The Girl of Sand & Fog

by Ward, Susan

  “I’ll text you from the pool house once I know,” Bobby says.

  He takes my hand and pulls me with him out the back door, past the pool and into the small cottage there. Inside, I note personalized posters on the wall, a guy’s type of bed, a big screen TV with video games, guitars, and dirty clothes scattering the floor. Messy, but personal. His room.

  “You sleep in the pool house?”

  Bobby shrugs. “They moved me out here at fifteen. I guess they thought it would be easier to sneak girls in here and I think my dad wanted to silently motivate the activity.”

  I collapse back on Bobby’s unmade bed. It smells of guy and sweat. I find the combination appealing.

  I roll over onto my side to look at him, curled in the center of his bed, cheek resting in palm. “Why motivation at fifteen? And why do they think you’re gay?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t date, OK?”

  Zoe is at the small apartment-size fridge rummaging through the cans. “He,” she says with a lift of her nose, “is selective. You’ve seen the girls at school. Snobs. Phonies. Freaks. Who would want to date them?”

  “We’re girls from the Academy,” I point out. I look at Bobby. “So what’s wrong with us?”

  “Nothing, as far as I can tell, but it’s early. And grab me a beer while you’re in there, Zoe.” He looks at me. “Do you want something to drink?”

  I shake my head. “Your parents let you drink?”

  “We’re all very progressive here,” Bobby jeers as he uses a church key to pop off the top of some kind of imported beer.

  I laugh. “Not really.”

  “Yes, really,” Zoe says. “But I think Linda is using reverse psychology. If she pushes him to behave like the old man he’ll only push harder not to. They have a hostile relationship. Len left a giant Costco-size box of condoms in Bobby’s bedroom on his twelfth birthday. Can you believe it? By the way, Bobby, have you cracked the seal on that box yet? They do expire. Best check the date.”

  “Fuck you, Zoe.”

  Zoe laughs and sinks down on the bed beside me. Her pudgy face turns toward Bobby again. “You know, you have two of us here, Bobby. You might be able to use a few of the Trojans before they expire. Think how happy that would make Len.”

  He ignores her and looks at me. “She’s joking. Zoe and I are just friends.”

  I flush, wondering why it pleases me that it was important to him to tell me that there was nothing going on between him and Zoe.

  I shrug. “It’s nothing to me if you weren’t.”

  I flip open the MacBook lying beside me and the screen opens on his Facebook page. I start to strike the keys.

  “What are you doing? I didn’t say you could mess with my page,” Bobby says.

  “You’re sending me a friend request. This has got to be about the saddest Facebook I’ve ever seen. You’ve only got, like, twenty friends. What’s up with that?”

  “He doesn’t like anyone,” Zoe says.

  I smile. “Well, he likes me. You can de-friend me later if you want to, Bobby.”

  “I’ll de-friend you as soon as you leave,” Bobby counters, reclining in a sitting position on the bed beside me.

  Under slightly lowered lashes, I give him a sideways look and those intense green eyes lock on me. I feel it again, that little charge.

  I focus on the computer screen. Fuck, how pathetic I am. I’m nearly eighteen and this is the first time I’ve been alone in a bedroom with a guy—well, alone if you didn’t count Zoe, which I don’t—and all Bobby has to do is look at me to get me hot and make me think about things I shouldn’t be considering.

  But crap, my virgin status is almost that of a nun. Jeez, I’ve hardly dated. Boyfriends: no can do. It’s always been like having a normal life had seemed an impossible thing in my family, and before Jesse’s death I was considered too young in Chrissie’s world for anything more than PG-13 activities with the male population. And then there is my hang-up about guys and sex.

  Guys and sex are at the center of all my life problems, the complication they created, the creations they created, and the strange hold sex seems to have on people. It has to be sex that has kept my mom tied to Alan Manzone for over half her life, climbing into bed with him at his choosing, spawning his brats and lying about it to everyone, and being willing always to take him back whenever he drifts into her world.

  Nope, the last thing I want is to end up like my mother. I definitely don’t want anything to do with guys or sex. That’s why I am always careful if I do mess around with a guy to go only so far. So far…

  I look at Bobby and wonder where I will draw the line with him. I know it is more than idle musing. He is into me. I’m certain I’m not wrong about that. I can feel the power of that racing all through me and the static electricity radiating between us. Yep, this dude wants to fuck me.

  “Log in to your page and friend me. We’re going to be great friends. I can tell.” Zoe’s voice cuts through my thoughts.

  I shift my gaze to her. “I don’t know if I want to be friends with you or show you my page.”

  Zoe only smiles and begins to click away. “Then, I’ll log into mine and friend you.” She starts tapping on the keys. “Have you ever Googled yourself? Have you looked at your Wikipedia page?”

  Bobby makes a face. “Christ, you use Wikipedia. No wonder your grades are barely Cs.”

  I roll my eyes and lie back on the bed. “I don’t have a Wikipedia page.”

  Zoe looks up. “Oh, yes you do. I can’t believe you haven’t seen it.”

  She does more typing and turns the screen around. I tense from head to toe. How is it possible that I’ve never seen my own Wikipedia page? Of course, it had never occurred to me that I’d have one, even with how much I find online about me when I Google myself. But there it is, Kaley Stanton wrapped in half-truth and speculation.

  “Give me the computer. Let me see that,” I shout.

  “Zoe, get that damn thing off the screen,” Bobby orders harshly. “Why the hell did you have to show her that?”

  Zoe’s eyes widen in dismay. “I thought she knew. How could she not know that she has a Wikipedia page?”

  I snatch the MacBook up off the bed and begin to scroll down the page. I click on a highlighted name and it takes me to Alan Manzone’s page. Oh fuck, we are linked together on Wikipedia in a truth I am not permitted to live.

  I am breathing rapidly when Bobby takes the computer from me and turns the thing off.

  “I take it you’re not a fan of Wikipedia?” he says after several tense, silent moments.

  I shake my head, feeling fuzzy and disoriented. “I avoid it on principle.”

  “You’ve really never seen your page before?” Zoe asks.

  I shake my head.

  Bobby fixes his eyes on me in a sympathetic way.

  “It’s just bullshit, Kaley. No one really takes it seriously,” Bobby tries to reassure me. “Even I’m on Wikipedia. On my dad’s page. It’s just bullshit.”

  I sharpen my gaze on him. “Did you read my page? Did you, Bobby? Then don’t tell me it’s bullshit. It’s about me and it’s out there.”

  They both stare at me as if my reaction over this is illogical.

  “Calm down. It’s just bullshit,” Bobby repeats calmly.

  “Bullshit, huh? Well, you try living with it, even for only a day. At least you know who your dad is. Alan Manzone won’t even admit to being my father.”

  “I don’t know my dad,” Bobby replies with calm, heavy meaning. “I’m adopted. Remember?”

  I flush.

  I’d forgotten that.

  I just said a really shitty thing.

  “It’s not important what other people know,” Bobby continues seriously. “It’s only important what you know. I won’t ever know who my biological father is, but I don’t give a shit. But you already know the truth. You can do whatever you want with it.”

  I stare at him, his calmness and logic taking some of the steam from me. But
still—

  I stare at him, angry.

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Bobby. I don’t really know. Not really. Not any more than you do about your dad. Maybe you don’t care who your birth father is, but I do. I hate not knowing anything for sure. I want to know why they’ve lied to me. Why he won’t claim me. What the fuck I ever did that he doesn’t want me. I hate knowing the truth and having to pretend I don’t. It makes me feel sort of disconnected and lost and really out-of-place everywhere.”

  Bobby’s gaze bores into me. “Then find a way to get to know everything you need to know. With how you feel the ends justify the means.”

  I’m not sure, but it sounds to me as if the guy has just given me permission to use him.

  I decide to stay for dinner.

  CHAPTER 4

  Dinner in the Rowan household when Len is on the road is a strange thing. I wonder if it’s just strange because Len Rowan isn’t home. He’s been on tour with Alan Manzone for nearly a year.

  I politely pick at my food, trying not to betray on my face what I’m thinking. Fucked-up marriage à la the digital age. Crap, it’s bizarre. Old people are bizarre. Even Chrissie and Jesse’s marriage wasn’t this weird. In fact, compared to this, it was nearly normal.

  Family was the focus of their lives.

  They were kind to each other.

  They never fought.

  They slept in separate bedrooms—yep, that one was weird—but heck, we were practically the Cleaver family compared to this.

  Shit, why doesn’t Linda shut off the damn tablet?

  I take a careful peek at Bobby from the corner of my eyes and struggle not to laugh. The dude is definitely looking uncomfortable. I’m not sure why. Is it having me here or having me see this?

  All through the meal, after expecting us to gather around the kitchen table in a Waltons sort of way, Linda’s eyes have been locked on her iPad chatting away with Len via FaceTime. I don’t know where Len is or what time it is, but his voice is gravelly, the way my mom’s is after she’s been on stage. I feel kind of bad for him about how long Linda has kept this going because he looks tired and like he hasn’t had time to change out of the clothes he’d worn on stage.

  Len Rowan is a trooper. I’ll give him that, since I would have clicked Linda off a half hour ago, but clearly making the dinner linkup with his family is a priority for Len.

  I poke at my tamale. That’s kind of sweet. I have a few vague memories of Len from when I was little. He was a nice guy and kind of goofy. At least I think that’s what he was, but what the heck do I know? And as odd of a family dinner as this is, it’s been interesting with the Rowans, given me time to covertly study Bobby, and Linda sure as hell can cook. Her Mexican food nearly rivals our housekeeper Lourdes’s.

  “You’ll never guess who joined us for dinner tonight, Len,” Linda exclaims after talking at him for an hour nonstop.

  “I couldn’t guess. Why don’t you tell me?” Len replies in his heavily accented voice.

  “Little Kaley Stanton,” she announces with heavy satisfaction.

  Inside my head, I roll my eyes.

  She laughs. “Though not so little. And you were right, Len. I was imagining things. Everything is fine with Chrissie. We’re having dinner Friday. Say hello to Kaley.”

  Linda flips the screen around and being here rapidly moves from strange to all-out creepy. I’ve not seen Len Rowan since I was very young and, to be honest, I don’t feel like I’m seeing him tonight since via technology is no different than seeing him on Palladia.

  I smile, praying that Linda will quickly turn that damn screen away from me.

  “I wouldn’t have recognized you,” Len says, surprised.

  I stare and say nothing.

  “Well, well, well,” he adds. Then something changes in his expression. “I wouldn’t have recognized her, Linda.”

  Linda flips the screen to give a meaning-filled stare to her husband. “Exactly.”

  I hear Len say, “Aha.”

  I tense. There it is again. That freaking aha. It must be some kind of code in the Rowan household. They all use it, understand it, even Bobby’s eight-year-old sister, Madison. I wonder if I’m making more of the ‘aha’ than necessary or if this is just the way families who stay together communicate, some kind of familial shorthand. I don’t know why, but the ‘aha’ has the strange power to piss me off.

  Another half hour passes and dinner is finally done. The iPad is set aside and Linda gives us the go-ahead to leave. I decide to correct an earlier flash of bitchiness.

  “I’ve really got to get home. Chrissie freaks out when I take off without letting her know where I am. Do you want me to drive you back to school to get your cars?”

  On the drive back to the school parking lot Zoe talks in her relentless way. It doesn’t seem to faze her that both Bobby and I haven’t said a word during the ten-minute drive. She just keeps rambling on, and we are parked five minutes without any indication she plans on leaving soon.

  “I really need to go, Zoe,” I interrupt her, knowing I’m being rude but, darn, she hasn’t even paused for air. “Can we finish this tomorrow at school?”

  Her round face colors. “Oh, sorry. See you guys tomorrow, I guess.”

  She climbs from the car but Bobby stays in the seat beside me and I wonder if he just realized my rudeness to Zoe was a calculated move to get some alone time with him. For a long time we sit by ourselves in a deserted school lot, side by side in the front of my Lexus.

  “I’m sorry about my folks. Dinner. Don’t think I don’t know how messed up they are,” Bobby says. “You OK?”

  I shrug. “I think it’s kind of sweet how into each other your parents are.”

  “No, you don’t. It’s weird and they are totally rude. But for what it’s worth I think technology saved their marriage. I wouldn’t be surprised if Linda had a tracking device implanted in Len one night when he was asleep.”

  I laugh. “You don’t like them, do you?”

  Bobby shakes his head. “Well, not Len. And my house is always messed up. Can’t wait to get out of there. Just when I think it’s gotten as weird as it can get, it gets a little weirder. I’d be out of there if not for Linda. I promised her I’d stay at least until graduation.”

  I smile, not really knowing how to answer that.

  The front window is beginning to fog from our breath. Everything is quiet and muted here. I unfasten my seat belt and turn in my seat, staying on my side of the car, more to see his reaction to this while I make an overt study of him.

  He is so casual about everything, comfortable in who he is, all tall and muscled, lightly tanned, nerve-poppingly male. He waits while I study him and I’m bothered by his calmness.

  Fuck, why is he being so low-key, so remote? He hit on me first. At school.

  “You baited me when we first met,” I accuse. “I saw it when you did it. You were obvious. You used knowing Alan Manzone to get me interested in you. It was obvious.”

  He shrugs.

  “Why did you do that?” I say into his quiet.

  “Why do you think?”

  “Because I’m incredibly hot.” His annoyed reaction to that makes me laugh. “What? Am I not supposed to say that? I see how guys look at me. I’m not blind. Mr. Jamison gives me a look like he wants to bend me over a chair every time he sees me. So do you. You give me that look only you don’t know it.”

  He turns in his seat to face me better. “No. Not that you’re not hot, but no. That’s not the reason. You just seemed really lost under all the bitchiness. You look like you could use a friend.”

  Oh shit. That comment I did not expect and I definitely don’t like it.

  I spring forward and push into his chest with my finger. “Don’t play me, OK? I’m not up for the fucked-up games of the male population. If you want to fuck me, ask. I may do it, but don’t play me.”

  “I don’t want to fuck you at all. I thought we already covered this.”

  Covered th
is?

  What the heck does that mean?

  Is he trying to make me believe he’s gay?

  After a moment, I climb over the center console until I’m straddling his hips. There is nothing gentle about the kiss I give him or the way my hands close on his face. I put my tongue to his lips and he opens his mouth obediently to let me in.

  Two seconds into it, I’m sure I haven’t misread the guy. He likes me. He is attracted to me. And he is most definitely not gay. That is confirmed by the instant rise of his dick beneath me.

  Good. He’s hard. That’ll teach him not to fuck with me again.

  I feel that flash of female supremacy surge through me. Just to be a bitch, I move my hips slightly to brush my clit against his erection before I end the kiss and scramble back over the gearshift to my side of the car.

  “You can go now,” I say.

  “I was planning to.” He opens the car door. “Do you want to hang out with me?”

  I shrug. What a strange ‘that’s it.’

  “OK.” He’s almost out of the car. I stop him with my hand. “Hey. Honestly, why do your parents think you’re gay? Unless I’m misreading the signals, and I don’t think I am, you are as straight as I am. And don’t give me that line about liking to fuck with your dad.”

  He climbs back into the car and we sit for a while in the changeless color of the streetlights.

  “It’s OK,” I say when he’s been silent for a long while. “You don’t have to tell me. It doesn’t matter.”

  He shrugs. “I know I don’t have to tell you. I’m just debating if I should. I never even told my mom this story and, as irritating as Linda is, we’re pretty close and I can tell her anything. Good listener, Linda. Practical about things. Always has your back.”

  “I’m a good listener, too.”

  Those green eyes lock on me. Intense and yet gentle, simultaneously.

  “My dad is a jerk, OK? Len doesn’t mean to be, but he takes the guy thing too far sometimes. Wants his son to be a SON. Get it?”

  “Not really.”

  “There’s quite a few of us kids now. Every member of the band has at least two. We all started traveling with our dads, oh, maybe eight years ago, during the summer tours. I guess the moms thought it would tone things down. It was really fun in the beginning. Like camp in an airplane.”