the models, how they’re broken and it’s his job to repair them. One right piece, I think, and everything will turn good, like the soldiers dropping their guns on the battlefield. Just one piece. But what is it?
Then Bradley looks up. Maybe he felt me watching him. He doesn’t say a thing, we just look at each other a long time, neither one of us moving. Fire lights his face and makes his eyes look hollow. The only sound is wood cracking in the fire.
I rise halfway to my feet and jump. I stay calm until the second my shoes leave the branch and I see the bonfire coming at me like a giant orange mouth. People are screaming. I hear the crash I make, and there’s wild, rippling heat in my hair and clothes. Then I’m on the beach, rolled and pounded by a weight that is Bradley, pushing me into the cool sand, smothering flames with his body.
Everyone tells the story, how he pulled me out so fast the fire barely touched me. Like he knew I would fall, and was waiting to catch me.
“A premonition,” Peggy calls it, narrowing her eyes with respect.
“Reflexes,” Dad insists.
Bradley’s stomach got scorched. Not badly enough for the skin to be grafted, but red and blistered where he put out the flames in my clothes. At Lakeside Memorial Hospital they wrapped him in white bandages and told him to rest. They said the scars might last. I think Bradley hopes so.
My hair got burned, nothing else. It’s short now, and when I lie in bed at night, I think I can still smell the smoke in it.
Bradley has to stay in bed. I sit in a chair right near him. We don’t say much. It’s peaceful in his room, with the cars and planes and trucks twisting quietly over our heads.
“What’ll you make next?” I ask him.
He looks up, taking in all the years of projects. “I might quit for a while,” he says. “Try something new.”
“A stunt?”
“That’s old,” he says.
I glance at the door and see Dad watching us, holding a deck of cards. I realize Bradley’s talking to Dad more than me.
I have the oddest feeling then. I feel like our mother is there, like the four of us are together again in that room for the first time in years. As Dad deals out the hands, I see her, like she’s sitting beside me: her dark waves of hair, the thin gold coin she wore around her neck, her cigarettes that smelled like mint. I remember her warm hands and sliver of wedding ring.
What I notice most, though, is how different I look. My hair is pale and straight. My skin is darker than hers, and a little shiny. I have freckles on my arms, and when I try to sing, I hit every wrong note.
I lean over to say this to Bradley. You were wrong, I want to tell him, you imagined that part. But there’s a peacefulness in his face that I haven’t seen since before the accident. He feels her, too, I think, and he knows she’s not inside me. She’s gone forever. But she would want us to be happy.
THE WATCH TRICK
Sonny drove his boat straight into the middle of the lake and cut the engine. They rocked in silence, the deep, prickling hush of a Midwestern summer. The lake was flat as a rug, pushed against a wall of pale sky.
The four of them were celebrating Sonny’s engagement to Billie, a girl with soft hair and a Southern accent. She kept to herself, leaning back in a chair with her legs propped on the rail. She had met Sonny the week before, at a party before her own wedding to someone else. This turn of events would have been more shocking in some lives than it was in Sonny’s; he was a man who lived by his own egregiousness, who charmed, offended, and was talked about at other people’s dinner parties. Stealing a bride was right up his alley.
Diana watched Sonny measure, shake, and pour martinis withthe ease of a cardsharp shuffling. She was forty-two, with a worn, pretty face. Her husband, James, sat beside her, looking amused. He and Sonny had been best friends since the army. James leaned back and looked from Sonny to his bride. “So tell
Then Bradley looks up. Maybe he felt me watching him. He doesn’t say a thing, we just look at each other a long time, neither one of us moving. Fire lights his face and makes his eyes look hollow. The only sound is wood cracking in the fire.
I rise halfway to my feet and jump. I stay calm until the second my shoes leave the branch and I see the bonfire coming at me like a giant orange mouth. People are screaming. I hear the crash I make, and there’s wild, rippling heat in my hair and clothes. Then I’m on the beach, rolled and pounded by a weight that is Bradley, pushing me into the cool sand, smothering flames with his body.
Everyone tells the story, how he pulled me out so fast the fire barely touched me. Like he knew I would fall, and was waiting to catch me.
“A premonition,” Peggy calls it, narrowing her eyes with respect.
“Reflexes,” Dad insists.
Bradley’s stomach got scorched. Not badly enough for the skin to be grafted, but red and blistered where he put out the flames in my clothes. At Lakeside Memorial Hospital they wrapped him in white bandages and told him to rest. They said the scars might last. I think Bradley hopes so.
My hair got burned, nothing else. It’s short now, and when I lie in bed at night, I think I can still smell the smoke in it.
Bradley has to stay in bed. I sit in a chair right near him. We don’t say much. It’s peaceful in his room, with the cars and planes and trucks twisting quietly over our heads.
“What’ll you make next?” I ask him.
He looks up, taking in all the years of projects. “I might quit for a while,” he says. “Try something new.”
“A stunt?”
“That’s old,” he says.
I glance at the door and see Dad watching us, holding a deck of cards. I realize Bradley’s talking to Dad more than me.
I have the oddest feeling then. I feel like our mother is there, like the four of us are together again in that room for the first time in years. As Dad deals out the hands, I see her, like she’s sitting beside me: her dark waves of hair, the thin gold coin she wore around her neck, her cigarettes that smelled like mint. I remember her warm hands and sliver of wedding ring.
What I notice most, though, is how different I look. My hair is pale and straight. My skin is darker than hers, and a little shiny. I have freckles on my arms, and when I try to sing, I hit every wrong note.
I lean over to say this to Bradley. You were wrong, I want to tell him, you imagined that part. But there’s a peacefulness in his face that I haven’t seen since before the accident. He feels her, too, I think, and he knows she’s not inside me. She’s gone forever. But she would want us to be happy.
THE WATCH TRICK
Sonny drove his boat straight into the middle of the lake and cut the engine. They rocked in silence, the deep, prickling hush of a Midwestern summer. The lake was flat as a rug, pushed against a wall of pale sky.
The four of them were celebrating Sonny’s engagement to Billie, a girl with soft hair and a Southern accent. She kept to herself, leaning back in a chair with her legs propped on the rail. She had met Sonny the week before, at a party before her own wedding to someone else. This turn of events would have been more shocking in some lives than it was in Sonny’s; he was a man who lived by his own egregiousness, who charmed, offended, and was talked about at other people’s dinner parties. Stealing a bride was right up his alley.
Diana watched Sonny measure, shake, and pour martinis withthe ease of a cardsharp shuffling. She was forty-two, with a worn, pretty face. Her husband, James, sat beside her, looking amused. He and Sonny had been best friends since the army. James leaned back and looked from Sonny to his bride. “So tell
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