Noah emerged from the living room fully dressed and slapped his brother’s back congenially. “Would’ve ruined the surprise!” he bellowed.
“What surprise?” I was genuinely curious.
“Well, I was hoping you could babysit.” Noah explained.
“Uh, oh yeah of course. I thought Jessica was going to get a new bed. Do you want me to go?” I looked curiously at Mrs. Merchant then back at Noah. Mrs. Merchant had a Mona Lisa smile on. Noah’s seemed more like the Joker.
“No, I’m going to go. I need to spend some time with this little Squirt.” He began chasing Jessica around the table.
“Then who do you want me to watch?” I asked.
Noah stood upright and let himself be tackled. “I was hoping you might take my dud of a brother out and show him how to be young for the day.” Turning to David he continued “You’re off work today, right man?” I looked at David, careful to maintain focus in the general region of his face.
David eyed Noah suspiciously and gave a cautious “Right.”
“So what do you say, Squirt? Do you think Andy should show David how to have fun today?” Noah asked Jessica.
“Yeah!” she cheered.
David told me it wasn’t necessary, that he knew how to use a day off. Noah scoffed. “What would you do? Laundry? You need a local guide and we’ve got one right here. Don’t say no. You need a break and I need some time with my favorite girl.”
Jessica hugged Noah and kissed his cheek then bounced over to me and in a stage whisper informed me that David really likes merry-go-rounds and ice cream. David agreed.
Mrs. Merchant laid a full plate in front of me. “Here’s your breakfast, Andy. We’re going to go. You kids have fun.” Noah was already ushering Jessica out the door, who yelled “Kids?!? They’re not kids.” and bounced merrily out. Mrs. Merchant removed her apron and set it down on the counter next to the stove, then gave us a smile and a nod, picked her purse up and walked out.
David and I were left in the suddenly quiet kitchen looking at each other. He smiled, which I couldn’t recall seeing before, and looked instantly years younger. He took a deep breath and looked toward the door the trio had just left through.
“You don’t have to do this, you know.” He told me again.
“I know. It’ll be fun. You deserve a break and I have cleared my schedule for this occasion.” I said.
He took a deep breath and stretched his arms out wide and then clapped his hands together in front of him. “Okay, what should we do?” He asked completely unaware that he was half-naked or that it made me feel oddly buzzed.
“Shower.” I said. He looked at me for a moment, then it seemed to click.
“Oh yeah, right! I’ll be right back.” He looked happy. I smiled as he bounded for the bathroom and then dug into my breakfast.
He emerged fifteen minutes later. He was clean, shaven and dressed in a pair of jeans and a graphic print T-shirt looking every bit like any one of my friends. I successfully resisted the urge to snoop in the room he shared with Noah. I’d hardly have had time anyway.
He stood a little taller now looking a little like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. How long had it been since he had a day off from being a father? Three years? Four? It crossed my mind that he could probably stand to loosen up.
I announced that I was driving and he didn’t complain. He seemed game for anything. As we buckled into my virtually ancient CJ7, I confessed that I’d never been asked to sit for a grown-up before.
“A grown up? Geez, you make me feel old. I’m just a few years older than you are – not exactly a generation.”
“Unless you’re Jessica. That’s her whole life.” I was joking. He didn’t think it was funny.
After an awkward pause, I suggested starting with some coffee. He wasn’t going to hold my attempt at humor against me and said coffee sounded good. I was glad he intended to have a good day, because I knew exactly where to take him.
A few minutes later we arrived at Under Ground, the coffee shop where Nan sometimes worked. I knew she’d be there today and she didn’t disappoint – looking flashy in a bright pink dress. It hugged her thin frame and gave hints of the beautiful young woman she had once been. She was still the highlight of many an old-timer’s day here at the coffee shop. By day it brewed coffee, by night it served liquor. All day it smelled sort of funny.
We grabbed a café table in between the door and the counter. Nan descended on us like a kite touching down. “Andy and David, to what do I owe the pleasure?” she purred in classic Southern Belle.
“I’m babysitting David. He needs a non-grown-up kind of day.” I explained.
Nan seemed to consider this for a moment and David filled the empty silence with an unnecessary explanation about the shopping trip and his free day. Nan didn’t need the explanation because she knew everything there was to know about not-grown-up kind of days.
“You driving, sweet pea?” she asked me.
“Yep.” I said, knowing she was thinking what I was thinking.
“How old are you boy?” she questioned David
“21” he said with a quizzical look.
“You telling me the truth?” she squinted her eyes at him as though she could see the truth that way.
“Uh, yes.” He said.
I gathered he thought she was trying to decide if he was too old for me, but I knew why Nan was asking and it’s the reason I brought him here.
“Okay then, I’ll make you my Special. And for you, sweet pea, the unleaded version.” She was off in a cloud of perfume and swirling fabric.
“She’s making you a decaf?” he asked.
“Something like that.” I responded.
Nan’s Special was reserved for friends and family who were in need of a little extra something in the morning. I don’t know what’s in it, but I figured Rum was a pretty good bet for starters.
She returned and informed David “Just one for you, sugar. And y’all have a nice mornin’”
She spent the rest of our time there visiting with the regulars and occasionally peeking over. David’s coffee mug was filled with a murky brown liquid. He made a cartoonish face on the first sip, but it went down like butter after that. My coffee was spiked with hazelnut creamer. Yay Nan. When the alcohol started to warm David’s insides, it loosened his tongue as well. I asked him the same question I had asked Noah, why he was here. It seemed to me that most people who didn’t start in Palmetto ended up here for some reason or another, but most didn’t come here unless they had to. He told me how much he had liked college, getting away from home and just being with other people. But after a while, there always seemed to be something with Jessica. Her mom took off, Noah was useless and their mother didn’t care.
“My grandmother was pretty strict and judgmental when my mother was young. Mom rebelled and met my dad, who got her pregnant. They were married for a long time, but it was never really happy. He felt trapped and she felt trapped. He cheated all the time, but she ignored it because she had nowhere else to go. Eventually he found someone else and left us.
We visited with my grandmother that summer when they were still trying to save things, but it was so tense. Noah and I got caught in the middle – grandma criticized how she was raising us. Mom blew up and we went back to California before the end of the summer. ” He said.
Now that he mentioned it, I had some vague recollection of a couple of boys at Mrs. Merchant’s house that summer. They never played with me or Kate, just kind of kept to themselves and then they were gone.
“She was an absentee mom from that day on.” He said. “ Noah thought it was pretty great, but somebody had to make sure the lunches were made, the laundry got washed and the light bill got paid. You know, I should thank her, I guess. I was the most mature college freshman I knew, but mostly I’ve resented her for making me grow up before I should have.”
“Dad was worse.” He continued. “He’s a narcissist. How’s that for what I learned in p
sych class?” He let out an unhumorous chuckle. I smiled weakly. He was on a roll and I wasn’t going to interrupt. “For my dad, it’s all about him. He’s not happy unless he’s doing great and someone else is getting screwed. He doesn’t have good excuses. He just does whatever feels good to him at any given time. He could have remembered to send child support. He just didn’t.”
“Finding out she was going to be a grandmother didn’t increase my mom’s maternal feelings at all. She talked pretty big about how she was going to be an awesome grandma and help guide Holly and Jessica and she’d be so much better than her mother was to her. It was just talk. When Holly bailed our mom hardly even tried to stay in touch with her. She barely looks at Jessica and when she does, it’s mostly like she’s a nuisance. It pisses me off. Jessica didn’t ask for any of this. ”
After graduation and the passing out incident, David knew something needed to be done. Mrs. Merchant really was the only family they had although they visited her very rarely growing up. Trixie and Mrs. Merchant had a falling out when Trixie was a teenager, which I’d already heard about from Nan. The relationship never quite healed and that meant her sons had a duty to be loyal to their mother.
“Family has to stick together, you know? But the older I got, the more I realized what a flake mom was, how she never really raised us. We raised ourselves. I raised Noah. It wasn’t fair, but life isn’t fair.”
After a moment, he raised his empty mug and looked inside. “What is in this?”
“Truth serum.” I deadpanned.
He laughed loudly and nearly fell out of his café chair. Nan swooped in quickly.
“I guess you’re feelin’ pretty good by now.” She bemused.
“Yes, ma’am” he snickered.
“Andy, you take good care of him. He’s gonna need a meal pretty soon and maybe a little something sweet.” She chirped the word sweet and winked at me. I blushed. David didn’t notice.
I knew just the place to go. Somewhere that would make Jessica happy. We started with mini-golf, which was going swimmingly for me because David could not golf in his present condition. Kate texted wanting to know where I was and I texted back. Within 15 minutes ten of my friends were there. Then the fun really began. David was quite good at the video games, even tipsy. Kate pulled me aside when we stopped to eat.
“Are you on a date? What happened to Noah? It’s like some Shakespearean play, you’ve fallen in love with two brothers.” She squealed with delight.
“Relax Kate. I’m not involved in a sordid love triangle. Noah and I are just friends. David and I are friends too.” I explained
“Uh huh.” She said, looking like she didn’t believe me and then checking out David who was out of earshot.
“Noah asked me to take David out today to goof off and take a break from being a single dad.” I explained.
“A what?” she nearly screamed. I shushed her.
Kate was out of the loop. Clearly it had been ages since we talked. I filled her in on what I knew of the brothers, Jessica and Mrs. Merchant. We used the fast shorthand talk of longtime friends. I felt so sad that I wouldn’t have her with me in Los Angeles. It would be nearly impossible to function without her.
“Well that is definitely some family drama.” She conceded quickly. “Still, he looks pretty good from behind.” She looked admiringly again at David.
David had barely noticed my absence, it seemed. He made fast friends with some of the group and I noticed he’d caught at least one girl’s eye. He had a lot in common with Noah, I suppose.
I felt awkward at lunch, torn between trying to make David feel like a part of the group and just enjoying myself. I tried to do both. Kate started buzzing on again about a going away party. I always protested. I was going across the country to college, not dying, but to her it was the same. She imagined herself in college next year with many of the same kids she already knew, swimming in a pool that she’d peed in long ago. She envied my courage. A part of me envied the predictability of her future. Statistically speaking, she would meet her future husband in college, marry him a few years out and have kids and live within 15 square miles of home. She could watch this place change and grow, grumble about the good old days while sipping tea on her porch.
My future had no guidebook, no map. I could just as easily fail as succeed. I had picked anthropology as my major because I had to pick something and it allowed a lot of general education classes. My new pool could just as easily contain flesh-eating bacteria.
So while the world of John and Diana, who had been a couple since they could read and whose names were always said in a single breath, was virtually laid out before them – mine was a mystery. I felt myself growing anxious and suddenly homesick. Maybe a little really sick too.
David interrupted my neurotic mental spiral. “You doing okay?”
I snapped out of it and said that I was.
“It’s just that I’ve seen that look before. Usually right before someone hurls.” He had a hand on my back and I felt the back of my neck get hot. The food was not agreeing with me, but I protested anyway.
“No, I’m not going to hurl.” I insisted.
I was wrong. Oh so very wrong. The next couple of hours seemed to be nothing but hurling. David took me home and Kate came too. I hurled in the hall, in the Jeep, on the ground. After I got home and while I was hurling, I thought of all the words and expressions there were for throwing up: vomit, barf, gag, hurl, hurk yak, spew chunks, regurgitate… it was the only thing that managed to keep my mind off of the awfulness.
My parents were at work, so David and Kate took turns holding my hair, bringing me ice and crackers. At one point David asked to borrow my phone and I handed him my cell. He was gone for several minutes while I contemplated the slow painful death that was taking me. A shower seemed like a good idea suddenly and I turned on the water and climbed in fully clothed. David returned.
“Uh, okay, that’s different. Is that helping?” He asked.
“Yeah” I croaked.
“Well, I have bad news.” He said.
“What’s that?” I couldn’t imagine anything worse than this.
“My grandmother doesn’t have any magic remedies.” He said.
I groaned, but he gave me an idea. “Call Nan. Maybe she knows some…” I didn’t finish. I was sincerely dry heaving now.
Kate helped him find the number and Nan arrived shortly. She immediately pulled David aside and he left the room. She spoke with Kate too, who also disappeared. In the bathroom she looked a little too frail as if worry were stealing her usual vibrance. She held a small half sphere tab out to me.
“Put it under your tongue and let it dissolve.” She instructed.
“What is it?” I sobbed.
“Doesn’t matter, it will help.” She said soothingly.
I’m not going to call it a miracle pill, but it did help. When Kate returned from the store with some club soda and I realized David was gone for the day, I stripped my clothes off and laid on the shower floor until my stomach was no longer trying to claw its way out of my body. Kate spent the afternoon watching romantic comedies in my bed and occasionally checking up on me. She got her mom’s permission to spend the night and her snoring and wild elbows were a comfort during my fitful sleep. Sometime before dawn, I was finally out cold. When I woke up, my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth. My head was throbbing and I had a general unease in my stomach. I was ravenous, but also afraid of what might happen if I ate, so I stuck with crackers and club soda.
I took my snack to the backyard and sat in the tire swing that I had long ago grown too big for. Every corner of my yard and my house held memories. A cooling breeze blew gently and the sounds of my yard seemed muted in reverence to a young life that was over. A new, adult life waited for me.
I could see the corner of my yard where my mother tried, and failed miserably, at growing a garden. It was the same corner where I first met Kate, a scrawny girl with dirty knees and an unfortunate bob haircut
. I loved her instantly. We climbed the fence in that corner and practically lived in each other’s homes, adopted sisters made out of only children.
Kate showed me the first tooth that she lost before she told her parents and we spent an entire afternoon gravely discussing the tooth fairy and how much money she might leave while sipping lemonade under the big tree. She let me touch the gap where the tooth had been and explained how she wiggled and twisted it free.
There was the spot exactly 50 7-year-old steps from that tree where we dug for buried treasure and then, finding none, tried to dig a hole to China. We climbed trees, skinned our knees and speculated on the birds and the bees in this backyard.
Once I left for college, it would never be the same again. My heart felt a little heavy and I tried to remember what it felt like to be 9 years old and think that boys were yucky and that I’d never grow up. I was supposed to be happy to escape small town life, happy to move away and I was sure that I was. It was all I ever wanted. Still, I knew that my dad would cut down that tire swing later in the summer and a part of my childhood would be thrown in the trash.
Dancing Hours Page 5