Notes on a Near-Life Experience

by Olivia Birdsall

  “So are you going to go with him or what?” I try to seem nonchalant.

  “Well, I wanted to ask you what you thought. I mean, I know we'd go with you and Julian, so that would be fun. And I know Al wouldn't pull any Ricky Friedman crap, either. But…I don't know. Did you tell him to ask me?” Haley asks.

  “He asked you because he wanted to. That's all.”

  “Okay. Then I'll go with him. But what's the deal with him lately?” Haley moves away from the jet behind her. Her skin gets irritated if she sits in front of it for too long. “We have ceramics together and he hardly ever comes to class. And I swear there was something wrong with him when he called me.”

  “I think he's been really busy with work, and he coaches Keatie's soccer team with Julian. He was probably just tired.”

  Haley looks unconvinced.

  “Anyway, it's none of our business, right?” I say.

  “He's your brother, so it is your business. And I'm your friend, so if your family is having a rough time and you want it to be my business, it can be my business, too. Look, Mia, if you don't want to talk to me about it, that's fine, but if Allen's doing things that could get him, or other people, into serious trouble, someone needs to do something about it.”

  “You're starting to sound like one of those drug awareness videos they show every year during Red Ribbon Week,” I joke. How can I tell her that I can't even deal with my own feelings about my disappearing family and upside-down-inside-out world, much less Allen's?

  “I'm sorry,” she says, “but I still mean it.” She looks at me hard for a moment, to show she really is serious. “Anyway, you and Julian are definitely my business. So what's up with that?”

  “I don't know…. It seems like things are good.” I lean my head back, dip my hair in the water, then wrap it into a knot to keep it out of my face. “Okay so this might be kind of a creepy question, but…do you think I have nice boobs?”

  “What?” Haley says, her eyes immediately shifting away from me, as if she wants to make sure I know she is not looking at my breasts.

  “No, not like that…I mean… Julian and I kiss. And I like it, don't get me wrong. And we don't necessarily need to do anything else at this point, but isn't he supposed to want to?”

  “And you think this has something to do with your boobs?”

  “I don't know.”

  “When you were walking over here from the pool, I thought, 'Mia has great, perky boobs,' in a strictly nonlesbian way, you know.”

  “Really?”

  “Totally. Mine are droopy compared to yours.” Haley is beautiful and she has a fantastic body. If I didn't know who her parents were, I'd think she was the love child of a basketball star and a big-breasted supermodel.

  “Nah. I was just cold.”

  We leave when our hands and toes get pruney, and make up questions for Mr. Bingler's homework on the way home. We try to make them sound like textbook questions, but we throw in a few nonsense questions because it's so late and we're sort of out of it.

  “How are the effects of the Industrial Revolution apparent in the roots of the civil rights movement?”

  “The civil rights movement was not civil, nor did it actually move, but it was right. Discuss.”

  When Haley drops me off, Allen's car is in the driveway, and the light in his room is off. See, he's fine, in bed by twelve-thirty. When I pass his room on the way to mine, his door is slightly open, but I don't look in.

  THE CHRISTMAS BEFORE I TURNED NINE, MY GRANDPARENTS, my dad's parents, wh've never been great present givers— one year they bought us all new pillows—bought us each a board game. Allen got Monopoly; I got Sorry!; Keatie got Candy Land. I never played mine, but Allen liked his; Keatie was too young to do much more than strew the cards from hers all over the house.

  Anyway, that spring we all got the chicken pox. My mom was out of town visiting an old college roommate, and our housekeeper-nanny lady, Prudencia, wouldn't come over because she'd never had chicken pox, so my dad had to stay home from work and take care of us.

  It was his idea to play Monopoly.

  So we started playing and my dad started talking about how he hadn't lost a game of Monopoly in twenty-six years or

  something like that.

  “Get ready to lose,” Allen told him.

  After about three hours of Monopoly I was bored, confused, and almost out of money; Keatie was making towns out of the houses and hotels, pretending to blow them up with the tin top hat game piece that no one had wanted to use; and Dad and Allen were in another galaxy, intent on the game.

  I rolled the dice and got an eight, which landed me on a square belonging to Allen that had three houses on it. I counted out almost all my money and gave it to him.

  “You got a double,” he said. “Two fours, you get to roll again.”

  “I don't want to,” I said. “I'm tired.”

  “It's the rules.” Allen pressed the dice into my hand and closed my fingers around them.

  I rolled. Two ones. I moved forward two spaces. Another of Allen's squares; this one had a red plastic hotel on it. I gave Allen the rest of my money.

  “That's not enough; you have to mortgage your properties.”

  “Just take them,” I said handing Allen all the cards in my possession.

  “All right!”

  I began watching TV with Keatie, who'd tired of bombing plastic villages. And then the tide turned.

  Smack in the middle of a rerun of Scooby-Doo on the Cartoon Network, Allen yelled, “Ye-eah! You are so finished!”

  “We'll see,” said Dad, with an odd edge to his voice. He counted his money twice. He turned over each of his cards one at a time, adding in his head.

  “You don't have enough, Dad,” said Allen.

  “We'll see,” he repeated, writing down numbers on a piece of paper money.

  “I beat you. You're done.”

  Dad calmly picked up the game board and folded it, funneling the pieces on it back into the box. He gathered up his multicolored paper money, put it away, and walked out of the room without saying anything.

  Keatie remained entranced by the TV. I watched Allen, mystified. I saw Allen's face crumple as he bowed his head and began putting his money and cards back in the box.

  Dad didn't say a direct word to Allen or me for the rest of the day. He still wasn't talking to us when my mom got home from her trip the next day, and by then, Allen wasn't talking, either.

  “What's going on here?” said Mom, sensing the tension within minutes of arriving home.

  Neither Dad nor Allen spoke.

  “Allen beat Dad at Monopoly, and Dad hadn't lost in forty-eight years,” I told her. “And now they won't talk.”

  “What? Don't be ridiculous, Mia.” She looked at Dad as if she expected him to debunk my story. He didn't say anything.

  “It's true,” I insisted.

  Her mouth twitched, the way it does when something bothers her but she doesn't want to show it. She looked at the two of them. Allen pursed his lips; Dad looked away.

  “Russ, tell me what happened.”

  Dad shrugged and took Mom's bags down the hall to their room.

  “Al, is that true?”

  Allen nodded. His face tensed, his eyes got watery, he hung his head.

  Mom put her arms around him and said, “It's not that, sweetie. It's not you. It must be something else.”

  Allen buried his head in her chest and didn't speak.

  “He's got a lot on his mind.” Mom paused. “I'm glad you beat him,” she whispered into his ear.

  “Dad's a sore loser, huh, Mom?” I said, wanting to be a part of what was happening between Mom and Allen.

  “Shhhhhh,” she said to me, her arms around Allen. “Shhhhhh.”

  A few days passed before Dad and Allen actually talked without Mom around to force them.

  “MOM, I WANT DADDY TO COME TO MY BIRTHDAY DINNER.” Keatie's announcement surprised us all at dinner on the Thursday before her birthd
ay.

  Mom was home, for a change, so we were all at the table at seven O'clock, eating dinner, just like we used to. I was a little annoyed when Keatie brought up Dad; I'd been enjoying the illusion of normalcy.

  “Okay, sweetie. It's your birthday. Just call him and tell him when to come.” Mom was trying to sound natural and like she didn't really care that Keatie wanted to invite Dad, but I could tell it bugged her.

  We have this tradition in my family: on our birthdays, we can have whatever kind of party we want with our friends or whatever—within reason, of course—but on the Sunday before our birthday, we have a party just for the family. Mom makes whatever we want for dinner—once Allen chose octopus just to see if Mom would make it—and Dad makes the cake, or pie, or whichever dessert the birthday child has chosen. This year Keatie was going to have a roller-skating party on the day of her birthday; she'd invited the entire third grade.

  “I'm just going to invite Dad, and not Paloma. Dad is part of the family and this is a family party, but Paloma is just a visitor. She can come to my skating party but not the dinner.” Keatie paused. “She can't understand most of what we say, and she makes it so Daddy doesn't talk to anyone but her.”

  “Sounds good,” sang Mom through clenched teeth.

  Which brings us to tonight, the night of Keatie's birthday dinner. My dad arrives with a German chocolate cake and a new video game for Keatie.

  “This cake's from a bakery, Dad. I thought you were going to make one special for me like you always do.”

  “Sorry, Keat, I didn't have any time. Things are really hectic right now.”

  “And Allen already has this game, remember? He got it for Christmas. Remember—you tried to tell him it was from Santa,” Keatie says. Keatie has known the truth about Santa since she was seven, but my dad is still in denial about Keatie growing up.

  Dad gets annoyed. “Well, we'll just have to take it back and exchange it, then.”

  Dad sits on the couch and talks to Keatie about her skating party while Mom starts setting the table. He's surprised when he finds out that instead of eating in the dining room, we are going to eat at the “homework table” in the family room.

  “Keatie wanted to eat in here. She specifically requested that we eat at this table,” Mom tells him.

  “I don't like the other table,” says Keatie. “It's too big. And Mom says Grandpa made this table, so I like it better.”

  I imagine Dad thinking that without him around, our family traditions and dignity are falling to pieces—a birthday dinner in the family room at the old picnic table Grandpa made? Horror of horrors.

  Allen walks in just as Mom and I finish setting the table. Keatie squeals and rushes to him; you'd think they hadn't seen each other in years. Allen hands my mom a carton of ice cream and scoops Keatie up into his arms. “Keater, word up. Are you ready to par-tay?” I notice that he doesn't say anything to Dad.

  The dinner is fairly peaceful. Keatie's excited about her skating party; Allen talks about soccer practice and soccer scholarships; Mom and Dad manage to be civil to each other. Everything is fine until Keatie mentions Paloma.

  “Is she coming to my party, Daddy? I don't think there's roller-skating in Peru; she'd like it. Chewy says that Toshi, his exchange brother, loves to Rollerblade.”

  Allen gets angry. “Can we please stop acting like Paloma is some kind of exchange student or tourist or whatever? She's your girlfriend, Dad, and you and Mom are still married, technically. So she's basically your mistress, right?”

  Hell breaks loose, right at the dinner table. Mom tries to shush Allen.

  Dad starts to yell. “Allen, I've had enough of your lip!”

  “And we've had enough of your shit,” Allen snaps.

  “That's enough, you two,” Mom says.

  Keatie and I hang our heads and try to keep eating, like nothing is happening. I cut my steak, the same piece, into smaller and smaller pieces.

  “I don't have to put up with this,” Dad says.

  “Oh, but we have to put up with you?” Allen asks.

  “No, you don't. I'm leaving.”

  “Let me help you out, then.” Allen gets up from the table, opens the front door, walks over to where Dad is, and pushes him off the bench. I try to make sense of what is happening, but I can't. Things are moving too fast, spinning out of control.

  Before anyone can say or do anything, Dad and Allen are on the floor, wrestling. And then Mom is there trying to pull them off each other. Keatie and I sit stunned, frozen at the table.

  “It was just one dinner,” Mom says to Dad when she's finally separated him and Allen. She brushes the disheveled hair out of her eyes. “Can't we spend one hour as a family without anyone arguing or making a scene? Can't we …” Her shoulders begin to shake, and she sinks onto the bench of the homework/picnic/dinner table.

  Dad straightens his tie and tucks his shirt in without a word. He ruffles Keatie's hair as he leaves and promises to take her shopping to find a new video game. Allen goes to his room, emerges with his jacket and car keys, and disappears. Keatie wipes the tears from her face and puts her thumb in her mouth while I try to act normal and finish eating; I don't want to leave her, so I wait for Mom to stop crying before I go to my room.

  Right there, at that moment, I feel like there are no routines left: no dinner at seven, no Jeopardy!, no good-night chats. They've all disappeared. For good, it feels like. I have left the realm of the known and entered uncharted territory. I don't recognize my family anymore.

  I PICK UP THE JAR AND MAKE A BIG SHOW OUT OF SHAKING IT and choosing a new slip of paper. Something nobody knows about you. Yeah, right. “That one's boring; I'll pick another one.” I choose a different piece of paper and read aloud, “Your favorite thing to do. Easy. There are two: dance and watch TV.”

  “So tell me about them.”

  “I've danced since I was three years old and watched TV since I was born,” I begin. “I practice downstairs every day while I watch TV. It's embarrassing, because lots of people think TV is for brain-dead people, but I really like it. Some people say you can't do two things at once, but I'm so used to warming up and stretching that it's easy to do that while I watch. And if I already know a routine, I can practice it while I watch…. Sometimes I can change my rhythms to match what's happening on TV. And if there's music playing, I can do my routine along with the music, I just change the way I do the dances, you know? I move more quickly if the music or the scene is fast paced, and I slow myself down and move more balletically if what's happening on TV is slower or sadder or whatever. And for my modern stuff—I choreograph the modern dance for the team. The other girls just want to choreograph these slutty, sexy dances that make them look like strippers-in-training. For the modern stuff, I use a lot of the movements I see on TV. I don't know if you'd recognize them, because they're slightly exaggerated, but when you see how people express emotion through movement on TV, it's easy to translate that into a movement in dance.” I take a breath. I've never really tried to explain my dancing to anyone before. Just talking about it, I feel free. Less weighed down. I've never realized before that dancing is safe.

  Lisz beams. “I think it's fabulous that you have such a passion and that you've found a way to, um, customize it, to make it your own. Why do you enjoy dance and TV so much?”

  “I don't know. I guess I like dance because I've been doing it for so long that it just feels natural, like something I have to do—like eating, or talking…. It's an outlet for my energy, I guess…. It's like I can express myself in front of people but not have to worry about people thinking I'm crazy or weird…. It's like a language all my own that other people can translate and enjoy for themselves, but only I know what it really means to me. I can't really explain it.”

  “That makes sense to me. I like to paint. I'm not very good, but I still like to do it. And sometimes other people will see what I paint and really like it, and it feels good, their appreciation of my art. But they still never quite get
out of it what I put into it; it's something that I enjoy more than the people who look at my paintings.”

  “Yeah. It's kinda like that for me with dance.”

  “What about TV?”

  “I don't know. I just think it's interesting to see what's going on in other people's lives and how other people live.”

  “I'm sure you've heard people say that television is an escape, that it's unrealistic… that nobody really lives the lives shown on TV.”

  “Yeah. I don't know. I've never known anyone from New York City or Beverly Hills. I've never been a doctor in a hospital emergency room. I've never been to Tibet. It seems like I can learn a lot of stuff from TV. About life. And it's better than the boring stuff that goes on in my life.” I wonder about what she said about escape. Is it always bad to escape? Do we always have to just hang around staring our problems in the face?

  “You think your life is boring?”

  “Not always. But it's just really interesting to me to see how other people live, how they feel, how they react to things. I like it. Maybe it is an escape, but it's pretty tough to escape what is real in my own life and what isn't.” It's pretty tough to ignore the fact that your brother, who may have been drunk, tried to beat up your dad, who is apparently no more mature than a seventeen-year-old.

  AMONG THE THREE OF THEM, KEATIE, ALLEN, AND JULIAN have asked 98 percent of the free world to attend Yorba United's first soccer game. Still, Mom and I are surprised when Dad and Paloma show up and plant their lawn chairs a few feet from ours on the grass. Paloma spots me and says hello.

  “Ay, Mia, how you are?”

  “Muy bien, gracias. How are you?”

  “Very good. I love to watch the, eeehhhh, soccer. I am happy to see Keatie play.” Dad, ever oblivious, doesn't realize what he's done, the uncomfortable position he's put everyone in, until he sees Mom. “Well, uh, Maggie. Hello.” She stands up and walks over. “How are you, Russ?”