Window Watching
by Margaret Limone
Image: “Barnstorm” by Clarissa Cervantes
In the recent outpouring of information that has taken place, my mother revealed to me that there were two similar, yet distinct, notes in our elementary school student records. Both were written by our first-grade teacher, Ms. Bernard, and were explained with much gravity to our respective mothers.
In mine, the note read: “Natalie is reluctant to make friends or socialize with other students when around Nora. I recommend separate classroom placements going forward.”
In Nora’s: “Nora is often drawn into troublemaking when around Natalie. I recommend separate classroom placements going forward.”
Her word must have carried some weight at the Garden, as the community called our little elementary school, because we were never in a classroom together again. I don’t resent Ms. Bernard for her professional opinion, but I do wonder at the slight differences in her reasoning. In terms of shyness, I don’t think either one of us were particularly eager to talk to others when we were together. And yes, perhaps I egged Nora on, but we were partners in our troublemaking, always partners. What difference could Ms. Bernard have spotted between us from her far away, grown-up vantage point?
“Getting in trouble” at the Garden, or at least in first grade, the only year I ever really got into trouble, meant spending the first five minutes of recess standing against the exterior wall of our classroom watching the other kids play. Strictly one-time stints were rare, though not unheard of, and other faces appeared sporadically and unreliably throughout that year, kids without any real dedication to the art of tomfoolery. A select few, “The Wall Bunch” as we were known, could be expected there daily with some degree of certainty. This group was made up of myself, Nora, Will Thompson, David Mastic, and Owen Lee. Nora and I were almost always there for a shared reason: we got each other too riled up, we attempted some poorly (or well) planned scheme, or we were in one of our fights (she was my best friend in the world, but we fought ferociously, like feral cats, several times a week). As for the other miscreants, I don’t know if I ever cared to learn their rap sheets.
Our alliance was solidified by a deadly rivalry with the recess monitor, Mrs. Giacomelli, a large and unhappy woman, at least in my memory, who seemed to come to work each day with the sole objective of making our lives miserable. I had a theory that she was holding us hostage for longer than five minutes, and eventually I realized, after our “Clock” unit, that I could prove it by counting to sixty five times in a row. We put it to the test the next day, my first attempt at revolution, the boys and I chanting our way up to sixty while Nora held up her fingers to show the number of minutes, calling out the tally at each “sixty”. Mrs. Giacomelli didn’t say a word the whole time, gazing serenely at our frolicking classmates. When finally Nora bellowed out “five”, we all shrieked with barbaric delight, and were milliseconds from springing off the wall like competitive swimmers when Mrs. Giocamelli whirled around with her hand raised.
“Sorry,” she gloated, “You didn’t count ‘Mississippi’ after each number. You still have a little while left to go.”
That was my first failed revolution. An important learning experience.
That day, like all other days, our alliance ended the moment Mrs. Giocomelli pronounced our sentence over, Will and David running over to join kickball, Owen making a beeline for the swings, and Nora and I off to play whatever game of make-believe we’d invented that week.
Because of our membership in The Wall Bunch, we had no qualms about further cementing ourselves as outlaws. Using my hands as binoculars, I would scan the playground for vulnerable pieces of chalk, balls, or gym equipment others had claimed at the scheduled start of recess. We’d creep closer, huddle together as I laid out my plan, and then Nora would dash ahead and make a grab for it. We got away with it nearly half of the time.
When we grew a little older and were allowed, by some supreme oversight on the part of our parents, to wander the neighborhood unsupervised, we were worse than ever. I’m not sure whether it was the magic of childhood or something unique to our pairing (I believe it to be a bit of both), but we never failed to find some kind of adventure. I remember following the footprints of a hitherto undocumented beast all the way to the highway. Another time, after wandering into someone’s backyard hobby farm, I wondered aloud at the outcome if she opened the rabbit hutch and took one. She was unsuccessful in holding the rabbit longer than a second or two, but very successful in getting her entire forearm ripped open by razor sharp claws. Only moments after closing the hutch, the wrinkled property owner came hobbling out to shoo us away. No, we lied to him, no, we didn’t touch any of the animals. I had to shield her from his gaze as he watched us leave so he would not see the blood pooling in her clenched fist, dripping onto her dirty sneakers.
I don’t know if there was a single day, excluding the extenuating circumstances of holidays, illnesses, and visiting relatives, from first to fourth grade where we were not together. I remember her being livid when I returned from my two-week hiatus from school after getting my tonsils out.
“I don’t care,” she’d said when I tried to explain. “You shouldn’t be getting surgery without me.”
Besides being “Best Friends” in the stage of girlhood when “Best Friend” had the same importance as the relationship of “Mother” or “Self,” we fulfilled very important roles for each other. I was the schemer; she was the doer. My job was to figure out we could access the magical realm across the stream if you hopped only on certain stones with six pebbles in your pocket. Her job was to say: alright, let’s get some pebbles.
By the fourth grade, she believed in my stories perhaps more than I did, though I wanted to believe more than ever. I had reached the age of knowing, however much it pained me, that coming up with an interesting story didn’t make it true. Nora hadn’t quite gotten there yet. So, when we were together, I could spin whatever tale I wanted and have it be the truth, no matter how fantastical.
What we did both know by the end of fourth grade was that she was going to be moving to a new town before we reached the fifth. Knew, maybe, but did not believe.
Our last sleepover was at my house, just two days before her family was set to drive away forever. In those years, I was constantly cycling through several-month-long obsessions (the Oregon Trail, the Brothers Grimm, dog breeds, Medieval Times) about which I’d read every book I could get my hands on and then recycle my understanding into a backdrop for our games. Nora, the good sport she was, was always happy to hear me ramble. At this particular time, I was interested in dinosaurs, specifically the Dinotopia books by James Gurney. The weekend before I had spent a night at my cousin’s house, and we watched a movie rented from the library with the same name. I was disappointed by the lack of similarity in art style and plot, but supremely fascinated by the opening premise: a little boy escapes out the window of his bedroom one night, steals his way onto a boat, and finds himself washed up on the island of Dinotopia, where dinosaurs walk among men.
I decided to present this to Nora as fact.
“It was in a book I read,” I explained, “A real book, nonfiction. If you sneak out your window at night and go down to the docks there are boats that go by the island all the time. If we just jump into the water at the right time we can live there together. You won’t have to move away or go to a new school, because they have tons of empty huts you can live in and they assign you a dinosaur to be your friend. We can share bunk beds and train pterodactyls to fly us around.”
The idea was a hit. I brought out the Dinotopia book, my fingers tracing the illustrations like the captain of a ship with an atlas. We pored over the possibilities, what fun we would have living on our own together with pet dinosaurs. We’d miss our dogs and our parents, but we could come back to visit one day, probably. I almost got myself to believe it could happen as we shoved clothes and snacks into a backpack, made a list of everything we would need for our journey and new life. I knew, though, that the game would end when we pulled open the window and saw, oh man, the immovable screen blocking our escape.
“Oh man!” I said when Nora pushed the window open, go-bag slung over her shoulder. “I forgot about the screen! That’s the only way to do it too, since my mom would wake up if we went out the door.”
I frowned and shrugged. Oh well. Time to pull out the portable DVD player and watch The Rescuers again.
“Don’t worry,” Nora said. “We can just open the screen.”
“What?”
“We’ll just open the screen.”
“No, you can’t—”
But she had already done it. Squeezed the release latches and pushed it up and out of our way, a perfect square escape hatch into the night. Never, in my nine years of life, had I suspected that screens were not sealed to their frames.
“Come on, let’s go!”
“Wait—” I started to say, but she already had one foot on the ledge, hoisting herself up.
“Nora, hold on a sec!” She was crouched in the window giving no indication that she’d heard my warning. Then she was on the other side, squatting on the slanted roof outside my window, blinking at me through the darkness like some nocturnal animal.
“What’re you waiting for?” she said. “Let’s go!”
My head was swimming, cold fear pooling in my stomach. We’d gotten in trouble plenty of times before, but running away? My mom would kill me. Even if she came in right now and saw Nora there on the roof, I’d be dead meat. And it was dangerous too, wasn’t it? Two kids trying to climb off a roof, wandering the streets at night? We could break a bone, get hit by a car! Plus, and this was the worst of all, even if we did make it onto a ship somehow, we would never make it to an island I knew did not truly exist. My other lies had always been easier to play off as mere miscalculations: we must have done the ritual incorrectly, maybe they were the wrong kind of pebbles, perhaps the Dragon Trainer’s Academy was unimpressed by our grades. This would not be so easy. What would she think of me when we were two weeks into being stowaways and I had to explain that no, it would not be a good idea for us to jump overboard, because I was a liar and there was no island of dinosaurs waiting for us. I scrambled for an excuse.
“Wait, Nora,” I said breathlessly. “I just realized we can’t go tonight! If you run away while you’re staying at my house, my mom will get in huge trouble. It’s one thing if your own kid runs away, but if you lose someone else’s kid, you’ll go to jail.”
“You’re lying,” she said, more an expression of shock than an accusation.
“No, really! My mom would go to jail. We’ll have to do it another night.”
“When?” she demanded.
She was still out there on the roof and panic was clawing at my throat. She could fall off or my mom could walk in at any second. I just wanted her to come inside.
“Soon!” I said desperately. “Once you get to the new house, I’ll come get you! I’ll go to your bedroom window and tap on the glass and we can go then.”
“Promise?”
“Yes! Come back in.”
She leaned forward as if to move, but then stopped suddenly.
“Pinky promise?”
“What?”
“Do you pinky promise? That you’ll come for me and we can run away to Dinotopia and we’ll live there and play forever?”
I hesitated. Pinky promises were not to be taken lightly. That was the real deal. A pinky promise meant that if you broke your word, you were declaring contempt for the other person. A broken pinky promise was the end of a friendship, and an insult to everything that had ever been between you. My heart was caught in my throat.
Shivering in the darkness, my best friend Nora stared at me. A car whizzed by, headlights illuminating her for a moment, and then passing with a whoosh. She waited.
“I’m not coming back in unless you pinky promise. We have to do this.”
The message was clear: I am making my stand. I will not grow up. I have decided that we will remain girls together.
I stuck out my pinky.
Two days later Nora and her family moved. My promise hung heavy in the air during our goodbye. Their new house was in Woodridge, within driving distance, but far enough away that visits had to be planned in advance. A week after she left, my mom asked if I wanted to schedule a playdate soon. My unfulfilled promise returned to me like a toothache.
“No,” I said. “That’s okay. Not yet.”
The window mocked me each night. Most summers I moved my pillow to the opposite end of my bed so I could be closer to the fresh air coming through the screen, so I could hear the mourning dove and the chickadee when I rose. Not that summer. My window remained tightly shut despite the sweltering, stuffy heat. No matter how much my body ached to turn, I couldn’t sleep even facing that direction.
Several more times my mom asked me when she should schedule a playdate. She said Nora was asking about me. I gave the same answer each time. “Not yet.”
Finally, she demanded an explanation. “Okay, buster. What’s going on? Why don’t you want to see Nora? I thought she was your best friend.”
She thought, I inwardly scoffed. There were framed pictures of the two of us hanging in the living room. Of course we were best friends.
“Nothing’s going on. I just… I just need…”
“Some space?” she offered.
“Yeah. Space.”
Time was really more what I had been thinking. I needed time to collect my will. I knew Nora would have made the journey already, would have been waiting at my window within days, no matter the distance. Why couldn’t I?
I made new friends in fifth grade. They were much more like me, something my mom remarked upon with an approval that, for the first time in my nearly adolescent life, made me hate her. They didn’t just want to hear me talk about books, they actually read books. They were interested in history and reading and science and school, just like me. But they didn’t want to play. Not like Nora and I did. Not that I would have admitted to my new friends that that was what I wanted.
She wrote a letter to me that winter. I didn’t open it for several days. It sat on my dresser, and each time my gaze fell upon it, I was seized with that old sour-mouthed horror, the knowledge of my own betrayal and abandonment, of my broken pinky promise. When finally, I read it, I was surprised to find that it did not contain curses and admonitions, nothing to indicate the hatred I was sure she felt for me. Instead, she told me about her new school, her new room, the one friend she had made (my heart twisted with jealousy at this!), and how she missed me. She asked when I would visit. Only a tiny P.S. at the bottom referenced what I had spent countless hours trying not to think of. “I check my window every night,” it said.
I never answered her. I swear I meant to.
Middle school came, and what a horror that was, a thoroughly distracting horror. Coolness was not in the cards for me or my new friends, but we were consumed by the vital effort of not sinking to the level of the few really Weird kids in our grade. Girls were getting boyfriends. A few kids drank alcohol nicked from their parent’s cabinets. You had to do your hair the right way, dress the right way, care the right amount. You were dirty if you’d gotten your period and babyish if you hadn’t. Girls were cruel if you stuck out or if you tried to rise above your station. Survival was exhausting.
Somehow during that time, I mostly forgot about Nora. I think I had to. The added guilt would have killed me.
It was only a few weeks ago, as I was about to open an acceptance letter from some state school I couldn’t care less about, that her name came up again. My mom walked into the kitchen red-eyed and sniffling. I put the half-ripped envelope down.
“Do you remember that girl Nora McCurley? Your friend from elementary school?”
Cold dread washed over me. I wanted to give some flippant, cruel response, punish my mother for even daring to mention that name. But I couldn’t say a word. Something sharp was blocking my throat.
I can’t recall her exact phrasing, but I know she put it in an exceedingly delicate, roundabout way, as if afraid to reach her point. It didn’t matter though. I knew how it would end as soon as she began.
Nora and her friends had skipped school that day to go sledding. Their music was too loud, their car was going too fast, they didn’t have enough time to brake when they saw a felled tree in the road ahead of them. They were all pretty banged up, but Nora—the driver, of course—was in a coma. The doctors were doing everything they could, my mom assured me, but she said it in a way that betrayed inescapable defeat.
I’m half convinced this next part was a dream, my memory gets so hazy, but I think my mom then carried me up the stairs to my room. As if I were a weightless child fallen asleep in the car.
Nora did not wake up, though she stayed alive and fighting for several more days. My mom and I went to the funeral. There were pictures of her, big collages, and I was a little disconcerted to find that she had aged since our last sleepover. Her new friends sat in the second row, a few of them wrapped in gauze and bandages, and wept into each other’s arms. Mrs. McCurley pulled me into a big hug, and I think she might have asked me some questions about my life, but I can’t remember. I was just grateful that it was a closed casket.
I’ve been having some trouble sleeping since then. I fall asleep fine, but I wake up at odd hours and can’t get back. My gaze is always drawn to the window. Sometimes cars drive past, gliding patterns of light moving across my bedroom wall, and for a moment I think that they’ve illuminated some crouching form on the slanted rooftop. But then they whoosh on by and the empty night returns.
I wonder how long she kept watch for me out the window of her new bedroom, the one she wrote about but I never saw.
I wish I could tell her that I’ve taken up her vigil. The months are dwindling before I pack off for college, before I am left looking out at an entirely new landscape, but for now I’ll keep staring. The gray, almost starless, sky, the slender silhouettes of telephone poles, the sidewalk we used to garland with chalk, and the street lamps that illuminate the long row of houses, all the way to where she once lived. I am keeping my watch to make sure it all remains the same, so that when she returns for me, she’ll know the way. I don’t want to die anytime soon, really, but when I do, I hope she’ll be at my window, waiting to walk with me to the docks.
Margaret Limone (she/her) is a writer from New England. Recent stories can be found in MORIA, House of Long Shadows, and All Existing Literary Magazine. She can be contacted through her website: margaretlimone.com.
Clarissa Cervantes is a researcher and photographer. Clarissa's photo gallery includes images from all over the world, where she finds inspiration to share her photographs with others through her creative lens, inviting the viewer to question the present, look closer, explore more the array of emotions, and follow the sunlight towards a brighter future.