taut, blandly amused. They would be happy and light together under the sun, and his hair would blow back from his face with the breeze. Her hair never moved, it was like a helmet. They would hold hands and walk toward the water, or sit together in the back seat of a bright red convertible with no driver, or sit at a small round table at an outdoor cafe like movie stars. Then, inevitably, they would move toward me. Color would fade from the dream, and Patrick would enter my room alone. He moved on the silvery screen of nighttime shadows and moonlight. He would be naked, his body smooth and pale, and he would slip between my covers and fall asleep. I would roll over into his arms and it
was always at that point, just as I began to feel his body against me, that I would wake up.

I don’t know what my dreams had to do with the dome, but I began to believe they were somehow connected. It was as if my love for Patrick and the spirit of the dome came from the same place inside me. Building the dome was a journey to that place. It wasn’t over yet; I hadn’t quite reached where I was going.

The day after we finished the dome, I stopped by after classes to look at it. It had been raining a lot and the ground was muddy. The dome sat on the wet brown earth like a half-moon that had plummeted from the sky. I skidded down the hill and stood in front of it. I felt a profound reverence, as in a graveyard; but it was not a grievous feeling. There was a loneliness to the dome, and a rich sense of peacefulness, too.

The whole structure was covered with the plastic triangles, completely sealed off. We hadn’t built a door because, as Peter said, the dome was an idea, not a place. It was a bubble, his dream. But as I stood there, I became aware of a shadow moving inside. Then, suddenly, a muted scream emanated from the dome. It was Peter. He was inside.

Two-thirds of the way around, I found that one of the triangles of plastic was missing. I stuck my head inside and there he was, standing in the middle of the dome, his face beet red. Some kind of rope dangled from his hand. I had a quick and frightening thought that it was a noose, that he had built the dome as a place in which to hang himself.

‘Peter! What are you doing?’

He smiled. ‘Kate, how good to see you! Won’t you come in?’

I pointed to the rope. ‘What’s that?’

He held it up. The rope was built of circles, like a stack of infinity signs. ‘Come in,’ he said.

I crawled through the small opening. Inside it was hot and damp like a greenhouse.

‘What are you doing in here?’ I asked. ‘What’s that thing supposed to be?’

He held it up high. ‘It’s a soul catcher,’ he said. ‘I made it myself.’

I stared at it. A
soul catcher.
‘You mean, like a butterfly net, but for souls?’

‘Precisely.’

‘Where’d you get that idea?’

‘From a book on primitive artifacts. I saw a picture of one. It’s supposed to capture lost souls.’

‘Why?’

He shrugged his slender shoulders. ‘I suppose that’s up to the person with the soul catcher. In my case, it’s just an experiment. Whatever souls I catch will be contained within the dome. Watch.’ He twirled it above his head like a lassoo, and when he had gained some momentum he began to spin around. The soul catcher swung into a blur with a sharp whistling sound.

After a minute he stopped. ‘Here,’ he panted. ‘You try.’

I twirled and spun with the soul catcher, like a helicopter about to take off. The feeling was free and fast and easy, flying, spinning into euphoria. When my balance went, I stopped. Coughing and laughing, I tossed the soul catcher back to Peter. He took another turn, then I did, then he did, until dinner time.

On the way up to the dorms to change, Peter stopped to break a piece off the branch of a tree that was just beginning to form tiny green buds. He handed me the knobby brown stalk.

‘But it hasn’t bloomed yet,’ I said.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘it will.’

I kept the stalk in a glass of water on my dresser for two weeks. Clusters of buds were slowly forming. Then, one morning, I woke up to a glorious mass of purple lilac blossoms, filling our room with scents of sugar and spice.

It was spring.

D
uring spring vacation, I stayed with Mom and Ann. Jerry was there a lot, too. But during the days when they were all at work, I was on my own. I moped around a lot, conjuring up demons. I missed Patrick, I hated Grove. I could hardly remember why I hadn’t gone to Florida. Mom, Ann and Jerry seemed convinced my condition was some kind of readjustment anxiety because of the divorce. But to me, it was a bona-fide broken heart. They tried to cheer me up with movies and jokes and elaborate meals. Nothing worked. Then, one morning, Ann made me an offer. She said I could work in her boutique for the rest of my vacation, in exchange for some new clothes. I accepted half-heartedly but with a feeling of relief.

It was my very first job. Watching the gate roll up on the storefront was like a curtain rising at the theater; beyond lay the excitement and mystery of new worlds. Ann unlocked the door, flipped a few switches and the dark store came alive. The first day, I smeared on some of her pink lip gloss and waited for customers. One by one, they came: women of all ages and sizes and temperaments. By evening, I was a real salesperson; I felt I could sell just about anything to anyone. We locked up at about seven-thirty. It had been a fun, exhausting day and I decided I would like a life of work.

‘Maybe I’ll hire you for the summer,’ Ann said.

‘No kidding?’

‘You did good. Pick something out for yourself from the sale rack.’

It was only April, but the sale rack was already full of spring clothes Ann wanted to unload to make room for new summer arrivals. For me, everything was the height of fashion. I tried on five things, and chose a green short-sleeved dress with a scooped neck, tapered waist and flared skirt. The tag said
Fiesta
and that was how the dress felt: like a party at night on a beach, with salsa music and Japanese lanterns and true-love-kissing. I looked at myself in the dressing room mirror and felt a warm flood of pleasure at the young woman the dress brought out in me. Patrick loved me in green. I decided to wear the dress the next time I saw him.

As Ann and I walked home, I imagined us doing this every day, a team. Maybe, I thought, when I finished high school, I could take some time off before college and work for her. I could get my own apartment, have my own life.

Then, to crown the day, there was a postcard from Patrick waiting for me at the apartment. He wrote that Florida was hot, that he lay on a pearly beach and swam in emerald water, that he wished I could see all the tilting palms. He wrote that he missed me and was sorry I couldn’t join him that night of the dorm meeting, but that he understood. He loved me, he wrote. He said he was looking for work and when he had saved enough money he would send me a bus ticket. He promised to write again soon. The card was so full of tiny scrawl, there was no room for him to include his address, if he had one. Maybe he was sleeping on a beach, in the lush warm air, under a palm. The thought charmed me.

Mom and Ann laughed at me for letting a postcard from a boy send my spirit soaring. Mom was sitting at the kitchen table, wearing a yellow sweatsuit and sneakers in which I was sure she did not intend to exercise, and Ann was in an apron making dinner.

‘You don’t understand,’ I told them. ‘You’re jaded. Can’t you remember what it was like to be in love?’

‘Now and then it comes back to me,’ Mom said. She wiggled her opal and diamond ring.

‘It’s different when you’re young,’ Ann said. But I saw her wink, and Mom’s half-smile.

I daydreamed of the apartment I’d have in the city in a couple of years. It would be on the bottom floor of a brownstone, on a tree-lined block, and the big bedroom windows would overlook a garden of red tulips, sunny daffodils and cascading roses. The brass bed would tumble with down pillows, all lacy white, and Patrick and I would live in that bed together. We would be married, really married, right away. We would own a store like Ann’s and run it together. In time, we would have a small family, and the store would sustain our simple life together, a good life, solid and forever.

My nightdreams transformed, too. I was the heroine now, the happy girl under the palms. I was dressed beautifully, in bright colors, and Patrick was strong and certain in his faith in our love. All threats had vanished. In one dream, Patrick and I danced at Mom’s wedding. I knew in my mind that Jerry was the groom, yet when the groom turned around, it was Dad. The rabbi turned into Jerry and he married my parents. Another dream was of Junior in the dome, sitting underneath the soul catcher, which dangled from the highest point. But instead of being black, Junior was white, and he was my and Patrick’s child. Flower Booker materialized in the dome and kissed the top of his head. As she hugged him, he melted into her, then she vanished too and all that was left was the soul catcher swaying in the empty dome.

The postmark on Patrick’s card told me it had taken four days to reach me. Thinking he might have contacted his mother by now, I tried calling, but there was never an answer. I tried for days, but the phone would just ring and ring. I even took her number with me to
Smithereens.
There
was a small office in the back, and every so often, when there were no customers, I would try again.

It was at about two o’clock on Thursday afternoon when, to my surprise, Mrs Nevins answered.

‘Hi, it’s Kate!’ I said. There was silence at the other end. ‘Hello?’

‘Yes, hello.’ She sounded tired.

‘I was wondering if you’ve heard from Patrick yet. I thought maybe you had a phone number or address for him.’

Nothing, just more silence.

‘Mrs Nevins?’

‘We just got back from Florida.’

‘I thought you were away. I’ve been calling. Did you see him? Where is he? Who’s we?’

‘I went with Patrick’s father. Dear, I’m sorry.’ She paused. ‘Patrick... He died. He’s here with us now. The funeral is tomorrow.’

In the background, I could hear the bell on the front door, and Ann’s voice calling my name.

‘What?’ I said. My hand was shaking. My throat, when I spoke, felt numb. ‘Hello?’

Mrs Nevins’s voice sounded distant, like it was a million miles away. ‘He overdosed, dear. In Florida. If you take the noon train tomorrow, we’ll pick you up. Please come. He would have wanted it.’

Ann stuck her head through the door. ‘Hey, blabbermouth, it’s getting busy out here!’

I think I looked at Ann but I couldn’t see her face. It was a woman’s face, eyes beginning to question, staring. The only thing I was aware of was the smooth texture of a pad of paper under my hand. Then the room began to fade and my stomach felt violently nauseated.

‘Who were you talking to?’ Ann asked. ‘What’s wrong?’

I swallowed the vomit that lurched into my mouth. I couldn’t speak.

It wasn’t true.

‘Are you all right? Kate? Kate!’

The room faded completely. I couldn’t swallow it back. I tried to stand, but my legs felt rubbery. The last sensation was of a pair of strong hands gripping me under the arms.

The police had found him lying on a sidewalk in Miami when the sun rose. He had shot some bad heroin into his arm, and died.

I could still feel him as if he were alive, standing in front of me, holding me. Orange hair curling over his forehead. Pale round face, blue moonbeam eyes. His back firm and warm against my hand. His breath on my ear. Our legs twined together on our New Year’s bed.