Fourteen
We don’t hear any more news about Brian for the rest of the weekend, and by Monday morning, Dad’s decided that there’s no reason why he shouldn’t head back out on the road.
“You can call me if you hear anything,” he tells Mom. She’s gone from elation over Brian’s being safe back to worry about exactly how badly he’s been hurt.
“What if he takes a turn for the worse, Mick?” she demands. “What if I have to make some decision about his treatment?”
“I’m a cell phone call away, Laura,” Dad tells her impatiently, packing his cooler full of sandwiches and fruit for the road. He has a fridge in the sleeper of his truck, and likes to save money and time by bringing some of his food along. “Grab me a carton of cigarettes out of the cupboard, will you?” he asks her.
My attempt to pass through the kitchen hidden behind a shield of invisibility fails. “So, I guess that’s your half-assed idea of a haircut, huh?” Dad snaps at me.
I’m not surprised by his reaction, necessarily. My hair is shorter, there’s no denying that, and there were definitely scissors involved. I should know; in the end, I decided to skip Cost-Cutters and take a whack at it myself. To my surprise, I was pretty happy with the effect .
Behind him, Mom purses her lips but doesn’t say anything; I imagine she doesn’t want to waste any of her anger at Dad on me.
I grab a banana for breakfast, deciding to take my breakfast on the run. “See ya,” I say to Dad. “Drive safe.” He grunts his response, and I’m out the door.
At school, the heat has gone out and everyone is wearing their jackets to class. The cold makes it even harder to concentrate, and since Monday classes are always especially soul-sucking, it’s a gigantic relief when my afternoon free hour finally rolls around. I often spend the time in the art room, working on my drawings and watching Ms. Twohey, but today I head for the library. I want to go online and see if I can find anything about the incident with Brian’s unit.
Half an hour and no luck later, I sign off. My jacket has slipped off the back of my chair and fallen to the floor, and as I reach for it I spot Scarlett sitting at a table across the library. Her jacket is unzipped but she has a scarf wrapped around her neck and enormous mittens on her hands; they look handmade, and I wonder whether her grandma knitted them for her. Even wearing them, she’s somehow writing on a piece of notebook paper lying on the table in front of her.
I get up and wander casually across the room, pretending to be searching for a title on the shelves. “Hey, Scarlett,” I call softly, pulling a book off the shelf.
She looks up, covering the notebook in front of her with an arm. “Oh … hey,” she says. She nods at the book in my hand. “Doing some reading?”
I glance at the title I’m holding. All About Puberty: What’s Going On Down There. “Well,” I say sheepishly, “you can never know too much.”
I’m encouraged when she almost cracks a smile. “Writing a letter?” I venture, tossing the book onto a random shelf.
“This is the twenty-first century, dork; nobody writes letters anymore.” Scarlett taps her pencil on the paper in front of her but doesn’t move her arm. “Just working on some random stuff.”
“Oh.”
Awkward silence. “Should I bring my stuff over here?” I ask, indicating the vacant chairs at her table.
She shrugs. “Sure.”
I ignore the lukewarm response and drop my jacket onto the chair, then go to retrieve my backpack, which I left over by the computers. By the time I get back, Scarlett has returned to her writing and, without conversation, I’m stuck with nothing to do. Reluctantly, I take out my algebra and start halfheartedly doing it. By the time the bell rings at the end of the period, I’m surprised to find I’ve finished most of the assignment.
“Guess that’s it,” Scarlett says, closing her notebook.
“Yep,” I agree. I assume we’ll walk out together, but by the time I finish packing up my books, she’s waved and left. Just another day in Strange Scarlett Land, I tell myself.
Ten minutes later, I’m settling into a desk in Government class, wondering as usual why I signed up for such a dry subject at the end of the day. As the teacher drones on, I rub my cold hands together to wake up, then slide them into my jacket pockets. In the left one, something pokes my hand, and I pull out a tightly folded square of paper. On it are these words:
Polychrome
The crimson velvet of a lover’s rose
The blackness of the sky expecting stars
The silver sheen of tears I’ve yet to cry
Translucent on their way to heal my scars
The white-gold of a flame about to burn
The grayness of the earth awaiting snow
The blue-green trace of veins beneath my skin
The brilliance of the aching in my soul
The words are beautiful and strange, painful somehow. When the bell rings signaling the end of last period, I refold the paper carefully, and tuck it into my pocket, more curious about Scarlett than ever.
Fifteen
The way Mom cleans the house in preparation for Brian’s return, you’d think she’s expecting the President of the United States. From the minute she gets home after work, she’s cleaning carpets, hauling boxes of old clothes to the thrift store, and spraying, wiping, or dusting just about everything else. Worse yet, she’s recruited me to help; I scoop moldering fall leaves out of the gutters, sweep and power-wash the garage floor despite the cold, and carry endless bags of junk to the curb for the garbage pickup. “Mom, seriously … Brian’s not going to care about all this,” I tell her, but she just shakes her head at me.
“Dov,” she says impatiently, waving me off toward another assignment. “Just do what I ask for once, would you?”
While she starts working on the basement, it suddenly occurs to Mom that Brian might not even be able to stay in his bedroom down there. “I don’t know what I was thinking,” she mutters, looking ready to cry. “He probably won’t be able to manage these stairs, as banged up as he is. We better put him in your room, at least temporarily,” she decides.
“No way,” I protest. “I’m not moving all my stuff downstairs.”
“Don’t be selfish, Dov; it won’t be for long. I’m sure that Brian’s going to want to get things back to normal every bit as fast as you do.”
In the end, we compromise; I agree to sleep in the basement temporarily as long as I can leave Leo’s cage in my room upstairs. His appetite seems to be down, and I’m worried about moving him. Still, I make it a point to grumble under my breath as I carry armloads of stuff down the stairs and drop it on Brian’s desk, a spot previously reserved for his photographic shrine to Victoria. Mom has moved Victoria’s pictures to my room, arranging them carefully on the bedside table. “I’m sure Brian will want to have these where he can see them while he’s recuperating,” she murmurs.
I almost say that I doubt Brian will spend much time lying in bed, but in the end I keep my opinion to myself. I’m getting back into my invisible mode, in anticipation of my esteemed brother’s return.
Brian won’t have much need for Victoria’s pictures anyway; she’s practically moved in with us. If Mom isn’t sanitizing the house, she and Victoria are huddled at the kitchen table over cups of Constant Comment, planning the Hallmark Channel special Brian and Victoria Howard Live Happily Ever After.
“I hope he’s well enough to help me with the wedding planning,” Victoria says one day the next week. I’m in the living room, staring at the television and only halfway listening to their voices from the kitchen. “There are so many things we need to decide.”
“I’m sure he’ll be happy with whatever you want,” Mom assures her. “I can’t think of a better way to close this terrible chapter in our lives than a beautiful wedding.”
Brian asked Victoria to marry him the day before he deployed, giving her a small but sparkling diamond ring he bought with the money he earned working at Scheels Sporting
Goods. Victoria has already spoken to Brian’s supervisor and reports that Brian can have his job back as soon as he wants it. “He’s the best manager Scott’s ever had,” Victoria tells Mom proudly. “He hasn’t been able to find anyone to replace him.”
Wow, my brother is irreplaceable. Giant surprise.
“Brian has such an easy way with people,” Mom agrees. “He’s been that way since he was a toddler. It always puzzled me, because I was such a shy child myself. I guess Dov must take after me … ”
This conversation is becoming entirely too predictable. I slide off the couch so I don’t have to hear Victoria say yes, Dov IS a loser with no social skills, and head for my room while it’s still my room.
From under the mattress, I extract the two folded pieces of paper I hid there, then flop onto my back on the bed and stare at the ceiling, trying to clear my mind. After a minute, I carefully unfold the first one; it’s Polychrome, the poem I found in my jacket pocket last week. I’ve unfolded and refolded it so many times the paper has grown thin along the creases. Each time I read the words, they seem to take on a different meaning.
I found the second poem yesterday; when I opened my locker, a folded piece of notepaper was sitting on top of the books, papers, and other detritus that live in the bottom. I knew what it was even before I unfolded it, so I wasn’t surprised. It was written in the same neat, even handwriting as Polychrome.
I
ache
I
plead
I
scream
I roar
I want
I yearn
I claw the floor
I’m
scared
I’m lost
I’ve been
Misled
I’m bent
I’m busted
Damaged.
Dead.
It’s untitled, but it doesn’t need one to communicate the writer’s pain. Even the shape the words take on the page makes me picture something sharp and dangerous. Reading it through again, I consider my theory: that it’s Scarlett leaving me the poems.
I sigh and lay the poem on my chest. Scarlett, I think. The angles of her name in my mind feel as sharp-edged as the words on the paper. Figuring out Scarlett is like putting together a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle without having any idea of the finished picture. Maybe the poems are Scarlett’s way of giving me a picture of what’s going on inside of her, even if she can’t talk about it.
I’ve come to realize that Scarlett is determined to hold everyone in Longview at arm’s length. Whenever I text her to ask if she wants to hang out, she always has some excuse. At school, she has this weird way of hovering around the fringe of things, being a part of the scenery but always avoiding any chance that the focus might fall on her. I’ve beckoned her over to our table at lunch and sometimes she joins us, but she sits quietly, nibbling on a piece of fruit and giving one-or two-word responses when anybody tries to include her in the conversation.
“Social phobia” was Miranda’s diagnosis when I mentioned it to her, and now she just shrugs and makes it clear that Scarlett is the last person she wants to discuss. Miranda’s opinions are as unwavering as the thin black line she draws above her lashes, but I’ve never known her to be so unwilling to befriend someone. Ali and Koby are neutral toward Scarlett; they can’t understand why I go out of my way to try to include someone who so clearly doesn’t care to be included.
I’m not even sure myself what it is that’s keeping Scarlett on my brain; incredibly, she seems to have taken up at least part of the space previously occupied by Ms. Twohey. Usually, I have no problem with anybody who makes it clear that they want to be left alone. Heck, wanting to be left alone is something I totally get. For some reason, though, thoughts of Scarlett play over and over in my head, like an earworm that has randomly taken up residence in my brain.
I read through Untitled once again, then refold it with a sigh. From his vantage point on the dresser, Leo is watching me. “What are we gonna do with you?” I ask him. In the past few days, he’s eaten only one cricket, and I’m not even absolutely sure about that. “Help me out here.”
But Leo, normally full of sage advice, has little to offer tonight. Instead, as he often does lately, Leo closes his heavy-lidded eyes and drifts off to sleep.
“How about you, guys?” I ask the folks in the Sunny Day Real Estate poster hanging over my bed. The Fisher-Price dad looks like he’s about to say something, but the Fisher-Price mom nods toward the burning toaster and he shuts up.
Once again, it seems, I’m on my own.
SiXteen
Dad happens to be home again when Brian’s doctor calls with an update on his status. From my room, I listen to him run through the list, to Mom, of what he’s been told. Brian’s concussion has mostly resolved, and his shoulder has been pinned. “He’ll have to wear a sling for a while, but that’s nothing,” Dad says. Brian’s ribs are healing on their own, but one of his eyes was badly injured and it’s too early to tell the outcome. In the meantime, he’ll have to wear an eye patch. I hear Mom give a little mew of concern at this piece of news, but something tells me that on Brian, an eye patch and a sling will only make him look cool and pirate-like.
“The doc mentioned that he’s suffering from some sort of combat stress,” Dad adds.
“Oh dear,” Mom murmurs. “I’ve heard about that.”
Dad snorts. “I told him, ‘of course he’s suffering from combat stress … what he went through would be stressful for anyone.’”
“Yes,” Mom agrees. “Of course it would be.”
“I told the doc,” Dad continues heartily, “that if anybody can man up and put this behind him, it’ll be Brian.”
Nothing from Mom; even though I can’t see her, I can picture the worried crease forming between her eyes again. It was nice not to see that crease for a while.
“Hell,” Dad mutters. “Every damned one of us is suffering from combat stress around here, and we weren’t even in combat.”
Things move quickly after that; only a few more days pass until Brian himself calls with the news that he’s coming home next Sunday. Mom says his voice is weak, but that he’s making sense and sounds good. We all breathe easier, and the mood in the house is the lightest it’s been in months.
I also feel better having finished my quarter-term exams. For once, I think I may have done halfway decent on them; I’ve been putting a little more effort into school lately for reasons I don’t really understand. Maybe I feel like I owe somebody something; my brother is coming home alive and there’s a chance things might be getting back to normal. I realize that I haven’t fully appreciated good old boring “normal” until now.
No one but me has noticed my improved grades; things at home are in full Brian’scoming-home mode and there isn’t much attention left over for anything else. Not that I necessarily want my parents’ attention focused on me, anyway.
“When my folks get my grades, it’s not gonna be good,” moans Koby across the lunch table. “Don’t be surprised when my dismembered body turns up in the landfill.” Koby’s parents are notoriously uptight about grades, and Koby seems to do his level best to fail to meet their expectations.
“I offered to help you study for that Red Badge of Courage exam,” Ali reminds him.
“Yeah.” Koby nods thoughtfully. “Studying. That would have been good.”
“I’ll bet you didn’t even read the book.”
“Sure I did.”
Ali looks skeptical. “Really? Give us the Koby Cliffs Notes.”
Koby clears his throat. “The Red Badge of Courage,” he begins. “After the long walk through the woods, the Big Bad Wolf jumped out and told Little Red Riding Hood, ‘I’m going to take your basket of cherries.’ Well, as the title suggests, Red grew a pair and said ‘Oh no, Mr. Wolf, don’t take my whole basket of cherries!’ Then she felt kind of bad for the dude, so she said, ‘Here, you can have just one … ’”
Ali rol
ls his eyes. “You don’t even know how that story goes, moron.” There’s no need to ask Ali about his mid-term grades; he probably read The Red Badge of Courage while the rest of us were still sounding out Hop On Pop.
Miranda is late for lunch, but now she comes hurrying toward the table. “Guess what,” she says breathlessly, setting her tray down with a clatter. “My mom was listening to the radio on her way home from the grocery store, and KXLY announced this contest. She called in and she won.”
“What’s the prize?” I ask curiously.
“That’s the thing,” Miranda says, smiling. “The prize is … six tickets to the Poisoned Heart concert.”
The table erupts. “POISONED HEART! ” Ali exclaims over and over, like he isn’t sure he’s heard right. Poisoned Heart is a sick hardcore band from the Twin Cities and while they’re number one on the iTunes download list, they’ve never played anywhere near Longview before. It’s every kid’s dream to see them live, at least among my friends.
Miranda tears open a bag of salt-and-vinegar potato chips. “So,” she says, “they’re playing at the Milford City Coliseum on December 3rd; everyone can go, right?”
“Are you kidding?” Koby demands. “When are we ever going to get another chance to see a band like Poisoned Heart?”
Miranda grins and nods, her mouth full of chips.
“I can drive, if everyone throws in some cheddar for gas,” I say. The Gator’s a gas hog, but good for road trips when everyone is participating.
“I’ll have to let you know,” Ali says. His dark eyes dart briefly in my direction; I wonder whether the concert date conflicts with RedWarrior23’s honeymoon or something.
“You’re coming,” Miranda informs him. “No one’s missing this.”
Ali nods; it appears there’s a strong possibility the wedding will be postponed. I hope Moridin is an understanding groom.
“Hey, since you have two extra tickets,” I suggest, “how about asking Scarlett if she wants to come along?”
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