by Sasha Dawn
And then one day she learned: sometimes you don’t have to do anything to deserve a beating like that. She hadn’t done anything to provoke him, except maybe offer him another Pabst.
He’d hit her with a closed fist that day. Both eyes swollen shut, back bleeding with the lashes of the closest stick within reach.
Nearly as soon as it started, it was over, and he’d cried and said he was sorry. And she wouldn’t leave him then because she was six months pregnant. With twins, no less, so how was she was supposed to raise us on her own?
And so the pattern was established.
I wonder if Rosie feels a residual ache in all the places she’d been slammed—literally and figuratively. She, too, I’ll bet, has scars no one can see.
Here’s the difference: I couldn’t have left if I’d wanted to. All she had to do was walk out the door, and I would’ve followed. But something stopped her, maybe she wanted to leave but couldn’t, and she’s learned along the way to stay.
It’s ugly, but it made me who I am. Besides, I know how to take a hit, and that comes in handy on Friday nights.
Coach Baldecki pulls the elastic wrapping from my left shoulder, and the cold pack rolls off with it. “You good?”
“Yeah, Coach.” I trot back onto the field, where our guys recovered on the twenty-two. I don’t have much time—twelve-point-four seconds—but we’re only down by three.
Garcia, my center, snaps.
Ball in hand, I drop back into the pocket, a sea of blue and gold rushing at me, and my wall of black and red defending.
Look to the left.
Novak’s covered.
Look to the right.
No one.
Left, right.
Scramble away from the big mutha honing in on me.
A window ahead.
I take it.
Hook right.
Then home free.
Just as I’m nearing the end zone line, I feel and hear the crunch of bodies, and I’m slammed to the earth, buried beneath a mountain of muscle, sweat. I tighten my grip on the pigskin and curl my body around it.
Go ahead. Take it from me. Over my dead body.
One by one, the bodies peel off, give way to the lights illuminating the field and the buzz and roar of the crowd in the bleachers.
Whistle.
The ref’s hands go up. Touchdown.
I look down at the turf and see the red of the end zone. I made it. I’m in.
In the locker room, later, Novak shoulders me as he passes: “I was open. Dickhead.”
Whatever.
“Don’t let him get to you.” Jensen’s a senior, one of our team captains, an offensive lineman. “He’s always saying he’s open when he’s not.”
“He wasn’t.”
“You coming tonight, Michaels?”
There’s always a victory celebration—sometimes even when we don’t win—but this was pretty big. We’re three-and-one now; if we’d lost we’d be a five-hundred team, which doesn’t bode well for playoffs. This was our first game with our senior starter out, and a junior classman—me—standing in as QB, up against the favored and privileged boys from the north shore. “Can’t.”
“Come on. At least come to the diner.”
“Grounded.” I pull a T-shirt over my damp head.
“Dude, you’re always fucking grounded.”
True story.
I shrug it off. “Have a good time.”
On my way out, Baldecki calls me into his office.
“Close the door.”
I close it.
“Yates is probably out for the season. Torn meniscus.”
I bite my lip, mask my elation, and nod. “Sorry to hear.”
“I’m going to need you to stay eligible.”
Another nod. “Yes, sir.”
“How are your grades?”
We’ve had homework. We’ve had tests. But the teachers don’t enter much into the grade books the first six weeks of school, so I say, “Good.”
“Last year, you struggled.”
I take a breath. I should explain the turmoil of last year, the court case for the order of protection against Damien, the constant looking over our shoulders. The constant sacrificing school to cover the twins. But before I can say anything, Baldecki continues:
“You’re on track this year?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Stay that way.”
This means I’ll be playing the rest of the season. Visions of scholarships dance in my head. I can’t stop the wild grin coming on. “Absolutely.”
He stands, so I stand.
Our meeting appears to be over, but I don’t want to leave until he dismisses me. He’s looking down at his clipboard.
“Your last play,” he says. “The sneak.”
“Yeah.”
“You’ve got good instincts.”
“Thank you.”
“But that wasn’t the play you were supposed to run.”
“No, sir.”
“You out for your own glory?”
“No, sir. Just wanted the win. For the team. For Yates.”
“You had an open receiver. Novak.”
Bullshit. “He was covered, I thought.”
“He’ll catch what you throw. Gotta trust him.”
“I do. Just didn’t see him as open.”
“I’ve benched players for less.” He fixes me with a hard glare. “We call the shots out there. The coaches. Not you.”
I feel the flames of anger rising in my chest. We fucking won with that play, and fucking Novak wasn’t open. I swallow the aggression, hope I can keep a lid on it until I’m out of here.
“Good game.”
I bite my lip and nod.
I don’t blow my top until I’m in my Explorer, radio blaring, zipping down Washington with windows closed, so no one can hear when I slam my fist into the roof and scream.
Most of the team is still busy dressing and high-fiving by the time I’m home, but Rosie’s car is running in the driveway when I pull in, and I know she’s going to be pissed.
She bowls out of the front door the second I step onto the porch and aggressively brushes past me. “God damn it, Josh!” It’s all she says, but it’s more than she’s said all week.
No how was the game? No how’s the shoulder?
Looks like we’re still in phase two.
I don’t know what she expects me to do. I got here as fast as I could. Did she expect me to skip my game?
She shoots me one last death glare before she slams her Beetle door and practically squeals her way down the street.
Once inside, I close the door behind me and lean my back against it. A Disney classic blares from the television. “Hey, Maggie Lee. Miss Lina.”
“Joshy!” Caroline’s first on her feet.
They’re already in their pajamas, but Margaret’s knotted nest of hair tells me Rosie didn’t fight with them to wash their hair, if they’ve had a bath at all.
I check my phone. The last message I got from Chatham said she couldn’t come to the game. I returned with a maybe next time. That was at three. I was the last to message, so I can’t send another without seeming too overly eager, and at this stage, I have to play it cool. Don’t want to scare her back to Moon River.
It’s crazy how I crave her. We hardly know each other, but she’s become necessary, in a sense. It’s like I want English class to last a lifetime, even though she sits clear across the room and one row behind me, so I can’t even look at her most of the time. But she’s always there, in the back of my mind: her hands always sporting the remnants of clay relief, the curls she tucks behind her ear when she’s bent over her desk, writing.
So aside from the occasional Snap, which blips on my radar and is gone before I can convince myself to screenshot it—I can’t let her know I want to preserve every word she sends, can I?—we don’t have many chances or excuses to talk. I want to know everything about her, why she’s here in Sugar Creek, where she’s living, wh
at her family’s like.
A million times I’ve wanted to take her by the elbow and lead her aside for a chat against the lockers. But I never do. Maybe I’m afraid to let her know how much I want to talk, to get to know her.
Because really, we’re not more than a conversation on the beach, and a few shared s’mores at Aiden’s when she barely said anything. But I feel her pulling at me—an invisible, organic luring. Somehow I know I’m supposed to know her, that we’re supposed to know each other.
I shake my head to clear it of these thoughts. If I were out with the team, at least I’d be distracted, if not having fun—despite the rod up Novak’s ass, and the group of seniors who somehow blame me for Yates’ fucking meniscus tear. Hey, I’m not the one who landed on him. But no, I’m stuck at home watching some cartoon princess try to tame a beast. Unless . . .
“Hey, sisters.” I lift Margaret, who’s already hanging on my leg anyway. “Want to go to the Tiny E?”
Caroline stops watching the television instantly. “Ice cream?”
Margaret kisses me on the nose.
“Ice cream.” I wouldn’t dare bring them to the after-party, but . . . “Go get dressed.”
“But you’re grounded,” Margaret says as I put her down.
I love being reminded of that fact by a four-year-old.
“We have to eat.” It’s a rationalization, but it’s still true. Besides, Rosie wants me to take care of the girls? That job comes with perks. I’m in charge when she’s not here. How’s she going to stop me from leaving the compound when she’s clear across town at the hospital?
While the twins fight their way down the hallway to their room, I pull out the largest canister in the pantry and dig through the flour for the sealed plastic bag of Rosie’s emergency stash. She’s been hiding cash in the flour since I was ten, since Rich “Dick” Herron—husband number two, before Damien—started pushing her around and she started saving for a way out. She thinks I don’t know, and she never seems to notice when I take a little, which I rarely do anyway, as I still have some cash of my own stashed away from the job I quit when pre-season football practice began.
I pull out a twenty and bury the rest.
I fight with Margaret’s hair, and manage to pull it into a ball on top of her head. Playfully, I tug on it. “You look like a cookie jar. Like, I could just”—I make a popping sound—“pull the lid right off you and eat some cookies.”
It makes her laugh.
I let Caroline wear her favorite pajamas—the ones that could pass as a pink bunny costume, complete with a cotton tail—and a pink, plastic tiara. I don’t care.
With the girls’ music bopping through the speakers, we make our way into town.
Just as I’m maneuvering this beast of a car into a parallel spot across the street from the Tiny Elvis Café, I see her—Chatham Claiborne—exiting the very diner I’m about to enter.
Okay, so she blew off my game to hang out at the diner. Even though she said she liked football, she was probably joking. And who am I to her anyway? She shouldn’t feel any obligation to go to my game. So why do I suddenly feel so hollow?
Because, that’s why. Because I wanted her to come. I wanted her to want to come.
I put the car in park and busy myself with getting my sisters out of the backseat.
Don’t look at her, don’t look at her, don’t look at her. It’ll be awkward. Don’t seem overly eager, overly happy to see her.
“Hey there.”
Without a second’s hesitation, I look up when I hear her voice.
She’s smiling. “Heard you won.”
“Yeah.” I remind myself to hold tight onto my sisters’ hands. I’m forever distracted in this girl’s company; can’t have my sisters wandering off.
“I saw the first quarter, the beginning of it.”
“Yeah?” So she left after half a defensive line demolished me. She didn’t get to see me do my thing.
“Sorry I missed the rest.” She thumbs behind her, toward the diner, where my teammates occupy nearly every table, which they’ve pushed together in the center of the space. “Job interview.”
“At the Tiny E?”
“Yeah. Got a job.”
“Congratulations.”
“Well . . . actually, I don’t know if I can take it.”
“Jah-ah-osh.” Only my sisters can turn one syllable into three. “Ice cre-e-eam.”
“You’re busy,” she says. “We can talk about this—”
“Listen, no, I want to . . .” I shut up before I say the words that have been threatening to fall out of my mouth, arguably, since the very first second I saw her: I want to talk to you. “Do you, maybe, want to come with?”
“I don’t want to interrupt your—”
“C’mon.” I give my head a toss in the diner’s direction. “You’re not interrupting anything.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.” I think of the twenty bucks I just horked from Rosie’s stash. “My treat.”
“In that case . . .” She reaches for Margaret’s hand. “I’d love to.”
We, a connected line of four, take a step off the curb, but I stop dead in my tracks the moment I see it—an oversized black pickup parked a few spaces behind my car.
Damien Wick, my sisters’ father and the man I hate more than anyone else on the planet, is staring me down through the windshield, as if he’s about to blaze tire tracks over my chest.
T h e W h i t e R a b b i t
I don’t know why Damien’s here, but I have a sneaking suspicion that he’s reporting to Rosie: he took my children here, he took my children there. He may even demand time with the girls, and pretend I put my sisters in bad situations—he’ll probably lie and say I did even though I wouldn’t—and bully Rosie into allowing him visitation.
If he’s still here when we’re leaving, I’ll lead him directly to the police station. He’s not supposed to be anywhere near us.
Luckily, he doesn’t follow us into the diner. He’d have to be an incredible idiot to do such a thing, but as it turns out, that’s exactly what he is, so you never know what he might do.
It’s crowded and loud at the Tiny E. So loud that I can’t even hear whichever Elvis track is playing. We make our way past the football team—a few guys offer me fist bumps along the way—and find an open table on the far side of the diner. It’s one of those small booths, really meant for two, but we don’t have much of a choice. Chatham slides onto the bench and pulls Margaret up onto her lap, like it’s the most natural thing in the world, like it’s normal for a guy and a girl to have two preschoolers as chaperones wherever they go.
Again, I wonder what her life must be like that she can fit into the chaos of mine, if tonight is any indication, so seamlessly.
“I’m told you haven’t had dessert”—she reaches for a menu—“until you’ve eaten it at the Tiny Elvis.” She looks at me over the menu and smiles. “At least that’s what they said when they hired me.”
I shift Caroline on my lap. “It’s basically true.” But I don’t want to discuss unimportant subjects. I want to make the most of my time with her.
Caroline grabs the salt- and peppershakers—at this table, they’re mini statues of fat Elvis—and she and Margaret treat them like Barbie dolls, instantly putting them into a scene. It’s what they do every time we come here.
“So you’re going to work here?” I ask.
She chews on her lip for a second, like she’s not sure how to answer. “It depends. I have to make a few arrangements first.”
“Hmm.” Is she hoping to tell me more? Or have I already probed too much? “Well, if there’s anything I can do . . .”
It almost looks like she’s going to take me up on my offer to help, and maybe she’s about to tell me something important, when Caroline shrieks.
“No, get away!” Caroline’s salt is running away from Margaret’s pepper. “I’m allergic to you!”
Because she hasn’t watched this s
cene twenty times, Chatham laughs when pepper makes salt sneeze.
Got to hand it to my sisters. They know how to divert a conversation. I guess, if we’re going to have a meaningful discussion, it’s not going to happen here. It’s okay. You practically have to shout to be heard in here tonight anyway.
I order a cookie sundae for my sisters to split, and I get the Hunk of Burning Love, the Tiny E’s version of chocolate lava cake.
Chatham gets a single scoop of strawberry ice cream, which she carves into the shape of a rose with her spoon.
My sisters stare at her, and the rose, in awe.
This girl can make a sculpture of anything.
We eat.
I pay the tab.
Chatham takes the girls to wash their hands while I say good-bye to the team. I wait at the door and survey the street for any signs of Damien. The jerk is gone, thank God.
“All squeaky clean,” Margaret says as the three of them return from the ladies’ room.
As we’re leaving, I glance up at the clock. Elvis’s hips sway in time with the seconds passing. Twenty-two minutes. That’s the long and short of the time I’ve just spent with the most intriguing girl I’ve ever met. And I don’t want the night to end here, feeling as if I know no more about her than I did the moment I met her.
It’s not too late. If she doesn’t have overbearing parents that enforce a strict curfew . . .
“Hey, just a thought.” The air is a brush colder than it was when we got here. “If you don’t have to get home right away, you’re welcome to come back with me for a while.”
“Oh.” She stops in her tracks. “Really?”
“I can drive you home later.”
A beat of silence follows.
I feel like I shouldn’t have asked. If a girl doesn’t immediately accept, she probably doesn’t want to come.
Maybe in inviting her back to my place, I’m suggesting something she’s not ready to face. My mother’s gone, my sisters will be in bed as soon as we’re home . . . We’d be alone. But now that it’s out there, the ball is in her court.
“Pleeeease?” Caroline bats her lashes and hangs on Chatham’s arm. “Please come.”
Chatham laughs and lifts Caroline. “Does anyone ever say no to you?”