All the Major Constellations Read online

  The canopy of green above them grew thicker and thicker. The sun-dappled light faded, and soon they were enclosed in the daytime semidarkness of a mature forest. He heard the soft rustle of leaves as small animals scurried past. He blinked as his eyes adjusted. The scent of pine became almost sticky in its sweetness. He could feel the wet of the air on his lips and cheeks.

  Laura.

  Andrew shoved his hands into his pockets, where he fingered pieces of lint that gathered in the corners.

  “Careful,” Laura said. She stepped gingerly around tree roots and fallen branches. The valley was just up ahead. A ray of sunlight hit the path in front of them and cast a glow over Laura. Her hair was parted, and the nape of her neck was just visible. Andrew gazed hungrily at that patch of bare skin. It wasn’t so much that he wanted to kiss her as that he wanted to pull her to him and press his face into her neck. He was right behind her, inches from her.

  Then they were in the valley. Sunlight was everywhere at once. Laura took off in a sprint. Andrew jumped. Shit, he thought. What was she doing? Was she running from him? He must have scared her. Breathing down her neck like some hulking monster. Fuck! Then Laura, mid-sprint, leaped up into the air like a ballet dancer and twirled around. She shouted to him, but he couldn’t understand her.

  “What?” he yelled back.

  She ran closer until she was about five yards from him. She was laughing and smiling. Andrew had never seen her so happy, so unreserved.

  “Come on,” she said, and took off in another direction.

  Andrew was not about to start running around.

  “I like watching you,” he said to her retreating form, knowing she couldn’t hear him. He was baffled and charmed by this childlike side of her. She continued to dash around the field. He was almost embarrassed by the whole scene. Laura was so terribly pretty, and the field so picturesque, that it seemed like she was filming a commercial for panty liners.

  He caught up to her at the rocks, the most appealing part of Shaman’s Point. The six huge concave formations were smooth enough to sit on comfortably for hours. They looked as if they’d been hollowed out by the ocean, which they probably had been. He knew one of the rocks had a fish fossil on its side, but you had to hunt around to find it. Andrew smiled to himself. Another thing not to mention to Laura. Her parents, or perhaps her church, had arranged for her to leave class whenever the science teacher discussed evolution. Andrew felt bad for her when this happened. “Laura,” Ms. Devaux would say. “We’re going to talk about Darwin now.” With a small, frightened, apologetic nod, Laura would get up and leave class with her eyes on the ground. A few people would usually chuckle, and girls who were jealous of Laura’s beauty would make catty comments. But never Marcia or Sara. They just weren’t like that.

  Laura sat on the largest rock and waved him over. He sat next to her and waited as she caught her breath. His first kiss had been on this very rock. He and his one and only girlfriend, Rachel, had made out and fumbled around with each other’s bodies on an almost daily basis for three months when they were fourteen. She dumped him right before sophomore year, after a mutually unsatisfying and almost entirely physical relationship.

  “Want to pray?” Laura asked. She was catching her breath and grinning at him.

  “Seriously?” Andrew said.

  “Why not? I like praying when I’m happy like this.”

  “So you jog around before you pray? What if you’re at home? Do you bust out some push-ups and sit-ups and then start?”

  Laura looked baffled before she realized that Andrew was teasing. She burst out laughing. When her giggles subsided, she took on a serious expression. Her shift in mood, from hilarity to grimness, came too quickly, too suddenly. It puzzled Andrew. Before Laura could open her mouth, Andrew spoke.

  “Thanks for showing me this place. It’s really pretty.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said. “Let’s pray.”

  Andrew was about to object when Laura picked up one of his hands. He wanted to entwine his fingers with hers, but she held his hand in her palms as if it were an injured bird. He felt his body go almost limp, and lowered his head.

  Laura began, “Heavenly Father, we ask that you grace Sara—”

  “No,” Andrew said, “not Sara.”

  Laura dropped his hand. “What?”

  “Not Sara, okay? I’m—” He groped for words, hot with shame. “I’m not ready for that.”

  Laura tapped her fingertips on her thigh and leaned back. Her honey-colored hair fell all around her shoulders and framed her face. One day in English class Mr. Gonzalez had given them an article about words in other languages for which there were no direct English translations. Cafuné had been Andrew’s favorite. It was Brazilian Portuguese for “to tenderly run one’s fingers through someone’s hair.” Andrew wondered what Laura would do if he tried to cafuné her.

  “Okay,” she said. “Let’s just try something more general.”

  “Fine,” Andrew said.

  Laura lowered her head, and Andrew followed suit, but this time she did not take his hand. She murmured something, and Andrew leaned closer to her on the pretense of trying to hear her. Or was he trying to hear her? He wasn’t even sure anymore. He was lost in all the sunlight. What was she saying? The Lord’s Prayer? No, it didn’t sound like that. He tried to follow along with her, hoping she’d touch him again. He felt like he could relate to bits and snatches of what she was saying. “Our savior . . . sin . . . save us . . . Jesus . . .” He’d heard something like these words before, in movies and books, or from some small corner of his childhood when his mom took them to church on Christmas Eve.

  He closed his eyes. Laura’s voice faded in and out like a radio station playing his favorite song, only he couldn’t quite get the reception because he was in the car and driving away. Driving away with Sara. Going for some ice cream or just driving around for fun and for the meditative calm of the rhythmic wheels on the road. A gently rocking car. Sara in the backseat. Not just in the backseat but strapped in like a baby. Then he realized he was sitting right next to her. Who was driving? He was too scared to look. His heartbeat was fast, too fast, and he could hear it pounding in his ears. No, not pounding, fluttering. The sunlight came in through his lids and settled behind his eyes in spots and waves and jagged flashes. Now his heart seemed to hover in his chest like a hummingbird. He couldn’t keep up. He couldn’t stay here. He gasped and rose to his feet. Laura opened her eyes and looked at him, her expression both elated and curious.

  “I think I’m having a panic attack or something,” he said.

  “Andrew?”

  He walked away and tried to steady his breathing. It was so bright. He felt like he might faint. He heard Laura’s footsteps behind, running to catch up.

  “Andrew! Did you . . . ?” She put a hand on Andrew’s shoulder. He whirled around and grabbed her. He buried his face in her hair. Her body was stiff, her arms at her sides. Andrew was gripping her so hard that she couldn’t have hugged him back if she’d wanted to. They stayed this way for some moments. Slowly, he released her.

  They walked back to their neighborhood in near silence. Every once in a while Laura asked Andrew if he was okay.

  “It can be frightening the first time,” she said. Yes, it certainly can, he thought. Laura asked him if he would come to her house that night. He nodded. Of course I will.

  • • •

  Andrew lay on his bed with one hand under his head, the other draped on his stomach. He stared at the ceiling. Becky was asleep on the floor, snoring. That snoring was getting louder, Andrew thought. He should call the vet. Loud snoring in big dogs was bad, wasn’t it? He tried to get up but could not. He scratched at his belly button, a nervous gesture that he’d developed when he was little and that his mother detested. Once he’d picked at his belly button until it bled and he’d gotten an infection. He glanced down.
I’m literally navel gazing, he thought.

  He had a strong desire to talk to Sara and Marcia. The two of them would be able to break this down and give him some perspective. They wouldn’t mind that Andrew had never told them about his Laura obsession. Besides, who was he kidding? They’d probably guessed by now anyway. Marcia would gently suggest that it might not be altogether ethically sound to pretend to have a religious experience to get into the pants of a naive girl. Not above board, Marcia would say, whereas Sara would uncompromisingly be in favor of Andrew doing what it took to get some action. Whatever, Marcia, Sara would say. It would be good for Laura, too. Those superreligious kids get all freaked out about sex. It’s not healthy. Next time, Andrew, start twitching like you’re having a seizure, then tell Laura that God spoke to you and told you that she should— And then Marcia would interrupt, her cool brown eyes on his face, her hands covering Sara’s mouth, her voice saying, Unless you actually had a religious experience. Did you, Andrew?

  He wasn’t sure what had happened to him. He’d never had a religious experience before, or a panic attack, for that matter, unless you counted his shitty nightmares. He felt like whatever had happened to him at Shaman’s Point had more to do with his desire for Laura and his grief for Sara. It was all mixed up. It had nothing to do with God. And besides, maybe he’d just been dehydrated or something.

  Andrew sat up. Becky stretched and walked over to him. She put her great big head on his leg. There had been some stiffness in her walk lately. The vet’s number was programmed into the phone downstairs. Get up, he told himself. Becky stood.

  “Not you,” he said out loud, rubbing her cheekbones. Andrew had ceased to be surprised by his telepathy with Becky. He got up and walked downstairs. He picked up the phone and thought about calling the hospital. He wasn’t allowed to ask about Sara, but he could ask for Marcia, and she would give him an update. An update. Nothing’s changed. Sara’s in a coma. If she wakes up at all, she might never walk again, talk again, eat real food again, have sex, fall in love.

  Fuck God, he thought, and slammed the phone down.

  12

  THE LIGHTS WERE DIM in the windows of Laura’s house. She’d told him to come over at eight. He wondered if her parents had gone out and if they were going to be alone. Then he remembered that Laura had lots of little brothers and sisters. She had older siblings too, who were at college or out of the country. Andrew couldn’t keep track of her family—in fact, he’d never really tried. All he knew was that none of them were attractive. Laura was a genetic miracle among them.

  As he drew closer to the house he saw that several cars were parked outside on the street. He could hear voices and the sound of laughter. Someone was strumming a guitar. Andrew stopped, rolled his eyes, and gazed heavenward.

  “Really?” he said to the sky. There was nothing Andrew hated so much as an acoustic guitar-led sing-along, a rather inconvenient dislike if you grew up in Vermont. He realized even before he rang the doorbell that this was some of kind of Friday-night youth prayer group jamboree. He had not been prepared for this.

  A guy about his age or older answered the door. He was taller than Andrew, who at six two was fairly tall himself. The guy had a friendly smile and a crushing handshake. His fingers seemed to wrap around Andrew’s wrist like snakes.

  “You must be Andy,” he said.

  “Andrew.”

  “Nice to meet you. We’re so glad you came. I’m John.”

  “What’s up?” Andrew said.

  “Come on in, my brother.” John opened the door wider and gestured for Andrew to enter. John had a large tattoo of a blue cross running down one of his arms. He was muscular, Andrew noted, and his longish blond hair reached just above his shoulders. A born-again surfer dude.

  He was led through a small kitchen. The countertops were worn and wooden. There was no food out, but it smelled like tomato sauce and garlic bread. A pile of clean dishes was neatly stacked in the drying rack. Pots, pans, and woven baskets hung from hooks in the ceiling. A cool breeze gently rustled the warm air. As Andrew looked around, he felt a kind of sick longing that made his hands tremble. Not longing for Laura, exactly, but for something else—her kitchen, her dishes.

  “You hungry? There’s plenty of food left,” John said.

  “I ate. Thanks.” Andrew was intrigued. Did that mean that John had been invited to dinner sometime earlier and Andrew had not? Something about John’s manner suggested he was overly familiar with the house: guiding Andrew around, showing him where to put his shoes, offering him food. Andrew looked sideways at John and again noted how strong he looked and the easy, athletic grace with which he moved. John reminded him of Brian. Andrew felt himself hardening his heart against this surfer dude Jesus freak with the freakishly large hands.

  He followed John into the den, where eight or nine kids about Andrew’s age lay draped over the couches and one another. Laura was on the floor. Another girl who Andrew recognized from school was seated above Laura on one of the couches. Laura’s head was in this girl’s lap. The girl stroked Laura’s hair as she chatted with a goateed guy on the couch.

  Andrew felt John’s hand lightly graze the small of his back, and it made him jump. John smiled at him and then brought his hand up Andrew’s back and clapped him on the shoulder.

  “Everyone, this is Andrew,” John said.

  Andrew was greeted with a chorus of Hey! and What’s up? Laura smiled at him but said nothing. John sat beside her and took up the guitar. The room was dimly lit by a few candles. Beanbags and pillows were scattered about.

  “Come sit here, Andrew,” said a guy’s voice from a corner of the room. Andrew felt uncomfortable as he walked over. Laura had not yet said anything to him, and he didn’t want to go bounding up to her like an overeager puppy.

  “I’m Matt,” the guy said as he stood up to shake Andrew’s hand. Matt looked vaguely familiar. He had an androgynous haircut and bright blue eyes. A pretty boy, he might be called, if Andrew thought in such terms, which he generally did not. Matt looked like the kind of pop star who would appeal to shrieking preadolescent girls and their bored suburban mothers. He wore a wooden cross on a leather string around his neck. When Andrew shook hands with him, he felt something sharp in his palm and noticed that Matt wore a large thumb ring with some words inscribed on the metal.

  “We’re so glad you’re here,” Matt said. As he spoke he seemed to give Andrew a sympathetic, meaningful look.

  “Oh. Thanks,” Andrew said.

  Matt smiled and sat down. Andrew glanced around. He wasn’t sure where to sit.

  A pretty girl was sitting next to Matt. She inched over, creating a small space between them. As Andrew began to sit down, Matt and the girl each took one of his arms in their hands and pulled, guiding him to the floor. He was more or less squished in between them. The girl shifted around until her leg was draped over his thigh. Matt turned his head toward John and discussed which song to sing next.

  “Is that better?” she asked.

  “What? Yes, this is fine,” Andrew said. She had a thin body and soft brown eyes, light brown hair, and a very slight overbite. She rubbed her thumb inside her upper lip as she spoke; perhaps she was self-conscious about her teeth. She wore a blue T-shirt—thin, like her, and the material looked worn. He could see the little threads hanging off her sleeves; he could see the outline of her small breasts.

  “I’m Carrie,” she said.

  “Andrew.” He extended his hand. She shook it lightly, but her touch lingered a moment.

  “You just graduated with Laura?” she asked.

  “Yup. Where do you go to school?” She looked too young to have graduated.

  “Windham. I’ll be a junior, like Matt,” she said.

  “Cool. Thinking about college?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Plenty of time.”

  “I’ll be going on my missio
n first. Some kids do it after college, but I’d like to go before.” Now her thumb was back at her mouth. She bit the tip of it and shifted her gaze toward one of the candles on the floor.

  “Ah,” Andrew said. He looked toward Laura, who was leafing through some sheet music.

  The guitar started strumming with greater purpose, and John hummed a few notes. Matt joined in, trying to get in tune with him. Andrew bristled. Here it comes, he thought. Then he felt Carrie’s hand and her wet little thumb on his arm.

  “I heard you had quite an experience the other day,” she said.

  Andrew nodded but didn’t speak. He wondered what Laura had told these people. Carrie smiled. She seemed like a good sport. He leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, “Do I have to sing?”

  “No,” she whispered back.

  Laura’s prayer group started to sing.

  In the darkness of the early morn,

  You stood against the light.

  Behind you, beside me,

  It grew bright, it grew bright.

  They were all good singers. Laura, whose voice was the most beautiful, was singing quietly, as though not to overwhelm the others. John sang the loudest, tossing his hair and weaving back and forth in time with the music. What a tool, Andrew thought. He tried to concentrate on the pleasure of Carrie’s thigh on top of his own. He imagined it was Laura sitting next to him.

  I close my eyes,

  But you’re still there

  Inside me, beside me.

  It’s all right, it’s all right.

  Now Carrie was rocking side to side, her shoulder brushing up against him as she closed her eyes and sang.

  Grace me with your love,

  Oh, the mercy of your touch.

  With her eyes still closed, Carrie took his hand and gripped it tightly. Well then, this is kind of awesome, Andrew thought, but it was not Carrie whom he wanted. He was smart enough to realize she didn’t want him, either. One thing Andrew prided himself on was his ability to keep his cool around pretty girls and their meaningless flirting. He knew that he’d learned this trick from Sara, who, throughout their friendship, had always flirted with him, touched him, put her head on his shoulder when they studied from the same book, and settled herself into his chest when they watched movies. He knew that the physical intimacy between him and Sara had made him seem pretty cool, thereby easing his passage through high school. She had emboldened his sense of self with her friendship, her affection, her love. Because of Sara, his identity had been transformed from Brian Genter’s geeky little brother to that of a quiet, smart guy who was somehow on touchy-feely terms with one of the hottest girls in school.