by Deb Caletti
“Look, Reilly,” I said. “I’m just not ready to get involved with anyone, okay? Don’t take it personal.” Which you only said, of course, when something was very personal.
“We’re already involved. You came to my house … ,” he whined.
I shoved past him, remembering the cold sweat on his palm that night at the dance when he had tried to hold my hand. I headed for Ms. Cassaday’s AP English. I sat in that hard plastic seat and tried to concentrate on Tess of the d’Urbervilles. My mind couldn’t be still, and that rarely happened in Ms. Cassaday’s class. She was bold and important and never spoke about her personal life, even though we all knew she lived with Elaine Blackstone, who worked at the oyster beds. You wondered what their house looked like inside, and if, every morning, sitting on the edge of their bed, Elaine put her work boots on—the green rubber ones you saw her wearing at Johnny’s Market, her jeans tucked down inside.
But that day I couldn’t be hooked in by Ms. Cassaday’s words. I was unfocused and gaze-y, staring out the classroom window which looked out over the baseball field, with its dry yellow grass and padded white bases set on dusty ground. I wondered if Hayden had played baseball in high school. I pictured him with a mitt on his hand, a dog running around his legs. I wondered who he was as a boy. If he rode his bike or collected bugs or grew a sunflower in a Styrofoam cup in the first grade. A person can seem like a whole country you’ve never been to.
The deep desire to see someone again, to know more: Was it fate shifting its pieces, or just what my psychology books would say—that instant connection is your past at work, the reminder of something, or the hope of something else? My mind kept bumping into him. God, I was acting like someone with a crush. I’d better not have a crush on him. First, he was Juliet’s husband, and that was not something you conveniently forgot. Besides that, I hated the word crush, a pink candy word, a frosting word, something for giggly girls who wrote their name with his surrounded by a heart. I wasn’t the kind of person who had crushes. I didn’t believe in stupid insta-connections with people you didn’t even know. It needed to matter, it needed to come to something, be real, or it wasn’t worth all the wasted feelings. Everyone else, even Juliet, fell in love with Mr. Gregory Hawthorne (who let us call him Gregory), our middle school algebra teacher. But I’d only noticed how he paused by his reflection in the classroom window, and how his breath smelled of coffee when he stood too close.
And what was curiosity or gladness or intrigue, anyway? Just regular human being feelings. People could have all kinds of feelings, and that didn’t necessarily mean anything. It didn’t mean that anything would happen.
I hurried through lunch. There was someone I had to talk to. Goth Girl had reached out to me, and hers was a problem I could do something about. She had drawn a red Volkswagen, and there were only two red Volkswagens in our school lot. Henderson Law, super-jock, perpetual Homecoming King—I knew it couldn’t be him. But the other Volkswagen belonged to Kevin Frink. Bomb Boy. Kevin Frink, with his heavy jacket and averted eyes and pocket full of matches. It made perfect sense, the kind of perfect sense that’s actually the strangest and most bizarre perfect sense possible.
I knew Kevin usually hung out around the football field bleachers at lunch. The last time I saw him there he had a couple of firecrackers and a small package of matches from some seaside motel in Oregon. I walked through the stadium gate and down the bleachers, but didn’t see him until I looked out onto the field itself. He sat on the AstroTurf with his back against a goalpost. I wondered if I should ask him about Clive Weaver, but I could imagine Kevin’s voice. Just because my mother drives a hearse doesn’t mean I know when everyone dies. When I got down there, he looked up from a roughed-up copy of The Anarchist Cookbook.
“You said you weren’t going to want something for not ratting on me and now you want something,” he said.
“How’d you know?” I asked.
“People always end up wanting something,” he said. He shoved his hair up out of his eyes with his palm. He had dark long hair that fell over a big forehead. Kevin Frink was a big guy. He had been known as the Kid with the Big Head since elementary school. This had changed to Bomb Boy when he lit his first cherry bomb in the gym during the PE basketball unit in the seventh grade.
“Can I sit down?”
“Whatever. I don’t own the place.” Kevin Frink breathed heavily when he spoke. It was the exertion of weighty things—his bulky body, his burdened life.
“Do you know Fiona Saint George?”
“Vampire. Who doesn’t?”
This didn’t seem to be a good start. “She’s a great artist,” I said.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Kevin Frink grabbed at a clump of AstroTurf as if it were grass and pretended to throw it a few inches away.
“I think she really likes you.”
Kevin snorted.
“No really. Maybe a lot. Maybe enough to go to the prom with you.”
“You’re out of your mind.”
“No. I know it’s true.”
“Is this some kind of joke?” I knew Kevin Frink was thinking about the time those kids put a dead deer in the hearse his mother drove for Simmons and Sons Funeral Home. Or maybe about that year that Steven Gardener and his friends spent every lunch trying to step on the back heels of his shoes. “Not me,” he said.
“I wouldn’t lie to you,” I said.
“I can’t dance.”
I thought about this. “Maybe you don’t have to dance. Just go.”
“I hate shit like that. What’s in it for me?”
“She really likes you,” I said. He wouldn’t look at me. Just down at the big leg of his big jeans.
“Fucking freak, she’ll stick her fangs in me,” he said, but I could tell he was wavering.
“Just ask her. I’ll pay for dinner. The Lighthouse.” It was one of those places on the water. Nice, but not so fancy that they still didn’t have the captain’s wheel from a ship hanging on the wall and menu items called Surf and Turf and Wally’s Oyster Special.
“I’ll give it my personal consideration,” he said.
“Thanks, Kevin. You won’t regret it.” I touched his arm. He wore a puffy ski coat, even in the heat. His arm was in there somewhere. I stood. This was great. Great! My heart sang with Everything Working Beautifully hope. Something good could happen, not just for Fiona Saint George, but for Kevin Frink, too. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said.
“Go get another A or something,” he said.
Buddy Wilkes’s El Camino was there at the curb again when school got out. I passed by it. You could feel the heat and energy of Buddy’s presence even as he sat in the driver’s seat.
“Hey,” he said. He was looking right at me.
“Me?” I said.
“Give this to your sister for me,” he said. He had a folded-up piece of paper in his palm and he held it out.
I wanted to hit his hand, make the note go flying. I wanted to say something brave, something I’d never say, Fuck you, maybe, something bold and definite. But I was so surprised at his eyes looking right at me and his voice aiming right my way that I barely remembered to lie.
“She’s not around,” I said.
“Just give it to her,” he said.
I took the note. It felt hot from his own palm, hot enough that its heat transferred to my own hand. I stood dumbly holding the note as Alicia Worthen walked out the school doors. I still held that note as Buddy Wilkes started his car back up and drove off, held it as Alicia just stood there at the curb calling, “Buddy, Buddy! Wait!” as the back of his El Camino left the school lot and drove out of sight.
Alicia Worthen started to cry. Right there, with her backpack on one shoulder, her clarinet case in her hand. I unfolded the note. His writing looked nothing like Hayden’s. It had the childish, blocky innocence of a fourth grader’s report on earthquakes or volcanoes or the pony express. But not his words, though. Innocent is not what you’d have called t
hem. Saturday. Five o’clock. You know where. I know you want to.
After school, the cars were gone in front of Clive Weaver’s house. No one was out in the neighborhood except Ally Pete-Robbins, who was a planting a tidy row of marigolds up her walkway, and her twin boys, Jeffrey and Jacob, playing kickball in the street. Jeffrey kicked the red ball and it rolled under the Martinellis’ RV, the Pleasure Way. Jacob ran over and looked underneath, his butt up in the air and his shirt rising to show his smooth eight-year-old back.
“You dummy, Jeffrey!” Jacob shouted to the underside of the Pleasure Way.
“Jacob!” Ally Pete-Robbins called with a trowel in her hand. Her hair was up in a bandanna, and she had on those high-waisted shorts that are in the clothing Constitution for some women over thirty. “What did Mommy tell you about name-calling?”
“Don’t name-call,” said a serious Jeffrey from first base, which was a red jacket thrown on the ground. Jeffrey looked like his father.
“Dummy, dummy, dummy,” Jacob said. He fished out the ball with one arm and stood up. “Don’t dummy do that dummy again.”
“Jacob!” Ally Pete-Robbins yelled again. She brushed the dirt off her hands like she meant business. “What would Jesus say?”
“He’d say he wished he could play kickball,” Jacob said to Jeffrey. This cracked them both up. “Jesus loves kickball,” he said again to maybe see if the joke was as great the second time.
It was. Jeffrey held his stomach. “I’m gonna pee.”
Ally Pete-Robbins decided to ignore them. Not Reinforcing Bad Behavior was right up there in the top ten in the parenting rule book, just after Presenting a United Front and Being Consistent. Jeffrey and Jacob were basically monsters.
“Mrs. Pete-Robbins?” I asked. “Have you heard anything about Clive Weaver today? I saw these cars… .”
“Oh!” she said, and stood. She held a marigold released from its pot in her hand. The loose dirt fell between the fingers of her gardening gloves, the roots of the plant as exposed and white as her own arms in that plaid sleeveless shirt. SPF 45, I was sure. Jeffrey and Jacob were as white as she was too. A ray of sun likely never touched their skin except on the days Mr. Pete-Robbins was in charge. “Yes, he’s fine. I did call his daughters last night. Unfortunately, Mr. Weaver was walking around disoriented.”
Ha—she saw him naked too. I guess I wouldn’t have to be the someone to call for help after all. Ally Pete-Robbins had beaten me to it.
“Is he okay?”
“They brought him to the doctor. He had tests all morning. Perfectly fine. A case of Restless Leg Syndrome, but otherwise in perfect health. My aunt had it too, and my uncle had to sleep on the couch or he’d be up all night! Of course, Mr. Weaver only has his dog.”
“Corky,” I said.
“Thank the Lord, the doctors said Mr. Weaver might just be depressed.”
“Really?” Depression didn’t seem like something to thank the Lord for.
“Retirement,” Ally Pete-Robbins said, as if this explained things.
“Ah,” I said.
“A loss of purpose. Nothing to get up in the morning for. Nothing to look forward to.”
“Okay, thanks.”
Ally Pete-Robbins smiled at me. It was a smile that said how glad she was that we both cared like we did. How glad she was that we were together on this. The smile worried me. I really couldn’t stand Ally Pete-Robbins.
“Slow and straight or fast and bouncy?” Jacob asked.
“Slow,” Jeffrey said, as Jacob pitched a ball as wild as a kayak on the waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca during a storm.
I heard barking in the backyard. Hayden was there, in his shorts and no shirt, chasing Zeus around Mom’s flowerpots on the patio. Hayden lunged, and Zeus skirted him sideways. Then he clapped his hands and called Zeus’s name firmly. Our old big metal tub sat in the center of the lawn, filled with sudsy water.
“You get fired already?” I called.
“Short day. Juliet’s upstairs sleeping.” He was out of breath. His back was shiny with sweat. “Damn dog. I hate that dog.”
This made me smile. He loved Zeus in the most permanent way. “Bath?”
“He smells like a wet rug. I’m worried your mom might want him kicked out or dry-cleaned.”
“Want me to try?”
“Might as well,” Hayden said. He rested with his hands on his knees, catching his breath.
I clapped my hands. “Zeus! Come here!” I tried to sound as excited as possible. Zeus just sat there on the far corner of the lawn, his tongue hanging out. He wasn’t having any of it. He looked like he was having the best day of his life.
Hayden lunged again and Zeus took off and made two furious laps around the yard, his ears tight against his head from his racehorse speed. He hoped to break the sound barrier, to be the fastest dog on earth. I headed him off over by the hibachi, where he was cornered. He was no match for the two of us. Hayden leaned down and picked him up, all of his big dog self gathered up in Hayden’s arms, Hayden’s muscles straining at the effort, Zeus’s skinny legs hanging down.
“Teamwork,” Hayden puffed, as he set Zeus into the tub. After all that running around, Zeus didn’t protest or try to jump out. He was flexible about this sudden change of plan. He actually just sat there with his best manners as Hayden poured water over his head with a measuring cup.
“You forgot how much you loved this. You love this, remember?” Zeus sat quietly. His hair was all wet and flat. Hayden poured more water slowly over his back.
“So what was all that running around about, huh? You made me carry you. It was humiliating for both of us.”
Silence.
“He loves it,” I said.
“Big fool,” Hayden said. “Can you give me a hand? If you don’t mind getting wet?”
“Sure.”
“That soap—” Hayden gestured with his chin to a plastic bottle near his bare feet. I grabbed it. “Just squirt it right on him.”
I did. I kneeled beside Hayden. I put my hands in the warm water, soaped them along Zeus’s back. His solid self felt so good. I rubbed my fingers in the hair on his butterscotch-and-vanilla chest, where my fingers bumped into Hayden’s under the water. My arm against his. I felt a shutter click of stop-action—an awareness of his slippery fingers, his wet arm. There was silence except the sound of the water against skin and the soft sound of the construction guys’ radio across the back fence. Okay, God. I stopped thinking about Zeus and backyards and pregnant sisters. I stopped thinking about anything and everything but the sudden and overpowering sense of skin on my skin. Wet, soapy skin on wet, soapy skin.
I breathed. I tried to breathe.
“It’s amazing what another pair of hands can do,” Hayden said.
I would have spoken, had my heart not been in my throat.
Chapter Eleven
Juliet had woken from her nap. I heard the shower on in the hall. I passed by her room. Their room. The covers were tossed back. I could see a sheet of paper on the floor, where it had obviously been slipped under the door and left where it was found. I would not read it. It was not my business. I went to my own room, shut the door with my back against it.
I argued with myself a full ten minutes before I did what the truthful part of me knew I was going to do all along. I don’t even know why I bothered with this moral charade, except maybe to show myself that I did have a little decency before I went ahead and did the bad thing I was planning to do anyway. My mind somehow awarded me conscience points for the meaningless inner protest. I had restrained myself for a few minutes, so I couldn’t be all bad, right? When all that messy business of ethics and principles was sorted out, I went back to Juliet’s room. The shower was still on, but I still had to act fast.
I left the paper right where it was. I leaned down to read it without touching it.
Dear Juliet—
You only met my mother once, and I know how you felt about her, but I hope this will change over time. She
is someone I love and respect, and her experiences have given her a wisdom I trust. She taught me a lot about life, stumbling through it, running to it, climbing around and over its crevices and peaks. She saw some bad times with my father, Trent. Bad. Yet even stuck in that place, she believed that a limited life was your own doing. She believed your life was in your own hands.
She always kept a list on our refrigerator. I remember it there from the time I was very young. It went through two moves, countless years, and it became faded and splotched and worn as some recipe handed down from generations. Finally, I took it down. I’ve kept it in my wallet since. It’s a worthwhile thing to keep near.
She called it The Five Rules of Maybe. Maybe was her favorite catchphrase for hope or anything close to it—dreams and possibilities and wants and wishes… . This is the list:
The Five Rules of Maybe
1. Respect the power of hope and possibilities. Begin with belief. Hold on to it.
2. If you know where you want to go, you’re already halfway there. Know what you desire but, more importantly, why you desire it. Then go.
3. Hopes and dreams and heart’s desires require a clear path—get out of your own way.
4. Place hope carefully in your own hands and in the hands of others.
5. Persist, if necessary.
It’s deceptively simple, I’ve come to realize. But I saw how this list got my mother out of bad places and into good ones, to the work she loves, a life she treasures. I accept that a limited life is my own choice, and I’m holding tight to my belief in us. My hopes for you and me and our child are numerous and galloping—I am going to be the best man I can for you, Juliet, that’s what I desire, and I desire that because you deserve that. That’s who I want to be. Let’s dream and believe and make all the best for ourselves.
The possibilities are there in your eyes, Juliet, swimming in those pools of blue. Let’s get out of our own way. What did you say to me? Waiting is for cowards. Let’s go get the life that’s ours.
