Floater

by Gary Brandner

  By the end of the day Frazier had nearly despaired of ever getting close to Lindy alone. Depressed and disgusted with himself for not finding the right opportunity, he trudged down the wide concrete steps of the high school. Halfway to the bottom, he came to a sudden stop. Miraculously, there she was, sitting alone on a stone bench along one of the footpaths that wound from the main building toward the new boys’ gym. She had a book open in her lap and was reading. A light breeze ruffled her blue-black hair, pushing a lock repeatedly down across her forehead. Frazier found her gesture in brushing the hair back one of such unconscious grace that a lump grew in his throat. He hurried back inside to his locker, retrieved the package, still in its anonymous grocery bag, and came back out.

  Lindy was still on the bench. Frazier’s heart hammered as he walked down the path toward her. He carried the wrapped figurine as though it might explode if he jarred it.

  In his mind he ran through an opening gambit.

  Casual: Hi, Lindy, I thought you might be able to use this. No, no, no. Way too casual.

  Practical: Say, Lindy, I don’t have any place to keep this myself, so …. Whoa, he’d have to do better than that.

  Beseeching: I hope this will in some way replace your recent loss. Balls, he might as well crawl up on all fours and lick her hand.

  Romantic: A beautiful piece of work like this should belong to a beautiful girl like you. Who was he kidding? That was dialogue from the late-late show. Anyway, he could no more get those words out than he could grow a face like Fabian.

  The best thing to do was just play it by ear. Let her set the pace. He’d walk up to the bench, maybe sit down next to her. A little preliminary chitchat. Then:

  What’s in the package, Frazier?

  This? Oh, just a little knickknack I thought you might like.

  (Did people still say “knickknack”?)

  Really? How exciting. May I open it now?

  Sure, why not?

  (A flurry of unwrapping accompanied by little squeals of excitement.)

  Ooh, Frazier, you shouldn’t have! (Corny, but he’d love it.) What a darling you are. I’m going to give you a great big kiss.

  The fantasy popped in his face like a punctured balloon. When he was a dozen or so steps away from her, Lindy Grant was no longer alone. Roman Dixon, grinning and sweaty in his gym shorts, and Alec MacDowell, his faithful hanger-on, had strolled up from the other direction on the path and had Lindy Grant surrounded.

  Frazier could not simply turn around now and walk back the other way. That would be too obvious. His only course was to saunter past them as though he just happened to be passing by on his way to the gym.

  The three of them were talking and laughing together now as though it were the most natural thing in the world. How, he wondered did they ever manage it with such ease? Frazier moved to the outside of the path as he passed the trio, shifting the package to his outside arm and concealing it as best he could with his body.

  “Hi, Roman,” he said, damning the squeak in his voice. “Hi, Alec. Hi, Lin …”

  But then he was beyond them. None of the three had spoken to him. They hadn’t even looked over at him. He might as well be invisible.

  Trying to keep his step jaunty and unconcerned, Frazier continued to the new gym, and hung around there just inside the door until Lindy, Roman, and Alec had left and the path was clear for him to go on home.

  He managed to get the package into the house and up to his room without his parents seeing him. No way he wanted to answer any questions about what he had in the bag and who it was for.

  When the family sat down around the dinner table that night, Frazier’s mother knew something was wrong. She kept eyeing Frazier with that gentle yet piercing look she had when she was suspicious about something. His father, of course, saw nothing amiss. He went through dinner relating one of his complicated anecdotes about the adventures of his students at the college, laughing heartily at his own scholarly wit.

  As soon as he reasonably could, Frazier excused himself from the table and retreated to his room. He lay on the bed, under which he had stuffed the bagged figurine, and stared at the ceiling where three years before a spider had opened up a mysterious world for him.

  His thoughts were not on the spider tonight. Not on escape through his secret window. All he could see was his wimpy failure to give the shepherdess to the girl of his dreams. If he was ever going to assert himself about anything, this had to be it.

  With sudden resolve he pulled the package from its hiding place, concealed it as best he could under his coat, and headed for the front door.

  His mother looked up from the piano. “Where are you going, dear?”

  “Library,” he mumbled, finding it hard to get the lie out. He hurried through the door before she could ask any more questions.

  He climbed the Elm Street hill, feeling furtive and somehow guilty as he clutched the package to his chest. The night air was crisp and cold and made the insides of his nostrils tingle. When he reached the Grant house he stood for several minutes across the street and stared up at the lighted bedroom window on the second floor. He could see nothing inside from this angle, but sensual memories nipped at his testicles.

  Finally, with a huge indrawn breath, he marched across the street, up the front walk, and rang Lindy Grant’s doorbell.

  He barely had time to think, Omigod, what am I doing? when the door was opened by a handsome, graying man with a pipe in one hand. Judge Grant. Lindy’s father.

  “Yes?”

  “I-is Lindy home?” Of all the goddamn rotten times to stammer.

  “She’s upstairs,” said Mr. Grant. “Who shall I tell her is calling?”

  “I’m F-Frazier Nunley. I’m in her class at school.”

  Wendell Grant’s wise, kindly eyes took in the boy’s age, his discomfiture, the ill-wrapped package half-hidden by the too-big coat. He said, “Come on in, Frazier. I’ll go up and tell her you’re here.”

  Frazier stood in the warm hallway watching Mr. Grant ascend the stairs, and fighting a sudden need to urinate. His twanging nerves screamed for him to bolt through the door and run into the night, but his mind told him it was too late for that.

  • • •

  Upstairs Lindy’s father delivered the message.

  “Frazier Nunley?” Lindy repeated. “What in the world does he want, I wonder?”

  “I did not ask the purpose of the young man’s call,” Wendell Grant said with an amused smile. “I will say it seemed to be of some importance.”

  He talked that way sometimes when he was having a little fun with Lindy.

  “I can’t imagine … oh well, I might as well see what it’s about.”

  • • •

  Frazier managed a rictus that passed for a smile as Wendell Grant returned.

  “Lindy will be down in a minute,” he said. “Would you like to come in and sit down?”

  “Oh, no thanks, I don’t … I won’t … I can’t stay. I’ll just s-stand here.” Oh, shit! Stupid stupid stupid!

  “Suit yourself.” Mr. Grant gave him a warm smile and vanished into the living room.

  Frazier stood fighting his impatient bladder. Jesus, what if I piss my pants?

  Then She came down the stairs. No film goddess ever descended into a room more gracefully and beautifully than did Lindy Grant to the waiting Frazier.

  “Hi,” she said, the question clear in her tone.

  All the prepared speeches, the clever openings, the ready remarks vanished. Frazier thought for a terrible moment he was going to faint.

  “H-hi,” he got out at last. “I … well, I just thought maybe you’d like this.”

  He shoved the package toward her, then awkwardly pulled it back to remove the grocery bag. He offered it again. By this time the gift wrapping was bunched and crumpled.

  Lindy stared at it.

  “It’s for you,” he said, wishing the floor would open beneath his feet. “Take it.”

  Lindy accepted th
e package tentatively from his trembling hands. “What in the world is it? Do you want me to open it?”

  “No,” he blurted. “I mean open it after I’m gone.” Then, an afterthought: “I hope you like it.”

  And Frazier Nunley turned away from the girl of his dreams and fled into the night. He ran all the way down Elm Street to his own house, the breath wheezing painfully in and out of his lungs when he got there. His big chance — the one he had dreamed and fantasized about for more than a year — and he had screwed it up. At that moment he loathed himself more than ever in his life.

  • • •

  “Your friend leave?” Wendell Grant asked.

  “He’s not really a friend,” Lindy said. She was still standing in the hallway, looking at the clumsily wrapped package in her hands.

  “He brought you a present?”

  “I don’t know why he would.” Lindy hesitated a moment longer, then danced up the stairs to her room, leaving her father with a puzzled smile.

  Seated on her bed, she tore away the wrapping paper and pulled off the layers of tissue. She gasped as she recognized the little shepherdess, and held it out at arm’s length, turning it this way and that.

  What a terribly nice and thoughtful thing to do, she thought. She carried the figure over to the chest of drawers and placed it next to the picture of her mother. It was almost a perfect match for the one she had broken. What a strange and really nice thing for Frazier Nunley, of all people, to do. She had badly missed the little shepherdess since the night she —

  Wait a minute! How could Frazier have known she’d broken the other one. Lindy had told no one, not even her father. How could Frazier even have known there was another one? He’d certainly never been in her bedroom.

  She whirled toward the window. The blind was up as always. She hurried over and looked down on a patch of empty sidewalk on the other side of the street.

  Why that sneaky, spying little sonofabitch!

  She remembered then what she had been doing the night she broke the shepherdess. Trying on the cat costume, dancing around and … and … Oh, God!

  Her father tapped on the door and opened it. Lindy blushed as though he had caught her with her hand in her own pants.

  Wendell Grant did not appear to notice his daughter’s sudden embarrassment. He said, “More company, Lindy. Roman and Alec are downstairs.”

  The boys were waiting for her in the Grants’ basement party room when Lindy came down. Roman was drinking a Pepsi from the bottle while Alec rolled the balls around the pool table.

  “Damn,” Lindy said by way of greeting.

  “Something the matter?” Roman asked.

  “I’m just so mad I could spit, that’s all.”

  Alec came over from the pool table. “What’s the problem?”

  “I don’t believe it,” Lindy said. “I just flat do not believe it.”

  “Believe what?” Roman prodded.

  “That Frazier Nunley. That kid. The junior brain.”

  “Frazier?” Roman repeated. “What’d he do?”

  “He was out in the street looking through my window the other night. He saw me” — Lindy caught herself — “naked,” she finished.

  “The hell you say.” Alec’s eyes were bright.

  “Are you sure?” Roman asked.

  “Darn right I’m sure.” She told them about the broken shepherdess and how Frazier had brought her a replacement.

  “That’s pretty nervy,” Alec said.

  Lindy softened. “I don’t know, maybe he meant it as an apology,” she said.

  “Apology, hell,” Roman said. His big hands balled into fists. “I’ll pound some apology into that creep.”

  Roman Dixon was painfully aware that he had never seen Lindy naked, and they were supposed to be going steady.

  “Should we go get him tonight?” Alec said.

  “I don’t think you have to beat him up or anything,” Lindy put in.

  “We can’t let him get away with it,” Roman said. “You don’t want him walking around thinking he can do that anytime he wants to.”

  “No-o-o,” Lindy said doubtfully. “But he’s so much smaller than you, it wouldn’t be fair.”

  “Was it fair for him to stand out there and … and look at you like that?”

  “He’s really just a kid.”

  “So what?”

  “I don’t think you ought to hurt him.”

  “How about if I just squeeze him a little?”

  “Wait a minute,” Alec said. “I’ve got an idea how we can teach the creep a lesson he’ll never forget and not hurt a hair on his brainy little head.”

  The others turned to Alec MacDowell to hear the idea that would change all of their lives.

  CHAPTER 12

  Frazier managed to stall through the next day by feigning symptoms of the flu. He lay in his bed agonizing over what a jackass he had made of himself with Lindy Grant. Running away, for Christ sake! The worst possible thing he could have done. Sooner or later he was going to have to face her, and staying home in bed today would only prolong the moment.

  Besides, he didn’t think his mother was fooled. She listened to his complaints of chills and fever, felt his forehead, told him to rest quietly, but her eyes told him she knew there was something much more going on with him than the flu. He almost wished he could talk to her about it, or to his preoccupied father, but he knew he would no sooner do that than he would compare methods of masturbation with them.

  The next day he recovered from the make-believe flu and trudged into school like a condemned man. While the rational part of his mind told him to get it over with fast and be done with it, he spent the day darting around corners and slipping into the boys’ room to avoid a face-to-face meeting with Lindy.

  At the end of the day his nerves were raw. What the hell was he afraid of? What was the worst thing that could happen? How bad could it be, anyway?

  She could shove the figurine back into his hands. I don’t accept presents from creepy little shits with acne and fat behinds. So take this piece of junk back and don’t ever come around me again.

  Okay, it could be pretty bad.

  Frazier felt utterly drained as he slouched down the steps of Wolf River High School after the last class of the day. So deep was he in his personal gloom that he didn’t hear the light footsteps hurrying down behind him.

  “Frazier? Wait up.”

  He turned, sick with dread. It was her.

  “I need to talk to you,” she said.

  “Oh, y-yes?” God, she was beautiful.

  “Not here.” She looked around conspiratorially. “Meet me at the Bean House in fifteen minutes.” She flashed a smile on and off and walked swiftly away.

  Frazier stood looking dumbly after her. He could not believe the sudden turn in his fortunes. Instead of ripping him apart with her scorn, Lindy had actually seemed friendly. She wanted to talk to him. Maybe the gift of the little shepherdess had had the desired effect after all.

  The Bean House owed its nickname to some past generation of Wolf River High students for reasons lost in the intervening years. The name on the blue-and-white sign over the service window was Riverview Burgers ‘n’ Shakes, but nobody ever called it anything but the Bean House.

  There was a fast service window and half a dozen Formica tables outside for fair weather. Inside were four small booths and a counter. Frazier arrived five minutes after talking to Lindy and hung around the door trying to look casual and failing miserably.

  The familiar candy-apple Chevy pulled up in front and Frazier’s heart dropped. Lindy Grant got out, but Roman Dixon and Alec were with her. He must have been crazy to think Lindy wanted to talk to him alone. Maybe they were going to beat the shit out of him. Right now he didn’t even care. At least then it would be over and done with.

  “Hi, Frazier,” Lindy said, seeming friendly enough, if a little nervous. “Let’s go in and get a booth.”

  Roman nodded at him and grunted some kind of
a greeting. Alec have him an oily smile.

  The four of them went inside and took one of the small booths and ordered Pepsis. Frazier sat on the inside, painfully aware of the radiating heat of Lindy’s body next to him. Across from them sat the broad-shouldered Roman and weasel-face Alec. Frazier could not figure out why everyone was smiling at him. It made him acutely uncomfortable.

  “We’ve been wanting to talk to you since school started,” Roman said.

  “You have?” It seemed to Frazier there had been ample opportunities.

  “That’s right,” Alec agreed. “We’ve got sort of an invitation for you.”

  Frazier searched the boys’ faces, looking for some sign of mockery. They seemed sincere enough.

  “You’ve heard of the Wolfpack,” Roman said.

  “Sure.” Who hadn’t?

  “How’d you like to join?” Roman tossed it off casually enough, but he might as well have asked, How’d you like to play quarterback for the Packers?

  “M-me?” Frazier stammered.

  “Sure,” Alec said. “We all figured we could use some brainpower in the Pack, and you’ve got the best brain in school. We talked it over and … everybody wants you.”

  Frazier thought his ears might be failing him. He looked to Lindy.

  She gave him the smile that made his stomach knot. “That’s right, Frazier.”

  “What do you say?” Roman asked.

  How much, he wondered, did Lindy have to do with this off-the-wall invitation? He said, “Well, sure, I guess so.”

  “That’s great,” Alec said. “We’ll shoot you right through the initiation, and you’ll be a full-fledged member of the Wolfpack.” He flashed his ring with the grinning wolfs head and the two red stones for eyes. “Then you’ll be wearing one of these.”

  “Initiation?” Frazier asked.