Beetle Boy

by Margaret Willey

  Wrong. It could have only happened to me. On that day, in that neighborhood, in that terribly public way, it could only have happened to me because I am Charlie Porter. Something good was happening to me (Clara), and balance was needed quickly. When I entered Mrs. M.’s house, after she was long gone, I got my comeuppance.

  The realtor’s sign says, “Recently Reduced.” I am glad the house hasn’t sold yet, glad it is technically still the house I briefly shared with Mrs. M. I find myself watching the living room picture window for movement, the shadow of a woman in a purple bathrobe crossing the room to greet me at the door.

  “It looks nice, Charlie. I wish I could see the inside. At least the little room where you slept.”

  “It was in the basement.”

  “Oh no—really? Was it okay for you, living in somebody’s basement?”

  I reply with a sigh, “It was wonderful.”

  She studies my face to see if I am being sarcastic. “At least it wasn’t a motel room,” she says. “I couldn’t believe you actually lived in a motel. That was like a place where a criminal would live.”

  I had gone to a lot of trouble to keep her from seeing the motel, constantly avoiding the subject of my address, always meeting her after work or on the doorstep of her house. In fact, nobody else in my life ever saw the Grand Stand Motel, room 11, home, sweet home of Charlie Porter, moving on up in the world.

  But eventually there came the fateful day, the day after my outpatient surgery, when Clara had to drive me to the motel and help me gather up my stuff so I could convalesce at her house. It was a defining moment for us, the first indication that I was not the normal eighteen-year-old male I had earlier pretended to be. She already knew I had no functioning parents. That was confusing enough for her. But living in Grand Stand Motel, room 11?

  I was in the car, still pretty out of it from the anesthesia, and I watched her unlock the door, push it open, and take in the sight of my room. Even without being able to see her face, I could tell she was freaked out; she stayed frozen in the door-frame and kept her hand on the knob. I managed to get out of the car and move past her on my shiny-new metal crutches.

  “I’m good. I’m good. I’ll take over from here,” I said.

  Most of my clothes were still in a plastic trash bag—very convenient. In the bathroom, I rounded up my shaving supplies, my toothbrush, and a bottle of generic shampoo. I was in a phase of reading murder mysteries from a used bookstore; a small stack of them was beside the bed—I tossed them into the plastic bag. I took my bike lock—my bike was at the shop. The laptop Mrs. M. had given me, a dead cell phone, an iPod, and half a dozen cords and chargers. These went into my raggedy backpack. Three small lidded boxes of mementos—those I would keep on my lap. The whole process took about ten minutes. I was leaving behind my dirty bedding, my faded towels, a few food items, my biking magazines, and my generally miserable single life.

  “All set,” I said, keeping my voice normal with a huge effort, “Wow, I’m really going to need a nap soon.”

  I left the key in the room, put my few belongings and my crutches in the back of her car, and somehow got myself back in on the passenger side with my three boxes. Clara was still standing frozen at the door to number 11. Maybe it was dawning on her that she would be seriously taking care of me for a while and she didn’t even know me. I could be a vagrant. I could be a pathological liar. I could be a murderer. Well, the first two were right.

  As we drove back to her house in silence, I was actually feeling sorry for her. She was understandably upset. She was in over her head with Charlie. My leg was starting to throb, the first inkling of the pain I was in for in the nights ahead.

  “Say something, Clara,” I said.

  She asked me why I lived in a motel.

  “I’m saving money to buy a condo,” I said. She didn’t laugh. Not even nervously. I remember that she said something worriedly about me not owning a suitcase.

  “I have a backpack,” I had replied. I was clutching the stacked boxes to my chest, wincing in pain. “I travel light.”

  Now, in front of Mrs. M.’s deserted house, I am remembering that strange day, that first openly worried expression, the slightly panicky remark about the suitcase. I look down at Clara, who is still staring at the front of Mrs. M.’s empty house. I think, Why didn’t you call it quits after you found out I lived in a motel? Was it because of the accident? Did you feel too sorry for me to ditch me? But I’m okay now. Why are you still helping me?

  Clara looks up at me, tipping her face. “Charlie, why did Martha Manning help you?”

  Her question startles me—the coincidence—and I stammer, “I guess … I guess … she couldn’t resist me.”

  My answer disappoints her. But she is still excited to be at Martha Manning’s house. “I just really wish I could see the inside!”

  I am hesitating. The key to the back door is in my wallet. Abruptly, I leave Clara’s side and start to walk along the paved driveway that runs along one side of the house. Clara follows me. I unlock my private entrance and silently lead Clara into the mudroom of the house. Then into the kitchen. The house’s total emptiness silences us for a moment; our footsteps are thunderous in the hot, airless rooms. Finally, Clara speaks. “Charlie, where’s all her furniture?”

  “In storage. Actually, her neighbor took care of the furniture for her after she left. He’s acting as her realtor.”

  “So where were you when this was all happening?”

  “I had already moved out. I left in a huff, actually, the summer after I graduated. I was so mad at her for deciding to leave. I thought it was inconvenient and unfair. I didn’t know how sick she was; she didn’t tell me.”

  We descend the basement stairs. There is nothing to see in my old bedroom but a bare mattress on a metal frame. It looks pathetic, and Clara puts an arm around my waist, sympathetic.

  “No, I really liked living down here,” I insist. “It was the best year of my entire life.”

  I know I should add, “Besides living with you.” But I can’t.

  Back in the kitchen, I show her the breakfast nook, the bolted window, and the bird feeders—no feed in them, no birds. The cupboards are empty. The major appliances are unplugged. The counters are blank.

  In the living room, there is one solitary piece of furniture in the middle of the room. It had originally been in her small office, a room she spent very little time in during the year I lived with her. The movers had left it behind in a place of prominence. It is a beautifully carved, ornate desk—kind of Asian-looking—and huge. Like two people could comfortably work at it. Maybe three. The top of the desk is leather. There is a note sitting there, addressed to me in her unmistakable cursive: for Charlie Porter.

  I lead Clara to the desk. I want her to read the note. It explains many things. She picks it up and puts it close to her nose; the room is dark, and she is slightly nearsighted. She reads it out loud.

  Charlie, I want you to have this desk. It’s the only piece of furniture I own with any real value. I want you to know that I have bone cancer. My prognosis is two months without treatment. I may already be dead when you read this. I am sorry that I had to leave you so suddenly. You have certainly had too many people leave you in your short life. Don’t be afraid to face the unfairness of this. You are a survivor, and you will be okay. Love, M.M.

  Clara puts the note back down on the desk and gasps loudly. “But wait, Charlie,” she asks, “how did she know you’d come back to her house and read this note?”

  “I don’t know. It sat right here on this desk for over six months.”

  “So when did you find it?”

  “The day of my accident. I read it and ran for the hills. But I didn’t get far. I fell into the street right over there.” I pointed to the street through the picture window.

  “Oh my God. That was the day? And then you called me from the hospital.”

  “And you came right away.”

  “Oh, Charlie. What a terrible l
etter. But she’s not dead. And now she’s giving you her desk. That’s so nice of her. But how in the world are we going to get it out of here?”

  “I’m not sure I want it.”

  “Leave it to me. I’ll get it out of here for you. I’ll ask my dad to help.”

  “No, please, don’t ask your dad.”

  “Charlie, my dad loves it when I ask for help. Any sort of help. And he has a truck. Which reminds me—he wants to take us all out to dinner soon. Can you handle another meeting with my parents now that you’re feeling better?”

  I groan. Clara’s cell phone rings in that moment, and she looks at the number and her face clouds.

  “Is it your dad?”

  “No, it’s somebody else. Nothing important.” She slips the phone back into the front pocket of her jeans. “Thank you for bringing me here today, Charlie. Really. Thank you. And for finally telling me about your friend.”

  I am proud of myself for finally confiding in her. For showing her the note that had nearly destroyed me. The outing was unprompted by her, and so it seems like something of a turning point. I did it. I chose to tell her. I can tell her things, and she will not run away. I take her hand out of her pocket and hold it a moment and then bring it to my lips. My girlfriend is kind and beautiful. I whisper, “You’re welcome.”

  Back at the house, we are having a cold pizza lunch and Clara has grown quiet. For once, I actually ask her what she’s thinking about.

  “Well … I was wondering how you went about asking Martha Manning if you could live with her. That’s kind of a big thing to ask a person who’s not even related to you.”

  “I know. Actually, I made up a contract. A list of all the things that I would do for her in exchange for that room in her basement. I still have the contract.”

  “Don’t tell me. Is it in one of your boxes?”

  I go to the garage and find the right box and untie the string and lift the lid and take out the contract, rolled into a tube, typed and printed long ago on Dad’s dinosaur computer. I bring it back to the kitchen table, and Clara reads it with a little smile.

  It reads thus:

  Dear Mrs. M.,

  In exchange for letting me live at your house for 9 months and telling people that you are my grandmother, I hereby swear to

  1.Take out your trash as often as needed.

  2.Shovel your porch and sidewalk through the winter months.

  3.Do all yard work.

  4.Do all your grocery shopping.

  5.Be your driver during nonschool hours.

  6.Sleep in your empty basement room.

  7.Have no friend or girlfriends over. [Easy—no friends, no girlfriends.]

  8.Never disturb you while you are writing. [Easy, she didn’t write anymore.]

  9.Never enter your upstairs bathroom. [Unnecessary, toilet and shower in the basement.]

  10.Be out of your place no later than May 31, end of senior year. No exceptions.

  “Geez, I see what you mean about making yourself irresistible.”

  “I don’t know why I kept it. Maybe because she signed it with that big swirly signature like that. With her diamond pen.”

  “Her what?”

  “Oh … she had a special pen … I bought it for her. I still have that, too. She left it on the desk on the top of the note. I put it in my jacket pocket before I broke into a run.”

  “Can I see it?”

  “It’s in a different box. It’s just a pen.”

  “Charlie?”

  I head back to the garage and come back with the pen, but now I am uncomfortable, remembering the nine-year-old me who had bought the pen, remembering why I bought it—the near-hallucinatory state of gratitude I had been in at the time. Buying that pen for Mrs. M. was such a huge deal for me. It wasn’t just a thank-you gift. I think I was asking her to please keep helping me. To keep me.

  The sight of the pen makes Clara laugh. “Wow, pretty fancy-schmancy, Charlie! Diamonds! You never bought me anything with diamonds.”

  “I haven’t been able to do much shopping lately.”

  “Good excuse, right? But there’s something else I’ve been wanting to ask you about. It’s not about Mrs. M. It’s about your books. What in the world happened to all those cute books you wrote?”

  “Clara, I don’t know and I don’t care.”

  “Come on! They must have meant something to you at the time, even if you don’t care about them anymore. They were your very own creation, Charlie! You were an author! I’d love to see them. Does Liam have them?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Can I ask him?”

  “I would prefer that you don’t talk to Liam, Clara. Like, ever.”

  “But, Charlie, what if he calls me?”

  “Why would he call you?”

  “I don’t know. Just … it would be awkward. I would have to say something.”

  “No, you wouldn’t. If he ever calls you, you just hand over the phone to me. I deal with Liam.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Whatever, Charlie. But ask him if he has any of your old books, okay?”

  Oh sure, I agree silently. I’ll ask him the next time he breaks in.

  I am in Clara’s bed, surrounded by Clara’s popsicle-colored underpants, but instead of Clara beside me, Liam is sleeping on his back, with his violin resting on his chest. I am afraid to move because I don’t want to wake him up, I don’t want him to see Clara’s underpants and ask me about them. I keep very still, until something catches my eye. Something is moving around inside of Liam’s violin; something is making the wood pulse and strain. I watch in alarm as a small, black, probing leg comes out of the S-shaped sound hole. I realize that Liam has a large bug inside of his violin. But it can’t get out—the sound holes are too narrow. I wonder if he knows. I wonder if I should tell him. I wonder if it is partly why he plays the violin so well. I lift myself onto one elbow to ask him, but he cringes in his sleep and recoils from me, wrapping his arms tightly around his violin. “Liam,” I say, “there’s something I need to tell you about your violin!”

  “Charlie!” Clara barks. “You’re talking in your sleep again. Stop it!”

  I had fallen asleep in her bed after unusually successful sex. But the dreams came anyway, following me into Clara’s bed, making sure I don’t forget to bring my beetle friends to the party. “Sorry, sorry, sorry, Clara. At least no screaming this time, right?”

  “Shut UP! I have to go to work early tomorrow.”

  “Don’t kick me out,” I murmur. I’m pretty sure she won’t. She is too nice. But I think to myself before I fall back to sleep, Definitely not as nice as she used to be.

  EIGHTEEN

  Clara is gone, and I look at the clock. I have slept in until nearly ten. Usually Clara wakes me to have breakfast with her. Then I remember that she said something in the middle of the night about going in early. She has let me sleep in. I get up and see that she has put bread and cereal on the counter for me. Coffee in a thermos. She still loves me. I eat the breakfast she has left for me and let the memories come.

  I am back in Mrs. M.’s neighborhood after six years of not seeing her, ringing her doorbell. At first she didn’t recognize me. She asked, “Can I help you?” in a puzzled voice, keeping the screen door locked.

  I waited for her to figure out that it was me. I noticed that her gray hair had grown out into curls around her face and was actually kind of pretty for an old person’s hair. I asked, helpfully, “Read any good bug books lately?”

  She said, “Charlie Porter, as I live and breathe.” She unlocked the screen door and opened it wide. I had already decided that I was going to ask her if I could live in her basement, but I had promised myself I wouldn’t bring it up that first visit. Didn’t want to overwhelm her. Instead, I followed her into her kitchen, where I sat down and told her that I was sorry that I hadn’t come over in six years.

  “My life got complicated.”

  “Everybody’s life is complicated,” Mrs. M. said. “Y
our life was insane.”

  I asked her something I had sometimes wondered during those six years. “Did you ever wonder how I was doing?”

  “Of course,” she said. “Routinely. Are you still living in the apartment on Grove Street?”

  “Same sitch, no improvements.”

  “Well … I saw something in the paper a couple of years ago that deeply concerned me, Charlie. I almost called you. It was a bookstore ad for a book signing—a talented young author named Charlie Porter was signing his books at the new children’s bookstore in Grandville. With a photograph of a boy who clearly wasn’t you.”

  “Yeah, I know. Guess who got the job after I quit?”

  “As I feared he would. And he actually had to tell people he was you? Nice. So is he still doing Charlie Porter author events?”

  “No. He’s thirteen now; he’s too old. But he didn’t seem to mind it as much as me. He doesn’t come back from the author gigs and cry on his bed for an hour like I used to. Or get hives. Or have panic attacks. But we actually never talk about it. We don’t talk in my family. We don’t share.”

  A silence. Mrs. M. asked me if I was hungry, which I was. “You’ve grown taller than I would have expected,” she said. “You were small for your age.”

  “I grew into my head,” I said, a comment I had never forgotten.

  She chuckled, remembering it too. “And no scars from all those rashes on your neck. That’s good. What grade are you in now?”

  “I’m sixteen, but I’m heading into my senior year. I started school early because my mom thought I was advanced.”

  A pause. It was rare of me to mention my mother. Finally she asked, “Were you?”

  “Probably, but I’m not anymore.”

  She smiled, “So how are your grades these days, Charlie?”

  She had never before asked me anything about school. It was such a normal thing to ask; it heartened me. It made me feel like maybe our relationship could be very simple—a teenager living with his nice grandmother. I felt even more hopeful about it. It was hard not to bring it up and ask her on the spot. I had already written the contract. But I knew it would be better to play it cool and save it for my next visit. Before I left, Mrs. M. said, “I hope you won’t wait six years to come over again.”