Teek

by S. Andrew Swann

  John: “Tell her. You owe her that.”

  That was close enough.

  Mom: “Don’t tell me how to treat my daughter.”

  Allison nodded to herself. It was an odd sensation she had. It felt like she was trying to discover the plot of an entire novel from a stray page she’d found.

  She felt her eyes watering and thought, why are you keeping things from me, Mom? Her breath fogged in front of her, and she felt frozen to the seat.

  The next line was the strange one:

  John: “If they look they’ll find out the doctor’s appointments.”

  Allison stared at what she wrote. Slowly, with a trembling hand, she underlined “they.” “They” would be interested in her doctor’s appointments. “They” were interested in her headaches. “They” thought her headaches meant something. At least John thought so.

  “Maybe I misheard it,” Allison mumbled. “I was half asleep.”

  She thought on Mom’s next line. It was impossible to remember the tirade exactly. She decided just to write down the gist of what she’d heard:

  Mom: (goes off on the fact my headaches weren’t anything to worry about.)

  As she thought about it, she added the line:

  “They cleared up after the last visit.”

  Allison was sure Mom had said that. But the headaches hadn’t cleared up after the last visit. Allison simply had stopped telling Mom about them. She had managed to hide the six weeks of intermittent agony, and Allison began to think she had some unconscious complicity from her mother. Mom didn’t want to believe Allison was having these migraines. On the phone she’d been psycho about it. Mom had broken down telling John that Allison’s headaches were nothing.

  Allison added the words, “nothing, nothing, nothing!” to that line.

  Now that it was daylight and she began to think clearly, Allison was scaring herself. When Allison had returned from the doctor, what Mom had shown her wasn’t condescension, insensitivity, or disbelief. It had been denial.

  I’ve contracted a rare genetic disorder, and it’s going to kill me because Mom can’t deal with it.

  Allison got a grip on herself. If it was a disease, those endless examinations would have shown something, even if the doctor didn’t understand what. If there was anything medically wrong, they would have ordered even more tests, not sent mother and daughter home with the all-clear and a speech about tension headaches.

  Allison’s hand shook as she wrote the next line:

  John: “Did the doctor know the other possibility… If she’s a

  Allison paused.

  That word again. It was the only word she remembered from the first phone call, because its use was so odd.

  “Teak?” She said to herself. Am I a piece of wood? Was it some other homonym? How many ways could you spell that? Teke? Teec? Teake? Were any of those words? Allison wrote, “teak(teek?)”

  “If I’m a teak, they will what?” Allison said at the paper in front of her. “Thanks, Mom.”

  She underlined “they” again and finished the last two lines so they read:

  John: “If she’s a teak(teek?), they’ll—”

  Mom: “Leave us alone. I don’t believe any of this. They’re stone insane. You’re insane. Call and I drag you into court. Touch my daughter and I’ll kill you.”

  Allison wondered about the third sentence. The phrase “stone insane” sounded more like her romance heroine, Melissa, than it did Mom. However, Allison was certain that her mother had said “stone insane” or words to that effect.

  Allison sighed.

  Would someone please tell me who “they” are?

  And what in the world did “teak” mean? It sounded vaguely like some obscure ethnic slur. “What?” Allison said out loud. “I’m not a WASP?”

  She decided she’d killed enough time and packed up her backpack again. Whatever was going on in her family’s life, she doubted it would be an adequate excuse for Mr. Counter. She still had to flesh out that bibliography.

  She checked her watch and saw that it was past nine. Good, the library was open. She crossed the street and resumed her journey.

  ◆◆◆

  She spent the morning roaming the stacks, and by noon she had amassed an impressive bibliography for her paper. She’d scanned books on revolution, American, French, and otherwise, and had found herself involved despite herself. One of the books had a distinctly Marxist flavor to it that she knew would absolutely infuriate Mr. Counter if she included it as a reference.

  She sat behind a desk in a reading room. Mission accomplished, she thought. All she had to do now was type up the bibliography and slip in a few of the supporting quotes that she had picked through while scanning the books.

  Her sense of victory was muted.

  She wished she’d never listened in on that phone call. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have enough on her mind already. She pulled the notebook out of her backpack and looked at the transcribed conversation again.

  She wished she’d had the sense to write the thing down when it was fresh on her mind. She knew the conversation had eroded in her memory; the gaps in it might contain something important. Something that would explain everything.

  You could ask her. Confront Mom directly…

  Allison sniffed and realized her eyes were watering. She sucked in a shuddering breath and wiped her face with the back of her hand. A small damp spot now marred the notebook paper. She smeared it with her thumb. She felt pathetic.

  Problems between me and Mom? How’d you know, Macy?

  Allison needed a tissue badly now. She gathered her papers and headed for a bathroom.

  On the way she walked right into David Greenbaum. He’d been carrying a stack of books nearly three feet high, and the collision caused books to fly everywhere. Allison raised her arms to ward off the falling literature, but the books hooked to the left at the last second to careen off a defenseless marble drinking fountain.

  The impact left her head throbbing.

  David stood there, gaping, for half a beat, before he realized who she was. “Allie! Oh, gee, I’m sorry—”

  Allison shook her head. The throbbing subsided below the pain threshold. “My fault. I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

  “The books just got away from me.” David stared at the pile of books at their feet. He looked as if he couldn’t quite believe the mess they’d caused. Allison once found his befuddled looks cute. Nowadays, she just found David’s perpetual confusion irritating.

  What did he have to be confused about?

  She bent and began handing books up to him, rebuilding the stack he’d been carrying. He flinched when she handed him the first one, and Allison couldn’t figure out why.

  It’s last weekend, she thought, the scene between me and Chuck. Now David probably blames me for ruining his party.

  Great, that thought made her feel even worse. About her. About David. About the whole awful world. She rushed through stacking the rest of David’s books.

  “Are you all right?” David asked as she began stacking books past his face.

  “No damage.” Allison balanced the last book in place, half obscuring David’s nose.

  “That’s not what I mean. You look like you’ve been crying.”

  She resisted an urge to wipe her face. Do you really care, David? Or are you just asking because you think you’re supposed to? “I took a long swim and decided to peel some onions afterwards.”

  “Ah. Ok.” David’s voice sounded resigned.

  Allison picked up her backpack and stepped around him toward the ladies’ room. As she retreated down the hall she heard David say, belatedly as usual, “I’m really sorry about the party.”

  She didn’t respond because she didn’t know what to say.

  In the bathroom she blew her nose into a wad of coarse toilet paper. Then she managed to reclaim some of her face from the ravages of her emotions. She wished she was more into makeup right now. If she had some with her, she could
cover some of the effects of her near-sleepless night. But all the makeup she had in the world was in the top left drawer of her bureau. It amounted to some eye shadow and two tubes of lipstick. One tube to go with each of her really good dresses.

  When she thought about it, the natural look was better. If she wore mascara she’d look like a raccoon right now.

  What she did look like was a rather plain-looking blonde who’d spent too much time watching the late movie. She stepped back and smiled, at least her hair made up for her face. It was full and fell to just beyond her shoulder blades. The hair was what kept her from looking like a clone of Marsha Brady.

  She grabbed some more toilet paper and wiped her nose.

  She still wanted to go down to the reference section and find a dictionary. She wanted to know any meanings for the word “teak” that she wasn’t aware of.

  She left the bathroom, turned to descend the stairs, and froze.

  The main stairs descended in a marble sweep toward the main entrance. The entrance fronted a lobby, all glass and pillars. Ahead were the doors outside, to the right was the main adult fiction area, and to the left was the children’s room.

  Right in front of her, standing in the lobby next to the checkout desk, was Chuck Wilson.

  The sight of him, here, crushed her insides into jelly. She couldn’t move. All she could think was the phrase, don’t see me, don’t see me, don’t see me…

  Her temples began to throb with her pulse.

  Chuck looked around the lobby, seeming out of place in the library. His head turned in her direction and Allison felt her heart shrivel in her chest. But Chuck’s head kept moving until, seeming to find what he was looking for, he stepped out of her view into the adult area.

  Allison made a mad dash for the front door. She stopped only when she saw the white sentries of the anti-theft detectors flanking the exit. She was carrying books in her backpack that she’d wanted to check out.

  She backed to the checkout desk, yanking the books out of her bag and fumbling out her library card, wishing the whole process would hurry.

  As they ran the books over the de-magnetizer, Allison looked around nervously. Chuck stood there, right in the center of the magazine section, staring right at her.

  Allison wanted to collapse.

  She could barely take her eyes away from him as she scooped up her books. She shoved her books into her bag and dashed for the exit, not bothering to zip the bag closed.

  She made it to the sidewalk. She started to cross the street, but it was against the light and she was almost hit by a van. In the passenger window she saw a twelve- or thirteen-year-old boy with sandy hair. The kid’s face was pressed to the glass, and he seemed to be staring right at her. Then the van was across the intersection and Allison was stumbling back onto the sidewalk. She turned away from the street and the library and began walking away, fast.

  She had hardly gotten half a block before she heard a terrifyingly familiar voice say, “Allison! Allison Boyle!”

  She turned, slowly, as if she was in a dream.

  Chuck stood there, on the top steps of the library, looking down at her. He was tall and thin, graced with unruly black hair. There was too much shadow on his face for an eighteen-year-old. He wore the same type of clothes he wore at the costume party— wide belt, jeans, boots, flannel shirt rolled to the elbows. The cold didn’t seem to bother him. In his right hand he held up a red-covered spiral-bound notebook that Allison recognized.

  The sight of it made the walls of her stomach fall away, leaving an empty void.

  It was her Trigonometry notebook. The same notebook she’d written Mom’s conversation down in.

  “You dropped this.” Chuck called down to her, smiling.

  Allison wanted to run away as fast as she could. Instead, she found herself walking back toward the library steps. The walk felt endless. Chuck made no move to meet her halfway. He stood at the top of the steps waving her notebook as if it was a treat, and he was enticing a trained animal to do a trick.

  Allison loathed herself as she climbed the stairs. She loathed herself for being so afraid, and for being so blatantly manipulated despite her fear.

  She reached the top step and grabbed the notebook. She forced herself to say, “Thank you.”

  “No prob, sweetcakes. Any time.” He didn’t let go of the book. “I wanted to apologize for the costume party.”

  “Don’t bother,” Allison said.

  Her head was flaring now, the pain distorting her vision. Her view was fracturing and wrapping itself around the notebook.

  Please, not a bad one, not here. Not now.

  She pulled frantically, but Chuck was a lot stronger than she was. Macy might have been able to pull the book away, but Allison couldn’t do more than tug futilely.

  “No, really. Too many beers and I don’t know what I’m doing. No hard feelings?”

  You’ve got to be kidding? Allison thought through a blood-red haze that gripped her head like a punch-press linked to her pulse. As if that drunken grope was accidental?

  She realized the only way she’d get her notebook back was to accept this creep’s apology.

  No!

  The pain hit some sort of breaking point, lancing through her skull and vanishing.

  As it did, she tried one last heroic tug.

  To her surprise, with a tearing sound, the notebook actually came free. Chuck’s smile evaporated into a look of shocked surprise. He stared at his hand.

  His hand now had a narrow red cut, diagonally across the palm, where the wire of the spiraled binding had caught. The spiral wire had unwound for two inches and now bobbed out the top of the notebook like an antenna. As Allison watched, a piece of the notebook’s red cover, the exact size and shape of Chuck’s thumb, drifted gently to the ground.

  “Hell yes, there are hard feelings,” Allison said. She turned and walked away, trying her best not to run.

  After half a block she passed the van that had almost hit her. The young kid in the passenger window still stared at her. She ignored the kid and the van as she walked back past Euclid Heights High.

  12:11 PM

  Chuck froze for a few long seconds before he registered what had happened. He had actually gotten to apologizing to the bitch, and he never apologized to anyone in his fucking life—

  And— goddamn it all— it wasn’t enough.

  He stood at the top of the library stairs, looking at her, thinking he might actually get to talk to her at least. And, suddenly, she yanked the notebook out of his hand. The shock of that immobilized him.

  The notebook tore out of his grasp as if it was welded to the back of an accelerating semi. It was so fast that he barely felt the spiral binding catch in the meat of his hand. It left a thin, ragged gash across his palm.

  A piece of the notebook’s red cover floated to the ground.

  Chuck looked up from his hand.

  “Hell yes, there are hard feelings,” she said. Then she turned her back on him and walked away.

  Little miss perfect said “hell,” Chuck managed to think. “Hey—” he began to say.

  Then he felt his hand.

  “Oh shit!” Awareness of the injury slammed into him like an out of control bus. The pain vibrated his arm and he had to grab his wrist with his other hand to stop the shaking. In the brief time he had looked away from the wound, his hand had pooled with enough blood to spill through his fingers and splatter on the ground.

  Chuck staggered back from the sight, slamming backwards through the doors to the library. The pain triggered a headache, a bad one, as bad as the pain in his hand. Rainbowed auras wrapped around the library’s fluorescent lights, and sounds rang with reverberating echoes that shook apart the back of his skull.

  Blood from his hand went everywhere, his arm, his pants, the floor of the library.

  “The bitch cut me!” He yelled. “The bitch cut my fucking hand!”

  Dozens of people surrounded him, yelling, talking…

&n
bsp; Thinking.

  One of the interns at the checkout desk said, “Oh god! Diane, call 911 «view of himself from across the checkout desk, mental voice, please, jesus let him be all right. our father who art in»”

  An old librarian held back a tide of children off in the kid’s section. “No, everyone back. «view from inside the kid’s section. frantic glances behind at twenty or so storytime kids. six- to eight-years-old. storytime forgotten. don’t let the children see this. that boy has got to be on drugs. what are their parents going to think?»”

  “Oh gross. «view from behind the skirts of the librarian worried about parents. old lady smell. eyes close to the ground. everything much too large. hallucinogenicly large. man’s hurt. that real blood? will they let us see the ambulance? i wanna see. maybe he’s in a gang. police too? i wanna see police too»”

  People ran toward him. Chuck felt fully disconnected from his body now. Prismatic colors washed out his vision when he saw through his own eyes, and his own ears heard voices as if he was in the bottom of a well. His throbbing hand felt distant, like his own heartbeat, and he was only dimly aware that he had fallen to his knees, cradling it. A pool of blood had formed below him.

  A man in a suit was the first to reach Chuck. He tore off his tie. «blood, oh fuck. too much blood. is it venous or arterial— oh damn. just get pressure on the thing. where is that damn ambulance? hope this kid ain’t doped on anything. should have stuck with med school. forgotten everything by now. no too tight. stop the bleeding, not lose the hand. god his color sucks. how much has he lost? where’re the fucking paramedics?» The man’s tie clamped on to Chuck’s hand with a fiery grip.

  Chuck realized that he was yelling at everyone.

  “Get out of my fucking head!”

  «gee, that is chuck wilson? oh wait till I tell kelly about»

  «that guy is hopped to the gills. probably did it to himself»

  «i hate blood»

  «where’s the fucking ambulance?»

  «and deliver us from evil»

  Chuck rocked back and forth on his knees, staring at the crowd around him. None of them really gave a shit about him. He was just some sort of goddamned spectacle. His vision grayed, turning dim at the edges. As he swayed, he saw David Greenbaum at the top of the stairs at the end of the lobby.