A White Picket Fence

by Laura Branchflower

  “I’m not.” Megan slipped onto one of the high-backed leather chairs at the kitchen island. “I just came home to change. I’m presenting at the middle school awards ceremony. I’ll get something on the road.”

  “Do you ever stop?” Lina asked. “Everyone needs downtime.” Between school, her active social life and volunteer work, Megan was always moving.

  Phil stopped beside Logan. “When are you going to get a haircut?” He pushed the hair back from his son’s eyes. “How can you even see?”

  “I can see.” Logan pushed his hair back down onto his forehead. “And it’s cool.”

  “It won’t be cool when you run into a wall. How much did you practice on your own this week?”

  “I had three tests and—”

  “I’ll take that as none.”

  “He’s been busy, Phil.” Lina couldn’t keep from defending him when she saw the downtrodden expression on Logan’s face. “School comes before lacrosse.”

  “I bet you found time to swim and play video games.”

  “Phil—”

  “He asked me how to make varsity as a freshman,” he interrupted, his gaze remaining on Logan. “Were those just words?”

  “No. I want to make it.”

  “Wanting isn’t enough. It’s the actions you take.” He patted Logan’s arm as he stepped around him. “Clean up the water you tracked in and then see if your mom needs any help. I’m going to change.”

  “I barely swam,” Logan insisted to Lina as soon as his father was out of earshot.

  “I know.” Lina ran her hand down his back and kissed his cheek. “You have all summer to practice.”

  Phil was halfway up the staircase when Katie, wearing frayed jean shorts and a black T-shirt with the words “religion kills” emblazoned on it, appeared at the top of the stairs. At five foot two and barely one hundred pounds, she was missing the tall, athletic gene Phil had passed on to both Megan and Logan. She hesitated, as if debating whether she could escape without being seen, and then she lowered her head, causing her dark, shoulder-length hair to fall forward and began to descend the stairs.

  When she attempted to step around Phil, he moved with her, his body blocking her passage. “How about a hello?”

  “Hello.” She avoided his eyes as she attempted unsuccessfully to pass him.

  “How was your day?”

  “Good. Will you move?”

  He tilted his head slightly. “I’m trying to have a conversation with you, Katie.”

  She looked up then, her expression blank as she stared into blue eyes the exact same shade as her own. “Why?”

  “Because I’m your father and I care.” His gaze widened when it dropped to her T-shirt. “Where did that come from?”

  “New to You.”

  “New to You,” he repeated. “Is that a used clothing store? Mom took you to a used clothing store?”

  “Grandma.”

  “Of course. Well, the shirt’s offensive. Take it off.”

  She frowned up at him. “Have you heard of the First Amendment?”

  “My laws supersede the Constitution in this house, and that shirt is blasphemous. I don’t want to see it again.”

  “Dr. Drayton said I should be able to express myself.”

  “I. Don’t. Care. This is not Dr. Drayton’s house. Get rid of the shirt.”

  She glared at him before turning and stomping back up the stairs.

  “Katie,” he called after her, “if you slam the door, I’ll remove it permanently.”

  Lina tried to show no visible reaction to Katie’s announcement that she was going out. Katie was still wearing the jean shorts from earlier but had changed from her T-shirt to a tank top and highlighted her delicate features with a touch of makeup. If it weren’t for the dour expression on her face, Lina knew she’d look cute. “Where are you going and when will you be back?”

  “Dr. Drayton said you aren’t supposed to nag me.”

  “I don’t recall him ever using that word, but in any case, this isn’t nagging. This is parenting. You can’t go out without telling me where you’re going and when you’ll be back.”

  “I’m going to Emma’s to see her brother Ryan’s band play. I’ll be home by midnight.”

  “Emma?” Lina repeated. Emma was a friend of several years who disappeared from their lives during Katie’s brief experimentation with drugs.

  A soft knock on the mudroom door preceded the appearance of the most welcome visitor Lina could remember. “Hi, Ms. Lina.”

  “Emma.” Lina hugged her tightly. “It’s so good to see you.” Looking at Emma reminded her of the old Katie, the Katie who laughed and sang and made silly faces at Logan, who always wanted to join Lina on trips to the grocery store so she could pick out her favorite desserts, and who spent hours following Lina around the back yard telling her funny stories while Lina tended to her garden. “You look wonderful.” With red hair, freckles and a shy smile, Emma looked like she belonged on a poster for Ireland tourism. “Did your mom drive you, or—”

  “I drove. I have my license.”

  “Right.” Lina nodded. “You’re all grown up. How are—”

  “Mom,” Katie interrupted. “We’re already late.”

  Phil tossed the lacrosse ball to Logan before jogging up towards the driveway “What’s going on?” His eyes were on Katie, who was walking towards Emma’s car.

  “Phil, it’s fine.” Lina was beside him. “She’s already cleared it with me. She’s just going to Emma’s.”

  “I want to talk to her.”

  Lina laid a hand on his chest. “I already handled it. Just let her go.”

  “Lina—”

  “Please. Just trust me.”

  He watched in silence, the side of his jaw clenching and unclenching, as Emma’s car slowly disappeared down the driveway.

  “Thank—”

  “That decision,” he bit out, his eyes intense, “was counter to every instinct I have as a father.” He crossed to the edge of the driveway, staring unfocused into the woods flanking one side of their yard as he continued to talk. “It’s the first time, Lina—the first time she’s going out in close to a year, and you don’t discuss it with me?”

  “I didn’t know until Emma showed up.”

  “You didn’t know?” His eyes swung to her. “She,” he began, pointing in the direction of the departing car, “shouldn’t be making plans without consulting us first.”

  “She isn’t grounded. It was her choice not to go out before now.” Lina fought to keep her emotions in check, not wanting their conversation to escalate into an argument as it so often did when they were discussing Katie.

  “This is insanity. It’s just going to start all over again.”

  “No, it’s not. Why are you being so negative? She’s better. Why can’t you see that? We have to trust her.”

  He exploded. “Trust her! We don’t even know her. She doesn’t talk!”

  “That’s not true. She talked during dinner.”

  “What’s going on with Katie?” Logan asked as he approached.

  “Nothing you need to worry about,” Phil said. “Go inside and get out that math problem you need help with. I’ll be in in a minute.” He waited until Logan was out of earshot before continuing. “If something happens to her tonight—”

  “It won’t. Dr. Drayton—”

  “No! No more Dr. Drayton! Can we go one fucking evening without his name coming out of your mouth?”

  “What’s up with your dad? He looked angry,” Emma said as soon as she turned onto the main road.

  “He’s completely out of touch,” Katie answered. “That’s what’s up with him.”

  “Did he really ground you for six months?”

  “It was more like forever.”

  “What did you do? I mean, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

  And just like that, the make-it-or-break-it moment in their fragile relationship arrived. Katie knew this instant would come,
she just didn’t expect to reach it in the first two minutes of the evening.

  There was a litany of offenses she could share, including the time she was caught sneaking back into the house after a night of drinking, the time she poured half of her father’s favorite scotch into a thermos and replaced it with water and a touch of orange food coloring, which, in her defense, he could never prove definitively she did, or the time her father saw her with a marijuana joint hanging from her lips, courtesy of a narc named Megan who texted him and told him Katie had skipped school and gone to a friend’s to celebrate National Weed Day. But she wasn’t going to share any of that with Emma, not yet.

  She would confess to her most serious transgression, the reason she became a prisoner in her own house, and Emma’s reaction would tell Katie if there was any possibility for the friendship to go forward. As much as she didn’t plan to do drugs again, Katie wasn’t hanging out with a nerd.

  “I did shrooms in my bedroom.”

  “Oh my God, Katie. You didn’t! You must have unconsciously wanted to be caught.”

  Emma sounded like Dr. Drayton and, although Katie suspected he didn’t believe her when she assured him it wasn’t a play for attention, he was wrong. Doing shrooms at home was a mistake, a momentary lapse in judgment which, because of her uptight, irrational father, cost Katie sophomore year. But she did it with good intentions.

  She’d just finished writing a comparative analysis on the seventeenth-century English philosophers Hobbes and Locke and was lying on her bed contemplating truth when she recalled a quote from a William Blake poem she’d read in English class days earlier. If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.

  The shrooms she’d been handed at a party weeks before seemed like a logical way to cleanse her perceptions. There wouldn’t even be Apple computers or iPhones if Steve Jobs hadn’t tripped on LSD, she’d reasoned. “I was planning to stay in my room,” she told Emma. “I was going to lie on my bed and experience whatever happened, but then everything looked like it was on fire, so I had to escape—I mean, you have no other choice when you think your bedroom is on fire. I don’t remember a lot after that except thinking my dad was the devil. It was so real. He had horns and a tail and red skin and—” She looked at Emma. “Are you laughing?”

  “I’m sorry,” Emma said but continued to laugh. “I’m sorry. I know it’s not funny. I know I shouldn’t be laughing.”

  “No, it’s funny.” Katie laughed too. “I mean the last year wasn’t, but remembering what my dad looked like is.” She continued to smile as she looked out the window.

  The band was good, really good, but that wasn’t what kept Katie rooted to her spot on the blanket about twenty yards from the makeshift stage in Emma’s backyard. No, the lead guitarist, the boy with the serious eyes and full-sleeve tattoo was why she hadn’t moved in the past hour.

  He was nothing like the preppy boys Katie was used to seeing at parties in the ritzy section of Howard County where large houses and country club memberships were the norm. He looked like someone more likely to step off a motorcycle than out of a BMW, and his dark spiked-up hair, jeans and tight black T-shirt stood out in the sea of collared polos and pastel shorts.

  Emma’s brother, Ryan, wasn’t preppy either, nor any of the other band members, with their dark clothes and longish hair, but they looked like boys trying to look like rockers as opposed to their guitarist, who looked like the real thing.

  Katie’s stomach did a little jump when their eyes met. Until tonight she’d never experienced what it felt like to be drawn to a boy. She’d had boyfriends but none that gave her butterflies.

  “That’s Matt.” Emma yelled to be heard over the band. “He moved here from New York last summer. He’s kind of quiet, but he’s cool. You want to walk around and see who’s here?”

  Katie didn’t, but she reluctantly came to her feet, not prepared to share that all she wanted to do was stare at Matt, so moments later she was following Emma into the crowd of kids who had gathered to hear the band.

  The band played until about 11:00 p.m. As soon as they left the stage, Katie watched a blonde in a short skirt and tight tank top approach Matt. Katie was hoping she was a groupie, but when he started kissing her it was obvious that wasn’t the case, and she turned her back to them, unable to stomach her new crush making out with another girl.

  “Katie Hunter!” Katie heard Ryan’s voice before a pair of sweaty arms wrapped around her from behind. “I haven’t seen you in forever.”

  “The band’s awesome.” Katie turned and returned his hug. She’d always liked Emma’s older brother, who looked more like a boy scout than a band member with his red hair and freckles, but there was no denying his talent as a drummer.

  “Water?” He lifted his eyebrows after peering into her cup. “Are we out of beer?” It had been a recurring inquiry all evening, other kids questioning why Katie wasn’t drinking, as if her lack of alcohol was somehow impinging on their ability to have a good time.

  “I can’t afford to get in trouble,” she admitted. And she couldn’t. Tonight reminded her of what it felt like to be free, and she wasn’t about to do something to lose it.

  “Could you spend the night?” Emma asked, joining them. Her eyes had the glassy look that came from consuming too much alcohol.

  “My parents aren’t going to let me,” Katie said. “Don’t worry, I’ll find a ride.” She began to look around, hoping to see someone who lived close to her.

  “Matt can take you,” Ryan said. “Hey, bro,” he called to someone behind Katie. “Are you headed out?”

  “Yeah.”

  Katie’s heart jumped at the sound of the unfamiliar voice because even before she turned around she knew exactly which Matt he was talking to. He was still with the blonde, his arm draped around her shoulders, and he was looking right at Katie. Katie felt her mouth go dry as she looked into his dark eyes, eyes that looked way too serious for a boy.

  “Do you mind giving her a ride? You pass right by her neighborhood.”

  Katie was about to say he didn’t have to take her, that she’d find another ride, but when he took her cup, the words dried up in her throat. He smelled it—she assumed to make sure it wasn’t alcohol—and then brought it to his mouth and took several long swallows.

  “I’ll take her.” He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth as he handed her back her now almost-empty cup. “You ready?”

  He led her to an older-model black Mustang that fit the image she had of him almost as well as the motorcycle she’d pictured him on earlier, and opened the passenger door. “You can wait here,” he said.

  She sunk down in the worn leather seat, watching as he led the blonde to a car several yards away. When he pushed her up against the car and began kissing her, Katie dropped her eyes to her hands, not looking up until his door was opening. He smelled like sweat, like someone who’d just finished exercising, but not in a bad way like he hadn’t used deodorant. More in a pure male way that had her stomach tingling in response to him.

  He turned the key in the ignition, bringing the engine to life. “What’s your name?”

  “Katie.”

  “Matt.”

  The fifteen-minute drive was mostly in silence, but it was a comfortable silence intermixed with enough conversation for him to learn Katie’s last name, that she liked music and went to private school, and for her to learn his last name was Hudson, he was eighteen, about to graduate from high school and lived with his grandmother.

  “So you moved here right before your senior year? Why would you do that? You can just pull over here,” she said as they approached her house. “Don’t go in the driveway unless you want to meet my dad.” She had no doubt her father would be out of the house the moment he saw the unfamiliar car.

  Matt pulled his car to the side of the road past her mailbox, staring at her sprawling house in the distance. “You’re rich.” It sounded like an accusation.

  “It�
��s not my fucking fault.”

  He looked at her then, and her heart leapt when she saw a flash of respect in his eyes. “You’re right, Hunter.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.” Her shyness was overshadowed by her curiosity about him. “Why did you move here before you finished high school?”

  “My mom died,” he answered.

  4

  “How was she?” Lina asked when Phil returned to the bedroom after leaving briefly to check on Katie, who had just arrived home.

  “Fine.” He shrugged out of his T-shirt as he crossed to the bed and then he was stretching out on the mattress beside her. He’d been angry after their earlier interchange, but over the course of the evening as they watched a funny movie, Lina nestled on the couch between him and Logan, Phil slowly relaxed, laughing aloud several times, and, by time the credits rolled up the screen, his arm had made its way around Lina’s shoulders, and she was snuggled into his side.

  “Did she say anything?”

  “Only that her curfew should be twelve thirty instead of twelve.”

  “What did you—” The sound of his cell phone vibrating had her pausing midsentence as she watched him get up and move to his bureau. “Who is it?”

  “No one.” He silenced the phone and then turned it off altogether before returning to bed.

  “It had to be someone.”

  “It was a wrong number.”

  “How could you possibly know that when you didn’t answer it?”

  “I didn’t recognize the number.” As he turned off his bedside lamp, the home phone on the nightstand began to ring. Phil answered it before it rang a second time. “Yes, hello? You have the wrong number, don’t call it again.” He replaced the receiver.

  Lina stared at his profile, a sick feeling gripping her stomach. “Was it the same person who called your cell phone?”

  “It was a wrong number.”

  “So in less than a minute, your cell phone and our home phone received calls by mistake? Why don’t you look at the caller ID and see if it was the same number?”