Mrs. M.’s garage became a secret world of delights. Everything in it worked—nothing was broken. A shiny-new power mower, an assortment of clean buckets, and tools hanging from a shelf in symmetrical rows. I learned how to use many of them. I fixed things—a broken cupboard door, a leaky faucet, a section of loose floorboard on one end of her front porch. I got handier and faster and always put my tools back in the places where I had found them.
Mrs. M. always acted amazed that I would do any of these things without being asked. She would say, “It’s not even in the contract, Charlie.”
“We don’t have to be slaves to the contract, Mrs. M.”
My senior year of school was strange but manageable. I was getting along better with my peers. A few of my teachers were openly nice to me. I got a few As, mostly in my English classes. Ironically, the librarian liked me. A couple of girls seemed interested in me and invited me to their parties. I went, although I mostly stayed hidden in dark corners. I wasn’t a beetle anymore, but now I had another secret—that my father had stolen the last babysitter from me and kept her for himself. I had seen too much. I knew too much about sex, although until that year, I never had any. I was afraid that the truth of this showed on my face, especially when I was trying to be charming.
Slowly that year, I reinvented myself—a serious guy with a streak of dry humor who lived alone with his odd, lovable grandmother and kept his sordid past firmly in the past. I got better at just being a teenager in high school. I learned to make small talk and be ironic. I accepted the possibility that I was reasonably good-looking. I had a few random sexual experiences that weren’t disastrous, just predictably meaningless. Nobody questioned my family situation; lots of kids at my high school lived with relatives.
Once, at a party—one of those parents-away-for-the-weekend-somebody-got-a-keg events—I noticed a girl trying to catch my eye as I wandered around the house, nursing a red cup of something vile. After half an hour, I finally let her corner me in the kitchen. A few minutes of the usual high school small talk, and then she swerved into unsafe territory.
“If you live with your gram, where is the rest of your family?” Her eyes widened in alarm as she waited for my answer. No one had ever asked me so directly. I realized it was a moment of either truth or nontruth. I opted for exotic appeal: “They are no longer with me.”
Her jaw dropped. “You mean …”
I looked deep into her eyes with all the sadness I could muster. Then slowly looked away, without answering. It worked.
She said, “Oh my God, Charlie.”
I shrugged sorrowfully.
She put down her own red cup and picked up my hand and entwined our fingers meaningfully. She would comfort me, at least for a little while.
After that I started routinely telling my classmates and my teachers that Mrs. M. was my only living relative, and the more I said it, the more true it seemed. Soon only Mrs. M. knew that I had a brother—she still asked about Liam from time to time, and I told her that I was keeping in touch with him and that I would bring him over soon but then always had a plausible reason for why it wasn’t a good time. I could no more have gone back to that apartment for Liam than I could have gone back to check in with Ruby. I did my best to forget them.
Then, in the spring of that same year, amazingly, I got a job. I had studied up on the tools needed to fix bicycles and learned the names of all the hottest cycle brands and I was friendly and relaxed during the job interview and it worked! The bike shop was next to the Rite Aid, and I started working twenty hours a week, after school and Saturdays. I started right away giving Mrs. M. a token amount of money from my paycheck, and she took it and said that she was proud of me for getting a job “without having any helpful connections.”
I was still working at the bike shop during the fall after I had moved into the motel, and I started to go to the Rite Aid rather frequently, even when I didn’t need anything, because a certain pharmacist’s assistant always smiled and said hello to me. I was completely smitten with her in her white lab coat with her tortoiseshell glasses and her thick auburn hair, always worn in a big twist halfway up the back of her head. Fantastic hair. I used to wish there was something wrong with me so I could order a prescription from her. Antibiotics! Fungus cream! Sodium pentothal!
Finally, one afternoon I got up the nerve to ask her where the Band-Aids were, and then I followed her, watching her walk from a few steps behind her in a state of shock and awe. She stopped at the bandages section of the aisle and turned around and smiled for a longer beat than usual, like it was so enjoyable to help me. She wore a name tag on the lapel of her lab coat that said Clara.
She noticed that I was staring at it. “Where’s your name tag?” she asked.
“We don’t wear them at the bike shop,” I said. “But my name is actually Charlie.”
“You work at Bodacious Bikes? No wonder I see you all the time.”
“It’s very dangerous work. I’m always needing Band-Aids.”
She laughed. It completely astounded me. It gave me the courage of a tiger. “Would you ever want to have lunch with me?” I asked her, and I said her name for the first time: Clara.
TWENTY
I am grocery shopping at the neighborhood store for the first time in the two months I have lived with Clara, pushing a cart and checking off a list of groceries. I have decided that it’s time for me to start cooking dinner for Clara, now that I can get around on my own. I’d learned to cook a few things, living with Mrs. M., although I am rusty and Mrs. M. had a much better kitchen. But I am determined to start doing my share.
Halfway through the list, I hear someone call my name, and this surprises me. Nobody knows me by name in Clara’s neighborhood.
“Charlie Porter!” someone calls. “Is that you, Charlie? It’s me, Sam Church!”
Someone is coming toward me—someone too old to be Sam Church, but it is Sam Church, my once illustrator. One of the few people in this town who might recognize me in a grocery store. I happen to know that my dad never paid him for his final contribution to my career. As he comes closer, he glances down at my walking boot and asks, “What the hell did you do to your foot, Charlie?”
“Achilles tendon,” I say. Otherwise, I would run from him. He has outstretched his hand to shake mine, no escape. I shake it.
“Sorry to hear that,” he says. He adds meaningfully, “Remember me?”
“You’re Sam,” I say. “My dad’s friend.”
Sam is not aging well. He has let his hair grow way too long—like crazy, never-wash-it-or-comb-it long, and he is wearing a battered khaki hat tied under his double chin and his face is that kind of red-purple that people’s faces get when they drink all the time. No surprise. He was one of my dad’s few drinking buddies, after all. Maybe the only one.
“So what d’ya hear these days from the old man?” he asks.
“I think he lives in Jamaica,” I reply.
“I know he lives in Jamaica,” says Sam. And so at last I know that my dad does indeed live in Jamaica. Instantly, I wish I didn’t know; I preferred not being sure.
“Yeah, we stayed in touch for a little while,” Sam continues. “He was always gonna send me that money. You know. For doin’ the illustrations.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” I say.
“Somebody told me that old Dan got your little brother to do the same gig as you. That youngest-published-author gig. So there must still be books around, right? Money comin’ in, right?”
“I don’t think so,” I say. “I moved out a long time ago, and I didn’t stay in touch with them. I don’t even know my dad’s address.”
“You probably know he married that little girl once he got down to Jamaica, right? What was her name?”
“I don’t know,” I say.
“Your dad owes me like over two thousand dollars, Charlie. For the work I did on those last two books. Do you think you could find out how I can get ahold of him?”
“I d
on’t know where he is,” I say. “I’m sorry he didn’t pay you. He was really, really bad with money.”
Sam Church’s expression darkens. He says, “I was supposed to get half. I sure as hell didn’t get half.”
“I didn’t get anything,” I say, equally bitter. “Except a really fucked-up childhood.”
Sam takes a step away from me, shocked. I take this moment to depart, needing to be finished with him, and he calls after me, finding his voice. “Well, if you ever do talk to your dad, tell him to call me. I’m still at the same copy shop. He can call me there.”
When I get back to the apartment, I am terribly anxious. It is that feeling again—too many things coming together at once. Clara has left the index card with Mrs. M.’s phone number taped to the kitchen counter. Does she expect me to call Mrs. M.? Just pick up the phone and call her? Does she have any idea how hard it would be for me to do that? Mrs. M. might not want to talk to me. Or her sister might answer and tell me she just died like an hour ago. There is absolutely no way that I can dial her number. I pull the card off the counter and hide it in a drawer.
Clara’s parents have picked the night and restaurant for our gathering; I’m sure they can’t wait to grill me about when I am planning to stop being a deadbeat. Clara keeps insisting that they like me.
“No really, they want to celebrate that you’re doing so much better. Come on! It’ll be fun!”
She writes the occasion down on the small Michigan Wonderland calendar she keeps on the fridge: “6:30 dinner with Mom and Dad at Casey’s Bistro.” One week from today. With a smiley face. She is using Mrs. M.’s pen again. My life is insane.
I am waking up from a nap when I hear someone walking around in the kitchen. At first, I think I’m in a beetle dream, but then I realize I’m not dreaming; I’m hearing the sounds of someone in the kitchen who is not Clara, someone making no effort to be silent. I hear cups and saucers clattering. After a moment, I hear the whistle of the teakettle. I groan into my pillow.
I lurch to the kitchen without my boot. The kitchen window is open again. The screen is on the floor again. Liam is pouring water into the teakettle. “Hey, Big Brother!” His smile is ear to ear. I hate that smile, that slick Porter smile. “Rise and shine! Don’t you ever get tired of sleeping all day?”
“I don’t sleep all day,” I say. “And you broke into Clara’s house again. This is not cool, Liam.”
“I’m just making tea,” he says. “Black tea. A little caffeine to help you wake up. You need to get some better tea, bro. Mom only uses loose tea; she’s kind of a fanatic. Your hot girlfriend scored major points with her, making her tea.”
“Don’t talk about Clara. And stop calling her at work. It’s really bothering her. She doesn’t like it.”
“Oh, no, she likes it. We’ve had some really nice conversations. She’s very curious about me, very impressed.”
“No, she isn’t, Liam.”
“Actually, she is! I invited her to my next concert—at Aquinas College—a very big deal—but then she never called me back so, I thought, why not just head over there and talk it over with Charlie. Over a nice cup of tea. I really think you need to come, bro. I think you might be sorry if you don’t.” He is smiling, but it is clearly a threat.
“Jesus, Liam. What is wrong with you? You can’t just sneak inside Clara’s house like this and you can’t call her and you can’t threaten me into going to one of your goddamn CONCERTS!”
Suddenly we are both yelling.
“Oh, are you THREATENED? Am I THREATENING you? Are you SCARED?”
“GET OUT OF HERE! Go back out through the window like the CRIMINAL you are!”
We stand head-to-head, facing each other. It feels like a very bad dream. I am waiting for a beetle to come clicking and clacking around the corner. Liam is breathing heavily. He is clenching and unclenching his fist. He looks like what he wants to do most in the world is punch me. What I want is to push him headfirst back out the window. But a part of me, maybe the more adult part of me, realizes that we both have to calm down. We can’t fight. We can’t be screaming at each other. It’s too dangerous.
I hold up my hands, a truce gesture. And I say, more calmly, “Look, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I lost my temper. But you’re trying to freak me out on purpose, breaking in like this when Clara’s not here and calling her and inviting her to concerts and it’s working, Liam. It’s freaking me out, and I want you to stop it.”
Liam’s eyes narrow. He says, “You don’t deserve her.”
“I know I don’t deserve her. I am the first person to admit it. But you can’t be playing games with her to get back at me.”
“Get back at you?” he sneers. “Why would I need to get back at you?”
I admit, with a huge effort, “For all the shit I did to you … back then.”
I think it catches him off guard. Almost an apology. Almost. He lets it sink in. Then he asks calmly, “You mean before you left? Or after you left?”
“I mean … I mean … all of it. All of it, Liam. Please, I know you hate me, but you have to quit playing these games with Clara.”
“I’m not playing games, Charlie. I don’t have time for games. I’m leaving in a month for Interlochen. You won’t be seeing me for a while once I move up there. So relax! Drink some tea with me. Sit down. How’s the leg?”
Warily, I sit down. He slowly and carefully pours me a cup of black tea.
“Mom has this really old blue teapot. I guess it was her gram’s. Do you remember it?”
He looks up at me as he pours his own cup, gauging how I will take this mention of Mom. I say, quietly, “I remember it.”
“She sure drinks a lot of tea. She is going to be drinking it completely by herself after I leave. I’ve been telling her she should look for a roommate. Or join a church again or something.”
“She quit going to church?”
“Oh yeah. Long time ago. Still prays all the time, though. Mostly for you.”
“Jesus. Don’t tell me that.”
“You should come over and see her. Come after I’m gone. I know you like to pretend I don’t exist.”
“I told you how I feel about this already, Liam.”
He takes a final slurp of tea and walks away from the table. The photo of Rita, still on the fridge door catches his eye. He looks at it for a moment, then snatches it off the fridge, tears it into two pieces, and throws it in the trash on his way to the front door.
I am in the Green Grove apartment at the doorway to my bedroom. Liam is already asleep, under the covers on his side of our bedroom, surrounded by knives and guns. I realize from this that he knows about the giant beetle living in our house. He has figured it out without me telling him. I am glad he knows, and I am not the only one afraid. I think that I will borrow a few weapons from his bed to keep on my side of the room. But as I approach him, I hear a loud, raspy breathing sound coming from under his bed. One gigantic leg is sticking out, the claw on the end of it, flexing and unflexing, like a metal hook. I am thinking, I can crush its leg with my walking boot and then it will be crippled. I can do that. I can do that for Liam.
But I can’t move and I can’t move and the whirring gets louder and I stand frozen in my old bedroom and it is my own raspy, tortured breathing that finally wakes me up.
TWENTY-ONE
I was right—it is not as intense to be with Clara’s parents in a restaurant. We are seated at a four-top in a quiet corner of Casey’s, a local family eatery, and it turns out that our waitress Marie is an old high school friend of Clara’s and so there is an initial exchange of happiness and amazement and I am introduced to Marie by Clara as her boyfriend, a word that never fails to astound me.
Don tells Marie to put the tab on one check and then aside, he says to me, “You’re probably going to want a big old steak, eh Charlie?”
“Charlie’s a vegetarian,” Clara says brightly. “I told you that before, Dad.”
Don gives me a fleeting look of bewilderm
ent. Then he smiles coldly. After we put our dinner order in, he turns back to me with renewed determination to find out what the hell is wrong with me. “So, Charlie,” he begins. “You seem to be getting around pretty well with that boot thing. When will you be headed back to the office?”
“He works at a bike shop, remember? Bodacious Bikes near where I work.”
“My apologies, you did tell me that, but it slipped my mind.” Back to me, “So when do you see yourself starting back to work at this bike shop?”
“Soon as the boot comes off, Mr. Morrison. It really limits my mobility, and we do so much kneeling and squatting and lifting, you know, working on the bicycles.”
“That makes sense, Don,” says Sue.
“He’s a little better every day. Aren’t you, Charlie?”
“I sure am.” And right after I say this, right after I agree without any irony or deceit that I’m doing better every day, I hear a familiar voice call my name and I look up from the group and I see Liam coming toward us in the restaurant and I realize in a flash that a few steps behind him, looking extremely uncomfortable and trapped, is my mother, Lucinda. Liam and Mom. Mom and Liam.
My mom hangs back, but Liam walks up to our table, stands behind Clara, puts a hand on one of her shoulders and gives it a squeeze. Like they are best buds. Clara meets my eyes. I recognize her fear from the first meeting with Mom and Liam, and I can see it growing.
“I’m not late, am I?” Liam asks, clapping his hands together, and again, I feel as though I am caught in a dream; will a long black leg poke me from under our table?
A round of Morrison sputtering ensues. Clara finally begins speaking in sentences. “We weren’t expecting you, Liam. But since you’re here—okay—Mom, Dad, this is Charlie’s brother, Liam.”
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