Read Between the Lines

by Jo Knowles

  Poor Cal. He’s already a year older than us because when he was little his parents read in some child psychology book that they should wait a year to have him start school because it would give him an academic advantage. I guess it did, up to a point. Cal claims the sticker is too old and stuck on and won’t come off. But really, I think he’s the one who’s proud. Lucky for us, an unexpected advantage of Cal being one year older is that he has his license one year sooner. It’s probably the one and only thing anyone envies about us.

  Whenever we go out with Cal, we sit in the same seats. I am always in the back. I make a point to sit behind the passenger seat so I don’t have to see myself in the rearview mirror. I made that mistake once and spent the whole ride being able to see my acne (or, as Dylan would say, my crater face), my bad haircut (or, as Dylan would say, bed head), and, worst of all, my gigantic nose (no one comments on the nose, out of respect for the fact that there’s nothing I can do about it). Since then, I’ve always avoided the Look How Ugly You Are seat. But I’m still in the back. These have been our assigned seats since Cal got his license and the keys to the Great White Beast all in the same day. Damn, his mom is generous. Dylan and I aren’t likely to see our first cars until we graduate from college, if we even make it that far.

  My parents share one car. It’s a silver Prius that sits in the driveway collecting dust like a proud monument to my parents’ dedication to Going Green. I mean it just sits there. And it’s already the greenest car you can get around here. The only time we ever drive the thing is when my parents have to go someplace on business, or if one of us has a doctor’s appointment or some other appointment we can’t walk, ride bikes, or take the bus to. My parents literally cringe when Cal shows up to get me for school in the Great White. But I continue to point out to them that with three guys in the car, we make a pretty respectable carpool. They just sigh.

  Two years ago when they bought my twin sisters a tandem mountain bike, the girls actually burst into tears. “But it will be cute!” my mother insisted. It was not cute. My sisters spent a year hiding the bike in an alleyway on the way to school and hoofing it the rest of the way, to avoid humiliation. No one stole the unlocked bike. No one was surprised.

  At the traffic light, Cal rolls the windows down and pumps the volume so the bass changes the rhythm of my heart. Bam bam-bam. Bam bam-bam. The late-fall air wafts into the car. The smell of dried leaves always reminds me of Halloween for some reason. Walking through neighborhoods with the guys, dressed as hobos, kicking fallen leaves as we trudged along with our pillowcases stuffed with candy. Sometimes I wish we weren’t too old to do that anymore.

  There’s a Ford Taurus next to us. Cal signals for us to check out the driver. He has on a brown suit jacket. His window is down, too, and there’s a trickle of sweat dripping from his temple, even though it’s kind of cold out. He looks like the kind of guy who always smiles, even if he’s just severed a limb. Polite to the point of agony.

  I know what that’s like, not wanting to make waves. You’d never know it by the guys I hang out with, but I do. I hate conflict. I hate awkward situations. I just want everyone to get along and go with the flow. My mother says she doesn’t know how she and my dad could have raised such a passive child. Seriously? She and my dad are so loud and obnoxious, there isn’t any room left in the house for my words. My friends think my parents are cool because they’re hippie activists. In reality, they’re just annoying. I’m not complaining, not really. I’d rather have annoying parents who care about something important than absent parents who don’t care at all.

  “Get ready,” Cal says. It’s hard to hear over the music, but we see his lips move and know what’s coming.

  When the light turns green, Cal guns it and pulls in front of Taurus Man. Then, when we get to the next set of lights, he slams on his brakes. I almost can’t hear the tires squeal, the music is so loud. We sort of rock to a stop. Then there’s a crunching sound.

  Cal turns off the music and looks around, all innocent and fake-confused, like he doesn’t know what just happened.

  Taurus Man gets out of his car and straightens his tie nervously.

  He’s a sad sack, that guy. I knew it the moment I saw him. Obviously, so did Cal.

  He comes toward the driver’s side holding his wallet.

  Some cars behind us honk.

  The guy’s hands are shaking.

  “I, uh . . . you stopped kind of suddenly . . . uh . . .”

  He fumbles with his wallet.

  Cal motions for Dylan to go take a look.

  He dashes around the back and inspects, then comes back.

  “Bumper’s scratched,” Dylan says. “Your headlight’s broken,” he tells the guy.

  “Look,” the guy says nervously. “I, um, I’m really sorry. But . . . Do you think we could handle this ourselves?”

  “Lemme guess,” says Cal, all cool. “You don’t want to deal with the cops and insurance.”

  I don’t know how Cal gets these guys. How he picks them out. Sometimes it’s a lady. Tipsy. Or an old person who can barely see over the steering wheel. It’s always the same. Let’s take care of this with some cold, hard cash. Fast. No need to involve the cops. Easy money.

  I rub my neck on cue. The guy sees me do it. I feel a twinge of guilt. Actually, it’s more like a long tight twist in my chest that spreads through my body. I hate this game.

  “You OK, son?”

  “Yeah, I think so,” I say.

  Why do I go along with this?

  Why.

  “I have insurance,” he tells us. “But I have this very important job interview. And if we call the police, I could be late. And . . .”

  Cal nods patiently.

  “Here. This is all I have. I see you boys aren’t wearing seat belts.”

  It’s a lame attempt to scare us into not demanding more than he’s got. Or to call the cops.

  “I’m not even sure that scratch wasn’t already there,” he adds.

  He’s probably right. The Great White isn’t exactly in pristine condition. But he still forks over some money.

  Cal takes the cash and nods at him. “This’ll do.”

  Relief floods the guy’s face, and he scurries back to his car. Cal turns the music back up and puts the pedal to the metal even though the light is starting to change.

  “Squeeze the freakin’ lemon!” Cal yells over the music. The yellow light switches to red just as we pass under it. Cal and Dylan each stick their hands out the window and give the guy the finger. Then Dylan surprises me by leaning his head out the window and yelling, “Suck-ah!” at the guy. I turn and watch the poor man realize what just happened. I imagine him punching the steering wheel as we drive away, leaving him stuck at the red light.

  Cal shakes the wad of money like it’s a trophy, then hands it to Dylan. Lunch money for the week and beer money for the weekend.

  Dylan leans back and smiles, shaking his head and counting out the money. He’s been our treasurer since we were in elementary school and formed our secret club in my backyard. We’ve always pooled our money to buy stuff together. It started with lumber and nails for the tree house we made. Then candy we were forbidden to eat. Fun Dip was the best. We’d see who could eat all the sugar and still end up with the dipping stick at the end. As we got older, we switched to Mountain Dew and energy drinks. We’d see who could drink the most, and then we’d go spastic on our sugar and caffeine highs, racing around the yard. Later, we bought our first pack of cigarettes. Now it’s beer. And sometimes weed. Or a juice bottle half filled with liquor from a parent’s stash. Over the years, our platform in the tree grew walls, then a roof, then a door with a padlock. And even though it’s cramped with the three of us inside, we still meet up there before we go out. To get loaded. To talk. To be those kids we were all those years ago, the Three Musketeers cliché, before we head out and act like the dicks we somehow think we have to be in order to have any fun.

  We stop at Little Cindy’s and get
lunch. Then we cruise through town and wolf down square burgers, filling the car with the smell of French fries and greasy meat. Cal and Dylan discuss whether or not we should cut out for the rest of the day, but, like always, we wind up heading back to school. I don’t contribute an opinion on the matter. I never do. I just lean back, look out my window, eat, and enjoy the familiar banter. Sometimes “endure” is more accurate. It depends. Sometimes, I look out my window and think, There must be more to life.

  But so far I haven’t found it.

  At school, we pile out of the car, and Cal yells at us for leaving our paper wrappers and ketchup-smeared napkins on the floor. He grabs it all up and shakes the pile of crap at us. “And you guys wonder why my car smells like a Dumpster!”

  “It couldn’t have anything to do with Dylan’s nasty feet?” I ask.

  “My feet don’t smell!” Dylan whines. “Do they?” He lifts his foot up and bends down to try to get his face close to his ratty sneaker and nearly falls over.

  “Pathetic,” Cal says, walking ahead.

  We follow him, like always.

  My next class is English Lit. of the Twentieth Century with Ms. Lindsay. I wanted to take an easy elective, but my parents of course wouldn’t let me. I’m pretty sure every straight guy in school is in love with our teacher. She’s only in her twenties and totally hot. Well, hot compared to the rest of the teachers, anyway. But no one respects her. The boys make crude noises when she turns her back. The girls all seem to hate her because it’s pretty obvious all the single boys lust after her, and they probably suspect that even the boys who have girlfriends fantasize Ms. Lindsay’s face on them. It’s not her fault she’s beautiful. But, I suppose, she could dress a little crappier and not wear so much lipstick or whatever.

  The other problem is that she replaced a dead guy. Mr. Weidenheff. He taught here for ages, and then all of a sudden he just went and offed himself at the end of last year. Shot himself in the head. It was kind of insane. Everyone has a different theory for why he did it, but of course no one knows for sure. I had him last year, and I don’t remember him seeming depressed. Frustrated, maybe, that none of us seemed to care as deeply about Moby-Dick as he did, but honestly, is that a reason to call it quits — permanently?

  I can’t really imagine what it must be like for poor Ms. Lindsay to sit at that desk in the front of the room, knowing that it belonged to a dead person. I wonder if he stored his gun in there. I wonder if she wonders the same thing.

  “Mr. Messier, who do you think the true hero is, Kurtz or Marlow?”

  I look up from the doodle I didn’t even realize I was making on the corner of my notebook.

  “Uh,” I say. I turn a few pages of our book, Heart of Darkness, and try to remember who’s who. “Uhhh,” I say again.

  She sighs. “Ms. Mead?”

  Lacy Mead blushes and shrugs.

  Ms. Lindsay looks like she’s going to cry. She searches the room for someone more reliable.

  “Ms. Lear? How about you?”

  Grace Lear, of course, has a lengthy opinion delivered in a way that does not invite anyone to disagree with her. She probably signed up for this class for fun. I tune her out and stare at the empty desk in front of me.

  It belongs to Claire Harris.

  Damn.

  Claire.

  I’ve had a crush on her since second grade when we were paired together on the school field trip to the Science Museum. We had to hold hands from when we got off the bus until we reached the front steps of the museum. Those were the best four minutes of my life.

  OK, so I’m exaggerating. They probably weren’t the best four. But they were pretty great, all things considered. She was in the grade above me, so already she had an air of mystery. She had long hair back then, and she wore it parted on the side, with a little blue barrette that she constantly unclasped, then smoothed her hair across her forehead, and clasped the barrette again. She did this all the way to the museum. She was so cute. Still is. The teacher paired us up and told us we had to hold hands with our “buddy” until we got to the steps of the museum. When the chaperone paired me with Claire, I felt the way I imagined it would feel to win the lottery.

  When she took my hand, hers was warm and soft and surprisingly strong. She wasn’t afraid to hold on tight. She took her task as my buddy very seriously, as if I needed extra protection. I didn’t mind. I remember not being sure if I should squeeze back or not. I concentrated on returning the squeeze in equal measure. I didn’t want her to think I was a wimp, after all. We walked side by side, following Cal and Dylan. They didn’t want to hold hands. They kept letting go when the chaperones weren’t looking. But Claire was a rule follower, and I was happy to let her hold tight. Cal and Dylan kept turning back to make kissy faces at us. They were so jealous it was oozing out of them. I just smirked.

  I’m not sure when our arms started swinging as we walked, but it felt natural. And happy. Like this was something Claire and I did all the time. But when we got to the door and the teacher said we could let go, the magic disappeared. My hand was empty again. I tried to feel the ghost of hers in my palm, but I couldn’t. All I felt was the cold emptiness she’d left there. She skipped off with her best friend, Grace, without turning back, and I didn’t see her again until the end of the day, when once again we held hands, arms swinging, all the way back to the bus.

  As soon as we were all settled in our seats, she fixed her hair again. She was sitting in front of me, and I watched how she carefully finger-combed her hair to the side, then slid the barrette in place. I was close enough to hear the click of the clasp. She stared out the window, even as Grace chattered at her. It was as if she’d gone off someplace else. Like I do sometimes. Only right then, I’d wished we’d gone off together.

  For a long time after that, I’d find myself staring out the window trying to imagine what she was dreaming about that day — and if it was ever the same thing as me.

  Sometimes now, when I watch her around school, I’ll catch her eye and she’ll smile at me, and I think she sees the real me. It’s probably wishful thinking. For all I know, she’s just smiling at me out of pity. But sometimes when I see her hanging out with her friends, I think she looks like how I feel when I hang out with my friends: just a little apart. A loner, even though she isn’t alone. Like she’s looking for something but she’s not sure what. Just like she did on the bus when we were seven years old. Just like I still do sometimes, when I’m hanging with Cal and Dylan. Sometimes when they’re talking, it’s like I’ve heard the same comments, the same stories, the same jokes and insults so many times, they’ve lost their meaning. Or maybe I have.

  I just want to hear something new for once. Do something new. Be something new.

  Sometimes I imagine risking everything and asking Claire out.

  Hey, Claire, I’d say. How’s it goin’?

  Hey, Jack, she’d say, and smile and fix her hair the way she’s been doing since she was seven.

  Did you know I’ve had a crush on you for, like, eight years? I’d ask confidently.

  She’d laugh and push me in a flirty way. And then I’d say, So, will you go out with me?

  And in my dream, her eyes look into mine.

  I thought you’d never ask, she’d say.

  And then we’d both laugh and magically be the couple I always dreamed of. And Cal and Dylan would be jealous but not in a horrible way. And Claire would join us in the car and sit in the Look How Ugly You Are seat, only she wouldn’t mind, because she’s beautiful. She’d lean her head on my shoulder as we drove through town, and we’d know, as we looked out the window, that we were both dreaming about the same thing. Our life, together, someday, away from here.

  The bell rings and we all get up in our typical herdlike way. Desk legs scrape as we try to disentangle ourselves. Backpack zippers thrum in unison. The line bottlenecks at the door. Ms. Lindsay goes back behind her desk and ruffles through papers. She gathers them together and taps the pile on her desk to stra
ighten them. She seems a bit overly tidy.

  “Stop being obvious,” Dylan mumbles in my ear.

  “Huh?”

  He nudges his head in Ms. Lindsay’s direction. “Checking her out.”

  “No, I wasn’t.”

  “Why not? Everyone else does.”

  “Never mind.”

  I finally squeeze through the door and step into the slow and somewhat steady flow of people walking to their next class. Mine is gym with Cal and Dylan. We all tried to get out of it, but now that we don’t play sports, no such luck. Cal’s already in the locker room when Dylan and I get there.

  “You two are late enough,” he says.

  Dylan drops his backpack on the floor. It sounds like a bag of cement hitting the ground.

  “Jesus, D. What the hell do you have in there?” Cal asks.

  He shrugs. “Just stuff.”

  Cal pushes it with his foot.

  “Don’t touch!” Dylan says.

  Cal laughs it off, but I can tell he really does wonder, and now I do too.

  We change and meander out to the gym. A bunch of people are already shooting hoops. Ms. Sawyer, the gym teacher, looks extra frazzled.

  “I heard some freshman broke his finger in first period,” Cal tells us. He smirks. “His middle one.”

  “Awesome,” Dylan says.

  We shoot some hoops until Ms. Sawyer breaks us up into teams, and as usual I end up wearing a stupid red pinny. It smells like a hundred different people’s sweat. I don’t think she ever washes the things. It makes me want to puke.

  We spend the next thirty-five minutes halfheartedly dribbling the ball up and down the court. No one really seems to care who wins. Half the time, whoever has the ball dribbles around in circles and tries to show off, acting like a Harlem Globetrotter reject. Then Ms. Sawyer blows her whistle, and we all go back to the locker room to change. No one showers because no one dares to set foot in the shower stalls, which make the pinnies look like they just came from the dry cleaners.