Action Figures - Issue Four: Cruel Summer

by Michael C Bailey

  “She didn’t do anything, Mom! Why are you assuming Sara did something wrong? Her father’s going apehouse on her for no good reason and he threw me out because he didn’t want me to see him chewing her out! Why did I let him throw me out? Sara needed me and I left her!”

  Mom is on me in an instant, hugging me as the shock is replaced by red-hot anger and a sense of self-loathing so powerful it makes me sick to my stomach. I abandoned my best friend. Sara needed me, more than she ever needed anyone, and I abandoned her.

  I suck so much.

  “Carrie. Honey. Look at me. What happened?”

  Before I can tell her, someone pounds on the door. I break free from my mother. I know who it is — before I throw open the door, I know who will be standing there.

  Sara, her face a furious red, sobs my name and throws herself into my arms. We fall to our knees, still entwined, Sara wailing incoherently. I want to tell her it’s okay, I’m here, I won’t leave her again, but I can’t speak any more than she can. We’re nothing but raw anguish and naked pain. I don’t know how much of it is hers and how much is mine.

  Mom, God bless her, keeps it together. She helps us to our feet, guides us to the couch. Sara never lets go of me. I won’t let her.

  “Carrie,” Mom says.

  “Sara, she...” Sara nods her consent to me. “Sara came out to her father. He...he didn’t take it well.”

  “Oh. Oh, Sara, honey. Sara, I’m so sorry.” Mom sits with us, lays her arm across Sara’s shoulders.

  In between racking sobs, Sara tells us what her father said after I left. Some of it...my God, some of it is absolutely vile. How can anyone say such things to their own daughter?

  Out of nowhere, a serenity falls over my mother’s face. I know that look. Mom’s been angry at me plenty of times, but the only time it ever scares me is on those mercifully rare occasions when she redlines — occasions like this, when her temper builds to critical mass, and all it takes is one last tiny push to send her over the edge. This is the calm before a ten-megaton crapstorm. If something sets her off now, she’d make Krakatoa look like a campfire.

  Another pounding at the door. Mom gets up and crosses the living room to answer it, and I reflexively dig my fingernails into Sara’s back as a gut-wrenching thought hits me: Sara’s in my house now — Sara, who has a homicidal maniac stalking her.

  Before I can shout out a warning, Mom opens the door. A figure charges in, shoving past her. My hands burn, cosmic energy building to release, ready to incinerate the intruder.

  “I thought I’d find you here,” Mr. Danvers snarls. “Young lady, you better —”

  Mom jumps in front of Mr. Danvers. “Get the hell out of my house!”

  “I’m not leaving without Sara.”

  “Oh, yes you are. She’s staying here tonight. In fact, she’s staying here as long as she needs to, because there is no way I’m letting you near her until you pull your head out of your ass.”

  Mr. Danvers reacts as if Mom slapped him (which, for the record, I want her to. God, do I want her to paste him).

  “Sara is my daughter,” he growls.

  “That didn’t stop you from calling her a filthy dyke, did it? She told us what you said to her,” Mom says, her hands balling into small, bony fists.

  “I’ll call the police,” Mr. Danvers says.

  Mom calls his bluff. “Go ahead. Call the police. Call them and tell them how you invaded my home because you weren’t done verbally abusing your child. See whose side they take.”

  Mr. Danvers is a physically imposing man. He’s six-two, clears two hundred pounds (more in flab than in muscle, but still), and his face looks most comfortable when it’s set in a squinty-eyed grimace. My mother, by comparison, could wear him like a suit.

  My mother, however, is royally pissed off.

  Advantage: Christina Hauser.

  “Last time. Get out of my house,” Mom says.

  Mr. Danvers is the first to blink. He backs away, throws his hands up in disgust, and storms off. Mom very calmly shuts and locks the door behind him.

  “I’m going to get an extra pillow and a blanket for you,” Mom says to Sara. Before she heads upstairs to grab the linens, Mom kneels down in front of her and places a hand on her cheek. “You’re safe here.”

  “No,” Sara whimpers in my ear, “I’m not.”

  ELEVEN

  I awake with a start, my heart racing, as though escaping a nightmare, but whatever was running through my sleeping brain vanishes as soon as I open my eyes, as dreams so often do.

  My neck groans in pain, the muscles tight and stiff all the way into my right shoulder. I glance down. Sara is out like a light, her head in my lap, right where she left it after crying herself to sleep last night. I’m surprised she was able to sleep at all, but yesterday was an exhausting day, physically and emotionally. Definitely emotionally.

  As I sit there wondering how I might extract myself without disturbing Sara, her eyes snap open. She blinks, lifts her head, looks around, momentarily bewildered by her unfamiliar surroundings.

  “Oh,” she says. “Right.”

  “Hey,” I say.

  “Hey,” she says after a moment.

  “You sleep all right?”

  Sara shakes her head. “Had dreams. Lot of them. Bad ones.” She looks up at me. “Did you sit here with me all night?”

  “Yeah.” She nods, a silent thank you. “How about some coffee?”

  “Mm. Yeah. I guess.”

  She sits up to let me up. I head into the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee. She follows me in a few minutes later, hugging herself, her eyes in the floor.

  “Want anything to eat? We have strawberry Pop-Tarts. I think there are some bagels somewhere.”

  “Not hungry.”

  “If you change your mind,” I say. An awkward silence settles between us. I have questions — of course I have questions, but indulging my curiosity would be such a selfish thing.

  “I’m sorry I never told you,” Sara says. “I was scared you’d, I don’t know...”

  “That I’d freak out that you were a lesbian.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You know me better than that.”

  She finally makes eye contact. “Everyone says they’re open-minded about that stuff until it’s actually staring them in the face.”

  “You’re not wrong,” I say, “but it doesn’t matter to me. You’re my best friend. You’re my sister. I love you.”

  Her face pinches, like she’s going to start crying again. She inhales, exhales, and it passes.

  I pour her a cup of coffee, loading it up with cream and sprinkling in a pinch of sugar like she likes it, and I hand her the mug.

  “Thank you,” she says. “You can go ahead and ask. I know you want to.”

  “It’s none of my business.”

  “You’re still curious.”

  “I never saw it, is all,” I say. “I mean, all those Johnny Depp posters in your bedroom...”

  “They’re not Johnny Depp posters; they’re Pirates of the Caribbean posters. You know I love those movies.” She shrugs. “If anything, I have a huge crush on Keira Knightley.”

  “Your collection of Johnny Depp movies...?”

  “Tim Burton movies,” Sara corrects. “Johnny Depp just happens to be in, like, all of them.”

  “What about all those times you gave Astrid the stink-eye whenever Matt got all googly over her? That looked like straight-up jealousy to me.”

  “It wasn’t jealousy, Carrie. I don’t like the woman.”

  I sigh. “I feel like the biggest idiot in the world.”

  “Don’t. I didn’t exactly broadcast it.”

  Unless you count all those times you made it extremely clear you had absolutely no interest whatsoever in Matt — in which case you made your feelings abundantly clear, and I was too blind (or worse, too fixated on playing the clever little matchmaker) to see it.

  I repeat: biggest idiot in the world.

  Mom
shuffles into the kitchen with a yawn. “Morning, girls. Did you sleep all right?” she asks Sara.

  “Okay,” Sara lies.

  “Good. I want you to stay home today. Here, that is. I think you need a day to decompress.”

  “That’s very kind of you, Ms. Hauser, but I don’t want —”

  “This isn’t up for discussion,” Mom says. Sara, her eyes shining with tears, nods. “The shower’s free if you want it.”

  Sara nods again then trudges upstairs.

  “Thank you,” I say. “Do you want me to stay too?”

  “No, you should go to school and let her friends know what’s going on. I’ll stay with her. She needs to know there’s at least one adult in the world who’s on her side.”

  I suppress a surge of panic. The King of Pain is still on the loose. I don’t relish the thought of my mother getting caught in the crossfire, but my worry gives way to a flash of inspiration.

  “Mom, Sara’s been seeing a therapist — Dr. Connors, I think his name is? Maybe you should give him a call, let him know what’s going on?”

  “I’ll do that later this morning. Go on, get ready for school.” Mom smiles at me. “I’ll take care of her. I promise.”

  I try to smile back. I fail.

  Before I leave the house, I ask Sara again about my idea for keeping track of her. She hesitates, more out of concern for me than for herself, but agrees to it.

  I step outside, my head buzzing, and I can’t help but scan the neighborhood. I look for anything that seems out of place — an unfamiliar car, a front walk missing its morning newspaper, an abnormally large cat prowling the area, anything. Everything seems perfectly normal.

  As I approach Sara’s house, a familiar voice pops into my head. Carrie, it’s Bart. I assume Sara got home all right?

  Yeah, she got home fine, but she didn’t stay there, I say as I pass a van parked along the curb opposite Sara’s house — the Protectorate’s all-purpose undercover civilian vehicle. The last time I saw it, it was disguised as transportation for a youth peer counseling group. Today, it’s masquerading as a service van from the cable company.

  What do you mean?

  She’s at my house, down the road.

  At your house? Why didn’t you call that in? Bart snaps, and he’s totally justified in biting my head off; the Protectorate’s been watching the wrong house all night.

  I’m sorry. You’re right, I should have reported in, but everything happened so fast...Sara’s father went ballistic on her and she ran out.

  What? What happened with her father?

  You’ll find out soon enough. My mom should be calling you any minute.

  Are you all right? Bart asks. You feel...off.

  I’m exhausted, that’s all.

  The conversation ends there, abruptly, and I continue on to school, where my first duty is to inform the others what’s happened (sans Sara’s big reveal). They sense the evasiveness on my part, but Stuart and Missy wisely assume that I have my reasons and don’t push. Matt, however...

  “What aren’t you telling us?” he says.

  “Something that isn’t for me to tell you.” Matt scowls at me. “Matt, please. I know you’re worried about her, but you need to leave it alone.”

  “Sara’s my friend.” The way he says it is so laden with subtext it’s practically supertext.

  Time to manipulate Matt’s emotions again. It’s a crappy thing to do, but the last thing Sara needs is another confrontation.

  “Then give her some space.” I say. “Respect her feelings. That’s what friends do, right?”

  His expression softens. “Right. Yeah. Okay. But you’ll let me know —”

  “If she needs anything, you’ll be the first person I tell. Promise.”

  That satisfies him, for the present.

  The gang breaks and Malcolm, who has been waiting patiently on the sidelines, saunters up to me. “You didn’t have to hang back,” I say.

  “It looked like you were in the middle of a serious confab,” Malcolm says, “and considering I didn’t see Sara anywhere...she still having problems with her dad?”

  “Yeah, and it’s gotten worse. A lot worse,” I say as a surge of intense emotion floods into me: fear, sadness, anger, with a ribbon of self-pity tying the ugly little package together.

  Malcolm’s gotten to know me well enough to know when to say something and when to say nothing. This is a nothing moment. He takes me in his arms and holds me and stays quiet.

  “I’m sorry I’ve been such a mess lately,” I say. “Sometimes I don’t know how you put up with me.”

  “I don’t put up with you, Carrie. I love you.”

  He says it so casually, like he says it to me all the time. It takes my emotion-addled brain a few seconds to realize what just happened. I clutch Malcolm to me. I don’t want to let him go. Ever.

  “I love you too,” I say, and I feel my own words filling me, dispelling the heavy fog of misery that’s haunted me for so long I’d forgotten what it was like to feel like this. To feel happy.

  Please, God, let it last.

  “Mrs. Danvers, hello,” Bart says. Mrs. Danvers does not reply, does not so much as glance at him as she scurries by, her head bowed, a hand clamped over her mouth. He pauses at the base of the Hausers’ front porch, awash in Mrs. Danvers’ contrail of roiling emotion — a mix of remorse, helplessness, self-loathing.

  Bart knocks. He can’t help but cast a cautious glance over his shoulder. Christina Hauser flings the door open, her features hard.

  “Oh,” she says. “Dr. Connors?”

  “Call me Bart. Yes, hello,” he says, extending a hand. “Ms. Hauser?”

  “Christina, please. Come in.” She ushers Bart into the living room, where Sara, her eyes red and wet with fresh tears, sits in a ball in the corner of the couch.

  “I passed Mrs. Danvers on the walkway,” Bart says by way of making a gentle inquiry.

  “She wanted to take Sara home.”

  “And you objected.”

  “Vocally.” Bart raises an eyebrow. “The woman let her husband heap abuse on their daughter and didn’t step in to stop it. She let it happen. I’m not letting Sara go back to that. No way.”

  Bart nods — approvingly, Christina fancies.

  “I’m sorry, I’m forgetting my manners. Can I get you anything? Some coffee, cup of tea? I just put the kettle on for Sara...”

  “Some tea would be lovely, thank you,” Bart says, “and I don’t mean to be rude, but I will need to ask you to give us some privacy.”

  “No, no, I understand completely.”

  Bart sits on the couch, at a respectful distance. “How are you?”

  Sara’s eyes flick up. “Stupid question.”

  “The first question is always stupid. I like to get it out of the way. Tell me what happened.”

  Sara hugs her knees to her chest. The words come slowly. “I told my dad. Told him I was...I didn’t mean to. Not like that.” Sara the ball shrinks further into the couch cushions. “I told him I was a lesbian.”

  “I see.”

  Christina interrupts long enough to present Bart with his tea, along with a sugar bowl, then disappears upstairs.

  “What did he say when you told him?”

  Sara repeats her father’s tirade, verbatim.

  “He had no right to say those things to you,” Bart says. “It’s natural that a parent might be shocked or upset to learn his child is a homosexual, might lash out before he can come to grips with it, but nothing warrants that kind of abuse. You did not deserve that.”

  Bart waits for a reaction. He waits.

  “I know what you’re going through, Sara.”

  “No you don’t. You might understand it, but you don’t know it.”

  “You’re wrong. I know what you’re going through. I know exactly what you’re feeling.”

  “...Oh.” Slowly, like a clenched fist releasing, Sara uncurls. “How old were you?”

  “About your age, give
or take, but it took me a good year to muster the courage to say anything to my family. I was terrified over how they’d react — with good reason, as it turned out.”

  “Did your father...?”

  “Both my parents, actually. And I didn’t run away from home. They threw me out.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you.”

  “How did you deal with it?”

  “Very poorly,” Bart confesses. “I made a lot of bad decisions. I did things I’m not proud of, things that had consequences I’ll be dealing with for the rest of my life, but at the time I didn’t care. I just wanted to numb the pain.”

  “What happened? I mean, you turned out all right.”

  “Only through the grace of God, and I mean that almost literally.” Bart pauses to dredge up from the depths of his memory a day he does not often think about, but is nevertheless with him in his every waking moment. “One night I was out on the streets, looking for a score. I approached this man to solicit him for money. He asked if he could buy me a cup of coffee, something to eat, and we wound up at this coffee shop...

  “As it turned out, he was a youth counselor for a local church. He managed to get me talking and I sat there for a good hour, pouring my heart out to this total stranger. He didn’t judge me, he didn’t preach at me, he just sat and listened and let me unburden myself. When I was done, he asked if he could take me to a youth shelter. I agreed. That was the first step toward getting my life back together.”

  Sara hesitates before asking the big question on her mind. “Did you ever, you know, patch things up with your parents?”

  Bart smiles, but it’s a smile tinged with melancholy. “My mother refused to speak to me again. She died before we got a chance to reconcile, but after the funeral my father and I managed to salvage something resembling a relationship. We were never as close as we’d been before I came out, but we enjoyed a few cordial years before he passed on.”

  “I...I don’t know if I want that,” Sara says. “I know that sounds awful, but —”

  Bart stops her with a gentle gesture. “One problem at a time, Sara. Let’s not worry about your father, let’s worry about you. Christina is willing to put you up for a while, and I think it would be good to be with people who care about you.”