Reality Check

by Peter Abrahams

  Cody had shaken his head.

  “All those tax-and-spenders in Washington, that’s our problem. What happened to this country, tell me that.”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Beezon,” Cody had said. “But, uh, I kind of like it.”

  Mr. Beezon had given him a long look. “Tomorrow

  29

  morning,” he’d said. “Seven sharp.”

  “Okay.”

  “Know what seven sharp means?”

  “Six fifty-five,” Cody had replied.

  Mr. Beezon’s face, a mean old face not used to smiling, had shown just the tiniest hint of a smile.

  Over on the couch, Cody’s father clicked back and forth through the channels, TV light flickering on his tired face; tired, unhappy, and angry face would have been closer to the truth.

  Cody went to work for Beezon Lumber. It turned out that Beezon Lumber did lots of business beyond Little Bend, had customers spread out all over the northeastern corner of the state, which meant Cody had plenty of time to absorb the opinions of Frank Pruitt, the driver. Frank was about the same age as Cody’s father, and about the same size, too—meaning a few inches shorter than Cody—even had the same kind of huge, gnarled hands. The big difference was that Frank didn’t drink. Frank believed that there was a right way and a wrong way to do every little part of the delivery job, and that we should use our nuclear weapons now—“at least one or two, for Christ sake”—while we still had the chance.

  Cody made good money, forty-five hours a week at $10.75 30

  and five to ten more at time and a half. He got a new transmission put in the car, also picked up a very cool set of rims, secondhand but in great shape. He hit the gym—where all returning varsity football players had half-price memberships—three nights a week, and grew stronger. His father met a woman from Pennsylvania or someplace, recently divorced and now living in the trailer park on the southern edge of Little Bend, away from the river, meaning Cody often had the apartment to himself at night. He bought a calling card and phoned Clea a few times, and she phoned him, too, but with the time difference and both of them being so busy—Cody working, Clea traveling a lot with her uncle—they kept missing each other. Email ended up working better.

  hey, that guy frank I was telling you about, the driver? guess what—he can crush an apple in his bare hand—

  make the juice run out. eaten any more snakes yet? gym time. bye.

  Hi, Cody. Sorry I didn’t get back to you till

  now. We were in Bangkok—my uncle Bill advises

  the government there on investment issues.

  Investment issues—listen to me. Yeah, I’m on

  an all-snakes diet—and I got to ride on an 31

  elephant. Her name was Britney—what else?—and

  she makes Bud seem tiny! Miss you. xoxoxo C.

  an elephant wow. the schedule was in the paper, we play bridger in the very first game. so i gotta be ready. party last night in river park. i didnt stay. cops busted it later I heard from junior. he says hi—benched 305 yesterday unbelievable! i miss you too. bye.

  Just got my return ticket, Cody. I’m flying

  back the other way, west. Dad and Fran are

  meeting me in Paris for a few days and I’ll be

  home on Aug. 17. Having an awesome time but can’t wait to see you. I think about things—

  things w/you, a lot. C.

  i think about things and stuff too. 17th—not so long away now. you wouldnt believe how hot it is here—two a days are going to be crap. bunch of us went swimming at the quarry to cool off. frank—the driver guy, remember?—

  says there’s lots of bodies down there from indian times. That does it! I’m never swimming there again.

  But I did some snorkling in Phuket—saw a

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  dolphin! Yo kong zai jian—that’s Mandarin for

  see you soon (I think). Love you. C.

  Phuket turned out to be in Thailand. Cody found a picture online: a beautiful white sand beach with palm trees and strange rock formations—it looked like paradise.

  Cody worked fifty-nine hours the week before Clea came home, making $501.65 after deductions, the biggest check he’d ever had in his hands. He went into Main Street Jewelers—the only jewelry store in town—for the first time in his life, and almost backed out when he saw Tonya Redding working behind one of those glassed-in display boxes. Of course she spotted him right away.

  “Hey, Cody,” she said.

  “Hey,” said Cody, as the door swung shut behind him. He glanced around, saw no one else in the store. “What are you doing here?” he said.

  “Right back at ya,” said Tonya. She was wearing some kind of low-cut top, had bright blue fingernails.

  “Well,” said Cody. “Um.”

  Tonya laughed. She had a very loud laugh, a fact Cody was aware of for the first time. “I work here,” she said. “That’s my excuse—what’s yours?”

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  “I was just . . .”

  “Let me guess,” Tonya said. “You’re looking for a welcomeback present for Clea.”

  Cody nodded: Little Bend was a small town, where everyone knew everyone’s goddamn business. At that moment a curtain opened, and an old white-haired man came out, wearing a weird magnifier in one eye.

  “Everything all right, Tonya?” he said.

  “Oh, yes, Mr. Wexler,” Tonya said. “I’m just helping this gentleman find something nice for his girlfriend.”

  Mr. Wexler removed the magnifier, gave Cody a quick scan. “Show him the heart pendants,” he said, and then withdrew behind the curtain. Tonya made a face.

  “Heart jewelry?” Cody said.

  Tonya moved a few steps along the display case and pointed. Cody walked over, saw a row of gold hearts ranging from tiny to small, each of them with a red stone in the middle.

  “What are these?” he said.

  “Pendants, Cody. You wear them on a chain around your neck, sold separately.”

  Cody bent over the display case, examined the heart pendants one at a time, took his time. He had no idea whether he liked them or not. What were you supposed to look for? Tonya lowered her voice. “Want a tip?” she said. “The heart 34

  pendants—they’re not her.”

  “No?”

  “Not close.”

  “So, uh.”

  Tonya crooked a finger at him. He followed her down to the end of the case. “See these?” she said.

  “Earrings.”

  “Yeah. Earrings. They’re jade, done by a local woman who’s really talented. And as a bonus, this jade comes from the Bridger Hills.”

  The Bridger Hills were twenty miles away. “We’ve got jade here?”

  “Maybe not technically, but it’s some of the best in the world. Asians are buying it all up as fast as they can.”

  Cody, a little confused, gazed at the jade earrings. They came in different shapes—round, square, rectangular, teardrop, and a few others he had no names for. Tonya went tap-tap on the glass with her bright blue fingernail. “Those?” he said, staring at a pair that seemed kind of oval with another smaller oval dangling down.

  “She’ll love them,” Tonya said. “The coolest design, plus they’ll remind her of home.”

  Cody bought the earrings—$299.95 plus tax—although it was more than he’d been planning to spend if he’d actually been 35

  planning, and although he had no idea why Clea would want to be reminded of home since she was going to be home when he gave them to her. But he paid for the earrings and felt good about it. Tonya put them in a velvet-lined box and wrapped it up in silver paper with a bright blue ribbon, same color as her nail polish. She walked him to the door, gave him a pat on the back, her hand possibly lingering a bit.

  August 17 was a Sunday, a real stroke of luck since Cody didn’t have to work. He washed and waxed his car, vacuumed the inside, buffed brightener on his new rims. Clea called on her way from the airport.

  “Hi,” she said.
>
  “Hi.” His heart beat faster, just knowing she was close.

  “Coming over?” she said.

  “It’s all right with, uh, everyone?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay.”

  “We’re going through Arapaho Junction,” she said. He heard excitement in her voice, even though Arapaho Junction was nothing but a gas station and a general store.

  “Won’t be long,” Cody said. Back to normal. She spoke softly. “Can’t wait.”

  At the last minute, Cody realized that flowers might be 36

  nice. On his way across town, he tried one convenience store, then another, finally finding a bouquet of pointy red and yellowish flowers. “What are these?” he asked the man at the cash register, who turned out not to speak much English. As Cody drove into the Heights and up Clea’s street, flowers and earrings on the seat beside him, a black limo was going the other way. He turned into the circular driveway, parked in front of Cottonwood.

  The door opened and Clea came flying out. She hurtled down the steps—how different she looked: hair, face, everything—and ran toward him. Cody had barely gotten out of the car, fumbling with the bouquet and the silver box, when Clea threw her arms around him. They squeezed each other tight. Clea made a little sound deep in her throat, a sound he could never describe but that said a lot. They kissed and hugged, then just held each other, quiet.

  Clea pushed back a little, looked up at Cody. “You’ve grown so much.”

  “Almost an inch,” Cody said. “Plus fifteen pounds.”

  She laughed, a laugh that got a little shaky, verged on tears. Then she noticed the flowers. “They’re beautiful.”

  Cody held up the silver box from Main Street Jewelers.

  “Also there’s this,” he said.

  Clea’s eyes filled up. “There’s something I have to tell you. 37

  I wanted to say it in person.”

  “What?” said Cody, thinking: She has a Chinese boyfriend. But it wasn’t that. “They’re sending me to Dover.”

  Cody made a baffled gesture with his hands, earring box in one, flowers in the other. “Dover?”

  “It’s a private school, Cody.”

  Cody had never heard of it.

  “A boarding school,” she said.

  “Meaning you live there?”

  Clea nodded. “It’s in Vermont,” she said.

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  SHE WAS LEAVING ON WEDNESDAY. Cody called work first thing Monday morning. “I won’t be coming in today,” he said. Mr. Beezon’s niece Sue was the office manager. “You sick, Cody?” she said.

  “No,” he said, realizing too late that this might be one of those times when the truth was the wrong choice. “No, it’s just, um . . .”

  After a moment or two of silence, Sue Beezon said, “You’re taking a personal day?”

  “Yeah,” said Cody, “a personal day.”

  “Then why didn’t you just say so?” said Sue Beezon. “You haven’t missed a day all summer.”

  “Hey, thanks.”

  “See you Tuesday—bright and early.”

  Clea called a few minutes later.

  “I thought you’d be sleeping in,” he said. “Jet lag.”

  “I’m up,” she said. “When are you coming over?”

  Cody showered and drove to Clea’s. She opened the door the moment he knocked. “I love them,” she said.

  “What?” said Cody.

  Clea turned her head, pointed out the earrings. She also wore a long T-shirt, and maybe not much else. “It was so smart of you,” she said.

  “Yeah?” said Cody. “In what way?”

  She laughed. “Because they match my eyes.”

  “Oh, right,” Cody said. “Sure, yeah.” Hadn’t even occurred to him, of course. Had Tonya thought it out that far?

  “Come on in,” she said. “No one’s home.”

  “You said that the last time.”

  She laughed again, pulled him inside. “Everyone’s gone for the day.”

  “You said that, too.”

  Clea pushed the door shut with her bare foot. “Expecting lightning to strike twice?” she said.

  “Always,” said Cody.

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  Her expression changed. She tilted up her head and kissed him. It turned into a longer kiss. Clea made a little sound that meant open your eyes. He’d forgotten: She’d been gone for a long time. He opened his eyes. Other things about her had changed, but those eyes were still the same. That didn’t mean he knew what she was thinking; he just knew what he was thinking: Vermont.

  Soon they were upstairs, back in that bedroom with the silk comforter, and Clea was wearing just the earrings. Hair a lot different, voice a little different, even her body not quite the same—leaner yet somehow more womanly at the same time, if that made sense. But some things were exactly the same, and if not exactly, then even better, for sure.

  They lay side by side, under the comforter.

  “You’ve grown,” she said.

  Cody was about to go over it again, almost an inch, fifteen pounds, when he realized there’d been something in her tone—amused, or maybe teasing. He laughed. She rolled on top of him, kissed the tip of his nose. They stopped laughing.

  “Thanksgiving’s not that far away,” she said.

  “No?”

  Cody took Clea out to a late breakfast at the Big Chief Diner, best breakfast in Little Bend, with a view of the nicest part of 41

  Main Street, with all the old, solid-looking buildings. They had the Big Chief Diner pretty much to themselves. Cody ordered the huevos rancheros with sides of bacon and toast, plus OJ

  and coffee; Clea had the same, except for the coffee.

  “You drink coffee now?” she said.

  Cody nodded. Frank Pruitt was a big coffee drinker, always had a thermos in the truck, and he’d gotten into the habit. When the food came, they demolished it all, ate like starving people, hardly talking. After, Clea burped and said, “That’s the best meal I’ve had all summer.”

  “No way.”

  “It’s true.”

  Cody stirred his coffee, stared at the tiny whirlpool he’d made. “Maybe tourists from Hong Kong will start coming here.”

  Under the table, her foot pressed against his.

  “What was the conversation like?” he said.

  “What conversation?”

  “About this school, Darby or whatever the hell it is?”

  “Dover,” she said. “And didn’t I already tell you?” Clea’s eyes went a little vague. “I was so wiped out last night.”

  “Tell me again.”

  “My uncle Bill’s friends with the headmaster. My dad called my uncle and he called the headmaster. Done deal.”

  Clea shrugged.

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  “I meant the conversation with you,” Cody said. “Convincing you to, you know, go.”

  “There was more than one conversation,” Clea said. “My dad actually flew to Hong Kong just to talk to me.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “How much of a fight did you put up?”

  Her foot moved away. “I fought.”

  “How?”

  “Argued. Yelled and screamed. What do you think?”

  The waitress appeared. “Anything else, kids?”

  They shook their heads. The waitress added up the check, handed it to Cody, and went away.

  Clea leaned forward. “What would you have done?” she said.

  “Me?” said Cody. Deep down, he knew he wasn’t sure, couldn’t really put himself in her place—Hong Kong, headmasters, investment banking, snorkling with dolphins. But he kept going, sure or not. “Refused,” he said. “I’d have refused.”

  She sat back in her chair. Now her eyes seemed different, too, just like the rest of her. That made him angry, very angry, although he didn’t really know why.

  “Flat out refused,” he said. “Flat out fucking refused.”

  Clea crossed her arms over
her chest. “And then what?”

  “What do you mean—and then what?”

  43

  “Exactly,” said Clea. “What do you do when they say the choice is Vermont or Hong Kong?”

  “Hong Kong?”

  “Private school in Hong Kong, living with Uncle Bill—

  that’s an option. Or them buying a condo in Vermont, me going to Dover as a day student, dad and Fran flying back and forth—another option. The only nonoption was staying here and going back to County. What am I supposed to do? Run away to Mexico?”

  Cody started to get it. And what was there to get? Basically it was pretty simple: They were sixteen. “And this is all because of me?” he said. “It’s just to get us apart?”

  Clea looked at him, and then away. “No,” she said. “That was just . . . the catalyst, maybe.”

  Catalyst? What did the word mean, exactly? Cody remembered some story about an explosion in chem class, a class he’d get to senior year, if at all.

  “It’s more the whole scene,” Clea said.

  “What whole scene?”

  “This place. Little Bend. He’s got this idea in his head about Harvard or Yale or one of those, and a town like this just isn’t the right kind of . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  “He wants you to go to Harvard?”

  “Or another, you know, top school. He’s got a list.”

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  “And you can’t get into them if you’re from Little Bend?”

  “It’s not that. It’s more that I won’t really be prepared.”

  “Prepared? You’re the smartest kid in town. You’ve already done calc.”

  “And got a B,” Clea said. “At a place like Dover there’ll be a dozen kids with As in calc every semester. And they go on to multivariables and other things I don’t even know about yet.”

  Cody was a little lost, but for some reason that yet stuck in his mind. “I think you want to go.”

  She reached across the table, laid her hand on his. “I love you,” she said.

  “But other than that?” he said.

  “Other than that? That is the most important thing in my life.”

  Cody withdrew his hand. “But this is a big opportunity, right? That’s what you think.”

  Clea was silent for a few moments. The morning light emphasized the green of her eyes, and Cody saw that the earrings didn’t really match. “Harvard and those places take football pretty seriously, in their own way,” she said.