Red Velvet Crush

by Christina Meredith

  He stayed. He held on with his warm, sturdy hands when Mom let go. I don’t know if I can just walk away from that and leave him here, alone.

  And I have only ever been here, known here. I wish I could be like Billie, so ready to go, but I don’t know if my brain works anywhere else. What if my music doesn’t follow me down the road, away from this place?

  Dad stands, grabs the back of his chair, and pushes it in slowly, right against the edge of the table, carefully lining his thumbs up along the worn back. I sit up straight, grateful that Winston is too busy chewing to chime in.

  “Let me think about it,” he says, and my head hangs low, sinking toward the table.

  I nod and press down on the stray sugar in front of me, feeling it crunch under my fingertips.

  It winks in the late afternoon sun, daring me to taste it. It leaves only a fleeting sweetness on my tongue as Dad walks away and my brother pours himself another perfect bowl of breakfast cereal for dinner.

  “Couldn’t he just get a job at McDonald’s?” Dad asks a week later.

  We are putting the groceries away. Two paper bags stuffed full that Dad carried in from his truck, the tops wet from riding around in the open bed all morning. Somehow it always ends up just being the two of us on Saturday afternoon, when the job of unpacking comes around.

  Today I am hanging at home on purpose. Not for the groceries but because tonight is Ty’s graduation. I spent the morning inspecting my dress and picking out just the right pair of shoes and staring in the bathroom mirror, wishing that my teeth were whiter.

  “Winston?” I ask, turning the cans of vegetables in the cupboard so that the pictures of corn and beans and peas all face out. It looks like we are neat and organized and temporarily flush with cash. Before Winston messes them all up anyway.

  “You know he won’t,” I say.

  If that were an option, Winston would have done it years ago. But there’s no way he’d wear a uniform or fit into a drive-through window.

  And what happened to my dad’s love of Winston’s job at the radio station? He seems less enamored with it now that it means we might be going on the road.

  He shakes his head, not really listening to me.

  I’m not sure I even need to be here. I am merely a witness to the internal argument he has been having all week, the debate that must have been raging inside him since Winston broke the news. We might be leaving home. All three of us.

  Following behind him, I pick up the things he leaves stacked on the counter and then straighten out the packages of sandwich meat and sliced cheese he stuffs into the fridge, all in the middle of the top shelf.

  I spread everything out, even put a cucumber into the vegetable bin, so our bounty is evenly distributed. Will we ever find a reason to eat that lonely cucumber, or will I throw it out this same time next week, limp and wrinkly?

  Dad stops in the middle of the kitchen with a can of coffee resting under one arm. The red lid glows as the afternoon sun banks in through the windows over the table, reminding us that spring is almost over.

  “School will be out soon,” he says, rubbing his whiskers with his free hand. It is his day off; whiskers are allowed. He sets the coffee on the counter, next to the pot. “And you’ll be there to take care of your sister.”

  Neither seems like a question. So I simply stare back, letting him work it out for himself. He hands me a box of chocolate chip cookies, the big box with enough for everybody to get at least one after Winston has had his way with them and plenty of busted cookie dust at the bottom for Billie to stick her finger into.

  I put it in the cabinet, far into the back corner, hiding it. Maybe I am hoping he won’t let us go. That way we can stay home and everything will stay the same as always: safe and small and easy. But maybe I want more than that, too.

  It is the perfect night for Ty’s graduation. The air feels warm on my arms, and a breeze is blowing through the newly budded trees as I park my car.

  Billie talked me into a sleeveless dress. I knew she would go out in a handkerchief if she thought it looked good, damn the weather, so I wasn’t sure when she picked this one out at the mall. It fits snug around my waist, and the dark blue skirt flares around my legs like I am ready for a party.

  Now I am glad she pushed for it because the cars I am passing as I totter through the parking lot are all German, all expensive. All shiny and screaming, “We know you pulled up in a late-model Camry with a bad starter and a voracious appetite for synthetic motor oil.”

  Walden Academy is imposing. I need to be dressed up.

  The building itself is old. The faded red bricks of the original structure have stood the test of time. Newer blocklike additions were built onto each side and cropped up from the back. I open one of the glass doors of the entrance, gripping the thick brass pull.

  It is like stepping into a tent in a Harry Potter novel. The wooden floors and grand old tradition of the main entrance open up into a modern world of shining stainless stairways and bright glass-walled classrooms filled with world-class gadgetry.

  The floors creak under my feet as I hurry across the lobby.

  Just the divorced dads and I are arriving late, skimming in at the last second.

  The catering staff is busy setting out crystal punch bowls and silver platters full of sugar cookies for after. Banks of mullioned windows flank me on my right, the glass slowly running for the floor, one century at a time.

  I follow the hand-lettered signs set up on easels and make the turn toward the auditorium. A sea of black graduation gowns fills the hallway, waiting for the cue to enter. Ty and Jay are in there somewhere, inching toward their diplomas. I hand my ticket to a large lady in a white blouse. The PTA sticker stuck to her chest says DEVON’S MOM.

  “Thanks,” I whisper, and slip through the open doorway.

  The auditorium is an excited hush, a collection of whispers and quiet coughing and flash photography.

  I smooth my skirt and slide into one of the few remaining aisle seats near the back. It has green velvet cushions and a little brass plaque engraved with a name on the curved wooden back.

  My school has a gym for an auditorium, with metal bleachers that fold up against the walls. We have engravings on the seats, too, but they are scratched in. They say things like “Eat me.” Or “Cheri is a coked-out slut.”

  The student orchestra is entering from the right, taking places along the risers set at the back of the stage. Thick curtains bank both edges of the stage, held sway by ropes, waiting for the next performance of Pippin or Of Mice and Men.

  Ginger pokes up from the back row: a tall poppy in a sea of short brown grass. He positions himself behind the timpani, his eyes on the conductor. I smile. So Ginger Baker is a drummer after all.

  With a quick flick and a sharp drop of the conductor’s baton, “Pomp and Circumstance” fills the room. The kettledrums pound low and deep. Ginger’s hair puffs to the side when the crash cymbals smash together next to him.

  The doors at the front of the room open, and the graduates file in: a swishing procession of black robes. Almost all of them have gold cords strung over their shoulders. Applause buffets the curtains and bounces off the stage.

  “Today is the day to set your dreams on fire,” a tiny Asian girl says from the podium at the center of the stage when the noise dies down, craning her neck up to reach the microphone.

  Isn’t that a Taylor Swift song? My ears prick up. Sounds like it. Her parents must be so proud.

  Are Ty’s parents somewhere down front, saving a seat for me, the girl who is going to take him away from all this excellence? It is too late to check; dreams are ablaze all around me.

  Parents are zooming in. Tablets and cell phones and old-school cameras crowd the horizon, arms reaching up for the best shot of this priceless moment.

  “Pictures are for people who can’t remember things,” Dad told me—years before at Billie’s eighth-grade graduation. He tapped his temple as the other parents fought for territory.
“I remember everything.”

  It is true. He does remember everything. But maybe, just maybe, he didn’t want a reminder of where we’ve been, a book full of photos to show the hole in our family. Either way, we have never owned a camera.

  Winston bought a disposable cheapie for a school trip to Disneyland once when he was in high school, but all we ended up with was a paper envelope stuffed full of two-for-one prints of girl’s asses.

  “Please hold your applause until all the graduates’ names have been called,” Ty’s principal announces.

  The graduating class lines up at the edge of the stage. Suddenly the aisles are swamped. Moms and dads block and tackle.

  A woman in a tight black satin skirt kneels in the aisle next to me. A camera that probably cost more than my car presses against her face; her other hand grips my armrest for balance.

  I don’t stress, though. I don’t even try to tip her over. (Just a little push, and that rock of a wedding ring would do the rest.) I don’t need a picture to remember this night. I already feel legit, like a real girlfriend with a graduation program in my hand and a road trip on the horizon. Maybe I’ll even write about it one day.

  Jay is called before Ty. He crosses the stage, practically running by the time he reaches the principal. He pumps the principal’s arm up and down twice, takes his diploma, and turns to pose for the cameras, still for only a second before he whoops loud and runs a fast lap around the edge of the stage. Everyone onstage waits patiently. They are obviously used to Jay by now.

  Ty crosses the stage in two big steps—just like the first time I ever saw him—and the first few words of a new song fill my head. When they call his name, I don’t care what anyone has to say. I clap so hard my hands hurt.

  My phone buzzes late that night, after the sparkling cider and the cake and the congratulations. After I kick off the blue dress and climb into bed and write for hours. Until Billie, still in her coat, climbs into her bed across the room, and we both fall asleep.

  “I’m outside,” the text says, and I slip on a sweatshirt and wrap myself in my quilt and then walk on my toes all the way to the door.

  It is clear and chilly. My nose tingles when I breathe in. The sky is dark blue, finished with black and already moving on to the colors of day.

  Ty is standing in the far corner of the yard, staring at the house. The streetlight is out, again.

  A mountain bike is dropped on the grass behind him, the handlebars stuck at an odd angle into the dirt. No minivan tonight; he is in stealth mode.

  “I didn’t know if your dad was home,” he says.

  “The answer to that is almost always no.”

  He holds his hand out, and I pull him toward the porch. We sit down on the top step, and I cover his shoulders with the quilt. His nose is red from the bike ride.

  “I’m in,” he says quietly in the dark. “They’re letting me go on the road.”

  I can’t see his eyes, but his voice sounds excited.

  “That was their gift to me for graduation: my freedom.”

  It is probably more like trust than freedom. Trust—with a credit card attached for emergencies.

  “Well, freedom, and some serious savings bonds.” He laughs.

  He reaches under the blanket and squeezes my leg.

  “And Jay?” I ask.

  “He’s in. His parents are going to Europe for a couple of weeks anyway. He’d have to stay home with the housekeeper. He thinks she smells like mothballs,” he whispers into my ear as if it were a state secret.

  Jay seemed so excited before. Is he only going along to avoid the lady with a dustrag and a slight odor? Maybe These Songs Are Better than Mothballs should be the title of our first album.

  “Life’s rough,” I say.

  “No, not like that,” Ty wiggles my leg. “You know Jay. He would’ve found a way, no matter what.”

  I picture Jay bouncing through a very clean house, smuggling a backpack stuffed full of T-shirts and sneakers of various colors past a geriatric housekeeper as he makes his escape. Yeah, that’s better.

  “Ginger?”

  “Still deciding. It’s the tour or a summer music program at Berklee. He thinks this”—he lifts one arm out from under the blanket and gestures toward the garage—“is better. His mom is heartbroken.”

  I never thought about Ginger having parents.

  Created in a lab? Yes.

  Spawned from robots? Possibly.

  But a mom and a dad who got down and dirty to make him? Never crossed my mind.

  God, what if everybody can go but Billie and me?

  I take Ty’s hand under the blanket and press my palm into his.

  The sky is creeping up on us. I can see his eyes now, looking sleepy as he sits next to me, snug in the quilt that Winston used to sleep under when he was little, the one he got from Grandma Ruby, our mom’s mom, the grandma that Billie and I never met.

  It’s got kittens on it, so Winston abandoned it once he started getting short and curlies. It was as if he were afraid those little embroidered kitties would wake in the middle of the night and chew off his tender parts.

  The warning glow of the sun is along the horizon, still hidden by the trees that line the street. A new day is coming.

  “I got you something,” I say.

  Ty shakes his head. “You didn’t need to get me anything.”

  “Okay; then I made you something.”

  “Even better.”

  I slip a piece of paper out of the front pocket of my sweatshirt under the edge of the blanket. I can feel the twirls and loops of my words under my fingers. “Actually, I wrote you something.”

  “That’s best of all.”

  It is a scroll, written and rolled on thick white paper, tied with a striped ribbon I stole from Billie’s jewelry box.

  I worked on it all night, ever since I left his party, slowly writing each word so there were no scribbles or misspelled words. I slide it into his hand.

  Ty pulls the bow, unrolls the paper, and smooths it out along his leg.

  As he reads, the last verse curls up at me from the bottom. I can hear the words in my head, the melody that goes along:

  where did we start, and how does it end?

  a note,

  a whisper,

  a promise made to keep,

  and what do you see, twinkling before you when you sleep?

  is it the stars,

  the moon shining bright,

  or is it me?

  “Maybe I’ll sing it for you someday,” I say, my voice husky because he hasn’t said anything.

  He carefully rolls the paper and reties the ribbon with his big fingers. Just like new. He smiles out over the yard, then turns and squeezes me tight.

  “Maybe I’ll play it with you someday,” he says.

  He kisses me, once, and then we watch the sun rise from my front porch, a golden carpet spreading out before us, the song I wrote for him held fast in his hand.

  “I guess I should get used to this,” Dad says.

  I am in the kitchen, staring at the blue flames hissing from the stove, waiting for the kettle to boil so I can make some hot chocolate, when he walks in from his late shift. I am still bundled up in my blanket, kitties turned inward, thinking of Ty pedaling away from me.

  I turn to look at him. “To what?”

  Steam, warm and wet, is beginning to rise from the kettle. I pull the quilt from my shoulders and start to fold it.

  “To this,” he says as he walks over to take the bottom edge of the blanket in his hands. “Silence.”

  We hold the blanket between us, the morning sun catching the quilted patterns, the shiny thread and soft worn spots.

  He takes a step toward me, folding the blanket in half the long way. I smooth the edges.

  “You staying up all night.” He reaches down for the new bottom. “Boys riding away on bicycles.”

  “You saw Ty,” I say as we fold the blanket in half again.

  He nods, making the las
t fold. He pats the top of the quilt, which is resting in my arms. We are better than the Boy Scouts.

  “His parents said he could go,” I say.

  “So that’s why he was here.”

  He takes the quilt from me and, hanging it over the back of a chair, walks to the table, putting the countertop between us.

  “I know what it’s like to try to keep someone who wants to be gone, Teddy Lee,” he says, staring down at the chair before he comes back toward me.

  He looks like he did back when my mom would disappear for days, sometimes for weeks at a crack. She’d reappear with a suntan and a wistful smile, never with any explanations or souvenirs. We got a week or two of wearing the same underpants, and he got to struggle with the dishes and the Hamburger Helper. He looks lost.

  I stammer. Dad holds his hands up, stopping me.

  He reaches past me and turns off the kettle, catching it seconds before it whistles and wakes up Winston and Billie, still snoring down the hall. A steady stream of steam pours out of it, and I can hear the water dancing around inside.

  I’m not sure what made him make up his mind. Maybe it was learning that the other parents had agreed and he thinks their children are far more breakable than his. His are already broken and glued back together. Maybe that makes it okay.

  Or maybe he has finally found a way to live with it, another hollow ache that will throb less over time; a hole in his heart that he will remind himself to step over every day so he doesn’t fall in.

  He sets out my favorite mug, the white one with a rainbow across the front, and a spoon. Everything in the kitchen is only an arm’s length away for him.

  He straightens up, pours the water, and says softly, with his eyes on mine, “Just come back to me when you are done.”

  11

  Winston and I are at our kitchen table the Saturday night after Ty’s graduation, a map of the Pacific Northwest and the itinerary for the tour spread out before us.

  Billie is sitting on the front porch, just outside the screen door with a cigarette that is at least 85 percent ash tucked between her fingers. She is trying to work some shorts, but it really isn’t that warm yet. Smoke drifts in on the fresh start-of-summer air.