by Claire Adams
The professor goes on talking whatever voodoo she’s talking and Mia hunches forward to respond.
She’s so much fun to torment.
Mia tosses the note over her shoulder, now crumbled into a ball, and it bounces off my desk before going off onto the floor.
I lean over, pick it up, open it and read it.
She just wrote, “Does this approach ever work?”
I smile and write, “You tell me. There’s a skate exhibition tonight. Nothing big, just some kids whose parents are particularly proud of them. They’re not great or anything, but it might be fun to watch.”
I pass it forward.
“Ian?” the professor says as soon as the note has left my hand, and I’m having a flashback to third-grade English class when I used to pass notes to my friend Bobby—he goes by Rob, now.
“Yeah?” I ask.
“What do you think we can make of the placebo effect?” she asks.
I love it when professors try a gotcha question when you’re not paying attention, but then don’t bother making it difficult. It’s so great watching that smug superiority drain out of them and then feel it entering me.
“I think we can make of it that the mind is a powerful thing and that when it comes time to test a drug, much less treat a patient, it’s important to take all aspects of that patient, including that power of their mind to heal itself when it believes it’s being healed, into account,” I answer.
“What does it tell you about the nature of the mind, though?” she asks.
“I’m not quite sure what you’re asking,” I return, but before she can clarify, I make a guess. “If you’re asking what it means that the mind can be fooled through nothing but its own perceptions regarding medicine and the authority of doctors, I’d say it means that the mind is easily manipulated. When a person wants to believe something, they’ll construct their entire reality around making that belief a reality. The problem comes when that belief and objective reality don’t coincide and a person is either unable or unwilling to recognize it. That’s when people become delusional.”
“So you think that the placebo effect is just a delusion?” the professor asks.
“Of course it is,” I answer. “Patients believe they’re taking medicine, given to them by a doctor in order to cure or at least treat a condition they have. That belief can go a long way. The problem with a delusion is that it never goes all the way, though. If it did, anyone who experienced the placebo effect, assuming nothing shatters the illusion for them, would be cured of whatever was wrong with them.”
“So you’re saying that the body knows how to fight illness, even mental illness, it’s just—I don’t know, lazy?” the professor asks.
In front of me, Mia tears up the note we’d been passing and she starts writing on another paper. If my posture was better, I might even be able to see over her shoulder enough to read it.
“No,” I answer. “I’m saying that delusion isn’t a cure. A person isn’t actually getting better, their symptoms merely improve for a little while as the belief holds out. Eventually, though, even if the delusion isn’t shattered, their body will return to its natural state and, if it’s not being treated by a treatment that actually works, they’re going to go back to where they were before the event and just continue to degrade.”
“I think Mr. Zavala brings up an interesting point…” the teacher says and I can finally ignore her again. While she’s waxing poetic on something I said or something she inferred from what I said, Mia passes me back a new folded piece of paper.
I open it up and read, “When and where?”
Sometimes, actually coming off as if you know something can be a positive thing.
* * *
I ride down the sidewalk, weaving in and out of pedestrians as I go.
I’d suggested that I pick Mia up—with a real car and everything—but she insisted that we meet up at the exhibition.
The First Annual Peewee Skating Demo is the result of a few parents who were bugged relentlessly by their six or seven year olds to build them some kind of ramp. The demo itself isn’t so much a testament to the skill of the kids on their boards as it is an exhibition of the fathers’ various works of wooden art.
It’s always kind of bothered me when people tag the word “peewee” onto a kid’s sport. I just remember playing soccer when I was in first or second-grade and never wanting to tell anyone about it for fear that word would come up at some point.
I get off my board about a block away from where they’re setting everything up and I look around the crowd for Mia.
Something small and blunt goes half an inch between my ribs and I pull back, spinning around.
Mia waves, saying, “Hey, so what is this exactly? I didn’t know there was anything going on tonight.”
I rub my side and I’m almost angry until I get a good look at her.
She’s dressed the same as always: Skater garb with that same pair of Converse that she always wears, but something about her is different.
“You look happy,” I say.
She furrows her brow, as that wasn’t really a solid answer to her question, saying, “Why wouldn’t I?”
“You look good,” I tell her.
She looks down at what I’m pretty sure are the same clothes she had on earlier, saying, “Thanks.”
“So,” I say and we start walking together toward the growing crowd, “what did it?”
“What do you mean?” she asks.
“What changed your mind about coming out with me tonight?” I ask.
“I never said I wasn’t going to,” she answers.
“Yeah, but you’ve been avoiding me, and before you wrote that new note, you didn’t seem too thrilled to be near me at all,” I tell her.
“I don’t know,” she says. “I was going to say no.”
“Why didn’t you?” I persist.
She rubs the back of her neck, avoiding my gaze, and says, “I guess I thought it couldn’t do much harm.”
“Why would it do any harm?” I ask.
“Let’s just forget about it,” she says. “I’m here. Now, who’s skating tonight?”
“Kids,” I tell her. “I think there are four or five of them and they’re all under ten.”
We get a little closer to where they’ve set up on the blocked off portion of the street, and it’s just what I’d envisioned: A couple of plywood kickers, one actually decent quarter-pipe, and what I can only assume are objects to be avoided.
“Where’d you hear about this?” she asks.
“Tonya’s kid’s skating today,” I tell her. “She knows I skate and she wanted to know if I’d like to come and show my support.”
“Stop doing that,” she says.
“What?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” she says. “Forget it.”
“What?” I ask again. “Is something bothering you? You’ve been avoiding me since that night at my house and now you’re acting all weird.”
“It’s nothing,” she says. “Let’s just watch the kids skate.”
We stand there quietly for a little while as a surprisingly large group of people gather to watch these kids tear it up on what are, for the most part, the sketchiest jumps, rails and pipes I’ve ever seen.
Someone comes out and gives a little introduction, explaining how the whole thing started and what it means to have so many people come out to cheer the kids on and so on and so on.
“It was my dad, wasn’t it?” I ask. “He wouldn’t tell me what you two were talking about, but I know what kind of mood he was in. I hate it when he’s like that.”
“It wasn’t him,” she says. “I just think that it might be best if we only got together to focus on our project from now on.”
“You have me a little confused then,” I tell her, but have to wait for the crowd to stop cheering as the kids come out and start to skate.
“What do you mean?” she asks loudly, still clapping her hands until one of the skaters, a
little blond kid with bits of curly hair coming out through the bottom of his helmet goes racing straight into the wrong side of one of the kickers and does a rather impressive, though clearly unintentional, flip and lands with one leg on the slope of the kicker and the other knee coming up to hit him in the forehead.
I don’t know how nobody expected any injuries tonight.
The kid cries loudly for a minute, but just as his mom comes out to help him off the course, he grabs his board and skates off, his face still almost maroon with embarrassment and wet with tears.
“You said I confused you,” Mia says when the whole scene is over and the mother wanders back off the course, looking back repeatedly at her son, unsure whether she should let him continue or not.
“Yeah,” I tell her. “You told me that you think we should only see each other when it’s regarding our project and yet here you are.”
“Yeah,” she says distantly.
This isn’t how I saw tonight going. I figured she’d be a little annoyed with me at first, then she’d spit out whatever’s bothering her and we’d move on. So far, she only seems to be concerned with being annoyed.
“Tell me about yourself,” I say, hoping a different approach will do the trick.
“You know,” she says, “a couple of those kids aren’t half bad. That one’s over there doing kick flips and the one wearing the Spider-Man costume just did a nose manual.”
“Why don’t I ever see you on a board?” I ask.
She turns and looks at me, her mouth open a little. “What do you mean?” she asks.
“Well, you’re so into skating, but I’ve never seen you on or even near a board,” I tell her. “Are you just a fan girl or have you actually given it a shot?”
“A fan girl?” she asks. “You think I’m a fan girl?”
“Aren’t you?” I ask.
When all else fails, she seems to respond to negativity pretty consistently.
“I’m not a fan girl of anything,” she says. “I skate. I just don’t like to do it around people.”
“Neither do I, really,” I tell her. “How do you solve that little problem, though?”
“Oh yeah,” she scoffs. “You have trouble skating around people.”
“Yeah,” I tell her. “Haven’t you noticed that I’ve never actually learned how to be comfortable on a board?”
“You’re full of crap,” she says.
“Seriously,” I tell her. “I do a lot better than I used to, but I don’t have a normal or goofy stance. Neither one seems to work for me, so I just keep switching back and forth as I ride. Over time, you know, I got to where it wasn’t a problem, but I’m still not what I would call comfortable on a board.”
“That’s what it is,” she says with a gasp. “I was wondering why you look so different when you’re skating—not dropping in, obviously. I think that’s pretty standard for someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing. You never favor one stance or another and what looks like masterfully contained clumsiness is actually masterfully contained clumsiness.”
“I’m glad I could confirm your theory,” I tell her. “I look clumsy?”
“I don’t know if that’s the right word or not,” she says, “but you always look like you’re right on the verge of losing your balance, but you never do. How do you ride, though? Why’s it taken so long for you to feel comfortable on a board?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “It’s just one of those things that never really set in. I think I tried a normal stance at first, but when I found out that Tony Hawk has a goofy stance, I started doing that, but after a couple of weeks, that didn’t seem to work any better for me than the normal stance did. I just kept going back and forth until, finally, I just kind of gave up and rode however I happened to land.”
“Everyone rides how they happen to land,” she says, “but everyone favors one side or another.”
I shrug. “I don’t know what to tell you. It’s great for the scoring, though. I’m counting on that in the best trick. I’ll do the first two runs normal and the last three goofy. They’ll count one or the other of them as switch and bump up my score a little bit.”
“You’re the weirdest skater I’ve ever met,” she says.
“Oh, so now I’m weird?” I ask. Actually, given my personality and my general appearance, I suppose a case could be made for that particular point.
“I don’t mean as a person,” she says, “I mean as a skater. You can pretty much take anyone I’ve seen in a street competition, but you can’t drop into a vert ramp. One of the things that makes you so entertaining to watch is that you move differently while you’re on your board, but that’s because you never settled on a favored front foot. You’re kind of a mess, you know.”
“Thanks,” I tell her. “What do you ride?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “Neither one of them feel particularly comfortable to me.”
“Hilarious,” I say monotone.
“What do you want me to say?” she asks. “I get all nervous talking about skating when I’m around a real skater.”
“You talk skating with me all the time,” I laugh.
“Me skating,” she says. “It’s one thing to talk about it as a sport or critiquing someone else’s style, but I just feel weird talking about me skating.”
“You call me weird?” I ask.
“You know, it’s unfortunate that neither of our dads seem open to us being around one another,” she says and quickly looks back toward the course where the kids are now taking turns doing mini-runs on the quarter-pipe. It’s inspiring, hilarious and, at times a bit sad, but it is undeniably entertaining to watch.
“Yeah,” I say. “Men are such pigs.”
She looks back at me with a mock expression of shock on her face. “That is not what I’m saying,” she gasps. “My dad isn’t a pig. He’s just a little overprotective.”
“Yeah, how’s the view from the tower, Rapunzel?” I ask.
“I’m out now,” she says. “The tower has a staircase and a door, you know.”
“I noticed how you were quick to say that your own dad’s not a pig, but you didn’t seem to mention mine,” I tease.
I don’t know if I’d necessarily call the guy a pig, but—actually, yeah: he is kind of a pig.
“I never said that anyone was a pig,” she protests. “I’m just trying to explain my own dad’s issue. When mom left, he just started clinging to anything that seemed like it might have some stability to it and, for a good portion of my life, that’s been me. He’s not a bad guy. I just wish he hadn’t insisted that I help raise him.”
“Have you heard anything from her since she left?” I ask. “How long has it been?”
“I don’t know, nine years, ten years. I know it’s been a long time, and no, I haven’t heard anything from her since she left. She just decided she was done being a wife and a mother and that was that,” Mia tells me.
It’s a strange venue for such a conversation, but I’m thrilled to have it. This is the most I’ve been able to get Mia to open up about herself, and if we’re going to finish the kiss we didn’t get the chance to start, it’s going to be because she’s found a reason to relax and take things as they come.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “That must have been rough.”
“It was,” she says. “It wasn’t. I think, for all his failings as a parent, my dad really helped me learn how to do things by myself.”
“When you’re not given the option, I imagine it’s good to at least come out of it with that,” I respond.
“I didn’t have a bad childhood,” she says. “I didn’t have a bad time as a teenager, either. Things were always just a little bit different after mom left. It seemed like there were more steps required to get anything accomplished. Everything took more time and, when we’d managed to get something done, it never seemed to be as nice as it would have been before she was gone, you know?”
“What do you mean?” I ask as the kid in the Spider
-Man costume drops into the quarter-pipe with all the grace of me on a vert ramp and comes to a sliding halt halfway to the other side.
“At some point, this stops being cute and starts feeling a little sadistic,” Mia says.
“I’m with ya,” I tell her. “Let me at least make eye contact with Tonya so she knows I was here and we can take off.”
“We?” she asks. “As I remember, I only agreed to go to the exhibition with you.”
I’m looking for Tonya through the crowd, but I finally just give up. If she doesn’t believe I was there, I’ll mention something about her kid sliding across the quarter-pipe dressed like a super hero and I think her temper will cool.
I’m walking Mia home and we just keep talking. Or rather, I ask questions and let her do the talking. I don’t know exactly what my dad said that scared her off, but I’d really like to avoid any turn that would make things weird again.
“So you do skate?” I ask.
“I dabble,” she says, her chin jutting out a little.
“You’re especially smug for someone who has yet to actually show any ability on a board whatsoever,” I tell her.
“I know what I’m doing,” she says, “but I’m not great or anything. I’ve gotten pretty good at staying on the board most of the time.”
“Yeah, I’m going to have to see it to believe it,” I tell her and drop my board to the ground in front of me.
“What?” she asks. “Here?”
“Why not?” I return. “You said you don’t like people seeing you skate, well, we’re the only ones on the whole street from what I can tell.”
I kick the board in front of her.
“Let’s see what you’ve got,” I say.
A bit of a smile creeps up one side of her face, but it quickly vanishes as she looks down at the board and kicks it back in front of me.
“I’m not really in the mood,” she says. “I’m enjoying the walk. So, tell me why you act like an idiot so much of the time.”
“Excuse me?” I ask, picking up my board.
“I don’t mean that in a bad way,” she says. “Okay, that doesn’t really make sense. What I mean is that when it’s just you and I, you seem perfectly intelligent, but when we’re in class or the times we’ve been out in public, or around anyone, really, it’s like you’ve lost a significant portion of your IQ.”