by Claire Adams
“Stop doing that,” she says.
“What?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” she says. “Forget it.”
“What?” I ask again. “Is something bothering you? You’ve been avoiding me since that night at my house and now you’re acting all weird.”
“It’s nothing,” she says. “Let’s just watch the kids skate.”
We stand there quietly for a little while as a surprisingly large group of people gather to watch these kids tear it up on what are, for the most part, the sketchiest jumps, rails and pipes I’ve ever seen.
Someone comes out and gives a little introduction, explaining how the whole thing started and what it means to have so many people come out to cheer the kids on and so on and so on.
“It was my dad, wasn’t it?” I ask. “He wouldn’t tell me what you two were talking about, but I know what kind of mood he was in. I hate it when he’s like that.”
“It wasn’t him,” she says. “I just think that it might be best if we only got together to focus on our project from now on.”
“You have me a little confused then,” I tell her, but have to wait for the crowd to stop cheering as the kids come out and start to skate.
“What do you mean?” she asks loudly, still clapping her hands until one of the skaters, a little blond kid with bits of curly hair coming out through the bottom of his helmet goes racing straight into the wrong side of one of the kickers and does a rather impressive, though clearly unintentional, flip and lands with one leg on the slope of the kicker and the other knee coming up to hit him in the forehead.
I don’t know how nobody expected any injuries tonight.
The kid cries loudly for a minute, but just as his mom comes out to help him off the course, he grabs his board and skates off, his face still almost maroon with embarrassment and wet with tears.
“You said I confused you,” Mia says when the whole scene is over and the mother wanders back off the course, looking back repeatedly at her son, unsure whether she should let him continue or not.
“Yeah,” I tell her. “You told me that you think we should only see each other when it’s regarding our project and yet here you are.”
“Yeah,” she says distantly.
This isn’t how I saw tonight going. I figured she’d be a little annoyed with me at first, then she’d spit out whatever’s bothering her and we’d move on. So far, she only seems to be concerned with being annoyed.
“Tell me about yourself,” I say, hoping a different approach will do the trick.
“You know,” she says, “a couple of those kids aren’t half bad. That one’s over there doing kick flips and the one wearing the Spider-Man costume just did a nose manual.”
“Why don’t I ever see you on a board?” I ask.
She turns and looks at me, her mouth open a little. “What do you mean?” she asks.
“Well, you’re so into skating, but I’ve never seen you on or even near a board,” I tell her. “Are you just a fan girl or have you actually given it a shot?”
“A fan girl?” she asks. “You think I’m a fan girl?”
“Aren’t you?” I ask.
When all else fails, she seems to respond to negativity pretty consistently.
“I’m not a fan girl of anything,” she says. “I skate. I just don’t like to do it around people.”
“Neither do I, really,” I tell her. “How do you solve that little problem, though?”
“Oh yeah,” she scoffs. “You have trouble skating around people.”
“Yeah,” I tell her. “Haven’t you noticed that I’ve never actually learned how to be comfortable on a board?”
“You’re full of crap,” she says.
“Seriously,” I tell her. “I do a lot better than I used to, but I don’t have a normal or goofy stance. Neither one seems to work for me, so I just keep switching back and forth as I ride. Over time, you know, I got to where it wasn’t a problem, but I’m still not what I would call comfortable on a board.”
“That’s what it is,” she says with a gasp. “I was wondering why you look so different when you’re skating—not dropping in, obviously. I think that’s pretty standard for someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing. You never favor one stance or another and what looks like masterfully contained clumsiness is actually masterfully contained clumsiness.”
“I’m glad I could confirm your theory,” I tell her. “I look clumsy?”
“I don’t know if that’s the right word or not,” she says, “but you always look like you’re right on the verge of losing your balance, but you never do. How do you ride, though? Why’s it taken so long for you to feel comfortable on a board?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “It’s just one of those things that never really set in. I think I tried a normal stance at first, but when I found out that Tony Hawk has a goofy stance, I started doing that, but after a couple of weeks, that didn’t seem to work any better for me than the normal stance did. I just kept going back and forth until, finally, I just kind of gave up and rode however I happened to land.”
“Everyone rides how they happen to land,” she says, “but everyone favors one side or another.”
I shrug. “I don’t know what to tell you. It’s great for the scoring, though. I’m counting on that in the best trick. I’ll do the first two runs normal and the last three goofy. They’ll count one or the other of them as switch and bump up my score a little bit.”
“You’re the weirdest skater I’ve ever met,” she says.
“Oh, so now I’m weird?” I ask. Actually, given my personality and my general appearance, I suppose a case could be made for that particular point.
“I don’t mean as a person,” she says, “I mean as a skater. You can pretty much take anyone I’ve seen in a street competition, but you can’t drop into a vert ramp. One of the things that makes you so entertaining to watch is that you move differently while you’re on your board, but that’s because you never settled on a favored front foot. You’re kind of a mess, you know.”
“Thanks,” I tell her. “What do you ride?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “Neither one of them feel particularly comfortable to me.”
“Hilarious,” I say monotone.
“What do you want me to say?” she asks. “I get all nervous talking about skating when I’m around a real skater.”
“You talk skating with me all the time,” I laugh.
“Me skating,” she says. “It’s one thing to talk about it as a sport or critiquing someone else’s style, but I just feel weird talking about me skating.”
“You call me weird?” I ask.
“You know, it’s unfortunate that neither of our dads seem open to us being around one another,” she says and quickly looks back toward the course where the kids are now taking turns doing mini-runs on the quarter-pipe. It’s inspiring, hilarious and, at times a bit sad, but it is undeniably entertaining to watch.
“Yeah,” I say. “Men are such pigs.”
She looks back at me with a mock expression of shock on her face. “That is not what I’m saying,” she gasps. “My dad isn’t a pig. He’s just a little overprotective.”
“Yeah, how’s the view from the tower, Rapunzel?” I ask.
“I’m out now,” she says. “The tower has a staircase and a door, you know.”
“I noticed how you were quick to say that your own dad’s not a pig, but you didn’t seem to mention mine,” I tease.
I don’t know if I’d necessarily call the guy a pig, but—actually, yeah: he is kind of a pig.
“I never said that anyone was a pig,” she protests. “I’m just trying to explain my own dad’s issue. When mom left, he just started clinging to anything that seemed like it might have some stability to it and, for a good portion of my life, that’s been me. He’s not a bad guy. I just wish he hadn’t insisted that I help raise him.”
“Have you heard anything from her since she left?” I ask. “How lon
g has it been?”
“I don’t know, nine years, ten years. I know it’s been a long time, and no, I haven’t heard anything from her since she left. She just decided she was done being a wife and a mother and that was that,” Mia tells me.
It’s a strange venue for such a conversation, but I’m thrilled to have it. This is the most I’ve been able to get Mia to open up about herself, and if we’re going to finish the kiss we didn’t get the chance to start, it’s going to be because she’s found a reason to relax and take things as they come.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “That must have been rough.”
“It was,” she says. “It wasn’t. I think, for all his failings as a parent, my dad really helped me learn how to do things by myself.”
“When you’re not given the option, I imagine it’s good to at least come out of it with that,” I respond.
“I didn’t have a bad childhood,” she says. “I didn’t have a bad time as a teenager, either. Things were always just a little bit different after mom left. It seemed like there were more steps required to get anything accomplished. Everything took more time and, when we’d managed to get something done, it never seemed to be as nice as it would have been before she was gone, you know?”
“What do you mean?” I ask as the kid in the Spider-Man costume drops into the quarter-pipe with all the grace of me on a vert ramp and comes to a sliding halt halfway to the other side.
“At some point, this stops being cute and starts feeling a little sadistic,” Mia says.
“I’m with ya,” I tell her. “Let me at least make eye contact with Tonya so she knows I was here and we can take off.”
“We?” she asks. “As I remember, I only agreed to go to the exhibition with you.”
I’m looking for Tonya through the crowd, but I finally just give up. If she doesn’t believe I was there, I’ll mention something about her kid sliding across the quarter-pipe dressed like a super hero and I think her temper will cool.
I’m walking Mia home and we just keep talking. Or rather, I ask questions and let her do the talking. I don’t know exactly what my dad said that scared her off, but I’d really like to avoid any turn that would make things weird again.
“So you do skate?” I ask.
“I dabble,” she says, her chin jutting out a little.
“You’re especially smug for someone who has yet to actually show any ability on a board whatsoever,” I tell her.
“I know what I’m doing,” she says, “but I’m not great or anything. I’ve gotten pretty good at staying on the board most of the time.”
“Yeah, I’m going to have to see it to believe it,” I tell her and drop my board to the ground in front of me.
“What?” she asks. “Here?”
“Why not?” I return. “You said you don’t like people seeing you skate, well, we’re the only ones on the whole street from what I can tell.”
I kick the board in front of her.
“Let’s see what you’ve got,” I say.
A bit of a smile creeps up one side of her face, but it quickly vanishes as she looks down at the board and kicks it back in front of me.
“I’m not really in the mood,” she says. “I’m enjoying the walk. So, tell me why you act like an idiot so much of the time.”
“Excuse me?” I ask, picking up my board.
“I don’t mean that in a bad way,” she says. “Okay, that doesn’t really make sense. What I mean is that when it’s just you and I, you seem perfectly intelligent, but when we’re in class or the times we’ve been out in public, or around anyone, really, it’s like you’ve lost a significant portion of your IQ.”
“It’s just habit,” I tell her. “Growing up, you kind of start to talk like your friends after a while. I try to lay some knowledge on them from time to time, but they usually just make a stupid fucking face and call me four-eyes. I don’t think they know that’s meant as an insult for people who wear glasses, but it’s the thought that hurts, really.”
“Why does it come out with me?” she asks, glancing at me out of the corner of her eye.
I shrug. “You’re different,” I tell her.
“How?” she asks.
“I haven’t pictured any of my friends naked,” I tell her.
Finally, finally, I get to see her really laugh for the first time since the last time she watched me try to drop in at the park.
She brushes her hair back behind her ear and says, “So that’s it? You’re just the cliché tattooed guy who looks at women as meat?”
“I never really understood that expression,” I tell her. “People say you treat women like meat if you look at women in a mostly sexual way, but I’ve never wanted to eat a person or fuck a hamburger, so it all kind of falls apart for me.”
“You wonder why I called you an idiot?” she asks.
“No,” I tell her. “I think you’re very attractive, but not just physically, though…” I make a bit of a production about checking her out “…damn. But it’s not just your body, it’s your mind. You’re smart, but you like to be treated just a little bad and I find that fascinating.”
“I like to be treated bad?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.
“Just a little,” I correct. “When I talk to you straightforward, the way I feel most natural talking to you, you don’t really respond, but when I’m just a bit of an asshole, you’re suddenly interested.”
I wonder if she knows I’m teasing her. What I’m saying isn’t entirely false, but it’s far from the whole truth.
“Must be a daddy issues thing,” she says.
“Daddy issues,” I chuckle. “Hot.”
“Oh, don’t tell me you’re—” she starts, but I interrupt.
“I’m not really one of those guys,” I tell her. “No, I don’t find people with complicated paternal relationships to hold added sex appeal. You need to stop taking everything so literally and learn to joke around from time to time.”
I look over to see her reaction, but she’s not next to me anymore. After a few seconds, I spot her. She took a right and I just kept going, thinking she was still there.
I change course and catch up with her, though I can hear her laughter before I get to her.
“You say I can’t have fun,” she says as I fall back into place by her. “I thought it was pretty fun watching you walk off toward nothing while talking to nobody. What about you?”
“It was a riot,” I tell her.
“Why do you talk differently with me?” I ask. “You say it’s because I’m different and then you make a series of jokes, but what’s the real reason?”
I scratch my chin and pretend to think about it for a minute.
“You know, we’re not too far from my house and I have things to do when I get back,” she says.
“I like you,” I tell her. “I thought I’d made that pretty obvious by now.”
“What does that mean to you, though?” she asks. “Do you like me as a prospective girlfriend or as someone you’d like to nail and never call again or as a friend or what?”
“You ask a lot of questions,” I tell her.
“You’re the one who was asking my opinion on everything this whole walk home,” she counters.
“I don’t know how to answer that, really,” I tell her. “I like you as more than a friend and I know that I wouldn’t want to stop calling you. The thought of dating you makes me kind of nervous, though.”
“Why’s that?” she asks, stopping on the side of the road.
“Because you don’t have a problem talking to me about the things that matter, but you do have a problem talking to me about things that do,” I tell her. “Why were you avoiding me all week?”
“Can we just not—” she starts, but I’m getting bored of treading water, so I interrupt.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” I tell her. “Relationships work better when the people in it have an idea what the hell each other are thinking. Maybe it’s nothing at all, maybe you�
�ve just been busy or there’s some perfectly justifiable excuse, but at the same time, maybe it’s something big and we should talk about it. All I can tell from where I’m standing is that we were getting along until my dad got home that night and then we haven’t really talked until today, and I had to badger you to get that much. I know what I want out of—”
“You get obsessed about these little things instead of letting them go when I tell you not to worry about them,” she interrupts.
“Yeah, how dare I want to figure out why you’re acting like you’ve got a second or third copy of yourself walking around, each with different personalities,” I tell her.
“It’s not like that,” she says. “I just don’t want to get you into anything you’re going to regret.”
Now there’s a shot out of left field.
“What would you get me into that I’d regret?” I ask.
“Your dad,” she says. “He told me that it’s people like me that are making it so hard for you to do what you need to do to make a good life for yourself. I mean, I hardly even know you and already I’m causing things to go bad for you.”
“My dad’s a prick,” I tell her. “If there’s anyone in the world making it difficult for me to have a good life, it’s that asshole.”
“You live at home, though,” she says. “It sounds like he’s helping out a lot.”
“Okay, he helps me in that he lets me live in his home while I’m going to college,” I start. I have more to say, but Mia’s quicker.
“Isn’t he paying for your tuition?” she asks.
“Well, yeah, but—” I stammer.
“So why would you talk about him like you’re talking about him?” she asks.
“Because he’s a dick!” I protest. “He helps me out financially and he gives me a place to live and I am very grateful for that, but the only reason either of those things are true is because I made a deal with him a few years ago that I’d go to college right out of high school, I’d stay at home with him and mom, and I’d put schoolwork before anything with wheels. In exchange, he allows me to live in his home and he pays for me to go to college for something I’m not passionate about and if I were to make too big a fuss about it, he’d cut me off like that.” I snap my fingers.”