“Sit down,” he said again. He looked around the room, pushed a chair forward. He said, “Sit down, young man,” to Garo. “So you two are friends,” he said.
Garo sat down.
I kept staring at my father, wondering if I looked like him. He had a narrow face, a long nose, a little wisp of a mustache under that nose. “You want a drink?” he said.
And Garo said, “A drink?” in this dumb, shocked voice. It made me want to laugh.
My father bent down to a little refrigerator and took out a bottle of soda—ginger ale, I think, or maybe it was 7-Up, something like that. And he glanced at me and peaked up his eyebrows, as if the two of us understood each other.
“I’ll have a drink,” I said. I felt better after I said that. Some of my nervousness left me. I don’t know why. I walked over to the window and looked out into the parking lot. I looked for his car, the green car I’d seen outside of school. “Where’s your car?” I said.
“Oh, ay, ah, I don’t have it with me,” he said.
“You don’t have your car?”
“I, ah, just rented one,” he said.
“Just rented one?” Why was I repeating everything he said?
“I came here by bus, then, uh, I rented the car. My car isn’t good for a long trip. It burns oil, and …” His voice trailed off.
“You followed me,” I said.
“What?”
“Did you rent it so you could kidnap me?” I said.
He was squatting on the floor in front of the little refrigerator, still holding the bottle of soda. He started smiling. “Kidnap you? Why would I do that?”
Again I felt confused and stupid, and almost ashamed, as if I’d said something awful.
“I’m not a kidnapper,” he said.
I sat down on a chair, but I got up immediately. My father poured soda into two plastic glasses and handed one to each of us. “Thank you,” Garo said.
“What were you doing in the mall?” I said.
He looked uncomfortable. “In the mall?”
“I saw you there,” I said. “Garo and I were shopping.” I suddenly wondered if he’d think that was sissy stuff. “Garo and I were there, and you were there,” I said.
“I did follow you,” he said. “That, that day, I did follow you. I was parked down the street where you lived and I, I watched you. I saw you outside that day.”
He spoke so hesitantly I wondered how he could ever sell anything to anybody. He didn’t seem at all like the forceful salesman kind of personality, like the kind of man people were always making jokes about. Would you buy a used car from this man?
Yes! I would! He seemed honest and sincere … and weak. I felt sorry for him and, and something … something else … something hard and tight in my belly, a ball, a wad, like there was a wad of lumpy chewing gum sticking up my guts.
“I saw you raking the yard that day,” he said. “I, uh, I saw you, and I saw your mother … and then, you know, when you went to the mall, I followed you. Yeh, I followed you.”
“How about the movies?” I said. “Did you follow me there, too?”
“Movies?” he said. “What movies?”
“I saw you there, too,” I said. “Across the street.” But then I wasn’t sure. Had it been him? A man in a blue jacket. I wasn’t sure. “You were outside my school.”
“Yeh, yeh.” He nodded. Then he said, “Excuse me.” He went into the bathroom, closed the door. You could hear the sounds, you could hear everything in that little room. The toilet flushed. The water ran in the sink, and he came out. His eyes were red, sore-looking. Had he been crying?
“So how do you do in school?” he said.
“Okay,” I said.
“He’s good,” Garo said. My father looked at him. “Cal’s a star in Language Arts,” he said.
“Is that right?” My father sat down on the edge of the bed.
“No,” I said.
“Yeah, he is,” Garo said. “Don’t listen to him, Mr. Miller. He’s always putting himself down.” Garo had been sitting in that chair without moving. Now he bounced up, sat down, bounced up again. “Cal’s smart,” he said. “He’s on the basketball team.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You were.”
“I got kicked off,” I said.
My father nodded, as if he understood. What could he understand? He didn’t know anything about it. Maybe what he understood was how it felt to be kicked off something, kicked out, not wanted.
“Cal’s a good writer, too,” Garo said. “He reads everything. He’s really smart, Mr. Miller.”
My father looked at me with a little smile. His mustache crinkled. “Is that right? You like to read?”
I nodded.
“I do, too,” he said, almost shyly. He gestured to a pile of books on the little table between the two beds. “You know what I did when I got here? I went to the library and got a card.”
He put his hands in his pockets, patted them, then went to the bureau, opened the top drawer and then the next drawer. “Where’d I put it?” He picked up his jacket. “Here,” he said, “look at this.” He took out a white plastic card. “Temporary library card. They couldn’t give me a permanent one because I don’t have an address here. But I showed them my card from home, and they gave me this. It’s good for a month.”
I didn’t say anything. He put the card away.
“Where do you live?” I asked.
“Vermont.”
“That’s where you live?”
“Burlington, Vermont.”
“I thought you lived in Maine.”
“No. Burlington, Vermont. You ever been there, Cal?” I shook my head. “It’s beautiful country,” he said. “Right on the lake. Lake Champlain. Beautiful country.”
“You sent me a postcard from Maine.”
“I did? When was that?”
When was that? Didn’t he know? Three postcards in nine years, and he couldn’t remember sending them? “It was three years ago,” I said. And then I repeated it. “Three years ago!” Maybe I shouted. I could sense Garo going rigid in his chair. I felt stupid again, ashamed again.
“Oh … I was on vacation, I guess,” my father said in a low voice.
I wanted him to speak up, I wanted him to shout at me. I wanted him to say something, ask me something, demand something, tell me something. I wanted him to tell me something, but I didn’t know what it was.
“Want some more soda?” he asked.
“No.” In my head I was shouting again. I don’t want more soda. No, I don’t want more soda! No! I hit the table and the little plastic cup tipped over. The soda went all over the floor.
We all looked at it. My father said, “I know … I know I haven’t been a very good … I haven’t been a good father. It’s … it’s hard, I should have, I should have done a lot of things and I didn’t … I didn’t do a lot of things.… I just didn’t. Do. A lot of things.”
I went into the bathroom and came back with tissues to wipe up the soda.
“You don’t have to do that,” my father said.
“It’s all right.” I threw the tissues in the wastebasket.
“So you like to read?” he said. “That’s great! What kind of books do you like to read?”
“Science fiction,” I said. “Different things. I like to read about other people, I guess … like other worlds.”
“You do?” he said. “That’s great!” He reached over and patted my knee. And he said, “You’re a fine boy, Cal. You’re a fine boy. I came here to see you, to see who you are. I knew you’d be someone I could be proud of. And I was right. I’m proud of you.”
I felt mad … scared.… Some half-crazy feeling grabbed me like hands. I didn’t know what it was. I heard someone making hard gaspy noises, and then I knew it was me, and I was crying.
Chapter 17
“Where’s your little curly headed friend?” Fern said, getting in line behind me in the cafeteria.
“Garo’s sick. Flu or
something.” The whole house had been in an uproar since last night when Alan came home with four surprise guests, including the Perfect Person, Diane. I’d expected her to be a blonde movie star, bimbo type. Surprise. She was wearing jeans, granny glasses, and her hair was brown. And she was probably as old as Mom.
Mom sent me out to buy food. When I came back, she was making beds and cleaning up the attic bathroom and my room. She was giving that to Diane and the two other women. The other man was going to sleep in the living room.
Then, as if that wasn’t enough, in the middle of the night, Garo woke up sick. He was throwing up, and Mom got up and took care of him.
“Poor little Curly,” Fern said. “Give him my regards.”
I could never tell with Fern if she was serious or mocking. “Where’s your shadow?” I asked.
“You mean Angel? She’s no shadow. There’s more to her than that.”
“If you say so.”
“I do. Watch out for those glib guesses.” She came closer, stood right next to me. I thought of the shower. What if she wanted to kiss right here?
“You’re a funny one,” Fern said. “You never smile.”
I pulled up my lips, put my hands to either side of my mouth, and stretched.
“Well, you look a lot better that way,” she said. “You ought to practice. Take some lessons from Curly. He smiles enough for five of you.”
“You have an opinion about everything, don’t you?” I said.
“Sure,” she said. “Why not, don’t you?”
“I keep my opinions to myself.”
“Why would you want to do that? Are they so precious you can’t share them?”
I grunted.
“Oh, that’s eloquent,” she said. “Uggh! Uggh! Me, Tarzan, or something brilliant like that.”
I took a tray and glanced ahead. Why was this line moving so slowly? How long was I going to have to listen to Fern work me over?
“Don’t you like people to say what they think?” she asked.
I grunted again. She kicked my foot. “Shoot! That hurt, Fern. Why’d you do that?”
“Just want to see if you have any human responses. Are you aware, Calvin, that you grunt? Uggha ugggha uggha,” she said in a deep voice. “That’s ugly. I’m serious now. I’m doing you an excellent favor telling you this. I want you to work on your personality profile.”
I rubbed my ankle. “I’m honored by your interest.”
“You should be. I don’t waste my time on most people.”
I put a tuna fish sandwich on my tray.
“Unfortunate choice,” Fern said. “The tuna is always soggy. Too much mayonnaise. Cheese is a far better option.”
“I hate cheese,” I said. “The cheese here is the worst I’ve ever tasted. It tastes like plastic and sticks to your teeth like chewing gum.” How was that for an opinion?
When I took out my wallet to pay, the paper with my father’s address fell out. I glanced at it. He lived on Isham Street in Burlington. “Just a couple of rooms,” he’d said. He lived alone. He had given me his address so we could stay in touch.
“Stay in touch?” Mom said when I told her. “Cameron Miller stay in touch? That’ll be the day!” And she reached out, the way she always did, as if she were going to pinch or lightly slap my cheek.
I stepped back. “Don’t. I’m too old for that stuff, Mom.”
“Sorry,” she said.
And then I felt sorry, as if I’d hurt her.
I walked to the back of the cafeteria where I usually sat. Fern sat down across from me. “Don’t you usually brown bag it?” she asked.
How’d she know that? I bit into the sandwich. “Good tuna. Excellent sogginess.”
“I usually brown bag it, too, except when I forget to make my lunch or get too busy and have to buy it, like today.”
“My mother didn’t have time to make my lunch this morning, either,” I said.
“Your mother makes your lunch?” Fern paused with her sandwich halfway to her mouth. “What a difficult life you must have, Calvin. Does she make your bed, too?”
“What’s so terrible about that?”
“Oh, and I suppose she brushes your teeth for you, also.”
“What about your friend Iris?”
“Why her, all of a sudden? You think she has a servant? I know for a fact that she makes her own lunch. She’s no parasite. Her mother’s a lawyer and doesn’t have time to stand around slathering peanut butter on bread.”
“Is she the type who says what she thinks, too?”
“Iris’s mom? What do you think! You don’t get to be a lawyer by hiding under the sofa.”
“I meant Iris,” I said. “Your friend.” The longer I talked to Fern the less I could believe we’d actually pressed close to each other and kissed. It seemed like something I must have made up in a dream.
“Well, she’s more tactful than I am,” Fern said. “But that’s how she got her boyfriend.”
“Her boyfriend?”
“Yes, her boyfriend. That’s what I said. Her boyfriend. His name is Sidney, Sidney Greene. She went up to him the first day she met him, she put her hand on his shoulder, and she said, ‘You know, I think you’re a very fine person.’ Because she’d seen him do something nice for someone else, and she thinks people ought to be told when they do something good. She believes in appreciating people.”
“Where do you know her from? She doesn’t go to our school, does she?”
“No, she goes to Smith. We were down at the Y together; we took a class there. We were eyeing each other—I guess it was a mutual attraction. And then when I found out her name was Iris and she found out mine was Fern, that was it. We knew we had to be friends.”
“Swimming class?” I said.
“What? Oh. No, CPR.”
“CPR?”
“Surely, you know what that is, Calvin?”
I did, but I was thinking about Iris having a boyfriend. Well, what had I expected? By the time Iris crowded into the shower, everyone was screaming, “Sardines! Sardines!” She was almost the last one in. I couldn’t even get near her. She was laughing; everyone was laughing and squeezing in together. It was dark. Iris couldn’t tell me from anyone else in that mob. And when we got out, well, I didn’t do anything to get to know her. I never even spoke to her. I had felt too self-conscious. What Fern would probably call my fatal flaw.
“I like her,” I said suddenly.
“That shows good taste, anyway,” Fern said. “Maybe there’s some hope for you.” She looked at me over her container of milk. “You like her? You really do?” She gave me a little smile.
Was that actually approval?
“Hang in there, Calvin,” she said. “You never know what could happen.”
Chapter 18
My father called me. “Hello, son,” he said.
“Hello—” I couldn’t get out the D word. Dad.
“Well, I just called to say hello, Cal. I’m home now.”
“Okay.”
“You doing okay?”
“Yeah, sure.” I cleared my throat. “Uh, I forgot to ask you. What do you do?”
“Do?”
“I mean, work.”
“Oh. I’m a salesman.”
“What do you sell?”
He laughed. “Shoes, underwear, paper goods, whatever.”
Then there was a silence. He broke it. “Well, I won’t keep you. I just wanted to say hello.”
“That’s all right.”
“I like to hear your voice.”
“Oh. Okay. Cool.”
“How’s the schoolwork?”
“Good.”
“Anything I can do for you?”
“Uhh—” Like what? “No,” I said. “Thanks.”
“Well, you let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll just say good-bye then.”
“Good-bye.” I started to hang up, then I heard him still talking.
&nbs
p; “… call you again,” he was saying. And then we did hang up.
Just before spring break, our class had a picnic at Enoch Falls Park. It was a school tradition, once in the spring and once in the fall. Mr. Aketa and Mr. Herrick chaperoned. We had a cold clear day. The sky was blue, and a wind rustled the pines. As soon as we got off the bus, we unloaded the food—bagloads of sandwiches, boxes of soda, and a crate of potato chips.
We ate and then we played Frisbee and softball, even though there were still pockets of snow among the rocks. Some of the kids took off their shoes and went wading in the pool below the falls. “Freezing,” they screamed.
Before the sun got too low, Mr. Aketa organized everyone for a class picture. He had a Nikon camera on a tripod. “Kids, line up by height, tallest in back.” Everyone milled around. “Come on,” Mr. Aketa pleaded, “let’s have a little initiative here. A little cooperation. Kids! My baby, Karin, is more cooperative than this.” Instead of a boy, the Kenneth Mason Aketa he’d expected, he’d had a girl, Karin Mason Aketa.
I knelt down in front near Garo. “Get back in line, Calvin,” Mr. Aketa said. “You’re too tall for the front line.”
Someone put their hands on my head and climbed on my shoulders. I say someone, but it was Leslie the witch. “Stand up,” she ordered.
“What? Get off me!” But I really liked it.
“Move to the back, Calvin,” she said, “Come on, you heard Mr. Aketa. Stand up. We’re the tallest now.”
“Good!” Mr. Aketa said. “That looks good, Leslie and Cal. This’ll make the picture.”
I locked my arms around Leslie’s knees. “Don’t drop me,” she said in my ear.
“Okay, smiles now, everyone,” Mr. Aketa said. “Say cheese, kids. Think of rat’s teeth and smelly socks.”
Leslie kept fooling around, putting her hands over my ears and my eyes, or grabbing me by the hair. I was going to dump her when Mr. Aketa was done, but then Kenny Fisher was there, with Laurel Salmon on his shoulders.
“Let’s have a race,” Kenny said. “Miller and Branch against Salmon and Fisher.”
“A race, a race,” Leslie cried in that squeaky voice of hers.
“Wait … us, too,” I heard Garo say. He galloped up with Fern on his shoulders, or maybe I should say staggered.
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