by Kat Spears
“And Chuck has had Dad’s phone this whole time?” I ask, carefully portioning out my words to keep my voice from giving anything away. “Since Dad’s been gone?”
“Yes,” she says, now almost hesitant, as if she’s worried she has said something to destroy the truce we have established. “Does that bother you?”
Yeah. It bothers me. It bothers me a lot. I think back to all of the messages I have sent to Dad over the past year, trying to remember all of the things I have said. The whole time I thought I was unloading to a stranger, but, really, I’ve been telling Chuck. Telling him every intimate thought, maybe telling him how much I hated Mom. And him. Telling him what traitors they are.
My face burns hot with a blush and I’m not sure if I want to scream, or cry, or jump up and run out of the restaurant.
“Dane, what is it?” Mom asks. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
* * *
Three days’ suspension from school gives me a good glimpse into what life would be like for me without a job after high school, without some purpose to fill my days. The first day I’m off from school I spend the whole day in my room, watching TV and my phone at the same time, with periodic naps. By bedtime I am so bored it makes me anxious and restless. At night, after the sounds of the house have quieted to a sleeping rhythm, I climb out onto the low roof outside my bedroom window and watch for signs of Ophelia.
But she doesn’t come.
With no way to reach her, I’m left to experience what life was like for the Pilgrims, or the westward pioneers of the nineteenth century—the only parts of American history that are left over in my brain after all my years of school. Back then people couldn’t just call each other. It could take weeks before someone knew how you felt because the only way to tell them was by letter. I wonder if Ophelia is thinking about me, and if what she’s thinking is that it was a major mistake to kiss me or to agree to be my soon-to-be ex-girlfriend.
* * *
On the second night of my suspension from the world there is a tap on my window. This time, I am prepared. I know it is Ophelia.
I open the window and stand ready to help her as she climbs through the window. She doesn’t need my help, but I offer her my hand anyway.
“Thanks,” she says, taking it, and she doesn’t let go even after she is safely inside.
“I was hoping you’d come,” I say honestly.
“Everybody at school is talking about you,” Ophelia says. “What you did to Eric’s face.”
“Great. Before today I don’t think anyone knew I existed. Now I’m the guy who messed up Eric Feint’s face.”
“I wouldn’t worry about what anyone thinks. How much trouble are you in?”
“Three days’ suspension.”
“And?”
“And nothing. Eric had it coming.” I say this with a lot more courage than I feel. I’m already worried about returning to school. I’ve been trying to figure out a way to never go back.
“Well, I thought it was kind of romantic. Dumb, but romantic.”
“I’d rather not talk about it.”
“Which part?”
“The whole thing is humiliating, and when I come back to school Eric is going to kill me.”
“Maybe.”
She relaxes onto my bed and pats the mattress beside her, telling me to come and sit.
“Tell me about what your mom said.”
“She made me go see my therapist. I told my therapist about you. About our plan to have a relationship with an end date established.”
“Seriously? You told her about that?”
“Yes. She said it was lazy, to plan to not work at a relationship.”
“What is she, some kind of expert on relationships?”
“I don’t know. She’s a family therapist, so I guess.”
“Well, I think it’s perfectly sane,” Ophelia says.
“I thought you didn’t know anything about sanity, or functional relationships.”
“Obviously, I don’t. I’m dating you, right?”
My hand is over my eyes as I laugh, so when she kisses me, it comes completely out of nowhere. One minute I am laughing and the next minute her hand is on the side of my face and … I don’t know. Her hand tugs at my chin as she turns my face so her lips can reach mine. Our lips find each other with our eyes closed and then my hand ends up on her hip and then, suddenly, I do know.
I pull back to look at her face, to read from her expression if this is really happening or if she had just—maybe—fallen into my face and it is all a mistake.
But then we are making out and it feels strange, like a plot twist in a movie that you didn’t see coming.
“What’s wrong?” she asks in a whisper, her eyes wide, an adorable furrow in the smooth skin of her forehead, just above the bridge of her nose.
Wrong? So many things. So. Many. Things. “Nothing’s wrong,” I say. “I just … I wasn’t expecting this.”
“Well, I’m your girlfriend now. Right?”
“Yeah, that whole thing is a little weird.”
“I thought you had a huge crush on me.”
“Who said that?” I ask too quickly, and feel the heat rushing to my face.
“Nobody. I’m just kidding.”
This is ridiculous. This girl is lying in my bed with her arms wrapped around me and we just spent ten minutes exchanging saliva and God only knows what kind of bodily bacteria, but I can’t bring myself to admit that I like her.
Correction, that I love her.
“We’re not having sex,” she says.
I roll away, lying on my side and folding one arm under my head.
“Who says I want to have sex with you?” I ask, and her face falls with surprise.
“Very funny,” she says, recovering quickly.
We share a smile and she leans in to kiss me again. On the outside I’m perfectly cool. At least, I think I am. The inside is a different story. For maybe the first time in my life I am aware of exactly how alive I am. I am conscious of every sound my digestive tract makes and the thump of each squeeze of my heart as it pumps at an alarming rate for a person at rest. I hear my saliva, loud in my ears as I swallow and wonder if I usually swallow saliva this often and just don’t notice it.
“I guess we need to set a date,” she says.
“A date for what?”
“The date we’re going to break up. We can’t just leave it open-ended. That’s how people end up in unhappy marriages.”
“I don’t know. What’s a good date to break up?” I say just to go along with her crazy.
“I was thinking, maybe graduation day. It’s an ending—the end of high school, the end of childhood…”
“The end of homework,” I add. “Thank God.”
“So, graduation day. That will be our last day.”
“If you think so,” I say, though I’m thinking graduation is still weeks away and I’m not sure there is enough about me to hold her interest for even that long.
“I mean,” she says, pulling back a little, “I’m not leaving for school until July. I go to stay with my grandparents for a couple of weeks before I move into my dorm. So, do we pick some arbitrary milestone like graduation? We break up then? Or do we just decide to do it when I leave?”
“I hadn’t really thought it through that far,” I say.
“Ending on graduation day is probably too cliché,” she says. “But ending because I’m leaving for school seems wrong, too. It goes against everything. Then we’re not really choosing the date to end. We’re giving up control.”
“Maybe we should end it the night before graduation. That way after commencement is over we just keep going, except in opposite directions.”
“How opposite? We’ll still live next door to each other for a month.”
“I’m speaking metaphorically. You’ll be getting ready to go off to Ohio and college and I’ll … well, I’m not sure what I’ll be doing, but it will just be a drag if you feel like you h
ave to keep talking to me after graduation. We end it the night before, and then you don’t have to feel bad or obligated or anything that will hold you back from starting a new life.”
“I guess,” Ophelia says, sounding noncommittal. “I can’t stay,” she says, whispering it into my ear.
“I know,” I whisper back, and I’m not talking about this moment, or even tonight. I know that nothing good can stay. I know it better than anybody. “This is the right thing, knowing ahead of time when to break up.”
“I mean I can’t stay right now,” she says. “I have to get back before my dad notices I’m gone.”
“Oh, right. Yeah. You’d better go. I don’t want you to get in trouble again.”
“I’m not worried about it. But I worry about you.”
I worry about me, too, I think, but don’t say it.
* * *
By the third day of my suspension I’ve got cabin fever and decide to go into work a couple of hours early. As I leave the house to go to my car, the sound of footsteps crunching on gravel startles me, and I look up to see Colonel Marcus just leaving his house. He stops when he sees me and raises one hand in greeting. He’s dressed in his dull green uniform, though with all the colored ribbons and glinting silver insignia his olive jacket isn’t going to blend into any forest. At first I think that’s all the interaction we’re going to have, but then he tosses the briefcase he is holding into the passenger seat of his car and comes to the edge of the driveway to talk.
“Hello, son,” he says. The way he says “son” doesn’t offend me the way it does when other adult males say it. Colonel Marcus is saying it in a way that makes me feel like one of the young men under his command.
“Hello, sir.” As a rule, I never call anyone “sir,” not even my own father, who could be terrifying in his own right. With Colonel Marcus I always call him “sir.” I can’t help myself.
“Home from school again, huh?”
“I got suspended for fighting.”
“I know. Ophelia told me.”
“She did?”
“Yes. She told me you got suspended for hitting that boy with a lunch tray, the one who took her to the party.”
“I’m surprised she told you about it,” I say.
“Well, I’d say she had an ulterior motive. I think she wants me to like you.”
“It wasn’t much of a fight. I just hit him out of nowhere with a lunch tray. I knocked his front teeth loose.”
“Better you than me. If I got my hands on him I’d end up breaking his neck.”
“You’d probably get a worse punishment than three days’ suspension.”
Colonel Marcus nods and rocks back on his heels. “For sure. How’d your mom react? You’re in big trouble, I assume.”
“Yeah, she freaked out a little.”
“It’s hard to be a single parent,” Colonel Marcus says, taking Mom’s side. “Always having to be both the good guy and the bad guy.”
“It’s hard to be a single kid, too,” I say, before I actually think about whether it’s a good idea to say anything.
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Well, it is. Whatever’s wrong with your parents, you’re the only one who knows about it.” I stop and bite off the rest of what I was going to say as I realize I might be insulting him. But he seems to understand where I’m coming from and nods once in acknowledgment.
“And now your dad’s business partner is with your mom,” he says, not a question, and I can tell from his tone that Colonel Marcus understands our domestic situation perfectly.
“I guess so.” My cheeks flame red at his mention of Mom and Chuck dating. Even if he can’t read my mind, he makes me feel as if he can, and that’s almost as bad.
He grunts in understanding and I get the sense, for sure now, that he must be a professional interrogator.
For most of the time we have been talking he has been casually glancing around at the street, the branches of the trees above us, his watch. He hasn’t really been looking me right in the eye. But now he does, and it makes me distinctly uncomfortable. “Ophelia’s very focused on her studies. And she’s going to a great school next year. She’s got the opportunity to really make something of herself. She doesn’t need any distractions, or to be risking her future on childish things. Understand?”
“I guess so,” I say. “Don’t worry. I know I’m not good enough for her.”
He doesn’t even seem to digest what I say, but I know with Ophelia and her dad, looks can be deceiving.
“You going to be okay?” Colonel Marcus asks.
“Yeah,” I say, too late for it to sound true. “Uh—yes. Sir. I’m fine.”
He turns then to get into his car and I feel as if I should salute him. Instead I say, “Bye,” weakly.
* * *
“Dane, you’re early,” Mr. Edgar says when I arrive for work that afternoon. “Employee of the month!” He will never—ever—get tired of that joke.
“I just couldn’t wait to get here and start mopping, Mr. E.,” I say as I walk through the store to see where I need to start my work.
Mr. Edgar and I keep up occasional banter back and forth as I work the aisles, dusting and mopping and polishing the cooler doors.
There’s something about the work at the store that calms me, as if the only thing in the world that matters is the stain on the floor, the dust on the shelves. My brain is still working, worrying and imagining, but the focus of my energy on my menial tasks relaxes me and quiets the throbbing in my brain.
It is almost time to close the store when I finish the last of my chores, and I go to sit behind the counter to wait while Mr. Edgar goes through the business of closing his register for the day. We sit in companionable silence for a few minutes. My shift is done, but I always wait to make sure he gets to his car safely.
“Mr. Edgar,” I say.
“Mm.” He’s still counting cash but does his best to seem like he’s listening to me.
“What religion is your family?”
“The easiest kind,” he says, smiling to himself. “No religion. I mean, we do Christmas, obviously, so we can get the presents. But I didn’t grow up going to church or anything. Why?”
“I’m just wondering. Do you believe in reincarnation?”
Up until now he has been looking at the cash drawer as he counts his money and runs the daily report, but now he looks at me over the top of his glasses. “I’m going to say … no. It seems to me like any god who would go to the trouble to manage reincarnation would probably do better to spend their time preventing war or famine.”
“But some religions believe in reincarnation, right?”
“I’m no expert, but I think Buddhists believe in some form of reincarnation.”
“If you died and were reincarnated, what would you want to come back as?”
“Human.”
“I mean like, what kind of animal?”
“A human is an animal. But I’d only want to come back if I could return with all the knowledge I’ve gained through being alive for fifty years. Because if I had to start all over again, what’s the point?”
“Most people say a lion or a wolf or something.”
“And live outside and possibly starve or get shot by some big-game hunter? No thanks. What’s wrong with human? That’s it. I’d want to come back as a fully evolved human.”
“Nothing, I guess,” I say. “Nobody has ever given me that answer before. But it’s a pretty good one.”
* * *
When I park my car on the street that evening, I look up the long driveway to my house, lights burning in almost every window. I’m not ready to go home, to see Mom and Chuck. I have avoided Chuck since finding out that he knows every intimate thought I’ve had since Dad died. He probably still doesn’t realize that I know, but I am too embarrassed to be in his company now. The only person I can really stand to see right now is Ophelia. Before I can talk myself out of it, I crunch down the gravel drive to Ophelia’s front door.
I knock and wait. After a few minutes nothing happens so I knock again.
I sense rather than see someone look out the small panes of glass that flank the front door, and a series of locks click before the door whooshes open. Colonel Marcus is holding his phone to his ear and only thrusts his chin at me in greeting as he makes an mm-hmm sound into the phone, clearly listening to the person on the other end. He steps back and holds the door open to let me enter, then waves his hand in the direction of the living room, gesturing for me to move inside.
Ophelia is studying, no surprise, open books spread around her on the couch and coffee table. Colonel Marcus doesn’t follow me into the room. I hear his voice as he moves into the kitchen to continue his conversation and I head toward Ophelia as she looks up and turns to see who is coming inside.
She smiles when she sees me and I make the effort at smiling back, though the corners of my mouth tug downward involuntarily. Her expression changes as she sees something in my eyes that makes her stay silent.
I barely make it to the couch, sit down several feet from her, and hide my head in her lap before the tears come. I press my face into her thighs and wrap my arms awkwardly around her waist as one of her books digs painfully into my chest. My tears are hot against my skin as they seep out from my eyes and into her clothes.
I need to sniffle as snot threatens to run out onto her clothes, but I know that when I do take a breath in to abate the snot, what’s going to come back out is a sob.
“Oh, Dane,” she says, her voice just a coo when the sob can’t be held inside any longer. “It’s going to be okay.”
I hear the sound of footsteps as Colonel Marcus comes into the room, and I feel Ophelia as she gestures him away. I cry for a while, for what feels like forever, as the tears keep coming. Ophelia keeps her hand on my back, rubbing it in a circle of warmth that waxes and wanes.
Finally, I sit up and Ophelia says, “You want some juice or something?”
I laugh at that, just a hiccup, and shake my head no.
