“Okay,” Demeter said.
It was something concrete Lynne could do. Something she had to offer. One of her Lunestas. She had asked Ted Field for them back in April, when Al was running for selectman for the fourth time. The stress of local politics, of negative campaigning aimed at Al, of insinuations that he had Ed Kapenash, among other people, in his back pocket-all of this had kept Lynne up at night. Ha! She had worried then, when nothing was wrong. Al had won in a landslide.
Lynne placed the tiny pill in Demeter’s palm, and Demeter dry-mouthed it down. Lynne grimaced. Probably not a bad idea to suggest that she take a shower and brush her teeth: she stank to high heaven. But as Lynne was searching for the words to gently convey this thought to her daughter, Demeter stepped into her bedroom and slammed the door shut, leaving her mother alone in the hallway.
“Good night, darling,” Lynne said.
Now it was August, and the worst was behind them. Hobby had woken up from his coma, Penny had been properly buried, the Randolph family had moved halfway around the world. Demeter had defied all odds and honored her commitment to work at Frog and Toad Landscaping. She got up and went to work five mornings a week. She was never late. She was the color of toast and she had, most definitely, lost some weight.
But something still wasn’t right. Demeter was less forthcoming than ever. She rarely spoke unless spoken to, and half the time, when Al or Lynne asked her a question, she gave a nonsensical answer and broke into giggles. And yet Lynne was afraid to dissect this behavior because Demeter did, in fact, seem happier than she had seemed in a long, long time. She was working and bringing home a weekly paycheck, she looked good. She had made some friends, she said, on her crew. A girl named Nell. A boy named Coop. A man named Zeus.
“Zeus?” Lynne said. “That’s an interesting name.”
“ ‘Gods and goddesses in the front,’ ” Demeter said, and then she giggled.
Lynne wondered if Demeter had started a relationship with one of the men on her crew. Maybe this Coop, or this Zeus. Zeus was more likely, Lynne thought. An older Hispanic man with a wife all the way down in Central America-to him, Demeter would seem young and ripe and lush. Too young, though. Lynne couldn’t stand to think about it.
It crossed Lynne’s mind that Demeter might be doing drugs either before or after work. Because, to be honest, her whole demeanor was altered. She was a different kid. All of her angry, bitter, resentful, woe-is-me attitude seemed to have disappeared, and in its place was this vacant insipidness. Demeter used to be an avid reader. Her marks in school weren’t great, they were just-getting-by, but she always read very good books, both classic and contemporary. But had she read a single book this whole summer? Lynne didn’t think so. Lynne wasn’t naive, she knew that landscapers were famous for smoking marijuana, and she also knew that Demeter might not have the resolve to say no. She was a perfect target for peer pressure, wanting so badly to be accepted and to fit in. Lynne had gone so far as to sniff her daughter’s clothes before she stuffed them into the washing machine. They smelled like sour sweat but not smoke. Later she extended her olfactory investigation to the inside of Demeter’s Escape, where her nose was overpowered by the smell of breath mints and piney air-freshener and something else that was sickly sweet but unidentifiable-until she pulled a black, rotten banana out from under the passenger seat.
Lynne didn’t find any signs of marijuana. But there was something-something-going on.
Demeter had been through one hell of an ordeal this summer. She had lost Penny, who was as much of a friend as she had had, and she had lost Jake too. Hobby was still alive, thank God. Lynne kept tabs on him through the grapevine; it seemed she was always talking to someone who had just seen him in town or out for a quiet dinner at 56 Union with his mother. Lynne learned that he was out of the wheelchair and onto crutches and making excellent progress, but that Coach Jaxon had finally come to terms with the fact that he would never play football again. It was just too dangerous. Hobby was apparently spending lots of time with Claire Buckley, which was good, Lynne thought. Claire was a nice girl.
Lynne wished she had gotten all this news about Hobby from Zoe herself, but Zoe was incommunicado. Lynne had arranged dropoff meals at the Alistair house for six weeks after Penny’s funeral but Zoe had never called or written to say thank you. Not that a thank-you was necessary; Lynne certainly hadn’t scheduled the meals because she wanted gratitude. She had done it because it was one stupid, paltry thing that she and the other women in the community could do-offer food so that something healthy and delicious would be on hand whenever Zoe got her appetite back. Lynne had also left several messages on Zoe’s voicemail, she had lost count of how many, four or five, but these had gone unreturned. She had tried to tread lightly, saying, “Hey, Zoe, it’s me, just checking in, no need to call me back, just wanted to see how you’re doing, thinking of you.” So Zoe had managed to make it out to 56 Union for dinner with Hobby, but she hadn’t been able to call Lynne back? Lynne was-or had been-her best friend. Lynne had to assume that status had been altered in Zoe’s mind. Perhaps Zoe couldn’t bring herself to talk to her for the same reason that she’d slapped Jordan in the hospital waiting room: a firewall of anger. She had lost a child, and they hadn’t.
She had lost a child. Lynne couldn’t pretend to know what that felt like.
They had all been through one hell of an ordeal this summer.
So whatever was going on with Demeter, Lynne told herself, would pass. There was no describing how badly she wanted to ignore it. If Demeter could just make it through the summer… things might change once she was back in school… her senior year… things were always great in senior year, so for Demeter they should at least be tolerable. She would be accepted to college somewhere, probably not a top-tier school like her brothers, but maybe Michigan State, where Al had gone. He donated money to MSU, he should be able to pull those strings if needed, and then Demeter would be away at school, and Al and Lynne would be empty-nesters. There was a way in which the two of them had been born to be empty-nesters. They both had more than enough interests and involvements to keep them busy for the next three centuries. (Although their interest in each other, at this stage of the game, was limited: they had sex only two or three times a year, on prescribed dates-their anniversary, Al’s birthday, and Valentine’s Day-and frankly, even that much was more than enough for Lynne.) Maybe, Lynne thought, her eager anticipation of an empty nest meant that they should never have had children at all.
Demeter’s strange behavior continued. On the night she returned from babysitting for the Kingsleys, Lynne happened to be awake, standing next to the open freezer door, shoveling Chunky Monkey into her mouth. She had been indulging in this kind of late-night stress eating more and more lately, but when Demeter walked in, she hastened to fit the top back onto the carton and shove the ice cream back into the freezer, because what kind of example was she setting?
“Hey, honey,” Lynne said. She positioned her body to block’s Demeter’s view of the sticky spoon on the countertop.
Demeter didn’t respond to her greeting, didn’t acknowledge her mother’s presence at all. She clutched her backpack to her chest and proceeded up the stairs.
“Demeter!” Lynne snapped. Her voice was louder than it ought to have been in the middle of the night-Al was sleeping-but Jesus Christ, she was sick of being ignored.
“What?” Demeter said.
“How was babysitting? How were the Kingsleys?”