A Place at the Table: A Novel

by Susan Rebecca White

  “Maybe there’s a redneck convention going on,” says Shawna.

  “Yeah, it’s called the Granite Rock Laser Show Extravaganza,” says Pete.

  “You’re such a Yankee snob,” I say.

  “Go, Sherman,” says Pete, pumping his fist in the air.

  I slap him on the thigh. First time I’ve ever deliberately touched him.

  • • •

  Just before we drive up to the entry booth, Shawna grabs a blanket out of the narrow space behind the front seat and drapes it over the cooler. Clearly she is used to sneaking alcohol into places it’s not allowed. She is cool as can be while paying our entry fee, calling the man in the booth “sir.” Once inside we drive and drive until we finally get to the parking lot for the laser show. It’s nearly filled. There are families all over, moms and dads carrying picnic baskets and blankets and yelling threats at the children running wild in front of them. All I can think about is settling down on our blanket and eating a piece of chicken. I’ve been smelling it in the car ever since we left KFC, but Shawna wouldn’t let me eat in her truck.

  “Have some respect,” she said.

  We make our way onto the field, along with the rest of the crowd. Immediately a kid selling fluorescent glow sticks approaches us. Pete buys us each one, stubby yellow things you have to snap in the middle to activate. Shawna and I break ours open like normal people, while Pete tries to activate his by karate chopping it against his leg.

  “Anyone ever tell you you’re kind of an idiot?” I say, smiling.

  “Guess that explains why we’re such good friends,” he says, punching me on the shoulder.

  Pete Arnold and I are good friends.

  Shawna and Pete argue over where to put the blanket. Pete wants to get as close to the rock face as possible, while Shawna says we should search for the flattest ground. I don’t care where we sit as long as I get to eat my chicken while it’s still hot. Finally they agree on a place off to the side of the field that’s still pretty close to the mountain. We spread out our plaid blanket and plunk down.

  “Gimme some of that bird!” I say.

  “Hold it,” says Pete. He tucks a white paper napkin into the collar of his T-shirt and hands Shawna and me napkins, too. “First we say grace.”

  I punch him in the arm. Second time I’ve touched him tonight. “Forgive him, Father,” I say. “He knows not what he does.”

  I’m joking, kind of, but I really do wish Pete wasn’t so flippant about God.

  “What’s wrong with being grateful for this chicken? Now let us hold hands and thank God for it.”

  Shawna grabs one of my hands and Pete grabs the other. His hand feels cool and dry in mine. I hope mine doesn’t feel clammy.

  “Thank you, Father,” says Pete, “for this fried bird and these good friends. And thank you for the invention of lasers, which shall entertain us on this fine May evening.”

  “Amen,” says Shawna.

  “Sorry, God,” I mutter under my breath.

  “What did you just say?” asks Pete. He has this thing where he smiles at you with only one side of his mouth.

  “I was apologizing to God for our disrespect.”

  “I don’t understand. Preachers’ kids are supposed to be really bad. What is wrong with you?”

  “I drank a Miller Lite! What more do you want?”

  “You girls stop bickering and hand me the plates,” says Shawna.

  I shoot her a look. Pete shoots her the bird. But then he tosses a plastic bag full of paper plates and napkins to her. She serves us, pouring the iced tea into red plastic cups, piling chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, and a couple of biscuits each onto our plates. It’s an almost entirely brown meal. Mama would say it needs a colorful vegetable to complete it, but brown or not, it tastes good. Salty and hot, except for the tea of course, which is cold and sweet.

  “Let’s play ‘I never,’ ” says Shawna.

  “What’s that?” I ask.

  “A game. It goes like this: If I say, ‘I never brush my teeth,’ everyone has to drink, assuming, of course, that everyone here actually does brush their teeth.”

  “You know what happens when you assume,” says Pete in a singsong voice.

  “You make an a-s-s out of ‘u’ and me,” says Shawna.

  She and Pete do this bit all of the time.

  “Why do you say you never do something you actually do?” I ask.

  “It’s an opposites thing. The point is you say ‘I never’ about things you’ve actually done. Like, you could say, ‘I never go to track practice,’ and you and Pete would both have to drink. Or you could say, ‘I never miss an episode of Laverne and Shirley,’ and you would have to drink.”

  “I don’t watch Laverne and Shirley, you dork.”

  “We need drink-drinks in order to actually play,” says Shawna, ignoring me.

  “Let’s just play with sweet tea,” I say.

  Pete starts wiggling his eyebrows. He reaches into the front pocket of his shorts and pulls out a small leather-bound flask.

  “Clearly someone was a Boy Scout,” says Shawna.

  “Cause a distraction while I take care of this,” Pete says.

  Shawna farts, loudly. A bearded guy sitting on a blanket about ten feet away gives us a look like he isn’t really sure he just heard what he heard.

  “That’s disgusting,” I say, fanning the air around me. “And I don’t think causing a guy to look over here counts as a distraction. At all.”

  “And we’re good,” says Pete, putting the cap on the newly spiked gallon of tea and shaking it furiously. He dumps his cup of virgin tea into the grass and refills it from the doctored batch. He dumps mine out, too, and pours me a new cup, then does the same thing with Shawna’s.

  “Bobby, you go first,” she says.

  “Hmm. Okay. I never put chocolate ex-lax into a batch of brownies I made for my brother.”

  Neither Pete nor Shawna drink, but I do. The bourbon tea goes down surprisingly easy. Mainly it just tastes really sweet, like KFC tea always does.

  Shawna bites her lip for a minute, thinking. “I never walked in on my parents having sex.”

  She and I both drink. I hadn’t known what I was seeing at the time. I was only five or six. But thinking back on it later, I figured it out. Especially when I thought of how my dad, covering Mama with his body, yelled at me to get out, get out, right now.

  “I’ve never watched porn,” says Pete. I figure looking at a magazine isn’t the same thing as watching, so I don’t drink, and neither does Shawna.

  “How?” I ask after Pete finishes his sip.

  “There was an X-rated theater in Boston. A friend and I went. You were supposed to be eighteen to get in, but no one asked for our IDs or anything. It was pretty gnarly. There were guys jacking off in their seats.”

  “Gross,” says Shawna. She swats at a mosquito that lands on Pete’s thigh.

  “I’ve never gotten hard at school,” I say, and then immediately regret my words. They are going to think I’m so weird.

  “Ew!” says Shawna, but she looks delighted as both Pete and I drink.

  “Are you kidding?” she asks him. “When? How? Oh my God. Sick!”

  “It happens,” says Pete, shrugging.

  “Admit it,” says Shawna. “It was the first time you saw me walk into math class, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah, right,” I say, the bourbon tea making me looser and looser.

  “Well, it’s happened more than once,” says Pete. “But one time was pretty funny. Weird funny.”

  “Tell! Tell! Tell!” demands Shawna.

  “It was the day we were dissecting frogs in Dr. Floyd’s class. And I really didn’t want to do it. I know it sounds dumb, but I had a pet frog when I was a kid and I just did not want to go slicing into a dead one. But I couldn’t figure out how to get out of it.

  “I couldn’t object on moral grounds because Leslie Kaplan had already tried doing that and Dr. Floyd told her to ‘shut her mouth
or get an F.’ I thought about trying to pass out but decided I couldn’t because A) I might actually hurt myself and B) I’d look like a total pussy. I wondered if maybe I could throw up, blame it on a bad burrito or something, and get sent to the nurse’s office during dissection time. All of those thoughts were churning through my mind when, bam! Dr. Floyd plops a dead frog onto the little plastic cutting board in front of me and just like that, I’ve got a boner.”

  “For Dr. Floyd?” asks Shawna, incredulous.

  “No, for the frog! I mean, not for the frog, but because of the frog.”

  Shawna laughs from some deep place inside her. “You are going to so regret having told me that story, Monsieur Froggie Boner.”

  “We can’t help it,” I say. “They just pop up.”

  “Literally,” says Pete, giving me an exaggerated, yuck-yuck wink.

  “Do you have one right now?” asks Shawna. Her cheeks are red, probably from the alcohol, but she looks prettier than I’ve ever seen her.

  “Are you kidding? No,” says Pete.

  “I never went to the Granite Rock Laser Show Extravaganza,” I say.

  We all three drink.

  “Nice retreat,” Shawna says.

  Pete slaps at a mosquito. When he lifts his hand there is a spot of bright blood on his forearm.

  “I’m not retreating. I’m just playing the game. Oh, what I would give for an Oatmeal Caramelita right now!”

  Shawna and Pete look at each other and start laughing hysterically. “I’m sorry, an oatmeal-caramel what-the-fuck?” asks Pete.

  “Shut up. They’re good. Buttery and a little salty with chocolate chips and a layer of gooey caramel. You’re really missing out if you’ve never had one.”

  “I’ve never had an Oatmeal Caramelita,” says Shawna.

  “I thought you couldn’t say ‘I never’ if you really never have,” I say.

  “My mom makes them,” she says.

  She and I both drink.

  “Then why’d you make fun of me for bringing them up?”

  “Because you sounded like Gomer Pyle.”

  Two purple lasers flash, indicating that the show is about to begin.

  “Oh, goody, goody gumdrops!” says Pete. He kicks off his shoes and lies on his back in the middle of the blanket. I lie on one side of him, Shawna on the other. “Classical Gas” comes on over the speakers. I guess they’re starting mellow.

  With “Classical Gas” the lasers just sort of swirl around, but when it ends and “Spirit in the Sky” comes on the lasers make illustrations of the lyrics, including one of Jesus holding open his arms to welcome all to heaven when they die. Seeing it through Pete and Shawna’s smart-ass perspectives, I can understand that it’s dorky, but I’m sorry, it’s also neat. Pete’s yellow glow stick lies on the blanket between the two of us. It illuminates how close our hands are to touching. They are too close, but I don’t move. If I were to move my hand, to rest it on my stomach or behind my head, Pete might sense that I am trying to pull away from him, and that would be strange, because why would I pull away unless I was trying not to touch his hand?

  I try to relax. It’s a perfect May night, not too hot, with a little bit of a breeze. And here I am, lying on a blanket with two friends, hanging out. Isn’t this what I always wanted? What I have wished for since I was a little kid? No. What I want, what I wish for, is to reach out and touch Pete’s hand, lying so close to mine. What I want is to be alone on the blanket with him, snuggling into his shoulder as we watch the face of Granite Rock light up with lasers. What I want is to hold him, to kiss him, to press my body against his. To be here as a couple, not a threesome.

  Except such desires aren’t real. Aren’t true. They come from messed-up wiring in my brain that I need to ignore. Messed-up wiring that I will one day learn to fix.

  When “Georgia on My Mind” comes on, Shawna sits up and announces that she has to go to the bathroom.

  “Should we just meet you at the car at the end of the show?” asks Pete.

  “You’re so hilarious. And for the record, I’m going to be quick. I don’t even have to poop.”

  “Boy, am I thrilled to know that,” says Pete.

  Shawna walks off. It’s just the two of us. This is what I wanted, and yet I feel jittery, nervous. I feel a pebble, just below my shoulder, but I don’t dare move to adjust. A breeze passes over us and with it I smell the remnants of our fried chicken, plus Irish Spring soap and, underneath that, Pete’s sweat. Not dirty sweat, like the smell of Hunter’s football uniform after a game, but clean sweat, the sweat that comes naturally just from being a guy and being alive. Pete is wearing a Mr. Bubble T-shirt that fits close to his chest. I want to roll over on my side so I can look at him more closely. I want to study him.

  “Did I ever tell you about my dad’s mistress?” he asks.

  “What?”

  Pete has never really talked about his dad at all, besides showing me those slides from Arizona and saying he was a big Red Sox fan.

  “Everyone knew about her. He kept her in a suite at this fancy hotel in Boston for something like five years. She was his secretary.”

  The fact that his dad could afford a suite at a fancy hotel for five years surprises me more than the fact that he had a mistress. Pete and his mom’s place is such a dump.

  “Did you ever meet her?”

  “Yeah. When I was younger Dad would sometimes take me to the restaurant at the hotel. It was this really swank place called the Oak Room. Carla, Dad, and I would all get steaks.”

  Now I do turn on my side; I’m so intrigued.

  “Oh my gosh. What was that like for you?”

  “The thing I remember most was all of the deer heads mounted on the wall. That and how crazy good the steak was. I guess I was pretty clueless about everything else.”

  “But your mom’s so pretty. I mean, why would your dad need to have another woman holed away at a hotel?”

  “Mom says he did it because he could. Correction. She says ‘that bastard’ did it because he could.”

  I try to imagine my father keeping a spare woman at a hotel in Atlanta. It’s impossible. Mama’s will is just too strong. She simply would not allow him to do that. I imagine Mama starting a prayer chain, calling on the women in SERVERS to pray the harlot out of Daddy’s life. I imagine them circling the parking lot of the hotel, holding hands, praying and chanting until the other woman was driven out and away forever.

  I wonder why Pete and his mom don’t have any money. It seems like his mother should get a lot if his dad is rich enough to keep his mistress in a hotel suite for five years. I wonder what it would feel like to live in a cheap duplex with just your mom, your dad so far away and never coming to visit. I suddenly feel so sad for Pete that without thinking I reach out, put my hand on his forearm.

  “That really sucks,” I say.

  “Oh, don’t feel sorry for me,” says Pete, all breezy and nonchalant. “Were I still in Massachusetts I wouldn’t be enjoying this delightful little ditty.”

  I hadn’t even noticed, but the song has switched again, and now “Sweet Home Alabama” is playing at full force, the lasers creating the shape of a billowing Confederate flag. I settle on my back again. It seems the serious talk is over.

  “You’re aware they’re referring to George Wallace, right?” asks Pete.

  “Huh?”

  “In the song. That bit about how much they love the governor in Birmingham.’ ”

  “Who’s George Wallace?” I ask.

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Where the heck is Shawna?” I ask, trying to change the subject. Sometimes I get tired of talking with Pete about how backward the South is.

  “I keep telling her she should go see a doctor about how long it takes her.”

  “I think she dawdles just to annoy you.”

  “What kind of a word is ‘dawdles’?”

  I shrug. It’s a word my mom uses every Sunday. We have got to get to church on time, so don�
�t you boys dawdle over breakfast. You hear?

  “You know what we were talking about earlier?” Pete asks.

  “About your dad?”

  “No. Unexpected pop-ups.”

  I don’t say a word. I can’t.

  “I’ve got one. I just can’t help myself. I get all fired up thinking about Dixie.”

  As I roll my eyes, my gaze lands on the bulge against his shorts. And just like that, I get one, too. I can’t help it. He looks down at me and starts laughing.

  “We’ve got to get these under control before Shawna comes back,” he says. “Or she’ll insist we have a threesome or something.”

  “Sick,” I say.

  “Think about Latham’s gym shorts,” says Pete.

  “Shut up, shut up, shut up,” I say.

  At that moment Shawna appears, standing over us on the blanket, her upside-down face looming large. “What are you crazy kids doing?” she asks.

  “Just enjoying this fine cultural event,” says Pete.

  I laugh wildly, inappropriately.

  Shawna settles back on the blanket and starts digging through her backpack, pulling out a bag of Fig Newtons. “You want one?” she asks me.

  “Sure,” I say. She tosses me a cookie, which lands on my chest. Still lying down, I bring it to my mouth and bite into it, the fig seeds popping beneath my teeth. Hunter used to tell me the crunch in a Fig Newton was little dead flies that got caught inside the fig. I feel my erection start to go down.

  While Shawna was gone, Pete’s and my blanket became a float, slipping over the rope that marked protected waters, drifting beyond the lifeguard’s range. Though I wanted to be alone with Pete, I am suddenly grateful for Shawna’s presence. She makes it okay for Pete and me to be together on this blanket at all. She has pulled us back to where it is safe.

  • • •

  The show ends with “Southern Nights,” which the lasers illustrate with a picture of a man in overalls casting a fishing line into a pond. As soon as the song ends, a refrain from “Dixie” comes on over the speakers. A chorus of rebel yells rises from everyone around us.

  Pete leans toward me and whispers, “Uh-oh. The natives are getting frisky.”