Wish

by Joseph Monninger

  “Well, hi,” she said when she fished her phone out of her purse, her voice turning instantly girlish, her eyes opening wide and glancing at me as if she had done something miraculous in receiving a phone call from a guy. “Jerrod, how nice to hear from you!”

  Tommy groaned softly and shook his head. I slid the card out and handed it to her. She stayed in the hall. Tommy and I went inside. Even through the wall we heard her turn into Mom Barbie, her voice filled with curlicues.

  “Hello, Jerrod,” Tommy imitated her, his voice going up in a funny falsetto. “How do you do?”

  “Good grief,” I said. “You’re almost as ridiculous as she is.”

  Tommy fell on the bed laughing. He picked up the TV remote and shot the set alive. He turned up the volume. He seemed tired and sleepy.

  I told Tommy to change his clothes and then went to the bathroom and looked at my face. The wind had burned me as it had Mr. Cotter. I turned back and forth, trying to see how red I was. I had raccoon eyes from where my sunglasses had covered me. I pulled my hair into a ponytail and washed my hands, then I studied my face a little. I looked like certain kinds of terrier dogs, sharp and pointed, and way too serious. Before I finished, Mom knocked on the bathroom door and pushed through. She smiled. I knew what was coming.

  “I’d like to meet Jerrod for a drink,” she said. “That is, if you don’t mind sitting with Tommy.”

  “And what if I do mind?” I asked, squeezing some moisturizer onto my hand. I rubbed it around my eyes and up on my forehead. It felt good on my skin.

  “Do you really care or are you just giving me a hard time?” Mom asked, coming to stand beside me and inspecting herself in the mirror. She grabbed the moisturizer and smeared her face with it, too.

  “Gee, I don’t know, Mom, we’re on a family trip and you want to go out on a date.”

  “For a drink, Bee,” she said. “He’s going to be nearby this evening and he just wants to meet for a drink. Sorry for trying to have a life.”

  “This is Tommy’s trip,” I said. “Four measly days.”

  “And we took him out and we saw a shark,” Mom said, her eyes meeting mine in the mirror. “And last night we stayed together. Tonight I’d like to go out and meet a gentleman who said he wanted to buy me a drink. Is that a crime? I’ll leave you money. You can go and get a pizza or whatever you like.”

  “Whatever,” I said. “Knock yourself out, Mom.”

  “It’s easy to be critical,” Mom said, pushing her hand hard against her cheek to keep the flesh going up, not down, “but you try raising two children on your own.”

  “And that means you need to go out on a date?”

  “It means,” she said, emphasizing the means, “that on occasion I want adult company, yes.”

  “Adult male.”

  “It would be nice to have a man in my life, Bee. Sorry if that disappoints you.”

  “It’s so predictable.”

  She looked at me.

  “I won’t be late,” she said.

  “Of course you won’t.”

  “I’ll always be your mother,” she said, her voice crowding me somehow. “I’m afraid you’re doomed.”

  “Lucky me. What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Well, that none of us is perfect.” She rubbed the last of the moisturizer away. “And that we’re locked together, like it or not.”

  “That’s got nothing to do with you going out on a date.”

  She shrugged. I shrugged back.

  “She going?” Tommy asked from the bed.

  I nodded.

  He nodded.

  “What do you want to eat?” he asked.

  “I don’t care. Want to get room service?”

  “You think that’s okay?”

  “It’s your trip, you little skunk boy.”

  “I’ve always wanted room service.”

  “Your wish is my command, master.”

  Tommy smiled. He was half asleep. We watched television. The sun went down and I got up and closed the drapes. He pulled the bedspread over his chest but left his legs out. His chin almost rested on his chest. Mom came back and forth, dressing. The last time she went through the room she smelled of perfume.

  After Mom left, Tommy ordered a turkey club with curly fries and a diet soda. I ordered a Philly cheesesteak with sweet potato fries. We watched an old episode of Friends while we waited for the food to arrive. The waiter who brought the food up was gray and creaky on his feet and had a gut the size of a backpack gummed onto his waist. His name tag said Wayne. He set the food down on the bench at the foot of the bed, then he hung around a little until it occurred to me that I was supposed to tip him. Luckily, I had seen Mom stash the envelope Mr. Cotter had given her for incidentals. I fished out five dollars and handed them to Wayne.

  “Thank you, miss,” he said.

  “Thank you, Wayne,” I said as if I had a choice.

  I showed him out. Tommy tried to get up to get his food but he had a little trouble swinging himself out, so I carried it over to him. I spread a towel over his legs and put his plates on his lap. He needed to wear his vest soon, I knew. I grabbed my own food and sat next to him. We didn’t talk much as we watched the cast of Friends act stupid. And when they did something that was supposed to be touching and the sound track made an awwwwww sound, I looked at Tommy and crossed my eyes. I snagged some of his curly fries.

  “You feeling okay?” I asked him when we were about halfway through our sandwiches.

  “Just tired,” he said.

  “Try to eat. You had a long day.”

  “I’m not that hungry,” he said.

  I grabbed the remote control and turned the volume down. I put the back of my hand to his forehead, testing him for fever. His eyes looked glassy.

  “We need to put you in the vest,” I said. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

  He shrugged.

  “Come on,” I said. “Spill it.”

  He started to cry a little. He never does that.

  “You didn’t like today very much,” I said. “Is that it?”

  He wiped the back of his hand against his eyes. I got up and lifted the plates from his lap. He looked beat suddenly, and more defeated than I had ever seen him.

  “You can tell me,” I said. “Go ahead.”

  “It’s nothing,” he said around his tears. “It’s just …”

  “You’re disappointed.”

  “I just thought it would be different. I thought I was going to dive in the cage. That’s what they said. That was the whole point of coming out here. But it didn’t happen.”

  “You saw a shark,” I said. “And blood.”

  “Anyone could do that.”

  “I’m sorry. I get what you’re saying.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “I know. But I understand what you mean. It was nearly what you wanted, but it wasn’t, and now you have to pretend that it was, right?”

  He nodded.

  “Remember the dress Mom bought me for the ninth-grade dance?” I asked. “I’d seen one that was exactly what I wanted, but then Mom went out and bought me something sort of like it and I had to pretend that it was perfect. Only it wasn’t. And I went to the dance and I didn’t feel pretty, and I hated the dress, hated everything about that night. So I don’t blame you.”

  I put his vest on him and we sat for a long time watching television. By eight o’clock Tommy had fallen asleep with his arms out, the chest vibrations still jiggling his cheeks.

  I waited up until midnight. Mom didn’t come back.

  “You think she stayed over with him?” Tommy asked.

  It was early morning. Tommy lay in bed, the remote in his hand. A single stream of weak light pushed through the crack in the curtains. I didn’t say anything. Instead I rolled over and pretended to sleep. I listened to him flicking around the TV stations. He wasn’t allowed to watch so much television at home and we didn’t have cable anyway. He was being a little TV piglet.
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  He went to the cartoon station and stayed there awhile. The next time I looked up he had found some ridiculous show about guys going out in boats to catch Alaskan king crabs. The show consisted of big waves crashing over a small boat and the guys yelling back and forth to see if they were okay. Then Tommy went back to the cartoons.

  “Why does she do that, Bee?” Tommy asked a little later.

  “Ask her,” I said, my face turned down into the pillow. “That’s her stuff.”

  “Is she a sex fiend?” he asked.

  I had to laugh.

  “No, you little twerp,” I said, lifting my head from the pillow, “your mother is not a sex fiend.”

  “Then why would she stay over there?” he asked, his eyes on the television. “She usually comes home no matter what.”

  “Not always.” I sighed. “You should ask her.”

  “I’m asking you, Bee.”

  I sat up and pushed the hair off my face. My mouth tasted gross from the french fries. My lips still had salt on them.

  “I think she’s afraid of getting old,” I said. “Afraid of ending up alone. It’s complicated.”

  “But we’re here,” he said. “We’re her family.”

  I nodded. I saw myself in the mirror behind the television and pushed my hair off my face more.

  “She doesn’t do it to be mean to us,” I said. “She does it to make herself feel better. It’s weird, I know. When she has a guy tell her she’s cool and sexy and all that, then she feels better about herself. She isn’t really thinking, she reacts to the moment.”

  “It’s bogus,” he said. “Really bogus.”

  “I agree.”

  “Is it a girl thing?”

  “A little bit. But boys do it, too. Some boys go from woman to woman thinking anything that goes wrong is the woman’s fault. They keep picking up the same rock and getting mad at it when it isn’t gold.”

  “Did you just make that up?”

  “Which part?”

  “The gold thing. That’s ridiculous.”

  “Is that so?” I said, then chucked my pillow at him. “Well, maybe it is.”

  I went into the bathroom and washed my face and brushed my teeth. When I returned, Tommy had the paper cup of soda on his belly from the night before. His straw poked around in the melted ice. He made a long sucking sound. I passed by his bed and looked out the window. Another good day weatherwise.

  “Let’s go get breakfast,” I said. “Let’s get out of this room. It’s too nice out to stay cooped up.”

  “Let’s go see Ty Barry,” Tommy said, the straw making a little trombone sound on the plastic lid cover. “He doesn’t live far from here.”

  “You can’t just barge in on him.”

  “He knows we’re around. He told me to call back today and let him know what our plans are. Not everyone is as uptight as you, Bee’s Knees.”

  “You little punk,” I said. “I should rough you up.”

  Another kid would have jumped to his feet and wanted to rumble, but it took Tommy three separate movements. Cup down. Slowly climb onto the bed. Assume a karate position.

  “I could crush you,” I said, taking a karate stance back at him.

  “Hands of death,” he said, waving his hands around.

  “Beware the great white shark,” I said, snapping my teeth and moving my hands to my forehead to form a fin. Then I moved slowly toward him like a shark cleaving water.

  “Some puny shark, Bee’s Knees,” Tommy said, slapping my fin.

  “You’re too bony to eat, little boy. I want a big fat seal.”

  “Then you have to eat yourself, because you’re the biggest, fattest seal around.”

  I pretended to bite his leg. He jumped from his bed to the other bed and almost fell. When he regained his balance, he looked at me, his hands still up in a karate posture.

  “Let’s go before she gets back,” he said. “Let’s just go.”

  “You mean split? That wouldn’t be very nice.”

  “She wasn’t very nice to take off on us.”

  “She’ll be really, really angry.”

  “Maybe that’ll teach her a lesson.”

  “What lesson?”

  “That you can’t be a jerk and then expect people not to be jerky back at you.”

  “Is that one of the Ten Commandments or something?”

  He dropped his hands.

  “I want to go see Ty Barry,” he said. “This is my trip. I’m going with or without you, Bee.”

  So we went.

  FROM GOOGLE: Half Moon Bay is 25 miles south of San Francisco along State Route 1, the Cabrillo Highway, at 37°27′32″N 122°26′13″W37.45889°N 122.43694°W.

  It is 10 miles west of San Mateo, 45 miles north of Santa Cruz. The 2000 census counted 11,842 people in the town, and 4,004 households.

  We went looking for one person.

  Ty Barry.

  Dear Mom,

  We’ll be back in a day. We went to visit Ty Barry, a friend of Tommy’s who lives out here. We’ll call to let you know where we are when we get there. We took half of the money. We’re not trying to be hurtful. We just got tired of waiting around, and seeing Ty means an awful lot to Tommy.

  Love,

  Bee and Tommy

  I left the note taped to the bathroom mirror.

  The second bus we caught out of San Francisco smelled of diesel and brake fluid. The driver, a guy named Oti, passed his eyes in a triangle from one mirror to the next. Rear, left side, right side. Then straight forward. He did it over and over again at the same pace. Now and then our eyes clicked when he checked the rearview mirror. He had half-closed eyelids and a half-filled-in mustache. Everything about him seemed to be waiting for something to arrive. I wanted to ask him about Half Moon Bay, but a sign on the pole above his seat said not to talk to the driver.

  Tommy had been smart enough to take a seat on the west side of the bus, the side looking toward the ocean. Now and then we had a glimpse of something like ocean, or sand, or just greater spreads of light. It was Sunday morning and the bus ride felt lazy and empty.

  “What are you doing down this way?” Oti asked us when we had ridden for about fifteen minutes. Only two kids had joined us on the bus and they sat far in the back, probably so that they could smoke.

  “We want to see Mavericks,” I said.

  Oti’s eyes darted around, then sought mine again.

  “Mavericks?” he asked.

  “A surf place,” Tommy said. “They get monster waves that come all the way from the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. They have fifty-foot faces, some of them.”

  Oti shook his head to say he didn’t know.

  “I never heard of anything like that around here,” Oti said. “But there’s a lot of surfing going on.”

  “They get some shark attacks down this way, too,” Tommy said. “It’s in the bloody triangle.”

  “Oh, I know about those,” Oti said, braking to let a car turn left in front of him. “Great whites, right?”

  “Yes,” Tommy said.

  “Heck, I watch Shark Week every year on television. Wouldn’t miss it. You ever hear about kids fighting sharks in cages?” Oti asked, giving the bus gas.

  “In Mexico?” Tommy asked.

  “No, in Hawaii, where I’m from. Test of manhood. They found archaeological remains of cages,” Oti said, stringing out the word cageeessssss until it sounded like something lethal, something like alligatorsss. “They put twelve-year-old boys down there with a spear, and the boys had to hold their breath and fight the sharks. Pretty awesome.”

  “Never heard of that,” Tommy said.

  “I’m telling you,” Oti said. “Pretty wild stuff.”

  Tommy nodded. He had pushed forward on his seat so that he could see Oti better.

  “Test of manhood, like sending African kids out to kill a lion. I’m not joking,” Oti said, tapping the brakes a couple of times to let traffic swirl clear of him.

  I smelled cigarettes from
the back of the bus.

  “Hey,” Oti yelled into the front mirror, his eyes looking down the aisle. “You cannot be smoking in here.”

  The kids laughed.

  “If I have to pull over,” Oti said, “you won’t be laughing.”

  Maybe the kids put the cigarettes out. It was hard to tell.

  “A guy down here at Mavericks,” Tommy said, his breath missing a little and pulling in his chest, “a shark rammed him from underneath. He was off to the side at a place called Mushroom Rocks, off by some deepwater kelp beds, just talking to a friend. The shark came up and knocked him into the air, and when he came down he had his arm over the snout of a great white. You imagine that? The shark took off like crazy with the guy riding him like you’d try to bulldog a steer, only a steer with teeth.”

  Oti shook his head and said, “Sweet cream of wheat.”

  “That was in 2000. The first attack ever at Mavericks,” Tommy went on. “They’ve had one other that we know about.”

  “They mistake those surfers for seals, right?” Oti said, catching my eye in the mirror. “What’s the matter? Your sister doesn’t like sharks?”

  He smiled at me. He was kind of cute in a way.

  “How much longer?” I asked.

  “Not far,” Oti said. “You know where you want to get off?”

  “I guess near the center of town,” I said.

  He nodded.

  “I see the cigarettes, you dubbers,” Oti shouted suddenly at the kids in the back. “Do you think I’m blind?”

  Tommy ordered waffles and bacon and a tall glass of grapefruit juice. I ordered scrambled eggs, home fries, and wheat toast. A waitress brought the food in stages, almost as though she had to make a decision about each plate before it could join its buddies. She was in her twenties and had a vine tattooed across her neck and right shoulder. Under his breath, Tommy called her Poison Ivy, one of Batman’s archenemies.

  The restaurant was nice, though. It looked out on the water. It had taken us forty-five minutes to find a decent place after stepping off the bus. Oti had pointed us in the right direction to find the shopping center. He also told us the Ritz-Carlton, a gigantic resort on a hill overlooking Half Moon Bay, stood three miles from the beach. He found an old brochure on the dash of his bus. The brochure advertised horse trails and kayak rentals and a “two luxuries at once” deal where guests could rent a Mercedes for the day for sightseeing.