Denton Little's Deathdate (18 page)

Green light. We drive.

“You know, I think your mother knew I was gay before I did,” he says, almost to himself.

Okay. Guess Brian's gay.

“And even once she knew, we stayed together for five more months. She later told me she liked the challenge, that she really thought she could make me fall in love with her, in spite of the fact that I was attracted to men. I have to say, she sort of succeeded.”

“What, like, you were in love with her?” I ask as we pull into the Tensmore parking lot.

“In some ways, sure.”

“Wait, you're not gonna drop some crazy bomb on me right now, like you're my actual father or something?”

Brian laughs. “Lyle is one hundred percent your father.”

We pass Mike Tarrance walking out of Sanjay Tuxedo with a huge bag, and I'm reminded that prom is tonight.

“Your mother and I hadn't, uh, interacted in any way remotely close to that since that first year of school.”

“You can go around there.” I point, trying to simultaneously give directions and change the subject.

“And even then we probably only slept together a dozen or so times.”
Only
a dozen? “She's actually the only woman I ever had sex with. Wait, no, there was another one my senior year of college. But that was an accident. Well, not an accident, but it happened because of a bet. Like, a funny bet.”

“Eh, okay.” Brian's picked a strange time to start TMI-ing, what with me about to die any minute. Actually, maybe that's what makes me the perfect person to tell this stuff to. I've got nowhere to take it but the grave.

“I think I've lost the thread here,” Brian says. No shit, dude!

He parks the car. There's no one else back here except one twelve-year-old-looking skater kid kicking his board up over and over again near the brick wall.

We're both silent. I unwrap the half of turkey sandwich and take a bite. I'm starving.

“So why is my dad so mad at you?” I ask as I chew. The questions are now flowing free and easy.

Brian sighs. “The day your mother died was…a hard day. For everyone involved.”

“Is he angry because you were the doctor who let her die?”

“Well…That's part of it. It's complicated. I didn't
actually want to be the doctor to deliver you. Just like your dad, I was a little shocked that your mother had gotten pregnant so close to her deathdate. It was…irresponsible. Selfish.”

“So you're in the wish-I-never-existed camp.”

“No! Oh God, no, and I'm sure your dad doesn't feel that way either. It's just that bringing a child into the world, knowing it was going to be motherless, seemed unfair. Not to mention that the baby would likely be the thing that killed her.”

I have to remind myself that the baby he's referring to is me.

“But she knew all that. She just wanted to…to make sure the baby made it out alive. I told her there was no way I was going to deliver her child, no way I would be the doctor who lost her. But she was a very persuasive lady.”

“How was she persuasive?” The kid's skateboard ricochets against the wall.

Brian smiles. “When your mother got her mind set on something, you knew she was going to get what she wanted. If you tried to convince her otherwise, you'd just be wasting time fighting the inevitable. That's how.”

“Was she intimidating?”

“Nah, not really. She was more charming and funny and determined. And weird.”

“Weird?”

“There was one semester where she decided she only wanted to wear shorts. No pants, no dresses, no skirts. Just shorts. So September through December, that's what she did.”

“That's a little crazy.”

“That was your mom.”

I came from a woman who insisted on wearing shorts in December?

“And she was determined to have me as her doctor. So, after much time wasted fighting the inevitable, I agreed.” Brian rubs his brow with his index finger. “Which I never should have done…”

“Why not?” I say.

Brian looks up, and I'm startled to see tears forming in the corners of his eyes. “I thought I was doing the right thing, you have to understand that.”

“Sure, of course you were. But…what are you talking about exactly?”

“It doesn't matter now.” Brian joins the ever-growing ranks of Adults Losing Their Shit in Front of Me.

“Brian…I mean, it was her deathdate, right? I'm sure you did everything you could….”

“You're a sweet kid, Denton,” Brian says, wiping his face with the scratchy fabric of his shirt. “I see so much of the old Cheryl in you.”

“Oh. Thanks, I guess.”

There's the sound of rolling wheels as the kid skates away. Just us back here.

Brian cracks another pistachio. I wonder if my parents have realized yet I'm not at home.

“So how…how did my mom actually die?” I ask.

The question floats in the air for many seconds.

Brian adds his shell to an existing pile on the dashboard. “When she was giving birth to you, you were in breech—flipped the wrong way—so we had to do a C-section. And…it didn't go as planned.”

“So she died because of me.”

“Whoa.” Brian turns and leans toward me. “No,” he says. “Absolutely not.”

“But just on a technical level, if I hadn't been flipped the wrong way, then—”

“Denton.” He's focused on me in a way that makes him look like he's trying to balance a stack of books on his head. “If anything, you are the victim here, so please,
please
assure me you know it's not your fault. We did the C-section, and then…your mother was gone. No one's fault. That's life.”

“Okay.”

“Good.” Brian leans back. He takes a deep breath.

“Did she know I wasn't going to live long?”

“What?” Brian says, for some reason caught off guard.

“When you took blood and hair and found out my deathdate? Doesn't that happen soon after the baby comes out? Was she conscious for that?”

“Oh,” Brian says. “Uh, no, I don't think so. No, she didn't know how long you would live.”

“That's good; it might have bummed her out.” I absentmindedly pick up a pistachio. “Did she get to hold me?”

“She didn't,” Brian says. “But she wanted to.”

My nose is filled with tear snot.

“Get down!” Brian says.

“What?” I say, dropping my pistachio.

“Down,” he repeats, and this time he physically demonstrates with an arm on my back.

“What's happening?” I say, awkwardly squished next to the glove compartment.

“That cop who stopped you,” Brian says, looking into the rearview. “What did he look like?”

“Why?”

“There's a cop parked behind us.”

I adjust myself just enough so I can glance into the side mirror.

Ohmigod. “It's him,” I say. HorribleCop. Again.

“All right, just stay down,” Brian says.

He calmly starts the car and slowly drives forward.

“Is he following us?” I ask.

“Not yet, no.”

We keep moving. My whole body is tense.

“Now is he?” I ask.

I should never have left the house. I'm such an idiot.

“No.”

I close my eyes. I feel the car turn.

“Is he following us yet?”

I don't want to spend the rest of my time in jail. I don't.

“Okay. You can get up,” Brian says, breathing out, visibly shaken. “He never followed.”

I slowly come back up, the muscles of my body screaming at me. HorribleCop is nowhere to be seen.

We drive the rest of the way in silence.

When we're once again curbside, a couple of blocks from my house, I unbuckle my seat belt and turn to Brian. “Thanks for, you know, telling me things about my mom that I never would have known. It really means a lot.” I extend my hand to shake.

Brian takes it, leans across, and hugs me.

“It's been so amazing to meet you, man. Your mother
would be proud.” I hope that's true. “Just…” Brian stares at me, trying to choose the right words. “You should know that if…Well, just trust your instincts. You know?”

I don't really know, but I nod anyway. “Sure, of course, yeah.” I open the car door, and the spring air touches my face. I look back. “Bye, Brian.”

He smiles. A few of his bottom teeth are crooked. “Bye, Denton.”

I jog down the block toward home.

I figure if I enter through the back door, then maybe—just maybe—there's a chance no one will have ever realized I was gone.

I step in and click the door shut behind me.

The dryer's loud thumps muffle my entrance. Nice.

I take a few cautious steps toward the family room. I can hear my stepmom talking to Felix upstairs.

“But what I'm saying is, if he's not feeling well, I should go in his room and see if I can help.”

“I know,” Felix says, “but he said he wants to be alone in there. That he needs some time.”

“Yes, but what if he's…”

“He's not, Raquel, I promise.”

Wow. Felix must be trying to make up for eighteen years of subpar brothering in this one day. I'll take it.

The sound of the TV gets louder as I inch farther into the house.

There's no time to waste. With step one accomplished, it's time to move down the list.

Having a clearer picture of who my mother is gives me strength and comfort, like a second beating heart that's sprouted up next to the first.

I will talk with Taryn. I will be charming and funny and determined, just like my mom.

And I will be real. Because life is too short.

I am a powerful, benevolent truth teller.

“Taryn,” I say, starting to speak before I'm even in the room, “I need to talk to you.” Once the words are out of my mouth, I see that I'm staring at Millie and a sleeping Grandpa Sid.

No Taryn.

“She walked out,” Millie says, looking up from some knitting she's doing. “She was crying. I'm assuming because of you.”

“Are you serious?” I say.

“Do I look serious?”

“I have no idea.”

“Exactly.”

“Aarrgh,” I say. Maybe I can still catch Taryn. I run to the front door and fling it open, the voice of my stepmom echoing in my wake. (“Denton! You're downstairs? How did you— No, do NOT walk out that door, DO YOU HEAR ME?”) I stand on the front porch, scanning left and right for my girlfriend. She's down the street a little ways, getting into the old blue car that used to be her dad's. “TARYN!” I shout. She stops and looks. Then she continues getting into the car. She turns the engine on.

“Taryn, wait, wait, wait, PLEASE!” I shout as I run
across the lawn, trying to get there in time to stop her. She can't leave. I need closure.

Taryn seems to respect the effort I'm making on her behalf, because now she's shouting back at me through the windshield, “Denton! DENTON!” Strange, but, okay, at least she's acknowledging me.

As I run into the street, I start to get the feeling that maybe she's shouting my name not out of love but to warn me about something. I read her lips: “DENTON!! CAR!! CAR!!!”

Car?

In the next second, these things happen:

My right foot lands on the pavement weirdly.

I twist my ankle.

I hop up and down in pain.

A horn blares in my ear.

A yellow car blasts past me, so close I am sure this is my death.

Taryn shrieks my name from inside her car.

My stepmom shrieks my name from inside the house.

The car does not hit me, but the force of air as it passes knocks me backward, and my elbows slam into the curb.

In a bizarre delayed reaction, the yellow car, already past me, swerves to the opposite side of the street and knocks down the Werner family's mailbox. It stops, half on the curb, half on the street.

I look down at my feet and wiggle my toes inside my sneakers. My ankle is throbbing. My elbows hurt. They're covered with gravel and blood.

Taryn rushes across the street. I can hear my stepmom
and dad and the whole crew rushing over from the house. And someone is emerging from the sporty yellow car that almost killed me.

Holy shit.

That's the same sporty yellow car that almost ran me over last night. I'm sure of it. The person driving this car has been trying to kill me.

“Dent, ohmigod, ohmigod, I thought that was it,” Taryn says, crouching down in front of me, crying. She leans in and kisses me. Apparently, the best way to end a fight with your girlfriend is to almost get killed in front of her.

“DENTON!” my stepmom yells as she runs up. “Are you okay? ARE YOU OKAY?”

“Yeah, Mom, I'm okay,” I say, my eyes locked on the person getting out of the yellow car, ready to identify my assassin. It's gonna be Phil, I know it.

“How dare you leave this house? And who runs across a street on their deathdate without looking?” my stepmom says. She's crying, of course, as she leans in and kisses me repeatedly on the forehead, blocking my view of Yellow Car Driver. “Oh, you're bleeding, my baby's bleeding, okay, we need to clean you up. Felix! Run in and get some bandages and disinfectant.”

“Oh shit, you okay, man?” says Yellow Car Driver, who has walked up to us during my stepmom's fawning.

It's Willis Ellis, that pothead who was at my funeral. I've gone to school with him since first grade, and he is, quite literally, the last person I would peg as a potential assassin. “You gotta watch where you're driving, Willis,” I say.

“Dude, I am so sorry. And sorry about your mailbox, too.”

“That's not ours,” my stepmom says, disdain in her voice. “You'll have to go across the street and apologize to Fran and Hank. You should be ashamed of yourself, driving like that.”

Here I am again, out on my front lawn, watching as my stepmom scolds one of my peers for almost killing me.

Willis runs his fingers through his dreadlocks. “Aw, man, I know, man.” His eyes are red; he's a walking stoner stereotype. “Dude, I'm sorry I almost hit you,” he says to me. “Jeannie keeps texting that I have to go pick up this corsage thing and then texting how come I'm not responding and I'm, like, texting back:
I'm driving!
You know?”

“You were texting while you were driving?” my stepmom asks, steam shooting out her nostrils. No texting while driving is one of her platform issues.

“Well, yeah, but only to say that I couldn't text because I was driving. And then I look up and this dude is almost right in the middle of the street. Hey, wait,” Willis says, his face lighting up with a brilliant realization. “Ohmigod, you're dying today! WHOA. I could have killed you, man!” Gee, that hadn't occurred to me. “I would've felt extremely bad about that.”

“You would have felt extremely bad when you went to jail for involuntary manslaughter,” my stepmom says.

“Easy, Raquel,” my dad says.

“Fun funeral, by the way,” Willis says.

“Uh, thanks,” I say.

“So is that why you're purple?” He gestures to my skin
and inadvertently touches my arm. The red dots shift. “Whoa.” He touches my arm again. The dots shift. “It's beautiful.” He reaches for me again.

“Okay, stop,” I say, pulling my arm away.

“Your arm, man…”

“I know, I know.”

I'm ninety-nine percent certain that Willis wasn't trying to hit me. Just a crazy coincidence, then, that he almost hit me twice. A really crazy coincidence.

“Willis,” I say, “I think you almost hit me last night, too.”

“Last night? No, dude, I didn't get in any accidents last night.”

“Yeah, were you driving on Sterrick Road, a little bit after midnight?”

“Uh, which is Sterrick Road again? The long, woodsy road?”

“Yeah. I mean, I guess it's long and woodsy.”

“I might have been driving home from Derek's house. He lives down a long, woodsy road. But I definitely didn't get in any accidents.” Of course he has a friend named Derek who lives off Sterrick.

“I'm pretty sure it was you. It was the same yellow car. You narrowly missed hitting me.”

“This car over here?” Willis asks, pointing to his car.

“Yeah, your car.”

“This is actually my mom's car.”

“Okay, so your mom's car.”

“Maybe she was the one who almost hit you,” Willis says. “She's pretty much an awful driver. Heh heh.”

He is from another planet.

“Well, was your mom driving the car last night or were you?”

Willis looks down and thinks hard.

“Me!” he says. “It was me driving, I'm sure of it! Wow, can't believe I remembered that.”

I can actually feel some of my brain cells dying just talking to him.

“Anyways, Jeannie's really on my back to pick this thing up, so I better get going,” Willis says.

“You shouldn't be driving while…under the influence of anything,” my stepmom says. “And I hope you're planning on paying for that mailbox you destroyed.”

“Yeah, absolutamente. I'll bring the money back and drop it off in their mailbox. Heh heh heh. I'm just kiddin'.”

My stepmom is not amused.

“Whoa, PaoloMan, didn't see you standing there. Hey, hey.”

Paolo has been standing over me in a protective stance, with his hands on his hips.

“Yo, ChillisWillis, good to see you. Try not to kill my best friend on your way outta here.”

My stepmom is disgusted to see that Willis and Paolo have some kind of friendship. I'm a little disgusted, too. Paolo looks at me and shrugs while making a subtle joint-smoking gesture:
Yeah, he's an idiot, but where do you think I get my pot from?

“I most certainly will,” Willis says. “Sorry again about the car situation. And, whoa, guess I'll be seeing you soon at prom. I don't even wanna go. Heh heh.”

“Noyouwon'tI'llbedead,” I say quietly to his turned back as he walks back to his car. He gets in and drives away, Dave Matthews blaring out the window.

“If this wasn't your deathdate,” my stepmom says, “I would have torn his head off. Your head off, too.”

“Understandable,” I say.

“With those dreads, Willis's head would make a good sponge,” Millie says.

We all look at her.

“For cleaning,” she adds.

“Denton,” my stepmom says. “You shouldn't have left the house without telling us. That was very dangerous.”

“I know,” I say.

“I'm just glad you're all right. We're not going to the hospital, okay? You got your wish. In fact, we won't be going anywhere. You're not allowed outside anymore. Okay? Not up for debate.”

It sucks, but where the hell was I gonna go anyway?

“Got some bandages. Let's fix you up, Purple,” Felix says, appearing at my right side.

“Wait, wait, wait. Can we get Denton out of the street before you do this?” my stepmom asks. “This is a major thoroughfare. We need to get away from here.”

“It's a residential street in a suburban neighborhood,” Felix says, “but message received. Dent, you good to stand up?”

“Sure,” I say, but as Felix helps me to my feet, pain shoots up from my ankle, which I'd temporarily forgotten about. “Ow.”

“What, your foot?” Felix asks.

“What's wrong, what's wrong?” my stepmom asks.

“My ankle, I ran on it wrong and twisted it. Right before the car came.”

“Really?” Felix asks.

“Yes, really,” I say. “What's so crazy about me twisting my ankle?”

“Nothing, just…It saved you.”

“What did?”

“You twisted your ankle, and it saved you from getting hit by the car.”

“Oh.” I guess that's true. “Well, great, but it still hurts.”

“Yeah, yeah, let's walk you over here.” Felix assists me as I limp away from the street and helps me sit down on our front steps. He becomes surprisingly nurselike as he cleans out my elbow wounds and covers them with bandages.

“Such a good older brother,” Paolo's mom says.

Everyone who was in the house is crowded around me, except for Grandpa Sid and Veronica. Taryn is next to me, rubbing my back. “Let's check out this ankle,” Felix says. I fully extend my right leg and roll up my jeans. “Huh,” he says.