by Jason Gurley
She put her hands on my shoulders. “Recite after me.”
“What?”
“Do it.”
Sigh. “Fine.”
“My name is Vanessa…,” she began.
“My name is Vanessa.”
“… and I’m a manic pixie dream girl.”
I blinked. “I am not.”
“You can’t just save him. You know that, right?”
I didn’t answer. She wasn’t taking this seriously. And I felt like I was going to crack open.
She noticed and put her arms around me. “You like him. I know.”
I dropped my head onto her shoulder. “Tell me I’m not horrible.”
“You are mostly not horrible,” she said. But then, abruptly, she dropped her arms to her sides and stepped away. I almost fell over. When I looked up to ask what the hell that was about, I saw why: Ada was standing there.
“Hi,” I said. Cece had gone rigid. Something had to be said, so I put my hand on Cece’s shoulder. “Ada,” I began. “Cece has a crush.”
Ada looked at me. I swear even I felt a little quiver in my heart area. “On me,” she said matter-of-factly. “Yes. I know.”
Cece’s hard swallow was audible. “Wait, what?”
“She knows,” I said. “That’s a good thing.”
Ada ignored me. “Do you like hot dogs?”
Cece definitely was not a hot-dog person, but she nodded. Vigorously.
“There’s a food-cart guy. At the roller rink.”
Cece tilted her head. “A food-dog hot-cart rink guy.”
I flicked her shoulder. “She’s asking you out, doofus.”
Her eyes flew wide. “What?” She looked at me, startled, then at Ada. “What you’re what what?”
“I have a match tonight.” Ada was utterly calm. “It’s not dinner and a movie.”
“More like a wrestling match and a beer,” I pointed out, but neither of them were listening anymore.
“Yes shit okay yes,” Cece babbled. “Wait how where?”
Ada smiled at Cece, who wobbled. I put my hands on her shoulders to steady her. “My dad and I will pick you up,” Ada said.
Cece blanched, then looked at me. I knew she was imagining her abuela answering the door.
“Pick her up at my house,” I said. “We have some homework to do first anyway.”
Ada nodded. I watched as she and Cece exchanged numbers, and then Ada glided away. Cece held up her phone and said, “Ada Lin is my contact. She is in my phone.”
“That’s not the only place she is,” I said. “Cece, you have a date tonight.”
Her face paled. “I have to learn everything about roller derby.” Then she said, “We don’t have homework.”
“Nope,” I said. “You can just come over and save your abuela’s questions for another day.”
She practically hummed with excitement. I could feel the nervous energy rolling off her.
“Hey,” I said. “Focus for a second. Tell me what I’m supposed to do.”
“About my date?”
“About Zach.”
“Oh. Right,” she said. “Well—if it was me, I’d leave him alone.”
“But if you were dumb like me?”
She tapped my backpack, where the application was tucked away. “Well, you’ve got his address now.”
* * *
Aaron was grilling on the deck, idly twirling a grill fork in one hand and poring over a stack of papers with the other, when I arrived home after astronomy club.
“Something smells fantastic,” I said.
“Hey, Nessassary,” he said. He saw my reaction to the nickname. “Okay, maybe that one’s a stretch. Nessa-lé Crunch?”
“Just … stop.” I leaned past him. “What’s cooking?”
He lifted the lid of the grill. “Prosciutto-wrapped sea scallops,” he said. “And spinach soaked in lemon vinaigrette.” He pointed at a glass. “I already started with the chardonnay. Don’t tell your mom. Oh, and hey, you didn’t tell me Cece was coming over.”
“She’s coming over. For just a second.”
“Yeah, that was weird. I told her you’d be home soon, but she just wanted to wait inside for her ride. Her ride to where? She didn’t tell me anything. And then a car showed up, and now I feel like an accomplice.”
“She has a date,” I said. “That’s all.”
“So I am an accomplice.”
“With a very nice person.”
“Yeah, okay,” he said. “You hungry?”
My stomach was rumbling, but I had things to do. “Maybe later,” I said. “I have to visit a friend tonight.”
“Well, it can’t be Cece. Unless you’re chaperoning, in which case, you’re way late. So it must be the redheaded boy. The one from the game?”
“Where’s Mom?” I really didn’t want to talk about boys with Aaron.
“Council private session,” he said. “The wild excitement of local politics.” There had been a few sessions like that lately. “Hey, any word from the League of Ivy?”
“My answer is the same today as yesterday,” I said, elbowing him. “I’m sure they’re reviewing my application at this exact moment.”
He looked at his watch. “At this exact moment, I’m sure they’re not. I hope they’re not.”
“All’s quiet till December. That’s when early-decision verdicts come back.”
“You know, I can still grease some wheels at—”
“I don’t want to go to Stanford. But thanks.”
“Listen, it’s not that your devotion to Cornell isn’t admirable,” he said, “but astronomy and Stanford are practically synonymous. You know? And if Cornell doesn’t work out…”
“If Cornell doesn’t work out, I’ll flee into the hills with OSPERT on my back,” I said. “I can scratch out a living. Tan animal hides. Trade them for food.”
“Animals are food, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“Do scallops have hides? Maybe I’ll hunt wild scallops in the mountains. Clothe myself in their … skins. Shells? Husks.”
“You’re not leaving without a plate,” Aaron said. “Heck, take one for your handsome friend.”
“Don’t forget cups with lids.”
“For?”
“Duh. The wine.”
“Ha,” he said flatly. “Be home at a reasonable hour.”
I loaded the food into my bike basket, then sailed along the highway underpass toward Zach’s house. As soon as I’d read his address on the application, I knew why he hadn’t let me walk him home from the football game. He didn’t want me to see where he lived. As I rode, the sidewalks became rutted with grass, then disappeared altogether. Zach’s street was unpaved, and my Kestrel struggled on the loose gravel.
His house was small and subdivided. The exterior was bleached stucco. A window was reinforced with peeling duct tape. Chained to the water meter was a rusted gas-powered mower. In one of the two driveways was a beat-up pickup truck. There was a DepthKor parking sticker on the windshield.
I hoped Zach wouldn’t be angry with me for showing up. I knocked before I could talk myself out of it. But the door was opened by a taller, wider version of Zach. Same thick red hair, same faceted green eyes. This was the man who’d nearly collided with me in the administrative office.
He looked first annoyed, then confused, by my presence. “Help you?”
“No,” I blurted. “What?”
Good one, Vanessa.
“Can I help you?” he repeated more slowly.
In a stupid rush, I said, “I’m a friend of Zach’s I brought him dinner he forgot something at school and I brought that too.”
He chuckled, amused by my discomfort. “You bring all your friends dinner?”
I held out the containers. “It’s, um, scallops wrapped in prosciutto. And spinach.”
“Prosciutto.”
“It’s, like, really thin ham?”
“I know what prosciutto is. Come in.”
He held the door
, and I walked inside. Behind me, he stepped outside and lifted my Kestrel with one big hand and carried it through the door. He leaned it against the sofa. “Everything disappears around here,” he said. “’Specially really nice things.”
“Oh,” I said.
“You know Z’s at work, right?”
I didn’t know that. I should have known that.
He directed me to the kitchen. “Boy works too hard,” he said. “I tell him quit his job, focus on school, what does he do? Gets more hours. He never listens.” The oven, which had to be at least forty years old, groaned as he opened it. “You can put those in here. They’ll keep.” He watched as I deposited one container on the oven rack, then nodded toward the second one. “You were going to eat with him?”
Yes. “No.” I held the container out. “I brought extra.”
“Prosciutto, huh,” he said. He peered into the container. “And greens?”
“Spinach. And, um, lemon vinaigrette.”
While he admired the food, I looked around. Everything in the house was from another time altogether: Formica countertops, goldenrod wallpaper, avocado-colored appliances. The living room was wood-paneled, except where it wasn’t. The sofa, heavily frayed. Stacked neatly on one cushion were a blanket and pillow. I could hear murmurs from somewhere else in the house; did Zach have siblings?
“Um—I’m Vanessa, Mr. Mays,” I said, turning back to the man.
He laughed. “Oh, I’m not his dad, though I do feel that old already. No, Z’s my little brother. I’m Derek.” He fished a fork out of a drawer and sat down with my dinner. “This was real nice of you. Listen, you’re welcome to stay, but—” He looked toward the oven, where I saw an old analog clock. “Zach’s closing. He won’t be home for a while.”
“Oh. I have to go, anyway.” I remembered the real reason I’d come and fished the envelope out of my backpack. “Zach left this at school.”
“What’s this?”
“From the college fair,” I said.
“What college fair?” He opened the envelope and peeked inside.
“In SLO?” All my sentences turned into nervous questions. “There were, like, a hundred colleges? We all had to go?”
His face warmed over. “Z didn’t tell me about that.” He held the door for me as I rolled my bike out of the house. “I’ll tell him you came. He’ll appreciate it. Be safe.”
So Zach hadn’t told his brother anything about the fair. That probably meant Zach had forged the consent form, too. I had the feeling I’d just made a mistake.
My stomach grumbled, and with a sigh, I straddled the bike and pedaled home.
19
Zach
Once or twice a month, Maddie scheduled me to close the market with her. By eleven, the store was tidy and dark, and I waited on the sidewalk as she set the alarm and locked the doors. She scanned the empty parking lot when she turned around. “Waiting for your brother?”
“No.” He was probably asleep, or nearly there. His promotion came with an earlier shift.
“Want a lift?”
“I’ll walk.”
“It’s cold. It’s late.” When I shook my head, she said, “What’s that take you, forty minutes? It’s a long way.”
Closer to an hour, I thought. And I still had homework. Saying yes would be easier, but I shook my head.
“Well, if you’re sure. Night, Zach.”
Her pickup rattled away, and I kicked along the road homeward, listening to the static of the waves. The moon was high and clear, and draped the coast in blue lace. The sight would be almost beautiful if it didn’t conjure such ominous memories. The sea always brought me to the first time we thought we’d lost Dad. Summer 2008. The storm nobody had seen coming. We didn’t know we’d lose him for real before the year was up.
Dad had passed his Level IV certification in July. The big money, he said. Things were good. Then a storm spun up over the Pacific; it lasted three days, generated waves some claimed were thirty feet high. However tall they might have been, they were powerful. They did a number on the oil platforms. Split some pipes, started a few fires. Dad was right in the middle of it. He’d been trapped in a ventilation shaft; they pulled him out unconscious, soot-stained, and barely breathing. But he survived. Three weeks on medical leave, and he went right back into the water.
Such a little storm, in the big scheme of things, and it had almost killed him. Seriously? But now and then I wished he’d been hurt worse. If he had, maybe he wouldn’t be dead now.
His promotion had come with a raise and a bonus, and shortly after he returned to duty, he took us to Gio’s for lobster rolls. We rarely ate out, so Mama knew something was up. “What did you do?”
He pointed his lobster roll toward the marina, at a boat with a faded marlin painted on the side. “We’re a boat family now,” he said.
“What do we know about boats?” Mama protested.
“We’ll learn! Put out some crab pots. Fish a little, take tourists out.” He hesitated. “When it’s fixed.”
“Uh-huh. There it is,” Mama said. “And are there even crabs out there? Do you even know?”
Summer and fall were spent at the marina, helping Dad with the boat. Dad tried to put me and Derek to work underwater, scraping barnacles from the hull, but I wouldn’t do it. All I could think of was that storm, those waves. I wanted nothing to do with the water. So Derek scraped, and Dad tried to show me how the engine worked. How it would work, rather, when it was repaired.
By fall, though, Dad was pulling longer stretches, at deeper sites, and the boat got less attention. Dad was sleeping in a submersible habitat for weeks at a time. He was Aquaman with a tool belt. When he came home, he told stories of giant sea turtles that nipped at his flippers or wolf eels that circled just out of reach, flashing crooked incisors. “And sharks, yep,” he added. “Bull sharks, the meanest ones.”
His longest rotation came up a week before Christmas. We agreed to postpone the holiday until he returned in early January. He kissed us good-bye, Mama dropped him at work, and we never saw him again. The damned sea had tried for him once; this time, it took him.
And with him went all sense of order in our lives, at least for a while.
As I walked, the moon slid behind the hills, and a field of stars winked into view. “They’re so far away that, to us, they never really change,” Vanessa had told me. “They don’t surprise you. They’re always right there, even during the day, when you can’t see them.” Stars, she’d explained, have order. Predictability, permanence. They made life seem small, manageable; I understood why she liked to look at them.
I liked looking at them, too, I guessed. It beat looking at the ocean, which stubbornly refused to give back my father’s body.
I ankled into a pothole then and went down heavy and hard.
The quiet rush of the sea sounded like laughter.
* * *
I withdrew the unfamiliar container from the oven, then dished the contents into a pan and started heating them. As I waited, I spotted the college application on the table. Well, then. That explained the food. There was only one way that application would have found its way here. I looked around, as if Vanessa might pop out from behind the sofa. She didn’t, but my gaze fell upon my blanket and pillow there.
Well, now she knew how we lived. How I live.
I felt my body flush with shame, and something else. Irritation. Usually I get to set my own rules about who I bring home and when. Which is nobody and never. That Vanessa had come on her own—what was I, her personal charity case? Operation Get Zach to School.
A college application was a breeze for her. She had all the things I didn’t: extracurriculars, awards, recommendations. Money. We didn’t have those things. No, we came home with split knuckles, with stains on our skin. Came home to notices stapled to the door. Nothing good ever gets stapled to a door.
The smell of the food filled the kitchen, and despite my annoyance, my stomach growled. It was late; I was tired. There
was still homework. The thought of good food, for once, beat back the anger, a little. Anger was … easy. Live like we do, anger’s always just a breath away. “A crutch,” Dad had said, all those years ago when I acted out at school. “Sometimes it finds you. Sometimes you can’t resist it. But you don’t keep it close at hand. It’s the lazy man’s tool.”
Maybe Vanessa didn’t want to bother me at work. Maybe she didn’t know I wasn’t home. Maybe she was just trying to be thoughtful. Thoughtful. She thought I was college material. And though I knew I wasn’t, maybe that was … nice.
But I didn’t have time to prove this out to her, or anyone.
It was a quarter to one by the time I finished the food and my homework. The application lay there, staring at me. I turned it over and found another lime-green Post-it:
I’m sorry.
My eyes locked on that hand-drawn heart.
Maybe I wasn’t her charity case. Maybe she saw what I couldn’t: That I really did want this. That I really was good enough.
That I deserved it.
Impulsively, I began to fill in the blanks as honestly as possible. Extracurricular activities: I work a job to help support my family. Awards: None. Emboldened, I flew through the pages, and then I arrived at:
Please attach one or more examples of your art.
If too large, please attach photocopies and/or photographs.
Carefully, I removed my most recent illustration from the sketchbook: the fogged-over bay, my father’s boat—finally seaworthy—only partially visible in the mist, the subtle silhouette of a man at the wheel.
In essay form, describe the motivation behind your work. What statement does your work make on your behalf?
I stared at the page for a long time before I picked up my pen.
I wrote about Orilly, about the single, predetermined path for people like us. I wrote about how Derek had almost escaped. How he hoped I might succeed where he hadn’t. Above the water or below … My pen flew across the page: Dad’s boat, his accident, the sketchbooks he’d left me. How empty our home was without him. How empty I was. He was my father, and I loved him.