by RJ Martin
“Yes they can.”
“Do they pay you?” Rusty didn’t even slow down.
“Not a cent.” Angie was suddenly on Rusty’s side, and I began to wonder if they’d ever had any intention of taking me to Mass.
“Just pull over and I’ll walk back.”
“There’s no sidewalk, no streetlights,” Angie said. “No way.”
“Stop talking to me like I’m a kid, Angie. I mean it.” I kicked hard against the back of her seat.
“Then stop acting like one.” She spun around and glared.
“If I thought you were a kid, dude—” Rusty turned around now. “—you wouldn’t be here.” My boot left a mark on the creamy leather, and I suddenly imagined Dad opening a bill for thousands of dollars to replace the whole interior if the gray streak didn’t come off.
“What will we say?” I looked to Angie for a lie. I was getting good at it, but my sister was a grand master.
“Now you’re getting with the program.” Rusty flashed me his perfect teeth that were tinted red by the dash lights. “Hang on!” Rusty slammed the brakes and his mom’s Teutonic dream machine sailed into a wild spin. I tried to brace for impact as we went almost all the way around, but I was still thrown to one side and then fell flat across the massive backseat. It was the highest number model the company built, three higher than Rusty’s banana rocket, and I could imagine a chauffeur behind the wheel. It was that plush and spacious. Then again, I wasn’t a summer person, so I didn’t really know.
“That was awesome!” Angie whooped and threw her arms around Rusty as I sat back up.
“What the hell, dude?” I cursed, something I almost never did, but Rusty was starting to freak me out.
The vast plain of ice-coated concrete was bigger than a football field and surrounded by huge snow banks. It took me a minute to remember the place since I’d never been there in winter. Once I saw the frozen lake in the distance, I knew. In the summer there was a paddle wheeler that took day trips up the lake and back, and this was the parking lot. It wasn’t a real steamboat like from Tom Sawyer but a replica, and the twins, of course, loved it.
“Ready?”
“What?” The distant trees were silhouetted by the blue light of dawn. JC’s light, our light, I should’ve been at Holy R. “We have to go-oh-oh.” I grabbed for the seat belt, but just barely got hold of the strap as Rusty gunned the engine, and took off again across the deserted lot.
“Having fun, Jonah?”
“Aren’t you afraid of getting into another accident?”
“That’s why we’re here.” Rusty spun the wheel like a sea captain, slammed on the brakes, and this time I got splattered against the other side. “Own your fear!”
As I careened one way then the other, I let out an involuntary whoop like on a roller coaster. As we came to rest with a slushy glide, I burst out laughing harder than maybe I ever had.
“I think he likes it.” Rusty nodded to Angie, a kind of I told you so.
“Let me do it.” Angie was half over the console before Rusty was out the door. Rather than climb in the passenger side, he jumped in back next to me.
“Should I get up front?”
“You should do what you want, Jonah.” Rusty looked right at me when he said it. I had a grip on the door handle, but I didn’t open it. Rusty leaned up front and got right in Angie’s ear. “Hit it.” He’d barely gotten the words out when we were slammed back against the seat by the sudden, roaring acceleration that drowned out the chorus of dawn-greeting birds.
Angie cut the wheel hard left and plunged down on the brake. I caught air, plowed sideways into Rusty, and drove him backward into his door. The beanie got knocked off, and Rusty’s hair tumbled down to his shoulders. The sun’s first light formed a corona around his head. In the intense shimmering I squinted down hard, but I couldn’t see his face. It was how I imagined JC would reveal himself to me someday, but before the Christophany (Catholic for seeing JC) could be complete, Angie lurched the car forward, then into a high-speed reverse. Rusty and I rammed into the backs of the front seats so hard we both grunted as the air got slapped from our lungs. Without any warning Angie stomped the brake. Rusty and I dropped like astronauts losing weightlessness after reentering the atmosphere. Our arms and legs got so tangled I wasn’t sure where he ended and I began.
Not done, Angie really accelerated this time. Rusty and I shared an oh shit look before she hooked the wheel hard and fast the other way. We spun around and around at least twice or maybe forever. I was so dizzy and amped I couldn’t keep track. As soon as the car stopped spinning, Rusty came flying my way this time and landed right on top of me.
“We can stop if you want.” He was so close now, his head blocked enough of the light so I could really see his face. With his young beard, shaggy hair, and sapphire eyes, Rusty looked like what JC might have during those years the gospels skipped, when he was just a teenager like we were now. Did he go through puberty and have to deal with boners and wet dreams no matter how much he tried to not think about sex stuff? Maybe he didn’t have a lot of friends either because he was different too. “Do you want to stop?” Rusty didn’t climb off me but glanced down between us because I was hard. My whole body tensed, ready for the worst, while my brain searched for an excuse. It was the excitement, the endorphin rush, something other than…. Rusty didn’t laugh or raise a fist. He just smiled the way I’d always imagined JC would during our first awkward moments together. That’s when I realized my Holy R daydream of meeting him was more like a first date.
“I think it’s Jonah’s turn.”
MY FIRST try was a bust. I hit the brake too soon, we didn’t spin, but just stopped really short. Rusty and Angie’s heads bonked against the back of the front seats. I tried to convince myself her being in back with him was as it should be. I couldn’t be jealous or have feelings for Rusty because that might’ve meant all this time I’d been crushing on JC.
“Own the fear, dude!” Rusty gave my shoulder a squeeze. I hadn’t driven much. Chad and Darcy had their licenses already. They let me practice a few times in parking lots. It required a ton of asking turned to begging just to get them to even do that. I was more grateful than ever now because their brief and illegal lessons meant I could do this. I just had to “grow a pair.” One of those jock phrases I hated but was applicable here.
“Jonah! Jonah!” Rusty chanted, and Angie joined in. I started forward and with each shout of my name, I eased the accelerator down farther until the end of the lot raced toward us. Rusty’s chant became a furious command. “Jonah!”
The car went around and around as we screamed a mix of good-hearted, coaster-riding terror blended with a sudden awareness of death. I’d felt it only once before but far more briefly, and that was on the night Rusty’s sweet ride hit the light pole. Maybe that was when the spinning really started and hadn’t stopped yet. I guess I needed to decide first if that’s what I wanted.
The car clipped a snowbank and came to rest with a spongy thwack. We all remained still and quiet for a long moment as angel morning rush hour zoomed between us. After the last one zipped by, Rusty let out a long, satisfied sigh. The summertime male model and author’s son set his eyes on mine in the rearview mirror.
“That was so hot, dude!” Rusty grabbed my shoulders and rocked me three times. I wanted to share his gaze longer, but Angie spun her head and planted a big, sloppy kiss on him.
My face felt hot, and I gripped the wheel tighter. I couldn’t help wondering if it was real or for my benefit—my sister’s way of telling me Rusty belonged to her, and she would share him only so much. If she knew the thoughts I struggled to fend off at that moment, she might have taken away any right I had to him at all. I didn’t want Rusty, I wanted JC, no Rusty, no… wait. I wanted to serve JC. I wanted out of there and fast. I put the car in gear. “We’re late for school.” I made the turn onto the main road that ran through Lake Henry and became a highway once again at either end. Another first: driving in tr
affic.
“Jonah, pull over,” Rusty ordered. I ignored him.
“What are you doing?” Angie cried. I scared her, something I’d never done before.
“I’m owning my fear.”
“Not mine.” Angie climbed up front next to me in the passenger seat. “Stop the car.”
“There’s no shoulder.”
“Then just stop in the road.” Angie reached for the wheel. “Jonah, you’re acting like a kid,” she half whispered, but I knew Rusty heard.
“Kids don’t drive, Angelique,” I said, using my outside voice, and pushed her hand away. I sped up so the road came at me faster and required all my concentration. My learning curve here was pretty much zero.
“Come on, baby.” Rusty put his upper body between the front seats. “Let him try.” He rubbed her left shoulder. He might’ve kissed her too, but I was too busy trying not to crash to find out.
“Don’t steer so much.” Angie caved. “Only when you have to.”
“Got it.”
“Put your hands at ten and two.” She demonstrated on an imaginary steering wheel in front of her.
“Like this?”
“You’re a natural.” Rusty squeezed my right shoulder, but I didn’t get a kiss. I tried to convince myself that was okay. I had to. Rusty was Angie’s; I belonged to JC.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“THIS IS a good table.” My dad splayed his long hands and made sure it was level.
“A booth too.” I went along with the forced conversation. I loved my father. We were just so far apart. It wasn’t all his fault. “That was nice of them.”
He took in the surroundings—knotty pine walls lined with old pictures of the lake and polished wood everywhere including the chairs, booths, and floors. There was nothing original or interesting about Big Bart’s Lake House unless you were from a shining, slick city full of glass and steel. We lived here, but the whole town was for them.
“I know how much going on this retreat means to you.” Dad looked into his glass as if something were going on in there. All I saw was foam settling on his beer. “It’s a lot of money, son.” He shifted his gaze left and settled it on the square cut-glass salt and pepper shakers as well as the cocktail menu standing between them. They had names like Lake Monster, Adirondack Sunset, and my all-time favorite: The Big Bartini. I didn’t see anyone drinking anything other than whiskey or beer. Maybe the cocktails were for summer people.
What made our presence even more bizarre was it was just my dad and me. We’d never had dinner out, alone, just the two of us.
“The boys are doing better, but you know the insurance doesn’t cover everything.” Dad led off with the guilt trip about the twins’ coming first. I guess he wanted this to be a quick conversation. Maybe the whole meal was now supposed to go quickly too. Back in the fake folksy office at the motor lodge it must’ve sounded like a great plan when he and Mom conceived it over the phone. Take the boy to dinner. Make him happy to be getting a little one-on-one time, being treated, and then lower the boom. Would Mom be mad he skipped the first part and went right for the close? Darcy’s dad taught me that too.
“It’s my calling,” I fired right back at him. I expected his reply to be to “man up” or something and then ask for the check, even though we’d only had drinks so far: Coke for me and a Labatt Blue, for Dad.
“If this retreat is to help you kids connect to, you know, God and the church, well, do you really need it, son?” The cutlery now fascinated him. Dad turned over the knife, and it seemed like there was something interesting about stainless steel.
“You sound like Mom.” The tote board plugged itself back in while I kept pressing. He wasn’t home half as much as her, but Dad hated being thought of as nothing more than our mother’s enforcer. At last he let go of his inanimate object obsession and his hand rose to wash his face.
“Hank Gregory,” Big Bart called as he strutted over. “And Jonah.” Big Bart held out a hand as my father slid out to greet him.
“It’s all right, Hank.” Big Bart dropped one of his thick hands with its sausage fingers down on my father’s shoulder. “Don’t get up.”
My dad hated being touched except by my mother, Angie, and the twins. We never hugged and rarely even shook hands. We just were. My dad ordered me with his eyes and I stood up too.
“Hello, Mr. Tack.” I stuck out a hand and even tried to do it the way my father taught me. I extended my arm but not too far and made a point of squeezing but not too hard.
“Bart’s here somewhere,” Big Bart said.
Great. I spend all week ducking the guy and then walk right into him. This father-son bonding dinner went from lame to sucks.
“He works here, right?” I tried to sound interested in a positive way.
“If you can call it that.” Bart the elder laughed hard and low. It, like the man, intimidated. “I just want to keep his nose clean for college. Not going to have any glitches here.” He had the same Cossack dome as his son, but Big Bart’s hair was over half gray. “The boy has worked too hard.”
Really? Was douchiness considered an extracurricular activity?
“You see the new truck out front?” Big Bart boasted.
“I didn’t know Porsche made an SUV.” My dad had driven the same pickup since I could remember. Other than it got me where I wanted to go, the rust magnet with a cassette deck and console filled with worn-out tapes had nothing going for it.
“You can have a midlife crisis and still get through the snow.” Big Bart laughed, and Dad did too but not with any enthusiasm. I knew his real laugh, the one Angie and the twins made him do, and this was not it.
“So what brings you down tonight, Hank?” Big Bart turned from my father and acknowledged me again. “Is it your birthday, Jonah?”
“I just thought it would be nice, you know, just the men.” Of course, with his Quebecois accent, my father sounded like he was asking Big Bart’s opinion.
“The boy do something wrong?” Big Bart grinned. “It’s always the good ones.”
“He didn’t do anything.” Dad answered like he’d heard the accusation as a joke. What could his someday sainted son do wrong?
“Jonah’s a good kid.” Bart Sr. sounded like his son, like the whole family had doubts about me. Didn’t they have anything better to think about? “You having the talk? This is a good place for it. I sat Bart Jr. down at the bar and let him know how things are.” Big Bart looked my way once more. “I got to tell you, Hank. It’s a little late if you are. Bart was twelve, I think. Your boy probably knows it all already.”
“Knows all about what already?” I knew exactly what Big Bart was talking about. I also knew how squeamish all adults were about… “Sex?”
“Just dinner.” Dad scolded me with his eyes.
“You should try the hanger steak.” Bart Sr. gave my dad’s shoulder another squeeze. I knew he wanted to slip the grip, but there was no way to do it and not make a scene or worse, an enemy. Bart Sr. kept NC3 going while Angie and I were on scholarship. Also, he sent his customers to the motel if they needed to sleep it off before driving home. I looked around for Bart Jr. again. Another reason not to provoke him: my dad needed his dad.
“There was this writer in here the other night.” Big Bart at last let go. “Marla reads all her books. One or two have even been movies, she tells me.”
“Jace Naylor,” I said, prolonging a conversation a second ago I tried to end. I guess I wanted to brag a little now and knock the town big shot down a rung.
“That sounds right. Marla!” Big Bart shouted across the room. “Marla, baby!” Marla Tack sat at the bar, a glass of white wine in front of her. She took a sip once in a while between counting receipts. “Was that writer named Naylor?”
Marla Tack nodded and smiled for the unexpected audience of patrons whose dinners her husband had interrupted.
“She said the hanger steak was magnificent.” Bart Sr. bragged with ease, like he was good at it from years of practice. “T
hat’s how women writers talk, I guess, huh? Magnificent.”
“I’m friends with her son,” I interrupted with a smile. “I mean my sister is more than me.”
“Marla and I always wanted a daughter to go along with the boy.” Big Bart made it sound like not a big deal, except he brought it up. “You know, she had a rough time with him, and we just couldn’t.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Dad nodded for emphasis.
Did Big Bart just out-douche his son? Did he just really imply that if he and his wife could’ve had a daughter, then she would have grown up to be superior to Angie, and therefore date Rusty Naylor when he came to town? No wonder my mother always referred to him as “that ass.”
“Look at this place.” Big Bart made a slow grand wave of his arm at the half-empty dining room that was only full in summer. “It’s Mardi Gras!” He pointed out the wavy plastic glasses on some tables. “Hurricanes.” The tablecloths were purple and gold. I thought it was some pep rally kind of thing. NC3’s colors were the same and Holy R’s too. I think a lot of Catholic schools had them. Funny they were also the colors of Fat Tuesday. The one day a year goodness was abandoned by the righteous for crazy drinking and flashing of skin.
Big Bart tried to hand out strings of beads to the smattering of ladies. Most of the shy, dull locals begged off. One or two women decided to be oh-so-bold and slipped them around their necks. Then they just sat back, super proud at this little step into the strange, outside world.
“Not like the summer,” Big Bart said when he circled back to our table. “But all I need this time of year is to keep the bills paid. Like the motel too, I bet?”
“Pretty much, yeah.” My father grimaced.
Big Bart nodded, smiled once more, and then at last left us alone. Bart Jr. had a plastic tub of dirty dishes in his hands, but he backed up so his dad could pass. I recognized the look the son gave his father. It was the same one Bart Jr. had given to me. Bart Sr. stepped behind the bar and turned up the jazzy New Orleans music. “Oh, when the Saints go marchin’ in,” a peppy woman sang. “I want to be in that number….” That was what I always wanted too; I just needed to keep remembering it. “Oh, when the Saints go marchin’ in.”
