by Pam Bachorz
“Too boring.” Nia swirls the water with pointed toes.
“You’re right. Winston didn’t know how to be boring.”
I don’t hate him for that. But she’s right—sometimes I hate him for other things. For not being here. It feels like a broken promise. And sometimes I hate him for what happened after he died.
“My mom left us because of him.” It comes out like a confession.
“Why? He was already gone.”
“Not gone from her head. But my father was trying to make us forget.”
I don’t know how she found out. But one night, she confronted him. It was after we grilled burgers and ate corn on the cob. After she kissed me good night. After she closed the door to my room, so soft that you couldn’t hear the latch click.
They yelled a lot that night. But nobody heard them except me. Our street was full of half-finished houses.
“You’re erasing him!” she shouted. “You want us to forget he ever existed!”
Dad was just as loud. “You can’t handle this on your own. All you talk about is Winston!”
I knew about the Messages before that night. I’d poked around in his study. Read things on his computer while he walked construction sites. It was strange. Interesting.
But I hadn’t realized that the Messages were invented to fix us.
They said a lot of things that night. But there’s one thing that I still think about, almost every day. Something Dad said. “Who’s more important?” he asked. “The dead kid? Or the one who’s still alive?”
I couldn’t hear her answer. But she was gone in the morning.
Nia squeezes my hand, just for a second. “You can’t forget loving somebody.”
“The Messages can do anything.” A shiver makes me wrap my arms around my middle.
“You’re almost making me believe you,” she says. “Except that it’s impossible.”
“It’s true. Everyone has to listen to them. Me. You.”
“Not me.” She turns to look at me. Our noses nearly touch. “I only do what I want.”
Only because she listens to the special Messages I made her. But I sense I shouldn’t say it.
“Why are you here if you only do what you want?” I ask.
She lets out a long sigh and pulls back. Our faces are a polite distance now. “Part of me wanted to come.”
“And the other part?”
“That part doesn’t do what my parents want. Ever.” She stares at me, eyes hard. “And they’d like nothing more than for me to hook up with you.”
“You should do what it takes to make your parents happy,” I say. Wiggle my eyebrows to show it’s a joke. But she’s looking at the water now.
“My whole life, there’s only been one thing I’ve wanted,” she says. “Know what it is?”
Fantasies race through my mind. But I keep quiet and just shake my head.
“To do whatever my parents don’t want.” A little smile twists her lips. “And I’m very good at that.”
“Like what?”
“It started with M&M’s.” She shoots me a sly look from the side of her eyes. “I used to buy a pound bag with my allowance and eat them on the way home from school. They were everything I wasn’t supposed to have. Candy. Preservatives. And definitely not organic.”
“Crazy girl.”
“It got crazier.” She swallows so hard I can hear it over the waterfall.
“You don’t have to tell me.”
“You told me.” Nia shrugs. “Besides, you should know what a loser I am.”
“You’re not a—”
“Drinking. Drugs. Sex. Think of everything good Catholic parents don’t want for their little girl. I did it all. Over and over again.” She keeps her eyes on the water. “Now do you see what a loser I am? It wasn’t even fun, most of it.”
Because I don’t. I’ll never know what I would have been like, if I’d been given the chance to be normal. Everyone comes here screwed up some way. I would have been, too.
“I don’t think you’re a loser.”
“I do.” She says it quietly.
“But I think you should make up your own mind about what you want,” I tell her.
She folds her arms over her stomach and kicks both feet up at the same time. “I only do what I want.”
“No. You only do what pisses off your parents. Maybe you should do what you want—no matter if they’d like it or not.”
Now she stares at me, hard. I return the look. “You’re not scared of me.”
“So quit trying,” I tell her.
She edges closer. So do I. And then she kisses me.
It’s soft. Slow. But it’s like our bodies have been planning this. We press closer together. She rests one hand against my cheek, fingers spread out.
I can’t hear anything except my breathing. And hers. The Messages are gone. But the rest of my brain is screaming. Stop right now, it warns me. This is dangerous.
Never get attached.
But she keeps going, and I keep going. I wonder how long we’ll kiss. I wonder how long it will be before we do it again.
Dad could be coming home. He could walk out here and see this. But I don’t stop.
She’s the one who pulls away.
“We’re not supposed to do that.” Her voice is shaky.
“We don’t have to tell.”
She stands up and steps around me. Doesn’t say anything else. She just goes to the steps at the shallow end of the pool. And walks in.
She doesn’t stop to take off her shirt, or her pants, or even pull her hair back.
“Did I mention? I can’t swim,” she says.
“You need to get out.” I’m on my feet. Looking for something, anything to pull her out. “Seriously. Get out.”
She goes in deeper and deeper.
“I can’t save you,” I tell her.
She smiles and sweeps her hands across the surface. The water is over her waist.
“That’s too deep. Come on. Get out.”
“I can’t swim.” She throws me a grin. “But I can float.”
Nia spreads her arms wide and falls back into the water. There’s no splash. The water moves out of her way, then holds her.
She laughs. It bounces over the water and drowns out the sound of the waterfalls. “Come in, come in,” she sings.
“I don’t want to.” A lie.
“The water is perfect.” She looks ridiculous and beautiful. Her hair is fanned around her head. The white top clings to her body like wet tissue.
“My father could be home any second.”
“You’ll tell him I fell in.”
Finally I find a pole with a net on the end. I stand on the top step and stretch it to her. “Take it. I’ll pull you.”
She grabs it. And tugs. Hard.
I stumble, down one step, then two. My breath flutters. I struggle to get it under control.
She tugs again. Another step down. Too far. Too deep.
But I don’t let go.
“It’s safe,” she promises.
“You don’t know how to swim,” I remind her.
“But I bet you do. Even if you haven’t done it for a long time.”
She’s right. I do know how to swim. Used to love it, even.
When she pulls again, I don’t fight it. My body slides into the water without a splash. And then I’m next to her. Floating. Ridiculous and happy.
“Oops,” she says. “You fell in, too.”
I try to kiss her again. But she pushes me away.
“I know. Respectful space in every place,” I mutter.
“Your girlfriend scares me.”
“She won’t hurt you.”
“Unless she finds an ax in the bushes,” she says.
Maybe she starts laughing first. Or maybe it’s me. But then we’re laughing together, the sound echoing off the rocks. It’s louder than the pool pumps. The air conditioner. The mosquito truck that’s circling the street.
That’s when I deci
de. It only takes a second.
I want her here with me.
She doesn’t have to leave. I can teach her how to pretend—let them think she’s Candor perfect, like me. We’ll know different.
We can hide in plain sight together.
“Maybe I should break up with Mandi,” I say.
She rolls on her stomach and sticks her face in the water. Blows bubbles. When she pulls her head up, brown tendrils of hair are pasted to her face.
“Maybe you’re right,” she says. “But only if it’s what you want.”
I aim a splash of water at her. She pushes a wave right back.
I’ll figure it out. How she’ll stay. How she won’t change. How I’ll keep her safe. It all needs to be planned.
But not tonight.
Tonight, I’ll just float.
EVER SINCE NIA and I kissed, I’ve been trying to end things with Mandi. But she’s always too busy to talk. After school, she’s either studying or having a committee meeting for TAG. At night we can’t talk. Her housekeeper answers the phone. “Miss Mandi has a test,” she’ll say. “She cannot be disturbed.”
It’s almost like Miss Mandi and I already broke up.
But it has to be official. And when I see the signs for the car wash, I make my move.
There’s a car wash after school to benefit TAG. I’m not sure why she needs money for it. How much does a petition against graffiti cost? Can’t her proud papa spring for a couple of clipboards and a package of printer paper?
Doesn’t matter. I know I’ll find her here. We’ll talk. And then it will be over.
Some Candor clone boy is standing on Candor Ave., at the four-way stop by the SunStock Bank. He’s holding a homemade sign. HELP TAG MAKE OUR CITY PRETTY. The letters are outlined in puff paint and colored in with pastel markers.
“You make that yourself?” I ask. It looks like something a Girl Scout would make to advertise cookies.
He juts his jaw out. “It’s important to keep Candor beautiful.”
Too bad the sign isn’t helping his cause.
The tough face makes him look familiar. “Are you Tommy Kowalski?” I ask.
“Just Tom. You remember me, Oscar? You remember English class last semester, when we were partners on the vocab review?”
“Sure,” I lie. “That was great.”
What I do remember is when he moved here, almost a year ago. I’d never seen so many piercings. Studs lined his jaw. There were more in the web between his thumb and his finger. And he had a bar through the back of his neck. It made your skin itch to look, but you couldn’t stop staring.
All the metal was gone six days after he moved here.
“Remember your nose ring?” I ask. “It was huge. You looked like a cow.”
He shivers. “The past is best forgotten.”
“Yeah. I thought you’d say that.”
Tommy has a crew cut now, and he tucks his T-shirts into his shorts. All the way. I do, too, but only because it’s my disguise. I wonder if part of Tommy knows he looks like a middle-aged guy with a minivan and three brats.
“Have you seen Mandi?” I ask him.
His eyebrows jerk up and down. There are knotty scars at the ends. “Why would you want to see her?”
Not the kind of hostile reaction I’m used to.
“Uh, because she’s my girlfriend.” For the next five minutes, at least.
“You don’t belong together. You should stay away from her.” He stares at me with narrow eyes.
If this weren’t Candor, I would probably have to punch him out or something, for saying that. I’m not sure, since I’ve never been a teenager anywhere but here.
Besides, he’s right.
“I’m going to break up with her,” I tell him.
“Oh! Good idea!” He smiles, perfect even white teeth. Parents tend to fix their kids’ outsides up, too, once Candor delivers their dream kid on the inside.
“Thanks, I guess.”
He pulls out a walkie-talkie. I grab his hand. “Don’t tell her it’s me. She’s avoiding me, I think.”
“You promise you’re breaking up?”
“Promise.”
He grins and hits the button. “Corner Catcher to Mandi. Alpha customer headed your way.”
“What’s an alpha customer?”
“Big car with car seats. We charge extra for detailing. Mandi works out the deal.” But then his face clouds. “Not that we rip people off. Never take advantage of someone else’s need.”
“I’m sure you’re model citizens.”
His radio crackles. “I’m at the hose hookups.”
I follow the line of waiting cars for two blocks, until I’m at Pond-side Park. All the charity car washes are here. The town lets you use their water and their hoses.
Mandi’s in the middle of everything. She points and kids scrub. I watch for a minute. Smooth blonde ponytail. Big pink-lipped smile. Shirt so loose, you can barely tell she’s a girl. It’s like she was made for Candor.
But it’s the other way around. Candor made her.
Last year, during a long new-kid dry spell, I thought about changing that. Just a few Messages and she’d be hot for me. It could have been fun. She looks like the girl in a porno who shows up in a Velcro nurse costume. You know there’s a bunch of bad under the white button-down shirt. Way under, in Mandi’s case.
But I decided to skip it. I knew I could have fun with the new girls. My arrangement with Mandi was more important than sex. Being with her made me look good. And looking good kept me safe.
Maybe this is a stupid decision. Mandi kept me safe. But will Nia mean danger? Hasn’t she already?
Truth is, I stopped being smart when she pulled me into the pool that night.
Tommy’s right. Mandi should be with someone different. Someone who’s pickled in the Messages, just like her.
Part of me will miss all the trying. Hold my hand, Mandi. Come kiss my cheek. Let me touch your hair. I always wondered if maybe she’d give in one day. It was an interesting experiment. Even if the results were always the same.
It’ll be different with Nia. It already is.
Mandi spots me. “Oscar. We need to talk, but … I’m really busy.”
“I’m the alpha customer,” I tell her.
She looks up at the corner and I can tell Tommy’s in trouble. I pull a twenty out of my pocket. “I told Tommy I wanted to donate to the cause.”
Mandi’s face relaxes. She sticks the money in her pocket. “We need more scrubbers. Come with me.”
“Can’t we just talk—?” But she’s already ten feet ahead of me, like there’s rocket fuel in the heels of her white sneakers. I rush to catch up.
Mandi leads me to a white car the size of a small elephant and hands me a hose. “I promised we’d get them all off.”
The front of the beast is covered in smashed black bugs. “Not lovebugs,” I groan. If you don’t get them off right away, you’re screwed.
“I know.” Mandi shakes her head. “I should have charged extra.”
Twice a year, the lovebugs appear. They float over the roads, and the grass, and the sidewalks. Always linked together. In bliss, until a semi smacks into them.
“At least they died happy,” I say.
“They should have stayed in the bushes.” Mandi looks over her shoulder. “What is Curtis doing? Doesn’t he know—?” She sighs.
“Don’t go yet. We have to talk. I’ll be quick,” I say. I hate that I’m begging. Especially her. But it’s not for me, I remind myself. It’s for Nia. It’s for us.
“You’re right. But I have to address this situation immediately.” She bustles away. A skinny kid sees her coming and scrubs a hubcap double fast.
I aim my hose at the car. A few bug carcasses flake off. But mostly they stay on. A bead of sweat rolls under my Candor-crested polo. The sun is burning my scalp. If I’d known I was going to be outside, sweating like a gardener, I would have figured something else out. Like a letter. Or just telling Nia
we broke up.
Never lie. The Message pops in, like I need to be reminded.
“You don’t have to tell me,” I mutter. Nia’s worth more than that.
Mandi is back. She stands next to me with her hands on her hips. Inspects the car. “This still looks horrible. Or—um—perhaps you should work more on this.”
“They’re stuck. And I didn’t come here to clean,” I say.
“I have something difficult to say,” she says. Glances over at the line of cars.
She can’t fire me. I’d be her best worker, if I wanted to be. “Maybe if I had a different nozzle or a scrubby brush,” I say. “I’m not saying I can’t do it. It’s just hard.”
Mandi looks back at me. Her ponytail sways a little with the motion. “Sometimes …” She sighs and presses her lips together, staring at me. “Sometimes, Oscar, people’s paths diverge. It’s nobody’s fault when a romance dissolves.”
Is she talking about us? I know we don’t belong together. But since when does she think that?
Maybe she really was avoiding me.
“Who’s—um—dissolving?” I ask.
“Am I being kind? It’s important to end relationships gently.” She stares, waiting for me to reply.
Messages, ones I don’t remember hearing before, drop reminders in my brain. First there’s what Mandi just said: End relationships gently. Then Recognize when it’s time to move on. I’ve been programmed for this occasion and I didn’t even realize it.
“You’re doing fine,” I tell her. It’s like she has a script.
“It’s time for us to go our separate ways.” She squints at me. “Don’t you think?”
This isn’t how it was supposed to go. I was going to break the news. She was going to be sad. Or at least annoyed. Maybe even a little rude. “Aren’t you upset?” I ask.
“It’s not like we were in love.” Then she claps her hand over her mouth. “Oh, Oscar. Were you—are you—?”
“No. I wasn’t. I’m not.” I never loved her. Just appreciated the cover.
“I’m not doing this right. I woke up early this morning and practiced for hours.”
It’s been eating me, too. But I thought it was guilt. “How about we just say we broke up.”
“Oh. Oh! Yes. That’s a good idea, if it’s acceptable to you.” She swings the clipboard to one hip and holds out the other hand. “Thank you, Oscar. You were a good boyfriend.”
