by Deb Caletti
My father did not laugh or get angry. Instead, in some sort of optimistic need, he saw what happened as a sign from the Fates, even if it was a sign drawn with a Mr. Sketch by a couple of guys named Bill and Larry. He decided to pursue Ann Jorgensen, and was obviously successful or I wouldn’t be here telling you this story. She said his charm was like the wind when it blows you so strong from behind that you almost feel as if you can sit down on it. It just took her away. She was his, she said, when she first heard him swear under his breath at the bakery truck driver. That intensity promised things, and although she wasn’t sure what those things were, they were sure to be exciting. He lost his job at the fish factory and so did she.
My father was like that about signs. Seven years later, on April Fool’s Day, my father turned on his car radio at the precise moment a Chip someone-or-other started singing a song called “Follow a Dream and You’ll Never Get Lost.” He told my mother that he’d had it with babies and bills and the mortgage, and the next day he quit his job at Blaine and Erie Accountants and dug out his old guitar from the back of their closet. When he left, the stuff that he’d removed from the closet to reach the guitar—his old baseball trophy, my mother’s wedding shoes, various winter boots, and a nightgown that had slipped from its hanger—still lay on the floor in front of the closet. He didn’t bother to put anything back. My mother left that stuff lying there for a long time. She just kept stepping over it until she barely noticed it was there.
My mother was sure my father would be coming back home, only because she couldn’t imagine living without him. He had brought only a few clothes with him, an unopened package of Oreos my mother had just bought, and an enormous silver tea service that his parents had given them as a wedding gift. This indicated to her, in the logic of the recently left, that he’d certainly be returning soon, at least to get more things. This gave her hope. Ten years later she still had it.
The only thing that she seemed truly angry about was those Oreos. She went out and bought six more packages of them and stacked them on the kitchen table. She would glare at them, then cry in their direction. Finally she started eating them, just one a day. She was halfway through the fifth package when my father showed up. It was the first of his many unpredictable visits. I heard him singing in the shower. He’d joined some band. He sounded happy. When he left again, he took the sixth package of Oreos with him, and nothing else.
Here is something that Peach, one of the Casserole Queens, says about men and women and love. You know that scene in Romeo and Juliet, where Romeo is standing on the ground looking longingly at Juliet on the balcony above him? One of the most romantic moments in all of literary history? Peach says there’s no way that Romeo was standing down there to profess his undying devotion. The truth, Peach says, is that Romeo was just trying to look up Juliet’s skirt.
All day I was just waiting until it was time to walk home. That vague feeling of possibility had formed into a plan. I would lie to Sydney, tell her that I had to stay after school for help on my math, so that she would go ahead alone. I knew it would be unlikely I would even see Travis Becker again, but life had suddenly turned out to be one of those moving walkways at the airport. You stepped on, stumbled a bit, then just headed where it was taking you. That maybe felt like energy inside, as if I just ate one of those Power Bars that are supposed to make athletes leap higher and run faster, although the only time I ever ate one of those things, none of that ever happened. Two bites and I was having all kinds of weird images about what it was made of and if it was safe to eat something that looked and tasted suspiciously like gerbil-cage chips.
I needed that energy to first get me through the school day. After all, the highlights of it were when Shannon Potts stood by her locker and yelled “Fuck” as a teacher passed; having a sub in math; and listening to Adam Vores try to slosh liquid in his stomach after downing three cans of Diet Sprite. Sometimes you wonder.
“Thirty-nine grams of sugar, thirteen spoons of it, in this Sprite,” Mr. Sims, the math substitute, said.
“That’s why I drink diet,” Adam Vores said.
“Do you think this is a joke? This is no joke. Sugar can whack out your brain. It can whack out your veins. Brains and veins.”
“This guy’s a poet,” Miles Nelson whispered. I smiled his way. He was a Quiet Boy. He wore very tall shoes to compensate for a malfunctioning adolescent growth spurt. We had a toaster like that once. Wouldn’t pop up.
“What did you say?” Mr. Sims squawked. He looked Miles’ way. “I heard you. You think I couldn’t hear you? I got excellent hearing.” Miles blushed fiercely. “You think I’m wasting time here? I’m not wasting time. I’m teaching you about life. This lesson is my gift to the world.”
“We’re supposed to be correcting our math homework,” Cindy Lee said. Cindy Lee lived in fear that if she breathed through the wrong nostril she might ruin her perfect grade point average.
“I’m not just a teacher, you know,” Mr. Sims said. He glared at us a little. I wondered if he could be someone we might read about in the news one day when he finally ‘snapped’. “I got my own window-cleaning business. You don’t know what I see.”
“Glass?” Adam Vores said.
Mr. Sims ignored him. “I clean windows in this old people’s home. Every day I wonder, how many more people might be alive to be in that place if it weren’t for poison like this?” He shook the Sprite can around.
“Don’t open it after shaking it like that,” Cindy Lee said. I was thinking the same thing.
Mr. Sims sighed. He opened up the math book. He licked his finger as he turned the pages. “Three forty-five,” he said.
Kim Todd decided that the ramblings of this maniac were preferable to real learning. “What happened to your teeth?” she asked him. It was like putting more quarters into the machine.
Mr. Sims went on to tell us about getting punched in the mouth during an argument, and how the tooth’s root later died, which certainly meant the hitter had performed a kind of homicide, which meant the guy became his arch enemy until he realized that Whoever Angers You Controls You. He hoped we’d remember that.
I guess it was no wonder, looking back, that I felt I needed Travis Becker in my life.
“What do you mean you have to stay after school for help on math?” Sydney said. “I thought you guys had a sub.”
“How did you know about that?”
“Someone said the guy still had a shackle dangling from one ankle. He was supposedly the most bizarre sub since that woman who taught art all day with a parakeet on each shoulder and said Picasso cut off his ear because he heard people whispering in it.”
“Picasso didn’t cut off his ear.”
“No kidding. What do you think I am, stupid? You’re not getting help from that sub is what I’m saying. I won’t let you alone with him.”
“I meant science. Not math. Science. Chemistry. Test tomorrow.”
“I want you to make me a promise,” Sydney said. My stomach lurched. I thought she was on to me. I’m a terrible liar. If you want to lie, your whole body has to be in on it, and I never could get all of me to fully cooperate. “If you ever, and I mean ever use anything you learned in chemistry in your real adult life, I want you to call me. From wherever you are. Even if you’re eighty, I want that call. ‘Sydney, I actually used something I learned in chemistry class.’ Promise me.”
“Okay,” I said.
She whacked my arm with the back of her hand and headed off toward home. After a safe while, I began walking in the other direction. I stopped at Moon Point, but I spent more time looking at my watch than at the paragliders. I left just as the sun ducked behind what suddenly became the dark shoulder of Mount Solitude.
The gates of the Becker estate were open again. It was just how I saw it in my mind when I was making it all up. There, guarding the gates, sat the question—yes or no? But my feet answered before I did. Travis Becker was rolling his bike by the handlebars over to the driveway. It looked
heavy. He saw me standing there, watching him. He waved me inside, and I went. I was like one of the paragliders hiking up Mount Solitude to Moon Point. Instead of reaching the top and soaring down, though, I was one of the few who every year fell off the cliffside, unbalanced by the weight they carried on their backs. I went down just as fast.
“Want a ride?” Travis Becker asked.
I always thought the greatest thing would be to be able to fly, on some rich Oriental carpet, maybe, Arabian Nights-style, above a foreign, turreted city, or just with my own wings, swooping, antigravity, seeing things from a rare perspective. Riding on the back of Travis Becker’s motorcycle was the closest thing to flying I’d ever experienced.
He put his helmet on me. My head felt enormous and heavy in it, wobbly, like a newborn baby trying to keep its head up. He yanked the strap tight under my chin, too tight, cutting into the tender skin there. I tried to slip a few fingers underneath to loosen it.
“It needs to be secure,” he said. He knocked on the top of the helmet with his knuckles and smiled. For a moment I thought he was going to lean in and kiss me, just like that. It was strange to be seeing the real him, there on the lawn of his own house, when previously I’d only heard him spoken of in the halls at school, or once in the grocery store line. He had blond hair that was parted on one side and swooped over to the other, cut-marble cheekbones and a mouth that could almost be called feminine. His eyes were beautiful in an old-fashioned way; he could have easily been a coddled, sickly prince from years ago, a doomed artist from the thirties, or Anna Karenina’s Vronsky, dashing, the kind of guy a woman throws herself under a train for. He seemed to know that about himself; sometimes he would wear clothes that made you think of another time—a long navy wool coat with two rows of buttons, a beret and scarf, a Nehru jacket—but I didn’t know that then. I only noticed that he looked at you with the smugness of someone who has a secret, who knows something you don’t. The secret was probably money.
Travis straddled the bike, held one hand out to me so that I could swing my leg over. “Hold on,” he said. I did. I put my arms around Travis Becker. I had my arms around his waist, which was solid and definite under the soft cotton of his T-shirt. I could smell his cologne—a clean musk, a smell that made you want to free your hair from a ponytail. Maybe, I thought then, I won’t always have to be me after all. Still, I was nervous on that lawn, by that house. I could see a grandfather clock just past the parted draperies, but averted my eyes quickly so I wouldn’t be caught looking. I was happy to be leaving; at any moment I pictured his mother appearing, wearing slacks and some shirt that would have cost as much as my mother made in a week at the library, telling me to put my arms back where they belonged.
The bike roared to life, cruised down the driveway, and arced out of the gates. That arc felt wonderful, like turning on your side on one of the roller coasters at the Gold Nugget Amusement Park, the squealing feeling of maybe going over but being mostly sure you wouldn’t. We sped down Cummings Road and passed my neighborhood, where no one knew I was speeding by on Travis Becker’s motorcycle. I mean, there I was with my arms around Travis Becker, riding his motorcycle! The arms of his T-shirt were flapping in the wind. I was riding past my own street, away. It felt great. It felt terrifying.
And then Travis Becker accelerated. Just after my neighborhood, where Cummings Road goes on for a long, straight stretch and all that is out there are the U-Cut Christmas Tree farms, Travis Becker hit the gas. There was a sudden, huge jolt backward as he changed gears. I leaned forward, held myself tight against Travis Becker, fighting the force that made me feel that if I loosened my grip, I’d fly off the back. I’d never been on a motorcycle before, but I knew this wasn’t just regular speed, this was fast. Way, way too fast.
I hung on tight. My heart thumped madly; I was sure he could feel it. I was struck solidly with the knowledge that I was somewhere I shouldn’t be, way beyond my depths, in a very wrong place. I wanted off. I wanted out of there, and my own earlier planning and plotting to pass that house when he might be there seemed foolish and embarrassing beyond belief. God, I didn’t belong there.
Travis Becker laughed loudly over the wind. “Whooee!” he shouted. His hair was whipping around wildly. He didn’t even have a helmet on.
A shout, Slow down! stuck in my throat. I didn’t, couldn’t, let it out. Here it is—I was afraid of looking stupid, which is, of course, when you do the most stupid things of all.
I thought about the possibility of hitting a piece of gravel. I thought about the way you lunge forward when you stub your toe. I thought about the way your skin would be peeled off if your body flew across the asphalt at this speed.
I shut my eyes against Travis Becker’s back, and when I thought I couldn’t take any more, he went faster. Up a notch of speed, and I closed my eyes, squinched them tight and prayed simply to get out of there safely, though I wouldn’t blame God or anyone else for not listening to someone who had gotten herself into such a mess. I’m not here, I begged my mind to believe. I’m somewhere else. I could feel sweat dripping down my arms in rivulets. If I got out of there alive, I’d be embarrassed about my wet shirt.
He slowed down again, turned in to one of the Christmas tree farms, and stopped, turned the engine off. Already some of the trees in the rows were taller than Travis Becker, though some barely reached my knee. I got off his bike; my legs were shaking. He put his kickstand down and got off too. His face was red, his eyes bright and exhilarated, ice blue flashes of electricity. I unsnapped that helmet from my chin, took it off.
“You know how fast we were going?’ he said.
“No,” I said.
“Over a hundred. Over a hundred, and you didn’t even scream.”
“Why would I scream?” I said. To tell the truth, I felt like throwing up. Right on top of his expensive athletic shoes.
“Oh, shit,” he laughed. “You’re fearless.” Fearless. A single word can hold such power. I could be that, if that’s what he thought I was. I could be a lot of things I never considered before.
Travis Becker took off running. “Catch me,” he yelled. He disappeared into the rows of tall trees. I could see flashes of his yellow T-shirt between the deep green of the tree branches. It’s possible that Travis Becker was a little crazy.
I ran after him. “I see you!” I called. I hate P.E., as you know. I think it qualifies as one of those cruel and unusual punishments we are supposed to be protected from in our constitution. But I’m a good runner. I’m fast.
I darted around one tree, quick enough to see him take a fast turn down another row. I dashed after him.
“I see you again,” I called.
“Impossible,” he yelled and took off running.
“You’re wearing yellow, you idiot,” I said.
I wove my way to the row he was in. His back was against a tree and he was huffing and puffing pretty hard. “I give up,” he said. He was bent over, his hands were on his knees. “What did you call me?” he panted.
“I called you an idiot, you idiot,” I said. I don’t know why I said it. For a minute, running between the trees in that yellow shirt, he made me think of my brother, making a snow fort and hiding behind it, not knowing that the round ball on top of his woolen hat was cruising along over the top, a perfect little moving target.
Travis Becker looked over at me and laughed. “You know what? I like you,” he said. “Come on. I got to get back.” He pretended to stagger forward from the exhaustion of his spree.
“Just another pathetic rich boy,” I said and sighed. I learned my role fast.
“Shit,” he smiled and laughed again. “Piranha. Man-eater.”
That was me, all right. Ruby McQueen, Man-Eater. I could have a T-shirt made.
We got back on his motorcycle. When I held on, I could feel that his shirt was damp and sweaty from running. We drove back at a normal-fast speed. There were no more tests—then at least.
He drove up his driveway and parked on the lawn.
I got off, unstrapped my helmet again. I’m sure my hair looked just marvelous.
“Why do you park on the grass?” I asked. “You could fit six cars in that garage.”
“Because I can,” Travis Becker said. “And I like the way it looks there.” He held up his fingers as if to make a frame around what he was seeing, the way film directors do in the movies. “You know what we did today?”
“Is this a trick question?” I said.
“We did a ton. That’s what it’s called, doing a hundred on a bike.”
“What’s doing a hundred and twenty called?” I said. I didn’t know this person who was talking. I wasn’t even sure I liked her. Maybe I read about her in a book once or something. She was fearless, all right. But to tell you the truth, she was making me nervous.
“Man, you are something,” Travis Becker said. He took a bit of my hair, tucked it behind my ear. He looked at me for a while, as if, amazingly, he liked what he saw. “Wait. Wait here. I want to give you something.” He turned and jogged toward the house. I hoped he’d hurry. I kept worrying that Mrs. Becker would appear and think I was a trespasser or one of the help she didn’t recognize. Maybe she’d ask me to wash the windows.
Travis Becker trotted happily back out. From underneath his shirt he pulled out a black velvet box. He handed it to me. I thought it was a joke. I mean, I knew they were rich, but giving anything in a velvet box to some stranger who you just met a few hours ago seemed ridiculous. Most people wouldn’t even give their phone number.
I opened it. It was one of those soft black boxes with the springy lids that come down like the jaws of a snapping turtle. A gold necklace lay inside, held flat by two white elastic hooks. Travis Becker released the necklace, then took the box back from me and let it drop on the grass. “Lift up your hair so I can put it on,” he said.
