Home was a lost and wayward place, it was fragmented and breakable and changeable. It was the way his mother ruffled his hair, or the way his father stirred sugar into his coffee with his finger only, no matter how hot, and sucked the sweet away from his skin when it was done. Home was where his heart was, where his family sat around a low wooden table, talking in their soft voices. Home was the kitchen with Grandma, slicing watermelon, and grandpa groaning. Home was a baseball field.
It had been years since he had played baseball here, he realized. With his pack on his shoulders and his blue cap set comfortably on his head, he turned away from old Gerald Field and walked home. To a home, at least. It was one he had never been to since the boarding house was now closed. When that happened, his grandpa had moved himself and grandma into a comfortable apartment a few blocks east of the field itself. When he came to the old brick building Phil Shortman had chosen, he found himself smiling, the place his grandpa had chosen to live was enough like Sunset Arms to feel comforting to find. Not that he needed comfort, but there was something about the familiarity of it all, in the dark morning that put him at near perfect ease.
He had time to spare, but wanted a place to put down his heavy bag. Thankfully a set of keys had arrived in the mail for him in San Lorenzo, giving him the option now of shuffling through the lobby of the apartment building to his grandparents first-level apartment. A quick drop off just at the front door and he was back on the streets again, pleased with the ever-familiar chill of the city near dawn.
There were a select number of dwellers there, who didn't mark Arnold as anything out of the ordinary. This was both a relief and a mild heart break; it had been so long since he was home. His skin had tanned deeply, his yellow hair lightened. His once mild body had grown and he was as robustly built as his father was. His style hadn't much changed. He still had an affinity for plaid and the color blue. His shirt today was a blue plaid button up,
He parked himself on a bus bench to observe everything in his free time. He saw a skinny woman with a broken umbrella scuttling across the street, a construction worker with a mug of coffee in his hand, a teen in black with shaggy hair and chalky skin, looking morose and tired. He was exchanging an awkward smile with a passing elderly woman when he noticed someone pause a few feet away from the stop.
He looked briefly but leapt to his feet the next second because the young woman looking back at him, slack-jawed and pale, was the one person he was most anxious to see again.
She was a very tiny woman, having grown very little since he had last seen her and she had not been very tall to begin with. Her once boney body was still thin but she had filled in relatively well, enough so her body was reminiscent of that beautiful elder sister whose image floated in every male mind of Mr. Simmons class. Arnold was taken aback by this younger sister, who was now a strange reflection of the elementary bully who had once kissed him. Well, more than once. She stared at him from under a set of jet-black eyebrows, the single brow from her childhood face missing. In place was a blank space where permanent frown lines were already developing.
She was wearing a large brown coat that mostly covered the pale pink dress she was wearing. Her hair, tamed in a bun near the top of her head, was missing that pretty pink bow. That was the one fact that made him hesitate, because her hair void of the bow was like him missing his hat; she was not herself without it. He couldn't remember a time when it was missing. Before any lasting ache could set in a permanent way in his gut he caught sight of the pink of her rubber band that held her hair up. The color alone was pleasing.
"Helga?
Her grip on the bag slung across her body tightened and her nervous face startled. The expression softened then and she cocked her head to the side.
Her smile was unexpected and sad.
"Hey Arnold."
Under her eyes the violet bags were illuminated by the lights of the upcoming four a.m. bus. The glow set her awash in uncomely yellow shine which made her ugly and revealed to Arnold the chilly pallor of her skin. She looked sick and tired. He spotted her knuckles, bright red and bruised and bandaged in some places.
The bus came to a screeching halt and the doors swung open with a sluggish whimper. Helga moved quietly, her walk still like the gangly gait of her childhood. She paused briefly beside him.
"Bye." She almost whispered, her eyes hidden by her shadowed lids.
"Wait…" He followed her to the end of the sidewalk, where he stood, one awkward hand outstretched and gazed up at her.
She glanced at the bus driver, who returned her look with cool indifference.
"Where are you going?" Arnold's voice broke through the woman's nerves.
"Come with me." She said, surprised by her boldness, but feeling in her gut that this was the best thing to say. It showed on her face in a messy metamorphosis of shifting looks, from happy to confused, to mute guilt and fear.
It was no surprise to Arnold that he found himself taking her hand and then the steps to the bus had passed under his feet and it was though he had always intended to join her. She paid for his ride and in the nearly empty bus they took a middle seat, their hands clasped tightly.
She tried to be quiet when she left the bed that morning, moving as silently as she could manage. The man in the bed beside her did not stir and she was able to slip into the bathroom without pause. Once there she gave herself a good, hard look in the mirror. The blue eyes had purplish bags underneath them, the thick black brows were mussed, her lips were pale and puffy from sleep and her hair was a tangled web of tawny curls. She chewed her lip and her reflection mimicked her. In her few moments of alone time she took to combing her hair and trying to tame her wild brows. She smiled with the memory of a time when she didn't quite care if her face wasn't up to par, uni-brow and all, she had once been pleased to leave for school looking just as she did when she woke up.
It was different now.
Now, she spent an hour everyday preparing for her day. It was a tortuous routine, one which involved plucking the hairs that grew between her brows three times a week, and required a heavy bag of make up to enhance features she probably could care less about. She knew it was hardly worth it, Jimmy probably didn't give two shits about whether she looked pretty, what mattered was the inheritance of a Beeper Empire. So, if Helga G. Pataki had a funky uni-brow, untamable hair and a bulbous nose, it wouldn't make a difference.
But it was routine anyway. She felt like she owed him. Owed him because no other boy had ever asked her out before, not really, and he had taken her to prom and visited her in college and when she could no longer afford college, it was Jimmy who drove four and a half hours to pick her up and take her home. It was Jimmy who had taken her in when Miriam had died, one year after her dreams of college were squandered. She had been nineteen, working for her father as a half-price janitor for his company store. She wasn't pretty enough to be a saleswoman.
Jimmy had taken her in the night of the funeral, let her sleep in his bed and use his bathroom and kitchen. But the smell of it had taken months to leave her, the flowers and the alcohol. Maybe she had imagined it, but when she stood next to her mother's casket a pale cloud breathed free of the wooden confines and sank into Helga's own body. Tears everywhere and clutching her nose with both hands, she had to be led screaming from the service, where Jimmy found her outside of the funeral home hyperventilating. Without a word, he took her hand and led her to his car.
In exchange for it all she did this: plastered and plucked her flesh, straightened and tied back her strange hair and smiled every day. She was sure premature smile-lines were already appearing on her face. It lasted all day, even if one of her front teeth had a calcium stain, she could no longer seem to turn it off. She smiled at everything and everyone: at Bob when they passed each other in the Beeper Emporium, at the mop and bucket she used, at Jimmy across the table every night, at the T.V. and the laundry basket. She smiled when Phoebe called her from grad school, when the now-married Lila bumped into her at the super market, swollen with a baby and flashing her ever-so-expensive ring, when Gerald happened to be on the same bus as her late-night return bus every Sunday, because he was visiting his dad in the special home where he sent him. It was nice to talk to him then and sometimes they would get a bite to eat together.
She smiled when she went to write, but this was the only genuine smile. It was the kind, warm smile that softened her features and was void of any malice or tension. It was as rare as her true laughter.
It was a writing day that morning; a dark Sunday where she could slip out of the apartment and make a run for the bus stop. Once she had made herself up and dressed in the clothes she had set aside in the bathroom the night before, she snuck out of the quiet home. On the street were a handful of silent folk, it was too early for the Church crowd to even be awake, much less out, so the city was in a gentle hush.
Helga adjusted her bag over her shoulder and felt for the bump of her notebook. Content with its presence she started the three-block walk through the shimmery cool morning to the bus stop. Unaware of what may be waiting for her there.
It was unbelievable, the feeling of holding Arnold's hand. He was so changed, so much grown up. But it was still the boy with the cornflower hair. She looked back across her morning with an eye of shame, wishing she had done things different, done something prettier with her broomstick hair, and worn better makeup to hide the sleep sitting under her eyes. She wished that lipstick had found its way to her thin mouth; she wished she had taken her time shaving her legs, which now felt like a pair of cacti.
One kind look from Arnold and her thoughts stopped dead in their anxious tracks and she fell into the comforting pools of his eyes, clear and warm.
"Where are we going?" He asked.
"The lighthouse."
He smiled, but she knew he didn't know where that was.
"You'll like it, I think." She squeezed his hand softly. He returned the touch by squeezing back. She winced a little and he frowned.
"What happened?" He turned her hand in his to look. Close up he could see her skin was torn and scabbed and darkened by bruising.
"Uhm." She frowned a little. "Nothing really. I fell." She couldn't make eye contact with him and twisted her hand to hold his again.
"How was San Lorenzo?"
"Very warm." He couldn't help but smile at the memories, even with Helga's injury scratching his heart angrily. "How has home been?"
"Okay."
"Why are you back here? Gerald said you were at school?"
Helga didn't respond for a moment, thanking Gerald in her head for keeping his trap shut about her.
"I was, but I decided to drop out."
He was quiet.
The bus rumbled on through the growing light of the morning.
"You ever go to school?" She asked, when the silence became too much for her.
"I did a little, but it was a different world there… I got bored."
"I bet." She chuckled gently.
"Where are you now?"
"Working for Bob. I live with—…"
She cut herself off, because the truth was an answer she didn't want him to hear. So her voice just stopped while her heart thumped painfully in her throat.
"Helga,' He spoke after a tedious silence. "It's just Arnold. You don't need to hide things."
"You never met Jimmy." Her voice was low.
"Gerald told me about him." Arnold was a breath away from interrupting her. He had heard enough about Jimmy on the phone calls.
"We have an apartment not far from the emporium." She said.
Outside the colors of morning had overtaken the city and the bus was driving farther west, towards the ocean. Then north, for the lighthouse. Very little was said between them as the hours drifted by, but this was not a bad thing. Knowing someone as well as they knew each other made it easy for silence to make its way into the space between them.
"We're almost there." She spoke so suddenly she sent Arnold back in his seat. He had been drawing circles on her palm with his finger.
"Are you going to marry Jimmy?"
"Arnold..." The bus jerked and stilled. It had driven them to a quiet beach, the one where Helga had been when Miriam had died. She got the news late that night, smelling of sand and salt. "We haven't seen each other since we were kids, you and I…"
"I missed you." He sighed. "You never wrote." He was trying very hard to not sound accusatory, but the hurt as coming out in his voice, a bitter pang.
Helga had difficulty making her feet work and fumbled as they climbed off the bus. She tripped on the stair and was caught by Arnold, his arm slung around her waist to save her. They each flushed a little before looking away, and he took his arm back carefully.
The beach wasn't small. It was home in fact to a few beach houses that families purchased for summer time living. Now that autumn was nipping at their heels, the beach was abandoned, so the houses sat in tidy rows like a crowd of squatting children, dusty and sad looking. The water was a warm jade color and calm.
Arnold scanned the horizon ahead as Helga led him north through the sand.
"Where's the lighthouse?" He asked
She let go of his hand to reach up and guide his face to look with her hands. He tried to focus on where she was directing him to look, but the feeling of her small hands on his cheeks was like a dream he had been too nervous to wish for.
But he spotted it, behind some dunes and rippling foliage. It was a white, thin rhombus, with a blue-black cap on top.
"There it is." Her hands fell away. Their absence made Arnold uncomfortable. He reached for one to hold and this alleviated all discomfort
"Let's go then." He said and tried to grant her a genuine smile.
Her cheeks turned a rosy shade and she led him down the sea-side.