by Tish Cohen
Next are the Egalitarians. These guys don’t take their teenagers’ bad choices personally, they just accept the bad news and move forward. Upon hearing their high-school senior skipped thirteen out of twenty days of school to stay home and play World of Warcraft, they might be inwardly worried they’ve raised a resident of an alternate universe, but know that saying it out loud will result in a broken kid who will never have the self-esteem to pack up his warlord fantasies and move out of the house. Instead they keep their yaps shut, start planning to retire to a one-bedroom condo one day, and confiscate Ronan’s cell phone for two weeks. Not that anybody calls.
The most volatile is the Bottled Inferno. This is the parent who, while sitting across from the principal, nods and grunts and makes all the appropriate concerned-parent sounds. What the principal can’t see from behind his or her desk is that the parent is gripping the arms of his chair so hard they have fused with his flesh. Other telltale signs are nostrils tensed into flared triangles and pupils that swirl with tiny tornados. The Bottled Inferno will be fairly silent during the school meeting, but you just know he’ll blow once those car doors are firmly shut.
Brice Burnack is a Bottled Inferno.
Mr. Oosterhouse’s door is cracked open just enough for me to see—as I drop off Mr. Curtis’s attendance sheet the next morning—the Burnack family sitting across from the big desk. I can’t see all of Gracie, only her slender legs, crossed at the ankle, but I can see Carling and her dad. Carling, sitting in the big leather chair between her parents, looks about twelve years old. As if she’s gone back in time. Probably wishes she could. And Brice. Brice smoldering—dark, red, and ashy—in the corner.
I shift myself closer to the door and try to hear snippets of what Mr. Oosterhouse is saying.
“… which is why I move that we deal with this incident in the same way we’ve dealt with your daughter’s other infractions.” I peek inside to see the principal reach for a stack of papers. The phones are ringing like mad in the office behind me, so I press my ear closer to the door to hear him explain, “Here are the architect’s plans for the new music wing. Very detailed, as you’ll see…”
Brice shifts forward in his seat, looking sick.
The principal is speaking again. “… of course, and we would hold an elaborate naming ceremony for the new Brice Burnack Music Wing.”
Brice’s hair practically starts sparking and smoking as he shoots a look of incandescent fury at his daughter. He drops his head into his hands and rubs his temples hard. When he looks up again, his face has lost its charred toughness. “I can’t do it this time,” he says eventually. “I just don’t have the cash.”
“Brice, don’t,” says Gracie. “It’s nobody’s business.”
Someone sidles up beside me. Sloane holds up a brown envelope. “For Mrs. Pelletier. Curtis tried to stop you, but you’d already gone.” She peeks inside Oosterhouse’s office and whispers, “This is not going to go down well. Especially after Bricey’s just had his creative genius mocked in every major publication in America. If there’s one thing Mr. Burnack hates, it’s public humiliation. And Carling’s just given him a ton.”
Suddenly the principal’s door bangs shut, nearly taking off the tip of my nose. Mrs. Pelletier, her hair pulled back more severely than usual, her glasses shelved on her bosom, takes our shoulders, spins us around, and propels us toward the hallway. “That’ll be enough snooping, girls. Off you go, back to class before you get yourselves into just as much trouble as your friend.”
It’s pathetic how, after all I’ve seen of Carling, after all I know, I still get a little thrill from being referred to as her friend.
At the end of math class, we find Carling waiting in the hall. She motions for us to follow her into the closest restroom, and once inside, Sloane checks that all stalls are empty before sliding both metal trash cans in front of the door. They won’t exactly stop anyone from barging in, but we’ll hear them coming long enough in advance to stop talking.
“We only have a few minutes,” says Carling, her face gaunt and pale. “My parents are waiting for me in the car.”
“What happened?” asks Isabella. “Am I dead?”
“No way,” Carling says. “I went down alone.”
“Seriously?” I ask, relieved beyond belief that this won’t be traced back to Charlie’s keys. And his daughter.
“Are we going to see a Brice Burnack plaque on a wall somewhere tomorrow morning?” asks Sloane. “Or will they wait until after the renovations to christen it?”
Carling turns on the tap and splashes cold water on her face. Her hair falls into the water and she stands up with wet strands clinging to her face like leeches. “Brice offered big bucks, believe me. But Oosterhouse is being a total moron. He said to go home for today until the school decides what to do with me.”
Brice offered big bucks? Not quite what I heard.
“Hey, just as long as I’m not expelled.” Carling pulls a few paper towels from the dispenser and turns around, blotting her face dry. “You should have heard Oosterhouse. He was all, ‘This isn’t like you, Carling. We’d like to think our students can ask for help, Carling. You might want to consider dropping down to Applied Math, Carling.’”
“What an arrogant ass,” says Isabella.
“I’m so pissed at the guy who ratted me out. That new janitor, Crazy Charlie. He found the purse and turned it in to the office. Crap for brains. Probably looked inside, saw the test, and figured he’d take me down. Ladies, it’s time for punishment.”
“No,” I say too loudly. Sloane and Carling look at me, surprised. Isabella just folds her arms and waits. “Why would … Charlie look in your purse? He probably thought he was doing you a favor by giving it to someone in charge.”
“He knew it was mine. My name was inside. Besides, he’s hated me for weeks. One time I grabbed the stair rail to stop myself from falling and he came up behind me and cleaned the spot I touched. Like it was contaminated. From me. I can’t stand that prick. I swear to God, if it’s the last thing we do, we’re taking him down.”
I’m alone in the bathroom. Carling left school with her seething parents and the other two went to class. But I haven’t yet regained the ability to move my feet. As I stare at my traitorous face in the mirror, my hands start to shake. This is all my fault. Charlie meant no harm. The man would rather ingest a shovelful of dirt than hurt another person. He’s no match for Carling. She’s volatile, capable of anything. Especially with Brice’s doubly scorned ego licking her heels.
It’s going to take a distraction. If she can get focused elsewhere, my father may recede to some forgotten, cobwebby part of her demented mind. I need to give her something so ultimate, so irresistible, so hurricane-huge that she disappears into it and gets too dizzy to breathe.
There’s only one thing I know that can do that to a girl. Leo Reiser’s kiss. As much as it will kill me, I have to step aside. To keep my father safe from Carling’s twisted mind, I have to make Leo see her as desirable again.
Pushing through the swinging door, books balanced on my hip, I walk straight into Griff and Leo, scattering all our belongings across the speckled floor. “Don’t say it,” I say as they squat down to scoop up the aftermath. “It’s too pathetic at this point.”
Leo hands me my books. “Hey, I wasn’t brought up to argue with cute girls.”
Griff huffs. “You weren’t raised to do anything with cute girls. Me, on the other hand …”
“Bye, Griff,” says Leo, taking his mini-friend by the shoulder and guiding him away from us and toward the flow of students. “Your work here is done.” As he watches Griff feign death and stagger off, Leo twists his mouth to one side in amusement. His upper lip is smudged with the stubble of a recently shaved mustache, leaving behind a stinging red nick. It takes everything I have not to reach up and wipe away the dried blood. The thought of touching him again sends currents of static through my veins.
“I was hoping to bump into you,” he says.
“Not literally. I do have my rugby arm to consider.”
Please ask about Carling. And I’ll say she’s had a rough morning. That you should call her. See her. Forgive her.
“I was wondering,” he continues with a bashful look in his eyes, “if you want to go to a movie with me Sunday afternoon.”
For some crazy reason, the framed photo of me and Dad that sits on my desk at home pops into my mind. It was taken at my old school. Dad was in his far less lame Finmory custodian uniform and we were arm in arm on the steps of the school. His hand was resting on my shoulder, his knuckles soft, pink, unchapped.
Say no to Leo. You started this deranged situation for your father by lying about who he was instead of encouraging kids to get to know him. It’s all your doing; now undo it. Tell Leo that Carling needs him. Tell him she’s hurt. That she loves him.
Against my will, my lips curl back in a smile and I hear my voice saying, “I’d love to.”
chapter 30
flush
I set my alarm for 6:45 Saturday morning, so early the streetlights are still on. It doesn’t matter that I didn’t get four hours’ sleep. Dad is going to see a few VW buses out in Brookline today, and I’m going to shock him by coming along. Not because I’m excited about choosing yet another vehicle that makes us look as if we solve Scooby-Doo mysteries on the side. But because I can’t erase from my mind the look of Dad’s eyes from the other day. The ache that I thought might bring him to his knees right there on the terrazzo tile of Anton’s halls. That ache is the last thing I see before falling asleep. The first thing I see when I wake.
Without bothering to wash my face—I just washed it four hours ago—I pile my tangled hair into a high ponytail, pull a pair of old sweatpants over bare legs, and head into the kitchen in the same gray turtleneck I wore to bed.
Dad, sitting at the breakfast table in his Anton High custodian jacket, looks me up and down as he stirs his coffee. “You’re up early.”
“That’s because we have to leave soon if we’re going to get to Brookline by eight. Buses don’t run too often on Saturday mornings.” I pour myself a cup of coffee, black, and hoist myself up on the counter across from him, thumping my heels against the cupboard doors below.
“Sweetheart, go back to bed and catch up on your sleep. You don’t have to accompany me.”
“I don’t have to but I want to. You and I don’t get to spend enough time together.”
“Sara, it’ll be nothing but peering under hoods at carburetors and distributor wires.”
“Sounds delish.”
“Seriously, hon. It will be hours of car talk at three different locations. You don’t have to do this for me.”
I drain my coffee cup and bang it on the counter, shooting him a teasing grin. “For you? Dream on, big guy. I’m doing this for me. You never know when I might want to dazzle my friends with my knowledge of air-cooled, four-cylinder boxcar engines.”
He doesn’t say anything right away, but his face softens. It’s the kind of face that is trying to say nothing at all on the outside while it processes something sad and significant on the inside. It’s the curtain that comes down on a stage—heavy and draping, soft and velvety—that blocks the audience from seeing the actors regrouping on the other side. “Boxer engines. Not boxcar.”
I hop off the counter, lean down, and kiss his cheek. “Let’s go, Dad. I don’t want to miss our appointment.”
By the time I stand up, the curtain has lifted and the actors are back onstage. He tugs on the leg of my grubby sweatpants. “You didn’t have to go to so much trouble getting dolled up.”
“Dude, at least I’m not wearing an Anton High jacket. You look like you’re the oldest guy on the school bowling team.”
He smiles, flipping up his collar. “We’ll do a great job of convincing them we’re penniless. It’s the oldest buyer’s tactic in the book.”
We get off the bus on a street called Dresden Road. In spite of our forty-five-minute trek, it’s still so early all the streets are empty. We walk up a slight hill on a sidewalk bordered on one side by a low stone wall with grass poking out from between the rocks.
Dad stops in front of a large, pale gray clapboard house—mansion, really—that looms over us. Not only is it set up on a grassy hill, but it’s three stories high, with an actual turret on the right side. Shaggy bushes line the base of the house, parting only long enough to allow a steep set of steps to lead to the covered verandah.
He squints at a scrap of paper, then back up at the number above the front door. “We’re here.”
A balding man named Alex, dressed in old boat shoes, khakis, and a worn denim shirt with sleeves rolled up to his elbows, leads us to a four-car garage out back and opens the door. As he and Dad examine his collection of vehicles, a smiling, drooling, wiggling golden retriever races across the lawn and drops to the ground at my feet, rolling over and begging me to scratch his belly.
“This one’s my baby,” says Alex, walking straight past the VW bus, which I can already tell is too new for Dad, and motioning toward a small white car shaped like a bubble.
“Porsche 356 A-Coupe. Is it a ’59?”
“Fifty-eight.”
Dad whistles as he bends over and inspects the chrome bumper. “Not a whisper of rust. You keep her in excellent condition.”
“I don’t drive this one in winter. Not with all the salt on the roads. I own a car-parts company and maintain a rather large vintage division through which we buy and sell antique cars.” Alex laughs. “Though I have to admit we buy often and sell rarely. We brought this one up from Santa Barbara about ten years ago and I took her home with me.”
“Can’t blame you. A car this special shouldn’t sit unloved in a showroom.”
“I can see you and I think alike.” Alex unlocks the door to the Porsche and Dad climbs inside like a kid clambering onto Santa’s lap.
Alex wanders over to where I am, sitting cross-legged on the smooth cement floor petting the dog. “You like dogs?”
“Sure.”
“My wife breeds goldens. We typically sell all the pups, but Boomerang here kept running away from his new owners and finding his way back here. Eventually we stopped fighting him. Gave the owners another pup and let him stay. There’s just something about this place he wasn’t willing to give up.”
I let my eyes wander around the property—across the overgrown bushes with leaves so scarlet they almost hurt to look at, the enormous tree branches that lean over the house and wrap around the roof as if embracing a child, the basketball hoop partway down the driveway. A woman pushes open an upstairs window. Her blondish gray hair is messy but pulled back, and she’s wearing a white T-shirt. She looks sort of worn and comfy, just like Alex. This is no house of trial separations and envelopes full of divorce papers. This is a real family home, like you see on made-for-TV movies. I scratch Boomerang’s ear and look up at Alex. “I can see why he likes it.”
Dad and Alex are already acting like old friends, laughing and smiling, bonding over mid-engine tubular chassis. At one point Alex even pats Dad on the back. They’re chatting about impossible-to-find antique parts—turns out Alex has never heard of this obscure vintage-parts Web site in Austria that feeds Dad parts for less. Alex writes the URL on a pad of paper beside the phone on his beautifully organized workbench, then the conversation shifts to our VW. Alex has been looking for an old van like ours to restore because he had a VW camper bus as a surf-loving teen out in San Diego, and they might work out some sort of a swap for one of the cars. While they bond with their heads buried under the hood of an ancient-looking convertible, I watch Dad lean against a dirty bumper with no concern about the microbes that might be jumping onto his palm like hardcores diving into a mosh pit.
It isn’t until this moment I realize something. Cars, especially crappy old heaps, are his panacea, like the sun is to Superman. Cleaning is his kryptonite. As much as it temporarily soothes him, it ultimately destroys him.
Deep in a di
scussion about engine parts, Dad asks Alex about the last time the blue convertible was in the shop and does Alex have the invoice so he can see what repairs were made. Alex isn’t sure and walks over to an intercom on the wall. “Honey? Is the prince out of bed yet? Ask him to drag his weary bones off the mattress and come out to the garage.” He smiles at Dad. “This one belongs to my son, actually, so he’s the best one to answer your questions. As much as I’d love to tinker with his car, I’m a big believer in my children making their own mistakes. He bought the car, he makes all his own maintenance decisions, and he pays for every decision he makes. It’s the only way with kids….”
As Alex’s voice trails off, a horrified tingle spreads from my unwashed hair, along the ribbing of the turtleneck I slept in, across the fraying, secondhand threads of my Finmory sweatpants, across the gleaming cement floor to my father’s overly ironed custodian jacket. It’s too big a coincidence.
As I sit frozen to the concrete, Alex asks Charlie what he does. Dad’s response sounds so far away, I almost believe I’ve floated out of the garage and am hovering somewhere up above the weathervane on the roof. “I’m the custodian at Anton High School,” Charlie says before launching into an explanation involving words like refuse, toilet tanks, and HVAC system.
“Really?” says Alex. “Maybe you know my son….”
A barefooted teenage boy in rumpled black T-shirt and low-slung plaid pajama bottoms pads into the garage, yawning and rubbing sleep from his eyes. With a big stretch, he blinks and looks right at me.
I don’t move. I don’t breathe. I don’t speak. The boy standing in front of me is Leo Reiser.
Sitting cross-legged on the floor, stunned and mute, was how my mother found me when she came home the day I found the boxes. She just breezed straight past the cartons and packed bags and into my room as if bursting with good news. She took one look at me in my green prom dress, trying to make sense out of this afternoon, and asked why I was home so early. I pointed out it was four thirty and that she’d promised to help me pick a hairstyle for prom. She’d lost track of time, she said. Hadn’t realized it was so late. Time does that, doesn’t it? Vanishes. But here’s the slap—it only happens when you’re happy. My mother’s apparent mathematical formula? Her - (Dad + me) = Time Flying.
