"Claire! You coming tonight?"
Macy's voice echoed over from the next row of lockers, among slamming doors and talking. I straddled a bench, hugging my backpack, waiting for everyone else.
"What's tonight?"
"Study group, fool!"
Geneva cackled, and I forced a smile. All I wanted to do was crash out on my bed for a hundred hours. But I had noticed I could almost count on one of my charming nightmares when I felt this exhausted. Macy's "study group" was more appealing.
"What are we studying tonight? Sydney's or Fisherman's Wharf?" I asked, because Macy's study groups were just a lame excuse for us all to party on a weeknight.
"Phil said Scott's dad is back from sea. We can use the boat," Macy hollered over the lockers.
Scott, Scott, Scott. My sigh must have been louder than I thought, because Geneva piped up.
"Claire, he's a complete hunk, and you are acting really strange. If you don't like him, give him up so somebody else can snag him." She laughed right away, so no one would think she was boyfriend snatching.
But I had to wonder. About her potential snagging talents, and about me. Geneva would probably not be bugged by the stupid things that bugged me about Scott. It would be enough for her that he looked like something that just jumped out of Baywatch. Me? I had been hoping for a boyfriend who could hear me out about music, being that all of my friends couldn't care less about it. I needed a guy who would listen to rhythm and blues, hash out the history of rock 'n' roll with me, and argue about great stuff like The Who versus the Stones. Scott was just as tone-deaf as all my other friends. He even refused to dance at dances.
I figured this next thing was legit enough to spew. "He calls me on the phone every night, and the whole time, he talks to the guys hanging out at his house. He says about two words to me, and then I listen to him chronically bust on them. Are we having fun yet?"
"Well, maybe you should talk about things that he's interested in," Geneva advised in this highly instructional tone, like maybe her mother had said it to her once.
"Like?"
"Like his pickup truck! Him and Vince are almost done fixing it. He loves that pickup truck. Are you deaf and blind?"
Problem ... I don't like pickup trucks. "Yeah, thanks, you're right."
"And not only that, Claire, but once he gets done fixing his truck? You will have a boyfriend with an actual, real-live car. You can turn that sun mouth into a kissing machine."
I grinned while everyone hooted. What Geneva called "sun mouth" was a trait of lots of guys in the fish frat. Because they fished for their dads already, and because some were lifeguards, they were always in the sun. Their lips got all sunburned, and it looked way good. Even in the winter you can tell who's had sun mouth, because this sandy color stays on the surface of the lips. It drives girls crazy. The problem is that sun mouth does not necessarily mean someone kisses good. My biggest secret was that Scott was the worst. He had sent me home with an actual fat lip the Friday night before, and I stared at the swelling in the bathroom mirror, thinking, Am I a dog bone?
I watched Geneva pound on her locker for me about my future sex life, and I remembered that one time at a party last year, she ended up in a bedroom with Scott, though he never followed through in the weeks following. Before she decided she didn't care, she went on and on about him being some hot-lips Romeo. I wondered if it was me, or my kissing—if I could turn some Romeo into a bulldog lolling over a soup bone.
Maybe I was a lesbian. Or a secret science nerd, and I should be going out with William Hymen, who was doomed to pick his boogers and look at them, and to love chemistry, what with a last name like Hymen.
Stop, Claire. Take a goddamn nap and the nightmares that come with, because it beats stooping to mean fests, hypocrite. Don't forget eighth grade. I stood up too fast or something. It came over me again, like out in the corridor at lunchtime—this airy feeling, like I was on a ship. The room leaned to one side. Automatically, I moved toward the door.
To get Geneva's eyes off me, I groped my brain for an answer. "I'm sure that truck will ... start us off with a bang."
I walked calmly past their hooting, into the corridor, trying to put some distance between myself and my own bad kissing. And I didn't want an audience if I fainted.
The warm, salty wind flowed around my head as I walked cautiously onto Hackett Boulevard—a too-awesome name for our two-lane main drag. It was warm enough that I wondered if Indian summer was coming. The thought ran through me that Indian summers in November could bring a curse to my health, and then I tried to put those stupid tourist thoughts out of my head. I breathed deeply and regularly, and the dizziness started to die down as I passed Bunny's Market. I waved to Bunny, who was bagging groceries—he stooped to bagging in the off-season. Then I passed the gas station and saw Macy's dad half under a pickup truck. I recognized Mr. Matlock's legs, but I didn't have to. He doesn't hire help at the Hackett Pump after Labor Day.
I came up to Sydney's Café and decided to go in, because Sydney gave me free lemonade as part of the Saturday-night deal.
Sydney wasn't behind the counter, and between me and the lemonade maker stood Lani Garver. I stared, in awe of my bad luck, as he searched through the fattening stuff. He was alone, no friends, probably feeling incredibly freaky in this new place.
Message from God: "Be nice, or I can mess up your wonderful life."
My family was not into any religion known for jamming people full of guilt trips, yet occasionally a thought like this would strike me like a bolt of lightning. I figured maybe God was not very smart, because the threats made me more tired and didn't give me any energy to do the good deeds I was supposed to be thinking about. My head started reeling bad this time—enough that I was afraid to even go up the single step into Sydney's and lose my balance before God and Lani Garver.
Mrs. DeGrossa had the first duplex after the café. She was a nosy old person, but her decrepit Nova wasn't at the curb. I plopped down on her step, laid my head on top of my backpack, closed my eyes, and surrendered. My thought was Okay ... if I fall onto the concrete, someone will tell Sydney, and she'll call my mom. I give up...
Next thing I knew, the sounds of breathing and chewing were above my head. I opened one eye and saw a set of drumsticks in a back pocket. The butt sat, and the drumsticks disappeared.
"Claire. Are you sick?" Lani's arm went around me, like, shaking me a little.
"I'm fine."
"Are you fainting?"
I didn't answer. I thought I might have already fainted and was coming out of it.
"Eat something." One of Sydney's sticky buns appeared in my face. I shut my eyes at the sight of it.
"... don't eat junk food, thanks."
"I know. You're too skinny. Claire..." He forced my shoulders up.
"Macy says you can't be too rich or too skinny." I stared at this sticky bun in my face again. "Uhm ... you're making me sick."
The sticky bun retreated, but he kept up the argument. "Did you eat today?"
He was way off base. "I ate right before I met you."
"That was, what? Eleven o'clock? It's six now. Do you do this every day?"
My head started to clear a little. Since my politeness was asleep, I spewed the truth. "You're probably skinnier than I am. You've got room to talk."
"Whatever," he replied in a way that sounded totally girlish.
Now that I'd heard him say he was not a girl, I would think of him always as boy-boy-boy. But I had to admit he was one of the prettiest boys I had ever seen. Perfect features. If it weren't for that girly hairstyle, he might have been a cute boy. From the neck up. No muscles, just aircraft-carrier bones, or something.
"It's not a hunger thing. I started feeling this way right after I saw you. And that was right after I ate."
"I live up the street. Come to my house, and we'll call somebody to come get you."
He was pointing to a duplex across Tenth Street, behind Bunny's. It looked just like my house,
and every other house near the business district, except for the paint job.
"My mom's a seamstress ... got a Thanksgiving wedding ... she's working until nine tonight."
"You got a dad?" he asked.
"Divorced."
"Sisters or brothers with driver's licenses?"
"Only child, but ... I only live six blocks from here..."
"There is no way you are walking six blocks. Just make it over to my house."
"You don't have to be so nice."
"Nice. Who, what, hell, nice? Is it demented to cut you a break?"
Yeah, I realized in my weary head. People don't cut me breaks. I cut them all the breaks. I don't know how to act when—
He tried to pull me up, and I jerked my arm away.
"Stop it. Stop touching me." My own bitchiness drove me to my feet in shock. "God ... this is so backward. I'm supposed to be ... being nice to you."
"Really? Why is that?"
"Because of God."
"Because of what?" He could have pushed me down in the gutter and walked away. Crazy person ... drug addict ... He caught me as I swayed into him, and something in my gut spoke loudly. This guy has heard it all; you cannot weird him out. Go screw, Macy.
He laughed incredulously, despite that I leaned on him to where I think most people would have been panicking. He asked, "Do I look like some sort of a charity case?"
I groped through my dizzy head for something not weird or rude. "You just look new around here."
He didn't say anything else, but every few seconds he would chuckle, like I had said something so funny he could hardly stand it. I paid him no mind, just managed to glance over my shoulder once or twice to make sure my friends weren't coming to see Lani Garver half carrying me into the sunset.
4
It was a typical duplex like thousands on Hackett—three rooms downstairs and two bedrooms upstairs, and a balcony over the front porch. The furniture was nothing out of House Beautiful, but vacuum lines showed on the tan carpeting, and not a thing was out of place. I gathered there weren't several little kids living here.
A lady came through the kitchen doorway, smiling, but I hadn't thought about conversations with parents when I agreed to come here. Fortunately, Lani just pushed me in the back, toward the stairs.
"Mom, Claire. Claire, Mom," he said when we were already climbing. She said after us, "How do you do?" Most people on Hackett met you and said, "Hey."
"Hey ... hope you like it here ... it's pretty nice ... if you can stand winter fog," I rambled over my shoulder, swaying like an idiot and bouncing off the wall once. I'm sure I came across like a crack queen, despite my effort. My own mom lived for my friends walking through our door. If someone didn't stop to blather with her, she would have to remember she wasn't a popular teenager anymore and her life was over. Then she would drink.
Mrs. Garver's footsteps retreated to the kitchen again as Lani steered me into the bedroom on the right. He didn't have a bed, just a box spring and mattress on the floor. It was covered with a cushy gold quilt and five bed pillows. I fell on them gratefully.
"Your mom said, 'How do you do,'" I muttered. "What are you, rich Philadelphia people? What are you doing here in the winter? You didn't let me talk to her. She'll think I'm some sleaze and we're up here doing the nasty..."
I could hear him moving about as I rubbed my eyes.
"Is this normal for you? That you're fainting, and you're worried about a complete stranger's opinion of you?" he asked.
I didn't laugh, though some of the tension ran out of my spine. "Call it ... my job in life. None of my friends know how to be nice enough to the moms. My mom? She thinks she used to be me. She wishes she was me. She needs a husband, which she's not going to get..." There wasn't any point in saying, "Not unless she quits slurring and staggering at the Rod 'N' Reel." This guy might ask if I'd done anything to turn her into a drunk, and I didn't want to get on that sore subject.
He mumbled, "You're saying ... if she had a husband maybe she wouldn't have to live vicariously through her child?" Then he giggled easily.
I didn't know what vicariously meant. I just let out a polite giggle, but it sounded trembly. He lit three different candles over by his disc player. Gay thing, my weary brain decided, making me edgy again.
"So, you used to be summer people?" I asked.
He blew out a match, watching the flame die down to an ember. "Yeah. My dad just passed away, and my mom's sister lives here year-round. She wanted to be near her sister again permanently."
"Wow. Sorry."
Lani shrugged. "My dad was a good guy, but we weren't really close."
I thought that sounded a little odd. If they weren't close, why did he think his dad was a good guy?
"You like Hackett?" I tried to sound casual.
"I think I might." He just tossed the matches on top of his stereo with an easy shrug, like he was oblivious to the stare fests he'd been causing. "Moving isn't anything unusual for me. I've moved almost every year since fifth grade."
I guessed that was why he'd talked to Macy and me so easily today—experience. "Why'd you move so much?"
He plopped down on the mattress. "First it was my dad's job in the military. Then I ran away. I lived as a runaway for two years. This is my first year back."
"You 'ran away,'" I repeated, watching him meet my gaze, though he didn't look comfortable. I'd never met a kid who ran away before. At least, not for more than a couple nights. A couple years? I was shocked he looked so healthy.
"Why did you run away?"
"We were living in a small town at the time." He squirmed a little. "People like me do better in big cities. But I don't like to talk about my life much. What's up with you? If it's not a starvation diet?"
Macy would come drag me out by the ear if she had any clue I was with a guy who ran away and wouldn't talk about it. I wasn't about to be completely stupid.
"Well ... I don't really like talking about me, either."
He just looked away to the corner. "Do you have friends you can talk to?"
"I have friends."
He looked back again, like I hadn't answered his question. I rolled my eyes. "What I've got is a pretty serious problem. They wouldn't know what to do about it. They're just ... normal."
"There's this charming thing called 'getting a load off,' even if they couldn't help."
"I suppose I could get a load off." I shrugged, uneasy. "I guess I'm afraid of freaking them out. Maybe they'd back off from me. Not to be mean or anything, but ... they're just not used to big problems."
I thought maybe he'd give me a lecture on picking less shallow friends, at which point I would have left no matter how bad I felt. But his eyebrows hooked together like he had some sort of a challenge.
"And you can't talk to your mom."
I shook my head. "She topples pretty easily. Last time I had a serious problem ... she let me go stay with my dad in Philadelphia until ... it was over. Not that she's a bad person or anything. She's just real emotional, and we all decided I needed, you know, someone who wouldn't pace the floor all night and make me all crazy, too."
I was leaving big holes in this story, like She was a happy, weekend partyer before I got sick. I was trying to get this kid backed off, not sucked in.
But he wasn't staring, like, to get all the missing details. He just blinked into the darkening corner. "What about your dad?"
"He's a little more together than my mom." Hazy echoes wandered through my head of my dad laying all the cards out a few times: Your mom is an overgrown child. She drinks because she doesn't cope well with reality. You didn't cause that; it's not your fault. "He can read my mind sometimes. But it's hard to take seriously people's advice when they never talk unless you call them. Not that I blame him. He waited until after ... my problem ended ... to get remarried. He's only been remarried a year. He's a musician, so he has to work constantly to keep him and Suhar out of debt. I can't lay anything else on him."
"So, you ca
n't talk to your mom, your dad, or your friends."
I hadn't really thought of myself as being in any sort of a corner until he put it that way. I laughed a little but rolled onto my side, which I knew from experience helps you to not puke. I felt like puking, probably from feeling dizzy.
"There're also counselors, rabbis, pastors," he said with a tiny note of sarcasm, like that was a brilliant idea. It was just a small thing, but I couldn't remember hearing too many kids tell another kid to go to a grown-up for help. Maybe a dork would. But there was something very not-dorky about him. Dorks are usually very sheltered. He seemed streetwise, older.... I couldn't put my finger on it yet.
I went on. "My dad thought I should get counseling, but ... I just wanted to get back to the island, back to my life. My mom doesn't see the need for stuff like that. She's the type who'll spew anything to anyone and can't see why I'm not like that. She brought the island pastor over a couple times, but it was more like 'Try and find out for me if anything's up with her,' rather than 'See if there isn't something she wants to talk about.' You know."
"So ... even the very religious guy seems like a spy for the enemy."
"Yeah." I let go of a weak giggle. "But I don't really, you know, enjoy talking about it to anyone. I don't need ol' Pastor Stedman. I can talk to God, direct, if I want."
He laughed. "Well, I don't think that's gonna help in this case."
"Why not? You some sort of atheist?"
"No. I talk to God. A lot. But I don't have the type of God in my head who would tell me to be nice to the new kid while I'm trying not to faint."
I thought on that—me staggering into Sydney's on a mission of sainthood. I cracked up weakly. "I'm dumb sometimes. My friends will tell you."
"What else does this God tell you? Not to eat doughnuts?"
"Very funny, ha-ha. But sometimes I feel like..." I tried to figure how to say my thought without sounding even more stupid. "I feel like God has entire, whole control over whether my illness stays away or comes back. And my only bargaining power is to be, like, super nice. Only problem is, I've probably got some killer-bitch tendencies."
What Happened to Lani Garver Page 4