by Tracy Bilen
My mom must have hidden the dirty dishes again. She’s been doing that a lot lately. She knows that if she leaves them on the counter, my dad will have a fit, but she doesn’t have the concentration to actually wash them.
There’s nothing I can do about it now. I leave the dirty dishes inside the dishwasher and close the door, praying that there’s enough stuff in the cabinets so my dad won’t need to look around for something clean. I make sure to straighten the towel on the oven door extra carefully in an attempt to compensate.
“Where does your mom keep the phone book?” Dad asks, startling me from behind.
“It’s right here.” I pull it out of a drawer and hand it to him.
He doesn’t say thanks. He just grunts, then turns to the page he needs and dials.
“Bruce? It’s Ray. I’m going to need you to work overtime this week. I need you at nine today. Is that a problem?” Dad’s voice leaves no doubt that it better not be a problem.
“Busy time of the year,” Dad says to me after he hangs up the phone.
“Hmm,” I say, vaguely wondering why there’s a run on hardware at the end of September. He hands me his cereal bowl and glass, which I take to the sink and wash. I’ve barely finished when Dad opens the door to the garage and gets into his truck. I quickly dry my hands and follow with my backpack and clarinet.
Dad starts the truck and takes a sip of coffee. When we pull onto the road, Dad puts his seat belt on. He isn’t opposed to wearing a seat belt, just to putting it on when the chime tells him to. “Goddammed government regulations” is what he calls it. I guess he thinks that if anyone is so dumb they can’t remember their seat belt without a chime, they deserve to die. And waiting for the dinging to stop before he puts his on is some kind of nonviolent protest, like Gandhi, even though my mom and Matt and I were the only ones who knew about it. Maybe now I’m the only one who knows about it.
After the seat belt comes the radio. Talk radio, mind you. Serious news stuff. When we do listen to music, Dad is the only one who picks. Usually it’s guitar music. My dad plays the guitar, but only at home, for us. Or rather, he used to play the guitar, back when we lived in Philly. One day back then we were riding in the truck and Dad put in this CD of a guy playing a guitar and singing. “Do you know who it is?” he asked.
“Brad Paisley?” I guessed.
“No,” he said, but he looked kind of pleased.
“Who, then?”
“Me,” he said.
“You recorded yourself? That’s really good,” I said. And I had meant it.
Band practice begins precisely at 7:30 a.m. and continues through first period. Rachel slips in next to me at 7:35. Mr. Sommers is on her in a flash. “Rachel! Where have you been? Let’s move it!”
Tweet tweet tweet tweet! Everyone starts playing and marching except for me. Rachel steps on the back of my heel. I shuffle forward. I have a chip in my reed but I decide not to go inside for a new one. I know if I go inside, I probably won’t be back. I’ll just sprint to the bathroom and bawl my eyes out until lunch. With my luck, a concerned teacher will call my dad to come pick me up. So I just stuff my clarinet into my mouth and pretend to play. The mouthpiece still feels big to me after spending all summer practicing on my E-flat clarinet.
On my way to second period, I pass Lauren talking in the hall in front of the computer lab. I keep going at first, then I stop and go back. Before Matt died we used to be best friends.
She’s heading into the classroom. “Hey, Lauren,” I say, as if I just talked to her yesterday instead of in May.
She turns around and seems startled. “Hi, Sara.” Her voice still has that sympathetic echo. La, la, la. I blink hard so I won’t cry.
“Say, can I borrow your phone? I’ll bring it back to your class when I’m done. You in here?” I point to the computer room.
She nods. “Yeah, of course.”
I pocket the phone and head to the bathroom. Shutting myself in a stall, I dial the switchboard at my mom’s work. I want to find out if she’s really on a business trip, but I don’t want the caller ID popping up from my own phone. I mean, what daughter doesn’t know where her own mother is?
I will my voice to sound older. “Michelle Peters, please.”
“I’m sorry. Mrs. Peters is on vacation for the next two weeks, but I can transfer you to someone else in her department.”
“Oh.” Vacation? Did my mom tell her boss she’s taking a vacation or did my dad call to explain her absence? “I was told she’s doing a training seminar in North Carolina.”
“No, no. Definitely not. We don’t have a facility in North Carolina.”
I feel like I have peanut butter stuck in my throat.
“Oh. Okay, then. Thanks very much.”
I hit end and release the latch on the stall. I try to remain optimistic. Maybe my mom told her boss she’s taking a vacation and told my dad that she’s doing a training session.
I take a folder out of my backpack and stick Lauren’s phone in it. I don’t bother taking the papers out first. What do I need them for anymore? I’m leaving soon, aren’t I?
I trudge to the computer lab, and, holding up the folder, I knock on the window and point to Lauren. The teacher nods and must have called her name, because she shows up at the door.
“Thanks,” I say, and hand her the folder. I wander off, not really sure of what class I’m supposed to be in. Not really caring.
“Sara, wait—your chemistry notes are in here.”
I don’t look back. I just give Lauren a wave over my shoulder. “It’s okay,” I say. “Don’t worry about it.”
When I get to gym class I’m still the class hero. Jamie, the captain of the volleyball team, comes over to me in the locker room just as I pull off my T-shirt. I stand there in my bra, not really comfortable having a conversation while half naked. Jamie’s in her bra and underwear and not looking the least bit self-conscious. Of course, she could easily be on the cover of next month’s Teen Vogue.
“Too bad you didn’t come out for the team this year. But, hey, we’ve got a game tonight. Come check it out. There’s always next year.”
I’m thinking that I’d rather put my hand through a chipper-shredder than watch a volleyball game. “I’ve already got plans for tonight,” I say. As in, I’ll never see you again. Bye now. Have a good life.
“Oh.” Jamie actually sounds disappointed.
Mrs. Koster marches through the locker room. “Remember, girls, we’re starting swimming today. Hurry up and change into your suits.”
Jamie moves off toward her own locker.
I should be relieved that I’m not going to have to suffer the humiliation of volleyball. I actually like swimming, just not in pools. I only like swimming in lakes or in the Au Sable River near Ramona’s Retreat.
Mrs. Koster made us bring our suits in a week ago, so there wouldn’t be any excuses not to swim. I look in my locker, hoping that someone has stolen mine. No such luck. I change into my suit as fast as humanly possible, give my ponytail a turn, and stuff my hair into my swim cap.
Once we’re all dressed, we line up for our journey to the middle school, where the pool is located. Scottsfield High School is connected by a covered walkway to Scottsfield Middle School, which in turn is connected to Scottsfield Elementary.
The windows of the pool room look like they haven’t been cleaned in a couple of decades and the chlorine level is so high I nearly pass out from the fumes. In the five minutes Mrs. Koster spends droning on about the rules I think I’m going to suffocate from the heat.
We start out with some “free time” in the pool. Some of the girls sit on the edge and dangle their feet. They’re the ones who are afraid of getting their hair wet. A few others jump right in and proceed to splash one another like they’re back in third grade. Then there’s me, walking slow circles in the water, trying to make sense of all of the different-colored blurs I’m seeing without my glasses.
After most of the period has gone by Mrs. Ko
ster yells, “Everyone out of the pool and over to this end!”
I hoist myself over the edge and go with the other girls.
“Form two lines,” says Mrs. Koster. The jock girls fight over the front of the line. I join the girls at the end of the line who are squabbling over last place. We’re hoping that class is over before it’s our turn.
Back in fifth grade, just after I’d moved here and didn’t know any better, I was one of the first girls in line. I launched myself into the pool using a modified belly flop and took off through the water at what I estimated was superpower speed. When I got to the other end, I was so sure I had won the race that I pulled myself out of the pool and searched the water for my opponent. When I didn’t see her I was convinced she had drowned. The truth is, I was so slow she had already toweled off.
Today I’m ready to accept my embarrassing defeat. On the bright side, maybe Jamie will stop asking me to join volleyball once she’s reminded of how poorly I swim. I took off my watch for the pool, so even though I’m sure Mrs. Koster is keeping us well into third period, I have no proof. When it’s my turn at the front of the line, Mrs. Koster shouts “Ready, set, go!” in a voice that’s as enthusiastic as it was for the jock girls.
As I leap into the water, I remember jumping into the water for my first swimming lesson back in Philly. My mom never brought a magazine to swim lessons like the other moms. She always watched the whole lesson, leaning forward with her face cupped in her hands, beaming. She never lost her enthusiasm, even when I had to repeat the guppy class three times. I imagine her at the edge of the pool today, waiting, ready to take me away with her, but when I get out, it’s just me and Mrs. Koster. Everyone else has already headed back to the high school, including the girl I raced.
When the bell rings for English class and Mrs. Monroe closes the door, what I want to do is crank open the window farthest from her desk, lower myself onto one of the top branches of the oak tree that looms outside, and take off running down Scott Street. Instead, I take out my pencil and examine the free-writing topic on the board: “Describe a family vacation.” Give me a break.
“And begin,” says Mrs. Monroe.
I sneak another look at the tree. Then I stab my pencil against the page and draw a tight circular pattern along the first line. Next I write vacation five times across the second line. Mrs. Monroe says we’re allowed to do this if we can’t think of anything else to write. The important thing is to keep the pencil moving. On the next line, centered, I write NYC.
New York City. My dad took us there right before we moved to Michigan.
“Are you sure you want to move back to Michigan?” my mom said during a commercial break while watching the evening news (required family viewing at the time).
My dad muted the TV. He did that during all the commercials.
“It’s probably changed a lot since you were in high school. Just because your dad left you the hardware store doesn’t mean you have to run it. We can always try to sell it.”
“You and I both know that this limp isn’t going away anytime soon.” Dad lifted his leg up onto the foot rest and winced. Then he picked up the TV Guide that had been lying on the couch and tossed it at me. “Put that away, would you, angel?” That’s what Dad used to call me. He hasn’t called me that since we moved.
My mom gave up trying to convince him to sell the hardware store, because we all knew that it really wasn’t about Dad’s limp. It was about Internal Affairs, his dead partner, and survivor’s guilt.
“I can’t stand working the desk. At least at the hardware store I’ll be my own boss. But I was thinking …” Dad got this big grin on his face and his eyes sparkled. “We should take the kids to New York City before we go get ourselves lost in a cornfield.”
“Sure, that sounds nice,” my mom said. Truthfully it didn’t matter what she thought, just as it never mattered what any of us thought. All that ever matters is what Dad wants.
When we got to New York, the first stop we made was the Statue of Liberty. My dad asked a guy in a Detroit Tigers baseball cap to take our picture.
It may have been the last time we were all truly happy.
Once we got to Michigan, Dad went from roughing up gang bangers to selling lumber and screwdriver sets.
Dad didn’t like selling screwdriver sets. But for the customers, he pretended he did.
Home was a different story.
“You look like a wreck,” Zach says to me in the hall, between third and fourth period. “What gives?”
“I’ll tell you about it at lunch.” I pull out a five and hand it to him. “Would you buy me a sandwich or something at the cafeteria and meet me at the Dairy Dream?” The one-minute-warning bell sounds.
“Sure thing. Gotta run. I got Fisher next period. Can’t be late.” Zach gives me a quick pat on the back and forces his way through the crowded hallway.
As I continue toward history, I feel an arm around my shoulders. Zach’s realized that something is seriously wrong.
But it’s Alex. “Boy, you look terrible.”
I would be mad at him, except for the way that he tilts his head at me and runs his finger along my jaw. Somehow it has me feeling like I’m out of breath and I don’t even mind.
“You okay?”
“I’ll be fine,” I say. Once my mom gets here.
“So, you going to history?”
“Where else would I be going?”
Some kid running to get to class knocks me into Alex.
“Hey, watch it!” shouts Alex. He starts to say “shit” but then he looks at me and smiles instead. He picks up my notebook and hands it to me.
“Thanks,” I say.
“Thought maybe you would skip history today instead of math.”
“Nope.”
“We can, you know.”
I look up at him. His wavy hair hangs in his eyes. I want to brush it away for him. Under normal circumstances I would be thrilled that he wants me to skip class with him. Okay, I am thrilled that he wants me to skip class with him. But I’m also having a hard time shutting up the voice in my head. Where is Mom? Why hasn’t she called? Will she be waiting for me at the Dairy Dream today?
“No, thanks.”
“Oh.” He looks kind of disappointed.
“So why is it that you hate school?”
Alex raises his eyebrows. “‘Hate’ is a bit strong. I don’t actually hate school. I just don’t really care about it.”
“Why not?”
He looks at me blankly, as if I’m speaking Italian. The bell rings.
I take in a breath and let it out loudly as if I’m annoyed, instead of oxygen-deprived due to I’m-talking-to-a-hot-guy syndrome. “What I mean is, what about your future? What is it you want to be, you know, when you ‘grow up’?”
“Oh, yeah, that. I don’t know yet. I figure that’s what college is for.”
“Hello. How do you expect to get into college with the kind of grades you’ll be getting after skipping most of your classes?”
Did I really say that?
We stare at each other.
“So maybe I won’t go,” he says. “Maybe I’ll just—oh, never mind.”
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” My stomach sinks.
He shrugs. “I almost forgot. I’ve got something for you.” He reaches into his backpack, which looks so light it could be empty. “That Stephen King book—Misery. I finished it last night.”
“Thanks. Did you like it?”
“You mean, did it scare the shit out of me? Yeah, it’s pretty good.”
When we get to Robertson’s class, the door is closed. Everyone is going to see us walk in together. I feel a flutter. I push open the door and shuffle over to a seat. Alex follows me, letting the door slam behind him.
“Sara and Alex? Who knew?” someone says in a not-so-quiet whisper. Cue giggling.
Robertson clears his throat. “Pass?” he asks, looking straight at me. He doesn’t bother asking Alex for one.
He opens his mouth and looks like he’s going to say something, but instead he just closes it again and goes back to his lecture.
At my desk, I close my eyes, prop my head on my chin, and yawn approximately once every twenty seconds.
Think. Think. Where would my mom go? To her parents’ house in Delaware? Her sister’s house in Oregon?
I have more phone calls to make. I put my hand up and wave it wildly.
“Yes, Sara,” Robertson says, smiling. “Give us one of the causes of World War I.”
I blink at him. “I have no idea,” I say without shame. “Can I go to the bathroom?”
He frowns.
“Please?”
“Yes, go.” He sighs.
Alex raises his hand.
“Yes, Alex?” he says in a barely disguised shocked voice. “One of the causes of World War I?”
“Can I go to the bathroom?”
More laughter.
Robertson ignores him.
“Cody. One of the causes of World War I?”
Alex: “How about I go see the nurse? I think I might throw up all over your replica of the Great Wall of China.”
Robertson doesn’t look the least bit upset. “You can try all you want, Alex. I’m not going to throw you out of class. I’ll simply send an e-mail to your coach.” He goes to his desk and hovers over the computer keyboard.
Trump.
Alex turns and gives me the “I tried” shrug. I hightail it out the door before Robertson can call me back.
The bathroom has become my new phoning headquarters. I lean against a sink, dial my grandmother’s number and wait.
“Hello,” my grandpa barks into the phone.
“Hi, Grandpa. It’s Sara.”
“Who?” Grandpa doesn’t have a hearing aid, but he really needs one.
The door opens. Rachel passes in front of me in her flip-flops, with hot-pink polish on her toenails. She stops in front of the other mirror, and works on her makeup. Shit. She’s the last person I’d have picked to eavesdrop on my life. Rachel’s dad owns the Scottsfield funeral parlor. Whenever you go by the place it has the name of the person who just died on the marquee, kind of like a movie listing. Her family’s been pissed at mine ever since we got someone from out of town to do Matt’s funeral.
