Authors: Callie Wright
I thought of Sam and Carl driving around in the Badass Scirocco Scirocco without me. I pictured them stopping at Stewart’s for snacks, then smoking our OPs on Dead Man’s Run, the sledding-hill nunnery behind the courts.
“What’re you guys doing after practice?” I’d asked before turning myself in.
“Not sure,” said Sam. His car keys clicked against each other in his hand.
“We’ll figure it out,” said Carl, taking the OPs and leaving me with only a single Camel to smoke on my walk home.
I traced the fresh ballpoint tattoo on my wrist, which was already fading. “Draw something new,” I’d told Sam during study hall today, and here it was—a bench: slatted, wooden, like the ones at the tennis courts, or maybe like the ones on the boardwalk at Myrtle Beach; vacant, bare, like someone had just left or maybe like someone was about to arrive.
I opened to the first chapter of
The Sex Cure
and read:
Marge’s nakedness was a sliver of earthbound moonlight
. I skipped ahead. I wasn’t sure this was what Sam had had in mind. Style-wise, the author had seen too many soaps or something and was high on the art of the recap. Like, okay, we get it: a married doctor financing his girlfriend’s illegal abortion is not going to fly with his wife. Porn-wise, the sex scenes were tame enough to be featured on the six o’clock news, and plot-wise, I pretty much had no idea who anyone was.
Still, I was impressed it had been written. An all-out unmasking of everyone in town in 1962, and supposedly the author had lived here. It would’ve shifted the way people thought about one another, absolutely. To discover that your neighbors weren’t really happily married or that your friends were secretly in love with you? I pictured the ground tilting, separating some people while sliding others closer together.
A lot of people had the idea that Sam and I were going out, but we’d never held hands, never kissed. Somehow Megan of Myrtle Beach had, in a single week, bridged a gulf whose existence Sam and I had never even acknowledged. I almost wished I’d been there to see it, not because it wouldn’t have killed me—it would’ve killed me—but because Sam and I were only friends, best friends. We needed to be tilted, and I paged through
The Sex Cure
again, wondering how it could be done.
At four o’clock, Miss Paddy sprang me and I walked home slowly, an OP in hand but without a light. If I’d hurried, I could’ve caught Sam at the tail end of practice, but if he wanted to see me, he could come to 59 Susquehanna: in
The Sex Cure
, the always-available town drunk was not nearly as appealing as the senator’s daughter who waited for everyone to come to her, and I’d decided to channel a little of that in my quest for Sam.
After calling hello to Poppy, I took an apple from the near-empty fruit basket and checked the answering machine. Just my dad saying how crazy it was to be away from school for a week and how he might be home late. Nothing from Sam.
I found Poppy in his recliner with an afghan covering his skinny legs. Already his face was pinker than it’d been two days before, his breathing less raspy. The glass on his end table was empty and I returned to the kitchen to fill it.
“What are you watching?” I asked, handing him his water.
“I don’t know,” he said.
I used the remote to flip through the channels.
“You go too fast,” Poppy complained. “I can’t see the programs.”
I powered off the TV. “There’s nothing on, anyway,” I said.
Kneeling at Poppy’s feet, I dug into my backpack and produced
The Sex Cure
.
Poppy stared at the cover, his jaw set. “Did your mother give you that?” he asked.
“It’s yours,” I said. “Mom found it in your bedroom on Chestnut Street.”
I watched my grandfather’s face drain bone white. “We didn’t have it,” he said.
I nodded. “Under the mattress.” Poppy shook his head slowly, and only then did it occur to me that he might not have known about the book. “Maybe it was Nonz’s,” I ventured.
“Throw it out,” said Poppy now.
“It’s rare.”
“Get rid of it!”
“What’s the big deal?” I asked. And then I had a thought. “Did you and Nonz know people in the book?”
He waved his hand near my face, fanning the book. “We didn’t know anybody,” he said. Then, quietly, “We knew some people.”
“Friends?”
“Yes, friends! That woman had no business writing it.”
“Why not?” I asked. “Was any of it true?”
“Absolutely not. There were lawsuits.”
“Why, if it was supposed to be fiction?”
“Because you can’t go around making up lies about people!” Poppy goggle-eyed me to drive home his point. Which was what? That the book would’ve been okay if the author had stuck to the truth?
“Did everyone sue?” I asked.
“Not everyone.”
“So some of it was right, then? In the book?”
Poppy stared at me. “Why do you ask so many questions? You ask so many questions.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m just curious.”
I thought about Sam’s two houses, his mom’s and his dad’s. There was always a moment right before I went inside one of them when it felt like the whole world would disappear behind me—school, my parents, 59 Susquehanna, Teddy—and the only thing left would be Sam.
“Did the book change the way people felt about each other?” I asked.
“Enough,” Poppy warned.
“Like when they found out some of the couples weren’t really that happy—”
“Julia, stop!”
“And it was possible that they could have whoever they wanted—”
Suddenly Poppy rapped my ear with his knuckles and I froze, eyes closed, focusing on things that also hurt but didn’t make me cry. Sam accidentally serving a ball into the back of my head during Canadian doubles. Carl red-bagging me at lunch.
“I asked you to stop,” said Poppy. “You don’t listen!”
I opened my eyes and saw my grandfather’s quivering lips, his eyes fixed somewhere far behind me.
“I’m okay,” I said quickly.
He sniffed, waved me away, but I didn’t go.
“I’m fine,” I told him. I stood. “See?”
Poppy nodded.
I picked up the remote and handed it to him.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Poppy shook his head. He wanted me to go, so I got my backpack and my book and I went.
Upstairs, I crawled into bed and curled on my side. I could feel my pulse behind my ear where Poppy had knocked me, which never would’ve happened if Nonz were alive. I couldn’t understand why he’d done it, and I paged through the book again, wondering if maybe Nonz and Poppy were characters in the story, that I’d somehow missed them, but the novel was about doctors and nurses and senators, not insurance agents and housewives.
After a moment, I fished under my mattress for my journal with the fancy pen clipped to its cover. My entries fell into one of two categories: (1) Panegyrics: n. pl.: lofty orations or writings in praise of a person or thing: e.g., She wrote beautiful, hilarious panegyrics about herself and Sam. (2) Obloquies: n. pl.: censure, blame, or abusive language aimed at people or things: e.g., She delivered beautiful, damning obloquies about her abusive grandfather and her horn-dog brother.
Now I opened to a fresh page and in neat block print wrote,
SAM
. Then, over the top of it,
JULIA
. I went back to the beginning and layered on a third sentence:
I WANT SAM
. The last word stuck out, plain, clear, and I was about to add more when the front doorbell rang. I paused, journal censored with my left hand.
“Poppy?” I called. “Are you getting that?”
Nothing—lazy bastard.
I shoved my journal under the covers and walked to the landing by my parents’ bedroom. Through the glass door at the foot of the stairs, I could see a man with his hands stuffed in his pockets, his back turned to the house. He wore jeans, an untucked white polo shirt, and camel work boots—an exterminator, maybe, for the fly outbreak in the basement. It was nearly five thirty; Mom would be home any minute and would off me if I didn’t let him in.
I skipped downstairs and opened the door and it was only then that I realized it was Claw in his hardware clothes. His white pickup truck was parked at the curb with a ladder roped to the roof and K
LAWSON’S
H
ARDWARE
painted in black on the passenger’s side door.
“Julia,” he said. “Hey.”
I looked over his shoulder for Sam or Carl but it was just Claw.
“Hey,” I said.
“I was on my way to the store and thought I’d stop by for a minute.” He paused, shifted, uncomfortable, which, ditto. I reclined against the door, bouncing the knob into the wall. “Can I come in?” he asked.
I figured he was here to bar me from hanging out with the team. I hadn’t tried out, and yesterday I’d been caught smoking behind the school bus—it was no big surprise he wanted me gone, but I didn’t see why he needed to come to my house to do it.
“I guess,” I said.
I stepped aside and Claw squeezed past me, took three steps into the entry hall, and knocked his head against our lantern-shaped light fixture. “Whoops,” he said, steadying it.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “Everyone does that.”
Suddenly Poppy called out from the kitchen that he was on his way, just a minute, he’d be right there. “My grandfather,” I said, rolling my eyes. Then, “Poppy, I’ve got it!”
But he didn’t stop.
“Poppy!” I yelled again. Last week he’d been living in his own house with his own doorbell, his own visitors at his own front door. Now he was living with us, and even though nothing at 59 Susquehanna was really his, he was acting like it was. “Stop!” I said.
Startled, Poppy paused in the hallway outside Mom’s office, blinking. His breathing was labored, his lungs punching out air shallow and fast. I could see in his eyes that he didn’t know where he was, and it was only when he lit on me that he seemed to come back to himself.
“Julia,” he said.
Claw took a step forward and said gently, “I’m Barry Klawson, the school tennis coach.”
“Klawson,” Poppy repeated. “Any relation to Harvey Klawson?”
“My grandfather,” said Claw.
Poppy nodded, Inspector effing Gadget.
Just then I saw my mother turn into the driveway, and I watched as she hauled her briefcase from the backseat, then folded her jacket over one arm and stepped carefully along the brick walkway to the porch steps. Claw turned to greet her as she opened the front door. He seemed young, nervous, which made me feel younger still.
“Would you like something to drink?” asked Mom, ushering Claw into the living room. Poppy sighed into the puffy couch while Claw perched in one of the wing chairs. I took the ottoman, eye level with Mom’s Chinese tray-thing that was always flipping itself on its head.
“No, thanks,” said Claw. He checked his Casio. “I’m actually on my way over to the store to meet with Mr. Obermeyer.”
“Really?” asked Mom. Then, “Do you know my husband?”
“My nephew goes to Seedlings,” said Claw. We waited for him to continue but he only nodded, shifting under Mom’s gaze. She glanced at me with raised eyebrows and I shrugged, like what the eff did I know about Dad’s hardware needs?
“Anyway,” said Claw, “I was about to tell Julia that I have an opportunity for her.”
“An opportunity,” Poppy parroted.
Claw posted his elbows on his knees and faced me. “I’m arranging an exhibition match for you.”
I looked up. “What?”
“On Thursday,” he continued.
I shook my head, lost.
“I’m asking Sauquoit to bring an alternate. I want to put you in at singles.”
“I don’t get it,” I said. “Why me?”
“Take it,” said Mom before Claw could answer.
I stared at Claw and he stared back. His green eyes were wide, his lips pressed together, his knuckles white, as though he were wringing his hands to death.
“Julia,” said Mom, but I didn’t take my eyes off Claw.
“What about Carl?” I asked, but Claw just stared at me.
“What about—”
“Julia,” said Mom again. I shifted my eyes to my mother and found her mid-grin.
“What?”
She nodded her head toward Claw. “You should play.”
“Yes or no,” said Claw. “Your choice.”
Maybe there was a catch, an equal and opposite drawback to this so-called opportunity, but I didn’t look too hard for it. With or without Sam, I could have this match, and tomorrow at practice I would run drills alongside Sam and Carl, teammates but on our own, too.
I nodded. “Okay,” I said. “Yes.”
Claw stood and said, “I should get going.” He shook Poppy’s hand, and Mom showed him to the front door.
I didn’t move.
“Bye now,” I heard my mother say. “Thanks so much,” followed by the sound of the door shutting, the bell pinging softly.
Mom returned, filling the doorjamb like a sunbeam.
“What?” I said.
“Julia,” she said happily.
I needed her to stop smiling. I felt a Pavlovian response coming on, a smile tugging at the corners of my own mouth.
“Julia,” she said again. “Your dad’s going to be so proud.”
And then, into the safety of my hands, I smiled, too.
* * *
When Claw was gone, Mom rejected the possibility of cooking dinner. “I still haven’t been to the grocery store,” she said, opening the refrigerator and removing a bottle of white wine. “Besides, we’re celebrating. One glass, then we’re going to Gabriella’s.”
Gabriella’s was the new fancy restaurant in town, which meant that the waiters and waitresses wore white collared shirts and black pants, and our favorite of these was Jess: Teddy’s pretend future wife and my fantasy older sister, who’d be getting custody of me when my parents bit the Titan Big’un.
“I’d better put on a jacket,” said Poppy, grabbing the back banister and starting his ascent.
“Fifteen minutes,” said Mom. “When Hugh gets home, we’ll go.”
I remembered then that he’d left a message.
Mom crossed the kitchen to the answering machine and pressed play with her wineglass cradled in her left hand.
“Hi, it’s me,” said Dad. “Just wanted to let you know it’s a week’s worth of crazy over here. Mrs. Baxter and I are playing catch-up. Looks like I might be home a little late.” The time stamp was broken, so we had no idea when he’d called, but late for Dad was six o’clock.