“Did you hit your head?” She frowned. “You sound like maybe you took one to the noggin.” She felt around through my hair. “Nothing soft. Nothing wet. No bumps.”
“The bumps are all on the inside,” I said. I knew it sounded ridiculous, but I couldn’t help it.
She gave me a smirk. “Ain’t it the truth? C’mon.”
I followed, wiping my eyes as we reached the circle of light coming from the pickup’s cab. A little bell pinged to let me know the door was open. I suddenly completely hated that little bell.
“Get in, get in!” she said. “Are you in? Good.” Her hair billowed in the wake of another truck as she closed the door. “Ohmygod, for a sec there? You scared me to, like, to death.”
I liked her Southern accent. I liked her tight jeans. She seemed really, really concerned. About me. A stranger concerned about me. It was weird. I apologized for making her stop.
“That’s okay. Look, hon, where’m I taking you?”
SIX PLACES A STRANGE WOMAN WAS TAKING ME:
1. For a ride
2. To the cleaners
3. The distance
4. Baby, one more time
5. For a fool
6. As it comes
“Home, I guess.”
“Right,” she said, as we pulled back into traffic. She reached over and turned down the music, Dolly Parton busy being all peaches and cream.
“Where’s home?”
“Kansas City.”
“Ha!” She laughed, and punched me lightly on the arm. “No, but really.”
“Millville,” I said.
“Check.” She swerved into the fast lane and gunned the little truck. “So whatcha doin’ in the middle of the highway, anyhow?”
“Looking for arrowheads.”
“Ohmygod!” she said, smacking herself on the forehead. “Are you running away? Yes? No? It’s all right, you don’t have to tell me. I did it once myself, though. Had a stepdad and couldn’t stand him. My name’s Daphne. What’s your name? It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me.”
“Stan?”
“You don’t seem so sure about it, hon.”
“Ain’t it the truth?” I said, in a really bad cowboy accent. It was fun. I wanted to talk that way the rest of my life, conceivably a short one, given the way she was driving. Daphne leaned over to shake my hand. Hers was tiny and covered with silver and turquoise rings. She wore a powder blue T-shirt that said Way To Go! in sparkly cursive. There were fast-food wrappers and Big Gulp containers and magazines all over the floor.
“Your truck needs a wash,” I said.
“Yeah, well.” She laughed, all teeth. “My truck needs a lot of things. I need a lot of things. Wanting ’em isn’t the same as having ’em, though, is it?”
“You have no idea.”
She shook her head and made a little hooting sound. “’Fraid I do, hon.”
FIVE ROLES DAPHNE SHOULD BE PAID MILLIONS TO PLAY:
1. The nice, perky nurse on some hospital show
2. The nice, perky clerk on some lawyer show
3. Mary Ann’s perkier sister on Gilligan’s Island
4. The big-haired chick who rescues Stan on Charlie’s Angels
5. The nice woman who gives Stan poison at the end of Staneo and Ellenette
Dolly boomed and I looked out the window for a while and then for some reason went ahead and told Daphne everything. About Miles and Berkeley and Ellen at the lake and the farm and Prarash, and finally about The Kiss. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. She nodded and pulled on her lip and didn’t say a word until I was done.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Oh, man, really! Some girls, I swear. But some guys, too! Oh, man is that the truth, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been sitting where you are.”
I looked down. “Knee-deep in wrappers in the passenger seat of a strange woman’s truck?”
“Ha! No, not that, hon. You’re funny, you know it? Did anyone ever tell you that? But, no, I meant luck with men. My kind of luck? Whew. Still, I bet that girl has no idea what a mistake she made. But some girls are like that, you know? Grass is always greener, boy is always greener, from one to another like a bumblebee. But eventually she realizes what she’s missing out on, and then it’s back to the hive.”
“Missing out on?” She might be missing out on Miles and all the talents he could display for anyone else’s girlfriend behind a cigarette machine. But me? No.
Daphne steered the truck suddenly to the right, and we roared off the Millville exit. It was the middle of summer, all the plants bursting with life. They smelled like corn and perfume and just plain green. Why couldn’t I be a plant? Just grow and be happy to reach a little higher every day. Take the sun or the rain as it comes. Let my roots go a little deeper and eat my chlorophyll and stop worrying all the time. At least until fall.
“Sure she is, Stan. I can tell already. Can I tell? You bet I can. You’re a catch. Maybe not so smart for walking in the middle of the highway, and a touch on the smart-alecky side, but still.”
“Are you hitting on me?” I asked. “You’re not, are you?”
“Ha! I don’t think I’m quite your speed, hon.”
“That’s good,” I said. “I wasn’t sure I’d be able to let you down easy.”
She smiled. I wiped my eyes with my T-shirt as Daphne pulled up in front of my parents’ house.
“Weird,” she said. “Is this your house? Is this a house?”
“Yeah, my dad built it.”
“With what?” Daphne asked.
“Umm . . . wood?” I guessed.
“Ohmygod, that was so rude,” she said. “I am so sorry.”
“So am I,” I said. “Anyway, I really appreciate the ride.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out a crumpled dollar. “Here’s for gas.”
Daphne shooed the bill away. “You keep that, honey. You’ll give someone else a good turn. It all equals out somewhere along the line. And don’t you worry about that girl. The world’s full of girls. Am I right? You bet I am.”
Daphne waved and pulled away with a squeal.
It was dark and hot.
I crunched up gravel toward the house, as dark and scary and crickety as ever. The shadows had shadows and the grass was wet and humid and there was a sinister hum in the air. My heart pounded as I felt my way around back, past the hut and the gooseberry furrows and the rusting tractor. An old pitchfork lay in the dirt, practically frowning. I picked it up and leaned it against the porch. Since the porch leaned too, it slid and fell again. There was something seriously wrong with the world. Like someone went back in time to check out the dinosaurs and stepped on a butterfly by mistake and that dead butterfly started a chain reaction where fifty million years later we all had tails. Or kissed our best friend’s girlfriends. Bradbury could go screw, too.
I climbed the steps two at a time, but slowly, adjusting for the lean. Two, four, six, eight, ten. It felt good to count. Counting was comforting. Twelve, fourteen, door.
Safe.
Except for the thing that was waiting on the top step. In the corner. From a shadow, one eye peered.
“Hello?” I said, like a moron.
No answer.
I stepped closer.
“Chopper?”
No answer. I held my breath and leaned over.
It was one of Olivia’s dolls.
“Oh, man,” I said, exhaling with relief. Until I noticed it was painted red.
Bright red.
All over, from toes to hair.
Even the pupils.
Plus, across the forehead, written in black, was a name. My name. STAN. I dropped the doll. I almost screamed. And then I did.
All the house lights were off. I was seeing double, sweat in my eyes. I slammed the door behind me and ran up the stairs, not even feeling the cracks against my shins. I found my room and crawled into bed and climbed under the covers, pulling them tight and trying really, really hard not to scream again.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MONDAY: “Stan? Honey? Are you getting up?”
I wasn’t. I decided, first thing after opening my eyes, I was permanently on strike from life. All I needed was a bullhorn and a placard. I could walk in front of the house and yell slogans and blow whistles and pretend to be upset about animal rights. Or Stan’s rights. “WHAT DO WE WANT? SLEEP! WHEN DO WE WANT IT? NOW!” No, that’s not enough. Not nearly enough scope. It had to be the rights of Stans around the world to never get out of bed! We were all in it together. Me and my fellow misnamed. We could have demands:
1. Anyone named Miles immediately chopped up and bagged and shipped halfway across the planet to be used as mulch in someone’s garden.
2. All four Beatles kidnapped or revived and forced to go into the studio to record a new song called “Eleanor Pigby.”
3.
So, I guess we only needed two demands.
I was enjoying the possibilities when the doorknob ratcheted back and forth. It pushed and pulled. “Stan? Stanley?”
I pulled the covers over my head and the sheet over my head and the pillow over my head. It was warm and quiet despite the muffles and the ratcheting. Then, just before falling asleep, I heard my father say, “Leave him alone.”
Good ol’ Dad.
TUESDAY: “STAN! Keith is on the phone? Aren’t you going to work? Stan?”
I wasn’t. I hadn’t eaten in twenty-four hours and it felt good. It felt ascetic, like a monk or a yogi. It hurt a little, but in the right way. I was paying my dues. I was cleansing and purifying. I was lying under my covers and rubbing my feet together, the time-worn method of holy sufferers everywhere, quietly reminding ourselves of our mortality. And our lack of socks. Maybe, when the time came, not eating was something I could talk Keith into.
KEITH’S NEW MENU OPTIONS:
1. Water
2. Sprouts
3. Sprout-water
4. Half-washed yam
5. Dirty yam
Of course, that’s if I ever saw him again. I wasn’t even getting up for socks, and Happy Video was way across town. So the math was against it. Maybe, in a month or so, he’d visit me bedside. Maybe he’d come in with a canvas tunic and a crown of laurel and splash me with lavender water. Isn’t that what they did with martyrs? Or did they burn them over a pile of Dura-flames? Either way, I wasn’t going to work.
WEDNESDAY: “Listen, Stan, this is ridiculous! You have to get out of bed. Really. I called Dr. Felder. He says you have to get out of bed.”
But I didn’t. Have to. At all. It was revelatory. It was amazing. Day three, and it just kept getting better. It wasn’t like one of those things you thought when you were little, like maybe you could poke your plastic shovel into the sand and dig a hole to China, but only got a foot down before the ocean poured in and destroyed your hard work and swept your sand away. And your hopes and your girlfriend. And who really wanted to go to China anyhow? Who wanted to go anywhere, for that matter? We all had beds, didn’t we? Give me a round-trip ticket to my Serta Sleeper. Give me a six-day, seven-night all expenses paid trip to my duck-feather comforter. Plus, there was the doll. Okay, I admit it. It scared me to death. It might still be on the doorstep. Or, standing in the hallway. Waiting.
I wasn’t going anywhere.
THURSDAY: Olivia whispered through the keyhole, “Stanny?”
And that, finally, was what it took. Plus, I was starving. I was dreaming my pillow was a cannoli. It was covered with drool. Also, my back hurt and I stank. Olivia didn’t say anything, just climbed onto the bed and curled up at my feet like a cat. She was carrying a doll. I almost screamed, but it was just a normal doll. Not red. Not painted. Not with my name on the forehead.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said, looking at the doll again. Double check. Triple check. It looked back at me with a tiny plastic smile. “Everything’s great.”
“There’s something wrong with you and Ellen, isn’t there?”
“What makes you think that?”
Olivia shrugged. Her little chin was turned up and her eyes were sad and brown and I felt bad for making her concerned.
“Everything’s okay. Really.”
“You don’t have to lie, Stanny,” she said. She held my foot like a pillow and closed her eyes and we napped together. I had another dream. I was running on the beach and someone was following me with a stick and they kept hitting me with it every time I told them that I hated when people told me about their dreams.
When I woke up, Olivia was gone. My mother was back. The door was open. She sat in the tiny divot where Olivia had been, like time-lapse photography. Scary.
“Mom . . . ,” I began, but she held up her hand. She played with her big hoop earring for a while and then took a deep breath and said, “Your father tells me I embarrassed you. Certainly I didn’t mean to, and frankly I still don’t understand how, but I will say that I am very, very sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I said, tucking my chin near my armpit. I could smell myself. The long crinkly and reasonably new hairs under my arm, acrid and oily but not entirely unpleasant. It made me uncomfortable to be sniffing my armpit with my mother so close, though, so I stopped.
“No, Stan,” she said, “it’s not okay.”
“Yes, Mom,“ I said, desperately wanting her to go away, “it is.”
She shook her head and I knew she was thinking of some phrase she’d seen on a talk show or read about in a book on the woes of dealing with teenagers, or something Dr. Felder told her, like, When they’re difficult, take a deep breath and really try to FEEL where they’re coming from. Still, I didn’t want her to get mad and I didn’t want to waste the small advantage of being apologized to, so I went ahead and explained.
“Ellen? Eleanor? And me. It’s over. Before it even started. So the whole thing? With the car? It doesn’t make any difference.”
“Is that what all this is about?” My mother shook her head. ”I thought this was about Berkeley.”
Berkeley. I’d forgotten all about it.
“Yeah, what about that?” I said. “All of a sudden I’m accepted to some school? That I didn’t even apply to?”
“I know, Stan. It’s just . . .”
“It’s just what?”
She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. She played with her skirt, which had elephants and giraffes running across it, followed by cartoon poachers. “By going there, you have a chance to finish what I started. Can you understand that?”
“But I don’t want to go to Berkeley. I want to make a movie. I want to write a movie.”
She frowned. “You do?”
“I think.”
“I’m not sure that’s the smartest idea I’ve ever heard, Stan.”
“Why not?”
“Well, for one thing, it’s something you can easily do after college. Besides, why haven’t you ever said anything about it before? Here I am driving you to the chess clubs and the dinosaur clubs and the math clubs and the algebra addicts, but never once anything about a script?”
“I work at a video store, Mom,” I said. “I watch about twelve movies a day.”
She sighed. “True. It’s just . . .”
“It’s just what?”
“After the whole thing with your uncle Stu? “
Uncle Stu was my mother’s brother. He was also small and dull and smoked long cigarettes that smelled like burnt cat.
“What about him?”
“Well, I assumed your father had told you. His script? I thought that’s where this was coming from.”
“Uncle Stu wrote a script? I thought he was retired.”
“Well, he is,” my mother said, shaking her head. “At least as a dentist. He somehow got a patient to show his script to their cousin in exchange for a bridge and two crowns. That cousin was an agent and apparently loved it. So Stu moved to Hollywood. He lived there for three years, but the movie was never made.�
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“Then what?”
“Well, as you know, your uncle is now very wealthy and living in Hawaii.”
“Did he sell his gold tooth collection?”
“No, he won a lawsuit.”
“What kind of lawsuit?”
My mother sighed deeply. “Well, his script was about a prison. A women’s prison.”
“Why didn’t I think of that?” I said, slapping my forehead.
“Yes, well, this movie that was never made was called Prison Girrlz. It seems some rapper’s group stole the name and put it on their records and Stu sued them. For a lot. Of money.”
”Rapper’s group?” I said, laughing. “Prison Girls?”
”Two R’s and a Z,” my mother said.
“No way!”
“Yes way.”
I couldn’t believe it. Just when my family was at its absolute quota of maximum weirdness. Olivia yelled “Mom!” from downstairs. Then she did it three more times, “MOM-MOMMOM!”
My mother got up. “We can talk more about this later. But for now, why don’t you go take a shower?” She held her nose and made a face. “Or two showers? And I’ll make you something to eat. And then call Keith. You’re late for work. And call Miles. He called about twenty-six times. And call Dr. Felder. You missed your appointment. He said you were ‘off the hook,’ whatever that means.”
“Okay,” I said.
As she stepped out the door I suddenly remembered the message on the back steps. Somehow I’d refused to think about it. For even a second. “Mom, did you find a doll outside?”
She looked in at me. “No, why?”
“A red doll? Like, a scary one?”
“Take a shower, Stanley,” she said, walking down the stairs.
I threw the covers on the floor and got up for the first time in a week. It was like being born. Again.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
RAGING actually pretty calm but probably hungry and not at all happy BULL
I rode into town an hour early, feeling like I owed Keith for missing (at least) two shifts. I figured I’d make it up to him by explaining the advantages of his new sprout-water diet.
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