Piper

by John E. Keegan

  It was dusk when we reached the dock. People shook hands and congratulated each other like we’d circumnavigated the globe together. I was surprised to see Dad give Nadine a kiss on her cheek. When she hugged me, I could feel the full measure of her breasts. They were her softest part and she let go before I did.

  Dad had to get back for a meeting, so we ordered dinner from a squawk box in a drive-thru on the way home. I was kind of disappointed. In my fantasy, we were going to continue this expedition into the evening, sit in front of the fireplace and play Scrabble, then go for a walk with Willard. I’d have the courage to tell him what had happened to Dirk and get his advice. And if that went well, maybe we’d talk about how to negotiate my way across the canyon in my chest that had opened when Mom died.

  We passed the oil refinery across the bay, every building and tank ornamented with red and white lights like a carnival grounds. A plume of orange flame flared out one of the stacks and, even with the windows closed, I could smell something like creosote. It was a miracle that the same hydrocarbons could smell so deliciously intoxicating when they turned into gasoline fumes at the pump. Dad dimmed his brights for oncoming cars. Click off. Click on. We were whales, communicating through clicks like Morse Code.

  “You’ve become such a loner,” Dad said out of the blue. “I’m worried about you.”

  I’d slouched down in the seat and straightened myself up to respond. “Me? I’m busy, what with senior year and everything.” In truth, school had become a bust. I hadn’t had homework in months. The teachers had slowed the pace of the classes to match guys like Jesse Little who still stumbled on his multiplication tables. To Dad’s consternation, I’d quit yearbook staff. Every yearbook was so canned, the same mug shots of students, pictures of the one play the drama club managed to stage, guys dodging tacklers along the sidelines, and the obligatory hi-jinks shots of boys in dresses and cats drinking out of the water fountains.

  “You need to get involved. Make new friends.”

  “I can barely keep up with the ones I have.”

  “And go out.”

  My groan was audible. Mom used to beg me to talk about the guys in my class. If I said anything the least bit complimentary, like he’s read Catcher in the Rye, she’d seize on it. “Sit with him at lunch,” she’d say. “Ask him on a study date.” It was that ridiculous and unrelenting. Mom would have done cartwheels if I’d lost my virginity. “Don’t make the mistake of waiting until you marry,” she said. Fortunately, Dad lacked Mom’s follow up.

  “How’d you like a job at the paper?” he said. “We could use a good copy editor.”

  I was stunned. The only job I’d ever aspired to at the Herald was driving the delivery truck, which was really an old black hearse with no door on one side. For a lark, Les Showalter used to let me ride with him and fling bundles of papers out the door for the carriers. The paperboys would give me the finger and yell at me if I didn’t get the bundles all the way to the sidewalk. He’d even let me empty the money from the metal newsstands and slide the new issues in. “Didn’t you just lay off some people?”

  “It was a budget-cutting measure.” That meant it was John Carlisle’s idea. Dad would never lay anyone off. He’d pay them out of his own pocket first.

  “I’d work for free?”

  He laughed. “Of course not. It’s part-time. If it works out, maybe you can even do a little reporting.” There was a gleam in his eye, the same gleam when he told me I could become editor-in-chief of the Hoofprint, the yearbook.

  “You mean sports?”

  “If you want.”

  “Dad, I was kidding.”

  “Come on, Piper. It’d be a chance to meet people.”

  I bit my tongue before I said something I’d regret. After all, the paper was who Dad was. It was what he had to give. If I didn’t take that, when would there come along something else? “It’s a generous offer.”

  Because he had to pick up some papers at the office, I walked home, taking the street. There was little or no traffic in Stampede once the shops closed and the chance of two cars passing each other at the same time was about as likely as an eclipse. I thought of Dad giving that peck on the cheek to the marine biologist. The stories Seamus had told me about him, how he was so crazy about women when he was young, seemed possible and not particularly offensive in theory, but seeing him kiss someone besides Mom jarred me. Maybe it was some kind of Oedipus complex.

  The overweight tabby cat who sat in the window at Monkey Shines Antiques followed me along the boardwalk, probably hoping to be petted. Everyone wanted to be petted. Why not? I waited under the streetlight for the cat to catch up, but as soon as I stopped it stopped. Screw it. I tried.

  Willard was flat on his back on top of the bedspread and snoring when I looked in on him. A few of the dogs beat their tails softly against the cement in recognition of my presence. I felt around the foot of the bed for the spare blanket and, trying not to wake him, I opened it and spread it over him. When his snoring hiccupped, I froze, but then he licked his lips and let out a long breath. I waited until the cadence of the snore returned before leaving.

  Dad had said make new friends, but I didn’t want any new friends. I couldn’t effectively handle the one I had, and the only other person out there who interested me was out of bounds. Maybe I was becoming a little daffy myself, but I decided Willard’s choice of dogs was brilliant. Who in my universe of people could match Freeway? Dogs overflowed with affection. They forgave readily. And sex wasn’t a big issue.

  I read until after midnight, but I still wasn’t sleepy, so I turned on the radio and doused the light. Sometimes the talk shows lulled me to sleep if I listened to the voices but tuned out the words. It was my headache. That’s what was keeping me awake. There must have been MSG on the burgers. Mom used to be able to make my headaches go away by finding the “trigger points” in my neck and shoulders and massaging them until they melted and floated away in the tributaries of my lymph system. I missed the touch of her fingers and the purr of her voice, the way she’d turn the lights down and talk to me in the dark about how it was going to be.

  When I heard Dad come in, I leaned over and looked at the clock. He didn’t usually work this late. Come on, Piper. You’re not his mother.

  I tiptoed downstairs to get some aspirin out of Dad’s medicine cabinet. With no lights, I snapped the plastic top off, poured two into the palm of my hand, and threw them against the back of my throat. Then I cupped a couple of mouthfuls of water from the tap and smeared the last one against my face, massaging my forehead. When I dried my face, I smelled something sweet in the hand towel. Someone’s perfume.

  8

  I was engrossed in an article from Hustler entitled “Dating Younger Women” by a man who told how to “answer the ten inevitable questions without lying or bullshitting.” Ned kept the dirty magazines in the regular rack instead of behind the counter like some stores.

  “Hey, Piper!”

  I hurriedly closed the magazine and shoved it back on the rack, cover facing in. I knew I was blushing when I turned to face Rozene Raymond. “Oh, hi.”

  Rozene had a gaze that was non-judgmental and built on her natural strengths—prominent eyebrows, a rather broad nose, and full lips, which right then were parted in a kind smile. There was no makeup. The intensity of her eyes was deepened as the result of strong facial bones. She was standing erect, with her shoulders back. I was guarding my chest, hollowing it inward, hiding what wasn’t there, while she made no attempt to hide what was. “Find anything interesting?” she said.

  I shook my head, tried to slacken my cheeks, and glanced back at the rack. “It’s just junk. I was looking for something light, maybe People.”

  The pleasant smell of spearmint gum accompanied her words. “Personally, I’d rather read a skin magazine.”

  My eyes drifted down her black tights to her running shoes. She had slender ankles, nice calf muscles and, instead of the knotty bulges for knees I had, her legs thickene
d gracefully above the knees and disappeared under a baggy Sonics sweatshirt that she managed to give shape to. A windbreaker was tied by the arms around her waist. She was holding a box of Super Tampax casually in one hand, and I tried to match her openness. “I wish they didn’t airbrush the models though.”

  “Yeah. Who says an appendix scar isn’t sexy?”

  We both laughed and then separated. I made sure she noticed me walking away from the magazines. I’d forgotten what I came in for, but quickly made up a list in my head to give my visit a licit purpose. We were always running out of toilet paper and Scotch tape. I didn’t want to get anything too expensive, what with her mom being laid off and all. Normally, I would have jettisoned the toilet paper, but the fact she was buying Tampax made it feel as if the toilet paper would link us in some earthy way. As I picked out a four-pack, I looked over the tops of the shelves to see what else she might be getting, but all I could see was the part down the middle of her thick black hair.

  “It’s raining,” she said when we reached the checkout stand at the same time. “Can I give you a lift?” I politely declined and she asked again, looking me up and down. I was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt that seemed fine when I left the house. “It’s no trouble, really. I won’t feel so guilty about bringing the car if two of us use it.” I didn’t have my driver’s license yet, the result of an anti-technology corner I’d worked myself into to avoid the consumption of non-renewable resources. Now, in Ned’s, my stand seemed so transparent.

  On the third invitation, I accepted.

  The Raymonds’ car was immaculate. No thermos and plastic water bottles kicking around loose on the floor like ours. Neither were there maps, tablets, manila folders, pens, coffee mugs, Styrofoam cups, triple-A batteries, and old newspapers littered on the backseat. One of those Christmas tree-shaped pine fresheners hung from the rearview mirror and Rozene snapped it with her finger once she’d turned the engine over.

  “My mom’s a little bit anal, bless her heart,” she said. She must have picked up on my fear of things that were too neat, but the fact that she said it was positive.

  “I’ll bet she’s mad about the whole paper thing.” I knew that her mom getting laid off at the paper had to be on her mind so I thought I might as well say it before I got too used to sitting in the same car with her.

  “Disappointed would be the better word.” We were moving now and she didn’t want to take her eyes off the road, but she gave a huff I interpreted to mean Don’t get me started.

  “It wasn’t my dad’s decision, you know.” That was my wish, at least.

  “I’ll bet nothing happens at the paper your dad doesn’t bless,” she said.

  “You think so?” I was ducking. I really had no idea what had happened.

  “What did he say?”

  “We don’t talk about that kind of stuff.” I was whipping myself for bringing up her mom. I also had this premonition we’d run into Dirk and he was going to be confused at seeing Rozene and me hanging out together. If we did see him, I was going to yell out the window and tell him the truth. Don’t worry, Dirk. By the time she drops me off, I should have pretty well shit-canned this one. I seemed to have a death wish when it came to relationships. I didn’t talk to people; I stabbed them with reminders of what they didn’t want to hear.

  “Mom’s working again,” she said. “The Stamp Box weekdays, and cleaning motels on weekends.”

  “Bummer.”

  “She’s used to it. That’s what got us off the reservation. She’d shine shoes if it meant getting me into college. She spoils me, like with the car.”

  Rozene remembered where I lived even though I didn’t think she’d been to our house since grade school when Dad was still throwing Christmas parties for employees there. As the staff grew, the parties had moved to the Eagles Lodge. The summer picnics were held at Kla Hah Ya Park where there was room to set up a volleyball net, do the egg catch, and organize other children’s games. The year I held onto Rozene’s smooth brown legs and wheel-barrowed her over the finish line ahead of everyone else might have been the spark. She had on a pair of white shorts and a starched orange blouse that day with kisses of perspiration showing under the arms.

  In front of our house, she put the motor in neutral and rested her arm on top of the seat behind my neck. The awkwardness of how I’d handled her mom’s situation was eating at me.

  “I’m sorry what I said about the job, Rozene. I wasn’t trying to gloss it over.”

  She tapped me on the shoulder with the tips of her fingers. “Hey, I know that. I saw what you did with the poster.” The wipers washed back and forth, a smooth swipe against the wet window followed by a rubber to glass backstroke that shuddered like my insides. I was still looking between my feet at the protective mat on the floorboard, but I could feel her turn and rest one knee on the casing between the bucket seats. The part I remembered about the poster was giving everyone the finger. She must have thought I was unbalanced and she didn’t want a repeat performance right there in the frontseat of her mom’s Corolla. “I wish I had an attitude,” she said.

  “Attitude?”

  “You know. Indians are supposed to be on the warpath for self-determination. I always do what everyone expects of me.”

  “That’s not easy either.”

  “It is if you want to become a nurse and marry a doctor.”

  “That’s what you want?”

  “Mom thinks because I water the plants and turn them to the sun so they’ll grow straight I’d be good at nursing.”

  “Go for it.”

  “I’d rather rob banks,” she said, tapping me on the shoulder. “How’s Dirk?”

  “Not good.” I almost told her about the crush he had on her, but realized that would just be another awkward subject. “It would mean a lot if you said something to him.”

  “That was such a crappy thing they did.”

  Caucasian skin was so blah. Hers was tawny, almost bronze, and even through the mottled light from the windshield it looked warm and alive. I wanted to reach out and touch her cheek. Her knee was shiny where the fabric of her tights stretched over the bone and I wanted to cup my hands around it and squeeze. I wanted to say more and I wanted to sit there longer, but I saw Willard coming down the sidewalk with one of the dogs, a newspaper over his head. In a minute the dog would have its paws up against the passenger window. “I better let you go,” I said.

  She patted me on the shoulder again with her hand. “Hey, I hope you go back for your magazine.”

  I swatted her on the knee. “No way.”

  She put her leg down and pumped the gas pedal. I opened the door, pulled the flannel shirt up over my fuzzy head as I stepped out, then leaned down to say goodbye before slamming the door. I walked backwards up the walkway, the rain blowing sideways against my bare midriff, and watched her drive away.

  “Who’s that?” Willard said when he reached the cover of the porch. Freeway shook himself, in a shudder that progressed from his tail to his ears.

  “A friend.”

  “I didn’t know he had a car.”

  “Different friend.”

  He looked puzzled and squinted up the street in the direction of the Raymonds’ receding tailpipe. Only when I turned to go inside did I remember that I’d left the sack with the toilet paper and toothpaste in her car.

  The ride home with Rozene both excited and scared me. I kept thinking of how my throat had thickened in her presence, the pleasure I’d taken from swatting her knee. But I was on the edge of an abyss deeper than mere lust. This was down there with bestiality and Hermaphroditus. And the strange thing was, it was all happening inside my head. Rozene would have given anyone a ride home. She’d probably have laughed if she knew what was going on. So would have Mom. “Every girl goes through stages,” she’d have said. “Now fix yourself up and go out there and find a nice guy.”

  I tried. I really did. For the next week, I wore blouses instead of flannel shirts, put rouge on my cheekb
ones, and even plucked my eyebrows. In Mom’s closet, I found a floppy satin beret to cover up my baldness. I wore brown leather loafers instead of tennis shoes. I practiced walking in front of the full-length mirror on the back of Mom’s closet door, cocking my hips, trying to get my buttocks in motion. I was going to beat this thing. I was going to quit straddling the fence. I was practically on the make.

  I avoided Rozene in the lunchroom, taking a table as far from her as I could and away from the aisle so she’d have no reason to pass me on the way out. I sat on the edge of groups of guys and, when they talked about something I knew, I joined in. Sometimes I had to fake it and it got me in trouble, like the debate over why they shot horses.

  “It’s to save them from pain,” I said.

  Jesse Little, who was across the table licking cold spaghetti sauce off a piece of wax paper, laughed. “You think a bullet in the brain doesn’t hurt?”

  Everyone else laughed, more at Jesse than with him.

  Bagmore joined in to save the debate. “You’re saying they do it for euthanasia?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then what if the winner of the Kentucky Derby slips and falls in his stable after the race and breaks an ankle?”

  “They shoot him?”

  “Wrong. They fix him up and put him out to stud. Fifty grand a fuck.”

  Everyone laughed, Jesse Little included. Certain words, when used with panache the way Bagmore could, always brought a laugh. Anyone who didn’t join in, the laugh was on her.