“I’m just—I’m just in a strange mood,” I say. “Sorry. I should have stayed home.”
“That’s okay,” she says. “We can sit and talk for a while. It’s always gorgeous here.”
Always?
“I guess you’ve been here before.”
She smirks. “And you haven’t?”
“I like the stars,” I counter.
“Do you know the constellations? I’ve always wanted to learn them.” She’s sincere, willing to brush off my grumpiness and impotence and look at star patterns. Like Orion and his giant sword. Which is probably what Lauren’s looking at right now. A giant, phallic . . .
“Let’s get out of here,” I say, raising my seat back and reaching for the ignition.
“No. Wait. We just got here. We can talk about stuff.”
“Like what?” Inwardly, I groan. I want to go home, press a pillow over my head, and wait for daylight. But of course she wants to talk. She’s a girl.
“Well, I’ve been wanting to talk about Vancouver.”
“What about it?” I really have to publish that magazine article, “The Undiscovered Relationship Secret: Silence.”
“You’re going to be there next year. And if I go to UBC, I’ll be nearby.”
Too late for a graceful escape, I understand where this is going.
“My mom and dad took me to Vancouver last summer, to see the school,” she says.
“Really?” Maybe she wants to describe the campus. I hold on to that hope.
And I wonder if my mom would have taken me, shown me her favorite spots when she was a student. She would have at least asked what I was planning. Dad’s never even asked.
“UBC’s out on a point, at the very west edge of Vancouver. It’s not too far from downtown, where you’ll be if you go to the film school. About twenty minutes away.”
She just mentioned us in relation to each other in Vancouver.
“Hey, can you believe how clear it is out there?” In a fairly desperate attempt to change the subject, I lean forward to peer out the windshield. But then I accidentally focus on Orion, which makes me think of Greg and Lauren again. Orion is the only constellation I know, other than the Dippers. His stupid sword sticks out of the sky as if it’s made of neon.
“You’ll have roommates, I guess,” Hannah says. “But if I’m in residence, I’ll probably have my own dorm room.”
I sigh. She’s not going to be distracted by stars. Which means there’s only one way out of this conversation.
“Did anyone ever tell you that girls talk too much?” This time, I lean toward her, and I have to say, I’m impressively acrobatic myself.
After a while, I brush her hair out of the way and whisper in her ear. “Go back to what you were doing before.”
And she does.
chapter 16
and the parenting award of the year goes to . . .
I catch Dallas outside the bank on Sunday afternoon. He looks as if he just rolled out of bed and his initial response to being filmed isn’t too positive.
“I’ll owe you one. Or a case,” I tell him, and he reluctantly agrees.
“Okay. First question. Are you going to stick around next year, or are you heading back to Dallas?”
He runs a hand through his bedhead hair. “Did I ever tell you exactly what went down in Texas?”
“Nope.” Maybe catching people half-asleep is good. Maybe they’re more vulnerable, more willing to spill private information.
“Yeah, well, my mom took off, and not just with anybody—with the minister.”
My hands tighten on the camera. This could be perfect for the short. It could imply that Webster isn’t the only trap. The suffocation of life in a small town is universal, and people will do unexpected things to escape. Forcing myself to breathe slowly, to keep the camera absolutely steady, I try to think what to ask next. How do I get more out of him? But Dallas continues on his own.
“You know, I’m not actually from Dallas, despite the nickname y’all gave me. We lived in this oil town in the middle of nowhere. A bunch of guys making cash on the rigs, then blowing it in the bars. That town was one big party.”
It sounds like Dallas’s ideal habitat. “So you’re not going back, or you are?”
“Nah. My dad and my brother are here. I’ll try to get a job around here too. It’s kinda peaceful, you know?”
“It’s peaceful? Your house is always full of people. It’s a zoo.”
“Really?” he asks, considering.
“Um, yeah.” No house has ever been less peaceful.
“Nah, it’s friends. Hanging out, you know? I like to have people around. That’s part of why I like it here. There’s good people.”
When did this interview go off the rails? We were doing so well with the adultery and desertion references, and now we’re talking warm and fuzzy.
“So, you’re going to stay.” I’ve given up.
Dallas nods. “It’s a nice place.”
I snap the camera closed. And despite the utter uselessness of the clip, I go home and stream it into the computer. Somewhere in the interviews I’ve done and the scenes I’ve shot here and there, there must be salvageable material.
There must be. But I stare at the screen for hours without finding it.
• • •
I wake with a start, not sure if the noise was real or in my dream. My face is stuck to the keyboard. I must have fallen asleep editing. I stagger to bed.
Then, just as I’m closing my eyes, it comes again. A thunk—something hitting wood—then a scrape.
The clock reads 2:15.
Wide awake now, I get up and head for the stairs, looking for something to carry with me. The best I find is a hardcover book on my way through the rec room. The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures, Vol. 4. It doesn’t seem as lethal as I’d like, but maybe I can bash an intruder over the head with it if necessary.
The scraping sound again. It’s as if someone’s trying to wedge a piece of metal into our front door, trying to pry it open.
I stop just before the top of the stairs. I can see the front door on the landing above me, and someone’s definitely out there.
Our front door is like every other front door in town. White. Brass doorknob. Frosted glass panel on the top half. There’s something pressed against that panel right now. Someone.
I could call my dad. I would, if he hadn’t passed out after dinner. He’s probably comatose.
I could call the police. Then, even if I opened the door, I’d at least have backup on the way. Of course, by the time I call anyone, the intruder might be inside the house.
Scrape. A shoulder shoves against the door with a thud.
Backup would be good.
Okay, I have a plan. I’m going to haul open the door and catch this bastard. At the same time, I’m going to yell like hell for my dad. That way, even if I’m outmatched, I only have to last minutes until it’s two-on-one. Assuming Dad wakes up.
I press myself against the wall, then reach to curl my fingers around the cold metal of the doorknob, careful not to show myself in the glass. With my other hand, I raise The American Film Institute Catalog above my head.
One . . . two . . . deep breath . . . three . . .
“Dad! Dad!”
Hollering like a crazy man, I whip open the door so fast the intruder actually falls into the house, landing facedown in the dark, his feet still outside. I throw myself over him, straddling his waist, ready to slam the book into his skull—
“Cole?”
This is my backup. But the voice isn’t coming from the living room or from Dad’s bedroom. The voice is coming from the floor.
I chuck the book to the side, and it hits the closet door like a brick.
I can’t even swear. That’s how hard my heart is pounding.
I slide off Dad and sit on the vinyl floor of the landing, leaning my head against the wall and breathing in the smell of my own sweat. The front door’s still open
and the streetlight’s glow seeps in along with the cold air.
“Guess I scared you, eh?” Dad says. He’s managed to roll onto his back, but his chest is heaving. I must have knocked the wind out of him. “I always said you were built like a brick shit house,” he wheezes.
“And just as smart.” I finish the joke for him, but I’m not finding it very funny at the moment. “You almost got your block knocked off by a first-edition film catalog.”
“A what?”
“That book! I almost cracked your skull open with the book!” What a headline that would be. Son knocks out father with secondhand hardcover. That book was hard to find, too. I’d hate to have wrecked it.
“That was the best you could do for a weapon?” Dad asks. “What kind of guy attacks someone with a book?”
“What kind of guy tries to break into his own house?”
For some reason, Dad finds this hilarious. And maybe it is because it’s the middle of the night, but when he gasps, “My keys. I couldn’t get my keys in the damned hole,” he’s laughing so hard that he’s wiping tears from his eyes. A dog starts to bark outside.
“We should close the door,” Dad says finally, catching his breath a little.
“You’re in the door,” I tell him. As he struggles to remove himself from the threshold, it becomes even more obvious why his keys weren’t working. He’s piss drunk.
“How did you even get out there?” I ask. “You were asleep in the living room.”
“I guess I woke up.” Dad drags himself to standing, staggers into the wall, rights himself, turns with the careful deliberation of a robot, and heads for his room.
“Don’t worry. I’ll lock up,” I call after him, scowling. How am I supposed to live an independent life if my dad can’t unlock his own front door? How am I supposed to leave town?
He raises one hand to wave a vague thank-you and continues toward bed.
I should have whacked him on the head after all, I think as I stumble back downstairs. Or I should have called the police for backup so they could have had a talk with him about decent parenting skills.
Now it looks like I’m in charge of having that talk.
• • •
“We can’t keep going like this.”
Dad eyes me warily from the kitchen table, where he’s clutching a mug of coffee. The first touch of morning sun glimmers though the side window. In film terms, it’s the magic hour. Dawn brightens the street, but as a car drives past, its headlights are still on. Perfect lighting for an imperfect scene.
“Going like what?” Dad asks.
“This.” I try to put the whole weight of our situation into one word.
“Not getting you, Cole.”
“There’s no food in the fridge. The house looks like crap. You haven’t shaved. And you’re probably still drunk from last night. How are you going to go to work?”
“I’m fine. I just had a few with some friends at the hotel.”
I give up, stomp into the living room, and collapse on the couch. This is messed up. I shouldn’t be responsible for having this conversation. It’s all backward. This isn’t in my job description. He’s supposed to be the parent, not me.
The silence grows uncomfortably long. My breath seems too loud.
“We could move, you know,” I yell finally.
“What?” he calls.
“We could move. Head to the coast or somewhere new, where we don’t know anyone.”
“What the hell are you going on about?” When Dad comes out of the kitchen, he’s looking at me as if I’ve grown two heads.
“I’m saying we have to change something.”
He grunts. “I wouldn’t worry about that. I have a feeling things are going to start changing, whether we like it or not.”
What the hell is that supposed to mean? I stare at the carpet, wondering how, exactly, to fix this situation. Even if we didn’t change cities, we could change houses. Move to an apartment, maybe. At some point, Dad’s going to be living here by himself. Selling the house would be terrible, though. We’d have to clean out Mom’s things. We’d have to clean up, and that could possibly kill us.
But something has to change.
I assume Dad is thinking about this too, until he turns away.
“I’m going to work,” he proclaims. “You should get your ass to school.”
Great. That went just perfectly. If filmmaking doesn’t work out, I’ll be sure to put drug and alcohol counselor on my list of career options.
As the door shuts behind him, I squeeze my head in my hands as if I might squish a solution from my brain. And I do, eventually, once I calm down enough to think straight. The answer is this: I’m leaving town. Whether or not my dad can keep his life together, I’m getting out.
chapter 17
male bonding: the mockumentary
Greg and I are killing zombies. He’s killing most of them by himself since he gets absorbed in the game and forgets to share the controller. But that’s okay. Tonight, I’m content to sit on his living room couch and provide moral support.
His date with Lauren went really badly.
This probably shouldn’t make me so happy. I want Lauren to move on. That girl deserves everything she wants out of life. But not necessarily now. And not with Greg.
I smile, just as Greg blows the head off some dead creature with a chain-saw-massacre-style blood splatter. He takes my expression for approval. Apparently, this new gaming system was a present from his dad, probably to make up for bailing on the marriage.
“Good graphics,” I say.
At least there’s no sign of a stripper in his dad’s life. Maybe Greg’s not fully appreciating what he now has: two available parents, two bedroom choices, and a supply of guilt-driven gifts. Some would say he’s got it made. He should probably stay home and enjoy it instead of chasing certain ex-girlfriends.
I find myself grinning again. Greg told me Lauren had seemed into things at first. Then they drove over the border for pizza and couldn’t find anything to talk about in the car. On the way home, Lauren had some sort of food poisoning and threw up. Basically, their relationship is doomed.
“I don’t think zombie blood would actually spurt,” I say as he kills another batch. “Aren’t they already dead? Do you think their hearts still beat?”
Greg snorts and turns up the volume.
“Watch this,” he says, switching to the sniper rifle. Zooming in, he targets one across a courtyard and fires. There’s the blood spurt again. And this time, a single eye pops from the zombie’s head and rolls onto the cobblestones.
If there’s one thing in the world that would be a turnoff for Greg, it’s a girl throwing up in his car. He loves that car. In video game terms: epic fail.
“Nice shot,” I say.
“I should play video games for a living.” He nods.
“If we were getting paid, we’d be loaded right now. I think we’ve been playing for five hours.”
“I’m going to be like that kid in the news who had a seizure,” he says.
“Or the guy who dropped dead after forty-eight straight hours of online raiding.”
“Cool,” Greg says.
Then, after a minute, he hits pause and rests his head on the back of the couch. “We couldn’t do this with Lauren and Hannah, you know.”
“Nope.”
“So who needs ’em?”
“Exactly.”
• • •
The next night, as Greg and I sit at a wrought-iron table on the sidelines of the school Halloween dance, I’m thinking I should have taken his theory more seriously. We should have stayed home and played video games.
For one thing, Lex has been glaring at me all night. She’s about the height of a Wizard of Oz munchkin, so it shouldn’t be disconcerting. But it is.
“You’re right, you know. Women are just as bad as everyone says,” I tell Greg, yelling over the music.
“Nope,” he says.
“Seriously?”
/> “They’re worse.” He scowls, crossing his arms over his chest.
Lex is pouring punch at the table along the side wall of the gym. Between filling glasses, she pauses to sneer at me again. I shake my head. Lex and I have never been close, but she’s Lauren’s best friend. We’ve spent a lot of time together, and she’s never given me the evil eye before.
“Why is she doing that? Do you think she hates doctors?” I’m dressed in a lab coat because Hannah was desperate to wear a sexy nurse costume and convinced that we had to dress in coordinating outfits. Her idea, not mine. But after seeing her in her white miniskirt and those stockings . . . Well, if all I had to do was turn up at the Halloween dance with a stethoscope, that seems a small concession.
Greg is chewing on a stalk of wheat. Other than that, he’s dressed in the same clothes he wears every day. According to him, he’s in costume as a farmer.
He mumbles something around the wheat, but I can’t hear him over the music.
“What?”
He removes the stalk. “She doesn’t hate doctors,” he yells. “She hates you.”
I nod. “But why?”
“Can we talk about this later? I’m watching your girlfriend dance.”
I shoot Greg a look. It seems a little early to be commenting about another girlfriend of mine. But the guy has such an expression of joy on his face, it’s hard to take that away. Who can blame him? Hannah is gyrating against a vampire. A witch, an alien, and some sort of odd tree/clothesline combination are dancing around her.
“That girl is like a porch light attracting moths,” Greg says.
“You know that kills the moths, right?”
“Who cares? You’re a lucky man, Cole.”
Hannah now has an alien grinding against her. Shifting out of his crotch reach, she beckons me to the dance floor. I’m considering it when something icy and wet sluices over my head and down my neck.
“What the—?” I leap to my feet, wiping my face on my arm so I can see. Lex is standing beside my chair, empty glass clutched in her fist. Her teeth are clenched and her limbs are tensed like the psycho girl in a Quentin Tarantino film.
“How can you just sit there like everything’s normal?” she spits.
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