Anywhere but Here (16 page)

“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.

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 obsessively 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.

“Is this what you want them to see?” she asks. “You and Greg beating the crap out of their dad?”

Okay, she has a point. But at least she acknowledges that we
could
beat the crap out of him.

“What are we supposed to do, then?” I'm still flexing my fists, not completely ready to let go of the idea. It would feel good to hit someone.

“Let's just go,” Greg says. He turns toward the other exit.

As we walk past the kids' booth, Greg slides something onto their table. I glance down to see that he's folded his napkins into two paper hats and two paper boats. The boats have five bucks each tucked into them.

This is unexpected.

The kids stare at their prizes, openmouthed.

Looking from Greg to the paper boats and back again, I find my feet have stopped moving. I have to jog a couple steps to follow Hannah and Greg out the door farthest away from the screamers.

I wish I'd made those boats.

“You're a good guy, Greg,” I tell him, once we're finally out of the splatter zone.

“Whatever,” he says.

“I'm serious. That was cool. And who knew you were so skilled with origami?”

“Shut up.”

It's good advice. I'm pumped up to fight, and the unused adrenaline's addling me. If I'm not careful, I'm going to end up scrapping with Greg on somebody's lawn the way we would have when we were six.

Meanwhile, Hannah's still in counseling mode. “You have to ask your dad exactly what his plans are, Greg,” she says. “Just ask him.”

“They've got me trapped,” he says on the way back up the hill. “The whole ‘rock and a hard place' thing.”

“Buddy, you were trapped the minute you were born. This whole place is a pit, and we're stuck in it,” I say.

“Thanks,” he mutters. “That's encouraging.”

“Hey, if your best friend won't tell you the truth, who will?”

“I still think you're trying to make decisions without enough information,” Hannah insists. The girl is annoyingly reasonable.

“Sounds about right,” Greg agrees.

“Tell them you need time,” she says. “Hang out for a while and see what happens.”

This could apply to my relationship with Hannah, now that I think about it.

Things could be worse. And soon, I'll be out of this town altogether.

As for Greg . . . well, maybe it's time for him to get out too. “You should sign up for some courses in Vancouver after grad,” I say. “We could be roommates. Cool apartment, great nightlife . . .”

He grunts.

“You and me in the big city . . . ,” I say.

“Focusing on the present,” Hannah persists, “tell them that this has taken you by surprise. Ask them to give you a month to think about it.”

Greg nods solemnly, like he's the psychologist's guest on a daytime TV show.

I can't help grunting. Hannah seems to think that everything can be solved through judicious use of communication skills. Why can't she just admit that some things are permanently fucked up?

“My dad's girlfriend is pregnant,” I blurt. If Greg can announce game changers, so can I.

“Seriously?” Hannah squeals. “That's so exciting! When is she due?”

I shudder. I didn't even ask when Sheri was due. For all I know, she's popping out a baby right this second.

Greg's jaw drops. “Whoa. That has to freak you out a little.”

“Of course it's freaking me out! My dad is having a baby with a stripper. Which part of that should I
not
freak out about?” I feel like they're not taking this seriously.

After a few steps, Greg says, “It's a bit weird, isn't it? Not so long since your mom . . .”

Now Hannah looks sympathetic, which really isn't better.