Wrecked

by E. R. Frank

  He picks up a fish stick, dips it in ketchup, and then puts it back on his plate.

  “I just wanted to tell you that—”

  “Don’t,” he interrupts.

  “But I never really—”

  “Don’t, Anna!” he goes again, and he thumbs his iPod, scrolling up the volume.

  I reach over and try to pull an earphone out of his ear. “After the accident I thought you—”

  “Stop it!” He whips his head up and away from my hand. His face is thin. Like Ellen’s. It’s filled with that disgusted look, that one that tells me how unbelievably small I am.

  “Okay.” My chest is filled with ink. “Let’s just go home.”

  I’ve barely even started my onion rings, but I put a twenty on the table, grab my backpack, and walk out. Jack’s right behind me. He slides into the driver’s side as I’m snapping on my seat belt one-handed so that the other can cover my right eye. Jack starts the car and smacks the CD player on, turning up the volume on some band he must love. After two seconds of driving I turn the volume way down. He turns it back up. It’s a good ten minutes before I notice we’re not going anywhere I recognize.

  “Where are you going?” I ask. We should be home by now.

  “Nowhere,” he says.

  “Why are you so mad?” I ask him.

  “Why are you such a bitch?”

  It digs this big black hole right into my gut, and there’s nothing to say back. I just sit here, feeling inky and heavy and horrible, while Jack keeps driving.

  “Do you even know where we are?” I ask.

  “No,” he says. Great. He takes an exit, and we start passing gas stations and fast-food restaurants.

  “What music is this?” I ask.

  “Spoonerism,” he tells me.

  “Spooner what?”

  “Spoonerism.”

  We sit here and listen.

  “Did Cameron like this song?”

  “Yes. Shut up. I’m not talking about her with you.”

  “I wasn’t trying to get you to.”

  “Yes, you were.” He pulls into a gas station.

  “No, I wasn’t.”

  “You’re full of shit,” he tells me, easing the car up next to a pump.

  “And you’re being an asshole.”

  “I’m fucking sad!” he explodes at me. “Do you understand?” And he leaps out of the car and starts walking. Just walking. He’s headed for the road. The gas station guy is pumping gas. I don’t know what to do. I have only five more dollars on me and no credit card. My parents don’t give us our own. And Jack’s walking—more like slamming—away down this street, and it doesn’t look like he’s turning around anytime soon.

  “Stop,” I tell the attendant. He’s pumped three dollars. He stops. I get out of the car and pay him. I have to take my hand away from my eye. I try to close just the right lid against the light. It’s hard to close just one lid. I end up sort of squinting both eyes instead. The attendant gives me the change. And then I run after Jack. It takes me a good few minutes to catch up to him. For one, it’s hard to run with a hand over your eye. But also, I’m wearing these slip-on shoes with no back, plus I’m not exactly an athlete.

  “Stop,” I huff at him when I finally catch up.

  He keeps walking. I’m out of breath and wiped out. I have to half jog to stay near him. I drop my hand and go back to squinting.

  “Jack.”

  “What?” he says. I’m right on his heels, like a dog being walked. I reach out to grab his arm.

  “Come on,” I say.

  He stops, curses, kicks the ground, and turns around. His face is like a mask. Like one of those painted demon masks you see from Africa. All big, wild eyes and stretched-out, gaping mouth and insanity. I take a big step backward, away from him, and cover my right eye with my palm again. We stand here staring at each other.

  “Somebody’s going to steal the car,” I tell him finally. It’s still there, with the key in the ignition, by the pump. “We’ve got to pick up Dad.”

  Jack must hear something in what I’ve said that makes his mask shift a little. He bends down and grabs a handful of thistle and pebbles and dirt, and he hurls it. He grabs another handful and throws that, and then another one. He’s crouching, and cars are driving by, and I still don’t know what to do. After a few more grabs and throws Jack stops but stays crouched. He puts his head in his hands, and I don’t think he’s crying, but I kind of wish he were, because somehow that would be easier than this.

  “I don’t want to deal with Dad,” Jack says. “I do not want to deal with Dad.”

  He wipes his face with his hands.

  “You’ve got dirt on your face,” I tell him.

  He stands and starts walking toward the car. Then he stops again, and I nearly run him over, I’m so close behind. I could have damaged my eye all over again.

  “I can’t stand this,” Jack tells me. “Seriously, Anna.” He nods, as if I’ve said something to agree with him somehow, and then he starts walking again.

  When we’re pulling out of the gas station, I turn his music on for him. I turn it up really, really loud. He changes the CD from Spoonerism to some other band. I close my eyes against the brightness. It’s all I can do not to cover my ears now. Partly because the music is so unbelievably loud, and partly because it sucks. Instead I tuck my hands under my thighs and grit my teeth. I stay like that, eyes closed, hands jammed, jaw locked, all the way to the bank.

  12

  “THAT’S EASY,” LISA SAYS. “LIKABLE. EXTRA LIKABLE.”

  We’re at Ellen’s studying for the SATs, which are totally screwed up this year. Instead of being on the first Saturday of December, like always, they’re the Saturday before Christmas. So that gives everybody two extra weeks of anticipatory agony. Because at my neurotic school, people start studying early and worrying earlier.

  “Popular,” Seth says. He’s sitting next to me on the floor at the coffee table in Ellen’s living room. He’s half concentrating on what the rest of us are doing and half writing something on a piece of paper he’s hiding underneath his thigh. Every now and then he rubs his calf on my ankle. I try to see what’s got him so interested on that piece of paper.

  “Charisma means ‘popular,’” he repeats.

  “It’s more than that, though,” Jason says from the couch next to Lisa. “Right?” He’s asking Ellen because it’s the sort of thing she would know. “Doesn’t charisma have something else to it?”

  She’s been getting quieter and quieter since she got home. Not as quiet as Rob, but noticeable. At least, I can tell Jason’s noticed. He’s always making a point of directing what he says to her. Maybe to get her into things again. I don’t know.

  She’s sitting in the wheelchair with her leg propped on an ottoman right next to the coffee table and a huge chenille blanket wrapped around her shoulders. We’ve got a bunch of markers out, and every time we review a word, someone makes up a sentence with it and then writes the sentence on Ellen’s cast. The word has to be in a different color than the rest of the sentence. So far we’ve got Ellen’s cheeks are gaunt from the shitty hospital food and The pornographic cable channels present tawdry options for the masses, and a few more like that.

  Ellen shrugs at me and Seth. “What do you guys think?”

  Seth looks up from whatever it is he’s working on underneath his leg. “I thought charisma had to do with how people look, too,” he says. “Don’t you have to be hot to be charismatic?”

  “Read the definition,” Jason tells Ellen. Seth pulls a Tootsie Roll out of his pocket, unwraps it, pops it into his mouth, and then picks up the bowl of sour-cream-and-onion potato chips and passes it to me. I grab a bunch and pass the bowl to Jason. It goes around the circle while Ellen reads. Seth rubs my ankle again. I rub back.

  “‘ personal magic of leadership arousing special popularity or enthusiasm.’ That’s One. Two is ‘a special magnetic charm or appeal.’”

  “But people who are charis
matic are always good-looking,” Seth insists.

  “I thought we just disabused ourselves of that,” Ellen says.

  “Disa-what?” Lisa asks her.

  “Proved ourselves wrong.” Ellen sighs.

  “Whatever.” Lisa leans back onto the couch in a huff. I don’t blame her. Who but Ellen would know a word like disabuse? The SAT people, I guess.

  “So it’s not attractiveness,” Ellen says, holding the bowl and then not taking any chips. “It’s some other thing. Some other quality. Like … like …” Then she shrugs again and gives up. Before the accident Ellen was not a shrugger. Or a giver-upper.

  “Weirdly sexy?” Jason offers.

  Ellen perks a little. “Yeah,” she says, and she sort of straightens. “Think about it. Who are the most long-lasting celebrities or politicians? Some of them are objectively hot. But most have this weirdly sexy thing happening. Charisma.” We all sit there and think about it. It seems sort of true.

  “That girl in those frozen-dinner commercials,” I say. Everybody nods.

  “Bono,” Lisa goes.

  “They’re not pure good-looking,” Ellen says. “But they’re weirdly sexy, and they have that magnetic charm and appeal.”

  “But just because you’re good-looking doesn’t mean you have charisma,” Jason says. “That’s the point.”

  “Cameron,” I say. I’ve been thinking it since before Ellen even read out the definitions. Everybody gets quiet. I look over at Ellen. She nods and stares at her cast and then at the dictionary. She kind of sags, like a balloon, deflated.

  “Let’s do a sentence with her,” Lisa says. “Anna, you write it.”

  Lisa hands me the box of markers she was holding. I look at all the colors for a while, trying to decide. I end up choosing black.

  “Do you have a sentence?” Seth asks. I’m not sure. I sit here, the tip of the marker poised over Ellen’s cast. It trembles, so I pull it away and cap it while I think. Everybody’s waiting. “Cameron,” I finally write, “= charismatic.” It’s the first sentence I’ve done today. The lines are jittery and wavery They’re strange next to Lisa’s bold, curvy letters and Seth’s wiry chicken scratch. It makes me not be able to look at Ellen, or at any of them, for some reason.

  “That’s not exactly a sentence,” Lisa finally says.

  “Without the desire to see there is no seeing,’” Jason tells her.

  “And that means what exactly?” Lisa goes.

  Jason arches his left eyebrow. “It means shut up.”

  My cell rings. I toss the marker onto the coffee table and flip up the phone. “It’s my mom.”

  They wait politely, smashing open a bag of baked corn chips, while my mother talks. She says I need to get someone to drive me home to pick up the Audi to drive to the car dealer on Bateson Avenue to pick her and my dad up because the new Honda they were supposed to buy today got accidentally given to someone else.

  “Can’t Jack do it?” I ask my mom.

  “We called you first,” she says. “You’re closer than he is. He’s at Rob’s.”

  “Rob’s isn’t that much farther,” I say.

  “Anna, please.”

  “Why is the Audi at home?” I ask. “Why don’t you or Dad have it?”

  “We miscommunicated,” my mom explains. “I thought Jack was taking it, so I got a ride with Phyllis. Your dad thought I was taking it, so he got a ride with Russell.”

  “I’m in the middle of studying,” I say.

  “Anna, this isn’t an option. We’re stuck here,” my mom says.

  “Is she giving you a hard time?” I hear my father ask in the background.

  “I can’t—,” I start to tell my mother.

  My dad gets on the phone. “Get over here now,” he says. And he hangs up on me.

  “What’s the matter?” Seth asks. “Your teeth are chattering.”

  “No, they’re not,” I say. They all look at me funny.

  “Can someone give me a ride home?”

  Seth does. I have to direct him because he’s never been to my house.

  “Are you okay?” he keeps asking. I keep nodding behind my sunglasses. I’m going to need them for at least a few more weeks. Even though I stopped using the drops a couple of days after that gonioscopy.

  “What happened on the phone?” Seth tries.

  “Nothing,” I say. “My mom just needs me to pick her and my dad up.” I pull my arms around myself, and he drops it.

  “So, what was that piece of paper you were so interested in at Ellen’s just now?” I ask him. My teeth are chattering, and it’s not even that cold out.

  “My next big thing,” he says.

  “Your what?”

  “My next big thing.” He grins. He has sort of a goofy grin. “You need a big thing every now and then,” he goes. “To keep life from getting boring.” He reaches into the pocket on his door and grabs a Tootsie Roll.

  “Here,” I say. “You’re driving.” I unwrap it for him. Instead of holding out his hand, though, he opens his mouth. I ignore that and toss the naked Tootsie Roll into his lap, so that he has to fish for it. “So, what’s a big thing?” I ask him.

  “My first one was in seventh grade,” he says, rolling the candy between his front teeth. “You know that huge waterwheel moat thing by the library?”

  “Yeah,” I go. “The one somebody made into a bubble bath about four yea …”

  He’s rolling and smiling.

  “Oh my God,” I go. “That was you?”

  More rolling. More smiling.

  “What about the colors?” I ask him. “That started later, right? Like, a year later?”

  “Food coloring,” he goes. “My favorite was the purple.”

  “Mine too!” I go. “How did you not get caught? I mean, they could have arrested you or something.”

  “Yeah,” he goes, tucking the Tootsie Roll into the side of his cheek, making a little bulge. “Life without parole.”

  “Don’t make fun of me.”

  “Never.” He chews and swallows. “I’m glad you don’t have that robot eye anymore during the daytime,” he says as he turns onto my street. My arms have become uncrossed somehow, only I’m shaking again, so I recross them.

  “Because I’ve been wanting to kiss you, only that thing was messing up the physics of it.”

  “The physics?”

  “Who have you gone out with, anyway?”

  I cross my legs now too. “Nobody,” I say.

  “I thought you and Paul what’s-his-name were a thing.”

  “No,” I say. We’re around the curve now, almost at my driveway. “He liked me, but I didn’t like him back.”

  “Why?” Seth asks. I don’t really know why. He was cute and cool, and he played soccer, and Ellen thought I should like him. “And what about Rothman?”

  I roll my eyes. “Rothman is ridiculous,” I say. “Here.” He pulls into my driveway. I unknot my limbs and get out of the car. I try to seem calm while I make myself walk around to his side.

  “Why do you like me, Seth?” I ask through his rolled-down window.

  “Am I ridiculous if I don’t have a reason?”

  I shake my head. He reaches out and pulls a curl. And doesn’t let go.

  “Let go,” I tell him.

  The truth is, I’ve been kissed by only two guys. Paul what’s his-name and Rothman, and I’ve never really had a boyfriend, and I’m sort of old not to have ever had a boyfriend, and it’s embarrassing and the idea of dealing with it all just makes me shake, only I’ve been shaking for weeks anyway, so maybe it’s hard to know exactly what the shaking is about.

  “Lean down,” he says, keeping gentle hold of my curl.

  “You never said what your next big thing is,” I tell him.

  “Lean down,” he says.

  “I’d really like to know.”

  “Lean down,” he says again.

  “I didn’t say you could kiss me,” I tell him. He keeps hold of my hair.

 
“Lean down.” He’s like a broken record. “I’m going to kiss your other eye.”

  I lean down. He lifts himself through the space of the window and very gently raises my sunglasses.

  “Hmm,” he goes. And then he very, very gently kisses my left eye.

  “See ya,” he says, and he’s out of here. I’m shaking and shaking and shaking.

  I get to the end of my block. That’s how long it takes before I lose it. Chest leaping, body shuddering, sweating like I’m running a marathon. Something happened to me in the accident, I think as my slick palm slides all over the steering wheel. I got injured somehow that nobody realized. My heart got hurt, and now I’m having a heart attack. I manage to weave the Audi over to the side of the road and pull out my cell phone. I call 911. I stumble out of the car and think I’m going to vomit on the street, only I don’t. I collapse onto the pavement, but by the time the ambulance gets here six minutes later, I’m almost fine, and Mrs. Caldwell is sitting with me in that navy blue sweatsuit with the white stripes up the sides.

  “She was in a car accident about a month ago,” Mrs. Caldwell explains to the EMTs. So even though they don’t see anything obviously wrong, they decide to take me to the hospital. Mrs. Caldwell picks up my parents at the Honda dealership and drives them home. And Jack is at the house by then, and my whole family drives to the hospital in the Audi to get me, and I’m fine.

  On the way home again, Jack and I sit in the back, with my parents up front, and it’s like a trip to the beach, because when else are we all in the car together these days? My father’s humming. Jack’s got his earphones in and turned way up. I can hear that squawking sitting next to him. My mother keeps twisting around with this concerned expression.

  “Okay, look,” my father says finally. I tap Jack and nod at the back of my father’s head, at his mass of gray hair. Jack pulls out his earphones. But then my dad doesn’t say anything else.

  13

  SETH AND JASON AND LISA BRING TWO MOVIES OVER TO ELLEN’S. Her mom has to go into her room to wake her up about three times before Ellen finally wheels out with her hair messed up and the same sweatshirt she wore yesterday.

  “We got them both off Rosebud Is a Sled,” Jason tells her. “They’re in Jack’s top fifty list.” I flop onto Ellen’s couch next to Seth. He puts his arm across my shoulders while we look.