Almost Perfect

by Brian Katcher

  “Yeah, but you know she’s going to assume the worst. Especially when she sees your face.”

  My eye wasn’t black from Mr. Hendricks’s punch, but my cheek was discolored enough to make Mom ask questions. I had a strange center-of-the-brain headache, and I wondered if maybe I should have followed Ebony’s advice and seen a doctor.

  I tried to smile. “I’ll think of something. And thanks for everything.”

  Laura parked in front of the trailer. She kissed my cheek, causing me to wince, and drove off.

  Mom’s car was still in the driveway, but she sometimes carpooled with another waitress. I was glad she wouldn’t be home. All I wanted to do was drink a gallon of water and sleep for twelve hours. Then I could face the world and decide what I could do for Sage.

  Tammi must have told her parents what had really happened. After I got some sleep, I’d call the hospital and see if it was okay to visit.

  But then what? If it hadn’t been for my ego, Sage wouldn’t even be there in the first place. I’d promised to always be there for her, and I wasn’t. I’d promised to be her friend and help her when she got scared, and I ran off. I’d promised Tammi that I’d look out for Sage and protect her. So where was I when that psycho was punching her teeth out?

  I was so preoccupied that when I found Mom sitting in the living room, I almost said hello and headed to my room.

  She had moved her easy chair to the middle of the floor and was staring daggers at me. For all I knew, she might have been sitting there since Laura had called the previous evening.

  “Mom!”

  “Where were you all night?” She was calm. Too calm.

  “I was in Columbia. Didn’t Laura call you?”

  Mom didn’t get up or uncross her arms. She just stared. I wanted to get a drink and sit down, but I was frozen. I stood there in the doorway, trying to think of something appropriate to say. My transsexual girlfriend got gay-bashed wasn’t it.

  “Jack and I went for a drive.”

  “You went for a drive.” Though Jack and I had covered many miles together over the years, Mom made this sound like an absurd story. It was like I’d told her I’d been kidnapped by clowns.

  “Yeah …”

  She cut me off. “So why didn’t you just drive home with Jack?”

  In English class we read a story about this Eastern European guy who is tried, convicted, and executed, though he’s never charged with any crime. At that moment, I could relate.

  “He met this girl in Columbia and went back to her place.” I tried to give a knowing laugh, but it came out as a nervous giggle. “You know, three’s a crowd.”

  I could hear the clock ticking in the kitchen. After ten ticks, Mom spoke. “Laura said Jack had car trouble.”

  A blunder, but I could salvage the lie. “Well, yeah, that’s what I told Laura.”

  Mom crossed her legs. “Is that the truth?”

  She knew I was probably lying, but I couldn’t back out now. “Yes.”

  “That’s funny. Because I ran into Jack and his father at the gas station this morning. Jack said you got a strange phone call and just ran off. He wanted to know if you were okay.”

  Stupid concerned friend. “Um.”

  Mom didn’t speak. I was caught. No use digging myself in deeper.

  “Okay, I wasn’t with Jack. A friend of mine had a personal crisis, and I had to go help her.”

  “Was it Sage?” Mom’s anger dropped just a hair.

  “Yes.”

  “What was she doing in Columbia?”

  How could I put this? “I can’t tell you. She’s having some real problems, and I had to go talk to her.”

  Mom stood. “You’ve been acting funny since you two got back from Mizzou last week. Maybe I should call Sage’s parents and find out what’s going on.” She took a step toward the phone.

  “DON’T.” Both Mom and I were stunned by the manly authority in my voice. Mom stopped walking.

  “Sage is in trouble, but you have to trust me on this: talking to her parents would only make things worse. I don’t know if she’s going to be okay or not, but … it’s none of your business. I didn’t do anything wrong last night, I swear. I’m sorry I didn’t call, but I really didn’t have a chance.”

  Mom stared at me for a minute. “What happened to your face?”

  That would be a little harder to explain. I considered telling her I ran into a door, but I’d sound like one of those terrified women on COPS.

  “That happened later. Some guy took a swing at me. I probably had it coming.”

  Mom’s anger returned. In her universe, there was no legitimate reason for someone to hit her son.

  “Logan, I called in sick this morning. I could tell Laura was covering for you, and I didn’t know what was really happening. Can’t you see how scared this makes me?”

  I touched her shoulder. She was trembling. “I wish I could tell you what’s going on. You just have to believe what I say. This isn’t about me.”

  “I’ve heard that lie one too many times.” She pulled away.

  I was almost indignant. “I’ve never lied to you!” Well, not about anything like this.

  Mom shook her head. When she spoke again, her voice was hoarse. “Not from you, Logan. From your father. He used to get strange phone calls and stay out all night and come home looking like someone had beat him up.”

  She rarely talked about her ex-husband. “Mom, I’m not like Dad.”

  She faced me and gave a weak smile. “I know you’re not, honey. You’re a wonderful boy, and I have to accept the fact that you’re almost a man now. Almost. But I worry.”

  “It’s what moms do.” It occurred to me that, for the first time in my life, I was on my own. Mom couldn’t bail me out of this one. While I hadn’t always turned to Mom when I was in trouble, it was nice to know I had the option. Now I was facing a huge crisis, and it was all down to me. Mom couldn’t help me, and neither could Laura or anyone else.

  Mom wasn’t quite ready to end our conversation. “Answer one question. Sage … she’s not pregnant, is she?” Mom braced herself, terrified I was going to say yes.

  “No!” I chuckled at how obsessed Mom was over a disaster that could never happen.

  Mom glared. “I don’t see what’s so funny, Logan.”

  I swallowed my grin. “Nothing, Mom.”

  Mom smiled at me, resigned. I think she realized there was no one she could call, no punishment she could hit me with, no advice she could give. Not this time. But she wanted to help, and that made me feel a little better.

  Grabbing two sodas, I went to my bedroom to hide. I had to figure out how to get revenge on Sage’s attacker, convince Sage that her life was not as fucked up as it must seem, and show her that I deserved one last, last chance to prove I was worthy to be her friend, if nothing else.

  And I was drawing a complete blank. This was one of those situations where there were no answers, no easy (or difficult) solutions. The only thing I could do was wait and pray that when the next bad thing happened, it would be to me and not Sage.

  All that Sunday, I mowed: fields of weeds as high as my kneecaps, petite little yards with grass as trim as a golf green, dusty vacant lots overgrown with the dead plants of last summer. Someone even paid me once.

  I had to lose myself in the work. If I stopped, even to get a drink, I’d start to think. About Sage, lying there on a plastic hospital mattress with tubes and needles in her body. About how some son of a bitch had punched her until she couldn’t stand up anymore and then left her on the side of the road like … I couldn’t think of an appropriate simile. About how if I had any balls at all, I would have told my sister—the sister who thought the world of me and only wanted me to be happy—how special Sage was. But instead, I told lies.

  The most frustrating thing was how helpless I felt. I longed to do something, anything, to help Sage. But I didn’t know who had assaulted her, so I couldn’t go stick his face in the mower blades. I was willing to te
ll anyone how much I cared for Sage—my Mom, Jack, Tim, whoever—but that was pointless. She probably hated me. The only straw I could grasp at was the hope that, after she’d recovered a bit, she’d need a friend. Even a false friend like me.

  When I’d slaughtered every blade of grass in Boyer, when I’d used up every drop of gas in my can, when my hands were cramped into claws from holding down the safety bar on the mower, only then did I slink home. Though it was only eight o’clock, I crawled into bed, a grimy, grassy mess.

  I almost skipped school that Monday, but a faint hope forced me to go. I sat in the commons that morning, knowing that Sage wasn’t going to show up. But still … I pictured her barging in, all brash and angry, a tiny bandage on the bridge of her nose. How she’d listen to my heartfelt apology and punch me in the arm. Then this whole horrible episode would turn into a bad dream.

  Sage didn’t come to school. I didn’t see Tammi, either. Right before the first bell rang, Jack passed by and swatted the back of my head.

  “Wakey, wakey, Logan.”

  Jack was his usual manic self, and I wasn’t exactly in the mood to talk to him. I started to walk to class. He followed.

  “Where did you run off to after the party? When you got that call … Jesus, who gave you that shiner?”

  I zombied my way to biology. “I went to Columbia. Some drunk tried to take my wallet. I wouldn’t give it up.”

  Jack whistled, impressed. By lunchtime, he’d spread the story around school. I believe his exact words were Logan beat off some guy in Columbia this weekend. That probably left a lot of people wondering what exactly I did with my free time.

  That night I had an almost physical relationship with the telephone as I sat waiting for someone to call with information about Sage. Laura called to check on me, but I ran her off the line. Luckily, Mom was working, so she didn’t start to wonder again if I was using drugs.

  I wanted to call Sage. I went so far as to look up the hospital number, but I couldn’t do it. What if her father answered? What if she hung up on me? Or what if she wanted to talk to me just to tell me how badly I’d screwed up her life? Maybe her condition was worse than I’d suspected. Or they might have admitted her to the hospital as a boy. Jesus. The entire staff probably knew. They might even have taken away her hormones.

  I ended up being too chickenshit to call. I swore if I didn’t hear from her by the next afternoon, I’d contact the hospital, no excuses.

  Tammi saved me the trouble. I found her after school Tuesday, distractedly tossing some books into her locker. She looked like she’d just recovered from a long illness: pale, tired, and not totally there.

  “Tammi?”

  She blinked, then stared at me for a moment like she didn’t remember who I was. Finally, she gave me a thin smile. That was a relief. At least she didn’t hate me.

  “C’mon, Logan.” I followed her down the west hall and into the band/music/choir room. She shut the door behind us and sat on the edge of the risers. I sat opposite on the piano bench.

  “Tammi, how’s …”

  “She’s fine. No, no, she’s not. But she’ll recover.” She spoke flatly.

  “How bad …”

  “She’ll recover, Logan.” That was the official statement. Tammi knew more, but I was no longer in Sage’s inner circle.

  “Did they …”

  She shook her head. “Sage won’t talk. Not to the police, not to Mom, not to me. Maybe it’s for the best. Daddy would shoot the guy if he knew who it was.”

  I thumped the piano. “I’d like to get ahold of him myself.”

  Tammi rolled her eyes. In her mind, I was all talk. My threats were bluster and bravado, nothing more.

  “Do you think I could visit Sage?”

  “Are you sure you want to, Logan? Someone might find out.” There was no inflection in her voice, but the dig was there. Had Sage told Tammi about my problems with Laura? Did Tammi know I’d slept with her sister?

  “I want to see her.”

  Tammi stuck out her tiny jaw. “Well, she doesn’t want to see you. She said if you asked, and she didn’t think you would, to tell you to stay away. That you’ll both be happier.”

  So that was it. Sage was at one of the lowest points in her life, and the last thing she wanted was to see me. Two weeks before, I’d been the one who understood, her best friend, the guy she could depend on. And now I was a coward, the boy who ran away when things got rough and abandoned her to the wolves. I laid my forehead on the keyboard.

  “Logan?” I had nearly forgotten Tammi was still there. “Logan? Um … it’s not that she doesn’t want to see you. I mean, that’s what she says, but I know her. She doesn’t want you to see her. She looks bad. Plus, my father’s not your number one fan. We both told him you didn’t have anything to do with this, but you still should avoid him for now.”

  I hammered a chord with my fist. “I deserve it. This is my fault.”

  Tammi’s voice took on an edge. “No one likes a martyr, Logan. You were a self-centered asshole, but you weren’t the one who knocked the shit out of my sister.” She paused. “I’m more to blame than you are.”

  “Huh?”

  Tammi swiveled on the riser until her back was to me. “I dunno. It’s just … Sage told me about her … girlish thoughts when I was about ten. But she was always feminine. I liked the idea of having a sister; she practically was one already. When she told me she was going to tell Mom and Dad, I said she should go for it. I was only eleven, but even then I knew they’d freak out. I should have warned her, told her to wait.”

  “But you were just trying to be supportive.” Wasn’t she?

  “Maybe. Or maybe I just wanted to watch the fireworks. You know how it is with sisters. When the other one is getting her ass chewed, you look like an angel.”

  I shrugged. “That’s just the way it is.”

  Tammi looked back at me for a second. “Logan, when things got rough—and believe me, things got real bad there for a while—I’d sometimes sit in my room, listening to them all scream at each other, and think, ‘I’m the good one. I’m the one who doesn’t cause problems. I’m the normal one.’ You have a sister, right? Did she ever really screw up, and things suddenly got better for you?”

  I traced the dust on the piano with my finger. “A few years ago, Laura’s boyfriend got picked up for DUI. The cops drove her home in the middle of the night. She caught hell for that for a month. Yeah, I was the golden boy then. I hated to see her in trouble, but when I got a D in history, I didn’t even get grounded.”

  Tammi was staring at the wall again. “That’s what I mean. I never wanted Sage to get hurt. But at the same time, my parents wouldn’t have let me date Rob if Sage had been a normal boy. It’s like, ‘At least Tammi likes boys. At least Tammi acts like she’s supposed to. Maybe Tammi’s only a freshman, but she’s doing normal things.’”

  Tammi snorted, then fished in her purse for a tissue. “And now my big sister’s hurt, and maybe if I’d thought about her instead of me, this wouldn’t have happened. I should have told her to wait. I should have told her not to take those hormones. Maybe she’d still be safe.”

  I stood up and joined her on the risers. She didn’t move away.

  “Tammi, you remember how Sage once tried to hurt herself, right?”

  She nodded.

  “She wouldn’t have done that if being a woman was something she could forget about. I think she needed you to tell her that she wasn’t weird, that she didn’t need to be ashamed. Sage always talked about you. She said you were the only one who understood her. You can’t fake that. Stop blaming yourself. You were supportive when no one else was. Not even me. Especially not me.”

  Tammi turned to me with a desperate look on her face. “I should have protected her.”

  “You did. Hell, you didn’t give us a moment alone together when we first met.”

  Tammi almost laughed. “I knew what you had in mind. I only let you two go out when she said you knew her sec
ret.”

  We both smiled, then stopped. The image of Sage bleeding in the bathroom jumped into my head, and probably Tammi’s as well. She stood up, not making eye contact.

  “I’m telling everyone that Sage hurt her back in a car wreck, and that she’ll be in traction for the rest of the school year. Please don’t say otherwise.”

  “Right.”

  Tammi walked to the door, then stopped and turned. “Logan, I’ll talk to her, see if maybe she’ll give you a call. She’s mad at you, but I think she’s angrier at herself.”

  I thanked her and she left the room.

  chapter thirty-four

  I LAY on our living room couch counting the cobwebs on the ceiling. My brain screamed for action. I should be doing something, something to make everything okay. But what? I needed someone to talk to.

  When people are stuck in frightening and confusing situations, they don’t want advice. They want someone to tell them what to do. To be ordered, commanded. I needed someone to march in and tell me what the next step was in such a way that I couldn’t wimp out.

  And I could talk to no one. Jack, Tim, even Brenda … they might be able to advise me, and at this point, I was desperate enough to tell them the truth. But I couldn’t violate Sage’s privacy like that.

  The phone rang and I lunged for it. Maybe it was Tammi, or even Sage.

  “Hello?”

  “Logan?” said a gravely, unpleasant voice. Someone who I never expected to call me.

  “Mr. Hendricks?”

  There was a pause, and I hoped we’d been disconnected. Then: “Can you come over to our house now? I want to talk to you.”

  The last time we’d talked, he’d tried to break my face and said he’d kill me if he ever saw me again. How the hell did he expect me to answer?

  “I’ll be right there.”

  Sage’s truck was parked in the driveway. Next to it stood my bike, where I’d abandoned it after taking her to the hospital. There was no sign of anyone.

  Why had Sage’s father asked me over? Maybe he’d told the cops I was the one who assaulted her and was luring me here to be arrested. Maybe bruising my face wasn’t sufficient, and he’d decided he really wanted to work me over. Or maybe Sage had insisted he try and make peace with me.