Reality Check (2010) (3 page)

Cody was back at the apartment over the Red Pony, pacing around its small spaces, when Clea called. He could tell right away she'd been crying.

"You? You've got nothing to be sorry for." Then Cody had a horrible thought. "Did he hit you?"
Clea sounded confused. "Hit me? Who?"
"Your father, of course."
"Oh, no," she said. "That could never happen."
"Good," he said. "Good. And I'm the one who's sorry. Sorry for getting you in trouble and everything."
She laughed, a sad little laugh. "It's not really you," she said. "More the B, like I told you."
"The B?" What was she talking about?
"In calc, for Christ sake," she said.
There was a silence.
"Sorry," she said.
"It's all right. I'm slow sometimes."
"No, you're not."
Another silence.
"It's so unreal," she said.
"What?" said Cody. "What happened?"
"My father is . . ." Her voice rose in anger. Clea had a temper, although it rarely showed, and Cody didn't mind when it did.
"Tell me," he said, "whatever it is."
She took a deep breath. It tickled his ear, like she was right there with him. "He's sending me to live with his brother," she said. "For the whole fucking summer."
Mr. Weston's brother? Wasn't he the one in Fort Collins? Not a terrible drive. "I'll be spending a lot on gas," he said. "Huh?" Clea said.
"Your uncle--isn't he the Toyota dealer in Fort Collins?"
"That's Fran's brother," Clea said. "My dad's brother is an investment banker in Hong Kong."
Hong Kong?
"I leave tomorrow."

from tomorrow."
"Huh?" said Cody.
"It's already tomorrow here."
"In Hong Kong?"
"Yeah."
"What's it like?"
"Weird. There's this restaurant where they serve snakes." "You ate snakes?"
"Mmmm, good."
"Really?"
"Actually not bad. The restaurant was kind of amazing." "Better than Golden Treasure?" Cody said. Golden Treasure was the only Chinese restaurant in Little Bend, and the only Chinese restaurant Cody had ever been to. Lots of people wouldn't go there on account of how dirty the kitchen was supposed to be, but Cody liked the pineapple chicken balls.

Clea laughed. The connection was good, and he could hear every little--nuance? was that the word?--in the sound. "Just a bit," she said.

Then came a pause, and in the background Cody heard a man speaking Chinese. "So," he said, "we can call and everything."

"Yeah," she said. "I got an international cell phone. Maybe I better call you, because . . . well, and also we can email and IM--that's free."

"Sure," said Cody. "Cool."
"How are things there?"
"You know. Good. Sunny."
"Sunny here, too."
"It's like, on the ocean, right?"
"Oh, yeah. It's an island, and my uncle's condo's on the

penthouse floor of this huge tower. On one side we can see all these boats, and on the other there's China."
"Wow," Cody said. "Hey, guess what."

"What?"
"I got a job."
"Yeah?"
A good job--first of all, not landscaping with his father;

second, it paid $10.75 an hour, not bad. But all of a sudden he wished he hadn't brought it up.
"What's the job?" Clea said.
"Uh, it's not that interesting."
Another pause. "Working with your dad?"
"No," Cody said. "Not that. This--" He stopped, hearing more talk in the background, this time in English.
"Cody? I've got to go. Talk to you soon."
"No problem," Cody said. And then, just popping out, very uncool, came: "Where you going?"
"On a cruise."
"A cruise?"
"Just in the harbor," Clea said. "To see how it all looks from there."
"Uh-huh," Cody said. "Well, later."
"Later."
Click.
Cody sat on a stool at the kitchen counter and switched on the computer--a five-year-old PC with a dial-up connection-- and clicked on a link for Hong Kong pictures. The first one was still loading--bright blue bands descending from the top of the frame, and then what might have been the top of a green mountain--when the door opened and his father came in.
Cody looked up. "Hey," he said.
"Yeah," said his father, setting a case of twenty-four on the counter. His hands--big and gnarled--were dirty, and he wore an old T-shirt with "Laredo Tree Specialists" on the front, meaning he'd been working. But not tree work: Laredo Tree Specialists--a side business back when they'd owned the Red Pony--no longer existed, had folded two or three years after Cody's mom died of cancer. Now his father mostly just mowed lawns, clipped hedges, weeded gardens; in winter he stuck a blade on his pickup and plowed for the county.
Cody's father ripped open the case, grabbed a can, snapped down the tab, took a big swallow. His gaze slid over to the computer screen. "What's that?" he said.
"Hong Kong." The frame was almost complete: mountain, almost covered with high-rises, big blue harbor, lots of boats, even a few Chinese junks. What Cody wanted to do now was examine it carefully, by himself, no distractions.
His father had another hit, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "What's so special about Hong Kong?"
Cody shrugged.
"Then why're you wastin' your time lookin' at the pictures?"
Cody clicked on shut down. The screen went dark. "Didn't say you had to do that. It's your time to waste."
Cody got up, moved away toward the window. Down on the street, Tonya Redding was dropping her mom off for a shift at the Red Pony. Mrs. Redding walked toward the service entrance, putting on lipstick. Tonya glanced up, right at Cody's window, and drove off.
"I got a job," he said.
"Uh-huh," his father said. "What's it pay?"
"Ten seventy-five an hour." The summer before, his father had paid him $8.50.
His father tilted back his head, drained what was left of the can, tossed it in the trash. "Doin' what?"
"Working deliveries for the lumber yard."
"Beezon Lumber?"
"Yeah."
"Driving?"
Cody shook his head. "Riding shotgun. Loading and unloading."
His father reached for another can. "How'd you get a job like that?"
"Just went down there and filled out a form."
Another can got snapped open. Cody was highly attuned to that sound; it even caused a physical reaction, a cold feeling at the back of his neck. "Just filled out a form," his father said. He went over to the couch, switched on the TV.
"Yeah," said Cody, although it hadn't been quite that simple. He'd filled out a form, all right, but then Mr. Beezon had asked to see him, and he'd gone to the upstairs office, where Mr. Beezon, a tiny old guy with a big nose and hair growing out of his ears, had talked Rattlers football for five or ten minutes-- Rattlers being the name of all the County High teams--and then offered him the job on the spot.
"Work hard and there might even be a raise in it for you," he'd said.
"Thanks, Mr. Beezon."
"And overtime, too, if this goddamn economy picks up."
Cody hadn't known what to say to that.
"Know what our problem is, Cody?" Mr. Beezon had said, leaning across the desk. His teeth were the same yellow color as the dinosaur fossil bones in the display room at the back of the Little Bend Public Library.
Cody had shaken his head.
"All those tax-and-spenders in Washington, that's our problem. What happened to this country, tell me that."
"I don't know, Mr. Beezon," Cody had said. "But, uh, I kind of like it."
Mr. Beezon had given him a long look. "Tomorrow morning," he'd said. "Seven sharp."
"Okay."
"Know what seven sharp means?"
"Six fifty-five," Cody had replied.
Mr. Beezon's face, a mean old face not used to smiling, had shown just the tiniest hint of a smile.
Over on the couch, Cody's father clicked back and forth through the channels, TV light flickering on his tired face; tired, unhappy, and angry face would have been closer to the truth.

Cody went to work for Beezon Lumber. It turned out that Beezon Lumber did lots of business beyond Little Bend, had customers spread out all over the northeastern corner of the state, which meant Cody had plenty of time to absorb the opinions of Frank Pruitt, the driver. Frank was about the same age as Cody's father, and about the same size, too--meaning a few inches shorter than Cody--even had the same kind of huge, gnarled hands. The big difference was that Frank didn't drink. Frank believed that there was a right way and a wrong way to do every little part of the delivery job, and that we should use our nuclear weapons now--"at least one or two, for Christ sake"--while we still had the chance.

Cody made good money, forty-five hours a week at $10.75 and five to ten more at time and a half. He got a new transmission put in the car, also picked up a very cool set of rims, secondhand but in great shape. He hit the gym--where all returning varsity football players had half-price memberships--three nights a week, and grew stronger. His father met a woman from Pennsylvania or someplace, recently divorced and now living in the trailer park on the southern edge of Little Bend, away from the river, meaning Cody often had the apartment to himself at night. He bought a calling card and phoned Clea a few times, and she phoned him, too, but with the time difference and both of them being so busy--Cody working, Clea traveling a lot with her uncle--they kept missing each other. Email ended up working better.

hey, that guy frank I was telling you about, the driver? guess what--he can crush an apple in his bare hand-- make the juice run out. eaten any more snakes yet? gym time. bye.

Hi, Cody. Sorry I didn't get back to you till elephant. Her name was Britney--what else?--and she makes Bud seem tiny! Miss you. xoxoxo C.

now. We were in Bangkok--my uncle Bill advises the government there on investment issues. Investment issues--listen to me. Yeah, I'm on an all-snakes diet--and I got to ride on an

an elephant wow. the schedule was in the paper, we play bridger in the very first game. so i gotta be ready. party last night in river park. i didnt stay. cops busted it later I heard from junior. he says hi--benched 305 yesterday unbelievable! i miss you too. bye.

Just got my return ticket, Cody. I'm flying back the other way, west. Dad and Fran are meeting me in Paris for a few days and I'll be home on Aug. 17. Having an awesome time but can't wait to see you. I think about things-- things w/you, a lot. C.

i think about things and stuff too. 17th--not so long away now. you wouldnt believe how hot it is here--two a days are going to be crap. bunch of us went swimming at the quarry to cool off. frank--the driver guy, remember?-- says there's lots of bodies down there from indian times.

Phuket turned out to be in Thailand. Cody found a picture online: a beautiful white sand beach with palm trees and strange rock formations--it looked like paradise.