[Something in the Way 01.0] Something in the Way

by Jessica Hawkins

  “What’s your favorite animal? Frogs?”

  I couldn’t help my laugh. As kids, my friends and I used to catch and release toads in the street—but I wasn’t a kid anymore. “Whose favorite animal is a frog? They’re slimy.”

  He shrugged one shoulder and pulled me along with him toward a hit-the-target game. “So, nothing slimy then.”

  Manning paid the carnie, received three baseballs and missed the target three times.

  I smiled at his effort. Just that alone was worth being happy over. “It’s okay if—”

  “No it’s not. I promised you.” Manning called the man over again. “Another round.”

  I almost missed Tiffany’s glare, but when I caught it, I just about told her to take a hike. To go find Corbin Swenson, her number one admirer. Being the center of Manning’s attention was as heady as I thought it would be, and I didn’t want to share the spotlight.

  Tiffany turned away on her own, though, leaving us to go talk to the man operating the booth.

  Right as I turned back, Manning reared back and pitched the ball in a perfect line. It bounced off the cardboard around the target.

  “These games are rigged,” he muttered.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said.

  “I am worried,” he teased. At least, I thought he was kidding. He spoke lightly but also focused intensely on the target. Maybe something did have him worried.

  Gearing up for his second throw, his t-shirt sleeve rode up his bicep. The skin there was whiter than the rest of his arm, smoother. His muscles strained the fabric.

  Tiffany glanced over at us.

  Manning missed. “God d—” His neck reddened and after a deep breath, he snatched the third baseball. He threw it so hard, everyone jumped when it smacked the target. Manning wiped his hairline with his sleeve and nodded. “There we go.”

  The attendant barely looked away from Tiffany. “Pick any from this side,” he said, gesturing toward a wall with small stuffed animals and toys.

  “What if I want a bigger one?” Manning asked.

  “You have to hit the target twice.”

  “I don’t want a bigger one,” I said immediately, taking a step closer to Manning. I looked up at him, proud. I’d never seen anyone hit the target directly, not even my dad, and he’d played this game before.

  “You sure?” he asked. “Because I’ll—”

  “I’m sure.” I pointed to the first thing I saw, a white-and-blue pelican. “That one.”

  Manning leaned over the counter to wrestle the toy off the wall. “It needs a name,” he said.

  My cheeks flushed. “I don’t name my stuffed animals.”

  He passed it to me. “I think you should.”

  I hugged it to my chest. Put on the spot, I couldn’t think of anything clever. “Well, it’s a bird, so . . . Birdy?”

  “Birdy,” he repeated, looking me in the eyes. He ran a thumb over the head of the stuffed toy, his knuckles brushing the neckline of my shirt, the top curve of my breast. He didn’t seem to notice, but I shivered. “You cold, Birdy?”

  It fit perfectly in my arms, the first thing a boy had ever given me—and not just a boy. Manning. “Birdy’s warm.” I nodded. “Birdy’s perfect. Thank you.”

  “Welcome.”

  “Look what I won.” Tiffany strutted over, her arms barely meeting around the middle of a giraffe as tall as her. She grinned. “And I didn’t even have to throw a single ball.”

  “You going to carry that thing around the whole park?” Manning asked. “We’ll have to buy it its own ticket.”

  She laughed. “Of course not. It’s as big as me. You are.” She shoved it at Manning, who tucked it under his arm, looking much less annoyed than I felt.

  When I glanced over at the Ferris wheel, Manning noticed. “Still want me to take you?”

  I curled my fingers into Birdy’s soft, velvety fur. I couldn’t have been happier. “No, it’s okay.”

  Tiffany took Manning’s free arm and guided him away, leaving me to follow behind them. “Thank you for taking care of her,” she whispered loudly. “My dad will love you for it.”

  “Dad?” I asked. “You’re going to introduce them?”

  “No.” Tiffany looked back at me, and then up at Manning. “Well, maybe. Would you, Manning?”

  “Would I what?”

  “Meet my parents.” She squeezed his elbow. “You could come over for dinner.”

  Manning, at the dinner table? With Dad? Tiffany had brought home two guys before—an older man who owned a tanning booth and a guy with dreadlocks. Neither had lasted a week past dinner. Dad didn’t even like Tiffany’s friends, much less her boyfriends. He went out of his way to make them feel small, and Tiffany knew it.

  “I don’t think he should,” I said.

  “Don’t be rude,” Tiffany said.

  “But you know how Dad is.”

  “How?” Manning asked.

  I recited my mom’s excuse for Dad whenever he insulted someone. “People just don’t get his sense of humor.”

  “Manning can handle it,” Tiffany said, trailing her fingers over the giraffe’s neck. “Can’t you?”

  Tiffany’s words from the other night came back to me. The construction workers pissed Dad off, and she liked that. Maybe she even wanted it.

  “Is it all right with you?” Manning asked me.

  “Why should she care?” Tiffany asked.

  “Because I’ll be eating dinner with your family, and she’s an entire quarter of it.”

  “You want to come?” I asked.

  He looked back at me. “Might be a good idea to meet your parents.”

  He said it to me, not Tiffany. He wanted to meet my parents. And while I should’ve felt uneasy about it, the idea that Manning had any interest in my life had the opposite effect.

  It made my heart soar.

  7

  Lake

  My dad rarely took days off, unless it was for something he deemed more important than work. Not much fell into that category, but USC always did.

  That was why, at four o’clock on the Monday after I’d gone to the fair, my dad and I were finishing up our annual visit to the campus. My dad proudly called me a prospective student to the other parents on the tour, and I wore an old Trojans t-shirt that’d belonged to him before he’d shrunk it in the wash.

  This year felt different than our past five visits. I really was a prospective student now, only two years out from starting here. As college sharpened on the horizon, the students around me no longer seemed ancient. They were just a couple years older than me. I’d even gone to school with kids who attended now. Female students wore strapless tops, cut-off shorts, and bared their midriffs. A boy rode by our tour group on a skateboard. I’d never even been on a skateboard, and showing too much skin was a punishable offense at my school.

  When the guide dismissed us for the afternoon, Dad pulled me away from the crowd. “You heard what she said about starting college classes now?” he asked. “Since USC is too far of a drive, we can sign you up at a community college to get some credits out of the way.”

  “My teacher said a college class might be too much at my age.”

  “Your teacher’s an idiot. It’ll be Disneyland compared to where you’re headed. You should have no trouble keeping up.”

  If he believed I could do it, then I’d try. He’d pushed me to take advanced classes all my life, and although they were hard, I’d always earned A’s.

  The buildings were large and named after people. Students came in and out of every door, disappearing around corners or zipping by us. “How old were you when you came here?”

  “Twenty. I couldn’t afford anything other than community college, so that’s where I started, but eventually I transferred to USC on a scholarship. I graduated at the top of my class and went on to complete my MBA. Imagine what you can do starting even earlier.”

  I thought back to my conversation with Manning about my interests and how he’d prom
ised to get me books from the library. “I haven’t decided on a major yet. Do you think I should do business?”

  “You don’t have to. You can be anything you want. Doctor, lawyer, accountant.”

  “Mona wants to be a teacher.”

  “The world needs teachers,” he said as we headed down the concrete path. “But we also need leaders. If you like working with children, like you do at camp, you could be a pediatrician. Then you get to spend all day doing something valuable. Saving lives.”

  I couldn’t remember much about doctor’s offices, but my dentist was in a perpetually bad mood. “Wouldn’t that be sad, dealing with sick kids? What if I can’t make them better?”

  “If you decide to go that route, there’re different paths you can take. You could be an obstetrician. Try being sad while delivering a baby.”

  “How many years of school is that?”

  “Probably eight, including undergrad, followed by a residency. I know it sounds like a lot, but you’re young. And you’re lucky, Lake. Your mom and I are willing to pay for all of it so you can come out debt-free at the end. College loans are a burden, and USC is at the top as far as tuition goes. You won’t have to struggle for years like I did to pay them off.”

  Eight years and then some. I couldn’t fathom it. I’d be twenty-six or older when I graduated, which meant I still had over ten years left as a student. I’d spent my whole life hearing about USC, and how great college was—I couldn’t wait to be around other people who loved school and wanted to learn. But another decade sounded overwhelming.

  “Look, there’s the College of Commerce and Business Administration,” Dad said, pointing as if I didn’t already know the sandstone-colored brick building with majestic arches. “I spent many hours there becoming the man I am today. Let’s go peek inside.”

  On the lawn out front, a small group of students had arranged rubber mats into rows. They were dressed casually in shorts and tanks. A couple of them sat picking blades of grass. One read a book. None of them spoke to each other.

  My dad held open a door, and we walked down the hall. He tried some handles. “Maybe there’s a summer school lecture we can sit in on.”

  “What was your favorite class?”

  “I don’t know if I had a favorite,” he said. “I enjoyed learning about strategy and operations. How to minimize costs and maximize profits.” He peered into a window on one of the doors before continuing on. “You know what I hated? Advanced statistics. It’s an important class, don’t get me wrong, but it was damn hard.”

  My jaw nearly hit the floor. “You hated a class?”

  “Of course I did. You think I enjoyed learning to calculate standard deviation or worrying about variance and outliers?” He looked over his shoulder, saw my expression and said, “Oh, Lake. You do think that, don’t you?”

  The way he talked about college and what was ahead of me, I didn’t think there was anything he didn’t miss about it. “Kind of.”

  He laughed. “I know you think I’m fanatical about this stuff, but I just want to give you opportunities. Do you think I work as hard as I do for any other reason than to take care of you girls?”

  The truth was, I never really thought about it. I just assumed he worked all the time because he loved it. “I’m sorry, Dad. I didn’t realize . . . thank you.”

  He chuckled, took my face, and kissed my forehead. “I’m not asking for a thank you. I’m just trying to explain that if I’m hard on you, it’s because I want the best for you. I’m proud of you, Lake. You have so much potential. I want to give you every chance to realize it.”

  My throat thickened. I knew he was proud, but it felt good to hear him say it once in a while. “I will,” I said. I had no idea how, but I’d always been a good student, always put in the time to do better, and I didn’t see that changing anytime soon. “I promise.”

  One of the locked doors opened, and a blonde woman who looked a little older than Tiffany leaned out. “Can I help you?”

  Dad turned. “Oh. Sorry if we disturbed you. We were just checking things out.” He put his arm around my shoulder. “My daughter’s a prospective student.”

  She smiled at me. “Welcome. Will you be applying to business school?”

  Dad had told me a few times that in business and in life, it was important to act confident, especially when you weren’t. I straightened my shoulders. “Yes.”

  Dad squeezed my shoulder.

  “Well, I’m an assistant professor in the Business Economics department. Maybe by the time you get here, I’ll have my doctorate and you’ll be in my class.”

  “How about that, Lake?” He winked at the woman. “You already know a professor.”

  She laughed. “Well, not yet . . .”

  “Maybe I’ll come with my daughter, sit in on your class,” he said. “Who knows? I might learn something.”

  “And what do you do?”

  “COO of a little company called Ainsley-Bushner Pharmaceuticals. Maybe you’ve heard of it?”

  She gaped at him. “Of course I have. Forget sitting in on my class—I’ll be shamelessly begging you for a guest lecture.”

  I might as well have left the room. My dad had a weird look on his face he didn’t get around Mom, something I thought might border on flirtatious. Whatever he was doing, I didn’t think I wanted to witness it. “I’m going to go outside and explore a little,” I said.

  “Don’t go too far,” Dad said, releasing me. “We have to leave soon to get home in time for dinner.”

  “So I know all about CEOs and CFOs,” she said as I walked away, “but COO’s are a bit more mysterious. What exactly do you do?”

  Dad had a standard answer to that question, but his tone changed depending on who was asking. Sometimes it was meant to end a conversation. Other times, like this one, it was an invitation to ask more. “A little of this, a little of that.”

  I left them in the hallway and headed outside. The sun was beginning to sink into late afternoon, turning the sky orange. The students I’d seen earlier were lying on their backs on the lawn as a bearded man wove through the maze of mats. Each had one hand on their stomach and the other on their chest.

  “We’ll begin each session by consulting with our bodies,” he said. “Breathe from your diaphragm. Don’t know how? The hand on your stomach should rise higher than the one on your chest. Inhale. Keep your eyes closed.” He looked at me. “Now, exhale for eight counts and expel everything from your body that doesn’t belong in this class.” He looked around, nodding. “Just breathe. Your life depends on it. So does your grade.”

  A few people laughed. I’d gotten closer than I’d meant, but they looked so at peace.

  “Want to join?”

  I blinked up at the man. “Sorry?”

  “We have space.”

  It didn’t look that way. They’d created two even rows. “There aren’t any mats left.”

  “Do you need one?”

  I hadn’t thought of that. I could just sit in the grass. “No, but I’m waiting for my . . .” I stopped myself from saying Dad. These were college students. They’d left home already. “My ride.”

  “So lie down until then.” He gestured to the end of one row.

  It was tempting. It seemed as though my mind had been going since I’d met Manning, wondering about him, or about little things like what books I really wanted to read or how I could get to Tower Records to buy a Pink Floyd CD. I, too, wanted to sink into the lawn and turn my brain off, send my problems into the air like balloons. With no sign of my dad, I lay down on the ground.

  “We’ll stay in this position for sixty seconds. You have a lot of responsibilities as students, friends, children, siblings. Don’t be afraid to think about nothing for a change. Clear your mind.”

  It was easier said than done. My mind wandered over to the business school, and then to how Manning had asked for a list of my interests. What were those, though? I did well in math, but did I want to do it for a living? I couldn�
�t imagine anyone did. Making people feel better appealed to me, but things like blood and surgery and medical charts didn’t. I liked reading and cooking for other people. I’d been a camp counselor last year and student council treasurer of my sophomore class. None of that really added up to a profession I could think of, though. Maybe Manning would know once he saw the list.

  “You can sit up now,” the man said.

  I opened my eyes as a breeze rustled the leaves of nearby trees. Despite being on a busy college campus, our spot on the lawn was quiet. I got up slowly, blinking to adjust to the sun. I scratched my elbow, itchy from the grass. Everyone was smiling.

  “Welcome to the summer session of Drama 101.” He looked at me. “I’m Professor Bronstein, but you can call me Sal.”

  I checked over my shoulder. My dad was outside the building but still talking to the assistant professor.

  “We’ll meet out here before class from now on. Once we enter the classroom, you have two jobs. To become the part you’re playing, and to support one another. At times, you’ll feel foolish—I guarantee it. You’ll also feel triumphant, and some other stuff in between. Trusting your classmates will go a long way when it comes to getting the most out of this experience.”

  “But we just met, and summer session only lasts a few weeks,” someone pointed out.

  “Precisely. We have a small amount of time to earn each other’s trust, so let’s begin with an exercise. Turn to face the person next to you.”

  Still deep in conversation, my dad didn’t seem to notice I wasn’t there. Since I was at the end of the row, I could only go one way. I sat cross-legged facing a dark-haired girl. “Hi,” she said softly. “I’m Les.”

  “I’m not actually in this—”

  “Now,” Sal said, “close your eyes and touch your partner’s face.”

  Les looked as surprised as I felt. I’d met her two seconds ago, and now I had to put my hands on her? It felt like an intrusion. Neither of us moved. She stifled a laugh.

  “Where?” someone asked. “How?”