Girl, Hero

by Carrie Jones

  “Liliana,” he says, smiling but it doesn’t reach his eyes. It’s just a movement of lips. “I’m glad you’re home.”

  I give him my own fake smile and try not to imagine him naked in my mother’s bed. It doesn’t work. I get a vision of pale, sagging skin, age marks, wrinkles, muscles heaving. Blinking madly, I put my backpack on the counter like usual.

  On the kitchen table is a glass of Coke and the newspaper. He gestures at the paper, spread out across the tabletop. “The pickings aren’t good.”

  He’s been looking at the help-wanteds. There are a couple of ads circled. One is for a sales representative at the local paper. The other one is written in smaller type so I can’t read it.

  “That’s too bad,” I say, backing myself into the counter, hugging my arms around my middle. The counter seems closer than normal and the edge juts into my thigh. It doesn’t seem like it’s in the right place. Nothing seems in the right place. I don’t feel like I’m home with this stranger here.

  He shakes his head. “Don’t you worry your little head about it. Something will come up. Luck of the Irish.”

  “Good,” I say. He sounds Texan not Irish. How can he sound Texan, all twangy with that little lady stuff, if he’s from Maine and he just came from Oregon? It doesn’t make sense. It’s like he’s trying to sound like John Wayne or something.

  He stares at me too hard. I go and open the fridge. It looks naked, just some bologna and orange juice and Cracker Barrel sharp cheddar cheese. “Did you drink all the Coke?”

  “Yep. I’ll get you some more at the store.”

  I nod, but I need my caffeine fix now. “Can I have a sip of yours?”

  “Mine?” he coughs. “Don’t think it’s a good idea. I’m coming down with a cold.”

  He smiles at me, puts his big hands on my shoulders. My shoulders go all stiff. He directs me towards the table. “You sit down. You sit right here. I’ve got something for you.”

  He pushes the paper out of the way with a quick jerky fold and says, “Stay right there. I’ll be right back.”

  When he’s gone, I look at his Coke, put my fingers around the bottom, not the edge where the cold germs would be. Lifting it up I smell the liquid. The shade of the Coke is lighter than normal, like he’s mixed it with water for some reason, and it doesn’t just have a sugary smell; there’s another smell underneath it. A smell I can’t quite recognize. Maybe he’s been spitting in it a lot. Or maybe it’s rum. It is. Wow. What is up with that?

  I put the glass back down.

  He scampers back, all excited like he’s five years old or something. It’s kind of cute, he’s so excited and I almost forget about the noises he and my mother made last night and all the things it made me remember. He carries a brown bag, a shopping store bag in his hands.

  “Now, I didn’t get to wrap it,” he says. “Men aren’t much good at wrapping. But I hope you like it all the same. Just little things to remind you of me. And to say thanks for letting me stay here a while.”

  I wonder how long a while is and I say, “You didn’t need to get me anything.”

  “I wanted to,” he says and stares at me in that hard uncomfortable way. “Geez, you look just like your mother.”

  I hope that they didn’t turn the light on last night.

  “Uh-huh.”

  I take the bag that he’s set in front of me. “Should I just reach in?”

  “Go ahead.”

  He pulls the chair so that it’s really close to me. I’m beginning to get the idea that this is the kind of person he is, a person who always is in your space, close, physical, and it’s a little intimidating because he’s already so tall and big and his gestures are huge; he’s sweeping his arms all around all the time. I look at his feet, twice the size of mine. He isn’t wearing any shoes and his socks are white cotton, but stained orange around the toes like he wore them with good leather shoes and got his feet wet and then the leather colored his socks. My father always wears baby blue socks. He wears everything that color because my mother once told him that baby blue made his eyes look striking. I don’t know how your socks can bring out the color of your eyes, but that’s how he is.

  But Mike O’Donnell’s socks aren’t what I should be thinking about right now. I have a present in front of me and he’s all excited about it, like a little boy, and it is kind of sweet, even if it’s weird because he’s so old and he doesn’t know me at all.

  I promise myself that I’ll pretend I like it even if I don’t, even if it’s something hideous like meatballs, or soap made from animal fat, or brilliant blue eye shadow.

  I’ve got to put my hand into the bag and I don’t want to. What if there’s a rattlesnake in there or a scorpion. Something deadly. I think of those newspaper headlines again. Man Dead In Bar Fight. I change it: Girl Dead From Snake Bite.

  “Wimp,” I mutter.

  Reaching into the bag, I pull out something soft. Rattlesnakes are not soft. I see that it is gray. Are rattlesnakes gray? I have no clue. But even an idiot like me can tell it’s no venom-filled vermin. A gray sweatshirt with a logo of a duck on it and a big O. Oh my God.

  “It’s the Oregon mascot,” he says.

  “Wow. It’s really cute,” I lie. “Thank you.”

  I lean over and kiss his cheek like I do on my birthday, giving each relative the required kiss after the opening of their gift. His eyes light up.

  “That’s not all. There’s something else in there.”

  “Oh.”

  I sit back down, which isn’t hard because I didn’t stand all the way up to kiss him, just unbent my knees a little bit and scooted forward. I reach inside the bag again and pull out a smallish square box. I don’t have to push my fingernail between the edges the way I do with presents from my mother, because he hasn’t taped the sides shut the way she does. I like that. I lift the lid up, move away some tissue and pull out a green rock.

  “It’s a wishing rock,” he says. “From Ireland.”

  “Neat.”

  “It’s to remind you of your roots.”

  I glance up from the small heavy rock, which sits smooth against the palm skin of my hand. “My roots?”

  He nods.

  “I’m not Irish.”

  “Everyone is Irish,” he says really adamantly, so forcefully, really, that I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d pounded his fist on the table. I jump back a little like some scared cat.

  He stands up and grabs the paper off the table, folding it twice so that it’s smaller and the ads he’s circled are easy to see. “I should call some of these places in the paper.”

  “Oh. Okay. Thanks again.”

  He smiles, a splitting-face kind of smile that even reaches his eyebrows and makes them seem happy. “You’re welcome.”

  I stand up too, and grab my backpack, then I pick up the rock and sweatshirt. “I have homework and stuff. Thank you again.”

  For a second his eyes go hard, mean, like a predator.

  “You’re welcome again,” he says and sits on the stool by the wall phone. He puts the paper on the counter and picks up the yellow phone and puts his finger into the rotary part to dial numbers.

  For a minute, I’m embarrassed that we still have a rotary phone. Other people have cell phones, or at least push-button and cordless phones. We have one of those in my mother’s room, but the kitchen phone is a rotary. It’s so old fashioned, but my mom insists on keeping it because she thinks it’s “quaint.” I have a cell phone but I’m on a limited minute plan, which means it’s pointless and just for emergencies. It’s for dialling 911 when strange men follow me down an alley or something, my mother says. She never says anything about strange men following me around in our house.

  I head down our ugly hallway with its 1970s paisley wallpaper and into my room to do my homework.
I put the green rock that is exactly the color I imagine Ireland, green like hills and summer leaves that are wet from rain, into my pocket. I plop my pack on my bed and my sweatshirt on my bureau, and go back to shut my door.

  My Uncle Mark, he gave me a present too. Why is it that men think they can right everything wrong they’ve ever done, or are about to do, with a present?

  Mark’s present was a jade cross. As soon as he was gone, I ripped it off and ran across the backyard to the woods. I whipped it over my head, hanging onto the end of the chain. Then I let it go. The cross tumbled through the sky and disappeared into the woods, lost in dead leaves and pine needles. I never saw it again. I looked. Sometimes I imagine it glowing there, waiting.

  In my room, I open my closet and begin hauling things out, spreading them in piles on the floor. I stare at clothes like they hold secrets, secrets to a new Lily, a sexy Lily, a put-together musical star Lily, a Lily who is not twins with Mary Bilodeau.

  The toilet flushes down the hall and all the water from the toilet whooshes through the pipes. I hear Mike O’Donnell walk down the hall. He stands outside my door. I wait for a knock. There is no knock. I tiptoe to my door, real quiet, put my ear against it. I can hear him breathing. I no longer breathe.

  I find the bread knife that I’ve stashed under my pillow and clench it in my fists, fat lot of good it’ll do me, and then go back to my door.

  I can smell him, that male smell, just on the other side.

  Not all men are hero men.

  The knife is not sharp. It’s not a good weapon. I don’t know what I was thinking. I want to move away from the door and look for something better. My lamp. It’s heavy. I will dart over there if he tries to come in, leap over the clothes on the floor, maybe throw a couple textbooks while I run for the better weapon.

  I swallow, imagining it all.

  Then I hear his feet go back down the hall.

  Maybe he will go buy some Coke soon and I can go out into the kitchen and call Nicole and have something to eat and not have to worry about him listening to my phone call, or have to look at those sad watery eyes of his and worry about whether or not he’s happy and if I’m not being thankful enough, or cold or mean. And I won’t have to worry about why he stood outside my door.

  Do you remember when you were Capt. Rockwell Torrey in In Harm’s Way and you looked at your friend, right in the eyes and you said, “All battles are fought by scared men who’d rather be someplace else.” That was truth, right there, Mr. Wayne, real truth.

  After a while I summon up my courage and leave my bedroom, and grab that green rock again. It’s not the color of Ireland. It’s the color of that jade cross my step-uncle gave me right before he left for California.

  “Oh, that’s so generous,” my mother had cooed when he presented it, all tidied up in a fancy jewelry store box and everything. “Put it on, Lily.”

  I shook my head. My uncle glared at me, meaned up his lips into this tight line.

  I put it on. It fell between my breasts. Well, where my breasts would have been if they’d started to grow yet. They hadn’t. I hated the way it felt there. I hated my uncle’s eyes staring at it.

  My mother clapped her hands together. “Beautiful!”

  He echoed her. “Beautiful.”

  She gave me a look and I knew I was supposed to go kiss him on the cheek or something, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t do it. I was a block of soap and I couldn’t move. I just was getting worn away from things rubbing against me.

  “What do you say, Liliana?” she made big eyes at me and gave my name a few extra syllables.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  When he left I threw the cross into the woods. It’s still there somewhere unless a squirrel has stolen it. I keep thinking about it now, over and over again. I thought I had stashed that stuff away.

  What was it you said in Stagecoach?

  Well, there are some things a man just can’t run away from.

  That goes for women too.

  Paolo walks me out of study hall again.

  “I’ve been brushing up on my John Wayne,” he says.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  He smiles and does the little hip-bump thing. “I figure if you’re so into him, he’s got to be cool.”

  “Oh.” A big swallow sticks in my throat. I’m afraid to look up at him. I look up at him. He smiles. He’s shaved this morning, which is too bad, but good. I can smell his aftershave/shaving cream stuff. I inhale and smile at him. “John Wayne is amazing.”

  “Yeah.” He looks up the hall where some girls are jumping up and down, shrieking. “Is that the kind of guy you like? The whole strong and silent thing?”

  “Oh … I don’t know. It’s more—”

  I don’t have to answer because Nicole appears out of nowhere, which is so strange because her homeroom is nowhere near here. She smiles all big. She’s wearing her favorite skirt. “Hey Lily! Hey Paolo!”

  Her eyelashes flutter.

  “Hey,” Paolo says. He leans a little closer to me I think.

  “You guys walking towards New England History?” she says in her ultra-chirpy version of her voice.

  I eye her, trying to assess the situation. “Yeah.”

  “Cool. Paolo, have I told you that I have the worst assignment ever?”

  She blabs and blabs and pushes her way next to him so I’m left trailing behind them the whole way, looking at their butts as they walk on. Paolo looks back at me, stops, waiting for me to catch up, but what’s the point really? I mean, c’mon. Mini skirt vs. John Wayne. Give me a break.

  At home, Mike has left me a note.

  Went out with my sister.

  It isn’t very long. Short, quick, to the point, not like how he talks at all.

  I am so happy that he’s gone that I do a little two-step line-dancing thing all around the kitchen. I kiss the refrigerator and pretend it’s Paolo Mattias. I have obviously completely lost it.

  “Settle down,” I tell myself like I’m some uppity nervous horse. “Whoa.”

  A good yank opens the refrigerator door. There’s been a Coke heist, again. Some cowardly thief has stolen all the Coke. A good fist slams the fridge door shut and knocks off a couple magnets holding up my eighth-grade report card.

  “Damn him,” I say and then I head into the family room. Sometimes my mother stores extra Cokes under the bar that we never use. I get on my knees to look for some and there isn’t any. One sixteen-ounce bottle of ginger ale, but ginger ale doesn’t have caffeine and I need caffeine if I’m going to be able to stay awake and do all my homework. My hands shake because I am already going through withdrawal. Chocolate has caffeine. Maybe I’ll have chocolate milk to pep me up.

  As I start to stand, I pivot a little bit and look at the ankle-high shelf behind the bar where my stepfather lined up all the bottles of booze he kept for when he and my mother had company. There are ten bottles, at least, maybe fifteen. The summer before eighth grade, Nicole and I tried some. I liked the Scotch the best, because it felt like what alcohol was supposed to feel like, hot and burning. It reminded me of damsels in distress who have just witnessed horrible, terrible, monstrous things in the hot, dusty streets of Durango and need some boosting as the bartender’s helper runs to get them some dry tweed clothes.

  Nicole’s favorite was Bailey’s Irish Cream, a girlie drink, like milk and sugar.

  When I start to get up, I notice that the bottles don’t look the same. Grabbing the first one that I see, Kahlua, I screw the top off of it and look inside. Nothing in it. I grab some Scotch, J&B. Twisting off the top I already know what I’ll see when I look inside, but I look anyway. Nothing. Bottle after bottle. Scotch. Vermouth. Vodka. Gin. Tequila. Nothing in any of them. All of them empty. Every single o
ne. Even the brandy.

  Fact #1: It’s been three years, and they are all gone.

  Fact #2: My mom doesn’t drink.

  Fact #3: Mike does drink.

  Fact #4: Mike puts booze in his Coke in the middle of the day.

  Fact #5: Mike has only been here three days and there are twelve empty bottles, which would mean he’s downing four bottles a day. Can you even survive that?

  My hands place all the bottles back where they belong. My hands are shaking. I don’t understand what’s going on in most of my head. But this tiny little part of my tiny little brain might have something almost figured out and it’s pushing my body into action.

  Standing up, I stare down at the labels, at the caps. In the little garbage can that’s been empty since my stepdad died are plastic seals that Mike O’Donnell must have taken off when he opened untouched bottles. The ginger brandy had never been opened, I remember, and the tequila.

  I try asking my mother about the whole Jessica-Brian beating up thing at dinner and she gives me a glare that means stop talking. She doesn’t want Mike to hear.

  So I lean across my pork chops, which are pale and dry and ugly and try to whisper to her, “What are we going to do about Jessica?”

  She hushes me and says in a real loud voice, a fake happy voice, “Mike, sweetie, would you mind getting me some aspirin from the bathroom. I have an awful headache.”

  He jumps up, his face all concerned. “Of course. How many?”

  “Two.”

  The moment he’s gone, she pushes her chest forward and says, “There is nothing going on with Jessica.”

  My fork clatters to the floor, keeping company with my jaw. “What?”

  “There is nothing going on with Jessica.”

  “He’s beating her up!”

  “Keep your voice down.” She shoves herself up and gets me another fork from the kitchen. “Jessica is not your problem.”