“Wow. Did a meteor fall on you or something?” He itched to touch her, to run his finger along that bright warped skin. Purple stars, blue moons, green flowers.
“Fell outa the maple tree,” she said, lifting the bowl of soup to her mouth and blowing on it.
“But Timmy said you had a flu.” Rock still could get warm in the face, thinking of that stupid remark. “Must have been a bad fall.”
“Pretty bad. It don’t hurt, though.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
“It don’t.”
“Who are you, the Terminator? I bet you can’t use your arm for two weeks.”
He’d been such a meathead, arguing like that. Looking like a codfish with his mouth gaped open, trying to figure out how falling out of a tree would put those Lucky Charms prints all over her.
He knew better now.
After school Rock holed himself up in his room, his door halfway closed so that he could keep an ear tuned for Liza’s phone call. He pulled out his index cards. Staring at the cards was the only time he ever wished he had better handwriting. Being a lefty, he tended to smear the ink. The sounds of Mom and Brontie in the kitchen, working on another of Mom’s endless perfect dinners, faded away as he lost himself inside his thoughts.
He opened his mind to the olden days, when America was like a kid, ready to fight, ready for anything. He pictured Great Britain as some turkey-necked old codger, holding a pipe and talking in a puffed-out accent. The American colonists were young and sharp and mean, always ready to tar and feather some poor British slob. A professional tar and feather would kill you, too, since your skin couldn’t get enough oxygen through the tar. Your body just suffocated to death.
Rock wished he could write some of his paper about the punishments the British and Americans used against each other, starting with a couple paragraphs on tarring and feathering. It wouldn’t go over in Mrs. Lewin’s class, that was for sure. Ms. Manzuli said once you got to college, classes were way different. When you got to college, you could write a paper called, say, “The Best and Worst Weapons in the Revolutionary War,” or “Top Spies of the Revolution.” Those would be two really amazing papers. It was at least one good reason to go to college, although Rock couldn’t think of any other reasons right off the top of his head.
“Rock, come down for dinner,” his mother called. “And Daddy wants to talk to you about a few things, after.”
Rock pushed away the cards. He was finished studying for tonight.
“Oil and water are the two most important liquids that feed a car, but their functions are different as night and day. Cliff, if your engine wasn’t turning over, what would be the first thing you’d recommend looking at?”
“Check the oil?”
“Right.”
Rock squinted down the road, to where the outline of the Mobleys’ cottage roof was just visible through the bare, black tangle of trees and telephone wire. Liza hadn’t called. He would go see her tomorrow, drop off her homework, maybe bring her some of his back issues of Rolling Stone that she’d been bugging him about. He stared up at the black sky and wondered how many weeks were left until daylight savings. At least twelve, maybe thirteen. Then it would be only a few more weeks until summer. Finally.
“Are you with us, Rock? Earth to Rock.”
“Sorry.”
His father pointed to the jungly depths of station-wagon engine, which the three of them were now grouped around. “How do you expect to see what’s going on with this engine if you’re lost in your own fool thoughts?”
Rock moved closer to Cliff and peered at the engine’s dark intestines of wires and tubes. “Sorry,” he mumbled again. At his side, Cliff moved impatiently.
“Get it together,” he growled under his breath. “Or we’ll be out here all night.”
Right now, the pork chops and mashed potatoes filling Rock’s stomach were keeping him fairly warm, but the prospect of having to stand outside and listen to their father talk about car trouble all night sent a shiver like an ache through Rock’s body.
“And so, Rock, if you saw that the engine block had got cracked, what do you think the problem’d be?”
“The fan belt!” Rock spoke loud, which he hoped would distract from the fact that he was bluffing.
His father crossed his arms, and in the soft-edged darkness he became a tense and disapproving shape. Rock was happy for once that he wasn’t wearing his glasses, so that he couldn’t see the frown cut into his father’s face.
“We’ve been talking about oil and water all night, sailor. I’ve been giving you a fifty percent chance on the guess either way. Are you only pretending to be a complete and total imbecile, Rock, or are you the real item?”
Rock felt the back of his throat itch, but his muscles were too clenched to cough it out. He didn’t answer. His brain felt soft and empty of words. Soft and empty and dull. When their father spoke again, his voice was barely audible. “Rock, I need to tell you this for your own good.” He paused and exhaled a weary sigh. “See, buddy, the problem is, you’re a lot slower than your brother. Cliff lucked out and got more natural intelligence than you, but that’s just the hand he got dealt. No one said life was fair. So I think if I was you, I’d be trying extra hard to understand what was getting taught out here tonight. Look at your brother. He looks bored, eh? ’Cause he knows all this stuff. We’re pacing down for you, ’cause it’s you who’s always slow on the take. And if you don’t do us the favor of trying to understand, well, I must say I think that’s fairly inconsiderate of you, son.”
Rock had heard his father make this comparison before, but the comment still stung. He felt himself redden, turning thick and clumsy with his own dumbness.
“We’ve been outside for over an hour, Dad.” Cliff cleared his throat. “Don’t you have a lot of homework, Rock?”
“No.” Rock realized his back teeth had been clamped over his tongue and he tasted blood. If Cliff was bent on being whiny, Rock wanted no part of it.
“I’m kind of tired. I want to study,” Cliff said. “And Rock’s got his social-studies paper—”
“I don’t need to work on it anymore tonight,” Rock broke in.
“George, let them go.” His mother appeared in the doorway of the mudroom. Her fingers held the edges of her bathrobe tight together in front of her chest. “It’s freezing and it’s late.”
“Don’t tell me how to raise my sons, Katherine,” their father answered, so quietly that Rock doubted she heard him.
“I’ve made apple brown betty for dessert. It doesn’t taste as good cold.”
“We’ll be in later, Katherine.” Impatiently he waved her back inside the house.
“We’ve been out here awhile,” Cliff said.
“Fine, fine.” Their father slammed down the engine hood. “Laziness rims through this household like a disease. Family’s full of wimps and wusses. Hope I’d never have to be stuck on a mountain or a desert island with someone out of this lazy family.”
“Yeah and I hope I never …” Cliff started, then seemed to think better of finishing his sentence.
“What was that, sailor?”
“Nothing.” Cliff’s shadowed face was sullen. Rock could feel the sweat beneath his clothes, coating his skin. His heart beat an irregular high-speed rhythm. Shut up, Cliff, shut up. The words lifted in his throat and died there.
Their father studied Cliff, then Rock, then turned to address their mother.
“I’m going out, get a break from this abuse. You people”—he swept open his arms to include all of them in his statement—“you people make me sick sometimes.” They all watched, silent and unmoving, as he clomped around to the driver’s side and opened the door. Without another look toward the boys, he slid into the car and started the engine. They continued to watch until the car had rattled out the driveway and disappeared down the unlit road.
“Come inside, kids. I can’t keep this door open all night.” Their mother sounded weary, even in her victory.
/> “You shouldn’t bring up studying and my paper and stuff to him, Cliff,” Rock warned as they walked to the house. “It only makes Dad madder, you talking about school stuff. Can’t you see that?”
“I was only trying to help you out, you loser. You act like such a clunkhead sometimes, Rock.”
“I don’t need your help, okay? It’s not my fault Dad thinks you’re a lazy wimp and gets along better with me.”
“If you believe that, then you’re even stupider than Dad thinks,” Cliff retorted. He brushed past Rock through the open door and then, before Rock could slide in behind him, pulled it shut in Rock’s face.
CHAPTER FIVE
TEA PARTY
THE NEXT DAY WAS Saturday. Rock woke up late to the smell of gingerbread. His mother smiled as he shuffled into the kitchen.
“Hungry? French toast sound good? I’ve got homemade gingerbread in the oven. If you want to wait another twenty minutes, you can have some of that, too.”
Rock’s stomach grumbled but he didn’t want to sit down and wait for a huge meal while his mother read recipe ingredients out loud, choosing the Saturday dinner. Reading from cookbooks was what his mother mostly offered in place of conversation.
“I’m just gonna grab this banana.”
“Toast at least. You need toast. You should eat more for breakfast. A banana isn’t enough.” His mother’s words about food were always sure and purposeful. Already she was unwrapping the bread, plunking the slices into the toaster oven. Rock sat down, defeated, and propped his chin in his hands.
“Where’s everyone?”
“Your dad’s swimming at the gym. Cliff took Brontie to the puppet theater at the library; they’ll be back any minute. Oh, and Timmy called asking for you to help put up a swing set for Trev.”
“In the middle of January? The ground’s frozen.”
“Oh, you know how Timmy’ll do anything for that boy of his. Like your dad. When you were born, I remember he built that giant bookshelf, he just knew you were going to need it, and you did. All those soccer trophies, you and Cliffy both. Though I do wish there were more books in those shelves now. You loved books. We used to read together, Rock, remember? When you were little?” His mother’s voice sounded desperate. She reached out and folded her fingers over his own. Her skin was silky white, soft and dry as a tissue. “When you were little?” Her voice implored him to answer.
“I don’t know. I like my toast done real light.” Rock sprang up, shaking his hand free. He remembered.
There was a time he thought his mom was just about the smartest lady in the universe, with all those books she read. The year he’d stayed back, in second grade, she had read him stories that to this day could drown his brain in sparkling images. The Brontes’ books were her favorites, of course—Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. He’d loved them, too, before he realized they were ladies’ books. He’d enjoyed Jane Eyre especially, probably because of that smooth operator Mr. Rochester, the guy he was named after, and those spooky parts about Mr. Rochester’s mad arsonist first wife who was locked away in the attic.
As he got older, though, Rock grew restless with the endless reading. He wished his mom could do more, like take him to the park or the beach, or on nature hikes or sailing. But his mother had never been an outdoorsy mom. She was a quiet, cooking-and-reading, close-to-home mom—kind of fragile, in his opinion. Lately, though, it seemed that home was turning into his mother’s own personal biosphere. Both seventh grades were studying biospheres this year, and while Rock thought it was kind of cool to live in a place where everything you needed was right at your fingertips, it also didn’t seem that anyone could feel totally, completely alive there.
“Listen to this for a second, Rochester.” His mother flipped to a page in her cookbook. “It’s for Blackened Chicken Santa Fe. I think I could do it, except I need the chicken, obviously, and some other things. ‘Preheat oven to 425. You will need chicken bouillon’—okay, I have that—‘and two cups of—’ ”
“Sounds good, Mom. Maybe you should go to the store and pick up the ingredients.”
“Oh, I thought if you were going out you could ride your bike to the milk store and get me some of these things. I made a list.”
“I’m heading to the Mobleys’,” Rock said determinedly. “Opposite way. Sorry, Mom.”
Lately, now that their mother didn’t stray from home, their father was having to do all the grocery shopping and school shopping and clothes shopping, even for Brontie. He would arrive home from work at night with armfuls of packages, like Santa Claus.
“You’d think Mom could help out a little,” Rock complained once to Cliff. “I know we only have the station wagon, but remember how she used to drive him to work so she could keep the car? Why doesn’t she do that anymore? It must make Dad annoyed, all the extra work.”
“He likes it.” Cliff had flicked Rock in the forehead, hard. “Dad likes for Mom to be all dependent on him. Cowboy George wants to control the whole corral. Don’t you get it?”
“Shut up, spudface,” Rock had growled. He hadn’t thought about it that way before, that their father actually liked doing all the shopping. The flick left a mark, too, a little red circle like a bull’s-eye. Don’t you get it? the mark seemed to laugh. Rock had covered it up with some of Cliff’s acne cream.
His mother was slowly sinking back into the delights of her cookbook, her flowery script neatly adding one thing, then another, to the growing list.
“Bye, Mom,” Rock called. She blinked up at him, surprised, and smiled. Rock felt a tug of wishing for the old days, for the softly read books and the soothing feeling that his mom knew everything and could protect him from everything. Now she was like Mr. Faella’s snowflake sweater, a memory of something that used to be good but now was getting all worn out and unravely.
Liza lounged on her side in front of the couch, wearing her red thermal pajamas and watching cartoons. She’d curled Trev into the bend she’d made of her body and was absently dragging her fingers through his curly hair. Both their mouths drooped open and the images on the TV screen flickered dully in their eyes.
“Hey-a, Liza.” Rock waved. Liza looked up.
“Hi.”
“I got your homework assignments from Mrs. Zukoff from yesterday. I put ’em on the front table, along with some of my old Rolling Stones that you wanted.”
“Thanks.” Liza nodded distractedly, her eyes glazing over as they fixed back on the cartoon.
“How’s your head?”
“Better, a little. You see Trev’s new swing set Timmy’s putting up? Slide and everything.”
“Yeah, I’m going out there in a minute.” Their sentences trickled as thinly as water poured back and forth from doll teacups. The conversation made him restless.
“I’ll go out and help, then.”
“That’s a good idea, there, Rock.” Arlene strode into the living room, her watering can in hand, armed to nourish her spider plants. “Go make yourself useful. Liza’s resting now.”
“How you, rapscallion?” Timmy whistled at Rock between his teeth. “You need a haircut there, buddy. Starting to look like a woman.”
“Naw.” Rock flipped his hair out of his eyes.
“Well, seeing I’m most about done here”—Timmy tapped the top of the monkey bars with his hammer—“I don’t need your help. No woman’s work needed out here, no suh.”
“All right. I’m going, then.”
“See you round like a record.” Timmy waved. They both laughed at his dumb joke. So much fakeness. The fakeness at the Mobleys’ house could really bother Rock. It was tough to scrape up so many phony smiles and hollow laughs without feeling tired out from the effort.
Rock took off on his BMX, heading for a place where he knew he could be left alone. At the edge of the pond he dropped his bike on the grass and heaved the banked JennAir over onto its belly, then dragged it down to the water’s edge, where he launched it and himself out into the pond. Slush and icy water licked th
e edge of his jeans and soaked his sneakers, but he didn’t care. The winter at Valley Forge had frozen off soldiers’ fingers and toes, and then they’d gone ahead and eaten the fallen-off parts just to stay alive. That was bravery. Whenever Rock felt cold, all he had to do was think of biting into his own toes and immediately he felt a little tougher. Cold water, in comparison, was nothing.
No one living around Moose Hill Pond knew what the JennAir was exactly. It was named for the words that appeared in lacquered script along its side. Most guesses were that it was some kind of giant washtub, a fancy Jacuzzi-style tub that one of the summer families must have discarded. Now it belonged to everybody. The JennAir could hold four, sometimes five kids at a time, although five was a squeeze, and it could spin you all around the pond, safe and lazy as a donkey ride. Which was just the pace Rock wanted.
On the other side of the pond was the milk store, which Rock started paddling to for a candy bar, until he got halfway across the pond and realized that he didn’t have any money. So he let the JennAir drift him in lazy circles while he stretched out on his back and looked at the sky. The aloneness of lying in a tub in the middle of a pond of half-frozen water began to steep a calm inside him. He pictured his mind like a glass of soda set in the sun, and he felt the pops and fizzes of his thoughts and concerns slowly escape him, leaving him flat and still.
He began to sing, something he liked to do when he was all by himself. The vibrations in his vocal cords were more pleasing to him than the sounds of his actual voice. Then his singing just turned into weird noises, sounds that would have freaked him out if he didn’t know where they came from. It was astounding, the range that hummed and piped inside one person.
“Hey, yooouuu.”
Rock lifted his head. Liza, in a blur of pajama bottoms that now were paired with her purple ski parka, was waving at him from the rickety dock.
“Want me to row in?” he shouted. He wondered if she’d heard him making those dorky noises, and he flushed. The purple blur on the dock jumped up and down. Rock grabbed the paddle and began steering himself inland. The early afternoon had darkened, lumpy clouds hiding the little bit of sun the day had decided to offer, and daytime seemed finished before it had ever really begun, which happened a lot in January.
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