“Gahhh.” I got up and went to the refrigerator, stared at its clean exterior for a sec then fell forward with all of my weight, landing on my hands onto the face of it, shoulder height and leaning into the door, twisting my hands, mushing them around, as hard as I could.
“What are you doing?”
“The refrigerator needed a good massage."
"Oh."
Lord. Was this guy the wettest wet rag ever.
"Getting some goat’s milk. What does it look like.”
He shrugged his slumped shoulders once and went back to eating.
I pulled off of the door and yanked at the handle. Opening it, I put my face behind the door, kind of hiding there. Then I just stared inside letting the quick cool air blow into my hot soul. I shut my eyes and tried to remember only twelve months before, only eleven months. Back to dad. Back to that last night.
I shook the image out of my mind.
I wondered what Matt's last memory of his mom was.
A guilt-ridden wave of consideration coursed through my very essence. I rolled my eyes into the over packed guts of the fridge and leaned back. “Want some.” It wasn’t very convincing.
“Goat’s milk?” He made this stupid face, cheeks bulging with meat and potatoes like a freaking squirrel at a pot-luck barbeque where everyone invited brought only nuts, like he was sitting in a freaking restaurant or something and the waitress, me in the restaurant scenario, just asked him for his order.
“This is not McDonald’s.”
“I dare say, not.”
I glared at him. “Look. Do you want some or not?”
“Sure.” He said. And, went back to shoveling in the food.
I slammed the door with the gallon jug in hand and turned to the cupboard, pulled out two very large, 20-ounce, of my fave Hannah Montana tumblers and filled them both, to the rim.
Goat’s milk is an acquired taste. I snickered.
“So, what were you doing?”
“When?”
“Yesterday... the screaming...” Like he was prompting me or something.
“Oh.” I put the jug back making sure when I shut the refrigerator that I placed my fingers and hands all over the front of it after closing it. “That.” I picked up the glasses balancing them as I walked to the table and set his down in front of his plate. I took a big gulp and set my tumbler down and then I sat again.
He picked up his glass of milk and stared at it. Then he smelled it. Then stared at it again.
He took one gulp. I mean not like he was testing it. No. He took one big long gulp. All at once. He didn’t stop drinking it from the moment his lips touched the rim until the glass was drained. When he was done, he set the tumbler back down, empty, on the table.
I just stared. He was so starting to get on my nerves.
“Not bad.”
If he burped I was winding up to crack him in the forehead with my fork. But, he didn't. I shook my head and began to eat again.
“My science project.”
"Hmm?"
"Yesterday. Outside."
“Ahh.”
“What’s yours?”
“Incubating an egg.”
“How consumingly interesting.” Dork.
His head bounced in agreement. Double Dork.
Mom laughed loud from the other room. I shook my head.
“Your mom is nice.”
I felt a pang in my stomach like someone had stabbed me. I refused to say his dad was nice.
“What happened to your mom?”
“Breast cancer.”
I leaned back in my chair. A wave of remorse made my face go hot. “Oh.”
“What about you. What happened to your dad?”
“Car accident.” Matt nodded like he understood. “Death by snow plow.”
He frowned at me. “Tragic.”
“I’ll say.” We both started to eat again. “When did your mom die?”
“May 4th.” Only five months back.
“Still fresh, the wound.” I remembered a friend of mom’s from work, saying that at dad’s funeral. Still fresh, the wound. I hated her when she said it. I wondered if Matt hated me just then.
He nodded his head again as he stared at his plate, poking at dinner.
“Pru.”
He looked at me. “Huh?”
“Pru. As in prurient? Like, duh.” I one-upped him.
He just nodded like he understood. “Pru,” he whispered out and then repeated, “Pru.” Like he got it!
I looked at him and poked at my food too. Then, we said it together, real slow-like.
TWENTY - A Meeting of Like-minds
When I flicked on the light, everything went from radical darkness to radical brightness in silver tones cast off by the fluorescent light above the toilet. I knew it bothered her eyes. I hated the bright light as a spider myself. We spiders dig the nighttime.
“Cool!” He nearly screamed.
“Just don’t talk loud. It bothers her.” I squeezed in-between Matt and my science project, facing him. We had entered the realm of all things spider—the part of the bathroom with the bathtub... and a SPIDER!!!
“How do you know?”
“I just do, dork. Don’t ask stupid questions.”
"Is it alive?"
"Of course she's alive. You don't think I'm going to turn in a dead science project to the science-project-Nazi, do you?"
He giggled at my reference to Morlson, the gack.
"Let's go. I don't like to interrupt her, her, her... spider-ness." ‘Course, by then, I felt like I shouldn’t have called him dork. It just came out. Sorry 'bout that.
I grabbed Matt by the shoulders, pushed him around and out, turning off the light and then closing off that part of the bathroom.
“It’s intriguing.”
“Intriguing?” I like, smirked and blew out air in a putter between my lips. “How old are you?” I shook my head. “Intriguing.” If this was what having a boyfriend was like, the world was in serious trouble.
“I’m fifteen.”
“No. Duh. Really?” We were standing in the main area now staring at each other and talking through our reflections in the mirror. I opened my mouth but kept my teeth together as I inspected them for food particles.
A little piece of meat had wedged its way into a crevice between my right incisor and my right canine. I picked at it but it wouldn’t dislodge. I actually ended up pressing it in deeper with my fingernail. So, instead, I kinked open the faucet and bent my face under, cupping my hand filling my palm with water. I sucked enough into my mouth and swished it around, real fast, from cheek to cheek and through my front teeth. Then, spewed it out and sure enough, a nasty little brown scab of meat went swirling around the basin in an eddy and went swooshing down the drain.
Matt must’ve seen.
“Gross.”
He just stared without laughing or making any kind of facial expression. He was like a robot, a word robot that moved around and watched me and my mom outside his own bathroom window while he brushed his teeth. Major freak feature, that.
“Don’t look if it grosses you out.” I’m a problem-solver.
“Want to come over and see my egg?”
“Dying to.”
“K.”
No lie. He said K.
We walked out of the bathroom and turned left instead of going back toward the kitchen. I could feel Moose's head turn to look at us when we both appeared in the entryway of the dining room.
Mom and Paul acted like we’d interrupted a most stimulating discussion because they both spun their heads toward us when we appeared.
Guilty. As. Charged!
“Hi honey.” Don’t honey me.
“We’ll be back.”
“Where are you two kids off to?” The maple syrup was definitely flowing off the china, onto the oak table, dripping down its curvy seductive legs and curdling in a puddle on the Berber carpeting.
God.
“Gah.” I just turned and walke
d off.
Matt handled it. “We’re going to check on my egg.”
“Good boy, Matt.” His dad sounded like his son was this year’s first place winner for the Albert Einstein Awards.
TWENTY ONE - The Horror of It All
The Ryder’s hadn’t switched on a front porch light before leaving there house for dinner with us that night and it felt kind of spooky when we reached the door.
I could make out the space, sure, but only in variant shades of loneliness--a gray beam that stood under the porch’s awning and its equal offset about six feet wide just before making one step up onto a gunmetal concrete platform. A dim nightlight from inside shown through a pair of windows that sandwiched the door and cast off a sickle-shaped glow of Halloween orange onto the floor.
I breathed in but my breath caught to protect me. The air around the door smelled like cold scummy pond water, like the septic system had reached its limit. A shudder rose up in me so strong that I had to talk myself out of trembling. I did by pretending to be my superhuman self, right then, right there.
Matt pressed the toggle of the handle creating a distinct “click” to let us know the door would open. He turned back and looked at me.
For the first time since we’d met, a surge of pity enveloped me. Even in the gloom I could see the whites of his eyes. They seemed larger, more knowing. Then, he blinked blanking out the whites and left them shut for way longer than a normal person might blink.
I wanted to turn and run home but didn’t want him to see me get all squirrelly, acting like a girl, you know?
I rubbed both of my arms. I was shallow breathing to avoid getting too much of the stink up my nose.
“Come on. It’s cold.” The words came out in short bursts. “Are we going to do this, or not.” My tough veneer would not be tarnished.
“Guess so.” He took in a deep breath of the fowl air around us. Like sitting on the toilet for too long, you get used to an environment, you don't notice what others new to the scene will.
He pushed against the door and it chirred open as if the unoiled hinges had been whittled out of jagged steel. My teeth hurt from the coarse sound of metal on metal. I wondered why I hadn’t noticed it when mom and I came over before but tonight, under the moonless pitch of the sky, you notice things like that, noises that don't sound right.
Then, we walked in.
If the smell outside the door didn't stop you, the one inside did.
I felt my knees go weak and covered my mouth. I couldn’t imagine what had gone so terribly wrong in just the short amount of time they'd lived here.
Matt flipped on the light and the sour dark became sour incandescent. They had these coiled looking pinkish tinged bulbs hanging out from only their sockets—nary a decorative cover on one—everywhere. The foyer shown cold and harsh under the garish light.
When I looked down to step inside, the black skid marks, still scuffed but now grittier, marked a trail to the kitchen off to the right.
“It’s this way.” He said.
He walked deeper in, leading me first straight and then turning left down the hall. I followed, up to a point, but my head couldn’t help but turn and gaze into the kitchen.
Pizza boxes. Beer bottles in the sink. Chairs hanging out from under the table like loose teeth and the rancid smell, originating here, like old rotting tomatoes and sour milk.
I couldn’t move from my spot. It was like one of those dreams where you're standing in the street. Your feet won't move and there's a car speeding toward you, as if the filth itself held me down, shackling and anchoring me to the floor but by my nose, there in front of the kitchen.
Then, Matt appeared, next to me.
He grabbed my forearm pulling me away.
“This way.”
“Oh. Yeah. Right.”
TWENTY TWO - Calgon! Take Me Away!
As we got closer to Matt’s room, the smell eased but only minutely. And, when we reached his room he slipped through the door, flipping on the overhead light, motioning in tiny spinning movements with his hand to come in quickly. I slipped in behind him and he closed the door, fast.
The odor went from curdled to Glade fresh. A bottle of Febreeze sat on top of a dinged-up wooden desk of debatable origin--like Thrift Store met Junk Yard.
Then, Matt flicked up a little silver switch that held a lamp above another aquarium—aquariums are HOT for science projects, you know—and a beacon shone onto a sole and lonely-looking egg that had been nestled in a thousand strips of paper towels which I assumed Matt had shredded.
Its mottled shell had a textured creamy appearance and looked about the size of a goose’s, not a chicken’s.
"It's big."
"It's an extra large chicken egg."
“I'll say." We stared together for a moment and then I said, "Shouldn’t that light be on all the time?” I bent over the aquarium and peered in at the egg.
“Should it?”
“Well, is that its heat source, for incubating?”
“Um. Well. No.”
“No?”
“Huh uh.” He then stepped in closer and I moved out of the way. He lifted up the aquarium and below it on a bright lime green resin cutting board sat a kitchen towel with cherries dancing across the trim of it and on top of that a white wavy-looking heating pad. “Feel.” He gestured with his head at the pad.
I placed my hand on it. The warmth tingled my frosty fingers. “Nice.” Then I added. “Smart.”
He smiled big. "Smart? Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"When it hatches, I'll turn the light on during the daytime. Off at night." He flipped it off then and we stood there, in his room, alone, staring at each other.
I hadn't noticed before how thick Matt's eyebrows were until then, like Colin Ferrell thick. Pretty.
He smiled. I guess I'd been staring too long.
"Your report done?" He moved to his computer and flipped open the screen.
"Almost. I need to add some pics and my hypothesis about spiders and how they make a living."
He snuffled out a laugh. "A living."
As he repeated things I said, I started to realize how they might sound, my words, you know and their effect on him. But, by all means, I did NOT want him to get all friendly and close. You know. Like intimate. Asking me questions about my favorite color... or what sign I was born under (Leo)... or my favorite music (JUSTIN!!!).
"I better go."
"Oh."
I just nodded my head kind of slow-like.
"Okay." He said and moved forward toward me with his arm up. Like he was going to hug me, or something.
"What are you doing?" I looked at his arm.
" Shutting off the light."
Oh. Man. Who was the total freakin' dork, now!?. Oh. I know! Pick me, pick me! Holy.
"Right." I pointed to the switch. "That. Of course." I rolled my eyes and spun around to the exit. To my escape.
TWENTY THREE - Mom Can't Date Yet!
After saying our sayonaras, Matt closed the door behind me. I stood there alone under a thick dense sky. He'd forgotten to turn on the porch light.
By feeling my way off the step I made it to their walkway without falling. Good thing too 'cause the upper crust girls, Cinda and Melinda (I know--the rhyming fruitcakes), at school always made fun of girls like me, girls with scraped-up knees. And, their boyfriends? Like all of the boys at once on all of the teams at high school! Snort. Well, those boys, boys like Joe Swagg and David Nellis, picked on other weakling boys, by knocking their backpacks off and hitting them in the backs of the heads. That sort of stuff. Nothing too violent in terms of physicality, but in terms of psyche? It was an almond-crusher. If I do say so myself.
'Course, popular girls, like Cinda and Melinda, also got involved in future-producing after school curricula like student gov and cheerleading. Gag. And. Puke.
Any. Who-hoo-dee-doo.
My eyes adjusted to the night and I walked toward a chunky globe light fixture that dad ha
d hung a couple of years ago. It seemed to guide me back to some sort of safety.
But, then, that grimy Paul walked out from under it, through our front door. It stopped me like getting run down by a train.
"Night, Paul." Her words rung out like a distant funeral psalm.
"Night." He turned to walk away. "Thanks again. Dinner was wonderful."
"Paul?"
He stopped and turned. They hadn't seen me yet.
"Paul. Um. If you ever need to talk. You know."
There was this mother-with-her-new-boyfriend awkward moment between them.
I wanted to cry. My hands flew up to my mouth to stop me from screaming out to God, to dad, to anyone who would understand the sinking ache in my heart.
"I'll call you. Thanks, Willa. I really needed tonight."
My body took over.
My legs barreled into a gallop and I flew by him.
"Susie." Paul tipped his head at me.
I didn't look at him. Didn't even acknowledge him. When I reached the door. I stopped in front of her and glared. Both my hands slammed onto my hips. My body went rigid.
"Susie?" She tipped her head to the side like a stupid dog. "What's wrong, honey?"
"You're acting like a..." The tears burnt holes behind my eyes, "Oh, forget it!" I pushed past her and ran to my room.
This was definitely a saxophone-playing kind of night.
TWENTY FOUR - Why Do Things Have to Change...
It took me a half-hour to calm down when she knocked on my door. It took her a half-hour to clean up from her pathetic dinner date.
She wanted to talk. Bleh.
Her voice sounded muffled. "Susie? Honey. Can I come in?"
I rolled off my stomach and wiped my face, "I'm working on my report," and jumped up to get my laptop. Sitting fast at the desk, acting like I'd been there all night long.
She tapped again. "I'm coming in, okay?"
"I can't stop you."
The door cracked open about an inch. From the corner of my eye I could see her eyes making an assessment of me, the room, homework. Thank God and hallelujah I'd left my computer on earlier because the screen opened up to my science project paper.
Spider Brains: A Love Story (Book One) Page 8
