Citrus County

by John Brandon

  Shelby’s father returned to the mosquito control offices on a Monday. Shelby fixed him a lunch and saw him off, then she watched a documentary about fighter pilots. The narrator was English and favored English pilots. Shelby enjoyed knowing that her father wouldn’t bust in at any moment, vine wrapped around his ankle. She had the house truly to herself. The sun was up, finding its way through the blinds. First period would begin in seven minutes. Shelby drank some orange juice and found her school bag. She sat on the couch. She pictured her father at work, doing familiar things with his hands, driving familiar roads, filling out paperwork. It would be good for him. People would walk on eggshells around him for a couple weeks, as they continued to do around Shelby at school, but in time his work-life would be monotonous and consuming and his sleep patterns would return to normal and his crazed gloom would break like a fever, would turn to a reasonable sadness. That’s what happened. Eventually your gloom listened to reason.

  The next show was a history of the World Cup. They had grainy footage of Pele and they kept replaying one of his moves. First period was starting. Shelby let her school bag slide to the floor and stretched out on the couch. She wasn’t prepared to gaze at chalkboards and projector screens, to hurry from place to place so she wouldn’t be late. She especially wasn’t prepared to explain to earnest-eyed teachers why she wouldn’t be participating in their spring clubs. She’d been all set to go around with Interact, painting houses for poor people. She’d been set to join and possibly captain the debate team. The lady who ran the French group had made her silky overtures. These were possibly the three things Shelby felt least in the world like doing: painting, debating, pronouncing.

  Shelby watched the soccer players. They had wonderful hair. She muted the commercials and she could hear the faint shouts of the kids who had PE first period. It was an enchanting, crushing sound. Maradona’s hand-of-God goal. Maradona was very short. Shelby knew she would skip the whole day. She would skip and tomorrow none of her teachers would say a word about it.

  She went to the pantry and found nothing—healthy cereal, tuna. She knew she didn’t want to eat anything out of the fridge but she couldn’t stop herself from opening it. Shelby thought of her father again. She could not keep up this petty grudge—leaving the Cracker Barrel food in the fridge as it molded. She set the garbage can near and began dumping the foam boxes into it. She tied the bag up, put in a new one and continued, a sharp stink escaping each box as she transferred it. She fetched disinfectant and scrubbed the shelves of the fridge. She saw, sitting on the floor of the pantry, the bag of religious teen paraphernalia that girl had come to the door with, and she dropped that in the trash as well. She took the garbage bags outside, then lit a candle in the kitchen.

  She went into her sister’s room, plucked a coloring book off the shelf, sat down and flipped the pages. She imagined Kaley at the kitchen table. Kaley never paid attention to the lines. Or sometimes she colored only one object, a hat or something, and deemed the page finished. One coloring book would last her months; she’d keep going over certain pictures, making alterations. She was really gone. Shelby’s sister’s absence was a physical law of the universe. Shelby tore each page out of the coloring book she was holding, building a stack of pictures, then she dropped the empty binding in Kaley’s Manny the Manatee wastebasket. She picked up each sheet, one at a time, and tore it into small, even shreds. After a few minutes, the wastebasket was full of busy confetti.

  Shelby left Kaley’s room, went up the hall, and paused at the sliding-glass door. She leaned her front against it, tired of being afraid, and surveyed the backyard. She tried to feel lordly. It was time to get rid of the kiddie pool. That was a chore she could do. None of the memories of Kaley playing in it meant anything and it was time for the pool to go. All Shelby thought of was curling underneath it that day. She would wait for garbage day, after her father had left for work, and drag it out to the road.

  A thin, black snake lounged on the patio, still, half in the sun. She wanted to see it move, wanted to see how it slithered. She pressed herself harder into the glass and watched. She closed her eyes, hoping that when she opened them the snake would be sneaking off. Shelby didn’t want to cheat, didn’t want to slide the door open and poke the thing with a stick. She could hear a clock in another room ticking dutifully. Shelby watched the snake, the line the shade made inching over it, until it was fully in the sun.

  The phone rang. Shelby went to the kitchen and plucked the receiver off the wall. It was the FBI agent, the one with the pixie-cut.

  “Why aren’t you in school?” she asked Shelby.

  “I come home for lunch.”

  Shelby went to the living room and sat. She was in the same spot as when the agents interviewed her. “Your investigation hit a dead end?” Shelby said.

  “I talked to your dad. We shook down all the sex offenders in the region.”

  “How many are there?”

  “Sex offenders? About eighty in Citrus County.”

  Shelby didn’t know if the number sounded high or low.

  “They split us up,” the agent said. “My partner and I.”

  “How come?” Shelby asked.

  “They said it was poor performance, which was hard to argue, but really it was because we were involved.”

  “You were her girlfriend?”

  “You could say that.”

  “So now you have a man partner?”

  “That would’ve made sense.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” Shelby asked.

  “Oh, sweetie. A lot of people are going to tell you a lot of things. You’re like me. You understand everybody but nobody understands you.”

  Shelby looked at the phone a moment.

  “There was talk of us quitting the bureau,” the agent said. “Opening a shop somewhere.”

  Shelby got up and went back to the sliding-glass door. The snake was gone. She covered the mouthpiece of the phone and said the word “fuck.”

  “I called in order to give you the last word,” the agent said. “I’m an adult and I realize that you deserve to have the last word with me.”

  Shelby stayed quiet.

  “I want you to tell me what you think of me, then hang up. I want you to be honest.”

  Shelby held perfectly still.

  “Shelby?” the agent said. “I know you’re there. Take a minute to think and then say whatever you want. I need some truth. I know there are things you want to say to me.”

  Shelby closed her eyes.

  “Please, Shelby. Don’t play games. Don’t be a jerk. Shelby? I’m being an adult here.”

  On the way out of Mr. Hibma’s class, Shelby had whispered to Toby that she was going to find the old lost tennis court after school, that Toby should meet her there and keep her company, so once the final bell had sounded he headed out through the pastures behind the football bleachers. The tennis court couldn’t have been more than a mile away, but there was no trail. You had to walk through the pastures and then over a high spot in the swamp and then it was in among a bunch of spindly pine trees. It was in the middle of nowhere, a full tennis court.

  When Toby arrived, the court was empty. He walked up to the fence. The surface of the court was cracked with weeds. The net was sagging. There was an aluminum bench with algae or something growing on it. Toby started as a ball flew over the fence and bounced into the corner. He turned and saw Shelby coming out of some high grass.

  “I can tell you by the way you walk,” Shelby said. “Even with your hair short, I could tell it was you.”

  Shelby was wearing sunglasses. They made it look like she had a hangover.

  “What do I walk like?” Toby asked her.

  “You have a hitch. You leave room in every step to change direction, to change your mind.”

  “I hardly ever change my mind,” Toby said.

  The sun was hitting Shelby. Her arms and legs were bony. It seemed strange that she could walk around and throw things, as bony as s
he was. Toby felt he was betraying himself, being out at this tennis court. Betraying the bunker. Even betraying Kaley. The courage he’d felt that day at the playground was gone. Shelby seemed dangerous, but not because she could find Toby out. For some other reason, she seemed like a trap.

  “Help me,” she said.

  She waded back into the tall grass and Toby followed. They dragged their feet and shook the underbrush and whenever Toby found a ball he handed it to Shelby and she threw it back over the fence. She seemed charmed that people used this court. Someone had dragged racquets and dozens of balls through a half-hour of Florida wilderness in order to play on a dilapidated court with a rotting net.

  “People get really bored,” Toby said.

  The two of them worked their way through the grass and then around some cypress knees. They found eight or nine balls, all new, bright in color and rubbery in smell. They looked absolutely fluorescent against the dingy court. Toby asked Shelby how she knew about this place and she said she’d heard some of the searchers talking about it.

  “A while back a millionaire lived in Citrus County,” Shelby said. “His mistress loved tennis, so he had this court built out in the woods so they could play in secret.”

  “Wow,” Toby said. He knew this story was false. This tennis court, along with a half-built golf course Toby sometimes walked through, were remnants of an unfinished development. Nothing romantic. And he wasn’t going to tell Shelby but her mysterious new tennis balls were probably the work of drunken teenagers. Most mild mysteries in Citrus County boiled down to drunk teenagers.

  They made it around to the opposite side of the court, where the pines were. Toby had no idea why they were doing this. They found a couple more balls and then when it seemed there were no more Toby spotted something down under some thick brush, down in a little ravine that must’ve been formed by a sinkhole.

  Toby held onto a vine and lowered himself. He mashed a bush over with his foot and reached down and grasped the ball. He cleaned it of clumps of dirt and an insect or two, put it in his pocket, and climbed up to flat ground.

  He presented the pale, bounceless orb to Shelby, and she didn’t hurl it over the fence. She held it in one hand and with the other she drew Toby in by the elbow. She was kissing him. Shelby’s mouth was moist and assertive and Toby could feel the world’s vastness. He knew there were oceans out there that made the Gulf look like a puddle. There were places covered in snow, places where people ate snakes for dinner, places where people believed that every single thing that happened in their lives was determined by ill-willed spirits. Shelby tasted like nothing. She smelled like freckles and she was making sounds, but she didn’t taste like anything. Toby didn’t know whether his eyes were open. His feet were planted and he was keeping his balance as Shelby leaned against him.

  When Toby thought of his hands, he began to panic. The point of the kissing had been reached where Toby was supposed to do more, something with his hands. Shelby’s fingers were up under Toby’s shirt in the back. He could feel the old bare tennis ball rubbing his skin. Toby took a step backward and Shelby almost fell. He said he had to go. Shelby looked at him like he was a silly child. Toby did have something to do. It wasn’t a lie. He always had something to do.

  The flashlight had broken. Maybe Kaley had broken it on purpose. It was hard to say. Toby didn’t want her down there in the pitch dark, so he had to go back to the used hardware store. Kaley wasn’t coming around to Toby, but she did seem to be considering the idea that the masked figure that tended to her was as much a victim in this as she. It was undeniable that Toby was her servant. When he bathed her, his eyes averted, it was clear that hers was the position of strength.

  Toby went into the store and grabbed a flashlight at random from the bin. His mouth still felt numb, hours later, from kissing Shelby. The nothing her mouth had tasted like had gotten into Toby’s mouth. He had no appetite.

  When he got to the counter the old lady said, “You’re in the very early stages of becoming a regular. You’re meaning to become a regular and get special treatment and have me know your name.”

  Her grandbaby was with her again, standing back there behind the counter. A disposable camera hung around the child’s neck. Her eyes were closed.

  The old woman held a bowl of candy out toward Toby and he declined.

  “That’s smart,” she said. “No candy from strangers. You’re not a regular yet. We’re still strangers.”

  “I’m not big on candy,” Toby said. “I’m not a candy person.”

  “See that?” She was addressing her grandbaby now, who reluctantly opened her eyes. “You could learn something. He knows enough to turn down strange candy and he knows enough to make a polite excuse when he does it.”

  Later that week, Shelby skipped school again. She didn’t want to go to school and she didn’t want to sit in her house. She ordered a cab and waited on the front steps, staring as a hulking bay tree dropped its white bulbs and they parachuted down. Another floated down, and another, until a big crow plopped down in the yard and Shelby saw the cab at the end of the drive, its dust settling. The driver had done a turn and had the car facing the main road. The car was about a hundred feet long and had no hubcaps.

  Shelby got in the back seat and told the driver she wanted to go to the Crystal River Outlet Mall. He didn’t have a meter. He had a laminated chart full of starting points and destinations. Shelby’s ride was $23, one way.

  “I suppose you need me to wait while you’re in there,” the driver said. “You need a ride home.”

  Shelby nodded at the mirror.

  She was headed to the mall, she decided, to search for a present for Toby. She had $300 from years of birthdays and holidays and she was tired of saving it. She wanted to buy an item priced around $200. That, plus the cab, plus lunch at the food court, would pretty much rid her of her money.

  Shelby gazed out her window at the ponds, the smug vultures.

  “Look at those pitiful creatures,” the driver said.

  “The vultures?”

  “The cows, if you want to call them cows. Have you ever been to Ireland? The cows are like elephants.”

  Shelby nodded, aware that the driver could not see her doing so.

  “It’s a whole different world over there. The green grass goes right to the ocean. The farmers wear sweaters. The women smile and talk to you.”

  Shelby traced the stitching in the seat with her finger.

  “In this country, if you hold the door open for a woman, she just brushes by. Over there, they look you in the eyes and say ‘Cheers.’ They touch you on the arm.”

  They passed a sprawling lot that sold pickup truck toppers and then the roadsides became undeveloped, jungle-like. Shelby wished the driver would be quiet, but he went on and on about Ireland until his long car rocked to a stop in the parking lot of the mall. He sank into his seat and tuned into a talk radio program on which everyone was laughing caustically.

  Shelby followed a tile walkway through JCPenney and found the mall proper. Jovial organ music was piping in. A calendar kiosk. Shelby came to a stop. The kiosk had no attendant. Most of the calendars Shelby saw seemed good to buy as a joke—pro wrestlers, soap stars. The company that made the calendars depended on people buying them as a joke. And then there were puppies and wineries and one of foreign city scenes—colorful doors and bicycles and fountains. There were no pictures from Iceland. That was why Aunt Dale lived there. It wasn’t a nation that had its photograph taken for silly calendars that ended up in a second-rate mall in Citrus County, Florida. There was no silliness in Iceland.

  Shelby walked on until she ran up against a stout, venerable odor. The scent was at once inviting and sickening. Shelby took a few blind steps into the shop and found herself in a maze of glass cases. There were cigarettes from many countries, pipes, ashtrays carved from marble. Toby didn’t smoke, as far as Shelby knew. Maybe he should, though. She could encourage him to take it up. She could show him she wasn’t somebo
dy he had to be careful with. She wanted the Toby she’d first known, the alarming Toby. She wasn’t getting that anymore. If she could get the genuine Toby, then she could be the genuine Shelby. And why couldn’t she? Why couldn’t they let their guards down and just be with one another? Shelby could go with Toby on all his interminable walks. He could carry a pipe and Shelby could carry matches and the two of them could carve a place for themselves in the Florida afternoons. Shelby went near the register and the clerk poked his head through a wall of displays and said, “No way.”

  He was a small man who wore loose clothing. “Don’t bother with a fake ID,” he said. “I’ve seen them all.”

  “I don’t smoke,” Shelby said.

  The clerk withdrew his head, disappearing behind the cases. “I used to pretend I couldn’t tell the IDs were fake, but they changed the law. I had to sit through a seminar.”

  Shelby looked at her reflection in one of the cases. “I don’t have a fake ID to show you. I don’t even have a real ID.”

  The clerk sniffed.

  “How much is this humidor?” asked Shelby.

  “With the green trim? Two-twenty.”

  “Really?” said Shelby.

  “If you have your parents’ credit card, I can’t accept it. You could have stolen it. The charges will be unauthorized.”

  Shelby didn’t get the feeling the clerk was doing anything in particular that was keeping him hidden in his fortress of cases. He was back there picking at his sweater.

  “I have cash,” Shelby told him. “I have a pair of hundred-dollar bills and then another hundred bucks in smaller denominations. It’s rolled up in my pocket.”