The Ethan I Was Before

by Ali Standish

  She does an impression of the dancers and starts flailing her arms back and forth while she rides her bike.

  “It was like dominoes,” she says, catching her breath from laughter. “All of them screaming and falling together. I didn’t even plan that.”

  I can’t help but smile at Coralee and the image of a herd of ballerinas falling like dominos.

  Coralee gets off her bike outside Mack’s Hardware Store.

  “Anyway,” she says, “it was worth it. Except that one girl broke her ankle. So they expelled me.”

  “That stinks.”

  “It’s okay,” she replies. “I didn’t like Atlanta much anyway. I’m a country girl.”

  I stop as Coralee walks up to the door of Mack’s. I remember how it felt last time I went in the store. Like I might suffocate in there.

  “I thought we were going to the library,” I say.

  “We are,” she replies. “It’s inside.”

  She stoops down to scratch the two cats, who are lying on the doormat again. “Ethan, meet Zora and Zelda,” she says. “Zelda, Zora, meet Ethan.”

  “We’ve met,” I mumble, remembering my mad dash from Mack’s on my first morning in Palm Knot.

  Reluctantly, I follow Coralee in. It still smells like soil in the store, but I also detect whiffs of rubber and wood chips, and the air-conditioning seems to be working a bit better today.

  Coralee looks around the store. “Mack?” she calls. “Mack! It’s Coralee.”

  A large woman in overalls and with a red kerchief tied over her dreadlocked hair enters the store through a door in the back. I recognize her as the woman who offered me taffy when I was here before. She’s carrying two potted plants but sets them down when she sees us, wiping away a bead of sweat from her cheek.

  “Coralee?” she says. “Is that you, girl? I heard you were back in town.”

  “In the flesh!” Coralee chirps, skipping over to the woman and hugging her tightly. Her tiny frame almost disappears in the woman’s arms.

  “Ethan, come meet Mack,” Coralee calls.

  “Oh,” I say, trying to hide my surprise. “Okay.” I had assumed Mack was a man. I walk over to shake her hand. She takes off her dirty gardening glove, revealing a hand as rough as burlap, with deep lines that run across her palm.

  “I like your cats,” I say.

  Coralee snorts. “Don’t mind Ethan. He’s a little, well, new.”

  Mack studies me. “It’s nice to meet you, Ethan,” she says. “I don’t suppose y’all would be interested in some saltwater taffy?”

  “We’d love some,” Coralee interjects before I can answer. “Do you have any green apple?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do,” Mack says.

  “We also wanted to know if we can use the library,” Coralee continues. “To do our homework.”

  “That’s fine with me,” Mack says. “As long as it’s okay with Ethan’s mama.”

  I use Mack’s store phone to call Mom again. Mack gets on the line and says a few reassuring words, then hangs up. “She says she’ll be by to pick you up at five.”

  She reaches behind the counter and hands Coralee and me each three pieces of saltwater taffy, wrapped in waxy plastic, and leads us through the back door into a dimly lit room walled from floor to ceiling with dusty books.

  “Wow,” I breathe, turning in a circle to see the whole room. There must be thousands of books here. By the window, a wooden desk faces the ocean. In the opposite corner, a small table is flanked by a squishy sofa and two armchairs.

  “Make yourself at home, Ethan,” Mack instructs.

  “Is this all yours?” I ask. “It’s so cool.”

  “I’m a bit of a collector,” Mack says. “My apartment is upstairs, but I use this as my study. And occasionally I rent it out as a library. For a select few.” She winks at Coralee. “Y’all get to it. And holler if you need me.”

  When she leaves, Coralee flops down on the sofa.

  “Are you related?” I ask. “You and Mack?”

  She shakes her head. “Mack took over this place from her dad when he died, but she was an English teacher before that. She taught my mom, my aunt, half the town. She’s had some of these books for decades. Isn’t this place great?”

  “Yeah,” I reply, suddenly glad that I didn’t come up with a bogus excuse not to come. “It kind of is.”

  Driving Lessons

  CORALEE AND I GET through half our math packets and most of the science worksheets on weather systems before I hear Mack calling my name from the storefront.

  “Ethan! Your ride is here!”

  “Just a minute!” Coralee yells back.

  “Do you need a ride too?” I ask. “I’m sure my mom could drop you off.”

  “I’m okay,” she replies, stifling a yawn. “I think I’ll stay here and pick out a book to read. Then I’ll bike back. But thanks.”

  “No problem,” I say, picking up my backpack and swinging it over my shoulders.

  “Nice getting to know you, new kid,” she says to me as I’m leaving. A mischievous smile plays on her face. “Same time tomorrow?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “That would be fun.”

  I realize that I mean it. It will be fun to hang out with Coralee again.

  Mack tosses another taffy to me on my way out the door. “One for the road,” she says. “I hope we’ll be seeing more of you around these parts.”

  I thank her and wave, breezing through the door and looking for our Subaru. Forgetting about Zora and Zelda, I trip over them, causing one of the cats to arch her back and hiss at me.

  Above their complaints, I hear a horn honk across the street and spot Grandpa Ike’s rusty pickup truck.

  “I didn’t know you were coming to get me,” I say. I pull open the door, which lets out a mighty groan.

  “Your mama burned dinner again,” he replies. He’s wearing a red baseball cap over his thin hair, the logo so faded I can’t read it at all, and a bulky leather jacket, even though it must be almost eighty degrees out.

  “She’s been in a mood all day,” he goes on, waving his hand, “complaining about the kitchen and talking about pulling up the floors. Calling painters to come give estimates. She was too busy bellyaching to notice her casserole had been in the oven near on two hours. Whole house is filled with smoke, and who does she blame but me for not cleaning the oven. It’s enough to make a man want to kill some—”

  Grandpa Ike stops short. He has broken one of Dr. Gorman’s cardinal rules, which I heard her tell Mom after one of our sessions. We are not supposed to talk about death unless I bring it up.

  Grandpa Ike must know he’s made a mistake, because he clears his throat and offers me some sunflower seeds.

  I shake my head.

  “Ethan? I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s okay,” I interrupt. I don’t want Grandpa Ike apologizing to me, treating me like I’ll break into a hundred pieces if he says the wrong thing. “I’m fine,” I add for good measure.

  We’re through town and passing by strawberry fields now. There are small wooden stands alongside the road for the farmers to sell their produce, but they are all empty. Grandpa Ike abruptly pulls the car onto the shoulder of the road, by one of the deserted stands.

  “What are we doing?” I ask.

  “Has anyone ever taught you to drive?”

  “Not unless go-karts count.” Kacey and I have been go-karting lots of times. “I’m only twelve. That’s—”

  “Two years past the time when I learned. Let’s switch.”

  Before I can respond, Grandpa Ike has already shut the driver’s-side door behind him. I unbuckle my seat belt and scoot over into the driver’s seat. My stomach churns with what I think at first is fear, a feeling I’m used to.

  But then warm tingles rise like sparks inside my stomach, and I realize that for the first time in a long while, I am excited.

  I get the hang of the pedals pretty quick. Steering comes easily too. Not very different from go-
karts. It’s shifting the gears that takes some concentration. I stall out right away and then again a few yards down the road. A shiny Lexus behind us honks, and Grandpa Ike cranks down the window and extends his arm out. I’m pretty sure I know what his hand is doing.

  “Don’t worry,” he says. “Just keep going.”

  My right palm is sweaty by the time I finally manage to get the truck into second gear, then third, without stalling.

  “You’re a natural,” Grandpa Ike says as I pull over just before we reach the gravel road that dead-ends into our house. The truck shudders to a halt.

  “I was going really slow,” I reply. But his praise still makes me feel good. “Can we do it again sometime?”

  “Course we can. There are some things a man’s got to learn, and someone’s got to teach him.”

  “Thanks,” I say once we’ve switched places again and Grandpa Ike has steered the truck back onto the road. “That was—fun.”

  Grandpa Ike shrugs. “Not a word to your parents about this. But maybe you should try to convince your mama to take you to the Fish House for dinner tonight.”

  “Oh,” I say. “Yeah, good idea.”

  “That way, you get to eat a fish sandwich and hush puppies instead of one of your mama’s vegetarian experiments, and I’ll get an hour’s peace and quiet.”

  “You won’t come with us?”

  “They don’t serve ham on rye at the Fish House,” he says, turning down the gravel road to our house. “And besides, I like to eat on my own.”

  Grandpa Ike seems to like to do a lot of things alone.

  “I’m sorry Mom wants to rip up your floors,” I say.

  “It’s not the first time your mama and I have butted heads.” The folds around his mouth deepen into a grimace.

  “Why don’t you get along?” I ask suddenly. “Why hasn’t Mom ever brought us to visit before?”

  Grandpa Ike glances at me as we pull up to the house. “You’re talkative tonight,” he says. “I guess that’s a good thing, right?”

  “My therapist would probably say so,” I agree, which makes Grandpa Ike chortle.

  “Kids are strong,” he says. “Stronger than most adults think. You’ll be all right, Ethan.”

  He wants to change the subject, but two can play at that game.

  “Thanks,” I reply. “But you didn’t answer my question.”

  “Another time, kid,” he says. “Another time.”

  A Normal Kid

  MOM DOESN’T TAKE ANY convincing to agree to have dinner at the Fish House. “But not because your grandfather suggested it,” she says. “Just because I don’t have the energy to cook another dinner and listen to you all complain about it.”

  “Will they have the game on?” asks Roddie.

  The Red Sox are playing the Marlins tonight.

  “Probably,” Mom says.

  “Does ‘probably’ mean yes? Because if not, then I want to stay here.”

  “This family needs time together,” Dad says.

  Roddie heaves a disgusted sigh.

  “Car,” Dad barks. “Now. Let’s go.”

  To appease Roddie, Dad puts on the Red Sox game for the drive to town, but the radio is too jammed with static to hear much, except that they’re losing. I turn my attention out to the bay, where a lone sailboat skims across the sun-shot horizon. The color of the water is like a box of melted crayons, like something from a dream.

  A dull ache stretches out in my chest. I get that feeling sometimes when I see something really beautiful or hear a funny joke or read something crazy. It makes me sad, because I know Kacey and I will never share it together.

  Like how I’ll never get to tell her about Grandpa Ike letting me drive his truck and hear her say, “No way! I want to try!”

  It’s almost funny, that everything that would make a normal person happy is what makes me feel the most sad.

  Once we’re seated, a manager with overgrown eyebrows, who Mom says she knew in high school, introduces himself to the rest of us as Just-Call-Me-Reese. As soon as he drops off a basket of on-the-house hush puppies and honey butter, Mom clears her throat.

  “Roddie,” she says, “would you like to ask Ethan anything about his day?”

  Roddie shrugs. “Not really.”

  Mom purses her lips together.

  “What about you, Ethan? Are you curious to know how your brother’s settling in?”

  I glance over at Roddie. He’s squinting at the TV in the corner by the bar. “I guess so,” I say.

  Dad nudges Roddie. “Well, son? What do you want to tell your brother about school?”

  Roddie rolls his eyes. “You guys want to know about school? Fine. There’s no baseball team. All the kids here care about is football. I don’t have any friends because I can’t understand what anyone’s saying through those backwater accents. I’m studying the stuff we did in eighth grade back in Boston. Oh, and my guidance counselor put me in music class even though I don’t play an instrument, because that’s the only elective she could fit me into. So, in summary, everything pretty much sucks. Anything else you want to know?”

  Mom’s face has gone beet red, and Dad is tapping on his place mat and looking very much like he regrets asking Roddie anything.

  Just-Call-Me-Reese suddenly pops up next to our table. “Can I answer any questions for you folks?” he says, pointing at the greasy laminate menus. He stares at Mom with a weird grin on his face.

  “Can you turn on the Red Sox game?” Roddie says, gesturing to the TV, which is showing recaps of some kind of fishing tournament.

  “I think we need a minute with the menus, please,” Dad mumbles.

  After Just-Call-Me-Reese shuffles off, Mom clears her throat again. “Well, we’re glad that you shared that with us, Roddie,” she says. “We’ll have to work on finding some ways to make school more fun for you.”

  “Yes,” says Dad. “Maybe you could even ask about starting a baseball team.”

  “Whatever,” says Roddie, whose attention is now turned to the game.

  “What about you, Ethan?” Mom asks. “Tell us about the friend you were with today.”

  “Her name is Coralee,” I say. “She’s new too, kind of. She got expelled from boarding school because she used dish soap to turn the dance studio into a Slip’N Slide. So she came back to Palm Knot.”

  “Your friend was expelled from boarding school?” Dad asks, shooting Mom a look of alarm.

  “Only because a girl broke her ankle,” I explain. “By accident. It’s actually a funny story.”

  “A Slip’N Slide in the dance studio? I don’t know why that rings a bell,” Mom muses. “I must be having déjà vu.”

  “Are you sure this friend is a good influence?” Dad asks.

  “Please listen to your brother, Roddie,” Mom commands. “And take off your baseball cap.”

  Roddie’s eyes stay glued to the screen. “The game’s on.”

  “Your brother listened to you,” Dad says. “Now you need to listen to him.”

  “I am listening. Ethan’s got a friend, and you don’t like it because she got expelled. I say let him have a friend. Isn’t that why you dragged us all the way to this hellhole? So he could pretend to be a normal kid?”

  “Roddie!” Mom yelps. “You apologize to Ethan this instant.”

  Roddie crosses his arms over his chest.

  Dad slams his hand down on the table, something I’ve only seen him do a handful of times. The customers around us go quiet, and I sink a little lower into my seat.

  “Roderick Truitt!” he exclaims. “You apologize to your brother or leave this table.”

  “It’s okay, Dad,” I mutter. But no one listens.

  “And take off your baseball cap!” Mom snaps.

  Roddie sneers. “Fine. I’ll walk home.”

  I stare at the walls so I don’t have to see my parents’ faces when Roddie gets up and stalks out. There are pictures of smiling people barbecuing on the beach, volleyball teams posing
in the sand, and painted signs that say things like It’s 5 O’Clock Somewhere and Beach Is a State of Mind.

  Mom and Dad have a quiet argument over whether to follow him, which ends with Dad reminding Mom that Roddie is old enough to take care of himself.

  For some reason it makes me a little sad, that they let him go so easily when they haven’t wanted to let me out of their sight for weeks.

  “Ethan?” Mom says gently. “Don’t think about what Roddie said, okay, honey? He’s still angry that we made him leave Boston. He’s mad at us, not you.”

  “We think it’s great that you have a new friend,” Dad says.

  “How was the rest of your day?” Mom asks, patting down her hair. She is trying to make things feel normal again. Another of Dr. Gorman’s cardinal rules. Normalcy is key to healing. As if anything in my life will ever be normal again.

  I tell them about the diorama projects and the red wolves. Dad says one weekend we’ll take our own field trip to see them if I want. Maybe my new friend Coralee could come too.

  “That would be cool, Dad,” I say. “Thanks.”

  By the time we order and Just-Call-Me-Reese brings out our fish and shrimp sandwiches, nobody is very hungry.

  On the way home, we pass Roddie walking on the side of the road. Dad rolls down the window and tells him to get in, but he glares into the car and shakes his head.

  “No thanks,” he spits.

  Dad punches the gas and mutters something about teaching him a lesson.

  Off-Limits

  GRANDPA IKE’S TRUCK IS gone when we get back to the house, even though he said he was staying home for dinner.

  He’s gone a lot for an old man who just wants to be left alone. I wonder where he goes. It’s not like he has a lot of choices in Palm Knot.

  Maybe he just leaves to get away from us. Maybe he just drives.

  I go into the kitchen, still hazy with leftover smoke, to get a snack before creaking up the stairs to start on my English homework. But when I reach the landing, my eye catches on Grandpa Ike’s door.

  It’s been firmly shut ever since we arrived, but now it stands just a crack open.