I open my mouth, then close it again. Isn’t everything normal? This seems like a trick question.
“Do you know where Lauren is tonight? She’s at home, feeling like crap.”
“Okay . . .” What does she want me to do about this?
“She’s a mess!” Lex says, as if I might have missed the point.
“Sorry?” I offer.
“You’re not sorry.” Lex has a very strange way of moving her lips more than is necessary to form her words. I’ve noticed it before, but it’s more obvious when her face is this close to mine.
“Lex, it’s more than three—no, four—months after Lauren and I broke up, and I’m supposed to know that she has the flu?”
Normally I would be mad. I do, after all, have a trail of sticky juice trickling down my back. But I’m starting to wonder if Lex is having some sort of mental break. It might be best to keep her calm.
“Lex, you know I’m not a real doctor, right? This is a costume. Cos-tume.” From the corner of my eye, I see Greg crack up.
Lex throws her cup at me this time. She’s only a hairsbreadth away from me and the cup is plastic. I don’t think it has quite the effect she’s hoping for.
“You’re a bastard.”
With one last glare, she turns and stalks out of the gym.
I collapse back in my chair. Greg is laughing so hard he’s wiping tears from his eyes. He extracts a flask from his pocket and passes it over.
“Like I said,” he yells. “You’re a lucky man.”
Hannah is waving me toward her again. When I shake my head, she comes to get me, hands outstretched. Her breasts . . . well, they cannot be contained by that nurse uniform.
“Come dance,” she shouts.
“I can’t!” I lift my arms, exposing my purple-with-punch lab coat.
“What happened?”
“An unsatisfied patient.”
“Poor thing!” She leans toward me, smiling. “We’d better go. I can nurse you back to health.”
It is the best offer I’ve had all night and I allow myself to be led from the gym.
“Lucky man,” Greg calls after me. “You’re a lucky man.”
Which could be true, if Hannah comes home with me. And if Dad’s out of the house. And if I can concentrate on this girl’s nursing skills, not on the crapload of craziness in life. If all those things happen, I might possibly be a lucky man.
• • •
Dad got a load of logs delivered for firewood. I get home from a trip downtown on Sunday to find him bucking them with his chain saw.
When I see him in his work shirt, sweat stains spreading from beneath his arms, and when I smell the mix of gasoline and dusty-sweet sawdust hanging in the cold air, it’s like a dose of relief is injected into my veins. I feel it traveling through me. I guess I hadn’t realized how worried I’ve been that Dad might become permanently sunk in his recliner, remote control in one hand and beer in the other. Maybe I’ve been waiting for the day when he doesn’t haul himself up in time for work.
I’m about to offer my help when I see the beer sitting on a stump, a few steps away.
Of course he couldn’t leave his drink inside.
I stomp by him and into the house. Over the buzz of the blade cutting into the next block of fir and the chips flying like wood turned to waterfalls, I doubt he even notices I’m home.
Now I need a beer.
Upstairs, I crack open a bottle and wander to the kitchen window, where I can peer down into the driveway. Dad’s got a rhythm going. The chain saw slices through as if the log’s a jelly roll. Sweep, sweep, sweep and the tree lies in pieces, ready to be axed into woodstove-size chunks. Dad’s done this every fall that I can remember. A couple years ago, my mom and I would have been out there with him, rolling hunks of wood out of his way and, later, stacking the chopped pieces into a neat, jigsaw-puzzle pile under the overhang of the carport.
Below me, Dad pauses to arrange a new log. He sets the chain saw on a large stump in the middle of the driveway. Then he kicks some rounds out of the way and begins to roll a new log into position.
The chain saw’s still roaring.
As I watch, it vibrates its way through a slow circle, the blade getting closer and closer to the backs of Dad’s legs as he struggles with the next log. He’s not looking.
I glance at the stairs, calculating the amount of time it will take me to run down to the garage door, skirt past the saw, and alert Dad to the danger. Too long. The blade will be at his leg before then. I could bang on the window. But even if he hears me above the motor, he might step back into the blade when he turns.
There’s no way to warn him. It’s like watching a horror film when you know the murderer’s lurking in the next room and the lead actor steps closer and closer. All you want to do is shout at the screen, but there’s no way you can stop the lead as he puts his hand on the handle and the door creaks open. . . .
Here, there’s nothing to do but stand with my breath locked in my lungs, one hand clenched around my beer bottle so tightly the glass might shatter. The saw blade rattles on its stump, creeping still nearer.
He turns. At the last possible moment, he turns. With a surprised look at the blade, Dad dances out of the way and steps around to grasp the handle. Then, without much of a pause (because, unlike me, he hasn’t spent the last moments in a frozen panic) and without glancing up (because he doesn’t know I was about to watch him amputate a limb on our driveway), he’s bucking the next log. Slice, slice, slice, so casually it should be illegal.
I consider locking myself in my room. Next year, I’m not going to be around. If he cuts himself up, he’ll bleed out before anyone notices. Part of me thinks he may as well practice his independence now. But of course, I put my half-empty beer in the sink, dig my work boots out of the closet, and head outside.
Once there, I take a deep breath. There’s really nothing better than the smell of freshly cut wood and air just cold enough to remind you that you’ll need the woodstove soon. If I help stack the damn wood one last time, it’s not because I’m going to stick around and become Dad’s safety net. It’s because I happen to like the smell of sawdust.
After I roll a few sections out of the way, Dad turns off the saw. He holds it in one fist, as if it’s as light as a beer, and wipes his face on his other sleeve.
“You know Sheri?” he says.
“Not as well as you do.”
“Don’t be a smart-ass.”
This is somewhat deserved, and I remain silent as I roll another log.
“That night you picked us up on the street, that wasn’t the first time I seen her.”
You know, there are appropriate places for this sort of thing. In Catholic churches, for example. There are dark, carved-wood booths with heavy curtains across the front where you can confess your sins to a priest instead of your son.
“I mean, it hasn’t been all that long,” he says. “And I sure as hell didn’t plan for this to happen, but . . .”
“Whatever, Dad. No worries. I’m going to go over to Greg’s for a while.” If he’s going to emote about Sheri, he can buck the logs by himself and cut off his leg for all I care.
“I’m trying to tell you something here. Will you hold your horses for a damned minute?”
“You know what? I don’t really want to hear it. Mom’s been gone barely more than a year. A year. It’s bad enough that you’re screwing a stripper. Now you want to tell me your love story? I don’t want to hear it.” I give the log a kick, which hurts, and which also feels a little juvenile after I’ve done it. I suppose I can’t be the mature one in this family a hundred percent of the time.
“Sheri’s expecting.”
“Expecting what?”
“She’s pregnant.”
“She’s what?” I was worried about the chain saw, and he’s dropping fucking atomic bombs.
“Sheri’s pregnant,” Dad says, not looking at me. He’s gazing out over the street as if the answer to his problems
might drive up. He’s still holding the chain saw. This is good because if it were on the stump, I might be tempted to pick it up and use it as a weapon. I might make that horror film into a reality.
“She told me a few days ago,” he says. “The night when—”
“She’s pregnant,” I repeat, interrupting. “That’s great.”
Dad looks momentarily hopeful.
“So, you going to raise the kid on beer? Pay for its college tuition with Sheri’s stripping wages? That’s great, Dad. Fucking fantastic. Where the hell is this kid going to live?”
“We haven’t talked about that yet,” he says. “I sorta thought Sheri might move in.”
I can’t hear about this anymore. The idea of Sheri’s stuff taking residence in my mom’s dresser drawers seems momentously obscene. Worse than Sheri having a baby. A freakin’ baby! My dad’s old enough to be a grandpa. What the hell kind of forty-year-old man gets a stripper pregnant?
“Let me know when you have it all figured out,” I spit. I kick the log again. I can’t help it. Then I take off down the hill. If I could keep going and never set foot in the house again, that would be completely fine by me.
chapter 18
useful life skills, such as origami
I’ve barricaded myself in the rec room downstairs, so I don’t pay any attention to the doorbell until I hear her voice.
“Mr. Owens,” Hannah gushes. “It’s so nice to finally meet you. I’m Hannah, a friend of Cole’s from school.” Nice. She shows up at the front door—not the basement door, like any normal human being—and rings the bell. She may as well start selling Girl Scout cookies.
My lecherous, baby-making dad is putty in her hands. I think he’s actually drooling by the time I scramble upstairs. And no wonder. She’s wearing high leather boots in a style no Girl Scout has ever worn.
“Did you want to come in for lunch?” he asks Hannah. “I make a mean grilled cheese.”
Or you could kill me now and save me the torture of a “family” meal.
“We’re going out for lunch,” I blurt.
Hannah’s eyes widen, but she says nothing. Just smiles.
“You . . . have a good . . . have fun,” Dad says, like a TV parent who’s forgotten his next line.
I stomp out of the house, taking Hannah’s hand to make sure she follows me down the stairs. Months of careful avoidance on my part and she practically ruined it by showing up at the front door and introducing herself to my dad. As “a friend from school,” so I can’t even legitimately be mad at her for overstepping the boundaries of our casual relationship. Next thing you know, she’ll be applying to babysit the newborn.
When I glance at her from the corner of my eye, she’s smiling. Why would I want to go to lunch with someone so underhanded?
This is the last time I’m getting conned, I can say that much.
Hannah pretends to be oblivious. The whole way downtown, she tells me about her dreams of dog ownership. Fortunately, before I have to hear the word “labradoodle” for the sixth or seventh time, we run into Greg outside Burger Barn. Now they can entertain each other while they stuff themselves with cheeseburgers and hot chocolates.
“How’s your coffee?” Hannah smiles across the table at me.
“Bad.”
She slides her mug over. “Why are you drinking it then? Share mine.”
I shake my head. I need to acquire a taste for coffee. I’m pretty sure Spike Lee and Errol Morris don’t drink cocoa.
Greg takes a long slurp. “Delicious.”
I glare at him.
He finishes his burger with a loud belch and apologizes to Hannah. Then he leans back in the booth, arms behind his head, eyes scanning the street.
There’s an insider hierarchy to Burger Barn seating. The red booths run parallel to Canyon Street. If you sit with your back to the street, like I am, you have a view of the pimpled tenth-grade kids who work flipping burgers. It’s not too exciting. If you sit facing the street, as Greg and Hannah have chosen to do, you see everything. You see who’s bought a new car, what new couple is driving around together, or what ninth-grade kid is dying of embarrassment while his mother holds his hand on the sidewalk.
Greg loves to sit facing the street. And to tell you the truth, it doesn’t matter to me. Whatever’s going on out there is an encore of what went on the week before and the year before that and probably the whole generation before that. It only seems different, temporarily.
Besides, I can read the news off their faces. Right now, without turning, I can tell by the constant honking and Hannah’s sappy expression that there’s a procession of wedding cars cruising by, probably festooned with plastic pink and white flowers. Yup, there’s the rattle of the tin cans.
“Do you guys want to get married and have kids?” Hannah asks.
I suck in a breath through my teeth. I should tell them. Tell them about Dad and Sheri, the baby. I should warn them, because who knows when the woman is going to turn up in our house with a watermelon belly?
Instead of answering Hannah’s question, Greg blurts, “My dad wants my sister and me to move into the apartment with him.”
Hannah and I both gape. Here I’m trying to ease into my shocking news and Greg flings his on the grill like a Burger Barn double patty.
“When? When did he say that?” I ask.
But we all get distracted before he can answer. A couple of nutcases are screaming at each other as they pull their crew cab into the parking lot. They’re so loud, even I turn around to look.
“You want to do this right now?” A dark-haired woman is hollering, leaping down from the truck. “Right now?”
The sound carries through the windows and cinder-block walls.
I don’t recognize the couple. Maybe they’re tourists, passing through. Though they don’t look like typical vacationers. They’re both tall and skinny—too skinny—with that slouched-shoulder posture that says they don’t spend their time drinking green tea and eating whole grains. They drag two little kids out of the backseat and they pull them into the restaurant, plunk them in a booth, and shove a drink in front of each. Then they head out the door.
When I turn back to the table, Hannah’s wince and Greg’s scowl have reached new extremes.
“Dad asked us a couple nights ago,” Greg says. “My sister and I are supposed to decide for ourselves.”
“That’s crazy!” Hannah protests. “How are you supposed to decide that?”
“Yeah. My sister said right away she was staying with Mom, but I don’t know. . . .”
I feel a surge of anger on Greg’s behalf. Maybe I’m feeling a little sensitive to bad parenting at the moment or maybe I just understand how unfair it feels. You think you’re living a normal life, then suddenly your world gets tipped by something out of your control. It is unfair. One more year and Greg would have been getting his own place. One more year and I’d have been gone and I never would have had to face my house the way it is right now.
The tourist couple is screaming at each other again. Screaming. Right in the parking lot. As if the inside of Burger Barn is soundproof and their kids and the rest of us won’t hear.
“She thinks she can just walk into my house and organize everything, fuckin’ take over,” the woman yells.
“If you weren’t passed out on the damn couch, she wouldn’t have to take over.”
“You were supposed to wake me up!”
“Now there’s a happy marriage for you,” I say.
“Those poor kids,” Hannah whispers.
My eyes slide toward them—a boy and a girl, both too young for school. They’re drinking their milk shakes without talking, without glancing out the window or looking around. The smaller one—maybe three or four years old—is kicking his feet against the table leg in a low, constant drum.
“As least their parents got them milk shakes,” Greg says.
“I don’t think that counts as good decision making,” Hannah replies.
Greg is obse
ssively folding and refolding our napkins, as if he belongs in a loony bin. I can hardly blame him. I’d like to go outside and shut those people up.
“What are you going to do?” I say, trying to focus on the problems at my own table.
Greg’s gaze flicks toward the kids.
“I mean about your dad,” I clarify.
His cheeks puff as he blows a long breath. “What if he has a girlfriend? Do you think that’s why he moved out? If I go with him, my mom will freak out and I’ll be living with my dad and some—”
“Stripper,” I finish. I know we’re both picturing a bleached-blond woman staggering down Canyon Street with my dad.
Hannah looks mildly confused, but I don’t bother to explain. If she doesn’t already know what Sheri does for a living, she can ask around town and get the whole story.
“Would you move in with your dad, assuming there wasn’t a stripper?” I ask.
What about when my dad moves in with his stripper? The idea’s like a medicine ball to my gut. I start to freak out even thinking about it.
“Maybe.” The way Greg is scowling, no one would want to live with him. His eyebrows drawn together and his teeth clenched, he looks like Cro-Magnon man. He should live in a cave somewhere.
Outside, the woman puts both hands on the guy’s shoulders and shoves. She must be stronger than she looks because he hits the window with a vibrating thud. Every customer in the place stares except the kids. Those two gaze resolutely at the tabletop.
With more yelling, the guy shoves her back.
“This is ridiculous.” I slam down my coffee cup and stand up. Maybe I can’t do anything about Sheri or Greg’s dad, but I can definitely put a stop to this situation.
Hannah, with stunt-girl dexterity, scrambles over the back of the booth and leaps between me and the door.
“Cole, what are you doing?” she says.
I glance over my shoulder. Greg is standing behind me, as I knew he would be. He’s still holding his napkins, though, which is a bit weird.
“Hannah, get out of the way.”
“You’re going to end up in a fight. And fighting those two, in front of their kids, is not going to fix things,” she says. She’s sort of whispering, as if that will keep the kids from hearing. Fat chance.
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