Elsewhere, California

by Dana Johnson

  WE HAVE TO do these drop drills in case of an earthquake, but earthquakes never happen at school. All my life every earthquake I’ve felt has been at home, in the middle of the night, so the drills are kind of dumb. Mom says I even slept through two when I was a little kid, that’s how big a deal they were to me, I guess. Avery can sleep through anything, Mom says. That girl, she says. Shakes her head like it’s a tragedy. I mean, she can sleep like she dead, I’m here to tell you.

  Once a month they surprise us with these drills. You hear the siren and then you have to get under your desk and cover your head. Because that’s totally going to help you if the ceiling falls on your head.

  Mrs. Lardner is trying to keep these other two kids from talking to each other all the time so she makes the one sitting next to me switch to the back. Young people, she says. I’m trying to educate you about history. The Mayflower is very important. She rubs her hands together and her eyes are all watery and worried like she’s going to cry on us. She better not cry, because if she does, it’s over for her. Everybody’ll make fun of her forever. So she makes Mike sit up front next to me.

  Then we hear the siren and we’re under our desks and everybody’s laughing and talking. Class? Mrs. Lardner says. This is serious! Mike looks at me with his hands over his head and smiles at me with braces all over his teeth, all shiny and wire-y like a million highways and knots and bundles. I wish I had some. I keep telling Mom and Dad that I need them because I have a gap between my two front teeth. I want to close it. Get a retainer, at least. You know how much I hear them things are supposed to cost? Mom says. It’s like I asked her for something crazy, like golden underwear.

  Mike puts his finger on his mouth. Shhh, he says. Avery! Be quiet, man. Quit fooling around. But I’m perfectly quiet. I’m the only one that’s quiet and I love that he’s talking to me. No boys talk to me. We wait for the second bell so we can get up. Man, Mike says. That was really and truly lifesaving. And I’m into Mike now. Nobody thinks he’s cute. He’s got super tight curly blonde hair and a big head. A really big head that’s way too big for his body. His eyes aren’t straight. The right one is a little crossed in. And his cheeks are always red, no matter what. People call him fathead, but not to his face because he has money. His mom picks him up in a Mercedes and his dad drives him around in a BMW. Both new. I saw them at the store one time, him and his dad. His dad was good looking though. Kind of like Mike, but less all mixed up. Mike’s funny looking, yeah. But not to me. Not anymore. I can’t even believe it, but he talks to me all the time.

  Today we sit between the portables, waiting for his mom to come. The portables are fake classrooms that are just plain old trailers because they ran out of space for everybody. So we get trailers. You never see schools on TV made out of trailers.

  Hey, I say. Look. You can see the snow on the mountains. Look how pretty that looks, like milk spilling down rocks and the sun could be honey.

  What? Mike blocks the sun with his hands and squints his eyes. He looks at the mountains. They don’t really look like that, he says. What are you talking about?

  To me, I say. To me it does. And we don’t even need sweaters today. It’s so sunny. Isn’t it weird that the same place can have two different weathers? Down here, it’s warm and sunny. But up there. I nod at the mountains. Look up there up at the very top.

  I KEEP CRYING for no reason. Mike doesn’t joke around with me anymore. I can’t find him at lunch for like three days in a row. I’m crazy. I feel crazy. It’s windy. Santa Ana winds that I usually love. All warm and super strong and the wind does make you feel a little crazy. Like you don’t care because the sky is super blue and the air is clear and this is just like any other day but also a day that you’ll never have again. So do whatever. Say whatever. It’s almost the end of lunch when I find him. He’s walking back onto school grounds. Weird. I run up to him. Where are you coming from? Where have you been for like, ever? I’ve been looking all over for you. Home, he says. I been eating at home this week. My mom picks me up and drops me off. I met his mom the other day when she picked him up after school. She looked like Bo Derek. I never saw a mom that looked like her before. Not even Brenna’s mom. Blonde hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. Super tan. Black eyeliner and blue, blue eyes. Super skinny. She was playing Diana Ross on the radio really loud. Upside down you’re turning me. She smiled at me. She was nice. Hello Avery, she said, and then she said, Mikey, get in the car.

  Why? I say. Why are you eating at home all the time now? God, he says. Stop bugging me. And he won’t look at me. He won’t look me in the eye. He hates me now. Okay, I say. Okay. I talk to myself. Don’t cry, Avery. Don’t you cry you idiot. You stupid fucking idiot. But it’s too late, I’m crying. I pull up one of my argyle socks. New. I bought them brand-new from JCPenney. I want him to see these new socks. There is nothing wrong with them. They are just socks like everybody else wears. He stares at my socks and higher. He’s looking up my jean skirt. At my legs. His eyes are all over my body and he makes a weird sound almost like a whine, like a dog. Then he grabs my hand. It’s the first time he’s even touched me. He puts his hand on top of mine. I wish you were white, he says. I wish you were white so you could be my girlfriend.

  I say, Me too. I wish I was white so I could be your girlfriend. But I can’t be and he won’t look at me anymore so I walk away, crying, feeling shitty. I don’t look up while I’m walking. I keep looking at my feet on my way to fourth period, keep looking at the one loafer that’s ripped. I stitched it together with red thread. That’s how cheap they are. I stitched them with my own needle and used red thread because I thought it might look cool.

  Hey, Brenna says. She scares me because I wasn’t thinking of her. Here she is. I stare at her belly and wipe my eyes. It looks like a joke, like she’ll pull a ball out of her belly like a Harlem Globetrotter or something and say, Here. Catch.

  She looks me in the eye and her face is frozen and I know that face. It’s the fuck you face she gives everybody else. She keeps walking like she’s going to pass me by, like she doesn’t see me, even though she said hi. But she stops before she gets too far past me. Hey, she says. What’s wrong with you?

  I talk to her like I always have, like it hasn’t been forever since we’ve talked and like her life isn’t ruined. But I don’t tell her everything. I just say I’m sad. She stands with one leg stuck out and her books on her hip. Tell me, she says.

  I don’t know how to tell her. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I just feel awful. I say, Mike Abrile can’t hang out with me. His parents told him so.

  Her lip curls up like she’s smelling her own lip and doesn’t like what she smells. Mike Abrile? She rubs her big stomach. That doofus? She taps her head with her finger like, Think Ave. God, Ave, she says. For reals. He looks like Mrs. Potato Head fucked Howdy Doody and had a baby.

  Nuh uh, I say. No he doesn’t. Plus his mom’s a ten.

  Worse, even, she says. He looks worse than that.

  He’s nice Brenn, I say.

  She keeps switching her books from one hip to the other so I take them and hold them. Thanks, she says. She puts both hands on her belly and keeps rubbing.

  Are you okay?

  Yeah, she says. He may be nice but he’s a fucking tool, too. Duh. Just hang out with you at school. He’s got to get Mommy and Daddy’s permission? Everybody loves his big head only because he’s loaded. So what? Let him be all miserable in his big stupid house with his lame parents. They’re lucky you were crushing on him. You would, she says, and squints at me. She shakes her head but smiles. Besides, I thought you were all in love with Carlos? What happened to that? Los Dodgers and all that crap.

  I can’t believe I’m smiling now when I was just crying my eyes out like a dummy.

  Fuck yeah, Brenna says. Carlos over baby Howdy Potato. Ain’t no bout a doubt it.

  I feel better, but Brenna is kind of right and kind of wrong, but everything’s all mixed up anyway. If I think about Mike’s looks, my so
cks, Brenna talking to me, me being sad and Mike being sad, him putting his hand on top of mine, and Carlos, I feel better. It’s better that everything is mixed up and true and not true. I take a deep breath. Okay, I say. I’m better.

  Brenna says, Next time, tell that fool that you wish he was black! And this is the funniest thing ever. I can see Mike black and I’m tripping. I’m seriously tripping. But it’s not a true black, like me. Just paint over his face. Same eyes and same hair. Same everything. Just black. Blonde hair with glitter in it. Blackface. I’m totally drawing that as soon as I can.

  What are you laughing at, spaz?

  You’re crazy, I say. You’re out of your mind.

  Brenna’s eyes get big and she holds on to a doorknob next to her. She has a big smile on her face. Did you feel that?

  Yes, I say. Yes! Rad! I love earthquakes. I never get to feel them enough. We can hear people all around us asking, Oh my God. Did you feel that?

  Wait a minute, Brenna says. She’s standing still but rubbing her belly. Let’s see if there’s another one. A bigger one. An aftershock.

  We stand still. Waiting.

  20

  I KNOW MY brother won’t be able to make it tonight either, but I’m still waiting for him to call me, to tell me so. He drives a UPS truck and takes all the overtime he can get, and he really can’t afford the time these days. I stand and stretch after what seems like hours. Waiting for my show and thinking about Keith has brought on a lethargy and stiffness that has manifested itself in a limp when I walk back inside. My legs tingle, trying to remember what they’re supposed to do. The air has gotten moist, and it’s nearly dark. Lights shine from neighbors’ windows like invitations, making me wish, for a moment, that I could just wander into someone else’s house and sit down with a cup of tea, rather than attend my own show. But when Owen calls maybe he will have some advice. I pause just inside the door and a photo of my nephew, Dae-Jung, catches my eye. In him, I see mostly Owen, who moved out of the house soon after Brenna got pregnant. He married Mika, diminutive and stunning, and they had one child, Dae-Jung, who was conceived almost ten years after they met. I’m thinking like any family member who inevitably believes their family is uncommon and extraordinary, thinking like a proud aunt, but this child, not a child anymore, is a work of art, a work in progress, so much like a collage I would make of someone who comes from parents such as his, a place such as he does. Greater Los Angeles. I remember meeting Mika vividly. Mika and Owen pull the sliding glass door open and walk into the back yard where Dad is deep-frying catfish. Mom doesn’t say a word. Her eyes say everything. Nice to meet you, my father says. He stops poking the fish floating around in the grease to stare at her and shake her hand.

  “Hello,” Mika says, and nods her head. Her voice is soft, accented. And then, Owen goes inside to get sodas and leaves the door open, screen and all, and my mother doesn’t tell him to close it. She just stares at it being left wide open.

  “Lord have mercy,” my mother whispers. “What is she?”

  She’s Korean and beautiful, and Owen is so happy.

  I try to look at Mika without being seen. But she sees me. She smiles at me. She tells me something no one has ever told me in my entire life. Not yet. She says, “You’re a cute girl. You should do something with your hair. Put some lipstick on. Earrings. You’d be a fox.”

  Owen looks at me like I’m a stranger, as if I’ve wandered in from outdoors and surprised him.

  “Foxes are sneaky,” Mika says. “That’s better than being cute. You think they’re doing nothing, you don’t even know they are around, and all of a sudden, there they are. Don’t forget it,” she says. “Foxy Brown,” she says, and nods at me like, You hear me? She smiles and winks.

  Mika’s hair is like black water down her back, and her eyes are light brown ovals. She has a huge mouth, and lips that seem to take up most of her face. They shouldn’t go with her other features, but they do. When I was younger, I just wanted to sit her down in front of a mirror and color in those lips with all kinds of different colors. When I found out they were pregnant, I imagined that their baby would look like so many different things. Owen has light brown eyes and so does Mika. But that didn’t mean the baby’s eyes would be the same. Her hair is super straight. Owen’s is kinky. What kind of hair would that baby have? What kind of skin, since Mika is barely brown and Owen is dark? Now, looking at Dae-Jung, pausing on his uniquely golden eyes that see the world in his way, I see that Dae-Jung doesn’t really look like many different things, even though he is. In one picture at Owen’s house, Dae-Jung looks like a character from television, a basketball player in The White Shadow maybe, who crashed some Korean people’s party.

  I keep thinking about those superpowers that Mika bestowed on me so many years ago. But now I’m still limping, hardly the gait of someone who can do something surprising and extraordinary.

  “Avie,” Massimo calls out, sounding groggy. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m here,” I say, noticing something on the floor, underneath the table along the wall, where Dae-Jung’s picture sits. “I’m coming.” I bend down to pick it up and realize it’s a baseball card. Signed. Kirk Gibson in a Detroit Tigers uniform. I turn it over and over in my hands wondering where it came from, thinking at first that Massimo meant to give it to me and forgot with all the confusion of the day. But no, he would be sure to give me Dodger memorabilia. He would get the player and the team right even though he doesn’t care. He has the resources and is meticulous. Keith, on the other hand, has always improvised, all these years, wrestling with whatever, however he can. He can’t make his own opportunities, but he takes them. He is catch as catch can, and somewhere, someone is missing their signed Kirk Gibson card.

  I’M SUPPOSED TO be drawing apples and oranges in art class but I’m not really into that. I’m just goofing around when I start drawing, thinking of when Brenna and I saw Morrey earlier today. He was wearing dress pants with sneakers and a blazer. And a tie. He looked like a lawyer. And his hair looked better when it was bigger. If you ask me, he should let it grow out a little. Now it’s back to being short and he looks like he’s got a little peanut head. He’s running for treasurer or something. He’s so serious all the time, like it’s real government. It’s not real. It’s just school. He gave this speech that we all had to pretend to care about during assembly but he said one thing that was cool. About making the lunch lines the same no matter how you pay. I’ll vote for that.

  Brenna just stared at him when we saw him.

  I waited for Brenna to shred him but she just kept staring.

  I think he’s kind of cute, Brenna said.

  Put your eyes back in your head.

  But what about the clothes, Brenn? Who wears that?

  She pointed at my saddle shoes and argyle socks. Brenna hates these shoes but they’re part of my creation for today. Look at you, Happy Days, Brenna said. Who wears that? And anyway, he’s trying to do something, at least. Look at you, she said to me. What are you trying to do?

  I’m copying the front of the Leave It to Beaver house perfectly. I used to love that house. I draw it on regular sketch paper with a white pencil. Then I use a flesh-colored crayon to outline Brenna’s body. I make her belly really big, like it actually is anyway, and then I draw Morrey in his suit and tie and holding Brenna’s hand. He’s outlined and colored in brown and he’s got a briefcase on the ground next to him, like he’s going to work. Then there’s a half cat, half dog at Brenna’s feet. I take all period to draw it, even though we’re only supposed to be drawing some apples and oranges. I get the apples and oranges. Fine. One’s orange and one’s red. Ms. Joseph comes around checking everybody’s work. There aren’t that many people in the class because most people want to take home ec or shop so they can make stuff they can actually eat, wear, or use some other kind of way. I almost took home ec so I could make some clothes, but I didn’t only want to make clothes. I want to make a whole lot of stuff. And besides, I can always improvis
e and work with what I’ve got.

  Ms. Joseph stops at my desk. She goes, Avery, apples and oranges. She pushes up her glasses, these Buddy Holly glasses that I loved after I saw the movie. Of course you’d like that dork, Brenna said. She rolled her eyes and said Buddy fucking Holly. Ms. Joseph reminds me of that time. She always dresses like back then, some other place. Forties dresses, fifties dresses, always a dress. But she talks like the kids, even though she has to be up there already. Maybe even twenty-five or thirty. She goes, What happened to the apples and oranges? What is this, even?

  I push the paper at her so she can look at it better.

  It’s Brenna Kiersted, she says. Ms. Joseph pushes up her glasses again and plays with her black bangs that are perfect across her forehead like a comb. The rest is in a bun. I tried to make my hair do that, but it wouldn’t. Of course it wouldn’t. I don’t even know why I tried. All it does is look nappy or straight with nothing else to do but stick out from my head.