So I just said, “Yeah, thanks,” and turned back to the food my dad had made for me.
Kyle waited another two weeks before he called me again. I hated this pattern, but at least once I saw it as a pattern, I found it endurable. And once again, as soon as his name flashed across my cell phone I was out the door. I didn’t realize on the bus over there that it would be the last time I would go to his house. It was Friday, February 5, the day before Meghan was coming, three days before Runaways was going up.
When I got there, Kyle opened the door and led me straight into the kitchen. His hair had gotten longer and was curling down over his ears. He blew some curls out of the way of his eyes.
“How are you?” I asked, because he didn’t say anything.
“I’m okay,” he said, all mushed together, like one word. He opened the freezer.
And I said, “Kyle? Who’s Claire?”
Cubes of ice fell out of the tray into the freezer and onto the floor.
“Shit,” Kyle said, but he made no move to pick them up, just clutched the few he’d managed to rescue to his chest and put them into the glasses.
“Can you not tell me?”
He took a bottle of whiskey out of the cabinet, and poured both glasses full.
“Wow,” I said. “I guess my parents are coming to get me.”
“Why don’t you just stay?”
“Really? You want me to sleep here?”
“Why not? My parents aren’t back until Monday.”
I stood completely still for a minute, trying to think. “Oh, um, where are they?”
He looked at me strangely. “Boston. Why?”
“Oh, okay, so . . .” I felt oddly dizzy.
He waited, didn’t rescue me.
“So, okay,” I said again. “I guess I’ll call my parents and say I’m staying at Sarah’s?” I went to get my cell phone and called the house, knowing they’d be at the Grill, and left the lie on their voice mail. Then I texted Sarah, saying I’d told my parents I was sleeping at her place and could she cover for me. I knew I’d have to explain, but I didn’t care. When my phone buzzed twenty seconds later and “Goth Sarah” flashed across the screen, I didn’t pick it up.
Kyle was standing at the counter, looking at me.
“You want to hear about Claire?” he asked. Then he turned and walked into the living room with his drink clinking and sloshing, and turned the giant flat TV on. The Talented Mr. Ripley was on, and someone was beating someone else to death with a bat in a boat. I could hear Kyle slurping down his drink. I sat next to him on the couch, stared at the TV, held on to my glass.
All of a sudden, Kyle put his glass down.
“You know, you’re not the only one with problems,” he said.
I want to say that he shouted this, because that’s what it felt like when he said it, because I was so shocked by it, but he didn’t shout. He’s not really a shouter. He more like steamed it, and I thought of his constantly calm demeanor. Maybe he had a geyser inside him, waiting to erupt and kill him and anyone else within a mile. He usually seemed so sleepy and mellow. But that night at his house, he was anxious, from the moment I arrived. Maybe he knew what he was about to do, and was defensive, trying to justify it. Or maybe it happened because he was anxious and angry, and not by design.
“What does that mean?” I tried to keep my voice even, but my heart was flapping and beating, trapped in my body. The TV noise seemed suddenly nagging and loud.
“I just mean that being small isn’t the worst thing that could happen to someone.”
Now I was angry. “No shit,” I said. “Did you come up with that yourself ?” I’m glad I was mad enough to say this to him.
“I just think you act like a victim sometimes.”
“Yeah? Like a victim? Compared to what?”
“I’m just saying, everyone has problems.”
“Everyone has problems. Really, Kyle? Thank you. Do you think I’m, like, comparing my short self to the Holocaust? Is that what you mean by I’m not the only one with problems?”
This was very mean, of course, because I knew whatever he meant was about his own stupid problems, ones he must have wanted to tell me about, but I was so mad that I wanted to belittle his thing preemptively with the Holocaust. And it worked, because whatever shallow shit he was referring to had to be smaller in scale than the Holocaust, so he was embarrassed that I had made the very point he was pretending to have to make for me.
“I meant something else,” he said, “which is that other people, even regular people like me, have problems too. You’re not the only one.”
“Right. You said that already. And I never asked you to help me with my problems,” I said. “I’m not even the one who brought them up. Maybe you’re the only one of the two of us who thinks my life as a short person is a problem. I mean, I’m just short. At least I don’t treat other people like shit.”
“Fuck it,” he said.
“What do you mean, ‘fuck it’?”
“I was—forget it.”
“Forget what? Do you want to tell me what happened? Or what that video was about?”
“Nah, skip it.”
“You should tell me.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
“I’m not sure I can.”
Now he sounded pitiful. “Why me, Kyle? I mean, I know you said it’s not about me, but you could have made that video yourself with a tripod, obviously, right?”
“Right.”
“So wasn’t asking me to tape it for you just a way to practice telling someone?”
“I guess.”
“Have you ever told anyone else whatever it is?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
He shrugged. “I dunno. It’s private, I guess.”
“What about Alan and Chris?”
“Would you tell those guys your secrets?”
I was amazed that he said this about his friends. “Of course not,” I said, “but those guys aren’t my friends.”
“Do you tell your friends everything?”
“No,” I admitted. I thought of how little I’d told anyone since I had met Kyle. And again, I had the thought that he and I were alike, that he liked me, felt connected.
“You can tell me your secret if you want,” I said. “I won’t ever tell anyone. I absolutely give you my word. But if you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine too.”
I meant this, and he could tell. And it made him want to tell me. It’s like Bill not caring about my dwarf story and therefore me wanting to tell him the whole thing even though there are lots of people who want to hear it and I don’t want to tell them. People are stupid in this way, but it’s just a fact. The less people ask you, the more you reveal.
“You’ve already guessed, right?” Kyle asked.
“No. How would I guess?”
“I don’t know. I’ve always thought you kind of knew anyway.”
“Because I’m an elf ?”
“I meant that as a compliment. And you heard me apologize about Claire.”
I asked, “Who’s Claire? Your girlfriend?”
He sighed.
“Did something bad happen?”
I could see his Adam’s apple move, and felt suddenly like it was hard to breathe in the room, like I was falling into a dark hole.
“I promised my parents I wouldn’t tell anyone.”
“Oh.”
“Claire was my sister. And we moved here because she died.”
“Oh my god,” I said. Why would his parents have made him promise not to tell anyone that? What kind of psychopaths were they? He waited.
“Kyle. That’s horrible. I’m really sorry.”
“It was my fault,” he said.
“People always think shit’s their fault even when—”
“No, but I mean it was actually my fault.”
I felt like he’d touched me with an electric prod. It was almost gentle, the feeling of that shock—like the
point of someone’s finger had just come lightly into contact with my skin, and yet my spine straightened and my hair stood up in a prickle that kept going. I felt weirdly tall, sitting there. My voice came from somewhere far away.
“What does that even—”
“I hit her. I—She was in the driveway, running out to greet me.”
He stopped, and I had a sudden crystal-ball flash of his house in Boston. There was snow falling, or hail, ice on the driveway where she was running out to greet him and slipped under the wheels of the car. Or maybe the house was dark on a summer night, not even the porch lights on, her pink Schwinn parked up against the garage door. She was in a nightgown, running out to the car, hearing the sickening thunk of her own body against the hood. Had he pinned her to the garage door? The Schwinn crushed and mangled? The house switched to autumn, his sister hiding under a pile of leaves Kyle drove through.
“You don’t have to tell me this if you don’t want,” I said. “Let’s talk about something else. Let’s go downtown and—”
“I still can’t believe she came outside so late.”
“Of course,” I said. “And if it was dark—”
“She heard the car. I was late and my mom was freaking out. That’s what kept her up.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” I said. “You couldn’t have—”
“I was really drunk,” he said.
“Oh,” I said. I thought for a moment.
“My parents covered it up.” We both sat there, very still. Kyle finished his drink. I looked at mine, untouched, and took a burning gulp. It tasted like flowers and wood smoke. I coughed a little.
“What if your parents come home?” I asked.
“They’re in Boston until Monday,” he said again.
“Really?”
“They’re never here.”
“Why don’t you ever have parties?”
He looked at me. “You want to invite a few people over? Let’s do that.”
So it was my idea, I guess. He was like, why don’t you call up Sarah and Ginger or Molly or whatever, but I didn’t. I just drank more throatfuls of whiskey while he called his friends. This is going to sound like I’m lying, but I barely remember anything else about that night. I kept drinking the smoky whiskey, that much I know. And apparently Alan and Chris showed up, and we watched some of one of the Saw movies, and drank more whiskey, and then we were playing cards or something—I don’t know what, but something happened at a table. And then the rest is not only history—it’s the history of my whole life. I’m like that girl who gave the president a blow job once. I mean, she had an entire life, but then it was defined forever by that one thing. Just like mine will be by this—the one night of my entire life I can’t remember. Even if that wasn’t true, it would still seem unfair that the first time I ever got really, really, like black-out, forget-what’s-happening drunk, I was in such bad hands. I mean, other kids do that all the time and they get to wake up the next day and go on. Am I cursed?
I asked my mom, before I ran away to the Motel Manor forever, if she thought I might be under some horrible jinx, and she said absolutely not, that she thought I was lucky and would have a wonderful life and remember this as a painful but character-building moment. And when she said it, I couldn’t be sure whether she actually believed what she was saying herself, but I had this terrible sensation that the floor was disappearing from under me, that I was spinning, falling slowly into space, where gravity didn’t work the way it’s supposed to. I knew what this feeling meant: that your parents can be wrong about things. I knew my mom was wrong about this, in an engulfing, bad-dream kind of way. I’d had that sense before, over something way stupider and less deep—when my dwarf friend Meghan and I were talking about shaving our legs. Meghan has dark, curly hair and is always talking about how hairy her body is and how she has to get waxed constantly, and I told her what my mom had said, that men “like a little hair,” which I’ll admit is really disgusting if you think about it. And Meghan was like, “No, they don’t.” And I was like, “My mom said they do.” Meghan rolled her eyes, and I knew right away that she had a point, that maybe my mom was wrong, or at least that she had a very strange idea about the way men think of hair. Or something. Because this wasn’t something my mom said to make me feel better; it was something she actually thought—that men “like a little hair.” Which of course means my dad—ew. Anyway, I told Meghan the rest of everything my mom said because I couldn’t shut up, even once I realized I was on the wrong track: that you should shave your legs only halfway up, because it’s better to have hairy thighs than to have prickly thighs. And Meghan was like, “Someone needs to send your mom a memo telling her the seventies are over.”
And I knew, the way you can about truth, that Meghan was definitely right and my mom was wrong. And even though it was about the dumbest thing ever, the floor was gone and I floated away without that great feeling you have when you’re a little kid—that your parents know everything and can protect you. I’m glad I lost that safe feeling, of my mom always being right, over a ridiculous revelation about how far up my thigh to take a razor. Unlike my virginity, which I lost to Kyle in a horror movie, and then, in an even more dreadful sequel, my actual innocence. Which is not the same as virginity, by the way. But which I also lost to him.
11 I was running out of SpaghettiOs, so I knocked on Bill’s door before dawn this morning, pretending I just wanted to ask if he wanted me to get him anything at the twenty-four-hour supermarket, but hoping he would offer to come, because the truth is, even though I had my grabber and could have managed to carry my stuff back, I really wanted some company. Maybe Bill sensed this, because as soon as I said, “I’m going to get some groceries,” he pretended I hadn’t just woken him at five in the morning, and he turned to get his shoes.
“I’ll come. I’ll come,” he said. “I can carry your things. I’ll come and carry your things.”
Bill’s weird habit of repeating things isn’t annoying, by the way. It’s very sweet, actually, as if he thinks over and over of kind things he can do for people, and sometimes the things vary and other times they don’t. But he says them right away, to make sure he’s offered. And then, again, maybe to make sure you’ve heard. I mean, it’s a little Rain Man, sure, but who am I to cast stones? Who is anyone, for that matter?
It was barely daylight when we walked down East Michigan almost a mile to Kroger’s, a dwarf and her crazy, thoughtful friend. Cars whipped by at highway speeds, almost running us over until one car slowed and I thought for a panicked moment it might be someone who knew me, or reporters, or I don’t know what. But then some rude person shouted something out the window at us. Thankfully I wasn’t able to make out what it was, and if Bill heard, he didn’t show any sign of having thought it was about us. Or caring, anyway. I loved this about him. But then as soon as we arrived at Kroger and were pushing at the broken automatic doors, a kid pointed at me and jumped up and down trying to get his mother’s attention. “Don’t point,” his mother said.
Bill saw this happen and turned to me. “He likes you.”
“Right,” I said. “Kids and dogs always like me.” I tried not to say this in too mean or sarcastic a voice, not that Bill would have gotten it anyway. He’s too good-spirited to understand me or to imagine that dogs literally think I’m another dog, or a treat or something.
They come up and sniff me like—“What is this fabulous dog-size human I’ve found?” They can kiss me on the lips without having to jump up or even stand on their hind legs. More effortless slobbering and hump for your buck. Kids think I’m a kid at first, and then when they realize I’m not, the possibilities for what I might be instead are endless: hobbit, garden gnome, or adult small enough to be bossed around by them. In any case, it’s loads of fun, and who wouldn’t point? Some kids just want to gloat because even though I’m obviously older, they’re bigger. I’m over it. But if I ever get married and have average-size kids myself, I’m going to show them who’s in charge.
Bill got a cart and started pushing it, and I climbed up onto the bottom shelf of the dairy fridge and pulled out a small carton of milk. He reached down and took it from me gently so he could put it in the cart. I felt exhausted suddenly, like my bone marrow was giving up on me. Living alone was terrible. I mean, this was only the second time I’d ever been grocery shopping without one of my parents. And I hated it. I wanted desperately to go home, to hide in my house, even though maybe there were throngs of cameramen camped out on my lawn, wanting to make my life into more ugly videos. Just the thought of that made me want to sleep. But at the thought of sleep, an image of the bed at the Motel Manor popped into my mind, and fear climbed my spine like the rungs of a cold ladder. Up, up, up. I took a breath, gathered myself, considered asking Bill to lift me into the cart and push me through the store, but it seemed too humiliating. Not in front of Bill, I mean, he wouldn’t have cared, but just everyone else in the store, especially that kid who had pointed, who was right behind us now, screaming for candy.
I felt trapped, too scared to go back to the motel, too scared to go home, too scared to do anything. I felt myself hopping up onto the railing of the cart and holding on while Bill pushed our milk and me to the canned goods aisle. I heard myself ask Bill to get two cans of tuna. He put them in the cart carefully, and while he was doing that, he asked me, “So did he ever call?”
“What?”
“The man in the story,” he said. “The man. Did he call on the phone?”
“Kyle, you mean?”
“Oh. Yes. Maybe Kyle. Did he call?”
I didn’t know what this question meant—whether Bill wanted to know if Kyle had called me back in the day, like after we did it? Or wanted to know if he had called me lately, at the motel or something. His utter inability to understand time as a linear thing was comforting to me. It didn’t matter when Kyle had called, at least not in Bill’s and my universe. That he had called at all, ever, still counted for something here.
Big Girl Small Page 19
