The Accidental Siren (14 page)

Luckily, the cat’s revolting appearance only
added to the production value of our film... like the guy with no
legs in
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

“Pet her head,” I suggested. “Listen, as if
the cat is actually talking. Here, let me push back your
hair...”

Dad was there, standing atop The Great Divide
with binoculars at his eye and the checklist in his pocket like a
gun in a holster. We were safe.

“I’m sorry I was rude. You actually look
nice. We’ve just been havin’ a bad week, haven’t we?” Mara laid in
the grass and brushed the kitten’s crumpled whiskers against her
nose.

I dismounted my camera, placed it on the
ground, and aimed it at her face. A bushel of purple flowers framed
her cheek. Flecks of forest dust hung like microscopic angels,
grateful to inhabit the air that Mara breathed.

“I wonder how father is feeling. He’s been so
worried lately.”

“Do it again,” I said. The kitten purred.

“I wonder how father is–”

“More intensity. Show real concern.”

“I wonder how father is... He’s been so... so
worried
lately.”

“Again,” I said. “Whisper it this time.”

“
I wonder how father is... He’s been so
worried lately...”

Every moment with Mara was a battle to
suppress my desire in a thankless pursuit of “different”; different
than Whit, different than Ms. Grisham, different than the ferrets
and that priest and my father’s lingering gaze. With every urge
resisted–every hair unhinged or temple un-kissed–the pressure beat
more desperately against my limbs. My joints throbbed like metal
pipes in winter and my body became a powder keg of pent-up
pubescence.

I lost six pounds in the month of June;
another three in the first week of July. Mom offered to take me to
the Holland mall for new jeans, but I risked her feelings and asked
to shop with Mara instead.

There were other changes that confirmed my
father’s prophesy about birds and bees. Blonde fuzz began
blossoming in patches like steel-wool, my voice was trapped in
awkward no-man’s land, my balls began to drop, and the mounting
pressure hammered my emotions until I accidentally stumbled upon
the release valve in the shower. Mara had been bathing in the room
between mine and theirs. As I listened to innocent patter of water
against flesh, my beloved imagination worked its magic and swelled
my pituitary from the size of a grape to an apple.

She finished. She unlocked both doors. A
weaker mind would have barged in prematurely to “accidentally”
catch a glimpse... but I was different.
I waited.
And when
she left through the opposite door, I opened mine.

I stripped. I kneeled. I studied her sopping
footprints and a smear of bubbles on the plastic curtain. I was an
archeologist. Mara was my discovery. I ignored the washcloth folded
neatly on the ledge of the sink and fished the medicine cabinet for
a scent that could spur on the rising sensation.
Watermelon
lipgloss.
I twirled the base. I held it to my nose. I was
standing where she was standing. I was naked where she was
naked.

I capped the Chapstick, grabbed the shower’s
knob, and turned it on.

Instinct led my way through the thickening
steam. Pleasure dictated the how and the where of certain pressure
and rhythms. I followed the sensations and repeated those that
seemed
right
, and when it was over, I collapsed to the tub
and closed my eyes. I was standing tall on the precipice of
manhood. I felt pure. Innocent.
Renewed
.

After the first, I did it again. Then again
in the sink with the water on. And again with the uncomfortable
chaffing of a toilet-paper tube. Some adolescents got it with
magazines. Some got it with cars. I could get it only with her.

Sometimes Mara would cross herself during a
silent prayer or while biking past a roadside cross. “Spectacles,
testicles, wallet, watch,” she taught me; a reminder of her blessed
innocence and good intentions. It made me feel like a pig.

But I wasn’t gonna let her see me that way. I
was gonna be different!
I was gonna be different if my dick
broke off in my hand.
I held myself back with the belief that
my diligent respect would pay off someday.

In a month and a half, Mara and I would start
middle school together, and with my privileged insight into her
gift, I could protect her from lesser beings. We would eat cheese
and crackers for lunch. I would help her with English homework
behind the curtains of the stage. She would hoist her backpack on
her shoulders and peck my cheek before trudging to Algebra. In six
years, we would graduate high school.
Together.

This wasn’t
my
dream, it was
our
dream. In the cavern’s stillness we pillaged the remains
of my sixth-grade yearbook. I explained in detail the likeability
and imbecility of every student. Together, we imagined the unknown
possibilities of a new school–
of junior high!
–and shuddered
at the promise of exams and piles upon piles of homework.

Mara stroked our kitten’s fur and sucked the
gloss from her lower lip. “But Livy can show us the ropes...
right?”

I nodded. “She’s pretty popular. That’ll
help.”

“Sometimes she borrows my blush and shampoo,
but I don’t mind.”

“What a weirdo.”

“Mmm.” Mara set Dorothy in her lap. She
brushed her palm across my black-and-white classmates with their
stiff haircuts and uniform smiles. There was something bleak in the
way she touched the page; the same darkness I sensed the night in
the tree when she used the word “gross” to describe boys.

The cat tipped on its back and pawed at a
loose thread on Mara’s shirt.

“Is it weird sleeping in my sister’s room?” I
asked to lighten the mood. “What do you guys talk about at
night?”

She didn’t look up. “Boys and makeup,
mostly.”

“Boys?”

She cradled the misshapen kitten in her
pretzeled legs. “You know how you tell me what kids are cool and
what kids are stuck-up?”

“Yeah?”

“That’s what your sister does, but just with
the boys. Especially Ryan Brosh; says he was the Uncle Jesse of the
eighth grade.”

“I think she likes him.”

Mara slugged my shoulder and grinned. “No
duh, Einstein.”

I shot her a playful smile and stuck out my
tongue.

She pushed the yearbook aside and spoke with
exaggerated snaps of her hand and flips of her hair. “Ryan Brosh is
the greatest thing to happen to the world since
Saved By the
Bell
. Ryan Brosh doesn’t just act in musicals... he plays
basketball!
Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a
boy that likes art
and
sports? Oh my gosh, that almost
never
happens!”

I formed an “o” with my mouth and slapped my
cheek. “Art
and
sports? How is that even possible?”

“Ryan Brosh? Oh my gosh he’s a total shoe-in
for Junior Varsity next year. How I
wish
I was a year older
so I could cheer for his team!”

We laughed at her spot-on impersonation.

“Wanna do me a favor?” I asked.

Mara crossed her arms and leaned back on her
elbows. She watched the kitten brave the incline of her torso one
tentative step at a time. “Maybe.”

“Talk to Livy and convince her to ask Ryan to
be in our movie.”

“I dunno–”

“If he doesn’t do it, I’m stuck with Whit as
the evil prince. But he can’t really run and he’s gonna be at
computer camp all next week.”

She stretched her legs, laid back, and folded
her hands behind her head. The kitten leapt across her chest and
pounced her shirt’s collar. “If she talks to Ryan, she’ll obsess
over it for days.”

“So you’ll ask?”

Mara scrunched her face and sighed. “If you
think it’ll make the movie better... I’ll do it.” Without cracking
a smile or lifting a brow, she slid her open palm across the floor.
“Down low.”

I smiled and tried to complete the high-five
with a slap. She pulled away just before our hands connected (as I
knew she would), then she grinned and said, “Too slow!”

I knew the risk of inviting another boy into
the fold. However, it didn’t occur to me until
after
I asked
Mara for the favor... what if
she
fell for
him
.
According to Livy, Ryan was the model of male perfection.
The
boy version of Mara?
I wondered.

But I didn’t need to worry. Ryan was a
ferret. He lacked my special insight. Without it, he would fall
right into Mara’s incidental trap. He would attempt to woo her with
peals of obnoxious infatuation. He would disgust her with his gaze.
Simply by pursuing Mara, he would turn her off forever. Ryan might
be special, but he wasn’t
different
.

“James?” she said and nudged me with her bare
toes. She was on her side now with Dorothy snuggled to her
cheek.

“Yeah?”

“You’ll be there with me... right?”

“Be with you where?”

“At junior high. We’ll help each other out
and stuff?” She added a cute inflection to the last two words, but
it couldn’t mask the waver in her voice.

I grabbed an overhead pipe to scoot myself
around, then I laid on the plywood floor and worked my head in the
fold of Mara’s bent arm. “School doesn’t start for another month,”
I said. “But yeah, when we get to junior high, we’ll stick
together.”

She nodded. “Promise?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I promise.”

* * *

17 EXT. THE CASTLE OF THE EVIL PRINCE -
DAY

THE GIRL PULLS OUT THE SWORD SHE GOT FROM THE
DYING SOLDIER AND FIGHTS THE EVIL PRINCE! SHE TRIES TO STAB HIM BUT
HE DODGES IT AND ALMOST STABS HER! THEY FIGHT FOR A LITTLE WHILE
LONGER.

ALL OF A SUDDEN THEY’RE ON THE ROOF! THE
FIGHT CONTINUES WITH LOTS OF CLOSE CALLS.

Ryan Brosh was a charming goof. He was
already on the rooftop in a burlap vest, leather boots and
feathered cap, practicing his swordplay against a wave of invisible
bad guys. As I mounted the tripod, I watched him bite the pin from
a pretend grenade and toss it at the brick rail.
“Ka-
Boouushhh!
” he shouted, then threw up his sword in
apparent victory.

Ryan was a goof, but he was magnetic; the
kind of guy who could wear his pants backwards and spark a trend.
His face was smoother than most boys his age; a trait I’d rather
attribute to obsessive hygiene than natural good looks. As chubby
as my arms were, his were bigger, but where I had fat, Ryan had
biceps.

I left the thespian-jock to his swordplay and
walked to the open window. I lowered my head, brought my knee to my
chin, and squeezed through the only passage between the rooftop
filmset and the library production office that–as Mom declared
twice today–looked like a cyclone hit it.

In whirls of potential catastrophe, I always
worked best if I focused on one objective at a time. Right now, I
had to find a suitable stand for the broom-handle boom mic. The
fight scene had the most important dialogue in the whole movie and
my sound guy was away at summer camp for nerds.

It was Monday. The babysitters were
distracting the kids in the basement and the Demi Moore Cigar Club
was already gossiping in the kitchen. Open windows and a ceiling
fan kept the cigar smell from settling in their temporary
venue.

Livy and Mara sat Indian style on the library
floor, face-to-face beside a tower of mahogany book shelves.

“She looks too pretty,” I told my sister.
“Dirty her up a bit.”

Livy growled and flipped open the violet lid
of her makeup tackle box. “I tried rubbing dirt on her cheeks. I
tried matting her hair. I tried darkening the bags under her eyes,
but Mara doesn’t
have
bags under her eyes.”

“Keep trying,” I said. “She’s gotta look a
mess.”

Mara faked a scowl. “Make me ugly, Livy. Do
your worst!”

My sister held up a bulging baggie of dirt.
“I’m gonna add water and cover your face in mud. It’s the only way
we’er gonna make this work.”

I turned around to continue my search and
noticed Mom and Mrs. Greenfield watching me. They were holding
matching glasses of lemonade with perfect cubes of ice (the staple
of a good hostess) and observing the madness from the doorway. It
would have been polite to say hi to the woman who supplied my
hard-to-find props; instead, I ignored Mom’s summoning glare and
dove into the corner closet.

“Hey James...” Livy asked. “How’s Ryan?”

I poked out my head, “He’s fine,” I said,
then continued my search.

“Didja offer him Kool-Aid?”

“Yes,
Livy.
He drank three glasses.
Remember you pointed out his red mustache?”

She giggled. (Mara giggled too.) “Oh yeah,”
she said. “Do you think he needs a little more makeup? Maybe some
powder?”

“He’s got plenty,” I said and rummaged
through a bevy of blueprint tubes and coats that smelled like wet
bark.

“Have you seen Dorothy?” Mara asked.

“She’s in the playroom with the kids,” Livy
replied.

“I hope they’re being careful...”

“I can’t believe you guys talked Mom into
getting a cat for your stupid movie. I’ve been begging for a pet
for years. And didn’t they have a cat without bite marks in the
ears?”

“Dorothy’s unique,” Mara said.

There wasn’t a suitable mic stand in the
closet, so I slammed the door and turned around... right into Mom’s
stern glance and beckoning finger. She reeled me in like the Death
Star tractor beam. I smiled my most sarcastic smile and plodded
across the library to the chatterbox duo.

“Did you say hi to Mrs. Greenfield?” Mom
asked.

“Hi, Mrs. Greenfield,” I said.

“Good afternoon, Director Parker.” The lady’s
cheeks rose with an expansive grin, pressing her eyelids into a
tight squint.