Know Not Why: A Novel

by Hannah Johnson

  “You’re normal people.” I even mercifully leave out the whole Rock Lobster thing.

  “Yes, but I just don’t want to drive her away.”

  It’s such a dumb thing to say that I want to go into a taunting frenzy, but I take mercy on her. I can tell that she actually means it. It’s kind of sweet and a little bit sad, to see her so eaten up about wanting Dennis to be happy. I know she’s proud that he got out and up and far, far away, but I think she gets scared that he’s gonna stretch his little pre-med wings so far that he’s going to forget this place even exists, and us along with it. The whole she’s-still-got-me part apparently isn’t much of a consolation.

  For the record, she doesn’t even bother to get out of her PJ’s when Amber and Mitch come over.

  We get inside and wait around for awhile, because the flight’s a little delayed. I wind up buying a bag of ridiculously overpriced M&M’s and picking out blue ones for Mom because they’re her favorite. She’s got her hand out for them when the passengers start filing in, looking rumpled as they burst on into this quaint sea of hugging and happy exclaiming. A couple of blue M&Ms hit the floor, casualties of Dennis’s sudden appearance.

  He looks good; he’s smiling as he walks in. Hour upon hour breathing nasty plane air doesn’t seem to have done a number on him at all. His hair’s cut really short, and he’s totally rocking a goatee that I know in an instant will result in an endless fountain of mockery from yours truly, even though just between you and me, he pulls it off. He looks like who I’d be when I grew up if this was some alternate universe wherein I was awesome.

  My eyes lock on the pretty blonde walking a couple of steps behind him, and I’m in the middle of mentally labeling her ‘Emily’ when she throws herself into the arms of a middle-aged couple standing a few feet away from us.

  Okay, not Emily.

  Which means that Emily must be—

  My eyes land on the only other option, unless Emily is a towering black man or a really bouncy eight year old.

  Uh. Wow.

  She’s the kind of person your eyes skim past by default. Actually making the effort to look at her is a little exhausting. Mousy seems too tame a word. This girl, she taught mousy how to squeak. Her hair is brown-blonde and stringy from underneath an amorphous beige lump of a hat. She’s wearing glasses, but my brain so yearns to classify them as spectacles: they’re huge and perfectly round, and, like, unless you’re Harry Potter, don’t even try to pull that off. Especially if you’re a girl. Especially if you’re the girl who’s dating my brother.

  This is the girl who’s dating my brother?

  +

  Turns out, Emily digs the arts ‘n crafts scene. I tell Mom to drop me off at work on the way back from the airport, and she can come pick me up at the end of the day. She protests, but I pretend it’s really urgent, like they really need me there. (They don’t, but it’s not like anybody else needs to know that.) This leads Dennis to start singing the praises of his ladylove, who is, he informs us delightedly, knitting him a scarf.

  Oh, jeez, I can’t not ask. I glance at Emily in the rearview mirror. “Did you make the hat?”

  “Yes, Howie. I did,” she replies. She’s got a nice voice, at least. It’s soft and ladylike and everything she says sounds really polite, like she’s out of some movie on Amber’s DVD shelf. One with Emma Thompson and corsets.

  Still. The hat. Oh, God, the hat. For real?

  “Awesome,” I croak.

  “Thank you,” she says with a quaint little incline of her head.

  There’s an awkward silence, punctured only by the dulcet tones of Josh Groban.

  “Hey, maybe we can stop in at this fine establishment of yours,” Dennis suggests, leaning forward from the back seat to slap me on the shoulder. “Mom says you’re doing great there.”

  “Not that great,” I grumble, feeling suddenly humiliated. “Sure, I guess, for selling yarn and shit.”

  “Hey,” Dennis says, faux-chastising, “some people need yarn and shit.”

  “Right,” I mutter.

  “Plus, I wouldn’t mind stopping in to see your buddy Arthur,” Dennis continues.

  I take the turn maybe a little (read: infinitely) more jaggedly than I needed to. “You remember him?”

  “Oh, yeah, totally,” Dennis says. “He was on the student council with me.”

  “Right.” Okay, don’t panic. Keep it cool. And maybe, for security’s sake, imply some everlasting animosity. “He sucks.”

  Everlasting animosity implied.

  “I thought you were starting to get along,” Mom says.

  “Nope,” I reply crisply. “He is one unbearable pompous motherfucker if I ever met one. Um, no offense.” I throw another glance in the mirror at Emily.

  “I don’t remember him being that bad,” Dennis says.

  Oh, come on, family. “Well, he is. He’s the worst. He’s what the devil pukes up during a hangover. He’s atrocious.”

  “Atrocious?” Dennis repeats.

  Okay, maybe that was a little much. Still. Gotta commit. “I said what I said.”

  Dennis chuckles, then turns to his lackluster ladylove. “I think we can take him, huh, Em?”

  “I would like to look around,” Emily replies demurely.

  “You heard the lady!”

  “Swell,” I mutter.

  +

  And so, in a scene only conceivable in my nastiest nightmares, the family and I march into Artie Kraft’s Arts ‘N Crafts.

  “Why don’t you give us the grand tour—”

  “Sorry, Mom,” I interrupt, hurrying towards the back. “Gotta get the apron on.”

  “You have an apron?” Dennis asks, starting to grin.

  “You have a goatee,” I snap. (I would have liked to take more time with that one, really spring it on him in a glorious festival of barbed wit, but what can you do? Nothing. That’s what you can do.)

  Instead of going back into the kitchen, I race up the rickety staircase of doom and prior homoerotic encounters. It’s probably taking my life in my hands to climb ‘em two at a time, but Death By Rickety Gay Staircase currently doesn’t seem like such a bad way to go.

  I burst into Arthur’s office without knocking. He’s on the phone. At the sight of me, he goes, “Can you hold on just a minute?” and puts his hand over it.

  “My family’s here,” I announce, breathing heavy. There’s a part of me that’s a little disappointed his face doesn’t immediately contort into an expression of horror. Get with the program, man. “In case any of them ask, you’re atrocious.”

  “Really?” he says, all light and conversational.

  Maybe that was a little blunt. But, well, emergency. “I had to tell them something.”

  “So you went with … atrocious.”

  “Well, yeah. They can’t think I like you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because –” Oh, come on, Kraft. Now? Seriously? “Shit, I don’t know, because then they’ll figure out that I like-like you.”

  His mouth twitches. “You like-like me?”

  Oh, jeez. “Not the time, home dawg.”

  “Fine. Should I come downstairs, I’ll be sure to behave atrociously.”

  “That’s all I ask,” I reply, relieved. “Also, I might have to be kind of an ass to you.”

  “Of course.”

  “It’s not that I want to. I just, y’know, have to.”

  “Of course.”

  Well. He took that pretty well. At least I’ve got one person I don’t have to worry about amidst the crazy.

  When I get back downstairs, it’s bad. Oh, it’s real bad. The worst part is how, to the untrained eye, it’d look pleasant. Kristy is talking to my mom and Emily. Cora’s got my brother. For a couple seconds, I can’t decide which scenario to put a stop to first. On one hand, Kristy and my mom are looking chummy, and for all I know, this is going to result in them starting a bookclub and getting together for tea once a week so they can discuss my emotional well bei
ng. On the other, I wouldn’t put it past Cora to jump Dennis any second now. It’s the fuckin’ goatee. It’s got magic.

  Not to mention that I also wouldn’t put it past Cora to, like, try to regale Dennis with the epic story of how she got her hands all up in my business at a showing of Old Yeller to convince me I was gay.

  Cora it is.

  “Hey, you guys,” I say, hustling over. “How’s it goin’?”

  “Real spiffy, Jenkins,” Cora replies, and her huge wicked smile makes it clear she gets exactly how freaked I am, exactly why, and is delighting in that knowledge. “How are you?”

  “Fine and dandy.” Suck on that, you old she-devil. “What you guys talkin’ about?”

  “She was just telling me about how you and Amber went to see her in a play this weekend.”

  Seemingly harmless, but I am not fooled.

  “That we did.” I cross my arms and try to give Cora a ‘Don’t even try anything’ look that’s piercing enough to get the point across but inconspicuous enough that Dennis won’t notice it.

  For one look, it’s a pretty tall order. I’m just saying.

  It fails spectacularly.

  “He even came twice,” Cora smirks away.

  I deflect the inevitable suspicion that will arise from that remark with a quick, ardent, slightly deranged, “That’s what she said.”

  There is silence.

  “Wow,” Cora remarks in monotone. “That was hilarious.”

  “I am hilarious,” I retort savagely.

  “Hey,” Dennis says, studying me, “where’s your apron?”

  Shit.

  “Arthur called me upstairs to talk to him.” Whoo. Okay. Nice save. “Man, I hate that guy.”

  Cora arches her eyebrows.

  “Hate him,” I reiterate, making sure to look at her as I do it.

  I half-expect her to bust out a snappy “Do you make out with everybody you hate, or is he special?”. She doesn’t, thank God. Just gives me this ‘Whatever, it’s your funeral’ look. Please. It’s my unfuneral, lady, because I just skillfully averted this death crisis.

  I start feeling like maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if Arthur showed up right about now. Everything’s under control. My hatred for him has been established. It’s all good.

  He doesn’t, though. They stay for fifteen minutes, and never once is there that telltale creak on the staircase. Huh. He must be really … busy, or something. (What the hell does he even do up there anyway?) I mean, it’s for the best, no question, but at the same time, now that the apocalypse has officially come and my mom and my brother have inhabited the same space as my coworkers, I kind of wish I could get it all over with in one fell swoop. They see Arthur, they see me hating Arthur, the end. Simple.

  But Arthur’s MIA, so … whatever.

  Emily eventually drifts off into the yarn aisle, and as soon as she’s become lost in its depths, Dennis grabs my arm and starts dragging me toward—

  Well, wouldn’t you know. The fake flower aisle.

  “Pick one,” he orders.

  “What?”

  “I wanna sneak one for Emily, and you’re the professional. Which one’s the best?”

  It’s clear what’s going on now: the universe is mocking me with the fake flower aisle. Thanks, universe. You’re a pal, you sick son of a bitch you.

  “Seriously, man, I don’t know. I’ll get Kristy.”

  “No, we’re being stealthy,” he insists, dragging me back.

  “I dunno, how ‘bout that one?” I ask, pointing to a pink one at random. “That’s nice.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Dennis says, grabbing it. “Thanks.”

  “I’m the master.”

  He slips me a five and tucks the flower in his jacket, off to charm his lady. He makes it look so easy. That’s always been Dennis’s thing: making it look easy. He ditched his training wheels the same day Dad put them on his bike.

  Me, I was a tricycle man ‘til an age I wish not to disclose.

  “Hey,” Dennis says, turning back. “It’s good to see you, little brother.”

  “Yeah,” I reply automatically. “Yeah, you too.”

  +

  “Your mom said something about you not getting along with Arthur,” Kristy mentions later when she and I are putting price tags onto the zillion new boxes of colored pencils.

  “Yeah, I thought that’d be smart,” I reply offhandedly, and concentrate really hard on writing $9.50 on a price tag.

  “How is that smart?”

  “That way,” I say, holding back a sigh, “no one’s gonna find out he and I are … I dunno. Whatever.”

  “In love?”

  Oh, Christ. “We’re not in love, Kristy.”

  “You could be soon,” she argues. “And don’t you think it might hurt his feelings to have you pretend you hate him?”

  “Nah,” I reply, although just between you and me, my stomach gives a little contradictory lurch. “He seemed cool with it.”

  “He’s going through a really hard breakup.”

  “Went through,” I remind her. “Past tense. It’s over. They’re broken up.”

  “Well, yeah,” Kristy agrees, looking a little uncomfortable. “And now you’re supposed to be making him happy.”

  “You think I’m not making him happy?”

  “I didn’t say that—”

  “I’m so making him happy! Earlier, I told him I like-liked him and he got all smiley. He’s good. We’re happy.”

  “You don’t seem happy,” Kristy observes. Her voice is soft.

  “I’m okay,” I insist bluntly, starting on a new column of $9.50 price tags.

  “You’re not getting along with the girl who’s been your best friend for like ever. And you seemed so freaked out earlier when your mom and your brother were here.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s because it’s kinda fucking stressful to have you guys around them. For all I know, you’re gonna slip and say something to give it away.”

  “If you don’t want them to know, we’re not going to give it away. We’ll be careful.”

  It’s easy to believe it of Kristy. Unfortunately, it’s not just Kristy I’ve got to worry about. “What about—”

  “Cora will too.”

  “You solemnly swear?”

  She holds up her pinkie.

  Ahh. The most sacred of oaths.

  I link my pinkie with hers with great formality. That gets a giggle out of her. Good. Maybe we can actually get off this sorry subject and onto something tolerable.

  “I think your mom is a really nice lady,” she says as soon as we’ve de-pinkied. So much for new, non-terrible subject matter. “She would be happy about Arthur if she knew he made you happy. I can tell.”

  I snort. “Yeah, okay.”

  “Howie, you should just tell the truth.”

  “Yeah,” I say, “that’s not gonna—”

  “Howie—”

  “I’ll think about it,” I lie. It seems like the easiest way to get her off my back.

  +

  Kristy takes off early, leaving Arthur and me alone. I’m pretty sure it was a deliberate move on her part. She’s wily, that one.

  “You didn’t come downstairs,” I say nonchalantly as I turn the lights off.

  “I thought perhaps it would be best for me to stay out of the way altogether,” he replies, buttoning his coat.

  I go over to him and kinda just stand there, watching him do the coat-buttoning thing. He follows it up by putting his scarf on. Riveting, all over the place. The world’s most mesmerizing reverse strip tease.

  “I’m not making you, like, miserable or something, am I?” I say.

  “Why would you think that?” he asks. It’s in that brisk, unaffected voice that I’m starting not to trust.

  “Hey, man, could you just answer?”

  “Maybe a little bewildered. A tad frustrated. Not miserable.”

  “Okay.” Well, that’s a relief, at least. There’s something about the way he’s looking a
t me that makes me feel like he’s the one person in the whole damn world that isn’t going to get on my case about this.

  I reach over and tug absently at his scarf. “I just … they can’t know, y’know? They just can’t. It’s not you, it’s just … the whole thing. I can’t do that to them.”

  Kind of a lame explanation, but it’s true. It’s what I got.

  “I understand why you feel that way.”

  Thank you, Jesus.

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Believe it or not, I even have some past experience with it,” he adds, smiling slightly. It’s not a happy smile – maybe ‘bitterly nostalgic’ would be the more apt description.

  “Okay,” I say. “Good.”

  “It’ll work out eventually,” he adds.

  For the moment, I’m gonna choose to believe that by ‘It’ll work out eventually,’ he means, ‘I have no qualms whatsoever with living in secrecy for however long these crazy hijinks might ensue between us.’ That’s about as much as I can handle.

  He lifts his hand and brushes it against my cheek, looking at me fondly. This must kind of suck for him too, I realize. He could’ve gone for someone who isn’t gonna have to keep this a secret until the day he dies.

  “I’m sorry,” I catch myself saying.

  “For what?” he murmurs, but his eyes have drifted to my mouth and it doesn’t seem like conversation’s his number one concern at the moment.

  In which case I’m not really big on making it mine either. I kiss him instead.

  This goes on for awhile.

  Until the fucking bells on the fucking door let out a merry fucking jingle, to be precise.

  “Oh!” comes a girl’s voice.

  We scramble apart so fast I almost fall over.

  “Dennis and I have come to pick you up,” Emily says faintly. Behind her dweeby Potter glasses, her eyes are huge.

  Chapter Sixteen