My Life Next Door

by Huntley Fitzpatrick

“Sure,” Tim answers easily. “But when haven’t I felt wrong? Nothin’ new there.”

  Jase ducks out from below the Mustang, slowly straightening up. “That feels okay? ’Cause I can’t see how.”

  Tim shrugs.

  Jase ruffles his hair, the way he always does when he’s confused or hesitant.

  “So Nan went to New York with the boyfriend this weekend,” Tim mutters.

  I start. I didn’t know Nan was going somewhere with Daniel.

  “From what I can see, he’s a conceited douche bag who’s only going to wind up hurting Nan. But did I stop her? Nope. I’ve made a million mistakes. Time for ol’ Nano to catch up.”

  Jase’s fingers close on something in his tool kit. He slides under the car again. “You’ll feel so much better when she’s unhappy?”

  “Maybe.” Tim reaches for the Mountain Dew he’s been nursing for the last half hour. “At least I won’t be alone.”

  “Samantha, you’re slouching. Stand up straight and smile,” Mom whispers to me. I’m standing next to her at a Daughters of the American Revolution gathering, shaking hands. We’ve been here for an hour and a half and I’ve said “Please support my mother. She cares deeply about the State of Connecticut” approximately fifteen million times. And she does care. That much is true. I just find myself feeling worse, more guilty, at each event, about what she cares about.

  I’m no political animal. I know about current events from the newspaper and discussions at school, but it’s not like I go to rallies or picket for causes. Still, the space between what I believe and what my mom believes seems to be widening by the day. I’ve heard Clay talking to her, telling her it’s great strategy, that Ben Christopher’s big weakness is that he’s too liberal, so the more Mom talks up the other side, the better for her. But…last time she ran, I was eleven. And she ran against this maniac who didn’t believe in public education.

  But this time…I wonder how many children of politicians have thought the way I’m thinking right now, shook all those hands and said “Support my mom,” while thinking, “Just not what she stands for. ’Cause I don’t.”

  “Smile,” Mom hisses through her teeth, bending to listen to a small, white-haired lady who is angry about some new construction on Main Street. “Things should have a certain look, and this does not! I am up in arms, Senator Reed, up in arms!”

  Mom murmurs something soothing about making sure it complies with the bylaws, and having her staff look into it.

  “How much longer?” I whisper.

  “Until it ends, young lady. When you’re working on behalf of the people, you don’t have regular hours.”

  I look off in the distance at one of Mom’s posters propped on a tripod—GRACE REED, FIGHTING FOR OUR FOREBEARS, OUR FAMILIES, OUR FUTURE—and try not to notice, just outside the French windows, the turquoise shimmer of a pool. I wish I could lunge into it. I’m hot and uncomfortable in the navy blue empire-waist dress Mom insisted I wear. “These are very conservative women, Samantha. You need to show as little skin as possible.”

  I have a mad desire to rip off my dress. If everyone here screamed and fainted, we could all go home. Why didn’t I just tell Mom no? What am I, a mouse? A puppet? Clay rules Mom, Mom rules me.

  “You didn’t need to be so unpleasant the entire time,” she says crossly as we’re driving home. “Some daughters would be thrilled to be involved in this. The Bush twins were everywhere when W ran.”

  I have nothing to say to this. I pick at a pulled thread in the seam of my dress. Mom reaches over, closing her hand on mine to stop me. Her grip is firm. Then it relaxes. She takes my hand, squeezes.

  “All that sighing and shuffling your feet.” She sighs. “It was embarrassing.”

  I turn and stare at her. “Maybe you shouldn’t bring me along next time, Mom.”

  She shoots me a sharp look, seeing right through that one. There’s steel in her eyes again, and she shakes her head. “I don’t know what Clay’s going to say about your little performance.”

  Clay left a little early, to go back to the office and get more paraphernalia for the next event, a clambake in Linden Park, where I fortunately am not required.

  “I don’t think Clay was paying attention to me. He only has eyes for you,” I tell her.

  A flush crosses her cheekbones and she says softly, “You may be right. He’s very…dedicated.”

  Mom spends several minutes expounding on Clay’s expertise and dedication, while I pass them hoping she’s only speaking professionally. Though she’s not. He leaves clothes and keys and things around our house all the time now, has a favorite chair in the living room, has tuned the radio in the kitchen to the station he likes. Mom buys his favorite brand of soda, some weird Southern cherry drink called Cheerwine. I think she’s actually having it sent up from below the Mason-Dixon Line.

  When we’re finally home, climbing out of the car in silence, I hear a rumble, and Joel’s motorcycle heads down the street. But it’s not Joel riding it. It’s Jase.

  I say a quick prayer that he’ll wheel into his own driveway, but he sees us, circles into ours, stops. Pulling off his helmet, he wipes his forehead with the back of his hand, giving me his warmest smile. “Hey, Samantha.”

  Mom looks at me sharply. “Do you know this boy?” she asks under her breath.

  “Yes,” I say emphatically. “This is Jase.”

  Ever polite, he’s already extending his hand. I pray he won’t mention his last name.

  “Jase Garrett, from next door. Hi.”

  Mom gives his hand a perfunctory shake, shooting an unreadable glance at me.

  Jase looks back and forth between us, pauses, then pops the helmet back on. “Just going for a ride. Wanna come, Sam?”

  I wonder exactly how much trouble I’ll get in if I do. Grounded till I’m thirty? Who knows? Who cares. I find, suddenly, that I don’t. I’ve been stuffed inside a crowded room for hours, pretending, badly, to be the daughter my mom wants. Now the sky overhead is dazzling blue, the horizon wide. I feel a sudden rush—like the wind, but instead it’s the blood whooshing in my ears, like when Tim and I were little and would go plunging headlong into the huge waves at the beach. I fling my leg over the back of the motorcycle and reach for the spare helmet.

  We rocket off. I bury my head in Jase’s shoulder, determinedly not looking back at my mother, but still somehow expecting sirens or helicopters with SWAT teams to overtake us. Soon, sheer sensation carries me away from all that. The wind flips my hair and my hands tighten around Jase’s waist. He drives along the sandy, sea grass–lined Shore Road for a while, then through town, such a contrast with its neat red and white saltbox houses and evenly spaced maples. Then back to Shore Road near the beach. He cuts the engine in McGuire Park, near a playground I haven’t been to for years. It used to be the stop on the way home from half-day kindergarten.

  “So, Samantha.” Jase takes off his helmet, hanging it on a handlebar, and reaches out a hand to help me off the seat. “Guess I’m from the wrong side of the tracks.” He turns away, knocking down the motorcycle kickstand with the side of his sneaker.

  “I’m sorry,” I say reflexively.

  He still doesn’t look at me, kicking at the pebbles. “First time I’ve met your mom. Thought she was just strict. About you. I didn’t realize this was actually about me. Or my family.”

  “It’s not. Not really.” My sentences are coming out short and choppy. I can’t seem to catch my breath. “It’s her. She’s…I’m sorry…She is—she can be one of those people who make comments at the supermarket. But I’m not.”

  Jase lifts his chin, looks at me for a long moment. I stare back, willing him to believe me.

  His face is a handsome, indecipherable mask he’s never offered me before. Suddenly, I get angry. “Stop that. Stop judging me by what my mom did. That’s not me. If you’re going to decide what I’m like because of how she acts, you’re as bad as she is.”

  Jase doesn’t say anything, nudging at the groun
d with his sneaker. “I don’t know,” he says at last. “I can’t help but notice that…well, you’re in my life…at our house, with my family, in my world. But am I really in yours? Things got pretty awkward when I saw you at your club. You never even told your best friend about me. I’ve never…” He runs both hands through his hair, shaking his head. “Had dinner at your house. Or…I don’t know, met your sister.”

  “She’s away for the summer,” I point out in a small voice.

  “You know what I mean. I mean—you’re all over the place with me. In my room and at the store and helping me train and just…there. Where am I with you? I’m not sure I know.”

  I get that thick feeling at the back of my throat. “You’re everywhere with me too.”

  “Am I?” He stops kicking the dirt and advances, heat radiating from his body, hurt from his eyes. “You sure about that? Seems as though the closest I get is your roof—or your room. Sure you’re not just…I don’t know…slumming?”

  “Slumming? By seeing my next-door neighbor?”

  Jase looks at me as though he wants to smile, but can’t. “You’ve got to admit, Sam, your mom wasn’t exactly looking at me in a neighborly way. Not like she wanted to send over a casserole or something. More like a restraining order.”

  Relieved that he’s joking, I take off my helmet. “It’s my mother, Jase. Nobody’s good enough for me. In her mind. My first boyfriend, Charley, was a deviant sex fiend who wanted to use me and discard me. Then Michael, that emo guy you saw, he was a druggie loner who was probably going to lure me into addiction and then go assassinate a president.”

  “You’d think I’d look good by comparison. But I guess not.” He winces.

  “It was the motorcycle.”

  “Oh yeah?” Jase reaches out to take my hand. “Remind me to wear Joel’s leather jacket next time.”

  He gestures toward the bushes at the end of the cul-de-sac, away from the seesaw and the monkey bars and rusty swings. McGuire’s a town park all neatly laid out, nothing left to chance, but once you leave the playground behind, the grassy hill slowly dips low through the cluster of low wild-raspberry bushes into a long labyrinth of stones that lead into the river. You can leap from one to another and wind up sitting on a large flat granite rock, well out in the water.

  “You know about the Secret Hideaway?” I ask.

  “I thought it was just mine.” He grins at me, a little reserved, but still a grin. I smile back, thinking of Mom. Smile, Samantha. No one needs to prompt me now. We brush through the tangle of bushes, swatting the tiny thorns away from our faces, then jump, stone by stone, out to the raft-like rock in the river. Once there, Jase sits, knees up, arms around them, and I land next to him. I shiver, remembering how much cooler it always is with the breeze blowing up river. Without a word, he takes off his hooded sweatshirt and hands it to me. Afternoon light pours down, the river smell surrounds us, warm and brackish. Familiar and safe.

  “Jase?”

  “Uh-huh?” He picks up a stick lying on the rock and hurls it far out into the water.

  “I should have told her sooner. I’m sorry. Are we good?”

  For a moment he doesn’t say anything, watching the ripples eddy wider and wider. But then: “We’re good, Sam.”

  I lean back, flat on the rock, looking up at the deep azure sky. Jase lies down next to me, points.

  “Red-tailed hawk.”

  We watch the hawk circling for a few minutes, then he reaches over and takes my hand, squeezes it, and holds on. The river sighs around us, and the little gears in my body that were spinning at breakneck speed all day slow to the lazy speed of the hawk, and the slow beat of my heart.

  Chapter Thirty

  It’s good we have those moments, because the second I walk into the house I can feel fury rolling off Mom like fog from the sound. I could hear the vacuum cleaner growling before I even opened the door, and when I do, she’s chasing it around the house, jaw set.

  The door closes and she jerks the plug out of the wall, turning to me, expectant.

  I’m not going to apologize as though she’s right and I’ve done something unforgiveable. That would make what I said to Jase a lie. I’m not lying to him anymore, even by not telling the whole truth. Instead I stride to the fridge and pull out the lemonade.

  “That’s it?” Mom says.

  “Want some?” I offer.

  “So you’re just going to be nonchalant about this? As though I didn’t see my underage daughter get on a motorcycle with a stranger.”

  “He’s not a stranger. That’s Jase. From next door.”

  “I’m well aware where he’s from, Samantha. I’ve spent the last ten years putting up with that unkempt yard and that loud, enormous family. How long have you known this boy? Do you often ride off on his motorcycle to God knows where?”

  I swallow, take a slug of lemonade, and clear my throat. “Nope, that was a first. It’s not his motorcycle, it’s his brother’s. Jase is the one who fixed your vacuum cleaner when you threw—when it broke.”

  “Will I be getting a bill for this?” Mom asks.

  My mouth falls open. “Are you kidding? He did that to be nice. Because he’s a good person and I asked him. He doesn’t want your money.”

  Mom tilts her head, studying me. “Are you seeing this boy?”

  The words that spill out are braver than I am, but not quite brave enough. “We’re friends, Mom,” I say. “I’m seventeen. I get to pick my own friends.” This is the kind of argument Tracy, not me, has with Mom. When I used to listen to them fight, all I wanted was for my sister to be quiet. Now I understand why she couldn’t be.

  “I don’t believe this.” Mom reaches under the kitchen sink, pulling out a can of Ajax and sprinkling it on the spotless countertop. “You’re friends? Exactly what does that mean?”

  Well, we’ve bought some condoms, Mom, and sometime soon… For a moment I want to say it so badly, I’m afraid it’ll just tumble out.

  “It means I like him. He likes me. We like spending time together.”

  “Doing what?” Mom lifts the carafe of lemonade and wipes away the circle of condensation beneath it.

  “You never ask Tracy that about Flip.”

  I’ve always assumed that was because she didn’t want to know the answer, but now she says, in the same tone in which one would say “we hold these truths to be self-evident,” “Flip’s from a good, responsible family.”

  “So’s Jase.”

  Mom sighs and walks over to the side window that overlooks the Garretts’ lawn. “Look.”

  Duff and Harry are evidently fighting. Duff’s waving a toy light saber menacingly at his younger brother, who, as we watch, picks up a plastic bucket and throws it at him. George is sitting on the steps sucking on a Popsicle, without pants. Mrs. Garrett’s feeding Patsy, holding out a book she must be reading aloud.

  Jase has the hood of the Mustang up, tinkering away.

  “So what?” I say. “He has a big family. Why is that such an issue for you? What does it matter to you?”

  Mom is shaking her head slowly, watching them the way she always does.

  “Your father came from a family just like that. Did you know that?”

  He did. That’s right. I think of the pictures, crowded with people, in that box Tracy and I opened so long ago. Were those his family? I’m torn between grabbing on to this scrap of information with both hands and concentrating on what’s happening now.

  “Just like that,” Mom repeats. “Big and messy and completely irresponsible. And look how your father turned out.”

  I want to point out that I don’t actually know how my father turned out. But then…he left us. So I guess I do.

  “That’s Dad’s family. Not Jase’s.”

  “Same thing,” she says. “We’re talking about a sense of accountability here.”

  Are we? That doesn’t feel like what we’re talking about. “What’s your point, Mom?”

  Her face freezes, only her lashes flut
tering, as I’ve seen happen during difficult debates. I can sense her struggling to contain her temper, summon tactful words. “Samantha. One thing you’ve always been good at is making choices. Your sister would jump in with her eyes shut, but you would think. Even when you were very little. Smart choices. Smart friends. You had Nan. Tracy had that awful Emma with the nose ring, and Darby. Remember Darby? With the boyfriend and the hair? I know that’s why Tracy got into all that trouble in middle school. The wrong people can lead you to make the wrong decisions.”

  “Did Dad—” I start, but she cuts in.

  “I don’t want you seeing this Garrett boy.”

  I won’t let her do this—take away Jase like he’s an obstacle in her path, or mine, like the way she’ll sometimes just throw out clothes I’ve bought if she doesn’t like them, like the way she made me quit swim team.

  “Mom. You can’t just say that. We haven’t done anything wrong. I rode on a motorcycle with him. We’re friends. I’m seventeen.”

  She pinches the bridge of her nose. “I’m not comfortable with this, Samantha.”

  “What if I’m not comfortable with Clay Tucker? Because I’m not. Are you going to stop seeing him, stop having him”—I make air quotes, something I despise—“advise you on the campaign?”

  “It’s a completely different and a separate situation,” Mom says stiffly. “We’re adults who know how to be answerable for consequences. You’re a child. Involved with someone I don’t know and have no reason to trust.”

  “I trust him.” My voice is rising. “Shouldn’t that be enough? Me being the responsible one who makes smart choices and all?”

  Mom pours soap into the blender I’d left in the sink, sprays water into it, then scrubs furiously. “I don’t like your tone, Samantha. When you talk like this I don’t know who you are.”

  This makes me furious. And then in the next second, exhausted. Whoever I am scares me a little. I’ve never talked to my mother like this, and it’s not the chill of the central air-conditioning that prickles the skin of my arms. But as I see Mom cast yet another of a decade’s worth of critical looks over at the Garretts in their yard, I know where I’m going.