A Blue So Dark
Page 8
Criminy. I'm crying just like that, and while I'm blubbering, of all the stupid rotten luck, Jeremy Barnes is sitting on the sidewalk by the library exit, looking right at me. He's watching me make a complete and total fool of myself. He's standing up, and he's lunging toward me. He's got his fingers wrapped around my wrist like a handcuff.
I start to wrench myself away, but quit because his fingers are warm, and his touch makes a feverish ache explode through me.
"Come here," he insists, loosening his grip to slide his hand down, weave his fingers between mine-God, like I'm some awful girly-girl, the fact that we're holding hands makes me want to squeal. He tugs me forward, and our feet start smacking the parking lot-his Adidas and my old Converse with the paint all over the toe. We race to the Circle, toward a black Firebird with a fender that's been mangled so long, the dents have actually started to rust.
"Is this yours?" I ask dumbly, my voice still sounding teary, which I hate.
Jeremy shakes his head. "Nope," he says as he smacks the back bumper. The trunk creaks open.
I guess I'm looking at him all horrified, because he grins, his Cindy Crawford beauty mark wiggling. "Don't worry," he says. "Guy that owns it gives me a ride every morning. And this," he says, pulling a beat-up board from the trunk, "is mine. As of this morning."
"For the-for the necklaces," I say, wiping at my face with the cuff of my hoodie. Because I want him to know I've been paying attention, too. That maybe I've got my own collection of Jeremy factoids.
Jeremy nods. "Couple of hours ago, I figured the saw was the best place for this thing. But now-I think maybe she's got one more ride in her."
He slams the trunk shut, and he's got my hand againhis skin is something to savor, like a piece of chocolate on my tongue. He's tugging me down the street, to the corner, where the curb dips down into a concrete drainage ditch. Somebody's spray painted Thug Life across the ditch in enormous white letters, and a few brown beer bottles lay scattered in the overgrown grass that separates the curb from the sidewalk.
Jeremy puts the board down against the curb. When he turns to me, his eyes glitter.
"So what?" I say, shoving my hands in the front pocket of my hoodie. "We came out here so I can watch you turn some sort of fancy skating tricks?"
He flashes a half grin and shakes his head.
"Oh, no," I say, staring at the ditch. "That thing must drop off-what-five feet?"
"That's nothing," Jeremy says with a shrug.
"People have broken their necks doing less."
But Jeremy's got my shoulder, and he's pushing me, and my feet are suddenly on top of the board. And he's telling me, "Just let the tip dip forward-easy-like flying."
"No-no," I say, still protesting, because this really doesn't make any sense. "I don't know how-I'll fall," I insist, but he's pushing me, the wheels roll, dip, and I'm gliding, not down, but deep. Not against the wind, but into it. And there's nothing, in this tiny moment-nothing bad, anyway-just the explosion of air in my ears, and the cool pelt of wind that dries the tears from my face. Laughter bubbles out from underneath the concrete blocks of now. The whole world just feels so good, so light, so Jesus. Normal.
I start to lose my balance as the board rides the curve at the bottom of the ditch; my laughter turns to a scream as I wobble. I don't know what it is skaters do to keep their boards flying over the top edges of half-pipes, anyway, so I jump off, let the board rock itself to a stop.
Jeremy calls, "How do you feel now?"
I throw my head back to look up at him, hands in his pockets, smiling at me, so proud of himself.
"Human," I say.
He squats, holds his hand down for me to grab. I tuck his board beneath my arm just before he hoists me back onto the curb. His skin is delicious-I keep clutching his fingers as I let the wheels clatter to the ground. For a minute, as we're standing there staring at each other, I think maybe he's even going to try to kiss me. My heart starts to race, hoping, hoping ...
Instead, he pops the skateboard and catches one of the front wheels so that it hangs from his hand crooked, the way a little girl might hold her dolly by one arm. "Now you understand," he says. But before he explains himself, he's already turning away, heading toward the distant throngs in the Crestview parking lot that are all starting to flow back into school.
"Understand what?" I yell. Who the hell does he think he is with all this cryptic shit, some Zen master?
"My board, Aura," he calls over his shoulder. "I want my damn board back. Paint my board, already." The mere word-paint-makes me feel a little woozy.
As I watch him walk away, desire is like the tides I fought in Florida-like a giant's fist that grabs my body and forces me so far down beneath the surface, I almost doubt I'll ever breathe air again.
By the time I jog back into school, the crackly voice on the intercom is sending us all to our fourth period classes, which, for me, is English. I head into 01' Lady Kolaite's room like a zombie, my skin on fire because the sweet fix I got from Jeremy's board was fleeting, and the bitter-asan-unripe-lime taste of my whole stupid life has already exploded in my mouth.
Kolaite kicks the class into gear; in the seat beside me, Katie Pretti tugs her sweater sleeves over her wrists and halfway down her hands, hiding her thumbs. She sighs and leans back, with that look, you know? That look of being tied up, like it's not really her sweater sleeves she's tugged on, but handcuffs. Like she's not the one who put the cuffs on-no, it was some unseen sadistic s.o.b. who kidnapped her out behind the QuikTrip yesterday afternoon when she stopped in for a cherry Icee. Because everybody knows that's what high school really feels like. It's being handcuffed. It's being held against your every last will.
As soon as she sighs, George's hand reaches for her back. He sits one seat behind her, like he does in every class they have together. George, blue-eyed, blond-haired. Georgy Porgy. Beautiful and untroubled and smart and light and sweet and easy as a boy in a cheesy '80s TV show-Kirk Cameron or Scott Baio. Don't worry, man, it'll all work out soon. I mean, it's already 7:49. George Conyers only kissed one girl, lucky Katie, and never made her cry. And the minute he starts to scratch her back, her whole face changes. She's not in jail anymore.
Asinine class couple. Why the hell did I even bother with school today?
I'm just so sick of being around so many people with nothing wrong, nothing-they have no clue what it's like to really lose sleep over anything-that suddenly I'm writing again, even though I swore I wouldn't, I wouldn't ...
"Aura? Aura, dear?" It's Mrs. Kolaite, looking at me with this false, put-on worry. I swear, she's applied it to her face like mascara.
"Yes," I say, scooting up in my chair-where'd they get school chairs, anyway? Things might as well be made out of bricks. "I'm following along fine," I blubber, flipping the shiny pages of my textbook back and forth.
Because the thing is, when they're not treating us like gypsy scum, the teachers are all looking at us in this condescending way. I mean, they think we're capable of hacking into the computers to change our grades, and they practically nail their purses to their chests because they think we're crafty enough to sell their identities over the Internet, but they don't think we could ever grasp something as simple as a freaking metaphor?
How's this for metaphor, Kolaite? Sanity is a sonnet with a strict meter and rhyme scheme-and my mind is free verse.
journalmg can be useful in keeping track of a schizophrenic family member's behavior. Often, the changes are so slight, families can be caught offguard by a psychotic break. Journaling can help family members nip said psychotic break in the bud.
appy birthday, pretty girl," Brandi coos in her Betty Boop voice as soon as the door flies open. She smothers me with a fakey-poo, sorority-sister-style hug and kiss, then gives me enough room to step inside the downtown loft apartment she shares with Dad and Carolyn.
School's been canceled for some sort of teacher betterment crap, and I can think of about a million things I'd like to do with m
y free Friday other than coming over here-like, say, putting my head in a vice or getting all of my toenails extracted one by one. But it's my birthday, which means it's time for Dad and Brandi to pretend they can be labeled Really Good People Who Are Hip To Hanging With Keith's Other Daughter.
As the door falls shut, Brandi lets out a squeaky "Whew" while she smooths some bottle-blond flyaways toward her ponytail and flashes her enormous neonatal eyes at me. "Caterer just left. I swear, I didn't think he was ever going to get here."
"Caterer?" I say, my feet going cold. "I didn't want some awful party. I told Dad that. Isn't it just us?"
Brandi nods. "You, me, Keith, and Carolyn," she agrees. "But how often do you turn sweet sixteen?" She waves a hand at me, shakes her head. Tugs at her blouse as though she's just so frazzled between the baby and the husband and freaking pool boy they probably have for their nauseating whirlpool tub, she couldn't find anything decent to wear. But the truth is, her blouse and skirt smell like the high-end department store I know they came from, and they do an amazing job of showing off her Pilates-toned waist and her dancer's legs.
"Don't know that I'll ever call that place again. Not exactly friendly, if you know what I mean," she says as she rolls her ice-blue eyes behind her thick, black mascara.
I want to tell her I'd probably be ticked, too, if I was them-after all, Brandi's the one who just treated some professional catering service like a neighborhood pizza delivery boy. Not that Brandi believes she could ever truly wrong anyone-not even me, or my mother, who was still married to my dad when she arrived on the scene.
"You like curry, right?" Brandi says, shimmying her tight little ass into their kitchen, loaded to the gills with granite countertops, a hand-cut travertine floor, and all the stainless steel appliances that the world says you're supposed to like.
I prefer the thirty-year-old olive refrigerator in the kitchen I share with Mom, actually.
"Hey, sweetie," Dad says as he bursts from a bedroom, a blond and pouty Carolyn on his hip. Sweetie. The word's like electricity shooting up my spine. Because it's replaced my real name, since he's too embarrassed to even say it anymore-Aura, like it's a tattoo he got when he was eighteen and now hides under long-sleeved shirts, even in August. Aura, like it's some silly notion of his misspent youth, something he outgrew.
"I'm afraid we're in a bit of a weepy mood today," Dad says, kissing the top of Carolyn's head, then smoothing her corn-silk bangs.
"Another one of our commercials is on," Brandi yells from the kitchen, pointing to the ridiculous TV in their refrigerator door while she dishes up our lunch of Indian food, which smells a little like gym socks to me. "I really like this one," she says, staring at the small screen. "Have you seen it, Aura?"
Get real.
The only consolation in this whole stupid mess is that I'm sure Brandi's parents hate Dad. And I mean, hate. Their baby girl was supposed to marry a CEO, or a NobelPrize-winning chemist, or better yet, the president of Outer Mongolia. Not some stupid old insurance agent with a previous marriage and another child. I figure Thanksgiving's a real bitch for him-imagining it (and the impending divorce that will surely, surely come once Brandi meets said Nobel-Prize-winning chemist) is really the only thing that'll get me through this crummy day.
"Come and get it," Brandi sings, carrying our plates to the table.
I've got two boxes stacked next to my place setting (along with a card containing my obligatory fifty bucks), each professionally gift-wrapped. But I couldn't care less about a couple of crappy presents, not with what I left at home. The words down there in the pit of my stomachMom's a rope raveling down to nothing-fester like a giant pile of salmonella, making me feel like I'm about to throw up. I want to tell Dad-just blurt it and have it over with. I want to tell someone, especially since Janny's no help at all. (And do I blame her? Do I, with everything that's falling on her right now? Yeah, in all honesty, I guess I really do.) But I promised Mom, too-no meds, no more, not ever again-and that's exactly what Dad's going to want to do. Tie her arms behind her and shove a funnel in-between her lips, if that's what it takes to get the pills down. And I swore, too, no Dad. If I break my promises, I'm terrified Mom will snatch her love away, like it was never truly mine to begin with, but a library book that I'm now supposed to return.
I guess I stare at the presents a long time, thinking all this, because Brandi says, "Go on-they're yours, you can open them if you want."
"No-I just ..." I stutter. "I ..." The words try to crawl up, they really do, as I look at Dad, eyes pleading. But he's too busy tying Carolyn's bib on to notice.
It occurs to me, maybe I don't have to say it. Maybe Dad could just see it for himself, right? Kind of accidentally? So I say, "You guys going to bring Carolyn by the house to trick-or-treat this year?"
Dad just looks at me, offended that I've even mentioned his old house. Like I'm bringing up the time he went streaking across the football field when he was a drunk philosophy major out for a teensy bit of fun.
"We're taking her to the club," Brandi says. She bites into something brown and slimy and lets out a "Mmmmm."
"The club? The country club?" I say, wrinkling my nose as I look across the table in complete and total disbelief at my dad.
"Carolyn is getting to the age where we can really enjoy the holidays," Brandi says casually. "I actually can't wait until we've got a little tween in the house. I mean, there are just so many things to do, once they get old enough," like I'm the fucking next-door neighbor. "And Keith is so good about the holidays. Some men aren't, you know."
This practically lights my whole scalp on fire. "Yeah," I say, glaring at Dad. "Really good. Especially with picking out Christmas trees."
The silence that falls over the table has a pulse. An actual pulse. Because Dad and I are both thinking about the same thing: that last Christmas, when Keith was still my dad, back when I was thirteen years old. Mom had voluntarily gotten on her meds to please him-not another mirage like the one she'd had on the soccer field, and no more running away from home to climb a Colorado mountaintop (the episode that had officially filled the bathroom cabinet with amber bottles). Everything was going so well at home, and stupid me, I actually believed the ground under my feet was solid.
Dad and I split up, each of us racing through the Christmas tree lot that was like a forest that had suddenly come to roost beside an out-of-business gas station. When I found one-not too tall, nice and full-and I knew, this is it, I turned to call him.
But he wasn't alone. He was with a woman-blond hair, neonatal eyes, and it was all so obvious it should have had theme music behind it, the score from some sweeping love story. As he tightened Brandi's pink cashmere scarf around her throat, it occurred to me just how much like a lie pine trees smell.
The way they smiled at each other ... God, that sickeningly sweet smile. I swear, that look they exchanged, even from the other side of the lot, I could taste it. The back of my tongue actually burned.
I tightened my grip on the neck of the spruce I'd wanted to show him, like I was strangling the thing-like I'd have strangled him if I could.
Brandi skittered off across the tree lot like a scared house cat when she caught me watching them. Of course, I didn't know that was her name-not then, and Dad pretended not to, either.
"Never seen her before," he insisted, clearing his throat repeatedly. "Just a lady who dropped her scarf." And I knew. Merry fucking Christmas, Aura.
I stomped off, into the thick of trees, wishing I really were in the midst of a forest and not some parking lot, that I could get turned around in the dense sameness of branches like some kid at a wilderness retreat, and never be heard from again. Because he was changing all the rules, Dad was, and even then, I was wondering about the rule that went something like, must love Aura. And I was thinking that maybe he'd revise that one, too. Or cross it off the list completely. Cross it off the list completely, I think as I stare at him from the other side of the antique dining table. Definitely.
"Yeah," I say, tightening the hold on my glare. "A real, chainsawed tree, killed in the name of the jolly good hoho-holidays."
"And gifts," Brandi says, winking at Dad.
"Gifts," I snarl, shaking my head. Because the dad who lived with me had railed against Christmas, or modern Christmas anyway, screaming about commercialization and how we weren't going to be manipulated by an ad campaign. And we never once bought a single gift for each other, never, not in all the years we lived together. Not for Christmas, and not for birthdays, either. Made plentybut never bought one. Somehow it was always so special, because anybody can get some crummy old sweater, but who else in the history of the world ever got an Ambrose Original?
I'm about to ask him, Don't you ever remember the way wed once avoided store-bought presents like the plague? But Brandi squeaks, "We're actually going to the Caribbean for Christmas."
"You're what?"
"Mmm-hmm. Keith's idea," she says, patting Dad's hand. "Tropical paradise. White sands and blue water. It's going to be our new family tradition. To the ocean for Christmas. Someday, when Carolyn's just a teensy bit older, we'll all go snorkeling together."
I let my fork clunk against the edge of my plate, feeling like the Ambrose Original has just fallen from the sky to squash me into a pile of bloody guts. "And surfing competitions, too, right?" I say, eyebrow raised. "Riding on the backs of dolphins?"
Dad sighs and glares at me, like I'm doing something rotten on purpose.