Alan Cole Is Not a Coward

by Eric Bell

“I, uh, went swimming. That’s why.”

  “You went swimming?” Dad’s voice gets thin. “No more swimming. It’s bad enough you’re doing it in school, but now you’re doing it for fun too? No more swimming!”

  “But Dad—”

  He raises his head.

  I look down at the floor and slowly march upstairs.

  “Be ready in half an hour,” he calls from downstairs.

  Great. So now I’m banned from fitness consultations, with five days to go to pass the test. I really got a lot out of my time with Madison today too; once he got in the water with me, he actually showed me ways to stay afloat, and he helped me work on my kicking. When he said I’d basically need to come here and practice for hours every day, I said that was fine, and he said it was fine with him too.

  Now I don’t know what to do.

  Changing into my suit—for special occasions—makes me realize I haven’t given this dinner much thought, even though Dad’s been harping on about it for months. What are we going to actually do there? Is Dad’s boss going to make a speech? Will I be able to stay awake from all the adultspeak? Will they have lots of food? (I hope they have lots of food.)

  Will I say the wrong thing and make Dad angry?

  I report to the living room, all suited up and ready to go. Mom stands off to the side, running her fingers along the cross around her neck. Nathan fidgets—he hates getting dressed up. Dad walks in from the kitchen, and we line up for inspection.

  He starts with Nathan, who stops fidgeting immediately and stands stiffly, barely even breathing. Then Dad walks to me, taking a big sniff of my hair. Apparently satisfied, he looks me up and down. “Nathan, fix your brother’s tie.”

  Grumbling, my brother walks over and adjusts my tie, which I think might be the first time in my whole life he’s actually touched me without leaving a bruise.

  Dad moves over to Mom—and he freezes, staring at the cross around her neck. A cross that’s definitely not the one Dad bought for her. He opens his mouth, but Mom’s hand clasps the cross protectively. Nathan and I look at each other, disbelieving.

  Finally, Dad massages his temples, swallows a big glass of water, and marches out the door. Mom closes her eyes and whispers something. A prayer? A thank-you?

  I follow Dad, trying to ignore the warning pangs in my gut. I almost ask myself, what’s the worst that could really happen, but I’ve read enough stories in twelve years to know people who ask that always wind up with their houses burning down or a passenger plane crashing on their big toes, so instead I ask myself, what’s the best that could really happen, because, hey, reverse psychology is a thing, right?

  Boy, I wish I was wearing Orville right about now.

  Dad works for a place called Harrison Money Group (HMG), and they handle financial stuff all over Flower County. He specifically does behind-the-scenes number crunching; he doesn’t normally interact with clients (which I’m sure isn’t much of a shock to you). Growing up I always had this idea Dad worked in a windowless office full of people like him, who all went home and treated their families like he treated his. So I’m a little surprised when we pull up to the Flower County Community Center, and after one final “Don’t disappoint me” from Dad, we’re greeted by a smiling man yelling, “James!”

  Dad always goes by James. Nobody dares to call him Jim, and especially not Jimmy. He pulls his lips back in something clearly meant to resemble a warm smile. “Hello, Richard,” he says in a higher-pitched voice, which I guess is how he thinks nice people talk.

  Richard shakes Dad’s hand. “This is my little girl, Elizabeth,” he says, gesturing to a girl a few years younger than me.

  “Oh, is this the girl who plays the cello?” Dad asks, looking at Nathan.

  Nathan clears his throat and says, “I was first chair last year in the Evergreen Middle School orchestra, and the orchestra is going to perform a piece I’ve written this year.”

  “Wow,” Elizabeth says.

  Richard laughs. “Well, that’s quite the son you’ve got there, James. See you inside.”

  Dad places a hand on Nathan’s shoulder. The presence of the hand is so startling that Nathan actually flinches, but Dad leaves it there long after Richard and his daughter have moved toward the main entrance. I guess Dad remembers he doesn’t have to pretend to be nice around us, and he removes his hand and says, “Put more enthusiasm into it next time.” But he still looks back at us a few times as we walk.

  The main reception area of the community center is big, even though it feels smaller than the Helen’s Crest pool. There are tables with nice tablecloths and silverware set up by a stage (great, so there is going to be a speech). Men in suits and women in dresses chitchat over drinks. A huge punch bowl decorates the middle of the food tables.

  I really feel like I don’t belong here. There’s barely anyone my age. And there’s all these people I’ve never met talking about things I don’t know anything about. I wish I was back home in Dorktopia.

  We take a seat near the front of the stage. Dad gets greeted by a few more people—“James!” “Hey, James!”—and Nathan and I say our lines like we practiced, sitting there like ugly props on a bad movie set. After I tell a smiling-too-hard woman about my bicycle kick, Dad whispers to me, “Much better than drawing. Nobody’s impressed by artists.” I turn red. A wide smirk fills Nathan’s face. Mom looks at me, running her hands along her mother’s cross; she gives me a small smile. I don’t return it.

  As I settle into my seat, a girl in the next chair over watches me. She isn’t blinking. I look down at my empty plate.

  Finally someone gets up to the podium. I guess this is Dad’s boss, Mr. Harrison, who doesn’t need to introduce himself and gives everyone a big hello and thanks for being at the first HMG company dinner (if this goes well, there will be more!) and thanks for another great fiscal year, and then he goes on about some of the great strides HMG has made in the past twelve months and oh hey something is brushing against my leg.

  The girl next to me, who looks about my age, is watching the speech with her head in her hand, looking very much like she’d rather be eating a whole cactus than listening to Mr. Harrison talk about how the office “went green” this year by switching to double-sided printing. But even though she isn’t looking at me, I can feel her foot poke my foot underneath the table.

  This is new.

  Dad is listening to the speech, clapping at all the right parts; Mom is smiling faintly, cupping her cross in her hands; and Nathan is trying to organize his silverware in fun shapes. No one’s watching. I gulp. Then, slowly, before my brain catches up with the rest of me, I nudge her leg with my foot.

  The girl doesn’t make any visible change, but as I pull my foot away, she taps my leg with her foot. The second time I poke her, it’s a little less terrifying, but then she stops. No acknowledgment of my desire to continue the game. I can’t see her face over her hand from this angle. I ignore the little pang of curious disappointment in my chest and try to focus on the speech. After I zone out again, something touches my arm—there’s a little piece of paper there. Again checking to see if anyone’s watching me, I unfold it. It says:

  Mr. Harrison has a booger in his nose.

  I look at the stage. I’m close enough that I can see him, and yeah, he’s got a little green lump dangling from his right nostril. A snicker escapes my lips, which makes Dad look over at me. I shove the piece of paper in my pocket before he notices.

  After approximately three years, Mr. Harrison ends his speech to applause. He invites everyone to eat, and then he starts making the rounds at all the tables. Fortunately, he doesn’t start with ours. I’ve had enough Mr. Harrison for five company dinners.

  Dad maneuvers Mom over to another table with something probably meant to be friendliness, and Nathan escapes to a corner so he can text Marcellus about what a horrible evening he’s having, so it’s just me and this girl at the table. Finally turning to face me, she asks, “Do you want to be an accountant like yo
ur dad?”

  “I don’t want to be anything like my dad,” I say.

  It takes me a second to realize what I said. To a total stranger. “S-Sorry,” I stammer.

  The girl studies me like she’s a microscope on a microbe, pushing her eyebrows together. “Why are you sorry? I don’t care if you hate your dad.”

  “I don’t hate my dad,” I say. Every other Cole in the room is out of earshot, thank God. Then, to change the subject, I say, “Where are your parents?”

  “Around,” the girl says. “Are you hungry?”

  I nod.

  She stands up, looks around the main room, returns her sharp eyes back to me, nods, and marches off, all in the span of about three seconds. “For the record,” she says as we walk toward the buffet line, “I’m impressed by artists.”

  I turn bright red.

  “What’s your pleasure?” she asks, scooping a generous helping of pasta onto her plate.

  “Huh?”

  “Your art. What do you do?”

  Too many people are jostling around the buffet line, and Dad’s a few feet down, so I whisper, “I paint.”

  She nods. “Artists understand things other people don’t. People like your dad.”

  I don’t say anything. I’m too busy watching my traveling companion take huge helpings of everything on the buffet line, despite being about as skinny as me. Everything except the salad, which she totally skips.

  As we return to our table, the girl asks, “You don’t say much, do you?”

  I shrug.

  She smiles. “That’s fine. People who talk too much don’t listen. I’m sure you impress all the girls with your great listening skills.”

  I look down. “Right.”

  “Anyway,” she says through a mouthful of scalloped potatoes, “if I’m nice to you, will you hook me up with your brother? He’s really hot.”

  A little pasta gets lodged in my throat in a sort of half snort. “Don’t worry. He’s single.”

  “I could only hope so,” she says. “Swooooooon.” She pretends to fan herself.

  “My name’s Alan,” I say.

  “Names? On the first date? Names are meaningless, Pedro. But if you want, you can call me June.”

  “I think I will.”

  “Ho ho! Alan and June, together at last! This calls for a celebration. Do you like red or white wine?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” I say.

  “Punch it is.” She lifts her glass into the air. “To art.”

  I laugh a little. “To art.”

  Our glasses clink together in a toast and we take great big sips. The chilled, sugary liquid flows through me with a jolt of energy, the sweetness lingers in my throat, and I smile. So does she. “Alan,” she says, rolling my name on her tongue. “Do you go to Broadleaf? I haven’t seen you there.”

  Uh-oh. I’m now supposed to hate her guts and boo her teams at sporting events. Hope the Stable Table doesn’t catch wind of this. “I go to Evergreen. I’m in seventh grade.”

  “So that makes you a Sapling then.” A little sneer curling at the edges of her mouth.

  “I refuse to call myself that.”

  “Hear, hear.” June looks around the room. “I hate these things. They’re just adults trying to impress other adults. Nobody actually cares about anything. Like your dad. I bet he made you rehearse that stuff about sports. Am I right?”

  “Every night for a month,” I say. I take another long swig of my punch.

  She shakes her head. “Typical. He probably doesn’t know the first thing about you. You should tell him.”

  I look around to see the locations of the other Coles (Dad and Mom won’t leave Mr. Harrison’s side and Nathan is being grilled by Richard and his cellist daughter, which I’m sure thrills my brother to no end). “That’s easier said than done.”

  “Why’s that?” June asks.

  I lower my head.

  “Alan.” June leans over to my chair. “If you march straight over there and tell off your big, fat caveman of a father, I’ll give you a kiss.”

  My stomach churns. “What? Wh-Why would—you don’t have to—”

  There’s a brief moment where we look at each other, then June laughs, short and punchy. “Nah,” she says. “You wouldn’t want to kiss a bad girl like me anyway.”

  I need to put an air conditioner beneath my shirt. “Y-You don’t seem like a bad girl.”

  “We’ve known each other for ten minutes. Anyway, everybody’s bad in some way, aren’t they? But everybody acts like they aren’t, especially at big social functions like this. It’s why I’m so bored tonight.”

  “Do you really think that? That everybody’s bad in some way?”

  “Of course,” June says without hesitation. “Don’t you?”

  I squint. “Why would I think that?”

  June rests a hand beneath her head and smiles. “Oh, I don’t know. Your dad’s clearly a disaster, for one thing. He looks like a serial killer—look at how he tries to smile. News flash: normal people do not smile like that. Your mom’s totally broken, like she used to have a spine before your dad snapped it in two. Your brother clearly thought your dad’s comment about artists was hilarious, so he’s probably a delight to have at home.”

  My breath hitches. “Uh—”

  “At school you’re probably either ignored or bullied, based on how timid you are. If you have any friends, they’ve got to be rejects like you, with very poor social skills. Nobody gets you. Nobody except me.” She raises a finger into the air. “People like us need to band together. We need to accept our badness and stand up together against everyone else. That’s my mission statement: I am devoted to waking people up to the truth.”

  I gulp. Who in the world is this girl?

  “I’m so glad I found you tonight,” she says. “You can help me. Here’s the plan.” June reaches into her purse. “I’ve brought something very fun along tonight. But mischief is more fun when it’s with a friend, don’t you think?” She carefully pulls out a lumpy plastic bag.

  “Uh . . . what’s in there?” I ask, not sure if I want to know the answer.

  She pushes her eyebrows together. “Hmm. Let’s find out.” She peels back a bit of the bag to reveal—

  “Eepen!”

  My voice squeals over the community center. Adults all around turn to look, but soon everyone goes back to their important grown-up business.

  June raises an eyebrow. “Did you say ‘eepen’?”

  “J-June—that’s—that is a—um—”

  “I found it outside the building,” she says. “It’s great timing, since it’s so hard to find dead rats these days. Well, apart from killing them yourself, I mean.” She laughs, like she’s told me a knock-knock joke, one that doesn’t involve killing rats and/or carrying around their carcasses in her purse.

  I glance around again, this time a little more desperately. “What are you going to do with that?”

  “Well,” June says, “I think the punch could use a little extra flavor, don’t you?” She jerks her head in the direction of the food table. Her smile grows. “You can cover for me while I add our furry friend to the mix. Then everybody panics! All the dress-up and fake smiles go away in a heartbeat. We’ll get to see how ugly everyone really is.”

  “I—I’m not doing that,” I stammer. “That’s—”

  “Are you going to say that’s bad?” June asks. “Well, of course it is. I already told you though: I’m a bad girl. Everybody’s bad, but I wear it on my sleeve. Now it’s your turn. Prove your badness. Show your father he’s not the boss of you.”

  Everything is happening too fast. I spin my head around the room—no adults near our table, nothing in between us and the buffet line, between us and that gigantic bowl of punch. “I’m not—” I start, then I say, “I thought you were cool.”

  June stops smiling. “You don’t think I’m cool?”

  “Not anymore I don’t,” I say.

  She leans back in her chair, mouth sl
ightly open.

  “Don’t do this,” I continue. “What will your parents think? What’s going to happen to—”

  “Oh, this is cute,” June says. The fun, playful side of her voice is paved over with a hardness, a coldness that I now realize was there all along. “You’re trying to be good. Well, I’ve got a fun game for you: if you’re really a good person, stop me.”

  We stare at each other for a few horrible moments. She smiles again. “Ta-ta,” she says, then she sweeps onto her feet and power walks for the punch bowl.

  My heart pounds, my blood pumps, my legs are ready to get up and run. But I’m frozen in place. There are so many people around, so many adults. She’s almost at the punch bowl, the dead rat flopping at her side—she’s really going to do it—

  And I’m letting her.

  Coward.

  The next thing I know, my chair topples over behind me and I am running toward June and the punch bowl as the roadkill dangles dangerously above, and I flail my arms around without much of a plan, and I slip on a stray napkin and I smash into the table, and the punch bowl flies backward, and all of it splashes onto June, coating her from head to toe in purple drink.

  My heart stops. My blood cools. My legs lock up. No one in the room is moving.

  June shrieks. Dripping from head to toe, she wails, “Daaaaaaaaaddddddy!” at the top of her lungs. She levels a quavering finger at me.

  A man comes running over to the table with a fistful of napkins as June cries out over and over, “Daddy, help! Daaaaaaddddy!”

  “June, June,” says the man—oh my God, I know who this man is—“what happened?”

  “W-We were talking and he told me he was really b-bored—and he brought this to stir up trouble”—she holds up the dead rat, every bit as soaked in punch as June, and everyone gasps—“and I tried to stop him, I really did, but I couldn’t—and he—I’m soooooorrrryyy!”

  Beneath June’s damp hair, a dry eye stares at me.

  I can’t move. I can’t breathe. I think I’m going to faint. Everyone is watching, everyone is whispering, everyone is waiting to see what Mr. Harrison does about his daughter. Dad appears from nowhere to offer June tissues, and June bats at his hands and screams, “Get away from meeeee!” and runs out of the reception area, leaving a crushing silence in her wake.