Flannery (18 page)

25

I'm walking Felix home from school with my new biology book in my knapsack and we're talking about how Sensei Larry can karate chop a block of wood in two, and how one day Felix will be able to do the same. A motorcycle turns the corner onto Livingstone Street and, in a flash of chrome and snowflakes, there's Tyrone O'Rourke. He flips up his tinted visor with a gloved hand. Tyrone O'Rourke's brown eyes.

Hey, Flannery, Tyrone says. He tilts his chin in the direction of the back of his bike.

He's wearing his black leather jacket and a black helmet, and the chrome on the engine is gleaming in the winter sun.

I take Felix over to the front door and tell him to go inside and play.

I'm telling on you, Felix says. He stamps his boot on the step. We both know Miranda would never allow me on that bike. Especially in winter. Even Felix knows it isn't safe.

But I'm tired of safe. I want some fun.

Don't be such a baby, Felix, I say. We're only going for a little ride around the block. I'm already swinging my leg over the back. Tyrone hands me a helmet and I put it on.

I'm tired of listening to Miranda. I'm tired of taking care of my little brother.

All I care about in this moment is Tyrone. And besides, I've been worried sick about him. Miranda told me yesterday that his mother hadn't heard from him for days. And that the last time he was home, he said he wasn't coming back again until Marty was gone.

Tyrone makes the engine rev with a shift of his wrists, and the vibrations shoot through my legs and chest and I don't know where to put my hands.

He drives to the end of Livingstone and roars up Long's Hill. I grab two handfuls of his leather jacket and hold on tight. I lean against Tyrone's back and it would not be a lie to say that I find myself brushing my lips against his leather jacket.

The sky is darkening, the deepest blue, the blue before black. The blue of blueberry jam, the blue of a frozen pond where the ice is thin.

The ice on the trees shoots out a gazillion sparks. The bike sways beneath me and I'm happier than I have ever been in my whole life. To hell with Amber Mackey. To hell with everything.

Tyrone drives past the mall and we are out on Thorburn Road and nearly in St. Philips when he comes to an overgrown laneway. It's a dirt path with frozen puddles. A strip of dead yellow grass running down the middle, thistles pushing through the snow, ATV tire tracks hardened with ice, everything silver with frost.

The motorcycle flies over the ruts and the back tire skids sideways and straightens out. A few tree branches scrape against my arm. After a while Tyrone has to slow down and sometimes he has to put his foot down so we don't tip over and he rocks the motorcycle gently out of the deepest potholes.

A few times I have to get off and walk, and I watch him working the motorcycle through the path, a cloud of smoke from the exhaust pipe.

Finally he comes to a stop at the edge of a clearing. He gets off the bike and removes his helmet, shakes out his hair. My legs feel watery, but Tyrone has set off down a path, whacking bushes out of his way with a stick that had been leaning against a tree trunk. I take off my helmet and hurry to catch up with him.

Where are we going? I say.

You'll see, Tyrone says.

A few crows fly through the trees and call out and the air smells of fresh snow and fir trees.

Then we come to another path that goes down a steep bank to a river. Tyrone takes my hand to pull me onto the narrow ledge he's standing on. There's a waterfall frozen solid. Three tiers of black stone and frozen white foam.

I'm sure I'm blushing because he's still holding my hand, but he isn't looking at me. He's pointing straight ahead.

Then I catch my breath. On the smooth rock face near the waterfall is one of Tyrone's paintings.

A girl with black hair, washing a red dress in the river. The girl's knee is painted on a protruding boulder, one that is itself shaped like a knee, and her shoulder sticks out on a nub of rock jutting from the face of the cliff. She's glancing up, as though we have surprised her. But she looks happy.

I recognize her. It's Tyrone's mother when she was a young girl. Tyrone must have used one of the high-school photographs of her that I remember seeing on top of their TV when we used to hang out as kids. But she's also the same girl in the Snow Queen graffiti. Except here she isn't silver and muscled and powerful. I guess Tyrone O'Rourke wants his mom to be like a superhero.

I did it last summer, he says. I haven't shown it to anyone else.

Tyrone sits down on a fallen log and pats it for me to sit down beside him. In that moment I forget all about the potion and the unanswered messages and even the girl with the parrot-colored hair who may or may not be his girlfriend.

It's the way he offers me the seat. He does it like the kid-Tyrone, the one I went to Queen's Road convenience with when we were both six. We'd pooled our money, a great fortune in pennies that weighed our pockets down so we had to keep hauling up our jeans, and we bought five dollars' worth of rainbow gummy worms, waiting with anticipation as the man behind the counter slid each penny under his index finger from one pile to the other, moving his lips as he counted.

We ran back to my house and up the stairs to my room and under the covers to spend an afternoon dividing the worms into piles according to length and color like two biologists going through specimens.

That boy-Tyrone has all but disappeared.

The person sitting next to me on the log is a man. He's changed. Not just physical changes, though believe me, I am quite aware of those.

He's self-possessed. That's the word.

He owns himself.

Tyrone takes out a baggie of weed from a pocket inside his jacket and he's rolling a joint on his knee. He flicks a lighter.

The marijuana smells sharp and green and smoky in the cold air. It smells like camping and Christmas. His eyes squint up against the smoke, and he's holding his breath in.

As he exhales, he says, What do you think?

I look back at the painting but don't say anything.

Do you want some? Tyrone asks. He holds out the joint. But I don't want any and I just say so and it isn't a big deal.

I haven't shown this painting to anybody, Tyrone says. But I wanted you to see it.

I'm starting to shiver. The tips of my ears are burning with the cold. I take out a little flashlight I have on a keychain and let it play over the painting. It has become dark without us noticing. The faint yellow spot from my flashlight falls on the young woman's cheek. The painting has a thin skin of ice over it, like varnish on an antique oil painting, gleaming and crackled.

Tyrone tosses the end of the joint into the river and stands to leave. He puts his gloves back on and slaps them together to get the snow off them. I stumble forward a little and he catches my shoulder.

Then he kisses me.

Tyrone O'Rourke kisses me. It's full of tenderness. A thoughtful, tender kiss. I have never really known before now what the word tender means.

When I get home Miranda is slamming pots and pans around the kitchen. She tears off her shoe and throws it at me. She misses by a mile but it leaves a mark on the wall.

She's never thrown anything at me before.

How dare you get on that motorcycle, she screams. How dare you?

I have never seen her so angry.

You could have been killed. The roads are full of ice. It's dark out. I had no idea where you were. And he was driving that thing stoned, wasn't he? I can smell it on you! You are grounded, young lady. You are grounded for the rest of your fucking days.

I thought you didn't believe in grounding, I shout right back at her. I thought it wasn't
creative
fucking parenting?

Don't you use that language with me, young lady, she says.

I thought it was okay to swear as long as you were
creative
.

You are pushing your luck, she yells.

You can't ground me anyway, I say. I'm sixteen. I can do whatever I like. I could leave if I wanted to, and who would take care of Felix while you're off making art that doesn't sell?

Okay, you're
not
grounded, screams Miranda. You are just a disappointment.

I am stunned. These words, from Miranda, are such a low blow. Does she mean it? If she had smacked me in the face it would have hurt less.

You're the disappointment, I say. I'm not shouting now. Everything I say is deliberate.

You are the worst mother on the planet. Did you ever hear of a condom? It takes money to raise children. It was selfish to have us
. Surprises not accidents
, my ass. You shouldn't have had us.

I can promise you one thing, Flannery, she says. If you get on that motorcycle again, you will not be welcome under this roof.

I can promise
you
one thing,
Mom
,
I say.

And I lower my voice to say this. If you don't tell Felix who his father is, I'm going to do it. You're just not parent enough to raise us alone.

And I go up to my room and slam my door.

I am shaking. What just happened? Then I lock the door just in case.

In the morning I get up early and leave for school before Miranda is even awake.

26

Things remain cold between Miranda and me for the whole week. I do more housework than usual. She puts extra time into cooking. Makes desserts. We are very polite to each other. The sort of polite you might use with a foreign dignitary, if one moved into your house.

On Saturday we head out in the truck for our family swim at the Aquarena. I am hoping the girl with the parrot hair isn't working. What if she is Tyrone's girlfriend and she finds out we were kissing?

But the girl isn't at the desk. There's a man behind the counter and he prints out the special bracelets for the waterslide without even glancing at us.

I follow Felix into the family change room, and there's the girl with a bottle of window cleaner and a wad of paper towel. There are children changing out of wet bathing suits, children lined up in the shower stalls, mothers and fathers changing toddlers on the counters, toilets flushing, hair dryers going.

Hey, the girl says.

Hey, I say.

So are you going to that party next weekend? she asks. She spritzes the wall of mirrors over the sinks and starts wiping them clean. The wet paper towel squeaks against the glass.

What party? I say.

That music video wrap party, she says. My heart lurches like an elevator with a snapped cable. It's hanging by a thread, clanging against my chest. I knew there was going to be a party, but the last time I went to check its Facebook event page, it was gone.

Now it hits me. I've been blocked. Gary probably blocked me.

Come on, Flannery, Felix says. He is trying to tear the knapsack off my shoulders. I need my swimsuit, hurry up.

Don't you know that girl Amber? the girl asks. She's squirting a spot of glass that has something stuck on it. She rubs it really hard and then scratches the spot with her fingernail. Then she rubs it again with the paper towel until it's clean. Felix yanks the knapsack open and tears out his swimsuit and a towel. He disappears into a changing cubicle and wrenches the curtain closed.

Hey, do you know Amber too? Felix calls from behind the curtain. Amber is my sister's best friend. The girl glances up at me in the mirror.

The wrap party is supposed to be pretty big, she says. Everybody is going.

Can I go? Felix yells.

I don't think so, the girl tells him. I think it's going to be pretty wild, she says to me. She squirts the faucets on one of the sinks and starts polishing those.

Your friend Amber has some strange taste in boyfriends, she says. She pauses to wipe her magenta bangs out of her eyes with the back of her wrist. Then she leans a hip against the sink with her arms crossed and really gives me a good looking over. Her eyes are the blue of colored contact lenses. Swimming-pool blue. Eerie and unnatural blue.

I decide I like her. Maybe she and Tyrone are just friends.

Tell me about it, I say.

He's got
her
wrapped, don't you think? Talk about controlling. I heard he knocked her phone out of her hand one night at a party and it smashed. All because she was texting someone.

I hadn't heard that, I say. She sort of stopped talking to me.

I'm not surprised. She's not allowed to talk to anybody, the girl says. I used to see her all the time here at the pool, practicing. She was pretty fast too. Everybody was saying Olympics, definitely. But she's hardly been around lately. I've heard that boyfriend is jealous of some coach who's practically old enough to be her father. And that guy, what's his name? Gary? I've seen him hitting on other girls. He's a total sleaze.

Felix bursts out of the change room in his shorts and goggles.

Come on, Flannery, hurry up! he says.

I have to hit the pool, I say. I've got my bathing suit on under my clothes and take everything else off and jam my clothes and the knapsack into the locker. The girl turns back to cleaning the next sink. I press the locker closed and drop a coin in the slot and remove the key and pin it on my strap. Felix has already gone through the showers and he's heading out onto the pool deck. I catch the girl's eye in the mirror.

I really like your hair, I say.

Thanks, she says. I'm Evelyn.

Flannery, I say. And she turns back around and we shake hands.

I hope to see you at the party, Flannery, she says. I'm going with Tyrone O'Rourke. You guys know each other, right?

Yeah, I say. When we were kids. Our moms knew each other.

And the last elevator cable snaps and my heart drops about a thousand floors.

But I have to hurry to catch up with Felix. Out at the pool there's that song by Blondie coming from a tinny-sounding boom box and a very muscled coach is pacing the deck, calling instructions to a Swimmercise class consisting of three elderly women with flotation belts on their waists, one of whom wears a swimming cap with plastic flowers, her eyeglasses jutting from the tip of her nose.

The Swimmercise coach plays the same eighties hits every Saturday morning. After “Heart of Glass” it will be “Love Is a Battlefield,” “Bette Davis Eyes” and “Paradise by the Dashboard Light.”

I feel cold on the side of the deck and I have to tell Felix not to run. He wants to run.

Stop running, I say. You're not allowed to run on the deck. You want to get us thrown out of here? Can't you just behave for once?

I'm wondering why Tyrone would kiss me if he has a girlfriend. Was it just because he was stoned? Though Evelyn could still be just a friend, not a girlfriend. Friends go to parties together. But he hasn't texted since that kiss. And Miranda was right. I could have been killed on the motorcycle. Tyrone ran a few red lights on the way home.

I said stop running!

Sorry, Flannery, Felix says.

Why am I always stuck with you? Tell me that, I say. You never listen.

I can see I've hurt his feelings but I don't care.

I'm listening, he says. See, I'm walking.

Look, go play in the baby pool, I say. That's where you belong.

For some reason the song “Heart of Glass” seems to be playing on an endless loop and it's making me feel like my own heart is going to shatter.

Everybody is going to that stupid party. What did Evelyn mean that Amber is not allowed to talk to anyone? I can't believe my chest is hurting so much. My heart is actually hurting. Is that really a thing?

I decide I want to jump off the ten-meter diving board. I can see Felix looking at me from the baby pool while I wait in line for the ladder.

When I get up there I gaze around for a minute and I can see Miranda. The treadmills are on the mezzanine level facing a giant window that looks out over the pool. We are both way above the world, on opposite sides of the pool. The air up here is dry and smells of cedar and the big ceiling lights are pink-tinged.

It's an Olympic-sized pool and there's a whole fiercely flickering artificial blue stretch, with squiggly black lines on the bottom, between my mother and me.

Miranda's wearing a blue Lycra body suit and a red headband and she has a silver weight in each fist. Her chin is tilted up and the weights are close to her chest and she is strutting, jerking one shoulder forward then the other — a very, very fast walk. I know she will keep increasing the speed as the hour goes on until she is running hard.

This is Miranda. Determined to get somewhere, throwing herself into it with all her might, even when there's no hope of getting anywhere at all.

I wish she'd give up on her great work of conceptual art and go back to university for a teaching degree. I'm tired of worrying about money and stealing Internet from somebody who calls himself bubbaspleasurepalace.

I jump and Felix is waiting for me on the side of the pool and he wants to try the Tarzan rope. It's a thick green rope knotted in a couple of places so you can grip it without your hands sliding down.

There's a big lineup but we wait our turn and Felix watches the girl ahead of him climb up on the platform for the Tarzan rope and lower her goggles over her eyes. She turns and gives her dad, who has been waiting with her, a little wave. She grips the rope, leaps off the platform and flies through the air, legs kicking hard.

The rope almost seems to stand still before it begins to swing back and the girl drops into the water with a big splash.

Felix steps up onto the platform. He glances back at me and I can see he's scared.

The girl is swimming out of the way of the rope and she gets to the side of the pool and turns to watch Felix through her green-tinted goggles. A lineup of seven kids has formed behind him.

The lifeguard hands Felix the rope, and everybody is waiting.

Hey, Flannery, the lifeguard says.

It's Kyle Keating.

Oh, hey, Kyle.

I've been reading your mom's parenting blog, he blurts.

What? I say.

Yeah, it's cool, he says. Your mom seems great. Then he says to Felix, No Brussels sprouts for you, right, kid? Felix doesn't seem to hear him. He's staring, transfixed, at the spot on the surface of the pool where he will probably land when he lets go of the rope. He looks like he's about to walk the plank into shark-infested waters.

Listen, Flan, are you going to Amber's party? Kyle asks.

He's wearing a bathing suit and a tank top that says
Staff
on the back in white letters. He seems to have absolutely no problem standing around in public under very bright fluorescent lights nearly naked.

I can feel myself blush. I cross my arms over my chest.

If that kid's not going to go, he should get off the platform, a parent behind me says.

Okay, Flannery, here I go, says Felix. But he just grips the rope tighter and doesn't move.

I see that Kyle Keating has no reason to be ashamed of standing around in public with hardly any clothes on. I try to keep my eyes on his face so it won't look like I've been staring at his body. But his eyes are just as hard to look at. They're
honest
is the word. And he looks
honestly
very happy to be talking to me.

Because I was thinking, Kyle Keating says.

Here I go, yells Felix. He moves his hands on the rope, holding even tighter, but his feet are still stuck to the platform.

Is this kid going to jump or what? says the parent behind us. Now there are about twenty kids waiting in line. I realize I have never seen Felix frightened before. He needs me to say something.

Go, you big baby, I say.

I am going! he shouts.

Well, go then! I say.

Flannery, he says. He says my name in a gentle way, the way he used to say it when he was a really little kid and he'd wake up from a nightmare and beg me to get in with him and he'd fall back into a deep sleep as soon as I did and his little hand would feel around on top of the blankets for me and he'd end up slapping his little palm down all over my face.

He looks back regretfully at the lineup behind him.

Just go, I say. I stamp my foot.

Here I go, then, he says. I almost don't hear him. And then he yells at the very top of his lungs,
Hiiiyaaaaa!

He runs a few steps and goes flying through the air. He swings far out over the water.

Because I was just wondering if you'd like to go to the party with me, Kyle Keating says. We could go together.

Felix has reached that stretchy moment when the rope seems to go completely still, just before it heads back toward the platform.

Unless you are already going with someone else, Kyle says.

How long does it take, you might well ask, for Kyle Keating and me to realize that the Tarzan rope has swung back and that Felix isn't hanging onto it anymore? Nor has he swum to the side of the pool.

The answer: Actually, it takes quite a long time.

The answer: Too long.

The answer: Not very long at all. Maybe fifteen seconds. Maybe a half a minute.

There is a lot of noise in the pool. Lots of splashing and kicking and the boom box is now playing “Love Is a Battlefield” and the old ladies are swaying their arms over their heads in the Swimmercise class and people are shooting out of the waterslide like human cannonballs.

Okay, maybe it is even a full minute. Maybe longer. Like an eternity? I have been fiddling with my locker key and the pin comes undone and it falls off my bathing-suit strap and drops to the deck of the pool, and Kyle and I both bend for it at the same time and our foreheads bump.

And for some reason Felix doesn't call out for help. He is out there kicking as hard as he can but he keeps going under and swallowing half the pool. He becomes panicked. The little girl with the green goggles is trying to get my attention, yelling at me, Hey, hey, girl!

Kyle Keating and I understand what is going on in the very same moment.

It is the same moment in which a lifeguard whistle tears through the whole building and everybody in the pool turns toward the Tarzan rope. Two lifeguards dive in and the boom box is keening
heartache to heartache
but it shuts off with a clunk and a hush falls.

Simultaneously, I understand why Miranda is always going so fast on the treadmill. She is full of fear. She's afraid of us not having money, she's afraid of the pipes bursting when they cut off the heat, and she's afraid of what will happen if her welfare check doesn't arrive in the next few days because we are low on food again.

She's running as fast as she can, even if she's just running on the spot, because that's all she can do, and she isn't about to sit around and do nothing.

And what happens is all that running bursts her out of the normal space-time continuum and before I know it she is at the poolside, just as I notice that Felix is in trouble out there.

Of course Miranda doesn't really break through the space-time continuum. What really happens is that she sees from her perch on the treadmill that her baby boy is going to try the Tarzan rope and she knows he isn't a strong enough swimmer to get to the side of the pool and she has been banging on the big glass window with her hand while I've been talking to Kyle Keating. When I don't glance up she runs down the stairs, vaults over the concrete deck and jumps into the pool at the exact same moment that Felix starts to sink for real.