Traditional Gravity

by Stephen Armstrong

  I woke up easily on Wednesday. Meeting Samantha dramatically overshadowed Grandpa's wake in my mind. I emerged from my room to discover Jordan and Mom in the kitchen. She seemed to be in pretty good spirits, as she laughed at some stories Jordan told her about his church. I had no such tales to tell, and maintained minimal interest in the corner of the kitchen, consuming a modest breakfast of cereal and orange juice.

  A gunshot reverberated outside, startling me. I dropped my bowl of cereal to the floor and it shattered into a thousand pieces.

  "What the hell was that?" I exclaimed, before I could censor my surprise.

  Mom didn't call me on my language, maybe because I was twenty six now and had only uttered a mild profanity anyway.

  "That would be your father, shooting at the squirrels that come to our bird feeder," she answered, rolling her eyes.

  She grabbed some paper towels, handed me some and then bent down on the floor to clean up the spilled milk and cereal. Jordan assisted us as well, sweeping up the jagged, ceramic slivers from the floor with a broom.

  Another gunshot sounded. I glanced out the kitchen window. My father sat on the back porch with a .22 in his hand, while two or three gray squirrels clung tentatively to the trees beside the bird feeder.

  “Since when did Dad declare war against nature?" asked Jordan.

  "I think he's a little bored since he retired," my mom said.

  My dad raised the gun up to his eye as the squirrels crept closer to the feeder. Wasn't retirement supposed to be a high point of a person's life - the pinnacle of everything he had been building toward? Yet my dad spent his days taking shots at squirrels that dared to eat his bird seed and his nights chasing skunks in his truck.

  Ten minutes later we exited out the back door. Just for kicks, Jordan and I went by the porch where my dad continued to monitor the invasive rodents. A cup of coffee sat on the small table next to him.

  "What are you doing Dad?" asked Jordan.

  “Shooting at squirrels. These are supposed to be squirrel resistant bird feeders, but it doesn't seem to stop them."

  "Do you ever hit them?" I inquired.

  "Not yet. The idea is more to scare them away, which doesn't seem to be working too well either."

  As he said that, one of the interlopers peered around a maple tree at us. My dad did like to shoot at things, but I don't think he ever really wanted to hit them. Once, he actually came home from hunting with a deer. The mess was such a hassle, and the kill so abhorrent to his conscience, that the event never repeated itself. We always suspected that he was more careful after that year to never hit anything.

  He looked up at Jordan and me. "You guys want to take a shot?" He held the gun out for us to take.

  I hadn't fired a real gun in a long time, and that was for target practice. I took the gun and sighted one of the squirrels moving back toward the feeders. At the last second, I pulled the gun to the left as I took the shot. The bullet veered well away from the squirrel, though the blast did encourage it to head back behind the nearest tree.

  "You shoot like I do," noted my Dad. "How about you Jordan?"

  "No thanks, I'm good."

  “Suit yourself." Dad resumed drinking his coffee, and we boarded my car to pick up Samantha.

  "Where do you think Samantha should sit?" Jordan asked, once we had pulled out of our driveway.

  "Uh, I don't know - I guess the back, since she has shorter legs."

  "I was thinking that too, but then I thought that she might have a hard time talking to us if she sits in the back. So maybe I should sit in the back and she should sit next to you."

  "That's fine."

  "Unless you want me to drive-”

  "Will you stop? I'll drive, you'll sit in the back, and she'll sit in the front!"

  "Hey, I was just trying to make sure everything is right."

  I shook my head. Jordan didn't typically pay this much attention to minutiae. "Thank you for your concern. But it's not that big of a deal."

  "Okay, fine."

  "Can you even meet a girl I'm interested in without freaking out? No wonder you have no girlfriend," I muttered.

  Though Jordan's official reason for having no girlfriend was that he was waiting for God to reveal who he should marry, or something like that, I believed it had more to do with his lack of confidence around girls. To my knowledge, he had only been with one girl, and the relationship ended in a tangled mess emotionally and sexually. After that disaster, Jordan emerged with his resolution to "Wait on God”.

  Jordan said nothing in response. I felt like a jerk for taking a petty swipe at him. If he was still reeling from his last rejection, he didn't need me to twist a knife into the wound, even one that was so old.

  We spent the remaining few minutes in silence before we arrived at Samantha's house on Elm Street. Jordan began traveling down the same lane of memories I did the night before.

  "Hey, that's where we started our tennis careers," he said, pointing toward the Valley Street courts. "And I can't believe that thing is still standing!" He gestured toward the Victorian school house.

  I nodded to all of his statements, but had already been there and done that. Jordan got out of the car and surveyed the street. I stationed myself to meet Samantha near her front door. After a moment of waiting she emerged. I couldn't see my face, but I suspected it was beaming.

  "Good morning!" she said. Samantha dressed in a warm jacket and jeans again, as the temperature still hovered in the forties, and would barely make it into the fifties.

  "Good morning." I took her hand and walked her to the car. Jordan waited for us at the curb.

  "Samantha, this is my brother Jordan. Jordan, Samantha."

  "Nice to meet you Samantha." He extended his hand to her and she received it lightly.

  "Hi, nice to meet you too."

  I opened Samantha's door for her. She hesitated. "Are you sure you don't want to sit up front?" she asked Jordan.

  "No, that's fine. You should sit up front. When I sit there, Evan just says mean things to me. But he probably wouldn't say mean things to you." Jordan smiled at me. I glared back.

  "Were you being mean to your brother?" Samantha asked me, in mock horror.

  "Maybe a little," I admitted, helping her into the car, and then closing the door.

  I moved to the driver's side door and sat down.

  "You know, I had no idea my brother was such a gentleman!" exclaimed Jordan. He sat in the middle of the back seat and leaned forward so that he could physically assert himself into any conversation.

  Samantha concurred. "He is quite a gentleman, so far anyway. We'll see how long he'll keep it up."

  "Do you have any brothers or sisters?" Jordan asked Samantha.

  "I do have one sister. She lives near Buffalo now."

  I vaguely recalled knowing that Samantha had a younger sister, but her sibling was too young to occupy my field of view. Since Samantha seemed a little closed about her family in general, I had held off from asking her anymore questions on that subject.

  "Older or younger?" queried Jordan.

  "Younger - but only by one year."

  "Are you guys close?"

  "Yeah, we're pretty close. We still keep in touch pretty regularly. I think I would see her more if she lived somewhere besides Buffalo."

  "I know how you feel - sometimes I think about seeing Evan, but just can't bring myself to drive through Pennsylvania."

  I could see another anti-Pennsylvania salvo coming, so I warned both Jordan and Samantha, "Come on, let's not have any Pennsylvania bashing here."

  "He's so sensitive, isn't he?" Jordan looked to Samantha for agreement.

  "Only about Pennsylvania. He seems fairly confident about most other subjects."

  Samantha and Jordan kept a lively discussion going for the rest of the trip. They talked about growing up in Oleout Plains, teachers we all shared at school, and Samantha asked Jordan a reasonable number of questions about his life and our childhood. I was surpris
ed how easily he conversed with Samantha, since I had never seen him talk to any girls. Secretly, I wished he was a little more quiet and passive. Something familiar about the scene unfolding before me made me uneasy.

  Twenty minutes later we reached our destination. Oneonta was home to a few colleges, including the State university Samantha attended. Though the small city offered few choices for shopping, it did contain a mall that housed a JC Penney's. Many of my back to school clothes over the years originated from there.

  "What are you looking for - an entire suit, or just a dressy shirt and pants?" asked Jordan, as he started poking around the men's section.

  I shrugged. "I might as well get an entire suit since I'm here."

  Samantha began pulling selections off the rack for me. I hadn't explicitly asked her to help me pick out my clothes, but she was apparently committed to doing just that.

  "Do you know what size jacket you wear?" she asked.

  "Uh, not really."

  Samantha called a Men's Wear employee over to measure me. Jordan floated off to points unknown, which satisfied me - I wanted Samantha all to myself. Once we discovered my sizes, she picked out a matching black suit jacket and pants. I reached for a white dress shirt, but Samantha scolded me.

  "White is boring. And it makes you look like a waiter when you're not wearing your jacket." She searched for a different color. "Why don't you try this?" She showed me a gray shirt.

  "So white is boring, but gray isn't?"

  "I'm sorry - did you want fuchsia?"

  "No, I wanted white."

  "Just take the gray." She pressed the folded shirt into my chest.

  "What qualifications do you have to pick out clothes for people?" I asked sharply. "Maybe I should have asked you this sooner."

  "I have to look at you in it - isn't that enough?"

  Samantha thrust the rest of the clothes she held for me into my hands, then stood on her tip toes so she could kiss me lightly on the lips. She fell back to her heels and pushed me by the shoulders toward the dressing room. I didn't protest any further.

  I emerged from the dressing room and discovered that Jordan had rejoined Samantha. He and Samantha were laughing about something and didn't immediately notice me standing before them. The amusement from my previous exchange with Samantha abruptly evaporated, and my irritation toward Jordan ratcheted up a notch.

  “Shoes," said Jordan, unceremoniously handing me a pair of black leather shoes. “Size 11, right?"

  "And try this tie - I think it will look nice," said Samantha.

  I didn't even look at the tie or shoes before sullenly withdrawing to the dressing room.

  "Do you need help tying that?" asked Jordan as I walked away.

  "I'm fine." I abruptly disappeared into the changing room.

  When I came out, they weren't laughing, but still spoke demonstratively with each other. They did realize much sooner I was out of the dressing room, though not before a cold, quiet anger gripped me.

  "You look really good." Samantha took two steps toward me so she could straighten my tie. The affectionate way in which she moved her hands around my neck did not soften my steely gaze, or ease my stiff posture.

  "Yeah, I guess you look pretty good," Jordan admitted, looking me over. "Hey, I'm going down to the K-Mart to see if they still sell those Icees - remember those? You guys want anything?"

  I shook my head.

  "No thanks, I'm fine," answered Samantha, after considering my gaze for a moment.

  Jordan just gave us a quick wave and started walking to the K-Mart, which was at the other end of the mall. Good riddance. We approached the counter to pay, without talking to each other.

  "Are you okay?" Samantha asked after the clerk checked us out. We moved toward the entrance to the rest of the mall.

  "I'm fine."

  "You don't seem fine. Did I do or say something wrong?"

  "No. Everything is fine."

  "Evan, I'm not stupid. Something is obviously wrong. Does this have something to do with Jordan?"

  I shook my head, refusing to answer.

  Samantha stared me down. "I know this game Evan. You give me the silent treatment because I've offended you somehow. But then when I ask you what's wrong, you won't tell me."

  Samantha was right. She had clearly played this game before. It wasn't my first time either. I used this tactic to inflict damage in all of my previous relationships.

  "I have no interest in playing, so if you don't want to talk, maybe you should take me home now."

  I stopped in my tracks and attempted to determine if Samantha was serious.

  When I didn't answer, she pulled out her cell. "Maybe I should just ask my Aunt to pick me up now. Obviously, this was a mistake." Samantha headed for the exit.

  “Slow down a minute. You're overreacting - it's nothing," I protested.

  Samantha continued to move to the door. I couldn't believe how confrontational she was being. She rapidly made her way to the door, forcing me to make some immediate moves to salvage our fledgling relationship.

  I sighed. "You were right. This was about you and Jordan. I just got jealous of you guys for a minute."

  She stopped in her tracks. "Why?"

  Samantha appeared as though she might get really angry, defensive, or a combination of both.

  "I know. It's stupid. Don't worry about it. You didn't do anything wrong. It was all me."

  My total apology assuaged whatever arguments Samantha was going to make, but she was still upset. "But why - I don't understand? Are you always jealous of your brother?"

  Not when it came to girls. That was the one area where I claimed complete supremacy. However, that conviction had crumbled in the last hour, as I watched Samantha interact with him the same way he did with my mom and the rest of my family.

  We stood in the middle of the main concourse of the little mall, and looked a little conspicuous. I led Samantha to a vacant bench a few strides away from us and sat her down, so I could explain my reaction to her.

  "It wasn't about you, it was about me. And Jordan. And the way it's been in our family for the last ten years or so. Jordan is kind of the golden boy in my family."

  "You think he's the favorite?"

  "My parents would never say that, but I know he is."

  "How do you know?"

  "I can just tell by the way that everyone in my family lights up when he's around. I mean, I know they love me too, but he's everything that they want..." I trailed off.

  "And you're not?" she asked.

  I shook my head. "Not like he is. So when I saw how you guys were hitting it off, I just had this gigantic moment of insecurity, like you would end up being like my parents, and prefer him over me."

  She looked at me tentatively. I doubted whether we could move past the moment, so I tried harder, effectively prostrating myself in front of her.

  "I know I made things really awkward, and you didn't deserve this on your day off. Can you forgive me?"

  Samantha smiled. "That's just silly!"

  I wasn't sure what she called silly - me, my complete apology, or whether she would choose to forgive me. At least her smile encouraged me.

  "What's silly?"

  "That I would meet Jordan today and suddenly forget all about you."

  "Well, we've only known each other for three days really," I pointed out.

  "We go back further than that."

  "You mean, the year and a half that I silently stalked you?"

  "Yeah. You can't buy that kind of history, or erase it in one conversation."

  I laughed. "No, I guess not."

  Jordan had finished his errand, and presently walked toward us sipping an Icee. I saw him first and Samantha followed my gaze to him. She turned back to me, while he was still out of earshot.

  "I definitely prefer you." She leaned in close to me, ostensibly so I could kiss her. "At least for this week."

  I smiled at her and kissed her affectionately, satisfied at how quickly we had
resolved our first conflict.

  "I really do love these things!" said Jordan. He seemed completely oblivious to the trouble he had caused.

  "Isn't it a little early to be drinking one of them?" I asked critically.

  "But I'm not sure if they're better than a Slurpee. You guys ever been to 7-11?"

  "Yes - Slurpees are better. Let's go." I directed.

  Jordan took another sip. "Hmm...I'm not sure."

  I felt much calmer on the way home. Jordan continued his friendly banter with Samantha, though she was more conscious to keep me engaged in the conversation. She did tease me covertly a few times for my jealousy, but it only made me like her more. We stopped off for food on the way back; I wanted to extend my time with Samantha as much as possible. I was disappointed when we made it back to Oleout Plains.

  "It was nice to meet you," Jordan said, as Samantha left the car.

  She smiled demurely. "Likewise."

  I walked with her to the door. Jordan crossed the street to examine the old school house. That gave us a few minutes to talk on her front step.

  "Thanks for coming; I appreciated your assistance with my wardrobe selection."

  "I had fun and I learned a lot today." She gently placed her arms around my neck.

  "Sorry for my childish insecurities," I apologized again, fearing that was part of what she had learned.

  "No, it's all right. Between you and me I always thought my parents liked my sister better - she was the baby; but I'm over that now."

  "That's good."

  Since Jordan was still investigating the abandoned school I seized the extra moment of privacy to kiss her. She returned my action with equal passion. When we pulled back from one another, she glanced down at the ground.

  "How many more days will you be here?" she asked.

  "Four more days after today," I answered, after counting them off on my fingers.

  "Any chance of seeing you tonight?"

  I breathed out. "Probably not. The wake is in the evening, and I don't think I can sneak away from that. And tomorrow will probably be a lost day too, since it's the funeral. I shouldn't go on a date the same day as my grandfather's funeral, should I?"

  "Probably not."

  "But there's Friday, though I'll have to go to my parent's Good Friday service that night. I don't think there's anything on Saturday."

  “Saturday sounds like it will be a nice day," Samantha commented softly. "What about Sunday?"

  "Well, that's Easter. And my family has Easter dinner together, but maybe after that, before-” I stopped my sentence there.

  She finished it. "Before you leave for Pennsylvania."

  Pennsylvania had never seemed a less desirable destination than now. It loomed off in the distance, an inevitable reality like death and taxes. My rising level of attachment to Samantha startled me.

  "I better get Jordan home before my mom starts to wonder where we are. She'll probably need our help eventually today."

  We kissed one last time before we parted. I went to collect Jordan from across the street, meditating on this unexpected relationship I had stumbled into. Our connection felt stronger than the time we had known each other warranted. I hoped our bond was built on true substance, and that we weren’t just acting out a delayed, ill-fated high school romance that was destined to flame out as rapidly as it had begun. In the end, I resolved not to worry about the timing too much. I would ride out this relationship, and let it carry me wherever it could. If it ended in four days, then I would do my best to enjoy the time that I had.

  Jordan completed a circuit around the school house.

  "I would love to go inside this place and see what it's like inside,"

  "It's filled with crap, let's go," I beckoned, stifling his desire to explore, even though I was interested too. We walked to the car.

  "She's really nice Evan - I like her."

  "I'm glad you approve."

  "Well, I don't know her well enough to approve of her, but she seems cool."

  "Yeah, you guys really hit it off," I said.

  "And you thought I couldn't talk to girls!"

  For a minute, I suspected he intentionally got along well with Samantha to punish me for saying that he couldn't talk to girls. That seemed like too nefarious of an intention to ascribe to Jordan, so I concluded he acted innocently.

  "Whatever. You only talked to her because you knew she was taken. Let's get home - Mom is probably waiting for us."

  "You never mentioned Samantha was a redhead before," said Jordan, after we had driven a few minutes away from her house.

  "You never asked. Anyway, you saw her picture."

  "It was black and white. I couldn't tell."

  "I would say her hair is more auburn."

  "Isn't that just another way to say red?"

  "And why is this relevant?"

  "Wendy was a redhead."

  "And?"

  "Just noticing, that's all."

  "You're so annoying!" We both knew he wasn't 'just noticing'.

  "Fine, I'll be quiet now."

  For the rest of the ride home, Jordan kept his word.