by Alex Flinn
Then, silence.
Charlie broke it. “Oops.” He smiled, like a kid who’s spilled milk but knows he won’t get in trouble. Everyone laughed.
Amanda tipped her head, eyes meeting mine, then Charlie’s. “He can be so … you all can squeeze into my car.”
That’s when I noticed it for the first time. Her retainer. It rested against her top teeth, challenging anyone to think she wasn’t perfect. I couldn’t speak. Charlie took over. “Great.” He blessed Amanda with a smile. “And Paul here will repay the favor. You said you were having trouble in computer-science class.”
Amanda’s smile vanished. “Wilburn’s just waiting to flunk my ass.” In her voice, even the word “ass” sounded pretty. “Now why’d you have to go mention that? You spoiled my lunch.”
Kirby interrupted. “You never eat, Amanda. Or you puke it out when you do.”
“That’s a lie.” Amanda’s green eyes were on me now, pleading. “Paul barely knows us, and now he’ll think bad things about me.”
My face felt nuked. I wanted to say that was impossible. But I’d lost my ability to speak.
Charlie leaned across me to Amanda, like coconspirators. “The reason I mentioned it is, Paul here is a computer genius. He could help you out. Right, Paul?”
I tried my tongue. Nope, still not working.
“Would you?” Amanda asked.
“Sure,” I managed.
She was only agreeing with Charlie, I told myself. I glanced at him, and he smiled back, angelic. I watched Amanda’s fingers, sunned and slender, tipped in white with one gold ring. It was a heart.
I opened my bedroom door. Mom stood, holding a sweatshirt. My sweatshirt. The black Carolina Panthers one I’d draped over her computer monitor Saturday night. I must have forgotten it there. Oh, crap.
“I found this.” She held it with accusing fingers. I didn’t meet her eyes. She knew nothing, I reminded myself. The sweatshirt proved nothing. Besides, she wasn’t so pristine, wasn’t so pure. I’d only thought that because she locked me away from the world and kept me for herself. I made a mental note to tell Charlie about this later. Charlie would be proud I’d figured her out.
“Paul?”
I stared at her, at the sweatshirt until it all blurred together like a Rorschach inkblot. I closed my eyes. They were still there.
I opened my eyes. I said nothing.
“Please answer me.” She still held the sweatshirt, face serene, like Binky’s weeping Madonna.
I said nothing.
“I don’t like this behavior, Paul.” Her face crumpling. “Are you … on drugs or something? I don’t like how these friends have influenced you.”
“I bet you don’t. You don’t want me to have friends.” I heard, almost saw the words streaming from my mouth. My voice sounded unfamiliar, confident. Charlie’s voice.
Mom stood, mouth slightly open. Then she closed it. “Paul, don’t be silly. Of course I want you to have friends. I want you to be happy.”
“Yeah, you were dying for me to have friends. That’s why you kept me locked up all those years like… Skinner.” Somehow that came to me. We’d read about Skinner, a scientist who tried out his behavioral experiments on his own daughter, keeping her in a box like a rat. That was exactly what my mother had done. Exactly. “You just used me.”
My blood was pumping. It felt so good. Why hadn’t I known how good it would feel?
I’d thought she’d shut up then, but she didn’t. She came closer, still holding the sweatshirt, gesturing with it.
“Don’t change the subject, Paul. How did this get there?”
“What do you care?” But thinking, How much does she know?
“What do I care? It’s my computer, my job. Were you there, Paul?”
“How would I have gotten there?”
“I don’t know. You tell me. After school, maybe? Did you sneak in after school Friday and use my computer for something?”
“No.”
“To look at porn or something? Or play those awful games?”
“No.”
She’d backed me into a corner. I pushed past her, brushing against the sweatshirt, making it drop to the floor. She tried to block my way, but I walked right through her to the door and down the stairs to the parking lot. She followed me to as far as the elevator, but when I yelled, “I can’t believe you don’t trust me!” she retreated back into the apartment.
I found the pay phone in the parking lot and called Charlie.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Why do you hate your dad so much?”
We’d been spending more and more time at Charlie’s. Afternoons, we’d do homework in his room, watch the Cartoon Network, or just fool around on his computer. That was what we were doing that day. We’d found some cool websites, tricks to play, like putting sugar in people’s gas tanks. Weird satanic stuff Mom would have hated. Even instructions on how to make a bomb. When he didn’t answer, I tried again.
“Big Chuck,” I said. “Why do you hate him so much?” Even as I said it, part of me couldn’t believe I’d asked something so personal. Charlie’d never said he hated his father. But somehow, I knew he did.
Charlie shrugged. He wasn’t going to answer. I glanced at the computer screen, trying to find a safer subject. I scrolled through my search result, entered one site, then exited. Charlie drew a long breath. The sound startled me. Then, his voice.
“We were always, like, this perfect family,” he said. “Mary quit the fast track a few years to do the PTA crap. Chuck was brownnosing for partnership with this big-deal firm downtown. Every winter, we vacationed in Vail; Carolina mountains every summer. And in between, they were the perfect parents with the perfect kid.” He thumbed his chest.
“They had this story they’d tell everyone about my birth. How they’d wanted to fill their empty lives by having a child. But they couldn’t. They tried everything, looser-fitting shorts for Big Chuck, special exercises. Nothing. Finally, they gave up and went on a big vacation. They were going to see America. In Washington State, they found God.
“They were north of Seattle, near Skagit, looking for their white-water rafting group. They got off I-5 too soon and couldn’t see in the fog. Suddenly, this church just appeared from the mist—nothing else around. Somehow, Mary convinced Big Chuck to ask directions.
“Chuck had on swim trunks and a sweatshirt. Mary pulled some jogging pants over her swimsuit. They were looking for the entrance, when, suddenly, a man came from a hidden doorway. ‘Come in, my children,’ he said. ‘I’ve been expecting you.’
“Big Chuck tried to explain that they just needed directions.
“‘I have the direction you need.’ The minister held up his hand, and they followed him into the sanctuary. Chuck was still trying to explain that they only needed to get to I-5. Still, they followed. The church seemed to grow bigger as they walked until it was like St. Patrick’s Cathedral out in the boonies.”
I watched Charlie. I could barely make out his face in the shadow from the sun. He stared ahead, repeating the tale like it was legend, not just some dumb story his parents told. So I believed it too.
“‘You are troubled, my children?’ the minister asked. Chuck started to explain again about directions to I-5. But Mary began to cry. In the minister’s arms, she repeated the whole story, and as she spoke, light began streaming, red, green, purple, and gold, through the stained-glass windows. The minister said, ‘God has heard.’
“He sent them away without directions. But Chuck found I-5 almost immediately, and they made their rafting trip. When they got home, Mary was pregnant. The miracle baby—” Charlie indicated himself—“was born nine months later. Funny thing, when they tried to contact that church to make a donation, there wasn’t any such church.”
I figured he’d finished his story. It didn’t answer my question. Or make sense, for that matter. Still, Charlie seemed to expect a response, so I said, “Weird.”
“Not that weird. There’s more.�
� Charlie leaned his chair back, getting comfortable, as usual. He didn’t look at me.
“My first ten years, I heard that story, like, a hundred times. Every holiday at the club, every family soiree. Chuck and Mary, the perfect parents. And I bought into their crap, so I was perfect too. Perfect grades, perfect at sports. Until sixth grade. It all fell apart. I flunked math. Had to do summer school and couldn’t go to this special tennis camp Big Chuck had arranged.” He looked out the window. I followed his eyes to the tennis court. “You’d think my perfect father would be a little understanding, but he wasn’t. He got so bent up, screaming about school, about me, how stupid I was, screwing up my chances like that. And finally, I yelled back, ‘I don’t want to play tennis anymore ever! I hate it! I hate you!’
“For weeks, I wouldn’t play. Big Chuck tried punishments, bribes, telling me how much fun it was, all the usual parental blackmail. Then, he grabbed my collar and told me I’d play whether I wanted to or not. I ran upstairs, freaked out. He’d never gotten that mad at me before.”
I nodded, remembering all the fights Mom and Dad had about me. Charlie continued.
“That night, Mary and Chuck argued. It was the first time I’d ever heard them fight—can you believe that? I tried not to listen. But they were yelling so loud, and at one point, Mary said, ‘Give him space, Chuck. He’s not you.’”
Charlie stopped, staring at the ceiling. Seconds, almost a minute, passed. I’d never noticed how loud the little fan in the hard drive was. Was he going to finish? Finally, I said, “What did he say?”
“Forget it.” Charlie lowered his chair legs, his own legs, to the ground. “Not important. Just sewage under the bridge. Let’s do something else.” He reached for the mouse.
“Come on, Charlie.” I didn’t know why it was so important to me that he finished. But it was. “What’d he say?”
Charlie looked at me. “He said, ‘I know he’s not me, Mary. He’s not even mine.’”
I squirmed in my seat, then looked away.
“First, I thought it was, like, just something he said,” Charlie said. “You know, ’cause he was mad at me. I mean, our lives revolved around each other. He was my dad, for Christ’s sake. But Mary didn’t answer. That freaked me out. She was always talking lawyer talk, about defending yourself, silence as an admission of guilt. But when he said that, she was silent. Finally, she laughs and says, ‘So, he screws up, he’s my kid?’
“But it was too late. Big Chuck said, ‘I know, Mary. I’ve always known. I can’t father children, and I don’t believe in miracles. So I had us tested. He’s not mine.’”
“Yikes,” I said. Meat’s word. Charlie nodded.
“I was in the hall by then, listening, ready to leap if the doorknob turned. But it didn’t. Mary starts bawling, saying it’s not true. But finally, she confesses. It was someone from her office, didn’t mean anything. ‘Can’t you see, Chuck? It was the only way.’ But Big Chuck wasn’t listening. He was out of there.”
“Yikes,” I repeated, just because it seemed appropriate. “What happened?”
Charlie looked at me like I was stupid. “You know what happened. We’re still here. He came back, of course. But everything had changed. I wasn’t a miracle. I wasn’t golden.”
But you were, I wanted to tell him. You are. I didn’t say it. It would sound queer.
“And I knew I couldn’t screw up again,” he continued. “I had to stay … perfect or it would all fall apart. He’d stop even pretending to be my dad.”
I watched him, understanding. Charlie was like me, a regular person. It made me value him more than ever. And I understood something else.
“So the D in Biology…?”
“I can’t get D’s,” Charlie said. “The ironic thing is, we got closer after that. Mary went back to work that year, so Big Chuck cut his hours to spend time at home, practice with me so I could … fulfill his expectations of what his son should be, even though I wasn’t.”
“That must be rough.”
Charlie looked surprised. Then, he shrugged. “Not at all.” He reached across me for the mouse. He went to his Favorite Places and chose a site. It connected.
The screen shouted, PYROMANIA!!!
He didn’t want to talk anymore, so I gestured toward the screen. “What’s that?”
“A bomb website. This one’s pretty cool. When I found it last night, I couldn’t wait to show you.”
“Really?” Though Charlie and I were best friends now, it was still unbelievable to me that he thought about me when I wasn’t there.
“Yeah, I bookmarked it so I’d remember.”
I scrolled down, past pictures of buildings exploding, the page lined with smiley faces that looked like they were on acid. The site even had heavy metal playing. The links flew by.
EXPLOSIVES
INCENDIARIES
MOLOTOV COCKTAIL RECIPE 1
MOLOTOV COCKTAIL RECIPE 2
MOLOTOV COCKTAIL RECIPE 3
“What’s a Molotov cocktail?” I asked.
“Click on it,” Charlie said, grinning.
I did. This was so cool.
Then, hall footsteps. A voice. “Charlie?”
“Yes, sir.” Charlie grabbed the mouse from me and, with two hand flicks, exited the window, then the Internet. “Time for practice,” he said.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Charlie was my best friend now. And he had all sorts of other friends too. Maybe they wouldn’t have accepted me, but with Charlie, they had to. I was always with Charlie. I followed him, went where he went. I finally belonged.
The day after Charlie told me the story about his dad, he pulled me aside in the hall. “What I told you yesterday?”
“Yeah?”
“I never told anyone that. Not Meat or St. John. No one.” He flicked a hair from above his eyebrow. “Understand?”
I promised to tell no one. But secretly, I felt like one of the Chosen.
A few days later, Amanda cornered me at Mickey D’s.
It was one of those days when everyone from Gate and everyone from Palmetto High had converged on Mickey D’s. So, I was assigned to hold a table while Charlie, Meat, and St. John, braving the glares of the Palmetto students, ordered lunch. I was cleaning dried ketchup off the Formica with my jacket sleeve when suddenly, she was there.
“This seat taken?”
I stopped cleaning, let my arm fall to my lap, and glanced around, over her head. Did she mean some other seat, some other guy? Probably just wanted to wait for St. John. It was a booth for four. I looked at Charlie. Across the restaurant, he mouthed something. I think it was, Go for it, stupid. He grinned. Amanda was looking down at where my arm had disappeared under the table. I jerked it up, so she wouldn’t think I was playing with myself or something.
She slid her tray, slid her body against mine. Too close. No, no such thing. “Okay?”
“Sure. I mean, no.” Our thighs touched—an accident. She couldn’t possibly have meant it. “I mean, sit down.” Though, obviously, she already had.
She laughed. “You’re pretty funny.”
“Thanks.” Trying to think of something to say. Ask her about her computer-science work, maybe. I’d never helped her with that. No, too geeky. She was probably just being nice. Finally, I blurted, “I liked what you read that day in Bundy’s class. About how hard it was making friends here.”
She looked away. “Oh.”
“Sorry.” Now she knew I’d been watching her all semester.
“No, I … I never told anyone that before. My friends all ragged on me about it.”
“They shouldn’t have. I knew how you felt.”
“But you’re different.” She looked down, touching but not eating her fries.
“Different?”
“In a good way. Better than them, someone I could really talk to.” She looked up then, meeting my eyes. “It’s so hard, trying to do what people expect of you.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.” I leaned close to h
er.
“Way to hold a table, Richmond.” St. John’s voice boomed above everything, even my heartbeat. He threw a bag at me—my lunch. Had he gotten it to go on purpose? The others had trays. Still, I took it.
“Oh, sorry.” Amanda moved away. “Paul said it wasn’t taken.” She started to pull a chair from the next table.
“It isn’t,” I started to say. But St. John’s voice stepped on mine.
“I saw your friends over there, Amanda,” he said. “Why don’t you leave?”
Charlie and Meat had taken seats across from me, but St. John stood there, holding his tray, blue eyes freezing both of us out. “Why don’t you leave?” he repeated. Not to Amanda.
“Sure.” Amanda stood. “’Bye, Paul.”
And before I could do anything else, she was across the room, laughing with Emily and Kirby.
St. John didn’t talk during lunch. Actually, no one said much. I spent the half hour trying to make eye contact with Amanda. But driving back to school, St. John said, “She doesn’t really like you, you know.”
We turned past this wayside park. The sun off the water hit my eyes. I squinted. I said the only thing that came to mind. “Really?”
“No, she’s just jerking you around to piss me off.”
Of course it was true. I’d always known that. Someone like her would never like someone like me. But I was tired of feeling like that. Charlie was in the front seat, and I took my bravery from him. So, I said, “That’s funny. I thought she broke up with you.”
“Because I found someone better.”
“Yeah? Where is she now?”
Charlie leaned back to look at me, then St. John, and said, “Quit it. Both of you.”
“Why should I?” St. John accelerated through the turn, and the whole car went sideways. “I’m sick of him. Charlie here wants a fan club instead of friends, so he chooses this loser.” He jerked a thumb at me. “And we let him hang with us out of the goodness of our hearts. Hell, I’ll say it, out of pity. Pity because his mom’s a peon, and he’s too stupid to—”
