“They look great. Can you hand me that wrench over there?”
Katie looks down at me—I imagine my own jeans and T-shirt are covered in grease stains and my work boots are definitely not new—and then looks at the car. A surprised look comes over her face followed by some kind of dawning comprehension.
“Ohhh,” she says.
“Oh, what?”
“When you invited me over to work on your car, it wasn’t a euphemism.”
“A euphemism?”
“The substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression when what the speaker means is something else,” she says.
For about the millionth time in the short period I’ve known this girl, the stray thought occurs to me: Why is she so maddeningly annoying?
“I know what the word means,” I say with some heat. “But why would I ask you to come work on the car if I meant something else?” To illustrate my point, I reiterate my request: “Could you hand me that wrench from over there?”
A simple request should be followed by simple compliance, right? But as she roots around in the array of tools spread out on the floor, the perplexed expression on her face deepening by the minute, I realize a little more explanation is in order.
So I supply a complete description of what a wrench looks like, causing a lightbulb to go on in her eyes. Just as I inwardly ask myself yet again just why I ever thought this was a good idea, she locates the wrench and hands it to me. As our hands briefly touch, I feel a jolt of what can only be described—no euphemisms needed—as physical lightning.
And all of that, in less than a minute, encapsulates the entire experience of being with Katie.
But that’s something else I don’t want to say out loud either. And yet I wish I could; it’s so frustrating feeling something that strong and not being able to acknowledge it to the other person. I glance at her quickly to see if she feels what I feel right now: Does she? She’s so hard to read. Exasperated, I slide back under the car to tinker with this and that.
“Well, this is fun,” her voice trickles down to me.
“I’m glad you’re having a good time,” I call out.
I did tell her in advance what we would be doing. How am I supposed to concentrate on what I need to do if all I can think about is her out there, staring down at my feet? And how am I supposed to concentrate on what I need to do when all I can think about is her, period? I resolve to do my best. I start to whistle. In fact, I almost convince myself that it’s just me here, working on my car like any other Saturday, when she finally speaks again.
“So, this is what it’s like to have a hobby!” she says. I’m so shocked that I forget where I am and sit up too quickly, banging my head hard against the undercarriage of the car.
I slide out, rubbing the quickly forming egg on my forehead.
“Oh, did you hurt yourself?” she asks.
“I don’t think this is going to work,” I say.
And now she’s clearly hurt as evidenced by her guarded, “You want me to go already? No more hanging out?”
“No.” I gesture back at the Corvair. “I mean working on the car—maybe it’s not the best day for that. Hey, how about getting us a couple of cans of soda from the refrigerator?”
“The refrigerator?”
“You know, something that refrigerates? Especially a room or appliance for keeping food or other items cool? Fun fact: the word ‘refrigerator’ was first used in 1611, but refrigerators for home use weren’t invented until 1913. Okay, I guess that’s two fun facts.”
She stares at me for a long minute and then breaks into a smile. “I get it! You defined a refrigerator, because of before when I defined ‘euphemism’ . . .” Her smile widens. “It’s like we’re two people trading barbs!”
It’s all I can do not to roll my eyes.
Okay, I do roll them.
“Yes, Katie, we’re like two people trading barbs.”
“Oh my gosh, we’re bantering!”
Another eye roll, only this time I can’t help but smile too. “Yes, Katie, we’re bantering. Now, about those sodas . . .”
She manages to locate the fridge without further direction, opens it without instruction, and extracts two cans of orange soda. She whips around, pleased with her success. “Glasses?”
“Nah, let’s rough it,” I say, rising, taking one can from her, flipping the top and handing it back to her, and taking the other can for myself. I flip that top too, clink the can against hers. “Cheers.”
She looks around for somewhere to sit and I indicate the workbench. When she fails to do anything, I hop up—a neat athletic execution with no hands needed, if I do say so myself—and indicate the space beside me.
She does what I did, landing with a delicate plop. “Oh!” Again she’s pleased.
I shake my head and take a swig of my soda.
She follows suit. Then: “Ooh, fizzy!”
I would shake my head again but there’s only so many times you can do that during a social encounter before it starts provoking comment.
But in the absence of a response, a conversational lull falls over us, which Katie breaks with:
“Well . . . this is fun!” And her other old reliable: “So, this is what it’s like to have a hobby!”
“You’ve got a hobby,” I point out.
“I do?”
“Sure. Politics. Isn’t that like your main thing?”
“Politics. You say that like it’s a dirty word.”
I snort. “Well, isn’t it?”
“What exactly do you think politics is, Drew?”
“Uh, I don’t know.” I mean, duh. “A chance for fat cats to gather large campaign donations based on idle promises to make changes they’ll never fulfill?”
Now it’s her turn to snort, only coming from her it sounds more like, “HA!” Followed by: “Look around yourself, Drew.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Where you live—in case you haven’t noticed, you’re one of the fat cats now.”
“No, that’s—”
“And anyway, politics is wonderful. It’s fascinating!”
“Yeah, right.”
“It’s an opportunity for good men—and women!—to create positive change for people. Even local politics is important. Take my father, for instance. In his first congressional term, a woman who was having a problem with her hospital called his office. She had a baby, hadn’t had insurance to cover the delivery, and she was sure the hospital was overcharging her for all kinds of services she never used.”
“So, what—your dad went after the hospital for her?”
“No, he had someone on his staff do it.”
“HA!”
“No,” she says with scorn, “there’s no ‘HA!’ in that. Part of being a good politician is knowing how to delegate. The bottom line is getting things done, serving the will and the good of the people, whatever it takes. And presidential politics is simply that on a far larger scale—the opportunity to make positive changes in the world.”
“Right. Like that’s what your dad—a Republican—is going to do if he gets elected. He’s going to be all about ‘making positive changes in the world.’ ”
I have to say that even I find my extensive air quotes there a tad bit annoying. And Katie does too.
“Ohhhh . . . grow up.”
“Excuse me?”
“I suppose you’re one of those Democrats who thinks that Republicans all have horns growing out of their foreheads?”
I shrug, take another swig of my soda. I could say, If the shoe fits . . . But that would be a snotty thing to say to a guest—a guest who, I must remind myself, I invited here because I felt bad for her that she’s never known what it’s like to have friends. And because I’m intrigued by her.
And anyway, I’m pretty sure those words are implied.
“Well,” she says, “we don’t. Or if we do, then Democrats do too.”
“Meaning?”
“Yes, there a
re Republicans who are against social change and for big business, and yes, there are Democrats who tax and spend and would be happy if the whole country went Socialist. But mostly?”
“Yes?” I prompt. “Mostly?”
“In any given presidential election in this country, frequently there’s really not much daylight between the major party candidates on most issues. Really, Drew. You should look at your mom’s platform, then look at my father’s. They’re not extremes, they’re both the center, and they both want to accomplish pretty much the same things. Sometimes they just word it in different ways.”
“That is so much worse!”
“Worse? What are you talking about?”
“That means that when they’re campaigning, they’re saying all kinds of things just to appear a certain way to their . . . constituencies, just to get votes. But in reality, you say, they’re kind of the same?”
Now it’s her turn to roll her eyes, shake her head, and snort—and, somehow, she manages to do all three at once.
Which, when you think about it, is almost as impressive a feat as my neat no-hands vertical jump onto the workbench was earlier.
“Be cynical all your life if you want to, Drew, but I prefer to take the idealist approach. And while our electoral system may be intensely flawed, for now, it’s the only one we’ve got.”
I would so love to just snort at her some more and laugh in her face but the truth is, when I look at her, I see that she actually believes in something. Her green eyes are so intense. Maybe her ideas are twisted, maybe she’s nuts—which I think might be a distinct possibility—but the truth of the matter is, where most of the kids I know only care about what their next text message is going to say, Katie believes in something bigger.
I don’t know. I think this might be cool. It is, right?
“Look at their platforms,” she tells me again, “and then tell me where the big differences lie.”
“Yeah,” I say, not really wanting to . . . cede anything, “maybe I’ll just do that.”
Like he timed his entrance, my dog trots into the garage, breaking the tension between us.
“Hey, Bowser!” I say.
Katie laughs.
I turn to her. “What?”
“Your dog is named Bowser?”
“You have a cat named Dog and you’re laughing at Bowser?”
And suddenly we are both laughing. Into the space that follows, I say: “Tell me something no one else knows about you.”
“Excuse me?”
“Everyone knows that you love politics. It’s what you’ve been about your whole life. Tell me something no one knows.”
“But I’ve already talked so much already. Believe me—all those words I just spoke? Unless I’m giving a campaign speech that is a lot of words for me to say out loud.”
Crazy girl.
“You go first,” she says.
“Me?”
“Yes. Tell me something about you that no one else in the world knows.”
And for some insane reason I do. I open my mouth and the words just come out:
“My dad is having an affair.”
KATIE
I’ve read the words before in books—“He was dumbstruck” or “She was dumbstruck” or even “They were dumbstruck”—but I don’t think it’s ever happened to me before. And now I am. I feel struck by what Drew has said and it causes me to go dumb.
But I don’t stay that way for long.
“That can’t be true!” I blurt out.
And if I was momentarily struck dumb, Drew is positively horrified. Then he does something even more surprising. He laughs.
“HA!” he barks. “Fooled you. You should see the look on your face!”
Well, if I had a mirror handy right now, I could. But since I don’t . . .
“I can’t believe you bought that!” He laughs. “Can you imagine? I mean, seriously. If that was true, why would I ever tell you?”
I force myself to laugh along with him. “Right!” I say. “Of course you were just kidding!” This must be what friends do: they kid each other. But I’m tempted to say that line from Hamlet, “Methinks thou dost protest too much,” only one, that doesn’t seem like the kind of thing your average normal teen would say to another average normal teen in the midst of a conversation, and two, I remember my teacher saying when we read the play in school last year that that’s the way people always think the line goes when in reality it’s “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
And I don’t think Drew would like it if I called him a lady.
“Methinks” probably wouldn’t go over too well either.
At any rate, this lady thinks that Drew is protesting too much with all his loud laughter.
“Good one!” I laugh some more. “You really had me going for a second there—maybe even a whole minute! There’s just one problem.”
“What’s that?”
I stop laughing. “You weren’t kidding, were you?”
All of Drew’s attempts at false cheeriness collapse and he just groans.
“Why did I have to say that out loud?” he says, squeezing his eyes shut angrily as he strikes the heel of his palm against his forehead.
I’m tempted to tell him this won’t work. Believe me, I’ve struck my forehead with the heel of my palm before and it does no good. At best, there’s a slight jarring sensation; and at worst, you wind up with one heck of a bruise.
“It’s okay,” I say.
He looks at me like I’m nuts. “How can it possibly be okay?”
“Well, not the affair part. Obviously. If it’s true.” I think about the words he’s said and his own reaction after saying them, and it hits me what he’s most worried about. “But if you’re worried that because of who I am, I’ll turn around and tell my father, that won’t happen.”
I say the words just to put his mind at ease, but as soon as they’re out of my mouth, I realize something surprising: they’re actually true.
If anyone asked me when I got up this morning, or on any other previous day in my life, what I’d do if any information fell into my hands that might help my father with his campaign, I’d answer in the popular teen vernacular: “Duh! Of course, I’d run and tell him!” But Drew didn’t tell me what he said as though he was talking to Edward Willfield’s daughter. He said it like he was confiding in a friend. I don’t think in my whole life anyone’s ever confided something in me as a friend before. Does Cook confessing her fears about what would happen that one time Sonny found out that Ava shot Connie on General Hospital count? I don’t think so.
I try to think what I’ve seen characters on TV do in similar situations and I come up with something.
I place my hand on Drew’s bicep and try to ignore how good it feels against my hand. It’s such a heady feeling, that simple physical contact, and my heart races a little faster. I wonder if I’m going to pass out. But I force myself to concentrate on his problem and what he’s going through. I wait until he finally looks up, his eyes meeting mine, to say: “Tell me. What’s going on?”
Then I shut up and listen.
“Sometimes I think it all started when we struck it rich.” Drew looks around him in disgust. Since we’re only in the garage, I deduce that his disgust is reserved for the large house attached to the garage and everything that goes with it.
“I’m not saying that poor is somehow better than rich, or that poor people are happier necessarily. But for us? I think we were. Back then, my parents were both there most of the time when I got home from school. We’d have dinner together, do stuff together, go places together. Then my dad made all that money. And, at first? That was pretty okay too. Instead of just dreaming about the things we wanted, we could go out and buy them. And instead of just going places together, we could go to really nice places, anywhere we wanted. Then my mom decided she wanted to go into politics and for a while, even that was okay. My dad supported her. He said she should do whatever it takes to follow her dream. But then? I d
on’t know. Somewhere along the way, something . . . happened. They stopped talking to each other and started talking at each other. At first, my dad would travel with my mom every single time she went away. Now it seems like he only goes if he absolutely has to, if Ann—my mom’s campaign manager—says it’ll look bad if he’s not there.”
He pauses and I simply wait until he’s ready to continue. But while I’m waiting, I reach out my hand and lightly take hold of his. He stares at our two hands joined together, as though he’s surprised to see them like that, like maybe they belong to other people. Then I feel him thread his fingers through mine so they’re twined together and he tightens his grip before continuing. It’s hard to concentrate over the distraction of this amazing hand-holding—it’s got a life of its own, like the sound of the ocean roaring through my ears—but I force myself to focus.
“I hear them arguing all the time, the rare times they’re both at home, but if I walk into the room they just stop. And when I ask them what’s going on, they won’t tell me. They say everything is fine. Yeah, right!” He laughs harshly. “Oh, and my dad? If I come across him talking on the phone, he quickly says to whoever he’s talking to, ‘Let me get back to you on that,’ and then hangs up. And the worst? Used to be, when he was working on his laptop, he’d sit in this comfy chair he’s got in his office, the one piece of furniture left from the old apartment. He’d sit there, his back to the door, and I’d sneak up on him and fake scare him. Of course, when I did, I could see whatever he was working on. But now? He never sits in that chair anymore. He sits behind his desk, facing the door, the back of his laptop blocking the view. He’s like some gunslinger in an old Western, always sitting facing the saloon doors so he can see any threat coming his way, so as soon as anyone walks in he can put the top down or change the screen, anything to keep other people from seeing what he’s actually doing. Aaargh!”
Drew lets go of my hand and grabs the sides of his head with both hands. “Why am I even telling you all this? I haven’t even told Sandy!”
Red Girl, Blue Boy: An If Only novel (If Only . . .) Page 12