What Z Sees

by Karen Rivers

  He can’t talk to either of them. Not now, that’s for sure. He cringes when he thinks of all the babbling he did to both of them about Tasia and breaking up with her and Gigi and... well, anything. It all feels one-sided now, like he was acting like they were friends and all along they knew they didn’t feel the same about him. So now there’s no talking, not from him. It’s an awkward silence and once again he’s trapped in a horrible awkward thing he wants nothing to do with. Like all his relationships. With Zara, with his dad and certainly with Gigi. No one is easy to be around, except Sin.

  Well, that’s a whole other thing.

  Now he and Des and Wick all have to travel together this weekend to this show, this life-changingly important show and Axel’s having a really hard time. He’s dying to pick up the phone and call Sin and tell her. She’d get all his feelings about this stuff, the gay stuff, he knows she would. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t say anything to anyone. Gigi’s acting like it’s all a big joke. When he brought it up, she just rolled her eyes and said, It’s probably just a phase. They’ll grow out of it. Which made him mad on about a hundred different levels: for one thing, her dismissiveness was disrespectful to his friends. For another thing, she completely missed his point.

  Now he’s stuck and he feels like he’s in a dream or a nightmare and he’s paralyzed, can’t speak, can’t breathe. Nothing. How is he supposed to act? They’ll all be sharing a room, like always. Will they sleep together? Do they do that? If they do, how is he expected to react?

  At least they’ve finally come out to everyone, to the whole group anyway. Chelsea must have been embarrassed. She’s still always around, which in and of itself is uncomfortable. He suspects that she’d known for ages and didn’t much care, she just loves the horses and loves Des and loves Wick. Sometimes he suspects that she’s missing a few candles from her cake.

  He sure can’t talk to her about his feelings. There’s no one. And he has a lot more things to ask.

  Like, now that school is going back in a couple of weeks, what else will it mean? Will they be holding hands in the hallway? Will everyone assume that he, Axel, is also gay? And why does he care? There’s nothing wrong with it. He just doesn’t want people to think it about him. He’ll have to stay with Gigi just so everyone knows that he’s straight. He has a girlfriend. Even though ...

  Well, the truth is that, as the summer has gone on, he hasn’t really gotten to know Gigi any better. She’s still as remote as ever, as quiet, as ... boring. But he’s never going to break up with her now. He can’t not have a girlfriend. That would be social suicide. He’s not totally stupid.

  Last night, Axel and Gigi were playing Monopoly in the attic. Well, sort of playing. Sort of not playing. Doing some other stuff, too. Like drinking wine, for example. Kissing. A lot. Getting closer to naked. Touching and touching. See, when he was touching her, everything else vanished. Her meanness. Her bitchiness. Her chatter. When Gigi drank, her face got flushed and she looked so pretty. She became different. She definitely got more into it, the kissing that is, than she was when she wasn’t drinking. She got more interesting. More interested. Her hands everywhere. Her clothes springing loose almost on their own.

  That was all wrong, he knew. Even to think it. But he liked it when she drank. She put down her backpack and became more accessible, both literally and metaphorically.

  She even rubbed his feet, which was weird, but nice. Like they were an old married couple. It was romantic, the two of them balancing on a piece of plywood that he’d dragged up there and using candles, which made it kind of spooky. They kept seeing shadows moving on the walls. Ghosts, he said, and she was authentically scared. The house was inherently a bit scary, a big rambling farmhouse that had stood for a hundred years or more. And all the sounds the dogs made, the whining and yipping and barking made her jumpy and sometimes sounded kind of ghost-like from up there.

  When she was scared she wanted him to put his arms around her, though, so he was exploiting her fear maybe just a little.

  Or a lot.

  She was letting him do a lot of things she’d never let him do before. To be honest, he was feeling a bit out of his depth but he kept going because she let him. Then, just as suddenly, she stopped him. Sitting up like she’d been shocked and pulling out some tarot cards that she had in her pack like nothing had been going on. It took him a little longer to change gears like that.

  Before he knew it, she’d pushed the Monopoly board aside and started shuffling the tarot cards. He was just cutting the deck when he heard the door open. They both nearly jumped out of their skin. Gigi screamed. It was his dad.

  What do you want? he’d asked rudely.

  Nothing, his dad had said, looking equally taken aback. Didn’t know you were up here.

  Then he’d ducked out. But it was an awkward moment (thank God he hadn’t walked in five minutes sooner), it had ruined the mood and besides, what was Dad doing skulking around in the attic? That was strange just on its own.

  Gigi had whispered, Your dad is sure good-looking.

  And after that, well, the whole night was wrecked. He’d proceeded to get so drunk he felt sick. Although he didn’t throw up, he’d wanted to. She read his cards and said that she saw in them that he was going to die, which was her way of being mean, he was sure of it. But also, it flipped him out a bit. In retaliation, his ghost stories got mean. He could tell he was scaring her too much, and he wanted to. He wanted to get under her skin. Because he was upset he wanted her to be upset, too. Finally, she got sick of it. She was more than a bit drunk, too, but he let her drive home anyway. Practically shoved her into the car. He would have felt awful if something had happened, but nothing did.

  He lay in bed for ages with the bed spinning, watching the clock tick down the hours until he had to be up to muck out the stalls. He worried about how he was mean to Gigi and she still kept coming back for more. He worried that he was turning into his dad, in a way. A nice girl who loved him, liked him, whatever, who he could take or leave. Like Dad and Maman. He worried that she’d drive into a telephone pole and it would be his fault. He couldn’t sleep and he wanted to go talk to Zara like he used to when he was upset, but she wasn’t home. She was out at some karaoke thing with who knows who. He knew it wasn’t Sin because he’d called her earlier and she’d said she was staying in. She’d said she’d rented movies and was going to lie on the couch and watch them all in a row until she fell asleep.

  In any event, Gigi was fine. He’d talked to her this morning. She had a headache, she said, like she was surprised. Sometimes her funny innocence about stuff was cute. Other times it was just frustrating. Of course she had a headache: she drank half a bottle of Merlot.

  Somehow he’d pictured this whole summer unfolding differently. The weather, the heat, is the only thing that matched his expectations. And Detritus’s foot was now definitely off so, though he’d shown a couple of times, he wasn’t doing as much riding as he’d thought he’d do. And everything else was just topsy-turvy. Next summer will be the summer before college, a more serious summer. This summer was supposed to be fun. It started off with a bang, with the jump from the plane, but then kind of trickled out after that to this long, dreary, hot, hungover, confused mess.

  The thing was, he mused, pushing Detritus through the motions of his usual practice routine, somehow it seemed like if things were still all upside-down when school went back, they’d be sealed in that way forever and there would be nothing he could do to undo it after all.

  SIN

  Chapter 12

  YOU ARE BREAKING up with your boyfriend, an event that seems surreal while it’s happening, mostly because he’s crying. You aren’t crying. Which is strange because crying comes pretty easily to you. You’ve cried a lot in the past few days. For Zara. With Zara. Crying even when you don’t know why. After all, is mind reading so awful? You’d like to be able to do it sometimes. You think you would. You’d like to be able to read Axel’s mind, for example.

  N
o, you can’t think about that now. How awful are you? You are breaking up with your boyfriend, he’s crying, you have to stay in this moment.

  You are itching to leave. His crying is making you feel guilty for not crying and it is also making you feel irritated. The whole incident seems scripted, surreal. Everything you say sounds like something you saw once on an old episode of The OC. It’s not you, it’s me! I’m so sorry. You’ll find someone else. It’s beyond exasperating. The way he’s reacting, you may as well have just grabbed one of his medieval swords and just plunged it into his concave little chest. Now, more than ever, you can’t see what you ever saw in him.

  He snivels. An actual bubble of snot forms on his nose. You shove a tissue in his direction, looking away.

  You don’t know where it comes from, but you blurt, There’s someone else.

  He stops mid nose-blow and looks at you with his rodent eyes. What? he asks. What? Who is it?

  No one, you say, wanting to backtrack. Why did you say it? There isn’t anyone else, but you wish there was.

  Then, again, you speak like you can’t help yourself. You say, It’s Axel.

  It’s like your brain has been taken over by aliens. You can’t believe what you’re doing. You’ve obviously lost your mind.

  I mean, you say, it isn’t Axel. I’m just, it’s a stupid crush. I shouldn’t have mentioned it. That’s all.

  Which makes it all seem worse. You take a deep breath and focus on the buttons on his shirt. They are silver and shine in the sun. He must be hot. The shirt is black. Who wears a long-sleeved black shirt in the muggy heat of mid- August when they don’t have to? His forehead is sweating a bit, you notice. Well, whose isn’t? The shimmer of heat hanging over everything makes it look like the road itself is sweating. The grass. The table. The bench you are sitting on.

  Great, he says. That’s just great. Then he starts to cry again.

  I hate Axel, he adds. And Zara. That whole crazy group of people. They’re all messed up. They’re twisted. They aren’t real. They’re just like plastic. Fake. And besides, Zara totally hit on me, you know. She’s into me.

  You burst out laughing. What? you ask. That’s ridiculous.

  It is not, he says. When you left the club, she danced with me.

  She did not, you say. Or maybe she was just being nice.

  She did, he says. She wanted to. I could tell. I have really good intuition, you know. She’s crazy, though. You should stay away from her. She’s creepy. She has a black soul.

  Black soul? you say. You have lost your mind, kid.

  I haven’t, he says. I’m right, you’ll see.

  Well, whatever; you say. I have to go.

  Black soul! You want him to go away so you can call Zara ASAP and laugh with her about it. Only you’re not so sure she wouldn’t agree. She seems to think that the whole mind-reading thing isn’t a gift but something bad. Something evil. Maybe you won’t tell her; after all.

  You aren’t even sure what to make of it. Mind reading. It’s beyond the strangest thing you’ve ever heard. But the way she described it, she was almost rhapsodic, like she was describing some kind of art. Like it’s sort of a beautiful thing, too. Something she wants but doesn’t want. You’re sure the answer lies somewhere in that balance: maybe she has to stop wanting it and it will go. Or she has to start wanting it and it will be manageable. She can’t go on with hurting herself. That’s just too hard. You wince thinking about the glass bracelet digging into her wrist. You cringe. You can’t give her any advice or anything, but maybe you can just listen. You can try.

  You’d rather be with Zara than here, where you are, with Hamster.

  Hamster, you say. I have to go.

  He looks at you with wide eyes. Don’t go! he says. I want to talk about this.

  There’s nothing else to say, you sigh.

  I don’t believe it about you and Axel, he says. He wouldn’t go out with you. You’re fat.

  It’s like a slap in the face. You recoil but you don’t move. You’re still sitting on the bench. The silence stretching between you is like toffee, palpable and thick, broken up only by his sniffing.

  Sorry, you say. I’m sorry you’re upset.

  I’m more than upset, he says. You’ve broken my heart.

  Really? you ask. Some fat girl dumps you and your heart is broken?

  You aren’t fat! he says. I didn’t mean it. Not like that.

  You said it, though, you say. That was mean.

  Mean! he shouts. You’re the mean one!

  Am not, you say.

  Are, too, he says.

  You almost giggle. Are you really doing this? Am not/are too? Like children fighting over who stole the last cookie? You get up. Your legs feel stiff, like you’ve been sitting there for hours.

  But why? Hamster is asking. Why?

  I just don’t like you like that anymore, you say, trying to stay patient. I don’t like you the same way.

  You can’t help noticing how he’s got dandruff flaking onto his shoulder How there is something black caught between his two front teeth. He sniffles. When he cries, he looks about twelve years old, which makes the whole sex part of your relationship seem extra creepy and wrong. You shudder Yuck.

  Well, at least he’ll never touch you again. You can’t imagine why you ever let him in the first place. It all seems wrong. Maybe it’s because it’s so hot out here but the whole summer feels like it happened in a dream, a thick gauzy sweaty surreal dream.

  Zara has changed. Axel has changed. Everyone in the group has transformed in some way. You’ve changed.

  Your clothes are getting baggy, at any rate. You’re losing weight, not that you know how much, because you’d never weigh yourself. While Hamster continues to sob, you wrap your arms around yourself and trace the path of a rib to your spine. Your bones are appearing. You’re definitely thinner. If not actually thin. How did that happen?

  It’s like the hot summer just melted it away. You trace the bone over and over again with your index finger, allowing Hamster to keep talking, letting him talk and talk and talk while you think about that rib bone and its sudden appearance and what that means. What else that’s going to change. Like maybe, just maybe, you’re thin enough now to be Axel’s girl.

  Not that you think he’s shallow. He just is so insecure. He wouldn’t be secure enough to pick someone who didn’t fit the mould. He just wouldn’t. Even though, you know, on some level, that he’s maybe wanted to.

  Maybe. You circle your left wrist with your right hand and your fingers meet easily. There, you think. Maybe now I fit the mould.

  ZARA

  Chapter 13

  HERE IS WHAT I HEAR:

  I’m coming home soon.

  I love you, too.

  Give our beautiful babies a kiss for me when they wake up.

  Tell them Daddy loves them. Daddy loves his babies.

  Then I hear a thumping wheezing sound which I realize after a minute is just my own heart, racing. My own inability to breathe. Am I choking? No, I’m panicking. Hyperventilating. What babies? He’s never called us his babies. We aren’t babies.

  There are obviously babies.

  What babies?

  I know right away, obviously, I can see it all so clearly. Other babies. Dad has other babies.

  I kneel down in the hay, put my head between my knees, try to remember what people say to do when you hyperventilate.

  I can’t breathe. I’m going to die.

  I’m not going to die.

  Here is where we are:

  I am in the barn, half-heartedly cleaning stalls. It’s early in the morning and the day hasn’t become hot yet. Not quite. But it’s warm. Axel is away with Des and Wick at the show, so there are only a few horses here: Mavis and a couple of boarders. It seems extra quiet. Echoing with the sound of my rake on the ground, which is bugging me, like a huge hand running nails down a chalkboard.

  Dad is in the tack room, talking on the barn phone. He doesn’t notice me, watching
him through the door that is partially ajar. Where beyond being able to hear him, I can see him, right into him: the film reel of people I don’t know. What catches my eye is the babies tucked into a bed. They’re what make me look to begin with, after all this time of carefully avoiding looking directly at Dad. They trap me. They’re cute. It takes a minute for it to sink in. He starts thinking about a yellow kitchen. In the kitchen is a woman with long red hair, wearing a ring.

  Dad’s babies. Dad’s wife. Dad’s kitchen.

  Here is what it means:

  Dad is not only our dad, but also someone else’s. Someone who calls him Daddy. Dad is in love with someone else. He’s not just cheating. Dad has another house. Another wife. Another kitchen.

  At first I think I’m going to faint. I tiptoe back into the stall I was cleaning, holding my breath on purpose so he doesn’t hear me gasping. Then I kneel. I press my cheek into the hay, feeling it scratching my skin. Smelling it. Trying to breathe it into myself, that familiar smell. Getting it in my hair, like I’m trying to meld into it. Disappear into the bale.

  I lose track of the sequence. What happened when?

  The babies. There are babies?

  I can’t breathe.

  Is he trying to make up for all of it? Trying to make up for what a bad father he was to us? Does he get a second chance?

  Asshole. He doesn’t deserve one.

  This is too much. It’s too much to know. And my reaction is all wrong. I’m mad that I’m the one who had to find out. Now I own that knowledge. Now I have to decide to keep the secret or to tell. I have to do something or not do something. It isn’t fair. I don’t want it.

  I stand up and lean on my shovel and feel the whole barn spinning like a Tilt-a-Whirl at the local fair. Squinting out into the paddocks, I see one of the horses suddenly rear up and start galloping. They all seem touchy lately, maybe it’s the heat or maybe it’s something else. Some kind of vibe they are picking up. I don’t know what. Something cosmic.