Spiraling

by H. Karhoff

  Walking over to the stove, I transferred the vegetables from the pans to serving dishes. As soon as they were ready, Devon carried them to the table. I told him he didn’t have to, but he did it anyway. Then he walked back to the stove. I cut the last slice of meatloaf and set the knife in the sink.

  “Is this ready?” he asked.

  “I can get it,” I answered. “You can go ahead and sit down.”

  He picked up the platter. “I got it.”

  I followed behind him. Candy and Colt ran into the kitchen as he rounded the end of the bar. He had to step back to avoid being run over by the stampeding four-year-olds. As soon as the path was clear, he carried the platter of meatloaf to the table and set it down in the center. Then he stepped back and waited.

  “Have a seat,” Chris growled, pushing out James’ chair.

  “Thanks,” Devon replied and sat down.

  I looked around the table as I carefully popped a green bean into my mouth. My mom watched Devon as if he were about to do circus tricks and I could sense his unease from two chairs away. I wanted to tell her to leave him alone, but I knew it would only make things worse. She didn’t like him and being civil wasn’t in her nature.

  “So, Devon,” she said; “what kind of work do your parents do?”

  Devon cleared his throat. “I’m not really sure. I live with my sister.”

  “That’s right,” Mom replied. “Tori mentioned something about that.” She paused. “What does your sister do?”

  “She’s a waitress and bartender,” Devon answered.

  “Here in town?” Mom gestured in the direction of Main Street with her fork.

  “She works at Trina’s here in town and at JJ’s in Beaumont.”

  “Oh.”

  Mom momentarily let Devon be, but I could almost hear the next round of questions formulating in her head as she mulled over her potatoes. It seemed like he could sense it, too. He hesitantly took a bite of meatloaf as if he expected her to ask him something as soon as he did.

  “Beck and I were going to head over to Larson tomorrow after school,” Chris said before Mom could resume her interrogation. “She needs to pick up some stuff and I told her I’d give her a ride.”

  Mom took a deep breath and looked at him. “What’s wrong with her car?”

  “She doesn’t know,” Chris answered. “The radio kept cutting out the other day and she said it didn’t want to start this morning. Her dad said he’s going to take it to the shop on Friday.”

  “That car is always breaking down on her.” Mom shook her head. “I don’t know why Pam and Jerry don’t just buy her a new one.”

  “She doesn’t want a new one,” Chris replied. “She likes that old piece of crap.”

  “I don’t know why.” Mom sighed.

  “Because she’s Beck.” Chris shrugged.

  “Do the headlights flicker?” Devon interjected unexpectedly.

  Chris leaned forward and scowled at him. “Why does that matter?”

  “It might be the alternator,” Devon said. “What kind of car is it?”

  “I don’t know,” Chris replied. “Probe or something, I think.”

  “Do you know a lot about cars, Devon?” Mom asked.

  Devon nodded. “My brother used to run a garage. I worked there for a little while when I was staying with him last year.”

  “Are you thinking of being a mechanic?” Mom put her napkin down next to her plate and folded her arms across the edge of the table.

  “I don’t know,” Devon answered.

  “My first husband liked to tinker with old cars,” Mom said reflectively. “After the kids were born and his business took off, he didn’t really have the time for it, but I remember he had this old truck he was rebuilding. He’d spend hours out in the garage working on that thing.”

  Listening to my mom talk about my dad was strange. It was the first time I’d heard her speak affectionately about him since the divorce. She laughed as she recalled stories from when she and my dad were dating.

  After everyone had eaten, Mom went into her office and Chris sulked back to his room. Devon helped me clear the table, do the dishes, and get the twins involved in a movie. Then we went out to sit on the porch while he smoked a cigarette.

  “Sorry about not being able to go out,” I said.

  “It’s okay,” he replied. “I don’t mind.”

  “I’m sure this isn’t exactly how you wanted to spend your night. My mom can be a little much sometimes.”

  “She’s fine. A little officious, but I think a lot of moms are.”

  “I guess.” I shrugged. I had no idea what he was talking about. There were times when I felt like I needed a dictionary to have a conversation with him.

  He took a drag off his cigarette and let the smoke slide through his lips. Then he looked at me. “You don’t have to sit out here if it’s too cold. I’m all right if you want to go back inside.”

  “That’s okay. It’s not that cold.”

  “I can hear your teeth chattering.”

  “I’m okay,” I said, even though my toes were completely numb and my face felt like a freezer-burnt tomato.

  Putting his arm around my shoulders, he pulled me closer. The leather on his jacket was cold, but I didn’t complain. I liked being cuddled up beside him. After he’d taken another drag from his cigarette, he smoothed down my hair and kissed the top of my head. Then he put his free hand over my exposed ear. Despite the bitter temperatures, his palm was warm.

  He put his cigarette out and stuffed the end into his pocket. Then he brushed his hand across my cheek. When he kissed me, I melted into his arms. I loved the way his lips felt against mine.

  The sound of James’ car pulling into the driveway diverted our attention. We scrambled away from each other and turned toward the sound. James got out of his car, scowling as he walked up the sidewalk.

  “What the hell’s going on here?” James demanded.

  Devon stood up. “Good evening, sir,” he said politely, offering to shake James’ hand. “I’m Devon Shar—”

  “I don’t give a damn who you are,” James yelled. “You can keep your goddamn hands off my daughter.”

  “Yes, sir.” Devon nodded.

  James turned to me. “It’s time for you to go inside.”

  “OK.” I agreed.

  Arguing with James wasn’t going to make the situation better. His right hand was clenched in a fist and from the way he glared at Devon, I was worried my stepfather was about to hit my boyfriend. Standing up, I stepped between the two of them and looked at Devon. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Goodnight,” Devon said. Then he walked around James and down the sidewalk.

  James watched to make sure Devon left before turning his glare on me. “Get inside.”

  “Yes, sir.” I hurried into the house with James on my heels.

  “Go to your room,” he yelled as he slammed the door. “You’re grounded.”

  “What did I do?” I asked.

  “Don’t pull that shit with me. You know full well what you did. I’m not going to have my fifteen-year-old daughter making out with some punk on the front porch.”

  “We weren’t making out.”

  “The hell you weren’t!”

  Mom walked out of her office and asked, “What is going on out here?”

  James whirled around. “Do you know where your daughter just was?”

  “No.” Mom shook her head. “Where was she?”

  “Out on the porch with some hooligan,” James answered.

  “I assume you’re talking about Devon,” Mom said. “He had dinner with us.”

  James’ eyes widened. “You’re okay with her seeing that boy?”

  Mom nodded. “He seems like a nice kid. He’s well-mannered and—”

  “Well, I’m not okay with it. He and your daughter were all over each other when I pulled into the driveway.”

  “Victoria.” Mom scowled at me.

  “We weren’t al
l over each other,” I said. “We kissed but that’s it.” I turned back to James. “Is it against the law to kiss my boyfriend now?”

  “Like that, it is,” James answered. “Especially at your age.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m fifteen. Not five.”

  “I know damn well how old you are: too young to date.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are. I don’t want you seeing that boy anymore.”

  “I’m not breaking up with Devon.”

  “Don’t tell me what you’re not doing,” he yelled.

  I turned to my mother for support. “Mom, tell him he’s not being reasonable.”

  “Tori, I think James might be right on this one,” Mom said. “You’re a little too young to be making out with boys.”

  “We weren’t making out.” I stomped my foot.

  Mom sighed. “For the sake of argument, let’s say you were just kissing. That still doesn’t make it all right. You’re too young to be kissing boys at your age, especially the way James says you were kissing. Devon seems like a nice boy, but—”

  “He is a nice boy. We weren’t doing anything wrong. I don’t know what James thinks he saw, but we were just kissing. That’s all. Then he walks up and starts being really crappy to Devon for no reason.”

  “For no reason?” James scoffed. “It’s not like I’m going to be nice to the boy after I catch him all over my daughter on my front porch in front of all the neighbors.”

  I glared at him out of the corner of my eye. “You’re totally overreacting.”

  “I am not overreacting.” James huffed. “I pull up and see some eighteen, nineteen-year-old kid all over my fifteen-year-old daughter and you think this is overreacting. I should have kicked that kid’s ass.”

  I rolled my eyes. “He’s not eighteen or nineteen.”

  “Well then, exactly how old is he?” James demanded. “He sure as hell isn’t your age.”

  “He just turned seventeen.”

  “Seventeen?” James raised his eyebrows. “That’s not much better. You’re fifteen, Tori. It might not seem like it, but there’s a big difference between fifteen and seventeen. I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to date a seventeen-year-old boy. I especially don’t think it’s a good idea for you to date that seventeen-year-old boy.”

  “I already told you,” I said. “I’m not breaking up with him.”

  “The hell you’re not. As long as you live under my roof you’re going to do what I say and I say you’re not to go anywhere near that boy.”

  “Well, that’s going to be kind of hard considering we go to the same school. Do you not want me to go to school now?”

  James narrowed his eyes. “Don’t get smart with me, young lady.”

  “I wasn’t getting smart,” I said.

  “You know full well what I mean. I don’t want to see that boy around here again.”

  “Fine, he won’t come here.”

  “You’re not going anywhere with him, either.”

  My mouth dropped open. “That’s not fair. You don’t even know him and you’re passing out all these judgments about what kind of person he is.”

  “I know his type,” James said.

  “Obviously, you don’t,” I replied. “If you did, you wouldn’t have a problem with me going out with him. Ask Mom.” I pointed to my mother. “He’s a really great guy.”

  “He does seem like a nice boy, James,” Mom said. Then she turned to me. “That’s not to say that I approve of your behavior.”

  I folded my arms across my chest and frowned. “We weren’t doing anything.”

  “All right.” Mom sighed.

  “No, it’s not all right,” James said. “She doesn’t need to be running around acting like a floosy.”

  “James!” Mom objected.

  “I’m not budging on this one, Liz.” James folded his arms across his chest and nodded for emphasis. “She’s grounded.”

  I scrunched my face and groaned in protest.

  “We’ll talk about it,” Mom said.

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” James replied.

  “We’ll talk about it.” Mom repeated. “Tori, why don’t you go up to your room? It’s getting late. James and I will talk and let you know what we come up with in the morning.”

  “Fine.” I trudged up the stairs, stopping near the top where I was no longer visible from the living room. Then I turned around, sat on a step, and listened.

  “There’s nothing to talk about, Liz,” James said. “You didn’t see what I saw. She and that boy were all over each other. Do you know how that makes us look? Our daughter acting like a trollop on our doorstep?”

  “You’re right,” Mom replied. “I didn’t see what she was doing, but yelling at her is not going to do any good. Trust me. I’ve tried talking to her about this boy. She’s pretty hung up on him and as long as she thinks we’re attacking him, she’s not going to listen to anything we say.”

  “I don’t think she’s old enough to be dating, Liz.”

  “Tori’s not a little girl. She’s fifteen. She’s going to have boyfriends and she might even kiss some of them. We’re just going to have to get used to it.”

  “Not if we lock her in her room until she’s eighteen.”

  “Don’t be so dramatic.”

  “I’m not being dramatic. I don’t want her around that kid. Something about him doesn’t sit right with me.”

  “I have concerns about him, too,” Mom said. “But if we try to stop Tori from seeing him, it’s just going to backfire. Instead of telling us where she’s going, she’ll lie and sneak around behind our backs.”

  “She can’t sneak anywhere if she’s locked in her room,” James replied.

  “We can’t lock her in her room. As much as I’d like to sometimes, we’re just going to have to ride this out. Eventually she’ll find someone else she likes better and we won’t have to worry about this boy anymore.”

  “What if she doesn’t?”

  “She will. She’s going to have a lot more boyfriends we don’t like before she’s done.”

  James sighed. “So, we have that to look forward to.”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s part of having a teenage daughter,” Mom said.

  “This was so much simpler when she thought boys were gross,” James replied.

  Mom laughed. The conversation died out as they left the living room. I sat on the step for another minute in case they started talking again before I quietly went the rest of the way up the stairs, pretty sure that I wasn’t grounded.

  Eighteen

  “I want to know everything about you,” I said.

  “What do you mean?” Devon asked, gently rubbing my shoulder.

  We lay together on his bed. The last rays of afternoon sun shined in the small window, casting a warm glow on the white plaster walls. I watched my finger as I traced the outline of the yellow skeleton on his Metallica shirt. My mind was filled with questions. They bounced around like the balls in a lottery machine.

  “I mean, I want to know about your life. About what you did when you were a kid? What you want to do after high school? Stuff like that.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t really know what I want to do after high school. I haven’t given it a lot of thought.”

  “Do you want to go to college?”

  “Maybe. I thought about being a teacher once.”

  “A teacher?” I leaned up on my arm so I could look at his face. “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why did you want to be a teacher?”

  “When I was a sophomore, I had this teacher that helped me through a lot of shit. Everybody else kind of wrote me off, but he wouldn’t. I don’t know why.” He paused. “There was this one day; I’d gotten in trouble for about the hundredth time and I was sitting in the principal’s office. Mr. Hamilton sat down next to me and handed me this book, Plato’s Republic. Instead of giving me one of the long lectures he usually did, he just told
me to read it and think about the just man.”

  “The just man?” I crinkled my brow. “What does that mean?”

  “In book two of the Republic, there’s a discussion about this ring that makes its wearer invisible. The one guy says that even a good person couldn’t resist the temptation to do bad things if they knew they could never be caught. Socrates says that a truly just, or honorable, man wouldn’t put the ring on in the first place and, therefore, wouldn’t have to worry about temptation.”

  “Would you put it on? The ring?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably.”

  “I would. Being able to do anything I wanted would be pretty cool.”

  “Yeah,” he said half-heartedly.

  I got the impression that I had missed something. He looked toward the window and inhaled slowly. When he turned back to me, he forced a slight smile. Then he kissed me on the forehead.

  “Everything okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he answered.

  “Are you sure? You look a little bummed out.”

  “I was just thinking.”

  “About what?”

  “Nothing important.” He shook his head and offered a more jovial smile. “So, I think it’s your turn.”

  “My turn?”

  “Yeah.” He nodded. “You’ve got to tell me something about you now. Isn’t that the way this works?”

  “I’m not as fascinating as you are,” I said.

  “You are to me.”

  I thought for a second. “I was kind of a tomboy when I was a kid.”

  “You were a tomboy?” He chuckled. “Why don’t I believe that?”

  “It’s true. Chris and I used to go on these really great camping trips with our dad. We’d go out in the woods and stay in this crappy little tent for days. Dad showed us how to fish and we even went hunting once.”

  “I never would have pictured you camping in the woods.”

  “That was my favorite thing to do with my dad. He worked a lot so it was really the only time we got to spend with him. We’d come home filthy and Mom would throw such a fit. She’d spend hours digging sticks and stuff out of my hair, yelling at dad the whole time for not making me put it up. He’d always tell her to just cut it off and we wouldn’t have to worry about it getting tangled in everything.”