“You have nothing to worry about, kid.”
The phone rang and Mrs. Donovan said it would be a minute, so I followed the skunky smell up the stairs. Photos of my teacher and her husband crowded the wall; in one, they stood in the Grand Canyon, looking tan and impossibly young. I remembered Mrs. Donovan crying for him in class. With his big nose and bulky camera, Mr. Donovan didn’t look like a man who could inspire much passion, but I guessed that was how most people seemed when you weren’t the one who loved them.
I walked down a dark hall until I saw a room with a fish tank and lava lamp, which bubbled around like an angry fetus. Benny stood by the window, smoking a joint. He faced the neighbor’s house; the chimney sent puffs of smoke into the night air.
“Hey,” I said, and he turned to me as he fumbled with his joint.
“Jesus. I didn’t see you there.”
“Sorry. Your mom’s on the phone.”
“Right.”
“I don’t mean to be in your way.”
“No,” he said, grabbing my wrist. “Stay a minute.”
I came closer. I couldn’t see his scars, because he wore a turtleneck. Now that I thought about it, he always wore a turtleneck or a sweatshirt—it was cold now, but he couldn’t hide forever.
I said, “Can I be honest?” He nodded. “I couldn’t get past the first page of Swann’s Way.”
He laughed. “Me neither.”
“But I thought you said—”
“It made for a better story. I was too sedated to read much at the hospital. You know what I read? Comic books.”
“Oh,” I said.
He put out his joint and said, “This is a bad habit I’m trying to break.”
“We all have them.”
He brushed a strand of hair away from my face and said, “Not you, my dear.”
He put his other hand around my waist and pulled me toward him. He kissed me and kissed me. His tongue was warm and ashy. My bones were turning to liquid. It was nothing like being kissed by Koz, who was sloppy and eager to please. I cupped his face and that was when I felt them, the small cuts under his ears. They didn’t make me want to leave. I pulled down his turtleneck and ran my hands down his neck, feeling the rough, jagged skin underneath.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he said, pushing me away.
“I just wanted to see, that’s all. It’s not a big deal.”
“So somebody told you,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “It all makes sense now. What was this, some kind of bet?”
“It’s not like that. I just wanted to know if it was true.” He looked so hurt that I didn’t know what to do next. I tried conjuring the literary characters who’d instructed me over the years, but what popped into my head was Lily ranting in the hall. “If he wanted to date somebody who gave him head all the time, then he should get with a white girl.”
I pulled down his sweatpants, got on my knees, and put his dick in my mouth. It was tender and almost hard. He put his hands on my shoulders to push me away, but they just stayed there as I tried to bring him to life. He moaned softly, and I was surprised by how much he sounded like Koz when I touched him, all the world’s men reduced to the same boyish sound. But then he became completely limp and let out this strange, gurgling cry, and I pulled away. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just been so long.”
“A light-year,” I thought, though I still didn’t know what it meant. As I stepped into the hall, I remembered the pictures of his father.
“When did your dad die?” I said.
“Ten years ago,” he said. “Or maybe…” I walked away before I could hear the rest.
* * *
—
On the bus to states, Benny blandly wished me luck, like I could have been anybody. Anytime I tried to talk to him, his eyes just glazed over and he gave me an empty smile that shattered me. With my head against the window, my hoodie up, I read through some poems I had written the night before, and I decided they were crap. I was thinking of the crying sound Benny made in his room. What had I done? What was I hoping he could give me?
That year the championships were in East Orange. A patchy field of grass separated the track from the Parkway, where cars zoomed behind a wire fence. Koz took second in the boys’ mile, and the girls were called before I finished warming up. I got to the starting line and moved into the second row, behind Misty O’Farrell and her ponytail. Lito gave me a look like, “Are you nuts?” I shrugged. Why should I always be the one setting the pace? Let someone else do the work for once. I didn’t care about Lito. What worried me was that Benny wasn’t watching.
I took the first lap nice and easy. After the first 400, there were five girls in front of me. Benny wasn’t near the starting line. He was walking toward the Parkway. By the second lap, it was just me and Misty, that Irish waif. I was tired of watching her blond ponytail bobbing up and down like a halfhearted whip striking at nothing—I passed the dumb bitch. Then I did the stupid thing I always do: I searched for Papa in the stands. He was always asking if he could watch me run, but I’d always told him, “No, no, you’d just make me nervous.”
I was still ahead as the bell clanged at the final lap. I could still see Benny in the distance. He had almost reached the fence before the Parkway. I didn’t think he would try to climb it, but Koz’s story made it seem like nothing was off the table. Whatever he was doing was my fault. I ran off the track two straights from the finish. I ran past the coaches, past Koz, past the crowd, past the patches of icy grass, and past a few ducks, stopping just behind Benny. I tried to catch my breath. It came out white and dusty, like car exhaust. He wouldn’t look at me.
“I didn’t finish the race,” I said.
“Another mistake. But you’re young. You’ll make plenty more.” We watched the cars flying past us. He picked up a rock and lobbed it over the fence, just missing a truck.
“What’s the matter with you?”
“A lot. But you know that already. You had your fun, didn’t you?”
“I wasn’t just having fun. I liked you. You let me be who I am.”
“Just who you are right now. Don’t worry. It’ll pass.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I bet you are.”
More cars zipped by: two taxis, a small truck with a horse swinging its tail in the back, and a beat-up minivan with thick black tape over its back windows.
I saw Koz running up with a medal around his neck, looking pale and cold.
“Leave her the fuck alone, man,” he said, coming at Benny fast. I’d never seen the two of them standing together until then and didn’t realize how much bigger Koz was.
Benny held up his hands and said, “I’m trying.”
“Stop it,” I said, making an attempt to move between them. “It’s my fault. Please.”
“Too late,” Koz said. He cocked his arm, hesitated for a second when he saw the blank look on Benny’s face, and punched him anyway. Benny fell and moaned, covering his face. Koz stared at his hand, Benny’s blood dripping down his fingers.
“Are you coming with me or not, Calf?” He reached his mangled hand out to me.
Benny looked up, his face wrecked. “Why don’t you ever call her by her fucking name?” I looked at Benny and back at Koz.
“Shit,” I said, falling over my leg. “Fucking cramp.”
It was a cowardly move, I knew. Koz wasn’t buying it.
Benny said, “Here. Let me help you,” and he slammed his head against the fence one, two, three times, before we pulled him away, his forehead and cheeks streaked with blood and rust. I looked for an authority figure. I pictured Detective Olivia Benson from Law & Order coming to save the day. But it was just Coach Lito running up with his fists clenched at his sides, reeking of Jack.
“What the fuck?” he said, and a few coaches followed him and escorted Ben
ny to the bus.
Koz wouldn’t talk to me. I followed him to the bleachers, where the rest of the team was sitting. I watched him rubbing his hand and saw how badly I had messed everything up.
“At least put on a sweatshirt,” I said.
The Hawks ended up placing third—it would have been second if I had finished my race, and first if Koz hadn’t gotten DQ’d for punching Benny, though the coaches argued it wasn’t fair because all that happened after his race. Mrs. Donovan arrived in the Nissan Sentra as the team dragged our equipment onto the bus. Benny climbed out in a daze. He and his mother looked hunched over and old as they bucked the wind. I wanted to go up to them but I knew I would only make things worse, so I got on the bus and watched their car recede into the traffic.
* * *
—
Benny was in the hospital after that, first for his face, then for his mind. I knew I had ruined him enough and didn’t consider visiting, though I did spend the weekend standing outside Koz’s house, under his American flag. He wouldn’t answer the phone or the door.
By Monday, the entire school knew what had happened. Everyone went quiet anytime I turned down the hall. I walked by Mrs. Donovan’s room four times before I went in. I was afraid to ask about Benny, so I asked if we were still on for our last SAT session the next evening. Her face was pinched and stony, and I knew I shouldn’t have come.
“We’re done, kid. You’ll be fine without me. And I’ll be more than fine without you.”
“I’m so sorry.” I didn’t know how much she knew and didn’t want to find out.
“Yeah, yeah,” she said, returning to her quizzes.
* * *
—
Koz sat on the other side of the cafeteria, avoiding my gaze. I ate the chocolate chip cookies Lily stole, which were gooey and underbaked, just perfect. Lily and Vinay were memorizing the answers to Ferraro’s latest test, their lips moving silently. She kept glancing at me, but I just stared at Koz. She put an arm around me and said, “Damn girl, you must be hungry.”
“I’m fine,” I said, knowing I’d break down if she kept being nice.
“Suit yourself.”
Lunch was almost over, and now was my chance. I needed to get Koz’s attention. The teachers were already congregating by the exits. I climbed up on the table, nearly losing my balance. “What the—” Lily said, and I waited a beat until hundreds of eyes were on me. I even got the attention of “The IQ of 2 Crew,” Lily’s name for the cheerleaders and football players. The problem was, I had to say something. I hadn’t thought far ahead. Koz was looking in my direction at last.
“I want you to know,” I said, holding his gaze. He put down his sandwich. I tried to channel Benny, to think of what was going through his head when he jumped on the table in his dining hall and began cutting himself. But I didn’t have it in me. I saw it was a popular day for Lily’s hoodie, that dozens of kids wore the black sweatshirts with fire climbing up their chests. “I want you to know how proud I am of track and field. We got third in states!” I said. “Burn, baby, burn! The Hoover Hawks are on fire.”
I jumped down to tepid applause and I walked away fast. Just before the front lobby, I heard footsteps behind me. Koz was rubbing his bandaged hand.
“Nice job up there.”
“I’m sorry, Koz.”
“It’s too late for that. You made your choice on the field.”
“I guess I did,” I said, scuffing the floor with my sneaker. “I didn’t mean what I said about Carmine’s. You know I loved that place. The tortellini was amazing.”
“Tortellini? Do me a favor. When you get home, open the fucking windows. Tortellini,” he said again, shaking his head, and then he disappeared around the corner.
I passed Mr. Ferraro in the lobby. He was putting up another batch of NEVER FORGET posters around the 9/11 memorial. “Why not forget?” I wanted to say. “What good is it to remember?” I helped him put up the rest anyway. It didn’t take very long.
He stepped back to admire his handiwork. “What do you think?”
From the angle where I stood, it looked like his dead son was perched on his shoulder. I moved away from him. “I think you need to make up some new test questions,” I said.
* * *
—
My brother woke me up at dawn the day before the SAT. I kissed his forehead and wiped the sweat off his face. He hadn’t wet himself this time.
“Everything’s fine, rabbit. You were just having a bad dream.” I climbed into bed with him and stroked his hair.
“Sana? When will the dreams stop?”
“Soon, soon. You’ll see. Just go back to bed.”
“Will you stay with me?”
“Of course,” I said. “Of course I’ll stay.” Then something occurred to me. “How long is a light-year?”
“A light-year is a measure of distance, not time,” he recited.
“What does that mean?”
He shook his head and closed his eyes. He didn’t know everything.
Grisha ran in jagged circles in his cage, thinking he’d get fed because we were awake. I watched my brother close his eyes, wondering how much he remembered Papa, knowing that one day, Papa would be out of his dreams, that he wouldn’t remember a thing about him. I was devastated for him, but I also thought he’d be lucky to have his head forever cleared of someone he loved. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe he wouldn’t forget.
There was only an hour left before I had to get ready for school, and the sky was turning purple, the moon growing faint. The only house that was lit up belonged to Neel the piano maestro. Every morning, when I got up for school, I saw him finishing his routine, stretching his fingers. I opened the window as he began to play, though I was too far away to hear a thing, not that it would have made a difference. As the sun crawled up, his father pulled out of the garage, probably leaving for the city. He waved goodbye to his son, but the boy didn’t look up, not even once, because he was so determined to finish his song.
I.
“Congratulations,” Beeman said with a bow. “You are both free.”
Beeman was Delta Chi president, so he had the honor of unlocking the plastic handcuff that connected Kornberg and me after we each tipped our bottles of bubbly upside down, proving we had consumed our allotted share. I was Kornberg’s date to Champagne and Shackles only because an anorexic frosh named Stefanie with an F had bailed last minute, but I took what I could get. Our hands had been touching for so long that I was just about ready to combust. I thought I might explode right there, leaving Oksana particles all over the walls and ceiling and dirty couch.
“Not a moment too soon,” Kornberg said, shaking off the cuff.
“Man is born free,” I said. “Yet everywhere he is in plastic handcuffs.”
“I wouldn’t take it that far,” he said, but I had made him laugh.
A few of us were crammed on the leather couch at the Delta Chi house on Teaberry Lane, my home away from dorm for the last three years. Beeman was with Ellie, who lived two floors below Rachel and me in a Gothic clocktower, a place we fondly called the Cocktower. Ellie was a wild girl who had supposedly taken a dump in a fish tank one night freshman year. Frankie was with Becky, a freckled girl I didn’t trust because she didn’t drink and people called her “chill.”
I was decidedly not chill, particularly not that night, since I had snorted too much of the Adderall Frankie traded me for the sleeping pills I had swiped from Mama over spring break. My heart was already pounding, and Kornberg watching me with his hound’s eyes and sandy Pushkin hair made it worse, so I started telling a story about a guy I’d brought back to the Cock the night before.
“We already had our clothes off,” I said. “Coldplay was on. We were moments away from the act. He leans in and whispers in my ear—you know what he says? ‘You’re so sexy, Olivia.’ �
�
Beeman leaned in too close. “What did you do next?”
I shrugged. “What was I supposed to do? It was either tell him my real name and kick him out or finish what we started.”
“That’s awful,” Becky said. “I wouldn’t know what to do either.”
“Really?” Ellie said. “I would have kicked the fucker out. If you want to fuck me, you should at least know my name. It’s not like he needed to know your sign.”
“Did that really happen?” Kornberg said.
“Unfortunately,” I said. But he was shaking his head like he didn’t believe me; my story had failed to work its magic on him. I got up to regroup, kicking aside a bunch of plastic handcuffs on the way to the bathroom. I broke the seal and considered that I had been holding in my pee for so long and it had begun to hurt so much that it felt good to finally let it out, which was not unlike holding in my love for my date. I stared into the toilet for a long time but decided against puking.
The party had accelerated at an alarming rate in my absence. Three boxes of cheesy bread had materialized and a gaggle of freshman skanks were devouring it with abandon, hot melted cheese dripping into the cleavage of their lacy tops. Beeman was shooing a still-shackled happy couple off the rotting wood near the TV. Frankie was taking a hit from a tie-dye bong. Three seniors threw darts into a board with George Bush’s face on it. Macy the dog lapped up salsa near the back door. American Psycho was on, and we were at the part where a bloody Patrick Bateman chases a prostitute with a chainsaw.
Kornberg was talking to Ellie like he had never seen a blonde with a tiny nose ring and a spray tan before. The girl was frankly too hot to be there, but she had exhausted her options, so she had to pick off the low-hanging fruit at the frat house. She belonged not with girls like me but with the clan of put-together Duke girls who had pin-straight fake blond hair, wore real pearls and Lacoste polos, majored in public policy, and overstayed their welcome on the ellipticals. Korn caught me staring and even winked, that bastard, and then he took Ellie’s hand and led her up the stairs to his room.
Oksana, Behave! Page 9
