by Gae Polisner
I make my way across the room, my heart beating so hard it’s ridiculous. I can’t help it, and, trust me, I want to. This has been going on for months, this thing where I can’t wait to see Ethan, where I read into everything, hoping. Even when I know there’s no way he’s interested.
Except, I feel like he is. I’ve noticed him watching me lately, calling me over when I walk in a room. Being over-friendly and squeezing my shoulders, or bumping my arm. Last week, he offered me a ride home, when I’ve been walking to and from your house alone for the past four years.
“I’ll take you; it’s raining,” he said, though it was barely sprinkling. He just got his license, I told myself. He wants an excuse to drive.
“Markham,” he demands, making me realize I’ve stopped halfway there. “Quick, you have to see this, before he’s done.”
I nod, my cheeks burning as I weave through his friends who have spilled off the couch and onto the floor. A girl I recognize from chorus is perched on the lap of a boy from tennis team.
I move to the orange chair where Ethan is and hand his plate to him.
“Here.” He pats the arm of the chair.
There’s nowhere else. That’s all.
I sit, and he takes a bite of pizza, propping the plate on his legs. Our arms are practically touching. “Watch this,” he says mouth full, and nods to the television where a Ninja Warrior episode or something is blasting. “It’s unbelievable. Dude has one leg.”
On the screen, a good-looking black man is making his way across obstacles in camouflage pants, no shirt, and ripped six-pack abs. Like Ethan said, he’s on only one leg. Still, I have to fight to pay attention. I can feel my arm hairs stand when they brush against his.
“It’s amazing,” I finally twist to tell him. But, when I do, he’s already looking at me, our faces too close, his expression an intense question that makes it hard for me to breathe.
The room erupts with a collective gasp as the guy falls from an obstacle into the water.
“That was freaking crazy!” the girl sitting on the arm of the couch says. “I don’t care that he didn’t finish. They should still give him the money or trophy, or whatever.” She gets up and walks over to where we are and lifts Ethan’s plate, collapsing down backward onto his lap. “What do you think, Ethan? Finish or not, don’t you think he should get the money?”
She reaches her arm up and wraps it behind Ethan’s neck, as if I’m not here, as if I’m a no-one, as if I don’t matter, which I don’t. I feel like I’m going to puke.
I unwedge myself, and get up, and walk back to the bar, but I’m really not hungry anymore, and a few minutes later, you’re downstairs, and someone turns on the movie, and we eat room temp pizza together while I try my hardest not to think about how awful I am, or, worse, make one single wish I’m not supposed to have.
SPRING
SEVENTH GRADE
1. Always be friends.
2. Never fight. If we fight, always make up.
3. Never date a boy the other person likes. Siblings included, because Janee Freese is gross.
4. Never leave the other person alone in the cafeteria.
5. Always keep each other’s secrets no matter what.
6. Never keep secrets from each other.
You hand the pen to me, but I shake my head.
“I’m sure you thought of everything,” I say.
LATE APRIL
TENTH GRADE
“Come back here, Jailbait. Don’t be upset.”
Max has moved to my bed, but I move to the habitat and watch the butterflies.
How is he only telling me about California now, with less than six weeks left of school?
Is this how much I matter to him?
Why didn’t he tell me in February, when we first started dating, when I had time to protect myself, or at least earlier today—or yesterday—when we had all the time in the world? Now my mother is home and all I want to do is get him out of here.
“You have to go, Max,” I say, trying not to sound mad or, worse, let the tears that want to come, fall. “I have a ton of homework.”
“Jailbait—”
“Max, please.” The tears break through and, for a second, I can barely hold on to myself. He gets up and walks over, and wraps his arms tightly around me, burying his face in my neck.
I shake him off. I’m not doing this. But he holds on tighter.
“I care about you. A lot. I swear.”
“Max, don’t.” I squirm free from his hug and swipe at my eyes. I’m dumb for crying, and even more dumb for being so needy and naïve. What did I think was going to happen once he graduated? Did I think he’d hang around for some babyish, virgin sixteen-year-old?
I stand there feeling stupid and alone. I want to put on dry underpants, erase all reminders of him touching me.
No. I want the opposite: I want him to touch me more, to do everything with me, and promise me he’ll never leave.
“Can we talk about this, please?” he finally asks.
I crouch down, and reach in to move an orange slice from one perch to another, needing to be busy doing something, to not look at Max. He had asked to take them out earlier, but I don’t feel like letting them out anymore. I want them to stay safe as long as they can, tucked inside the mesh screen.
I close the Velcro flap again, and a Glasswing crawls up the side. I touch its foot through the mesh thinking it will fly away, but it stays there, looking at me.
“In Costa Rica,” I say, my voice wobbly, “they call Glasswings Espejitos. Spanish for ‘little mirrors.’”
I squint my eyes and stare at its wings, hoping I might see myself there. But I don’t. I can’t. They don’t reflect anything. Even those words are a lie. I’m nowhere to be found these days.
But that’s not true, is it? Max cares about me. That’s what he said.
“I want you, Jailbait.” How many times has he told me that? Isn’t that kind of the same as love?
I should stop stalling, and have sex with him. Run off to California just like Dad did.
“JL?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s okay.”
In the hallway, a door opens and closes, and the sound of the television drifts to me. At least Mom is leaving me alone.
I turn and look up at him, and he comes over to sit next to me, and rubs away a tear that’s slipped down my cheek.
“No need to be sad,” he says. “We still have time. I have plenty of plans to work out. I bought this bike, did I tell you? Not a dirt bike. The real deal. I want you to see her, feel her, but she’s not road-ready yet. She needs parts. A better engine. I blew all my savings on her, and paying some of Dad’s bills. I’ve got to make more money before I can fix her up and go.” He tips my chin, and looks deep into my eyes. “I really want you to come with me.”
And like that, I’m hit with a new emotion: Excitement. Maybe even hope. I could do it. Leave here and go to California with Max. I’m not sure exactly how, but Dad is still there, so if I wanted to, I could! I could make up some lies, leave out some facts, and go.
Go with him. Even help him to go.
With this thought, a memory, stuck to an idea, darts at the edges of my brain: Mom and Dad, dancing. Celebrating.
And something else.
It hasn’t quite surfaced yet.
And it shouldn’t.
It shouldn’t.
But another drop of anger and it will.
FALL
NINTH GRADE
“We’re goddamned rich, Charlotte; can you believe it? No more late fees and ridiculous interest. We can pay it all off! The credit cards, the leases. Hell, the mortgage! No more money worries, ever again!” He picks her up and spins, but she holds herself stiff.
“Put me down, Tom.”
Dad, still in his rented tuxedo, obliges, but holds her hand, and tries to twirl her out in front of him in her lacy black dress.
“Look how beautiful you are! Bea
utiful and rich!”
“I said stop.”
He pulls her tight to his chest and kisses the top of her head. “You worry too much. It will all be fine. After this, I never even have to work again.”
“I don’t care.” She turns away from him in her bare feet, revealing the unzipped back of the dress. He puts a hand on her shoulder, and she whirls around, angry, her face wet with tears.
“You were okay with this, Char…?” he says, but it’s more like a question. “All of this. We talked about it. And all night you were fine.” He tips her face up. “Drinking champagne, dancing, celebrating. Those assholes from LA couldn’t take their eyes off of you. You know it’s going to be okay.…”
She slaps his hand away, and yanks down her dress, stands there in only her black bra and lacy underwear. I want to back away from the crack in their half-open door, where I’ve been watching, listening, but I’m afraid to make a noise.
“I lied! I faked it!” my mother yells. “You know I’m an excellent faker. I don’t want this. Not if it’s going to be that long. Six months! Half a year! I want you. Us. To all stay here. Together.”
“Charlotte, six months is nothing. The time will fly. We’re talking seven figures and a cash bonus…”
When he tries to grab hold of her arm, she wheels away. “I’m going to bed,” she says, and the door to her bathroom slams.
“Char. Come on, Char…?” Dad follows, disappearing from my view. A few minutes later, they return, my father still trailing behind.
Not five hours earlier, they had headed off to a celebratory dinner and contract signing at the Rainbow Room in New York City, with the guys who were buying Dad’s company. Mom had gotten all dressed up in her new dress and heels, and Dad had apparently rented a tuxedo. They looked like movie stars. My parents never looked like that, all dressed up and glamorous. They looked happy.
And fifteen minutes ago, they’d come back, laughing and giddy.
I had come out of my room to witness that—the glee and excitement—but by the time I reached their bedroom door, everything had shifted.
Now my mother lies facedown, still in her undergarments, on the bed. My father sits beside her. He reaches a hand out to touch her back but thinks better of it, and rests it in his lap.
My mother is prone to these fits more and more lately—her tantrums. She shouldn’t be mad at him. Not if it’s going to make everything easier. I’m sure he doesn’t want to go. And I don’t want him to go, either.
But she should make it easier for him. Get over it. It’s not like she’s ever had to work.
After a few minutes, he reaches out and strokes her back, and she lets him. “I’ll be home soon,” he says, softly. “You’ll see. You’re being dramatic. You won’t even miss me.”
“I will.” She flips over and sits up, puts her head in her hands. When she takes them away she says, “And you told them you could stay longer…”
“I didn’t tell them that. It’s an option, a contract thing. It’s the only way their lawyer would let them make the deal. I’m a ‘key man,’ Char. I have to make sure they’re up and running. Introduce them to vendors, buyers, how to do the studies, schmooze the customers. You know how it goes.”
“Bullshit,” she says. “You want to go, or you wouldn’t.”
“Stop it, Charlotte. I’m serious. For once in your life be practical.” He gets up, and walks over to the chair in the corner, and retrieves a briefcase that he places on the bed. He snaps the locks and yanks the top open. “This,” he says, “is practical.” He tips the briefcase over and wrapped piles of bills fall onto the bedspread. “Cash. And, there’s plenty. Whatever you and JL need … Whatever we need. Even your goddamned mother … Buy her a car. And that’s only one installment. There’s more where that came from.”
She stares at the wads of green paper.
“They paid you cash?”
“Just a small bonus. Charlotte, this is nothing.…”
“I don’t care,” she says, shoving a few of the stacks aside. “I don’t want it.” Her voice is small, petulant like a child’s. “So, take less. Just come home. Six months, tops. Not a minute more. They’re grown men. Let them figure out how it’s done.”
I move my face closer, careful not to be seen, or squeak the floor.
“I promise,” he says. “I promise.”
She leans in to him and lets him stroke her hair. I use the opportunity to back off, turn down the hall.
“But I hate you, now. You should know that…” I hear her say, before I close my bedroom door.
EARLY MAY
TENTH GRADE
As if it were a dream rather than a memory, I forget about it for a few days—the fight, her words, the money, all of it. Or maybe I don’t forget so much as block it, once again, from my mind. After all, I may be a lot of crappy things lately, but I want to believe that thief isn’t one of them.
At least I hope not.
Then Max comes over again, and this time my mother sends me over the edge.
It’s the day the baseball championships are beginning and we have home field advantage, so it’s not like we can hang around after school. Aubrey is there, with those girls. Half the school is there.
Max says we should go hang out behind the Hay & Feed where he and his friends ride their dirt bikes after school, but it smells like manure there. Plus, they smoke weed, and Dean’s and Bo’s girlfriends go sometimes, too, and it’s not like they like me, or want some goody-two-shoes sophomore hanging around.
“How about your house?” I ask like I have before.
“Off-limits, Jailbait, I told you. At least when the old man might be there.”
“My mom is a disaster,” I offer, tired of always risking the crap at my house. “She sleeps all the time, and floats around like a ghost in her stupid kimonos.”
Max raises his eyebrows up and down like that old comedian with the cigar and bushy mustache, and smiles, and I punch his arm. Like I need to be reminded how hot my mom is. He doesn’t get how messed up she is. All I’ve told him is that she’s kind of depressed. It’s not exactly the type of thing you share with your new boyfriend, that your mother hallucinates and writes letters to a dead man.
“Your mom may cry and sleep a lot, Jailbait, but my dad is an asshole. Trust me. And your house is a freaking palace compared to mine.”
* * *
When we get home, Mom is out, the one good thing about her constant, if futile, appointments with Dr. Marsdan.
We go to my room, and fall onto my bed, and make out desperately, till I’m having a hard time stopping myself and Max is practically begging for more.
I roll off the bed and walk to the habitat to let the butterflies out, and we watch them circle for a while, until Max turns on my television and we fall asleep to an episode of some show Max loves called BoJack Horseman.
When we finally emerge to get something to eat, Mom is back, sitting in the living room, a book in her hand.
She must have seen Max’s dirt bike, but she didn’t come find me. Six months ago, she never would have let me stay in my room with a boy with the door closed, not that I had a boyfriend to prove it. There’s so much she doesn’t seem to bother with anymore.
Her attention doesn’t shift as we reach her, which fills me with panic. What if she’s in one of her weird trances? I should have made Max leave earlier.
My eyes dart to the kitchen, wondering if I can skirt us past before Max can take her in, bare legs to her thighs in her lime-green kimono.
“Hello, Mrs. Markham!” Max calls out a little too enthusiastically. He veers toward her, and Mom’s head jerks up and she smiles, but her eyes stay glazed and distant.
“Jackie?” She perks up, turning to where Max stands, not seeing me at all.
“Mom … It’s Max.”
She stands and takes a step closer. Max’s eyes stay glued to her legs. Of course they are. She may be deluded, but she’s half-naked, and beautiful.
“Mom!” I clea
r my throat. “This is Max. Max Gordon. My boyfriend. You know him.”
Max looks at me, confused, and I seriously think I’m going to have a heart attack. I look back to Mom and squeak out, “Mom, please”—and her eyes catch mine, and something clicks. My breath returns.
“Of course,” she says, nodding.
She closes the book in her hand, drops it on the chair. The cover is white, a paperback with orange and red squares. Black title. On the Road, by Jack Kerouac. She’s been reading it for weeks. The pile of envelopes flashes through my head: Jean-Louis Kerouac. Return to Sender. I haven’t asked about my name yet. I can’t bring myself to do it.
“Max Gordon,” I say again. “You remember Max, Mom, right?”
“Of course I do; don’t be silly,” my mother says, more assertively now. “Did you tell me he’d be here?” She holds out a hand to shake his, tugging at the hem of her robe with the other like she’s realized she’s not dressed appropriately, but it’s not like there’s more fabric to go around.
“No, he wasn’t planning to stay … We fell asleep … We had let the butterflies out and the TV was on, so…” But I don’t bother finishing because it’s not like she cares. Her eyes snap to mine, so I add, “His bike is outside. I was sure you’d see it.”
“Right,” she says, focusing on Max. “Well, I’m so pleased to see you again, Maxwell.”
Maxwell? She calls him Maxwell like she’s morphed into some modern-day Amanda Wingfield, the mother in the play I first read in Hankins’ class, the one that led Max to asking me out. The Glass Menagerie, it was called, about this girl Laura who has a really bad limp from some disease she had as a child. So, she’s basically a recluse, and all she does is listen to old records and play with her prized collection of glass animals.
Max had immediately volunteered to read the part of Tom, Laura’s brother, who works in a factory but dreams of being a poet. Raj Thakur was reading for Jim, a work friend of Tom’s who comes for dinner and who the mother, Amanda, hopes will fall in love with Laura. At first you think there’s no way he will, and anyway Amanda keeps flirting with him, but the two of them do actually go to Laura’s room, and they hit it off, and even end up slow dancing, but it turns out Jim is engaged and the whole thing only gets sadder from there.