Black sky melting in a piecrust moon
Whispered promises to stay
Never thought you’d be gone so soon
I know these lyrics. I’ve heard them so many times before.
Didn’t know you’d go away
I think of the old guitar that’s still in our garage. I think about Mom strumming the notes of this song and her sweet soft voice, how we all would hop on her bed to sing along. I reach over to turn off the radio.
“Tired of the music,” Jake states more than asks. His voice is soft and merciful.
“I feel like talking,” I answer. But the magic is gone. As soon as the hopefulness of the evening has left me, the conversation just seems like words.
When we get back it’s still early. I don’t have to be home until midnight and I could probably push that another thirty minutes if I text Dad first. I know that Chad and Emma will be there by now, and if they’re awake it won’t be easy to slip by them on my way up to the tent. Dad would consider that rude. Marie too. And they’d want to meet Jake, so I’m not anxious for the evening to end.
Jake has a plan. During the summer, he has a side job working for the water polo coach. He does daily testing of the pool water at our high school in between the weekly visits of the pool service. He has a key to get in.
“Wanna go?” he asks. “No one’s around at night and I haven’t done a water test yet today.”
It sounds like a reasonable plan to me. I know the pool well since my father makes me do swim team during the school year. It will be interesting to see the pool at night when no one is around.
When we get there, Jake retrieves a chemical testing kit from the boys’ locker room in the gym. It’s a strange experience to be in the boys’ locker room. It seems forbidden—an alien environment. I can imagine the rowdiness that takes place here when school is in session but for now it’s deserted. Ghosts of generations of boys roam through the halls.
We walk through the back door of the gym where Jake unlocks the gate that leads to the pool. He pulls out the testing kit and mixes some chemicals with a small sampling of pool water. He shakes the plastic vial and holds it up to the light. Apparently, it turns the proper color.
“You want to swim?” He has a mischievous look on his face.
I dip my toes into the water. It feels warm and silky. I’m sticky from the heat. Nature’s air conditioning didn’t arrive tonight.
“I guess so,” I say. “But I don’t have a suit.”
“Neither do I,” he says. “I’ll turn off the lights.”
He disappears into the gym, and when he reappears we’re lit only by the full moon which now looks like one of those butterballs you put on a waffle. Jake pulls off his t-shirt and jeans and kicks off his flip-flops. The moonlight strokes the soft curves of the muscles on his chest and arms. His boxers are form fitting. He takes my breath away.
I undress down to my bra and panties and jump in quickly before he can look too closely. I can’t believe that I’m doing this. My first date with a boy and I’ve already undressed. Jake dives in gracefully and surfaces by my side.
“Look up at the sky,” he says and when I tilt my head back he lifts my legs and cradles me in his arms. A million stars look like glitter thrown against a black canvas. He rotates me three hundred and sixty degrees while I take in the celestial splendor. “It’s like your own private planetarium,” he says, “only better because it’s real.”
I wriggle out of his arms and splash him with water. “I’ll race you—twenty-five yards, any stroke!”
“You’re on.” He pulls himself out of the water and walks to the end of the pool. “Winner gets to choose the prize.”
I pull myself out of the pool and stand in the lane next to him. “Swimmers take your marks!” I do my best imitation of a swim meet announcer, but before I mimic the starting buzzer I dive in and start swimming. Jake gives me a few more seconds before diving in. By the time he surfaces, I’ve covered half the pool length and he’s already by my side. I’m doing my best freestyle and he’s doing butterfly. I can’t stop laughing and I grab onto his foot to try to hold him back from the finish line. But then we reach the end and he touches the wall seconds before I do.
“And the winner is . . . me!” He laughs and holds up his fist in a victory salute. “Winner gets to choose the prize,” he says again.
“Which is?”
He puts his hands behind my shoulders and pulls me to him. And then he leans over to kiss me softly on the lips. I so badly want him to kiss me, but I don’t at the same time, and I’m furious with myself for my confusion. And then my anger turns on him and I push him away.
“What’re you doing?” I ask indignantly.
“I’m trying to kiss you.” He looks shocked. I doubt he’s ever had this reaction from a girl before.
“Why?”
“Are you kidding?” He must feel like he’s in the middle of a bad movie.
“No. Are you kidding?”
Doesn’t he know who I am? Doesn’t he know I’m that girl? The broken girl. The girl who breaks things. The one with no right to feel happiness . . . or love. I swim to the side and climb up the steps. I have a hell of a time pulling my jeans over my wet legs. Then I put on my t-shirt. Jake gets out and walks over to his pile of clothes. He uses his t-shirt to dry himself and then puts on his jeans and flip-flops.
“Let’s go, I’ll take you home.” He sounds sad and embarrassed. I feel embarrassed and foolish. I hate myself.
__________
The ride home is totally silent. Jake’s wet t-shirt is bunched up on the console between us. I try to avoid looking at him because I remember the effect it had on me when he first took his shirt off.
Finally, he breaks the silence. “What’s wrong with you?” He sounds hurt.
“Why does something have to be wrong with me?” If I wanted a chance to make things better, I just blew it.
“I don’t get you,” he says finally.
“Well, then you’re just like everyone else.”
“How’s that?” he asks, clearly wounded to be thought of as just like everyone else.
“Nobody gets me,” I manage to say without breaking down.
When we get to my house Jake picks up his wet t-shirt and pulls it on. He walks around to my side of the car and opens the door for me. I’m screaming inside; I so desperately want to make everything right again, but I don’t know what to say. We walk in silence to the front door. I’m just about to sob out an apology but the motion detector activates and all the front door lights come on.
“Thanks for the night,” he says. “I’ll see you around.”
And then he’s gone.
When I go inside the house, only Chad is awake. He’s in the family room in front of the big screen TV with the volume so low I can barely hear it. He’s probably watching something he’s not supposed to be watching. When he hears me he quickly picks up the remote and turns off his show.
“How was your date?” He places a sarcastic emphasis on the word date.
“Hi, Chad. Nice to see you too.” I ignore his question. “Why are you up so late?” I open the refrigerator in the adjoining kitchen and pull out a bottle of sparkling water. Right now I don’t have the patience for twelve-year-old boys who are angry at the world and therefore angry at me. Not that I blame him; in fact, I can totally relate. Chad and I are like cellmates in forced confinement. At least Marie doesn’t have custody of her kids—their father made sure of that. Marie’s living arrangement was the deciding factor for the family court judge. Anyway, they’re not around all that much as a result.
“So, I guess Disneyland isn’t happening,” Chad says. “I wonder what fun things you have planned for us this weekend.” The sarcasm hasn’t left his voice.
“What do you mean us? Leave me out of it.”
“Mom says
you’re going to do something with me and Emma tomorrow. She’s not feeling well . . . remember? So what are we going to do?”
For the first time, I think about Emma. She sleeps in one of the twin beds in the guest room with Chad. The other two empty bedrooms are off limits to her even though I’m not currently using mine. Emma says the house is too big and it scares her. She says it has ghosts. Chad must have ducked out of the room once she fell asleep and sneaked downstairs to watch TV by himself.
I think about Jake, his skin wet and glistening under the moonlight. I think about being in his arms while I look up at a sky full of glittering gold. I think about drinking rich brown cider and driving down a dark and empty two-lane highway with a sad song playing in the background. I’ve left the blue teddy bear behind in Jake’s car. Not even a souvenir to remember the night.
“Good night, Chad.” I’ve forgotten what he just said to me. “See you tomorrow.”
Chapter | 10
Every family has its own lore, which is something I learned about in Honors English last year. Each day of our lives, stories are created just by doing the things we do. As time goes by, the family comes to an unspoken agreement on what the favorite stories are going to be, and these are the ones that get repeated. As more time goes on, the stories change a little to make them more interesting. By consensus, the family usually goes along with that too.
Here’s the earliest contribution I made to my own family lore. I was only three years old at the time and we were vacationing in Florida, having a day on the beach. Somehow, someone took their eye off me for a second and I melted into the crowd of sunscreened beachgoers. When Mom found me she was frantic, but I was happily digging in the sand with a broken plastic shovel that some other child had abandoned.
“You got lost,” I said to her, and then went back to my digging.
No matter who told this story it would always be followed by laughter. It was a funny thing, right? I was the one who was lost and yet I thought it was Mom. But now I can’t seem to remember the girl who always thought she knew where she was.
__________
“Krista!” Emma’s at the bottom of the ladder calling up to me. She’s not allowed to climb the ladder. Neither is Chad, thank goodness for that. “Are you awake yet?”
I hear the ladder rattling violently and I know it’s Chad. Emma would never be that bold.
“Knock it off!” I yell from inside the tent. “I’ll be down in a while.” I do a quick mental calculation. It’s Saturday, so this must be the day I’m expected to pitch in with the kids who Marie rarely sees. Yes, she’s sick. Yes, she runs my father’s office like a well-oiled machine, as he’s fond of saying.
Henry’s crying has become one of the usual sounds I can now sleep through. “La la la.” His puny lungs can only manage short eruptions so far. In twelve years, he could be rattling someone’s ladder.
There’s no going back to sleep now so I get up and throw on my sweat shorts and the blue t-shirt I wore last night. Magic happened inside that t-shirt, and this morning I still can’t believe it. Now I know how Cinderella felt when her carriage turned back into a pumpkin. But it crosses my mind I won’t ever get a second chance with the prince.
Emma’s wearing a pair of yellow capri leggings with a white frilly blouse. She’s squatting on the driveway, being careful not to let any dirt soil her outfit. When she hears the ladder creaking she looks up with excitement in her eyes and tosses back her silvery blonde hair. She stands up and runs to the bottom of the ladder to greet me.
“Yay! What are we doing today?” she asks.
Chad is lying on his back on the driveway with his arms and legs outstretched in a snow angel position. He looks up at me and, once I’ve reached the bottom of the ladder, he stands too but says nothing.
“Let me get some breakfast and see what’s going on.” I walk into the house with the kids trailing after me.
Dad and Marie are in their bedroom with the door shut.
“Mommy’s sick,” Emma says forlornly.
“Your dad’s sick too,” Chad adds.
Freaking great. Now all that’s left is for me to get sick, which seems preferable to being stuck entertaining Chad and Emma.
“So what are we going to do?” they ask, almost in unison.
“Let me think! God, I just woke up.” They have no idea they’re being punished for my own stupidity last night. “Go watch TV while I eat.”
“Mommy says we’re not supposed to watch TV,” Emma says. But Chad goes over and turns on the set anyway.
“It’s okay to watch because Krista gave us permission.” He’s smart and he’s already planned his defense if Marie should catch him breaking her rules.
Emma’s not having any of that. She knows that her mother’s intent is more important than any technicalities. She pulls a Barbie doll out of a pink backpack that is lying on the floor and gets to work combing the doll’s hair with a tiny, pink, plastic brush.
I’m beginning to feel a little guilty. “Alright, here’s what we’re going to do.” Emma’s face lights up and Chad actually turns away from his show about the world’s most dangerous professions. “We’re going to clean Charlie’s cage.” I feel somewhat proud that I’ve come up with this.
“That doesn’t sound like fun,” Chad turns back to the TV. Emma’s smile falls upside down.
“Just help me do it and I’ll think of something fun for later. But first help me empty the dishwasher.” Emma immediately walks over and stacks dishes according to size on the counter. After a few minutes, Chad turns off the TV and begins to pull out the cutlery, handing me the spoons and forks one by one. He’s slowing me down but I’m not going to let him get away with doing nothing.
When we’re done with the morning dishes we carry a garbage bag and some corn cob bedding for the cage bottom into the study. Charlie squawks with interest. He doesn’t usually get this many visitors.
“Ew! He’s gross,” Emma shrieks after one look at his featherless breast. Chad holds the leaf of lettuce I told him to select for Charlie’s treat.
“Come on, Charlie boy.” I stick my finger into the cage next to him but he ignores it.
“I don’t think he likes you,” Chad helpfully offers. Chad knows because he doesn’t like me so much himself.
We pull out the perches and sand away the accumulated bird poo, and Emma trots off to the bathroom to scrub out his water dish. She returns with a fresh dish of water filled so high that it spills with every step she takes.
“What’s that white stuff in the bird poo?” she asks when we empty the dirty litter into the garbage bag.
“That’s bird poo too, idiot.” Chad turns away from my fierce glare and carefully inserts the leaf of lettuce between two bars of Charlie’s cage. “Okay, now what?” he asks.
“Do you guys want to see a movie?” I’m thinking of the theater at the mall where Jake works. I turned things around once in that sporting goods store. Maybe I can do it again.
“Yay! A movie!” Emma hops up and down.
“What movie?” Chad asks suspiciously.
“Something you both agree on. Come on, let’s go check out what’s playing.”
__________
“Why are we here?” Chad demands to know when we pull into the covered parking lot of the mall. “There’s a theater much closer to where you live. And it’s a lot nicer than this.”
“This is a nice theater,” I say. “C’mon, let’s go.” I’m anxious to get to the store where Jake works. It’s a little out of the way and I don’t want them to miss the beginning of the movie.
Once we get there, I can’t bring myself to go in not knowing what kind of reception I’ll get from Jake.
“Chad, go in and walk around and see if there’s a guy working who’s about my age and has wavy brown hair,” I say. I’ve begun to feel that Chad and Emma are my captives an
d I can do what I want with them. This is probably why my father is so frustrated with me all the time. I’ve grown past the age where he can make me do things.
Chad is gone for a long time—about ten minutes. Emma starts to fret.
“Where’s Chad? What if someone kidnapped him?” she wants to know. “Daddy won’t let us go into a store by ourselves.”
“We’re standing at the door,” I try to reassure her. “Nobody could take him without going past us.” Nevertheless, I’m starting to feel a little worried, and I’m just about to go in when Chad strolls out.
“Did you see him?” I can’t disguise the intense interest in my voice even though I try.
“Jake?” Chad asks.
“Yeah, how did you know?”
“He was wearing a name tag.”
“So you saw him?” Chad’s not going to tell me anything voluntarily. I’ll have to pry it out of him. “Did he look like he was busy?” I’m trying to build up my nerve to go in and say hi.
“Busy with a pretty girl,” Chad smirks.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean just talking to a really pretty girl, like . . . flirting, you know. She was laughing a lot.” I can tell Chad is enjoying this despite the thoughtful look he’s trying to wear.
“Let’s go before we miss the start of the movie.” They follow me toward the theater. My cheeks are burning with shame.
__________
The movie is an animation about zoo animals and wild animals. It’s just peaceful enough that I manage to fall asleep. When it’s over Emma shakes my arm. My neck is twisted at an awkward angle and a little spit pools at the side of my mouth. Chad looks at me in disgust.
“You slept late enough today,” he scolds me. “Can’t you manage to stay awake during the day?”
I sit up straight and shake the fog from my brain. Chad has a point. Emma strokes my hair in the dark theater while the credits roll.
The House at 758 Page 6